Fly Away Home

by Marge Piercy

  She had a resigned hopeless feeling about the day, since once she got to the studio she could spare little time for the girls. She turned them over to Lena, the tall many-braided Black associate producer. At least they would get a nice lunch (if Rosa could be persuaded to eat) when the crew sat down. In order to film all stages, she customarily produced a dish four or five times, so they always had plenty to eat.

  The first show was about how to make fast fresh tomato sauce and then easy entrees to use it on. The second concerned sauces for pasta that could be made in a hurry: pesto di basilico, primavera, carbonara. The third was on fast but elegant desserts made of late summer fruit. She had to have makeup reapplied twice, as she was sweating heavily under the hot lights. When they broke for lunch she ate with the girls and Lena, at the tables they set up near the door, behind the cameras. The girls seemed subdued, but Rosa was full of technical questions which Zed from the crew patiently answered.

  She had to get used to this pace of taping several shows at once. Her segments having proved popular, she had renegotiated her contract and would be doing three shows every week in September. It was a long day’s work. At supper she sat silent and weary. It wasn’t until she noticed how happy Tom was looking that she realized Rosa was dominating dinner table conversation. Rosa was holding forth on television and how everything was done. “And then Daria made another big thing of spaghetti to put the bacon on and this one camera comes shooting up like the guy is driving a little golf cart. Two of the cameras are coming in on Daria from two sides. You see, this other guy is looking at the pictures from all the cameras on the row of monitors, and he’s choosing which camera has the best shot. He’s talking to them in their ears. And all this time Daria’s carrying on just as if the camera wasn’t leaning all over her like a crane.”

  She suddenly recalled Rosa had eaten lunch without a complaint. Tom’s daughter had consumed spaghetti carbonara, two stuffed tomatoes and everything else in sight. If the food was on television, it must be okay. If Daria was on television, she must be okay, almost as good as Captain Kirk. Maybe they ate exotic food like that on the Enterprise. Suddenly her star had risen. Daria felt silly with relief.

  On Sunday Tom waited till after the ball game to leave. It was a five hour trip to his sister’s. Tracy was out with Scott; Ángel, Mariela and Sandra María were visiting her parents to celebrate her father’s fiftieth birthday. Daria was glad Robin had stayed, but she was not at her best alone with her older daughter. She coped more smoothly when Tom was around. But after putting so much effort into Tom’s children all week, she was determined to try hard tonight.

  Robin seemed nervous too. Their relationship thrived in the matrix of others. “Now that Tom’s living here, does Ángel want to move in?” Robin and Daria sat out on the new deck with their after dinner coffee.

  “Not a chance. From time to time he tries to get Sandra María to move in with him. He has a loft in the South End where he has a darkroom and all his equipment and lights now. He’s put as much money and work into that loft as we have into this whole house.”

  “The house came out really neat,” Robin said with polite interest. “Don’t care much about houses myself, but I thought this one was going to be grim. You know what Tracy says?”

  “Tracy says a lot. What in particular?”

  “She says it’s really a women’s house. A strong women’s house. And that everybody likes that. That’s why so many people hang around.”

  “Tom doesn’t change that?”

  “No, because he likes it that way too.”

  “What do you mean about people hanging around? The house was crowded this week just because Tom’s daughters were staying.”

  “Don’t you notice how people come in and out? Tracy’s fascinated. One week she kept a log. She counted thirty-nine separate visits in one week by a total of twenty-one people.” Robin picked at her sneaker sole idly. “She learned to do that in sociology.”

  “But your father and I entertained heavily—”

  “You don’t need anybody else to have a dinner party now. It’s people coming to see you or Sandra María or Tom—just to pull up a chair and chew the fat or drop off a newspaper article or borrow something.”

  “I can’t tell if you think that’s good or what, Robin?”

  “It’s different. And you never had close girlfriends like Sandra María.”

  “What about Gretta?” She felt a pang of guilt. She was no longer communicating with her daily, giving bulletins. Gretta was breaking up with her friend and was again the one calling her in distress.

