A Thin Bright Line

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  “It’s perfectly clear out.”

  “Eighteen degrees. Icy.”

  It wasn’t even so much the content of what Vera was saying, since that was actually quite reasonable, it was her tone. Her voice had a lot of shove in it.

  “What happened in Cutter Creek?”

  “Nothing happened in Cutter Creek, believe me. Nothing ever happens in Cutter Creek.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “Damn it, I said no.”

  Lucybelle couldn’t speak for the tears in her throat. She could actually hear Vera breathing, as if she were working up to saying something momentous, and she was.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be harsh like that. But listen.”

  She listened.

  “I need to concentrate more on my work.”

  She kept listening.

  “I didn’t expect things to develop as they have, with you and me.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “I told you from the very start that I want my independence.”

  “You let those people in Illinois hurt you.”

  “No. It’s not that. I need to feel free. I travel all the time for work. I’m away more than I’m home. Missing someone feels restrictive. I’m sorry, it’s just who I am.”

  “That’s a lie, and you know it.” Lucybelle picked up the pillow on her bed and threw it across the room. “You’re afraid.”

  “I don’t want to be tied down. Relationships are binding.”

  “God, was I ever tricked into thinking you were so courageous. You’re a coward like everyone else. Oh, how easy to never be disappointed by a pile of bones and feathers, by an icy pond. They won’t ever hurt you, will they? In fact, they won’t even talk. You have it all figured out.”

  “It’s better to end it now. Before we get too mired.”

  “Mired. Nice word. I’m not mired, Vera. I’m in love with you.”

  “I’ve really enjoyed these three months, but—”

  Lucybelle hung up on her. She pulled on her warmest wool pants and sweater, grabbed her coat and car keys, and slammed the door to her studio on the way out. It was true that she wasn’t a great snow driver, but the highway was plowed, with only a few icy patches, and she drove slowly, despite the fury pounding her heart. Once past Lyme, the road conditions worsened, but she made it to the turnoff for Post Pond without any mishaps. There the snow was indeed a couple of feet thick, but deep tire tracks— Mr. Carter’s truck, no doubt—had been carved through the drifts. She turned left on the snow-blanketed dirt road at the back side of the pond and continued driving into the forest, beginning to consider all kinds of crazy possibilities. Vera hadn’t left Cutter Creek at all, was mired, to use her word, in the family, stuck there forever. Or she’d met someone new, and this was her way of moving on. Or she was a cold, data-driven scientist who’d only wanted to see if she could seduce Lucybelle, and now, mission accomplished, had lost interest.

  By the time her Bel Air slid into the snowbank, she was in a state. Furious, heartbroken, and confused. The driver’s door was smashed right up against the wall of snow. She grunted aloud as she made her way across the seat, her overcoat bunching up and inhibiting movement, so she could get out of the passenger side. She realized that while she’d thought to put on warm pants, a sweater, and a coat, she was still wearing her canvas sneakers. She jumped out of the car anyway and started trudging. The brilliant skyful of stars didn’t help. They only reminded her of how dreadfully cold it was, their radiance literally light-years away, nothing to keep her warm but her own pulsing blood. Twice she fell. The second time she floundered for so long in the deep snow, trying to gain enough purchase to stand, that she cried out in frustration. A crust of snow covered her wool coat. She walked on, mucus running from her nose and tears freezing on her cheeks. She didn’t have a hat. She got very cold.

  She pushed open Vera’s door and stood there on the threshold.

  “Jesus,” Vera said.

  “On the telephone. You tried to break up with me on the telephone.”

  Vera pulled her inside the cabin. “Where’s your car?”

  “Down the road in a goddamn snowbank.”

  Vera wrapped her in a blanket and put on a kettle. She kept saying, “Jesus.”

  “You pick that Jesus bit up in Cutter Creek?”

  Vera may as well have been a snowshoe hare with her foot caught in a steel trap, so visible was her emotional struggle.

