Venus Envy, page 18
“Upset! I was born and raised here. I work hard. My daughter works hard and has made something out of her life. And this is my reward? To watch Frazier be picked apart by vultures, none of whom are her equal in any respect? Do I know what this lesbian stuff is about? My God, I can barely remember my own sexuality, much less understand hers!”
Libby blushed. “Now, honey, don’t tax yourself.”
He brushed past his wife, a wife he had realized within the first two years of marriage was an empty gourd, but Frank had made a vow before God and man and he intended to keep it. And by the time he realized he was truly alone in this world he had a son to support. His generation didn’t think about divorce. Frank discovered golf, and then when Frazier came there was another woman to steal his heart.
“Frank, I do understand it.” Ru surprised Libby and Frank.
“What do you mean?” Libby’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Frazier needs nurturing. I don’t mean mothering. I mean nurturing, and women do that better than men. Refute me if you think I’m wrong, Frank.”
“No, I don’t think you’re wrong.” He sat on the edge of the armchair. Libby noticed but shut up.
“I guess hormones are hormones,” Ru kept on, “and no doubt there is lust. We don’t feel it but it can’t be any different than what we did feel. It’s what’s underneath. It’s the caring part. She needs more help than we knew. Frazier was the perfect kid, straight A’s, the best athlete, president of her class, but we didn’t stop to look inside her. Carter commanded most of our emotional attention. His need was, and remains, obvious. She needs nurturing. It’s as simple as that.”
Libby felt this was a sly attack on her maternal job description. However, Ruru so cleverly phrased it that she wasn’t sure how to fight back.
Frank’s voice wavered. “If only I could have back the years.” Ru walked over to her brother and put her arm around his shoulders. Libby seethed. “If only I had paid more attention to my children.”
“Poppycock. You were a good father.” Libby’s defense was really an offense.
“You know, in our time, in my time”—he half-smiled—“we didn’t think of that. I thought if I made money, that was it, you know, and if I took the kids fishing sometimes. Now, now I know what a mistake I made. I lost my children.”
“You did not.” Libby’s upper lip curled.
“Maybe I didn’t want the emotional responsibility. Maybe it was easier to push it off on my wife.”
“Frank, you’re being too hard on yourself. A mother naturally has a stronger bond to the children. That’s Nature’s way,” Libby said, ignoring the fact that her bond to Frazier was one of unremitting hostility, and perhaps a part of that hostility lay in Frazier’s youth and beauty. The daughter had surpassed the mother.
“It’s never too late, Frank.” Ru hugged Frank and noticed how thin he was between the shoulder blades. “And you did the best you could with what you had. That’s all any of us can ask of ourselves.”
“Sounds like something you heard on Oprah,” Libby sniffed. “You could go on the show as the Phantom of the Oprah.” Since Libby rarely evidenced a sense of humor she must have been thinking extra hard to get one up on the quick-witted Ru.
“I like her and I like her show.” Ru released Frank. She nearly said, “And I don’t like you,” but then that was obvious.
Frank sighed. “What this town needs is an enema.”
38
DESPITE THE SUNBURST OF FORSYTHIA AND THE SWELLING of the redbuds, spring stalled. Gray clouds slid down the Blue Ridge Mountains to spread their gloom over central Virginia. The robins puffed up their red breasts to keep warm and humans grumbled in their winter sweaters.
Frazier escaped the elements by walking through the covered shopping mall, a place she usually avoided but she’d run out of her favorite Lancôme body lotion, and the only store that carried the expensive stuff was in the mall. As it was six-thirty in the evening, the place reverberated with the click of human heels, the slow scrape of teenaged boys in high-top sneakers, and the occasional pop of walkers as the aged participated in the orgy of commercial display.
