by Karis Walsh
Ari took Jocelyn’s hand in her own. Jocelyn held tight to her, feeling the fragility of Ari’s emotions. She’d gotten to know a few artists, like Pam, here at Cannon Beach, and she saw the same changeability of mood and sensitivity in Ari. Nothing at all like the no-nonsense women Jocelyn dated and understood as well as she understood herself.
“Were you close with your mom?”
“Sort of,” Ari said. “At times yes, other times not so much. I guess it’s true with any family. She never thought writing was a suitable profession, and she would never even discuss my sexuality. I loved her, but I was angry because she didn’t seem to accept who I am since I didn’t make the same choices she did. We grew apart over the past five years and we didn’t get to resolve any of our issues. I miss her and hate to have lost her, but sometimes the old anger comes back. Then I feel guilty for holding on to those negative memories. I want to write it. To face all the pain in a way I can handle and control instead of the messy and chaotic way it feels inside me right now.”
Jocelyn realized she had been holding her breath while Ari talked, and she exhaled softly. She had shared the story of her childhood with Ari, and she knew this was as big a revelation as hers had been. Tonight at the reading, Ari had carefully avoided talking about her personal life and her current work—referring to it only vaguely when asked directly about it. Jocelyn knew she didn’t give this information to just anyone. She wanted to put her hands over her ears, to avoid hearing the words because she was being drawn in to a life she couldn’t comprehend. One that didn’t match hers at all.
“Why can’t you write something else for now? Something less loaded emotionally and less hurtful. Something less close to you. Then, when you’ve worked through the mourning process, you can go back to this story you want to tell.”
“You mean figure it out first, and write it later?” Ari asked. When Jocelyn nodded her head, Ari shook hers vehemently. “That’s not the way I work. I can’t figure it out on my own. I need to see it happen through my characters before I can sort it out in my own mind.”
“Maybe your relationship with your mom deserves more than that. Maybe it was important enough to deserve having you explore and examine it directly instead of assigning it to a character. I’m sure your way of handling emotions is fine for some situations, but this is huge. It shaped who you are and probably made her a different person as well. You should look at the two of you, your lives and your interactions, not at two fictional people who are shadows of your mom and you.”
“It’s not as easy as you make it sound—”
“Of course it isn’t,” Jocelyn said. She stopped and pulled her hand out of Ari’s grasp. “Life never is. Don’t you think I would have preferred to write a book about a kid with leukemia instead of having to sit in a hospital bed in real life, getting jabbed with needles and told I probably wouldn’t see age ten? But I couldn’t assign my life to some made-up person. I had to fight to survive, no matter how much I wanted to bury my head in the sand and pretend it wasn’t happening to me.”
Ari shoved her hands in her pockets again. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. No child should have to go through that, and no family should have to experience it. But we’re different people in two very different situations. This is how my mind works.”
“Well, this time it isn’t working for you.” Jocelyn wasn’t certain why she was this angry with Ari, but she couldn’t control it anymore. The night had fluctuated too much, too fast. Why had she caught Jocelyn in her swing from sexy to charming to maudlin? “So you should change how you work through emotions. Handle the pain of life, and tell stories. They don’t always need to be intertwined.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Ari said, her voice cold and flat.
“I’m not. I just…” Actually she had told Ari what to do. She wasn’t a stranger to this conversation since she’d had some variation of it with girlfriends in the past. She tried to fix things. To bring everyone into her fight-to-survive-at-all-costs camp. Make a decision and do it. Make the change necessary and follow through. Ari was a different breed altogether. She’d never be like Jocelyn. Emotions would catch her like a leaf in the breeze, tossing her this way and that until she figured out how to right herself again.
“Good night,” Ari said. “Thanks again for everything you did to plan the reading. I’ll walk from here and pick up my car in the morning.”
She started walking toward Haystack Rock and the Sea Glass Inn. Jocelyn wanted to call out an apology and ask Ari not to go. To hold her and let her cry about her mom and her past until she was emptied of the sorrow. To tell her she was fine the way she was. Whatever her creative method was, it had worked for her in the past.
