by Harper Bliss
“What are you making for Kay tonight?” Mom breaks the silence.
“Roasted chicken with asparagus and bacon vinaigrette.”
“Do you need a hand?”
I don’t know what to say. Of all the surprising things my mother has said since she arrived at the cabin, this suggestion amazes me the most. “Sure.” I shuffle to the edge of my seat. “How about another glass of wine?”
“I would love that.”
I know it’s not much, but the light pang of relief running through me is, at least, something.
“It’s my understanding she’s quite fond of you,” Mom says when I return with the bottle of wine.
I’ve been out to my parents for twenty years and I’ve never brought a girlfriend home, never even gave the possibility a second thought. I can’t help but go on the defense. “I know you don’t like her, but—”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say, Ella. I couldn’t be more thrilled for you if it worked out. I mean it.”
“Yes, well, it’s complicated.”
For the time it takes us to finish that second glass of wine, my mother seems like a different person. Perhaps she feels temporarily freed from the crosses she bears in life. Or perhaps she’s over the moon to have something that resembles a normal conversation with her daughter.
“I agree that love and relationships can be complicated, but, as your father would say, ‘don’t destroy it by overthinking it’.” This strikes me as an exact phrase from Kay’s big book of wisdom. It also shows me that the way I’ve thought about my parents’ marriage all these years might have been a tad too superficial.
Chapter Eighteen
By the time Kay arrives I’m still so frazzled that her soft knock on the door startles me, but her presence, nonetheless, has an instant calming effects on my nerves—like that first dip in the lake after dark.
“I waited an hour after I saw your mother’s car leave the lot. Not that I was counting down the minutes.” She holds up a bottle of champagne.
“Are we celebrating something?” I lean my hip against the kitchen counter and look Kay over. She’s wearing extra tight linen shorts and a halter top that accentuates her shoulders in a way that makes my mouth water.
“Our first date.” She steps closer. “I was expecting smoke in your kitchen and the irresistible smell of burning meat. Color me surprised.” While she hands me the bottle, she gazes deep into my eyes.
“My mom helped me cook.” I fight the urge to lean into her, to feel her support.
“How are you?” Gently, she places a hand on my shoulder. “Are you in the mood for this?”
“I’m exhausted from slaving over this chicken.” I point at the oven.
“How about I pour us a glass of that?” She nods at the bottle. “And we sit for a few minutes before we eat.”
“Okay.” The afternoon’s tension slides off me with Kay’s arrival, leaving my muscles limp, and my brain a numb mass.
I wait on the porch, in the same chair I sat in when my mother was here. After Kay has sat down and we’ve lifted our glasses, toasting what we insist on calling our ‘first date’, I glance at her, so relieved to sit opposite someone whose face relaxes me and whose presence doesn’t undo me.
“She practically gave us her blessing.” The bubbles burst on my tongue as I sip and scan Kay’s face for a reaction.
“Well, that kind of takes all the fun out of it.” A huge smile breaks on her face. “Seriously, though. Do you want to talk about it?”
I shake my head. I’ve done enough of that sort of talking for one day. “No. We made progress, I guess. Actually had a conversation. She shed some light on things that were never very clear to me, but now, I just want to be with you. Enjoy your company.”
“Sounds good to me.” The tenderness in Kay’s smile all but floors me.
“I also really, really want to kiss you again.” In the depths of my gut, I already know where this night is headed—how I want it to end.
“Now that we have your mother’s blessing, I guess that can be arranged.” Kay puts her glass on the table, leans back in her chair, pins her dark, sparkling eyes on me, and beckons me over with two fingers. “Come here.”
My legs are grateful they only have to take two steps to reach Kay’s chair. I plant my knees astride her thighs and sink down, peering at her from above.
Kay traces a finger across my cheekbone, down to my lips, before clasping her hands behind my neck and pulling me close. When we kiss, everything falls away. It’s just her and me. The lake behind us. The electricity between us. I haven’t had a moment like this in years. A moment during which all thought stops, every thought process frozen, the merest inkling of a negative assumption killed instantly by the soft sensation of her lips, the gentle but distinct pull of her hands. The throbbing between my legs.
When we break for air and linger in the heavenly silence for a moment, the smell of burnt chicken reaches my nose.
“Oh, shit.” I push myself off Kay and run to the kitchen.
“Careful,” I hear her say from right behind me.
I grab the oven mitts from the counter and yank the tray out of the oven. The skin on top is charred to a black crisp, but most of it seems all right. Relieved, I turn off the oven and face her.
“Domestic goddess at your service.” I burst out into a silly giggle. “The bird is ready.”
“Don’t worry, I like my chicken nice and crispy.” Kay peers at the stove behind me. “Do you have anything else cooking?”
