Unlike Others Page 4

  An office, like a home, has a climate of its own. It's dominated by the emotional content of the people who spend their time there. So far as Jo was concerned, the office on the sixteenth floor of the Harrington Building had been a good place to work, busy yet relaxed, housing a small group of people who liked the work they were doing and the people with whom they were thrown into contact. She even felt herself the center of things there, thanks to her own secret, repressed yet honest recognition of Stan's weakness and his constant need of reassurance.

  Within a week after Betsy joined the payroll, things were different. It was Stan who came down early now, and not the same Stan who had been bringing his layouts for her admiration and his problems for her sympathy. This one was more self-assured, and in some way she couldn't analyze, more consciously male. She recognized the quickening because she had felt it in her own body, the heightened perception, the sharpening of colors and outlines, the feeling of pleasurable suspense. But to find it in Stan disturbed her.

  "All that little chick has to do is sit at her desk and look helpless," she told Richard, "and he stands around for hours, talking to her. About nothing. I'm getting the book out single-handed."

  "So what's bothering you?" Richard handed her a menu. "I'm having the swiss steak, what are you having?”

  "I don't care. Swiss steak, I guess." She considered, her head bowed. "It's raising hell with the magazine. I'm the only one that's doing any work. Little Miss Hot Pants at the desk is just waiting for the day when the priest says it's legal and she can climb into bed with her guy. I don't expect anything better from her, but Stan isn't getting anything done either."

  Richard stirred his coffee. "All this indignation is for the magazine, Jo?"

  "No."

  He chuckled. "If I didn't know better I'd say you were jealous of Stan. It would be a triangle, two women both after the boss. Right? It's still a triangle, but who would believe it if you put it in a book?"

  "Don't think I haven't thought of that! Only it can't be, Rich, she's straight."

  "Darling, don't try so hard to be logical. There's nothing logical about love."

  "Well, the job enters into it just the same. It may not pay a hell of a lot, but it beats typing invoices all day long. That's what I did in my last office. Only now I'm doing three people's work for one lousy paycheck."

  "You still think this girl looks like Karen?"

  "A little, yes."

  "Because it makes a difference, Michael reminds me sometimes of the boy that brought me out. In military school. Somebody ought to tell these parents about military schools."

  She put her hand on his wrist. "I wish you'd been my little boy," she said softly.

  "Me too, ma." Richard smiled. "Why don't you move in on her? Don't just give up, let her know you're available."

  "Would you, if it was a man in your office?"

  "Not if I was sure he was straight," Richard admitted. "There's a long cold winter coming, and I'm going to stay employed if I can."

  "Oh hell, Jo, it's easier for girls. You know it is. They're always hugging each other and all that jazz. Nobody thinks anything about it if two girls share an apartment, they're doing it to save money. But let a pair of fellows move in together and the eyebrows go up."

  "Sure," Jo said, "it's easy. Hug her, and she hugs back. Kiss her, and she puckers up. Then what am I supposed to do, put my hand under her skirt and wait for her to call the cops?"

  "You sound to me like a girl who's leading a celibate life."

  "I am. It's damn uncomfortable."

  They were silent while the waitress set their plates in front of them. She asked, "You folks want anything else?"

  "Coffee with it." Richard looked after her. "That's what I like about these cheap joints, they let you have coffee all the way through."

  "You’ll get caffeine poisoning."

  "I know, but it keeps me awake."

  "You sound so smug. Big night?"

  "I'm not complaining."

  Jo pushed the food around in her plate. "Well, I am!" she said with a bitterness that surprised her. "I don't mind living like a puritan, but I mind being reminded of it twenty-four hours a day. Damn it, I'm human."

  "You know what you ought to do?"

  "Sure, I ought to pick up a girl and have me a party. I've done it two or three times," Jo admitted, "but damn it, I'm a monogamous bitch by nature. I don't want a series of cheap one-night stands."

