The Longings of Women

by Marge Piercy

  Sometimes she felt she had become invisible. She gazed hard at herself in the mirror, and she liked what she saw, but Terry looked right through her. Even Taffy-Hands had stopped eying her since she belonged to his boss. She deserved to be noticed. She wanted so badly to be someone, she could feel that need throbbing the way her tooth had.

  Friday, Dick Berg had the cast over after rehearsals. She was fascinated by his house. He taught high school. His wife was a chiropractor, and obviously between them, they did okay. The house was new and full of sharp unexpected angles. It was dark, so she couldn’t see if they had a view, but they had several decks. It seemed to her that the richer people were, the more decking they had. Only people like her parents had a porch nowadays. The first time she had heard the Burgesses talk about their decks, she had felt like laughing. What did they think they were living in, a cruise ship? Now she was used to the word. The ceiling in the living room was high and sharply tilted. Dick Berg referred to it as a cathedral ceiling.

  What impressed her was the decor. “See, isn’t it great?” Sam murmured to her. “Everyplace you look, there’s something to stare at. It’s so intense here. I love it.” She and Sam sat together on a low squishy couch and eyed everything. He was a kid whose father was dead and his mother was having a hard time. He had attached himself to her after the first couple of weeks, and she was happy to play big sister. He did not make her feel like an ignoramus. He did not pretend that the real paintings of wild colors and jagged shapes on the walls did not impress him, or the wiry things hanging down they called mobiles or the green elongated naked lady of pipes who lay on the wide wooden railing that ran around the top of the stairway down to the family room. Mr. and Mrs. Berg did not even have a TV in their living room. That was banished to the family room below, where the furniture was scruffy. This room was for impressing people, and she was impressed.

  “Does your house have paintings and that kind of thing?” she asked Sam.

  “It’s full of stuff my mom makes. She’s a potter.”

  Sam was cute, kind of wistful. He was shorter than Terry, but he wasn’t skinny. He actually was built okay for a kid, especially his upper body. They made a cute couple in spite of the age difference.

  Sam wanted to be liked. He was a lonely kid. He loved being in the play for the same reason she did, that the group made an instant warm pocket they could slip into. All of a sudden she had fourteen new friends. She had people she saw as often as she saw her husband, people she had a far warmer relationship with. They drank, they nibbled, they kissed each other when they met and when they left. She had never had so many friends, interesting ones.

  There was a certain amount of casual pairing off, heavy flirtations. She found many of the men already spoken for. She was definitely not interested in Fred, who ran a bed-and-breakfast and seemed allergic to cats, dogs, strawberries, tomatoes, ragweed, roses, grass, wheat and everything else that was or ever had been living. Guy was gay. She knew that the configuration changed with every play, so she bided her time. In the meantime she flirted with Sam, who doted on her and followed her around like a good dog. Terry had looked at her with that intense preoccupation the first year. She could remember that gaze, and it made her want to cry.

  She would come home from the theater group twanging with energy, and she would try to get Terry to have sex with her. The trouble was he began to notice the pattern, and to refuse, just to give her a hard time. They still had sex usually twice on weekends. The group turned her on. She wasn’t a star, she wasn’t even a featured player, but the group was fun. Helen and she gossiped all the way home like conspirators. Sometimes she completely forgot Helen was an old lady, and she talked to her just as freely as she ever had with Sylvie.

  Becky prided herself on never forgetting a good turn or a bad turn. Papa never forgot somebody who’d helped him when he was down: those who had done him dirty, he swore he’d eat revenge stone cold, but he’d eat the last morsel of their heart someday. Only fools forgot and forgave, and only those without personal honor neglected to return a favor. She volunteered to walk Florrie and do Helen’s shopping with her own. Helen was the only person besides Tommy and Belle she confided in fully about her marriage.

  “What good is he?’ Helen said frankly as she drove them to the rehearsal hall. “He doesn’t work. He doesn’t make you feel good. You do all the work.”

