“You look awful,” Kate said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Pale, dark circles under her eyes…at least her eyes showed no signs of conjunctivitis. She’d been worried about adenoviruses lately, and that was a common symptom.
She checked her palm. The tiny puncture had healed. For a while, with the aches and malaise Kate had experienced two days after the wound, she’d feared she’d been infected with something. But today the aches were gone.
Not so the fatigue. The dreams had something to do with that, she was sure. Last night’s had been the strangest by far. She’d spent the night flying over a landscape of coins—pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, all the size of sports arenas, and all face down. And droning in her head a babble of voices, mostly unrecognizable except for Jeanette’s and one that sounded like Holdstock’s, drifting in and out, calling her name.
And then the dream had stopped.
Not too long afterward she’d heard Jeanette come in and go directly to her room.
And now here she was facing another morning feeling exhausted—physically, mentally, emotionally.
Part of her wanted to run. The emotional abuse from Jeanette—she’d found a way to make silence and indifference abusive—was almost more than Kate could stand. But she kept telling herself this was not Jeanette. Somehow her brain had been affected and her true self was crying to get out. The need to rescue the real Jeanette was the only thing keeping Kate here.
A buzzing sound…she opened the bathroom door. The vestibule bell. Someone down front wanted to get in. Jeanette had stopped answering bells of any sort—phones, doors—so Kate knew it was up to her.
Who on earth? she thought as she pressed the button and said, “Hello?”
“Kate, it’s Jack. We need to talk.”
Do we? she thought.
“Okay. Come up for coffee.”
“Can you come down? We’ll find an Andrews or something.”
He sounded so serious. What was on his mind?
“Let me throw on some clothes.”
Minutes later, dressed in jeans and a sweater, she stepped out of the stairwell into the building’s lobby. Kate had left a note to Jeanette saying where she’d be. Not that Jeanette would care.
She found Jack, also in jeans but wearing a flannel shirt, waiting outside on the sidewalk. He didn’t look too well rested himself. He stepped up to her and enfolded her in his arms.
“I know about you and Jeanette,” he said in a low voice, “and it doesn’t change a damn thing. You’re my sister and I love you.”
And suddenly Kate found her face pressed against his chest and she was crying—quaking with deep-rooted sobs. She tried to stop them but they kept coming.
“It’s okay, Kate,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t tell a soul.”
She pushed free and wiped her eyes. “That’s not why I’m crying. I’m glad you know. You can’t imagine what a relief it is to stop hiding it from you, to come out to someone.”
“Oh…good. I spent half the night trying to figure the best way to word it. I didn’t know how you’d react. I—”
She stretched up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “You did just fine.”
She clung to him a moment longer, almost dizzy with relief and lighter in heart than she’d felt in years.
“Let’s walk,” he said. “I’m not yet properly caffeinated.”
“But just let me hear it again, Jack,” she said as they ambled arm in arm toward Seventh. “Does my being a dyke really not change a thing for you or were you just trying to make me feel better?”
He made a face. “You’re not a dyke.”
“Sure I am.”
“No. When I hear ‘dyke’ I see a fat broad in work clothes and boots with a bad haircut and a load of ’tude.”
She laughed. “It doesn’t mean superbutch anymore. It’s what we call ourselves. As Jeanette says, ‘We’re taking back the word.’ ” Or what Jeanette used to say, Kate thought as a wave of sadness brought her down. “But you’re not answering the question.”
“Okay, the question seems to be since I lie about myself to just about everyone every day, how can you be sure I’m telling you the truth.”
“Not at all—”
“Or is it about whether I’m one of those politically correct liberal types who knee-jerks to this sort of thing?”
Had she offended him?
“Jack—”
“So let’s get a few things straight, Kate. I’m not PC and I’m not liberal—I’m not conservative or Democrat or Republican either. I operate on one principle: you own your own life, and that means you’re free to do anything you want with that life so long as you don’t interfere with other people’s freedom to live their lives. It means you own your own body and you can do anything you want to it—pierce it, fill it with drugs, set it on fire—your call. Same with sex. As long as there’s no force involved it’s none of my business how you get off. I don’t have to approve of it because it’s not my life, it’s yours. I don’t have to understand, either. Which, by the way, I don’t.”
