They lay for a time, hugging and stroking, too overwhelmed for words.
“I don’t care how wrinkled you get,” Gina finally whispered. “I’ll always want you.”
Valerie chuckled. “My mother and dad were still going at it in their 80s, so I probably—if genes mean anything at all—have a few years to give you yet.”
Gina giggled and held Val close. She tucked her head in under Valerie’s arm and lay her head across her breast.
All of a sudden tears touched Valerie’s skin. She reached up and felt Gina’s face. Gina was crying.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Valerie asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Gina said. Her tears flowed more openly. “I mean, it’s hard to talk about.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Oh, no. It’s just that I used to be so intimidated by you. I thought you were beautiful when I first met you, but I was so overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure I could ever overcome it.” She was quiet for a moment, trying to find the words that needed to come.
Valerie stroked her arm quietly and waited.
Finally, Gina spoke. “It has to do with being in therapy. This woman that I saw, she was some kind of psychoanalyst—the kind that believes in rebuilding personalities. It’s like they strip you down to nothing and then put you back together again. It’s very painful to go through. You really get lost in it. And this therapist was an older woman. She dominated me so much that I honestly believed I could never be comfortable in my own skin again.
“When I met you, you seemed so strong to me, so sure of yourself. You had all these rules to keep everyone at a distance. I didn’t think I could ever be your equal. It’s taken all this time and the experience in San Francisco to make it possible for me to even try,” Gina admitted.
Valerie was silent for a moment but she continued stroking Gina’s arm. “Even though my mother was a psychologist, I don’t know a lot about the intricacies of psychotherapy,” she finally said. “But somehow this doesn’t sound real positive to me—to be left so naked and defenseless in the presence of someone who is supposed to be helping you.”
Gina felt a chill. She pulled the sheets up closer and snuggled up to Val.
“Well,” she finally said, “I learned that therapists are human too. They can be controlling just like other people. I came out knowing that I was a lesbian, so that was a benefit because I wasn’t living a lie anymore. But I sure got left with a lot of other garbage to sort out.”
Valerie seemed to freeze for a moment. “I hope your attraction to me wasn’t part of working out your problem, because once you work it out you’ll be gone,” she risked saying.
Gina hugged her reassuringly. “I thought about that a lot. It could have been. But the more I knew you, the more I realized you had so many qualities that I had always admired. The more the therapy slips into my past, the clearer things become. You are not the problem or the solution. You are simply Valerie, the person I have grown to love and desire and want to be with,” Gina said.
“You love me?”
“Yes, I do!”
“That’s good, because I love you, too.”
“When did you know?”
“Well, I denied it to myself at the time, but it was on Sweet Dreams when I saw you at the helm. You were so cute and so excited and thrilled, and I loved watching you be so happy. When did you know?”
“I blew off the whole thing, but it was from the minute we danced together at the Purple Priscilla, when this electric charge went through me.”
“You, too?”
They both laughed and then were silent for a moment, exploring each other playfully with their fingers.
“So what was this therapist like?” Valerie asked, her mind not totally settled about Gina’s past history.
“You mean Dr. Reitman?”
Val nodded.
“Well, she was classically Jewish. You know, dark hair, dark brown eyes, prominent nose, dark-rimmed glasses, attractive, kind of tall.” Gina giggled. “Busty, curvy—middle-aged curvy, you know.”
“Except for the pleasingly plump part,” Valerie noted, allowing herself a little smile, “I guess I’m not her spitting image.”
“No way,” Gina agreed.
Val seemed thoughtful for a moment. “I’m glad you shared that with me. It could have become a wall between us otherwise. It helps build trust to talk about it,” she said.
Gina held her close.
“When Josie was staying at your house, she and I had some good conversations. I told her a little about the therapist and what had happened to me. It helped me a lot to talk about it to someone, to get it outside of me, but at that time I couldn’t have shared it with you. I’m grateful that I’m feeling better about me now and that I can tell you. I feel even better now that I have.”
