"Research for a paper on the poetry. Remember, I read you some?"

"I know I'm a dummy, but I can't tel one from the other. Were they the poems about England?"

"That was Wordsworth."

"He made me want to travel." Angela looked toward the plaid drape closed tight across the window that helped keep out the cold. Was that what Angela dreamed of these days? "Do you think we ever wil ?"

"I'l have summers off once I start teaching. Angie, Angie," she said, excited, "I know what we'l do. We'l train someone to run your shop by then."

"What does al that poetry have to do with phys ed anyway?"

"Literature is part of the curriculum. I have to take it."

Angela was gazing at the drapes. "Seriously, let's start dreaming about where to go, al right, baby?"

She slipped an arm around Angela's slender waist and pul ed her close, nuzzling her bel y with her nose.

Angela stepped back, her voice tight. "Not right now, baby. The cramping."

"I'm sorry." Jefferson turned to her books to hide the tears that leapt to her eyes. Maybe she was near her time too. There was no reason to feel rejected. Angela was sick tonight, wasn't she?

At the bedroom doorway Angela stopped. "Jefferson, are you going to your grandparents' for Easter?"

They'd be playing the newest opera recording they'd bought. The house would smel like honeyed ham. The dessert Jel -O would shimmy on a flower- patterned plate. She tried to keep a wary tone from her voice as she said, "You know I have to spend the afternoon there."

"Just checking. I'l go to my parents'." Angela closed the bedroom door almost too careful y. Jefferson had complained about the violence of doors slammed in anger.

She'd heard the hope, then disappointment, and final y surrender in Angela's few words. They went through their tug-of-war each holiday, Angela ready to make a partial break from her parents, Jefferson too ful of guilt. Would there ever be a time they could stay home, cook their own turkeys and hams, maybe next fal go in to see the Thanksgiving Day parade together?

She sighed into her cup of coffee. How could they love each other, be each other's family, be al they could be to each other and to themselves while their parents were stil alive? The cloud sat so heavily on her she stared at her books more than she worked on her report.

Chapter Eight.

When Thanksgiving came and Angela arrived back from her parents' place on Cannon Street, she fel crying into Jefferson's arms.

"I can't stand another holiday with them, Jefferson! I won't do it. If I have to stay here alone Christmas Day, I wil ."

"Ange, my sweet girl, what happened?"

"My mother, with her matrimonial campaign. I tel her I'm happily married and she bites her lip and looks away like I stabbed her with the carving knife.

Don't they know it's 1976, not 1906? I can't stand it."

Jefferson held Angela closer. She couldn't let her stay home alone Christmas Day. Yet she couldn't refuse to go to her grandparents'. She couldn't show up with Angela. "I know, I know," she said to comfort Angela. "I get the silent treatment. Maybe it's not as bad, but it doesn't feel good either. They don't want to hear about anything that has to do with you, not even what a fine cook you are. Night school, that's al I can talk to them about."

Nothing was wrong with the way her parents had raised or treated her. She was too different, like one of those babies stolen from their beds and replaced by changelings.

She stroked Angela's hair, trying to exude strength. This would pa.s.s, she rea.s.sured herself. It had before. Angela would never refuse to go to Cannon Street, especial y for Christmas. Would never make her choose between families. She kissed her hair, then her cheek, her neck, saying, "I love you, Angie, it'l be al right."

Angela went stiff, thrust her arms straight out, and pushed her away. "I don't want to be kissed right now! The last thing I want is that. Leave me alone."

The bedroom door slammed and Jefferson sunk to the couch, stunned.

They'd gotten through it. The next week brought snow. From a window at the little print shop where she worked, she could see that the few boats bobbing against the marina docks were covered in it. She scrubbed at the deep ink stains on her fingers in the shop bathroom, then jogged through the splashing slush toward the station. At the beauty col ege, she leaned in the doorway and waved. "I'm late," she cal ed over the roar of dryers, glad there was no time to face Angela after last night. The big-eyed little baby d.y.k.e, Tam, who hung around the shop, total y crushed out on Angie, was out of high school for the day, sweeping the old wooden floor with her push broom. She waved, and Angela lifted shampoo-lathered hands from a customer's hair in greeting.

The conductor was used to Jefferson's wild dashes to catch the 3:22 and held his departure signal until she'd flung herself aboard. As soon as she hit her seat she opened her German text and began to translate. Would Margo be around to practice on today? She noticed a fingernail she hadn't gotten clean and worked at it with Jarvy's old penknife, which she'd found under the boards of their motorboat up at the lake.

