“Only over the boys. And there are no more boys in my life. Now or
ever.”
Laura swirled the royal purple liquid in her long-stemmed glass and
whispered into it, “Do you think I could make you happy, Jack?”
“Are you proposing, Mother?”
She swallowed and looked up at him with butterflies in her stomach.
“Yes,” she said.
He sat quite still and smiled slowly at her. And then he got up and came
to her and kissed her cheeks, one after the other, holding her head
tenderly in his hands.
“I accept,” he said.
* * * * *
The day was hot and muggy, one of those insufferably humid August days
in New York. Laura and Jack waited together outside the office of Judge
Sterling Webster with half a dozen other sweating, hand-clasping
couples.
Jack wasted no time when Laura said yes. As fast as arrangements could
be made, they were made. Laura stayed with him in the Village apartment
a few days while they hunted for another apartment, cooking for him and
getting the feel of living with him. During the days, when he was out,
she went uptown. This was Jack’s idea. He had no intention of making his
bride a sitting duck for Beebo. It was only for four days, anyway, and
much to Laura’s surprise, Beebo made no attempt to reach her.
They had found the apartment on the east side two days after Laura got
back from the disillusioning sojourn with Tris. It was too expensive,
but it was newly renovated, lustrous with new paint, elegant with a new
elevator, and bursting with chic tenants.
“We can’t afford it,” was Laura’s first comment, to which Jack replied,
smiling, “You’re beginning to sound like a wife already.”
And now, here they were, waiting on yellow oak chairs in the hall, while
one couple after another passed in and out of the judge’s office with
the classic stars in their eyes.
Laura, who was sitting quietly in her chair, said, “They all look so
happy,” and drew courage from the fact.
“They’re scared witless,” Jack said, pacing up and down in front of her.
“Jack!” Laura exclaimed, appalled. “They’ll hear you.”
“Ours will be a happier marriage than any of these,” he said with a
contemptuous wave of his hand. He sat down suddenly beside her. “Ours
could be damn near perfect, Laura, if we work at it a little. You know
that? We won’t have to face the usual pitfalls. Ours will be different
... better.”
“I hope so, Jack,” she said in a near whisper, and a little thrill of
passionate hope went through her.
“Will you try, honey?” he asked.
“I will. With all my heart I will.” She gave him a tremulous smile. “I
want this to work, Jack, as much as you do. I’ll give it all I’ve got. I
want terribly for it to be right.” And she meant it.
“Then it will,” he said and his smile gave her a needed shot of
confidence.
Laura had had some bad nights since she said yes to him. Awful hours of
yearning for Tris had tormented her. Stray unwelcome thoughts of Beebo
had hurt her even more.
There were the lonely times when she thought about herself and Jack, so
different, so dear to each other, and wondered if marital intimacy might
not ruin it all with its innocent vulgarity. She tried to imagine Jack
shaving in the morning ... the toilet flushing ... his wrinkled pajamas,
still warm from sleep, tossed on the floor ... his naked loneliness
mutely reproaching her. The idea of living with a man ... a _man_ ...
made her think of her father, her huge heavy domineering father, with
his aggressive maleness stamped all over his body.
But for the most part, Laura tried not to think at all. She let Jack do
her thinking. She let Jack make the plans. She let Jack take her by the
hand and lead her where he deemed it best for her to go. And, trusting
him, she went.
So here they were outside Judge Sterling Webster’s door with its glass
window and neatly stenciled name, and they were next in line. Their
predecessors in the marriage mill were slower than the rest, or so it
seemed. And by the time they came out Jack was very nervous.
He herded her in ahead of him, and Judge Webster, as dignified and
antique as his name, stood to greet them with an extended hand.
In less than five minutes he pronounced them man and wife and they
signed the certificate of marriage. Jack turned to Laura and kissed his
tall and trembling young wife on her cheek. He gave the Judge ten
dollars, and then he took Laura’s arm and steered her out again to let
the next impatient couple take over.
Laura had to sit down for a minute on one of the limed oak chairs and
cover her face with her hands. Jack leaned over her and said, “You’re
setting a lousy example, Mother. Every female here is watching you and
figuring me for a wife-beater. Come on, Mrs. Mann.”
She looked up and saw him grinning at her, and it gave her a lift. She
grasped his hand and let him pull her to her feet. He was beaming, and
Laura had to smile at all the nervous cynicism of half an hour ago.