As he paused for breath Kate jumped in. “But that doesn’t tell me how you feel.”
“Feel? How does surprised and baffled sound? If you’d been a tomboy all your life and had never dated I could see it. But you had one boyfriend after another.”
“Right. But no steady.”
“Is that significant?”
“I didn’t think so then, but I do now.”
They found a little place on Seventh called The Greek Corner. She saw no one looking even vaguely Greek behind the counter, but the coffee smelled good. They took a table in a largely deserted glassed-in bump-out that would have been a solar oven if the sun had been out.
Jack sighed. “To tell the truth, Kate, I don’t understand same-sex attraction. I know it exists and I accept that, but it’s alien to me. I’m not wired for it. And then, of all people, you.”
“You can’t be more surprised than I was, Jack. But it’s here. It’s me. And there doesn’t seem to be a darn thing I can do about it.”
“But how? When? Where? Why? Help me here, Kate. I’m completely at sea.”
“I’m still trying to figure it out for myself, Jack. You want to know when? When I knew? I’m not sure. Gay guys seem to know much earlier. With women it’s not so easy. We’re much more fluid in our sexuality—not my term, something I read. But it’s true. We’re much more intimate with each other. Sure I liked boys when I was a teenager. I liked dating, being courted, pursued. I even liked the sex. But you know what I liked more? Pajama parties.”
Jack covered his eyes. “Don’t tell me there were teenage lesbian orgies going on just a few feet down the hall from my bedroom and I didn’t know.”
Kate gave him a gentle kick under the table. “For crying out loud, Jack. Cool it, okay? Nothing ever happened. But there was a lot of contact—the pillow fights, the tickling, the laughing, the sleeping three to a mattress, two to a bedroll. Back then that was all considered normal teenage behavior for girls, but not for guys.”
“I’ll say.”
“And it was normal for me. I loved the closeness to the other girls, the intimacy, and maybe I loved it more than the others, but I never connected it with sex.”
“When did that happen?”
“When did I know I was a dyke?”
Jack drew in a breath. “That word again.”
“Get used to it. I found out about two years ago.”
“Two years? You mean you never once…?”
“Well, in France—you remember my junior year abroad—”
“I missed you terribly.”
“Did you? That’s nice to know. I had no idea.”
“Big boys don’t cry.”
“And that’s a shame, isn’t it. But anyway, I had an ‘almost’ or a ‘pretty near’ experience there but never gave it much thought afterwards because things are different in France. You remember that Joni Mitchell song, ‘In France They Kiss On Main Street’?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, it’s true. In France the girls kiss on main street—straight girls. They kiss, they hug, they walk down the street hand in hand, arm in arm. It’s just a natural thing there.”
It’s February and her name’s Renée, dark hair, dark mysterious eyes, tall, long-limbed and, at twenty-two, a year older. She’s invited Kate to her family’s country place in Puy-de-Dôme for the day. The two of them are wandering one of the adjacent fields, talking, Renée so patient with Kate’s halting French, when it begins to pour. They’re drenched and half frozen by the time they reach the empty house. They strip off their sodden clothes, wrap themselves in a huge quilt, and huddle shivering before the fire.
Renée’s right arm snakes around Kate’s shoulders and pulls her closer…for extra warmth, she says.
And that’s good because Kate wonders if she’ll ever feel warm again.
Your skin is so cold, Renée says. And she starts to rub Kate’s back…to warm her skin.
And it works. Only a few rubs and Kate is flushed and very warm. She returns the favor, sliding her hand up and down Renée’s smooth back, her skin as soft as a baby’s. Renée’s long arm stretches to where her hand can rub Kate’s flank, stretches farther still until it reaches her breast. Kate gasps at the electric sensation of Renée’s finger’s caressing her nipple and holds her breath as lips nuzzle her neck and the hand trails down along her abdomen. She feels as if something deep inside her is going to burst—
And then the sound of tires on the gravel outside—Renée’s mother and little brother, back from the market with the makings for tonight’s dinner. The spell shatters with shock and then a mad laughing dash to Renée’s room where she lends Kate some clothes to wear until her own are dry. They go down to greet Renée’s mother…and neither of them ever speaks of that afternoon again.
