A Thin Bright Line

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  In the morning she asked her boss for a week off, booked passage on the train to Little Rock, and went home.

  Thursday, June 14, 1956

  Daddy drove to Little Rock in the blue Plymouth to meet her train so that they’d get a chance to catch up, just the two of them. As the soybean and rice fields flew by, and they talked about the price a hog could fetch this year, Lucybelle felt that disturbing mix of deep relief and acute irritation. Coming home always triggered a tug of war between two essential selves. She was this: the fields and hogs and easy banter. And she was something so different as well. As she listened to Daddy talk, she forced memories of parties in the Village, the library at Columbia, the walks through Harlem to pass like moving pictures through her thoughts. As if some day the seam between her past and her present would smooth out and her selves would merge. How could she be this, so fundamentally this, and also that, mostly clearly and purely that?

  She turned to check on L’Forte in the backseat. He’d climbed out of the grocery basket and stood with his front paws on the window’s edge, head out in the air, brown ears flying. God, she wanted a cigarette.

  “So what have you been reading?” Daddy asked his favorite question.

  “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  His eagle eyes, peering out from under overgrown eyebrows, turned on her with disapproval, and his thin-lipped mouth tightened into a pale line. He barely fit under the steering wheel with what her mother called his “prominent abdomen,” as if it were a character asset.

  She didn’t need him following the scent of her despair, so she quickly changed her tune. “Phyllis and I have been reading Macbeth aloud.”

  “Ah ha.” He was well pleased.

  That had been over a year ago, but it wasn’t a lie. She’d been trying to prompt Phyllis’s deeper thespian, return her to a love of theater, the language, the depth of feeling in drama, to get her past the personal disappointments. For a while it seemed to almost work. They both loved those evenings.

  Arriving at the house in the early afternoon, Daddy didn’t rush her inside. He understood her need to stand in the front yard for a few moments while he carried in her suitcases so she could look at the scruffy grass, the fat-trunked oak tree, the exterior of the little blue house. Lucybelle walked away from the shade of the oak, to the far side of the front yard, and stood in the place where she’d lain for hours as a child. Her bookishness, her pale skin and bad eyes, and her reluctance to eat tagged her as “sickly.” Dr. Wilson prescribed two hours of direct sunshine a day, weather permitting, and so Daddy had built a wooden pen where she could have privacy while lying naked under the sun. As she listened to the cheerful shouts of other children, comfortably clothed in overalls, playing freely in the surrounding yards and streets, she accepted that she was sickly—she was too young to know otherwise—and yet some deeper part of her knew that there was nothing at all wrong with her, that she just liked to read and fantasize about worlds far from this one. The pen did allow her hours of uninterrupted reading. Daydreaming too. She liked to lie on her back and look up at the black crows circling, their fingerlike wings spread open against the white-hot sky.

  Why had she thought coming home a good idea in her condition? Pocahontas always seemed to comfort her brother, remind him of who he was, and she supposed it reminded her of who she was too, but it also showed her who she wasn’t. Phyllis had left her, but it felt as if all of New York had left her, as if her entire life had been a figment of her imagination. Poof. Gone.

  In the morning she rode to town with Daddy and while he went to the barbershop for a shave, she visited with people on the street. “New York!” they still said, all these years later, grasping her hand and shaking their heads slowly, neither admiring nor admonishing, simply perplexed. Only Edie, the editor of the Pocahontas Star Herald, looked directly into her eyes and said, “Lucky you.” Later in the morning, Lucybelle sat in the courtroom and listened to Daddy preside. It was comforting the way he doled out justice, honoring the complexity of the issues before his bench even if they were about the placement of a fence or a woman’s drunken rampage. As a child, she and John Perry thrilled at the occasional murder and along with everyone else in town they’d attend the entire trial.

