the issue. “All right!” Page shouted. “They’re just a pair of kindly
gray-haired squares and you’ll be bored to tears. But if we don’t go,
you’ll imagine all sorts of horror stories.”
“Now you’re being reasonable, darling,” she beamed. But when he sulked
at her she added, “Is it a feud between you, or something?”
“No,” he said. “We’ve just drifted apart. I feel badly about it. I’m not
what they thought I’d be when I grew up.”
“What did they think you’d be?”
“The President. What else?” He gave her a rueful grin.
They went over on a Sunday afternoon three days later. Page was nervous
and Sunny, taking her cue from him, started chewing her nails. She began
to realize how much she wanted the Pringles to like her, the way her
parents liked Page.
She followed Page into one of the modern glass-faced buildings on the
Outer Drive, north of the Loop, and took the elevator up. A maid showed
them into the Pringles’ spacious living room, which had a marble
fireplace and a huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny
had pictured a pair of gloomy hermits living in faded Victorian
gingerbread and speaking in whispers.
Instead, a vigorous, tall man, aging but with straight back and strong
shoulders, came into the room, smiling, and held out his hand to her.
“You must be Sunny,” he said as, speechless, she gave him her hand to
shake. “I’m Page’s father. I’ve been asking him to bring you over ever
since the wedding. I’m so pleased to meet you at last.”
Nonplussed, Sunny could barely say, “Thank you.”
Mr. Pringle mixed them cocktails, speaking easily as he did so. “You
must have been a lovely bride,” he told Sunny, serving her a martini.
“I’m sorry we had to miss it.”
“We missed _you_, Mr. Pringle,” Sunny said faintly.
Page had not spoken a word, not even a greeting, since they had entered
the apartment.
“Of course,” Mr. Pringle said. “But Page didn’t let us know in time. I
was in Canada on business when he wired me ... the day of the wedding.”
His eyes were on his son, who looked away.
“I see,” Sunny said softly, taking refuge in a sip of her drink. Anger,
resentment, and curiosity all boiled within her. It was as if Page were
deliberately trying to alienate them all.
Fifteen minutes later they went in to meet Mrs. Pringle, who was propped
up in bed, dressed in a pink mandarin bed jacket. She was a handsome
woman in her sixties, a perfect match for her husband, to judge by
appearances.
She held out a gracious hand to Sunny. “My dear, how lovely to meet you
at last. I must say, you’re just as beautiful as Page said you were.”
Charmed and astonished, Sunny stammered her thanks and sat down at the
bedside. She was utterly unsure of herself by now. But Mrs. Pringle did
most of the talking while Page stood at attention at the foot of her
bed, remote and cool.
“You will forgive us for not attending the wedding?” Mrs. Pringle
pleaded. She was rather formal, but in an anxious way that tried to
please, as if Page had warned her Sunny was a difficult person. “I
rarely leave this bed any more,” she apologized.
“I understand,” Sunny said warmly. “Page told us you were ill.”
“I see as much of life as I can from here,” Mrs. Pringle smiled. “Not
much, but enough to occupy me. I don’t mind being alone half as much as
most people would. You see, before we got Page, I was quite a loner, by
choice.”
“Before you ... _got_ Page?” Sunny repeated, confused.
“Yes. I guess it’s all in your nature. Some like solitude, some don’t.
Page was a great joy to us, though. He was just tiny when we got him. He
never knew any other family.”
Sunny’s mouth opened slightly. “He—didn’t tell me,” she whispered. She
had to force herself not to turn and stare at him.
“Oh!” Mrs. Pringle paused a moment, plainly afraid of offending her son.
But the fat was in the fire. She had taken it for granted that Page
would have told his wife so fundamental a fact about himself. “Well,
George and I always wanted a boy,” she said restrainedly. “That’s the
nice thing about adopting, you can choose your favorite.” She laughed, a
small flustered sound, and Sunny pitied her.
It was no crime to be adopted. What earthly reason did Page have for
keeping it secret?
“He was a very good baby,” Mrs. Pringle said nostalgically. “I wish we
could have gotten another. I would have liked a brother for Page. Are
you an only child, Sunny?”
“No. My brother Chuckie is eleven now. And my parents had another son,
before I was born, but I never knew him. He died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, we intended to adopt another before my health gave
way. But after that we couldn’t, so we’ve had to concentrate everything
on Page. I hope we haven’t spoiled him for you.”
“I like him the way he is,” she said. But her anger sparkled on the
surface of her words.
“I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon for New York,” Mrs. Pringle
added. “Will you write to us, Sunny? Page never will.”
