by Karis Walsh
Brooke nodded, her eyes on the robe’s sash that she pleated with nervous fingers. “It was college for me, too,” she admitted. “I had been dating Jake since junior high. My parents never had a touchy-feely sort of relationship, so I just assumed my lack of passion for him was normal. They all decided I would join him at the University of Washington—he’s a couple years ahead of me—and we’d get married as soon as he had his law degree, but I wanted to go to Gonzaga in Spokane instead of UW. It caused quite a scandal in my family,” Brooke said with a grin. “My parents were so upset you’d have thought I told them I wanted to move to South America and be a drug runner and not simply go to a good private college a few hours away.”
“Did they stage a high society intervention?”
“Practically,” Brooke laughed. “But I insisted, and eventually they gave in.” She shook her head, her expression quickly growing sad. “All of the effort to get my way wore me out, though. I fought so hard to go there, I started to question whether I really wanted it. It’s crazy, but I was really homesick my first semester. Whenever I called home, I would hear about what a bad choice I was making and how Jake was surrounded by pretty girls at the U, so I never could admit I was lonely or that anything was less than perfect. I just got very…sad.”
Andy reached over and hooked her index finger over Brooke’s, tugging Brooke’s hand onto her lap and holding it between both of her own. Brooke sighed and stared at their joined hands, finding it easier to talk about all of this without needing to look directly at Andy.
“The best part of college was my roommate Jan,” she continued. “She’s the one I stayed with this weekend. I knew she was gay from the start, she was very open about it and wanted me to have a chance to find a new room if I thought it’d be awkward. But it wasn’t. Maybe because she talked about it so easily, or maybe because I felt drawn to her, I don’t know. I asked a lot of questions, and she was always willing to answer them.”
“Were the two of you…” Andy didn’t want to finish the question. She realized she didn’t want to hear that Brooke had been in her old lover’s arms last night.
Brooke shook her head, and silky strands of hair brushed her shoulders, a light floral scent floating toward Andy. Of course her hair smells good after using all of that crap littering the bathroom, she told herself sternly, trying to stop her growing awareness of the woman next to her. Brooke continued. “She asked me out once, but I said no, that I wasn’t a lesbian. She just laughed and said, ‘Someday.’”
“And that someday happened?” Andy asked, continuing to draw the story from a reluctant Brooke.
“My RA noticed I was sad a lot, so she seemed to take an interest in me. I guess I misinterpreted what she meant, I mean, she was just trying to make me feel happier at school, and I developed a crush on her. It got so bad that she was all I could think about, fantasize about. She gave me a kiss good night once, just a friendly kiss like a sister, but I thought we were finally moving toward the relationship I wanted. I spent hours trying to work up the nerve to go to her, and when I finally did I found her in bed with one of the RAs from the guys’ section of the dorm.”
Brooke paused, but Andy kept silent, sensing the story wasn’t over yet. She simply held her hand, trying to offer her support as she relived an obviously distressing experience.
“I started screaming at her,” Brooke said with a small laugh, still embarrassed by the whole mess, but finding that Andy’s comforting presence was easing her pain. In fact, with Andy so close on the bed, it was hard for Brooke to even remember her RA’s face. “I caused quite a scene. My mother would have swooned. Liz, the RA, told me I was crazy and to get out. The next day she filed a complaint with the school. She told everyone in the dorm I was some obsessed stalker. It was humiliating. Jan was the only one who stood by me, she wanted me to stay at Gonzaga, said we could get an apartment and move out of the dorms. But I couldn’t handle the way everyone looked at me, so I called home.”
“Did you tell your parents everything?”
“Yes,” Brooke said in barely a whisper. “About being homesick, about Jan…and Liz. They were convinced Jan had somehow corrupted me and put ideas in my head. They took me home and sent me to a therapist. I saw him for a couple of years.”
“What did he tell you?” Andy asked, her voice hardening. She had a feeling she knew exactly what the therapist hired by Brooke’s parents had said.