  In the woody confines of Daddy’s small courtroom, Lucybelle saw herself too clearly: the slim, pale figure; the sandy hair, not quite curly, but unruly just the same; the deep-set eyes, the skin below too often pooled with bluish half-moons, obscured, in any case, by thick glasses; the expressive mouth, her mood broadcast in the set of her lips, parted or tightened, her pleasure or frustration. Wry and brainy, she was the perfect foil for vivacious Phyllis.

  She hated Fred Higgins, and yet she felt almost grateful to him, as if he were a tornado whisking Phyllis away, quick and sudden, the pain acute but necessary. She might have held out a hand to pull her back, but she didn’t. Deep down, past the raw heartbreak, she felt as if she were getting away with something, abandoning her post. She realized that what scared her most was the possibility that Phyllis would not actually, truly go away.

  Monday, June 25, 1956

  She would never tell Henri Bader that he had rescued her. He’d like it too much. He sounded smug when she called him the week she returned to New York.

  “So,” he said, “that didn’t take long.”

  “It’s been well over a month.”

  “What makes you think we still have the position open?”

  She remained silent until he suggested they meet at a diner on 7th Avenue. “That’s in Harlem,” he added, and she smiled, thinking of the frightened GSA secretary.

  “When?”

  “Right now. I leave for Chicago in the morning.”

  That suited Lucybelle just fine. An hour later she pulled out the diner chair across from Bader and folded her hands on the tabletop. She looked at the craggy, dark-haired man and they both smiled.

  “I ordered you a burger, fries, and a chocolate shake,” he said.

  “I prefer to order my own lunches.”

  “Sure. I can understand that. Next time.” He pushed a piece of paper across the table at her. “Salary offer. Just say you accept, and we’ll move on to other details.”

  “You’re asking me to move to Chicago. I’ll need a thousand more.” She could feel her heart thumping just below her exposed clavicle. She tucked a napkin into the top of her dress’s scoop neck, as if that flimsy scrap could protect her.

  “I can go up five hundred.”

  The sizzle of potatoes being lowered into a vat of hot oil made her flinch. This place smelled too much like home, sweet tea and frying meat, as if he’d intentionally picked a place that would weaken her. She girded herself and said, “A thousand.”

  “Okay, fine.” Bader sat back in his chair and squinted at her. “There’s one more thing we have to talk about. A little stipulation. With regard to your inclinations. I don’t give a rat’s ass, but this is a classified position. Basically, we have to ask you to not act on them. Agreed?”

  Her inclinations. “I thought you said—”

  “The documents will show you as widowed.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “You were only twenty. How tragic, losing your husband so young like that.”

  “I’m thirty-three.”

  “I mean when he was killed overseas. In the war.”

  Lucybelle stared at the crazy man. “I don’t understand. That’s a lie.”

  “In fact,” Bader continued in a falsetto, “it’s too tragic to even talk about. Please don’t bring it up.”

  She couldn’t help laughing and surprised herself by playing along. “I probably can’t ever fall in love again. That’s how heartbroken I am.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said.

  Lucybelle looked past his head of shaggy black hair, past the wooden tables and lunch counter, even past the people hurrying down 7th Avenue. She could see a small slice of the blue sky, like a cap on the city, as if it were part of a costume. In N
ew York she could be anybody she wanted to be, and everything—the tall buildings and paved streets, even the sky—would go along with the ruse. But in the Midwest, the sky witnessed, reigned, demanded a certain plain truthfulness.

  Yet, she said yes.

  As she walked back across Morningside Park, she decided that it wouldn’t really be a lie. It was actually true that she couldn’t imagine falling in love again. She’d live a life of the mind, just like Daddy said. It would be a new kind of freedom.

  Wednesday, August 1, 1956

  Her friend Harry showed up at five o’clock on her last day at the Geological Society of America. He had no idea she’d quit, that she was moving to Chicago; so far as he knew, it was just another Friday night.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked, walking right by the typist and stopping in front of her desk. “No one has seen you for weeks. I decided to investigate.”

  “Phyllis and I broke up.” She laughed at his struggle to look like this was news. “It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend you don’t know.”

  “I’ve been worried about you.”

