Odd Girl

by Artemis Smith

  "The Oval?" Anne was puzzled. "What's so special about it?"

  Jacques flipped. "Don't you notice?" It was amusing to watch him. He took pride in being effeminate and the whole cast was used to it.

  "No, seriously," Anne said. "Is that a queer place too?"

  "For butches," he nodded. "Strictly rough trade." He sat back and looked at her. "You've changed. What's happened to you? Why the sudden move?"

  Anne paused for a moment, fingering her beer can, then looked directly at him. "Can I be frank with you?"

  He nodded, returning her glance and leaned forward.

  "I had to move," she continued, "because I think— somehow I know—that I'm queer." She looked at him and waited. He paused for a moment then laughed heartily.

  "Welcome to the club."

  Now they both laughed, Anne embarrassedly, but relieved. She sat nearer to him and said, "Tell me more about the Oval. Do girls really go there?"

  "Mostly drag," he nodded.

  "Drag?" she had often wanted to ask what he meant by that. The rest of the cast seemed to know.

  "With men's clothes on. You know—tough," he said.

  Anne smiled. "Now I know another word."

  They both felt that they were friends and Jacques spoke more freely of himself. He was in love with a boy named Gene who would have nothing to do with him. Jacques chased him from one bar to the next and made good friends along the way. Then he spoke of other things, news of-the cast and how Anne had been missed at rehearsals and how her replacement was just a dog. And then there was a long silence again and Anne spoke slowly. "Do you know of better places than the Oval?"

  He shook his head. "I'm the wrong one to ask—brave the joint some night and ask one of the waitresses."

  "Thanks," she said, "I guess I'll work up the courage one of these days."

  When he was gone she looked out of her window for a while, toward the Oval, trying to make out in the dark whether the figures entering were men or women.

  * * *

  "Hi, there!" Beth came first up the stairs and took both Anne's hands and looked at her. "You look wonderful." Mark, coming behind her, looked approvingly up and down and said, "What's your tonic?"

  "Freedom," Anne said. "Come on in." Indeed, she felt free. Her talk with Jacques the day before had given her new assurance and she had prepared for their visit with great calm—a new sensation for her; she was usually paralyzed with expectation.

  "This is a wonderful place, Anne," Beth said. She seemed more excited than usual—Anne wondered if Mark had told her about them. She was making a great effort to be friends.

  "Just a sublet," Anne said, then took their coats.

  "Only a block from the theater," Mark noticed. "It's tailor made. Gosh, Anne, I hope you're coming back."

  "No," she said, "I don't want to act anymore."

  "Hey, that's a shame." Beth went to her, took her hands again and squeezed them tightly. "You've got real talent."

  "I'm sorry," Anne said. She avoided looking at Beth's face. "Can I pour you drinks?"

  They nodded and went to sit on the day couch, but on opposite sides instead of closely. Anne felt Beth knew about Mark. She behaved as if she knew and had decided to leave Mark for her—as if Anne were in greater need of him. How awful, Anne thought, I don't want him. How can I tell her this? And how can I convince Mark?

  She brought their drinks and they chatted and Beth laughed more than usual. Her composure was tarnished at the edges, Anne thought. She also drank four martinis within the allotted hour of their stay and when she got up to straighten her skirt and say "Well, let's go," she was wobbling slightly.

  "Come back soon." Impulsively Anne took her hands and looked deeply into her eyes. Beth looked away and said, "Thanks."

  Mark brought their coats and there was nothing more for Anne to say except the usual goodbyes. Mark gave her a meaningful glance as they left.

  Now the door was shut and Anne was alone and she felt a dreadful tearing in her stomach and she knew the reaction had finally come. Beth still attracted her, despite Mark and the talk with Jacques, and even despite Beth.

  There could be no relief. She would lie in bed all night with her eyes fixed on the ceiling, picturing Beth, in the way she had dreamed in adolescence, of arms and thighs locking in long embraces. There could be no relief.

  The phone's ringing startled her from her reverie. She knew it was Mark.

  "It's late to call, Mark," she said.

