Annie On My Mind (15 page)

Let’s not be scared to buy books, or embarrassed, and when we buy them, let’s not hide them in a secret bookcase. It’s not honest, it’s not right, it’s a denial of—of everything we feel for each other. They’re older, maybe they had to, but—oh, Liza, I don’t want to hide the—the best part of my life, of myself.” I pulled her to me; she was shaking all over. “Annie, Annie.” I said, smoothing her hair, trying to soothe her. “Annie, take it easy, love; I don’t want to hide either, but …”

“The best part,” Annie repeated fiercely, moving out of my arms. “Liza—this vacation, it’s been—” She went back to the bookcase, thumping her palm against the glass doors. “We can’t close ourselves in behind doors the way these books are closed in. But that’s what’s going to happen as soon as school starts—just afternoons, just weekends—we should be together all the time, we should …” She turned to me again, her eyes very dark, but then she smiled, half merry, half bitter. “Liza, I want to run away with you, to elope, dammit.”

“
I—I
know,” I said; the bitterness had quickly taken over. I reached for her hands. “I know.” Annie came into my arms again. “Liza, Liza, nothing’s sure, but—but I’m as sure as a person can be. I want to hold on to you forever, to be with you forever, I …”

She smiled wistfully. “I want us to be a couple of passionless old ladies someday together, too,” she said, “sitting in rocking chairs, laughing over how we couldn’t get enough of each other when we were young, rocking peacefully on somebody’s sunny porch …”

“On our sunny porch,” I said. “In Maine.”

“Maine?”

“Maine. We were both calmer now, holding hands, smiling. “Okay,” Annie said. “And we’ll rock and rock and rock and remember when we were kids and were taking care of somebody else’s house and they turned out to be gay, and how tense we were because we knew we’d have to spend the next four years away from each other at different colleges, not to mention that very summer because I had to go to stupid camp …”

We pulled ourselves out of that room, we really did. We went into the other bedroom, because we had to do something and because we were curious, and it was just as we expected; the other bedroom didn’t count. All the clothes were in the two closets in the big bedroom and in the two bureaus there, and in the bureau in the other room there were only what looked like extras—heavy sweaters and ski socks and things like that. The bed in that room was a single one and the sheets on it looked as if they’d been there for years. It was just for show. “We won’t do that,” Annie said firmly when we were back downstairs in the kitchen, heating some mushroom soup. “We won’t, we won’t. If people are shocked, let them be.”

“Parents,” I said, stirring the soup. “My brother.”

“Well, they’ll just have to know, won’t they?”

“You going to go right home and tell Nana you’re gay, that we’re lovers?” I asked as gently as I could.

“Oh, Liza.”

“Well?”

“No, but …” I turned down the gas; the soup was beginning to boil.

“Bowls.” Annie reached into the cupboard. “Bowls.”

“And if you’re not going to run home and tell them now, you probably won’t later.”

“They won’t mind so much when I’m older. When we’re older.” I poured the soup into the bowls and opened a box of crackers I had bought the day before.

“It won’t make any difference. It’ll be just as hard then.”

“Dammit!” Annie shouted suddenly. “Speak for yourself, can’t you?”

My soup bowl wavered in my hand; I nearly dropped it. And I wanted to carry it to the sink and dump the soup down the drain. Instead I poured it back into the pot, reached for my jacket, and said as calmly as I could, “I’m going out. Lock up if you leave before I get back, okay?”

“Liza, I’m sorry,” Annie said, not moving. “I’m sorry. It—it’s the bed—knowing it’s there when the sofa’s so awful, and knowing it’s going to be so long till we can be together again, really together, I mean. Please don’t go. Have your soup—here.” She took my bowl to the stove and poured my soup back in it. “Here—please. You’re probably right about my parents.”

“And you’re right,” I said, following her into the dining room, “about the bed.” We ate lunch mostly in silence, and afterwards we went up to the living room and listened to music. But Annie sat in an easy chair all afternoon and I sat on the sofa, and we didn’t mention the bed again, or go near each other.

The next day, Friday, the day before Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson were due home, we cleaned the house and made sure everything was the way we’d found it, and then we went for a long, sad walk. My parents and Chad were going out for dinner that night, and for the first time in my life I was really tempted to lie to them and say I was spending the night at Annie’s and ask Annie to tell her parents she was spending the night at our apartment, so we could both spend it in Cobble Hill. But I didn’t even mention it to Annie—although I think I lived every possible minute of it in my imagination—until the next morning, when it was too late to arrange for it to happen.

