In Her Day (7 page)

“Surely since Ilse’s a lesbian herself she understands we’re different from housewives. I don’t know though—maybe there are housewives who are lesbians. Let’s face it, we pushed for careers. I suspect a straight woman our age with a good career feels a lot like we do.” Adele furrowed her eyebrows.

Carole stalled a moment. “She thinks lesbians are the vanguard of the women’s movement but I think she sees all women as victims. She happens to see us as the strongest women. But she has an excuse to cover everybody’s failure or special bitch. It’s male supremacy or capitalism or racism. I get them mixed up.”

“They are mixed up.”

“Dell, I never was interested in politics and a women’s movement doesn’t make me any more interested in politics than before. I think politics is the framework of a nation, fundamental, but I’m interested in interior decorating not carpentry, know what I mean?”

“We’d better look out or the house will fall down.”

“Ha. You’re right but I still can’t work up enthusiasm for the subject. You know, I would have been head of the department if I weren’t a woman; hell, I’m still not a full professor. I hate all that. But what’s most important to me is to do my work and I happen to think that work is important. How can I
do my work if I’m on some picket line or down at the women’s center answering telephones? You tell me?”

“Obviously, you can’t. But I can tell you this,” Adele stated.

“What?”

“The ideas of the movement are getting to you. You wouldn’t be questioning yourself, your work, if you didn’t feel some pull.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Carole waved her hand.

“Uh huh.”

“Adele, stop sitting there like a Cheshire cat.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself to me but you ought to take a step back and see that Ilse is more important to you than you’re admitting and what she stands for is having its effect. To even consider the ideas is some fragile kind of involvement.”

“Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself.”

“What are you doing on September twenty-ninth?” Adele shifted gears.

“Nothing, why?”

“How would you like a date with destiny?”

“Sounds mysterious.”

Try as she would Carole couldn’t ferret out of Adele what was going to happen on September twenty-ninth. All Adele would tell her was to get gussied up and be ready by seven in the evening.

Carole stayed on an hour after that. She and Adele never ran out of things to talk about. Then she walked home, sorting her clothes out in her head. She promised Ilse she’d come to the dance tonight and she had no idea what to wear. But then she remembered it really wasn’t that important. Ilse didn’t pay much attention to her clothes. She was in too big a hurry to get them off.

* * *

Wooster Street lies in the heart of Soho where the narrow streets prevent the ugly, light-manufacturing buildings from running into each other. Many of the buildings were reclaimed in the late sixties, early seventies, by artists searching for cheap space, a commodity in ever-diminishing supply in the bursting city. The idea quickly caught on and inside those grimy exteriors flourished magnificent lofts enriched by the particular talent of their owners. The Firehouse sitting in the middle of the block had been converted for use by gay political groups.

Carole sprung out of the fat Checker cab and thought she’d be run over by a fire truck—the place hadn’t been touched on the outside. The door hung open to let a little air in the three-story building. Music blared into the deserted street and bounced off the buildings in a muffled echo. The smoke inside was so thick Carole couldn’t see much except the two women behind a table at the door. She paid her two-dollar donation, ventured in, and gave up on ever locating Ilse. A winding, metal staircase was to her right, a literature table took up space underneath it and, behind the table, basement steps were jammed with people running up and down getting drinks. Beyond that was a long space mobbed with women. There were women in workshirts, women in sequined halters; there were women in old band uniforms and women in no shirts at all. The place was such a racial mix that Carole might have thought she was at a gathering of the United Nations’ employees except for the fact that they were all dancing with each other. That and how would the United Nations react to bare breasts?

She’d never find Ilse but she might as well try. As she plunged through the gyrating hundreds she became
acutely conscious of the fact that she was a good fifteen years older than the oldest of them.

God, I’m glad I wore my jeans, she thought. She also wore one of LaVerne’s Nik-Nik blouses but considering the heat of all these pressed bodies and the new dress code, it didn’t matter. Her height and firm body turned many a head as she wandered through. The dim light softened her deep laugh lines and she could have passed for thirty-four, if she cared about looking young which she didn’t. Her first gray hair appearing at age twenty-three didn’t reconcile her to the inevitability of age. She remembered her mother joking that no one minded getting older, they minded looking older. But she didn’t understand that she was going to age like her mother did in Richmond, like Grams did up in the foothills before Winchester; not until Margaret’s death did she understand that simple fact.

