by Robbi McCoy
She came to a stop in front of the house as the front door opened and Sophie stepped out onto the wide front porch. She wore a T-shirt and shorts, casual at-home clothes.
I should have brought flowers, Wren thought, but she had made this decision so quickly, she had planned nothing. She jumped out of her car and moved toward Sophie. “Hi,” she called, waving.
Sophie looked stunned, not in a happy way. “What are you doing here?” she asked, as if she were making an accusation.
Wren stopped where she was, abandoning her plan to rush into Sophie’s arms. They stood about eight feet apart.
“I wanted to see you,” Wren said tentatively. “I’ve been wanting to see you again ever since...” She was now feeling uncomfortable. “You’re not happy to see me?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Oh.” Wren hesitated, not knowing what to say. “We had such a good time. I thought we did anyway.”
“Yes.” Sophie’s voice was ripe with sarcasm. “Great fun, wasn’t it?”
She was like another person, not at all the woman Wren had met before. She was cold, even angry. Thy cloudy brow stings like daggers.
“I thought it was fun, yes,” Wren said quietly. “Maybe even more than that. I’ve been thinking about you a lot since then. I thought—”
“I’m not interested.” Sophie’s statement was flat, her voice terse.
“Are you mad at me for some reason?”
“No, not mad. I’m just not interested, that’s all.” The look in Sophie’s eyes was complicated, a mixture of sorrow and anger. “What happened between us,” she said in a softer tone, “was a mistake. Please…just go.”
“Go?” Wren couldn’t understand. She tried to think of a way to stall. “Can I at least see your place? Take a look at those Nubian goats and taste some cheese?”
“I don’t see any point in—” Sophie began.
Her answer was interrupted by the squeaking of the screen door behind her as Olivia appeared on the porch and came down the steps toward them. Why couldn’t I see she was Sophie’s mother? Wren thought, observing the now obvious resemblance between them.
“Hi,” Olivia called, approaching her daughter. “Wren, that’s your name, right? Like the bird. You decided to come out for a visit after all?”
Sophie looked confused. “Do you two know each other?”
“We met,” Wren said, “the other day.”
There was a message of caution on Olivia’s face, which Wren understood was to remind her not to say anything about Dr. Connor.
“Nice to see you again, Olivia,” Wren said.
“Are you staying for lunch?” she asked.
“She’s just leaving,” Sophie interjected.
Wren looked into her eyes, detecting ambivalence, but didn’t want to press her in front of her mother. “Yes,” she said, reluctantly. “I was hoping for a look around at the cheese-making operation, but Sophie’s busy today. Maybe some other time.”
“I’ll show you around,” Olivia offered.
Sophie looked frustrated. “Mom, I—”
“No problem,” Olivia said, waving Sophie off. “You go do whatever it is you’re so busy with that you can’t take out a few minutes for a friend who comes to visit.” Olivia was clearly disapproving of Sophie’s manner. “I’ll show her around.”
Sophie’s shoulders slumped, then she turned and strode into the house.
“Sophie seems to be in a bad mood,” Wren said, following Olivia around the side of the house.
“Is she? She was in a good mood just a while ago. We got an email from that big city food critic about the— Oh, you don’t need to know about that. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Tallulah and Rose. They were the originals, what we named the place after. We’ve got seven of them now, including one young one, born right here. That’s Poppy and she’s Rose’s daughter. Such a little sweetheart. I just love her to death!”
Wren took her camera out of her bag. “You don’t mind if I take some pictures, do you?”
“Go ahead if you want. The goats won’t mind.”
Wren met the goats, each one introduced by name. In addition to Tallulah and Rose and her kid Poppy, there was Twopenny, Maribelle, Tater and Niblets. All of them had the long ears and convex noses typical of Nubians. Rose and Tater were both tan-colored. Tallulah was white with a gray patch on her shoulder. Niblets and Poppy were black and white. Twopenny was caramel brown with white markings on her face and underbelly. Maribelle, the largest, and according to Olivia, the most bad-tempered, was almost entirely black except for her ears and tail, which were white.
