Cam suggested she peruse the card catalog and order something from the stacks, “just because we can”; she could thumb through it at one of the reading tables. “Something gay would fit the weekend,” Cam proposed, but Ada thought it was rude to take up the librarians’ time for a book she couldn’t possibly read before closing.
“Do you think we could come back tomorrow?” Ada asked, but Cam pointed out that she had planned a full day of sightseeing for Saturday; that the next day, Sunday, was the parade; and that they were flying back that same night.
Ada was glad she’d brought tennis shoes, because they walked more than she had since she was young and living at home and eager to get out of her parents’ house. After the library, they strolled Fifth Avenue all the way down to Greenwich Village, a labyrinth that wasn’t as easy to navigate as midtown but radiated charm from every doorway. They made a stop at Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop—“Twig won’t believe this!” Ada said, snapping a picture with her Kodak—then found their way to Djuna Books, a lesbian-owned shop where they spent a good hour perusing books even Ada had never heard of. Cam bought a baseball cap emblazoned with the word DYKE and put it on immediately. “When in Rome,” she said. Ada picked out a button that read: We Are Everywhere, but she was afraid it would leave holes in her blouse, so she attached it to her canvas purse instead.
Out on the sidewalk, a middle-aged black woman, walking side by side with a younger one, was in mid-argument, talking so earnestly and gesticulating with her arms that she didn’t notice them exiting the bookstore. Cam held up two hands to ward off a collision. “Whoa!” she called out.
“Oh, my, excuse me!” the woman said, a trace of a drawl slipping through.
Ada nodded, already getting accustomed to jostling on the streets of New York, but Cam lingered, staring wide-eyed at the woman. “Viv?”
The older woman looked startled. “Lord, is that you, Cam?”
“In the flesh!” Cam took off her new cap and ran a hand through her hair. She and Viv both broke into astonished smiles. “Give me a hug, honey!”
Viv complied, and they held onto each other for several long moments in which Ada looked back and forth between them, as out of place as a vegetarian at a barbecue. She glanced over at the younger woman, who was already looking off down the street as if bored.
“What in the world are you doing here?” Cam asked.
“I’ve lived here going on fifteen years now,” Viv answered. “Well, just across the river in Hoboken. You live here, too?”
“Just visiting. Our first time.” Cam seemed to remember all of a sudden that Ada was accompanying her. “This is my . . . this is Ada,” she said, waving the air next to Ada. “This is my old friend Viv.”
Ada knew very well who Viv was, having long ago pried out of Cam the names of each and every lover she’d ever had. Viv had preceded her by less than a year. “She crushed Cam like a cheap glass,” Auggie had confided to Ada.
“This is my daughter, Clarice,” Viv said, pulling the younger woman into their orbit. While Viv’s skin was the color of warm oak, Clarice’s was a couple of shades darker, and she wore her hair in an elaborate composition of braids that Ada found fascinating. She wanted to ask her how she managed it, but the question seemed too nosy.
Besides, it was Viv who really held her focus. Viv was tall and muscled—a former athlete, like Cam. They’d been a couple for about nine months. “Just long enough to birth a big heartache,” Auggie once said.
But she was a more stylish dresser than Cam, outfitted in contrasting shades of turquoise and rust that Ada would have never thought to put together. Her blouse and pants clung in the right places and made Ada feel self-conscious in her baggy jeans.
“So you married . . . what was his name? The businessman?”
Ada could hear the pique in Cam’s voice, even though the hurtful incident was twenty-five years in the past.
“Lawyer,” Viv corrected, her smile turning coy. “Roy Matthews. It didn’t work out. But at least I got this pretty girl. Clarice is a sophomore at NYU. Her other mama, Gina, and I live in Hoboken.”
“You already told her where you live,” Clarice said.
“Well, this is just the smallest world, isn’t it?” Cam was grinning like a schoolboy talking to a crush, which made Ada feel hot right through to her scalp.
“Mama, we’re going to be late.”
Viv snuck a look at her watch. “Well, that’s the truth. We really do have to go. How long are you in town?”
“Just till Sunday,” Cam said.
