Odd Girl (2 page)

She reached her house and let her key turn the front lock. She hoped she would not be heard. She wanted to run directly upstairs and shower and change, without being talked to. She wanted to be alone and think of Beth.

She entered and listened. Mom could be heard in the kitchen. The French doors of the living room opened to the hall, revealing the television set standing dark and silent. Dad had not yet come home. Boots was out on a dinner date. There was no one in her way. Relieved, Anne went upstairs, her thoughts full of Beth.

The shower cooled her, taking off the sweat of dancing and rehearsal. She wiped her skin sensuously with the wash cloth full of perfumed soap, then rinsed and repeated the ritual another time, finally wiping herself dry and spraying herself with cologne. She folded the long white towel around her like a toga and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She let the towel fall and surveyed herself critically. There was nothing wrong with her body. Her skin, white and sensitive, was unblemished; her muscles were taut and shapely. She was a woman. There could be no doubt of that. Once she had been sad about it. As a child she had strapped her breasts tightly, hoping they would not grow. She had insisted on wearing slacks and jeans to school despite bad marks in grooming. She had snipped her hair in fits of rage despite Mom's attempts to make it grow. And most of all, she had refused to play with girls.

Anne came close to the mirror and looked at her face, first one profile and then the other; then she held her long hair up, the hair that had finally grown and now was her pride. Her face was beautiful and feminine—not the face of a Lesbian, she thought.

Yes, she knew that word. She had always known that word. She could not remember when she had first heard it. But recently it had become a popular word. The kids in the cast used it indiscriminately. Marcel or Jennie would point to someone on the street and say "She's a Lesbian," or, "Look at that queer!" And they joked with each other, imitating effeminate men or burly women. Anne knew the faces of Lesbians. They were fat and ugly and cruel. And then panic returned to her. If I let myself go on thinking of Beth this way, I'll be like them!

She snatched up the towel and ran from the mirror, out into the hall to her room.

She had barely dressed for dinner when Mom called her from the bottom of the stairs. "Anne, are you there?" Anne sighed. She would have to answer. She came out her room and to the head of the stairs. "Yes, Mom?" "Telephone for you," Mom said. Her hands were full of meatloaf and she returned to the kitchen.

Anne hurried downstairs to the living room. She seldom got calls and wondered who it might be. The living room was dark except for the dull light of the television set. Dad was sitting in his usual chair, smoking his pipe.

She went to the telephone and answered shyly.

"Anne?" It was Beth. Anne paled. Beth seldom called and each time Anne had been paralyzed with fear. She hoped her excitement would not show on her face, hoped Dad would not look up from the screen.

"Anne, I'm worried sick about you," she said. Beth paused, "Can you talk?"

"No—" Anne managed to answer. A wonderful whirlpool was again flowing round her. Beth cared.

Then the thoughts in front of the bathroom mirror gripped her and filled her with terror. I don't want Beth! I will not be a Lesbian!

"It's all right, Beth," she whispered shakily. "Mark and I had a talk. Everything's fine."

"So it was Mark." There was a sound of disbelief in Beth's voice. "I'm glad."

"Yes, it's Mark," Anne lied shakily. "We're just friends now. I'm sorry it happened. I didn't mean to come between you two."

Beth paused for a long time and then said clearly, "There's nothing between us, Anne. I want you to know that. He's all yours." There was another long silence and Anne did not know what to say. Beth's voice came through the phone again, full of concern and warmth.

"Anne, be careful. Don't go off again. Call me if you're in trouble."

"Thank you," Anne whispered. "I'll be all right. I promise." She hung up quickly. She could not talk to Beth another minute.

"Who was that?" Dad's voice spoke innocently above the laughter from the screen.

Anne whirled, frightened. "Just Beth," she stammered, then rushed toward the stairs.

"Who is Beth?" he called after her.

"Just a friend," she shouted back.

* * *

Mark did not sing in the shower; he recited Sophocles —so seriously it made Anne laugh as she listened in his living room, marking movements on her script.

"You'll never make Oedipus," she shouted.

