Braided Lives

by Marge Piercy

  Within a week, Donna comes through for me. She gets Stephanie a job typing invoices at Channel 11.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE THREE-LEGGED RACE

  BOLOGNESE CANNOT LIKE my new poems. “Irrational,” he calls them. But neither can he dismiss them. They command his respect even as they annoy him. As a slush editor, he is used to going through dunghills of rotting hopes in the form of unsolicited manuscripts every week, making snap decisions and moving on. My poems detain him. He knows they are bad by every criteria we were taught, yet when he finishes lashing me with the scorn informed by our common education in English honors, the poems still stand there. They are raw, they are often too long, but they are in a voice I know is mine. They are real as potatoes.

  Sunday brunch at my apartment: bagels, cream cheese, bialys, Nova Scotia and orange juice. I did not buy the food, of course. Stephanie, Alberta and Bolognese kicked in and Howie went out and actually purchased it. I contribute the strong black coffee, the butter, the plates, the Mozart.

  Bolognese finally stops worrying at my poems and slumps back, lying flat but for his head propped against the bed’s edge. “No, I just get two weeks’ vacation,” he answers Alberta. “My parents have a cottage on Crystal Lake in Michigan. They sent me plane tickets and it’ll all be free and no more, although just as, boring as if I went out to your playground.”

  “I love Sag Harbor. It’s not spoiled yet. We rent a funny dear falling-down house. We could easily fit in more people or so if any of you reconsider staying here stubbornly to broil,” Alberta says.

  Howie sighs. “I want to get out of the city. But with the orderly job, the only days I have off are Mondays and Tuesdays. At least Presbyterian is air-conditioned.”

  “And when it gets really hot this August, I’ll just hike over to your apartment, Alberta. Your pad is my country air.” After all, I have a key. I’m supposed to keep an eye on things, bring in the mail, satisfy the minimal needs of a flowering cactus a recent suitor gave her. I think it was supposed to represent a symbolic protest, but Alberta likes it. It’s the only plant she’s ever been able to keep alive in her apartment. “And Mondays we can make a determined effort to take a bus to someplace green.”

  First Bolognese leaves to work on his latest short story about a man who eats himself to death. Then Alberta is off to stuff envelopes for CORE and then meet her newest held-at-arm’s-length young man to go rowing in Central Park. I am at the disposal of my family, uncertain how we are to pass the hot hazy day. Stephanie has been quiet, not a good sign. She has been liking me better since Donna got her the job at Channel 11, for she too is excited by the romance of television. But whenever Stephanie warms to me, she shortly withdraws, sure I am fooling her.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Howie asks her. “Do you have a headache?”

  “A giant one. Does it ever occur to you that when you say ‘sweetheart,’ you’re not being specific enough? Never mind, this morning was boring beyond endurance.”

  “I thought you liked Alberta and Bolognese—” he begins.

  “They’re her friends. Who else would go on about her poems for two hours? As if anybody couldn’t write like that if they were willing to strip in public. You could do it. I could do it. But we wouldn’t. It’s the ravings of somebody who’s willing to rave!”

  “It wasn’t two hours. Maybe forty-five minutes. And nobody was being exactly complimentary,” I say defensively.

  “You don’t care what they say as long as you’re the center of attention. What you can’t stand is when you aren’t.”

  “Steph, I can talk to Bolognese separately about my work—”

  “Work? You call that work?”

  “I didn’t realize it annoyed you. I guess it can be boring for other people.”

  “My goodness, you’ve noticed there are other people! We may be getting someplace yet.”

  Since I am The Other Woman, I am no longer The Poet to Stephanie. She dismisses my work as if it were some outre form of flirtation or self-decoration designed to seduce impressionable males. Since viewing me as a rival, she cannot credit me with any real ambition beyond possessing Howie. Yet frequently she forgets to scowl and we have wonderful times, the three of us, even she and I. The truth is that Howie has little time for either of us, and we make each other’s life easier and pleasanter in the city, if only she could acknowledge that. I want Stephanie to love me, but she won’t.

  “With her old apartment,” Stephanie says with a mock-pout that is too real, “it’s as if Stu were the wife and I were the mistress.”

  “Let’s do something nice before I go to work,” Howie says. “Like take the subway down to Wall Street and walk south to the Battery. I love the financial district on Sunday.”

  Stephanie examines her almost black nails. “Can’t. I’m seeing Brian from the station, and he’s picking me up in Queens.”

  “That balding jerk? Even on screen he slobbers.”

  “Aren’t we touchy? And who started searching for variety?”

  He tries a smile. “Not having a right to be jealous doesn’t mean I can turn it off like a faucet.”

  “It’s getting more and more unfair!” She crosses her arms as if holding herself in. “I have to work Monday through Friday. That’s the only time the business office is open. You work Wednesday through Sunday from two to ten. I see you weekend mornings and Tuesday evenings and maybe one evening a week after ten. She switches her schedule around just as she pleases and hogs you all your time off.”

  “Actually I only take Mondays off with Howie. Fridays are for me,” I say. “And Monday I write till three.”

