Gossip (4 page)

“Yeah, I thought you thought that,” she sneered. “Is that why you’re so moony around Tim?”

Stunned that someone had noticed, breathless and grateful, I blurted out the truth. “Well, yes. I’m in love with him.”

Her face fell open. She was shocked that I didn’t deny it. And she stammered out what she felt about Nina.

It was both beautiful and terrifying. I’m still amazed we didn’t scare each other off. We read no more poems that day, but confessed everything. Our homosexualities were still purely emotional. I’d been to bed twice with the opposite sex, but neither of us had slept with our own. Lust was very well for straight fornication, but we needed the myth of love for gay sex. And much as we enjoyed our infatuations with Tim and Nina, we did not want to do anything that might hurt their marriage.

“It’s the modern equivalent of courtly love,” I claimed. “The strongest emotion coupled with the strongest discipline.”

“I wonder if they know. I hope not. Nina is so open and sweet. She can’t guess the signals I’m getting.”

We were such innocent vultures.

We continued to see Tim and Nina, together and separately, while we waited for love to run its course like a bad cold. Our constant talks in private guaranteed it wouldn’t.

This shared folly seemed to go on forever, but lasted less than a month. Tim and Nina invited us to their house for dinner one night. Just us. They lived off campus, in a cinder-block cottage out by the truck stop. We timidly walked there together, afraid the occasion had a purpose: They were going to confront our feelings and demand that we stop.

As it turned out, they understood what was going on, yet didn’t understand at all. After much noisy talk about Reagan, Marx and Bloomsbury over spaghetti, after a jug and a half of white wine and one of those prankish college games whose sole purpose is to get people to take off their clothes, Tim and Nina invited us to join them in bed.

And we did. And it was wonderful. For me at least. For several long, ecstatic minutes. I was naked in the dark with the impossible, stroking his birdlike chest. I didn’t mind that we were crowded by two rounder, softer bodies necking beside us. Tim was shamelessly fascinated with my dick, toying with its spring and heft. When he actually went down on me for a few bold strokes, I was too thrilled to feel it, or care that he was holding Nina’s hand. I could generously share him with the wife whose teacup breasts were covered by a frantic head of hair. The few times I glimpsed Nancy’s face, her eyes were squeezed shut as if to stop herself from crying. Our bed was full of asses and elbows, but it was
our
bed now. Taking Tim in my own mouth, awed by the simplicity of holding a live thing on my tongue, I excitedly believed that we were going to be happy, all of us, an elaborate knot of bodies, conversation and love.

I was kissing him when Tim began to lose interest. He drew back to inspect my beard, chuckled and rolled away. The next thing I knew, he and Nina were all over each other, and Nancy was stranded with me. I took her in my arms and cuddled a forlorn breast, but we were not what either of us wanted. When Tim and Nina began to screw, she turned away and hid her body against mine on the twitching, jouncing bed. I was too hurt to enjoy watching, but I watched. And they were too close for their fuck to be beautiful. A flat rump like a peeled potato squirmed between a wobbling pair of raised legs. The squashed eye of a tit stared out. Tim rolled his head like a mad elephant, but Nina sleepily smiled at us, pleased to have two witnesses to their grand passion. They strained into a duet of barnyard noises so loud and exaggerated it sounded sarcastic.

Everyone lay still for a minute, then began to unplug and disentangle.

They invited us to sleep over. We said no, we should be going. Out in the living room, we couldn’t look at each other while we sorted through the pile of clothes discarded during the game, both of us feeling unlovably large and fleshy. When I was dressed, I went back to the bedroom to say good night. Tim and Nina lay snuggled together in the musky sheets.

“Wow,” said Tim. “We’ve never done anything like that. We wanted to explore our bisexual sides. Thank you.”

“Thank
you,”
I said.

“Where’s Nancy?” asked Nina.

“I’m out here,” she hollered. “Good night. Hope nobody has a hangover tomorrow.” She refused to come back in.

We walked up the cold highway with our hands buried deep in our coat pockets, unable to speak for the longest time. Finally I said, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to talk about it!”

“Don’t get mad at me. I feel like shit too.”