“With pleasure, Mrs. Pringle.” Sunny could hardly keep her eyes off Page
now, and he stared sullenly out the bedroom window.
* * * * *
A half-hour later Sunny rode down in the elevator with her silent
husband, and not until they were in the car and on their way home did
she say, “All right, Page. I love you and I’m your loyal wife. But I
don’t like being lied to.”
He knew the storm was coming and he wanted to keep calm, explain things
temperately to her. He lighted two cigarettes, passing one to Sunny. “I
just can’t get along with them,” he said. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got plenty of time.”
“Well, Sunny, damn it, in the first place, I’ve always been sort of
ashamed of being adopted.”
“You’re nuts!” she said. “That attitude went out when Freud came in.
Some of the nicest people I know—”
“Sure, sure.”
“—are actually proud of it.”
“Will you let me tell you!” he said, suddenly so upset that she shut her
mouth and began to worry about his driving.
“You see, with most parents who adopt kids, it’s different. They tell
them about it, even before the kid understands what it means. He grows
up knowing everything. It’s nothing new, it doesn’t scare him, and he
comes to comprehend it gradually.
“But with me they waited till I was twelve years old, an only child,
brought up in a formal household, stiffly disciplined, afraid of his
mother and father. And then I found out the truth by accident. Otherwise
they never would have told me.” He spoke resentfully and made her feel
he might be at least partly justified.
“How did it happen?” she asked.
“The family doctor let it out. The adoption had been arranged through
him instead of an agency because it was faster, and my parents trusted
him. So he knew about it from the start. Doc Blue....
“Well, I went in in the fall for a school check-up when I was twelve.
I’ve never known if he let it slip on purpose, I think he did. I think
he thought I had a right to know, and my Dad hadn’t told me.” Page
slowed up for a red light.
“He measured my height,” Page said, speaking uncomfortably. “I asked him
if he thought I’d be as tall as my father.... He’s six-two. And Doc Blue
just grabbed the opportunity. He said, ‘You can’t always tell, Page ...
unless you know a boy’s ancestry.’
“I started to fill him in on the Pringles. I was up to my ears with my
illustrious forebears. But the doc interrupted. He said, ‘I know your
Dad is proud of his family, but you ask him about it ... where you fit
in. I don’t think he’s told you everything.’”
“He stuck his neck out, didn’t he?” Sunny said.
“Yeah. But Dad had promised him at the time he adopted me that he’d tell
me the truth. So Doc Blue felt he had a duty to speak up. He thought I
should know.
“I went home and asked Dad ... and he told me, all right. And told Doc
Blue to go to hell. He’s never forgiven him, not to this day. Hates his
guts, though I have the feeling Mother would have relented after a few
years.” Page laughed unpleasantly. “You can’t mention Doc Blue’s name in
front of Dad. Poor Mother. Blue was always her favorite, and I know she
misses him. But she wouldn’t dare go near him without Dad’s approval,
and she’ll never get that.”
“Your father didn’t seem like such a tyrant.”
“He is, though. The kind women love to be dominated by,” Page said
candidly. “It wouldn’t show so much to you. He’s sixty-seven and you’re
only twenty. But when he was young he never had to chase the girls. They
chased him.”
Page spoke with secret admiration and Sunny sensed that in spite of his
resentment, he still had a lot of unadmitted love for the man. “But he
was absolutely faithful to Mother, and his principles and his family
heritage. Family meant more to him than Mother or me or his life. Than
anything!” Page took a corner on squealing wheels.
“Your father loves you, darling, he’s proud of you,” Sunny said. “It
shows in his face. And your mother, too. They said some fine things
about you, and they weren’t acting. You must have known that all these
years.”
He threw his cigarette out the window and his face was pale and tense.
“Sure they love me. They’re stuck with me. But the day I discovered I
wasn’t a born Pringle I spoiled it for them. As long as nobody knew but
them, they could damn near convince themselves I was really their flesh
and blood. But once _I_ was in on the secret—once I questioned my
identity, my Pringle ancestors—the illusion was wrecked.
“I had to be arrogantly sure of myself, a Pringle to my finger-tips. How
else could Dad turn me into a carbon of himself? And that’s what he
wanted a son for.”
“My father loves Chuckie a little that way,” Sunny said.
“A little. I know, I saw it. But not like Dad loved me. I was an
obsession. Besides, Chuckie is Ben’s own child. He sired him and he
loves him for himself. Not because he’ll give some kids the name Rotheli
some day.
