E-Books are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or

given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this

work.

Toothpick House

Copyright ©1983 by Lee Lynch

ISBN: 978-1-60282-204-7E

First Bold Strokes Books eBook Edition May 2010

Bold Strokes Books, Inc

PO Box 249

Valley Falls, NY 12185

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, PLACES, CHARACTERS, AND INCIDENTS ARE

THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY.

ANY RESEMBLENCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, BUSINESS

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PLEASE RESEPCT OUR AUTHORS RIGHTS AND DO NOT FILE SHARE.

_________________________________________

COVER GRAPHICS BY BOLD STROKES BOOKS GRAPHICS

Irrepressible Annie Heaphy, a cab driver from the bars, meets

Victoria Locke, a feminist Yale student, and the love story of the

era—and for the ages—ensues. A classic romance introducing

many of Lynch’s iconic characters who captured the hearts of

generations of lesbians and remain among the most popular

today.

BOOKS BY AUTHOR From BOLD STROKES BOOKS

Sweet Creek

Beggar of Love

From NAIAD PRESS

Toothpick House

Old Dyke Tales

The Swashbuckler

Home In Your Hands

Dusty’s Queen of Hearts Diner

The Amazon Trail

Sue Slate, Private Eye

That Old Studebaker

Morton River Valley

Cactus Love

From NEW VICTORIA PUBLISHERS

Rafferty Street

Off the Rag, Edited with Akia Woods

From TRP COOKBOOKS

Butch Cook Book, Edited with Sue Hardesty and Nel Ward

Author Bio

Lee Lynch has been writing about lesbian life and lesbians from

the time she came out 50 years ago. She was first published in

“The Ladder” in the 1960s. In 1983 Naiad Press published her first

books, including Toothpick House and Old Dyke Tales. Her novel

The Swashbuckler was presented in NYC as a play scripted by

Sarah Schulman. Lynch’s play “Getting Into Life” caused

consternation when performed in Tucson, AZ, due to its realistic

portrayal of lesbians. Her newest novel, Beggar of Love, is

available from Bold Strokes Books. Her recent short stories can be

found in Romantic Interludes and in Read These Lips, at

www.readtheselips.com. She has twice been nominated for

Lambda Literary Awards and her novel Sweet Creek was a GCLS

award finalist. Her reviews and feature articles appeared in “The

Lambda Book Report” and many other publications. Lynch’s

syndicated column, “The Amazon Trail,” runs in numerous

venues. She is a recipient of The James Duggins Mid-Career

Author Award, the Alice B. Reader Award for Lesbian Fiction, the

Golden Crown Literary Society Trailblazer Award and has been

inducted into the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame. Her

earlier books are also available through Bold Strokes Books at

www.boldstrokesbooks.com. She lives in rural Florida with her

sweetheart and their furry ruffians.

For Deborah Pascale

I thank Debbie Pascale for sharing her life with me as I wrote

Toothpick House, and for the great patience and strength she

offered me throughout.

I also thank Barbara Grier for believing in me these fifteen

years; Caroline Overman for being my “stylistic conscience;” Tee

Corinne for her enormous support and inspiration; Michele Cliff

and Adrienne Rich for suggesting I could write this novel and

giving me direction; Carol Feiden, Judy Sloan and Carol for their

help with the first draft; and Linda Anderson for typing.

CHAPTER ONE

Annie Heaphy walked along the beach, picking up flat stones.

Fog horns sounded their hoarse, lonely cries while the morning

haze began to lift under one of the last hot suns of fall. Annie, oh

Annie, she hummed to herself, when you going to come to rest,

when you going to lay down your nasty habits, your hassling,

hustling job and feel good? She stooped to pick up a stone that

caught her eye at the edge of the water, then skipped it across the

surface only once before it fell in. Sighing, she looked back toward

her tiny home, the battered beach-house that was her root as well

as her fragile shelter from the world. Peeled and stripped by salt

and wind, it looked from a distance to be no more than a bundle of

delicate sticks propped tentatively against one another. It was as

bare, as barren as the three lonely willows leaning into the curve of

the beach road beside it.

Mornings on the beach, her clearest time of day, Annie Heaphy

marched off the nightmare of the day before. All day she drove her

heavy yellow cab, at night she met her friends in bars. Only in the

mornings could she expel it all and take in new fresh air off Long

Island Sound. Now she skipped another stone across the waves,

wishing she, too, would be rewarded after centuries of smoothing

by this graceful flight over the waters. “And in me the wave rises,”

she chanted aloud as another pebble faltered, then skipped once.

Taking careful aim, Annie squinted toward the little waves. “It

swells, it arches its back.” The stone flew twice before it fell. “I am

aware once more of a new desire . . .,” she offered as she skimmed

another stone three times across the surface of the rippling water.

Annie Heaphy glanced at her watch and threw one last stone,

her spirits lifting when it too skipped three times. She turned

again toward her home, her short yellow hair standing up as the

wind blew her cap off. Sweeping the cap up absently from the sand

she began to run with a long, slow stride until she reached the

Volkswagen in her front yard. The shack next door went alive with

radios and kids slamming doors. It sounded like back home to her,

Lee Lynch | 9

and she missed momentarily the crowded Chelsea section of

Boston. She turned the car key and swung backwards onto the

beach road, her muffler shot, leaves settling in her wake. Her

house stood alone against the will of the wind and the waves. The

foghorns went on, as if they were the voice of the house itself,

telling its story.

* * * *

“Hiya, Annie.”

“Hiya, hiya.”

“Number forty-seven today, Annie. Get moving on that rush

hour.” The dispatcher put his cigar back in his mouth and chewed

on it thoughtfully.

“Is it gassed, Mr. G.?”

Mr. G. scratched his stomach, shouted an order into his mike

and grinned, “Sure beats the hell out of me, tomboy.”

Annie aimed a series of punches at him. “When you going to get

rid of that cigar, Mr. G.? It stinks.”

“Soon’s you take off that dirty old hat, kid.”

“Never!” Annie shouted back as she ran down the stairs and

into the yard. She went up and down the rows of cabs until she

spotted number 47 and climbed in, relieved it was ready to go. She

set her cap toward the back of her head and called in. “Ready and

rolling, Mr. G. Thanks for giving me this crate again.”

“Hey, forty-seven, you got no gratitude? Least you got brakes

today.”

“No thanks to you, buddy.”

“For that you go to Branford, three-thirty Oakdale. For seven-

thirty.”

“That gives me minus two minutes.”

“Better hurry, kid.”

“Got you.” Annie settled into her routine. After a young mother

with twins, a no-show in the ghetto, a businessman who tipped her

well and two Yalies who angered her when they tipped her with all

six cents of their spare change, Annie picked up an elderly woman.

The midmorning sun was warm and she relaxed as the woman

talked. Annie looked at her in her rearview mirror and

remembered her own grandmother, Nana Heaphy, sitting in an

Toothpick House | 10

easy chair in her mother’s house, smiling and nodding at

everything that went on. Like this woman, she wore dark, silky

dresses. When she shopped for them with the aunts, there was a

chattering and a nagging at the poor woman until you would think

they were competing for a prize. It must have been even harder for

her father than for the aunts. Never able to get a word in, he had

become a taciturn, scowling man, unable to compete with his

sisters. In contrast, Annie’s mother was so blonde and quiet she

must have seemed like an oasis to him. All the aunts had brown,

crimped hair and were, like Nana Heaphy, short. As Annie grew up

she saw them widen and grey. Her mother moved among them

aloof and young-looking.

The aunts said her mother put on airs and warned Annie not to

be like her, but to emulate Nana, her namesake. “It’s good to be

proud,” Aunt Lily would say, “but remember your family is the salt

of the earth, dear.” Annie resented their intimations. She looked a

cross between both her parents, with their blue eyes, her mother’s

straight, blonde hair and smooth, pale skin, and her father’s

playful Irish features, full of dimples and a hint of baby fat. Annie

wasn’t tall, but she was not as short as the aunts and would never

let herself widen like them. Salt of the earth was all right, but it

was not her ambition. If it was airs she had, then let them

disapprove.

Annie Heaphy liked fine things and admired people of a slightly

higher class. She didn’t put the aunts down, or perhaps she had

when she was younger, but now she was twenty-two. She saw

them seldom, and no longer felt she was betraying them when she

went to a museum or a concert. Still, the aunts walked in her and

pulled her down. Else why had she quit college? Why was she

driving a cab? Why did she hang around with low-life dykes in a

bar? Something was holding her back. She wondered if it was a

combination of her heritage and her gay-ness. Her family set

limits on her ambitions, her sexuality made her socially

unacceptable. Dykes weren’t welcome anywhere unless they

dressed in sheep’s clothing; Annie was only comfortable in wolf’s

clothing. All the rest of the morning in the cab she pondered it,

hardly noticing who she drove where. A hunger pang in her

stomach made her pull over.

She counted her tips and decided to treat herself to a Chinese

Lee Lynch | 11

lunch at a nearby restaurant. Annie gave her order and headed for

the bathroom. As she was washing, another woman came to the

door and stopped, gasping audibly. Here we go again, Annie said

to herself, shrinking inside.

“This is a ladies’ room, sir,” the woman said indignantly.

Annie turned to her and glared. “I know,” she said.

The woman flushed when she heard Annie’s obviously female

voice. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were a, a . . . ,” she faltered.

“I know what you thought,” Annie replied scornfully and walked

out shaking, not wanting to wait for her order, ready to cry. She

ground her teeth in hatred as she looked around the restaurant

and saw all the straight people comfortable in their world. The

woman from the bathroom returned to her table and animatedly

described what had happened to her, looking all the while for

Annie. Her companion craned his neck to stare. Annie wanted to

kill, to rip and tear the restaurant apart. Then she noticed a small,

very old Chinese woman through the kitchen door. The

grandmother, she knew from previous visits. She remembered

again her own grandmother and felt calmer as she watched the

little woman intently making the next day’s wontons. Glad her

eyes had rested on her, she turned back to find the straight couple

had gone. Through the window she saw them entering a Yale

building across the street. She hated Yalies. Like the two in her cab

that morning, they were snobbish, self-centered and did not live in

her world, the real world. She walked to her cab feeling vindicated

that she had upset the smug life of a Yalie, but she wondered while

she ate if she wasn’t somehow jealous of them. She could have

stayed in school and made something of herself as they were

doing. Annie finished her lunch and drove off, wondering for the

thousandth time what she would do with her life.

* * * *

A doorman opened the heavy, polished wooden doors to

Victoria Locke’s apartment building. “The last of their kind,” he

told Victoria once more. “Everyone’s putting in those glass doors.

Easier to keep up. Myself, I like to keep them small panes of glass

sparkling like your eyes, Miss, when you was a little one. Of all the

little tenants you was the best, the prettiest. Now I hear you’re the

Toothpick House | 12

smartest. You’ll be graduating Yale this year won’t you?”

“In the spring, Dennis. And you know it’s not hard to be best

when there aren’t any left but me,” Victoria smiled down to the

bent old man.

“Well, then I’m glad it’s you that’s left, because you always was

my favorite.”

Victoria stepped through the door onto the worn red runner.

She would have liked to sit in the lobby and listen to Dennis as she

had when she was small. Once in a while she had been able to

elude her mother long enough to hear about the tenants who had

lived there during his reign as handyman and later when he

worked his way up to doorman. She wondered if Dennis

understood her appreciation of him or if her shy wordlessness

made him think she was becoming as condescending as her

mother. She tried to smile warmly at him, but knew it looked like a

pained grimace.

“She’s gone shopping, your ma,” he told her. “Should be back

any time now,” he assured her. Victoria didn’t want to hear

another lecture from her mother on keeping up appearances, so

she turned her back on the faded brown leather chairs in the lobby

with their frayed patches and cracks, the bowl on the lace-covered

table which had once held fresh flowers every day.

Victoria went toward the sixth floor in the elevator whose

wooden walls and brass handrails shone under Dennis’ polish.

Amazing old man, she thought. I would be as loyal as he is if I had

anything to which I could be loyal. She shifted her suitcase and

smoothed the top of her long, wavy light brown hair. She left the

elevator and faced a mirror hanging in the hall. There she was: two

flat triangles of cheeks, a broad, rectangular forehead, a long nose

almost sharply pointed at its tip. Her eyes were perfect almonds in

the angles, the same light brown and shape. Prettiest I am not, she

thought. But probably the most primped in the building. Her

mother had brushed her hair a hundred strokes a night until she

was old enough to do it herself and she had never been allowed to

wear her glasses in public. Even today, the last Thanksgiving break

she would have from Yale, she had her glasses well hidden in a

case in the pocket of her camel’s hair coat. Her mother said they

would make her narrow nose more so and would emphasize her

full lips. It took going away to Yale, where she transferred her

Lee Lynch | 13

junior year, before she learned to wear them.

Victoria turned toward her parents’ apartment feeling a chill of

anxiety. She had stopped wearing makeup this semester and her

mother would not like that either, but without it Victoria felt much

better. More like herself as a child, she thought as she turned the

key, remembering how a maid used to open the door to her as she

returned home each day from her private school across Central

Park. The maid’s name was Heidi and, as in the children’s book,

she had long blonde hair rolled on top of her head, pale skin, and

clothes she had brought with her from France where she lived near

Switzerland. She was hired for three reasons and thus, Mrs. Locke

had rationalized, was a bargain. She cleaned and did some

cooking, she spoke French so Victoria could practice, and the

family could refer to its “help.” Heidi left after several years to

marry and Mrs. Locke thought her terribly ungrateful. Victoria

was not allowed to show grief over the loss of a maid, but she still

remembered the empty feeling.

All this nostalgia must be because graduation is so near, she

thought. Still she wished she could see Heidi again as she opened

the door to high ceilings, large windows and sunny rooms. She set

down her suitcase and took a good look at the living room which

opened from the foyer. The furniture had been there since the

Lockes moved in. It was an inheritance from Mrs. Locke’s family.

Old-fashioned pieces, all in a style the name of which Victoria

fought remembering because her mother boasted of it so often.

Elegant, her mother called it. She sighed. Her poor mother, never

able to replace it because they didn’t have the money to buy the

quality on which she insisted, almost never asked anyone to

dinner anymore. It is an empty address, Victoria thought, a

hollow, pretentious, fancy address.

She walked to the window, half-covered with heavy brocade

draperies, and looked across the park. At least she still has this.

She can still say, “My view.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Locke said coming in the front door and startling

Victoria. “My Yale senior is home. I’ve just come from Bonwit’s.

They were having such a wonderful sale and I got so many

Christmas presents. You’ll be impressed with yours.”

Victoria, bored with the prospect of another unwearable tea

dress, accepted her mother’s quick kiss on the cheek. “How are

Toothpick House | 14

you, Mother?” She asked as she had been trained to do.

“Exhausted. We went to the theatre last night and saw

something awful off-Broadway. I’ll never be lured off Broadway

again and would recommend that you beware too. No taste,

Victoria, none,” she clucked as Victoria hung her coat in the foyer

closet. “I see those flannels are holding up. That’s a good girl.

Make them last.”

“The zipper doesn’t work well.” Victoria showed her mother as

she turned.

“And you wore them like that? Oh, my dear, what if someone

had seen you? I’ll take that to the tailor’s in the morning.

Meanwhile, freshen up and dress for dinner. I’ll change and make

the cocktails. Your father will be home very shortly.”

Victoria took her suitcase to her room and unpacked the books.

She carried few clothes as her wardrobe at school, though

conservative, was still not one her mother would approve. She

turned on the light at her desk and fingered the expensive desk set

sent her at high school graduation by her aunt and uncle whom

she saw once a year at Christmas. Already I feel hemmed in, she

thought. If she weren’t so frightened of her parents she would

enjoy New York, but she might as well live on a desert island for all

she knew of the city around her. The libraries, the museums,

theatres, concert halls: they were her city. Not the expensive stores

in which she could shop only when there were sales and the park

she could visit only with a companion. She used to date not

because she liked any of those preppy, well-scrubbed boys at high

school, but because she might see something of the city with them.

Well, it’s only two days, she comforted herself, tripping on the

skirt around her vanity. “Damned useless piece of furniture,” she

whispered when she heard it rip. “More moaning about how much

it’ll cost to get sewed or replaced.” She looked through her desk for

something to patch it, closed her door and lay on her back with a

stapler to reach the tear. When she surveyed her handiwork she

felt proud of herself and resourceful, though she knew she would

be chastised if her mother found it. Glue might have been less

obvious, she thought. Her discomfort increased as she changed

into the clothing she was unused to wearing. She heard the clink of

glasses down the hall and knew it was time to play at cocktail party

with her parents. Not feeling able to invite guests to their home,

Lee Lynch | 15

they treated their family like guests.

Later, Victoria could not remember what they had talked about

and she wondered if her father was drinking that much every night

now. She climbed into bed weary with boredom and took up a

book of fables by La Fontaine which she had been translating. She

returned to a favorite and reread what she had underlined: “‘They

chain you up?’ the wolf said. ‘Can’t you run/ Just where you like?’

‘Not always, what’s it matter?’ ‘It matters this: with all your feasts

I’ve done./ You have ’em. You grow fatter./ At such a price I value

life as nil.’/ Thus said, the wolf ran off, is running still.” Ah, to run

off, Victoria thought, remembering her childhood when a favorite

game was just that. Her mother would take her to Central Park

and she would slip away from where she read on a bench and go to

her favorite group of rocks. She vividly remembered running up

and down the rocks and hiding behind them to play games with

other children. Her mother despaired of curing her from playing

with the “park youngsters” and Victoria bathed in the memories

for days after each escapade. Eventually, her mother would not be

able to resist a warm, sunny day in the park and would lead her

there again for what she came to think of as her real, true

adventures.

Victoria drew the covers over her chin and stretched her legs

under the soft worn sheets. She turned off the lights and brought

her pillow down to her arms where she hugged it. Someday, she

hoped, she would be hugging more than a pillow. A real person

would be there and they would go everywhere together. But not

some straight-laced snob like her parents wanted her to marry. A

free spirit. Someone unlike anyone she had ever known. And a

good friend as well as a lover. Her depression settled over her

again. Here I am dreaming like a little girl, she thought. By this

time in my life I should know what I want. Rosemary wants to

teach. Claudia wants to be a psychiatrist. All the seniors seem to

know their futures. I want—something. A something and a

someone. A wolf in a fable, a real life. She dropped deeper toward

sleep, and woke from a half-dream along a path in Central Park

with Heidi. I’d forgotten that, she thought. No wonder I loved to

play in the park. I wonder how many times I went there with

Heidi. Her hair shone like sunlight. Victoria hugged her pillow

closer as she fell asleep with a bright light in her eyes.

Toothpick House | 16

* * * *

By the end of the day Annie Heaphy was sinking, with the

daylight, into darkness. Her depression grew with fatigue and the

rush hour seemed too hectic to keep up with. She took her cab

back to the garage and went to the bar where she accepted a beer

as she would a savior. No one was there yet, but she knew Peg and

Turkey would be watching out their window across the street for

her car. The owner Marcy, sixty, bleached-blonde, bulging in a

tight skirt, leaned her elbows backwards on the bar.

“How are you today, sweetheart?” Marcy asked in her hoarse,

loud voice.

“Pretty good, Marcy.”

Marcy began her daily complaints. “I blew close to a grand

souping this place up. And you think you ungrateful kids bring me

more money? No! Tabs,” she said, fanning a stack of them at

Annie.

“Not mine,” Annie defended herself.

“No, you’re a good kid. But some of these, I don’t know.”

Annie winked at Rudy behind the bar. “How’s Ellie today after

that barrelful she put away last night?”

“Still love-sick,” Rudy whined in his camp voice. “Barfed all

night long, then first thing this morning, before going to the

restaurant, mind you, she’s playing all these hot songs on the

stereo. I can’t stand it.”

“After that brush-off she’s still got her sights set on Dusty?”

Rudy nodded, then leaned across the bar to Annie. “It took me

and George both to get her up the stairs.”

“Thank goodness she lives with you two, not me.”

“Don’t do me any favors.” Rudy flicked his bar rag at her.

“Who’s Dusty?” Marcy asked from behind the bar where she

poured herself a soda.

“A big hunk of diesel-dyke, honey,” Rudy answered.

“Don’t know what she sees in her,” Annie said. “Except she’s got

a good job and plenty of money.”

“Don’t put your nose up, Mabel, she owns her own place.”

“How’d you find that out, Rude?”

“One afternoon, none of you girls was here, she practically told

Lee Lynch | 17

me her life story. She’s not so bad.”

“Hey, here come two tabs,” Marcy pointed out the window.

Rudy rolled his eyes at Annie.

“Ain’t you spiffed,” Annie called as she hurried to the figures

coming through the door. She hugged them both at once,

whispering, “Scrooge is on the warpath.”

“Shit,” Turkey exclaimed, stomping a heavy black boot on the

linoleum. “I was hoping to put more on my tab.”

“You were going to treat?” Peg and Annie teased her at the same

time.

“Not me!” laughed Marieanne Concetta D’Alessio, smoothing

the tight, wavy hair that rose to a thick crest like a turkey’s at the

top of her head, then grew almost flat down to her neck. She was

broader at the hips than at the shoulders and wore white jeans, red

suspenders and a large, short-sleeved men’s white shirt. Peg, taller

and narrow, in shape from teaching physical education, stood

gracefully at Turkey’s side in flannels and blazer, her hair thick

and sculpted around her head.

Peg led them to a booth, sheltering them from Marcy, and

brought them beer.

In the back door Eleanor posed, calling, “Hi, y’all!” until she

was sure she had been seen. They laughed as she sashayed toward

them, her short white waitress apron tied like a scarf around her

long, thick brown hair, and her discount house white sneakers

pointing their way across the floor. She threw herself at Annie

Heaphy and kissed her on the lips. “My darlings, I’ve missed you

so much.”

“You didn’t even know we were alive last night, miss,” Peg

scolded her.

“It’s good for me, girl. A little drunk never hurt anyone.”

“You should know,” Turkey guffawed.

“So should you,” countered Eleanor.

“So should we all,” sighed Annie.

“Want a beer?” asked Turkey.

“Me?” Eleanor pointed to herself. “Why, I’ll never drink again.”

Annie looked at her speculatively. “Then how about a Southern

Comfort on the rocks?”

“My hero!” Eleanor exclaimed, hugging Annie again.

“Ever notice she can’t keep her hands off you, Heaphy?” Peg

Toothpick House | 18

asked.

“Only when they’re not on you.”

“Cut it out, you butchy things, and tell me what I did last night.

Did I carry on?”

Peg laid a hand on her arm. “Do you remember why you carried

on?” she asked gently.

“Sure. That nasty old Dusty didn’t want nothing to do with me

last night. I thought it was the end of the world. But remember

what they say,” she raised her glass, “when at first you don’t

succeed . . . .”

“Now you just have to convince Dusty,” Annie said.

“That’ll just take time. I know she’s the woman for me and

what’s more, I’m the woman for her. I haven’t met anyone I like so

much since I left Tennessee.”

Turkey winked. “Seems to me I’ve heard that before.”

“But this time I’m sure. She’s real handsome, don’t you all

think?” The others looked around the table at one another. “Well?”

Eleanor insisted.

“If you like that type,” Annie replied diplomatically.

“She’s down to earth,” Turkey helped, then looked at Peg.

Peg started. “I like her d.a.”

“Ah, you guys just don’t appreciate a good woman when you see

one. Look how you never appreciated me. No wonder I’m turning

to someone else’s arms.”

“Alright, southern belle, we get the message,” Annie chuckled.

“Going to do something about it?” Eleanor asked teasingly.

“No.”

“Oh, you. You’ll see, all of you. When I ever saw that full moon

up there in the daytime sky I said, this is it, El, you ravishing

femme. Tonight’s the night. My mama always said you can get

what you want at the full moon. We lived in the city, but she grew

up in the country and knew the country ways. That’s why she liked

it when Pa was off in the truck at the full moon. She liked to get

what she wanted, but she didn’t want him to get what he wanted.

And you know what he wanted.”

“You saying it runs in the family, El?” Turkey asked coyly.

“What?” Peg laughed. “Getting what they want?”

Turkey shook her head. “Not liking men.”

Eleanor responded with pride in her voice. “Sure does. My

Lee Lynch | 19

Mama’s been warning me about bad men since I was a baby. Only

trouble is, she never did mention where I could find me a good

man. And I just never bothered looking for one.”

“Mine was the same way,” Peg said. “She was always telling me

scare stories about men stealing little girls or about boys trying to

‘get away with’ things. It’s like some mothers get the message

across stronger to stay away from men than to love them. They

can’t seem to help warning us even though at the same time

they’re trying to teach us to devote our lives to men.”

“And we’re the lucky ones who listened,” Annie concluded.

“Except,” Turkey said sadly, “they can’t face how good we

listened to them.”

Eleanor looked proud again. “Mine did, she took it real well,”

Eleanor said. “I just walked in the door with Butch . . . ,” she broke

off at the sounds of protesting laughter. “What’s the matter with

‘Butch?’ That’s what we called her, honest to God. She was my

second steady girlfriend. This was when I got out of reform school

and Mama was around for a while. Butch was twenty-five; I was

still a lot younger. She was the tallest, skinniest, butchiest looking

girl, wore a string tie and all when she could. I brought her home

one day and said, ‘Ma, Butch is staying over with me tonight.’”

“Mama looked Butch up and down like she did the boys my big

sister used to bring home and said, ‘Just don’t you be taken her

downtown drinken and getten in trouble with the law.’

“‘No, Ma’am,’ Butch smirked, I can see her now, ‘I aim to stay

right here with El. Guess we’ll find enough to do without goin’

looken for trouble.’ Butch was from the country like Mama and

they took to each other good from the start. Butch and me would

go in my room for hours and come out to get food Mama left hot

on the stove for us. Sometimes Butch would come over when I was

in school and sit and talk with Mama all afternoon. I swear if Pa

wasn’t in and out of there I might have lost Butch to Mama.

“But meantime, I’ve found my own true love, the first girl I’d

even think about taking home to Mama since I came up here to

find a better job. Least I found Dusty even if I couldn’t find the

job.” She looked at the clock over the bar. “I’ve got to go home and

change! Where will you all be?”

“On the fateful night that Ellie made a fool of herself again,” Peg

pronounced, “the meeting was held: downtown at the Pub?”

Toothpick House | 20

“Do you think she’ll be out two nights in a row, El?” Turkey

asked.

“It’s two-for-one night at the Pub,” Annie remembered.

“Then that’s where we’ll all be whether Dusty is or not,” Turkey

predicted.

Peg kissed Eleanor’s hand. “She’d better be saving her money if

she’s going to support this girl’s tastes.”

“You’re so right,” Eleanor beamed, getting up to leave. “See you

all down there.”

“Speaking of later, we’d better get something in our stomachs

besides booze,” Peg suggested. “Who’s for pizza? I’m buying.”

“Me, teacher!” Turkey shouted, waving her arm.

“How about you, Heaphy, want to come up for pizza?”

Annie thought of her empty house. “Sure, Peglet, thanks. It’s

easier than going home and coming back.”

They waved to Rudy. “You just get our little girl home safe

tonight,” he warned.

“If we don’t she’ll be safe in Dusty’s clutches!”

“Heaven help us!” Rudy shouted out to them as the door

slammed on their small and safe bar world. Peg went to get pizza

while Turkey and Annie hurried to the apartment to set the table.

A group of young boys moved toward them.

“Annie, let’s cross the street now.”

Annie looked at the group. “They’re too young to bother us.”

Turkey looked up at Annie, frowning. “Maybe you’re right.”

Looking at the group again, Annie noticed it had gone quiet.

They were staring at Annie and Turkey. The two exchanged

glances. “But then, I could be wrong.” Annie conceded, guiding

Turkey by the elbow to the street. As they crossed catcalls followed

them. They looked at one another when they heard the word

“lezzies.” “But they’re too young to think like that, Turkey.”

Turkey slammed a fist against her other hand. “They’re never

too young, Annie. It’s crowd behavior. Makes them feel even

stronger to reinforce the identity of the crowd by oppressing those

they see as weaker than themselves.”

“Can the sociology, let’s get inside,” Annie said, moving them

off the stoop of the building and through the front door. They ran

to the third floor of the old house and Annie sat on the top step.

“Doesn’t it make you feel kind of cowardly to run like this?”

Lee Lynch | 21

“No. It’s their weakness which creates these situations, not

ours.” Turkey unlocked her door and turned to squat next to

Annie, putting her short arms around her. “Annie, baby, you got to

stop letting this get to you. Our lives are going to be hard enough

without wasting energy on those little shits.”

“Me? You’re still red in the face.”

“That’s just from holding my breath waiting for you to calm

down. See?” Turkey puffed out her cheeks and got redder.

Annie considered tickling her, but heard Peg at the front door.

They hurried to find clean plates. “Don’t you guys ever do dishes?”

Annie asked.

Turkey answered with her usual joke, “Sure, once a month . . .”

“. . . whether they need it or not,” Peg finished, setting the pizza

on the table.

“Smells good,” Turkey breathed as she opened the box with a

flourish. “Um, my favorite: everything. But what are you guys

going to eat?” she laughed.

“Shut up and dish it out, lady,” Annie ordered.

Settling down with a slice, Peg asked, “You guys pass those little

creeps?”

“Yeah, why?” Turkey asked through a mouthful of pizza.

“Heard them saying, ‘There goes another one.’ I looked around

and there wasn’t anyone but me so I figured it out.”

“I hate it,” Annie said bitterly.

“I felt like going back and punching them out. Or dragging them

home and telling their mothers what rude little pigs they are.”

“Who do you think taught them?” Turkey asked.

“Wish I had a gun,” Annie scowled, no longer eating.

“I’m telling you, Annie, they’re not worth all this energy.”

“I know. It’s just that I get so angry. This one old man wouldn’t

stay in the cab with me when he realized I was a woman. Do you

believe that?”

“Wow. Where’s he been?” Peg asked, putting another slice of

pizza on Annie’s plate.

Annie began to eat absently. “I don’t know, but he didn’t get any

further. He got out of the cab and started yelling that I should at

least dress like a girl. And that I’d better tell the company to send

someone who knows what he is.” Annie set her pizza down and put

her head in her hands.

Toothpick House | 22

“Heaphy, Heaphy, you going to cry?” Peg asked, full of

sympathy, rising and moving to her. When Annie didn’t answer

she knelt beside her and put her arms around her. “Come on,

Heaphy, we can’t let them beat us down. I mean, we’re the bull-

dykes! We’re the strong ones. We’re going to win because we play

smart against their dirty pool.”

Turkey reached over and grabbed Annie’s cap. Annie reached

blindly for it. “Nope,” Turkey said. “You got to prove your stuff.

Earn your cap. Besides, your pizza’s getting cold.”

Annie smiled up through her tears. “You guys,” she said

affectionately, shaking her head. “I think I feel this bad about it

because I’m just not happy—period. This sure ain’t the gay life I

imagined. I’ve got to find a better way to be me. Give me the hat,

Turkey, or I’ll get my gym teacher to clobber you.”

Peg stood and started toward Turkey who fell to her knees,

pretending to tremble.

“No, no,” Turkey pleaded. “Anything but that. Not a gay gym

teacher. Oh, my worst nightmare: being attacked by a girls’ gym

teacher.” She stopped and struggled to her feet. “On the other

hand, maybe it was my best nightmare.”

“Why do we take their shit?” Peg asked.

“What else are we going to do?” Turkey shrugged.

Peg was silent for a moment, brushing off her slacks and

straightening their crease. “I’ve gone to a few women’s liberation

meetings at Yale.”

Turkey stared at her with her mouth open.

“You’ll catch flies,” Annie said, tossing a piece of crust at

Turkey.

“My roommate?” Turkey asked. “A libber meeting? Do they let

dykes in? I thought they were too scared they’d be called queers.”

“They let me in, but they were kind of distant. And it seemed

like they wanted to ask all kinds of questions.”

“Like what we do in bed?”

“No, Heaphy, it was more like they wanted to ... ,” she paused,

embarrassed, “to sleep with me to find that out. Some of them

anyway.”

“Were they cute?” Turkey asked.

Peg ignored her. “They really believe in what they’re doing. In

starting daycare centers so women can work; in getting abortion

Lee Lynch | 23

legalized so women have more control of their lives.”

Turkey grumbled, “All they got to do is stop sleeping with men.”

“Maybe that’s next, Turk. But anyway, there were no men at the

meeting. And I couldn’t help but like them.”

Annie shook her head. “But what does that have to do with us?”

“I’m not sure yet, but there’s going to be a meeting for gay

women soon.”

Turkey started clearing the table. “You mean you’re not the only

one crazy enough to get mixed up with libbers?”

“I guess not. They were saying that we’re already feminists in a

sense because we love women. They think they can learn

something from us. So I was thinking of telling them what

happens on the streets. How acting like we don’t want men scares

people. I don’t understand it yet, but it’s all sloshing around inside

my head.”

“Speaking of sloshing,” Turkey said, slamming the refrigerator

door, “who’s for more beer?” She handed it around and proposed a

toast. “To the Peg. Who’s beginning to understand what I’ve been

saying all along!”

“Oh, I know all your theories, Turkey, but this seems more real.

This is about you and me and poor Heaphy who got emotionally

beat up today.”

Annie Heaphy scratched her head under its hat and mused

aloud. “I don’t know, Peg. I don’t know if I want to think about it

all. I’d rather build a little shack on an island and not let anybody

but dykes live there.” She straightened her cap and looked into her

beer.

“I think that’s what the libbers are talking about. Only they’re

saying we’re already on an island and when a lot more women join

us we can have the rest of the world too.”

“I don’t know,” Annie repeated, shaking her head slowly.

“Sounds very hard to me.”

* * * *

The train rolled out of the Stamford station. An older woman

bustled into the seat next to Victoria. As soon as she was settled,

the woman peered into Victoria’s face and asked her name.

Victoria told her and put down the book which had been boring

Toothpick House | 24

her.

“I’m Louise. Louise Barshov,” the older woman said. “I’m very

pleased to meet you Victoria. Are you always called that?”

“Yes,” Victoria smiled. “I prefer it. How far will you be

travelling?”

“All the way to Providence, I’m afraid,” the woman said, pulling

knitting out of a bag and beginning to click her needles wth the

sounds of the train. “Do you go to school in Boston?”

“No, New Haven. I was home for Thanksgiving. Am I that

obviously a student?”

“My oldest daughter when she was in school,” Louise offered

after extracting a photo from one of the shopping bags at her feet.

“We could be sisters, couldn’t we?” Victoria asked, shaken by

the similarity of the daughter to herself.

“Then yes. Not now,” Louise answered brusquely.

Victoria noticed the set of the woman’s lips. They made her

mouth look sharper, almost cruel. Louise shook her head.

“Marriage was not good to her.” She sighed and pulled at her white

curled hair as if to straighten a patch of it. She picked up her

knitting again. “That’s her beast of a husband in the picture

opposite her, and those are her kids.”

“They’re lovely.”

“Not any more.”

Again the woman’s tone of voice had changed and her lips

became a narrow slash in her face. Victoria began to get

apprehensive about the fate of the daughter and the mother’s

changing manner. “What happened to them?” she asked. She felt a

tie with this look-alike.

“He happened to her,” she said cryptically, stabbing at the wool

with her needles.

“Doesn’t he treat her well?”

“Didn’t he, you mean.”

Victoria pulled back her hair and fingered her book, tempted to

move away from this frightening woman. She noticed that the

woman was dressed in shades of black and grey. “They’re no

longer together, then.”

“Nor would you be, if he hit you like he did her.”

“He hit his wife? Why?” This was something outside Victoria’s

experience. People made jokes about husbands beating their

Lee Lynch | 25

wives, but it didn’t happen to anyone she knew. Louise seemed

respectable enough, with her hair professionally set, her suit a nice

cut and her daughter a college graduate.

“Why do men do anything? I certainly don’t know. Now she’s a

skinny woman’s rightser or whatever you call it in New York. New

York! Providence is too small for her and Boston too close. He

might find her. I say kill him. If he finds her take a gun and shoot

him. I’d like to shoot mine.”

Victoria watched, fascinated, as Louise became more fanatical.

Like a Jeckyll-Hyde character she became increasingly sinister.

Each time they went under a bridge more shadow seemed to have

settled across her, making her look darker and smaller, as if she

was shriveling before Victoria’s eyes. She sounded as if she really

meant what she said about her husband. “You want to shoot your

husband?” Victoria asked in disbelief.

“Dirty thing. I’ve cooked and cleaned for him the best part of

my life and there he sits, sweating into his undershirts. Hairy old

man. I wish he’d die and leave me in peace. I dare him ever to lay

a hand on me. I should have left him years ago.” Then she asked,

her hands moving even faster on her knitting, “Why should I?” her

voice suddenly loud, her eyebrows raised. “Why should I let him

off so easy and go scrub floors on my hands and knees?” She

looked accusingly at Victoria. “He’d be sitting pretty, let me tell

you, with his pension and without me to feed. No, I earned that

and I’m keeping it. You’ll see. I’ll outlast him and then I’ll live in

comfort. Take a cruise somewhere. Go out on the town.” She

looked slyly at Victoria. “Maybe find a boyfriend. How about you?

A pretty girl like you must have a boyfriend.”

As terrified as she had become of the old woman, Victoria knew

now that there was something wrong with her. How inconsistent

to hate men one moment and want a boyfriend the next. Or is that

real, she wondered. Is that how women really are: torn between

wanting marriage and fearing to live with men. “No, Louise, I

don’t have a boyfriend,” she answered quietly, afraid to upset her.

“Well, good for you, then. You’re better off. Look at my poor

daughter.” Again Louise was calm and motherly. “She gave her

two sons up to him just like that. Said they reminded her of him.

Said she wants to be free. I can’t understand her, can you? A lovely

girl like that getting all skinny and sickly looking. Running around

Toothpick House | 26

the streets in sandals in the middle of winter. All her friends have

their hair chopped off and look like men. I suppose she’ll cut all

hers off one of these days. Imagine, a grown woman, a mother, in

blue jeans, not eating meat. Have you ever heard of anything so

ridiculous?” Louise had become menacing again.

Victoria,

frightened

into

silence,

shook

her

head

noncommittally and picked up her book. “Tsk, tsk,” she heard

Louise say, but did not look over again. She was as much afraid

that the woman was not crazy as that she was. So much of what

she had said made sense. Louise was simply looking at reality and

talking about it. Most people found it too painful to do so. Was the

frightening shadow that had settled over Louise simply something

Victoria had cast over her so that she could call the woman crazy

and stop listening to her?

After pretending to read for awhile, Victoria set her book down

and went to find the water fountain. She looked for another place

to sit, but the train was crowded. Louise looked up when she sat

next to her. “And what about yourself, dear. Tell me why you don’t

have a boyfriend.”

Oh, no, Victoria groaned to herself. But she answered politely,

“I suppose I haven’t found a boy I really like.”

The old woman surveyed her and Victoria thought she looked

like a witch or a fortune-teller. Then she demanded, “Who was the

last man you liked?”

Victoria considered telling her to mind her own business.

Instead she felt impelled to answer against her will, “Michael.”

When the woman lay down her needles and continued to look at

her she went on. “He was a mechanic where my parents used to

spend their vacations in New Hampshire. There weren’t many

children there and he used to take me fishing. He taught me to

fish.”

“Did he beat his wife?” Victoria was startled by Louise’s non-

sequitur. Still, she had to go on as Louise watched her

unwaveringly, her eyes narrow.

“Not that I know of.” She pictured Michael’s house where he

had taken her once when he had forgotten the bait. The small

motorboat had skimmed across the lake and Michael eased it onto

a beach, lifting Victoria free of it and onto the sand. She was ten

and he took her little girl’s hand and they ran across the narrow

Lee Lynch | 27

road to a long white house whose porch looked like a storage

room, filled with old furniture and tools. A girl younger than

herself ran around the corner of the house, but stopped suddenly

when she saw Michael.

“Are you being a good girl?” he had asked.

She hung her head and whispered, “Yes, Daddy.”

“Good, then I want you to meet Vicky.” He knelt between the

two girls and pushed them together. “Hello,” they both said. While

Michael went to get the bait they stared at each other. The little

girl wore a grey dress and no shoes. Victoria was in white pedal

pushers and a matching blouse. Feeling like a big city girl she had

asked, “Do you like your school up here?” Michael’s daughter ran

off.

“Was he your boyfriend?” Louise asked.

“Oh, no, I was small. He worked for the place where we stayed. I

suppose he was paid to amuse me.”

“What in the world did you find in him to like?”

Victoria defended Michael. “He was different from anyone I’d

ever met. He repaired boats and cars and had a farm. And he was

wonderful to me.” She would not tell Louise that she had not been

allowed to play with the only children there, the staff children.

Michael had come as a savior during her loneliness when her

parents noticed that she was spending all of her time following

them around. “This is a vacation!” her mother had chastised her.

“Your father and I want to enjoy ourselves. Don’t you have

anything to do?” She had complained to the resort about their lack

of programs for children and the next day Michael gave her a ride

in a speedboat. He asked her what she would like to do for the

summer.

“I want to catch a fish!”

“Then you will,” said the stout, cigar-smoking man with short

arms and a rolling walk. Her mother had been horrified. “I told

them that they needed recreational facilities for children. Not that

I wanted my daughter made into a tomboy!” After another day of

trailing after her parents because she was so bored, Victoria was

sent fishing with Michael.

“I caught a fish,” she told Louise. “Several, as a matter offact.

One of them was a foot long.”

“Ugh,” said Louise, returning to her knitting.

Toothpick House | 28

“We threw them all back. Michael said if we didn’t need them,

there was no use killing them. After all, I remember him saying, if

they didn’t enjoy swimming around all day they wouldn’t do it,”

Victoria reminisced, smiling.

“But did you like the man or did you like what you could do

because you were with a man?”

Victoria looked at the old lady innocently knitting, head bowed.

She shivered to think that the old woman was probably right, it

was not the man but the privilege she remembered so fondly. “He

was kind to me,” she offered weakly.

“Was he kind to his kids?”

Victoria remembered his little girl’s face again. She had stopped

short at the sight of her father.

“Or his wife?”

“I’m sure he was,” Victoria said firmly. “He was a kind man. I ‘m

sure he was good to his wife and children.”

Louise chuckled and was silent, leaving Victoria alone with new

thoughts, staring at the gnarled old body busy with its needles.

What did the old lady care if she held a warm feeling about

Michael in her heart? Why did she want to ruin it? Why shouldn’t

she like men? Just because one old woman and her daughter had

bad experiences with them? Yet it was true that Michael was the

only man she really liked. How eerie that a stranger should bring

this into focus for her.

Victoria realized suddenly that the landscape was more familiar

and began to get ready. As she swung her suitcase down to her seat

she noticed that Louise was looking less sinister and more

respectable. Her white hair shone in the sunlight and her clothes

seemed almost stylish. Victoria put her coat on, balancing in the

aisle. Louise looked up at her. “I can tell you’re a smart girl like my

daughter,” she smiled benignly. “I just think girls can be too smart

sometimes and make mistakes.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Victoria said, swaying against

the seat, suitcase still in hand.

“No, young people never hear what old people say. At least you

were polite enough to listen.” She set down her knitting and raised

her hand. Victoria took it reluctantly, remembering the fairy tale

where the palm of the princess’s hand was pricked with a

poisonous thorn. “It’s been lovely talking with you, dear. Good

Lee Lynch | 29

luck to you,” Louise said in a sweet, grandmotherly way.

“It’s been nice talking to you, too, Louise,” Victoria answered

politely.

“Has it? Then I’m sorry.” Louise’s face darkened as she scowled

at Victoria. “You mustn’t have been listening after all,” she said,

dropping Victoria’s hand as if it had burned her.

Victoria almost ran down the aisle in her haste to get away. At

the door she was for once glad of the crowd of people. She felt

safer. Her hand stung and she looked down at it, feeling as crazy

as she thought Louise was. There was no stain; the barb had been

verbal, the wound in her head. She could feel the woman’s words

take hold with such ease they might well have been in her own

mind to begin with. She wondered if she had been dreaming the

whole time. “Can I be the witch? Trying to tell myself something I

already know?”

The train stopped and the people behind her pressed Victoria

out the door.

“Victoria! Victoria!” she heard on the cold and busy platform. It

was her friend Rosemary. “I didn’t know you would be on this

train. What is it? You look as if you had seen a ghost!”

Victoria stared at her. “Oh, it’s good to see you,” she sighed in

relief, realizing she had never before been so glad to see the sharp-

chinned, lank-haired woman.

“Would you like to share a cab?” Rosemary asked in her formal

manner.

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day. Let’s go back to the real

world, eh, Rosemary?” she laughed.

“I’d hardly call our ivory tower real, Victoria. You of all people

should know how I feel about the enforced unreality of the

environment with which the privileged classes surround

themselves. . . .” And her voice droned on, as comforting to

Victoria as the sun had been when she drifted in Michael’s boat,

her fishing rod poised to catch whatever came her way.

CHAPTER TWO

Annie Heaphy stumbled on the rug in Eleanor’s doorway.

“Those fags I live with have to be so fancy with their furniture,”

Eleanor apologized. “I trip over that half the time myself.”

“It’s elegant, anyway,” Annie said sarcastically as she pulled off

the army jacket which would have fit in better at home in her own

beloved shack.

Eleanor took it and hung it in a closet. “Everything has to be

pretty for them, believe me. I mean, who ever heard of a white

rug? My mom would have gone cuckoo with cleaning it. They’re

forever renting a rug shampooer. Sit down and take a load off your

feet. What do you want to drink?”

“Wow! They have a bar!” said Annie admiringly, sliding onto a

stool.

“Why, of course, of course. Nothing but the best.”

“You know, you’re really lucky to live here.”

“Luxury has its price. I’ve told you guys what I put up with. The

parties that go on all night—not that I don’t enjoy them. And

they’re so bitchy sometimes—not that I’m not. They do take

awfully good care of me, though, and the rent is cheap. Won’t you

join me in some Southern Comfort?”

“Don’t you have any nice northern stuff?”

“Ain’t no such thing. All the best whiskey’s southern. Why, Jack

Daniels comes from my home state,” Eleanor boasted.

“I’ll stick to beer.”

“Suit yourself, Yankee,” Eleanor said, handing Annie a beer as

she walked to the couch. Annie watched her, knowing she was

committed to making love now. “Come sit down over here, Annie.”

Eleanor patted a cushion next to her.

Annie twirled on her stool. “This is fun,” she said to delay

leaving the stool. She wanted desperately to revoke the course she

set for herself when, balking at going back to her house alone, she

accepted Eleanor’s often repeated invitation after Turkey and Peg

had left the bar. In addition, she felt badly when Dusty had not

Lee Lynch | 31

shown up again. Eleanor had been very let down. Now she hoped

that she was not throwing away a friend for a night’s

companionship. Slowly, she walked to Eleanor on the couch,

realizing how unattractive she found her lips, wishing she did not

have to kiss them.

“You don’t look happy, honey. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, El, nothing. Just tired. Thinking of getting up

tomorrow.” Annie felt guilty that her reluctance was obvious to

Eleanor and sat close to her, facing her and laying a hand on her

shoulder. She clung to her beer with the other hand, although her

fingers were getting cold and the beer warm. She gritted her teeth

in a smile.

Eleanor rubbed her cheek on Annie’s hand. “What do you want

for Christmas, Annie?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about a ...” Annie stopped herself from

saying lover. That was a joke she, Peg and Turkey shared. It would

only hurt Eleanor or lead to more than Annie wanted. “A six-

pack.”

“Is that all you ever think of?”

“Then how about a new muffler for my car?”

“How about ten dollars or under?” Eleanor laughed, lifting

Annie’s cap and smoothing her hair.

Annie knocked her hand away, more roughly than she had

intended. “Don’t mess with the hat.”

A hurt look flashed across Eleanor’s eyes, but she laughed

again. “Do you wear that thing to bed?”

Remorseful, Annie smiled. “No. Just in the shower.”

“Silly.” Eleanor moved closer to Annie and snuggled into her

shoulder. Sighing, Annie put one arm around her, chugging at her

beer with the other. “Put that down, Annie.”

“Didn’t finish it,” Annie complained into the can.

Eleanor took a turn at sighing and sat up. “Well, at least I got

you here, away from your precious house. I suppose that’s a big

step.”

“I’m sorry.” Annie hung her head. “I’m real tired, El.” She put

her arm back around Eleanor’s thin shoulders. “I’m not sure I have

the energy to do you justice.”

“What will be, will be. Will you stay over anyway, even if we

don’t do anything? You know, ‘Help me make it through the

Toothpick House | 32

night?’”

Annie smiled to hear Eleanor sing the song she played endlessly

on Marcy’s jukebox and to hear her own thoughts in the other

woman’s mouth. Feeling unsure of herself, she looked up at

Eleanor. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I’d feel I was here under false pretenses.”

“I’m asking you to stay, Annie. That nasty old Dusty didn’t even

show up at all tonight. How’s that for a brushoff? I keep thinking

about how hard it is waitressing all day when I can’t depend on

Dusty being there at night. All I got is the bar to keep me from

going nuts.”

Annie was humming Eleanor’s song inside her head. It had

weighed on Annie at the bar and increased her own sense of

desolation at the thought of going home. When her roommates

lived there she had loved the long drive back. Now, remembering

the deserted beach, she weakened again. “As long as it’s okay with

you.”

“Oh, it’s real okay with me. You’ll have to sleep in my bed

because Rudy and George usually come home with company and

stay out here for awhile. But I promise I won’t touch you.”

Annie nodded gratefully and went to get into bed while Eleanor

fixed them a bedtime snack in the kitchen. She felt like a kid sick

in bed in a pair of Rudy’s pajamas rolled up on her arms and legs.

Eleanor came in with two glasses of milk and chunks of chocolate

cake.

“Well, it’s nice to know I can make you smile,” Eleanor said

when she saw Annie eying the cake. “Here, hold this while I get

undressed.” She changed into a black shortie nightgown while

Annie averted her eyes. “Like my negligee?” Eleanor asked as she

climbed in next to Annie.

“It’s real sexy,” Annie giggled. “I feel like we’re having a

sleepover party,” she said as she gave Eleanor her cake and milk.

“Me too. This is kind of fun. I never thought of you as fun to

sleep with.”

Annie pretended to look hurt.

“Just exciting,” Eleanor grinned lasciviously. “Now, you all take

off that hat and eat so we can get up in the morning. Long as we’re

not going to do anything worthwhile we might as well get some

Lee Lynch | 33

rest.”

They finished their snacks and pulled the blankets over

themselves, turning off the light. Annie lay in the dark stiff with

self-consciousness. It would be hard to fall asleep, not having

made love. “You know, this is new for me, El.”

“What?”

“Platonic sleeping together.”

“Me too. Don’t really seem natural, does it? It’ll ruin our

images. Some butch you are,” she teased Annie, pushing lightly at

her in the dark.

“Can you see us telling Peg and Turkey we slept together and

them not believing it was innocent?” Annie laughed to cover the

warmth that stole over her from Eleanor’s light touch.

“Never! We’d have to prove it. Some night let’s ask them to

come to bed with us and we’ll have a sexless orgy.” Eleanor began

to laugh too.

“We wouldn’t even need beds. Four sleeping bags on the floor.”

“We’d never all fit in a bed,” Eleanor added.

“We’d go through the mattress!”

“Rudy and George would come in when they heard the noise

and find all those tangled up arms and legs and hair. . . !” Eleanor

couldn’t finish from laughing.

Annie was doubled up on the bed from laughter, her cap finally

falling off. “Oh, stop, that’s enough!”

“This is almost as good as sex!”

As they calmed down Eleanor moved closer to Annie who

jumped. “Your feet are so cold!” Annie said, reaching under the

covers to warm them as she would a lover’s. “You do need

someone warm in your bed.”

“Um, that feels good, Annie. We should have thought of this

months ago. Do you think Turkey and Peg ever sleep together?

Like this?”

“I don’t know, but they ought to.” Eleanor settled her head on

Annie’s shoulder.

Annie sighed deeply and leaned her face against Eleanor’s hair.

“Tell me a bedtime story, Annie.”

“Goldilocks?”

“No, silly, something real.”

“How about Gone With the Wind?”

Toothpick House | 34

“Don’t make fun of a defenseless Southern belle. Something

about lesbians.”

“Oh, you mean a dirty story.”

“You’re awful. Not a dirty story, a real romantic one.”

“Once upon a time Miss Scarlett realized that it was Topsy she

loved all along . . .”

“Oh, Annie,” Eleanor pulled away from her, pretending to be

disgusted.

Annie held her back. “Dorothy fell in love with Toto?”

“Was Toto a girl?” Eleanor giggled. “Tell me your come out

story. I never heard that.”

“Do I have to?”

“Either that or make love to me. I’m not ready to sleep.”

Annie hesitated, feeling again a stirring glow from Eleanor’s

words, enjoying holding her slight body.

“Besides,” Eleanor interrupted her wavering will, “I’ve told you

mine.”

“Yeah, poor kid. What an awful way to come out. In jail.”

“Reform school. They didn’t call them jails. And it was nice. She

made me feel like I had a real home for the first time ever. I

would’ve stayed at the school forever if she hadn’t been sprung. I

loved our little cottage. At least until they put two more girls in

there. But even then it wasn’t so bad, because their girlfriends

were in other cottages and they were out all the time.”

“I feel overprivileged.”

“Why?”

“I came out with a Cliffey.”

“What in hell is that?” Eleanor asked, rolling over to face Annie.

Annie kissed her, their bodies barely touching, her lips finding a

spark in Eleanor’s. “Oh, no,” Eleanor sighed. “You’re not getting

out of it that easy. Now I want to hear. Tell me.” She pushed Annie

back into the pillows and laid her head on her chest.

“Natalie went to Radcliffe. That’s the woman’s school at

Harvard.”

“How’d you meet her?”

“At the library. The Boston Public. It’s kind of corny.”

“Love stories always are, aren’t they?”

“I guess so. Stop me if it’s too silly for you.”

“Oh, Annie,” Eleanor chided her, slipping a hand across Annie’s

Lee Lynch | 35

chest and under her ribcage.

“I used to go there every Saturday. To the library. Mostly to get

away from my family. My house was always full of old ladies,

cousins, aunts, neighbors. It felt like bingo night at St. Ann’s. I’d

go to study. I was in high school. Junior year. I didn’t have any

friends except neighborhood kids. We’d go to the football games

together. Or shopping downtown, walking to school, but I had

nothing in common with them. I didn’t know I was gay, but I read

a lot and they called me The Intellectual. So me and my shadow

would go to the library.”

“Sounds dull, honey,” Eleanor said, running her hand along

Annie’s side.

“Actually, I didn’t study much, so it wasn’t. I’d go into a room

and pull out a book and get lost for a few hours. At lunchtime,

though, I always went to this courtyard in the middle of the place

and I’d eat my sandwich there. One day I noticed this girl looking

at me. I’d noticed her before, so I smiled at her. Well, that’s as far

as it went for a few weeks. We’d smile. I was shy and it turned out

she was too, back then.”

Annie shifted on the bed. “You still awake?” she asked when

Eleanor didn’t move.

“Oh, yeah. Just too comfy to move.”

Annie stroked her hair. “So one day, of course, the only place to

sit was next to her. You sat on these low cement benches. We

smiled and finally she asked me what I was reading. She was

reading The Well of Loneliness. I found out later that she’d been

carrying it every Saturday in hopes that I’d talk to her.” Annie

laughed. “She was gay, but she was only a freshman at Radcliffe

and scared to death she’d be kicked out if anyone found out. She’s

a big shot on the campus now, a senior. But then she was just a

scared little queer and she thought I was, too. You know, I wore

jeans and sneakers and a hat.”

“Not the same one!” Eleanor interrupted, pretending horror.

“No, no. Usually a Red Sox cap, then. Anyway, we went for

coffee. She was majoring in literature and I’d read a lot so we had

plenty in common. I’d never heard of The Well and she lent it to

me. All she said was it was the life of an English woman writer. We

didn’t talk about meeting the next week, but she knew the book

would bring me back. Luckily, it was spring and we could leave the

Toothpick House | 36

shelter of the library for the Common and the public Gardens, the

Charles River and the docks.

“It was a sweet kind of relationship. She said we budded, then

blossomed together, first holding hands, then walking arm in arm

and so on. We didn’t sleep together until that summer. She was a

counselor at some camp in Vermont and I worked at the Chelsea

library shelving and stuff. I missed her like we were blossoming

plants the blossoms had been torn off. I’d finally started

fantasizing about her. When she got her first weekend off I met

her. I was scared to death because we stayed at a country inn and

it was so respectable looking and I was far from home and, of

course, I knew what would happen if I wanted it to.

“We went on being lovers till I graduated from high school. But

I remember the courting best, if you’ll forgive the expression. The

weather growing warmer, colors being born, everything expanding

and filling with life, like me. Toying with love. Before we had to

face the daily realities like where can we sleep together and where

do we go from here.”

Eleanor raised herself to look into Annie’s eyes. “That is a sweet

story, girl. And just like you. A quiet kind of first love, that took a

long time to happen. What happened to her?”

“The summer I graduated high school she started some kind of

study program in Spain. She didn’t come back until the end of the

winter. She was so different. So—sophisticated, I guess. I mean,

she’d always been a lot more with it in terms of getting along with

society and fitting in at Radcliffe. She could pass easily for

straight. But before she went away she was like a kid a lot,

especially alone with me. Like a kid who’s been pushed into the

adult world and puts on a good show when she wants to. I didn’t

stop loving her because she finally became part of that world, but I

didn’t feel I could keep up. And she didn’t want to give it up. You

know, she’ll always be one of those lesbians who goes to cocktail

parties and people say, ‘Oh, that’s so and so the lesbian,’” and go

back to their drinks because she looks just like them and acts just

like them and keeps her love life totally separate from her social

and professional life. I think it’s a new kind of closet that’s been

invented for women who love women but also love the straight

world.”

