Roller Coaster

by Karin Kallmaker

  Life would be good, steady, sane, if only there wasn't a secret bubbling inside her.

  Justin held the long, serrated bread knife as if it were a snake. "Are you sure? I just learned how to cut watermelons."

  "I know you can do it. The key is patience and steadiness." Laura gave him a thumbs up. "In a bakery they have a cutout to drop the layer into and you use a wire held down on the counter to whip right through it. Just... That's right. You're doing great."

  Justin's gentle touch still amazed Laura. He had what her mother had called "baby chick hands" and her experience was that male kitchen trainees weren't the people you'd pick first when needing someone to hold a hatching chick. Justin already knew how to firmly hold a cake layer without crushing it, and he was splitting it into two layers as if he'd been doing it for years.

  He turned the top layer over and Laura stood next to him to look at the result.

  "The crumb is a beautiful texture," she said. Using her fingertip she gently dusted across the cut layers to gather a few to taste.

  Justin did likewise. Then he grinned at her just the way she was grinning at him. "That is awesome! Mom loves lemon cake and it's tart and sweet all at once."

  "So now you do the same thing to the other layer and we'll let the surfaces dry just a bit. They'll hold the filling better. Besides, we can't spread on the filling until it's slightly chilled."

  "I can't believe how much better toasted coconut tastes than untoasted. The filling is sick."

  Laura went back to trimming rib eye cuts out of the prime rib the butcher had delivered. The bones were headed to the stockpot for consommé and the rest of the cut she was going to dress for roasting by Helen on Tuesday. The rib eyes she was prepping so Justin and Julie could make them for their mother tomorrow, for her birthday. Julie was taking responsibility for the rice pilaf while Justin made one of his signature salads, and Cass had engineered decorations and a pile of presents.

  As a run-up up to the big day, Cass was taking Helen out on the town in San Francisco. She'd said it wouldn't be nearly as wild and crazy had Helen been in New York as scheduled, but she would do her best. Laura was sure the diversion would be welcome. Cass and Helen had been in the study all morning, according to Julie, going over invoices and working with an agency to find someone reliable to step in on Wednesday when Helen had to go back to New York. At a minimum, the kids needed to get to and from school even if they were largely independent. Helen also needed someone to keep an eye on them in the evenings.

  It shouldn't be too hard to find someone, Laura thought. The arrangement was pretty sweet. She hadn't realized there was a very nice, fully furnished bedroom with its own bath where Grace had slept when Helen wasn't home. That was on top of the private quarters attached to the garage. The bedroom alone was nicer than some staff quarters Laura had stayed in at the resorts.

  Her own gift was, she hoped, suitable. In a long-ago interview Helen had stated a love of the blintzes from a lower Manhattan deli. She'd of course gone to give them a try, found them lovely, and over the years, she'd perfected her version of the blueberry filling and crepe-like wrapper. She had added a farmer's cheese and sour cream blend that melted to perfection when drizzled on top of the hot pastry. The baking dish was in the refrigerator and Justin had all the instructions so Helen could have breakfast in bed for her birthday. She hoped it would be seen as an appropriately professional gift to an employer. Now that it was made, she was worried Helen would ask how Laura had known about the blintzes. It was an intimate detail and... Maybe it stepped over a line. A line only she knew was there.

  It was a line she hadn't thought she needed, but every time she looked at Helen last night she had reminded herself it was real, and she had to respect it.

  Cass interrupted Laura's worrying by arriving in the kitchen with a dramatic wheezing and then swooning across the kitchen island. One hand weakly waved her mug. "Coffee..."

  Helen was shaking her head as she went around the prostrate Cass. "Get up. Nobody believes you don't know where the coffee is."

  "I know how to get terrific coffee." Cass pushed herself upright. "Laura, make me some coffee!"

  Laura laughed. "Nice try."

  Helen was already filling her cup from the coffeemaker's warming carafe. "I'm glad you pay her no attention." She swirled her coffee mug. "I think I just had the last of the coffee, Cass. You're out of luck."