  “But no, she has to use up Sunday morning with this egoistic brunch with all her friends and now she’s talking about going off with you on Mondays while I have to work!”

  “But, Stephanie, I work too. It’s hot in the city. I get tired. I don’t have that much time alone with him either. Do you think I don’t suffer from a feeling of wanting more too?”

  She crosses the room with edgy nonchalance to the good chair. “Keep it to yourself for a change. You always are suffering about something at the top of your lungs. Who asked you to be so damn honest? Not me.”

  She is right, of course. An awkward smile pulls down the corners of my mouth.

  “Which of us used her good friend’s absence to start having an affair with that friend’s boyfriend? When I arrived, did I find a welcome? No, the two of you slinking around, you with your stricken face hanging out and Howie tied in knots saying, we must reassure Jill. I’ve leaned over backward being civilized.” With her legs crossed, her ankle swinging in an arc, she gives off a vibration of anger like the whine of a small but high-powered saw.

  Howie rises slowly, rubbing his knees. “She says she loves me.”

  “She would!” She flicks at her short hair indignantly. “Just because Jill’s loud about her so-called grand emotions, does that mean she feels more? She’s an exhibitionist!”

  “I loved him for a year with my mouth shut!”

  “But you couldn’t keep it shut, could you? You’re always loving somebody to death.”

  “You’ve had a few trial runs yourself.”

  “Shut up!” He slams his fist into the wall.

  We do shut up. We stare at him. Minouska crawls under the bed.

  “So the two of you won’t be satisfied till it’s blown up! Push somebody downstairs! All right, all right. I’ll flip a coin. Will that please you? Will that shut you up?” He rummages in his pocket and throws down a quarter.

  “You ought to use Milt’s silver dollar but you spent that on your first whore. Now you want us two for a quarter?” I am trying to jolly him into backing down.

  “You think it means something, all those years,” she shouts, “but you never wanted him till I had him!”

  “Peace, Stephanie. Heads or tails?” He is drunk with emotional exhaustion. I can feel the high pitch of worn nerves off him. I am a good conductor; at once I ring with h
is overwound excitement as I used to with Donna’s highs and lows. He shakes the coin in his cupped hands.

  She bites her lip. “Do you think I’m something you won in a crap game?”

  “Let him,” I say. “Let him. You don’t want to continue.”

  “Heads or tails, Stephanie.” His face is berserk with strain.

  “No!” She grabs at the cage of his hands.

  Our faces seem soaked with light. His lips draw back from his teeth in a feral grin. He looks at neither of us but only at his cupped hands. Stephanie seizes his wrists and tries to pry them apart. He yanks free, backing away. We have at last wrenched him from self-control. “Heads for Stephanie, tails for Jill.” He tosses the coin. It spins and arcs over to land between them on the rug. She covers it with her foot. “Let me see it,” he rasps. “Get your foot off, Stephanie.”

  “Do you think you can get rid of me like this? You big fool, I ought to let you. Don’t you see how she controls you? It won’t take you a month to get her out of your system without me to coddle you, but till you do, you’re no good to me.”

  His voice is quiet. His hands hang at his sides. “You’re walking out?”

  “You bet I am. You’re free to look me up, Howie, when you are free. Would you be a lamb and just stay put until I’m out the door? I don’t want tearful good-byes because this isn’t a permanent parting. It’s just bye-bye till you come to your senses.” She drops the quarter on my bed. “As for you!” She turns glaring. “Don’t you ever pretend that you haven’t been shoddy!”

  “Don’t you pretend you didn’t look before you covered the coin with your foot. I don’t want to hurt you—”

  “No, you just want me to pretend I’m not hurt.”

  “Touche. But I’m fighting for survival too.”

  “You ask for a hard time. Until you learn to compromise your damn principles, you’ll be dying every week and who cares? You’ve been honest and honest, and I’ve been tolerant and tolerant, and now I’m through. I’ve had it. I quit!”

  The door slams. He throws himself on the bed, face to the wall. I sit cowardly and still. Minouska creeps from under the hem of the bedspread. Her ears prick up as she sniffs. Screaming over? Then she comes strolling to my lap, leaps up, turns around kneading a safe nest. I wait and wait, watching Howie slung there against the wall inturned on his agony and sucking it like a sour bile-flavored candy. Finally I must speak because it is time for him to leave for work. I clear my throat.

  Then he sits up. “We staged that. You and I.”

  “Only in the sense that two people who know each other well can talk without words.” I skirt him cautiously.

  “No!” Brutally he scrubs his eyes with his knuckles. “That was ugly.” All his movements are heavy as he hauls himself up, gets his gear. “We’re a bunch of pigs.”

  I force myself to keep quiet. I have to let him heal. Shifting the cat to my shoulder, I walk after to stand watching him down the dark flights.

  Donna tumbles in, wiping at her forehead.

  “But you look marvelously cool,” I say. “I’d faint in that outfit.”

  She wears a white shirt with high stiff-winged collar rising on her neck and disappearing under her hair. The sleeves are long and crisp. Moving slowly, she takes off her blouse. “I need your help. You have to put makeup on my bruises.”

  “What happened?”

