A Swedish Summer Storm
Tilde checked her scuffed wristwatch. 10:06 p.m. An hour and fifty-four minutes until she could head for Insomnia Club.
She took another mouthful of chai tea. Its warm, spicy scent filling her tiny flat was lovely but did little to keep her awake.
I wish I could have the big caffeine hit of coffee, she mused, envying other Swedes who drank the stuff like it was water.
She had to stay awake. Had to seem like as much of an insomniac as the other women, as much of an insomniac as she’d been before she’d rediscovered sleep.
This music probably wasn’t helping.
Billie Holiday singing “Stormy Weather” was perfect for a classic summer thunderstorm in the south of Sweden, but the melancholy, soft singing and raspy 1930s jazz wasn’t exactly suited to wake people up.
She went to turn it off and somehow, probably due to her clumsiness following nights of no sleep, managed to instead switch the speed of the record player so that poor Billie sounded like a deranged chipmunk screaming about the weather!
That’s what you get for being pretentious and listening to vinyl records, she berated herself with a chuckle.
Seeing Johanna again would wake her up. Still, the problem with falling in love with the leader of Insomnia Club—with a case of catastrophic shyness stopping her from daring to ask said woman out—was that to see her, Tilde had to keep pretending to be an insomniac.
The other problem with faking insomnia was balancing studying, two part-time jobs, and keeping up with her close group of friends without sleep. Especially since she was thirty years old. Thank goodness higher education was free and came with a small benefit payment here in Sweden. Otherwise she’d be broke by now. It wasn’t like translations and the occasional sold stock photo paid a lot, even when she could sleep and therefore be at her best.
Tilde yawned so wide she nearly swallowed an armchair.
She should study for her next oral exam. Or translate that instruction manual into Swedish for that British fitness machine company before the deadline ran out. Or clean the kitchen. Something, anything, useful. Instead, all she did was stand and watch the rain pelting Ystad’s harbour while drinking her tea, listening to the sound of trains rushing by, and daydreaming about Johanna.
She shook her head. She had to do something. She should make the most of the time before midnight, when Insomnia Club opened. She drank down the last of her tea and picked up a textbook. With some force, she managed to make her tired brain focus on the words.
Off to Insomnia Club
Almost two hours later, Tilde’s phone rang. Never one for answering calls, she checked the screen. It was Elina, one of her group of childhood friends. No, ‘friends’ wasn’t the right word. Brave Elina, kind Jenny, the whirlwind of a woman known as Martina, and Tilde were closer than family.
“Isn’t it too late for you to be up?” Tilde said as she answered the phone.
“No, no, no,” Elina said. “Try again.”
“Huh?”
“Tilde, I love you for your introvert-ness, but you still need to answer the phone like a somewhat sociable person.”
“What?”
Elina laughed. “I recommend going with ‘hi’ or ‘hello’. Maybe something like ‘good evening’ if you want to be formal. Hell, throw in a ‘how are you, Elina?’ just to make sure you’re being polite.”
Tilde ran a hand through her hair. “Oh right. Yes. Um. Hey.”
“Hi, sweet little hopeless case. To answer your question, I’m up because my girlfriend and I are going to the airport. Also, I’m calling you because it’s 12.03.”
Tilde rubbed her eyes, which were sore from intense studying. “It’s a what?”
“The time, doofus. Yesterday, you said that since I’d be up anyway, you’d love it if I called you after midnight, mainly to say goodbye before Aubrey and I go on holiday, but also to remind you to stop working and go to Insomnia Club instead!”
“Oh right!” She had asked Elina to do that, hadn’t she? How had she forgotten? She was working her brain too hard on too little sleep. “I asked you to do that because Jenny isn’t coming tonight, is she?”
Jenny usually picked Tilde up when they were both going to Insomnia Club.
“She had a date tonight,” Elina replied. “Anyway, gotta go. My flight away from this summer rain to blue skies won’t wait, and neither will the hot woman who’s almost out the door.”
