Part 8 (1/2)
Taffy threw back her head and laughed. ”Don't tel me you mean boys. I only go out with them to please Mom and Dad.”
Their eyes held. It seemed to Jefferson as if the wors.h.i.+pful little girl in Taffy was doing battle with the seductive woman. She knew the woman had won out when she felt lured by her gaze. She tried, for a while, not to look at Taffy's b.r.e.a.s.t.s or her swinging, nearly naked legs, not to touch, with her unquiet hands, the young siren body.
Ginger joined them. It was the end of the game. Al three worked to set out the food.
”Why don't you two stay up here at my parents' house tonight?” Taffy suggested. ”I'm going to a bar with a bunch of the kids after the game.”
”A bar, eh?” Jefferson envisioned a long night's laughter and dancing. She wouldn't have to come down from her high.
Taffy's eyes narrowed with chal enge above her raised chin. ”You've heard of the Cliffs?”
Jefferson shot a quick look at Taffy, trying to hide and at the same time reveal a knowing grin. The White Cliffs had been a gay bar when she was in school. So Taffy was definitely out. Stil she fought against acknowledging, aloud, that she was gay. Oh, everyone knew it, but it seemed to be one of those unwritten lesbian rules that the minute you admitted it, you might as wel disrobe and hold out your arms. For herself, coming out to another woman was a line.
She told Taffy, ”I guess it wouldn't matter whether we went back tonight or in the morning.”
While Ginger hesitated, a.s.sembling sandwiches, Taffy said, ”Please stay. I'l go cal Mother and tel her you'l be there for dinner. She's been asking to meet my charming friend Jefferson.”
She noted that Taffy hadn't cal ed her Jeffy in front of Ginger.
”My famous girlfriend.” Ginger laughed. She fastened the leather thong that held her hair, never looking at Taffy, and raised her eyebrows.
Jefferson stood relaxed, legs apart, arms folded, hoping hard to extend this glowing day. Her mouth tasted brackish with sweet wine and old whiskey.
She reached for the bottle. ”What do you say, Princess? Shal we?”
Ginger blushed again before she spoke. ”Sure, Taffy.” She leveled her eyes at Jefferson. ”As long as we start back to the city early.”
She raised her arms as if to pul both women to her. ”Come with me, my pretties. The day is ours.” Her heart was alive again with excitement. ”We might as wel stay. Unless you'd rather go home?”
Ginger rested one delicate hand lightly on her forearm. Ginger's touch always made her light-headed. The smel of burning leaves mingled with Ginger's scent, both warm and familiar in the afternoon sun. Ginger whispered, ”I'm only home in your hands.”
”Thank G.o.d,” Jefferson replied.
Taffy leapt up and hugged Jefferson, then hugged Ginger too. Jefferson watched them: the smal er, al uring Taffy, the back of her thighs showing as she stretched up to Ginger; the elegant-looking redhead, graceful y, lightly holding the girl. No comparison, she thought, smiling into Ginger's eyes, ful of the warmth Ginger induced in her, certain that she was the woman for her. There is no way I'm going to lose that gem for some good-time kid who regards me as a notch in her belt.
She pul ed out the whiskey again and tipped a quick shot of it into a cup of c.o.ke, then tipped it again.
When they arrived at Taffy's home, the early winter dark came as a shock. She stayed on the porch while Taffy smoked a cigarette. Except for the black chil through a light jacket, she felt dul ed by a c.o.c.ktail and wine with dinner on top of the afternoon's drinking. Ginger was inside watching a televised bal et with Taffy's parents. Out here high hedges obscured al but hints of neighboring lights. She felt enclosed. Her skin crawled. A blueness, the last sign of light from her perfect day, seemed to seep out of the night into her. She needed to run off the threatening thunder of her mood. Would it never be time to go to the bar?
She sat heavily on a hanging wicker love seat. ”What's the matter, Jeffy?” asked Taffy, sitting beside her. Taffy had changed to tight, cuffed jeans, a lime-colored s.h.i.+rt open at the throat, and a madras jacket. They swung gently.
She sighed after a while and, looking across the yard, spoke toward the hedges, to the specks of light that promised a world beyond her blues. ”The day's over, that's al . I got up and the world promised me something. It staged a spectacular: trumpets, dancing girls, glitter, and song. But it was a sham.
