Jenny laughed. “I haven’t got a freaking clue. Never mind all that. Even if it would be a freakish coincidence if Johanna was also into women, freakish coincidences happen all the time.”
“Next you’ll be saying you’ve thought about women?”
Jenny shook her head. “Afraid not. I mean, I’m not as ironclad straight as Martina who, if she wasn’t happily married to Robert, would still be riding every man around like they were free ponies at a fair.”
Tilde laughed, then had to stop so she could yawn. Sleepiness was creeping in. Maybe she needed to try caffeine pills? She decided to keep herself awake by focusing back on Johanna.
“So, to figure out if I have a chance with Johanna,” she said, “I think I need to try an academic method. It’s where I’m most comfortable.”
Jenny stepped around a puddle and then came back to walk next to Tilde. “Go for it.”
“The theory: I can be with Johanna. In favour of the theory: She’s single. I’m in her social circle. In negation of the theory: She’s too good for me. Possibly straight. Sociable, so probably not into quiet, awkward people like me. Most likely still heartbroken from a break-up. Five to ten years older than me, and so possibly not into younger people.”
“Tilde. Other than the statement that she is ‘too good for you’, which is just plain wrong, everything else was guesswork. I’m a hairdresser, I don’t know anything about academic work, but I’m pretty damn sure you do research to find out facts, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then skip getting to the ‘will she or won’t she want me’ stage until you get some basic facts about her.”
Tilde groaned. “You’re right.”
“You know what I’m going to say.”
Tilde yawned again, bigger this time. “Yes. So don’t say it.”
“You need to talk to her. Get the lay of the land, and then tell her you’d like to date her.”
“I said don’t say it.”
“Yep, but having known you since you were young enough to wet the bed at sleepovers overrules that, honey.”
Tilde glared at her. “That’s Martina’s response to everything.”
“I know. I thought I’d try it out, to see if it could make you smile. Are you okay? You look half-dead.”
“I’m exhausted. But I have to pretend that I can’t sleep so I can keep coming to the club.”
“Why don’t you sleep during the day?”
“Then I have to work, study, and go to lectures.”
Jenny sighed. “Okay, I know I’m a worrywart and I won’t nag you. Just please try to get a nap later?”
“I will.”
When they got upstairs, Jenny knocked, nice and loud.
It took Johanna an unusually long time to open the door, giving Tilde way too much time to think about how being away from the fresh air now was making her fall asleep, but also to dwell on how she should look when Johanna opened the door. Casual? Eager to come in? In the end, she decided to lean against the wall and look as suave as she could.
The wall was cool against her skin, heated from the walk in the balmy summer evening. The coolness and quiet of the stairwell were soothing. She closed her eyes for a second—trying to relax so she could look suave and not awkward, vaguely wondering why it was taking Johanna so long to open the door. Then she wasn’t wondering anymore. She was slipping into a deep, welcoming pocket of sleep.
Deeper. Deeper. Deeper.
Boom!
As she had slipped into sleep, her feet had slipped across the smooth stone floor. Meaning she’d fallen on her side.
“Whoa! Are you okay?” Jenny asked, crouching down next to her.
Tilde checked herself. “No. My hip hurts like hell. And my cheek. Nothing’s broken, though.”
“Tilde, honey, did you fall asleep against the wall?”
Shame burned almost worse than the smarting in her body. “Mm.”
Jenny’s face was a picture of worry. “You’re too tired for this. Why don’t you go home and sleep?”
“No. I can’t miss this!” Tilde hissed, one eye on the door which could open at any minute.
Jenny helped her to stand. “Okay. Then have a nap when we get inside. Insomniacs have little naps all the time.”
“Yes, but I’m not an insomniac anymore. If I have a nap at midnight, I’ll sleep like a baby until eight a.m.!”
Jenny was still inspecting her. “Your cheek is all red. I think it’s going to bruise.”
