Toothpick House

by Lee Lynch

  “Oh, I’m so glad,” Victoria said calmly, wanting to rush to Rosemary and hug her.

  “You still think that it is the right thing to do, then?” Rosemary asked, her eyes seeking approval.

  Victoria was surprised that Rosemary should ask. “Of course. If it’s what you want.”

  “I know it’s right,” Rosemary said firmly.

  “Well, I hope you’ll both be very happy,” Victoria said, smiling again. She felt as if she had just been invited to a wedding.

  Her face solemn, Rosemary thanked Victoria and left, walking like a child dragging her feet as she goes to bed. Victoria wanted to run after her and tell her that it was all right, Claudia would not hurt her.

  Now, in bed, Victoria felt again the excitement she had experienced when Rosemary first told her. As if I’d caught the bouquet at her wedding, she thought as she snuggled further under the covers, settling for the night with her arms around herself.

  Chapter Three

  Annie Heaphy, Turkey, Eleanor and Peg sat over their fourth pitcher of beer at Marcy’s. A neon advertisement blinked in the rain-wet window.

  “Jeeze, you guys are depressing tonight,” Turkey complained. “I should have stayed home and studied for my sociology tests. Three big ones in my own major in one day.”

  “What’s to be happy about?” Peg asked morosely. “The other girls’ gym teacher’s laid up with a broken shoulder and I’ve got to be on the gym floor six periods now. Plus two hygiene classes. I love my job, but acting straight all day gets to me.”

  “Yeah, and we looked in every bar in town,” Eleanor agreed, her chin on her hands. “Dusty must be with some chick tonight. She won’t be needing me. Just when I need her most.”

  “What else went wrong?” Turkey groaned.

  “Like Peg says, I like my job,” Eleanor explained. “But the boss made another pass at me today, then wouldn’t give me my share of the tips when I wasn’t interested in him. We had a real yelling match. I don’t want to leave this job.”

  Annie was still avoiding Eleanor’s eyes. They had not been alone together since the night they spent at Eleanor’s apartment. “You didn’t miss much. Tips stank today. It’s the rain. Besides, at least you’ve got Dusty to look for,” she accused.

  “I’m personally beginning to think love is more pain than pleasure.”

  “You sound like my ethics teacher,” Turkey complained. “Who are you quoting now?”

  Peg slumped in her uncharacteristically disheveled black vest and pants. “Me.”

  “You’re damn right,” Eleanor began, “love is a pain in the butt. Right, Annie?”

  “I’ve forgotten,” Annie gibed back. They exchanged a secret, wary grin. Eleanor leaned across the table to kiss Annie’s cheek in forgiveness.

  “What’s with you two?” Turkey asked, groggy with beer.

  “Nothing,” Eleanor shrugged innocently.

  Annie pulled her cap down, hiding her eyes. “What’s wrong with love, Peglet?”

  “It hurts.”

  “But ain’t it worth it, Peg? Don’t you think it is?” Eleanor said, looking for reassurance.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I guess I feel like Heaphy here. I’ve forgotten the pleasure. Gloria walked out on me a year ago.”

  “You’re forgetting your new women’s libber friends. Or are they all too ugly to love?” Turkey asked, making a horrible face to imitate the “libbers” of her imagination.

  “No, Turk,” Peg laughed. “That isn’t true. They’re every bit as good looking as you.” Turkey looked threateningly at her. “‘Women Are Beautiful.’ That’s what one of their posters says.”

  “Intrinsically?”

  “Cool it, Annie, with your big words,” Turkey said. “As a budding sociologist,” and she preened, puffing out her chest in pride, “it seems to me these dames could use a looking glass theory lecture. They ought to see themselves as I see them.” She made an even worse face.

  “Us women are born beautiful, you Turkey,” Eleanor boasted. “We can’t help it. Maybe you ain’t looked hard enough.” She patted her flat hair and went off to the bathroom.

  When Eleanor was out of hearing, Peg asked, “You stayed with her the other night, didn’t you, Heaphy?”

  “Yeah,” Annie said, embarrassed.

  “You and Ellie?” Turkey asked, shocked.

  “It wasn’t anything. Just the one night.” Peg and Turkey were quiet. “She’s uptight because I snuck out before she woke the next morning.”

