by Harper Bliss
“I see Nancy at The Attic sometimes. She remembers you fondly.” Kay offers me a plastic cup of red wine. “It’s from the winery in Fairfax. I’ll take you there if you like it.”
The wine may taste divine, but if it does, it doesn’t get through to me. “You see Nancy?”
After digging a little hole in the ground to keep the bottle upright, Kay installs herself next to me, legs folded under her bottom, staring out into the distance. “I see everyone who hasn’t left.”
“How is she?” Nancy with the dimples in her cheeks I used to trace my finger along in this very spot.
“Married to Tommy Waterman. Three children. Works in the mayor’s office, just like her daddy used to.”
“God, that was such a long time ago.” A small smile starts breaking through the stern, shocked expression on my face. “I haven’t been here in, erm, twenty-two years.”
“These days, kids don’t come here anymore. So many more interesting things to do, you know? Facebook, video games, internet porn…”
“It’s gorgeous.” My muscles relax into the moment and the taste of the wine explodes in my mouth. “So impossibly green.” The exact same thing I used to think when I came here with Nancy in the summer of 1990, listening to Roxette and Sinead O’Connor tapes on our Walkmans, unable to share one device because they only made one type of headphones back then.
Already, I had wanted to leave. Because I knew it wouldn’t last, knew I was just a temporary distraction for Nancy, who couldn’t shut up about Drew Hester, even when it was just the two of us down here, her hand in my hair—and my heart in my throat.
She ignored me for weeks after I started dating him, but never breathed a word about the activities, though innocent enough, she and I had engaged in behind everyone’s back.
“I was eighteen,” Kay says. “Brett Dinkle was a real gentleman about it. Not a bad word to say about him. We stayed together for two more years after.” She turns to me. “Are you a gold star, Little Ella?”
“No.” As the sun dips lower behind the trees, the atmosphere changes to one of camaraderie, of forgotten hopes and dreams, and—apparently—intimate questions. “I tried. Because I felt I had to, I guess. I even had a proper boyfriend in college. It lasted a startling seven months, but, looking back—even as far back as the times I came here with Nancy—it should have been so crystal clear.” In my heart, I always knew.
“It’s not easy.” Kay’s voice is as serious as I’ve ever heard it. “Sophomore year, I had a massive crush on your sister.”
Inadvertently, my eyebrows shoot up. “On Nina? Seriously?”
“She was the coolest girl in high school. I figured everyone had the hots for her, but, after discreetly inquiring, it turned out I was the only one of my female friends who felt that way.” There’s a hint of bitterness in her chuckle. “For some bizarre reason, for the most part of my teenage years, I considered it the most normal thing in the world. I just automatically assumed that attraction was fluid for everyone. Boy, was I wrong.”
I want to say something deep and meaningful, but I’m still hung up on the crush she just confessed to having had on my sister.
As if reading my mind, Kay cocks her head and asks, “You really never hear from her?”
“Hardly. It breaks Mom and Dad’s hearts, but really, they can’t just sit around and pretend they had nothing to do with it.”
“She was always a wild one, I’ll tell you that. Definitely not made for sticking around in this town.”
“Try being her sister.” I knock back the last of the wine in my cup and hold it out for a refill. An entire family’s expectations pinned on you. “And then having to tell your parents you’re gay.”
Kay pours more wine in silence, the dusk around us quickly turning into darkness. From the bag, which appears to be bottomless, she produces three stick candles, plants them in the ground and lights them from a match.
“I thought I was well-organized, but damn, you surprise me, Kay.” I change the subject.
“You? Well-organized?” Kay shakes her head. “You’re such a city girl, used to take-out dinners and everything being done for you. Give me a break.” There’s no malice in her voice and a bubble of laughter explodes from her throat after she says the words. “Who takes care of you back home?”
“No one.” The emptiness of Boston seems so far away. “I mean, I have a cleaner, but that’s it.” Sonia, who found me.