“Then I can’t come in,” Tilde said, still trying to keep her voice down. “Johanna will ask what happened to me!”
“I know. I’m sorry, mate, I think you have to sit this night out.”
Tilde glanced over at the door. She thought she could hear footsteps approaching. “You’re right. And I have to go right now. Tell Johanna that I had to go but that I wanted to be here. That I wanted to see her.” She began limping off, then turned to whisper, “No! Don’t say that I wanted to see her. That sounds creepy, right? Say that I wanted to be here.”
“I’ll take care of it. Just go before she opens the door!” Jenny hissed back.
Tilde walked home, her hip and cheek now joined by her shoulder in throbbing with pain. Still, they were nothing in comparison to her hurting pride. Or how sad she was to miss seeing Johanna.
Try again when you’re healed up. Oh, and less pathetic, she told herself and went home to bed.
Night of the Second Attempt
Three nights later, Tilde’s redness, which had never really bruised, was gone and she had gathered up her courage. She had planned her approach this time, deciding that the best scheme was to ask Johanna how long one should wait before asking out someone who had just broken up with a woman. Best-case scenario: that would lead to talking about Johanna’s break-up a week ago and Tilde could confess that she was the one she wanted to date. Worst-case: Johanna would at least know that Tilde was in the dating market. Win-win.
Sitting on a beanbag in the club, Tilde waited for hours as they discussed a new member’s lack of sleep due to a snoring husband and whether hypnosis worked against sleeplessness.
At one point, Tilde even fell asleep and woke herself by jolting upright.
Finally, the women separated to go to the bathroom and get snacks, and Tilde got Johanna to herself. She dove right in.
“Can I ask your advice? As someone who’s older?” Tilde heard how that sounded and added, “Uh, a little older and I meant it in in a good way, as in that you’re more experienced! Not that old is a bad thing, I love older women. I mean, um, not in a fetishizing way, just that… They’re neat.”
Johanna laughed. “Well, as a neat, older woman I will gladly try to help if I can. What is it you need advice about? Sleep?”
“No. I don’t have a problem with that. No, I mean I do have a problem with sleeping. Obviously. What I meant was that my problem right now is… romantic.”
“Romantic?”
“Yeah. There’s someone,” she fiddled with the collar of her button-down shirt, “that I would like to ask out, but I worry it might be too soon. You see, the person has recently broken up with a woman, well, I hope it’s a woman.”
“Ah, that’s always tricky. I mean, if you want something purely physical, then you could jump into being a rebound and have some fun. However, if you want a solid relationship, you’ll have to make sure you’re on the same page and everyone is ready and comfortable. Communication really is key, then, I suppose?”
“Mm. Unquestionably,” Tilde said.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Of course the answer was going to be ‘you need to talk to the person and make sure you’re on the same page’. Still, she’d hoped by some stroke of luck this would lead them into talking about who the object of affection was. Or that Johanna would volunteer information about her own break-up and preferences.
“Also,” Johanna said, “it makes it more complicated if you don’t know if he’s gay, I suppose?”
“Huh? He?
”
“Yes, you said the one you wanted to date had just broken up with someone you hoped was a woman. I interpreted that as you don’t know if he’s into women?”
Tilde stifled a groan. This was not a promising finding for the ‘Johanna is gay’ column. Why would she assume that Tilde was into a man if she herself dated women? But then, when Tilde had told Johanna about her abusive ex-husband and her questionable boyfriends before him, she had of course come off as straight as an arrow. Also, there was heteronormativity to take into account.
Tilde took a deep breath. She had to gather up enough courage to come out again. This time not to her family up north, who quite frankly hadn’t cared, or to her close friends who were so understanding and used to gay friends. Now it was to this stunning woman who meant so much to Tilde. She had no idea how Johanna would react.
She stood as tall as her petite stature would allow and took another deep breath. And a third. She went for a fourth one when she swallowed something which she hoped was just dust and not an insect!
