The Longings of Women

by Marge Piercy

  However, after the Torgersons divorced, they sold the house and Winnie died six months later, of a broken heart, Mary thought. Try to explain divorce to children, let alone to animals. Mrs. Torgerson had her clean the house every time someone was scheduled to come and look at it, so she saw a great deal of her; the woman talked incessantly of her divorce. Mary listened sympathetically, and indeed pitied her, but she had a tough and aggressive lawyer. She wasn’t the fool Mary had been, and the laws seemed better. Mary didn’t think Mrs. T. would be on the streets soon.

  Mostly Mary dreaded divorce in her ladies for purely selfish reasons: it disrupted the schedule of where she could stay. Then she had to make do with churches and other cold buildings, sitting in the dark and the chill eating leftovers from a paper bag and never able to bathe or keep herself up the way she must, in order to hold on to her cleaning work and survive.

  Whenever she passed that woman who hung around Porter Square with her grocery cart, a woman about her own age, she shuddered. Sometimes Mary made eye contact. If Mary spoke to the woman, she muttered something. Obviously a greeting startled her. She didn’t act crazy, just nonplussed, as if she was used to the same level of invisibility Mary relied upon. She didn’t beg. She had her stuff in her cart. Mary thought, We have so few possessions that anything we add means subtracting something. I remember how people turned away from me when I had fallen onto the streets. How if they looked, they glared. An affront.

  Even in the summer, this bag lady bundled up in layers of clothing, making her look heavy. Her face, though, was thin. Her hair was brown, turning grey. She had a pair of reading glasses she used for newspapers she picked up, but they weren’t made for her. Men’s glasses? Probably she found them.

  Medical problems were what Mary dreaded most, next to being hurt on the streets. When Mary got sick, she had to find a place to hole up. Every so often she rented the cheapest motel room she could find—but often the cheap motels were out past public transportation. From her middle-class life, Mary kept only her MasterCard, which she rarely used but scraped together the money to pay the fee on, and her checking account that still stood at $609, because she hadn’t been able to save the last couple of weeks. She held on to those two props of respectability, that meant she was not a bag lady, that she had not yet fallen out of society altogether. Renting a motel room stripped her bare, so that she didn’t have food money. Those were the times Mary went hungry or dipped cautiously into the larders of her clients.

  That woman who hung around Porter Square and the subway station was about four inches taller than Mary, with a limp on her left-leg side. Maybe her shoes didn’t fit. Shoes wore out quickly when you had to walk as much as they both did. Used shoes at rummage sales and thrift shops were half-worn already, and cheap shoes went fast. Mary did not know where the woman slept, but it was somewhere nearby, for when Mary passed in the morning at eight-thirty, she was always about with her rusty cart. Mary could not help but wonder, whenever she saw the woman, if that was her future. That was why she forced herself to look at the woman, to speak to her—out of superstition more than courtesy. To let her know that someone remembered that she was human, that she was still a woman.

  Friday evening, Mary blew seven dollars on supper at a Brookline cafeteria. There seemed to be less and less of them. She guessed that people just ate hamburgers and fries at the likes of McDonald’s, but cafeterias had tremendous advantages. She could sit nursing a cup of coffee for hours. She could usually scavenge a little extra food. It was possible to make a kind of soup from hot water and condiments to supplement what she bought: mustard, ketchup, relish stirred into hot water or even cold, if necessary. Sugar water was another stratagem to control hunger. She always had several coffees in this place where you could get a free refill.

  Cafeterias were for folks without money. She was not conspicuous, not at all. In the other seats were old men and old women just like herself, although probably most had homes. But she would not have been surprised if several turned out to be homeless. There was one woman who lived in her car, for Mary had seen her getting into a Ford Fairlane with bedding and clothes loose in the back. It must be wonderful to have a car, your home at your command. Just park it. It would get cold, and the insurance and gas and upkeep would be hard. But that was her fantasy, the goal of her savings. Then she would be like a snail, with her house always with her. She would never sleep in a garage or under a bush again.

  She sat in the warm cafeteria as long as she dared. Then she walked through the cold to the Green Line, heading for Logan Airport. She had no place else to go tonight, and it was the first truly cold night of the year. She needed a heated place. It was too dangerous to risk spending the night in a garage or a car. When she was waiting just inside the doors of the subway station for the airport bus to come, the temperature was fifteen. It was a clear cold night with the stars burning holes in the frozen air, a cold that stung the skin and hurt her nose when she breathed.

  Mary found a seat in the women’s room of the USAir Terminal, on a worn red plastic couch. She couldn’t really lie down, for it wasn’t long enough to accommodate even her short body. Mostly she just sat and watched people. She had the day’s Globe and Herald that passengers had discarded, along with copies of Vogue and Sports Illustrated. The sports magazine was more interesting than the other, for at least it had photos of pleasant athletic young men who reminded her of her son. Sunday the Baers were going to California, if she could just get through tonight and tomorrow. She was exhausted after her day cleaning the Anzios’. It had not been an easy week. She had had only two good squats. She had to get through the weekend until Sunday afternoon, and it seemed interminable. She just wanted to lie down, pull up covers and sleep.

