Chapter II: Part 2

Jack Mann was small, physically tough, and very intelligent. He was a sort of cocktail-hour cynic, disillusioned enough with things to be cuttingly funny. If you like that kind of wit. Some people don’t. The attitude carried over into his everyday life, but he saved his best wit especially for the after work hours, when the first fine careless flush of alcohol gave it impetus. Unfortunately he usually gave himself too much impetus and went staggering home to his bachelor apartment under the arm of a grumbling friend. He was a draftsman in the office where Burr worked as an apprentice architect and he called his work “highly skilled labor.” He didn’t like it. But he did like the pay.

“Why do you do it, then?” Burr asked him once.

“It’s the only thing I know. But I’d much rather dig ditches.”

“Well, hell, go dig ditches then. Nobody’s stopping you.”

Jack could turn his wit on himself as well as on others. “I can’t,” he told Burr. “I’m so used to sitting on my can all day I’d be lucky to get one lousy ditch dug. And then they’d probably have to bury me in it. End of a beautiful career.”

Burr smiled and shook his head. But he liked him; they got along. Jack went out with Burr and Marcie before and after they got married. And after they got divorced. He was the trouble-shooter until he got too drunk, which was often.

When he arrived with Burr on Friday night Laura was irked to find that she was taller than he was. She had made up her mind that she wasn’t going to enjoy the evening—just live through it. She’d have to spend the time mediating for Marcie and Burr and trying to entertain a man she didn’t know or care about. So she was put out to discover that she did like Jack, after all. It ruined her fine gloomy mood.

Marcie introduced them and Jack looked up at her quizzically. “What’s the matter, Landon?” he said. “You standing in a hole?”

Laura laughed and took her shoes off. It brought her down an inch. “Better?” she said.

“Better for me. Very bad for your stockings.” He grinned. “Have you read Freud?”

“No.”

“Well, thank God. I won’t have to talk about my nightmares.”

“Do you have nightmares?”

“You _have_ read Freud!”

“No, I swear. You said—”

“Okay, I confess. I have nightmares. And you remind me of my mother.”

“Do you have a mother?” said Burr. “Didn’t you just happen?”

“That’s what I keep asking my analyst. Do I have to have a mother?”

“Jack, are you seeing an analyst?” Marcie was fascinated with the idea. “Imagine being able to tell somebody _everything_. Like a sacred duty. Burr, don’t you think I should be analyzed?”

“What will you use for a neurosis?” Jack asked.

“Do I need one?”

“How about Burr?”

“I’m taken,” Burr said. “Besides, you talk like a nitwit, honey. You don’t go to an analyst like you go to the hairdresser.”

Marcie’s eyes flashed. “Thanks for the compliment,” she said. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”

“Come on, Mother.” Jack took Laura’s arm and steered her out the door. “I see a storm coming up.”

But it was dissipated when Marcie grabbed her coat and hurried after them.

* * * * *

After the play they walked down Fourth Street in the Village, meandering rather aimlessly, looking into shop windows. Laura was lost. She had never been in the Village before. She had been afraid to come down here; afraid she would see someone, and do something, and suddenly find herself caught in the strange world she had renounced. It seemed so safe, so remote from temptation to choose an uptown apartment. And yet here she was with her nerves in knots, her emotions tangled around a roommate again.

Laura pondered these things, walking slowly beside Jack in the light from the shop windows. She was unaware of where she walked or who passed by. It startled her when Jack said, “What are you thinking about, Mother?”

“Nothing.” A shade of irritation crossed her face.

“Ah,” he said. “I interrupted something.”

“No.” She turned to look at him, uncomfortable. He made her feel as if he was reading her thoughts.

“Don’t lie to me. You’re daydreaming.”

“I am not! I’m just thinking.”

He shrugged. “Same thing.”

She found him very irritating then. “You don’t say,” she said, and looked away from him.

“You hate me,” he said with a little smile.

“Now and then.”

“I messed up your daydream,” he said. “I’m rarely this offensive. Only when I’m sober. The rest of the time, I’m charming. Someday I suppose you’ll daydream about me.”

Laura stared at him and he laughed.

“At least, you’ll tell me about your daydreams.”

“Never.”

“People do. I have a nice face. Ugly, but nice. People think, ‘Jesus, that guy has a nice face. I ought to tell him my daydreams.’ They do, too.” He smiled. “What’s the matter, Mother, you look skeptical.”

“What makes you think you have a nice face?”

“Don’t I?” He looked genuinely alarmed.

“It wouldn’t appeal to just anyone.”

“Ah, smart girl. You’re right, as usual. A boy’s best friend is his mother. Only the _discriminating_ ones, my girl, think it’s a nice face. Only the sensitive, the talented, the intelligent. Now tell me—isn’t it a nice face?”

“It’s a face,” said Laura. “Everybody has one.”

He laughed. “You’re goofy,” he said. “You need help. My analyst is very reasonable. He’ll stick you for all you’ve got, but he’s very reasonable.”

Burr, who was walking ahead of them with Marcie, turned around to demand, “Somebody tell me where I’m going.”

“Turn right at the next corner,” said Jack. “You’re doing fine, boy. Don’t lose your nerve.”

“I just want to know where the hell I’m going.”

“That’s a bad sign. Very bad.”

“Cut it out, Jack,” said Marcie. “Where are we going?”

“A little bar I know. Very gay. I go there alone when I want to be depressed.”

It sounded sinister, not gay, to Laura. “What’s it called?” she said.

“The Cellar. Don’t worry, it’s a legitimate joint.” He laughed at her long face.

Marcie laughed too, and Laura’s heart jumped at the sweetness of the sound. It made her hate the back of Burr, moving with big masculine easiness ahead of her in a tweed topcoat, his bristling crew cut shining.

