Beggar of Love Page 15

  Gus lifted his horn to his lips and began an excerpt from “Finlandia.” She could sense Glad beaming and proud, watching how he filled the church with breath and emotion and sound for her. She felt elation at the way he returned to Glad the gift she had given him with his life.

  Her thoughts drifted even farther back to her freshman self on the dormitory steps. Stricken with grief—and yes, it had been grief—to watch her own mother go, to watch her take off with the gifts she’d never given and to leave the heritage of fear. Of silent expectations. Of alcohol.

  She bowed her head, not bothering to wipe away the tears. Glad’s persevering acceptance had finally sunk in. Too late for Jefferson’s athletic career, but not too late to succeed at being Jefferson. “I’m really not afraid to be me now.” She fixed her eyes on the sun ray stealing in through the stained-glass window, sighing with the breeze that entered when someone opened the church door. Glad and Ginger, between them, had been there when Jefferson was finally finished with drinking and on her feet again. It had been over a year now. She’d go from Glad’s funeral to another AA meeting. And cry for a week if she had to.

  She whispered hoarsely, “I want to cry loud enough to fill this church with sound for you.”

  Were tears the only gift she could give to Glad, the woman who had first loosed them? She envied the boy with his horn, who had found his own voice, and who’d had a mother who’d heard him all his life. But her tears would have to do: the wrong gift, to the wrong mother. And Glad would accept them, as she always had.

  The last of the music faded. Now, she thought, Glad would be at peace.

  She left the pew, finally, but a hand touched her elbow as she reached the church doors.

  “Here,” Sam the cook said, eyes wet with his own sadness. He thrust a handful of napkins toward her. “I knew she’d want me to bring some for you too.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’m forty-one, Jefferson thought as she watched the twenty-year-old pitcher wind up. Once she’d been on the pitcher’s mound, her body tall, powerful, no gray in her thick sandy hair, proud muscles in her arms. Now she was coaching. How in hell did I get to be forty-one?

  The batgirl trotted across the park’s newly mowed grass carrying water. The hot sun felt good, heated the grass scents, made the spectators’ encouragement sound languid, undemanding. Jefferson drank, remembered to smile then into those adoring batgirl eyes. If this kid only knew, if those eyes had seen her at her depths, high on whatever combination of drinks she could get.

  The opponents got a hit; Jefferson tensed, ready with her signal talk to guide the Lavender Julies up the last step from their two-year slump into winning the citywide series. Inside, she clicked, in perfect tune with her team. And they clicked with her. At last they were playing in unison, not like the beginning of the season when she’d agreed, once more, after a first year of failure and a season off, to coach the “Lavender Losers,” as everyone had taken to calling them. “You’re our only hope,” Sally the bartender had pleaded for the team she and Liz sponsored.

  It had been twilight outside Café Femmes. Soho was shutting down for the night. A few lingering art-gallery customers had been sitting outside sipping cappuccino or Irish coffee at the new sidewalk restaurant Liz had added to the bar around the time the team was born. Some of the gay kids who worked in local garment factories burst in, joking and laughing and jostling one another. Gabby was garnishing salads the customers had ordered; she had taken over the food preparation from the start, as if she’d at last found her passion in life.

  Jefferson, whose mood frequently resembled thunderclouds these days, had replied, “You’re pretty desperate, then.”

  She was seven months into her third attempt to live sober.

  Teaching again, commuting to the Academy she’d attended as a kid. They’d taken her when no one else would give her another chance, taken her at least partly on the word of her AA sponsor, an old woman who’d taught there herself when Jefferson was the school heroine, breaking records, leading the field-hockey team to victory after victory. Her memories had not led to a kind comparison with who she’d become.

  “Yo.” Gabby nudged her with an elbow as she settled her chunky body onto a stool next to Jefferson.

  “How’s my favorite daughter of the American Revolution?”

