In Her Day

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Carole, you amaze me.”

  “Darlin’, I amaze myself.”

  “When in Rome, etc.”

  “Something like that. Since I’ve never done anything like this, at least not in such a short time span, I figured I ought to try it. Aren’t you the one who always says, ‘Progress lies in the direction you haven’t been?’ ”

  “Yes, but I never said the direction was horizontal.”

  “You devil, talk to you later. Give Verne a kiss and damn don’t you be telling BonBon Yvonne and Creampuff Louise what I’m about. Those two will have it all over town.”

  “I told Bon yesterday that with all the information she has, she could get rich overnight.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Hell no, she can start a special service for lonely women, Dial-a-Dyke.”

  “Mary, Mother of God.” Carole howled.

  “She can use it too. Bon and Creampuff aren’t prejudiced.”

  “Adele, you are one of a kind. Now I am hanging up this phone or I won’t be able to get a thing done the rest of the day. Bye, love.”

  Carole showed up around ten-twenty but Ilse was convinced fifteen minutes after ten that she’d never see her again. When Carole did walk in, the place was so packed Ilse couldn’t get over to her so she waved and tried to not look too excited.

  Listening to the singer, Maxine Feldman, Carole surveyed the room. The crowd with few exceptions was under thirty and downwardly mobile. It was wall-to-wall workshirts with embroidery to relieve the monotonous blue. Little, enameled, five-pointed, purple stars stood out on caps and shirts. Carole noticed Ilse wore one on her left sleeve, over her bicep. Maxine displayed one on the bib of her overalls. They were pretty but Carole had no idea what they meant.

  So many of these people tried to look unattractive and that disturbed Carole. A few of them even looked dirty. Poor as she and her family were in the Depression, they were always clean. If her mother came back from the grave and saw some of these people it’d kill her all over again. Perhaps it wasn’t that the women tried to look ugly. Maybe they just didn’t care. Carole checked them out again.

  A few look like you could plant seeds on them, she noted, but the group isn’t all that bad. Maybe it’s a fad like bobby sox and Dad’s shirt was in the forties. And saddle shoes. I remember I had a pair with black saddles and then brown ones came in. Gawd. Still these people do look in uniform. I guess we did too but you can’t see yourself at that age. I wonder if wearing a purple star and patched pants is like being a Franciscan and taking a vow of poverty?

  Women in the room cheered the singer—“more, more”—after she finished a driving song about Marilyn Monroe. Carole wasn’t much interested in Marilyn when she was alive much less dead. But a chill swept down her spine. The lyrics reached her. Color rose to her face when she realized she had made some tenuous connection with woman as a group. She hadn’t realized that, until now, she had believed there were men, women, and herself.

  No, she thought, not quite that cut and dried. I guess I’ve always thought there was an intellectual elite and people like myself and Adele are part of it. Brains transcend genitals.

  Ilse made her way through the crowd as Maxine took a much deserved break.

  “Do you have anything left to do here?” Carole asked.

  “No, let’s go. My apartment is on 12th Street. We can walk over there, it’s not far. It’s easier to talk there than here or at the bar.”

  Underneath the West Side Highway, moonlight flickered on the old Erie-Lackawana buildings on the other side. A heavy river smell rose up in the July night.

  “It’s another world down here. Haunted.”

  “Wait until you see the building my apartment is in. I think it was built in the early nineteenth century. A sea captain built it for his mistresses and I live in the tiny cottage in the courtyard where he kept the number one lady.”

  The door to the stucco, crumbling apartment building, not but two stories high, was a bright blue. It opened into a long hallway and at the end of the hallway was another blue door, possibly bright but who could tell in the dim light. Ilse reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out keys on a long chain that was hooked to her belt loop, and unlocked the door.

  “Isn’t this a trip?”

  “It’s charming. The courtyard looks like something out of Vermeer.”

  French windows were opened to catch what cool breeze there was and patches of small flowers, closed for the night, hinted that the days were colorful. Flat stones paved the enclosure and a high wall refused entrance to the rest of New York City.

