Beggar of Love Part 10

During her graduate school and early teaching years, Jefferson kept up her visits to the coffee shop where Gladys the waitress worked with the cook, Sam. Since she wasn't close to her parents, she gave Glad pink roses every Mother's Day and slipped Sam a cigar with each of her new achievements.

The first time Gladys came to visit, Jefferson and Ginger had moved into Jefferson's grandparents' apartment in the west eighties.

"I've lived in my Mott Street neighborhood al my life. This is the first time I've been in a place this far uptown," Glad said when she handed her a birthday present one year.

"You look like you've entered enemy territory," Ginger said. "And the vil ains are out to get you."

"At least you're not on the Upper East Side."

Jefferson popped open the pinot grigio that Glad had brought for them and smel ed the acid of the cork. "My grandparents are more about value than prestige, and they're the ones who bought this apartment original y when it was dirt cheap."

Gladys exclaimed, "My place is three times this size. Which is why I waitress, or we couldn't pay for it."

Ginger laughed. "It's the size of our first dorm room, plus bathroom and kitchenette. We're used to it."

"My parents don't know I'm living with a girl yet," Jefferson said. "They think it's exactly my size."

Ginger said, "Oh, sure. You real y think they haven't figured it out, Jef?"

Ginger's hair was short and bouncy now around her bright freckled face. Jefferson adored her dancer's legs-as long as her own-and her elastic body. Jefferson shrugged. "Without paying rent," she explained, "we can afford to run the dance school."

"If they ever ask, we'l tel them I sleep on the hide-a-bed. They think my clothes in the closet are Jef's school clothes."

Gladys looked shocked as she laughed. "They don't know you at al , Jefferson, do they?"

She shook her head as she set out a plate of cheese and crackers. "Never have, never wil ."

"Doesn't that make you sad? Your own parents?" Gladys asked.

"I never thought about it. Should it?"

Ginger had a pitying expression as she said, "That's al she's known. Her family isn't loud and sc.r.a.ppy like Irish families."

Gladys nodded. "Or like my Italian relatives."

A gray loneliness approached like fog. She finished her wine, topped off Gladys's, and poured a second gla.s.s for herself. "This is excel ent."

"I told you about my wine guy," Gladys said.

"And Jef is so jealous that you have one."

"I can have him put aside two when he finds something."

"Sure. Give me a cal and I'l make a trip down there." She turned to Ginger, who was working a crossword puzzle, legs crossed, one flower-patterned flip-flop dangling. "We never get downtown to see the kids at Cafe Femmes anymore," she lied. "Would you mind if I went without you?"

"Of course not." Ginger looked up at her. "They're mostly Jef's friends anyway," she told Gladys. "They never liked her having an artiste-type girlfriend."

"Don't be crazy," she said. "They never said anything against you."

Ginger raised her eyebrows at Gladys, whose expression revealed nothing about al she knew. Gladys reached into the shopping bag by her side and pul ed out a big box.

"It's Jefferson's birthday, but these little things are for both of you."

Ginger was not one to get excited over gifts, but she sat on the couch and watched as Jefferson opened Gladys's big gift box.

"A garlic press!" said Ginger.

"You are a winner, Glad. Look at this red spaghetti drainer," Jefferson exclaimed.

"Look at this unique cheese grater." Ginger held it up.

"A real Italian spaghetti bowl. Look at this design. Surely, Glad, you're not hinting that we should ask you to dinner?"

"And serve me what I'm used to," Glad replied. "I'm going to turn you two into good Italian cooks."

"Not me." Jefferson jumped up for refil s. "I'm the bartender."

Ginger sighed. "Not me either. I only cook frozen dinners or nuke deli."

Gladys came back every couple of months over the years. At one of those jol y communal dinners Glad announced she was going in for a mastectomy.

That night she and Gladys got drunk on Jefferson's Irish whiskey. Her insides had turned as cold as her ice cubes at the news, but she managed not to show her alarm and sorrow. Smoothly, but in a voice that sounded tinny in her own ears, she said, "You'l be fine, Glad. We'l pickle you before you go in.

You won't feel a thing."

"Ernie says he's tired of these old things anyway." Tears were fal ing over her smile as she outlined her abundant b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "He says it'l be like before the kids came, when I was a flat-chested broad." She laughed. "Like you."

Jefferson couldn't help but blush before that pointing finger. She was hardly flat, but didn't advertise her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Ginger held up her bottle of c.o.ke in a toast. "To al you wonderful, flat-chested broads."

Soon after that, Ginger left for a performance.

"So," Jefferson said, "how are you doing with your news?" She refil ed their gla.s.ses and sat next to Glad on the couch, hip to hip. Glad put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her tight.

"I liked that wine you served earlier," Gladys said. "I have to write down the brand before I leave. I'l get us a bottle for Ernie's birthday." She went quiet.

"I think I'l stil be around for Ernie's birthday."

"Of course you'l be around." Jefferson tried to find something cheerful to say. The cloud of doom was back; if Glad could die, then... "I remember the first time I tasted whiskey," she said. "I thought I had swal owed fire. I was with one of my teachers-"

"The one you had an affair with? Margo was her name?"

"You remember her?"

"I even saw her once. At your graduation."

