Just Yesterday

by Linda Hill

  I nod, remembering Charlene’s comments about Connie’s girlfriend from earlier yesterday. Stepping farther into the room to shake her hand, I think better of it when I see her arms remain firmly crossed against her chest.

  “Liz,” I say finally, introducing myself.

  “Elizabeth Grey?” Her tone doesn’t change, and I’m not certain whether she is asking a question or making a statement. When I nod, she responds again, her voice unchanging. “I know who you are.”

  For several moments I wonder how it is that she has heard of me. Was it from Charlene or Connie’s mother during the past twenty-four hours? Had Connie mentioned me in passing while enumerating the lovers in her past? Had I been the source of some heated argument between her and Connie?

  If she senses my internal debate, she refuses to give any clues. We continue to stare until I can take it no longer, and I refocus on Connie’s mother.

  “How is she doing?” I ask stupidly. It doesn’t take a surgeon to see that Connie’s condition is critical.

  Mrs. Kaplan’s only reply is in the tight, thin line of her lips and the eyes that begin to fill. Her eyes shift to her daughter, and I follow their gaze.

  I am much closer to the bed now and have to breathe deeply to steady myself. I still can’t recognize my ex-lover.

  My eyes catch the glint of stainless steel around her head and I squint, a sick curiosity getting the best of me as my mind begins to comprehend what I am seeing. A large, square patch of skin is exposed on the top of Connie’s head where it has obviously been shaved. What appear to be two metal screws are implanted in her skull. Secured to the metal screws is a kind of braided wire, which is threaded through some sort of contraption behind Connie’s head. I follow the wire and feel my stomach drop as I realize that it is attached to two large weights that hang just behind and below the head of the bed.

  “She broke her neck.” Her mother’s voice is weak. The flash of pain that racks my insides is so complete that I cannot identify what hurts the most. My head is exploding, my heart aching, my stomach dropping. I wasn’t prepared for any of this.

  “You know the rules, Mrs. Kaplan,” a voice booms behind me and I jump, turning to see the stern face beneath a nurse’s cap eyeing each of us separately. “Only two visitors at a time. Family only.”

  “This is Connie’s sister, Elizabeth.” Mrs. Kaplan lifts her chin defiantly.

  “Uh-huh.” The nurse’s tone makes it clear that she doesn’t believe a word of it. “Just like she’s her sister, too.” She nods in Wendy’s direction and I almost smile. Wendy is clearly as dark African American as Connie is pale-white Caucasian.

  Connie’s sister, Charlene, appears from behind the nurse and reaches me in two short steps, wrapping her arms around me in a quick hug. She is a younger, shorter image of Connie. Her long blond hair isn’t as fine or light as Connie’s, but Charlene is far more attractive in the traditional sense.

  “That’s it.” The nurse draws herself up indignantly. “Two of you. Out. Now.”

  We all look at each other until I catch the pleading in Charlene’s blue eyes and I remember our conversation from the day before.

  “Come on, Mom.” I tuck my arm under Mrs. Kaplan’s elbow and try what I hope is my most charming smile. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee and catch up.”

  She hesitates, and I give her a small nudge. “You won’t be gone long, I promise. I want to spend some time with Charlene while I’m here, too.”

  Her eyes move from Charlene to the closed eyes of her other daughter as she lies on the bed. She is so fragile. So indecisive.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Charlene says softly. “Go with Liz. Connie will be okay while you’re gone.”

  I watch the emotions flicker across the older woman’s face and feel my heart constrict again. The fear on her face is plain. She is afraid that Connie will die and that she won’t be there when it happens.

  She stares up at me and I flash a reassuring smile. I’m rewarded with a curt nod, and then we are ushering each other from the room.

  I remain at the hospital for most of the day, alternately walking the hallways with Charlene and her mother, then standing motionless at Connie’s bedside. As the day progresses, I am able to look at her for longer periods of time.

