by C D Cain
“How so?” I didn’t want to do anything to discourage her from continuing so I sat there as still as I could and waited on her next words.
She took another swallow of her coffee. “Before, I believed you were trying to act out some straight girl lesbian fantasy as a way of sewing some wild oats before you got married.”
“I wasn’t.” I couldn’t hold back my interruption because she couldn’t have been more wrong. “I swear to you. I wasn’t.”
“I believe you.” Would her tone ever change around me? “I respect the fact that you haven’t once tried to get me to talk of Sam or the time she spent with us. I’m not sure if it’s my privacy or hers you’re regarding. But I do respect the fact that you haven’t tried to get me to talk about those days.”
The breeze blew the tall blades of dune grass as they reached for the sky that had now turned a fiery red color.
“Both,” I finally said.
A tear escaped to trace down my cheek as I thought of the loss of Sam. I remembered the pain of watching her walk away. I remembered the tears falling until my vision was skewed and my eyes fatigued. With all of me, I had fought these tears this weekend. I was so tired of crying. So tired of feeling the pain of watching her leave. So tired of feeling responsible for her pain and my pain. Here they fell freely in front of the woman who no doubt had collected Sam’s tears upon her shoulder.
“I never wanted to hurt her,” I said between sobs. “Knowing I did hurts worse than the pain of losing her. I can’t sleep because when I close my eyes I see her crying in front of me. There was so much I did wrong. So much I could’ve done differently.”
I didn’t want the words to keep pouring out of me. I wanted them to stop. She sat across from me and watched as I broke down in front of her but I swear her expression was unchanged. What did I expect her to do? Wrap me up in her arms. Console me after I broke her best friend’s heart. After I hurt Sam so much that she left her fellowship instead of staying in a city where she might run into me. No, if it were me, I would probably sit there emotionless as well.
Which is what she did for several minutes before speaking again. “And now? Would you do things differently if given another chance? If faced with the same situation, even if it’s not Sam, would your choices or actions be different?”
With a strength I hadn’t realized laid dormant within me, I answered without hesitation. “I would. Beyond a shadow of doubt, I would do things differently.” What exactly those things would be I did not know, but I had lived enough of my days with Sam out of my life that I realized if given another chance I would do what I could to never feel this way again.
Violet stood and walked to the balcony door. “Perhaps one day you’ll be faced with a similar decision. Maybe then you’ll remember this feeling you have now and use it to your advantage.” She braced her hand against the glass of the door and glanced over her shoulder. “We’re taking the boat out today. Why don’t you give yourself a day to let those eyes see something besides sadness?”
I looked at her in what I know must have been a look of shock.
“I’ve seen equal pain in both of your eyes now. I’ll tell you like I told her, holding onto the hurt won’t bring her back.”
“What will?”
She sighed. “She asked me the very same question.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I told her the only thing that will bring her back is her. The same for you. The only thing to bring Sam back to you is Sam. If you two are meant to be together, you will be together.”
A breeze caught the curtain of the opened sliding glass door as she turned to walk inside. The material tickled at my shoulder when it flowed across me. The sand had been wiped clean of the footsteps which had marked it the day before. It was a fresh, new surface ready for the day. The drape brushed against my skin once more. I let the tears dry on my cheek and kept the others suppressed. A fresh new surface for the day.
My fingers dipped low into the coolness of the water as the sail caught a wind to carry us across the surface of the ocean. I listened to the sound of the wind whipping the sails as the boat skipped across the waves. There was a rhythm to it. A rhythm that soothed my body as it dipped up and down with the hull of the boat. I sat along the side to let the sun warm my face as I looked into the sky with sunglass-covered eyes. The darker the sunglasses, the harder it was to gather which eyes were upon you and which eyes looked away. I saw Mo smiling and wondered if she had caught me staring at her as I tried to make out the tattoos on her stomach. She was stretched out across the canopy that connected the two-small-engine-powered hulls of the catamaran sailboat. The small royal blue bikini she wore did little to cover the ink on her right lower belly. It was a heart ending in a larger treble clef like the one behind her ear. A flow of musical notes passed over the heart and around her right hip. I watched the trail of quarter notes, eighth notes, and two sixteenth notes. I looked back up at her face and noticed her smile had changed. She was obviously well aware of my stare. I quickly looked away as the water broke to spray across the hull. For a brief moment, I was able to ignore her knowing smile but I could hardly ignore when she began patting the canopy beside her.
