In Her Day

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Well, you never mention Adele’s Blackness. How come?

  “What’s to mention? All you have to do is look at her.”

  “Carole, that’s not what I mean and you know it. When you two became friends, white and Black women weren’t seen together.”

  “People probably thought she was my maid.” Carole roared.

  Ilse, at a complete loss because she couldn’t fathom how anyone could laugh about race, sputtered, “Be serious. You had to be aware that you were breaking a code.”

  “Who put a poker up your ass? Yes people would look at us sometimes and yes if we went to ‘The Half Note’ or ‘Jazz Gallery’ we’d have to call up ahead of time and tell them so they’d put us in a corner in the back. But we went with men. She’d go with Richard Benton, a Black fellow, and I’d go with David, whose last name I forget. Anyway, David was white. In those days you didn’t go anywhere without a man unless it was to a gay bar. And we dressed to kill. Bras with stays and underpants that came to the waist, panty girdles with clips. How did we move? And the shoes. Shoes changed every year. You could always tell the day trippers because they wore white shoes. When I think back on it, it was horrendous.”

  “You’re off the track.”

  “Adele in the old days. So we got some dirty looks. We’d have gotten a lot more if we’d been a woman and a man.”

  “Coming from the South and all weren’t you nervous about having a Black friend?”

  “Ilse, show me a Yankee who wouldn’t have been a little jumpy back then. Of course we knew we were crossing the line but we loved each other. I don’t know, we clicked. We’re meant to be best friends. BonBon would say we knew each other in another life. Hell. And we certainly never sat around and talked seriously about race.”

  “And you never went to bed with her?”

  “I told you before, no.”

  “Maybe you didn’t go to bed with her because she’s Black.”

  “If that’s the reason I never knew about it. I didn’t go to bed with her because she was going with someone when I met her. God, but you’re nosy.”

  “Yeah, but that marriage as you call it didn’t last forever.”

  “Adele gets into long things. She lived with a woman named Carmen for twelve years. Adele doesn’t fool around. By the time she broke up with Carmen I was with someone. Then when we broke up Adele was already with LaVerne. Besides, when you’re friends with someone for that long you don’t think of them that way.”

  “Not me. My friends are the people I sleep with.”

  “That’s you,” Carole said.

  “You never told me you lived with anyone.”

  “Ilse, I am not going into another long story from my past. When I was twenty-eight I settled down with a person I’d like to forget—Rebecca Delaney. We lived together for six years and then we separated. Actually, I shouldn’t say I’d like to forget her. One was as bad as the other there toward the end. Now roll over and go to sleep.”

  “Whose turn is it to be on the outside, yours or mine?”

  “I forget.”

  “Good, then you hold me.”

  Carole curled up behind her, put her left arm underneath Ilse’s pillow and dropped her right arm over her smooth side.

  “Does Freddie Fowler know you’re gay?”

  “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

  “Tell me then I promise, cross my heart and hope to die, that I’ll go to sleep.”

  “Those women who are anti-leadership are making a big mistake with you. You can wear down any opposition you’re so damned persistent. They ought to shove you right out in front.” Carole sighed. “Fred Fowler may very well know I’m gay but you can hardly think I’m going to sit down in his office and discuss it with him.”

  “We all have to come out so they know how many we are and how we are just real, you know. No one can be in the closet because it hurts all of us.”

  “We’ve been over this before. I’ve read the articles on the subject, I understand the logic of it, but what are you going to do with all the people who lose their jobs, especially the people with children?”

  “That’s the point. If we all come out we can’t lose our jobs; there are too many of us.”

  “Shut up and go to sleep. I have to teach tomorrow. Want me to walk into class with a lesbian purple star on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go to sleep. Anyway, I’m not dead yet. I might come out but I’ll do it when I’m good and goddamn ready. Good night!”

  “Night.”

  Rounding the corner onto Lexington Avenue, Adele stopped to get a hot dog from the Sabrett vendor. The orange and blue umbrella wavered every time a car went by but the man ignored them, jabbing at the hot dogs as though they were escaping eels.

