Daughters of Eve (11 page)

"Thank you," Irene said politely. "It was nice meeting you."

After her guest left she got out her English theme book and wrote down the entire conversation in as much detail as she could remember, because she knew that later she would not be able to believe that it had actually occurred.

She should have that notebook now, she thought, to share with them—with Laura, especially, and with Ann. If they could read that dialogue they might begin to realize what they were doing to themselves. They would learn, of course; all women did eventually. If only they could be saved from gleaning that knowledge too late!

It was Fran's voice that snapped her out of her reverie.

"May we have the report on the sale of the raffle tickets?"

"They're going real well," Kelly said, consulting her notes. "I had five hundred printed, and we've already sold almost half of them with three weeks still to go before the drawing. If anybody wants extras, I've got them with me."

"I need some," Tammy said.

"That's right, Tam, you didn't get yours, did you?" Kelly took a packet of tickets from the box in her lap and passed it to her friend across the table. "We're charging fifty cents this year so people will buy more of them. We decided the dollar we asked last year was too high."

"What are the prizes?" Tammy asked.

"We've got some really good ones. There's a charcoal grill from Williams, and Paula's dad has donated dinner for two at the cafe, and Steinmetz Photography is going to make a free family portrait for the winner to use on a Christmas card. There's a lot of small stuff too. Most of the places we asked came through with donations."

"Does the club do this every year?" Ruth asked.

"They started a couple of years ago when my sister was a junior," Tammy told her. "All the school-sponsored organizations take on one project a year to benefit the school, and that year Daughters of Eve decided to raise money for the athletic fund. The raffle idea was so successful that we've done it ever since. The drawing takes place during intermission at the Homecoming Dance."

"Why did you choose the athletic fund as recipient?" Irene asked her.

"I don't know. It wasn't any of us here who did it. Those girls have all graduated." Tammy frowned, trying to recall the circumstances of the decision. "I think Marnie said something once about the principal having suggested it. The football team needed uniforms."

"And what do they need this year?"

"I'm not into athletics. Paula probably knows." Tammy passed on the question. "What's on the want list?"

"Everything," Paula said. "Wrestling mats, pigskins, warm-up suits for the basketball guys; you name it, they need it. Coach Ferrara's counting the days till Homecoming so he can cash in."

"What about the girls' teams?' Irene asked. "Do they have everything they need?"

"There aren't many girls' teams," Kelly said. "Just basketball and track, and they haven't done very well. I'm sorry, Paula; I didn't mean that to put you down but it's a fact."

"Sure, it's a fact," Paula said irritably. "What do you expect? We never get a chance to practice. The boys use the gym every afternoon until six o'clock, and then they lock the place up."

"Is that so?" Kelly said, surprised. "When do you practice then?"

"Saturdays, and whenever the guys decide to take a day off and bother to let us know. We can get the gym before school in the mornings if we want it but it sure knocks you out for the day. By the time you shower and change, you're late to first period. It's a mess."

"Why is this?" Irene asked.

"It's just the rule."

"Why do the boys get the gym every single afternoon?"

"Well, they're the champs," Paula said. "They've been in either first or second place in the regional tournament for three years now."

"Why is that, do you suppose?"

"Because they're good. They really are."

"They're good because they practice?"

There was a moment's silence. Then Paula said, "That's a lot of it, I guess."

"If the women's team had the same opportunity for practice, how do you think you would perform?"

"We'd be great," Paula said. "We've got some good players, it's just that it's impossible to get it all together so we know what we're doing. Coach says that when there are two teams wanting to use the same facilities, the one that's doing the best job and bringing honor to the school should get first crack at them."

"It's a vicious circle," Holly said. "Why aren't there any sports except basketball and track open to girls here, anyway? We don't even have a softball team. Do the guys need to use the baseball field? Is that the reason?"

"Don't ask me," Paula said. "I don't organize the sports program around here, for Pete's sake. Modesta High's a small school. We don't have enough money for everything. That's the whole reason Mr. Shelby asked us to support the athletic fund."

"The point is, from what you say, it doesn't sound as though you girls are getting much benefit from this fund," Irene said. "Wrestling mats and warm-up suits for the boys aren't going to help much in getting a softball team established for you or in getting you half-time use of the gym for basketball practice."

"What do we do?" Kelly said. "Start a petition?"

"That's one possibility. It's been known to work. I read an article the other day about a junior-high girl in Lyndhurst, Ohio, who wanted to be involved in an interscholastic sports program. The principal told her there wasn't enough interest for the school to implement the program, so she circulated petitions. Over half the girls in the school signed them, and the sports program has now been started."

"I don't think that would work here," Ann Whitten said doubtfully. "Mr. Shelby hates petitions. Remember that time Brad Tully started one about setting aside a smoking area? Mr. Shelby called a special assembly just to tell everybody that he'd heard that it was going around and that if it was ever turned in to him he'd burn it without even looking at it."

"That was because of the issue," Tammy said. "My dad didn't like the smoking-area idea either. I don't know that they'd feel that way about something like this."

"We could try it," Ruth Grange suggested. "What's to lose? It might work out. Like all of you were telling me about that thing with my parents, there comes a time when you have to stand up for yourself."

"Hey! Hey!" Bambi said with a laugh. "Is Pete still having fits about that?"

"He and Niles are so pissed off they don't even speak to me any longer," Ruth said. "Not that I miss their voices all that much. It's really great. The problem is that my dad's mad at my mother because she's sticking up for me. I feel kind of guilty about that."

"What about Mondays?" Bambi asked her. "Has your mom got the guys staying home?"

