Venus Envy (27 page)

“Birmingham, Alabama, as you well know.”

“Well, God bless Birmingham.” Frazier reached over and embraced Mandy, then stiffened and let her go.

“You don’t hug people of color?” came the sharp retort.

“Fuck you, Mandy.” Frazier put her hand to her temple. She could feel the blood pounding. “No. What if someone walked by. How would it look?”

“Like two people hugging.”

“Don’t be purposely obtuse. If Laura said … what she said”—hearing her sister-in-law’s voice in her mind infuriated her again—“then she’ll spread it all over town, if it isn’t already. That’s not fair to you.”

Mandy drew herself up to her full five feet two inches. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself and there are plenty worse things than being called a dyke.”

“Such as?”

“Nigger.” That hit the room like a howitzer shell. Mandy added, “Or stupid. If a woman’s afraid to be called a lesbian, then she’s afraid to be a woman.” Mandy saw that Frazier didn’t follow. “Its all part of being a woman. A wife. Girlfriend. Sister. Lesbian. A man can’t be a lesbian. So what’s the big deal? There really are worse things than being called a dyke.”

“I think you’re smarter than I am.” Frazier, suddenly humbled, meant it.

“You made the millions—I didn’t. I’ve never felt compelled to defend my femininity, if you know what I mean.”

“Maybe I think too much and feel too little. You’re smarter about feelings.” A wave of exhaustion swept over Frazier.

“Fray, are you all right?” Mandy noticed her pallor.

“Yeah, yeah. I think I’ll sit down for a minute.” She slumped into a chair.

“Whatever you avoided in feelings, you’re making up for it now.”

“Boy, is that the truth.” Frazier dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Mandy, it’s one damned thing after another. Mother flew in this morning, the proverbial wet hen. Accused me, in so many words, of perverting my brother. You know, he fought back. To her face. I could have kissed him. Guess I should tell him Laura was here.”

“Tell him tonight.”

Frazier sniffed. “Smell that?”

“Your perfume?”

“No.”

“It’s someone’s perfume, only”—Mandy drew in air deeply—“something else. Something richer. Maybe it’s Laura’s scent.”

“Ha! Laura never cast a scent of intrigue.” Frazier stood up. “What are you wearing?”

“Jardin de Montacatini. Number VI.” Mandy, with her forefinger, wrote out the Roman numerals. “What are you wearing?”

“Ysatis. The usual.”

Mandy walked over and leaned close to Frazier’s neck. “Very nice.”

A slight shiver darted up and down Frazier’s spine.
“Thank you—but that’s not the fragrance. There’s something, uh, joyful. Do you know what I mean?”

Mandy sucked in as much air as her lungs could hold, then exhaled with a laugh. “Yes.”

Laughter, a low roil like the lap of an ebb tide, soft and sweet, filled the room.

Frazier tore into the big room. Mandy followed. They both stared at the Mount Olympus painting.

“It’s coming from them.” Frazier pointed to the assembled gods and goddesses. “I swear it.”

Mandy, at a loss to explain the extraordinary fragrance or the laughter, studied the painting. The great chiseled face of Jupiter glowed with radiance. Venus, wrapped in a golden light, smiled, a heartening smile. Juno, majestic, surveyed the other gods and goddesses. Mercury, so gorgeous and young, wings on his heels, had a devilish look on his face. Apollo, the ideal of reasonable art, plucked at his lyre. Vulcan, sweaty and huge, paused in his labors to attend to whatever his mother was saying. Neptune and Pluto, fearsome in their separate power, nonetheless exerted a masculine charisma oddly lacking in Dionysus, who exerted something sexy but not male. Diana, chaste and pure, seemed achingly young, while Athena encompassed a clarity and dignity that underscored her beauty, an unadorned beauty.

Finally Mandy whispered, “It can’t be,” yet even as she opened her mouth the scent was stronger and she felt an inexplicable happiness.

The telephone, that invention from the bowels of hell, broke the spell. Mandy walked into the next room to answer it. It was Harvey Mclntire, president of the country club, for Frazier.

Frazier grabbed the phone. “Harvey. Hello. Are you calling to tell me I’ve been drummed out of the country club?”

“Uh—what?” Harvey was thrown off balance.

