Unlike Others (19 page)

"Things."

"Tears came into Karen's eyes. "We get along all right—except in bed. It's just nothing, Jo. I don't mind it, it doesn't hurt or anything, but nothing happens to me. It's nothing."

Jo adjusted the fire under the percolator again. It began to glug. Karen went on nervously, "It isn't his fault, he tries, he doesn't know I'm not getting anything out of it. I try to act like I'm excited, honest I do. I'm numb."

"I don't know why you're telling me this. It's none of my business."

Karen looked at her, all soft with feeling. "Can't I come back?"

"You mean, leave Dave and move in with me?"

"No. Oh no, I couldn't do that. He'd be so hurt, there's no reason I can't come and see you once in a while, is there?"

I ought to feel great about this, Jo thought. After all the crying and bickering and accusations, like I made her do it and she didn't want to. "That's pretty silly," she said when she could trust her voice.

"But why? Dave doesn't know about us. He thinks I've always been straight. I am straight, really. He knows we’re friends, we used to share an apartment, he wouldn't think anything of it if I came to see you sometimes."

And besides," Jo said, "I don't earn much and you're not trained for anything but a typist or file clerk. There wouldn't be any diamond wrist watches."

"All right, that's important too. Look, darling, all I want is to see you once in a while."

"I don't like people who cheat."

"It wouldn't be cheating. It isn't the same thing, what I have with Dave and what I have with you."

"Would he feel that way?"

"He doesn't know about us, silly."

"Supposing he found out?"

"But how would he find out? We'd be careful. Darling," Karen said, coming closer and laying her hand on Jo's arm, "I want you so much. You're the only person that's ever given me any happiness."

Jo said harshly, "I've never given you anything but trouble. You hated me for bringing you out. Every time you got a couple of drinks in you we went all over that. It was a fight every time I wanted to love you, and you were frigid with me, too. Remember? You left me flat without any warning." She was sweating; she stopped and wiped her wet forehead on her sleeve. "You can't keep changing your mind all the time. There has to be an end to it."

"I was a bitch. Can't you forgive me?"

"Oh, sure, I'm not holding any grudge."

"Then why can't I come and see you once in a while? Nobody will think anything of it. Everybody has friends."

"Because I don't want you to. You're no friend of mine—nor an enemy either. You're nothing as far as I'm concerned."

"You don't mean that."

"Sure I do."

Karen's hand travelled up her arm and moved to her breast. Jo stood still. Karen said, "Darling, let's go to bed. You've forgotten what it was like."

"Look," Jo said, "you're just a straight girl looking for kicks. You never were anything else."

"Don't try to tell me you didn't like it!"

Jo removed the hand. "I liked making love to you, sure. That's not enough any more. I'm not a kid any more, that's not what I'm looking for."

"Oh, hooey."

"I mean it."

"All right, what are you looking for?”

Jo swallowed. "Love."

"All right, I love you."

Jo took a step backward. "Honey, you don't know what the word means. Now will you get the hell out of here?"

"Darling, you're still angry at me."

"No," Jo said. "Go on, get out. Be happy—if you know how, which I doubt. It's no use telling you to be fair to Dave because you can't be, you don't know there's anyone but you in the world. Just don't come here again, that's all. I haven't got time for you."

She waited. If Karen was angry, fine. If she cried—but Karen's tears had stopped. She walked past Jo into the living room, picked up her gloves from the rug where they had fallen, and headed for the door. Jo followed her. "My keys."

"What's the matter, can't you afford to get some made for your new girl?"

"It doesn't matter. I can change the lock."

"All right, goddam it!" Karen jerked her purse open, rummaged in it and threw the key ring at Jo. It hit her in the chest. She made no move to pick it up. Karen said, "It was a bad day for me when I moved in here. I'm glad to have it over."

She was working up to a real tantrum. Jo grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her into the hall, slammed the door shut behind her and shot the bolt. There was a moment of silence, during which the small faraway clatter of dishes could be heard from the apartment downstairs. Then Karen began to cry. Jo went into the kitchen and pulled the swinging door shut behind herself. Karen's hat lay on the linoleum where it had fallen.