  “No,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

  Lucybelle had eaten toast this morning but couldn’t remember anything since then.

  “I’ll heat up some soup.”

  “I don’t want soup. I want you to kiss me.”

  “But you’re so angry.”

  “You’ll have to weather that.”

  Vera knelt down and took off Lucybelle’s wet socks and sneakers. She stayed on her knees, warming the toes in her hands.

  “Let’s go to bed. I’d like to remind you of a thing or two.”

  “Jesus,” Vera said again.

  “No Jesus. And no more Illinois.” She pulled Vera into the bedroom. “I’m hypothermic. Warm me up.”

  “Apparently,” Vera said a few minutes later, “you were already warmed up.”

  “No talking. I’m still angry at you.”

  “I know. So I may as well tell you the rest.”

  “I want to make love again.”

  “God,” Vera said.

  “Please.”

  So they did, but then, afterward, Vera said, “You need to hear what I have to say.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “They want to transfer me to Washington.”

  That was all? Lucybelle felt relieved. “Well, that’s crazy.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “You’d never leave your pond.”

  “I need a job to go with my pond.”

  “You’re not serious. You wouldn’t move to Washington.”

  “I banked my entire life on my education. The blood and sweat that went into getting this job, you can’t possibly know.”

  “Don’t patronize me. I do know. But what about us?”

  Vera flopped onto her back and remained silent.

  Lucybelle got out of bed. She found her soggy clothes in a pile on the floor and started to pull them on. Nothing had ever felt so soddenly dreadful.

  “Please come back to bed.”

  “Why? Why would I do that?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “How many days until you leave me again?”

  Her voice was way too small, nearly choked, but she did say, “I won’t.”

  In the morning a loud knocking awakened them. Vera pulled on her robe and closed the bedroom door before answering the front one.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Mr. Carter’s loud voice boomed out. “But I wondered if you know whose car that is, down the way about a mile?”

  “A mile?” Vera said.

  Yes! Lucybelle wanted to shout. A mile!

  Later that morning, Mr. Carter helped the two women tow the Bel Air out of the snowbank. He followed Lucybelle back to the highway to make sure she made it safely.

  Thursday–Saturday, March 25–27, 1965

  At the beginning of the year, Lorraine Hansberry died and Malcolm X was assassinated. The country seemed to be coming apart. Civil rights protesters in Alabama were beaten, hosed, and attacked by police dogs. Lucybelle watched the televised broadcasts, searching the faces, hoping to find Stella’s. She knew she’d be there with her camera.

  On Thursday, March 25, after so much bloodshed and heartbreak, twenty-five thousand peaceful protesters arrived at the Alabama state capitol. Governor George Wallace refused to meet Dr. Martin Luther King, but the reverend spoke to the nation from the steps. “I know some of you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to the earth will rise a
gain. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you will reap what you sow. How long? Not long, because the arm of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

  Lucybelle wanted so badly for Vera to be with her then, witnessing that moment. So much was ending, and yet so much also seemed to be beginning. How long would it take? King’s words opened up a great tender hopefulness. Not long.

  Vera called her the next morning at work to say that she would be in Puerto Rico another two weeks.

  “That’s too long.”

  “How’s your novel going?”

  It was Vera’s way of reminding her that their separations had an advantage for her as well. Lucybelle wanted to hear, I love you. She wanted to tell Vera about Reverend King’s speech. They were on the CRREL line, though, and could only allow themselves one or two personal comments, and those had to be bloodless.

  When Lucybelle hung up she felt raw. She ached, both for Vera and for the future that Reverend King had described, where truth pressed to the earth, where you could reap what you sowed. However difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour.

  She jumped at the sound of her buzzer and pushed the intercom button to find out what Vivian wanted. “Dorothy Shipwright called while you were on the line just now. She’d like you to call her.”

  “Dorothy?”

  “The librarian.”