“And Annie Heaphy doesn’t.”

Lee Lynch | 37

“You’re damn straight I don’t love their world. Shit,” she

sneered, putting her hands on Eleanor’s shoulders and gripping

them. “This is my world and if I’ve got to be a cab driver then I will

be before I take my hat off for anybody. I may have a lot of faults,

but I’m no hypocrite.”

Their eyes were locked and Eleanor was smiling at Annie’s

angry pride. “You lowclass dyke,” she hissed.

“You poor white Southern queer,” Annie countered and

suddenly they were kissing hard and holding each other very

tightly. They had found something in each other to which they

responded. Rolling on top of Eleanor, Annie, with short, firm

caresses, made love to her, but it was all an outward flow of

energy. When Eleanor tried to touch Annie, the touch was parried.

Annie was masterful, everything she thought Eleanor wanted her

to be, until Eleanor began to fight her, caressing her back, moving

until she was no longer underneath Annie, but next to her and

finally finding an opening to make love to Annie, too. They went

on for awhile roughly touching each other, Eleanor as if to purge

the straight world from Annie’s body, Annie ridding Eleanor of the

night’s hurt and disappointment. Then, their passions met and

they retreated from their fight as if to admire and appreciate each

other. I’m making love with a friend I respect, thought Annie, and

she smiled in the dark, still for a moment.

“What’s the matter?” Eleanor asked.

“Whether we do this again or not, I like you.”

“I like you too, Annie.” And then their caresses were gentle until

they slept.

* * * *

Victoria was ready to knock, but the door to Rosemary and

Claudia’s room was wide open. Claudia was dancing inside, arms

wide, eyes closed, dipping and spinning in unrhythmic abandon.

Victoria knocked anyway, once lightly and again more heavily

when Claudia did not hear.

Claudia’s whole body started and her eyes jumped open.

Balanced in a backward step she swayed side to side, then thrust

her round body forward and to the door to grab Victoria and pull

her into the dark room which faced an alley. “Want to dance?” she

Toothpick House | 38

yelled over the cha-cha.

“No!” Victoria shouted back. “Why don’t you turn that thing

down? Aren’t people trying to study?”

“I was indulging myself,” Claudia admitted, turning the stereo

down, still lightly dancing in her long flannel nightgown.

Victoria watched the girl’s joy in dancing and her unself-

consciousness in her body with its heavy breasts and protruding

belly. Small bare feet poked out from under the nightgown.

Claudia began to unroll curlers from her hair. “What did you do

last night?” she asked Victoria.

“I read, listened to music.” Victoria remembered dancing by

herself to Debussy. “What did you do?”

“Went to a film. David and Lisa. Have you ever seen it?”

“No.”

“It’s about two kids with emotional problems. I must have seen

it six times. Fascinating.”

“For a psychology major.”

“Rosemary liked it too. I want her to understand my interest in

psychology. She sees it as a ‘male tool to further enhance male

strength by rationalizing it.’ I believe we can use it to understand

their strength and our own.” She cleared books off a chair. “Want

to sit down? What are you doing here anyway? We usually have to

drag you out of your room.”

Victoria looked at her feet and took a deep breath. She was

lonely, restless, excited by the coming winter holiday when her

parents would be away and she would be free in the apartment in

New York. There was finally not even the money for a live-in maid.

She also felt at a loss about what to do with herself those two

weeks, when she could do anything she wanted without having to

report her activities to anyone. “I suppose I was bored.”

“Want to come to the women’s poetry group?”

“Is that all you’re doing today?”

“Yes. Rosemary’s going to read.”

Victoria tried not to sound negative. “I’ve heard her read

before.”

“There’ll be a discussion afterwards. Come on. You’re a poet.

You’ll like it. There won’t be any bearded men showing off there.

Just us.”

“I really don’t care for poetry readings,” Victoria protested,

Lee Lynch | 39

wringing her hands in frustration. “I suppose I’m looking for

something more exciting to do.”

Claudia looked surprised. “Exciting? You, Victoria Locke,

looking for something exciting to do?” She slipped her curlers into

a flowered cosmetic bag. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. I suppose nothing.” Victoria slumped dejectedly

into the armchair Claudia had cleared, unsure whether to change

the subject or not. “Oh, Claudia, I want to plunge into something.

To get lost in it, do you understand what I mean?”

“Sure I do. I just never expected you to feel like that. I do a lot,”

Claudia said, slipping onto the arm of the chair and looking into

Victoria’s eyes. “What sort of things do you get lost in?”

Before Victoria could answer, Rosemary’s bedroom door

opened and she appeared in a long skirt and peasant blouse. Her

lank brown hair was rolled on the top of her head, strings of it

falling out already. “Good morning,” she said in surprise to the

tableau of Victoria and Rosemary. She walked to the stereo

turntable and stopped the cha-cha.

Victoria looked up at the girl’s thin, pointed face. “Hello,” she

answered.

Claudia lifted herself away from Victoria and attached herself to

Rosemary’s arm. “Victoria wants something exciting to do, but

doesn’t want to come to the group,” she said, leaning her head

against Rosemary’s shoulder as they both looked toward their

friend. Rosemary awkwardly took her arm from Claudia’s and

rested it across her shoulder.

“What do you find exciting, Victoria?” Rosemary asked

solemnly.

“I’m not sure anymore. Nothing seems to satisfy me. I have this

vague, restless feeling.”

Rosemary looked at Claudia. “Surely we can think of something.

Why don’t you go and wash up, Claudie, so we can go,” she said

gently. Claudia let go of her arm slowly and, with a lingering smile

at Rosemary, left them. “How long have you felt like this,

Victoria?”

Silently, Victoria cursed herself for confiding in Claudia. I don’t

need a therapist because I want to have some fun, she thought.

“Weeks now,” she said, giving in because she did not see how she

could avoid answering, without being rude.

Toothpick House | 40

“What do you usually do?”

“I’ve never felt quite like this.”

“Oh, come now,” Rosemary admonished her.

Victoria had to admit that Rosemary was right. “I usually throw

myself into studying or a book.”

“And that’s not working?” Rosemary sat down across from her.

Victoria shook her head sadly. “No.”

“You probably need a lover.”

“Rosemary!” Victoria exclaimed, shocked.

“Well, it’s true.”

“I don’t want some man suddenly controlling my life. I’ve tried

that. The minute they touch you they think you’re their property.”

“You’re a true feminist, Victoria. You can see relationships in a

political light.”

“Politics my eye. I don’t like the way they treat me. Even the

least obtrusive man, once he’s certain of you, gets possessive. I

don’t want that, Rosemary, and I certainly don’t find it exciting.”

“No, I see that. And for that reason I’m going to tell you

something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while, but there

hasn’t been the right opportunity. I’ve spoken with Claudia about

it and she agrees that since you are our best friend you should

know. I hope that it won’t hurt our friendship.”

Victoria was bored by Rosemary’s speech and barely interested

in what confession she had to make. She yawned, picking some

lint off her chair. The room, devoid of sunlight, was dark and

depressing. It was filled with Claudia’s clutter.

“Are you prepared for me to say something quite startling?”

“Yes,” Victoria sighed irritably.

“This is not easy to say, but, I suppose I may as well get used to

saying it.” Rosemary swallowed so hard Victoria could hear the

gulp and looked at her. “Claudia and I are thinking of becoming

lovers.”

I hadn’t even thought of a woman lover, Victoria thought to

herself, not at all surprised that her immediate reaction was to

consider taking a woman lover as a choice for herself. “I’m glad,”

she said simply.

“You think we should?”

“Well, I don’t know much about this sort of thing. I always

assumed it just happened—taking a lover or falling in love.”

Lee Lynch | 41

“Perhaps it does for some people. But we don’t entirely believe

in love,” Rosemary proclaimed, pursing her lips.

Victoria was shocked again. “Then why be lovers?”

Rosemary spoke as if giving a prepared lecture. “Both of us

want to give our whole selves to feminism. As sex is a physical

need and companionship is very important,” she said in a rush,

blushing, “we feel that we should provide for both. If we married,

we would have to divert our attention away from the movement to

men.” Composed now, Rosemary sat straighter. “If we can meet

each other’s needs, we’ll have a solution to our problems.”

“Are you sure Claudia feels this way too?”

“It was Claudia who brought it up. Of course, her political

thinking lags behind her instinctual search for a solution and a

psychologist would worry about her basic human needs. One night

she became,” Rosemary looked uncomfortable, “affectionate, and I

found it not unpleasant. However, I stopped her so that I could

evaluate the implications a physical relationship would have for

us.”

Victoria surprised herself by saying very low, “You mean you

had to rationalize getting what you wanted.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Victoria tried to imagine the two in bed. She was certain that

Claudia was as passionate and uninhibited in her affections as she

was in everything else she did. Rosemary would be a bore, asking

how everything felt and what she should do next. But the idea of

women loving women, though a frightening option she had never

before considered for herself, was exciting. Sarcastic still, she

asked, “When will you decide?”

“We’re going to talk about it again this evening. First we’re

going to see what the poetry group has to say. I’ve written several

poems in the last week based on Sappho’s fragments. I hope that

will make a discussion of lesbianism seem natural.”

“Instead of asking her father for her hand, you’re asking her

poetry group?” Victoria laughed. She wondered once more why

she remained friends with Rosemary. They did have the same

interests. And Rosemary, like herself, had never been part of the

Yale social world. She lived in the same dormitory and was easy to

see and they shared many of the same classes. Yet Victoria could

not stand the woman and had avoided her for weeks at a time

Toothpick House | 42

since they started school. “What do they do?”

“Who?”

“Women lovers,” Victoria answered, shy to say lesbian.

“I’ve been reading up on that, though there’s not much to read.

Claudia says it will come naturally, but I’ve picked up a few

techniques. First, and terribly unappealing, there is tribadism . . .”

“That’s all right, Rosemary. I didn’t mean a detailed description.

Never mind.” Victoria wondered if Rosemary knew how she

sounded: studying how to make love! “Listen, I wish you luck with

your reading, your discussion and your decision, but I’ve got to go

for a walk or something. Perhaps I’ll see you later.”

Claudia rejoined them as Victoria stood to go. She was wearing

denim cover-alls with no top under the bib and she stood with her

thumbs hooked in the straps. “This is how the farmers where I

come from dress, you guys. What do you think?” Victoria noticed

the soft curve of Claudia’s breasts flattened behind the bib of the

overalls and thought, how lovely. Claudia was looking curiously

toward Victoria as if to determine whether Rosemary had told her

what she suspected she told her.

“I think you’d better go cover yourself, Claudia,” Rosemary said

in a high-pitched voice.

Victoria laughed. “You look wonderful! I can finally picture you

growing up on a farm, a spunky little tomboy.”

“I haven’t been allowed to dress like this since I was about five,”

Claudia giggled as she ducked back into her bedroom.

“Sometimes she’s such a child,” Rosemary apologized.

“But you love her,” Victoria teased, then corrected herself. “That

is, you don’t love her.”

“It’s not that I don’t love Claudia. I respect her and care for her

in a sisterly way, not romantically.”

Victoria wanted to shake this stiff, mistaken woman who was so

afraid of the power of her own emotions. If it were me who loved,

she thought, I’d do the proverbial shouting from the rooftops. “It

sounds to me as if you’ve politicized love to death.”

“As usual, we don’t agree, Victoria. We’ll see who leads a

fulfilled life. You’re at the mercy of your emotions. Why, if you

wanted to come out, which of course I feel you should, you would

have an incredible amount of trouble dealing with it because you

would go about it all wrong. You would probably never succeed in

Lee Lynch | 43

coming out at all. You’d fix on a person and then have to adjust to

her being a woman, rather than choosing the way you wish to live

and rationally finding the appropriate person with whom to share

that life.”

“Come out?”

“It’s lesbian terminology. It means becoming a lesbian. It

implies that all of us have homosexuality in us just waiting to

‘come out.’”

“I see. And why do you think I should come out? Have you

caught me ogling women?”

“Be serious, Victoria. First of all, lesbians don’t ‘ogle’ women.”

“Why not? I’m beginning to think women are beautiful.”

“Secondly I, of course, feel that all women should come out. The

more we support each other, the stronger we will be. The less we

give to men the weaker they will be. It’s said that behind every

great man there stands a woman. Well, it’s time to take the props

out from under the supposedly great men, expose them for the

weaklings they really are and free ourselves to realize our full

potential.”

Rosemary has good ideas, Victoria thought. Very good ideas. If

only she would let them live, express them without politics. “Your

heart is in the right place, Rosemary, but you really shouldn’t

reject its power.”

“The Power of the Heart. A good title for a poem. Will you write

it or shall I?”

“Let’s both and compare.”

“By Thursday?”

“Midnight deadline. I’ll meet you in the laundry room and we’ll

have a private reading.” Victoria’s eyes twinkled. “Unless you’re

busy.”

Rosemary blushed. “I’ll thank you not to take my relationship

lightly.”

“But Rosemary, don’t you think having a lover can be fun?”

“Sure she does,” said Claudia, emerging from her room with a

full-sleeved silky blouse, which looked part of a cocktail outfit,

under her overalls. “She won’t admit it to you, though, will you

Rosie?” Rosemary blushed again. For once she was without words.

“It will be, Rose, believe me,” Claudia winked and giggled,

glancing quickly at Victoria who laughed back.

Toothpick House | 44

“Calm down, Rosemary, we mean well. Let’s drop it, all right?

We’ll have it out in the duel.”

Claudia’s mouth opened and she arched her eyebrows. “What

duel? Over who?”

“Thursday midnight in the laundry room,” Victoria said,

swaggering as if there were pistols on her hips.

“A poetry duel, Claudia. The subject is the Power of the Heart.”

“That sounds romantic,” Claudia smiled seductively toward

Rosemary.

Rosemary frowned. “Romance was not my intent,” she told

Claudia.

Claudia looked mischeivously toward Rosemary.

“Mine will be full of romance, Claudia,” Victoria assured her,

amused by their interplay. “I knew I’d find something exciting to

do.”

“Are you going to write now? You’ll have a head start,”

Rosemary complained.

“No. Don’t worry, Rosemary. I’m going for a walk around

campus. For a fall day it feels an awful lot like spring. I need to be

outside.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come with us to hear some

women poets?”

“No, thank you,” Victoria replied as she rose, thinking that she

couldn’t stand more than one Rosemary at a time.

“Then we’ll stop by later.”

“All right. Let me know the result of your discussion.” Victoria

stole an amused look at Claudia who shrugged before Rosemary

had time to turn.

“We will, won’t we, Claudia?” Rosemary asked gravely.

Victoria closed the door as her two friends looked into one

another’s eyes. Even more strangely excited than before she had

visited them, she returned to her room for her camel’s hair coat,

fastened her hair back from the last fall breezes, and strode briskly

out of the dormitory.

* * * *

Annie Heaphy woke before dawn and was seized with panic.

Never could she stay beside the woman with whom she had slept.

Lee Lynch | 45

Always she had to flee before the other stirred unless she had been

pinned down to a day’s plans. Even then she would find an excuse

to escape temporarily: she would get the newspaper, or milk for

breakfast. This morning, with Eleanor next to her still in her black

shortie nightgown which looked sordid against the stark whiteness

of her skin, Annie could think of nothing but how to get out.

Eleanor had described herself as a light sleeper. Annie rolled

slowly to the side of the bed. She stopped and held her breath,

waiting to see if Eleanor had noticed. The woman did not move. As

Annie looked at her she tried to recapture the stirrings of real

affection she had felt for her last night. She felt only horror. The

liquor they had drunk rose in her system and she tasted it. Her

hands tingled as they did always after drinking. Her head was full

of a dull ache. She needed something to get rid of the feeling. Sleep

would do it, but no, she thought, the panic settling even deeper.

No, no, no. I’ve got to get out. She reached one arm slowly to the

pile of clothing she had discarded next to the bed. All of it but her

underpants were within reach and she put them in one pile she

could grab. Her shoes she remembered she had left in the living

room. If only Rudy or George didn’t put them away somewhere

out of sight. Could she go home in socks? What would she wear to

work? What would Eleanor think when she found them or when

Annie showed up at her door asking for them? Worse still, what if

George or Rudy answered the door and she had to explain it to

them?

She had to get hold of herself. She took a slow deep breath and

slid out from underneath the covers to drop onto the floor. I

should have gone in for guerrilla warfare, she told herself, slipping

the brim of her cap between her teeth. In one movement, she took

the pile of clothes in one hand and grabbed her underpants with

the other, rising slowly, clownlike in her awkward stealth, toward

the living room.

“Annie, where you all going?”

Annie jumped. She dropped her hat from her mouth and caught

it between the two handfuls of clothing. “To the John, Ellie. Go

back to sleep.” Hoping Eleanor had not opened her eyes enough to

see that she was carrying her clothes Annie stood still, waiting.

“Mmmm. Come back quick, it’s cold.”

Annie did not want to lie and stood there in silence, hoping that

Toothpick House | 46

Eleanor would just drop back to sleep. When there was no further

sign of life, she moved slowly and softly out to the living room,

dressed and did not stop until she sat at the counter of a twenty-

four hour diner. “Tea,” she ordered, her back to the slowly

lightening sky. “And two eggs over with home fries.”

“Bacon, honey?” the middle-aged, tired waitress asked.

“No. Thank you,” Annie smiled, feeling more herself from this

contact with the waitress. “You look beat.”

“And ain’t I. This’ll be right out,” she said, handing it to the

elderly cook.

Annie Heaphy ran her hand across the yellow fringe of hair that

felt dirty under her cap. After this she would go home and shower.

She looked at her watch. It had stopped and she set it by the diner

clock, a small plastic alarm clock next to the iced tea dispenser.

“Can I have a Coke?” she asked the waitress who moved swiftly for

all her exhaustion. Annie fed the cold carbonation to her hangover

and felt fresher for it. With some of her discomfort gone she hung

her head into her hands to wait for the food and found herself

drifting, half asleep, into a comfortable fantasy of a faceless

woman. She swayed over her Coke, relishing the imagined feeling

of being in love again. It disgusted her to think that she had slept

with someone she didn’t love. “Crap,” she said very low. “Why do I

do it?” The thought of Eleanor still repulsed her and she resolved

not to think of her sexually anymore or she wouldn’t be able to

face her later. “I should have gone home and read,” she whispered

into her bubbling Coke. Again she closed her eyes and hummed

silently to herself. Someone was playing Johnny Mathis songs on

the jukebox and she lifted her head to glance at the only other

customer in the diner. He was rail-thin, his unwashed hair hung

into his eyes beneath a stained watch cap. Was he a homeless

drifter? A local city creep, finished hustling for the night? Whoever

he was, he snapped his fingers to the music, sharing whatever it

meant to him with Annie. She shuddered in distaste, and asked

herself, “Is this the kind of life I’m part of?”

Back in her car, she found a rock station on the radio, turned it

up loud and roared off toward her shower. She drove fast along the

street, its houses alternating, toward the end, between shack and

summer home. Annie wished that she could afford one of the

larger ornate homes. She sped toward the rising sun, and rolled

Lee Lynch | 47

down the window, hoping the still chill dawn air would help to

clear her head. Passing the last house, she stopped beating time to

the music on her steering wheel and enjoyed the austere beauty of

the newly-stripped willows lining the curve. On the left she saw

the beach, sand just touched with the light of the sun which sat at

the edge of the horizon on the water, as if waiting for instructions.

Annie Heaphy, feeling momentarily better, yelled through the

wind her car made, “Come on up sun, I’m ready for you!”

High on this early disappearance of her hangover, she cut the

engine and coasted into the dried mud driveway. She whistled as

she jumped onto the small porch which would get screens only if

summer people came. The inner door was still locked, not gaping

as she had once found it, all her things ransacked before the

would-be thieves were convinced there really wasn’t anything

there. She locked it behind her and hooked it, tossing her hat onto

the old school desk under the front window and sitting down in a

sagging wooden-armed porch chair to take off her shoes. It was

good to be home, but the house was so empty this morning it

seemed to echo. Not even the foghorns sounded. She thought of

the fear she had about coming home barefoot and was lost to

depression again. How, she wondered, would she ever face

Eleanor now that she had run away from her? Would she

understand? Maybe I’ll stop by the restaurant sometime today, she

thought. Apologize. Explain why I have to leave in the mornings.

But I don’t know why. Could it be guilt of some sort? Am I afraid

of getting entangled? Of getting hurt? She knew all the easy

explanations, but she did not believe them.

Annie dropped her shoe and walked toward the tall tin box

shoved into a corner of the bathroom that served as a shower,

bunching her twice-worn clothing and stuffing it into the milk

crate that was her hamper. It was overflowing. Have to get to the

laundromat, she thought. Maybe I’ll do that tonight and skip the

bars. Then she would not have to see Eleanor, or feel embarrassed

in front of Turkey and Peg. As she adjusted the temperature of the

shower she decided to clean the house, too. And to start reading

the latest edition of The Ladder which she had not been home long

enough to sit down and read since it came. Full of resolve, and

clean, she shivered her way into her bedroom and fought with the

knobless chest of drawers until the underwear drawer opened and

Toothpick House | 48

she could dress.

A day in the life of a queer, she thought later, standing by her

small kitchen window with a cup of tea. Is this what it’s going to be

like the rest of my life? A night here and there with a woman I

don’t really want to touch? Getting high to forget the

purposelessness of my job, my life? Driving a cab for lack of

anything better to do? Then she wondered why she was

dissatisfied with driving the cab. It’s a perfectly respectable

occupation, she thought as she always did when having this

argument with herself. Helping people, in a way; performing a

service. And I’m pretty free, except that I have to be there every

day. And what would I do with myself if I didn’t have to drive? Go

back to college? They don’t teach me anything I want to learn.

Who cares what wars men wage against each other? Who cares

about Shakespeare? Then she chuckled aloud, remembering the

lines from The Tempest she had tacked up before dropping out of

school. She reread them: “Let me not,/ Since I have my dukedom

got,/ And pardoned the deceiver, dwell/ In this bare island by your

spell,/ But release me from my bands/ With the help of your good

hands.” These lines had meant much to her when Natalie returned

from Spain so changed that Annie decided to transfer to a school

in Connecticut where two neighborhood friends had gone. She

found them living in the shack across from the beach. When they

both moved back to Boston she quit school to add cabdriving to

the bartending job she already had. The house had got a hold on

her. Its isolation and closeness to the shore were something she

had never experienced before. But since her roommates left, it was

too empty, only reminding her of her own emptiness.

So, she continued the argument with herself as she broke up a

piece of stale bread for the birds, I got something out of

Shakespeare. What I got wasn’t anything I couldn’t have gotten

reading it at home. The birds had begun to sing for their breakfast

outside her window. She watched them hop, withholding the

bread because she knew they would scatter when she opened the

window. She leaned her head against its pane and a few of them

jumped and flapped their wings. She would have gone back to

school at night if she had thought it worthwhile. To what end? she

had asked herself. I don’t want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a

stockbroker, a teacher. Of course, I don’t want to be a cabdriver

Lee Lynch | 49

either, she sighed, back at the beginning of her circular argument.

She raised the window quietly and threw the bread to the birds.

They fled, but swooped back one by one to peck at the ground and

fly away with their prizes. She watched two grackles dance. One

held an oversized crumb and stared while the other approached.

Then it would back away and eat a bit of the crumb. The other

would approach. Finally the first dropped what was left of the

bread, and flew away. The other bird watched it depart as if the

crumb were an empty victory.

When Natalie changed, that’s when it all fell apart. If ever it was

together, she thought. They were to finish school, get jobs and live

happily ever after. “Hah,” Annie said aloud, frightening a sparrow

bold enough to sit on her sill. She remembered to close the

window to cut off the draft that had been chilling her. And now she

was looking for a new lover. Was that only because she wanted to

shape her life? Couldn’t she give her own life shape? But she had,

and this was it: an endless circle. Annie Heaphy circled the city in

her cab, driving, in the daytime, in and out of it bearing

passengers like gifts that came to her and gifts she gave away. At

night she made circles in and out of the bars and apartments of

her friends. Dove in and swooped away as she found a lover and

became drawn into someone else’s idea of the shape her life

should take. She circled in and out of her days: waking, working,

wallowing in subterranean places, then waking again. I’m getting

dizzy, she thought, I may fall down if I haven’t already. The flight

she was on only mellowed with alcohol. When she drank she

forgot she was in flight or just enjoyed the purposeless drifts in the

winds. Yet the next day she suffered this overwhelming

depression. She could stop drinking, but then she wouldn’t even

have the bars.

She turned to the refrigerator to get a beer. The idea of it was

pleasant. She would walk to the beach with it cold in her hand,

feeling its promised release. Her eyes stopped at the clock on her

refrigerator. She had planned to go to work early as long as she

was up and make extra money in the commuter hour if there was a

cab turned in from the night shift. Now she hesitated, lured by her

ambitions of cleaning. She could stay home and clean the house,

the yard, drink some beer, do a lot of reading and maybe call

Eleanor to come over after she got off work. She rinsed out her

Toothpick House | 50

mug and set it on the chipped porcelain of the sink so hard it

almost broke. “You stupid loser,” she cursed herself. “You can’t

stand the sight of her, the touch of her except with some very hard

prodding and now you’re ready to set up housekeeping with her

just because she’s available. That’s really rotten. It’s better she

knows you don’t really want her. Don’t go confusing the issue.

Dusty’s what she wants and Eleanor’s not what you want.”

Mad at herself, Annie grabbed her cap from the desk and pulled

it on her head snugly. She went looking for her shoes. Or am I

taking the easy way out by going to work, she asked herself,

suddenly not at all purposeful, but filled with self-doubt. Ah, I

don’t know and I don’t care. She surrendered to the routine of the

day and pulled on her workshoes. Walking to the kitchen window

she silently said goodbye to the birds who seemed so busy and

carefree. Why can’t I live like them, she wondered. Always I look

for more. She watched them gather their food and wondered if all

of them stayed through the winter. Would she, too, have to build a

new home in the summer? Last summer she had been lucky, but

now the landlord was talking about fixing the place up for summer

rentals. She couldn’t stand the thought of some beachboy and his

wife honeymooning in her home. She would not come back to it

after the summer, although Peg and Turkey had offered their

apartment if she needed a temporary place to stay. No, she

thought. This either is my place or it isn’t. I don’t share with men.

If only I could save enough to buy it, but on what I earn that could

take forever.

“Coo-ah, coo, coo, coo,” she heard and realized she had been

hearing the call for a few moments. Her anger subsided and she

craned her neck to see which bird was crying. A beautiful pink and

grey pigeon-like bird with a long tail sat on the ground, its neck

swelling with each soft, somber note. “A mourning dove,” Annie

Heaphy thought. She listened, calmed, for a while, then found

another piece of bread to reward it for its song. Touched by the

bird’s beauty and sad sound, she stayed a moment longer listening

to it, wondering if it was a sign that it had chosen her home to

mourn.

* * * *

Lee Lynch | 51

Victoria escaped from the iron gate of her college courtyard into

the New Haven street. All she could see were other Yale students.

The heavy grey Yale buildings dwarfed her and she felt chilly

between their cold stone walls, though the sun was bright. She

walked quickly away from them wondering if she would ever think

affectionately of her alma mater. She scorned the old men who

came teetering to their reunions every year, boasting in their self-

congratulatory speeches of their school, their class, their careers.

Victoria was in the first class which had allowed women to enter

the hallowed halls and she had not been ready for the highly

competitive atmosphere of an all-male school. She had watched

the other women become hardened by it. Victoria had wanted

badly to stay at Hunter where the student body was still primarily

female and the years of tradition had not yet been spoiled by the

greediness of men. Her father, however, did not have a son to

graduate from Yale as he had done. He was determined to carry on

the family tradition by keeping his daughter imprisoned there. It

was not that Victoria could not handle it, for she could best any

man, she felt, but that she feared for her inner softness, a quality

Yale taught her to scorn, but which survived, a cherished part of

herself, the part that yearned for excitement now.

As she walked along the shop-lined street, Victoria looked at the

other women and wondered if this was not, as she had assumed, a

personal trait, this softness, but if it had something to do with

being a woman. Since she came to Yale she had been denying a

difference between men and women, keeping her grades up at all

costs to prove that she could. She had never felt a kinship with the

other women because they, like the men, covered up whatever was

inside them to achieve by Yale standards, success. Now she had

seen an underside, a softness to one of the most competitive

women she knew, Rosemary. And who had found it but another

woman, one who, in her own childish way, had refused to join in

the competitive game. Claudia was generally thought rather stupid

and suspected of being passed in courses due more to the

midwestern money the college wanted to unearth than her own

ability. Victoria had found her to be fun. Now she wondered if

Claudia was simply a woman who was able to act out her desires.

Instead of covering her feelings over with layers of intellectualism,

she expressed them. Victoria realized it would be impossible to

Toothpick House | 52

know who she herself was and what she wanted from life if she

continued to add layers. She would have to scratch through them

someday to find herself unless she stopped now and let them out.

Perhaps Claudia has saved Rosemary—and me, while she was at

it—a lot of work later in life, Victoria thought. We won’t need

expensive psychoanalysis if we find out who we are and what we

want right now. Victoria drifted into one of those boutiques that

had sprung up everywhere to sell postcards, woven pillows,

pottery and generally useless paraphernalia on which the middle

class could spend its excess income. She wished for the bookstalls

of Paris or the shops on King’s Road in London. She left and

wandered into a shop which sold Indian clothing. The proprietor

was pushy and Victoria not interested in buying so she moved on,

feeling a little bouncy, a little free. Today, for almost the first time

in her life, she felt that something had changed, that she had been

given a glimmer of lightness, a hint that her path would not be

totally circumscribed.

She stood outside the store watching the people pass. Women

from Yale, women from the town went by, their hair flowing, their

movements graceful. Victoria found herself watching and enjoying

them. She went into an ice cream store and bought a soft ice

cream. Licking it made her want to giggle. She crossed the street to

the Green smiling. Now, she thought, if men are good at this

academic business and women aren’t really, or at least, haven’t

acquired the skills to as high degree as yet, isn’t this because men

invented academia? We are playing by their rules. We are playing

with a handicap. They already have the hard crust, or are more

inclined by their previous socialization to develop it, and we must

make do with the equipment that we have. Then we’re taught to

use feminine pretenses: cosmetics to cover the physical evidence

of, for example, staying up all night preparing for an exam; and

we’re closer to our emotions so that, although we may be more

easily drained, we can very quickly draw on our reserves. Those of

us who survive, that is.

As she ignored the comments made by male loiterers who were

sitting on the benches she was passing, she remembered two

classmates who had dropped out of sight. One had attempted

suicide after her failure to pass a required pre-med course.

Another had been expelled for sleeping with one too many

Lee Lynch | 53

professors to get good grades. Victoria wondered how many other

dropouts had been a result of the pressure to succeed in a game

designed for men. In survival of the fittest, who defined the fittest?

She sat on a bench, crunching the last of her cone as she thought.

Does brute strength really make one most fit? No, supposedly

intelligence helped. Perhaps with women doing some of the

planning, humans could evolve in a way that they could resolve

conflict without war. She began to see what the feminists went on

and on about. Women, the natural protectors of home and

growing humans, would find a way to fight without killing, to

succeed without risking extinction, to achieve gracefully, without

stepping on other people to do so. She rose and walked again to

escape a teenage boy who had sat on her bench and was inching

toward her.

Victoria realized that Rosemary’s confession had stirred up a lot

of things in her mind which must have been formulating for quite

a while. She never thought like this. She had thought she wanted

to be a recluse, a cloistered unworldly being, and most of her

fantasies were of the life she would lead when she did not have to

be bothered with the world as it was. The fact that her parents did

not have much money did not bother her as she could always teach

at a university. Her grandparents had what she thought of as

“comfort” money in trust for her. It would be so easy to hide

forever, but suddenly, today, she wanted to be part of the real

world and to keep being stirred by women. Two women passed her

in blue jeans and pea jackets. Their faces were excited and they

moved fast, almost breathless as they interrupted each other

talking and laughing. One skipped suddenly in happiness and the

other clapped her hands at her friend’s pleasure. Beautiful,

Victoria said in wonder, feeling herself melt even more. If only I

could reach out to a woman. An older woman passed, hair gray

under a flat-topped, round hat, purse clasped in front of her,

hands pulling her coat shut against the wind that swept through

the open space of the Lower Green. Why do we wear all this stuff,

Victoria asked herself. Why is she wearing nylons that make her

legs cold and a stylish coat that’s so thin she can’t protect the top

of her body? She felt revelations peeling blinder after blinder off

her eyes until she grew tired with everything new.

She crossed a street and sat on the library steps, looking down

Toothpick House | 54

at her own thin slacks. What I need is a pair of blue jeans, she

thought, excited by the idea. Mother would never approve, but she

doesn’t approve of much I do. She remembered her two weeks

alone in New York. Am I about to have an affair with a pair of blue

jeans? Me and them alone in New York? She laughed and jumped

up to stride toward an army-navy store on Elm Street. She was

anxious about size, but decided not to worry about a thing with

which thousands of people dealt every day without falling apart.

As she passed the campus’ small brick buildings and more massive

stone walls, she tried not to be intimidated, but walked swiftly and

assertively. It seemed as if she normally walked like a ghost, trying

to float above it all. Would she be able to keep this new spirit close

enough to her to feel it all the time? Or was it only something to let

out on special occasions, like when you learned that your only

friends might become lesbians.

Unsure if it would last, she hugged her excitement to herself

and savored it. I feel like carrying a flag proclaiming that I’ve come

out, she thought. I’ve come out of my shell a bit. I’ve let out a lot of

festering thoughts. I’ve emerged from some confused thinking

about who I am to take a peek at who I want to be. Around her

people, mostly young, went in and out of stores that catered to

their tastes. They all looked excited and fresh and as if they were

buying clothing to go out on a Saturday night. Victoria had not

done that since her last attempt at dating Yale men when she was

a sophomore. She shuddered at the memory of the cheering,

drunken crowd at the Yale football game to which her last date had

taken her. She had supposed at the time that her aversion to the

game came from the pointlessness of chasing a ball over a field.

Now she wondered whether it wasn’t instead the way the crowd

shouted things like, “Kill them!” and “Murder them!” as if they

were in a Roman colisseum.

She smiled at the long-haired woman on the corner leafletting

against the war, then went into the army-navy store and gazed

around her. There was a great pile of blue jeans stacked along the

walls. Undaunted, she walked up to a salesman and asked what

brand he recommended. When he explained that different brands

fit people differently, Victoria refused to be confused and took one

of each in sizes she guessed. Another man stopped her as she went

into a fitting booth.

Lee Lynch | 55

“Three at a time, lady.”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly deflated, weak, afraid. “Can I leave the

rest right out here?” she asked, indicating a corner.

“No.”

“Oh.” She walked back with the jeans, incredulous that the man

should suspect her of trying to steal. She felt anger rise in her at

the atmosphere of paranoid oppressiveness in the store.

Abandoning all the jeans on a wrong counter, she walked out.

Afraid the man would follow and chastise her, she went quickly

down the street. Before her courage dissipated, she turned into

another shop, bought the first pair of reasonably fitting jeans she

tried on, a pea jacket and a workshirt. Almost out of the door she

turned back and bought a pair of laced work shoes.

Bearing her packages like victory spoils, Victoria marched back

to her dormitory and laid them on her narrow bed. Just their

presence in the tall-ceilinged, perfectly neat room changed it. She

was afraid, though, that someone would walk in and did not put

them on. “That’s enough for one day,” she thought. “I’m me, no

matter what I’m wearing.” She would wear the new clothes when

she needed to say who she was to someone else.

Though tired now, she did not want to stay in her room on a

Saturday night. She walked restlessly through the dormitory, then

wandered on to the dining room with a book. She read Sappho

with her franks and beans, imagining herself in Sappho’s school

on Lesbos. Now there’s an idea, she thought. If I’d gone to a school

like Sappho’s, how different I would have been. She stared

dreamily over her book at the students who laughed and talked

among themselves, almost human outside the Yale classrooms.

Lingering after her dinner she read: “Whom shall I make love

you, Sappho,/ who is turning her back on you?/ Let her run away,

soon she’ll chase you;/ refuse your gifts, soon she’ll give them./

She will love you, though unwillingly./ Then come to me now and

free me from fearful agony. Labor/ for my mad heart, and be my

ally.” Victoria put her head on her hand and stared at nothing,

wondering if she had fallen in love with an idea. Am I a lesbian,

she wondered? Is that what I felt for Heidi and, in high school, for

Etta? I may never know, she told herself sadly.

Toothpick House | 56

Later, in bed, gazing toward the streetlamp-lighted sky outside

her window, Victoria smiled again. Rosemary had swung open her

door about 10:00. “You asked me to let you know our decision,”

she said, eyes on the floor.

Victoria smiled from under the pool of light her study lamp

made. She was relaxed in her long, elegant blue robe as she

fingered a carved letter opener her parents had brought back from

North Africa. When Rosemary didn’t continue she asked, “Do you

want to come in? Is there something wrong?”

Rosemary stepped through the door and Victoria saw that her

face was pink right back to where her tightly pulled hair started.

“We’ve decided to go ahead with it,” she said, her voice quavering

slightly, her hand playing with the end of her braid.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” Victoria said calmly, wanting to rush to

Rosemary and hug her.

“You still think that it is the right thing to do, then?” Rosemary

asked, her eyes seeking approval.

Victoria was surprised that Rosemary should ask. “Of course. If

it’s what you want.”

“I know it’s right,” Rosemary said firmly.

“Well, I hope you’ll both be very happy,” Victoria said, smiling

again. She felt as if she had just been invited to a wedding.

Her face solemn, Rosemary thanked Victoria and left, walking

like a child dragging her feet as she goes to bed. Victoria wanted to

run after her and tell her that it was all right, Claudia would not

hurt her.

Now, in bed, Victoria felt again the excitement she had

experienced when Rosemary first told her. As if I’d caught the

bouquet at her wedding, she thought as she snuggled further

under the covers, settling for the night with her arms around

herself.

CHAPTER THREE

Annie Heaphy, Turkey, Eleanor and Peg sat over their fourth

pitcher of beer at Marcy’s. A neon advertisement blinked in the

rain-wet window.

“Jeeze, you guys are depressing tonight,” Turkey complained. “I

should have stayed home and studied for my sociology tests. Three

big ones in my own major in one day.”

“What’s to be happy about?” Peg asked morosely. “The other

girls’ gym teacher’s laid up with a broken shoulder and I’ve got to

be on the gym floor six periods now. Plus two hygiene classes. I

love my job, but acting straight all day gets to me.”

“Yeah, and we looked in every bar in town,” Eleanor agreed, her

chin on her hands. “Dusty must be with some chick tonight. She

won’t be needing me. Just when I need her most.”

“What else went wrong?” Turkey groaned.

“Like Peg says, I like my job,” Eleanor explained. “But the boss

made another pass at me today, then wouldn’t give me my share of

the tips when I wasn’t interested in him. We had a real yelling

match. I don’t want to leave this job.”

Annie was still avoiding Eleanor’s eyes. They had not been

alone together since the night they spent at Eleanor’s apartment.

“You didn’t miss much. Tips stank today. It’s the rain. Besides, at

least you’ve got Dusty to look for,” she accused.

“I’m personally beginning to think love is more pain than

pleasure.”

“You sound like my ethics teacher,” Turkey complained. “Who

are you quoting now?”

Peg slumped in her uncharacteristically disheveled black vest

and pants. “Me.”

“You’re damn right,” Eleanor began, “love is a pain in the butt.

Right, Annie?”

“I’ve forgotten,” Annie gibed back. They exchanged a secret,

wary grin. Eleanor leaned across the table to kiss Annie’s cheek in

forgiveness.

Toothpick House | 58

“What’s with you two?” Turkey asked, groggy with beer.

“Nothing,” Eleanor shrugged innocently.

Annie pulled her cap down, hiding her eyes. “What’s wrong with

love, Peglet?”

“It hurts.”

“But ain’t it worth it, Peg? Don’t you think it is?” Eleanor said,

looking for reassurance.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I guess I feel like Heaphy here. I’ve

forgotten the pleasure. Gloria walked out on me a year ago.”

“You’re forgetting your new women’s libber friends. Or are they

all too ugly to love?” Turkey asked, making a horrible face to

imitate the “libbers” of her imagination.

“No, Turk,” Peg laughed. “That isn’t true. They’re every bit as

good looking as you.” Turkey looked threateningly at her.

“‘Women Are Beautiful.’ That’s what one of their posters says.”

“Intrinsically?”

“Cool it, Annie, with your big words,” Turkey said. “As a

budding sociologist,” and she preened, puffing out her chest in

pride, “it seems to me these dames could use a looking glass theory

lecture. They ought to see themselves as I see them.” She made an

even worse face.

“Us women are born beautiful, you Turkey,” Eleanor boasted.

“We can’t help it. Maybe you ain’t looked hard enough.” She

patted her flat hair and went off to the bathroom.

When Eleanor was out of hearing, Peg asked, “You stayed with

her the other night, didn’t you, Heaphy?”

“Yeah,” Annie said, embarrassed.

“You and Ellie?” Turkey asked, shocked.

“It wasn’t anything. Just the one night.” Peg and Turkey were

quiet. “She’s uptight because I snuck out before she woke the next

morning.”

Peg nodded. “Figures. The old Heaphy syndrome.”

“I can’t help it. I have to.”

“Boy, wow, if it was me finding a woman who wanted to sleep

with me, I’d hang around. Probably for a lifetime,” Turkey

laughed. “Definitely till she was tired of me.”

Peg looked concerned. “I’d feel as if I’d left things unfinished.”

“Maybe I want to leave them then. Maybe I’ll stay when it’s

time.”

Lee Lynch | 59

“Here comes Ellie, you two,” Turkey whispered.

“That’s what I like about this dump,” Eleanor half-complained

as she slid past Peg. “There’s never a line at the bathroom.”

“Now, I like this place,” Annie said. “Don’t put it down. It’s got a

nice homey atmosphere.”

Eleanor teased her. “Just your style. Fried cockroach at the grill,

alcohol with that rich old taste of wood at the bar.”

“A bar’s a bar, if you ask me,” Peg concluded.

“Very astute,” Annie raised her glass to Peg.

“There goes big-word Annie, the English major. You read too

much, Heaphy, that’s your trouble,” Turkey said.

“And you don’t read?” Annie countered.

“I don’t carry a book to read between customers.”

“Neither do I anymore. I’m too damn tired all the time.”

“But remember when we first met you? You were carrying three

books by Willa Cather, for pete’s sake,” Peg marvelled.

“Hey, I was about to finish one and I wasn’t sure which one I

would read next, you guys.”

“But Brains,” Turkey teased, “you were in a bar!”

“Did I know I was going to meet you guys?”

“You don’t go to a bar to read.”

“You sure don’t when you’re around,” Annie laughed at Turkey.

“You should have seen these two,” Peg said to Eleanor. “There

was Heaphy, a beer on one side of her, a book in front of her, and

two more books on her other side. She was sitting in the old back

booth by the kitchen with Marcy’s cat on her lap. Turkey spotted

her and talked about the weirdo in the back booth for over an

hour. Next thing, I knew, Turkey’s sneaking up on Heaphy, who

looks perfectly content, purring into her beer with the cat. Clutzy

Turkey, stepping along on her tiptoes, is almost ready to scare the

life out of poor Heaphy, when she gets one of her dainty little feet,”

Turkey held up a large booted foot with both her hands to show

Eleanor, “caught around the leg of a chair. The chair tips, catches

the tablecloth just right and pulls it. Marcy’s been piling dirty

ashtrays and glasses on this table all day to wash all at once, and

the whole thing topples around Turkey who’s taken the path of

least resistance and plopped on the floor while it all lands around

her.”

Annie took up the often told story. “When I heard the noise I

Toothpick House | 60

looked over and saw this big dyke flat on her ass in the dirtiest,

wettest mess you can imagine, looking at me like it’s all my fault.

She lifts her hands from under an upside-down ashtray, wipes the

ashes on her pants, and holds her grey hand out for me to shake.

‘Hi, I’m Turkey,’ she says. ‘So I gathered,’ I answer and she hauls

herself up to her feet on my hand, upsetting the cat and laughing

her wild Turkey laugh.”

They all broke into laughter to picture the meeting once more.

“So here we all are,” Turkey said, “still guzzling two years later in

the very same library.”

“Marcy might have redecorated, but I still wish we had a nicer

bar to go to,” Annie said.

“Come on, Heaphy,” Peg urged. “They’re all the same, ‘nice’ or

not. You get the same old hangovers. Drink the same amount of

money. I wish we could have a coffee house or a place where we

could sit and talk.”

“What about your women’s center?” asked Eleanor.

“Oh, it serves its purpose. But it’s very organized. I mean, you

can’t go there to hang out.”

“Especially if you’re a dyke, right?”

Peg looked at Annie worriedly. “Nobody says anything. But

sometimes I do sense they’re afraid women won’t come back if

they walk in when someone who looks like me is sitting there. I’d

like to have a place just for us.”

“Till we have someplace better, can’t we have a good time here?

Don’t anybody want to dance just once with me tonight?” Eleanor

whined, looking at Peg and Annie. They shook their heads no.

“If it’ll perk you up any, Miss Scarlett, ah will,” Turkey offered.

“Don’t you ever get tired of slopping around out there?” Eleanor

laughed as Peg rose to let her out of the booth.

Annie and Peg sat in silence as the couples jiggled across the

small floor. Rain drove against the plate glass window. A few older

gay men at the bar joked back and forth about the same old things,

watching every move the younger bartender made. A

neighborhood woman, her long hair a shoe polish black, played up

to the men. Two women used the bowling machine. A biracial

straight couple sat in a back booth under a gold-flecked mirror

which reflected everything that went on.

“So you coming to the women’s dance at the Yale Law School

Lee Lynch | 61

next month, Heaphy?”

“With those faggy women’s libbers? You kidding, Peg? I thought

we were going to New York.”

“We’ll go to New York too. But Heaphy, there are good

vibrations at the Women’s Center.”

“You’re just trying to convert me,” Annie accused Peg.

“No, really I’m not,” Peg answered with the uninhibited

conviction of intoxication. “We’ll have a good time. You don’t

know what a high it is. All these women, a lot of them just out, not

scared of anybody, not even with anybody. All dancing together

because they want to. And more straight women coming out every

day.”

“Every night, you mean,” Annie laughed. “Then where do the

bad vibes come from?”

“I’m not sure, but I have a theory. I think lesbians go through a

phase before they come out. It’s called petrified.” They laughed.

“When they see a dyke they project their own wish to be a dyke

onto her and end up expecting her to attack them sexually since

they can’t attack the dyke yet. Make sense?”

“I’ve always thought the ones who talk the loudest are closest to

coming out.”

“And the shame of it, Heaphy, is that some of them talk so loud

they talk themselves right out of coming out.”

“And it’s not like we’re addictive or dangerous.”

“We’re not addictive?” Peg asked innocently.

“Shh,” Annie warned, grinning and winking. “Don’t let on or all

your libbers will run away!”

“So what do you think, Heaphy? Will you come with me this

time to protect me from all those ravenous women?”

“Peglet, you just about got me convinced,” Annie said. “But it’s

bothering me a little, talking about them like this, like men

would.”

“You mean like sex objects?”

“Maybe. Like we’re hunters. But I’m not thinking about sex

really. Just looking for a woman. And if the libbers don’t know

about us dykes, how will they know what they want?”

“The old irresistible routine, Heaphy? Once they see us they

won’t be able to think of anything else?”

“Sounds good. Maybe I will go this time. Just to meet some.

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What do I have to lose? Where else have I got to go except in

circles? Drive the cab around the city all day, go to the bars at

night, get up the next morning swearing I won’t do it all again, but

here we are. At least you’re teaching, doing something worthwhile,

even if you do have to come here to unwind from acting straight all

day. Yeah, what the hell. I’ll go.”

Peg grinned tiredly at Annie. “If you were femme I’d kiss you.

Now we just have to persuade Eleanor and Turkey. I talked to

some women downtown who want to go with us.”

“Turk and El will go if we do.”

“Great. And I think you’ll like it. I really do.”

“You’re probably wrong. Maybe you’ll meet the love of your life

there, though. And I can say I was there when it happened. But

meanwhile I have to get home if I’m going to get up in the

morning.”

“If you’re talking about leaving,” Eleanor said as she and Turkey

returned, “I got to get my beauty sleep too. Let’s polish off the

pitcher like good little girls,” she said, unsteadily filling their

mugs.

“Beauty sleep for the beautiful,” Turkey teased, borrowing Peg’s

comb to scrape through her tight hair.

“I don’t know why you bother to comb that stuff,” Eleanor

teased back. “It never goes nowhere.”

Turkey returned the comb. “Old habit, I guess.” She adopted the

straight-faced look that meant she was going to tell a story. “I took

this good-grooming badge in Girl Scouts where I learned to comb

my brillo regularly, mutilate my cuticles and wipe myself in the

right direction.”

Eleanor giggled. “You’ll have to tell me which way is right

sometime. My Mama being a country girl I guess I never learned

like sophisticated city folks.”

“I learned. I learned like good grooming was a biblical

command,” Turkey went on. “My Girl Scout leader taught the

badge and I had a cast iron crush on the woman. As a matter of

fact the whole troop worshipped her. She was married and had

about seven kids, but I know it was just because she was Catholic.

Otherwise she would have been a raging diesel dyke. You should

have seen her. I think I got to like sociology because of her. I got

comfortable with groups. We had a group crush on her and

Lee Lynch | 63

because of it we did everything in groups. Where Mrs. Attle went,

there went our little band. We babysat for her in a group—even

when she was home. We did a dozen badges at once—if she taught

them. We went to the dusty old Peabody Museum every Saturday

to do volunteer work—because she loved it there. We were all

going to have seven kids-just like her. The whole group I’m sure

wiped itself right—’cause it knew she did. And got a thrill thinking

of her every time we did. Poor Mrs. Attle. If she knew now that’s

about the only time I think of her. . . ,” Turkey guffawed. “Group

behavior sure did turn me on.” She lifted her beer. “A toast to Mrs.

Attle, the little-old-sociology-major-maker!” Beer sloshed out of

the mug and down Turkey’s sleeve.

Peg and Annie laughed, but Ellie threw up her arms in

exasperation. “Turkey, I have never in all my life seen such a slob.”

“It’s thinking of Mrs. Attle that does it to me. Can I walk you to

the door?” she asked, offering her arm. “Anybody got an

umbrella?”

“Dykes don’t use umbrellas,” Annie grumbled.

“Won’t do you any good,” Eleanor reminded Turkey. “You’re

sopped already. Smell like a brewery. Thanks anyway, but I’ll get a

ride home with Rudy,” Eleanor said. “You are coming home

tonight, ain’t you, roomie?” she called to him.

“Ain’t nothing to hang around here for, is there?” he answered

jokingly as the older men protested.

They went into the rain while the bar made the last of its late

night noises. Turkey and Peg ran toward their apartment. They

waved when Annie finally urged her wet car to life and chugged

past them, coasting through red lights to avoid stalling.

Safely home later, Annie stepped through the last puddle and

sat suddenly on the steps to her porch. It was so good to be home,

she thought, affectionately patting a step. She had her home,

lonely as it was. She had gone to the bars seldom when her

roommates were still around. They’d hang out on the porch

playing cards. The old house leaned silently over her and Annie

leaned trustingly against its porch rail. She looked up through the

trees flanking the broken walk.

It had cleared as she drove home and the stars burned in the

cold, dark sky. Shit, she said aloud, as the stars began to turn

above her. She looked down and breathed deeply several times.

Toothpick House | 64

Am I going to be sick? she wondered. She walked across the open

porch with its sunken couch sodden with rain and past snows, and

its milk crates waiting for summer to make them chairs again. She

smiled at this, her furniture, propping herself up on it as she

unlocked the rickety door and went quickly through her living

room. It was furnished with cinderblocks, boards, books and little

else. Her roommates had taken most of the other furniture when

they went back to Boston after they graduated. She collapsed on

the bed, cursing herself for bothering to make it when now she had

to struggle to get in it. With one great last effort, holding her

breath to prevent nausea, she stripped off her army jacket, jeans,

flannel shirt and workboots, wound and set her alarm, and got

under the many covers of her damp, cold bed. Finally she took off

her cap and laid it beside her head like a beloved teddy bear. She

lay still, breathing carefully, hoping she would not have to make

the cold trip across the bare linoleum floor to the bathroom, or to

the stove to turn on the heater. Thoughts surfaced unexpectedly,

but she pushed them down before they were complete and kept

her from sleeping. “I never got drunk this much before. Maybe all I

need is company. A new way of living. No more wasted days.

Tomorrow I’ll work more hours. Do something constructive. . . .”

Annie Heaphy fell asleep.

* * * *

“And shall I get you a cab, Miss Locke?” Dennis asked.

Pleased with herself, Victoria answered, “No, thank you,

Dennis, I’m taking the bus.” She felt his surprised eyes following

her as she left her apartment building. She wore jeans and a pea

jacket. Since she got home a week ago she had been busy with

Christmas shopping and holiday visits to relatives. Her mother

had left her a full social schedule. She was sick of stuffy cabs and

stuffy people. Now, in her “freedom garb,” she watched the bus

approach. She hadn’t been on one since high school when she

visited her friend Etta in Queens. Victoria’s mother had not

approved: public transportation was dirty and germy. It was

appropriate, Victoria thought, for her to travel this more plebeian

way on her first visit to a women’s center. Rosemary had called

from her Bronxville home where she and Claudia were for the

Lee Lynch | 65

holidays, to invite her to a meeting on lesbians in the women’s

movement called “Do We Belong?” She and Claudia had been

lovers for a month now and Victoria did want to see them, though

she had always turned Rosemary down when she wanted to get

together in New York before. As the bus came beside her she

wondered how Rosemary’s parents had reacted to the new twist in

her relationship with Claudia. Rosemary felt it was imperative to

be open about it with her parents.

“Do you go to 23rd Street?” she asked the driver as she stepped

onto the bus.

“Yes, ma’am, but you got to have exact change,” he answered,

eying her dollar bill.

“Do you mean if I don’t have fifty cents I have to get off the bus

even though I have a dollar? That’s ridiculous!”

The driver shrugged. Angry and embarrassed, Victoria grew

desperate. “Here, then, take the whole thing. Will that do?” He

took the bill and Victoria turned to walk the length of the bus

under the scrutiny of more experienced riders. She scowled, tossed

her hair back, and reached for the open flap of her coat to flick it

angrily across her legs as she sat, then realized she was no longer

wearing the clothing of an indignant rich girl. Shoving her fists

into her pockets she turned to look out the window, afraid the

other riders would notice she was near tears. If I can’t learn the

rules of the bus company, she asked herself dejectedly, how will I

learn to survive outside the world I know? I can dress like other

people, but that doesn’t give me their experiences. It’s crazy, she

thought fearfully. To let Rosemary tempt me out like this, to a part

of the city I don’t know, to listen to a bunch of women in a

converted loft—anything could happen. Perhaps my mother is

right. Perhaps I don’t belong out here.

Crazy, she repeated, lifting her hair off the collar of the pea

jacket and adjusting her glasses. Dennis must have thought I was

in disguise, she laughed softly to herself, forgetting her confusion

for a moment. He had never seen her with glasses on. Feeling

better, she resolved to go on with her adventure and hope that

nothing awful would happen. She concentrated on the paper she

would write when she returned to school. She would title it “The

Origins of Boccaccio’s Anti-Clerical Writing.” It would prove that

the suppression of human needs began with the individual’s

Toothpick House | 66

inability to deal with those needs. Only later would the

suppression become institutionalized by church or state. Victoria

withdrew into her subject until she stood on the windy corner

where Rosemary and Claudia were to meet her.

She was faintly glad once more to see Rosemary’s sallow face

and thin, dull brown braid ascending the subway stairs. Behind

her, Claudia’s full, red-cheeked face beamed at Victoria. She

smiled widely back, but when Claudia threw herself, puffing, at

Victoria to hug her, Victoria shrugged her off, her hands again in

the pockets of the magical pea jacket which, alas, was not magic

enough to help her return such an outgoing hug. Victoria

attributed Claudia’s seeming enthusiasm for everything to her

midwestern background. “Have you enjoyed your visit to New

York?” she asked politely.

Rosemary answered for Claudia who was bouncing up and

down with the cold. “I believe I’ve managed to show her some of

the more interesting parts of the city.”

“Here my mom thinks I’m safe and sound in Bronxville and

Rosie has me in the evil city every night. I’ve learned more than I

learned in three and a half years at Yale! And I don’t stop learning

when we get home,” she said suggestively. Rosemary lifted her

chin and tried to look aloof, but her eyes rested on Claudia

warmly. “Tonight,” Claudia continued, lowering her voice and

glancing around histrionically, “we’re going to a gay bar! Why

don’t you come?”

Victoria looked at Rosemary disapprovingly. Gay bars were not

a part of the lifestyle she had envisioned for Yale graduates. “How

do you know where to even find one? And why would you want to

take her there?”

