The High Cost of Living by Marge Piercy Page B

Cam, one twin bed made up with an old-fashioned prim-faced doll sitting on the pillow—a doll that must have belonged to her mother—the other a tangle of covers and run pantyhose, rumpled bikini underpants. “Do have some of this cough medicine. It’s delicious and habit-forming.”
    Leslie glowered. “It has codeine in it. Why not just shoot up? A, you don’t have a cough yet. B, if you did, the last thing you should do is suppress it! Coughing clears your lungs.”
    â€œLeslie, you’re so righteous! What’s the difference between drinking wine and drinking this, except it has a lovely cherry flavor?”
    â€œI don’t mean to be … righteous. I try to avoid the lesser temptations.”
    â€œI can’t even resist a second slice of lemon meringue pie, which isn’t my favorite, so I’m sure I could never resist a big juicy temptation, if I had a crack at one.… Paul’s the closest to a temptation I’ve met, and his ugly little dirty jokes turn me off.” She sat on the bench in front of a skirted vanity and motioned Leslie to sit beside her. The frilly dressing table was piled with a dusty havoc of glamour—half-used lipsticks, hand creams, throat creams, cakes of eye shadow, an electric curling set, powders and rouges that Leslie presumed were really Cam’s. “Look at this wicked new lipstick. It’s mauve.”
    She took Honor’s wrist, gently. “Please don’t put that crap on. You’re naturally …” She could not say “beautiful” again. Sometimes it seemed to her every time she looked at Honor she told her how beautiful she was. “… lovely.”
    Honor grimaced into the mirror, making a face with one eye strained wide and the other squinted. “If I’m … lovely … as you say … why does everyone hate me?”
    â€œWho hates you? What are you talking about?”
    â€œNobody in the play likes me. I can tell. I don’t know how to talk to people.… And at school, they hate me.”
    â€œListen, the kids who enjoy high school, they’re all assholes, Honorée. Believe me, everybody you’ll be friendly with when you go to college, when you ask them about high school they were all miserable.”
    Honor put her elbows down hard on the vanity, shoving aside the cosmetics. “Such an ugly thing happened. In the cafeteria. Buck Rogers—his name is Bill but he calls himself Buck, and every time we’re in the same class, we have to sit by each other when they do it by alphabet. He plays basketball and he thinks he’s sexy.… Ugh, he’s so gross!”
    â€œWhat happened?” This was the cold, she was sure, what was really ailing Honor.
    â€œHe said to me in front of the whole line, ‘Hey, Dictionary—’”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œOh, that’s what some of them call me. Miss Dictionary. They’re such cretins.… Anyhow, he said—very loud—‘Hey, Dictionary, I can’t decide what’s bigger, your tits or your ass or the words you use, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll fuck you anyhow, if you’ll wear a gag. How about it?’” Honor gave a yank to her own hair. “I felt so stupid, I couldn’t think of a come-back. All the conversations that go through my mind all the time, and I always give myself such witty dialogue, and I couldn’t think of anything to say. I almost cried! I felt so humiliated.… I’m never going back!”
    â€œHe probably really is attracted to you, and he doesn’t know how to approach you, so he punished you for it.”
    â€œSometimes I feel like such an anachronism. I want to be a Great Lady, and whatever will I do with my life?”
    â€œFinish high school and get away from home for a start. It will get better then, believe me.”
    â€œHow can I leave Mama? I think she’s bred me so I can’t.