  "When can I see you?" he insisted.

  "I don't want to hurt Beth," she said.

  "Beth and I are through," he said emphatically.

  "I don't want you, Mark," she sighed.

  "I want to see you," he said. "Be right over."

  Before she could answer him he had hung up, and in a matter of minutes he was in the apartment. She tried to explain, though she knew it was futile.

  "Look, just because you satisfy me doesn't mean you satisfy me." This was a riddle to him. "Mark, when a man craves mushrooms and you fill him up with steak until he can't eat another bite, he might still crave mushrooms."

  He laughed. "I'll be glad to serve your steak with mushrooms anytime." And then he grew more serious and held her tightly so that her arms felt bruised. "Anne, I can do anything and everything a Lesbian can—and better."

  "You don't understand." She pushed him away. "It has nothing to do with doing; it's being. Your stunts don't impress me at all." A memory would quickly flash of lying on his bare, hard chest and finding it alien, of pawing at his chest and trying to make it full and soft and hearing him laugh, "What the hell are you doing?" And when he held her she was made sick by the odor of his flesh and the taste of his mouth.

  He left soon, without understanding, and as the weeks went by he made himself convenient. He was fun to drive with and swim with and to have around her at parties, and his body became a habit with her so that she would ask for him. But she felt only half there when she was with him and nothing could keep her mind from wandering to Beth. But Beth herself was gone. Mark no longer spoke of her and Anne did not mention her. She had gone on the road with a musical and had sent one post card.

  "When are we getting married?" Mark said one night.

  "Not ever, Mark," she said.

  "I want the wedding in June," he said.

  "I don't want to marry you, Mark," she repeated.

  "You'll marry me if I have to make you pregnant," he said.

  He assumed they were engaged and for the benefit of her parents she played the game with him, but she insisted it was a game.

  And then one evening, when the party was especially wild, they both drank heavily—Anne to escape Mark, and Mark to have fun. And after six martinis Mark proposed again and Anne thought, What the hell, and said yes.

  He pulled her right up then and made her say good night and took her to the car and they drove through the night to Maryland and woke up a Justice of the Peace.

  * * *

  When she woke the next morning she remembered and thought, What have I done?

  Mark lay next to her in a sweat, wrapped and knotted in the sheets, groaning as he did with a hangover. She looked around. It was a motel room. She knew that what she remembered was true.

  Her head hurt. She rose and went to the bathroom and wet the two face cloths and put one on his head and one on hers and then waited for him to wake up.

  When he was awake enough to talk she said, "Mark, I want a divorce."

  He looked at her, "Now wait a minute. So we were high. That doesn't change things."

  "I don't want to be married to you, Mark." She was firm and controlling impatience.

  He sat up more and put the wash cloth down. "Look, you don't make sense. You've been perfectly happy being a mistress. Does being a wife change things?"

  "You'll never understand." She rose and paced back and forth, "There's no way I can explain it to you. You refuse to believe me."

  "Anne, stop this foolishness. Grow up." He rose and wen
t to her and took hold of her arms. "There's nothing wrong with you."

  "We're incompatible," she said.

  "Not sexually," he insisted.

  "Emotionally, mentally!" she said. Now she tried to push him away but he held her tightly.

  "Anne, I'm not going to let you go." He was impatient, treating her like a child.

  "I want a divorce, Mark," she said firmly. "If you refuse to give me one, I'll get a separation."

  "Stop being foolish." He held her tighter and tried to take her lips.

  "Mark, please—I don't want to be cruel. Look, I don't like the feel of your flesh, your kisses repel me, our minds don't jibe—I might as well be married to Lassie!"

  "Lassie be damned!" he said and squeezed her to him and forced her to take his mouth.

  "I don't want you," she tried to say, but he was too strong. He had a right to her body and she was helpless.

  They drove back to New York a short while later and Mark let her off at her door.

  "Start packing. You're moving in with me," he said.

  But when he drove off she called her attorney and he began separation proceedings for her.

  A week later, Mark received the summons and came to her apartment. "My God, Anne, why can't we talk this over?"