“There is more to life than books, Victoria. Two good friends of

my parents are homosexual and were more than glad to shake the

foundations of the nuclear family by telling me where to find a

women’s bar. Just in case our political friends upstairs,” she

gestured with her pointed little chin to some windows above them

with “Women’s Center” brightly painted on them, “don’t agree that

lesbians are an integral part of the women’s movement.”

Victoria’s hair had blown across her face and she lifted it off,

wondering if Rosemary was not going too far in her lesbianism.

She did not have to become the type that cut their hair and looked

Lee Lynch | 67

like men. Surely she and Claudia could be lovers and still live the

lives they had lived before, although, as she thought of it, Victoria

wondered why they would want to. But Rosemary was still dressed

in her long skirts and braid, and Claudia, though wearing blue

jeans, had all that bouncy, curly hair and her awful flowered ski

jacket. No, they did not look like lesbians. “Shall we?” Victoria

finally asked, indicating a door painted like the loft windows. She

was eager to discover what New York lesbians looked like now, but

she said, “Though I’m not sure why I’m here.”

In answer, Rosemary lifted her chin and adopted her best

lecture-hall tone of voice. “Victoria,” she began, as they climbed a

long flight of stairs, “I don’t know what you’ll be doing after

graduation, but I’m hoping you’ll have enough of a commitment to

feminism to lend your name, if nothing else, to it.”

As they stopped outside a door, Rosemary faced Victoria, her

eyes small and intense. “I hope you’ll at least consider it,” she

ended, turning away to open the door. Claudia, smiling

encouragingly, followed her lover inside. Victoria weighed once

more her option to turn back, to go home before she was stuck and

too embarrassed to leave, but she did not want to be alone any

longer on this holiday. She went in the door.

The room was small and held about thirty women. Aside from

posters on the walls, some cardboard boxes and empty burlap

bags, it was bare. One sign read “Women’s Food Co-op” and

Victoria imagined these women doing their weekly shopping here

in front of sacks of flour and crates of vegetables. Folding chairs

had been opened and were arranged in loose concentric half-

circles around a knot of three women who seemed to be doing

most of the talking. Rosemary led them to some chairs in the back

by a window.

Victoria was startled to hear that the three central women were

raising their voices at one another. She sat aside, drifting in and

out of the ideas that passed through her mind. There were a lot of

shouts as the argument went on. “Lesbians are women too!”

“Straight women won’t join the movement if they’re afraid to come

to meetings here where they know lesbians will be.” Victoria

decided there was really no such thing as a straight woman.

Weren’t all people sexual beings and therefore capable of “coming

out” as Rosemary would say? That made sense to her. Lesbianism

Toothpick House | 68

might startle women who had not considered it, but, unless they

had some real problems with their own sexuality, they wouldn’t

run too far. And anyway, how could the straight women in the

meeting want to cut so many committed feminists out of their

ranks? Victoria listened to the argument that lesbians in the

movement forced straight women out, but she could not agree. If

straight women did get turned off, how could they be feminists?

Aren’t women lesbians because they’re women first? Surely

feminists wouldn’t exclude a woman for her sexuality.

Victoria watched a straight woman talk. Her fists pounded the

air as she spoke of how her friends would never come to meetings

or to consciousness-raising sessions with her because they were

afraid of the “bulldykes.” Victoria chuckled to herself. She tried

without success to picture Rosemary and Claudia menacing the

ladies sexually. Then she watched a short woman, a lesbian, go red

in the face with rage at being oppressed by her own sisters. “We

don’t ask you what you do in bed with your men, do we? We don’t

exclude women who aren’t married to men, we don’t exclude

women who like older or younger men. Why should you exclude

women who love women!” Some of the lesbians cheered. A straight

woman got up and proclaimed herself to be on the lesbian side.

“Sexual expression is another choice women make about their

bodies and their lives just as abortion is a choice. How can we

embrace the concept of women’s choices without also embracing

all the choices?” she concluded.

“Do you mean we’ve got to champion women who like

cadavers?” someone yelled out. There was general laughter and

Victoria found herself staring at a very attractive woman. She, too,

wore a pea jacket and jeans and glasses, though her brown hair

was short. With a shock Victoria realized that she was admiring a

woman who looked much like herself. Could she be the daughter

of that strange woman on the train? The woman lounged,

standing, against the wall, hands in her coat pockets. Once in a

while she looked toward Victoria who lowered her eyes each time.

Avoiding her gaze, she stared at the other woman. Was her twin a

gay or a straight? She wanted very much to know, afraid that she

was a lesbian, afraid of the implications of that for herself. If

someone looked just like her and that person was a lesbian, then

she herself might be a lesbian too. Not that she minded. She might

Lee Lynch | 69

like being a lesbian. But the world was already frightening, and so

much more frightening for the different.

Rosemary stood and Victoria automatically began to rise with

her, until she realized that Rosemary planned to speak. She folded

into her seat and sank even lower, embarrassed by her friend’s

verbosity. What has she to say to these politically sophisticated

New Yorkers? They would laugh at her. “A few of us are here from

Yale today, expecting to return to New York after graduation next

spring.” Rosemary paused; there was some giggling and

whispering and a low, “Screw Yale,” before she went on. “At Yale

we have a tender young women’s group. Nowhere as large as even

this gathering here, but we have been struggling to understand

what brings us all together and to gain from it.” Victoria looked

around to see if the women were bored. Claudia was smiling

widely. “We had no lesbians in our group at Yale. No ‘bulldykes’ as

I have heard some of you describe lesbians. No one to frighten

away the straight women. Lesbianism was not even an issue for us.

Yet I and one other woman came out together. It was a natural

evolution, something we politically felt was the right thing to do.”

The whispering had stopped and Victoria realized that Rosemary

did have something important to say. “Now there are two lesbians

in the women’s group. I urge the straight women here to think

about two things. First, that lesbianism is not a disease and is

therefore not, as some of you seem to think, contagious. It can

happen spontaneously, isolated from any influence but reason and

need. Second, that it is a desirable state for some feminists to

achieve. It is the ultimate feminism. Women who commit

themselves to one another politically, emotionally and sexually are

not only pariahs, but are the vanguard of this women’s

movement.” Rosemary sat down, patting her Indian skirt around

her and smiling quickly at Claudia. She took Claudia’s hand very

purposefully and turned to the front of the loft still holding it. The

room seemed to exhale all at once.

“Heavy,” someone said. Then the straight woman with the fists

jumped up out of her seat. “That’s the sort of fucked-up thinking

that we are trying to avoid.” As she spoke her voice rose in pitch.

“There will be no women’s movement if all women don’t feel

welcome. Newer women are afraid of lesbians!”

A lesbian cried out, “We’re afraid of straights who want us to

Toothpick House | 70

disappear!”

A few other women shouted in agreement.

Fists accelerating, the straight woman went on shrilly. “There

has to be a place for us all in the women’s liberation movement.

We have to welcome more and more women and we won’t do that

by scaring them off with the threat of changing their lives too

radically!”

“Women’s lives must change!” another lesbian called out.

“You’re creating a schism with your radicalism!” yelled another

straight woman.

“Then let’s stop yelling and start mending the schism,” someone

suggested quietly.

Victoria felt taut with the tension in the room and the violence

of the emotions. Her eyes rested on the woman who looked like

her and she remembered again the witch-like woman on the train.

Was she her daughter, she wondered. The face not so full as the

college picture, but the mother had implied that she had lost

weight. Could this woman actually have been married, had

children, been beaten by her husband? Now, slouching against the

wall, looking strong and experienced, was this the woman who had

rejected all that? Victoria realized how much she did find the

woman attractive. Not only because she looked like her, but

because she looked like she could handle herself, as if she was in

control. She smiled toward the woman, glad when she did not see

the smile. She was scared that the woman would talk to her and

she would be lost to her spell. What if the woman had inherited

some of her mother’s witch-like qualities and showed Victoria

even more of herself than her mother had on the train? She was

afraid of this much more dangerous exposure here, as an equal.

The woman, still not aware how Victoria’s eyes followed her,

reached her hand across the chair of a woman sitting in front of

her and laid it on her shoulder. She bent and whispered into her

ear. The seated woman rose, took the hand of Victoria’s twin, and

the two left. Moving to the window, Victoria looked down to see

them walk off with their arms around one another.

Victoria sat very still. More women got up to leave. The passion

had drained from the discussion. A work group formed to develop

recommendations about how to help lesbian and straight women

understand each other and work together. She is a lesbian,

Lee Lynch | 71

Victoria thought, stunned despite herself. Is someone marking a

trail for me? Did that mother curse or bless me in some way,

trying to transfer her daughter’s rebellions onto me? “What?” she

asked, jumping as Claudia shook her shoulder.

“Wasn’t she great? She just floored them!”

“Who?” Victoria asked.

“Rosemary, silly! Weren’t you listening?”

Victoria looked at where Rosemary was surrounded by lesbians

who were thanking her for what she had said. She still felt stunned

by her twin’s lesbianism, as if it were a sure sign of her own. “Yes,

of course I was listening.”

“But you didn’t see the light. I can tell. Oh, it was so important

that she said it, don’t you think? I’m so glad we came. Now they’re

going to work on it instead of just arguing about it and glaring at

each other forever.”

“Yes, yes,” Victoria said, emerging from her thoughts. “Yes, she

spoke well. And I did see the light,” she added, but Claudia had

turned away to stand proudly with her lover. Victoria was left on

the brink of the world of love and women, feeling more alone than

she ever had before.

* * * *

Annie Heaphy, Turkey, Peg and Eleanor crowded around the

surly bouncer who demanded $3.00 each from them. “Boy, she’s

tough,” Turkey whispered to Annie, admiringly. “Maybe I should

forget about college, move to New York and get a job as a bouncer,

huh Annie?”

“You got your taste in your ass, Turkey. She’s a class A dumb

bulldyke who probably makes peanuts here because no one else

will hire her she looks so much the part.”

“Shh,” Turkey answered as she went to pay the bouncer. “Hey,

uh,” Turkey asked, laughing nervously between each word, “How’d

you get this job?”

“Friend a my girl’s part owner, why?”

“Oh, thanks,” poor Turkey giggled, obviously disappointed. She

patted her chest nervously and brushed off her rust-colored, baggy

overalls and a voluminous black and light-blue striped shirt.

“So that’s why I should get a job as a bouncer,” she said as

Toothpick House | 72

Annie joined them.

“Why?”

“She ain’t a bit uglier than me,” Turkey laughed loudly.

Annie Heaphy shook her head, rearranging her cap. “But you’re

nice. Besides, you couldn’t stop laughing long enough to throw

someone out.”

“She’s got to throw people out?”

“You turkey,” Eleanor laughed, her light southern accent

exaggerated in New York. “Why do you think they call them

bouncers?”

Turkey hung her head. “You got a point,” she admitted, then

looked up and laughed again. “Oh well,” she said, “sociology

majors probably make lousy bouncers anyway! I’d be too busy

lecturing people on why they acted in a way that attracted

attention to them in a group of their peers.”

“Come on, guys,” Peg urged. “There’s a table we can grab.”

Annie kept her head down as she walked across the half-full

dance floor. It was still early, too early to be anonymous, and

Annie sensed that she would feel more self-conscious here than at

Marcy’s. When she had a few drinks she would feel less

conspicuous. Even show off a little, probably. She sat with her

back to the floor.

“Ain’t this a shame,” Turkey laughed as she settled her wide

bottom on a tiny chair done in ice-cream parlor style.

“I think it’s awful cute,” Eleanor said. “Whoever decorated this

place had good taste.” She crossed her legs in their purple denim

jeans and slipped her imitation fur jacket onto the back of her

chair. She was wearing a silky white blouse splashed with

chartreuse and violet and her hair was up in a way that made her

look vaguely like a model for shampoo. She kept removing bobby

pins and replacing them through the evening. Tapping a long

cigarette on the table, she held it out to be lit. As usual, all three of

her friends scrambled to light it in the old game of who’s butchiest.

Eleanor loved it. “You all are getting slow,” she laughed after

Turkey dropped her lighter on the short cable spool that served as

a table. Eleanor sighed with regret, trying to look seductively at

both Peg and Annie. “Anybody cute here yet?” she asked as always

to start the evening off.

“Just let’s get a waitress over here, cute or not, and I’ll be

Lee Lynch | 73

happy,” Annie said.

“I think you both got your wishes, ladies,” Peg said as she waved

toward a waitress.

Annie’s courage disappeared and she stuttered when she

ordered from the good-looking woman in jeans and an Indian

shirt open halfway down her chest.

“A Coke,” Peg ordered, smiling graciously at the waitress. She

shot her light blue cuffs out from under her navy sport jacket and

smoothed her cream colored slacks. She met the others’ looks

when the waitress left. “I’m driving. Besides, I’m not in the mood

for drinking. I’d like to meet a girl. Hey, El, you like our server?”

“Looked kind of stuck up.”

“She can smell hicks looking at you guys,” Peg teased.

“I’m no hick,” Annie protested. “You tell anybody from Boston,

aside from myself who gives you special consideration due to your

origins, being from this filthy town—you tell any other Bostonian

she’s a hick, you’ll learn,” she threatened.

“Me neither,” Turkey added. “New Haven’s no small town.

Besides, we treat you out-of-towners right, don’t we?”

Eleanor patted a bobby pin back into place. “I’d like to issue an

invitation to certain big city women to try a hick.” She smiled up

at the waitress who was back with their drinks disinterestedly

waiting to be paid. There was a scramble to give her money and

she walked away.

“Didn’t even say thank you,” huffed Eleanor.

Peg hit a fist against the table. “Look what they do to gay

women! Did you ever hear such prices?”

“It’s New York,” Annie explained, taking it for granted.

“Yeah,” Peg answered angrily. “So not only do we pay inflated

prices to go to a bar not even as nice as one of ours, but we pay

more because it’s a gay bar. They have us, alright. We’ve got no

place else to go so they know we’re going to swarm in here to waste

our money. It makes me sick.”

“Plus a cover charge.” Eleanor, Turkey, Peg and Annie looked as

one to the next table. A woman with long braided hair had joined

their conversation. She was with two other women. None of them

looks as if she’s been in a gay bar before, Annie Heaphy thought.

She downed her first beer, staring at a woman who looked to her

like a thoroughbred, except for her eyes. “They’re all alive and

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warm and excited,” Annie thought. “I could fall for those eyes.”

Annie almost jumped when the sharp-chinned woman went on.

“It’s just another way women are oppressed. But obviously you

sisters know that.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. Turkey guffawed quietly and Annie

glared at both her friends.

“Right you are, sister,” Peg answered, toasting their neighbors

with her Coke, wondering where she had seen “Sister” before.

“It’s good to see you aren’t drinking,” “Sister” went on,

apparently unaware of Turkey’s struggle to control her laughter.

“The bar trap. How many lesbians fall in it?” she asked

rhetorically. “If only lesbians would realize that liquor ambushes

them into self-destruction to keep them down.”

Annie glanced covertly at the thoroughbred’s glass and,

relieved, saw a mixed drink before she signalled the waitress for

another beer. When she looked back, “Sister” had quieted and the

thoroughbred, who met Annie’s eyes, looked quickly away. Peg

leaned toward Turkey and Eleanor and started talking intently.

“Like I was saying, the arm is a magnificent example of the intricacy

of the human body. Take the muscles of the upper arm .. .”

“You take them,” Turkey gurgled. “And take your friends too. Is

that what you go to your meetings with?”

“Yuk,” Peg grimaced, almost whispering. “No way. I think I’ve

seen her around somewhere, but I’ve never been to a meeting with

her.”

“Is that how they talk?” Eleanor wanted to know.

“Listen, guys, she’s saying the right things. It’s just like she’s a

cartoon version of a feminist: all politics and no woman.”

“Personally, I think she’s got something stuck up her ass,”

Turkey nodded seriously, setting Eleanor off into a gale of

laughter.

“Cut it out,” Annie chided them. “Look who she’s got with her.”

All three heads turned back to the next table. “Not now, you jerks,”

Annie whispered, mortified. All three looked quickly away while

Annie hid her face behind her beer mug. She snuck a look toward

the thoroughbred who looked uncomfortable.

“All right, Rosemary,” the thoroughbred was saying, “you

persuaded me to come, but not to stay all night. Are you almost

ready to leave or shall I call a cab for myself?”

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Annie’s heart jumped. She wanted to tell the woman to stay. It

would take more drinks before she had the nerve to talk to her.

“We just got here a half hour ago. Aren’t you having a good

time, Victoria?”

Victoria, Victoria, rang in Annie’s attentive ears. “Shh,”she

hissed at Turkey who had been trying to get her attention.

“It’s not that, Rosemary. I’m just not sure that we belong here.”

“Why not? Claudia and I are lesbians,” she said, putting an arm

awkwardly around Claudia’s shoulders, careful not to touch

anything but the soft white v-neck sweater across Claudia’s fleshy

shoulders. “And you’re our friend. Why shouldn’t we be here?”

Victoria looked at Annie’s table just as Annie peeked again from

behind her mug at her. “I don’t know,” Victoria sighed.

“Victoria,” Claudia reached her hand across to her. “Please just

relax. I’m enjoying it here, but I wouldn’t without you. Honest.

Pretend I’m observing for a psych class,” she smiled. “Help me

take notes for another half hour and if you’re still uncomfortable

we’ll go home.”

Victoria could not resist Claudia’s sincere plea. “All right, but I

don’t think we belong, whether you’re gay or not.”

“I’m sure it’s the class difference, not sexuality, making you

uncomfortable,” Rosemary said.

“You may be right.”

“There is a definite difference in class, Victoria, but that’s no

reason not to be here. We need someplace to meet other lesbians

and our so-called class just doesn’t provide that.”

Claudia suggested, “Maybe there are clubs for dykes with

Ph.D.’s. Who knows?”

“I wish you wouldn’t use that word, Claudia,” Rosemary

complained. She toyed with the lime in her glass.

“Dyke? What’s wrong with it? I kind of like it.”

“It implies something bad.”

“But, Rosemary,” Claudia protested, “so does lesbian and all the

other words people use to describe us. It’s what they put into the

words that does it, not the words themselves, right, Victoria?

You’re the lit major.”

“She’s right, Rosemary, you know that,” Victoria looked at her

puzzled. “Words are used by too many people to control. Dyke is a

good old fashioned Celtic word.”

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“I’d rather be called that than homosexual,” Claudia said.

“Imagine having to live with the word sexual so close to you all the

time. Why, it defines you in purely sexual terms. Dyke is kind of

cute.”

Victoria stole another look at Annie’s table at this, thinking that

the word dyke was cute and she smiled toward the woman in the

hat. Annie Heaphy smiled back at her. “Oh,” she said almost

aloud, and “I didn’t mean to smile,” to herself, still smiling, then

abruptly frowning at the lesbian. The woman turned away, her

shoulders sagging, then shrugged as if to say, “I don’t care either.”

Victoria wanted to correct her signals again, to step over to the

lesbian and say, “It isn’t that I don’t want to smile, I just didn’t

mean to and then I got confused,” but she realized that she wasn’t

sure that she would have wanted to smile in any case because she

did not know exactly what she was feeling. She slipped her pea

jacket off her shoulders and stretched out the neck of her sweater

to let some cooler air touch her body. How warm the bar was!

Annie ordered another drink. “What are you looking at,” she

glowered at Turkey.

“Hey, I can’t help it if she isn’t interested, man. Maybe she’s not

out yet.”

“Then what in the world is she doing here?” wondered Eleanor.

Annie mumbled, “Her friends are gay.”

“You really don’t think she is?” Turkey asked, staring at the

woman again. “You ought to know.”

“Me?” asked Annie. “Why me?”

“Cause you see more of the world in that little box of a cab of

yours than the rest of us. Me, shut up in classrooms, Peg in a

gym.”

“And all’s I see are truck drivers devouring hamburgers.”

“You’re our woman of the world, alright.” Turkey leaned back to

describe her image of Annie. “Every kind of character there is

gets in and out of your cab. ANNIE HEAPHY, STAR CABBIE,”

she went on, gesturing grandly, “haunting the city to build her

collection of Types.”

“Cut it out, Turkey,” Annie protested. Turkey only became more

involved in her game. She hunched forward and pretended to

speak into a microphone. “She starts her day in the subterranean

world of a diner. Sharing coffee with the workers of the world who

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are on their way home from the graveyard shift, indistinguishable

from them except for the filth of her cap.” Eleanor began to giggle.

“Ah, but now she goes into the world to ferry streaming humanity

to the places it earns its daily bread. The harried executive,”

Turkey stood surprisingly quickly from her tiny seat and

pretended to hold an attache case awkwardly out from her body.

“The lady executive. . . .” Here she flipped open an invisible

compact and patted her cheeks manically with powder. Peg was

chuckling. “The shopper comes in from the suburbs to spend,

spend, spend!” She struggled with armloads of packages that fell

with each step she took in place. Annie broke into a smile. “The

furtive lovers who must part after a sordid night in their dingy

hotel room.” Gazing adoringly upward, Turkey put her arms

around non-existent broad shoulders and smacked wet lips,

fishlike, toward the air. Then she turned and bent down as if

holding a small woman, all the while sneaking glances out the cab

windows to see if they are being observed. Eleanor and Peg were

laughing aloud now as Turkey sat and quickly portrayed a frantic

racing fan checking a scratch sheet on his way to a bookie’s, a pair

of nuns clicking rosaries as they began a trip to the airport, and,

finally, a mother taking her sick child who is vomiting all over

Annie’s back seat, to the doctor. At this, even Annie broke into

laughter because it had happened to her.

“But wait,” Turkey continued, whispering suspensefully into the

microphone. “Through all this parade of humanity, our Star

Cabbie must see through these facades and play the game we all

know so well . . . ,” she paused, “the game of-Who’s the Dyke?”

Laughter came from tables around them. “The sick kid!” called one

listener. “The nuns!” cried another. There was more laughter as

Turkey became the game show host explaining the game to his

studio audience. “It’s a well known fact that one out of every ten

people is gay. It’s the sad fate and the trusted office of the gay

cabdriver to penetrate the disguises of every ten people and ‘Find

the Dyke!’” The women around her broke into a light applause and

Turkey stood to bow.

When she sat again she whispered, “Well, Star Cabbie? What’s

your conclusion about ‘Sister’s’ friend? Is she or isn’t she?”

Annie looked thoughtful. “I conclude,” and she paused

dramatically to place her cap over her heart, catching Turkey’s

Toothpick House | 78

comic spirit, “that if she isn’t, she will be. And I personally

guarantee it.”

Peg, Eleanor and Turkey cheered Annie. The waitress brought

more drinks. The four friends sat silently, still smiling over

Turkey’s performance. Annie was half listening to the conversation

at Sister’s table. The woman called Claudia was telling stories

about the farm where she grew up. “Why don’t you ask her to

dance?” Eleanor asked. “Even if she isn’t as pretty as some.”

Annie scowled at her. “I’m not interested.”

Eleanor looked at Peg. “Why don’t you two dance?” Peg asked.

“Yeah, Annie, won’t you dance with me? My feet are getting

itchy. Come on, Annie.”

“No, you dance with her, Peg.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, goody!” Eleanor squealed, jumping up from her seat.

“Maybe somebody real nice will cut in.”

“Ain’t I real nice, lady?” Peg asked.

Eleanor took her arm and they stepped into the crowd on the

dance floor, squeezing their way through to the center of it. Annie

looked over at Victoria again, but she was arguing with “Sister.”

Claudia tugged on “Sister’s” puffed peasant-blouse sleeve, asking

her to dance, but it was Victoria who rose to dance with the

shorter woman. Annie watched them follow Peg and Eleanor to

the floor.

“She your type or what, Annie?” Turkey wanted to know.

“I guess if I have a type, that’s it.”

“Yeah, you like them educated, don’t you?”

“That seems to be who I go for alright, Turkey.”

“Then ask ‘Sister’ to dance.”

“Don’t make fun.”

“Who’s making fun?” Turkey straightened her overall straps.

“She looks lonely. Probably doesn’t know how to dance.”

“Then, Turkey, I think it’s a good idea for you to teach her on

account of you being such a good Samaritan and all.”

“Oh, Annie, I’m sure she prefers blondes. Look at her, so lonely

over there, computing her millions.”

“Studying weighty matters . . .”

“Her head in the clouds . . .”

“Lusting after your body ...”

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“Annie Heaphy! I’m shocked you could even think such a thing

about her.”

“Hey, Turkey,” Annie whispered conspiratorily, “do you think

she knows what to do with her little friend?”

Turkey finally bellowed with laughter. “I hope not, ‘cause I can’t

imagine it!”

“We’re being mean, now, Turk.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She paused to giggle. “But it’s so much

fun.”

The couples were leaving the dance floor. Annie spotted

Victoria leading Claudia back, a bright flush on their cheeks. Peg

and Eleanor were right behind them.

“Come on, Annie, it’s your turn. Listen, a slow one,” Eleanor

invited.

Peg grabbed Annie’s collar and playfully pulled her up. “Come

on, Heaphy, quit mooning.”

Annie glanced over at Victoria as Eleanor found her hand and

pulled her onto the dance floor. Victoria was picking up her jacket.

“Hey,” Eleanor tugged at her, “You going to dance or not?”

Annie silently put her arms around Eleanor, her eyes following

Victoria. Was she leaving without her friends? Annie’s heart

pounded as she thought of herself approaching Victoria and asking

her to stay. Eleanor’s arms tightened around Annie. “Finally I’m

holding you again,” she said, nestling her head on Annie’s

shoulder. Annie felt impatient. She wanted to think, before

Victoria went out the door, of a way to stop her and learn who she

was so she could find her another time when she had more

courage. “I guess you didn’t enjoy our night together as much as

me,” Eleanor was saying.

Annie barely controlled her impatience. “Sure I did, Elly.”

“You sound very convincing, let me tell you,” Eleanor replied

sarcastically.

Annie pulled back from her. “Sorry,” she said, feeling bad about

her divided attention. She turned Eleanor around on the floor to

see the door better. “I enjoyed you,” she whispered, pressing her

cheek against Eleanor’s hair.

Eleanor’s body relaxed and she pressed herself against Annie.

Victoria was going toward the door. Annie’s heart slowed and she

exhaled deeply. “Thank you, Annie. I had a good time too,”

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Eleanor breathed back at her as she leaned away to smile at Annie.

“Maybe we can do it again.”

“Maybe,” Annie agreed. They danced in silence for awhile,

Annie trying to forget about the woman who had just left, the

stranger who had caught her fancy, and think instead of her

friend’s needs. “I don’t know, though,” she looked at Eleanor,

hoping she would not be hurt. “I like you an awful lot as a friend. I

think that’s very important to me.”

The music stopped and they started back to their table. “I know

what you mean, Annie,” Eleanor said reflectively, swinging her

hand in Annie’s. “I’d hate to lose our friendship for some sex.”

“Exactly,” Annie said as they reached the table. They squeezed

hands once more and smiled. “Come on, Turkey. This one sounds

just like you, doesn’t it?” she asked, directing her question to the

whole group.

“This is a lindy, you guys. I’m not a social historian, just a

sociologist,” Turkey said, struggling up from the tiny low seat.

“Don’t sociologists dance?” Annie laughed as they moved to the

floor. She secretly wanted Victoria’s friends to notice her and led

Turkey in that direction, just far enough away not to be obvious.

Perhaps they would talk about her to Victoria, perhaps, she

daydreamed, Victoria would come back looking for her exactly a

year from this night and Annie would pledge to herself to

remember the date and come back herself. . . . Annie woke from

her daydream suddenly when Victoria returned. Filled with relief,

Annie lindied even more frantically and smiled widely at Turkey

who did a complicated set of steps in response. Annie’s joy

overcame her inhibitions. She copied the steps, till Turkey became

more inventive. Annie matched her again. When the music

stopped they were panting and thirsty and laughingly pushed their

way to the table. Peg had ordered more drinks and Annie lifted her

beer can, chugging through a smile, spilling the cold stuff on her

white shirt and jeans, then laughing and looking at Victoria who

was again talking with her friends. Annie was high, finally, and not

afraid.

“Would you like to dance?” she found herself asking the

woman, intently seeking her eyes through their glasses as if her

life depended on Victoria’s answer. Victoria looked at Rosemary

and Claudia and back to Annie while Annie wiped the sweat of the

Lee Lynch | 81

last dance from her forehead with her sleeve and lifted her cap to

run her fingers through her hair in quick, rapid motions. Victoria

felt herself warm under her peacoat again and knew she would say

yes. Annie looked like a tense, determined dyke-goddess fresh

from the heavens as she stood in her white shirt and jeans, her

sleeves rolled up to her forearms, her ruby pinky ring making

tracks in the air as she moved her arm under the swirling bar light,

her short hair messy under the cap, her breasts round and tender-

looking just under her shirt. Astonished at herself for thinking of

the woman this way, Victoria met her blue eyes and said, “Sure,

thank you.”

She took off her jacket and followed Annie briskly to the dance

floor. “This is a real slow one,” Annie said. “I need it after that last

dance.”

Victoria struggled to keep her eyes open against the warmth

that invaded her body at the woman’s touch. One hand lay so very

gently on the small of her back that only Victoria’s suddenly

heightened responses made her aware of it guiding her. Just under

her own Victoria could feel the woman’s breasts against herself

and she pulled away slightly each time only to sway back as if

seeking their contact again. She was half dizzy by the time she

could respond. “Yes,” she said, “I saw you. You dance quite well.”

She was surprised to see the woman redden from the compliment.

“Thanks, but I don’t really consider that dancing. More like

acrobatics.”

“I can see why. Where did you learn?” Victoria asked, pulling

herself back again when she wanted to crush the woman to her.

What was it about her? She had never felt this compulsion for

another being before.

“I just kind of do what I want. I don’t really know how to

dance.” Annie had to tilt her arms upward to hold Victoria who

was slightly taller than herself. She was aware of her own hands on

Victoria’s back and waist and of Victoria’s hands on her back. “I

like the way you dance,” she said, needing to talk more before she

felt shy again. There was something overpowering about this

woman, something that made her want to run, but at the same

time kept her dancing with her. She knew that she would be back

for more even after she did escape. Victoria felt like the undertow

of a larger wave than Annie had ever felt. She wished she could

Toothpick House | 82

grab a swig of her beer or a shot.

“Thank you,” Victoria answered, wishing for some words to end

the small talk, for a way to tell this girl how warm she made her

feel and to ask her if that made her a lesbian. She was glad she had

worn her ceremonial garb. Never before had she so wanted to be

acceptable. “My name is Victoria,” she said, wondering if one gave

out one’s last name in a gay bar.

“I’m Annie, Annie Heaphy. I’m from New Haven and I drive a

cab.” Somehow Annie felt she must make clear her status in the

world.

“Hello, Annie Heaphy,” Victoria smiled affectionately at her.

“It’s Victoria Locke and I live in New Haven too. I’m a student.”

She felt reluctant to tell Annie Heaphy that she went to Yale, afraid

it would turn her off.

“Really?” Annie asked, obviously pleased. “I never saw you

around.”

Knowing Annie meant the gay bars, Victoria felt her way,

unsure whether to say that she’d never been in one before.’ I don’t

go out much. I’m afraid I’m not very sociable. This is quite an

outing for me.”

“To tell the truth,” Annie confessed again, “this is the first time

I’ve been here.”

“To New York?”

“No. I come down every once in awhile. But I don’t get to the

New York bars much.”

“I’ve never been in a bar.”

“What brings you here?”

“Semester break. My parents live in New York. Rosemary and

Claudia,” Victoria gestured toward her friends, “took me to a

women’s movement meeting today. They were coming here so I

decided to come along.”

Annie felt heavy with the possibility of the next question. It

should be so easy to ask for sure if she’s gay . . . The music stopped

and, frustrated, Annie walked with Victoria to her table. Annie

danced again, this time with Eleanor who swept her onto the floor

without giving her time to say no.

“Is she nice?” Eleanor wanted to know.

“I hardly talked to her. I think so.”

“You don’t mind me being jealous, do you?” Eleanor teased.

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“Don’t be silly,” Annie poked her playfully.

“She’s pretty,” Eleanor mused.

“Not really. Everything is nice to look at, but it doesn’t all come

together nice, you know?”

“I know what you mean. Like a face that don’t know who it

belongs to yet.”

Annie thought for a moment. “I bet you’re right.” She stopped

dancing. “Wait. She is leaving this time.”

“What?” Eleanor turned to see. She looked back at Annie. “You

scared her off awful fast. Do you want to stop her?” she asked

sympathetically.

“Of course I do. But how can I? I just danced with her once.

What if I really did scare her away?”

“Maybe she has to get up for work.”

“She goes to school.”

“She could work too.”

Annie looked at Eleanor despairingly. Victoria was gone. The

music had stopped. “Well, this is silly,” Annie said, shoving her

hands into her pockets. “I fell for a dream-woman, that’s all. Let

her run away with her friends. It’s not the end of the world,

whatever the reason. Maybe Turkey’s right. Maybe she’s not out

yet and she’s scared to death. Anyway, she lives in New Haven.”

“She does?” Eleanor was surprised.

“Yeah. But she doesn’t go to bars. I wonder what school she

goes to?”

“If you can get your mind off her for a minute, Annie, why don’t

you dance this slow one with me since we’re standing here anyway.

You’ll hardly miss her. I promise,” Eleanor told Annie seductively.

“Okay, okay,” Annie laughed, pulling her cap down over her

eyes and taking Eleanor into her arms. Eleanor began to lead

Annie in a reserved bump and grind. Annie laughed and said,

“Don’t try so hard.”

“Don’t think so hard,” Eleanor answered, hugging her more

tightly.

CHAPTER FOUR

Annie Heaphy guided the old, heavy cab through the railroad

station parking lot and stopped behind two other weary-looking

beasts. She checked her watch, noted the next train would not

arrive for over ten minutes, and slid down in her seat, hoping the

radio would be silent long enough for a nap. She pulled the brim of

her cap over her eyes to shield her headache from the glare of the

sun on leftover patches of snow, swearing again that tonight she

would drink less, hoping she would meet someone and be so taken

by her she would not want to get drunk. The radio hissed, crackled

a message to someone else and Annie Heaphy drooped beneath

the sun to a quick, deep sleep.

Victoria Locke walked briskly ahead of the other passengers and

slipped into the first available cab, slamming the door behind her

to wake the lazy cabbie sleeping in the front seat. She was anxious

to get to the dormitory and start the Boccaccio paper. When the

driver merely stirred and did not wake, Victoria was ready to slam

her way out of the cab as her mother would have done. But as she

reached for her bag she saw the cabbie’s hat had fallen off. The

hair underneath was the blonde hair of a girl. Victoria stopped

breathing and a pain entered her chest. She leaned forward and

gently woke Annie Heaphy.

From the touch on her shoulder Annie Heaphy knew it was just

a fare; from the gentleness, an older woman with daughters her

own age, and she shot up defensively, starting the cab in the same

motion and asked, “Yes, ma’am, where to?” The hand had lifted

slowly off her shoulder and the fare whispered, “Yale,” in a

strange, husky voice. Annie could not see her in the rear-view

mirror, but her voice sounded young, almost familiar. All business,

she set her cap back on her head and began to drive. “What part?”

she asked, still trying to see who was in the back. It is a student,

she decided as the low voice named a college and the street its

entrance fronted. She was still puzzled by the touch that was as

gentle as a mother’s but the accent discouraged her because it

Lee Lynch | 85

belonged to another goddamned rich Yalie. Shit, Annie Heaphy

said to herself, no longer trying to see the face, deciding to ride

this one through the ghetto, push her face in the mud, maybe

curse out another driver to shake her up a little. She rammed her

shift through the gears and stepped on the accelerator as she

turned into the shortcut through overcrowded streets even Annie

didn’t care to see.

The wave of strange emotion was ebbing now. Victoria had

heard the girl’s voice and recognized its gruffness as she

recognized the hat. It was the girl with whom she had danced in

New York. Victoria still could not forget that night although two

months had passed. She had felt awkward and out of place, but

more because Rosemary had embarrassed her than because she

felt she did not belong. There had been something very exciting in

being looked at that way by women. And in looking back. And now

her heart had opened again at the sight of the driver. The witch

returned to her mind. Was this another sign pointing her toward

herself? That she should meet the girl again—and so soon—was

too coincidental.

The pale, distant sun was abandoning the sky and small gusts of

wind blew trash along the empty streets. Annie drove as if trying

to run down some invisible enemy that dodged her with the wind.

Victoria sighed when they entered the narrow streets of Yale, not

gladdened by this return. Students were double parked, lugging

their suitcases into grey stone buildings through heavy black gates.

Annie stopped for none of them, weaving in and out and using her

horn with what sounded like vengeance.

She stopped short outside the dormitory. She had just

remembered to call in her location and got a new destination

immediately. “These people don’t see past their noses,” she

thought. “Time is money. Why couldn’t this rich bitch count out

her goddamned money while I was trying not to run over her

stupid friends? Act like they own the streets. Probably do.” Finally

the girl was pushing the money at her and she turned to take it.

Victoria looked slowly from her hands which had touched Annie’s

to Annie’s weary-looking face and noticed the sad slant of her eyes.

She told her to keep the change. Annie checked the money as the

woman handed it to her, squinting angrily as she glared up from

under her cap to mutter thank you. The words stayed inside her

Toothpick House | 86

mouth when she saw Victoria and she caught her breath and

flushed. She zipped her jacket open. She stared and stared as the

woman left the cab, then she pushed out of her own door and

slammed it behind her. A sports car swerved and honked at her.

Victoria stopped to look toward the sound of the car’s brakes and

Annie called, “Do you have any more luggage?” desperately hoping

that she did.

“No, just this,” Victoria answered.

Recklessly, Annie asked, “Vickie, wasn’t it?” for the woman

looked different in the fading daylight and Annie could not believe

her luck in finding her again.

“Well, yes. Victoria, actually, but Vickie will do . . .”

“I’m Annie. Annie Heaphy. We met . . .” Victoria turned slowly

away and began to mount the steps. “Oh, don’t” Annie began to

say, but was afraid to scare the woman. She could think of nothing

else to keep her there. “Thanks,” she finally shouted up the steps.

The woman turned again and smiled through the twilight at Annie

who was smiling at her, her cap in her hand.

“Damn,” Annie said when the woman had disappeared inside

the door. “Damn, damn.” She walked to her cab with quick,

choppy steps, slamming the cap on her head. Muttering to herself,

she took off like a teenage boy when she remembered that she was

supposed to be several blocks away picking up a fare.

“Forty-seven,” hissed the radio.

“Forty-seven,” answered Annie.

“Where the hell are you, Heaphy? The party at sixteen Bishop

just called again.”

“On my way, Mr. G. You know these little old ladies, counting

out their pennies,” she lied guiltily.

“Don’t get lost again,” Mr. G. growled before shutting her off.

Annie sped through yellow lights and passed two cars crazily

before braking sharply at the address. No one was there. She

honked her horn and slumped in her seat, arms folded, to think

about Vicky. How, she wondered, would she get to see her again?

Go to the dormitory and knock on her door? The thought sent

anxious chills around her body. Lie in wait in a doorway until she

went out somewhere? Then what? She would still have to

approach her. See if she was in the phone book? Yes! That was

perfect. Except, Annie did not remember Vicky’s last name.

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“Crap,” she said aloud and looked to see if anyone was coming

from the house. She honked again and looked at her watch. Two

minutes more, in case it was a slow-moving old person. Whatever

she decided, it would have to be cool, she resumed thinking. This

was no ordinary woman she was dealing with. This was a Yalie.

She would have to be on her toes to win this prize. But she was

worth it, Annie thought, full of a glow she had never before

experienced so intensely.

She sighed and took another look at the address. Then she

radioed Mr. G.

“Nothing right now, forty-seven,” he directed.

“Going to the Plaza, then,” she replied, deciding as she said it to

celebrate finding Vicky. Should she stop for a quick beer? No, it

was almost time to go in, she’d get her beer soon. She turned

suddenly into an illegal parking space and locked the cab. Not

pausing, she ran across a street to a small strip of park in the

middle of the road and sat on one of the empty benches. The park,

she remembered, was pretty with dogwoods in the spring. Now the

trees were empty, but shone eerily with the last of daylight. Annie

breathed frost out in front of her mouth and determined to bring

Vicky to this park in the spring. “Yalies never know where

anything good is,” suddenly feeling affectionate toward them,

wondering if perhaps the women weren’t all that bad. She leaped

up and stood on her bench, then leaped from it to the next. She

balanced on its edge before getting a running start to the next one.

“Feeling good, huh, Heaphy?” she asked herself as she landed

on the third bench, the anxiety of losing her footing all confused

with that of seeing Vicky again. “Vicky.” she bellowed into the last

of the fading winter afternoon. “Vicky!” she cried as she completed

each of her leaps to circle the tiny park. Filled with excitement she

leaped from the last bench out of the park and ran back to her cab.

* * * *

Victoria’s room was cold. She had taken off her coat, but now

drew it across her shoulders, rubbing her cheek against its velvet

collar. The old radiator had begun to warm with its first heat. She

sat directly on it, leaned her head against the window and sighed.

Three stories down the confusion of returning students continued,

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but there were no yellow cabs. Perhaps the next rain, she thought,

reaching into her pocket for the schedule. This is foolish, she

shook her head slowly at herself. Why would the cab driver want

to return? If she did, she would just be doing her job, delivering

another passenger like me. And I wouldn’t know what to say to

her, she mused, withdrawing her hand from her pocket and the

schedule. On the other hand, if she did approach me, would that

mean she thinks I’m a lesbian? She makes me feel strange,

strange.

Turning toward the room she appreciated its tasteful

familiarity. With her careful placement of painting and furniture,

the tall ceiling and narrow window did not make the room look

smaller, but emphasized its height. Her room suggested some part

of a cathedral. The bluish winter twilight made this impression

even stronger and she bent to the small but heavy-looking dark

oak table, which displayed her favorite possessions, to light a

candle. If I could just put a skylight in, she thought as she admired

the effect of the tiny light up the tall walls to the ceiling where she

had tacked a mandala poster. At that distance and in that light it

looked like a stained glass window. She slipped off the black heels

that made her feel so adult and walked in her stockinged feet to

the closet for her floor-length robe. Before she hung up her coat

she looked quickly at the train schedule, hardly noticing what she

read, and placed it on the dresser. Junk: I should throw it out, she

decided, then forgot it as she hung up her city clothes. Pulling the

tie of her robe around her and knotting it, she began to pace the

room, feeling like a cross between a monk and a late nineteenth

century lady troubled with erotic thoughts which horrified her, but

gave her no rest.

Would she like me as I look now, Victoria wondered, thinking

back to the cab ride. She found Annie attractive with that pale,

soft-looking skin, the chopped fine blonde hair, the way she

squinted as if she doubted everything, hiding under the brim of

her hat. Definitely attractive, Victoria smiled affectionately. If I

were going to be a lesbian, it would be easy to fall in love with

Annie, Annie Heaphy, just from her looks. She had never much

cared about people’s looks before this; just what was inside. And

what was inside Annie Heaphy? Why did she drive so violently?

And then get so shy on her own two feet, stuttering as she talked,

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afraid to ask Victoria what she so obviously wanted to ask? Why

did she take such risks? She drove as she moved: quickly,

unthinking, careless of herself, desperate to get where she was

going. Victoria had noticed that Annie drank consumingly, too, as

if to get herself high fast and keep herself there, at the highest

point, as long as possible. She appeared to want life raw, too

hungry to wait for it to become more digestible, and this attracted

Victoria strongly. She was just the opposite, treating both

frightening experience and emotion like untouchables who could

serve her at a distance, but never approach her. This intense

woman had lodged herself under Victoria’s cool facade. Victoria

was afraid that Annie had resolved to grab her whole from a life

that held her tight and she sensed this resolve roaming outside in

the city wild and persistent. And Victoria had run from her twice

now.

She jumped at the knock on her door and pulled her robe

tighter around her waist. Rosemary came in with a vase of roses.

“Welcome back,” she said placing them on Victoria’s little table.

“They’re beautiful,” Victoria said in surprise. “What made you

do it?”

Rosemary arranged the roses a second time. “I bought a dozen

for Claudia, but they looked so much like you I knew I should give

them to you too.”

“Looked like me?” Victoria asked, fingering the red buds.

“Beautiful, but closed still, just on the verge of straining open.”

Victoria looked at her friend, alarmed at such a personal

comment. “Would you like to stay for awhile? I brought some

cookies back from that bakery you like.”

“No, I should go back to the room. Claudia’s almost finished

with her paper.”

“Please stay, Rosemary,” Victoria asked, surprised at herself. “I

need to talk to you.”

Rosemary looked at Victoria for the first time, her small brown

eyes elongated by the braid she wore so tightly platted. “Of course,

if you need to,” she said and sat down, smoothing her long gray

skirt.

Victoria began to pace again. “How did you feel when you first

suspected you might be a lesbian?”

“Oh, Victoria, it wasn’t a matter of suspecting myself,”

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Rosemary said quickly, snapping her head up.

“All right,” Victoria said. She didn’t really want to know. “What

was it then?” she asked despite herself.

“Oh,” Rosemary sighed, “it was such a feeling of relief to know I

could love women completely!”

“You weren’t uncomfortable with it at all?”

“As I said in my poem—and I think you should admit that I won

our poetry duel,” Rosemary winked at Victoria as she rose to

adjust the roses again, “‘Not racked so much by dreams as by/ the

aspirations I might fill with you. . . .’ How could I be

uncomfortable? It’s the right thing to do. And already we have a

future far beyond what I had imagined. One of the women in the

poetry group is an assistant in a lab where they’re working on

cloning,” she looked at Victoria expectantly.

Victoria felt annoyed again. “Yes?” she asked shortly, sitting on

the edge of the bed.

“With cloning we don’t need men.” Her eyes sparkled. “No

woman will need a man. We can love each other and reproduce.

Men will become vestigial organisms!”

Victoria wondered why she was even flirting with the idea of

lesbianism if it had made Rosemary this crazy. “What’s wrong with

men? For the women who want them I mean.”

“I can’t understand how anyone could tie herself to an

oppressor. You don’t want a man.” Rosemary bore down on

Victoria. “Join us! We’ll support you.”

Victoria looked at the excited eyes, the limp braid hanging in

front of Rosemary as she leaned over Victoria. Some kind of crazy

rapture seemed to possess Rosemary and Victoria knew that

whatever she decided about Annie Heaphy it would bear no

resemblance to this politicized love, this sexual exercise of a

philosophy. This was not real; it was passion, but not love. As little

as Victoria knew about love, she recognized its tenderness, its

need to revere the loved one and to be held special by her. Love

could not derive from politics, nor could it survive and provide the

sustenance humans needed from it if its energy was directed, as

Rosemary directed hers, away from the lover. Claudia seemed

almost irrelevant for Rosemary, except for the statement their

relationship made.

“I don’t know if I’m a lesbian, Rosemary, but I will think about

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it,” Victoria concluded. “I really think I’d like to be alone now.”

Rosemary straightened. “All women are lesbians, Victoria.

There’s nothing to be afraid of.” She walked toward the door,

looking over her shoulder as she opened it and stepped out. “Come

out, Victoria!” and was gone.

Victoria sighed in relief wondering why in the world she had

asked. The answer, she was sure, was in herself and not in

Rosemary. Although Rosemary might be hiding her feelings

behind her rhetoric, hers was not the face of love Victoria

envisioned. Annie’s face assembled between her eyes and the light

of the candle. She remembered the hopeful look on her face at the

bottom of the steps and her own panic as she turned and fled. The

face swam, grew larger in the flame, the yellow of its hair a halo

whose light warmed Victoria. She lay carefully, gracefully upon the

ice blue spread of her bed. A few moments for myself, she thought

as she fell further into a heated fantasy, then I’ll start work on that

paper.

* * * *

The winter sun slipped around the edges of Annie Heaphy’s

green, cracked window shades to bother her eyes. They hurt

somewhere where they attach to my brain, she thought as she

picked her head up and forced her feet to the floor. Foghorns

sounded distantly, as if in the dreamworld she was leaving. It

wasn’t as cold as she expected and she went through her morning

routine hardly waking until she stepped out of the shower. Then

she heard pounding on the door. “She found me,” was her first

crazy thought and she remembered in a flash the dreams in which

she had foolishly indulged yesterday before drowning them.

Running to her bed, she pulled on last night’s pants and shirt as

she yelled, “Be right there!” Her heart beat faster, then her face fell

as she opened the door to her landlord. “That time, huh?” she

asked, turning from him as he followed her into the living room.

Annie began to search for her checkbook, hoping the rent check

would not bounce again, while the landlord sat on the edge of her

desk. “Don’t forget,” he said, chewing his cigar. Annie sat and

looked up at the tiny bald man who was so devoted to disturbing

his clients that he kept his father’s habit of collecting rents

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himself. “I like to keep an eye on my property,” he’d explained

once to Annie, peering into her bedroom, bathroom,

surreptitiously inspecting the papers on her desk. Annie

remembered thinking disgustedly of his property, most of it run

down like her own shack. She felt utterly at his mercy, helpless to

protest his probing. She remembered to put on her cap and pull it

tight over her wet hair.

“Don’t forget what?”

“You be ready to leave by June thirty, dear. In case I got

summer people starting that weekend.”

“Christ, it’s only February.”

“Just don’t give me no trouble. You find someplace else to take

your girlfriends,” he warned as he slid off the desk, brushed the

back of his coat, and tucked Annie’s check inside it.

“How much would it cost me to buy this place?” Annie asked on

impulse.

The landlord looked at her suspiciously. “Where would you get

that kind of money?”

“It couldn’t be that much for a four-room, falling apart shack.”

“With a porch facing the Sound,” he shot back. “But it might be

worth more to me sold than it would keeping it, the way I have to

fix it up every year. I’ll let you know kid, but meanwhile, don’t

forget June thirtieth.”

“I’ll be out,” Annie answered nastily.

She slammed the door on his tiny, sauntering back. “Damn your

beady rat eyes,” she finished and turned to face her home. How

much I’ve given up for this, she thought. How little it is after all.

She walked to the window, wondering if it was last night’s liquor

that made her feel so depressed. The landlord was next door and

his long white car obscured her view of the beach. Her hair

blended with the heatless light at the window when she took her

hat off and flung it to the floor. She gripped the window frame.

“Shit,” she whispered, breaking out of the light as she shook her

head. “You bastard-this is all I have!” she shouted at the house

into which he had disappeared. She drew back her fists and

pounded the wall with them one heavy, loud time. She felt so

attached to the house and let herself remember for a moment the

good times she had in it with her roommates. I need to fill it again,

she thought, with someone close and with more of myself. She

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pictured Vicky in the living room, trying to fit her in. Well, she

decided, it’s all I had, but it ain’t all I’m going to have.

Surely it meant something that Annie had found Victoria once

more. Fate? No, that sounded too much like the aunts back in

Chelsea. But something—perhaps some kind of energy-Peg called

it woman energy—drew them to each other. Could it be real? She

knew she felt something the first time, that first night, when she

looked at Vicky. There was some passion beneath Vicky’s reserve,

some great desire like her own to reach the depths of experience,

the heights of emotion, some burning, burning to have it all, but—

Annie felt Vicky’s greater discipline, now too much in control.

Annie knew she herself lacked the power to shape her energies and

that Vicky held such a power. Her own life had become self-

destructive, and Annie felt, in the intellect that was so obvious on

Vicky’s face, in the calm, graceful way she moved her woman’s

body, in the considered way she spoke, a way to learn control.

Annie wanted as desperately to feel productive in what she did as

she wanted to live to her limits.

Unlike her attractions to some other women, attractions which

had seemed so strong, Annie did not feel an end in this attraction

to Vicky. Other relationships had a kernel of self-destruction at

their core, a feeling that made Annie want to take what she could

and run. From Vicky, Annie felt no ending, but an opening, a

doorway to a path. She sat on her desk and looked past where the

landlord’s car had been at the sand. She pictured Vicky and herself

hand in hand on a path in the mountains, barefoot, the grasses

and clover tickling their ankles. They climbed higher and higher.

At each new elevation they became giddier from the purity of the

air and their feelings. They never let go of each other’s hands, and

they lay down in meadows along the way. For a love like this what

would Annie not do! She sighed. Full of peace and passion, she

began to assemble her things for work before she walked on the

beach. She would look into making this house her own and find a

way to make Vicky love her, she determined again. Her own

convictions would seduce her if her lesbian body could not. If she

could love Annie for herself, so much the better, but Annie did not

think of herself as lovable. And when she loves me? Will the circle

stop there? Will I really stop going round and round? She returned

to lean her forehead against the window and looked sadly again

Toothpick House | 94

toward the shore. Virginia Woolf had stopped her circle by walking

straight into the sea, she thought. Maybe I’m going to drive around

in circles all my life just to be safe. Who the hell knows what’s

straight ahead?

* * * *

“Time passes slowly up here on the mountain,” Victoria sang to

herself. She generally listened to classical music, but she had been

restless through the last long weeks of winter, visited with

Rosemary and Claudia and some of the other women in the poetry

group, listened to the music which they played for her timidly,

wanting her approval. She had always moved among them aloof,

wearing her scholarship and her talents like a gown she did not

want soiled. They knew her by reputation, admired or rejected her

from afar, but welcomed her warm charm when she offered it. So

Victoria sang a little of their surprisingly moving music as she

walked across campus toward the Core restaurant. She was to

meet Rosemary and Claudia there and go on to a Women’s Poetry

Group meeting. Victoria knew they would try again to interest her

in joining, in sharing her own poetry. But poetry was such a

private thing and she was still frightened of the women’s politics in

which they were involved. It was not what Victoria was looking for,

not what would soothe her unaccustomed restlessness. She looked

up as she crossed the street to the Core. No cars were coming, but

she felt a faint thud of excitement in her chest as she noticed a

yellow cab turning the corner on the next street up. She had not

seen the cab driver again, though she still came into Victoria’s

fantasies irritatingly often. Except for that, Victoria had decided

lesbianism and love were passing phases for her and ignored their

brief intrusion into her ordered days. Even the constant reminder

of Claudia and Rosemary’s relationship had faded in importance.

The Core was warm. She moved down the cafeteria-style line to

get a mug of coffee, paid, and stood looking for Rosemary and

Claudia. They were not along the bare brick walls or by the

window which was bright with the late winter sunlight. She carried

her mug to a dark corner table and sat on the old wooden chair,

glad she had brought a book and hoping no one would approach

her while she waited. She did not touch her coffee, wondering

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again why she was exposing herself to a situation like this when

she could just stay in her room or on campus where people did not

question her inaccessibility. She heard the door open and looked

covertly up to see if Rosemary and Claudia had arrived. Against

the bright doorway a dark figure stood peering across the sawdust-

covered floor. The cabdriver started walking toward her.

As she walked toward Victoria, Annie’s head hurt with the

knowledge that what she was doing was real. She was not having a

fantasy, but acting it out. A few moments ago she had been

grinding her cab and herself through the day, thinking about

finding another job, moving to another town, cleaning up her

house. Then she had spotted the long-haired figure moving

gracefully across the street. She had had to turn the corner

because of the traffic, but maneuvered her way through a maze of

one way streets until she was on the one Victoria had crossed. Half

expecting her to have stopped and waited, Annie went into reverse

and labored the bulky cab into a portentously lucky parking spot,

beating out another car which had been poised to take it. She

called in to the dispatcher that she was going to lunch and heard,

“Who do you think you are, the Queen of England?” before she

shut off the set and locked the cab. Sweating in the still cool air she

paused at the curb to think. Victoria could have gone into any shop

or around the corner or into a Yale building she couldn’t check!

And here was Annie, marching along the street confident she

would find her. With no clues at all, she decided for once to be

methodical and went to the beginning of the row of businesses.

She could not picture Vicky in The Core, but then she did not

know her at all and here she was again suddenly, miraculously, as

if the curves and angles of her face had always been near and

almost touchable. Now what? Annie asked herself, but had no time

to wonder for suddenly she was shuffling her scuffed shoes in the

sawdust, making patterns with the toes, painfully aware that she

had never since she bought them polished them. “How have you

been?” she was asking as if she saw this woman every night at the

bar.

“Fine, thank you,” answered Victoria, with an amused and

haughty expression on her face. Then she leaned forward, offering

her limp hand to Annie. “It’s Annie Heaphy, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Annie. Listen, if you’re going to be here for awhile, let me

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get a beer and I’ll ... I mean, if you’re not waiting for someone. Or

busy. I mean, if you don’t mind.” Annie was feeling desperate,

awkward and out of place, as if she had made a terrible mistake.

All of that first feeling was gone, replaced by this awful pleading

she was doing. “I need,” she paused, improvising, “I need to talk to

you,” she finally blurted out, knowing she was putting a one-sided

strain on any conversation that she could not fulfill, but knowing

also that she would not be turned away.

“Of course,” answered the cool Victoria. Victoria, what a name,

thought Annie as she went to the counter for beer. I would die of

embarrassment with a name like that. She tried to think of a

subject she could pretend she needed to talk to Vicky about.

Besides her chances of getting into bed with her immediately.

Wouldn’t Peg holler at her for being so sexist, but damn it, wasn’t

that what this pursuit was all about? Of course I want to go to bed

with her. Annie chuckled and the kid in the dirty white uniform

behind the counter smiled back at her. But, she sighed, the butch

in her melting, she wanted so much more than that.

As Annie turned back with her beer she saw that two women

were sitting with Victoria. Holy Christ, she thought. What an idiot.

Of course she was waiting for someone. Then she recognized

“Sister” and her friend. Would Victoria expect her to talk in front

of her? Annie stopped short and drank half her beer. They had not

gotten anything to eat, so they might just be meeting. Then a

miracle happened. The women rose and scurried away from

Victoria as if they had been dismissed. Annie felt a little less of a

fool as “Sister’s” friend knocked over a chair on her hurried way

across the restaurant.

