“Oh, I’m sorry, Bea. I should never—”
She waved me off brusquely, cutting off my apology. “Never mind.”
Later, Ramona entered the kitchenette looking like she’d just gotten a pink slip. “Steer clear of Bea today,” she warned.
“Now you tell me.”
Ramona’s voice fell to a hush as she glanced toward the door. “Husband number three,” she said, making a slicing motion across her throat. “Kind of a soap opera plot line, if you ask me. He’s been cheating with his paralegal for months. Got her pregnant. Bea just found out. About the pregnant part. She’d been trying to overlook the cheating part.”
“Poor Bea.”
“Whatever you do, don’t act like you feel sorry for her. She’ll pull herself together and be back in form in no time. Bea Winston is the queen of bouncing back.”
• • •
“Seriously?” Thea asked. “We just get something going and you’re taking a trip?” Her tone was teasing, but with an undercurrent of something else.
We were lounging in my loft bed after some especially athletic sex that involved contortions I didn’t know I could do and the magical “69” I’d never tried. To spare Vern’s feelings, we hadn’t “done it” at her place yet; and since Barb was working the graveyard shift, my place had become our love nest.
“It’s not like a vacation or anything. It’s just babysitting.” My fingers traced her breast in lazy swirls. “Think how much you’ll miss me.”
“Are you going to see . . . anyone you know?” After only a week, we weren’t a couple and mentioning Hallie directly would have sounded way too possessive— just like I hadn’t asked about Diane since Thanksgiving.
“Family, I guess,” I said, just as cagey. “Clio’s brother’s at a home in Asheville, so it seems like we’ll be there more than in Hendersonville.”
I didn’t intend to seek Hallie out, but there was always the outside chance we’d find ourselves on the same street or in the same restaurant at the same time of day. I had fantasized about that casual sort of tripping over her, just so I could see the look on Hallie’s face when I let it drop that I was “seeing someone.” Sometimes, I let the fantasy progress even further as I imagined her calling me at my parents’ house to say she had made a mistake and wanted me back.
Thea sat up abruptly and hugged her knees like she was guarding her body. “Well, I have a trip of my own coming up in January. I just found out this week.”
“Oh, yeah? Where?” She had mentioned going home to Charleston for Christmas, and I assumed that’s what she meant.
“Western New York.” She rested her chin on her knees, her face turned away from me so I couldn’t read it.
“You going to a college reunion or something?”
“I got an on-campus interview,” she said. “For an assistant professor job at Hamilton College.”
The lingo of academic job searches eluded me. I understood that Thea was looking for a permanent teaching position because she was finishing her dissertation and her teaching contract at Barnard expired in May. In my ignorance, though, I didn’t realize her job search would begin a full six months in advance, or that she would cast such a wide net.
“That’s great,” I said, but emotion thickened my voice. With that voice, I could have passed for Kathleen Turner. Taking a trip with Clio for a week was one thing, but Thea moving out of the city was another. “How far away is that, anyhow?”
“About three hours. Well, more like five on the bus.”
“Five hours!”
“Yeah. I’ll be gone two, three days.”
“Wow.”
“I just found out. This week.”
“Yeah, you said that.”
She slipped back under the covers and rolled on top of me. Her frame was slight, but Thea had extraordinary power in her arms and legs that she told me came from running track in high school. She was still a runner, and her favorite route involved laps around the reservoir in Central Park.
“These jobs are super competitive,” Thea added. “I probably won’t get it.”
I seized her words as if I were falling off a cliff and she’d tossed me a rope. Still, I suspected Thea was either being modest or downplaying her chances in case she didn’t get the job.
“Did you apply for other jobs, too, maybe something, you know, closer?”
“Well, there’s one in Philly, so that’s just a quick train ride,” she said, kissing the freckles on my chest lightly. “I love Philly, don’t you?”
“Never been,” I said, her butterfly kisses annoying me rather than turning me on. “You apply anywhere here?”