They went straight to the apartment to rest for a while before they went
out to dinner. Jack had made reservations for them at the Stork Club.
“We’ll have a proper honeymoon at Christmastime,” he said, when they
reached the house on East Fifty-third. “I’ll take a month off then. I
have it coming.”
Ignoring Laura’s protests, he insisted on carrying her across the
threshold. He swung her up easily, to their mutual pleasure.
“Jack, I think you’re the world’s worst sentimentalist,” she teased him
when he set her down, but he denied it at once.
“God forbid!” he said. “I just don’t want anything to go wrong. We’re
going to do it all right, right from the start.”
“And you’re superstitious.”
He laughed with delight. “Laura,” he said and came to take her hands.
“I’m so happy. You’ve made me so happy.”
“I haven’t done a thing, yet,” she said, wondering a little at him, at
his uncontainable good spirits.
“You’ve married me. That’s something,” he said. “I’m a married man. God
Almighty, think of it!”
“If you were any prouder you’d explode,” she giggled.
“I just may,” he said. And they gazed at each other with a huge,
wordless approval and relief.
“This calls for a celebration,” he said suddenly. “I got a little
something—”
“Oh, Jack, no drinking,” she said. “I don’t have to have a drink,
really. I don’t want you to get started.”
“No nagging on our wedding day,” he said and produced a bottle of
champagne from the refrigerator. He poured her a glassful and himself a
swallow. “Medicinal,” he explained, and they toasted each other. He made
her drink all of hers and kept pace with her with ginger ale. “I feel so
good, by God, I don’t even need it,” he said, and laughed.
Laura watched him affectionately. She had never seen him so animated, so
happy. He glowed with it. He was almost handsome, with his brilliant
eyes and his proud smile. It made her feel a little like crying, and she
stopped him in the middle of a delirious tirade of compliments to say,
“Jack, please. You embarrass me. I’m afraid I won’t live up to it all.”
“Oh, but you will. I’ll beat you if you don’t,” he said, laughing, and
kissed her cheek. And she caught his hands and kissed them.
“You’d think we were a couple of normal people,” she said.
He sobered a little, sitting down on the floor in front of her. “They
have no monopoly on happiness, Mother. We have a right to our share. We
have a chance now. We can make something beautiful of it together.” He
stopped and chuckled at himself. “I sound like a bad poem,” he said.
“But I mean it. I have so many wonderful plans, so many hopes.” And the
thought of that bright-eyed little girl he had cherished for so long
danced into his head.
Laura couldn’t look at his face. She got up and went to lie on her bed.
They stayed up very late and Laura had too much champagne and Jack had
too much ginger ale, and they talked endlessly and held one another’s
hands tightly. And the next day they slept until four in the afternoon
and got up smiling to treat Laura’s hangover and make the beds and shop
for groceries together. And Jack introduced her to the butcher with,
“Meet my wife. She’s a doll.”
Laura blushed crimson and the butcher laughed at them and tried to sell
them some oysters. “You want kids? Buy oysters,” he advised. “Never
fails. I know, I got eight.”
It was smooth and sweet the first few months; smoother than either of
them had dared to hope. Laura was naturally mild and yielding; Jack,
efficient and good-humored and terribly proud of her. As soon as they
had enough chairs and crates collected to seat a fair number of guests,
they threw a party and Jack’s office staff came to wish them well.
None of them knew he was a homosexual. Jack was a past master at
deception. “You have to be if you’re going to survive in the world,” he
said to her once. “It’s either that or retire into a rotten little
prison with the rest of the gay people and spend your life feeling sorry
for yourself. No thanks, not for me. Sex rules my nights. But by God, as
far as the world knows, I’m a normal man from dawn to dusk. And there
isn’t one guy in that office who’d question it.”
She admired him for it. Her own vagrant sensuality had dominated her
ever since the fatal day she first recognized it, and her efforts to
hide it or deny it had always backfired sooner or later. Jack filled her
with determination to make herself a part of what he called “the real
world,” the _straight_ world. He made it seem very desirable to her for
the first time.
Jack’s office buddies brought their wives, except for two dauntless
bachelors who spent the evening berating Jack for treason.
“Are they gay?” Laura asked him in a whisper. “The unmarried ones?”
