Braided Lives

by Marge Piercy

  “I didn’t know you knew Peter?”

  “Not personally,” Julie says. “But I know who he is.”

  “Who is he?” I mean that literally, looking at the dim room crowded with people.

  Van floats above us and all this. His interests end in 1800. His passion is Dryden. All since is arriviste.

  “Forest Crecy’s son,” Julie says primly. “I never heard of any other Crecys, but they’re an old Detroit family.”

  “Crazy Louey’s Bargain Used Cars,” I say equally primly. “Deals on Wheels. West Chicago and Grand River.”

  “In Detroit there are only the Forest Crecys—they’ve been around since fur-trading days.”

  In the next room I can see people standing in groups talking, but the folksingers are easier on my shyness. This is the only music actually sung and played in our peer group. Pop music is crooners soggily serenading our parents. White rock music belongs to the high-school crowd none of us were in with. Black music I know only because I lived in a partly Black neighborhood. We think folk music is real, gritty, authentic. We like songs about old labor struggles. With relief I see Lennie propped against a radiator with a guitar that looks too big for him, his head flung back and his red beard wagging as he sings with wide-open mouth. Lennie, my longlost friend, I could kiss you for providing me with a goal in this room. I can even take my time climbing over legs and drinks, noticing that although your voice is hoarse, your hands are quick and loving on the strings. I stand smiling while you finish with a flourish, then flash your teeth as if in surprise.

  “I didn’t know you played. Where’s Donna?”

  “Here someplace.” He glances around. “Mike’s boozing it up in the next room.”

  So far through a forest of shoulders. I sit against the radiator. Soon I will make my trek, soon. Clearly among the folksingers are two stars, who play the best and know all the songs. A woman who plays the banjo hard and skillfully is singing in a good full contralto, a tall woman with long straight heavy chestnut hair hanging like a cloak about her shoulders. Her face is sharp, pert, pretty in an asymmetrical way. I have the feeling I have seen her before, but I do not know where. She is somewhat older than I am and sings with ready confidence. Alberta, they call her. “Alberta, play ‘East Virginee.’” “Alberta, ‘Los Quatro Generales.’” The other performer is swarthy, broad-shouldered, good-looking, with teeth that seem to cancel out the rest of his face. He sings very loud but very well and they call him Rob.

  Time to look for Mike and Donna. The next room is brighter and spotted with intent clumps, a few stranded on the rim like me, but glass in hand trying to look preoccupied. By the door to the kitchen Mike is talking with two men, one tawnily gorgeous, the other older in seedy-looking tweeds. As I come up, the tawny one is saying, “Salinger as the American Flaubert—if I hear that once more I shall puke. All those little borax freshmen running around with Catcher under their arms, thinking they’ve found their soul in paperback.”

  I wish Mike would introduce me. All he does is put his arm around me and go on talking. Now I cannot follow them, for they are discussing someone who wrote letters to the tawny man, Stone. He has a face that seems all profile, one he keeps exhibiting by turning his head to and fro like an electric fan, his mane flopping as he blows out words and hauteur.

  Mike drawls, “If you really have those letters, how come you never printed them?”

  The man in tweed flaps his elbows. “Couldn’t get permission, eh, Stone?”

  “I wouldn’t know, since I certainly never tried. Don’t you think it would be a little cheap to trade on his name?”

  I will never understand. I do not like their fencing, but I mistrust my dislike since entering it is beyond me. Mike is probably five years younger than Stone and ten years younger than the other, yet they treat him as an equal because he plays well. The knowledge that sets up the game, I want that.

  A slight blond boy, conservatively dressed so that what I notice first in this motley arguing crowd are his detachment and his tailoring, stops to greet Mike, then look leisurely and carefully at me. “I’m Peter Crecy.” Our host.

  Mike turns to say before I can, “This is Jill.” His arm drops to my waist, hugging me against him.

  “Of course.” Peter smiles briefly. His blue eyes behind glasses are as fresh and paler than Donna’s. He seems to have no inhibition against staring. Mike stands a moment suspended between us and the others, then with a scowl of despair, turns back to Stone. Peter says, “I’ve seen you crying in the Union with Mike,” as he might say, “I’ve seen you having coffee.”