Laughing softly to cover her embarrassment, Victoria asked

herself, “What am I doing?” She watched poor Claudia pick up the

chair she had tripped over in her rush to leave Victoria alone with

her “dyke.” Claudia looked back at Victoria with an embarrassed

smile. Then Annie stood above her and Victoria felt her face torn

away from Claudia to look directly into the pain-filled eyes that

pleaded at her from under Annie’s cap. They looked away from

each other, trying to hide, and looked at the window. Rosemary

and Claudia were passing slowly outside, looking in toward them

in a proprietary way. Victoria imagined that Rosemary gave herself

full credit for bringing herself and Annie Heaphy together again.

Lee Lynch | 97

When Victoria had said she would join them later, after a beer

with the little blonde woman from the bar in New York, nothing

would have kept Rosemary there. If she could, Victoria suspected,

she would have escorted the two to the nearest bedroom and stood

outside the door until Victoria could announce that she had come

out. Claudia had tripped when Rosemary swung back to stage

whisper to Victoria an urgent message about a woman’s dance.

Surely she did not expect Victoria to ask a strange woman to go to

a dance. But perhaps she would, Victoria smiled to herself, feeling

as if Annie’s presence made anything possible.

She watched Annie wipe a mustache of beer off her upper lip

and smiled more widely, shaking her head.

“Is something wrong, Vicky?” Annie asked as if ready to fight a

war to fix it.

“That looks good. What do you ask for, a glass of beer?”

Annie relaxed and smiled back at Victoria, then asked, “You

never had a beer?”

Victoria thought she had never seen a smile so light up a

person’s face. “Yes, but I’ve never ordered it for myself.”

“A draft, then. That’s all you have to ask for. Or should I get it

for you?”

“No, no. I want to do it myself. How else will I learn?” Victoria

asked, laughing as if to mock herself.

“Get two, then, please,” Annie said, reaching to her pocket as

she drained the other half of her mug.

“Let me pay. You’re my guest.”

“I am?”

She looks like a little child with the weight of the world on her

shoulders, Victoria thought, amazed that this person was in her

life. She thought of the child’s face, so familiar in her room,

hovering over her in bed. The child’s lips which she had

remembered so accurately from those first meetings. Then she was

carrying two overflowing mugs back to the table and they were

both laughing at her clumsiness in setting them down.

“Anne, Anne,” Victoria marvelled, shaking her head back and

forth.

Annie looked up at her puzzled, her soft blue eyes asking for an

explanation. “Here,” she said, “let me take one of those.”

“With anyone else, I’d be cross by now and probably leaving,”

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Victoria confessed. The flood of warmth and the sudden feeling of

relaxation she felt had loosened her. She smiled a wide brilliant

smile at Annie, looking into her eyes.

Annie felt a blush rise up her neck and into her face. She

thought she would be blinded by Victoria’s smile. All she could do

was smile back, feeling as if she had been hit by a wave. They sat

frozen by their smiles too long. Annie felt she had to cover the

frankness of her own gaze or tell Vicky she had fallen in love with

her. Or touch her. She laid her index finger gently on Victoria’s

wrist, half expecting her to jump away. “Did you ever feel like the

sea opened up and you were the naked wet thing that emerged?”

she asked her, wondering at her boldness. “Did you ever feel the

earth disassemble around you and then feel the pieces slowly fall

back into their new places and know the world would never be the

same again? Did you ever wonder if you were real?”

“Yes, to all three,” Victoria said, still looking into Annie’s eyes.

“When I was a kid,” Annie went on, “I used to walk down to the

football field and across it to the train tracks. I’d walk along them,

full of the big feeling of the field I’d crossed and imagine I could

just keep walking forward along the tracks and they’d never, never

end.” She sighed. “In the summer the grass on the field was so

damn green and the tracks stretched into the bluest sky I ever saw.

Everything was new and possible. I haven’t felt like that in a long

time.” The blush which had left her face now returned as if she had

just realized she was saying these things to a perfect stranger.

Victoria’s smile felt strained, frozen. She wanted to respond to

Annie, but couldn’t think of anything to say. She shook her head

again, trying to look sympathetic, wanting to tell Annie to go on.

Even her name is delicious, she thought, her faded smile returning

to her, Annie, Anne, so regal one way, so common the way Annie

used it. And herself as Vicky. She never allowed that, but she

couldn’t imagine Annie calling her anything else. She wanted to

lay her lips on Annie’s fine hair. “I used to lie on the grass and try

to feel how big the sky was,” she said finally, remembering Central

Park.

Annie nodded, understanding. She moved to lay her hand again

on Victoria’s before she realized that it might be too much, too

forward of her. She lifted her cap and brushed her hair back from

her forehead with her sleeve, studying Victoria’s face to fix in her

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mind what she looked like. Eleanor was right, the face was only

partially formed, but Annie yearned to touch the planes and curves

of it as they grew, to somehow help mold them. She knew they

could not sit and stare at each other any longer, unless she said

what was on her mind. Was it too soon? She did not even know if

the woman was gay. Annie made an abrupt movement to bring her

mug to her lips. Then she swung it out in a toast. “To the sky.”

Victoria lifted her mug too. “To the tracks.”

“Like it?” Annie asked.

Victoria made a face. “Kind of bitter. What kind is it?”

“Oh, Bud, Miller, Schlitz. Who knows? They all taste the same.”

“I’ve tasted Heineken before, but I remember it being much

creamier.”

“Maybe you had the dark beer.”

“Could be,” Victoria agreed. She was thinking of her childhood

and of the wonderful feeling she got each time she made a friend

and they began to know each other. It was similar to this, but

without this sensuality. And each time her parents would uproot

her, change her school, or ship her to the relatives on Long Island.

After a while she had learned to stop friendships before they

mattered. It was just too painful to lose that feeling every time it

happened. She had not felt it in years. How could she tell that to

Annie, though. Victoria felt the words locked inside her. Against

everything she felt, Victoria heard herself say, “I have to join my

friends after this, you know. It was rather rude of me to chase

them away.” Fool! she called herself. Why was she saying this?

Annie’s smile had fallen.

“I’m sorry to have butted in. I’ve got to get back to work

anyway. All I wanted to talk to you about was, well, I acted kind of

mad in the cab that day and I didn’t mean to put you off. I didn’t

know you were you, if you know what I mean.”

Victoria remembered Annie’s pale, sleeping face as she had seen

it in the cab. And who do you think I am, Anne, she wondered as

she tried to think of a response. Out loud she said, “I think I do,”

but she had closed up inside, had felt herself snap shut like a trap,

an empty trap, tripped by its innocent prey. She was

uncomfortable about having been in a gay bar and the meaning of

her presence there to Annie. And her own feelings had begun to

frighten her.

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Annie felt Victoria’s distance. She had started moving;

buttoning and unbuttoning her jacket, neatening the table, looking

at Victoria and then away. “Do you think,” she stuttered, knowing

that she was going about it all wrong, scaring Victoria even worse,

“do you think you might like to meet me for dinner sometime?”

Victoria was silent. “Maybe Wednesday night?” Annie tried to keep

the plea out of her voice and sound reassuring. “We could meet at

Yale. Go to The Pub.”

Victoria was lightheaded with anxiety, but even more afraid of

the yawning despair that grew inside her as she began to make an

excuse and say no. “All right,” she said, “Yes, I’d like that.”

“Seven okay? Here and we’ll walk over?” Annie asked. When

she saw Victoria’s nod, her attempt at a smile, that was enough for

her. She rushed away, almost upsetting the same chair Claudia

had tipped over, escaping like a scared rabbit out the door. Behind

her she had left the remains of her own image. She was just Annie

Heaphy scurrying away, leaving her fate in the hands of that

beautiful woman. She would never be able to see herself as a cool

butch again. Her cab, when she reached it, looked huge, too big for

her to handle. She slid into the driver’s seat and slumped for

awhile to recover a fragment of her composure. Behind her also

she had left a relieved and apprehensive Victoria. A Victoria who

held the promised dinner to herself like a lifebuoy.

CHAPTER FIVE

They paused at The Pub’s entrance, adjusting their eyes to its

darkness as they waited to be shown to a booth. A young man in

sharply creased black pants, a white shirt and black tie walked

toward them with quick, tiny steps. “Hiya, Sonny,” Annie grinned.

“Annie, sweetheart, aren’t you on the wrong side?” Sonny

asked, raising his eyebrows to see her in the restaurant and not the

gay bar that was its complement.

“Not tonight, Sonny,” Annie answered, glancing, embarrassed,

toward Victoria.

“Oh, I see. Come with me ladies,” he winked at Annie, turning

to lead them to the last booth. He set wine lists and menus before

them as they slid in. “Enjoy your evening—and your dinner.”

Victoria faced the back glass wall of the restaurant and noticed the

blueness of the winter twilight fading as it would from her

imagined skylight. She ran her hands along her thighs, feeling the

softness that had come into her new jeans as she washed them.

Annie’s face was glowing in the dim light of their table when she

turned back to her.

“Sonny’s a Yalie, too,” Annie said. “But he wants to be a dancer.

His father’s some bigshot out west and won’t hear of it, so Sonny’s

working, trying to flunk out and save money to go to New York.

Poor guy. His father could probably buy him a ballet company. But

he’s got guts. Hey,” she smiled mischievously, “want a yard of ale?”

She knew that she was rambling out of nervousness, but went on,

pointing to a printed card propped under the yellow lamp that

barely lit their table.

Victoria looked at Annie as if to decide whether she was joking

and laughed. “May I suggest instead that we see if they have any

wines we’d like?” and immediately became frightened Annie

would feel rejected by her decision.

“Sure,” Annie smiled timidly. She set her cap toward the back of

her head and admitted, “I don’t know much about wine. Outside of

the old standbys.”

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“Well, I’ll tell you what I know and you tell me what the old

standbys are.”

“That’s easy: Almaden, Mateus, the popular ones. I used to like

Catawba Pink. But that,” Annie added emphatically, “was because

of Thomas Wolfe.”

“Thomas Wolfe?”

“Haven’t you read him?” Annie asked, looking surprised and

even concerned.

“I read half of one of his books. Last summer. I bought the

paperback that was out. But he’s so—undisciplined.”

Annie saw the look of distaste on Victoria’s face. “That’s one

thing I like about him. I read him in high school and he was like a

key to life. He was so full of passion and oh—he made everything

sound so beautiful and sad just when I was discovering how

beautiful and sad everything is. You know? I mean, I’d go to the

Boston Gardens and watch the swanboats go around the pond or

ride on one myself when I had the money and everything was lush

and bursting, even the boats’ colors, people’s clothing, and we’d

get to that part of the ride where the old oriental lantern is—have

you been there? And I’d get such a pang of sadness. Like, it’s all

been going on so long, over and over, here and in China and a

billion adolescents feeling like I felt and a trillion leaves blooming

over and over and it was so full, so much, that it hurt.” Annie

paused, the plea for understanding leaving her face as self-

consciousness took over. “Anyway, he wrote about a place called

Catawba so the wine always held a lot of promise for me.”

Victoria had been watching Annie intently. “I think I

understand,” she said slowly, rubbing her finger across one

cheekbone, in a way Annie wished she could. “Or I want to

understand and that’s why I’m drawn to you. I sensed your

fullness, your love of life, when we first met. I want to feel like

that.” Her eyes, to Annie’s surprise, held tears. She was asking

Annie to teach her something, just as Annie hoped Vicky would

share what she was with her. “Let’s see,” Victoria continued,

composing herself quickly (like she’s scared of me, Annie thought),

“let’s see what the Pub has to offer.” Annie picked up her list and

seemed to devote all her attention to it. Worried that she wasn’t

the way Victoria saw her, she shrugged her shoulders to shake off

her intensity and match Victoria’s new mood. She lifted her cap

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and ran her fingers through her hair, then pushed the list toward

Victoria. “You pick.”

“All right. Here’s your Mateus. But do you feel adventurous?”

Victoria asked in a tone that sought adventure.

“Sure,” Annie responded immediately, meeting Victoria’s eyes,

ceasing to fidget.

“They have a few German wines. I had a friend once . . . Ah,

Zellar Schwarze Katz. Let’s try theirs.”

“Zellar which cats?”

“Schwarze. It’s a Moselle. A white wine. Very dry. Do you think

you’d like it?”

“I love Almaden White Mountain.”

“Then you may like this,” Victoria smiled gently, almost

protectively, at Annie.

“Are you ready to order dinner?” a smiling, red-haired waitress

asked, suddenly appearing in their small circle of light. She broke

into a hum after her question.

“Oh, dinner,” Annie smiled, pulling her cap over her eyes.

“Forgot all about dinner,” she scolded Victoria, shaking her head

and wagging her finger playfully.

Victoria laughed. “Why don’t you bring us a bottle of Zeller

Schwarze Katz and we’ll give you our order then.”

The waitress hummed in response, smiling broadly, bobbing

her head and writing on her pad as she hummed her way to the

bar.

“I always eat the same thing here,” Annie said. “Is it okay to

have steak and kidney pie with white wine?” she whispered,

leaning close enough to Victoria to smell a faint perfume.

“I don’t really know. Kidneys?” Victoria asked, making a face.

“Yeah. They’re good. My father used to make my mother cook

them although she hated them. Listen, you probably love caviar

and junk like that.”

“Why do you assume that?”

“Oh, it’s a cabbie joke. They call Yalies the Caviar Kids. Anyway,

I think that stuff is gross. Fish eggs!”

“All right,” Victoria laughed. “I like fish eggs. You win. If you let

me taste the kidney.”

“Okay. And I’ll take my chances on the etiquette.”

“To tell you the truth, Anne,” Victoria took her turn to whisper

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and leaned closer to Annie, “I don’t really care. I’m not that

impressed with the this-enhances-that theory of wine drinking.”

“You’re not?”

“No. And to prove it, I’ll have a steak. Oh, my parents would be

shocked. But then, they would order French wine.”

“But you like German better?”

“Tonight I do.” Victoria answered, glancing quickly at Annie’s

lips and feeling herself redden.

“You started to say something about a friend and German wine

before?”

“Etta. You remind me of her—in spirit.” Victoria paused, feeling

the flush covering her neck and face. “Her family is German. She

introduced me to the wines. Or, I should say, made me appreciate

them.” She looked up when she heard the waitress humming

above them. “Ah. Here’s our wine.”

The waitress, still humming, tipped the open bottle at Annie

and poured a half inch into her glass. Annie turned red and stared

at it. She pulled off her cap, shrugged and tasted the wine. Then,

not looking up, she nodded toward the waitress. Victoria watched

Annie’s head come up when the waitress hummed away, sounding

like a bee buzzing on to another flower. “I’m sorry,” Annie said. “I

know I look like a guy. She’s new here. I hope it didn’t embarrass

you.”

“Oh, is that why she gave it to you to taste?” Victoria asked.

“That, I guess, plus the goddamned stupid idea that a woman

can’t tell if the wine is any good herself and has to be allowed to

drink it by a goddamned idiot man.”

Victoria was shocked by Annie’s sudden bitterness. “You don’t

speak in theories, do you?” Annie looked puzzled. “The women

who call themselves feminists at school,” Victoria explained, “talk

feminist theory till I’m ready to scream. But what you just said and

the way you said it, makes feminism more real to me than hours of

their talk.”

“My only theory,” Annie answered, putting her hat back on

savagely, “is if you ain’t born one, you ain’t one.”

“Then let me exercise my birthright and pour the wine. Maybe

that will balance out your tasting it.”

“Perfect. But I ought to learn how to handle that. You know,

without getting everybody uptight.”

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Victoria twirled the bottle expertly as she poured. “Graciously?

It wouldn’t hurt. Let’s see. How about, ‘Thank you, we’ll finish

pouring?’”

“Hey, how come I can’t think of things like that?” Annie asked,

seeking Victoria’s eyes behind their glasses.

Victoria smiled. “Probably because you speak from your heart

against oppression and I speak from my head to gloss things over.

I’m good at that sort of thing.”

Annie stopped watching the wine and frowned toward Victoria,

as if concerned about her. “Well,” she said, raising her glass, “I

won’t drink to you putting yourself down, but I will drink to

something else that’s a fact, not theory.” She paused while Victoria

lifted her glass and raised her eyebrows expectantly. “That every

woman has it in her heart to say.” Victoria nodded slowly, hating

herself for noting the contradiction in Annie’s reasoning, and

touched her glass to Annie’s while Annie’s eyes touched hers. They

drank. “I feel much less bitter now. Thank you for understanding,”

Annie said, shivering as she thought that this dinner which

seemed to progress so painfully slowly would remain one of the

clearest and most detailed of her memories all her life.

“No, thank you,” Victoria paused. “Thank you for your insights.”

“It’s good,” Annie indicated the wine. “Etta has good taste.”

“Or had. I haven’t seen her for years. Since I came to Yale.”

Victoria’s eyes wandered back to the now black window.

“Hiya, Annie!” a rough voice growled affectionately as a fist shot

out in front of Victoria’s line of vision and punched Annie’s upper

arm.

“Hi, Turkey. What are you doing out so early?”

“Trying to get a head start on you. But you beat me again,” the

heavy woman laughed loudly while Annie drained her glass as if to

fortify herself.

“Turkey, this is Vicky,” Annie said slowly, seeming to relish the

name. “Vicky, this is Marieanne, but everyone calls her Turkey

‘cause it’s easier. And true!”

“Hey!” Turkey objected, continuing her banter with Annie while

Victoria watched. She recognized Turkey from the bar. Turkey did

not stop smiling for a moment and laughed at the end of every

sentence. “Join us later if you can,” she laughed to Annie,

including Victoria with her eyes.

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“If you’re still on your feet,” Annie laughed back.

Victoria waved and called, “Nice to meet you,” at the retreating

figure that did, with that crest of hair and the heavy-hipped, short-

stepped walk, look turkey-like. Annie was watching her face when

she looked back.

“She’s a lot of fun. Do anything for you,” Annie explained as if

she were self-conscious about Turkey. “Don’t worry. I won’t force

my crew on you.”

“Oh, but I’d like to spend some time with —” she hesitated at

the name “—Turkey. After we know each other better.” They were

both silent for a moment under the promise that seemed to have

been made with Victoria’s words.

Then Annie whispered, “Here comes the Hummer.” Victoria

pulled her hair back from her ears and made a show of the

humming sound becoming too loud to bear as the waitress came

toward them. When Annie unobtrusively pretended to cut off the

sound as a conductor would, Victoria burst into laughter. Annie

joined her.

“Ready to order now?” the Hummer asked cheerfully, rolling on

the balls of her feet to the jukebox in the bar.

Annie looked at Victoria. “Yes, yes,” Victoria answered and,

wiping tears from her eyes, gave their orders. “That wasn’t fair,”

she scolded Annie when the Hummer left.

“But so true,” Annie defended herself, leaning around the booth

to hear her hum out of sight. “So tell me about your German friend

who bathed in wine,” she asked, more comfortable now that they

had shared something and laughed together.

“No, no,” Victoria protested laughingly, suddenly realizing the

barriers she and Annie had broken down. “God, her family was

much too staid to allow that! Although, like me, she was brought

up on wine. For Etta, though, it was because her family was newly

arrived from Europe while mine has been here so long we’re in the

second generation of returning to European customs.”

“A Mayflower person?”

“Not quite. Probably a runaway deported English thief. But an

early one who learned how to steal legally over here. He probably

never drank anything but stout in his life.”

“Maybe he drank with my ancestors. Some of them were Irish

stout drinkers. And probably from the same circles.”

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“Then where did you get such blonde hair?” Victoria gestured

toward it, almost touching it, but pulling back when Annie felt that

her heart could beat no faster.

“Oh, Indian blood,” Annie joked, breathing again. “No, really,

it’s a wig.” She tugged at a tuft of hair as if to slide a wig back and

forth.

Vicky laughed again, still shaken by the near touch. “You don’t

know?”

“I know all too well. My family’s from Chelsea. A grungy part of

Boston. I grew up in a dark three-story house in rows of dark

three-story houses all connected in the back by crisscrossing

clotheslines and telephone wires and porchrails. The Irish hated

the Italians and if you were Irish you were Irish—no further

inquiry needed. If you weren’t, you were Italian. However, my

mother is Swedish. And pays for it in that family. Now, I don’t

have any Anglo-Saxon friends. It’s hard to in Connecticut.”

“Unless you go to Yale,” Victoria sighed, pouring more wine.

“You don’t like it there?”

“They leave me alone.” She was silent, staring at her wine glass,

her head bent forward so that her hair fell over her face.

The restaurant was beginning to fill up. Sonny was scurrying

around to seat people while the Hummer buzzed from table to

table. The jukebox began to be played with more frequency.

Annie looked puzzled. “That’s a lot of money to pay to be left

alone.”

“That, I believe, was their intention.”

“Whose?”

“My parents. I spent my first two years at Hunter College. It’s a

city school and I was finally, slowly, meeting people, making

friends, after all those private schools. My friend Etta was a one-

of-a-kind in the high school I graduated from and was looked

down upon. They’ve shuttled me from one posh school to another

since I was five. But no matter where they enroll me, the girls were

always the same well-dusted, personality-deprived mannequins. I

would even have settled for transferring to Barnard—at least I

could have seen Etta as I did once in a while. She went to school

on Long Island.” Victoria picked up her wine glass and finished it.

Annie split the last wine in the bottle between them. “Its taste

reminds me of her, that’s all. I guess I’m nostalgic for high school

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and Hunter and our friendship, its richness, like you are for

Thomas Wolfe and your discovery of magic in the world.”

“Magic?”

“That’s how I think of it. Etta was only at our school because her

mother was the school nurse. They were from Queens, which, from

what I saw of it in Jamaica, must be a lot like your Chelsea.” She

smiled. “It’s only bad when you can’t escape. I loved it. Her family

was all of it made from the same mold. Short and not fat, but

fleshy, heavy. The way I always pictured the family in Mann’s

Buddenbrooks.” Victoria paused until Annie nodded familiarity. “I

have never seen anyone so mad for opera as that family. Their

house was dark, wedged in a block of houses between blocks of

new tall pink-brick apartment houses. Their father was one who

had refused to sell his house to the developers. The inside usually

smelled like a great German restaurant. I was always seated in the

parlor and I’d visit with Etta there in the middle of a cluster of

heavy dark furniture and spotless ceramic figurines that were

never moved. But from all over the house I could hear such a

confusion of operas! Everyone must have had a phonograph. Layer

on layer of opera: can you imagine it? All that incredible drama

just drifting in and out of rooms and up and down stairs and there

we sat, like the figurines who couldn’t hear. Her brothers would

come in to say hello very formally. Her mother and father would

sit with us for a minute or two each and Etta would be wild inside

her square, stocky body to leave for anyplace. But that, and my

parents’ apartment, were the only places where we could be alone

even a little bit.

“Except the parks. And we walked and walked in them. One day

in the spring of that year I remember Etta took me to a new park

out in Queens somewhere. It was so woodsy and such a beautiful

day. The birds, the flowers, just bursting, as you would say, with

song and color and all of a sudden Etta stopped. She put her hands

out in front of her and raised her chin so her throat was sharp and

clear against the woods and she sang. I never knew she could sing

so well, had been trained to sing. She sang a whole segment from

Hansel and Gretel; did you know it was an opera?

“Then I made her promise to take me to the opera, to share it

with me the way she loved it. We went. To her section of it:

standing room only. I’d only been in the orchestra where as many

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people twitched and fell asleep as listened. But in SRO the

electricity in the air was amazing.” Victoria tossed her head and

pulled her hair away from her face. Her eyes, on Annie’s, were like

knives, and so sharp and intent on making Annie understand or

perhaps be there with her that Annie looked impaled, she was so

still.

“And the people were more amazing. There were old people

planning to spend hours standing to hear and see this opera.

There were really young kids who barely budged during the

performance. There was a ‘regular,’ Etta called him, wearing a

black cape with a red satin lining and dyed black hair with a

drawn-on widow’s peak and eyebrows penciled into sharp points.

He looked like some sort of phantom of the opera. There was a

midget who brought a stool to stand on. And there were just as

many average, ordinary citizens who looked like Etta’s father, like

construction workers or like her mother, housewives and nurses.

And they all spoke to one another like old friends on a long-

awaited outing. Anne, I could see how a child brought up in that

atmosphere would not be able to escape being ‘an opera nut,’ as

Etta called herself, no matter what else she was. She and one of

her brothers had been saving money since he was ten and she was

eight to go to operas in Europe. That I learned when Etta began to

speak with two women next to us. They had been to Salzburg the

year before and Etta wanted to know every detail. They told her,

too. Then the two women held hands throughout the whole

performance.”

Victoria’s cheeks were flushed. Neither of them had paid any

attention when the Hummer, matching her hum to the jukebox,

set their dishes before them. “That’s when I knew what I was

feeling about Etta,” Victoria said almost in a whisper. She sat up,

pushed her hair back again and picked up her silverware as if to

make her words more casual. “I went home that night and told my

parents I would be going to Hunter when I graduated. I should

have been devious. I should have said I wanted to be near

Broadway or some man or the stores in New York. They criticized

me and worried me so much about it that when, near the end of

my freshman year, Yale announced it would be co-ed in another

year, I agreed to transfer. ‘That way, at least,’ my father said, ‘I

may get a son-in-law from the old school,’ his alma mater. If I had

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been more like you I suppose I could have withstood their

disapproval better, but I’d been too protected and had too few

resources of my own.” She shook her head slowly and looked down

at her plate, her lips tight across her angular face, devoid of all the

gloss of sophistication. She cut a piece of beef. “So here I am,

pampered product of generations of polishing.” She put the meat

in her mouth and began to chew.

“I’m glad, Vicky.”

Victoria looked up, the lines of her face all drawn down except

for her tight jaw.

“I’m glad for me that you’re here.”

Victoria finished chewing thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said with a

stiff smile. “Now I feel glad too. But there must have been an

easier way.” She wondered what had just been said. I am glad, she

thought in wonder. She looked at Annie’s ragged hair and her

grubby cap, her army jacket thrown beside her on the seat and

laughed a glad laugh, a suddenly loving laugh. “It hasn’t been easy

for you, either, though, has it? I’m sorry. That’s me. Always full of

myself.”

Annie broke into her meat pie. “I guess growing up is hard for

everybody. We’re always walking through the woods maybe not

even looking for a clearing or a stream or a friend who’s going to

open up the path for us with a song. We’re always getting

scratched or catching poison ivy. How come, anyway,” she asked,

laying down her forkful of meat and sipping some wine, “how

come we’re allergic to the bad things and they spread so quick?

How come we can’t be allergic to the good stuff instead so it comes

jumping out at us and flares up all over us—joy instead of red itchy

patches?”

“You’re right. We’re constantly avoiding the things we’re afraid

of. Sometimes so much so that we wander right off the path and

miss ‘the good stuff.’”

“Wander right off into your isolation?” Annie asked. “Into the

stillness that you carry around you? And into the circles I drive

around in all day, all night and again the next day, always moving

in circles? And you know what they tell us? ‘The Lord is my

shepherd, I shall not want. He leadeth me to lie down in green

pastures.’ Bah. We’re a bunch of bumbling, half-blind fools almost

losing the most important path of our lives. That man they call the

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lord doesn’t do anybody any good at all.” Annie had begun to eat,

but stopped to watch Vicky. “Not hungry?” she asked when Vicky

stopped also.

“Let’s order some coffee.”

“Sure, but tea for me, not coffee.”

“The Irish in you?” Victoria smiled weakly, looking drained.

“I suppose. I remember the women in my family—one aunt

lived on the first floor, another on the second, my grandmother on

the third, and we were next door—they were always visiting to

have a ‘cuppa tay.’ Or another aunt or a neighbor or a cousin or an

in-law would come and it would be tea. I tried to break out of it at

school, but couldn’t.”

“Where did you go to school?” Victoria asked as the waitress

hummed away with their plates of cold, uneaten food.

“There wasn’t any money, but I lived at home and I got a

scholarship to Boston College. So I commuted,” Annie shrugged.

“What happened?”

Annie shrugged again and muttered, “I lost my lover.” She held

her breath, afraid to be bringing up the subject of lesbian lovers.

“And quit school?”

“Just that one.”

The Hummer brought apertifs to their table. “Compliments of

friends in the bar,” she smiled over her shoulder as she left.

“Turkey’s trying to get me drunk as usual,” Annie said wryly

and raised her glass for a toast. “To the woods—and the sky,” she

added, remembering their toast at the Core.

“And the path—and the tracks!” Victoria answered as they

clinked glasses. “Did you flunk out?”

“No. She wanted,” Annie could feel her heart stop again, but

Vicky still looked into her eyes, “a world more like the one it

sounds like you want to leave. She was happy as a Cliffey. I didn’t

want to be in the same city if I couldn’t be with her. And you can

see why I couldn’t be with her,” Annie gestured to herself, her hat,

her hair. “I’m a low class bar dyke. Good for a thrill,” she went on

bitterly, “not to spend her life with. She has ambitions. So I joined

some friends who had rented a little shack on the beach and six

months later they went back to Boston. With three paying we

could afford the place during the summer, but when they left I

couldn’t. I didn’t want to give up my shack so I quit school and

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started driving full time. I was working already, bartending at

night. Now I just put all my hours in driving.”

“Did you save your ‘shack?’”

“Just barely. I still have it. I asked the landlord how much he’d

sell it for, but I haven’t seen him since. It means a lot to me to have

a home of my own to go to, even if I don’t always want to go home.

I like having a place to call mine,” Annie said, a faraway look on

her face.

“And if you lost it?”

“I don’t want to think about it.”

“How about school?” Victoria asked to shift away from the

obviously painful subject. “Did you keep it up?”

“I finished with an Associates. I just couldn’t get into it, you

know? I’m not aiming for that big pie in the sky stuff. I like

driving. I can be myself. I liked bartending until business fell off

last summer. We’re too close to Provincetown.”

The wine was wearing off. They were tired from their intensity.

When the Hummer brought coffee and tea and their check, Annie

had her chin in her hands and was watching Victoria pour cream

into her coffee so slowly it kept its swirling shape.

“What do you think?” Annie asked. “Do you want to have a

drink with Turkey and the gang? I know you said you had to get

back to your books,” Annie added to protect herself from dashed

hopes.

“I do, Anne. I’m just so comfortable. I can’t face going out in the

cold.” And being alone again, Victoria thought. And dealing with

having said so much to this woman that I will probably hide now,

hide for all I’m worth and try never to see her again. She felt guilty

when Annie tried to help.

“Maybe it won’t be too cold. Spring is coming, you know. Can I

give you a ride?”

“No, it’s not that far. You’d just have to find another parking

space.”

“And I have no heater. Can I walk with you?”

Victoria smiled with some relief from the despair that showed

briefly in her eyes. “That would be fine. Yes, let’s. I don’t even

really want this coffee, do you?”

“I’m out the door.”

They stopped to pay their check and Victoria pulled her gloves

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on. Annie threw her coat over her shoulders, then jammed her

arms into it, knocking off her cap with the coat’s hood. She

stooped to pick it up and felt Vicky’s hand ruffling her hair as she

got up. She straightened slowly, Victoria’s hand resting on her

shoulder. Two gay men pushed in through the door, chattering,

unseeing, and separated them. Annie set the cap on her head and

led the way out the door. Outside, Victoria shivered. Annie ran her

hand heavily across her back saying, “You’ll warm up as we walk.”

Victoria looked at her, nodding, then seemed to pull the cold night

like a protective cloak around herself.

So they walked, Victoria slightly taller, moving smoothly with a

long measured stride, her arms swinging quietly by her sides;

Annie, with shorter, choppier steps, putting her hands in her

pockets, then out to turn her collar up, then to her hat, back to her

pockets, as if she wanted to be doing something with her body in

addition to walking, as if it were not enough to walk down the

deserted college street in the frozen night next to this once again

cool, stately person. She kept looking up at Victoria, trying to meet

her eyes, seeking a smile. Victoria looked straight ahead as if to

prepare herself for loneliness. At the gate to her dormitory Victoria

turned suddenly and enveloped Annie in her arms, whispering,

“Goodnight.” Annie got her arms halfway up to return Victoria’s

embrace when Victoria turned away and, key somehow ready,

opened the gate, then locked herself inside. Her back to Annie, she

walked under the short archway and turned out of sight into a

courtyard. Annie leaned against the ornate black gate, pressing her

lips against it, gripping it with her gloveless hands and shook it.

“Shit,” she said, turning away. “Locked me right out again. Shit.”

* * * *

Annie Heaphy next saw Victoria at the women’s dance. The

New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Band was playing feminist

songs, intent on an expertise whose absence did not deter the

excited crowd of women from wild group dancing. Annie and the

rest of the group from the bar, girded for the dance by several

rounds in anticipation of a dry or punch-filled evening, made their

raucous way into the room only to stand about on the edge of the

crowd as if they had reached a cordon. They watched the women

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dance in threes or more and looked at one another, rolling their

eyes at these women who did not have the courage to dance in

couples. Peg had told them the political arguments against couples

and they still thought what they thought, while willing to

participate the “libbers” way because, wow, those were some

beautiful women. Annie, like the rest, could not quite believe that

these women were gay or would remain gay once the cause was no

longer popular. They had never run the risks of being caught or

suffered the ostracism of straight peers as the bar women had, and

it was as hard not to resent them for the newness of their coming

out as it was to resist joining them in this atmosphere of limited

acceptance or at least acceptance on their own grounds.

When Annie Heaphy noticed her, Victoria was seated alone in

a window seat, wearing a dark turtleneck sweater and jeans and

fitting right in. Annie felt like a slob in her army gear and went

looking for a bathroom to at least comb her hair. When she found

a mirror she saw that her hair was all flat from her cap. She put

her whole head under a faucet, hoping her hair was still short

enough to dry fast. She found gum in her jacket pocket and tried

to mask her beer smell with that. Leaving her jacket off, she

returned to the hall and stood with her friends who had barely

moved since she left. She stared at Victoria, ruffling her hair to

dry it fast, remembering how Vicky had ruffled it the week before.

Someone handed her a paper cup of punch and she downed it

immediately.

Victoria saw Annie too. She had been sitting and watching,

letting Rosemary or Claudia introduce her to women and bring

her punch. They wandered off only to return to take care of her,

Victoria thought, as if I have not always been alone. Still, she was

glad she had come. She did feel the “spirit” they had told her

about and she wished she could just abandon herself to it and join

in, but it was easier, safer, just to watch.

Now she watched Annie and her friends. They looked like poor

relations, uncomfortable in an alien atmosphere. Some wore hats,

one had a tie, a couple carried beer bottles. They stood

aggressively, almost belligerently, and seemed to be criticizing

what they saw. When she saw Annie Heaphy with them she

recognized Turkey and two others who had been at the bar in New

York. And now Annie was running her hand through that short

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blonde haircut and looking at her very seriously. Victoria tossed

her chin toward her shoulder to get her own hair away from her

eyes and gazed back at Annie Heaphy. Maybe it’s the punch, she

thought; I ought to look away. She was even more frightened than

she had been at their dinner.

Finally she saw Annie move when one of the circles of dancers

grabbed her and she began to dance with them. She did so

awkwardly, studiously, as if afraid to miss a step when all the

others were dancing with abandon. Victoria looked away to give

Annie more freedom and when she looked back Annie had thrown

herself into the dance and was smiling that wonderful smile. Still,

Victoria looked away again so that Annie would keep dancing and

then suddenly found herself being pulled into the circle. Oh, if it

had been anyone but Annie, she would have pulled rudely away.

Instead she could not let go and clung to Annie’s hand, following

her, careful not to lose the women behind her, soon completely

involved in this crazy ritual by the warmth of Annie Heaphy’s

hand.

When the song stopped Annie did not let go. They stood right in

front of the band, facing it, still holding hands, while the music

began again. Annie had felt more comfortable in motion, but Vicky

looked more relaxed like this. Annie felt the heat grow in her body

and knew that she had to communicate its intensity to Vicky soon.

Then Victoria’s eyes closed and she lowered her head. They turned

toward one another slowly. Annie waited for Victoria to lift her

head and say something, but when she did look up, she said

nothing, only looked with glazed eyes at Annie. “Do you want me

to let go?” Annie asked hoarsely. Victoria bit her lower lip and

shook her head, moving her long hair across her shoulders. The

longer they stood, holding hands, the more the crowd seemed to

recede. Electrical charges, Annie thought, going up and down our

arms, across our hands. Melting, my arm is melting down into her

hand, Victoria thought in sudden panic, but kept herself perfectly

still, as if the welding were accomplished.

The band went on with a slow, sensuous song. Annie made

herself move, move before the wavering light that was Victoria

and, never dropping her hand, took Victoria’s other hand in hers.

Victoria closed her eyes and pulled Annie’s arms around her. They

began to sway to the music in the cradle their arms made, locked

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together behind Victoria. Annie tilted her head up so her cheek

brushed Victoria’s jaw and her lips rested on her thick, sweet-

smelling hair. Victoria, seeing through a haze, part of which was

actual fog on her glasses, let her face in turn find Annie’s soft

yellow hair and she rested her lips gently upon it.

Annie whispered, “We better dance,” and before Victoria could

miss their stillness, Annie had broken the cradle and moved

closer, so close their hips, if they were to move them, must move

together. Annie’s arms settled around Victoria’s waist, her hands

lightly guiding the movement of Victoria’s hips. Victoria pulled her

arms back and let them drop across Annie’s shoulders, her hands

riding, closed, behind Annie. So they danced, Victoria’s body

beginning to feel as her arms had, as if she were melting into

Annie. Her vision blurred and became dark beyond the brightness

of Annie’s hair. Her hands, clasped behind Annie’s back, seemed

to be an oasis of discipline for her emotions. So we’re dancing,

Annie thought, breathless with the feel of Victoria’s breasts

beneath her sweater, just touching her own. She was stunned by

the gentle grinding of their pelvises to the band’s slow song. And

I’m under control, she thought, forcing all her will into her hands

to keep Victoria moving and into her legs to move herself.

The music had to stop. They dropped back from each other, no

longer touching, and tried each other’s eyes. Victoria was still bent

toward Annie and saw such taut excitement in Annie’s eyes she

felt ready to explode. Annie said, “Let’s get some air.” Like a horse

in blinders, Victoria followed the jeans and flannel shirt and

shining head before her as they skirted cleverly the edges of the

crowd and reached the door.

These refugees from the collective experience side-stepped

quickly out of view of the hall and shared each other’s eyes.

Victoria broke away, feeling too close to begging for the touch

she’d never felt before. Familiar with the building, she headed for

the mock trial room. She had been there enough to know the

ground even when Annie shut the door behind them and there was

only the vague light from two street lamps dimly outlining the

room. “Before a jury of my peers,” she admonished herself,

knowing that if she cared little about her peers before, they might

go hang themselves now. Reaching the platform to the side of the

jury chairs she gurgled a deep and quiet laugh, turning to Annie

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and saying very quietly, “The sentence is pronounced.”

Annie, not stopping, sat on the edge of the platform. “This is no

time for puns,” she laughed softly back as Victoria leaned against

the short wall that enclosed the chairs.

“Ohhh,” Victoria moaned as Annie swiveled to be beside her

and moved her index and middle fingers along Victoria’s nose and

cheeks as if exploring her. Victoria took one finger between her

lips, then touched it with her tongue. “Vicky,” Annie said as

Victoria lightly bit her finger. “Vicky, Vicky, Vicky,” she repeated,

her hands touching, touching everywhere on Victoria’s long, slim

body and Victoria’s arms coming up to her shoulders, pulling her

closer, touching her lips to Annie’s lightly over and over until so

loudly in the dark Annie heard her say “Please,” so deep in her

throat it was almost a growl and startled Annie, a growl from this

cool perfect woman, but before her thought could get in the way

her body responded, her hand slipping between Victoria’s pants

and her skin, gasping herself as she found the pouring, swollen

flesh and began to stroke gently, gently until she found the place

that made Victoria groan and stayed there with Victoria’s hands

fluttering up and down her neck. “Up and down and up and

down,” Victoria thought over and over until there was nothing but

the feel of Annie’s babyfine hair in her mouth and then Annie’s

lips on hers pleading, “Oh, come home with me, come home with

me I need to know you naked.” Victoria struggled down to

consciousness, trying to touch Annie more, while Annie withheld

herself with her plea and both of them got up, neatening, touching,

stopping, holding each other almost at each step in their slow

progress up the aisle of the courtroom.

They went into the hall, separating for their coats. Annie,

serious and hurried, grabbed her army jacket, darted to her

friends who were still standing, watching, drinking. She made

sure they could all fit into the other car they had come in. “Who’s

your Yalie?” Eleanor teased.

“Vicky, from the bar in New York. Remember?” Annie

answered, catching the cap Turkey threw to her.

“Found that on the floor,” Turkey laughed. “Say hi—if there’s

time.”

“I’ll try,” Annie answered with a glare at Turkey’s light

treatment of Victoria as she skipped, then jogged away.

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Victoria meanwhile had glided like a sleepwalker through the

women on the other side of the hall, passing Rosemary and

Claudia and smiling at their staring faces where they danced in a

group. She picked up her coat and swung it across her shoulders as

she made her way to them. “I’ve got a ride home,” she smiled,

tossing back her hair to cover her excitement. “Thanks for

bringing me. It was just what I needed,” she said mysteriously to

their still speechless stares.

They hurried down the tall old corridor and pushed through the

heavy wooden door into the clear, stinging-cold night. They

stretched their arms toward each other and held, then swung

around and around, laughing up to the stars through, Victoria

thought with her heart pounding in fear and exhilaration, through

all the space in the universe.

Later, Victoria lay as close to Annie as she could for warmth in

Annie’s tiny, cold house. Like a toothpick house, she thought,

holding Annie even tighter. Heidi had built her a “toothpick

house” one summer. It took a week to make in a careful, patient

process. What a wonder it had been to her completed! She was

terrified of accidentally breaking it and finally persuaded Heidi to

take it with her when she left. Now she’d remembered the

toothpick house again and thought, Annie, Annie, what keeps the

wind from blowing all this and you away some dark night? She

was amazed that Annie found a sense of security in this

threatened home.

The little house seemed messy, but more, Victoria thought,

because there were neither closets nor adequate drawer space

than because things were untidy. She could see Annie had

organized her possessions; any disarray gave the impression more

of a house no one spent any time in than one uncared for. But

there was such a wilderness around it of marsh and beach, with an

empty road, another cottage, and a ramshackle bar the nearest

neighbors. It did seem just like Annie: delicate, lost in a

wilderness, barely keeping herself together, but basically sound

and able to offer shelter despite its scarring from the elements.

Now, with Annie sleeping, Victoria felt secure enough, warm

enough, as if Annie’s still, silent presence were stronger than the

one that tried to communicate with Victoria. We unsettle each

other. We’re so uncomfortable. Except laughing and touching. So

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magic, so simple, the touch. Our real selves do the touching, she

thought as she fell asleep curled around Annie Heaphy.

The next night, Sunday, they spent in Victoria’s room. They felt

some of the joy of Saturday, but as they became more real to each

other, it frightened Annie to see the list of their differences grow.

She woke at dawn feeling very scared. Her one insistent thought

was, “I don’t want to be here,” but it slept, leaden, in the back of

her mind. It weighed her down, paralyzed her, making its silent

waves into her tensing body. She remembered the night with

Eleanor and other nights in strange beds. Those relationships had

come to nothing. Would Vicky become a stranger in a month or a

clinging friend like Eleanor? Annie moved slowly away from the

curve of the still sleeping Victoria, telling herself it was out of

consideration, but really it was because she was afraid to wake the

woman she hardly knew. The sight of Victoria’s naked back, the

lovely soft lines of her shoulders, filled Annie with horror. How

could she leave such a woman? How could she stay and face the

consequence of such a commitment?

The room was cold, but heat came banging slowly out of the

radiator like the disembodied sound in a nightmare. She longed

for the softer sounds of her foghorns. The one narrow window

allowed in just enough light to make everything grey, to finish

taking away all last night’s magic from what Annie saw. The room

was sterile, not full of Victoria as it had been, but empty of

anything familiar or safe for Annie. It did not seem to belong to

the Victoria she had begun to know. Yet right now it seemed safer

to remember the partial Victoria than to invest more of herself in

discovering the unknown. She wished for the closeness and safety

of the night at the Pub where they had met in a place comfortable

for both of them: Annie’s bar in Victoria’s community. Where

above all, the newness and excitement of getting to know one

another had quieted her fears.

Annie sat up on the edge of the bed, surprised to feel warm, and

very, very quietly began to dress. Why must she always panic like

this, she wondered, regretting the loss of the beautiful woman on

the bed. Wasn’t Vicky different? Annie had thought so only a few

hours ago as she aroused Vicky’s warm, responsive flesh with her

hands, her mouth. Such intimacy seemed impossible now, absurd.

Yet couldn’t she, just once, stay and see if it would work? But she

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felt so naked, so vulnerable. She couldn’t, when she finished

dressing, look at Victoria. Am I afraid that she’ll be someone I

don’t know, Annie wondered? Afraid then I’ll have to admit how

alien I feel she is? Tell her, “You’re separate and different and

strange to me and I’ve got to get out! You can’t hold me here!”

As the words surfaced, Annie’s panic grew. Though part of her

longed to stay, her fear was too strong. She tightened her whole

body, grabbed her coat and left the room, feeling, as she closed the

door with terrified stealth, that she was leaving some sacred place

against which she had sinned.

CHAPTER SIX

Bells pealed in Victoria’s mind the week after she and Annie

Heaphy made love. She didn’t understand why Annie had left

without saying goodbye, but sensed, in her own fears, that it had

something to do with the power of what they felt for each other.

She felt, in any case, the ecstasy for which she had longed in her

fantasies of a monastic life. She saw bushes filled with fuzzy

lavender flowers, just born, blindingly bright in the spring rain

that had suddenly come upon the world. She saw the Yale

daffodils bellowing all their yellows through the downtown,

reflecting themselves in the dozens of yellow cabs she saw every

day. Yet now each time she saw a yellow cab, fear and hope fought

for a place inside her. The fear went icy into her veins, stabbing its

way down her arms, constricting her gut, freezing her legs so she

could not move for fear of more fear. The hope warmed her,

thawed her frightened tension, bred dizzying dreams in her love-

fogged mind. “Anne,” she’d cry half aloud, then, “Anne, Anne,

Anne. Come to me, call me, hold me.” Then, sobbing inside she’d

change: “Stay away, don’t come near me, I can’t bear it, I can’t

bear your touch, let me stay inside.” Embarrassed by her own

mental histrionics and confused by the flood of unfamiliar

emotion, Victoria would wrap herself in her ice blue bedspread

and roll back and forth, sometimes crying, sometimes dreaming of

how it would be when Annie came.

She did not answer her telephone, afraid it would be Annie. She

did not answer knocks at her door, unable to deal with anything

familiar, it would now be so changed. Claudia just walked in

before Victoria could lock the door one day when she returned

from class. Victoria swung around at the intruder, her face critical

of the invasion, while she held her breath that it might be Annie.

“We’ve been worried about you, Victoria.”

“I’d like to be alone, Claudia.”

Claudia smiled, not her usual broad-grinned smile, but softly,

with concern. Victoria pictured Claudia smiling at a therapy

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patient like that. “Why are you miserable?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Please let me stay,” Claudia pleaded, her arms outstretched

from her overalls in supplication.

Victoria shrugged, unable to refuse the farm girl side of

Claudia she liked so much. She turned to put her books on the

desk while Claudia settled herself cross-legged on the bed.

“Why don’t you put your jeans on anymore? I like you in them,”

Claudia said.

Fear flashed through Victoria as she thought of them. “I don’t

feel comfortable in them,” she managed to say.

“Don’t they fit your image?” Claudia teased. Victoria was silent

as she straightened her room, her back to Claudia. “It must be

taking quite a beating,” she continued.

“What must be?” Victoria asked wearily.

“Your image. I know mine did at first.”

“What are you talking about?” Victoria asked, turning to look

through tear-filled eyes at Claudia, who sat alert and straight-

faced, a ready well-meaning listener. The pink shirt Claudia wore

beneath her overalls brought out the pink of her cheeks, making

her seem innocently trustworthy.

“Coming out, silly. Did you think you were hiding anything

from us?” Victoria looked defeated. Her shoulders sagged

suddenly and she sank onto the bed, facing Claudia. She still had

not brushed her hair and the spring breezes had pulled it every

which way. “You’re a mess, you adorable, unapproachable

intellectual,” Claudia said, taking Victoria’s hand. “Talk to me.

You’ll feel better.”

Victoria looked without hope into her friend’s eyes. “You can’t

help me.”

“I know. But you can feel better just talking about it. Maybe it’ll

all begin to make sense.”

“It makes enough sense to me.”

“But I want to know what’s going on. I’ll ask some questions,

okay?” Claudia asked without really wanting an answer. “Is it

Anne, from the bar in New York?”

“Yes.”

“Who is she other than that?”

Victoria watched her friend lean back against the wall, pulling

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her legs up and hugging them to her chest. “Nobody,” she

answered. “Everybody. A college dropout cab driver from the

wrong part of Boston.”

“Why do you like her?”

Victoria paused for a moment. “She’s hearty, determined, full of

strength and life and not afraid of anything.”

“Did you like being with her?”

“Yes,” Victoria said, blushing.

“Then what’s the problem? When will we meet her officially?”

After another long pause to fight back tears, Victoria said, “One

question at a time. Your second one first. I may never see her

again, so I don’t know when you’ll meet her. As to problems, I

don’t know where to start.” She stood and walked to her dresser,

picked up the brush and began to stroke her hair. Claudia

stretched out her legs and watched the mirror as Victoria’s mouth

began to form words and reject them.

“You don’t know how to deal with being a lesbian,” she

suggested as she saw Victoria’s eyes redden and her chest begin to

move as if she was gasping for air.

Victoria turned to face Claudia, her arms leaning against the

dresser behind her. “I don’t think I am one. I just love Anne.”

“Okay, so you haven’t even begun to deal with the fact that this

isn’t a temporary aberration.”

“I’d just like to deal with Anne for now.”

“I’ll bet you would,” Claudia teased. She became serious again

when Victoria scowled at her. “Tell me the problem with Anne.”

Victoria released the dresser and gestured helplessly toward

Claudia. “She’s a woman!”

“Have you ever loved a man?”

“No.”

“Have you ever loved another woman?”

“Maybe a little, in high school. But one’s supposed to be

attracted to women at that age.”

“Do you want to love a man?”

“Of course not, but I’ve been thinking about how hard it must

be to be gay in this world. Everything I’ve read talks about one

night stands and a lonely old age. Some of Anne’s experiences

have been so painful and damaging to her.”

“Like what?”

Toothpick House | 124

“Like never being your real self to most of the world. Always

having to hide your emotions. Being humiliated in public with

catcalls and obscene jokes.”

“I haven’t gone through any of that yet, but on the other hand,

I’ve never done anything easier in my life than love Rosemary,

even if she does make herself rather difficult to love at times.”

“I suppose it might be worth it, but how does one face the world

then? What do I tell my parents who are hoping for a secure,

monied marriage? They might accept me being a single professor,

at least that’s respectable, but having a woman lover? How do

lesbians live? Can they get good jobs? Will I be able to get a

teaching job?”

“Hold on, Victoria.” Claudia stood, no longer the listener. “I

know it affects your whole life, but you can’t begin to deal with all

that yet. You’d be a frog on a lily pad. There’s no way you can keep

from losing your balance if you haven’t got a hold of yourself.”

Claudia sat at the edge of the bed, close to Victoria.

“So you think I should decide if I’m a lesbian or not, whatever

the consequences.”

“It doesn’t really bother me, personally, one way or the other,

but it would help you to sort things out.”

Victoria sat down on the bed and bent her head to her hands. “I

don’t want to be, Claudia,” she cried, rocking herself. “It’s too

hard. The whole world disapproves of you. It’s not safe. I’m too

scared.”

Claudia’s face changed. She looked hurt now, as if she were

feeling Victoria’s pain. Her hands clasped the straps of her overalls

tightly. Finally, she reached over to Victoria and pulled her close,

laying her head against her breasts. “Victoria, it is hard, but it’s

worth it, that’s all I can tell you. Oh,” she went on, rocking her,

“it’s so beautiful to love a woman. Let yourself feel it!”

“Every time I do I get scared. I want to scream and run away as

if I’d come upon something horrible.”

“We’ve been taught it is something horrible. It’s not. It’s pure

and sweet. You’ll never feel anything better. People think it’s

horrible,” she soothed Victoria, smoothing her hair, “because

they’re afraid of it and that goes back a long, long way. Rosemary

says it’s our responsibility as well-educated lesbians to teach the

world there’s nothing wrong with lesbianism. In my work, I want

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to help lesbians adjust to who they are without all the agonizing

you’re going through. Not that I don’t get as scared as you

sometimes, too, but I honestly believe it’s worth it.”

Victoria was still crying, but more gently. “Just hearing the

word makes me frightened.” Claudia loosened one arm from

around Victoria and drew first one, then the other, of Victoria’s

arms around her waist. She pulled Victoria closer and was quiet.

Victoria whimpered for awhile, then found herself relaxing into

Claudia’s arms. Words disappeared from her mind as a deep

comfort invaded her and left her wondering at the magic a

woman’s body holds. Annie would not be like this, she thought,

then decided she’d feel even better. “You should be Anne,” she

whispered.

“How can it ever be if you won’t see her?” Claudia asked gently.

Victoria sobbed once, but her tears did not start again. “I’m too

scared.”

“What do you think you’re risking? Expulsion from the human

race? It doesn’t happen. I’m living proof,” Claudia said as she

stroked Victoria’s hair.

“I know that. I don’t know exactly what I’m afraid of. How do I

deal with the world?”

“Is that what’s worrying you most? I freaked out about how the

world would see me, but eventually I realized that I was more

concerned with myself. How I would be different in relation to the

life I wanted to live. It was hard to see me through my eyes and

not the world’s.”

“What are you going to do about your parents?”

“At this point I figure it’s going to break their hearts when I tell

them I’m not coming home to teach for a few years and then get

married and have babies. So even though telling your folks is the

in-thing to do right now, I don’t want to overburden them. I figure

I’ll tell them I want to continue school in the East.”

“What about Rosemary?”

“Her parents? She told them practically the first day after we

made love. She’s been such a pain in the ass to them they

apparently figured this was just another phase and shrugged it off.

She’s letting it go for now at that. There’s just not enough of her

left after our relationship, her writing and all her other activities to

be that concerned over her parents.”

Toothpick House | 126

“Not to mention school,” Victoria chuckled, sitting up again and

pulling her hair out of her face. “We all have to graduate as well as

go through all this.”

“We will,” Claudia assured her, one arm still around her.

“All this has hardly upset you.”

“Us midwesterners are pretty steady on our feet. I know it

doesn’t seem like it to you, but I think you’re making too much of

it. Let it happen. The rest will fall into place. You can’t solve it all

beforehand so it won’t hurt later. You’re making it so difficult now

you can’t resolve anything.”

“No wonder you want to be a psychologist.”

“Do I make sense?”

Victoria nodded sadly. “But it’s not easy to live with. Why is it

happening? I feel like it came out of the blue.”

“No, this isn’t coming out of the blue. I thought it was too until I

remembered things from my earlier years. Pity’s sake, as my mom

would say, I made love to a woman before. And I’ve wanted to

again ever since.”

“How could you forget that? I feel like such a helpless, naive

little girl asking you all this.”

“And it’s about time you let yourself be helpless and naive. You

probably never did before in your life. You know, you can’t get

anything good unless you open yourself up to it. I didn’t open

myself up the first time I was with another woman—girl, I guess

she was then. That’s probably why it was so easy to push into the

back of my mind. She was the girl next door and we’d played

together all our lives. When we were fourteen we became, like they

say, inseparable. One of our favorite things was hanging out in the

hayloft of the barn. We could be private there and talk about

anything we wanted. But I see now that more than talk we wanted

to indulge our feelings for each other. I think you know now the

feelings I mean. That warm all over, breathless, blooming feeling?

The secret passion that makes being together so painful and

exciting?

“So one day we were fooling around and we got physical with

each other. We kind of challenged each other to take all our

clothes off. I remember the sun was coming in through a little

window on the side of the loft and her skin was so golden, like

someone had spread it with honey. And my own was milky. We

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just stared at each other for so long, Victoria. I reached out my

hand and touched her breast which was new and untouched. It

just sprang to life, the nipple getting firm as if it was glad to see

me. Then I touched the other. Then she began touching herself,

masturbating, her eyes all glazed, her breathing real shallow. I

wanted to be touching her, so I did. But no one ever touched me

until Rosemary. And, wow, was that a relief after seven years of

waiting!” Claudia laughed.

Victoria rested her head against Claudia’s shoulder and gazed

up at her, still feeling like a child. “Thank you for telling me. I

guess it is all right to feel like that.”

“You know it’s all right to feel that good, Victoria love. And I’m

so glad Anne does make you feel like that.”

“So am I,” Victoria said, rising. “I want to see her again. You’re

right, it’s worth it. I’m not sure I’m strong enough. And I have to

figure out how. I don’t even know if she’s called because I haven’t

been answering the phone all week.”

“I know. Maybe you’ll have to go and see her.”

“That terrifies me.”

They smiled at each other. “Ain’t life grand?” Claudia asked. “To

think that terror could be the door that leads to so much pleasure

and fulfillment. And it’s yours for the taking, Victoria.” She put her

plump arms up to Victoria’s shoulders. “I’m here if you need me.”