In a moment she could hear the clatter of heels descending the front stairs.

She felt a little sick, looking around the kitchen as though she were taking inventory. We never did drink any coffee, she thought. She took down a cup, poured it half full and took it into the living room, avoiding the chair where Karen had been sitting. Her back and arms ached as though she had just laid down a heavy load. The coffee was acrid. After the first sip she set the cup on the floor.

How stupid I must have been to fall for that one, she thought. And why can I go to Linda, who has a girl, and it doesn't bother my conscience at all, but not with Karen who's married to a man? I don't like men especially.

Linda's a person of character, she takes the responsibility for her own actions. This one blames other people. It wouldn't matter if she were bi. Jeannine was, she slept with men. This one's no-sexual. She hasn't got any warmth for me or her husband or anybody else.

She began to relax. In a way, it was a relief to have it over. She would have bumped into Karen sooner or later, people always did. I'm always trying to live my whole life at once, she thought, and you can't do it that way, it comes one day at a time.

Now the way was free and clear.

For what? She didn't know.

She went back in the kitchen and picked up Karen's hat. For a moment she stood holding the flimsy bit of felt looking at it. Then she lifted the lid of the garbage pail and dropped it in.

Now the last reminder of Karen was gone. Jo opened the cupboard door, found a new can of scouring powder, punched in the little holes and set about putting her kitchen in order.

CHAPTER 18

The telephone rang for the third time since nine o'clock. Jo marked her place with a pencil and reached for the handset. "Hello?"

For once it was neither a salesman nor a printer. Betsy's voice was in her ear, soft and hesitant "Jo, is that you?"

"Sure."

Play it cool. It won't be what you hope. She's sighted a job and wants a reference, or else this is just a social call—she's bored and lonely. She left something in her desk and wants you to send it to her. Jo asked brightly, "What can I do for you, kid?"

"Well," Betsy said. She came to a dead stop.

"Something the matter?"

"I'd like to see you. When can I?"

Jo was having trouble with her breathing. "How about lunch? Can you be downtown at twelve-thirty? Or one o'clock?"

"Sure, I'm a lady of leisure."

"Stadler's at one?"

"Fine. I’ll see you then."

She wanted to say something tender and meaningful. She wanted to weep. She hung up quietly and sat still, looking out of the window at the Travel Now Pay Later sign flashing on and off in the morning sunshine.

There were other possibilities besides the obvious ones. Betsy's time had come and gone, and she was pregnant from that humiliating tussle on the davenport. Jo's hands tightened into fists.

I’ll
have to see her through it. God, what a sickening mess.

Don't cross your bridges.

All the rest of the morning she kept reminding herself that this encounter probably wouldn't bring forth anything interesting. She'd had dozens, hundreds of business luncheons. But she found herself reading the same paragraph over and over, making no sense of the words. By half-past twelve she was jittery. She felt that she'd like to get it over with and settle back into her office routine. She combed her hair, wiped the dust off her shoes with a tissue and set out to walk the six or seven blocks to the restaurant.

Stadler's was an old-fashioned restaurant that served good solid Hungarian and American food without fanfare. Overlooked by most of the tourist guides, it featured real linen tablecloths, yard-square napkins, candles in brass holders and an atmosphere of unhurried leisure. The prices were about two-thirds as high as in fancier places and the food was superb. Jo, hurrying to see Betsy, arrived ten minutes early and out of breath. She walked past the door, went into the drugstore at the corner and stood in front of the magazine rack, blindly turning pages while the hands of the clock above the drugstore door crept forward.

By this time she was late. She hurried back to the restaurant and found Betsy standing at the door, looking anxiously up and down the street.

She looked so young and so desirable that Jo had to stop and adjust her expression before Betsy saw her. She felt that the people going into the building surely knew how she felt and were inwardly jeering at her.

She said, "Hi. Have you been waiting long?"

"I just got here. It's good of you to come."

"Don't be silly, I'm glad to see you." She wanted to take Betsy's arm and hold her close as they crossed the threshold. She held her hands stiffly at her sides.