Jocelyn could have run after Ari and said all those things, but she stayed still. Ari would figure out her own life and manage it how she wanted. Her choices were none of Jocelyn’s business, and she was better off not being emotionally involved.
She stood on the empty beach for another hour, until sand flea bites and an increasingly cold wind forced her to go home.
*
Jocelyn walked along the boardwalk in Seaside, window shopping as she slowly made her way to the café where she was meeting her twin sister. Maggie was never on time. She was one of the most compassionate and capable people Jocelyn knew, but she couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of time unless it was related to her work in some way. At the hospital, she was punctual and precise. In life outside her job as an oncologist, she was a flake. But she was Jocelyn’s flake.
The lack of tourists was more noticeable in Seaside than in Cannon Beach, even though the former was a much larger town. Cannon Beach still retained the feeling of a sleepy, tight-knit community, but Seaside was a tourist town, pure and simple. Both had been hit hard by the oil spill, and Jocelyn saw a few For Rent signs in empty storefronts. For the most part, though, Seaside was still healthy. These were business owners who really understood the fluctuations of their trade. This year would be one of the lean ones, but those were anticipated and accepted risks of doing business here.
Jocelyn passed two kite stores, a shop selling humorous souvenir T-shirts, and a general store with everything a tourist would need, from flip-flops to beach towels, in its windows. None of them had more than three customers inside, but they were all open and fully stocked. Jocelyn was beginning to see hope for the future of these beach communities. The summer had been hard, and no one had been able to look much beyond the present day. Now, even though the number of visitors was much lower than the average, she felt a shift in the atmosphere. They were through the worst and ready to hunker down for winter. Next year would be a fresh start.
“Joss, over here.”
Maggie’s voice cut through Jocelyn’s introspection. She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts she had taken longer than expected to get to the restaurant, and Maggie had actually beaten her there. She wove through a cluster of empty wrought-iron tables to where her sister was sitting. “Hey, Mags.”
Maggie stood to give her a hug. They were fraternal twins, but alike enough to be easily recognized as siblings. Maggie’s hair leaned more toward red than Jocelyn’s deep auburn, and she was an inch taller—something she had lorded over Jocelyn ever since she had sprung ahead in height during high school.
“Do you mind sitting outside? We can go in if it’s too cold for you,” Maggie said, hovering next to her chair. “Or I can go to my car and get you a jacket.”
Jocelyn sat and pushed Maggie’s chair out with her foot. “Sit down, Mags. I won’t die of hypothermia while we’re eating.”
Maggie winced at the phrasing, and Jocelyn reminded herself to watch what she said during their lunch. She forgot and joked about things Maggie would never find funny. She still treated Jocelyn like the fragile and sick child she had been years ago, and Jocelyn wasn’t convinced Maggie truly believed she was healthy now. If Mags had her way, Jocelyn would be in the hospital for monthly scans and diagnostic tests, just to be certain. J
ocelyn put up with Maggie’s caretaking and worrying because Maggie had saved her life.
“Your book signing was awesome, sis,” Maggie said after they ordered sandwiches. “Although I’m wounded because you didn’t tell me you and Ariana Knight are an item.”
“An item? We’re friendly, but nothing more. Besides, who calls couples an item anymore?”
“I do,” Maggie said, taking a sip of her lemonade. “And don’t change the subject. I saw how the two of you were ogling each other. If I’d had any doubts, they disappeared when you were feeling her up at the food table.”
Jocelyn swallowed her soda the wrong way and started coughing. “I did not!” she said when she could speak again. “She had powdered sugar on her shirt and I was wiping it off.”
Maggie snorted. “Oh, please. I thought I might need to turn the hose on you. At least she didn’t seem to mind.”