Victoria shook her head in amazement. “I never guessed how

wonderful you are.”

“Aw, shucks,” said Claudia, hugging Victoria and quickly

leaving her.

* * * *

After skulking away from Victoria’s room Monday morning,

Annie spent the week consumed by conflict. She felt, alternately,

victorious at her escape from a difficult and consuming

relationship—and crashingly disappointed to have abandoned the

woman and relationship she wanted so badly.

She worked long hours without planning to and avoided the

bar. At home she crawled into bed dressed and shook, as if with

fever, in the damp spring beach air, while the foghorns sang

desolate lullabyes. She ate only at the diner where she’d had

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breakfast the morning after she slept with Eleanor—as if to keep

alive in herself the sense of relief she’d felt at that escape.

When she drove it was either in a fog of fantasies about the

hours she’d spent with Victoria or hustling as a cab driver must to

make good money. She would plan ahead when it was best to be at

the Park Plaza, the railroad station, the Doctor’s Building, and

then dash her fares to their destinations and return for more as

fast as she could. Hustling occupied her whole mind as she

guessed which passengers would yield the best tips, which routes

avoided the most traffic, who would tip her more for special

treatment.

For Annie, it was a grey week punctuated by the shy swelling of

the buds on the willow trees by her house. Their new light greens

brought tears to her eyes as she marched past them on her

morning walks. They stirred the part of herself that was like them

and she wondered if they were altogether happy that now they

were committed to leave their warm winter casings and hang all

upside down, exposed to the winds and whatever they might

bring.

Friday night Annie drove her VW straight to a bar from the

terminal for the first time since before she’d seen Victoria at the

dance. The bouncer stamped her hand, she pushed through the

chattering men, and anchored herself to the empty side of the bar.

As she waited, not making small talk with the bartender on

purpose to relish the moment, a vibration, a memory of Victoria,

began to wash through her. She stared down at the wooden bar,

remembering the wooden tables where they had sat together and

Victoria’s long fingers on them, and the way those fingers felt on

her body. But she’d had those waves of Victoria so many, many

times now and she was still without anything but the mirage of

her, afraid to make her real again. Unclenching her fists, she took

the drink from the bartender and downed it quickly, pushing a bill

toward her for another.

Peg drove her home much later, Annie and Turkey reeling with

drink. They had spent a dull evening of small talk and gossip, as if

her friends suspected Annie was not yet ready to talk about why

she’d stayed away from them all week. Turkey was sick and

collapsed on Annie’s bed while Peg made coffee. She joined Annie

at the old kitchen table where Annie was pushing splinters back

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through the tablecloth into the table.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you, Heaphy?” Peg challenged

her, standing in a three piece suit at her full height above Annie.

“Nothing,” Annie mumbled. “Take your jacket off, you’re

making me hot.”

“Bullshit nothing’s wrong. Drink your coffee.” Peg brought two

mugs back from the stove. “And if you’re hot, you’re hot from the

booze. As usual it’s freezing in this hut.”

“Aw, Peg, leave my house alone. It’s all I’ve got. And you know

damn well what’s wrong.”

“Well, I figure it’s your Yalie, but why? Why are you so hung

up?”

“Oh, Peglet, she’s so beautiful. She’s sensitive and gentle and

intelligent and educated and she makes my heart turn over every

time I think about her and she turns me on like nothing I’ve ever

felt before. She’s just perfect.”

“Did you have a fight?”

“No, no, no. No fight. I just love her,” and Annie Heaphy

started to cry.

Peg glared, unyielding, at Annie, angry that her friend kept

throwing love away. “Then why aren’t you with her? Where have

you been all week? Why’d you get drunk tonight? Doesn’t she want

to be with you?”

“I think so. I think she’s scared of being gay, maybe. I brought

her out, for Christ’s sake. Besides, we’re so different. It wouldn’t

work.”

“You could try.”

“It’s so hard to talk to her sometimes. It’s like we don’t need to

talk when we’re together, but then I don’t really know what

happened, how it was with her when I left her.”

“You mean you snuck out again.”

Annie hung her head, wiping the tears off her face. “Yeah. I

guess I did.”

“I warned you about that, chickenshit,” Peg reminded Annie

with an affectionate smile.

“It’s easier just to get in the cab and drive.”

“And then get polluted so you don’t have to deal with it?”

“Leave me alone, Peg. You sound like one of those fucking

libbers.”

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Peg got angry again. She brushed invisible dirt from her pants

viciously. “And you sound like one of those macho dykes that just

want to act like men, running from woman to woman, not caring

how you tear her up, and being so goddamned stoic about how

you’re feeling you lose touch with the woman underneath. What

are you feeling? Never mind all the details of why it can’t work.

I’ve never seen you like this over a girl. What are you feeling in

one word or less?” she glowered, pushing Annie’s mug closer to

her. “And drink your coffee while you’re thinking.”

Annie whispered, “Scared,” then drank some coffee.

“Of what, you asshole, she’s no different from you.”

“She is too. She’s smarter and better and has a lot of discipline

and comes from a rich family . . .”

“I said no bullshit,” Peg demanded.

Annie suddenly saw herself clearly. She saw her own harried,

scared self dashing back and forth across the city mindlessly, like a

robot. She saw her own rapid, graceless movements like a speeded

up film and knew they were signs of her great turmoil and lack of

control. It was as if that crazy self were being propelled. And by

what? By fear? That’s what she’d told Peg. And that’s what she saw

in the little running vision of herself. She looked at Peg who

seemed to sense Annie’s need for quiet time to think. Annie felt

mad at Peg at the same time that she felt grateful. This was what

her friend had done for her time after time: forced her to think

about what she was doing.

So, there Annie was, the tiny figure in the city full of tiny

figures, running in meaningless circles alone. She could do this

forever—or she could stop. It was easier to keep running, keep

circling like an airplane that never lands. But sooner or later she

would crash. She’d be one of those people who have nowhere to go

but the diner and the bar. Whose lives revolved around one lonely

place after another. Even her house, as much as she loved it, was

getting to feel emptier and emptier since Vicky. And Annie would

lose it this summer anyway. Was she going to lose Vicky too?

Annie watched Peg wander to the living room where she stared

out beyond the porch to the beach as Vicky had done Sunday

morning while she waited for Annie to drive her home. Vicky was

kind of like Peg and certainly the opposite of Annie: calm and

graceful. Annie envied their ways. She smiled drunkenly to think

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of Vicky. And remembered her words: “I want to understand and

that’s why I’m drawn to you. I sensed your fullness, your love of

life, when we first met. I want to feel like that.” Annie remembered

thinking Vicky sounded scared.

“Just like I am,” she said aloud.

“You talking to me, Heaphy?” Peg asked, as she reentered the

kitchen and sat at the table.

“Did you ever wonder if the ways you are and the ways someone

else is could just be ways? I mean, that you’re basically the same

underneath?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. I love Vicky for her control, the way she handles

things, doesn’t just react to them, you know?” Annie asked,

passing her hand across her face, tugging at her hair as if to clear

her thinking.

“Okay.”

“But what if her calm, the way she is, is just how she shows how

scared she is of everything?”

“So . . . ,” Peg encouraged while Annie paused.

“So if I’m scared and she’s scared, then it’s stupid to be scared.

Do you think one person’s need to be always in motion could be a

sign of the same tension that makes another person always need to

be still and slow?” Annie beamed at Peg. “Of course,” she cried,

pulling Peg up, pulling her behind her as she triumphantly dodged

her books and shoes and furniture and ran for the porch, Peg

following curiously, ready to prevent Annie from driving. “Vicky’s

just like me!” she yelled back at Peg as she leapt off the steps and

ran, hardly stopping to check for cars, across the street, her thighs

and arms pumping in unison so that she felt like a running

machine turned on full power until she reached the damp sand

and the water.

“Vicky’s just as scared as me,” she thought. “I’m not really

scared of her. I’m scared of me and she’s scared of herself and

we’re scared of seeing ourselves in each other. And we’re hurting

from the awful thing we’ve both been suffering, the awful

experience of being alone in the world.” Annie stumbled a little

from the liquor as she looked up at the stars. “The whole crazy

world’s going around and around both of us and I’m standing here

like an idiot without her.” She stared up at the moon and felt raw

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with loneliness.

Peg caught up with Annie and stood silently beside her. “Night

after night, Peglet, I have stood here looking at the moon in all its

shapes and sizes as if it could do something for me. I’ve been

angry, miserable, out of control and I almost just chained myself

to the empty old moon because I was so damn afraid of doing the

one thing I want: loving a woman. And I’ve been afraid of what

she is, not even who she is.” Annie faced Peg. “And Vicky’s done

the same thing, I’ll bet. She’s sitting in her room. She built the

damn thing around her so everything she touches is herself and

she doesn’t have to feel the aloneness. She thinks she can just

watch life and not be touched by it.”

“Ah, Peg, you son of a bitch,” Annie shivered, the sweat turning

cool on her back. “Did you know all this? Why didn’t you tell me? I

think I can tell Vicky now. Thank you, Peg,” Annie hugged her

silent friend, “thank you. I think I can sit still long enough to tell

her. I think I can slow down enough to match her pace if she’ll

start moving. Oh, Peg, look what you gave me!” Annie threw her

arms toward the sky, swaying a little, and stood smiling at it with

Peg, drunk now on wonder too, hurting with the pain of knowing

what she knew and crying from the beauty of it all.

* * * *

Saturday morning Victoria’s phone rang. She was afraid to

answer it. She knew it was Annie’s call to break the week of long

suffering silence. Although she knew now that she wanted Annie,

she had not conquered her fear of the relationship. Annie would

be in a phone booth in the sun, yellow cab running alongside—

she could see her sturdy and bright and hopeful against the empty

blue enormous sky. Victoria lay on a small oriental rug, another

gift from one of her parents’ trips, looking at the ceiling. When she

was younger she would pretend to hover just below the ceiling,

like an angel, watching her corporeal self perform its crass,

worldly functions down below. As she got older she dreamed of

becoming a monk or a nun, living a life stripped to its barest

essentials, so simple, so close to perfection, so alone. She would

share herself with no one.

Later, she dropped the religious trappings and felt enclosed by

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herself. She planned to look at beautiful things and do her life’s

work competently, living a simple life without the complications of

marriage or a demanding career. She would stay on in school until

she had the credentials to teach enough courses to give her life

definition. And spend the rest of her time doing—research?

writing? Always there would be a place for her in the sheltered

academic world. She had planned to go through her life

untouched.

The phone rang again as the sun moved more fully through her

window and pinned Victoria with its warmth to her rug. She

turned onto her stomach, but the sun just brought the brightness

of the rug up to her eyes, smashing them with rich red, yellow and

blue. It’s not true, she screamed silently, clasping her hands

together, holding them tight while the phone stopped ringing,

holding back the pain. I’m lying Anne, come save me, she cried

inside. I’m looking for beauty, sensation, but I can’t venture out

and enjoy it vicariously through an Etta or through you. You can’t

give it to me. You don’t give it to me. Loving you let it out and now

it’s out, really out, and I’ll never get it back in, and I need someone

to share it with. I don’t want solitude anymore.

Her fear ebbed and she tried once more to reason her way back

to safety. She moved to her bed where the sun never went. All

right, she admitted, I want her. I never wanted anybody, but Etta

showed me what I might need. And I’ve let that need lie fallow in

me for years. Until Anne.

She let herself think of Annie Heaphy. She almost smiled, but

stopped herself. Why couldn’t she reach out to her again? She

didn’t know how. She was frightened. Was she risking too much?

Would she be safer ignoring love? Could she ever be strong

enough, quick enough to dodge through the traffic of pain and

beauty she had seen so briefly? Would Annie teach her? Victoria

wondered if she could keep up with Annie. Keep up with her! she

laughed. I don’t keep up with people, I set the pace. No, she

thought wonderingly, sitting upright, looking toward the window.

No, the pace was set for me and I hid in it. I can change it.

Victoria sat very still, trying at first to control her panicking

heart, then giving in to it, letting it thud. My heart, after all, is part

of me. Perhaps it will beat strongly enough to make me move and

fast enough for me to keep up with Anne. Perhaps it is large

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enough to hold all I want to feel.

She leapt up toward the telephone across the room full of hot

spring sunlight. Maybe Anne had called from her little toothpick

house. Victoria’s fingers were moving so fast she had to dial three

times before she slowed down enough to dial the number right.

Then no one was answering and there was a knock on her door.

Afraid of missing Annie she did not hang up, but called, “Come in .

. .”

Cap in hand, Annie Heaphy stood in the dark doorway to see

Victoria, phone in hand, full of the sunlight from her window.

“Hi,” said Annie, still as a statue, her voice barely a whisper.

“Hello,” Vicky answered, very slowly cradling the phone and

standing. The sun made a reddish halo at the top of her head.

“Shall I come back after you finish your phone call?” Annie

asked, holding her breath in anticipation.

“I was calling you.”

“Oh.” Annie’s breath rushed out in relief. “Me?” she gulped,

suddenly realizing the import of what Victoria had said.

Victoria smiled. “You. Annie. Annie Heaphy. Anne. Your hair

was in my eyes.”

“My hair,” Annie repeated, feeling stupid.

“It’s so bright, it glows in my mind even when you’re not

around.”

They looked at each other for a moment. “Vicky,” Annie asked,

nervous, but obviously somewhat recovered, “can I come into

your room?”

“I’m sorry, Anne, of course you can.” She stepped across the

room toward Annie, her arms outstretched. Annie’s hands met

hers and Victoria pulled her inside the room. Annie pushed the

door shut behind her with her foot. They stood looking into one

another’s eyes.

“I think I’m in love with you, Vicky.”

“I certainly hope you are.”

“You do?”

Victoria put her arms around Annie, feeling strong and

maternal when she saw Annie’s blue eyes lift to her face in

disbelief. “Yes,” she said, fighting to find words adequate to what

she felt. Then she saw nothing, just felt the slightly smaller

woman’s body tight against her own, the feel again of her soft

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breasts pushed against her ribcage, the comfort and surprise of

her. Annie stared over Victoria’s shoulder at her blindingly bright

window, its narrow frame aiming all the light of the world at them.

She felt the sun on her hands where they reached around

Victoria’s back and on Victoria’s hair where her cheek touched it.

The warmth and her own relief made her feel as if she was

melting. They stood like that for a long time. “Can you spend the

afternoon with me?” Annie asked.

“Of course. Don’t you have to work?”

“I sometimes knock off early on Saturday if I work a lot of hours

during the week. And I worked a lot of hours this week. Trying to

stay away from you.”

“Why?” Victoria asked, hoping Annie would not ask her the

same question.

“That’s a hard one,” Annie said, pulling away from Victoria, still

touching her. “You feel so good to touch,” she smiled. “I guess I

was afraid.”

“Of what?” Victoria hoped Annie would answer the question for

her too.

Annie shrugged and leaned to kiss the v of Victoria’s light blue

sweater where it rested just above her breasts. “That you wouldn’t

be interested, I guess.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Didn’t think it,” Annie answered, shuffling her feet and

stepping backwards. “Just afraid of it. You know?”

“Do you think that was all?”

“No.” Annie walked over to the window and looking out

answered, “I feel something about you I never felt before. I can’t

even say it’s altogether pleasant. I mean,” she explained, turning

around to face Victoria, “I feel a lot of pleasant things too, but this,

it’s like you’re a magnet and I can’t not love you. Like we’re

supposed to be together. Like you’re good for me. An answer.

Something I’ve been looking for. Do you understand?”

“Completely. I’ve been trying to say that to myself, to explain

what I feel about you. Yet for all the incredible things that you

make me feel, I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with loving a woman,

I’m not sure I would if I didn’t feel almost fated.”

“Do you believe in that, Vicky?”

“In fate?”

Toothpick House | 136

They stood now close to each other holding hands. “I didn’t,”

Vicky answered slowly. They looked at each other again a long

while. Annie broke the silence.

“Listen, I’ve got to get the cab back. Want to come with me and

pick up my bug and maybe we’ll go to the beach by my house?”

Not answering, Victoria asked, “Why didn’t you wait to say

goodbye?”

Annie hung her head and shook it, her light hair scattering

across her head, catching the sun. “That’s a long story.”

“I need to know,” Victoria pressed.

Annie looked at her. “Okay, okay. I don’t really know. I always

do that if I don’t know the woman I’m with very well. I feel

uncomfortable.”

“I’m just now realizing how much that bothered me and how

much a part of my fears about you it is.”

Annie watched Victoria’s pained face. “You didn’t make me

uncomfortable. I did. I was afraid to know you were real. Afraid it

wasn’t as good as I thought it was. It usually isn’t, you know.”

“No, I don’t have much experience in these things. At first I

thought it had been awful for you. Then I convinced myself it

hadn’t, but the fear was still there.”

“Oh, Vicky, no, no,” Annie protested, taking her in her arms

again. “It was wonderful. I just didn’t want it to get shabby in the

morning like it always does. I wanted that whole beautiful

weekend to be a perfect memory. I didn’t want life to go on.

People get dull, hurt each other, change. I wanted it to be always

like it was. But in all those hours of driving and sitting on the

beach, watching the water, I saw there was much more for me

with you than a weekend we already had. If you wanted to be with

me I felt as if we really would have something to give each other.

That’s why I’m here.”

Victoria confessed, “I’ve been frightened by reading too much

about homosexual one night stands.”

“And I’ve had too many of them. Look, you’re never going to

believe it unless I show you, unless we live it. Come to my home

with me, come let me love you. There’s nothing else I want to do,”

Annie said, still holding Victoria, worrying about the tenuousness

of the “home” she offered.

“‘Come live with me and be my love,/ And we will all the

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pleasures prove/ That hills and valleys, dales and fields,/ Or

woods or steepy mountain yields.’” Victoria quoted as she leaned

her head on Annie’s shoulder. It felt so good to have a woman’s

shoulder to lean on. She imagined her mother in a swirling

cocktail dress and wondered why she’d never felt welcome to lean

on her. Because she’s so fake, a voice inside her said. Here’s a

woman who’s real. Who wants to stop acting in old ways, painful

ways and to find joy with you. “And that’s what I want to do with

you, Anne,” Victoria said.

“Prove all the pleasures?” Annie put her hat back on, smiling.

“Let’s go!”

“Shall I pack for the weekend?” Victoria laughed, letting go

more of her uncertainties.

“You, lady,” Annie pronounced solemnly, “should pack for life.”

Awhile later they sped over the bridge away from New Haven.

“It’s only Long Island Sound,” Annie shouted over her still

mufflerless car, “but it feels like the Atlantic to me!”

Victoria looked at the gulls circling the small harbor and the

boats out for their first runs of the season. It reminded her of the

lake she had stayed on with her family the summer she fished in

New Hampshire. She hadn’t thought of that in a long time. Not

since that strange encounter on the train with the woman she still

thought of as a witch. Well, the witch might have known her

future, Victoria marvelled, but that vacation had been a happy

time. “It’s just what the doctor ordered,” she shouted back to

Annie. “I don’t remember this ride at all from last weekend.”

“A week ago today,” Annie commented as she stopped at a

corner and gunned her little motor waiting to turn. “That can be

our anniversary. Today we’re one week old. Want to celebrate?”

“You silly romantic! We are celebrating!”

“Good, that’ll save a lot of planning. This is the road to my

house now.”

“Over the river and through the woods,” Victoria sang, “to

Annie’s house we go.” She stopped when Annie jerked to a halt at

the side of the road and threw herself at Victoria.

“You’re great!” Annie said, after kissing Victoria with passion.

“You’re beautiful and sexy and smart and fun too. I can’t believe

I’m about to embark on a mad passionate love affair with you. And

that you haven’t shot me down for entertaining hopes that we can

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have more than an affair.”

“You’re crazy, little queen. One doesn’t go kissing other women

in the middle of a public street.”

“Oops,” Annie said as she began to drive again. “Little queen?”

“Queen Anne. Queen of England and Ireland around seventeen

hundred. Noted for her devotion to the Church of England. I

looked her up this week. Another thing she is noted for is her

great friendship with a woman named Sarah Jennings. They were

very close,” she winked at Annie.

“Oh, yeah? Do you know something scandalous about this

queen?”

“No, but I thought you’d be interested.”

“So my original namesake might have been a queer,” Annie

mused as they rounded a bend in the road. “Look. My willows.”

She pointed to the three curved willow trees, decorated with light

green new leaves. The water sparkled in the sun beyond them.

“They look like they’ve been through the wars,” Victoria

commented. “But they’re beautiful, like they’re flexing their

muscles under all that new foliage.”

“I think they are. Look how there are no other trees. They’re the

only ones who have survived the wind and the salt air. They have a

different kind of beauty. Usually I think of willows as being sad

and delicate. These are strong and hard, yet they still sprout all

that beautiful stuff. Like a bulldyke who looks like a truck driver

on the outside, but is so gentle making love because she’s a

woman. She only looks like a bulldyke because life is so hard on

her. She keeps the inside tender by hardening the crust.”

Victoria reached across to Annie and stroked her cheek. “You

love those trees, don’t you?”

Embarrassed, Annie said, “Sure do. Here we are.” They pulled

into the front yard of what Victoria remembered as the toothpick

house and she was struck again by its fragility. Surely it was not

strong enough to shelter Anne through the winter months. The

porch had no door, the windows were still covered with plastic

sheets to keep the winds outside. Ladders and sawhorses lay in the

yard of the beach cottage next door.

“The landlord’s fixing up my neighbor’s shack,” Annie said. “I

wonder how soon they’ll work their way over here. This porch is a

mess. But there’s no use fixing it until the workmen finish. I don’t

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use it much anyway. Last summer Peg and those guys only came

out here a couple of times. They think it’s too far to travel. Come

on, bring your bag inside, then we’ll go over to the beach. Don’t

look at the mess in here. I tried to fix it up, but what the hell, I’m

getting kicked out the end of May anyway.”

“Why?” asked Victoria, putting her suitcase on the floor and

sitting on a wooden chest.

“The lousy landlord can make more money renting to summer

people. Last year nobody would rent it, but this year he found a

sucker willing to pay twice as much as me for the summer

months.”

“Didn’t you say you were going to buy it?”

“If he’ll sell. Even then I don’t know if I could get the money to

pay for it. Come on, let’s go across the street and talk about

happier things. Want a beer to go?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Mind if I bring a couple? Sometimes I like to do this on a

Saturday afternoon. Just go across to the beach by my lonesome

with a couple of beers, get high and stare at the water. Real

relaxing.” As she shut the door behind them she realized she was

jabbering again in nervousness. To cover her embarrassment she

said, “I’ll race you.”

“Okay,” Victoria laughed and began to run in a loose, long-

limbed way while Annie shot out, a beer in each hand, like a

windmill out of control. But Annie had to wait for a car to go by

and Victoria caught up and passed her, her momentum

outdistancing Annie’s new burst of speed. Annie just followed her,

watching her run several yards onto the beach.

“You’re amazing!” she breathed at Victoria when they stopped.

“Come over here, there’s a nice rock to lean on over this way. You

don’t even look like you could work up a sweat the relaxed way you

run, but you cover your distance good.”

“And you look like you’re running for your life. I’m surprised

your hat stays on your head.”

“Oh, that’s a permanent fixture. I don’t want you to find out

that I’m bald.”

They walked to a group of rocks and collapsed against them.

Annie offered Victoria a beer. When Victoria smiled in acceptance,

she said, “I suspected you might want it once we were here. Our

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anniversary party," Annie toasted. She lay her head on Victoria's

shoulder. "Vicky," she sighed.

"No one ever calls me that, you know," Victoria said, sliding

Annie's hat off her hair and resting her chin on her head.

"And no one takes my hat off and gets away with it," Annie said,

pressing herself closer to Victoria.

That night, when the beach was dark and they were in the

toothpick house, a little drunk from beer and almost hoarse from

talking so much, Victoria said, "I'm no good at people, Anne."

"You're good at me," Annie assured her, putting both of

Victoria's hands between her own across the corner of the table.

Victoria smiled sadly. "You're different. You make me be good

at you. I can't help myself. You're so easy to be with, easy even for

me to touch," and she bent her head to kiss Annie's hand.

"You've never said you love me," Annie replied quietly.

Victoria withdrew her hands. "I know, I know. I wish I could."

"You mean you want to?"

"Oh, Anne, of course I do. At least I think that's what I feel for

you. I'm so confused. For years I've wished I could love someone

and now I think I finally do and I'm not even sure that's what I

feel. Even if it is I can't express it."

Annie had risen and now knelt on the floor, her arms stretched

up and around Victoria. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whispered into

Victoria's sleeve. "I should never have said that. That's asking too

much. Besides, you do say what you feel. You say it in all kinds of

ways like when you touch me or when you look at me. I'm just so

conventional I think I have to hear it. Next thing you know I'll ask

you to put it on a billboard or I won't believe that you even like

me!"

"It's not asking too much. I do love you. I do, I do," Victoria half

sobbed, getting to her knees also.

"Oh, Vicky, Vicky."

"But I won't put anything on a billboard."

Annie leaned back from Victoria to see that she was smiling,

then hugged her even harder. “You’d better get up or you’ll

develop housemaid’s knee like Radcliffe Hall’s first love,” she

laughed.

“Oh, didn’t you like that? Wasn’t that so English? The ‘son’ of

the manor falling in love with the servant?”

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“Wish I’d been brought up in your manor, m’lady,” Annie

bowed after she had lifted them both to standing positions. They

sat at the kitchen table.

“I’m glad you weren’t. And that I wasn’t either. I would have

been terribly rich and more of a snob than I am.”

“You’re not a snob, Vicky,” Annie said as they sat at the table

again. “And there’s nothing wrong with you being rich.”

“Except I’m not,” Vicky answered.

“Oops, another sensitive spot,” Annie said when she heard the

defensive tone of Victoria’s voice.

“Not being rich can certainly confuse a growing child. When

your family lives like it is rich.”

“So I see, Vicky. It’s okay, really it is. Sit down. Are you really

not rich? I’m so glad.”

“I am definitely not rich. My parents lost their money, but can’t

give up the lifestyle. It makes for a lot of lies.”

“Come again?”

“They’re terrified the family will someday find out how careless

they really were. They grew up in the depression. Most of it was

lost back then. My father built it up again only to find his

investments weren’t sound. It left just enough to be able to

pretend. They won’t let me forget how to act privileged. Always

lecturing me on how to get more money when I’m trying to deal

with it not being there. I suppose I ought to be grateful for what we

do have, but I’ve always felt I would have been much happier if I’d

been born more middle class or even lower class. Is it very

snobbish of me to say that people with less money are more real,

live more fully?”

“Probably, but I’ll forgive you. Now I’ve always felt that

everybody had more fun than me.”

“Why, Annie? You have a great sense of fun. We can laugh

together. It’s one of the things I treasure about you.”

Again Annie reached across the table for Victoria’s hand.

“Because I’ve been gay so long. I feel like I can’t really enjoy life,

not that I’d want it any other way. It’s kept me so separate from

other people, except for my lovers. I hate straights. I can’t stand

their bigoted, self-centered view of the world, yet I envy them their

comfort and freedom to move in it. It is theirs, after all.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. I have so much to learn.”

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“Welcome to the gay world. Money may have been your

problem before, but now you’re despicable.”

“What a way to talk to the woman you just seduced!”

“Seduced! Me seduce you?”

“Well, you don’t think an innocent like me could have thought

of such a thing?” Victoria asked, bowing her head modestly.

“Of course not, m’lady. I’ll take all the blame. But if I’m to be

blamed, then I want all the benefits of my foul deeds. Come into

my bedroom.”

Victoria still hung her head. “You couldn’t be meaning me,

could you?”

“Come with me or it’ll be the floor, Vicky,” Annie said into her

neck.

“How shocking,” Victoria replied, pulling Annie now toward the

bedroom.

Later, Annie stirred. “In the dark, you know,” she pulled back

from the warmth she and Victoria had made, “I can’t even tell

you’re poor.”

Victoria sat up, her languorous body luminous in the dark. She

tossed her hair over one shoulder and said, low and quietly, “Then

we’re even. In the dark, I can’t tell you’re a lesbian.”

They laughed and resettled with Victoria’s head on Annie’s

shoulder.

“It’s too bad one of us isn’t rich,” Annie sighed.

“Why?”

“Then we could go buy the house and live here happily ever

after.” Victoria realized that she too could become attached to this

fragile shelter and thought for a moment of her well-to-do

relatives. She hoped Annie wasn’t counting on her in some way for

money.

“Well, we’re not,” she answered shortly, immediately sorry

about her tone.

“Want a beer?” Annie asked, sensing Victoria’s disturbance.

Victoria nestled deeper against Annie. “How could you think of

leaving me at a time like this?” she murmured.

“Oh, it’s not hard. I’m real thirsty.”

“You really like to drink, don’t you, Annie?”

“No. It’s just a habit. Like Turkey says, ‘When you put up with

as much shit all day as we do, you got to wash it out at night.’”

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“I find you much sweeter than any liquor,” Victoria growled as

she leaned over and bit Annie’s breast.

“Umm. Okay. I’ll give it up for you.”

“No. Go ahead and get one. It’ll taste good. But not just yet,” she

rolled over and pressed her upper body against Annie. “You feel so

good. No wonder I didn’t like men. They couldn’t feel like this.”

“My innocent,” Annie put her arms around Victoria. “You’ve

never made love with anyone before me?”

“No. And I’m so glad.”

“Yeah, I wish I hadn’t now too. I wish you were my first.”

“Oh, you Romeo. How many women have you been with?”

“Not that many. Just enough to know you’ve got them all beat.”

“You’re so diplomatic.”

“Not on purpose, Vicky. Hey! You’re tickling!”

“I want to have every sensation with you,” Victoria said

passionately. “I want to experience everything with you for the

first time and the hundredth time! No, no! I didn’t mean I wanted

to be tickled, too!” She broke into giggles, curling in on herself.

“Fair’s fair!”

“Go get the beer!”

“You’re just saying that to stop me.”

“It worked!” Victoria laughed. “Aren’t you cold away from the

bed?”

Annie ran self-consciously toward the kitchen. “Yes!” she called

back. “And damn it, I’ll never find the bottle opener.”

Victoria lay in the small dark room luxuriating in the sense of

being part of someone’s life. Why, Annie was actually running

around naked in front of her. The intimacy was new to her and felt

good. Victoria wanted to sing, just as Etta had joyously in the

woods so many years ago. “At last I’m feeling it!” she thought.

Annie came into the room grinning over a tray which she slid

onto the bed. Sitting carefully next to it she announced, “Just a

snack. Aren’t you hungry after all that exercise?” Victoria sat up

on her elbow, smiling, her thick hair falling to her belly. “Do you

know you’re beautiful, Vicky?”

“No, but I know I’m happy,” Victoria answered very seriously.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Annie asked, reaching over to

touch Victoria.

Victoria tilted her head to catch Annie’s hand between it and

Toothpick House | 144

her shoulder. “I love you. I love you, Anne,” she lifted her head to

look at Annie, “you make me happy. I know you don’t understand

how much that means to me.” She stopped, took a deep breath

and sighed. “Someday I’ll explain more, all right? I just want to be

with you now. And be happy.”

“Okay. I love you, too, you know that.” Victoria nodded. “Let’s

eat then. Look. I got chips and pickles and some pumpernickel

bread and bologna and mustard. Oh, I forgot a knife!”

“Don’t leave again. We’ll use our fingers!” Victoria giggled. They

grinned at each other, then began to make their first meal together

in Annie’s home.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Several weeks later Annie and Victoria sat in the front seats of

Annie Heaphy’s VW with Peg and Turkey in back. They were all

excited to be going to Vermont for the weekend together. By the

time they reached the Vermont border even Victoria had been

persuaded to join in their singing.

“The answer is blowing in the wind,’” Turkey bellowed one last

time, opening her window wide so the wind sang with her. It blew

her straw hat into Peg’s lap and Victoria’s hair across Annie’s

face.

“Hey, close that, you lunatic, I can’t see!” Annie shouted.

“It’s shut, it’s shut, for Christ’s sake. You guys don’t let me have

no fun, do they, Vicky?”

Victoria tried to find a funny answer, but, feeling like a failure,

just shook her head and smiled.

“What a diplomat you found, Annie,” Turkey went on. “She

don’t take sides, does she?”

“Doesn’t she,” Annie corrected. “Open me another beer, will

you?”

Peg grabbed the open bottle before Turkey could give it to

Annie. “Do you realize, Heaphy, the four of us have finished off

close to two six packs and Vicky doesn’t drink much?”

“Is that why I got to go to the bathroom so bad?” Annie asked.

“But I’m perfectly sober. Don’t hardly do me no good at all to

drink anymore. I’m high already.” She looked quickly at Victoria,

then reached across to take her hand. “Would you rather I

didn’t?” she asked more softly.

Victoria squeezed her hand tightly. “No,” she answered softly.

“Not if you feel sober.”

Annie looked at her again. “Maybe I better not,” she admitted,

putting her hand back on the wheel.

“Ma, we going to be there soon?” Turkey asked, laughing. “Ma,

I gotta go to the bathroom. Ma, I’m thirsty!”

“Shut up, kid,” Peg warned her, then punched her in the arm.

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“Yow! She’s killing me, Ma!”

“Shut up back there, you two! We’re almost there. Speaking of

which, do you have the map, Vicky?”

“No. Turkey,” Victoria turned around, “I think I gave it to you.

May I have it please?”

“So polite, she is,” Turkey laughed, rummaging through the

junk-filled back seat. “You got to learn to be crude with this

crowd if you want to survive this trip. ‘Specially that Annie. No

manners at all. Must have been brought up in the gutter if you

want my opinion. Here it is. Sorry, it’s a little bit wet.”

Victoria laughed as she took the map, now split in two and

soaked with beer, into the front seat. “It will be easier to read this

way,” she said, folding one half away in the glove compartment.

“Putney, did you say?”

“Um-huh,” Annie answered, looking at Victoria in a way she

knew meant Annie was thinking of making love to her. Victoria’s

body responded to that look as she never imagined it could and

her face went red.

“Hey, what are you two doing up there?” Turkey asked as she

stuck her head between the front seats. “Are we there or are we

there?”

Victoria hid behind the wall of hair she let fall over the map.

“Only about two exits away,” she answered.

Peg and Turkey cheered. “Bathroom ho! Set course for port,

Captain!”

“Ay ay, Peglet, but first we have to find the place!”

“No problem with our trusty navigator, Vicky.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Victoria warned. “I’ve never

navigated before.”

Half an hour later Victoria returned to the car, the last out of

the bathroom behind the small store of a one pump gas station.

They had gotten off the exit and immediately proceeded to get

lost. By the time they reached the gas station, Turkey was

moaning about the amount of beer in her bladder and Victoria

had been assigned to ask directions.

“Did he give you directions?” Annie asked, sitting up from

resting across both their seats.

“Yes. And he said he likes your aunt and uncle a great deal,

Turkey. He went up there to deliver some food when they first

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built their place.”

“Great. That means he’ll tell them I rolled in here half drunk

with a bunch of queers and bought another case of beer!”

“Nobody knows we’re gay,” Peg said quickly, noticing Victoria

had lowered her head. She gestured with her chin towards her.

Turkey nodded. “Only kidding. With Victoria here for our

spokesman we’re probably all set. I can hear him now. ‘Lovely

friends your niece has, Mrs. D. Too bad your niece is such a slob!’

Thanks for the good impression, Vic. Tell us what he said.”

“Apparently we passed it at least three times,” Victoria smiled

as Turkey moaned over her own needless suffering. “Anne, if

you’ll take a left out of the supermarket here . . . ,” she directed

sarcastically.

“Isn’t it cute here, though?” Peg asked. “Real New Englandy.”

“Ah,” Annie sighed loudly, “a weekend in the country.”

“With real hicks,” Turkey laughed.

Victoria looked questioningly at Annie.

“Peg’s always saying me and Turkey are hicks because we’re not

from New York.”

“Now she’ll see how sophisticated I really am,” Turkey said,

puffing herself up, turkey-like.

“That’s what we were fighting about the first night we met you,

Vicky,” Annie confessed.

“After this sign coming up we take a left onto a dirt road.

Really? You mean we’ve come full circle back to the same subject?

Or is it a recurrent one?”

“Recurrent. They are hicks,” Peg interjected.

Annie ignored her. “This left?” she asked, turning in. They

bounced up a series of hills for two miles until they came to a

small unfinished house of weathered wood, a porch with no steps

and a mountain behind it. Annie stopped the VW. “This is

beautiful country,” she said, exhaling a deep breath.

“But I thought my aunt said the house was finished!”

“Looks done enough for me. As long as that roof doesn’t leak.”

Peg squeezed past Victoria’s seat into the last of the daylight and

Turkey followed her with the key.

Another toothpick house, thought Victoria affectionately,

looking at it.

Annie turned to her. “Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea.”

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“Why?” Victoria asked, taking off her glasses and rubbing her

eyes.

Annie put her fingers on Victoria’s shoulder and leaned her

head on her outstretched arm. “Because I want you so bad. Right

now.”

“I know. Me too,” Victoria answered, leaning to meet Annie’s

lips.

“I don’t want them to think we’ll be like this all weekend,”

Annie breathed, pulling away.

“We won’t. We’ll get some time alone together. They’ll

understand, won’t they?” Victoria asked, looking hopeful.

“Yes, as long as you can take their teasing.”

“I’m not used to it, but I like them. They’re part of you. I want

so much to fit in. For them to like me. But I can never think of

anything to say.”

“They like you already. Turkey told me that after we all went to

the bar the other night.”

They walked around to the trunk of the car and began to carry

things to the porch. Peg came to the door. “It’ll do,” she said. “We

have to get firewood before it’s completely dark or we’ll freeze to

death. There’s enough big stuff inside for the night. All we need is

tinder and kindling.”

They spread out around the cabin and began to gather wood. In

less than an hour the three friends and Victoria had set up

temporary housekeeping and were watching Turkey stir a pot of

chili on a grate over the fire. By the time the stars came out, the

fire had taken the chill out of the cabin’s air and they finished

eating.

“If the dishwater’s hot I’ll start the dishes,” Peg volunteered.

“I’ll dry,” Annie said as she rose and stretched.

“Good, me and Vicky can talk. I have never been so hungry in

my life. If that’s not too hard to believe,” Turkey said to Victoria,

rubbing her stomach as she pushed herself up with her other arm.

“What we need now is a joint by the fire,” she went on, pulling a

small suede bag out of her suitcase.

“You brought marijuana?” Victoria asked.

“Better,” Turkey answered, smiling smugly. “Hash!” and she

held out a small chunk.

Victoria took it and turned it around in the palm of her hand

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curiously. “I’ve never smoked this.”

“No? It’s great. A lot more potent than grass.”

“I never smoked that either,” Victoria mumbled.

Turkey looked up. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you want us not to? I

mean, you wouldn’t have to anyway. I never thought. . . Annie,

you’ve been depriving this poor girl of the pleasures of life!”

“I have?” Annie called from the fire.

“You never got her stoned.” Turkey lowered her voice. “Does

Annie know you never smoked?”

“I don’t remember it coming up. I just assumed she only

drank.”

“Usually that’s all we do. But a change is nice. You shouldn’t feel

like you have to. I remember the first time I smoked. It was a riot.

I was up here. Not here, but back on the other side of Putney. My

aunt stayed at a trailer place. There was a bunch of kids just used

to hang out together and one day one of the guys got some real

good stuff and laid it on us. I was the only one who never smoked

before, but I didn’t tell them that. We all walked up the river a

ways from the campsite and sat on the rocks. Oh my, was I high.

First time in my life I ever shut up. I didn’t even laugh. At first.

Everything looked so beautiful. The water just flowed on and on. I

know sociologists don’t talk like this,” Turkey said to cover her

embarrassment, “But I thought I was experiencing eternity.”

“No, Turkey, I think it’s wonderful. You said it so beautifully,

too. You make me want to try it,” Victoria protested, wondering if

she was really going to smoke to make Turkey feel more

comfortable.

“Good. Just don’t think I’m trying to push you. But you won’t be

sorry.” She smiled at the little pipe in her hand. “Then, after I

stopped being all intellectual about it, my friend Maudie came and

sat with me and we started fooling around. Everything was so

funny. I’ll never forget that, how funny the littlest thing was.

Maudie had some bubble gum. I swear I never tasted bubble gum

so good in all my life. It exploded in my mouth. The pink taste was

everywhere. And then it was everywhere because I popped a big

bubble and it stuck to my nose and cheeks and it just got funnier

and funnier that I was sitting there with all this pink stuff on me,

you know?”

“Yes, I can imagine,” Victoria laughed. “It sounds like the time

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I took acid.”

“I don’t believe it. You never smoked, but you did acid?”

Victoria blushed. “Just the one time.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Do you really want to hear it?”

“Of course I do. I never took acid. You know, I think I got your

number lady.” Victoria looked alarmed. “You’re shy. It’s not

because you go to Yale or you just came out. You’re scared to open

your mouth. Are you shy?”

Victoria tried to muster her detachment, to pull away from

Turkey and say that she was reticent and introspective, but didn’t

think she was shy. But while she was struggling with herself,

Turkey answered, “Of course you are. And I’m being a klutzy slob

again making you admit it. I’m sorry. I’m just glad I feel I know

you a little better. You don’t have to tell your story. I won’t push

you. But you know I never knew a good-looking woman could be

shy? I used to be. Shy that is. I was never good-looking,” she

laughed loudly. “But I overcame it. You know how? I decided the

hell with everybody. I’m alright. If they don’t like it, that’s their

loss. So,” she ended, toasting Victoria with the tiny hash pipe,

“that’s sob-sister Marieanne’s advice for the night. Hey, would you

guys finish up and come help us get stoned?”

Annie was on her way. Her army jacket looked comforting to

Victoria against the light of the fire. She sat next to Victoria and

hugged her briefly. “What do you mean I deny her pleasures?”

“Because I’ve never smoked,” Victoria admitted.

Annie looked surprised. “Do you want to?”

“Will I like it?” she asked, wondering where in the world her

need for independence had gone. She watched Annie take the pipe

and draw on it, then hold her breath as she passed it to Victoria

who suddenly felt like an awkward child. Soon, though, the four of

them were giggling softly and smiling at one another.

“This is really mellow stuff,” Peg observed, rolling back onto

her sleeping bag which was arranged, like the others, feet toward

the fire.

“Knocks you on your ass,” Turkey gurgled, rolling over into

Peg.

“Watch out, lady, Eleanor would be livid with jealousy if she

saw you curling up with me.”

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“My intentions are so platonic I’m embarrassed. Too bad she

couldn’t make it, though.”

Annie laughed. “Are you kidding? We couldn’t pry her away

from Dusty. El really wants that to work out. After all, they’ve been

together almost two months now and Dusty’s everything she’s

been looking for. Except you, Peglet.”

“And you, Heaphy. Aren’t you jealous, Vicky?”

Victoria faced Annie. “Oh, no,” she answered very quietly,

studying the cut of Annie’s face, the pale, pale skin covering her

bones like a still-forming baby’s face, the blue eyes as gentle and

surprised as an infant’s. She reached up and played with her fine

hair. “Where’s your hat?”

“I never wear it when I smoke. Makes me itchy.”

“It’s nice to see you without it sometimes. It changes you.

Makes you softer.”

“Why do you think I wear it?” Annie growled.

“Oh, but what’s wrong with your softness? I love it.”

“I get stepped on too much. You won’t step on me. I hope.”

“I won’t.” Victoria said quietly, then mouthed the words, “I

promise.” She turned away from Annie saying, “Turkey, you were

right, I like hash.” But Turkey was still and silent.

“I’m falling out too,” Peg said, moving to roll Turkey inside her

bag.

Annie said, “Me and Vicky will go in the bedroom, Peglet. This

fire will go out soon.”

“Not if I can help it,” Peg grunted, zipping Turkey in.

“Can we keep it going all night? Here,” Annie offered, “I’ll put

more wood on. We’ll rejoin you later and build it up again then.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Vicky, come here,” Annie gestured. “Let’s tuck Peglet in.”

“Now, I’m a big girl. That’s not at all necessary.”

“No, but it’s nice,” Victoria admonished her, fluffing up Peg’s

pillow.

Annie leaned over and kissed Peg on the cheek. “Night, gym

teacher.”

“Goodnight, Peg,” Victoria kissed her on the other cheek and

stayed a moment, holding Annie’s hand across Peg’s covered

body, their other hands on Peg’s shoulders.

Peg covered both their hands with hers. She looked into

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Victoria’s eyes, gentle looking behind the reflections of the fire in

her glasses. “You be good to my woman, here, Vicky. She needs

someone to take care of her. She’s just a tough kid behind it all,

you know.”

“I’ll do everything I can to help her stay a tough kid, Peg. I like

her, too.”

“Can it, you two,” Annie scowled.

They all laughed softly, careful not to wake Turkey who had

begun to snore. Annie and Victoria gathered their sleeping bags

and walked hand in hand away from the fire.

* * * *

The next morning Annie threw their sleeping bags over an

improvised clothesline to get rid of the night’s dampness. The sun

was beginning to brighten and warm the gentle spring day. Annie

leaned against a tree for a moment, staring back over the climbing

road that led to the cabin. The main road and general store were

hidden, but farther off was a steeple and the interruptions in

clusters of trees which indicated a town. She yearned to sneak off

there to find a place where she and Vicky could live surrounded by

the peace she was finding in the countryside’s isolation. Being in

Vermont was like drawing a shade upon the real world. No one

would be able to see them and they would not have to see

anything they did not want to see. Alone and at peace they could

continue to explore each other without having to deal with the

outer shell that came up when they were exposed to the real

world. Annie knew her dream was impossible, even undesirable,

since even they could not sustain pure joy forever. Better that

unhappiness come from outside themselves than that they find it

in each other.

She sighed, feeling the tree’s bark rough yet comforting under

her hand. A bush full of small red berries drew her eyes. First she

had wanted someone to love and now that she had found her it

was not enough, she thought, trying to encourage herself to be

happy at her good fortune. Now I want a place to protect our love,

to make sure it can grow. I want to make it so irresistible for Vicky

to stay with me that she’ll never have cause to go. The bars are no

place for us. My house, she thought heavily, is temporary. And

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now that part of my life feels better I can’t be driving a cab all

hours of the day and night. What a trap, she thought. Either you’ve

got nothing to treasure or you’re inadequate once you find it. A

light touch on her wrist made her worries disappear immediately.

She brought her wrist with Vicky’s hand still on it to her lips.

Vicky’s hand turned over sending heat surging into Annie’s chest.

She caught her breath and began to kiss Vicky’s palm, then drew

her closer. They both leaned against the tree, Annie marvelling

that such a beautiful woman should find her desirable. The smile

their closeness brought to Vicky’s face, a smile as clear as the

water from a spring, as surprised as a child getting a present, as

pleased as a woman who’s found love, bowled Annie over each

time she saw it. That she could make such a woman happy amazed

her each time she thought of it.

“Breakfast was just about done when I came to look for you.”

“Good. This country air makes me hungry.”

“Turkey’s really good at cooking on that old fireplace.”

“Turkey’s good at cooking anywhere.”

“Maybe we should all open up a restaurant up here. And a

lodge. Just for women.”

Annie stopped at the steps to the cabin. “Now there you have it.

I’ve been trying to think of a way to stay up here too. To buy a little

house no one could take from me.”

“Have you? Wouldn’t it be wonderful?” Victoria beamed. Then

she frowned. “But how would we ever. . . ?”

“Oh, it’s just fun to imagine. To dream of making a place for us

somewhere beautiful, among other women. Safe.”

“Anne, we will. I know it’s something we can do.” Annie

watched Victoria draw herself up full of the determination she

must have inherited from her pioneer ancestors. “Let’s just keep

thinking about it until we come up with a way.”

Annie laughed, “‘There’s a place for us, somewhere a place for

us . . .,’” she sang weakly, smiling. “Shall I sing Maria too?”

“No, silly duckling, but maybe we can form a gang and call

ourselves the Jets—and spell it J-e-t-t-e-s!”

“Duckling!” Annie fussed. “Where did that come from?”

Victoria ran her hand through Annie’s hair. “From all this

downy stuff on top of your head! Say you’ll be my duckling,

please!”

Toothpick House | 154

“Only if you promise never to say it in public,” Annie muttered

as they entered the dark cabin. “It’s colder in here than outside!”

“Then open the windows and get your ass over here to eat

before it gets cold.”

“What, Turkey? It’s not gone already?”

“Never mind the Turk. I was ready to eat it all myself,” Peg

called. “How are you doing this morning, Vicky? You look like

Turkey’s snoring didn’t keep you awake.”

“I didn’t even notice it.”

“Impossible, girl. Stop being so polite,” Turkey said. “Here’s

your flapjacks.”

“I heard you, Turkey, and if you weren’t such a good cook, we’d

have to expel you from the business,” Annie threatened as she

took a seat.

“What business? Now what are you dreaming about?”

“Fame, fortune, beautiful women,” Annie toasted to Victoria

with her coffee mug full of tea. “Let’s all open a gay ski lodge and

restaurant up here.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it. You can be the recreation director, Peg.”

“And Turkey the cook?”

“Yes, and Vicky the manager and I’ll drive people to and from

the train station.”

“What train station?” Turkey laughed.

“We’ll persuade them to stop wherever we open up.”

Peg cleared her dishes from the table and picked up Turkey’s.

“And where are we going to find all these rich lesbians who can

afford to ski weekends?”

“It won’t really be a ski lodge,” Victoria joined in to develop the

fantasy further. “It’ll be a place where women can go with other

women for whatever.”

“Like a winter women’s center?” Turkey laughed again.

“Exactly,” said Annie. “Don’t do those dishes. Vicky and me will

take our turns too.”

“And interrupt the honeymoon?”

“Cut it out, Turkey. We could have facilities for meetings and

conferences.”

“A bar,” Peg added.

“A gourmet restaurant,” Turkey expanded.

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“A showcase for women artists and a stage for performers,” said

Victoria.

“Courses to keep them during the week,” Annie suggested.

“Films,” Victoria nodded, “and a women’s book and art store.”

“An exercise room,” Peg clapped, excitedly.

“A honeymoon suite,” Turkey laughed, nudging Annie who

grabbed the sugar from the table and turned it almost upside

down over Turkey’s head until Peg took it from her.

“We’ll never get this thing together if you two don’t stop fooling

around,” she admonished them.

“Why don’t we find the town,” Annie proposed, “and check it

out for sites.”

Turkey leaned back in her chair. “We’ll have to make up a flag

so we can plant it and claim it in the name of. . . .”

“The New Haven Jettes,” Victoria finished, looking at Annie

who began to sing, “‘When you’re a Jette, you’re a Jette all the

way. . . ’”

Peg took up the words in a more tuneful voice. “‘From your first

cigarette . . .’”

“‘To your last dying day!’” Turkey hollered unmusically. “And

we’ll call it the Jette Inn! Classy, huh?”

“Maybe too classy,” Peg criticized. “For us. What do you think,

Vicky?”

Victoria handed the dishes to Annie as she scraped them. “I

don’t think it’s overly classy, but perhaps unrealistic.”

“Hitch Inn is more our speed,” Annie agreed.

Turkey began to laugh. “With everything that would go wrong

if we had a project, that would be a perfect name.”

“Let’s not jinx ourselves, ladies,” Peg laughed too, sweeping

pine needles out the front door.

Victoria blushed. “How about, Let’s Be Inn?”

It took a moment for everyone to understand the pun. They all

stopped working to consider the name.

“Wow,” Turkey breathed. “That’s it! The name is too good to

pass up. Let’s go look for it!”

Hiding behind her hair again, Victoria looked pleased. Annie

sought out her eyes as Turkey and Peg went to the car. “I told you

they like you.”

“I was only kidding about that name.”

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“You didn’t want to say it at all, did you?”

“I’m not used to the word yet.”

“You will be. Lesbian. You’ll hear it as a curse, as a compliment,

as pornography, scholastically, and said with love. It’s a beautiful

word,” Annie assured her, cupping Victoria’s jaw with her hand,

tenderly.

“Kind of erotic.”

“Oh, yes. Definitely erotic.”

“They’re waiting for us.”

Annie laughed. “The lesbians?”

Victoria blushed again. “Yes,” she stuttered, “the Let’s Be Inns.”

They descended on the town like four warriors of Boudica

seeking food for their hungry people. They rejected the tiny

shopping centers on the outskirts for the old brick and stone

buildings of the town. High on big plans they invaded all the

public buildings, creating excitement in the library, the hardware

store and the restaurant. While the others had coffee the

straightest looking of them, Victoria, went into the realtor’s office

to check on commercial properties. By this time, she, too, was

disheveled from spending a night almost outdoors and without

her accustomed toiletries. Back she came to them, Annie gasping

at her new wild beauty, hair streaming behind her in the breeze,

jacket over her shoulder under the noon sun, shoes and jeans

muddied from wood-gathering.

“Nothing,” she said, out of breath and dropping beside Annie in

the booth. While a country singer sang tinnily in the jukebox she

explained, “I think he must have heard we were coming. Surely

there’s something in all these acres. But he showed me what he

said were all his listings and there were no buildings we could

convert and there wasn’t a bit of land correctly zoned that was

appropriate for building.” The waitress brought her a cup of tea

and she paused to fix the tea bag. “He suggested we try up in the

next county because they’re looking for tourist business.”

“Did you tell him we were thinking of something private, like a

club, membership only deal?” Annie asked.

“Yes. He said he didn’t know anything about the Vermont laws

on things like that. He also asked where we were getting our

capital.”

“Did you tell him?”

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“I didn’t know what to tell him. I figured we’d need loans. I

could get a loan on my savings.”

“Savings?” Turkey snorted derisively.

“I’m afraid mine wouldn’t guarantee a car loan, never mind a

property deal,” Peg said, resting her chin on her hands.

“What about your family?” Annie ventured softly.

Victoria looked sharply at her. “What about them?”

“Would they help you start a business?”

“Is that what you’re all hoping?” Victoria asked in an aggrieved

tone, looking at all of them. “Suddenly the whole project rests on

my financial worth?”

“Well, no,” Annie defended herself quickly. “It was just a

thought.” Turkey and Peg grunted their embarrassed agreement

with Annie.

Victoria looked at each of them as if she were about to cry. “I

can’t get them involved in this. They don’t even know about you,

Anne. Besides, I don’t want any help from them.”

There was a silence. Then disappointment like a fog settled over

them. Victoria noticed that the booth was patched and the men at

the counter kept staring their way, especially at her. She jumped

when Annie reached to touch her arm. Turkey fell over Peg trying

to leave quietly for the bathroom.

“It’s not that anybody was expecting you to ask your family,

Vic,” Peg explained tentatively. “Nobody even mentioned you. I

guess we all had the feeling that there was someone among us

who knew how to get money.”

Victoria stared at the cooling tea she was stirring. “I just feel—

used.”

“Oh, no, you shouldn’t, Vicky,” Annie protested.

“But I do. It’s not your fault. I think it was my expectations.

That you saw me as just one of you. I was just letting my guard

down, believing that. But I should know better.”

“But, Vicky, you’ve got to understand. We weren’t trying to use

you or anything. You have to admit that you are different from us,”

Peg confronted her sympathetically.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Vicky,” the sun was in Peg’s eyes, making her face look even

more strained that it was, “there’s nothing wrong with your

difference. We’re all different from each other in other ways. It’s

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just that you come on so together and so knowledgeable about the

real world. I don’t know, I guess I just assumed you’d be able to

help get something like this off the ground.”

Tears crawled down Victoria’s face, doubly embarrassing her.

“I’m so sorry I’m carrying on like this. I know you meant no harm.

Can we leave?” she asked, turning to Annie.

“Sure, my love,” Annie soothed her. “Of course. Here, you go

outside and I’ll pay.”

Victoria stood facing the sun, trying to absorb some of its

energy to make herself stronger. How could they, she thought,

humiliated and furious. And Anne. Oh, Anne, to treat me like this,

like—like what I am, she considered. Her mind was silent as Annie

joined her, trying to grasp what was happening. They walked to a

bridge and down the embankment next to it. Peg had waited

behind for Turkey. “I love you, Vicky.”

Victoria looked out from under her drying tears at Annie’s

earnest, pleading face. “I suppose I want to be sure that you do

love me and not just my parents’ child. Or my grandparents’ child,

since they’re the ones with the money. I don’t mean to sound as

though I’m fighting off gold diggers. I’ve never even thought of

that, but I hope you don’t love me for being things that you’re not.

Do you know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure. I have to love you at least a little because you’re

unlike me.” Annie was disturbed at this first difference between

them. Could it be the beginning of the end? She knew their love

was too good to be true.

“Yes, but not because of exterior things like a rich education or

what Turkey calls ‘classy’ clothes.”

“God, no. But you do have a fine mind under all that

education,” Annie tried to smile. She saw that Victoria’s lips were

trembling toward a smile and she went on despite her own

misgivings. “And that beautiful long-legged body didn’t get that

way on rice and beans.” Victoria did smile. “And the incredible

teeth,” she touched a knuckle to them, “behind your smile did not

come from staving off hunger in Ireland with soft potatoes.”

“And I have learned so well to be high-strung and sensitive

about all sorts of things that are going to make you miserable until

you can’t stand me anymore.”

“Not if I understand them. Shit, there must be stuff your

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parents taught you to hate about people lower than you on the

ladder. And I must personify half of them.” Annie wondered if she

was trying to reassure herself as well.

“Only the half I grew to love in rebellion.”

