Chapter 7
The streets of Greenwich Village were crowded with loud, boisterous high school kids when Jo Ann got off the Fifth Avenue bus and started walking west. Hunching her shoulders against the cold, Jo Ann plodded through the crowd, oblivious to the laughter, oblivious to the happy spirits around her. She was miserable. And nothing could distract her from her thoughts.
He was a louse, Jo Ann told herself again. A no-good, unfeeling, inhuman louse. It was well she was rid of him. Men like Stan weren't worth the ground they walked on. Inconsiderate. Common. Selfish.
And already, she missed him terribly.
Mind over matter, Jo Ann encouraged herself, sidestepping an amorous drunk and crossing the street. She had managed without Stan before he came into her life. She would do just fine again, now that he was gone. One more mistake in her life to chalk up to experience and get over. She could do it ... but it wasn't going to be easy.
She would quit her job and start all over again, Jo Ann told herself, building momentum as she walked. There were other jobs in New York ... and other men. She wasn't old. Nobody else knew what had happened to her, except Laura. She could find work ... and a husband.
The memory of pounding the streets from employment agency to employment agency knocked some of the enthusiasm out of her plans and slowed Jo Ann's rate of thinking. This time of the year wasn't a good time to go job hunting, she knew. Offices were filled. Openings were scarce. And Laura, her one real friend in the whole city, wouldn't be there, working in the same office with her.
The memory of what Stan had said about Laura fired Jo Ann's anger and made her shake her head' in amazement. How could he, she asked herself. He was burned up because she didn't go to bed with him. Fine. Maybe Stan had also been annoyed that Jo Ann didn't return to his apartment when it was all over. Well, that was fine, too. But to come out and accuse Laura of being queer, just because she had showed Jo Ann some simple, human kindness ... that was unforgivable. Stan was the one who was warped. Anybody who could think like that had to be. Jo Ann considered herself lucky to be rid of him ... and tried as hard as she could to believe it.
The neon lights of the bar on the corner blinked their invitation as Jo Ann approached them. Yielding to an impulse, she ducked through the doorway and down a narrow flight of stairs into a dimly lit room.
The Avant-Garde lounge was dismal and smoky. Jo Ann paused for a moment while her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom before proceeding toward a high-backed stool. Climbing onto it, she rubbed her icy fingers and waited for the bartender to notice her.
"What'll it be, babe?"
Jo Ann looked up past the dirty turtle neck sweater to the beard and then into two beady eyes. "Scotch," she ordered automatically, unable to endure the intense stare of the man with the crooked smile.
He shuffled away toward a shelf filled with bottles and Jo Ann reached quickly for a cigarette. She was sorry she had come into the place. One drink, she promised herself. Only one drink. And then she would be on her way.
"Here ya go." The bartender slid the shot glass dangerously close to Jo Ann's elbow and then sent a tumbler of water slipping after it.
Jo Ann smiled her thanks and lifted the glass to her lips. Wincing at the terrible taste, she replaced her drink on the bar and took a deep drag on the cigarette to kill the flavor.
Glancing to her right, Jo Ann watched as the shadows crystallized into human shapes around the room. It seemed to her that everyone was dressed for a funeral, in blacks and dark, dark greens. How depressing, she told herself, that people should have to wile away a perfectly good evening in a dismal joint like this one. That people should have to hide from the world in hazy states of drunkenness...
That people should have to do what she, herself, was doing at that very moment.
The awareness seemed to rip right through her body and set it quivering before the truth. Hurrying to the bottom of her drink, Jo Ann raised her hand to get the bartender's attention. He returned a few minutes later, carrying a refill in his hand.
"No more for me, thanks." Jo Ann reached into her pocket for some money. The faster she could get out of that grimy cellar and back to her senses, the better she knew she could feel.
"You can't refuse this, babe. It's a present."
"What?" Jo Ann stared back into the crooked smile, certain that she had heard incorrectly.
"That's right. The man over there," he pointed to a thin figure hunched over the corner of the bar.
Jo Ann didn't know what to say. "Thanks ... I guess," she finally muttered, convinced that she had no choice, really, but to accept.
The bartender disappeared again, leaving Jo Ann alone with her curiosity and her second shot of bad scotch.
