I am a woman
little while she heard her turn the light off and cuddle the covers
around herself. The silence, up above the city late at night, was deep,
lulling, almost country-like. Only an occasional stray horn filtered up
to their level. It sounded like a far-off echo.
“Laura? Are you asleep?” Marcie whispered.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” She was quiet for a minute. Then she whispered, “I have to ask you
something.”
“Don’t marry him. It’ll never work.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean—does it make you feel funny to see those
people?”
“What people?”
“Queers?”
“They aren’t queer, Marcie. That’s a cruel word.” Her eyes were wide
open now in the dark.
“What are they, then?”
“Homosexuals.” She said it shyly.
“That’s too long. Well, _does_ it make you feel funny?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Marcie.”
“Well, I mean like the butch in the ladies’ room. Didn’t she make you
feel queer—I mean funny—” She laughed. “—looking at us like she was a
man, or something?”
“I guess so.”
“She was looking at us when she was at the bar, too.”
“She was?” Laura was amazed that Marcie would notice such a thing. “How
do you know?”
Marcie laughed again. “I was looking at her,” she said.
“You what?”
“Oh, not the way you think. I was just sort of looking around and she
was looking at our table. I think she wanted to come up and talk to us
but she didn’t dare with the boys there. She knew we weren’t gay.”
“Is that what they call it—gay?”
“Yes. You know, it gave me the funniest feeling, her staring at us like
that.”
Laura turned over in her bed, very wide awake. She said to herself, _I
won’t ask her about it_, but she couldn’t help asking. “What sort of
feeling?” she whispered.
“Well, it was like ... if I tell you you won’t think I’m like _them_,
will you?”
“Oh, no! Of course not.” Laura felt the blood beating in her throat.
“It was like I wanted to know what she’d do to me. If we were alone, I
mean. I was sort of curious. I wondered what it would feel like. Not
that I’d ever let a girl—I mean—Laura, did you ever kiss a girl?”
“No,” Laura said. In the dark she could lie pretty well. Her blushing
cheeks didn’t show.
“I did, once.”
Laura put her hands to her throat and tried to still her breathing. “Did
you like it?” she whispered.
“Not much. But I didn’t dislike it. I was at that age. She was a friend
of mine in Junior High. Maybe she turned out queer. I mean homosexual.
She probably thinks _I_ turned out queer,” and she laughed. “She was
always wanting to touch tongues.”
Laura shivered. “Did you?”
“A couple of times. It gave me the creeps. With a man it’s so lovely.”
Laura heard her turn in her bed to face her. “Didn’t you ever do that
when you were little? We used to do it a lot, just because it felt so
awful. But Lenore was always wanting to do it with me when we got older.
We were sort of best friends for a while.”
Laura was sitting up, shivering, on the edge of her bed. She thought,
_Dear God, if there is a God, help me now. Don’t let me touch her.
Please don’t let me._
Suddenly Marcie got up and crossed the small aisle between the beds. She
felt Laura and sat beside her. “Stick out your tongue,” she commanded,
giggling.
“No!”
“Come on. I want to feel twelve years old again. I feel silly. Stick
your tongue out.” She was teasing and Laura could see the flash of gold
hair in the moonlight that struck them from the window by the bed.
“Marcie, don’t do this! Don’t! You’re playing with fire. Please, this is
crazy.” But her voice dwindled to a whisper as Marcie took her face in
her hands, and she was powerless to resist. She let herself be pulled
toward Marcie, felt Marcie’s soft wet tongue searching for her own.
Laura opened her mouth with a slight gasp. Her arms went out to grasp
Marcie’s slender body as a groan escaped her.
Suddenly the phone rang. Laura gave a little scream of shock. They were
both utterly silent and motionless until it rang again. Then Marcie
began to laugh. “Oh, wouldn’t you know!” she said. “Saved by the bell.
Saved from a life of sin.” The phone rang again. “I’ll get it,” Marcie
said. She sprang up from the bed. Laura sat frozen where she was,
hugging herself, trembling and miserable. “It’s probably Burr wanting to
apologize for being such a skunk,” Marcie said. She threw herself across
her bed and lifted the receiver. “Hello? ... Laura, it’s for you.” She
put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, “It’s Jack.”
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Don’t be silly. Talk to him.”
Unwillingly Laura took the phone, sitting on the bed beside Marcie. She
was so conscious of Marcie’s body stretched out there beside her that
she had trouble concentrating on Jack.
He said, “Mother, I’ve been an ass.”
“I know.”
“Forgive me.”
“You’re forgiven,” she said. “Now go to bed. Goodnight.”
“But I am in bed,” he said. He was still pronouncing each word with
elaborate care. “My question is this—did you really mean it?”
“Mean what?” said Laura looking at the faint moonlit curve of Marcie’s
leg.
“I’d swear you said you loved me,” he said.
“You were dreaming.”
“Do you?”
“No. Jack, please go to bed. Let me go.”
“If I went any more to bed than I already am, Mother—and don’t think
that was easy to say, because it wasn’t—I don’t know where I’d be. Say
you love me.”
“No. Jack, it’s late. I’m tired.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday. You can sleep.”
“I don’t care what tomorrow is, I’m tired right now. Now goodnight.”
“Do something for me, Mother.”
Marcie turned over, lying across her pillow on her stomach.
“What?” Laura said softly, losing contact with him.
“Promise.”
“Okay.” She whispered it.
“Kiss Marcie for me.”
“_What?_” Laura was shocked into total awareness.
“Goodnight, Mother,” Jack said. And hung up.