  “I keep hoping he’ll shape up. When we first got married, I was so happy.”

  “If you marry a complete jerk, you’re happy for six months. Then the glossy paint wears off and you look at what you’ve let yourself in for.”

  “If he’d only get a job, then he’d be out of my hair part of the time. His parents would get off our backs about how we’re stupid to be married, it costs too much.”

  Sometimes Terry made sarcastic remarks about the theater group, but she avoided confrontation. She didn’t ask, she just sailed out of the house. Much of the time he hardly seemed to notice. He went out sometimes with his old fraternity buddies or his brother Chris. He was drifting back into his bachelor habits. Some evenings, he went over to his parents’ house.

  Opening night Terry came and brought his parents and Chris and his girlfriend. They seemed to like the play okay, although the girlfriend said she had seen it on cable with Marlene Dietrich, and this was a joke by comparison. Becky was insulted for her fellow players. Afterward she wanted to go to the cast party, but Terry wouldn’t. “All this way to see you say five words. This is supposed to give you experience for cable?”

  “Confidence. This was my first part. I think it’s okay to start small and work my way up to bigger roles. I’m learning from watching. And I’m learning to speak more correctly. Dick Berg always tells us when we don’t speak properly.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Burgess laughed. “He must have his work cut out for him.”

  The next night, Sam told her, “I was so disappointed you didn’t come to the party. How could you miss it? We had champagne.” They were backstage during the first act, hanging out by the coffeemaker.

  “Terry wouldn’t stay. Next time I’m going to talk him into coming the second night, if we’re in the next play, so I can go to the party.”

  Sam drew her into the empty dressing room. “We’ll be in,” he said authoritatively. “Everybody likes us. Ce-Ce said you had good ingenue looks. She means how pretty you are.”

  “Me, pretty? Why do you say that?” She turned a little sideways, giving him a look through her lashes.

  “I think about you all the time, Becky. I’ve never known anybody like you.” He was staring at her.

  This is just an overeager kid, she told herself. He probably looks at all the girls that way. You can fall in love with a picture in a magazine at that age. You can get a mad crush on a singer just because you like his video. She just smiled. “You haven’t known a lot of women, have you? I’m just me.”

  “I was done in when you weren’t here last night. I’d been looking forward to the party. I knew there’d be dancing—I thought we’d dance. And I wanted to do this.” With a look of half-frightened desperation, he lunged forward and kissed her.

  She expected a quick buss, but he kissed her seriously and hard, his tongue parting her lips, his chest and hips straining against her. She thought of pushing him away, but why should she? It felt good. She was surprised and curious. She had not imagined he had the brass to hit on her. He did not feel like a kid either. He felt harder-bodied than Terry, shorter but better muscled. She wondered what his skin would feel like. His hands were splayed on her upper and lower back, just above her buttocks, grasping her hard. It excited her. Slowly, not breaking the kiss, she edged closer to him, feeling the tautness of his belly and thighs pressing into her, wedged as she was against a table. She could feel his erection then, and her breath caught. She felt that sharp ache between her thighs.

  He was getting too excited. She was not about to do it with him right now, right here, among the scenery while the play was going on
thirty feet away. She broke from him abruptly.

  He stood a moment with his hands dangling. “Are you mad at me?”

  “You took me by surprise. No, I’m not angry. I’m a little flattered, a little worried. I have to think about this.”

  “Becky, I’m crazy about you. I think about you all day, I think about you every night.”

  “Well, you go on thinking about me.” She went past him out of the scenery. “And now I’ll think about you too.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mary

  Mary spent the night in a garaged car, but now she had her little travel alarm, so that she would rise early enough to be safe, and her lovely new sleeping bag to keep her alive and warm enough. It was Saturday. She would head downtown first thing. Filene’s basement opened at eight during the holiday season. She needed a pair of cotton pantyhose. As the morning wore on, she would be able to sit on a bench outside if it wasn’t too cold, and she could always find a seat in the upstairs waiting room. In better dresses, sometimes the fitting rooms had chairs.

