Coming Attractions (2 page)

Composed, the woman turned her head toward Helen and smiled. “I meant, have a nice evening, and I hope you’ll get that cheeseburger.”

“No, what do you mean about revealing myself?” Helen spoke directly to the captivating eyes. She wanted to dive into them and swim around to search for the intended answer.

“I mean your look could have easily been mistaken for a pass.”

Helen was too flustered to see the pedestrian who bumped into her and shoved her helplessly into the steadying hands of the woman. Blaring horns, the stench of exhaust, the intrusive bump of pedestrians—all of New York disappeared. Face-to-face, only they remained, and their lips were inches apart. A strong gust of wind blew the woman’s hair, enough that it grazed Helen’s cheek. The light scent of lily of the valley tantalized Helen. Perfume or shampoo, it didn’t matter. Wondrous eyes consumed Helen. Torrents of heat tore through her and her heartbeat quickened into cannon fire. Those feelings, which at one time fascinated her, now frightened her. She stepped back and delivered a pathetic clearing of her throat.

“It wasn’t anything like that,” she said. “You have lovely eyes, and I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended. I’m flattered, and especially coming from a woman of your standing.” The woman’s lips parted and she took in a quick breath of air. Helen expected her to say more but instead heard an unsatisfying conclusion. “Good night, Ms. Townsend.” She turned away and proceeded up Fifth Avenue.

Helen was still standing? How could that be possible when she hadn’t even breathed in two minutes?

“Wait!” She sounded desperate, but she couldn’t let the woman go. “Do you have a name?”

“Yes,” she answered over her shoulder and continued her walk.

“Yes?” Helen repeated and scowled. “That’s a lovely name, smart-ass.” As her facial muscles relaxed, she corrected herself, and the woman fully disappeared into the crowd. “She’s a lovely smart-ass.”

Helen turned around and headed south. She had no time for games and tried to write off the encounter as just another New York minute, but she couldn’t disregard the immediacy of her desire. Don’t go there. Chasing turns to caring turns to loving turns to leaving. Comfort and satisfaction came from her work, and she was now used to the single life. That was all she needed.

*

She searched her home computer files for the black sheep column and finished a take-out burger while she waited for the soft hum of the printer to stop.

Helen pulled the page from the tray and went into her bedroom. She stripped herself of confining office clothes and slipped into a fine black satin robe. Too cold. She tore it off and threw it to the chair. She then grabbed the vanilla terry cloth robe, pulled the cuddly garment around her, and stretched belly first onto the bed. She grabbed the paper from the nightstand and scanned the printed page, which she mumbled aloud.

“…children who stray from the supposed normalcy of family life…moved away…never married…brother is attorney…black sheep receive questions from intolerant families…no clear answers…fear of being ostracized. What if a father asks his thirty-six-year-old daughter why she hasn’t married? How can she tell him of her preference for women when his attitude is that all homosexuals should be shot?”

Helen put the page down and propped herself on one elbow. “I think Ms. Green Eyes is a dyke.”

She looked back at the paper on the bed. Written two months ago, that column was her expression of restlessness, her way of giving voice to her own anger for allowing herself to remain in the closet. It hadn’t been her coming out column, though. She wasn’t ready then. Now she was ready and expected to do it with both barrels smoking. What she really wanted to say in the black sheep column, and what she fervently wanted to say now, was, “News flash: I’m a dyke. Print that baby on the front page and don’t get the name wrong. It’s Helen, and why not capitalize that L?” She sighed. “Yeah, right. An active lesbian, no, but I still deserve my rights.”

Although her desire was based entirely on women, men weren’t absent in her life. There was, for instance, Tom Winsloe, whom she affectionately called Tucson, after his hometown. He was a rugged, handsome man and to see him you wouldn’t know he was, in his own words, “just another fag.” Holding membership within New York’s finest press corps, they attended social functions together. An occasional photograph of the two of them hand in hand kept the nosy at bay.

Helen had met Chelsea through Tucson. “She’s the perfect woman for you,” he said. “She’s intelligent, artistic, and the funniest woman this side of the Mississippi.”

“Absolutely not,” she said to his suggestion for a blind date, and leaned back against the rail of the ferry that transported them from Ellis Island.

“You have to trust me, Helen.”

