Beggar of Love (27 page)

She remembered the night she went to see a performance Ginger was producing. Ginger was taking money at the door. Between sales, Jefferson said, “You told me I’d have to stop drinking for you to stay. I’ve stopped. Come home with me tonight.”

Ginger had slept at her parents’ apartment all week. Jefferson couldn’t even remember now which transgression it had been that had driven Ginger out. Jefferson had been spending her evenings at AA meetings and going out for coffee with other alcoholics.

The pain in Ginger’s eyes was wringing her heart. She’d been about to say something and Jefferson saw her curl forward over her pain. She was going to say no forever this time. “I don’t want to live without you, Ginger. You’re the one I’m supposed to be with.”

She’d thought the man who’d approached them was trying to slip past Ginger. He put a hand on Ginger’s shoulder and Jefferson tensed, ready to throw it off if Ginger gave the slightest sign of fear.

The man spoke. “Who’s this, babe?” He turned Ginger toward him with his big hand.

Ginger’s look of pain turned to sadness, a vast and agonized sadness that offered no hope for Jefferson.

“Oh, no,” Jefferson said in a hoarse voice she’d never heard herself use before. She’d been standing on a fragile cliff and now fell. Her heart, her soul, her hopes were far from the safe branches she sped past. Ginger bent her head in confirmation and walked off with the man.

Still in free fall, Jefferson couldn’t look away from the sight of Ginger and the man, willed her body to be still, the body that only understood movement. If she did move, it would be true and the fall would go on and on. She’d rather live with this paralysis than live without Ginger, go on into life with the knowledge of what Ginger might have done, an incurable anguish that led her, once again, to the comfort of Irish whiskey.

Later, Ginger assured her that the man was one of the backers of the performance, a friend and a dance instructor like herself. She believed Ginger, but she knew what she’d seen, knew that Ginger had been a dance step away from trying to find with the man what she had not found with Jefferson. She blamed herself and had no idea how to stop her cycle of transgressions.

“Jef,” Gabby said sharply. “The exit.” She turned to exchange a glance with Amaretto.

“No, I’m not avoiding the exit. The memories—I don’t know how to block out the memories,” Jefferson told them with a small laugh. In truth, her hands were cold and her jaw a little sore from tension. She hadn’t wanted to relive that scene today, or ever. She’d gone back to AA and Ginger had returned to her again.

Treadwell turned out to be a town built on recreational pursuits. Between the river and a state park, there were boat ramps, bait shops, and summer bungalows; a few motels and bed-and-breakfasts, campgrounds and trailer parks. The summer traffic was like driving in a pot of glue—they couldn’t get out of it. The downtown consisted of four blocks ranged around a small square of green with a playground. They spotted a hardware shop, a T-shirt store, three real-estate offices, a tiny post office, several antique shops, a drugstore and gift shop, and a gas station and convenience store combined.

“Where’s the sign, ‘This way to the Paras’ summer place’?” Gabby asked Jefferson.

It was a weekday. Jefferson had taken off because Gabby and Amaretto both worked most weekends. They found the town hall on the other side of the gas station, but the whole place was shut down for the noon hour. While Jefferson and Gabby discussed what to do until one thirty, Amaretto walked into the nearest real-estate office and chitchatted the guy into telling them the Paras had a small place overlooking the river north on the main street.

“You’re the femme,” she told Amaretto. “You can charm them, can get the job done. I don’t see why you stay with us.”

“Butches are irresistible,” Gabby said.

“Obviously that doesn’t apply to all of us.”

Gabby sighed beside her as Jefferson went around the block and headed north.

“We’re kind of nice at home anyway. Out in a crowd, sometimes I feel bad for Am, having to introduce me instead of the handsome hunk she could have on her arm.”

“Take that back, sweet-butt. You are my handsome hunk.”

Gabby smiled. “All I’m saying is, you femmes could have it easier if you switched to their side. Maybe Ginger, you know, wants to take the easy way out for a season or two.”