A few minutes later Jack led them down a few steps to a pair of doors which he pushed in, letting Laura and Marcie pass.

Laura heard Burr say, behind her, in an undertone, “It _is_ gay,” and he laughed. “You bastard.” She was mystified. It looked pretty average and ordinary. They headed for a table with four chairs, one of the few available, and Laura looked around.

The Cellar was quite dark, with the only lights placed over the bar and glowing a faint pinky orange. There were candles on the tables, and people crowded together from one end of the room to the other. Everybody seemed reasonably cheerful, but it didn’t look any gayer than any other bar she had been in. She looked curiously at Burr, but he was helping Marcie out of her coat.

“No table service,” Jack said. “What does everybody want?”

They gave him their orders and Laura tried to catch his eye, hoping for more information about the place. She was curious now. There were checkered table cloths, fish nets on the wall, a lot of people—all rather young—at the tables and bar. The juke box was going and somebody was trying to pick up a few bucks doing pencil portraits, but no one seemed very interested. The customers looked like students. There were girls in cotton pants, young men in sweaters and open-collared shirts.

“They all look like students,” she said to Burr.

He grinned. “I never thought of it that way,” he said. “I guess they do, all right.”

She stared at him. And then she looked around the room again, and suddenly she saw a girl with her arm around another girl at a table not far away. Her heart jumped. A pair of boys at the bar were whispering urgently to each other.

_Gay_, Laura thought to herself. _Is that what they call it? Gay?_ She was acutely uncomfortable now. It was as if she were a child of civilization, reared among the savages, who suddenly found herself among the civilized. She recognized them as her own. And yet she had adopted the habits of another race and she was embarrassed and lost with her own kind.

They looked at her—her own kind—from the bar and from the tables, and didn’t recognize her. And Laura looked around at them and thought, _I’m one of you. Help me._ But if anyone had approached her she would have turned away.

Jack came back with the drinks and sat down, passing them around. He drank a shot of whisky and said to Laura, “Well? How do you like tonight’s collection?”

“Tonight’s collection of what?” Laura said.

“Of nuts.” He looked around The Cellar. “Doesn’t anyone tell you anything, Mother? Burr, what’s the matter with you? She’s a tourist. Make with the old travelogue, boy.”

Burr laughed. “I thought you didn’t get it, Laura.” He smiled. “They’re all queer.”

Laura’s face went scarlet, but the candlelight hid it. She felt an awful tide of anger and fear come up in her at that word. She felt trapped, almost frantic, and she vented it on Jack. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she said. Her voice trembled with indignation.

“Take it easy, Mother,” he said.

“Tonight’s collection!” she mimicked bitterly. “You talk about them as if they were a bunch of animals.”

“They are,” he said quietly. “So are we.”

“We’re human beings,” she said. “We have no right to sit here and laugh at them for something they can’t help.”

“Can’t help, hell,” Burr said, leaning over the table toward her. “All those gals need is a real man. That’d put them on the right track in a hurry.”

Laura could have belted him. She wanted to shout, “How do you know, you big ape?” But she said instead, “You’re not irresistible, Burr.”

“I don’t mean that!” he said, frowning at her. “Christ! I only mean a man who knows the first thing about women could lay any one of these dames—even a butch—and make her like it.”

“What’s the first thing about women?” Jack asked, smiling, but they ignored him.

“If men revolt her and somebody tried to—to lay her—he’d only make her sick. No matter how much he knew about women,” Laura said sharply.

“Any girl who doesn’t like men is either a virgin or else some bastard scared the hell out of her. She needs gentling.”

“You talk about us as if we were horses!” Laura flared.

“Us?” Burr stared at her.

“Us—us women.” Laura’s face was burning.

Burr watched her as he talked. “Some girls get a bastard the first time,” he said. “It’s too bad. They end up in joints like this swapping horror stories with the other ones.”

Laura hated the way he talked. She couldn’t take it. “What if the bastard is her father?” she said. “And he scares the hell out of her when she’s five years old? And twenty years later some ass who thinks he’s a great lover comes along and throws her down and humiliates and horrifies her?”

Jack remarked, with amusement, and probably more enlightenment than the others, “Jesus, we have a moralist in our midst.” He looked at her as if she were a new species of fish.

“Damn it, Laura, that’s the point,” Burr said. “He _wouldn’t_ humiliate her. I don’t mean some God-damn truck driver with nothing but a quick lay on his mind. I mean a considerate decent sort of guy—a sort of Good Samaritan—” He grinned and Marcie said, “God!” and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

“—who really wants to help the girl,” Burr finished.

“Why don’t you try it?” Jack said.

Marcie’s face darkened. “Yes, darling, why don’t you prove your little theory? I’m sure we’d all be fascinated.”

“Now damn it, don’t you go yammering at me. I’m talking to Laura.”

“Excuse _me_!” Marcie said.

Laura leaned toward her. “I didn’t mean to start anything,” she said.

“Nobody ever does,” Jack remarked to himself.

“He said he could lay any girl and make her like it,” Marcie said.

“I said,” Burr said, turning to her and intoning sarcastically, “That any guy with any—”

“We know what you said, boy,” Jack interrupted. “Let’s keep it purely theoretical. Nobody has to prove anything. Burr loves Marcie and Marcie loves Burr. Jack loves whisky and whisky hates Jack. Laura loves animals. Everybody happy?”

Thinking over what she had said while Jack talked, Laura began to feel sick. She wished she had been perceptive enough to see where she was when they first came into The Cellar. But she took things at face value. They had entered a little bar and they were going to have a nightcap. Okay. What was so sinister about that? Why did it have to turn out to be a damn gay bar? And why did she have to react like an angry virgin when she found out?