  She slid Jaime’s picture from her wallet. Precious few photos, worn but carefully kept. Jaime was an all-around athlete. She used to burst with adoration in the stands, and his father was always proud. Oh, she played ladies’ tennis at the club courts with other married women, and Jim golfed with his peers every Saturday the weather permitted. But it was more social than athletic. They never understood how they had come to produce between them this tall boy who looked like a statue in a museum or a movie star.

  Not that Jaime had a handsome face. He had his pug nose from her and his father’s spadelike chin that stuck out a bit, but he had wonderful merry blue eyes and a great warm grin. They spent a fortune on his teeth and it showed in that grin that made her want to eat him up. Just to watch him move in the gym made her feel he could do anything, anything in the world. He could be president or run a company or be a sports star, and her heart would just swell up. He was on the student council too. In college he was in a fraternity, she couldn’t remember the name. They all sounded the same to her, but it was a nice brick house.

  It was a hard choice for Jaime, what sports to concentrate on, but in the end he went for football and swimming. He was tall like his father, but his father always had a belly and a slouch, and Jaime looked and walked like the all-around superb athlete he was.

  She looked at her other photo of him, taken three years before with his second wife and their twins in Waikiki, where he ran a scuba gear and sports fishing shop. Jaime was still trim, for he worked out every day. His wife was darling-looking. Mary couldn’t afford to go, and with his child support to pay and his new family to care for and business never as good as he’d like it to be, it was just impossible for him to fly her out. But every year they talked about it. He would get her fare together one of these years when his business took off as it was bound to do, and she would finally see Hawaii and meet his new wife and her grandchildren, the twins.

  Then she took a quick peek at the photo of Cindy and her both on their horses from the stables in the park, astride side by side. Cindy was twelve, and the stable boy would pretend to think they were sisters.

  Watching all the passengers as they came and went, she noticed a woman emptying her pocketbook on the ledge under the mirror. As she pawed through t
he contents of her purse, a lipstick rolled away. The woman did not notice. She found the eyeliner she was searching for, stuffed everything back in her purse except the wandering lipstick. As soon as she turned away from the mirror, Mary rose and put her own purse down on the lipstick. When she picked up her purse, she took the lipstick with it.

  Makeup was important for her, but she could not afford to buy it. A woman wearing lipstick and foundation and powder was a respectable woman. She could not be homeless. She could not be a vagrant. Whenever Mary went through a department store, she tried out all the makeup samples she could and sprayed perfume on her clothes, so that they would retain the scent for a while. Perfume said money. Good perfume. Designer fragrances. But it was hard for her to get makeup regularly.

  In the toilet stall, she examined the lipstick. It was only a little used. It would last quite a while. It was a nice ladylike pink shade, and beggars could not be choosers. Women often left combs and brushes in such places. She washed them carefully, then they were hers. But women never lost bottles or tubes of makeup. Sometimes she poured a little from one of her ladies’ foundations into a plastic bottle.

  When the attendant came to clean the bathroom, just after eleven, she gathered up her things and walked on briskly. She looked at the monitors. The hard time was the middle of the night, when planes seldom took off or landed. Usually she walked through the airport, seeking a delayed flight. A canceled one would do. Otherwise her pretense was that she was on standby and would be taking an early morning flight out. She was careful to read the monitors in every area and be able to say, I was standby on flight 462 to Chicago. Now I’m hoping to take the 6:50 flight.

  Fortunately, in the International Terminal, there was a flight that had been delayed for hours. A storm out to sea? At any rate, there were clumps of disconsolate travelers sitting around, and she simply joined them. It was the least comfortable terminal, but she just wanted to get through the night inside. Logan was a potential problem, in that the subway stopped running at midnight, and she had to survive there, in one or another terminal, until morning. She was cut off from other options. This seemed to be a flight to Copenhagen. She had sat down at a table where the remains of a meal had not been cleared. She sat with it as if it were hers.

  She noticed a guard watching her. The International Terminal had the most nervous personnel. They were always worried about hijackers or terrorists, although they didn’t seem to do much about the threat. Was he really observing her? Cautiously she glanced around, trying to appear nonchalant. Yes, he was looking at her. Why? Had she done something silly? Was her situation showing? Didn’t she look middle-class enough? Her heart was pounding and her hands left damp prints on the tabletop. The last thing she wanted was to be questioned by security. Why had he picked her out? Had he noticed her come in and sit? She rose casually and headed for the women’s room. When she had waited there for five minutes, she came out, looked at her watch and quickly stepped on the escalator. She would use the next terminal. Her body felt weak from the adrenaline rush and she was troubled not to know why he had zeroed in on her. How had she failed to fit in? Her ability to remain invisible in groups was essential.

