Toothpick House

by Lee Lynch

  “Okay guys,” Turkey gave in, “you want it straight? I’m getting my doctorate in sociology and teach in a big name school. I’ll be a famous sociologist. Never mind the liberation. I’II prove a woman can make it in the academic world.”

  “Who ever heard of a sociologist getting famous?” Peg scoffed.

  “You are about to, dear gym teacher. What is your claim to fame?”

  Peg leaned against the side of a booth, hands in her pockets, legs crossed in loose cream-colored slacks. “Don’t know as I’d want to be famous, Turkey. It might cramp my style. I’ll settle for teaching gym. I don’t like being on the front lines or being in trouble.”

  “When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a railroad engineer,” Dusty volunteered unexpectedly. “You libbers going to do anything about getting women into the railroad?”

  There was a short silence which Peg gracefully broke. “The women’s movement ought to make a dent in just about every profession that’s out there. What do you do now?”

  Still sober-faced, Dusty answered. “Run a machine. Let me tell you, it makes as much noise as an engine. I know how to set up and everything. Course, they won’t pay me for set-up because they got a man they already pay for it, but I do my own anyway. I enjoy it.” The shadow of a smile crossed her face.

  “It’s a real hard job,” Eleanor added proudly.

  “I wouldn’t mind doing hard work like that,” Annie said earnestly. “But I want what I do to have some meaning for women.”

  “It does, damn it,” Dusty defended herself.

  Annie jumped. “I’m sorry.”

  “You let me talk to some of those liberationists. I’ll tell them what a woman can really do. One of the girls I work with, she raised six kids by herself, works second shift at the plant, then cooks all night in a little joint.”

  “That’s who’s going to teach me to cook,” Eleanor added, combing her hair.

  Rosemary broke in. “That’s great, women teaching other women their skills.”

  “Makes me feel useless, not having a skill,” Annie said.

  “You’re a good cab driver,” Victoria reminded her.

  “But what good does it do anybody beyond getting them from one place to the next?”

  “What she’s really trying to say,” Victoria explained, “is that we’ve got to make some decisions. And we need your help. I’m supposed to go on at Yale, but I’m not at all sure I want to do that. I used to think of graduate school and teaching as the perfect place for me: sheltered and totally unreal. But I don’t need that anymore.”

  “And I’ve got to get out of my shack by the end of the month. When I left tonight there were paint cans and ladders lined up outside my porch like an invading army. We don’t even know whether to look for a new place around here or go off to California,” Annie added.

  “California!” Claudia approved. “I’ve always wanted to live there. It’s supposed to be so easy-going.”

  “But we’re not surfers or student revolutionaries. And we don’t necessarily want to settle where it’s easier,” Annie said. “Maybe we should go to Alaska where we could practically import feminism and certainly could build a women’s community from scratch.”

  “Can you organize?” Turkey asked, serious for once. “You’re not loudmouths like me. You’re kind of quiet, booky people. And Annie, look how you fall apart when you get shit on in the street. Organizers have to take that all the time. You might not be able to do anything but hold yourselves together. And Victoria, it’s taken you so long to be with people in the first place, I wonder if you’re ready to take that kind of life at all.”

  “But remember,” Claudia argued, “women have to realize their potential. It’s been buried for so long under our quietness. Annie’s and Victoria’s weaknesses may just be hiding their strengths. You know,” she went on, her firm, round body leaning intently forward, “they might have been so outgoing when they were kids that they learned to cover it up because it wasn’t ladylike and that’s why they’re quiet now.”

  “You’ve got me more confused than ever,” Annie said, presenting a battered piece of paper. “Here’s a list we thought up. See what you think of these ideas.”

  After a pause Eleanor exclaimed, “I like this one: ‘Starting a fleet of volunteer cabs for senior citizens and women.’ Think how that would cut down on rapes and muggings.”

  “Where would you get the money?” Peg asked.

  Clucking in disgust, Turkey said, “Such a realist!”