“Cam’s got us booked solid,” Ada added, so Cam wouldn’t get any ideas about trying to meet up again.
“Well, I hope you have a wonderful visit.”
The two exes hugged again, like a swift tug between war buddies. “Any tips on things we should do?” Cam asked as they pulled apart. “Favorite spots for gals like us?”
“You might like Ariel’s,” she said. “That’s a women’s bar on Nineteenth Street. Gina and I don’t go in much for things like that, but when we do, that’s where we go. The Duchess is a dive, but you might like to experience it.”
With an awkward half-wave, Viv turned and strode off, Clarice tagging along behind. Cam stood planted on Tenth Street, examining her feet like they’d grown roots. “Wasn’t that just the oddest thing?” she said finally.
“I don’t know how odd it was,” Ada snapped, “but you sure acted funny.”
Cam looked up, searching her face for something. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Ada’s irritation came spilling out. “Oh, please! You were like some love-struck teenage boy. Goofy grin and all. ‘So you married what’s his name?’ You knew she did. I remember when Shirley Ann told you. You sulked for days. Drank a bottle of bourbon all on your own. Seemed like you hadn’t gotten over her, and you and I were together barely a year.” That hurt still rankled, too: Ada had spent Cam’s bender wondering if she’d made a bad mistake pairing up with her.
“I don’t remember that at all.” Cam frowned. “You know you’re prone to exaggeration, Ada Jane.” Chucking the fault onto Ada was Cam’s trump card when she was cornered in a lie, but now she seemed to realize she’d taken it a step too far. “I am sorry, darlin’, I don’t know what came over me,” she said. “I felt foolish again, like the hurt was brand new. I mean, she dropped me for a man, but it turns out she’s gay after all. Ironic, huh? How would you feel if you found that out about Natalie?”
Ada had never been lovers with Natalie, her college friend, but the emotional bond was so fierce, it was like they’d had an emotional affair. The two hadn’t seen each other since Nat’s wedding—her husband was a career Army man, and he and Natalie had traversed the globe. Ada got a Christmas letter from Nat every year or two noting the arrival of a new baby or a change in APO address. Most recently, they’d moved just a few hours away in Fort Jackson, and the fantasy had crossed Ada’s mind that maybe she and Nat could have a reunion. But then she rejected even broaching the idea—she couldn’t tell Nat about Cam, and the last thing she wanted to see on her friend’s face was pity that Ada had never married.
“I’d like to think I’ve moved on after thirty years,” Ada said.
“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
§ § §
As Viv had warned, the Duchess was an “experience”—a poorly lit hole with pounding music and thick clouds of smoke. “Our clothes will reek,” Ada said.
From a rickety table in the corner, they watched women half their age dancing and flirting, dressed in everything from tight T-shirts to oversized flannel that resembled Ada’s daddy’s pajamas. The booming beat of a younger generation turned any conversation into a shouting match. The lyrics—the ones Ada could understand—were baffling. “‘Come on, baby, make it hurt so good’? What kind of song is that?” She still preferred the music of her youth—Johnny Mathis, Patsy Cline. Cam just smiled, possibly not even hearing what Ada said.
Ada would have gladly lef
t after one drink, but Cam seemed giddy as a teenager whose parents were out of town. She kept ordering, occasionally testy when she couldn’t get a refill fast enough. There were so many shots and beers that Ada stopped counting. And she was used to keeping count: she had to. Cam downed as much as any man, and Ada worried about getting home safely. When Cam drank and drove, they’d had some harrowing trips, like a run-in with a holly bush one New Year’s Eve, or a circuitous trip back from a party out in Matthews, taking two hours instead of the usual thirty minutes.
“I could live here!” Cam bellowed. “This place speaks my language.”
“It’s a right dump, you ask me.” Ada replied. Earlier, in the ladies’ room, a thin layer of water covered the concrete floor, like somebody had recently hosed it down.
“No, I mean New York. Maybe we should move here. You know, lots of gals from Charlotte have migrated north, like those two who put out the lesbian magazine. And Viv.”
Cam hadn’t mentioned Viv in almost an hour, but she was obviously still on her mind, and Ada’s stomach did a little flip.
