The Truth About Lorin Jones

8

ON A CLOUDY, SNOW-SOILED afternoon a week before Thanksgiving, Polly Alter strode into her sitting room with wet feet, damp windblown hair, and a heavy flat brown-paper package, which she placed carefully on the sofa. She peeled off her sodden coat and boots and flung them into the hall closet. Then she cut open the parcel and drew out Lorin Jones’s gouache of the pond in Truro, now professionally matted and framed. She cleared the sitting-room mantel, removing some battered brass candlesticks and Jeanne’s pots of trailing begonias, and set the painting in their place. Finally she stepped back and stood square before it, hoping for a kind of miracle.

Since she’d gotten back from the Cape, Polly had been having serious trouble with her project. What she couldn’t get over, or around, or out from under, was that Lorin Jones had been immature and self-destructive and mean enough to leave her relatively decent husband without warning for a low-grade opportunist, stopping only to clean out their joint bank account. The more Polly thought about this the worse she liked it. Before she and Jim separated they had discussed the move for months, and they had split their assets fairly and equally. According to Garrett, the theft — you couldn’t call it anything else — had been Hugh Cameron’s idea; but that only meant that Lorin was weak and suggestible as well as sneaky.

The immediate problem was, how was Polly going to handle this episode in the biography? Was she going to be equally sneaky and leave it out? Or was she going to expose her subject as a deeply flawed personality?

Though Polly still loved Lorin Jones, she no longer admired her unreservedly. And the magical sense of identity with Lorin was gone. The visit to Wellfleet, the transcendent experience of being in Lorin’s landscape and home, the hovering presence of Lorin’s spirit, appeared to her now as a kind of false, fleeting enchantment; or in more prosaic psychological terms, a temporary delusion.

To believe oneself haunted by Lorin Jones, possessed by her ghost — that was getting in too deep even for a biographer; maybe especially for a biographer. But now Polly floundered in muddy shallows, where every day she felt Lorin drifting farther away from her, dissolving further into a damp, lifeless collection of facts, a clutter of other people’s faulty memories and prejudiced opinions. To make anything out of this lumpish amorphous mass — this pond-spawn — seemed a more and more difficult task. She no longer had any clear idea of who Lorin Jones had been, or what Lorin had thought or felt. Sometimes she was so baffled and depressed that she considered taking Lennie Zimmern’s advice: give up the idea of a biography and just do a study of the work, a modestly expanded version of the “Three American Women” catalogue.

The trouble was, she didn’t even feel sure about the work any longer. When she held her off-color slides up to the light, or stared at the uninspiring gray-and-white reproductions, she felt nothing; she could think of nothing new to say. Some days she plodded on only because she didn’t know how she’d explain it to her colleagues at the Museum and to the Foundation if she quit. Maybe the Foundation would want its money back.

The interviews she’d done lately had been mostly upsetting or useless. According to the last one, when Lorin Jones was in college she was almost a textbook schizophrenic. Assuming that wasn’t true — and there was no way of proving this — either Janet Belle Smith (who was, after all, a professional writer of fiction) had been making up stories, or else Lorin Jones had put on a crazy act for Ms. Smith out of some perverse sense of humor.

Jeanne had tried to help Polly through this period of doubt and anxiety, but she was still in a funk herself over her breakup with Betsy, and nothing she said seemed to help. The truth was, Jeanne didn’t really approve of Polly’s project, because she didn’t approve of individual biography as a genre. As a Marxist-feminist historian, she believed that it was counterproductive to write about atypical persons — so-called heroes and leaders. She preferred to analyze statistics, or investigate the lives of ordinary citizens. In her view, Polly had succumbed to the biographical fallacy — the old-fashioned patriarchal idea of history as “the lives of great men.” To extend this interest to “the lives of great women” was to play by male rules.

“Why not write my life?” Jeanne had joked last week, not for the first time. “Historically and sociologically speaking it’s just as significant as Lorin Jones’s. And you’d have a lot easier time collecting the data.” She laughed a little bitterly, perhaps with reference to the many times she had gone over the sad history of her affair with Betsy.

“That’s true, for sure,” Polly had said, also laughing. But she knew Jeanne wasn’t wholly kidding: like most of the people Polly had been interviewing, she really wanted Polly to pay attention to her and write about her instead of about Lorin Jones. Again, a sense of blocked communication and restless impatience washed over her.

