The High Cost of Living

by Marge Piercy

  “You’re never at ease anyplace!” That was Val’s voice, high, woodwind. Truthfully, she had never been at ease at Lena’s. Whatever she touched she felt might smear on her hands like butter cream frosting: the flocked wallpaper, the plush of the loveseat, the velvet of the draperies, the vases of glass flowers, the spotlights discreetly commenting on the rounded amber sculptures. She drank too much out of discomfort. Once she had nervously during a political confrontation disguised as chit-chat eaten a whole plate of little cakes—petits fours, Lena called them—out of that nervousness. She had immediately gone and vomited neatly in the toilet, flushed it away, washed her face and come back. Still she had felt guilty. At the least it was wasteful, although she could not think of any purpose to which the small pink and green cakes should have been put, except perhaps fed to her older brother’s children, her nephews and nieces, to make them, too, sick.

  Abruptly she rose and began exercising—her blows, her kicks, her forms—until she was drenched with sweat under the loose costume. At eleven she lay on her mattress hot and relaxed and aching, happy. Now she would eat breakfast. Yogurt with a little honey, apple juice with two heaping tablespoons of nutritional yeast, Red Zinger tea. As she rolled to her feet she took off the Brunhilde bra with its hard protective cones she wore only for karate—because she was a little too full not to bounce around and could easily be injured—and stuffed it in the laundry bag, entirely wet. Right after breakfast if there was hot water she would bathe; if there was none she would shower. Then she would look at her notes and computer correlations on the bank archives from the Simpson papers and type up a preliminary report for George. Finally, in the early evening, she would go to karate.

  “You’re crazy, I mean it. You work as if you loved it!” Val’s voice again, high and timbred like a clarinet.

  It was true, she did love her work. She felt privileged to be allowed into the stacks of the library, she loved her desk in George’s anteroom, her books and papers. It was orderly. It went somewhere. It built and made sense. It was different from blood on the floor and diapers in the pail and the smell of spoiled fish. She had always had to pretend she hated doing homework so that her brothers, her friends, later her roommates would not despise her. Books retained a special power: tickets to elsewhere. She had grown up in a house without books, without magazines except for an occasional Sunday paper or comic book, and they had proved to be doors to a different life, to respect and dignity. Social mobility, sure, but more.

  Late Monday afternoon found her in the back of the shabby jouncing bus headed to Honor. As she walked past the laundromat, the liquor store, to turn at Honor’s street, the late sun flashed out between spongy mountains of cloud. When the sun has been gone for days, it comes like an annunciation, she thought, wanting suddenly to be on skates. She could feel herself gliding, the cold air sawing at her face, the blades skimming, digging in as she swirled in a rush of ice particles. For a while in high school she had been serious about speed skating. But there was no one to coach a girl, no one really to skate with or against. She could beat everyone who would race her at the local pond, but it wasn’t popular, tearing down the ice as if she was crazed, running long-legged and loping on skates. Speed skating had helped build her thighs, and that was useful in karate. For a thin woman she had strong thighs.

  Already she could see the little white house crouched behind its rickety porch. The walk had not been shoveled, just a rut gouged through the snowbanks not quite to cement but down to ice. Gingerly she picked her way up the slippery walk and the salted steps to ring the bell. Then guessing it too might not work, she banged on the door for good measure. The dogs heard her and barked furiously, clanking their chains.

  Honor came gliding in a long dress of the blue paisley corduroy her mother had been sewing. Her face was flushed and she was playing with a cameo at her throat and still calling something over her shoulder Leslie could not hear for the dogs. “You’re here! Wonderful! Come in, hurry. Isn’t it nasty out? Bernar’ has come already—he met me at school—and we’re waiting for the fudge to cool. Why are you walking like that?”

  “I pulled a muscle last night. It’ll be all right in a day or two.”

  “It must be dreadfully painful! Would you like my heating pad? I always use it when I have the curse.”