She began coughing and then choking on it as she willed herself to stop bloody coughing and tell Johanna that she was into honeypots. Then, of course, she panicked at the fact that the best word for the female genitalia she could come up with at the moment was honeypot, which made the coughing even worse.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” One of the other participants came rushing over and was soon joined by the other eight members in attendance that night.
Johanna told them that Tilde was just stressing over some romantic problems, while rubbing soothing circles on her back. The feel of her hand was far too intimate for Tilde to handle. So obviously, the damn coughing intensified.
“Ah, well, she picked a good day to be stressed considering the relaxation technique we’re doing now is yoga!” the group’s oldest member said. “Try to stop coughing, Tilde, and let’s see if some Happy Baby pose can calm you.”
Try to stop coughing, Tilde thought. Ha! Why didn’t I think of that?
Johanna went to get some water while the others helped Tilde to a chair.
At this point she and her growing sense of embarrassment would’ve done just about anything to have a reason to go home. Instead she was being shot pitying glances and now had to do something called a Happy frickin’ Baby.
She had to face it: this attempt had been a failure.
Night of the Third Attempt
It was a beautiful summer’s night, not too warm and not too chilly, without even a hint of rain. With that in mind, Tilde had picked up her camera to get some shots of Ystad in the waning light. Night photography was a favourite of hers. Most of her pictures that had garnered interest and money had been taken at night. Even Johanna had bought a print of the stars, clear and crisp as glass, shining down on the sleepy seaside town of Ystad.
She checked her watch and, like Cinderella, gasped when she realised it was almost midnight. She shoved her camera in her bag and powerwalked to Insomnia Club.
When you get there, we won’t have another disaster like last night, she told herself. You’ll tell Johanna that you were talking about a woman, not a man.
She got there right on time, which meant she was the first one in. She was alone with Johanna, who looked radiant in a white summer dress as she opened the door with a heartfelt, “Hey you! Come on in.”
Tilde was pretty sure she was already blushing. If just being greeted by this woman made her react this way, how was she going to come out to her?
She would have to change her plans. Start with something easier. She remembered what Jenny said about doing research. That’s how she had to approach this. Don’t start with coming out. Or asking her out. Just do some research. Simple.
Johanna smiled. “Can I take your blazer?”
Tilde shrugged it off and handed it to her.
Say something.
Johanna turned the thin blazer in her hands. “I like this pattern. What is it called?”
“H-herringbone, I think.”
“Nice!” she said and hung it up.
Tilde took off her scuffed boots and then finally got her uncooperative mouth to spit out the words, “So, I realise that I don’t know much about you other than that you run this club. What is it you do for a living?”
She was pretty happy with that, actually. She hadn’t stuttered, talked super-fast, or sounded too weird. Maybe she should’ve started with ‘How are you?’ or something like, ‘Isn’t it a lovely night’? But all in all, this interchange didn’t seem too disastrous.
Johanna didn’t seem to think her question was rude or weird at least, as she sounded completely normal when she answered, “I’m a music teacher and a harpist.”
“Wow. Really? You don’t hear about someone playing the harp every day.”
“No, most people learn to massacre ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ on a recorder at school and then they swear off learning to play an instrument!”
Tilde laughed. “Well, I mean, I know people who took advantage of being taught the piano or the guitar at school, but I’ve never met a harp player. It seems a difficult instrument. Not to mention how hard it must be to get one?”
“True,” Johanna said with a shrug. “I only got one as a child because my grandmother owned an antique shop where someone brought in an old, untuned harp that she couldn’t sell.”
“She gave it to you?”
“In return for me doing all her garden work for a year, yes. Then my poor parents had to scour the countryside for a harp player to tune it and to teach me how to play it.”
This wasn’t the sort of information Tilde was meant to be researching, but she didn’t care. Everything about this woman was fascinating. And watching her now, talking about the injuries to her fingers as she had learned to play, was mesmerising.