I moved cautiously across the canvas to sit next to her. I looked down at my one-piece bathing suit with cut-off blue jean shorts and became nervously aware of the difference in our swimsuit choices. It’s not that I was embarrassed or ashamed of my body. I had managed not to gain the medical school twenty pounds that afflicted some of my classmates. I still wore the same size six jeans and small tops. Hell, I had even kept some of the remnants of my once-toned stomach by squeezing in a few crunches here and there. I suppose it was a shyness beyond anything else that had me hiding in more material than the three of them combined. Seeing hundreds of nude bodies in the OR should have effectively wiped away any shyness I had. It should have but didn’t.
“Are you having a good time?” Mo asked as she cupped her hand over her sunglasses.
“Yes, very. Are you?”
“Are you kidding me? Sun, water, boat? I could live out here.”
Sitting up close to her, I could make out the tattoo underneath her left collarbone. In two separate lines was written, “When the pain penetrates the music resonates.” Small birds inked in black soared across her shoulder. Pain?
Violet sat next to Jazlyn as she steered the boat along the water. Her hand rested on the small of Jazlyn’s bare back. I marveled at the contrast in the color of their skin. It wasn’t like a separation or difference in them but rather a stronger bond. They blended. They became one. Her thumb traced circles along the bikini bottom line of Jazlyn’s suit.
“Sort of makes you want to fall in love, doesn’t it?” Mo was watching the same expression of tenderness I was.
I smiled.
“If you go for that sort of thing.” She winked.
“Does that mean you don’t?”
“What? Falling in love?”
“Yes.”
“Nah, it sort of takes all of the fun out of it to me.”
Jazlyn stopped the boat when we pulled into a small alcove. “We’re here,” she said as she dropped an anchor into the water.
“Race you in.” Mo stood up and tackled Jazlyn into the water. The force of them hitting the water in a ball of arms and legs rocked the sailboat and sent a spray of water onto Violet and me.
“Oh, I’m so getting you now,” Jazlyn screamed when her head popped up out of the water. They became a tangled mess of splashing arms and girl-like screams as they wrestled in the water.
“Those two will go at it like this for hours if we let them,” Violet said.
I laughed as I watched them frolic about in the water. “How long have they known each other?”
“Hmmmm, let’s see.” She tilted her head upwards as if calculating. “We’ve been together for ten years, so I guess close
to eleven.”
“So, she knew Mo before you?”
“Not exactly.” Violet squeezed some sunscreen into her palm and then handed the bottle to me. “You’re getting a little pinkish.” She rubbed the lotion onto her shoulders, which gave her darker skin a whitish tint. “She’d met me before Mo. You could probably say Mo is the reason we’re together. If it hadn’t been for her, I doubt Jaz and I would’ve made it past our own shit. I suppose, if we’re being completely honest, I should say I doubt we would’ve made it past my own shit.”
“She told me she was married when she met you.”
She made a sound of something between a puff and a sigh. “I thought she might. She told me you needed a Mo like she had needed years ago. She wants to be that for you and asked I not stand in the way.”
“And how do you feel about it?”
For the first time, she gave me a smile meant solely for me. It wasn’t a huge smile but it was a smile nonetheless. “I’m warming up to it.”
Cold water splashed across us again. “Are you two coming in or what?” Jazlyn yelled. Mo was riding her piggy-back style.