  “It’s not a curse. If you take a calcium-magnesium supplement, it prevents cramps. Also, masturbating helps.”

  “Shhh! Bernar’ will hear you. It may not be a curse for you, but it certainly is for me! Let’s not be sor’id.… Come, tell me how much you like my new dress and I’ll introduce you to Bernar’.”

  “If I don’t, you won’t?” Wan hope. “All your dresses are fine, if you like dresses.”

  “No, no, you’re supposed to tell me how pretty I am in the dress! To compliment me, not the dress. Come, smell the fudge.”

  “What I said about periods is true,” Leslie said stubbornly and was towed into the kitchen.

  He was standing at the window with one hand raised against the cracked sash. Posing, she thought. There’s nothing to see except the house six feet away, the aluminum siding and the grade door. After a count of ten he turned, tall, skinny, at least as tall as George and even skinnier. His face was thin too. His hair was a lighter brown than Honor’s and kinky; his nose was long and straight, as was his mouth, and he would be called good-looking.

  Honor was introducing them and neither was listening. He caught her gaze and then she was damned if she would be stared down. His eyes were gray. Cold, very cold. Then abruptly he dropped his eyelids in disdain and his hand inscribed a gesture of Take it. If you care for such petty victories.

  “And you have such a lot in common,” Honor was finishing hopefully.

  They could not help quickly glancing at each other, almost in complicity. It was like introducing Bonnie and Pierpont Morgan and saying, You’ve got loads in common to chat about, you both take such an interest in banking matters. Still she was delighted that he wanted to meet her as little as she wanted to meet him. That was a good start because it implied no further development. She never felt much in common with gay men; it was like telling her she ought to feel empathy with child molesters because they were both defined by the law as sexual deviants. She was only at ease with gay women, really, and she was less ill at ease with straight women than with the gayest of men. After all, they were still men. What was he doing hanging around Honor anyhow?

  Leslie unfortunately had to cross the kitchen to a chair, and she could not suppress her limp. She hated limping. It was a loss of control. She was paying for having pushed too hard, fighting a little outclassed. “I’m not usually a cripple,” she said sourly.

  “Leslie hurt herself doing judo.”

  “Karate.”

  “Isn’t that a lot of hassle?” Bernard came slowly to the table and sat on the other side of Honor. “I don’t see the point. I mean someone with a knife could cut down a karate expert as easily as your helpless grandma.”

  Attack disguised as defense. She was supposed to say something indicating she remembered he had knifed a boy, thus making Honor feel protective. “Of course. And if someone threw a hand grenade at me or lobbed a mortar. One armed warhead and the whole city would go up. But people hardly ever attack you with a machine gun or even a straight razor compared to the number of times you might have to show simply you do mean to defend yourself. Every woman has the experience of attempted rape—attempted, if she’s lucky.”

  “Do you think you could actually fight off a man?” Honor asked.

  “Sure. It was a man I was fighting last night, in kumite. I’m in a mixed class. It’s harder”—she grimaced at her sore leg—“but more useful. I’ve never been attacked by a woman.” Actually that wasn’t true. She got in a fight in a bar her very first month in Detroit when a woman had swung on her with a bottle. But that had been over in two minutes and nobody hurt. She would not admit that here. Honor would think she went arount like a comic book bull dyke pic
king fights in bars. She did not like bars. They were smoky and hurt her sinuses and gave her headaches, and there was nothing to do in them but drink and get into trouble.

  Honor was making a monkey face. “I just can’t imagine you actually … fighting with a man. I can’t picture it!”

  “It’s not wrestling,” she said dryly. “The only body contact is blows. You fight the same way whether you’re fighting a woman or a man.… You wouldn’t think it weird if I went to Rouge Park and played tennis with a man.”

  “Would you enjoy that the same way?” Bernard asked innocently. His voice was deep and silky. Everything about him reeked of practice.

