'You killed me but it was great!' Joanna said as they walked off the court together. 'Thank you!'
Charmaine, patting her high-boned cheeks carefully with an end of her towel, said, 'You just have to get back in practice, that's all. You have a first-rate serve.'
'Fat lot of good it did me.'
'Will you play often? All I've got now are a couple of teen-age boys, both with permanent erections.'
Bobbie said, 'Send them to my place'-getting up from the ground.
They walked up the flagstone path toward the house.
'It's a terrific court,' Joanna said, toweling her arm.
'Then use it,' Charmaine said. 'I used to play every day with Ginnie Fisher-do you know her?-but she flaked out on me. Don't you, will you?
How about tomorrow?'
'Oh I couldn't!'
They sat on a terrace under a Cinzano umbrella, and the maid, a slight gray-haired woman named Nettie, brought them a pitcher of Bloody Mary's and a bowl of cucumber dip and crackers. 'She's marvelous,' Charmaine said. 'A German Virgo; if I told her to lick my shoes she'd do it. What are you, Joanna?'
'An American Taurus.'
'If you tell her to lick your shoes she spits in your eye,' Bobbie said.
'You don't really believe that stuff, do you?'
'I certainly do,' Charmaine said, pouring Bloody Mary's. 'You would too if you came to it with an opcn mind.' (Joanna squinted at her: no, not Raquel Welch, but darn close.) 'That's why Ginnie Fisher flaked out on me,' she said. 'She's a Gemini; they change all the time. Taureans are stable and dependable. Here's to tennis galore.'
Joanna said, 'This particular Taurean has a house and two kids and no German Virgo.'
Charmaine had one child, a nine-year-old son named Merrill. Her husband Ed was a television producer. They had moved to Stepford in July. Yes, Ed was in the Men's Association, and no, Charmaine wasn't bothered by the sexist injustice. 'Anything that gets him out of the house nights is fine with me,' she said. 'He's Aries and I'm Scorpio.'
'Oh well,' Bobbie said, and put a dip-loaded cracker into her mouth.
'It's a very bad combination,' Charmaine said. 'If I knew then what I know now.'
'Bad in what way?' Joanna asked.
Which was a mistake. Charmaine told them at length about her and Ed's manifold incompatibilities-social, emotional, and above all, sexual. Nettie served them lobster Newburg and julienne potatoes-'Oi, my hips,' Bobbie said, spooning lobster onto her plate-and Charmaine went on in candid detail. Ed was a sex fiend and a real weirdo. 'He had this rubber suit made for me, at God knows what cost, in England. I ask you, rubber? 'Put it on one of your secretaries,' I said, 'you're not going to get me into it.'
Zippers and padlocks all over. You can't lock up a Scorpio. Virgos, any time; their thing is to serve. But a Scorpio's thing is to go his own way.'
'If Ed knew then what you know now,' Joanna said.
'It wouldn't have made the least bit of difference,' Charmaine said. 'He's crazy about me. Typical Aries.'
Nettie brought raspberry tarts and coffee. Bobbie groaned. Charmaine told them about other weirdos she had known. She had been a model and had known several.
She walked them to Bobbie's car. 'Now look,' she said to Joanna, 'I know you're busy, but any time you have a free hour, any time, just come on over. You don't even have to call; I'm almost always here.'
'Thanks, I will,' Joanna said. 'And thanks for today. It was great.'
'Any time,' Charmaine said. She leaned to the window. 'And look, both of you,' she said, 'would you do me a favor? Would you read Linda Goodman's Sun Signs? Just read it and see how right she is. They've got it in the Center Pharmacy, in paper. Will you? Please?'
They gave in, smiling, and promised they would.
'Ciao!' she called, waving to them as they drove away.
'Well,' Bobbie said, rounding the curve of the driveway, 'she may not be ideal NOW material, but at least she's not in love with her vacuum cleaner.'
'My God, she's beautiful,' Joanna said.
'Isn't she? Even for these parts, where you've got to admit they look good even if they don't think good. Boy, what a marriage! How about that business with the suit? And I thought Dave had spooky ideas!'
'Dave?' Joanna said, looking at her.
Bobbie side-flashed a smile. 'You're not going to get any true confessions out of me,' she said. 'I'm a Leo, and our thing is changing the subject.
You and Walter want to go to a movie Saturday night?'
THEY HAD BOUGHT THE HOUSE from a couple named Pilgrim, who had lived in it for only two months and had moved to Canada. The Pilgrims had bought it from a Mrs. McGrath, who had bought it from the builder eleven years before. So most of the junk in the storage room had been left by Mrs. McGrath. Actually it wasn't fair to call it junk: there were two good Colonial side chairs that Walter was going to strip and refinish some day; there was a complete twenty-volume Book of Knowledge, now on the shelves in Pete's room; and there were boxes and small bundles of hardware and oddments that, though not finds, at least seemed likely to be of eventual use. Mrs. McGrath had been a thoughtful saver.
Joanna had transferred most of the not-really-junk to a far corner of the cellar before the plumber had installed the sink, and now she was moving the last of it-cans of paint and bundles of asbestos roof shingles-while Walter hammered at a plywood counter and Pete handed him nails. Kim had gone with the Van Sant girls and Carol to the library.
Joanna unrolled a packet of yellowed newspaper and found inside it an inch-wide paintbrush, its clean bristles slightly stiff but still pliable.
She began rolling it back into the paper, a half page of the Chronicle, and the words WOMEN'S CLUB caught her eye. HEARS AUTHOR. She turned the paper to the side and looked at it.
'For God's sake,' she said.
Pete looked at her, and Walter, hammering, said, 'What is it?'
She got the brush out of the paper and put it down, and held the half page open with both hands, reading.
Walter stopped hammering and turned and looked at her. 'What is it?' he asked.
She read for another moment, and looked at him; and looked at the paper, and at him. 'There was-a women's club here,' she said. 'Betty Friedan spoke to them. And Kit Sundersen was the president. Dale Coba's wife and Frank Roddenberry's wife were officers.'
'Are you kidding?' he said.
She looked at the paper, and read: ''Betty Friedan, the author of The Feminine Mystique, addressed members of the Stepford Women's Club Tuesday evening in the Fairview Lane home of Mrs. Herbert Sundersen, the club's president. Over fifty women applauded Mrs. Friedan as she cited the inequities and frustrations besetting the modernday housewife…'' She looked at him.
'Can I do some?' Pete asked.
Walter handed the hammer to him. 'When was that?' he asked her.
She looked at the paper. 'It doesn't say, ifs the bottom half,' she said.
'There's a picture of the officers. 'Mrs. Steven Margolies, Mrs. Dale Coba, author Betty Friedan, Mrs. Herbert Sundersen, Mrs. Frank Roddenberry, and Mrs. Duane T. Anderson.'' She opened the half page toward him, and he came to her and took a side of it. 'If this doesn't beat everything,' he said, looking at the picture and the article.
'I spoke to Kit Sundersen,' she said. 'She didn't say a word about it. She didn't have time for a get-together. Like all the others.'
'This must have been six or seven years ago,' he said, fingering the edge of the yellowed paper.
'Or more,' she said. 'The Mystique came out while I was still working.
Andreas gave me his review copy, remember?'
He nodded, and turned to Pete, who was hammering vigorously at the counter top. 'Hey, take it easy,' he said,