“I tell you, Sunny, my parents spent many bitter years blaming each
other for not being able to have their own child. For having to settle
on some stranger’s issue to carry on their name. For sending me to Doc
Blue when he turned out to be a black-hearted traitor.”
“But they were so—”
“So charming, so nice! I know, God, I know. They’re even nice to me!
Their borrowed bastard, who exploded their selfish little daydream by
finding out he had alien blood in his veins.”
Sunny listened to him with an aching heart. “Did a family name really
mean all that to them?” she asked. “Couldn’t they go on loving you after
you knew? They certainly love you now.”
“I don’t know. I’ve made things pretty hard for them,” Page said. “I
hated the whole mess, I hated my ignorance. I hated being a nobody
without a name or a family.”
“_They_ were your family. You should have been grateful.”
“They were my room and board. I was their immortality. It wasn’t a fair
trade,” he retorted.
“Page, did it ever occur to you how they must have yearned for a child,
how they must have adored you when they got you? Maybe their motives
weren’t the purest, but nobody’s are. If they hurt you, you’ve gotten
back at them. Can’t you call it quits?”
“I was only a name to them. _Their_ name.”
“You’re more than that now. Surely even you can see that.” She turned to
face him as he pulled the car into their carport and turned off the
motor. “Darling, I’d hate to think, if _I_ ever wronged you somehow,
that you’d hold it against me the way you have against them. It scares
me.”
“You could never hurt me like that, sweetheart.”
“By mistake, by accident, I might,” she whispered.
“They took my childhood away from me. My name.” His voice was hard.
“What is your real name?”
“I don’t know.” His face was sad.
“Do they know?”
He sighed. “No. Doc Blue wouldn’t tell them. They gave him several
thousand bucks and a promise never to contact my real parents. He gave
the money to my real parents, and me to the Pringles. I was bought and
sold for hard cash, Sunny. And my own name got lost in the shuffle.”
“The Pringles couldn’t take your name away from you if they never had it
to give,” Sunny said. “They only had one name to give you—their own.”
“It hurts me to use it,” he said. “I’m a man without a past or a
heritage. I wish I had a real name to give you, Sunny. A real father to
know and love.”
“You have, if you weren’t so blind stubborn!” she cried.
“Anybody could have brought me up. I’d make just as good a Smith as a
Pringle.”
Sunny crushed her cigarette. “If Doctor Blue knows your name,” she said
thoughtfully, “why don’t you get it from him?”
“I’ve been trying to since the day he let the cat out of the bag,” Page
said, his hands limp on the rim of the steering wheel. “I’ve begged him,
offered him money, threatened him. Even broken into his office and gone
through his papers. _And_ been caught at it. He’s immovable, a
sickeningly honorable old son of a gun.”
“You know, you’re more fanatical on the subject of family than the
Pringles,” Sunny said. “Maybe they cured themselves by giving you the
disease.”
“Well, they exposed me to it long enough,” he said.
“You’re a grown man, Page!” she said. “Make your own name now, your own
place in the sun.” She was full of pity and love, and disappointment in
him. “A name is just a label, darling. It doesn’t matter half as much as
the man himself.”
“A name is a history, a home, everything,” he said unhappily.
“Maybe your real parents were sad, ugly people who couldn’t have done
half the things for you that the Pringles—”
“To hell with the Pringles! I’d rather love my own flesh and blood, no
matter who, than grow up a stranger in borrowed luxury. And I’ve been a
stranger there since I was twelve, Sunny.”
“You’ve made yourself a stranger,” she exclaimed. “You big dumb _nut_.
Page, I’m actually ashamed of you!”
He slammed his fists against the wheel and the horn barked accidentally,
startling her.
6
Jack and Laura were sitting with Mr. Winkler in the Manns’ living room
after dinner, while Jack narrated the story. “Page made himself unhappy,
it’s true,” Jack said. “The Pringles were ready for the peace pipe years
before he was. But they had made the cardinal mistake that adults can
make with kids. They made him feel, right or wrong, that they only loved
their name. Not him. They loved the idea of a son and heir, not the son
and heir himself.”
“Well, he and Sunny moved to New York, then,” Winkler said. “Were you
and Laura married?”
“Yes. They looked us up right away. Even took an apartment near us on
East Fifty-second. Sunny was upset about this thing when they first
arrived, but everything went so well for them that she soon relaxed.
Used to sit and gab with Laura. They hit it off right away.
“And Page was really happy. Always smiling. Loved his work, loved his
wife. And he was making ‘Pringle’ his own name at last. Nobody there
knew his family, so the name was more his own than it had ever been
before.
