Unlike Others (8 page)

It was a disheartening thought.

She wasn't sure what to think about developments at the office. Stan was going out with Betsy. Neither of them made any attempt to hide it. Even Gayle, wrapped up in last-minute plans for her wedding, noticed and commented. "Gee, they're having lunch together again. From the way those two act you'd think they had a thing for each other. You think she's the kinda girl that gets in solid with the boss like that?"

"I don't know."

"Believe me, I wouldn't let any man get away with that. I do my work from nine to five and that's enough. If a boss made a pass at me, Eddie'd make me hand in my resignation."

Jo's private opinion was that Betsy was relieved and happy to be dating a man—any man. It restored her female pride, shaken by the divorce. She came to work on time and went through the motions, but it was evident that her heart wasn't in it. Jo admitted that she did her work as well as any of her predecessors, which wasn't saying much. Why should a girl put any enthusiasm into a business that meant nothing to her, that was only a source of income? Still, a little more interest on Betsy's part would have made things easier for everybody.

Stan was lukewarm, too, and Jo's pleasure in her own professional achievement was constantly being threatened by a put-upon feeling she couldn't shake off.

Damn it, she thought, I'm not going to get the magazine out single-handed. I could, but I'm not going to. I don't care what other people do after five o'clock. He can move in with her if he wants to. But when he hangs around all day whispering sweet nothings in the girl's ear, while I do three people's work, it's too much. I'm going to quit and go to New York if this keeps up.

She didn't want to quit. She liked her job, even if some of the things she had to do were silly, and she liked the quiet and privacy of her own little office and the feeling that she was her own boss. She was safe here. In a big office full of cliques and chatter there would be the lurking dread, the ever-present fear that someone would know she was different. If Stan suspected, he hadn't said anything. Men were likely to be more trusting than women, especially middle-aged women. In a bigger place someone might realize that she was a Lesbian.

Silly word, she thought, with the automatic rejection that the homosexual vocabulary always aroused in her.

That brought her back to Betsy's ex-husband. She thought about him every once in a while, with a sort of exasperated sympathy. He would be about twenty-five, charming and intelligent like the gay boys she knew, a man with a lot of charm, probably handsome, not too swishy. Hindered at every turn, of course, by the dread of discovery. In large offices—most of all in the kind of company that gave placement tests and personality evaluations—the mere suspicion could lead to a discharge. No proof was required. "He's a nice person and a good worker, but." She wondered if Betsy's husband, his hope for marriage and a normal life shattered, had lost his job when the divorce proceedings became known. She hoped not. The poor guy had three strikes against him without that.

Sometimes, she told herself, wiping the suds off her kitchen floor with clear water and watching the tile pattern of the linoleum come up clear and bright, sometimes I feel so sorry for the whole damn human race. Betsy and the poor kid she married, and Stan tied to that horrible old woman, and Rich so sweet and kind, always chasing some young punk he knows is going to take him for all he's got and then move out. Yeah, and some days I'm tempted to feel sorry for myself, too. She laughed at that, and scoured briskly at a spot of spilled grease, seeing with real pleasure the immaculate sweep of floor emerge from under her sponge. You poor kid, you lead a very sad life.

Just the same, it was a relief to go back to work on Monday morning. Putting together a list of babies born to Plastix workers in the last month, with special mention for the twin grandsons of the shipping-room foreman, she didn't have time to think about personal matters. No wonder older women who lived alone were always so glad when Monday morning came; their weekends were a walking death.

There was this feeling that shot through her every time she looked at Betsy. It was a small nagging pain like an intermittent toothache, dormant for a while and then hurting to remind her of its existence. She wanted a girl in her arms, a girl whose body would respond to the love she longed to give, who would accept her ministrations and give back the pleasure that made her whole body blossom into excitement. But even more than any physical relationship she wanted somebody who would come first in her life. A girl who would be more important to her than anything else in the world, a love that was emotional and spiritual as well as physical.