  “You might get a bus,” the serious Dusty volunteered. “And run it around town certain times of the day so’s old people could get rides free and know you’d be there.” She blushed up to her slicked-back hair.

  “That would be a lot cheaper,” Annie agreed. She looked toward Victoria, eyebrows raised.

  “What about some of the other ideas?” Victoria pursued.

  Eleanor read slowly. “Start a magazine, it says, for articles about the women’s movement. Discussions of politics and practical matters like how to contribute to the movement. Hey, it’s too bad somebody didn’t already write that. It’d be a big help for you all. But I’ve got another idea. Let’s start a restaurant, all of us. I’ll still be the cook. You guys can hire Turkey to entertain, Dusty to build things, one of you can keep the books, and somebody else will do the dishes.”

  “You may have hit on something there, Eleanor,” Rosemary said. She smiled at Annie who was looking skeptically toward her. “When so many people get involved in a project we should start talking about doing it collectively.”

  “What’s that? Like communism?” Eleanor asked.

  “It’s a distant relation. It would mean that we would all put ourselves into this equally and we’d all learn to do everything so that we could share the responsibilities.”

  “You mean I’d have to waitress?” Eleanor asked, disappointed.

  “I mean we’d have to think so hard and so differently,” Rosemary said slowly, obviously beginning to do what she was describing, “that we would have to rethink the very structure of a restaurant.” The group was silent, waiting for her idea to grow. “We could do away with waitresses. Some sort of personalized cafeteria. With no men allowed.”

  “Sounds great to me!” said Eleanor. “No more . . .”

  “Ouch!” Turkey yelled, jumping from Eleanor’s pinch.

  “Just demonstrating,” Eleanor explained as she smiled graciously into Turkey’s smile.

  “But the point is well taken,” Rosemary continued. “No more waiting on men! No more serving anybody in that sense.”

  “I like the magazine idea,” Victoria said, “but I’d have no idea how to do it.”

  Claudia had the list. “I still like the idea of travelling. Maybe you ought to just take off and see if something’s happening in Alaska and watch what they’re doing in California. And bring it all back here when you decide what to do.”

  “I love it!” Rosemary interrupted. “Listen to this! Buy a boat and run a fishing business. You’d be poor and smell bad, but I bet being on the water all the time would toughen you up! Imagine facing the sea alone every day and then coming ashore and some mere male trying to intimidate you.”

  “I’d beat the shit out of him,” Dusty threatened.

  “I think that’s the least practical suggestion yet,” Peg said decisively.

  “Then maybe it’s the one most worth looking toward, you old spoil sport. Just because you’re all settled in your niche don’t mean everybody is. You suggest something,” Turkey urged.

  “I’m thinking on it. I admit I like having a job I can always fall back on. I have great hours. The job changes with the kids. I’m active. It suits me fine. But I knew what I wanted to do since I was a kid,” she said, adjusting the crease in her slacks. “I think you two know what you want, but you haven’t seen it in yourselves yet. Maybe Claudia’s idea is good about taking time to look for what you want.”

  “Ooh. I want to go too,” Claudia said, exci
ted. Rosemary looked stricken. “Not without you, Rosie.”

  “I’ve travelled so much,” Victoria said. “I never got to stay in one place long enough to make friends. To feel secure. I don’t know if I could handle a nomadic life.”

  Annie asked, “Do we have to travel to discover what we want? Like Peg says, I feel it in me. The answer’s just not ready to come out.” Annie slipped an arm around Victoria’s waist and a hand under the waistband.

  “So when do you have to decide by, lovebirds?”

  “Two weeks,” Annie answered. “That’s when I have to be out.”

  “You living there in the meantime, Vic?” Peg asked.

  “I’m moving in tomorrow.”

  Turkey stood. “Step right up and sign up for the moving party. I hear there’s going to be plenty of free beer and eats for everybody that helps Vicky move in!”

  “Hey, you,” protested Annie, laughing as she tugged Turkey down into her seat.

  “We do need help,” Victoria interceded.

