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Had she offended him?
"Jack—"
"So let's get a few things straight, Kate. I'm not PC and I'm not liberal—I'm not conservative or Democrat or Republican either. I operate on one principle: you own your own life, and that means you're free to do anything you want with that life so long as you don't interfere with other people's freedom to live their lives. It means you own your own body and you can do anything you want to it—pierce it, fill it with drugs, set it on fire—your call. Same with sex. As long as there's no force involved it's none of my business how you get off. I don't have to approve of it because it's not my life, it's yours. I don't have to understand, either. Which, by the way, I don't."
As he paused for breath Kate jumped in. "But that doesn't tell me how you feel."
"Feel? How does surprised and baffled sound? If you'd been a tomboy all your life and had never dated I could see it. But you had one boyfriend after another."
"Right. But no steady."
"Is that significant?"
"I didn't think so then, but 1 do now."
They found a little place on Seventh called The Greek Corner. She saw no one looking even vaguely Greek behind the counter, but the coffee smelled good. They took a table in a largely deserted glassed-in bump-out that would have been a solar oven if the sun had been out.
Jack sighed. "To tell the truth, Kate, I don't understand same-sex attraction. I know it exists and I accept that, but it's alien to me. I'm not wired for it. And then, of all people, you."
"You can't be more surprised than I was, Jack. But it's here. It's me. And there doesn't seem to be a darn thing I can do about it."
"But how? When? Where? Why? Help me here, Kate. I'm completely at sea."
"I'm still trying to figure it out for myself, Jack. You want to know when? When I knew? I'm not sure. Gay guys seem to know much earlier. With women it's not so easy. We're much more fluid in our sexuality—not my term, something I read. But it's true. We're much more intimate with each other. Sure I liked boys when I was a teenager. I liked dating, being courted, pursued. I even liked the sex. But you know what I liked more? Pajama parties."
Jack covered his eyes. "Don't tell me there were teenage lesbian orgies going on just a few feet down the hall from my bedroom and I didn't know."
Kate gave him a gentle kick under the table. "For crying out loud, Jack. Cool it, okay? Nothing ever happened. But there was a lot of contact—the pillow fights, the tickling, the laughing, the sleeping three to a mattress, two to a bedroll. Back then that was all considered normal teenage behavior for girls, but not for guys."
"I'll say."
"And it was normal for me. I loved the closeness to the other girls, the intimacy, and maybe I loved it more than the others, but I never co
"When did that happen?"
"When did I know I was a dyke?"
Jack drew in a breath. "That word again."
"Get used to it. I found out about two years ago."
"Two years? You mean you never once…?"
"Well, in France—you remember my junior year abroad—"
"I missed you terribly."
"Did you? That's nice to know. I had no idea."
"Big boys don't cry."
"And that's a shame, isn't it. But anyway, I had an 'almost' or a 'pretty near' experience there but never gave it much thought afterwards because things are different in France. You remember that Joni Mitchell song, 'In France They Kiss On Main Street'?"
"Vaguely."
"Well, it's true. In France the girls kiss on main street—straight girls. They kiss, they hug, they walk down the street hand in hand, arm in arm. It's just a natural thing there."
It's February and her name's Renee, dark hair, dark mysterious eyes, tall, long-limbed and, at twenty-two, a year older. She's invited Kate to her family's country place in Puy-de-Dome for the day. The two of them are wandering one of the adjacent fields, talking, Renee so patient with Kate's halting French, when it begins to pour. They're drenched and half frozen by the time they reach the empty house. They strip off their sodden clothes, wrap themselves in a huge quilt, and huddle shivering before the fire.
Renee's right arm snakes around Kate's shoulders and pulls her closer… for extra warmth, she says.
And that's good because Kate wonders if she'll ever feel warm again.
Your skin is so cold, Renee says. And she starts to rub Kate's back … to warm her skin.
And it works. Only a few rubs and Kate is flushed and very warm. She returns the favor, sliding her hand up and down Renee's smooth back, her skin as soft as a baby's. Renee's long arm stretches to where her hand can rub Kate's flank, stretches farther still until it reaches her breast. Kate gasps at the electric sensation of Renee's finger's caressing her nipple and holds her breath as lips nuzzle her neck and the hand trails down along her abdomen. She feels as if something deep inside her is going to burst—
And then the sound of tires on the gravel outside—Renee's mother and little brother, back from the market with the makings for tonight's di
"What 'almost' happened?" Jack said.
"The details aren't important. It all receded into my subconscious—or maybe it was pushed, I'm not sure which—but the end point was that when I allowed myself to remember it, I looked on it as nothing more than an interesting but anomalous event. After all, I was free, white, and almost twenty-one, and it was the seventies when it was cool to experiment. I saw it as a brush with lesbianism but I knew I wasn't a lesbian. I moved on."
"To medical school."
"Where I met Ron. He was a good-looking, sensitive man and we had so much in common—middle-class backgrounds, similar families, both headed for medical careers. And he was crazy about me so it seemed a perfect match. I loved him, maybe not as much as he loved me, but there was a genuine attraction there and getting married was what was expected of me. So that's what I did. Ron's a good guy. A lot of formerly married women who've come out can tell horror stories about abusive relationships. I don't have that. I can't say I finally came out because I was mistreated. If anything, I mistreated him."
"As I heard it from Dad, he cheated on you."
"And I don't blame him. After Elizabeth was born I lost interest in sex. It's not that unusual, at least on a temporary basis, but for me it went on and on. Ron and I had a good marriage for a long time. I was a good wife and he was a good husband. But as the years went by, I kept feeling less and less fulfilled. That's a terrible word, but it's the only one that fits. Something was missing, Jack, and I didn't know what it was. Until I met Jeanette."
"You mean Sybil."
"Please don't do that, Jack," she said, feeling a flush of anger. "You didn't know her before this virus thing. She's the most exhilarating person I've ever met."
"All right. I'm sorry. You're right. I only know the Moony version of Jeanette. But still, is she worth all this turmoil in your life?"
"Jack, you can't imagine what I was like. I was no fun. Seeing my patients and doing okay as a mother, but I wasn't cutting it at all as a wife. Ron's a good man, and he was a considerate lover, but no matter what he did, it wasn't right. And I wasn't giving Ron what he needed, so finally he went elsewhere. I don't blame him, but he blames himself. And that breaks my heart. We'd been best friends. He thinks he broke up our marriage, but really, it was me."
"You, or Jeanette?"
"I didn't meet her until after Ron and I were separated. My pedi-atric group had decided to computerize and I knew nothing about com-puters—Ron was into them and so were the kids, but somehow the things never appealed to me. I figured I'd better get up to speed, so when I saw an ad for a computer course at the local Marriott designed for women novices, I signed up."