  "What you want is to get married."

  "Anything wrong with that?"

  "That's the trouble with you goddam Lesbians," Richard said, "you want all the advantages of both sexes. Have your cake and eat it too. Sometimes I hate you."

  "No you don't."

  "That's right, I don't." He cut a mouthful of steak and looked at it critically. "When you're sixty and I'm seventy, I'm going to propose to you. You can put the heating pad on my lumbago."

  "Gee, I can hardly wait."

  "Look," Richard said, "you got over Karen when this Betsy girl came along. That's all it took, a new face." He tore open the little envelope of sugar and emptied it into his coffee, stirred it, tasted, and took another envelope. "Look," he said, tearing it across, "maybe face isn't what I mean."

  "So what do I do, run an ad in the Personals column? Refined business girl wishes congenial roommate familiar with the Songs of Bilitis?"

  "Something will come along when you're ready for it."

  "Sure." Suddenly and surprisingly, she was hungry. She hadn't been hungry for a week. She sampled the canned green beans that went with swiss steak in this eatery. They tasted good. She said, "I can cook better than this. Could I have more bread and butter?"

  "You decide to live all of a sudden?"

  "You and your psychology books."

  "Don't forget," Richard said, "life isn't all a bed of roses for the straight people, either."

  She thought it over, lingering at the door of the little restaurant while he bought cigarettes. She supposed he was right, but it didn't seem that way. Except for weak types like Stan, men seemed to have it made. All a man had to do was make a pass at a girl, and she said yes or no. That was how it was supposed to be, and nobody got shook up over it. You didn't catch a man losing his job because he made out with the receptionist or came in hung over on Monday morning. Whoring around, for men, was like being able to hold their liquor. It was a proof of virility and a sign of belonging.

  She supposed that was true of girls too, it had become more and more true in the last forty years or so, but that aspect of the matter didn't interest her. Men were the competition. For girls like her the standard of performance was a kind of male standard, but pursued in secret and under a cloud of social disapproval. Maybe it wasn't fair, but that was the way things were.

  This wasn't getting her anywhere. She said, turning to face Richard as he rejoined her, "You're probably right. What I need isn't theory, it's action."

  "I wish I could do something about it. Michael and I have been leading such a quiet life lately, I don't see anybody. He knows all kinds of people."

  "That's all right. I'm a big girl, I can pay my own cab fares. Give my love to Michael—I think he's cute."

  "He likes you too."

  She skimmed into the lobby of the Harrington Building with a lightened heart, cheered as always by the simple therapy of talking things over with the one friend who understood. And saw, too late, that Betsy and Stan were already in the waiting elevator, looking at her as though they wished she were somewhere else. Betsy smiled first. "Hi. I saw you coming across the street with a terribly nice-looking man. Boyfriend?"

  "Just a friend."

  She hated herself for the reticent tone and the modest downcast look, but she couldn't help it. The best way to lie is to tell the truth, she reminded herself as she stepped out of the elevator and marched into the office, leaving the other two to exchange a few low-voiced sentences in the hall.

  She dived into her folders with enthusiasm, turning her thoughts
into their regular Monday-through-Friday channels. She needed eighteen more lines of wedding and engagement news, and she had already described the costumes of brides, bridesmaids and flower girls, the showers and office parties in honor of the bride, and the honeymoon plans—so far as they were printable. Having persuaded Stan to give her extra space, she felt obliged to use every bit of it. She thought about throwing in an extra photograph, and realized that it would bring bitter complaints from all the brides not so honored—one picture to a function, that was the standard. Linage was a delicate matter anyway, the girl who got half a column was likely to call up the week after the honeymoon full of ire because someone else had three-quarters. They measure it with a slide rule, Jo told herself, they go over it with a fine-tooth comb, they count the words.

