“Anyway, it’s going well. My editor says I’ve been getting good hits, so they’re thinking of making me a front-page feature after my next article in the series goes up.” Salama attempted to hide her burgeoning excitement, but failed. How could she hide a big smile in front of her best friend? “I guess a lot of people relate to it.”
“Uh huh?”
“What?”
Fatima acted as if the trite design in her latte foam was interesting enough to distract her from their conversation. “Nothing.”
“Just because you don’t relate to it, doesn’t mean other people don’t.”
Although Fatima remained silent, Salama knew what she was thinking. Nothing good.
“I’ve been thinking more about taking it off.”
That got Fatima’s undivided attention again. “Really?”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s finally time. Although I might have to do it gradually. As the days get warmer, anyway.”
“Why not do it now? Seriously, the first day I went out without it on, I felt like a new woman. Totally reborn.”
It was Salama’s turn to withhold an eyeroll. “I don’t need to feel like a new woman. I’m only thinking about what I want to do next with my life, that’s all.”
“Is this going somewhere else? It can’t only be about the same ol’ shit.”
Salama flinched. “I might have met someone. Now, I’m not saying I’m thinking of doing it for her or anything, but it might be a way to mark that stage of my life, you know? Assuming it goes anywhere.”
“What? This thing with a girl, or your life?”
“Why does everything you say have to be dripping with disdain?”
“Because you drive me crazy, Sal.” Fatima placed both hands on the table. “How long are you going to drag this out? You’re in your mid-20s, for shit’s sake. Isn’t it about time you figured out how to…”
“It’s my damn life. I can do whatever the hell I want.” Salama couldn’t believe she had to have this same conversation with her best friend, let alone her sister. Why can’t either of them understand me? Why does their way have to be the right way? They both claimed to be looking out for her well-being. Huh. Salama didn’t recall asking for their help. Yet here she was, getting yet another lecture from someone who supposedly understood her soooo well.
“Everything okay over here?”
Salama jerked back in her seat. Fatima glanced up, a droll look overtaking her face. The last thing either of them expected was Heaven hovering by their table, a pot of coffee in hand. Her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and her apron already had three brand-new stains covering the front. Although she may not have been the pinnacle of conventional beauty, Salama remained speechless for a few seconds, and not only because Heaven had surprised her.
This was Heaven’s domain, after all. If anybody felt comfortable waltzing around and checking up on people, it was her. Her demeanor might as well broadcast to regulars and newcomers alike.
“Hey!” Salama forced a heavy breath out of her lungs, as if that were enough to mitigate the conflicting feelings rising up her throat. “I was wondering if you were around today.”
“It’s been busy as heck, so I’ve been mostly in the back making sure nobody’s food burns.” Heaven turned her attention to Fatima. “Hello there. Haven’t seen you around here before. Friend of Salama’s?”
“This is my best friend Fatima.” Salama unleashed a sigh of relief that Fatima graciously smiled at a stranger. “She’s visiting from Portland today.”
Fatima extended her hand for a shake. It was accompanied with a flick of her straightened hair and a judicious smack of her lips. I could never look like her. That wasn’t a lack of self-confidence speaking on Salama’s behalf. That was hard truth. An opportunity to stop comparing herself to Fatima, who had forged her own path. It didn’t matter how many times she turned around and extended a hand to her best friend. A girl had to become a woman on her own terms.
“Absolutely charming place you have here. I take it you’re the owner?”
Heaven’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead. “Sure am, hon. Name’s Heaven. You now know the inspiration for this place’s name.”
Fatima reclaimed her hand, placing both elbows on the table and folding her fingers before her face. “That’s such a lovely name.”
“Sure beats Nevaeh.”
“Excuse me?”
Heaven grinned. “It’s Heaven spelled backward. Was pretty trendy for a while.” She looked between Salama and her friend. “Excuse me, ladies. Like I said, busy as heck today.” Her head may have swung toward Fatima at the end of that statement, but Heaven wasn’t shy about giving Salama one final grin. “See you around, hon.”
