Godmother Night

by Rachel Pollack

  On the night of the dance Louise tried once more to convince Jacqueline to come with her. “Everybody’s going,” she said. “This is really special. It’ll probably never happen again.”

  “I don’t have a costume.”

  “We can make you one.” She began searching through Jacqueline’s clothes.

  “Stop it,” Jacqueline said. “I’m just not going. I won’t have anyone to dance with.”

  “Dance with me.” Louise grabbed Jacqueline and whirled her around. “You can toad-hop with the LSU. We’d love to have you.”

  Jacqueline laughed but pulled loose. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why? Because people will think you’re a dyke?”

  “I don’t care what people will think. I just wouldn’t belong. I’d feel like a fake.”

  At nine o’clock Louise tied on her mask, gave her sword one last twirl at the air, and leaped out the door. Jacqueline listened to the thump of her boots as she strode to the elevator. At nine-thirty Jacqueline decided it was too hot to study and went down to the lounge to see what she could find on television. Two boys sat there, slumped on the couch watching a baseball game. Jacqueline walked outside.

  She could hear the music before she even saw the gym. When she rounded the corner of the library, she saw that the gym was hung with banners and a huge drawing of a toad lit by a floodlamp. Inside, the band played “The Toad Hop,” a record from a few years back. Over the music sounded the thump of people squatting down and then leaping into the air. Jacqueline stood about fifty yards from the building, watching the people who were hanging around outside, some kissing, some taking quick drinks or puffs of officially forbidden substances.

  Just as Jacqueline was about to leave, a black limousine rolled up on the narrow road in front of the gym. A woman stepped out wearing a long patchwork dress made of scraps of velvet and hung with beads, pearls, feathers, and ordinary rocks. A wide-brimmed hat with a soft crown was tilted back on her head. Her red hair hung in three long braids down her back. Five more women came out of the car; they all had short hair, and long white scarves, silk probably, fluttered down their backs. Despite the heat, all five wore red leather jackets, tight red pants, and black sandals. Gold stitching on the backs of their jackets formed a small labyrinth, and below it, in graceful script, the words “Mother Night.” When they turned slightly to glance about the building, Jacqueline saw sharp lines running across their cheeks.

  The limousine moved softly away. At the door of the gym the woman in the patchwork dress turned and raised her head slightly. It was the smile Jacqueline recognized. The clothes were different, and the woman had given up her red sports car, but Jacqueline knew that smile. She ran forward as the woman and her gang disappeared into the crowd and noise.

  A skinny boy in a cowboy suit and a cardboard toad mask blocked Jacqueline from going inside. “Gotta have a costume,” he said.

  “I just want to speak to someone,” Jacqueline said, and tried to shove him aside. A few people laughed as the boy pushed her back. Half running, Jacqueline rushed out the campus gates and down to the local shopping street where an all-purpose store stayed open late. She found a bunch of colored ribbons and a dark red lipstick.

  Back in her room Jacqueline put on a green sleeveless top—she’d decided not to wear a bra—and a long black skirt, and no shoes. She taped the ribbons all up and down her arms, then tied one around her neck so that the ends hung down over her breasts. With Louise’s kohl eyeliner she drew a mask around her eyes, with lines drawn back to her ears for the strings. She used her own mascara to create dark streaks in her blond hair, then put on the lipstick in thick strokes, laughing at the way it lit up her face. She was about to leave when she ran back to the mirror and used an indigo eye pencil to draw a crude labyrinth on her chest, just above the cleavage revealed by the green top.

  The cowboy let her in without comment. Inside, she pushed her way through the thick crowd, ignoring the loud music and the dancers banging into her. Near the front of the room, not far from the giant toad on its platform, a group of women were dancing together. For a moment Jacqueline thought she saw one of the red leather people, but when she came closer it was only one of Louise’s friends in a devil suit. Standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd, Louise herself waved excitedly at Jacqueline, who waved back and went on searching.

  It was so confusing. Everyone had become a knight or a princess or a witch or a toad—there were lots of toads, some with whole costumes, including elaborate helmetlike heads, others with nothing more than the same cardboard face worn by the bouncer at the door. Jacqueline didn’t know who had manufactured the toad masks, but she remembered seeing stacks of them for sale around the campus during the past week. People had worn them at rallies, or working on the dance preparations—she remembered a crew of bare-chested toads hammering the platform together in the unusual spring heat—or even while just walking along campus or sitting in the dorm lounge or cafeteria. As Jacqueline looked through the crowd, the band started playing “The Toad Hop” again and people rushed to grab each other’s hips, hopping up and down in long lines until the building shook. Jacqueline did her best to shove past them or look over them when they fell laughing to the floor.

