were dancing with each other. It was a slow sort of dance—more of a rocking embrace than anything. Olive had her face pressed against Peg’s bosom, and Peg was resting her cheek on the top of Olive’s head. They both had their eyes closed tightly. They were clinging to each other, squeezed together in a silent grip of need. Whatever world they were in—whatever era of history they were in, whatever memories they were in, whatever story they were knitting back together in the tightness of their embrace—it was very much their own world. They were somewhere together, but they were not here.
I watched them, unable to move, and unable to comprehend what I was witnessing—while at the same time, unable to not comprehend what I was witnessing.
After a while, Benjamin glanced over to the doorway and saw me. I don’t know how he sensed that I was there. He didn’t stop playing, and his expression didn’t change, but he kept his eyes on me. I kept my eyes on him, too—maybe looking for some kind of explanation or instruction, but none was offered. I felt pinned in the doorway by Benjamin’s gaze. There was something in his eyes that said: “You do not take another step into this room.”
I was afraid to move, for fear of making a sound and alerting Peg and Olive to my presence. I didn’t want to embarrass them or humiliate myself. But when I could feel that the song was ending, I had no choice: I had to slip away, or be caught.
So I backed out and gently closed the door behind me—Benjamin’s unblinking gaze on me as he finished playing the song, watching to make sure I was good and gone before he touched the final, wistful note.
I spent the next two hours in an all-night diner in Times Square, not sure when it would be safe to return home. I didn’t know where else to go. I couldn’t go back to Anthony’s apartment, and I still felt the power of Benjamin’s stare, warning me not to cross that threshold—not now, Vivian.
I had never been out alone at this hour in the city, and it frightened me more than I cared to acknowledge. I didn’t know what to do, without Celia or Anthony or Peg as my guides. I still wasn’t a real New Yorker, you see. I was still a tourist. You don’t become a real New Yorker until you can manage the city alone.
So I had gone to the most brightly lit place I could find, where a tired old waitress kept refilling my coffee cup without comment or complaint. I watched a sailor and his girl arguing in the booth across from me. They were both drunk. Their fight was about somebody named Miriam. The girl was suspicious of Miriam; the sailor was defensive about Miriam. They were both making a strong case for their respective positions. I went back and forth between believing the sailor and believing the girl. I felt like I needed to see what Miriam looked like before rendering a verdict on whether the soldier had been untrue to his sweetheart.
Peg and Olive were lesbians?
It couldn’t be, though. Peg was married. And Olive was . . . Olive. A sexless being if ever there was one. Olive was made of mothballs. But was there any other explanation for why those two middle-aged women were holding each other so tightly in the dark while Benjamin played the world’s saddest love song for them?
I knew they had quarreled that day, but is this how you make up with your secretary after an argument? I hadn’t been around a lot of business concerns in my life, but that embrace didn’t seem professional. Nor did it seem like something that would happen between two friends. I slept in a bed with a woman every night—not just any woman, but one of the most beautiful women in New York—and we didn’t embrace like that.
And if they were lesbians—well, since when? Olive had been working for Peg since the Great War. She’d met Peg before Billy did. Was this a new development or had it always been this way? Who knew about this? Did Edna know about this? Did my family know about this? Did Billy know about this?
Certainly Benjamin knew. The only thing that had rattled him about the scene was my presence in it. Did he play the piano for them often, so they could dance? What was going on