by Ira Levin
Carol?
Back, back.
A drought was relieved, a drought grew worse.
MEN’S ASSOCIATION RE-ELECTS COBA. Dale Coba of Anvil Road was elected by acclamation to a second two-year term as president of the steadily expanding …
Back two years then.
She jumped three volumes.
A theft, a fire, a bazaar, a snowfall.
She flipped up the pages with one hand, turned them with the other; quickly, quickly.
MEN’S ASSOCIATION FORMED. A dozen Step-ford men who repaired the disused barn on Switzer Lane, and have been meeting in it for over a year, have formed the Stepford Men’s Association and will welcome new members. Dale Coba of Anvil Road has been elected president of the association, Duane T. Anderson of Switzer Lane is vice-president, and Robert Sumner Jr of Gwendolyn Lane is secretary-treasurer. The purpose of the association, Mr Coba says, is ‘strictly social – poker, man-talk, and the pooling of information on crafts and hobbies.’ The Coba family seems especially apt at getting things started; Mrs Coba was among the founders of the Stepford Women’s Club, although she recently withdrew from it, as did Mrs Anderson and Mrs Sumner. Other men in the Stepford Men’s Association are Claude Axhelm, Peter J. Duwicki, Frank Ferretti, Steven Margolies, Ike Mazzard, Frank Roddenberry, James J. Scofield, Herbert Sundersen, and Martin I. Weiner. Men interested in further information should …
She jumped two more volumes, and now she turned pages in whole-issue clusters, finding each ‘Notes on Newcomers’ in its page-two box.
… Mr Ferretti is an engineer in the systems development laboratory of the CompuTech Corporation.
… Mr Sumner, who holds many patents in dyes and plastics, recently joined the AmeriChem-Willis Corporation, where he is doing research in vinyl polymers.
‘Notes on Newcomers,’ ‘Notes on Newcomers’; stopping only when she saw one of the names, skipping to the end of the article, telling herself she was right, she was right.
… Mr Duwicki, known to his friends as Wick, is in the Instatron Corporation’s microcircuitry department.
… Mr Weiner is with the Sono-Trak division of the Instatron Corporation.
… Mr Margolies is with Reed & Saunders, the makers of stabilizing devices whose new plant on Route Nine begins operation next week.
She put volumes back, took other volumes out, dropping them heavily on the table.
… Mr Roddenberry is associate chief of the CompuTech Corporation’s systems development laboratory.
… Mr Sundersen designs optical sensors for Ulitz Optics, Inc.
And finally she found it.
She read the whole article.
New neighbours on Anvil Road are Mr and Mrs Dale Coba and their sons Dale Jr, four, and Darren, two. The Cobas have come here from Anaheim, California, where they lived for six years. ‘So far we like this part of the country,’ Mrs Coba says. ‘I don’t know how we’ll feel when winter comes. We’re not used to cold weather.’
Mr and Mrs Coba attended U.C.L.A., and Mr Coba did postgraduate work at the California Institute of Technology. For the past six years he worked in ‘audioanimatronics’ at Disneyland, helping to create the moving and talking presidential figures featured in the August number of National Geographic. His hobbies are hunting and piano-playing. Mrs Coba, who majored in languages, is using her spare time to write a translation of the classic Norwegian novel The Commander’s Daughters.
Mr Coba’s work here will probably be less attention-getting than his work at Disneyland; he has joined the research and development department of Burnham-Massey-Microtech.
She giggled.
Research and development! And probably less attention-getting!
She giggled and giggled.
Couldn’t stop.
Didn’t want to!
She laughed, standing up and looking at that ‘Notes on Newcomers’ in its neat box of lines. PROBABLY be less attention-getting! Dear God in heaven!
She closed the big brown volume, laughing, and picked it up with a volume beneath it and swung them down to their place on the shelf.
‘Mrs Eberhart?’ Miss Austrian upstairs. ‘It’s five of six; we’re closing.’
Stop laughing, for God’s sake. ‘I’m done!’ she called. ‘I’m just putting them away!’