  She remains unrecognizable to me. Everything except the blond hair and the left hand that lies at her side. My eyes trace each finger and I am grateful for the familiar blunt fingertips that somehow validate my being there in a room of near strangers.

  It is those fingers that I recognize. How many times had I lovingly watched those fingers hover over a photograph as it came to life on paper? Connie had swished the chemicals around in the tray, eyeing the image until it reached perfection. Then those fingers would dip down and sweep up the print, only to submerge it quickly in yet another solution.

  Silently, I stand over Connie. Apologizing for all those things unsaid. For all of the mistakes we have made. Foolishly, I will her eyes to open, frustration rising as she resolutely lies still. The fear of her death is suddenly very real to me, our mortality something I’d rarely given thought to before this morning.

  Just before I leave to return to my hotel, I speak to her silently. I say good-bye, even while I don’t want to believe that’s what I’m doing. But I know, somehow, that I might never see the startling green of her eyes again. It doesn’t matter that we haven’t spoken in four years. I’d always had the option to see her, to talk with her. But with death were no such options.

  I return to my hotel in an emotional stupor. Part of me wants to curl up on the bed and pretend that none of it has happened. Part of me begins to obsess about Connie, and I begin replaying in my mind many of the moments we have shared. I find myself trying to remember why we broke up, but cannot.

  My mind drifts to Joanna, and panic seizes me. What would I ever do if this happened to Joanna? She is my entire life.

  Suddenly I miss her. Badly. Not just the woman that I’d left back in Los Angeles. I miss the way we used to be. The closeness we used to share. Five years ago I would never have made this trip alone. Yesterday she’d barely blinked when I left for the airport.

  I resolve to do whatever it takes to find that closeness again. We have to find a way to make things work.

  Without another thought, I reach for the phone and dial our number.

  Chapter 3

  Eight hours of sleep did nothing to lighten my mood. Joanna had been sympathetic but distant on the phone the night before. When I told her that I thought maybe we had made a mistake, that maybe we should give it another try, she sidestepped my concerns.

  “Honey, we’ve talked about this for two years. You’re just emotional because of Connie.”

  “I know I’m emotional. That’s the point. Maybe I’m just realizing what’s important in life.” I hated feeling rebuffed. I also hated that I felt so weak and vulnerable. Especially when I knew she was probably right.

  “Liz. I’m tired. We’ll talk when you get home. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I’d said, feeling helpless.

  The helpless feeling carried over to the next morning as I stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, trying to convince myself to get up and go to the hospital.

  The message light is flashing on the bedside phone, and I wonder why I hadn’t noticed it the night before. I pick up the receiver, punch in a few numbers and listen. It is Grace. She had left the message at five o’clock that morning, and I can’t help wondering what she was doing up and so alert at that hour.

  I listen groggily as she says that she got my message yesterday and wants to meet me for brunch at ten o’clock. She rattles off the name and address of her favorite diner, and I have to rewind the message and listen to it twice to make sure I get it right.

  With two hours to kill, I pull on my sneakers and decide to go for a jog. I don’t want to think about Grace. I am already emotionally drained. The added knowing that I am about to see her for the first time in five years makes my nerves feel ra
w and exposed.

  I am excited and sick to my stomach all at once. The last time we’d met hadn’t gone very well. But we’ve kept in touch since then, sporadically over the years, especially since the advent of e-mail. Perhaps all of the tension is behind us. Maybe the past is finally in the past. But our lives have intertwined in the oddest ways since we first met. It is difficult to believe even now that there isn’t somehow some significance in our meeting again.

  As my feet methodically hit the pavement, I count backward, trying to figure out how long it has been since we were together. The first time. Our versions of the same story were, I knew, dramatically different.

  In her mind, I simply dumped her. Crushed her. Devastated her.

  In my mind, it was never so easy. Nothing about Grace ever was. She was so young. All sweetness and innocence rolled up together. Those cow-brown eyes would look at me, and I would tremble in their pure honesty. I was never so deserving.

