The Stepford Wives

"Today the combat takes a different shape; instead of wishing to put man in a prison, woman endeavors to escape from one; she no longer seeks to drag him into the realms of immanence but to emerge, herself, into the light of transcendence. Now the attitude of the males creates a new conflict: it is with a bad grace that the an lets her go." Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex
THE WELCOME WAGON LADY, sixty if she was a day but working at youth and vivacity (ginger hair, red lips, a sunshine-yellow dress), twinkled her eyes and teeth at Joanna and said, "You're really going to like it here! It's a nice town with nice people! You couldn't have made a better choice!" Her brown leather shoulderbag was enormous, old and scuffed; from it she dealt Joanna packets of powdered breakfast drink and soup mix, a toy-size box of non-polluting detergent, a booklet of discount slips good at twenty-two local shops, two cakes of soap, a folder of deodorant pads- "Enough, enough," Joanna said, standing in the doorway with both hands full. "Hold. Halt. Thank you." The Welcome Wagon lady put a vial of cologne on top of the other things, and then searched in her bag-"No, really," Joanna said-and brought out pink-framed eyeglasses and a small embroidered notebook. "I do the 'Notes on Newcomers,"' she said, smiling and putting on the glasses. "For the Chronicle." She dug at the bag's bottom and came up with a pen, clicking its top with a red-nailed thumb. Joanna told her where she and Walter had moved from; what Walter did and with which firm; Pete's and Kim's names and ages; what she had done before they were born; and which colleges she and Walter had gone to. She shifted impatiently as she spoke, standing there at the front door with both hands full and Pete and Kim out of earshot. "Do you have any hobbies or special interests?" She was about to say a time-saving no, but hesitated: a full answer, printed in the local paper, might serve as a signpost to women like herself, potential friends. The women she had met in the past few days, the ones in the nearby houses, were pleasant and helpful enough, but they seemed completely absorbed in their household duties. Maybe when she got to know them better she would find they had farther-reaching thoughts and concerns, yet it might be wise to put up that signpost. So, "Yes, several," she said. "I play tennis whenever I get the chance, and I'm a semi-professional photographer-" "Oh?" the Welcome Wagon lady said, writing. Joanna smiled. "That means an agency handles three of my pictures," she said. "And I'm interested in politics and in the Women's Liberation movement. Very much so in that. And so is my husband." "He is?" The Welcome Wagon lady looked at her. "Yes," Joanna said. "Lots of men are." She didn't go into the benefits-for-both-sexes explanation; instead she leaned her head back into the entrance hall and listened: a TV audience laughed in the family room, and Pete and Kim argued but below intervention level. She smiled at the Welcome Wagon lady. "He's interested in boating and football too," she said, "and he collects Early American legal documents." Walter's half of the signpost. The Welcome Wagon lady wrote, and closed her notebook, clicked her pen. "That's just fine, Mrs. Eberhart," she said, smiling and taking her glasses off. "I know you're going to love it here," she said, "and I want to wish you a sincere and hearty 'Welcome to Stepford.' If there's any information I can give you about local shops and services, please feel free to call me; the number's right there on the front of the discount book." "Thank you, I will," Joanna said. "And thanks for all this." "Try them, they're good products!" the Welcome Wagon lady said. She turned away. "Good-by now!" Joanna said good-by to her and watched her go down the curving walk toward her battered red Volkswagen. Dogs suddenly filled its windows, a black and brown excitement of spaniels, jumping and barking, paws pressing glass. Moving whiteness beyond the Volkswagen caught Joanna's eye: across the sapling-lined street, in one of the Claybrooks' upstairs windows, whiteness moved again, leaving one pane and filling the next; the window was being washed. Joanna smiled, in case Donna Claybrook was looking at her. The whiteness moved to a lower pane, and then to the pane beside it. With a surprising roar the Volkswagen lunged from the curb, and Joanna backed into the entrance hall and hipped the door closed.
PETE AND KIM WERE arguing louder. "B.M.! Diarrhea!" "Ow! Stop it!" "Cut it out!" Joanna called, dumping the double handful of samples onto the kitchen table. "She's kicking me!" Pete shouted, and Kim shouted, "I'm not! You diarrhea!" "Now stop it," Joanna said, going to the port and looking through. Pete lay on the floor too close to the TV set, and Kim stood beside him, red-faced, keeping from kicking him. Both were still in their pajamas. "She kicked me twice," Pete said, and Kim shouted, "You changed the channel! He changed the channel!" "I did not!" 'I was watching Felix the Cat!" "Quiet!" Joanna commanded. "Absolute silence! Utter-complete-total-silence." They looked at her, Kim with Walter's wide blue eyes, Pete with her own grave dark ones. "Race 'em to a flying finish!" the TV set cried. "No electricity!" "A, you're too close to the set," Joanna said. "13, turn it off; and C, get dressed, both of you. That green stuff outside is grass, and the yellow stuff coming down on it is sunshine." Pete scrambled to his feet and powed the TV's control panel, blanking its screen to a dying dot of light. Kim began crying. Joanna groaned and went around into the family room. Crouching, she hugged Kim to her shoulder and rubbed her pajamaed back, kissed her silk-soft ringlets. "Ali, come on now," she said. "Don't you want to play with that nice Allison again? Maybe you'll see another chipmunk." Pete came over and lifted a strand of her hair. She looked up at him and said, "Don't change channels on her." "Oh, all right," he said, winding a finger in the dark strand. "And don't kick," she told Kim. She rubbed her back and tried to get kisses in at her squirming-away cheek.
