David Turner is an enviable homemaker. His warm, comfortable brownstone offers the sensory pleasures only fastidious décor and the finest furnishings can offer. He has hand-selected the linens, the lampshades, the tea lights. Every movement David makes in his home is a conscious one and is followed by the loveliest adverb: lovingly, agreeably, carefully, happily, tenderly. Every knick-knack and utensil has its place. David’s identity and well being are wrapped up in his homemaking. The problem for David, tonight, is that his neighbor Marcia’s identity is equally enmeshed. Only, her apartment is not the color-coordinated pleasure dome David’s is:
Marcia’s home was bare and at random; an upright piano…stood crookedly…the big room was too cluttered…Marcia’s bed was unmade and a pile of dirty laundry lay on the floor. The window had been open all day and papers had blown wildly around the floor.
David is not about to let Marcia off the hook for being remiss. He advises her:
You ought to keep your home neater.... You ought to get curtains at least, and keep your windows shut.
If a woman is to be judged by her tidying, then Marcia is no prize horse. But it’s not an androgyne’s confidence or a rogue’s idiosyncrasy that allows Marcia to shirk her gender’s duty. The reader learns that Marcia is deeply ashamed of her perceived shortcoming – so deeply ashamed, in fact, that she is driven to pull off a most devious, and rather side-splitting, prank.
When Mr. Harris, a love interest from the office, mistakes David’s apartment for Marcia’s, Marcia--who is enjoying dinner at David’s place--does not correct him. When Mr. Harris is led to believe that it was Marcia who had baked the sublime cherry pie, Marcia takes the credit. The story comes to a head in hilarious fashion, and it is our Davie who is left to bear the burden of Marcia’s disastrous homekeeping.
More than just an amusing piece of situational comedy, Jackson’s story critiques the entwining of domestic duty and womanliness. She suggests first that Susie Homemaker will always finish last and second that finger-waggers might be better off mum.
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