Small Changes (33 page)

Once while she was changing at Tech Square to go out afterward with a bass player she had met through Rick, Beth stood and watched her in the women’s lounge.

“Miriam, what does it feel like to be beautiful? I mean it. Does it feel good?”

Miriam looked Beth in the eyes, a little threatened. She never knew what to do when other women began to be jealous. But Beth was really asking. “It feels better than being ugly. I like the attention.”

“If I was a painter, you’re what I’d paint for a beautiful woman.”

“But once I wasn’t, and someday again I won’t be. And I’ll still be me, and it will be like it was when I was fifteen and ugly and I’ll still want people to admire me and want me, and they won’t. Think of all the beautiful black women born in white cities before there was a black movement to let them see their faces in the mirror. Other people give you beauty and take it away. It’s being given a ticket for a while to get away with what you want to do, to get the things you want.”

“I want to be beautiful but not in a magazine way, not in a sexy way. I mean I want to like myself. I want to feel that I’m what I want to be.”

“I think I am what I want to be.”

“But you’re always flirting, always playing games with people, always acting.”

“That’s just the social thing—how I act with men.”

“I don’t want to be that way with anybody,” Beth said fiercely. Then she repeated it, maybe as much for herself as for Miriam.

Off she went to Rochester with Ryan and Owasa and Woods and Manganaro of her group. The meeting was mainly for biochemists, but there was a section on applications of computers and they were giving a paper on their work. She went partly because her name was on the paper and partly because she’d gone to only a few scientific meetings and still found them exciting. Because they would all be staying in a house that had been turned over to the conference and because she would be driving there with Owasa and Woods, it would cost little for what would be almost a vacation. She had never been in Rochester. Every time she got to visit someplace new, that was one more thing checked off the list of what she had never done, a small but measurable accomplishment. At the very least she would get to some parties, she would eat out, she would get to meet a lot of men and be amused.

Owasa and Ryan and Manganaro were all married, and Woods was friendly but gay; so she had simply omitted them from her calculations of pleasures to be enjoyed. Actually the only one she liked was Woods. Owasa she had respect for, he was very good, very fast. He had a faculty appointment already. Manganaro was plodding and out of his depth and
bigoted and vain. He was handsome and left her unmoved. He never finished anything properly. Ryan was touchy but quick and always looking for an angle. When she had to instruct him about something—after all, she knew her side of the project, that was why she was working with them—he would begin to grind his teeth. She found that boring. Otherwise he was satisfactory company.

But Ryan had other ideas about his vacation as she found out the second night when there was a party in their quarters. She realized vaguely that he kept handing her drinks. He was always at her elbow with another cocktail. She was not used to cocktails, not used to anything but California wine and beer. She had no idea how much she was drinking except that she always had a glass in her hand. She was laughing too much, she was talking too loudly. No one in this group danced, they just stood and went ya-ta-ta-ta to each other. She felt as if Ryan were showing her off, this strange little man was suddenly pushing on her in some way she could not maneuver around. She was uncomfortable and she drank more, trying to regain her equilibrium. After a point the evening ran quickly downhill, everything seemed to tilt and run together. He was always at her elbow and everything else was up by the ceiling, swirling away. Everything kept receding from her. She was lying on a bed. Ryan was pawing at her. Pushing him away, she kept laughing. There seemed to be no one else around.

She kept trying to sit up and he kept climbing on her. His fox face sharpened, his chin was digging into her, his hands were strong claws tearing. He was getting angry. It felt bad. She could not bring herself to hit him. The laboratory politeness restrained her. She could not hit somebody on the group she was working with. She could only laugh and shove at him and try to get up. Her body felt vast and waterlogged. She seemed to be trying to move vats of blubber by remote control. Down there somewhere her huge legs in the depth of the bed. She could not hit a graduate student in the biochemistry department who worked on her group. She kept telling him he was a married man and he kept trying to force her legs apart.

She felt exhausted and nauseous. The elastic on her panties had given way long ago and he had actually got in for an
instant. She began to be a little scared and said, “Okay, okay, let me get my diaphragm.”

