In September 1977, the nineteen-year-old Jefferson stood at the dormitory's back door, watching her father lift his now-heavy body behind the wheel of his Cadil ac. After cramming al summer to finish her first freshman term as a commuter, she was a second-semester freshman moving into a dormitory wel after the rest of her cla.s.s, and her parents had driven her, with al her luggage, past the stil -green leaves along the roads, down to school. On their way home, they would stop for dinner and her father would have his first drink, then a second, both doubles. He'd excuse himself, and on the way to the men's room he'd pa.s.s the bar, order another, and quickly down it before returning to the table, where he would order a fourth. That might be enough to get him home to Dutchess.

Emmy came back to the dorm door to hug her one last time, as if to make up for al the missed hugs and misunderstandings between them. Jefferson didn't expect her mother to understand her. How could a straight parent imagine what went on with a gay kid, how could a mom like hers get it when her daughter's only interest was sports, when she didn't date boys or chatter or giggle or indulge in long fashion talks? The poor woman had no idea she'd been living with a husband who fooled with men and a daughter who loved girls.

"What is wrong with you?" Emmy had many times demanded to know, as she'd demanded the same of her husband, but much less often and much more timorously, when the evidence of his runaway drinking compel ed her to confront it. Jarvy never went to the opera or the theater with Emmy these days; Emmy went with her mother. Jefferson remembered so clearly how her parents had doted on each other until the last few years when Emmy stopped drinking. Their doctor found liver damage in both of them. Jarvy ignored it. Before that they'd had their own world of two, and Jefferson had felt in the way more than she hadn't. How old were they? Maybe Jarvy was having his midlife crisis, what with his thinning hair and wide waistline and his rendezvous at the railroad station. Today, this last buffer between Emmy and her problems was vanishing.

Jefferson accepted the hug stiffly, although one part of her wanted to cry out in terror, "Don't leave me here alone!" But evidence of dependence on her part only upset Emmy and, of course, they weren't going to coddle her more than they ever had.

What was wrong with her? Part of her believed in her strength and talent, and was certain of success; the other half cowered, consumed by fear and self-doubt as she listened to Emmy chatter about how hard she'd find col ege because she was such a poor student and only wanted to play children's games; how difficult she'd find being away from home after her failed attempt to live on her own with that hair person; how il -equipped she was for life -hard, hard life-why hadn't Jefferson listened to her warnings? She felt like the whipping boy for whatever Emmy was going through with Jarvy.

While she'd stil lived with them, Emmy's words had battered her til she was heavy with fear. She'd watched every nuance of every move either made -how he drank, how she feared his drinking. She'd done a lot of cowering that last year of high school, hoping he wouldn't pound down another drink, and scared, so scared that when he did, Emmy would protest and bring on the blowup, the final confrontation. Prayed, though she didn't believe in prayer, that Emmy never found out about the men he saw. And cowered final y, in terror of her life, in the dark backseat of the car, knowing that neither she nor her mother could control their fates with Mr. Jefferson at the wheel of the box of steel, weaving his way between the dotted lines as if they were his only guides through life. Would her mother make it to Dutchess tonight?

"If you need to, Amelia, you can come home to us. There are lots of good schools in the area."

"I'l remember," she a.s.sured Emmy, thinking, you have lost your ever-loving mind to suggest it, wanting to shout, Stop it! Stop feeding my fears with yours!

If only... Al her life she'd treasured the memory of the nurse at her pediatrician's office holding her against her soft pil ow of a bosom while the doctor gave little Amelia one shot or another. She had never felt anything so comforting. If only it was a mother like that nurse-not this woman, leaving her among strangers-she could take on anything.

She treasured her talented body, but her parents were suspicious of women athletes-weren't they al , or most, h.o.m.os.e.xual? Jefferson had the normal teenage disdain for the ignorance of parents and despised her father for his hypocrisy. Not only was it wrong in their eyes for her to be an athlete, her error was compounded by being gay. She couldn't defend the one or ignore the other, and she endured their disapproval as if it were a blow, sometimes longing to obliterate the body that gave her joy yet caused her so much grief with its wil ful ways.

She tried to stand tal against their disapproval, against Emmy's dire predictions. Stil screaming inside-I'm not afraid! Why would I want to return to you?-she stared at the ground until her mother reached the car. Like Jarvy, Jefferson would not show her fear. She would not cry. She would not breathe.

