Like I Love You (Love Wins (JMS Books))

by J. T. Marie

  “I said were you asking me to marry you,” Dana reminded her, “and you said, not yet. And, honestly? I still haven’t heard you pop the question.”

  “God! Semantics, woman.” Bethany laughed. “Fine. I have to go—”

  “Uh-huh.” Dana didn’t buy that for one minute. “I told my mother the same thing a little while ago just to get her off the phone.”

  But Bethany said, “No, really, my boss is buzzing on the other line. We’ll talk about this when I get home, okay? Love you.”

  “Love you, too.” Dana thought of adding that she wanted to be wined and dined before getting a proposal, but just the thought Bethany asking her to get married was enough to curl her toes in delight. Her lover was right—everything else was semantics.

  Dana had to fight the urge to call her mother back and brag, I’m getting married! And you said I never would.

  * * * *

  At work later that day, Dana found it difficult to concentrate on much of anything. Her mind kept wandering ahead to what would happen when she and Bethany both got home. Or rather, what might happen. Would one of them get down on a knee and propose the old fashion way? Was Bethany expecting a ring, or roses, or wine? Flowers and booze I can do, Dana thought, stocking new books to keep busy. But a diamond, on my salary? Even a small one is way out of my budget. I’ve never even owned one myself.

  Except that wasn’t quite right, was it?

  The year Dana turned twelve, her grandmother in Michigan had sent her a special gift for “becoming a woman.” When Dana first heard that phrase, read aloud by her mother from the birthday card accompanying the gift, she had worried the wrapped box might contain a package of maxi pads, or something. God, how embarrassing would that be, to open a box of Kotex in front of the friends she’d invited over for cake and ice cream? In front of her father?

  But unless her grandmother had bought those mini pads targeted at teens that were nothing more than oversized Band-Aids, Dana didn’t think the small box could’ve held sanitary napkins. At least, she prayed it didn’t as she carefully unwrapped it. Inside was a flocked ring box, obviously from a jeweler’s, with a name written across the top in gold script so ornate, she couldn’t read it.

  Behind her, her mother nudged her, excited. “Open it, open it!”

  Like an explorer unearthing a treasure, she held her breath as she opened the box. Inside was nestled a delicate band of gold topped with a heart-shaped chip of stone, cut to dazzle in the light. “Oh God, that’s gorgeous,” her mother breathed.

  Dana got one quick look before the box was snatched from her to be fawned over. Her mother oohed and aahed, and tried to show it to her father, who couldn’t be bothered. “Yeah, yeah, I see it,” he snapped. “She got a diamond, big deal. Flashing it in my face won’t make me buy you one any time soon, so put it down and cut the cake already, will you?”

  So Dana had owned a diamond once upon a time, back in the day. She’d worn it on and off when she was younger, but a fear of losing it at school—particularly when she had to take it off during PE—made her start leaving it at home, instead, and eventually she’d gotten out of the habit of putting it on altogether. But she still had it somewhere in all her things, didn’t she? She’d never gotten rid of it.

  When she got home from work, the first thing she did was head straight to the closet in her old room. That was how she thought of it, her “old room,” because she slept with Bethany now and the spare bedroom that had once been hers was used only for storage. The bed was stripped bare, the mattress littered with boxes and bags of clothes that hadn’t quite managed to be put away yet. The Christmas tree was stored in the room—still assembled, fully decorated, all they had to do each year was lug it out into the living area and ta-da! Instant holiday cheer. The walls were lined with bookcases and boxes full of crap they couldn’t put anywhere else. The closet overflowed with out of season clothes and things they really should go through and get rid of, but who had the time?

  Luckily, Dana had a pretty good memory when it came to where her stuff was amid the clutter. Her boxes were the ones at the bottom of the closet, because they’d been there first; she hadn’t moved them when she began sleeping with Bethany. Over time, other things began piling up on top of her stuff, but the things she’d brought with her to New York all those years ago were the foundations of the life they’d built together.