  She decided to feature the "quiet home wedding" of the plant vice-superintendent and his former secretary. The bride, peeking coyly over her orchid corsage and obvious falsies, had a determined look. The groom was balding and nervous. I bet she leads him a merry life, poor little guy. She looks like she's been saving it up for the last twenty years, and he's past the age.

  The thought of someone else's troubles cheered her up.

  "What you doing?"

  "Getting out the November issue."

  "Funny."

  Stan leaned against the doorjamb in his old relaxed attitude. His face was a little flushed; he looked guilty. She noticed that he was wearing a tie, although he usually pulled it off as soon as he got in. He was using a new kind of shave stuff too, or maybe it was a men's cologne; sweet and spicy. She said, sniffing, "What's on your mind?"

  "Nothing special." He shifted from the right foot to the left. "You live alone, don't you?"

  "Sure."

  "Lucky. You don't have trouble getting out if you feel like a night on the town."

  Jo made a' small arrow with red grease pencil. "After a day on this job I'm glad to sleep nights."

  He scowled. "I can't even go down to the corner for a pack of cigarettes without my mother wanting to know where I'm going and who I'm going to see there and when I’ll be back."

  "I know."

  "So what am I supposed to do?"

  Walk out over her unconscious body, Jo thought. She knew better than to say it aloud. The big idiot loved his mothersure he did, if she dropped dead he’d cry buckets. She said carefully, "You might be working late. Or Saturday, if you ever got interested in anyone who was free Saturdays."

  He didn't answer. Oh Christ, Jo thought, I forgot—on Saturday he goes to the laundromat and does the marketing. Probably cleans the silver too. She looked out of the window. "You know what they say. If you can't get what you want, want what you can get."

  "I guess that's right." He moved uneasily. "Well, I guess you're busy."

  "Everything's under control.”

  "You're a good worker, Jo."

  "Gee, thanks."

  "How do you like the new kid? Betsy?"

  Poor idiot, trying so hard to sound casual. She tried to put the warmth he wanted to hear into her voice. "She's pretty good, I think. She seems to be learning all right." That wasn't enough to make him happy. She added, "She's pretty, isn't she? If you go for blondes."

  "Blondes are all right. So are brunettes and redheads."

  "Men, they're all lechers."

  He smiled widely. There, she'd done it. He said kindly, "Don't knock it. There isn't anything else for girls to go out with." That's what you think, Jo thought. "You going to need that extra page?"

  "Sure, I wouldn't have asked for it if I didn't need it."

  He finally unwound himself and left.

  He began to whistle as he passed Betsy's door. Jo's mouth tightened. I bet he hangs around for a month before he asks her for a date. If he ever does. Mother's little gentlemen.

  What does he mean, there's nothing else for girls to date? There's me. Any girl suffering for attention, let her speak up. I'm available, kids. She picked up the glossy print of the middle-aged bride and groom and looked at it again, squinting a little. The bridegroom, in his sixties and looking both jumpy and pleased with himself. The bride, every bit of fifty in spite of all the Elite Beauty Shoppe could do, triumphant. They would vacation in Florida, buy a home in one of the better suburbs and go to dinner once a year at the company president's mansion. She'd have a maid. Sounds real exciting.

  Betsy hovered in the doorway. "What do you want me to do now, Jo?"

  "In about ten minutes you can take some stuff to the engraver's."

  "Have I got time to run down for coffee? Do you want some?"

  "No thanks, I had two cups with my lunch."

  "You're lucky, you've got somebody to take you to lunch. Are you engaged or anything?"

  "No."

  Betsy said in a little rush of confidence, "I've been going out with Stan at noon. I don't know if I should or not."

  "Why not? He wouldn't ask you if he didn't enjoy your company."

  "He isn't married, is he?"

  "No." Jo cast around for the most tactful way to tell her. "He supports a widowed mother."

  "I think that's wonderful. I honestly do. Some people won't even support their wives. Some men won't do anything but drink and run around," Betsy said angrily. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shone. She looked beautiful, like Karen when she lost her temper. Jo asked, "Was your husband like that?"