They stayed long enough to get pretty high. They were stared at by the regular customers, but Laura was afraid to stare back. When she did, once or twice, she couldn’t catch anyone’s eye. She was ashamed of herself for trying to, but she couldn’t help it.

There was a girl at the bar, standing at one end, in black pants and a white shirt open at the collar. Her hair was short and dark and there once again was that troubling resemblance to Beth. There were some other people with her and they were all talking, but the short-haired girl seemed somehow apart from them. Now and then she would turn and smile at one of them and say a word or two. Then she turned her gaze back to the bar or into her drink, or just stared into the mirror behind the bar without seeing anything.

Laura glanced at her now and then. She had an interesting face. It made Laura want to talk to her. _It must be the drinks_, she thought, and refused another.

“I see by the look in your eye,” Jack said, “that you’ve had enough of this place. It’s nearly midnight. Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?”

“God, I hope not,” said Laura.

“It’s _after_ midnight,” said Marcie. “Let’s go. After all, poor Burr had to get up at six this morning to get to work. He’s probably exhausted. Maybe we should leave him here and let him organize a night school for the ladies.”

“Wouldn’t be any takers in here,” Jack observed, looking around. “They aren’t ladies, they’re lessies.”

“Do you have to talk about them as if they were exhibits in a zoo?” Laura exclaimed.

“God, now _we’re_ quarreling,” said Jack, laughing. But they weren’t really, for it takes two to make a quarrel and he was feeling powerfully good-natured with all that booze in him. “Leave us not forget our dignity,” he told Laura. He enunciated with meticulous care, not to let the liquor trip his tongue.

Marcie laughed at him, and pulled Laura aside as they got up. “Let’s go,” she said, and Laura walked with her to the ladies’ room. It was a glaring change from the softly lighted Cellar. They were nearly blinded with a big bare bulb which hung by a frayed wire far down into the room and watched all the proceedings with an unblinking eye.

“You go first,” Laura said to Marcie. There were few things less appealing to her than a public rest room—especially a one-horse job like this with its staring light, cracked mirror and mounds of used paper towels on the cement floor. She wet her comb slightly in the tap and ran it through her hair. The door opened and the girl with the short dark hair and black pants came in. She lounged indolently against the wall, studying Laura. Laura recognized her from the bar, but ignored her royally. Marcie was talking to her through the john door.

“How do you like Jack?” she said.

“A lot,” Laura said, for the benefit of the girl in the black pants. Her voice was warm enough to surprise Marcie.

“I’m glad,” she said. “I thought once or twice you were mad at him.”

Laura’s cheeks went red again. God, how she hated that! And there was nothing she could do about it. She pulled the comb hard through her hair, afraid to look into the mirror. She knew she would meet the eyes of the girl in the black pants. “He’s very intelligent,” she said to Marcie.

“He’s funny,” Marcie said, coming out of the john. She nearly walked into the strange girl and said, “Oh! Excuse me.”

“My pleasure,” the girl murmured with a grin.

Laura felt suddenly jealous. It was maddening. She didn’t know who she was jealous of. She wanted the other girl to notice _her_, not Marcie. And she wanted Marcie to notice her, too. She stood a moment in confusion and then she said to the girl in the black pants, “Go ahead.” And nodded at the john. She said it to make her look up, which she did, slowly, and smiled. She looked shockingly boyish. Laura stared slightly.

“Thanks,” said the girl.

She shut the door behind her and Marcie laughed silently, covering her mouth with her hand. But Laura turned away, excitement tight in her throat. “Let’s go,” she said impatiently, dragging Marcie away from the mirror. She was afraid the strange girl would come out and talk to them. She was anxious to get out of The Cellar, out of the Village. She felt a pressing sense of danger.

Marcie turned to her as they went back to the table, and said, “I’ll bet Burr couldn’t have gotten anywhere with _that_ one!” And she laughed. “She’d throw a hammer lock on him and tell him to pick on somebody his own size.”

Laura smiled faintly at her.

“Did you see how she stared at you?” Marcie said.

“Did she stare at me?”

“Yes, but she stared at me too. That’s the awful thing about Lesbians, they have no discrimination.”

Laura suddenly wanted to scream at her. It was so wrong, so false; so agonizing to have your lips sealed when you wanted to shout the truth.

They left the smoky Cellar and walked a few blocks, talking. Jack took a weaving course, and Laura had to steer him with one arm.

“Let’s take a taxi,” Marcie said.

“It’s only two blocks to the subway,” Burr reminded her.

“Can’t you ever spend a little extra on me?” she exclaimed. “Don’t you think I’m good enough to ride in a taxi? Don’t you think I’m worth another buck once in a while? You did when we got married.”

“Yeah, and I went broke. Subway’s cheap.”

“Well, I’m not!”

“Here, here,” said Jack. He took a quarter from his pocket and held it up to Marcie’s face.

“Heads,” she said.

He flipped while Laura thought to herself what child’s play it all was. Jack seemed unsophisticated now and Marcie and Burr had lost the beauty and excitement they seemed to generate together, even in the midst of their quarrels, perhaps because of them. _We all look tired and silly_, Laura thought, _and I wish we were anywhere but the middle of Greenwich Village flipping over a taxi ride_.

“Heads!” said Marcie. She poked Burr in the stomach.

“No show next week,” he said.

“You don’t think I care, do you?”

“Never mind, children, this is my treat,” said Jack. He smiled foxily. “I’m no fool with money,” he said. “I grow it in my window box. I give it all to Mother, here, and she invests it for me. Don’t you, Mother?”