  She even sort of knew where the ring would be, if it was in with her other stuff. There was one box full of old high school memorabilia—yearbooks, photos, letters from old friends, stuff she had brought with her in case she ever felt nostalgic enough to sort through it and promptly forgot. If it wasn’t in there, then it was in her bedroom back at her parents’ house, or in their attic, and she’d just forget it.

  It took some doing, clearing a spot on the closet floor where she could sit comfortably, but she managed to find a space and maneuver the box she wanted out into her lap. Looking at it now made her a little sad. Here was a Ziploc baggie filled with faded rose petals from the corsage she’d worn to prom. She had gone with her best male friend, Jeremy, who’d always claimed to love her but she’d known before he did that he was gay.

  Here were her yearbooks, all four years, each page covered in ink. She’d never thought of herself as one of the popular girls, but the friend she’d had, she lost touch with after college. A few reconnected with her online years later—all of them mothers, posting pictures of their babies on their MySpace pages, which Dana found extremely boring. Almost all of them still lived back home. Every time she saw a new baby pic, she had to fight the urge to comment, I’m in New York, bitch! Living the lesbian life! Boo-yah!

  Though, really, how different was “the lesbian life” from what those photos on her high school friends’ pages showed of heterosexual married life? Not much, really, Dana had to conclude. Sometimes she thought New York was just noisier, pricier, and more crowded than back home, nothing more.

  She didn’t need this trip down memory lane. Digging deeper into the box, she found a few photo albums that she didn’t bother to look at and a small jewelry box. Bingo. Inside were an extraordinary number of pearl necklaces—that’d been her thing one year, pearls and blue jeans, for some strange reason. Only one of the necklaces had real pearls on it, though off-hand she didn’t know which. There were also a variety bracelets, mood rings, and earrings of every kind—studs with the Venus symbol, gold hoops in every size imaginable, dangling earrings it hurt Dana’s ears to look at. She couldn’t remember ever wearing such things.

  Then, at the bottom of the jewelry box, nestled under a bunch of gold chains helplessly knotted together, she found the ring box her grandmother had sent her all those years ago.

  Please be in here, she prayed, extracting the box. Please be in good condition. What if the ring looked nothing like she remembered? What if it had broken, or tarnished? What if—

  But it was inside, and it was perfect. The gold shone as if it had just been polished. Thank you, Mom. The diamond chip sparkled in its heart-shaped setting. She slipped it on her finger and it still fit, so she knew it would fit Bethany, too; they had the same ring size. She knew because she’d tried on Bethany’s college ring once and commented on it.

  Out past the bedroom’s open door, she heard the faint sound of a key in the apartment’s front lock. Quickly she shoved everything back into the box and forced it back into its spot, then hurried from the closet. She tucked the ring into her pocket as she closed the closet door. Then Dana turned off the bedroom light and left the room, eager to greet Bethany as she came home.

  Now she was ready to talk about marriage.

  * * * *

  The moment she saw Bethany, though, Dana could tell something was the matter. It was hard to put her finger on it, but she’d known Bethany long enough to know when something was wrong. Despite the way Bethany’s face lit up when she saw Dana, despite her welcoming kiss, her loving hug, something wasn’t quite right.

  Dana took a step back and
studied her. “What is it?” she asked, prepared for the worst.

  Bethany gave her a funny look. “What do you mean? I just got in.” As if to prove her point, she shrugged out of her crossbody messenger bag and dropped it onto the floor by the wraparound counter that separated the foyer from the kitchen.

  “I know that look,” Dana started, one hand propped on her hip.

  Bethany countered with, “What look?”

  Dana wasn’t buying it. “What’s wrong?”

  With a shake of her head, Bethany said, “Nothing’s wrong.”

  Dana waited a moment, then drawled, “But…?”

  Letting out an exasperated sigh, Bethany walked around Dana, who turned to keep her in sight as she headed into the kitchen for a drink. Dana let her open the cabinet, take out a glass, and open the freezer for ice from the ice maker, but when she retrieved the pitcher of iced tea from the fridge, Dana asked, “So? Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, or do I have to guess?”

  Bethany poured a glass of tea, then drank half of it down in one long gulp. As she refilled it, she said, “I called my mother on the way home from work.”