“I would love to, but there isn’t anything for me to apply for except at Bronx Community College.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste as if she’d mentioned a janitor’s job. With her educational pedigree, a position at a two-year college was not going to suit.
“You can’t re-up at Barnard?”
“Livvie, this is how it works in academia.” Her voice was steady and slow, but with an edge of pique. “You go where the jobs are. And that could be Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin!”
“Hypothetically,” she said, quickly. “I didn’t apply for anything in Wisconsin.”
“Phew.”
“D.C., Baltimore, Philly, Atlanta . . . and Boston.” She scanned my face. “We weren’t together in September. You barely noticed me. I didn’t know this was going to happen.”
I hugged her to me and closed my eyes, blinking back my disappointment. It didn’t matter that we were virtual strangers; I’d already flashed forward in my imagination, with mental pictures of us holding hands on Valentine’s Day, marching on Fifth Avenue for Gay Pride, taking day trips to Coney Island or Montauk. I could even see myself moving into the apartment uptown. My attitude toward her job search was selfish, but I couldn’t help secretly hoping the positions either didn’t work out or that Thea recognized the folly of leaving me and turned them all down.
“Maybe I could come with you?” I suggested, although I knew it sounded needy and grasping and way too fast. “Make it more fun.”
“There won’t be time for fun,” she said, slipping herself out of the hug and pulling on her turtleneck, which she had peeled off the night before and tossed to the side of the mattress. She tried to smooth it out now, but the wrinkles had settled in. “It’s all meetings and dinners, and I’ll be anxious about my job talk. Don’t make this harder, Livvie. It’s hard enough trying to land a teaching job without—” She broke off, and I wondered if she had almost added “without thinking about your feelings.”
“—projecting into the future,” was what she actually said. “You know, when I was applying to grad school, I was in a pretty new relationship with Diane and I only considered schools in New York because she’d moved here to be a writer. This time, I want to think about what would be best for me, not someone else.”
I nodded in acknowledgment, but couldn’t help picking at the topic like a scab. “So . . . if you get one of these jobs, when would you, um, leave?”
“Livvie, stop.” Thea made for the ladder but hesitated in mid-descent. “Let’s just take things as they come, OK?” Without another peep, I followed Thea down the ladder and started a pot of coffee while she brushed her teeth.
Every night Thea and I had been at my apartment, I had wondered what Barb’s reaction would be if she came home and found us together. Thea had fretted about the possibility, like she was almost scared to face Barb. That morning we got the opportunity to find out, when my roommate stumbled inside the door after wrestling with the lock.
“That door’s gonna kill me,” she muttered. When she caught me staring at her in my open-mouthed way, she looked around with suspicion. “Wait a minute . . . you finally score, Carolina? Is it the blonde I gave your number to?”
Thea emerged from the bathroom rubbing lotion into her hands. “You need more Jergens,” she said, then stopped short when she saw Barb. “Oh. Hi.”
�
��Well, well,” Barb said, her eyes pivoting from me to Thea. “The lotion’s mine. But please, help yourself.”
“I’ll buy more and bring it next time,” Thea said, the words “next time” hovering in the thick silence that fell like a curtain.
“Coffee?” I said finally to neither of them.
Thea grabbed her peacoat from the chair where she’d dropped it the night before and buttoned herself into it for the trip outside. “I’ll get some at home,” she said. “Got to go grade.” I craved a kiss good-bye, especially given the queasy-making conversation we’d had that morning, but all I got was a wave as she headed out the door mouthing, “Call you later.”
Barb helped herself to a mug of coffee, shaking her head. “You hold your cards close to the vest, Carolina.”
“It’s new.” I shrugged it off. I didn’t feel like sharing whatever Thea and I had with Barb, whose favorite game was musical beds.
“I never saw it coming. I was so wrapped up in Renee. Which is off again, if you must know. Thanksgiving was a fucking nightmare.”
