Gen made a move to disengage from Juliet’s arms, muttering, “I’m all right now.” Her eyes were still wet, though, and Juliet continued to clasp her tight, whispering something soothing into her ear that Gen couldn’t make out. Pressed against her, Gen caught the clean, familiar scent of Juliet’s shampoo—Halo, like her own.
And when their lips met, it was as dizzying as Gen remembered from the night before. The kitchen spun like a classroom globe. Gen leaned further and further into the kiss, wanting more of something but unsure what.
Then a light flashed behind her lids, making her eyes pop open, and she lurched away from Juliet.
Her kitchen shade was still raised, and the Carrs’ kitchen had gone dark. Gen dove for the cord and lowered the shade clumsily, unevenly, her hands tensed.
“What’s wrong?” Juliet said, out of breath from the kiss.
Carolyn had occasionally chided her for being over-vigilant when it came to shades and curtains. “Not everyone wants to watch you, Gen,” she said, only half teasing.
Gen thought of that now as she replied, “It’s nothing” and drew Juliet from the kitchen to the bedroom, where the curtains were securely closed.
Chapter Nineteen
Fenton
The story occupied no more than five inches at the bottom corner of the Gazette’s front page. Fenton read it twice as he sipped his coffee in the theater the Monday morning after Thanksgiving.
Having pled guilty, Mark had received a year’s probation, and the three other white men arrested on Labor Day also received mild sentences. The judge leveled a stiffer punishment of two years in prison on James Combs, Mark’s Negro companion. The investigation that had pursued leads for weeks had so far yielded no other arrests, the paper reported.
The mayor, who had won reelection handily over his opponent, told the Gazette he was satisfied that justice had been served. “The Know Your Neighbor program has yielded a few names,” he said, “but nothing of great concern. Our citizens can feel safe in Springboro. We’ll be closing the investigation down.” He didn’t need to mention that Congressman Duke had lost his bid for a twelfth term to a young man who had no interest in weeding out vice in a sleepy town at the corner of his district.
The news took a big bite out of Fenton’s worries, and he felt like celebrating. He reached for the phone to call Gen, but his superstitious bent told him not to jinx anything.
Later that day, he heard from Mark, who was rooming in the Slocum Point Motor Court on the edge of town near the Negro neighborhood. At night, its attached diner served as an unofficial pickup place for gay men, which Fenton knew about even though he had only ventured there once. It was too close, too dangerous, too seedy. When Mark asked to meet him there, Fenton countered by suggesting the bar in the lobby of the Hotel Jeff Davis in nearby Leesville, which had no associations with anything gay and was a safe three miles away.
Fenton dressed for the elegant bar in a suit and tie and arrived ten minutes early to take a table in a far corner, away from prying eyes and ears. While he waited for Mark, he ordered bourbon, neat. Time ticked by, and before long he ordered a second.
Mark arrived a half-hour late, wearing a garish plaid tie that he was still adjusting under his shirt collar. He wasn’t wearing a jacket under his navy peacoat.
“They wouldn’t let me in without a tie,” he complained. “To a bar! The coat check girl took pity on me and gave me this hideous loaner.”
“I would have warned you, but I thought you knew.”
The waitress set down Fenton’s drink and took Mark’s order, side-eying him. With hair so long it curled over his collar, Mark looked more bedraggled than the day he and Fenton had met in the town library—no longer the natty art historian who prided himself on his grooming.
“Silly me, I guess I forgot,” Mark said. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”
His biting tone stung. Mark looked away from Fenton and helped himself to a handful of peanuts.
Fenton waited for Mark’s scotch to arrive before he spoke again. “I was happy to read about your sentencing,” he said.
Mark snorted. “If anyone can be happy about sentencing.”
Everything was coming out wrong. “I don’t know what to say to you,” Fenton admitted.
Mark turned a fierce glare toward him. “How about a simple thanks?” he said. “My lawyer wanted me to give people up, but I thought that was despicable.”