  Peg nodded. “Figures. The old Heaphy syndrome.”

  “I can’t help it. I have to.”

  “Boy, wow, if it was me finding a woman who wanted to sleep with me, I’d hang around. Probably for a lifetime,” Turkey laughed. “Definitely till she was tired of me.”

  Peg looked concerned. “I’d feel as if I’d left things unfinished.”

  “Maybe I want to leave them then. Maybe I’ll stay when it’s time.”

  “Here comes Ellie, you two,” Turkey whispered.

  “That’s what I like about this dump,” Eleanor half-complained as she slid past Peg. “There’s never a line at the bathroom.”

  “Now, I like this place,” Annie said. “Don’t put it down. It’s got a nice homey atmosphere.”

  Eleanor teased her. “Just your style. Fried cockroach at the grill, alcohol with that rich old taste of wood at the bar.”

  “A bar’s a bar, if you ask me,” Peg concluded.

  “Very astute,” Annie raised her glass to Peg.

  “There goes big-word Annie, the English major. You read too much, Heaphy, that’s your trouble,” Turkey said.

  “And you don’t read?” Annie countered.

  “I don’t carry a book to read between customers.”

  “Neither do I anymore. I’m too damn tired all the time.”

  “But remember when we first met you? You were carrying three books by Willa Cather, for pete’s sake,” Peg marvelled.

  “Hey, I was about to finish one and I wasn’t sure which one I would read next, you guys.”

  “But Brains,” Turkey teased, “you were in a bar!”

  “Did I know I was going to meet you guys?”

  “You don’t go to a bar to read.”

  “You sure don’t when you’re around,” Annie laughed at Turkey.

  “You should have seen these two,” Peg said to Eleanor. “There was Heaphy, a beer on one side of her, a book in front of her, and two more books on her other side. She was sitting in the old back booth by the kitchen with Marcy’s cat on her lap. Turkey spotted her and talked about the weirdo in the back booth for over an hour. Next thing, I knew, Turkey’s sneaking up on Heaphy, who looks perfectly content, purring into her beer with the cat. Clutzy Turkey, stepping along on her tiptoes, is almost ready to scare the life out of poor Heaphy, when she gets one of her dainty little feet,” Turkey held up a large booted foot with both her hands to show Eleanor, “caught around the leg of a chair. The chair tips, catches the tablecloth just right and pulls it. Marcy’s been piling dirty ashtrays and glasses on this table all day to wash all at once, and the whole thing topples around Turkey who’s taken the path of least resistance and plopped on the floor while it all lands around her.”

  Annie took up the often told story. “When I heard the noise I looked over and saw this big dyke flat on her ass in the dirtiest, wettest mess you can imagine, looking at me like it’s all my fault. She lifts her hands from under an upside-down ashtray, wipes the ashes on her pants, and holds her grey hand out for me to shake. ‘Hi, I’m Turkey,’ she says. ‘So I gathered,’ I answer and she hauls herself up to her feet on my hand, upsetting the cat and laughing her wild Turkey laugh.”

  They all broke into laughter to picture the meeting once more. “So here we all are,” Turkey said, “still guzzling two years later in the very same library.”

  “Marcy might have redecorated, but I still wish we had a nicer bar to go to,” Annie said.

  “Come on, Heaphy,”
Peg urged. “They’re all the same, ‘nice’ or not. You get the same old hangovers. Drink the same amount of money. I wish we could have a coffee house or a place where we could sit and talk.”

  “What about your women’s center?” asked Eleanor.

  “Oh, it serves its purpose. But it’s very organized. I mean, you can’t go there to hang out.”

  “Especially if you’re a dyke, right?”

  Peg looked at Annie worriedly. “Nobody says anything. But sometimes I do sense they’re afraid women won’t come back if they walk in when someone who looks like me is sitting there. I’d like to have a place just for us.”

  “Till we have someplace better, can’t we have a good time here? Don’t anybody want to dance just once with me tonight?” Eleanor whined, looking at Peg and Annie. They shook their heads no.

  “If it’ll perk you up any, Miss Scarlett, ah will,” Turkey offered.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of slopping around out there?” Eleanor laughed as Peg rose to let her out of the booth.