  First of all, by then I’d been around the block. More times than I could even count. I was older than she was. Granted, by only five years, but the difference between my twenty-four and her nineteen years could be measured in ways more telling than simply time. I was hard. She was soft. I was cynical. She was trusting. I was raised in a single-parent, blue-collar home where none of the children even dreamed of college. She was born to a family where savings bonds were purchased and safely tucked away as a simple matter of course.

  Connie had been gone for three months, and I was having difficulty adjusting to my life without her. I had seen Grace at the bar many times while I was with Connie. I continued to notice her over the several months after Connie left. But Grace and I had never even said a word to each other. We played by all the unspoken rules.

  The bar was separated into two specific groups. The older, die-hard dykes kept their distance from the college, preppy crowd.

  But I’d noticed Grace, all right. She was about my height, five-four or so, but lankier, leaner. Her hair was cut short, its unruly curls a burnt auburn, with hints of sienna that teased me under the subdued, flashing lights. Across the bar I’d see her clutching a beer bottle to her chest while her throaty laughter reached my ears even at a distance. Over the months we’d gotten to the point where we would make eye contact and give each other a small, barely perceptible nod of recognition. But the rules were the rules, even if they were unspoken, and neither of us crossed that invisible line. So she stayed on her side with her college friends while I continued to stay with mine.

  It was on rare occasions that I ventured out to the bar on a weeknight. Rarer still that I wandered in alone. But something drove me out of my apartment on a particularly cold, snowy Wednesday in late November. Only a few lonely souls had braved the cold that night, and Grace was one of them.

  As I planted myself on a bar stool, I could see her reflection in the mirror directly before me. She was leaning over the pool table, concentrating on a not-too-difficult shot. I glanced away only long enough to order a drink when the crack of two cue balls colliding reached my ears just before a sharp pain pierced my shoulder. I grabbed my arm, wondering what had hit me, and found a splatter of blue chalk along the length of my sleeve. Curious, I glanced at the floor beside me, and sure enough, the offending blue cube lay just at my feet. Bending to retrieve it, I raised my eyes and found Grace staring at me, eyes as big as the cue balls themselves as embarrassment colored her thin features. She was horrified.

  She was gripping a pool stick with both hands and cringing with apology. I couldn’t help the grin that I know was plastered on my face as I covered the few feet between us.

  “I am so sorry,” she was saying. It was the first time I’d heard her speak, and my senses were already taking in the sound of her voice.

  “I believe this belongs to you,” I grinned as I held out my hand, the small blue cube resting in my palm.

  “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, her cheeks a rosy crimson as she grew even more embarrassed. “I hit the ball too hard,” she spoke quickly, trying to explain. “It bounced and hit the chalk, and the chalk just flew across the room.”

  I didn’t care what she was saying. I was just glad that she was talking to me and that the ice was finally broken.

  It was weeks before we kissed. Months before we made love. Even though I wanted her badly, I held off, heart all aflutter like a schoolgirl. Which, I reminded myself often, she was. Every look, every touch, every word she spoke was filled with adoring love. She treated me with a gentle sweetness that I had never known. While I, in turn, held her in extreme reverence. I reveled in her love, all the while knowing that it wouldn’t, couldn’t last.

  But Grace reached me in ways that others hadn’t even touched. She softened my hard edges and made me want to give as I had never given before. I wanted to hold her, protect her, and keep her safe from the world. But at the same time, I had come to understand for the first time in my life what it meant to be in a different social class.

  I never felt adequate. Grace was so bright, so quick. And while she seemed unaware of our difŹferences at the time, I believed that sooner or later she’d figure it out. Sooner or later I would no longer be able to hold her interest. Grace was headed for big things, and I believed that I would never fit into her adult life.

  Grace and I had been seeing each other for nearly a year when out of the blue Connie called. She had finally settled down in Los Angeles and wanted me to join her.