“No, the accompaniments are chilling in the fridge.”
“Good.” Kay nods and grabs my hand before pushing my back against the refrigerator. Her knee presses between my legs and her lips are hungry on mine. Looks like the chicken and I are not the only ones overheating.
I let my hands wander across her back, my fingers finding their way underneath the hem of her tank top, meeting skin. Kay’s lips leave mine. She kisses my chin, starts on my neck, and I’m ready. I couldn’t care less about the chicken, or the champagne, or Dr. Hakim, or all the faults in my personality. My mind is quiet, too saturated with lust and desire to start a debate on the appropriateness of this.
“Sorry.” Kay pants, her eyes glazing over. “Lost control there for a minute.”
Already, I miss her mouth on mine, her hands in my neck, her knee between my thighs. I shake my head, bite my lip. “I want you.”
“God, I want you too.” Her voice is a strangled whisper. “But let’s eat first.” She plants her palm on the door of the fridge next to my head. “You’ve gone to all this trouble.” The back of her other hand caresses my jaw. “Besides, this frenzy is not exactly what I had in mind.”
I understand what she means, but this frenzy is exactly what I need. Yet, I nod, yielding. In any event, it’s probably not a bad idea to have a meal first.
“Are you all right?” Kay glares at me, the intensity in her eyes enough to make my knees buckle a bit. Since Thalia, I haven’t been with anyone—not even with myself.
* * *
After Kay has pronounced my lemon-infused chicken a resounding, if surprising, success and we’ve loaded the plates into the dishwasher, I bring out the whiskey. I bought the brand Kay has made a habit of pouring me and the glint of approval in her glance probably satisfies me more than it should.
“You seem different tonight,” she says, peering pensively over the lake. Night has all but fallen, the only remnant of the day a grayish sheen on the surface of the water, before it turns black again.
“Maybe I am different.” I follow her gaze over the lake. “That’s why I came here, after all.” But I don’t want to talk about myself anymore. I want to know about her.
“I’ve been meaning to ask.” Kay turns toward me, beating me to asking her a question. “You keep saying that your romantic relationships tend to turn sour, that, after a while, you chase your girlfriends away… as a contender for that title”—a slight tilt of her lips—“I’m quite curious as to what
exactly goes wrong.”
I look deep into her eyes. A contender for that title? My skin breaks out in goose bumps. “I’ll try to answer your question.” My throat has gone dry. “But after that, you have to promise me it will be all about you.”
Kay chuckles, but only briefly. “I solemnly swear to tell you a bedtime story about my youth.” Her features fall into a serious expression. “I’m not asking to give you a hard time, Ella. I’m asking because I have no interest in being someone you fall for for all the wrong reasons.” A new intensity glints in her eyes. “I’m not fooling around here.”
I nod my understanding. Possibly, I’ve been too wrapped up in my own feelings to acknowledge that Kay has them, too. I inhale deeply—as if every breath I take at West Waters will clear my lungs of city debris—to win some time. “I guess, on the surface, despite being a science geek, I’m fairly easy to, uh, go for.” I send her a shy smile. “And I have just enough game to lure someone into a first date, charm them and—if we like each other—set things in motion. When I fall in love, I tend to fall hard and fast.” I have to clear my throat, because the case in point is too obvious. Saying the words out loud, it hits me that, ever since I arrived at West Waters, I’ve fallen into the same old trap—despite my trepidations and what I thought was careful monitoring of my emotions and motivations.
“Don’t go there, Ella.” Kay’s voice startles me. Can she read my mind? “Just tell me what happened with Thalia.”
I take a sip of whiskey, and another. Thalia. So out of my league I just had to have her, if only to prove to myself that, in the end, it could never work. Prove that kind of love was not for me.
“When I met Thalia, I basically lost my mind. Physically, she could not have resembled ‘my type’ more. Sometimes, despite how ugly it ended between us, when I think of Thalia, I still feel it. There was something about her smile that floored me. Something about the way she focused her attention on me when I talked that made me feel as if I were the world’s most fascinating speaker. I met her and I had to give it a try. We met at her art exhibition and, somehow, we clicked. Something fell into place. Love at first sight and all of that. Within a month we were practically living together. All the lesbian stereotype boxes checked.” I exhale a nervous giggle. “It was like the beginning of any new relationship. Intense. Delirious. I was careful to reveal my true self very slowly. Although I think I only started driving her totally crazy around the sixth month.” I glance at Kay: eyes focused, sunk into pensive listener mode. Why am I telling her this? Will it make a difference?
