The Fancy Dancer

don’t worry about me,” said Clare. “We’ve got our savings, and I’m still healthy and working away.”
    Missy wasn’t listening. A fine silver thread of elderly monomania ran straight through her mind.
    “We don’t have any family anymore, Father,” she said. ‘They’re all dead now. My sister Fay is dead and buried, and Clare’s sister and brother are dead a long time now. All we have is each other.”
    A couple of tears went jumping down Missy’s cheeks from wrinkle to wrinkle. Clare had stopped knitting and was staring out the window, as if she was succeeding in holding back tears.
    “Father,” said Missy, “I’m going to say a very sinful thing.”
    “What?” I said, still patting her hand. A big lump was growing in my throat.
    “If I go to heaven, there won’t be any beatitude until Clare is there with me.”
    “But she will be with you,” I said. “You’ll be together through sanctifying grace.”
    But Missy wasn’t listening. “I won’t see God until I see Clare in heaven.”
    When Missy got tired, Clare and I left the room. Clare always insisted on sending me away with a little fresh coffee and homemade cookies in my stomach, so we sat in the living room and talked a while. The conversation with Missy had impressed me, more deeply than ever, with their feeling for each other. I knew that Missy was right—Clare would be in an agonizing readjustment when Missy died.
    “Mrs. Faux,” I said, “can I talk frankly to you?”
    “Yes, Father,” she said. “Have I done something wrong?”
    “Oh, no,” I said. “Missy is right, the things she said back in the bedroom there. Have you made plans for the future?”
    She was silent for a time, stirring her coffee in the old china cup with a battered sterling spoon.
    “No,” she said.
    “You should,” I said. “Both for Missy’s peace of mind, and for your own welfare. You’ll need something to be committed to.”
    She was silent again, her bulldog jaw working— whether from emotion or bad teeth, I couldn’t tell.
    “I’d feel guilty making plans,” she said.
    “Don’t,” I said. “Mrs. Oldenberg’s days are going to be more restful now for knowing that your coming years will be safe and busy.”
    Clare was silent, stubborn. Then she said, “It would be a betrayal.”
    “No,” I said. ‘You’ve given each other so much. After she’s gone, you’d still be giving it to her, through others.”
    This time Clare was silent for the longest time of all. She was strong, but made weak at the core by the tiny crack of love.
    Finally she said, ‘Yes, I do see what you mean.”
    “Please think about it. I’ll give you any help you need,” I said.
    “All right, I’ll consider it,” she said doubtfully.
    When I left the house, I looked back at it from the car. The lawn and the garden were a little oasis of life in that desert of a farm. It made me think of Will and Larry’s ranch over at Drummond.
    Suddenly, as vague and shifting as the leaf shadows falling through those windows onto the spiderweb curtains, the thought fell on my mind that the love of these two radiant old ladies might go far beyond friendship.
    I drove away from the farm stunned by the thought.
    Except for what I’d read in Vidal’s magazines, I knew next to nothing about lesbians. Vidal himself couldn’t tell me much about them.
    That little booklet published by the National Council of Bishops had stated that lesbians were less physical in their relationships than gay men, in line with the myth that women in general are less physical. But I knew better. From a year and a half in the confessional, I knew that women were no less carnal than men, though they often felt they had to hide their desire. I wondered if that silk quilt once covered the bed where Missy Oldenberg and Clare Faux slept together.
    I wanted to discuss the two old women with Vidal, but of course I couldn’t—no more than I could discuss any other parishioners’ problems with him. I was as alone with their problem as I’d been when Vidal walked away from me at the Silver State Ball.
    One evening when Vidal and I were snatching our fifteen minutes together in bed (we still managed it two or three times a week), he said, “You’ve got something on your mind.”
    I shrugged. “Nothing to do with us. A favorite parishioner of mine is going to die.”
    ‘That’s just it,” he said. “I always feel like there’s some parishioner of yours in bed with us.”
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