  “I’m no good at tennis. What are you good at?”

  “Want to challenge me? Not much. What am I good at? Loving and lying, I suppose.”

  “Well, the second might get you into the government. The first, onto the streets.”

  “I have been on the streets.”

  A moment of pure malice passed between them bright as a beam of light. Honor blinked, her eyes darting from one to the other. Then she stood with a toss of her hair and a flip of her gown. Both their gazes followed her. She stood a moment in dramatic silence and then laughed that heavy sensual laugh that had caught Leslie’s attention at the party. “Let’s see if the fudge has cooled enough to eat.”

  She did not think Honor had understood what he had just said and for a moment she was tempted to explain. His eyes waited on her like hungry pikes. Perhaps Honor would romanticize hustling. She was naive enough. Leslie said nothing. Outside it was getting dark. She had not asked if she was being invited to supper and she was beginning to feel empty. She hoped that Honor did not intend the fudge in place of a meal. It was a little after five. Briefly she felt like an ancient among adolescents.

  “Leslie, take some. Don’t sit there wishing!” Honor and Bernard were eating as fast as they could.

  Reluctantly she broke off half a square. “Sugar is a drug.”

  “Absolutely,” Bernard said. “That’s why it’s such fun.”

  Slowly she chewed the fudge, chocolately and full of walnuts. It felt like heroin charging her blood. She was too hungry not to finish her half square but she could not eat more. Their capacity amazed her. Already each had eaten three large squares. At last Bernard sat back with a sigh, licked his fingers in a catlike gesture, and then lit a joint he extracted from his woven belt.

  “We’re both candy freaks,” Honor said. “I can see you aren’t. Or is there a secret candy freak in you struggling to come out?”

  “Yes, Leslie, do come out,” he said musically.

  She tensed. Well, they each knew where the other stood. Or was it a blind shot? She had to bring the matter up with Honor, she intended to, but not with him there. “No, I’m a hot freak. I eat Mexican peppers while steam issues from my ears, and my sinuses miraculously clear.”

  “What kind of hot food? I’ve hardly had any.” Honor leaned forward, still nibbling fudge.

  “Indian curries. Szechwan Chinese. Mexican. There’s a lot of Mexican food in Grand Rapids in the ghetto. I heard there’s a new Szechwan restaurant here—”

  “I liked it,” Bernard said. “A friend took me. We could all go if we could figure out a time Honor wouldn’t be caught.”

  “Caught eating Chinese food?”

  “I couldn’t go in the evening because Mama manages to get in a phone call.… We could go in your car. Bernar’ has a car, just as tacky as Cam’s.”

  “It’s an old Mustang but it still moves, kind of.” He offered her the joint suddenly. She had not thought he would.

  “Go ahead, Leslie, don’t let me bother you,” Honor said. “I’m sure Mama would smell it on me somehow. It’s not that it’s mysterious to me. I tried it first in the sixth grade.”

  If she did not share his toke as well as not eating the fudge, she was rejecting too much. It was not that she didn’t smoke but that she didn’t want to smoke with him. She took it. Was she imagining all kinds of subtle hostility between them? She could have sworn that he was amused at her hesitation and at her acquiescence. She could be making it all up. No, not all. His gray gaze measured her and there was amusement in it.

  Her belly growled. She was very empty. “I wonder if there’s anything to eat? Like cheese?”

  “Poor Leslie,” he crooned. “You aren’t used to the house rules. Never mind, you can share my hero. We never eat from the refrigerator because Mama would notice. I’m not supposed to be here very much.”

  “She’s so … anxious about me, she’d want to know exactly who was here and what we talked about, and she’d want to meet you at once.”