Fear could eat you alive. Look at Mrs. Jefferson, too scared to admit something was wrong in her marriage, scared she would lose her husband every minute she was in it, no idea of what had happened to destroy the bubble of love that had sustained her. The heritage of her mother's, and father's, fears could eat Jefferson alive too.

The car pul ed away and Jefferson waved. In a minute she would breathe. In a minute she would cry. Soon she wouldn't feel the fear. It would leave with those who'd taught it to her, who'd depended on it to keep her in line, keep her from disrupting their lives. As the car turned the corner her father honked, twice, cheerful y free to head toward a drink. He must, she thought, drink to blot out the knowledge that he was gay and the guilt of his betrayals.

Her mother, she knew, was smothering tears, riding back toward life alone with her alcoholic, leaving behind Jefferson, their strange failure, afraid that if she cried Mr. Jefferson would only stop sooner for dinner to shut her up.

Jefferson felt as if the scream she'd m.u.f.fled before was slipping from her body. A scream of protest at the life they'd go on living and that, in growing up with them, had become part of her. A scream of abandonment. They had taught her to live in the world only as they had. How could they leave her with so little? She hadn't been able to keep things together for Angela, who was rooted in Dutchess, while Jefferson had discovered that Dutchess and Angela were too smal for her.

But she didn't scream. Or cry or breathe much differently or lose the fear. She felt a flash of excitement, sheer triumph that she was free of them at last. She tried to give herself to it. She stood tal and moved to shrug off the fear and silence, but both had been with her much too long, and once more her shoulders sagged. The city roared around her like a lion after her blood. The only sounds here were of dogs barking, mothers cal ing. It didn't smel like fal here; there weren't enough trees. It smel ed like busses and perfumes and the nearby trash basket. Angela wasn't home waiting for her like a devoted puppy. That life was gone and she needed to learn the new rules. She was glad to be away from the moldy riverside apartment where one thing or another was always on the fritz. She'd yearned for the adventures she imagined the city would supply. Here it was okay to be herself, to be gay. She knew she'd be good at both. She lunged up the stairs to her room.

The dorm was two blocks from what would become her favorite coffee shop, the Lunchbox. She got in the habit of having lunch there, sometimes crunching along the packed-snow sidewalks, partly to avoid dining-hal food, but more because she could soak up the affectionate informality of the crew.

"Another adopted daughter," Sam the cook and owner said one day not long after she moved into the dorm. He was smiling down at Gladys. At six- foot-six, he had al the appliances in the Lunchbox kitchen built to accommodate him. "What would you do, Glad, without your educated orphans?"

"Get a job someplace decent."

Jefferson felt special, privileged to be Glad's new orphan and a part of this cheerful semi-family. Gladys was lavish with praise and admiration. Her banter with Sam would have made a good comedy routine at one of the local night spots.

Col ege began to acquire the comfort of routine. Sports brightened her days. She had found the bars where, instead of fighting off her monster depression alone at the dorm, or cal ing Angela up and apologizing for hours for not being what she wanted to be for her, she could drink with gays at night. The morning after, Glad was usual y there with that smile.

One of those mornings, Jefferson stumbled in with a very black eye.

Glad raised an eyebrow. Her youngest, Gus, in a Yankees cap, was hanging around the restaurant shooting at customers with a toy rifle. "Out," she told him when he'd worked himself into a noisy frenzy. "Go shoot the tourists." He seemed to like that idea and rushed through the door. Jefferson had stayed at school for the break, to play bal , and carouse, and to avoid Angie and her parents' world. "Wel ?" Glad asked.

"Would you believe I got mugged?"

"No," Gladys said, sweeping away to another customer.

Jefferson had dreaded this moment for months. She could not truthful y explain her eye without talking about her gayness, but what good was this connection with Glad if she couldn't? She watched her clear a booth, noticed the wrinkles going deeper and deeper into Glad's skin. Glad's age touched her. She couldn't think about losing her some day. At the thought, fear, magnified by last night's liquor, grabbed hold of her.