  On both sides of her neck are livid bruises. Each thin upper arm is circled with more. “Peter and I had an argument.”

  “He did that?”

  She nods, matter-of-factly. “He has an incredible temper. You know that.”

  I remember the last scene in his apartment and nod. I imagine sinking a knife into his narrow chest. “Will you leave him?”

  “Leave him? Stu! Don’t be silly. I adore him. We have a fight every so often, that’s all. Everybody does. You don’t walk out on a marriage because of a couple of fights.” She sits in her bra on the toilet seat and hands me the makeup, spreading one of my towels over her tight blue linen skirt.

  Carefully I wash away the layers of old makeup, dry her and begin covering the bruises freshly. “What was the fight about?”

  “Supper. It doesn’t matter.” She speaks calmly. “He’s the center of my life. What I always wanted in a man: Beautiful. Cold and hot at once. I never get past him. I never get away from him. I just need a tiny bit of freedom to make something of myself. He’s a physicist, a scientist. Everybody admires what he does. I just need something that balances things a little bit. To make some money on my own.”

  “But he hurts you.”

  She looks at me with pity. “When you love somebody, he always hurts you. Because he can. If you don’t love him, he can only annoy you.”

  “That seems to me utter bullshit, Donna. A rapist in the street can kill you dead. A mugger can leave bruises on you too.” I finish the paint job.

  She sits on my bed/couch waiting for the makeup to dry. “Stu, you know a bit about drugs, don’t you? You had a girlfriend on heroin, you told me once.”

  “Yeah … but I know zilch.”

  “I wonder … have you ever heard of anybody getting, you know, kind of addicted to Dexedrine?”

  “The stuff kids who hadn’t studied used to take during exams? No.”

  “I didn’t think so. I’ve been on amphetamines for a while.”

  “Why? You always had plenty of energy.”

  “I wanted to lose weight in a hurry. And the commuting was getting to me. It’s an awful drive. I was coming home dragging in the door at the time of day when I have to be fresh for him…. And I know he finds me attractive again.”

  “But he always found you attractive!”

  “Oh, sure, Stu. When a man wants to marry you, you’re beautiful. After he’s had you at home for a while and you’re a servant and chief bottle washer and cook and laundress and cleaning lady, it’s like you’ve lost rank and status. He actually begins to perceive you as less attractive.”

  “But that’s the job, not losing weight.”

  “Maybe.” She smiles. “Our love life has certainly heated up. I wonder if it goes in cycles when you’re married. I’d like to imagine us still going at it like animals when we’re sixty.”

  “I bet it’s the job. I like you better with a few more pounds.”

  “Oh, Stu, you like plump women. Like your mother.”

  “You’re right.” I am a little stunned. “How long would it have taken me to reach that insight in analysis?”

  “With Peter’s analyst, five years. With Emil, there must be some pill you’d take that would do it.” She sounds a little sour. “Oh, Stu, we’ve known each other so long, through half a hundred changes. Who else do I trust the way I trust you?”

  Monday night, eight days after I have last seen Howie, eight days without speaking, I am cooking spaghetti when Minouska marches tail high and nose pointing to the door, meowing insistently. “What is it? A mouse?” I come to stand beside her. Is someone outside the door? Six is early for a prowler in the hall. I cannot bring myself to open the door but neither can I walk away. Finally there is a knock. I know then. “Howie?”

  He has been standing outside the door unwilling to use his key. He sniffs the kitchen air. “You’re eating?”

  “It’s almost ready. There’s plenty. Won’t you have some?”

  He hesitates. Argument of the supper air. “You really have enough?”

  Liberally I add more hamburger, more mushrooms. I celebrate as I can: he stays the length of a meal.

  Sitting, he surveys the room—playing stranger? His face is neutral. I hoped he would return torn and I would love him together, but he shows no unravelings. Minouska sits before him wanting an invitation to his lap but he ignores her, pretending he does not feel her begging gaze.

  As I set the table I wonder, would he take food if he meant to end us? Yes. Gently pry off, old friends parting with full rational discourse. When I sit down across from him, I am aware of Stephanie’s e
mpty place. My appetite has evaporated but he eats steadily.

  As he takes a second helping, he asks, “Wonder why I came?”

  “When you don’t I wonder why.”

  Not a ripple. His eyes are a winter color. December in his skull, too. Once again he stares around. “What have you been doing with yourself?”

  “Writing. Reading. Amusing my cat. Working for peanuts.”

  His face hardens, my flippancy annoying him. “And looking for another man?”

  “Not yet.” If I could only touch him. “That’s a nasty question.”

  “You don’t usually believe in lying fallow long. You don’t expect me to be polite?”

  “You told me once I expect too little and I told you no, I expect too much. Shall I make coffee?”

  “How long did Mike last?”

  I stand backed against the stove. “January to September.”

  “So you’d offer me six months.”

  “I offer myself.”

  “No, you don’t. You offer me a little piece and you keep your distance. You liked the triangle. You don’t want all of me.”

  “I wanted you to come alive! To do what you wanted for once.”

  “Got your wish?”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “I hate the men you’ve been with. Bastards all. They’ll get worse.”