by Lee Lynch
Dawn pulled on boots and went out to the muddy kitchen garden with one of her sisters, to surprise their mother by getting some Saturday chores out of the way. Mrs. Northway was shopping. She’d be making a Vietnamese meal for their guest that evening. Jefferson accepted the task of reading the newspaper to Mr. Northway, whose leukemia had affected his eyes. When she finished the first section, he asked her to look through business articles for mention of Vietnam.
Dawn joined them and Mr. Northway said, “I would love to go back there with Dawn. Her middle name is Mai: M. A. I., not M.I.A. It means cherry blossom.”
She was touched to be allowed into this family, to share this time with the Northways. “Does it bother you,” she asked, “what America did to Vietnam? That I was part of that America back then?”
“You weren’t a protester during the war?” Dawn asked, looking surprised.
“I barely remember it. Hippies taking over the streets, people setting themselves on fire. I was focused on winning field-hockey games. At one point, before college, I thought about going into the military, but Angela reminded me there was a war happening. After that, I guess I turned my back on the whole thing. I didn’t read the paper, I didn’t watch the news on TV. Now I can’t believe I’ve lived through all that history.”
Dawn gave her quiet laugh. “I love that sense of entitlement. I’m jealous of it. I can’t imagine the ease of it. But, if I’d been here during the war? I would have gone to every march. I would have demonstrated outside military recruiting booths. Would have yelled and written letters till my fingers bled.”
“Would you have blown up the recruiting stations?’
“Jefferson! How could you ask? Violence will never stop violence.”
“No? I guess you’re right.”
“Oh, Jef. You’ve been so protected.”
“Did I turn my back on the Vietnamese? On our soldiers? On your dad?” she asked, meeting his eyes.
“So many Americans take their easy lives for granted,” said Dawn.
“You must have hated us,” she said to Mr. Northway while thinking that she would have a hard time fighting for a county that ostracized her for being gay. She remembered the days when she could have been arrested for being herself.
He nodded. “We did. We were stuck in the slime, taking fire, burning, killing, destroying—dying.”
“I never thought about whether the kids I grew up with—the boys up the street that I played with—were over there.”
Mr. Northway patted her forearm. “Once I got back and got some distance from it all, I didn’t hate anyone. I promise you that I don’t hate you. It’s beyond my understanding why things happen the way they do.” He inhaled a cautious breath as if to avoid more coughing. “As long as my kids have love in their lives—that’s what matters to me now.”
Had that been a blessing of their love? This was new to her. The ghosts of would-be in-laws flickered through her mind, disapproving, disappointed, angry. She caught her breath, stunned with hope. Was she actually getting another chance here, a chance at a lasting, loving, sound union? She watched father and daughter spar affably until they heard Mrs. Northway arrive. Dawn dashed down to the cellar. Mrs. Northway fussed over Dawn’s dad and ordered Jefferson out of the room so he could nap. Jefferson washed pans in the kitchen, following crisp orders from the quick, exacting, but frequently laughing woman.
These people were, unlike her parents, adults. Jarvy and Emmy, she remembered again, were a couple of kids, playmates who palled around together. My god, she thought, no wonder I don’t know how to be an adult.
She went down to the basement, where Dawn was shelving her aunt’s preserves. She pulled Dawn to her and held her close while she told her what she’d realized.
“Do you still want me?” she asked.
Dawn stayed quiet in her arms for too many beats of her heart, then answered, “Yes. I can see where that could cause us some friction, but yes, I do still want you.” Dawn gave her that big joyful smile. “I can watch you grow up.” She pulled Jefferson up the steps and out to the kitchen garden.
“I think my mom likes you,” Dawn told her. “You pitched right in. Nothing impresses her more.”
“You learned a lot from her.”
“Oh, I did. I always loved to cook, but the bad thing used to be when dad called me Cookie. I hated that name.”
“I’ll have to remember never to call you that.”
“It’s what they called the cooks in the war. But, seriously, you name it, I can do it, from the kitchen to the orchard, getting cars out of ditches and helping a goat give birth. My mom and dad both love teaching their skills.”