‘Be sure you put them back in the right order.’
‘I will!’ she called.
‘And put the lights out.’
‘Jawohl!’
She put all the volumes away, in their right order more or less. ‘Oh God in heaven!’ she said, giggling. ‘Probably!’
She took her coat and handbag, and switched the lights off, and went giggling up the stairs toward Miss Austrian peering at her. No wonder!
‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ Miss Austrian asked.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, swallowing the giggles. ‘Thank you very much. You’re a fount of knowledge, you and your library. Thank you. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ Miss Austrian said.
She went across to the pharmacy, because God knows she needed a tranquilizer. The pharmacy was closing too; half dark, and nobody there but the Cornells. She gave the prescription to Mr Cornell, and he read it and said, ‘Yes, you can have this now.’ He went into the back.
She looked at combs on a rack, smiling. Glass clinked behind her and she turned around.
Mrs Cornell stood at the wall behind the side counter, outside the lighted part of the pharmacy. She wiped something with a cloth, wiped at the wall shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass. She was tall and blond, long-legged, full-bosomed; as pretty as – oh, say an Ike Mazzard girl. She took something from the shelf and wiped it, and wiped at the shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass; and took something from the shelf and—
‘Hi there,’ Joanna said.
Mrs Cornell turned her head. ‘Mrs Eberhart,’ she said, and smiled. ‘Hello. How are you?’
‘Just fine,’ Joanna said. ‘Jim-dandy. How are you?’
‘Very well, thank you,’ Mrs Cornell said. She wiped what she was holding, and wiped at the shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass; and took something from the shelf and wiped it—
‘You do that well,’ Joanna said.
‘It’s just dusting,’ Mrs Cornell said, wiping at the shelf.
A typewriter peck-peck-pecked from in back. Joanna said, ‘Do you know the Gettysburg Address?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Mrs Cornell said, wiping something.
‘Oh come on,’ Joanna said. ‘Everybody does. “Fourscore and seven years ago—”’
‘I know that but I don’t know the rest of it,’ Mrs Cornell said. She put the something on the shelf, clinking glass, and took something from the shelf and wiped it.
‘Oh, I see, not necessary,’ Joanna said. ‘Do you know “This Little Piggy Went to Market”?’
‘Of course,’ Mrs Cornell said, wiping at the shelf.
‘Charge?’ Mr Cornell asked. Joanna turned. He held out a small white-capped bottle.
‘Yes,’ she said, taking it. ‘Do you have some water? I’d like to take one now.’
He nodded and went in back.
Standing there with the bottle in her hand, she began to tremble. Glass clinked behind her. She pulled the cap from the bottle and pinched out the fluff of cotton. White tablets were inside; she tipped one into her palm, trembling, and pushed the cotton into the bottle and pressed the cap on. Glass clinked behind her.
Mr Cornell came with a paper cup of water.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking it. She put the tablet on her tongue and drank and swallowed.
Mr Cornell was writing on a pad. The top of his head was white scalp, like an under-a-rock thing, a slug, with a few strands of brown hair pasted across it. She drank the rest of the water, put the cup down, and put the bottle into her handbag. Glass clinked behind her.
Mr Cornell turned the pad toward her and offered his pen, smiling. He was ugly; small-eyed, c
hinless.
She took the pen. ‘You have a lovely wife,’ she said, signing the pad. ‘Pretty, helpful, submissive to her lord and master; you’re a lucky man.’ She held the pen out to him.
He took it, pink-faced. ‘I know,’ he said, looking downward.
‘This town is full of lucky men,’ she said. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ he said.
‘Goodnight,’ Mrs Cornell said. ‘Come again.’
She went out into the Christmas-lighted street. A few cars passed by, their tires squishing.
The Men’s Association windows were alight; and windows of houses father up the hill. Red, green, and orange twinkled in some of them.
She breathed the night air deeply, and stomped boot-footed through a snowbank and crossed the street.