  “Oh, Mother, you used to bitch all the time how she talked your ear off. It wasn’t like you, you know, loved her or anything.”

  “That’s true.” Daria gripped the arms of her deck chair hard. “I do love Sandra María. And Mariela. Sandra María came into a part of my life that was empty.”

  Robin stirred. “It’s getting dark. Let’s go inside.” She looked at her watch.

  Reluctantly Daria left the mild soft air of the deepening twilight to follow her daughter to the cleared kitchen table. Robin said, “I saw Daddy yesterday.”

  “You did?” She felt a chill of apprehension. She also had to control a fear of betrayal. “How was it?”

  “He called me up last week. Suggested we lunch Friday at a fish restaurant near his office. Then Friday A.M. he called me at work and said he couldn’t make it. It’d have to be Tuesday. Then Monday he called and wanted it put off till Thursday.”

  “What did you think about his putting it off so many times?”

  “Don’t play shrink, Mother.” Robin was picking toothpicks out of the shot glass they stood in and laying them in a neat row. She spent several minutes lining them up exactly. “I thought he didn’t really want to do it.”

  “But then he met you?”

  “I raised the ante. Told him I was busy the rest of the week. Said I’d drive out Saturday to Hamilton. Otherwise, it’d be a while, because I’d be very busy.”

  “Why did you do that?” She stared at her sunburned, self-possessed blond daughter.

  “I was fed up. I wanted him to know he can’t push me around. That’s something I’ve always known about Daddy you never figured out.”

  “What exactly?” Daria watched her daughter, fascinated.

  “That if he pushes you too hard, the best way to handle him is not to make him feel guilty, but to be even more outrageous. He respects that.”

  Daria sighed from her shoes. “Ross and I were always ill-suited.”

  “I often thought so,” Robin said briskly. “I used to think you held him back. Now I see he cramped your style too.”

  “What did you think I held him back from?”

  “Daddy’s ambitious. He felt you didn’t give him the support he needed. Then he used to complain about all the adventures he missed, except that now I think that was bullshit. He used to go on about all the things we’d do like taking a canoe down the Colorado or hiking the whole Appalachian Trail.”

  “Ross is no great hiker.”

  “When I was younger, I thought he was great at everything.”

  Younger did not end until a couple of months ago, Daria thought. “What was your father’s response to your little ultimatum?”

  “He fussed and said it was impossible. Then he called me back and said to come Saturday.”

  “I admit I’m terribly curious about how they live.”

  “He’s just as curious about you.”

  “Really? He asked about me?”

  “I’ll get to that.” Robin looked at her watch again, grimacing. Daria wondered if she was keeping Robin from something. “Saturday I took Tracy with me. I made her promise not to tell you till we could sit down together, once Tom took those little girls away and everything calmed down.”

  “You asked Tracy along? Without consulting Ross?”

  “Sure.” Robin thrust her chin out. “I didn’t tell Tracy that. I told her he invited her and I thought she should c
ome.”

  “But, Robin! That was a lot to take on. Was he awful to her?”

  “Of course not, once she arrived. I know he’s been rough on her. Tracy’s felt hurt by his neglect. He’s such a jerk around her anyhow. When he was making all that fuss about her doing it with Nick, I asked him one day, Daddy, what is all this, do you think I’m a virgin? He didn’t even want to talk about it. He just pretended I hadn’t said anything.”

  Daria had caught a surprising glimpse of a side of Robin previously hidden from her, a protective warmth toward her sister, whereas Daria had always been aware of their rivalry. “It’s sweet of you to worry about Tracy. But don’t you think it was a little risky?” She was not sure Ross was always capable of distinguishing between Tracy and herself.

  “Maybe I wanted the company out there myself. Anyhow.” Robin cleared her throat. “To answer your question, he skirted around it about an hour. Once he got started, he asked a lot of questions. Tracy was supposed to be back here before we had this conversation.”