  Once something like that got out, that her family had been in New York practically since Peter Stuyvesant, she’d never heard the end of it. The kids were always kidding her about having “come out” twice. She shook her head, smiling, though she had neither grown up in the city nor been in the kind of family that would come out. They liked the idea of having a fallen blue blood in their midst, even if she wasn’t a blue blood and had experienced no more introduction to society than matching chugs with Angela between kisses at the first gay bar they’d managed to get into with fake IDs.

  “Tell me I’m not under duress,” Jefferson had answered, gesturing to Sally, who was filling beer mugs.

  “You finally finished your master’s degree, didn’t you? You have more time now.”

  “I don’t know if I can handle it, Gab. Coaching—losing.”

  Gabby laid a hand on Jefferson’s shoulder. “It was too much for you last time, I know.” She paused. “But when you were sober, were you ever good.”

  As always, Jefferson’s heart warmed to this praise. She placed a hand over Gabby’s. “Can I buy you a Julie?”

  “You like my concoction,” Gabby asserted. She assumed full credit for the drink the team was named after, although Sally was the one who painstakingly created it to tempt Gabby away from liquor. They both watched Sally pour the grape juice and seltzer over crushed ice, then add an orange slice, a lime, a cherry. “Hey,” Gabby protested, and Sally snapped her fingers, apparently remembering only then to add another cherry. Gabby toasted Jefferson. “To a winning season.”

  “But I haven’t said yes.”

  “Listen, Jefferson,” Gabby said, “it’s the Julies. A magic team. If they win, so can you.”

  “What if they lose?”

  Gabby looked at her appraisingly. “I’m betting you can lose one thing now without losing everything.” She pulled noisily on her straw. “Customers,” she had added then, bustling away to a sidewalk table.

  The other team called a time-out; the Julies kept their energy high, as Jefferson had taught them to, tossing the ball back and forth. She turned and saw Sally, tall, lanky, blond, blushing, probably at something outrageously flirtatious Marie-Christine, the outfielder’s girl, had said. Jefferson pictured Gabby downtown tending bar so Sally could be at the game. The winning game. Maybe.

  Three teenaged boys stopped, jeered the teams, made clucking sounds at Marie-Christine. Jefferson tensed again. Once she would have laughed at the boys, but recently, she wanted to rave and rage and pummel. She turned away. Sober, she knew the team was her business. Marie-Christine and Sally could take care of themselves.

  The other team got back to work. The Julies’ pitcher, maybe drowsy from the sun, threw the batter an easy one and the ball rose high, every head following it. The outfielder, Annie Heaphy, caught this third out and jogged nonchalantly toward home, while Marie-Christine cheered wildly, tossing words—hero, savior, champion—like flowers toward her.

  But Annie had always been cool to work with. When the team had seemed to band against Jefferson, Annie supported her, worked to convince the others that Jefferson could be trusted now and wouldn’t let them down.

  The way she had Ginger. That was about the time the Jeffersons put her in rehab, hoping to stop the drinking. She’d laughed at them, aware that her father would be stewed by dinnertime, but, engulfed by the heavy cloud of her newly diagnosed depression, she’d gone. Her memory of those years was like one of those gummy erasers, crumbs of events and women and jobs and students piled like rubble in her mind. Receiving her release after a few months, thinking she was sober and fit and raring to go again, she hadn’t gone back to Ginger. No, Ginger was
behind her. Then, having recovered from a drunken car crash, Jefferson decided to forsake team sports. She’d play golf again. She’d be a victor again, like in college golf, like in prep-school field hockey. Her parents paid for a coach. Rusty at first, she soon played local, then regional tournaments. She pursued the golfing ladies, gay and straight, and maybe that diversion contributed to her ever-falling rank.

  Her age, her years out of golf, and liquor hadn’t given her much chance to become a scratch golfer by a long shot. By the time she landed the local lady golf celebrity, wining her and winning her into bed, she’d begun to drink wine—so no one would feel uncomfortable—and eventually returned to Jameson, her first liquid love, a taste she’d acquired under her father’s tutelage. That led to the horrendous accident, to losing her driver’s license and drying out, yet again, in the hospital where she stayed for ten days with a compound fracture of the ankle. There hadn’t been a hint that she could succeed on the tour, and her parents, who had been supporting her financially, gave up. She’d double-bogeyed her life yet again.

