by Marge Piercy
“We don’t have a women’s center I ever heard about” Rena said. “But I’ll tell you what. If you can’t find Billy Jo, I guess I could put you up for a night”
“Really? That’s generous of you! You don’t even know me! … Can’t I help you? I’d enjoy that. It’s a real nice homey store you got here”
“Isn’t it nice? I fixed it up myself. I have a lot of trouble with the landlord, but it’s a mellow place. I like this kind of work … Tell you what you can do. You could help me unpack crates in the back room. Then you could sweep up a bit.”
At three Vida went out, presumably to look for Billy’s cousin. The day was sunny and reasonably warm. Pulling on her poncho, she hiked to the town park on the bay where the locals without money went. The well heeled in their enclaves had their own beaches and their own police forces patrol them and keep out the hoi polloi. The town park offered a broken monument to Theodore Roosevelt, for whom everything in Oyster Bay seemed to be named; gray gravel paths, some sad red, white and purple petunias, kids cutting school, old people sitting in the sun, the unemployed gazing at the horizon and local chess and checkers players on the inlaid cement tables.
She found a bench just inside the wall of pinkish stone that bounded the park from the water’s edge of silt and grass. To her right a cabin cruiser was maneuvering out of the boat slip. What she meant to do was work on a position paper. She was analyzing the degree to which multinational corporations had become truly multinational, and what this internationalizing of capital meant to the Left, particularly if the U.S. was no longer the center of the empire. What did the flow of European and Arabic capital into this country mean? She had been researching the project in libraries in L.A. It was, of course, to be an internal paper to the Network. What else could she do with it? Unless she tried publishing under a pseudonym? She played with that fantasy briefly, watching a boat being winched up. Monthly Review, say. It would feel so wonderful to have some impact out there. Like Eva’s being able to perform her songs.
Reading through her notes, she caught herself yawning. How little sleep she had had last night! Years and years ago, in another life that was hers too, she had imagined herself an academic. She had chosen comparative literature—why? Why on earth? The gorgeous impracticality of it had seemed to her, child of a working-class childhood and middle-class adolescence, to prove that it was real learning. A different and better world. She had wanted to learn all tongues living and dead. “European and Arabic penetration into the capital-investment areas” she wrote “of … the United States” (briefly she debated writing Amerika, but she was tired of that end-of-6os hard rhetoric, part of the attitudes she was arguing against) “represents a judgment that the labor situation here is under better control and is more malleable—”
Shadow on the page. She smoothed out the page, covering it, and let herself glance up. Awfully young to be trying to pick her up, so where was her purse? Out of sight under the poncho. Nothing to rip off he wouldn’t have to knock her down to get.
He sat down on the bench, putting his arm along the back. “Hey, you waiting for somebody?”
“Yeah. My friend.”
“Yeah?” He slid a little nearer and took something from his pocket. “You like to get high, uh? What do you like?”
“I don’t smoke or blow anything. I am an ex-heroin addict” she said, and got up and started walking. That usually did it.
Behind her she heard him mutter, “Fucking cunt. A junkie!”
She walked briskly along the wall, past the flagpole to the end of the park and beyond to the town beach. Every time she saw an old man reading a newspaper, she felt a tremor. Her picture. Kevin in custody. Would he try to bolt for it? Would they give him a chance? Little kids were using the swings and slides behind the beach, but the water was empty. She took a seat at the picnic table nearest the water—rickety ill-used long-suffering tables in a grassless area studded with rusty grills standing on one leg like dying storks under squat oaks. The town was a little microcosm of her country: for those with money, everything, and precious little in the public sector. The waters of Oyster Bay were almost still. The muffled thunk of shrouds against aluminum masts from boats at anchor came to her like deadened bells. Behind the park, trains were screeching and clanking with the noise of tortured metal. Old people sat in the sun trying to keep warm, staring at the bay. Black teenagers fooled around with some fishing rods, passing butts and joints. The gulls screamed over the day’s washed-in garbage. She fought off a bond of identity. All superfluous categories. The permanently unemployed and the superannuated. Seeing Leigh had not left her feeling strong this time. She felt old huddled on the bench, as if she had outlived her own times, a creature produced by an earlier conglomeration of demands, judgments, necessities, passions, crises. Like a salmon that had forced her way upstream to spawn, she lay dying in the backwaters.
Stop it! You and Leigh are engaged in the same struggle from different foci. That the whole might of the government has not been able to put you away is a victory. Every day you defeat them by continuing. How many years did Ho Chi Minh rot in prison? You are free: relish that. As you sit in the sun pitying yourself because your husband has a new woman nine years younger living in your home, in Brazil and Argentina, in Chile and South Africa women are being tortured to death. Never forget. The same war.
At closing time she strode back to the health-food store to meet Rena, hoping that supper was in the offing. Rena was locking up as she arrived, and she climbed into Rena’s old Saab to ride to her house. Don’t let it be East Norwich, Vida thought with sudden fear. East Norwich was where Natalie lived; therefore Vida could never go there.