  “I guess everybody would like documentary films of their ex’s scene.”

  “He wasn’t pleased with what we told him.” Robin looked smug. “I think he kept trying to imagine … Hey is that Tracy?”

  Tracy dashed in, tousled and radiant. She was coming quickly into a glowing ripeness of skin and hair that was close to beauty, set off tonight by a yellow sundress. Had she herself ever been that attractive? Daria wondered.

  “I started telling her without you, asshole! You’re an hour and fifteen minutes late.”

  “Robin, don’t be compulsive. It isn’t like a movie that starts at seven or you miss the first scene. He didn’t want to bring me back so soon and I had to work him around.” Tracy rummaged in the refrigerator for leftovers. “So what have you heard, Mama?”

  “Robin was telling me about Ross asking questions.”

  Tracy rolled her eyes. “He kept wanting to hear you’d become a bag lady or ended up on the back ward of a mental hospital.”

  “He imagines this house is like a rooming house,” Robin chimed in. “Nothing we said could get it across. It’s too different from how you guys lived together and how they’re living.”

  “So now satisfy my curiosity. Give me a home movie. Tracy, there’s peach upside-down cake left in the breadbox.”

  Robin pursed her lips in disgust at the sight of the cake. “They’re living in that stucco house they call The Little House. That means only six rooms. Ivy all over it. Sure, it’s cute and quaint and all that.”

  Tracy barked and barked. “If you like that sound track. She’s showing already and goes around all hunched over—”

  “Daddy keeps offering me one of the puppies of what they call pet quality, not to be bred. But I’d rather have an ordinary dog like Torte who’s sweet and friendly and relates to you, not off on a fit of his own.”

  Daria was controlling her reactions. She did not want her daughters seeing Ross; she did not want them out there in Hamilton. But she must keep those reactions to herself. Ross was still their father and they must make their own way with him.

  Tracy was saying, “He’s disgustingly proud of her being knocked up. I thought to myself I ought to go out and get pregnant and show him how easy it is, if he thinks it’s such an accomplishment.”

  Robin said, “We kept calling him Daddy every two minutes, to bug him.”

  “But what do they do?” Daria asked. “Do they entertain a lot?”

  “There’s a hunt club, called some funny name—”

  “The Myopia Hunt Club,” Tracy put in. “They entertain there. Every other thing they say is, The Big House, The Little House. A lot of infamily politicking and scuffling for position among the sisters.”

  “But this indictment.” Robin began lining up the toothpicks in four equal rows. “Daddy wanted to talk about that, and of course I absolutely won’t!” Robin stopped arranging toothpicks and looked Daria in the eyes. “How dare he mention that to me?”

  “Well, lovey, I suppose because he cares what you think of him.”

  “He said it was all lies. They were trying to use him to advance themselves politically, all the attorney general’s minions he called them. I had to go home and look up that word.”

  “He’s livid about you, Mama,” Tracy said. “But we wouldn’t let him go on about it.”

  “I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle.”

  “I’m not in the middle.” Robin began arranging toothpicks in a square, facing outward like little spikes. “I have nothing to do with that whole ugly mess.”

  “Is he scared, do you think?” Daria asked slowly.

  “Him? No, he’s angry,” Robin said.

  “He views it as a nuisance.” Tracy kept cutting very thin slices of cake. She would cut as thin a slice as she could, eat it slowly, and then cut another equally thin. “I don’t think he expects the trial to happen. He says they couldn’t possibly convict. He kept saying he’d done nothing that isn’t standard business practice.”

  Robin was adjusting her toothpicks head side out and narrow end in, around a perfect square. Daria decided this new design resembled covered wagons drawn up into a defense formation against attack. Robin mumbled, “That’s when you said what you shouldn’t have.”

  Tracy giggled. “I told him about Robin and me seeing little Bobbie’s ghost. I didn’t tell him we were stoned.”

  Robin was still lining up toothpicks. “That’s when he took us out to the kennels and this time he tried to give you a puppy.”

