Toothpick House

by Lee Lynch

  * * * * *

  Saturday morning Victoria’s phone rang. She was afraid to answer it. She knew it was Annie’s call to break the week of long suffering silence. Although she knew now that she wanted Annie, she had not conquered her fear of the relationship. Annie would be in a phone booth in the sun, yellow cab running alongside— she could see her sturdy and bright and hopeful against the empty blue enormous sky. Victoria lay on a small oriental rug, another gift from one of her parents’ trips, looking at the ceiling. When she was younger she would pretend to hover just below the ceiling, like an angel, watching her corporeal self perform its crass, worldly functions down below. As she got older she dreamed of becoming a monk or a nun, living a life stripped to its barest essentials, so simple, so close to perfection, so alone. She would share herself with no one.

  Later, she dropped the religious trappings and felt enclosed by herself. She planned to look at beautiful things and do her life’s work competently, living a simple life without the complications of marriage or a demanding career. She would stay on in school until she had the credentials to teach enough courses to give her life definition. And spend the rest of her time doing—research? writing? Always there would be a place for her in the sheltered academic world. She had planned to go through her life untouched.

  The phone rang again as the sun moved more fully through her window and pinned Victoria with its warmth to her rug. She turned onto her stomach, but the sun just brought the brightness of the rug up to her eyes, smashing them with rich red, yellow and blue. It’s not true, she screamed silently, clasping her hands together, holding them tight while the phone stopped ringing, holding back the pain. I’m lying Anne, come save me, she cried inside. I’m looking for beauty, sensation, but I can’t venture out and enjoy it vicariously through an Etta or through you. You can’t give it to me. You don’t give it to me. Loving you let it out and now it’s out, really out, and I’ll never get it back in, and I need someone to share it with. I don’t want solitude anymore.

  Her fear ebbed and she tried once more to reason her way back to safety. She moved to her bed where the sun never went. All right, she admitted, I want her. I never wanted anybody, but Etta showed me what I might need. And I’ve let that need lie fallow in me for years. Until Anne.

  She let herself think of Annie Heaphy. She almost smiled, but stopped herself. Why couldn’t she reach out to her again? She didn’t know how. She was frightened. Was she risking too much? Would she be safer ignoring love? Could she ever be strong enough, quick enough to dodge through the traffic of pain and beauty she had seen so briefly? Would Annie teach her? Victoria wondered if she could keep up with Annie. Keep up with her! she laughed. I don’t keep up with people, I set the pace. No, she thought wonderingly, sitting upright, looking toward the window. No, the pace was set for me and I hid in it. I can change it.

  Victoria sat very still, trying at first to control her panicking heart, then giving in to it, letting it thud. My heart, after all, is part of me. Perhaps it will beat strongly enough to make me move and fast enough for me to keep up with Anne. Perhaps it is large enough to hold all I want to feel.

  She leapt up toward the telephone across the room full of hot spring sunlight. Maybe Anne had called from her little toothpick house. Victoria’s fingers were moving so fast she had to dial three times before she slowed down enough to dial the number right. Then no one was answering and there was a knock on her door. Afraid of missing Annie she did not hang up, but called, “Come in . . .”

  Cap in hand, Annie Heaphy stood in the dark doorway to see Victoria, phone in hand, full of the sunlight from her window.

  “Hi,” said Annie, still as a statue, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Hello,” Vicky answered, very slowly cradling the phone and standing. The sun made a reddish halo at the top of her head.

  “Shall I come back after you finish your phone call?” Annie asked, holding her breath in anticipation.

  “I was calling you.”

  “Oh.” Annie’s breath rushed out in relief. “Me?” she gulped, suddenly realizing the import of what Victoria had said.

  Victoria smiled. “You. Annie. Annie Heaphy. Anne. Your hair was in my eyes.”

  “My hair,” Annie repeated, feeling stupid.

  “It’s so bright, it glows in my mind even when you’re not around.”

  They looked at each other for a moment. “Vicky,” Annie asked, nervous, but obviously somewhat recovered, “can I come into your room?”