Tilde did an okay job at asking follow-up questions and keeping the conversation going in a comfortable way until Johanna dropped the bomb that her ex had gotten angry about her fascination with her harp, saying that she only liked it because she was sex-crazed and it was a stand-in for masturbation.
Tilde coughed. “Your ex said what?”
Johanna nodded. “Alex said I liked something delicate and complicated between my legs that I could finger whenever I wished. I mean, it was obviously meant to hurt me, but honestly, it just made me laugh! I mean, it’s not like it even goes between my thighs like a cello does. I clamp it with my knees at the most.”
Maybe this would’ve made Tilde laugh under other circumstances too. Now, it made her breathe faster and sway a little, suddenly weak at the knees. Literally. She had always thought that was just an expression, but now it was as if someone had replaced her kneecaps with pieces of sponge cake. The idea of Johanna masturbating, or basically fingering anything between her legs, even if it was only between her knees, nearly knocked Tilde out.
Also, annoyingly, Alex was a gender-neutral nickname and no pronouns had been used. Damn!
Johanna waved a hand in front of her. “Tilde? Are you all right? I’m sorry if I shocked you. Perhaps we don’t know each other well enough for me to talk about touching myself. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She just said ‘touching myself’. Oh god. Get it together, woman! You’re thirty, not thirteen!
“N-no, that’s f-fine. You can talk to me about anything.” Tilde tried to steady herself and to remind her knees of their main function in life, so she reached out for the coat rack, which looked like it was attached to the wall.
It wasn’t.
Soon, Tilde wasn’t attached to the floor. Instead, she was falling arse over elbow, with the coat rack firmly clamped in her right hand. She collapsed on the ground with surprisingly little injury, except to her pride and her bum. However, there was still that coat rack to bargain with; it had fallen loyally with her all the way to landing.
Right on top of her. One of its hooks landed square on her nose and hurt like hell. The other places the coat rack descended on weren’t feeling too great eithe
r.
This was worse than the tumble she’d taken when she’d fallen asleep out in the stairwell last week.
“Oh my God! Are you okay?” Johanna said.
She lifted the coat rack off of Tilde and crouched down next to her. Tilde sat up and gingerly examined her war wounds.
Johanna was looking at her, a deep furrow on her beautiful brow. Tilde had no idea what to say. She simply wanted to sink though the ground. She glared at the coat rack. Why couldn’t it have at least knocked her unconscious so she didn’t have to be aware of this new low in her embarrassing attempt at woman-loving-woman courtship?
Suddenly Johanna gasped. “Your nose is bleeding! I’ll get some tissues.”
So, there she was, trying to temporarily halt a nosebleed with a receipt she’d found in her pocket, sitting in the hallway belonging to her crush, and just waiting for a group of sleep-deprived women to barge in and ask what the hell had happened. Probably all at the same time. Probably all mothering her. Or if not, even worse: laughing at her.
She leaned her head back and pressed the useless receipt closer to her aching nostrils.
I suppose that’s all the research I’m getting in tonight. Elina is right. I’m a doofus.
Coming out or asking Johanna out was now a ludicrous notion. No, she’d be lucky if she survived the night without pulling some other furniture down on her head. Maybe she could market the whole coat rack thing as a new way to beat insomnia? Knock yourself unconscious. But then, all she’d managed to do was make her nose bleed and create what were probably going to be some really fascinating bruises.
She picked up her phone and sent out a text to her three friends, saying, “Mayday! If anyone sees this, come pick me up at Insomnia Club. I’m bleeding and I’m the biggest moron since Martina took that selfie using a dildo as a selfie stick.”
Just as Johanna came back with the tissue paper, a text came in from Martina:
1. Hey! That was the best selfie I’ve ever taken. 2. I’ll be there soon, honey. Recommend stopping the bleeding since I will kill you if you bleed in my car.
Summer Loving Page 29