“Why did I go along with that?” she snarled. “I was drunk and stupid. I knew how it was going to end. For you it was just sex, but I was in love with her, really in love. And to have it reduced to—cheap thrills. We were their kinky fun for the month, nothing more.”

“They’re sick. Both of them. Sick and selfish. And they dragged us down to their gutter.”

“Oh shut up. I don’t want to talk about it.”

And we didn’t, for the next two years. We talked about everything else, but not that, not until after we left Chapel Hill and had been to bed with enough people, with and without love, for sex to stop being such an enormous, all-important deed.

“When I tell people that story now,” I later confessed, “it comes off as funny. Even sexy. I can’t get across how humiliating it was.”

“But it was funny,” Nancy insisted. “And I don’t regret it. Not really. It sure cured me of Nina. And hey, we each got to see our best friend in the act. We have no secrets now, Eck.”

And it was true. We had nothing to hide from each other. Our friendship stood on the cold bedrock of shared shame and honesty.

N
ANCY HAD ALREADY LEFT
for work when I woke up on Thursday morning. I took the Metro to the Mall and hiked the long, grassy brown desert toward the newscast backdrop of the Capitol, an image of power as deceptively solid as a billboard. It did not look hospitable to romance of any kind.

The Hart Building was in a flock of offices beyond the great facade. Entering the enormous atrium of a white marble layer cake, I stood in line at the metal detectors with a class of fourth-graders who were tickled to be treated as potential assassins. Up above, plate-glass doors to Senate office suites lined the third-floor balcony. A Pennsylvania state seal was bolted to the marble under Senator Freeman’s removable nameplate. I asked for Nancy at the front desk, which was tended by two boys in suspenders who had the premature jadedness of Ivy League success. A closed-circuit television in the corner showed a chamber in session. Even in Congress you watch Congress on television.

I was wondering where Senator Freeman was today, when I caught the suspendered boy in pink slipping me a timid peek.

Nancy came out. “Hey, Ralph. Come on back. I’ll show you my office.” It was the official Nancy, without bounce or glee, brusque only in comparison to her usual manner.

I followed her through the carpeted warren to a cubicle with a word processor, cabinets and a poster of Helen Mirren in
Prime Suspect.
She didn’t even get a window. I kept my disappointment in her status to myself.

“So how are you doing today?” I whispered.

“Fine,” she said automatically. “Kathleen has asked if she can join us for lunch.”

“Really?” Her nonchalance threw me. “Uh, did you want me to make other plans?”

“Not at all. I want you to meet her.” She lowered her voice. “And even when we’re alone, we’re not alone. We’ll probably talk shop, but you don’t mind, do you?”

“No. It’ll be an education. Lunch with a senator.”

“You bet.” She grabbed a notepad and led me back through the maze. I opened my ratty duffel coat to display the proper ski sweater underneath.

We entered a large office where a middle-aged woman in a pleated blouse and tweed skirt stood conferring with a secretary.

“Kathleen?” said Nancy. “We’re ready when you are.”

“Right with you.”

That was Senator Freeman? Lean and handsome, with short, bangy auburn hair, Nancy’s cowgirl-swan looked more like a favorite high school teacher, until she faced me. Her authority worked like beauty.

“You must be Ralph,” she said, shaking my hand. “I hope you don’t mind my horning in on your lunch.” She had an insinuating growl that might be described as grandmotherly, if your grandmother was Georgia O’Keeffe.

She was not famous, but she was important. I became tongue-tied in the force field of her title. “Not at all, Senator.”

“Please. Call me Kathleen. Buzz me if Maggie Williams calls back,” she told the secretary; she took up a dainty tweed jacket and jerked it on as she went out the door. She faced straight ahead, assuming we followed right behind her. “And you know Nancy from college? Her Emily Dickinson days?” She quoted:

“Are you nobody? I’m nobody, too.

How awful to be somebody, as public as a frog,

To sing your name all day long, to an admiring bog.”

“Hang in there,” she told the boys at the front desk.

Out in the corridor, I looked for the woman with whom Nancy was smitten, but not too closely, for fear of giving her away.

“You work in a bookstore, Ralph? I envy you. When the world is too much with us, my husband and I talk about opening a bookshop. In a nice little resort town. I realize it’s hard work, like any business, and when business is slow you worry about being in the red. Still—”

We came to a bank of elevators. A set of bronze doors marked “Senators Only” beeped; Nancy had to remind Senator Freeman that we could all take it when we were with her.