  “Mama, Robin doesn’t want to get involved. But I have to. After all, I live in this neighborhood now too. I want to sit down with you after Robin goes home tonight, and I want you to tell me exactly what you and Tom and all those people think Daddy did.”

  “Tracy, no one wants you involved. I got into it in spite of myself, to survive. But you don’t have to.”

  Tracy pushed away the cake, her brows drawn into a frown. “I think I do have to know. It’s my life too. He says you’re doing this to wreck his new scene and that you’re lying, I can hardly remember a time you lied to us. I have to know.”

  “Not in front of me.” Robin rose. “I told him I didn’t want to talk about it and I wouldn’t listen. Then I went and played tennis with Gail’s sister Flip. She’s supposed to be this super tennis star, who was tenth seeded woman in some rinkidink tennis tourney a few years ago, but I beat her. Two sets out of three. Then Daddy came and started hinting it was time for us to hit the road.”

  “Hinting!” Tracy waved her hands. “He shooed us out. He dotes on Gail. He reminds me how he used to be sometimes with Torte when he’d just taught him some new trick. Gail’s only got one trick but he’s really into it. And they talk about the baby as he all the time.”

  Robin stood poised holding the back of her chair by the top. “You think they’re kidding. It is a boy. They had it checked out.”

  “Robin, they probably did that because your father and I had a child with a serious birth defect. If they’d had those tests then, we could have learned how grave Freddy’s problems were in time.”

  “Oh.” Robin got that odd compressed expression her face wore when she had to remember Freddy. “I thought they just did it to find out if he finally struck it rich on the boy I was supposed to be. Honestly, around them Tracy and I felt like some banged-up used cars that had been replaced, you know.”

  “I don’t think I’d envy the child being born now,” Daria said, “not from any point of view.”

  “And we got to have you for our mother,” Tracy said, wagging her finger at Daria. “We got the best deal.”

  32

  The twelve days she spent in Vermont were awkward but pleasant. She got on well with his sister and her lover, fascinated to see Tom’s features expressed in a robust, high-colored attractive woman. She did better on and off with Rosa, whom she actually preferred, as something sly and manipulative in Georgia rubbed against her grain. They could all manage together.

 
Nonetheless she was glad to come back to Boston ahead of them. She had two days at home to prepare for her first September taping. When Tom returned, it was to put the girls on a plane.

  That night together in the bed he had built for her, they had a holiday feeling. The farmhouse bedroom had offered a morning view over its own fields toward low blue-green mountains gauzy with fog, but they never felt unheard. The old farmhouse seemed one room with partitions because of the way every sound carried. Their lovemaking was furtive, their conversations, whispered and truncated.

  Now to lie making love at length and with all the cries and exclamations they wished and to talk and talk and talk was blissfully expansive, easy.

  “The first bitter fight Andrea and I had—the first that couldn’t be made up—was about day care.” He was lying with his arms crooked behind his head. Although they had already made love, she could not stop caressing the barrel curve of his chest, playing with the pattern of hairs, his nipples. “I wanted day care where they’d meet a lot of different kinds of kids. I didn’t want them growing up like the bratty, sophisticated hothouse flowers some of our friends had. Andy wanted a center that was connected with Harvard.”

  “I never had the girls in day care—Ross thought it would be bad for them. When I worked, my mother took them. Why would the center matter? Don’t they all do about the same thing, at that age?”

  “I didn’t want the girls to grow up spoiled. Andy didn’t want them to be without what she saw as absolutely essential advantages. I felt it was snobbery. After all, you don’t learn particle physics in day care, so what the hell is the use of Harvard? For me it was important they be dealing with Black and Hispanic kids from their neighborhood before they were old enough to learn to be scared. For Andy there was a special track laid down from age three. We were both rock hard in conviction. We dug in and hated each other.”

  “So who won?” She was relieved that so long taboo a subject as his marriage had joined what could be discussed; but she also felt a chill rising along her spine she could not quite understand.