Now, though, standing before the newly framed picture, Polly felt almost hopeful. The fireplace was cold and bare; it hadn’t worked since they’d moved in. But even in the gray indirect light that was all this room ever got, Lorin’s painting flickered and flamed rusty gold, fumous ochre, and steely blue. The flecks of color that suggested falling and swirling leaves seemed to tremble and flutter; those that suggested ripples on the surface of water shook and quivered. The canvas was alive with the dissolution and transformation of autumn, and with Lorin Jones’s passionate love of paint and of the natural world. Yes, Polly thought. This was the real thing: a work of genius. But what did it reveal about the woman who had created it?

She gazed until her eyes watered and the colors swam; until she felt herself standing in a storm of paint, no closer to an answer. Finally, dizzied, she turned away. She set Jeanne’s begonias on a windowsill and carried the candlesticks into the kitchen.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” she cried as she looked around. When she’d left that morning the room had been clean; now there were dirty dishes in the sink and crumbs on the table; the milk, eggs, bread, and jam had been left out, and the saucer of margarine was a viscid yellow pool with a dead fly in it. Before her quarrel with Betsy, Jeanne wouldn’t have left even an empty cup on the table; but depression had turned her slothful and scattered. “We broke up, that’s the phrase I use when people ask me,” she had said the other day. “But you know, for me it’s literal; I still feel as if I’d been smashed into pieces.” Polly’s anxiety about her book, meanwhile, had made her hyperactive, and impatient; no wonder they weren’t getting on as well as before.

Of course part of the trouble was sex. Since she returned from Wellfleet she and Jeanne had tried three times more to love and comfort each other, and it hadn’t quite worked. Polly felt loved but not satisfied, and Jeanne, it was clear, hadn’t really been comforted.

What Jeanne liked, it had turned out — or at least what she seemed to want and need now — was to kiss and cuddle and gently caress, to drift warmly and slowly toward and then away from a state of arousal without orgasm. No, she didn’t miss it, she had told Polly. The idea of a violent spasm rather revolted her, as a matter of fact; she’d often thought that it was mostly something men, with their more brutish and animal sexuality, had recently tried to foist on women. After all, for centuries nobody had ever talked about a female climax.

The trouble was, it wasn’t like that for Polly. At the beginning of each encounter she sighed and marveled at Jeanne’s silky rose-flushed skin, at her delicate, subtle strokes and fluttering, nibbling kisses. “Oh, that’s so lovely,” she would murmur, returning them with interest. “It’s you that’s lovely,” Jeanne would whisper, raising her pale loose curls from Polly’s thigh. But later on, when Polly started to really let go: to shout, to grip, to pant and thrash about, Jeanne would become still and draw back, looking at her friend with embarrassed concern, as if she were having some kind of fit.

For Jeanne too, it was clear, their encounters were not really satisfactory. There is a folk belief that men are melancholy after coitus; Polly hadn’t usually found this true; but Jeanne was always a little sad and silent afterward, though she tried to hide it. Polly would say, “Are you all right?” and Jeanne would answer, “Sure, I’m fine.” She was thinking about Betsy again, Polly suspected; but when asked about this Jeanne denied it.

The worst thing really, Polly thought, was that communication between them had begun to break down. For years, when they were just intimate friends, she and Jeanne had been able to tell each other everything. Now that they were intimate in another sense, they’d started concealing their thoughts and feelings from each other. Polly couldn’t tell anybody what was on her mind; she couldn’t even confide in her best friend, because Jeanne was her best friend, and if she knew how lonely and frustrated Polly sometimes felt after they had made love she would be hurt and miserable.

What Polly hoped was that once Jeanne had got over that stupid Betsy — who definitely didn’t deserve her — she would become more active and enthusiastic in bed, and happier afterward; not to mention more use around the house. If she didn’t, Polly didn’t know how long she could stand it.

Jeanne could have picked up before she left for the university, she growled to herself as she stood in the kitchen revolving these uncomfortable ideas. She knows how I hate mess. But if I mention it she’ll be cross and hurt. She’ll claim that she overslept and was late for work, or that she was restless and had an awful night — though she was snoring like a big tabby cat when I left.

