10 Fifteen Years

For fifteen years they were a couple: Lorna and Melony. They were set in their ways. Once the young rebels of the women-only boardinghouse, they now occupied the choicest rooms-with the river view-and they served as superintendents to the building for a consideration regarding their rent. Melony was handy. She had learned plumbing and electricity at the shipyard where she was one of a staff of three electricians. (The other two were men, but they never messed with Melony; no one ever would.)

Lorna became more domestic. She lacked the concentration for advanced training at the shipyard, but she remained an employee-'Stay on for the pension plan,' Melony had advised her. Lorna actually liked the assembly-line monotony, and she was smart about signing up for the overtime pay shifts-she was willing to work at odd hours if she could work less. Her being out late bothered Melony.

Lorna became increasingly feminine. She not only wore dresses (even to work) and used more makeup and perfume (and watched her weight); her voice, which had once been harsh, actually softened and she developed a smile (especially when she was being criticized). Melony found her increasingly passive.

As a couple, they rarely fought because Lorna would not fight back. In fifteen years, she had discovered that Melony relented if there wasn't a struggle; given any resistance, Melony would never quit. {552}

'You don't fight fair,' Melony would occasionally complain.

'You're much bigger than I am,' Lorna would say coyly.

An understatement. By 195-, when Melony was forty-something (no one knew exactly how old she was), she weighed one hundred seventy-five pounds. She was five feet eight inches tall; she was almost fifty inches around at her chest, which meant that she wore men's shirts (large; anything smaller than a seventeen-inch neck wouldn't fit her; because her arms were short, she always had to roll up the sleeves). She had a thirty-six-inch waist, but only a twenty-eight-inch inseam (which meant that she had to roll up the cuffs of her trousers or have Lorna shorten them). Melony's pants were always so tight across her thighs that they quickly lost their crease there, but they were very baggy in the seat- Melony was not fat-assed, and she had the nondescript hips of most men. She had small feet, which always hurt her.

In fifteen years she'd been arrested only once-for fighting. Actually, the charge was assault, but in the end she was stuck with nothing more damaging than a disturbance of the peace. She'd been in the ladies' room of a pizza bar in Bath when some college boy had tried to engage Lorna in conversation. When he saw Melony take her place beside Lorna at the bar, he whispered to Lorna, 'I don't think I could find anyone for your friend.' He was imagining a possible double-date situation.

'Speak up!' Melony said. 'Whispering is impolite.'

'I said, I don't think I could find a date for you,'the boy said boldly.

Melony put her arm around Lorna and cupped her breast.

'I couldn't find a sheep dog that would hold still for you,' Melony told the college boy.

'Fucking dyke,' he said as he was leaving. He thought he'd spoken quietly enough-and strictly to impress the {553} shipyard workers at the far end of the bar; he couldn't have known that the men were Melony's co-workers. They held the college boy while Melony broke his nose with a metal napkin container.

The way that Melony liked to fall asleep was with her big face on Lorna's tight bare belly; Lorna could always tell when Melony had fallen asleep because of the change in Melony's breathing, which Lorna could feel against her pubic hair. In fifteen years, there was only one night when Lorna had to ask her friend to move her heavy head before she had soundly fallen asleep.

'What is it? You got cramps?' Melony asked.

'No, I'm pregnant,'Lorna said. Melony thought it was a joke until Lorna went into the bathroom to be sick.

When Lorna came back to bed, Melony said, 'I want to try to understand this, calmly. We've been like a married couple for fifteen years, and now you're pregnant.' Lorna curled herself into a ball around one of the pillows; she covered her head with the other pillow. Her face and her stomach and her private parts were protected, but still she trembled; she began to cry. 'I guess what you're telling me,' Melony went on, 'is that when women are fucking each other, it takes a lot longer for one of them to get pregnant than when a woman is fucking some guy. Right?' Lorna didn't answer her; she just went on sniveling. 'Like about fifteen years-like that long. It takes fifteen years for women to get pregnant when they're just fucking other women. Boy, that's some effort,' Melony said.

She went to the window and looked at the view of the Kennebec; in the summer, the trees were so leafy that the river was hard to see. She let a summer breeze dry the sweat on her neck and chest before she started packing.

'Please don't go-don't leave me,' Lorna said; she was still all balled up on the bed.

'I'm packing up your things,' Melony said. 'I'm not the one who's pregnant. I don't have to go nowhere.'

'Don't throw me out,' Lorna said miserably. 'Beat me, but don't throw me out.' {554}

'You take the train to Saint Cloud's. When you get there, you ask for the orphanage,' Melony told her friend.

'It was just a guy-just one guy, and it was just once!' Lorna cried.

'No, it wasn't,' Melony said. 'A guy gets you pregnant fast. With women, it takes fifteen years.'

When she had packed up Lorna's things, Melony stood over the bed and shook her friend, who tried to hide under the bedcovers. 'Fifteen years!' Melony cried. She shook Lorna, and shook her, but that was all she did to her. She even walked Lorna to the train. Lorna looked very disheveled, and it was only the early morning of what would be a wilting summer day.

'I ask for the orphanage?' Lorna asked numbly. In addition to her suitcase, Melony handed Lorna a large carton.

'And you give this to an old woman named Grogan- if she's still alive,' Melony said. 'Don't say nothing to her, just give it to her. And if she's dead, or not there anymore,' Melony started to say; then she stopped. 'Forget that,' she said. 'She's either there or she's dead, and if she's dead, bring the carton back. You can give it back to me when you pick up the rest of your stuff.'

'The rest of my stuff?' Lorna said.

'I was faithful to you. I was loyal as a dog,' Melony said, more loudly than she'd meant to speak, because a conductor looked at her strangely-as if she were a dog. 'You see somethin' you want, shit-face?' Melony asked the conductor.

'The train is about to leave,' he mumbled.

'Please don't throw me out,' Lorna whispered to Melony.

'I hope you have a real monster inside you,' Melony told her friend. 'I hope it tears you to pieces when they drag it out your door.'

Lorna fell down in the aisle of the train, as if she'd been punched, and Melony left her in a heap. The conductor {555} helped Lorna to her feet and into her seat; out the window of the moving train, he watched Melony walking away. That was when the conductor noticed that he was shaking almost as violently as Lorna.

Melony thought about Lorna arriving in St. Cloud's -that turd of a stationmaster (would he still be there?), that long walk uphill with her suitcase and the large carton for Mrs. Grogan (could Lorna make it?), and would the old man still be in the business? She'd not been angry for fifteen years, but now here was another betrayal and Melony pondered how readily her anger had returned; it made all her senses keener. She felt the itch to pick apples again.

She was surprised that it was not with vengeance that she thought of Homer Wells. She remembered how she'd first loved having Lorna as a pal-in part, because she could complain to Lorna about what Homer had done to her. Now Melony imagined she'd like to complain about Lorna to Homer Wells.