by Rand, Naomi;
Amelia felt a pang. Memories flooded in. Laughing with each other in the bedroom the two of them shared in Des Moines. X marks the spot written with their index fingers on each other’s backs as they lay out on the beach at Lake Okabena. Finding the best places to hide in their cousin’s farmhouse in Atchison. Scaring each other into and out of having the hiccups. Stuck inside on a rainy day and playing rummy, then poker, then canasta, card games that lasted for an eternity. Girls together. Best friends.
Muriel walked by, mug in hand. Her hair was pinned up and there was that beauty spot on the back of her neck. Amelia leaned over and blew on it, just the way she used to when they were girls. Muriel would shiver and cry out, “Stop it, Meely!” half irritated, half amused.
Muriel shivered and then stopped in her tracks. She turned and stared. Amelia’s pulse raced, but then Muriel blinked and shrugged and off she went down the hall.
She’d felt something, hadn’t she?
Hadn’t she?
Amelia was afraid to hope.
In the living room, Muriel thumbed through the mail.
If a tree falls in the forest, what does it matter? A philosophical question, yet she wasn’t a tree, she was a person.
“You haven’t gotten it right,” Amelia said, moving close to Muriel. “You knew Father was bringing the rifle with him. You knew because you were at home with him when he packed up the presents. You wrote me and told me exactly what we were getting for Christmas. It wasn’t a surprise to either one of us. The box was there under the tree. You handed it to me to unwrap and winked at me. When Grandmother Otis saw what it was, she went crazy. Mother tried to calm her down. Father pretended not to be pleased, and Grandfather just went on talking about the law because it was beneath him to get involved.”
Muriel wrinkled her forehead as if she was thinking too hard. Her mouth quivered and she muttered, “She took it away. I know she did.”
Further proof. “You hear me!” Amelia insisted.
Muriel didn’t look up.
“Admit it. You do. And speaking of guns, I know what you do. I’ve seen you up there. What are you thinking of doing?”
Muriel shrugged. Then she made a face as if to say, you guess. Go ahead. What world was this, Amelia wondered, where her sister kept a gun in the attic? What world was this that she had manufactured for herself? But Muriel said, “Grandmother hid it from us. She thought girls should be prim and proper. But you talked her into letting us use it in the end and you never got punished for taking it back. You were always her favorite. It must have been something, being able to talk anyone into doing anything. It must have been something, being you.” Then Muriel looked right at her. Amelia knew she saw her.
“I could write about that. How willful you were. How deliberately you made your choices. How selfish you were. I’ll read them an excerpt from the letter you sent me explaining to me why you couldn’t tell me ‘certain things.’ Why you had to keep me in the dark. One flies away, the other doesn’t. One is responsible and acts like an adult, the other gets to be a child forever. That would go over well, I bet.”
Then Muriel swept all the mail off the table into the garbage can. She stood, grabbed the teacup, and exited stage right.
8
Sam
October 1980
LUCY SPRAWLED ON her never made bed. She wore a man’s white t-shirt and bikini briefs. Sam would have titled a portrait of her Lucy In Repose. The work of art would have been worthy of the Modern. No Titian she, no Renaissance nymphet, Lucy was lanky, undeniably curvaceous, more a mix of Playboy magazine style and gritty realism. Two white paper boxes sat at her roommate’s feet, the remnants of last night’s take out delight from Hunan Balcony. Inside, congealed sesame noodles and rock-hard fried pork dumplings. Sam could have used them to conduct a science experiment, dropping them out the window and onto the heads of unsuspecting passersby. Murder Most Foul: Barnard coeds arrested when Chinese food prank goes awry. It was obviously not the best kind of research to undertake, nor would it replace Sam’s fruit fly data. Sadly, last night when Sam had gone to the lab to give the captive insects sugar water, she’d been a little too lax with the locking mechanism and her control group had made good their escape.
