Venus Envy (9 page)

“None of those things. I have not heard from your bohemian”—she leaned heavily on the word
bohemian
—“sister since we discussed the good news about Frazier.”

“Good news? A blessing from great God Almighty.” Frank smiled.

Libby wanted to say that maybe it wasn’t such a blessing but she held her tongue, a real victory for her.

In the long silence that ensued they watched commercials. One was for controlling body odor; another dwelt on the subject of constipation; four car ads livened up the fare; a wine cooler promised eternal youth, which would quickly sour if you didn’t use the toilet-bowl cleaner that followed the thirty-second wine spot. After this bracing experience the news team filled the small screen with chat about the anchor’s new dress and oh, what fun the basketball tournament will be. Meanwhile, half a world away, Eastern Europe struggled to govern itself after nearly half a century of disabling communism.
Poor Russia had had the absurd philosophy since 1917. That wasn’t newsworthy. Underarm deodorant was. After the contrived byplay between the anchor and the co-anchor, sporting the worst hairdo since Howdy Doody, the sportscaster faking a butch voice, and the weatherman’s patter, a brief flash of events squirted across the screen. Fortunately, the content included no body count.

Libby relaxed enough to fish in her needlepoint bag for some lime-green yarn. Lime green was a big hit with Libby. “I think I’ll cancel Frazier’s party.”

“Huh?”

“She needs time to adjust. We can celebrate when she’s more herself.”

“She’s great. She’s better than I’ve ever seen her.”

“When did you see her?” Libby held the lime-green yarn tightly in her hand.

“Dropped by the gallery at lunchtime.”

“And?”

“And what? She was busy and
I
had a few minutes. We’ll get together for lunch Friday.” He noticed Libby’s jaw clamp shut. “She’s happier than I remember. Almost like she was when she was a little girl. You know, when she was a child she’d walk right up to you and say whatever was on her mind. I don’t know.” He rubbed his chin. “Something different about Frazier.”

“I’ll say.” Libby jabbed the needle into the belt pattern.

T
HE SOUTHWEST RANGE, A SPUR OF MOUNTAINS RUNNING
northeast and parallel to the moody and sensuous Blue Ridge Mountains, offered protection to the lush little towns of Keswick and Cismont. Route 231 snaked alongside these gentle green mountains, culminating in a traffic circle at Gordonsville, where every spring the high school students jammed the 360 degrees with their cars, driving the local police and citizens crazy. If the high-spirited youths shot straight up Route 15 off the circle they would bump into the beautiful town of Orange. If they whipped off about 200 yards to the west on Route 33, then turned north again on 231, they would pass some of the most beautiful land in America. Frazier’s house, a Virginia frame farmhouse, circa 1834, lay just off this road, south of the crossroads of Somerset.

She could drive to Richmond in an hour. She could zoom into Orange in minutes and hop the train to New
York City. The airport was only forty minutes away. Washington, D.C., if she headed up through back roads, took two hours by car. On the main drag, without hitting rush hour, she could make it in an hour and a half, and if she boarded the commuter plane it was less than half an hour to D.C.

Apart from the location, Frazier dearly loved the yellow house with the dark-green shutters. Rain on the tin roof always made her think of “Singin’ in the Rain.” The house, added onto over the decades, bore testimony to good times and hard times. The heart-pine floors, a soft wood, were worn as thin as a bee’s wing near the doorjambs. The windowpanes, hand-blown, reflected an imperfect but lovely view of rolling hills lapping up to one of the Southwest Mountains. Hightop Mountain may have been too grand a term but no one dared call them fat hills.

The other good thing about the house, Roughneck Farm, was that it was just enough out of the way that Frazier endured few drop-ins. She was enduring one tonight.

Ann Haviland paced across the old blue Chinese rug in the living room. A blaze in the huge fireplace wasn’t the only thing crackling.

Frazier, reeling from her mother and now Ann, was collapsed in a faded wing chair. A tidal wave of exhaustion washed over her. She thought to herself how she regretted her promise to give up smoking. She would have given almost anything for one puff of a divine Sherman cigarette.

“The time I wasted on you!” Ann punctuated her sentence by stopping before Frazier. “To say nothing of the money.”

“What money?”

“The earrings from Harlan and McGuire, the tickets to Lake Louise in Canada—”

“Hey, I paid for the hotel room.” A flicker of anger lifted Frazier’s heavy eyelids.