Laura replaced the receiver and sat uncertainly on the bed next to
Marcie for a minute. She didn’t dare to wonder what Jack meant. She had
enough to do just keeping her hands off Marcie’s smooth behind. She felt
afraid of her.
_What would Beth have done if it had been me lying there?_ she wondered,
and knew at once. Beth would have laid down on top of her, her front to
Marcie’s back. Beth would have kissed her neck, her ears, her shoulders.
Beth would have—
“Laura,” Marcie murmured.
“Yes?” Her throat was dry, making it hard to answer.
“We’d better get to sleep.”
It was all over, then. Laura had waited too long. Maybe Marcie would
have repulsed her anyway. Maybe her hesitation had saved her. On the
other hand, maybe—Laura burned to know. But Marcie had lost the playful,
childish, experimental mood, and was already half asleep. There might
never be another chance.
Chapter Six
At work on Monday Laura’s phone rang halfway through the morning.
“Doctors Hollingsworth, Carstens, and Hagstrom,” she said,
business-like. What a mouthful! she thought to herself.
Her listener apparently had the same idea. “Jesus, what a
tongue-twister,” he said. “What happened to Smith?”
“There is no Dr. Smith,” she said, taken aback.
“Oh, don’t be so damn formal, Mother. It’s not like you. I thought I’d
better apologize while I’m sober. I was drunk the last time.”
“I know. How are you, Jack?” She smiled at the thought of his face.
“Bored. But healthy. I didn’t mean to fall asleep in your face Friday
night.”
“It’s okay. Forget it.”
“Just for that I’ll give you a free ticket to see my analyst. He’s a
great guy. He needs you.”
“He needs me?”
“Have you got fifty bucks a week to spend on your salvation?”
“I haven’t got fifty bucks a week to spend on my _groceries_,” she said.
“Well, I guess he doesn’t need you as much as I thought. But I’d be glad
to stake you to your first session. After that it becomes habitual. You
crave it. You’ll find the money somehow.”
Laura was laughing. “Give it to Marcie, not me,” she said. “She’s the
one who loves to talk.”
“You do some pretty good talking yourself.”
“I do?”
“You got lyrical in defense of oddballs Friday night.”
“I did not! Let’s not go into that again anyway,” she said. “Look, Jack,
I’d like to talk to you, but—”
“I know, you’re at work. So am I. Don’t you ever get tired of work?”
“I’m on probation here. If I don’t do well they’ll fire me in June.”
“So your poor virtuous hardworking little life revolves around that
office.”
“Now you’re being an ass again.”
“I’m telling you, Laura, you’d make a good soap opera. So would the rest
of us. We’re all a bunch of nuts in a million nutsy little soap operas.
Will Burr marry Marcie? Will Jack take the pledge? Will Laura stick it
out till June? Tune in tomorrow. We won’t have the answer for you, but
we’ll sell you soap like all hell. Do you know why people buy soap?”
“To wash themselves.”
“No. They like to play with themselves in the bathtub.”
Laura had to laugh at him. “You fool,” she said. “Jack, I can’t talk to
you, honestly.”
“Okay. I’ll call back.”
“No, no, call tonight.”
“But I want to see you tonight.”
She was unaware that she might have impressed him on their date, and he
took her by surprise. “You do?”
“Well, don’t sound so damn shocked. You’re a nice girl even if you are
ten feet tall. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”
“No, I can’t, Jack.”
“Okay, eight.”
“I’m busy.”
“The hell you are.”
“I am.”
“You lie! I have an instinct about these things. Eight sharp.”
All at once Laura became aware of another voice calling her. “Laura?” It
was Dr. Hollingsworth. He was standing over her desk and she looked up
suddenly like a scared little kid.
“Yes, sir?” she said. She hung up without even saying goodby to Jack.
* * * * *
Jack Mann was not a pushy type. On the contrary, he was rather shy,
although it rarely showed. He went to parties and hid behind a stream of
wisecracks. He did the same thing on dates. He did it with anyone and
everyone. It was a sort of defense mechanism, a way of hiding his real
self, and he had done it for so many years that by now it was second
nature. Even people who knew him fairly well, like Burr and Marcie,
never saw beneath this facade of witticism. They thought that _was_
Jack: all funny asides and not much serious straight talk. It was hard
to take him seriously. He didn’t want that. He wanted to be laughed at,
to be amusing, and he usually contrived to be. He was content to let
people take him for a wag.
But once in a while he ran across somebody who made him feel sick of the
mask he hid behind. Somebody who made him yearn to talk, quietly and
seriously, about the things that mattered to him. It happened when he
was unlucky enough to fall in love. Or when he met a loner like himself
and felt an unspoken sympathy. It happened with Laura.
It wasn’t easy for him to call her back. It would have been, if she
hadn’t appealed to his emotions. There were a lot of girls he called
just for the sake of their mutual amusement, or just to amuse himself.
But if he bantered lightly with Laura it was more because he couldn’t
help it than because he wanted to, more because he had found it almost
impossible to talk straight anymore.
At eight o’clock he showed up at the apartment. He walked into the
living room without knocking and said, “It’s me.” When nobody answered
he wandered through to the bedroom and found Laura giving Marcie a home
permanent. “God, what a stink!” he said.
Laura looked up in surprise. “I thought you were kidding,” she said.
“About the date.”
He smiled at her. She was dressed in tight chinos and a boy’s shirt. It
was her favorite after work outfit. “You weren’t planning on the Stork
Club, I see,” he cracked.
“I wasn’t planning on anything.”
“That’s a dangerous attitude, Mother. Always plan on something. Avoid
accidents.”