"Glad, I didn't mean to and I'm not real y like that, but unfortunately I got in a fight," she said on impulse. She'd learned to blot out her fear, sometimes with liquor, sometimes with recklessness. If she pushed Glad away now by coming out to her, she wouldn't have to fear losing her later. Like when she drank, she couldn't turn back. Her hands reached to Glad, but she pul ed them back. No touching, she told herself. She was coming out to Gladys-she couldn't choose a worse time for her lesbian hands to touch a straight woman. Was this why her father drank, to ease the tension of continual self-control, to keep the monster of his gay self in a cage? She wouldn't live like that. She clenched her fists and plunged on. "I was drinking in a gay bar."

Glad didn't bat an eye.

Jefferson's smile felt like melted wax hardened across her face. She rubbed her tight knuckles against the pale blue coffee mug. "I've been hanging out with this girl. Her high-school girlfriend showed up drunk. They're from Staten Island. The little slimebal started shouting and shoving. I told her to calm down. Before I knew it she popped me one."

"I hope you popped her back," Glad said, eyes twinkling. She ma.s.saged one of Jefferson's hands and opened it, finger by finger, til it relaxed.

Jefferson licked her dry lips, let herself breathe. "You don't care?"

"Who, me? Why should I care who you're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g?"

Jefferson felt herself blush to hear it put that way, with Glad's usual bluntness. Her acceptance was so simple, like a gift; so natural, like a mother's love. Not for the first time in this coffee shop tears came to her eyes.

"Jef, poor Sam's going to go broke supplying you with napkins."

"Hey," she said, gulping. "I never cry."

"You could have fooled me, kid."

"Except here," she corrected herself, giving Gladys an embarra.s.sed little smile.

Chapter Ten.

Margo was unlike anyone Jefferson had ever known. A year after they met she was exciting, an exotic foreigner, intel ectual y chal enging in a way that had never before interested Jefferson, s.e.xual y demanding-and knew more than she had imagined could be done with a body. She felt like she could do a master's thesis on lesbian s.e.x after the first few months of stolen nights she spent with Margo. The woman liked everything and anything and then some.

She had p.o.r.no pictures and a deck of dirty tarot cards and books.

Yet more and more Jefferson felt sick to her stomach after leaving Margo's infrequently washed bed linens to attend a cla.s.s. She was nostalgic for Angela's loving and considerate desire, while Margo was al about exciting herself to o.r.g.a.s.m as often as possible. Margo made her feel like a fantastic lover, and it was true that she was learning a lot, but, geeze, Margo, she wanted to say, could you cal me by name now and then so I don't feel interchangeable with every other d.y.k.e in New York? Once in a while she had to go out with girls her own age, if only to show off what she now knew and to enjoy their relative innocence.

It was a relief to spend time with her new friend Lily Ann Lee. They could talk for hours about anything in their stil -young universes. Lily Ann was the one she went to when she felt too down to function. Lily Ann showed her a nearby playground. She taught her real handbal , not the kid stuff she was used to in the Dutchess parking lot against the wal of a furniture store.

The two of them were so different: Lily Ann in dresses and makeup when she wasn't playing bal , Jefferson in slacks, tailored shirts, and snazzy vests; Jefferson wel -off, Lily Ann poor; Jefferson from Dutchess County, Lily Ann from Harlem; Jefferson Caucasian, Lily Ann African American; Jefferson gay, Lily Ann straight, or so Lily Ann thought. Lily Ann hadn't figured herself out yet. Jefferson teased Lily Ann about it, but the woman was steadfast in her attraction to guys. Something in Jefferson made her want to save Lily Ann from a het life. The very thought of her with a man seemed so wrong that she was tempted to bring Lily Ann out herself, but she feared losing her friendship by making a move.

One fal Sat.u.r.day night Margo was out of town, lecturing at a Canadian university again. She couldn't help but wonder if Margo had a student in every port. As it happened, Lily Ann's date was a no-show. They went downtown together through an autumn chil as crisp as a McIntosh apple, to see an old movie in a Fred Astaire retrospective.

"Hey," she said with some excitement as they exited the building, her fists in the pockets of her quilted down vest. "I had no idea you were an Astaire fan."

"One or two of you pink folks can dance pretty fairly."

"Kind of you to notice," she replied, then, as they turned onto Greene Street, hunched against some lively breezes and spurred with enthusiasm brought on by the dancing in the film, she flung her arms out and swung around and around, singing "Isn't This a Lovely Day?" She danced the short way to the corner, then back to Lily Ann and bowed.

"Lovely day? I am freezing my ears off, you fool," Lily Ann said, stamping her feet and breathing puffy clouds from her mouth as she spoke.