Tilde smiled to herself as she faintly heard Elina’s girlfriend, Aubrey, shout hello. Considering the difficulties Elina and Aubrey had gone through to become a couple, it was nice to see them have such a happy and settled life now.
Tilde was proud that she’d been a big part of getting the two of them together again after their extreme break-up. It was especially nice to have a friend who was a lesbian now that she was realising that she wasn’t as straight as she’d always thought. In fact, with Aubrey and Elina being a couple, she must have two women-loving-women friends now. Cool. That would come in handy as she explored what it meant being attracted to women as well as men.
“Tilde? Are you listening?” Elina asked.
No, she hadn’t been.
“Um. Sure.”
“Uh-huh. What did I say?”
“You said… goodbye?”
Elina sighed.
“Sorry,” Tilde mumbled, banging a fist against her thigh.
“It’s okay, you just really need to get some rest. I know that for some reason you’re desperate to go to that club, but now that you can sleep, you should. Anyway, I’ll see you when we get back. I love you, silly doofus.”
“I love, too, name-calling friend. Have a nice holiday!” Tilde said.
They said goodbye, and then Tilde hung up while staring at the clock on the wall. Elina had been right. It was finally past midnight! Tilde could get her raincoat and boots and then run over to Insomnia Club. She’d get to see Johanna! Sweet, fascinating, beautiful Johanna. It had rained the first time she met her as well, the time that Jenny had brought her along to Insomnia Club.
Tilde had been sceptical. Sure, sleep had been an issue ever since her divorce. An ex-husband who drank and fought at night made sleep impossible. However, her friends had helped her get out of that situation, guided her on how to divorce his useless arse and then on how to report him to the police.
Even with all of that behind her, Tilde still hadn’t been able to sleep. Jenny, who had been an insomniac most of her life, often went to Insomnia Club: the rented apartment here in Ystad where a set of women met up when they couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to be alone. She had dragged the sceptical Tilde with her. It had taken two nights before she loved the club and another week or so before she began to love Johanna.
Which was a shitty idea.
Johanna was surely straight. Not to mention that she herself was straight. No, she wasn’t straight anymore, not with her heart and libido doing somersaults every time Johanna talked to her.
She had been straight, though. Right? While pulling on her raincoat, she thought back to all those fascinations she’d had with beautiful actresses and female teachers at school. Hero worship, she had thought at the time, but now? No. She’d never been completely straight. But boyfriends had coaxed their way into her life and then a husband, and that was that. She rarely worried about love and sex anyway; she lived in her mind more than in her body. But now, her body was speaking up. It wanted Johanna. A lot.
Crap.
Tilde sighed and stepped into the rain, ready to run the two streets down to Insomnia Club.
Night of 23rd July
When she got there, Tilde knocked as timidly as always. Half the time people didn’t hear her, but she couldn’t make herself knock louder, couldn’t force herself to make noise.
The door opened, revealing Johanna dressed in a pink linen shirt and curve-hugging jeans, looking dry and fresh as a rose.
“Hi,” Tilde said, slightly breathless. “Sorry. For being soaked, I mean.�
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She’d shaken the worst of the rain off her coat outside the apartment building, but there was nothing to be done about the water dripping from her short hair and down her face. Not to mention her trousers, which were twice as heavy with water. The fact that she’d run here didn’t help; in fact, some of her dampness might be a hint of sweat.
Great. That’s attractive.
“Oh hi, Tilde! No need to apologise, sweetheart. I’ve told you that you never need to apologise to me,” Johanna said with a smile.
A quiet voice in Tilde’s mind supplied, And that’s why you fell for her, you hopeless case.
Johanna stood aside. “Come in and let’s get you dry.”
Tilde carefully stepped in and hung up her raincoat before taking off her sopping boots. The last thing she wanted to do was soak the apartment.
Johanna’s family owned the apartment building, but they were struggling to rent them all out due to the need for repairs and the noise of the trains form the nearby train station.