  The huge lightless affliction that had bedeviled her off and on since childhood settled on her in the hospital. A drink would have lifted it like a magic potion, or always had when she was younger. It had grown less and less reliable in recent years. After she got out, she didn’t want to drink, but her moods had been gray. Had she been medicating herself for something all those years—dejection? That free-fall thing that happened to her sometimes and left her scared? Where had that come from?

  Thank goodness Ginger hadn’t given up. She’d been at the uptown bar, frequenting the place after dance recitals and the ballet, as if waiting for Jefferson—who sought her out, pretending not to, and allowed her to escort her home, not letting on what she needed. That had been the second time she’d dried out. Cold turkey. Out of sheer determination. And she’d begun to teach phys ed again, had stayed with Ginger.

  During that period Lily Ann Lee introduced them to Café Femmes. Sally was an old college teammate; others in the bar remembered or had heard of Jefferson. And in the last few years together Ginger would always find Jefferson there, grumbling that it was the only place in the world where she got respect. Ginger would call a cab—assuming she found her at all that night—and escort her home. Until one night Ginger didn’t come to Café Femmes and the next morning Jefferson found Ginger’s note at the apartment: I’ve got to help me now. I know I can’t be with you until you do something for yourself.

  The women at Café Femmes who had watched all that had been on the softball team that first year when Jefferson, still drinking, had failed them so badly as a coach. Not a few had fallen for the still-powerful Jefferson and hoped to win her from the memory of Ginger, had tried to cure her addictions—and had ended up being hurt themselves.

  But it was Ginger who still had Jefferson’s college cap. The cap that had, at least partially, drawn Jefferson back to the woman who’d kept and treasured a hat worn during the winning of so many games. If only she’d been able to work things out with Ginger. Why had Ginger waited so long, too long, to try and help? They’d been no more than roommates for so long. Why had she even wanted Jefferson back? Not that it mattered: that cap and her memories were all that was left of Jefferson’s glory days.

  Shielding her eyes with one hand, she watched the Julies get a hit, a strikeout, a walk. They’d learned to trust her, despite the way she’d been. They’d learned, too, what she’d taught. And they were up a long time before the umpire called Millie out on strikes. They hadn’t gotten another run. The score was two to two.

  “You’re good, Coach,” Annie said as she prepared to jog to her position in the outfield.

  “Thanks, Heaphy.” But what, Jefferson wondered, am I doing here at forty-one, coaching a dinky little amateur softball team? What in hell did it matter if they won or lost? She’d called Ginger when she hit six months’ sobriety. And called her monthly since then, to talk, to update her and maybe… She didn’t even know why she wanted career-obsessed Ginger back.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Liz arrive. Sally’s partner at the bar and at home, Liz worked the night shift. She must have gotten out of bed and come directly to the game. She reminded Jefferson of Ginger: very feminine, yet tough and devoted to her woman and her dream. She’d told Jefferson that she saw Café Femmes as much more than a gay bar, as a place where gay kids could be together whether they drank or not. She watched Liz and Sally hug, smile into each other’s eyes. Their passion never seemed to die, Jefferson thought as she turned back to the game. Like hers for Ginger. If only she hadn’t treated her so badly. In AA, they said not to start a new relationship in the first year of sobriety. But she didn’t want a new woman; she wanted the warmth and comfort of Ginger in their early days. And not because she knew her from back when. She wanted to be worth something to Ginger now.

  She could see Liz focusing on the game, holding Sally’s hand. It mattered to Liz that the Julies won. That night last summer, after Ginger had left, when Jefferson was the only one in the bar and Liz apparently thought she was too drunk to notice—that night came back to her vividly.

  Behind the bar Liz was sobbing in Sally’s arms. No-nonsense Liz, sobbing. She could see Sally’s hand stroke Liz’s thick, dark hair.

  “We can borrow more money,” Sally was saying.

  “No,” Liz mumbled. “We’re not going under because of my dreams. Look what happens.” She gestured toward Jefferson.

