The Stepford Wives

by Ira Levin

  ‘Really, or do you just feel you’re supposed to be?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Well, to each his own,’ Charmaine said. ‘Let’s make it Thursday, all right? He’s got a conference he can’t get out of, thank God.’

  ‘Okay, Thursday, unless something comes up.’

  ‘Don’t let anything.’

  ‘It’s getting cold.’

  ‘We’ll wear sweaters.’

  She went to a PTA meeting. Pete’s and Kim’s teachers were there, Miss Turner and Miss Gair, pleasant middle-aged women eagerly responsive to her questions about teaching methods and how the busing programme was working out. The meeting was poorly attended; aside from the group of teachers at the back of the auditorium, there were only nine women and about a dozen men. The president of the association was an attractive blond woman named Mrs Hollingsworth, who conducted business with smiling unhurried efficiency.

  She bought winter clothes for Pete and Kim, and two pairs of wool slacks for herself. She made terrific enlargements of ‘Off Duty’ and ‘The Stepford Library,’ and took Pete and Kim to Dr Coe, the dentist.

  ‘Did we?’ Charmaine asked, letting her into the house.

  ‘Of course we did,’ she said. ‘I said it was okay if nothing came up.’

  Charmaine closed the door and smiled at her. She was wearing an apron over slacks and a blouse. ‘Gosh, I’m sorry, Joanna,’ she said. ‘I completely forgot.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ she said, ‘go change.’

  ‘We can’t play,’ Charmaine said. ‘For one thing, I’ve got too much work to do—’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Housework.’

  Joanna looked at her.

  ‘We’ve let Nettie go,’ Charmaine said. ‘It’s absolutely unbelievable, the sloppy job she was getting away with. The place looks clean at first glance, but boy, look in the corners. I did the kitchen and the dining room yesterday, but I’ve still got all the other rooms. Ed shouldn’t have to live with dirt.’

  Joanna, looking at her, said, ‘Okay, funny joke.’

  ‘I’m not joking,’ Charmaine said. ‘Ed’s a pretty wonderful guy, and I’ve been lazy and selfish. I’m through playing tennis, and I’m through reading those astrology books. From now on I’m going to do right by Ed, and by Merrill too. I’m lucky to have such a wonderful husband and son.’

  Joanna looked at the pressed and covered racket in her hand, and at Charmaine. ‘That’s great,’ she said, and smiled. ‘But I honestly can’t believe you’re giving up tennis.’

  ‘Go look,’ Charmaine said.

  Joanna looked at her.

  ‘Go look,’ Charmaine said.

  Joanna turned and went into the living room and across it to the glass doors. She slid one open, hearing Charmaine behind her, and went out onto the terrace. She crossed the terrace and looked down the slope of flagstone-pathed lawn.

  A truck piled with sections of mesh fencing stood on the tire-marked grass beside the tennis court. Two sides of the court’s fence were gone, and the other two lay flat on the grass, a long side and a short one. Two men kneeled on the long side, working at it with long-handled cutters. They brought the handles up and together, and clicks of sound followed. A mountain of dark soil sat on the centre of the court; the net and the posts were gone.

  ‘Ed wants a putting green,’ Charmaine said, coming to Joanna’s side.

  ‘It’s a clay court!’ Joanna said, turning to her.

  ‘It’s the only level place we’ve got,’ Charmaine said.

  ‘My God,’ Joanna said, looking at the men working the cutter handles. ‘That’s crazy, Charmaine!’

  ‘Ed plays golf, he doesn’t play tennis,’ Charmaine said.

  Joanna looked at her. ‘What did he do to you?’ she said. ‘Hypnotize you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Charmaine said, smiling. ‘He’s a wonderful guy and I’m a lucky woman who ought to be grateful to him. Do you want to stay awhile? I’ll make you some coffee. I’m doing Merrill’s room but we can talk while I’m working.’

  ‘All right,’ Joanna said, but shook her head and said, ‘No, no, I—’ She backed from Charmaine, looking at her. ‘No, there are things I should be doing too.’ She turned and went quickly across the terrace.

  ‘I’m sorry I forgot to call you,’ Charmaine said, following her into the living room.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Joanna said, going quickly, stopping, turning, holding her racket before her with both hands. ‘I’ll see you in a few days, okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charmaine said, smiling. ‘Please call me. And please give my regards to Walter.’