“I can tell. I now know the right way to peel an avocado.” She held out the pail of peels and other refuse.
Dawn laughed. “And you’d better do it that way if you ever do it in front of Mom again. She remembers who she taught what. Dump those in here.”
Jefferson added her offering and pushed the wheelbarrow filled with weeds through the muck to a compost pile.
“Who cooked when you were with Ginger?”
“Neither of us. We were the kind of people they invented takeout for.”
Dawn laughed. “I always wondered who could afford takeout. I shared an apartment with two other women and we took turns cooking a lot of greens and rice. It was all we could afford.”
“We spent way too much on restaurants. We could have paid off the loans on Ginger’s dance school if we’d cooked. Including the money I put into the school.”
“Did you get paid off when she died? From selling the school?”
“A committee from the neighborhood wants to buy it. If they can raise the rest of the money I’ll forgive the loan so they’ll have operating expenses. As a memorial to Ginger.”
She off-loaded the wheelbarrow where Dawn told her to and they headed back.
“Do you mind me asking about you and Ginger?”
“Hey, ask away. Better you learn the worst up front.”
“The worst? I’m touched by your memorial, Jef. You really must have loved her.”
Jefferson considered what to say. She didn’t want to get mired in the mud of her past and risk what might be the best part of her life so far. On the flip side, she wanted to make an honest beginning with the woman. Dawn was so good at showing her devotion, at being sensitive to her desires. She decided she would follow Dawn’s lead. Who better to model as a loving partner?
“After Ginger died—and before you—I was, for the first time ever, fine and whole, single, independent, chaste, sober. I’ve thought a lot about what Ginger and I had, and didn’t have. I came to the realization that I had no clue how to be trusting and intimate, not after abusing Ginger’s trust over and over. I only knew how to live by lying. I’m afraid of telling the truth, afraid, if I’m honest with you, I’ll drive you away.”
They reached the barn. Together they hung the wheelbarrow on the wall. Dawn pulled Jefferson down to a bale of hay where they sat, side by side.
“We knew each other so well and so little. It was as if I knew her whole, though the details stymied me.”
Dawn squeezed her hand. “Did you have affairs?”
“Affairs? Of course I had affairs,” she said, a little too harshly. “Sorry, that anger you’re hearing is directed at me, not you.”
“And you’re angry at yourself because…”
She loved the cool softness of Dawn’s hand. Holding it excited and comforted her at the same time.
“I never questioned having affairs. That was part of the old bar ethics. I’m a butch in that society. It was some sort of code of honor to have affairs while the long-suffering femme waited at home and forgave. You know, it was the culture.”
Dawn looked at her with a puzzled expression. “What did you get out of it if you loved Ginger?”
“Did I love Ginger? She was my backboard. I couldn’t make a basket without her there. She was like a guard that didn’t move, didn’t speak, blocked me from going
too far. I still missed a lot, fell to the boards over and over, but she was only a painted piece of wood and never noticed or, maybe, never cared.”
She looked at Dawn to gauge her reaction. Dawn smiled so she went on. “Things were different when I came out. Or maybe they weren’t. What I got out of affairs was the thrill of them. They would start with the subtle excitement that came with picking up vibes that a woman was interested. That would build into a big want. It felt good. The desire for the new woman, this stranger, would consume me. It was another way of getting high, I think.” She didn’t mention that sex was only fulfilling with her clandestine liaisons. That wasn’t a problem with Dawn.
“Look,” Dawn said. “There’s one of those silly blue jays.”
The bird was picking up one of the peanuts Dawn had dropped as they walked.
Dawn said, “It’s such a delight to see them scoot off with the nuts and to hear their little sounds: dropping the nuts on the ground, their feet scrabbling, the sound their beaks make when they tilt their heads back and try to half-swallow a nut so they can fit another one in their mouths.”
They watched the comical blue-gray bird, smiling.
Dawn turned to her, a delighted look on her face. “I love your laughing blue eyes.”