  The phone rang. Honor hurried to answer it in the livingroom. Rather than speaking to each other, both looked after her and shut up the better to listen. “Yes, Mama.… No, not yet. I was just about to pop the casserole in the oven.… Low heat, yes. Do you imagine I plan to burn it?… No, Cam has a date, she won’t be home till late.… Yes, Mama, it’s on again this weekend. It isn’t a long run after all!… Just doing my school work, my French.… I was in the kitchen. I told you, I was just about to heat my dinner.… Yes, I put the dress on as soon as I got home from school. You’ll see how ravishing it is when you come home, Mama darling.… Yes, I’ll show you what Mr. Haggerty wrote on my theme, and all I’ll tell you is that it’s quite flattering.… I am not! I’m perfectly healthy.… Really, Mama, I’m not as sickly as you like to imagine!… Oh, that was a touch of the sniffles.… Well, sometimes I don’t want to go to school. It’s boring!… Well, if it wasn’t then, it is now.… Yes, Mama, I did already.… Yes, love and kisses. See you at ten!”

  Bernard met her gaze and a strange hostile complicity jelled between them. He shrugged one shoulder. “The voice of the dragon in her ear.”

  “Have you met Mama?”

  He nodded. “You’ll have to, if you stick around. It isn’t … infinitely avoidable.”

  “I suppose then I’ll meet her. You survived.”

  “Survived what?” Honor glided in.

  Leslie fumbled for an explanation but Bernard said smoothly, “High school. But I didn’t go through. So I didn’t exactly survive it.”

  “I’d forgotten, excuse me,” Leslie said dryly. Yes, he was a good liar. He had scored a point on that exchange.

  When Honor brought her tuna and noodle dish to the table, Bernie pulled a hero sandwich from his coat, where it hung on the doorknob. As he went by the sink he picked a knife from a drawer and carefully cut the sandwich in two. Half he put in front of Leslie. “Take, eat, it is my body,” he said lightly.

  Once again their gazes snagged while the retorts she could not yet make flew barbed through her mind. Honor said, “Really, Bernar’, isn’t that blasphemous?”

  “Only the religious ever blaspheme. Nobody else knows how.”

  “How nice to have extra sins,” Leslie said. “However, eating your hero won’t be mine. I have to work tonight, so I’d better be on my way.”

  “If you wait, Bernar’ can give you a ride home. He has his car,” Honor wheedled, playing with the ends of her hair. “You don’t have to go yet.”

  “Tonight I do.”

  “The bus runs so seldom.”

  “I still have to work. I’ll call.”

  Taking his half a hero back, Bernard did not bother to hide his pleasure. The field to himself. She would make sure to see Honor alone next time.

  four

  Leslie came early to help prepare and lay out the buffet with Sue, who used the time to pump her about people at school. George was upstairs in the family room building a wooden skyscraper with Davey and Louise, and Sue also wanted to tell Leslie about Brenda arriving without warning the weekend before to make a dreadful scene, and how cruel and unfeeling George had been. Sue had had to clear it all up as usual, and send Brenda back to Grand Rapids on the bus after a good cry.

  “Really, I don’t hardly know what she thought she was going to stir up.” Sue paused. She was a big-boned attrac
tive woman with short straight hair of a wonderful color. It was half natural straw blond and half prematurely gray. The result was a beautiful ash color that reminded Leslie of the furniture in her parents’ bedroom. Her mother had got it when the hotel closed, where she used to wait tables in the summers, and she called it Hollywood Oak. The veneer was that same ash blond. There were a double bed, a vanity, and a chest of drawers; one of the treats of Leslie’s childhood had been to help her mother empty the drawers and line them with shelf paper. Then Leslie was allowed to play with her mother’s things, and they were together, the two of them, all afternoon in the room where she was not usually allowed.

  “What was she expecting?” Sue paused again. She had a seductive voice, basically Texas overlaid with good Eastern schools. Her drawl expanded and contracted according to mood, how social, how flirtatious or how serious she was feeling. “Shouldn’t it have dawned on Brenda if George wanted to see her he’d have shown some sign? Our George is no slowpoke about chasing down pussy.”