Clio Rising Read online

  “I’m sure I’ll be getting a few snorts of my own,” I said, which made him laugh.

  “I’d love to hear about it when you do.” Wishing me luck, Eli retreated across the hall and I entered Clio’s apartment for the first time.

  The room where Clio Hartt had lived for forty-some years was fourteen by fourteen at most, with a kitchen alcove attached to a corner like a barnacle. The bathroom, visible through an open door, was barely big enough to turn around in. The space overflowed with books— not just on the long, table-like desk that straddled the two front windows and on the wooden shelves clinging to the walls, but also arranged like furniture. Next to a comfy-looking armchair, a stack of tomes with a mug and a pad of paper on top served as an end table. Towers of books also straddled either end of a narrow daybed.

  Two more brawny cops faced the windows, obscuring my vision of Clio. This was my first encounter with male NYPD officers, and being oversized seemed to be a prerequisite for the job.

  One of the cops turned as I entered, his hand brushing his waist holster, and I sucked in a breath. I held up two empty hands and tried to puff out my little boobs to show I was a defenseless woman. “I’m the one Miss Hartt called, officer,” I said. “Livvie Bliss?”

  I saw Clio then for the first time as she peeked from around the cop’s massive chest. In her famous studio portraits, she was always seated, so I had no sense of how statuesque she was. When she rose to greet me, we stood at eye level. And in fact, the first thing I noticed were her eyes— her sharp cheekbones pointed directly toward them, accentuating the icy blue that looked like it belonged to some netherworld. Despite the steaminess of the room, Clio wore a calf-length, nubby-wool skirt and cardigan sweater, both in a battleship gray that matched her hair and made her eyes stand out more.

  “Miss Bliss!” she said, her voice raspy but strong. “There you are!” The cop whose first instinct had been to shoot me let his hand travel back to his side.

  “Ma’am, we’ll file the report but we don’t have much to go on without a physical description of the intruder,” the other cop said.

  Spittle flew from Clio’s mouth as she said, “What more do you need? I told you, I thought I saw a colored man on the fire escape! How difficult could it be to find a colored man on a rooftop in this neighborhood? Go do whatever it is you’re supposed to do and find him!”

  A Northern girl might have been shocked by Clio’s use of colored instead of black, but growing up under Jim Crow I’d heard it many times before from white folks, including my own family. I’d used it myself as a child.

  The cops clomped out of the apartment a few moments later, and I snapped into helper mode. “Are you okay, Miss Hartt?” I offered her an arm to lean on, and we made our way to the armchair one step at a time. It was unclear if she really couldn’t manage on her own or if she was putting on a good show for the help.

  “I will be fine presently, Miss Bliss. In forty years, I have never had occasion to be visited by the police, and if that is what ‘New York’s Finest’ is like, this city’s in a heap of trouble.” She sank onto the chair cushion with an appreciative sigh and went all good-natured on me. In fact, she was so pleasant when I offered to brew her a pot of coffee before I returned to work— “You are just as delightful as your name, Miss Bliss!”— I thought the reports of her orneriness must be overblown. Maybe, like my Meemaw, she was sweet as tea most of the time, a harpy only when her arthritis flared up.

  But as I settled her in with her coffee, the other Clio trickled out. “This cup has a chip,” she said, turning it around. She took a sip and frowned. “And you’ve put in too much sugar.”

  “Sorry about that. I’ll get it right after a few tries.”

  “I am not here for you to experiment on, Miss Bliss. I like it the way I like it.”

  The flash of pique caught me off-guard. Bea would want me to kowtow and bring her a fresh cup, but I noticed Clio taking big, appreciative gulps.

  “And yet you seem to be drinking it right down,” I said.

  The moment could have gone badly for me as Clio stared me down with those otherworldly eyes. But she turned back to the cup and polished off her drink with a resounding slurp.

  “Bring me another before you go, would you?”

  Chapter 4

  Gerri and Renee’s building was a prewar high-rise in Sheridan Square, the heart of gay New York. I wondered how an assistant editor and a grad student had scored such prime real estate until I remembered Gerri saying her girlfriend’s folks subsidized her.