IT WAS WALTER'S TURN TO DO the dishes, and Pete and Kim were playing quietly in Pete's room, so she took a quick cool shower and put on shorts and a shirt and her sneakers and brushed her hair. She peeked in on Pete and Kim as she tied her hair: they were sitting on the floor playing with Pete's space station. She moved quietly away and went down the newcarpeted stairs. It was a good evening. The unpacking was done with, finally, and she was cool and clean, with a few free minutes-ten or fifteen if she was lucky-to maybe sit outside with Walter and look at their trees and their two-point-two acres. She went around and down the hallway. The kitchen was spick-and-span, the washer pounding. Walter was at the sink, leaning to the window and looking out toward the Van Sant house. A Rorschach-blot of sweat stained his shirt: a rabbit with its ears bent outward. He turned around, and started and smiled. "How long have you been here?" he asked, dishtowel-wiping his hands. "I just came in," she said. "You look reborn." "That's how I feel. They're playing like angels. You want to go outside?" "Okay," he said, folding the towel. "Just for a few minutes though. I'm going over to talk with Ted." He slid the towel onto a rod of the rack. "That's why I was looking," he said. "They just finished eating." "What are you going to talk with him about?" They went out onto the patio. "I was going to tell you," he said as they walked. "I've changed my mind; I'm joining that Men's Association." She stopped and looked at him. "Too many important things are centered there to just opt out of it," he said. "Local politicking, the charity drives and so on…" She said, "How can you join an outdated, oldfashioned-2' "I spoke to some of the men on the train," he said. "Ted, and Vic Stavros, and a few others they introduced me to. They agree that the no-women-allowed business is archaic." He took her arm and they walked on. "But the only way to change it is from inside," he said. "So I'm going to help do it. I'm joining Saturday night. Ted's going to brief me on who's on what committees." He offered her his cigarettes. "Are you smoking or non- tonight?" "Oh-smoking," she said, reaching for one. They stood at the patio's far edge, in cool blue dusk twanging with crickets, and Walter held his lighter flame to Joanna's cigarette and to his own. "Look at that sky," he said. "Worth every penny it cost US. 11 She looked-the sky was mauve and blue and dark blue; lovely-and then she looked at her cigarette. "Organizations can be changed from the outside," she said. "You get up petitions, you picket-" "But it's easier from the inside," Walter said. "You'll see: if these men I spoke to are typical, it'll be the Everybody's Association before you know it. Coed poker. Sex on the pool table." "If these men you spoke to were typical," she said, "it would be the Everybody's Association already. Oh, all right, go ahead and join; I'll think up slogans for placards. I'll have plenty of time when school starts." He put his arm around her shoulders and said, "Hold off a little while. If it's not open to women in six months, I'll quit and we'll march together. Shoulder to shoulder. 'Sex, yes; sexism, no."' "'Stepford is out of step,"' she said, reaching for the ashtray on the picnic table. "Not bad." "Wait till I really get going." They finished their cigarettes and stood arm in arm, looking at their dark wide runway of lawn, and the tall trees, black against mauve sky, that ended it. Lights shone among the trunks of the trees: windows of houses on the next street over, Harvest Lane. "Robert Ardrey is right," Joanna said. "I feel very territorial." Walter looked around at the Van Sant house and then squinted at his watch. "I'm going to go in and wash up," he said, and kissed her cheek. She turned and took his chin and kissed his lips. "I'm going to stay out a few minutes," she said. "Yell if they're acting up." "Okay," he said. He went into the house by the living. room door. She held her arms and rubbed them; the evening was growing cooler. Closing her eyes, she threw her head back and breathed the smell of grass and trees and clean air: delicious. She opened her eyes, to a single speck of star in dark blue sky, a trillion miles above her. "Star light, star bright," she said. She didn't say the rest of it, but she thought it. She wished-that they would be happy in Stepford. That Pete and Kim would do well in school, and that she and Walter would find good friends and fulfillment. That he wouldn't mind the commuting-though the whole idea of moving had been his in the first place. That the lives of all four of them would be enriched, rather than diminished, as she had feared, by leaving the city-the filthy, crowded, crime-ridden, but so-alive city. Sound and movement turned her toward the Van Sant house. Carol Van Sant, a dark silhouette against the radiance of her kitchen doorway, was pressing the lid down onto a garbage can. She bent to the ground, red hair glinting, and came up with something large and round, a stone; she put it on top of the lid. "Hi!" Joanna called. Carol straightened and stood facing her, tall and leggy and naked-seeming-but edged by the purple of a lightedfrom-behind dress. "Who's there?" she called. "Joanna Eberhart," Joanna said. "Did I scare you? I'm sorry if I did." She went toward the fence that divided her and Walter's property from the Van Sants'. "Hi, Joanna," Carol said in her nasal New Englandy voice. "No, you didn't scay-er me. It's a nice night, isn't it?" "Yes," Joanna said. "And I'm done with my unpacking, which makes it even nicer." She had to speak loud; Carol had stayed by her doorway, still too far away for comfortable conversation even though she herself was now at the flower bed edging the split-rail fence. "Kim had a great time with Allison this afternoon," she said. "They get along beautifully together." "Kim's a sweet little girl," Carol said. "I'm glad Allison has such a nice new friend next door. Good night, Joanna." She turned to go in. "Hey, wait a minute!" Joanna called. Carol turned back. "Yes?" she said. Joanna wished that the flower bed and fence weren't there, so she could move closer. Or, darn it, that Carol would come to her side of the fence. What was so top-priority-urgent in that fluorescent-lighted copper-pothanging kitchen? "Walter's coming over to talk with Ted," she said, speaking loud to Carol's naked-seeming silhouette. "When you've got the kids down, why don't you come over and have a cup of coffee with me?" "Thanks, I'd like to," Carol said, "but I have to wax the family-room floor." "Tonight?" "Night is the only time to do it, until school starts." "Well can't it wait? It's only three more days." Carol shook her head. "No, I've put it off too long as it is," she said. "It's all over scuff-marks. And besides, Ted will be going to the Men's Association later on." "Does he go every night?" "Just about." Dear God! "And you stay home and do housework?" "There's always something or other that has to be done," Carol said. "You know how it is. I have to finish the kitchen now. Good night." "Good night," Joanna said, and watched Carol go-profile of too-big bosom-into her kitchen and close the door. She reappeared almost instantly at the over-the-sink window, adjusting the water lever, taking hold of something and scrubbing it. Her red hair was neat and gleaming; her thin-nosed face looked thoughtful (and, damn it all, intelligent); her big purpled breasts bobbed with her scrubbing. Joanna went back to the patio. No, she didn't know how it was, thank God. Not to be like that, a compulsive hausfrau. Who could blame Ted for taking advantage of such an asking-to-be-exploited patsy? She could blame him, that's who. Walter came out of the house in a light jacket. "I don't think I'll be i-nore than an hour or so," he said. "That Carol Van Sant is not to be believed," she said. "She can't come over for a cup of coffee because she has to wax the farnily-room floor. Ted goes to the Men's Association every night and she stays home doing housework." "Jesus," Walter said, shaking his head. "Next to her," she said, "my mother is Kate Millett." He laughed. "See you later," he said, and kissed her cheek and went away across the patio. She took another look at her star, brighter now-Get to work, you, she thought to it-and went into the house.