“That I was acting out my repressed anger toward my parents by choosing Gonzaga instead of UW and by imagining I wanted a relationship with another woman. He said I chose a straight woman to pretend to love because I didn’t really want her to reciprocate.”
“Do you believe that?” Andy asked. Brooke shrugged and she pressed on. “If she had been alone that night and had said she wanted you, would you have run away?”
Brooke paused and then gently shook her head. “I would have willingly been in her bed,” she admitted. “I wanted her, and I was stupid enough to think she wanted me too.”
“I don’t know about that,” Andy said thoughtfully. Things weren’t adding up in her mind. Brooke didn’t seem to be a woman who had trouble recognizing sexual attraction. “Are you sure she wasn’t interested in you, but maybe scared of her own attraction to another woman? Didn’t Jan believe you?”
“We’ve never really talked about her opinion of Liz, but like I said she already thought I was gay. She supported me, but I don’t know if she thought I was misdirected with my feelings. Even though we’ve kept in touch over the years, she knows I won’t talk about that night.”
“Tell me more about how Liz acted around you,” Andy prompted. The question caught Brooke off-guard, and she had to force herself to remember that semester. Every discussion since then, with her parents or her therapist, had focused on her own actions. After hours of painfully recounting the ways she had sought out Liz’s company and the fantasies her inexperienced mind had created, Brooke wanted nothing more than to wipe the entire term from her memory. Everyone assumed Liz hadn’t done anything to provoke her feelings, and Brooke had believed them. Andy was the first to question the situation from a new perspective, and Brooke expected to have little evidence to support her crush, so she was surprised by how many examples of Liz’s attention came to mind.
“Well, she would touch me a lot,” she said slowly. “Just on the shoulder or arm, you know, nothing sexual but very intimate. She always seemed to be in the showers when I was, and she’d come in my room to talk while I was changing. I felt like she was watching me, like she wanted me.” Brooke spoke with growing assurance. Reliving these memories as an experienced woman and not as a lonely girl away from home for the first time helped her recall the subtle signs of interest Liz had shown, signs she had intuitively recognized but that everyone else had seemed determined to ignore. Andy’s simple question about Liz had helped confirm Brooke’s feelings almost as much as their night together had.
“Brooke,” Andy said softly, leaning forward and making Brooke turn her head and meet her gaze. Their faces were so close they were almost touching. “Kiss me like she kissed you that night.”
Brooke did. It was a brief kiss, with closed mouths, but definitely not chaste. Liz’s kiss, even with the thrilling promise of making Brooke’s schoolgirl daydreams come true, hadn’t affected her nearly as much as the light brush of Andy’s lips. One simple touch and Brooke’s mind flooded with images from Thursday night, clearly conjuring up memories of every place Andy’s lips had traveled. Brooke pulled back and looked at Andy with questioning eyes, hoping to see a reflection of the attraction she felt.
Andy sighed for Brooke. So many years of doubting herself and thinking she was crazy to believe what she did. “Do you ever kiss friends like that?” she asked. Brooke shook her head slightly. “Look, I can’t say for certain because I wasn’t there, but it sure sounds to me like this Liz wanted you. If she was afraid or confused by what she was feeling, then it would make sense that she might try to reaffirm her strai
ghtness by jumping in bed with some random guy. Especially after she made a move like kissing you.”
“You really think so?” Brooke asked softly, facing forward again and dropping her head back onto the couch. She wrestled with the idea that she might have read all the signs correctly back then, and that Liz might have been just as attracted and panicked as she was. How different these past few years could have been if she had been able to see the experience through Andy’s eyes. Or if she had met Andy instead of Liz…
Brooke disengaged the hand that Andy held and slid it along Andy’s thigh, kneading slightly with her fingers. She heard Andy’s sudden inhale and knew with pleasure that this woman wanted her.
“Careful,” Andy breathed into her ear, her voice a caress. “I’m not some frightened coed, you know.”
