A Thin Bright Line

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  “The air-raid sirens,” Lucybelle said, transfixed by the intensity and pitch of the sound. It matched how she felt exactly.

  Roger was trying to help Dorothy up, but she kicked him away with both feet. The lovers who’d been kissing pulled apart but their mouths remained open. The boyish teenager and her parents ran to their apartment. Roger kept grabbing for Dorothy’s kicking feet, laughing.

  “Khrushchev has done it!” Mrs. Worthington shrieked. Her husband hefted the basset hound as if the Russians were going to pluck up the dogs first.

  “The basement!” shouted the crew cut guy. “Let’s go! Everyone!” He trotted back and forth on the patio, pushing people toward the stairwell that led to the building’s basement. “Let’s go! Let’s go! Everyone now!”

  Lucybelle put a hand on Roger’s skinny chest and pushed him away from Dorothy, and then helped her friend get up.

  “What’s going on?” Dorothy asked, panicky.

  The racket of revelry that had been intensifying across the city morphed into sounds of panic. People screamed, doors slammed. Radios hissed out nothing but static.

  “World War Three!” Roger crooned, beginning to twirl again, all by himself. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed Dorothy’s smashed-up face.

  “I think it’s just Daley’s way of celebrating the White Sox win,” Lucybelle said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “What if they’re right, though?” Blood streamed down Dorothy’s cheek and onto the front of her blouse. “Khrushchev threatened. He did.”

  “I’m not going into that hot dark basement with these people. I’m just not.”

  “It’s the end of everything!” Roger sang out, laughing drunkenly, until the crew cut guy collared him and dragged him toward the basement door.

  Lucybelle took Dorothy’s arm and pulled her up the stairwell before they had to fight anyone about not going into the basement. She locked the door behind them.

  First she found her sweet dachshund under the bed, shaking so hard his jowls wobbled. She scooted on her stomach until she could pull him out, and then petted and nuzzled him for a minute before handing him over to Dorothy. “Hold him and sit on the couch.”

  Next she wetted a washcloth with warm water and cleaned up Dorothy’s face. She pulled a blouse from her closet, took L’Forte, and told Dorothy to change. They both laughed at the tight fit and straining buttons. Dorothy tossed the blouse aside and sat with blood dripping onto her D-cup Maidenform as Lucybelle retrieved her bathrobe. This barely fitted around Dorothy’s generous figure, but they secured the terrycloth wrap with a belt. The effort got them laughing even harder, and they sat side by side, each doubled over her own lap, gasping with hilarity. This caused more blood to spurt from the cut on Dorothy’s face and Lucybelle wrapped two ice cubes in a kitchen towel. “Put this on your cheek.”

  “Do you think I’ll have a scar?”

  “It’s not that deep.”

  Lucybelle mixed two more sloppy gin and tonics, measuring nothing, pouring and clinking.

  “The air-raid sirens,” Dorothy said.

  “Were for the White Sox. It’s just baseball.”

  “Still,” Dorothy said. “It’s perfect chaos.”

  Perfect chaos appealed to her right then. She handed Dorothy the new drink and took a good swallow of her own.

  “Oh, Lucy, what if it were the end of everything?”

  “It’s not.”

  “Kiss me,” Dorothy said. “Just in case.”

  So she did.

  Thursday, October 8, 1959

  On the day of the sixth game in the World Series, being played in Chicago’s own Comiskey Park, Lucybelle had the entire lab to herself. Even those who didn’t have tickets to the game stayed home to watch it on television. Lucybelle hadn’t wanted to watch the game alone, so she sat at her desk and tried to edit a paper on isotopes, choosing as difficult a project as she could find in her work pile, reasoning that it would be the best distraction. She was deep into those abstractions when the sound of flesh on wood startled her.

  The knocking reminded her of Wanda’s holiday visit, nine months ago. Stella had sent a letter of explanation, as if knowing how Wanda had found the photographs—while digging in Stella’s bag for some cash during a party at Tiny and Ruby’s—helped in any way, and also of apology. Sorry: the most inadequate word in the English language.