THE FOUR OF THEM WENT OUT together Saturday morning, seatbelted into their spotless new station wagon; Joanna and Walter in sunglasses, talking of stores and shopping, and Pete and Kim powerswitching their windows down and up and down and up till Walter told them to stop it. The day was vivid and gemedged, a signal of autumn. They drove to Stepford Center (white frame Colonial shopfronts, postcard pretty) for discount-slip hardware and pharmaceuticals; then south on Route Nine to a large new shopping mall- discount-slip shoes for Pete and Kim (what a wait!) and a no-discount jungle gym; then east on Eastbridge Road to a McDonald's (Big Macs, chocolate shakes); and a little farther east for antiques (an octagonal end table, no documents); and then north-south-east-west over Stepford- Anvil Road, Cold Creek Road, Hunnicutt, Beavertail, Burgess Ridge- to show Pete and Kim (Joanna and Walter had seen it all house-hunting) their new school and the schools they would go to later on, the you'd-never-guess- what-it-is-from-the-outside non-polluting incinerator plant, and the picnic grounds where a community pool was under construction. Joanna sang "Good Morning Starshine" at Pete's request, and they all did "MacNamara's Band" with each one imitating a different instrument in the final part, and Kim threw up, but with enough warning for Walter to pull over and stop and get her unbuckled and out of the station wagon in time, thank God. That quieted things down. They drove back through Stepford Center-slowly, because Pete said that he might throw up too. Walter pointed out the white frame library, and the Historical Society's two-hundred-year-old white frame cottage. Kim, looking upward through her window, lifted a sucked-thin Life Saver from her tongue and said, "What's that big one?" "That's the Men's Association house," Walter said. Pete leaned to his seatbelt's limit and ducked and looked. "Is that where you're going tonight?" he asked. "That's right," Walter said. "How do you get to it?" "There's a driveway farther up the hill." They had come up behind a truck with a man in khakis standing in its open back, his arms stretched to its sides. He had brown hair and a long lean face and wore eyeglasses. "That's Gary Claybrook, isn't it?" Joanna said. Walter pressed a fleeting horn-beep and waved his arm out the window. Their across-the-street neighbor bent to look at them, then smiled and waved and caught hold of the truck. Joanna smiled and waved. Kim yelled, "Hello, Mr. Claybrook!" and Pete yelled, "Where's Jeremy?" "He can't hear you," Joanna said. "I wish I could ride a truck that way!" Pete said, and Kim said, "Me too!" The truck was creeping and grinding, fighting against the steep left-curving upgrade. Gary Claybrook smiled selfconsciously at them. The truck was half filled with small cartons. "What's he doing, moonlighting?" Joanna asked. "Not if he makes as much as Ted says he does," Walter said. "What's moonlighting?" Pete asked. The truck's brake lights flashed; it stopped, its left-turn signal winking. Joanna explained what moonlighting was. A car shot down the hill, and the truck began moving across the left lane. "Is that the driveway?" Pete asked, and Walter nodded and said, "Yep, that's it." Kim switched her window farther down, shouting, "Hello, Mr. Claybrook!" He waved as they drove past him. Pete sprung his seatbelt buckle and jumped around onto his knees. "Can I go there sometime?" he asked, looking out the back. "Mm-mmn, sorry," Walter said. "No kids allowed." "Boy, they've got a great big fence!" Pete said. "Like in Hogan's Heroes!" "To keep women out," Joanna said, looking ahead, a hand to the rim of her sunglasses. Walter smiled. "Really?" Pete asked. "Is that what it's for?" "Pete took his belt off," Kim said. "Pete-" Joanna said. They drove up Norwood Road, then west on Winter Hill Drive.
AS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE she wasn't going to do any housework. Not that there wasn't plenty to do, God knows, and some that she actually wantee to do, like getting the living-room bookshelves squared away-but not tonight, no sir. It could darn well wait. She wasn't Carol Van Sant and she wasn't Mary Ann Stavros-pushing a vacuum cleaner past a downstairs window when she went to lower Pete's shade. No sir. Walter was at the Men's Association, fine; he had to go there to join, and he'd have to go there once or twice a week to get it changed. But she wasn't going to do housework while he was there (at least not this first time) any more than he was going to do it when she was out somewhere-which she was going to be on the next clear moonlit night: down in the Center getting some time exposures of those Colonial shopfronts. (The hardware store's irregular panes would wobble the moon's reflection, maybe interestingly.) So once Pete and Kim were sound asleep she went down to the cellar and did some measuring and planning in the storage room that was going to be her darkroom, and then she went back up, checked Pete and Kim, and made herself a vodka and tonic and took it into the den. She put the radio on to some schmaltzy but nice Richard-Rodgersy stuff, moved Walter's contracts and things carefully from the center of the desk, and got out her magnifier and red pencil and the contact sheets of her quick-before-l-leavethe-city pictures. Most of them were a waste of film, as she'd suspected when taking them-she was never any good when she was rushing-but she found one that really excited her, a shot of a well-dressed young black man with an attache case, glaring venomously at an empty cab that had just passed him. If his expression enlarged well, and if she darkened the background to bring up the blurred cab, it could be an arresting picture-one she was sure the agency would be willing to handle. There were plenty of markets for pictures dramatizing racial tensions. She red-penciled an asterisk beside the print and went on looking for others that were good or at least part good but croppable. She remembered her vodka and tonic and sipped it. At a quarter past eleven she was tired, so she put her things away in her side of the desk, put Walter's things back where they had been, turned the radio off, and brought her glass into the kitchen and rinsed it. She checked the doors, turned the lights off-except the one in the entrance hall-and went upstairs. Kim's elephant was on the floor. She picked it up and tucked it under the blanket beside the pillow; then pulled the blanket up onto Kim's shoulders and fondled her ringlets very lightly. Pete was on his back with his mouth open, exactly as he had been when she had checked before. She waited until she saw his chest move, then opened his door wider, switched the hall light off, and went into her and Walter's room. She undressed, braided her hair, showered, rubbed in face cream, brushed her teeth, and got into bed. Twenty of twelve. She turned the lamp off. Lying on her back, she swung out her right leg and arm. She missed Walter beside her, but the expanse of coolsheet smoothness was pleasant. How many times had she gone to bed alone since they were married? Not many: the nights he'd been out of town on Marburg-Donlevy business; the times she'd been in the hospital with Pete and Kim; the night of the power failure; when she'd gone home for Uncle Bert's funeral-maybe twenty or twenty-five times in all, in the ten years and a little more. It wasn't a bad feeling. By God, it made her feel like Joanna Ingalls again. Remember her? She wondered if Walter was getting bombed. That was liquor on that truck that Gary Claybrook had been riding in (or had the cartons been too small for liquor?). But Walter had gone in Vic Stavros's car, so let him get bombed. Not that he really was likely to; he hardly ever did. What if Vic Stavros got bombed? The sharp curves on Norwood Road- Oh nuts. Why worry?
