Outsiders. Part 24

"Funny you can say 'us' while my husband is in the kitchen. Once upon a time, you wouldn't have been able." Sheila's tone was even, but there was a hint of reserve in it, a hint of pulling back, that Joan missed.

"You know what I mean. The lesbian tribe, which you still belong to. You're a better d.y.k.e than I am."

"He's still in the community, he IDs as queer. Ridiculously open. Enviable. Kids these days."

Joan put her wine gla.s.s down and tossed the papers in her lap onto the couch. "Kids these days forget what it was like, a generation ago. Queer indeed. Don't you wish we had the internet when we were coming out? G.o.d, one dog-eared copy of Rubyfruit Jungle and a videotape of Desert Hearts were all I knew of lesbianism before college."

"Billy might have been in the lesbian community, Joan, but he wasn't a lesbian. He wasn't a girl. He was a boy; he just wasn't public about it yet."

"Sheila, I felt like a boy at that age, if you recall. From twelve to twenty-five, I'd say. I hated being a girl." Joan wasn't sure why she was getting heated, but she was. Her blood started to kick up, moving from a walk to a trot.

"You hated being treated like a weak fool, as I recall. You can hate women's oppression and be female or male. Hating being treated as an inferior doesn't make you trans, it makes you sane."

"So what does? I've always felt more masculine in my interest and pursuits, and I don't fit any of the basic female requirements. I don't relate s.e.xually to men. No husband. No kids, and more heinous still, no desire for kids, of my body at least. No biological clock. If that can be disconnected-and not through effort, I never remember having one-then why am I still female? Am I some in-between thing now, by the queer definition?"

"By the queer definition you get to tell us, sweetie, we don't tell you. And if you change your d.a.m.n mind in a week, you get to tell us that too. Your ident.i.ty, your sense of being in the world, is mined from within, and then expressed externally. Tell me, Joan, if there were no impediments, and you could do it relatively painlessly and quickly, would you transition?"

"Men have it differently. I would think about it. But, no. I don't think I would. It took me a long time to learn to live in this body, but I think I've achieved that. I wouldn't want to change."

"Then you likely aren't trans. But Billy has already answered that question publicly. It isn't easy or inexpensive or without consequences to change. Quite the opposite. With all that, knowing all that, he chose to pursue it. For him, it was worth everything to be himself. I know you respect courage."

"Of course I do. I liked the boy, Sheila, I did. I don't begrudge him his path. It makes me wonder how I ended up where I am, and if I'd have made a different choice if I were coming up now. I was so relieved when I found out there was a place, no matter how small or hard to find, that respected and admired women like me, masculine women, butch women. That I could be both a member of a community and a desired romantic partner."

"You were so d.a.m.ned serious. It was adorable. An eighteen-year-old girl trying to look like a forty-year-old man. A priest, with your black coat that you never took off, and your face above it pale as bone, library pallor. I knew you read yourself to sleep every night of your life."

Joan tilted her wine gla.s.s and looked down at it. "Why, though? Why did you talk to me? I was a monk, a wallflower. I noticed you right away, you were laughing. I'd never heard anything so lovely. I would never have approached you. If you hadn't spoken to me, I'd still be waiting to come out."

"Total c.r.a.p, you were a lesbian from the time you could walk."

Joan smiled, a relaxed, easy smile, a transformative one. Years fell away from her face; the deep grooves at the corners of her mouth were hidden in the smile. Like many faces designed for sorrow, designed to stab the heart of the watcher with the translucent suffering in great dark eyes, in a mouth made firm by habit, not nature, a genuine smile transformed Joan. Beauty strode out, all the more potent as it was mixed with relief that such a vehicle for pain-that pale, suffering face-could host such unguarded human joy. The rarity of the smile made it a spear.

"See, that's what I mean. You see me. That's always startling to people who feel like windows."

"It takes no special insight to see the d.y.k.e in you, Martina."

"Very funny."

"Butcher than Steve McQueen, if he were playing St. Francis." Sheila fished through the pile of papers, selected one, and tossed it to Joan. "Ouch, too much movement. Here, read his."

Joan took up the paper. Dear Zeus, she read.

