When I run out of hopeless housework to occupy myself, I can fill my days with endless paperbacks. Passions Proud Fury and The Angry Heart and The Elegant Suitor and Flames of Desire. Steffie has a wall of them in her room, and she has told me that I can borrow them whenever I like. They are all romances, in different series, and she keeps them arranged by number. She marks a little X inside the cover of each one she has read, so she doesnt accidentally start reading it again. Its easy to forget, she tells me, which ones she has read, and she used to get deep into one before she realized she had already read it once before. The Xs, she tells me, keep her from wasting her time. The other books in the big house are technical manuals for tractors; Steffie is the family bookworm, all the Potters agree, and they are proud of her endless reading.
There is an alternative to rattan maintenance and Passions Proud Fury. I can go visit the big house.
In the day I can go over and watch Ellie work. She is a big rawboned woman, Dick Potters frame accidentally bestowed on a female child. Both seem ashamed of the error. Ellie minimalizes it by hunching around the house, wearing her plaid housedresses as if they were a clever disguise, like a tablecloth thrown over a packing crate. Ellie does only one thing. She works. She mops tile floors and sweeps hardwood floors, she scrubs walls, she pounds yielding white dough into loaves, she chops vegetables and tumbles them into simmering pots, she polishes windows and dusts shelves. She never stops. If I arrive during the day, she assumes I have some purpose there and ignores me. She is not one to stop and have a cup of tea and chat. Conversation with Ellie is a difficult thing, a trailing net of words that follows her from room to room as she straightens and tidies, snagging on feather dusters and Pledge cans and sponges and Comet cleanser. How is she? I am fine, and excuse me, I have to mop where youre standing. And how is Bix? Bix is better, save for a crick in his back, serves him right for trying to work in his good boots while his shoulder is still banged up, and excuse me, I have to go get the Pine Sol.
What else can I do with myself? Once I got up early and fed all the chickens, ducks, and pigs. I gave the chickens too much, the ducks too much, and the pigs not enough, and the poultry food is expensive, almost seven cents a pound now, and the pigs will break out of their yard if they get hungry during the day, and of course Mother Maurie knew I was only trying to help, but its not like farmings in my blood, like in Toms, so Im bound to make mistakes, but the wrong amount of feed can put the poultry off their laying, and of course thats critical this time of year, so maybe I should let Ellie do it like always, but thanks for trying to help, it was so cute of me.
Is it me?
Sometimes I think its just me. I think theres something wrong inside me, something mean and selfish and small that puts the worst interpretation on anything thats said to me. When I try to tell Tom about what happened, he looks at me, puzzled. Well, the wrong amount of feed can put the chickens off their laying, he says, as if that explains everything, and goes back to reading his tractor manual.
It is evening, night in the little house, but not at all peaceful. My nerves are trembling inside my body, I want to explode, to shriek and scream. And Tom, once so tuned to me he could answer my unspoken questions, does not even notice. So I will be good. I will be patient. I will be a good wife, and contain this unreasoning anger. I will think of something worthwhile to do.
I think Ill go get Teddy, I say. Its getting late, and I think hes had enough television for one night. This time of evening, theres probably nothing on that will interest him, anyway.
Tom grunts, flips back to the index, turns more chunks of pages, traces his finger down an already grimed schematic. My hand is on the doorknob when he speaks.
Oh, Teddys sleeping at Moms house. He fell asleep on the couch, so Mom just covered him up. No sense waking him.
But, I say, and stop. But what? But I want my baby? I want to read him a story, tuck him into his madeup bed on the rattan sofa, look up from Passions Furious Pride to watch his chest rising and falling under his blanket, his small mouth pursing in his sleep? Dont be silly, Evelyn. Let him sleep where he is, dont wake the child and drag him outside and across a damp yard just to put him back to bed again. Likely the boy will catch a chill from a foolish thing like that. You just leave my grandson be. I take my hand from the doorknob, return to my yellow cushion and white rattan seat. I try to immerse myself in Marlenas thwarted passion for Duke Aimsly, to believe in people who cordially hate each other for months and then fall into bed with each other, muttering about raven hair and bee-stung lower lips and throbbing towers of maleness and secret chasms of womanhood. I look up at Tom.
I met Tom in the winter of 1969. My parents had sent me outside to college, to the University of Washington, and we met during an anthropology class. It was one of those huge 101 classes that every freshman faces at least once. Every day a wave of students poured into an auditorium, flowing into the crowded seats with no set pattern, dragging up the tiny flop-out desktops that were never quite big enough to support a full-sized notebook. There was no personal interaction with the professor at all. He came, he lectured, he left. Attendance was taken by a paper passed for signatures. Tests were mostly multiple choice. It embodied all the worst elements of mass education.