  "I tried, Mark, you wouldn't listen." She was quiet but near to tears. She could not bear another night with him and yet she felt that she must let him in, to try again to explain.

  "Anne, I'm going to fight this," he said. "There's something wrong with you. You're sick. I'm not going to let you go."

  "Do what you like," she said. "Nothing I say seems to matter to you." She buried her face in her hands and cried.

  He took a cigarette and went to the refrigerator and poured scotch for them and came back and put the glass in her hand. Then he stood by the window and waited and smoked;

  She wept quietly and then dried her tears and sipped the scotch. Everything was still. The television upstairs had been shut off and the hi-fi next door was silent. Then the telephone rang. Mark seemed to expect it and took the receiver.

  "Hi, Beth," he said. "Come on over."

  Anne raised her head. Beth was calling. Her show must have folded. She was back in town.

  A new strength surged through her. She was impatient with the four walls and with Mark. She wanted to take the telephone from him. How dare he go on speaking to her. Beth had called her!

  "Beth, you're the first to be told," Mark was saying. "Anne and I got married."

  "Give me that phone!" Anne suddenly knew rage. "How dare you!" She tried to take it from him but he held it high.

  "Come on over for a toast," he said. Then he hung up and looked at Anne. "She called me this morning and I told her to call us tonight." His face was hard and his mouth had a curve of meanness. "Anne, I'm going to spoil your dream."

  Anne gripped her glass, feeling helplessly weak. This was not the Mark she had once known. Without wanting to she had done something to his pride and now he was hitting back, through Beth. There was nothing for her to do but sit and wait in quiet rage.

  For nearly a half hour they drank in silence, and then the doorbell rang.

  "Answer it," Mark said.

  Anne sat. "It's your show," she said.

  He crushed his cigarette and rang the buzzer. Then Beth came up the stairs and he waited for her at the door.

  "Hi, kiddies," she said. She wore a bright smile. "Happy honeymoon and what's the idea of not telling me this afternoon?"

  "A surprise," Mark said and took her coat. His sullenness was cast off and he was being social. Anne sat quietly, seeing through his mask.

  "Anne," Beth turned to her, "you're pale. Are you sick?"

  "I'm fine, Beth," Anne said. Seeing Beth gave her new strength.

  Beth handed her a small package. "It's all I could find for a house warmer," she said.

  Anne took it gratefully and held it in her hand. Somehow it seemed a peace offering. Beth had forgiven her.

  "I'm so happy for the both of you, really I am," Beth continued. She squeezed Anne's hand warmly and Anne held the warmth in her palm. It gave her strength to blurt out quickly, "Thanks—but we're getting a divorce."

  Beth's smile disappeared and her face grew serious. "Oh no! What's happened?"

  Mark came in with drinks and spoke before Anne could. "She's got a fool notion about wanting to be free."

  "We got drunk one night, Beth," Anne blurted out, trying to make her understand. "It was an accident."

  "I don't get it." Beth shook her head, fumbling for a cigarette. "I thought you two were in love."

  "We are," Mark interrupted, "but Anne thinks she's—"

  "Mark, shut up!" Anne rose and shouted. "Don't you dare tell her!" She was full of anger and she gripped her glass ready to throw it. No one else had the right to tell Beth how she felt about her.

  "Tell me what?" Beth said.

  Mark shrugged. "We'd better forget it."

  Anne sat again and looked at her glass. She had tipped it in her anger and spilled her drink. She went to get another and then came to sit down.

  Mark had changed the subject and was asking Beth about the show.

  "It hasn't folded," Beth said. "As a matter of fact, I called you this morning to tell you there might be a part in it for you. We lost a few in the cast and we're back in New York for more rehearsals and replacements."

  "Thanks." Mark fingered his glass. Anne knew that at any other time he would have whooped with joy.

  "Please take it, Mark," Anne said.

  "I'm sorry." He shook his head. His jaw was determined and his eyes were stubborn. "I'm staying here." Then he changed again and refilled Beth's glass and said, "Tell us more about the show."