  “You needn’t have been. I’m fine.” Could she tell Harry that a part of her was even relieved? She had loved Phyllis, she truly had, but what was left by now, after all these years and bottles, was the fantasy, the idea of the woman. If Lucybelle were truly a Willa Cather protagonist, she’d stay in that fantasy, be staunchly loyal, despite Phyllis’s dissolution. But she wasn’t a Willa Cather protagonist, and she would not ally herself with self-pity. Harry would probably laugh if she told him her plan for a life of the mind.

  Harry had served in the Navy, like her brother, and now lived with Wesley, whom he met in the service. He had a thriving psychiatric practice and unlike the stereotype was one of the happiest people Lucybelle knew. She liked being with him, even if his conversation wasn’t always scintillating, just for the relief he brought with his easygoing laughter and perennial kindness. Wesley too was a nice man, but much more quiet, even studious, perhaps a bit pedantic, a freelance scholar of Renaissance music. It was unclear if he had any actual employment, though he referred often to his “work,” which she took to mean listening to old records and hunting down recordings in music stores.

  “Let’s go to the Bagatelle!” She could use a couple of strong drinks. Tomorrow she’d pack, which would take all of about a half an hour—she still didn’t know what to do about the rest of her possessions at 12th Street— and the next day she and L’Forte would take the train to Chicago.

  “But what if Phyllis is there?”

  “What if she is?” Lucybelle took his big arm and smiled at the typist who, having long since written off Lucybelle as an old maid, literally dropped her jaw. Harry was handsome in a furred and chunky kind of way, his cube of a nose echoing a squared chin. He had a thick, muscled build, like a strongman in a circus. She fluttered her fingertips at the typist, a mocking gesture, and rode Harry’s arm out the door. “Anyway, she won’t be. She and Fred have gone straight, remember?”

  Harry patted her hand on his bicep and pinned her with one of his bovine looks, all long lashes and syrupy pupils. “Thank god you’ve extracted yourself from the maw of that woman.”

  “Maw? She’s not that bad, is she?”

  “She used to be delightful.”

  “Well, thank you for that.” It was painful to remember the delightful Phyllis, but reassuring to know that Lucybelle hadn’t been crazy to be drawn in.

  Wesley and Clare sat in one of the red leatherette booths at the Bagatelle. She and Harry slid in beside them.

  “How are you?” Clare asked.

  “Fine. I’m moving to Chicago.”

  “Moving?” Clare said. “Phyllis is hardly worth leaving the city over.”

  “We’re not talking about Phyllis tonight,” Wesley said sternly.

  “Levity,” Harry said, “and cocktails. What’s everyone drinking?”

  Lucybelle glanced at the burgundy velvet satchel sitting on the booth bench between herself and Clare. The woman’s trademark accessory was a miniature homosexual library, always stuffed with pamphlets, newspaper clippings, and books. Clare chided anyone who wasn’t as obvious as she was, which covered pretty much everyone else. She loved to talk openly about her love affairs, of which she had many, and she was always the first with gossip about famous members of the tribe.

  “Don’t worry,” Clare said, seeing her glance at the satchel. “I’m not going to ask for it back again.”

  Over a year ago Clare had stopped Lucybelle on Greenwich Street. “You’ll never guess what I’ve acquired.”

  Phyllis never wanted to be seen even pausing with Clare, but Lucybelle had been alone that day so she gratified the keen young woman by asking, “What?”

  Clare pulled a glossy photograph from her over-the-shoulder collection and held it up for Lucybelle to see. It depicted Willa Cather with a brush cut, looking defiantly into the camera. A charge surged through Lucybelle as she took the picture and held it in her own hands. If the woman’s eyes were expressive, her mouth was downright . . . kissable.

  “How’d you get this?”

  It was Clare’s favorite question. It seemed to be her lifework to gain access to all things queer. She smiled broadly and shrugged. She wasn’t telling.

  “May I keep it for a few days?”

