Daughters of Eve (6 page)

"Jane, hush." Her mother pulled herself painfully into a sitting position. Her face looked distorted, as though it were being reflected in a carnival mirror. Staring at her, Jane saw that the lip was worse than she had thought it was, for it had been pierced by a tooth. Her mother's eyes were sunken hollows in the depths of her pale face, and they held no light.

"You don't understand your father," Ellen Rheardon said slowly. "He had a hard childhood. People raised the way he was—well, they're a little different from the rest of us."

"Mother," Jane said softly, "someday he is going to kill you. Hell be sorry afterward, of course."

"You asked when I'm leaving. It will be before that, I promise." Her mother lifted the wet towel and pressed it against her cheek. "After you graduate from high school, I'll look into leaving. It won't be so hard then. I'll find an apartment—get a job of some kind. I'm just not ready yet. Right now, it's just more than I can handle. Can you understand that?"

"No," Jane said, and she felt her left eye twitch.

CHAPTER 5

"So Kelly will get the raffle tickets printed for the drawing at Homecoming," Fran Schneider said. "We'll distribute those at the next meeting so we can all get busy selling them. Now, if there's no further old business, we do have something new to discuss. Tammy has resigned her membership."

"Resigned membership!" Irene Stark leaned forward in surprise. "Did you say Tammy?"

"That's right. I just got the note yesterday." Fran held up a sheet of paper. "It says that 'after deep consideration' she has 'decided to drop membership.' She doesn't give any reason."

"I just don't believe it," Irene said. "Why, from what I've been told, Tammy's sister used to be president of Daughters of Eve when she was a student here. Do any of you girls know what's behind this? Ann? Kelly? You seem to be especially close to her."

"She got upset about something during the initiation meeting," Kelly Johnson said. "She wouldn't say what it was. Ann and I both tried to talk to her."

"She acted really funny," Holly Underwood said. "I noticed at the end of the initiation when the lights went on, she was sitting with her eyes closed. Then suddenly she jumped up and left the room without even welcoming the new members."

"I thought she looked ill," Irene said. "In fact, she told me herself that she wasn't feeling well. I think we should table this resignation, Fran. Perhaps Tammy will change her mind."

Ruth Grange raised her hand.

Fran acknowledged her. "Ruth?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to resign also," Ruth said apologetically. "It lolls me to do it, but my folks are going to make me."

"What is this, a mass exodus?" Irene regarded her with bewilderment. "You're going to drop membership one week after you join us?"

"I shouldn't have joined," Ruth said unhappily. "It's just that all my life I've wished I had sisters, and suddenly I had a chance for some, and I grabbed it. I should have known it wouldn't work out. My folks need me at home."

"To do what?" Holly asked.

"I've got a bunch of chores to do, and my lad brother would wreck the place if I wasn't there to keep an eye on him. He practically did that last week. My folks will hit the roof tonight when they learn I came to the meeting today, but I wanted to explain it all. I didn't want you to think I wanted to drop."

"This is incredible," Irene said. "Do you mean that you're expected to give up all your after-school time to be a housemaid and baby-sitter? Is this something you're getting paid for?"

"No," Ruth said. "Dad thinks I owe it because I'm the daughter in the family. The boys don't do anything. They just wander in and out when they feel like it and mess things up. Remember how it was when you were over the other afternoon, Laura?"

"You mean it's like that all the tune?" Laura asked in surprise.

"You don't know the half of it. You should see the place when the guys have their friends over. It's just since Mom's been working. Dad says we need the extra money if the boys are going to college out of state."

"I should think that your brothers would be the ones to donate their time to that cause," Irene said. "Is there some reason they can't take over for one afternoon a week and allow you some outside activities?"

"Irene, you don't know Peter," Bambi Ellis broke in. "There's no way he would stoop to baby-sitting. I can just imagine poor Ruthie trying to push that one through. Pete would explode!"

"It sounds to me as though it's Ruth who ought to be doing the exploding," Irene said.

"I think it's sick," said Kelly. "Why should it be the girl who gives up everything while the boys get off scot-free? At our house we divide up the chores and everybody takes a turn at doing everything."

"Including your dad?" Paula asked her.

"Well, not him, of course, but the rest of us."

"Meaning you and your mom and your sister?" Paula shook her head. "It's not the same, Kelly. You don't have brothers, so you can't compare the situations. Take a look at my house. Mom's got her beauty shop set up right in our home so she can look after my baby sister. By nighttime she's bushed, and I help with "the housework, and she does the dinner and I do the dishes. Dad sits and reads the paper. You know what my brother Tom does? He carries out the garbage. Big deal!"

"Is it that way in all your homes?" Irene asked incredulously. "Ann?"

"Well—yes," Ann said slowly. "I've never thought anything about it though. My mother's a housewife. That's what housewives do, isn't it?"

"Your father's retired," Bambi reminded her. "He's got as much time around the house as your mother does."

"Dad isn't well. Besides, Mom likes to cook. I'd hate to think what it would be like to eat a meal Dad made." Ann strove for a touch of lightness. "Everybody's got their own talents."

"I'd hate to think that the depth of one's talents is reflected by who does the best job waxing the floor." Irene shook her head in amazement. "Honestly, girls, I think you've been stuck in a time warp. This is the way women talked and felt fifty years ago. Haven't the words "Women's Liberation' ever been spoken in Modesta?"

"We hear them on TV and see them in magazines," Fran said. "But try throwing them around at home, and people don't know what you're talking about. Back when my brother Boyd was a baby, Dad started a college fund for him. Dad never went to college himself, and he wanted to be sure Boyd had the chance. Okay, great. But did he start one for me when I came along two years later? Of course not. I'm a girl. I'm supposed to grow up to be a housewife."