“I’m telling you, I could become a Yankee,” Cam went on. “I love Yankees!” A wiry brunette wearing a baseball cap with the entwined letters NY glanced their way and tipped her Budweiser in their direction. “We could be open here, Ada Jane. New York City may be the best place to be gay.” She paused. “Well, there’s San Francisco, but that seems like going to another country.”
New York felt like another country to Ada, but she didn’t say so. “I think it’s time to go have some supper before you get too rowdy, and then we should get our gay old selves to bed. We got a big day tomorrow . . . according to your own itinerary.”
Cam agreed to leave, but only if they could make one more stop after eating—the other women’s bar Viv had suggested.
“You’ve already had plenty.”
“I am sober as a judge,” Cam said, touching her index finger to her nose with care. “Humor me, darlin’.”
They ate at a diner across the square from the bar, and ordered sandwiches from a waitress whose uniform was Carolina blue. Ada opened her mouth to protest when Cam asked for a beer instead of coffee, but got cut off.
“Oh, come on. It’s Friday night!”
Ada could have sat in the booth for the rest of the evening, resting her feet while picking at a piece of apple pie and watching the passers-by. Every configuration of couple seemed to walk through Greenwich Village that night. She wondered if she could get used to such openness after so many years keeping her relationship under wraps. But then she reminded herself that they would never make such a drastic move because who in New York was going to hire a middle-aged teacher and a school librarian?
Cam was itching to head to the next bar, so they began the trek back uptown. The Reuben sandwich seemed to sober her up a little; her step was sure and quick, and Ada had trouble keeping up with her long strides. “Take my hand,’” Cam said, and after glancing around, Ada obliged. It made her feel almost lightheaded, to walk with Cam the way married couples did and not think twice about it.
“I sure do love you, Ada Jane. You know that, right?”
She did, on a deep level, but then there had been the light in Cam’s smile when she recognized Viv. Cam hadn’t looked at Ada in that rapt way in many years.
“Oh, hush,” Ada said. “You don’t have to say it right out in public.”
“There’s nobody to hear it but us,” Cam said. “Can’t you just say it back? This is New York City!” Her voice rose on the city’s name, and Ada slapped her arm and mouthed, “I love you.”
And at that point everything seemed fine, even having one more drink at one more bar. But above 14th Street, the city turned into a grid again, the crowds thinned out, and the streets felt more deserted. Down every dusky side street, businesses and wholesale warehouses were shuttered for the night. If Cam noticed, she didn’t say; she kept up a steady stream of chatter about the Duchess, the bookstore, and all the sights she hoped to see the next day. She didn’t once mention Viv. “If we get adventurous,” she said, “maybe we’ll take the subway out to Brooklyn. There’s a lesbian restaurant there!”
At 19th Street, Cam became disoriented and wasn’t sure which way to go. Ada remembered drunken car rides at home, how Cam had insisted she knew where they were while making every wrong turn imaginable until Ada’s anger exploded like a Coke somebody had shook up and opened.
“I thought you knew where we were going!”
“I thought so, too,” Cam said, her voice thick with the uncertainty of one too many drinks.
“I hate it when you’re like this,” Ada said, dropping her hand. “If you could hold your liquor, that’d be one thing, but you go all foggy-headed on me.”
“I hold my liquor fine,” Cam snapped. “And you could be responsible for the directions once in a while.”
Cam opted for a left turn, but said, “The street numbers are going up,” after they passed a few buildings. “They’re supposed to go down. Let’s turn around.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
As they approached the corner again, Ada saw an indistinct pair of men on the avenue, laughing and mumbling in between swigs from bottles in paper bags. Had they been behind them the whole time? “Take your hat off,” she urged, but Cam left it on.
Close up, the two figures turned into gangly teenagers with pimply faces, just tall enough to have a few inches on Cam. Sixteen, maybe seventeen—an age that made Ada uncomfortable, and they were drunk to boot. The boy wearing a Motley Crue T-shirt made wet kissing noises in their direction, which his buddy mimicked.
“You wish!” Cam smirked, as if inviting confrontation.
