“Not fair!” Josie complained, as her cheeks immediately turned bright red. Josie could kid, but basically she was an introvert who listened rather than spoke. Valerie had noticed, however, that sometimes when she did speak up, she seemed wise beyond her 28 years.
“Moving on,” Val quipped, “we have last but not least, Lanie, my best friend and a budding real estate lady. Another one who tried marriage and then thought better of it. She has no pretensions and lots of street smarts.”
“Wow, Val, you get down and dirty,” Lanie grumbled. But she smiled anyway. Valerie didn’t add that she had always assumed that Lanie had had lots of lovers and would probably have many more in her lifetime. Although her friend never discussed such exploits, Val had her own suspicions.
Gina looked around at them, clearly nervous. “Great. Um. Good to meet you,” she said, her smile tentative. “You know I’m, uh, Gina. And you know I work at all kinds of jobs around here. So you are likely to run into me anywhere in town.”
“We have already.” Lanie offered a mischievous grin.
“That’s right,” Gina said, with sudden recognition, “you all came to the movies one night.”
“And we had dinner at Ritchie’s one night.” Josie put in.
“So you have The Music Recycler yet to go,” Gina said, allowing a smile.
“Oh, really?” Josie looked thoughtful. “You work there, too?” She studied Gina seriously.
“We’re playing Texas Hold ‘Em,” Valerie interrupted, trying to take the pressure off Gina. “And we’re all having something or other to drink. Do you like wine, beer? Lanie brought some good white Zinfandel, if you are into white. Beer is in the refrigerator. There are some cups there on the counter. And help yourself to the snacks.”
Gina poured herself a glass of white wine, grabbed a few pretzels and a napkin, and sat down at the table. Valerie had pulled up a chair next to her own.
Val then explained how they played. “Truly for small change.”
Gina took a couple of dollars from her jeans pocket and purchased her chips. They dealt a hand and Gina played tentatively, folding early even though she had a couple of high cards.
“Most of us here are Californians, born or adopted,” Lanie mentioned to Gina. “You sound different, maybe a slight twang in your speech. You from the South?”
Gina shook her head. “No. Illinois, but farm country. Rural people in the Midwest often have a twang that sounds kind of Southern. I’ve just moved here after several years in Arizona and that might really give me an accent. Lots of Arizonans hail from the Midwest and the South. Local speech, at least in Tucson, is pretty casual and laid back, I’ve noticed.” She smiled at Lanie.
“You sound real smart to me,” observed Josie. “You been to college, I bet.”
“Yes, I went to the University of Illinois,” Gina acknowledged.
“What did you study?”
“English lit.”
Judee came to attention. “What writers do you like?” she asked. “Now mind you, my level is Rita Mae Brown.” She laughed, her eyebrows doing a dance, and the others joined her.
“I gravitated toward American and British women writers, including poets like Sylvia Plath. And I did thesis research on Virginia Woolf,” Gina said.
“Thesis? Then you’ve been to grad school, too?” asked Judee with amazement.
This time Gina’s cheeks turned pink. “Yes, I did graduate work in Arizona,” she admitted, looking uncomfortable. She recovered in time to point to her Arizona sweatshirt.
“Wow!” Judee exclaimed. “But why are you working at those piddly jobs? Shouldn’t you be teaching in college or something?”
Gina’s knuckles turned white as she gripped her poker chips and suddenly looked as if she would bolt from the room. Valerie put a hand gently on her arm. “Okay, gals, that’s enough of the inquisition. Let’s play poker, huh?”
Judee backed down. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry or anything.”
Gina took a deep breath and nodded to Judee. The subject was dropped.
They returned to the game, and at the start of the next hand Gina drew two Aces. She was delighted, and a small smile played at the corner of her mouth. Valerie saw the smile, as did Judee across the table. They glanced at each other and Val winked. They’d play along. Gina would win this hand, but they’d give her a little tussle over it so that the pot would be a bit bigger. They wanted her to feel more comfortable. She was, after all, the new kid on the block.