  “Each set of windows is an apartment,” Ilse said in a low voice. “There are two wings and the middle apartments in the wings have little balconies. You should see the narrow, winding staircases those people climb. But the balconies are very romantic. A friend lives in the left one over there and she puts up flags to signal me.”

  “Do you signal back?”

  “Yeah, I hang mine out my side window, see,” she pointed around the small cottage and there a red and yellow pennant fluttered sporadically. “That’s my great day flag. My flowers are coming along and over there’s a bird feeder. Come on, let’s go inside.”

  She opened the door into a small room where two cinder blocks under each side of a piece of plywood served as a low desk, a cushion for a chair. A few handfuls of books surrounded the desk. Off to the left was a slightly larger room with a bed against the wall, covered with an Indian print. Over the bed was a poster of multicolored little women in circle after circle holding hands. A fireplace was six feet from the bed. The walls were startling, bone-white stucco. On the other side of her desk was the bathroom, and the kitchen was a miniscule refrigerator and stove not ten feet opposite the fireplace. A dilapidated make-up dresser was right by the door.

  “This is out of another century. All you need is a thatched roof,” Carole exclaimed.

  “I know. I dig it. In the winter the fireplace is the only heat I have but the place is so small it keeps me warm. The only trouble is keeping the wood dry outside so I always have to be sure to have fifteen logs stacked up by the frigie or it’s blue lips Ilse.”

  “Is that the bathroom over there?”

  “If you want to take a shower, call me and I’ll join you.”

  “Took one before I went out,” Carole answered, closing the door. When she came out she noticed Ilse had turned off her one overhead light and now a fat candle glowed in a low dish. Next to it in a Lancer’s bottle were lavender and blue straw flowers.

  “You can take one with me or wait, I won’t be long. Running around serving all night, in and out of that steaming kitchen, makes me a prime candidate for Dial soap.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  As there was no place to sit other than the floor, Carole crawled over on the bed and leaned out the French windows. The courtyard, silver in the moonlight, was noiseless. A fat cat looked down at Carole from her perch on the left balcony. Not far away a deep call came from the river, a tug pulling its prize in from the sea. The shower drizzle stopped and Ilse, wrapped in a terrycloth robe, emerged from the bathroom. As she offered Carole tea it struck her that she had talked politics last night and forgot to ask Carole what she did, so she asked.

  “I’m a professor of art history at New York University. My field is medieval art and I’ll stop there or I won’t stop until I’ve outlined the whole thirteenth century.”

  “When I was at Vassar I had a fantastic art history professor. I always thought that stuff was dull and dry until she taught me that ideas could be transmitted visually. That was such a revelation to me. I was so bound to the word, you know what I mean?”

  “When were you at Vassar?”

  “I graduated in 1973.”

  “I graduated in 1951.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  “However, when I was at Vassar there wasn’t a women’s movement except in the direction of Yale.”

  “I can dig that,” Ilse muttered.

&nbs
p; “I couldn’t. All those silly girls fluttering around a Skull and Bones man.”

  Ilse frowned. “Know what you mean. It is pretty disgusting when women act giddy and dumb around men but in 1951 what kind of choices were there? I mean, we need to recognize people in their oppressed places. Like oppressed in their heads because Vassar isn’t for poor women. But rich or poor, women are brought up to be half-people. There really wasn’t an alternative to the Skull and Bones man.”

  “You’re looking at the alternative.” Carole smiled but Ilse picked up the sternness in her voice.

  What an unusual woman, Ilse kept thinking. She’s a proto-feminist, a rebel who doesn’t know it.

  It never once occurred to Ilse that she was telling Carole about 1951 and the behavior of women when Carole was right there and Ilse wasn’t even walking yet. Carole’s partly opened blouse gave a glimpse of full breasts. Tempted by the sight Ilse forgot to launch into her riff about women’s identity. She ran her forefinger from the hollow of Carole’s neck down to the middle of her stomach, unbuttoning with her left hand as she went along. The older woman shivered, leaned over and without the slightest pressure gently kissed her, kissed her neck, the line of her jaw and her lips once more, harder this time.