“Not gay, just scared,” he said. “Winslow is, though. That one over
there with the gorgeous wife. Poor guy, I don’t think he knows it. They
aren’t very happy.” And he nodded at the suave young man in his early
thirties with a stunning and rather bored young woman beside him. Laura
looked at the girl without a trace of desire and felt a quiet little
spark of triumph. The future looked bright if she could be around so
lovely a woman without even a hungry glance.
The autumn months passed uneventfully, and they got used to each other,
and most of their worst fears abated. Jack never wandered around the
apartment naked, out of instinctive respect for Laura. He did drop his
socks all over the floor and leave his dresser drawers open. But he
never lost his temper. He took her out to dinner once or twice a week,
and he brought her flowers and books and pretty things that caught his
eye in the windows of the stores he passed.
And he loved her. It sustained Laura through her low hours of doubt and
confusion. She was the weak one of the two, and they both knew it. There
were times when Jack had to be strong enough for both of them; times
when Laura would cling to him weeping and tell him it was all a horrible
mistake and she couldn’t live without Tris, no matter how godawful it
would be.
And then he didn’t argue with her. He only said, “If you have to go, go,
but come back. I want you here tonight at dinner time. I want you here
in the morning when I get up. There’ll be women in your life, I’m
prepared for that, honey. Tris won’t be the last. But there’s only one
man, and there will only be one man and don’t you ever forget it.”
He sounded so sensible and firm to her that her unrest would disappear.
Now and then, when she was not in a passion for Tris, they talked about
it. And she would say, “I know it’ll happen one of these days, but I
won’t let it hurt us, Jack. When I can think about it like this,
rationally and without fear, I know I can handle it. I won’t panic when
the time comes. I’ll just accept it as quietly as I can. I won’t let it
touch our marriage.”
“Good girl,” he said and squeezed her arm.
There was no sex between them. Neither of them wanted it, and that was
the way they planned it. Jack would make her take his arm when they went
anywhere because he was proud of her. And he gave her a friendly peck
when he left in the morning and when he came back at night. When she was
frightened or depressed he held her and stroked her hair and talked to
her the way she had always prayed her father would. And he liked to lie
with his head in her lap and have her read to him before they went to
bed.
But that was the limit of their physical contact. It was affectionate
and gentle but utterly sexless. After the first few weeks, Laura began
to like it. She had been shy at first and reluctant. But he didn’t force
her, and after a while she welcomed his little gestures of love. They
spelled security and reassurance to her. Suddenly it occurred to her
that Jack was a man who was taking care of his woman. And she relaxed.
She felt her nerves ease and her tension relax. The apartment was quiet
and pretty, and Laura, who was lazy as a cat for the first time in her
life, felt like a princess.
They felt a mutual gratitude toward each other. Jack came home for the
first time in his life to a warm kitchen and a charming young wife. And
just the thought of Laura reminded him, with a deep fine thrill, that he
was married; he was truly a man. It was worth a lifetime of homosexual
adventures.
Laura went to pains to please him, to show him that she cared and that
she was working to make things right as she had promised him. And they
were, all things considered, happy.
* * * * *
It wasn’t until Terry’s letter came, forwarded from Jack’s old address
in the Village, that Laura felt even the slightest apprehension that
anything was to go wrong. And the note was postmarked San Francisco and
seemed so far away that she recovered promptly from the first shock and
sat in the kitchen with the rest of the mail on the table in front of
her, wondering what to do.
Laura and Jack had made a strict rule never to open each other’s mail
and never to ask prying questions. But Laura hated to think of the turn
it would give Jack to have this ghost from his past rise up to haunt
him.
She turned and looked out the window at the sparse snow, falling that
first day of December, and played with Terry’s letter, letting it slip
from corner to corner through her fingers. She burned with curiosity.
_I could just steam it open_, she mused. _He’d never know the
difference. Damn that Terry anyway! Who does he think he is! After the
hell he put Jack through, he has a lot of nerve. I’ll bet he wants some
money._
She could bear it no longer. She got up and went to the stove, where she
had a kettle full of hot water left over from breakfast, and turned the
heat on under it. The glued flap of the envelope surrendered to the
steam in a quiet curl. Laura held the letter a moment longer before
opening it, feeling very guilty. But she loved Jack and she felt a
fierce desire to spare him more pain. Besides, her curiosity was
smothering her. She rationalized that Jack had told her himself he had
given up the gay life forever, and that included Terry. What if this set
him to drinking again?
She sat down and pulled the letter out with nervous hands. It was rather
a short note, folded twice, and she opened it and read it quickly. It
was not dated.
