Read Online Three Women by Marge Piercy - Free Book Online Page A

quirky, that moved her. She liked hearing him talk. She asked him about his recent trip to Antarctica. He told her about acres of penguins. The breath of a whale—fishy, warm, that touched his face when she breached beside the small boat. Sterile mountains beautiful and grim. It was summer there in January, and the sun barely set, glittering blindingly off the ice. But often it was overcast and the wind cut through his clothes. He kept getting windburn. His eyes had a steadiness and intensity that made her keep catching on his gaze as if it were barbed. His hands were large for his size but finely shaped. He had presence. Of course: he was an organizer, a macher, a leader. Why should she be surprised that in the flesh, he radiated strength, energy like radiant heat? As they were leaving, he said, “Let’s take a walk around here, if you’re willing.”
    They walked along the Charles together. The sun was out, the snow had melted the week before, and the temperature was above freezing. It was not yet spring, but it promised spring. The Charles was free of ice. Families of mallards paddled along. There was even a rower pushing the season.
    “It’ll be a shock for you to go through winter again.”
    “I lived up in the mountains for a couple of years. We had fierce winters. We were snowed in sometimes for a week.” He made a gesture up over his head. “That was my mountain man phase.”
    “But for the last fifteen years, you’ve been living in Oakland, and you haven’t seen a snowflake or an icicle or a sleet storm.”
    “Actually, in Antarctica,” he said mildly, “I saw quite a lot of ice. Besides, even at home, I did go through a couple of earthquakes and a fire that just missed my house by three blocks…. Are you trying to talk me out of this move?” He sat down on a bench in the sun and motionedher beside him. He turned to her then, taking her by the shoulder. “What are you afraid of?”
    “In general? Death, accidents, disease, something happening to my daughters—”
    “All right, let’s go at this another way. What do you want, Suzanne?”
    “I want things to continue. I like my work. I like my house. I like my friends.”
    “Everything just the way it is. No changes.”
    “Well, life is never like that, is it? I’d like Elena to find her own place to live. I’d like my mother to make an effort to see me as I am, I’d like my dean to stop patronizing me—”
    “And what do you want from me? Anything?”
    “I don’t know,” she said in a much softer voice, almost choked. “What do you want?”
    “I’ll show you.” He took her hand and stood. He kept her hand as they walked. “For two years we’ve been talking, we’ve been flirting, we’ve been sharing our minds. I don’t want it to be less real now. I want it to be more real.”
    “I’m not…perhaps who I’ve seemed to be…I don’t…have affairs, go out with men, that sort of thing.” She was deeply, poignantly confused. She knew him and she didn’t know him at all. He was a close friend, an intimate confidant, a stranger.
    “Obviously you’ve been with men in the past. Your daughters weren’t the result of virgin birth. You told me about their fathers.”
    “I can’t believe how much I told you.”
    “Believe it. Why not? You have some idea who I am.” With her arm tucked securely in his, he walked briskly back in the direction of the Square.
    “It was easy in my office, alone there in the mornings, typing messages on a screen. I’m sure I came across as far more at ease, far more…sophisticated, far more interesting than the woman you see. I’m dynamite in a courtroom but so awkward right now I feel like a twelve-year-old.”
    “You’re out of practice. But I’m not a set of skills to be mastered, not a brief to be prepared. I’m just a man who’s interested in you.”
    Heat slammed up her body. She could think of absolutely nothing tosay. Yes, she had entertained fantasies about Jake, but the best thing