“He kept on with the Trib and did very well. When I look back, those
first months in New York seem like a sort of reprieve,” Jack said.
“Reprieve from what?” Winkler leaned forward on his elbows, hands
hanging between his knees.
“You’re a good audience, Mr. Winkler,” Jack grinned.
Winkler shrugged, suddenly shy again. “You’re a good talker,” he said.
“Well, around Christmas everything was going beautifully for them,” Jack
resumed. “We saw them then at a party we threw, and they were the
happiest couple there.
“But it wasn’t long after that this whole crazy tragedy blew up in their
faces. Hard to believe, but it sure as hell happened.”
Winkler’s cigarette burned forgotten in the ashtray beside him.
* * * * *
It was one of those red-and-green gatherings that stud the Christmas
season. Most of Jack’s guests were straight. He didn’t like to mix many
gay people into his parties. He had renounced the painful homosexual
adventures that used to fill his life before he got married, and it made
him feel socially clumsy and anxious when the old gay crowd turned up.
Besides, no one in his office crowd knew he was an invert, and he wanted
to keep it that way.
There were plenty of drinks, carols, and conviviality. Laura turned out
all but the Christmas lights and candles, and the rooms took on a
multi-colored jukebox glow.
* * * * *
Sunny, full of laughter, was the center of the carol singing. Her voice
was small but true, and pleasantly husky. She sat on the sofa, crowded
in by admirers, and sang “Santa Baby” and “The Christmas Song” to warm
applause. Page was enough of a bridegroom to get foolishly jealous.
She was too popular, too beautiful, with her radiant smile and the
smooth skin of her breasts showing down to the line of a daringly cut
dress.
“That thing is too damn low,” he growled, but she stuck her tongue out
at him and he either had to laugh or be laughed at.
It was a night for costumes. One of the guests was a well-pillowed Santa
Claus. One came dressed all in white bunny fur, just for the hell of it.
And later in the evening somebody climbed into a grass skirt Jack had
brought back from a trip to Hawaii, and favored them with a hula. He
made a lei of a Christmas wreath and rigged up a pair of glass ornament
breasts which generated a lot of hilarity.
Page, still grumping, muttered to Jack, “I hate that kind of stuff.”
“What stuff? Hulas?” Jack said. They were standing together by the wall
watching the performance.
“_Men_ doing hulas.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said, laughing. “He’s not half bad. You’re just
mad because everybody wants to lay Sunny.”
Page lit a cigarette. He knew he was high and not very cogent. He
directed his anger at the dancer, who was enjoying his innocent
transvestitism as much as his audience.
“I don’t know why people think that’s so damn funny,” Page said. “He
probably gets a secret charge out of it.”
“Come on, old buddy, I’ll doctor your drink,” Jack said and led the way
to the kitchen. Page followed him on an off-balance course through the
swinging door.
“No more of that sweet junk,” he said, grimacing at the eggnog. “Gives
you a rotten hangover.” He handed Jack his glass and Jack handed it back
with a couple of inches of whiskey in it. Page tasted it critically and
then turned to his host. “You look uncommonly sober for this hour of the
night,” he said with disapproval.
“I am. I’m on the wagon.”
“What? Goddam. Are you sick?” Page said.
“Laura cured me,” Jack told him.
“Well, get that damn hula dancer on the wagon with you. Cure him and he
won’t make such a horse’s ass of himself at the next party.”
“Still worried about Sunny’s dress?” Jack said.
“Oh, the hell with Sunny’s dress. It’s _men_ in dresses I’m worried
about.” Page hiccoughed.
“Page, I didn’t know. Shall we dance?” Jack said, and laughed at him.
“Oh, shut up.” Page finished half his drink in one gulp.
Jack knew perfectly well that Page was straight. He was also tight, and
aggravated, and men in skirts were handy whipping boys. But it surprised
Jack that his old roommate could be so harsh on the subject.
“I’m no fairy,” Page declared, “but that pansy in the grass skirt—”
“—is married and has four kids,” Jack informed him.
“Lots of fags get married to fool their friends,” Page said.
“How would _you_ know?”
Page threw up his hands in a gesture of comical disgust. “I heard it
somewhere,” he said. “You don’t think I know anything about a lousy
queer first-hand, do you?”
It hurt Jack, but it was an old familiar pain; one he had long since
learned to tuck under his heart to heal at leisure. It joined a
battalion of old scars and his face showed no sign of it.
Jack understood better than he ever had how deep Page’s conformity went.