“Oh, Liza,” Annie said when I told her. “I wish you’d said. I thought the same thing.”

“We’d have done it, wouldn’t we?” I said miserably, knowing it would have been wrong of us, but knowing it would have been wonderful, me, to have a whole night with Annie, in a real bedroom—to fall asleep beside her, to wake up with her. “Yes,” she said. Then: “But it wouldn’t have been right. It—we shouldn’t have been doing any of this. In someone else’s house, I mean.” I filled the cats’ water dish—we were feeding the cats for the next-to-last time and they were wrapping themselves around Annie’s legs, expectantly.

“I know. But we did—and I’m not going to regret it. We’ve put everything back. They don’t have to know anything.”

But I was wrong about that. It rained on Saturday, hard. We’d planned to go for another walk after feeding the cats, or to the movies or a museum or something. Without talking about it, we had decided to avoid staying in the house any more. But the rain was incredible, more like a fall rain than a spring one—biting and heavy. “Let’s stay here,” Annie said, watching the rain stream darkly past the kitchen window while the cats ate. “Let’s just listen to music. Or read. We—we can be—oh, what should I call it? Good isn’t the right word. Restrained?”

“I’m not sure I trust us,” I think I said. “It’s not wrong, Liza,” Annie said firmly. “It’s just that it’s someone else’s house.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“My Nana should see you now,” she said. “You’re the gloomy one.” She tugged at my arm. “I know. I saw Le Morte al’Arthur in the dining room. Come on. I’ll read you a knightly tale.” I wonder why it was that so often when Annie and I were tense about the most adult things—wanting desperately to make love, especially in that bedroom as if it were ours—we turned silly, like children. We could have gone out for a walk, rain or no. We could have sat quietly and listened to music, each in our own part of the room, like the day before. We could even have finished leftover homework. But no. Annie read me a chapter out of the big black-and-gold King Arthur, dramatically, with gestures, and I read her one, and then we started acting the tales out instead of reading them.

We used saucepans for helmets and umbrellas with erasers taped to the ends for lances, and gloves for gauntlets, and we raced around that house all morning, jousting and rescuing maidens and fighting dragons like a couple of eight-year-olds. Then the era changed; we abandoned our saucepan helmets and Annie tied her lumber jacket over her shoulders like a Three Musketeers-type cape. With the umbrellas for foils, we swashbuckled all over the house, up and down stairs, and ended up on the top floor without really letting ourselves be aware of where we were. I cried

“Yield,” and pretended to pop Annie a good one with my umbrella, and she fell down on the big bed, laughing and gasping for breath.

“I yield!” she cried, pulling me down beside her. “I yield, monsieur; I cry you mercy!”

“Mercy be damned!” I said, laughing so hard I was able to go on ignoring where we were. We tussled for a minute, both of us still laughing, but then Annie’s hair fell softly around her face, and I couldn’t help touching it, and we both very quickly became ourselves again. I did think about where we were then, but only fleetingly; I told myself again that no one would ever have to know. “You’ve got long hair even for a musketeer,” I think I said. Annie put her hand behind my head and kissed me, and then we just lay there for a few minutes. Again I wasn’t sure which was my pulse, my heartbeat, and which were hers.

“There’s no need for us to pretend to be other people any more, ever again, is there, Liza?” Annie said softly. My eyes stung suddenly, and Annie touched the bottom lids with her finger, asking, “Why tears?”

I kissed her finger. “Because I’m happy,” I said. “Because your saying that right now makes me happier than almost anything else could. No-there’s no need to pretend.”

“As long as we remember that,” Annie said, “I think we’ll be okay.”

“So do I,” I said. It got dark outside early that afternoon, because of the rain, and it was already like twilight in the house. One of us got up and pulled the shade down most of the way, and turned on a light in the hall. It made a wonderful faraway glow and touched Annie’s smooth soft skin with gold. After the first few minutes, I think most of the rest of our shyness with each other vanished. And then, after a very long time, I heard a knock, and downstairs the handle of the front door rattled insistently.

