Rafferty Street

by Lee Lynch

  Gussie had managed to put on a little lipstick and face powder. “Yes? I’ll give him a piece of my mind when I get sprung from this prison my doctor calls a hospital. Where was he last night? Where were all the neighbors? Haven’t I almost single-handedly kept his ice cream stock fresh? Haven’t I made chicken soup for half the people up and down the street when they’ve been ill? They come trooping up here to click their tongues, but don’t want to talk about what happened or why. Boys will be boys! they say. They don’t know what’s come over kids these days. Well, I do,” she went on between bites of mint chocolate chip. “I know exactly what’s wrong. They’re acting out their parents’ prejudices. I told them I’ll be at the window, Annie, twenty-two in hand, phone by my side. No more Miss Nice Guy.”

  “Do you have a permit for that thing?” Annie asked.

  “You bet your boots I do. And I can shoot it too. It’s probably time for us to find a place where I can teach you.”

  She was too afraid that the Hothead Paisan in her would be activated. “I don’t think so, Gus.”

  Gussie scraped the bowl. “Just as soon as I get out of here, Socrates, we’re going to find a shooting range and do some target practice. What about you, Chantal, do you know how to defend yourself?”

  “My ex-husband took us all out and gave us lessons when the kids hit their teens,” Chantal answered. Then she gave her warm laugh. “I got so good I think that’s why he didn’t dispute my claims in the divorce.” She looked at Annie. “But I agree. That’s not the best way.”

  “Best, my arse,” Gussie sputtered. “If you’re up against it, you might not have a choice.”

  “What happened to Grandma Gandhi? If I’m up against it,” Annie said, “I’d rather not have that option.”

  “What would you have had me do the other night? Last night—was it just last night? Ignore them? Peaceful negotiation? Run? With this body?”

  Annie flushed. “You’re right. I would count on my legs to get me away.”

  “There’s a point when ideals are just not a strong enough self-defense,” Gussie concluded.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll learn. No sense giving the enemy any advantage.”

  Chantal grew quiet but, Annie noticed, didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. Annie was trying to keep the conversation going when Peg and Paris arrived with flowers and news.

  Paris burst out, “Not one of them even had to spend the night in the city jail.”

  “Only the victim got locked up,” complained Gussie.

  “They were charged,” added Peg, carefully rolling down her sleeves. “Our ACLU friend said if you want to try a civil suit against the boys she’ll look into it.”

  “I like the gun idea better,” Gussie muttered.

  “But Heaphy, now that Judy offered to reinstate you, you have no legal recourse even though we know you’ve suffered as a result of her actions.”

  “It’s okay. I’m going back to work in two weeks.”

  “Congratulations!” cried Paris, hugging her.

  She told them about the exchange with Judy. “I just have to remember who it is I’m supposed to be fighting.”

  “I’m glad it’s not Judy Wald,” Peg ran her hands up and down her plum-colored silken sleeves. “They certainly keep this place air conditioned.”

  “It’s so the Jell-O won’t melt,” Gussie interjected.

  Chantal, laughing with Gussie, caught Annie’s eye. “What was the charge?” Annie wanted to know.

  “Malicious mischief. Defacing private property. Disturbing the peace, that sort of thing. And I think they got that much only because they hassled the cops. They’re probably cleaning the paint off your house right now. The parents were ordered to supervise that.”

  “A spanking,” complained Paris.

  “But,” Peg added, “the headlines today will warn Morton River about the climate it’s creating. They’re running your profile tomorrow, Gussie. The editor wants to shame this damn town.”

  Gussie held up the paper. There was a two-column photograph of one of the swastikas the youths had sprayed on the sidewalk.

  “That would be enough to scare me,” said Annie.

  “As I recall, it did.”

  “Maybe you and Jennifer should cook up another article, about what last night was like.”

  “Don’t you think Annie’s been martyr enough?” asked Chantal a little sharply.

  Paris looked at Chantal quickly, then nodded. “You’re right. More of us will take our turns. How’re you feeling, Gussie?”

