“Well, excuse me—” Jeanie started, but I cut her off.
“These are not useful for the locals; these are useful for yourself and the rest of us. Why on earth would you think that Montauk would be improved by adding yet another tennis court? The one we have here is perfectly fine and how is that a gift for the local folk?”
“They’d be welcome to use it, too, especially in the off-season. And the addition to the yacht club means additional revenue potential.”
“And the statue?”
“She might be right,” I heard someone say quietly behind me, and feeling emboldened by the murmur of support I continued on. “Really, Jeanie, I’m sorry, but I can’t sit here and say nothing and I’m sure others will feel the same way. That money should be donated to the local school, or the firehouse, or to build a playground, or to reinforce the cliffs up at the lighthouse or to improve the construction of the homes in the fishing village. There are so many better ways to use the money.”
“Beatrice, that’s not really the kind of thing we had in mind, dear; we are thinking something more long-term, something a little more sophisticated.”
“Who cares if it’s sophisticated? It should be useful.” I turned to the rest of the room. “Surely some of you agree with me on this.” I looked around for support, but many of the women averted their eyes.
“I agree with you, Beatrice!” Dolly called out from her seat toward the back of the room. “I didn’t offer to have all those masks made free of charge so that you could put up a statue in the village green. Beatrice is quite right; let’s improve the school yard, or give money to the teachers of these kids so they have a chance to improve their education, maybe get jobs in the city and pursue their dreams.”
A few others piped in less aggressively but showing mild support for a more practical use of the money.
“I have to say, Beatrice,” Jeanie called out, “if you were so interested in the Montauk betterment fund I wish you had contributed your time and thoughts at the meetings we’ve held instead of swanning off to, who knows where you’ve been swanning off to!”
I willed my face not to flush. “If I had known about the meetings I would have been there, but it seems this topic has been strangely secret until this point, and now we can see why, because you are trying to fix this fund to fall in with your summer activities.” My face might have remained calm, but I could feel a rash of anxiety creeping slowly up my neck that developed anytime I was angry or worked up. I never spoke up like this, ever, but something had come over me. I felt strongly about this; I knew the people this could help and a newfound confidence rose up in me. My hands trembled, but I didn’t back down. Somehow I knew I was doing the right thing.
“Well, maybe we should take a vote,” Jeanie said.
“Okay, we can vote,” I said. “But remember, ladies, many of the men and women work two or three jobs to put food on the table. They try to give their children the best opportunities, but for most of them that means they will learn to fish as well as their father or learn to launder as well as their mother and that will be their future and their children’s future, because they won’t be able to afford to do anything else. The school here is falling apart; some of the kids can’t even go into their classrooms because the roof is falling in. Second graders are sitting in pews at the church trying to practice their handwriting on their laps because their desks are damp and rotten from leaks and mildew.” I looked around the room and seemed to have the attention of a good portion of the room.
“Okay, Beatrice, we get it; you can get off your high horse now,” Jeanie said, exasperated. “Anyone in attendance in this room has a vote; we cannot add anyone’s vote who did not, for whatever reason, attend this meeting. All in favor of selecting one of the three options that Clarissa and I suggested, the statue, the tennis courts or the extra docks at the club, please raise your hand.”
A vast amount of hands went up and Jeanie went around the room counting.
“Thirty-four,” she said. I counted, too.
“Anyone in favor of dismissing all of the committee’s hard work and pursuing one of Beatrice’s rather un-thought-out options, please raise your hand.”
The hands went up gradually this time and Jeanie started counting immediately, but I spoke up. “Hold on a second, Jeanie. Give everyone a chance to think through their decision; don’t rush them, please.”
She rolled her eyes and stood still, tapping her feet.
“Now may I count?” she asked.
“I’ll count along with you,” I said, feeling that the number of hands was substantial but perhaps not as many as thirty-four.
“Thirty-three,” Jeanie said. “Well, that’s that then.”
“Hold on a second,” I said, still counting. “I think we have an even split; I counted thirty-four.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Let’s do a recount,” she said, before repeating the whole process, first counting the number of hands for her proposition and then the number of hands for mine.
“Well now, look what you’ve gone and done, Beatrice. We have a tie, and that doesn’t help anyone. Would anyone from either group like to change her mind?”
“Or did anyone not vote?” I asked. “Please don’t be intimidated; this is a very important choice. If you didn’t vote, please do so.”
A tiny voice came from the back of the room near the open double doors. “I didn’t vote.”
Everyone turned to see who had spoken so meekly. It was Elizabeth with five bags of laundry at her feet. “I hope I’m not interrupting, I was just passing through, but if my vote counts I would like to vote for Mrs. Beatrice’s proposal.”
I clasped my hands together.
“You can’t vote,” Jeanie snapped. “You’re not part of this meeting.”
“Whyever not?” I asked. “You said anyone in attendance, in this room, at this meeting could be counted in the vote.”
“She’s right!” Dolly called out, blowing a stream of cigarette smoke into the air as if it were a flag of victory. “You did say that.”
