Read Online Vida by Marge Piercy - Free Book Online Page A

eyes; a deep furrow stood between. How good it would be to grow into middle age talking, incessantly talking, chewing over their life together, tasting and trying and learning, always learning, coming home again to talk it all over. She loved him. He was a permanent part of her. They had helped to shape each other. He had the key to her body. They had much in common and could have so much more if permitted. Yet in the early morning they would separate, and she must depend on luck and the inefficiency of the government to let them come together again.
    The cassette was over. She liked the programs, but it seemed to her he was growing perceptibly less political. The push of the times was away from social content. A couple of years before, he would have made economic points about the old folks and why they couldn’t manage; now his emphasis was on human interest. She did not think he was aware of the drift. He needed her too, to keep him honest.

4
    Monday morning over 5 A .M. breakfast on the highway, Vida had to hit Leigh for money. After failing to get any from Hank, she had all of thirteen dollars and thirty-eight cents. She wished that Leigh would mention money himself. Over breakfast he was abstracted, moving already into the day’s, the week’s business. With the road dark outside the plate-glass window, she felt as if they had been wrenched from sleep and dumped into a cold river of traffic. “I’ll have to park the damned car somewhere and then return it on my lunch hour,” he was grumbling. “Otherwise I’ll never make it to work on time.”
    “Leigh … I’m completely broke. Do you have something to share with me?” So awkward. At first she’d used simply to tell him what she wanted. After all, he had their bank accounts, the furniture, books, stereo, audio equipment, all their joint property and assets. But as time passed and passed and passed, she had begun to feel like a poor relation begging.
    “How can you travel around broke? That’s dangerous in itself. Suppose something happens?”
    “I’m always in the situation of having to make nothing happen, unless I’m making it happen.” She waited.
    Finally he yawned, reaching for his wallet. “Good thing I remembered to stop at the bank. Actually, Susannah reminded me—I was supposed to be going to Chicago.” He counted out a hundred in twenties, paused, met her gaze, slowly counted out a second hundred.
    She was disappointed. After all, he usually gave her eighty or a hundred every month whenever he saw her. Since they’d missed so many months, she expected him to be a little more generous, but she did not want to fight about it their last hour together. Next time she would take up the issue of money with him.
    “Next Tuesday at 10 A .M. I’ll call your pay phone. Then back to the first Tuesday in the month at 10 A .M. If the first call fails, a follow-up Wednesday, same time, same phones. Okay?”
    He sighed. “Sure” He roused himself to pat her hand. “It’s been beautiful to see you. You’re looking good, kid. I hope you’re making it okay.”
    It occurred to her he had asked her almost nothing about her life. That might be tact, but it might mean that her life had become unreal to him. She decided to risk a slight breach of Network security. Everyone had some discretion about discussing actions; and members of the Board had considerable freedom, used mostly for fund raising. “Did you hear about a pirate TV station that appeared in L.A. for a whole Monday night, on one of the vacant channels?”
    “Yeah?” He looked more alert. “Sounded clever. People in masks reading all kinds of far-out news and gag interviews and alternating it with a showing of Salt of the Earth” A film about a strike among Chicanos and the women’s role.
    “That was us.”
    “No kidding? I didn’t think you had that kind of capability”“
    “It doesn’t take much” she said.
    “Will you do it again?”
    “Not in L.A. They’re waiting for