  “I’m sorry, Anne, of course you can.” She stepped across the room toward Annie, her arms outstretched. Annie’s hands met hers and Victoria pulled her inside the room. Annie pushed the door shut behind her with her foot. They stood looking into one another’s eyes.

  “I think I’m in love with you, Vicky.”

  “I certainly hope you are.”

  “You do?”

  Victoria put her arms around Annie, feeling strong and maternal when she saw Annie’s blue eyes lift to her face in disbelief. “Yes,” she said, fighting to find words adequate to what she felt. Then she saw nothing, just felt the slightly smaller woman’s body tight against her own, the feel again of her soft breasts pushed against her ribcage, the comfort and surprise of her. Annie stared over Victoria’s shoulder at her blindingly bright window, its narrow frame aiming all the light of the world at them. She felt the sun on her hands where they reached around Victoria’s back and on Victoria’s hair where her cheek touched it. The warmth and her own relief made her feel as if she was melting. They stood like that for a long time. “Can you spend the afternoon with me?” Annie asked.

  “Of course. Don’t you have to work?”

  “I sometimes knock off early on Saturday if I work a lot of hours during the week. And I worked a lot of hours this week. Trying to stay away from you.”

  “Why?” Victoria asked, hoping Annie would not ask her the same question.

  “That’s a hard one,” Annie said, pulling away from Victoria, still touching her. “You feel so good to touch,” she smiled. “I guess I was afraid.”

  “Of what?” Victoria hoped Annie would answer the question for her too.

  Annie shrugged and leaned to kiss the v of Victoria’s light blue sweater where it rested just above her breasts. “That you wouldn’t be interested, I guess.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Didn’t think it,” Annie answered, shuffling her feet and stepping backwards. “Just afraid of it. You know?”

  “Do you think that was all?”

  “No.” Annie walked over to the window and looking out answered, “I feel something about you I never felt before. I can’t even say it’s altogether pleasant. I mean,” she explained, turning around to face Victoria, “I feel a lot of pleasant things too, but this, it’s like you’re a magnet and I can’t not love you. Like we’re supposed to be together. Like you’re good for me. An answer. Something I’ve been looking for. Do you understand?”

  “Completely. I’ve been trying to say that to myself, to explain what I feel about you. Yet for all the incredible things that you make me feel, I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with loving a woman, I’m not sure I would if I didn’t feel almost fated.”

  “Do you believe in that, Vicky?”

  “In fate?”

  They stood now close to each other holding hands. “I didn’t,” Vicky answered slowly. They looked at each other again a long while. Annie broke the silence.

  “Listen, I’ve got to get the cab back. Want to come with me and pick up my bug and maybe we’ll go to the beach by my house?”

  Not answering, Victoria asked, “Why didn’t you wait to say goodbye?”

  Annie hung her head and shook it, her light hair scattering across her head, catching the sun. “That’s a long story.”

  “I need to know,” Victoria pressed.

  Annie looked at her. “Okay, okay. I don’t really know. I always do that if I don’t know the woman I’m with very well. I feel un
comfortable.”

  “I’m just now realizing how much that bothered me and how much a part of my fears about you it is.”

  Annie watched Victoria’s pained face. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable. I did. I was afraid to know you were real. Afraid it wasn’t as good as I thought it was. It usually isn’t, you know.”

  “No, I don’t have much experience in these things. At first I thought it had been awful for you. Then I convinced myself it hadn’t, but the fear was still there.”

  “Oh, Vicky, no, no,” Annie protested, taking her in her arms again. “It was wonderful. I just didn’t want it to get shabby in the morning like it always does. I wanted that whole beautiful weekend to be a perfect memory. I didn’t want life to go on. People get dull, hurt each other, change. I wanted it to be always like it was. But in all those hours of driving and sitting on the beach, watching the water, I saw there was much more for me with you than a weekend we already had. If you wanted to be with me I felt as if we really would have something to give each other. That’s why I’m here.”

  Victoria confessed, “I’ve been frightened by reading too much about homosexual one night stands.”