Frazier passed two athletic-shoe stores selling sneakers at exorbitant prices, especially those endorsed by a basketball player. Basketball, a game played by chromosomes, captured the marketeers of Reebok, Nike, Puma, and other assorted brands. Hard by the sneaker stores were clothing franchises brimming with men and women rummaging through the spring sales. The smell of chocolate cookies, yogurt, and McDonald’s assailed her nostrils. Bad as that was, turning into the cosmetics department of Stone and Thomas, a decent store for a mall, was worse. Surely this was what a cheap whorehouse in Paris smelled like, a signature scent laden with lusty promise.
A fine-looking redhead, in her early thirties at most and serious about her hair as only Texan women can be serious about their hair, bent over the counter as she lined up bottles of Red, Poison, Opium, and Cinnabar. Although she had never met the woman, Frazier knew this was Sarah Saxe. The prospect of conversation lured her, probably as sailors were lured by Circe.
Frazier reached out for Ysatis. Sarah, a friendly sort, cheerfully said, “I’ve never tried that but I am tired, truly tired of Giorgio.”
“Too overpowering.” Frazier smiled, and when she did her resemblance to her brother was uncanny.
“Haven’t we met?” Sarah uttered the oldest pickup line in the world.
“No, but I believe you know my brother.”
“Oh.” Sarah, unwary, beamed.
Frazier marveled at how open the woman was, how utterly different from Laura. “I’m Mary Frazier Armstrong.” Frazier held out her hand. “But everyone calls me Frazier, except for Carter, who calls me Sistergirl.”
Sarah clasped her hand. “You look like twins. No wonder I thought I knew you.” She quickly withdrew her hand, fearing that Frazier might be judging her for having an affair with her brother, but Frazier thought it was because Sarah had heard that she was a lesbian.
“Yes, everyone says that.”
“I, well, I’m glad to meet you.”
“I’m glad to meet you, too, and, Sarah, if you think I don’t approve of your time spent with my brother, you’re wrong. His wife is a whistling bitch. At least you make him happy.”
Sarah glanced around. “Would you like to have a cup of coffee? I mean, there are never enough salesclerks in here.”
“We could go into menopause waiting to buy the perfume.”
Sarah laughed. “We’ve got time.”
“Time. We’ve probably got another twenty-five years and I would like to know what a lesbian needs with a period.”
Sarah doubled over. She hadn’t expected Frazier to be lighthearted. Then again, Frazier usually wasn’t and she had not referred to herself in this manner in public before, but perhaps the two women, bound by love outside the bounds, found they could be free with each other.
“You’re not at all what I expected,” Sarah confessed as they sat down at a table.
“You are.” Frazier opened her napkin.
“Oh …”
“And I’m glad. I’m thrilled, actually, that he’s not fooling around with another proper Virginia woman, a woman who knows her pedigree, your pedigree, and who wears pastels in springtime.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You look like Texas to me, sugar.”
“And you look like something off the cover of Vogue. Carter never told me that you were beautiful.”
“No sister is beautiful to her brother, I guess.”
“You all are getting close again?”
“Oh, Brudda and I are best friends except when we’re enemies.”
“He’s sure glad you bought his truck.” She ordered coffee while Frazier settled for Perrier. “Too late for coffee?”
“I’ll be up all night.”
“Doesn’t affect me much one way or the other.” She lifted her eyes to Frazier’s. “When Carter first told me about … things, I made a couple of cracks, you know, dyke stuff, but I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t have to tell me this.”
“I know that I don’t, except that I feel like I know you. It’s weird. Anyway, I’ve had my share of threesomes so maybe I know a little more about the subject than Carter—but he doesn’t know that yet.”
“Is this a sexual confession? Because if it is, I want to hear everything.” Frazier leaned forward. She understood instinctively why Carter loved this woman. God knows, the girl was hot.
“Uh, well, yes, in a way. I mean, when I met Carter, I figured, wow, what an animal. I just wanted to jump his bones, which was easy enough.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Yes.” Sarah laughed. “But one thing led to another and I discovered I liked this guy and he was so miserable—I mean, as miserable as a puppy with a stomachache.”
“Have you ever seen his wife?”
