Reunion

by Jane Frances

  “You know, the whole tomato thing was your fault.”

  Cathy left her knife poised above the sandwiches. “How do you figure that?”

  “Well, you nearly gave me a coronary with your little announcement.”

  Cathy shrugged, still disbelieving she had actually said it. Well, no she wasn’t really. She’d needed to say it, so she had. “I figured with all the misunderstandings lately, it was probably better just to be direct.”

  Lisa raised her eyebrows. “Well you couldn’t have got much more direct if you tried.” She flashed a winning smile and said, “Not that I’m complaining though.”

  Cathy sighed happily and turned her attention back to the cutting board. The knife sliced cleanly through the four rounds, which she divided evenly between two plates.

  “Thanks.” Lisa accepted the proffered plate but left it untouched as Cathy pulled up a stool to sit beside her. “Cathy—”

  “Yes?”

  “Were you planning to tell me you were . . . umm . . . single again, or were you going to leave me to figure it out for myself?”

  Cathy smiled despite the twinge of sadness. She still felt very bad over her treatment of Toni. That, plus the fact she was mourning the loss of her best friend, was the reason she had ignored her instincts, the ones that kept leading her to the telephone over the past days, fingers ready to dial Lisa’s number.

  “What did you want me to do Lisa? Walk up and say hi, I’m single again, do you want coffee or shall we just go straight to bed?”

  Lisa grinned wickedly as she picked up a sandwich. “I could have lived with that.”

  Cathy called Lisa a shocker. Lisa just grinned again and said that was why Cathy loved her. Cathy didn’t disagree, but she couldn’t resist one more little dig.

  “Not only are you a shocker, but you can’t dress yourself. You look absolutely ridiculous with your T-shirt on backward like that.”

  “Is it?” Lisa frowned downward. “So it is.” Her T-shirt was pulled over her head and unceremoniously tossed to the floor. Lisa ran fingers through her hair, eyes bold as she considered Cathy. “Better?”

  “Much.” Whether from the coolness of the kitchen or from Cathy’s stare, Lisa’s nipples hardened before her eyes.

  “You know what,” Cathy scraped her stool away and groped for her plate. “I think we should take these upstairs.”

  “Who’s the shocker now?” Lisa placed her plate on top of the jeans on top of the clock radio. She eased Cathy’s housecoat from her shoulders.

  “I am.” Cathy let her housecoat slip to the floor. She just couldn’t get enough of the woman who stood before her. Love and lust intermingled to form a potent mix. “But it’s entirely your fault.”

  “Entirely.” Lisa agreed, eyes smoldering.

  Hunger for food forgotten, Cathy pushed Lisa onto the bed. She climbed on top, straddling a leanly muscled thigh. The muscle rippled as Lisa shifted so her knee was slightly bent.

  “How’s that?” Lisa placed hands firmly on either side of Cathy’s ribcage.

  “Perfect.” Cathy shuddered as she began to glide and grind, closing her eyes and abandoning herself to the pleasure that only came from complete release. It was something else she had not indulged for years, Lisa the only one Cathy had ever felt so at ease with to really let herself go.

  It was a very powerful feeling, and very freeing.

  Lisa placed her now empty plate onto the bedside table. She patted her tummy and said, “That was yum.”

  “Glad you liked it.” Cathy’s empty plate was stacked on top of Lisa’s.

  Lisa wriggled underneath the covers, snuggling into Cathy and arranging her pillows just how she liked them. Then she realized she hadn’t cleaned her teeth. She imagined dental decay setting in by morning. “Do you have a spare toothbrush I could use?”

  Ten minutes later Lisa was much happier, as they both took a trip to Cathy’s opulent bathroom. Lisa immediately adopted one of the two basins as her own. She spat toothpaste into the basin and splashed water over her face, feeling right at home in her new surroundings.

  Cathy laughed delightedly when Lisa announced this fact.

  Back in bed, Lisa again snuggled into Cathy. “Speaking of home . . . Which house are we going to live in?”