Rena had a small white house nearby squeezed in between two bigger houses, sitting at the back of its lot. A long path led to the front door through the narrow but pretty yard. Marigolds orange and gold were still blooming among scarlet salvia, while tomatoes ripened on vines staked to the fence.
The interior startled her. She was prepared for tacky chaos—a bench leaking stuffing, some yellowing house plants hanging by frayed macramé— but the walls were covered with hangings, part tapestry, part sculpture, and the impression was of a woven nest of a house, a rich cave. “You made these?” Rena had to have made them; she could not have afforded to buy them.
“Do you like them any?” Rena waited for her exclamation of pleasure before she acknowledged her handiwork. “I love weaving. See, I’ve got three looms. That old one isn’t set up now. I have to get it repaired … Oh, I don’t know what you’d call them. Just things I make … Show them? You mean to people? … Oh. I can’t imagine taking them … I mean my friends like them, sure, but you know how that is … Well, I did once, but the guy said, Well, what are they?”
Most of the colors were natural browns, beiges, sand colors, rust, wheat, with occasional dull blues and earth reds. The throws that covered a couple of old chairs and a couch were nubbly to the touch, but the hangings were truly three-dimensional, with bits of wood embedded and outbursts of frizziness and pillowlike lumps and masses …
“Rena, I like them a lot. I’m no artist. But I travel around, I see things. And I think these are good. Really good. I think many women would like them.”
“Really? You don’t have to say that.”
“But it’s true. I can’t believe you don’t have more faith in them.”
“They’re so funny. I don’t even know what to call them. They aren’t rugs, they aren’t pictures. When I tried to describe them to Ken—he has that arts-and-crafts shop—he made a face. They don’t sound good, I guess”
“Call them sculptures in wool.”
“It’s not all wool. I use acrylics sometimes, and that’s linen there—”
“Never mind the acrylics. Call them Natural Fiber Sculptures.”
Rena was silent for a few minutes, mulling over the idea. “Do you really think people would like them better if I knew what to call them? If they had a name?”
“Yes” Vida said f
irmly. “Bet on it”
Rena had stopped on the way home to buy a bass from the local fish market—maybe caught off Montauk that weekend, Vida thought. Rena baked it, and they had bulgur wheat and a big salad from the kitchen garden. Vida chopped onions, washed greens, and set the little table.
The kitchen was a corner of the living room, as it had been at Hank’s, but she felt more comfortable. They drank good apple juice from the store, and the food was delicious. Vida had been raw with hunger all day. She had eaten nothing since that nighttime breakfast beside the Montauk highway in Bridgehampton except some nuts and raisins and a battered apple. Rena was hungry too and perhaps also shy, so they ate seriously and mostly in silence.
“That was a really nice dinner” Vida cleared the table. “I mean it when I said I appreciate your bringing me back here with you. I’ll do the dishes now”
“Ah, do them in a bit. Have some cookies. I made them yesterday.”
The star anise cookies for Sarah.
“I’m glad to have the company”“ Rena went on. “Did you find your friend yet?”
“Not yet. But I have a lead for tomorrow.” Now get her to talk. Let’s not play out this search for Billy Jo any farther than I have to. “You seem a little sad, Rena. Is something wrong? Is something making you unhappy?”
“Do I seem sad? I guess I was hoping it didn’t show … I guess I’m depressed because, well, I had a fight with a real good friend of mine … “
It took Rena close to an hour to get around to telling Vida what she had learned from the overheard phone call, that Rena had recently broken up with another woman, Sarah. The house was comfortable and clean, even the bathroom warm and pleasant. Vida realized she had not been in a house that was so thoroughly female territory since she had left Los Angeles and the house with Eva and Alice she did not think she would return to. That decision did not ease her sudden nostalgia. Eva sat on a low wooden stool with one braid forward over her shoulder and one braid back and played and sang to her guitar, her own songs and other people’s. They ate a simple supper out in the backyard under their own funny palm tree that Vida could never quite believe was real, shaggy and half brown as it was. A clean tablecloth on a telephone-company spool, flowers in a jam jar. Vida made a mushroom barley soup …
“How do you travel?” Rena was asking. “Hitchhiking?”
“Sometimes … Do you like to travel?”
“I always used to hitchhike, before I bought my car. A woman can take care of herself if she travels with another woman. Have you ever studied self-defense?”
“Oh, a little.”
“You ought to, Vinnie. It’s important for a woman to take care of herself. You have to be able to show somebody you mean business if they get funny”
It was hard for Vida to talk for a whole evening without drinking something, if only tea, but she did not want to ask for anything Rena did not offer. Finally, close to ten. Vida decided it was time to do the dishes and be sleepy.
But when she had cleaned the last pot. Rena was waiting for her. In the narrow confines between refrigerator and stove, Rena put her arms around Vida tentatively and then kissed her. Vida returned her kiss, but then stepped free.
“Have you ever … been involved with a woman?” Rena asked her, her hands dropping to her sides.
“I have a woman lover at home,” Vida said. “And I used to be involved with Billy.”