THE BED WAS SHAKING. SHE lay in the dark seeing the darker dark of the open bathroom door, and the glint of the dresser's handles, and the bed kept shaking her in a slow steady rhythm, each shake accompanied by a faint spring-squeak, again and again and again. It was Walter who was shaking! He had a fever! Or the d.t.'s? She spun around and leaned to him on one arm, staring, reaching to find his brow. His eye-whites looked at her and turned instantly away; all of him turned from her, and the tenting of the blanket at his groin was gone as she saw it, replaced by the shape of his hip. The bed became still. He had been-masturbating? She didn't know what to say. She sat up. "I thought you had the d.t.'s," she said. "Or a fever." He lay still. "I didn't want to wake you," he said. 'It's, after two. " She sat there and caught her breath. He stayed on his side, not saying anything. She looked at the room, its windows and furniture dim in the glow from the night light in Pete and Kim's bathroom. She fixed her braid down straight and rubbed her hand on her midriff. "You could have," she said. "Woke me. I wouldn't have minded." He didn't say anything. "Gee whiz, you don't have to do that," she said. "I just didn't want to wake you," he said. "You were sound asleep." "Well next time wake me." He came over onto his back. No tent. "Did you?" she asked. "No," he said. "Oh," she said. "Well"-and smiled at him-"now I'm up." She lay down beside him, turning to him, and held her arm out over him; and he turned to her and they embraced and kissed. He tasted of Scotch. "I mean, consideration is fine," she said in his ear, "but Jesus." It turned out to be one of their best times ever-for her, at least. "Wow," she said, coming back from the bathroom, "I'm still weak." He smiled at her, sitting in bed and smoking. She got in with him and settled herself comfortably under his arm, drawing his hand down onto her breast. "What did they do," she said, "show you dirty movies or something?" He smiled. "No such luck," he said. He put his cigarette by her lips, and she took a puff of it. "They took eightfifty from me in poker," he said, "and they chewed my ear off about the Zoning Board's evil intentions re Eastbridge Road." "I was afraid you were getting bombed." "Me? Two Scotches. They're not heavy drinkers. What did you do?" She told him, and about her hopes for the picture of the black man. He told her about some of the men he had met: the pediatrician the Van Sants and the Claybrooks had recommended, the magazine illustrator who was Stepford's major celebrity, two other lawyers, a psychiatrist, the Police Chief, the manager of the Center Market. "The psychiatrist should be in favor of letting women in," she said. "He is," Walter said. "And so is Dr. Verry. I didn't sound out any of the others; I didn't want to come on as too much of an activist my first time there." "When are you going again?" she asked-and was suddenly afraid (why?) that he would say tomorrow. "I don't know," he said. "Listen, I'm not going to make it a way of life the way Ted and Vic do. I'll go in a week or so, I guess; I don't know. It's kind of provincial really." She smiled and snuggled closer to him.
SHE WAS ABOUT A THIRD OF the way down the stairs, going by foot-feel, holding the damn laundry basket to her face because of the damn banister, when wouldn't you know it, the double-damn phone rang. She couldn't put the basket down, it would fall, and there wasn't enough room to turn around with it and go back up; so she kept going slowly down, foot-feeling and thinking Okay, okay to the phone's answer-me-this-instant ringing. She made it to the bottom, put the basket down, and stalked to the den desk. "Hello," she said-the way she felt, with no put-on graciousness. 'Hi, is this Joanna Eberhart?" The voice was loud, happy, raspy; Peggy Clavengerish. But Peggy Clavenger had been with Paris-Match the last she'd heard, and wouldn't even know she was married, let alone where she was living. "Yes," she said. "Who's this?" "We haven't been formally introduced," the no-notPeggy-Clavenger voice said, "but I'm going to do it right now. Bobbie, I'd like you to meet Joanna Eberhart. Joanna, I'd like you to meet Bobbie Markowe-that's K 0 W E. Bobbie has been living here in Ajax Country for five weeks now, and she'd like very much to know an 6 avid shutterbug with a keen interest in politics and the Women's Lib movement.' That's you, Joanna, according to what it says here in the Stepford Chronicle. Or Chronic III, depending on your journalistic standards. Have they conveyed an accurate impression of you? Are you really not deeply concerned about whether pink soap pads are better than blue ones or vice versa? Given complete freedom of choice, would you just as soon not squeeze the Charmin? Hello? Are you still there, Joanna? Hello?" "Hello," Joanna said. "Yes, I'm here. And how I'm here! Hello! Son of a gun, it pays to advertise!"
"WHAT A PLEASURE TO SEE A messy kitchen!" Bobbie said. "It doesn't quite come up to mine-you don't have the little peanut-butter handprints on the cabinets-but it's good, it's very good. Congratulations." "I can show you some dull dingy bathrooms if you'd like," Joanna said. "Thanks. I'll just take the coffee." "Is instant okay?" "You mean there's something else?" She was short and heavy-bottomed, in a blue Snoopy sweatshirt and jeans and sandals. Her mouth was big, with unusually white teeth, and she had blue take-in-everything eyes and short dark tufty hair. And small hands and dirty toes. And a husband named Dave who was a stock analyst, and three sons, ten, eight, and six. And an Old English sheepdog and a corgi. She looked a bit younger than Joanna, thirty-two or -three. She drank two cups of coffee and ate a Ring Ding and told Joanna about the women of Fox Hollow Lane. "I'm beginning to think there's a-nationwide contest I haven't heard about," she said, tonguing her chocolated fingertips. "A million dollars and-Paul Newman for the cleanest house by next Christmas. 1 mean, it's scrub, scrub, scrub; wax, wax, wax-" "It's the same around here," Joanna said. "Even at night! And the men all-" "The Men's Association!" Bobbie cried. They talked about it-the antiquated sexist unfairness of it, the real injustice, in a town with no women's organization, not even a League of Women Voters. "Believe me, I've combed this place," Bobbie said. "There's the Garden Club, and a few old-biddy church groups-for which I'm not eli- gible anyway; 'Markowe' is upward-mobile for 'Markowitz'-and there's the very non-sexist Historical Society. Drop in and say hello to them. Corpses in lifelike positions." Dave was in the Men's Association, and like Walter, thought it could be changed from within. But Bobbie knew better: "You'll see, we'll have to chain ourselves to the fence before we get any action. How about that fence? You'd think they were refining opium!" They talked about the possibility of having a get-together with some of their neighbors, a rap session to wake them to the more active role they could play in the town's life; but they agreed that the women they had met seemed unlikely to welcome even so small a step toward liberation. They talked about the National Organization for Women, to which they both belonged, and about Joanna's photography. "My God, these are great!" Bobbie said, looking at the four mounted enlargements Joanna had hung in the den. "They're terrific!" Joanna thanked her. "'Avid shutterbug'! I thought that meant Polaroids of the kids! These are marvelous!" "Now that Kim's in kindergarten I'm really going to get to work," Joanna said. She walked Bobbie to her car. "Damn it, no," Bobbie said. "We ought to try at least. Let's talk to these hausfraus; there must be some of them who resent the situation a little. What do you say? Wouldn't it be great if we could get a group together-maybe even a NOW chapter eventually-and give that Men's Associa- tion a good shaking-up? Dave and Walter are kidding themselves; it's not going to change unless it's forced to change; fat-cat organizations never do. What do you say, Joanna? Let's ask around." Joanna nodded. "We should," she said. "They can't all be as content as they seem."