  Somehow, I made my heart go cold enough to walk away from Grace. Regret came quickly, moving into my heart and taking up residence in my life. Thirteen years later the regret still hadn’t left me.

  I broke into a full run as memories from that time threatened me.

  Connie and I lived together for the following year, but we weren’t exactly lovers. We realized within a month that whatever we’d felt in the past had fizzled. What happened after that was convoluted now, and no longer clear in my memory.

  A year after I’d moved away, I called Grace on a whim. We met in Miami, where we spent the most incredible week of my life together. We admitted our mistakes. We cried. We made love. We planned our future. Grace was going to join me in Los Angeles, where we would finally be together. I was on top of the world. For about three months.

  She stopped calling. She avoided my phone calls and stopped sending me letters. For days and then weeks I was frantic and sick with worry. It took months before reality sank in.

  In the meantime, Connie moved home to Champaign. I eventually learned from Connie that she and Grace had met and had a brief affair.

  I have never before or since felt so betrayed. The blow was so cutting that the injury felt physical. I was in a stupor for months, blindly stumbling through each day for nearly a year. Until I met Joanna. In so many ways, she saved me and helped me to believe in life and love again. That happiness was possible.

  In the years since, my encounters with Grace have been limited to two brief visits when she’d come to the coast. We share an occasional e-mail about politics, topics of the day, or gossip about an old friend. And Christmas cards. Every year we exchange cards. The annual rite that I love and hate all at once.

  My pace slows as I near the hotel, and I double over when I can’t suck enough air into my lungs. “Damn,” I swear, hating the tide of memories that continues to sweep over me. My breathing finally slows and I look around, squinting into the sunlight.

  A mixture of dread and anticipation is gurgling in my stomach. And I know that the racing of my heart has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been running.

  Chapter 4

  As I slide into a booth I can’t help smiling to myself as I glance around. When Grace had said to meet her at a diner, I envisioned the old dilapidated type I’d grown used to during my childhood. This is no diner. It is an upscale, hi-tech restaurant fashioned with art deco and a shiny metallic and neon decor. I suppose I should have known better.

  My eyes keep darting nervously to the door, looking for the familiar fea
tures. I almost don’t recognize her at first. All I see are the red business skirt and jacket. The controlled yet tousled auburn hair cascading to her shoulders. The quick, impatient glances thrown around the dining area as her eyes move from table to table, searching me out.

  Then the hostess is upon her, smiling a greeting and catching her attention. A broad smile spreads across Grace’s features, and a faint buzz begins around me as heads turn to stare at Grace.

  She continues to smile as she banters with the hostess. I stare, barely breathing as I will her to look my way. Her chin lifts, brown eyes meeting mine above the hostess’s shoulder. I know I am imagining the way she seems to stop moving for the slightest moment as recognition registers.

  Then she is thanking the hostess and nodding in my direction before stepping away and walking toward me. I don’t know whether to stand or sit. An eternity passes as she makes her way to me. Enough time that a rush of thoughts and emotions race through my mind. Excitement. Nervousness. The anxiety is nearly overwhelming.

  I don’t know what I’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. The last time I’d seen Grace, her hair had been cropped short. She’d worn T-shirts and jeans. Maybe an occasional oxford shirt. Every day. I had never seen her in a skirt. Certainly not a short business suit that hugged her thighs so closely.

  The once-short auburn hair is now long. Copper locks fall across her brow, framing high cheekbones and falling below her shoulders. A thick gold necklace scoops her neckline. Two large gold and pearl earrings hug her ears. And makeup. She is wearing makeup. My god, she looks straight. Or at least like a Republican.

  All these thoughts in the few seconds it takes her to reach me. I suck in my breath, hoping that she won’t notice how difficult it is for me to keep my smile from crumbling.

  Awkwardly, I stand to receive her quick shoulder hug. Then she is sliding into the booth across from me, her smile brilliant, and I find myself staring into those eyes. Those cow-brown eyes that have always melted me so easily. After all this time, here I am staring into Grace’s eyes again.