“Trust you? Your last perfect woman wouldn’t keep her hands off of me.” She pointed to the imposing Statue of Liberty behind him. “I’d have felt safer with someone green.”

“PMS. Loss of hormone control,” he said.

Helen was ready to toss him overboard. “I beg your pardon. That Amazon had a tattoo of a serpent on her thigh.” She shook her head vigorously at the memory of wrestling away from the arms of the snake woman. “Keep your perfect date away from me.”

When he had shown her a photo of a woman with soft, curly blond hair, Helen found her adorable. She happily gave in to an introduction, and Tucson found redemption. Neither Helen nor Chelsea had experienced such a loving and full relationship before they’d met. After three years together, they were ready for the long haul when the love of Helen’s life heard a medical diagnosis that held no promises of happily ever after.

Helen remembered Chelsea’s final months.

*

“Pancreatic cancer,” Dr. Teresa Santos said. “Chelsea, I want you to see an oncologist at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.”

A shock wave ripped through Helen. She gripped Chelsea’s hand and their eyes met. Chelsea was strong, but she remained quiet. Helen saw tremors on her lip, tears she tried to hold back, and the urgency in her eyes that pleaded for help.

Helen’s throat choked her words. “Cancer is curable,” she said. “We’ll fight it and you’ll beat it.” Chelsea would not die. Helen wouldn’t allow it. She turned to the doctor. “There’s therapy, right? Radiation? Chemo?”

Helen saw no mercy in Dr. Santos’s eyes. What was wrong with her? The physician’s job was to ensure the life of the woman Helen loved. Find a pill, damn it. Create a miracle. Bombard Chelsea with enough radiation to make Marie Curie stand up from her grave and applaud. Dear God, don’t take Chelsea’s life.

Dr. Santos laced her fingers together; the tips of her index fingers rested on her lips, thumbs supported her chin. This is the church and this is the steeple. An unheard prayer to the gods of medicine? She sat back and rested her hands on the arms of her chair. She looked at Helen and then at Chelsea.

“Chelsea, I won’t mislead you.”

Abruptly, Helen leaned forward. “Mislead her how?”

Chelsea pulled her back in the seat. “Let her finish,” she said quietly.

“Dr. Hellman—the oncologist—can provide therapy, but the disease isn’t one we’ve treated with much success.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Helen shouted, ready to whisk Chelsea out of the office. It wasn’t Dr. Santos’s job to impose a death sentence.

Chelsea remained firm. “Let her finish. I have to hear the bottom line.”

Dr. Santos gave Chelsea a year. Reality proved her over-optimistic.

Shove a stick of butter in a microwave oven for a minute. Watch while an unseen aggressor transforms the solid to liquid. Witness how quickly the molecules of fat speed up, scatter, and soon lie unrecognizable. You jam your finger on the stop button, but it doesn’t work. You yank the handle, but the door won’t give. You pound the glass, slam the top, rip the plug from the wall, but you’ve lost control and the process continues relentlessly.

Helen could only watch while the disease devoured Chelsea. A beautiful, vital woman melted into sunken features, the ravages of a starved body. Food, fluid, chemicals—none was an ally. There were no allies. Useless radiation treatments weakened her. Vomiting from chemicals had increased pain, drained life, and she struggled to remain alive.

“I want to go home,” she said from her hospital bed. “I don’t want to die here.”

One night, during the fifth month after the diagnosis, Chelsea’s previous hours were her most painful yet, and Helen was ready with morphine when asked for the medication.

“Hey, Townsend,” Chelsea whispered.

Helen snapped awake and was angry for having fallen asleep in her chair. She moved to Chelsea’s side. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

“Help me up.”

Helen avoided the IV tubing that fed the disintegrating body before her. Chelsea barely weighed eighty pounds and her ribs felt ready to puncture her thin skin. Helen lifted carefully and held gently.

“What do you need?” she whispered while Chelsea, the love of her life, lay dying in her arms.

“You.” She groaned. “I love you.”

Helen bit her lip. The lump in her throat stole her voice and she swallowed hard. “Yes, I know,” she wanted to say. “And I love you too and I don’t want you to hurt anymore and please get better so I can say I love you for fifty more years.” Helen’s body shook. None of those words would come and none of those things would happen. She could only nod.

Somewhere between Helen’s nod and a kiss to Chelsea’s forehead, Chelsea died in Helen’s embrace.