“Don’t turn your back on that one,” Olivia warned. “She’ll send you into the next county.”
Tater was the dumb one, Wren learned, and Niblets the spitter.
“You gotta watch her,” Olivia said. “She’ll take a big ol’ drink of water, then hold it, looking all innocent. The next thing you know, she’s spraying it all over you. Then she’ll just laugh like a son of a gun. Not so bad in the summer, but in the dead of winter, ooh, that’s a real nasty shock, let me tell you.” Olivia wrinkled up her face with the thought.
“It sounds like they all have distinct personalities.”
“Oh, they do! No different than people.”
Wren took photos of the animals and of Olivia hugging Tallulah around the neck. She took careful notes too as Olivia explained their process.
“You ever milked a goat?” Olivia asked.
“I have, actually. Do you milk them by hand?”
“Yeah. If we both do it, we can usually get it done in a half hour, forty minutes. But if she gets any more of these critters, I’m gonna insist on a machine.”
As Olivia led her to the potting shed where Sophie dried her herbs, Wren glanced at one of the windows of the house and thought she saw Sophie watching them. If so, she withdrew immediately. Wren didn’t have an explanation for Sophie’s behavior other than the obvious one. She didn’t want to see Wren again and she resented her turning up here. It was supposed to have been an anonymous encounter. It wasn’t supposed to spill over into real life, even if Olivia was not her wife. By showing up here, Wren had broken the rules and invaded Sophie’s territory.
No matter how much she had insisted to the boys, she had never really believed it was like that. Maybe it had started out that way, two strangers who found one another irresistibly appealing, who let themselves have one hell of a joy ride. But during the course of that ride, they had made a few detours that were equally memorable. They had talked. They had laughed. They had touched one another, not just with their bodies.
How could the woman who had threaded their fingers together and kissed her palm tenderly in the middle of the night be the same one who had just faced her with such cool detachment? If there had been nothing between them but sex, why had Sophie talked to her about her childhood and laughed so much during the cooler moments of that night as they lay side by side in the dark getting to know one another? Why, in fact, had they been getting to know one another?
But there was nothing open to interpretation in Sophie’s behavior today. She was completely clear she didn’t want anything more to do with Wren.
She stood in the shed beside Olivia, smelling lavender and sage. Bundles of both were tied to hooks on the ceiling. “You grow these herbs here?”
Olivia nodded. “The lavender grows wild on the property, but Sophie planted the sage. She’s got a big garden with vegetables and herbs. You’ll see.”
They continued to the back of the house where a broad swath of ground was cleanly planted with neat rows of tomatoes, bush beans, peppers and clumps of herbs. Cooking herbs like basil and oregano, not herbs for chêvre. On one side of the plot was a raised bed containing nasturtiums and some tender lettuces. This was most definitely a kitchen garden, a cook’s garden, something Wren longed to have in her life again. She knelt and took up a handful of soil next to a zucchini vine loaded with long, slender squashes and bright yellow flowers. She wanted
to pick them, but resisted the urge.
“Sophie’s garden has been a big help in my new healthy eating regimen,” Olivia said.
“You make it sound like you’re not involved in any of this,” Wren observed, standing. “The cheese making and gardening. You always say Sophie’s this and Sophie’s that.”
“It’s mostly her thing. I help out, but she’s the mastermind. I never was much of a farmer. I mean, wasn’t interested in serious farming or even gardening. I worked full time, you know, and raised a couple of girls.”
“Now you’re retired?”
“Yes. More time now, but it still isn’t really my thing.”
“What is your thing? Kayaking?”
Olivia laughed. “It’s fun. But that may be more Warren’s thing than mine. That’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately, what’s my thing. Maybe should have asked it sooner. But life has a way of slipping by.”
Wren observed Olivia silently while they both smiled distantly at one another.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Wren proposed.
“If I can ask you one.”
“That’s only fair.”