  “Then come on and help. We’ll all go swimming afterwards,” Annie gave in. “Bring your bathing suits!”

  “And innertubes!” Turkey added.

  “Party, party,” Claudia sang, a little tipsy on one beer. She knocked her chair over getting up to lead Rosemary to the dance floor.

  Suddenly Dusty and Eleanor were alone at the table with Victoria and Annie. “So you all think you’re going to travel?” Eleanor asked.

  Annie looked into Victoria’s sparkling eyes. “Now that I’ve found the woman I was looking for, there isn’t much reason to travel, if you ask me.”

  “And we’d miss our friends,” Victoria said. “We haven’t even had a chance to get to know Dusty. Would you still be around when we got back?”

  “Yes,” said Dusty shyly, looking at Eleanor. “If she still wants me.”

  “And why wouldn’t I, you old butch?”

  “Because I’m so old. And you’re such a Southern belle.”

  “You can still back out, honey,” Eleanor told her, moving her hand along Dusty’s upper arm. Dusty was silent. Annie looked at Victoria.

  “I think I’m doing right,” Dusty finally said, slowly and thoughtfully. “I haven’t been happy for a lot of years and I thought I ought to stay for her sake. I like my job, the house. Who can have everything? But she’s been seeing this man for a couple of years now—did El here tell you that? I told her not to say nothing, but it’s almost over now. I don’t want to hurt her, but I feel so bad when she goes with him. If I truly loved her then I think I could put up with anything. But she just took me in when I was drinking a lot and I’ve been beholden to her all these years, but I never felt about her like I thought I ought to. You can’t really know with your first woman unless you’re lucky, I guess.”

  “She was your first lover?”

  Dusty hung her head at Victoria’s question. “I know I come on like an old bulldyke, but I wasn’t really nothing till I met her. I mean, I didn’t know who I was. And now I do. But it’s not fair for her to go away to a man and expect me to be waiting is it? Elly, here, treats me with respect. I know I’m doing right. I think she just likes to take care of people and I don’t need her like that no more and he does. No, El. I won’t back out on you. We’ll make a better life. Maybe I can help other little dykes find their way better than I did. What do you think?”

  “I think I want to dance with you so’s I can hold you, you old bear.”

  Annie Heaphy and Victoria looked after the couple with tears in their eyes. “Wow,” said Annie.

  “This is really hard for her.”

  “I should’ve known Elly wouldn’t be all that rotten. I wonder why she didn’t tell me the whole story?”

  “To protect Dusty, silly.”

  They looked at each other in silence. “You’re not Dusty, Anne.”

  “We won’t break up after seventeen years, will we Vicky?”

  “Remember,” Victoria said after a short silence, “when we promised not to give up without a fight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s not forget that.”

  “Okay. You’re right. I’m leaving it all in the hands of the gods, or goddesses. I’ll take some responsibility too.”

  “You’d better,” Victoria said playfully. “And be responsible for taking me home.”

  “So soon?”

  “Soon? It’s after midnight.”

  “You’re right. After all, we’ve got to make love on your graduation day. Your place or mine?” Annie asked for the last time, running her hands over Victoria’s hair.

  “My room is all packed. Let’s officially move into your house.”

  As they crossed the dance floor to say goodnight, their friends came toward them dancing until the moving mass was all together. Rosemary took the hands of the women around her and soon Annie and Victoria were pulled into a circle dance. “Marcy’s will never be the same!” shouted Turkey. The other bar regulars fell back to watch this phenomenon. Even Dusty was coaxed into the circle by Eleanor. When the music ended the group pressed together in a giant hug, parting, finally, to let Annie and Victoria go home.

  * * * * *

  Nearly summer, Annie Heaphy’s toothpick house bloomed. It was June, and the porch furniture was newly dry after the spring rains. The porch itself still sagged, doorless, but the bushes before it thrust themselves up its sides, camouflaging some of its scars and festooning it with themselves. Even the bare front yard sported a few whiskers of green—crabgrass mostly, and a sparse growth of assertive weeds.