“For God’s sake, Cam, just shut up!” Ada chastened as she grabbed Cam’s hand again and broke into a trot across the avenue that left them both breathless. Taking God’s name in vain and then telling Cam to shut up were sins, she knew, but she wasn’t going to think about that now. She had bigger worries. She’d made the mistake of checking back over her shoulder—just the quickest glance. The ringleader caught her look and must have decided the fun wasn’t over. The two boys sprinted after them, cutting them off before they could get any closer to where a sandwich board and pulsing music indicated the women’s bar.
“Where you think you’re going? To the dyke bar?” the leader said, almost spitting out the words. He zeroed in on Cam, leaning forward and yanking off her cap with his free hand. He put it on his own head and made kissing noises toward his cohort. “Look at me, I’m a dyke.” The other boy snickered and took a pull from his bottle.
“Okay, I don’t need this,” Cam said. “Recess is over. Keep the hat.” Her fingernails pressed into the soft flesh above Ada’s elbow as she tried to edge them past the leader. But the boy grabbed Cam by her other arm and wrenched it back hard. Ada heard what sounded like a crack and saw Cam wince in pain.
“I dunno. Maybe what you need is some cock. I never done an old lady,” the boy said, still twisting. “You ever done an old lady, Pete?”
“Ah, come on, man,” the other one said, like raping a woman his mother’s age was the biggest bore he could imagine. He looked back toward the avenue and chugged his beer.
Ada had no time to fumble for her keys. She reached down and pulled the We Are Everywhere button off her handbag, bending the pin out. With one jump forward, she slashed at the leader, surprising everyone, even herself, as she drew an ugly scratch down his forearm that made him drop both Cam’s arm and his beer bottle with a yelp of pain.
“You bitch!” Then, with all the force she could muster, Ada jerked Cam by her good arm and shot off in the direction of the music. “Help!” she screamed, hoping her voice would travel down the block to the bar. “Help us, somebody! Help!”
Her cry brought a stocky woman in a white T-shirt and black leather vest flying out of the bar. “Go fuck yourself, punks!” she yelled toward the boys. “Get the fuck off this street! I’m calling the cops!” The ringleader spat on the sidewa
lk, and hurled a volley of epithets before disappearing around the corner.
“You okay?” the woman asked. She was tough as a work boot, probably the club’s bouncer.
“He wrenched my arm good,” Cam said, rubbing it. “If it weren’t for this gal . . .” Her face lit up with a beam of satisfaction and pride. “She went and sliced him with her gay pride button!”
Leaning in to examine Cam’s arm, Ada could smell a rank mix of beer and corned beef on her breath, and her stomach wobbled.
“You were something, darlin’!”
“Don’t you dare,” Ada whispered, her heart scuttling like it was trapped in her chest. Cam flinched at the rebuke.
The woman from the bar had spiky black hair and silver earrings up and down her lobes, and her vest was studded with gay-themed pins, including one that said Non-Breeder.
“A pin, huh? Lemme see.” The woman reached out and took the makeshift weapon from Ada. “You got some skin on it. Here, take this.” She slipped a button off her vest and handed it to Ada. It was a double-edged purple hatchet on a white background.
“Come on inside. I’ll call the cops. You should get that arm checked,” the woman continued. “You can have a drink to dull the pain while you wait. On the house.”
“No thank you to the drink, but we’ll take you up on the police,” Ada said. “I’d feel better if she saw a doctor.”
“No need,” Cam said. “Pain’s easing up. Let’s just go back to the hotel.”
“Where you staying?”
“Hotel Pennsylvania.”
“You could walk from here easy, but you don’t wanna run into those punks again. I’d hail a cab at the corner,” the young woman advised. “Seventh runs uptown, you’ll be home in no time.”
Home, Ada thought. I wish. These things just didn’t happen in Charlotte.
She thanked the woman profusely, fishing in her bag. “I heard New Yorkers wouldn’t give you the time of day, let alone save your life,” Ada said, extending a ten-dollar bill with an unsteady hand. “I thought we might be killed right there on the sidewalk, and all we had for protection was some little pin. I have new respect for the Big Apple.”
The Ada Decades Page 11