Warm and Willing - Lawrence Block [35]
Megan said, “I’ll call her.”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“I’ll call her. Wait for me.”
Megan made the call from an outdoor booth across the street. Rhoda sat waiting for her. She tool another cigarette and lit it with the small lighter Megan had given her; the one with her name on it in precise script. She held the lighter in the palm of her hand and thought about their exchange of gifts. An exchange of presents, she knew now, was a ritual in the formation of a lesbian relationship. All the gay girls did it, giving each other tiny engraved gifts along with vows of foreverness. Once she had seen Megan’s collection of the jewelry she had been given over the years. A pin with two circles interlocked, a bracelet inscribed Never Leave Me—H.R., a half dozen rings, each engraved on the inside—Megan and Sue, Megan and Rita, Megan and Charlotte … all those trophies of loves that would never die, but that had died after all.
When Megan came back toward her she dropped the lighter in her purse. Megan told her that Bobbie wasn’t at her apartment, but that she had called Grace and Alice. “You remember them, Rhoda. They were at Leonetti’s the first time I took you there.”
“They were at Jan’s party, too.”
“Yes, I guess they were. They want us to drop over. Grace wanted to know if we were dressed. She sits around in slacks and a tailored blouse when she’s at home, but I told her we were wearing dresses so she’ll change into something more feminine.”
“She doesn’t have to.”
“She’ll feel uncomfortable otherwise. You don’t mind do you? Grace and Alice are an old pair, but they’re pretty good company.”
“I don’t mind,” she said.
It wasn’t a bad evening. Grace had a quart of J & B scotch and nothing to mix it with, and the four of them sat around drinking the liquor straight over ice cubes. They talked about Allie’s cold, which seemed to be chronic, and about the place where Grace was working, and Megan’s decorating job. They talked, too, about people. “A heavy date this weekend,” Grace said. “Allie and I are doing the town. Dinner at L’Aiglon, tickets to Pearly Wine, and then a nightcap or three at the Living Room. Have you ever been there, Rhoda? Everybody sits on these little couches for two, and the lights are low, and they have some sexy cabaret singer, and everyone does a little genteel necking.”
“You must be crazy,” Megan said.
“Why?”
“Because that’s not a gay place. You’ll look great there, Grace. No matter how low the lights are—”
“Oh Megan,” Allie said. She laughed. “We’re going with a couple of gay boys. Billie Rudin and Ray Crane. You know them, don’t you?”
The three of them had to explain it to Rhoda. When you wanted a real evening on the town, and when you didn’t want people staring at you and knowing you were gay, then you doubled with a couple of gay men. That way you came on just like straight people and no one knew the difference.
“Of course it doesn’t work if you’re butchy, or if the boys you go with are screaming queens,” Grace explained. “But if everybody dresses straight, no one guesses a thing. It’s handy, too. Two girls alone can’t go to dinner easily enough, or even to a show. But you go to a nightclub or to any of the better straight bars without getting either a pass tossed at you or a load of funny looks.”
And she realized how very much there was to learn. The demimonde had special survival mechanisms, special ways to get along in an unsympathetic world. How much she was learning, she thought. And how little she had known before.
Just half an hour before they left Grace and Alice’s apartment, Bobbie Kardaman dropped by for a drink. She couldn’t stay long, she said. She was in a hurry, but she had passed by the building and wanted to stop to say hello.
One glance set the pace. Bobbie came into the room and saw her, and looked long and hard at her, and their eyes locked and something happened to Rhoda. She couldn’t deny it, couldn’t avoid recognizing what it was. She broke the glance as quickly as she could