The Longings of Women

by Marge Piercy

  Mama looked wrung out. Joey’s death had taken something vital out of her. “With this boy? This strange boy?”

  “He has a good job. He’s not a kid.”

  “Becky my rose, he’s not our kind. He’ll look down on you. He thinks there’s nothing to learn from people with less money. We’re just losers to him.”

  Becky wanted to say that, in many ways, Terry understood her far better than her mother did, but she could not bear to hurt Mama. Mama simply could not see past the great walls of the rut where she labored daily, trying to hold her family together, trying to pay off the bills, trying to survive. “He cares for me. Maybe that’s more important.”

  “It’s important that he knows who you are, what it is he thinks he likes so much.”

  “Haven’t you noticed how he looks at me? Like I’m something precious.”

  “You’re precious to me. I see how he looks around the house. Like he doesn’t want to touch it, dirt and trouble might come off on his fingers.”

  “He’s never said a word of criticism. Never.”

  “That’s good,” Mama said, relenting a trifle. “He’s a polite boy, his mama raised him right. He always speaks to us nicely. He always asks how I am. He is a good boy, Becky, I know. But so different.”

  She could not say that what she loved in Terry was that difference. He was the perfect walking embodiment of all she longed for. He was educated, he was clean, he was golden and soft-spoken. He worked with clean intelligent things, computers. He drank a little beer or white wine. He did not touch drugs. He played tennis and golf and sailed his family’s boat. He did all the right things in the right way, and her heart would shimmer with electricity sometimes just to watch the way he hefted the tautly strung racquet. His wrists melted her. His bones were elegant. He moved like a diffident prince. The silky blond hair would tumble over his forehead, and with a gesture at once lordly and casual, he would flip it back. She loved to lay her cheek against his hair. Baby hair. It was perfect too.

  She had never in her life wanted anything the way she wanted Terry. She wanted to hold him, she wanted to be him. She played cool as long as she could, then she collapsed utterly into him. “No one has ever loved me the way you do,” he said in wonder, again and again. “I always imagined that someday a girl would love me like this. But most of them are too selfish. I want to pick you up and carry you off with me and have you at my side, always at my side.”

  She wanted more than that: she wanted to melt into his side, the rib given back. She wanted to become one with him. Man and wife, one flesh. It was mystical. She could hardly say that to Mama. She wanted to confide, but the words would not work. She could not confess passion to her mother. She could only say weakly, I care for him. It sounded like an ad for health insurance.

  Mama peered nearsightedly into her face, as if trying to read what Becky really meant. Then she sighed. “It’s hopeless. The Lord knows, I try to raise you all right. But there’s no good end. We just can’t figure out the way to live.”

  She must keep her mother from starting to cry. Mama was always halfway toward tears these days. Sometimes Becky would see her slicing carrots or scaling a fish, with tears running unheeded down her face. Sometimes Mama would be eating and the tears would leak from her eyes. Becky longed to make her mother relax and laugh again. “It’s not a catastrophe, Mama. He’s a good man, hardworking, educated. He’s what I want. He’ll be good to me.”

  “I hope so,” Mama whispered. “I pray for you every night.”

  It depressed Becky to imagine her mother praying for her. “Mama, pray for yourself. Pray for Papa on the sea. Pray for Gracie and Tommy and the little ones. I’ve got an okay job, and I found a good man to care about. I’m twenty-three and I’m doing all right, Mama.”

  “Of course you are.” Mama’s hands washed each other in her lap.

  Terry had been talking for weeks about bringing her to meet his family. They saw each other every night except Monday and Wednesday. Monday nights she helped with the household laundry, still going on when she got home. Wednesday nights he played squash with his younger brother. It was a habit since they were both in high school, and Becky learned to treat it as a sacred obligation. She imagined a soft squishy ball they tossed slowly to and fro. Some things she was eager to ask about; but others she felt she could just let go by. She could not be asking him for a translation of everything he said.