  The knocking persisted, like in the Edgar Allan Poe story, but it was not coming from beneath her floorboards, and she wasn’t going insane. She’d been spending too much time alone. It was just someone at her door. But who? Earlier in the day she’d checked all the other offices, even the cold storage labs upstairs, and there had been no one.

  The door opened a crack. “Are you in here?”

  “Dorothy! You scared the daylights out of me.” She hadn’t looked in the library. “Have you been here all day?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know you were here. I figured you’d be watching the game.”

  “I wanted to use the quiet day to catch up.”

  “Me too. Drink? It’s after six.”

  “I should go home and walk L’Forte.”

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “We should talk about it.”

  “I’m really happy about you and Geneviève.”

  “She’s in Poughkeepsie.” Dorothy paused, leaving the meaning of that statement unclear. “All I want to say is that I had a blast with you that night. It was really fun.” Dorothy threw herself into the easy chair Lucybelle had put in the corner of her office for comfortable reading. “Don’t worry about it. It was just a little collision of too many gin and tonics, the air-raid siren, the White Sox win. They all kind of combusted.”

  “Yes.” That was exactly what it had been. Lucybelle smiled, glad for Dorothy’s understanding about the kiss. Kisses. If it’d been just one quick kiss, they wouldn’t even be talking about it, but it had gone on rather long. She’s pretty sure their hands had gotten involved. Never mind. Let the incident plummet into the abyss of that hot, drunken, and yes, okay, even kind of fun night.

  “Did you really have a husband who was killed in the war?”

  The question stunned her. She’d nearly forgotten her fictitious husband.

  “That’s what I heard,” Dorothy said. “I just wondered. You’ve never mentioned him.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Were you in love with him?”

  “No.” The answer worked for both of Dorothy’s questions.

  “It must have been awful losing him. Even if you weren’t really in love.” When Lucybelle didn’t respond, Dorothy carried on. “I’ve never married. I know a lot of us girls do, you know, give it a try. Funny, though, because I can’t picture you that way.”

  “The move to Hanover will be wonderful for you,” Lucybelle said to change the subject. “You’ll be so much closer to Geneviève.”

  Dorothy took a short breath. “Accent grave over the third e.”

  Lucybelle laughed. She knew exactly what Dorothy was referring to. Anytime someone asked her name, the Vassar scholar said, “Geneviève, four e’s, accent grave over the third one.”

  “I don’t mean to make fun of her,” Dorothy said, waving her hand in the air as if to erase the comment. “It’s just my insecurity. She’s so . . . fine-tuned . . . particular. I’m afraid I’m too unbuttoned for her.”

  “Opposites attract.” Such hooey, but she wanted to smooth this conversation along.

  “I hope so. I think I love her, all four e’s, even the one with an accent grave.”

  Lucybelle laughed again.

  “The thing is, I’m going to have to move my mother too, and I don’t even know if that’s possible.” Hail tapped at the one office windowpane. They both looked out at the hard balls of ice slanting down from the sky. “Good thing the weather held off for the game,” Dorothy said, and then, “I think Geneviève likes that I have my mother in tow. She talks about her more
than I do. It’s a good cover.”

  “That’s lovely to have a girl who cares about your mother.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  Lucybelle knew what she was saying.

  “I think she wants there to be obstacles between us.”

  “No one’s perfect.” Yet another banal comment. Dorothy stared at her with those clear, green eyes, waiting for her to say something more meaningful. The best she could muster was, “You know what I mean. There’re problems with every relationship.”

  Dorothy sat up straighter without taking her eyes off of Lucybelle. She appeared to be considering her words carefully. “The move will be good for you too.”

  Lucybelle dreaded the idea of relocating to New Hampshire.

  “You know,” Dorothy said. “To get away from that girl.” She scooted to the edge of her chair, excited to have broached the subject. “The colored girl.”

  “Her name is Stella.”

  “Her name is Trouble.”

  Lucybelle found her purse under the desk. She stood and reached for her coat on the hook.

  “Oh, don’t look so thunderstruck. I’ve seen you with her. You haven’t exactly been discreet. The only reason I bring it up is because I’m worried about you.”

  She hadn’t seen Stella in months, but it wasn’t any of Dorothy’s business.