“I do seem to remember that you were very sure of yourself Thursday night,” Brooke murmured, moving her hand farther up Andy’s thigh.
“I remember some other things from that night,” Andy said, nuzzling Brooke’s neck. She ran her hand across Brooke’s stomach, loving the feel of satin under her palm. “Liz was a fool.”
Brooke reached up to cup her intimately, but Andy gently recaptured her hand and held it between both of her own, sitting up and putting some distance between them. Brooke’s eyes were full of question and doubt, and Andy barely resisted the urge to just give in and kiss her.
“I’m not rejecting you,” she said firmly, holding Brooke’s gaze. “You know I want you, you can feel that I do. But you need time to think and make decisions. And I don’t want to start a relationship that you’re not prepared to follow through.” Andy didn’t add that after two painful days of missing Brooke, she couldn’t allow herself to fall back into her arms only to be hurt again tomorrow.
Brooke’s expression shut down again, whether in anger or humiliation Andy couldn’t tell, and she rolled onto her side facing the far wall. Andy sighed and got off the bed, pulling the covers over Brooke and turning out the light. Her quiet good night went unanswered.
Chapter Eight
Andy woke up just before dawn, after a restless night of tossing and sporadic sleep. She peeked into the living room and saw Brooke sprawled across the sofa bed, still wrapped in Andy’s robe. She fought the temptation to wake her with a kiss, knowing exactly where that would lead, and instead made her way into the bathroom.
It took several minutes of searching through Brooke’s clutter before she finally found her toothbrush. She roughly brushed her teeth, berating herself in the mirror the entire time.
It was one thing, she told herself, to offer a place of refuge to this woman who obviously needed somewhere to stay and think things through. And Andy reluctantly admitted that she had some responsibility for Brooke’s confusion since she had taken her, an engaged woman, to bed that night. So fine, she told her reflection, you let her in your home and you help her find a job. You listen when she needs to talk about her conflicting feelings or a difficult past. You even comfort her when she is sad or anxious. But you do not, and here Andy stopped brushing and leaned toward the mirror, I repeat, do not make matters more confusing by lying in bed next to her and kissing her.
Andy glowered at herself a few moments longer, ashamed and angry that she had almost taken advantage of Brooke’s vulnerability last night. Remember, she jabbed a finger at her reflection, she is here to sort through a messy situation, not to be your plaything.
Andy continued her lecture in the shower until she found herself hoping Brooke would wake up and come looking for her. She pictured wet blond hair, soapy lather cascading over those full breasts, Brooke’s moans as Andy’s fingers found her…
“Christ,” Andy muttered, flipping off the hot water in an angry motion to see if an icy cold shower really would cool her passion. At least it was miserable enough to make her hurry out of the tub and into her clothes. She was leaning against the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of cereal and looking somewhat composed, when Brooke finally crawled out of bed.
“Coffee?” she croaked, her honey-colored hair tousled and her eyes only half-open.
Not a morning person, Andy decided silently as she handed Brooke a mug of coffee. She brought out the sugar in response to another mumbled request and didn’t hide her grimace as Brooke shoveled several spoonfuls into her cup.
“Cream?”
Andy had to laugh when Brooke looked from the carton of soy milk to Andy’s face with a horrified expression. “You expect me to put this in my coffee?” she asked in disbelief.
“It’s soy milk, not a dead rat,” Andy said, shaking the carton and setting it on the counter. “I’m a vegetarian and I don’t eat dairy. Besides, with all that sugar, how will you know the difference?”
“I’ll know,” Brooke muttered, but she apparently decided she had no choice and added the milk to her mug. She took a small sip and sniffed. “I guess it’ll do,” she said as she disappeared into the bathroom.
“Good morning to you, too,” Andy said to the closed door as she replaced the milk in the fridge and washed her cereal bowl. She heard the shower running and, in an effort to keep from sneaking into the bathroom, she headed to her music room for morning practice.