  He had told her that tonight he would pick her up at work and take her directly to his parents’ house. She wore her navy suit that Aunt Marie had gone with her to pick out. On sale it had still cost more than she could afford, but she had to have it. She kept it wrapped in plastic and took it out only for special occasions, like today, when she was meeting what she hoped would be her future in-laws. She had gotten up extra early to wash her hair while she could get in the bathroom and while there was still hot water. Only Mama was up. “All dressed up today. Something special?”

  She could not bring herself to tell Mama she was wearing her best for Terry’s parents; it seemed disrespectful, when Mama seldom saw her so dressy unless somebody died or got married. “A going-away luncheon for one of the girls.”

  “How nice they are where you work. Try not to get anything on your suit.” Mama picked at the lapel. She loved the suit too.

  She could not pack a lunch with Mama watching. She usually did not eat the doughnuts, but that day, she ate all she dared, for it was her only food. Terry’s family dined late, at eight on Fridays. He was a half an hour tardy picking her up. She was getting edgy, wondering if he had changed his mind, if his parents had canceled the visit.

  “Had to finish up a job. You look just fine. They’ll love you.”

  If he was so sure they’d love her, why had he waited four months to introduce her? Never mind. He was finally doing so. She was glad he seemed pleased at how she had dressed for the evening. She needed confirmation that she had made the right choice, although she had no idea what she might have worn instead. That party dress Gracie had remodeled from her bridesmaid outfit seemed a poor choice. Mostly she wore skirts and blouses to work, or her blue shirtdress.

  She didn’t let on she’d driven by the house before with Sylvie. As soon as they were introduced and she was ushered to a seat on a large blue sofa, she studied the room. It was like a stage setting. It made her stare for a moment, almost stunned, for it was all white and blue, everything perfect, everything placed carefully. There wasn’t a broken or spoiled or soiled object Every little lamp with its tutu shade, every vase of dried flowers that were blue and white too, every cushion was artfully placed in a scene of domestic beauty intentionally created. She had seen such rooms in magazines, but never in life.

  “Mrs. Burgess, what a beautiful room. I love the color scheme.”

  Mrs. Burgess smiled thinly, the first movement of her face since Becky had come in the door. “I did it myself. People always think, when they see this room, that I hired some interior decorator. Never. I had the idea and I picked everything out.” She was as slender as Becky, wearing a green silk gown with a high neck, pearls over it. They looked real. Becky wondered what a real pearl felt like. That was the only jewelry Mrs. Burgess wore except for her wedding and engagement rings. Becky wanted to freeze-frame Mrs. Burgess to go over every inch of her. She was obviously a lady, a pattern Becky must understand. It must be important that rooms be put together like an outfit of clothing; Becky could remember when she had learned about outfits. It had been Sylvie who had taught her, in middle school. Sylvie would love this room.

  From his wing chair, Mr. Burgess, who had so far addressed not a word to her but only a grunt, said proudly, “Mrs. Burgess studied it all out of magazines. She’s a quick woman.”

  Terry looked at Becky, rolling his eyes upward. “Where’s Chris?”

  “We’re waiting for him,” Mr. Burgess said sourly. “Some client he’s sweetening.”

  “Sometimes I believe I should have gone into interior decorating myself. Wha
t do you think?” Mrs. Burgess looked sharply at Becky.

  “I think you’d be wonderful at it. This room is perfect.”

  “Nothing’s perfect,” Mrs. Burgess said decisively. “And I’d have to deal with all sorts if I went into business. I like to pick and choose my friends and my acquaintances. I think that’s so important.”

  Becky felt a little shiver. She had the feeling Mrs. Burgess was pushing her away. She decided her best strategy was to ignore any digs and act resolutely pleasant.

  Mrs. Burgess had light brown hair, very close to the shade Becky’s had been before she started working on it. Becky could not tell what color her eyes were behind her glasses. Her face was long and pointy. She sat extremely still, not moving a muscle, except for her mouth and occasionally her head.