“I thought so. That’s what I thought. You wanted so bad to find her”
Vida hated the storytelling. Rena was nice. Her face was unassumedly pleasant, her manner was gentle, she was a comfortable companion. She debated telling Rena that she was missing Eva, but she could not. It was true and false at once. So fresh from Leigh she could not play the complete lesbian. “But I’ve had relationships with men a lot too.”
“You don’t have to be defensive with me” Rena smiled, placing her hand tentatively on Vida’s shoulder.
While it was true she missed Eva, she missed her as an old and close friend, as a comrade, a fellow soldier. She was not in love with Eva. Except for Leigh, she had not been sexually besotted, fully engaged with anyone in years, since the stinking end with Kevin.
Rena was saying, “If we’re nice to each other, it doesn’t take anything away from your love at home.”
Vida stepped back a small step. She couldn’t make love in a situation like this, for the distance she had to maintain was too great. “Rena, I wouldn’t feel right … I like you a lot and I like being here with you. But I came to look for Billy. If I get romantically involved with somebody else, I won’t find her, and I think maybe she needs me” Violins, please. She was such a fraud. Damn the stories. She started out with a small lie and then she had to build a city of lies. The more involved she got with somebody, the more elaborately she had to build. Then the farther she felt from them, walled in her own creation. It was the opposite of intimacy, and she could not endure it.
“You could work in the store for a while … stay here.”
She was tempted: near Natalie, catching up on rest, not lonely; and lying day in and day out. “I can’t, Rena. I just can’t.”
Rena looked hurt, blinking as she turned away. “I better see about making up a bed for you.”
Vida took the sheets from her and made up the couch, aware she had hurt Rena, turned her generosity back on her. For a moment she despised her life, staying with strangers who had to remain strangers, who never knew how strange she was.
The next morning she helped Rena open the store and hung out until it was nearly time for her call. Then she set out to find a good phone booth. Ten on the dot. She dialed the first number. It was picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” a funny voice said, not Natalie’s. Vida started to hang up. “Hello. Vinnie?”
She started with fear, looking quickly around. “Who is this?”
“This is the son of Emma, calling for Emma to Vinnie”
It was Sam. Natalie’s son. Emma Goldman was one of Natalie’s old pseudonyms. She remembered them signing in and out of university buildings, where she would sign Rosa Luxemburg and Nattie would sign Emma Goldman. “Is this the oldest son of Emma?”
Sam giggled. His voice was cracking. “Yeah. Now let me say this straight. She had me memorize it. It’s too hot to meet her but I’m clean. Do you need money?”
“Sam, is anybody near you? Anybody listening? Do you know if you were followed?”
“Nobody. I was super careful.”
“Okay. Then talk normally. Just remember to call me Vinnie. Now what kind of heat? What’s going on around here?”
“Mom thinks it’s the Irish problem. Anyhow, we’ve been visited, and Mom was followed yesterday morning. So she didn’t go to the booth.”
”Tell her I’m not surprised that it stirred things up.”
“Do you want to meet me? I’m supposed to ask, do you want any money?”
“I have enough for a while. Should we try next week?”
“She says, Yes, keep trying. She has a task for you.”
“Good! Listen, Sam, tell her Mondays and then Tuesdays at the numbers next week, then on to the next week if she can’t make it. Thanks for coming to talk to me. You know not to mention me to anybody except Natalie. Nobody!”
“I understand, Vinnie, don’t worry! I grew up with all of this, I know how to take care.” Sam sounded funny, reassuring her in his changing voice that broke deep and then high. “Peezie and Frankie are too little, and we don’t tell Dad.”
“Sam, I want to see you real bad. Maybe you can come with Natalie when we finally make it. I’m just a wee bit scared. I may have to keep away from here for a while. Kiss your mother for me.”
He cleared his throat. “You be careful.”
“You too, Sam. You’re wonderful. I wish I could be a real aunt to you.”
“Aw, come on, everybody has aunts. Mostly all they do is pat you and give you sweaters that don’t fit and say, ‘My, how you’ve grown,’” he mimicked in falsetto.
“Peregrine here,” she said. Her political pseudonym.
“This is Birdman broadcasting. Where’re you?” A familiar male voice spread warmth through her. A slight flat drawl to it, Midwestern. Familiar, dear.
It was Larkin. What was he doing in Minneapolis? “I’m in Long Island, old dear, but I’m getting out any second, when I can. A lot of heat here. Some suspicion it has to do with events around”—for a moment she blanked out Kevin’s old pseudonym—”around Jesse.”
“Hmmm. More trouble than he ever was worth,” Larkin said sourly, he too had not forgiven Kevin. “Maybe you better go to ground for a spell.”
”I’d like that.”
“Go to Lady Doc in Bulltown. You know Lady Doc?”
“Mmmm. Is she in the phone book?”
“How else would she practice, Perry? She’ll luck you in for a spell. Now, if she fails somehow—”
The train was loading. “Bye, Birdman. I’ll ground myself if she can’t” She hung up and ran for the car, feeling as if she were dragging an umbilical cord from the phone. On her own now. She gripped her ticket and found a seat alone at a window. She was off to Boston, where she hoped Laura Kearney would shelter her for a week or two.