It was Bake, more than a little under the influence. "Just wanted to say Merry Christmas, baby. Jane says it too. Don't you, honey?" There was a small scuffle in the background, then Bake came through again. "You're a sweet kid, Frankie. Too damn serious, though." She had a little trouble with "serious." It came out mangled, and she hung up laughing.
Frances said courteously, "Merry Christmas to you, too," and hung up before Betty's pricked-up ears could catch any more. "A girl from my office," she lied.
She looked at Mari, getting into her coat for the later dinner at her parents' home. Bill's attention was riveted to his cards; the wrinkles in his forehead deepened. Poor guy, she thought.
It was disturbing to see Bill this way; it annoyed her to think of him as needing pity. She had to admit that, viewed from some angles, the fault was at least partly hers. She stood beside him at the front door, shivering in the frosty air, when the Flanagans finally left.
But when they came back into the house, and he reached out to touch her, she moved away. “Please don’t,” she said coldly. “I’m tired.”
He looked at her for a moment, without expression. Then he turned and went into the kitchen, dragging his feet. In a moment she heard the opening of the cupboard and the clink of glass against glass.
CHAPTER 19
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?"
"For Christ's sake, baby, what is this, a Sunday school picnic?"
"Bake never knows when she's had enough," Jane said sharply. She moved her chair closer to Bake's so that their shoulders were touching.
"Well, I can tell the difference." Frances stopped abruptly, realizing that it did no good to argue when Bake was like this; realizing, too, that several people at nearby tables were looking curiously at them. She lowered her voice. "I'm sorry. Let's skip it."
"Like hell we'll skip it," Bake said. She looked narrowly at Frances, frowning, swaying a little with the intensity of her effort to focus. "It's none of your goddam business how much I drink. Or when. Or who with, see? Nobody tells me what to do. And furtherfurthermore," she added, picking up her glass and looking around for the waitress, "why don't you go home if you don't like it here? Nobody'd care."
Kay said, "Oh, for heaven's sake."
Jane was smiling a little. Bake said, "You can wipe the smile off your face, too. Another two-timer, that's what you are. Anything I can't stand, it's a two-timer. Me one day and Kay the next, that's the way you work it. You too," she said, pointing a trembling finger at Frances. "This gal's still sleeping with her husband, how do you like that? A straight girl. I don't know why they let her in a place like this."
Kay looked around uneasily ."We better go before Mickey throws us out, don't you think so?"
"God, yes," Frances said, "if we can get her away."
Kay raised her voice. "Look Bake, we're all going up to my place, okay? I'm going to the john first."
Frances followed her to the washroom. "I've never seen her this bad before," she said nervously. "Usually she gets loaded and then passes out."
"Oh, this is typical. She's working up to a tantrum. I've seen it happen beforenot for a long time though, not since you came on the scene." Kay took a small comb from her jacket pocket and carefully arranged her short hair. "Last time I was the one she was mad at."
"You were?"
"Sure. I asked her to stay away from Jane. It was the wrong thing to do, it only made her anxious to have Jane back." She looked into the mirror, running a finger along arched eyebrows. "You do know they're seeing each other again?"
They looked miserably at each other.
"What did she say?"
"Oh, you know, the usual stuff. It's her life, nobody has any right to tell her what to do, and so on."
"Do you think it's serious between Jane and her?"
"I keep trying to tell myself it isn't. I don't know what I'd do."
"Jane means a lot to you, doesn't she?"
"I love her," Kay said simply. "Look, you and Bake have been together quite a while."
"A little over two years."
"I never knew Bake to stick to anybody that long. If that's any comfort."
"She used to go with Jane before. I know that." Frances tried to steady her voice.
"Sure. Jane was getting over Bake when I first met her. She was a messbeing dropped by Bake is quite an experience, in case you've never given it any thought."
"I know," Frances said in a muffled voice.
Kay's face was sad and a little stern. "We've been together four years, almost four and a half. Jane needs somebody to look after her. She's as helpless as a baby. She had analysis for more than a year after Bake threw her over. I hope to God the poor kid never has to go through anything like that again."
"I wonder"
"Oh, there's nothing to wonder about," Kay said dryly.
"They'll try again. I think I've always known it."
"It seems so different when it's somebody else."
"I suppose all lesbians think they're different. I'm not cheap, I’m not promiscuous, it's different with us, we're not like the people you see in those cruddy places. Did you ever stop to think that's why we like to come to Karla's? Not to be with our own kind, the way we keep telling ourselves, but to find somebody we can look down on. You come to a crummy joint like this and you think, well, anyhow we're different."
"We are different."
"Sure. We're discreet, we wear skirts."
"Sometimes I think Bake hates me."
"She probably does. Everybody has times of hating everybody else. I wouldn't worry about that right now," Kay said anxiously. "What I'm worrying about right now is how to get her out of here before something gives. It's not so long since umpteen people spent the night in the pokey because of her lousy temper."
"We can't just pick her up and carry her out, that's for sure."
"Funny thing is, when she's sober she's scared to death of the law. She was picked up and held for a few days, once, and she still flips every time she thinks about it."
"I know. I found out the hard way."