Dear Zeus, Hey, how's it going? Yeah, it's beautiful here on Mt. Ida, and I'm totally having a ball hanging out and being a shepherd and all, but people tell me I'm far too pretty for this farm-boy life, and I should get my blond self off to a city, so I can be appreciated for my beauty, grace, and charm. How's about it, Sugar Daddy?

Kidding, Cloud-gathering Zeus! Put the bolts down. Let's just talk, man to man. Man to twink. You are a hot, commanding, masterful, older man. You are the authority in your realm. Me, I'm just a pretty boy hanging out in a sunlit field, royalty that doesn't know itself. Exposing every inch of my smooth, golden flesh to the bright light of Apollo, my thighs causing more duels than Hyakinthos. Waiting to catch a fierce eagle's eye and be borne up to Heaven. We're Greek; you can see where this is going. I've always had a thing for kings, for the majestic masculinity, strong, experienced, protective, honorable, leaders and shepherds of their people. Oh, Daddy!

But that's not what I wanted to ask you. Why, Lord Zeus, do men and youths who meet in love have example in the divine ranks, such as Apollo and Hyakinthos, Herakles and Hylas, Hermes and, well, lots of folks, but women and girls do not? Experience and guidance met with beauty and eagerness, Eros and Anteros, love given and returned in that most n.o.ble of loves, the love that is sacred friendship, the love that defeats tyranny and builds cities, the love that pleases the G.o.ds with its fidelity, the love that creates honor and glory for the lovers and the people. Is this not what the G.o.ds themselves envy-love from the soul, love that recalls us to our wings?

I see you, sitting at the desk, with your dark eyes holding the look of eagles, proud, commanding, under your Caesar's hair. Send for me. Have a drink with me, Zeus; I'll pour. Let me be your cupbearer.

- Ganymede "I think the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d is playing with me." Joan set the paper down and then picked it back up.

"If he is, it's your game he's playing and your language he's speaking,"

"Is he always like this?"

"No. He wouldn't talk to me like that, I wouldn't follow it. He's very good at reading people. You must bring out the best in him."

Joan took up the red pen of judgment and answered Billy in precise handwriting on the bottom of the page.

Ganymede, Can't spare the eagle.

Regards, Zeus It would do. It handled him by cutting him short, but it answered him in kind. If he were playing with her, it was now done. If he'd been asking what Joan thought he was asking? No, it was part of the exercise, and he was merely being young and clever and a bit of an a.s.s. He wasn't actually asking to be Ganymede and comparing her to Zeus. Absurd. She was a woman, a d.y.k.e, twice his age. He was a brand new boy. It was the camaraderie of the tribe he was invoking. In that case, no offense to take, he was just young and likely lonely. Though why youth should be lonely made no sense. It had youth. The loneliness she carried she'd earned over years of trial and error, honed at last to a distance that kept even in relationships. No lover had ever known her the way Sheila did. Flesh and friendship did not mix.

Meeting someone who spoke her language was rare. There was loneliness in it that approached the separation of growing up queer, for Joan, and made the wasteland between friendships worse. If she was made of ice, or filled with, after years of distancing herself until it became reflex, she'd unlearned how to open up. Perhaps that was why she yearned so for the fast and easy camaraderie of boys, from her own boyhood. Girlhood, Joan corrected. She'd been a girl. As much as she'd felt like one of the boys, as much as she felt part of the group, p.u.b.erty gave it the lie. There was a gulf between her and the boys, a parting of ways, a split in the path. Now, and looking on, she'd have to go on her own. It would melt her heart to be able to simply belong without having to explain herself.

The conversation with Sheila kept ringing round her head after Joan went home late in the night. She was forty-two, and the lesbian world had changed somewhere along the way. There wasn't anything new in that, really. The boundaries, which were always slippery in the women's community, were just shifting along the coastline. Joan had long thought of the community as biological unit, a cell, with a permeable membrane. Sometimes, women pa.s.sed through that membrane and joined the community, moving away from husbands, bringing kids with them. Sometimes they set up shop and stayed forever; sometimes they went back, and forth, and back again. You could cross the membrane as often as you needed. Thinking of it like this helped her adjust to Sheila's dating men. If it had happened the other way, if a woman had started dating women for the first time, there would be congratulations all around. Not in reverse. The sense of loss had to be overcome first. Sheila had mastered still being culturally a lesbian, despite her husband. She saw herself as queer, not straight. Bis.e.xual, to queer the lesbian s.p.a.ce, lesbian to queer the straight, words she was able to take on, back and forth through the membrane. Sheila said she felt, thought about, and experienced the world as a queer person. Not an ally, though she was that, a member of the community. That was as much a modern ident.i.ty as any other, Joan thought. If Sheila accepted Billy so readily, why was she having trouble?