  Later on she’d go to Chestnut Hill or to Arsenal Mall. Malls were better for a winter day, but they didn’t open as early as downtown. In between, maybe she’d visit Beverly. The holidays were a time of crowds when she could linger. Everybody had shopping bags, and the only problem with sitting was finding a place to do it.

  But the holidays also made her feel her ostracism. She had no tree, for she had no room in which to put one up. The carols seemed to reproach her. No one was supposed to be solitary at Christmas. Everyone was supposed to have a family to go home to, to come home to them.

  Sometimes she imagined moving to Hawaii, to be near Jaime. But he had warned her how expensive the islands were and how difficult it would be for her to support herself there. Still, maybe she should use the money she was saving for a one-way ticket to Hawaii, instead of a car to live in. She loved the idea of having a choice. There, she could always sleep outside. She would consider it. Yes. She had mailed off gifts to Jaime’s two boys before Thanksgiving. It took forever for parcel post to get to her son.

  His wife would go out and get her a purse or a scarf or something. She could not use a regular purse, as she had her huge carry-all. What she did was send them to Cindy or Marissa as a present. She decided to call Cindy. On Saturday, Cindy would be in her boutique by ten.

  Her stomach hurt, and she kept wanting to eat. She imagined fried eggs. She had used to eat eggs once over lightly or poached with a nice thick slab of Canadian bacon and whole wheat toast. Jim hated his eggs runny. He wanted them fried until the yolks were solid and the whites rubbery to her taste. His toast had to be close to burnt. On the other hand, she cooked her own bacon longer than his.

  She would go to the grave remembering exactly how Jim had liked his sirloin broiled, the barbecue sauce he favored, the way he liked his shirts lightly starched, the kind of ties he would wear and the kind he would rather be beaten than put on. He could say nothing worse about clothing than that it was loud or bright. She knew his sock size and his pajama preference, what vegetables he would eat and his favorite flavors of ice cream—rocky road and strawberry ripple. He loved peanut brittle, but he could not eat it as he got older, for it hurt his teeth and got stuck in his fillings.

  She wondered what he remembered about her. Did he ever think of her? Cindy said, Oh, he gets very upset if I mention your name. He doesn’t like to think of me seeing you. He thinks you’ll bad-mouth him, I suppose. Anyhow, Mother, he never asks.

  She could not stop imagining the taste of eggs. She knew they weren’t supposed to be good for you, although she had been told all her life that they were an almost perfect food, like whole milk. Every ten years, they changed the rules. She remembered the steak-and-grapefruit diet, it was named for a clinic even. That had been the standard diet on which she had tried to lose weight. Now steak was considered the equivalent of a double chocolate fudge sundae with whipped cream. Now she ate breakfast cereal or bread. But a proper breakfast would always be the kind she had prepared every morning for Jim and the kids: grapefruit, eggs and bacon, toast and coffee.

  Her stomach was growling. She went into a bathroom on the second floor of Jordan Marsh and looked carefully through her bag, seeing if she had any food. When she had been staying at her client’s houses, often she had some kind of snacks with her, fruit, crackers. Finally she went down into the second basement at Filene’s and had a big caffè latte, which was just a glass of milk and coffee. She drank it slowly and very sweet. Someone had left part of a croissant and she grabbed it. Buying the alarm and having to eat in cafeterias and McDonald’s this week had cleaned her out, besides the fact that she would probably have to stay in a motel tonight. She could not eat a real meal today.

  At a pay phone, she called the cleaning service office, to see if anyone wanted her to walk their dog or feed their cat. Nothing. Why didn’t her people start traveling? Why didn’t they go off to Florida or Europe or Aspen? It was time. Tomorrow, the DeMotts were flying to L.A.

  Finally she could call Cindy at the Goddess Shop. After the how are you’s, she could not help asking, “Did Marissa like the sweater?”