SHE SPOKE TO CAROL VAN Sant. "Gee, no, Joanna," Carol said. "That doesn't sound like the sort of thing that would interest me. Thanks for ay-isking me though." She was cleaning the plastic divider in Stacy and Allison's room, wiping a span of its accordion folds with firm downstrokes of a large yellow sponge. "It would only be for a couple of hours," Joanna said. "In the evening, or if it's more convenient for everybody, sometime during school hours." Carol, crouching to wipe the lower part of the span, said, "I'm sorry, but I just don't have much time for that sort of thing." Joanna watched her for a moment. "Doesn't it bother you," she said, "that the central organization here in Stepford, the only organization that does anything significant as far as community projects are concerned, is off limits to women? Doesn't that seem a little archaic to you?" "'Ar-kay-ic'?" Carol said, squeezing her sponge in a bucket of sudsy water. Joanna looked at her. "Out of date, old-fashioned," she said. Carol squeezed the sponge out above the bucket. "No, it doesn't seem archaic to me," she said. She stood up straight and reached the sponge to the top of the next span of folds. "Ted's better equipped for that sort of thing than I am," she said, and began wiping the folds with firm downstrokes, each one neatly overlapping the one before. "And men need a place where they can relax and have a drink or two," she said. "Don't women?" "No, not as much." Carol shook her neat red-haired shampoo-commercial head, not turning from her wiping. "I'm sorry, Joanna," she said, "I just don't have time for a get-together." "Okay," Joanna said. "If you change your mind, let me know." "Would you mind if I don't walk you downstairs?" "No, of course not." She spoke to Barbara Chamalian, on the other side of the Van Sants. "Thanks, but I don't see how I could manage it," Barbara said. She was a square-jawed brownhaired woman, in a snug pink dress molding an excep- tionally good figure. "Lloyd stays in town a lot," she said, "and the evenings he doesn't, he Ekes to go to the Men's Association. I'd hate to pay a sitter for just-" "It could be during school hours," Joanna said. "No," Barbara said, "I think you'd better count me out.'9 She smiled, widely and attractively. "I'm glad we've met though," she said. "Would you like to come in and sit for a while? I'm ironing." "No, thanks," Joanna said. "I want to speak to some of the other women." She spoke to Marge McCormick ("I honestly don't think I'd be interested in that") and Kit Sundersen ("I'm afraid I haven't the time; I'm really sorry, Mrs. Eberhart") and Donna Claybrook ("That's a nice idea, but I'm so busy these days. Thanks for asking me though"). She met Mary Ann Stavros in an aisle in the Center Market. "No, I don't think I'd have time for anything like that. There's so much to do around the house. You know." "But you go out sometimes, don't you?" Joanna said. "Of course I do," Mary Ann said. "I'm out now, aren't I?' "I mean out. For relaxation." Mary Ann smiled and shook her head, swaying her sheaves of straight blond hair. "No, not often," she said. "I don't feel much need for relaxation. See you." And she went away, pushing her grocery cart; and stopped, took a can from a shelf, looked at it, and fitted it down into her cart and went on. Joanna looked after her, and into the cart of another woman going slowly past her. My God, she thought, they even fill their carts neatly! She looked into her own: a jumble of boxes and cans and jars. A guilty impulse to put it in order prodded her; but I'm damned if I will! she thought, and grabbed a box from the shelf-Ivory Snow -and tossed it in. Didn't even need the damn stuff! She spoke to the mother of one of Kim's classmates in Dr. Verry's waiting room; and to Yvonne Weisgalt, on the other side of the Stavroses; and to Jill Burke, in the next house over. All of them turned her down; they either had too little time or too little interest to meet with other women and talk about their shared experiences. Bobbie had even worse luck, considering that she spoke to almost twice as many women. "One taker," she told Joanna. "One eighty-five-year-old widow who dragged me through her door and kept me prisoner for a solid hour of close-up saliva spray. Any time we're ready to storm the Men's Association, Eda Mae Hamilton is ready and willing." "We'd better keep in touch with her," Joanna said. "Oh no, we're not done yet!" They spent a morning calling on women together, on the theory (Bobbie's) that the two of them, speaking in planned ambiguities, might create the encouraging suggestion of a phalanx of women with room for one more. It didn't work. "Jee-zus!" Bobbie said, ramming her car viciously up Short Ridge Hill. "Something fishy is going on here! We're in the Town That Time Forgot!"
ONE AFTERNOON JOANNA left Pete and Kim in the care of sixteen-year-old Melinda Stavros and took the train into the city, where she met Walter and their friends Shep and Sylvia Tackover at an Italian restaurant in the theater district. It was good to see Shep and Sylvia again; they were a bright, homely, energetic couple who had survived several bad blows, in- cluding the death by drowning of a four-year-old son. It was good to be in the city again too; Joanna relished the color and bustle of the busy restaurant. She and Walter spoke enthusiastically about Stepford's beauty and quiet, and the advantages of living in a house rather than an apartment. She didn't say anything about how home-centered the Stepford women were, or about the absence of outside-the-home activities. It was vanity, she supposed; an unwillingness to make herself the object of commiseration, even Shep and Sylvia's. She told them about Bobbie and how amusing she was, and about Stepford's fine uncrowded schools. Walter didn't bring up the Men's Association and neither did she. Sylvia, who was with the city's Housing and Development Administration, would have had a fit. But on the way to the theater Sylvia gave her a sharp appraising look and said, "A tough adjustment?" "In ways," she said. "You'll make it," Sylvia said, and smiled at her. "How's the photography? It must be great for you up there, coming to everything with a fresh eye." "I haven't done a damn thing," she said. "Bobbie and I have been running around trying to drum up some Women's Lib activity. It's a bit of a backwater, to tell the truth." "Running and drumming isn't your work," Sylvia said. "Photography is, or ought to be." "I know," she said. "I've got a plumber coming in any day now to put in the darkroom sink." "Walter looks chipper." "He is. It's a good life really." The play, a musical hit of the previous season, was disappointing. In the train going home, after they had hashed it over for a few minutes, Walter put on his glasses and got out some paper work, and Joanna skimmed Time and then sat looking out the window and smoking, watching the darkness and the occasional lights riding through it. Sylvia was right; photography was her work. To hell with the Stepford women. Except Bobbie, of course. Both cars were at the station, so they had to ride home separately. Joanna went first in the station wagon and Walter followed her in the Toyota. The Center was empty and stage-setty under its three streetlights-yes, she would take pictures there, before the darkroom was finished-and there were headlights and lighted windows up at the Men's Association house, and a car waiting to pull out of its driveway. Melinda Stavros was yawning but smiling, and Pete and Kim were in their beds sound asleep. In the family room there were empty milk glasses and plates on the lamp table, and crumpled balls of white paper on the sofa and the floor before it, and an empty gingerale bottle on the floor among the balls of paper. At least they don't pass it on to their daughters, Joanna thought.