But he had a rubber. It was ridiculous. She had not seen one of those since the second time with Phil. The act was disgusting in a dry sort of way and it went on forever. Forever he was lying on her stomach pushing into her. It hurt but she was too sodden to feel strongly. It was a nuisance. She felt nauseous with him riding on her belly. She had to piss. His motion inside irritated her bladder. It went on forever and finally he pulled out. Presumably he had come, she got up at once and ran to the bathroom, stumbling till she found it. She could no longer remember where her own room was or how to negotiate the distance between. She could not even manage to find her clothes so, grimacing with resentment, she had to climb back beside him and go to sleep.

When she woke in the morning he was up already. She heard his voice talking on the room phone. She lay still and listened, alerted by the grate of triumph in his voice. “Five dollars, Al. Sure, come by on your way out to breakfast. You couldn’t ask for more proof.” He hung up.

A bet with Al. Hung over and sick to her stomach, she imagined making many holes in his body with a knife. She immediately dragged out of bed.

“Good morning, good morning, Miriam baby.” Ryan was beaming. “How’s the head?”

“Working.” Scooping up her clothes as she went, she slammed into the bathroom and put herself together as quickly as she could work the zippers and buttons. But when she hopped out, Al Manganaro was already at the door. “Hey, how about some breakfast, Ryan? Well, well.”

“I hear you have a bet with Ryan,” she said sweetly, strolling past them swinging her leather pouch. “Gee, I wish I could help you decide who won, but since I passed out, I haven’t the foggiest if I was had or not. I mean, you’d think if anything had really happened I’d remember—but maybe it just wasn’t memorable. To breakfast?”

From that moment on Ryan was her enemy. The hatred was mutual but controlled, as both of them cared more for the group’s work than for each other.

Lionel had let the flat near Nostrand go and taken a studio apartment in Brooklyn Heights. He said that it was
convenient, and besides, the kids came home so seldom. Self-pityingly he said that to her, but she did not believe he would be pleased if they invaded. In fact, Allegra, faced with Christmas vacation and only invited to spend half of it with her boy friend, descended on her for the last four days. She gave up her bed to Allegra and slept at the commune with Phil.

“How come you didn’t go to Lionel’s? You always liked shopping Christmas vacations.”

“The merry widower? He’s in Florida visiting friends.”

“So how come you couldn’t borrow the key? I’m glad to have you, but you don’t know anybody here.…”

“He told Mark and his roommate Loudmouth they could stay. And Mark told me I’d interfere with their social life. Isn’t that rich?”

“I don’t like our brother.”

“He’s going to be a success, though.” Allegra was doing something elaborate to her hair with a wire brush, sitting at Miriam’s desk. She spoke matter-of-factly. “He’s the only one in the family with that kind of head—where do you think the
momser
got it? If you ask him why he likes somebody, like Loudmouth he rooms with, there’s always an ulterior motive.… Do you like the way Dad is acting? I mean, really, do you?”

“I haven’t been home that much. Every time I walked in the door of the old flat, a weight fell on me. I’d feel like I couldn’t breathe.”

“It was pretty depressing. But do you like his bachelor pad? It makes me uncomfortable. The same with his sideburns. And he’s letting his hair grow—haven’t you noticed? Every time I see him, he’s sneaking to get it a little bit longer. And those shirts!”

“I guess that’s how he wanted to dress. No more white-on-white specials from Grandfather.” For years Lionel had worn white dress shirt irregulars with French cuffs from his father, who had been in the shirt business. They had always been baggy. Only Sonia pretended to think they were wonderful, very distinguished, she said. Even after Grandfather died, they had a lifetime supply. Mark had worn them too all through high school, but he revolted and said he wouldn’t go to college if he had to wear them any more.

“So maybe he deserves purple shirts for a while. But he
embarrasses me.” Allegra made her eyes wide. “He doesn’t look like anybody’s father. He thinks he’s Marcello Mastroianni.”

“Is he giving you money?”

“He puts me through school. Same with Mark. You’re the only one off his back. He keeps asking me, ‘When are you getting married?’ As if I’m not trying.”

“How is your boy friend?”