The need to know wasn’t burning in my chest, and I let the statement drop. The triangle of Barb, Gerri, and Renee had become dizzying and too reminiscent of me, Hallie, and her husband.
“So you’re a thing?” Barb asked, a smirk on her face. “You and the ice queen?”
The insult poked me in the ribs, but I didn’t flinch. This was the Barb Gerri and Thea had warned me about, but who had treated me like her pet until now. I wondered how badly Renee had hurt her, that she lashed out at the closest person in her path, the roommate relishing a new affair.
“Rude, Barb. Really rude.”
“Hey, sorry.” Her apology was as flimsy as an old T-shirt. “Who am I to judge? Whatever bakes your potato.” She reached for an orange from the bowl of them I’d bought especially for Thea. They were heavy, juicy globes, and Thea had eaten one the night before with sexy gusto.
On instinct, I grabbed the fruit from Barb’s hand and returned it to the bowl. She looked like a hungry puppy whose kibble I had snatched away. “I bought those for Thea,” I said. “They weren’t cheap, so please don’t eat them.”
“Wow, you are a piece of work,” she said. “After all the food I’ve given you.”
“Why am I not remembering all this alleged food?” I asked. “Oh, yeah, there was some moldy bread once and a handful of Doritos. I’m pretty sure I paid for everything else.”
Barb snatched the orange back, and before I could stop her started peeling it. “This is still my apartment,” she said. “If you don’t like it, you should just move in with your girlfriend. Come to think of it, why don’t we call this whole roommate thing off? I could use some space.” She bit down on an orange section like a dare, and the juice squirted out onto her sweater.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I’m going to be around a lot more, and there isn’t room for three of us here.”
I thought of fighting for my right to stay, but with Barb so hostile I didn’t want to. With a shaky hand, I poured myself a mug of coffee and took it back to my room. I kicked the door shut behind me, just firmly enough to make a statement. I suddenly wished I’d kept Eli’s apartment for myself.
• • •
That was how I ended up back in Gramercy Park, but this time in fancier digs. Ramona wasn’t in the market for a roommate, but when I mentioned at work that I needed a new share and asked her to keep me in mind if she heard of anything, she showed an unexpected empathy.
“Did you . . . break up with someone?” she asked, her voice low and husky. “Oh, God! Your ex has the lease! That’s how I ended up in that rat trap on Twenty-Fifth Street.” Her eyes widened as she relived the traumatic experience.
“Not quite that bad. I thought my share was long-term, but it turns out it’s not.”
“The things you find out too late,” Ramona said. The mysterious nature of my homelessness held her attention. “Well, you can stay with me for a while if you don’t have any place else. I mean, till you find something. I’ve got a spare bedroom in the back. It comes with a bed and a dresser and even has its own little bathroom. I don’t want you out on the street or in some SRO.” She bit her bottom lip as if already reconsidering her offer. “You don’t have a lot of stuff, do you?”
I laughed, relieved to have an escape from Barb’s place. “I travel light.”
“No animals? I’m allergic to everything.” When I shook my head emphatically, she continued, “It should be fine then. Till you find something.” It was the second time she’d added that stipulation in the space of about thirty seconds, so I said I understood the offer was temporary and appreciated the generosity. But I secretly hoped that if I proved myself a thoughtful and respectful roommate, she might extend my time. A plan was already germinating in my mind, to keep stick-skinny Ramona happy and satiated with down-home food, like my mama’s buttermilk biscuit and cornbread recipes.
• • •
When it came time to leave Barb’s for good, I didn’t bother Gerri. We’d had one stilted phone conversation since she had exploded at me in Mi Chinita. After leaving Clio’s one evening, I had knocked on her door to see if she was up for pizza at John’s. As a peace offering, I was prepared to treat and let her order her favorite pie— mushrooms and sausage with extra mozzarella, not my favorite because I had to dig down to pick off the mushrooms I hated.