  Bobble went to see for herself, and called about it. ‘She was moving the bedroom furniture. And they just moved in in July; how dirty can the place be?’

  ‘It won’t last,’ Joanna said. ‘It can’t. People don’t change that way.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ Bobbie said. ‘Around here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Shut up, Kenny! Give him that! Joanna, listen, I want to talk with you. Can you have lunch tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘I’ll pick you up around noon. I said give it to him! Okay? Noon, nothing fancy.’

  ‘Okay. Kim! You’re getting water all over the—’

  Walter wasn’t particularly surprised to hear about the change in Charmaine. ‘Ed must have laid the law down to her,’ he said, turning a fork of spaghetti against his spoon. ‘I don’t think he makes enough money for that kind of a setup. A maid must be at least a hundred a week these days.’

  ‘But her whole attitude’s changed,’ Joanna said. ‘You’d think she’d be complaining.’

  ‘Do you know what Jeremy’s allowance is?’ Pete said.

  ‘He’s two years older than you are,’ Walter said.

  * * *

  ‘This is is going to sound crazy, but I want you to listen to me without laughing, because either I’m right or I’m going off my rocker and need sympathy.’ Bobbie picked at the bun of her cheeseburger.

  Joanna, watching her, swallowed cheeseburger and said, ‘All right, go ahead.’

  They were at the McDonald’s on Eastbridge Road, eating in the car.

  Bobbie took a small bite of her cheeseburger, and chewed and swallowed. ‘There was a thing in Time a few weeks ago,’ she said. ‘I looked for it but I must have thrown the issue out.’ She looked at Joanna. ‘They have a very low crime rate in El Paso, Texas,’ she said. ‘I think it was El Paso. Anyway, somewhere in Texas they have a very low crime rate, much lower than anywhere else in Texas; and the reason is, there’s a chemical in the ground that gets into the water, and it tranquilizes everybody and eases the tension. God’s truth.’

  ‘I think I remember,’ Joanna said, nodding, holding her cheeseburger.

  ‘Joanna,’ Bobbie said, ‘I think there’s something here. In Stepford. It’s possible, isn’t it? All those fancy plants on Route Nine – electronics, computers, aerospace junk, with Stepford Creek running right behind them – who knows what kind of crap they’re dumping into the environment.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Joanna said.

  ‘Just think for a minute,’ Bobbie said. She fisted her free hand and stuck out its pinky. ‘Charmaine’s changed and become a hausfrau,’ she said. She stuck out her ring finger. ‘The woman you spoke to, the one who was president of the club; she changed, didn’t she, from what she must have been before?’

  Joanna nodded.

  Bobbie’s next finger flicked out. ‘The woman Charmaine played tennis with, before you; she changed too, Charmaine said so.’

  Joanna frowned. She took a French fry from the bag between them. ‘You think it’s … because of a chemical?’ she said.

  Bobbie nodded. ‘Either leaking from one of those plants, or just around, like in El Paso or wherever.’ She took her coffee from the dashboard. ‘It has to be,’ she said. ‘It can’t be a coincidence that Stepford women are all the way they are. And some of the ones we spoke to must
have belonged to that club. A few years ago they were applauding Betty Friedan, and look at them now. They’ve changed too.’

  Joanna ate the French fry and took a bite of her cheeseburger. Bobbie took a bite of her cheeseburger and sipped her coffee.

  ‘There’s something,’ Bobbie said. ‘In the ground, in the water, in the air – I don’t know. It makes women interested in housekeeping and nothing else but. Who knows what chemicals can do? Nobel-prize winners don’t even really know yet. Maybe it’s some kind of hormone thing; that would explain the fantastic boobs. You’ve got to have noticed.’

  ‘I sure have,’ Joanna said. ‘I feel pre-adolescent every time I set foot in the market.’

  ‘I do, for God’s sake,’ Bobbie said. She put her coffee on the dashboard and took French fries from the bag. ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘I suppose it’s – possible,’ Joanna said. ‘But it sounds so – fantastic.’ She took her coffee from the dashboard; it had made a patch of fog on the windshield.