She walked down to the floodlit crèche and stood looking at it; at Mary and Joseph and the Infant, and the lambs and calves around them. Very lifelike it all was, though a mite Disneyish.
‘Do you talk too?’ she asked Mary and Joseph.
No answer; they just kept smiling.
She stood there – she wasn’t trembling any more – and then she walked back toward the library.
She got into the car, started it, and turned on the lights; and cut across the street, backed, and drove past the crèche and up the hill.
The door opened as she came up the walk, and Walter said, ‘Where have you been?’
She kicked her boots against the doorstep. ‘The library,’ she said.
‘Why didn’t you call? I thought you had an accident, with the snow …’
‘The roads are clear,’ she said, scuffing her boots on the mat.
‘You should have called, for God’s sake. It’s after six.’
She went in. He closed the door.
She put her handbag on the chair and began taking her gloves off.
‘What’s she like?’ he asked.
‘She’s very nice,’ she said. ‘Sympathetic.’
‘What did she say?’
She put the gloves into her pockets and began unbuttoning her coat. ‘She thinks I need a little therapy,’ she said. ‘To sort out my feelings before we move. I’m “pulled two ways by conflicting demands”.’ She took the coat off.
‘Well that sounds like sensible advice,’ he said. ‘To me, anyway. How does it sound to you?’
She looked at the coat, holding it by the lining at its collar, and let it drop over the handbag and the chair. Her hands were cold; she rubbed them palm against palm, looking at them.
She looked at Walter. He was watching her attentively, his head cocked. Stubble sanded his cheeks and darkened his chin-cleft. His face was fuller than she had thought – he was gaining weight – and below his wonderfully blue eyes pouches of flesh had begun to form. How old was he now? Forty on his next birthday, March third.
‘To me,’ she said, ‘it sounds like a mistake, a very big mistake.’ She lowered her hands and palmed her skirted sides. ‘I’m taking Pete and Kim into the city,’ she said. ‘To Shep and—’
‘What for?’
‘—Sylvia’s or to a hotel. I’ll call you in a day or two. Or have someone call you. Another lawyer.’
He stared at her, and said, ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve been reading old Chronicles. I know what Dale Coba used to do, and I know what he’s doing now, he and those other – CompuTech Instatron geniuses.’
He stared at her, and blinked. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.
‘Oh cut it out.’ She turned away and went down the hallway and into the kitchen, switching on the lights. The port to the family room showed darkness. She turned; Walter stood in the doorway. ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,’ he said.
She strode past him. ‘Stop lying,’ she said. ‘You’ve been lying to me ever since I took my first picture.’ She swung around and started up the stairs. ‘Pete!’ she called. ‘Kim!’
‘They’re not here.’
She looked at him over the banister as he came from the hallway. ‘When you didn’t show up,’ he said, ‘I thought it would be a good idea to get them out for the night. In case anything was wrong.’
She turned, looking down at him. ‘Where are they?’ she asked.
‘With friends,’ he said. ‘They’re fine.’
‘Which friends?’
He came around to the foot of the stairs. ‘They’re fine,’ he said.
She turned to face him, found the banister, held it. ‘Our weekend alone?’ she said.
‘I think you ought to lie down awhile,’ he said. He put a hand to the wall, his other hand to the banister. ‘You’re not making sense, Joanna,’ he said. ‘Diz, of all people; where does he come into things? And what you just said about my lying to you.’
‘What did you do?’ she said. ‘Put a rush on the order? Is that why everyone was so busy this week? Christmas toys; that’s a hoot. What were you doing, trying it for size?’
‘I honestly don’t know what you’re—’
‘The dummy!’ she said. She leaned toward him, holding the banister. ‘The robot! Oh very good; attorney surprised by a new allegation. You’re wasting yourself in trusts and estates; you belong in a courtroom. What does it cost? Would you tell me? I’m dying to know. What’s the going price for a stay-in-the-kitchen wife with big boobs and no demands? A fortune, I’ll bet. Or do they do it dirt cheap, out of that good old Men’s Association spirit? And what happens to the real ones? The incinerator? Stepford Pond?’
