Easter brunch en famille with the cheery faces of Sammy and Betty, Steve and his wife, and all their brood. They start drinking the minute they get in the house and Betty eyes me furtively, measuring the length of my skirt against hers. Of course mine is shorter! Of course I’m more with it! Mom says I should see their beautiful homes. I already have—thousands of Saturday afternoons ago at the movies. Tina gripes at being there instead of with her friends. I feel sorry for all of us.

Gloversville is in its death throes. The folks lock the side door now when they go out; there is a burglar alarm at the garage entrance; drivers on buses won’t give change for fear of being mugged; Aunt Emma’s handbag was snatched in broad daylight downtown by a bunch of teen-agers. Everyone’s afraid. “Love America or Leave It” says the sticker on Pa’s car; he’s still afraid of commies, but they’re easier to spot now because they wear beards. Ma’s afraid of blacks: “They’re so pushy—why can’t they be satisfied with their own schools and neighborhoods instead of spoiling it for others?” The folks can’t remember when their own folks were Negroes.

They complain of Tina. “I can’t take her downtown to lunch, she doesn’t wear a bra or shave her legs,” says Mom. And Dad, gravely, “She wanted to take a bus to Cape Cod with some boy on Thanksgiving instead of coming here to the family.” Oh, my beautiful Tina . . . oh, my prophetic soul.

Tina and I leave the day after Easter. She has to go back to school, I head for the city. “What’s down there?” Dad grumbles. Lining up work, I tell the folks, waving cheerfully. Mother’s eyes are hard with suspicion . . . envy. I look at her with new understanding: Did she want to be me?

I skip the New York covey of ex-marrieds who sent me reading lists on their Christmas notes (The World of the Newly Separated, etc.) and condolences for the breakup: . . . men will use you . . . you will die of loneliness in your bed . . . separation is no substitute for marriage, even a bad one . . . be sure you get a settlement. I skip them and move in on an old college classmate: Emily Ordway, Midwest American, New York careerist, and private enterprise supreme.

“Well, now, I’ll bet the Water-Pik hasn’t come to Italy,” says bright and brittle Miss Em, the tooth-flashing PR consultant for women’s clubs and charities. The last thing I hear at night as I turn in on her sofa, determined not to answer her chipper, toothy, chattering well-meaningness. She stands there crunching an apple, skinny, ferret-faced, eye-goggling, grinning like she’s been taught, blathering on and on.

“But I do like a male-dominated society!” she concedes magnanimously to poor Italy to make up for the Water-Pik.