  “Lots of mustard, please.”

  Armed with a bright yellow hot dog Adele spun through the doors to Bloomingdale’s and began the fight for the elevators. Whatever the hour the department store hosted two compatible, parasitic factions: upper East Side housewives and troops of faggots deeply devoted to gaudy consumerism. When Adele first moved to New York City, a polite, well bred young woman accustomed to decent manners, she found herself crushed in the crowds. Navigating Bloomie’s and its cruisy clientele then would have unraveled her to the breakdown point. Year after year of being pounded on the relentless anvil of the city taught the outwardly refined woman a survival lesson. Instead of weaving through shoppers saying, “Excuse me, please,” she thrust her dripping hot dog in front of her and said in her best Bronx accent, “Watch out, watch out, ya wanna get mustard all over ya?” People parted like the Red Sea. Brandishing her hot dog on the elevator insured no one would crowd into her and if they did it was their cleaning bill. The doors opened on LaVerne’s floor and Adele grandly stepped off oblivious to the raised eyebrows behind her. A small boy and his mother were waiting for the down elevator.

  “Here, kid, gorge yourself.”

  The mother snatched the hot dog out of her son’s hand, no doubt because Adele was Black; after all you never could tell if those people’s hands were clean. She stomped over to the ashtray between the elevators and dumped the hot dog in the sand amid the crushed cigarette butts. The boy, outraged, snatched it back, defiantly tearing off the end with his snarling little mouth. Adele could hear them bickering on her way back to LaVerne.

  Disrupting authority, any form of authority, was one of Adele’s delights. Being a wise woman she sped away from the scene of unrest she created. For some reason a picture of Ilse registered in her mind.

  I ought to give that woman a lesson. Ilse’s got to learn there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Adele laughed to herself. If you can’t beat ’em, cheat ’em.

  LaVerne was bending over to pick up her purse when Adele caught sight of her.

  “M-m-m, m-m-m, I’d know that ass anywhere.”

  LaVerne jumped up as though someone shot her. “Will you behave yourself? You want to get me fired from here, woman?”

  “I’d like to get you fired up.”

  “Come on, hot pants, let’s get out of here before it’s too late.” LaVerne seized her elbow then let go. “See, you make me forget where I am.”

  “Honey, I had such a good time with my hot dog today. When I got off the elevator I gave it to a little white boy standing there with his mother and did they start in on each other. She pulled it out of his hand and put it in the dirty old ashtray. He ran over and took it back. Kinda warms your heart, such a touching family scene.”

  “I’m beginning to think you don’t like children.”

  “That’s a terrible lie. I love children especially if they’re well done.”

  “Damn, all these years we’ve been together and I still don’t know what’s going to come flying out of your mouth. I bet you’re the only person in New York City who has to have her mouth inspected by the Sanitation Department.”

  Adele laughed. “Not me, darling, that honor belongs to Che Che LaWanga who rents a subway st
all from the transit authority.”

  “Che Che LaWanga?”

  “You never met the bread basket? A hot lunch for orphans, take off your pants, boys, Betsy Ross’s flag is flying.”

  “What on earth are you singing about?”

  “Hello Dolly. Che Che LaWanga was a drag queen stripper friend of BonBon’s and Creampuff’s. He used to have a glory hole down in the tubes. We’d sing that song to him every time we saw him.”

  “That’s disgusting. Men are perverse. Doesn’t matter if they’re straight or if they’re gay they are sick out of their minds when it comes to sex.”

  “What’s it to you? You’re not fucking any of them.”

  “That’s true. Any news from Bon?”

  “Carole heard from her today. Creampuff gave her a watch engraved, ‘I’m with you every second.’ They always celebrate the day they met. Don’t you love it?”

  “That’s almost as tacky as last year when she gave her an ankle bracelet inscribed ‘Heaven’s Above.’ ” LaVerne sighed. “To each his own.”

  “Her own, Ilse may be lurking about, her own,” Adele corrected.

  “Since you’re taking me out to dinner tonight, tell me where we’re going and then tell me what is going on with Carole and Ilse.”

