Gay Girl

by Joan Ellis

  "As long as it's female, it's gorgeous to you, Ed," Phyl tossed back," ostensibly joshing. Ed Madigan looked like a Broadway or Hollywood leading man. Even the prematurely graying crew-cut fitted that picture. Tall, handsomely built, clean-cut features, Phyl took inventory of the characteristics she knew so well—because this sort of thinking kept her mind from Eve. Ed had married a wealthy society deb ten years ago, while he was finishing up his residency.

  Now the society wife and their three children were comfortably ensconced in upper Westchester, while Ed played the field in New York.

  Bill Porter, the senior member of the firm, Phyl honestly admired. He was a great doctor. She'd watched him save mothers and infants any routine OB would have considered lost. Bill, pushing forty-five, was still a good-looking man, with a casual, easygoing personality that was no small asset in their type of practice. Okay, she conceded, Ed was a top-notch OB, too, which was one of the reasons she'd been so flattered at being invited in to their offices. But Ed was ultra-progressive, especially when it was more convenient for him to be so.

  "I can't figure you, Phyl." Ed lifted himself from a semi-prone position to help himself to another cup of coffee. "You're an attractive woman. What makes you think you have to be ashamed of that?"

  "I'm an OB, remember?" Phyl avoided a direct glance.

  "No law says an OB can't remember she's a woman." His calm grey eyes paid tribute unstintingly. "Unbend, Phyl, before you pop right open!"

  "Stop playing the psychiatrist, Ed," she brushed him off with outward amusement. "I keep my private life away from the hospital. That's the least troublesome way." Let him think there were men in her life.

  "But think of the fun you're missing." He dropped an arm about her waist.

  "I'm missing nothing at all." Her eyes met his now, coolly challenging. "I said, I keep it away from the hospital."

  "You’re missing it right now," he objected, glancing cautiously towards the door before he propelled her tightly against him.

  "Drop it, Ed," she ordered sharply. "This is a hospital and we're both on duty."

  "I could make you forget that fast enough." The arm about her waist tightened, and she felt sick as he pressed himself upon her.

  "Let go of me!" she commanded succinctly. "This is not a whorehouse."

  "What land of a puritan background do you have?" He released her with a nicker of annoyance. "Or are you really one solid chunk of ice the way they say?"

  Ice? Hardly. Phyl rejected this—a chunk of ice couldn't love the way she'd loved that summer at camp, when she'd been just seventeen. A chunk of ice couldn't drive herself to frenzy the way she had in those brief, sordid affairs that had satisfied but momentarily. She hadn't been ice holding Eve in her arms tonight. What could a man know about real passion, she thought with a rush of triumph. Nobody could love as two women might.

  "Dr. Talbert?" The light knock on the door was accompanied by Alice Harmon's voice.

  "Coming,'' Phyl called briskly, then drained her coffee cup. "Lindsey must be bellowing for her doctor." This time she was grateful for the interruption.

  Phyl glanced nervously at the clock as she finished washing up. Quarter of five. Outside, she could hear the first early-morning sounds, and the young morning light seeped through the frosted window. For the first time in hours she allowed herself to think bout Eve. What must she be thinking after all this time? She'd be upset, insecure, possibly sorry for the impulsiveness of last night. But she'd be there, Phyl insisted to herself. Eve must recognize that the night had been something special.

  Should she phone up, let Eve know she was on her way? No, she rejected this with annoyance. Why wake her up? By now she was surely asleep. Phyl finished dressing with compulsive haste. She hurried to the elevator, impatient at its delay. She strode through the lobby, when she finally arrived there, with such speed she nearly knocked down a patient heading for the Admitting Office. It was with a sigh of relief that she slid behind the wheel of the small red Triumph and inserted the ignition key. There was so much that she had to tell Eve Slater.

  * * *

  Phyl stood there in the center of the room, trying to digest the fact that Eve was gone. Her eyes roamed about uncomprehendingly. She'd mesmerized herself into believing that Eve would be here, waiting. Her first impulse now was to run down into the streets and search. But where, her native common sense demanded? Where would she look, whom could she ask about Eve? She was alone again.