Joan was alone, sitting with her chin on her hand, lit by her wire-armed desk lamp, eyes hooded, staring out into nothing. She sighed and admitted it. Part of her conflict with Billy was his age, part was his boyhood. Then there was the way he wrote to her. She wasn't sure what to make of him yet. Joan found herself looking forward to Wednesday, to the seminar, to hand back the papers. Even if he was an imp, as Sheila called him, Billy was interesting.

Wednesday came, and the cla.s.s filed in, and Joan looked around the room, disappointed, though she didn't want to admit it. Billy hadn't made it to cla.s.s. Joan handed out the writing exercise and tried not to think about it. He didn't come storming into cla.s.s after twenty minutes, nor did he show up at the break. The sun was down. It was too late. Joan collected the papers and said goodbye to the students, a.s.suring them that Dr. Cross would be back next week. That was her stint as a creative-writing babysitter. It wasn't that bad; she'd have to apologize to Sheila for griping on about it. Parts of it were even pleasant. At least it was over, and she had the rest of the summer to herself. She dropped the papers off at Sheila's and washed her hands of it.

Days later, sitting at her desk on the second floor by the tall window overlooking the long green s.p.a.ce that divided Bidwell Parkway, Joan felt the silence weigh on her. The windows were open to catch the breeze, the smell of cooking meat, propane, and cut gra.s.s was intoxicating. Maybe she should go for a bike ride. She didn't own a bike. Maybe she should buy a bike. It had been years. Maybe decades. Summer used to be about the endless-endless afternoons, endless bike rides down endless roads, through green and amber fields st.i.tched by falling-down stone walls. Finding a brook hidden deep in the forest, and dipping your feet into the ridiculously cold water in a shaded pool by a pockmarked rock. It was summer, as she'd longed for, and she was bored. There was n.o.body to share things with.

Maybe this was about missing Cody, Joan thought. That was an idea worth exploring. So she got out the photo alb.u.ms and leafed through, looked at seven years of holidays, dinners, trips, events. There was happiness, sure, especially in the first alb.u.m, when Cody's red hair was still hippie long and wild, when they went barefoot in the garden and laughed and held hands. By the second alb.u.m, the handholding went away. She and Cody were still in the same frame, but often looking in different directions, talking with different people. Joan noticed, for the first time, that when she was standing next to Sheila, her body language was relaxed and intimate; they stood closer than she and Cody ever did in front of the lens. You could see, looking back, the alb.u.m where they drifted apart. What was it? No shared interests, once the infatuation wore off? Lack of a shared language, shared understanding of the world? Having shared flesh, they couldn't ever be friends? Joan missed having a new friend, the way she did when she and Sheila were new. Joan put the alb.u.ms away. Too much thinking. She wanted to go and do something, but had no idea of where to go or what to do.

Sheila called on Friday to thank her. "The students said nice things about you. Maybe I should get my tendon operated on more often."

"They are just being nice. I didn't do anything."

"I gave Billy back his paper with your note."

"Oh?"

"He laughed."

That was all there was to it, then. He laughed, and the matter was closed.

The first e-mail came on Sunday.

Zeus, Sorry I missed you. I can take a cab, if you are out of eagles. How's 8 pm?

Besos, Ganymede Joan wrote him back promptly, starting the exchange.

William, How did you get my e-mail?

Dr. Ligurious Z-dog, Sheila gave it to me. 8 sounds bad for you. 7 it is. How's Tuesday? I've got the cup and am ready to pour.

Hugs, Gany Billy, I'll have to have a talk with Dr. Cross. No, Tuesday doesn't work. This has been fun, but I'm done.

