Frosting on the Cake

by Karin Kallmaker

  I needed my own place and it needed to reflect me. I needed to get going on my consulting plans. I was good at data encryption and computer security and I had a number of contacts with people who’d gotten into dot-coms. I was confident of the marketability of my skills. Coasting along for a few months after being discharged was understandable. But it was time to settle into the next phase of my life. I wanted that phase to include Cinny, and I was willing to discuss a variety of conditions for mutually satisfactory armistice.

  The only real difficulty here was how I felt about her. It wasn’t rational and cool. I wanted her in my life and my bed, real bad. Not scaring her off with my more base impulses was strategy four.

  Fortunately, I’ve always had a lot of self-control. That red dress tested it, to be sure. I wanted her legs wrapped around me. I wanted to kiss her until next year. I wanted to give her what her husband couldn’t possibly have understood she needed. I wanted to show her what she had not experienced before: an open, honest love, out of the shadows. I’d never had that either, but I could not consider any other kind of future. She doesn’t need to know my feelings yet. She’d just left her husband, after all. She needs time and I am very good at waiting.

  My last strategy was a bit sneaky. I wanted to show her I understood romance. Initially, it would seem like innocent friendship—and it would be. But if she finally opened her eyes and saw me as a potential lover, I wanted her to already know I had a romantic soul.

  Beautiful, vivacious, charming, perfect Cinny had been showered in chocolate, roses and perfume all her life. Prom Queen tiaras and cheerleader pom poms, citizenship awards and student council accolades had been routine in high school. Her husband had lavished expensive gifts and cars on her, but my mother told me—my mother knows everything about everyone in Woton—she’d already signed or given everything back. Everyone in her life assumed she took big gifts and gestures as her due. I didn’t think she was that way at all. That was just part of the role of a beautiful prom queen and country club wife, and I guessed she was real tired of that whole head game. That was why she finally came out.

  She was looking for something different. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t forgotten that she’s used to being worshipped. I intended to go right on doing that. But I planned on worshipping the whole person, especially the lesbian part of her, the part of her that was most like me.

  Romance, in my book, isn’t roses and chocolate and perfume. It was a cold drink on a hot day. Which was why I had two bottled iced teas, thoroughly chilled, in the cooler next to me. That’s romance. Romance is anything that says that for no reason at all, with no thought of what you’d get in return, you thought of someone else and what might make her today a little bit better. Sometimes roses can do that. But on a hot, muggy day like today I was betting on the iced tea. Better todays mean better tomorrows. A whole lot of better tomorrows adds up to Forever. In my considered opinion, yessir, it does, sir.

  Our appointment to see the house for sale wasn’t for another five minutes and I congratulated myself on the brilliance of having chosen a businesslike way to get to know her better. I wouldn’t be as shy as I usually was. Provided I could control myself, she would never know that I had plans for when she started liking me.

  It seems true to me that you can’t love someone you don’t like—love them forever and go on loving them when they annoy you or when something struts by that looks like it might be a better deal for a while. I don’t want an affair with the woman. I want a life.

  I’m saving for later the picture of her walking toward me in a thin pink blouse and ivory linen skirt. All legs and curves, all honey blond and tan. Later I’ll let myself think about her body against mine. Fantasy and I are old friends.

  She took the tea and said thanks. She looked at me, then. Really looked at me. If she was thinking about that dance we had shared, it didn’t show in her face, but I didn’t think for a second that she had forgotten.

  I glanced at the house where we were beginning the search for my perfect home. She didn’t realize that what I was looking for was a house she would also like. “So what’s the story on this place?”

  “Three bedrooms and a newly remodeled kitchen. The sunporch faces south, too. You talked about a garden, and there’s a small one out back.”

  Her cream-colored sandals made her feet look as fragile as glass, but I’d held her in my arms. She was strong under all that soft skin. That was why I didn’t feel clunky next to her, why the difference between her strappy sandals and my thickly velcroed Tevas didn’t bother me in the least. We were both strong. It just showed differently.

  I got past the fantasy of wanting to lick the faint film of perspiration from the back of her neck. It was way harder than I thought it would be.

  I didn’t like the house right off. The rooms were small and laid out so that there was little chance of remodeling to something more spacious. The garden was nice but a bit small.

  “There’s way too much zucchini in here,” Cinny commented. She’d been carefully noncommittal as I explored, but I had the distinct impression that she didn’t like the house either. It did have two acres of privacy, and the master bedroom faced a neighboring farm instead of the road and town. After the close quarters of military housing, the vista was welcome. Still, the poor layout of the sitting and family rooms was insurmountable.

  “You don’t like it, do you? You didn’t like it the moment I unlocked the door.” Cinny regarded me thoughtfully. I was surprised that she read me so clearly, even though I’d been trying to hide my almost immediate negative reaction. I hoped she couldn’t read anything else I was thinking.

  “I like the decorating, but that’s beside the point. I can see past the paint and wallpaper. It’s the rooms—ideally, I want a great room for the house, not the only-for-guests sitting room separated off. That seems like a waste of space. But this sitting room shares a wall with the bathroom, so I can’t knock it down to join it with the family room unless I want to move the plumbing.”