  The doorman’s name tag read “Jorge,” and I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it so I didn’t. He wore a gold-trimmed burgundy coat and hat, his brown face shining with sweat.

  “Good afternoon! Wow, it’s cruel to make you wear that in this heat,” I said.

  “Apartment?” he asked, ignoring my small talk. When I gave my name, he said into the handset, “Hello, Miss Renee. Miss Libby is here.” He listened, eyebrows raised. “She says she don’t know no Libby.”

  “Livvie,” I corrected. “Two V’s, not B’s. Livvie Bliss. Tell her Gerri invited me to the salon.” At Gerri’s name, Jorge nodded vigorously, and when Renee cleared me, he gave me a thumbs up. “Tenth floor, end of the hall.”

  I stepped off the elevator, glancing left and then right because Jorge hadn’t specified which “end” of the hall. Renee was waiting. She was as handsome as I remembered, wearing loose cotton pants and a white V-neck tee that accentuated her dark hair and tanned arms. I handed her a box of bakery-style cookies from D’Agostino, which she accepted with a confused smile.

  “Chocolate pecan chip,” I said. “The soft kind.”

  “‘Pee-can.’ I love that. You’re sweet. I can see why Gerri picked you out.” It sounded like she’d found me while window shopping. Gerri, I soon discovered, had a habit of gathering up potential friends in bars, in bookstores, at concerts— anyplace where she was likely to meet people she clicked with.

  “I don’t think anyone has ever brought anything to a meeting,” Renee said, “except beer.” Gerri had told me only to bring myself, but I knew better than to go to someone’s place empty-handed. I wondered about the beer comment. I would have thought a salon that took its inspiration from the Paris lesbians would be classier than that. I’d debated bringing a more upscale offering like croissants, but Bea hadn’t paid me yet.

  While Renee opened the cookie box and placed it on the coffee table with a stack of paper napkins, I scoped out the apartment. Gerri and Renee owned real furnishings: a comfy sofa and armchairs, a buffet adorned with a cut-glass vase of wildflowers, an oriental rug. This was not how I expected women a few years older than I to live.

  “Gerri just hopped into the shower,” Renee told me, running a hand through her own damp hair.

  “I’m sorry I’m early.” An apology seemed to be in order, even though my watch said it was almost three o’clock— when the group was scheduled to start.

  “No problem. I’m always so late, it’s embarrassing. It drives Gerri crazy. Everybody else will be here soon. I thought you might be Barb. She likes to be early, too.”

  I sat on the sofa and Renee plopped down at the other end, tucking her bare feet under her. We exchanged shy smiles, like we were on a blind date.

  “This is a terrific apartment. What a location!”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s a great place,” Renee said. “My father lived here right after the war, when he was going to NYU. He held onto the lease after they got married, and they used it as a pied-à-terre. You know, to see plays on the weekends.”

  Having parents who had a second residence just so they could go to plays was beyond my ken. Plus, my folks had never been to any play except my high school’s performance of Oklahoma! in which I was cast against type as the man-hungry Ado Annie.

  “Too bad Gerri didn’t meet you earlier. We have a party every Fourth on the roof. You’ll come next year.”

  “That would be great.”

  A staccato buzz cut t
hrough the pause in our conversation.

  “That’ll be Barb.”

  Renee went into the hall to greet her second guest, clicking the door closed softly behind her. When she reentered with Barb, they were laughing at some private joke. Barb sported cutoff jeans and a Joan Jett T-shirt with the neck and sleeves raggedly sliced off. Despite the homemade air-conditioning of her shirt, her moon-shaped face was shiny with sweat.

  “It’s a motherfucker out there,” she said. “I need one of these bad boys now.” At the coffee table, she plunked down the two six-packs of Heineken she’d been carrying and then cracked a bottle for herself.

  “I’m Livvie,” I said, standing with my hand out because I’d learned from my daddy’s example how to take charge in situations where you were the odd one out. Countless times, I’d watched him step forward and say to strangers, “Roy Bliss. Real pleased to meet you.”

  Barb guzzled her beer, then wiped her hand on her faded denim cutoffs and accepted mine. She was stocky, not a delicate-looking girl at all, but her limp handshake belonged to a church lady.