  With no one else there, Café Femmes had felt like a cold cave. The jukebox was silent; the electronic game, like some night bird, beeped only occasionally; no sounds came from outside. There was no place in the world but this refuge, and its darkness seemed to thicken before Jefferson’s eyes, shadows gathering to blot out her life, her world.

  “The bar is still healthy.” Liz had dried her eyes. “I won’t sacrifice it for some iffy sidewalk café the kids might not come to.” She supported herself against Sally. “Half a dream’s better than none, right?”

  “Wrong,” Sally had said quickly. “We’ll make it.”

  “How?”

  “Faith. You believe in what we’re doing. I believe. We have to have some faith that our instincts are right, that this is exactly the right time for a space where gays and straights can mix. The right place for a gay bar the neighborhood can be proud of.”

  Liz’s tone was bitter. “Next you’re going to tell me the Lavender Julies can win the tournament.”

  “Yes, I am. They’re only three years old.”

  Liz laughed through her tears. “You’re a hopeless optimist.” She blew her nose.

  “Not hopeless,” Sally said. “You know, I always thought we had to hide away in a dingy neighborhood, come and go in the shadows. I never expected Soho to take off like this. And you taught me to hold up my head here. To put that fancy lavender awning out front. To spill our dirty gay selves onto the sidewalk. To get those blatant lavender-and-red uniforms for the Julies.” She pulled Liz close. “You, baby. Maybe the neighborhood’s not bragging about us yet, but I feel better. The kids do too.”

  But Liz had been looking at Jefferson. “They do? They sure don’t bother to show it.”

  It was that night, that very moment, that she began to fight her way up. Dreams, she thought now, as the Julies fought not to lose. Dreams. She savored the word in the bright daylight, as coach of this bright lavender-and-red team. Every woman out there was dreaming of winning, as she once had. And for all her awards, had she really ever won yet? Won like Sally meant when she spoke of Liz’s dream? Won something for herself by winning for everyone? Was this a dinky little team she coached? Hell, no. She’d learned what they’d taught her too. They were quick and smart, skilled now; she’d made certain of that. All they’d needed was a leader. And what did their leader really want? To be a sad has-been all her life? Or to give them something to hold their heads up for?

  She watched the batters on the other team more closely. The one up now would freak at a curveb
all, she decided, and signaled the pitcher to throw one. As the pitcher struck her out, Jefferson saw it all in her mind’s eye: the Julies, in bright red and proud lavender, at the street fair next month, behind the Café Femmes booth, under a big sign: ALL CITY-WINNERS! The Julies, shaking cans at people to collect funds for block improvements, block gatherings, for pro-gay political candidates who wanted the Soho vote. They’d carry the red-and-lavender banner through the streets, representatives of the community. And on Gay Pride Day they’d march, they’d parade, they’d storm the city, waving at the cameras. Shadows? Never again, Sal and Liz! They’d lead the damn parade, triumphant, all-star champs: the players and their lovers, fans, mothers, fathers—their coach. Yes, she could use a little glory too. Not glory like it used to be but, shit, who remembered that now? Except herself. Except Ginger.

  It was the last half of the last inning. Annie Heaphy stepped up to bat. The teams were still tied. The sun was a little less hot. The grass was strewn with intent lesbians. She could see that the teenaged boys, passing back through, seemed gripped by the tension. Marie-Christine had begun a cheer:

  Our Lavender Lovers

  Are Lavender Winners!

  Jefferson remembered the very first time her own team had won, they’d been playing field hockey up in Rye. She’d been very together, in tune with her teammates, and had pushed and wheeled her way toward the winning point. The cheers sounded—the cheers that were, for that glorious moment, the only sound in the world.

  She’d thought she’d never hear them like that again, and here they came now, rising, swelling as Annie Heaphy hit the ball with all the power in her middle-aged arms and it sailed over the pitcher, sailed over second base, sailed over the outfield, toward the roof of the Plaza Hotel, and Annie came running, running, no longer nonchalant, around every base till she was home. Home.