  Off balance I ask, “Do you know where my roommate is?”

  He laughs dryly. “Might if you told me her name.”

  “Sorry. Donna Stuart.”

  “She’s holding court in the kitchen. But you’re Stuart too, aren’t you? You can’t be sisters.”

  “All men are sisters.” I break from Mike to slip past Peter.

  “The light and dark sides of the moon.” Peter does not move to let me past. Instead he shifts his trim athletic body to brush against me. “What’s on the dark side of the moon?”

  “More green cheese.” I wriggle past.

  Mike calls after, “Our gin’s in the refrigerator. Bring it back.”

  Donna’s sharp sawing laugh. She perches on the Formica table letting her legs kick but does not see me at first because she is flirting with one of the teaching assistants from the English department.

  “Happy Birthday, ketsale,” I say, Grandma’s endearment surprising me.

  “I’m so glad to see you! Mike gave me a Bach cantata, isn’t that nice? But see, I’m wearing my sweater you gave me. The first cashmere I ever had.” Her baby face puckers. “Feel, how soft!”

  A pullover with a round collar, the color of her eyes. Her face glows above it. “What are you drinking, ma Donna?”

  “First it was Rhine wine. Then beer. Now it’s Scotch. I love it and Peter got it out for me because it’s my birthday. He has a whole cabinet of liquor but he keeps it locked.” She leans conspiratorially and I think she means to whisper but instead she shouts in my ear, “Peter’s rich!”

  “And tight,” a guy pouring water into trays at the sink adds. Donna mutters that he is Peter’s roommate, whose name she has forgotten. She slides off the table to jiggle my elbow. “Come to the john with me.”

  After the door shuts she says, “I’ve been flirting with Peter and his nothing roommate and even with Rob Prewitt when he came in the kitchen, guitar and all.” She sits down on the toilet. “I must pee quietly because the kitchen is full of men,” she says gravely.

  “I doubt they’re listening. Men don’t listen to us even when we talk.” I am still irritated that Mike did not introduce me.

  “I shouldn’t have left Lennie, should I? Stu, he gave me a phonograph. He’s so sweet I could cry!”

  I lean on the bathtub rim. “Where did he get the money?”

  “I thought it was so sad when Mike gave me a record, because if anything happened to your changer and it hardly works now, I’d never be able to listen to it again. The phonograph was here when we arrived, on the kitchen table. Lennie said, ‘Peter’s got so much dough he even has a phonograph in the kitchen. Crecy, be a good guy. Give the girl a break and let her have it.’” At the sink she daubs at her face. “Know what I’m going to do? I’m going to be honest and tell him about Jim tonight. Make a clean breast.”

  “You mean you didn’t? Not ever?”

  “If he doesn’t love me then, I won’t bother him. I’ll give him back the phonograph and go away.” Her shoulders droop pathetically.

  “Go on, he isn’t going to stop loving you for some old story.”

  “But, suppose he does mind?”

  I take her hand. Clay cold. “You have to get it out of the way sometime.”

  “Out of the way, yes.” She combs her fine hair. “How do you like Peter?”

  I shrug. “Actually I don’t.”

  “He mak
es me wonder what he’s like in bed.”

  I snort. “Thorns and ice cubes.”

  She grins. “That’s how little you know.” She pushes me out of the bathroom ahead of her, facing the second room. Then she says, “Whoops. I’ve been off the job too long!”

  Lennie has come into the second room. Perched on the arm of his chair and almost in his lap, laughing with gross good-natured flirtation is a young woman in a gaudy homemade-looking orange and gold and purple dress, gypsyish with several bead necklaces that slither forward as she plays with Lennie’s beard. “Who’s she?” I ask.

  “Stephanie Barboulis, the greedy Greek. Some bitch who’s always trying to get him, ever since he used her for a model.” Donna darts forward with a falsetto laugh.

  I turn back to fetch the drinks I was sent for. The refrigerator is jammed with bottles but ours is easy to find, a half-empty bottle of Gordon’s Gin stamped across the label with Mike’s name and address. While I am mixing gin and tonic a familiar voice says, “Miss Stuart. What are you making?”