*
Andy’s mind wandered toward a showering Brooke for the first fifteen minutes of her practice while her fingers ran through the scales she knew so well. But as she moved through her routine, her mind regained its focus, and the rest of the world, including a distracting blonde, faded into nothingness. She started with her quartet work, including a love song from the latest Disney cartoon they knew would become popular with brides. Then she spent an hour on the Dvořák symphony for Wednesday night’s concert before tackling the Clarke sonata. She worked slowly through the first movement, stopping occasionally to make notes in the score’s margins. After she identified all of the potential trouble spots, she played it again at tempo, enjoying the contrast of the viola’s deep voice and the lively rhythm of the movement. Clarke had written the sonata in 1919, when women composers were uncommon and often unrecognized. As Andy played she started to realize what it meant that she was able to hold the first viola chair and perform this piece, helping to introduce her audience to one of the women who had paved the road of her career. She found herself caught up in the music, and it wasn’t until she was wiping excess rosin off the strings of her instrument with a soft cloth that she noticed Brooke leaning in the doorway.
“Hey, you look more awake,” she said, her smile restored by the music.
Brooke pushed off the doorjamb and entered the room. She was careful to hide the rush of emotion she felt while watching Andy play. Her obvious love of the music showed clearly on her face, her full lips softening in a slight smile. With her arms raised to hold the instrument and bow, her shirt lifted enough to reveal a smooth, tight stomach with just a hint of white briefs peeking over the waistband of her loose-fitting sweatpants. Brooke swallowed and reluctantly moved her gaze back to Andy’s face. “I need my coffee in the morning,” she said as Andy finished cleaning her viola.
“I noticed,” Andy said wryly. She handed the instrument to Brooke, who hesitated before taking it.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, running her hands lightly over the curved edges and worn varnish of the viola. She held the neck of the instrument where the satiny wood was still warm from Andy’s palm. It was a poor substitute for Andy’s direct touch, but Brooke didn’t want to push for more right now. She had a feeling her presence in this room, the invitation to share a little in Andy’s world of music, was almost as intimate a gesture for her as taking Brooke to bed had been.
“She is,” Andy agreed. “Do you play an instrument?”
Brooke shrugged. “I took piano lessons when I was younger, but nothing serious. Nothing like how you play,” she added, almost shyly.
“That’s just a lot of years of practice,” Andy said.
“No, there’s more than that.” Brooke shook her head. “The way you looked when you were playing,
especially that last piece. It transforms you.”
“Music can have that power over most people, if they let it.”
Brooke handed the viola back to Andy. “I heard you play at the church of course,” she continued, wincing slightly at the mention of her rehearsal. “But not a real song like this one,” she gestured at the music on Andy’s stand.
“As a violist, I mostly play the harmony and other instruments have the melody line. This was written by a viola player named Rebecca Clarke, and it’s pretty rare to find a piece written to showcase my instrument.”
“Why did you choose the viola?” Brooke asked.
“I started on the violin, but my high school music teacher asked me to try his viola because we needed one in the orchestra. He also thought it would help me get a scholarship since there tend to be fewer violists than violinists trying for college spots, and I had to pay my own way through school. I tried it once, and I was hooked,” she said. “At first it felt awkward just to hold the viola because it was so much bulkier than my violin, but once I heard its voice, I knew it would be worth the extra effort to play. It’s more physical than the violin, I guess, less fragile-feeling to me. It takes more strength to make a good tone, but once you learn how, the music just feels and sounds so much deeper.”
Andy paused as if unable to find the right words. “Here, hold her like this,” she said, positioning the viola on Brooke’s left shoulder with her hand underneath to support it. Brooke tried to focus on her voice, but her attention faltered when Andy stepped behind her, and she could feel the warmth of Andy’s body along her spine, the softness of Andy’s breasts as they pressed into her back.
“This is the C string,” Andy said, her hips shifting against Brooke’s as she reached around her from behind and pointed to the thick string on the far left.
“There’s not going to be a test on this, is there?” Brooke asked as she concentrated on not dropping the viola.
