Sourland by Joyce Carol Oates

suggest a lewd repugnance laced with bemusement, as the cat-faced woman blinked and stared open-mouthed as in a mimicry of exaggerated feminine concern My brother’s crazy wife she’d driven into Manhattan Christ knows why Maddie’d been some kind of hippie fem-ist my brother says those days she’d been married to one of the Commieprofs at the University here and so, sure enough Maddie runs into trouble, this was before Giuliani cleaned up the city, just what you’d predict the stupid woman runs into something dangerous a gang of Nigra kids jumping a white man right out on the street—in fact it was Fifth Avenue down below the garment district—it was actual Fifth Avenue and it was daylight crazy “Made-line” she calls herself like some snooty dame in a movie came close to getting her throat cut—which was what happened to the poor bastard out on the street—in the paper it said he’d been decapitated, too—and the Nigra kids see our Madeline gawking at them through the windshield of her car you’d think the dumb-ass would’ve known to get the hell out or crouch down and hide at least —as Rhonda drew nearer her young heart beating in indignation waiting for her stepfather’s brother to take notice of her. It was like a clumsy TV scene! It was a scene improbable and distasteful yet a scene from which Rhonda did not mean to flee, just yet. For she’d come here, to Princeton. For she could have gone to her father’s house in Cambridge, Massachusetts—of course she’d been invited, Brooke herself had called to invite her, with such forced enthusiasm, such cheery family-feeling, Rhonda had felt a stab of pure loneliness, dread. There is no one who loves me or wants me. If I cut my throat on the street who would care. Or bleed out in a bathtub or in the shower with the hot water running…
    So she’d had a vision of her life, Rhonda thought. Or maybe it was a vision of life itself.
    Not that Rhonda would ever cut her throat—of course! Never. That was a vow.
    Not trying to disguise her disgust, for what she’d heard in the doorway and for Edgar Hay sprawling fatuous-drunk. The ridiculous multi-course Thanksgiving dinner hadn’t yet been brought to the dining room table, scarcely 5:30 P.M. and already Edgar Hay was drunk. Rhonda stood just inside the doorway waiting for Edgar’s stabbing-story to come to an end. For maybe this would be the end?—maybe the story of the stabbing would never again be told, in Rhonda’s hearing? Rhonda would confront Edgar Hay who’d then gleefully report back to Drex and Madeleine how rude their daughter was—how unattractive, how ungracious —for Rhonda was staring, unsmiling—bravely she approached the old man keeping her voice cool, calm, disdainful O.K then—what happened to the stabbed man? Did he die? Do you know for a fact he died? And what happened to the killer—the killers—the killer with the knife—was anyone ever caught? Was anyone ever punished, is anyone in prison right now? And Edgar Hay—“Ed-gie”—looked at Rhonda crinkling his pink-flushed face in a lewd wink How the hell would I know, sweetheart? I wasn’t there.

BABYSITTER
    M idday, early spring, sunshine in steel bars flashing on the river, she drove to meet him where he’d summoned her. Wind swept in roiling gusts from the Canadian shore.
    Suburban life: appointments! Mornings, afternoons. And then the children’s appointments. Dentist, orthodontist. Gynecologist, hair salon, yoga. Architect, community relations forum, library fund-raiser for which she’s a committee co-chair, flattered to be invited, yet uneasy. Suburban life: each calendar day is a securely barred window, you shove up the window and grasp the bars, grip the bars tight, these are bars that confine but also protect, what pleasure in shaking them!
    My appointments this afternoon,