Fenton swigged his bourbon. “I didn’t know.”
“You could have guessed when you were still walking around without any charges against you.”
Mark gave the peanut bowl a shove, but his voice remained low and modulated.
“It was tempting, Fen. They would have expunged my record after three months. They would have gone lighter on Jimmy.” The tender nickname leapt out. “But who turns on other guys like that? I couldn’t do it. Now I’ve got this permanent stain on my record, and I probably won’t see Jimmy again. I can’t even move away from this fucking town and start fresh.”
Fenton was aware of the waitress hovering nearby, attuned to the shrinking levels in their glasses, and he waved her off.
“I do thank you, Mark,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d have been that noble in your shoes.”
“I wasn’t looking for praise, Fen. Maybe I was stupid and I’ll regret missing the chance to throw you all under the bus.” Mark sniffed and finished his drink. “I asked you here because I need a job. I’m a little desperate. You know anybody hiring convicted sex offenders?”
Fenton couldn’t laugh at the sad joke. He pulled out his wallet and thumbed through his slim stash of bills. “Would twenty help at all? I’m kind of short right now. I’ve had to pay—” He stopped, not wanting to burden Mark with his therapy story, or to hear his disapproval.
Mark tilted his head curiously, as if he expected Fenton to finish his sentence with “for sex.”
“Not that,” Fenton said with a frown. “Consider this a gift from a friend.”
Mark glanced around before pocketing the tens that Fenton slid across the table. “I appreciate it. This will keep me at the Slocum another week.” With a nervous laugh, he added, “I’ve actually considered committing myself to Western State so I’d have someplace to live.”
Fenton shivered at the mention of the asylum in Staunton. Horrible things happened there, everyone knew: lobotomies, straitjackets, shock treatment—the real kind, not the mild jolts Fenton got in therapy.
“Please tell me you won’t do that,” he said. “We’ll figure something out. I’ll give you more on payday. We’ll stay in touch.”
They finished their drinks in silence, and Fenton emptied the remaining singles from his wallet to pay the tab.
✥ ✥ ✥
With the threat of arrest lifted, Fenton decided to break up with both Dr. Thorne and Kathy.
He reasoned he could call the psychiatrist’s office and leave a message with the receptionist, a sweet-tempered lady who reminded him of one of his aunts. Because he had never agreed to the doctor’s plan of taking an electrode machine home, there was no reason to see Dr. Thorne in person ever again. What joy! Fenton could avoid the doctor’s “Do you think this is a wise idea, Mr. Patterson?” which bounded into his head.
“I guess you’d like to reschedule,” the receptionist continued.
Fenton hadn’t anticipated having to lie. “No, not r-right now,” he said.
The receptionist paused. “Would you like the doctor to call you back?”
“I— Well—” He couldn’t finish the thought, so he slipped the phone softly back into the cradle without replying.
But what to do about Kathy?
Fenton had played her beau on less than a handful of dates, if he included Ruby’s election night party. On the most recent one, just before the holiday, he had worked up the courage to coax his tongue into her mouth. Her cheeks were amazingly soft against his. He wanted to ask about her moisturizer, but then her hand slid to his crotch and he
surprised himself by hardening.
In bed, Kathy’s naughty suggestion that he take her from behind worked well for him, especially when she agreed to switch off the lamp. After the sex, he wondered if Dr. Thorne was mistaken and the right woman could guide him toward a semblance of heterosexuality. But when Kathy mounted him, cajoling him for a second go-round, he went soft.
“We shouldn’t stress an old man’s ticker,” he said, feigning exhaustion.
Unlike the men he’d been with—even months-long relationships, like Mark—Kathy turned possessive after one roll in the hay.
“I don’t see why you can’t come home with me for Thanks-giving,” she had said. “I want to show you off to my parents!”
“Don’t pout.”
“I’m not pouting.”
