Toothpick House

by Lee Lynch

  Victoria struggled to keep her eyes open against the warmth that invaded her body at the woman’s touch. One hand lay so very gently on the small of her back that only Victoria’s suddenly heightened responses made her aware of it guiding her. Just under her own Victoria could feel the woman’s breasts against herself and she pulled away slightly each time only to sway back as if seeking their contact again. She was half dizzy by the time she could respond. “Yes,” she said, “I saw you. You dance quite well.” She was surprised to see the woman redden from the compliment.

  “Thanks, but I don’t really consider that dancing. More like acrobatics.”

  “I can see why. Where did you learn?” Victoria asked, pulling herself back again when she wanted to crush the woman to her. What was it about her? She had never felt this compulsion for another being before.

  “I just kind of do what I want. I don’t really know how to dance.” Annie had to tilt her arms upward to hold Victoria who was slightly taller than herself. She was aware of her own hands on Victoria’s back and waist and of Victoria’s hands on her back. “I like the way you dance,” she said, needing to talk more before she felt shy again. There was something overpowering about this woman, something that made her want to run, but at the same time kept her dancing with her. She knew that she would be back for more even after she did escape. Victoria felt like the undertow of a larger wave than Annie had ever felt. She wished she could grab a swig of her beer or a shot.

  “Thank you,” Victoria answered, wishing for some words to end the small talk, for a way to tell this girl how warm she made her feel and to ask her if that made her a lesbian. She was glad she had worn her ceremonial garb. Never before had she so wanted to be acceptable. “My name is Victoria,” she said, wondering if one gave out one’s last name in a gay bar.

  “I’m Annie, Annie Heaphy. I’m from New Haven and I drive a cab.” Somehow Annie felt she must make clear her status in the world.

  “Hello, Annie Heaphy,” Victoria smiled affectionately at her. “It’s Victoria Locke and I live in New Haven too. I’m a student.” She felt reluctant to tell Annie Heaphy that she went to Yale, afraid it would turn her off.

  “Really?” Annie asked, obviously pleased. “I never saw you around.”

  Knowing Annie meant the gay bars, Victoria felt her way, unsure whether to say that she’d never been in one before.’ I don’t go out much. I’m afraid I’m not very sociable. This is quite an outing for me.”

  “To tell the truth,” Annie confessed again, “this is the first time I’ve been here.”

  “To New York?”

  “No. I come down every once in awhile. But I don’t get to the New York bars much.”

  “I’ve never been in a bar.”

  “What brings you here?”

  “Semester break. My parents live in New York. Rosemary and Claudia,” Victoria gestured toward her friends, “took me to a women’s movement meeting today. They were coming here so I decided to come along.”

  Annie felt heavy with the possibility of the next question. It should be so easy to ask for sure if she’s gay . . . The music stopped and, frustrated, Annie walked with Victoria to her table. Annie danced again, this time with Eleanor who swept her onto the floor without giving her time to say no.

  “Is she nice?” Eleanor wanted to know.

  “I hardly talked to her. I think so.”

  “You don’t mind me being jealous, do you?” Eleanor teased.

  “Don’t be silly,” Annie poked her playfully.

  “She’s pretty,” Eleanor mused.

  “Not really. Everything is nice to look at, but it doesn’t all come together nice, you know?”

  “I know what you mean. Like a face that don’t know who it belongs to yet.”

  Annie thought for a moment. “I bet you’re right.” She stopped dancing. “Wait. She is leaving this time.”

  “What?” Eleanor turned to see. She looked back at Annie. “You scared her off awful fast. Do you want to stop her?” she asked sympathetically.

  “Of course I do. But how can I? I just danced with her once. What if I really did scare her away?”

  “Maybe she has to get up for work.”

  “She goes to school.”

  “She could work too.”

  Annie looked at Eleanor despairingly. Victoria was gone. The music had stopped. “Well, this is silly,” Annie said, shoving her hands into her pockets. “I fell for a dream-woman, that’s all. Let her run away with her friends. It’s not the end of the world, whatever the reason. Maybe Turkey’s right. Maybe she’s not out yet and she’s scared to death. Anyway, she lives in New Haven.”

