Just Yesterday

by Linda Hill

  She is staring at me, blinking. “Sometimes I hate it that you know me so well,” she says finally.

  I chuckle softly. “So tell me what you want, Grace.”

  “I want it all,” she says stubbornly. “But I don’t believe for one moment that I can have it.”

  “Well, that’s your first mistake. You have to believe.”

  She rolls her eyes, and I am reminded that she is so pragmatic.

  “Don’t make me pull teeth, Grace. If I have to ask, then I won’t trust the answer.”

  She takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh. “Nothing has changed, Liz. I don’t want to lose you. Ever. I love you. And I want us to be together. I just don’t know how to make that happen.” Her eyes are wide before her lashes flutter down.

  My heart turns to butter as her words wash over me. The hurt and anger of the past few months evaporate as hope begins to swell in my chest. I reach out a hand, and she takes it, turning it over in hers and examining it closely.

  “So where do we go from here?” My mind is already fast-forwarding, and I envision us house hunting together. Outside of the city somewhere. Maybe Connecticut. Grace would probably hate the commute, but the hours she worked would help her avoid the traffic. “What do you want to do?” I ask softly, smiling.

  “I don’t know.” Her shoulders lift in a shrug. “I want to keep seeing you.”

  I can feiel the smile tightening on my face.

  “Does that mean we should start house hunting in Connecticut?” I venture.

  “Connecticut?” She is recoiling as she nearly pulls her hands from mine. “God, no.” Her laugh is almost a sneer. “I want to keep living in the city. I love my condo.”

  My smile freezes before it falls. She doesn’t say we. She doesn’t ask what I want.

  “You’ve already bought a condo?” I ask.

  She nods, suddenly biting her lip.

  Hope vaporizes, quickly replaced with a sick, dull ache in my stomach.

  “Grace,” I begin, my voice not quite steady. “I need you to be very clear with me. What exactly do you want from me?”

  Again the shrug as she grows uncomfortable and agitated, hating to be pinned down. “I want to keep seeing you.” Her voice is uncharacteristically small.

  I hate her evasiveness. “How often?”

  “Like before, I guess. I thought you could come and visit once a month or so. We could take vacaŹtions together.”

  I can hear the beating of my heart in my own ears.

  “Grace.” I am having trouble speaking, and I begin to over-enunciate each word as it forms on my lips. “We were going to live together in San Diego. You told me you wanted to share a home together. You said you wanted a puppy. You said you wanted us to be together.” I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “Now you’re telling me that you simply want to date me.”

  Her eyes are wide now. “Just for a while,” she says finally. “Until we see how things work out.”

  For a moment I almost buy into it. I am so eager that I’m almost content with the offering she is proposing, however meager.

  But then reality sinks in as memories crowd my mind. What she really wants from me is next to nothing. An occasional weekend together. No

  promises. No commitment. No future. No white picket fence or puppy.

  I can never trust her. The realization hits me like a slap in the face. I would spend each month agonizing about whether or not there would even be another visit. And each time a few days went by without a word from her, my struggle would begin. I would always wonder if her silence was the beginning of the end. She would always be in control. And I would always be waiting. I would forever love her more than she loved me.

  “You chased me all the way out here to tell me that you wanted to date me?” It’s almost laughable.

  “I couldn’t let you go like that. I don’t want to lose you.” Her tone is defensive.

  “I think what you don’t want is a guilty conscience,” I say point-blank, without emotion. “And what you do want is to keep me around just enough so that you have someone to count on, but not enough to interfere with your life.”

  She stares at me dumbly. “That’s cold, Liz.”

  I nod slowly. “But true. Isn’t it?”

  “Of course not,” she replies quickly. But she doesn’t follow up the words with any others, even as I stare into her eyes and silently beg her to tell me I’m wrong.

  Sadness grips me. “It was all a lie.” My voice is quiet, barely audible. “It meant nothing to you.” “Liz. That’s not true.”

  “So we would see each other twelve times a year. Plus vacations, of course.” I’m growing sarcastic.

  The frown on her face grows severe, pulling her eyebrows down together as her lips purse tightly.

  “Stop it, Liz. It’s not like that. I love you.”

  My bottom lip is beginning to quiver, and I hate myself for loving her.

  “I want to believe that you love me,” I tell her, trying to control the crack in my voice. “More than anything in the world.” My breath is deep and haggard. “But I don’t. And what you’re offering just isn’t enough. I can’t do it.”

