A Thin Bright Line

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  “I guess I’m shocking you.”

  “A bit.”

  “Well, you’ve heard it all now.”

  “Let me add,” Vera said in her formal voice, as if the forthcoming admission cost her something, “I don’t mind being shocked.”

  “Oh.” Now it was the martini that allowed her to hold eye contact. “Is that right.”

  “It is.”

  “So. You’ve never done anything inappropriate?”

  “Of course I have, but I’m rather guarded.”

  “You don’t like to make mistakes.”

  “Who does?”

  “Some people don’t mind.”

  Vera laughed. “True.”

  “I bought a cake. Coffee?”

  “I hardly want to leave the impression that I don’t make mistakes. My relationship with Susan was far from healthy.”

  “It sounds like parts were. At first.”

  Vera gave that singular hard nod of hers. “She wasn’t dishonest. Just afraid.”

  “So now you have your collections and your pond.”

  Vera didn’t answer, and Lucybelle got up to snap on the lamp.

  “You’re saying that I’m only willing to be in a relationship with myself.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I guess it is.”

  Lucybelle resisted the urge to comment sarcastically. Instead she went to make the coffee and fetch the cake. When she turned back around, Vera was standing before her bookshelf, bent at the waist, reading the titles. Lucybelle put down the cake and went back to get the coffeepot and cups. By the time she poured the coffee, she’d decided on a different interpretation of Vera’s relationship with herself.

  “You can’t have a good relationship with anyone else without having a good one with yourself,” she said.

  Vera looked caught off guard, as if Lucybelle had stormed her fortress from a different direction. Unable to think of a rebuttal, she quietly said, “Agreed.”

  Lucybelle laughed. “You’re such a scientist. If a statement is true, you force yourself to admit it, even when you don’t want to.”

  “Well, there’s not any data supporting your hypothesis.”

  “There might be. My friend Harry is a psychiatrist. I could ask him.”

  Vera waved a dismissing hand through the air. “No. It’s true. People who aren’t comfortable with themselves can do such damage to others.”

  “I know you don’t read fiction,” Lucybelle said. “But there’s this line in a Willa Cather novel that I love.” She paused, having thought only of the heart of the quote, but now she wanted to recite the entire bit. She grabbed the book off the shelf and flipped through the pages until she found it: “‘Suddenly something flashed into her mind, so clear that it must have come from without, from the breathless quiet. What if—what if Life itself were the sweetheart? It was like a lover waiting for her in distant cities— across the sea; drawing her, enticing her, weaving a spell over her.’”

  “Life itself,” Vera said softly. “Yes.”

  Sunday, August 30, 1964

  Lucybelle dug in the hamper for dog-walking clothes, pulling out her yellow, sleeveless blouse, which had a coffee stain on the front, and her rumpled madras shorts. She tied on her Keds, forgoing socks. She’d shower when they got back from their walk. Her plan for the day was to work on her novel, which she’d put off during all those weekends working on Vera’s papers. She placed the draft on her coffee table and was standing, arms folded, looking at it when the doorbell rang.

  Assuming it was her landlady, Lucybelle pulled open the door. There stood Vera holding the borrowed copy of Cather’s Lucy Gayheart. “Thank you. I read it last night.”

  “That was fast.”

  “I can’t write, but I can read.”

  Lucybelle wanted to invite her in despite the coffee stain, the jarring blouse and shorts ensemble, the state of her hair. L’Forte pushed out the door and gave one friendly bark at Vera. She smiled at him! Then she bent and even petted him. That did it. Lucybelle opened the door wider and asked if she wanted to come in.

  “No,” Vera said coming in the door. “It’s rude of me to stop by like this. But I was running errands and so I thought I’d just drop the book off.”

  She wasn’t running errands. It was Sunday. Nothing was open.

  “I liked the whole book.” She set it down on Lucybelle’s coffee table. “What’s this?”

  Unfortunately, there was no hiding the manuscript. The title page announcing “A Thin Bright Line” by Lucybelle Bledsoe sat on the top of the stack. Vera dropped onto the couch and flipped through the first couple of pages. “What’s this?” she asked again.