“What ‘almost’ happened?” Jack said.
“The details aren’t important. It all receded into my subconscious—or maybe it was pushed, I’m not sure which—but the end point was that when I allowed myself to remember it, I looked on it as nothing more than an interesting but anomalous event. After all, I was free, white, and almost twenty-one, and it was the seventies when it was cool to experiment. I saw it as a brush with lesbianism but I knew I wasn’t a lesbian. I moved on.”
“To medical school.”
“Where I met Ron. He was a good-looking, sensitive man and we had so much in common—middle-class backgrounds, similar families, both headed for medical careers. And he was crazy about me so it seemed a perfect match. I loved him, maybe not as much as he loved me, but there was a genuine attraction there and getting married was what was expected of me. So that’s what I did. Ron’s a good guy. A lot of formerly married women who’ve come out can tell horror stories about abusive relationships. I don’t have that. I can’t say I finally came out because I was mistreated. If anything, I mistreated him.”
“As I heard it from Dad, he cheated on you.”
“And I don’t blame him. After Elizabeth was born I lost interest in sex. It’s not that unusual, at least on a temporary basis, but for me it went on and on. Ron and I had a good marriage for a long time. I was a good wife and he was a good husband. But as the years went by, I kept feeling less and less fulfilled. That’s a terrible word, but it’s the only one that fits. Something was missing, Jack, and I didn’t know what it was. Until I met Jeanette.”
“You mean Sybil.”
“Please don’t do that, Jack,” she said, feeling a flush of anger. “You didn’t know her before this virus thing. She’s the most exhilarating person I’ve ever met.”
“All right. I’m sorry. You’re right. I only know the Moony version of Jeanette. But still, is she worth all this turmoil in your life?”
“Jack, you can’t imagine what I was like. I was no fun. Seeing my patients and doing okay as a mother, but I wasn’t cutting it at all as a wife. Ron’s a good man, and he was a considerate lover, but no matter what he did, it wasn’t right. And I wasn’t giving Ron what he needed, so finally he went elsewhere. I don’t blame him, but he blames himself. And that breaks my heart. We’d been best friends. He thinks he broke up our marriage, but really, it was me.”
“You, or Jeanette?”
“I didn’t meet her until after Ron and I were separated. My pediatric group had decided to computerize and I knew nothing about computers—Ron was into them and so were the kids, but somehow the things never appealed to me. I figured I’d better get up to speed, so when I saw an ad for a computer course at the local Marriott designed for women novices, I signed up.”
“Let me guess: Jeanette was the instructor.”
“She moonlights from her programming job to do stints with a firm that runs seminars all over the country. She designed her own course, aimed strictly at female computerphobes. It’s a bit of a cause for her, so women won’t be relegated to the sidelines during the digital revolution.”
Kate felt her throat tighten at the memory.
“You should have seen her, Jack. She was wonderful. Took control of the room with her presence. She kept it light but we could sense how she truly cared. And she was so funny, Jack. Hard to believe from what you’ve seen, I know, but she cracked us up with tales from the days when she worked for a computer problem hotline.”
“Was there some sort of instant chemistry?”
“I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She tended to wear tennis shirts and slacks and sandals; her hair was shorter then—she looked more butch than now, but at the time I chalked that up to computer geekiness. I wouldn’t say I was in love, but when the class was over that first night, I was so captured by her I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her and going home. I wanted more. I approached her and asked if she gave private lessons…”
Jeanette gives her a long look, a little half smile gently twisting her lips.
“Lessons in what?”
“Why, um, computer lessons.” What a question. “I need some sort of accelerated course.”
“Why don’t we discuss it over dinner?”
Kate loves the idea. The kids are home; she left them money for a pizza delivery. A hot meal with this fascinating woman is so much more enticing than snacking alone on a leftover slice or two when she gets home. She’ll just have to let them know that she’s going to be a little later than she’d planned.