“Oh, so I’m an act of rebellion against your family now, am I?”

Annie teased, tired of trying so hard to patch it up and wanting to

just enjoy Victoria. She pulled Victoria’s hands to herself, feeling

depression sweep over her, even as she comforted Victoria.

“No, no,” Victoria laughed. “Let me go, that’s Main Street up

there! And you’re not my rebellion. I’m trying to be real with real

people. Actually exposing myself to people who can hurt me like I

was hurt just now and learning to survive it.”

“Well, then, I’m honored to be part of it, even if I will hurt you

sometimes. Because I know I try to give you much more pleasure

than pain,” Annie assured Victoria while fighting the despair that

rose in herself. Could she deal with it? Was it worth it? She wasn’t

sure.

“And you do give me more pleasure, duckling.”

“Here we go again with duckling,” Annie teased, still holding

out against a nearly overpowering desire to run as far and as fast

as she could from their conflict. “Why not just call me ugly

duckling and get it over with?”

“Because you’re not, you’re not. You’re lovely. Especially with

the sun and the ripples from the water reflected on your face.”

Annie smiled, but dropped her eyes. “Do you think we can work

it out?”

“I don’t want to be alive if we don’t. I used to be able to survive

alone, but I’m not so sure I’d want to anymore. And I have a very

strong desire for survival.”

Me too, and I’m not sure I can survive a relationship, Annie

thought as she watched the water rush by, running from its winter

heights. She felt the chill it brought with it and watched it darken

as a cloud passed across the sun.

* * * *

Peg and Annie Heaphy were gathering more wood that

afternoon.

“I’m going to start laying the fire for tonight,” Peg said, kneeling

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by the circle of rocks they had made for a campfire. “It’ll be too

dark when we get back from the movies.”

“What else do we need?”

“Some kindling.”

“Like this?” Annie showed her three long branches she’d been

dragging behind her.

“Beautiful. Want my knife?”

“No. I brought my old Girl Scout knife.”

“You were a Girl Scout too?”

“Wasn’t every dyke?”

Peg laughed. “Probably. It was the first place I ever loved a

woman.”

“It was?”

“I don’t mean I came out in the Girl Scouts. But I sure loved my

camp counselor. I was nine.”

“A little early.”

“You ain’t kidding. But I almost came out when I was a

counselor in training. You had to have a buddy. You know, for

mountain climbing, swimming, going to the John at night. My

buddy and me fell in love. We must have been sixteen. I wish we’d

known what was going on. Karen. She’ll never know how much I

loved her. You know we slept in one another’s arms?”

“That must have been tough,” Annie panted, finally cutting

through the thickest stick. “I’m not sure this one is dry enough.”

“Can you snap it?”

“No.”

“There’s plenty of dry stuff. Chuck that one. Actually, I didn’t

sleep. Not for hours. We both stayed awake a long time talking.

Then we just lay there. I think Karen pretended to fall asleep just

so we could stay close. I forget how we got that way.” She paused

and laid another stick on the foundation she was building. “I

remember. We heard something outside the tent in the bushes and

were scared. It was one of the last nights at camp. One of us must

have been brave enough to grab onto the other. I remember feeling

lightheaded with the pleasure of holding her. She was so warm, so

soft. She wore her hair long and it smelled of campfire. I remember

thinking something like, ‘If I were a man I’d probably marry

Karen.’ What a dummy.”

“You’re probably lucky.”

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“Why?”

“That you couldn’t marry her. I’m not so sure it’s worth getting

involved.”

“Because of what happened with Vicky this morning?”

“Partly. And because I ‘m not sure I ‘m cut out for it.” Annie

stopped breaking sticks and sat on a log with her head down.

“What’s the sense if we can’t get along already?”

Peg shook her head wearily and thought for a moment.

“Remember I told you I started going to a consciousness raising

group?” she asked.

“Yeah, why? You’re not getting me to one of those,” Annie

looked up defiantly.

“I’m not trying to. I just want to tell you something somebody

said. We were talking about friendship and making the

relationships in the CR group meaningful over a long period of

time and an older woman said, ‘That’ll take a lot of hard work.’ I

asked how you work hard at friendship. We argued back and forth

for awhile, me saying friendships should come naturally and if you

had to work at them maybe they weren’t real and her saying, no,

no, no you’ve got to work for any good things you get and that

women especially had to work real hard at relationships because

we’re trained to romanticize things. Like we’re brought up to think

that our prince will come and we’ll fall in love and everything will

be hunky-dory after that. We’re brought up to think that if we’re

physically alluring and socially graceful enough we’re going to love

and be loved and never even have to try to make our relationships

work. We’re brought up to think that women are catty and bitchy

and unreliable and not worth much so if a friendship gets rocky we

should just dump it because it’s not worth working on. We don’t

have to work hard at anything except maybe keeping the house or

cooking well.

“She blew my mind, Heaphy. Look what so many lesbians do.

We start a love affair and as soon as a difference comes up or a

problem gets out of hand we want to run, or we ‘fall out of love,’ or

we develop a passionate attraction for someone else and are sure

it’d be much better if we were with her. Well, we don’t have to. We

can stand firm and face it, deal with it, resolve it. We’re worth the

effort and our relationships are worth the effort. My next

relationship I’m going to be willing to lay my life down for. Only

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after I fight practically to the death to make it work will I let

myself consider whether it’s worth it. I feel like I’ve got to do that

to make sure I don’t throw away something very valuable out of

habit. Or culture. And I’ll bet just the process of working hard

together to build or keep a relationship makes it even firmer and

more valuable to the women in it.” She smiled and walked over to

Annie. “Listen, Heaphy, I feel so strongly about what I’m saying

that I feel it not just for you and Vicky, but for me and Vicky.

That’s why I didn’t leave with Turkey when things got rough back

at the restaurant. I want you two to make it and because I’m your

friend I feel committed enough to my relationship with Vicky that

I want to work it out between her and me, too.”

Annie looked up at Peg sullenly. “Maybe you were right. Maybe

that libber was wrong. Just because she said it in a ‘consciousness

raising group,’” Annie sneered, “that makes it right?”

“No, Heaphy. I wasn’t sure it was right. And I fought just as

hard as you’re fighting. But it kept coming back to my mind and

ever since this morning, with Vicky, it’s all fallen into place. And I

feel like I have to tell you because I care about you and Vicky.”

Annie stood and walked jerkily around the campfire circle. She

yanked her cap off and slammed her fist into it. “Goddammit, Peg,

it’s not worth it. It’s even got you and me fighting.” She wheeled to

face Peg, her face pleading. “We never fought before.”

“I don’t mind fighting if it accomplishes something.”

“Well, I do,” Annie said as she stalked away. She walked down

the driveway and around the first curve before she sat down.

Calmer, she tried to think through the mess things had become

since that morning. What were they all fighting about? She could

hardly remember, but certainly it wasn’t worth all this

aggravation. Obviously she would have to give Victoria up. She’d

shot too high. Victoria was out of her league. Too smart, too

educated, too upper class, money or not. Why did she ever think

she could handle her? Annie’s father was a truck driver. Her

parents were comfortable, but they owned nothing beyond their

four year old car. They couldn’t even pay for Annie to go to a local

school. She had to get a scholarship and a loan. They went away

for a week every year to a cottage in Plymouth which they rented

with an aunt and uncle. Their culture was TV and the movies. That

was Annie, for all her high-minded reading. Victoria travelled and

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went to operas and plays and knew how to dress and went to Yale

and was brilliant. Annie laughed at herself for thinking that they

could ever spend their lives together without conflict. Peg was one

of her own. And Turkey. She wasn’t losing them for any woman.

After you’re through with a woman, you got to have good friends

to turn to, she thought. Now she just had to decide whether to tell

Victoria it was over today or be kind and wait until they got back.

She would wake her from her nap and ask her to go for a walk.

Maybe she would tell her right away, kind or not. She would see

how it went.

She felt afraid and wondered if she was running away. No,

damn it, she thought. I’m not running away from anything. I’m

going to face her and explain why it can’t work. What a shame I

love her so much, she thought sadly and felt tears coming. No

romantic bullshit, she admonished herself, thinking that Peg had

been right to put that down. But not about the other things. How

were you supposed to keep a relationship going by fighting about

it? Some things you can’t change. Or could you? Annie felt

confused and didn’t like it. She pushed Peg’s words away as she

resolutely went toward the cabin for her walk with Victoria. She’d

trust to her feelings and do what was right. Still, she thought,

considering how beautiful and tender Victoria was, if there was a

way, maybe it would be worth a try.

“What have you been doing with yourself, duckling?” Victoria

asked as they started into the woods.

“Wait,” Annie said abruptly, running back to the car and pulling

a blanket out of the trunk. “Just in case,” she said forgetting for a

moment the bad tidings she carried, deciding they needed the

blanket because they had to sit when they talked. As she stood

before Victoria, out of breath, she relished the woman’s wild-

looking hair, her brown eyes darkened with intensity and pleasure

and the feathers which still clung to her jeans. She plucked one off.

“Have a good rest?”

“Yes,” Victoria said. “And I love featherbeds. Didn’t you just

sleep like a child last night?”

“Ummm,” Annie replied. “But I didn’t think it was feathers that

made me sleep good. I thought it had more to do with driving five

hours, staying up late and making love pretty energetically.”

Victoria laughed. “I know, we never did make it back to the

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fireplace, did we?”

“I was warm enough. How about you?”

“You know I was.” Victoria turned back toward the cabin and,

seeing that they were out of its sight, turned to embrace Annie.

Hesitating, Annie allowed herself to be held, rationalizing that it

was one of the last times. But Victoria had felt her pull herself

away. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Annie tried to say smoothly. “Why?”

“You felt—different.”

“I don’t think so,” Annie lied, wishing she could tell her right

then.

They walked on for awhile, quieter. Nothing could dampen

their happiness with each other. Victoria kept spotting different

types of wildflowers, picking them and running to give them to

Annie. Annie took them indulgently, unused to receiving

bouquets. “You know you’re messing with my image, girl,” she

told Victoria.

“How?” Victoria asked innocently.

Annie laughed and stopped in the path. “You look like such a

little girl! Your hair’s a mess, you’re all smudged and stained from

digging up flowers, your glasses are halfway down your nose—it’s

great! As for my image, the hell with it. So dykey women aren’t

supposed to walk around with their arms filled with flowers. You

gave them to me and that’s all that counts.” A look of pain passed

over her face.

“There is something wrong,” Victoria accused. “Please tell me

what it is. Was it because I got upset this morning? I’m sorry. I

was suspicious when there was nothing to be suspicious about. I’m

just so unused to having friends I don’t always know how. Please

believe me, Anne. I was afraid you were liking me for being

someone I’m not, looking to get out of me what I don’t have. I’m

not used to being liked for being me. I haven’t learned to trust yet.

Please give me time.”

Annie reached for her hand and they walked again. “You don’t

know how I wish there were no differences between us and we

could just be happy together all the time,” she told Victoria, then

fell silent. They walked hand in hand awhile longer, soon dropping

their confusions again and playing. Victoria picked more flowers

and Annie laid hers down to weave a dandelion chain for Victoria’s

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hair. “Wish we had some wine,” she said at one point.

“Let’s find a stream instead,” Victoria suggested. Then their

walk became punctuated with brief, quiet stops where they both

listened intently for the sound of water. Once they thought they

heard it and cut a path of their own through the trees, only to find

that they were above the highway. The sound they had heard was

traffic, faint and far below.

“Look,” Victoria said, pointing up. “A beautiful meadow. Let’s

go up there!”

“How?” Annie asked, looking around for a path to climb.

“Let’s just do it. We’ll find a way. I have to feel what it’s like to

lie on the grass.”

Annie smiled indulgently. “Okay, lady.” She promised in a low

voice, “If that’s what you want, we’ll do it. Ain’t nothing can stop

us.”

“And when we get there,” Victoria suggested, “we’ll talk about

what’s bothering you.” She watched Annie frown. “Because we

have to, Anne.”

Annie nodded a resigned yes, thinking that she would have to

tell Victoria today if she was really going to break up with her. She

was not sure that she could, but she still felt that she had to. She

watched Victoria thread her way through trees and brambles

before her, holding branches back so they would not scratch

Annie, crawling on her knees through the more tangled places,

and making sure Annie found the same firm footholds she found

for herself. Annie hurt at the thought of giving up someone who

not only wanted to dance and make love and have a good time,

but who wanted to take care of her. Annie did not remember ever

loving a woman who expressed her love like this. How could she

let her go? But it would be better to do it now, before she got used

to it, because she would never find another Victoria among her

crowd. It just wasn’t part of their lifestyle, to take care of each

other. Annie saw herself in ten years driving a red convertible

with a long-haired blonde in the passenger seat. Walking together

into a bar in another city somewhere, sharing a fashionable

apartment and having a demanding, important job. Good-looking

and smooth and respected: that’s how she saw herself, how she

had always seen her future self since she came out. She did not

want to be a bar dyke forever, or one of Natalie’s crowd who could

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pass for straight. What she wanted was to be somewhere in

between, with enough sophistication to impress and room for the

things she loved, like walking in the woods and making love in the

sun.

Victoria, meanwhile, sensed the conflict in Annie and, for the

moment, put her own aside. She knew that she had something

special in Annie and that it was not just that she was a woman.

Yes, she thought, I’ll have to deal with being a lesbian, but I think

now I can handle that. Annie had a spirit in her that Victoria

wanted to learn and she felt herself become like a mother animal,

fierce and possessive of this new thing that had attached itself to

her body and soul. Nothing would take her Anne away from her.

No preying birds, no hungry animals, and no wandering spirit in

Anne herself. Somehow she would make Anne understand that

she wanted her above all else and would change in any way that

she could to keep her. Was changing already. Annie had said that

she looked like a little girl! Just the opposite of how she had

wanted to look and feel. So here she was, like a little girl reckless

of all risks, tearing through brambles, leaping across gullies, filthy

and determined and feeling very good.

“Wait!” Annie called out behind her. “Do you hear it?”

Victoria stopped to listen. Cupping her ears she realized she

had been stepping onto softer and softer ground and had led

Annie to an overgrown path which opened to a small, clear

mountain stream. They smiled broadly at each other, successful

explorers, and fell to their knees to scoop handfuls of water to

their dry mouths. Annie sat watching Victoria drink. Her hair

dragged into the water as she leaned forward and she tossed it

back each time she came up before letting the icy cold mountain

water run into her throat. The sight of Victoria’s throat and chin

against the blue sky caught Annie’s chest in a vise. She swallowed

air as Victoria was swallowing water and found herself gasping.

“What is it?” Victoria asked in alarm, letting a handful of water

fall to the swift, shining stream.

“Nothing,” Annie answered, shaking her blonde head, her cap

already fallen beside the stream. “Nothing is wrong, Vicky. I want

to talk. I want to get all this worked out.” She was silent a moment,

still staring at the wonder that Victoria was to her. “My queen,”

she said slowly, “you are just too wonderful to lose.” Victoria

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looked solemnly at Annie, feeling that something momentous had

just passed. She felt its power beyond her reach, as moved by its

strength as Annie seemed immobilized by it. “You are my queen,

you know,” Annie declared, looking at Victoria.

Victoria felt uncomfortable at being given so much power and

sought to equalize it. “How can I be your queen,” she asked,

“when you’re a queen to me?”

“I thought I was your duckling,” Annie smiled as they moved

toward each other.

“Umm,” Victoria nuzzled Annie’s hair, now warm from the sun,

“Queen Anne you are, and I shall be your loyal vassal as long as

you require it of me.”

“Uh-uh,” Annie said, shaking her head. “I’m never going to

command nothing from you, my lady. Except love and

companionship.”

“Then let’s pledge,” Victoria said ceremoniously, “to command

from each other what we need and what we can give or learn to

give, Anne.”

“Sounds fair,” Annie answered. “I command that we get to your

meadow and take off all our clothes and roll around on the grass.”

“Your command is my wish,” Victoria laughed, jumping up, her

jeans damp with dark mud. “I’m a mess.”

“You’re beautiful,” Annie called as she ran ahead of Victoria,

forgetting the blanket, through the last several yards of clearing

woods and onto the field. They met in the middle of the wide,

sloping grass and did their dance of joy, their whirling, hand-

holding swing, at the apex of the meadow. Dizzy, they fell to the

grass and Victoria began to unbutton her flannel shirt. “Not yet,”

Annie stopped her. “I have to say what’s bothering me.”

Victoria sat up and pulled her tangled hair back, a serious

expression replacing the sensuality of her face. “Vicky,” Annie

started, “I was feeling like we couldn’t be together any more. Like

you’re too, you know, classy for me. Like I’m just a dumb gutter-

dyke and you’re this beautiful, gracious woman I can’t measure up

to. You know?”

“Anne,” Victoria answered, shaking her head now. “You are

beautiful to me. And gracious in a way I’m afraid I’ll never master.

Gracious and intelligent in ways of life that have eluded me all

these years. You give me your spirit and I can—oh, I don’t know

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how to say it to you—I can drink deeply of the stream. You don’t

know how much that stream meant to me. It was a symbol of all

you are to me and all I’m learning with you. Just to dip myself in

and drink, drink, drink. Oh,” she said, covering her mouth in fear,

“to think you were going to stop it, thought you had!”

“Vicky, Vicky, you’ve got to listen to me. You don’t understand.

I’m not going away. I was afraid. I’m still afraid.” Annie put her

arms around Victoria. “Vicky, I didn’t think I could handle you.

You’re so different from me. You were brought up different and I

don’t know your ways just like you don’t know mine. And I was

thinking that we’re really tying ourselves up in knots together

trying to learn not just to love each other, but whole new ways of

talking and acting that neither of us have acted like before. It just

seemed too hard. Too much to ask of you and beyond me

altogether. But I’d rather try. I don’t know how to even start, but I

can’t give you up. You’re too special, too much what I want. And I

want to learn the new ways, I think. I want us both to learn new

ways we can be together. Do you understand?”

Victoria was wiping her tears. “Of course I understand. It’s

what I’ve been fighting all my life—the way I am, the way I was

brought up. I don’t like it, I want to get rid of it. That’s something

I’m counting on you to help me with.”

“But I love you the way you are, Vicky. I don’t want you to

change.”

“I think there are some ways you and I are going to have to

change, Anne. In order to be together. And as long as we don’t

change our—” she groped for words, “our essences, there’s no

reason that we will change beyond each other’s reach.”

“Do you really think we can do it?” Annie asked.

“We have to do it, Anne. I’m not rich and there’s no reason for

me to go on acting like I’m in the upper class. I hate it and it

keeps me from being real.”

“And I’m not a real bar dyke, I know it. I want too much more

out of life.”

“So let’s learn who we are together. Maybe it’ll have something

to do with feminism. Maybe I’ll never quite get over being a snob

and you’ll never take off your hat. And maybe we’ll step on each

other’s toes a lot and it’ll hurt.” She lay three clovers across

Annie’s hair. “I crown you Queen Duckling,” Victoria said smiling

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tenderly, a deeply solemn look settling in her eyes. “And I pledge

myself to you, our life together and our work, whatever it may

become.”

Annie returned her solemnity, shyly. “Here under the sky,

where everything that matters is my witness,” she said, pulling

Victoria up as she stood, “I also pledge myself to you, in our life

and our work.” She felt her breath grow shorter with the fear of

what she was saying, knowing she would not retract this promise,

afraid she was wrong to make it, but unable to stop it, it came

from so deep inside herself, back where she couldn’t interfere with

it. “If I could pull my heart from my body and hand it to you,

Vicky,” she said half-whispering, “I would do that right now.”

They moved along the mountainside feeling the strong tie of

their freshly spoken bond and the sensuality it inspired. First they

took their shoes off and walked on the spongy grasses. Then they

removed their jackets and shirts and left them lying behind with

their shoes as they moved together, marvelling at each other’s

breasts and shoulders in the sunlight. They stopped, touched

breasts, looked into one another’s eyes, then reached as one for

each other’s belts and soon were naked, utterly naked in the

mountain air.

Annie swallowed hard to see Victoria’s beauty so plainly. She

moved them to the ground softly.

“It’s almost too much,” Victoria said. “I’m not sure I can make

love.” She felt blinded by Annie’s brightness, the desire knocked

out of her by the enormity of her emotion. So they just touched,

ran their hands along the smoothness of each other’s bodies for

awhile.

Victoria took her glasses off and laid them down. Then they

turned away from one another’s faces and, laying mouth to vulva,

spent another very, very long time lying under the sun touching

each other alternately with their mouths and with the sun and air

until quietly they came, Victoria starting with a groan and Annie

allowing herself to follow so that some of the time they felt what

they felt together. They lay still afterward, just like that, breathing

each other.

When they were ready, Victoria moved with a long sigh

upright alongside Annie. They talked, lips touching, into one

another’s mouths. “Did you hear the band?” Annie asked.

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“You heard it too?” Victoria asked, incredulous.

“Yes,” Annie answered, gently surprised, still glowing. “The

sound drifted up the mountainside. We must be above a playing

field of some sort.”

“I thought it was inside my head,” Victoria laughed softly.

“You must have been really into making love.”

“I was, my duckling.”

“Well, you’re pretty good for a beginner,” Annie laughed.

Victoria sat up and pushed playfully at Annie’s still-bare

shoulder. “Huh,” she said indignantly. “I have a lot of

imagination to make up for my inexperience.”

“I noticed.” They hugged and felt a tension in each other’s

bodies. “We’d better not,” Annie said. “I’m getting nervous

about pressing our luck out in the open like this.”

“I agree,” Victoria answered, bending to kiss Annie’s breast

as they struggled into their jeans. “Do you remember the way

back?”

“No, do you?”

“I scattered bread crumbs,” Victoria laughed.

“We’re not that far from the stream. Once we find our shirts,

my cap and the blanket we just have to guess which way to

walk.”

“My guess is we should head down,” Victoria teased as Annie

pulled her up. They kissed again, hungrily, for a long time,

pulling back and looking at one another as if to memorize the

meaning of their day before turning away from the sun to walk

back into the woods.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Annie Heaphy laughed at herself. She was walking down the

steps of the Women’s Center as if she were entering prison to

serve a life sentence. Pulled and prodded there by Peg, she was

sulky and hostile. And she was damned if she was going to make it

easy for them to convert her. She was as much of a feminist as she

wanted to be and probably more of one than they were. You had to

be pretty liberated to be queer. She had been thinking more about

herself politically, especially in talks with Victoria. Entering the

lion’s den unnerved her. She followed Peg closely and stood

behind her at the door fingering the brim of her cap, peering into

the large room from behind her hand. There were a lot of women

in the room; they milled about, waiting to hear the poet who

would be reading that night.

“What’s happening to me,” Annie asked herself, “coming to a

faggy poetry reading?” Peg had insisted this would not be a “faggy”

reading at all. The poet was “a real dyke from California.” Annie

was still suspicious, but in the face of Peg’s determination to save

her, Turkey and Eleanor from their apolitical lives, she gave in.

Besides, she had found Victoria and now she wanted to be worthy

of her. To do that she knew she must break out of or at least widen

the circles of her life. She had tried to persuade Victoria to come to

the reading too, but Victoria had been adamant about studying

that night. She wanted to keep her grades high. Annie realized

Victoria had a need for the credentials that came with high grades

in order to feel worthwhile.

Rosemary and Claudia were not as concerned about their

grades. Annie spotted them through her fingers as she adjusted

her cap. Peg paid her own and Annie’s way into the Center as

Annie tried to hide behind her taller back. When Peg stopped to

talk with someone she knew, Annie tried pulling her cap down to

her nose and getting further behind Peg, but Rosemary was

bearing down on her.

“What a gratifying surprise!” Rosemary called, still halfway

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across the room. Annie smiled awkwardly and glanced around to

see if anyone had noticed. Victoria said Rosemary had some

redeeming qualities, but Annie had avoided spending any time

with her thus far. Rosemary hugged her and Annie squirmed

uncomfortably, making a face at Peg who turned to watch with an

amused expression. “I’ve heard so much about you,” Rosemary

said, still holding Annie by the shoulders. Annie looked at the sari

Rosemary affected and the dull hair coiled tightly in back of her

head and wondered what made this woman tick. As Claudia joined

them, Annie tried to imagine what the plump-cheeked, cheerful

Claudia found physically attractive about this ornery feminist.

“Hiya, Claudia,” Annie said, attempting to join in the social

graces. She stuck out a hand and shook both of theirs. That’s how

a dyke says hello, she thought to herself. They ought to learn.

“This is my friend Peg.”

“The teacher Victoria went to Vermont with?” Claudia asked.

“The same,” Peg laughed. “Though I wouldn’t think that’s how

she thinks of me. I have enough problems remembering that’s

what I am.”

“She’s told us quite a bit about you, too, Peg,” Rosemary

added.

Peg answered, “And Vicky has mentioned both of you often.”

Rosemary seemed to want to keep the conversation going.

“Have you ever heard Judy Grahn before?”

“Never even heard of her till Peg button-holed me into coming

tonight,” Annie answered.

“You’ll like her,” Claudia assured her. “She’s very real. Not at

all intellectual.”

Annie wondered how Victoria had described her to her friends.

“I don’t mind intellectuals,” she answered defensively. “I mean, I

read poetry and all that.”

Claudia still smiled. “I do too, sometimes, though I’m a psych

major. But I can’t stand these fuddy-duddies who think poetry is

pretty words. I like it to mean and from what I’ve read, Judy

Grahn means a lot.”

Comfortable listening to Claudia, Annie almost relaxed. “I

think all poets try to mean, but some of them just don’t know how

to do it, you know? Like they’re afraid to get any emotion in there.

I’m still not sure that someone like Shelley, even though he’s a

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romantic, really ever feels anything but lightheaded. Sometimes I

wonder if men poets didn’t just hear about emotions from women

and want to feel them so bad they spend all their time trying to

describe them so they can learn how to have them. I mean, what

about all of us back here on earth who’ve got to drive cabs and

can’t go floating around mountain-tops?”

“That’s just what I mean,” Claudia responded excitedly.

“Rosemary’s never understood what I’m trying to say. Does that

make sense to you?” She took Rosemary’s arm and pressed herself

to her side, looking up at her questioningly.

Rosemary squeezed Claudia’s arm back and answered, “I think

so. You want the raw stuff of life, you two. You don’t want puns

and philosophy.”

“But don’t those have a place in poetry too?” Peg asked, joining

the discussion.

“Just what I was about to say,” Rosemary answered. “I think

you need all of it to really speak poetically. Would Judy Grahn

have found her poetic voice if she had not read other poets? Could

she pack her poetry so full of meaning if she didn’t know how to

use words every possible way? I can say I love you,” she said

looking at Claudia, “and I can say I love you many different ways,

but that doesn’t have the emotional impact of: ‘How do I love

thee? Let me count the ways . . . ,’’’ she quoted persuasively.

“By a woman, of course,” Annie muttered almost inaudibly.

“Well, anyway,” Claudia smiled, not hearing her, “however she

does it, Judy Grahn is good.”

“Thanks for the reassurance.” Annie took off her jacket. “Maybe

I’ll stay awhile and try her out.” She winked at Peg.

“You’d better,” Peg punched Annie playfully in the arm. “I

didn’t fight to get you this far just to lose you. She’s afraid she’ll be

converted,” she stage-whispered to Rosemary and Claudia.

“I love it!” Rosemary laughed, a real, deep-throated laugh.

“That’s just what these women’s center people are afraid you and

Judy and Peg and now Claudia and I will do: convert them!”

They all laughed together and Annie found herself wondering if

Rosemary didn’t have some kind of stiff charm that might include

a lot of posturing, but was really a desperate attempt to express

herself. She must be as shy as I am, Annie thought, amazed, and

wanted suddenly to assure her that she could relax with herself

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and Peg. She smiled up at her and got back a brief shadow of a

grin.

“Look!” Claudia whispered. “It’s her! I recognize her from her

picture!” A thin dyke walked in the door. In her thirties, she

looked scarred by time, her face near-exhausted with intensity. To

Annie she looked just the way she pictured herself in ten years:

marked by the difficulties of gay life.

“She looks so much older than I imagined,” Rosemary

commented in a shocked voice. The women who escorted her in

hovered around her, setting up the room as the poet wanted it,

offering her endless refreshments and comforts until Annie felt

embarrassed for them and wanted to rescue the trapped poet

from their fawning attentions.

“But she’s beautiful,” Claudia said in an admiring whisper.

“She looks like she’s felt everything.”

“Makes me feel like a little kid,” Annie commented, no longer

absorbed by her social relations with Victoria’s friends.

“This calls for a beer. How about it Heaphy?”

“They have beer, Peglet?” Annie’s face lit up.

“Rosemary?”

“I don’t drink,” Rosemary reminded them.

“Oh, yeah,” Peg nodded. “Claudia?”

“I’d love one. If it’s nice and cold. I can’t stand it when beer

gets warm. Smells skunky.”

“You’re right,” Annie agreed. “I wondered what it was I didn’t

like. I’m always so glad to get it I never thought that much about

it.”

Rosemary took both their arms. “We ought to find seats,” she

said, guiding them to a couch. “Before everybody else thinks of it.”

Annie watched for Peg, afraid she would not find them, then

realized she was really afraid of being left alone with these two

harmless women. Vicky’s friends. She grinned.

“What are you smiling at?” Claudia asked.

“You’re Vicky’s friends,” Annie said, watching Claudia’s face

grow puzzled. “And I like you.” Annie’s face reddened.

“Here you go, ladies,” Peg said as she handed them beer and

squeezed in between Annie and Claudia. “Just what I love to do

on a spring night: go to a ballgame and pop open a beer.” She

laughed. “Doesn’t this feel strange to you?” she asked Annie.

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“Drinking a can of beer at a poetry reading?”

“Beer is a male custom—to go with sports. We’ll give it a new

use,” Rosemary answered her, across Claudia. Her voice sounded

angry. “They’ve had too many customs too long. I will join you.”

“Liberate the beer!” Peg laughed, quickly bringing back another

can and watching as Rosemary struggled with the pop top, then

tasted the beer. They all laughed at the faces Rosemary made as

she drank her first sips.

Annie felt very satisfied with herself, sitting among feminists,

ready to hear someone new say something new. She also felt

comforted by the beer, a bit of security from her old world. As the

poet directed all the lights to be turned off except the one next to

her, Annie steadied herself against the fear the darkness brought

on, the darkness and the unfamiliar women. Peg was beside her,

her good friend Peg. Vicky was near and probably thinking of her.

Turkey and Eleanor were at the bar and would be there when

Annie arrived. Then the poet spoke into Annie’s complacency with

raw and violent words about pain and the realities of different

women. A lot of the pain was her own. She had never heard

another woman speak of it, had never even thought of it in words,

had just lived through it. She took her hat off because she was

sweating. Someone pushed open the back door that led into an

alleyway and she longed to go through it to stand under the lone

streetlight she saw outside. She took off her jacket and glanced

toward Peg who looked back through the dim light, solemn-faced

and obviously as moved as Annie.

The poet read, “Each having tried/ in her own way to

overthrow/ the rule of men over women . . .” and Annie Heaphy

realized why Judy Grahn was reading in the women’s center. Then

she read, “She has taken a woman lover/ whatever shall we do . . .”

and Annie wished Vicky were there to hear her own experience.

She read, “She goes as far/ as woman can go . . .” and Annie felt

great excitement and fear inside herself, wanted to shout out her

own ambitions. Finally she read, “. . . the common woman is as

common as the best of bread/ and will rise/ and will become

strong—I swear it to you on my own head/ I swear it to you on my

common / woman’s head” and the reading was over.

Annie Heaphy slumped against Peg, still staring at the poet.

“Now I know why women scream at their idols in a concert,” she

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whispered.

“She’s really great, Heaphy,” Peg replied.

“I can’t move.”

“Do you want to?”

“Not as long as she’s here.”

“I don’t think she’d like us drooling over her, Heaph.”

“Why not? She’s human.”

“Yes, but I think she gives these readings to move us beyond

where we are. To inspire us to do something meaningful

ourselves.”

“Like what?”

“Building bridges. Killing men. Writing poems. Whatever it

takes.”

“Making love?”

“With women. Fixing cars. Teaching girls to move with

confidence and to play with skill.”

“I never thought of that, Peg. That’s exactly what you do. You

teach younger women to be stronger, to do something with their

bodies besides have babies.” Peg looked proud. “What do I do?”

“Something mostly men do.”

“What good is it?”

“Other women see they can.”

“Is that enough?”

Peg bent her head to look more closely at Annie. “That’s up to

you.”

“What else can I do?” Annie asked, discouraged at her lack of

anything to offer. She became aware of Rosemary and Claudia

talking beside her and looked their way.

Rosemary looked up. “We were just wondering how we could

ever contribute to the movement as much as that woman has.”

Annie and Peg laughed. “That’s just what we were feeling.”

“We decided not to let her accomplishments discourage us.

After all, we’re just starting,” Rosemary explained.

“Rosie, I want to go meet her,” Claudia whispered, tugging at

Rosemary’s arm.

“Want to come?” Rosemary asked Peg and Annie.

Annie sank deeper into the couch. “No way,” she said.

“Come on, Annie,” Peg urged. “You’re just saying hello.”

“Maybe you’re just saying hello. I’m thinking about getting

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another beer. Shall I get one for you?”

“Sure.”

“Me too,” called Claudia as they moved away. Annie suddenly

felt herself anchorless once more in the roomful of women.

Dungarees and long skirts moved in changing circles around the

poet. Annie stood and walked to the room where the beer was kept

in a trash barrel filled with ice. She took three as another woman

rummaged at the bottom of the barrel for more. “Not much left.

We must be heavy drinkers, huh?” she observed to Annie.

Tossing her tab in the trash, Annie answered, “Yeah. More than

usual?”

“More people than usual,” the woman answered. “We have

these gatherings once a month or so and this is the biggest yet.”

Annie studied the short, curly-haired woman. She wore wire-

rimmed glasses like Victoria’s. “I think Judy Grahn brought most

of us.”

“I never thought we’d get this many women out to hear a

lesbian.”

“I guess she’s pretty well known. Besides, she talks about

women, not just lesbians.”

“Yes, I identified with a lot of the things she had to say.”

Annie was surprised that this woman did not consider herself a

lesbian because she looked as if she would fit in at the bar. She

smiled to herself. No wonder they’re fighting so hard, she thought,

they’re just on the edge of coming out. “It must be really hard for

women to come out in the movement,” she said aloud,

mischievously. “When I did, it was alone, just me and one other

woman, and we kind of didn’t have to face it because we were so

isolated. We could think it was just us, or just temporary. Then we

were able to get used to it and weren’t so afraid anymore. We kind

of eased into it.”

“Do you think women will come out in the movement?” the

little feminist asked, obviously concerned.

“I hope so,” Annie answered, knowing she was probably

upsetting her but feeling almost as if the woman was asking to be

pushed. She retreated with her beers saying that her friends were

waiting. “So did you meet her?” Annie asked when she rejoined

her group.

“Yes,” Claudia answered. “She’s really comfortable.” She

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winked at Annie, “And sexy.”

“Claudia!” Rosemary chided her.

“Well she is!”

Peg put her hand on top of Claudia’s head. “She’s right,

Rosemary,” she laughed. “Can’t poets be sexy?”

“It’s not that she’s a poet, but that she’s a woman,” Rosemary

answered, looking concerned. “If we start responding to women

on a sexual basis only, aren’t we acting like men? The next thing is

to ask her out for a drink and then take her home with you.”

Claudia looked ashamed of herself, but Peg defended her still.

“Look, Rosemary, I’m not much of a thinker, but you’re being too

narrow here. Surely what we want is to see women as more than

sexual, not to erase that part of ourselves altogether.”

“Maybe that’s the difference between old gay and new,” Annie

contributed. “That we’re so used to seeing each other sexually,

those of us who have been living in the bars for years.”

“Seeing each other sexually and in many other ways aping the

male,” Rosemary accused.

“Whoa,” Peg said, stooping as if to stop a fight on the gym floor,

laying her hands on Rosemary and Annie’s shoulders. “I think

you’re both right. Yes, Rosemary, we do still do a lot of stuff the

way we learned it from men. We sleep around irresponsibly

sometimes, we drink a lot, we only want ‘attractive’ women, and

we talk about women’s bodies sometimes in a sexist way. We need

to change a lot. At the same time sexuality is part of our lives and

we don’t want to lose it, or lose our ability to identify the sexual

aspects of each other. Old gay women do that all too well while

new lesbians are exploring new ways to relate to women. And here

we are talking about it. Isn’t this exciting?”

Rosemary and Annie still would not meet one another’s eyes,

but Rosemary turned to Claudia. “I’m sorry, Claudia, it’s

something I’m still very confused about. I criticized you because I

don’t know how to respond to attractive women.”

Claudia’s cheeks took back their color and she watched Peg pull

Rosemary toward Annie. “Hey, you two. We have a movement to

build. Let’s not lose each other in the first round,” Peg cautioned

laughingly.

“Okay, okay,” Annie said and reached to shake Rosemary’s

hand.

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“No. This way,” Rosemary demonstrated, wrapping her thumb

around Annie’s.

“Hey, that’s neat,” Annie said. “How did you do it? What does it

mean?”

“This is the revolutionary handshake,” Rosemary showed her,

her hostility leaving.

“Almost as good as a pinky ring,” laughed Peg.

Claudia asked, “A pinky ring?”

“Sure,” Peg answered, holding hers up and gesturing to include

Annie. “Gay people have worn them for years to communicate to

each other that we’re gay. The first school where I student-taught

there was this older teacher named Gert. Wow did she look like an

old-fashioned diesel dyke.”

“Diesel dyke?” asked Claudia and Rosemary together.

“You know,” Peg said, pretending to slick back her hair and

bowing her legs.

“Goodness,” said Rosemary. “I didn’t know such types really

existed.”

“Well, they do,” Annie answered in a hostile voice.

“I’m not criticizing, just ignorant, Annie.”

Annie grinned and pulled her cap lower over her face.

“Anyway, you two,” Peg chided them, “this Gert was something

else and of course I worshipped the ground she walked on. I

attached myself to her. Wanted to learn everything she had to

teach, shot baskets like her, set up her equipment—you name it, I

did it for that woman. But all that time I couldn’t figure for the life

of me if she was out or not, you know? She looked it and acted it,

but she never talked about it. So one day almost the last day of my

assignment I went into the office to ask what equipment we’d need

for that day. No one was there but Gert and she was standing

leaning against a desk in a way that looked to me like a butch

coming on to a femme. ‘Shit,’ I said to myself, ‘this is it.’

“‘Morning, Gert,’ I said.

“‘Hi, kid,’ she answered. That’s what she called me. I stood

there grinning, foolish, not knowing what to do. She wasn’t in her

gym clothes, I finally noticed, but wearing street casual clothes,

chinos, a plaid, short-sleeved shirt. And then I saw it: bold and

beautiful, a ruby pinky ring in a lot of gold. She saw me look at it

and grinned back.

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“‘Just stopping to get some papers,’ she said. She had the day

off. Had it off and came in, I know, only to show me her real self,

to answer my question, but to do it in a way that made it clear she

wanted to keep her two lives separate.” Peg looked at Rosemary

and Claudia. “That’s one way we used to communicate. And still

do, a lot of us.”

“You’re still wearing your ring,” Claudia noted. She turned to

Rosemary excitedly. “I want one!”

“To me, this ring,” Peg made a fist and displayed it again, “is a

symbol of who I really am. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wearing a

pinky ring. I’m proud of it and I like having underground

connections, a symbol that speaks to other people who may not be

out themselves.” The others were silent while Peg went on

thoughtfully. “I’m really glad there’s a woman’s movement and

that now I can move more freely more places and with more

women. But I’m not going to forget how they kept us down

because I think it can happen again, just like that.” She snapped

her fingers. “And I’m going to be ready by keeping our symbols

alive. A lot of these women can just bow right out when it gets

tough. Hide their real selves behind men. I’m never going to do

that.”

Rosemary looked awed. “So you feel a big difference between

new and old gay women.”

“Not a big difference. And not one that I want to separate us.

But, damn, you can see for yourself that I sure feel a lot different

than most of the women in the movement. A few of you came out

here. In New York there’s a lot more, but still, I don’t hear any of

you being gay first and feminists second.”

“I’m not sure I want to be,” Rosemary said. “And I’m not saying

you should. Or even that I should. I’m just telling you how strong

it is in me.”

“I see.”

“Sorry to get all heavy on you.”

“That’s fine, Peg, it really is,” Rosemary assured her. “I want to

learn all this and to understand how our parts can construct a

whole.”

“It ain’t fine with me,” Annie joked. “The beer’s all gone and

the women are starting to leave. Not that one necessarily precedes

the other.”

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“So you want to go, Heaphy?”

“You’re reading my mind, Peglet.”

“Want to come to the bar with us, Rose? Claudia?” Annie glared

at her, but Rosemary answered, “Of course. We thought you’d

never ask.”

“Wait, then,” Annie said. “Is there a phone here I can use?”

“Over there.”

“I’m going to call Vicky. See if I can tempt her away from her

books by telling her you guys are coming.”

“Good!” Claudia said as Annie picked up the phone. Her head

was spinning from the night’s excitement. She wanted the comfort

of her lover. “I need you,” she whispered when she heard Victoria’s

voice. “The poet is beautiful, but the politics are over my head. I’m

losing ground fast. And Rosemary and Claudia are coming to the

bar with us.”

“Anne, you’re so strong you’ll never lose ground,” Victoria

soothed her. “However, I’m awfully bored.”

“Does that mean you’ll come?”

“It means I’ve been waiting here hoping that you’d call.”

“Hallelujah!” Annie yelled.

Claudia ran up to Annie and grabbed her arm. “Tell her Judy

Grahn’s going to the bar too!”

“With us?” Annie asked, star-struck.

“Well, to the same bar.”

“Vicky, you there? Okay, you can still get to feast your eyes on

this marvelous dyke. If you promise not to run off with her.”

“Silly, I haven’t even run off with you yet. I’m certainly not

thinking of doing it with anyone else.”

“That’s good. Because her lover’s here too and I hear she knows

karate. Shall I pick you up on the way?”

“Are we going to Marcy’s?”

“Yes, ma’am. Put on your dancing shoes.”

“I can’t wait. I love you.”

“I love you, Vicky. And I miss you.”

“I’m so glad. I missed you too. Now stop talking and come get

me.”

Annie hung up, hitched up her jeans and tried to stop grinning

before turning to face Peg and Annie’s friends. “Guess she’s

coming,” Peg said.

Toothpick House | 182

“You know me too well.”

“Rosemary and Claude are waiting upstairs. They wanted to

escort the poet out.”

“Claude, huh? Got your eyes on her?”

“Isn’t she cute?”

“Not hardly your type.”

“I’m getting a lot less picky,” Peg laughed. “And a lot more

needy. But I wouldn’t mess up Rosemary’s head. She needs

Claudia too badly. Anybody who could love Rosemary must be a

saint. And I wouldn’t know what to do with a saint.”

“You sure wouldn’t,” Annie joked, watching the sadness in Peg’s

face. “You’ll meet your girl soon, Peg. But what are we going to talk

to these women about tonight? And how will Turkey and Eleanor

and Dusty fit in?”

“We’ll dance them to death if things get too bad.”

“Oh, man, can you see it? Rosemary dancing?”

“Now don’t be cruel.”

Annie flashed a weary look at Peg as they went through the

door to find Rosemary and Claudia.

“Over here,” Rosemary called. She and Claudia were speaking

with two other women.

“Listen,” Claudia motioned to them excitedly. “Can I tell them?”

she asked the other women. They looked at each other and

nodded, then took each other’s hands. “They just came out last

night!”

The women looked at the ground, embarrassed. One shrugged.

In the dark they glowed in the light jackets and jeans, their long

hair touching between them. Peg and Annie exchanged glances.

“Welcome,” said Peg, bowing.

Annie shifted her weight from one foot to the other and tipped

her cap to them. “That’s great,” she smiled.

“They’re going to come, okay? They have a car. They want to

celebrate.”

“Actually, Judy Grahn’s reading was our celebration,” said one.

“I’m Jean.”

“And I’m Faye.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Claudia apologized. “This is Peg and this is

Annie Heaphy.”

“Sure,” said Peg. “Please join us. We’d like to share your

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celebration.”

“We’ve got to get moving,” Annie prompted them. “Vicky’s

waiting.”

“Victoria?” asked Faye.

“Victoria Locke?” Jean said at the same time. The new lovers

looked at each other.

“Isn’t it a small world?” laughed Peg.

Faye looked pleased. “I knew she’d changed, but I didn’t realize

that this was why.”

“How did she change?” Annie asked.

Faye and Jean looked at one another again. “She’s gotten

friendlier,” Jean said. “More open, more relaxed. She smiles,

walks down the hall in pajamas. Little things like that. We liked

her before, of course, but she was so unapproachable, so wrapped

up in her poetry and studying.”

Annie smiled proudly. Peg tapped her in the arm with her fist.

“You’ve changed, too, Heaphy. She’s been a softening agent for

you as much as you have for her.”

“Let’s go,” Annie said, scowling in embarrassment.

Rosemary and Claudia climbed into Annie’s back seat and they

drove a few blocks to pick up Victoria. She squeezed in the back

with them. There was no parking near Marcy’s so Annie dropped

everyone but Victoria outside. The others went in to get a booth

while Annie parked. Victoria stayed in the back seat and sprawled

as much as she could across it.

“What are you doing back there, Queen?”

“Feeling sexy.”

Annie had stopped to parallel park and looked over her

shoulder into the back seat. “So you are,” she agreed when she saw

Victoria lying, hands under her head, shirt open halfway down her

chest. She felt a rush of desire. “How the hell do you expect me to

concentrate on parking this damn car?”

“Oh, Anne, I couldn’t concentrate tonight,” Victoria

complained, sitting up. “All I could think about was making love.

Is that because it’s new to me? Or am I abnormal?”

Annie smiled gently as she got into the back seat with Victoria.

She did not stop smiling as she opened two more buttons of

Victoria’s shirt to brush a breast with her lips. “You are a perfectly

normal, healthy woman. A little kooky maybe, luring me into the

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back seat like this in a nice, quiet neighborhood where we could

get arrested, but otherwise normal.” She ran her cool hands up

and down Victoria’s back until Victoria laid her head on Annie’s

shoulder. “And you’re powerfully sexy, woman.”

“I wrote you a poem,” Victoria interrupted, leaning against the

back of the seat, her long hair covering her breasts. She put her

glasses back on and pulled it from her jeans pocket. “It’s not

finished,” she apologized, handing it to Annie. “But I thought since

you were listening to poetry tonight you might like to read some

about you.”

Annie lifted her cap off her head. “Thank you,” she said,

impressed. “I’ve been waiting to see your poetry a long time now.”

“It isn’t that I didn’t want you to see it, Anne. It’s just not that

terribly good and it didn’t have anything to do with us. I tried to

put us in this one. It’s a whole new style for me.” Victoria laughed.

“Are you just going to stare at me or are you going to read it?”

Annie switched on the overhead light and settled against

Victoria to read. When she finished Annie sat silently staring at

the sheet of paper. After a while she turned to Victoria. “That’s

beautiful. Thank you. I need to read it more slowly. I think it’s like

a good wine that needs to be rolled around my tongue, having

someone write me a poem.”

Victoria buttoned her shirt. Annie looked down at it. “I wish we

could make love right here,” she said.

“Yes,” agreed Victoria, touching Annie’s face. “But you’re right.

We could get arrested.”

“Let’s compromise and wait until later. I’ll be more comfortable

anyway. Shit,” Annie said, suddenly pushing Victoria toward her

door.

“What’s wrong?” asked Victoria, rigid with unexpected fear.

“Cops, damn it. Get out before they want to know what’s going

on.” Annie slipped quickly out of the car, cap in hand and looked

the driver full in the face. “We stopped just in time,” she sighed in

relief as she joined Victoria on the sidewalk.

“What would he have done?”

“I don’t know, my beauty. Maybe nothing, but I don’t want to

be in any man’s power long enough to find out. Hope he’s not

headed for Marcy’s. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the teeth, busting

Judy Grahn in New Haven.”

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“I never thought of that,” Victoria said, pulling her pea jacket

tighter across her chest. “And what if a bar we were in got raided

and my parents found out that way. My goodness that would be

unpleasant.”

“I thought you wanted them to know.”

“When I tell them. All I need is a scandal to contend with. As

much as I can’t depend on them for money, I don’t want to be cut

off from any that may someday come from the other relatives. My

picture in the paper would be a shame.”

“I see your point,” Annie said, stopping just short of the bar and

running her fingers through her hair.

“You look wonderful,” Victoria approved, leaning to kiss Annie,

then quickly straightening up as she remembered about the cop.

“You know,” Annie said thoughtfully, “I’d hate to see you

paralyzed by this money over your head.”

“It’s not the money, Anne. It’s what I’d have to go through if

they found out. The emotional punishment including withholding

money would be more than I want to deal with.”

“What are you going to do about your poetry then? It’s going to

be dyke poetry like Judy Grahn’s. Are you not going to publish it

so your family won’t find out?”

“I don’t think we have to worry about my poetry getting

published just yet, Anne, though you’re right, it’s becoming more

and more about women. Let’s go meet this famous person.”

“Lesbian,” Anne challenged.

“Lesbian,” Victoria repeated, shyly but proudly. “I like rolling it

around on my tongue,” she teased, “like a good wine.” Then she

winked, “Or a good woman.”

Annie raised her eyebrows. “I’m shocked,” she smiled. “And

very pleased.” She replaced her cap and held the door open for

Victoria. “After you—good woman.”

They were stopped inside the door by an unusually heavy wave

of smoke and noise. “It’s very crowded tonight,” Victoria observed.

“Come on,” Annie said, taking her hand and leading her to a

group of tables bunched together around a booth. Peg stood and

waved at them and Claudia jumped up to hug Victoria.

“It’s so exciting,” said Claudia. “Judy,” she called across to a

booth. “This is the poet we were telling you about.” She held

Victoria’s hand up as if announcing a winner. “Victoria Locke,

Toothpick House | 186

meet Judy Grahn,” she said guiding Victoria toward her.

Peg reached Annie through the throng and Annie lost sight of

Victoria. “They’re really pushing your girl, Heaphy.”

“She is good,” Annie said proudly. “She just gave me a poem

tonight.”

“May I see it?”

“You’d have to ask her. But where’s Turkey? And Elly? And that

mammoth, Dusty?”

“Playing the jukebox, where else?”

Annie heard the first notes of Help Me Make It Through the

Night and groaned. “Elly’s depressed.”

“You know how it is,” Peg shouted although she was standing

next to Annie, “she and Turkey feel really out of it because they

didn’t go to the reading. Turkey can’t believe Judy is one of those

‘faggy poets.’ She claims I didn’t tell them she was a bar dyke. I

told them I don’t even know if she really is. But she sure fits in,

doesn’t she, Heaphy?”

“I expected she would, Peglet. But take a look at Rosie the

Revolutionary and Claudia and Vicky. Don’t they look just fine

here?”

“Yeah, like the women’s band says, ‘So fine. ...!’”

“Hey, big shots, can you spare me a dance?” Eleanor weaved

her way over to them.

“You can’t dance in that condition. Where’s Dusty?” Peg asked.

“Waiting to use the john. Where else? All your libber friends got

weak kidneys. Along with weak everything else. So which one is

the hotshot from California, the land of fruit and nuts?” She

hiccoughed.

“Judy’s the one talking to Vicky.”

“Should have figured your Yalie would be part of all this,”

Eleanor said resentfully.

“Hey, Elly,” Annie said with some anger, “Vicky didn’t even go

to the reading. She just came down here to be with us.”

“Fine job she’s doing of being with the lowlifes.”

“Let’s sit down,” Peg suggested, putting her arm around

Eleanor and guiding her toward their table.

“I want to dance. Don’t neither of you want to be seen dancing

with me?”

“Of course we do, Elly,” Annie said. “Come on, let’s dance.”

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“Oh, no, I don’t want none of your charity,” she said bitterly.

“You ain’t even drinking. Are you going to give that up along with

your friends?”

“Elly, Elly, I’m not giving anybody up, I swear. All I did is go to

the Women’s Center. Once. What’s wrong with that?”

“You two are shouting. Sit down,” Peg ordered. “What’s wrong

Elly? What’s upsetting you?”

Eleanor put her head in her hands. “Everybody’s leaving me.

You two want to go away and be libbers and you know I don’t want

to be like them. I can’t. I’m not smart enough. I’m only a waitress

with no bucks or education. I can’t fit in. You two can and you’re

going to leave me alone with all these dumb fags and I need you.”

She looked at them through her tears and reached across the table

to hold their hands. “Don’t leave me. They’re not like you. I am.”

Peg and Annie looked in helpless puzzlement at each other and at

Eleanor.

“All I can tell you, El ... ,” Peg began.

“Don’t tell me nothing,” Eleanor said shrilly as she stood up and

hurried from the booth. Dusty came out of the bathroom and

caught her in her arms, then led her to dance.

“Shit,” Annie said, removing her hat. “What was that all about?”

“I don’t know,” Peg admitted, shaking her head. “I just don’t

know. The women’s movement wants us to be less gay because

they say we’re acting heterosexual and male and don’t see we’re

just acting naturally for us. And the dykes don’t want us to act so

much like libbers when that’s part of our world now too. I can’t

stop thinking politically. Nor do I want to stop wearing my pinky

ring.”

“No, Peglet, I really can’t see you in long hair and a work-shirt.

Well, maybe if it was ironed,” Annie smiled crookedly under the

lowered brim of her hat as she looked at Peg’s burgundy corduroy

pantsuit.

“Iron my hair?” Peg teased.

“No, your thinking. Whoops. I just missed meeting the celebrity

again.”

Peg turned her head to see Judy Grahn slip into her jacket.

“She’s staying with that collective.”

“What collective?”

“A bunch of lesbians who live together.”

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“Libbers?”

“Rabid. Some of them even look gay, though. Over there,

leaving with Judy. That little yacky one drives me up a wall. Look

at her talk Judy’s ear off.”

“Some of them do look alright. Shit, I hope Vicky doesn’t fall for

any of them. They look more her type than me.”

“I wouldn’t worry. I hear they’re so busy sleeping with each

other they wouldn’t look twice at anyone outside.”

“You think it’s true?”

“I don’t know. They say it’s a new way of loving or something.

They don’t think women should be in couples.”

“You’re really giving me an education, Peg. You believe in any

of this stuff?”

“Some of it makes sense, as long as they don’t try to ram it

down my throat. I know what I want and I’m going to look for the

women I can have it with, libber or not.”

“We’ve got to make Elly feel better, though. Persuade her we’re

not going to abandon her.”

“Maybe we are, I don’t know. How much longer can we be

comfortable with her if she won’t learn at least to understand the

changes we’re going through? Just listen to us, you know?” Peg

asked sadly.

“I guess it’s really messed up of her to be chasing after a butch

like Dusty. What does she want, to be possessed? To have her

heart broken?”

“Dusty looks like the type who walks right over women. Maybe

even hits them on the way by. But that’s what Elly wants.”

“Maybe all we can do,” Annie said resignedly, “is to let her

know we’re here if she needs us.”

Victoria came to their booth, her hair as wild as it was in

Vermont and a similar glow on her face. “I’m going to send her

some of my work.”

“Well, that calls for a drink,” Peg announced.

“Yeah,” said Annie, “I can’t believe we’ve been here an hour and

haven’t had a drink yet.”

“That’s great!” Victoria approved.

“Oh, you think everything is great tonight,” Annie replied,

nuzzling Victoria’s cheek. “I’m glad Judy is interested. What do

you want to drink?”

Lee Lynch | 189

“A big cold mug of beer.”

“Sounds good. You think you can get some cold beer out of

Marcy, Peg?”

“I doubt it, but I’ll try. I’ll see you at Rosie the Revolutionary’s

table,” Peg smiled, striding toward the bar with her smooth gait,

straightening the lapels of her sports jacket.

“Rosie the Revolutionary?” Victoria asked.

Annie looked shame-faced, but her blue eyes twinkled. “She

does come on kind of strong.”

“I guess I have to laugh. Her grimness has annoyed me a lot,”

Victoria said, pulling her hair back into a leather barrette.

“No,” Annie said, putting her hand on Victoria’s. “Leave it like

that. I love it.”

“It’ll take hours to unsnarl.”

“I’ll help.”

“I’ll bet. You’ll make it worse. Maybe I’ll get it all cut off like

yours.”

Horrified, Annie began to protest. “You wouldn’t be you!”

“But I’m really thinking about it. Not until after graduation, of

course. So don’t worry yet. You have plenty of time to get used to

the idea.”

“Not sure I can,” Annie said, leading her over to Claudia and

Rosemary. “Hi, Rosie,” she said.

“Rosie?” Claudia giggled.

“Rosie the Revolutionary. Because you’re so serious,

Rosemary,” Annie explained, fingering her hat ready to retract it

all should Rosemary be offended.

“I like it,” Rosemary said. “It’s like Rosie the Riveter.”

“Figures you’d have a comparison. Who’s that?”

“In World War Two she was used to represent the women who

left their homes and children to go into the factories and

contribute to the war effort.”

“You mean make bombs?” Claudia asked innocently.

“And all the other destructive toys that men wanted to play

with.”

“Where are they now?” Victoria wanted to know.

“Where most women are, back in their homes, powerless to

earn substantial money, valueless to society other than as child

bearers. As soon as the men returned they said, ‘Go home, girls,

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we don’t need you any more.’ But we’re their daughters.”