  “She does?” Eleanor was surprised.

  “Yeah. But she doesn’t go to bars. I wonder what school she goes to?”

  “If you can get your mind off her for a minute, Annie, why don’t you dance this slow one with me since we’re standing here anyway. You’ll hardly miss her. I promise,” Eleanor told Annie seductively.

  “Okay, okay,” Annie laughed, pulling her cap down over her eyes and taking Eleanor into her arms. Eleanor began to lead Annie in a reserved bump and grind. Annie laughed and said, “Don’t try so hard.”

  “Don’t think so hard,” Eleanor answered, hugging her more tightly.

  Chapter Four

  Annie Heaphy guided the old, heavy cab through the railroad station parking lot and stopped behind two other weary-looking beasts. She checked her watch, noted the next train would not arrive for over ten minutes, and slid down in her seat, hoping the radio would be silent long enough for a nap. She pulled the brim of her cap over her eyes to shield her headache from the glare of the sun on leftover patches of snow, swearing again that tonight she would drink less, hoping she would meet someone and be so taken by her she would not want to get drunk. The radio hissed, crackled a message to someone else and Annie Heaphy drooped beneath the sun to a quick, deep sleep.

  Victoria Locke walked briskly ahead of the other passengers and slipped into the first available cab, slamming the door behind her to wake the lazy cabbie sleeping in the front seat. She was anxious to get to the dormitory and start the Boccaccio paper. When the driver merely stirred and did not wake, Victoria was ready to slam her way out of the cab as her mother would have done. But as she reached for her bag she saw the cabbie’s hat had fallen off. The hair underneath was the blonde hair of a girl. Victoria stopped breathing and a pain entered her chest. She leaned forward and gently woke Annie Heaphy.

  From the touch on her shoulder Annie Heaphy knew it was just a fare; from the gentleness, an older woman with daughters her own age, and she shot up defensively, starting the cab in the same motion and asked, “Yes, ma’am, where to?” The hand had lifted slowly off her shoulder and the fare whispered, “Yale,” in a strange, husky voice. Annie could not see her in the rear-view mirror, but her voice sounded young, almost familiar. All business, she set her cap back on her head and began to drive. “What part?” she asked, still trying to see who was in the back. It is a student, she decided as the low voice named a college and the street its entrance fronted. She was still puzzled by the touch that was as gentle as a mother’s but the accent discouraged her because it belonged to another goddamned rich Yalie. Shit, Annie Heaphy said to herself, no longer trying to see the face, deciding to ride this one through the ghetto, push her face in the mud, maybe curse out another driver to shake her up a little. She rammed her shift through the gears and stepped on the accelerator as she turned into the shortcut through overcrowded streets even Annie didn’t care to see.

  The wave of strange emotion was ebbing now. Victoria had heard the girl’s voice and recognized its gruffness as she recognized the hat. It was the girl with whom she had danced in New York. Victoria still could not forget that night although two months had passed. She had felt awkward and out of place, but more because Rosemary had embarrassed her than because she felt she did not belong. There had been something very exciting in being looked at that way by women. And
in looking back. And now her heart had opened again at the sight of the driver. The witch returned to her mind. Was this another sign pointing her toward herself? That she should meet the girl again—and so soon—was too coincidental.

  The pale, distant sun was abandoning the sky and small gusts of wind blew trash along the empty streets. Annie drove as if trying to run down some invisible enemy that dodged her with the wind. Victoria sighed when they entered the narrow streets of Yale, not gladdened by this return. Students were double parked, lugging their suitcases into grey stone buildings through heavy black gates. Annie stopped for none of them, weaving in and out and using her horn with what sounded like vengeance.