  Annie and Peg sat in silence as the couples jiggled across the small floor. Rain drove against the plate glass window. A few older gay men at the bar joked back and forth about the same old things, watching every move the younger bartender made. A neighborhood woman, her long hair a shoe polish black, played up to the men. Two women used the bowling machine. A biracial straight couple sat in a back booth under a gold-flecked mirror which reflected everything that went on.

  “So you coming to the women’s dance at the Yale Law School next month, Heaphy?”

  “With those faggy women’s libbers? You kidding, Peg? I thought we were going to New York.”

  “We’ll go to New York too. But Heaphy, there are good vibrations at the Women’s Center.”

  “You’re just trying to convert me,” Annie accused Peg.

  “No, really I’m not,” Peg answered with the uninhibited conviction of intoxication. “We’ll have a good time. You don’t know what a high it is. All these women, a lot of them just out, not scared of anybody, not even with anybody. All dancing together because they want to. And more straight women coming out every day.”

  “Every night, you mean,” Annie laughed. “Then where do the bad vibes come from?”

  “I’m not sure, but I have a theory. I think lesbians go through a phase before they come out. It’s called petrified.” They laughed. “When they see a dyke they project their own wish to be a dyke onto her and end up expecting her to attack them sexually since they can’t attack the dyke yet. Make sense?”

  “I’ve always thought the ones who talk the loudest are closest to coming out.”

  “And the shame of it, Heaphy, is that some of them talk so loud they talk themselves right out of coming out.”

  “And it’s not like we’re addictive or dangerous.”

  “We’re not addictive?” Peg asked innocently.

  “Shh,” Annie warned, grinning and winking. “Don’t let on or all your libbers will run away!”

  “So what do you think, Heaphy? Will you come with me this time to protect me from all those ravenous women?”

  “Peglet, you just about got me convinced,” Annie said. “But it’s bothering me a little, talking about them like this, like men would.”

  “You mean like sex objects?”

  “Maybe. Like we’re hunters. But I’m not thinking about sex really. Just looking for a woman. And if the libbers don’t know about us dykes, how will they know what they want?”

  “The old irresistible routine, Heaphy? Once they see us they won’t be able to think of anything else?”

  “Sounds good. Maybe I will go this time. Just to meet some. What do I have to lose? Where else have I got to go except in circles? Drive the cab around the city all day, go to the bars at night, get up the next morning swearing I won’t do it all again, but here we are. At least you’re teaching, doing something worthwhile, even if you do have to come here to unwind from acting straight all day. Yeah, what the hell. I’ll go.”

  Peg grinned tiredly at Annie. “If you were femme I’d kiss you. Now we just have to persuade Eleanor and Turkey. I talked to some women downtown who want to go with us.”

  “Turk and El will go if we do.”

  “Great. And I think you’ll like it. I really do.”

  “You’re probably wrong. Maybe you’ll meet the love of your life there, though. And I can say I was there when it happened. But meanwhile I have to get home if I’m going to get up in the morning.”

  “If you’re talking about leaving,” Eleanor said as she and Turkey returned, “I got to get my beauty sleep too. Let’s polish off the pitcher like good little girls,” she said, unsteadily filling their mugs.

  “Beauty sleep for the beautiful,” Turkey teased, borrowing Peg’s comb to scrape through her tight hair.

  “I don’t know why you bother to comb that stuff,” Eleanor teased back. “It never goes nowhere.”

  Turkey returned the comb. “Old habit, I guess.” She adopted the straight-faced look that meant she was going to tell a story. “I took this good-grooming badge in Girl Scouts where I learned to comb my brillo regularly, mutilate my cuticles and wipe myself in the right direction.”

  Eleanor giggled. “You’ll have to tell me which way is right sometime. My Mama being a country girl I guess I never learned like sophisticated city folks.”

  “I learned. I learned like good grooming was a biblical command,” Turkey went on. “My Girl Scout leader taught the badge and I had a cast iron crush on the woman. As a matter of fact the whole troop worshipped her. She was married and had about seven kids, but I know it was just because she was Catholic. Otherwise she would have been a raging diesel dyke. You should have seen her. I think I got to like sociology because of her. I got comfortable with groups. We had a group crush on her and because of it we did everything in groups. Where Mrs. Attle went, there went our little band. We babysat for her in a group—even when she was home. We did a dozen badges at once—if she taught them. We went to the dusty old Peabody Museum every Saturday to do volunteer work—because she loved it there. We were all going to have seven kids-just like her. The whole group I’m sure wiped itself right—’cause it knew she did. And got a thrill thinking of her every time we did. Poor Mrs. Attle. If she knew now that’s about the only time I think of her. . . ,” Turkey guffawed. “Group behavior sure did turn me on.” She lifted her beer. “A toast to Mrs. Attle, the little-old-sociology-major-maker!” Beer sloshed out of the mug and down Turkey’s sleeve.