  Beth began a long soliloquy and they listened, laughing at her imitations of the stars at rehearsals and the gossip about the director's mistress and the two fairies in the men's chorus.

  Mark was getting high, determinedly and with a touch of meanness. Anne alone noticed it, because he was making Beth high with him, filling her glass and mixing her drinks. Beth always drank a lot and it was easy. With distaste, Anne saw the end of the night's game and wanted to leave; but it was her own apartment and she had nowhere else to go.

  Mark suddenly sat close to Beth and began to kiss her; she was too drunk to notice and responded instinctively. Then she remembered and brought up her hand to push him away. "What the hell are you doing, Mark?"

  "It's all right, Beth," Anne said, then took her coat and left.

  Outside, the clock on the tower said five of two. She walked through the chill air to the park and then decided it was not safe to sit on the benches at that hour. She counted her money. There was enough for a hotel room. The Oval was next to a hotel. She would go there, but first she would walk away her sadness.

  Mark had thought to prove something to her tonight, in a cruel way to hurt her, too. But she was beyond being hurt by him. She expected Beth to react normally to him—Anne had never hoped differently. He could never understand how her mind worked. She would never hope to attract a woman who was happy with men—that would have been equivalent to what Mark wanted to do with her.

  Somehow she hoped that Mark would rediscover Beth and that Beth would be pleased with him. But that too would not happen. Mark didn't want a woman who wanted him. That was too simple. He was determined to hold on to Anne just because she didn't want him. Ridding herself of Mark promised to be a messy business. She hoped that Beth would not be hurt in the fray.

  Her walking had led her back to the hotel and she stood outside of it, surveying the Oval and the people inside through the large windows. It was crowded and darkly lit and somehow she did not have the strength to brave it that night. Then a girl in men's clothes staggered out of the door and paused, stepped on her cigarette and looked at Anne blankly. A cold fear gripped Anne and she hurried into the hotel lobby, almost as if to escape.

  * * *

  She woke late in the morning and was grateful th
at it was Saturday and that she did not have to go to work. Daylight was filling the room, making it seem less dingy and moth eaten. The wild sounds of the night were gone and only the maid's vacuum cleaner was heard next door. She rose and put on her clothes and went outside to call her apartment from the telephone booth. There was no answer. Beth and Mark had left.

  With a feeling of freedom and happiness about the sunny morning she ran across the street and up the stairs to her door. It was such a relief not to have spent the night with Mark. It almost made up for the loss she felt over Beth. But in the apartment the gloom overtook her again. There were the empty glasses of last night and the full ashtrays, and the rumpled bed—suddenly she realized that all night she had burned with an intense jealousy and that now she hated Mark completely, because he had dared to take Beth, because Beth should belong to Anne, because Anne would not misuse Beth the way Mark had —as a tool to make someone jealous. She sat on the chair, not wanting to sit on the bed where they had lain, and cried. "Beth, Beth, no one loves you like I do!"

  Much later, the telephone rang.

  "Anne?" It was Beth's voice, searching and timid, not the sure voice that had always greeted her.

  Anne's heart swelled. There was so much she wanted to tell her.

  "I'm sorry about last night," Beth continued, "I was dead drunk—"

  "Beth, don't—" Anne found it hard not to cry. "It's all right, really it is."

  "What a horrid mess!" Beth did not listen to her. "How can you ever forgive me!"

  "Please don't, Beth—" Anne said. "Look, come on up now and we'll talk. I have so much to tell you, in my own words, not Mark's."

  "All right." Beth's voice was still timid, lost. "I'll grab a cab."

  Now Anne put down the receiver and changed to jeans. She marvelled at the calmness with which she gathered the glasses and emptied the ashtrays. She had begun to grow up, she decided. She was expecting Beth, in order to comfort her. This was a new experience. She was no longer the lost young kid who cried on Beth's shoulder. Now she felt strong and able to protect and to provide for someone weaker than herself.

  When Beth came, the apartment was clean and breakfast was almost ready to be served.

  "Hi!" Anne was cheerful as she took Beth's jacket, hoping to make her feel at ease.