by Julia Watts
Honey was sitting on the arm of the La-Z-Boy, running her sky-blue nail-polished fingers through Mick’s hair. “You wanna beer, Lily?” she asked, when she caught Lily looking at her.
“Yeah, a beer would be great, thanks.”
Honey sashayed over to the fridge, which, along with a sink and stove, was in the far end of the living room. It was a tiny apartment. Lily could give herself the grand tour while sitting in one place and pivoting her head. A closed door next to the couch led to what she assumed was the bathroom. A door with a beaded curtain led to the bedroom, where Lily could see a queen-size bed covered with one of the chenille peacock bedspreads Jack had described. It really was gorgeous, in a garish sort of way.
The walls of Honey’s apartment were hung with posters depicting dragons, unicorns, fairies, and wizards, and the small bookcase beside Lily housed a collection of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks.
When Honey brought Lily her beer, Lily asked, “You like Marion Zimmer Bradley?”
“Oh, lord,” Mick groaned, lighting up a Marlboro Red. “Don’t get her started talking about that crap.”
“Mick’s not much of a reader,” Honey explained.
“She don’t care about nothin’ but riding around with that big ole Harley-Davidson vibrator between her legs.”
Suddenly there was a pounding at the screen door and a gruff voice yelling, “I heard there was a buncha dykes holed up in here!”
Lily stiffened at the perceived threat.
Honey rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s just Jack. For somebody with a Doctor in front of her name, she acts like she don’t have a brain in her head.” She turned toward the door and hollered, “Get on in here, you crazy woman!”
Jack swung the door open wide. She was wearing faded Levi’s and a crisp white, button-down shirt. It was the first time Lily had seen her wearing something other than coveralls and mud-caked boots.
“Hey, y’all.” Jack yanked a can of Bud from the six-pack she was carrying and put the rest of the cans in the fridge. “Lily,” she said, grinning broadly. “Glad you could make it.”
“Glad to be here.” Lily watched as Jack made a quick circuit of the room, shaking hands with Mick and Dale, giving Honey and Sue courtly kisses on the hand. To Lily’s surprise, Jack settled down on the floor next to her, making the room a study in butch/ femme pairings.
Lily knew that Jack sitting next to her shouldn’t make her nervous — after all, Jack was the only person in the room whom she’d met before tonight—but it still did, and she found herself knocking back her beer a lot quicker than was probably good for her.
“Hey, Jack,” Honey said, “you’ll never guess who I ran into over at the Piggly Wiggly the other day.”
“Oh, I bet I can guess,” Jack laughed. “Was it Sandy?”
“Sure was. She’s as pregnant as a cow, too.”
Jack shook her head. “I’m not surprised. Sandy never does anything halfway. When she decided she was straight, I knew she was gonna be squeezing out pups as soon as nature would allow it.”
“Sandy used to be a regular at these little get-togethers,” Mick explained to Lily. “Her and Jack was together for a while, but then ole Sandy kinda retreated to the enemy camps.”
“She went back to her ex-husband,” Jack added. “Decided that what she was doing with me was just an ‘experiment’ ... like I was her chemistry project or somethin’.”
Honey laughed. “I wonder what she did about that pink triangle I tattooed on her ass. I notice she ain’t had the guts to come back here and ask me to cover it up.”
“Oh, I’m sure that dumb redneck husband of hers ain’t even noticed it,” Sue drawled. “And if he has, she probably told him it’s just a birthmark he hadn’t noticed before. I’m sure he’d be stupid enough to believe it.”
Dale laughed and draped her arm around Sue’s shoulders. “Lily, I bet you think we’re awful.
You’re sitting there thinking, ‘These country dykes don’t do nothin’ but sit around and drink beer and talk bad about people.’ ”
“Hey, drinking beer and talking bad about people are two of my favorite things.” To illustrate her point, Lily popped open her second tallboy.
“Well, you’ll fit right in here, then,” Sue said.
“Actually, Lily, being from the city, you probably don’t think we’ve got any educational stuff around here,” Dale said. “But right while you’re sitting here, you’re looking at a natural history exhibit.”
Lily knew she was being teased, but played along. “And what’s that?”
Dale grinned. “Why, you’re looking right at the oldest known lesbian couple in the history of Faulkner County, Georgia.”
“That’s great,” Lily said, her insides aching as she thought of all the times she’d imagined growing old with Charlotte. “How long have you two been together?”
Sue squeezed Dale’s age-spotted hand. “We met at the WAC training base in Fort Oglethorpe in nineteen and forty-four. I had a boyfriend back home, but when I first saw Dale, I knew I was through with the boys.”
Dale smiled slyly. “Our first weekend pass, we checked into a hotel in Chattanooga and didn’t come outta that room for two whole days.”
Sue slapped Dale’s leg. “Now don’t go telling that!”
“A while back,” Dale said, “when all that gays-in-the-military foolishness was going on, I couldn’t help laughing. The military’s brought more dykes together than any of them silly women’s music festivals has.”