Valerie patted Gina’s arm and lay quietly. “I’m glad,” she finally said, “that you feel you can be open with me. I like you strong and feisty and able to speak your mind.”
“I’m glad, too. It feels good to be open with you. I hope you’ll always be open with me.”
There was a heavy silence in the room. Gina sensed that Val also had something to say but wasn’t sure how to put her thoughts into words.
Finally Valerie spoke. “I’ve had my own demons, too. Last week, you started to become so real in my life that I panicked. I guess I hadn’t really faced letting go of Doreen. There wasn’t anything in my life here that challenged the past—until you showed up on my doorstep. Suddenly my feelings just started to tear me up. Finally I drove to Colma to visit Doreen’s crypt. I had never gone there before.” She sighed. “I said goodbye to her. If I hadn’t done that, I don’t think I could be here with you tonight.”
Gina was touched. She reached up and put her hand gently on Valerie’s face. “Thank you for fighting for me.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” Val replied softly.
Gina had more questions and she needed to get them behind her. “Doreen was so important to you and I have no idea what she was like.”
Valerie sighed. “Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you? I have a picture of her in my bedroom, but I think you’ve only been up there once when you first came. Doreen had brown eyes, auburn hair, and she was tall and willowy, with a really pretty face.”
“Hmmm,” Gina observed, “I can’t compete with that.”
Val hugged her and then continued. “The downside of her being so pretty is that it got her into a lot of trouble when she was young. Everyone wanted to be around her, and she was influenced by some of her friends in the City. She took up smoking and drank too much. I’m sure she experimented with drugs as well. Thankfully, by the time she met me she was becoming aware of her reckless behavior. The drugs were gone, she had limited her drinking to a glass of wine at dinner, and because I objected so much, she cut back her smoking to almost nothing. She never smelled of cigarettes around me, which was good, and she never smoked in my presence. But I’m sure she did it now and then.”
“And what kind of cancer did she die of?” Gina asked.
“Lung cancer. The smoking did come back to get her.” Valerie’s voice was husky.
“That’s sad,” Gina said softly.
“Yes, it is. I only wish I had met her when she was 16 instead of 26. Maybe I could have saved her from all of that. But then 10 years earlier, I might not have been smart enough to realize what we could have together. So I have to accept that the years we had with each other were what was meant to be.”
They were both quiet. They held each other close for several moments in the dark. “Does Sam need to go out?” Gina suddenly asked.
“Wow, I’d forgotten all about her,” Val giggled. She called Sam, who was curled up on a rug at the foot of the bed. The retriever had been still, but there, the entire evening. Gina and Valerie both laughed.
“Wonder what she thinks?” they asked each other, as they both stroked the dog’s head and fondled her ears. Sam looked at them with one raised e
yebrow. The women quickly pulled on their clothes.
“You know, the moon is full tonight,” Gina said. “Let’s take her for a walk.”
Arm in arm, they went out the door of the apartment and took Sam for a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood. “Do you think it’s safe?” Valerie asked at one point, looking up and down the rather dark street.
Gina grinned. “With two of us Amazon women and Sam, no one would dare.”
As they walked they sniffed the sea air. It was laced with wisps of fog. For a long time they were both silent. Then Val thought of something she wanted to share.
“Did you know that Josie is living with Judee and the boys?”
Gina smiled. “Yes, I got an e-mail to that effect.”
“I thought it would be good for Josie when the two of them first mentioned it at poker night. But from the little glances between them in the past few weeks, I’m beginning to think that this roommate arrangement is fast becoming a close friendship and maybe even a romance. It surprised me at first, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense to me,” Valerie admitted.
“Josie will be good for the boys,” Gina observed. “She’s strong and outdoorsy and can do things with them. She’s nurturing too.”
“Of course, so is Judee. She needs someone to respect all the hard work she puts in as a mother and homemaker and serious student at the same time. Josie sees herself as some kind of hayseed, but she’s got smarts and I think she brings a lot to the table.”