  She walked across to the window, to gaze over the surrounding rooftops, remembering how elated Eve had been about the view. What was the matter with her, she berated herself. How could she have made such a mess of something so important to her? She couldn't go on at the old crazy pace. She had to find Eve Slater! Somehow, somewhere she must find her. She'd never know a moment's rest until she did.

  CHAPTER 4

  Phyl stretched full length on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. The ashtray on the floor beside her was laden with cigarette butts. Her suit was probably a crumpled mess by now, she thought tiredly, from the two or three hours that she'd lain here tossing and turning. All that remained of last night were those powdery ashes there in the fireplace. It had felt so good with Eve there, so good to love Eve. She'd hate this place forever, unless she could by some miracle find her again. Where? How? Her mind was heavy with fruitless probing.

  Downstairs in the street Phyl could hear the high-pitched excited voices of children on their way to school. Their activity propelled her into motion. Her appointments began at nine-thirty. She glanced at her watch—there was just about time to dash back to the apartment, shower, change, and make it to the office.

  Driving uptown again, Phyl's mind grappled with the problem of finding Eve Slater. In a city this size it was absurd even to consider it, yet Phyl knew her first free moment would find her prowling about the Village, searching, hoping, perhaps stupidly questioning. Why had Belle Lindsey had to go into labor last night, she asked herself for the hundredth time.

  For the first time since Phyl had been in the office, she was the last to arrive. The reception room was already well-laden with smartly-groomed expensively dressed prospective mothers, with an older gynecological patient somehow incongruous in that setting. She sent forth cordial smiles of greeting to the two patients waiting for her, then sailed swiftly into her own office.

  "Hear you were busy last night." Bill Porter grinned good-humoredly in the doorway, en route to one of the tiny examining rooms.

  "Her poor husband didn't have the nerve to set foot on the floor," Phyl laughed casually. "He was reviled most fully."

  "You look beat," Bill said with warm concern. "Better get yourself a good night's rest."

  "Nothing wrong with her that a good man couldn't take care of," Ed's voice drawled from behind Bill's shoulder.

  "Are you speaking professionally?" Bill chuckled. "Watch out for this guy, Phyl. He's a wolf."

  "I've noticed his fangs," Phyl said, then buzzed for her first patient to be sent in.

  It was almost one by the time Phyl finished with her morning appointments. Guessing Bill would pop in to suggest lunch together, she hurried out before he was done with his last patient. Normally, she enjoyed lunching with Bill Porter on the days when they both had morning appointments. Today she was anxious to hurry over to the hospital and finish up with what had to be done over there. Afterwards, she could head for the Village—to roam about the streets on that pessimistic crusade. How much territory was there to cover altogether? She sought for the hope that sooner or later she'd have to run into Eve. She was living on Thompson—Phyl clung to that knowledge. Eve wouldn't move out, when obviously she'd searched to find a place to live in the Village. Phyl strove to remember every word that had passed between them, hopeful of clues.

  Phyl moved with her usual swiftness from the parking area into the hospital, exchanging impersonal pleasantries with the elevator operator. It was funny, . she thought wryly, how she'd let herself unbend with elevator men, as thou
gh they were a breed apart. Her first stop would be Lindsey, who was on the fourth floor, Phyl recalled belatedly. She fought to hide her impatience as she made the return trip down from the seventh to the fourth again.

  When she stepped off the elevator onto the fourth floor, Phyl noticed the last of the babies were being wheeled into their mothers' rooms. It was feeding time. She walked into Belle Lindsey's room and smack into a noisy argument between Belle and a bewildered young redhead from the nursery.

  "What do I have to do, write you a memo?" Belle was shrieking. "I don't feel like giving the baby its bottle. You do it—that's what you're paid to do!"

  "But all the mothers give the bottles during the day," the redhead was protesting indignantly. "Aren't you interested in your baby?"

  "Not particularly." Belle sent an insolent smile in Phyl's direction. "Doc, will you take care of this nonsense for me?" She nipped open a travel-sized makeup kit and busied herself with eye shadow.