*

Helen placed the black sheep printout on her dresser and then blew her nose. Her mirrored reflection showed puffy eyes. She picked up the silver-framed photograph of Chelsea and herself, the one taken on their second anniversary. It was three years since her death and Helen had remained alone.

Startled by the ringing telephone, she let the machine answer.

“You home, Blondie? Pick up.”

She reached for the bedroom extension when she heard the voice of her closest friend, Stacey. “To what do I owe this honor?”

“You’re supposed to be here tonight. Remember?”

“Oh. The club. I’m sorry, Stacey. I completely forgot about your party.” She wiped her eyes and sniffed softly.

“You sound stuffy. Are you all right?”

“Allergies. I can’t go out feeling this way.” A feeble response. Stacey knew Helen had no allergies.

“You’re crying again. I wish you’d stop wallowing in the past and make a new life for yourself. Put on your Sunday best and come over. A friend is giving a private recital and I want you to meet her.”

She considered the offer, but tonight would be another night alone with her memories. “No, I won’t let go of Chelsea.” To appease Stacey, she quickly redirected the conversation. “I met a woman today.”

“That’s encouraging. Maybe I know her.”

Helen laughed about her absurd encounter. “I never got her name, but she had incredible eyes.”

“Really?” she asked and listened until Helen completed her tale. “She sounds yummy. How will you find her?”

“I haven’t thought about it. I don’t necessarily want to find her.”

“Maybe you should think about it, or maybe she’ll find you again.” Helen had no response. “Are you sure you don’t want to come over? If your mystery woman is a dyke, she might show up.”

“Another time. I promise. Good night, Stacey.”

*

She eased into a hot bath, and her chilled body immediately sucked in the warmth. Stacey didn’t understand that the love Helen felt for Chelsea hadn’t stopped with her death. She’d been left behind to awaken alone, to work countless hours, and to sit in the dark and cry. Helen’s memories of Chelsea haunted her every day: her art that hung on Helen’s walls, her laughter that still rang in Helen’s ears, her incredible need for munching pecans, and her love for a snowy day. Her tenderness. Helen held blatantly on to those memories.

And yet, as if death could ever offer fairness, Helen felt cheated. There were too many destroyed plans. Among them, their desire to have a child that Chelsea would carry, and a possible move to Scarsdale. Chelsea had promised to love Helen forever. “…from this day forward…” The words betrayed Helen, but how could Chelsea have known? “…until death…”

She cried. “You never said good-bye or go to hell.”

Helen was selfish with her memories, and she thrived on them. Every time she closed her eyes, Chelsea was there, coaxing her into her arms. Helen felt Chelsea’s love even after her death. She followed Helen to bed, sometimes to the bath. Those memories, those moments, they were all Helen had.

She leaned back in the tub and a wave of warm water splashed over her breasts. She closed her eyes. Chelsea smiled and her blue eyes sparkled. “Let me love you,” they said to Helen. She raised her knees, and opened her legs against the cold ceramic. Helen dipped her hand into the hot water and traced the inside of her thighs.

“Chelsea.” Her breaths were ragged splinters of sound.

Slowly, she teased herself with a zigzag pattern and brushed fine, floating hair. Chelsea’s blue eyes suddenly flashed emerald. Helen stopped. She opened her eyes, confused by the intrusion. She caught her breath.

She closed her eyes again. Chelsea reached. The tingling down the back of Helen’s legs strengthened. “Chelsea. I love you.” Emerald eyes twinkled back. No!

In her mind, Helen was hurtled back to Fifth Avenue, to captive eyes, to arms that held her securely. She groaned and stroked the tiniest bit of muscle that took control.

“Do you have a name?” the muscle whispered.

“Yes,” she whimpered and stroked it.

It yelled to her. “Do you have a name?”

“Yes,” she groaned and stroked it.

It screamed, “Do you have a name?”

Helen gripped the tub with one hand. Water sloshed over the side of the bathtub while she led into a quick and powerful release.

Through tear-soaked eyes, she looked down to the wet, tiled floor. Left shaken, she leaned back and closed her eyes. Helen conjured Chelsea’s image. Her mind struggled to sharpen the hazy shadows of curly hair that framed Chelsea’s face. The quick flash of her image snapped on and then went dark until a newer picture emerged, snowy and then clear. Blue eyes shone brightly in the foreground.