Venus Envy (3 page)

“Not everyone can be as accomplished an explorer of libido as yourself,” Frazier purred. “You know, I always thought we should organize a sexual Olympics. A gold medal for best all-round love-making, best rear entry, best blow job, longest distance for ejaculation, most perfect breasts. What’s the discus compared to that?” This overheated thought was making Frazier feel woozy.

Billy murmured, “Are we judges or participants?”

“Ummm, how about both?”

“Frazier, you’ve got to live. Where will I find anyone like you: your general depravity, your sharp eye for a brushstroke, your appreciation for the refinements of the male member? Besides which, no one can dance like you, or play golf like you, and I ask you, who will be in charge of the Dogwood Festival and the Fourth of July fireworks this year at the club? You’re going to live and we’re going to get married.” He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, a long deep Muleskinner kiss, which, although pleasant, kicked over neither of their engines. “You look tired. Why don’t you go to sleep, and when you awaken, Terese will be here to fuss over you. I’ll try to stop by tomorrow.”

After Billy left, Frazier tried to sleep but his left
handed marriage proposal rolled around in her mind like a loose ball from a pinball machine. She’d never have to worry about money for as long as she lived. Billy wouldn’t dream of interfering with the gallery. And the thought of being Mrs. Cicero wasn’t horrible. What caught her, a tiny golden fishhook to the heart, was that if she married him it would feel as if she’d given in. Ever since she could remember, her mother had pounded at her about the advantages of a “suitable match,” the whole country shivered in a spasm of heterosexuality. After a certain age an unmarried person became an object of scorn or pity. Funny, because to Frazier they looked free and she wanted to be free. She never saw the romance part of marriage. To her it was legalized fucking: the correct penis is inserted in the correct vagina and the
issue
from this moment of hydraulics is declared legal. The issue for those illegal couplings were bastards, a term not used in polite society but a condition perceived and felt.

Movie stars could have children out of wedlock and welfare mothers could have children out of wedlock but other women better damn well watch their step. Actually, it wasn’t a step they could watch.

Mrs. William Bennington Cicero. This bothered her also. She’d spent her life as Mary Frazier Armstrong. She had no intention of losing her identity. Armstrong-Cicero might not be so bad but she liked her name and intended to keep it.

Billy was bullshitting. She tried to squelch the turmoil with that triumphant realization. Then she wished she hadn’t, because her mind turned to her forthcoming demise.

“How imaginative is Death, how versatile his methods,” she thought. “He can snatch you from a sound sleep, or a bullet can shatter your skull. You can drown
in water or in your own blood. Then again, you can fall off a bar stool. Really, people fall off bar stools, kaput, every year. AIDS shows Death at his best, teasing, tormenting, and killing by degrees. Momma’s family leans toward the furious and fatal heart attack. But oh, the ways to go. You can slip on a banana peel, you can choke on a green pea, you can lose control of your car or die of alcohol poisoning or the nifty and speedier coke slide into oblivion. One has so many choices, or does Death choose? What about multiple sclerosis or an inoperable brain tumor or, then again, that old standby syphilis, a real killer. Death will not fail. If we cure one disease he’ll invent another. And he’ll hunt you down using surprise and cunning.”

The Redingtons, her mother’s family, kept a book of pedigree reaching back to 1640 and Frazier loved to read about her ancestors. As a child she’d pore over each page, but one incident always seized her imagination. Rachel Redington, aged twenty-three in 1843, was shelling peas in a large tin bowl one blistering August day when a thunderstorm rolled over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Either the storm appeared with blinding speed, and those summer storms can, or Rachel, sitting on the porch, assumed it would blow over as quickly as it came. A bolt of lightning struck the metal bowl of peas, killing Rachel instantly. This story so impressed Frazier that she would never set foot on a porch during a thunderstorm.

“Like a stalking tiger, Death will pounce,” she thought.

“Maybe I’m lucky to have these few days to consider my life. Maybe Death is like a punctuation mark, a period at the end of a sentence. It means the sentence is over and you’ve been correct. Who wants a run-on sentence?” A tear ran into the corner of Frazier’s mouth.
“I do,” she cried. “I do. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be brave, goddammit. I don’t want to miss the spring, I don’t want to miss the golf season, I don’t want to miss anything.” She buried her head in her pillow.