  “Thought we’d go to Catch of the Sea. You feel like some sea food? We’ll be close to home and we can walk back.”

  “Ah, it’s so nice out let’s walk up to the place. It’ll take fifteen or twenty minutes depending on whether we get lost window shopping.”

  “I left my track shoes at home.”

  “Your feet bothering you? Come on then, we’ll take a cab,” urged LaVerne.

  “Nah, I don’t walk enough anyway. That’s how Carole keeps in great shape. She walks everywhere.”

  “She was a beautiful woman in her day. God knows, she’s still good to look at. When I saw those old pictures you have of the two of you in graduate school, well, she took my breath away. She looks like Carole Lombard.”

  “Yeah, but I got your heart.”

  “Adele, you got it all,” LaVerne laughed at her.

  A warm woman, LaVerne lacked the career drive of her lover and of Carole. She enjoyed her work and she worked hard. She possessed a flair for color, for clothes, for sensing trends, but she wasn’t involved in her work the way they were absorbed by what they did. She had no pretensions that what she did was useful but at least it wasn’t boring. Her own pleasing looks and diplomatic approach to the business guaranteed advancement. She knew she’d be moved upstairs probably this year and they’d flash her around to show they were an equal opportunity employer, and kill two birds with one stone, race and sex. But hell, she thought, it’s better than being left out. Besides, they’ll give me that long vacation so I can go with Dell to the Yucatan. LaVerne wasn’t the intellectual that Adele was but she was smart and she had a gift for living, a gift for opening herself up to people and the new ideas they brought with them. Adele loved that in her.

  “So, what’s happening with Carole?” LaVerne asked again.

  “She’s up because she finished her paper. The thing with Ilse stays about the same. They fence a lot.”

  “I guess that’s inevitable. Even if Ilse weren’t so heavy into the women’s movement the age gap is bound to produce tensions.”

  “I reminded her again of September twenty-ninth. It’s driving her crazy.”

  “You two are such know-it-alls. If one has a surprise the other one gets ulcers trying to figure it out. Actually, sometimes I think you’re twins, two peas in a pod.”

  “Honey, we’d have made medical history.” Adele paused and caught LaVerne by the sleeve. “Wait a sec, I want to look in this window. Aren’t those Folon prints unique?”

  “I like the colors and the strange people. Dell, you think Carole is riding for a fall?”

  They walked half a block before Adele answered. “I do but something tells me it’s going to be good for her. Pain isn’t always the enemy.”

  “That’s the beautiful truth. What is it that Carole says about lovers? You know, that famous line of hers?”

  “Oh, we betray ourselves by the lovers we choose.” Adele smiled at LaVerne. “That means we lucked out, my love.”

  “Even our fights are fun. I like to think we don’t actually fight, we creatively disagree.”

  “My dear.”

  “What do you think Ilse says about Carole?”

  “Carole’s a complex woman. It isn’t as though she can’t attract people, most anyone she wants, really, so there’s something in Ilse. I know they’re in flames every time they see one another but that can’t be all. I think it has something to do with Ilse’s forwardness. She’s bold and she challenges Carole all the time with those ideas of social change she’s got. I like Ilse even though she suffers from the arrogance of youth. She’s learned a lot from books. Now she’s got to humble herself and learn from people.”

  “Oh well, I was that way. I thought I knew everything at twenty-one.” LaVerne dropped her voice. “It’s a big jump from smart to motherwit.”

  “Amen.”

  “Honey, do you think Carole’s trying to recapture youth or something? She is more than twenty years older than Ilse.”

  “No, I really don’t. She knows she’s old enough to be her mother. But Carole doesn’t think that way. She never makes jokes about getting old or drags it into conversation. I think she’s one of the few people I know who’s made a graceful concession to the elements.”

  “Something I think I’d better do. I’m getting closer and closer to forty.”