  As Gussie went through her litany, Annie’s eyes met Chantal’s again. She felt herself blush when they said their good-byes together and she caught Paris’ knowing look. She couldn’t stop grinning.

  *

  “Come to my place, Sugar,” Chantal suggested when they reached the parking lot. “I’ll feed you some supper.”

  “I really need to be at the house tonight. If they come back…”

  “Understood.”

  “But it’s good to see you. I don’t want to ask you over because it’s dangerous for you.”

  Chantal actually stamped a foot. “Will you stop that, Annie Heaphy? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but don’t you be telling me what to do. If I want to risk my snow white reputation keeping company with the most eligible bachelor in town, that’s my right.” She paused, as if to make certain that Annie wasn’t going to try and cross her. Softening her tone, Chantal suggested, “Tell you what, we’ll stop at my house and pick up a Jell-O mold or two, and eat at Rafferty Street. At least one of us will know how to use that rifle if we need to.”

  Annie laughed. “It might even be fun to fight this battle next to you. But I don’t think I have any Cool Whip to go with moldy Jell-O.”

  “No problem. We’ll melt Styrofoam packing peanuts. Same thing.”

  “I really want to spend the evening with you. Are you sure? They seem to be watching our place.”

  “Sugar—” warned Chantal.

  At Violet Street, she went in with Chantal to help carry the makings of dinner. A gust of spicy smells hit her.

  “Ralph! Company!” Chantal chimed as they entered the little house.

  Annie assumed Chantal was warning the boy to get dressed and be polite, but he came rushing out of the kitchen, apron over his giant-sized T-shirt and baggy knee-length shorts, asking, “Is it her?”

  “Ralph!” Chantal scolded with a laugh. “This is Annie Heaphy.”

  “Hi!” said Ralph with warmth. He carried a steamy cloud of cooking smells with him when he came over to peck his mother’s cheek and shake Annie’s hand with both of his. “Am I glad to meet you!”

  She’d expected Chantal’s soldier son to be a gangly, muttering, embarrassed and oversized male reeking of hormones, but he was a plump duck-footed kid no taller than her five feet five inches, with a voice that sounded like it had never finished changing and nerves which seemed to keep him in constant motion. He talked incessantly and with surprising confidence for such a young man.

  “I was just cooking up a batch of pierogies. You two want some?”

  “To go, please, Ralph. We’re worried about Gussie’s house over there on Rafferty Street after what happened.”

  “Yeah. I don’t blame you,” Ralph said, twisting to study Annie. “I probably went to school with some of those guys. With this sissy out of town, you can bet they’ve been looking for someone else to pick on. How about I make you plates to warm up? You have applesauce at your place?”

  “Yes. Gussie eats it by the quart.” Annie watched the kid as he cooked the sausage, talking all the while, as if the stove were not generating insufferable heat on this warm June evening.

  “I’m so glad Mom found a friend. She was working on being a pain. Me, I have the friends, it’s a mate I want.” He gently lay the pirogues on plates. “I could marry my pal Dora when I come home. She wants to settle down and have kids too, but I don’t think that would be fair to either of us. You know what I really, really want? I want to
be able to do all that with a man.” He lovingly tucked foil over the plates. He was still talking when he handed his mom into the Saab.

  “Drive careful,” he warned Annie as she settled her glasses on her nose.

  Once out of earshot she asked Chantal, “Why do I feel like I just got inspected by your mother?”

  Chantal laughed. “Ralph’s been like that since he could walk, leading me around by the hand, taking care of Mom. He’s the reason I finally got the divorce before the kids were grown—he hated the way his dad treated me.”

  “Do you think he approves?”

  “When you were getting in the car he gave me the thumbs up.”

  At a stoplight Annie said, “You tell Ralph for me that I said this about him.” She held up two thumbs, grinned wide and said, “Excellent.”

  When they got to Rafferty Street they ate the spicy pierogies, called Gussie, played with Toothpick, watched “Murder, She Wrote” in Gussie’s room and checked the windows now and then for trouble.