  “Libby?” She held the icy Heineken against her neck.

  “Livvie, two V’s.” I flashed what I hoped was a beguiling grin.

  She dropped into an armchair without offering her own name. “I’ve seen you somewhere before. Were you at Seneca in July?”

  The local feminist newspaper had run a front-page article about a women’s peace encampment near Seneca Falls, so I assumed that’s what she meant. I said no, I wasn’t that political.

  “Huh. Hard not to be these days. Crazy fucking time.” She sucked on her beer, staring at me through the slits of her eyes. “One thing you sure are is early. And I thought I was the only one who liked being on time.” There was a tenseness in her voice, like I’d supplanted her status.

  “It’s in my genes. My family was always in the pew thirty minutes before service started.”

  Barb tilted her head to the right as if she was trying to decode the words pew and service.

  “Livvie’s from North Carolina.” Gerri appeared from the far reaches of the apartment and grabbed a beer for herself. The deep timbre of her familiar voice felt like a hug. “Don’t you just love her accent?”

  “She brought the pee-can cookies,” Renee added.

  “Oooh, baby, talk Southern to me,” Barb said, making Renee break into a girlish giggle. Gerri didn’t share the joke, and nibbled on her thumbnail before opening her beer.

  Gerri sat next to me on the sofa, heat radiating off her body from her recent shower. “You want a Heinie?”

  In my book, it was a little early to drink. The Blisses did not imbibe on Sunday, but I was in a new place, setting my own rules. “Sure! We can drink to my new job.”

  “You got it? Right on!” We tapped our bottles together. “Bea’s a total trip, right?”

  The buzzer interrupted again and then a second time just a few seconds later. “I’ll go.” Barb went to the intercom like she owned the place.

  “Get this!” I said. “I’ve already met Clio Hartt!” But Gerri was busy following Barb with her eyes and didn’t hear me. “Bea appointed me as her ‘gal Friday.’ Kind of a gofer, I guess.”

  Renee pulled several folding chairs from a closet. “Wait, what?” she said. “You met the Clio Hartt?”

  “Way to go!” Gerri said, diverting her attention from Barb to high-five me.

  Barb returned from the door with two more women in tow: Jill, a white woman with blazing red hair and a face full of freckles, and a petite African-American woman named Thea, who wore a clingy sundress that showed off shapely arms. They each carried a six-pack, too, suggesting an afternoon of heavy drinking.

  “Clio Hartt? Seriously?” Barb said. She turned away from Jill and hovered so close to me that drops of condensation from her bottle dripped onto my chinos. The drops coalesced into a circle, and I rubbed at the wetness self-consciously.

  “How did you meet Clio Hartt?” Thea dragged a folding chair up to the sofa, edging Barb out of her way.

  “Gerri helped me get a job with Bea Winston, the literary agent. I started last week.”

  “A friend of mine just signed with that agency. Where were you before?”

  “The Village Diner,” I said with a laugh. “For two lo-o-o-ng months. But now things are moving so fast it’s unreal. I’ve even started looking for an apartment share.”

  “Liv’s at the Parkside Evangeline,” Gerri explained.

  “That Salv Arm place?” Barb said with a derisive laugh. “Where nice girls from 1960 go to meet Mr. Right?”

  “Or Ms. Right,” Gerri said.

  “No men above the first floor,” I added.

  “I never thought about that,” Renee said. “All those women in one place! Some of them have to be dykes, right?”

  The conversation bounced around me like ping-pong balls. Gerri and Renee’s long-haired black-and-red dachshund, Alice B., waddled into the room and cozied up to everyone, demanding pats, and Barb scooped her up. “Alice B.! I love you s-o-o much!”

  My cookies were the only food in sight, and Barb helped herself to one. After a half-moon bite, she slipped a crumb to Alice.

  “Wouldn’t it be so cool to have Clio come to one of our meetings? Any way you could finagle that?”

  “She doesn’t go out,” I said. “She’s a million years old.”