But these thoughts were petty, unworthy of a true friend, let alone a lover. Polly shoved them aside. She cleaned up the kitchen — it only took a few minutes, after all — and dumped an ashtray full of Jeanne’s cigarette butts into the trash. Jeanne was supposed to be quitting smoking again, or at least cutting down, but as usual she was cheating. Finally she carried Jeanne’s scuffed ballet slippers back down the hall.

As she entered what had been Stevie’s room, Polly remembered with a flutter of joy that she would be seeing her son in less than a week. She was flying to Rochester next Wednesday, and Stevie would get in from Denver soon after. They’d have Thanksgiving at her mother’s as usual, and then fly back to New York together on Friday.

Jeanne would be away then: she was spending the weekend with Ida and Cathy, who were making Thanksgiving dinner for a dozen women. She had invited Polly to join them, but even if Polly hadn’t been going to her mother’s she would have hesitated. She ought not to hesitate; she ought to get used to, even welcome, the company of other gay women. The trouble was that though she liked most of Jeanne’s friends, Ida and Cathy always made her uncomfortable. Whenever she went there she felt that they (especially Ida) were watching her for signs of prejudice and wrong thinking.

Before Jeanne left, though, Polly had to have a serious conversation with her. Right now, Stevie’s room was full of Jeanne’s clothes, her books, her posters, her tapes and cassette player; her typewriter and her students’ papers covered Stevie’s desk. Sometime in the next week all this stuff had to be moved out. Polly could wait and hope that Jeanne would find the energy to take care of it; but probably in the end she’d have to do the job herself.

“Hi.” Slowly, Jeanne shut the apartment door behind her and put on the bolt and chain, something Polly usually forgot, and Jeanne mentioned. But now she said nothing; silently, Polly resolved not to say anything about the mess in the kitchen.

“Hi there.”

“How’s everything?” Jeanne set down a bag of groceries on the sofa and dropped beside them with the same sort of inert gravity.

“Not too bad.” Polly turned around from the desk and raised her eyes to the mantelpiece, but Jeanne did not follow her gaze. “I brought Lorin’s painting home today.”

“Oh, yes?” Jeanne briefly turned her head.

“I think the framer did a pretty good job, don’t you? I was afraid that chrome strip might be too wide, but I’ve decided it’s really all right. And it’s great over the fireplace.”

“Yes. Nice,” Jeanne murmured.

“I don’t know how you can say that.” Polly smiled. “You’ve hardly glanced at the picture.”

“I don’t have to. I looked at the thing for hours when you brought it back from Cape Cod.”

Though it irritated Polly to hear Lorin’s painting called “the thing,” she suppressed this. “You know, it makes a big difference to me to have something of hers here. It’s weird, but it makes me feel maybe I can do the book after all.”

“That’s nice,” Jeanne said in the voice of one who was weary of Polly’s doubts.

“I was thinking, whatever you want to say about Garrett Jones, I’ve got to be grateful to him for this.”

“Not too grateful, I hope.” Jeanne stood wearily and began to unwind a long filmy white wool scarf.

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” Jeanne was taking off her coat now. “I mean, you wouldn’t want it to interfere with what you write.”

“How could it interfere with what I write?” Polly asked, beginning to bristle. “It’s just the opposite — it’s going to be a help, an inspiration, I hope, for God’s sake.”

Jeanne sighed. “I didn’t mean the picture. I just don’t want you to forget why Jones gave it to you, that’s all. Would you like a cup of Red Zinger?”

“No thanks.” Polly sat for a moment frowning at the shimmer and glow of paint, fading now with the daylight; then she followed Jeanne into the kitchen. “What did you mean by that? Why do you think Garrett gave me Lorin’s painting?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious? If the thing is worth as much as you say, it surely must have been intended as a bribe. Jones must have thought that after that you couldn’t possibly say anything nasty about him in your book.”

“I don’t think — It wasn’t, not for a moment —” Polly began to sputter. “Garrett gave me the picture because he’s glad I’m writing about Lorin, and anyhow he didn’t want to look at that landscape. It upsets him, I told you why —” She tried to ignore Jeanne’s skeptical smile. “Anyhow, I’m not going to say anything nasty about him.”

“Oh, really?”

“I’ll tell the truth, that’s all.”

Jeanne laughed for the first time, and Polly realized her meaning had been mistaken. In fact, she wasn’t planning to write anything unpleasant about Garrett Jones, because she no longer blamed him for Lorin’s problems with the New York art world. No doubt he did leave his wife alone too much, and fail to understand her. But can any man, let alone a critic, really understand a gifted woman? And he supported her professionally and financially; he loved her, in his way, and allowed her a fair amount of independence.