  “A novel.”

  “You didn’t tell me you’d written a novel.”

  “It’s not finished.”

  “I want to read it.”

  “You don’t read fiction.”

  “I just read Willa Cather, didn’t I?”

  “Please. Leave it alone.”

  Recognizing the threat, L’Forte barked again, this time aggressively.

  Vera looked at the dog as she said, “I’m leaving for Greenland on Wednesday. I’ll be gone for three weeks.”

  “What? Why haven’t you mentioned this until now?”

  “It’s a follow-up trip. A couple of years ago the division obtained conventional aerial photographs, as well as some infrared imagery, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Northwest of Greenland, a bunch of islands in the Canadian archipelago. They also shot most of the pack ice all the way up to the North Pole. So we’re going to—”

  “Very interesting,” Lucybelle said impatiently. “What I meant was, why haven’t you told me you’re leaving on this trip?”

  “I didn’t think my fieldwork was apropos of anything having to do with you.”

  Lucybelle felt the sting of that dismissal.

  “Until now,” Vera added.

  She waited for the punch line.

  “It won’t matter if you let me read your novel because you won’t have to see me at all for a few weeks.”

  At least Vera understood the level of vulnerability involved. Lucybelle picked up L’Forte and sat on the other end of the couch with him in her lap. She stroked his ears. “Take it.” She gestured at the manuscript. “And go.”

  That night, to keep from thinking of Vera reading her rough novel, Lucybelle imagined the two of them flying. They were in a two-seater, so far above earth that the rivers were veins, the farms little squares, and the mountains a green disturbance. Mostly all they saw was blue sky.

  Friday, September 18, 1964

  The manuscript was on her desk when Lucybelle got to work on Monday morning. There was no note. Nor did she see Vera before she left for Greenland on Wednesday. If she came into the lab at all that week, besides early on Monday to dump off the manuscript, she managed to avoid any corridors where they might meet.

  The silence, both before her departure and also about the novel, felt as scathing as a blade. Vera could fly a plane, hike in the Andes, socialize with black bears in her own backyard, but she was terrified of revealing her heart.

  Or maybe she just hated the novel.

  Three weeks later, on a Friday while Lucybelle was at lunch, her secretary, Vivian, left a note on her desk. “Dr. Prescott would like you to call her.”

  She picked up the telephone to dial about five times that afternoon and stopped herself each time. Dr. Prescott knew where to find her.

  Which she eventually did. A few minutes before five o’clock, she appeared in Lucybelle’s doorway, once again walking past Vivian, who trailed her, saying, “Can I help you, Dr. Prescott?”

  “It’s okay, Vivian,” Lucybelle said. “It’s five o’clock. Have a nice weekend.”

  Vera shut the door. She looked nervous.

  “You’re back.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good trip?”

  “So-so.”

  Lucybelle wanted to say, well good thing you didn’t discover anything e
xtraordinary because you’re not getting any help writing a paper this time.

  “Come to dinner tomorrow.”

  Lucybelle couldn’t manage a no, just barely managed to not say yes.

  “Let’s swim before dinner. Bring your bathing suit and come early.”

  “What’s early?”

  “Noon.”

  She didn’t allow herself to smile. “On one condition.”

  “That being?”

  “L’Forte can come too.”

  “I was going to invite him.”

  “You were not.”

  “I was. Have him bring his swimming trunks as well.”

  Saturday, September 19, 1964

  She felt shy in her bathing suit, her limbs thin and pale in the warm afternoon sunlight. But Vera barely looked at her. She splashed in and stroked out into the pond a good hundred yards before flipping around and calling out, “Come on!”

  Lucybelle was a good swimmer. She and her brother had spent many a summer day swimming in the Black River, southeast of Pocahontas. Still, she felt self-conscious of her form; it wasn’t anything like the strong windmills and vigorous kicks that Vera used. Everything was a pleasant blur without her glasses, and she gave herself over to the sensual cool balm of the lake water. L’Forte sat at water’s edge to wait for her. He didn’t bark once, as if he knew his continued participation was dependent on good behavior.