  “But we’re her fan base!” Barb said. She and Gerri took turns putting themselves forward as Clio experts, trying to outdo each other. They’d both made it through The Dismantled multiple times and read “the” biography by someone named Montrose, but Gerri had also read other books about Clio and her work.

  “The novel’s autobiographical,” Barb said with authority. “All about her passionate relationship with Flora Haynes.”

  Gerri snickered. “‘Passionate’? From what I’ve read, Flora drank, fucked, and snorted too much. And wrote too little.”

  “Nice epitaph,” I said.

  Everyone laughed except Barb, who settled into her armchair again and ignored Gerri.

  “Let’s talk after, Carolina,” Barb said, which made me assume the salon was kicking into gear.

  But over the next two hours, we never got around to discussing The Color Purple, which I had loved. No one seemed to mind except Gerri and Thea, who inserted Walker’s name several times before going quiet. It was almost as if the others in the circle had agreed in advance to talk about something else.

  Barb dominated the conversation, unveiling a new art project she and Jill had dreamed up that they wanted the Women’s Academy to contribute to. As she spoke, she leaned toward Jill in a way that suggested they were lovers.

  Their proposal was to launch a performance piece, with salon members participating according to their interests and talents. Jill had a lead on a cheap space in the East Village. The Women’s Academy boasted plenty of talent, Barb said, with an emerging poet (Jill), an emerging playwright (Barb), an emerging photographer (Thea), and a sometime modern dancer (Renee). The piece would take the Paris lesbians of the 1920s as its central theme, but everyone could interpret that loosely.

  “How loose is ‘loosely’?” Thea asked, twisting open another beer.

  “Well, for example, I’d love to play around with their S/M sides,” Barb said.

  “Since when did the Paris lesbians have S/M sides?” Thea’s tone oozed annoyance.

  “Oh, come on, Thea! All that sexual drama? Don’t tell me you never read The Pure and the Impure? Oh, wait, you vetoed that book.”

  “Colette was a straight girl who played around,” Thea said. She sat back in her chair and swigged her beer, point made.

  “And what part do me and Livvie play in this performance?” Gerri asked.

  Barb glanced over as if she’d never given Gerri a thought.

  “You’re probably the most outgoing person I’ve ever met, so maybe you could do the publicity,” Barb suggested, but Gerri didn’t respond to the compliment.

  Barb helped
herself to a second cookie and eyed me with that head-tilt again. The gesture reminded me of my family’s old collie, Maisie, staring at her humans. “And what do you do, Carolina?” she asked.

  Except for singing in the Grace Baptist youth choir and being in the school musical, I’d never done much of anything creative. And those accomplishments sounded too small-town to admit, especially after my comments about the Blisses going to church.

  “I sing a little.” Before Barb could demand a tune, Gerri blurted out her frustration.

  “Oh Jesus fucking Christ, this is ridiculous,” she said, her cheeks flaming hot pink. “We’re a salon! Now all of a sudden we’re morphing into performance artists? I don’t know about anybody else, but I’d like to get back to discussing books. We were scheduled to talk about The Color Purple today, but maybe that was just too vanilla for some of you. Maybe some people are still mad we didn’t pick Coming to Power.” Even more heat was radiating off Gerri now. “And would you please stop giving Alice cookie crumbs?”

  At the time, I didn’t know what Coming to Power was, or what being “vanilla” meant, but I could tell I’d landed in the middle of a long-simmering stew. After an awkward moment in which people finished their beers in silence and Barb rebuffed Alice’s persistent nudges for more cookie, Renee broke the quiet with gentle teasing: “Well, gee, Ger, why don’t you tell us what you really think?”

  The salon broke up a little after five, with everyone but Barb agreeing to back-burner the performance piece and give Alice Walker her due the following month. In the hallway, I found myself waiting for the elevator with Jill, Barb, and Thea, although Thea stood a few feet off by herself, staring down at the black and white hallway tiles. As the floor numbers clicked by, Barb clued me in that she was looking for a new roommate to share her place on West Fifteenth Street.

  “Jenny’s the best, we’ve been pals on and off since Bennington, but she’s moving to L.A. at the end of the month to try screenwriting. She’ll be back eventually, but I can’t afford to hold the room for her.”