He looked at her, standing with his hands to the wall and the banister. ‘Go upstairs and lie down,’ he said.
‘I’m going out,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not when you’re talking like this. Go upstairs and rest.’
She came down a step. ‘I’m not going to stay here to be—’
‘You’re not going out,’ he said. ‘Now go up and rest. When you’ve calmed down we’ll – try to talk sensibly.’
She looked at him standing there with his hands to the wall and the banister, looked at her coat on the chair – and turned and went quickly up the stairs. She went into the bedroom and closed the door; turned the key, switched on the lights.
She went to the dresser, pulled a drawer open, and got out a bulky white sweater; shook it unfolded and thrust her arms in and sleeved them. She pulled the turtleneck down over her head and gathered her hair and drew it free. The door was tried, tapped on.
‘Joanna?’
‘Scram,’ she said, pulling the sweater down around her. ‘I’m resting. You told me to rest.’
‘Let me in for a minute.’
She stood watching the door, said nothing.
‘Joanna, unlock the door.’
‘Later,’ she said. ‘I want to be alone for a while.’
She stood without moving, watching the door.
‘All right. Later.’
She stood and listened – to silence – and turned to the dresser and eased the top drawer open. She searched in it and found a pair of white gloves. She wriggled a hand into one and the other, and pulled out a long striped scarf and looped it around her neck.
She went to the door and listened, and switched the lights off.
She went to the window and raised the shade. The walk light shone. The Claybrooks’ living room was lighted but empty; their upstairs windows were dark.
She raised the window sash quietly. The storm window stood behind it.
She’d forgotten about the damn storm window.
She pushed at its bottom. It was tight, wouldn’t budge. She hit at it with the side of her gloved fist, and pushed again with both hands. It gave, swinging outward a few inches – and would swing no farther. Small metal arms at its sides reached open to their fullest. She would have to unclamp them from the window frame.
Light fanned out on the snow below.
He was in the den.
She stood straight
and listened; a tiny-toothed chittering came from behind her, from the phone on the night table; came again and again, long, short, long.
He was dialling the den phone.
Calling Dale Coba to tell him she was there. Proceed with plans. All systems go.
She tiptoed slowly to the door, listened, and turned the key back and eased the door open, a hand held against it. Pete’s Star Trek gun lay by the threshold of his room. Walter’s voice burred faintly.
She tiptoed to the stairs and started slowly, quietly down, pressing close to the wall, looking down through the banister supports at the corner of the den doorway.
‘… not sure I can handle her myself …’
You’re goddamn right you can’t, counselor.
But the chair by the front door was empty, her coat and handbag (car keys, wallet) gone.
Still, this was better than going through the window.
She made it down to the hall. He talked, and was quiet. Look for the handbag?
He moved in the den and she ducked into the living room, stood at the wall, her back pressing tight.
His footsteps came into the hall, came near the doorway, stopped.
She held her breath.
A string of short hisses – his usual let’s-see-now sound before tackling major projects; putting up storm windows, assembling a tricycle. (Killing a wife? Or did Coba the hunter perform that service?) She closed her eyes and tried not to think, afraid her thoughts would somehow beckon him.
His footsteps went up the stairs, slowly.
She opened her eyes and freed her breath bit by bit, waiting as he went higher.
She hurried quietly across the living room, around chairs, the lamp table; unlocked the door to the patio and opened it, unlocked the storm door and pushed it against a base of drifted snow.
She squeezed herself out and ran over snow, ran and ran with her heart pounding; ran toward dark tree trunks over snow that was sled-tracked, Pete-and-Kim-boot-marked; ran, ran, and clutched a trunk and swung around it and rushed-stumbled-groped through tree trunks, tree trunks. She rushed, stumbled, groped, keeping to the centre of the long belt of trees that separated the houses on Fairview from the houses on Harvest.
She had to get to Ruthanne’s. Ruthanne would lend her money and a coat, let her call an Eastbridge taxi or someone in the city – Shep, Doris, Andreas – someone with a car who would come pick her up.