“Hey, Gab, Gab,” she said, tapping Gabby’s thigh. “That’s not how you treat the people you love.”

“I know. She must be crazy. I mean, really, like a screw came loose.” Gabby peered at Jefferson. “I never would have thought Ginger would do this in a million years. I can’t get over it. I mean it makes me think if she would, then—”

“No,” Amaretto assured Gabby. “Not if you beat me. Not if you ran around on me. Not if you insisted on doing all the cooking.”

“I don’t guess we’ll have to test you, then,” Gabby said. “But, listen, Jef, whatever pushed her over the edge, I am so sorry.”

She sighed and nodded. Tears threatened her eyes.

“He said to watch for the super-tall hedge along the road—there,” Amaretto said, pointing left. Jefferson drove slowly past, unable to see anything beyond the wall of green.

“These people are into privacy,” Gabby noted. Jefferson had pulled ahead of the traffic and now slowed at a driveway. “Not as much privacy as Mitchell’s brother described. I don’t see a gate or a glass-topped wall. What a liar,” she said, coming to a stop. The driveway cut back on the other side of the thick and carefully barbered hedges. “We would have seen more if we’d rented a boat.”

“And a periscope,” Gabby added.

“Do I have to do everything for you two butches? Drive up the driveway.”

Gabby loudly sucked in her breath. “What if they’re there?”

Amaretto twisted her neck to look at Gabby. “Honey-baby, what if they’re not?”

Jefferson turned in and followed the graveled drive.

“Can’t you stop that crunching?” Gabby complained. “They’ll hear us.”

But the house was perched half a lot away, right over the river, and a raucous helicopter made its way upstate, following the course of the water. The noonday sun highlighted the house, making even its forest green siding bright. She stopped the SUV before rounding the next corner. Did this place remind Ginger of their times on the lake in New Hampshire? Did this man make life half as sweet as it had been for them in the early years? Did Ginger know she was tearing the skin off Jefferson’s heart?

The lake had been a still place, peace radiating. The river here never stopped. It was tidal this close to the Atlantic, running north, south, north again, running, running, running. Like a dancer, like an athlete, the river was all about movement.

“Jefferson?” Amaretto asked.

“In a game,” she answered, “you have to know when to run for the base, the basket, the ball, and when to stop and watch.” The pain was incredible, even worse than 9/11. She’d have to go. Leave the apartment, leave her job, leave the city, leave her friends behind and go where thoughts of Ginger weren’t as common as streetlights.

No one was at the house. There was no garage, no car in the driveway. A phone book lay on the porch in its dirty plastic wrapper, and last fall’s leaves were bunched against the front door where it looked as if they’d huddled all winter. She put the car in reverse. She was both relieved and disappointed. “Let’s find a spot by the river and have our picnic there.”

Was there anyone lonelier than a lesbian on her own at a men’s bar on a cold night, Jefferson wondered. Then she answered herself: yes, there was. It was a lesbian listening to the hum of a microwave oven, glass platform rotating under a Lean Cuisine for one. She’d had to get out of the apartment.

She’d managed to get the last stool at the end of the bar where she could see this whole room and the entryway everyone would have to pass through to get to the dance floor upstairs. She didn’t know how many men’s bars there were in the city, or what her chances were of finding Mitch, or someone who knew Mitch, but her friends had found nothing. She’d been cruising for him nearly every night for the past two and a half weeks. He wouldn’t be able to stay away from other men, no matter what was going on between him and Ginger. Mitch adored men, spent every penny he had on them, and talked incessantly about his heartthrobs, current and past.

She’d tipped the bartenders well with each soft drink she ordered, but none had opened up about having seen Mitch. For a while, her search had kept her hope alive, but tonight she questioned why she was bothering.

