Lucybelle smiled. “You’d think he could put on a suit and tie. I know he has one.”
“He loves being difficult.”
“That’s the truth.” She touched her friend’s forearm as she passed back out into the foyer to join the party.
Lucybelle read the book that night. Like Whisper Their Love, Bannon pulled a major switcheroo for the conclusion. The desperate girl, Laura, jilted by Beth for a man, suddenly develops a measure of self-respect as she’s leaving on the train. She not only stops begging for love, she declares herself openly queer and prepares for a life of loving women with dignity. From a literary point of view, Laura’s sudden self-respect is an unearned character inconsistency. As a subversive message to lesbian readers, it was kind of a neat trick. Laura didn’t get the girl, but she was going to get some girl, soon, at the end of her train ride.
The sender had to be Bader. He’d been extra itchy lately. His frustration with the Army’s other interests taking precedence over the ice cores made him more and more obstreperous in his demands for attention and additional funding. The scuttlebutt was that the Army was trying to get rid of him. Surely he was aware of the rumors, if not outright negotiating to save his position. She knew he’d commit murder if it advanced his ice cores. And yet, he could not shut his mouth. All week he’d been unable to contain a litany of jokes about the Russians. Lucybelle told him to curb himself, reminded him that his ice cores hung in the balance. That did shut him up, at least temporarily. It also left him without an outlet for his perverse sense of humor and unwieldy intensity. Who else would send these books? It had to be him.
Tuesday, September 22, 1959
The White Sox had a spectacular year, and on September 22 they were playing the Cleveland Indians, in Cleveland, to decide the American League pennant. Chicago was wildly excited and WGN was televising the matchup for the hometown fans.
It promised to be a hot night. Lucybelle was glad she’d gotten a haircut on Saturday. She put on a sleeveless white blouse and her sky-blue pedal pushers. She looked good and wished she were looking good for someone. Stella and Wanda had gotten a new RCA last year, and she bet they’d invited friends over to watch the game. Wanda didn’t even like baseball.
She needed a distraction. She looked out the window at her neighbors who were gathering with their coolers of beer on the slab of concrete that separated her building from the one next door. A television set, its electric cord plugged into a long extension that ran into a window on the ground level, sat blaring on a card table. A man with a crew cut fiddled with the antennae, looking for the best reception.
She knew better, but called Dorothy anyway.
“Come watch the game with me.”
“You know I don’t give a hoot about baseball.” A big smile filled her voice.
“Everyone within a hundred miles of Chicago is watching the game. You’d be culturally remiss not to participate.”
Dorothy laughed. “Let me see if Sally will look in on Mother. I’ll call you back.”
A half hour later, Dorothy arrived with a six-pack of cold beer. They put the beer in the refrigerator, next to the pitcher of gin and tonics that Lucybelle had mixed, and carried kitchen chairs downstairs to join her neighbors on the patio.
After her first gin and tonic, Dorothy started whispering humorous comments about Lucybelle’s neighbors, making fun of the way Mr. Worthington bobbed his head and Mrs. Worthington’s chignon pulled her face tight. The guy with the crew cut who manned the television set, endlessly adjusting the antennae and dials as if he could tune the Sox into playing their best game, threw his hands into the air after every significant play and made a strange whooping sound, which got them both laughing uncontrollably every time he did it. About the masculine teenaged girl who watched the game with her parents, Dorothy whispered—her voice becoming louder with a second gin and tonic—that she was “on her way to invert hell.”
“That’s enough,” Lucybelle said. The girl was young and her unwitting boyishness reminded her of Stella.
“Everyone is laser-beamed on the game,” Dorothy said. “They aren’t listening to me.”
“I’ll refill our glasses.”
“Oh, good! These are delicious. Beverly never allows more than two drinks.”
“Two and a half,” Lucybelle said, “if there’s something to celebrate.”
“Like a new chair.”
“Or the conquest of an ant infestation.”
It felt so good to laugh.
