Touchwood

by Karin Kallmaker

  "If we can't share our problems, what can we share?" Rayann hiccupped again. Great, now I sound like I need to be burped She found a tissue and blew her nose.

  "It's my... instinct to want to protect you, Ray. You're young and free. I don't want to hold you down."

  "I'm not a child and I'm not free," Rayann answered. "Can't you be a little bit selfish for once — burden me, make demands on me. I'm supposed to be your lover."

  "It's not easy for me." Louisa bit her lower lip again, but this time there was no laughter.

  "You have my heart and just about every inch of my body." Rayann smiled slightly. "I think the little toe on my left foot is the only part of me you haven't left an indelible impression on."

  "I'll have to take care of that," Louisa said. "If it's any comfort I was never able to share my problems with Chris, either. With Danny, but never Chris."

  Rayann snapped, "I won't be an emotional femme for you."

  Louisa's eyes widened and her expression hardened slightly. "Chris was not a femme. You aren't either."

  "But you treat me like one."

  "You don't know what you're talking about. If you were my femme I wouldn't have let you build shelves, or…"

  "I'm talking about in bed. You won't let me touch you."

  "Ray, it's not that I don't want you to."

  "Then what?" Rayann felt a wave of relief. At least she wants me.

  "I. .. you can't teach an old dog…"

  "Will you stop calling yourself old! You're doing it deliberately."

  "Because you seem to forget."

  "I don't. I just know that you're the woman I love. With the body I'd love to pleasure and taste if only you'd let me."

  "I'm afraid I'll disappoint you. I'm not up on the latest dance steps. There, satisfied?" Louisa turned her back.

  Rayann went to her, putting her arms around Louisa from behind. She whispered in her ear, "My darling, have you noticed me complaining in any way? The female body is just the same as it was four thousand years ago. Maybe we know a little more about why it feels good, but it doesn't change the fact that lips and tongues and fingers combined with mouths and breasts and... you know." Rayann was suddenly shy and glad Louisa was not looking at her. She swallowed. "It feels good. Some things more than others. Teach me what feels good to you."

  Louisa turned in Rayann's arms. "You are amazing, quite beyond your years. I think in the deep recesses of my mind I thought if I got on my back for you you'd suddenly appear with electrical devices, latex and…"

  "Whips and chains, and so on?" Rayann laughed, hugging her. "Not all us young folk are into that scene, Macho Sluts to the contrary — but who knows what people do in private — no two lesbians are alike. Except of course that we're the newest development on the evolutionary ladder."

  "Wise child," Louisa said. She kissed Rayann on the nose.

  Rayann lowered her head. "And you don't have to... get on your back, so to speak. Just let me have a little control. Let me touch you. Let me taste you." She was encouraged by Louisa's shudder.

  "Chris didn't, she…"

  Rayann kissed Louisa swiftly. "You get to start over with me."

  They rocked in each other's arms, slowly swaying to music from the radio downstairs.

  "Who's going to go close up?" Louisa's voice was distant and dreamy.

  "It's not quite time," Rayann said. "Ill go." Rayann floated downstairs and impatiently waited for closing time. Thank goodness it was a quiet night. At five minutes to the hour the chimes rang. Figures. Rayann's heart leapt into her throat as Ted smiled congenially at her. You were supposed to call!

  "How's business?"

  "Business is fine. I... need to make a phone call, excuse me." She hurried to the stairs. "Louisa," she called. "Ted's here." The sudden creak of the floor and where it came from told her Louisa had been waiting for her in bed.

  "I'm sure she'll be right down," Rayann said. She was in a bind. If she talked to him he might ask her out; if she didn't talk to him he might go upstairs and discover Louisa dressing. "I'll just make that phone call." She dialed their bank's teleservicing line and started writing down anything the computer told her, the balance, the checks that had cleared recently, the most recent deposits.

  By the time she had exhausted her options Louisa appeared at the door to the stairs.

  "Hi, son," she said. She kissed him as she usually did. "Want some coffee?"