So one of the apartments, the loft which was too cramped and which had too many odd angles for most renters in Ystad, had been turned into the Insomnia Club. It was filled with posters of sheep you could count, quotes about sleeping, and second-hand soft furniture to nap on if you were lucky enough to fall asleep.
Johanna had been sleepless herself and one night, when walking the streets to keep busy, had nearly been mugged. She had decided to make a safe space for women who couldn’t sleep, somewhere they could go to either try to sleep, to talk to others who were like them, or to simply have a protected space to while away the dark hours of the night.
“I’m so glad to see you, I wasn’t sure you’d make it tonight,” Johanna said, handing Tilde a small towel. “I texted Jenny to ask if she’d bring those muffins of hers, the ones with herbs that are meant to make you sleepy? But she said she wasn’t coming.”
The sleep muffins had a hint of lavender in them, which in Tilde’s mind made them taste the way soap, or grandmothers, smelled. It did not make her sleepy.
Tilde took her glasses off and wiped off the rain smudges. “No, she had a date. I guess you’ll have to make do with me.” She nearly dropped her glasses. “Uh! I mean, not just me. I’m sure you have other attendees here tonight?”
“Yep. There’ll be five of us.”
Johanna brushed her hair—all strawberry-blonde softness and shine—away from her face and smiled in a way that zapped Tilde’s heart.
Johanna had the best smile, so wide and so genuine. She rarely showed any teeth, though. The smile was as modest and un-showy as the rest of her. Everything about her was natural, serene, and nurturing, making it so comforting to be around her. She was exactly what an anxious introvert like Tilde needed: someone who could sit next to her and by that simple gesture make her feel safe and settled. Well, as long as Tilde wasn’t trying to impress her at least; then her nerves wrecked it all. Tilde sighed as she watched Johanna smile so soothingly at her. No wonder Johanna had been her gay awakening.
Not that she was only attracted to Johanna for how she made her feel; there was more to this woman than her nurturing calm. Because Johanna didn’t speak much about herself, she had an interesting secretive quality. Also, she was incredibly openminded and understanding, traits Tilde had always been attracted to. Tilde had told Johanna about her ex-husband abusing her and how it had progressed what had once been shyness into a terrible case of social anxiety and fear of upsetting people. Johanna had said all the right things in response and made Tilde feel her empathy, but never her pity. Unlike others, she didn’t make Tilde feel like a victim.
The fact that Tilde found Johanna incredibly beautiful obviously only made the crush worse. That straight nose, those long locks of hair, and that broad smile. Then there were all the curves and roundness. Johanna wasn’t skinny like Tilde was. No, she’d be so damn soft to hold and to cuddle.
Tilde groaned to herself. She had spent far too much time watching Johanna. But how could she not? How could anyone take their eyes off her? Tilde would happily sit at Johanna’s feet for days, just watching her and trying to make her smile.
She also groaned at herself for standing here in the hallway, just staring at Johanna like some creep while pretending to dry off.
Johanna snapped her fingers as if she’d just remembered something. “I wanted to ask if you could read something for us tonight? You have the most soothing reading voice.”
“I don’t know.” Tilde chewed her lower lip. “If there’s three people here… I might get too nervous again.”
Johanna held up her hands. “Say no more. I’ll stop asking, and you can offer if and when you ever feel comfortable doing it.”
Reading out loud wasn’t the most usual activity at Insomnia Club. Sure, they did always try to do things which would make everyone sleepy so they could try for a moment of rest in the comfy chairs, pillow heaps, and second-hand sofas that filled the apartment, but reading out loud usually kept the person reading awake. To make it more fair, they tended to put on an ASMR video on YouTube or play an audiobook. That wasn’t all they did, of course. They also did things like head massages, breathing techniques, or had long talks about the issues that were keeping them from sleep. It was basically a mix of a safe location for sleepless women, a therapy group, and a club where the end goal was for everyone to put each other to sleep.