"Sure."
"Maybe Jane could talk her into leaving."
"Over my dead body. Jane'll go right along home with her if that happens."
"Do you think I'm happy about it?"
Kay smiled sourly. "Okay. I suppose nobody has any strings on Jane, either."
"The funny thing is, usually Bake hates to stay in one place. You just get settled down and she's ready to move on."
"Bake's running away from something," Kay said. "I don't know what. Maybe if she knew, herself, she wouldn't need to run any more. I guess we're all running away. Maybe that's why we're what we are." She laid a warm hand on Frances'. "Maybe that's why so many of us drink too much," she said sadly. "That's a kind of running away, too."
"That's true where I'm concerned. When I can't make up my mind about something, that's when I find myself getting fuzzy around the edges."
"Look," Kay said slowly, "it's none of my business, but if I had a husband and he was halfway decent to meI used to be married, maybe you know, he was famous but he was a worthless bumbut if I had a husband I could get along with, I think I'd stick with him. Maybe it isn't all moonlight and roses. Okay, so it's very romantic watching your girl get soused and make a public fool of herself. Not to mention the nights when you wake up and wonder how long you've got before she gets interested in someone else."
"I don't know," Frances said on a long sigh. "I don't know any answers. I'm afraid to look ahead."
Kay put a hand on her arm. "You're a nice kid. Let me know if I can ever do anything."
Frances gave her a watery smile. "What can anybody do?”
They went back into the crowded smoky room, arm in arm.
Whatever ailed Bake, Frances decided as they got into their jackets and counted out the money for the drinks they'd had, it was building up to something major. Since Christmas, when she had refused to stay at the apartment, they had seen each other sev
en or eight timesroughly twice a week. Roughly was the right word too, she thought, remembering the bickering and recriminations, the way every contact ended in a quarrel in spite of her good resolutions not to fight with Bake.
True, Bake was drinking too much. She seemed to be spending more time at home than usualJanuary and February were slow months, she said, not meeting Frances' eyesand she was drinking alone. Certainly she no longer stopped at one ritual Martini, or two, when they lunched together.
But this was more than the temporary irritability that too much liquor aroused in her. That was a minor thing, annoying while it lasted but nothing to worry about. Since she was a busy and healthy girl, given to long walks and full of vitality, the physical damage was probably slight. Frances had learned to overlook her occasional lapses, since the others seemed to take them for granted. This was more serious.
"It's a kind of sickness," she said to Kay as they led their little party outside.
"Sure. Except she probably wouldn't see the only kind of doctor who could help her."
"But what is it?"
Kay shrugged. "How do I know? Maybe she feels guilty about something. Maybe she isn't getting what she wanted out of love. Maybe her mother hated her, for Christ's sake. All I know is, if you were smart you'd get out while the getting is good."
"Would you, if Jane got like this?"
Kay smiled tiredly. "Don't be silly."
The rest of the night was a weariness of alcohol, smoky air, and strident voices. Frances sat slumped at a small table in a strange room, thinking how odd it was that bars mushroomed into existence and died again. She played with her glass and watched Bake and Jane drink. The hands of her watch crawled along with incredible slowness.
Kay said under her breath, "Nothing as dull as having a good time, is there?"
It was five o'clock when Bake finally fell asleep, with her head on the smeary table top. Kay winked at Frances. "Come on, let's get her out of here while she can still navigate. Janie, pay the man."
"What with, box tops?"
"You've got most of your paycheck left. I've been picking up the tab for you all night."
They waited while Jane fumbled out the money. "Okay. Alley-oop!"
"She'll be madder than hell if she wakes up."
"She won't wake up," Jane said. She staggered a little herself as they reached the outside door and the cold air hit her in the face.
Bake's legs were rubbery, but she was able to walk after a fashion, with the other two steering and supporting her. They bundled her into the car, still almost asleep and muttering resentfully, and she vomited all over the back seat. Frances choked, watching her.
Kay rolled down the window. "I'm sorry, kid. Try to ignore it. She'll be all right as soon as we get her home and in bed."
CHAPTER 20
Something was the matter with Bob. Frances observed his silence around the house, his diminished appetitewhen an adolescent won't eat, the mothers in the office said, watch out!and the small preoccupied pucker between his eyes, so like Bill's worried frown back in the days when Bill's mind was filled with human beings and their problems instead of sales quotas. Her first reaction was sharp annoyancecan't I ever have a moment's peace? Then dormant maternal anxiety took over and she began to worry about his health.
He had been a sturdy youngster, recovering from the ordinary diseases of childhood easily. His cuts and bruises healed quickly, and he had never been inside a hospital except to have his tonsils out. She was both amused and chagrined at the fears that waited, grinning and gibbering, in the back of her mind. Polio, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy. She knew all this came from reading too many magazine articles, but it was all she could do not to take his temperature, just the same. And when she woke at night, sweating because she had just remembered a neighbor's child who died of leukemia, she had to fight off an inane impulse to tiptoe into his room and see if he was all right.
That he had no noticeable symptoms was some comfort. But not much.
Then it occurred to her that his trouble might not be physical. He's worried about something, she thought. That was worse, in a way; because what could he be worried about, and what could she do about it?