  Cass swore.

  "You've already had four cups," Helen said. "It's not even two o'clock."

  "That late? Crap, I'm behind."

  Laura layered the steaks in a container so they could be refrigerated until tomorrow. She glanced at Helen and seized the moment. "While you're here, I've been meaning to ask you for weeks now if it's okay to drop your name with a couple of the real estate brokers. I can't get them interested in finding me a rental in the area and my residence hotel is getting very old."

  A look passed between Helen and Cass that Laura couldn't decipher. Helen said, "Well, that's certainly on point. When you're done, come by the study and we'll talk more."

  Helen left the kitchen and Cass trailed after, but not before giving Laura a Bambi-eyed look when she set down her empty mug.

  The meat taken care of, she washed her hands and coached Justin through smoothing the toasted coconut filling on the first layer. "Let me help move the next layer on top. That's the trickiest part."

  Once the four layers were smeared with the coconut blend and stacked, and he was occupied with gently spreading the top and side with a light strawberry frosting, she took off her apron and went to the study. The door was open.

  "Thanks, Laura," Helen said immediately. "Have a seat. We've been discussing a mad plan, but I think we can solve several problems all at once. I'm intent on bribing you, in fact."

  Cass was leaning back in her chair, looking unconcerned, so Laura relaxed. "What can I do for you?"

  "Finding a completely vetted house manager is going to take a week, maybe even a month. I'm not skimping on interviews and reviews, and I'm not taking an agency's word for it that the person I'm hiring has been checked out."

  "Given what you just went through, that makes sense to me," Laura said.

  "You need a place to live. I have an empty apartment well-it's partially furnished, actually."

  Laura blinked. She supposed she ought to have seen the offer coming. "I really don't have the skill set to be your house manager, and I'm not-"

  "Not permanently," Helen said. "While I'm hiring. And either way, the living space Grace had is yours if you're interested. I think you'd make a great tenant, but I can understand if you think that makes you too close to your work, so to speak."

  "Seriously? That's-very generous. What if the person you hire wants to live there?"

  "Grace was the first person who did. It was built originally for my late husband's aunt, but she passed away before I even became part of the family. It was a really fancy storage space for a long time afterward. Regardless, whoever I hire has to live in the house. That's a deal breaker for me now. The kids tell me that Grace would often be gone all evening."

  Laura nodded. "I didn't know what to make of that, but I also didn't think it was my place to say I found it odd."

  "The kids loved it-no wonder Justin got into the habit of eating popcorn all night. They're really old enough to be mostly independent, but they still need to know they're being...monitored. These are really treacherous years. I keep them pretty short on spending money, but they hang out with kids who can afford just about anything, if you know what I mean. So the next person lives in the house."

  Laura took a deep breath and prayed for a steady voice. "Well, first of all, I'd be a fool not to take the apartment. And if it's only for at most a month, I'd be more than happy to stay in the house and do the best I can to cover things for you. I do understand that it's time-consuming. I'm honored that you trust me."

  Cass let out a sigh of relief. "Goodie. I can go home tomorrow night. Thank goodness."

>   Helen was grinning. "I am so relieved. Move your things into the apartment any time that works for you. Everything that belonged to Grace is in a storage locker and the key is with my attorney when she wants to claim it. Probably when she gets out of her New Jersey prison cell. I was hoping on Monday maybe you could talk to the landscapers with me? My Spanish is worse than my Greek."

  "You speak Greek?"

  "Not a word." Helen batted her eyelashes. "And maybe tomorrow, you could do me a huge favor?"

  Laura gave a helpless shrug. How could anyone not be charmed by this woman? "Which would be?"

  "Come to my birthday party, pretty please?"

  "I'd love to." Laura found herself grinning.

  "Take, take, take." Cass rolled her eyes. "It's all about you, isn't it? 'I'm fifty, I want a party, make me a cake, take me out drinking, suh-wee-tee Cass, my best friend.' Huh."