At her apartment door, though, Gerri whispered that Renee was staying over, so I backed away and stammered something about catching up with her later.
The loss of closeness with Gerri was a dull but persistent ache.
“She’ll come around,” Thea assured me. “She has such a history with Renee, and love makes people crazy.”
“It hasn’t made us crazy.”
Thea looked puzzled and let the comment fizzle.
On moving day, Thea and Vern helped me load boxes into a Ford pickup that belonged to Thea’s cousin. Malcolm insisted on coming along and driving his own baby, even though Thea assured him I knew how to handle a stick shift. He didn’t seem to be interested in lifting anything, though, and appointed himself as our watchdog: “Nobody’s gonna steal shit with me sitting right here,” he said.
We were in and out of Fifteenth Street in under an hour; that’s how little I owned and how fast we moved. Malcolm said we were so quick he hadn’t even finished the Bud I bought him. Thea was especially nimble, sometimes taking the steps two at a time.
As we shuttled back and forth, Barb stood guard in the living room in front of her stereo and record collection. Thea couldn’t resist a dig: “Believe it or not, Barb, these black girls don’t want to steal your shit.” That made Barb color a deep red and retreat to her room, slamming the door and leaving us to finish in peace.
On the street, Vern headed back uptown to go to work while Thea and I cozied up together in Malcolm’s passenger seat all innocent, like we were just the best of friends. “Good thing you gals’re skinny,” he observed as we jerked our way across Manhattan. With the help of the creaky elevator in my new building, the other side of the move proved much easier and even faster, but at the end Thea and I collapsed in a heap on Ramona’s living room rug.
“I’m parched,” she said, jumping up and heading for the box we’d deposited in the kitchen. She returned a minute later with the Foghorn Leghorn jelly glass from Barb’s prized collection. “Hey, isn’t this—?”
Caught, I flashed Thea a sheepish grin. “That glass deserved a Southern home,” I said.
Huddled in a placid valley, Crab Creek, North Carolina remains an intensely rural area, with the local catfish pond among its biggest draws. Surrounded by the impressive peaks of Jeter, Evans, Pinnacle, and Ann mountains, the area also attracts hikers and outdoors enthusiasts.
“My daddy used to talk about going climbing with his big sister from when he was just a little fella,” recalls Rufus Threatt Jr., the son of Clio’s youngest brother. One of eight Threatts still on the area’s property rolls
, Rufus and his two sons run a small apple orchard and molasses-making business.
“Daddy said Aunt Birdie was the most fearless of ’em all, not like a girl at all,” Rufus continues. “I don’t recall her much, but Daddy always talked about her, said she was something.”
—from Dismantling Clio Hartt: Her Life and Work, by Ingrid Coppersmith
Chapter 18
Western North Carolina
December 1983
There was no direct train service to the North Carolina mountains, a fact that Clio at first refused to accept. “Not to Hendersonville, but to Asheville surely,” she insisted.
When Clio first left North Carolina in the twenties, Asheville was a popular destination for the well-heeled, but it had not been that in a long time. In my teen years, most of the downtown businesses fled to the new Asheville Mall, leaving the city proper with a saggy, forlorn air. My daddy had opened a hardware store on Lexington Avenue after World War II with a low-interest government loan, but he had to shutter the place thirty years later and scramble to eke out a living as a handyman. Our family had never been well-to-do, and if I hadn’t gotten a scholarship and worked in the college cafeteria, we could never have afforded even the in-state tuition at UNC Asheville.
I told Clio I could get her as far as Charlotte by train, but then we’d have to hop a Greyhound bus for the additional hundred-odd miles. I knew that bus ride. I’d gone to Charlotte with my sister Brenda in high school, and with the sticky seats, dirty windows, and sloshing noises coming from the bathroom, it had been a nasty experience, not to be repeated. Especially not with Clio.
“Then we’ll drive,” she said.
But I was still a couple of years under the legal age for car rentals, and Clio had never acquired a driver’s license.
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