"She wants to know what a man's looks like."
Dr. Ora Fessenden took hold, barking from the stirrups. "With luck, she'll never have to see."
"Right on," the butch sisters chorused, but the others began to look at one another in growing discomfiture, which as the weeks passed would ripen into alarm.
By the time she reached the camp, June was already worried about the casseroles she had left for Vic and the kids. Would the one she had left in the oven go bad at room temperature? Maybe she ought to call Vic and tell him to let it bubble for an extra half hour just in case. Would Vic really keep an eye on Sandy, and if she got worse, would he get her to the doctor \n time? What about Jimmy's braces? She almost turned back.
But she was already at the gate to Ellen Ferguson's farm, and she was surprised to see a hastily constructed guardhouse, with Ellen herself in khakis, standing with a carbine at the ready, and she said, "Don't shoot, Ellen, it's me."
"For God's sake, June, I'm not going to shoot you." Ellen pushed her glasses up on her forehead so she could look into June's face. "I never thought you'd have the guts."
"I guess I needed a change."
"Isn't it thrilling?"
"I feel funny without the children." June was trying to remember when she had last seen Ellen: over a bridge table? at Weight Watchers? "How did you get into this?"
"I needed something to live for," Ellen said.
By that time two other women with rifles had impounded her car and then she was in a jeep bouncing up the dirt road to headquarters. The women behind the table all had on khakis, but they looked not at all alike in them. One was tall and tawny and called herself Sheena; there was a tough, funny-looking one named Rap and the third was Margy, still redolent of the kitchen sink. Sheena made the welcoming speech, and then Rap took her particulars while Margy wrote everything down.
She lied a little about her weight, and was already on the defensive when Rap looked at her over her glasses, saying, "Occupation?"
"Uh, household manager."
"Oh shit, another housewife. Skills?"
"Well, I used to paint a little, and . . ."
Rap snorted.
"I'm pretty good at conversational French."
"Kitchen detail," Rap said to Margy and Margy checked off a box and flipped over to the next sheet. "But I'm tired of all that," June said.
Rap said, "Next."
Oh it was good sitting around the campfire, swapping stories about the men at work and the men at home; every woman had a horror story, because even the men who claimed to be behind them weren't really behind them, they were paying lip service to avoid a higher price, and even the best among them would make those terrible verbal slips. It was good to talk to other women who were smarter than their husbands and having to pretend they weren't. It was good to be able to sprawl in front of the fire without having to think about Richard and what time he would be home. The kids were safely stashed down at the day care compound, along with everybody else's kids, and for the first time in at least eight years Clenda could relax and think about herself. She listened drowsily to that night's speeches, three examples of wildly diverging cant, and she would have taken notes except that she was full, digesting a dinner she hadn't had to cook, and for almost the first time in eight years she wasn't going to have to go out to the kitchen and face the dishes.
Marva, Patsy and Betts took turns admiring each other in their new uniforms and they sat at the edge of the group, hugging their knees and listening in growing excitement. Why, they didn't have to worry about what they looked like, that wasn't going to matter in the new scheme of things. It didn't matter whether or not they had dates. By the time the new order was established, they weren't even going to want dates. Although they would rather die than admit it, they all felt a little pang at this. Goodbye hope chest, goodbye wedding trip to Nassau and picture in the papers in the long white veil. Patsy, who wanted to be a corporation lawyer, thought: Why can't I have it all.
Now that his mother was dead and he didn't need to sell vacuum cleaners any more, Andy Ellis was thrown back on his own resources. He spent three hours in the shower and three days sleeping, and on the fourth day he emerged to find out his girl had left him for the koto player from across the hall. "Well shit," he said, and wandered into the street.
He had only been asleep for three days but everything was subtly different. The people in the corner market were mostly men, stocking up on TV dinners and chunky soups or else buying cooking wines and herbs, kidneys, beef liver and tripe. The usual girl was gone from the checkout counter, the butcher was running the register instead, and when Andy asked about it, Freddy the manager said, "She joined up."
"Are you kidding?"
"Some girl scout camp up at Ferguson's. The tails revolt."
Just then a jeep sped by in the street outside; there was a crash and they both hit the floor, rising to their elbows after the object that had shattered the front window did not explode. It was a rock with a note attached. Andy picked his way through the glass to retrieve it. It read:
WE WILL BUKY YOU
"See?" Freddy said, ugly and vindictive. "See? See?"
The local hospital admitted several cases of temporary blindness in men who had been attacked by night with women's deodorant spray.
All over town the men whose wives remained lay next to them in growing unease. Although they all feigned sleep, they were aware that the stillness was too profound: the women were thinking.
The women trashed a porn movie house. Among them was the wife of the manager, who said, as she threw an open can of film over the balcony, watching it unroll, "I'm doing this for us."
So it had begun. For the time being, Rap and her cadre, who were in charge of the military operation, intended to satisfy themselves with guerrilla tactics; so far, nobody had been able to link the sniping and materiel bombing with the women on the hill, but they all knew it was only a matter of time before the first police cruiser came up to Ellen Ferguson's gate with a search warrant, and they were going to have to wage open war.
By this time one of the back pastures had been converted to a rifle range, and even poor June had to spend at least one hour of every day in practice. She began to take an embarrassing pleasure in it, thinking, as she potted away:
Aha, Vic, there's a nick in your scalp. Maybe you'll remember what I look like next time you leave the house for the day.
Okay, kids, I am not the maid.
All right, Sally, you and your damn career. You're still only the maid.
Then, surprisingly: This is for you, Sheena. How dare you go around looking like that, when I have to look like this.
This is for every rapist on the block.
By the time she fired her last shot her vision was blurred by tears. June, you are stupid, stupid, you always have been and you know perfectly well nothing is going to make any difference.
Two places away, Clenda saw Richard's outline in the target. She made a bulls'-eye. All right, damn you, pick up that toilet brush.
Going back to camp in the truck they all sang "Up Women" and "The Internacionale," and June began to feel a little better. It reminded her of the good old days at camp in middle childhood, when girls and boys played together as if there wasn't any difference. She longed for that old androgynous body, the time before sexual responsibility. Sitting next to her on the bench, Glenda sang along but her mind was at the university; she didn't know what she was going to do if she got the Guggenheim because Richard had applied without success for so long that he had given up trying. What should she do, lie about it? It would be in all the papers. She wondered how convincing she would be, saying, Shit, honey, it doesn't mean anything. She would have to give up the revolution and get back to her work; her book was only half-written; she would have to go back to juggling kids and house and worried it was going to be hard, hard. She decided finally that she would let the Guggenheim Foundation make the decision for her. She would wait until late February and then write and tell Richard where to forward her mail.