Page wasn’t worried about his masculinity; that had never been a problem
to him. He was worried about being different. He had been raised in a
conservative home where old-fashioned morals and conformity were prime
virtues. Then he suddenly found out the family he was supposed to honor
wasn’t his at all. The morals he respected included lying. And his
comfortable conformity had been painfully stripped from his back, like a
suit of clothes. He stood exposed, without a name or identity. At that
moment, conformity became very dear to him. He wanted to be like
everybody else with a family all his own.
As for the odd balls in this world, he had little but contempt for them.
And a small secret awe for the few who could be deliberately different
and still respect themselves.
But nobody had ever asked Page if he wanted to be different. Instead he
grew up a member of a minority group, in spite of himself. When he
thought of orphans and adopted children, he thought of the huge neglect
they suffered, the rare love, the vague pity of charitable ladies
fussing over them. And he classed all adopted children among the
orphans.
Jack watched him in silence a moment. “Next you’ll be telling me _I’m_
queer,” he said wryly.
Page laughed and clapped Jack on the back. “Okay, boy, you win. It’s
that eggnog I was drinking. I should know better.”
“I still say it was Sunny’s bosom that got you started,” Jack said. “If
Laura had a bosom like that I’d never complain about anything again, so
help me.”
* * * * *
Jack and Laura saw the Pringles often, especially after Jack learned he
was being transferred back to Chicago. It was a promotion to his home
office, and he felt he owed it to Laura and Betsy to go. But he hated to
leave New York. They gave him three months to make the move.
Sunny, homesick for Hillsburg and Chicago, spent a lot of hours with
Laura swapping information and feminine chatter.
“Go see Page’s family if you get a chance,” she pleaded. “They’d be so
happy to hear about us first-hand.”
“We will. Why doesn’t Page ever talk about them, Sunny?” Laura asked. “I
asked him about his father once and he said the strangest thing. He
said, ‘I don’t have a father.’ I told him everybody has a father and he
said, ‘Everybody but me.’ What does that mean?”
Sunny tried to explain it to her.
“I don’t get it. What does he want from them?” Laura said.
“He wants to turn back the clock thirty years and stay with the worms
who had him in the first place.”
Laura laughed. “_Were_ they worms?”
“Maybe not. But they’d have to go some to beat the Pringles. I’m hoping
Page will get over this when he has a son of his own.”
Laura, stooped over a suitcase, straightened up and stared at Sunny.
“Hey!” she said. “You’re not—?”
Sunny smiled. “I wasn’t going to tell anybody so soon,” she said. “I’m
not really sure yet. I just know, like you do.”
Laura came over and took her hands. The warm firm grasp gave her a quiet
shiver of delight—the kind Laura so often experienced in contact with
lovely women. “Sunny, I’m so happy for you,” she said. Up until that
moment Laura had both admired and feared Sunny a little. People so
beautiful sometimes inspire a sort of timidity in others, and Laura was
naturally shy. But now, with the sharing of this secret, Laura felt
close to her. She had the courage to touch Sunny, even to hold her.
“Does Page know yet?” she asked.
“No. He’ll go into orbit when he finds out,” Sunny laughed. “He’s been
after me since our wedding day to do this.”
“When will you tell him?”
“The minute I’m sure. I have to see a doctor first.”
“See Dr. Settick,” Laura said. “Richie Settick. He delivered Betsy and
he’s the greatest. I’ll give you his address.”
“I was going to ask you,” Sunny said, pleased. “I don’t know any doctors
here.”
Laura was thinking of Jack’s incredulous reaction to the news that Laura
was carrying their child. But for him, older and with a sexual
abnormality to fight, it had seemed like a real miracle. It gave him a
soaring feeling that a normal man, sure of his virility, would never
know.
Laura sat down on her bed next to Sunny and put her arms around her.
“You should have seen Jack’s face when I told him he was going to be a
father,” she said.
Sunny’s laugh brought her slim, smooth body even nearer Laura’s. What
Sunny thought she was doing there in Laura’s arms she didn’t say. But it
didn’t seem to alarm her. She submitted to a shy, sisterly kiss from
Laura—a kiss that scarcely mussed her shining hair—and then pulled away
with an easy motion and said, “Got any maternity clothes I can borrow?”
“Plenty,” Laura said, and the regret she felt at the lost contact did
not show in her voice.
She never did discover what Sunny thought of that indiscreet caress. She
was only grateful that it didn’t interrupt their friendship. Sunny was
one of the good things in life that Laura would never possess, and Laura
had the sense to see it early and keep the relationship platonic.
Sunny’s love was given for the rest of her life ... and given to a man.
7