Jacqueline eased so close her breath felt soft against Molly’s cheek. She’d mentioned that woman again. Who was she and what had happened between them?
“I sure didn’t need to meet you right now, Molly. Or do you want me to call you Marguerite? I have to resolve my situation with Eric and decide what to do with the rest of my life. I can’t stay here and moon over you. I don’t get to see you nearly enough, and I have to grit my teeth when I think about you sleeping with your husband.”
Taking a huge breath, Jacqueline looked so serious, as if she were about to plunge underwater. “I love you, Molly, like a man loves a woman. And I’m going crazy because I can’t be with you like that.”
Slowly, Jacqueline lowered her lips to Molly’s. At first, they felt like a snowflake, a butterfly’s wing. Jacqueline’s cheek touched hers. Where was the sandpaper, the prickly pear she’d come to associate with a kiss? The suede brush? The pine needles? Jacqueline’s cheek felt as soft as a downy chick, newly picked cotton, a fuzzy peach.
Gradually the kiss grew harder, warmer, and she tasted the sweetness of chocolate pie, whipped cream, strawberries.
Breathless wonder shot through her. The kiss swept her up like the melody of her favorite piece of music. Rising from one octave to another, she soared on the beauty of the tune, lost in its sweep until her senses became one and she couldn’t distinguish hearing from touch or taste or smell or sight. Beneath it all, the bass remained steady, like the beating of their hearts.
Jaq became her world, and the other life seemed far away, as mundane as a milk stool. Molly had become Marguerite, and Jacqueline was Jaq, and whoever she was now wished this moment would never end.
Strength blazed through her. She was a woman. But how could another woman, not a man, make her feel like this for the first time in her life?
She needed to think, wanted to respond—
“Miss Molly, it’s time for the singing!”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Mrs. Russell wasn’t the least bit surprised when the preacher hollered, “Miss Molly, it’s time for the singing! Miss Molly!”
Now where had she got herself off to? Patrick said she’d walked down to the spring with Jacqueline. What were those two cooking up?
They talked every day on the telephone and as long as they could after Sunday school. Then they visited practically all day during her Wednesday meetings. They thought she didn’t know, but she knew everything around here. Looked like they’d have talked themselves out a long time ago. How much could a body say to another one? They’d be a lot better off if they did something useful instead of moving their mouths all the time.
“Ma, have you seen Miss Molly?”
James looked a mite embarrassed that he’d let his wife stray and now everybody recognized it. He’d wasted his time standing over there under the shade trees cussing and discussing with the politicians about the Lord knows what, and speaking real secretive-like with a greasy-looking city slicker.
Probably had another get-rich-quick scheme up his sleeve. He was so gullible a six-year-old could fool him, but he never learned. If Molly doesn’t sweet-talk him into leaving me and the farm, he’ll hang on my coattails until the day I die, and then heaven help him. He’ll be lost as a goose.
Never mind, here came Molly, huffing and puffing. Musta been down at the spring. “Everybody’s waiting for you. They’re ready to start the singing.”
She looked like she was about to have a sunstroke, the silly thing, running so fast in July.
*
Molly was breathing hard, and not only because of the steep climb up the hill. Jaq had talked about things she could barely imagine—someone having an affair with a real king, going to a séance. None of the women she knew or the ones in her family she’d heard stories about had done anything nearly as interesting as the ones Jaq described. Maybe women could do something besides marry and have children. Perhaps she wasn’t so strange after all, with her dream of putting music before raising a family.
But Jaq said she’d loved a woman during the War. She also knew a woman in New Orleans but intended to be alone the rest of her life. All the same, Jaq said she couldn’t stand to think of her sleeping with Mr. James.
She wasn’t thinking just about them sleeping in the same bed, but about the times they felt of each other in the private way. That word again—sex. She could barely say it and didn’t think about it very often. Respectable people didn’t mention it, but perhaps the word somehow applied to her strange feelings about Jaq. Like when she’d replaced her bandage, or made pie crust or bread. She’d never throbbed that way before, as if something was tickling the bottom of her stomach, not in bed with Mr. James or even the summer before they married. Jaq certainly didn’t need to worry about that.
Most of the time, she fell asleep as soon as her head sank into the feather pillow. Mr. James got an itch occasionally, but she hardly had time to respond. In and out. She supposed some people might call that sex, but she referred to it as having relations and thought it was overrated.
When Mr. James had courted her, she’d felt a little tingle once or twice when he took her hand in his large freckled one and rubbed it gently against his jowl. And the times he kissed her before they married, she’d flushed all over, excited that she might soon finally solve one of life’s great mysteries—what it was like to be with a man physically—and her heart had raced.
But their bedroom was right next to Mother Russell’s, which probably accounted for Mr. James not being as demonstrative after they married as he had been before.
Now she usually lay awake after he started snoring and wondered if this was all there was to it. If so, the girls who whispered about it back in college certainly didn’t know what they were talking about. She guessed it could be so much more, but she would never know what that more consisted of. When she had relations with Mr. James, she never had the same feelings she had for Jaq. But her body had betrayed her by making her think she should marry him, and look where that got her. Sex was okay, but not nearly enough reason to live on a farm. She couldn’t afford to let herself get carried away with Jaq.