“In a sec.” Violet waved as if to shoo them away. “I was so in love with Jaz when we met that I couldn’t see reason. I couldn’t see anything beyond wanting to spend my every moment with her. I knew she loved me too so I didn’t understand her indecisiveness in divorcing her husband. To me, it was simple. She wasn’t in love him. She was in love me. I didn’t understand why she struggled so much with leaving him. So, I left her. I wasn’t going to be the mistress who waited for her lover to leave her husband. That’s all I saw. I didn’t see the rest.”
“The rest?”
Violet looked at me. “Yes, the rest. Her side and apparently what is your side. The side that loves the men in your lives yet know it isn’t what will sustain your happiness. There are different forms of love, of commitment, and of loyalty. Jaz met Mo when she was pretty messed up over it all. Mo helped us both see the other’s side. She sat down with us and showed us the way to work through it.”
I looked out at Jazlyn who was laughing a full belly laugh in the arms of her best friend. Her laugh was the kind where her whole face lit up and her head fell back. Her mouth was open wide as the laughter billowed out.
“You see, Rayne, it took time for me to realize that loving Zach and feeling the loss of him in her life didn’t take away from the love she felt for me. Zach was all she had when her parents were gone. It was her constant. The one thing she knew would be the same beyond all else. It was hard for her to give that up. Plus, his family had become hers. Besides me, Zach and his family were all she had. When I ended it, she was devastated because she felt she had chosen them over me. Zach was a good man. It felt wrong to hurt him. I, for all practical purposes, was a good woman. It didn’t seem right to hurt me either. She didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore. Someone would be hurt. Someone’s life would forever change. I made the decision for her and ended it. Mo helped us both see the only clear choice for us.”
She brushed at the water sprinkles that Mo and Jazlyn splashed onto us.
“Mo helped me to understand how I needed to be there for Jaz while she did the wrong she felt was the only right decision for her. So, I was there with her every step of the divorce. I let her cry. I let her grieve his loss. But I had to let go of my own hang-ups before I could do that.”
Yes, the constant. The one thing I always thought would be the same.
“Jaz suspects you may be in the same boat as she was and that Sam was where I was. She could see it clearly when Sam was with us. I suppose I had let the last ten years let me forget about the most painful time in my life and didn’t want to bring it all out again when you started coming around.” She held her hand over her eyes to look at me. “I’m sorry for that.”
The boat rocked to the weight of Jazlyn climbing up over the hull. Her tall frame crossed the distance of the catamaran quickly. She stood in front of Violet and shook her head violently. The wet shower from her long hair drowned Violet in a spray of water.
“Okay you. Either jump in on your own or I’ll throw you in,” Jazlyn said.
Violet laughed as she shook her finger at Jazlyn. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Don’t test me.” Jazlyn pushed Violet onto her back and covered her with her soaked body. She wiggled on top of Violet until Violet emitted a loud cackle. I must say it was not the laugh I ever expected from Dr. Breaker.
“Am I going to have to threaten you the same or will you come quietly?” Mo had raised her body up along the side of the boat to cross her arms over the hull closest to me. Her smile was mischievous.
I put my hands up in defense. “No, no. I’ll come quietly.”
“Well, damn, I never thought I’d be happy to hear a woman say those words to me.”
Wait. What?
I felt a strong blush fill my cheeks and hoped like crazy she mistook it for a sunburn. I also hoped she was fooled into thinking I actually nearly stumbled on something other than my own clumsiness as I stepped toward the side of the boat.
We spent the large part of the afternoon playing in the water of the alcove until our hunger insisted we return. Jazlyn opened the sail as the wind picked up to carry us quickly back to the shore. I let the sun and sounds of the water hitting the catamaran carry me away into thoughts of nothing but the warmth on my skin. The heaviness in my chest rose to be carried away within the sails. I was having fun. I’d laughed. I’d splashed. I’d forgotten.
I stretched my head further back to see Violet and Jazlyn sitting together. Turning my head to the side, I saw Mo watching the same. She winked at me as our eyes met. Another wave of happiness swept over me. I liked her. She had this carefree way that made me feel as if she had no worries in the world.