  “Gin and tonic—the only drink I know how to mix. Want one?” I am damned if I am going to address him as Professor Donaldson at a party. I really would mix one for him, Mike’s gin and all. As I look up into his auburn-bearded face my old puppy worship floods me warmly.

  “No, I’m a wino. Booze makes me drunk all at once. Very unfashionable, but there you have it.”

  “I miss you. Professor Grimes is an old fart who’s so far right he wants the monarchy restored.” I rarely think before I speak, I decide. I open my mouth and the words like dear little furry vampire bats fly out. Professor Grimes is probably his best friend. I know it is not done to criticize the faculty to each other.

  “With himself as king? I thought he wanted to be pope.”

  “No. There’s no fun being infallible if you have to use somebody else’s book.”

  “Never mind.” He smiles at me. He is so much taller he must crane way over. The last time I talked to him was when I ran into him on campus the week after the final and he told me I had gotten the highest score on the test. Pure lust in action. I didn’t say that; tonight I almost could. “The semester’s half over. Are you going to major in history? Why don’t you take my labor seminar?”

  The folksinging has broken up and the guy Rob Prewitt in the buffalo plaid shirt moseys up still clutching his guitar, saying loudly, “I intend to. Are you starting with the Knights of Labor?”

  I could bounce a bottle off Rob Prewitt’s head. I don’t remember him in that class but I suppose I rarely noticed anybody but Donaldson. Rob is so self-assured I hate him. Stealing my moment.

  “With the first strike. That was before the revolution….”

  I have lost his attention and Mike looms to grip my arm. “Where have you been?”

  “Talking—like you.”

  He tugs me along. “Let’s find some privacy.” The first bedroom is occupied by a couple having a fight, Julie and Van. Julie stands at the window kneading her taffeta skirt in her hands.

  “Please leave us,” she hisses.

  The second bedroom is empty. Shutting the door, he starts tossing coats from the bed to the floor. How much has he had to drink—all the missing gin? The bed clear, he drops on it. I take a seat gingerly.

  “Don’t be coy. I’ve been wanting you desperately all night.”

  “You’ve been too busy playing games.”

  “I have to keep up my contacts.” Smiling at his own pomposity, he sweeps me down beside him.

  I try to distract him from his heavy drowsy ardor. “Who is that Stone?”

  “Grant Stone? Got a rich mother and Spore Press. I’ve been trying to bug him into printing me but he just teases. He’s a first-class asshole.”

  “What makes him a first-class one?”

  “Most assholes are stupid. He knows, but he’s out for himself.” In long gestures his hands trace over me.

  “That makes me second-class.”

  “That makes you soft.” He smooths my hair on the pillow, letting himself down till his weight covers me. Hot and cold, yes and no, run arpeggios on my skin. Then for the first time yet familiarly the knot tightens, the hot hollow cramp of wanting. I stare at the ceiling where a lamp makes a wide dim circle on the plaster rippled by strips of lathing. His zipper. Laughter, a surf of conversation, a thump followed by breaking glass. Something presses against my thigh I know by counting his hands must be his phallus.

  “Mike … somebody will come in.”

  “I locked the door.”

  “That’s worse.”

  He closes my hand around it, thick and stumpy. To tear my flesh. I hold it where he placed my hand, scared silly of moving, while he kisses me. His organ is fatter and harder than I had expected and I cannot, cannot understand where it will fit in me.

  “Well, don’t hold it like a garden hose.”

  I laugh. “You were so damn tickled I’m a virgin.”

  He shakes me. “Don’t giggle! What we’re doing isn’t funny.”

  “Mike, I can’t help being nervous.” I pull from him, fixing my sweater and pants with choppy gestures.

  He cradles me against him. “I want you so much.”

  “But not just anyplace, not like dogs on a sidewalk.”

  “I’m not ashamed.”

  “I can’t feel alone with you. I can’t relax here. Are you angry?”

  He stands tucking his shirt in, shaking his pants down. “During vacation I’ll get the car. Then we’ll be alone.” His fingers graze my cheek as we step back into the party. “Next week in Detroit, pumpkin. One more week.”