She ducked her head, embarra.s.sed. Margo hadn't been much to look at, not compared to Ginger. She cleared her throat. "We were in a restaurant and she had her usual wine. I was feeling young and inexperienced so I ordered what sounded like a grown-up drink, whiskey on the rocks. It was al I could do to keep the tears from flooding down my face. The last thing I wanted was for Margo to see I real y was young and inexperienced."

They laughed at that and al the other stories they'd been repeating to each other over the years of their friends.h.i.+p.

"You're such a great person to laugh with," she told Gladys.

Gladys laid one hand on Jefferson's arm. "You've turned into a good buddy."

She felt such warmth toward Gladys. She real y loved the woman. Were she and Glad meant to be together, not with Ernie and Ginger? Life was such fun with Gladys and she was so comforting when Jefferson was a little down. And now, what if she lost her? Cancer! Not her Gladys. Blindly, drunkenly, she reached for Glad to kiss her.

Gladys turned her cheek in time.

Jefferson gave her a quick, tight hug. "Sorry. I got a little maudlin there for a minute."

"S'okay," Gladys said. "It's what I should expect, being with the gay Don Juan of the West Side."

"It wasn't like that, Glad. I don't go around seducing every woman I like." Ginger hadn't found out about that one-night fling with Taffy or the other drunken infidelities, but she told Glad about most of them.

"What was this, then?" Gladys asked, pointing to the spot on her cheek where Jefferson had kissed her.

"The truth is, I never meant to be lovers with most of them. No, the real truth is that I never went after even one of them, except Ginger-and Angela -and that hit me by surprise. I didn't know I was queer til that first kiss with Angela."

"Don't put yourself down."

"Am I?"

"That word, queer."

She thought briefly. "I kind of like it. I'd rather be a queer than act the way a lot of these straight people do. Not you, of course." She decided to tel Gladys about her father.

"You have a point."

"I was saying something though. Something I wanted you to know. Can't remember now."

Gladys was not quite as drunk as Jefferson. "About not real y wanting the others? I guess you mean the ones you bring to the shop."

"Some of them I bring. The ones I can stand to see again. I've gone home with some doozies, Glad." She shook her head.

Gladys laughed. "I'l bet you have, Jef, if the ones you bring are the good ones!" She moved her face closer to Jefferson's, as if to see her better through the blur of the liquors. "Tel me. Why do you do it if you don't want to?"

"It's hard to say. Hard to say." She repeated, "Al I know is that Ginger is the only one I ever pursued, except for the puppy love with Angie, and I didn't have words for what I wanted then." Dizziness started coming on and she grabbed her gla.s.s. The cold ice cubes helped shock her out of it. "I don't know how not to. I don't know how to be a friend without s.e.x."

"Kind of like guys can't help seeing women through their hormones?"

"No. Not at al . Guys want the s.e.x. I'm after the friends.h.i.+p, and it comes out al wrong. I don't know how to tel a friend I love her without coming on to her."

"Like what you just did."

"Yeah."

"Wouldn't it simplify your life to hug someone?"

"How do you hug? The next thing I know, my hands are running up and down her back or she's confessing she's been in love with me since the first day she saw me. Like it or not, we end up-wel , you know."

"Aren't you the hot stuff." Gladys pinched her arm.

"It's not me, Glad. They actual y say that."

"So you step back and tel them you're sorry, you didn't mean it like that."

"And hurt their feelings? I don't have the heart to say no."

"And when you never see them again after a night together you think their feelings aren't hurt? People know not everyone is going to be their true love.

"I know. It doesn't make sense. It makes me feel crazy. It's easier to do it when they're not in front of me. At least we had a nice time together."

"Always?"

"What do you mean? Oh, the lovemaking? Yes, always. I don't get complaints in that department. I tel them they're great like that. And a lot of them are. Listen, maybe you don't want to hear this kind of thing, but it's the only way I can finish."

"You mean, come?'

Jefferson looked hard at the floor. The rug's rectangles seemed to be warping under her sneakers. She put the icy gla.s.s back against her cheek.

"Yes. It never happened with Ginger."

There was a hesitation before Gladys spoke. She knew Glad was shocked. "Does she try?"

"She did. Sometimes. But I could tel she wasn't real y into it. Either you're pa.s.sionate about making love to a woman or you're going through the motions. These pickups, they mostly get pa.s.sionate. There's a lot more give-and-take with them. It boils up from inside me."

"Then I'd say you and Ginger have a problem."

"She doesn't know that. I never told her."

"You pretend?"

"I guess I did. I didn't want to hurt her feelings." She decided she might as wel tel Glad how it was. "When I went with Angela, Glad, she was al about touch. We learned about love by loving each other." She realized she was searching Glad's eyes for a sign of comprehension.

"None of us had tutors, Jef."

"Don't tel me that. You had movies and TV and books. They were depicting straight people wanting to have s.e.x with one another or having s.e.x with one another. Angela and I thought we were the first ones, the first girls to feel like that about each other."

"It's that different?"

"We didn't know. We didn't know anything is what I'm trying to tel you. So what I learned with Angie was that a girl likes to be touched and touched a lot, al the time, but Ginger wasn't like that. Ginger wasn't a hugger or big on kissing unless we were official y doing it. If I could touch her five percent of the time at first, by the last few years it was minus five percent."

"It sounds like making love is something in the past." Gladys was shaking her head.

She patted Glad's hands. "What was your first clue?"