"Ah, well," he laughed, "maybe you will."

He put on his shorts and came in, wiping his face, and let her inspect him.

"How do you like the new cologne?" he said.

"Perfect," she said. "Beth will love it."

"She will," he said with cockiness. "Are you sure you'll be all right here alone?"

"Perfect place to study lines," she said.

He went to the bedroom and took another five minutes to dress and then he was ready for the opera.

"Kiss Beth for me, will you?" Anne joked. She had learned to joke about her feelings.

Mark laughed, then blew her a kiss and said "Done."

Anne knew he wouldn't. He would kiss Beth for himself and sleep with her. She thought nothing of sleeping with Mark. She had no feelings, only a jolly attitude toward everything, as if sex was only the proper way to end an evening.

The door closed after Mark and he would not return until late.

Now Anne was left to the four walls—well-decorated walls but lifeless all the same—and she could not concentrate on her script. It had been three months since that foolish day and she had begun to notice again the fresh air and gold sunlight, remembering how good it felt to live. Talking about Beth to Mark had helped, but there was something terribly lacking from the world, and even Mark's fun would not fill that gap. Mark's dating Beth made it worse. She could not help feeling jealous and it was pain to sit memorizing lines longing all the while to be sitting next to Beth in Mark's seat at the opera.

She tried to analyze her state. It was natural for her to react this way to Beth. Mark had told her so. Mom had never given her affection; she had no sense of belonging to her family; it was natural for her to respond to someone older whom she admired, who was beautiful and who cared enough about her to scream "For God's sake, Anne, grow up!"

But there was something else—a fierce unhappiness that she had known all her life. And there was something else again—she could never remember when she had not longed for some woman—first Mom and then teachers. Never, not once had she longed for or sought the company of men. Not even Mark made her feel alive, and Mark was the closest because he could talk to her and she to him, freely.

She decided to leave the script and dream of Beth. She fell asleep on the day couch, where Mark found her when he came home.

"My God, they'll think I slept with you!" she said the next morning.

Mark jabbed another piece of toast in his mouth. "You did."

"I mean, you know—" she was embarrassed. "I didn't, did I?"

He laughed, "No, dammit." And then he paused, still laughing, "Perhaps I should be worried. How old are you?"

"Nineteen," she said.

He sighed with false relief. "Safe!"

"Mark," she said slowly, "if we had slept together, would anything be different?"

"Sure," he said, concentrating on his eggs.

"How?" she persisted.

He shrugged. "You'd be grown up."

"Mark," she pleaded, "no one's ever sat down and actually told me about sex."

He stopped eating breakfast and looked at her. "What are you driving at?"

She paused and looked down. "I can't go home this morning. I won't be able to explain it to Dad."

"Tell him you stayed at Beth's," he said unconcerned.

"It's not that." She shook her head. "I've just decided not to go home again. I can't bear it there anymore. I'm up against a wall, Mark. I don't know which way to turn."

He put his napkin down, stood up and went to her side of the table. He took hold of her shoulders and rubbed away at the tightness there.

"Has the time come, Anne?" he said softly.

"I don't know," she said. She rose and walked away from him.

"Did you have a nice time with Beth?"

"Uhuh," he nodded, watching her.

Anne turned and gazed at him. "I'm terribly jealous of Beth," she said. "I can't bear the thought of your being near her. I do love her, Mark. There's nothing I've been able to do about it."

He gave her a look of impatience and sat down again to his breakfast.

She turned and traced the lines of a vase with her fingers.

"Mark, just exactly what do you want of me?"

"I couldn't begin to explain it to you," he said with an air of boredom.

"How does one go about having sex?" she persisted.

"Why do you want to know?" he said.

"Does Beth like you? Is she pleased?" Anne insisted.

"Yes." He was growing impatient.

"Mark," she said. There was great strain in her voice and she turned from the vase to look at him. He turned, summoned by her cry, and looked at her.

"What exactly do you want of me?" she repeated.

"I want to please you," he said seriously.

"In coarse terms," she insisted.