Sam didn’t know what to do. She had already bred the flies. There was no time to start from scratch. Radio Clash played in the background. Sam studied the final paragraph of her essay for English class and tried not to panic. Meanwhile, Lucy read Plato’s Republic, busily highlighting every other passage with yellow indelible marker. It had been such a simple experiment, Sam thought. One that high school students did routinely. She told herself there was a solution, but the only one that meant keeping a decent grade was cribbing the results. Cheating. Sam had never cheated. She was the good daughter, the perfect student. Put on your thinking cap, she told herself.
She stared at the essay. It was an analysis of D.H. Lawrence, aka The Virgin and the Gypsy, Women In Love, The Rainbow, and his ridiculous concept of the godhead. Her English professor Maggie Swift was intimidating. She wore severely cut pants suits with oversized lapels and made withering asides. Swift was brilliant, passionate, and didn’t suffer fools gladly. Next week they were starting on Thomas Hardy in her Lawrence and Hardy class. It might have been funny, but Maggie Swift betrayed no obvious sense of humor. Sam had already read Tess of the D’Ubervilles and was halfway through The Mill on the Floss. Hardy seemed to have a very nihilistic view of the world, which was pretty modern of him. He was right up her alley, the alley of the sophisticated and artfully morose, those who wore black as a fashion statement and if you asked, might tell you that color of any kind was an error, even though the sky at that moment was a robin’s egg blue and the roses were startlingly scarlet. Bright sunshine poured in through the window, too nice out there to stay stuck inside.
Sam was losing her train of thought. Back to work, she chided herself. Back to the paper she was writing, arguing Lawrence was wrong about women, (oh Gudrun, Oh Ursula!). Sam thought that his idea of sex was baroque and homoerotic. She was deflating his purple prose and thus, his manhood. Sam needed to skillfully indict and convict, then throw away the key. By doing this she hoped to blow Professor Maggie Swift away in the process.
“Can I read you something?” she asked Lucy.
Lucy nodded.
“Lawrence’s depiction of women is totally unrealistic. The men are all drawn as powerful beings, emotionally unstable yet resolutely sexual. The women are in their thrall, enraptured by their historically dark masculinity.”
“What does ‘historically dark masculinity’ mean?”
“What do you mean, what does it mean?” Sam demanded, her anxiety ratcheting up another full notch. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t understand. That’s all.”
“Well I do.” Although, suddenly, Sam didn’t. It seemed like total bullshit. Now she would have to worry about both classes. Great, just fucking great. She’d been in school less than a month and she was already courting failure.
“I had a teacher in AP English who told us that Lawrence was gay,” Lucy said.
“He knew from personal experience?”
“It was a she, actually.”
Sam felt odd discussing this with Lucy. Lucy acted as if the kiss at the West End Bar had never taken place. But Sam had never used her lips as a tool for strategic deployment. Having Lucy do so had put her at a disadvantage. Not that she was a lesbian, though she’d gone through a phase where she obsessively eyed other girls’ legs and breasts. Only when her friend Nora confessed to watching every woman on the subway like a hawk, comparing and contrasting herself to them, did Sam realize that she was taking part in a rite of passage, gathering visual data to competitively place her own thin, somewhat angular body in its rightful place inside the pantheon of nubile females.
Her nightly sexual fantasies always starred boys, or boyish men. Sam’s taste veered between demigods like Joe Strummer and Elvis Costello, and a teenage boy two grad
es ahead of her who boasted scraggly brown hair, an incipient beard and a steady girlfriend. Sam had started dating once she hit puberty. But her experience was so limited. She and her two boyfriends had groped along in the dark, with Sam having no desire to go any further than mutual masturbation. Now, here she was at Barnard, still a virgin. Unfortunately, she’d told Lucy this in a moment of truth and dare weakness.
She’d immediately felt exposed and vulnerable.
Once again, Sam reminded herself that Lucy was on her side.