He had been a cheerful little boy who made friends easily. He had never come to her for sympathy, or, later, advice. Now and then, when he was small, she wondered if a girl might not be more companionable. Still, she was proud of him. He had adjusted to school, from kindergarten on. In clothes, behavior and opinions he was practically a carbon copy of the other boys in his age group, and while grown-ups might be scornful of such conformity (even while they bought the things the advertising agencies wanted them to buy), it was evidently necessary to the young. Basketball, television, Saturday movies, ham radio, girls. He had a paper route at fourteen and delivered groceries at sixteen, like his pals.
His mother had taken for granted that he was happy. She had enough to do, without fretting over imaginary problems, she reminded herself when some doubt of her motherly role nagged at her. Anyway, you can't do a thing for kids that age except see that they have clean clothes and enough to eat. They live in a world of their own.
Well-adjusted, that's what they call a boy who goes around with a nice bunch and does all right (two B's and two C's) in school. It was what she had wanted all through her hungry shabby adolescenceto belong. Now she wondered if it was enough.
Something's the matter with him, she thought, whisking through her Saturday housework. He's worried about something. Well, whatever it is, it's not my fault. He's had everything the other kids have. Bill's going to send him east to collegenot Harvard, that's too expensive, maybe Dartmouth. She ran her dustmop around the edges of the living-room rug, reflecting as she always did at this point in the weekly cleaning that when Bob's college fund no longer had to be considered, they would think about wall-to-wall carpeting.
He would leave in September; this was May. Four months. Then, as Bake was always pointing out, she could do anything she wanted to. She could "live her own life."
But I'm not sure what my own life is, she thought, emptying ash trays and stacking them to carry to the kitchen. It certainly isn't keeping house. That's enough for some women, I guess, but it isn't what I want. When she married Bill a well-kept house had been a symbol of everything she had missed as a child: security, standing in the community. But now the edge had worn off her need for security, and the people she had been seeing, the people whose approval meant something to herBake's crowdhad a different set of status symbols.
So fulfillment wasn't keeping house. And it wasn't adding up insurance premiums and writing form letters to remind people that their payments were past due. Most office jobs are a kind of housework, with a paycheck every two weeks to make them tolerable.
Books? At sixteen she had built a world out of them, only to have it shattered by the touch of Freddie Fischer's lips on her cheek. At thirty-five, trying to rebuild a universe of paper and printer's ink, she had met Bake and become engrossed in Bake's kind of love. She would always automatically reach out for anything with printing on it. But that wasn't enough, either.
She thumped the davenport cushions into shape and made her way to the kitchen, dustmop in one hand and piled ash trays in the other.
You're supposed to live for your children, she reminded herself, standing by the sink and looking vaguely at the breakfast dishes. For what? So they can grow up and go away from home, and leave you with nothing to do. Big deal.
As though her thoughts had materialized him, Bob came around the house and up the back steps.
Her heart contracted. To hide her concern, she piled dishes in the sink and turned on the hot water.
"Mom?"
"Hi." She had to ask; he was supposed to be at school, helping to decorate the gym for something or other. "Anything wrong?"
"Nope. What would be wrong?" He stood uncertainly in the doorway, a tall good-looking boy with a worried expression. "Dad home?"
"On Saturday morning?"
"Good old Saturday sales meeting, hah."
"Lunch will be late. Want a sandwich?"
"No, thanks. Look, Mom, I want to talk to you about something."
The urgency in his voice caused her to turn. He's grown up, she thought with an apprehensive tremor. As she would have done with a stranger, she wiped her hands and led the way to the living room. There she sat down on the davenport and folded her hands to hide her sudden trembling.
Bob sat in the big chair, in the formal position of one about to be interviewed. There was a brief, embarrassing silence. Frances waited, intensely curious and unable to think what could be the matter.
Bob lit a cigarette. "Mom"
"Yes."
"I've been talking to Mari."
She tensed at the girl's name, feeling her face grow rigid with self-control.
"We want to get married."
"Well, she's a nice girl. When you're through college”
"Right away, maybe in June. As soon as we graduate."
"June! But that's next month."
"That's right." He hurried on, not looking at her, determined to say what he had to say and get it over with. "Her dad thinks he can get me a job in Michigan, for the summer. I mean. His brother runs a canning factory there. Mari could work in the office."
The inevitable suspicion took shape in her mind. "Why all the hurry?"
"No reason, except gosh, we don't see any point in waiting." He looked at her squarely now. "We're not in trouble or anything like that. We just want to be married while we're still young."
"You can't take a wife to Dartmouth."
"To hell with Dartmouth. We're going to Urbanayou know, State U. They have housing for married students. It'll be cheaper, too. Mari has our budget all planned out."
Frances said coldly, "You're too young."
"Lots of couples do it. I talked to Dad. He's for it."
"Then why ask me?"
"Because." He crossed and uncrossed his knees, shifting uneasily in the cushioned chair. "Look, this is a pretty embarrassing thing to have to say to your own mother. I asked Dad to speak to you about it, but he won't. Lord knows it's his business as well as mine, but the old boy's pretty sentimental"
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