Joan Three days went by, and Joan was convinced that Billy was finished with his game. Which was all just as well, Joan told herself. She didn't need that kind of attention. The next e-mail came on Wednesday after midnight.

Hadrian, I read your dissertation, "Sharing a Couch: Intimacy in Hadrian and Antinous' Iconography." Sheila recommended it. Now I get why you were standoffish when I called you Zeus; clearly you are Hadrian. So then, Imperator, be thou my lord and I shall be thy Antinous. Friday, perhaps?

Antinous The nerve of the boy. And Sheila! Handing out her private e-mail, encouraging the boy to read her dissertation was out of line. Yet, he had read it. That was flattering. But she couldn't encourage this kind of behavior.

Billy, You couldn't keep up with me.

Joan She regretted sending it as soon as she clicked. That was going too far, and sounded like she was encouraging him. When he didn't e-mail back right away, Joan decided that she'd clearly crossed a line, frightened the boy, and he'd run off. Thursday, nine a.m. came his reply, irrepressible as ever.

Hadrian, You'd be surprised. I'm young, but supple and lithe. Antinous followed Hadrian at the hunt, one of their favorite pastimes. The beloved is supposed to keep up with the lover, think of all you have to teach me. Take me with you on your travels, we will see the world. We'll just stay out of Egypt; I have a thing about boating on the Nile.

Antinous Joan smiled when she read the last line of the e-mail, one of the smiles that brought such astounding beauty to contrast the severity of her usual expression. So Billy knew how Antinous died. If this were any other situation, Joan might be enjoying it a great deal. If this were, say, a woman. It sounded almost flirtatious, but maybe was only playful. Either way it was fun but inappropriate, and it was time to shut it down.

Billy- You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension. I'm gay.

Joan Hadrian, Well aware of it. So? Sat.u.r.day might be nice.

Antinous She had to stop herself from typing "Antinous"; it was catching.

Billy, Sat.u.r.day is out. So this is fun, but I don't want to give you the wrong idea.

Joan Hadrian, I've got lots of ideas, and most of them I come up with on my own. Sunday perhaps?

Antinous Billy, I'm also 42.

Joan Hadrian, Then you are the answer to life, the universe and everything! I'm having a geekgasm here. I'm 24, you're 42. The symbolism is awesome, no? I'm holding your mirror, you are holding mine.

Don't panic, I have a towel.

Antinous Billy, I have no idea what you are talking about, more than half of the time.

Joan Hadrian, That's why you need to hang out with me. The rest of the world feels like that around you all the time. You need to run with a pack that can keep up, but you can't command the good and the beautiful to just appear in your life. You take what is given, with joy. I think I taught you this. Sunday it is!

Antinous A.,.

You are presumptuous, aren't you?

H.

Hadrian, Ouch, I know why you are famous for building a wall. Single malt and video games. Come out and play. Hadrian loved to play with Antinous. Don't you remember?

Antinous Antinous, Fine. I'll play. I'll drink Scotch and play video games with you if you can answer this, and convince me of your answer: did Antinous drown accidentally in the Nile, did he sacrifice himself for Hadrian, did he commit suicide, or did I have him sacrificed?

Hadrian There. That would take care of the boy. If he wanted to play, he'd better play on her level or she'd have none of it. Plus, it would keep her from having to drink scotch and play video games. Thursday she had a meeting with the Feminist Film Festival committee, something Sheila had talked her into after Cody left. It was staffed almost entirely by lesbians, so naturally it had to be called "Feminist" so n.o.body would be scared off. The treasurer of the committee, Carol Eisenberg, had a wicked crush on her and Joan was uncomfortably aware of it. While Cody was still living with her, Carol kept her distance, while following Joan with barely concealed romantic longing in her eyes. Sheila, in a reversion to old habit, tossed Joan in Carol's way, or Carol in Joan's, but no sparks were struck from Joan's flinty hide. Sheila explained it to a crushed and crushing Carol that Joan was just grieving from the end of her seven-year relationship. Not true, but plausible, and a pretty lie that spared Carol's feelings. It helped that Joan normally looked like she was in mourning, even when getting coffee. It helped that she hadn't dated in months, either.