  ‘No more fantastic than El Paso,’ Bobbie said.

  ‘More,’ Joanna said. ‘Because it affects only women. What does Dave think?’

  ‘I haven’t mentioned it to him yet. I thought I’d try it out on you first.’

  Joanna sipped her coffee. ‘Well it’s in the realm of possibility,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re off your rocker. The thing to do, I guess, is write a very level-headed-sounding letter to the State – what, Department of Health? Environmental Commission? Whatever agency would have the authority to look into it. We could find out at the library.’

  Bobbie shook her head. ‘Mm-mmn,’ she said. ‘I worked for a government agency; forget it. I think the thing to do is move out. Then futz around with letters.’

  Joanna looked at her.

  ‘I mean it,’ Bobbie said. ‘Anything that can make a hausfrau out of Charmaine isn’t going to have any special trouble with me. Or with you.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ Joanna said.

  ‘There’s something here, Joanna! I’m not kidding! This is Zombieville! And Charmaine moved in in July, I moved in in August, and you moved in in September!’

  ‘All right, quiet down, I can hear.’

  Bobbie took a large-mouthed bite of her cheeseburger. Joanna sipped her coffee and frowned.

  ‘Even if I’m wrong,’ Bobbie said with her mouth full, ‘even if there’s no chemical doing anything’ – she swallowed – ‘is this where you really want to live? We’ve each got one friend now, you after two months, me after three. Is that your idea of the ideal community? I went into Norwood to get my hair done for your party; I saw a dozen women who were rushed and sloppy and irritated and alive; I wanted to hug every one of them!’

  ‘Find friends in Norwood,’ Joanna said, smiling. ‘You’ve got the car.’

  ‘You’re so damn independent!’ Bobbie took her coffee from the dashboard. ‘I’m asking Dave to move,’ she said. ‘We’ll sell here and buy in Norwood or Eastbridge; all it’ll mean is some headaches and bother and the moving costs – for which, if he insists, I’ll hock the rock.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll agree?’

  ‘He damn well better had, or his life is going to get mighty miserable. I wanted to buy in Norwood all along; too many WASPs, he said. Well I’d rather get stung by WASPs than poisoned by whatever’s working around here. So you’re going to be down to no friends at all in a little while – unless you speak to Walter.’

  ‘About moving?’

  Bobbie nodded. Looking at Joanna, she sipped her coffee.

  Joanna shook her head. ‘I couldn’t ask him to move again,’ she said.

  ‘Why not? He wants you to be happy, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’m not. And I just finished the darkroom.’

  ‘Okay,’ Bobbie said, ‘stick around. Turn into your nextdoor neighbour.’

  ‘Bobbie, it can’t be a chemical. I mean it could, but I honestly don’t believe it. Honestly.’

  They talked about it while they finished eating, and then they drove up Eastbridge Road and turned onto Route Nine. They passed the shopping mall and the antique stores, and came to the industrial plants.

  ‘Poisoner’s Row,’ Bobbie said.

  Joanna looked at the neat low modern buildings, set back from the road and separated each from the next by wide spans of green lawn: Ulitz Optics (where Herb Sundersen worked), and CompuTech (Vic Stavros, or was he with Instatron?), and Stevenson Biochemical, and Haig-Darling Computers, and Burnham-Massey-Microtech (Dale Coba – hiss! – and Claude Axhelm), and Instatron, and Reed & Saunders (Bill McCormick – how was Marge?), and Vesey Electronics, and AmeriChem-Willis.

  ‘Nerve-gas research, I’ll bet you five bucks.’

  ‘In a populated area?’

  ‘Why not? With that gang in Washington?’

  ‘Oh come on, Bobbie!’

  Walter saw something was bothering her and asked her about it. She said, ‘You’ve got the Koblenz agreement to do,’ but he said, ‘I’ve got all weekend. Come on, what is it?’

  So while she scraped the dishes and put them in the washer, she told him about Bobbie’s wanting to move, and her ‘El Paso’ theory.

  ‘That sounds pretty far-fetched to me,’ he said.

  ‘To me too,’ she said. ‘But women do seem to change around here, and what they change into is pretty damn dull. If Bobbie moves, and if Charmaine doesn’t come back to her old self, which at least was—’

  ‘Do you want to move?’ he asked.

