Small Changes

by Marge Piercy

  “Your cooking is as lousy as it ever was. You could patch a tire with those eggs.”

  “I don’t like to cook. I don’t ever do it.”

  “Oh, you eat out all the time, huh, like a millionaire?”

  “I mostly eat raw foods.”

  “You really have turned into some kind of a nut!”

  “Yes.” She smiled at him. “You wouldn’t like me at all. Jim, how come you made me come back when you already have a woman? Arlene Rogers.”

  “Who told you about her? What if I did? I got the stuff on you from the detective, in writing, so don’t try to put anything over on me. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “But if she was living here with you, why not just go on?”

  “She’s none of your business, and she didn’t live here. Don’t put words in my mouth. Who told you about her?”

  “I bet the detective had a hard time finding me. That’s how come it took you so long. Because I covered my trail good.”

  “Think you’re so smart? How hard is it, you think, to find Beth Walker? The electric and gas are in your name. It didn’t take him but two, three days to find you.”

  “I put the deposits down. They made us give big ones too. I bet we’ll never get it back.”

  “It’s my money anyhow. You owe it from what you stole.”

  “I didn’t think you were looking for me after all this time.”

  “I figured to get things straightened out. It’s Christmas. Everybody gets to be with their family at Christmas.”

  “So go home to your mother.” She cleared the table. “What happened to your girl friend anyhow?”

  “I told you shut up about her. She’s not hanging around, if that’s what you mean. I never cheated on you when we were together.”

  “We aren’t together. I came back because you threatened me with jail. Now I’m ready to go to jail. I don’t want to live with you! I have my own life!”

  “You married me and you better believe it, I’m tired of having a wife off in Boston. You were the one so hot to get married, and now you better start making the best of it.”

  Turning, she slowly took from the rack over the stove the biggest knife and held it out. “Maybe you think I can’t hurt you with this, but I think I can.” For good measure she took the second biggest knife in her left hand. “Maybe you think you can get this knife away from me, but maybe I can cut you with one while you’re going for the other.”

  “What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to fight me?”

  “A knife is just as sharp in my hand as it is in yours. I say I can manage to hurt you just like you hurt me.”

  “Put that down.” He got up and started at her. She lunged. “Hey!” He leaped back. “Watch out!”

  “I want to hurt you! I’ll kill you if I can! Listen to me, I don’t want to be your wife! I’m walking out of here!”

  “I’ll call the cops as soon as you’re out the door.”

  “Call them! I’d rather go to jail than stay here!”

  “You’re crazy! That’s what it is, you’re crazy. That’s why you ran away. That’s what’s wrong with you.”

  “Hooray! I’m crazy. And I’ll cut you up!” Wonderfully she heard her loud voice. Astounded, she watched the wild knives she was waving. She who wouldn’t touch meat. If she actually cut him, she would be destroyed with guilt, yet she waved and slashed away. It was almost fun to scare somebody else instead of always being a victim. “I’m walking out. I’m going to see a lawyer. I’m not going to let you use me the way you did last night, not ever.”

  “Sure, you go to a lawyer.” He was being heavily ironic. “Fine. That’ll knock some sense into you. I already been, so I know what you’re going to hear. Go find out the cold facts, and then you’ll come crawling back. If I bother next time.”

  Backing out the door with her coat on her shoulder, still holding one knife with her purse wedged between her arm and body, she did not dare relax her posture till she was down the steps.

  “Merry Christmas,” he shouted out the window. “I hope you freeze to death, you bitch!”

  She had trouble stuffing the knife into her purse. Then she walked on rapidly. Syracuse was colder than Boston with a foot more snow and she was stuck out in the suburbs as usual. No bus, no car. By now she had learned to make do. She trotted out on the highway where she had used to hate to walk and stuck out her thumb. She passed up the first ride, with two men, but took the second with a woman, who brought her into town.

  From a phone booth she called Dolores. Mr. Méndez answered. “Dolores? She ain’t here. Who is this?”

  “This is Naomi. I used to go to high school with Dolores. I’m back here visiting. Do you know where I can find her?”

  “Oh, a high school friend. Dolores isn’t living at home no more. She’s with a girl friend, a nurse. You want her number?”

  It was Saturday morning and Dolores was home. “Bethie? Beth Phail, I mean Walker. What happened to you?”

  “Dolores, listen. I ran away from Jim, you know that?”

  “Sure, honey, I heard. Not like you told me. But I figured you had another man, huh?”

  “No, but listen, Jim came with a detective. He scared me into coming here. Listen to me, Dolores, for all I know, he’s after me, maybe my family’s after me, the cops may be after me for Jim. All I want is a place to hide for a couple days till after Christmas when I can call a lawyer. I won’t feel bad if you say no. I won’t get you in trouble, I promise. Before I start dealing with a lawyer, I can move out to a motel.”

  “Honey, it’s okay, I won’t tell Jim. I don’t know what happened between you two, but like, I don’t care. Let me clear things with my roomie.”

  She was off the phone for a while. “Bethie? She says okay. But you have to sleep on the couch. You got a car?”

  “No, but I’ll get there. Just give me directions.”