Salama could hardly contain the blush touching her cheeks as she withheld a grin and redirected her energy toward her cup of tea. She almost choked on it.
“What’s that all about?” Fatima asked. “Are you sweet on that lady?”
Salama was so embarrassed that she continued to cough on her tea. Nobody paid her any mind. Not Fatima, who tapped her fingers together, and not the people sitting next to them, who talked so loudly they wouldn’t hear a police siren wailing by the café.
“Now I know the real reason you moved to this quaint little town. Got some solid country girls, I guess. If you’re into that.”
Ooooh, I am. Salama was more open to admitting that now that Heaven proved to be friendlier than the Paradise Valley Welcome Wagon. “She calls me hon.”
“Isn’t the point she calls everyone hon?”
“I don’t think she calls you that if she doesn’t like you.”
Fatima shrugged, as if that were beyond her city-girl understanding. “You guys flirting a lot? I kinda assume every woman in this town is gay.”
A lot of them sure are… Still, Salama had been wrong more than once. Not that it mattered with any of those women. She didn’t fancy them.
“I don’t know what’s going on with her, honestly. It’s not like we spend a lot of time together. We only really started talking this past week, when she invited me to her Valentine’s Day party.”
“Uh huh.”
“And she came by my place yesterday…”
“Uh huh.”
“It’s not like that.” To hell it isn’t. “She only came by to give me some goodies from her café. Then I may have touched her hair.”
“This is the weirdest porn script I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh, my God!” Salama was so flustered that she almost knocked over her teapot. “It’s not like…”
“Relax, Sal. I’m only giving you a hard time. Although I bet you’d much rather the cute barista give you the hard time.”
“Do you listen to yourself?” Then again, Fatima was always the dirtier-minded one. Even when they were in elementary school, Fatima was likely to get in trouble for making crass jokes she shouldn’t have understood. Salama’s family used to worry that Fatima was a terrible influence on her. They probably didn’t see their daughter coming out as a lesbian, though.
“Do you listen to yourself?” Fatima rolled her eyes. “Like, that little voice in your head?”
Salama squared her shoulders. “You’ve stumbled upon my most recent article series. Listening to the voice inside my head that says to put myself out there and get to know myself better. Only then can I make the right decisions for my life.”
A smug countenance claimed the woman Salama barely recognized anymore. Or, perhaps, the smug part was the most recognizable thing about a girl who once hung upside down from the monkey bars and cried, “Look what I can do!”
“This is true,” Fatima said. “You have to know yourself to really put yourself out there.” She lifted her half-empty latte mug. “Here’s to becoming a woman.”
They toasted to that and chatted about Fatima’s work for the next fifteen minutes. By then, the day was growing darker, and she announced she needed to hit the road if she wanted to be back in Portland before Sunday evening traf
fic got really bad. Salama walked her out of the café. Fatima had parked alongside Main Street, both to show off her Bentley to the locals and because she couldn’t find Salama’s apartment with such spotty reception hitting her phone.
“Your friend seems nice.”
Salama spun around on the sidewalk. Heaven stood outside her café door, rearranging the folding signs that advertised her seasonal specials. A broom was also in her hand, as if she could single-handedly brush away the dirt on a public sidewalk.
“Yeah. We grew up together. Funny how different people can turn out.”
“Ain’t that the truth? I went to school with half this town and remember when so many of them had braces and wore scrunchies. Now most of them don’t have enough hair to scrunch.”
Salama chuckled. “The scrunchie wave missed us. Barely.”
“You lucked out. There are some horrifying photos of me as a child.” Heaven folded her hands on top of her broom. “What are you doing this week? Anything that requires you to be physically somewhere?”
