Read Online Small Changes by Marge Piercy - Free Book Online Page B

Chlorine?”
    “Would I lie to you, Beth my girl?”
    He lived on Pearl Street in a three-story shabby tan house that appeared not quite straight in the lines of the floors, the walls, even the windows, as if the whole building had slipped somehow to the south. In this neighborhood there were mostly two- and three-story wooden houses set right up against the brick sidewalks and close to each other. She climbed the stairs behind him as he chattered on, all the way to the top floor. The door was unlocked. A man sat with his back to them. In khaki pants and a shirt hanging open on his tall wiry body, he bent over a desk made from a door on iron legs. “Hi, Tom.”
    “Well, are we inviting all the neighborhood junkies in? Iron bars do not a prison make, nor locks a cage. Would it be hopelessly bourgeois to go down to the locksmith and get a new lock put on the door?”
    “Haven’t you introduced her because you’re afraid to? Or does she maybe not have a name?” He had a slow and patient way of speaking, as if translating from another, internal language. Slowly and gently the words came out and stood awhile, waiting.
    “Jackson, Beth, etc. Be careful not to shake hands with him, Beth, or you’ll get a social disease. How come you’re home tonight?”
    “Because I was fired last week, as I told you, if you ever listened. I’m working on a paper for one of my many incompletes.”
    “Are we disturbing you then?” Tom took two quick steps in the direction of the room beyond.
    “Disturbance is something I always like, along with interruptions and diversions and anything except work. Besides, I’m just typing the paper—if you can call it typing. Lennie hawked all his papers early and got back, so I sent him to the store.”
    “Jackson, you order Lennie around too much. Just because he’s younger.” Soft voice from the doorway. She was only a few inches taller than Beth but fuller-bodied, with bittersweet chocolate hair frizzed around her ears and a heart-shaped plaintive face.
    “Come on, Dorine.” Jackson screwed up his forehead. “But he can’t cook, you know. I cook, Tom here fixes things.”
    “I’ve noticed that,” she said sharply, then looked embarrassed, seeing Beth. “Hello?”
    Jackson introduced them, tilting back in his chair. His age was hard to guess, except that he was older. His eyebrows were raised a little habitually, cutting a sharp line across his forehead. His dark brown hair was long and straight, caught back in a rubber band, and under the overhead bulb a few silver hairs shone. A shadow of dark stubble emphasized the lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes. The lines belonged. Gazing at him in a series of quick, cautious glances, Beth could not help but guess patience, suffering, an honest intelligence. His eyes were a light sandy brown, with the kind of gaze she kept finding herself tangling with involuntarily until she would again drop her own. He was so homely she found him attractive, and instantly suspected that such must be the case with many other women: dangerously homely. She found herself inclined to trust an attractive homely man overan attractive handsome man, especially since she knew she had loved Jim with her eyes.
    “Where’s kitty? Oh, here you are.” Dorine scooped up a dusty gray kitten from the desk. With piercing mews it skittered up her arm, clinging with tiny sharp claws. Kneeling on a daybed covered with a yellow and black Mexican blanket, Dorine caressed the kitten and watched Jackson peck at the keys. “You really don’t know how to type.”
    “Inadequate again. Been at this since noon.”
    “If you want me to, I’ll do a few pages while we’re waiting for Lennie to get back.”
    With no pretense of reluctance, Jackson sprang up. “You’re saving my life. Meantime, I’ll get started on supper.”
    Tom followed Jackson back through the rooms and Beth trailed after, looking right and left and up and down. The second room was larger but of a