Jefferson said, "I have a solution for that."

"What, a pair of earm.u.f.fs?"

She put her always-hot hands over each of Lily Ann's ears and sang "Dancing Cheek to Cheek."

Lily Ann laughed until Jefferson thought she was a bit hysterical, so she danced in front of her, leading her friend by her covered ears. Lily Ann laughed herself into Jefferson's arms. It was only a minute before their cheeks real y were pressed together, with one of Jefferson's hands stil warming Lily Ann's free ear.

"Ooh, you're toasty," Lily Ann exclaimed.

Jefferson put her arms around her and swayed them to the music right there under the lamplight of Greene Street. When she let Lily Ann go, they hurried to the subway arm in arm.

Jefferson had no plans, but she couldn't think of anything to say to break their silence except, "You want to see our place in town?"

"You have a place in town and you live at the dorm?" asked Lily Ann, who had been fascinated by Jefferson's description of her parents' and grandparents' large homes in Dutchess.

She felt guilty about her family's financial comfort. "Real y, the place is smal and they don't want me around when they come to town."

Lily Ann stretched out her long legs. "Sure. I'd love to see how the other half lives, J."

"We need to switch at Times Square to go up to the West Side."

"I was going to have to do that anyway to go on home. I'm surprised your place isn't on the East Side."

"It's my grandparents' apartment. They got it before World War Two."

The train hummed beneath them. The subway stops were fluorescent possibilities. The intense antic.i.p.ation that thinking of making love instil ed in Jefferson was beginning to bud. Nothing brought her into focus more than a woman who wanted her. Something about being desired, having someone want her gay self made her light up inside like the Christmas tree at Rockefel er Center. She was s.e.xual energy incarnate by then, driven to give Angie or Margo or whoever appealed to her the greatest pleasures of her life.

What would Lily Ann be like? She imagined her to be a pa.s.sive powerhouse who could go as long as she could and give as much as she did-a pa.s.sionate woman of few words, like herself. Margo always wanted to talk about how a new position felt, what they should do next. She had the Kama Sutra and showed Jefferson pictures. She wanted to try everything, by the book, and to experience things inside her that Jefferson, if she could have bought them, would not use. Margo was queer, she said, because she didn't like the way men were made.

Why was Jefferson so sure Lily Ann wanted this? She couldn't say. She'd had the same instinct with Angela and Margo. Her breathing was shal ow.

She felt a little sick to her stomach again, but more like she was scared or overexcited. Nothing else in her life gave her this sensation. Was it some kind of lesbian chemistry? Was she afraid Lily Ann wasn't reacting the same way? Was she thril ed to death that she would be making love again? Did it matter who with? Did other gay women experience this state of excitement? She couldn't ask a lover. She'd tried to find information in books, but no one had written anything, and she had no lesbian friends to question.

By the time they shuttled over to the A line, the next symptom of seduction appeared: she was trembling. She was physical y uncomfortable but never felt better emotional y than at moments like this. Her storm clouds vaporized. Her antic.i.p.ation was better than drinking, better than the actual s.e.x. She was a wire pul ed taut, strung over the canyons of the city, vibrating. She wasn't trembling so much as vibrating.

Her mind shut down. She was only her body. Out on the cold street again, as they strode, two strong, tal , free women, she caught Lily Ann's handbal - cal used hand, larger than her own. Lily Ann let her and she wanted to crow. They shared no nervous chatter, no hesitation. Lily Ann seemed to know Jefferson was hers that night and she was Jefferson's. At one point Lily Ann stopped and pointed up. The moon was a bright half circle with one star its companion. Jefferson breathed so deeply the cold air tore at her throat. She pul ed the scarf from around her neck and wrapped it around Lily Ann's.

When they walked again she didn't need to take Lily Ann's hand, but as they turned the corner, Lily Ann slipped it into the crook of Jefferson's elbow.

In the elevator, she smiled at Lily Ann, so they wouldn't lose the connection. She couldn't read her face, but her eyes were golden with some kind of light she'd never seen in them before.

The apartment was dark. She lit only the smal lamp in the foyer. She hung their coats in the closet, weighing the risk of putting an LP on the hi-fi. She didn't know how committed Lily Ann was to what they were about to do. She had to avoid missteps or the mood could vanish.

