In Her Day

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Oh,” Ilse murmured. “Did you and Adele ever go to bed?

  “No.”

  * * *

  Fred Fowler relished the first departmental meeting of the fall semester. Fall was the big semester for him and he thought of each fall as turning over a new leaf. He wasn’t a particularly efficient administrator nor did he have direction but when there was no avenue of escape he was capable of tremendous bursts of energy. Since the department ran on a crisis basis, Fred worked hard. The meeting was at three. Fred fussed at his secretary to make certain the ashtrays were on the table and did she have the ice bucket ready? Fred thought liquor brought the group together, oiled the machinery of the department.

  Carole breezed out of the elevator door and nearly crashed into him running up and down the hall like an absent-minded track star, first this way then back again.

  “Whoops, Professor Hanratty, you leave a dangerous wake.”

  “Excuse me, Chief, that’s the second time today I narrowly averted a crash.”

  “Goodness, I hope it wasn’t serious.” He was eager to console her should there be a horror story. Fred was terribly good at playing oh-ain’t-it-awful.

  “No, nothing like that. As I hurried out of my apartment building I flattened Mr. Dutton who was hurrying in.”

  Dutton was a snide, fifty-year-old bachelor. Carole was sure he was a gigolo in his younger days, because he had a snotty charm that probably appealed to older, lonesome females. Dutton inhabited the garden apartment. He also minced up and down the East Seventies with his balding pekinese. Smothered in Gucci, the man couldn’t abide Carole because she didn’t pay attention to him. Worse, one day when he’d let his dog off its leash, it bounded up to the third floor just as Carole opened her apartment door. Louisa May, ready for her great escape, roared out and put on the brakes when she saw the little creature. Once Louisa May figured out it was, in fact, a dog, she huffed up twice her size and pounded the shit out of it. Dutton flew up the stairs, witnessed his dog’s bloody nose, and shrilly christened Louisa May a “ferocious predator.” If there were any doctor bills to be paid she’d hear about them. Carole figured Dutton would get money out of a woman one way or the other. Today as she smacked into him, his automatic umbrella opened up on him and he stuck in the doorway.

  All eight professors in the room, Fred began his fall speech: “Welcome back. I hope each of you had a pleasant and stimulating summer. After we attend to business perhaps Bob Kenin will tell us informally how restoration progresses in Florence.” Bob nodded. “As it’s our first meeting we have a clean slate except for the controversy within the department over grading. The issue is resolved for undergraduate courses but, as you may recall, our last meeting before the summer semester involved a great deal of concern over this system being employed for our graduate students, our cream of the crop, aha.” Nervous smile until ancient Professor Stowa smiled back. “I suggest we read the two papers written by our exponents of the different viewpoints and we can debate the matter two weeks from today. Of course, I don’t mean to imply that a debate will settle the matter. Grading is a complex moral issue as well as a matter of protecting the standards of our department, so I feel we’re dealing with the tip of the iceberg. Blah, blah, blah.”

  Tuning out on iceberg, Carole stared at Fred gloating over his self-importance, taking liberal sips of his drink. People reveal how ordinary their minds are by the metaphors they use, she thought. Any minute now he’ll say, “at this point in time.” If it’s not metaphors then it’s adjectives. Adjectives are the curse of America. Yesterday a paper reviewed Cris Williamson’s new album saying, “a sensual full-blooded haunting voice. Ms. Williamson sets the inside of your cool head reverberating with perfectly controlled hot sound. A four star winner.” Christ, why didn’t he just say, “She’s great.” I thought getting paid by the word went out with Dickens. People are always describing, modifying, qualifying. It’s that or parroting commercials: Try it, you’ll like it. I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. How’s your love life? TV is the chewing gum of the mind or did Fred Allen say “eye?” Sometimes I think my friends in the thirteenth century were better off. They never suffered the disillusionment of a Toni home permanent run amok. For them a spade was a spade; they didn’t call it a delving instrument. What’s happened? Why can’t people take what is anymore? Do they have to verbalize a person or thing before they can believe it’s real? Assbackwards. It’s all assbackwards. Hang the soul who wrote, “In the beginning was the Word.” He cost us untainted experience.