  “So that’s it?” Her voice is hollow.

  I stare into those brown eyes. The ones that have haunted me for too many long years. Regret fills my heart, and I want nothing more than to take back each word I’ve just spoken. I want to wrap my arms around her and feel her breath on my cheek. I want to feel the passion explode between us as our mouths find each other. I want to tell her how I love her. How I’d follow her anywhere. That nothing else matters but us.

  Slowly, I nod my head as I let her hands slip from mine. “That’s it,” I say. Then I can’t believe I’ve actually said the words. That I’m finally letting go.

  Epilogue

  Five years later

  I’ve been standing at the bar just a little longer than I think is necessary. But since it is our friend’s brand-new bar, and since it’s only been open for one week, I try to remain patient.

  I watch the blond bartender serving drinks and flirting with women as she mixes a variety of liquids, and realize she is half my age. I’m beginning to feel old. Scratch that. I’ve been feeling like I’m getting old for some time now.

  Since it looks like I have a long wait ahead of me, I take the opportunity to glance around and take in the decor. The music in the room next door is too loud for my taste, but this room is nice and quiet. The bar itself runs the entire length of one wall. Behind me are scores of tables and booths in intimate settings that allow for easy conversation. Couples huddle together in the dim lights and stare into each other’s eyes. Others are laughing, joking around.

  A pool table stands in one far corner, several women playing or watching the game. Large teleŹvision sets line the walls, and my eyes fall to the one directly above and behind the bar. It’s early in the evening yet, and the local sportscaster is wrapping up his segment before a slew of commercials begin to play.

  “What can I get ya?” The blond bartender is smiling at me. I smile in return and order a couple of beers.

  The woman who has been sitting on the bar stool beside me flashes a quick smile before vacating her seat, and I lift one leg and place my foot over the rung possessively.

  The national news comes on the air and I watch. Not because I’m particularly interested, but because my choices are to stare at the bartender’s bare midriff or to keep my eyes firmly planted on the television. The anchor is unrecognizable to me, and then I remember that it’s the weekend and that weekend anchors are the second string. He is talking about some bill that is being held up in congress.

  I am vaguely aware that I pay attention to the news anchors and when they’re on because of Grace.

  It is something she told me about years ago, when describing the different kinds of anchors and what it means to be on at what time.

  Two bottles of beer land on the counter before me, and I try not to let my eyes fall to the blon
d’s pierced navel as I smile and toss several bills her way.

  I pick up both bottles with one quick glance at the television before I turn away.

  “Here with more on the congressional gridlock is Washington correspondent, Grace Sullivan. Grace?”

  I nearly drop the beer.

  “Thanks, David.” Grace’s smile is controlled and serious. “Gridlock is the perfect word to describe what is currently taking place on Capitol Hill toŹnight …”

  My backside finds the stool behind me as I place the beer safely back on the bar. Grace is talking, but either I can’t hear or can’t understand what she is saying. Her hair is shorter. Soft auburn curls nearly reach her shoulders. I’d forgotten how pretty she is. Her brown eyes are bright, and the curve of her mouth is the same. But she looks older, as if her face is finally beginning to catch up with her age. Which, I calculate quickly, must be nearly forty.

  Familiar arms are sliding around my waist. The breath that I’ve held too long escapes from my lungs and I settle back against my lover’s chest.

  Grace! is smiling now, showing even white teeth. “… no one expects this standoff to end any time soon.” She pauses. Smiles. “Back to you, David.” Her image is gone.

  My hands lift, palms sliding along the arms that hold me. “Wow.”

  My lover gives me a quick squeeze before reŹleasing me and sliding onto the stool beside me.

  “I guess her dreams came true,” I muse.

  “At least some of them did.” Joanna’s voice is quiet, without reproach.

  My laugh betrays my feelings. “I was never part of her dreams.”

  Joanna’s eyes are steady. “Maybe. But she was definitely part of yours.”

  I reach to retrieve the two abandoned bottles of beer and place one in her hands. We haven’t talked about Grace in years.

  “Yes, she was.”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t think about her anymore.” I’m reminded of the list I’d made. The list of each and every one of Grace’s negative characteristics. The list that I’d taken out and read or added to nearly every day for six months. Then every week or so after that. Until nearly a year had passed.

  “She called me last week,” I say. “I didn’t talk to her. But she left a message.”

  Joanna’s blue eyes barely register surprise.

  “I guess now I know why she called. To tell me about her good news.”