“I’m looking right at you and believe me, you’re pouting. And it’s not pretty.” When her bottom lip quivered, he regretted the insult and took her hand lightly in his. “Look, hon, I planned this trip back home long before we started going out. I don’t get back there much, and my mother’s expecting me. I can’t back out now.”
Once he’d called Dr. Thorne, Fenton decided to try the break-up-by-phone technique with Kathy. She didn’t cooperate.
“You don’t see us having a future together?” she repeated. “Tell me you didn’t just say that. God, Fenton, I let you fuck me on our second real date! I slept over at your apartment. I’ve never done that with a guy.”
“Now, hon, I know for a fact I wasn’t your first—”
“I didn’t mean I was a virgin.” She spat out the word. “I mean I always held out longer, and I’ve always insisted the guy stay at my place.”
The distinction was lost on him, but there was so much he didn’t understand about women from his own lack of experience. There had only been one girl before Kathy, and they’d slept together as freshmen in college, almost twenty years earlier. He and Fay Purdy had never gotten past second base.
“You introduced me to your landlady, for God’s sake,” Kathy went on.
He had, but only because they’d run into her on the front porch and it had seemed the polite thing to do. That, and she might provide cover if he ever needed someone to testify that he wasn’t queer. He couldn’t admit either of those things to Kathy, though.
“I told my parents and my friends about you! Do you want me to look like a fool? You want everyone saying even old Fenton Page doesn’t want me?”
Fenton bristled at the implication of her last question. Even with the age gap, he knew Kathy found him attractive. On one of their dates, she had asked playfully, “Why haven’t you been snapped up yet? You’re such a catch.” He had shrugged off the question with a bashful smile.
In his mind, he had hoped this breakup would proceed smoothly. Maybe she’d sniffle, ask to see him one last time, and he’d relent to coffee or a drink. He owed her something. He hadn’t anticipated a verbal lashing.
“I’m sorry,” he offered, but she had already hung up.
Part II
Winter 1960–1961
Chapter Twenty
Gen
Although her schedule was full to bursting in the days before finals, Gen labored to shift her thoughts away from the weekend with Juliet and toward pressing academic tasks. At unwanted moments, while she prepared her final lectures, collected term papers, and created exams so they could be mimeographed, the first blush of a new love affair filtered back into her consciousness in delicious Technicolor.
Once, a moment with Juliet flashed to mind during a meeting with a student. Gen didn’t hear half of what the girl said and, in too short a tone, asked her to repeat it—twice. The student looked crestfallen, and Gen had to apologize, blaming the end of the semester for her frayed attention span.
And then Huston requested a meeting, to discuss what, she wasn’t sure. “This and that,” the chairman said vaguely, making her wonder if a student had taken complaints about her teaching to a higher authority. “As soon as you can,” he added, and the stipulation made her palms sweat. She wished she knew how to prepare.
The department secretary, Linda Sue, popped out of her seat when Gen arrived for the meeting and asked if she could get her anything. “Anything at all?” Then she quickly tailored it to “Coffee, Dr. Rider? I just made a fresh pot.” Linda Sue had never offered Gen coffee. In fact, she had never paid much attention to Gen at all, although she did her mimeographing with a smile and greeted her pleasantly when she picked up her mail. Gen never solicited anything more from her—unlike Henry Thoms, who had a habit of perching at the edge of Linda Sue’s desk while he regaled her with humorous stories about his sons.
Gen glanced toward Huston’s door, which was open a crack. She wanted to be on the other side of whatever unpleasantness was in store.
“I think I’ll just go in, if he’s ready for me.”
“Let me check,” Linda Sue said—something else she never did. The young woman scurried to Huston’s office and poked her head in. “Dr. Rider’s here,” Gen heard her say before she motioned her in. Linda Sue clicked the door closed behind her.
Huston was already on his feet behind his desk, his fingers tented on the blotter as if the furniture were holding him erect. His eyes blinked rapidly before falling to the chair across from him. “Gen, please sit.”
