Ira Levin - The Stepford Wives

A zoning-law change, a burglary at CompuTech.

She dropped the next-earlier volume down onto the other one. Sitting, she opened the volume at its back.

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS MAY CLOSE.

So what's so surprising about that?

Unless the recent fall-off in membership is reversed, the Stepford League of Women Voters may be forced to close its doors. So warns the league's new president, Mrs. Theodore Van Sant of Fairview Lane…

Carol?

Back, back.

A drought was relieved, a drought grew worse.

MEN'S ASSOCIATION RE-ELECTS COBA. Dale Coba of Anvil Road was elected by acclamation to a second two-year term as president of the steadily expanding…

Back two years then.

She jumped three volumes.

A theft, a fire, a bazaar, a snowfall.

She flipped up the pages with one hand, turned them with the other; quickly, quickly.

MEN'S ASSOCIATION FORMED. A dozen Stepford men who repaired the disused barn on Switzer Lane and have been meeting in it for over a year, have formed the Stepford Men's Association and will welcome new members. Dale Coba of Anvil Road has been elected president of the association, Duane T. Anderson of Switzer Lane is vice-president, and Robert Sumner Jr. of Gwendolyn Lane is secretary-treasurer. The purpose of the association, Mr. Coba says, is "strictly social-poker, man-talk, and the pooling of information on crafts and hobbies." The Coba family seems especially apt at getting things started; Mrs. Coba was among the founders of the Stepford Women's Club, although she recently withdrew from it, as did Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Sumner. Other men in the Stepford Men's Association are Claude Axhelm, Peter J. Duwicki, Frank Ferretti, Steven Margolies, Ike Mazzard, Frank Roddenberry, James J. Scofield, Herbert Sundersen, and Martin I. Weiner. Men interested in further information should…

She jumped two more volumes, and now she turned pages in whole-issue clusters, finding each "Notes on Newcomers" in its page-two box.

… Mr. Ferretti is an engineer in the systems development laboratory of the CompuTech Corporation.

… Mr. Sumner, who holds many patents in dyes and plastics, recently joined the A meriChem- Willis Corporation, where he is doing research in vinyl polymers.

"Notes on Newcomers,"

"Notes on Newcomers"; stopping only when she saw one of the names, skipping to the end of the article, telling herself she was right, she was right.

… Mr. Duwicki, known to his friends as Wick, is in the Instatron Corporation's microcircuitry department.

… Mr. Weiner is with the Sono-Trak division of the Instatron Corporation.

… Mr. Margolies is with Reed amp; Saunders, the makers of stabilizing devices whose new plant on Route Nine begins operation next week.

She put volumes back, took other volumes out, dropping them heavily on the table.

… Mr. Roddenberry is associate chief of the CompuTech Corporation's systems development laboratory.

… Mr. Sundersen designs optical sensors for Ulitz Optics, Inc.

And finally she found it.

She read the whole article.

New neighbors on Anvil Road are Mr. and Mrs. Dale Coba and their sons Dale Jr., four, and Darren, two. The Cobas have come here from Anaheim, California, where they lived for six years. "So far we like this part of the country," Mrs. Coba says. "I don't know how we'll feel when winter comes. We're not used to cold weather."

Mr. and Mrs. Coba attended U.C.L.A., and Mr. Coba did postgraduate work at the California Institute of Technology. For the past six years he worked in "audioanimatronics" at Disneyland, helping to create the moving and talking presidential figures featured in the August number of National Geographic. His hobbies are hunting and piano-playing. Mrs.

Coba, who majored in languages, is using her spare time to write a translation of the classic Norwegian novel The Commander's Daughters.

Mr. Coba's work here will probably be less attention getting than his work at Disneyland; he has joined the research and development department of Burnham Massey-Microtech.

She giggled.

Research and development! And probably less attention getting!

She giggled and giggled.

Couldn't stop.

Didn't want to!

She laughed, standing up and looking at that "Notes on Newcomers" in its neat box of lines. PROBABLY be less attention-getting!

Dear God in heaven!

She closed the big brown volume, laughing, and picked it up with a volume beneath it and swung them down to their place on the shelf.

"Mrs. Eberhart?" Miss Austrian upstairs. "It's five of six; we're closing."

Stop laughing, for God's sake. "I'm done!" she called. "I'm just putting them away!"

"Be sure you put them back in the right order."

"I will!" she called.

"And put the lights out."

"Jawohl!"

She put all the volumes away, in their right order more or less. "Oh God in heaven!" she said, giggling. "Probably!"

She took her coat and handbag, and switched the lights off, and went giggling up the stairs toward Miss Austrian peering at her. No wonder!

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Miss Austrian asked.

"Oh yes," she said, swallowing the giggles. "Thank you very much. You're a fount of knowledge, you and your library. Thank you. Good night."

"Good night," Miss Austrian said.

SHE WENT ACROSS TO THE pharmacy, because God knows she needed a tranquilizer. The pharmacy was closing too; half dark, and nobody there but the Cornells. She gave the prescription to Mr. Cornell, and he read it and said, "Yes, you can have this now." He went into the back.

She looked at combs on a rack, smiling. Glass clinked behind her and she turned around.

Mrs. Cornell stood at the wall behind the side counter, outside the lighted part of the pharmacy. She wiped something with a cloth, wiped at the wall shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass. She was tall and blond, long-legged, full-bosomed; as pretty as-oh, say an Ike Mazzard girl. She took something from the shelf and wiped it, and wiped at the shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass; and took something from the shelf and- "Hi there," Joanna said.

Mrs. Cornell turned her head. "Mrs. Eberhart," she said, and smiled.

"Hello. How are you?"

"Just fine," Joanna said. "Jim-dandy. How are you?"

"Very well, thank you," Mrs. Cornell said. She wiped what she was holding, and wiped at the shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass; and took something from the shelf and wiped it- "You do that well," Joanna said.

"It's just dusting," Mrs. Cornell said, wiping at the shelf.

A typewriter peck-peck-pecked from in back. Joanna said, "Do you know the Gettysburg Address?"

"I'm afraid not," Mrs. Cornell said, wiping something.

"Oh come on," Joanna said. "Everybody does. 'Fourscore and seven years ago-"'

"I know that but I don't know the rest of it," Mrs. Cornell said. She put the something on the shelf, clinking glass, and took something from the shelf and wiped it.

"Oh, I see, not necessary," Joanna said. "Do you know 'This Little Piggy Went to Market'?"

"Of course," Mrs. Cornell said, wiping at the shelf.

"Charge?" Mr. Cornell asked. Joanna turned. He held out a small white-capped bottle.

"Yes," she said, taking it. "Do you have some water? I'd like to take one now."

He nodded and went in back.

Standing there with the bottle in her hand, she began to tremble. Glass clinked behind her. She pulled the cap from the bottle and pinched out the fluff of cotton. White tablets were inside; she tipped one into her palm, trembling, and pushed the cotton into the bottle and pressed the cap on. Glass clinked behind her.

Mr. Cornell came with a paper cup of water.

"Thank you," she said, taking it. She put the tablet on her tongue and drank and swallowed.