  Peg and Annie laughed, but Ellie threw up her arms in exasperation. “Turkey, I have never in all my life seen such a slob.”

  “It’s thinking of Mrs. Attle that does it to me. Can I walk you to the door?” she asked, offering her arm. “Anybody got an umbrella?”

  “Dykes don’t use umbrellas,” Annie grumbled.

  “Won’t do you any good,” Eleanor reminded Turkey. “You’re sopped already. Smell like a brewery. Thanks anyway, but I’ll get a ride home with Rudy,” Eleanor said. “You are coming home tonight, ain’t you, roomie?” she called to him.

  “Ain’t nothing to hang around here for, is there?” he answered jokingly as the older men protested.

  They went into the rain while the bar made the last of its late night noises. Turkey and Peg ran toward their apartment. They waved when Annie finally urged her wet car to life and chugged past them, coasting through red lights to avoid stalling.

  Safely home later, Annie stepped through the last puddle and sat suddenly on the steps to her porch. It was so good to be home, she thought, affectionately patting a step. She had her home, lonely as it was. She had gone to the bars seldom when her roommates were still around. They’d hang out on the porch playing cards. The old house leaned silently over her and Annie leaned trustingly against its porch rail. She looked up through the trees flanking the broken walk.

  It had cleared as she drove home and the stars burned in the cold, dark sky. Shit, she said aloud, as the stars b
egan to turn above her. She looked down and breathed deeply several times. Am I going to be sick? she wondered. She walked across the open porch with its sunken couch sodden with rain and past snows, and its milk crates waiting for summer to make them chairs again. She smiled at this, her furniture, propping herself up on it as she unlocked the rickety door and went quickly through her living room. It was furnished with cinderblocks, boards, books and little else. Her roommates had taken most of the other furniture when they went back to Boston after they graduated. She collapsed on the bed, cursing herself for bothering to make it when now she had to struggle to get in it. With one great last effort, holding her breath to prevent nausea, she stripped off her army jacket, jeans, flannel shirt and workboots, wound and set her alarm, and got under the many covers of her damp, cold bed. Finally she took off her cap and laid it beside her head like a beloved teddy bear. She lay still, breathing carefully, hoping she would not have to make the cold trip across the bare linoleum floor to the bathroom, or to the stove to turn on the heater. Thoughts surfaced unexpectedly, but she pushed them down before they were complete and kept her from sleeping. “I never got drunk this much before. Maybe all I need is company. A new way of living. No more wasted days. Tomorrow I’ll work more hours. Do something constructive. . . .” Annie Heaphy fell asleep.

  * * * * *

  “And shall I get you a cab, Miss Locke?” Dennis asked.

  Pleased with herself, Victoria answered, “No, thank you, Dennis, I’m taking the bus.” She felt his surprised eyes following her as she left her apartment building. She wore jeans and a pea jacket. Since she got home a week ago she had been busy with Christmas shopping and holiday visits to relatives. Her mother had left her a full social schedule. She was sick of stuffy cabs and stuffy people. Now, in her “freedom garb,” she watched the bus approach. She hadn’t been on one since high school when she visited her friend Etta in Queens. Victoria’s mother had not approved: public transportation was dirty and germy. It was appropriate, Victoria thought, for her to travel this more plebeian way on her first visit to a women’s center. Rosemary had called from her Bronxville home where she and Claudia were for the holidays, to invite her to a meeting on lesbians in the women’s movement called “Do We Belong?” She and Claudia had been lovers for a month now and Victoria did want to see them, though she had always turned Rosemary down when she wanted to get together in New York before. As the bus came beside her she wondered how Rosemary’s parents had reacted to the new twist in her relationship with Claudia. Rosemary felt it was imperative to be open about it with her parents.