“Don’t be an ass,” said Laura, but she laughed at him.

“She loves me,” Jack explained to Burr and Marcie. Suddenly he left them all to dash into the middle of the street, waving his arms wildly at a pair of headlights that were bearing down on him. They screeched to a halt with an irate taxi driver behind them. Marcie gave a little scream and the driver leaned out and said, “You damn fool!”

“You’d better get that punk home and give him some black coffee, lady,” he told Laura as they started uptown. “If you don’t mind a little advice.”

“He’s going to hate himself tomorrow,” Marcie said.

“He’s damn lucky he’s gonna be _around_ tomorrow,” said the cabbie. They all talked about him as if he were deaf. And in fact, he was, for he had fallen asleep almost as soon as he got into the cab.

“Does he do this all the time?” Laura asked Burr.

“He’s a great guy, Laura,” Burr said, as if trying to bolster Jack in Laura’s eyes. “He just flies off the handle now and then. I guess he’s got problems.”

At the apartment Laura got out first. Burr said, “I’ll wake him up, Laura,” but she protested. “Just let him sleep,” she said. “I’d hate to interrupt his dreams.”

“I heard that,” said a ragged voice from the shadows inside the car. “You’re a doll, Mother. Sleep well.”

“Goodnight,” Laura said, smiling.

Chapter Five

She was under the covers and almost asleep when Marcie tiptoed in after bidding Burr goodnight. She moved around the room for a few minutes, getting ready for bed. Laura was just barely aware of her. After a little while she heard her turn the light off and cuddle the covers around herself. The silence, up above the city late at night, was deep, lulling, almost country-like. Only an occasional stray horn filtered up to their level. It sounded like a far-off echo.

“Laura? Are you asleep?” Marcie whispered.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She was quiet for a minute. Then she whispered, “I have to ask you something.”

“Don’t marry him. It’ll never work.”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean—does it make you feel funny to see those people?”

“What people?”

“Queers?”

“They aren’t queer, Marcie. That’s a cruel word.” Her eyes were wide open now in the dark.

“What are they, then?”

“Homosexuals.” She said it shyly.

“That’s too long. Well, _does_ it make you feel funny?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Marcie.”

“Well, I mean like the butch in the ladies’ room. Didn’t she make you feel queer—I mean funny—” She laughed. “—looking at us like she was a man, or something?”

“I guess so.”

“She was looking at us when she was at the bar, too.”

“She was?” Laura was amazed that Marcie would notice such a thing. “How do you know?”

Marcie laughed again. “I was looking at her,” she said.

“You what?”

“Oh, not the way you think. I was just sort of looking around and she was looking at our table. I think she wanted to come up and talk to us but she didn’t dare with the boys there. She knew we weren’t gay.”

“Is that what they call it—gay?”

“Yes. You know, it gave me the funniest feeling, her staring at us like that.”

Laura turned over in her bed, very wide awake. She said to herself, _I won’t ask her about it_, but she couldn’t help asking. “What sort of feeling?” she whispered.

“Well, it was like ... if I tell you you won’t think I’m like _them_, will you?”

“Oh, no! Of course not.” Laura felt the blood beating in her throat.

“It was like I wanted to know what she’d do to me. If we were alone, I mean. I was sort of curious. I wondered what it would feel like. Not that I’d ever let a girl—I mean—Laura, did you ever kiss a girl?”

“No,” Laura said. In the dark she could lie pretty well. Her blushing cheeks didn’t show.

“I did, once.”

Laura put her hands to her throat and tried to still her breathing. “Did you like it?” she whispered.

“Not much. But I didn’t dislike it. I was at that age. She was a friend of mine in Junior High. Maybe she turned out queer. I mean homosexual. She probably thinks _I_ turned out queer,” and she laughed. “She was always wanting to touch tongues.”

Laura shivered. “Did you?”

“A couple of times. It gave me the creeps. With a man it’s so lovely.” Laura heard her turn in her bed to face her. “Didn’t you ever do that when you were little? We used to do it a lot, just because it felt so awful. But Lenore was always wanting to do it with me when we got older. We were sort of best friends for a while.”

Laura was sitting up, shivering, on the edge of her bed. She thought, _Dear God, if there is a God, help me now. Don’t let me touch her. Please don’t let me._

Suddenly Marcie got up and crossed the small aisle between the beds. She felt Laura and sat beside her. “Stick out your tongue,” she commanded, giggling.

“No!”

“Come on. I want to feel twelve years old again. I feel silly. Stick your tongue out.” She was teasing and Laura could see the flash of gold hair in the moonlight that struck them from the window by the bed.

“Marcie, don’t do this! Don’t! You’re playing with fire. Please, this is crazy.” But her voice dwindled to a whisper as Marcie took her face in her hands, and she was powerless to resist. She let herself be pulled toward Marcie, felt Marcie’s soft wet tongue searching for her own. Laura opened her mouth with a slight gasp. Her arms went out to grasp Marcie’s slender body as a groan escaped her.

Suddenly the phone rang. Laura gave a little scream of shock. They were both utterly silent and motionless until it rang again. Then Marcie began to laugh. “Oh, wouldn’t you know!” she said. “Saved by the bell. Saved from a life of sin.” The phone rang again. “I’ll get it,” Marcie said. She sprang up from the bed. Laura sat frozen where she was, hugging herself, trembling and miserable. “It’s probably Burr wanting to apologize for being such a skunk,” Marcie said. She threw herself across her bed and lifted the receiver. “Hello? ... Laura, it’s for you.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, “It’s Jack.”

“I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Don’t be silly. Talk to him.”