“Are you going to eighty-six me from the club? I mean, everyone else is on my case. And I know I’m not the only homosexual in the country club. I’m just the only person honest enough to admit it.”

“Mary Frazier”—Harvey’s gravely voice soothed as he spoke—“your private life is your business.”

“Thank God,” Frazier exclaimed in relief.

“Now, girl, don’t let this get you down. I know how people can carry on in this town. Just remember it’s the best fruit the birds pick at first. Let me tell you why I’m calling. This year the Dogwood Festival has decided to use fireworks to herald in spring, shall we say? We want to celebrate on the lawn, pretty much like the Fourth of July, and well”—he cleared his throat—“we need the extra revenue. We’re going to charge a little more for this party and the ball that follows. Black tie.”

“That’s a great idea.”

“Would you do the honors? I know it’s a last-minute call but I didn’t want to involve you until I had the approval of the festival board.”

“I’d be delighted.”

After more chitchat Frazier hung up the phone. “Mandy?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe it’s not such a bad day after all. Harvey and the club are putting on a special festival with fireworks and I’m in charge, as usual.”

“While you were on the phone so was I. It’s a very good day. They bought the Munnings.”

“Yahoo!” Frazier clapped her hands together and then in unison both Frazier and Mandy sniffed the air.”

That made them laugh.

W
HEN MONEY LEAKS OUT OF A RICH PERSON’S PURSE HE OR
she hopes no one sees the dribble. The word generally employed in such circumstances is
discreet
, as in “be discreet,” which is what Frazier was hearing. Kelso McConchie, owner of a gargantuan estate in Orange County, a stable of show jumpers, and a wife who wasn’t an easy keeper, was no longer leaking—he was hemorrhaging.

Frazier walked through the 15,000-square-foot mausoleum appraising works by Sir Edwin Landseer, Henry Alken, Jr., Jacques-Laurent Agasse, John Ferneley, J. N. Sartorius, Jr., John Wootton, Francis Sartorius, George Stubbs, Ben Marshall, Rosa Bonheur, and sculptures by Isidore Bonheur and Herbert Haseltine. As McConchie still couldn’t bear to part with his nonsporting art, Frazier tactfully circumvented the issue by suggesting to
Kelso that if he ever wanted to sell the Caravaggio, she thought she knew of a buyer.

On the drive home the pastures shone like emeralds, thanks to the spring rains. The dogwood dotted the forests and velvet lawns; splashes of creamy white and beguiling pink lifted the spirits. The country club picked the perfect time for a Dogwood Festival and dance. A few early azaleas were opening, the colors ranging from white to the deepest magenta. Life. Spring is life, and the tears spontaneously ran down Frazier’s face as she relished the frolicsome charm of being alive.

This private rapture and humility in the face of Mother Nature’s bounty vanished when the car phone rang. Not only could the invention of Alexander Graham Bell jolt you out of bed at three o’clock in the morning, take you away from dinner or an emotional conversation, it could now reach into your automobile, the last bastion of personal privacy in America. Some fools even put fax machines in their cars. Perhaps these modern conveniences made people feel in touch, as they say, able to communicate instantly with whomever they chose, but the communication was never a poem by Shelley or an elegant cartoon. It was “Meet me here” and “Pay this” or “When will the job be finished?” The fax machines and telephones escalated the demands one person made upon another, whether it be business or a wife asking you to remember to pick up the dry cleaning. The violent thrust for efficiency and more productivity came at the expense of the quiet each human being needs in order to replenish. Ultimately, the machines destroyed the people who used them, for in losing playfulness, poetry, and solitude in the mad rush for productivity and profit, people became less efficient. There were moments when Frazier felt strangled by all these electronic nooses, but her clients and other dealers
expected it. Not to funnel thousands of dollars into the latest car phone, fax machine, Xerox, VHS, and high-definition television meant you were falling behind. God forbid. And if you were falling behind, maybe you weren’t keeping up with trends in your profession. The logic spiraled downward from there until a person looked hangdog and who would want to do business with you?

So, both furious and disappointed at this rude interruption, Frazier picked up her car phone. Then she was really furious. Mother.