  Dolores was sitting on the couch drying her long black hair, smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of light sweet coffee and dying a pair of shoes red, all at once and lazily, with her plump legs curled up beside her. She had on an orange and green shiny robe that changed colors as she moved, bound at the neck with gold tassels. “Yeah, isn’t it something? A harem dream, you bet. It’s Moroccan.”

  “Lebanese,” her roommate said from the bathroom.

  “My nutty boy friend gave it to me. It’s from a head shop. I feel like something off a cigar box—you know, those stinkers my old man used to smoke. How are you, kid?” Dolores peered at her. “You got a bruise the size of a pumpkin on your arm. Jim do that?”

  “And it hurts when I pee and my back aches and I feel so ashamed!”

  Dolores clucked and sympathized but finally could not understand. “I can’t see leaving a man when you don’t have a man. What’s the point? If you don’t have anybody else, I mean, you don’t have to be careful with me, why not stay with him? You used to like him okay.”

  “Dolores, you aren’t living with a man, why do I have to?”

  “My parents would murder me dead, you remember them. I had trouble enough getting this apartment. As it is my mother calls me up every day. I wish I could tear the phone out. Besides, I got a boy friend, Dan.” She lowered her voice. “For a while Joan didn’t have a man, she broke up with the doctor she was seeing, he was married anyhow, and it was a long time before she got herself another. We were at each other’s throats.”

  Christmas Day both Dolores and Joan spent with their families. Staying alone, she did not answer the phone, caught up on sleep, took a long hot bath and washed her hair and clothes. She was decked out in borrowed things from Dolores, too big but comfortable. There was little to read in the apartment, and she did not feel like staring at the TV. She wished she could talk to her family. She could not get them out of her mind. Neither could she call. She kept imagining her father answering, like a bolt of judgment ready to thunder down on her. She kept going to the phone and standing there and drifting away. Her mother and Ma
rie she could deal with. But her father and Dick and the whole family massed as they would be for Christmas dinner, that she could not hack. Even to think of them gathered around the table made her feel eight years old and wrong.

  She wrote a poem on a pad of paper she found beside the phone with SOMEONE CALLED at the top and a picture of Cupid sending an arrow through a telephone. Her poem went:

  Everything says no to me.

  Everybody tells me no.

  Only I say yes.

  I have to say it again and again

  like a singer

  with only one song.

  Yes, Beth! Yes, Beth! Yes, Beth!

  Yes!

  That made her feel better. Folding it, she put it in her wallet, with her old pictures.

  Outside the snow was coming sideways and the temperature had gone down to seven, the radio said between “White Christmas” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” She decided not to go for a walk. Except at work she had hardly been bored since she ran away. Always there were books to read and things to work on and lately always friends to talk to. Sally, Dorine, Gloria, Miriam were on her mind, they were with her daily whether she saw them or not. She was caring for them and considering what they had said to her and thinking about what they might do together. She felt that they saw her as a person as nobody else ever had.

  The novelty of boredom made it more irritating. How had she used to pass her time? She could no longer daydream; she could only worry actively about her situation, helpless until she could call a lawyer and find out what Jim could do to her. She picked up some magazines from the coffee table and began leafing through.

  They were not exactly like the magazines she’d read in high school. There was more about sex and more about food. The girls’ magazines assumed you went to school with lots of boys you had to attract and know how to handle (“How to Say No without Losing Him”). These magazines assumed you had to go out and find men and spouted suggestions for joining activities where They would be sure to be found. They also seemed to assume that you went to bed. There was an article on female orgasm written by a male doctor, which had as its theme that every woman could have instant orgasms if only she wanted. Apparently this was for women who didn’t want to go to the movies and see how the actresses did it.

  There were articles about getting back in circulation after divorce, about making glamorous dinners for dates, about sewing clothes that would look more expensive than you could afford, about buying lots and lots more clothes in new styles, about meeting men at the office, about how roommates could spend their entire joint salary for a month giving a New Year’s Eve party, and ten articles on Beauty. If she followed the directions in even one or two of them, the upkeep on her body would consume her entire free existence.

  There were many stories in which women got men in various ways or lost them. Their problems were all with romance. The stories were sexier than those she had used to read. The effect of reading them was to feel discontented and sad and vaguely stirred up, as if lacking, as if something were wrong with her. Quickly she put down the magazine. By now it was getting dark.

  The lawyer was short, balding with sideburns, and seemed slightly amused, though not enough to cover his being bored during the twenty minutes he granted her.

  “Little lady, it is not possible for a husband to rape his wife.” In fact, he explained, it was not legally possible for her to be raped at all, not even by a platoon of strangers.

  “Now, you left your husband. This detective fellow has information on your involvement with another man. You were living in a so-called commune including a woman about to have an illegitimate baby. No court would recognize any act with you as rape. The reputation of a woman is considered by the court as relevant to the question of whether an act of intercourse is rape. Rape isn’t a crime such as murder or robbery, little lady, a crime is committed whether the victim is a bank president or a lady of the streets.”

  “So if I’m not a virgin or the property of one man, I can’t be raped, according to you?”