It was a bit weird, but it worked.
At least it did for those who had insomnia. Which, of course, Tilde no longer did.
“All dry and ready to head inside?” Johanna asked, breaking Tilde out of her reverie about the club.
“Yes, thank you.”
They went in and found that the other three were sitting in a circle trying to meditate. Two of them seemed calm and had their eyes closed. The third looked bored and was digging in her ear as if she thought there might be buried treasure in there. Tilde joined the circle, away from the ear-picker, and got comfy on a pillow.
“I’ll just go get some snacks and drinks,” Johanna whispered.
As she left, the woman next to Tilde—What was her name? It began with a B. Or possible an S—opened her eyes, sighed, and said, “So brave. Pretending everything’s fine. Poor thing.”
“What? Who?” Tilde queried.
“Johanna. She broke up with her partner.”
Tilde nearly swallowed her tongue. “You’re joking!”
“No. If I were, I’d tell you the one about the pope, the rabbi, and the flamingo.”
“I didn’t even know she had a partner.”
“No, she’s so tight-lipped about her life. She only mentioned her break-up because Lena over there caught her crying.”
“Was her partner fema—” Tilde cut herself off, unable to finish the sentence for some reason. “I mean, do you have any details?”
The other woman grimaced. “Best not to gossip.”
Tilde looked away, her cheeks burning. “Oh, yes. Right. Sorry.”
They went back to trying to meditate, Tilde not focusing at all.
Johanna was single! And possibly gay but equally possibly straight. The words ‘her partner’ were most often used to mean gay, particularly in Swedish, but were gender neutral after all. Either way, she was single!
Tilde’s elation faded to sympathy. Johanna might be single, but she was also heartbroken. Tilde’s heart ached, and for a moment she considered forcing herself to read out loud, just to cheer Johanna up a little. Then her nerve failed her. As always.
The First Attempt
On the walk over to Insomnia Club the next night, two good things happened. One: the summer storm had faded to a mere, warm drizzle. Two: Tilde finally dared to come out to Jenny.
She ended her speech with, “So, um, yes. I’m probably b-bisexual, or maybe pansexual. That is the thing I wanted to tell you.”
“Cool!” Jenny put an arm around her much shorter friend and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for confiding in me. I’m so proud of you for coming out
; that can’t have been easy for you. You know I’m always here if you want to talk about it further?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Tilde’s anxious steps slowed, the lump in her stomach dissipating. She’d known Jenny and Martina and Elina would be fine with whatever sexuality she had, but somehow it was so hard to say the words, to officially put herself outside of the heterosexual norm.
“Jenny?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a chance Johanna might be somewhere on the rainbow scale too.”
“Johanna from Insomnia Club?”
“Yeah.”
“Great! You’ve been making heart eyes at her for ages, so that would be a perfect first ‘lady date’ for you!”
“You noticed that?”
“Afraid so. But only because I was keeping an eye on you,” Jenny said.
Tilde wrapped her thin cardigan more tightly around her, protecting herself from the wave of insecurity. “If she wants to date me. And if she’s even into women. I mean, what are the odds that she’s sapphic too?” Tilde thought that over, dredging up the statistics she had read once and filed away at the back of her mind. “Hm. They say that one in ten people experience same-sex attraction at some point, right?”
Jenny hummed. “I think they did once. Surely they’ve upped that number now that people are more likely to experiment and be open to all gender identities? I mean, especially those openminded young people. Listen to me, geez, I sound like I’m eighty-four.”
“I suppose you’re right. It’s just that we have a lesbian friend. Who has a girlfriend. Then I’m into women… could Johanna be too? Isn’t that too many in one small circle of acquaintances?”
Jenny sucked her teeth pensively. “I don’t think so. As a person of colour in a small Swedish town, I can say that people from a minority tend to be drawn to other people of that minority, either consciously or unconsciously.”
“Do you think that’s why Elina became friends with me? We were all only seven back then.”
Summer Loving Page 28