“What about the age difference?”
“And you’re talking about age difference? Give me a break!” Valerie gave Gina a light punch on the arm.
They both laughed.
The two women returned to the apartment an hour later. They dropped their clothing on the floor, went back to bed, and started to make love again with much teasing and laughter.
Val and Gina awoke the next morning to find the bedclothes scattered all over the floor. They looked at each other and saw that they both had strands of hair sticking out like pieces of straw. They grinned at each other. Sam broke all the rules by jumping up on the bed and licking them both.
“We’ll be doing a three-way before long,” Gina giggled.
“Not in my house, we won’t,” Valerie countered.
Now they both laughed.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Val asked. “Eureka is an awfully small town. Aren’t you going to get bored?”
“We can travel,” Gina countered, “on my days off.”
“Your single day a week?”
“Once I get a teaching job I’ll have summers off, right?”
“Unless you teach summer school.”
“When I write the great American novel, I won’t have to go to work at all. I can write anywhere I can take my computer.”
“And I can paint anywhere, I suppose.”
“Sure”
“What about your parents? Are you going to tell them about us?”
“Eventually. You’ll have to come back to Illinois with me. They may throw us out, but by then we won’t care.”
“Mine are no problem, since they’ve both passed on. We can go to the cemetery, and I’ll introduce you.”
“You mean you might go to San Francisco with me sometime?”
“Maybe. How are we going to handle my owning a house and you not owning it?”
“You can will it to me and I’ll inherit it 30 years from now, according to your calculations.”
“Well we could register for a California domestic partnership, and that would cover leaving the house to you. Like marriage, half of mine is yours.”
“We could go to Vermont and get married.”
“You’d do that?”
“Of course.”
“We’d have to have a reception back here, so we could invite all our friends.”
“Yes, all three of them—oh, and Rick, too.”
“I’m hungry. Let’s go straight to the reception so we can eat.”
“I’m hungry, too.”
Valerie and Gina jumped out of bed, totally naked, and raided the refrigerator. They polished off a bowl of chocolate fudge ice cream together.
“We wasted so much time getting to this place,” Gina quipped, spoon poised for another bite of ice cream.
“No we didn’t. We were getting rid of our own personal garbage and preparing ourselves to do it right,” Val responded.
“It feels right,” Gina acknowledged.
“You aren’t disappointed?”
“No way!”
Then they continued their processing—raising objections to their relationship and then batting them down—until they were totally exhausted. Then they went back to bed and made love again.
Sam heaved a big sigh and curled up on the rug.
Epilogue
Just like old times, the gang had assembled at Valerie’s house for a poker night. So much had happened during the last few months that their gatherings had been few and far between—a reality that made this evening all that more special.
Josie and Judee arrived together, both looking very happy. Val immediately noticed that they were wearing matching gold rings on the third finger of their left hands. “Did you get married?” she gasped.
“Not exactly,” Judee quipped. “But we did go up to Trinidad Beach and exchange some verbal vows. And we got these rings to mark the occasion.”
Josie stood behind her, silent but blushing and with a big grin on her face.
“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Valerie said as Lanie came through the front door.
“Hi, guys,” Lanie greeted, holding up a six-pack of beer. “Time to party.”
“Where’s Gina?” asked Judee.
“Out at Humboldt State. Some staff meeting, but it was to be over by 6 p.m. She should be here in a few minutes.”
Josie studied Valerie. “You must be really happy that she’s starting a real teaching position this fall.”
Val grinned. “Yes, I am. I’m really happy to see her doing what she was trained for, after all these years of financial problems and jobs that didn’t really use her talents.”
Judee turned to Lanie. She was standing aside rather quietly but at the same time looked a little like a Cheshire cat, hiding something.
“Okay, what’s up, Lanie?” Judee asked.