She told Richard, mentioning Linda briefly but skipping the details because she didn't want to dwell on what she might never have again. He nodded. "Sure, you're looking for the love of a lifetime. We all are."

"You don't think anyone ever finds it?"

"So far I never knew it to happen." He thought about it, and shook his head. "It's the same with straight people, if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't. She said, "Skip it. How's Michael?"

"Interested in an Air Force man. He hasn't said anything about it yet, but I know the symptoms. I know the guy, too. I introduced them." Richard looked older, and tired. "I've been through it often enough. He's probably making out with the guy in the afternoon, while I'm out trying to sell houses."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

She decided not to bother him with her personal affairs again. He had enough to cope with. Sometimes she envied the gay men she knew, because they seemed to take things so lightly. Then something like this with Michael came along and it was evident that the pangs of insecurity weren't restricted to women.

We've got all the handicaps of straight people, she thought bitterly, living in a crazy mixed-up world. And a few extra ones of our own.

She walked slowly back to the office, reluctant to go in and settle down to the afternoon's work. Gayle will be painting her nails or fixing her face, she thought, or talking to one of her girl friends on the telephone. I wonder what she looks like with the makeup off? It could be frightening. And Betsy will be making eyes at Stan, and just when I get into the work, Stan will come wandering in and tell me how persecuted he is. I'm getting fed up.

There was the old dream of escape. Save two or three hundred dollars—it wasn't easy, but you could do it if you didn't buy a single thing—and go to New York. That was the place for publishing. The city's full of gay girls, she reminded herself. There's less danger of getting your personal life tangled up with your business life.

But her stomach pinched when she thought about it. She was afraid to make the change.

She went up, feeling listless. Past Gayle, who was sorting out carbon copies for a change; past the other offices. Betsy and Stan would be taking a two-hour lunch, holding hands over the dessert, making verbal passes at each other. How adolescent can you get? she asked herself savagely. Why don't they go to bed and get it over with?

She shut her eyes and shook her head to shake out the picture of Betsy, undressed and moving with pleasure in a man's arms.

It was after two when they came in. Stan came to her door, looked in, and backed away. Now what? Do I look like I bite, or something? She bore down on her pencil until the point snapped.

He came back half an hour later, looking fatuous and ashamed at the same time. "Betsy says she'll drive over to Cal City with me on Saturday," he said, not looking at her. "Have dinner and a movie and maybe take in some of the gambling places. I told my mother I was going out with some customers. Maybe we’ll find a place with a good floor show, huh?"

"That's nice," Jo said. She wondered why he had chosen Calumet City, the local small-time version of Las Vegas—but of course it represented glitter and gilded vice to squares like Stan. Nothing there you couldn't find in Chicago, if you knew where to look, but it was across the Indiana line and that made it seem safer. It was the old gimmick, take the girl to a burlesque show and get her warmed up. He doesn't know much about girls, she thought.

The Travel Now, Pay Later sign across the street flashed off and on. That's a good idea, Jo decided. Maybe I will.

Stan didn't notice her inattention. He stood looking at the floor, getting more and more embarrassed. "Look, I don't expect anything to happen. You know how it is though, people get carried away sometimes. I could get something—but that doesn't always work. I don't suppose—"

She stiffened. "What?"

"You couldn't give her a little good advice, could you?”

Like, stay away from the guy? Jo said coldly, "I'm not married."

"Yeah, sure, I know. I just thought—"

You just thought you could have some fun and not take any chances, Jo filled it in for him. You just thought I'd been around, seeing I'm older and have a place of my own. You just thought Betsy was a helpless little thing who needed good advice, how to have fun without getting caught. You can go and screw yourself—no, I guess not, it takes two. She said aloud, chipping the words off like icicles, "She's been married. She can probably take care of herself."

By this time he was obviously wishing he'd never brought the matter up. He'd fire me this minute if he dared, she told herself. He said, "Well, okay," wanting to untangle himself from this embarrassing situation and leave but not knowing how. Jo sat with her eyes lowered, waiting for him to rescue himself. Finally he got his feet into gear and ambled off without saying another word.

