Jed did not even have a chance to scream.
4
Ginny awoke late.
She stretched, sat up, saw that Bill was not in bed and, hearing noise outside, peeked through the bedroom curtains. They'd talked last night before going to bed about cleaning out the garage, donating some of their old furniture and bric-a-brac to the Baptist rummage sale, throwing away the useless garbage that they'd accumulated over the years so they could actually walk into the garage, but they'd talked about the same thing a million times before and hadn't done it, and she hadn't expected them to follow through this time. Bill was already awake and dressed and outside, though, and when she peered through the window, she saw several boxes on the dirt drive and saw him carrying yet another one out of the garage. She tapped on the glass, and he waved at her, pointing to an imaginary watch on his wrist to indicate that she was late and should get out and help.
Ginny pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and walked out to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. Sam was already gone, at work, and Shannon was stretched out on the floor of the living room watching TV, an empty orange juice glass beside her.
'Why aren't you out helping your father?' Ginny said.
Her daughter did not even look up. 'Why aren't you?'
'Smart-ass. I find anything of yours in the garage, I'm donating it.'
Shannon sat up. 'You better not!'
Ginny grinned.
'Dad!'
Laughing, Ginny walked outside. Bill was wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. 'About time,' he said.
'I was getting my beauty rest,' she told him.
He grinned. 'Didn't work.' He held up his hands to protect himself as she advanced toward him across the gravel. 'You set yourself up for that one.'
She punched him lightly on the arm. 'Geek.'
He drew himself up to his full height. 'Computer nerd, if you don't mind.'
Ginny glanced around at the array of boxes. 'So what's going, what's staying? Have you found anything you're willing to part with?'
'Quite a bit, actually.' He motioned toward a box next to a manzanita bush. 'There's some of your stuff in there. I didn't know what you wanted or what you didn't, so I figured I'd let you sort through it.'
Ginny walked over, looked into the box, saw an old PTA plaque she'd gotten when Sam was in elementary school, a jewelry box Bill's mother had given her that she'd never liked, a folded red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. She squatted down and started sorting through the items, pushing things aside or moving them around but taking nothing out. Sandwiched between a Betty Crocker recipe book and a 1982 Sierra Club calendar, she found a single photograph, an old Polaroid shot. She . pulled it out. 'How did that get in here?'
The picture was of herself, as a teenager in the mid-seventies sometime, dressed in the absurd fashions of that era. She was at some sort of concert or rally, and her best friend, Stacy Morales, was next to her, posing in front of a bunch of other girls The ERA rally.
It all came back to her now. Spring, 1976. Her senior year in high school.
She and Stacy and a bunch of other girls from Cortez had traveled in Stacy's mom's van to ASU, where the campus women's center was putting on a rally to support the Equal Rights Amendment. It had been her first exposure to college life, and the students, the campus, the ideas, the lifestyles had all made a huge impression on her. She'd left the rally feeling energized and empowered, as though she could do anything. It was as if a whole new world had opened up to her. She returned to her own school the next day feeling like an adult among kids, and her grades actually went up that last semester as she'd studied her hardest to make sure she'd be able to get into a good college.
As she stared at the photo now, she experienced more than a twinge of nostalgia. Behind Stacy was a female college student wearing a T-shirt bearing the partially obstructed slogan: A HARD MAN is GOOD TO FIND. Next to her was a large-breasted young woman, shirt raised, flashing her tits at the camera and shouting joyfully. In those days, sex had been seen as liberating, and it had felt as though the dawn of a new era was upon them. No longer were men going to be allowed to have dominion over women's sexuality. The Pill had given them freedom, had given them control over their own bodies, and sex was going to be something in which women participated, not something to which they were subjected.
But those days were long gone. Today many of the feminists were as bad as the old male chauvinists had been. There was a prudishness in the women's movement now, a fear of sexuality that was more reactionary and regressive than the attitudes of most modern men. What had happened to the progress they had made back then? What had happened to the concept of 'liberation'? Nowadays, women who called themselves feminists were advocating restrictions and censorship, trying to inhibit freedom rather than expand it.
They'd become just like the people they were fighting.
Bill walked over, looked at the Polaroid. 'What's that?'
'Nothing,' she said.
'There's another box for you over there.'
She nodded. 'I'll check it out in a minute.'
She looked again at the photo, then slipped it into the right front pocket of her shorts and followed Bill across the gravel to the garage.
She had a hair appointment at one o'clock, but they finished cleaning out the garage by midmorning, and she accompanied Bill to both the Baptist church and the dump before coming back to make lunch. They ate outside, on the deck, and afterward he did the dishes while she took a quick shower and changed. Or, rather, he had Shannon do the dishes. For when Ginny emerged from the bathroom, he was back in his room, in front of his computer, while Shannon was rinsing out the kitchen sink.
'He gave me two bucks,' Shannon explained.
'I've been working all morning!' he called from his room.
'Next time,' Ginny told her daughter, 'I'll give you three dollars if you make him do it himself.'
'Three bucks for doing nothing?' Shannon laughed. 'Deal.'
'Four!' Bill called.
'Three bucks and no work beats four bucks and work!' Shannon called back.
'Sorry, Dad!'
Ginny shook her head. 'I'll see you two later,' she said.
Ordinarily, Ginny enjoyed getting her hair done. She liked talking with the other women, catching up on all of the gossip that she missed out on at school. But the mood at Hair Today was grim. Although she had never known Rene to be anything less than cheerful, the hairstylist seemed downright sullen this afternoon. She spoke hardly at all, and when she did her voice was curt, brusque.
Among the other women at the salon, rumors were flying. Kelli Finch, whose husband owned and operated Walt's Transmission and Tuneup, had heard that The Store was going to open an auto center and start performing repairs as well as selling parts. Maryanne Robertson, who worked part-time at The Quilting Bee, said there was a rumor that The Store was going to sell quilts on consignment.
Rene said nothing at first, but finally admitted that more than one customer had told her that a beauty salon would soon be opening inside The Store next to the espresso bar. 'Pretty soon,' she said sourly, 'downtown'll be completely dead.'
It was something that Ginny had noticed but had not consciously registered. Now that Rene mentioned it, though, Main Street did seem unusually quiet. Foot traffic was almost nonexistent, and only an occasional car drove past the front window. Even Hair Today seemed less crowded than usual, although that couldn't be attributed to The Store.
Not yet, at least.
'Maybe you should build a new salon across the highway from The Store,'
Maryanne suggested. 'That way it would be convenient for people to go there.
They wouldn't have to go out of their way.'
Rene grimaced. 'With what? I'm in debt as it is. How am I supposed to get enough money to open a new