Unwillingly Laura took the phone, sitting on the bed beside Marcie. She was so conscious of Marcie’s body stretched out there beside her that she had trouble concentrating on Jack.

He said, “Mother, I’ve been an ass.”

“I know.”

“Forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven,” she said. “Now go to bed. Goodnight.”

“But I am in bed,” he said. He was still pronouncing each word with elaborate care. “My question is this—did you really mean it?”

“Mean what?” said Laura looking at the faint moonlit curve of Marcie’s leg.

“I’d swear you said you loved me,” he said.

“You were dreaming.”

“Do you?”

“No. Jack, please go to bed. Let me go.”

“If I went any more to bed than I already am, Mother—and don’t think that was easy to say, because it wasn’t—I don’t know where I’d be. Say you love me.”

“No. Jack, it’s late. I’m tired.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday. You can sleep.”

“I don’t care what tomorrow is, I’m tired right now. Now goodnight.”

“Do something for me, Mother.”

Marcie turned over, lying across her pillow on her stomach.

“What?” Laura said softly, losing contact with him.

“Promise.”

“Okay.” She whispered it.

“Kiss Marcie for me.”

“_What?_” Laura was shocked into total awareness.

“Goodnight, Mother,” Jack said. And hung up.

Laura replaced the receiver and sat uncertainly on the bed next to Marcie for a minute. She didn’t dare to wonder what Jack meant. She had enough to do just keeping her hands off Marcie’s smooth behind. She felt afraid of her.

_What would Beth have done if it had been me lying there?_ she wondered, and knew at once. Beth would have laid down on top of her, her front to Marcie’s back. Beth would have kissed her neck, her ears, her shoulders. Beth would have—

“Laura,” Marcie murmured.

“Yes?” Her throat was dry, making it hard to answer.

“We’d better get to sleep.”

It was all over, then. Laura had waited too long. Maybe Marcie would have repulsed her anyway. Maybe her hesitation had saved her. On the other hand, maybe—Laura burned to know. But Marcie had lost the playful, childish, experimental mood, and was already half asleep. There might never be another chance.

Chapter Six

At work on Monday Laura’s phone rang halfway through the morning. “Doctors Hollingsworth, Carstens, and Hagstrom,” she said, business-like. What a mouthful! she thought to herself.

Her listener apparently had the same idea. “Jesus, what a tongue-twister,” he said. “What happened to Smith?”

“There is no Dr. Smith,” she said, taken aback.

“Oh, don’t be so damn formal, Mother. It’s not like you. I thought I’d better apologize while I’m sober. I was drunk the last time.”

“I know. How are you, Jack?” She smiled at the thought of his face.

“Bored. But healthy. I didn’t mean to fall asleep in your face Friday night.”

“It’s okay. Forget it.”

“Just for that I’ll give you a free ticket to see my analyst. He’s a great guy. He needs you.”

“He needs me?”

“Have you got fifty bucks a week to spend on your salvation?”

“I haven’t got fifty bucks a week to spend on my _groceries_,” she said.

“Well, I guess he doesn’t need you as much as I thought. But I’d be glad to stake you to your first session. After that it becomes habitual. You crave it. You’ll find the money somehow.”

Laura was laughing. “Give it to Marcie, not me,” she said. “She’s the one who loves to talk.”

“You do some pretty good talking yourself.”

“I do?”

“You got lyrical in defense of oddballs Friday night.”

“I did not! Let’s not go into that again anyway,” she said. “Look, Jack, I’d like to talk to you, but—”

“I know, you’re at work. So am I. Don’t you ever get tired of work?”

“I’m on probation here. If I don’t do well they’ll fire me in June.”

“So your poor virtuous hardworking little life revolves around that office.”

“Now you’re being an ass again.”

“I’m telling you, Laura, you’d make a good soap opera. So would the rest of us. We’re all a bunch of nuts in a million nutsy little soap operas. Will Burr marry Marcie? Will Jack take the pledge? Will Laura stick it out till June? Tune in tomorrow. We won’t have the answer for you, but we’ll sell you soap like all hell. Do you know why people buy soap?”

“To wash themselves.”

“No. They like to play with themselves in the bathtub.”

Laura had to laugh at him. “You fool,” she said. “Jack, I can’t talk to you, honestly.”

“Okay. I’ll call back.”

“No, no, call tonight.”

“But I want to see you tonight.”

She was unaware that she might have impressed him on their date, and he took her by surprise. “You do?”

“Well, don’t sound so damn shocked. You’re a nice girl even if you are ten feet tall. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

“No, I can’t, Jack.”

“Okay, eight.”

“I’m busy.”

“The hell you are.”

“I am.”

“You lie! I have an instinct about these things. Eight sharp.”

All at once Laura became aware of another voice calling her. “Laura?” It was Dr. Hollingsworth. He was standing over her desk and she looked up suddenly like a scared little kid.

“Yes, sir?” she said. She hung up without even saying goodby to Jack.

* * * * *

Jack Mann was not a pushy type. On the contrary, he was rather shy, although it rarely showed. He went to parties and hid behind a stream of wisecracks. He did the same thing on dates. He did it with anyone and everyone. It was a sort of defense mechanism, a way of hiding his real self, and he had done it for so many years that by now it was second nature. Even people who knew him fairly well, like Burr and Marcie, never saw beneath this facade of witticism. They thought that _was_ Jack: all funny asides and not much serious straight talk. It was hard to take him seriously. He didn’t want that. He wanted to be laughed at, to be amusing, and he usually contrived to be. He was content to let people take him for a wag.

But once in a while he ran across somebody who made him feel sick of the mask he hid behind. Somebody who made him yearn to talk, quietly and seriously, about the things that mattered to him. It happened when he was unlucky enough to fall in love. Or when he met a loner like himself and felt an unspoken sympathy. It happened with Laura.