  “And I’ve had too many of them. Look, you’re never going to believe it unless I show you, unless we live it. Come to my home with me, come let me love you. There’s nothing else I want to do,” Annie said, still holding Victoria, worrying about the tenuousness of the “home” she offered.

  “‘Come live with me and be my love,/ And we will all the pleasures prove/ That hills and valleys, dales and fields,/ Or woods or steepy mountain yields.’” Victoria quoted as she leaned her head on Annie’s shoulder. It felt so good to have a woman’s shoulder to lean on. She imagined her mother in a swirling cocktail dress and wondered why she’d never felt welcome to lean on her. Because she’s so fake, a voice inside her said. Here’s a woman who’s real. Who wants to stop acting in old ways, painful ways and to find joy with you. “And that’s what I want to do with you, Anne,” Victoria said.

  “Prove all the pleasures?” Annie put her hat back on, smiling. “Let’s go!”

  “Shall I pack for the weekend?” Victoria laughed, letting go more of her uncertainties.

  “You, lady,” Annie pronounced solemnly, “should pack for life.”

  Awhile later they sped over the bridge away from New Haven. “It’s only Long Island Sound,” Annie shouted over her still mufflerless car, “but it feels like the Atlantic to me!”

  Victoria looked at the gulls circling the small harbor and the boats out for their first runs of the season. It reminded her of the lake she had stayed on with her family the summer she fished in New Hampshire. She hadn’t thought of that in a long time. Not since that strange encounter on the train with the woman she still thought of as a witch. Well, the witch might have known her future, Victoria marvelled, but that vacation had been a happy time. “It’s just what the doctor ordered,” she shouted back to Annie. “I don’t remember this ride at all from last weekend.”

  “A week ago today,” Annie commented as she stopped at a corner and gunned her little motor waiting to turn. “That can be our anniversary. Today we’re one week old. Want to celebrate?”

  “You silly romantic! We are celebrating!”

  “Good, that’ll save a lot of planning. This is the road to my house now.”

  “Over the river and through the woods,” Victoria sang, “to Annie’s house we go.” She stopped when Annie jerked to a halt at the side of the road and threw herself at Victoria.

  “You’re great!” Annie said, after kissing Victoria with passion. “You’re beautiful and sexy and smart and fun too. I can’t believe I’m about to embark on a mad passionate love affair with you. And that you haven’t shot me down for entertaining hopes that we can have more than an affair.”

  “You’re crazy, little queen. One doesn’t go kissing other women in the middle of a public street.”

  “Oops,” Annie said as she began to drive again. “Little queen?”

  “Queen Anne. Queen of England and Ireland around seventeen hundred. Noted for her devotion to the Church of England. I looked her up this week. Another thing she is noted for is her great friendship with a woman named Sarah Jennings. They were very close,” she winked at Annie.

  “Oh, yeah? Do you know something scandalous about this queen?”

  “No, but I thought you’d be interested.”

  “So my original namesake might have been a queer,” Annie mused as they rounded a bend in the road. “Look. My willows.” She pointed to the three curved willow trees, decorated with light green new leaves. The water sparkled in the sun beyond them.

  “They look like they’ve been through the wars,” Victoria commented. “But they’re beautiful, like they’re flexing their muscles under all that new foliage.”

  “I think they are. Look how there are no other trees. They’re the only ones who have survived the wind and the salt air. They have a different kind of beauty. Usually I think of willows as being sad and delicate. These are strong and hard, yet they still sprout all that beautiful stuff. Like a bulldyke who looks like a truck driver on the outside, but is so gentle making love because she’s a woman. She only looks like a bulldyke because life is so hard on her. She keeps the inside tender by hardening the crust.”

  Victoria reached across to Annie and stroked her cheek. “You love those trees, don’t you?”

  Embarrassed, Annie said, “Sure do. Here we are.” They pulled into the front yard of what Victoria remembered as the toothpick house and she was struck again by its fragility. Surely it was not strong enough to shelter Anne through the winter months. The porch had no door, the windows were still covered with plastic sheets to keep the winds outside. Ladders and sawhorses lay in the yard of the beach cottage next door.

