Finding Bluefield (6 page)

“I drove out after school let out. Made a summer out of it. I teach history in high school,” he said, catching up. “I figured I wanted to be part of history, to experience it firsthand, and then go back and tell the kids.”

Nicky stopped by an exhibit of World War II fighters. “I don’t like these planes.”

“Okay,” he said. “But I don’t follow.”

“Every good thing gets ruined. Over there you have the Wright brothers. They gave us wings. They taught us to fly. And here you have fighter planes and they gave us death.”

“My name is David,” he said, extending his hand toward Nicky. “David Levin.”

Nicky shook his hand. David adjusted his large rucksack.

“What do you have in there?” Nicky asked.

“Some food, some drink. A hat, a blanket. With all these people, I wasn’t sure what to expect. This is my first demonstration.”

“Are you camping out on the lawn?”

“No, I’m staying in a hotel. This is just for today,” David said. “Can I walk you back to the march?”

“Assuming that’s where I’m going.” Nicky walked slowly.

“You picked today of all days to visit the Smithsonian?” David held the door open.

“Thanks,” Nicky said, stepping outside. She stopped at the top of the stairs to light a cigarette.

“Isn’t it great,” David said, “how everything’s free in the nation’s capital? Free and open to the public. Anyone can go anywhere anytime. They even give us permission to protest. But away from the Mall, people are less free.”

“Are you practicing your speech for later today?” Nicky said.

“Just working up the nerve to make a speech to you.” David shifted his rucksack.

“And that speech would be?”

“Would you be free to have lunch with me? That is, if you’re here for the march.”

“I am,” Nicky said. She thought he looked cute with his huge rucksack of provisions.

“Free for lunch or here for the march?” David asked.

“Here for the march. Lunch depends on what you brought.”

“What I brought, I made. Except for the California wine. That comes from a friend of mine who has a vineyard.”

“Stop trying to impress me. I’ll take a look inside that rucksack when we get there.”

“And before we get there,” David asked, “do I get to know your name?”

“Barbara,” Nicky said, wondering why she lied and why she couldn’t come up with a better choice than Barbara. She offered David a cigarette.

“I don’t smoke,” he said. “You shouldn’t either.”

Nicky and David set up a picnic on a shadeless patch of grass, far from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

“You made all this?” Nicky said.

“Again, I didn’t know what to expect.”

“I meant did you actually cook the food?”

“Sure. I love to cook. I live alone, so I also have to cook if I want to eat. And I’m quite fond of eating.”

Sitting in the sun, among the largest group of people she had ever been part of, Nicky listened to speaker after speaker while she drank David’s wine, ate his food, and listened to his commentary. Suddenly, she realized that David had his hand on her knee. She didn’t know how long it had been there.

“Barbara…Barbara,” David repeated as he gently rocked her leg.

Nicky turned to face him.

“Are you all right? You look a little pale. Maybe you’ve had enough wine, especially in this sun.”

“I’m fine,” Nicky said, though she was feeling a bit light-headed.

“Do you want to get out of the sun?”

“That might be a good idea.”

“My hotel is close by. If you wanted to, you could go there and rest a little, take a shower if you want, get refreshed, and then we can come back.”

“Your hotel?” Nicky looked David over closely. “Shower?”

“I’ll wait in the lobby while you shower,” David said. “My hotel’s only a few blocks.”

Nicky’s mind started working and was quickly shifting into high gear. Two weeks since my period. This guy is good looking. He’s a teacher, so he’s smart. No one will ever know, and Barbara will understand because there’ll be a baby. She and I will be a family. This is too good to pass up. I mean, who knows if I’ll get this kind of chance again? Nicky finished her cup of wine. “Let’s go,” she said, standing too quickly. She steadied herself on David’s arm as he led her away from the crowd. His hands were soft, but they were strong. He’s probably younger than me, Nicky thought.

Inside the room, David tuned the radio to the march and sent down for soda and snacks. Nicky went into the bathroom to shower while David waited for room service to arrive.

“Your soda’s here,” David called through the bathroom door.

Nicky took a deep breath. “Bring it in.” She looked out from behind the curtain. David had his back toward her as he tried to pass her the glass of soda. Nicky put her hand over his. “Want to wash my back?”

David turned around. “I’d love to.” He stepped into the shower, clothes and all.

“You’re nuts.” Nicky laughed, pushing him out of the shower. “Take those clothes off and I’ll wash your back too.”

When they were both covered with lather, Nicky told David that he could stay where he was, he didn’t need a rubber, she had an IUD. Later, when they moved to the bed, with the radio broadcasting Martin Luther King’s dream about his children, David and Nicky drank more wine and made love more times. When David fell asleep, Nicky got dressed. She didn’t want David to know much about her, and she hated lying. Keeping in touch with him wasn’t a choice. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to David, or the kid, she told herself as she wrote him a note thanking him for a wonderful afternoon and apologizing for the fact that she had to run out to catch her bus home. She added that if she were ever in San Francisco, she’d look him up. She wanted to sound casual, so he wouldn’t follow her. She grabbed her bag and closed the door quietly behind her.

Back at the reflecting pool, in the middle of a huge crowd, Nicky lay on her back and soaked in the rest of the splendid, special afternoon. Just too good to be true, she repeated to herself. She couldn’t stop smiling and she couldn’t wait to tell Barbara.

In the evening, on the bus heading back to Bluefield, during the singing, the eating, the celebrating, the recounting, the retelling of the good day just passed, Nicky thought about being pregnant. This will put an end to all those rumors about Barbara and me, she laughed to herself. And after I have the baby, no one will ever bother us again. Everything will be fine because people will know there was once a man in the picture and they will feel pity. Pity because some guy took advantage of me and left. No one would want to marry me after I had a kid. And then they’ll just write us off as a couple of spinsters. But they’ll leave us alone.