“Once. But she can’t be the only source of his misery.” Sarah hit the nail on the head. “He doesn’t believe in himself.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, after like comes love and I love your brother and I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t want to get hurt, I don’t want him to get hurt, and I’d like to say I don’t want his wife to get hurt but I really don’t give a flying fuck about her, you know? I suppose I should. I wouldn’t want a husband running out on me.”
“Your husband wouldn’t.” Frazier listened to the ice cubes tinkle in her glass as the waitress placed the beverage before her.
Sarah half-smiled. “Every woman would like to think that, but time changes people and men get restless.”
“How is it you never married?”
“Never wanted to. It felt like a trap to me.”
“Would you marry Carter if he asked you? Sorry if I’m being too direct.”
“I don’t know. I want to say yes, but his drinking worries me—not that he gets ugly or anything when he does. He’s actually kind of fun until he passes out but he isn’t doing his liver any good.”
“You don’t drink?”
“Not like that, I don’t.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, he’s been unfaithful as long as I’ve known him but I think he really loves you. That’s a change.”
“He does?” Sarah’s innocent need to know was touching.
“I figure I know him better than anybody. He does.” Frazier rested her chin in her hand. “Give him a cornucopia of sexual dramas with himself as the star, and I figure if his brains don’t fry or if he doesn’t wear out his part, he’ll be yours forever.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I just this minute figured it out. He has energy but he doesn’t really have imagination. Supply the imagination, especially in bed, and he doesn’t need to sleep with other women, does he? And as we all know, there is no right or wrong way to make love. So …”
Sarah shook her head. “You’re not at all what I expected.”
“I’m not what I expected.”
As they roared with laughter Kimberly Noakes passed by the table.
“Kimberly, how are you?” Frazier called out.
Kimberly blinked. “Oh, fine. I’m so happy you’re well.”
“This is Sarah Saxe.” Frazier introduced the women to each other.
Kimberly eyed Sarah with heightened interest. “Pleased to meet you. Frazier, I’m glad I did run into you because I need to chat with you sometime soon.”
“About the Girl Scout board meeting?”
“Well, yes, and I’ll call you early tomorrow, okay?”
“Kimberly, you look pale. Why don’t I save you the trouble and resign?”
A wave of pure relief washed Kimberly’s sallow features. “I surely didn’t expect you to be so understanding but you can imagine the position we’re in and these are impressionable young girls. It’s so unfortunate and—” She inhaled as Frazier cut her off.
“As far as I know, Kimberly, young women are quite safe from older women as sexual predators. I can’t think of one example where something like that has happened. Sure happens all the time with men though. A high school teacher seduces the best-looking girl in the class.”
“You got that right, girl,” Sarah echoed.
“Now, Frazier, I knew this would upset you. I did, and I’m sorry and I don’t want you to think for one instant that any of us thought that of you. We know you better than that, but think how it would look.”
“I have. That’s why I’m resigning, Kimberly, but I ask you to think about something. Out there right now there are girls who are in tremendous turmoil. Sexual identity isn’t easy at that age, even when you’re straight. Think of the pain the gay kid endures. Who can she talk to? Her family? You, Kimberly? Her pastor? A friend in school? Don’t you think there are girls in scouting suffering with the issue right now?”
“Well … well, to tell you the truth, I never thought of it.”
“No one ever thinks of it. That’s my point. Maybe if there were gay leaders in scouting or in the schools or the churches, at least those kids wouldn’t have to go through what I went through, and what I’m going through now. They’d have someone to talk to even if it’s only me.”
Kimberly, shaken but listening, spoke: “I am sorry. I really am.”
“So am I. I’m not mad at you though. I’m not mad at anyone and that’s what scares me. I think I’d be better off if I were.”
As Kimberly left, Sarah and Frazier sat for a moment. “Sarah, I get the feeling people would have preferred that I died. It would be better than having to face things. Or maybe saying that they want me dead is too strong. Maybe they just want me to get a pink slip, you know, so I could be excused from life.”
