A Thin Bright Line

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  But she was wrong. The pictures were a raw and naked revelation of Lucybelle. They literally captured her. More, they held Stella’s view of her as beautiful. Asking for them back would be like rescinding that afternoon, their short time together, everything. She wouldn’t do it.

  “Don’t underestimate Wanda,” Phyllis said knocking back the last of her third martini. “Anything could retrigger her ire. Those photographs could show up on your boss’s desk. Don’t smile. You think this is funny?”

  “I like to think of them showing up in someone’s attic a hundred years from now. I picture some girl finding them and wondering about their story.”

  “Stop it,” Phyllis said. She did look old. Worry lines creased the skin between her eyebrows. “Stop that dreamy stuff. You need to watch out for yourself.”

  Lucybelle nodded at the child asleep in Phyllis’s lap. “You giving me advice.”

  Phyllis sighed, petted her daughter’s curls, and said, “I still love you, you know.”

  “Baloney. Now you stop it.”

  “No. I won’t stop it. I’m not trying any funny stuff. Nothing like that. Fat old me? I’m quite happy with celibacy, seriously. I’m just saying that I admire you so much, the way you’ve always stayed above the fray.”

  “Celibate? Give me a break. You seemed to enjoy hearing the details of my sex life.”

  “Exactly. Hearing the details. I love a good story. But I’ve got Georgia now, and it’s all I can do to keep my own loose ends tied up. But you know what? When you and I were together, those were the very best years. We helped each other, didn’t we? It was like a real partnership. I miss you.”

  “I have to go to work tomorrow. I’ll get sheets and pillows for you and Georgia. You can sleep in the typewriter room if you want, but there’s only the floor. The couch might be comfier.”

  Lucybelle crawled into her own bed and then lay awake for hours, not worrying about her new houseguests, as she should have been doing, but instead about the photographs. Her choice—to ask for the prints and negatives back or not—was existentially impossible. She either erased herself, burned the evidence, let fear rot her from the inside out; or she risked exposure of her most precious possession, her fully eroticized authenticity, the documentation of her love. Which, if exposed, could erase her anyway.

  Friday, November 11, 1960

  “It’s like having a wife,” Lucybelle said. “She picks up my dry cleaning, makes dinner, even cleans the bathroom, which I have to say, I’d have never expected from Phyllis.”

  Beverly exaggerated her scowl, making sure Lucybelle didn’t miss it.

  “When will we have the opportunity to meet her?” Ruthie asked.

  “Are you sleeping with her?” Dorothy asked.

  “That is none of our business.” Beverly practically spit the words. She and Ruthie both looked at the golden-flecked brown carpet as they waited for the answer.

  “Of course not. You’ve asked me that about five times. You know I’m not.”

  “You can be cryptic at times.”

  “What are you referring to?” she asked, drilling her gaze into Dorothy’s.

  Dorothy laughed and blew her a kiss.

  Ruthie coughed, always the barometer of tension, and Beverly got up to get her a glass of water.

  “It’s just temporary. Until the alimony and child support checks start coming.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Dorothy said. “I bet Fred is in Paris by now.”

  “As if you know Fred,” Ruthie said. “You always have opinions about people and situations with which you have absolutely no familiarity.”

  “Lucy has told us plenty.”

  “I thought you said Lucy was cryptic.”

  “Thank you,” Lucybelle said, “for pointing out Dorothy’s contradictions. Look, Phyllis can be a pain in the neck, but I do have a spare room, and it’s temporary.” She didn’t mention how Phyllis had bought and set up a crib, hung all her dresses in Lucybelle’s closet, and made friends with the neighbors, including the Worthingtons, who still thought she was her sister. “And the child is fun.”

  “Fun,” Beverly said. “Which part, the noise or the mess?”

  Ruthie arched her eyebrows in agreement rather than scolding Beverly for rudeness.

  Lucybelle didn’t tell them how she liked coming home to the smell of roasting chicken, a companion for cocktails, and most of all, good hard laughs about everyone from the Worthingtons to these women in the room right now. With Phyllis, she could speak her uncensored mind and it felt ever so good.

