Unlike Others (6 page)

Betsy turned her face away. She was crying. Jo's antagonism melted. She reached out, unwillingly, and touched Betsy's shoulder. It was warm and solid under the thin blouse, the young bone hard under the flesh. Jo wanted to run her hand down over the girl's fragile collarbone, to cup the small round breast that showed in outline under the sheer material, to feel the nipple come up hard against her fingers. She wanted to take this crying child into her arms and fit their two bodies together until they felt like parts of one person.

She did none of these things. She pulled her hand away, reached into the open desk, and came up with one of those little wads of tissue she was always stashing in drawers and pockets. "Here," she said, shoving them into Betsy's unresponding hand. Here we go again, Jo, it's getting to be a habit. I use up more Kleenex that way.

Betsy sniffled. "Don't tell anybody, will you?"

"Of course not."

"I'm sorry to be such a sissy."

"That's all right. Anybody has a right to bawl once in a while."

Anybody but me. I'm tough.

Betsy tossed the used tissues at the wastebasket, and missed. Jo picked them up. "You'll get over it," she said kindly.

"Anyhow," Betsy said.

She came to a full stop. Jo said, "Huh?"

"Stan isn't like that, is he? Not being married or anything
,
you sort of wonder."

"No, I’m sure he isn’t like that.”

Well, she told herself, that's life. It's not enough I have to go to bed alone seven nights a week, I'm a wailing wall for every damn fool in the building. Might as well buy a couch and set up a business, I could use the money. I wonder what you have to do to get a headshrinker's license?

She rubbed her right hand against the rough wool of her skirt. But the memory of Betsy's shoulder lingered on her fingertips. A sweet kid, a beautiful little body. I'd like to unbutton her blouse and take it off, and kiss her, and—damn her, she forgot the photos.

She had had about all she could take for one afternoon. She got up and pulled on her jacket, straightened her skirt, ran a comb through her hair and inspected her seams. Picking up the manilla envelope, she marched down the hall. Stan was at his desk, doing some work for a change.

"I'm going over to Simon's with the artwork. I won't be back today."

"You sick or something?"

"No," Jo said evenly, "I feel fine. I want to do a little shopping, that's all. Everything's under control."

"Oh. Well, okay, have fun."

Riding down in the elevator, alone except for two very young girls carrying bottles of coke, she lit a cigarette. It tasted good. She felt fine, rather as though she had just regained her strength after a long dragged-out illness.

To hell with it, she told herself. To hell with all the straight people and their troubles. They've got everything their own way and they don't even know it. Me, I'm going to think about myself for a change.

CHAPTER 6

It was a good afternoon, sunny and a little misty at the same time, not too warm for a jacket. She thought about going home and changing into slacks and a shirt, but that meant two train rides and a waste of time. Besides, she wanted to do a little shopping before she set out on the evening's search. Maybe she wouldn't buy anything, but she guessed she was female enough to enjoy walking through the stores, looking at things.

She didn't know what had made up her mind so suddenly, but she felt free and somehow appeased, as though she had made a difficult decision.

Plenty of other people were shopping this afternoon. The department store was full of beautifully groomed women, the kind for whom buying clothes is not a lunch-hour scurry but a leisure activity like bridge or concerts. Jo walked around looking at everything: the baubles on display, the shoppers, the waiting saleswomen. She caught a questioning look from an exquisite young thing in autumn black and mink, the first of the season's velvet hats set like a pixie cap on hair artfully streaked with blonde lights; creamy leather gloves held in a manicured hand, earrings set with something that looked like rubies. Maybe garnets? Jo didn't know anything about gems; she had never owned anything but costume jewelry, and usually forgot to put that on.

I look all right, she thought, uneasily avoiding the blonde's eyes. I look like anybody else. Why should she stare at me? Unless she's one of us-no, I don't think so. She moved on toward the escalator, leaving the blonde looking at blouses.