“Hey, I went to one of them once,” Honey protested. “It was fun.”
Dale shook her head. “Not my kinda music.”
“Not mine neither,” Mick added. “When Honey dragged me to that thing, I thought I was gonna die of heat stroke or boredom, one. All that guitar strumming and singing about sisterhood ... I had to play nothin’ but Allman Brothers records for a week just to get all that strumming outta my head.”
“You liked Glenda Mooney, though,” Honey said, playing with the collar of Mick’s leather jacket.
“She was all right. At least she played somethin’ that had a beat to it.”
“Say, Honey,” Sue said, “speaking of music, why don’t you put on that record Dale and me like?”
“Oh, lord, not that thing,” Mick grumbled.
“Don’t be rude, baby.” Honey rose, sorted through a stack of LPs, and pulled out one marked
“Love Song Canteen.”
“I’ll Be Seeing You” began to play, and Dale and Sue rose and began to dance. They held each other close and moved together in a light two-step. Dale led.
“Come on, Mi-ick.” Honey was trying to drag her girlfriend out of the recliner.
“This ain’t the kinda music I can dance to.”
Honey rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Damn it, Mick, there ain’t no can or can’t to it. It’s just hugging set to music.”
Mick knocked back the rest of her beer and reluctantly stood up. Soon, though, she was resting her hands on Honey’s ample hips, and Honey’s hands had disappeared beneath Mick’s black leather jacket.
On one level, it was comforting to be in a place where women could dance together — a safe place (albeit a hot and tiny place) where dykes could be dykes together. On a deeper level, though, watching those women dance just made Lily more aware of her own loneliness. Looking at Mick and Honey, she wondered what her life would have been like in ten years, had Charlotte lived. And looking at Dale and Sue only reminded her that she would never have the pleasure of growing old with the only woman she had ever loved.
The song “I’ll Be Seeing You,” a wartime ballad about how love lives on even after the loved one’s death, wasn’t exactly helping Lily’s emotional state. She wiped what she thought was sweat running down her face only to discover it was a tear.
She jumped when Jack nudged her.
“Say,” Jack whispered, “you wanna dance?”
Lily was grateful that Jack didn’t ask her if she was ok
ay, which was an obvious question with an even more obvious answer. “Uh ... I don’t know.”
“I promise I’ll be a perfect gentleman, what with you being a married lady and all.”
Lily felt herself smile. “Oh, okay. What the hell?”
Lily stood up with Jack, who rested her hands on the small of Lily’s back. Lily draped her arms over Jack’s shoulders, and they began to gently sway.
“I haven’t danced like this since high school,” Lily said.
“Did you dance like this with boys?”
“Yup — pimply-faced little Beta Club boys.” Lily laughed self-deprecatingly. “I didn’t have a clue about myself back then. Once I got to college, though, I caught on pretty quick.”
Jack laughed. “I was different than you, I guess. I always knew what I was, but I had the good sense not to do anything about it till I was in college.”
“That was probably wise. I doubt that Faulkner County would be too tolerant of a sexually active teenaged lesbian.”
“Lord, no, particularly since that was, what? Twenty-four years ago?” She grinned. “Of course, I might have showed good sense waiting till I was in college, but as soon as I started dating, my good sense went straight out the window. I went out with anything with a pair of tits and a homosexual urge—all the way through college in Chattanooga, then through vet school in Knoxville. Sometimes I think the entire population of Tennessee consists of my ex-girlfriends.”
Lily laughed. “I guess you had to slow down after you moved back here.”
“Oh, yeah, that was probably the best thing for me, though. It made me grow up — have real relationships instead of flings. Honey and I were together for a while years ago, before Mick rode into town on her Harley.”
“Oh, yeah?” One of Lily’s favorite things about lesbians was their ability to turn ex-lovers into platonic family members —and to welcome the ex-lover’s new partner into the family as well.
“And then, of course, there was Sandy.”
Lily smiled. “You were her experiment, I believe?” “Yup, that’s me. And then she cast me aside like a frog she was finished dissecting.”
When the record of 40s music ended, Mick hollered, “Thank god that’s over! Honey, why don’t you put on some Allman Brothers — I’ve gotta get the taste of that sweet stuff outta my mouth.”
When the evening began to turn toward heavy beer drinking and rock ’n’ roll, Dale and Sue rose to leave. “Well, we’d better take off,” Sue said. “We old ladies like to get to bed early.”
Dale grinned. “Of course, that don’t mean we always get to sleep right away.” She ducked as Sue playfully slapped at her with her purse.
After they left, Lily said, “God, I guess it sounds condescending to call them adorable, but they really are.”
“Oh yeah, they’re great,” Honey agreed. “I always call them my lesbian grandmas.” Honey grabbed more beers for the four of them. “So,” she said, fishing a tin cookie box out of a kitchen drawer,
“now that the grannies are gone, anybody want some weed?”
“You know I do,” Mick said.