Dorothy’s commentary about the gathered neighbors became more pronounced with more alcohol, and eventually it was noticed by a redheaded fellow with one polio-withered leg and a sunny smile. He lifted his wooden chair by the back rails and set it down close to Dorothy’s. He said he liked the wild way she laughed, and Lucybelle realized that she too liked the wild way Dorothy laughed. He nodded at a pair of young lovers, holding hands and murmuring to one another, and then took Dorothy’s hand, meaning to imitate them as a joke.
“Oh, you!” Dorothy said, slapping him away, but flirtatiously. He introduced himself and Dorothy said, “I’m getting Roger a gin and tonic.” She turned and winked at him from the bottom of the stairwell.
When she returned, she handed him the frosty glass and scooted her chair away from his. “What are you afraid of ?” Roger asked, and Dorothy answered, “You!”
The false flirting annoyed Lucybelle, especially since by moving her chair away from Roger, Dorothy got herself right up against Lucybelle. It was too hot to sit thigh to thigh like this, but when she saw Mrs. Worthington note the leg contact, she chose not to move. She was tired of the hostile stares from that old couple. Anyway, maybe she kind of enjoyed the way Dorothy poked her with an elbow every time someone said or did something funny. They were both getting bombed and the White Sox were winning. Stella could go to hell.
She held the rail as she went upstairs to make another pitcher of gin and tonics. She closed her apartment door and leaned her spine against the wood, just as she had done the first time with Stella. A chorus coming from radios and televisions all over the neighborhood entered through the open window and crowded the room. The sounds of baseball had been the music of their eroticism, and now the sweat on her own skin reminded her of Stella’s touch. The way her mouth moved. The way Lucybelle had discovered her own soul, parts of herself she hadn’t even known existed until she had Stella inside her. The way they found that making love and telling the truth were the same thing. Were they reckless or honest? How could anyone possibly know the difference?
“You’re drunk,” she told herself. She went to the kitchen and gulped right from the pitcher, finishing off the watery gin and tonics. She mixed a fresh pitcher and carried it back downstairs, where she refilled Dorothy and Roger’s glasses. Roger appeared puffed up, confident that something would happen between himself and Dorothy.
When he got up for the seventh inning stretch to go smoke with some of the men on the far side of the concrete slab, Dorothy said, “Phew. I was getting tired of him.”
“It’d be difficult for him to know that by the way you’re flirting.”
Dorothy’s whole face wiggled, as if her ongoing attempts at containment were failing and her joie de vivre was about to burst out of her features. “Did you know that your Arkansas comes out when you’re drunk? You sound real southern.”
Phyllis had called it her hillbilly accent.
“Me, drunk? Look who’s talking.”
“Thank god,” Dorothy said. “For this scene, I need to be.”
Lucybelle lowered her voice. “What: baseball or my neighbors?”
“Both.”
She smiled. It was hard to be miffed at Dorothy.
“I’m just joking. Hey, can I tell you something?”
“About what?”
“What do you mean, about what? Are there any out-of-bounds topics?”
“That depends.”
“Seriously, you and I know a few things that pretty much no one else in the
world knows. Well, Bader and a few high-ups, notwithstanding.”
“Notwithstanding,” Lucybelle said, trying to stay jocular, but she felt disappointed. Those secrets. She was tired of them. A swarm of flies buzzed around the collection of empty beer bottles. The air stunk, hot and fermented.
“I mean, don’t you think it’s magnificent?” Dorothy said. “A whole city under the ice and no one knows it’s there?”
Lucybelle glanced around. All her neighbors were a few sheets to the wind. Mr. Worthington was pouring beer into a bowl for the basset hound that lay panting on the pavement. The butch teenager and her parents gnawed intently on cold pieces of chicken. The young lovers, sitting a few feet behind the Worthingtons, were making out. Roger still posed with the men across the way, watching Dorothy as he smoked.
“Don’t worry. No one’s listening.” Dorothy nudged her with a knee. “I like secrets. They’re kind of sexy, don’t you think?”
“I should go check on L’Forte.”
“Admit that it’s fun sharing classified information.”
