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have to fight for our self-respect, don’t we?”
    The other two women nodded in agreement.
    â€œAnd if we don’t do something,” Melody went on, “if people like us don’t try to do something to change it — then we’re contributing to it. If you think about it, we are. Why, I wouldn’t take a job working for a man for — all the tea in China.”
    â€œYes, but you’ve got family to live with,” Willa told her.
    â€œAnd an ex-husband,” Phoebe said.
    â€œMy goodness, you don’t think I’d take a penny from
him,
” Jeff’s mother said, angry. “I’m insulted. Yes, insulted that you’d think that and then work with me on this campaign. Why, I have more self-respect than that. And so should you.”
    They apologized, and after a few minutes Melody’s voice resumed its ordinary tones, lazy, full of subdued laughter. Jeff relaxed.
    It was late when they left, the streets deserted, most of the little houses dark. They got back onto the expressway and drove for several miles. Melody yawned and asked Jeff how he had liked the two women. He said he had liked them all right. “They’re so young,” she said, “barely over twenty, both of them. It’s good for the young women to learn from the beginning the fight they’ll have to make if they’re not going to be taken advantage of. It’s worse here in the South,” she said, “‘it’s much worse.”
    â€œI guess so,” Jeff agreed.
    Sleep hung on his eyelids and pulled at his shoulders. He barely noticed when his mother parked the car in front of a tall house, he noticed only that he stumbled on uneven bricks as they walked to the front door. Inside, she led him up a broad staircase and opened a door for him, with her finger on her lips. “We don’t want to wake them up, they sleep lightly,” she said. “Oh Jeffie, I’m so happy to have you here with me. Sleep well. Until the morning,” she said softly, and kissed him on the forehead.
    Jeff peeled off his clothes and stripped back the spread from the bed before lying down on it in just his underpants. He was too tired to look for his pajamas, too tired to see where he should put his clothes away. He turned off the bedside light and lay dazzled and bemused in the darkness before slipping into sleep.
    He woke early, but without any sense of strangeness. His room — he sat up in the bed and looked around him — was large and square, airy. All four windows were open, and the gauzy curtains hung still in the motionless air. He heard, beyond the silence of the house around him, an occasional motor, an occasional bird, no human voices. He had to go to the bathroom — badly — but he didn’t know where it was. He sat up and curled his legs underneath him.
    His bed had four tall posts: four fluted, slender poles, each with an acorn carved at its tip. The walls of the room were white,faded to a kind of pearly color, the high ceiling had cracks running along it, the floor was broad boards of wood. A dresser stood next to one bare wall, with a mirror set on it and a large, dark wood wardrobe beside it. Under the windows on one wall stood a little writing table, with a chair pulled up to it. Jeff’s bed was placed between two windows. He saw only one door. He
really
had to go to the bathroom; he hadn’t been since he was on the plane.
    Jeff got out of bed and unpacked his bag, hanging his trousers and dress shirts up carefully in the wardrobe. He refolded his underpants and T-shirts into the drawers of the dresser and made neat piles of his jeans and shorts. He placed his brush and comb on the dresser top, putting his toothpaste and toothbrush down beside them. He selected the drawer he would use for soiled clothing, dropped yesterday’s clothes into it, and dressed in flannels and a shirt. He wondered how early it was and where the bathroom