  “Shall I call Ralph for a ride home yet?” Chantal asked from Gussie’s easy chair.

  Annie was on Gussie’s bed. She bounced up and flung her arms out in despair. “You have to go already?”

  “Monday morning is only a few hours away.”

  “You could stay here—in Nan’s room,” she hurriedly amended.

  “Sugar, I didn’t bring nightclothes or…”

  “We could find some around.”

  “…makeup.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s the matter, you don’t want to stay alone?”

  “No. They’re not going to bother us again so soon. It’s—I don’t know, Chantal. It feels so cozy, sitting here with you, watching the tube. Like normal life. I seldom feel like chasing excitement in Morton River, but I do get lonesome, even with Gussie around. She’s so involved in her own schedule she really has very little time for me.”

  “And you know I have time for you.”

  “You seem willing to hang out, listen to me worry aloud about everything, make room for me in your life.”

  “That sounds pretty accurate.”

  “Even with all our clothes on.”

  “I like being with you even with all our clothes on.”

  So they wore clothes when they got into Annie’s bed that night. Chantal, a much-laundered plain nightshirt from Gussie’s drawer that smelled like Gussie’s talcum powder. Annie hung her team cap on her hat tree and climbed in wearing the floppy men’s paisley pajamas she’d bought now that she wasn’t living alone. Toothpick attacked their feet for a while, then retired to the easy chair.

  Plain or not, when Annie saw the drape of the nightshirt on Chantal’s body she swallowed hard and looked away. What wonderful breasts, she thought. Then she reminded herself that she could do this without touching Chantal. She really, really could do this just for the company.

  “Cuddle buddies, I think is what they’d call us in the personals,” Annie tried to convince herself aloud, lying on her back with Chantal’s head on her shoulder. She held herself stiffly away from the sweet willing body beside her.

  Chantal squirmed. “Bunnies,” she offered.

  “Cuddle bunnies?”

  “Mmm. Tell me a story.”

  “Shh. What was that?”

  They both froze, intent on more sounds. Toothpick’s ears were at full alert, her eyes staring at the window. “What did it sound like?” whispered Chantal.

  “Thumpy-clashy, like somebody quietly bumping into the garbage can, if anyone can do that quietly.”

  “Do you have raccoons?”

  “Now and then.” They listened a while longer. “Sorry,” said Annie. “I guess it was a false alarm.”

  Chantal shifted, then turned on her side away from Annie. “Hey, where you going?” Annie protested, reaching out for her.

  “Don’t worry. I just need to change positions. This is how I sleep.”

  “Is it?” Annie asked, a little concerned about a flutter inside. “What?” Chantal asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “No. Something.”

  “It’s just an intimate thing to know. How a woman sleeps.”

  “A good cuddle bunny would hold me now.”

  “Right.” Annie slid an arm under Chantal. “Remember the day we met, at Medipak? It was another one of those moments, wasn’t it, when life as we know it comes to an end? Not a moment of choice, but of chance. If Cece hadn’t been at the meeting, if Judy hadn’t laid me off, if Lorelei hadn’t kissed me, if I hadn’t gotten onto that plane and left Eugene, left New York, left Chelsea—”

  “I still think,” said Chantal sleepily, “you think too much.”

  “You’re so warm,” she said, encircling Chantal with the other arm. “And so soft.”

  “You like that?”

  Under Gussie’s talc, she caught Chantal’s scent. “I like that.”

  Chantal wiggled to fit into Annie’s curve. Annie had been holding herself back to avoid pressing against Chantal’s bottom. She relaxed and with the relaxation came a great wave of sadness. She heard it in the shuddering sigh that escaped her. Felt it in the tears that began to fall with no other warning.

  “Hey!” said Chantal, trying to turn.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are so silly, Sugar. I won’t look at you. Tell me what’s the matter.”

  “Maybe nothing. I mean, maybe I’m just unwinding enough to feel what I’m feeling.”