  She stopped short outside the dormitory. She had just remembered to call in her location and got a new destination immediately. “These people don’t see past their noses,” she thought. “Time is money. Why couldn’t this rich bitch count out her goddamned money while I was trying not to run over her stupid friends? Act like they own the streets. Probably do.” Finally the girl was pushing the money at her and she turned to take it. Victoria looked slowly from her hands which had touched Annie’s to Annie’s weary-looking face and noticed the sad slant of her eyes. She told her to keep the change. Annie checked the money as the woman handed it to her, squinting angrily as she glared up from under her cap to mutter thank you. The words stayed inside her mouth when she saw Victoria and she caught her breath and flushed. She zipped her jacket open. She stared and stared as the woman left the cab, then she pushed out of her own door and slammed it behind her. A sports car swerved and honked at her. Victoria stopped to look toward the sound of the car’s brakes and Annie called, “Do you have any more luggage?” desperately hoping that she did.

  “No, just this,” Victoria answered.

  Recklessly, Annie asked, “Vickie, wasn’t it?” for the woman looked different in the fading daylight and Annie could not believe her luck in finding her again.

  “Well, yes. Victoria, actually, but Vickie will do . . .”

  “I’m Annie. Annie Heaphy. We met . . .” Victoria turned slowly away and began to mount the steps. “Oh, don’t” Annie began to say, but was afraid to scare the woman. She could think of nothing else to keep her there. “Thanks,” she finally shouted up the steps. The woman turned again and smiled through the twilight at Annie who was smiling at her, her cap in her hand.

  “Damn,” Annie said when the woman had disappeared inside the door. “Damn, damn.” She walked to her cab with quick, choppy steps, slamming the cap on her head. Muttering to herself, she took off like a teenage boy when she remembered that she was supposed to be several blocks away picking up a fare.

  “Forty-seven,” hissed the radio.

  “Forty-seven,” answered Annie.

  “Where the hell are you, Heaphy? The party at sixteen Bishop just called again.”

  “On my way, Mr. G. You know these little old ladies, counting out their pennies,” she lied guiltily.

  “Don’t get lost again,” Mr. G. growled before shutting her off.

  Annie sped through yellow lights and passed two cars crazily before braking sharply at the address. No one was there. She honked her horn and slumped in her seat, arms folded, to think about Vicky. How, she wondered, would she get to see her again? Go to the dormitory and knock on her door? The thought sent anxious chills around her body. Lie in wait in a doorway until she went out somewhere? Then what? She would still have to approach her. See if she was in the phone book? Yes! That was perfect. Except, Annie did not remember Vicky’s last name. “Crap,” she said aloud and looked to see if anyone was coming from the house. She honked again and looked at her watch. Two minutes more, in case it was a slow-moving old person. Whatever she decided, it would have to be cool, she resumed thinking. This was no ordinary woman she was dealing with. This was a Yalie. She would have to be on her toes to win this prize. But she was worth it, Annie thought, full of a glow she had never before experienced so intensely.

  She sighed and took another look at the address. Then she radioed Mr. G.

  “Nothing right now, forty-seven,” he directed.

  “Going to the Plaza, then,” she replied, deciding as she said it to celebrate finding Vicky. Should she stop for a quick beer? No, it was almost time to go in, she’d get her beer soon. She turned suddenly into an illegal parking space and locked the cab. Not pausing, she ran across a street to a small strip of park in the middle of the road and sat on one of the empty benches. The park, she remembered, was pretty with dogwoods in the spring. Now the trees were empty, but shone eerily with the last of daylight. Annie breathed frost out in front of her mouth and determined to bring Vicky to this park in the spring. “Yalies never know where anything good is,” suddenly feeling affectionate toward them, wondering if perhaps the women weren’t all that bad. She leaped up and stood on her bench, then leaped from it to the next. She balanced on its edge before getting a running start to the next one.

  “Feeling good, huh, Heaphy?” she asked herself as she landed on the third bench, the anxiety of losing her footing all confused with that of seeing Vicky again. “Vicky.” she bellowed into the last of the fading winter afternoon. “Vicky!” she cried as she completed each of her leaps to circle the tiny park. Filled with excitement she leaped from the last bench out of the park and ran back to her cab.

