“It’s true, though.”
“Then I’m a... a lesbian? I’ve been one all along?”
“Yes.”
And Elly was leaning forward, unconscious of her own nakedness, intent solely upon making a point. “Then you listen for a moment,” she said. “Because I’ve got a thing or two to tell you.”
Maggie listened. She listened to an absolutely incredible story of nymphomania, of sordid trysting, of blatant adultery. She listened to the recounting of a saga starring deliverymen and handymen and door-to-door salesmen, a story of a phantom lover on a black stallion, a story of deep impulses and frighteningly intense emotions.
“My God,” she said. “I wouldn’t have believed it, Ell.”
“Nobody knows. I’ve never told anybody. I almost went to a psychoanalyst once but I knew I would have to tell him what my problem was and I couldn’t bring myself to say a word to anyone, not even a doctor. Now do you think I’m a lesbian, Maggie? Maybe I’m just oversexed. Maybe I’m some kind of sex maniac or something.”
“You’re a lesbian, Ell.”
“But—”
“Don’t you see?” She leaned forward, ready to make her point. It was so obvious and Elly couldn’t understand it. “You’ve never really been satisfied by men, Ell. Not inside, not all the way. That’s why there’s this phantom lover image in the background. That’s why you keep searching for the perfect lover, letting these rotten men walk all over you. And that’s why it never worked, why you couldn’t straighten out. Deep down inside you wanted a woman. You wanted me, Ell.”
“You make it sound sensible.”
“That’s because it is sensible. Whenever you had sex with a man, you thought about this phantom lover fantasy. Did you have that last night?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember,” she said, eyes narrowing. “Did you or didn’t you?”
“All right, so I didn’t. What does that prove?”
“That you don’t need fantasies any more, Ell.”
“Then I am a lesbian,” Elly Carr said slowly. “That’s what you mean, and that’s what you’ve been telling me. And I suppose... I guess you’re right, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then where do we go from here, Maggie?”
Maggie shrugged. “We get dressed,” she said. “And we leave this hotel, and take a taxi to Grand Central, and catch the first train to Cheshire Point. You go to your house and I go to my house. And then we wait and see what happens.”
“Will we be lovers?”
“I don’t know, Ell. We may. You’ve got to do some thinking, honey... You’ve got to decide just where you want to wind up. You may hate me.”
“I couldn’t hate you.”
“You might, Ell. You might decide that a lesbian’s life is something you couldn’t bear to live, that even a secret gay existence is too much for you. And you might repress everything by hating me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Maybe not.” She shrugged. “It’s something you’ll work out, Ell. Something you’ll resolve on your own.”
“So we get dressed now?”
“That’s right.”
“I see.”
Maggie studied the tip of her cigarette. She was doing this stupidly, she thought. She wanted Elly, wanted her desperately, and it would be easier to take advantage of her now, to keep her from sliding back into the heterosexual scheme of things. But she simply wasn’t put together that way. Whatever happened, the decision had to be Elly’s and it had to be a free one. Otherwise everything would be ruined.
“Mag—”
“What is it, honey?”
“Before we get dressed and go, could we—”
“Could we what?”
“Could we make love?”
“Why... oh, God, Ell. Oh, baby!”
“But I don’t know what to do,” Elly was saying now, the words pouring out in a rush. “I want to. I really want to, but I don’t know what to do. Will you help me, Maggie?”
“Oh, God,” she breathed. “Yes, Ell. Yes, my baby. Yes, my darling, I’ll help you. I’ll help you, honey.”
19
All day Tuesday Nan waited for Ted Carr to call.
She didn’t know whether to expect the phone or the doorbell to ring. Maybe he would come to her as he had come the day before, ringing her doorbell, telling her to get her clothes off, then making love to her on the living room floor. Maybe he would call instead, to talk to her, to give her instructions on a time and place when and where they could be together. She expected the call rather than his personal appearance, since she couldn’t expect him to double back from New York a second day in a row. And she looked forward to the call. She waited to hear his voice, wanted to see what would happen next.
There was one possibility which never occurred to her. She took it for granted that he would contact her, one way or another, and she never conceived of the possibility that he would not call her at all.
He did not call her at all.
She waited until it was quite obvious that he was not calling. She was a few minutes late picking up Skip and Danny at school, and on the way home she barely understood their conversation because she was too busy thinking about Ted. She drove home fast, and while the two of them went downstairs to mesmerize themselves in front of the television set, she sat waiting for the phone to ring.
She almost forgot Ted that night. It was a busy evening; Howard picked up the babysitter at seven, brought the sitter over to help Danny and Skip watch television, and then they went to the inevitable PTA meeting. The meeting was a gigantic bore, complete with a speaker who provided a rather harrowing picture of teenage narcotics addiction. Since Danny and Skip would not be teenagers for awhile, much less narcotics addicts, the speech was not exactly down Nan’s alley. Still, it was something to listen to, and while she was at the meeting she hardly thought about Ted Carr at all.
That night she wanted Howard to make love to her. She wanted this very much, but something kept her from putting her desire into words, and Howard did not think of the idea all by himself. He kissed her, and he failed to notice when she pressed up against him a bit more warmly than usual. Then he got into bed and closed his eyes, and before long she heard the rhythmic breathing which told her he was asleep.
But she was not asleep. She stayed awake for hours, thinking about Ted, trying to guess why he hadn’t called her. He could have called no matter how busy he was, could at least have said hello to her. Maybe he had just wanted her once. Maybe he was done with her now, and it was time for the boredom to start all over again, and—
She couldn’t believe that. She had pleased him — she knew this for a fact — and he would call again, would return soon. And, she decided triumphantly, when he did call she would hang up on him, and when he rang her bell she would shut the door in his face. She could play his game as well as he could. Whether or not she let the affair go on, she was not going to make it easy for him.
She almost believed this.
He didn’t call Wednesday, either. She was sure he would call this time, and she put off going shopping in order to be home when he called, but the phone never rang and the doorbell remained silent. Three or four times she walked to the phone, almost ready to dial the number of his New York office, and each time she walked away from the phone, telling herself she was behaving like an idiot and commanding herself to put him out of her mind once and for all.
He called on Thursday.
When the call finally did come, at two-thirty in the afternoon, she had not been expecting it at all. If his aim was to catch her off-base he was succeeding admirably, for she had just about managed to condition herself to the idea that he was never going to contact her again when the phone rang. She picked up the receiver, not even thinking it might be Ted, and his voice said hello to her.