Another Kind of Love (22 page)

T
he days that followed were marked by a merciful lack of leisure for Dee to give much thought to her own problems. By the time she reached her apartment, she was too tired to do anything but fall into bed after a hot bath. She had pushed herself and Karen at an incredible pace to have everything under control at her desk. They worked late almost every evening and yet managed somehow to show up at the office in the morning with the zest of people who were getting things done.

On several occasions Dee had caught herself wondering what she was going to do without Karen. She didn't want to feel that way. It wasn't safe—she couldn't trust her own motives anymore. But Karen had seemed to sense it indirectly, and more than once Dee had looked up to find Karen watching her. She would smile, and then they would both feel uneasy and self-conscious and return to their respective work.

It was a hot and humid day, the day before Dee was to leave. Even the sleeveless green sheath she had put on that morning offered no relief from the heat on her way to the office. She got off the elevator and saw Karen sitting at her desk with a paper cup of coffee on the right-hand side, wedged in between piles of correspondence and file copies of back issues.

“ 'Morning, Mrs. Sanders,” she said as cheerily as she could.

Dee smiled, secretly realizing how very tired Karen must be.

“How can you drink anything hot on a day like this?” she asked without expecting an answer.

“Air-conditioning . . .” Karen replied matter-of-factly.

Dee nodded appreciatively. “Any calls?”

Karen reached over and lifted some photographs from the top of her desk calendar. “Pan Am reconfirmed your flight tomorrow night.... The old man wishes you luck, and why aren't you at your desk? . . . And the boys in the stock room have smuggled in a bottle for a bon voyage drink after lunch.” She put the photos back and glanced up at Dee with an inscrutable expression.

“All that so early in the morning?” Dee laughed.

Karen gave a noncommittal shrug.

Dee thought she sensed a certain holding-back on Karen's part, a reserve she did not usually have. She wondered if Karen's boyfriend was trying to press her for a marriage date again. “How about us treating ourselves to a decent place for dinner tonight?” Dee said suddenly. “Sort of a going-away spree.”

Karen tensed almost imperceptibly, then looked up at Dee with a carefully blank gaze. “Sounds fine. Dutch treat, though. My folks sent me some money yesterday.”

“Save it, then,” Dee replied. “You'll need it to buy souvenirs in Indonesia, or wherever you end up with Phil.”

“Dutch treat,” Karen said again but more firmly. There was a strained look about her face that Dee had never seen before.

“All right. It's your money.” She smiled a little uncertainly, then entered her own small office. She's tired, Dee reasoned, and a little edgy. And I suppose the prospect of having so much responsibility while I'm away is rather an awesome idea.

Johnny's Steak House was still comparatively empty at five-thirty. The dinner crowds wouldn't start until around six-thirty or seven. Dee and Karen sat in a yellow booth lining the wall, waiting for their drinks.

“We've really earned this,” Dee said after a prolonged silence. “At least, you certainly have.” She smiled, trying to draw Karen out of her strange mood, which had lasted all day.

“It was character-building,” Karen said lightly, shifting uncomfortably. “Do you mind if I sit across from you? I like to look at people when I talk to them.”

She made the move but instead of looking at Dee made a detailed survey of the large room, inquiring what kind of wood paneling was used, how many times Dee had been there.

The waiter arrived with their drinks, and for the first time since Dee had known Karen, she felt uncomfortable with her. They didn't have that much more to do when they returned to the office to make Karen feel apprehensive—in fact, there wasn't so much that it couldn't be finished up tomorrow morning in an hour. Karen's attitude was not only incomprehensible to Dee, it was a little frightening. She tried to think of what she might have done or said that perhaps had hurt Karen in some way.

What was worse, it left Dee unable to make conversation. She felt she was being shut out and didn't know why. Finally, no longer able to stand it, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Want to tell me about it? Is there anything I can do?”

That was tactful, she scolded herself, like a bulldozer!

Karen's expression became veiled, defensive. It was as if she had had a reply on the tip of her tongue but had suddenly caught herself before letting it slip out. “Oh,” Karen said nonchalantly, “nothing really. Just tired, I guess. And worried.”

“About what?” Dee signaled the waiter for another round.

Karen sighed lightly. “The job . . . things like that.”

“Like what?” Dee persisted.

She smiled slowly. “You writing a book or something?”

“If you don't want to tell me, then say so. But we've been pretty close friends up to now . . . don't get flip with me.”

Karen sat quietly for a moment. She didn't appear to be thinking so much as forcing herself not to think. Her young face flushed for a second, and when she looked up there was just a trace of tears in her eyes. “I'm just a sentimental jerk,” she said with a choke in her voice. “I'm going to miss you!”

Dee was so relieved that there wasn't anything else bothering Karen that she was speechless. Then the impact of what Karen was saying released her own feelings and brought tears to her eyes, too. Without being very certain why, they both began to laugh as the tears rolled slowly down their cheeks.

When they regained control of themselves, Dee asked, “What do you plan to do while I'm gone?” She picked up the menu quickly and scrutinized it carefully. “Why not see more of Phil before you lose him?”

“Tell me,” Karen began slowly, “why are you always trying so hard to get me to marry Phil? I mean, it just seems that every time I turn around, you've got another one of your subliminal plugs flashing by. If you think marriage is the only cure for all ills, then why haven't you remarried?”

Dee was torn between being amused at Karen's personality switch and fighting the awful fear that perhaps Karen knew more about her than she had let on. “That's a very good question,” Dee answered with a light laugh. “Would you mind repeating it?”

It wasn't hard to tell that Karen found it difficult to be so blunt. Her usual approach to a difficult subject was one of circumlocution: mention it, then drop the whole topic, and eventually the “victim” would think he thought of it himself.