  When she reached Vera, they tread water, grinning like kids.

  “Watch,” Lucybelle said. She showed Vera her curious buoyancy: when she lay on her back in the water, she barely sunk below the surface.

  “Now you watch. You have to put your face under to see.” Vera somersaulted and dove, spearing her hands toward the bottom of the lake, propelling herself with a frog kick. She descended several yards, into the murky depths, just the soft, white bottoms of her feet visible. A few seconds later she broke the surface, gasping for breath.

  Dr. Prescott was showing off like a teenaged boy.

  “I’m going to swim to the other side,” Lucybelle said.

  “That’s too far.”

  She started swimming, showing off in her own way. She wasn’t that strong, but her unusual buoyancy meant she couldn’t sink. Vera passed her within moments and reached the far shore long before Lucybelle did. In fact, it was farther than she’d ever swum in her life. As she pulled herself out onto the grassy bank, she flopped down and said, “You might have to go get the car to take me back.”

  Vera laughed her deep laugh and said, “Really?”

  “If I tried to swim back, I’m afraid you’d have to rescue me in a more difficult way.”

  Without her glasses, Lucybelle couldn’t see the expression on Vera’s face. Maybe she was considering, as she was, which form of rescue would be the most fun.

  “Give me half an hour. You’ll be okay here?”

  “Yes. Bring L’Forte, will you? He’s probably worried sick.” She could just picture him sitting at water’s edge, his black eyebrow spots bunched as he strained to see her on the far shore.

  Vera did a running belly flop into the pond and swam hard toward its center. Lucybelle watched her progress, a splashy blur, and thought she’d never been happier. She lay back in the grass, the sunshine on her arms and legs, no wooden pen, just a warm breeze and the distant sound of Vera swimming.

  Once they were back at the cabin, dried off and dressed in shorts and blouses, Vera started the grill. She handed Lucybelle a glass of champagne. The sparkling sweetness was delightful.

  They sat in the Adirondack chairs and L’Forte lay down at their feet, quietly watching some ducks.

  “He knows that if he doesn’t behave he won’t be invited back,” Lucybelle said.

  “He doesn’t understand that much.”

  “He does.”

  Vera made a soft hmpf sound to indicate that while she wouldn’t argue, she thought ascribing higher consciousness to L’Forte was poppycock.

  “The truth of the matter is, he’s getting old. He probably doesn’t even want to chase ducks anymore.”

  “Your novel is beautiful.”

  Everything jolted a bit.

  “I want to read it again.”

  “I’m kind of stunned. I figured since you left it on my desk without so much as a note or—”

  “You know I can’t write.”

  “You can’t even write a note?”

  “I’m sorry. Did you think I didn’t like it?”

  Lucybelle took a deep breath, trying to accustom herself as quickly as possible to this new worldview: Vera liked her novel.

  “Well, I’m stupid,” Vera said. “Of course you would have thought that I didn’t like it. Who wouldn’t think that? I liked it very, very much. I’m in awe of your ability to write those kinds of truths. It makes me feel like my adherence to facts is a weakness, or a great limitation.”

  Before Lucybelle could think of any kind of response to this, Vera got up and said, “I’ll get the first course.”

  She brought out two cups of gazpacho, a cold tomato and cucumber soup she said people eat in Spain. Then she put the marinated chicken pieces on the grill. As they cooked, she set up a card table and two chairs and threw on a cotton tablecloth, patterned with bunches of purple grapes and green vines, which she’d gotten in Italy. She carried out a plate of sliced honeydew melon and a bowl of homegrown lettuce.

  “Just lettuce,” she said. “If it’s fresh, I don’t like to ruin a salad with any other vegetables. A little olive oil, salt, and pepper.”