The encounter had made her self-conscious. She elbowed her way past a long double row of busy telephones, muttering apologies to women who protruded into the aisle. In the women's washroom she took off her jacket and did as thorough a repair job as she could with the contents of her handbag. She had a nice clear skin, that was one thing. She made up carefully, even putting a bit of perfume behind her ears; Karen had liked perfume on her, and there was a tiny flacon at the bottom of her bag. She sniffed it appreciatively. Her face was too thin, the cheekbones high, the mouth firm, it wasn't a pretty or a sexy face, but she felt that she had done the best she could with it and that would have to do. She put her jacket back on and inspected her cuffs, which were none too clean after a day at the office. She went out the other door, past the waiting room where ranks of women with discontented faces sat on high-backed benches.

The stout matron on the end bench, barricaded with shopping bags, gave her a suspicious look as she whisked past. The woman had a sagging pink face, and her wiry gray hair had been treated to a cheap home permanent and set. She wore a flowered nylon dress with a piece of lace at the neck. Her stockings sagged. Probably hates all working girls, Jo thought, meeting her antagonistic gaze. Probably thinks we're all out raising hell while she's home doing the washing.

The little encounter made her feel better. In the shoe salon she bought a pair of fine black leather pumps with tall heels, cut so well they needed no trimming; she loved beautiful shoes, and the only thing she had minded when Karen wasn't working was being unable to buy them. It felt good to be solvent again. Maybe the girl in the mink scarf wouldn't feel that a new pair of shoes was anything to be pleased about; probably she bought a whole new outfit whenever she felt like it, and sent half of the stuff back the next day. The chief pleasure in having money to spend, as in having a free weekday afternoon, was that it happened so seldom.

Did that go for other things too? Was love better if you went hungry for it? She felt, winding through a roomful of people who looked as though their feet hurt, that the principle of scarcity value didn't apply here. If you went without sex long enough you might get used to it; and while that would solve some of her problems, it wasn't a solution she cared to try. Maybe I ought to work on it, she thought, smiling at the idea and not noticing the aging saleswoman who smiled hopefully back. But not yet. It's like going to heaven, I'd like to put it off as long as possible.

She decided to leave the shoes in a safe place until tomorrow. They weren't suitable for the place she planned to visit, and there was a very good chance that she'd have too much to drink and leave them somewhere. After she dropped her parcel in the locker she counted the money she had left, wrapped a ten-dollar bill in a leaf from her address book and tucked it under the string of her shoe package.

It was after four. In half an hour the stenos and file clerks would be pouring out of office buildings funnelling through the swinging doors into the street, separating to go their different ways home. A world peopled by women, even though largely directed by men. Somewhere in this crowd, she told herself with rising confidence, there has to be somebody who wants what I have to give.

Some day she would be faded and tired like the aging women she'd seen in the gay bars late at night, cruising, thankful for anything they could pick up, living as best they could in a world that had never accepted them. Old age came to them, too. And they didn't have the compensations of straight people. That fat bitch in the women's waiting room probably had a husband who brought his paycheck home twice a month, a couple of married kids and a batch of grandchildren who came to dinner on Sundays. She belonged to some club where she could visit with about forty other women just like her. When she died all the members of the African violet society would come to the wake and sit around telling each other what a good neighbor she was and how nice she brought up her kids. She belonged somewhere.

Jo shivered. In the full-length mirror the management had obligingly placed near the exit she inspected her face, the hang of her skirt, her seams. The reflection was reassuring. She wasn't going to grow old or die for a while yet, and she wasn't going to waste any more of her youth if she could help it. What she needed now was a drink—maybe two drinks—and something good to eat.

Two martinis and a steak later, feeling better, she walked north on State Street in the direction of the theatre district. There were a lot of people on the sidewalk, almost as many as during the rush hours but with a difference. Some of the men were bearded, and the girls wore jeans or slacks and no makeup. Jo walked briskly, her head up, elbows close to her side, looking alertly around.