"They won't do it, and Dad's backing them up on that, so Mom's hired a lady from down the street to come in and pick up the place and get dinner started. Mom's paying her for it every week out of her paycheck before she puts it in the college saving account."

"So Pete and Niles are really paying the housekeeper out of their own college fund! Hey, that's terrific!" Bambi's crow of delight was so contagious that it brought answering smiles from faces all around her. "I never would have thought your mother would come through for you like that. I mean, she's real nice and all, but she's so conservative."

"There are a lot of women in this country who have been sleeping," Irene Stark said quietly. The low, strong voice broke through the chatter and brought sudden silence as the girls turned to stare at their sponsor, startled by the intensity of her expression. "Like Ruth's mother, these are nice women, quiet gentle women, who have grown from being dutiful daughters to being dutiful wives and mothers. They've laid themselves out flat for men to walk on, because all their lives they've been led to believe that this is what women are supposed to do. Back in seventeen seventy-six, when patriots were demanding a Declaration of Independence, John Adams's wife, Abigail, wrote to him in Philadelphia saying, 'Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.' Adams wrote back to her, calling her 'saucy,' and saying, 'Depend upon it we know better than to repeal our masculine systems.' Times may have changed in many ways, but human nature hasn't. Today's men feel exactly the same way. They're afraid to let the whip slip from their hands."

"Not all men," Ann said, frowning. "Dave isn't like that, and neither is my father."

"My dad isn't either," Tammy said. "He lets my mother have her own career."

"He lets her?" Irene repeated the words, putting them in the form of a question. "The very fact you phrase the statement that way makes my point. Why should he have to 'let' your mother have a career, as though he's offering her some special privilege? Would you ever think of saying, 'My mother lets my father go to work'?"

"Men are expected to have jobs," Tammy said. "They have to support their families. With women there's a choice. When a woman goes to work it's because she wants to—"

"That's crazy," Paula broke in. "Maybe your mother works because she likes to. She's a writer. That's like a hobby, something she can sit around and do on her own time when she feels like it. My mom works at the beauty shop because we need the cash, and when she's through with that she starts all over again at home cleaning up and making dinner. Dad sit there in his chair, all dragged out from the day, acting like the stuff Mom's been doing isn't anything."

"What about the rest of your mothers?" Irene asked. "How many of them hold jobs outside of the home?" Ruth Grange raised her hand, as did Bambi. Holly raised hers halfway.

"My mother gives piano lessons part-time. Does that count?"

"Do you think it counts?" Irene asked her.

"Well, sure. It's work, isn't it?"

"Does your father think it counts? If someone were to suddenly ask him, 'Does your wife work?' would he say, 'Yes'?"

"I don't know. Probably not," Holly admitted. "It's not what you'd call a career. It's just a couple of hours a day, and she uses the money for extras like presents for people and my organ lessons and stuff like that. How'd we get onto this subject anyway?"

"Straight from Abigail Adams," Bambi said. "Irene was saying men want to hang on to the whip and Ann said, 'Not all men.' How can you know that, Ann? Dave isn't your husband yet. You haven't had anything to disagree about. When you do maybe you'll see another side of him."

"No way," Ann said crisply. "You're just bitter."

"Admitted. Pete's a shit—sorry about that, Ruthie—but I can get him back if I want him. I'm in the driver's seat. That's the way it ought to be."

"Dave and I don't have a driver's seat," Ann said. Her normally gentle face was flushed with irritation. "We love each other. When people love each other, nobody has a whip. That makes it sound like you're going to hit somebody. No man hits a woman unless he's a maniac of some land, and in that case—"

"Shut up!" The thin, shrill voice interrupted her in mid-sentence. All faces turned toward the girl who had come so abruptly to her feet.

Jane Rheardon stood, clutching at the edge of the table as though for support, her eyes wild and anguished. The left side of her face jerked uncontrollably.

"Shut up, an of you!" she shouted at them. "You don't know what you're talking about! You don't know anything at all!"

"What is it, Jane? All I said—" Ann regarded her with startled bewilderment.

"I know what you said, and you don't know anything about it. Men do hit women, they do it all the time, and women put up with it because there's nothing else to do! I'm right, aren't I, Irene? It does happen!"

"Yes, Jane, I'm afraid it does," Irene said quietly.

"You can't know what it's like—hearing it happen—with him yelling and swearing and her crying and furniture going over—and afterward, it's even worse, because we have to hide it! We're just the nicest family! Everybody thinks so!"

With a choking sob she sank back into her chair and brought her hands up to cover her face. Rising quickly, Irene came over to her and put an arm around the slim shoulders. Her own face was dark with anger.

"So that's the way it is," she said. "I knew there was something. Poor Janie—poor little Janie. But at least you've told us. It will be better now. You've got your sisters. You're not alone any longer, you've got your sisters."

CHAPTER 9

Peter, dear, we need to talk.

Such a simple statement, composed of six easy words. There was nothing there to trip the tongue or to cause the speaker to break for a breath halfway through it. Why, then, was it so impossible for her to say?

Laura had been repeating the line over and over in her mind from the moment that evening that Peter's car had pulled to the curb at their usual meeting place at Locust and Second Street She had rehearsed it at home before that, sitting silent at the dinner table, staring down into her plate while her mother bustled about pouring more milk and getting the rolls out of the oven.

Peter, dear, we need to talk.

In her daydream the words had rung out clear and bell-like, and Peter, his face gone suddenly sweetly vulnerable, had turned and said hesitantly, I was just going to say the same thing to you. I didn't know how to start. I was afraid you might laugh.