This year, the theme for the film festival was celebration of the personal, so women were being encouraged to bring in their personal footage and photos from Michigan. Joan was curating the Michigan Memories event, as she had video going back ten years of her and Sheila at Michigan, every summer, lovers or no, husbands or no. It was set to open the last week in July, and run through the end of Michigan in August. It was the only deadline Joan had left for the summer, now that Sheila's writing seminar was done for her at least.

Joan heard Sheila's high pitched whistle and looked up, puzzled. Sheila was on the far side of the room, leg propped on a rolling chair. She wasn't supposed to be out, but she'd gone batty, as she said, being home. Why had Sheila summoned her? Then she saw. Carol was bringing her coffee, coffee in a Styrofoam cup, with an obscene dollop of powdered petroleum product kreemer languishing on the surface, flaking off slowly into the muddy orange liquid. This was a lovely gesture, Joan had to remind herself, and she should not, under any circ.u.mstances, flinch away from Carol's hand when it ended up on her arm.

"How have you been, Joan?" Carol asked, transferring the coffee to Joan with lingering fingers.

Carol was a perfectly lovely human being, Joan would argue to anyone but Sheila, who read the recoiling in her whenever Carol came around. Joan wasn't able to explain it, when questioned. Being around that woman was just nails on a chalkboard to her. Unconscious, animal reaction, she didn't like Carol for any sound reason. Carol was perfectly nice, if a little showy with her laugh and hand gestures. She was nice. She was very, very concerned with people around her, involved. From a distance, beautiful, in a whippet-blonde way, slim, elegant, high strung, seemingly delicate. She loved looking delicate so she could lean on Joan. That was a base and bitter thought, so Joan tried not to let it show on her face, while Carol was staring at her, waiting for her to answer and maybe take a sip of that loathsome coffee.

"Fine, good. Thanks." Joan took the cup awkwardly. It was too hot.

Carol drew her lips down in a comical mockery of sorrow. "We worry about you being so alone."

"We?" Joan asked, looking up from the cup. It was too full, and she was trying to keep the balance needed between motion and pain.

Carol looked around the room and rested on Sheila, implying the universal concern. "Everyone. You seem too lonely, it can't be good."

"I'm fine, really."

Sheila's high pitched whistle came again, and Joan stood up with relief. "Sheila needs me. Would you excuse me?"

Carol moved out of Joan's way to keep from getting burned. Joan put the coffee down as soon as she was seated next to Sheila. "Thank you."

"You looked like you needed a rescue."

Joan struggled not to smile. "Carol is a lovely human being."

"Man, you always say that as such an insult. What did she ever do to you?"

"Nothing, but I bet she'd like to do a few things to me."

"You're full of p.i.s.s and vinegar tonight."

"Yes, meaning to talk to you about that. What are you up to, giving Billy my private e-mail?"

Sheila looked at her. "Oh, did he write? Good."

"And encouraging him to read my dissertation?"

"Look, he reminds me of you. That means he's too smart for his own good, and struggling with it. n.o.body around him reflects him and it has to be lonely, like it was for you. I want to spare him some of that. Plus, I think you two need to have a meeting of the minds."

"You want me to mentor this kid?"

"Not exactly. I just think you should talk. I think you'll be friends."

"Friends?" Joan said, in layers of melting skepticism.

"Friends. How many do you have, really? How many people do you know who know you, all the way, to the hilt, to the bone, no walls? Everyone needs that, and you, I think, more than most, because you long for it more and have less of it."

"Why do you think we will be friends?"

"Because I saw Billy the week after you left. He was all lit up when he spoke about meeting you. Broke his heart that he had to miss your last cla.s.s. He seemed so genuinely upset that he wouldn't see you again that I gave him your e-mail on impulse. I a.s.sumed you two had just clicked, like sometimes happens with a student. That magic, when you find you are speaking the same language, using the same symbols, reaching for the same ideas, sharing the hunger. It was a gut thing," Sheila said, adjusting the rolling chair under her cast.

The secretary, Belinda, called the committee to order. Carol gave the treasurer's report, and Sheila and Joan tried to look like they were listening carefully. When Carol paused to grab a different set of books, Joan leaned in to Sheila.