The chatter started up and I heard a lot of agreements: “She’s right, you know”; “she did say…”
“But she’s a local, she’s not staying at the Manor; her vote can’t count.”
Clarissa finally spoke up loud enough for everyone to hear. “I think Beatrice wins the vote,” she confirmed. “It was a vote fair and square; everyone in this room can participate. I think you should take a seat on the betterment committee, Beatrice, and come to the next meeting with a few locally focused options that we can review as a group.”
There was a round of applause much louder than from the thirty-five hands that voted in my favor, which made me think that those other thirty-four were just too scared to lose face to Jeanie.
“I would love to join the committee,” I said, elated. I glanced over to the doorway where Elizabeth was gathering up her bags and we exchanged a quick smile; then she disappeared out toward the service entrance.
* * *
I’d already had quite a few glasses of champagne when I got to the lighthouse, feeling free and liberated. I was so happy with the results of the meeting that I couldn’t wait to get to work on my ideas and actually make sure that the money raised for this lavish party would do some good. I was excited and tipsy when I knocked on the front door of Thomas’s house and let myself in.
“Good evening, sir,” I said as I turned into the living room and found Thomas in his armchair reading, his sprained ankle propped up on the wicker coffee table.
“Bea,” he said, glancing at the clock above the fireplace. “This is a nice surprise.”
“How’s the wounded soldier?”
“Not too bad.” He looked at my gown and gave me a cockeyed look.
“I’m a little tipsy,” I said as if the explanation were needed.
“I can tell.” He smiled.
“Actually, I’m quite drunk.”
“What good are you to an injured keeper if you’re dru
nk?”
“Probably not much good at all,” I said, laughing. “But maybe good entertainment.”
“Help me up, will you?” he asked, reaching out his hands.
I held out my arms to pull him from the chair, but when he tried to get up I fell right into him. I burst out laughing, but he gasped as I landed on his chest.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “Okay, let me try again.” I kicked off my shoes to get a better grip.
“That’s all right; just sit here with me,” he said, and I sat on the arm of the chair.
“How was your dinner?” he asked, but before he could answer I hiccupped loudly. I put both hands over my mouth, horrified. “Excuse me,” I said, muffled. “It’s the champagne. I didn’t eat dinner; I left before it was served. I was celebrating my success tonight. I have to tell you what happened; it was amazing. I am thrilled.”
“Amazing?” He raised an eyebrow. “At the party planning meeting?”
“I know I’ve complained about those women, but tonight was different. We had a vote about the masquerade ball, and the funds, and I won. Well, Elizabeth helped me; she was there. But the look on Jeanie’s face, you should have seen her. She’s going to make me pay for it now, but it was so worth it. I’ve never been so bold or stood up for something like that before, and it was terrifying but so exciting all at once.”
He smiled. “Elizabeth was at the meeting? Why?”
“Not at the meeting, she walked in halfway through—”
“Wait a minute; how did you get up here in this state?”
“George, the driver.”
Thomas’s face dropped. “Tell me you’re pulling my leg.”
“No, it’s fine. I paid him; he won’t say anything. I went out to look for Elizabeth to see if I could get a ride with her, but she had left already and then I just had my heart set on coming up here.…” I paused for a second. “I’ve gotten so used to seeing you. I wanted to tell you everything. Do you mind that I showed up like this?”
“Mind? Of course not, but you need to be more careful. I don’t know what we’ve started here, but whatever it is it could get us both into a lot of trouble.”
“I know,” I said.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Life-altering trouble.”
“Do you want me to leave?” George was long gone and I was in no state to ride a bike home, but I certainly didn’t want to beg to be there.
“I want you here,” he said, “more than you know, but not like this.”
“Why? Because I’ve had a few glasses of champagne?”
“Yes, and…” He brushed the hair back from my face and ran his finger along the neckline of my dress. He shook his head.
“And what?”
“Nothing, you’re just…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You look beautiful in your pretty clothes, but you belong in this other life, not here, not in my life; it’s like I’m taking something I have no right to even touch.”
“Come to the masquerade ball as my guest,” I said.
“I can’t go to that,” he said. “I’ll be working and it wouldn’t be right.”
I stood up and walked to the desk in the next room. My head was starting to spin and I put two hands on the desk to steady myself, no longer wanting to feel the effects of the champagne. I checked the schedule and returned to the living room. “It’s not your night to light up, so you can come to the masquerade ball. Everyone at the Manor is inviting someone from town.”
“What about Elizabeth?”
“I would, but she’ll probably receive twenty invitations. For some people she’s the only local they know outside the Manor. Elizabeth and Patrick will both be there.”
“What about your husband?”
“What about him?”
“Won’t he be there?”
“I’m sure he will,” I said, “for some of the time, at least.” The thought of him hit me hard, replacing my champagne glow with a feeling of angst and unease. Thomas slowly pulled himself up from the chair to standing. He was building up strength day by day. As he walked toward the door I felt a sinking disappointment. I longed for him. I wanted to hide away with him at the light where no one else would find us. I felt like a character in a fairy tale and I wanted that feeling to stay forever, but Thomas was being rational, sensible. I watched him take a few more slow steps toward the door; then he turned toward me. Leaning on the doorframe with one hand, he reached the other hand out toward me.