Look-the curtain's down and it's gone, every bit of it.” She held out empty hands.
Taffy picked up one hand and laid it palm up across her own. She traced the lines of Jefferson's palm. ”No one with hands as beautiful as yours should feel bad,” Taffy said. ”Look how strong, how sensitive. I'l bet Ginger loves these hands.”
A little thril of pleasure pierced her fog. She was stil so numb she ignored the sentry voice inside her, warning, warning of this beckoning stranger Taffy. But Taffy was touching her, liked touching her, and she'd become so addicted to touch, it was as if she'd been starved for it her whole childhood, as if the magic of touch could by itself lift her heavy mood.
”Every day's like that, Taffy. You wake up ful of purpose, thinking this wil be the day, and it ends, and it wasn't. Someday I'l have been shot down so often I'l lose the ability to feel excitement.”
Taffy's face looked like the hockey players' had, so intent on winning that no emotion showed. Nor was there a note of concern in her voice when she asked, ”The day for what?”
”Maybe if I knew that, I'd find it.”
”Find what?” persisted Taffy.
”Fame, fortune, success? An end to the search? Home?”
”I can't wait to get away from home.”
”That's the problem. I'm always trying to get away from what I think of as home too. Why do I feel so excited when I think I'm there, then lose interest?”
”What are you talking about, Jeffy? Ginger?”
Jefferson looked down at her hands, at Taffy's smal fingernails, daintily shaped and polished, ever moving across her own. How could these big hands ever make a home for Ginger when they were so restless, so uncontrol ed themselves? What was wrong with her? She closed her hand on Taffy's without considering consequences, to see how it felt.
”Jeffy, Jeffy,” the girl said in a low purring voice. ”I knew you wanted me.”
”But-”
Taffy had pushed Jefferson back and lay half on top of her, her lips a.s.saulting Jefferson's.
She pul ed her head away. She hesitated to reject Taffy, not wanting the girl to dislike her and, senselessly, not wanting to act in a way that would confirm that they'd been flirting.
”Shh, Jeffy. I know.” She rubbed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against Jefferson. ”Ginger's right inside. I don't want to get you in trouble either.” Taffy moved off her and sat upright. ”Wasn't I smart? I didn't wear lipstick, though I wanted to look great for you.”
She knew that sparkle in Taffy's eyes. The animation bred from winning. And certainly the touch of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had been exciting. She moved to the rail as Ginger, with her graceful, spirited walk, came out onto the porch.
Part of her resented Ginger's entrance; the rest of her was relieved to be saved from her own wavering impulses. ”I need to stop at a liquor store on the way,” she said, cheered by the feeling of escape, by the rush of adrenaline Taffy's advances and Ginger's arrival had stirred.
She drove, bought more wine, and, house by house, fil ed the station wagon with half the hockey team. They flew through the clear star-sparkling night to the bar where once again there was promise in the air thick as the cigarette smoke. She kept close to Ginger, brought her drinks, danced with her, brashly elbowed a path to the bathroom for her.
She was raucous, overbearing, and tried to quiet herself, to a.s.sume the air of a dignified alumnus. But, as she'd told Taffy, she was rus.h.i.+ng to get to somewhere, and she shouted, and drank, to drown out the s.p.a.ce between here and there.
Then, al at once, as if she'd quaffed a magic potion, she arrived. The golden day had returned. Life was hard no longer. She moved with ease, laughed low, and talked quietly, with an air of amused tolerance.
Taffy came to the table, eyes glittering like the loud jukebox. ”May I dance with your girlfriend?” she asked Ginger.
Jefferson saw Ginger-dear, trusting Ginger-a.s.sent.
”Hey,” she said, one hand closing around Ginger's where it lay on the table. Her lips seemed to burn from Taffy's earlier kiss. ”I'm home.” It sounded, of course, as if she meant being close to Ginger, but real y she was talking about the state, short of unconsciousness, where one movement sends the drunk toppling from her chair, from her peace, with the weight of her pa.s.sions and wil .
”Time to go, Jef,” Ginger said a moment, or hours, later.