Surely lesbianism couldn’t descend unheralded onto such a vigorous heterosexual. But it had. Which was why Hannah kept fleeing the topic.
“I didn’t know you still trusted me so little,”
said Hannah, glancing out to the parking lot.
Jonathan stood talking to a man leaning on a shovel who’d just scraped ice off the sidewalk.
Sometimes she wished she had a nice straightforward job like shoveling snow.
Caroline felt a stab of remorse. Hannah wanted to be trusted, and Caroline had let her down. But what did trust have to do with anything? “What makes you think I don’t trust you? What I just said?”
Hannah nodded, drawing on her cigarette.
“See? You did it again. Changed the subject.”
“I didn’t change the subject. I was trying to address what was really going on.”
“What was really going on,” said Caroline, “was that I was trying to talk about my sexuality, and you changed the subject.”
“What was really going on, from my point of view, was that we got pretty close last week, and now a reaction has set in.” Hannah felt at WOMEN”
an unfair advantage. She’d been through this so many times. Whereas to Caroline it was all new, real, and in earnest.
Was this true, Caroline wondered. Hannah told her last week she was kind and gentle. But she hadn’t really meant it. It was a ploy, something to do with that stone Venus. “Why can’t you just accept my lesbianism?”
Hannah laughed and shook her head. “But I do accept it, Caroline. You make love with women, and I make love with men. Fine. Who cares?”
So she did screw her husband, reflected Caroline. Men? Who besides her husband? Maybe she wasn’t as respectable as she looked. What about those bare feet? “You don’t really think it’s fine.” Caroline knew that a woman who hadn’t felt desire for another woman regarded lesbianism as an inferior form of sexuality, fit only for the unfeminine and the immature. This was incorrect, but you couldn’t tell hardened heterosexuals anything. They had biology and the pope on their side.
“Who else in your life hasn’t thought it was fine?”
asked Hannah, putting her cigarette between her lips and leaning forward to shrug off her blazer, which she folded and lay on the desk. The sunlight through the window was baking her left shoulder.
As they sat in silence, Caroline
reflected that hardly anyone knew, to think one way or the other. David Michael had been appalled and had done his best to dissuade her from a life of bourgeois decadence, but she never saw him now.
Jackson probably had a clue because on the rare occasions when he showed any interest in Jackie and Jason, he grilled her about her living arrangement. Her parents carefully avoided that topic. She was going home for Christmas, but without Diana. There was no one in her life who thought lesbianism was fine except her lesbian friends.
Which was why she spent as much time as possible with them.
Though she’d had some lunches lately with Brian Stone, who kept dropping by the ER admissions desk in his scrub clothes while she was on duty.
His sad dark eyes were starting to take their toll.
She felt a growing need to cheer him up, bolster his shatego, make everything all right. A time or two she found herself wondering if lesbianism could be just an interlude in a lifetime of rampant heterosexuality.
(@.
OTHERWOMEN
“What are you so afraid of?” asked Hannah.
Caroline looked up. “Why would you
assume I’m afraid?”
Hannah pursed her lips and shrugged, stubbing out her cigarette in Nigel’s stone.
Caroline heard words coming from her mouth without her permission: “That I’ll open myself up to you and get clobbered.”
Hannah drew a sharp breath. Caroline’s candor, when it came, was painful. She left herself wide open. Hannah said nothing, unbuttoning and rolling her shirt sleeves to her elbows. Wanting Caroline to feel her wish to confide, cling, collapse-feel it, expose it to the air, find it
“I didn’t know you still trusted me so little,”
said Hannah, glancing out to the parking lot.
Jonathan stood talking to a man leaning on a shovel who’d just scraped ice off the sidewalk.
Sometimes she wished she had a nice straightforward job like shoveling snow.
Caroline felt a stab of remorse. Hannah wanted to be trusted, and Caroline had let her down. But what did trust have to do with anything? “What makes you think I don’t trust you? What I just said?”
Hannah nodded, drawing on her cigarette.
“See? You did it again. Changed the subject.”
“I didn’t change the subject. I was trying to address what was really going on.”
“What was really going on,” said Caroline, “was that I was trying to talk about my sexuality, and you changed the subject.”
“What was really going on, from my point of view, was that we got pretty close last week, and now a reaction has set in.” Hannah felt at WOMEN”
an unfair advantage. She’d been through this so many times. Whereas to Caroline it was all new, real, and in earnest.
Was this true, Caroline wondered. Hannah told her last week she was kind and gentle. But she hadn’t really meant it. It was a ploy, something to do with that stone Venus. “Why can’t you just accept my lesbianism?”
Hannah laughed and shook her head. “But I do accept it, Caroline. You make love with women, and I make love with men. Fine. Who cares?”
So she did screw her husband, reflected Caroline. Men? Who besides her husband? Maybe she wasn’t as respectable as she looked. What about those bare feet? “You don’t really think it’s fine.” Caroline knew that a woman who hadn’t felt desire for another woman regarded lesbianism as an inferior form of sexuality, fit only for the unfeminine and the immature. This was incorrect, but you couldn’t tell hardened heterosexuals anything. They had biology and the pope on their side.
“Who else in your life hasn’t thought it was fine?”
asked Hannah, putting her cigarette between her lips and leaning forward to shrug off her blazer, which she folded and lay on the desk. The sunlight through the window was baking her left shoulder.
As they sat in silence, Caroline
reflected that hardly anyone knew, to think one way or the other. David Michael had been appalled and had done his best to dissuade her from a life of bourgeois decadence, but she never saw him now.
Jackson probably had a clue because on the rare occasions when he showed any interest in Jackie and Jason, he grilled her about her living arrangement. Her parents carefully avoided that topic. She was going home for Christmas, but without Diana. There was no one in her life who thought lesbianism was fine except her lesbian friends.
Which was why she spent as much time as possible with them.
Though she’d had some lunches lately with Brian Stone, who kept dropping by the ER admissions desk in his scrub clothes while she was on duty.
His sad dark eyes were starting to take their toll.
She felt a growing need to cheer him up, bolster his shatego, make everything all right. A time or two she found herself wondering if lesbianism could be just an interlude in a lifetime of rampant heterosexuality.
(@.
OTHERWOMEN
“What are you so afraid of?” asked Hannah.
Caroline looked up. “Why would you
assume I’m afraid?”
Hannah pursed her lips and shrugged, stubbing out her cigarette in Nigel’s stone.
Caroline heard words coming from her mouth without her permission: “That I’ll open myself up to you and get clobbered.”
Hannah drew a sharp breath. Caroline’s candor, when it came, was painful. She left herself wide open. Hannah said nothing, unbuttoning and rolling her shirt sleeves to her elbows. Wanting Caroline to feel her wish to confide, cling, collapse-feel it, expose it to the air, find it
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