Neither Val nor Judee had been dealt a particularly good hand, but they played almost to the end before folding. Gina ended up with several coins as her two Aces ultimately won the hand.
Obviously delighted with her first success, Gina smiled, settled into her chair, and began to take more risks. As the evening wore on, she proved an apt poker player. When she had a good hand, she played it well. When she didn’t get high cards, she folded early to hang on to her little pot. The initial tension in her body gradually melted away, and she began to study the other women.
“How many kids do you have?” she asked Judee.
“Two, both boys, 10 and 12. They run me ragged,” Judee admitted. “I’m just lucky their dad lives here in town and wants to take ’em regularly on weekends. I don’t know how I’d keep up with school and chasin’ after ’em if I didn’t get a breather now and then.”
“What are you studying?”
“Oh, I have this crazy idea I’d make a good counselor—school or family, I’m not sure, but some kind of counselor—so I’m takin’ all the psychology and educational prerequisites. I’m about halfway done with my bachelor’s right now. Gotta long way to go,” she sighed.
“Is Humboldt State a good school?” Gina asked. She had only been on the campus that one time, when she had visited the women’s center.
“Yeah, I think it’s pretty good. Meets my needs anyway. But then I don’t have anything to compare it to,” Judee quipped. “It’s pretty open-minded, pretty liberal. That’s good for those of us living ‘alternative lifestyles.’”
Everyone shifted and glanced to see how Gina would take that remark. She didn’t react overtly but instead looked studiously at her cards.
Valerie quickly picked up the conversation. “Josie here can give you the real lowdown on Humboldt State, can’t you, Josie?”
Josie turned pink again. “Come on, now, you know I’m not really into college. I just hafta take these courses there so I can get on with my work. Don’t pick on me now,” she admonished.
They played several more hands of poker, keeping the conversation light, and at the end of the evening Gina, citing beginner’s luck, claimed the biggest pot. She thanked all of them for inviting her and, excusing herself, went upstairs to her room. Sam trotted after her.
“You’re going to lose a dog,” quipped Lanie as she helped clean up the table.
“I see that,” Valerie observed. “I’m wondering if I should seriously start to worry.”
With stretches and sighs the women all stood up and gathered their belongings, ready to leave. They also gave each other warm hugs before pulling on coats and caps.
“I think she’s a lesbian,” Lanie whispered to Valerie before she walked to the front door.
Val smiled. “Time will tell,” she replied wryly.
Gina awoke, bathed in sweat. She looked at the alarm clock. It read 2:06. Another bad dream had disturbed her sleep. Another scene back in Tucson.
Now, trying to cool down, she lay in the dark with covers askew. She wanted to think of something else besides the dream. Her mind drifted back to the poker game.
She had to admit that it had been a fun evening with Valerie and her friends. Since Gina didn’t have much time for amusement these days, it was really nice to talk and play cards and just be with other women.
Well, not just any other women. Lesbians, obviously.
She liked Judee, right off. Her good sense of humor and openness was winning. But Gina couldn’t imagine trying to live as
a lesbian and at the same time deal with an ex-husband and two sons. It couldn’t be easy. She assumed that Judee had started out straight, or trying to be straight, and it hadn’t worked for her. Maybe someday Gina would ask her about that.
Josie was cute but seemed younger than her physical age, and she was still trying to get an education so she could get started with her life. Gina didn’t feel she had too much in common with her, beyond some degree of athleticism, although she liked the girl. While there actually wasn’t too much difference in their ages, Gina had been through so much psychologically that she felt much older—older on the inside and probably much older than she looked to others on the outside.
Lanie, she thought, was very brusque, and her roughness kind of turned Gina off. Yet she had noticed that Lanie paid a lot of attention to Valerie. Maybe there was something going there, at least on Lanie’s side. Val had introduced her as her “best friend,” and it could be exactly that or maybe something more. Funny, they didn’t seem at all alike. Valerie was more of a lady and Lanie—well that tough exterior was a bit too much.