  “You have a classified position with the Army Corps of Engineers. You can’t afford to play around with people like her.”

  “People like her?”

  “She might be a perfectly nice girl. But look at her. She doesn’t play by the rules. You need to.”

  “I need to get home.”

  “Come on.” Dorothy waved her hand toward the office door. “Drinks.”

  “Thanks, but no.”

  “Now you’re mad,” Dorothy said as they stepped out into the light drizzle that had replaced the hail. “Don’t be. Look, the move to Hanover is an easy solution to your difficulty. In a few months, you’ll be out of her reach.”

  “I don’t have a difficulty.”

  “I’m just trying to help. Get in.” She motioned toward her car at the curb. “I’ll run you home.”

  “It’s out of your way. I like taking the train.” Lucybelle knew that walking through the cold rain to the station, refusing a ride, was tantamount to admitting guilt. To what, though?

  “You are mad. Come on. Life is too short.”

  Lucybelle made herself smile and say, “Of course I’m not mad. I appreciate your concern. I really do. But everything is fine.” Then she made herself get in Dorothy’s car, accept the ride home. Thankfully her friend didn’t use the opportunity to insist on the drink.

  That night she turned on the radio and learned that the Los Angeles Dodgers had won the game, nine to three, taking the World Series.

  “Well,” Lucybelle said to L’Forte. “There you go. That’s that.”

  Thursday, July 14, 1960

  In the middle of July, Lucybelle received a letter from her brother, John Perry, describing a backpacking trip his family had taken in Oregon’s Mount Jefferson Wilderness. One morning, as the group of friends, with all their children, was getting ready to start the day’s hike, someone noticed that three-and-a-half-year-old Lucy was missing. The women stayed in camp with the little ones, and the older children joined the men in the search. The child was found in a nearby ice cave, deep in the melted out cavern, sitting on some wet stones, smiling.

  “Smiling,” John Perry wrote. “Apparently happy to be alone. To be encased in ice. Fearless. Maybe just witless.”

  The picture of Lucy Jane’s brave and maybe witless smile cheered her. She laughed out loud at the juxtaposition: a little girl sitting on wet stones in the translucent light of an ice cave, smiling; the army of men under the glacier at Camp Century, grinding away at their endeavors.

  Lucybelle went out that weekend and finally bought her car, a brand new Chevrolet Bel Air two-door sedan, the model Stella had recommended for her. The light-blue paint was like summer itself, the elegant chrome trim announced clarity of purpose, and the arched tail fins said see you later. She drove fast, L’Forte riding shotgun, up and down the western shore of the lake, enjoying the relief of speed and air.

  Sunday, August 14, 1960

  A few days before her birthday, Lucybelle packed a swimsuit and L’Forte’s dish, and they drove north along the lake, looking for new beaches. While she swam, he ran back and forth on the edge of the water, ears flying, eyebrows knit, barking for her to come out. She called for him to join her, but he’d have none of it. On Saturday night, Lucybelle found a diner, where she ate a dinner of steak, baked potato, and cherry pie, saving generous portions for L’Forte, which she fed him in their Holiday Inn room. They drove home on Sunday.

  As she carried her bag, the wet swimsuit soaking through the canvas, toward the stairwell leading to her front door, a voice called out, “Finally! Where have you been? On some romantic escapade, no doubt.”

  The musical laugh echoed down the stony shaft of the stairwell.

  L’Forte barked at the familiar voice.

  The sight of Phyllis and little Georgia sitting with their backs against her front door rendered Lucybelle speechless.

  “We’ve been here since midday yesterday. Don’t worry. I made friends with the people across the hall. Their basset hound almost bit Georgia, but I made nice. The lady gave us some snacks and didn’t call the cops about us sleeping on your doorstep, though she threatened. I told her that I’m your sister. It looks a bit seedy, sorry, but not as seedy as it could look. If I’d told them the truth, that is.” She deployed more of that musical laughter. Lucybelle had all but forgotten the way it cascaded in tone from high to low. L’Forte kept barking.