  “LaVerne, you know I think all this age business is silliness. Can’t hold back the years and who wants to? What’s more boring than innocence? Anyway, the years aren’t as important as how you’ve used them. It’s like the parable about the talents. ‘Your years are your wealth.’ ”

  “Bible School. I had to memorize every one of those damn parables by heart. Let me tell you how I used to wish Jesus had been born deaf and dumb.”

  “The story that made a doubter out of me was the one where he’s up there feeding everyone from bits of fish and loaves of bread. Even at seven I knew that was an outright lie. If I’d told a story like that at home Momma would have slapped my face and here some nun is telling me it’s God’s honest truth,” Adele mused.

  “How’d we get on Jesus’s case anyway?”

  “I forget. Wait, you were moaning about getting gray and I said getting old is like the dude who left the three men money, remember, and the dumb man buries the money.”

  “That’s what I like about us, we never take the direct route. Now tell me more about Ilse. You didn’t finish that off.”

  “Oh. Well, I think Ilse is in some way connected to Carole’s background. Ilse comes from money as you know. Carole has always been fascinated and repelled by people who had it easy. Here is this Boston rich kid repudiating her own past and calling it a revolution. A potent combination for Ms. Hanratty.”

  “You come from money. I don’t sense any lurking hostility from Carole toward you.”

  “That’s because I’m Black. It’s a mark, a proof of injustice, of suffering. We’re equals in her eyes because I haven’t had it all given to me. Carole despises people who’ve had it handed to them and do nothing with it. She only respects people who work. I guess that includes working to remove the stigma of inherited wealth. She’s a strange combination of Spartan and aesthete.”

  “I never thought of her that way but now that you’ve said it I can see where someone like Ilse would draw her. Ilse’s got it all handed to her and she’s handing it all back. That takes a certain amount of courage.”

  “Yes and no. The reason why I could never get into the peace movement was because most of those folk wanted moral points for giving back the money, for bucking the system. They protested as much out of ego as out of ruffled justice. Don’t trust that. Besides, who’s to say they can’t go back and get the money if they change their mind, if the goi
ng turns ugly? You know that old biographical stage direction: Enter left. Exit right.”

  “You never did.”

  Startled, Adele hesitated. “I … no, I didn’t, but that was different. I wasn’t marching against the government—marching for civil rights. My daddy wanted me to be a lawyer like himself and I wanted to study art. I have to give credit to Dad. He paid my way through undergraduate school. When I left I didn’t take any more from him. That’s not exactly repudiating him. I went to graduate school on my own. Things were cool on the home front for years after that, but Dad hasn’t cut me out of his will or anything drastic.”

  “He’ll probably leave you only his law books out of spite, just wait.”

  “Hells bells, as Lester would say. And if he did I’d manage. Got this far on my own.”

  LaVerne announced, “And we got this far together. Are you hungry after all that exercise?”

  They took a table by the window in the white and blue restaurant. After the waitress brought them drinks Adele lifted her glass to LaVerne and whispered, “I love you.”

  Across the courtyard Lucia, in a mother earth mood, was baking fresh bread. The smell of it invaded Ilse’s small cottage. Vito chased a busy fly and Ilse was curled up in her bed reading Mao’s remarks on art at the Yenan conference. Mao continually surprised her. He was so practical. Carole’s insistence that art was the morning star of revolution prompted her to look at what others had to say on the subject. Initially she thought Carole was firing another flashy line but grudgingly she was losing some of her distrust of the beautiful.

  She had feared beauty, feared anyone consecrated by creativity. Mother forced the so-called fine arts down her throat until she thought she’d choke. At school she was expected to flutter over Beethoven or swoon at Renoir. She hated the whole thing. Gaining a feminist viewpoint taught her that art was nothing but an extended commercial for the rich. They celebrated their values or lack of them, their petty morality or latest conquest. And so she threw the baby out with the bathwater. She forgot about Mark Twain. She didn’t know about the artisans of the Middle Ages. She’d never even heard of Muriel Spark, Bertha Harris, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tillie Olsen, Barbara Deming, Maya Angelou, and all the other women fighting their way into recognition. She thought of art the way she thought of tennis. It was for the white and the rich. Worse than tennis it was almost all men.