“Actually, those secrets make our lives rather radioactive.” In April Congress had funded a new lab and it was being built in New Hampshire. SIPRE would merge with the Cold Regions Resources and Engineering Laboratory, known as CRREL and pronounced like the tiny shrimp, krill. Even if she wanted to leave her job, stay here in Chicago, or maybe return to New York, could she? They’d want to bury her, at least metaphorically, where she could not, would not, leak. It was as if she herself were being swallowed by the ice in Greenland.
“Oh, pooh. Don’t be so serious!” Dorothy slurped up an ice cube and sucked on it, her eyes dancing, enjoying the merging of gin, classified information, flirtation.
“The ice cores are terrific, and we’re so close—”
“The ice cores!” Dorothy waved a dismissive hand through the air. “Who cares?”
The sweat chilled on Lucybelle’s skin, despite the heat. She cared. She cared a lot. She loved the patience and exactitude of scientific inquiry, the way tiny bits of data collected, over years, to tell huge stories, solve giant problems. But human beings weren’t patient. They weren’t exact. Most were motivated by fear. Project Iceworm—if it even existed, who knew, it was outside her purview, but people talked—would base newly designed Icemen ICBM missiles in a network of tunnels dug into the Greenland ice cap. The United States would be ready for the Russians, maybe make the first strike. Ice cores? Hauser said he heard one official actually say that a few popsicles would contribute nothing toward thwarting the communist threat.
If Bader lost this fight, if the missiles won out over the ice cores, then Lucybelle could be an accessory to what might amount to World War Three. She had edited the plans for Camp Century. The thought made her sick.
She could walk away. She could quit. They’d find a way to guarantee her silence, if she did. But that’s not why she stayed. She stayed because she was betting with Bader: she wanted to move toward knowledge, the hope of an enlightened future. They, and the other scientists at the lab, might be the only people who saw the glimmer of that hope, but if no one tried for it, how would we ever get there?
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said to Dorothy.
“Me neither!” Then Dorothy lowered her voice with exaggerated caution. “Actually, I want to tell you a different secret. You can’t tell anyone. Only Beverly and Ruthie know. You’d know too if you ever came on Friday nights anymore. You’re so busy all the time. I keep wondering what you’re doing that’s so important.”
The Worthingtons were lavishly praising the basset hound for lapping the beer, their voices loud and their attention wholly absorbed by the dog, and yet Dorothy finally spoke in a real whisper, her personal life apparently a much greater secret than national security. “I’ve started seeing Geneviève.”
“Dorothy, that’s . . .” Lucybelle got stuck on what word to use. She felt suddenly giddy, thanks to the combination of relief and gin and tonics, and it was all she could do to not laugh.
“Wonderful.” Dorothy filled in the appropriate word.
“Yes!”
“I know you already discarded her.”
“I didn’t discard her. We never started dating.”
Dorothy shrugged. “Beverly and Ruthie think it’s a good situation for me.”
She made it sound as if she’d become a governess for a widower’s children.
“I’m glad for you.”
“She has a very nice house.”
“Good.”
“She travels to Europe most summers. Later . . . when I don’t have so many responsibilities at home . . .”
Why doesn’t she just say it? When her mother dies.
“I’ll be able to accompany her. Assuming I can get the time off.”
“Of course you’ll be able to get the time off.”
“She doesn’t laugh much.”
“There’s no need to make lists of her possessions or personality traits. Just enjoy yourself.”
“Once she relaxes she’s a lot of fun.”
Lucybelle squeezed Dorothy’s hand. “This is great news. I’m happy for you.”
“It’s hard not telling her things, though. Like about Camp Century. Do you know what I mean? Don’t you feel tempted sometimes?”
“No,” Lucybelle said. “Not really.”
“She asks about my work, and I have to tell her I can’t talk.”
Lucybelle suspected Dorothy liked saying she couldn’t talk. “There’s plenty you can say. You’re a librarian for a research lab that studies the properties of ice.”
“The sex is better than you’d think.”
“Especially when you whisper state secrets to her.”