The Bentley rolled down Main Street. Salama took a moment to wave at Fatima behind the driver’s seat before turning back around to Heaven. “No? Why?” The thought of her physically going anywhere but her usual haunts was hilarious. This was a woman without a car. She was only able to move to Paradise Valley with Amin’s help. I used to have a car… but I sold it so I could afford rent for a few months without worrying about anything. “I’m doing my usual thing this week.”
“I’m taking a day off on Tuesday. Slowest day of the week.”
“You mean Monday isn’t?”
“People like to start off their work week with a nice coffee. They also like to end it with a nice coffee, so Friday’s a good day, too.” Heaven tucked her broom behind her arm. “Anyway, thinking of going to the coast to do some thrifting and hit up the beach if the weather isn’t too bad. Don’t suppose you’d like to come?”
“Me? Why are you inviting me?”
Heaven shrugged. “You seem like a gal who could use a day trip. It can’t be healthy being cooped up in this town all the damn time. Maybe the sea air will be good for your creativity. I dunno. Sometimes I like to take a friend with me.”
A friend? Is that me? It had barely been a week, and now they were friends? Was this normally how quickly things worked in a small town? Meanwhile, it took Salama several months to make one genuine acquaintance in Portland. I should have moved to a small town sooner. What had she been worried about again? Something about people giving her crap?
“I don’t know if…” Salama stopped herself in the middle of that thought. Come on, what were you telling Fatima? Salama was learning about who she was. Gripping onto her identity as she approached independent adulthood. Any baggage that she carried from her childhood was simply that: baggage. Sometimes it was as light as a feather, and sometimes it pulled a girl down and threw out her back. She was learning to concentrate more on the featherlight days. “You know what? That sounds awesome. I haven’t been to the beach in years.”
“Years, really? I thought you were from around here!”
“I’m from Portland. We didn’t go to the beach hardly ever.” Salama’s mother was not a fan of sand or saltwater, specifically what it did to her skin and to the family laundry. Her father rarely took enough time off from work to afford a decent vacation. Amin and Salama were the only ones who got anything out of the few excursions to Cannon Beach and Seaside. We used to build sand castles and do cartwheels in the surf. Yet no matter what they did, their mother yelled at them to get away from the water. She was convinced a riptide would kill her children.
“Then you should definitely come! Also, I’ve seen your apartment. You need more furniture. Maybe we’ll find something good at a thrift store.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“We’ll take mine. I can fit a few decent-sized things in there.”
Was this really happening? Was Heaven inviting Salama out for a day trip to the beach? To go shopping? To bring her some furniture, assuming she found anything good? I must be dreaming. I know this isn’t a date, but… Salama snapped herself out of her good-feelings stupor and said, “Okay. What time?”
Heaven said she would text her, which led to them finally exchanging numbers. As Salama headed home, she reminded herself that none of this would have been possible if she didn’t say yes and put herself out there. Already, she felt better than she ever had in the recent years of her life.
Chapter 12
HEAVEN
She picked up Salama at nine in the morning, shortly after checking in on her two helpers manning the café on such short notice.
I gotta get outta here for a while. Between the winter weather and personal ghosts coming back to haunt her, Heaven was going stir-crazy in Paradise Valley. When she wasn’t chained to the café, making sure everything ran smoothly and guests stayed happy, she was in her house, wishing she had someone, anyone to talk to.
The decision to go to the coast had been made shortly after Rob left Saturday night, but Heaven didn’t decide to invite Salama along until she saw her at the café. Sitting with that beautiful woman… not that Salama isn’t beautiful, too, but… Salama’s friend was the kind of fancy pretty that turned heads and got mouths talkin’. More than one patron at the café had leaned in over the counter to ask her, “Who is that?” Fatima could have had her pick of female lovers in Paradise Valley.
Then again, so could Salama, honestly.