  While they ate, they talked about Vera’s Greenland trip and gossip from the lab. She’d made fresh berry tarts for dessert, and they took these back to the Adirondack chairs with their coffee. Each bite of the meal was more pleasurable than Lucybelle thought it possible for food to be. Vera was right: Lucybelle wasn’t a fussy eater when she cooked.

  Most of the leaves were still a dense green, but the autumn light was distinctly more saturated than it had been when they’d sat outside earlier in the summer. The surface of the pond was a glossy plum color by five o’clock. The air was still thick with warmth, but a coolness tinged the edges, a slight hardness that promised coming ice.

  “I don’t know,” Vera said, as if a question had been asked aloud.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I’m forty-two.”

  “So? I’m forty-one.”

  “You agreed to be a widow.”

  “Is that it? Is that the problem?”

  “I can’t bear any more—”

  “Lies and secrets. Neither can I. If you’d like, I’ll put a banner across my doorway at the lab that says, ‘Lucy is a single queer girl.’ Would that help?”

  “Maybe it would.” She didn’t even laugh. “But what if I wanted you to strike the word ‘single’?”

  Lucybelle rose from her chair and kneeled next to Vera’s. “I love you. I’ll skywrite it, if you want.”

  “Would you?”

  “Yes. I would.” She got to her feet and pulled Vera to hers. They stood facing one another, their hands joined. “Do you know now?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  Lucybelle went weak in the knees at her plain honesty. “You’d be a fool not to be.”

  Vera smiled, and Lucybelle drew all four of their hands around her own waist and joined Vera’s at her back. “We could die of cancer next year.”

  “A tree could fall on us in five minutes.”

  “Not your trees. They’re healthy.”

  Vera kissed her.

  Tuesday, December 29, 1964

  For the next three months, they made love and talked, pretty much non-stop, whenever Vera was in town. She traveled a lot, flying all over the world for her work. The separations were excruciating and they intensified the urgency to make a plan—but for what? In the meantime, Lucybelle had astronomical telephone bills.

  A couple of weeks before Christmas, Vera surprised her by announcing that she was going home to Cutter Creek, Illinois, for the holiday.
>
  “Home? I’ve never heard you use that word for Cutter Creek.” Vera’s family was even more religious than Lucybelle’s, and she hadn’t had an adoring father to compensate for the effects of all that severe biblical judgment.

  “I haven’t seen them in five years. They’re getting old.”

  John Perry and Helen had invited Lucybelle to Portland for Christmas, and Mother would be there too. She ought to go. “Okay. But I won’t do this again.”

  “Do what?”

  “Separate Christmases.”

  The plural, as well as the implied future, alarmed Vera and she tried to change the subject by pointing out a particularly high snowdrift.

  Lucybelle said, “It’s kind of ironic, because I think it’s you and me, what we have, that’s giving you the courage to face them.”

  “Hardly. They’ve all but disowned me because of my lesbianism.”

  “I know that. But our relationship gives me strength. Maybe it does you too. Their feelings likely haven’t changed, but they can’t hurt you now.”

  “I like the theory.”

  A pilot’s license, a PhD, natural history collections from all over the world, none of these can protect a woman from the havoc of family treachery. Not even new love could do that. But it would only be a week, and then they’d be reunited. Lucybelle bought gifts for her nephews and nieces, particularly pleased with a large stuffed mountain lion for seven-year-old Lucy, and flew to Portland with some apprehension.

  She was right to have worried.

  Lucybelle arrived back in New Hampshire on the twenty-eighth, and Vera flew in the next day. The plan had been for Lucybelle to pick her up at the airport, but Vera called late the night before and, citing Lucybelle’s poor winter driving skills, told her she’d take the bus to Lyme and call her neighbor, Mr. Carter, to pick her up in his truck. They had their first argument. Vera prevailed.

  Lucybelle waited all day to hear from her and grabbed the telephone when it finally rang in the early evening.

  “I just wanted to let you know I’ve made it safely home.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “The road is buried in three feet of snow.”

  “Mr. Carter got through.”

  “He has a truck. And he knows how to drive in this weather.”