Descent

by Julie Cannon

  “Yeah, fine. Just a little tired.” Caroline busied herself with opening her bottle of water. She offered one to Fran who shook her head as she plopped in the chair by the small desk. She knew Fran well enough to read her body language and Fran had just settled in for a long, probing interrogation.

  “Come on, Caroline.”

  Caroline crossed the room and pulled the curtains to shut out the setting sun. She took a long moment before turning and facing Fran.

  “There is nothing to talk about. We got together for old time’s sake. She moved on and so have I.” It was a rather succinct explanation. It was the truth. At least the first two parts. She was going to have to work on the third.

  “And?” Fran wasn’t going to accept her explanation at face value.

  “And nothing. It happened, and it won’t happen again.” Caroline didn’t know if she was trying to convince Fran or herself. She kept talking to do both. “I don’t fit in her life and she definitely doesn’t fit in mine.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Come on, Fran, you know what I’m talking about. We haven’t said more than three things to each other in ten years. Other than riding her bike and sleeping with more women than I even know, I have no idea what she does with her life. And it doesn’t matter. It was just a trip down memory lane. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “You are so full of shit. How do you even stand yourself?” Fran hadn’t moved or even raised her voice. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. I’ve seen the way you can’t keep your eyes off her. You knew every minute of every day where Shannon was this week. And you wanted to be with her. Just admit it and stop pretending she doesn’t still mean something to you.”

  “Shut up, Fran,” Caroline said louder than she intended. “Just shut up. You have no idea what I want and certainly not what I’m thinking. The season is over. I’ve done what I wanted to do. I won the championship. I’m the best rider in the world. Now it’s time to grow up and be a big girl. In three weeks, I’ll be standing in front of six people who will judge me like I have never been judged before. They will control whether or not I get to do what I’ve always dreamed of. Those men will have my future in the palms of their pompous, fat, little hands. I don’t need any more pressure right now and I certainly don’t need any more shit about Shannon Roberts, so please just shut the fuck up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Shannon smoothed the nonexistent wrinkles out of her pants and centered the gleaming silver buckle on her belt. She was more nervous than she expected to be. She still wasn’t sure why she was here. She had nothing in common with these people except for the fact that they had gone to the same school ten years ago. She hadn’t spoken to any of them since the day Caroline’s father walked into Caroline’s room and changed Shannon’s life forever. If not for the pictures in Facebook, she probably wouldn’t recognize any of the people here if they walked past her on the street. It still wasn’t too late to turn around and leave. And do what? Go back to her empty hotel room and drink? Worse yet, think, remember? She’d been doing enough of that lately, especially the drinking part. Whoever said drinking washed away sadness never had her heart broken by Caroline Davis.

  The tastefully ornate sign indicated the Grand Ballroom was to her left. The lobby of the Marriott Royale Resort was as stuffy and pretentious as she remembered from the time she and her parents stayed there when they had come to visit the campus of Mount Holyfield. Good God, was it almost fifteen years ago when they had spent the weekend touring and interviewing with the administration and faculty? For a moment Shannon wondered if Dean Phillips would be in attendance. What would she say to her now?

  Subdued music led her to the large room decorated with balloons—green and white, the school colors of MHA. A large sign that read WELCOME ALUMNI hung over the wide double doors. People floated in and out of the room chatting and laughing, many of them holding champagne glasses.

  Shannon hung back observing the scene. The women were immaculately dressed in an assortment of cocktail dresses and evening wear. They were all thin, almost to the point of being emaciated, and made up to the point of being comical. More than one pair of surgically enhanced breasts passed in front of her.

  The men were equally stylish. Some had donned tuxedos for the event, others simply wore dark suits with conservative power ties. They were as tan as if they had just stepped off the tennis court or a week on a yacht. The people and the place reeked of old money, superficial smiles, and air kisses. And what in the hell was she doing in the middle of it? She had absolutely no idea but kept putting one foot in front of the other.

  Unclenching her fists, Shannon walked to the registration table. Three women way too perky to be for real greeted her. “Hello, welcome to our reunion. Your name?” The women looked at her, searching her face for anything that would jog their memories for Shannon’s name. Shannon knew there were many memories. She was the proverbial bad girl and she was certain her last week at MHA had become a legend.

  “Shannon Roberts.” Shannon watched as the woman with hair too dark to be natural recognized her name. She looked her up and down as if searching for any sign that the scandal that had forced her out of Mount Holyfield was still clinging to her. The other woman squinted as if she couldn’t see Shannon clearly without the glasses she probably refused to wear.

  “Here you are. Shannon Roberts. My, you haven’t changed a bit,” she said looking between Shannon and the picture on her name tag. She finally handed it to her.

  “Thanks.” Shannon glanced at the picture and cringed. God, she hoped she didn’t still look like that.

  “We’re in the room to the right. Dinner is at seven, the program starts at eight, and dancing after that. Did you bring a guest?”

  Shannon barely recognized there was a question in the high-pitched chatter from the woman. “No,” she replied and stepped toward the door to her past.