  “On your bike,” Dana said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I took the subway today,” Bethany explained. “I have a nail in the back tire, remember?”

  Leaning on the countertop, Dana sat on one of the bar stools hidden beneath it. “So what’d she have to say? I can’t believe she’s thrilled to hear about the sudden outbreak of weddings happening up in Boston.”

  Bethany gave Dana a sardonic eye roll over her shoulder. “That’s the understatement of the year. I had called to see what dates might work for her and Dad, you know. If they’d be coming up for your graduation, and maybe we could go on up afterward or before…”

  “Bethy, God.” Dana pushed her hair from her forehead with both hands, weary at the thought of the coming conversation. “Why’d you even bother? Don’t you get it? She doesn’t like me. She thinks I turned you gay. She isn’t coming up to see me graduate, and she sure as hell isn’t going to want to see you throw your life away by marrying me. It’s a lost cause. I know she’s your mother, but she fucking hates me.”

  Dana expected an angry comeback of some sort, or maybe a half-hearted contradiction, but Bethany surprised her with another sigh. “Yeah, I know. You’re right. I just thought…I mean, whenever I talked about marrying Terrance, she always said she wanted to watch me walk down the aisle. I thought that meant whenever I got married, to whomever I loved. Not specifically to him.”

  “Well, if I was a guy,” Dana suggested, “maybe she’d be cool with it. You know, we don’t have to do it. I mean, we’re still young.”

  Bethany glanced up at her. “I’m tired of waiting, aren’t you? Don’t you want to marry me?”

  “I do,” Dana assured her, “but if it’s going to cause this much trouble with your mother—and God, I haven’t even told my parents yet—then why even bother? I mean, it’s only a piece of paper, right? It doesn’t change how much I love you, or you love me. It doesn’t change what we are to each other. So what’s the big deal?”

  “Don’t you want to get married?” Bethany asked. “Call me your wife?”

  Dana shrugged. “As long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter to me what we call each other. I. Love. You. End of story.”

  Pulling out one of the chairs at their small kitchen table, Bethany sat down, head in her hands, and sighed. “Well, for me, I’ve always wanted to get married, for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl and used to play with Barbies, my favorite thing was to dress them up and stage mock weddings. Even before I had any Ken dolls, I’d make the Barbies marry each other.” She laughed, a short, bitter sound. “I’m surprised my mother doesn’t remember that.”

  Dana folded her arms on the counter and set her chin on her hand to look at her lover. “Not me. One, I never liked Barbie. I got a doll once and cut off all her hair just to see what it looked like underneath—I seriously thought it’d grow back—and after that, my mom wouldn’t buy me anymore. I always knew I liked women, always, as far back as I can think, so I was never one of those girls mooning over boys or writing down Mrs. So-and-so in her notebooks, or fantasizing about marrying some cute actor on TV. When I was older, I knew women couldn’t marry other women so I didn’t hold out any hopes of getting hitched. I didn’t want children, I didn’t want domestic bliss. I wanted some exciting, adventurous life like the ones I read about in the books I loved.”

  Bethany laughed again. “Instead you got me.”

  Slipping off the bar stool, Dana came into the kitchen to step up behind her lover’s chair. She leaned down over Bethany and wrapped her arms around. With a tight hug, she kissed Bethany’s temple and said, “Yes, I got you. I got the life I wanted, this one, here, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I don’t care if you want to call yourself my girlfriend, or lover, or wife, or some term of endearment not even thought up yet, but you’re my everything, and nothing, nothing, will change that.”

  Bethany patted Dana’s arm where it rested around her neck. “I love you so much. It’s just that…I know you don’t care one way or the other, but I’ve just always wanted to get married, that’s all.”

  “I thought you said you wanted to do it only to make your mother accept me,” Dana said.

  She felt Bethany shrug under her. “At this point, I don’t care if she does or not. I want to do it for us. For me.”

  Gently Dana unwrapped her arms from Bethany’s shoulders, then pulled out the chair beside her lover to sit down. Reaching into her pocket, she extracted the ring she’d deposited there earlier. She had left the box in the bedroom, so she held the ring between her forefinger and thumb with the heart-shaped diamond displayed towards Bethany.