She continued to talk about bookstores and publishing while we rode down. We stepped on a subway shuttle so quick and silent that it barely registered, especially when my attention was so full of Senator Freeman. I was afraid to notice anything else.

A wide, oak-paneled corridor opened into a dining room with a salad bar in the center. We sat down around a white tablecloth.

“Labor and Human Resources at four o’clock,” said Nancy.

“I guess I should smile at the old buzzard.” Kathleen turned her handsome profile and beamed at a stuffed figure who responded with a noblesse oblige nod. “How’s the soup today, Gladys?” she asked the waitress. “How’s your son doing?”

I watched Nancy to see how her beloved’s presence affected her, but she showed none of the electric alertness I remembered from our Tim and Nina days. When she caught me looking, she only smirked, proud to be sharing a U.S. senator with me.

“Nancy,” declared Kathleen after we ordered. “I keep meaning to tell you what a fine job you did on the AMA speech. First-rate. Absolutely.”

“Yes? Well good. Thank you. All in a day’s work.” The compliment caught her off guard.

“Or a night’s work. Jack sends his apologies for speaking out of turn the other evening. He was too frazzled to see that you were frazzled too. He hopes you understand.”

“Oh that,” said Nancy, pretending to need a second to remember. “No problem.”

“‘If looks could kill,’ he said. Kathleen chuckled.

Nancy winced. “Oh God. Did it show? I’m sorry.”

“Poor Jack. Playing househusband to a college president was bad enough. He still hasn’t adjusted to Washington life.”

“What does your husband do?” I asked.

“He’s a lawyer. Criminal law. He has no patience with the glad-handing required by public interest.”

A fellow in a green suit stopped by the table. “Senator. Excuse me. I just want to tell you how much I look forward to working with your staff on the bill to—”

He and the Senator chatted and smiled at each other for two minutes, and he left.

“Who the blazes was that?” Kathleen asked Nancy.

“I haven’t a clue.”

“No?”

And both women burst out laughing, sharing disbelief over the absurdity of this strange new world.

Kathleen touched Nancy’s hand—not quite a touch but a light swat. “It’s
good
to hear you laugh.” She turned to me. “She’s been so serious lately. Help her to relax while you’re in town. Take her to the movies. Take her dancing.”

“I couldn’t get Nancy on a dance floor at gunpoint.” I wondered if Kathleen thought I was a boyfriend.

But she added, “You don’t happen to know any nice women in New York you could introduce to her?”

Nancy nervously smoothed the napkin in her lap.

I covered for her. “That’s more trouble than it’s worth. Going back and forth between cities. Amtrak love.”

Kathleen laughed; she’d never heard the phrase before.

Nancy groaned. “Gimme a break, guys. I’m fine. Really.” She pretended to be embarrassed by the attention, but was clearly pleased, even relieved.

The arrival of the food signaled the end of private matters. The Senator brought up her trip to Pittsburgh and a scheduled appearance on a local Sunday talk show, who would be watching, whether comments would be picked up by state newspapers or vanish in the air. I was impressed by the hundred media details Nancy had on tap, the names of radio and TV stations, journalists and editors. They forgot I was there except when they grumbled over a particularly nasty columnist in Pittsburgh and Nancy explained that he was as vicious as the cranks who wrote for
American Truths.
Then they talked about next week’s convention of insurance brokers in Harrisburg. They remembered me again only when the waitress asked if anyone wanted dessert. They were above sweets, but insisted I try the ice cream.

I did not feel neglected or bored. I was too busy listening for hidden personal meanings. Nothing they discussed needed the social lubricant of lunch. I sensed that this meeting was really about something else, and that it had already happened. I waited to be alone with Nancy to ask if I was right.

Nancy and the Senator were pondering the phrase “It’s the nation’s health, stupid”—catchy or stale?—when the pompous old man from the corner stopped by.

“Hello, Kathleen. Just wanted to ask if you’d had a chance to read the rider on the Moynihan bill?”

I didn’t recognize him, but his face had the slight thickness of too much television exposure. A bald assistant stood a few respectful feet behind him.