Tack & Jibe

by Lilah Suzanne

  Though she often thinks of the island as unchanged, frozen in time, the beachfront businesses shift every few years. New facades replace old ones when ownership changes hands. Some are gutted and redone completely, like the Cordova’s real estate business that was once a yogurt shop. Porter Sails, in fact, was a kite store when Willa was kid. They sold fancy kites made of bright fabrics with long tails that spiraled in the wind. What happened to the owner of the kite shop? she wonders. She’d never thought about them, as if once off the island they ceased to exist. Jenn and Robin might know, but then it doesn’t really matter; the fancy kite store and the sail shop aren’t so different. What an odd hobby, catching the wind. Willa takes a wide left turn and glides on.

  The shop is the same, busy now that summer is in full swing. Every once in a while, a customer will squint and tilt their heads and ask her, “Hey, are you…” Yes, she’ll tell them, she’s that girl who entered that race. Yes, she really did get disqualified before it began. No, she hasn’t gotten back on a boat yet. Otherwise, she keeps her head down and does her job. In the evenings she and Bodhi party with the same people they’ve always partied with. Hunter has become a more regular fixture. Willa has yet to brave Instagram. Everything is more or less the same, except for Lane.

  They have a standing lunch date, usually at The Sand Dollar but sometimes at the little sandwich shop that has a few picnic tables scattered outside in the sand and sometimes at The Oyster Bar, which is where Willa heads today. She gets a table on the patio that’s painted pastel green and blue and yellow, where Caribbean music jangles from the outdoor speakers. Summer is in full swing on Porter Island, packed with people and buzzing with bright energy. Willa orders a sweet tea; she presses it to her neck and cheeks before taking a drink.

  “Hey.” Lane appears, kisses Willa on the cheek and slides into the tall chair across. She’s been off her crutches for a while now; her sprained ankle is completely back to normal. “Sorry I’m late. Showing went long.” She rolls her eyes.

  “Regular obnoxious clients or extra special obnoxious clients?” At lunch, Willa usually gets all the salacious details of Lane’s annoyingly rich and just plain annoying clients who are shopping for beach houses. Lane orders a white wine. Super obnoxious then. “They complained about the roof pitch being too high. The house is amazing and that’s not even a thing. A too-high roof pitch. They were just being insufferable because they can.” Over the course of their lunches, Willa has learned that Lane really, really hates her job and is not great about hiding that fact from anyone, including her clients. “Which I told them,” she says, with a slight cringe. “So they switched to my brother.”

  “Well that’s—” Willa starts, but stops herself from saying their loss, because Lane’s brother is apparently very good at being a realtor, and Lane is, well. Good at other things. “On to the next one,” she says encouragingly. Lane drains half of her wine.

  The waiter takes their orders and collects their menus. “Speaking of my family,” Lane says, face pinching as if her last sip of wine turned sour on her tongue. “My parents are in town.”

  “Oh?” Willa was starting to wonder if they really existed.

  “Yeah. I was actually, um…” Lane wipes the condensation off her wine glass and nibbles her lip. “I was wondering if you wanted to meet them?”

  Taken aback, Willa doesn’t immediately answer. She and Lane have been circling around each other for weeks. Willa has been giving Lane space to figure out what she wants, which is fine. Totally one hundred percent fine.

  Except at these daily lunches Lane will catch her eyes and smile, as if she’s pleasantly surprised to see Willa there, every time. And Lane will kiss her on cheek when she arrives and peck her on the lips when she leaves, blushing and rushed. She always texts Willa in the morning first thing and then at night, just to chat. And sometimes when they walk from the restaurant to the car, Lane will catch Willa’s pinkie with her own and, if no one is around, kiss her hard up against the side of Lane’s car, leaving Willa wound up and bewildered. Sometimes Willa can’t shake the feeling that she’s a practice girlfriend, as if Lane is merely training extensively for the real thing.

  “You don’t have to meet them. I just thought— Anyway, forget it. No biggie.”

  Willa took too long to answer, and Lane is clamming up. Her arms are tucked into her lap and her gaze is fixed on an empty table. Surely asking Willa to meet her parents means something. “I do want to. I sort thought they weren’t real people is all.”