Allegra shrugged. “It’s obvious if I marry him I’ll have to put him through medical school. That sounds too much like Mama!”

“You’re so young, Allegra, don’t let them hurry you. Women who marry young, they always look sad to me in a few years.”

Allegra frowned at the ends of hair, looking for splits. “Miriam, don’t you get lonely? Don’t you get scared?”

“I was lonely when I was younger. I have more trouble making sure I get the time alone that I need than I do finding people to spend time with. Scared of what?”

“Of being alone. Of losing your looks. Of getting old and not having anybody.”

“Sure, sometimes.”

“Well, I do often.” Allegra threw the comb down. “What do you get scared of, big sister? You must be afraid sometimes.”

“When I was younger I was scared that nobody would ever love me. I was scared of men, scared to talk to them, scared of being rejected if I showed I liked someone. I feel that less now. I support myself, and as soon as I finish the classes I have to take for my doctorate, I’ll be working full time. I worry a lot about finding work I really want to do. I don’t want to get stuck in some dead-end job. That’s awfully easy for a woman. I don’t want a job in a company where I’ll be expected to go on doing shit work for years and never get a promotion and never get a chance to show what I can do. I don’t want to go to work for the military or one of those big corporations. I don’t even know if creative work in my field exists outside a university. But universities are tight and prejudiced against women. It’s rotten hard for a woman to get a decent job around a university.”

“Is that what you really worry about?” Allegra narrowed her eyes.

Miriam nodded. “I don’t want to be poor, if the truth be known. I want to live comfortably. I’m tired of the half-life of a student. I want to be able to help my friends when they need help. I want to buy interesting clothes. I’m sick of eating in greasy spoons. I don’t want a lot of money, Allegra, really. I just want a decent living. I want the things that make life pleasant. When I bought that reconditioned air conditioner for fifty dollars, do you know what a change that made in my life? This room gets hot in the summer, believe me, right up under the roof. I had enough hard times growing up.”

“It wasn’t so bad. You exaggerate.”

“By the time you were growing up, it wasn’t.”

Allegra was still frowning. “But if you really get a Ph.D., who’ll marry you? Dad says you’re educating yourself right out of a husband.”

Miriam’s turn to shrug. “I can’t imagine getting married before I’m thirty, frankly. I’ve too much wanderlust.”

“But all the men will be gone by then.”

“Good. I’ll marry a nineteen-year-old.” She laughed.

“You’re still seeing Phil, after all this time! You might as well marry him. It’s been years!”

“I’m not going to, Allegra, I told you that. Don’t worry.”

“What will you do with him when you do marry?”

“I don’t know.” Miriam hugged herself. “I can’t imagine. But that’s years and years away.”

“I should send your little sister a bouquet, I like having you over here every night. But I wouldn’t mind half an hour alone with her, I’ll tell you true.”

Miriam rose on her elbow and tapped Phil’s chest. “No.”

“How come?”

“No. No, because I used to be jealous of her. No, because I love her now and she’d feel bad.”

“How do you know?” Phil put his hand under her chin. “Sometimes when she’s holding forth I think she needs a touch of it.”

“That isn’t what she needs, and do you want to make me upset?”

“It might be interesting.” But he left Allegra to her own devices for the rest of her stay.

She knew Allegra found her life bizarre and dangerous. She found Allegra’s wan ambitions tedious. Still she clung
to Allegra and Allegra to her. Miriam missed women in her life. She had a growing need for women friends, and she tried to reach out to other women and bind them to her by doing them favors, by trying to find out what they wanted and helping them to get it, as she had brought Dorine together with Lennie. She tried to discover increasingly, as time went on, what Beth might want.

Beth would be a superior sort of younger sister, with all Allegra’s delicacy. Beth was a small butterfly, a warbler, the miniature deer she had seen once with Phil in the Bronx Zoo, a deer only a foot high—a nocturnal creature with huge eyes and bones that would snap in the hand. She was fascinated too with Beth’s strange dry quality, cool and contained. Yet Beth was naive and girlish too. There was a quality of will in Beth that was totally lacking in Allegra, yet beside her Allegra would have seemed sophisticated.