Alice narrowed her eyes. “Upset about not working together anymore? Do you always go to bed with your coworkers when you quit a job?”
“Well, you don’t have to act like I’m stupid.”
“You’re not stupid. That rationale is stupid.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Freud. That’s the best I can come up with in my present state of mind.”
“Jeez, I hope I never need you for an alibi.”
Leslie groaned and fell back on her pillow, throwing an arm over her eyes. “We can’t keep doing this, Alice.”
Alice fell back and lay next to her, staring at the ceiling. It ground her up inside to hear Leslie say that, but she was right. They couldn’t keep doing it, for a million reasons, not the least of which was the ache that only bored itself deeper after each time Leslie left. She could already feel her stomach tightening.
“I’m sorry. This was all my fault,” Alice said. “I have no idea if the Bradlees near me is better. I’ve never even been to the one in East Haven.”
“No, it’s my fault. I’m the one who suggested we have coffee first. I’ve just been thinking about you so much since…well, you know. I think I wanted it to happen again, to experience all of it.”
“I’d say we experienced all of it this time.” Alice reached for an extra pillow and hugged it close to her chest.
“Oh, Alice.” She moved the pillow and rested her cheek on Alice’s chest, embracing her with her whole body.
Alice squeezed back, eliciting an involuntary whimper from Leslie’s diaphragm. “Can’t I kidnap you and keep you here forever?”
“I’d love to be your prisoner,” Leslie said softly. “I feel like I already am. My heart is your hostage, for sure.”
“I hate driving you home more than anything.” She pressed her lips into Leslie’s hair as the clock on her nightstand flipped to nine fifty-five. “We better get up. It’s late.”
“Can I have one last kiss?”
Alice melted in the innocence in Leslie’s eyes. She caressed Leslie’s cheek with her fingertips before pulling her in for a tender good-bye kiss.
When Alice dropped her off, she stayed in the driveway and watched her walk through the side entrance, turn on a light, and pass through the kitchen. Moments later her husband’s car pulled into the driveway. She threw the gear shift into reverse, but he made eye contact and gave her a friendly wave before she could back all the way out. She waved back and hit the gas pedal as her stomach pitched in shame. What kind of twisted cosmic prank was this that something could make her feel so euphoric one minute and like such a creep the next? Her eyes blurring like a rain-soaked windshield, she pulled into a convenience-store parking lot and blotted them with a napkin from her glove box.
August 1977
A few days later, Alice experienced the same mirage at work as the previous week, only this time it wasn’t so magical.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?” Leslie’s eyes darkened as she hovered over Alice’s desk.
“Of course I am,” Alice whispered. “But if you keep showing up here, people are going to suspect something.”
“What’s so suspicious about two coworkers having lunch together?”
“Nothing, except you and I aren’t coworkers anymore.”
“You know what I mean. Friend, coworker, what’s the difference anyway?”
Alice tried reassuring herself she was only being paranoid. “You’re coming here every week, sometimes twice a week. It might start to look funny to some people.”
Leslie looked appropriately chastised but… “Alice, I can’t wait until Friday to see you,” she said in a grave whisper. “I’m going crazy thinking about you and missing you all week. Don’t you feel the same?”
“Constantly,” Alice said. “How about from now on, we’ll meet at the restaurant. Then nobody will be the wiser.”
“But then we can’t kiss in the ladies’ room. I need to kiss you.”
The urgency in Leslie’s eyes sent a tingle through Alice that electrified her in all the right places. “Let’s go get some supplies for my desk.” With a tilt of her head, she motioned for Leslie to follow her down the hall to the storage room.
She unlocked the door and, after whipping her head side to side to ensure the hall was clear, shoved Leslie inside the room and then shut the door behind them. She leaned against the metal shelving stocked with pens, steno pads, Wite-Out, and pink message slips and clutched Leslie by the blouse. They kissed hard, Alice’s heart pounding. At any moment one of the other girls might be by to replenish her desk supplies. She wrapped her arms around Leslie’s lower back and pushed her closer, weakening from the heat of Leslie’s body.
