Nora and Liz (19 page)

Her father had come a few times without a lamp, told her she was silly to be imagining things, and left without demonstrating that nothing was threatening her. But then one night he sat on the edge of her bed and told her a funny story about the bear and the robber. It was so funny it made her laugh, and it quelled her fears from then on.

Nora missed that Ralph. She had loved that Ralph, long ago.

Nora passed her hands over her body, remembering the feeling of the water as she had lain in it at Liz’s cabin; she rested her hands on her stomach, remembering Liz’s hand there, supporting her till she could support herself.

“No one has ever touched me there,” she whispered to the unhearing darkness. “I am not a person who is touched.”

***

“Damn!” Liz dropped the potholder with which she’d been about to move the chicken she was roasting so she could baste it (the Davises were coming for dinner), and ran to the phone. She wanted to let it ring. But it might be Nora, she reasoned; Nora had taken to calling sometimes in the evenings just to chat, though she hadn’t called last night, the night after the swimming lesson, when Liz had expected it. No, Liz corrected herself. Wanted it. Not expected.

It was Jeff.

“So how’s it going?” he asked, his voice hearty. “You haven’t called in a while, so I thought I’d check in. About ready to go back to the teeming city?”

She chuckled, though she was mildly annoyed at the interruption and disappointed that it wasn’t Nora. “Nope, happy as a clam. And making dinner for the old Davises, remember them?”

“Lord, yes! Harry and—what was her name?”

“Clara. Still is. And they still have the stand. They look older, and Harry’s feeble and deaf as a post, but they’re still sweet. Even if they did try to fix me up with some guy.”

“That must have been awkward as hell.”

“It was.” Liz found she could just reach the oven by stretching the phone cord. She opened the oven door, then had to close it again to get the baster. “I wanted to tell him I’m gay, but I didn’t.”

“Find a chick and make out in front of him,” Jeff said.

“You’re disgusting,” she answered affectionately. “Anyway, it turns out he was probably more interested in buying the cabin than in me, and he’s left me alone now that he knows it’s not for sale.” She opened the oven again.

“Good. But hey, at least that shows it’s salable, you know? In case we change our minds. Say, listen, why I called? I can’t talk long, I’m at work, but we’ve been scheduling vacations and I need to know if you still want to invite us to the cabin.”

Liz paused, the baster dripping in her hand. Did she?

She’d have to. It was his house, too.

“Sure.” She squirted the chicken, slid it back in, and closed the oven door.

“Great, when?”

“I don’t know.” Her mind leapt ahead. What was going to happen with Nora? Anything?

No. Probably nothing.

Still…

“I’ve got a sort of standing thing on Fridays with this woman who lives at the old
Tillot
place.”

“The
Tillot
place! Whoa! I figured they’d all died off and the house had fallen down long ago.”

“No, the old couple’s still there and their daughter takes care of them.”

“And you’ve got a—a ‘standing thing’ with her? Lizzie? What’re you up to?”

“No, no,” she said hastily. “I’m just, well, sort of helping out. She’s helping me restore Mom’s perennial garden and teaching me to identify cultivated plants, and I’m giving her swimming lessons in return.”

She could almost hear his raised eyebrows. “
Swimming
lessons?”

“Don’t, Jeff,” she said, more defensively than she intended. “She’s really sweet and she’s very lonely. Think of taking care of two sick old folks, one of
whom’s
crochety
as hell.”

“Okay, okay. So you’d rather we weren’t there on a Friday, right?”

“Yeah, maybe, except… Look, there’s nothing really going on between us, and there probably won’t be anything. She’s probably straight, if she’s anything. I mean, she must be. And I’m not ready, even though…”

“Even though you sound like you’re getting ready, and even though she’s sweet and needy, and… Sorry. None of my business.”

“But it wouldn’t make sense for you guys to come just for a couple of days.”

“Why not?”

“All the way from California?”

“You may not have noticed, babe, but there are lots of neat places in New England for vacationers. How about we come some Saturday in August, stay a couple of days, and then go on to someplace else? The Cape, the Berkshires, Maine, the White Mountains? I want Gus to see where his daddy’s roots are.”

Liz chuckled. “Like he’s sure to remember what he sees at two.”

“Going on three.” Jeff’s voice was indignant. “You’d be surprised. Look, sis, I’ve got to go. How about the—oh, say, the third weekend in August? Or the fourth? Yeah, the fourth. That’s right before Labor Day, so we can add Labor Day on.”

“No,” Liz said quickly; she’d have to go back to New York soon after Labor Day. “The third weekend would be better for me.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’ll be going back to the city. And you’ll want some time with…”

“Jeff!”

“Sorry. But what’s her name, anyway? Just so I’ll know.”

“Nora.”

“Nora. God. Sounds like something out of Ibsen. Doesn’t he have a Nora in a play?”

“Yes. She’s nothing like that Nora.”

“Thank God! Ibsen’s women are awful.”

“They weren’t when he wrote them. They were strong for their time.”

“And suicidal.”

“That’s
Hedda
Gabler
. But even she was strong. You’d go for
Solveig
, I bet.”

“Which one was she?”

“The one in
Peer
Gynt
.
The one who waited forever while her man went off and had adventures.”

“Yeah, that was pretty cool. Whoops! Now I’ve really got to go. I’ve got a meeting.” He said something to someone else, muffled. “So, see you in August, babe. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, you hear?”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t even dream of doing half of what you’d do! ’Bye.”