“It’s a different life, I guess.” Kay balances her cup on the corner of the blanket and leans back on her hands. “No time to cook your own meals, to do your own dishes. What kind of life is that?”
“Who does dishes these days anyway?”
She fixes her eyes on me. “I do.”
“Of course you do.” The giggles that burst inside of me lift me up to heights I haven’t reached in years.
“Remember truth or dare?” She draws her lips into a smirk.
“The movie or the game?”
“Wasn’t the game inspired by the movie?” Kay pushes herself up and rubs the creases out of the skin of her hands. “Entertaining bored, hormonal teenagers across the country. And, if Nancy is to be believed, especially one Ella Goodman.”
“I loved that movie. The money I would have given to see the Blonde Ambition tour live. To witness that moment Madonna drops her jacket in ‘Express Yourself’ with my own eyes. I believe my love for blazers may well stem from that.”
“Thank goodness it stopped there and you didn’t go for cone bras next.”
A hysterical bout of laughter rumbles beneath my stomach, pulsing in my abs, and while the first howl escapes me, I punch Kay playfully in the biceps.
“Go on then. Truth or dare?”
“What?” As the convulsions in my gut subside, I stare at her in disbelief.
“Let’s play. For nostalgia’s sake.”
I take another sip of wine and turn my entire body so I can face her better. “Truth.”
Kay draws her features into a pensive pout. “When did your last serious relationship end?”
I huff out a breath of air. “No need to make such a spectacle to ask me that.” Our gazes cross briefly. Her eyes flicker in the light of the candles, but she doesn’t flinch. “Define serious.”
“Don’t give me that, Ella. Surely you’re old and wise enough to distinguish a serious relationship from a fling or a one-night-stand. You’re a professor, for heaven’s sake.”
“I don’t have the best track record with relationships. I seem to have this tendency to drive women I like away. I’m not the easiest person to live with, what with having inherited my mother’s flair for criticism and my dad’s tendency to repress frustrations.”
I shuffle around nervously on the blanket in the silence that follows after what I’ve just said.
“Are you always so hard on yourself?” Kay’s soft tone pierces through the darkness that falls like lead around us.
The pure joy that raced through me earlier, that made me burst out in spontaneous laughter, has fled and left me with only tears stinging behind my eyes. I sniffle, and it sounds loud in the complete quiet surrounding us.
“I think I would like to go back now.”
“Why?” Kay scoots closer and puts a hand on my knee. “Hey, come on.” She locks her eyes on mine. “I thought you came back here for a reason?” Her fingers are light on my jeans. “How is more running away going to help?”
“You, uh, you don’t understand. You don’t know.” I start pushing myself up, removing Kay’s hand from my knee, knocking over my cup of wine and spilling the remainder of its contents in the process.
“All right. I’ll take you back.” In a flash, she stands up.
“I’m sorry,” I begin to say, but remember how she told me off again this morning.
With methodical movements, ignoring the wine stain I left on it, Kay starts folding up the blanket, pushes the cork back in the bottle, blows out the candles, stuffs everything in the bag, and takes my hand.
“Come on.”
Through the dark, my hand in hers, we make our way back to the car. Regret courses through me—the familiar tightening in my chest, a lump the size of my heart pulsing in my throat.
CHAPTER SIX
That night, I dream of Nina playing a part in The Hobbit. She’s one of the glamorous elves that were in the movie but not in the book. One who falls for the dwarf—always the wrong man.
When I wake at six I put on my bikini and head straight for the water. I swim from one end of the lake to the other and back, until I have to catch my breath, my elbows propped on the landing, my body doubled-over.
Thalia’s voice swirls through my head. You could have made more effort. She’d introduced me to some of her work colleagues, people I had found absolutely nothing in common with—creative advertising types who spoke quickly and visited the wash room a bit too frequently—resulting in dire silence on my end. When I’d come for her after we got home, ignoring her remarks, she’d pushed me away. You’re not that good, Ella. This will not work.
