Read Online The Collected Stories by Grace Paley - Free Book Online Page B

LABEL FERTILIZER. HE KNOWS THE MIDWEST. HE KNOWS YOUR NEEDS. CALL HIM BILL AND CALL HIM NOW.
    I was neat and brown-eyed, innocent and alert, offended by the chicanery of my fellows, powered by decency, going straight up.
    The lean-shanked girls had been brought to New York by tractor and they were going straight up too, through the purgatory of man’s avarice to Whore’s Heaven, the Palace of Possessions.
    While I labored at my dreams, Dotty spent some money to see the leaning tower of Pisa and ride in a gondola. She decided to stay in London at least two weeks because she felt at home there. And so all this profit was at last being left in the hands of foreigners who would invest it to their own advantage.
    One misty day the boom of foghorns rolling round Manhattan Island reminded me of a cablegram I had determined to ignore, ARRIVING QUEEN ELIZABETH WEDNESDAY 4 P.M. I ignored it successfully all day and was casual with a couple of cool blondes. And went home and was lonely. I was lonely all evening. I tried writing a letter to an athletic girl I’d met in a ski lodge a few weeks before … I thought of calling some friends, but the pure unmentionable fact is that women isolate you. There was no one to call.
    I went out for an evening paper. Read it. Listened to the radio. Went out for a morning paper. Had a beer. Read the paper and waited for the calculation of morning.
    I never went to work the next day or the day after. No word came from Dot. She must have been crawling with guilt. Poor girl …
    I finally wrote her a letter. It was very strong.
    My dear Dorothy:
    When I consider our relationship and recall its seasons, the summer sun that shone on it and the winter snows it plowed through, I can still find no reason for your unconscionable behavior. I realize that you were motivated by the hideous examples of your mother and all the mothers before her. You were, in a word, a prostitute. The love and friendship I gave were apparently not enough. What did you want? You gave me the swamp waters of your affection to drown in, and because I refused you planned this desperate revenge.
    In all earnestness, I helped you, combing my memory for those of our faith who have touched the press-happy nerves of this nation.
    What did you want?
    Marriage?
    Ah, that’s it! A happy daddy-and-mommy home. The home-happy day you could put your hair up in curlers, swab cream in the corner of your eyes … I’m not sure all this is for Fred.
    I am twenty-nine years old and not getting any younger. All around me boy graduates have attached their bow legs to the Ladder of Success. Dotty Wasserman, Dotty Wasserman, what can I say to you? If you think I have been harsh, face the fact that you haven’t dared face me.
    We had some wonderful times together. We could have them again. This is a great opportunity to start on a more human basis. You cannot impose your narrow view of life on me. Make up your mind, Dotty Wasserman.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Sincerely with recollected affection,
    F.        
    P.S. This is your
last
chance.
    Two weeks later I received a one-hundred-dollar bill.
    A week after that at my door I found a carefully packed leather portfolio, hand-sewn in Italy, and a projector with a box of slides showing interesting views of Europe and North Africa.
    And after that, nothing at all.

An Interest in Life
    My husband gave me a broom one Christmas. This wasn’t right. No one can tell me it was meant kindly.
    â€œI don’t want you not to have anything for Christmas while I’m away in the army,” he said. “Virginia, please look at it. It comes with this fancy dustpan. It hangs off a stick. Look at it, will you? Are you blind or cross-eyed?”
    â€œThanks, chum,” I said. I had always wanted a dustpan hooked up that way. It was a