  Ruthie made a show of girding her loins and said, “I think you should invite her for Thanksgiving.”

  Beverly shot Ruthie a sharp look.

  “Yes!” Dorothy clapped her hands.

  “But Geneviève is going to be here,” Beverly said, as if the woman herself were a classified document.

  “Exactly,” Ruthie said. “It’ll be a party.”

  The word party in Ruthie’s mouth sounded nearly scandalous.

  “The child too?” Beverly feigned—was she feigning?—a look of horror.

  “For god’s sake, Bev, what are you suggesting? That Phyllis leave the child home alone?”

  “There won’t be anyone for her to play with.”

  “We’ll take turns,” Dorothy said, clearly thrilled at the idea of meeting the actress who’d left Lucybelle for a fey man and then appeared, fat and worn for wear, four years later on her doorstep.

  “I don’t know,” Lucybelle said.

  “Yes, you do,” Beverly countered, acquiescing as she always did to Ruthie’s ideas. “You’ll come, all three of you.”

  And though the idea had been hers, Ruthie now began wheezing in earnest. Beverly couldn’t find the inhaler, which brought everyone to their feet, searching, until it was safely planted in Ruthie’s mouth.

  Dorothy, Lucybelle noticed, suppressed a grin through the whole episode.

  Thanksgiving Day 1960

  Dorothy gasped at the sight of Phyllis and then tried to pretend she was choking on a cracker.

  “Well, la-dee-da,” Beverly said, semiquietly, pretending to be speaking only to Ruthie.

  “What an interesting shade of . . . purple.” Ruthie spoke the color as if it were morally questionable.

  “Lucy told me I was overdressing,” Phyllis said, running her hands down the hips of her formfitting knit dress. She kicked out a foot to show her deep purple matching heels. “I was nervous.”

  “We don’t bite!” Dorothy called from the couch. “Come on in.”

  “I’m sorry we’re late,” Lucybelle said. Not only had Phyllis spent all morning trying on outfits—ignoring Lucybelle’s pleas to just wear a sweater and slacks like everyone else would be doing—she’d decided to touch up her hair. The truth was, she looked stunning, her black hair soft and glossy, the gray of her eyes velvety, and her cheek color high. She’d reached deeply into her bag of theatrical tricks and transformed herself from old, disappointed, and fat to elegant, fateful, and voluptuous. She’d decked out Georgia, as well, in a white dress covered with little pink roses, puffed short sleeves, and white lace trim.

  “Would you like a drink?” Ruthie asked.

  “Would I!”

  Dorothy pulled Georgia by the hand over to the breakfront to show her Ruthie’s collection of porcelain figurines. The three-year-old squealed with delight.

  “No touching,” Beverly said. “Those are Hummels.”

  Georgia reached up and smudged the glass with already sticky fingertips. Dorothy bent and whispered something to the child, and the two of them laughed together. “Let’s tell stories,” she said and sat Georgia on her lap on the couch.

  “You’re a natural,” Phyllis said sitting next to Dorothy. She took a generous sip from her cocktail and said, “Mm, good.”

  “Where’s Geneviève?” Lucybelle asked.

  “Late, as always,” Beverly said.

  “I’m glad we weren’t the only ones.” Phyllis gave Lucy
belle an I-told-you-so look.

  “Why didn’t she come with you?” Lucybelle asked Dorothy.

  “She’s staying at the motor lodge. It just makes more sense.”

  Even Beverly rolled her eyes.

  Lucybelle couldn’t hold her tongue. “You’re a few hundred miles from Poughkeepsie.”

  “She likes privacy. Besides, she has work to do this weekend. She thought she’d be able to get more done if she stayed at the motor lodge.”

  “She’s a delightful woman,” Ruthie said to Phyllis. “You’re going to love her. So erudite. So cultured.”

  “I should think so,” Phyllis said, “with those four e’s, and the third one with an accent grave.”

  “Phyllis,” Lucybelle said.

  “I agree entirely,” Dorothy said with a brave smile. “Geneviève has a responsibility to live up to all four e’s, and especially to the one with an accent grave.”