  "I do not whine like that," Helen protested. "And I'm not fifty until tomorrow."

  Laura was glad their banter was distracting them from her, and it seemed a good time to excuse herself. This was about a job, not about... This was about helping Helen for her family's sake, not about...

  Exactly what it wasn't about simply wouldn't form in her mind. She was going to keep it that way, too.

  "So do you like this place?" Cass leaned across the small table. The flicker of candlelight was dancing across her face.

  "It's lovely." Helen glanced appreciatively around the piano bar again. The jazz was mellow, the large Maxfield Parrish landscape was the length of the entire wall behind the bar, and the Cape Cod she'd already imbibed half of was certainly helping her mood. "How did you discover it?"

  "A client picked it for a meet-up the last time I was in San Francisco. It's so easy to find and it's classy. Like us."

  Helen laughed. "Not to mention well-preserved."

  "That too. So." Cass favored her with a serious look. "We've got the immediate future sorted out. So let's talk about the immediate past."

  Helen pretended ignorance of Cass's meaning. "Lunch?"

  "The cruise. You've said absolutely nothing about it except it was 'luxurious.'"

  "Well, it was. I had a lot of fun. I think I did well for the people who paid to go."

  "You're blushing."

  She thought about curtain tassels, but it was too late. "Am not."

  "When I saw you in the airport, do you know what my first thought was?"

  "How would I know?" She had another sip of her drink.

  "I thought 'now there's a woman who got laid.'"

  "Cass!"

  "Did you?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  Both of Cass's eyebrows were almost to her spiky hairline. "You'll have to do better than that."

  "It's none of-"

  "Don't go there," Cass said sharply. "Of course it's my business. I just spent a week covering your family not because I'm your agent but because I love you and the kids. So don't tell me something momentous in your life-like having sex for the first time in decades-isn't at least a little bit my business."

  Chagrined, Helen muttered an apology. She took another sip of her drink for courage, but alcohol really didn't give a person courage, did it? It tended to make her not care about being scared. But she was scared and not nearly drunk enough not to care. "Okay, something happened. With the person who was running the event."

  "Well, I'll be." Cass lifted her glass of merlot in salute. "You're alive after all."

  She couldn't help but smile. "Definitely. Very alive."

  "So what's with the coy attitude? You don't have to be ashamed of a one-nighter. You're free, you're nearly fifty, for heck's sake."

  "It may not have been a one-nighter."

  "Oh-too early to tell the kids though?"

  "Something like that."

  "You're being coy again."

  "It was a woman." There, she'd said it.

  "You can tell me any-what?"

  Cass's expression was so comic that Helen laughed. "It was with a woman."

  "Since when-I mean, is that the... What are you trying to tell me?"

  "That I slept with a woman and it was amazing."

  "And you want to do that again?"

  "Definitely."

  Cass regarded her for a long time, sipping thoughtfully from her wine. Finally, she asked, "Is it the woman? Or because she's a woman?"

  "I wish I knew. That's why..." Helen blinked furiously. "I'm not going to cry. Damned hormones. It's all their fault."

  "That sounds perilously like something a guy would say."

  She gave Cass an evil look. "I'm being irrational. Work with me here."

  "So your hormones made you pick out a woman to sleep with?"

  "I was very attracted to her. It was mutual, it turned out. That's never happened to me before. I've never-other than Justin Senior, in my whole life, I never felt ... I know it's a cliché but I am in love with the theater. It fills me with passion and joy. My heart has always told me that's what I want. I wasn't looking for a person to give me that."

  "And the moment you got away from the theater, you felt it for a woman."

  "I suppose so. I know what you're trying to figure out, and believe me, I've been asking myself if I'm gay pretty much every waking minute." She shook her glass to hear the ice cubes clink.

  "You slept with a woman, and want to again. There's not a lot more to the definition."

  "But there's my marriage. There's the fact that I enjoyed sex with a man."