  Ilse pulled down the covers and threw her robe off. “Should I start a drum roll?”

  “That’s funny because I have two friends who are ex-strippers. I’ve often wondered if they played that music when they went to bed,” Carole remarked, slipping her arms out of the silk blouse.

  Her shoulders were broad, her hips slim and tight; Ilse reached out and pulled her into bed without ceremony. She put her arms around her neck and pushed her somewhat smaller frame into the long body. All that cool flesh made Ilse shudder. Carole bit her neck while dragging her fingernails all along Ilse’s side. Goosebumps covered both of them making them laugh in the middle of a kiss. Carole pushed Ilse’s blonde hair out of the way, kissing her forehead, cheeks, nose, and lips. She parted the young woman’s teeth with a dart of the tongue. Ilse moaned and held onto Carole with such force she left fingerprints all over her back. Pressing the small of the young woman’s back Carole welded them together, the sweat sliding from their torsos onto the bed. Carole felt Ilse’s fingers on the back of her neck threading up through her hair and she put her forehead between the younger woman’s small breasts. Ilse arched her back and brought her legs up around Carole’s waist. Carole could feel the muscles running along the inside of the thighs. Each woman marveled at the shape of the other, the white of their teeth flashing with their smiles and sounds. Ilse lifted Carole up off her body with strong tanned legs and rolled her over on her side. Her hand lay on Carole’s flank. The idea of that hand proved inflammatory. Carole reached over caressing Ilse’s upper thigh. They couldn’t stay there for long; the tension, the sweat, and the searching lips demanded resolution.

  “Carole?”

  “H-m-m?”

  “You’re driving me crazy. I don’t know your body yet, I don’t know what you want.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to make you come,” Ilse whispered in her ear.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get there soon enough,” Carole whispered, slowly traveling up her thigh to push inside her. Ilse strained against the long fingers, pointing her toes, carrying the sensation through her entire body. As Carole moved away Ilse reached down and caught her and the two women hung suspended in mutual pleasure but not knowing one another well enough to pull it off.

  “We can come back to me,” Carole breathed.

  “Sure?”

  “Sure.”

  Ilse wasn’t certain what was going on. She could feel Carole touching her with both hands as they lay side by side, kissing her neck, filling her mouth with her tongue. All she could think was she’s so slow and she’s so sexy and then she stopped thinking, the rest of her body silencing her ever-talkative cerebrum.

  Carole leaned up on one elbow cupping her head with her left hand, and with her right hand she stroked the hair off Ilse’s wet forehead. Ilse, too limp to move, started laughing and turned her face to Carole whose eyebrows asked why.

  “It’s so good. I mean if we can do this first time out!” Ilse exclaimed.

  “Practice makes perfect.”

  “Carole, I knew you were going to say that.”

  “It was a set up.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “When you catch your breath lie on top of me. We can get acrobatic later at another practice session.”

  “Got my breath back.” Ilse landed on her with a war whoop.

  “My god, I’m in bed with Sheena Queen of the Jungle?” Carole pulled her hands down from Ilse’s neck to her tiny bottom and moved her own body against the smooth skin. Carole could feel the muscles tightening and relaxing across both of their flat stomachs. The heat, the motion, the shiny hair washing against her face brought Carole to a series of upheavals that astonished Ilse. Carole lifted her off and blew against Ilse’s skin to cool it.

  “You really are incredible,” Ilse gasped.

  “No, I’ve just been practicing longer than you. Sex gets easier and better as you get older.”

  “Not for men it doesn’t.”

  “Well,” Carole grinned. “I’m speaking for myself. Men will have to speak for themselves on that subject.”

  “Don’t let me forget in the morning to ask you a favor.”

  “Ask me now so I can prepare for it,” Carole answered as they snuggled under the sheets.

  “It’s not such a big one. Will you help me carry that old make-up dresser out to the sidewalk? It isn’t heavy but it’s too awkward for one person to carry. It was here when I moved in and it’s driving me bonkers.”