  Ruthie coughed.

  “Tell us about Broadway,” Dorothy said. “Have you met Rita Hayworth? How about Marilyn Monroe?”

  “I’m quite sure they’re both in Hollywood, not New York.” Beverly used her most caustic tone.

  A soft but assertive knock brought both Ruthie and Beverly to their feet. The minute Geneviève walked in the door, Lucybelle knew the matchup was going to be rousing. She and Phyllis even looked a bit alike, though on opposite ends of the glamour scale. Geneviève wore not a speck of makeup, a tweed skirt, and a tan blouse. She looked a bit like a raven with her black hair, narrow face, eyes bright and omnivorous. Lucybelle tried not to think of what Dorothy had told her about the professor’s sexual appetite.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late. I got to working this morning and lost all sense of time. ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself / can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.’ Milton.”

  “We’ve taught her to give us plebeians the sources,” Dorothy said. “Milton. The poet.”

  “Ah!” Phyllis openly assessed the new arrival.

  “You’re here now,” Beverly said, more interested in the schedule than literary references. “Drink?”

  “I’d love another,” Phyllis said.

  “Did the morning’s work go well?” Dorothy asked.

  “‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.’ Yeats.”

  “My center holds just fine, thank you,” Phyllis said.

  Lucybelle watched Phyllis working out what role she might play this afternoon and didn’t know whether to be relieved that Phyllis was finding a way to amuse herself or worried about the character she would decide to embody.

  “So you’re the actress,” Geneviève said. Even her posture was slanted forward like a raven, and her hands were like delicate claws, the fingers crooked and spread as she spoke. She appeared ready to peck.

  “And you’re the professor who . . .” Phyllis wore her naughtiest smile, oh she was playing this to the hilt, and if she said, “has a healthy libido,” Lucybelle would put her on the street tonight. “ . . . speaks in verse.”

  Rude, but not as bad as it could have been.

  “The turkey came out two hours ago,” Beverly announced. “It’s probably stone cold.”

  “My goodness,” Phyllis said, and Lucybelle knew she was annoyed that there wouldn’t be a proper cocktail hour.

  “The child!” Ruthie wheezed.

  Everyone turned to see Georgia on her tiptoes trying to reach the knobs that opened the glass doors of the breakfront.

  “Georgia!” Phyllis cried. “Come away from there.”

  “I want the little shepherdess,” she said, still reaching.

  “It’s my fault.” Dorothy scooped up the little girl. “I showed her the figurines and kindled her interest.”

  “Why don’t we all remove to the dining room,” Ruthie said.

  Phyllis leaned toward Lucybelle and whispered, “Remove?”

  Beverly poured small portions of wine into everyone’s glasses while Ruthie carried in the platters of brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, and the turkey. Beverly carved.

  “I want a drumstick!” Georgia said.

  “That’s a bit much for a little girl, isn’t it?” Beverly said.

  “Give the child a drumstick, for crying out loud,” Dorothy said. “Here honey. There’s lots of marshmallow on the sweet potatoes. You’ll love ’em. I do.”

  Georgia smiled adoringly at Dorothy. She then used her fingers to separate the marshmallow from the potatoes and ate the white stuff with her fingers. If Phyllis noticed, she didn’t reprimand the child. Nor did she say a word when Georgia used the giant turkey drumstick as an actual drumstick, pounding the table with it and singing out, “A-rump-a-dump-dump.” Everyone stared except for Phyllis, who reached for the wine bottle and refilled her glass. Dorothy wrested the meat from Georgia’s pudgy grasp.

  A horrendous silence, the most protracted one Lucybelle had ever endured in a social setting, ensued. The quiet was broken by the sound of Phyllis swallowing a healthy drink of wine. Lucybelle wished with all of her heart that she hadn’t succumbed to this invitation. The afternoon was well on its way to disaster.

  “So,” Phyllis broke the awful spell. “The wine is lovely. Thank you so much for including me and Georgia.”

  Beverly took a deep breath but didn’t speak. Ruthie murmured, “But of course.”