  “… and I trust we’ll all put our best foot forward.” Fred finished. Speaking for thirty minutes exhilarated Fred and he was patting everyone within reach on the back, slugging away the Scotch, and laughing much too loud.

  Marcia Gahagan, the only other woman in the department, came over to Carole. “I see you survived the long, hot summer.”

  “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. How was Paris?”

  “Exquisite as always if you ignore the people themselves. I never tire of the museums. I made a fascinating side trip to East Berlin. The museum there is quite good—superb actually—but how drab the city is. The difference between East Berlin and West Berlin is the difference between night and day. I don’t think the Russians will ever let the Germans forget, you know?”

  “And the Americans forgive everything if the offending nation buys a Coca Cola franchise,” Carole replied.

  Marcia started to say something in return but Fred, who had been inching his way over, achieved his goal at last, draping a boss’s arm around both female employees.

  “Marcia, Carole and I held down the fort this summer.”

  Marcia couldn’t pointedly ignore him; she was coming up for tenure. “That must have made it a pleasant summer, Fred. I know how highly you regard Carole’s work. Do excuse me, I’ve got to run up to the Lycee to pick up Michele.”

  Fred got chummy. “Mind if I ask you a personal question, Carole?” And before she could refuse, he babbled, “How’s your love life?”

  “Fantastic.” She turned on her heel and left. Carole was tenured seven years ago.

  Ilse kissed the oblique muscle twisting down into Carole’s crotch. She draped her hair over Carole’s thighs keeping her lips busy around the lower abdomen. Ilse loved to torment Carole. Through the older woman she had learned the pleasures of restraint. Slowly she would turn Carole into an ocean of hot tides. The power of her own sexuality made her heady. She used to think of her clitoris as a red acorn but now she thought of herself as a sea anemone. She could no longer localize her centers of pleasure: Carole synthesized her body. She had her first multiple orgasm with Carole and she loved her for that.

  That time they were leaning up against the pillows, Carole drinking a Coke as usual. She stored ice cubes in her mouth and kissed Ilse’s whole body. When Carole buried her lips between Ilse’s open legs, she lost the boundaries of her conventional self. Maybe it was the shock of ice on steam heat but Ilse didn’t know where she left off and Carole began. Once you know how, it’s easy, she flashed. She was learning to slip in and out of physical peaks at will. She felt a tremendous bond to Carole. Lying on top of her, she feared their rib cages would lock. Their thigh bones would merge. They’d have to learn to walk all over again. She pulled her fingernails along the older woman’s sides, then slid her arms under Carole’s shoulders and cradled the back of her head. With mounting force Carole moved further and further into Ilse’s own body. The pounding vein between the inside of the thigh and the crotch beat underneath Ilse’s clitoris. With her face nestled in the tall woman’s neck she felt the same racing heartbeat under her lips. Held by the small of the back she felt motionless and weightless. When Carole groaned, “Now, Ilse, now,” she felt that she had ridden out a tidal wave. The rocking motion and the burning vein directly underneath her brought forth a gush and a shudder. Ilse cried. She didn’t know why. Coming together like that made her cry. Her mind pushed words away and the tears rolled along her nose
into her mouth. Carole engulfed her with affection, kissed her, licking the salt. Stroking Ilse’s hair Carole felt protective. She knew Ilse could take care of herself but for that vulnerable moment she shielded the woman facing the test of fragility, shared fragility. She let Ilse break the moment whenever she was ready.

  “Do you know Pussblossom didn’t budge the whole time we were making love?”

  Pussblossom opened her eyes to a slit. She was on her back, front paws curled, hind legs sprawled, her short, fluffy tail lying motionless between her legs. She looked like a courtesan.

  Carole ran her finger along the silver cheek. “Blossom, have you no shame?”