  Clare smirked. “It’s just a picture. You can’t sleep with a photograph.”

  “I’ll get it back to you.”

  Clare hesitated. She treated the items in her satchel as contraband and enjoyed the currency of possessing them. But she liked Lucybelle, and even more, she liked the way the Willa Cather picture was a hook. “A couple of days would be okay.”

  Lucybelle had intended to have a copy made, but she’d felt shy about taking the butch picture into a photography shop. If she’d had a camera she could have just shot the picture itself, but the result would have been a much fuzzier image, ruining Cather’s bold transcendence. The third time Clare asked for the picture back, Lucybelle said that she’d misplaced it.

  “I know you didn’t lose the picture,” Clare said now as she moved the burgundy velvet satchel to her other side, leaving the space between herself and Lucybelle open. “But if you want it bad enough to lie about it, I guess you should have it.”

  Thankfully she didn’t have to answer Clare because Harry arrived with their drinks. He had Helen and Serena, whom he’d found at the bar, in tow. Here came Charles too, an overly talkative and effeminate man. Lucybelle sipped her martini and relaxed. Even if Phyllis came in the door, she’d leave immediately when she spotted either Clare or Charles. With seven now in the booth, Clare’s hip and upper arm squeezed right up against Lucybelle’s.

  “Marriage!” Charles rang out, having not heard the prohibition on mentioning Phyllis. “It’s pathetic. I mean, Fred.” He did a quick imitation of the simpering man.

  Serena said, “That’s not funny.”

  “Oh, come on, honey,” Charles said. “Please. You have to laugh. What other response is there?”

  Harry reached under the table and squeezed Lucybelle’s hand. He asked, “Are you really moving to Chicago?”

  Everyone quieted to listen. “I have a new job. Big pay raise.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Harry shifted into his intensely focused mode, the one she imagined he used with patients.

  “It’s a great idea,” she said and polished off her martini.

  “But do you know anyone there?”

  “Holy cow, that’s too close to the farmstead!” Charles cried. “It’ll suck you back. A worse fate than a life with Phyllis, you’ll be branding hogs within the year.”

  “No danger of that,” Lucybelle said but wanted to change the subject off of the farmstead.

  “Lucy will be fine,” Clare announced. She grabbed the stem of Lucybelle’s empty martini glass and pushed Serena and Helen out of the booth. She didn’t ask the rest of the table for their drink orders, and Harry nudged Lucybelle with his knee
under the table, meaning that he noticed Clare’s attention to her.

  Lucybelle lit a Chesterfield and watched the girl ordering her a fresh drink at the bar. Clare had light-blue eyes and messy shoulder-length blond hair. She dressed like a nature poet in unusual and richly colored fabrics. Tonight she wore a green, sleeveless top covered with loose threads, like a pelt of grass. Several years younger than Lucybelle, the girl was exuberant, baldly truthful in blurting whatever came into her head, and terribly earnest. Compared to Phyllis’s nonstop subterfuge, that honesty was a balm. Clare was a walk on a mountain path. Why not?

  Charles was saying that he might go home himself, just for a little while, to help out with the Montgomery bus boycott.

  “Now there’s a good idea,” Helen said. “You sashay anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line, you’ll be shot and killed.”

  “I come from Alabama, darling. I know what I’m doing.”

  “You got out of Alabama alive, and they don’t want you back. Trust me.”

  “Harsh.”

  “You want harsh,” Helen said, “you prance down to Montgomery.”

  Charles shrugged. “There’s room for all of us. Rustin was arrested for lewd behavior a couple of years ago and—”

  “Arrested. Exactly.”

  “Who’s Rustin?”

  “Bayard Rustin. He—”

  “I don’t like that word,” Wesley said.

  “What?” Charles asked. “Lewd?” He squirmed a tiny demonstration of the word and then blew a kiss across the table at Wesley.

  “I have things to do.” Wesley slid out of the booth.

  Charles hummed a hearty and fictitious Renaissance tune, bobbing his head to the high-pitched musical parody.