  Lucybelle saw the little hitch of insult cross Phyllis’s face, that moment when she decided she owed these boorish people nothing. “Poetry,” Phyllis said with an aggressive smile directed at Geneviève. “I’m a Walt Whitman kind of girl, myself. All that grassy sensual stuff. e.e. cummings is nice too. Simple and straightforward. You don’t get a headache trying to figure out his meaning.”

  Phyllis looked around the table. “Did everyone else see that? I think our poetess shuddered at my taste.”

  Geneviève looked genuinely abashed. She set down her fork with a brussels sprout speared on the end. “I guess I did shudder a bit. I didn’t mean to offend. I’m sorry.”

  Phyllis answered with a delighted laugh. “Not at all. I love your honesty. Thank you. So you like the really old poets. Lucy and I love Shakespeare ourselves. Don’t we, hon? ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.’ He nailed that one, didn’t he? Please pass the wine.”

  “Well, la-dee-da.”

  “Not just the old ones,” Geneviève said. “I’m quite fond of Elizabeth Bishop and Edna St. Vincent Millay.”

  “Ah!”

  “They’re family, you know,” Dorothy said, eyes shining.

  “They’re poets,” Geneviève said.

  “How about ‘a rose is a rose is a rose’?” Phyllis brandished her wineglass in mock professorship.

  “I loathe Gertrude Stein.” Geneviève’s narrow face and long nose looked fierce with her dislike. The intensity was rather appealing.

  “Ha!” Phyllis cried out, smiling quite sincerely at Geneviève. She raised her wineglass. “I shan’t mention her name again. To Milton, Yeats, Shakespeare, Bishop, and Millay!”

  With that Phyllis launched a refined and subtle flirtation with Geneviève, using impeccable timing with eye contact and body language to reel in her target. Geneviève appeared to understand the game instantly, in all its complexity, and resisted with equal skill, but also obvious enjoyment. The two of them orbited one another in mock derision, working and sweetening the tension. The flirtation was so surprising, and carried out with such reserve, that it seemed harmless, while still providing a much-needed structure to the afternoon. For a couple of hours, everyone had fun.

  Then, perhaps feeling threatened, Dorothy asked Phyllis a question to which they all already knew the answer. “So are you involved with anyone?”

  “That’s none of our business,” Beverly said.

  “I have no secrets. My marriage has ended. I’m just trying to make ends meet and take care of my little girl.”


  Ruthie nodded approvingly.

  That might have been that, but Geneviève threw out some more Yeats. “‘Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart.’”

  “Yeah, well,” Phyllis said. “‘Human kind / Cannot bear very much reality.’”

  That got the biggest smile Lucybelle had ever seen on Geneviève’s face. The professor had long since deduced that Phyllis wasn’t as un-schooled as she pretended, but that she could quote Eliot won her big points. Geneviève’s radiant delight reminded Lucybelle of her secondhand knowledge of the professor’s sex drive.

  “And yet,” Geneviève shot back, “‘Earth’s the right place for love.’”

  Phyllis laughed and clapped her hands. “I give up. You win. Who?”

  “Just Frost.”

  “Just Frost,” Lucybelle said, rolling her eyes.

  “Let me ask you a question.” Phyllis reached a hand across the table to gently tap Geneviève’s wrist. “Why all the poetry? I mean, in place of just talking?”

  “‘Life in itself / Is nothing, / An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. / It is not enough that yearly, down this hill / April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.’” She turned to Dorothy and said, “Millay.”

  “Babbling,” Phyllis said. “You’ve got a point.”

  The scream sounded a second before the crash. Then the ragged tinkle of breaking glass, followed by splitting wood. All five women ran into the living room, where the breakfront had fallen forward and broken across the chair placed in front of it. Georgia lay on the floor, next to the chair, covered in shards of glass, now screaming in earnest. The chair had kept the piece of furniture from falling directly onto her. Most of the porcelain figurines were spilled across the floor.

  “Darling!” Phyllis crouched next to Georgia and began picking the glass out of her curls, off her dress and tights, keening, “Oh my god oh my god oh my god.”