“Sounds good,” she tells Jeanette. “I just have to make a call first.”
They settle on the Italian restaurant right in the hotel. Jeanette starts with a light beer while Kate has a Manhattan. Jeanette protests when Kate orders a veal dish so she settles for spaghetti puttanesca. Over the meal, during which they split a bottle of Chianti, Jeanette does a lot of asking and Kate does a lot of answering.
When they’re through she invites Kate up to her room where they can use her laptop to determine how much she knows and how much tutoring she’s going to need. Wonderful idea. Kate’s feeling so warm and relaxed and comfortable with this woman that she doesn’t want the night to end yet.
She steps into Jeanette’s room, dark except for the glowing screen saver on the laptop. She starts forward but never reaches it. Hands grip her upper arms, turn her around, soft lips find hers. Kate stiffens, instinctively begins to recoil, then gives in to those lips. Jeanette’s hands move from her shoulders to the buttons of Kate’s blouse, tugging at them, freeing them, slipping the fabric off her shoulders. She’s insistent, will not be denied. And Kate has no will to deny her or to fight her rising heat, for a new sensation is filling Kate, something she’s never fully experienced. Lust.
She lets Jeanette guide her to the bed, lets her take her on the flowered spread, and feels transported to a place she’s never been before, another realm. And for the next two hours she has her first private lesson from Jeanette, but not in computers, as a patient, expert teacher tutors her in the ways of warmth and wetness.
“One thing led to another and…we became lovers. Then partners. And I began my double life. A very eligible divorcée in Trenton; half of a luppie couple here in New York.”
“Luppie?” Jack said, then waved his hand. “Never mind. I just got it.”
“Jeanette said her gaydar picked me out during class—she called me ‘a Talbot’s dyke’—but had no inkling that she’d be my first.”
“But she’s been good for you?” Jack asked, and she saw real concern in his eyes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier or felt more…whole. Jeanette has been wonderful to me and for me. She’s so tuned in. She’s been my guide into this world I barely knew existed, while I’ve smoothed some of her rough edges and taught her to take a longer view on some things.”
After coffee and sweet rolls they left the Greek Corner and wandered up to the urban garden that defined this length of Sixth Avenue, the Flower District.
“Where do you go from here?” Jack said as they threaded through the foliage.
Potted greenery lined the curbs, everything from rubber plants to oversized ferns to small royal palms. The storefronts were riots of color—reds, yellows, blues, fuchsias—and behind them, inside, dimly glimpsed through condensation-layered glass, lay deep green pocket rain forests.
Last week Kate might have picked out some flowers for the apartment, but not today…not in a flower mood today.
“In two years, when Lizzie’s off to college, I’ll tell the kids and Ron. After that it won’t take long for the news to leak to my patients, and then the you-know-what will hit the fan. I’ll lose a fair share of them. Trenton may be the state capital but it’s a small town at heart. People will decide they’d rather not bring their kids, especially their daughters, to a lesbian pediatrician. Especially when there are five other straight doctors in the same office. And that won’t make my partners happy.”
“So come to New York,” Jack said, slipping his arm around her shoulder. “Lots of kids here whose parents won’t care how you spend your off hours. And it’ll be great having you close.”
She leaned against him. “You can’t imagine how much I appreciate being able to talk to you like this. And I’m sorry for going on so. Listen to me: the love that dare not speak its name cannot shut up. But I’ve had this bottled up for so long and I feel so…so alone right now.”
“But you and Jeanette must have some friends. I mean, there’s a huge gay community down here that—”
“Yes, but I’m a forty-four-year-old babydyke who isn’t out. That makes me a sort of pariah to the younger dykes, the grrrls, the twentysomethings who’ve been out since their teens. They think we all should be out and eff anyone who doesn’t like it.”
“ ‘Eff’?” Jack grinned. “Did you say ‘eff’?”
“I always have trouble saying the F-word.”
“That’s because you’re a square. Always were.”
Kate sighed. She couldn’t take offense. It was true.