  She looked uncertainly at him. His blue eyes, waiting for her answer, gave no clue to his feelings. ‘No,’ she said, ‘not when we’re all settled in. It’s a good house … And yes, I’m sure I’d be happier in Eastbridge or Norwood. I wish we’d looked in either one of them.’

  ‘There’s an unequivocal answer,’ he said, smiling. ‘“No and yes.’”

  ‘About sixty-forty,’ she said.

  He straightened from the counter he had been leaning against. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘if it gets to be zero-a hundred, we’ll do it.’

  ‘You would?’ she said.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘if you were really unhappy. I wouldn’t want to do it during the school year—’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  ‘But we could do it next summer. I don’t think we’d lose anything, except the time and the moving and closing costs.’

  ‘That’s what Bobbie said.’

  ‘So it’s just a matter of making up your mind.’ He looked at his watch and went out of the kitchen.

  ‘Walter?’ she called, touching her hands to a towel.

  ‘Yes?’

  She went to where she could see him, standing in the hallway. ‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling. ‘I feel better.’

  ‘You’re the one who has to be here all day, not me,’ he said, and smiled at her and went into the den.

  She watched him go, then turned and glanced through the port to the family room. Pete and Kim sat on the floor watching TV – President Kennedy and President Johnson, surprisingly; no, figures of them. She watched for a moment, and went back to the sink and scraped the last few dishes.

  Dave, too, was willing to move at the end of the school year. ‘He gave in so easily I thought I’d keel over,’ Bobbie said on the phone the next morning. ‘I just hope we make it till June.’

  ‘Drink bottled water,’ Joanna said.

  ‘You think I’m not going to? I just sent Dave to get some.’

  Joanna laughed.

  ‘Go ahead, laugh,’ Bobbie said. ‘For a few cents a day I’d rather be safe than sorry. And I’m writing to the Department of Health. The problem is, how do I do it without coming across like a little old lady without all her marbles? You want to help, and co-sign?’

  ‘Sure,’ Joanna said. ‘Come on over later. Walter is drafting a trust agreement; maybe he’ll lend us a few whereases.’

  * * *

  She made autumn-leaf collages with Pete and Kim, and helped Walter put up the stor
m windows, and met him in the city for a partners-and-wives dinner – the usual falsely friendly clothes-appraising bore. A cheque came from the agency: two hundred dollars for four uses of her best picture.

  She met Marge McCormick in the market – yes, she’d had a bug but now she was fine, thanks – and Frank Roddenberry in the hardware store – ‘Hello, Joanna, how’ve you b-been?’ – and the Welcome Wagon lady right outside. ‘A black family is moving in on Gwendolyn Lane. But I think it’s good, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘All ready for winter?’

  ‘I am now.’ Smiling, she showed the sack of birdseed she’d just bought.

  ‘It’s beautiful here!’ the Welcome Wagon lady said. ‘You’re the shutterbug, aren’t you? You should have a field day!’

  She called Charmaine and invited her for lunch. ‘I can’t, Joanna, I’m sorry,’ Charmaine said. ‘I’ve got so much to do around the house here. You know how it is.’

  Claude Axhelm came over one Saturday afternoon – to see her, not Walter. He had a briefcase with him.

  ‘I’ve got this project I’ve been working on in my spare time,’ he said, walking around the kitchen while she fixed him a cup of tea. ‘Maybe you’ve heard about it. I’ve been getting people to tape-record lists of words and syllables for me. The men do it up at the house, and the women do it in their homes.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said.

  ‘They tell me where they were born,’ he said, ‘and every place they’ve lived and for how long.’ He walked around, touching cabinet knobs. ‘I’m going to feed everything into a computer eventually, each tape with its geographical data. With enough samples I’ll be able to feed in a tape without data’ – he ran a fingertip along a counter edge, looking at her with his bright eyes – ‘maybe even a very short tape, a few words or a sentence – and the computer’ll be able to give a geographical rundown on the person, where he was born and where he’s lived. Sort of an electronic Henry Higgins. Not just a stunt though; I see it as being useful in police work.’

  She said, ‘My friend Bobbie Markowe—’

  ‘Dave’s wife, sure.’