“Dear Jack. Have been out here in S.F. since September. What a crazy
town. You’d love it. Have a nice apartment on Telegraph Hill with a
kid I met at a party a month ago. (Not the same one you beat up the
night you kicked me out.)”
_God! He just has to rub it in. He’s just the kind of guy to mention
such a thing_, Laura thought, hot with indignation.
“Don’t know how long I’ll be out here. I sort of miss the Village.
And you. Why don’t you come out for a visit? We’ve got lots of
room.”
_He doesn’t seem to realize it would damn near kill Jack_, Laura
thought. _He’s hopeless. It never occurs to him that Jack would go crazy
in a situation like that. Or does it?_
Laura was used to the idea of Terry as a good-natured scatterbrained boy
who hurt people, mostly Jack, with monotonous regularity—largely because
he didn’t think about what he was doing. Usually, this was true enough.
But the rest of his letter made her wonder if he weren’t deliberately
needling Jack, trying to get him to come out to the coast.
She continued to read the tidy blue ink script.
“I do miss you, lover. I was always so unsettled before we met.”
_Before, after, and during_, Laura fumed.
“And now it’s worse than before. I used to feel so safe and
comfortable with you, like you’d always watch out for me, no matter
what. I guess that’s a selfish way to look at it, but I wish we were
back together. If you by any chance want it that way too, write to
me. Write to me anyway, I really want to hear from you. Love,
Terry.”
He signed his name with an elaborate flourish, like a fifth-grade child
drunk on the possibilities of fancy penmanship.
Laura folded the letter and stuck it back in the envelope and wrote a
brief sizzling note in answer. She said:
“Terry—Jack and I are married. You are not welcome here, now or
ever. Jack asked me to write and tell you that he does not want to
be bothered with any more letters from you and he will not answer
any if you do write. Please leave us alone. Laura.”
It sounded sharp and cold, and she had a momentary feeling of misgiving.
Terry was a nice kid, in spite of it all. Everybody liked him, even
Laura. But she couldn’t risk having him torment Jack. It had to sound
mean or he wouldn’t believe it. She put the note in an envelope, sealed
and stamped it, and copied his San Francisco address on it. Then she
burned Terry’s letter over the stove.
When Jack came home that evening Laura’s note was in the mail and
Terry’s was in ashes in the wastebasket.
“Any mail?” he asked her.
“Just a bill from the laundry,” she said.
But it bothered her. It came to her at odd moments and it seemed ominous
and frightening to her, like the first sign of a break-up. She had
broken her promise to him, and it didn’t help much to tell herself she
did it only to protect him. _I’m not going to let anybody hurt what
we’ve got, least of all Terry Fleming_, she thought.
The thought of having it all end between her and Jack, suddenly and
cruelly, in one big drunk on Jack’s part or wild romance on hers, scared
and depressed her. It mustn’t end that way. They needed each other too
much. Their marriage had helped them think of each other as normal. They
felt as if they knew where they were going now and life was much better.
Laura missed women. She missed them desperately sometimes. But she was
sure now, deep within herself, that the time would come when she and
Jack would be secure with each other for the rest of their lives; when
they would be able to trust each other without reservation and trust the
strength of their union. When they reached that point, it would be safe
to satisfy her desires.
As for Jack, he was through with men forever. He had said it and she
believed him. The thought that he might take a lover himself some day
never occurred to her. It just wouldn’t happen. Nor had she asked him
about Terry. Jack was so determinedly happy with her that she was afraid
to mention Terry.
It seemed strange to Laura, however, that Beebo didn’t try to find her.
She might have found them, one way or another. But there was no word
from her. Laura couldn’t help wanting to know what she was doing. She
didn’t feel the old, urgent, painful need for Tris, but there was a
persistent want that was strong enough to make her wince now and then.
Jack told her once, “If anything bothers you, tell me about it. Don’t
sit around letting it eat you up. Better to talk about it and get it out
of your system.”
And when he saw that she was pensive he made her talk. But when he
didn’t see it, she kept it to herself. There were times when Laura
couldn’t share her feelings, when she just hugged them to herself and
brooded.
Several times she had nearly talked herself into going down to the
Village to wander around. She wouldn’t go near her old apartment. Or
Tris’s studio. Or even Lili’s apartment. She wasn’t a fool, she wouldn’t
risk being caught.
But she was tempted, sometimes almost hypnotized, by the idea.