It wasn’t easy for him to call her back. It would have been, if she hadn’t appealed to his emotions. There were a lot of girls he called just for the sake of their mutual amusement, or just to amuse himself. But if he bantered lightly with Laura it was more because he couldn’t help it than because he wanted to, more because he had found it almost impossible to talk straight anymore.

At eight o’clock he showed up at the apartment. He walked into the living room without knocking and said, “It’s me.” When nobody answered he wandered through to the bedroom and found Laura giving Marcie a home permanent. “God, what a stink!” he said.

Laura looked up in surprise. “I thought you were kidding,” she said. “About the date.”

He smiled at her. She was dressed in tight chinos and a boy’s shirt. It was her favorite after work outfit. “You weren’t planning on the Stork Club, I see,” he cracked.

“I wasn’t planning on anything.”

“That’s a dangerous attitude, Mother. Always plan on something. Avoid accidents.”

“Jack, you can’t have her,” Marcie said. “I’ll never get this thing right without her.” She waved a plastic curler at him helplessly.

“You’re better off without it, doll. Take it from me. Come on, we’ll go as you are.”

“Jack, I can’t. I had no idea—”

“Come on. I want to talk to you.”

“We can talk here.”

“No we can’t. Marcie’s here.”

“I won’t listen,” Marcie said with a smile.

“Besides, I can’t talk,” he said, and Laura caught a glimpse of the shyness hidden in him. “I’m sober as a post.” He shrugged. “Let’s go.”

“I can’t go like this.”

“Never mind the pants, they’re becoming.”

For some deep buried and curious reason she was flattered. She stood there hesitating and Jack took advantage of her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door.

“Kidnapper!” Marcie wailed.

“My coat—” Laura said.

“You don’t need one. It’s balmy.”

“So are you.”

“Thanks.” He guided her down the steps.

This was a switch for Laura. She had never been especially attractive to men before, starting at the beginning with her father and going right on up through college. She didn’t look warm and soft and yielding. She was remote and involved in herself, aloof from everybody, men included. She didn’t like them very much and they sensed it.

Now, here was a well educated intelligent male giving her the rush. She didn’t understand it. Jack didn’t appeal to her physically any more than any other man; in fact, a little less. He was small, wiry, rather owlish in his horn rims. He looked like an ivy league undergrad. She guessed he was about twenty-five. Laura was twenty. But she supposed that in five or six years she might be as cynical as Jack was. She liked to hear him say things she never dared to say herself.

They went to a little bar a few blocks away where Laura had gone once with Marcie for a beer. It was a quiet spot with a steady clientele.

They walked in and took a booth in the back. “I usually prefer the bar,” said Jack, “but I always end up telling my troubles to the bartender. So we’ll sit back here.”

Laura felt a little strange walking into a bar in a pair of pants, but she was with a man and she hoped that made it all right.

“Just a beer,” she said to Jack. A year ago she would have said. “Just a coke.” And said it in a way to make him think she disapproved of liquor. But lately she had picked up a taste for beer. Beth liked it and so did Marcie. That was too much for Laura. There must be something to it. So she had gotten into the habit of having one now and then in the evening when she got home from work. It relaxed her. It made her feel that she could think of Merrill Landon without exploding, or of Marcie without crawling out of her skin. She felt like maybe she could stand it, living this way with Marcie, and everything would turn out all right.

The waitress brought their drinks, and Jack poured her beer for her. Then he downed his shot and drank some water. He seemed to be looking for a way to talk to her. “How long have you and Marcie been together?” he said finally.

_That’s an odd way to put it_, Laura thought warily. “Since January,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. I guess Burr mentioned it. He likes you.” He smiled at her and she relaxed a little.

“Why don’t Burr and Marcie get along?” she asked.

Jack shrugged and hailed the waitress. Then he looked at Laura. “They don’t want to,” he said. “It would spoil the fun.”

“They love each other,” said Laura.

“Physically, yes, they do.”

Laura didn’t like his definition. “Marcie says they might get married again.”

“Yeah. They’re just blind enough to do it, too.”

“Marcie’s not blind!”

“Sorry. A slip of the tongue.” He grinned and drank the fresh drink the waitress had just delivered.

“Well, she’s not,” Laura said, disconcerted by his manner. “She really loves Burr—at least, she thinks she does.”

He put his glass down. “Marcie hasn’t learned to love yet,” he said.

“You mean she doesn’t love Burr?” She asked the question eagerly.

“No,” he said quietly, studying her. “She loves physical excitement. She loves a big virile passionate sonofabitch to make a fuss over her.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, disappointed. “She doesn’t fight just for the sake of fighting. It’s just with Burr. She never fights with me.”

Jack laughed a little, privately. “That’s because you’re a girl, Mother,” he said. “I can tell ’cause you got long hair.”

Laura began to sweat under his searching eyes. “That’s not the point,” she said, exasperated. “Marcie has a sweet disposition. She’s very quiet. It must be Burr.”

“Quiet?” Jack laughed. “The way that girl talks she’s about as quiet as Grand Central during rush hour.”

“All right, she talks a lot.” Laura was getting mad. “That doesn’t mean she likes fights. Or men who thrive on them.”

“That’s just what it does mean. Believe it. It’s true.”

“You’re screwy.”

“You’re in love.”

“What?” She said it in a shocked whisper, staring at him, feeling her cheeks go scarlet. “What does that mean?” she said. Her voice was dry and small and her hands were wet.

Jack drank another shot. Then he put the glass down and leaned toward her over the table, his face serious. “You’re gay, Laura.”