Meanwhile, the tacked up sheet stolen from the supply closet that doubled as curtains fluttered, making an odd hissing noise. In Sam’s dreams, the noise posed as either a reptile or a creepily insinuating stranger. Staring out the window, Sam tried to find a solution to her problems. All that came to her was the word “virgin.” Then there was Lucy, the rodeo girl, Lucy, who was adventurous, self-assured, and sexually adept. Sam told herself that Lucy wasn’t superior, just different. After all, what she described as her typical evening of sex with a boy was a round of “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” Sam bravely told herself she knew better than to settle for that. Her own deflowering would be romantic and extra special. She would be in love. There would be no animal grunting or sweaty, tangled limbs. It would take place in soft focus with the camera pulling away and something romantic playing. Sam hoped for either Joni or Emmylou pining in the background.
“We’ve got to get you laid,” Lucy said, breaking into her reverie. “It’s exactly what you need to write that paper.”
Sam flushed. “You think no virgin has ever written a paper on Lawrence?”
“Not a really excellent paper.”
Lucy pulled on her clothing, added a jacket, and said, “Let’s go to the Village.”
“And do what?”
“We’re going to find him for you,” Lucy said.
“I can’t. I’m busy.”
“You don’t look busy,” Lucy noted. “Trust me. Just have faith.”
Faith? Lucy was already at the door. Sam sighed. In truth, it was a relief. Outside there would be no fruit flies making a beeline for the open window and no imperious godhead banging at the door. Sam lifted her own jacket, a used and abused forties hounds-tooth number complete with lapels and a monogram on the inside pocket and followed Lucy out into the brave new world.
SAM HAD PLAYED tour guide for weeks, the two of them racing down the dizzying tilted floor of the Guggenheim, or sipping on a flask they’d snuck into the sculpture garden at the Museum of Modern Art. They’d toted up the movie stars at Bloomingdales, stopped by the Bethesda Fountain to admire the stoners, and traveled East to Avenue A during the smart daylight hours, venturing into galleries that were the size of their own small dorm room, then slurping borscht at Vaselka. Locking arms, they’d sauntered through Soho and slipped onto bar stools at Fanelli’s. At a table nearby, Debbie Harry held court. Lucy didn’t even know who Debbie Harry was, so Sam educated her in all things Blondie.
“I love it here,” Lucy said over and over again. “I don’t know why anyone would even want to live anywhere else.”
Sam had reasons, but what was the point of enumerating them? And she did love New York, especially now, seeing it new through Lucy’s eyes.
THEY EMERGED FROM the IRT at West 12th and strolled by the emergency room doors of St. Vincent’s hospital. Two homeless men begged for spare change. Sam automatically put on her usual stone-faced mask of denial, eyes fixed on some obscure point in the distance. Lucy paused, digging deep into her pocket. This, even after Sam had already explained that it was a con, that they were alcoholics and junkies, homeless because of their addictions, and that some weren’t even homeless at all. They were just making a living doing this, that it was always, always a scam.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lucy responded, “They wouldn’t ask for help if they didn’t need it.”
Naïve. And oddly refreshing.
In fact, Sam found it changed her own opinion. She reached into her jacket pocket but it was empty; her wallet had been shoved deep down in the front of her jeans as a safety precaution to ward off pickpockets. Meanwhile Lucy turned left on Greenwich and disappeared from view. Sam raced to catch up.
It was a perfect fall day, the temperature hovering near seventy. Soon it would be Sam’s favorite holiday, Halloween. She and Brooke had marched in the parade for years with a coterie of Brooke’s friends. Rob, Mitch, and Duane transformed themselves into Tallulah, Harlow, and Joanie. Brooke went stag. Her hair was cut short or capped by a wig. She wore suits and once, a vintage tuxedo. There was always a provocatively sexual element; she never wore a shirt under the jacket, and went braless to boot.
Shit, Sam thought, it’s Mother Dearest. That’s whom I’ve been channeling when I’m wearing my hounds-tooth jacket. Brooke had worn her own version, waving her hair and dying it blond. She’d been Leslie Howard that year, point counterpoint to Rob’s Scarlet O’Hara. Brooke even took Sam to a revival house showing of Gone With the Wind so she could understand the brilliance of her transformation.
