The Stepford Wives

"Do you want to move?" he asked.

She looked uncertainly at him. His blue eyes, waiting for her answer, gave no clue to his feelings. "No," she said, "not when we're all settled irL It's a good house… And yes, I'm sure I'd be happier in Eastbridge or Norwood. I wish we'd looked in either one of them."

"There's an unequivocal answer," he said, smiling. "'No and yes."'

"About sixty-forty," she said.

He straightened from the counter he had been leaning against. "All right," he said, "if it gets to be zero-a hundred, we'll do it."

"You would?" she said.

"Sure," he said, "if you were really unhappy. I wouldn't want to do it during the school year-"

"No, no, of course not."

"But we could do it next summer. I don't think we'd lose anything, except the time and the moving and closing costs."

"That's what Bobbie said."

"So it's just a matter of making up your mind." He looked at his watch and went out of the kitchen.

"Walter?" she called, touching her hands to a towel.

"Yes?"

She went to where she could see him, standing in the hallway. "Thanks," she said, smiling. "I feel better."

"You're the one who has to be here all day, not me," he said, and smiled at her and went into the den.

She watched him go, then turned and glanced through the port to the family room. Pete and Kim sat on the floor watching TV-President Ke

DAVE, TOO, WAS WILLING TO move at the end of the school year. "He gave in so easily I thought I'd keel over," Bobbie said on the phone the next morning. "I just hope we make it till June."

"Drink bottled water," Joa

"You think I'm not going to? I just sent Dave to get some."

Joa

"Go ahead, laugh," Bobbie said. "For a few cents a day I'd rather be safe than sorry. And I'm writing to the Department of Health. The problem is, how do I do it without coming across like a little old lady without all her marbles? You want to help, and co-sign?"

"Sure," Joa

SHE MADE AUTUMN-LEAF collages with Pete and Kim, and helped Walter put up the storm windows, and met him in the city for a partners-andwives di

She met Marge McCormick in the market-yes, she'd had a bug but now she was fine, thanks-and Frank Roddenberry in the hardware store-"Hello, Joa

"Yes, I do."

"All ready for winter?"

"I am now." Smiling, she showed the sack of birdseed she'd just bought.

"It's beautiful here!" the Welcome Wagon lady said. "You're the shutterbug, aren't you? You should have a field day!"

She called Charmaine and invited her for lunch. "I can't, Joa

CLAUDE AXHELM CAME OVER one Saturday afternoon-to see her, not Walter. He had a briefcase with him.

"I've got this project I've been working on in my spare time," he said, walking around the kitchen while she fixed him a cup of tea. "Maybe you've heard about it. I've been getting people to tape-record lists of words and syllables for me. The men do it up at the house, and the women do it in their homes."

"Oh yes," she said.

"They tell me where they were born," he said, "and every place they've lived and for how long." He walked around, touching cabinet knobs. "I'm going to feed everything into a computer eventually, each tape with its geographical data. With enough samples I'll be able to feed in a tape without data"-he ran a fingertip along a counter edge, looking at her with his bright eyes-"maybe even a very short tape, a few words or a sentence-and the computer'll be able to give a geographical rundown on the person, where he was born and where he's lived. Sort of an electronic Henry Higgins. Not just a stunt though; I see it as being useful in police work."

She said, "My friend Bobbie Markowe-"

"Dave's wife, sure."

– got laryngitis from taping for you."

"Because she rushed it," Claude said. "She did the whole thing in two evenings. You don't have to do it that fast. I leave the recorder; you can take as long as you like. Would you? It would be a big help to me."

Walter came in from the patio; he had been burning leaves out in back with Pete and Kim. He and Claude said hello to each other and shook hands. "I'm sorry," he said to Joa

She said, "I have so little free time-"

"Do it in odd minutes," Claude said. "I don't care if it takes a few weeks."

"Well if you don't mind leaving the recorder that long…"

"And you get a present in exchange," Claude said, unstrapping his briefcase on the table. "I leave an extra cartridge, you tape any little lullabies or things you like to sing to the kids, and I transcribe them onto a record.

If you're out for an evening the sitter can play it."

"Oh, that'd be nice," she said, and Walter said, "You could do 'The Goodnight Song' and 'Good Morning Starshine."'

"Anything you want," Claude said. "The more the merrier."

"I'd better get back outside," Walter said. "The fire's still burning. See you, Claude."

"Right," Claude said.

Joa

"My gosh, there's a lot," she said, leafing through curled and mended pages typed in triple columns.

"It goes quickly," Claude said. "You just say each word clearly in your regular voice and take a little stop before the next one. And see that the needle stays in the red. You want to practice?"

THEY HAD THANKSGIVING di

She took pictures of Bobbie's oldest boy Jonathan working with his microscope, and men in a cherry picker trimming trees on Norwood Road.

She was trying to get up a portfolio of at least a dozen first-rate photos-to dazzle the agency into a contract.

THE FIRST SNOW FELL ON A night when Walter was at the Men's Association.

She watched it from the den window: a scant powder of glittery white, swirling in the light of the walk lamppost. Nothing that would amount to anything. But more would come. Fun, good pictures-and the bother of boots and snowsuits.

Across the street, in the Claybrooks' living-room window, Do

They never stop, these Stepford wives, she thought.

It sounded like the first line of a poem.

They never stop, these Stepford wives. They something something all their lives. Work like robots. Yes, that would fit. They work like robots all their lives.