Dorothy batted her arm. “I do not! You’re making fun.” She leaned in and said, “Whoops. I think I said the word ‘sex’ too loud. Look at Butch Junior’s parents.”
“These are my neighbors,” Lucybelle said softly. “I have to live with them.”
“Sorry! I’ll be quieter. Anyway, she’s all buttoned up, but that just means when she unbuttons, there’s more to release.”
“That might be more than I need to know.”
“Oh, I know you’re not a prude.”
Lucybelle laughed. “You’re the one who panics at the sight of saucy book covers.”
Dorothy hooted so loudly everyone on the patio turned to look.
The guy with the crew cut put a finger to his lips. “Shh. The game is starting up again.” He cranked the television set’s volume.
Roger limped back and moved his chair closer to Dorothy. “Hello again, ladies.”
“You’d be surprised,” Dorothy whispered to Lucybelle. “All that ancient poetry stirs up the old girl.”
“Do you read it to her in bed?”
Another hoot, followed by another shush. “I would. But it doesn’t take that much. She spends all week reading it, so she’s primed by the time I get to her on the weekend.”
“How long have you been seeing her? I can’t believe you haven’t told me.”
“She’s really worried about exposure,” Dorothy whispered. “Losing her position at Vassar. I swore I wouldn’t talk to anyone but Beverly and Ruthie, so already I’ve gone against my word. I can’t hold it in, though.”
“I understand.”
“You do?” Her voice was gaining volume.
“Sure.”
“Are you seeing someone?”
“How about you?” Roger leaned forward to ask Dorothy.
“I can’t believe you’re eavesdropping on our conversation!” Dorothy said with mock exasperation. She winked at him again.
All of Lucybelle’s gathered neighbors groaned in loud unison and she felt laid bare, naked. The breath in her throat thickened, choked, as the entire city seemed to discharge a cacophony of shouting. Protests rang out from the open windows of nearby apartments and streets.
The game. It was just the game.
Roger filled them in. Until no
w the White Sox had held their four to two lead, but they were poised to lose everything. “Indians just loaded the bases. Only one out. Lopez put in relief pitcher Staley. Vic Power at bat. It’s all over for the White Sox.”
Television broadcaster Jack Brickhouse sounded as though he were announcing the death of a president, his words strangled as he reported on the about-to-be-dashed hopes of White Sox fans. “A crowd of over 54,000 people absolutely rooted to their seats, riveted to the edges of their seats at Cleveland. WGN Television.”
“No! ” Lucybelle suddenly, vehemently, wanted this win. It would make Stella’s whole year.
“Gee whiz,” Dorothy said. “It’s just a game.”
“Here we go!” Brickhouse announced. “Power has one for four, an infield single. There’s a groundball . . . Aparicio has it, steps on second, throws to first! The ballgame’s over! The White Sox are the champions of 1959! The forty-year wait has now ended! The White Sox have won it! The White Sox have won it! A double play by Luis! He grabbed the ball, he stepped on second, he fired to first, and pandemonium reigns in Chicago I know! Start those sirens! Blow those whistles!”
Roger reached into the nearest cooler and grabbed a beer. He shook it hard before peeling off the metal cap. The beer sprayed into the air, dousing Lucybelle and Dorothy. Everyone laughed and grabbed their own beers, shook and sprayed. The entire population of greater Chicago erupted in celebratory pandemonium. Car horns blared. People banged metal spoons on pans. Firecrackers exploded. Human voices roared beastlike across the cityscape. It was a long and joyous few minutes of pure jubilation.
Roger picked up Dorothy and began twirling, her legs, skirt, and hair flying. Only someone reading her lips would be able to know she was crying, “Put me down!” His bad leg gave way and he fell, both of them crashing to the cement, his hands grabbing onto Dorothy’s bottom even as blood burst from the cut on her cheek.
Lucybelle went for her friend but was stopped by a new sound rising up through the noise. A siren, starting low and escalating to a scream, followed by another and then another, tore through the hot night like the climax to everything.
A Thin Bright Line Page 21
