Any Minute I Can Split by Judith Rossner

some particularly rigorous form of yoga since an acid vision a couple of years earlier, attended services once a week which involved more than an hour of driving each way even in the good weather. No one bothered to answer.
    â€œWhy couldn’t we be one hour out of Boston instead of two or three?” Carol asked plaintively.
    â€œOh, shit,” Jordan said.
    â€œIt’s easy for you to say oh shit,” Carol told him. “You don’t hate car riding!”
    Carol’s whining was beginning to get to Margaret, who was afraid that it was a preview of her own feelings of boredom and isolation during the winter months ahead.
    â€œDoesn’t Brattleboro have a lot of things to do?” she asked.
    â€œOhhhh,” Carol said, “not really. I mean there’s nothing really there. A couple of movies. Stores. One or two restaurants. That’s it.”
    â€œWhat else do you need?”
    What else might she need? Sex. Sooner or later she would surely get interested in sex again. It was almost comforting to know that her sexuality was buried for now but it was horrifying to think this situation might continue indefinitely. Mira had pretty much renounced sex, except as a means of procreation (but not to be enjoyed in any event) when she went on her yoga trip and whether that contributed to her objectionable piety or vice versa, the whole syndrome was appalling. De Witt had a girlfriend in Brattleboro who’d lived briefly at the farm but had been driven out by pressure from Mira, although Mira was supposedly understanding about De Witt’s disinclination to become a celibate vegetarian. Both Starr and Dolores had told Margaret that once Mira had been a really beautiful sexy woman, but De Witt never referred to their life together.
    â€œI dunno,” Carol said. “More of something. Or better. I get so bored.”
    â€œDon’t you make a lot of your pots in the winter?”
    â€œYes, but I thought that we were trying to get away from that whole bit when we came here, that whole pressure of constantly having to produce.”
    â€œI’ll tell you what Carol wants,” Starr said. “Carol wants to lie on her back and have a bunch of buttons, a Feed Me button, a Fuck Me button, a Make Me Happy button, one for everything so she never has to do it herself. YOU’RE A PAIN IN THE ASS, CAROL, Y’KNOW THAT?”
    Margaret smiled; Starr’s furies were always relaxing to her. She waited for Carol to argue that Starr was being unfair but instead Carol nodded dejectedly.
    â€œYou’re right. I know you’re right.”
    â€œAnd you’re a fucking ballbuster,” Jordan said to Starr, suddenly coming to his wife’s defense, “but do you know that?”
    â€œYou think any woman with guts is a ballbuster,” Starr flung at him. “Isn’t that true, Paul?”
    â€œLeave me out of this,” Paul said.
    â€œOut of WHAT?” Starr exploded. “Out of EVERYTHING! That’s what you really mean, isn’t it. Leave you alone, don’t bother you with arguments, don’t bother you with your kid, don’t bother you with LIFE! You’re worse than she is because at least she wants to be happy if someone would only do it for her!”
    â€œMy God,” Margaret said, “I thought you were the one who liked winter.” She laughed but she was uneasy; if she’d always cared about people, here at the farm there was an urgent quality to her caring. There were very few people in her real world now; each was precious beyond belief.
    â€œI LOVE winter,” Starr said. “What I can’t stand is being dragged down by deadheads.”
    â€œYou’re frightening me,” Margaret said, surprised to hear herself admitting it. “I keep thinking you’re going to get mad at me next.”
    â€œWhy would I get mad at you?” Starr asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” Margaret admitted.