  “M-m-m, kiss me first.”

  Ilse kissed her lips, played with the corner of her mouth, and then outlined Carole’s mouth as slowly as if she were a snail on her appointed rounds.

  “I’ll do it.” Carole laughed at herself.

  As Carole opened her eyes she saw, staring down at her, two glittering, green ones. A large tabby lounged in the windowsill, her stiff whiskers coming forward like a bowtie when Carole sat up. Ilse was still asleep so Carole gingerly moved over her, only to have the cat pounce square in the middle of Ilse’s back.

  “What!” Ilse pushed up and blinked.

  “Either that’s your cat or you have a bold visitor.”

  “Here, Vito.” The cat jumped up to Ilse’s face and rubbed a furry forehead on Ilse’s own forehead. “Vito Russo’s my cat but at night when she prowls she climbs up the vine and stays with Lucia. So she’s half Lucia’s. What time is it?”

  “Ten-thirty. Damn, I slept with my watch on.”

  “Time to get up. After I feed Tootsie, I’ll feed you.”

  “All I need is tea to get me going and an English muffin if you have one.”

  “You’re in luck.”

  After breakfast Carole informed Ilse she had to get back home soon because she wanted to work on a paper she was preparing for publication.

  “What kind of paper?”

  “Art history stuff.”

  “Oh. Well, will you help me move out that makeup dresser before you go?”

  “A promise is a promise,” replied Carole.

  Ilse picked up one end of it. “See, it isn’t heavy at all but it’s too big for me to get my arms around it.”

  “The flowered material hanging all around it is enough to blind people. Are you sure you should put it on the street?”

  Ilse threw up her hands. “What do you mean? That’s why I want to put it on the street. You think I want to look at it? Besides, I don’t wear makeup so it’s sitting here like dinosaur bones.”

  The only difficulty they had getting the visual horror out to the street was in the narrow hallway in the main apartment building, but with a few scraped knuckles they succeeded in setting it firmly on the sidewalk.

  “Hey, did you ever watch ‘Candid Camera?’ ” Ilse questi
oned.

  “Once or twice, why? That was ten or fifteen years ago.”

  “I was pretty little when it was first around but I remember they used to do hysterical things like rig a talking mailbox or stop catsup bottles so they wouldn’t flow and people would freak out, you know?”

  Carole’s eyebrows raised but she remained silent. Was this a non sequitur or was Ilse leading up to something?

  “Carole?”

  “What?”

  “Let’s get under this thing and stick our heads out when people come to scavenge it. The material reaches to the ground; they’ll never know we’re under there.”

  “I will not. Put anything on a New York City sidewalk and five people descend instantly to fight over it. We might sustain serious injuries.”

  “That’s not the real reason. You’re uptight. Come on, no one is going to know there’s a respectable professor lurking under there.”

  “That’s right. No one would believe it. They’ll think I escaped from Bellevue.”

  “Please,” Ilse pleaded. “It’d be fun. And what do we care? We’ll never see any of these people again. This is New York, remember?” She tugged at Carole’s sleeve and looked up at her the way a dog does when it wants a table scrap.

  “What the hell.” Politely lifting the edge of the cloth as though it were a skirt, Carole motioned for Ilse to precede her. Ilse scurried under. Carole hesitated.

  “Come on.” Ilse stuck out her head.

  Carole dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under. “Tight fit.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Ilse, “but if you stay on your haunches you can stick your head up under the empty drawer. I think the empty drawer is on your side.”

  “It’s here.”

  “Good, you’ll have more room. You’re a lot taller than I am. You okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Me too, I’m fine down here. I feel like a tarantula waiting to spring at my prey.”

  “If you keep jabbering you won’t lure anything,” Carole reminded her.

  “Oh, right.” Ilse shut up and not five minutes later a light footfall approached the dresser. A hand could be heard smoothing over the top. Ilse elbowed Carole since Carole couldn’t see anything other than the garish print.