“That’s the spirit,” Jeanne said, still giggling softly.

“I haven’t got anything against Garrett Jones,” Polly insisted. “He’s been very decent to me, considering everything.”

“Oh, come on. What has he done for you, when you get right down to it?” The kettle had begun to boil, and Jeanne’s temper was evidently also on the simmer. “He’s given you a dirty old half-finished picture —”

“It’s not dirty.” Polly flushed; it was true that there was a crease and streak of dust down one edge of the paper; but now that it had been framed the damage was scarcely visible.

“— and he’s tried to con you into ghostwriting his ridiculous self-important memoirs.”

“Well, he didn’t succeed.” Polly was getting angry herself. They had had this conversation before, though in politer and vaguer language. “Anyhow, he thought he was doing me a favor. New York is full of art history graduates who would jump at the chance.”

“Uh-huh.” Jeanne poured boiling water into an antique Japanese teapot, a gift from Betsy in happier days. “You’re kind of a pushover, you know, Polly,” she added. “All any man has to do is be a little polite and you’re convinced he’s a nice person.”

Polly didn’t answer, though the retort sprang to mind that giving someone a painting worth several thousand dollars was not just being a little polite.

“I’m surprised he didn’t try to seduce you into the bargain,” Jeanne continued. “He’s supposed to consider himself God’s gift to women.” Polly did not respond. “Or maybe he did?” she suggested.

“Of course not,” she declared, adding an outright lie to an earlier lie of omission. If Jeanne heard the whole story she would expect Polly to forswear speaking to Garrett Jones again, which would be professionally very inconvenient, and she would probably blame her for not having slapped his face. Polly imagined herself slapping the face of Garrett Jones, a sleepy, half-tipsy, romantically foolish elderly man; the idea was unattractive. “But I think he liked me, that’s partly why he gave me the picture.”

“I expect it was because you’d already softened him up so well. You’d sweet-talked him, the way I told you, and won his confidence.” Jeanne smiled, silently taking the credit.

“Mm,” Polly murmured a little distractedly. It had just occurred to her that what had happened that night in Wellfleet might also be credited to Jeanne’s account. Because of her Machiavellian advice, her talk about staying cool and pretending to agree with whomever she was interviewing, all that first day Polly had acted falsely, suppressing her opinions, playing the passive, admiring female. No wonder Garrett had assumed that she admired him, that she would want to help write his memoirs; that she would welcome his wet kisses. She sighed aloud.

“You sound exhausted,” Jeanne said.

“Yeah, I’m a little tired.” She yawned; she had slept only about six hours the night before.

“Why don’t you take a break?” Jeanne set her teacup in the sink. “You were up so early, you must be worn out.”

“I could use a nap, maybe,” Polly admitted.

“That’s a good idea.” Jeanne, in her turn, gave a little yawn and sigh. “I think I’ll join you; my students were exhausting today. And maybe we might tumble about a bit first,” she added, smiling, alluding to one of the couplets about the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat that had now taken on a private erotic meaning for them:

... The gingham dog and the calico cat

Wallowed this way and tumbled that...

“Okay.” Polly only half smiled. Jeanne’s comments about Garrett had rubbed her pelt the wrong way.

Half an hour later they lay entwined in a rumple of tan plaid sheets. Jeanne had fallen into a doze; but Polly was not at all sleepy, for some reason — hell, for the good reason that she was not satisfied.

As they made love, Polly had suggested that Jeanne help her out a bit more vigorously. Jeanne had agreed at once: but soon her gestures became mechanical. Then her hand faltered and forgot its stroke; she lay back and began to purr, “Mm, that’s nice. Yes, lovely,” rising to a low crescendo of pleasure and gratitude. “Oh, wonderful,” she sighed finally. “Thank you, darling.” Then, sleepy and sated, she sank into a trance.

Polly raised herself on one elbow and stared at her friend: her pale-lashed eyes, her fine tousled hair: her plump, satiny skin; her large soft white breasts and her small pink half-open mouth, from which an audible breath, too slight to be called a snore, issued rhythmically. Unlike Polly, Jeanne had an enviable ability to doze anytime and anywhere.