“I can’t stand this, Les,” Alice whispered. “It just makes me want more.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She kissed Alice insatiably, groping at her breasts. Was she overcome with desire, or was it just an effort to evade the same ugly conversation they’d had nearly every time they were together?
Alice gently pushed her back. “Are you?”
Leslie seemed confused as she wiped her smeared lipstick from the corners of her mouth. “Am I what, sorry?”
Alice stood anticipating what she’d always feared after pursuing this line of questioning.
“Yes, I’m sorry. Do you think I enjoy having to sneak around? Kissing you in a supply closet?”
“You have to admit it’s a hell of a diversion for a bored housewife—the seventies version of sneaking around with the milkman.”
“Do you really think that about me?” Leslie flung Alice’s hands away from her. “This is not about me being a bored housewife. I’m in love with you, Alice. There’s no other reason on earth I’d betray my husband like this. A good reason doesn’t even exist, but I can’t help myself around you.” She turned and leaned against the supply shelf. “I feel like such a horrible person.”
“I’m sorry,” Alice said, pulling her into a hug. “I didn’t mean it. I swear.” She kissed Leslie’s head as she cried.
“We should get out of here,” Leslie said, wiping her face with the back of her hands. “I shouldn’t have come. I won’t anymore.”
Alice apprehended her hand as Leslie reached for the door. “You mean into the office, right? We can still meet for lunch.”
“No. Let’s just keep it to crochet night. We have to stop, Alice. It’s just getting too hard.”
Panic charged through her. Had Alice pushed too far? Leslie seemed serious this time. “Les, let’s go to lunch, and we can talk about it. I didn’t mean to start trouble between us.”
Leslie’s face was stone. “Alice, let go of the doorknob.”
Alice swung open the door at the precise moment Steve Briller was walking by.
“Afternoon, ladies,” he said, his buckled ankle boots scuffing the carpet. “Your powder room out of order or something?”
“Something like that,” Alice snapped and kept walking.
“You can always come and gossip about the other girls in my office if you need to,” he sang. “Nice seeing you, Leslie.”
As Alice headed to the elevators, Leslie followed.
“Alice, please don’t be mad at me,” she whispered. “I couldn’t stand it if you didn’t speak to me anymore.”
“I’m not mad at you.” Alice stared straight ahead as she repeatedly jabbed at the down button. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Do you think that’s what I want?”
“I have no fucking idea what you want,” Alice spat. “Every day it’s something different. I can’t keep up with it anymore.” She took off toward the staircase, and once more, Leslie was on the move behind her.
On the landing between floors, Leslie finally caught her by the arm. “Alice, I’m sorry.”
“It’s so goddamn easy for you to walk away, isn’t it? Back to your happy home with your perfect family.”
“I’m not walking away from you. I just don’t know what else to do. I’m making you so unhappy with what little I can off
er you.” She pulled Alice closer. “I want you so much, Alice. I crave you. But there’s nothing I can do.”
Alice yanked her arm free. “There is something you can do. You just don’t want to do it.” She stared into Leslie’s eyes, searching for anything she could cling to.
“You have no idea how badly I want to do it.”
How many times had Alice heard that? Yet each time she found a gossamer thread of hope to grasp in Leslie’s words.
“You have to go now before someone smarter than Steve Briller overhears us. I only have twenty minutes to get something to eat.”
“I’ll call you this week, okay?”
Alice stared at the grime on the green-speckled floor tiles of the stairwell. Tell her no, she thought. Tell her no right here and now and free yourself from this trap.
“Alice, I’ll call you, okay?”
She looked into Leslie’s eyes so full of love and fear. “Okay,” her mouth said before her brain had a chance to suppress it. She pushed open the door to the lobby, and after parting with Leslie on the sidewalk, she spent the remainder of her lunch hour bawling in the seclusion of her car in the parking garage.