  "Will you please take care of this feeding, nurse?" Phyl's smile for the young redhead was laden with sympathy. Fortunately, not many patients fitted into Belle Lindsey's category. Poor little infant—what kind of frustrations would it grow up to coddle?

  "Saw that pal of yours this morning," Belle murmured huskily, pleased with the eyeshadow.

  "Who?" Inadvertently Phyl jumped defensively.

  "That doll Dr. Madigan. He had the dear little mother in the next bed. I got rid of her quick." Belle's face glowed with amusement. "I told her I had a wild cold coming on—I could feel it. She cried to be moved into another room."

  "We have a floor of private rooms," Phyl said coldly.

  "Why pay money if I can manage on my own?" Belle inspected Phyl inquisitively. "What makes a good-looking girl like you go into medicine? I thought that was strictly a lezzie field?"

  "The Medical Board doesn't ask about a physician's sex life," Phyl said, masking her fury. The blatant callousness of people like Belle Lindsey—what could they know? "It'd be a good idea to get out of bed this afternoon."

  "Not on your life," Belle announced emphatically. "I'm having myself a six-day rest cure. Don't I rate it?”

  It's best for you to move about on your feet," Phyl explained, fighting for the prescribed friendliness between OB and patient. Bill Porter's words rang in her ears—"a happy patient sends along her friends." With the fees the partners charged, Phyl thought with a hint of amusement, they could afford to extend this little service. "Better for your figure, too." That would stir this frustrated glamor girl into action.

  "Wouldn't obstetrics be a field day for a Lesbian?" Belle giggled, returning to the earlier topic of conversation. "Like dumping a three-year-old into a tub of ice-cream!"

  "I'm glad you're feeling so chipper," Phyl said briskly. "I'll drop in again in the morning."

  "If you see the doll, you can send him in, too," Belle drawled. "I'm more in the mood for male companionship than I was yesterday."

  "On your feet this afternoon sometime," Phyl reminded, and hurried from the room. Damn her, talking that way! Was that a dig underneath, she asked herself guiltily. Did Belle Lindsey suspect her, and was she taking this way of needling? No. She forced herself to be. honest—Belle could have no inkling. As far as Belle was concerned, Phyl was career-crazy, not a Lesbian. She worked hard to present that surface appearance—the touch of lipstick and eyebrow pencil, the pearls at her throat and the matching earrings, the high-heeled pumps. Only at Ronaldo's, in comfortable attire, did she suggest the part.

  * * *

  By four Phyl was cruising through the narrow, cluttered streets of the Village, her eyes straining for a girl who might be Eve. It would be pointless to inquire at the bar—Eve had said she'd never been there before. When she'd passed the same police patrol car three times, Phyl was overcome with nervousness. This was too obvious—they might think she was roaming about to pick up a girl.

  So she parked along Sullivan, then walked over towards Thompson. She'd drop into one of the coffee shops, she decided with a touch of desperation, take a seat near a window where anyone who passed would be visible. Again, she berated herself for last night's stupidity. Why did people constantly take the round-about hard route when the straight simple one avoided grief?

  She lingered as long as possible over a cup of espresso, then reluctantly paid her check and moved out into the street again. She'd walk over to the Square, sit on a bench and watch again. Somewhere in the few square acres here sweet, desirable Eve Slater walked about with that endearingly wistful manner of hers. Whose business was it if Phyl Talbert spent her leisure time hunting for the key to her happiness?

  Phyl sat on a bench in Washington Square, watching the late afternoon loungers give way to the early evening crowds. It was warm for late April, and the air was full of the promise of summer. Her eyes followed the pairs that walked hand in hand, conventional lovers and not so conventional ones, the bearded beatnicks in dirty jeans and shirts and their girls in shapeless dresses and matching hairdos. A few diehard children persistently entreated for a few minutes longer of unfenced freedom. The night students, young and zealous, were taking time out before classes.

  Something clicked in Phyl's mind as her eyes rested with a touch of recognition on a young man hurrying through the park with a physician's bag in hand. Oh hell, she'd forgot about that party tonight! She'd promised Doug Johnston faithfully that she'd put in an appearance—something about proving to his apartment-sharer that women could go into medicine without looking like dogs. Johnston was a young surgeon, fairly new in town. The party was a sort of house-warming. He'd finally found an apartment and a friend to share it. The apartment was down here, Phyl remembered, reaching into her purse to check the address.