“I’m still a square in so many ways. A square dyke—can you imagine? A walking, talking oxymoron. Born square, doomed to die from terminal squareness. It’s just that I was always trying to set a good example—for you when we were growing up, and later for Kevin and Liz.”
“And you did,” he said softly. “Just as I’m sure you still do.”
“I don’t want to change the world or be part of a movement. I just want to be me. It’s taken me so long to get to this point that I just want to relax and enjoy it. And I never cared what others thought as long as I had Jeanette. We’re both a little old for the gay club scene; we’d have dinner at Rubyfruits once in a while, but mostly we cooked in and just enjoyed being with each other.”
“No dressing up and going out on the town looking like Wild One Marlon Brandos?”
“Just being a vanilla dyke more than fills my deviancy quota.”
“Don’t call yourself a deviant.”
“It means deviating from the norm. And that’s what we dykes do.”
“Can’t help how you feel. Not as if you’re hurting anyone.”
“Not yet at least. But when I finally come out…who knows?” She shook her head. “All because of a chromosome…one lousy chromosome.”
“There’s a gay gene?”
“Maybe. But I’m talking about the Y-chromosome, the one that makes you male. We females have two X-chromosomes, but if I could change one chromosome, change just one of my X’s to a Y, my feelings for Jeanette would be considered perfectly normal.”
Jack gave a low whistle. “Jeez. You put it like that, what’s all the fuss about?”
“Exactly. One chromosome. And if I had it, I wouldn’t have all this terrible angst and dread about letting people know.”
He grabbed her shoulder. “Just thought of something. Are you going to tell Dad?”
Kate shuddered. She had no idea how her father would react. She loved him. They’d always been close, but he had no idea. No lesbians in his world. What words could she use to tell him that his only daughter was one?
“I haven’t decided whether he should be before or after the kids. Either way, that’s when the you-know-what hits the fan.”
“Would that be ‘ess’ hitting the fan, or doo-doo?”
Kate laughed and hugged Jack. “Both!”
She loved the man he’d become. What great luck running into him. And what a wonderful feeling to be out to him. It had been so easy.
She looked around and realized they were back at the Arsley. She almost dreaded going back upstairs and facing Jeanette. Who would she be today?
“Mind if I come up with you?” Jack said.
Does he read minds? she wondered.
“I’d like that.”
She keyed her way through the front door but stopped Jack in the lobby. She had to make one thing absolutely clear to him.
“No one else can know what we’ve discussed this morning, Jack. Not till Kevin and Liz are both eighteen. It’s not just for my sake but for theirs too.”
“Okay, sure, but—”
“No buts about it, Jack. Ron doesn’t know and I can’t predict how he’ll react. He’s a good man and I think he’ll be okay, but you never know. If he feels his masculinity has somehow been compromised, he may try to get back at me through the kids. We have joint custody now but he might sue, claiming that as a lesbian I’m an unfit parent—”
“No way.”
“It happens all the time, Jack. The courts can be rough on lesbians. But even if Ron accepts it, what about Kevin and Liz? The news will sweep through their school in minutes, and you know how cruel kids can be. Adolescence is hard enough. I can’t add that to the load. When they’re both in college I’ll sit them down and tell them. Until then I’ve got to stay in the closet. Just like you.”
“Me?” He looked shocked. “What—?”
“Yes, you. You’re leading a double life just like me. You’ve got one face you show to the public but then there’s this other side, this Repairman Jack thing that you’ve been hiding all these years—from Dad, from Tom, from me, and I’m sure from the police, since you’ve as much as said some of what you do isn’t exactly legal. You’ve got your own closet, Jack.”
He stared at her a moment, then nodded. “Never thought of it that way but I guess I do. Except I can’t come out of mine. Ever.”
“You did to me.”
He shook his head, raised a hand, and waggled his pinky finger. “I opened the door a crack and showed you this much. The rest stays inside.”
“Why?”
“Because my closet’s way deeper and lots darker than yours.”
She expected to see sadness in his eyes but found only flat acceptance. He’d made choices and he’d live with them.
Just as she’d live with hers.