  Joanna searches my face. “Are you going to call her?”

  I recognize the hesitancy, the uncertainty in her voice, and my heart turns to putty. I lift one hand and carefully trace the outline of her face, noting the curve of her jaw and the lines that now crease her eyes. Leaning forward, I press my lips to hers and feel her exhale heavily.

  When I open my eyes, I take both of her hands in mine and hold them tightly. “Yes, I’m going to call her.”

  “I trust you,” she says, and I thank her silently.

  “You can trust me,” I tell her.

  She nods, accepting my words, and smiles wryly. “I suppose I should thank her, really. If she hadn’t shown up five years ago, I don’t think we would be together today.”

  “Possibly,” I shrug. “But I don’t think so. We would have figured it out eventually.”

  “Not if you’d moved to New York.”

  “That was never really an option, remember?”

  “Not really. I don’t think about any of that stuff anymore. Do you?”

  “No.” I shake my head, and remember the second list I’d made during that first year after I’d moved out. That list was of everything I valued in a lover. I thought it was the silliest thing my therapist had ever asked me to do. Second to the first list, of course. But I did it anyway, reluctantly.

  It took several months before I realized that the woman I was describing on that piece of paper was Joanna.

  It took another month or so for me to gather enough courage to show up on the doorstep of our old home. I stepped inside the house, gave the kitties a quick belly rub, then pulled out that sheet of paper and placed it in Joanna’s hands.

  She read each word silently, then aloud. I looked her square in the eye and told her why I’d made up the list, and that the woman I’d been describing was her.

  I’d expected her to send me packing. But she didn’t. She just wrapped her arms around me, began to cry, and told me to come back home.

  I never left again.

  As I stare at my lover now, I’ve already forgotten Grace.

  “Thanks for taking me back,” I say, smiling. “Thanks for wanting it to work enough to try again.” It hadn’t been easy. The beginning was quite painful. We started slowly. Almost dating, really, until the romance was rekindled and the companionship reborn. And trust. We had to build the trust.

  Her shrug is nonchalant, playful. “We both just had to get away from each other for a while to realize what we had.”

  “You mean you didn’t know how good you had it until you lost me?” I tease.

  “Amy was an awfully good distraction for a little while there,” she grins.

  I squint back at her. “She was kind of flighty, though.”

  She laughs. “She was sweet.”

  “But flighty.”

  “Okay. Flighty.”

  We stare at each other, years of love and commitŹment between us. “I love you, Joanna.”

  She leans over to kiss me. “I love you, too.” When she lifts her head, her eyes are twinkling. “Have I told you happy birthday yet today?”

  I groan. “Too many times.”

  “Was it mean of me to throw this little party for

  you?”

  I’d forgotten about the friends that we’d abandoned at a table several yards away. “Yes. It was mean,” I tell her straight-faced.

  She laughs and squeezes my hand.

  “Do you know what the best part of turning forty-five is?” I ask.

  “7s there anything good about turning forty-five?”

  “Yes. The best part is knowing that you’ll be turning fifty before the year is over.”

  “Ouch!” She reaches out and tugs my ear playŹfully. Then she stands and draws me to my feet. “Come on, birthday girl. Time to get back to the party.”

  She gets a few feet away before I catch up and turn her around to face me. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go home.” My eyebrows do a little dance, and I watch a slow smile spread across her face.

  She tilts her head to one side and eyes me closely before leaning in and planting a kiss on my mouth that I feel all the way to my toes.

  Our friends all observe the kiss and are hollering now, whooping it up and clapping loudly. We turn and bow. Then/ Joanna is blowing them kisses as she links her arm tihrough mine.

  “You know what?” She is smiling as she turns to face me. “Fd like nothing more than to go home with you right now. I have a very special present planned for you, you know.” She is grinning coyly. SugŹgestively.

  “Oh, really?” I raise one brow and think about the evening ahead. The passion that begins to uncurl inside of me is slow and certain, as sure and steady as the life Joanna and I share.

  Years ago I would have grabbed her hand and headed for the door. But today I can gaze into her eyes and know that there is no need to hurry. There is only the savoring of the moment. Of every moment.

  I reach for her hand and give it a quick squeeze. “The anticipation will drive me wild, but I suppose we should stick it out for awhile.”

  “Driving you wild is exactly what I had in mind,” she whispers suggestively.

  Her smile is slow and knowing. Full of promise.

 

 

 
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