  “Thank you. I’ll call her back.”

  Of course she knew who Dorothy Shipwright was, but they’d had so little interaction in the past couple of years. When they did need to engage at work, they both pretended they’d never been more than casual friends. Every once in a while Lucybelle suffered a spasm of guilt, as if her happiness were at the expense of Dorothy’s unhappiness, but that was silly. What did one have to do with the other?

  Still agape with Reverend King’s words of optimism and flayed open by the sound of Vera’s voice, she picked up the phone and punched Dorothy’s extension.

  “Have dinner with me tomorrow night,” Dorothy said, sounding like her old affable self. “We’ll celebrate spring.”

  Celebrate spring! What a contrast to that day on the train coming home from New York, Dorothy announcing her remorse over what had happened between them. Or the day of Lucybelle’s fortieth birthday, Dorothy crumpled and sobbing over Mary’s impending marriage. Lucybelle was happy to hear her cheerfulness. Perhaps Dorothy was unfolding.

  “I miss you,” Dorothy carried on. “It’s stupid. We used to be such good friends.”

  Lucybelle had no plans for tomorrow night. She accepted the invitation.

  Dorothy still lived in the apartment Lucybelle had found for her and her mother, the same one where her mother had died, but now the place was a surprising mess, with books on the floor and magazines stacked unevenly on the side tables. There were even two piles of laundry in the front room. “I haven’t gotten any neater,” Dorothy said, kicking at one of the piles. “Why bother? It’s just me. I’m making us martinis. Look, I got us some Booth’s.” She held up the bottle.

  Lucybelle didn’t really want a martini but she figured she could just sip it. Once the drink was in her hand, though, she was glad for its support.

  “I hardly ever get a proper drink anymore,” Dorothy said. “Pastor Lane is opposed to excess, and it’s hard to make a case for alcohol being anything other than excess.” Dorothy deepened her voice and seesawed her jaw, doing an imitation of her pastor commenting on alcohol.

  Lucybelle laughed, happy to see that her old friend’s sense of humor was still intact. “So how are you?” she asked, truly wanting to know.

  “I’m fine. Wonderful! I know you never approved of Mary, but—”

  “I’ve never even met Mary.”

  “I know. But my choice to leave the life behind. You were judgmental of that.”

  “I’m sorry.” What else could she say?

  Dorothy grinned, appeared to savor the apology, terse as it was.

  God, she missed Vera. How she’d like to be with her now, in the cabin at the pond, talking about everything, looking at that lovely, complex face. Vera had promised to be home in time for the pussywillows, but now another two weeks in Puerto Rico.

  “I’m nowhere near as brave as you,” Dorothy carried on. “Anyway, I’m happier this way. Stephen is so kind to me. They’re teaching the baby to call me ‘Aunt Dot.’ Isn’t that sweet? She’s pregnant again.”

  Lucybelle nodded, tried to smile, and finished her drink.

  “And I love my church. Pastor Lane can be a little overbearing, but we make fun of him—not to his face, of course!—and he’s a good man. I’ve joined the bowling team!” Dorothy laughed too hard and color rose into her cheeks. Lucybelle remembered her in that pirate outfit and must have glanced below her face, because Dorothy said, “I’ve gained fifteen pounds. There’re cookies at every single church event. But who cares? I’m on my own, I don’t need a figure.” She stood up. “I’ll make a couple more drinks.”

  By now Lucybelle wanted another one. “I miss the egg rolls and dipping sauce,” she called toward the kitchen.

  Dorothy laughed again and brought out the fresh drinks. “We had fun. But we were so young. We could risk everything.”

  “We’re not that old yet.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  Lucybelle’s stomach growled as she took a gulp of the second martini. She wondered when dinner would be served.

  “Tell me about you,” Dorothy said. “Any new loves in your life?”

  Lucybelle and Vera each lived far from the lab, and also far from one another. They assumed that their relationship had not been detected by anyone, but they didn’t know for sure.