Exactly what did Jaq mean about being an invert? Molly sat down at the piano and played the first hymn automatically. In college, the two women teachers she respected so much seemed to be the happiest couple imaginable. No one ever mentioned the word invert that upset Jaq so much. They all simply envied their teachers and accepted them as two loving women who seemed to fulfill each other’s every need.
Everyone knew they loved each other, and even that they slept in the same bed. Some people whispered they might have done something similar to what married couples did, though they didn’t know any more about such things than she did. What their teachers did in private didn’t concern them much, probably because they were just two women.
Looking back, she had to admit that her feelings for the series of girls before she met Esther weren’t as innocent as she’d thought at the time. But back then everyone had a crush on one of the other girls. Smashes, they’d called them, and she had some powerful ones before she and Esther found each other. But her feelings for Jaq far overshadowed any she’d ever had for Esther.
When she married Mr. James, she’d believed those feelings for women would vanish: she would love her husband and her children, period. And that’s probably what Jaq meant about why she married Eric. Maybe she was simply more honest than Molly.
Evidently for some women those longings for other women never disappeared, and maybe they expressed them physically, which made their love for each other even richer and deeper.
Did Jaq think she might be one of those women too? With the way she’d been feeling around Jaq, she might be, but surely not. What would she do? Where would she go? How would she ever find anyplace to fit in?
Suddenly her lips prickled, and when she missed a note she glanced around to see if anyone had noticed.
Her lips were probably as crimson as a fancy woman’s. Why didn’t everybody s
tare at her and point? Then the light shone through one of the clear glass windows and illuminated the red canna lilies on the altar. What was wrong with what Jaq and she felt for each other?
She missed another note, but she didn’t care. She wanted to be in the clearing with Jaq so she could get to the bottom of all this. But maybe she should spend some time alone and let these confused longings sort themselves out. Then she and Jaq could have a nice long talk, and maybe she could understand what was happening.
*
Jaq trudged up the hill after the singing finally ended. Passing the spring, she thought about Molly for the hundredth time.
Bloody hell. She shouldn’t have lost control. She shouldn’t have told her so much. And she sure shouldn’t have kissed her. Molly probably thought she was horrible and would never speak to her again. But wouldn’t that be for the best?
Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut and her lips to herself? She’d probably just stirred Molly up. Damn. What good would that do? She would be leaving soon…and Molly would be staying. Period. They couldn’t do anything.
Better not telephone her for a while. Maybe she’ll forget what I said—and what I did.
But Molly wouldn’t forget a word. And she definitely wouldn’t forget their kiss.
Jaq wouldn’t either. It had flattened her like a Zeppelin raid.
*
The next Sunday afternoon, Molly and Patrick wandered down to the pond and stopped to pick some honeysuckle that covered the nearby bushes. She sucked the nectar from several of the tiny pink-and-white blooms, and Patrick said, “They sure are sweet, aren’t they? Almost like candy.” She thought they tasted like Jaq’s lips.
The pine trees in the forest near the pond, so dense its interior was almost black, barely moved in the soft breeze. She and Patrick lay down side by side on the mattress-thick pine straw under the trees that circled the pond and gazed up at them.
“Look at that mourning dove way up on that branch.” She pointed it out to him. He could already identify almost all the birds native to East Texas, especially blue jays, mockingbirds, and redbirds.
“Listen to that old crow cawing,” he said. “He’s sure upset about something. And look at those buzzards circling over there. Must be something dead. I like the way they float around. Wouldn’t it be fun to do that?”
“Did you know Miss Jacqueline’s husband, Mr. Eric, used to fly aeroplanes in the war overseas? I bet he could tell you all about floating around in the sky.”
“Wow. Can we go talk to him sometime?”
“I’m sure we can. He wasn’t feeling well when he got home, but I bet he’s better now. The next time I talk to Miss Jacqueline I’ll ask her about it.”
Suddenly, a squawking mockingbird dove down at one of their barn cats, who’d followed them. “It must have wandered too close to the bird’s nest,” she said. It kept diving at the poor cat, who tried to get away, and Patrick pointed at them and giggled.
“What if that bird was after you, son? How would you feel? The cat’s just trying to get away.”
“I wouldn’t like it, Mama. It’d hurt if it pecked me on the head. Why’s it acting like that?”
“It’s just protecting its babies, so I guess I’d do the same if something was sneaking around our house looking for you. But it needs to stop now and let the poor cat alone. It’s probably learned its lesson.”
Patrick looked thoughtful and Molly stayed silent to let him ponder their conversation. She wanted him to realize that life wasn’t black and white.
She was almost dozing when Patrick shook her arm. “What does that cloud look like, Mama?”
“A pig wearing a pink dress and high-heel shoes.”
He laughed. “It looks like an Easter egg with legs to me. Oh, goody. Here comes Pa.”
Mr. James ambled over and sat down between them.
“Will you tell me a story about the Trojan War, Pa? Please. You tell the best stories.”