  Mr. Burgess was as tall as Terry but much heavier. He was ruddy, with a receding forehead and glasses, a face that seemed oversized, overblown, as if it occupied too much of his head. Becky knew he was an engineer with a small company that installed air-conditioning and heating systems. He wore a thick gold band on his wedding finger and a gold digital watch with his grey suit. She knew nothing about men’s suits, so she had to assume it was a good one. Men’s clothing remained mysterious. She knew it radiated class and background to those who could decipher it. Terry had firm opinions on what was correct to wear. He sounded more shocked when someone turned up wearing the wrong socks with the wrong shoes than when he reported someone in his company had been fired for using cocaine. Mr. Burgess gave her little to work with. She could see a few resemblances to Terry—his father’s hair was equally fine, although there was less of it. They were tall and had noses that marched rather far from the face before stopping, high commanding foreheads, big hands and feet. But Terry seemed to her a miracle next to his ungainly father.

  She could see more of his mother in him. Mrs. Burgess rose to pass the nuts and the canapés, like miniature sandwiches. Her movements were economical and not ungraceful. In her slenderness, her elegance, Becky could see Terry. Yes, she decided, he took after his mother. Becky was very hungry and had to resist the desire to fall on the canapés and the salted nuts and consume them in handfuls; however her anxiety made it easier to control her appetite. She had to chew and chew each mouthful, in order not to choke from nerves. She nursed her little glass of dry sherry, for she was terrified of being even slightly giddy. She could all too easily see herself beginning to giggle and tell inappropriate stories—stories about her real life. She almost expected them to be teetotalers, there was something pinched and tight about them, but Mrs. Burgess had put away a glass of sherry and was working on her second, while Terry and his father both had Scotch. Terry did not drink liquor normally, so she assumed he had Scotch with his father because that was the older man’s choice and Terry was being agreeable. His father was on his second since she had come in. Terry, like her, was still loitering cautiously over his nearly full glass.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing Chris again,” she gushed, for she had actually met Chris when they had all gone to a Red Sox game. He sold insurance. He was simpler, noisier than Terry. He seemed to her far more ordinary, in appearance, in tastes, in quality of mind. But she had flattered him that afternoon, and he had gobbled it down like the hot dogs he bolted.

  “We’re waiting for him.” Mrs. Burgess sounded annoyed. “I can’t imagine why he scheduled an appointment so late on Friday afternoon.”

  “If you’re selling something, Mom, the client picks the time,” Terry said. “He’s still trying to establish himself. It’s a cutthroat business.”

  “A salesman,” said Mrs. Burgess bitterly. “Really.”

  Becky was not quite sure what was wrong with that. Papa had contempt for salesmen too, because he said they had soft hands and they only lived off other people’s work, but she had the feeling that was not the basis of Mrs. Burgess’s disapproval. Her mother always added softly, At least they’re safe.

  She tried to imagine Gracie or the twins or Tommy sitting around the living room, and it simply would not work. But Mama. She seated Mama on the other sofa, the white one, where Mama could put her feet up on the white leather hassock. Mama would love the room. It would feel better than church, clean and uplifting and nothing to do in it, nothing to straighten or scrub or dust. She could see Mama perched on the white sofa with her skirt spread out around her the way she did sometimes when she was dressed up and able to sit for a moment, so that Becky would catch a quick glimpse in Mama’s lined face of a young girl waiting in barely suppressed joy for something that surely would happen. Something nice for once.

  In spite of her dainty eating, she and Terry had gone through the tiny sandwiches and finished the nuts. Finally at twenty past eight, Chris arrived. He was the same height as Terry, almost as big as their father. “Hey, I told you I was going to be on the late side. Forget it I ate with my client.”

  “How could you, Chris?” His father frowned. “You knew your mother would wait dinner for you.”

  “The client wanted to, what does it matter? I’ll sit down with you and watch you eat.”

  “After the trouble I went to prepare it just the way you like.…”

  Mrs. Burgess had worked hard to make everything nice, and Chris just took all that effort for granted. Becky would show Mrs. Burgess she knew how to appreciate someone who tried to create domestic order, who tried to make things pretty and right. Terry said his mother was a good cook.