"Why do you want to know?" he repeated.

"I want to know so that I'll be able to please Beth," she said.

He laughed, a wild laugh aimed at her. "You can't do that," he said. "It's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible," she replied.

She returned quietly to the breakfast table and slowly buttered her toast. She felt him watching her through the whirlpool that splashed her and felt the cold steel of the knife in her hand. It was a dull knife. In the bathroom there was Mark's razor. She closed her eyes and put down the toast, gripping the knife desperately. Somewhere there must be life, somewhere beyond the whirlpool. Somewhere there was Beth.
You can always talk to me.
Beth's words sounded in her ears. But there wasn't time to talk to Beth. Anne had to do something, now. She had to be sure of herself, of what she was.

"Mark," she managed to choke through the whirlpool, "Mark, come here. It's time."

He still watched her, his eyes carefully studying her face. She saw the knife in her hand and dropped it. It lay on the table, reflecting the light bulb, a simple, dull thing that symbolized the razor in the bathroom.

She forced herself to see again and rose, facing him. "What are you waiting for?"

He rose too and faced her, then took her firmly.

As if a part of her were standing off and watching, Anne felt his arms come around her and pull her to him. She felt the roughness of his beard, his clothes, and finally the warmth of his body pressed against her own. The tip of his tongue moved down her neck and niggled in her ear. Absurdly, it tickled and she had an impulse to giggle. But when she felt his fingers opening her blouse and the cool air touching her warm skin the giggle changed to a pang of fear. And when the wetness of his mouth moved over the mounds of her breasts, the fear mounted to the edge of panic. She raised her hands to stop him.

"Mark, no."

He pushed her hands aside and in a moment she felt her blouse come off and the straps of her bra being slid from her shoulders. And then there was the cold shock of his mouth on her breast.

She did not want him, she wanted him to stop. But she had asked him. And she knew it was too late now. She knew what she had done.

* * *

The cast spent lunch and afternoon free time across from the theater at a cafe called The Florentin, where one cup of coffee, priced twenty-five cents, was sufficient to hold a table reserved all day through a series of shifts. The management did not complain because its reputation depended upon the "arty" atmosphere which drew many tourists, and the cast was certainly part of that atmosphere.

Anne surveyed the group. Each was involved with himself and this strange process of transition to adulthood. Each had a problem; each was experiencing some form of love—or desire—or need that could not be fulfilled except by children's magic; and each was past the age of magic.

Jacques belonged to the group, effeminate yet unaware, followed incessantly by the fat simpering and servile Carol. Then there was Marcel, who played the lute and sang old folk songs and who was vainly trying to grow a medieval beard; and Jennie, whose voice was high-pitched and whose mind efficiently catalogued cliches, snatching bits of culture from others' conversations, repeating them at the best times; Ronnie, the big tall fat boy, who had a magnificent talent for acting and who played King Lear and made everyone cry—he too was affected like Jacques, but was ashamed of it and went to great lengths to prove he was manly.

Yesterday, Anne had been one of these. Today, Mark had separated her. Today she had become one alone. Today the world was colorless and all dreams were gone. She sat quietly in her corner by the large window and watched them, not listening to their talk, not drinking her coffee. She felt tired, so completely, through all her limbs, and her eyes saw only black and white shadows.

"Anne, you look ghastly," Jennie said, stopping her incessant flow of words to look at her. "You must be sick."

"Just a cold," she lied. She wanted so much to tell them the truth, but it would have been awkward and silly. She was glad that later she might go home to rest. She wondered how Moms would react to her having been out all night. No matter—she would not be living at home for long; she planned to find a job and move out within the month.

Then Beth and Mark arrived, snatching a short ten minutes, and Beth sat next to her. Immediately Anne was aware of new strength and her pulse quickened. Beth regarded her with meaningful eyes and Anne wondered if Mark had told her. No, Mark had not told her. She was concerned only about the rings under Anne's eyes. "You ought to get more beauty sleep," Beth said. Anne nodded and smiled embarrassedly. She could not look at her eyes. Mark was a great wall between them.