  Cathy laughed again. “You are such a lesbian Lisa.”

  Lisa knew Cathy was referring to the old “Lesbians pack up the U-Haul on the second date” joke, but she’d let Cathy say it anyway. She opened her eyes wide, “Why?”

  “It’s not even the end of date number one and already you want to pack up the U-Haul.”

  Lisa poked Cathy in the waist, eyes sparkling with mischief. “My, my, we’ve changed our tune haven’t we? It was only . . . what . . . a week ago, you thought I was—”

  “Shut up.” Cathy clapped her hand over Lisa’s mouth. “Are you ever going to let me live that down?”

  Lisa pried Cathy’s hand away. “Probably not.” In one deft motion she rolled Cathy onto her back, straddled her stomach and grasped both of her wrists to pin them above her head.

  “Well I’ll just have to tell everyone about your attempts at teaching a tomato how to swim.”

  Lisa half smiled at what promised to be a well-worn joke, her thoughts turning to something that had been bothering her since the whole gay/straight debate in her lounge room. “Cathy, there’s something I just can’t figure out.”

  “What?”

  “When did I say I was through with women in front of you? I’ve been racking my brains and I just can’t think of a time.”

  Cathy blushed and it took Lisa a good while to coax the truth.

  “You little sneak!” Lisa pretended offense, but really she was more than a little pleased Cathy was interested to the point of eavesdropping.

  Sensing Cathy was still mortified by her actions, Lisa decided a little confession of her own was in order. “Anyway, I beat you to the sneaky thing. Joel and I were hanging round Toni’s back fence the night you decided to drop in.”

  “Really?” Cathy’s eyes widened. “Why?”

  Lisa related the cat collar episode and the trek down the lane to check on Virgil’s welfare. Lisa slid off Cathy and threw her head into a pillow. “I still can’t believe it’s only been five weeks since then.”

  “Do you think we’ve gone at it too fast?”

  “Oh no.” Eleven years was not exactly pushing the speed limits. “I was more thinking of all the stuff that’s happened. If you think about it, we’re lucky we’re here at all.”

  “I’m glad we are.”

  “Me, too.” Lisa agreed wholeheartedly, reaching to look under her jeans to check the time. It was past midnight. Luckily she and Joel had tomorrow off, their next job scheduled to start on Tuesday. Lisa had planned to spend Monday catching up on their paperwork. Maybe she could pop into the offices and take Cathy out for lunch? If she managed to get out of bed before midday. “I just hope you can put up with someone who’s usually in bed by ten on a work night.”

  “Gee, I don’t know Lisa,” Cathy looked at Lisa aghast, but the twinkle in her eye betrayed her. “Sounds pretty dull and boring to me.”

  EPILOGUE

  Eleven months later

  Cathy watched the ripple of back muscle as Lisa reached for the shorts lying on the floor next to the couch. Lisa pulled a wallet from one of the back pockets. “Heads or tails?”

  “Heads, please.”

  The shorts were returned to the pile of clothes that had been discarded not long after dinner. Lisa turned a dollar coin over in her hand. “Best two out of three?”

  Cathy shook her head. “Let’s make it one toss. Winner makes an immediate decision.”

  “Okay,” Lisa nodded her assent.

  “And don’t even think about saying something like I decide to go with whatever you decide, if you win,” Cathy warned as Lisa placed the coin on her thumbnail.

  Lisa just poked her tongue out in reply and tossed the coin.

  Two set
s of eyes followed its passage toward the ceiling and back to Lisa’s outstretched palm. It was immediately covered with Lisa’s other palm. “Do you want to change your call?”

  “No way,” Cathy tugged at Lisa’s hand, eager to see who was finally going to decide which house they were to live in. After eleven months of shuffling between their respective properties, it would be nice for them to settle in the one place and really make it a home.

  “Just show me the coin honey,” Cathy said.

  It was tails. Cathy smiled. She had lost. “So, where’s it to be? Your place or mine?”