  She found the redhaired woman standing by someone near a makeshift table with bowls of peanuts, potato chips, and some sort of creamy salad. The other person wore a top hat and tails, and black patent-leather shoes, like an old-fashioned tap dancer. She stood with her back to Jacqueline, with her weight resting on her left leg and her hands in the pockets of her striped pants. Jacqueline knew it was a she, despite the short hair, the wide shoulders (exaggerated by the cut of the jacket) and narrow hips.

  Next to her, the woman in the velvet dress looked very small, much smaller than she’d seemed standing by her limousine. She smiled at Jacqueline. Very fine sparkles dotted her face, and when she smiled the sparkles danced in the light like fireflies. She looked up at the woman in the top hat. “Laurie,” she said, “I want you to meet someone.” Her voice had a curious accent, or rather lilt, that gave it a half-foreign quality, like someone who’s lived for years in another country and now has returned to her home.

  When the tall woman turned her head, Jacqueline stepped back. The woman had whitened her face, then darkened her eyes and mouth to make a skull. When she took her hands from her pockets she was wearing black gloves, with skeleton bones painted down the backs and fingers. She looked like an old drawing—Death in a top hat and tails. Ignoring Jacqueline, the tall woman said to the other woman, “How do you know my name? Anyway, you’re wrong. It’s not Laurie, it’s Lauren.”

  The red-haired woman said nothing, only sipped from a plastic cup she held in both hands. “Laurie,” the tall woman repeated. “Lauren. Laurie.” She laughed loudly, drowning out the music, at least in that corner of the room. “Well, why not?” she said. “Let’s make it Laurie again.” She clapped her hands. Now she turned and looked at Jacqueline. There was something predatory in that look; not malicious, just a hunter sizing up a prey. But then she softened, and became a little confused. Jacqueline just stood there. She’d come looking for the woman with the red hair, but there was something about the other one. She had flat cheekbones, a sharp chin, and a thin straight nose. Her large eyes shone with excitement, ruining the skull effect.

  Looking at the tall woman, Jacqueline became conscious of her own body as a kind of awkward assemblage. Her breasts were too large and floppy in her too-thin green top. How could she ever have been so stupid as to go without a bra? She felt sweaty as well. She was standing awkwardly. When she tried to correct her posture, she realized—too late—that the gesture pushed her breasts forward. The tall woman grinned, and grinned wider when Jacqueline caved in her chest again.

  “Laurie,” the woman in the velvet dress said, “I want you to meet an old friend of mine.” She took Jacqueline’s hand and drew her closer. “This is Jaqe,” she said.

  She pronounced it “Jake,” but Jacqueline�
��Jaqe—knew how to spell it from that first moment. She stood shaking, unaware of the tears surging from her eyes. It’s so simple, she thought. It was there, it was always there, all those years. Jaqe! Her name was Jaqe! She grabbed the tall woman—Laurie—and spun around with her. “Congratulate me,” she said. “Don’t ask why. Just congratulate me.” When Jaqe let her go, Laurie bowed. “Congratulations,” she said, and made a swooping gesture with her top hat. Jaqe curtsied. Standing up, she felt a little dizzy, and wondered if that’s what books meant when they said the heroine felt faint.

  Laurie smiled, and Jaqe couldn’t help but laugh. It looked so incongruous, Death smiling at her just when she felt so alive, so in focus, as if she’d clicked into place. She had a name, she’d stepped into the world. Laurie said, “What’s your costume, Jaqe?”

  Jaqe laughed again. “I don’t know.”

  Laurie moved her fingers through the ribbons. She said, “I thought you might be a spider.” One gloved finger lightly traced the pattern Jaqe had drawn on her chest. Jaqe imagined that finger moving down, grazing the sides of her breasts. Jaqe shook her head. “It’s so hot in here,” she said.

  The woman in the velvet dress held out a plastic cup. “Drink some punch,” she said. “It’ll cool you off.”