“I’ll go first,” Olivia announced. “I sensed something between you and Sophie.”
“Like hostility, you mean?” Wren laughed nervously.
“Under that. Something more intense.”
“Intense hostility?”
Olivia didn’t smile. Instead, she waited for Wren’s serious answer.
“I don’t think it’s my place to say anything about that,” Wren said.
Olivia gave a slow nod. “That more or less answers my question. Now your turn.”
“Why don’t you want Sophie to know about you and Dr. Connor?”
Olivia’s gaze was shrewd and piercing. “Two years ago, I had a stroke and was partially paralyzed. Sophie moved back here to take care of me. I needed taking care of then and I was so thankful for her. But I don’t need caring for any more.”
“Clearly you don’t.”
“She gave up her career, her home, her friends and the entire life she’d made for herself for me.” Olivia seemed pained.
Wren began to understand the situation.“You’re worried you’ll leave her with nothing if you strike out on your own, try to figure out what your thing is?”
Olivia nodded, her expression sober. “How can I do that after what she’s done for me? She imagines she’s the focal point of my life.”
Wren smiled sympathetically, but didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know either of these women well enough to express an opinion.
“That’s why I was asking,” Olivia clarified, “about you and Sophie. She never talks. About her feelings, I mean. Keeps everything to herself. She’s always been like that. I was wondering if the two of you were…something, if she’s found someone.”
Wren nodded. “Yeah, I get it. But, you know, I only met her a couple weeks ago. I like her…a lot. But judging by her behavior just now, I’d say, no, I’m not something. In fact, I’d say she can’t wait to see my taillights.”
Olivia frowned and turned to squint in the direction of the house, then sighed with resignation and asked, “You want to see where we make the cheese?”
Sophie watched her mother lead Wren around the farm. Standing firm against her had been close to impossible. Sophie had tried not to look at her mouth, those luscious lips she remembered kissing so eagerly. How could a woman look so innocent and be so full of deception? Shakespeare, as usual, sprang to mind. Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it. That guy has a quotation for everything, she thought with a combination of admiration and resentment.
She’d tried not to hear the pleading sincerity in Wren’s voice. She knew from experience how earnest a woman could sound in the midst of deception. She knew too how vulnerable she was to a woman’s tears, and Wren had looked like she wanted to cry. A woman’s tears could turn everything inside out for Sophie. Jan had been a master at that particular ploy, probably because it worked. She could be standing there guilty as hell, turn on the tears, and in just minutes have Sophie apologizing for accusing her of any wrongdoing.
But Wren wasn’t Jan. Wren was nobody to Sophie, and she reminded herself of that several times. She belonged to someone else. Sophie hoped, for his sake, that Wren wasn’t deceiving him, that they had some agreement, as Ellie had suggested.
As the tour continued, especially as it progressed into the house, she was sorry she hadn’t been more firm and just made Wren leave. This was hard, hard to keep herself from running out there just to look at her. No matter how steadfastly she denied it to Wren’s face, she wanted that woman. She had wanted her from the moment she first saw her. Having had her, she still wanted her, more than ever. But she didn’t just want her body. She wanted all of her. Better to have nothing, she reasoned, than the meager scrap she was being offered, regardless of whether or not her husband minded.
Sophie leaned weakly against the wall, listening to the sound of Wren’s melodious laughter from the kitchen.
Finally, she left. Sophie watched her car rolling down the driveway. She waited until it was out of sight, then went to the kitchen where she found her mother spreading mustard and mayonnaise on slices of sandwich bread.
“She’s a nice girl,” Olivia said.
“She seemed nice, didn’t she,” Sophie said with a tinge of bitterness.
Olivia turned to give Sophie a puzzled look.
“Let me make the sandwiches, Mom. Why don’t you go relax.”
“All right. Klaus is coming in for lunch today. I invited him because he’s been working on the section of fence that fell down. So you’ll need to make him a couple.”