“Well, what was I to you? I don’t want to talk about money—that will get us nowhere.”

“You brought it up.”

“Don’t evade.” Ann’s pretty features clouded over in anger and anxiety. “What am I to you? What would you make of this letter if you were the one to receive it?” She shook the letter under Frazier’s nose.

“Uh.” Frazier reached up for the letter. “Could I read this?”

“You don’t remember what you wrote?” Ann was incredulous.

“I sort of do and I sort of don’t.”

“I’m your lover and you don’t remember?”

Frazier snatched the letter from her hand. The warm flow of hostility awakened her. “I am tired of explaining to you how I felt, the physical state I was in, the hour of the night. Just let me read the goddam letter.”

Ann flounced into the opposing wing chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and stared at Frazier as those beautiful green eyes danced over the blue-speckled pages. Ann’s left foot tapped on the rug. The cat, Basil, glared at Ann as Ann glared at Frazier.

Frazier finished the letter and placed it on the coffee table.

“Well?” Ann grabbed it back.

Frazier folded her hands together. “I regret that the fear of dying made me blunt but I don’t regret what I wrote. You aren’t happy with me. You haven’t been happy with me for the last year.”

“I hardly ever see you.” Ann worried about what was
going to happen next, even though she had pushed Frazier.

“We both work hard.”

“You’re obsessed with your work.”

“I love my work and you don’t. Maybe if you loved what you were doing in this world, you wouldn’t be so jealous of what I’m doing.” The merciless truth filled Frazier’s voice.

“Thank you for Psychology 101, but while you’re at it tell me how I’m going to pay my bills.”

“Other people have had to figure that out, Ann. Why should you get carried along? If you want to change your life, you will. If you want to be happy, you will be. Don’t use money as an excuse. Right now you’d rather complain than change.”

“Death sure has done wonders for you,” Ann ruefully noted. “Before, I could barely get you to talk about anything other than work or sports.”

“You wanted to know how I felt. I told you. You don’t like it. Now you attack me for it. I’m not saying I have any answers for you. And I’m not saying you’re a bad person or that you’re wrong. But what I put in that letter is the truth as I see it. We aren’t going anywhere. Why prolong the agony?”

“It’s agony to be with me? I thought we had some pretty good times.” The reality of this conversation was seeping into Ann’s brain.

“We did. It’s always good in the beginning. We just don’t see eye to eye.”

“If we were together more maybe I’d really know what you think and how you feel. Apart from this.” She picked up the letter, then dropped it again on the coffee table.

“Ann, we aren’t the right team. Especially since I came out in every letter I’ve written.”

Ann gripped the armrests. “How many did you write?”

“Mother, Dad, Carter, Billy, Auntie Ruru, Kenny, and … uh, Mandy. Seven besides yours.”

“Did you mention me? I mean it’s one thing if you blow the whistle on yourself. Did you blow it on me?” Ann’s throat muscles tightened.

“No, but Carter will put two and two together.”

“He hardly ever saw us.” Ann’s hands shook. “And Billy will keep his mouth shut. After all, he has a lot to lose. Mandy? Why would you write Mandy on the night you thought you were dying? I mean, Mandy’s an employee.”

“Mandy may be the only person in my life who likes me for me.”

“Carter’s a buffoon. Jesus H. Christ on a raft, Frazier. Why? Why tell Carter anything?”

“He’s my brother and I love him.”

“Finally.
Carter is
finally
more successful than you. Oh, is he going to
love
this.” Ann clapped her hands together.

“Maybe not.”

“If Carter or Ruru or anybody else asks about me you’d better lie through your teeth. You might be going down the tubes in this town but I’m not!”

“You didn’t get it.” Frazier looked at the letter.

“To come out. Easy to come out when you’re dying. You’re going to be dogmeat!”

“I intend to find out.”

“Am I supposed to admire your bravery?” Sarcasm dripped from Ann’s lips. “We’ll see how brave you are as time goes by. As you lose friends and, what’s closer to your heart, your business.”

“For Christ’s sake. Why should my being gay affect anyone’s wanting to buy art or not?”

“Because you’ve been perceived one way. You’re glamorous. You’re on the ‘A’ list, Frazier. You won’t be on
it anymore and the social flow was where you drummed up a lot of business.”

“Half the art dealers I know are gay.”