  There was a silence. “It fit her,” Cindy said, as if desperate to think of something positive to say. “It fit her very well. It’s very … practical. It’s not the sort of designer sweater she usually wears, but I’m sure she can get some use of it. I rewrapped it—it came looking as if it had been run over. Did you get your present?”

  “It came two days ago,” Mary assured her daughter. Under her old coat, she was wearing the navy blazer Cindy had sent her: another layer of warmth and something good to show off. She would carefully hang it while she was cleaning and never, never wear it in her clients’ houses, new, all wool with every button still on it. Whenever she wanted to look ultra-respectable, she went into a women’s room, removed her normal layers of two bulky sweaters and stowed them away in her carry-all. Then she opened her coat and even took it off, never letting go of it, to show off her pristine new jacket.

  It was not impatience that had made her open it at once at the post office. She could not carry around a box. One year, Jaime had sent her pineapples. It was hopeless. She had to give them away. This year she had asked him, which meant asking his wife, for one of those makeup kits. If she had makeup, it would be easier for her to pass as respectable.

  “I do what I can for Marissa, Cindy. I can’t afford the kind of clothing she wears. I can’t afford that for myself, or anything like it. I thought this would fit her and she’d wear it maybe weekends?”

  “Really, Mother, if you can’t afford presents, you shouldn’t buy them.”

  “But I want to give my grandchildren something for Christmas. I’ll call on Christmas morning. Will you be home?”

  “Until one. Then we’re going to … out.”

  That meant Jim. “I’ll call in the morning. I want to talk to both of them. I love you, Cindy.”

  “You too, Mom. I have a customer. Bye, now.”

  Talking to Cindy left her empty. She was always wanting more of the phone call than Cindy could possibly give her. It had to provide her with a sense of family, of connection, of her own past. She was simply not necessary to her daughter’s well-being. Now she really wanted to see Beverly, the only person she talked with openly. They had a bond perhaps stronger than blood.

  On the way from the subway to the hospital, she passed a 7-Eleven. She went in and bought a raspberry yogurt and ate it standing there. She did not care what they thought. Actually the man behind the counter looked half-asleep and could not care less if she ate the yogurt or rubbed it in her hair.

  She felt a little better as she slogged on. The sun touched her arm with faint warmth. Tonight she would have to stay in a motel, or she would not survive. She would check in around four and not leave until check-out time at eleven the next morning. She would take several hot baths. She would sleep and sleep.

  She would be warm and she would wash out her things
in the sink and hang them in the bathroom. It would be nineteen hours of total relaxation. All day she would imagine it. She would even call and make a reservation. She knew how to check in, putting down a made-up license. She would use the Anzios’ license plate, since she had just slept in their car.

  Then Sunday she would go to the DeMotts’. She had examined their tickets in Mr. DeMott’s sock drawer. They were leaving on a nine o’clock plane into L.A., so they should be gone long before she arrived around noon. She would simply walk in quietly. No neighbors would be lolling around outside in weather like this. They would leave the furnace on, lest their pipes burst. Just march on through today, and then it would be easy. As easy as it ever got. The DeMotts had no pets, so she must be very careful when they might return, but their house was big and well back on its lot. She would have until Thursday morning, four entire nights of warmth and rest.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Leila

  Leila had vaguely noticed that Christmas was approaching as she passed through the Square and along Mass Avenue. The shops had been decorated for a month, and in some cases, since Halloween, so the imminence of the holidays did not impress itself on her until her students were all talking about what they were doing after finals. Suddenly there was no more time to get through the material, no more time to explain what she suspected the students hadn’t grasped, no more time to open up the discussion, bring out the shy, shower them with information and insights to make their minds catch fire. A semester neither the best nor worst of her teaching career was in its last hours. Her book manuscript went off to her editor. She gave her finals and she was tediously grading them Thursday evening when David called.

  “I thought I’d come home first, but then fly back early and visit Ikuko. She’ll drive down and get me in L.A.”

  Leila was determined to hide how let down she was that his time at home would be truncated. “I hope you can change your tickets. It’s kind of late. I think there’s a penalty.”