Olivia left the kitchen and Sophie took over lunch preparations. She couldn’t get her mind off Wren. She felt agitated. Maybe she should have confronted her, she thought, and asked her point-blank if her husband knew about her lesbian lovers. Lovers, yes, because it was obvious she was experienced with women. She knew exactly how to…where to... Sophie stood with a slice of turkey in hand, suddenly paralyzed as she caught her breath and closed her eyes, carried back to that night in the hotel.
She had never tired of kissing Wren’s mouth. It was a whole-body experience that just got better as the night went on. Everything had gotten better as the night went on, as they learned one another. The hot, frantic lovemaking, the cool, calm conversation, the soft, seductive stroking, the learning…trusting. And Wren’s gentle breathing against the skin of Sophie’s shoulder as she fell asleep mid-sentence when Sophie, continuing their conversation, asked her if she liked rain. “I do,” she had answered softly, “when it falls gently down without malice, like...”
Wren’s voice had trailed off. Sophie had finished her sentence with, “mercy.” Then she had touched Wren’s cool cheek lightly before falling asleep herself.
“Hey there, Sophie!”
She spun around, flinging the turkey from her hand smack into Klaus’s broad chin. He caught it before it fell to the floor, then looked at her, amazed.
“Why’d you sneak up on me like that?” she accused.
“Sorry. I left my boots outside because they were muddy.” He lifted one size twelve stockinged foot to illustrate.
Sophie snatched the turkey from his hand, tossing it in the sink.
“Is lunch ready?” he asked cautiously, peering around her at the cutting board where several sandwiches were lined up waiting for lettuce and tomato.
“Almost.”
Klaus helped himself to a soda from the refrigerator and sat down at the kitchen table while Sophie finished the sandwiches, slicing a brilliant red beefsteak tomato from her garden.
“I’m just about finished,” he said cheerfully.
She turned to face him, completely blank about what he was talking about.
“The fence,” he said. “All the posts are in. Just one more section of barbed wire to attach.”
“Oh, right. Good.”
“So
phie, are you okay?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?” She turned back to the counter and put the top slices of bread on all the sandwiches. She handed him one on a paper napkin.
“You seem kind of jumpy,” he said. He put the sandwich down on the table and lifted the bread to see what was inside. “Uh,” he started, “there’s no meat in here. Lettuce, tomato, mustard, mayo. That’s it.” He laughed heartily. “You putting me on a vegetarian diet?”
Sophie grabbed the sandwich from the table and put it back on the counter. “Oh, you want meat? Well, why didn’t you say so? Do you think I can read your mind? You want turkey or ham?”
Klaus stood and came up behind her, putting his giant, soothing hands on her shoulders. She wanted to cry.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked gently.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, forcing herself to sound calm. “Turkey or ham?”
“I know you, Sophie, and I know something’s wrong.”
She turned around to look him in the eye. “You know me? No, Klaus, you don’t know me.”
He took a step back, looking alarmed, as if he expected a knife in the sternum. She looked down at her hand and saw she was holding the knife she’d been using to slice the tomato. She put it on the cutting board and faced him again.
“You don’t know me as well as you think,” she said. “Sit down. We need to have a chat.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
You thief of love! What! have you come by night,
And stol’n my love’s heart from him?
—A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene 2
The after-party for Much Ado About Nothing was well underway backstage by the time Cleo Keggermeister, the artistic director, strode assertively in wearing black velveteen pants and a black chiffon blouse under a glittery black jacket. Wren had been told it was typical of Cleo to dress all in black, as if she were in perpetual mourning. Not for something as mundane as a person who had died, but for everything she felt should have been hers and was denied her. That was Raven’s interpretation, but Wren thought maybe she just knew she looked good in black. Like certain merry widows, Cleo’s mourning clothes were chic and expensive and gave her an air of drama rather than tragedy. Her thin smile looked a tiny bit lopsided as she took in the room. Under indoor lighting, the white streak through her black hair stood out even more prominently than the first time Wren had seen her, that day outside the theater when she’d chased Cassandra away.