Dear Annie,

It’s late as I write this. Outside, it’s beginning to snow; I can see big flakes tumbling lazily down outside my window. The girl across the hall says December is early for snow in Cambridge, at least snow that amounts to anything. January and February are the big snow months, she says. “Know the truth,” Ms. Widmer used to quote—remember we used to say it to each other?—”and the truth will make you free.” Annie, it’s so hard to remember the end of our time in Ms. Stevenson’s and Ms. Widmer’s house; it’s hard even to think of it. I read somewhere the other day that love is good as long as it’s honest and unselfish and hurts no one. That people’s biological sex doesn’t matter when it comes to love; that there have always been gay people; that there are even some gay animals and many bisexual ones; that other societies have accepted and do accept gays—so maybe our society is backward. My mind believes that, Annie, and I can accept most of it with my heart, too, except I keep stumbling on just one statement: as long as it hurts no one.

Annie, I think that’s what made me stop writing to you last June. Will I write to you now—will I send this letter, I mean? I’ve started others and thrown them away. I don’t know if I’ll mail this. But I think I’ll keep it for a little while …

When the door handle rattled, Annie and I both froze and clung together. I have never been able to forget the look on Annie’s face, but it is the one thing about her that I would like to be able to forget—the fear and horror and pain, where a moment before had been wonder and love and peace.

“It’s not either of them,” I whispered to Annie, glancing at the clock on the night table. The clock said half past six, and Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer had said they’d be home around eight.

“Maybe if we just stay quiet,” Annie whispered, still clinging to me—I could feel her shaking, and I could feel that I was shaking, too.

“Open this door,” commanded a loud female voice. “Open it this instant, or I’ll call the police.” My legs were made of stone; so were my arms. Somehow I kissed Annie, somehow moved away from her and reached for my clothes. She sat up, holding the sheet around her. A kitten, I thought, looks like this when it’s frightened and trying to be brave at the same time.

“Stay here,” I said. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be feeding the cats—it’s okay for me to be here.” I was pulling on my jeans, trying to button my shirt—there wasn’t time to put on anything else. The door handle rattled again and there was more pounding. “Just a minute,” I called as calmly as I could. “I’ll be right there.”

“Liza, I’m coming too,” Annie insisted. “You can’t go alone.”

“It’ll look worse, don’t you see, if you’re there?” I whispered fiercely, pushing her back, her face breaking my heart. “I’m coming,” I called. Annie reached for my hand and squeezed it hard. “You’re right,” she said. “But be careful. And—Liza? You were right before, too. I wouldn’t have gone home and told my parents.” I tried to smile at her, and then I ran downstairs in my bare feet, trying to make sense out of my hair as I went, and trying not to fall over the saucepan helmets that were still on the floor. I switched on the light, opened the door a crack, and said, “Yes?” I tried to make it sound casual, but my voice was shaking so much I’m sure I sounded just as terrified as I was. There on the steps was Ms. Baxter, and behind her, staring at my bare feet and at my not-very-well-buttoned shirt, was Sally. For a minute I think we all just stared. Then Ms. Baxter steadied herself by holding on to the door frame and cried, “Oh, dear heaven, Liza, are you all right?” And then she barged right in past me, glancing quickly around the two rooms, and then I guess she saw the light in the upstairs hall, which of course neither Annie nor I had been calm enough to think of turning out; Ms. Baxter headed for the stairs. I ran in front of her without even trying to be polite about it, but she brushed me aside. It was awful, like some terrible farcical nightmare. As soon as Ms. Baxter reached the stairs, I realized Annie should probably have gotten up after all, and I prayed she’d hide in a closet or something.

“You can’t go up there!” I yelled, to warn Annie—but then Sally pointed to the head of the stairs and said in a choked voice, “What—who is that?” I looked up and Annie, white-faced, bare-legged and barefoot in just her lumber jacket, ran past, trying, I realized, to hide in the second bedroom. But it was too late.

“Stop!” Ms. Baxter shouted. “Who—who are you? Eliza …?”

“A a friend of mine,” I sputtered. “It’s all right, Ms. Baxter. We’ve—we’ve been taking care of Ms. Stevenson’s and Ms. Widmer’s cats this vacation, we …” But Ms. Baxter, her face now set like an avenging angel’s, was halfway up the stairs. “You come down!” I shouted crazily, afraid she might hit Annie in her righteous fury; Annie, realizing she’d been seen, was cowering uncertainly at the head of the stairs. But Ms. Baxter just brushed past her, going into the main bedroom. Annie came downstairs and stood next to me, slipping her hand into mine. Sally was staring at our hands, I noticed, but I realized that couldn’t make any difference now.