Jocelyn stayed silent. She wanted to protest and deny any feelings she might have for Ari, but the more she denied it, the guiltier she would look. Besides, Mags knew her better than anyone. She’d spot Jocelyn in a lie from a mile away. She’d obviously seen the attraction Jocelyn had been feeling for Ari—exacerbated by their kiss—but hopefully no one else at the party could read her well enough to suspect any involvement between the two of them. Well, Pam had been laughing during the powdered sugar incident, as if she’d noticed something. Just Maggie and Pam, then. Of course, Pam would most likely tell Mel. So only three people knew…
Jocelyn’s head was beginning to hurt. She nearly overlooked Maggie’s last comment, but the words sank in eventually. “You really think she liked it when I…well, the whole shirt thing?”
“Are you kidding? What woman wouldn’t? Besides, she didn’t swat your hands away, so I think you’ve got a shot.”
“We kissed before the party,” Jocelyn admitted after their lunch was served. She picked up a potato chip and waved it for emphasis. “Nothing serious. Just a casual kiss.”
“Liar,” Maggie said. “Okay, you kissed before the party and rubbed her chest during it. Spill. What happened after?”
Jocelyn took her time chewing and swallowing some of her sandwich before she answered. She didn’t like this part. She chose her words carefully, not willing to share Ari’s confessions with anyone, not even her twin. “We kind of argued. She’s having issues with her new book, and I guess I sort of gave her unwanted advice.”
“No,” Maggie said in a fake-shocked voice. “You? You got bossy with a girlfriend and pushed her away once you started to get close? I don’t believe it.”
“I’m not bossy.”
“You’re a control freak and you know it. You have intimacy issues. Big deal, welcome to the club.”
Jocelyn frowned and put her sandwich back on the plate. Maggie never prevaricated with her. She spoke her mind, no matter what. Jocelyn was the same with her, and she wished she could find the same level of trust and honesty with a romantic partner. She sensed Maggie did, too. Neither had found it yet.
“She was stuck in an emotional wallow. I was trying to help.”
Maggie shook her head. “You had a choice in that moment. What was your other option?”
Jocelyn thought back to the conversation on the beach. She had been faced with a choice, just like Maggie said. She could have supported Ari. Listened to her and let Ari use her as a sounding board. She was opening up about a sensitive emotional topic, and Jocelyn had shut her down. She could have been Ari’s muse, but instead she pushed her deeper inside herself.
“You’ve read her books, Joss. They’re powerful. She captures something profoundly human and universal in her stories. Do you think someone could write like that, yet not be more emotionally sensitive than your average person? Of course not.” Maggie answered her own question. “Remember our book club meeting when we read her book? Her words spoke to everyone there. We each saw something of ourselves in her stories, and we understood ourselves a little better after reading them. I think that kind of gift is worth a wallow now and again.”
Jocelyn thought back to the comments made during that night’s book club. Maggie was right, again. Ari’s process for understanding emotions and writing them out might not be efficient or sensible or painless, but it was her process. Because of what she wrote, readers were able to work through their emotions in turn. A cycle of expressing and ruminating, moving closer to clarity with every turn.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have tried to fix her.”
“You can’t help yourself. It might not be who you were born to be, but it’s who you are. You see everything as a challenge and you’re always determined to win because winning means life. But relationships aren’t cancer or a business challenge or a marathon. You can’t conquer them.”
Jocelyn wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. Maggie knew her too well, plus she spent most of her days with patients like Jocelyn herself had been. She understood how the struggle to survive could become a way of life. Jocelyn did have one final card to play, though.
“Everything you’re saying makes sense, but it doesn’t change the fact that Ari and I are too different. Even if I stopped trying to change her, we’d never be a good fit. She withdraws to deal with the world in private, and I rush out and try to tackle it.”
“Sounds familiar,” Maggie said quietly, reading the dessert menu and not looking at Jocelyn.
Jocelyn waited until they ordered sundaes before she spoke again. “What sounds familiar?”
Maggie shrugged. “How alike are we? We have some similar values and interests. We have the same nose and forehead shape. But aren’t we as different as you claim you and Ariana are?”