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry—or throw something. Her fingers closed around the cube of monotype metal she used for a paperweight. It was solid and heavy. She hefted it. Make a nice satisfying crash if I sent it flying through the window. But the habit of self-control was too strong. She said, "Oh, hell," and put the slug down again, blinking back tears of anger.

At least he was giving her credit for being normal. At least he assumed she'd been with men. Which meant that, although she might eventually be fired because she knew too much about the boss's private affairs, she wouldn't be fired because he knew too much about hers. That was some help.

He avoided her all the rest of the week.

By Saturday her body's hunger was more than she could endure. She thought about Linda, her silent understanding and her excellence in love. She thought about Karen, cold and grudging, whom she had still loved with all the need that was in her. She thought about Betsy, who was going to Cal City with Stan this very evening and who might very well be eager and willing to give him what he was looking for. Three girls in her life, more less, and nothing but trouble and frustration from all them.

Betsy and Stan would have dinner and go somewhere for a show, and park for a while, and then he would take her to a hotel. Or more likely a motel, lots of transient trade in for quickies and no questions asked. Jo didn't think he would make love to her in the car, like a pair of teen-agers, all cramped and squashed and half-dressed. She hoped not. If Betsy were really going to do this idiotic thing, she hoped it would be better than that. It hurt to think about Betsy in a man's arms, but she couldn't help it. She knew how Betsy would look with her clothes off, the tender slim perfection of her young body, the soft curve of her breasts with the twin pink rosebuds, the almost adolescent lines of her and the whiteness of her skin. Relentlessly, her mind followed the two of them, man and woman, through every stage of their lovemaking. When she came to the final consummation she put her hands over her face, as though to hold off a blow.

She had never felt any jealousy of Betsy's young husband, only a motherly pity and a sense of kinship. He was one of her own people, caught in a situation she knew only too well. But the idea of Betsy in bed with Stan was too much. She felt as though she would choke.

In this frame of mind she changed her shirt and went to The Spot, stopping on the way to have a steadying drink because she was afraid of what she might find when she walked in. She wanted to see Linda, but there was a chance of finding Linda with someone else—or of being rebuffed even if Linda were unattached.

Besides, she felt confused. She wanted Linda, who could satisfy her needs so expertly. At the same time she loved Betsy, who didn't even know she was gay, who very well might not be gay, although Jo had never felt this way about a straight girl.

It was a mess.

Linda wasn't at The Spot. Jo stayed for almost four hours, drinking slowly but steadily and beginning to feel tearful as she always did when she was loaded. Linda didn't show up. In the end Jo went home with a chubby-faced blonde butch in jeans who pulled no punches asking her, and wasted no time getting her into bed once the door was locked behind them.

Even with all that bourbon under her belt, she found a fierce pleasure in the girl's lovemaking. She was aggressive, violent at times, but good. But Jo's head ached and at the craziest moments the picture of Betsy in Stan Haxton's arms kept coming back to her.

She didn't want to be here in this room with this stranger.

It was almost daylight when she went home. Her head ached and she had heartburn. She didn't know why people never included heartburn when they talked and wrote about the evil effects of drinking, it was painful enough. She couldn't turn her head without losing her balance. Her face felt gritty. A lot of nothing, and for what? A cheap, dirty satisfaction.

She took a taxi to the station and caught the first southbound train of the morning. The passengers looked tired and dejected. Bums and drunks, she criticized them. That's what I am, a bum. And a Lesbian too. Puts me right down at the bottom of the social scale.

She let herself into the building, got up the stairs to her own room—thank God, she wasn't rich enough to live in a place with doormen and elevator operators—and finally got her apartment door unlocked, after missing the keyhole a couple of times. All the corny jokes, all the funny-paper gags, she thought wearily, sunk in the beginning of a familiar morning-after letdown. In the comics it's the young man who comes dragging in after a night on the town. What does that make me?