  He glanced over at Rayann who was in the middle of asking the operator if she could get a copy of a canceled check.

  "Ray will be up in just a second. Won't you?" Louisa looked at her for agreement. Rayann nodded.

  She emerged at the top of the stairs as Teddy was saying, "Mom, you sound so serious. Is something wrong?"

  "No, I just need to tell you a story. You too, Ray. You haven't heard this one."

  Rayann selected Louisa's easy chair while Louisa paced in front of them. Teddy leaned back on the sofa, watching his mother intently.

  "You have to promise to hear me out, Ted. Promise me."

  "Of course."

  "When I was growing up there were three kinds of acceptable women. Young girls not yet married, married women or widows. Remember that because it makes some of what I've done with my life make sense. I didn't have any other choices in a tiny place like Merced. I didn't know there were any other choices. All I knew was that I looked awful in pencil skirts and my shoulders were too broad for the sleeveless tops that were supposed to make me ultra-feminine." She smiled wryly. "I once had the bright idea of using my height and black hair to imitate Leslie Caron, but when I cut my hair short it frizzed. All the Dippity-Dew in the world wouldn't make it into the 'shining black cap' they described in the fashion magazine. I never fit in. I thought it was the way I looked, but it was something inside me, something different."

  She was silent for a moment or two. With a puzzled sigh she shook her head and went on. "Out with it. I thought I was the only girl ever born who didn't like boys. I didn't even know the word lesbian existed." She stopped when Teddy suddenly sat forward.

  "Mom, why are you doing this?"

  "You promised you would hear me out."

  He sat back, but not before he looked at Rayann. She stared back at him and his eyes suddenly narrowed. She gave the merest nod of the head, a slight lift of one eyebrow. Yes, I'm one too. His jaw tightened.

  "I once kissed a classmate. I told her I loved her. I look back on it and I realize how frightened she must have been. Though she'd kissed me back, she told me I was a queer and she'd just been finding out how far I'd go. I didn't kiss another girl for years. That's what fear does to you. Her rumors, coupled with the fact that I didn't date, made every girl who tried to befriend me decide I was definitely one of those women nobody talked about but everybody knew existed. The other kind of woman. At least I knew I wasn't the only one anymore."

  "I remember when that horrible lonely feeling went away," Rayann said quietly. Teddy glared at her.

  "They were incredibly powerful sights to me. I would see butches and femmes walking together, and they frightened me because I was afraid someone would look at them, then at me, and know I was one, too. And during the seventies I kind of went along with the sentiment that there was something regressive about butch and femme relationships and I tried to unlearn what I'd learned in the bars and with Chris. I feel so different now, looking back — they were there. They were the ones who were getting beat up and arrested and the rest of us got a little freedom for what it cost them," Louisa said passionately. She took two quick breaths and rushed on, "I never had the guts for it. That's why I got married, an act of non-defiance, complete compliance. That's how you came to be, Teddy."

  "Don't do this." Rayann could see that he was embarrassed and angry. But he loves her too, or he wouldn't still be sitting here.

  "I have to. This is my life I'm giving you, the life you guess at, but never wanted to recognize. I still remember why I did everything, as if it were a movie I'd seen hun
dreds of times. This was the moment my life changed irrevocably — every detail is clear. Christmas vacation. The street lights had been wrapped like candy canes by the Jaycees. I was shopping for something to wear for Christmas at my mother's. I went into a dressing room to try on a blue sweater with a large rose appliqué. "Silver Bells" was playing in the background. I heard voices in the room next to mine. I recognized the voice — it was the girl I had kissed, the one who had spread rumors about me. I blamed her for the fact that I was so unhappy, so I justified spying on her, just to get even. She and another girl were kissing, that was all. They were completely dressed, not even really touching." Tears gleamed in Louisa's eyes. "Just like when she had kissed me".

  "You were hurt, and it was a long time ago," Rayann said soothingly.