  “You cry when you get in bed with a woman?”

  Annie wiped her nose on the sleeve of her pajamas. “Crap. I feel so burnt. I think I’m finally getting a little taste of what it’s like to be visibly different in this country. People hating me just for being me. No rhyme or reason. Just scared of me because I’m a queer.”

  “It’s sure a different way of being in the world. Angel to devil. One day I’m a mom and A-okay, the next I’m something you scrape off your shoe.”

  Annie squeezed her. “It must be even harder coming on board later in life, once you know what you missed all those years.”

  “But I was missing so much more before.”

  She worked up her nerve. “Do you think trying to be straight all those years made you so, such, such a…planner?”

  Chantal’s body tensed. “What do you mean?”

  Annie became aware of how warm she was. Her skin was damp. “Nothing bad. Just the way you planned your house. How you like everything just so. Lots of people are like that. I just was never friends with one.”

  “And it bothers you?”

  “More like it scares me a little. Like you’ll want me to be just so. As a friend, I mean.”

  She could feel Chantal nod. “I thought there was something more than me having kids or this anti-gay business. I mean, you’ll get used to the kids and I’m afraid we’ll all have to get used to being leery around some straight people. About my fuddy-duddy ways—you’re right, I’ve been accused of being a control-freak. I’ve never thought of it being because I’m gay, but it makes sense. I couldn’t do what I really wanted—didn’t even know what I wanted—so it was important to get my way in other things.”

  She rubbed her nose, now dry, affectionately against Chantal’s back. “See why I like you? You didn’t get all defensive.”

  Chantal reached around with a chilly foot to touch Annie’s ankle. “I don’t know that I’ll ever change, though.”

  “Maybe I just needed to say that it worried me.”

  “I can see why!”

  “Besides, there are times I need unscrambling.”

  “So you think I’ll come in handy?”

  “In a pinch.” She moved a hand to Chantal’s bottom.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  “Just teasing.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Chantal said with an exaggerated sigh.

  “Listen, Chantal,” she said just as the idea came into her mind. “Will you co
me up to Chelsea with me one of these weekends?” She’d never taken a soul back to Boston since she’d left. Her heart accelerated. Maybe it would be a stupid move.

  Chantal’s voice was animated. She twisted her head toward Annie. “To see where you grew up?”

  “Such as it is.”

  “I’d love to come.”

  “My family would be there. Not exactly a weekend on the Riviera.”

  Laying her cheek back against the pillow Chantal pulled Annie’s other arm across her waist. “Tomorrow, on the way to work, we’ll swing by the old firetrap where I grew up. But I’m not introducing you to the rest of my family yet.”

  “I’m not out to mine. My Dad’s side is Catholic and already worried about me burning in hell.” Annie was excited. “I can show you my old neighborhood; get your opinion about the shape my parents are in.” For a brief moment, she felt like she wasn’t stranded in a strange world after all. She said nothing more until her heart slowed. “You know what?” she asked.

  “What?” Chantal murmured.

  “I don’t want to go to sleep. You feel too good.”

  Chantal didn’t say anything.

  “You falling asleep?” Annie asked.

  In answer, Chantal burrowed closer, kissing Annie’s wrist in the process.

  “Umm.” She responded by letting her lips sweep the back of Chantal’s neck. It was slightly damp from the heat. The blond hairs were short and soft. She tightened her arms around Chantal, tasted her own moist minty breath, caught in her lips some of the fine blond hair beyond any scissors’ reach. Chantal kissed her wrist again, nibbled her palm, warm raspberries falling into a bowl. Annie’s lips drifted to Chantal’s shoulder, nudged down a strap to explore the tender terrain.

  She told herself that this was safe, just friendly, but then, with a slight movement closer, came the flush, starting at her rib cage and spreading up until her head was encased in an aura of heat and her every disciplined thought fizzled. The comfort of Chantal, the supreme seduction of her comfort was just too much. Lolling on the fringes of Chantal was like hovering between the instant before waking and an elaborately sensual dream.