Laura was speechless for a moment, surprised beyond her capacity to think or feel. Then an awful sick trembling came up in her throat. For a minute she hung between flight and a fight. She was furious, scared and humiliated. It never occurred to her to deny the truth. Jack had hit the bull’s eye. She clenched her fists on the table top and violent things came to her lips. But before she could utter them Jack spoke again.

“Oh, don’t look so damn mad. You’re not the only one.” He sighed, crushing his cigarette in a scorched ashtray. “I am too. So don’t give me a martyr act.” And he nodded again to the waitress.

Laura put her hands over her face suddenly, pressing one hand over her mouth to catch the sobs. She heard the waitress come up and turned her head to the wall.

“Same for me,” Jack said.

“How about the lady?”

“Bring her a double whisky.”

Laura could feel the woman looking at her curiously. She wanted to evaporate. She hated the impersonal curiosity of this stranger. After a minute Jack said, “She’s gone.”

Laura put her hands down, but she couldn’t look at him. She just said, rather hopelessly, “How did you know?”

“Takes one to know one,” he said with light sarcasm.

“_How?_” Laura demanded. “You’re a man.”

“So I’m a man. You’re a girl. We’re both queer.”

“How did you know?” she said sharply, looking at him now.

“You’ve got a crush on Marcie. That’s how.”

Laura gasped a little. “Is it so obvious?” she asked, frightened.

Jack shook his head. “To me, maybe, but only because I was looking for it.”

“You were? Why?”

“I’m always looking for it.” He was bantering again. She realized now that he had called her Laura when he said it: _You’re gay, Laura_. He was dead serious then.

“Do you look for it even in girls?” she said.

“In anybody. You might say it’s a hobby with me. I spot one and I think to myself, ‘Another poor bastard like me.’ It boosts my morale. I guess it’s a case of misery loves company.”

“I’d rather suffer alone,” she said, not without pride.

“You’ll get over that. When you learn your way around.”

Laura was still trembling all over. “Listen to me, Jack,” she said, leaning over the table and brushing the last tear impatiently from her cheeks. “I never heard that word—gay—like you use it until our date Friday. Nobody ever called me ‘gay’ before. I didn’t even know what it meant. But I’ll tell you this: I never touched Marcie. I’ve never tried to get away with anything with her. Never. She doesn’t know and she never will.” She said this almost fiercely, but Jack only smiled at her.

“Okay,” he said. “Don’t preach at me. I believe you. I believe you haven’t been climbing into Marcie’s bed after hours, anyway. But don’t let Marcie fool you. She can be wild sometimes. She gets in crazy moods and she’ll do anything. I saw her go up to a bum in Central Park and kiss him once on a dare. A big ugly slob of a guy. It was enough to get her killed, but she loved it.”

Laura was revolted. But not surprised. Not after what Marcie had done to her last Friday night.

“She couldn’t possibly suspect me,” she said stubbornly. “I never do a thing.”

“You did plenty in The Cellar Friday night.”

“I—I did?” She felt that old sick feeling come over her again.

“You looked at her like you had ideas. You held the door for her. You argued with Burr.”

“But all I said was—”

“All you said was you were gay. To anybody who bothered to figure it out. Well, I did, that’s all.”

Laura’s face was hot and she tried to defend herself. “All I did was defend them—homosexuals, I mean. I just said they were human beings, not animals. Is that against the law?”

“Not ‘they,’ Mother,” Jack said softly. “‘We.’ You’re one of us.”

“But Burr and Marcie don’t know that,” she said, almost pleading with him to agree.

Jack raised a finger to his lips. “Everybody will know it if you don’t keep your voice down,” he said. “Okay, Burr doesn’t know it. As for Marcie, you live with the girl. You should know.”

“She couldn’t,” Laura said, but she felt shaky.

“You aren’t sure, are you? Why don’t you find out?”

“How?” She looked at him eagerly.

“Ask her.” He laughed to see her face fall.

“Damn you!”

“Okay. Don’t ask her. Make a pass at her.”

“You’re mad!” Laura stared at him, shocked. “I’d never do such a thing! She might—why, my God, she might call the police. Or Burr. She’d hate me. I couldn’t stand it. Jack, don’t tell me to make a fool of myself. Do you want to get me into a tragic mess?”

“I want to keep you _out_ of one, Mother. That’s why I’m talking this way.”

“Well, act like you did, then. You drag me down here, when I didn’t want to come in the first place, and tell me—” She swallowed convulsively. “—tell me I’m _gay_.” She spat the word at him. “And then you have the gall to sit there and tell me to make love to Marcie—” She almost choked on the words. “—when you know damn well she’d probably be revolted by it, she’d—”

“Calm down, Mother, have a drink.” And he held her glass up to her until she took it from him. It burned her throat but she was too worked up to care.

“Now,” said Jack. “I asked you down here to tell you I know you’re gay. And so am I. I want to be friends with you, Laura.” She glanced up at him, and found that he was embarrassed, for all the liquid courage he was consuming, and it was hard for him to talk. “Damn it,” he said. “I’m so used to talking like an idiot, I can’t say what I mean anymore. I—I wanted to tell you—to warn you, Laura—I was in the situation you’re in now. Once. Long ago. I fell for a roommate of mine, I didn’t think he knew anything either. I didn’t see how it was possible. I was so damn careful. I never said anything, I never _did_ anything. Jesus Christ, I even avoided the guy. I went out of my way to avoid him. But I was nuts about him, Laura. I wanted him so bad it hurt. I’d lie there in the dark and tell myself, ‘You can’t have him, you can’t have him’ over and over. I’d say, ‘Who the hell do you think you are? If you were the prettiest boy on earth he wouldn’t look twice. And, Mann, you aren’t the prettiest boy on earth. You’re the ugliest.’ Whenever we talked late at night, whenever we went anywhere together, whenever we touched I used to burn up inside, I used to die of it. I wanted to kiss him, feel him all over, just hold him. God, it killed me! But I never let on. Never. And one day—this’ll give you an idea of what to expect, Mother—one day after all this noble chastity and virtue and self-denial crap I was going through, he came up to me and said, ‘Jack, I hate to say this, but I’m moving out.’”