  “I didn’t think so,” Dorothy said. “Where would you meet anyone up here?”

  A disturbing thought occurred to Lucybelle: Dorothy was a story she hadn’t told Vera. She hadn’t withheld it on purpose, not exactly. It would have been unfair, she reasoned with herself now, even unkind, to expose Dorothy in that way. She clearly would not want to be revealed. They all worked together, after all. Lucybelle took a drink of her martini and admitted the other truth: the story about Clare in the entryway passed as funny, but just barely; an account of the New Year’s Eve jamboree with Dorothy would not be well received.

  “I’m sorry,” Dorothy said. “About what happened between us.”

  “It’s in the past now.”

  “I can see how you would have misinterpreted everything.”

  So this was the point of the evening: to make sure Lucybelle knew that she was the jilted one. She kept herself from asking what exactly she had misinterpreted. The sooner they moved on from this topic of conversation the better.

  “I did it for your own sake.”

  This was getting more twisted by the second.

  “It started just for fun.” Dorothy laughed her big goofy laugh. “You know, with the books.”

  “The books?” Everything began to spin. “What are you talking about?”

  “That was so much fun! You knew it was me, right?” She laughed even harder, as if they were sharing a very funny joke.

  “No.”

  “Really? You didn’t? Oh, you goof.”

  Lucybelle found herself forcing a smile. How silly of her to take the books as threats. How stupid of her to not see the joke.

  “I sent the first one because I wanted to know if you were. You know, one of the girls.”

  “You mean a lesbian.”

  “Ew. I hate that word.”

  That’s why she’d used it. Lucybelle finished off her martini. Of course this wasn’t a joke at all. She wondered if she could stand up and just leave.

  “Look, it’s no secret I had feelings for you,” Dorothy said. “I mean, obviously.”

  Lucybelle’s head began swimming.

  “I invited you tonight because I wanted to apologize. I know what I did was wrong. But I did it for you, not against you. When I realized you were involved with that Stel
la Robinson girl, I got worried.”

  “What are you saying?” The betrayal loomed so large, was so suffocating, that in that first moment she couldn’t even see it. All she knew was that she couldn’t breathe.

  “Everyone makes mistakes. God knows I have. But she had a girlfriend the entire time you were together. And you knew about Wanda.”

  How did she know Wanda’s name?

  “I was trying to protect you,” Dorothy said. “That’s how it started, anyway. But I’m a librarian. I love research! So I admit, it became a game too.”

  “You.” Lucybelle felt as if she’d disgorged, rather than spoken, the word.

  “Don’t look at me that way. I want you to understand.”

  “You pretended to be my friend.”

  “I was your friend! That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you. Even when they stopped paying me, I tried to help.”

  “Paying you?”

  “Hardly much. That was the least of it. I mean, sure, I took the money, why not? But that’s not why I did it.”

  “Who paid you?”

  Dorothy laughed. “Oh, you know, they don’t really tell you who they are. But the extra income was nice. I had my mother to take care of, you might recall. The best part though was that I could help you at the same time.”

  “You took money to inform on my activities?”

  “That’s funny. You make it sound like a spy novel. Believe me, they weren’t all that interested in you, anyway. In fact, they stopped paying me after a while. But I kept going. Because of how much I cared about you. I don’t expect you to understand that part. I know the feelings weren’t mutual.”

  “What do you mean, you ‘kept going’?”

  “I went rogue!” That familiar nutty spark lit her eyes.

  Lucybelle almost laughed with Dorothy.

  “The point is, as long as I was the one gathering information, I could control what information was gathered and who got ahold of it. Better it was me. You were safe in my hands. I was like a pressure-release valve. If I quit, someone who could have really harmed you might have taken over.”

  “You already said they weren’t interested in me.”

  “Oh, they were at first. That’s my point. They might have continued caring if I hadn’t led them off the track.”