Small Changes by Marge Piercy Page A

rules I believe in. To live … right.”
    “Child, life isn’t played that way. Matter of fact it isn’t played at all. It’s endured. Your cool is all on the surface. Scratch you and you get mad as a tiger kitten.”
    She dropped her gaze, convinced he could see in her what she most wanted to hide, her attraction. Her eyes stung. She feared for a moment that she would cry. She took a deep breath, placed her palms together under the table, pushed tight and relaxed, then slowly forced herself to meet his gaze again. He had been looking at her with an open brooding sadness that he instantly ironed from his face. It was just her luck that she probably did remind him of his son Jerry: turning what had perhaps become a convenient role—that pose of absolute detachment, the man with the ancientwound, the total bachelor—into something more real again. Well, let him rest with his honorable wounds. She could not grapple with him.
    When she was working with Dorine and Lennie in their room, choosing drawings to mat, Dorine told Lennie what she’d heard in the kitchen. “Did you know he’d been married and divorced?”
    “Christ, no.” Lennie rubbed his kinky beard. “If he isn’t close-mouthed. Now how come he told you?”
    Friday night Tom went to a party which he told her would be a great bore: which she had come to learn meant that his wife would be there. It was also true that she would find the party not so much dull as an attack on her nervous system. She had not figured out how to cope with the smoking that made her sinuses swell, the drinking, the talking that had no purpose, the looking each other over in that blatant sexual window-shopping that made her want to hide in a closet. No, he was better off going alone.
    Saturday morning when he picked her up he took her to Brookline first, to three empty sunny rooms he had rented in a yellow brick apartment house on School Street. “Now isn’t this an improvement? The toilet actually flushes, the windows open and shut in a normal manner, and there is even a lock on the door. Pretty nice kitchen, good stove, what do you think of it?”
    “It looks fine.”
    He seemed disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm. “Well, I hope you like it. After all, you’ll be the one spending your time in it, ha-ha.”
    A chill settled on her. “I’m not much of a cook.”
    “Practice makes perfect. Besides, we won’t spend all our time in the kitchen.” Hand on her elbow he walked her to the bedroom door. “Cross ventilation. Could be attractive, once we get it fixed up. The landlord’s going to paint it next week. Says I can move in by Friday. I told him paint all the walls white. But I can still change it. I’m meeting him at three. What do you think?”
    “Paint them whatever you like best.”
    “Thought you might have a preference. Look, Bethie.” He locked the door, pocketing the key with satisfaction, and they started down the carpeted stair. “No reason for you tolive in that rathole. I mean, if you want to keep up a separate address for your family, cool, but it’s a waste of rent. There’s plenty of room for both of us here. All this coming and going and getting you and bringing you back is a drag. Like dating and other horrors. I couldn’t ask you to move into that menagerie—like moving into the Park Street subway station—but this is more like it, isn’t it?”
    “Tom, I like to live alone. I was already married once.”
    “Well, who says we have to go through that nonsense? You know what I think about the ring game.”
    “But I don’t want to live with somebody either. It’s easier to cut out then, but that’s the only improvement I can see.”
    “It’s a whole different scene, Beth. It’s being together because we want to, not because some guy in a black dress says it’s okay to do it in bed.” They got into his VW. “Got to meet the landlord at three. You really want to go to that freak show in the streets?”
    “I would … really.