“Let’s drink to that,” Annie toasted with the beer she had just

set down.

Claudia drank, but said, “You mean they just fired them? Sent

them home? And they went? Think where they’d be today if they

had refused to leave.”

“I’m sure it was a little more complex than that, but in effect

that was it. Claudia, would you like another drink?”

“How many have we had?”

“I think this is our third.”

“We’re not used to all this liquor, Rose, do you think we ought

to?”

“It’s not every day that Judy Grahn comes to see us, is it?”

“No, but I think I’ll nurse mine anyway.”

Rosemary went off to the bar while Claudia worried about her.

“This is only the second time she’s drunk liquor in her life,” she

whispered.

“I can’t believe she’s doing it,” Victoria said, shaking her head.

“Ah, it’s good for her once in a while,” Annie decided. “It’ll

make her feel more accepted. And it’ll loosen her up so she’ll be

more accepted. We’ll drive her home. Hey, Turkey,” she called,

waving to her friend, “join us?”

Turkey approached them slowly, not smiling. “Sit down,

Turkus Major,” Peg said, patting the space she made at the edge of

the booth. “What’s up with Elly?”

“She’s not up, you dumb shit, she’s real down.”

“You don’t sound much better.”

“I’m kind of confused. And not sure why. I’ve never fit in at

school with all those straight people so I come here to feel good.

Now all your feminists are taking the bar over and I don’t fit in

here either.”

“We love you a lot, Turkey, and don’t you forget it,” said Peg

firmly. “Nobody will kick you out. This is Claudia, Rosie the

Revolutionary’s girl.” She paused while Claudia burst into

laughter. Turkey could not suppress a smile. “And here comes

Rosie herself.”

“I brought two in case you change your mind, Claudia. And if

you don’t, I’ll help you out. Hello,” she responded to the

introduction to Turkey. “We’ve heard about you. You’re the

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sociology major with the wonderful sense of humor.”

“I am? Not the fat one who looks like a turkey?”

“No.”

“Not the dumb one who can’t find a girl?”

“No.”

“Not the one with the birthday everyone forgets?”

“No! Surely it can’t be that bad!”

“Did you ever lose your tail?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I didn’t think so. I never did either. But Eeyore did and I know

just how he felt.”

“Oh, Eeyore! Of course, the melancholy Eeyore. That’s who you

sound like,” Rosemary realized. “You do him well.”

“Thank you,” Turkey said, still subdued. She looked with sad

eyes at Claudia, Peg, Annie and Victoria, then suddenly began to

laugh. “I love it! I made you guys all sad!”

“That’s mean,” Victoria laughed also. “You did that on

purpose.”

“I had to know if you cared.”

Peg scolded her. “You could have asked, you ass.”

“No, no. I stopped playing Eeyore. He’s the ass.”

“Did you ever think of going on the stage?” Rosemary wanted

to know, finishing the first drink.

“Well, I’ll tell you. Once, when I worked in an anti-poverty

program summer job, I had to sweep up the stage in the high

school auditorium. I went backstage, center stage, upstage and

down. It was an excellent experience. So I’ll tell you, Rosie, I’ve

been on stage. I’m a real pro.” Rosemary laughed.

“Why do you ask?” Turkey questioned her, cocking her head to

one side, turkey-like.

“Because you can affect people with your face and manner.

That’s what the stage is all about isn’t it?”

“Except how many fat dykes do you see up there doing

routines? And I only would do it for dykes, you know.”

“Then do a show here. For the bars in New Haven. Women

would love it.”

Turkey looked seriously at Annie. “Where’d you find this one,

Cabbie?” she joked finally.

“Hey,” Annie protested, “it’s a good idea. I’d love you to be a

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stand-up comic. You could really do it.”

Claudia put her hand out to stop Rosemary from drinking more

of the second drink. “It’s okay. Rosie the Revolutionary can get

drunk once in her life,” Rosemary said, beginning to slur her

words. “Damn it.”

“So what do you think of Judy?” Peg asked Victoria.

“She was wonderful. I’m so glad to know that there’s a poet out

there doing what she says she’s trying to do. I can’t wait to read

her poetry. And to use some of her ideas myself. It will help to

loosen me up.”

“When are you going to show us some of your stuff?”

“When there’s something worth showing you, Peg.”

“You’re being modest.”

“Perhaps. But I’m also just realizing what a silly fantasist I’ve

been. I want to write poetry that means something to us. Not just

write pretty pictures.”

“All this time,” Rosemary said, her braid half undone and her

hands clumsily rebraiding it, “I’ve been trying to get you to go to

the women’s poetry group so you would turn your words into

weapons for the movement. Now I learn that all you needed was

to meet a lesbian poet to see that you are one too.”

“Seeing her I think made all of us feel that we may just be able

to live the lives we want to live,” Annie said.

“That’s called validation,” said Turkey. “Judy Grahn sounds like

she must be a role model.”

Claudia helped Rosemary with the last of the braid. She smiled

winningly at Turkey. “What are your plans?”

Turkey flushed. “Well, when I figure which end is up,” and she

laughed loudly, “not that that’s not obvious to anyone but me, I

guess I’ll do some kind of social work.”

“But what’s your dream?” Claudia persisted.

“If I have one,” Turkey said, licking her lips and drawing an

index finger through a puddle of moisture on the table, “I guess

it’d be teaching people that it’s okay to be different. Showing them

how society is made up of all of us, not just one privileged group

who gets to shit on everyone else.”

“What a great thing to teach,” Peg said, shaking her head in

admiration. “I never knew you wanted to do something like that.”

“I never really said it out loud till now. In so many words. When

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Claudia asked, it just popped into my head, so I guess it’s been

there for awhile.”

“Nothing can survive for long in your head, Turk,” Annie teased

as she set down a pitcher.

“Speak for yourself, Heaphy,” Turkey said, grabbing the pitcher

and pouring a glass for herself. “Anyone want what this chick is

offering?” There was silence. “Whoops,” Turkey corrected herself.

“What this here woman is offering?”

Rosemary held out her empty glass. “One of the hardest words

there is to say,” she commented, spilling part of what Turkey

poured. “Used to be ashamed of it myself. Woman isn’t a title to

be proud of in this world.”

“Or lesbian, either,” Victoria added. “Remember how I just

couldn’t say that at first, Anne?” She reached for Annie’s hand and

smiled at her.

“Yes. You had a rough time. I practically had to give you

lessons.” Annie set her cap on Victoria’s head. They gazed at each

other, their smiles getting broader.

“Why don’t you ever do things like that to me, Claudie?”

Rosemary asked, laying her head on Claudia’s shoulder.

“You don’t like it, Rose. Especially not in public.”

“Well, I like it now,” Rosemary said, pulling Claudia’s arm

around her shoulders. “A little romance won’t compromise

feminism.”

Turkey groaned in memory of first meeting Rosemary in New

York and met Annie’s eyes. “You sure have changed since we first

met you, Rosemary.”

“Have I?” asked Rosemary, taking her head from Claudia’s

shoulder and sitting up. “Ohhh,” she moaned. “Moved too fast.

Guess this is called being drunk. Call me Rosie, Turkey. Claudia, I

think I’m going to be sick.”

“Come on, Rosie, then,” Turkey soothed, pulling Rosemary out

of the booth. “I’ve done this enough times.” She and Claudia got

Rosemary between them and walked to the door through the

crowd of lesbians and gay men. Victoria and Annie and Peg

laughed when the door shut behind them.

“Poor Rosemary. She’ll never be the same,” Victoria said, and

laughed harder. “I love it. That stiff, sour woman is turning into a

dyke.”

Toothpick House | 194

Annie took her hat back from Victoria. “Boy, is she going to be

sick in the morning.”

“And embarrassed.”

“But maybe she’ll stay changed. She won’t have to get drunk

next time to relax.”

“Or else she’ll get drunk every time.”

“Oh, Anne, you’re such a pessimist.”

“Yeah, Heaphy. Let’s have high hopes. I still have hopes of

finding a woman to love.”

“You blew your best chance,” accused a glazed-eyed Eleanor

who slumped into the booth next to Peg. “Just like my Annie.

‘Scuse me, lady. Your Annie,” she said, looking at Victoria.

“Elly,” Annie warned.

“Oh, so I can’t sit at your booth and talk to your lady?”

Annie looked to Peg for help, her blue eyes hurt.

“Elly,” Victoria asked, “were you and Annie lovers before I

came along?”

The boothful of women went still.

Elly looked like a child who had been reprimanded. “Not hardly

to speak of, I guess,” she answered, her head hanging.

“We spent one night together awhile back,” Annie explained,

looking directly into Victoria’s eyes with concern. “Before you,”

she added gently.

“I don’t care, Anne. I just want to stop Elly from feeling so bad

and left out.”

“Annie, I hope I didn’t screw things up for you,” Eleanor cried

in alarm, her hand over her mouth. “I just couldn’t live with

myself.”

“El, nobody’s going to mess up this relationship,” Annie said,

still looking into Victoria’s eyes.

“I really do wish you well. It’s just that I’m going to miss you.”

“We miss you too, Elly,” Peg chided her. “Ever since you met

Dusty you have no time for us.”

“But at least I’m not running around with a whole new crowd.

That’s different! Besides, I can’t help it if you all don’t like my

Dusty.”

“Well, damn it, we’ve never been able to spend enough time

with her to find out. Why don’t you tell her to come sit with us?”

“She has a mind of her own. Doesn’t like libbers. I tried to tell

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her you all aren’t really libbers. That you were gay first. But she

don’t believe me.”

“Maybe we can all do something sometime. Spend time

together. You think she’d like that?” Peg asked. “Maybe if you ask

her.”

“I will,” Peg promised.

“Can’t you get her over here?”

“Into the enemy camp? What if you don’t like her? Or she don’t

like you?” Eleanor asked, suddenly losing her drunken aspect.

Annie shrugged. “We’ll never know till we try.” As Eleanor

waved Dusty to the booth Annie measured the woman

apprehensively. She was big and butch and, from what Elly said,

not very educated, a perfect stereotype of a bulldyke right down to

the pointy black boots. Would Dusty’s rough ways scare Vicky off?

She was watching Dusty approach too, and Annie thought she

saw fear widen Vicky’s eyes. But then Victoria rose.

“Hi, Dusty. I’m glad to meet you. Elly’s been raving about you

every chance she gets.”

Annie was proud of the way her lover’s few words and

welcoming manner put Dusty at her ease. Vicky might have

learned this social ease in the sophisticated world Annie despised,

but it looked like it might come in handy right here in the bar,

with these very different people. Perhaps she should stop

protecting Vicky from the gay world and let her find her own place

in it. Dusty was shifting shyly from one foot to the other,

obviously pleased to hear of Eleanor’s pride in her. “I don’t know

what she finds to say about me.”

Peg smiled warmly. “Sit down and let us find out if it’s all true!”

A silence fell. Shyness seemed to take hold of the group. Again

Victoria came to the rescue. “We came down here to talk to that

gay poet who just left. I didn’t hear her, but from what everybody

says, she writes about people like us, about real people.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Eleanor said. Peg took the book

she’d bought from the seat next to her. “How’s that for a title,” she

said, displaying Edward the Dyke.

Dusty said, “I never could understand all that fancy stuff they

made us memorize in school. This looks like a different matter.”

“We probably wouldn’t have to memorize these,” Victoria

offered. “We’ll want to know them.”

Toothpick House | 196

“What kind of things does she say?” Dusty asked curiously.

As the conversation went on Annie smiled to see a bunch of

dykes sitting in a bar talking about poetry. Dusty seemed to warm

to the group perhaps because they were all so different: Victoria

the Yalie, Turkey the first in her family to go to college, Peg the

professional, Eleanor the Southern waitress, Dusty the Northern

factory worker, herself most like Turkey, but a dropout. She felt a

warmth for this crazy mixed-up group of women that felt like

hope. Hope that they’d all stay together somehow and make each

others’ lives a little easier. And maybe leave something of

themselves behind for other kids like them.

“I guess it’s time to clear out of the enemy camp,” Eleanor said

after awhile. “Goodnight everybody. I hope I’m forgiven for getting

mad before.”

“Of course you are,” Peg called after her. She shook her head

when they were gone. “So she was really just worried that Dusty

wouldn’t like us. It wasn’t our fault at all. How do you like that?”

“Maybe there is hope that things will work out,” Annie agreed.

“Well, I’m too tired to work on it any more tonight,” Peg said,

standing.

“Want a ride?” Annie joked.

“I think I can make it across the street. Unless Vicky here wants

to help me.”

“Now, no girl-stealing. I mean, woman-stealing.”

“Nobody can steal me,” Victoria said, yawning.

“You’re just too tired to fool around,” Annie teased as they got

outside into the warm spring night. She looked up at the stars.

“If I can’t steal a warm body, then I’ll have to find a big one,”

said Peg as Turkey and Claudia came back towards the bar.

“We put Rosemary in Jean and Faye’s car,” Claudia said. “You

won’t have to drive us home.

“I wouldn’t have anyway. I thought it would do her good to

walk,” Annie teased. “How is she?”

Turkey sighed. “Sick as a dog. I think she threw up everything

she ever had inside her.”

“Then maybe her metamorphosis will be easier,” Victoria

suggested. When Claudia looked puzzled she went to her side and

took her arm. “We were talking about the changes in Rosemary

before,” she explained.

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“I know,” Claudia said, turning and putting her arms around

Victoria. “I don’t know if I can handle it. I feel as though I’m

learning to love a new woman. Or reinvent one.”

“Is that bad?” asked Victoria, holding Claudia.

“I don’t know yet,” Claudia said. “That’s what’s so frightening.

What if I can’t keep loving her? After all, I’ve been encouraging the

changes.”

“Somehow,” Victoria said, running her hand up and down

Claudia’s back, “I think you’ll come out okay. I really do.” She

hugged Claudia tightly, then pushed her toward Jean and Faye’s

car. “You’d better get ‘Rosie’ home before she completely

metamorphoses—into a pumpkin!” she laughed.

CHAPTER NINE

Annie Heaphy felt an unfamiliar anxiety as the train entered

New York City. She wasn’t going to a gay bar for an evening. She

was visiting her own New York City lover. Victoria had preceded

her to talk to her parents. She would definitely tell them she

would not be living the life they had planned for her. She might

tell them she was a lesbian. Annie half hoped she would not get

that far as it would make meeting the Lockes that much harder on

her. Poor Vicky, she thought. If I’m scared, imagine what she’s

feeling.

The buildings grew taller as she penetrated deeper into the city.

And her fear grew too. What if they had changed Victoria’s mind?

What if all the years of training had proven too strong for Victoria

to overthrow? Annie could be left waiting for her at the station.

Victoria might meet her only to say that it had all been a

mistake—that her parents were right. She drew her jean jacket

closer around herself.

The man next to her snored once loudly and woke up.

“Hundred twenty-fifth Street,” he muttered as they slowed for the

station. Annie felt frightened of him, vulnerable. He blocked her

way to the aisle. She would have felt better if she had brought her

car, but Victoria was right, the parking would be too difficult. The

strange man reminded Annie of the old woman Victoria had met

on the train who foretold Victoria’s future. When the man shifted

again she rose, climbing over him to pull her knapsack down from

the luggage rack. She was too excited to sit anymore and her fears

diminished when the train went underground, into the romance of

the dark tunnel to New York City and Victoria.

Annie was the first off the train. She started to run up the

platform, but calmed herself and slowed to a long, rapid stride. At

an arched opening to the huge hall of Grand Central Station she

paused to seek Victoria in the crowd, her anxiety high again.

Victoria came to her side and was touching her before Annie saw

her. Smiling widely, they drew each other out of the crowd of

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people coming from Annie’s train and hugged. “How are you?”

Annie asked.

“It’s been hellish,” Victoria blurted. She stood straight but

willowy, ready to bend back to Annie’s arms. “I told them

everything, Anne. I decided I didn’t want the fear of their finding

out looming over me all my life. How are you?”

“My house was so empty. And I was so scared. And you’re so

brave.”

“Scared of what?”

“That they’d take you away from me,” Annie said chokingly,

tears of relief escaping with her tensions.

“How in the world could they do that? I’ve been waiting all my

life for you to help me get away from them, silly duckling.”

Annie pressed her head to Victoria’s shoulder. “Let’s leave,”

Victoria said. “There’s so much I want to do with you before we

have to go meet them.”

“Okay, okay,” Annie said, wiping her eyes with her hat. “I just

needed to break down a little, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you go stay with Peg and Turkey? They would have

comforted you.”

“I don’t want to lose my ability to be alone, to take care of

myself. I would have been okay if I hadn’t known how difficult this

was going to be for you. It was being without you and worrying

that did me in.”

They were moving across the shining floors toward another

dark arch. “I’m stronger now, Annie, much stronger after just a

few months of being with you, learning that it’s possible to be me

and having you appreciate me for who I am, not for a role you

want me to play.”

“Were they awful?”

“Yes. Very formal and stiff and cold. They kept coming to me

with propositions. For example, they would send me to Oxford if I

would give up my ‘bohemian attitudes.’” Laughing, Victoria leaned

into the dark wood and glass door out of the station. “As if there

was not really a me talking to them, but an entity which could still

be molded to their use.” She pushed the door open forcefully.

“You’re angry at them.”

“You’re damn straight, as Turkey would say.”

Annie laughed. “It’s funny to hear you say that.” She stood and

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looked at Victoria in wonder. At her jeans, at her loose, heavy hair,

at her round glasses glinting in the city’s afternoon sunlight, at the

white tennis sweater over a yellow shirt. “You look like a million

dollars. Sorry, I forgot about the money phobia. You look like a

beautiful dyke. Where are we?”

“First of all, I’m not sure I want to look like a dyke, beautiful or

not. But to answer your question, this is Forty-second Street. You

haven’t been in New York much have you?”

“Not in the daytime,” Annie admitted, drawing a deep breath

and looking up at the towering buildings. “Sure is bigger than

Boston.”

“Sure is,” Victoria agreed, taking Annie’s hand and leading her

toward Fifth Avenue.

“Where are we going?”

“I haven’t planned it. I just want to be with you, to see you in

New York. Like I want to see you against a background of Paris

and London and everywhere else in the world I’ve been without

you. You’d fill them with color and life, I just know it. My whole

past seems so drab and spiritless since I’ve loved you, Anne.

Loving you is like carrying a candle which sheds light on

everything I see and warmth over everything I feel. Oh, Anne, I

could embrace the Empire State Building I’m so excited!” They

grinned at each other and Annie hopped into the air in happiness.

Holding hands, they crossed Fifth Avenue. Victoria led Annie to

the front of the 42nd Street Library. It was the end of lunch hour

and people were leaving the spaces in the sun where they had

eaten. Annie jumped onto a newly vacated lion and rode it, horse-

style, hitting its flank with her cap. They ran hand in hand up the

rest of the steps and into the lobby. Annie wanted to see the

library, but didn’t want to have her knapsack inspected, so they

left and followed the stairs around into Bryant Park. Between

lunch hours it was empty of all but stragglers: a couple of gay

men, a wino, a man selling joints, two women who talked intently

and kept glancing at their watches and at the strange men. Annie

and Victoria looked at each other, then smiled and shrugged away

the bad vibrations of the park. The city was theirs today and they

would allow no one to interfere. They walked slowly to a bench

and sat admiring the old building.

“If I’d grown up in New York would I have met you at this

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library and come out with you?” Annie asked.

“Only if our story can have a different ending.”

“I wonder how she wants it to end?” Annie questioned a nearby

statue.

A cloud moved and the sun beat down on them. Victoria

squinted from its brightness. “I don’t want the story to end at all,

Anne.”

“I know. Listen, why don’t you get a pair of sunglasses made?

You’d look great in them.” She held her hand over Victoria’s eyes

to shade them.

“I can’t stand them.”

“That’s too bad. I remember when sunglasses were so cool. All

the dykes in Boston wore them. The coolest ones wore them at

night, too, in the bars.”

“Did they wear the reflective type?”

“You had to be a tough butch to get away with those.”

“And were you tough enough?” Victoria asked, hugging Annie’s

arm to herself.

Annie shook her head regretfully. “That took a lot more

arrogance than I had. Besides, I didn’t spend much time in the

bars. Natalie didn’t like them. She didn’t want me to look like a

bar-dyke because she wasn’t one. She didn’t like me acting dykey.

She said bar-dykes were too obvious and we’d be left alone more if

their kind would drop their affectations and act like women. As a

matter of fact, that’s what our first fight was about. Acting like a

woman. I said she was talking about acting like women who want

men to like them and asked why we shouldn’t act differently. She

thought the older women with real short hair slicked back who

wore men’s pants were repulsive. I couldn’t fall in love with

someone like Eleanor’s Dusty, but there was something about

them I liked. Their style. They looked like they wouldn’t take

anybody’s shit. And those were the women who wore sunglasses.

No, I wasn’t tough enough.”

“Those were the women who liked to look like men.”

“You say that like they’re some foreign breed. A lot of people

think I’m a man.”

Victoria shook her head in disbelief. “You’ve told me that, but

you don’t look like a man at all!”

“To you. You know better. You’re not scared off by my

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appearance, thank goodness. A lot of poeple, something clicks in

their heads if they can’t immediately identify where someone’s

coming from. It makes them not so sure who they are. You’ve

never heard the comments. Either they won’t make them in front

of two people, one of whom looks normal, or they think I am a

guy. It mostly happens when I’m alone and occasionally with

Turkey or Peg.”

“Do I look that straight?”

“Pretty much—to them. I see the dyke in you.”

“I’m confused about that. I’d like to look like who I am.”

Victoria thought for a moment. “Maybe I will cut my hair.”

“I thought you didn’t want to look dykey.”

“I’m frightened of being so identifiable. And I still feel as if it’s

no one’s business but ours. Yet I’m proud of being a lesbian and I

don’t want to hide it.”

“Don’t you dare cut your hair, though,” Annie said, whirling on

Victoria. “I love it.”

Victoria giggled. “I know, but it is awfully hot.” She jumped up

from the bench and skipped away from it while Annie pretended

to drag her back.

“That’s only the sun. It’ll get cooler,” she pleaded, laughing as

she tried to grab Victoria’s arm.

“It’s my hair. Don’t you want me to be comfortable?” Victoria

called back as she ran through the now half-full park and onto the

street.

Annie was right behind her. “I’ll buy you reflective sunglasses

and a pinky ring! You won’t have to cut your hair!”

Victoria leaned against the fence. “Perfect solution,” she said,

catching her breath. “But I have an even better idea.” She took

Annie’s hand again and pulled her across 42nd Street. A bus

honked loudly at them. They walked past a few stores and stopped

at a tiny shop that sold ties.

“You don’t want a tie, do you?” Annie asked Victoria.

“I’ve always wanted a tie. Women used to wear ties. Why

shouldn’t I?”

“The day I meet your parents? Give me a break!”

“I’d only wear it if we go out later. I think I’d look good in one.

I used to pick out all of my father’s.”

Annie shook her head. “Let’s go in,” she sighed.

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They had fun trying on ties and upsetting the shop manager

who never offered to help them, only stared. When they left

Victoria had three ties, one to match her eyes, one to match

Annie’s eyes and one for her father. Annie bought a wide orange

tie with blue elephants staggered across it. She proudly held it up

to Victoria on the corner of 6th and 42nd.

“Why in the world did you buy it?” Victoria asked.

“To show that man that dykes aren’t all bad. He’s probably

been trying to unload it for years. Besides, it was only a dollar.”

“Can’t resist a bargain? Where will you wear it?”

Annie looked victorious. “Wherever you wear yours!”

“Oh, no! Is that a threat?”

“Well, you wouldn’t want me to go anywhere inappropriately

dressed, would you? And if ties are called for, I’ll have one.”

“But, Anne, I think that one should be declared illegal. I’m not

sure you can bring it across state lines.” She watched Annie trying

to knot it around her neck. “And it clashes horribly with your hat.”

Annie looked crushed. “I never thought of that.”

Victoria sensed that she might win yet. “You’ll just have to buy a

new hat.”

“No way. Uh-uh. Not me,” Annie declared, shaking her head.

“It’ll just have to look bad.”

“Don’t you want a hat from New York?”

Annie thought a minute. She folded the tie neatly and put it in

its bag.

“Some of the greatest haberdashers in the world work in this

city,” Victoria went on. “It would be a present.”

Annie looked suspiciously at Victoria. “You don’t like my hat?”

She removed it and fingered its edges.

“Of course I like your hat. But it doesn’t match your tie.” She

drew her hair back from her face. “And I wouldn’t mind some

variety,” she added gently.

“I knew you didn’t like my hat,” Annie said in the same tone she

would use to say that someone did not like her. Her face was full

of hurt. The traffic forged by them crosstown and uptown, like

herded cattle. The horns lowed, while brakes, wheels and engines

bellowed and roared at various levels. Victoria began to think that

she had hurt Annie beyond repair when she felt Annie’s hand tuck

her arm under her own. “Which way to the hats, ma’am?” Annie

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asked her.

“I’m not sure,” Victoria hesitated. “This wasn’t planned, you

know. I suppose uptown might mean quality, though I’m not sure

of finding any of that on Sixth Avenue.”

“Let’s try. Remember, I’m not rich either.”

“I said it would be a gift if you recall.” There was still a slight

edge of uneasiness between them as they walked through the

crowds on 6th Avenue.

“Is this Broadway?” Annie asked.

“It’s a block over.”

“I want to buy a hat on Broadway.”

“I have a feeling quality will be sacrificed for sentiment there.”

Annie smiled. “I feel tacky today.”

“I noticed.”

Annie stopped and hugged Victoria fiercely. “I really don’t mind

you wanting me to have a new hat. I’ve been thinking about it

myself. I guess I was just feeling like the hat was a part of me you

didn’t like. And I need for you to like all of me, Vicky.”

“Poor Anne,” Victoria soothed her. “My wonderful woman.

Maybe I am rejecting a part of you. Maybe I want to put my own

stamp on you more completely. I don’t think it would change you

essentially. Do you?”

“No. And we’re bound to change from being with each other.

Can you imagine ten years from now?” she joked, leaning back

from Victoria to share her vision. “You won’t hardly be able to tell

us apart!”

Victoria laughed too as she stepped away and took Annie’s

hand. “I hope we won’t get like that,” she said. “I don’t think I

could love me anywhere near as much as I love you. We have to

find out how to be together and change together without

becoming indistinguishable from each other or inseparable. As

you said, we have to learn how ‘not to lose our ability to be alone.’

And speaking of being alone—what have you heard about your

house?”

“Nothing,” Annie answered sadly. “The workers are just about

finished next door. I guess they’ll start painting and hammering

on my place next. I better start looking for someplace else to rent.”

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter and Victoria felt helpless to see

her so defeated.

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“Wait,” commanded Annie, stopping in her tracks as they

turned onto Broadway. “I love it.”

“What?” Victoria looked all around her at the people and cars

and shops until her eyes came to rest on the white cowboy hat in

the window of a souvenir store. “You like it?” Victoria asked,

looking doubtfully at it.

“No,” said Annie finally. “It’s not me.”

Victoria sighed in relief, suddenly hearing the new sounds that

signalled Broadway, the raucous speakers blasting bad rock music

and come-on speeches out the doors. “I didn’t think so. As little as

I want to be a repressed uptowner, that was a little flamboyant.”

“I might like to be flamboyant once in a while, you know.”

“Once in a while, Anne. But you wear your hats all the time

everywhere.”

“So it’s hats in the plural already, huh?”

“We are looking for one ...”

“True. Very true. If we can find it.” They trudged on up into the

theatre district and Victoria pointed out the sights to Annie. They

were both very hot and thirsty. Annie kept lifting the knapsack

away from her back to dry off the sweat. “Let’s find a nice air-

conditioned shop to look in.”

“How about that shop?” They went in and Annie bought a

lightweight navy Greek sailor’s cap.

“Now, that was easy,” Annie said, stuffing her green cap into

her knapsack as they emerged into the heat.

“And I love it. It does suit you. Kind of dignified, but kind of

fun. It looks great with your light hair.”

“You’re just pleased as hell you’ve left your mark on my head.”

“I’d rather be leaving it on your body,” Victoria whispered and

ran her tongue around the rim of Annie’s ear. “Let’s go up to my

parent’s apartment. It’ll be cooler and they won’t be home for

hours yet.”

Annie took off her sailor’s hat and bent the brim to a peak in

her hand. “Got to train this hat to fit me right. Yes, let’s go. It’s too

damn hot out here for June. Somebody ought to adjust the

thermostat.”

* * * *

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“Sometimes it seems as if we spend all our time in bed,” Annie

noted as she pulled on her jeans.

Victoria giggled deep in her throat. “I wish we could.”

“We might never have stopped if your parents weren’t due

soon.”

“Not if I had anything to do with it, Anne.” Victoria nuzzled

Annie’s neck before she went, naked, to the dresser to brush her

hair. “Do you have any idea how liberating it is to make love with

a woman in one’s parents’ home?”

Annie brushed the top of her new hat clean, and set it on her

head. “Some,” she said shyly.

“So you’re not innocent of this rebellion yourself?”

“Where else did me and Natalie have to go? My problem was

that my house was never empty.”

“The aunts?”

“And my grandmother. When I think of that house it’s a

nightmare of faceless women floating, like ghosts, in and out of

rooms, constantly searching for me.”

“And where were you?”

“On the narrow hard bed under a window in my room. Lying on

a white bedspread, feeling its fuzzy little bumps under our asses as

we made love, scared and tense, tense, tense. I don’t know how we

ever had orgasms.”

“Quietly, I’ll bet.”

Annie bent over Victoria from behind and hugged her. “Quieter

than you, anyway,” she teased, cupping her hands around

Victoria’s still-uncovered breasts.

“Anne!”

“Did I embarrass you?” Annie asked as she knelt at Victoria’s

side and spoke against a breast, touching it as she spoke with her

mouth. “I love to hear you. Every time you come I hear you

coming on the mountainside in Vermont again. You open up the

sky for me, wherever we are. Suddenly I’m outdoors with you in

open space.”

Victoria leaned her head back, knowing that she wanted to

make love again, but anxious about her parents’ arrival. The fact

that they knew she and Annie were lovers did not make Victoria

feel any more comfortable about making love in their home. Still,

she let her legs go slack as Annie reached between them. “No,

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Anne,” she whispered, letting the hairbrush rest on Annie’s hat.

Then she swept the hat off Annie’s head. Annie sat between

Victoria’s legs and began to explore her with her tongue. Victoria,

shaken with tenderness by the intimacy of what Annie was doing,

half-dropped, half-placed her brush on the floor and softly ran her

hands over and over Annie’s hair. “I feel so connected to you,” she

breathed at Annie who leaned back and looked up toward Victoria,

her lips glistening above her naked shoulders. “You’re making a

circle with me,” Victoria explained softly. “It’s like a halo, or a

rainbow. I can see all this light curving into you and out of me and

out of you and into me. I feel its warmth.” She played with Annie’s

hair, astonished again by its blondeness.

“I feel it,” replied Annie, bending once more and kissing

Victoria’s exposed outer lips lightly until Victoria found herself

moving her pelvis closer to Annie’s mouth, pushing against her.

Overwhelmed, she stopped worrying about her parents. Annie

circled Victoria’s ankles with her fingers and steadied herself until

with a half-loud cry Victoria came. Victoria bent to kiss Annie’s

still-wet lips, her hair falling between them and making a fine

grinding sound as it rubbed between their lips. “I have never met

anyone as sensual as you,” Annie said, her eyes still bright with

pleasure.

Victoria stared at their blueness, unable to talk yet, her hands

resting lightly to either side of Annie’s jaw. “This isn’t sex,” she

finally said, closing her eyes and shaking her head slowly. “It’s

bliss.” Her smile disappeared as she heard the key in the front

door. She looked at Annie in panic and Annie stood, slowly,

pulling Victoria up with her. She bent to hand Victoria her jeans

and looked for her pullover as Mrs. Locke called, “Victoria, are you

and your friend home?” Victoria rolled her eyes at Annie before

she disappeared into her sweater. Annie was fumbling with the

buttons of her own shirt.

“We’ll be right there, mother,” she called, hoping she would

wait for them. Her heart raced when she heard her mother’s

footsteps approaching. Annie pushed her shirttails into her jeans

still unbuttoned. Victoria quickly ran a brush through her hair.

Her mother would think it odd she wore no shirt under her

sweater, but there was no time for proprieties. Almost

simultaneously she thought of her mother’s perfunctory kiss. Her

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mouth and hair smelled like herself from kissing Annie. She

looked quickly around to Annie who was sitting, composed, legs

crossed, hat on her lap, almost daintly on the desk chair. For a

moment she wished that Annie had long hair, looked more

straight, but then she was flooded with love for her short yellow

hair, her lesbian ways. It gave her courage and she remembered to

slip her glasses off just as Mrs. Locke rounded the door.

“Hello girls,” Mrs. Locke said, hesitating in the doorway to

Victoria’s relief. “You must be Anne.” She did not walk in to shake

Annie’s hand.

“Yes,” Annie replied, smiling nervously. “Thanks for giving me a

place to stay in the city.”

“We welcome Victoria’s friends,” Mrs. Locke said, her face

expressionless. She looked as if, had she seen Annie at Victoria’s

feet, she would not have given any sign, thought Annie. She knew

the type: frozen women, so far from their feelings they seem to

have none. And the thought chilled her as she realized in fear how

much of that coldness might be in Victoria. The thawing that had

come with loving Annie might be temporary—or partial. Annie

considered her ability to love a half-frozen woman. She would try

to keep her melted by helping her feel safe and loved. What a

consuming job it could be. But there, she thought as Mrs. Locke

advised them to dress and meet her and Mr. Locke in the parlor

for cocktails, there is the difference. Mrs. Locke turned regally and

swept out of the room with her skirt and matching high heels.

Victoria is a lesbian. In her own world she doesn’t have to protect

herself quite so much as her mother who must wear clothes to

please men, move to please them and think to please them. In

learning Annie’s pleasures, Victoria learned her own, just as in

learning Annie’s needs and how to meet them, she found how to

meet her own. The battle’s half won, thought Annie: remove her

from this world. In the new world, help her to find and to meet her

own real needs.

Victoria watched Annie’s eyes follow her mother out of the

room. She felt torn away from Annie. The intimacy of their

lovemaking had been so moving that the intrusion of her straight,

judgemental mother was almost an act of violence. In order to

regain that intimacy she felt she must do something violent in

turn, but she was paralyzed.

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“Do you like your mother?” asked Annie, hoping Victoria did

not.

“No. Not at all. I’ve tried to find something in her I could like or

love,” Victoria whispered, “but she’s not reclaimable. She’s lost.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It makes me freer in a way. I know what I don’t want.”

“You mean I might never have had you if it hadn’t been for her

failure?”

“Exactly. And if my father hadn’t thought that my mind was as

important as my body so that I was allowed to develop it. Of

course, that was in lieu of training a son, but the end result is the

same for me.”

They sat on the bed next to each other, not touching. “We came

to each other such different ways,” said Annie.

“I hardly know anything about your background. Except that

you had a household of aunts and not much money. Why do you

think you didn’t want to be like your family?”

“That’s easy. As earthy as my aunts seem next to your mother,

they had their airs and pretenses. They thought their husbands

should be strapped to their jobs to earn more and more money so

they could spend their lives prettying up their flats and serving

each other tea. They would not have admired your mother, but

they would have emulated her lifestyle. And my mother, though

she was different from them, more purposeful, still relegated

herself to second place at home. The men cursed and got loud, but

the aunts made them stop brawling, demanded that they treat

them like ladies. I suppose it was their way of getting away from

the ugliness of life, from the poverty their parents knew in Ireland

and then here, but it made them such damned fakes.

“There wasn’t one person in my family I wanted to be like. My

mother a little bit, because at least she kept her integrity by

staying aloof from my father’s family and working part-time. But

she was still part of it all because my father was. It was her spirit,

maybe, that I admired. I think without my father she might have

gone and built herself a farm out west like her brother did.

Instead, she invited my father’s relatives to our gloomy flat,

cooked turkey for all of them when it was her turn and settled

family tiffs. I didn’t want to get buried like that.” Annie paused,

looking toward Victoria from the window where she had

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wandered. “Sorry, that was quite a speech.”

Victoria joined her at the window. “You’re right, it was quite a

speech. But I want to hear your speeches. We really know each

other so little, don’t we?”

Annie smiled and replaced her hat. “I was thinking of that

myself. I probably know more about your body than your

personality.”

“Then no matter how awful this is I think it’s been worth it to

let us get to know each other better.”

“Agreed. Now I see that it’s really important to take you home

to Chelsea so you can see from whence I sprung,” Annie laughed.

“Although you won’t have to deal with my family as my lover. I’d

rather disappear from their lives than come out to them. I’d feel so

entangled by their responses.”

“I can see you as a little girl.”

“A spindly-legged little kid with long blonde hair and a poodle

skirt?”

Victoria looked shocked. “Poodle skirts?”

“Can you imagine?”

“Not at all, but I love the idea. Wouldn’t my mother have a fit if

you appeared for dinner in one of those.”

“Speaking of which, what am I supposed to change to? I only

brought my dungarees.”

“They’ll do. I, however, will change into some ‘slacks’ that will

look more familiar to mater and pater and something a bit frillier

on top. They may look at you funny, but don’t let it worry you. I

hope you’ll never have occasion to be scrutinized by them again.

My sun-shot love.”

“Huh?”

“You’re so bright that sometimes when I close my eyes I

confuse you with the sun.”

“I’m not feeling very bright right now. I’m feeling more like a

drink,” Annie said in a strained voice from the window where

Victoria had left her to change.

“That you’ll have soon enough.”

“But not in the quantity I’m craving, my love.”

“You mean you want to get drunk?”

“You got it.”

“Why?” Victoria asked, returning to the window as she

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buttoned her blouse, a pale yellow one of light, soft material. She

felt as if she were wearing Annie’s hair.

“I don’t know. I just get in the mood.”

“When things are going bad?”

“Or good. It’s good for despairing or celebrating.”

Victoria peered with concern at Annie who was averting her

eyes. “Do you want to get drunk or go to a bar where you can be

with our own people?”

“Good question,” Annie mused and fell silent. She looked up at

Victoria’s glasses. “Why are you holding those instead of wearing

them?”

“My mother gets upset when she sees me in glasses. I’m not

sure my father ever has.”

“But you’re so nearsighted.”

“I’m used to it,” Victoria shrugged as she turned to finish her

preparations. “People who aren’t half-blind don’t understand what

the world looks like without these.”

“What about contacts?”

“Can’t wear them. Something about my eyes, they would be bad

for them.”

“So you feel your way around in front of your parents rather

than upset them.” When Victoria looked sharply at Annie she

apologized. “Sorry, I’m feeling ornery. I’m not really criticizing

you.”

“Yes you are, just as I’m criticizing you for drinking when you

have a perfect right to want to run from these people.”

“Oh,” said Annie.

They stared at each other. “I’m not ready to wear my glasses in

front of them.”

“And I want a drink, whatever the reason.”

Suddenly they both smiled and walked to each other, then

hugged tightly.

“It’s going to be hard,” Victoria whispered, her voice low with

emotion.

“We’ll probably end up hating each other sometimes,” Annie

said, running her fingers along Victoria’s soft blouse. “But it will

only deepen our love, these differences and adjustments.”

“Do you think so?”

“If we want it to.”

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Annie set her jaw as she pulled away. “I think it will if we don’t

direct it all inside our relationship.” Victoria looked puzzled. “I’m

scared that we’ll spend every waking minute taking care of each

other and our pet poodle and never do anything beyond

ourselves.”

“Do you mean that you want a focus outside ourselves?”

“Yes. Or focuses. Hell, I don’t care if we just volunteer for

something, if our lives leave some mark somewhere besides on

each other.”

“And that comes from your family being so inward.” Annie

raised her eyebrows and tipped her cap forward. “I guess it does,

Vicky. I never thought of that.”

“But it’s a fine commitment and I want to share it with you.”

“We need to talk about it more. Not just fooling around with

Peg and those guys, but seriously, you and me.”

Annie looked so intent that Victoria wanted to smile out of love

for her, but she knew how serious she was. “On the train

tomorrow, Anne, if not before. We’ll come up with some ideas.

We’ll really start to plan.”

Satisfied, Annie smiled and began to pace. “Is it time to

approach the colosseum yet?”

“Are you feeling like a lion or a slave?”

“I’m feeling like the meat they use to lure the lion out of its

cage.”

“Okay,” smiled Victoria as she put her glasses into their case.

“Let’s get this over with.”

* * * *

“A lady on the train told me,” Victoria answered her mother

after dinner when they had settled in the parlor.

“What lady, what train, darling? I’m afraid I don’t quite

understand you,” Mrs. Locke said, glancing minutely at Annie.

“She told you that you were a— homosexual person— so you

became one?”

“No, Mother, I was only joking,” Victoria said patiently, “but it

was part of the whole sequence. You asked me when it happened,

when I came out. It wasn’t a sudden thing. I love women because

of everything that ever happened to me.” Mrs. Locke visibly

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shuddered while her husband looked puzzled.

“You see, dear?” she turned to her husband. “I knew it would

have been worth the expense to have a coming out party for her.”

“That wouldn’t have changed anything, Mother. In fact, it might

have pushed me to find out about myself sooner. I would have

been so disgusted with parties I would have looked even harder

for a way out.”

“These women,” Mrs. Locke asked, pointing her chin slightly

toward Annie, “these women don’t go to parties?”

“That’s not the point.”

Annie had watched Victoria’s patience run out. She tried to

picture herself talking to her own parents in order to find a way to

help Victoria. “I think, Mrs. Locke,” she said, “that Victoria’s

trying to say she felt she had no choices when you arranged her

life for her. They never fit her, she never fit them. And the more

plans you made for her, the more she would have wanted to get

out of them.”

“If you’ve always been like this,” Mrs. Locke replied after

nodding abstractedly toward Annie, “what do you mean about that

woman who told you to be like this.”

“She didn’t tell me what to do. And she wasn’t all that

important. I just mentioned her because she was one of the ways I

began to see myself. She seemed able to see into me and my

future, like a witch would do. Because of her my mind opened up

to possibilities for myself I’d never considered.” Victoria’s father

straightened his new tie and looked skeptical. “Then other things

began to happen which opened my eyes further. For example, I

met lesbians.”

“I can’t think that’s anything but a silly way to make such a

decision.”

Annie started to speak, but Victoria went ahead. “Mother, I feel

like we’re not communicating. I’m trying to explain only because

you’re my parents, but maybe you’ll never fully understand, or

maybe it’ll take time.”

“I appreciate it, dear. It’s all so foreign to me,” Mrs. Locke said.

“And I know how hard it is. Our whole society teaches us not to

accept or understand or even see gay people. That’s why it took so

much to wake me up, too.” Victoria paused and looked defiantly at

her mother, ready for another challenge.

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“Then you don’t think you’ll ever get married?”

Victoria looked toward Annie as if to ask, “Did she miss the

whole point?” Annie shook her head sympathetically. Victoria

answered quietly, “No.”

“It’s not as if she’s an only son turned pansy, you know,” Mr.

Locke comforted his wife. “And I’m sure you’ll be discreet,

Victoria.”

She doesn’t count for him at all, Annie thought. Mrs. Locke,

meanwhile, seemed to take her husband’s pronouncements as a

signal to end the discussion. She turned back to Victoria. “Won’t

you tell us about your friend?”

“We’ve only known each other a few months, but it feels like a

lifetime,” Victoria smiled at Annie.

“I remember what a rebel I was at school. I defied all the rules

when I went to a local roadhouse with your father,” Mrs. Locke

said. “I suppose my daughter cares for you in much the same way,

to defy convention for your sake,” she continued as if to

compliment Annie.

Annie squirmed under her gaze, trying to respond to her

without showing hostility. She felt uncomfortably drowsy from

cocktails and dinner wine. The room was full of summer heat

under its air conditioning. She wished Mrs. Locke would get tired

of being polite. The woman was not interested in understanding

Victoria, only in fitting her into the stereotypes she already had.

Annie saw her as a manipulator who loses interest in anything

which doesn’t suit her purposes. She wanted to say, sarcastically,

“I hope you’ll find me worthy of your daughter,” and in

desperation was about to, when Mrs. Locke asked her to talk

about herself. “I’m from Boston,” was all she could think of to say.

“What was your last name?”

“Heaphy.”

“What an Irish name. Yet you don’t look particularly Irish.”

I don’t believe this genealogical inspection, thought Annie. She

looked at Victoria who seemed to be still recovering from her own

ordeal. Annie decided to shock Mrs. Locke in revenge. “I’m

Swedish or Norwegian. I always forget which,” she lied recklessly,

and saw the shock pass briefly across Mrs. Locke’s face. “That’s

where the blonde comes from,” Annie went on. “And how come

I’m so quiet even if I am Irish.”

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“You’ve lovely manners. You know, we had a Scandinavian girl

for Victoria when she was small. I hope you don’t mind me saying

so,” she tittered, “but I can never remember which one of those

little countries she came from either.” Annie watched the woman

relax a bit, less on her guard now that she had placed Annie in a

category.

“She was Swiss, mother.”

“Nevertheless, I wonder whether some of this,” she paused to

find a word, “fascination you feel for Anne, might not be

connected to that little blonde governess. A parent never knows

what’s right or wrong. Did you go to college?”

“To a local college. Then I went to the state school down here

and dropped out.”

“Why?”

“Money.”

Mrs. Locke made a sympathetic face, but dropped the subject. It

was too close to home. “Perhaps we should have coffee and dessert

now,” she suggested, leaving for the kitchen.

Mr. Locke straightened, apparently ready to take over as host.

“Which school did you go to in Boston?”

“Boston College.”

“That’s a pretty good school,” he approved. “What’s your father

do?” He smiled for the first time.

“He drives a truck,” Annie offered humbly. She was too afraid

of men to confront them. “In season mostly, for a construction

firm.”

Mr. Locke nodded again, trying to figure out how to make that

information last. “Know the name of the company? Fellow I went

to Yale with is in construction up there.”

“I’m afraid not. It’s a small company. Someone from the

neighborhood owns it. He does some building himself.”

“A contractor?”

“Could be. They grew up together.”

“Not too close to your family, are you?”

“No, I’ve been away for awhile.” Annie began to warm to

Victoria’s father. His manner was not as hard as Mrs. Locke’s

though he seemed to hide this in her presence. “I’m the first one to

go to college. It makes me different from the rest of them. None of

my cousins went. Except little Johnny who’s considering the

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priesthood.”

Mr. Locke brightened. “Have you visited St. Patrick’s

Cathedral?”

“No, sir. I hear it’s beautiful.”

“A classic. I love to go there and sit on a hot day. Seems like

their God keeps the coolness in there for His worshippers. Lovely

place. Say, it’s Saturday night. They may keep the doors open late

enough for you girls to see the place. I don’t believe my daughter

ever saw the inside of an American cathedral. Perhaps she’ll take

an interest now.”

“My father’s been trying to get me to visit St. Patrick’s since I

was a child,” Victoria explained. “Religious architecture is a hobby

of his.”

“Want to go see it after coffee?” Annie hinted to Victoria.

“Wonderful idea,” Victoria agreed, glad of the excuse to escape.

“What’s a good idea?” Mrs. Locke wanted to know as she

carried in the coffee.

“Going to church,” Victoria laughed. Annie couldn’t help but

join in and Mr. Locke smiled again. When they had explained

their plan to the humorless Mrs. Locke she laughed briefly.

“You will take a cab?” she advised. “The element in this city at

night would make your skin crawl.”

Victoria, communicating to Annie in a smile their membership

in the element her mother warned against, assured her they would

take a cab. As the visit wound down with more silences and small

talk, Annie wondered if she would ever have a discussion like this

with her own parents. She couldn’t imagine it or their reaction.

Lesbianism would be so alien to their world Annie suspected they

wouldn’t be able to take in the information. Life was hard enough

for them without visiting this upon them. Nor did Annie feel any

need to tell them, although she understood that for Vicky it was a

necessary part of her separation from her family.

Annie looked at the Lockes. They seemed more comfortable

now that they were ignoring the issue. Finally, they rose and Annie

went to Victoria’s room for her hat. Everyone said goodnight at the

parlor entrance. “We may go downtown for a drink after church,

Mother,” Victoria said as they left.

“Even my mother would be shocked at that combination,”

Annie laughed as they waited for the elevator.

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“I couldn’t help it, duckling. One parting blow. I was enjoying

rubbing it in after the way they were questioning you. I hope you

didn’t mind too much?”

“Their behavior? I was angry, but I know they don’t know any

better and I certainly didn’t want to mess things up for you by

confronting them,” Annie said as the elevator closed behind them.

Wordlessly they embraced one another. Toward the first floor they

let go and looked at each other as if they had been apart for years.

As soon as they were out of sight of the night doorman they began

to run, hand in hand, downtown, exhilarated by the freedom of the

night air and release. They ran past doormen fanning themselves

with their hats, old people strolling to catch the cooler breezes that

were descending with darkness, singles walking their well-

groomed, panting dogs. Like magic, they skipped over crosstown

streets without traffic, running down and down toward the display

of winking red and green traffic lights that lined the avenue. At the

bottom of Central Park they stopped and leaned on one another to

catch their breath. “Are we really going to St. Patrick’s?” Annie

asked.

“Would I disobey my father?”

“Only in bed,” Annie teased. They walked on. At the corner of

59th and 5th, they kissed, Victoria unheeding of the night

strollers who stared as they went past.

“Oh, Anne, Anne, will it always be this delicious?”

“No, but pretty often,” Annie answered, her eyes slanting with

silent laughter. “You’re a lesbian now. That means, to me anyway,

that we can be whatever else or however else we want to be—

except maybe in good shape,” she laughed, still tired out by their

run.

“You know, the sweat is streaming down my sides and I don’t

mind? It feels good! I don’t ever remember sweating like this.

Only politely into my anti-perspirant.”

“A little damp around the armpits?” Annie mocked, folding her

hands in prayer. “We’ll take care of that in a jiff. A special little

prayer will do it, don’t you know. Come with me to the little

church on the corner and we’ll pray for dry armpits. Pray to God!”

she raised her voice like a preacher, “for dryness of the flesh and

coolness of the passions. God,” she whispered in Victoria’s ear as

they resumed walking, “will dry you up. Dry you up,” she began to

Toothpick House | 218

shout to Victoria’s delight on another street corner, “and blow you

away in a little puff of breeze. Dust to dust.”

“Amen.”

“Ah woman,” Annie was back at Victoria’s side gazing

salaciously at her breasts. “I covet you, woman.”

“My daddy wouldn’t like that.”

“Your daddy isn’t here, little girl.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Oh, he isn’t that bad,” Annie said, slowing. “At least he tried to

be pleasant. Unless he forgot to be unpleasant.”

“I think the latter is more the case. Even though I’m not a son

and therefore haven’t broken the line, I’m still bringing disgrace

onto the family’s head. Especially if I write lesbian things. He’ll be

humiliated.”

“Good,” Annie said, suddenly sounding bitter. “Let’s humiliate

them all. They’ve done it to us long enough.”

“Wow. Where is all that anger coming from?”

“The last time I was humiliated by a man.”

“My father?”

“No, he didn’t have it together enough to humiliate me.

Although I’m sure he could, given the chance. It was my landlord

coming to collect the rent and reminding me that I have to leave

his property when he wants me to. They’re so arrogant about their

territory. And everything is their territory. They won it all and only

let us use it when it’s to their advantage. Then we pay, one way or

another. We’ve got to get something of our own.”

“I never thought about it that much. They almost own us, don’t

they?” Victoria concluded quietly.

“Not us, not lesbians. We’re probably the biggest threat there is

against them. We don’t need them for anything. We’re free of

them in our heads.”

“But they pay us to work for them. And rent us apartments. My

father’s still supporting me. And as long as he does I owe him

something. I see what you mean, Anne. It’s great to feel free and

run through the streets, but we don’t really escape their power

over us.”

They stopped in front of St. Patrick’s. “Look at that

monstrosity,” Annie snarled. “So huge and ugly. And all built to

honor their mythological father. Look at the money they poured

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into that building. All for the purpose of worship, damn it, Vicky.

Wasting all that space to mutter meaningless words under their

breath and expect life to get easier or better for them because

they’re doing it.”

At the top of the steps Annie hesitated. “I feel as though I’m

stepping into their net going in here. I was brought up to believe

this crap. I want to desecrate it. Look at the woman praying, Vicky.

It makes me sick. They’re praying to the male master for their

husbands to stop beating them or for better places to live when it’s

the male landlords who are ripping them off, letting their homes

rot rather than spare the money.”

“Or praying that their sons survive the wars that men insist on

waging,” Victoria whispered. “You’re right. It’s ludicrous. Just

think of people praying to end a war when it’s the worship of that

god that makes them feel righteous about killing. In his name.

Remember the holy wars? Fighting over which way to worship

their figurehead best?”

Along the side of the church they paused by the candles. “It’s

creepy in here, isn’t it?” Annie asked. “Want to light a candle?”

“Yes. Let’s light a candle for the speedy overthrow of men by

women,” Victoria giggled. “Wouldn’t Rosemary be proud of our

conversation?”

“And Peg,” Annie agreed. A woman who stood with them said,

“Shh,” and moved on.

“She doesn’t know any better, Anne,” Victoria observed to calm

Annie’s anger.

“You’re right. Come here.” Annie took Victoria’s arms roughly

and kissed her hard. Victoria pushed her lips and hips back at

Annie. They kissed with determination, not for the pleasure of it,

but to make their point to themselves and the church. “Let’s get

the fuck out of here.”

“Wait,” Victoria said as she pulled her tie out of her pocket. She

put it around her neck and stood tying it in the chapel defiantly.

“Now let’s leave.”

They took a bus downtown and wandered, feeling depressed,

but liberated, and somewhat among their own, on the Village

streets. They decided to go to the bar where they had met, but

found the bitter taste of the church’s incense was stronger in their

mouths at the thought of paying cover to the men who owned it.

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They stood outside, holding hands, feeling let down after their

earlier exhilaration. Women came and went into the bar while

Annie and Victoria looked at the buildings or at each other,

desultorily finding things to say to each other. They were about to

leave when a particularly rowdy group emerged drunkenly from

the bar and moved off in a body. “Let’s follow them,” Annie

suggested.

Victoria’s eyes lit up. “Sounds great. Where do you think they’re

going?”

“Somewhere to have fun. If it’s not private, we’ll just blend with

them.” Conspiratorily, the two followed the crowd several blocks

to the sound of music falling to the street from open windows.

Figures lounged on the fire escape.

“Don’t they look like dykes?” Annie asked, excited.

The sign on the building read “Firehouse.” “I’ve heard of a

firehouse,” Victoria said. “I think Rosemary may have been here. I

don’t think it’s a bar. More like a women’s center.”

“Sounds like a party to me,” Annie said before preceding

Victoria through a knot of women at the top of the stairs. “Who

does it go to?” she asked the woman taking the cover money.

“Tonight’s a benefit for the women’s center,” she answered as

Annie noted the difference between this slight, short-haired

woman with a pleasant manner and the bouncer at the bar. Either

she hadn’t been out long, Annie thought, or there’s a whole new

breed of lesbian coming down the road.

Inside, Annie and Victoria walked around a makeshift dance

floor and through clusters of lesbians who were shouting and

clapping and talking intently. One woman was painting the naked

torso of another while several more waited their turns. Marijuana

smoke drifted through the huge room. They could see the fire

escape across the room where several women still lounged.

Victoria spotted a counter where beer was being sold. “Are you

sure you don’t want cider instead?” she yelled at Annie jokingly as

they opened their cans and drifted again, looking for a space of

their own.

“What a great atmosphere,” Annie shouted, leaning against a

pole to watch the dancers. “It’s like New Haven. Look at the group

dancing.”

“Yes, I don’t feel as though I’m in the big bad city at all. Or just

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a cab drive away from my parents.”

“Look, there’s Faye and Jean from Yale!” Annie said. They saw

Victoria and Annie at the same time and drew them into their

group. Soon they found themselves whirling around the room in

separate dances of liberation. Annie wondered if they would ever

feel this high again and worried lest their relationship was starting

out too intense to sustain normal life. She resolved to renew their

discussion of goals on the train tomorrow no matter how tired

they were from tonight. They would certainly need a commitment

beyond themselves to survive. She imagined, as she spun around

the room, running a printing press with Victoria or opening a

women’s bar. She saw them playing together in a band, or giving

lectures about lesbianism to straight women. None of it felt real,

but as she caught Victoria’s eye across the room she knew that

there was something very real waiting for their combined energy.

Their relationship would be a strength to sustain them, a haven

from which they would go into the world, expose themselves to

accomplish something, and to which they could return for

nurturing and binding up of wounds. While they healed

themselves they would find the strength that they would need to

go out again and again until they began to make a mark upon the

world, until all the women were strong and loud, until women

began to be heard and felt as a power in the world to change it

from the warring, hateful, hungry place that it was into, simply, a

better place to be. Annie realized that she was getting drunk and

stepped out of the dancing circle to stop from getting dizzy. For

the first time in a long time, she did not want to be drunk. She

wanted to be at her best, ready for anything.

Suddenly there were several uniformed men at the door and

Annie felt herself go cold with fear. She looked for Victoria in the

crowd of equally paralyzed women and began to make her way to

her. Were they shooting? Would they arrest them? Were they here

to beat and rape? These were the terrified thoughts that went

through Annie’s mind until she found Victoria. They took one

another’s hands and stared until it became clear that this was the

fire department. “A complaint,” was the skeptical murmur that

went through the crowd. Someone had complained about

something and they were here to investigate. The women without

shirts had hurriedly put them on. “We can’t even be naked among

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ourselves because of their damn law,” Victoria whispered. The

woman at the door would not let the firemen in without papers.