  Lisa threw herself back onto the couch. “I think . . .” There was a long moment of silence as Lisa sat up again and took a good look at her immediate surrounds, and beyond the expanse of windows to the night. “I think . . .” There was another pause, and this time the tilt of Lisa’s head showed she was listening to the sound of waves crashing against the beach. “I like it here.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Positive,” Lisa nodded, a slow smile creeping across her features. “I like having my own basin in the bathroom.”

  “But all the work you’ve done—” Cathy visualized Lisa’s home, with the polished boards, careful paintwork, meticulous tiling in the kitchen and bathroom—all the little decorator touches that had been thoughtfully and lovingly applied. “Your heart and soul are in that house.”

  Lisa’s reply was immediate. “My heart and soul are where you are Cathy.” Her soft expression turned wicked, and she grinned, “And besides, I can turn my renovating eye to that patch of desert out the back you dare call a garden, and of course, it won’t be too long before those tiles in the guest bathroom are completely outdated—”

  Cathy resisted the urge to smile. She conceded the state of the strip of yard at the rear of her house, but the second bathroom, along with the kitchen, had been overhauled only two years prior. “What about your rock doves?”

  There was a thoughtful silence. “Do you think Toni would mind feeding them if I bought her the seed?”

  This time Cathy could not help but smile, delighted Lisa had even considered the idea. Eight months ago, when Toni walked back into the accounting offices after an extended absence, she never dreamed this day would come, when the three could be friends. Toni warmed to Cathy slowly, finally stepping beyond the confines of her office and accepting the repeated invitations to lunch and making an occasional appearance at Friday afternoon drinks. Encouraged, Cathy invited Lisa to attend one of these Friday afternoon sessions. It was a disaster. Toni dawdled in her office for a good fifteen minutes, and when she did join the group congregated in Cathy’s office, she and Lisa exchanged curt greetings then both descended into moody silence. Not to be defeated, Cathy invited Toni to dinner at her house. She also invited Van and Steph, who provided most of the conversation throughout the entrée and main courses. The breakthrough came over dessert. Lisa’s ears pricked up at Toni’s description of the Pump classes held at the gym she had recently joined.

  “What’s Pump?” she had asked. On discovering it was a cardio and weight workout performed to music, she wanted to know, “Can anyone attend or do you have to be a member?”

  Cathy nearly fell off her chair when Toni suggested, albeit reluctantly, if Lisa may like to meet her for the ten o’clock class the next morning.

  Cathy packed Lisa off the next day with the sincere hope she and Toni did not start throwing weights at each other. To her relief, Lisa returned in one piece, and to her delight, Lisa announced the class great and Toni okay. Since then, schedule permitting, Lisa met Toni at the gym at least once a week.

  Still, Cathy was somewhat surprised Lisa thought of Toni for the task of feeding her beloved family of rock doves. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. Ask her tomorrow.”

  “I will if I get the chance.”

  “Why wouldn’t you get the chance? Aren’t you meeting her at the gym?”

  “Yeah,” Lisa nodded, wriggling until she lay lengthways on the couch. She pulled Cathy on top of her, a laugh in her voice as she whispered in her ear, “But I reckon tomorrow Toni’s finally going to ask Heather out.”

  “Really!” Heather was the Pump class instructor with fabulous biceps.

  “Uh-huh,” Lisa nodded into Cathy’s neck and whispered in a definitive tone, “and I think Heather is going to say yes.”

  Cathy held herself at arm’s length above Lisa, hopeful this may be the case. Heather was the first woman Toni had shown an interest in since . . . “And just what makes you think that?”

  “Because, I kind of was speaking to Heather before class last week and kind of dropped Toni into the conversation and Heather kind of looked quite interested.”

  “Lisa Smith!” Cathy could imagine Lisa being as subtle as a brick in her hint dropping. “You’re terrible!”

  Lisa laughed out loud, shrugging and pulling Cathy down to her lips. “And you love it.”

  Cathy didn’t argue. She loved everything about the woman who held her in her arms. Instead she just sighed happily and closed her eyes, sinking into Lisa and that very special place they shared together.