Lanie tried to look serious. “Well, everybody around here has such good news and things are going well for all of you. I was afraid that I was getting left behind, but not so. I’m the sales person of the month again, and I just sold a house to a sexy-looking Oregon gal who turned out to be one bitchin’ babe. We’re going out on a date tomorrow night.”
“Wow!” Josie couldn’t hide her enthusiasm. “You’ll have to update us on that!”
The front door opened and Gina rushed in. Sam followed her, barking at her heels the minute she entered the hallway.
Gina looked radiant, the familiar eyeglasses now replaced by contacts, her hair cut very short and nicely trimmed. She was wearing a soft blue blouse, black denim slacks, and a beige sport jacket. They all stared at her for a moment. Finally Lanie spoke. “Well, the ugly duckling turns into the beautiful swan!”
“She was never ugly,” Valerie exclaimed.
“No,” Lanie admitted with a grin. “But certainly not all she could be—all those months, or years, ago when we first met her. Skinny as a rail, with that stringy hair and those terrible, excuse me, glasses.”
Gina smiled. “Well, life has gotten just a little better than it was.” She wrinkled her nose at Valerie.
“So, professor,” Josie interrupted, “how does it feel to be on the faculty full time at Humboldt State?”
Gina stepped over to Val and gave her a hug. “Very good, very satisfying.”
Valerie glanced around at the gang. “You all don’t know it yet, but Gina has a two-week break before she officially joins the faculty for the fall semester. We’ve decided to take a trip. Kind of a honeymoon since we never
had a chance before now.”
“Where are you goin’?” Judee asked.
“Oregon and Washington—up the coast. Then east through the mountains, as far as we can get with the time we have.”
Lanie laughed. “I bet you only get as far as the first motel on the beach.”
Gina smiled. “Seriously, I want to put some road miles on the RAV-4.”
They all nodded dubiously.
Valerie studied them for a moment. “We’re trying to decide what to do with Sam. She’d love the trip, but she’s slowing down a little. Some parks allow dogs, but otherwise, she’d be left in the car whenever we stop during the day to sightsee.”
Lanie took the hint. “If you don’t mind my new girlfriend visiting, I’ll stay in your guest room and watch out for Sam for you. Her meals might be a little irregular, but I’ll see that she gets out and gets fed.”
“Oh, thank you, Lanie. That’s such a relief,” Valerie admitted gratefully. “I was hoping that one of you would be available.”
The five women loaded up on beer, wine, chips, and dip and settled into their familiar routine at the poker table. The teasing banter continued.
At one point, Josie looked at Gina. “You know in the last year since you came back to Eureka we’ve all made changes. But I swear I’d never have thought you would be where you are now from the way things were for you when I first met you here at Val’s.”
Gina blushed. “Yeah, I never saw me sleeping up in the master suite with Valerie in my arms, my old bedroom turned into my office, a full-time position teaching English literature, a dog I love, and friends I adore. I would have said it wasn’t possible.”
Josie gave Gina a serious look. “What, professor, was the most important highlight of your big year?”
Gina thought for a split second. “Being with Valerie, of course. But there are two other big, big things for me. One was having two short stories accepted, with payment. And then getting the job at Humboldt. I was excited enough to land an evening class in the fall semester. Then I picked up another class in the spring. But when Dr. Stark died of a heart attack so unexpectedly and a full-time position became available, I was thrilled just to be able to apply for it. I knew I was in the hunt. But there were tons of applications from everywhere, so I was pretty sure I wasn’t at the top of the committee’s list. A friend told me that a professor was leaving the College of the Redwoods for a better job somewhere else so I applied for that position, too. When State heard through the rumor mill that I was being considered for the Redwood post, they suddenly noticed me. They looked at my records and at student evaluations from my first class, evoked the old “promote from within” credo, and suddenly I was offered the job. Professionally speaking, in my short and so far inglorious career, that was a stellar event!”
North Coast: A Contemporary Love Story Page 27