She closed them, a sense of Ginger, the waste, the missed life, the new chance she had with Dawn overpowering her.
“Tell me,” Dawn encouraged.
She couldn’t silence the words that gushed from her. She felt like she was turning inside out, all her feelings and thoughts of the years with Ginger had to be spoken—and to this woman alone. “Hey, I admit I wanted her. I never stopped wanting Ginger, but it was like my feelings had frozen about the time we got together. What I felt about Ginger never changed. It never got deeper or lessened, it never adapted to changes in her or in me. It was like the jump shot the newspaper got of me at an Academy game. There I am, reaching for the basket, the ball in the air. It never goes in, it never drops, I’m suspended. Ginger is always out of reach, I’m always longing. We were content with that balance.” She tried to read Dawn’s eyes to see if she should continue and stopped. She was always trying to read eyes. She was always looking for approval before doing anything, then forging ahead whether she got it or not. “I know people can’t always help being dishonest, but I can choose not to get involved with my beloved liars, all the other women, anymore. Especially this liar,” she concluded, pointing to herself.
“From the outside, I would call what you had with Ginger an imbalance.”
“You are so right. With you, Kitten, I have my feet on the ground and my eyes open. You’re my friend and it looks like that could grow if I’m honest, kind, if we build history, share family, go deep with each other—” She looked into Dawn’s eyes. Dawn was nodding. “And our love of this place, the lakes region. I think we both want to make a home here with the right woman.” Dawn had stopped nodding and looked down, as if reluctant to say she was serious about moving. “Dawn, you’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here because of your family. Because of this piece of land. Because there’s no better place to make a home or be a librarian. You can make a life in Concord, but it would be so dreary compared to life at the lakes.”
Dawn looked away. Jefferson touched the tear on her cheek with a finger. “Why?” she asked.
Dawn grimaced. “I don’t want to watch him die.”
Jefferson put an arm around Dawn’s shoulder. Nothing in her life had ever felt so real. “I’ll be with you, Dawn. I’ll do my best to balance out the pain.”
“Are you asking me to stay at the lake?”
She froze.
“To stay with you?”
She fought with her warring desires. “I’m not positive. I wouldn’t want to treat you like I did Ginger. You’ve lost so many and so much. You’re having trouble with losing and I’m having trouble with gaining.”
They sat quietly, holding hands, watching the sun go down. The sky looked like somebody was spreading rose butter and cream across it. Jefferson asked herself, why does Dawn think she loves me? Ginger thought she did because Jefferson solved a problem for her. Ginger didn’t have to give her much. Jefferson was able to maintain the illusion of a sort of marriage, a feeling of permanence that satisfied her need for roots. Meanwhile, Ginger could give 98 percent of herself to her real passion, dance. When Jefferson entered Ginger’s life, Ginger no longer had to date men and pretend she wanted to get married and have kids. She wasn’t out to her family, but they no longer pushed her either. Jefferson stayed pretty much under their radar, but they didn’t have to worry about Ginger being alone in the world because her roommate was such a very good friend.
So Jefferson had served a purpose. Maybe that was as good as she could have hoped for, because love was not the word she’d use to describe how Ginger had acted toward her. Of course Ginger said she loved her and of course she’d said she loved Ginger and of course both of them had believed it at the time, but now, with the relationship gone, not so much, she thought.
Dawn, though, what drew Dawn to her? There were the obvious things: Jefferson was new in town, available, not bad-looking. She made it possible for Dawn to stay in Pipsborough, didn’t she? The hunt was over. She was from the big city and had a polish and experience the local women lacked. Dawn hadn’t mentioned that she’d been with anyone when she lived in New York. Maybe she’d been too shy to find lesbians and was making up for it now.
Or maybe she found something lovable about Jefferson. The thought startled her. Here in New Hampshire she had been trying to be herself. No airs. No more old smoothie, as one girlfriend had called her. Dawn didn’t seem to be in lust. She seemed to like being together no matter what they did. And me, she thought, I’ve had a lot of lovers, but what do I know about love? Can Dawn teach me love?