September 1977
It had been nearly two weeks since Alice had spoken with Leslie. To her surprise, she’d found a store of self-control that prevented her from picking up the phone and begging Leslie to see her again. Still, one day blurred into the next as her sadness over missing her showed no signs of ebbing. Tired of making up excuses to everyone, she agreed to spend the afternoon with her sister, who was eager to get out of the house and enjoy a Saturday respite from her two young sons. All during lunch at the restaurant, Alice had been systemically tortured by an assault of songs, all relating in some form or another to love, piped into the bar. Abba’s “Knowing Me, Knowing You” was her current nemesis.
“Would you ladies like anything else?” the waitress asked, ready to hand them their check.
“Yes, I’ll take another Miller High Life,” Alice said, and immediately noticed her sister’s expression. “What?”
“Three beers at lunch?”
Abba’s singers taunted her about this is where the story ends, about saying good-bye.
“It’s been a rough week,” Alice said, twisting what was left of her napkin.
“Work?” her sister asked.
Alice shrugged languidly.
“Don’t you want to talk about it?”
Alice shook her head.
“Ally, why don’t you ever want to talk to me anymore?”
“What do you mean? What have we been doing for the last hour?”
“We’ve been eating, and I’ve been doing all the talking.”
“So? You have a lot to talk about.”
“How many tales about your nephews’ macaroni art projects and projectile vomiting at three a.m. can you stand? For God’s sake, I’d like to converse about what people are doing out in the real world for a change.”
“Is this what your life has come to?” Alice said, fighting the urge to mock her. “Living vicariously through me and my mundane work stories?”
“I don’t care about your work. I’ve been waiting patiently for a juicy romance. Why aren’t you dating?”
Abba sang about it being time they faced the fact that they were through.
Thanks for the burn, Alice mentally told the band. She squirmed and peered over her shoulder. “Where the hell is our waitress?”
“Not that I’m not enjoying watching my big sis drink herself into cirrhosis, but we should get going. We can get some shopping in before Dave and the boys get home from the game.”
“Ugh, Mare, I don’t have the energy for one of your frenzied shop-athons. Can you do it without me?”
“Now I really know something’s wrong with you. Please talk to me.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Can’t I just be tired from a busy workweek?” She hated lying to her sister. They’d always shared everything. Maybe she should confide in her. Mary Ellen had a talent for lavishing her with comforting words in any situation.
“I admire you, Al,” Mary Ellen said, taking cash out of her wallet. “You’re so good at the British stiff-upper-lip bit. You’d make our Nanny Prudence proud.”
On second thought, telling Cousin Phyllis was one thing. She tripped to her own pied piper anyway. Telling her baby sister was another. How could she inform the one person who’d always looked up to her that she was a homosexual homewrecker? Mary Ellen would never recover from the disappointment.
“Okay, you win,” Alice said. “Let’s hit Malley’s downtown. I could use a new pair of dungarees.”
“That’s the spirit,” Mary Ellen said as they headed out. “You can wear them tonight to the Knights of Columbus dance with Dave and me.”
“I already told you I’m not interested in being the third wheel on your date with your husband. I still haven’t recovered from the last one watching your perverted rendition of ‘The Hustle’ in your matching Donnie and Marie outfits.”
Mary Ellen looked up as she unlocked the driver’s side door. “That was an isolated incident. Dave was drunk.”
“Sure, Dave was drunk.” Alice sucked at her cheeks.
“Please come with us. There are always lots of foxy guys there. Last month I could swear I saw Erik Estrada’s twin.”
“I’m going to pass, thanks. I want to watch that new show, The Love Boat.” It sounded dumb the minute it came out, but Alice had been out all day with Mary Ellen. She wanted to be home in case Leslie had called earlier and would try her again at night after the kids went to sleep.
“You’re going to stay home on a Saturday night to watch a TV show?”