  The cat turned her head, closed her eyes, and purred.

  “How was Freddie Fowler today?”

  “A pompous ass, as usual. Did you survive your meeting or did Olive stay away?”

  “She was there all right. She went into a tirade about how I’m leading the group and leaders are elitist and I shouldn’t do so much work. Hardly anyone listens to her any more but she’s shrewd enough to single out the issues that sidetrack people. So we spent the whole fucking meeting discussing whether I was a leader or not and what did that mean. There’s a thin line between collectivity and chaos, you know, and people like Olive are always stepping over it.”

  “From an outsider’s point of view, a political group without leadership is committing suicide.”

  “A year ago I wouldn’t have agreed with you but now I’m beginning to see not all people define responsibility the same way and things don’t get done unless a few people take up the slack, sort of pick up what the others have left behind. Does that make sense to you?”

  “Sure it makes sense to me. But don’t you think leadership is more than completing projects? I like to think of it as a vision, or as a talent. Some people sing and some people don’t. So some people have a political talent and some don’t. I don’t know how you tolerate people who try to tear you down when you’re working for them, for all of us, really.”

  “That’s what hurts the most. I expect men to treat me like shit but I sure as hell never expected it from other women.” Carole started to say something but Ilse quickly added, “But I know why they do it. It’s woman-hatred, you know? I mean they hate themselves so much they couldn’t possibly respect another woman. Equality for those people means every other woman has to be as miserable as she is. Scares me, really fucking scares me. Here I am working my ass off and I’m not running the group or giving orders and this woman calls me an elitist. And even if everyone else by now knows she’s vicious there are lots of others like her in the world.”

  “How people misuse your work isn’t your responsibility, Ilse. No matter what you do someone can always twist it and use it against you. The hell with them. Keep doing what you can do.”

  “Yeah, but it hurts.”

  “Where did you ever get the idea things were going to be easy? Maybe what hurts is that people don’t like you. Like I said, the hell with them. You can’t live for other people. Look at what messes they make of their lives. You’d allow opinion to sway you? Never.”

  “But the whole point of the movement is to make women responsible to each other, to put each other first instead of giving our energies to men. I can’t disregard other women like that.”

  “Until you put yourself first you’re a liar. You’ll try to get your way under the table without being aware of it and that will really destroy your women’s movement. If all you people would sit down and figure out what you need in your lives, you’d probably find you have a real basis for bonding. Idealism isn’t going to get you anywhere. You hear me?”

  “Carole, you sounded so Southern then. Where’d that accent come from?”

  “Did I? A remnant of my childhood, I guess. Sometimes when something’s close to the bone I fall into it.”

  “But why did you change the way you talk?”

  “You try living in the North with a Southern accent and see how far you get. People make incredible assumptions about you.”

  “You just contradicted yourself. You know that? You got finished telling me not to be influenced by other people’s opinions and here you changed something yourself.”

  “Goddammit, don’t nit-pick. I was eighteen years old when I migrated up here to go to Vassar. I didn’t know as much then and I was influenced. I wouldn’t do it today but I’d like you to know for your information, that Yankees, once they hear a drawl, no longer take seriously anything the person says. Hell’s fire.”

  “You know, that’s one of the few things you’ve ever told me about yourself, about your past. Tell me other things.”

  “I was born November 28, 1932, just outside of Winchester, Virginia.”

  “I thought you were raised in Richmond.”

  “I was but the family had gone up to my grandmother’s farm for Thanksgiving and Mother wanted to be with her mother when she had me. I spent all my summers there until I went to college, then I worked in the summers and hated every minute of it.”

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “I have a brother, living, and a sister who died in 1958.”

  “More. I want to know when you came out. We’re just getting to the good parts.”

  “Muffy Cadwalder. God, I haven’t thought of her in years. Muffy and I were in the same class at Vassar. We both lived in Jewett.”

  “I was in Cushing,” Ilse interrupted.