  I look around to see if everybody is watching. Only Julie gives me a look of arched brows, as she steps into her coat. Rob Prewitt is playing the guitar again, with Stephanie sitting on the arm of his chair while he sings directly to her. Donaldson stands with his arm around the pert woman who played the banjo. I know now where I saw her, leaving his apartment that morning. I like the way Alberta looks. She is almost as tall as Donaldson and she does not lean on him but has her arm around his waist as his is around hers, standing there foursquare on her feet. I resolve to stop sticking to Mike’s side like a melting snowbank. I watch them, puzzled. I am passionately in love with Mike, yet for a moment there in the kitchen I would have done anything to capture Donaldson’s attention. I wanted him too. What does that mean? I’ll have to ask Donna.

  Donna is just hanging her coat as I walk in. “Well, bella Donna, it’s after midnight and not your birthday any longer, but be happy still!” I kiss her cheek.

  She leans her cold forehead against mine. “I’m sober now.”

  “Hung over?”

  “I’m fine. It was a very nice evening.” Voice quiet, gritty. She stares down at her skirt, unzipping it carefully as if it were on a mannequin.

  “What’s wrong? Did you tell Lennie about Jim?”

  She folds the new sweater into a plastic bag. “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  She puts her bra and panties into her laundry bag. Naked she stands brushing her corn tassel hair, her small sharp breasts pulled high. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “He took it like a lollipop.” She slips into her plaid robe and starts for the john down the hall. “He simply looked grave and said he was sure my sister would forgive me if she knew the circumstances. Then he started talking about abstract expressionism.”

  “Well, aren’t you glad to have it out of the way?” I push open the door into the room with the row of toilets and row of sinks.

  “Out of the way?” Beside me she brushes her teeth, spits, stares into the sink. “I guess I counted on that. It didn’t mean a thing to him! He didn’t understand.”

  Confession and absolution. A ritual we play. Lennie couldn’t respond, is that it? I feel guilty as if I had deceived her, made promises about the world I cannot force it to keep.

  When we return to our room Julie is waiting, perched against the cream-of-tomato-colored draperi
es in her severe navy wool bathrobe piped with green. Sometimes I look at Julie and see someone dressed by a mother who does not love her, with a good deal of money to spend. I have a brief moment of feeling caught between clients, because Julie clearly has feelings about the evening to spill too.

  “We didn’t mean to walk in on you two.” I sit at my desk, equidistant from Donna lying in an S shape on her bunk and Julie perched rigidly on the window ledge. “You didn’t look too happy.”

  “Couldn’t you expect a man who’s supposed to be in love with you and can drive perfectly well and knows how to take buses anyhow, to be able to come and see you during a ten-day vacation? From Kalamazoo to my house is maybe four hours! He acts as if I’m requesting he visit me in Antarctica!”

  “You want your parents to meet him?”

  “They met him when they visited. But I want him to come to the house and view them in their natural habitat. Besides, I must move this along. It’s stalled in the tentative phase.”

  “Are you sure you want Van?”

  “Why not?” She pats at her tightly curled hair.

  “Why not become a nun?” Donna snaps in response.

  “Episcopalian nuns are too weird. Besides, I look like something undercooked in black…. You were in the bedroom with Mike a long time, Jill. Well?”

  “Well, what? It wasn’t that long. In the middle of a party?”

  “If you really loved him, you wouldn’t care,” Donna says.

  “Loving him isn’t the same as being able to get excited,” I say and an injured silence exudes from her. “I can’t help wanting a time that feels right.”

  “I see. A rigid honesty does for me. If you don’t think discussing certain things with Lennie was harder than just going to bed with him, you’re crazy!”

  Julie smiles a little mournfully, her brown eyes soft but her mouth pursed into a smirk. “We must both use our vacations, Jill, to get ourselves properly deflowered like Donna.”

  Bull’s-eye, because Donna has just remembered she told Julie she was a virgin; a statement Julie disbelieved anyhow. Donna doesn’t care enough to keep her lies straight with Julie. I have a moment of seeing the whole dormitory as a minefield of sexual hypocrisy, all women lying to each other about what they are doing or not doing with boys they also lie to, because the boys lie to and about them. “I don’t think of it as a flower or a cauliflower,” I say. “Just an accident I want to correct by willpower.”