Bumping into the young bodies touching each other in celebration of the night, each other their youth, Carole slid back into time, toward a turning point in her own youth. Surrounded by strangers she was pulled back by a slumbrous undertow, back into a time when she knew no other world but the world of the young, innocence laced with ignorance. She returned to the moment when she learned what we each must learn. She was twenty-five years old, soon to be twenty-six.

“Adele, this paper is going to do it for you. I just know it.”

“You mean get me up and over?”

“I just know it will. I don’t know much about your field but this paper on Olmec vestiges in Mayan art reads like a Dorothy Sayers mystery. It’s exciting. What have you read in art history lately that’s exciting?”

“Yeah, well, that’s it. They’re such damned stuffed shirts. I’m hesitant to turn this in.”

“Oh, come on, take the chance. What the hell. If they don’t like it we’ll start searching out hospitable universities that will appreciate you. Any school that’s too dumb to see the value of this paper, both content and style, doesn’t deserve to have you.”

“Are you for hire?” Adele poked her ribs. “Speaking of hire, we’d better get our asses out on the street and find a cab or we’ll never make it to Lynn Feingarten’s party and you know she’s got this thing for you.”

“She can keep her thing to herself.”

“What? I thought you fancied her ever so slightly.”

“Oh, we had dinner a few times but honest to god, Dell, if Lynn were a man she’d be a regimental-tie queen, you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I know what you mean. But darlin’, half of New York City is busy being oh-so-refined.”

“I can’t bear it. Remember what Chanel said, ‘Luxury is not the absence of poverty but the absence of vulgarity.’ ”

“Ha, Feingarten does glitter with all that jewelry. You ought to tell her.”

“Tell her nothing. I say let’s throw her in the Hudson. Every fish within five miles will come after all that shiny stuff.”

“Honey, you are getting downright venomous. What’d she do to you?”

“Two things. First she made a pass that was so crude it defies description. I can’t stand that lady-butch crap. Second, and worse, far the worse, she said I had a Southern accent and I’d be far more attractive if I lost it. The nerve of that overdressed tart.”

“There is a delicate bouquet of magnolia in your speech.”

“Adele, I slaved like a cotton-picker to get rid of that when I was at school.”

“Yes, well, it’s coming out now. Besides, Scarlett, my folks were the cotton pickers, remember?”

“Like hell they were. Your grandfather probably sold them all snake-oil to get rid of the aches and pains. That’s how your family got so disgustingly rich.” Carole howled.

Adele giggled. “Now don’t you be telling anyone such horrible lies about me. My Granddaddy made a fortune selling Black folks creme to lighten their skin.”

At this outrageousness Carole screamed, “Adele, ninety per cent of the terrible things they say about you are untrue but ten per cent is worse than anyone can imagine!”

“That’s right. Don’t you forget it.”

“Your grandfather didn’t do that, really, did he?”

“Of course not but it’s such a good lie. You want to know how we got the money, cross my heart?”

“Seeing as we’ve known each other for around six years now, I’d love to know.”

“Didn’t your mother tell you talking about money is trash?”

“Yeah but that’s because we didn’t have any to talk about and neither did anyone else so why embarrass all your friends.”

Adele relished this. “Now see, I was told the exact same thing for opposite reasons. Anyway, Grandfather did start the business rolling and it’s stayed in the family ever since. As a chemist at the turn of the century he developed a line of beauty aides for colored people as he still calls us and it’s boomed ever since. Dad went into law, has Grandfather’s account and a lot of other fat accounts as well as real estate.
My father is a shrewd man. He can smell money in a clover blossom.”

“God knows there are many ways to make a buck and I haven’t discovered one. Must be what I inherited from all those generations of poverty.” Carole laughed.

“Oh, you’re doing pretty good for a single woman.”

“I know but academic types rarely get rich.”

