Read Online Range of Light by Valerie Miner - Free Book Online Page A

the bossy one. I’m the rascal. You’ll be fine.”
    â€œYes,” I murmured distractedly as Barbara teased my roots with a little green brush. Was she getting it dark enough this time? So hard to tell when wet. I closed my eyes. Kath would never consider coloring her hair. Of course gray didn’t really show in blond hair. Still, I would die if Kath knew I had spent the day before our trip in a beauty salon. Barbara could be very wrong about us getting along; there were so many differences in our lives now. Occasionally I imagined Kath reading one of my articles. But where would she come across Representations or Genders or Signs? I had once thought I’d dedicate my first book to Kath—but that would have broken Mom’s heart. And the next one had to be dedicated “to Lou and the boys without whom …” Besides, what would Kath make of a gendered reading of fifties Western films? Was Kath a feminist? Of course, she was the first feminist I had ever met—at age ten.
    â€œThere you go. All set for the dryer,” Barbara declared.
    â€œLooks as if I’ve been through a mudslide.” I wondered at my squeamishness today.
    â€œPreview of your trip!” Barbara laughed heartily.
    Adjusting myself under the dryer, I picked up a copy of People magazine. I read it in the compulsive way I ate potato chips and then felt vaguely nauseated afterward. But there was something about the rag—it was as if the gossip held out promise and admonition about how to live and not live one’s own life: Princess Di was binging again; Garth Brooks was having throat problems.
    From the outside, from the point of view of many people, I had an enviable life. Look at this story about an Ozarks woman with nine kids who was mayor of her town and also held down a job as a telephone operator. I was very lucky—I had worked hard and used my advantages as best I could, but I had those advantages, and compared to this woman in Arkansas, my life was vanilla pudding. I recited the reassuring litany to myself: Finished grad school in five years. Married. Did a year of adjunct teaching. Landed a job at Wellesley. Published a book. Got tenure. Had two healthy children. I was what I would have considered a wild success story twenty years ago. Clara praised me for keeping my ego in check. But my children, my partner, were gifts of fate. And I knew that my career was a fluke, that I had stumbled on my aptitude as I moved along—the inadvertent academic. Once, I had thought I might get a master’s degree and marry a bright, handsome man, settle down in the Bay Area and exchange child-rearing stories with Kath.
    Yes, that had been the plan, almost a pact.
    How did I get here—a forty-four year old college professor, mother, wife, writer. Or mother, wife, writer, professor. What was the order? The priority? This is how—a combination of activated desire and restrained imagination.
    Driving home, I gobbled a slice of pepperoni pizza—not the healthiest lunch, but it was quick and would save me from creating an elaborate meal with Lou. I couldn’t believe that some of my colleagues cooked for their families every night. Lou had always been great about that. He was introducing his sons to the kitchen already. Simon could make a mean omelette, and Taylor’s gingerbread was terrific. There—he wasn’t a bad mate at all. I was the rotten parent for, unnaturally, selfishly, I sometimes ached to be free of the guys and I would go up to the Maine cabin a week ahead of the family to write or sketch. Lou was good about these respites, but the boys complained they missed me. I finished the pizza and switched on the radio, realizing that I hadn’t heard news today. Perhaps I could bring my Walkman to the mountains. No, Kath would not approve.
    Of course I hadn’t got here—hadn’t claimed this relatively balanced life—without some sacrifices and compromises; it