  The first swallow sent a shiver through Jaqe, but after that she felt a relaxation spread through her muscles. Everything in the room became softer, the music not so aggressive, the lights on the gym walls less glaring. She looked again at the red-haired woman. The face was small, almost delicate under the wide hat. The eyes were black, large, without makeup. They shone like the sparkles dusting her skin. Jaqe said, “Who are you?”

  The woman waved a hand. It seemed to move on its own, like a bird. “I have so many names,” the woman said, “I can hardly remember them myself.”

  Jaqe turned to Laurie. “Is she a friend of yours?”

  Death shrugged. “I just met her. I thought she was your friend.”

  Jaqe looked again at the woman, who slowly raised her head so that a red spotlight, previously blocked by the edge of the hat, fell upon her face. The woman said, “Call me Mother Night.” When she smiled, her teeth gleamed within the red of her skin.

  Without thinking, Jaqe grabbed Laurie’s hand. At that moment, she heard a whistle and turned just in time to see Louise’s arms coming around her for a hug. “Wow,” Louise said. “You’ve really been keeping a secret, haven’t you?”

  “A secret?”

  Louise struck a pose, one hand on her hip next to the dangling sword, the other flinging back her hair. “You don’t just join the DCC like the rest of us. You go right to the boss.”

  Laurie said, “For Goddess’s sake, Louise.”

  “DCC?” Jaqe asked. “Boss? What is she talking about?”

  “DCC is kind of a joke,” Laurie explained. “It’s what we call the Lesbian Student Union. It means Dyke Central Committee.”

  Jaqe looked at Louise again, then grinned at Laurie. “Are you the boss?”

  Laurie stared at the floor. “Well, I’m the president. But it’s just a title. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Louise said, “You’ve always been a great roomie, Jacqueline, but you really should have—”

  Jaqe stopped her with a hand held up like a traffic cop. “Not Jacqueline,” she said. “Jaqe. Don’t forget.”

  Louise laughed and hugged her again. “Wow,” she said. “When you come out, you go all the way.”

  Before Jaqe could answer, the band struck up a loud and slightly off-key fanfare. A moment later a whistle of feedback accompanied a man’s voice in the loudspeakers. “May I have your attention!” he said. When Jaqe turned to the front she saw a group of men in various costumes, each with a toad mask over his head. The one who spoke into the microphone wore a bird outfit, a one-piece suit hung all over with polyester feathers. From inside his toad face he announced that a great moment had come, when the committee would choose the Toad Queen to officially present the trophy to the university. The committee, he said, had studied all the lovely women in their beautiful costumes, and had chosen the one “whose radiant costume lights up our glorious Toad Castle.” Three men walked into the crowd.

  As they came near her, Jaqe looked around for some woman in a shiny bikini or diaphanous gown. As they came closer, she looked in surprise at Laurie, then Mother Night. When they took her hands she pulled away in amazement. Mother Night said, “They want you to go with them.” Jaqe looked at her friends. Laurie tipped her top hat and kissed her on the cheek. Louise waved her sword.

  “But this is nothing,” Jaqe said. “It’s not even a costume.” Yet when she looked at the indigo labyrinth it seemed to glow where Laurie’s finger had touched the skin. And when she moved her arms, the ribbons flowed like streams of light. She walked through applause and whistles to stand on the platform before the wood-and-papier-mâché toad with its glass eyes, and the school insignia painted on its puffed chest. Next to her a man in a black dinner jacket with a cardboard toad mask over his face stuck out his hand. Jaqe shook it. Only when he began to speak did she realize he was Samuel Benson, the school’s president.

  Jaqe paid little attention to the speeches and the cheering. When they gave her the trophy she passed it right to President Benson, who had to give it back so she could hold it for everyone to see. “And now,” the man in the bird suit said, “the Queen will choose her king.” The band began an old-fashioned slow song. The spotlights made it hard for her to see, but she still knew just where to point her open arms. From out of the crowd Laurie strode forth, Death emerging from the mob.

  Like sounds across a lake, the noise drifted past Jaqe and Laurie as they swirled about the floor. There was talk of going too far, and a few stamps and boos, along with scattered cheers from the DCC, and above it all one amazed voice proclaiming, as if no one else had noticed, “Hey, that’s another girl!”

  Jaqe laid her head on Laurie’s shoulder. She felt the soft weight of her own body in the spiral of Laurie’s arms. A moment later other couples began to emerge onto the dance floor.

