Strange Women, The (8 page)

"The phone rings in the night sometimes. I hope it won't bother you."

"It won't. Good night."

Jill went into the bedroom and Nora sat stone-still, stiff with the realization that whatever it was, it was still there. Then she rose and went into the kitchen, finding release in slamming cups. A small plate skittered into her hands and went crashing into the sink, and Jill, in the other room, gave a startled cry.

"It's nothing, I broke a plate," Nora called, but her voice caught. She gathered up the broken pieces with shaking hands.
I'm not that sort of freak! I'm not a lesbian! I'm not!

The bedroom was empty. Some of Jill's things lay on the dresser; a jar of cream, a comb and brush. I walked into this, Nora thought; it's too late to get her out of here, what could I say? Jill had dropped her underthings; Nora found her eyes lingering on the small silk panties. She jerked open the closet door and undressed quickly, putting a robe on over her pajamas. She said savagely, half aloud, "I must be going out of my mind!" and sat down to unpin her hair.

Jill, pink and warm in a quilted bathrobe, came out of the shower. She stood behind Nora and took up one braid. "Let me do that, won't you? Or are you one of those people who can't stand having anyone fuss with their hair?"

"I don't mind." But she did. Jill's hands were faintly damp, smelling of soap and powder like a bathed baby. Nora shut her eyes, sensuously aware of the brush stroking along her hair; then sat straight and seized it herself, rasping it hard like a currycomb. "Here, you ridiculous child, give me that, you'll put me to sleep—stroking me like a cat!"

As if the word had been a magical summons the big Siamese materialized, a puff of grayness like smoke, just an ectoplasmic nothing, wafting around the glass door and poking his whiskers experimentally at the folds of Jill's robe. Then he jumped up beside her, purring.

"Down, down, Archy. Off the bed," said Nora severely. Jill petted the cat's ears.

"He's a beauty. Where did you get him?"

"My office nurse—Ramona—keeps cats." Nora stopped short. The danger subject. Ramona and Margaret, right under her eyes, all these years. She had known what they were, and had pushed it out of her mind without even a normal amount of curiosity. Too casual. Too much—not exactly tolerance; too much eager acceptance.

"You were saying—?"

Nora had lost the thread of her thought. "Oh, yes. I had on a new knit blouse, and Archy caught his claws in it, and refused to let go. He had it raveled to ribbons before I could pry him loose. Love at first sight." She listened to Archy's booming purr. He had made a soft nest for himself on Jill's lap.

"He says it's all right, Jill, I can keep you too, I don't have to put you back out in the alley."

She turned back to the dresser. She had carried in the small stack of personal mail, and now she tore it open piece by piece; delayed Christmas cards, a bill or two, advertisements. Jill sat with her knees drawn up, idly petting the cat and chattering.

"The lab work ought to be fun, but it probably won't. Most of those girls are just in the course because its required. I wonder if I can make them see that a microscope is exciting?"

Nora frowned in brief puzzlement at one letterhead; Pearson Associates, Laboratory Testing and Diagnosis. Christmas card? Calendar? She was halfway down the mimeographed form, filled out in green ink, before she knew what she was reading:

Type: Friedman
Date: Nov. 30, 1961
Specimen subject: Bristol, Mrs J
Referred by: Leonora Caine, MD
Result: positive for pregnancy.

She jerked up her head. So Mack had won his gamble. "Here, Jill," she said curtly, "this is yours. I guess they got tired of waiting for me to call for it."

She tossed the green slip into Jill's lap. Jill said "What?" and read it through, her face losing color.

"Well, that's that," she said at last. Then, crumpling it up in an angry fist, she exploded, "At least Mack got away first! Now he needn't know!"

"Jill—it's none of my business—do you honestly think you're being fair to Mack? He's a good man, and he loves you. If you wanted to break off with him, you could have done it cleanly, before he left."

Jill shook her head, her face twisting. "It's not—I told you, I don't want to wreck it for him—I don't want him to feel that he
has
to marry me."

"Well, there's still time for him to fly home from Lima and marry you."

"No! Oh, no!" Jill jumped up, her face white. "Nora, you can't tell him! You know he wouldn't go back to the expedition! Please, please, promise you won't!"