Because you love her, she told herself. Because you want to catch him, she heard her mind admit. Catch him and, what, expose him to Ginger? When she really examined her motive, though, she knew it had more to do with some kind of ownership. Ginger was hers, body and soul. She would find her and get her to return. She needed Ginger. Without her Jefferson feared becoming a cipher in the city. For all of her absence from Jefferson’s life, Ginger was central to all she did. Sure, she was free now to do anything or see anyone she wanted to, but Ginger had acted all of these years as a springboard, the home fire, an anchor, her main point of reference.

She might have done her laundry alone, but some things of Ginger’s were always mixed in with her own. She might have eaten dinner alone, but she always cooked extra for Ginger to eat when she got in from work, or she ate what Ginger had not. Ginger was the center of her life. She’d considered posting her picture among the others at Ground Zero, because that’s still how she felt, like a disaster had hit.

The next bar was no more promising so she changed tacks and went back out in the bitter cold to a mixed place on the East Side. For all she knew, Ginger and Mitch both went to the bars. Or were into threesomes. Or never went out at all.

She slopped some of her soda when the guy said hello. Looking behind, she confirmed that she didn’t know this short, pudgy, older African American man.

“Don’t look at me like maybe you should call the bartender for protection,” he said. “You look like you need a friend. My name is Ellis.”

She found herself telling him the whole story.

“Gay Pride was the worst for me,” Ellis said. “We lived in a medium-size city and we’d been working to put together a pride day for-ever. Then he fell in love with one of the other organizers. All three of us wanted pride to happen and we made it happen. But to see him marching hand in hand with someone else—girl, do you know how that tore out my insides?”

“This is the first time I’ve wanted a drink in a long time,” she said, fingering her chin. “I want to cry into my beer and get stinking drunk with you.”

“Naughty, naughty,” said Ellis. “I didn’t come over here to knock you off the wagon. How about if I put you in a cab and out of temptation’s way?”

She reached over and gave him a little touch on his collar. “How could you not know Mitchell?” She described him.

“Oh,” Ellis squealed, “you mean Mitch the Bitch!”

“He looks like I said?”

“Yes. I heard he was experimenting with a woman. He used to have the wildest parties at his place upstate.”

“Did you ever go?”

Ellis laughed. “Go? I’d stay for days at a time, hon. We used to call it gayboy Para-dise.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“You think he’s got her up there?”

“No. I went and checked.”

He was gazing at her as if sizing her up. “I’d guess you can take care of yourself, but honey, Mitch the Bitch can turn mean in a heartbeat. Why do you think we call him that?”

“All the more reason to find him.”

“All right then. But be careful.”

“If I had a gun I’d tote it along—”

“Tote it? What are you, Cowboy Jefferson?” Ellis said. “Can I change your focus a bit? I want to introduce you to someone—I saw her come in.”

She crossed her arms in front of herself as if to ward off a vampire. “No! No matchmaking.”

“Matchmaking? What do you take me for? I have a social life to keep up and she looks like she’s free for babysitting.”

She shook her head, but she was smiling.

Ellis hugged her. “I know what you need, girlfriend, so you sit back and let your Uncle Ellis make it happen.”

She was surprised to see that the very young woman Ellis brought back with him was wearing a skirt and even more surprised when she felt herself snap right out of her funk.

“This is Brandi. Brandi, this is Jefferson.”

“How old are you?” Jefferson asked. She was being tired and peevish, but really wasn’t in the mood to charm an eighteen-year-old into bed. Let someone else teach the kid the ropes.

“Ta,” Ellis said, and swept away like a lady in a skirt with a train.

“Twenty-six,” Brandi answered.

“You sure?”

Brandi said she was. Jefferson told her to sit down, then went and got Brandi another drink. It was polite to do so, she told herself. How much money could a twenty-six-year-old have?

As it turned out, Brandi had no reluctance to tell her about her cool job at a start-up software company for $55,000 per year and many other details of her life, her family, her inner thoughts, her sexuality, and all of her past lovers’ names. She invited herself home with Jefferson, had a cab called, and snuggled close to her on the drive.