“But we have time—time to think, travel, read, write. That’s a greater luxury to me than money which incidentally I could have had. I know Granddad would give me that business. Of all the grandchildren he loves me the best because he says I’m the smartest. Shows you what he knows,” she grinned.

“I don’t know, Dell. It would be a challenge, don’t you think?”

“Sure it would but not for me. Anyway, when everyone dies at age a hundred and ten I’ll get my share then I’ll fund a dig, so help me, I will. Think of that, my own Mayan city!”

“Hope you’re not too old to enjoy it by the time you get the loot.”

“Listen, Hanratty, I intend to be a mean old woman and live forever.”

The phone rang and Carole slowly got to her feet. “I’ll bet it’s Lynn F. insisting in her best Tallulah voice that we get over there. Think of some little white lie.”

“I will not. You make up your own lies. Oh let’s go. I’m in the mood for a party.”

Carole picked up the phone. “Carole, Carole this is Mother.”

“Mother?”

“Honey, I have bad news.” Her voice was quite deliberate; she pronounced each word evenly as if it were a keystone, as if any word that got lost in
emotion would make the whole weight of the sentence fall apart and crush her. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, yes, I can hear you. The connection is clear. Mother, what’s wrong?”

“Margaret was in a three-way accident down by the Capitol.”

Carole began to shake. Adele came over to her and stood helplessly not knowing what to do. Carole looked up at her.

“Mother, where is she? How is she?”

“Honey, she’s gone. Burned. She was hit from behind and the gas tank blew. There’s nothing left.” Still the voice stayed firm if weak.

“Mom, I’ll catch the next train out. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

“Yes, come home, honey. You come on home.” On the word
home
she cried, quietly. “Now I have to hang up. Do you have anyone with you? I don’t want you alone until you leave.”

“I have a friend here, Adele.”

“That’s a nice name. I don’t believe I ever met her.” Anything attached to ordinary exchange seemed to comfort the older woman.

“No, Mother, you haven’t met her. Now you hang up. Is Luke there to take care of you?”

“Luke’s right here next to me, honey. You come home.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mom. Goodbye.”

“I can’t say that.” She cried harder now and hung up the phone.

“Carole, what in the world is wrong?”

“My sister, Margaret, was killed in a car accident.” Carole’s lip trembled. When Adele put her arms around her she couldn’t see for crying. Adele guided her over to the sofa. She didn’t try to say anything. Words were useless. Carole cried for three-quarters
of an hour. She couldn’t stop herself. It got so bad she got the dry heaves and a splitting headache. Slowly she stopped crying. Finally she spoke, “We were more like twins than sisters.”

“You told me about her many times … I am so sorry, baby, I’m just so sorry.”

“Adele, you’re awful good.” Carole hugged her again and cried some more. They rocked back and forth until she quieted herself. “I’ve got to go pack.”

“You tell me what you want and I’ll pack.”

“No, I have to do something, anything.”

“I’ll call the train station then.”

A train left late that night for Washington, D C., where Carole would have to lay over for hours before catching another train to Richmond. Adele, ignoring Carole’s protests, rode with her to D. C. and waited through the night to put her on her connection to Richmond. They nibbled donuts and talked of life and death and how they never believed it could hap pen to them. Carole couldn’t sleep and Adele wouldn’t so the hours, like a magic circle, closed around them and strengthened the bond of friendship already between them. As Carole boarded the train, finally, she turned to Adele and said, “You’re my sister now,” and before Adele could answer she ran up the steps and into the train.

Richmond, like an ageing empress, surviving her emperor, glowed on the Virginia landscape. Other Southern cities surpassed her. They were bigger, livelier, lovelier, but children of the South still paid homage to the Capital of the Confederacy. A grandmother who had seen siege, death, and defeat, she dispensed her wisdom to anyone with eyes. Generations later the scars intertwined with new roads, new buildings, but Richmond’s wounds were never completely
vealed. The South was and remains a battered nation. Richmond will always rest next to the deepest of those wounds. As Carole walked the platform toward her waiting brother, Luke, Richmond filled her, opened her own very personal wound. It was as though she had never left this place and yet it was different. Luke walked down to her, kissed her, picked up her bags, and drove her home in his pride and joy, a 1955 Chevy, only three years old.