  "Worse than that. Don't ask me about it."

  "Okay, I won't." A wife beater? A dope addict? Jo gathered her pictures into a neat pile and began looking through the desk drawer for a big enough envelope.

  "He did horrible things," Betsy said. Her eyes avoided Jo's. She was embarrassed, and at the same time she wanted to talk about it. Just call me Uncle Sigmund, Jo thought resigning herself to another season of confession. I must have a kind face. She turned in the flap of the envelope and handed it to Betsy, who ignored it.

  "With men." Betsy's whisper was almost inaudible. Jo waited. Betsy said, "I thought he loved me. I never even knew about people like that. And then one day I went to my mother's, it was a Sunday, and when I got there mama was at a neighbor's. Mama's wonderful when anybody's sick or in trouble or anything like that, everyone on the block counts on her." She took a deep breath. "So when I got there, she was gone. So I went home again."

  Oh, no, Jo thought. She could see it all. The young bride unlocking her own front door and walking quietly into the house, opening the bedroom door to find—what?

  "They were in bed together."

  Poor kid. And poor boy, taken by surprise. As though she had walked in behind Betsy she could visualize that scene, the bed tossed and rumpled, the floor strewn with garments, the two male bodies entangled in a position that must have puzzled Betsy as much as it shocked her. The classic betrayal scene, with one major difference.

  What struggles had the boy endured in his fight for a normal married life? What had happened in his wife's absence to make him capitulate? The arrival of an old friend, the approach of the boy next door—the one irresistible temptation, at the moment of weakness.

  Jo said, trying to keep her voice even, "That happens to a lot of people. Kids in school and all. It doesn't mean he didn't love you."

  "I never heard of anybody doing a thing like that before."

  And I suppose you think the stork brings babies, too. "Did you talk to him about it?"

  "No. What could I say? I walked out. He came to see me, though." Betsy's face got even redder. "He said he married me because he wanted to stop being—that way. That's what he said, if he had a wife he might get over it. If I'd come back to him, he said."

  Like taking aspirin for TB, Jo thought. Poor kid, poor lonesome kid, afraid to face himself and unable to accept himself. And you wouldn't give him a chance, you smug little snip. For a moment she was warm with anger, seeing in Betsy all the stupid people who would never understand. She looked at the girl with hostile eyes.

  Betsy turned her face away. She was crying. Jo's antagonism melted. She reach
ed out, unwillingly, and touched Betsy's shoulder. It was warm and solid under the thin blouse, the young bone hard under the flesh. Jo wanted to run her hand down over the girl's fragile collarbone, to cup the small round breast that showed in outline under the sheer material, to feel the nipple come up hard against her fingers. She wanted to take this crying child into her arms and fit their two bodies together until they felt like parts of one person.

  She did none of these things. She pulled her hand away, reached into the open desk, and came up with one of those little wads of tissue she was always stashing in drawers and pockets. "Here," she said, shoving them into Betsy's unresponding hand. Here we go again, Jo, it's getting to be a habit. I use up more Kleenex that way.

  Betsy sniffled. "Don't tell anybody, will you?"

  "Of course not."

  "I'm sorry to be such a sissy."

  "That's all right. Anybody has a right to bawl once in a while."

  Anybody but me. I'm tough.

  Betsy tossed the used tissues at the wastebasket, and missed. Jo picked them up. "You'll get over it," she said kindly.

  "Anyhow," Betsy said.

  She came to a full stop. Jo said, "Huh?"

  "Stan isn't like that, is he? Not being married or anything, you sort of wonder."

  "No, I’m sure he isn’t like that.”

  Well, she told herself, that's life. It's not enough I have to go to bed alone seven nights a week, I'm a wailing wall for every damn fool in the building. Might as well buy a couch and set up a business, I could use the money. I wonder what you have to do to get a headshrinker's license?