Her monster cloud was with her, so she kept active, but it was bit by bit enveloping her. Between cla.s.ses she stood on some steps under the overhang of a building and watched the snow fal . The city, she breathed. She drank in the movement of the streets, wide and narrow. Now that the weather had slowed everything, the music of the city seemed louder. She seemed to hear it rush through her veins. It was crazy, she knew, to love such a large anonymous ent.i.ty, but the sounds of motors, of horns, of beckoning whistles, of the thrumming power plants of huge buildings-these, with the soft, nearly constant backup of her parents' record col ection or the cla.s.sical WQXR, had been her lul aby before they moved to Dutchess and when they came back to see a show or to shop. She'd never heard rain on her roof while growing up here, but watched the shine of its wetness transform the streets into winking pools of reds, yel ows, greens. The sight was both exciting and comforting, ful of promises that could not be kept elsewhere.

She ducked into the student center to remove her soaked shoes and socks and warm her feet by a radiator. Dinner was her usual special-of-the-day bowl of cafeteria soup, with a rol and b.u.t.ter, spiced by the growing thril of being back in the city, of feeling as if she belonged in col ege, and of her daily al otment of independence. She loved having her Dutchess nest and loved Angela, except for how quirky she was being these days, but plunging into Manhattan four days a week had ended her exile. The city would keep its promises now. She would find a way to balance dejection with joy.

She stifled yawns through an introductory education course. Out the fourth-story window the snowflakes seemed larger and faster. She'd never had trouble traveling to Dutchess after school, but it hadn't snowed like this for years. If she made it, would she be able to return for Margo's cla.s.s tomorrow night?

She wasn't inventing an excuse to see Margo as she gal oped down the stairs and into another building. She needed the a.s.signment for the weekend in case she got stuck.

As always, a few students waited after cla.s.s to speak with Margo. Jefferson caught her eye. Did Margo stop dawdling then? Jefferson wrote the a.s.signment in her book and they walked together into snow-muted streets, ankle-deep in the cold, wet stuff.

"Do you want to stop for coffee?" she asked. Always before they had gone for coffee with a group of students.

Laughing, Margo clasped her arm. "I must get home to feed Hermann."

"Hermann?" Jefferson asked, fearing the worst.

"My marmalade cat. Want to meet her?"

"You mean now?" She felt about twelve in al her self-conscious awkwardness.

The street was so brightly lit a spotlight might have been focused on it, yet its shadowed doorways were deep, as if hiding secrets.

"You are worrying about your train," Margo said, and gave a liquid shout of laughter that seemed to climb toward the rooftops. "I thought you had heard the radio reports. A train derailed. Penn Station is fil ed with people who should have been whisked home hours ago. Come, we'l cal the railroad from my apartment, find out if you're stranded."

So Jefferson walked through the unreal city at Margo's side, making herself slow to match smal Margo's pace. She felt rudderless, knowing what she should do, but having no wil to do it and no one to help her turn away from the blooming, doomed excitement inside her. Cars and trucks had al but disappeared. It was as if a party had been cancel ed and no one had notified her and Margo. They were the last revelers, looking for a celebration. She should go to the station at once, cal Angela, but being with Margo lifted her mood, and the snow would not stop decorating for the party. She let its dreamy spel embrace her.

Margo lit a candle, then another, using a streetlamp to find the way through her apartment. "I like this lighting better than electric bulbs, don't you?"

The shadows danced around them on the wal s. "Real y?" she asked. "You live in this light?"

"Not to grade papers." Margo walked close to Jefferson. "I don't think I'l be grading papers tonight."

Margo was tiny. She played with Jefferson's fingers. Jefferson said nothing, but her blood pumped and rushed and heated her unbearably.

"The phone is over here," Margo said, leading her to the kitchen table. The apartment was not a bad size for the city. Except for stacks of books and folders, it was neat. The dark furniture looked wel cared for, though far from new, al light blues and greens. Margo leafed through a phone book and read her the number. It was busy. They looked at each other across the table. Jefferson dialed again. Busy. Margo. Busy. Busy. Busy. Margo. Margo.

"Maybe Angie wil know."

"Angie," Margo said, as if weighing her chances against the unknown woman.

"I'l cal col ect."

"I'l go see a man about a dog."

When the bathroom door closed, she dialed. She had never cal ed home col ect before, and Angela accepted the cal with a panicked voice.

"I'm fine," Jefferson said immediately.

"I was afraid your cla.s.ses were canceled and you were on the early train! Do you know about the derailment? Where are you?"

"One of my teachers lives near the school. She let me use her phone. The radio says the railroad schedule is a mess."

"You make her let you stay there, baby. There hasn't been a train into Dutchess since the 3:06, and it was two and a half hours late. Even if you can get on a train in that mob scene you won't get to me until morning. Stay where it's safe and warm. I'l cal the shop for you. I don't think anything wil be open tomorrow anyway. The beauty school cancel ed cla.s.ses."

"You're okay?" She rubbed her jaw, as if that would m.u.f.fle her lies.