  She hadn’t seen Phyllis since she’d walked out of their 12th Street apartment four years ago. Lucybelle stood halfway up the stairwell, the wet canvas of her bag soaking into her blouse and shorts, dumbstruck.

  “Sweetie,” Phyllis said to the little girl. “Meet your Aunt Lucy. It’s her birthday in two days. Tell her happy birthday.”

  Lucybelle finished the climb and unlocked her door. Phyllis dragged Georgia inside by the hand. “We’re broke and I’ve left Fred. There, that’s out.” She didn’t stop in the front room but kept walking through the apartment, popping her head in the kitchen, Lucybelle’s bedroom, and the typewriter room. “Look, you have a spare room.”

  “That’s where I work.”

  “I thought you had a job in a lab.”

  “I’m working on my novel.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Phyllis let out a long breath as if much had been decided. “Can we have cocktails?”

  She looked bad. Maybe it was just her unwashed hair and the wear of travel—they must have come by train—but she looked weary beyond her years, and the travel couldn’t account for the weight gain.

  “I thought you quit drinking.”

  “Sure, for as long as I was nursing Georgia. Okay, maybe I laid off for a while longer than that, but I haven’t gotten any more parts since Angel, and so . . . why bother?”

  “Georgia needs her mother.”

  “Georgia needs her mother to be relaxed.”

  Lucybelle took off her glasses, as if she could blur this new development into something more acceptable. Actually, it was her response to the development that was problematic, and she could see that even now, in these very first moments. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, wanting to feel outrage and clarity. She searched for a strong sense of resolve, but instead felt a simple slump of happiness at seeing her old friend, at the lovely comfort of predictability, at the possibility of an episode that didn’t require restraint and discipline.

  “We won’t stay long,” Phyllis said. “We just need a place to roost for a few days. Until I gather my wits. Anyway, you obviously have another place to roost yourself.”

  “I just went away for a little weekend. By myself.”

  “Right. By yourself. I don’t belie
ve that for a second. Do you, Georgia? Look, I’m a fat mother now, soon to be a divorcée. You can tell me all there is to tell. I take my titillation where I can get it these days.”

  Lucybelle filled the silver shaker with ice and added a healthy splash of vermouth. She shook hard, making a sloshy ice-cube music, and then poured off all the liquid so that the ice cubes were just coated in the vermouth. She knew exactly how Phyllis liked her martinis, with miniature ice floes on the top, and so she shook the gin for an extra long time before pouring it into two martini glasses. She speared an olive each on two toothpicks and dropped them in the glasses. She poured some orange juice for Georgia and split an orange slice to fit over the edge of the tumbler. The poor child fell asleep before taking even a sip, her legs curled tight and her head in her mother’s lap on the couch. Lucybelle took the wingback chair.

  She told Phyllis the entire story of Stella Robinson, including the Michigan Avenue Bridge, the nude photographs, the baseball games, even, with a bit of prodding, the soul-shattering sex. Phyllis loved all the details, begged for more, and Lucybelle loved telling them. The confession was cathartic.

  Phyllis told her the slim story of Fred Higgins. Not surprisingly, he spent most nights out with boyfriends, and once Georgia had been born, he couldn’t bear to sleep at home. She’d been a colicky baby and her crying, he said, was more than he could take. He was an artist and needed to keep what he called the “plane of his psyche” as free from interference as possible. Phyllis embellished the details for Lucybelle’s entertainment, and she hadn’t laughed so hard in months.

  “Those pictures, sweetie,” Phyllis said. “You need to get them back.”

  Lucybelle shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “There’s that fatalistic part of you. It’s sexy. No, it is. But I won’t let you succumb to it. Listen to me. No, Lucy, look at me. Wanda might never use them, but do you really want that axe hanging over your head? No, you don’t. And what if she does use them?”

  Phyllis wouldn’t understand the real reason she hadn’t demanded that Stella hand over all the photographs, plus the negatives. For Phyllis, everything was illusory. Perceptions and feelings were created, manufactured for effect. All of life, if you were honest about it, Phyllis contended, was theater. Lucybelle had once loved this about her, as if the cynicism, her insistence that nothing authentic existed, were a deeper understanding of human nature.