But I had always been a dedicated student. I sat every day in the front row, center. I stared up at the professor. I strained to hear his words over the muttering and shifting of the restless student herd, and to make out the spidery notes he scratched on the portable blackboard. Tom sat beside me. After several weeks, we noticed each other. He was the handsomest boy who had ever looked at me and smiled. It is good to remember that on evenings like this.
Later, I am still thinking of him as I watch him undress. I am already in my nightgown, sitting on my corner of the bed, drawing a brush through my hair. My hair is the color of mahogany from the sun, and unruly as always. It is neither straight nor curly, but when it is damp it makes waves of itself, and wraps itself around the brush bristles and the handle. I draw the brush slowly down my hair as I watch Tom unbutton his shirt.
One of the nasty little intrusive thoughts is that watching him undress is not as intensely pleasurable as it once was. It is my attitude that has changed, not the man, for Tom takes pride in keeping himself in good condition. His body is fine, and more than fine, much better a body than my own deserves. Tom could pose for beefcake. I could pose naked, and folks would have to look twice to see if I was female. I try not to be grateful for his body, for his sharing himself with me, for a small part of me insists that ungraceful and curveless as my own is, it is still a sturdy and useful vessel, a fine little animal to live in. But I cannot help taking pride in Tom and basking in his reflected glory.
I watch him now as he bends over slightly to tug his T-shirt off over his head. He is tall and well muscled and he bends gracefully, the muscles of his back delineated along his spine. He straightens, and his soft blond hair falls back into place, almost brushing his shoulders. I love his hair. When we are making love, it falls forward and brushes my cheek. I like to reach up and grasp the nape of his neck, feeling the muscles beneath my hand and his hair soft against my fingers, like the mane of a stallion. Dick Potter hates his sons soft hair. Goddam Hippie Hairdo, he calls it, all in caps. But I feel a small victory in that Tom has not given in to his demands for a haircut.
I watch him now as he bends over slightly to tug his T-shirt off over his head. He is tall and well muscled and he bends gracefully, the muscles of his back delineated along his spine. He straightens, and his soft blond hair falls back into place, almost brushing his shoulders. I love his hair. When we are making love, it falls forward and brushes my cheek. I like to reach up and grasp the nape of his neck, feeling the muscles beneath my hand and his hair soft against my fingers, like the mane of a stallion. Dick Potter hates his sons soft hair. Goddam Hippie Hairdo, he calls it, all in caps. But I feel a small victory in that Tom has not given in to his demands for a haircut.
He has been going shirtless for this last week or so, and the skin of his back is golden. When he straightens and looks at me, he is all tawny colors, golden skin, soft blond hair, and gentle brown eyes. Lion colors. He knows I have been watching him and he smiles, anticipating pleasure. He is so incredibly beautiful to me that an aching swells inside me. Not of desire, but of love thwarted. I love him so. And I am about to start a quarrel.
Tom, honey, when are we going home?
He stops in the act of lowering his pants and actually sits down on the bed in surprise. He turns to face me, his boyish face wrinkled with perplexity. He has been thinking of sex, not of neglected cabins and gardens going to weed. His fine lion hair is rumpled where he has drawn his T-shirt off over his head. His amber eyes, now the color of sunlight on beer bottles, go wide. When are we what, Lyn?
When are we going home? I repeat doggedly, patiently. We were only going to spend a month here, remember? Just a pleasant spring interlude on the old family farm, camping out in the guest cottage, get Teddy out of Alaska for a while, let him see what a real spring planting time is like. Then somehow it became a month or so. Okay, May is fine, even though theres a lot of stuff I wanted to get done on our own place. Teddys had a great time with the piglets and the chicks and the ducklings and all. But, honey, were in to June now, and I was thinking wed be headed home any day now. Then, at dinner tonight, all of a sudden your dad starts talking as if were staying here the rest of the summer, and this winter, too. I hear the stridency in my voice, take a deep breath. I stop ripping the brush through my hair as I realize my scalp is sore. Carefully, I soften my voice. Babe, can you tell me whats going on?