8
It was Christmas Eve. They had a fine big tree, freshly green in a sea
of lights and tinsel. No honeymoon, as they had hoped; the office
couldn’t spare Jack. So they had a party instead.
“I hate those damn pink trees,” Jack had said when they picked theirs
out. “Or gold, or white, or whatever-the-hell color they’re making them
this year. Give me a nice healthy green.”
They celebrated at the party and Jack drank eggnog without whiskey and
Laura was very pleased with him. There was a lovely girl there—unmarried
and probably gay. Laura flirted with her in spite of herself.
Jack teased her about it when they met briefly in the kitchen—he to make
drinks and she to get more hors d’oeuvres from the refrigerator. “Looks
like you got a live one,” he said.
Laura blushed. “Was I too obvious?” she asked, scared.
“No,” he said. “I just have X-ray eyes, remember?”
“I shouldn’t—”
“Oh, hell,” he said with a good-natured wave of his hand. “Flirt, it’s
good for you. Just don’t elope with her.” He gave her a grin and went
out, holding five highballs precariously. She felt a flush of love for
him, watching him.
It was three a.m. Christmas day before they got rid of everybody. Laura
threw herself in their expensive new sofa and surveyed the wreckage with
a sigh.
“I’m not even going to pick it up,” she said. “I’m not going to touch a
thing till morning.”
“That’s the spirit,” Jack said. He fixed them both a cup of coffee,
settled down beside her in the rainbow glow of the Christmas tree and
took her hand with a sigh of satisfaction.
“That’s the first goddam Christmas tree I ever had,” he said. And when
she laughed he protested solemnly, “Honest. And this is the first
Christmas that ever meant anything to me.” He turned his head, resting
against the back of the sofa, and smiled at her....
“You shouldn’t swear at Christmas,” Laura told him.
He gazed at her for a while and then asked, “Are you in love with
Kristi? Wasn’t that her name?”
“Yes, it was her name. No, I’m not in love. With anybody.”
“Me?”
“Oh, you. That’s different.”
She smiled a little and sipped her coffee, and then she leaned back on
the sofa beside him, absorbed in the soft sparkle of the tree.
Jack was still watching her. “Laura?” he said in an exploratory voice.
“Hm?”
“What would you think of adopting a child?”
She stared at a golden pine cone, her face suddenly a cautious blank. “I
don’t know,” she said.
“Have you ever thought about it?”
“A little.”
“What did you think?”
“I told you. Kids scare me.”
He bit his underlip, frowning. “I want one,” he said at last. “Would you
be willing to—_have_ one?”
“You mean—” She swallowed. “—get pregnant?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling at her outraged face. “Oh, don’t worry, Mother.
We’d do it the easy way.”
“There is no easy way!” she fired at him. “What way?”
He took a long drag on his cigarette and answered, “Artificial
insemination.” She gasped, but he went on quickly, “Now before you get
your dander up let me explain. I’ve thought it all out. Either we could
adopt one, or—and this would be much better—we could _have_ one. Our
own. We can tell the Doc we’ve had trouble and let him try the
insemination. There’s nothing to it, it doesn’t take five minutes. It
doesn’t hurt. And if it worked ... God! Our own kid. You wouldn’t be
afraid of your own, honey.”
There was a long pause while Laura sweated in silent alarm. Why did he
bring it up tonight? Why? When they were so contented and pleased with
each other, and the world was such a place of glittering enchantment.
“Couldn’t we wait and talk about it later?” she asked.
“Why not now?”
“Couldn’t I have time to think about it?”
“Sure. Think,” he said and she knew he meant, _I’ll give you five
minutes to make up your mind_.
“Jack, why do we have to do it right now? Why can’t we wait? We’ve only
been married five months.”
“I can’t wait very long, Mother,” he said. “I’m forty-five. I don’t want
to be an old man on crutches when my kid is growing up.”
“Maybe in the spring,” she said. The idea of becoming a mother terrified
her. She had visions of herself hurting the baby, doing everything
wrong; visions of her old passion coming on her and shaming them all;
selfish thoughts of her beautiful, new, leisurely laziness being ruined.
“What would I ever tell any child of mine if it caught me—with a woman?”
she said awkwardly.
“Tell it for Chrissake to knock before entering a room,” he said, and
something in his voice and manner told her that he had set his heart on
this long ago.
“Would you _insist_ on having a baby, Jack?” she asked him defiantly.