  "I felt so betrayed. I got dressed and waited for her outside the shop. When she left the store with the other girl, I asked her if I could talk to her. Being seen with me put her on the spot, but I really begged. I told her I'd seen her in the dressing room and all I wanted to know was if she still thought it was wrong. I must have frightened her to death. She said everyone knew I was queer, and if I didn't get married right away and leave her alone forever she was going to tell my mother everything."

  Rayann said, "I was so frightened my mother would find out, I didn't tell her for years. I wasted time — she knew all along, and you've seen how she's starting to get over her homophobia." She used the word deliberately, with a glance at Teddy. He was staring at her as if she were a sub-creature. He blames me for this.

  "Rayann has nothing to do with my past," Louisa said quietly. "But she has everything to do with my future."

  Teddy swallowed and looked back at his mother. "So how did you get married?"

  "Much the same way I told you. I just left out the beginning. I was crazy with fear. My mother wasn't very healthy, and I thought finding out would kill her. I thought maybe I could be arrested. I decided I needed to prove I was a normal woman so that if my friend did talk, no one would believe her. I went in and bought the sweater. Then I got in my car, put on some lipstick, Ravishing Red, and drove to a dance joint where G.I.'s hung out. I loosed my distributor cap and waited until one came along and offered to help. He wasn't married, didn't have any family. He had a two-week furlough and then he was being shipped to Korea. He said he could get killed, and he'd always wanted to get married so he could have someone to write to. So he put the distributor cap back on, then we drove over to Nevada and got married. I now had proof I was a normal woman. I called my mother the next day and she was happy, relieved I think. Like I said, she wasn't well. I was something she didn't have to worry about anymore."

  "That doesn't explain how I came into being, not if you don't like men."

  Louisa's tone hardened. "If you had ever bothered to notice, you'd see that women have always done things they do not like in order to survive. It's the ongoing story of one half of the species." Her voice softened again. "Your father wasn't any more experienced than I was. He was kind. After two weeks he went back to the army and never came home from Korea. He did write once or twice, then he was killed. You have his purple heart, Teddy. That's really the only trace he left. But I had you. You were all mine and adorable. As a war widow I was perfectly respectable, and I could work because I had a mouth to feed and my sainted husband had been tragically killed in action. I wasn't soft and feminine, but I'd been married, so there was just no way anyone would think I was a lesbian. So I worked and raised you, and I was as happy as I thought I deserved to be. And then Christina came into our lives."

  Rayann saw Teddy's hand clenching on his knee. "I don't want to talk about her."

  "She was your other mother for most of your life. I still feel a hole in me because she's not there." Louisa glanced at Rayann with a smile. "A hole you're beginning to fill, darling."

  Teddy stood up. "Are you through?"

  "No," Louisa said. "Sit down. You promised."

  He hesitated, then finally sat again, staring at the floor. Rayann sensed his barely controlled anger.

  "Teddy, for so many years I wanted to talk to you about it, but I never did. I want you to be happy that I've found someone who loves me."

  "Happy? You're my mother. You're not supposed to be —"

  "A lesbian? Sexually active?" Louisa's voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm both."

  "Then why didn't you tell me before?"

  "Because no one ever knew what Ward Cleaver did for a living," Louisa said vehemently. "He was a man and his identity was still completely secondary to the identity of the children. One mistake with your psyche and you could have become Jack the Ripper. I was convinced of it because every woman's magazine told me it was true. I was used to accepting things the way they had to be — you see, I was a queer and queers had to accept their lot in life. We told each other that all the time. I went on believing it, until Rayann taught me it wasn't true." Louisa's voice caught. Rayann sensed the shudder that swept through her body.

  Teddy folded his arms across his chest as if to shield himself. He suddenly got up and began pacing.

  "Teddy, are you upset because I'm sleeping with somebody, because I'm sleeping with another woman, or because I'm sleeping with Rayann?"

  "I don't know," he said in a low voice, intense with emotion.

  "Louisa, I don't think I should be here now," Rayann said.

  "I agree," Teddy muttered. "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" he asked Rayann angrily. "Weren't there lots of women to choose from in San Francisco? Why do you have to screw my mother?"