  Ten years, she repeated to herself. She hadn’t given MHA anything more than a passing thought since the day she left. Now she was expected to mix and mingle with women she had barely spoken with in high school and make inane small talk with their husbands. She seriously doubted that any of the other lesbians at MHA would be in attendance with their girlfriends. But then again neither was she.

  Snagging a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, Shannon stepped further into the crowded room. Several heads turned her way and she vaguely recognized a few faces. But they knew who she was. The expressions on their faces told her as much. After the incident with Caroline’s father, a few of her friends had managed to get in touch with her. Her absence hadn’t gone unnoticed and she was the subject of just about every conversation on campus. Rumors were rampant. She had heard they included everything from stories that she ran off with a college coed from Tufts University in Boston to suggestions that she was pregnant. Shannon had had a good laugh over that one.

  Shannon expected this when she had RSVP’d to the reunion committee chairman that she would be attending. She had checked the box, licked the envelope, and dropped it in the corner mailbox the week after she’d returned from Australia. In the weeks since, she had hashed and rehashed her decision and at the last minute almost didn’t come. She was getting dressed when a case of second thoughts crashed in on her. Why was she going? Did she have something to prove? To whom? Herself? Dean Phillips? The other members of her senior class? She was a graduate just like they were, even if she didn’t walk down the aisle to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance.” She deserved to be here.

  Shannon had asked herself those questions plus a few hundred more in the days leading up to tonight. She was no closer to an answer now that she was here than when she was sitting on her deck last week in Big Bear. She was as much alone then as she was right now.

  Before she had a chance to contemplate her state of mind any further she was grabbed from behind and spun around and ended up face-to-face with Marci McMillan. Marci with an i, as she always said when she introduced herself, was at
least thirty pounds lighter and had much larger breasts than the last time Shannon had seen her.

  “Oh my God, Shannon!” she exclaimed causing several people to look their way. “Is it really you?”

  “Marci, how are you? You look great,” Shannon managed to say when her ex-roommate finally turned her loose.

  “I’m fine, and thanks. After three trips to the fat farm, I finally got it right. Bernard promised me if I lost the weight and kept it off for two years he’d buy me a new pair of boobs.” It was obvious that Marci had accomplished her long-term weight loss and was proud of it.

  “Very nice.”

  “Shannon, you look great too. What’s your secret?” Marci asked in a co-conspirator tone.

  “Nothing as exciting as you, Marci.” Shannon knew she looked like hell. She wasn’t sleeping, the circles under her eyes were darker on her now pale skin. She had lost weight, her naturally lean body was painfully thin. A glass of Chivas more often than not was her evening meal. When she first returned from Australia it was her lunch and sometimes her breakfast as well. She looked for the passing tray of alcohol. Marci grabbed her arm and practically dragged her across the room. Marci’s voice was far more animated than Shannon remembered.

  “You have got to come see Beth and Courtney. They are going to crap when they see you.”

  Approaching the women in question, Shannon steeled herself to face two of the biggest snobby, self-righteous, bigoted, girly girls at MHA. One look at them and Shannon knew they had only refined those traits as the years passed.

  “Girls, look who’s here! Shannon Roberts. We were just talking about whether or not she’d be here tonight and I looked up and there she was. Can you believe it?”

  Taking the high road, Shannon held out her hand first to Beth Hardel. “Hello, Beth.” Beth took one look at her outstretched hand, then back to Shannon. She saw the look of disapproval Beth didn’t even bother to hide as she passed judgment on Shannon’s choice of wardrobe for the evening. More out of politeness and good breeding, Beth finally took her hand. Shannon repeated the same greeting to Courtney.

  Marci filled the awkward silence. “Shannon, what are you doing with yourself? I didn’t see your profile on Facebook.” The reunion committee had encouraged all alumni to create a Facebook page so that they all could reconnect even if they weren’t able to attend the event.

  “I didn’t know until the last minute I was coming. What about you, Marci?” Shannon switched the topic without answering the question posed to her.

  Shannon listened with half an ear to Marci drone on about her husband and kids and when the talk between the women turned to the trials of braces and puberty, she tuned out all but the essentials and merely nodded when she thought it appropriate. Her name brought her attention back to the women in front of her.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” She hadn’t heard whether she was asked a question or simply was supposed to respond to a statement.

  “I asked if you were married or had any children?” Beth said too sweetly.

  Shannon knew Beth was intentionally trying to embarrass her with the question. Beth had hated her in high school and obviously still did. She thought Shannon unworthy of a school like Mount Holyfield and had told her so on more than one occasion.

  “No, I’m not. They don’t allow lesbians to get married in the state I live in.” Shannon let the statement hang in the air. She had nothing to hide, especially from these people. She didn’t care what they thought. Never had and never would. That same apathy clouded her judgment more and more every day. She knew she was depressed, but like everything else lately she didn’t seem to have the energy to face it, let alone tackle it. With a wicked sense of perverted pleasure, she watched the color drain from Beth’s perfectly made up face to be replaced by an unattractive shade of green disgust. Shannon continued looking her straight in the eye while she waited for what would come next.