Mr. James acted like he was thinking hard, then said, “Well, you know how brave Hector was, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir. He was the Trojans’ best, bravest warrior.”
“But when he was supposed to fight Achilles, what did he do?”
“He got scared and ran around the city three times, with Achilles right behind him.”
“And why did he finally stop and fight, son?”
“One of the gods disguised himself as his best friend, but then he disappeared when Hector needed him, and Achilles slaughtered him.”
Mr. James shook Patrick’s shoulder affectionately, with an expression of pride. “You know The Iliad as well as I do. You’ll have to start telling me stories about it and other books now. You’re not gonna have to quit school after the third grade, like I did.”
Molly shook her head. “Now, Mr. James. Why do you have to dwell on the war part of The Iliad? There’s a lot more to it than that. What about the way Hector’s wife and parents grieved when they learned that Achilles had killed their son? Patrick needs to realize that war brings more death and sorrow than pride and glory.”
“Ah, Mama. That’s woman talk. Pa and I need to know about fighting.”
But Mr. James laid one large hand on Patrick’s small one and wrapped his other arm around her waist. “You need to know about fighting, son, but you need to remember that war brings a heap of grief too. Look at how much sorrow it’s brought Mr. Eric. It takes a real man to suffer through that type of pain and come out on the other side even stronger. And I think Mr. Eric’s that kind of person. I want you to be like that too.”
She had to fight back a tear. What a good man she’d married. If only she could love him the same way she loved Jaq.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Molly didn’t visit or telephone Jaq for more than a month. She wanted to give herself time to get used to the new name—Jaq—and the strange feelings it aroused in her. Though she wasn’t nearly as exciting as the women Jaq had associated with overseas or in Washington or New Orleans, she was pretty sure Jaq really liked her. But what she’d said about being an invert still confused her.
Plus, she was scared. Their kiss had shown her in thirty seconds what Jaq’s thousands of words had tried to communicate. She might be more like Jaq than either of them suspected. And then what would she do? She craved to see Jaq, touch her. Would she be able to contain herself the next time they met, or would she take her in her arms and…?
Familiar things comforted her. Walking by the pond under the pines alone, she talked to the snapping turtle on the log about her longings. She discussed them with Nellie every morning and evening as she squeezed her warm, elastic tits and listened to the milk ping the sides of the bucket. She strolled through the rose garden and tried to inhale the essence of Jaq along with the fragrance of the roses.
When she finally stood on firm ground again, she cranked the handle on the telephone. Ethel’s Number, please sounded joyful. And when Jaq finally answered, she sounded joyful too. Molly bit her lip so she wouldn’t say anything unseemly for Ethel to hear.
“Molly! I wondered if you’d fallen down the well. It’s been too long.”
Jaq sounded glad to hear from her. Maybe she actually did like her. Or perhaps she was playing with her, kissing her to add excitement to her own life. Jaq probably didn’t even think about her when they were apart—considered her a naive countrywoman dying for attention from a woman of the world.
“I’ve been so busy. I’m sorry for not getting in touch sooner, but you know how it is.” There. She didn’t seem too eager to talk to Jaq—did she?
After they chatted, she asked, “Would you teach me how to drive your Model T? Mr. James and his brother Clyde tried to give me lessons, a few years after we got married, but I didn’t do very well. Maybe you could be a little more patient—”
“Of course. That sounds fine. How about Wednesday at ten o’clock? And, Molly, I look forward to it.”
“So do I, Jaq, so do I.” There. She’d finally said the new name aloud
. Did Jaq mean what she said? Could she trust her? What about the woman back in New Orleans?
She finally forced herself to quit doubting Jaq’s words. Afterward, she felt like she’d played a Chopin mazurka with the same passion Chopin must have experienced when he composed it. She danced down the hall and back into the kitchen. She was going to see Jaq again. And Jaq said she was looking forward to seeing her. Jaq didn’t sound angry or indifferent that she hadn’t called in so long. She really did sound like she wanted to see her and teach her to drive. Molly couldn’t wait.
*
“Humph. Wonder what’s going on now, Miss Biddy?” Mrs. Russell slid her hand under her favorite black-and-white speckled laying hen and felt for eggs. The straw nest was like an oven. “You need to get busy if you plan to best the record that hen up in Oklahoma set a few years ago. Three hundred eggs in one year! Great Scott. Didn’t that beat the band?”
She deposited two eggs into her basket and strolled to the next nest. “And you, Mrs. Dandy. You’ve been slacking off too. Best get to work. You’re beginning to remind me of Molly, and you don’t want that, do you? She’s been moping around for ever so long, her mind somewhere else. Never knew her to be moody, but lately she’s downright testy at times. Must have more starch in her backbone than I gave her credit for.”
*
Two minutes till ten.
Eric had showed Jaq a letter this morning from a fellow stationed on board the receiving ship at Commonwealth Pier in Boston.
Ten o’clock. Why the dickens wasn’t Molly here yet?
He said a bunch of sailors had come down with the usual symptoms of the flu. But it was so bad some of the guys had to transfer from sickbay to the Chelsea Naval Hospital.
The Storm Page 19