Sam shivered. She was clearly doomed. There was a tiny version of her mother living inside of her. No matter where she went or who she became, she would never break free. Sam thought of the last Halloween they’d celebrated together. She’d been twelve and begged Brooke to dress as Glinda the good witch, to play a woman just this once. Sam had an ulterior motive: then she would get to be Dorothy. She’d found the perfect outfit at Secondhand Rose, a forties gingham dress with red shoes to match. Brooke agreed. The dress she designed gave her the ultimate hourglass figure, featuring puffed sleeves. It was cut out of billowing blue satin. But when Sam took out her own find to show it off, Brooke laughed. “Oh no, darling, you’re Toto.”
“What? No way.”
“But darling, Larry has his heart set on Dorothy. We can’t disappoint. Don’t worry. I have a costume for you. You’ll look so adorable.”
“I’m not going to do it.”
“Why on earth not? Those floppy ears. That sweet smile. Toto saves her, remember?”
“I’m not playing a pet.”
“Oh please, pretty please. Larry will be so upset and I promised him.”
“Why would you promise him?”
“Because, well, you know how he gets. It’s so important for him.”
For Larry, or for you? Sam could have said, but there were extenuating circumstances. She caved. She always caved. In the end, she’d let Brooke zip her into the brown fur outfit complete with fake nose and painted whiskers. Brooke invited Win to join them and he gave her a look.
“As what?” he asked.
“A Munchkin?”
“I’m six foot two,” he said. “Some munchkin I’d make. No, Mom, you couldn’t pay me enough. That is, if you even had the money.”
Brooke made a spectacular Glinda. All along the parade route people applauded her. Larry threw out rose petals from his straw basket, Larry with his five o’clock shadow and his brown wig, Larry who she wanted to hate except that he was one of her favorite babysitters and the nicest person on earth. He always let her have ice cream before he put her to bed. Toto dutifully padded along behind, there for comfort and there to save the day, the dogged and dependable woman’s best friend. Come to think of it, marching in that parade with Brooke was a little too much like walking around with Lucy. Except that when she was with her mother, she at least got hungry looks from younger men. There were those who preferred her punk affected style to Brooke’s blowsy, take me and be done with it you manly man, come on. With Lucy, she was always doomed to play Toto.
Except, Sam thought, Lucy zeroed in on Sam with laser sharp precision. Lucy adored her. Lucy said that Sam was the coolest girl she’d ever had the privilege of knowing. Her admiration took the sting out of being ignored by certain significant others.
Almost.
“Earth to Sam, where are you?” Lucy asked just then, looping her arm familiarly through hers.
They sauntered past Elephant and
Castle, a restaurant with a slim white brick façade. Three storefronts down, Sam paused, admiring her favorite seasonal display, an artfully arranged window featured Mexican Day of the Dead dioramas. Boxed miniature skeletons played music, cleaned house, hoed the fields, and shot stray soccer balls towards a goal.
“Creepy,” Lucy said, pursing her lips in distaste. “What are they?”
“They’re traditional. They’re made for Dia de Los Muertos. It’s a Mexican holiday, the Day of the Dead.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the day they set aside for mourning. You’re supposed to remember the dead by doing things that they liked to do, eating their favorite food, playing their favorite song, telling stories about them. At the end of the day there’s a big party.”
“Too bad the guest of honor never shows,” Lucy said coldly. She made a face at Sam, indicating her displeasure.
“Did I say something wrong?” Sam asked.
Lucy shrugged. Then walked past the Jefferson library. Inside the iron fence, a homeless encampment had taken over what had once been a garden. A man with a puppy sat on the ground. Next to him a handwritten sign read, “FEED US!” Lucy obediently dropped money into his lap. Sam dug out her wallet to add a dollar. Lucy forged ahead, crossing Sixth Avenue against the light, snaking through the traffic.
Something was wrong. Sam grabbed her friend’s arm as they made it across. “What is it?”