Once the sailboat was docked in the boat slip, we made our way along the sidewalk that paralleled 30A. 30A is as much of a culture as it is a connection between towns along the Gulf of Mexico. Tourists and locals alike ride around in cars with open sunroofs, convertible tops lowered back, or Jeeps with little to no barrier between the passengers and the open air.
“I’m feeling me some fish tacos.” Mo stepped ahead of us as we walked along the sidewalk. She had pulled her long hair into a ponytail that swayed as she walked and revealed yet another tattoo. Just at the base of her hairline was a circular design of a deep blue sky dotted with stars on one side and a quarter moon on the other. A three-dimensional narrow rainbow was wrapped around the moon. Below it was linear writing in cursive print that traced down between her shoulder blades. Its full passage was hidden underneath the scoop-neck white T-shirt she wore. For a brief moment, an image of me lying on my side next to her body as I read the writing flashed through my mind. I shook the image and the shock of it from my thoughts.
Mo shuffled her feet and spun around when Van Morrison’s Brown-Eyed Girl song began to play from the speakers hidden in the small palm trees that lined the sidewalk. The smile she gave Jazlyn when she held her arms out for her shined brightly underneath the string lights hanging overhead. The tiny clear bulbs joined the line of silver Airstreams that had been converted into food trailers. There was everything from ice cream to full meals available.
“My brown-eyed girl. You my brown-eyed girl.”
Jazlyn picked up her pace to take Mo’s hands. They danced in the middle of the sidewalk with Jazlyn spinning Mo around as I remember seeing Charlie Grace and Jacques do many times before.
“Sha la la, la la, la la, la la, l-la te da,” they sang slightly off key.
Violet stepped closer to me as we followed behind the dancing queens. She smiled and shook her head. “I so love to see her this happy. Mo brings the little girl out in her. She grew up too fast after her parent’s death. It’s good to see her this way.”
Violet was smiling as widely as Jazlyn who was now dancing back to her. “Makin’ love
in the green grass,” she continued to sing as she picked Violet up in her arms.
Violet laughed as Jazlyn carried her off toward the Airstream boasting the best grilled cheese sandwiches on the Emerald Coast.
“You can have a piece of bread with cheese melted between it or you can come with me to taste something truly delicious.” Mo raised her eyebrows in excitement.
“Fish tacos you say?”
“I sure as hell did. The best you’ve ever tasted.”
“That won’t be too hard to master because I’ve never actually had them.”
“Follow me and we can change that.” She grabbed my hand and led me to the last Airstream on the corner. “Do you have a preference of fish? Or do you want me to order for you?”
“I trust your judgment.”
Mo looked at me and smiled. “Hmmmm, can’t say I hear that too many times.” She laughed.
I watched her face as she studied the menu. She furrowed her eyebrows as she considered the options. Her eyes were a brighter green under the red-and-orange lights hanging above the Airstream’s window. She was even more striking with her sun-kissed cheeks.
A young girl who looked to be not much older than legal stepped in front of the older gentleman as Mo came to be next in line.
“Hi, there.”
“Hi.” Mo looked at the row of toppings displayed to the side of the girl.
“What can I get you, doll?” The girl smiled.
Doll? Isn’t she a little young to be calling someone doll?
Mo gave her a million-dollar smile. “Off the menu…” She winked at the girl. “I’ll have four grilled Mako fish tacos topped with jalapeno coleslaw and avocado.” She directed her attention back to me. “Good?”
“Yes. Good,” I said, shaking my head.
The girl followed her eyes to me and frowned briefly before turning to prepare our order.
Mo peered around those in line to look at the open grassy amphitheater. She smiled a much different smile as she watched some kids playing Frisbee with a border collie. She motioned for me to look at them. One of the little girls got tangled with the puppy and tumbled down the small hill. Mo matched the girl’s childish giggle with her own. The puppy popped up and wagged his tail so fast his backend shook with a frenzy. Mo laughed again.