Looking back on the evening, Gina instantly berated herself for becoming overly sensitive when the questions got too personal. She sighed. It was going to be this way until she worked through her personal issues. Until she was teaching and there were no questions, or until she stopped feeling apologetic about not teaching after getting all that education. Perhaps she should just learn to say she was going to be, or was, a writer—it was partly true, anyway—and then people wouldn’t comment so much or hint about her “wasted” schooling.
She wondered if she would ever become comfortable in social situations, with people in general and with lesbians in particular. Leaving her emotional problems out of it, maybe she just wasn’t a social person. She had always been more of a loner than many people she knew.
“Shoot,” she said to herself and tossed a pillow across the room. She didn’t want to be alone forever. But at the bottom of everything was the same old issue. This damnable debt and the memories of her devastating therapy sessions with Dr. Reitman!
In the dark she heard a padding sound. She looked down at the side of the bed and saw Sam. Her big eyes were shining in reflected moonlight, searching for Gina in the darkness while her tail wagged tentatively.
“Oh, Sam,” she said. “You are my friend, aren’t you? And you know when I need comforting.” She hugged and stroked the big dog. “But I’m okay now, and I’m going back to sleep.” She gave Sam a loving pat and then suggested, “You must get back to Valerie. Now go, Sam.”
As if understanding her every word, the dog padded out through the doorway and bounded up the stairs to Valerie’s attic room.
Gina pulled the covers up around her and gradually drifted back to sleep.
Chapter Five
The next morning dawned clear with the promise of unseasonable warmth. After their late night of poker Valerie had planned to sleep in, but the band of sunshine peeking through her windows awakened her. She found it intriguing, if not surprising, how much weather affected her moods these days. In San Francisco she had seldom cared, but when it rained or was gray and overcast in Eureka, she got moody. But not today! She bounced out of bed and with Samantha at her heels, pulled her white fleece robe about her, hurried downstairs, and went into the kitchen to start breakfast.
Given the wine she’d drunk the evening before, the intensity of the poker game, and her 1 a.m. bedtime, Val felt pretty good. An excellent day, she decided at once, to get work done in the studio.
With determination she quickly glanced at the morning paper, downed a piece of toast topped with her favorite Oregon marionberry jam, and drank a cup of tea. Then she fed Sam, took the dog outside, and decided to work for a little while before showering and getting dressed. “Good girl, Sam.” She ruffled the dog’s fur after Sam had done her business. “We’ll take a long walk later this morning.”
Valerie took a mug of steaming tea out into the garage and settled herself on her stool, surveying the nearly finished piece—a rather large painting of a deep foot path through coastal redwoods. Highlights of luminescent green for the leaves and auburn tones in the tree trunks. In the reflected light within the garage the painting was looking good, even if she did say so herself.
Suddenly her mind drifted off to Doreen. Doreen would have loved this painting, with its ferns, tall trees, and play of light and shadow. Before losing her battle with cancer, Doreen had often stood just behind Valerie while she was working. Very sensitive to Val’s feelings, Doreen had never interfered or criticized. She had just stood there watching and had always known when to support, when she could tease, and when she needed to massage Valerie’s tense shoulders.
As much as Val loved painting, as much satisfaction as it gave her when she came to the studio and put in several hours of devoted work, it was during those quiet hours that Doreen most often came to mind. Val could almost feel her presence over her shoulder, so much so that once in a while she would turn to look at her. But no one was there and the emptiness was devastating.
The two had had such a unique relationship, which had blossomed and matured despite the harshness of the world around them. Even in diverse San Francisco, judgments and fear were often directed toward homosexuals and their lifestyle.