  “Frankly, you couldn’t proceed in any such manner. Under no circumstances could your lawful husband be considered as not having rightful access to you.”

  “But I left him last year. I don’t live with him. Can he force me to be with him when I don’t want to?”

  “But you did not secure a separation. You are still man and wife in the eyes of the law. There is no legal way in which you can prevent him from entering your domicile.… As for a divorce, he can divorce you. You of course can contest it, especially if we locate witnesses on this Arlene Rogers woman. With a detective’s report he is by far in the better position, especially if your abandonment preceded his involvement. You don’t have a leg to stand on, little lady. Now of course if he proved agreeable we could proceed against him in the matter of Miss Rogers or cruelty perhaps. You claim he did hit you several times? Any witnesses? Anyone who saw your bruises?”

  “Only on my arm now and on my … leg.”

  “Not too good, considering the provocation. Before you left?”

  “I didn’t go around showing them to people.” How had they got into discussing divorce? She had come to find out whether Jim could force her to go back to him if he called the police.

  “More’s the pity, little lady. He could proceed against you in the matter of the desertion or in the matter of the adultery. Frankly, you are in a weak position. Though we could give him a battle. But if he doesn’t want a divorce, we are in a difficult position to procure one, unless we can turn up some items to discredit his testimony. In any event, I wouldn’t think you could do well in the settlement, I’ll be blunt with you.”

  “I don’t want money. I took half the account when I left.”

  “That was your mistake.”

  “That’s what you think. I’d never have got away otherwise. Listen, I can try to pay him back that money if he insists. You go see him. You talk to him for me and find out what he wants. Make him understand I won’t go back to him no matter what!”

  “How will you pay me, if I may ask?”

  “I have a checking account in Boston. I’ll write you a check.”

  “I’m sure you’ll understand if I wait till it clears to act.”

  “It will clear!” She clutched her shaking hands in her lap, full of reactions that prickled and burned within her. They made it so difficult. They made it so grimy and humiliating, every step. “I’ll call you from wherever I am.”

  “It would be best if you left me a phone number and an address.”

  “No. I’ll call. How long will you have to wait for the check to clear?”

  “Five days ought to do it, one way or the other.”

  “I’ll call you early next week then. Do whatever you have to, so he won’t come after me again!”

  “I’ll see what we can find to proceed on, little lady, but I can’t work miracles. You’ve left yourself in a weak position, a very weak position indeed.” He held out his hand. “Now the check.…”

  “Mama, you never gave me a chance to want anything else but getting married! I wanted to go to college. I wanted to be a lawyer, remember? You thought it was silly.”

  “You wanted to marry Jim, you were seeing him right under my nose—your sister Marie told me that. What do you think is going to become of you, the way you’re acting? My own daughter, and you’re turning out worse than Elinor!”

  “Mama, that was too young to get married! I want to be myself, Mama, not Mrs. Jim. I want a chance to be me before I die.”

  “You were a lucky girl to find Jim, and you’re throwing it away. He’ll still take you back, he told me so himself.”

  “I don’t want him back!”

  “What kind of a man do you have in Boston, won’t come to see your family?”

  “I don’t have a man, Mama. Don’t you ever wish you’d had a chance to do something besides have babies and take care of us and clean the house and do the laundry and make supper?”

  “I’
ve had as good a life as any woman. I’m not complaining. Your father’s a good man and he’s taken care of us. It’s my children who’ve been a disappointment to me!”

  “Can’t you believe I know what I want?”

  “You’re too young and silly to know anything. It’s all those television programs and movies, you and your sister Nancy are full of nonsense. Every man has his faults. Jim may drink a little, all men do. He holds down a job—”

  “I hold a job too. I’m not afraid to work.”

  “Jim will take you back, if you buckle down and swallow your pride and try to make him happy. You listen to me, Elizabeth, this is your mother talking. I just want you to be happy. I don’t know how you’re going to end up, Bethie! Your father won’t hear your name! And you’ll be lying in some alley with your throat cut like those poor girls you read about in the paper. Listen to me, Jim may not be perfect but he’s your husband. If you go running around, he’ll wash his hands of you. Then you’ll find out nobody will want you any more.”

  “Mama, I didn’t call for you to read me the riot act. I wanted to tell you I’m okay. How’s Nancy, Mama?”

  “All right. She has a boy friend. I keep an eye on her.”

  “I’d like to talk to her for a minute.”

  “She hasn’t come home from school yet. She doesn’t get home this early.”

  “I’ll bet, Beth thought. She knew when the seniors got out. “When will she be home?”

  “I don’t want you talking to her. I’m having enough trouble with her already.”

  “Do you think I’d corrupt her? Oh, never mind, Mama, listen, I have to go now.” She was struck, hearing both of them, how often people in her family told each other to listen. Listen to me, they kept saying, and nobody ever did.

  “You never write! What’s wrong with you? Do you want me worrying?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t write for fear you’ll tell Jim where I am. When this thing is settled, I’ll write.” She hunched in the phone booth, her bladder burning. Something was wrong. Dolores had told her to go to a doctor, but that would have to wait.

  “We never had a divorce in our family. Tell me the truth, is there someone else?”