Of course, everyone in town knew that Nicky had gone out with Tommy Baines back in high school. He was captain of the football and basketball teams and had a smile that opened doors. That was around the same time that Nicky had a confusing crush on her gym teacher. So when Tommy Baines, star running back, asked Nicky to go with him to the pep rally, she thought that he was just what she needed. Tommy turned out to be a nice guy, and nice to her, and Nicky had a great time with him. But he did little to cure, or even explain, her crush. That didn’t happen till Nicky slept over at Mary Beth’s house. Mary Beth’s parents were away, and she had asked Nicky to keep her company. They watched
American Bandstand
and ate vanilla ice cream with corn chips and Mary Beth asked about Tommy.

“Seems like something is missing,” Nicky said. “Maybe I’m doing something wrong.”

“Maybe he is. What do you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Details.”

“We just do it,” Nicky stuffed some chips in her mouth.

“If I’m going to help you, I need information,” Mary Beth said.

“It’s usually in his father’s Buick. He has this new Skylark. I love that car. It’s a red convertible with a white top. But we leave the top up when we have sex. The backseat is very roomy.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m not following,” Nicky said.

“Do you take your clothes off?”

“In a car?”

“So what do you do?”

“We kiss for a while, and you know.”

“Tell me.”

“He opens my bra and I pull up my skirt. He pushes his pants down and puts on a rubber. Tommy thinks it’s great. Afterward, we drive over to the diner for burgers and fries. He eats a lot and can’t stop grinning and I get to choose the radio station.”

“Did he ever touch you like this?” Mary Beth asked, placing her hand on Nicky’s nightgown.

“What are you doing?”

“Make believe I’m Tommy. I can teach you. I know what’s missing.” Mary Beth kissed Nicky on the lips. “Does he ever do this?” Nicky was still recovering from the effects of the kiss when Mary Beth slipped her hand inside Nicky’s nightgown. By the time Mary Beth was done asking and demonstrating, Nicky was no longer imagining that Mary Beth was Tommy, and she stopped wondering what was missing. Nicky kept going out with Tommy because she didn’t want anyone to wonder why she and Mary Beth slept over at each other’s house so often—even after dates with Tommy. Besides, like she told Mary Beth, she really did like him.

After graduation, Tommy went to college on a basketball scholarship and he and Nicky decided to see other people. Mary Beth went to college in California, went away and never, ever came back. Nicky was left wondering how to meet other women. She had no idea what she was supposed to look for or how she would recognize them, or how they would spot her. Until she saw Barbara sitting at her counter eating a slice of her blackberry pie and she knew.

*

The weary travelers returned to the church parking lot that evening cheerful but quiet. Nicky couldn’t help thinking that returning to Bluefield held some disappointment for many of her fellow travelers. Anxious to see Barbara, she threw her bag into the Chevy and drove off.

Barbara was sleeping when Nicky slipped into bed. Gently, slowly, she caressed Barbara until she rolled over and began to return Nicky’s kisses. After they made love, Nicky turned on the radio and lit a cigarette. The college station was playing Phil Ochs.

“That was wonderful,” Barbara said, catching her breath. “You’ll have to go away more often.”

“It’s coming home to you that I like.”

“How was the march?” Barbara asked. “I saw some of it on the news.”

“Great. Wonderful,” Nicky said. She lay coverless in the heat and placed her hands on her abdomen. “And the best part is that we’re going to have a baby.”

“You’re so funny.”

“I mean it,” Nicky said. She sat up. “I think you’ll be proud of me. I met this guy and let him have sex with me, and—”

“You what!” Barbara grabbed her glasses from the nightstand and sat up.

“I told him I had an IUD.”

Barbara got out of bed. She pulled on one of Nicky’s T-shirts. “Who?” Barbara said. “I don’t understand.”

“Some guy.”

“What guy?”

“That’s not important.” Nicky rested her cigarette in the ashtray.

“Of course it’s important.”

“Barbara, we’re always talking about having children, so I went ahead and got us one. It’s fabulous.”

“You’re serious.”

Nicky grinned and nodded.

“You went off to Washington and fucked some guy at the march so you could get pregnant,” Barbara said.

“I didn’t do it for the sex. You’re all I need for that.” Nicky put her hand out to Barbara who didn’t take it. She dropped her hand.

“Apparently not.”

“Look, Barbara, if we lied a lot,” Nicky said, “someone might let us adopt an orphan from Asia or South America. But then this opportunity came up, and I just had to take it.”

“Had to?”

“Like it was meant to be. Like that’s why I went to the march, like that’s why you were too stubborn to go with me.”

“I’m not letting you go anywhere by yourself again.”

“You’re not thrilled?”

“Thrilled is not the first word that comes to mind.” Barbara rubbed her face. She sat on the edge of the mattress. “You can’t smoke those if you’re having a baby. What am I saying? This is impossible. Ridiculous.”

“You’re right. I quit.” Nicky pressed out the cigarette. “I can quit this time. You’ll take good care of me and the baby. How many mothers live with doctors?”

“A lot,” Barbara said.

“True. But how many lesbian mothers live with doctors?”

“This is not a joke.”

“And I’m not joking—not even a little. But I am happy. Very happy.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“No.”

“What is your plan?”

“I was planning on celebrating with you. On enjoying the moment with you,” Nicky said. “It’s not like you didn’t want to have a baby.” She moved around the bed and sat next to Barbara. “It’s not often you get a chance like I got, so I took it and now our problems are solved.”

“Seems to me that they’re about to start. I need a drink.” Barbara headed downstairs. Nicky followed close behind.