Free Going Down Fast by Marge Piercy Page B

moment she thought … she was obsessed, she saw him everywhere. Letting his hands dangle and flap, Paul went hopping sideways, whirled and tossed the mask at Vera. “Naturally they were cruder then.”
    â€œThey were never crude or natural.” Vera smiled—she would have said with amused tenderness except that reactions touched Vera’s face and were gone too quickly to judge more than the afterimage. “I brought a bunch into school on Friday and let the kids put them on. Of course they all got destroyed, but the kids had a party. Even Carla, one of my girls who won’t even speak but sits with her head on her desk, was running around and laughing. Finally I even got them doing a play.”
    â€œWell, that’s how the masks got started, so why not?” Paul said.
    â€œYou’ve known each other for a long time,” Anna said.
    They stared blankly. Leon looked over his shoulder. “Sure, kid, they’re brother and sister.”
    Then she saw that they were. “Oh. You’re going to school here, Paul?” Quick before they realized what she had thought.
    â€œHe’s a real student,” Vera said. “School bored me. Kindergarten wasn’t bad, but after that, it got less inventive.”
    Paul pouted. “Then why did you do so well?”
    â€œBecause I didn’t care.”
    â€œA real student! I’ll never get my degree if I can’t pass that science class. It’s ridiculous. I’d get my degree in June, but I’m flunking the same course I dropped once before. Imagine, I was going into archaeology.”
    â€œSo you’re flunking nat sci,” Leon muttered.
    â€œI don’t mind your giving up archaeology …” Vera’s voice was clear and sad. “But you won’t give thought to what we’re going to do.”
    Paul reached overhead for another mask made from the top of a bathroom scale. “I’ll be a clown.”
    His sister ducked her small chin, considering. Then with a pleasurably malicious smile, rolling her eyes white, “No. You aren’t funny enough.”
    â€œBitch. Mean bitch.” Drawing his bare foot up he shoved her off the bed. She sat hard on the floor with a surprised giggle.
    Perhaps Paul enjoyed the masks because they freed him. She felt for his rangy awkwardness, his embarrassed glib efforts to entertain them. Vera was closed, did not care what they thought. She must be the older but they seemed twins. Old daydream: boy twin, agreeable other. First sexual phantom. Much better than dumb tagalong sister Estelle. Her periodic efforts in more recent times to get through to Estelle (through what? into what?) brought puzzled resentment. She envied Vera a brother, a man to love her no matter what, with full visibility and loyalty.
    â€œHow’s Caroline?” Leon asked between mouthfuls of cheese. “What’s she doing with herself?”
    Her breath caught. He was testing her nerves.
    Paul wrinkled his nose and declaimed in a loud bored drawl, “Princess Grace. Does she ever do anything?”
    Leon persisted, “She break her engagement?”
    Vera wriggled her toes. “Break it?”
    Paul asked her, “Did she ever pay you for that whopping big phonebill?”
    â€œNaturally.” Vera’s lips shut tight. Turning her back she plumped up the pillow, piled the used plates, put the leftover juice on the outside windowledge. After she had watched the weak snow littering down, she turned around with a yawn.
    Anna rose. “At any rate, I have to be going.”
    As he got up Leon said to Paul, “If you really are flunking that course, get in touch.”
    â€œOh, Paul hates to be tutored. He’s too stubborn,” Vera said.
    â€œI wasn’t offering to tutor. Still, I can guarantee you’ll pass.” Leon let out a slash of grin and ducked out, tramping downstairs. The door across the landing opened an inch, an eye