  “You want to do that? Renovate?”

  “I wouldn’t mind it. Give me something to do with my free time. When I start doing independent consulting I’ll be working a lot of hours, but I’ll still have a lot of time on my hands.” I laughed at my own expense. “It’s not like I’ve got a life, or anything. Not yet.”

  She glanced at the thin watch that circled her deceptively delicate wrist. “How much time do you have?”

  I shrugged. “All evening.” Get the message, I thought. There’s no one in my life.

  “There’s a real fixer-upper available that I’ve always thought was just waiting for the right buyer. It’s been on the market for nine months—incredible bargain at this point. It’s between here and Cedar Mills.”

  I could tell that there was something she liked about the place and that made me eager to see it, too. More time in her company was also welcome. “Then let’s go.”

  She locked up the house and walked briskly to her car. “Mind if I drive?”

  “Not at all.”

  She unlocked the door of her cute little silver Mustang convertible. “I should just have only women clients. It saves a lot of time.” In response to my raised eyebrows, she went on, “I always have to convince men to let me drive because I know the way, because the neighbors know my car by now and won’t be alarmed if it’s after dark. They think I can’t handle a car to begin with and haven’t realized that as a woman I’m at risk every time I go into a vacant house with a man I don’t know very well. It’s survival basics—take your own vehicle, for your own sake.”

  “I can’t tell you how many times I had to assert my turn to drive the Humvee. Those things drive like tractors and I could drive a tractor when I was eight.”

  She accelerated sharply onto the roadway, then said with a laugh, “Are you telling me that men are the same the world over?”

  “No,” I said seriously. “I’ve met good men. I’ve seen men who make the knuckleheads in this part of the wor
ld look like saints.” I had to turn my face away for a minute as sudden images from Bosnia floated up in front of me. I’d gone to counseling after I’d come home, like just about everyone else, but the disorienting flashbacks had barely started to ease. I’d been told it took years sometimes. Yippee.

  “I’ll bet,” she said quietly. She turned onto the back road that led most directly toward Cedar Mills. “How do you feel about losing some cobwebs?”

  Right there I knew I had correctly understood at least a part of her. She didn’t want to be the cheerleader driven about by the captain of the football team. She wanted to drive herself, thrill herself, and do something because she had the skills and the power.

  “How fast does this thing go?” We were already doing fifty-five on the rarely-traveled country road.

  “One-ten’s as high as I’ve had it. This road—eighty is the top.”

  “Seems a waste if the top isn’t down,” I said, feigning indifference.

  She threw me a laughing conspiratorial glance that left me near breathless. The top retracted smoothly and she stomped on the gas with a shout of glee. “Don’t worry—I don’t have a death wish. I know this road like the back of my hand.”

  We were off. She handled the car like a pro, easing up at every intersection. The sun was hot, but the wind was wildly refreshing. She had to slow to a crawl where a creek ran across the road in the winter. It was dry now, but the dip was considerable.

  “I love that,” she said as we reached the bottom. “Do you feel how it’s cooler right here? The trees and the little bit of water make such a difference.”

  The moist, cool air felt great. “I remember when I was a kid, we’d drive out to our favorite lake. There was no air conditioning in the camper. It would be so hot, and my dad would always slow down for the dips. That five degrees of relief felt like refrigeration.”

  She eased up the far side of the creek, then punched the gas when we crested into the sun again. “I thought I was the only kid in the world who noticed that. It’s just a few minutes more.”

  Our entrance into the driveway was sedate by contrast. Cinny was already closing the top before we came to a stop.

  The first thing I noticed was the privacy. The house was at an angle to the road and faced away from the nearest neighbor, a family farm. “What’s the acreage?”

  “Five full,” she answered. “But there’s growth restrictions on this parcel that dates back to when the road was moved and that conglomerate bought out two of the farming neighbors. You can’t subdivide and you can’t rezone. Neither can they. This plot is residential only; they can farm. You can get away with your own garden, but technically no tractors, et cetera. You know the drill. I guess a lot of people think five acres ought to be farmable, but to my mind, that means no subdivision next door with eighty houses and a hundred plus cars driving past you every day.”

  “I hear that.” She had a point. Two rolling hills cradled the little house. An open field lay behind and the hills were dotted with sturdy Norway Red pines. The house looked like a dump, but houses can be fixed. The surrounding landscape was just perfect. “Let’s take a look inside.”

  Unlike at the last house, she seemed intent on selling me this place. She obviously liked it. “See, the sitting room and the family room are back-to-back, then this odd little storage room, then the kitchen.”

  “All those walls could come down, then.” I’d have the great room I was looking for, from kitchen to front windows. “Take out the ceiling and go up another story for height. That is, if the basement and foundation are sound.” I turned in a circle. The current layout was crap, with the shared rooms on one side of a dark hallway and the bedrooms on the other. “Take out this small bedroom for a stairwell and foyer, add a second floor for bedrooms and at least one more bath. Two would be better. This middle bedroom is big enough for an office.” I strode down the hallway to the biggest bedroom. “This would make a nice guest bedroom. Just off the bathroom and the kitchen.”