"You don't really have to drink it, if you don't want to." The voice was right beside her ear. "I was just looking for an excuse to say hello."
Jo Ann turned and looked down into the smiling face of the man who had just been at the end of the bar. Amazed at his speed in reaching her, she returned his smile and lifted the glass tentatively toward her mouth. "Thank you for sending this over," she stammered, not wanting to insult the stranger, but not knowing how to refuse without seeming impolite.
"It's rotten booze anyway," the man continued, as if he hadn't heard her. "That's the only kind they have here."
Jo Ann quickly turned away from the man and pretended to give her full attention to finishing the drink. He didn't have to say any more. She knew what was on his mind. It was written all over his face ... that same look she had seen on Stan ... that same desire mirrored in the eyes of the boys in the park ... that same repulsive, animal lust.
Gulping and choking, Jo Ann downed the shot and propelled herself off the barstool. Without looking to see if the man was following her, she raced up the stairs and back out into the street where it was crowded. Once outside, she kept on running and didn't stop until she was safely in the hallway of Laura's apartment house.
The sound of the doorbell echoed through the apartment. Jo Ann stood breathing heavily and listened to the welcome sound of footsteps, hurrying toward her from the other side of the door.
"Welcome back, stranger." Laura's grin was broad and genuine. "I never expected to see you so soon."
"Don't joke." Jo Ann hurried inside and locked the door behind her. "I'm all messed up."
"What, again?"
Jo Ann smiled despite herself at Laura's obvious attempt at humor. "Well, not the same kind of mess this time," Jo Ann said. "Thank goodness, this time I'm still all in one piece."
"I'll second that," Laura cracked, plopping herself onto the couch and lifting a half-filled glass of rye and ginger. "Want some?"
"No thanks. I've just finished two." Laura pulled off her coat and tossed it into a sling chair. "You'd think I'd know enough not to drink, after the other night."
"Few of us ever learn from experience," Laura said, her eyes reflecting a momentary private thought. "What's up this time?"
"Stan and I are all finished," Jo Ann announced seriously.
"Should I say I'm sorry ... or congratulations?" Laura didn't seem at all shocked.
"I haven't decided yet." Jo Ann sat down and slipped off her sneakers. "We just had a pretty stinking scene."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Not yet." Jo Ann knew very well why she had said that. She was dying to talk about it. Advice was what she needed most ... advice from someone older and wiser than herself. Somebody like Laura. But she wasn't all that ready to hurt her friend's feelings again, by telling her what Stan had said. It was enough for awhile just to sit and enjoy the warmth and comfort of Laura's patient presence.
"All right, then ... what shall we talk about?" Laura asked, finishing her drink and setting her glass down a little too heavily on the end table to appear completely sober.
"I don't know if I really want to talk at all," Jo Ann said, as a sudden feeling of fatigue drained the life from her limbs.
"Well, if we can't drink and we can't talk, what's left?" Laura smiled impishly and cocked her head to one side.
Jo Ann avoided the question by hoisting.her legs over the side of the chair and gazing off in another direction. "Do you think all men are the same underneath?" she asked, as a persistent, nagging fear threatened to overwhelm her once more.
"Underneath what?" Laura's voice sounded uneven, almost unreal.
"Laura, are you drunk?" Jo Ann turned quickly back to the woman and stared at her.
"Not yet." Laura smiled and lifted herself off the sofa. "But it sounds like a damned good idea. Care to join me? Or did I already ask you that?"
"All right, but make it a weak one," Jo Ann said to be sociable. No harm in a little drink in the privacy of a friend's apartment. There was no danger here. Only the danger of too much thinking.
Jo Ann sipped the highball slowly, relieved that it's taste was pleasantly sweeter than she had expected.
"Now, where were we?" Laura asked, when she had settled again on the couch with a fresh drink. "Oh, yes. Cruel, cruel male animals. Aren't they just awful?"
From Laura's sarcastic tone, Jo Ann couldn't be sure whether her friend was being the least bit sincere in her words. Needing, however, to talk, Jo Ann ignored the possibility that Laura was making fun of her and continued. "You think you know a guy," she said. "And then, when the showdown comes, he turns out to be a complete stranger. Does that make sense to you, Laura?"