“Yes, I guess so.” Since the topic of cancer had come up already, it brought one example to Jocelyn’s mind immediately. Their different but related experiences with leukemia had led Maggie to a career helping others with the disease. She had also grown up to be more fearful—although Mags called it careful—than Jocelyn. Jocelyn had become fearless.
“Maybe we should stop seeing each other, then. Give up our weekly lunches and stop talking on the phone all the time. Since we’re so different, you know.”
Jocelyn scraped the whipped cream off the top of her sundae and licked it off the spoon. She pushed the tempting and unexpected image of Ari covered in cream aside and answered Maggie’s foolish question. “We’re sisters. We’re allowed to be different. Besides, we balance each other in a lot of ways. I’d be half the person I am if I didn’t have you.”
Maggie merely looked at her without speaking.
Jocelyn sighed. “Yes, I get your point. But I think there’s a difference between two people who are balanced with each other and two people who are opposite extremes.”
“Fine. Give up your chance to have a famous, talented, sensitive girlfriend. Keep looking for another one like Horrible Heidi.”
Jocelyn laughed and would have flung a spoonful of ice cream at Maggie’s head if they hadn’t been in public. Heidi really had been horrid. Clicking around in her heels and power suits, running casual lunches like high-stakes boardroom meetings. Jocelyn had taken her attraction to competent and successful women a little too far that time.
“Do you really want to start criticizing ex-girlfriends? Because I’d be happy to talk about Crazy Kat and her fetish for—”
“Fine,” Maggie said, covering her ears. “I’ll stop if you will.”
“Deal.”
Jocelyn and Maggie kept to safer topics during the rest of lunch. They laughed and chatted while they finished their desserts, but Ari hovered in the back of Jocelyn’s mind the whole time. She had been drawn to her from the start—even before they met, she had been captivated by Ari’s voice in her books. Was Maggie right about finding balance? Jocelyn had spent years searching for mirror images of herself. Women who had the same outlook on life and problem solving. But those similarities had never been able to keep relationships alive, or even to help them through rocky patches. Was Ari a good match for her? Would the
y mesh or would they clash?
Jocelyn had felt connected to Ari during their talks on the beach and in the bookstore. They had argued a little, but they’d also opened up to each other in ways Jocelyn rarely did, and she suspected the same was true for Ari. And that kiss…There was no question of their connection in the physical aspect of a relationship.
Still, Ari would be going back to California soon. They hadn’t even spoken of a relationship, and when Ari walked away from her the other night on the beach, she had done so with a sense of finality. Even if Jocelyn wanted to pursue something with Ari, Ari most likely didn’t feel the same way. Ari needed someone special in her life, someone who would help take care of her talent and her emotions. Someone who recognized her strengths. Could Jocelyn be the person Ari needed? She wasn’t sure.
But that kiss…
Definitely worth a shot.
*
Ari looked up from her laptop and checked the clock on the wall. She had been writing for an hour—twice as long as yesterday. Not her personal best by any means, but much better than three hours of typing and deleting a single sentence. She saved her document and closed the screen. She was happy and relieved to be back to work, even on a small scale, and she didn’t want to push it and scare her newfound ideas away.
She grabbed her notebook and a heavy wool sweater and jogged down the steps with a renewed sense of energy. When she crossed the backyard and passed the studio, she saw Pam inside. She was sitting at the wooden table with a pile of multicolored sea glass in front of her. They waved at each other, and Pam went back to sorting while Ari walked to the staircase and down to the beach. She hoped Pam would be creating again soon, and not just looking for menial tasks to do in the studio. Although she had talked to Pam about her rediscovery of her ability to write, Ari had carefully refrained from offering any advice or cheery encouragement. She and Pam both understood how difficult stagnation was. Ari was crawling out of the hole she had dug for herself, but Pam was still inside hers. She’d find her way out sooner or later, with Mel’s support and her own drive to paint.