When Terese Collier tiptoed in, Frazier was sleeping so soundly that she didn’t wake up until Terese had applied the second coat of Raging Raspberry to her nails.

T
ERESE COLLIER SHOULD HAVE TAKEN PHOTOGRAPHS OF
Frazier to prove her handiwork. Frazier’s shoulder-length hair curved casually forward, smooth and shining. Her eyebrows, plucked to perfection, served as accent marks to her extraordinary eyes, and her nail polish gleamed. Because she felt sorry for Frazier, Terese threw in a pedicure as well. Raging Raspberry startled Frazier each time she popped her toes out from under the covers.

The long twilight surrendered to night. The hospital corridor quieted down and Frazier was grateful that no other family members visited. She didn’t miss Ann either, which might have provoked self-questioning in a person more focused on her emotions. Since she didn’t miss Ann, she didn’t give her absence a second thought.

Tempted to turn on the television, she decided against it. The vacuousness of the shows offended her far less
than the relentless juggernaut of commercials. The tinty music of those commercials filtered into the halls, as other patients lacked her standards.

“Boss.” Mandy walked in.

“Hey.”

“You look good, girl,” Mandy’s smile was incandescent.

Odd. Frazier thought to herself that she and Mandy had worked cheek by jowl for three years, yet only now did she notice the high cast to her coffee-colored cheekbones.

“Did Mrs. Thornburg come to a decision about the Isidore Bonheur?”

“She’s a whirlwind of indecision. However, the small hound picture sold today.”

“Good.”

Before Frazier could ask, Mandy added, “Darryl Orthwein from New York. I expect he’ll roll it over in a year or two but that’s okay.”

“Shrewd collector, that one.”

“I brought you something.” Mandy reached into her voluminous bag and pulled out a box of fine French paper. “Here, write letters to Tomorrow.”

Frazier opened the box and ran her forefinger over the smooth cotton finish. The pale-blue paper sported a tiny darker-blue freckling. “This is gorgeous. Mandy, where do you find these treasures?”

“Picked up the phone and called Paris. Fortunately, they believe in Federal Express. I love paper and I remembered the time when your father sent you reams of rice paper from Japan. The stuff was so beautiful it took you six months to work up to writing on it.” Mandy laughed.

“Had to learn to use a brush.” Frazier held the paper on her lap. “This is very kind of you.”

“I figure if you write a letter each evening for the next day, there will always be a next day.” Mandy fought back the tears.

“Oh, Mandy …” Frazier choked up, then gained mastery of herself. “None of this makes any sense. I feel okay, sort of.”

“What about the coughing?”

Frazier shrugged. “What bothers me is that every now and then I can’t breathe, but I’m not in pain. That’s what I hate about the morphine. I click this button here and presto, more drips into my veins. It feels great but how do I know how I really feel?” She turned her face to the window for a moment. “Well, maybe I never knew how I felt, period.”

“I have this theory”—Mandy leaned forward, beginning her sentence with a favorite phrase—“that feelings are the essence of being human but it takes probably fifty years to trust them. Most of us are living from the neck up.”

“Not Billy Cicero.”

“His sex stuff is just another escape,” Mandy stated flatly. “Anyway, I’m not sitting here in judgment of anyone in particular. I’m guilty too.”

“You know, I was thinking when you walked in the door about how I spend more time with you than anyone but I don’t know much about you, other than that you graduated from Smith, top of your class, did your graduate work at Yale, and worked in Rochester after that.”

“You met my mother. To meet a woman’s mother is to know what you need to know.”

“Thanks, Mandy. Mine was in here yesterday sobbing because she wants me buried. My God, I can’t even have control of my body when I’m dead. It’s my body and I’ll do with it what I want.”

“Tell that to the anti-abortionists.”

“You know what I mean.” Frazier placed the stationery on the nightstand. “Is there any subject before the American public today more overworked than abortion?”

“Well, I don’t know, but you scooted off the feelings discussion right fast.”

“All right then, smartass, what are you feeling right this instant?” A flash animated Frazier’s scratchy voice.

Mandy paused a long time, then spoke in a soft voice: “I don’t want to lose you. And you look ravishing.”