It was natural to drift off after sex anyhow; when Polly was fully satisfied she too wanted to float away. Most women felt that. Men too: Jim Meyer sometimes — Polly stopped in mid-memory, annoyed that she should even think of Jim at a time like this.

Of course, ever since he left she had been troubled with occasional heterosexual fantasies; but since she’d been to bed with Jeanne they’d been perversely more frequent. Maybe it was because she was aroused and not satisfied that she kept thinking about what sex used to be like. Even in the act of love with Jeanne, she would recall in vivid color some moment in her past, or even from her recent visit to Wellfleet.

Why did she keep remembering that embarrassing evening, that awkward, undesired embrace? She wasn’t interested in Garrett Jones, that sad, pretentious old man. She hadn’t liked kissing him, didn’t want to kiss him again. What haunted her was what he reminded her of: the sensation of a man’s body pressed against hers, the flat, heavy hardness; the willingness to take charge, conveyed not in words but through gestures and murmurs of pleasure.

It would be so much better if she could really love Jeanne, or some other woman. And maybe she could, Polly thought; she loved Lorin Jones, after all. But she couldn’t love Jeanne in the way she loved Lorin. Among other things, Jeanne wasn’t a genius.

On the other hand, she was alive and here. And she was warm, affectionate, loyal. She loved Polly; she was thoughtful and kind, bringing her flowers and baking her sponge cakes. It’s true that the flowers, usually bought in subway stalls, never lasted very long, and that lately the cakes tended to be lopsided or sink in the middle. But the impulse was fresh and whole.

Maybe it was all Polly’s fault; maybe she was basically a cold, guarded person, incapable of real warmth or intimacy even with another woman. Maybe that was why Jeanne was still depressed, untidy, touchy, and preoccupied. She sighed and flopped face down beside her friend, trying in vain to sleep.

“Hey.” Jeanne yawned, slowly opened her eyes, and raised herself on one elbow, gazing at Polly. “It’s no good really, is it?” she said after a moment.

“What?”

“I mean, it isn’t working. You’re still all tensed up.”

“I — yeah. I guess it’s just the way I am.”

“It’s not only you.” Jeanne reached down to stroke Polly’s forehead, smoothing back her crisp untidy curls. “It’s not right for me either. The problem is, I really love you as a friend, but you’re not my type.” She sighed.

“What?” Polly turned on her side.

“If you were, I would never have agreed to come and live here back in September; it would’ve been just too painful.”

Startled, Polly half sat up, looking at her lover. “You mean you’re not attracted to me?” she said, her mouth remaining open in surprise.

“Well, no. Not really.” Jeanne smiled apologetically, and shook her head. “The thing is, I mostly always go for thin confused young redheads or strawberry blondes, like Betsy. You’re much too sensible and grown-up for me.”

And too old and too fat, Polly thought, wanting to laugh miserably.

Jeanne must have noticed some change or spasm in her friend’s features, for she hastened to add, “I don’t mean you’re not awfully pretty, Polly dear. I’m sure there’s lots of women who would be interested in you. Ida said to me once —”

“Then why did you suggest —” Polly cried, sitting up to face her friend, repelled by the idea of having been discussed in this, way with Ida.

“Well, I suppose because I was so miserable and frustrated. And so were you. But it really wasn’t a good idea, you know. You’ve been wonderfully nice to me. The trouble is, I’m still horribly in love with Betsy, even though I realize I’ll probably never see her again. But anything else feels as if I was being unfaithful to her.”

“I see.” Polly still wanted to laugh or cry; the whole thing seemed to her like a bad joke.

“Anyhow, darling, you’re not really all that attracted to me either.” Jeanne smiled.

“I am, but — At least —” Polly gave a long nervous sigh. “I just have a different idea of what it’s like to make love, I suppose. But I thought you —”

“I know.” Now Jeanne laughed out loud, lightly and a little sadly. “We were both being polite to each other.” I guess so.

“I tell you what. Let’s get out of bed and go to a really silly movie. Something with wild animals in it, or aliens from outer space.”

“Okay. I’ll find the Times and see what’s on uptown.” Polly stood up.

“You know what, though,” she added, turning back in the doorway. “If you’re really still in love with Betsy, maybe you should call her. I mean, it could be that’s what she’s waiting for.”

“Maybe,” Jeanne said, her expression darkening. “Or maybe not.” She picked up the pillow on which she had lain and thumped it meditatively. “All right. I’ll think about it.”