Lily Ann had moved through the dark living room to look through a window at the corner of moon that peeked above the roof of a new high-rise.

"Lil." She used her softest voice. "Shal we dance some more?"

Lily Ann wore a soft-looking sweater the shade of fiery orange sunsets. She held out her arms. She was light and fol owed Jefferson's hummed rendition of "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" as if an orchestra was playing. It was amazing how feminine a six-foot woman could be.

Jefferson danced them to the big bed in her parents' room. The moon seemed to be craning over the high-rise to light their way. Jefferson, both of Lily Ann's hands in her own, guided them into seated positions on the edge of the bed. She'd never had to reach up to kiss a woman before and was very aware that Lily Ann was probably used to men tal er than herself. Certainly the men she'd seen her with on campus were at least her height.

With the tips of her fingers, she felt the bones and soft flesh of her friend's face. Lily Ann tipped her head back, eyes closed, and moved slowly into her fingers until the palms of her hands cupped Lily Ann's cheeks and she could pul their faces toward each other. Lily Ann's lips were wide, soft, infinitesimal y responsive to her own hot but restrained kiss. And then they fel back onto the bed, legs immediately entwining, b.r.e.a.s.t.s to b.r.e.a.s.t.s, lips to lips.

She hadn't realized how very much she wanted Lily Ann. Bits of their nearly al -night conversations came to her as they kissed, barely breathing, then gasping between kisses, for a marathon amount of time. She remembered how intense their communications sometimes became, how they'd laugh together until they were immobilized with mirth, their eyes running tears. And now, as always when she first made love to a woman, a kind of exaltation brimmed up in her. The people who thought gay love was awful would never imagine how spiritual she felt at these moments, how outside herself yet merged with her lover and with some universal power that dwarfed them and gave them love's energy.

During lovemaking, Jefferson stil tended toward silence. Margo got boisterous; sometimes the neighbors banged on the wal . Angie had been chatty, joking and laughing during foreplay and immediately after o.r.g.a.s.m. Jefferson's own silence came from focusing on them, on the ecstatic dance of giving them pleasure.

Lily Ann was silent too. There was only the sound of kissing and, now, the rustling of sheets as Jefferson guided her into a more accessible position.

That was when Lily Ann hesitated.

"What's going on here, J? I think I like this. It never occurred to me that I might."

"Kind of surprised me too," she answered, meeting her eyes.

Now that it was happening, who else, she thought, but a best friend would she be drawn to? Lesbians might have greater access to women, but men did not have to make a secret of being who they were and for sure didn't have to hide their desires. It was expected, demanded, that a man make a play for a woman who vaguely appealed, and men seemed to desire them al , including Jefferson, who turned down requests for dates with incredulous laughter.

Society, she thought, says I'm not supposed to have these feelings. How can anyone dictate what feelings I should have? Lesbians, she concluded, could be parched, perishing of desire, and were compel ed to lock their longing inside themselves where it ricocheted around, bruising heart, ego, and soul until, she thought, it was no wonder so many kil ed themselves or went a bit nuts.

It hurt to swal ow her own desires. They became toxic and she felt guilty al the time about them, as if she were contemplating something enormously more appal ing than attraction-ma.s.s murder, perhaps, or matricide. Not love. The feelings were immutable and had been there long before she had a name for them.

She remembered, again, the excitement of watching Emmy prepare for evenings out with her father and the thudding of her heart as she sat in the tunnel of bedclothes she'd made with Cynthia before their mothers forbade it. So when something like this happened-Margo, Lily Ann-the emotional release, though shal ow with Margo, was powerful enough for her to confuse it with her hormonal drive. She thought she was feeling love, but sometimes suspected that unbearable desire was a trickster in love's clothing.

Was she in love with Lily Ann? Was she doing her harm? Was she put on earth to introduce lesbians to themselves? One by one, the bodies were piling up, and she carried both great guilt and great pride that she had been chosen to be gay, each emotion engaged with the other in unceasing warfare inside her.

"Does this mean," Lily Ann asked, "I'm, you know, queer?"

Jefferson smiled, stil not touching her. "That remains to be seen."

"You know I'm a virgin."

"You never told me, Lily Ann."

"Are you?"

"You are gorgeous, Lil. You know that?"

"It sounds to me like someone is changing the subject."

She laughed and smiled in her confident way. "It's not something I ever cared about. I wouldn't think so."