  "Teddy!" Louisa gasped.

  Rayann stood up with all the control she could muster. "I don't screw anybody," she said intensely. "Maybe that's how you make love, but not me. How can you think that of your mother — that all she wants is a good lay?"

  "I don't know what she wants or what you've convinced her she wants."

  "Teddy! Rayann! Please stop," Louisa said.

  Rayann took several deep breaths and turned away from Teddy. "I love Louisa," she said slowly, carefully. "She is the best thing that ever happened to me."

  "A couple of months and you can tell?"

  "Yes, I can tell. My life is never going to be the same." Rayann couldn't keep her voice from creeping upward. She dropped her voice back to an intense whisper and faced him again. "You can't change the way I feel, and you can't change the way Louisa feels. If you don't like to think of us loving each other, then don't think about it. But it's real. Ignoring it won't make it go away."

  "This has nothing to do with Rayann," Louisa said. "I'm a lesbian. That's what you have to accept."

  He stared at Louisa for a few moments, then turned away. "I'm not thinking this through," he said, scooping up his coat. He crossed the living room and back porch before Rayann started moving.

  She ran down the stairs, catching him when he was opening his car door. "How can you do this to her? Don't you see how much she loves you? She's done just about everything for you."

  "I can't see anything," he said, turning back so quickly to face her that Rayann recoiled. "Except everything was fine until you showed up."

  "From your point of view. She could never introduce you to her friends, or carry certain kinds of books in her store — all to protect your precious picture of her. And this isn't about me, it's about you and your mother." Wind whipped her hair into her face and she brushed it aside angrily. "You don't have to like me. But go back to her now. Please."

  "I can't."

  Rayann let her anger take over. "You... phony bastard. All your liberal posturing is just a lie — you're a bigot."

  "That's not true..." He looked at her for a long moment, then his face twisted and he turned away. He stared for a moment or two through the darkness to where Louisa stood at the bottom of the stairs. Then he got into the car and drove away.

  11

  Heart Wood

  Rayann overslept. They had both had a terrible time falling asleep — Rayann wasn't sure Louisa had s
lept at all. Her pillow hadn't been pulled and poked into the shape of a horseshoe as it usually was by the time morning arrived. One glance at the clock sent Rayann scurrying to the bathroom.

  In a record fifteen minutes she was downstairs, and her panic eased when she saw Louisa was on the phone and several customers were milling around as usual. Life does, after all, go on. Rayann remembered how she had felt when she had walked in on Michelle — firm ground dissolving under her feet. She knew Louisa must be feeling that way though Louisa hadn't said anything beyond, "Good for you," after Rayann confessed she'd called her son a phony bastard. Louisa's face had closed up, eyes shuttered and distant. Rayann had decided it was best to leave her alone for the moment. I'll just be here when she needs me.

  "Good morning," Louisa said. She looked up from a page of notes, adorned by arrows, dollar amounts and dates. Rayann saw the brown eyes were as intense as ever but it would have taken a bucketful of Murine to get the red out of them. Nevertheless, Louisa's gaze brushed Rayann with warmth as she said, "I have a project for you."

  "Goody, I was getting lazy. What is it?" Rayann was relieved. Life was apparently moving forward with direction. She tried to send a similarly warm message back. I'm here for you.

  "I want you to build as many shelves as humanly possible in the storeroom, floor to ceiling and some up the middle — leave room for bodies to move around. How long would it take you?"

  Rayann was a little startled. Louisa was usually not so succinct with her instructions. She's usually only this way in bed. "Maybe two weeks if I worked on it exclusively. The lacquer takes the longest." How she — we are in bed has nothing to do with how we are down here.

  "Perfect. What about relocating the cash register and moving those tables —" she waved a hand, "over here so the door to the storeroom won't be obstructed."

  "A day or two."

  "Good. The first boxes will start arriving in maybe four weeks, but it'll be six to eight weeks for most of them. Everything has to be finished by the third week in June. We've only got about ten weeks."

  "Okay." Rayann looked around, then back at Louisa. "I'm a little confused."