  Bethany gasped when she saw the ring. “Dana,” she sighed, her voice filling with tears. “Where did you…?”

  “Bethy, I know this isn’t much,” Dana told her. “It’s an old ring of mine, but it’s a real diamond.”

  “It’s gorgeous.” Bethany held her breath as she stared at it.

  Dana waited.

  When Bethany finally raised her gaze to meet Dana’s, Dana asked, “I know it means so much to you, and I would be honored if you would marry me.”

  Bethany surged to her feet and pulled Dana into a tight embrace. “Oh, yes!” she crowed. “A million times yes! Let’s leave tonight.”

  Dana laughed, surprised. “Tonight?” She took a step back and saw the look on Bethany’s face. “Wait. Are you serious?”

  “Why not?” Bethany asked.

  Because Dana didn’t have an answer to that, she laughed again. Yeah, why the hell not?

  * * * *

  While reading about the first gay marriages online, Bethany had learned Massachusetts had a three day waiting period between filling out the marriage application and obtaining a license. So she thought they should pack enough for a short stay. “No more than a week,” she reasoned. “We’ll take the train up tonight, apply in the morning—”

  “Wait in line with every other gay couple in America,” Dana scoffed. “Boston will look like the largest pride parade in the world in a few days. You do know that, right?”

  Bethany shot her a sardonic look. “We live in Manhattan, hello? There’s no way it’s going to be more crowded than the L at rush hour. Nothing is.”

  “Does Boston even have a subway?” Dana asked. “How are we going to get from the train station to the courthouse?”

  But Bethany shrugged off the question. “I’ll rent a car if I have to. We’ll get a hotel room, wait in line all day tomorrow if that’s what it takes to fill out the application, and then spend the weekend seeing the sights. No, I’ll definitely get a car—I’ve never been to Boston.”

  “Me, either.” Dana had to admit the thought of a weekend getaway was more than a little exciting. She’d already called her boss at the bookstore to say she needed to take an unexpected trip out of town. “So is the wa
iting period business days, or will the weekend count?”

  Shrugging, Bethany admitted, “I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. We’ll stay a few extra days as a honeymoon—it won’t be anything glamorous, I’m afraid, since there’s a staff meeting next Thursday I absolutely can’t miss, but after graduation, we’ll schedule something better. Something decadent.” She took Dana’s hand in hers and smiled seductively. “What do you say? Ready to do this?”

  “Are we going to use your last name or mine?” Dana asked.

  “How about both?” Bethany countered. “Bartlett-Kelly sounds pretty good. Or Kelly-Bartlett.”

  Dana wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, no, let’s go with the first one. Maybe it’s the library nerd in me, but there’s just something sexy about alphabetical order.”

  “There’s something sexy about you,” Bethany teased, giving her a lingering kiss, “and once we get to Boston, I plan on showing you exactly what it is.”

  “What happened to no sex before the wedding?” Dana joked.

  Bethany laughed. “Too late now. You should’ve thought of that years ago.”

  * * * *

  It took about five hours to get from Manhattan to Boston from train, including the subway ride from their apartment to the train station, and the cab ride from the station in Boston to a hotel. By the time they settled in for the night, it was almost midnight and both Dana and Bethany were too exhausted to even unpack. They simply crashed on the bed, fully clothed, and were asleep within minutes.

  So much for premarital sex.

  In the morning, they looked through tourist brochures as they ate breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant and found a few things they wanted to do before leaving the city. Then Bethany had the manager at the front desk call Enterprise to deliver a rental car. By the time it arrived, they were dressed and ready to head downtown to City Hall.

  Dana had been right; the place was packed, and every couple was gay. The moment she walked through the doors and saw all the men with their arms around other men’s shoulders, and all the women holding hands with other women, she felt something swell within her, something she’d been tamping down her whole life. It bubbled up from deep inside, bringing with it tears she had to blink back, and she caught Bethany in a tight hug, for once not caring who might see as she kissed her lover full on the lips in public.