He continued to stand for a long moment after she took her chair. Finally, he crossed in front of his desk and settled himself in the leather armchair beside her. He’d done this before when he’d invited her to tea, and Gen felt her body loosen.
“I don’t really know how to begin,” he said.
A knot tugged at her belly. She sat up straighter and took several measured breaths.
“I had a visit from the mother of one of your students. Mrs. Blakeney. You know her?”
“Lee-Anne’s mother? No, we’ve never met.”
Huston cherry-picked his words. “She was . . . upset. Distraught, you might say. Linda Sue had to help calm her down. I haven’t had such a visit from a parent before. It was . . . unnerving.”
Gen coughed once to clear away her mounting anxiety and take charge of the meeting. “If this is about my Civil War class, Geoffrey . . . well, Lee-Anne has made it abundantly clear all semester that she doesn’t understand why we talk so much about Negroes. I’m fully aware of her discomfort. But what could she possibly want this late in the semester? Special dispensation from the final? She had a B-plus on the midterm, which I consider respectable, but she wasn’t happy. Or is she just raising a fuss to try to get me to change the syllabus going forward? You can’t expect me to do that.” She cut off her rambling and paused for his reply.
The lines in Huston’s forehead creased. “Of course not. I wouldn’t call you in here for that.”
A slight taste of bile rose in her mouth. Something worse than that had brought her to this moment.
Huston’s words and sentences scrambled in her ears: “. . . kitchen window . . . the shade . . . her friend, Mrs. Carr . . . with a female . . . compelled to report . . .”
Gen’s neck and face burned. The kiss, which had thrilled her, now flooded her with shame.
“. . . never encountered anything like this . . .”
Gen wanted to be anywhere else, with Huston’s damning words out of her ears. She grabbed the arms of the chair but found herself rooted in place.
Since her hiring at Baines, Gen had known that the college could snatch away her career at any moment, that she had to conduct herself in a way that didn’t apply to other faculty. People like her and Fenton had to take special precautions. They weren’t allowed mistakes. The unspoken code of conduct demanded vigilance and sacrifice.
But then, one lapse in judgment, one passing failure to be on guard had brought her to this sickening moment. Gen Rider had been caught being human—not on campus or with a student, but with a willing adult in her own kitchen.
“. . . appointment with Provost Ramsey . . .” she heard Huston continue. And then the first complet
e sentence since he’d begun speaking: “I wanted to tell you first.”
All those years of diligent hiding churned in her, and a bitter resentment she didn’t know she was capable of bubbled up. Her hands curled into fists on their own accord. I was in my own home, she could have sworn she said, but nothing came out. She tried again, a tremor in her voice, a shaking at the back of her throat.
“I was in my own home, Geoffrey. In my kitchen. I shouldn’t have to account for what I do or don’t do there on my own time.” The room seemed important to stress; nothing too untoward ever happened in a kitchen.
Huston’s head bobbed in agreement, but his next words didn’t match the action. “It’s a serious charge. I must say, I’m deeply disappointed.”
The chairman leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his full cheeks drained of their ruddy color. He didn’t specify that he was disappointed in her, but he didn’t need to. “Your research draws enough attention,” he said, “and now this.”
“I was in my own home,” she repeated, reasoning that he didn’t understand. But her assertion came out soft and weak—the “female” voice she hated and encouraged her students to rid themselves of.
“Mrs. Blakeney said if I didn’t speak to the provost, she would. That it was her duty.”
Gen’s thoughts tumbled over each other.
“It’s better coming from me than from a hysterical mother,” he continued. “I thought maybe you could explain to me what happened and I could frame it more delicately. I’m not asking for an explanation now. Tell me tomorrow. Maybe it was an accident, or maybe the female was a relative you were hugging. It was Thanksgiving weekend, after all. I’m willing to accept that it was purely innocent and Mrs. Carr made a mistake in what she saw.”
Her neck was on fire now, and she tugged at the collar of her blouse. “I was in my own home. With whom or doing what is no one’s business. That’s all I have to say.”
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