The Stepford Wives

She said, "I'm here at my husbanXs suggestion. We moved to Stepford early in September, and I want to move away as soon as possible. We've put a deposit on a house in Eastbridge, but only because I insisted on it. He feels I'm-being irrational."

She told Dr. Fancher why she wanted to move: about Stepford women, and how Charmaine and then Bobbie had changed and become like them. "Have you been to Stepford?" she asked.

"Only once," Dr. Fancher said. "I heard that it was worth looking at, which it is. I've also heard that it's an insular, unsocial community."

"Which it is, believe me."

Dr. Fancher knew of the city in Texas with the low crime rate. "Lithium is what's doing it, apparently," she said. "There was a paper about it in one of the journals."

"Bobbie and I wrote to the Department of Health," Joa

Dr. Fancher stayed silent.

"I've be-un to suspect-" Joa

Dr. Fancher said, "Begun to suspect what?"

She drew her hands apart and wiped them on her skirt. "I've begun to suspect that the men are behind it," she said. She looked at Dr. Fancher.

Dr. Fancher didn't smile or seem surprised. "Which men?" she asked.

Joa

She told her about the Men's Association.

"I was taking pictures in the Center one night a couple of months ago," she said. "That's where those Colonial shops are; the house overlooks them.

The windows were open and there was-a smell in the air. Of medicine, or chemicals. And then the shades were pulled down, maybe because they knew I was out there; this policeman had seen me, he stopped and talked to me."

She leaned forward. "There are a lot of sophisticated industrial plants on Route Nine," she said, "and a lot of the men who have high-level jobs in them live in Stepford and belong to the Men's Association. Something goes on there every night, and I don't think it's just fixing toys for needy children, and pool and poker.

There's AmeriChem-Willis, and Stevenson Biochemical. They could be-concocting something that the Department of Health wouldn't know about, up there at the Men's Association…" She sat back in the chair, wiping her hands against her skirted thighs, not looking at Dr. Fancher.

Dr. Fancher asked her questions about her family background and her interest in photography; about the jobs she had held, and about Walter and Pete and Kim.

"Any move is traumatic to a degree," Dr. Fancher said, "and particularly the city-to-the-suburbs move for a woman who doesn't find her housewife's role totally fulfilling. It can feel pretty much like being sent to Siberia." She smiled at Joa

I've often thought that one year we should have a real holiday and skip the whole business."

Joa

Dr. Fancher leaned forward, and joining her hands, rested her elbows on the desk. "I can understand your not being happy in a town of highly home- oriented women," she said to Joa

'I wouldn't be either; no woman with outside interests would. But I do wonder-and I imagine your husband does too-whether you would be happy in Eastbridge, or anywhere else at this particular time."

"I think I would be," Joa

Dr. Fancher looked at her hands, pressing and flexing the wedding-ringed one with the other. She looked at Joa

Joa

"It sounds," Dr. Faucher said, "like the idea of a woman who, like many women today, and with good reason, feels a deep resentment and suspicion of men. One who's pulled two ways by conflicting demands, perhaps more strongly than she's aware; the old conventions on the one hand, and the new conventions of the liberated woman on the other."

Joa

Abraham Lincoln stood up and delivered the Gettysburg Address; he was so lifelike you'd have-" She sat still.

Dr. Fancher waited, and nodded. "Rather than force an immediate move on your family," she said, "I think you should con-"

" Disneyland," Joa

Dr. Fancher smiled. "I know," she said. "My grandchildren were there last summer. They told me they 'met' Lincoln."

Joa

"I think you should consider trying therapy," Dr. Fancher said. "To identify and clarify your feelings. Then you can make the right move-maybe to Eastbridge, maybe back to the city; maybe you'll even find Stepford less oppressive."

Joa

"Will you think about it for a day or two and call me?" Dr. Fancher said.

"I'm sure I can help you. It's certainly worth a few hours' exploration, isn't it?"

Joa

Dr. Fancher took a pen from its holder and wrote on a prescription pad.

Joa

"These will help you in the meantime," Dr. Fancher said, writing.

"They're a mild tranquilizer. You can take three a day." She tore off a slip and offered it to Joa

Joa

Dr. Fancher stood up. "I'll be away Christmas week," she said, "but we could start the week of the third. Will you call me Monday or Tuesday and let me know what you've decided?"

Joa

Dr. Fancher smiled. "It's not catastrophic," she said. "Really, I'm sure I can help you." She held out her hand.

Joa

THE LIBRARY WAS BUSY. Miss Austrian said they were down in the cellar. The door on the left, the bottom shelf. Put them back in their proper order.

No smoking. Put out the lights.

She went down the steep narrow stairs, touching the wall with one hand.

There was no banister.

The door on the left. She found the light switch inside. An eye-sting of fluorescence; the smell of old paper; the whine of a motor, climbing in pitch.

The room was small and low-ceilinged. Walls of shelved magazines surrounded a library table and four kitchen chairs, chrome and red plastic.

Big brown-bound volumes jutted from the bottom shelf all around the room, lying flat, piled six high.