Read Online Somebody to Love? by Grace Slick, Andrea Cagan - Free Book Online Page A

and, like me, twenty years old. We had the same friends, our parents already knew and liked each other, we'd gone to the same schools, had come from the same social strata, had the same ethics and family background, and lived in the same small town. Does that sound like the ingredients for the perfect tight-ass, fifties, arranged marriage? I bought it and so did Jerry.
    Was there passion? Nope. Just cultural imposition.
    “Will you marry me?” Nobody ever said that lovely, naive line. We just moved into the married state as if it was expected and irrevocable.

    Jerry Slick and I slice through six tiers of tradition on our wedding day. (Ivan Wing)
    Even though Cece and Jill St. John didn't know Jerry, my getting married was a good enough reason to get together and knock back a few cocktails. The night before the wedding, the three of us had a low-key, three-woman bachelorette party in one of the bars at the Fairmont. No drunken debauchery, just a mild high to fuel the girl talk. The next day, I had the kind of wedding that women love and men hate—big, dressy, and full of relatives and friends acting out lots of rituals. The reception was held in the Gold Room at the Fairmont Hotel with cake and champagne, and, to me, it all felt natural, no second thoughts, no regrets. Just another workout on the treadmill of tradition coming to a satisfying end at sunset.
    Throw the bouquet and say “Good night, Gracie.”
    After the standard honeymoon in Hawaii, we went back to the Bay Area. Then, at some point, Jerry decided, for reasons I can't remember, to go to San Diego State University. A beautiful area, San Diego was nevertheless populated by large groups of military-minded right-wing organizations. Jerry studied while I worked at a department store running a comptometer, a monstrous machine that calculates billing statements. For relaxation (?) we visited Jerry's cousin and her husband who weren't much older than we but were members of the John Birch Society. They were so right-wing, they made Charlton Heston look like a draft dodger. Although I wasn't particularly political at the time, it was hard to keep from laughing or just nodding off when they started with the here's-how-the-country-should-defend-itself harangue.
    Our stay in San Diego was brief, thank God, because Jerry switched to San Francisco State at the end of the first semester. But I was still faced with a need to make money, and had no well-defined skills. The last stupid job I tried before my twenty-five-year rock-and-roll stretch, was modeling for the I. Magnin couturier department. Living with Jerry in a ninety-dollar-a-month shit-hole apartment in San Francisco with rats in the basement and unpredictable plumbing, I was expected to show up at the store each morning, change into a different four-thousand-dollar outfit every ten minutes, and float around, showing rich old women the latest in overpriced European designer wear. If they liked something I was wearing, the head of the department, Madam Moon, a bullet-faced frog with pretensions of social superiority, would measure their lumpy old bodies. Then, magically, with the help of her overworked seamstresses, she'd crank out a perfect copy of the original, transforming the outfit from a size six to a size sixteen. Mirrors don't lie, but denial systems rule—the old broads thought they looked fabulous and the I. Magnin coffers filled up.
    One afternoon, an old dowager, cocooned in fur and rattling diamonds, came waddling over to me with her best four-martini tack and said, “My dear, you really
do
need to cream your elbows.” What the fuck was she talking about? How dare she discuss dry skin? Her entire body had freeze-dried so long ago, the addition of moisture would have been a life-saving event. And
she
thought
I
needed a lube job? I was twenty-two years old. The only time a twenty-two-year-old is going to look too crispy is if she's been in a four-alarm fire. I'm now fifty-eight and still refuse to put