“Mary Frazier, your attitude about your brother’s marriage appalls me. I do not appreciate your behavior and I especially do not appreciate you and Carter ganging up on me this morning. I am going to tell your father. I don’t want to, he’s got enough on his mind, but this is the limit. Do you hear me? The limit.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Libby’s voice crackled as the car dipped below a small spur of the Southwest Range, a part of the Blue Ridge Mountains that lay across Orange County like a long rat’s tail.

By the time Frazier replied, the transmission was clear. “I have nothing to say, other than Carter should have left that bitch years ago.”

“What a way to talk about your sister-in-law, who is one of the nicest people—why, everyone in the Garden Club adores Laura.”

“Mother, I haven’t liked her from the day Carter brought her home. You like her and I don’t. You’re not going to change my mind—well, actually, the only person who could change my mind is Laura. And
I
sure know I’m not going to change your mind.”

A small pause on the other end gave evidence that
Libby was firing up her pistons. “You people don’t believe in marriage. That’s the root of the problem with Carter. You’re swinging him your way.”

“My people?”

“Gay people. Just flit from one person to another. I know all about these things.”

“How wonderful. I have a mother who’s an expert on queers.”

“You people have different values. No permanence to the relationships. No marriage papers. That’s what’s going on.”

“Might I remind you, Mother, that every gay person comes from a straight home. If you have a problem with my values, then you’d better examine your own. And I happen to believe in marriage with all my heart and soul, for your information.”

“I made you gay? I knew you’d get around to that. Everyone blames the mother. A criminal goes on a killing spree. Who was his mother? Did she drink and beat him? Oh, I knew you’d sink this low. I can’t wait to hear how I made you a, a—I can’t say that word. I hate that word.”

“Lesbian? I’ll spell it for you. L-e-s-b-i-a-n.” Actually, Frazier didn’t much like the word either. A dolorous quality attached itself to it. Perhaps it was the number of syllables or too many consonants.
Gay
pleased her. It had a frivolous, lighthearted quality and it made her laugh, especially when she thought of the opposite of gay—grim. Maybe she’d start calling straight people grims, or how about dire straights? If people wanted to start name-calling, then everyone might as well do it. Turnabout is fair play.

“You think you’re above it all,” Libby growled.

“I’m not blaming you. I am what I am. To me it’s the difference between being right-handed and being left-handed. I’m left-handed in a right-handed world. Simple
as that. But you could use your left hand if you had to and I can certainly use my right. Nothing is ever as clear as we think it is.”

“You are telling me, your mother, that I could be a, a you-know-what?”

“Only if you’re lucky.” That was a smart-mouthed thing to say but Frazier was steaming.

“Are you trying to make your brother one too?” Libby’s voice was ice-cold.

“No, Mom, only you could do that.” Frazier argued against her original point, which she truly believed, but at this moment she felt like hurting her mother.

“You said just the opposite. What’s the matter with you?”

“Wanted to get your goat. Because I am sick of this, Mother, absolutely, positively
sick
of this!”

“Everything in this family was fine until you had to go and tell. Why couldn’t you keep it to yourself? We don’t need to know.”

“I thought I was dying. Hell, I thought I was doing you and everyone else a favor by being honest for a change. Honesty is the best policy, and didn’t you tell me that over and over as a child?”

“This is different!”

“No, it isn’t. You either love me as I am or you don’t love me at all. And maybe that’s my lesson too. I’m not going to change anyone unless it’s myself. So if you or Carter or Mandy are in my life, then I take you as I find you.”

Libby switched tactics and hit the offense button again. “Are you sleeping with Mandy? Have you converted her?”

Frazier saw red. “No!”

“She’s extremely beautiful for one of those people. And wouldn’t it be like you to compound the problem by
taking up with a person of another race? Miscegenation may be off the law books, my dear, but it certainly exists as a social concept. You can’t go about breaking every rule in the book.”

“Mother, you are so vile I can’t even reply to that flowering”—she passed a huge dogwood—“of racism.”

“If God meant for us to be one color, we would be. To each his place. You haven’t answered the question.”

“You have no right to my life, but no, I am not sleeping with Mandy. I haven’t even thought about it and to tell you the God’s honest truth, Mother dear, I think she’s too good for me, apart from the fact that she has never given any indication of liking women physically.”

“Too good for you?” Libby was baffled.

“Yes. She’s true blue, she’s kind, and there’s no falseness to her. She just puts it right out there, Mother—rather the opposite of you and me.”