Tom heaves the long-suffering sigh of the nagged husband. It is a new trick of his, one I dont particularly care for. Lyn. Honey. Dont jump to conclusions. Youve gotten so touchy lately. Yes, Dad did ask me if I would consider staying out the summer and part of the winter. You know Bix hurt his shoulder. Well, its going to lay him up for longer than we thought. So that leaves Dad trying to run the place and the business. And this is the busy time of year. Not only the farm to tend, but this is the time of year when folks are buying equipment. Being a man short around here is no joke anytime, so Dad invited us to stay on. Thats all. Just until Bix gets back on his feet. And between you and me, I dont think thats going to take as long as Dad thinks it will. Probably only another month or so. Thats all. And I didnt give him a definite answer, because I wanted to talk to you about it first. But you know how my folks are. They think that if they just act like something is going to happen, it will.
And it usually does, where were concerned, I think. No, I have said the foolish words aloud, I can tell by the sparks that light suddenly in Toms eyes. He finishes undressing in silence, kicking his pants away into a heap on the floor. He pushes the covers aside and swings his long pale legs into bed. His posture tells me I wont be getting any tonight. He pulls up the covers before he speaks again.
His voice is a lie and a deception, reasonable and sweet. If you want to take that attitude, then I suppose theres no point to our discussing it at all. You idiot, you spoiled brat, you cowering, narrow-minded little wretch, his attitude says to me. Refusing without even hearing me out. Heartless bitch. He hunches his shoulder under the white sheet and blue blanket. His soft hair fans out over the pillowcases. The pillowcases are white, but the cuffs feature Mother Mauries cross-stitch embroidery. A gaudy rooster on Toms, a plump little hen for me. The cross-stitched motto on Toms proclaims that hes all set to strut and crow, while my hen petulantly affirms that shed rather set awhile. They match a set we were given for a wedding gift. Steffie thinks they are adorable. They make me want to retch. Toms voice draws me back to our argument. Ill just tell them you didnt like the idea, and that will be that.
Oh, goody. You do that. Id love to see their faces. I take a deep breath, put pettiness aside. Tom. Dont snap at me. You know what Im thinking about, or at least you should. Theres our house. Its been sitting empty since March, and were just asking for vandalism. God knows its probably full of mice and red squirrels already.
Pete and Beth said theyd keep an eye on it.
Pete and Beth both work, honey. Driving into our place twice a week only means they can let us know after the windows get broken. Were not as isolated as we once were out there. Last summer I saw hikers and backpackers almost every day. And poor Bruno will be wondering what happened to us. I know theyll feed him, but hes only a pup. Hell be half wild when we get back there as it is. And theres Teddys school. He starts kindergarten this fall. I dont want to have him start here, and then pull him out halfway through the year. Starting school is tough enough on a kid without doing that. And, last but not least, theres the small matter of my job.
In spite of my best effort, my voice was getting cold and rocky. Dont make this a fight, I beg myself. Make it a discussion. He has to see the logic of what youre saying, you dont have to be a bitch about it. Just tell him. Lay it all out for him. I pause a moment, hoping hell say something. He doesnt. I take a breath and go on.
It took a lot of nerve for me to ask for this much time off. If Annie werent my friend as well as my boss, shed never have said yes. But she cant keep running the store on her own. Shes got some kid in there for the summer, but come winter the kid has to be back in school and shell be on her own. Shell have to hire someone to take my place, and there wont be a job for me to go back to.
I pause and gather the reins of my self-control. Tom will see. Hes a reasonable man, one who has always treated me as an equal, as a person to be considered. But the silence lengthens and it looks as if he is having to struggle to control himself before he speaks. Neither of us are good at this, at quarreling. We do it very seldom, most things are settled conversationally, or one or the other of us will demur to the others area of expertise. I let Tom select the used truck we bought, he let me choose the insulation for the attic, we recognize there are areas where one of us is more knowledgeable than the other. But this is a different thing, an area of opinion based on emotions. And we are both experts on our own emotions.
Jesus Christ, Lyn, he sighs at last. You make it sound like Im contemplating murder. All were thinking about is spending a winter here with my folks and giving them a hand over a hard spot. I mean, hell, they paid for my college, they brought me up I feel I owe them. And I have thought about all the stuff you mentioned. Theres a good school for Teddy just down the road from here. The school bus stops right by the gate. And I bet Pete and Beth could rent our place out for us in only a couple of weeks, if we let them know the kind of tenants we want. Taking care of Bruno would be part of the deal. And, hey, Dad said that if we were staying the winter, he saw no reason why Teddy couldnt have that little pony that Red has up for sale. You know how he drools over that little pinto every time we drive past there. His eyes practically popped out when Dad mentioned it.