  Lane laughs. “Yeah well, they sort of aren’t.” Willa raises her eyebrows in question. “You’ll see. So was the shop busy today?”

  After lunch, Willa goes back to work, thankfully for only a couple more hours. She’s distracted and clumsy, bumping into customers on the floor and zoning out at the register. She goes to the back to grab a pair of high-performance racing boots in size nine and ends up staring at the rows of boxes stacked tightly on the shelf for an indeterminate amount of time.

  “Willa? Are you okay, honey?” Jenn pokes her head into the stockroom. “If you need to go home, we can manage.”

  Since her concussion, she’s had a ready excuse to blow off just about anything: work, cleaning the cottage, making people leave the cottage when she’s had enough of them but Bodhi hasn’t. It’s as simple as saying her head hurts, and everyone will rush to let her off the hook. She feels fine though. And more than that, she doesn’t want to be the sort of person who makes excuses anymore.

  “Oh yeah, I’m okay.” She grabs the shoes she came in for and hustles back to the store. If she’s been waiting for Lane to be ready, to make the first move toward something real, surely this it?

  Ch. 32

  Lane sends a text telling Willa to dress fancy, which is something Willa definitively does not do. She has a pair of jeans that aren’t a total worn out disaster and a white, button-up shirt printed with tiny cheeseburgers that Willa only bought at a yard sale because she thought it was funny. She lays out the okay-ish jeans and the cheeseburger shirt and frowns. She’s pretty sure it doesn’t qualify as fancy. She asks Bodhi for help, and she pulls out a variety of sundresses made of thin, gauzy fabric. Willa tries them all on; each one brings a new wave of despair and self-loathing. On Bodhi they look effortlessly sexy: breezy and summery and clinging just right. When Willa looks at herself in the mirror, she’s reminded of how they learned about the Great Depression in school, how people used to fashion flour sacks into dresses.

  It’s Hunter who comes through for her, dashing off to her condo and returning with fitted slacks in shining emerald green and a loose, button-up shirt that does not have cheeseburgers printed on it.

  “We could do something with your hair?” Hunter gathers the mass of curls into both hands. She stands behind Willa, and Bodhi stands behind her.

  “My hair does what it wants,” Willa says, tucking and untucking and re-tucking the shirt.

  “Tucked,” Bodhi says.

  “How about…” Hunter tucks Willa’s hair into a low twist, then asks Bodhi to grab bobby pins from her purse. She secures everything as if she’s done this a million times to Willa’s hair, then pulls a few tendrils loose to curl in spirals around Willa’s face. “Yes.”

  “Hot,” Bodhi proclaims. “Lane’s gonna love it.”

  Willa’s heart rate ticks up. She hopes so.

  She’s meeting Lane at the ferry, which they’ll take to Oak Island for dinner at a yacht club. Willa has always viewed the yacht clubs that dot the shores here with suspicion. Exclusionary and exclusive, with their private beaches and private docks, they’re the sort of places people probably join in order to look down at other people—people like Willa. Her stomach is in knots, gets worse when Lane’s white SUV drives in, then loosens entirely when Lane steps from the car. Willa doesn’t dare draw breath as Lane walks toward her in a little black dress and sharp heels, with the wind blowing her hair back, hips sway
ing, chin held high. Willa is certain she’s had a fantasy exactly like this.

  “Hi,” Lane says.

  Willa garbles something in response. She waits for a kiss on the cheek that doesn’t come.

  “Ready?”

  Willa nods and notices, now that she’s through being gobsmacked by Lane, the look of sheer panic in Lane’s eyes. She slips her hand into Lane’s and gives it a squeeze.

  Lane blows out a breath. “Okay.”

  Willa’s hackles are up already, more so when Lane drops her hand as the ferry approaches the shore, even more when Lane walks ahead of her down the sidewalk and up to the yacht club. Inside, everything is muted and quiet and starched white; glasses and silverware tinkle gently; conversation is at a low murmur. A host in a tuxedo asks for their reservation.

  “Cordova,” Lane says, and looks at Willa as if she wants to apologize to her. “We’re meeting our party here, actually.”