  * * * * *

  Victoria’s room was cold. She had taken off her coat, but now drew it across her shoulders, rubbing her cheek against its velvet collar. The old radiator had begun to warm with its first heat. She sat directly on it, leaned her head against the window and sighed. Three stories down the confusion of returning students continued, but there were no yellow cabs. Perhaps the next rain, she thought, reaching into her pocket for the schedule. This is foolish, she shook her head slowly at herself. Why would the cab driver want to return? If she did, she would just be doing her job, delivering another passenger like me. And I wouldn’t know what to say to her, she mused, withdrawing her hand from her pocket and the schedule. On the other hand, if she did approach me, would that mean she thinks I’m a lesbian? She makes me feel strange, strange.

  Turning toward the room she appreciated its tasteful familiarity. With her careful placement of painting and furniture, the tall ceiling and narrow window did not make the room look smaller, but emphasized its height. Her room suggested some part of a cathedral. The bluish winter twilight made this impression even stronger and she bent to the small but heavy-looking dark oak table, which displayed her favorite possessions, to light a candle. If I could just put a skylight in, she thought as she admired the effect of the tiny light up the tall walls to the ceiling where she had tacked a mandala poster. At that distance and in that light it looked like a stained glass window. She slipped off the black heels that made her feel so adult and walked in her stockinged feet to the closet for her floor-length robe. Before she hung up her coat she looked quickly at the train schedule, hardly noticing what she read, and placed it on the dresser. Junk: I should throw it out, she decided, then forgot it as she hung up her city clothes. Pulling the tie of her robe around her and knotting it, she began to pace the room, feeling like a cross between a monk and a late nineteenth century lady troubled with erotic thoughts which horrified her, but gave her no rest.

  Would she like me as I look now, Victoria wondered, thinking back to the cab ride. She found Annie attractive with that pale, soft-looking skin, the chopped fine blonde hair, the way she squinted as if she doubted everything, hiding under the brim of her hat. Definitely attractive, Victoria smiled affectionately. If I were going to be a lesbian, it would be easy to fall in love with Annie, Annie Heaphy, just from her looks. She had never much cared about people’s looks before this; just what was inside. And what was inside Annie Heaphy? Why did she drive so violently? And then get so shy on her own two feet, stuttering as she talked, afraid to ask Victoria what she so obviously wanted to ask? Why did she take such risks? She drove as she moved: quickly, unthinking, careless of hersel
f, desperate to get where she was going. Victoria had noticed that Annie drank consumingly, too, as if to get herself high fast and keep herself there, at the highest point, as long as possible. She appeared to want life raw, too hungry to wait for it to become more digestible, and this attracted Victoria strongly. She was just the opposite, treating both frightening experience and emotion like untouchables who could serve her at a distance, but never approach her. This intense woman had lodged herself under Victoria’s cool facade. Victoria was afraid that Annie had resolved to grab her whole from a life that held her tight and she sensed this resolve roaming outside in the city wild and persistent. And Victoria had run from her twice now.

  She jumped at the knock on her door and pulled her robe tighter around her waist. Rosemary came in with a vase of roses. “Welcome back,” she said placing them on Victoria’s little table.

  “They’re beautiful,” Victoria said in surprise. “What made you do it?”

  Rosemary arranged the roses a second time. “I bought a dozen for Claudia, but they looked so much like you I knew I should give them to you too.”

  “Looked like me?” Victoria asked, fingering the red buds.

  “Beautiful, but closed still, just on the verge of straining open.”

  Victoria looked at her friend, alarmed at such a personal comment. “Would you like to stay for awhile? I brought some cookies back from that bakery you like.”

  “No, I should go back to the room. Claudia’s almost finished with her paper.”

  “Please stay, Rosemary,” Victoria asked, surprised at herself. “I need to talk to you.”

  Rosemary looked at Victoria for the first time, her small brown eyes elongated by the braid she wore so tightly platted. “Of course, if you need to,” she said and sat down, smoothing her long gray skirt.

  Victoria began to pace again. “How did you feel when you first suspected you might be a lesbian?”