  In the Delta-TWA Terminal, she slipped into a restroom near the now-quiet luggage carousels. The lights were off, and she left them off. She let herself doze in a chair. This was a long night, and obviously, she was not going to catch any real sleep. Mary had worked hard cleaning and she was exhausted. Now and again she slid into a queasy sleep. The room remained dark. About four-thirty she stirred and began to prepare for the day. She put on the light and began taking a cautious sponge bath with paper towels. She took off her coat, folding it carefully over her things. Then she undid one side of her blouse, washed that area, patted it dry with more towels, and proceeded to the other side. Washing by sectors was tedious and never satisfactory. She loved hot baths, when she could soak her aching body in complete immersion. Now the main thing was to stay clean, not to dirty or wet her clothes. To put herself together so that in spite of sleeping in her clothes, she would not look as if she had. In a toilet stall she changed carefully. She had three blouses, two skirts, a wool dress and a sweater, each rolled and held with rubber bands. She changed her cotton tights and her panties. She must wash clothes soon.

  At the Baers’, she should be able to do her laundry, soak in a hot bath, get a night’s sleep. Today she would spend in a mall. She had a moment of dizziness as she reached for her coat. She was dangerously tired. She needed sleep and she needed rest. It was asking for trouble to get this tired. She might get sick, which could prove fatal. She could make some stupid mistake and ruin everything. She felt like weeping. She felt like lying down on the floor and just giving up. But she must not.

  She had always prided herself on her fiber. She had always prided herself on coming through. While she had had a family, she had never failed to cook and clean and provide a good environment for them. She had never slackened attention on them and their friends and what they read and what they watched. She did not miss checking their drawers or under their beds. She did not relax her vigilance so long as they were living under the roof she had thought half hers. She had been a responsible parent, and if life were fair, someone would now take responsibility for helping her. But that was not the way things worked, and there was nothing to do but rest as best she could in the chair until she heard the cleaning people coming. In the meantime, in her bag she had a roll from supper, which she would eat now with water she took from the sink in the plastic cup she always carried with her. She was hungry, but she must watch her spending. If the cold snap lasted, she would have to spend the night in a motel. There was one in Dorchester she could get to by subway and a long hike that had what were considered bottom-end rates. She was going to have to stay warm and sleep inside. Therefore, she could not blow money on breakfast.

  A couple of minutes after five-thirty, she left the restroom, turning out the light again behind her. The cleaning women would be coming by soon, and people would begin arriving in the airport for the earliest flights. She could again move around the terminals. She had noticed a 6:10 Delta flight, so she headed for that area. Sometimes she could go through to the gates and sit there. Other times, they were checking tickets at the X-ray machines, and she could not enter. It was always better to sit around near the gates, since in that area, there were almost always people snoozing or passing time, rumpled with traveling and bleary with lack of sleep.

  Today they were checking tickets, so she turned away. She walked stiffly. Her carry-all and her bag felt heavy. The bag was not packed well. She had disturbed everything, changing in the restroom. It swung into her side as she walked. She saw an abandoned cart and put her stuff on it. It was a relief to push it for a while instead of carrying her things. Sometimes when she had a bad night and had to keep moving, her shoulders got so sore she felt like moaning aloud.

  She could see through the glass doors that it must be bitter cold indeed, for the people rushing for early flights all had their heads tucked into their overcoat lapels and some of them winced against the cold. The exhaust of the buses and taxis beginning to queue outside lay on the street like mounds of dirty cotton batting.

  Today must be got through and tonight. Then the Baers’ and warmth. The Baers’ and hot water. The Baers’ and food. No malls really opened before ten, so she simply got on the airport bus and went to the old Eastern Terminal, now Continental, to pass more time. Too much of her life was spent doing nothing in places she did not belong.

  SEVEN

  Becky

  Becky was majoring in communication arts. She hadn’t been sure what it was, exactly, but she knew it had to do with media. Nothing was more exciting and nothing else offered a woman a fast trip out of New Bedj. She couldn’t imagine spending eight years to become a doctor—she couldn’t wait that long for a payoff, and neither could her family. They could squeeze out minimal support, but paying for college was hurting them. Her being in school meant that h
er mother couldn’t get her teeth fixed, that her father couldn’t make repairs on the boat. No, she needed something with a rapid return, where she could find a job, get off their backs and give a little in return. Then she would buy a dishwasher for Mama. Take Nana to a good doctor. Buy Gracie’s kids fancy toys. It was up to her to make it, because nobody else would. Then they would fuss over her. She knew how it was in their community when someone made money and brought it back, didn’t go off and pretend to be somebody else.

  Of course she worked weekends. She tried waiting tables, but she was poor at it. She could not find the right banter to keep the men’s hands off her in the grill and yet persuade them they wanted to leave big tips. She was too serious, everybody said, she didn’t smile enough, but she didn’t find hauling overloaded trays around something to beam about. Finally she got a job at the mall. She worked two evenings and weekends (Saturday ten to nine and Sunday twelve to six) at the Lady Grace lingerie store. She studied undergarments, because she was on commission and had to please the women, who ranged from the barely pubescent dragged in by their mothers for their training bras (a concept she had never heard of—training for what?) to women looking to dazzle and titillate boyfriends and husbands, to women who needed to fit into a too-tight dress. After a rocky beginning, her manager told her the fourth month that, as far as she was concerned, Becky could work full-time. Probably she would during the summer, unless she lined up something better.