39
FRANK BENT OVER MILDRED SAVIANO AS SHE POINTED TO the right-hand column in the accounting books. Mildred had worked for the company for thirty years. Loyal, efficient, and fond of numbers because they always produced a right answer, she was an unadventure-some soul. But then, Frank thought, perhaps he was also. He arose each morning at seven. Drank his first cup of coffee while he shaved. Joined Libby at the breakfast table at seven-thirty, where discussion centered on the scheduling of the day. He ate half a grapefruit, two pieces of toast, drank one glass of orange juice and then his second cup of coffee.
He usually ate lunch at noon, and in the warm weather he left work at four, if possible, to play golf. Sometimes he thought that he and Mildred were a matched pair, whereas Libby craved excitement and power. His wife’s ceaseless rounds of meetings, charities, bridge, and dress-up luncheons, her travel brochures tossed on his side of the bed, her lists of chores—all this exhausted him. In her cups she would accuse him of being boring and he couldn’t refute the charges. But he didn’t bore himself. Frank was a man who wished the trains would run on time. Mildred would have been the better choice for a mate, but when one is young one rarely considers compatibility.
Frank had looked at Libby’s full bosom, her long sleek legs, her fine features. The rest, as they say, was history.
His eyes followed Mildred’s finger as she slowly ran down the column.
“It’s these uncollected bills that are killing us,” Mildred strongly identified with the company.
“I know.”
“Frank, we write, I call, nothing happens. Okay, then I call Richardson, Fuqua and Garrick. They write. They write again. We’ve either got to press on and sue or turn these accounts over to a collection agency and give them a percentage—I think that’s how those things work.” She stuck her pencil in her hair alongside her ear.
“I hate to do that.” He tapped one line. “Pete Barber. Overbuilt. He’s got a house sitting in Raintree that lists for seven hundred and twenty-five thousand. In fact, he’s got houses sitting all over and he has to service the interest on those loans.”
“That was his decision. I don’t have sympathy for the developers whose eyes were bigger than their bellies.” Mildred pulled the pencil out of her hair and made checks against the names she disliked. “Lionel Jacobs. Went wild putting up office buildings. Why? This isn’t New York. And here, here’s that private asphalt driveway you put in for Fred Vanarman’s house. Well, the driveway is half a mile long. He sat his rear up there in his big chair at Strong and Simon churning everyone’s portfolio. The market goes bust and he decides you can wait for your money.”
“I know these guys.”
“And they know you. Come on, Frank, you just can’t let people take advantage of you this way. You let go of six employees last month. If these bills had been paid you could have held back half the men. Let’s face it, Pete and Lionel think you won’t fight back. Oh, Frank Armstrong, what a nice guy. It’s not right. You’ve equipment loans, remember?”
He ran his hand through his thick silver hair. “Mildred, you’re good for me.”
“Then why don’t you listen?” came her tart reply.
“I’m listening now. What do you suggest? Our lawyers or a collection agency?”
“Our lawyers. On a per-hour basis they are more expensive but everybody knows everybody. Lionel Jacobs isn’t going to want to be golfing at the club when Ned Fuqua rolls by in a golf cart after Ned’s sent out the papers. Know what I mean? A collection agency is far away, and despite their success ratio, letters from them and subsequent proceedings lack the hometown punch.”
“You should have gone into politics.”
“Thanks, I can’t sink that low.” Mildred swiveled in her chair. A photo of her grandchildren commanded the right-hand corner of her desk.
“Do it your way then.” He sighed. “Any call-backs on the grader ad?”
“No.”
“Hmm. Let’s run it again.”
“Haven’t heard anything back from your meeting with the other contractors?”
“Uh, no, and I thought I had made a good suggestion.”
“You did, but you know what I think about meetings, especially professional meetings. What happens is a big nothing or, worse, a giant pamphlet is issued on the new rules and regulations for blowing your nose.”
“All right, Mildred, you’re burning to tell me what you think.”