THE THIRD TIME WALTER WENT to the Men's Association he called at about nine o'clock and told Joanna he was bringing home the New Projects Committee, to which he had been appointed the time before. Some construction work was being done at the house (she could hear the whine of machinery in the background) and they couldn't find a quiet place where they could sit and talk. "Fine," she said. "I'm getting the rest of the junk out of the darkroom, so you can have the whole-" "No, listen," he said, "stay upstairs with us and get into the conversation. A couple of them are die-hard men- only's; it won't do them any harm to hear a woman make intelligent comments. I'm assuming you will." "Thanks. Won't they object?" "It's our house." "Are you sure you're not looking for a waitress?" He laughed. "Oh God, there's no fooling her," he said. "Okay, you got me. But an intelligent waitress, all right? Would you? It really might do some good." "Okay," she said. "Give me fifteen minutes and I'll even be an intelligent beautiful waitress; how's that for cooperation?" "Fantastic. Unbelievable."
THERE WERE FIVE OF THEM, and one, a cheery little red-faced man of about sixty, with toothpick-ends of waxed mustache, was Ike Mazzard, the magazine illustrator. Joanna, shaking his hand warmly, said, "I'm not sure I like you; you blighted my adolescence with those dream girls of yours!" And he, chuckling, said, "You must have matched up pretty well." "Would you like to bet on that?" she said. The other four were all late-thirties or early-forties. The tall black-haired one, laxly arrogant, was Dale Coba, the president of the association. He smiled at her with green eyes that disparaged her, and said, "Hello, Joanna, it's a pleasure." One of the die-hard men-only's, she thought; women are to lay. His hand was smooth, without pressure. The others were Anselm or Axhelm, Sundersen, Roddenberry. "I met your wife," she said to Sundersen, who was pale and paunchy, nervous-seeming. "If you're the Sundersens across the way, that is." "You did'? We are, yes. We're the only ones in Stepford." "I invited her to a get-together, but she couldn't make it." "She's not very social." Sundersen's eyes looked elsewhere, not at her. "I'm sorry, I missed your first name," she said. "Herb," he said, looking elsewhere. She saw them all into the living room and went into the kitchen for ice and soda, and brought them to Walter at the bar cabinet. "Intelligent? Beautiful?" she said, and he grinned at her. She went back into the kitchen and filled bowls with potato chips and peanuts. There were no objections from the circle of men when, holding her glass, she said "May I?" and eased into the sofa-end Walter had saved for her. Ike Mazzard and Anselm-or-Axhelm rose, and the others made I'm- thinking-of-rising movements-except Dale Coba, who sat eating peanuts out of his fist, looking across the cocktail table at her with his disparaging green eyes. They talked about the Christmas-Toys project and the Preserve-the-Landscape project. Roddenberry's name was Frank, and he had a pleasant pug-nosed blue-chinned face and a slight stutter; and Coba had a nickname-Diz, which hardly seemed to fit him. They talked about whether this year there shouldn't be Chanukah lights as well as a cr amp;che in the Center, now that there were a fair number of Jews in town. They talked about ideas for new projects. "May I say something?" she said. "Sure," Frank Roddenberry and Herb Sundersen said. Coba was lying back in his chair looking at the ceiling (disparagingly, no doubt), his hands behind his head, his legs extended. "Do you think there might be a chance of setting up some evening lectures for adults?" she asked. "Or parentand-teenager forums? In one of the school auditoriums?" "On what sub, ject?" Frank Roddenberry asked. "On any subject there's general interest in," she said. "The drug thing, which we're all concerned about but which the Chronicle seems to sweep under the rug; what rock music is all about-I don't know, anything that would get people out and listening and talking to each other." "That's interesting," Claude Anselm-or-Axhelm said, leaning forward and crossing his legs, scratching at his temple. He was thin and blond; bright-eyed, restless. "And maybe it would get the women out too," she said. "In case you don't know it, this town is a disaster area for baby-sitters." Everyone laughed, and she felt good and at ease. She offered other possible forum topics, and Walter added a few, and so did Herb Sundersen. Other new-project ideas were brought up; she took part in the talk about them, and the men (except Coba, damn him) paid close attention to her-Ike Mazzard, Frank, Walter, Claude, even Herb looked right at her-and they nodded and agreed with her, or thoughtfully questioned her, and she felt very good indeed, meeting their questions with wit and good sense. Move over, Gloria Steinem! She saw, to her surprise and embarrassment, that Ike Mazzard was sketching her. Sitting in his chair (next to still-watching-the-ceiling Dale Coba), he was pecking with a blue pen at a notebook on his dapper- striped knee, looking at her and looking at his pecking. Ike Mazzard! Sketching her! The men had fallen silent. They looked into their drinks, swirled their ice cubes. "Hey," she said, shifting uncomfortably and smiling, "I'm no Ike Mazzard girl." "Every girl's an Ike Mazzard girl," Mazzard said, and smiled at her and smiled at his pecking. She looked to Walter; he smiled embarrassedly and shrugged. She looked at Mazzard again, and-not moving her head -at the other men. They looked at her and smiled, edgily. "Well this is a conversation killer," she said. "Relax, you can move," Mazzard said. He turned a page and pecked again. Frank said, "I don't think another b-baseball field is all that important." She heard Kim cry "Mommy!" but Walter touched her arm, and putting his glass down, got up and excused himself past Claude. The men talked about new projects again. She said a word or two, moving her head but aware all the time of Mazzard looking at her and pecking. Try being Gloria Steinem when Ike Mazzard is drawing you! It was a bit show-offy of him; she wasn't any once-in-a-lifetimemustn't-be-missed, not even in the Pucci loungers. And what were the men so tense about? Their talking seemed forced and gap-ridden. Herb Sundersen was actually blushing. She felt suddenly as if she were naked, as if Mazzard were drawing her in obscene poses. She crossed her legs; wanted to cross her arms too but didn't. Jesus, Joanna, he's a show-offy artist, that's all. You're dressed. Walter came back and leaned down to her. "Just a bad dream," he said; and straightening, to the men, "Anyone want a refill? Diz? Frank?" "I'll take a small one," Mazzard said, looking at her, pecking. "Bathroom down that way?" Herb asked, getting up. The talking went on, more relaxed and casual now. New projects. Old projects. Mazzard tucked his pen into his jacket, smiling. She said "Whew!" and fanned herself. Coba raised his head, keeping his hands behind it, and chin-against-chest, looked at the notebook on Mazzard's knee. Mazzard turned pages, looking at Coba, and Coba nodded and said, "You never cease to amaze me." "Do I get to see?" she asked. "Of course!" Mazzard said, and half rose, smiling, holding out the open notebook to her. Walter looked too, and Frank leaned in to see. Portraits of her; there were page after page of them, small and precise-and flattering, as Ike Mazzard's work had always been. Full faces, three-quarter views, profiles; smiling, not smiling, talking, frowning. "These are beautiful," Walter said, and Frank said, "Great, Ike!" Claude and Herb came around behind the sofa. She leafed back through the pages. "They're-wonderful," she said. "I wish I could say they were absolutely accurate-" "But they are!" Mazzard said. "God bless you." She gave the notebook to him, and he put it on his knee and turned its pages, getting out his pen. He wrote on a page, and tore it out and offered it to her. It was one of the three-quarter views, a non-smiling one, with the familiar no-capitals ike mazzard signature. She showed it to Walter; he said, "Thanks, Ike." "My pleasure." She smiled at Mazzard. "Thank you," she said. "I forgive you for blighting my adolescence." She smiled at all of them. "Does