  Their party is a dark-haired couple that Willa recognizes from the picture on the boat. They’re older, with lined faces and softer bodies, but unmistakably Lane’s parents.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Willa. Willa…”

  They stand to shake Willa’s hand, then sit and delicately place their starched white napkins back over their laps.

  “Nice to meet you. Sorry I broke your boat,” Willa says, immediately getting off on the wrong foot by bringing up the boat incident. “My bad.”

  “I hear you had quite the adventure,” Lane’s dad says. Chip. Who knew there were really people called Chip? “Please, sit.”

  They order a calamari starter and fancy wine and exchange niceties. Willa watches Lane to see what fork to use and how often to sip her very dry wine.

  “Are you old enough to drink wine?” Lane’s mom asks, expression pinched.

  “Oh, yep,” Willa says, and Lane mutters, “barely.”

  They order entrees with price tags that make Willa feel a little faint. It’s pleasant, stiff, in the way that chatting with someone you don’t know and have very little in common with is, but pleasant. Willa can’t work out why Lane was so nervous, and even now next to Willa is stiff and closed off and barely speaks at all.

  Then Lane’s mom—call me Marie—says, “So you two are dating? Is that what this is?”

  Lane’s eyes widen, and her face drains of color. Marie waits for an answer with a cold look and raised eyebrows.

  “Now, Marie…” Chip says, but doesn’t finish the thought.

  Willa, worried about Lane, and still used to lying as a reflex, laughs. “Oh, gosh, no. No, we’re just friends, right, Lane?”

  Lane glances at Willa, at her parents, then pats the corners of her mouth with her starched white napkin. “Excuse me,” she says and strides purposefully toward the bathroom. Willa turns to call after her, and just barely manages to catch the way Lane’s face shifts, from stoic to crestfallen, just before she pushes the bathroom door open.

  Willa says a word that’s probably banned at this yacht club, and chases after her. “Lane? Lane, are you— God, this is a nice bathroom.” The sinks are all gleaming chrome and marble, and the lights are dimmed; there’s even a sitting room with leather couches. Willa bends to look for shoes beneath the spacious cherry wood stalls. She spots Lane’s black heels in the very last one; every other stall is empty. “Hey, it’s me,” Willa says, knocking softly. “Willa,” she adds, as if Lane may have been expecting someone else to join her in the bathroom. The lock clicks, and Lane lets her in. Lane stands back against the door, making Willa shuffle to one side in order to stay clear of the toilet.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I—” Lane shakes her head. “That was dramatic, sorry.”

  Getting Lane to be vulnerable sometimes feels to Willa as though she’s fishing with a single strand of silk; anything other than gentle patience and Willa loses her. “I just wasn’t sure what to say,” Willa starts. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It wasn’t you.” The stall is cramped enough that Lane’s hand brushes Willa’s hip when she gestures, and the smell of her perfume, powdery and floral, fills Willa’s nose. “Actually, I brought you here because…” Willa’s breath catches; here it is, she’s finally ready. “I was hoping to borrow some of your courage.”

  Willa blinks, pushing back against disappointment. “Oh.”

  “It’s just I haven’t come out to them, and it’ll be a whole thing and—” She drops her head back against the door and groans. “I’m pushing forty and I can’t tell my parents that I like girls. It’s pathetic.”

  “Hey.” Instinctively, Willa moves closer, putting a comforting hand on Lane’s arm the way she would for Bodhi, only Bodhi’s skin isn’t so soft and so warm and so electric under her palm. “You aren’t pathetic. Don’t get me wrong, coming out is important, and you’ll feel a million times better not carrying around this secret, but also, if your parents are gonna be shitty about it then don’t. You don’t owe your true self to shitty, unsupportive people.”

  Lane’s tense shoulders relax. She smiles a little. “When did you get so sensible?”

  “Must have been the bump on the head.” Willa should probably move away, drop Lane’s arm, and give her some space, but she doesn’t. “And you’re plenty brave. You jumped off a dock onto a moving boat. And you kept a cool head, then sailed us out of a storm.”

  “That was different. We did that together.”