  Dinner began with half grapefruits with a deadly red maraschino cherry in the bull’s-eye center. Then came some kind of white fish in a cheese sauce. Fisherman’s daughter that she was, she still could not identify the species. Whatever it was, it had been dead awhile. White rice, white fish, pale sauce, white bread, she almost expected cauliflower, but the peas were bright green. The food tasted as if it were made of magazine pages.

  With the meal they had a white California wine. Ted Topper would have shown her the bottle and given her a lecture, but she had already learned that Terry drank wine without thinking about it, ordering mostly by price (something about a third of the way up the price list) or saying, not too sweet, okay, to the waitress. They didn’t display the bottle so she could read the label, so she assumed she wasn’t to comment on the wine. Just give me half a chance, she prayed to Mrs. Burgess’s face, which scarcely moved a muscle even while chewing, and I’ll show you how fast I can learn. I’ll be the daughter-in-law of your dreams, if you only let me see what you want. Whatever it is, I can do it for you. Terry winked at her as he helped himself to more of everything. Under the table he put his hand on her knee. Later, said the hand. Later.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Leila

  Becky’s sister Belle called Leila, very excited. “I discussed the situation with Mr. Green—he’s Becky’s lawyer—and he’s going to talk to you. I persuaded him.” Belle sounded proud and Leila praised her warmly. Belle had been trying to win Leila’s attention and admiration. She worked in a local beauty salon; every time Leila, who stayed in close touch with the Souza family, saw Belle, her hair was some new concoction of curls or rolls or sharp boxy angles, in varying shades of blond. But Belle, as she told Leila, had loved English in high school and she longed to write a book. Now Belle opened for her another anteroom to storm: Becky’s lawyer. Belle had said that Tommy had hired him and that her parents had mortgaged their house to pay his fees.

  Robert Green’s office was in downtown New Bedford, where the streets had been restored to cobblestone and old brick buildings had been renovated for offices. His business was obviously not going downhill. May, her expert on the case, said Green was considered one of the two best criminal lawyers in New Bedford. He perhaps had mob ties, or perhaps not, but he had a good track record with drug offenders. Robert Green was a partner in his firm. He had a corner office in which everything seemed of a piece, nicely finished wood of interesting textures—affluence and taste, custom-made—but something odd. Then she realized: Green was an abnormally tall man,
towering over her when he shook her hand: Perhaps six six. Everything in the office was scaled to his size. The desk was high. The chairs were high. Even a large woman like herself, five eight, felt as if she were a child sitting in adult furniture. Her feet just reached the floor. She wondered if he derived a psychological advantage from the oversizing. Or was it that he could simply afford to make his microworld to his scale?

  He was going bald, like Nick, but he had hair transplants spotting his head, looking like dunes in the seashore when they set out dune grass to hold the sand in little holes all over denuded slopes. In spite of that oddity, he was a pleasant-looking man about her own age, with the frame of an athlete and a carrying voice, but a smile that was tentative, thin eyebrows that rose in perpetual surprise beneath a forehead prematurely lined. She showed him her book on women in prison; sometimes lawyers had heard about it, although of course they had not bothered to read it He examined it meticulously, as if it were an exhibit of the state. “You wrote this?” he asked at length as if unconvinced.

  “It’s my most recent book, my fourth. My fifth is in production. It’s about childrearing practices and experiences of incest survivors.” She rattled off her academic credentials, deciding that was a better route than talking about the audience for her books.

  “That’s some difference from the reporters that have been coming around … Do you mind if I keep this?” He waved the book.

  Of course she minded. She got only eight complimentary copies of her book, and by the time the immediate relatives were given the books they expected, she had four left. She had not intended to give him a book, merely to show him what she did. But she needed to see Becky, and he was the guardian of that door. She mustered graciousness. “If you’d really like to have it, certainly. But I’m not expecting you to read it. I was simply showing it to you.”

  “Sign it.” He pushed the book across his desk. “I like to have little mementos. It helps me remember cases long after they’re decided.”