It seemed to her she had never been so aware of girls before. Just looking at them sharpened her desire. She wondered what would happen if she simply picked one at random, walked up to her and said, "Pardon me, but would you like to go to bed with me?"

That little soft-looking thing with the red ponytail hanging down the back of her sweater, how would she react? Scream? Call a cop? Pull out a switchblade and carve her monogram on Jo's cheek? Or throw out rapturous arms and yell, "Come on, baby, let's go"?

I should be so lucky, Jo thought. She accelerated to pass the redhead, who was unaware that she existed.

She wasn't sure exactly where she was heading. She knew the name of the place—The Spot—and approximately where it was located, but it was her first visit. Like so much else, her information had come from Richard, who got around considerably in the gaps between lovers.

The Spot had changed location and management half a dozen times in the last few years; Rich had gone there when it was all-male and mostly rough trade, but in its newest incarnation it was well mixed and, he thought, as safe as any place was likely to be.

Jo was in no frame of mind to be timid. There was no point to the way she was living, and it was worth taking a few chances if she could break up her emotional logjam. She reminded herself that women hardly ever get picked up by the police, that constant threat to the security of the homosexual male. She might get caught in a raid. She was almost certain not to be approached by a detective and propositioned. Entrapment is for the boys.

She followed two swishy boys, careful to look the other way when they stopped and looked around. Should have gone home and put on blue jeans. Not being recognized by your own people is just as bad as being identified by the other kind.

The small place with curtained windows was The Spot. The boys went in, still talking, and Jo followed.

It was embarrassing to sit alone in a bar, but less embarrassing here than elsewhere. She sat at the long counter and ordered beer, taking into account the two pre-dinner martinis and the fact that she might do a lot of drinking before the night was over. She sat up, alert, and looked around.

Average type place. Either the jukebox was quieter than most or whoever had put the money in liked soft music. The lighting was subdued but not enough so as to hinder seeing. Most of the customers were young. She was fairly sure they were over twenty-one, the law was stringent on that point; you could get away with murder, rape and arson in this town, but let a bartender serve one bottle of beer to a minor and he was likely to get his license revoked.

Gay boys, of course, were likely to look younger than they really were. She figured the clientele was about seventy per cent masculine, mostly in the twenties and early thirties—maybe it was the slacks and fashionable loose sweaters, maybe there really was a tie-in between body build and emotional predisposition. Anyway, she wasn't interested in men.

The girls looked like high-schoolers, especially the butch types with their short hair and shiny cheeks free of makeup. Wholesome-looking kids. She sorted out a few obvious couples, although it wasn't easy to tell whether two girls were together or just sitting side by side. The ones who cared most might sit together for an hour, sipping beer and listening to the jukebox, without touching or speaking. That was the old female duplicity which seemed to go on even in boy-type girls. Or maybe duplicity was too unfriendly a word; maybe it was reticence. A lost virtue among straight women, she sometimes thought, observing their behavior in bars and other public places.

There were girls by threes and fours, like school kids dropping in at the drugstore for a soda; and then there was a good sprinkling of solitaries. Jo looked these over carefully. Not much choice at this end of the room. There was a tall black-haired girl who looked as though she might be nervous and passionate; a young woman in a suit not unlike her own, with beautiful clear features and a closed look, as though caution were her watchword; a plump cheerful woman of thirty-five with a sagging bosom and fair curly hair, in dungarees and a plaid shirt. That was all.

People walked around slowly, threading their way between dancing couples, as though they were looking for a friend. Which they probably were, she decided, only in some cases they didn't know who the friend was.

She took a deep breath. These were her people. More her people than Karen had ever been, because they had stopped fighting it. Here she could take off her mask and relax for a while.

In a few minutes the girl with the cautious expression picked up her drink, came around to the end of the bar and slid onto the next stool. "Mind if I sit here?"

"Glad to have you."

"I thought maybe you were waiting for someone.”

"No, I'm alone."

"So am I." She spoke precisely, with what Jo thought of as a New England accent. "It gets tiresome." She finished her drink and beckoned to the bar hop.