Why was Jill punishing herself this way? Suddenly, the suspicion that had never left her flared up; she caught Jill's shoulder, not gently: "Or were you planning on trying some damn fool stunt to force a miscarriage? Answer me," she demanded, "have you been doing something to yourself?"

"I haven't been taking any—any kind of drugs," Jill said tremulously. "Where would I
get
anything like that? And I've—been around hospitals enough to know that the —the other things women do, hot baths and quinine and that stuff, don't do any good."

"Or any harm," Nora snapped, "though I suppose you've been trying? Well, if it keeps your mind occupied—I knew a girl who spent half her pregnancy winning ski championships in Norway. She had twins. So go ahead and jump off tables if it makes you happy!"

Jill began to protest, but Nora was staring bleakly over her head. "Oh, those things work sometimes. If the woman has a tendency to miscarry anyhow. If she doesn't mind ruining her health, or wrecking her chances of ever carrying a healthy baby to full term afterward."

She was flinging the words bitterly, remembering Les Rannock's words.
It's up to you, Nor. You said you'd stick it out if we had a kid. You think I didn't know?
To shut them out she swung back to Jill:

"You're not going to do that to Mack, are you? If you do—if you do, you're a worse bitch than I ever thought! Tie him down, hell! Go ahead, make all sorts of excuses for getting rid of his baby!"

"Oh, don't," Jill begged, "I don't want a baby, I don't, but—I only wanted to wait until Mack was sure—until I was sure—until I knew how he'd feel—" she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Nora's breath caught on the ache in her throat. Blindly she drew the sobbing girl into her arms. A moment Jill resisted the touch, then clung to Nora; and Nora held her, kissing the little downy feathers of hair away from her face.

"I'm a miserable, wretched sadist," she said aloud. "Don't. Jill—sweet—don't. I didn't mean to make you cry."

Sex frustration, latent homosexuality, how damn silly can you get?
You're jealous, you damn fool, because she's Mack's wife and going to have Mack's kid, and you've been deviling her, when you promised to take care of her.

She lifted Jill to her feet, took the robe from her, and tucked her in bed tenderly; then lay down beside her, taking Jill in her arms. Jill was still crying a little. The sound and feel of the convulsive sobs echoed something which Nora had never been able to release in herself.

She thought at last that Jill was asleep. They were lying close, breast against breast, Jill heavy on her arm. Jill's pajama shirt had fallen open and Nora's hand rested on her smooth bare back.

Jill murmured, snuggling closer. Nora smelled the indefinable scent of her hair, the cherry-blossom fragrance of her skin. Her bare feet were touching Nora's ankles.
No wonder Mack adores her...

With infinite caution, compelled by something she could not resist, Nora loosened the buttons of her own pajama jacket so that their bare breasts touched. Her hand on Jill's silky back moved down, pressing the sleeping girl close.

And that shocked her wide awake again.
Good God have I come that low—getting my kicks by pawing a
girl when she's asleep? What would Jill think if she was awake enough to know what was going on?

She whispered "Asleep, darling?"

Jill sighed drowsily and nuzzled her head into Nora's bare neck. "Mrnmmm."

Nora kissed the tip of her ear and settled Jill down on her arm. Already drifting into sleep, she knew what she would deny fiercely when she woke; they had started something which could have only one end. It was only a matter of time.

Nora had been kept all morning by one crisis after another, and by the time she got downstairs, dinner had long been cleared away in the staff dining room. As she carried a tray between rows of empty tables, she saw Vic Demorino, still in the glareless green jacket of the operating room.

"Hello, Vic. I didn't know you were in."

He did not rise, only nodded tiredly as she set her tray down. "I'm having a run like a bank in a market crash. The drugstores must be clean out of castor oil. Every unprintable pregnant female in Albany, Troy and Schenectady must have decided to give birth. The astrology magazines must have told them it's a lucky day. Do you know how many little squallers I've delivered since two AM? Go on, make a guess!"

"Three?"

"Oh, hell, girl, I delivered three before I got breakfast, including one classic breech. Seven's the score so far, and another coming on. Sister Gabrielle was parking them in the elevator. The fifth and sixth came on almost simultaneously, and DiLuccio was having a bad time, so Quentin took over the sixth for me, and by the time I got through, went to check on the little details, Mrs. Reski was out of the ether already and giving me blue flaming hell. No young snip of a girl doctor was going to learn how—get that, learn how, and Barbara Quentin's been on maternity for three years—on
her!
And the Reski female could have dropped her kid in a potato patch."