Thinking back, she would first remember the good times and feel Doreen’s presence. That made her happy. But then the positive image would fade into a haunting memory of Doreen in a hospital bed, with sunken eyes and a gaunt look, reduced to skin and bones and waiting to die. Val’s breathing would stop for a moment and her stomach would tighten.
It was hard to accept that Doreen was gone forever. Even though many months had passed, the memories and the feelings came back just as intensely as they had when she had first lived them.
“Damn,” Valerie cursed and slammed down her paintbrush. She had put a single daub on the canvas. There would be no more. Her buoyant mood had been destroyed.
She would not, after all, be able to work today.
“Spoiled, Sam,” she admitted wryly to the dog at her feet. “I spoiled it. There’s no one to blame but me. Now I’ll have to pick myself up again.”
Sam wagged her tail and fussed slightly.
Valerie studied the beautiful and loyal dog. Thank goodness she had Sam.
She had found the retriever at a local dog pound just a few weeks after moving to Eureka. Doreen had said to her that she should get a dog, something to keep her company. “You’re going to be very lonely,” Doreen had whispered, late in her cancer battle. “Now you’re here with me every moment. When I’m gone, there will be a lot of empty hours to fill.”
Val had walked along the chain-link cages inspecting dogs, large and small, hoping for a sign. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted. She stopped before a few animals and studied them, watching their reactions.
Sam had been curled up on a mat dozing, but the retriever came to attention when Valerie paused before her cage. First the head came up, then the dog sat up, and then it rose and trotted to the fence, its brown eyes gentle. Valerie put her fingers hesitantly against the fence, and the dog sniffed and then pushed its tongue through the links to give Val’s palm a lick.
That single gesture was enough to drive her into heaving sobs. A stocky volunteer attendant appeared at her side. “Are you all right?” the young woman asked.
Valerie nodded, taking deep breaths and fishing in her pocket for a Kleenex. “I’ve recently lost someone close to me and gentleness sets me off,” she admitted.
The volunteer agreed, nodding at the retriever. “This dog will get you every time,” she said, offering a warm smile.
When Valerie felt a little more in control, she asked the woman what she knew about the animal.
“We found her wandering the streets of downtown Eureka. She was very thin and her coat was matted. She looked lost and neglected, with no collar or tags, but she didn’t show any signs of abuse. We brought her in, gave her a thorough cleanin
g up, and she had no injuries or scars. But she was very hungry and ate everything we could give her,” the volunteer explained. “No one has come to claim her, so something must have happened to the owner.”
“How old is she?” Valerie didn’t want something else dying on her.
“At least five, perhaps six years old. She’s had some training, because she responds well to basic commands, and she’s young enough to learn more. She’s a good dog and she’ll adjust.” When Val still looked doubtful, the woman added, “She has no big health problems. And if you’re worried about her age, she’s strong and should have several years ahead of her as a good companion.”
Valerie studied the dog thoughtfully, and the retriever looked back at her, tail wagging, eyes beseeching.
The worker noted, “She has such a sweet disposition that we called her Samantha. We just put her up for adoption this morning actually, because she’s shown a good weight gain and has been given a security chip and updates on all her shots. She will eat a lot and need a good deal of exercise.”
Val nodded. “That would be good for me, too. The exercise, that is.”
“Do you have children?”
Valerie shook her head. “Just me.”
The worker hesitated. “Retrievers are good family dogs, great with kids, but,” she added after a moment’s consideration, “this one has been through some kind of trauma and loss. She might do well with a single adult—just understand that she will be with you every minute. Retrievers are very affectionate.”
Val’s heart was touched by the dog’s pleading look. “I think Samantha wants me to take her,” she said, a lump forming in her throat.
“Looks that way,” the young volunteer agreed.
So Valerie had taken the big dog home, and the two had been inseparable ever since. And as Doreen had predicted, having a dog by her side had helped Val deal with the immense sadness and loneliness that still surrounded her months after her partner’s death.
North Coast: A Contemporary Love Story Page 7