Frazier’s chin wobbled. “I thought you tolerated me because I’m your boss. I mean, I’m white. Don’t you hate me somewhere in your heart?”

“I’m not that petty, Frazier.”

Tears splashed onto Frazier’s ample bosom. “How am I to know? It’s awkward. Maybe that’s why I concentrated on work. I didn’t grow up with black people as social equals. Or African-Americans or whatever the hell I’m supposed to call you all. You know what I mean.”

“So we both lose.” Mandy dropped her head and then lifted it again. “Sometimes I think we’ll never stop paying. Not your people. Not my people. It will go on and on like some painful wave that never reaches shore. Since we’re telling the truth, I’ll tell you why I was reticent….”

“But fun, you were always fun.” Frazier wiped her eyes.

“Thank you.” Mandy pulled out Kleenex for herself and Frazier. “You might get angry.”

“I don’t care.”

“Okay. I think you’re gay. I think you’ve hidden from me and everyone. You go out nonstop, mostly with Billy, some other guys, too, but you know, I never feel any … heat.”

Frazier’s shoulders tensed. “Maybe they’re not the right guys. Or maybe I’m cold-blooded.”

Mandy shook her head. “It’s not the end of the world, boss.”

“And when’s the last time you saw anyone rewarded for being gay and telling the truth about it? It might not be the end of the world but it sure as hell isn’t the road to success.”

“I didn’t take you for a coward.” Mandy’s voice dropped lower, then rose with renewed energy. “Then again, I understand no one has a right to know another person’s business. But from my point of view, I’m left out. You never trusted me enough to include me in your life. Do you think I care for one minute about whether you’re gay or straight? Don’t you know me better than that?”

Frazier’s chest tightened. She fought for every breath. No one had ever spoken to her like this before and she’d never told her secrets before, except to Billy, but that wasn’t telling—that was sharing. “I trust you, Mandy, as much as I trust anyone.” She inhaled and heard that nasty rattle. Mandy stood up and began lightly patting her on the back. That didn’t work. Frazier pointed to the oxygen tank. Mandy quickly put the tube into Frazier’s mouth and turned on the valve. Frazier took a few deep hits of pure O
₂
and then removed the tube. “Sorry.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Frazier breathed again from the tube. The little iridescent dots that had been dancing before her eyes disappeared. “I guess, I guess I thought no one would want to know the real me and now I’m leaving and no one will ever know me.”

“I’d like to know you.” Mandy smiled. “You’re a genius at what you do. You’re a good boss and I think you’re a good person basically.”

Frazier shook her head. She didn’t know what to say.

Mandy spoke again. “Don’t die a stranger. Tell the people you love who you are, or write them. Maybe they need you and you don’t know it. Maybe you need them.”

“I don’t want to need anyone.” Frazier’s hands shook as she placed the oxygen tube back on the tank.

“‘No man is an island,’” Mandy recited from the poem.

“This woman has tried to be.” She steadied herself and then told Mandy what she had never spoken to another person, other than Billy. “I am gay. Or maybe I’m not. Let’s just say I’m operating sexually on all pistons, but emotionally I am much more attracted to women. I’ve tried to avoid it, you know. What this could cost me … My family, such as they are. Not my clients, thank God, but my social position. My reserve turned into a full-scale emotional retreat. So I avoid the issue by not falling in love, by keeping my distance, by … by working and working and working. It’s just … too painful.” Frazier fell back on her pillows. “People are cruel.
You
know that.”

“I do, but I also know that plenty of them are wonderful and if you don’t put yourself out there you’ll never know. And you just put yourself out there and I …” Mandy swallowed her words, a hard knot of grief like a baseball in her throat.

“Mandy, I don’t even know if I’ll be here tomorrow. I have a surprise for you after I’m gone. It’s the only way I can tell you how I feel. I’m not much good at this. Feelings exhaust me.”

Mandy had much more to say but she could see the fatigue and she felt guilty for bringing it on. She kissed Frazier goodbye and left, wondering if she had been selfish in pushing her boss or if she had actually given Frazier a kind of gift.

•   •   •

Two hours later Frazier’s phone rang. It was Mandy apologizing profusely. Frazier, just back from the X-ray lab, was happy to talk to anyone not involved in the medical profession.