“No.”
“I gotta see her?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But remember that, in the end, horrible as she has been, when she understood that she was putting your life in danger, she came down out of the trees.”
Millicent nodded. There was no warmth in the nod.
“I don’t like her,” Millicent said.
“I don’t blame you. What I’d like, though, if you could, would be that you’d agree to let her visit you maybe once in a while for an hour.”
“No.”
“With me present,” I said.
Millicent shook her head.
“Okay. Maybe later you’ll change your mind.” I smiled. “It’s supposed to be our prerogative.”
“Who?”
“Women,” I said.
“Like us,” Millicent said.
“Yes.”
She sat for a long time staring at the countertop.
“I guess I’ll do it if you think I should,” she said.
“I do,” I said. “But sooner or later you’re going to have to decide things because you think you should.”
“How can I do that,” Millicent said. She raised her head and stared straight at me. Her eyes were glistening with tears. “I don’t know anything.”
“You know one of the hard things about being a woman,” I said, “is having some built-in compass that doesn’t depend on others.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Millicent said.
“When you’re talking to a male,” I said. “And you want to urge him to do the right thing you can say, ‘Be a man.’”
Millicent nodded. Her eyes still shiny. No tears ran. But they didn’t go away either.
“That implies some rules of behavior that come from inside,” I said. “But if I tell you that maybe your goal is to be a woman, that implies what? Being compassionate? Being a good caregiver? Being sexually attractive? Cooking well?”
I was surprised at what I was saying, and how strongly I was saying it. I felt like Simone de Beauvoir.
“Being a woman implies being in a male context,” I said. “Being a man implies being fully yourself. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I don’t know,” Millicent said. The tears that had filled her eyes were running down her face now. She bent over and picked Rosie up and held her in her lap and hugged her. Rosie lapped Millicent’s face. Yum. Salt.
“I guess,” Millicent said with her voice shaking, “I just want to be like you, Sunny.”
For a moment I thought I might cry, too.
“Excellent choice,” I said.
I leaned forward and put my arms around her. It gave Rosie a chance to lap both our faces. Which she did.
Chapter 60
We were naked and profoundly contumescent. In the darkness, in Richie’s bed, we lay together with his arm around my shoulder and my head against his chest.
“A long time coming,” Richie said.
“Nice choice of words,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Where do we go from here?”
“I wish I knew.”
“I know some things we don’t want to do,” Richie said.
“Like?”
“Like rush out and get married.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t want to do that.”
“Doesn’t mean we won’t do it again someday.”
“Well,” I said. “We did it once.”
I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but I could feel Richie smile.
“What would you like?” Richie said.
I was quiet. I felt the way Millicent must have. What in God’s name did I want?
“I want to live the way I do,” I said.
“Alone?”
“Alone, paint, be a detective, take care of Rosie, get my degree.”
“Okay,” Richie said.
“I don’t need your permission,” I said.
Again in the dark I could feel him smile.
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
“I can’t imagine a life for me,” I said, “that doesn’t have you in it.”
“Good.”
I remembered it all as I lay there. How his skin smelled, how the hair on his chest felt, how his beard scraped a little even if he had just shaved. I felt the stillness in him.
“I can’t imagine,” I said again.
“I could be your boyfriend,” Richie said.
“Exclusive?” I said.
“Why don’t we let each of us decide how we want to be,” Richie said.
Jesus Christ. He had never said anything like that before. I was very careful.
“You mean I could date somebody else?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I could, too.”
I felt the shimmer of jealousy tingle through my chest.
“I don’t know if that will work,” I said.
“If it doesn’t we’ll modify it,” Richie said. “Be good to start this time with no rules.”
“You were the one with the rules last time,” I said.
“Now I’m not,” Richie said.
Richie’s place was on the waterfront. In the stillness I could hear the movement of the ocean outside the picture window.
“Remember how we used to go out every Wednesday night?”
“Yes.”
“We could do that.”
“Yes.”
“And spend the weekends together,” I said. “Like we used to?”
“That would work for me,” Richie said.
“And what happens other days?” I said.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“Think this will work?”
“We’ll make it work. I can’t imagine life without you either.”
I rolled up onto his chest and put my lips so they brushed his.
“You’re smart for a gangster,” I said.
“I’m not a gangster.”
“You’re smart anyway,” I said.
“Smarter than I was,” Richie said.
Then I kissed him and closed my eyes, and the darkness was all there was.