"Some housewife you'll make with a garage full of rats," Paula said, laughing.

"Who's got rats?" Holly asked.

"Fran does. Whole cages full. What are you going to do with them, Fran?" Paula prodded good-naturedly. "Come on—you're among your sisters. Open up."

They're part of a project I'm working on for the science fair," Fran told them. "I've got all this data I'm collecting, and I'll be making the presentation to Mr. Carncross in December. If he selects my project as the one to represent the school, I'll go on to the state competition and get a crack at a science scholarship."

"Good for you," Irene said approvingly. "The world needs more female scientists. In fact, it needs more females in all areas of advanced achievement." There was amusement in her voice. "Do you know that at one time it was widely believed that a woman's brain was smaller in capacity than a man's?"

"That's ridiculous," Kelly said. "Look at our group here. We've got the school's top achievers all in one package. Fran's vice president of the Honor Society, Ann's an artist, Holly's a musician—"

"And none of you are going to have an easy time of it, I'm afraid. Who reviews the arts?" Irene challenged them.

"Who? Well, art reviewers," Kelly said.

"Male or female?"

"I don't know," Kelly admitted. "I never thought about it."

"The art critics with major art journals are almost all men," Irene said, "and male artists receive almost all the space in art reviews. In fact, there are only a few women represented by major art galleries."

"Maybe the women who could be contributing to the art world are busy doing other things," Ann said.

"That's very likely. What do you suppose those things could be?"

"Having babies," Ruth offered. "And working in places like Wards."

"Is that what you meant, Irene?" Fran asked. "Or did you mean they weren't getting recognition for their art because they were women? That would be a different thing entirely."

"Who's to say for sure?" Irene said. "One thing that has been proved is that women painters and sculptors in juried shows do a great deal better than in invitational shows. In juried shows the names are concealed, so the judges don't know the sex of the artist. In invitationals, the artists are known."

"Does it work that way with music too?" Holly asked, frowning.

"It's possible," Irene said. "I read one study that showed that the major American symphony orchestras with women in them are the ones that audition their instrumentalists behind a concealing screen."

"That's awful!" exclaimed Bambi. "How macho can people get!"

"It can go beyond the arts," Irene said. "What percentage of the teachers in this school are women?"

"Almost all of them," Kelly said. "Tammy's dad is the only man, isn't he, except for Coach Ferrara and Mr. Muncy who teaches the shop classes? Mr. Carncross teaches science. That's probably considered a masculine subject."

"I don't see why you say that," Fran said irritably. "How can one subject be any more 'masculine' than another? Science is science—period."

"What about shop?" Kelly said. "You don't consider that a boy's subject?"

"I don't know why it should be," Fran said.

"Then why aren't any girls taking it?"

"The point I wanted to make," Irene broke in quietly, "is that, despite the large number of women teaching at Modesta High, Mr. Shelby, the principal, is a man."

There was a moment's silence.

Then Paula said, "That's true, isn't it? And the principal at the middle school is a man too."

"According to a survey I read, only three percent of the principals of secondary schools are women," Irene said. "Do you want to know how that comes to be? I'll tell you a story. This is about a friend of mine back at Jefferson High in Chicago. This woman had a master's degree in education with a minor in her subject specialty, and she'd been teaching at Jefferson for eight years. She asked the principal about the possibility of moving into an administrative position, and he told her she couldn't be considered unless she had a Ph.D.

"Well, my friend took him at his word and went back to school in the evenings and got her doctorate. The year she got it, the position of assistant principal opened up at Jefferson. My friend was overwhelmingly qualified, and was assured there was no serious competition. Then, suddenly, she received notice that the position had been filled. Can you guess by whom?"

"By someone from another school?" Fran hazarded.

"No," Irene said, "by the boys' P.E. instructor. This man, Robert Morrell, had only a master's degree and had been at Jefferson five years."

"But how could that be?" Kelly asked incredulously. "I thought you said it took a Ph.D. to get moved up like that?

"That's what my friend was told."

"But, this guy, Morrell—"

"Was a man." Irene completed the statement for her. "The way this was later explained, the principal had decided that a man would be more authoritative when it came to dealing with students and parents on an administrative level. Besides, Morrell had coached that year's winning football team. The principal thought that triumph deserved recognition."

"More recognition, than getting a doctorate," Kelly murmured.

"Ironic, isn't it? And here's another twist." Irene's normally calm voice had taken on an edge, and her dark eyes were smoldering. "My friend had been quite closely—involved—with Morrell. They were in the habit of spending a lot of time together, and she'd been doing a lot of his paperwork for him, filling out grade sheets and so forth. He had known she was applying for the assistant principal position. He'd never told her that he was also."

"I hope she gave him his walking papers," Bambi said tersely.

"She did. And, in another way, she got her own. Some of my friend's students were very angry about what had happened and staged a demonstration in front of the principal's office. The principal held my friend responsible. She was forced to resign."

"Do you mean they fired her?" Laura asked.

"She was offered that alternative. Either she could hand in her resignation on her own and come out of the situation with a chance to teach somewhere else, or she would be fired, which would have meant an end to her teaching career. She resigned and accepted a position in another state at a great reduction in salary."

"I never thought things like that actually happened." Kelly's brown eyes were huge and solemn. "My mother's always said the whole women's movement is a lot of fuss about nothing. She doesn't feel like she's discriminated against, but then she's never tried to get a job."