  “I’ve always thought this place needed a second story. There’s no restriction on height. Put in at least three bedrooms upstairs, though. Don’t forget about the eventual resale—everyone wants at least four bedrooms these days.”

  I nodded. It was practical advice. “I’m thinking an open landing in front of the bedrooms that looks down on the great room.”

  She was sparkling with enthusiasm. “If I thought I had the energy and the know-how—and the money—I’d have bought this place myself. Come and look at the horrid kitchen.”

  We waxed rhapsodic about how much work the kitchen needed, including an expanse of wall begging to be knocked out for a sunporch and a larger dining area. The avocado stove and refrigerator were blatant invitations to new, larger builtins. For a while I forgot I wasn’t made of money, but I didn’t see how I couldn’t have things the way I wanted—which seemed to be the way she wanted as well—in five years. One step at a time.

  “I feel like I’m pressuring you,” Cinny admitted. “I should just shut up now”

  I took another look around.“Let’s make an offer,” I decided.

  “Now I know I said way too much.”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t. You read me right, that’s all. I want to dig myself in somewhere. I’ve got roots here, like you, but I need my own place.” I felt it was time for a little bit of plain speaking. “I’m what I am. There’s no princess charming going to ride into my life and present me with a stage to play my days out on. I’m one of those women who makes her own stage.”

  She took my hand, for just a second, squeezing my fingertips before she let go. “I know just what you mean. I’ve always wanted to make my own stage, but I never had the courage it took to get off the ones everyone else pushed me onto. I wasn’t ready for the dark space in between their stages and my own.” She turned away and I almost didn’t catch the rest of what she said. “I’m still not ready to start over.”

  “Has it been hard?”

  She drew one finger across the dusty surface of a countertop. “Yes—but not as hard as I thought it would be. I thought I’d get hate mail. I thought someone would spray-paint my car. Two people have cut me dead at the market, but that’s it. You know how some people get.”

  “The morons, mostly. Yeah, I know. Can’t handle what’s different.”

  “My dad is really uncomfortable around me all the time now. My mom sometimes cries for no reason. My sisters are okay, but my brother just thinks I’m going through yet another Cinny-being-selfish phase.” She sighed.

  “I found out who my friends are, and the real ones have been fine. But I walk into some place like Denton’s and there’s a chill in the air. It hurts.”

  “Would it help to know that the chill has always been there for me? In a way, it’s not personal.”

  She turned back to me, her face a mix of shadows and regrets. “Oh, I know that. It’s impersonal and very personal all at the same time. Some of it’s because I waited so long to do it, and I told so many lies to hide who I really was. I should never have married Sam and I feel bad about that, really bad.” She plastered a smile on her face with an effort. “Let me get my briefcase and we’ll write up an offer.”

  I didn’t mind changing the subject. She’d shared some personal stuff though we didn’t know each other very well and I was content with that.

  She was very methodical, writing up the offer with contingencies spelled out so the seller wouldn’t have any reason to counter-offer and perhaps suggest a higher price. There had been several construction reports already done on the property for earlier sales that fell through, and Cinny took the known problems—a roof leak in one corner was the biggest one—into account. “They ought to be glad to get this much, and before winter, too. Apparently, they moved into one of the developments north of Minneapolis. Dot-com money, I think. I would guess any offer that pays off the mortgage here would make them happy. If not, they’ll counter.”

  We talked about whether I could qualify quickly fo
r a loan. The more quickly we promised them their money, the less likely they would want more. I was paying a lot less than I thought I’d have to by way of a mortgage, but there was loads of renovation to do, most of which couldn’t be undertaken until next spring. That gave me time to pick a contractor, get permit approvals, plan the garden and landscaping.

  The prospect of building my own nest was exciting. My enthusiasm must have engaged her because she lingered just to chat. We were laughing about something silly when my stomach growled.

  Cinny’s gaze flicked to her watch. “Goodness, look at the time.”

  “You must have somewhere to be,” I said.

  “No, no, I just didn’t want to take your whole evening.”

  Get the message, I thought again. “I’m in no hurry to be anywhere. But you must have plans.”

  “Laundry,” she said drily. “It’s not like I’m dating or anything. The dating pool here is nonexistent.”

  “I noticed,” I said, equally dry “Let’s grab something to eat and complain about the lack of babes.”

  She laughed and gathered her things. We had steaks and a bottle of wine at the dinner house near the interstate, and then she drove me back to my car. We must have talked about everything, because dinner took almost three hours. Books and television I’d missed when I was out of the country, places I’d been, and places she wanted to go. Movies and gossip and even a little bit about women in our past. We both had real short lists.

  There was a moment before I got out of the car when I might have hugged her or something, but that wasn’t the way it was. Not yet. There was nothing in her manner that I could take for even the remotest invitation. Nevertheless, as I drove toward my parents’ home, I considered the day to be a huge success. My strategies were working. She liked me. Spending time with her had only intensified how I felt about her. We had plenty to talk about. She wanted to travel and it’s something I love to do, too. That alone could take us a lifetime to do together.