An approaching splash of water pulls me from my reverie. Kay’s having her morning swim earlier than usual. With small strokes, she paddles toward me and pushes herself onto the landing in one swift movement. Water cascades off her nut-brown skin, leaving it glistening in the early morning light.
“You’re early.” My skin is so pale next to hers. My arms so puny.
“What can I say, Ella? You’ve been on my mind.” Her tone is easy as she stares down at me. “Don’t worry, not in that way.” A deep chuckle rumbles up from her chest. “You may as well walk around with a ‘Do Not Touch’ sign hanging from your neck. Or ‘Emotionally Unavailable’ or something like that.”
Kay has bestowed so many small kindnesses on me since I arrived, I know it’s my turn to give something back. “Her name was Thalia. We were together, albeit on and off, for about a year. It ended months ago.”
Kay shakes some drops of water from her hair. They land on her shoulders and slowly drip down the curve of her upper arms.
“Was that really so hard?” The radiance of her smile momentarily floors me. Before, this would have been the moment I made my move.
I grin up at her, ignoring the memory of Thalia. After pushing myself out of the water, in not nearly as elegant a fashion as Kay, I sit next to her.
“It’s all so complicated.” Again, a swirl of thoughts in my brain. Not one of them can I articulate accurately.
“Why?” Our thighs meet in a slippery, wet touch. “Tell me about Thalia. What happened?” If it weren’t for the sun’s first rays reflecting off the water in front of me, its surface broken by the ripples Kay and I create with our toes, I would believe myself to be in Dr. Hakim’s office.
“I met her at the opening of an exhibition of her paintings. Just a hobby. She’s the creative director at Stiglitz & Stuart, but in her spare time she paints pictures. Very bright and colorful, almost child-like. Birds with big heads, that kind of stuff. I was really drawn to her work, bought a piece. We got talking. I fell in love.” I can’t suppress the sigh that escapes me. “It was good for—by my standards—quite a while. Six months of happiness, until the real me started rearing its head. My shrink says it’s because I don’t feel worthy of another woman’s love, I call it self-sabotage.”
“What’s the difference between the two?” Kay’s shoulder slams lightly into mine. I’m grateful she doesn’t query me further on the mention of a shrink.
I shrug off her remark, echoes of Dr. Hakim’s voice in my head. “I guess you could say I’ve been unsuccessfully dating women for about twenty years now. That’s a lot of accumulated heartache.”
“It’s strange how, when I ask you a fairly straightforward question, you always end up going on a rant against yourself.”
Not wanting a repeat performance of what happened last night, I playfully tap her ankle with mine. “Then let’s stop talking about me. Tell me about you.”
“Oh, Ella.” Under water, our toes touch briefly. “You’re doing my head in. But yes, please, let me school you in the art of conversation. Ask me a question and I’ll give you a straight answer.”
“When did your last serious relationship end?”
“Two years ago. He fell in love with someone else. These things happen. It hurt, no doubts there, and it was messy and painful, but I know it wasn’t my fault. We still see each other sometimes.”
“Did he cheat on you?” The question’s out before I can even consider its inappropriateness.
“No. If he had, we probably wouldn’t be on speaking terms again now. It was hard on him as well, but sometimes you meet someone you simply need to have. No life imaginable without them—no matter who you hurt in the process.”
“God, you’re so philosophical about that.”
“I wasn’t always. Time has passed. Wounds have healed. Life goes on.” She turns to me and fixes her eyes on me. “Has that ever happened to you? That you met someone and you realize you’d regret it for the rest of your life if you didn’t pursue them?”
“Many times.”
Her gaze on me is intense.
“Really?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “I guess everyone is different.”
“What? Why do you say that?”
“I’m not talking about mild infatuation here, Ella. I’m talking love that alters the course of your life. Love you would sacrifice everything for. Jeff sacrificed his life with me to be with that other woman, because he was certain he had no other choice—because it was his path in life. Despite the pain it caused me, I had to respect that.”
“Jesus. How long were you and him together?”