“ ’Bye. Love you.”

“You, too.”

Liz replaced the receiver and started peeling potatoes. Heavy-handed though Jeff’s kidding could be, she always felt warm and loved when she talked to him. Thank God for him, she thought, now that Mom and Dad are gone.

What would it be like, having Jeff and Susan and Gus all there? It might be fun; they’d be a family again. She’d give Jeff and Susan the master bedroom upstairs and she’d put a cot in the study for herself; Gus could have one of the downstairs rooms. Or—yes, better—he could sleep in the study and she could move back into her old downstairs room.

She remembered lying in bed downstairs as a child, falling asleep to the murmur of her parents’ voices in the living room. Mom and Dad had often read up in their bedroom, though, or sat outside when the mosquitoes weren’t too bad, till long after she and Jeff were asleep. Funny arrangement, having the kids’ rooms downstairs off the living room.

Still, we managed.

She popped the potatoes into a pot and looked at her watch. Yes, she should start them boiling and then trim the beans she’d bought from the Davises earlier that day.

What, she wondered, is Nora doing?

“That’s right,” Liz said the following Friday, giving Nora a driving lesson. “That’s right. Now ease up on the clutch. Hey, gently!”

“Sorry. I’m still nervous.”

“It’s okay. When I was learning I confused the brake and the gas. At least you haven’t done that.”

“No.” Nora laughed nervously, and, as if driving over eggs, made a cautious right turn.

“Good! Go back into third now, once you’ve gotten a little more speed. That’s it. Fine. Nothing much happened because luckily when I mixed up the pedals, I was on a back road. But I did leap ahead when Dad wanted me to stop.”

“You were really close to him, weren’t you?”

“Eyes on the road, Nora. Yes, I was. He was a great friend to both of us. Both me and Jeff.”

“What was he like?”

“Gentle. Intelligent. Unflappable. Nothing shocked him. When I told him…” She broke off; she’d been about to say
When I told him I was gay.

“
When you told him what?”

“Oh, anything. He never reacted with anger or condemnation, no matter what it was. He’d just think about it, and then respond very carefully, very fairly. If he felt anything negative he’d keep it to himself till he’d thought it through, and then he’d discuss it with me, still carefully, not so much as a father but as a wise teacher. Watch out!” A squirrel ran across the road but by the time Liz spoke, Nora had already applied the brake. Not the clutch, though; the car jerked and stalled.

“Sorry. I forgot. What do I do now?”

“Start it again with the key. It’s okay. It’s hard to remember everything at first. With practice, things like that will be automatic.”

“That wasn’t what you were going to say,” Nora said when the car was moving forward again. “Was it?”

“What? When?”

“When you were talking about how your father reacted to things. You started ‘When I told him…’ as if you were going to say something specific.” She glanced at Liz. “Or am I prying?”

“Yes,” Liz said quietly. “I’m sorry, but I guess you are a little. It’s my fault, though. I shouldn’t have started to say what I was going to say.”

Nora smiled ruefully. “Secrets. That’s too bad.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because secrets—I guess secrets stand between people. Between friends. Not that I ever had many friends. Just two, really, in high school. And I was only close to one of them, Marsha.”

“What about the other one?”

“That was Peter. I told you about him.”

“Umm.” Liz nodded. “The boy you didn’t go out with. And weren’t much interested in.”

“Right.” Nora glanced at her again, then looked back at the road ahead. “Your turn. You said you weren’t much interested in men either. But for all I know, you might even have been married and divorced four or five times!”

Liz laughed nervously. Then, even more nervously, she said, “Nope. I did live with someone for a few years, but we broke up.” She was about to add “a woman” when the car lurched forward. Nora took one hand off the wheel and quickly squeezed Liz’s. “Whoops! Sorry. Sorry for the leap ahead and for your break-up. Did he leave or did you?”

“I left,” Liz said, deciding not to correct her. The moment had passed. Or was it, she wondered, my courage that passed?

“Good,” Nora said. “I mean, not really good, but I guess it’s not as bad for the person who leaves. Of course I wouldn’t know. I guess it’d be because of the reason. I mean if he beat you or started seeing someone else, then it would be bad and good, bad that he’d hurt you but good that you left.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Liz said stiffly.

“Oh. I’m sorry again. I’m asking too many questions. It’s just that I like you so much and I want to be your friend. And I’m curious about you. You have a whole huge life in the city that I don’t know anything about. It’s been so long since I knew, really knew, anyone from—from the Outside is how I think of it. As if I were a nun or a prisoner.”

“You are, kind of. Aren’t you?”

“Yes. I guess I am. In a way.”

“Turn left here. Slow down—good. Now downshift. Good. Turn. Easy does it with the wheel, Nora. That’s it. Okay. Now—beautiful! You remembered to go back into third. Well done.” Liz relaxed again. “Do you think you’ll ever get out? You know, leave the farm, leave your parents?”

“Not while they’re living. They do need me. I’d feel guilty and I’d miss my mother. Well, I already do miss her. Like I told you, she’s not who she was.
Neither’s
my father, but with him, it’s that all the bad things about him are worse and the few good things are mostly gone. But Mama was always gentle and we were always friends. She taught me everything I know about running the house. And now she doesn’t remember how to do much of anything.” Nora paused; her voice had wavered a little. Liz wanted to touch her, to comfort her, but was afraid of distracting her, both from her driving and from what she was saying.