Nora found herself laughing. "Poor Barbara. But we get used to that. You
do
look beat."

"The original beatnik. Can I cadge a cigarette?" He indicated his pocketless operating trousers. "I've got another gal working upstairs, but she's a primapara and thank God, she won't need me for a couple of hours." He took a deep pull at the cigarette. "You have it soft. Your patients make appointments
before
they hit the hospital."

This was ritual and she made the expected answer. "You have nine months to get ready for yours."

"I'm going to grab a nap in the doctor's lounge. Will you tell Ramona to cancel my appointments, and you see anyone who looks like an emergency?"

"Sure."

"I ought to be finished with the population explosion by four. Dinner?"

"We had that all out last fall, Vic," she said, smiling.

"I don't take no for an answer that easy. You're eating dinner with me now. Does it make that much difference if I'm wearing a tie and picking up the check?"

"Not if it stopped there. It wouldn't, Vic."

"Damn right." He reached for her hand. "We went good together, didn't we?"

"Very. That was a long time ago, though."

"We still could, Nora."

She said it carefully, for this man was a friend she valued. "You're forgetting, Vic. Things have changed. I'm married."

"Don't you forget it yourself?"

"I'd rather not discuss that. Do you mind?"

"Yes, I do. Pity is a damnably poor foundation for faithfulness in marriage," he said. She sat very straight, the Spartan who has had and must conceal his death-wound. He put his elbows on the table, not smiling.

"Truth hurts, doesn't it? So you're married. What good has it done you? This year has taken it out of you, you know. You look like hell. You're a woman, and you need loving—as who should know better than I?"

"That's a caddish thing to say," said Nora, coloring.

"So I'm a cad. I'm also a doctor, and a friend. The life you're living simply isn't normal."

Nora slammed the table impatiently, shoving back her chair. "Christ! If I can't even eat dinner in peace—"

Vic caught her wrist. "Sit still. See?" he said, without heat, "you can't live this way, your nerves won't take it."

Why should I be angry with Vic,
she wondered
. He's only saying what I've been thinking.
But she was angry.

"What is this, Vic? Offering to sleep with me as a favor to a nervous wreck? Dr. Demorino's old reliable prescription for frazzled females? Vic, if I were a man I'd smash your teeth down your throat."

He chortled. "If you were a man and I made you that kind of proposition, I'd expect you to!"

Her anger dissolved and she laughed. "Thanks, Vic. But—no thanks."

"Now look. Suppose the shoe were on the other foot. Suppose you were in the hospital a year, and your husband going through all that—"

"It's not the same and you know it. For God's sake, you make me feel as if I were going around like a bitch in heat!"

"Oh, come—" but the drone of the paging system cut him off. "Sister Amy, wanted in Ward Fi-yuv. Doc-tor De-morino, wan-ted in Delivery Room. Sis-ter Amy—"

He scowled, dumping his cigarette. "Well, here we go again. I'd hoped Pizzetti would take another hour—"

"Let Quentin handle it. That's what she's for."

Vic shook his head wearily. "Can't. I don't think the Pizzetti kid speaks more than twenty words of English, and it's her first baby. I kind of promised I'd show up and hold her hand." He put his own hand momentarily on Nora's shoulder. "See you later, girl."

She sat watching him, poking idly at her congealed lunch. For the first time she was brought smash against a new fact; after sixteen years of total freedom, the habits and attitudes of a married woman are not acquired overnight.

She could still feel, like a speck of heat, Vic's firm hand on her shoulder; it brought back, with a physical vividness that made her gasp, the memory of his hot mouth; the feel of his thick-set hairy body against hers. She cursed, humiliated, under her breath, but the memory went on; an inexorable playback on some mental recorder whose cutoff switch was out of order. That first, perfect time in her apartment, in broad daylight...

* * *

She had come to Albany four years ago, at the end of her residency in a large Chicago hospital. Vic sent all his patients to St. Margaret's; he and Nora ran across each other frequently. It seemed natural to date him—the snatched, time-pressed casual dates of overworked people who can't call their lives their own; coffee in the lounge, spaghetti in an Italian restaurant owned by an uncle of Vic's, who gave them special food and wine and a flow of talk not too subtly aimed at urging Vic to settle down. But he was still a colleague, a casual friend.