  “Come back to my apartment,” Laurie whispered. Jaqe nodded, then remembered all the questions she’d wanted to ask Mother Night. She glanced back to where she’d seen her, but all she spotted was Louise leading a march of women to congratulate the royal couple. Jaqe grabbed Laurie’s hand and rushed her to the door.

  In the street, Jaqe wondered what in God’s—Goddess’s—name she was doing. She wasn’t Louise, after all; she’d never thought of herself as…as gay, if that was even the right word. She’d just found out her name; shouldn’t she find out more about herself? But then she looked at Laurie, who was grinning under her Death’s-head makeup like a small child on her birthday, and Jaqe’s nervousness softened.

  Laurie’s apartment was the messiest place Jaqe had ever seen. Plates and glasses and even frying pans perched on piles of books. Papers, crumpled or flat, covered the floors, even in the bathroom. Jeans and tank tops and T-shirts and underwear obscured the bed, the chairs, the desk. Jaqe thought about the flow of chaos in Louise’s half of their dorm room and wondered if being gay made you sloppy.

  When Jaqe laughed, Laurie blushed—Jaqe could see it through the makeup—and began shoving things together, as if to clear a space for the two of them to stand. “Sorry about this mess,” she said. “It’s usually not this bad.” She blushed again, as if she knew what an obvious lie that was. When Laurie began scooping things off the bed, Jaqe saw that the sheets were freshly washed. She grinned, just in time for Laurie to see and become embarrassed all over again.

  “It’s okay,” Jaqe told her, and held out her hands. She felt a chill when Laurie took them. To herself she said, “It’s okay.” But she kept thinking, This is crazy. I don’t belong here.

  “Jaqe,” Laurie said, and the sound of her name washed over Jaqe with a flood of joy. She squeezed Laurie’s hands as if to keep from floating right through the ceiling. She laughed as she realized that Laurie had cal
led her. She said, “What?”

  Laurie repeated, “What?” and then both of them were laughing.

  Jaqe reminded her, “You said my name.” My name, she thought.

  “I just like the sound of it.”

  “So do I. Laurie. I like that one too.” Jaqe wondered what someone might think of them. Two women standing in a sloppy room holding hands and saying each other’s names. To her own surprise—after all, Laurie was the boss of the DCC—it was Jaqe who pulled Laurie closer, who lifted her face for Laurie to kiss her. The kiss of death, she thought, and nearly started laughing again, but didn’t.

  Not dying, she thought, dissolving. The touch of Laurie’s breasts against hers—even through their shirts—the softness of Laurie’s face, the pressure of her arms, of her lips…Death kissed the front of her shoulder, the slight indentation between her shoulder and her breast, and then the top of her breast, the sides, even underneath, before coming up to around the nipples and finally the nipples themselves. “Oh God,” Jaqe said, “Oh my God.”

  “Goddess,” Laurie mumbled, and the two of them laughed and hugged each other. While she and Laurie were taking off their clothes, Jaqe thought, for just a moment, that she saw Mother Night standing in the doorway, still drinking her cup of punch.

  “What is it?” Laurie said. “What’s wrong?”

  Jaqe shook her head. “Nothing.” Then, “Say my name. Please.”

  “Jaqe. Jaqe, Jaqe, Jaqe.”

  Jaqe put her head against Laurie’s shoulder and hugged her. Then Laurie kissed her, and the hand at the top of Jaqe’s back moved down her spine until it came below, between Jaqe’s legs, and somehow lifted Jaqe off the littered floor and onto the summer fields of the bed.

  Late that night, Jaqe woke up and looked happily at Laurie’s face, just visible in the streetlight coming through the tree outside the bedroom window. As softly as possible, she let one finger stroke Laurie’s cheek. Laurie slept with her mouth open, and Jaqe played for a moment at seeing how far her finger could go in without actually touching the tongue and waking Laurie up. She lay back on the pillow, wide awake. Finally, she got up and dressed, borrowing Laurie’s dinner jacket and sandals, and went out, taking Laurie’s keys. She headed back to campus, wondering if there’d still be anything going on at the gym, if other people were wandering around inflated with joy in the middle of the night. But the gym was dark, and the only person she saw was a security guard. All over the ground lay cups and cigarette butts and cardboard toad masks.