"Perfect sense." Laura turned dead serious suddenly. "I learned that little secret a long time ago, my dear child. Stinks, doesn't it?"
"That's for sure," Jo Ann agreed wholeheartedly, somewhat relieved to know that she wasn't unique in her new, disquieting sentiments.
A thoughtful smile suddenly appeared to brighten Laura's features. "You know," she said, her eyes twinkling, "you remind me a lot of my brother Charlie."
"How's that?" Jo Ann asked.
"He's a lot like you," Laura said. "Always getting disillusioned about people he thought were so great. You two really should meet each other."
"A fine pair of losers, huh?" Jo Ann said softly.
"Sensitive would be a better word for it," Laura corrected her. "Yes, you and Charlie, two gullible, sensitive dopes."
Jo Ann sipped her drink, amazed that she wasn't feeling particularly tragic anymore. Laura had fixed things, of course. The woman had shown Jo Ann by her casual attitude that a fight with Stan didn't mean the end of the world. People have fights every day. Women learn the truth about men ... the wrong kind of men ... and survive, despite bruised feelings.
"Thanks," Jo Ann whispered, amused that her earth-shattering problem just seemed to dissolve in the presence of Laura's experience and realism.
"Thanks for what?" Laura asked, looking as if she were trying to follow the feverish, unspoken workings of Jo Ann's thought process.
"I expected to be shattered for at least two hours," Jo Ann chuckled at what now appeared to have been nothing worse than a lucky break for her. "When I left Stan's place, I felt like the end of the world was right before me.
"Why, for goodness sake? He's not the only person left in the world."
"I thought he was." Jo Ann's voice softened with embarrassment. "He did a damned good job of getting me riled up, though."
"Why?" Laura asked. "You don't honestly believe that Stan Wyatt is so different from the rest of the men in New York, do you?"
"I don't know." Jo Ann felt the embarrassment showing in her sheepish smile. "I guess there are lots of things I don't know, huh?"
"That I'll agree with." Laura swallowed another mouthful of her drink and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. "What could Stan have said that shook you up so?"
"It's not so much what he said, but what he didn't say," Jo Ann answered.
"You just lost me." Laura leaned forward and knotted her forehead in concentration. "Either he said something or he didn't. Which was it?"
"I suppose I expected more sympathy than I got from him," Jo Ann said. "You know, about what happened in the park."
"Forget it." Laura leaned back and nodded with sudden understanding. "Don't you know that each guy wants to be your first? The thought that someone else beat them to it is like a splinter where you can't pull."
"But he knew that...."
"Makes no difference," Laura interrupted Jo Ann's attempt at logic. "It wasn't him ... that's the problem."
"You'd think he could at least be gentle about the whole thing. The way he carried on, you'd think I invited it."
"No comment." Laura looked over at her empty glass and then back to Jo Ann. "Was that all that got you so hot under the collar?"
Jo Ann hesitated, unsure whether it would be wise to tell Laura the rest of Stan's conversation.
"C'mon, c'mon," Laura coaxed after a few moments of intense silence. "What else did Prince Charming say?"
"Well..." Jo Ann felt her throat tighten as though to hold back the words she didn't really want to say.
"Out with it," Laura pressed. "I don't mind a little dirty language, if that's what you're stalling about."
"It was about you." Jo Ann was sorry for the words, but it was too late.
"What about me?" Laura leaned forward again, her expression a mixture of concern and caution.
"Why don't we drop it? He was just being a nasty liar."
"What about me?" Laura's tone was a command now. "Well, he said you weren't very nice."
"More than just that, I'll bet."
Jo Ann looked over at Laura before continuing. There was no getting out of it now, she knew. The truth had to be spoken. She had gone too far to back out now. "He said you were a ... a lesbian."
Laura's belly laugh rose and filled the room and then suddenly died a short, gasping death.
"Did you ever hear anything so preposterous?"
"It's not so preposterous." Laura ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek and smiled bitterly. "Not at all."
"Of course it is," Jo Ann protested loudly. "Why in the world should he come out with a dig like that?"
"Simple," Laura said. She raised her glass and sighed. "It's true."
Jo Ann's jaw fell open and didn't close until Laura had stood up to get herself another drink.
Then, still flabbergasted, she emptied her own glass and reached for the open bottle of rye on the table.