  “There isn’t much to tell about my flaming romance with Muffy … except that I fell in love with her in the hospital.”

  “Were you sick?” Ilse had her legs crossed and was all interest.

  “No. Muff had a slip up. She was quite pregnant. In those days that was a fate worse than death, my dear, to be unmarried and pregnant. She came from a wealthy Chicago family and they had connections, obviously. She was also lucky enough to have an understanding mother who arranged the whole thing. Muff was terrified and asked me to go home with her for the weekend. She paid my way. Her mother and I stood out in the hallway and after the anesthetic they wheeled her down the hall into the operating room. As she rolled by she was singing at the top of her lungs: ‘He was my man but he done me wrong.’ At that precise moment I knew I was in love with fertile Muffy Cadwalder.”

  “Will you get to how you got her in bed!”

  “Oh. Well, we went back to school together and the friendship stayed nonphysical for the next month but Muff and I were inseparable. I suppose since I knew her darkest secret she felt that much closer to me. ‘Frankenstein’ was playing on campus, the old thirties’ version, and we went to see it. After that she said she was afraid to sleep alone and could she sleep with me. There we were side by side in those damn little beds. I couldn’t move. I lay there barely breathing, my heart pounding. I felt like all those old terrible cliches. So Muffy turns over to me on her side and starts talking about what dear friends we were and how she loved me. I kissed her. That may have been the bravest moment of my entire life.”

  “What’d she do?”

  “She kissed me back.”

  “You are so difficult. What did you do then? I mean did you go down on her or inside of her or what?”

  “Ilse! No, I didn’t do any of those things our first time out. Neither of us was too certain of the mechanics of all this so we fumbled around a lot but it was a beginning.”

  “What broke you up?”

  “After graduation I went to graduate school and she went off to Europe dressed in all the latest fashions, naturally.”

  “You always leave out your emotions. How did you feel?”

  “Did it ever occur to you that someone may not want to wear her heart on her sleeve? My emotions and my emotional development are my business. I’m not sure you understand that. Your generation has been hopelessly corrupted by psychology.”

  “What are you getting so defensive for?”

  “See: defensive. What kind of word is that? Are we at a football game?”

  “All right.
Obstinate. Reserved. Aloof? How’s that? So now tell me. That was some twenty-five years ago.”

  “Jesus, but you’re persistent. My work was more important to me than playing house with Muffy Cadwalder. Yes, I was depressed but I never seriously thought I’d settle down with Muffy or marry her or whatever the hell you want to call it. I loved her but I wasn’t ready to alter my life for her.”

  “What do you mean when you say ‘settle down’ or ‘marry?’ ”

  “I knew that was coming. I mean make a life together.”

  “And be monogamous?” Ilse’s eyebrows almost touched her scalp.

  “It was 1951. Everybody was monogamous. We didn’t know anything else existed.”

  “Are you monogamous now?”

  “What is this, twenty questions? I haven’t thought about it. I suspect in my heart of hearts, to coin a phrase, I’m monogamous but that’s me. Someone else is another way and don’t try to get me off on a discussion of the politics of monogamy.”

  Ilse giggled. “Okay, okay, monogamy isn’t exactly a burning issue to me, really. A lot of people get excited about it though.” She raised her hand after a pause. Carole broke out laughing and put it down.

  “Teacher,” Ilse asked, “one more question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “The piano player.”

  “Two of you,” Carole threw up her hands in mock resignation. “Now you’re getting as bad as Adele.”

  “That’s my question. When did you meet Adele?”

  “Graduate school. We were the only women there and we used to go out for coffee to talk. I knew it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship when she told me about her Catholic girlhood. Her huge rebellion was to call the Blessed Mother, Divurgent Mary. I was a Catholic too and my big moment was to whip through my beads mumbling, ‘Hail Mary full of grace slipped on the floor and fell flat on her face.’ We’ve been dear friends ever since.”

  “Adele’s a Catholic?”

  “Was. Why, did you think she was a Baptist or a Holy Roller?”