“I’m glad these women know what they’re doing,” Annie

whispered. “How many of them are there?”

“There’s more on the stairs,” another woman whispered back,

her eyes wide with fright.

“I think it’s okay,” Annie heard someone say, aloud. She saw

the woman at the door nod affirmatively and the men begin to

back away. The crowd stood still and silent. Annie could feel the

women, like herself, fighting their own weakness and paralyzing

fear. She could sense them all tensing and retreating, ready to

spring or to fall back. She looked around for support and saw both

strength and fear in the faces. Annie wondered, as the firemen left

and the women drifted back to what they had been doing, which

would have been the dominant force had the enemy shown their

weapons and a belligerent intent. She hoped she would have had

the strength to fight. And that Victoria would have joined her.

“Tense, huh?” she said to Victoria.

Victoria visibly relaxed. She took her glasses off and wiped

sweat from around her eyes. “I didn’t like that at all.”

“Me neither. I’ve never been in a bar when one was raided.”

“What time is it?”

“Late, my love, but I hate to go back.”

“Me too, but I think we ought to. I’d like to go to the park in the

morning to show you where I really grew up when I was in New

York.”

“I’d like that too. You’re right. We have a lot more to do than

just party,” said Annie, remembering her resolve.

They said goodbye to Faye and Jean, then slipped through the

women, through the bodies painted bright colors, through the hair

long and cropped, through the touching, loud women, and made

their way to the street. It was after midnight and cool. They walked

toward the subway arm-in-arm looking up at the stars. The walls

of the buildings seemed to meet over their heads. “It feels as if

we’re at the bottom of a well, tonight,” Victoria said.

The music grew fainter behind them and for one whole block all

they could hear was distantly passing cars. Two men went by arm-

in-arm. The four smiled at one another. “Maybe we should live in

New York,” Annie suggested.

Lee Lynch | 223

“Maybe we should live in Iowa,” Victoria laughed softly.

“Do you have a preference?”

“I want to live with you.”

Annie lifted her cap and spun it on her index finger. “I feel as if

I’ve just been asked for my hand.”

“Except I want your whole body,” Victoria squeezed Annie

closer to her.

“Do you really want to live with me?”

“I never want to be away from you.” Victoria watched Annie

lower her head. “What is it, Anne? Did I upset you? We don’t have

to. We could just be lovers,” she said, afraid once again that she

had scared Annie by wanting too much.

“I’m sorry Vic. Of course I want to live with you. I want nothing

more than that. You just said it like Natalie did. And I got scared

that we’d end up the same way.”

“I can’t predict,” Victoria told Annie as they went down the

subway steps. “But I promise you I’ll never just take off. I’ll work

on staying together.”

They had stopped outside the turnstile. “Will you? I’d feel much

more hopeful if I felt like you were as committed to making us

work as I am.”

“Remember how you said when you’re making love to me it

sounds as if I’m opening the world for you?” Annie nodded. “Well,

Anne, that’s you. Over and over you open up the world for me. You

unlocked it for me. I can walk into it and around in it now. I’m not

just hiding inside anymore. Do you think I would ever throw away

my key?” She gently tugged Annie’s arm.

“Someday you won’t need a key any more.”

“But I’ll always know you made it possible. And when I am as

free and open and brave as you all the time, I hope that you’ll still

want to be all those things with me and not just a teacher for

someone else. How can I know that you won’t leave me when the

excitement of watching me come out farther and farther wears

off?”

Horrified, Annie shook her head until her hat almost fell off.

“Then we’ll have the excitement of accomplishing things together,

Vicky, or of watching each other succeed at what we want to do. Of

sharing our victories or just of being together. I want to be old

with you, Vicky. I want to love the lines on your beautiful face and

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admire your grey hair. I want to have memories with you.” There

was a rumbling in the station. Victoria gestured toward the

arriving train and handed Annie a token which she fished out of

her jean pockets.

“No,” she decided when Annie went to insert her token. She

reached over and put her token into Annie’s turnstile while Annie

did the same for her. Their eyes met as they moved together slowly

through the turnstiles each had unlocked for the other and they

broke through at the end into a run which took them down the

stairs together and into a car. The nearly empty train slid away

from the station carrying two lesbians hugging just inside the

door.

CHAPTER TEN

Annie and Victoria boarded the train the next night and sat, not

touching, collapsed into themselves from the strain of visiting the

Lockes. As they pulled out of Grand Central Station and rushed up

past 125th Street and into the suburbs, they were nearly silent,

beginning to recover. Annie giggled unexpectedly.

“What is it, Anne?” Victoria asked softly, laying a hand on

Annie’s thigh.

“Just remembering the ducks in the Children’s Zoo at Central

Park.”

“How they waddle?”

Annie giggled again, “Yes, it tickled me somehow.”

“I like the goats. They seem to have such sweet dispositions.

Like you.” Victoria kissed her cheek.

“Silly,” Annie teased, ducking her kiss.

“Bar car at the rear of the train,” a uniformed man sang through

their car. Annie looked at Victoria. “Want a drink?” she asked.

“I’ll join you if you do, but I have no desire for one.”

Annie squirmed in her seat. “I guess I don’t want one either. It’s

just habit. When somebody offers a drink I want it,” she shrugged.

Victoria smiled at her. “You know, I’d really rather not drink,”

Annie confessed. “It just seems to go with everything I do. It’s an

easy way to relax from the tension of hustling in the cab all day, an

easy way to have fun in what isn’t such a fun place: a gay bar; and

an easy way to loosen up enough to socialize with people like your

parents or new lesbians.”

“As you said, it’s habit,” Victoria agreed, cleaning her glasses

with the tail of Annie’s shirt.

“I think of drinking when I think of the high points of my life. I

drink to celebrate, to party, to make love.”

“My parents do the same thing.”

“That’s a kick in the teeth. I really have something in common

with your parents?”

Victoria laughed warmly and ran her fingertips through

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Annie’s hair. “Just what you share in a bottle.”

“I’ll try not having a drink now and see what happens. After all,

we’ll be in New Haven in an hour. If I need a fix I can get one

then. Are you coming home with me?”

“Let’s see how we feel in town. I have to get ready for

graduation, you know. It’ll be here in just a couple of days.”

“You’re not going to do anything productive tonight, though,”

Annie suggested temptingly, leaning to lay her lips on Victoria’s

bare arm.

“I’m certainly not if you’re going to be in that kind of mood.”

“What other kind is there around your lovely body?”

They held hands, each losing herself in her own thoughts.

Soon, Victoria noticed Annie’s hand become slack. Her head had

rolled toward Victoria’s shoulder and Victoria settled it there,

kissing her blonde hair after she removed the hat. She fingered

the brim in her lap, loving it and loving Annie Heaphy, so

trustingly asleep on her shoulder.

When Victoria had time to think, which did not seem to be often

anymore, she was overwhelmed by two things. One was her

enormous love for Annie where there had been no amount of love

for anyone before. Included with that were the sexual feelings she

now found in herself. The excitement Annie had unleashed in her

had become a need. When she thought of Annie’s mouth between

her legs or even of touching Annie’s breasts through a flannel

shirt, she felt warm and sensual and had to close her eyes to

handle the flood of feeling in herself. Her underwear was always

damp. Annie teased her about it. About having grown so

passionate that even when Annie wasn’t around, Victoria could

keep herself turned on with thoughts of them together. Victoria

admitted it gladly to Annie, but wondered what would ever happen

should she lose her. Could she feel this way about another woman?

Would she always feel this way about Annie and forever be

unsatisfied without her? Victoria remembered Annie’s head on her

shoulder when Annie stirred. No need to worry about losing her.

She wouldn’t let it happen. They would learn how to give each

other what they could and how to let each other meet their other

needs elsewhere.

Smiling into the deep darkness outside the window, Victoria

thought of the other thing by which she was overwhelmed: herself.

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How quickly she had blossomed, not just into love, but into a

fuller person. It was as if, in responding to Annie’s kisses, she

learned to respond to the rest of the world around her. As if, in

learning what mattered to her, what was meaningful to her in

love, the rest of the world had finally been revealed to her in a way

that made sense. All the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place

when she opened herself to another woman. The academic world

which had consumed almost all of her, while still important, was

receding a bit and she saw it in a new perspective. She would use

it, use her background, training and literacy for herself. Rather

than be buried by it, she would use it to stand on when she learned

what her next step would be. Perhaps the best thing for her to do

would be to go on, to teach literature from a female perspective or

to study women’s literature. Perhaps it would be more important

for her to write clearly about what was happening to women and

to show women themselves where they were going. Or she could

go on a search for women’s poetry and put it in a volume to inspire

other women with their own achievements. There was no end to

her options and she continued, as she thought of new ones, to

smile into the window.

Outside it had become totally dark. All she had been able to see

for awhile were lampposts, highway lights and occasional partially

lit towns. Connecticut closed early on a Saturday night. The

window was double glass and Victoria could see her own faint

blurred reflection in it. There were two of her, one inside the

other, the edge of neither self sharp and clear. Her image

disappeared now and then as the outside lights became brighter.

It was this ghostly reflection that made her think of Louise, the

witch-like woman on the train at Thanksgiving. It seemed as if

Louise had started it all. Victoria saw Louise’s now lesbian

daughter in the window—or was it her own lesbian self? The

images of her past and her future selves, the witch’s daughter,

merged, but were not yet one. For a long while there was only

darkness outside and Victoria stared at this glowing woman in the

glass, wondering and wondering what would happen to her. She

was a trick of the light thrown on darkness, an impression of the

deep unknown dark of her future. She could almost see the image

speak to her, to herself, or to her other. She let herself imagine

what she was saying. The sound in her head merged with the

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noise of the train, a long rushing sound. Victoria had to slow it to

make any words distinct. Then, rather than actually hearing them,

she seemed to feel them as, with eyes closed, she experienced

their message.

Victoria was a small round being, almost fetal, being shot into

space. She floated, allowing herself the weightlessness of

imagination. Soon she tired of floating, though, and wanted a way

to attach herself somewhere. Arms detached from her round form,

stretched to objects hurtling by. She winced at the pain she felt at

attachment, before her body accustomed itself to the greater

speed. Then she was straddling the amorphous object, entering it,

walking in it, part of it. It felt familiar enough to her to be her own

self, then became her own form. She began to turn, to look for a

direction, and felt the ecstasy of choice, the confused excitement

of options. She felt drawn to one path and walked it, her vision

suddenly disintegrating into Dorothy on the yellow brick road.

When she opened her eyes she was laughing quietly, amused by

the last image, still full of the empowering feelings of the earlier

ones. There she was again in the window. A woman crazed with

happiness, inside another woman smiling back at her, beside

another woman whose yellow head rose next to her own and

smiled too.

“What are you laughing about?” Annie asked sleepily.

“It just came out.”

“Did I say something funny in my sleep?”

“Not that I heard. I might have been a little asleep myself.”

Annie sat all the way up. “Oh—I didn’t mean to nod off. We

were going to talk about our futures. But what a dream I had,” she

said, beginning to remember it. “Wow.”

“Tell me,” Victoria said, leaning back, interested. Perhaps their

dreams were connected.

Annie yawned and shook her head, taking back her hat.

“Everyone was there. In my house. You and me, our families. Peg

and Turkey, Eleanor and Dusty, Rosemary and Claudia, all our

other friends and women I haven’t seen for years. Even Natalie

was there.” Victoria felt a pang of jealousy. “It seems to me they

were there for a party. Funny, I never gave a party there. But there

was all this noise and a lot of lights, a roar which could have been

the water and could have been the train I guess. But in the dream

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it was a combination of the ocean and foghorns and the noise of

all these people having a good time.

“You and I are standing outside, holding hands, proud of the

party we made because everyone was happy. As we stand there the

wind gets stronger and I watch your hair flying around your face.

But we’re too happy to go inside, just want to stand there and

enjoy what we’ve done. We were so awfully happy that we’d made

all of them so happy. And that we were so content with each other.

That happiness and the feeling of giving something to all those

people was so much a part of our love. It seemed to make us love

each other more as well as love all of them more. We felt like we

were on top of the world.”

Annie took Victoria’s hand and squeezed it progressively tighter

as she talked. “But the wind was getting really strong. Without

talking to each other we somehow agreed that we should go back

to the house and blow out the candles and shut some windows or

the party would turn to chaos with everything blowing around.”

Annie was quiet for a moment, shaking her head again in concern.

Victoria felt anxious about the outcome of the dream. The train,

hurtling through the darkness toward their future, seemed

suddenly fragile and vulnerable. Anything could happen: a

trainwreck, some crazy hijacker, a gang of toughs with guns. They

were so unprotected in the world.

Annie went on, finally. “We tried to make it back to the house.

We’re walking against the wind, really struggling against it to walk

even a step forward. Your hair is everywhere. My hat blows off. I

start to go back for it, but you stop me, afraid I’ll be blown right

into the water. You tell me it’s more important to get to our

friends before they’re hurt. We made so little progress.” Annie

seemed too moved to speak for a moment, then continued. “The

wind got so strong we could barely hold our ground, much less go

on. The foghorns sounded over and over as if in warning. Then

the tide came up in a great swirling wave off to our right. It curled

around us and swept over the house, as if it was really the

toothpick house you call it. All the toothpicks and all the people

were carried away by it. The noise of the party was now screams.

And you and I just stood there, rooted to the ground, watching,

listening to the foghorns’ mourning wail. It was awful.

“Then, from behind us, comes this other wave. I know we are

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doomed and I turn to say goodbye to you, but you just smile and

take both my hands in yours. When the wave comes we hold tight

to each other and I realize that the others had not been screaming,

but shouting with joy. This wave was not destructive, but a

transporter, taking us somewhere we wanted and needed to go.

We were so pleased. You seemed then to have known it all the

time. We went with the flow of the water and swirled in it, facing

each other, spinning, still holding hands, like we did after that first

time we made love. We went around and around and I felt an

incredible transcendent joy like nothing I’ve ever experienced

before. Like an orgasm, only an emotional orgasm that just

opened my mind. I felt like everything could come in and all that

went out would be calm, peaceful and good. You were still smiling

and not talking. See, if I look at you now,” Annie said, turning to

Victoria, “you’ll look the same way.”

They gazed at each other for a long time. “Where did we land?”

Victoria finally asked.

“I don’t remember. I think I dreamed it, too, but I don’t

remember where it was. Damn,” Annie said, annoyed. “But the

important thing is what I felt. And how you felt too. What do you

think it all means?”

“I don’t know much about dreams. Maybe Claudia would be

able to explain it. I think it was at least partially sexual, but sexual

in a way that has to do with overall fulfillment. You felt very good

about what was going on in your life. I’m happy about the dream

whatever it meant.”

“Why?”

“Because I was with you when you were so happy.”

Annie leaned over to kiss Victoria. “Won’t you come home with

me tonight and we’ll see what kind of wave we can create

ourselves?” she whispered.

“How can I resist?” Victoria replied, kissing Annie again and

slipping one hand between her legs.

“Station stop New Haven,” the conductor bawled in the aisle.

Victoria moved away from Annie, but they allowed their eyes to

remain connected. As if words would say no more, they stayed like

that until the train stopped, then rose as one to go home.

* * * *

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Graduation was over. Victoria’s parents took her to dinner and

left immediately for New York. After a quick call to Annie, who’d

left the ceremony to wait for her at Peg and Turkey’s apartment,

Victoria changed and rushed downstairs. Annie pulled up as she

reached the street and they sped off to the bar.

Victoria and Annie walked into Marcy’s and saw Turkey before

them resplendent in a white tuxedo. She hoisted a mug of beer in

the air and everyone in the bar began to sing. For She’s a Jolly

Good Woman. Victoria pretended to leave in embarrassment

before she turned back, blushing, and let Annie lead her to the

several tables where their friends had assembled. Congratulations

descended on Victoria from everywhere. A few moments later

Rosemary entered with Claudia bouncing by her side. Turkey

climbed on a chair to get the bar’s attention and they sang again.

Marcy kissed all three of them with her glossy lipstick. “This is the

first time we graduated Yalies in here!” she boasted. Rudy scurried

to kiss them all.

“This is a great improvement over celebrating with my parents,”

Victoria exclaimed, turning to Rosemary. She gasped. “You cut

your hair off!” Rosemary beamed proudly.

“Isn’t it great?” asked Claudia.

“My goodness. It does alter you.” Rosemary pulled her glasses

off and modeled the cut which had been simply a cropping of the

braid so that her brown hair fell lankly to her neck instead of her

hips. The front was parted in the middle as it had always been.

Most significant was the way it seemed to alter Rosemary’s stance

and face. Her features were not pulled back by tight braiding. Her

chin seemed to have risen upward on its own rather than be thrust

forward. Her shirt did not so much fall down her thin body as sit

loosely on it, emphasizing her squared shoulders. She stood tall

and, putting her glasses back on, seemed to have become more

self-assured than belligerent. Everyone was staring at her.

Turkey called for drinks for all of them and held one of

Rosemary’s arms up when they came. “To the true graduate.

Welcome to the gay world,” she shouted with a sweep of her white

top hat. “Now I’m gonna present the first annual Marcy’s

Awards!” The group cheered her. As the drinks arrived, she

motioned for them to be brought to her and arranged them

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neatly, by size places, on the table in front of her. She looked up,

waving a small crumpled napkin in front of her.

“Our first is called the Avis award. It’s for the woman-in-love

who tried hardest to get her girl!” Her friends were quiet while

Turkey ripped the napkin as if she were opening an envelope. “I

could have called this one,” she winked. “And the winner is, Elly!”

They all cheered and laughed, while Eleanor, enjoying the

attention, threw her arms around Dusty and then proudly

presented herself to Turkey who handed her a drink. “This ain’t

my drink!” Eleanor protested.

“Shut up and take it, kid. This is a once in a lifetime honor!”

The group laughed, then quieted for the next prize. “This one,”

Turkey announced, holding up what was left of the napkin, “is for

Most Promising Intellectual! We call it that because the winner

has to promise to stop being an intellectual and come down to

earth!”

They were all looking at Rosemary and Victoria who were in

turn looking down at the floor. “The winner,” and Turkey ripped

the napkin in half again, “is Rosie-baby!” Claudia had to push the

embarrassed Rosemary toward Turkey.

“Speech! Speech!” cried Peg.

Rosemary couldn’t pass up such a chance. She held up her drink

as if it actually was a trophy. “I was brought up by intellectuals, to

be an intellectual, so I don’t know how easily I can change. . . . But

I can promise you that as a dyke, I’m not going to be like any

intellectual you ever saw before!” Victoria led the applause for

Rosemary’s speech.

Turkey raised her arms for silence. She took off her hat and

pressed it to her heart. Her face grew serious. “Now for the highest

honor Marcy’s bar can bestow. It’s our Escape Award, for the

Greatest Escape of the year.” She paused to build suspense and

replace her hat. “This year’s award,” she went on in a voice

quivering with emotion, “goes to the kid who escaped the worst

prison of all: the prison of a cowardly heart.” She wiped an

imaginary tear with her napkin. “This woman has stopped

running from what scared her, has stopped playing the fickle

Casanova, has found the lady of her dreams and given her heart

away. This woman . . . ,” and Turkey lifted the last shred of napkin

in the air, tore its corner the best she could, and announced, “is

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our own improper Bostonian, our beach-squatter, our reformed

drunk and beloved: Annie Heaphy!”

Annie was bright red and shoved her hat practically to her nose,

but the group pushed her forward. Turkey handed her a drink,

shook her hand and raised their arms, saying, “The champ!”

Annie, half smiling, hurried back to Victoria’s side, began to drink,

but remembered what Turkey had said about her and set it down.

Victoria hugged her.

“The rest of these here awards go to the losers!” Turkey yelled,

grabbing one for herself.

“To the losers!” Peg toasted and they all, except Annie, joined

her as she drank.

Someone played the juke box then and the group moved to the

dance floor.

Eleanor grabbed Annie and led her to the floor. Annie looked

around and found Dusty, big and awkward, dancing with the

newly shorn Rosemary. Claudia looked dreamily toward Annie as

she danced in Peg’s arms. Victoria was with Turkey, allowing her

once dignified self to play at dancing a minuet. “What a night, huh,

Annie?” Eleanor called her attention back to herself.

“We won’t forget it for a long time,” Annie smiled. “How are you

doing, Elly?”

“Dusty and me are about to get married,” Eleanor whispered

proudly.

“Married! Why?” Annie asked, realizing too late that she was

criticizing her old friend. “I’m glad for you. I hope you’re going to

be really happy. When are you going to do it?”

“As soon as she leaves the woman she’s still living with.”

“You mean she’s been seeing you while she’s been living with

someone else?”

“Yeah. That’s where she used to disappear to. But she really

loves me. And that woman is a bitch.”

“Does the other woman know what’s going on?” Annie asked,

unable to stop from feeling horrified that Eleanor would

participate in treachery like this.

“Yes and no. She knows something is up, but they haven’t had it

out.” Eleanor frowned, hurt. “You’ve gone all moral on me now

with your new friends.”

“I’m sorry,” Annie said as the music stopped. She was disturbed

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and sad and felt a need, which she held in check, to get back to her

drink. “I’m so involved now in seeing how women are getting hurt

every minute of the day: financially, physically, in every possible

way by men, that I hate to see women hurt each other. But I

shouldn’t put you down.”

“She is a real bitch.”

“Did Dusty always think that way?”

“Of course not, but the dame has changed. They used to have a

good time. In the last three years she doesn’t even want to go out.”

“The last three years! How long have they been together?”

“Seventeen years.”

Annie felt Eleanor’s answer like a blow in the pit of her

stomach. Was there no safety in life? Would she leave Vicky after

seventeen years? Annie pledged never to let herself drift so far

from Victoria that their separation could sneak up on them like

this poor woman’s would. “Do the others know yet?”

“We’re going to announce it after tonight. The wedding will be

in about a month. Will you stand up for me?”

“Do I get to kiss the bride?” Annie teased, running her hand

across Eleanor’s cheek.

Eleanor smiled tenderly at her friend. “If I’m still alive. Dusty’s

going to tell her when she gets home tonight. I’ll wait in the car in

case there’s any trouble.”

“If there is, Elly, and you need help, please call.”

“Okay, Annie, thanks. I appreciate that. And don’t worry about

me. Dusty will never do that to me. I’ll never give her cause to.”

“I hope not, El. And I hope I’m not capable of it either. I guess

that’s what affects me so much, knowing how careless I used to be

of other women’s feelings.”

“I know,” Eleanor said significantly.

Annie looked properly ashamed. “Hey,” she reminded Eleanor,

“we never stopped being friends.”

“What are you two looking so serious about?” Turkey asked,

pushing them back toward the group.

“I just wanted you to be the first to know,” Eleanor whispered

before she rejoined Dusty with a passionate kiss.

“What did she want you to know first?” Victoria asked Annie,

slipping an arm under hers.

“Don’t ask. It’s too sad.” But Victoria was concerned and Annie

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told her about Dusty and Eleanor and how upset it made her.

“Anne, Anne, it’s not us,” Victoria comforted her. “I’ll never

leave you.” She stepped closer to Annie and held her tightly. When

a slow dance began they moved slightly to it.

“I tried to tell Elly about women hurting each other. Like we’ve

got better things to do with our energy.”

“But we can’t always control the circumstances,” Victoria said.

“I know that, Vicky, but that’s a man’s game, using women and

abandoning them, whatever petty rationalizations you give.”

“Do you think if Dusty and Eleanor had been in the women’s

movement they would have decided differently?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a good reason. But at least the

‘other woman’ would know what was happening to her. That’s

enough of that, though,” Annie said abruptly. “This is your night

and I’m not going to upset you anymore. I hope we’ll always know

what we want from each other, even if we can’t figure out what we

want to do with our lives.”

Victoria nodded. “Let’s talk to everyone now and get their ideas

about plans for the future.”

“I brought the list of ideas we wrote,” Annie said, searching her

pockets. “Want to share that?”

“It can’t hurt, my handsome prince.”

“I couldn’t help but overhear that,” said Rosemary, disengaging

herself from a conversation with Faye as Annie and Victoria sat

beside them. “I’m thinking of doing a paper called, Patriarchy in

Our Language: Calling Each Other Names. We really don’t have

good female endearments. What should we call a woman who is

princelike?”

“I see you’ve started drinking,” Victoria teased her wordy

friend.

“No, I’m drinking club soda. I’m not all that impressed with

alcohol. I don’t want to get my highs confused and I’m very high

on life right now. And I’m very serious about our endearments.”

“That sounds like a paper I’d do,” Victoria said.

“I got the impression you didn’t want to do any more papers.”

Victoria looked at Annie. “That’s something we want to talk

about.”

“What do you want to talk about?” Turkey asked, reappearing

to put her arms around Rosemary and kiss her loudly on the

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cheek. “Your hair is really neat, Rosie,” she said. “Unlike mine,

which has never known a neat day in its life.” She stopped to

think. “No, I take it back. Once I stole my dad’s Vitalis and tried it

out on my hair.” She ran her hand down its sloped back. “It didn’t

help much,” she admitted sheepishly. “It just sort of dripped

smelly, greasy stuff and took a week to go away.” They joined her

infectious laughter.

“We want to talk about our future, Turk. What do you want to

be when you grow up?”

“Skinny,” Turkey laughed again.

“Come on, you Turkey, get serious,” Eleanor prodded her with a

fist as she sat down. “I’ve decided I want my own little place where

I can be the cook and the boss. Let somebody else waitress,” she

said, leaning back onto Dusty’s broad shoulder.

“Okay guys,” Turkey gave in, “you want it straight? I’m getting

my doctorate in sociology and teach in a big name school. I’ll be a

famous sociologist. Never mind the liberation. I’II prove a woman

can make it in the academic world.”

“Who ever heard of a sociologist getting famous?” Peg scoffed.

“You are about to, dear gym teacher. What is your claim to

fame?”

Peg leaned against the side of a booth, hands in her pockets,

legs crossed in loose cream-colored slacks. “Don’t know as I’d

want to be famous, Turkey. It might cramp my style. I’ll settle for

teaching gym. I don’t like being on the front lines or being in

trouble.”

“When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a railroad engineer,”

Dusty volunteered unexpectedly. “You libbers going to do

anything about getting women into the railroad?”

There was a short silence which Peg gracefully broke. “The

women’s movement ought to make a dent in just about every

profession that’s out there. What do you do now?”

Still sober-faced, Dusty answered. “Run a machine. Let me tell

you, it makes as much noise as an engine. I know how to set up

and everything. Course, they won’t pay me for set-up because they

got a man they already pay for it, but I do my own anyway. I enjoy

it.” The shadow of a smile crossed her face.

“It’s a real hard job,” Eleanor added proudly.

“I wouldn’t mind doing hard work like that,” Annie said

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earnestly. “But I want what I do to have some meaning for

women.”

“It does, damn it,” Dusty defended herself.

Annie jumped. “I’m sorry.”

“You let me talk to some of those liberationists. I’ll tell them

what a woman can really do. One of the girls I work with, she

raised six kids by herself, works second shift at the plant, then

cooks all night in a little joint.”

“That’s who’s going to teach me to cook,” Eleanor added,

combing her hair.

Rosemary broke in. “That’s great, women teaching other

women their skills.”

“Makes me feel useless, not having a skill,” Annie said.

“You’re a good cab driver,” Victoria reminded her.

“But what good does it do anybody beyond getting them from

one place to the next?”

“What she’s really trying to say,” Victoria explained, “is that

we’ve got to make some decisions. And we need your help. I’m

supposed to go on at Yale, but I’m not at all sure I want to do that.

I used to think of graduate school and teaching as the perfect

place for me: sheltered and totally unreal. But I don’t need that

anymore.”

“And I’ve got to get out of my shack by the end of the month.

When I left tonight there were paint cans and ladders lined up

outside my porch like an invading army. We don’t even know

whether to look for a new place around here or go off to

California,” Annie added.

“California!” Claudia approved. “I’ve always wanted to live

there. It’s supposed to be so easy-going.”

“But we’re not surfers or student revolutionaries. And we don’t

necessarily want to settle where it’s easier,” Annie said. “Maybe

we should go to Alaska where we could practically import

feminism and certainly could build a women’s community from

scratch.”

“Can you organize?” Turkey asked, serious for once. “You’re not

loudmouths like me. You’re kind of quiet, booky people. And

Annie, look how you fall apart when you get shit on in the street.

Organizers have to take that all the time. You might not be able to

do anything but hold yourselves together. And Victoria, it’s taken

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you so long to be with people in the first place, I wonder if you’re

ready to take that kind of life at all.”

“But remember,” Claudia argued, “women have to realize their

potential. It’s been buried for so long under our quietness. Annie’s

and Victoria’s weaknesses may just be hiding their strengths. You

know,” she went on, her firm, round body leaning intently

forward, “they might have been so outgoing when they were kids

that they learned to cover it up because it wasn’t ladylike and

that’s why they’re quiet now.”

“You’ve got me more confused than ever,” Annie said,

presenting a battered piece of paper. “Here’s a list we thought up.

See what you think of these ideas.”

After a pause Eleanor exclaimed, “I like this one: ‘Starting a

fleet of volunteer cabs for senior citizens and women.’ Think how

that would cut down on rapes and muggings.”

“Where would you get the money?” Peg asked.

Clucking in disgust, Turkey said, “Such a realist!”

“You might get a bus,” the serious Dusty volunteered. “And run

it around town certain times of the day so’s old people could get

rides free and know you’d be there.” She blushed up to her slicked-

back hair.

“That would be a lot cheaper,” Annie agreed. She looked toward

Victoria, eyebrows raised.

“What about some of the other ideas?” Victoria pursued.

Eleanor read slowly. “Start a magazine, it says, for articles

about the women’s movement. Discussions of politics and

practical matters like how to contribute to the movement. Hey, it’s

too bad somebody didn’t already write that. It’d be a big help for

you all. But I’ve got another idea. Let’s start a restaurant, all of us.

I’ll still be the cook. You guys can hire Turkey to entertain, Dusty

to build things, one of you can keep the books, and somebody else

will do the dishes.”

“You may have hit on something there, Eleanor,” Rosemary

said. She smiled at Annie who was looking skeptically toward her.

“When so many people get involved in a project we should start

talking about doing it collectively.”

“What’s that? Like communism?” Eleanor asked.

“It’s a distant relation. It would mean that we would all put

ourselves into this equally and we’d all learn to do everything so

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that we could share the responsibilities.”

“You mean I’d have to waitress?” Eleanor asked, disappointed.

“I mean we’d have to think so hard and so differently,”

Rosemary said slowly, obviously beginning to do what she was

describing, “that we would have to rethink the very structure of a

restaurant.” The group was silent, waiting for her idea to grow.

“We could do away with waitresses. Some sort of personalized

cafeteria. With no men allowed.”

“Sounds great to me!” said Eleanor. “No more . . .”

“Ouch!” Turkey yelled, jumping from Eleanor’s pinch.

“Just demonstrating,” Eleanor explained as she smiled

graciously into Turkey’s smile.

“But the point is well taken,” Rosemary continued. “No more

waiting on men! No more serving anybody in that sense.”

“I like the magazine idea,” Victoria said, “but I’d have no idea

how to do it.”

Claudia had the list. “I still like the idea of travelling. Maybe you

ought to just take off and see if something’s happening in Alaska

and watch what they’re doing in California. And bring it all back

here when you decide what to do.”

“I love it!” Rosemary interrupted. “Listen to this! Buy a boat

and run a fishing business. You’d be poor and smell bad, but I bet

being on the water all the time would toughen you up! Imagine

facing the sea alone every day and then coming ashore and some

mere male trying to intimidate you.”

“I’d beat the shit out of him,” Dusty threatened.

“I think that’s the least practical suggestion yet,” Peg said

decisively.

“Then maybe it’s the one most worth looking toward, you old

spoil sport. Just because you’re all settled in your niche don’t

mean everybody is. You suggest something,” Turkey urged.

“I’m thinking on it. I admit I like having a job I can always fall

back on. I have great hours. The job changes with the kids. I’m

active. It suits me fine. But I knew what I wanted to do since I was

a kid,” she said, adjusting the crease in her slacks. “I think you two

know what you want, but you haven’t seen it in yourselves yet.

Maybe Claudia’s idea is good about taking time to look for what

you want.”

“Ooh. I want to go too,” Claudia said, excited. Rosemary looked

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stricken. “Not without you, Rosie.”

“I’ve travelled so much,” Victoria said. “I never got to stay in

one place long enough to make friends. To feel secure. I don’t

know if I could handle a nomadic life.”

Annie asked, “Do we have to travel to discover what we want?

Like Peg says, I feel it in me. The answer’s just not ready to come

out.” Annie slipped an arm around Victoria’s waist and a hand

under the waistband.

“So when do you have to decide by, lovebirds?”

“Two weeks,” Annie answered. “That’s when I have to be out.”

“You living there in the meantime, Vic?” Peg asked.

“I’m moving in tomorrow.”

Turkey stood. “Step right up and sign up for the moving party.

I hear there’s going to be plenty of free beer and eats for

everybody that helps Vicky move in!”

“Hey, you,” protested Annie, laughing as she tugged Turkey

down into her seat.

“We do need help,” Victoria interceded.

“Then come on and help. We’ll all go swimming afterwards,”

Annie gave in. “Bring your bathing suits!”

“And innertubes!” Turkey added.

“Party, party,” Claudia sang, a little tipsy on one beer. She

knocked her chair over getting up to lead Rosemary to the dance

floor.

Suddenly Dusty and Eleanor were alone at the table with

Victoria and Annie. “So you all think you’re going to travel?”

Eleanor asked.

Annie looked into Victoria’s sparkling eyes. “Now that I’ve

found the woman I was looking for, there isn’t much reason to

travel, if you ask me.”

“And we’d miss our friends,” Victoria said. “We haven’t even

had a chance to get to know Dusty. Would you still be around

when we got back?”

“Yes,” said Dusty shyly, looking at Eleanor. “If she still wants

me.”

“And why wouldn’t I, you old butch?”

“Because I’m so old. And you’re such a Southern belle.”

“You can still back out, honey,” Eleanor told her, moving her

hand along Dusty’s upper arm. Dusty was silent. Annie looked at

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Victoria.

“I think I’m doing right,” Dusty finally said, slowly and

thoughtfully. “I haven’t been happy for a lot of years and I thought

I ought to stay for her sake. I like my job, the house. Who can have

everything? But she’s been seeing this man for a couple of years

now—did El here tell you that? I told her not to say nothing, but

it’s almost over now. I don’t want to hurt her, but I feel so bad

when she goes with him. If I truly loved her then I think I could

put up with anything. But she just took me in when I was drinking

a lot and I’ve been beholden to her all these years, but I never felt

about her like I thought I ought to. You can’t really know with

your first woman unless you’re lucky, I guess.”

“She was your first lover?”

Dusty hung her head at Victoria’s question. “I know I come on

like an old bulldyke, but I wasn’t really nothing till I met her. I

mean, I didn’t know who I was. And now I do. But it’s not fair for

her to go away to a man and expect me to be waiting is it? Elly,

here, treats me with respect. I know I’m doing right. I think she

just likes to take care of people and I don’t need her like that no

more and he does. No, El. I won’t back out on you. We’ll make a

better life. Maybe I can help other little dykes find their way better

than I did. What do you think?”

“I think I want to dance with you so’s I can hold you, you old

bear.”

Annie Heaphy and Victoria looked after the couple with tears in

their eyes. “Wow,” said Annie.

“This is really hard for her.”

“I should’ve known Elly wouldn’t be all that rotten. I wonder

why she didn’t tell me the whole story?”

“To protect Dusty, silly.”

They looked at each other in silence. “You’re not Dusty, Anne.”

“We won’t break up after seventeen years, will we Vicky?”

“Remember,” Victoria said after a short silence, “when we

promised not to give up without a fight?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s not forget that.”

“Okay. You’re right. I’m leaving it all in the hands of the gods,

or goddesses. I’ll take some responsibility too.”

“You’d better,” Victoria said playfully. “And be responsible for

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taking me home.”

“So soon?”

“Soon? It’s after midnight.”

“You’re right. After all, we’ve got to make love on your

graduation day. Your place or mine?” Annie asked for the last

time, running her hands over Victoria’s hair.

“My room is all packed. Let’s officially move into your house.”

As they crossed the dance floor to say goodnight, their friends

came toward them dancing until the moving mass was all

together. Rosemary took the hands of the women around her and

soon Annie and Victoria were pulled into a circle dance. “Marcy’s

will never be the same!” shouted Turkey. The other bar regulars

fell back to watch this phenomenon. Even Dusty was coaxed into

the circle by Eleanor. When the music ended the group pressed

together in a giant hug, parting, finally, to let Annie and Victoria

go home.

* * * *

Nearly summer, Annie Heaphy’s toothpick house bloomed. It

was June, and the porch furniture was newly dry after the spring

rains. The porch itself still sagged, doorless, but the bushes before

it thrust themselves up its sides, camouflaging some of its scars

and festooning it with themselves. Even the bare front yard

sported a few whiskers of green—crabgrass mostly, and a sparse

growth of assertive weeds.

Annie and Victoria sat on the porch. They had thrown the

workmen’s materials behind the house out of sight. The moving

party had been the day before and they had slept almost until

noon afterwards. The rest of the day they spent putting the house

in order without making their arrangements too permanent. They

were waiting for Rosemary and Claudia who had called that

morning to say they wanted to talk. It was not as hot as it had

been, but the porch was still cooler than the house.

“It’s a good thing we moved you yesterday,” Annie said.

“The heat?”

“It’s nice after winter, but enough is enough.”

“It would have helped the beach party.”

Annie grunted. “We could have done without that. Those

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women sure do like to drink. I can’t believe I ever kept up with

them.”

“It’s mostly Turkey and Ellie and Dusty and a few others. Peg

drinks slowly, I noticed. But she hides it, like she doesn’t want

anyone to know she’s not keeping up.”

“Saving face.”

“Why is it so important to them to be hard drinkers?”

Annie was quiet for a minute. “I’ve been thinking more about

that and I think I can tell you why it was important to me. First

off, there’s the macho element. Downing a big hearty beer with

gusto makes an image I liked. Made me feel strong. And the

higher I got, the more invincible I felt. I was no longer the hard-

working cab driver saying yes ma’am and no ma’am and thank

you sir, but me, among my own kind, with the advantage of being

super-me.”

“So the bar was a kind of refuge for you. A place where you

could let down your hair—or take off your hat,” Victoria giggled,

“and be yourself while other people approved of who you were.”

“Yes. And the liquor made it possible for me to shut out the

world I’d just come from and knew I had to return to. It was like

drawing a curtain, only the curtain was made of liquid.”

“Like the liquid out there.” Victoria pointed to Long Island

Sound lying almost still in the windless evening. “Doesn’t it make

you wish you could lie on it?”

“Only if we had every last stitch of our clothes off and could

make love on it,” Annie said, sliding her chair closer to Victoria’s.

She put her lips to Victoria’s hand and kissed each finger, then

turned the hand over and traced a spiral with her tongue on the

palm. Victoria squirmed in her tattered white wicker chair.

“The things you make me feel in broad daylight, Anne Heaphy,”

Victoria chided.

“You enjoy every minute of it, girl.”

“You’re right. Now tell me why else you had to be such a hard

drinker.”

“That was it, mostly,” Annie sighed. “You went to the bar

because you needed to be there and then you learned this whole

way of life that went with it. Hard drinking is part of it. For me,

too, once I got high, I’d do anything to stay high. I was scared to

come down. If I could have sustained it, I would’ve drank twenty-

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four hours a day.”

“Yet you’ve stopped so quickly and easily.”

“I get the yen now and then, like at the party yesterday. But

when I get it, I’ve been trying to figure out what it really is that I

want. Confidence? Relaxation? Strength? A good time? Then

usually I can figure out another way of getting what I want.

Besides, I’ve spent very little time in bars since we met and if I

don’t get high on liquor in the first place I don’t have to sustain

the high.”

Victoria smiled. “You mean I’ve been good for you?”

“You know you have,” Annie smiled back.

“What’s going to happen to the women who are still going to

the bars?”

“If they’re lucky they’ll meet their Victorias.”

“That’s not everyone’s solution, silly. Look at Eleanor and

Dusty. They’ll go to the bar together.”

“You’re probably right. I’m so glad Dusty’s friend took it well.”

“She was probably frightened half to death about having to tell

Dusty she wanted out.”

“Too bad it was for a man,” Annie sighed, making a distasteful

face.

“The woman just couldn’t deal with being a lesbian, Anne. I

understand that. I’ll bet she started going out with him to make

herself feel normal.”

“But all those years with Dusty. Especially someone as butchy-

looking as Dusty.”

“You heard what Dusty said about how they never went out and

didn’t have any friends. If you hide well enough, you can pretend

you’re like everyone else. As long as she could keep Dusty home

with her she felt safe. But when Dusty got itchy, met those lesbians

at work and realized she’d been wanting to be with other lesbians,

then it didn’t work any more. Dusty brought reality home to her.”

“Damn shame,” Annie said. “Don’t you wish we could somehow

reach out to women like that? Like you were before Rosie and

Claudia told you about themselves and you met me? Like I was

before Natalie? Dusty said the other night she’d like to help the

little dykes. Educate them, so they wouldn’t be afraid to come out

or to stay out.”

“I can’t think of a greater life work.”

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“Or one where you could earn less money,” Annie laughed. “I’m

going to make a cup of tea. Want some?”

“You’ve been reading my mind.”

Annie went inside and admired the way Victoria’s possessions

fit into her living room. The items that had made Victoria seem so

inaccessible before—the candles and wall hangings—added class

to her home. She was beginning to understand Victoria’s

attachment to them and to feel their pull herself. There was

something deep and mysterious about the light of her colored

candles. And the pattern of her mandala poster. They stirred

something very deep in Annie. Something that lived in the same

place that got stirred by Victoria. That woman reached inside her

and shook up her core. They had some profound and wordless tie,

Annie thought. Almost as if they’d known each other for centuries

and been wandering the earth searching for each other again.

Often they did read one another’s minds.

If they could just know their own minds about the future they

could really make something powerful of themselves. Annie

straightened her sturdy body and moved to the window where one

day, months ago, she’d seen the mourning dove. How lonely she’d

been then. And now? Maybe she, Annie, wasn’t listening hard

enough to what Victoria was really saying. She tried to tune in

more clearly to her mind as she took teabags from the cabinet.

Victoria had brought her favorite mug from the dormitory and

now their two mugs sat side by side on a counter. It gave Annie a

little thrill when she saw them.

“They are officially late,” Victoria said as Annie rejoined her.

“That’s okay. I feel like I can wait forever if I’ve got you by my

side.” They held hands across their chairs. Very few cars went by

the beach at dinner hour and they felt isolated from the whole

world.

“Were they borrowing a car to get here?” Annie asked.

“I don’t know, why?”

“Because that looks like them in that red car about to pull into

our driveway.”

It was a long red convertible with tail fins. Rosemary patted it

as she got out. Claudia bent to polish the insignia on its hood with

a kerchief. Annie and Victoria tried not to laugh.

“Well, what do you think?” called Rosemary, still at the car.

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“Come see it,” Claudia waved excitedly toward them.

Annie groaned. “How much?” she asked as she got near the car.

“Five hundred,” Rosemary replied proudly. “My graduation

money from my grandparents.”

“It’s only got a hundred-thirty thousand miles on it,” Claudia

boasted.

“We’ve named it Sojourner Truth. We’ll use it to give out

pamphlets, take women to rallies, go to meetings in other cities.”

Victoria regained her composure first. “It’ll certainly be a

trademark. I guess that means you’ve decided to stay with your

graduate school plans.”

“We’ve made a lot of decisions which we’ll share with you.

And,” Rosemary continued, “we have a proposition for you. But

first, I need Annie’s opinion on Sojourner.”

“Striking,” Annie said evasively. “Red, even.” She looked up at

Rosemary. “A hundred-thirty thousand miles?”

“That’s not too bad, is it?” Rosemary asked, looking like a kid

who’s done something wrong. “My parents’ Volvo has a hundred-

fifty thousand miles on it and it runs great.”

“Maybe they rolled the odometer forward to impress you,”

Annie teased. “I don’t know a lot about cars, Rosemary. Maybe it’s

okay. But I don’t think you can expect it to last a long time.”

“Then I just have one more favor to ask you.” Annie found

herself thinking that she hadn’t known Rosemary knew how to

look coy. “We can’t figure how to put the top up.”

“I’ll take a look at it,” Annie sighed patiently. “You go ahead in,

I won’t be long, I hope,” Annie mumbled to Victoria.

The three graduates went inside. Rosemary fell despondently

into a chair. “We’ll never be able to survive in the real world,” she

concluded.

“Sure you will,” Victoria assured her, moving to Rosemary and

gingerly patting her arm.

“No we won’t. I don’t understand anything about it. I don’t

know the rules about fixing a car or buying a car. I wouldn’t know

how to look for an apartment without the University’s help. I can’t

even think about someday looking for a job. What if one of us gets

sick? How will the other ever take care of her and organize

survival?”

“You’re still hung over, Rose,” Claudia suggested.

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“I think you’re right. One thing I’ve learned from Annie’s

friends is not to drink. Makes me depressed and sick. Yesterday

was my last attempt to be part of the gang,” Rosemary told them.

Claudia had been walking around the house. “I see you’ve

already made your mark here, Vicky.”

“I couldn’t help it. I feel so at home here. In Anne’s little

toothpick house.”

“Toothpick house?” Rosemary asked.

“You remember,” Claudia said. “When you were little, didn’t

you ever try to build a house out of toothpicks? With Elmer’s Glue

all over your hands and probably a soggy mess of sticks after two

hours? My mother could do it. She showed me one she built as a

girl. Out of rough toothpicks my grandfather whittled as he carved

a cane. Such little tiny breakable parts and it lasted, then, about

thirty years. She still has it.”

Victoria smiled. “When I first came here I thought, ‘How can

she live like this? Why don’t the winds blow her away?’ I guess

she’s the glue that held it together. I like to think with two of us

it’ll be even stronger.”

“It sounds,” Rosemary observed, “as if you’d like to stay here.”

“If everything works out that way, yes, I would. I’d even like to

take my graduation money and see if that would make a down

payment on it. We could fix it up.” The three smiled at one

another, their eyes full of the promise of the future. “Shall we

celebrate? Want a cup of tea?”

“What are we celebrating now?” Annie asked as she slammed in

the back door.

“Our new car!” Claudia and Rosemary said together.

“I’m not sure why you’re celebrating the damned thing.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Rosemary asked in a panicked voice.

“Nothing new that I know of. Except that the electric button

that’s supposed to put the top up and down doesn’t. I did it

manually.”

“Oh, no.” Rosemary watched, horrified, as Annie cleaned

blood and grease from her hands.

“Poor Anne,” Victoria said, moving toward Annie at the sink.

“Are you badly cut?”

“No. I’ll recover. It’s just a cut.”

“Can’t I help?” Victoria asked, looking helpless. Annie’s

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irritation seemed to disappear and she laughed. “If you really need

to, my love. You can get me a bandaid and some antiseptic.”

But Claudia was already coming from the bathroom with both.

She’d quietly disappeared and now firmly rewashed Annie’s hand

and bandaged it. “Hey, you guys always leave your mail in the

bathroom?” she said, handing two envelopes to Annie.

“Turkey told me at some point yesterday she’d brought the

mail in and couldn’t remember what she’d done with it,” Annie

said, slightly annoyed. “This is from the landlord, Vicky.” They

stood together reading the letter.

Claudia had moved to Rosemary who sat with her head in her

hands at the kitchen table. “It’ll be okay, Rosie. Honest it will.”

“How? What will we ever do if it rains when we’re using the car

to get people—or worse, written material—anyplace?”

“Rosie, you wanted a convertible, but if I could offer a

suggestion . . .” Rosemary looked pleadingly to Claudia. “Now that

Annie’s got the top up, we could keep it there.”

Rosemary looked at Claudia in wonder. “What a great idea.

What a soldier you’ll make in the revolution.” Greatly cheered,

Rosemary went to Claudia and proudly placed her hands on her

shoulders. “What a team we’ll be. Me, the theoretician. Claudia the

practician. I love you, my stolid, midwestern woman.” She put her

arms around the blushing Claudia.

Victoria and Annie looked at one another. “I wish he’d told me

the price he wanted months ago. I’ll never be able to afford this,”

Annie said, dejectedly. Victoria said nothing. But her eyes sparkled

with hope as she comforted Annie. The teakettle whistled.

“Tea’s ready, ladies,” Victoria announced and soon led them all

to the living room. When they were all settled she proposed a toast

to Sojourner.

“And that’s why we’re here, women,” Rosemary announced.

“Buying a car was all part of it. We have a suggestion for your

future. And ours.”

“Leave it to Rosemary to plan our future,” Annie said, only

half-joking, still disheartened.

“You asked for help,” Rosemary reminded her.

Annie surrendered on the legless couch, her legs spread,

leaning forward. “Let’s have it.”

“Claudia and I were thinking about how hard it is for someone

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like Dusty or Turkey or me or any of us, to understand what’s

happening as we come out. It’s as if no one has ever done it before.

Claudia has studied every phase of heterosexual development, but

not one word about lesbian growth. There are some books out

there, but not many. We know nothing about what we’re going

through as lesbians. We don’t even understand what we’ve been

through when it’s over. And we can’t tell anyone else about it,

because of our own ignorance and because it’s not talked about.

So the next woman who comes out is as much in the dark as we

were.

“And we’re coming out in the more sophisticated places in the

world. Can you imagine what it’s like for a kid in the midwest like

Claudia, having those feelings like she had for her friend, and

knowing no better than to deny them? Or being a poor woman

who just doesn’t know that she has a choice, that she can say no to

men and babies?”

Victoria was pouring from the teapot again. Annie had leaned

back and was listening intently.

“I’ll get to the point,” Rosemary said. “We’d like to develop

some way to show other women that they’re not the first ones this

is happening to and that they do have some positive choices. It

could take the form of a magazine, but nothing slick. Or maybe a

newsletter. Or pictures—like the slides parents show when they get

back from another country. Because we’re in another country now.

And our country has a history and a literature and even a language

all its own. We have heroines and leaders we’ll never even discover

unless more of us begin to research like the women at The Ladder

do. And we have to learn how to tell the people what we’ve

learned. Then we’ll know we are a country and a people and we’ll

be less lonely, we’ll understand more, we’ll be stronger.”

The others sat in silence, staring at Rosemary. Finally, Annie

said, “You ought to give speeches, lady.”

“That was quite impressive, Rosemary,” Victoria agreed.

Claudia grinned and bounced up. “What do you think? Want to

work on a project like that with us?”

Annie and Victoria looked at one another. “Sure,” said Annie.

“In fact,” Victoria explained, “that’s exactly what we want to do,

too. We were talking, before you came, about how we wished we

could reach out to women who are making a mess of their lives

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because they don’t know what to do about their feelings about

women. And how we wanted to educate them—and ourselves.”

“And,” Annie added, “Vicky couldn’t think of a better life

work.”

“We’ll be educators,” Rosemary concluded, “however we decide

to do it.”

“What about money?” Annie asked.

“We talked a little about that,” Claudia answered. “Rosemary

and I will be in school and can still count on our parents. We can

get part-time jobs if we need to. The project itself shouldn’t take

much money. But you two will still have to work to support

yourselves.”

“I could keep driving,” Annie said. “It’s not that bad a job if it’s

not your whole life. Though someday I will want something

better.”

“This is getting into the land of dreams,” Rosemary interjected,

“but if the Project becomes a success in some way—a book we can

sell or a movie that earns us money—we might be able to make

some sort of career of it, though that is almost beyond my

imagination now. I’m thinking of changing my graduate major to

business in case that should happen.”

Victoria seemed about to burst. “I have some ideas too, Anne. I

wanted to wait until I was more sure, but I think, with my

graduation money, we might begin to look into buying the

toothpick house. I’m certain a mortgage would be lower than what

that man is charging you for rent and we wouldn’t have to leave.”

She watched as Annie’s face got pink and her eyes lit up. “If we

could get our expenses down that way we could both work part-

time to make ends meet. I saw a poster recruiting adult education

teachers. I’m sure I could do that.”

“You’d feel okay about using your money to buy the house?”

“Yes! It’s what I’ve wanted!” Victoria answered.

Claudia bounced out of her chair again. “I’m so excited about

all this opening up for us. And I feel so very lucky that we have the

advantages we have so we’re able to do it.”

“We have a responsibility to use those advantages,” Rosemary

reminded them, “for the good of lesbians everywhere.”

Annie looked suddenly disconsolate. “I wish Peg and Turkey

would get turned on to this stuff.”

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“They may yet,” Victoria soothed Annie.

Annie shook her head, pulling her hat over her eyes. “No,” she

mumbled, “I don’t think so. Even Peg, who introduced me to

feminism, she’s scared of it. She’d rather just be a gym teacher. I

think she’ll keep going to meetings and readings and maybe

someday marches too, but I don’t see her sticking her neck out any

farther than that. She wants to be comfortable. And I don’t blame

her. It’s so damn uncomfortable being gay, that you take your

comforts where you can get them. But, now, I’d sure like to expand

the gay world beyond bars, so we could take our comfort a lot of

places. And, Rosemary, I’d like to do it for all women, like you

said, not just lesbians. Because then more women could see their

choices and more women who want to come out could if they were

freer to be themselves.”

“We’re agreed on the project, then,” Rosemary concluded.

“When do you want to start talking about what we’re going to do

and what the structure will be?”

“Want us to come to your rooms tomorrow evening?”

When Claudia nodded eagerly, Rosemary looked suspiciously at

her. “Don’t you trust Sojourner to get us out here again?”

Everyone laughed and got up to say goodbye. It was an excited,

hopeful group that hugged goodnight. Annie stood leaning against

the porch rail looking tiredly after the retreating Sojourner. Then

she turned toward Victoria coming up the steps. “I get to keep you

here with me, now, don’t I, lady?” Annie said, pulling Victoria up

to her and kissing her neck. “Got enough energy to walk to the

beach?” she said into her neck, still kissing her.

“Annie, please stop,” Victoria said weakly, “or we’ll go straight

to bed.”

“Okay, okay. I really need the beach first to clear my head, you

sexy woman.”

* * * *

The moon was large and round in the sky and they walked

under it, hand in hand. At the water’s edge they stopped.

“That was really nice of you, Vicky, to offer a down payment on

the house.”

“Would it be okay? I wouldn’t want it to be all mine. We’d both

Toothpick House | 252

be the owners and we could work it out financially in the long

run.”

“How did you know what I was thinking again, you witch?”

Annie asked affectionately, turning to hold Victoria. “That would

be important for me. To really know it belonged to both of us.”

“I get excited every time I realize how well I do know you, Anne.

And toothpick house could never not belong to you. It wouldn’t be

the same house.”

They walked in silence for awhile, their arms around each

other. It was clear enough for the sky to look crowded with stars.

“How do you think it will work out, this project?” Annie asked.

“I think it will become a life work. Maybe not always with

Rosemary and Claudia, but always for me, and I hope for us.”

“I think you’re right. I’ve been waiting for something like this

for a long time.”

“I know, you’ve been a lost spirit, looking for a cause. Full of

energy and talent and nowhere to use it.”

Annie nodded in agreement, then turned back to look at their

home. “Do you still think it’s a toothpick house?” she asked

Victoria.

“It’ll always be a toothpick house for me, Anne. But that doesn’t

mean I think it can be swept away, like in your dream. Listen. I

can’t even hear the foghorns. There’s nothing for them to warn us

about.”

“To tell you the truth, except for that dream, I find the foghorns

kind of comforting. They sound like home to me. I hope you’re

right.”

“I know I’m right.”

“How, my wise woman?” Annie teased, falling to her knees in

jest before Victoria. She looked up and saw her lover’s head half-

crowned by the moon. The sight was strangely moving for Annie

who stayed where she was, as if entranced.

“Come up here with me, silly.”

Annie rose and stood touching Victoria, her eyes still on the

moon. Victoria continued. “The house won’t be swept away

because we won’t let it be. We’ll take our four strong hands,” and

Victoria drew Annie around so they faced each other, taking her

hands, “and we’ll do what we must to make it solid. And then we’ll

bring our work into it. I can’t think of a stronger cement, can

Lee Lynch | 253

you?”

“I guess it was my old house that was carried off by the tides.

Toothpick house is yours too. You’re what it needed all along.”

“We’re what it needed. Two women who found with each other

what they want. And part of what we wanted was a home. We’re

rebuilding it around us.”

Annie felt she ought to seal the important things they were

saying somehow. Shyly, she put her arms around Victoria. Their

bodies touched full length. As they kissed Annie drew as much of

herself as she could summon into her lips and gave it all to

Victoria, while Victoria poured as much of herself back into Annie.

They felt so open to each other they ached and the flow from one

to the other went on even as they moved apart. When they turned

back toward their house, the moon sat directly on top of it, like a

big pot of glue.

Document Outline

- Cover

- Copyright

- Books by other Bold Strokes Books authors

- About the Author

- Acknowledgement

- Chapter 1

- Chapter 2

- Chapter 3

- Chapter 4

- Chapter 5

- Chapter 6

- Chapter 7

- Chapter 8

- Chapter 9

- Chapter 10

Table of Contents

Cover

Copyright

Books by other Bold Strokes Books authors

About the Author

Acknowledgement

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10