anyone want coffee?" They all did, except Claude, who wanted tea. She went into the kitchen and put the drawing on the place mats on top of the refrigerator. An Ike Mazzard drawing of her! Who'da thunk it, back home when she was eleven or twelve, reading Mom's Journals and Companions? It was foolish of her to have gotten so uptight about it. Mazzard had been nice to do it. Smiling, she ran water into the coffee-maker, plugged it in, and put in the basket and spooned in coffee. She put the top on, pressed the plastic lid down onto the coffee can, and turned around. Coba leaned in the doorway watching her, his arms folded, his shoulder to the jamb. Very cool in his jade turtleneck (matching his eyes, of course) and slate-gray corduroy suit. He smiled at her and said, "I like to watch women doing little domestic chores." "You came to the right town," she said. She tossed the spoon into the sink and took the coffee can to the refrigerator and put it in. Coba stayed there, watching her. She wished Walter would come. "You don't seem particularly dizzy," she said, getting out a saucepan for Claude's tea. "Why do they call you Diz?" "I used to work at Disneyland," he said. She laughed, going to the sink. "No, really," she said. "That's really." She turned around and looked at him. "Don't you believe me?" he asked. "No," she said. "Why not?" She thought, and knew. "Why not?" he said. "Tell me." To hell with him; she would. "You don't look like someone who enjoys making people happy." Torpedoing forever, no doubt, the admission of women to the hallowed and sacrosanct Men's Association. Coba looked at her-disparagingly. "How little you know," he said. And smiled and got off the jamb, and turned and walked away.
"I'M NOT SO KEEN ON El Presidente," she said, undressing, and Walter said, "Neither am 1. He's cold as ice. But he won't be in office forever." "He'd better not be," she said, "or women'll never get in. When are elections?" "Right after the first of the year." "What does he do?" "He's with Burnham-Massey, on Route Nine. So is Claude." "Oh listen, what's his last name?" "Claude's? Axhehn." Kim began crying, and was burning hot; and they were up till after three, taking her temperature (a hundred and three at first), reading Dr. Spock, calling Dr. Verry, and giving her cool baths and alcohol rubs.
BOBBIE FOUND A LIVE ONE. "At least she is compared to the rest of these clunks," her voice rasped from the phone. "Her name is Charmaine Wimperis, and if you squint a little she turns into Raquel Welch. They're up on Burgess Ridge in a two-hundredthousand-dollar contemporary, and she's got a maid and a gardener and-now hear this-a tennis court." "Really?" "I thought that would get you out of the cellar. You're invited to play, and for lunch too. I'll pick you up around eleven-thirty." "Today? I can't! Kim is still home." "Still?" "Could we make it Wednesday? Or Thursday, just to be safe." "Wednesday," Bobbie said. "I'll check with her and call you back."
WHAM! POW! SLAM! Charmaine was good, too goddamn good; the ball came zinging straight and hard, first to one side of the court and then to the other; it kept her racing from side to side and then drove her all the way back-a just-inside-the-liner that she barely caught. She ran in after it, but Charmaine smashed it down into the left net corner-ungettable-and took the game and the set, six-three. After taking the first set six-two. "Oh God, I've had it!" Joanna said. "What a fiasco! Oh boy!" "One more!" Charmaine called, backing to the serve line. "Come on, one more!" "I can't! I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow as it is!" She picked up the ball. "Come on, Bobbie, you play!" Bobbie, sitting cross-legged on the grass outside the mesh fence, her face trayed on a sun reflector, said, "I haven't played since camp, for Chrisake." "Just a game then!" Charmaine called. "One more game, Joanna!" "All right, one more game!" Charinaine won it. "You killed me but it was great!" Joanna said as they walked off the court together. "Thank you!" Charmaine, patting her high-boned cheeks carefully with an end of her towel, said, "You just have to get back in practice, that's all. You have a first-rate serve." "Fat lot of good it did me." "Will you play often? All I've got now are a couple of teen-age boys, both with permanent erections." Bobbie said, "Send them to my place"-getting up from the ground. They walked up the flagstone path toward the house. "It's a terrific court," Joanna said, toweling her arm. "Then use it," Charmaine said. "I used to play every day with Ginnie Fisher-do you know her?-but she flaked out on me. Don't you, will you? How about tomorrow?" "Oh I couldn't!" They sat on a terrace under a Cinzano umbrella, and the maid, a slight gray-haired woman named Nettie, brought them a pitcher of Bloody Mary's and a bowl of cucumber dip and crackers. "She's marvelous," Charmaine said. "A German Virgo; if I told her to lick my shoes she'd do it. What are you, Joanna?" "An American Taurus." "If you tell her to lick your shoes she spits in your eye," Bobbie said. "You don't really believe that stuff, do you?" "I certainly do," Charmaine said, pouring Bloody Mary's. "You would too if you came to it with an opcn mind." (Joanna squinted at her: no, not Raquel Welch, but darn close.) "That's why Ginnie Fisher flaked out on me," she said. "She's a Gemini; they change all the time. Taureans are stable and dependable. Here's to tennis galore." Joanna said, "This particular Taurean has a house and two kids and no German Virgo." Charmaine had one child, a nine-year-old son named Merrill. Her husband Ed was a television producer. They had moved to Stepford in July. Yes, Ed was in the Men's Association, and no, Charmaine wasn't bothered by the sexist injustice. "Anything that gets him out of the house nights is fine with me," she said. "He's Aries and I'm Scorpio." "Oh well," Bobbie said, and put a dip-loaded cracker into her mouth. "It's a very bad combination," Charmaine said. "If I knew then what I know now." "Bad in what way?" Joanna asked. Which was a mistake. Charmaine told them at length about her and Ed's manifold incompatibilities-social, emotional, and above all, sexual. Nettie served them lobster Newburg and julienne potatoes-"Oi, my hips," Bobbie said, spooning lobster onto her plate-and Charmaine went on in candid detail. Ed was a sex fiend and a real weirdo. "He had this rubber suit made for me, at God knows what cost, in England. I ask you, rubber? 'Put it on one of your secretaries,' I said, 'you're not going to get me into it.' Zippers and padlocks all over. You can't lock up a Scorpio. Virgos, any time; their thing is to serve. But a Scorpio's thing is to go his own way." "If Ed knew then what you know now," Joanna said. "It wouldn't have made the least bit of difference," Charmaine said. "He's crazy about me. Typical Aries." Nettie brought raspberry tarts and coffee. Bobbie groaned. Charmaine told them about other weirdos she had known. She had been a model and had known several. She walked them to Bobbie's car. "Now look," she said to Joanna, "I know you're busy, but any time you have a free hour, any time, just come on over. You don't even have to call; I'm almost always here." "Thanks, I will," Joanna said. "And thanks for today. It was great." "Any time," Charmaine said. She leaned to the window. "And look, both of you," she said, "would you do me a favor? Would you read Linda Goodman's Sun Signs? Just read it and see how right she is. They've got it in the Center Pharmacy, in paper. Will you? Please?" They gave in, smiling, and promised they would. "Ciao!" she called, waving to them as they drove away. "Well," Bobbie said, rounding the curve of the driveway, "she may not be ideal NOW material, but at least she's not in love with her vacuum cleaner." "My God, she's beautiful," Joanna said. "Isn't she? Even for these parts, where you've got to admit they look good even if they don't think good. Boy, what a marriage! How about that business with the suit? And I thought Dave had spooky ideas!" "Dave?" Joanna said, looking at her. Bobbie side-flashed a smile. "You're not going to get any true confessions out of me," she said. "I'm a Leo, and our thing is changing the subject. You and Walter want to go to a movie Saturday night?"