This was frightening. The happiness she saw in her eyes when Dawn looked at her, the way Dawn wanted to do things for her, little things like make her a sandwich with her favorite mustard, like buying her favorite seeded bread, made her fearful of a trap. Dawn actually wanted to give, as well as take pleasure, whatever the pleasure. It wasn’t the loving woman she was scared of this time. She feared that she would reject Dawn, run from the thing she’d most wanted, the thing she’d begged for all her life. The therapist at rehab told her she had a couple of kids for parents. For whatever reason, they had been unable to grow from lovers to parents, unable to include her in the family they had created for each other. They told her they loved her, but she didn’t feel it or see it. Even as a kid, she’d been able to see that they wanted to remain the kids in the family. Both sets of grandparents pampered and spoiled their children, got them out of financial scrapes, indulged their expensive tastes. She spent a lot of time sleeping over at her grandparents’ homes while Emmy and Jarvy went out to play.
But her grandparents had finished with their child rearing. They had their perfect sons, their perfect daughters. If Cousin Ruth was unavailable to babysit, Jefferson would be delivered and put to bed. Going to Grandmother’s or to Grandmother Jefferson’s for any length of time had been like going to finishing-school seminars for perfect behavior. By the time she was twelve they gave up on her and she went off on her own on her bicycle with lunch money for whole days of exploring the river and the neighborhoods. Once in a great while, Emmy and Jarvy would hustle her into the city with them.
She was in front of Lord and Taylor’s. Emmy had dressed her in a red plaid wool bonnet, matching coat and leggings. She had her hands in a white furry muff to keep them warm. They’d been to see the tree and the ice-skaters at Rockefeller Center.
The scene behind glass was of a family of women, the older ones cooking, the younger doing something at a kitchen table. They wore old-fashioned clothes. They looked happy. She wanted to be one of the little girls in the warm kitchen where her aunts and mother cooked at a walk-in brick hearth.
In the cold night on the street side of the bright window, her mother loomed at her left and
her father at her right. Jarvy was smoking. Emmy said how pretty the clothes were and Jefferson felt a chill. She would be dressed like Huckleberry Finn, barefoot at the table, the floor warm under her feet. She’d be fastening a fish hook to a line and tightening it around her bamboo pole. Jarvy was taking her fishing on the Mississippi come spring. They jostled her to the next window. Men in the parlor smoking pipes. She could smell the women’s turkey cooking in the kitchen.
She pulled them back toward the warmth of the ladies’ window and woke up lying across a rumbling train seat, gritty-eyed, her muff for a pillow, her mother and father silent on the facing seats, wide-awake, Jarvy smoking, the paper folded on his lap, Emmy reading a ladies’ magazine. Little Jefferson slept again, woke to a station call, and neither her mother nor her father was there, across from her. That cloud, the dark purple one, hugged her like there was no tomorrow. She cried, cried silently and bitterly, huddled into herself on the train seat, hugging the muff. By the time Emmy and Jarvy returned from the club car she’d gone numb. She hid her face, her fear, her abandonment in the furry muff and slept until the next morning when she woke under pink sheets and blankets in her ivory four-poster bed, despised dolls arrayed around the room, December sun glowing weakly hot through thin, lacy curtains. Her teddy-bear Michael was in her arms.
All her life the Lord and Taylor scenes behind glass were like remembered dreams that had happened to others, and denied to her. She’d always believed that Cousins Ruth and Raymond had come closer to living such homey Christmas fable lives with their stuffy stay-at-home mother and father and each other, but Raymond was dead of lung cancer and Ruth had never stopped drinking. Her husband took the kids and left her. Ruth had moved to Florida where she got so heavy she ended up with diabetes and now had to have a leg amputated.
Dawn felt to her like the Christmas windows. Scared or not, Jefferson wanted to be happy at her side now, while they were both still young and healthy.
They spent that Saturday night in Jefferson’s bed, in her cottage by the lake.