  Cass heaved an exasperated sigh. "I know plenty of lesbians who can say that. They lived straight lives and were happy enough that they didn't realize they were missing something. Besides, we're not lesbians because we had bad sex with men. We're lesbians because sex with women, relationships with women, is our future. It doesn't have anything to do with men-or the past."

  "It's really weird not to know who you are." Helen realized how hard she had been working to tamp down the uncertainty and confusion. It felt very good to let it out.

  "Maybe you're bisexual. For you, it's the person and their gender isn't as relevant as many other factors."

  "I've thought about that. There's just one flaw to that theory." She closed her eyes and focused on the words, searching to make sense of her feelings. "Justin and I had a good sex life. And what I just felt with a woman last week-no comparison. It was transformational. Like passing through fire."

  "Well, you were a virgin all over again."

  She opened her eyes to glare at Cass. "Quit with the jokes."

  "I'm sorry. Sweetie, what you're feeling, it's just I've heard it from other women coming out before. I know you feel all alone, but you're not."

  "I feel like a chump. I'm fifty tomorrow. How did I not know?"

  "That I can't answer. I'm sure with several thousand dollars in therapy you might find out. Does it matter? Did it make you feel good? You sure as hell look like it made you feel fantastic."

  She leaned forward, words tumbling out finally. "I felt better than good, Cass. I felt like I'd come home. Come home to a place I didn't know I'd been keeping inside me."

  "So that brings us back to the question. Was it the woman?"

  "Karolina."

  "Or the fact that she was a woman?"

  "I don't know that yet. I don't want to get forced into picking someone else's label either."

  Cass shrugged. "What I've learned about labels is that you take what fits, and stand up proud. Anyone who disputes your right to define yourself can go screw themselves."

  "Even my fans? And producers I badly need to believe I can play a romantic lead?"

  "We'll cross those bridges hand-in-hand, sweetie. Let me ask you something, though."

  "Sure."

  "This Karolina-successful, smart and charming, right?"

  "Yes, you're right."

  Cass pointed at herself. "Successful. Smart. Charming. Attractive, right?"

  "Yes, all true. And I've never had a pang, I mean-that didn't come out the
way I meant it."

  Cass smiled into her glass. "There was a time when all you'd have had to do was look at me funny and I'd have dragged you to my lair."

  "You had feelings for me? Romantic ones?" Helen did not want to have this conversation. She needed Cass as a friend-needed her desperately.

  "Are you kidding? Romantic? We'd kill each other in three days. No. Just lustful."

  "But you never showed that."

  Cass tilted her head. "A: Like you, I was using the evidence of your marriage and production of offspring as proof you were straight. B: You were a client and I knew if I'd made you uncomfortable, ever, I was history. C: I have never, in my life, met anyone as career-focused as you are. D: You spend almost half your life three thousand miles away."

  "And you don't really like kids."

  "E: I don't really like kids. Yours are an exception, now that they're turning into people. Oh, wait. F: I was with what's-her-name at the time."

  "The bitch." They clinked glasses.

  "Well, that's something to remember, Helen. If you date women, you should know that they can stomp on your heart just like a man can. There's no guarantee that if you get sick a woman won't ditch you just as fast as Newt Gingrich ditched his first or third or eleventh wife, whatever."

  Helen sighed. "I think reason G must be that we were meant to be friends."

  "I'll drink to that." Cass drained the last of her wine. "Who knows why we lust after just one person or fall in love with just one person when we meet thousands of people, and many of them have similar qualities? It's a mystery to me."

  "I have not drunk nearly enough to even discuss the metaphysics of love and desire."

  "Drink up, then." Cass pulled out her phone. "I'm finding us a dance party for girls."

  "Oh, I don't know..."

  "It's your birthday. You dance. You don't have to do anything else. See? You get to choose how you act."

  Cass had adopted a tone of lecturing a small child. Helen finished her Cape Cod while she watched Cass browse for a dance party. She knew she got to choose how to act. She was listening to her heart with every bit of attention she could give it. She wanted to be with Karolina again. She wanted to get to know more about her. Wanted to...