“Well,” Karen said with a slightly embarrassed glance. “You're always telling me about security, babies, and the good, solid life. If it's so great why haven't you done it?”

Dee lighted a cigarette slowly, mindful of not letting any masculine gesture show. Pausing in her reply, she fleetingly considered how learning to be feminine while lighting a cigarette was one of the most difficult things she had accomplished. There should be no “evidence” of her lesbian tendencies....

“I'm waiting, Mrs. Sanders,” Karen said softly.

“I do wish you would call me Dee. . . .”

“Don't change the subject . . . Dee,” Karen answered with a note of pleasure in her voice.

“Marriage. Home. Security. Hmm,” she stated evasively.

“Why not?” Karen insisted.

Dee laughed. “That's a line from a TV show, isn't it?”

“Dee . . .”

“Oh, all right. I've not found the right guy for me. Period.”

“That's not true.... I mean, I don't think you really mean that.”

“Meaning?” Dee smiled, trying to appear casual. Yet strange flashes shot across her head, belying her conditioned calmness.

“You're an attractive, bright, and successful woman. I hear lots of the fellows around the office talk about how you've turned down dates with them.”

Dee felt her hands grow cold.... Were they talking at the office—calling her queer? Oh, God! “I have outside friends,” she said hastily.

“A lot of the editors around are good marriage material—you don't even give them a chance. If your ‘outside friends' aren't panning out, then why don't you give the ‘inside friends' a chance? Isn't it because you don't really want to get married?”

“Now, look here, Karen. What I plan to do with my life has very little to do with yours.... I've been married.” Dee tried to keep her voice at its usual pitch. “You, however, have not. You are also a good deal younger than I am.”

“Not that much!” Karen said with a grin.

“Enough. There's no big world of discovery left for me in marriage. And I'm in no big rush. For a while I dated so many guys I couldn't keep their names straight,” she lied. “Now I'm putting my energies into my job, and if the right guy comes along, well and good. But I'm not actively looking anymore.”

“What big world of discovery?” Karen asked. “Good heavens, Dee. I'm not some wide-eyed kid from Walla-Walla. I know all about the birds and the bees and have had some experience. . . .”

“Karen!” Dee was amazed to realize she was genuinely shocked. She had just never thought of Karen as having been to bed with a man. Or maybe she just didn't want to.

“Let's have another drink,” Karen suggested mischievously.

“I think you're drunk already,” Dee said, almost laughing with embarrassment, or discomfort, or for no reason at all. She was certain that if she were not leaving, Karen would never be talking this way.

“Really, Dee. Why do you insist on treating me like a crinoline-crocked—I mean frocked—little girl? Like why, man?” Karen giggled with obvious enjoyment of being able to shock the implacable Dee Sanders.

“Still waters,” Dee mumbled, ordering their drinks “All right, Vampira, what other sordid details of your past are you going to reveal? Not that I believe you.”

“None, really. But you want to know something?” She stared at Dee for a long moment. “I don't really
want
to get married, and least of all to Phil!”

“All right, all right,” Dee said carefully, still reacting to Karen's confession of her love affairs. “Don't get married. What
do
you want to do?”

“Have a career . . . be wanton and wild . . . like the song ‘I Want To Be Evil.' Then, when I've got it out of my system, I'll think about diapers and drudgery.”

Dee shook her head disparagingly. “Karen. You crazy nut. Don't you see how foolish that would be? Wanton and wild,” Dee mimicked. “It's like overeating. You'll stretch your stomach to the point that going on a diet is near to impossible. Once you've given marriage a chance, then you can always do what you want later if you must—but the reverse is rarely true.”

“Well? What do women do who don't want to get married?”

Turn queer, Dee thought despite herself, and immediately hated herself for the notion. Oh, yes, Dee said silently. Turn queer and spend the rest of your life atoning for it, worrying about it, wondering what you would have been if you hadn't fallen into the convenience of a gay affair. Spend hours trying to rationalize your life after you've seen a mother in some simple little act like lifting a son to the water fountain with that special look of “This is mine; I made it; he came out of me.” Just the expression that comes into a mother's eyes when she gazes at the back of her child's neck, or the surprised smile that comes to a mother's face when her child has said something genuinely amusing—even the moments of impatience and anger were to be envied.

“Make me a promise” Dee said suddenly.

“I'll try.”

“Don't cut Phil off until I get back—please.”

“But why?” Karen's frown was swiftly replaced with a smile. “You going to find me someone better?”

Dee ignored her comment with a sudden rush of thoughts whirl-winding scraps of conversation and ideas. “You once said you were afraid to take a place of your own because of what you thought you might do. Right?”

Karen nodded with an inquisitive, catlike tilt to her head.

“I'm going to be gone about a month. I have a pet and a paid-for apartment. . . .”

“You're not going to suggest . . .” Karen interrupted.

“You move in and stay until I get back. You feed the cat and keep out intruders. I think half of your problems are that you live in that woman's-prison residence and that you've not really given Phil a chance to be a man.”

“Oh, we've made love before. . . .”

She felt herself tense at Karen's admission but managed to ask, “Where? In the backseat of his car? Oh, no, Karen. Give him a chance. Let him come up to the apartment; make dinner for him; do anything you want. But try. That's all I ask. Just try.”

“Why is this so important to you?” Karen asked sincerely.

Dee didn't answer for a moment; she wasn't too certain herself. “Because . . .” she began, “because I'm very fond of you. And because I don't want to see you make a tragic mistake.”

“What's tragic? That I don't marry my high school sweetheart? There are other men.”

Funny, Dee thought, taken aback. Of course there are other men. She had been projecting her own feelings—assuming that if she didn't marry Phil she wouldn't marry anyone. Dee felt foolish and presumptuous. She bit her lower lip lightly, then smiled.