“Why?” Laura asked softly, her forehead wrinkled with sympathy.

“Because I was gay. He didn’t say it that way, of course. He didn’t say, ‘Because you’re queer, you poor bastard. I’m sorry for you but I can’t take it any more.’ I could have stood that. But he just handed me a lot of bull.”

Laura felt like crying again. But she only said, “Isn’t that something to be grateful for? He tried, anyway.”

“Yeah. He tried.” He said it so acidly that Laura was afraid to say any more.

“There’ve been a lot since Joe,” he said, after a while. “Just like there’ll be a lot for you after Marcie.” Laura tried to protest but he waved her down. “I know, I know, you’re going to keep hands off. You’re going to spend your whole life ignoring sex, ignoring what you are. Denying that you want it, running away from it. I was going to, too. That was twenty-five years ago.”

“Twenty-five years ago!” Laura stared at him. “How old are you, Jack?”

“Forty-two. Surprised?” He smiled at her gaping astonishment.

“I thought you were maybe five years older than I am. Twenty-five or so. You _can’t_ be forty-two.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself. I can’t be. But I sure as hell am.”

“I don’t believe it.”

He grinned. “Good,” he said. “I like to fool people.”

“Why?” It seemed crazy. “What does a man care how young he looks? I thought that was for women,” Laura said.

“Women and gay boys. Do you think some pretty twenty-year-old is going to fall for a fat bald, middle-aged bastard with not even a bankroll to offer? I’m ugly, Mother. That’s enough of a handicap. When I start looking old, I’ll quit.”

“You’re not ugly, Jack,” she said gently, trying to console him.

But he took it with a sardonic laugh. “Only a Mother could love me,” he said.

“Don’t talk like this. You make me so sad.”

“Ahhh, Christ,” he said, and drank. He looked up at Laura, and she could see he wasn’t focusing very well now. “I came here to talk about you anyway, not me. What did your father do to you when you were five years old?”

Laura started. “When did I say that? Did I mention my father?” she asked.

“Yes. In The Cellar. Probably as good a place as any.”

“I—I didn’t mean _my_ father,” she said.

“Don’t fib to me, Laura. Let’s be friends.”

After a few moments, she said, “I can’t talk about it, Jack.”

“What did he do?”

“We—we were at a summer resort.” It began to spill out of her. Jack had bared his anguish, and she felt suddenly safe with him, and needed. “We were there for a vacation one summer. We went fishing on the lake—Father and Mother and my brother and me.” Her voice grew soft as she spoke. “The boat capsized. I was the only one he could save. I was the closest to him. Mother and Rod drowned.” She shut her eyes with a little gasp against the old horror, still so sharp in her heart, like a big ugly needle stuck there to remind her she had no right to be alive. “All my life I’ve felt as if I killed them. He says I did. He hates me because I’m not his son. He hates me because I’m not my own mother, his wife.” Jack seemed completely sober for a minute, staring at her with his brows knit. She put her head down and cried quietly. “That’s all,” she said. “I can’t tell you any more.”

“You don’t need to,” he said softly. “Jesus.”

She took a deep breath and sat up, feeling as if she had lightened the weight of that leaden secret by sharing it. She was somewhat surprised to find that she was able to share it. She felt very close to Jack, as if they were now truly friends. Each of them had risked a little of himself to the other. And neither, now, was sorry.

With a sigh, she looked at her watch. It was getting late. “I have to get up early,” she said, her voice still unsteady. “So do you. I know, Burr’s always yelling about the hours. Let’s go.”

“One more,” he said, holding up his glass. “I’m not quite through with you yet.”

“I don’t get it,” Laura said to him. “We don’t even know each other. This is the second time we’ve seen each other. And here we are talking like old friends.”

“You’re wrong, Laura. We know each other a lot better than some people who’ve been acquainted for years. Like Burr and Marcie. We know each other instinctively, don’t you feel that? I wouldn’t have called you otherwise. You wouldn’t have let me drag you out tonight otherwise.”

“Don’t talk about Marcie as if she didn’t have a brain in her head,” Laura said.

Jack smiled. “You _are_ in love,” he said. “This is serious. She has a few brains, Mother, she just doesn’t use them.”

“She’s not stupid,” Laura defended her eagerly.

“She’s not sacred either.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh, yes you did. I thought Burr was once.”

“Burr?” Laura stared at him. “Did you—were you—”

“Nuts for Burr? Yes. Once. When I first met him.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Thank God. I got over it. I go for big virile sons of bitches, just like Marcie. But I take care not to room with them anymore.”

Laura shook her head, a wry little smile on her face. “Don’t you ever fall for the gay ones?”

“I try to make a point of it.” He grinned sadly. “Unfortunately I sometimes miss the point. If you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure.”

“It’s just as well. I met Burr at work when he was hired about four years ago. I knew he was straight.”

“What’s ‘straight’?”

“Everything that’s not ‘gay’—so I pussyfooted around the issue. I made him like me. I did his homework for him. I made him laugh. I told him what to tell the boss. I double-dated with him and Marcie and I was an usher at the wedding. I was Number One trouble-shooter _after_ the wedding. He thinks I’m indispensable.”

“But you—you don’t still—”