  “That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting, Shannon Roberts. I always knew you were a pervert. You were always looking at me that way.” Beth emphasized her last two words.

  “Actually, Beth, I never gave you a second thought. I prefer my lovers to be passionate and alive. You never did fit the bill. Still don’t, I see. If you ladies will excuse me.” Shannon left all three women standing with their mouths open, one laughing, the other two speechless.

  A prickling along the back of her neck made her pause. It was the same feeling she always got just before she caught Caroline staring at her. Her heart beat against her chest and she suddenly felt lightheaded. She maneuvered around several couples laughing loudly and past the buffet table. She knew that unless she left now, she wouldn’t be able to avoid Caroline all night. She didn’t think Caroline would come. She had said as much at the race and when Shannon couldn’t help herself and had Googled Caroline last week, a press release from NASA stated that she had accepted a position and would immediately be entering the astronaut training program.

  What would she see when she turned around? More precisely, who would she see with Caroline? It had been a little more than two months since she had seen her in Australia and Caroline had been celebrating with Fran. That was one of many images that kept her awake at night. Finally ready to face Caroline and whoever she brought with her, Shannon turned around.

  It was about goddamned time, Caroline thought. She had been nervously following Shannon around the ballroom for fifteen minutes before she turned her way. She was stunning in her faux tuxedo, deep red shirt, and shiny black loafers. Her hair was a little longer, but not much. She looked tired and thinner but still wore that same cloak of edgy confidence and looked totally at ease in this crowd.

  She had scoured the room when she first arrived for any sign of Shannon. Even though her name was on the list of attendees, Caroline didn’t know if Shannon would actually be there. She had tried and failed miserably during the past week not to get her hopes up lest she be disappointed.

  Caroline knew there was music playing but didn’t hear anything except the drumming of her heart and the pounding in her ears. When their eyes met, her stomach flipped several times and her hand shook so bad she almost spilled her cocktail. It was that same look. The same intense gaze as if Shannon could see right through her and into her soul and know what she was thinking. If that were true, Shannon would know that Caroline had thought about her often in the last few weeks. She had relived their one night together in Austria more times than she could count, remembering and savoring each taste and touch of her. She had shed a million tears in the last two months over losing her again. Especially after realizing she was hopelessly in love with her.

  She approached Shannon and watched the expression on her face. There was a spark of joy that was quickly covered up with steely reserve. Caroline wet her lips nervously as she closed the distance between them.

  “Hello, Shannon. It’s good to see you.” Caroline was surprised that her voice sounded normal. She was outwardly calm and restrained but what she really wanted to do was throw herself in Shannon’s arms and never let go. Her heart threatened to stop when Shannon didn’t immediately reply.

  “You too. I didn’t know you’d be here. I didn’t expect a renowned astrophysicist, soon-to-be-astronaut, would come to a small town class reunion.”

  Caroline’s chuckle came out sounding more like a strangled cry. “Hardly. I just got my Ph.D. and I haven’t even started work yet.” The fact that she had postponed her start date with NASA she kept to herself. Somehow she had made it through defending her dissertation, and just barely at that. She was an emotional mess and knew that if she didn’t get her shit together before starting at NASA she would fail and fail miserably.

  “Maybe I wanted everyone to see what a swanky private school can produce?” Caroline continued trying to lighten her mood. “Maybe I wanted to relive my youth?” Shannon laughed. Caroline jumped off the cliff of her emotions. Her love for Shannon gave her the strength to take the first step. “Maybe I just wanted to see you.”


  Caroline said it so quietly and calmly it caught her off guard. She knew what she wanted to say to Shannon, had practiced it dozens of times, but she hadn’t expected to say it within the first three minutes. Her world was spinning, and she was being carried along for the ride. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out quite as I had planned.” Her heart jumped back in her throat and for a moment she thought she might be sick. “Can we go somewhere and talk?” Caroline glanced around at the noisy crowd. She heard the faint pleading in her voice. She desperately wanted to talk to Shannon. No she needed to talk to her. To explain, to ask for another chance, to beg if she had to.

  Shannon lowered her eyes and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Then she looked at Caroline as if deciding if she would say yes or no. Caroline got very nervous.

  “Sure, how about outside? There’s a nice patio across the courtyard.” Shannon motioned in the direction of the exit doors.

  Caroline led the way feeling Shannon’s eyes on her bare back. She had chosen her dress carefully for just this occasion. She was the opposite of her techno-geek degree and was bound and determined to look perfect if she was lucky enough to see Shannon again. Fran had the fashion sense Caroline lacked and the checkbook to pay for a designer label and had gone with her to pick out the Kate Spade dress.

  The deep plum color of the dress complemented her dark hair and complexion and more than half the men in the room had looked twice when she entered. The high neckline gave no indication of the plunging back that tapered to a straight skirt that hung just above her knees. Black sheer stockings and matching pumps completed her outfit. Her hair was up in a French braid, accentuating her bare shoulders. Her jewelry was a simple silver watch and diamond stud earrings. She had barely recognized herself when she looked in the mirror.