Free Naked in the Promised Land by Lillian Faderman Page B

mother came with us, but she never said a word. I made sure my mother always wore lipstick and a New York dress.

    Irene follows me everywhere. Into Fanny's house. To my classes at Hollenbeck Junior High School. In the street I look for her car, and I imagine I see it constantly. She is with me when I walk arm-in-arm with my mother down Wabash Avenue. At school I tell the girls with whom I'm friendly that I'll be en
tertaining at an opening of a Thrifty Drugstore in Bellflower. "Irene Sandman is our director," I say. I just want to hear myself pronouncing her name.

    Mr. Bergman and Rae come again to take us to Ocean Park Beach. I leave my mother sitting with them on a boardwalk bench, and I walk down near the green water, where I can write her name in the sand—
IRENE SANDMAN IRENE SANDMAN IRENE SANDMAN
.
The ocean comes up to wash it away, and I write it again and leave it there. Maybe she'll happen by before the ocean comes again. She'll find it and wonder who is so in love with her.
    How can I make her say "Wow!" again, the way she did when she first heard me do Rachel Hoffman? "Wow!" I hear her voice in the dark in my bed at night, and I kiss my pillow as though it were her skin.
    Has anyone ever felt this way? What is this? Everything but Irene has gone out of my head. How bizarre I feel, as though something is wrong. I go to the Malabar Public Library for more psychology books because I've never heard anyone talk about such a thing. "Crush," it's called. I have an "adolescent crush" on a woman. "Very common," the books say.
    But one book with a brand-new cover,
Attaining Womanhood: A Doctor Talks to Girls About Sex,
by Dr. George W. Corner, says something else. I don't understand all the words, but I understand enough to be petrified. "There are a few women who develop a deep-seated and even permanent need to be sexually attracted only by members of their own sex. This condition may apparently be an inborn trait; in other circumstances it is believed to be set up as a result of unfortunate circumstances in youth.
" What circumstances could be more unfortunate than mine?
And then his sentences get even more alarming. "The thought of it is disagreeable to people who do not have such impulses, but the person so affected must be regarded not as sinful but as the victim of a disturbed temperament.
" I am the victim of a disturbed temperament.
    "A girl should avoid a woman who exhibits lavish fondness toward her," Dr. Corner concludes, "or who insists on constant companionship, or indulges in intimate fondling.
" What bliss I would feel if Irene were such a woman,
I think; the irony is not lost on me, though I am in tears.
    To whom could I talk about this? Who would help me understand? Not my mother. I took the buses to Rae's apartment.
    "What happened?" She paled at the sight of me.
    I threw myself face down on her bed. "I'm in love with Irene Sandman," I wept.
    "Oy! You scared me so much. I thought you were sick," my aunt cried. Then, "What do you mean you're 'in love'? She's a lady. How can you be in love?"

    "That's just the problem," I moaned.
    "Don't talk foolish," Rae said. "There's no such thing. A girl can't be in love with a lady. Wait, you'll meet a nice boy soon, and you'll see what 'in love' means."

    One afternoon I arrived early for my acting lesson. Theatre Arts Studio was dark, but the front door was open just a crack, as though someone had forgotten to close it.
    "Do you take me for a goddamn idiot? Do you think I don't know what's going on?" It was Sid's voice, loud and angry, coming from the big room.
    "Oh, for God's sake, he's only twenty years old," Irene shouted back. "I'm not interested in babies." I smelled her perfume even at the door.
    "I don't give a damn what you say. Your lipstick was smeared all over your face, your blouse was open—what am I supposed to think?" Sid yelled. "You be careful, damn you, or we'll lose this place!"
    "What about Silvia, you bastard?" she screamed at him. "Do you