This dining room was as dim as the Manchester House, but with a difference. They followed the waiter to a small table against the wall, under an unframed abstract water-color. Jo took Betsy's coat, spread it over one of the extra chairs and took the menu a hovering waiter was offering. "This is on me, by the way."

"No." Betsy's eyes were fixed on her face, "I invited you."

"All right, if you want to." She realized that the matter had some inner meaning for Betsy; she wasn't sure what, but she was willing to go along with it.

Betsy suggested, "It's hot in here. Why don't you take your coat off?"

That was a departure, too. Jo was used to taking the lead. But she unbuttoned her tweed topcoat and laid it back over her chair, smoothed her gloves together and laid them on the table beside her clutch purse. "Tell me what you've been doing."

"Looking for a job. I'm sure I’ll find something."

"You know Stan will give you a good reference. Or I will. Tell people to call either of us."

"Yes, I know," Betsy said with a small tight smile. “I'm not blaming him for anything really. It was my fault."

"Takes two."

"Sure, but he'd have stopped if I asked him to."

The waiter came to their table. Jo said, "Do you want something to drink? I'd like a Gibson."

"Old-fashioned, please." Betsy closed the menu, then opened it again. When they were alone, in a little circle of candlelight not broken by the low voices at the next table, she went on. "I wanted you to know—it didn't happen, what I was afraid of. I've known for several days now."

"That's good.”

“I’ve been awfully silly. Now I'm going to try and grow up a little. You know," Betsy said, "everywhere you go you meet a lot of retarded people—women forty, fifty years old who still act like spoiled kids. I don't want to be like that."

Jo looked at her with new respect. "You're right."

"So slap me down if you ever catch me acting like a spoiled brat again, will you?"

Jo's lips were stiff. She nodded.

Betsy took the glass the waiter set before her, without seeing it. "If you'll let me see you sometimes."

Well, Jo thought, hurray. All of a sudden I'm popular. Girls all over the place offering to keep me company—when they haven't got anything better to do. It wasn't funny. She nodded again, unable to speak, wanting desperately to reach out and touch Betsy. She knew that a casual touch would start things, like the dropped match that touches off a forest fire. Must be national hackneyed metaphor day, she thought.

Betsy said, "The other day you told me something. About yourself."

"Yes."

"I know you don't tell everybody. Only people you like in a special way."

"Damn few people," Jo said in a low harsh voice. "Only my own kind. If you're asking out of curiosity, you can forget it."

Betsy looked hurt. "Naturally I'm curious. Aren't you, about the way people live? I've been reading about it at the library, that's why I didn't do much job hunting till this week. But there's a lot you can't find in books."

"You can say that again."

"Like, how do you know? Do you have to be born with it or is it something you can learn? I mean," Betsy said, "a girl isn't born knowing about men and being married—all that jazz. I didn't really know anything till I got into high school, then the dean of women told us quite a lot. But I never could see how it was so exciting. It has to be," she added hastily, "I know, or girls wouldn't do it and get in trouble. But how?"

"You learn. It gets better with practice."

Betsy looked frightened. "Is it the same way when you're a girl that—I don't even know what to call it"

"Gay. Queer. Abnormal." Jo's face was stern in the candlelight. "Sure, it's exactly the same. Only straight people never think so, they think it's terribly wicked."

"How did you find out?"

"I fell in love."

"Why—"

"Sure."

Betsy sighed. "You make it sound so reasonable."

"It is reasonable. Not always, at first, because people do their best to louse it up for you. I used to feel terribly guilty. That's why I quit going to church, because I thought I was committing an awful sin and God would punish me." Jo smiled. "I know a minister who's one. He's one of the nicest people I know. That helps."

"Can I ask you something?"

Jo was afraid she knew what was coming. She sat motionless for a moment Then she smiled. "This isn't a thing you do for kicks. You have to mean it."

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Betsy's cheeks were red. She looked both ashamed and eager. "The other day when I woke up in your bed, I came out and looked at you asleep on the couch. It gave me an awfully funny feeling. I wanted to wake you up and hug you—it seemed as if there wasn't any way I could get close enough to you. I mean, with a man you know why—I mean, it scared me."