“Six years.” She flicks a wet strand of hair away from her forehead. “I hope you get the point I’m trying to make.” A slight tilt of the head.
This must be how my students feel when I ask them a nearly impossible question at an exam.
“Sure.” I’m not certain I like the preachy side of Kay that much.
“Fine, then.” The serious expression on her face transforms into a smile, changing the mood of the moment from dark to light. “I’d better get back. What are you doing today?”
I haven’t really given it much thought. “Don’t know. Maybe stop by my parents.”
“Good idea. I’ll be here tonight if you want to talk.” Kay lowers herself back into the water, shoots me a wink before she sets off, and swims away in the other direction.
All of this before 7 a.m. At least I’ll have something to talk about with my parents. I need all the information they have on Kay Brody.
* * *
“Jeff Mitchum is a good guy,” Dad says.
“Just because he buys you a beer now and then, doesn’t make him a good man,” Mom quickly jumps in.
“What would you know, Dee? Have you ever even had a decent conversation with him?”
“I don’t need to have a conversation with him to see what kind of person he is, leaving his long-term partner for another woman, breaking up Linda’s family in the process.” Mom’s tone is harsh—a notch up from her default one. No surprises there. I’m already regretting having asked about Kay. Instinctively, I go quiet and retreat from the conversation. Pretend I’m not there, the way I did when I was a child. Instead of listening, I study their faces. The thin lines of Mom’s lips, the set of her chin—which resembles mine. Dad’s bottomless blue eyes I inherited. And I know we share much more than a physical resemblance. All the things I hold against them, I may as well hold against myself.
What am I doing inquiring with my parents about Kay, anyway? She’s never given me anything but an honest reply to every question I asked her. The last thing I should do, is use her as a topic of conversation with my parents. It’s as much an escape as anything I do, a distraction from what really matters.
“I’ve been spending quite some time with her.” This stops their pointless, never-ending row. I’m sure they’ll pick it back up once I leave, but at least, for now, they’ve been silenced.
“
You do know she’s, uh—” Try as she might, my mother can’t get the word across her lips.
“Bisexual?” I pull up my shoulders. “Of course I do.”
“Running around with all sorts after Jeff left her. Not very discreet about it either,” Dad chimes in. “Very unbecoming for a woman.”
“For a woman?” Instantly, my irritation level peaks.
“Well, it was a bit much, the way she was carrying on with that girl. All up in everyone’s face like that,” Mom adds.
I sit there stunned. Not only, because for once in their lives, they seem to agree on something—the only previous instance of this that springs to mind is when I came out and they both insisted that I couldn’t be sure, that I shouldn’t ‘swear off’ men just yet, surely it was just a phase—but mainly because of their ignorant, hypocritical, narrow-minded nature on full display. Am I like this? These people’s blood runs in my veins, their ideas have been planted in my head from a young age.
“Just stop it. The pair of you.” I can’t bite back my anger.
Not used to an outburst from their ‘good daughter’, they both stiffen.
“Listen to yourselves, really. Who made you so qualified to judge others? To look down on them from your moral high ground?”
“Darling, come on. It was just talk.” My mother’s mouth is drawn into a defeated pout.
“You weren’t here to see, Ellie. She’d come to The Attic and sit canoodling with this girl from out of town,” Dad says.
Red mist in front of my eyes. Rage like a cold fist in my chest. All the reasons why I left compressed in one moment.
With a brusque movement, I shove my chair back and walk out. My hands tremble on the steering wheel as I start the car, and all the while, all I can think of is Kay’s bravery.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Back at West Waters, only marginally calmed down, I slip out of my clothes, into my bikini and dive into the water. Its coolness strips me of at least one layer of anger, but I need to swim at least half a lap before my head clears and I can appreciate my surroundings. I let the bright green beauty of Oregon in late summer back into my heart, let it erase the agitation inside of me. Because this is not a new experience by a long stretch. It’s an endlessly repeated cycle. The profound misunderstanding and miscommunication between me and my parents.