  “Still…” Is the stall getting smaller? Is that why she’s close enough to Lane to feel the heat of her body? “I think you’re plenty brave.”

  Lane licks at her bottom lip and says, “yeah,” in a tone so low and husky, Willa feels it in her belly. She leans, heat pulsing through her, close, closer—Lane’s lips brush hers—and stops.

  Ch. 33

  “Lane, I— I don’t know what you want from me.” Doesn’t she need some sort of clarification? Shouldn’t she and Lane establish some idea of what this relationship is or isn’t?

  Looking at Willa’s mouth, Lane says, “I don’t either.” She closes her eyes and swallows. “Not friends. Not that.”

  Lane lifts a shaking finger to Willa’s lip and traces the shape of them, and Willa’s protest dies before it ever began. She is only human. “Not friends” is good enough for now. Willa lunges forward, taking advantage of the solid door behind Lane to push up against her. There is nothing curious or exploratory about this kiss, nothing cautious in the way her hands grip Lane’s hips, no over-thinking at all in the way Lane’s fingers twist in Willa’s hair.

  Willa thinks of suggesting they take this elsewhere, like somewhere that isn’t a bathroom in a snobby yacht club, but the process of cooling off enough to face Lane’s parents, finish dinner, and take the ferry all the way home is not realistic. Pulling away from Lane’s hot, pliant mouth and soft, sweet sighs is an impossibility. Lane nudges her tongue past Willa’s lips, arches her back, and moans loud enough to echo in the gleaming marbled space. Willa is just starting to wonder how exactly how far this is going to go when Lane answers that question by working open the buttons on Willa’s shirt.

  The bathroom door scrapes open; footsteps clack across the floor outside.

  “You look really good tonight,” Lane whispers, mouth pressed to Willa’s ear. “Really, really good.” She moves back, presses a finger to her own lips, then kisses a line down Willa’s neck. Willa squeaks. Cool air hits her chest and stomach as Lane gets her shirt open. She drags her lips across the exposed curves of Willa’s breasts. A toilet flushes. Willa takes advantage of the background noise and whines with need. Lane’s hot mouth is so close to her peaked, stiffened nipples but just skimming them, teasing.

  Whoever is in the bathroom with them takes their sweet time fussing at the sink. They wash their hands and dry them, then open and close containers—probably makeup—spray pungent, chemical-heavy perfume, and put on lotion that smells like o
ranges. All the while Lane is driving her crazy with her mouth on Willa’s mouth, then her neck, her ears, her chest, until Willa is strung-tight with desire, and is this close to yelling at the person to get the fuck out already—how much fucking lotion does one person need?

  Lane’s hands begin to grow bolder, releasing Willa’s hair to push her shirt down off her shoulders, trailing down to trace her breasts and skim across her stomach before beginning to fumble with the button and zipper on Willa’s dress slacks. Finally, their bathroom companion leaves, and Willa is out of patience. She yanks Lane forward and spins them around, backing Lane into the oversized, fancy toilet paper holder, which gives her leverage as Lane sits partly on top of it. The angle is perfect for Willa to hike one of Lane’s legs around her waist.

  She doesn’t want Lane to give in to self-doubt, to disappear inside of her own head and get lost in her insecurities, so Willa unceremoniously shoves the bottom of Lane’s little black dress up over her hips, runs her hand up the back of Lane’s hitched leg and around to the inside of her thigh, then up to trace the seam of her satiny black underwear.

  “Good?” Willa whispers, to check in. Lane swallows hard and nods, then wiggles the top of her dress down to her waist. There’s no bra beneath for Willa to fumble off, so she kisses Lane instead, caressing her breasts with one hand and with the other pushing aside the thin strip of satin to where Lane is slick and swollen.

  If anyone else has entered the bathroom, Willa doesn’t know and doesn’t care. All she can hear is the way Lane is panting and whimpering. She can only see the way Lane’s back curves and her hips shift and her mouth falls open. All Willa can feel is the slick heat of her clenched around her fingers. And when Willa goes to her knees on the hard bathroom tile, the salt-bitter-sweet against her tongue is the only thing she ever wants to taste.