THEY HAD BOUGHT THE HOUSE from a couple named Pilgrim, who had lived in it for only two months and had moved to Canada. The Pilgrims had bought it from a Mrs. McGrath, who had bought it from the builder eleven years before. So most of the junk in the storage room had been left by Mrs. McGrath. Actually it wasn't fair to call it junk: there were two good Colonial side chairs that Walter was going to strip and refinish some day; there was a complete twenty-volume Book of Knowledge, now on the shelves in Pete's room; and there were boxes and small bundles of hardware and oddments that, though not finds, at least seemed likely to be of eventual use. Mrs. McGrath had been a thoughtful saver. Joanna had transferred most of the not-really-junk to a far corner of the cellar before the plumber had installed the sink, and now she was moving the last of it-cans of paint and bundles of asbestos roof shingles-while Walter hammered at a plywood counter and Pete handed him nails. Kim had gone with the Van Sant girls and Carol to the library. Joanna unrolled a packet of yellowed newspaper and found inside it an inch-wide paintbrush, its clean bristles slightly stiff but still pliable. She began rolling it back into the paper, a half page of the Chronicle, and the words WOMEN'S CLUB caught her eye. HEARS AUTHOR. She turned the paper to the side and looked at it. "For God's sake," she said. Pete looked at her, and Walter, hammering, said, "What is it?" She got the brush out of the paper and put it down, and held the half page open with both hands, reading. Walter stopped hammering and turned and looked at her. "What is it?" he asked. She read for another moment, and looked at him; and looked at the paper, and at him. "There was-a women's club here," she said. "Betty Friedan spoke to them. And Kit Sundersen was the president. Dale Coba's wife and Frank Roddenberry's wife were officers." "Are you kidding?" he said. She looked at the paper, and read: "'Betty Friedan, the author of The Feminine Mystique, addressed members of the Stepford Women's Club Tuesday evening in the Fairview Lane home of Mrs. Herbert Sundersen, the club's president. Over fifty women applauded Mrs. Friedan as she cited the inequities and frustrations besetting the modernday housewife…"' She looked at him. "Can I do some?" Pete asked. Walter handed the hammer to him. "When was that?" he asked her. She looked at the paper. "It doesn't say, ifs the bottom half," she said. "There's a picture of the officers. 'Mrs. Steven Margolies, Mrs. Dale Coba, author Betty Friedan, Mrs. Herbert Sundersen, Mrs. Frank Roddenberry, and Mrs. Duane T. Anderson."' She opened the half page toward him, and he came to her and took a side of it. "If this doesn't beat everything," he said, looking at the picture and the article. "I spoke to Kit Sundersen," she said. "She didn't say a word about it. She didn't have time for a get-together. Like all the others." "This must have been six or seven years ago," he said, fingering the edge of the yellowed paper. "Or more," she said. "The Mystique came out while I was still working. Andreas gave me his review copy, remember?" He nodded, and turned to Pete, who was hammering vigorously at the counter top. "Hey, take it easy," he said, "you'll make half moons." He turned back to the paper. "Isn't this something?" he said. "It must have just petered out." "With fifty members?" she said. "Over fifty? Applauding Friedan, not hissing her?" "Well it's not here now, is it?" he said, letting the paper go. "Unless they've got the world's worst publicity chairman. I'll ask Herb what happened next time I see him." He went back to Pete. "Say, that's good work," he said. She looked at the paper and shook her head. "I can't believe it," she said. "Who were the women? They can't all have moved away." "Come on now," Walter said, "you haven't spoken to every woman in town." "Bobbie has, darn near," she said. She folded the paper, and folded it, and put it on the carton of her equipment. The paintbrush was there; she picked it up. "Need a paintbrush?" she said. Walter turned and looked at her. "You don't expect me to paint these things, do you?" he asked. "No, no," she said. "It was wrapped in the paper." "Oh," he said, and turned to the counter. She put the brush down, and crouched and gathered a few loose shingles. "How could she not have mentioned it?" she said. "She was the president."
AS SOON AS BOBBIE AND DAVE got into the car, she told them. "Are you sure it's not one of those newspapers they print in penny arcades?" Bobbie said. "'Fred Smith Lays Elizabeth Taylor'?" "It's the Chronic Ill," Joanna said. "The bottom half of the front page. Here, if you can see." She handed it back to them, and they unfolded it between them. Walter turned on the top light. Dave said, "You could have made a lot of money by betting me and then showing me." "Didn't think," she said. "'Over fifty women'!" Bobbie said. "Who the hell were they? What happened?" "That's what I want to know," she said. "And why Kit Sundersen didn't mention it to me. I'm going to speak to her tomorrow." They drove into Eastbridge and stood on line for the nine o'clock showing of an R-rated English movie. The couples in the line were cheerful and talkative, laughing in clusters of four and six, looking to the end of the line, waving at other couples. None of them looked familiar except an elderly couple Bobbie recognized from the Historieal Society; and the seventeen-year-old McCormick boy and a date, holding hands solemnly, trying to l

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 761