Heaven didn’t know why she was so fixated on what happened at that table. One moment she was filling up somebody’s bottomless cup of Sunday coffee, and the next, she heard a small altercation between two women. The urge to defend Salama had been so strong that Heaven interjected herself into the situation. I feel like an idiot. It hadn’t been her place to say hello when Salama was clearly taking care of herself. I saw that look in her eyes. The one that said, “I’ve got this, thanks.”
It wasn’t until later that night, when she finalized plans for their trip Tuesday, that she realized she had been jealous.
How could she not be? Salama had been hanging out with a beautiful woman who seemed to understand where certain denizens of Paradise Valley came from. When they weren’t slipping into another language or talking of days long past, they were sharing light touches to the arms and leaning in toward one another like they had some girlish secrets to share. How was I supposed to know that was her childhood friend? Looked like a girlfriend! God, what was wrong with Heaven? She saw cute girls on dates in her café all the time. Hell, one of the Yelp! tags was “places for a first date.” Not that there were many in town.
Still, Salama was the first one to make her jealous. That fact only served to confuse Heaven even more.
She wished she had someone to talk to. Yet although Heaven was one of the most recognizable women in town, she had few close friends. She was often too busy or living on some other plane of existence. The straight one. She didn’t go to LGBT-themed events unless a friend invited her along for support, because she didn’t… well, she didn’t belong there! So many of the social functions in Paradise Valley were either centered on lesbianism or family life. Heaven didn’t have a girlfriend or kids. Until recently, she never considered one over the other.
I’m a hostess. I don’t really participate. That’s why Heaven was recognizable but also an enigma about town. Now she was paying for it.
She needed to stop obsessing and let life go as it willed. Seriously, stop obsessing!
Easier said than done when she didn’t see Salama again until Tuesday morning.
***
“Whoa, that’s a nice color.” Heaven changed gears, prepared to pull out of the parking lot in front of the pizza parlor. Salama had hopped into the passenger seat with only one bag to keep her company. Yet that wasn’t what had drawn Heaven’s eye. Oh, no. It was the seafoam green scarf on her head, accompanying a long white sweater and a black T-shirt advertising a local Portland band beneath it. She was so effortles
sly casual while still looking like she was ready to hit up a trendy brunch place. Also so oddly on theme. Seafoam green. That couldn’t have been a coincidence. “Don’t think I’ve seen that one on you before.”
“I usually save it for spring.”
“You like color coding your wardrobe for the seasons, huh? Way more effort than most of the locals put into their clothes.”
“What can I say? You’ve seen my best friend. Somebody taught me to be somewhat fashionable.”
Heaven pulled out onto Main Street, which eventually turned into the mountain highway weaving between the valley and the coast. They were heading west today. A familiar road Heaven had traversed a thousand times before. Way more than I ever went toward Portland. They weren’t even in the same county. Aside from going to the big hospitals, what other point was there? Getting caught up in traffic? Dealing with the one-way roads crisscrossing downtown? Running over jackasses who ran into the street like they owned it? I get enough of that one here. One thing remained the same all over Oregon: jaywalkers loved wearing black hoodies at night.
While the day was a bit overcast, there was no rain in the forecast. The coast would probably be windy. Maybe foggy, although that usually burned off by noon, when they reached their destination. Here was hoping Salama was Oregonian enough to still enjoy the beach with a little fog.
Here was also hoping she liked ‘80s music, because that was the only station that came in for most of the trip. It was a good excuse to talk about their likes and dislikes. Did Heaven know that Salama had gone to a slew of punk rock concerts before she moved to the countryside? That’s where the T-shirt came from! Yes, yes, your lovely T-shirt… very form-fitting… very V-neck… Jesus help me. This wasn’t helping Heaven concentrate on the highway. Luckily, it wasn’t busy on a Tuesday morning. Even luckier that the temperatures had been high enough recently to melt any overnight ice that might have still lingered.
Because she kept glancing at Salama like she was listening to what she said instead of checking her out. Me. I’m checking out a girl. What in the world is happening to me? Good thing she was out getting some fresh air. She needed it.
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