“They’re men.” Ann’s knuckles were white as she continued to grip the armrest. “There’s a double standard for queers too.”

“I hope you’re wrong, but even if you’re not”—Frazier hauled herself out of the chair and walked over to the fire—“I can’t go back into the closet.”

“Sure you can. You can write everyone or get in the car and visit them. Tell them you were hallucinating. They’ll believe you because they’ll want to believe you.”

“You know, Ann, I’ve lied all my adult life. I’ve lied by keeping silent. Somehow that seems worse to me than if I’d actively lied. Maybe someday something will happen to you that will make you look at yourself and the world in a new way. What’s that saying? ‘The scales fell from my eyes.’” Frazier shook her head because she couldn’t remember. “Whatever. I realized some things about myself and about the world I live in, part of which I am responsible for, you know.”

“Why? You didn’t make it,” Ann shot back.

“No, but I keep it going and if I don’t do anything, if I just continue to hide, then I’m accepting things as they are.”

“Oh, my God, now you’re going to change the world. You and Mother Teresa!” Ann couldn’t believe her ears.

“No, I’m not. But I’m going to change myself.”

Astounded, Ann bounded out of the chair and stood before Frazier, nose to nose. “Millions of people, millions in America, all over the world, manage to live without anyone knowing who and what they are. Not every gay person has to carry a banner. People can speculate all they want. If you don’t tell, they don’t know. And it’s nobody’s business. They’re happy; their families are
happy. Ignorance is bliss. Why, all of a sudden, do you have to be different? You’re going to sacrifice everyone else to your own so-called integrity. What gives you the right to make other people suffer?”

“I’m only responsible for myself.”

“Oh, yeah. Is that what our great-grandfathers said when the Indians got wiped out by the U.S. government? ‘I’m only responsible for myself. Their misery is their problem.’”

“I hardly think the circumstances are the same.” Frazier listened. Her anger drained away. She struggled with these new assaults.

“You know what I mean. You don’t have the right to make me unhappy, or shame your parents, or expose Billy.”

“I’m not exposing anyone. I’m just telling the truth about myself and … and if that makes other people miserable, then”—she thought for a moment—“then maybe they need to learn how desperately unfair their attitudes are, how unfair,” she groped, “the system is. If you don’t know a problem exists or that your behavior harms other people, you can’t change it. Maybe my mother and my dad need to think about some things.”

“And maybe you do too.” A hot ember sizzled out of the fire. Ann moved her foot. “I’m going to avoid you like the plague. Don’t call me. Don’t write me. When word gets around town that you’re gay I’m going to be shocked—oh, how shocked—and then relieved, of course, that I was spared this knowledge before. I mean, what if you had made a pass at me?”

“You’ve got a diagnosis,” Frazier said disgustedly, relying on a phrase from her Tri-Delta days that meant someone was deranged.

“Oh, sure,” Ann snarled. “You know, you don’t want to be close to anyone. You’ve admitted that. I didn’t
want to believe it. Well, you’ve got your wish now. No gay woman is going to go near you, because if she does, then everyone will suspect her. And in America how many open lesbians are there? Three? Ha.” Ann laughed. “In Virginia the word
lesbian
doesn’t even exist in a polite person’s vocabulary. You did it this time, Frazier. You are going to be alone, but what are you going to do with that revved-up sex drive of yours? One of these cold nights you’re going to miss me. Too bad there aren’t whorehouses for women like you. That would be perfect for you. You could enjoy yourself and then walk away. No responsibilities so long as you can pay the bill. That’s what they’ll carve on your tombstone: ‘She paid the bills!’”

“Ann, just go.”

After Ann left, Frazier crawled into bed. The cat and the dog burrowed in next to her. The night temperature dropped into the twenties. She’d started a fire in the bedroom fireplace to cut the chill, because the old heating system struggled as the temperatures plunged. Well, that disadvantage was offset by the fact that the house breathed, so she suffered few sneezes and allergies.

Frazier pulled the down comforter up around her, as well as a shawl to wrap over her shoulders. She tried to read
Remembrance of Things Past.
The words swam in front of her eyes. People must have had more time to read when Proust wrote his masterpiece. She closed her eyes, then opened them to stare into the flames. She might be alone for the rest of her life. At least she’d be alone knowing who she was. The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself. If no one else liked her, she’d at least like herself and that was more than she could have said before.