  “The landlord’s fixing up my neighbor’s shack,” Annie said. “I wonder how soon they’ll work their way over here. This porch is a mess. But there’s no use fixing it until the workmen finish. I don’t use it much anyway. Last summer Peg and those guys only came out here a couple of times. They think it’s too far to travel. Come on, bring your bag inside, then we’ll go over to the beach. Don’t look at the mess in here. I tried to fix it up, but what the hell, I’m getting kicked out the end of May anyway.”

  “Why?” asked Victoria, putting her suitcase on the floor and sitting on a wooden chest.

  “The lousy landlord can make more money renting to summer people. Last year nobody would rent it, but this year he found a sucker willing to pay twice as much as me for the summer months.”

  “Didn’t you say you were going to buy it?”

  “If he’ll sell. Even then I don’t know if I could get the money to pay for it. Come on, let’s go across the street and talk about happier things. Want a beer to go?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Mind if I bring a couple? Sometimes I like to do this on a Saturday afternoon. Just go across to the beach by my lonesome with a couple of beers, get high and stare at the water. Real relaxing.” As she shut the door behind them she realized she was jabbering again in nervousness. To cover her embarrassment she said, “I’ll race you.”

  “Okay,” Victoria laughed and began to run in a loose, long-limbed way while Annie shot out, a beer in each hand, like a windmill out of control. But Annie had to wait for a car to go by and Victoria caught up and passed her, her momentum outdistancing Annie’s new burst of speed. Annie just followed her, watching her run several yards onto the beach.

  “You’re amazing!” she breathed at Victoria when they stopped. “Come over here, there’s a nice rock to lean on over this way. You don’t even look like you could work up a sweat the relaxed way you run, but you cover your distance good.”

  “And you look like you’re running for your life. I’m surprised your hat stays on your head.”

  “Oh, that’s a permanent fixture. I don’t want you to find out that I’m bald.”

  They walked to a group of
rocks and collapsed against them. Annie offered Victoria a beer. When Victoria smiled in acceptance, she said, “I suspected you might want it once we were here. Our anniversary party," Annie toasted. She lay her head on Victoria's shoulder. "Vicky," she sighed.

  "No one ever calls me that, you know," Victoria said, sliding Annie's hat off her hair and resting her chin on her head.

  "And no one takes my hat off and gets away with it," Annie said, pressing herself closer to Victoria.

  That night, when the beach was dark and they were in the toothpick house, a little drunk from beer and almost hoarse from talking so much, Victoria said, "I'm no good at people, Anne."

  "You're good at me," Annie assured her, putting both of Victoria's hands between her own across the corner of the table.

  Victoria smiled sadly. "You're different. You make me be good at you. I can't help myself. You're so easy to be with, easy even for me to touch," and she bent her head to kiss Annie's hand.

  "You've never said you love me," Annie replied quietly.

  Victoria withdrew her hands. "I know, I know. I wish I could."

  "You mean you want to?"

  "Oh, Anne, of course I do. At least I think that's what I feel for you. I'm so confused. For years I've wished I could love someone and now I think I finally do and I'm not even sure that's what I feel. Even if it is I can't express it."

  Annie had risen and now knelt on the floor, her arms stretched up and around Victoria. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whispered into Victoria's sleeve. "I should never have said that. That's asking too much. Besides, you do say what you feel. You say it in all kinds of ways like when you touch me or when you look at me. I'm just so conventional I think I have to hear it. Next thing you know I'll ask you to put it on a billboard or I won't believe that you even like me!"

  "It's not asking too much. I do love you. I do, I do," Victoria half sobbed, getting to her knees also.

  "Oh, Vicky, Vicky."

  "But I won't put anything on a billboard."

  Annie leaned back from Victoria to see that she was smiling, then hugged her even harder. “You’d better get up or you’ll develop housemaid’s knee like Radcliffe Hall’s first love,” she laughed.