“Want to follow me up?”
“To the light?” I asked. The thought of climbing 137 steps seemed impossible.
“No,” he said, “to my room.”
* * *
In his bedroom I stood nervously inside the doorway. He closed the curtains, turned back the bedspread, then rummaged in his chest of drawers.
“Here you go,” he said finally, turning and handing me a neatly folded button-down shirt. “It’s a bit big, but it’s all I’ve got.” I must have given him a bewildered look, because before he left the room he said, “You can change in here”; then he closed the door and I heard him make his way to the bathroom and start brushing his teeth.
I stood frozen for a moment; then when I heard movement in the bathroom I began to undress as instructed, folding my gown neatly on a stool by the door, removing my silks. I left on my step-ins, put on his shirt and sat on the edge of the bed and waited for my next instructions.
Harry had been my first and only lover and that whole experience had been more about the fear, the pain, the excitement and the accomplishment of becoming a woman. My girlfriends and I had spent years talking about it and when the time came I did as I was told and pretended it was enjoyable. I was the student and Harry was the teacher.
Thomas entered the room and smiled when he saw me wearing his shirt. He was in his jockeys and his undershirt. He folded his trousers and shirt and walked over to me, lifting my hands from my lap. He let out a sigh and I felt a rush go through me, feeling his breath, the magnetic pull of his body to mine, both of us half-dressed.
“We should get some sleep.”
“All right,” I said, feeling an irrational sense of disappointment.
“You’ve been drinking; I haven’t.… I don’t want you to feel…”
He stopped and looked at me, his beautiful eyes, his stare, pulsing through me, through my veins, like I’d known him my whole life. I never wanted to look away. He shook his head. “Oh, to hell with all this.” He leaned down and kissed me, running his hands through my hair and tugging on it slightly, leaning my head back. I thought I might lose all control right there with the first touch. He began to unbutton my shirt. “My God,” he said, letting his eyes move to my body as I slipped the shirt off my shoulders and let it fall onto the bed.
He took off his undershirt and laid me back. I reached up and touched his strong, smooth chest, his muscular stomach: then I pulled him down to me, pressing his body against mine. He kissed me, pulling me even closer, my breasts against his chest: we felt each other’s skin.
He reached down and pulled off my step-ins, his kisses devouring my body, my neck, my shoulders, my breasts, my thighs. He ran his hands over every inch of me, all the way down my legs, up the sides of my body and along my arms to my fingers.
“I want you,” I said, wrapping my hands around him and pulling him into me. I heard my voice echo around me, louder, climbing, my whole body heightened, touched in a way it had never been touched before. As Thomas kissed me, his muscles clenching and tightening, I had a strange thought that if I died at that moment I would be satisfied.
The bed suddenly seemed too small; he pulled me on top of him. Forgetting about his ribs for a moment, I leaned onto his chest, and he froze, moving me away for a second, then pulling me back.
“Did I hurt you?” I whispered.
“Don’t stop,” he said.
He held his hands tight on my hips, guiding me, and suddenly I felt a rising in me like the swell of the ocean building on the horizon. Our bo
dies felt as though they were made for each other, finally together, the missing piece of a puzzle, the triumph of everything merging. He pulled me tight against him one last time and I gasped, like a mermaid coming to the surface for air; then I collapsed onto him, my face to his, my hair falling around us.
“Good Lord,” he said. “You are incredible.”
I couldn’t speak I was breathing so deeply. I kissed his shoulder and laid my forehead in the curve of his neck. We stayed like that for a while.
“I could die now and I would be happy,” I said.
“That is not what I was hoping for.”
“In a good way.”
“I don’t want to die,” he said. “I want to do that again and again.”
“How’re your ribs?” I asked after a while, propping myself up on one elbow and lying on my side.
“They hurt,” he said. “But I had a good distraction from the pain.”
“Maybe you’ve been faking this whole injury business just to get me to your bed?”
“Yes.” He laughed. “The whole falling into the trench, everything, it was all a big setup to get to this point. Worked quite well, actually.”
I couldn’t believe I had gone my whole life without this man, without kissing his lips, without seeing his face, without feeling his touch.
“Things like this aren’t supposed to happen to people like me,” he said.
“Then I suppose you just got lucky.”
“I’d say.”
I curled into him and he smoothed his hand along my hair.
We pulled the bedspread up from the crumpled mess it had fallen to on the floor.
“It’s going to be difficult to fall asleep with a beautiful woman next to me.”
I got up and put on his shirt and fastened two buttons, then climbed back into his bed. He lay behind me. He brushed the hair back from my neck and kissed the spot right under my ear; then he wrapped one arm around my waist, the tips of his fingers reaching between the two buttons on the shirt and ever so slightly touching my stomach. I could feel his heartbeat against my back and I thought I would lie awake until the sun came up.
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