  There was too much curiosity around the office and the hospital about her social life. Occasionally she drove up to Bill's house for dinner, twice she had met Ed and his wife in town for dinner. It would be good to mention casually that she'd been at Doug Johnston's party—it'd serve to quiet down that curiosity.

  Phyl glanced at her suit. This was hardly what the well-dressed girl about town would wear to a party but a doctor could always plead an emergency. She hesitated, reluctant to admit this sitting about was a wild-goose chase. The smart thing would be to go to Doug's party. Tomorrow she'd be here again. Somewhere, somehow, she'd find Eve—and she'd explain.

  * * *

  Doug Johnston's party was obviously in full swing, Phyl thought, experiencing an urge to run away. Laughter, the jumble of convivial voices emerging from the basement apartment, the frank display of high spirits, filled Phyl with a compulsion to pull within a protective shell and hide. Lord, she was in no mood for this! But it'd be better to go inside, pretend she was self-assured, enjoying herself, exuding satisfaction with life in general, than to move about those suddenly lonely twilit streets outside.

  "Hi, Phyl!" Doug greeted her exuberantly and pulled her into the apartment. "Say, Pete," he called across the room. "Now was I wrong?" He grinned triumphantly at Phyl as a broad-shouldered, tanned young man—well-tailored and reeking of Madison Avenue—came toward them with long strides. He wasn't tall, Phyl noticed in surprise, barely her own height in the high heels, but he gave an impression of being a tall man.

  "Don't tell me this is the highly touted junior member in Ed Madigan's shooting match?" His eyes inspected her with admiring efficiency. "She can't be a doctor. TV production, actress, fashion designer," he improvised.

  "Obstetrician," Phyl managed a laugh. "What is a woman doctor supposed to look like?"

  "She wears flat heels, needs a girdle, never visits a hairdresser," Pete decided. "I'm the roommate, since this character can't be bothered with introductions. Pete Henderson. I write advertising copy. Ed Madigan and I were college roommates until he switched to med."

  "You date this girl, you have troubles," Doug warned. "You're all set to make a pitch, a patient decides to deliver—and where are you? Driving straight to Cosmopolitan Hospital without so much as a
good-night kiss."

  "I'd take the risk," Pete grinned leisurely. "Beat it, old boy, while I make a pitch."

  "In that case I need a drink," Phyl laughed self-consciously. She knew all the right things to say, yet she could never wash away this feeling of discomfort when a man made even this light verbal play.

  "Come with me—I don't trust you on the loose," Pete smiled warmly, taking one of her hands in his own.

  Phyl followed him to the bar, masking her unrest behind a party smile, hearing the inane chatter coming from her in response to Pete's line.

  "You don't go for this stuff, do you?" Pete surprised her by asking.

  "What do you mean?" She stared, unsure of herself.

  "The cocktail party bit. The talk about nothing." He swung down his drink, his eyes holding hers. "You've got other things on your mind, Dr. Phyllis Talbert."

  "Such as?" She stood tensely alert.

  "Career. You're going to make it big in a man's world. I meet gals like you in my field, too. Hell, the drive in them! They make a mere man seem puny in comparison."

  "Medicine means a great deal to me," Phyl said slowly, somehow disliking the career label. "I like my job."

  "I like you," he said, hardly above a whisper, and the look in his eye was unmistakable. This was the time she usually made the wild dash, Phyl reminded herself with a cynical jibe. "Did you know we have a garden here? Let me show you."

  Pete herded her through the mob toward the cell-like bedroom that led to the garden. She caught the glint of approval Doug shot in her direction. He was pleased that she was making a good impression on his friend. Why should it matter to him, she wondered.

  "My sister's in pre-med school," Pete said, as though in answer to her thoughts. "My parents are fighting it like mad, though Doug's talked to them about letting the kid alone. They've got this idea that if she goes into medicine, she's putting her womanhood in hock."

  "Plenty of women doctors marry," Phyl said uneasily. "They even have children and still manage to practice medicine."