"Snug. Except I miss you. Dutchess lost power for a while, but it came back on. Wil she let you stay?"

"I don't see why not. She has a comfortable-looking couch."

"I'm so glad you're safe. We'd better get off. This must be costing a fortune. I love you."

"Me too, Angie." The needle on her moral compa.s.s flickered every which way.

She hadn't felt so cold since that last long summer in her grandparents' house. The birds. She hadn't thought of them in a long time. Did they ever stray from their own nests? Maybe, once in a great while another tree looked so appealing-what a sil y thought. Angie was fine. Whatever happened here was completely separate from what they had together.

Margo reentered the candlelit room. She had changed into a light green peignoir and richly blue robe. At home, both Angela and Jefferson wore pajamas.

"Angie said no trains are coming into the station at home."

"I'd be glad if you would stay the night, Ms. Jefferson."

Seeing Margo like this, heavy-breasted, at least ten years older than her, the apartment flickering like some den of seduction, fresh makeup giving Margo the florid face of a temptress in an opera, Jefferson said, "But I don't want to lose my job. I'd better try to get back."

She could see the al -too-familiar cost of rejection, quickly hidden, cross Margo's face. "What do you do?"

"I work in a smal print shop."

"Ah," Margo said, with her charming smile. "Always around books, this one."

"Oh, no. Nothing like that. Pamphlets, business cards, once in a while a smal gardening book or a guide to the river. Like that." Stil , it was gratifying to be thought of as a book person. She did not want to lose Margo's friendship. "You have a big library."

"Literature," Margo said, a hand sweeping across the room, "is my life."

Was she saying how lonely she was?

"I teach it, read it, write it. Dream it."

"You write?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

"No. I mean, I used to, a little, in high school. But things changed. There's no time for that."

"Stories? Poetry?"

She nodded, eyes down. "Poetry. Not very good."

"Love poetry."

She nodded again.

"To Angie."

Was she crazy to admit this? She gave a half-nod, watching Margo.

"Let me show you something." Margo found a file on her desk, looked at a few sheets of paper and extracted one, a poem, which she gave Jefferson to read. She was embarra.s.sed to get this glimpse into a teacher's private life.

"Margo, it's real poetry, you wrote this?"

"We were going to America at last. Our husbands had sent for us. Beirut was a nightmare. Marthe and I learned to take comfort with each other while our husbands were making homes for us in California. I wanted to keep flying, with Marthe, right over their heads and around the world back to Europe, nightmare or not. But war makes one practical. And impractical. I left him as soon as I could. Marthe felt too bound and stayed with her husband."

For some reason Jefferson imagined, at that moment, thousands of women al over the world leaving their Bogarts behind, confessing their love for one another and coming together in desperate, weeping relief, in want, in an erotic camaraderie against which she knew she had no resistance. She loved her own smal world, but tomboy that she was, she also loved to explore.

Without seeming to have moved her hand, she found Margo's breast cradled in it and she was kneading it. She tensed in antic.i.p.ation of rejection.

Instead, Margo's mouth opened and her breathing became audible, wetly rasping.

Winning an Olympic medal could not have made this more of a defining moment in Jefferson's life. It was the moment she learned the power of her longing and the power of her lesbian hands. Women, from now on, would come to her for touch. She didn't know if that was how it was for other lesbians, but for her-her mind leapt to the reality that she had a magnetic heat in her fingertips that pul ed them to her.

At the same time, she didn't want to make love to this greedy gnome of a woman; she didn't want to betray Angela. Margo, though, was al the al ure of the city and held the mystery of her future. She was desire come to life. Jefferson abhorred her and couldn't resist her, was compel ed to embrace Margo, the exotic night, even while longing for the daylight of Angela.

Despite herself, she would be nothing in the world at times but a flammable longing for each woman she desired. If one wanted more she couldn't give it to her because the longing would not stop with her. The longing would be an ent.i.ty al its own, not attached to a specific woman, never satisfied.

She would bring her desire to her lovers like a gift packaged up in herself, tied up with the velvet ribbon of her hands. Their coming together would be the climax for her, o.r.g.a.s.m no more than a physical release, each woman's response her reward.

Jefferson silenced Margo with an open, wet mouth. Her rushing blood blotted out al but their sounds and the candlelight and thoughts of anything but her desire. Her whole being was centered in her hands, and the only sensation in the world was her pounding blood and the raging heat. No feelings of despair would dare a.s.sault her now. It was so good to have the heat back after Angie's recent coldness. Nothing mattered but pressing this soft new body, her first adult woman's body, to her own. Margo thrust her hips forward and Jefferson ground her pelvis into Margo's. She was crazy with hunger for this woman of the city, her fingers ful of the poetry they'd recited, immemorial sap rising until she no longer could distinguish Margo's cries from her own.

Chapter Nine.