“And you know I don’t,” Jack said just as decisively. “Can’t get myself too muzzy-headed. I could get a farm call in five hours.”
Honey laughed. “Well, you could never smoke no how. The one time I did manage to get you stoned, you kept getting up to look out the window, to see if there was cops outside.”
Jack laughed along with her. “Dyke or not, I guess I’m pretty much a law-abiding citizen.”
Honey took out a packet of rainbow-striped rolling papers. “These are so cool. Mick found ’em up in Chattanooga.” She folded a tissue-thin paper in half and began distributing pinches of green flakes across its length. “How ’bout you, Lily? Can I offer you some homegrown hospitality?”
“Not tonight, thanks. I think I’ll just stick to beer.” Lily had liked pot back in college; it was arguable that she had liked it too much. And now, when Honey offered it, she felt a tug of temptation to surrender to the weed’s friendly, familiar oblivion. But with the trial coming up, there was no way she was going to have the dregs of an illegal drug floating around in her system. What if the Maycombs’
deranged right-wing lawyer ordered her to take a drug test as evidence of her debauched lifestyle? Any risk that might cost her Mimi was a risk not worth taking.
Getting stoned, as Lily remembered it at least, wasn’t boring. But watching other people get stoned sure was. Mick was already the silent type, but under the influence of marijuana, she was practically a mute. The only phrase she uttered for thirty minutes after smoking the joint was, “Honey, we got any of them Chee-tos left?”
Apparently sensing that the evening was slowing down, Jack said, “Well, I reckon I’ve sobered up enough to drive.”
“Yeah, I guess I ought to be heading home, too.” Watching Mick and Honey laughing and feeding each other Chee-tos, Lily surmised that they would like to be alone together — that as soon as the company left, they’d be making a beeline for the chenille peacock-covered bed.
Honey switched back to hostess mode. “Well, Jack, I know we’ll be seeing you soon, but Lily, I hope you’ll be coming back, too. I’m sure this is pretty boring compared to what you’re used to in the city
—”
“Not at all. Actually, this is one of the most pleasant evenings I’ve spent in a while,” Lily said, meaning it.
In the tattoo shop’s gravel parking lot, Lily suddenly shouted, “Goddamn it!”
“What is it?” Jack asked. “You too drunk to drive?”
“No, I had my last beer over an hour ago. It’s just that it dawned on me...I can’t go home tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m supposed to be out of town ... on a romantic overnight trip with Ben.” She had to stop to laugh. “I know it sounds crazy, but what if I went back to the house and one of my nosy sisters-in-law drove by and saw the lights on? They’d know something was up.”
“Hmm,” Jack said. “You lead a complicated life, don’t you, lady?”
“Far too complicated.” Lily felt as though she might cry again.
“I’ll tell you what. Spend the night at my place tonight. I’ve got an extra bedroom.”
“I told Ben to call me here if he needed me.”
“Hang on a second. I’ll take care of that.” Jack disappeared behind the shop, and Lily heard her holler, “If anybody calls here for Lily, give ‘em my number. She’s going home with me.” There was a pause, and then Jack hollered, “Not that way, you hussies!”
CHAPTER 14
Jack lived in an old white saltbox with a tin roof. Even in the darkness, Lily could tell that the land around it was rolling and beautiful. The sky above the farmland was sprinkled with stars.
“It’s beautiful out here,” Lily said, as they stood on the porch.
“Oh, yeah.” Jack unlocked the front door. “There’s the stars on a clear night, and on a cloudy night, there’s nothin’ like the sound of the rain on the roof.” The house seemed to be furnished with the same pieces Jack had grown up with. The flowered up-holstery on the arms and seat of the overstuffed sofa in the living room was shiny from years of sitting, but the worn appearance of the furniture only made it more inviting.
“Your room’s upstairs,” Jack said, her boots clomping on the hardwood floor. “Sorry for going right off to bed, but if I get a farm call, I’ll have to roll out in four hours or so.”
“That’s fine. I’m pretty tired.” Lily followed Jack up the stairs, noting in a purely clinical fashion that Jack filled out her Levi’s attractively.
Jack flipped on the light in the room at the head of the stairs — a small bedroom with floral wallpaper and an iron bed covered in a handmade quilt. A black-and-white cat who was curled up on the bed lifted his head and squinted at them irritably. “That’s Hank,” Jack explained. “This is kinda his bed, so he may want to share it with you. I’ve got two house cats, Hank here and
Patsy, who sleeps with me.” She smiled, a little shyly, Lily thought. “Well, you make yourself comfortable. The bathroom’s next door, and there’s towels in the hall closet if you need ’em.”
“Thanks.”
Jack studied the floor sheepishly. “If I have to get up for a farm call in the mornin’, I’ll just let you sleep. Feel free to let yourself out if you wake up before I get back. If I don’t get called to work, though, maybe we can have breakfast, and I can show you around the place, introduce you to the animals. Sandy used to call this the Island of Misfit Critters.”
Lily laughed. “About half the time, I feel like kind of a misfit critter myself.”
