Amorous Woman. Donna George Storey
if only by their absence. My father died when I was three, his car hit head-on by a drunk driver. My memories of him are few: a dark shape in an overcoat standing in a doorway—I can see the bluish winter light around his shoulders better than his face—and the salt-and-tobacco flavor of his knuckle, a fleeting taste before he pulled his hand away, ‘No, honey. My hand’s dirty.’
In my favorite photograph of us together, a round-cheeked blond girl nestles against a slim man who looks a bit like Humphrey Bogart, his dark hair already thinning, although he would have only been in his mid-twenties. By looks alone we hardly seem related, but I am gazing up at him and he is gazing down at me and our smiles are so radiant we seem to float together in a circle of golden light. Dark, silent, eternally smiling, made mostly of dreams, if I were searching for a lover like my father—and what woman isn’t?—there was no better place for me to look than Japan.
My mother, on the other hand, was a very real presence in my childhood, constantly shifting her look and her mood, the Princess of a Thousand Faces. In the mornings she had the blank, blond prettiness of a princess in my books of fairy tales until she put on the dark skirt and sober face befitting an executive secretary in the law firm of Reed, Garner and Woodson—‘Don’t forget to lock the door when you leave for school, honey, Mr. Woodson needs me at work early today.’ After work, when she changed into pedal pushers and clingy sweaters, she was suddenly younger, an older sister and ally who always took my side against other adults, the teachers who seemed annoyed I knew all the answers, a shopkeeper who scolded me for lingering over a magazine I couldn’t buy.
The biggest change, of course, was when she went out on a date with a gentleman friend. I loved to lie on her bed and watch her get ready, knowing I was witnessing a preview of my own future. Years later, when I read descriptions of Japan’s great medieval warriors ritualistically donning their armor to prepare for battle, I thought of my mother at her dressing table with her lipsticks and powders and perfume.
When she was finished, she was no longer the weary mother I knew. Her chin held high, her shoulders back, she was a model in a fashion magazine come to life, ready to vanquish the large, foreign creatures called men, who arrived promptly at eight to take her away from me and into the night. As far as I could tell, her victory came the moment they saw her, dreamy smiles spreading over their faces, their eyes dancing with a strange light. My mother had a power over them I didn’t understand. I only knew some day I wanted it, too.
On the evenings my mother had a date, Mrs. Muller from the apartment below us would come and stay with me. Mrs. Muller was a different kind of widow from my mother—gray-haired, pink-faced and doughy—but I loved her and was sorry when I grew too big to snuggle in her soft lap. After the click-clack of my mother’s high heels faded from the stairway, she would give me a wink, and then make a show of checking out our refrigerator for the makings of ‘a wee snack.’ As if she ever expected to find anything but skim milk, cottage cheese and lettuce. ‘This won’t do at all. Why don’t you go down to my kitchen and bring up the little treat I made for us, Lydia dear? I swear she must be starving you, you poor girl.’
I always found something wonderful waiting for me in her kitchen: squares of sticky gingerbread that filled the room with the fragrance of cinnamon and cloves, butter cookies that turned to sweet vanilla sand on my tongue, a pyramid of brown sugar fudge that made my teeth ache. But first, before I carried our feast back upstairs, I indulged in a secret pleasure of my own. I opened Mrs. Muller’s refrigerator, full to bursting with jars of cream, slabs of butter and packages of bacon, and eased out one of the jars of her strawberry preserves.
Hoisting myself up onto the counter by the narrow window, I gazed out into the darkness and dipped a finger into the cool jam. Night transformed our block of low brick apartments into a mysterious wonderland. Golden squares of window floated against the sky, streetlamps glowed blue, shadows of trees stirred like veils in the wind. As I licked the essence of berry-and-summer languidly from my finger, my own flesh began to tingle. I always felt a little like Rapunzel, trapped in a tower in a foreign country, longing for her true home. I yearned to slip down the fire escape—a pretty name, I thought, for that rickety, rusting ladder outside the window—not to escape a fire, but to dive into my own heated adventures with dark and faceless men, who would do to me all those things men did to women, although of course I wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
What would it be like to have a lover? I settled on images harvested from movies, distilled in the strange heat of my fantasy, a thick-fingered hand fumbling at the buttons of my blouse, a pair of eyes glittering in the dim lamplight, a husky voice murmuring that I needn’t be ashamed to show myself as I really was, not a pretty girl like me.
This, I later discovered, is not so different from the way it really happens after all.
CHAPTER TWO
If my mother and Mrs. Muller were my first teachers in the secrets of sensual pleasure, my cousin Caroline was high school, college, and graduate school all rolled up in one. My apprenticeship began one Saturday evening in late February. My mother and I had been invited to a party at Aunt Jean and Uncle Bob’s new house, or rather, mansion, in Potomac. Uncle Bob had just been transferred to his company’s national headquarters in Washington, and my mother told me Caroline was so furious about having to leave California to spend her senior year in a new school, she demanded her own saucy red MGB GT and a shopping spree in Europe as her just compensation.
‘I’m glad you’re nothing like her,’ my mother said as we headed up the long path to their columned front entrance.
‘Me, too,’ I said, wrinkling my nose at the very thought. Dutiful daughter that I was, I tagged along to the party for her sake, bringing along a thick book to read while I holed up in some deserted guest bedroom. I planned to avoid blond surfer-girl Caroline like the plague, as I always did at our rare family gatherings over the years. But Caroline, and life, had different plans.
My cousin snagged me as I was wandering around looking for a hideout. She waved a bottle with a fancy French label at me. ‘I lifted some champagne from the bar. Come on up to my room, Lydia, and you can meet my friend, Marybeth. She’s wild.’
*****
‘Caroline, you didn’t tell me your cousin was cute!’ Those were Marybeth Leary’s first words when we met. She was stretched out on my cousin’s queen-size bed like Cleopatra, eyes hooded with marijuana and worldly ennui. She looked like an Egyptian queen, too, with blunt-cut raven hair and luminous skin she later confided was a result of ‘moon-bathing’ in the nude on her terrace. To give credit where credit is due, she was to play an equally important role in my imminent corruption.
Caroline gave me an appraising once-over. I was used to men looking: construction workers or the dads in the neighborhood who followed me with their eyes as they watered their lawns with leaky hoses. Those stares embarrassed me, but made my insides feel warm and tingly. From a girl, however, it felt more like a chilly finger sliding down my spine.
‘You’re right, M.B. But in my defense, she’s changed a lot since we were kids. She was always reciting some endless poem or waving around her straight“A” report card so she could weasel a silver dollar from Grandpa. I thought she was revolting. But since the hormones have kicked in, I do see more of a family resemblance. She could use a little more up top though.’
‘You know what they say—more than a mouthful’s a waste,’ I said cheerfully.
Caroline studied me for a moment, then seemed to decide she would find me amusing. ‘You have changed, haven’t you? Well, make yourself at home in my boudoir, Cousin. Have some champagne.’ Caroline handed me the bottle. Apparently, the preferred method of consumption was swigging it down like soda pop. I took a swallow and immediately felt dizzy.
‘Tell me all about yourself, Lydia. Do you have a boyfriend?’ Marybeth asked, her eyes suddenly wide and innocent.
‘Yes.’
Harris and I were perfectly matched by the social standards of our high school: two smart kids comfortable enough with Shakespeare to play the fairy king and queen