“How the heck can I watch it if I don’t stay home?” Alice huffed. “Would you mind unlocking my door, please?”
They got in the car and waited a minute for Mary Ellen to apply a fresh coat of lipstick.
“Ally,” Mary Ellen said. “Promise me you’d confide in me if anything was wrong.”
Alice replied with an earnest smile, but it was a promise she knew she couldn’t keep. As a beer belch tickled its way up her throat at two in the afternoon, she wondered how much lower she could go. Her affair with Leslie was tearing her in two, filling her heart and body with pleasure she’d never dreamed possible and transforming her into a liar and a schemer. If she felt like that, how must Leslie feel having to lie and scheme while looking someone she cared so much about in the face?
“Thanks, Mare,” Alice said, smacking her sister’s leg. “I’m fine.”
She couldn’t wait for the day to end so she could sit on her couch next to a telephone that wouldn’t ring.
*
“Wow,” Mary Ellen said, leaning forward with her empty cappuccino cup dangling by the loop from her finger.
Alice waved her hand in front of Mary Ellen’s face to extricate her from her apparent trance. “Wow what?”
“That reminds me of a porno movie Dave used to hide from me in the late seventies.”
“Seriously? A porno?” Alice said excitedly and then lowered her voice. “Do you know how devastated I was that day you dragged me shopping all over creation?”
“That’s what you get for not confiding your troubles in your dear, trusted sister. I could’ve comforted you.”
“Yeah, right,” Alice said with a smirk. “You couldn’t even watch a dirty movie with your own husband back then, and you were going to counsel me on the lesbian affair I was having with a married woman?”
“I eventually watched one with him,” Mary Ellen said discreetly, smoothing down her blouse. “The eighties were a particularly dull decade for us in the bedroom.”
“Well, congratulations,” Alice said. “Anyway, you’ll have to forgive me for keeping you in the dark about my illicit affair.”
“It’s okay—as long as you tell me everything now.”
“There’s nothing else to tell.”
“Not yet anyway.” Mary Ellen raised encouraging eyebrows and crunched into t
he last piece of the biscotti they were sharing.
Chapter Eleven
Alice needed a day off from Leslie, if for no other reason than to slap her head on straight again. Age might’ve had the power to bring on cancer, strokes, and forgetfulness, but one thing it couldn’t do was conquer the heart. When it wanted to beat again with passion and vivacity for someone, it did just that no matter what the calendar read.
Earlier in the week, she’d looked up Cynthia and Kathy, and they had arranged a lunch date at a winery closer to Cynthia’s house, as her eyesight wasn’t up to long-distance driving. Seated on the deck overlooking an eternity of verdant grounds and tangles of grapevines, they snacked on gourmet cheeses and crackers, an umbrella shading them from the mid-July sun.
“Here’s to Dolores,” Cynthia said after pouring everyone a glass of Estate chardonnay.
Alice and Kathy raised their glasses, and they sipped in honor of Dolores’s memory.
“Goddamn ovarian cancer,” Kathy spat. “One of the greatest feminists we had the privilege of knowing, and she was taken out by the body part that most represented womanhood. How do you like that?”
Alice and Cynthia exchanged looks.
“Cancer took her out,” Cynthia said. “Not her ovaries.”
“You’re missing the symbolism here,” Kathy said.
“Personally, I’m an ass woman,” Alice said dryly.
The ladies laughed and hoisted their glasses in another toast.
“I can’t believe she’s been gone six years already,” Cynthia said.
Kathy frowned. “It goes by too fast.”
“And Leslie’s stroke,” Cynthia added. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s okay,” Alice said. “Thankfully, it wasn’t severe. She’s got some recovery time ahead, but she seems to be responding well to the physical therapy.”
Cynthia made the sign of the Trinity. “We have to do this again as soon as she’s up and about. It’ll be nice for all of us to catch up.”
Alice agreed. “Let’s actually do it, not just say we will.”
The Second Wave Page 12