  Annie and Victoria sat on the porch. They had thrown the workmen’s materials behind the house out of sight. The moving party had been the day before and they had slept almost until noon afterwards. The rest of the day they spent putting the house in order without making their arrangements too permanent. They were waiting for Rosemary and Claudia who had called that morning to say they wanted to talk. It was not as hot as it had been, but the porch was still cooler than the house.

  “It’s a good thing we moved you yesterday,” Annie said.

  “The heat?”

  “It’s nice after winter, but enough is enough.”

  “It would have helped the beach party.”

  Annie grunted. “We could have done without that. Those women sure do like to drink. I can’t believe I ever kept up with them.”

  “It’s mostly Turkey and Ellie and Dusty and a few others. Peg drinks slowly, I noticed. But she hides it, like she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s not keeping up.”

  “Saving face.”

  “Why is it so important to them to be hard drinkers?”

  Annie was quiet for a minute. “I’ve been thinking more about that and I think I can tell you why it was important to me. First off, there’s the macho element. Downing a big hearty beer with gusto makes an image I liked. Made me feel strong. And the higher I got, the more invincible I felt. I was no longer the hard-working cab driver saying yes ma’am and no ma’am and thank you sir, but me, among my own kind, with the advantage of being super-me.”

  “So the bar was a kind of refuge for you. A place where you could let down your hair—or take off your hat,” Victoria giggled, “and be yourself while other people approved of who you were.”

  “Yes. And the liquor made it possible for me to shut out the world I’d just come from and knew I had to return to. It was like drawing a curtain, only the curtain was made of liquid.”

  “Like the liquid out there.” Victoria pointed to Long Island Sound lying almost still in the windless evening. “Doesn’t it make you wish you could lie on it?”

  “Only if we had every last stitch of our clothes off and could make love on it,” Annie said, sliding her chair closer to Victoria’s. She put her lips to Victoria’s hand and kissed each finger, then turned the hand over and traced a spiral with her tongue on the palm. Victoria squirmed in her tattered white wicker chair.

  “The things you make me feel in broad daylight, Anne Heaphy,” Vict
oria chided.

  “You enjoy every minute of it, girl.”

  “You’re right. Now tell me why else you had to be such a hard drinker.”

  “That was it, mostly,” Annie sighed. “You went to the bar because you needed to be there and then you learned this whole way of life that went with it. Hard drinking is part of it. For me, too, once I got high, I’d do anything to stay high. I was scared to come down. If I could have sustained it, I would’ve drank twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Yet you’ve stopped so quickly and easily.”

  “I get the yen now and then, like at the party yesterday. But when I get it, I’ve been trying to figure out what it really is that I want. Confidence? Relaxation? Strength? A good time? Then usually I can figure out another way of getting what I want. Besides, I’ve spent very little time in bars since we met and if I don’t get high on liquor in the first place I don’t have to sustain the high.”

  Victoria smiled. “You mean I’ve been good for you?”

  “You know you have,” Annie smiled back.

  “What’s going to happen to the women who are still going to the bars?”

  “If they’re lucky they’ll meet their Victorias.”

  “That’s not everyone’s solution, silly. Look at Eleanor and Dusty. They’ll go to the bar together.”

  “You’re probably right. I’m so glad Dusty’s friend took it well.”

  “She was probably frightened half to death about having to tell Dusty she wanted out.”

  “Too bad it was for a man,” Annie sighed, making a distasteful face.

  “The woman just couldn’t deal with being a lesbian, Anne. I understand that. I’ll bet she started going out with him to make herself feel normal.”

  “But all those years with Dusty. Especially someone as butchy-looking as Dusty.”

  “You heard what Dusty said about how they never went out and didn’t have any friends. If you hide well enough, you can pretend you’re like everyone else. As long as she could keep Dusty home with her she felt safe. But when Dusty got itchy, met those lesbians at work and realized she’d been wanting to be with other lesbians, then it didn’t work any more. Dusty brought reality home to her.”