“Thalia didn’t have it all figured out either, but at least she didn’t have my temper. I know I hide it well, but I have an extremely short fuse. When my brain crashes, just like a computer’s hard drive can, everything goes black, and I lash out. I lose all perspective because, in my mind, it’s all turning to shit so fast, I can’t keep up. Much like a spoiled toddler who doesn’t get her way. No more big picture. Just vile, ugly words pouring from my mouth.”
It’s the built-up anger inside of you trying to find a way out, Dr. Hakim said the first time I tried to tell him about that.
“I don’t know if it’s because snide remarks, unfair criticism, and sudden outbursts of anger were de rigueur when I was growing up, or if it’s just another fabulous personality trait I inherited from my mother… Perhaps a bit of both.” I can’t look at Kay anymore. “But I do know it’s the root of most of my problems. A poisonous temper will destroy the best of relationships, and it doesn’t exactly help with my self-image either. Always having to pick up the pieces, apologizing for things I said in the heat of the moment, facing myself in the mirror after another senseless fit of rage. Because, in the end, it’s hardly ever about the other person. It only happens because, most days, I hate myself so much.” The tears come again. “A bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, actually.” I find a stray napkin on the table and dab it against my eyes.
“I never told anyone about this, only my doctor.” In that respect, Kay could not be more different from Thalia. “I’ve been working on it with him. Learning to recognize the signs, to start with. Trying to eliminate the origin of the rage and feelings of hatred. Reprogram my behavior, basically.”
“The real reason why you came back.” Kay’s voice sounds more hesitant than I’ve ever heard it. Not even someone with her patience and inherent wisdom can easily process what I just said. She’s also not my therapist. A few hours ago we were making out like frisky teenagers, now, every notion of romance has fled.
I nod, certain I have blown my chances with her as well. I said too much. Revealed too much of my darkness. This is not chatter for a first date. “You don’t have to stay,” I whisper. “I understand.”
“What kind of friend would that make me?”
Friend? A mere half hour ago she referred to herself as a potential girlfriend.
“Maybe it’s best if you go, either way.” Somehow, I manage to squeeze the words out of my throat, despite a big red warning sign flashing in my brain. This is why Dr. Hakim and I both agreed I shouldn’t get involved with someone at this time. It was always going to be too messy, too confusing, too destructive—and too distracting.
“Ella?” There’s hurt in Kay’s voice now. “Don’t do this. Break the pattern. Recognize the signs.” I hear a sniffling sound coming from Kay’s end of the table, but I still can’t look at her.
“Why would you want me, Kay? There’s nothing here.” Frustrated, I tap my chest. “Only gloom and loss and disappointment.”
“Do you really think I’m going to let you do this after what you’ve just told me?”
“Fine.” I glare at her from under my lashes, taken aback by the sheen of tears on her cheeks, but, obviously, not taken aback enough. “Be my friend. I suppose life can get quite boring here at West Waters. How about I’ll be your distraction this Indian summer?”
“You can hold yourself in as low a regard as you damn well wish, Ella. Drown in your sea of negativity all you want. But I know why you came here and it wasn’t to insult me.” She shakes her head. “I refuse to be insulted by you, by what is clearly a result of your vulnerability.”
The force with which she delivers her argument takes the steam out of my trip into familiar dark, all-obliterating territory. I bite back the next venomous words that sit at the ready at the tip of my tongue.
“I also refuse to believe you only have bad sides. Would I be sitting here if I didn’t see the beauty in you? The kindness you’re so desperate to hide? The only thing that stands between this version of yourself you created in your head and the real, accomplished, smart, sensible, gorgeous woman that you are, is you, Ella. I won’t pretend to know what goes on in that tortured mind of yours, and I won’t sit here and proclaim it’s easy, but the truth is that it’s only as hard as you make it on yourself. And you’re making it very hard on yourself.”
“I can’t even roast a chicken properly.” I don’t mean it as a joke. In the state I’m in, everything is deadly serious, even something as silly and unimportant as the chicken.
“Only because I distracted you.” To my relief, Kay doesn’t laugh. Instead, she continues, “I guess the greatest thing you can achieve in life is to be completely at ease with yourself. To accept yourself for who you are, faults and all. I also believe that very few people ever reach that level of supreme enlightenment. The thing is, you don’t have to be perfect. It’s not a requirement for happiness.”
“You seem to be doing a pretty great job.”
Kay gives a loud huff. “What? Because I hang around here all day hoping to catch a glimpse of you?” She shoots me a crooked smile. “That’s only because I’m smitten.”
The warm glow from earlier descends on me again. I refrain from making a self-deprecating comment. Instead, I scan Kay’s face. Her almond-shaped eyes. Her nut-brown skin. Her lips. As much as I want to kiss them again, I’m too exhausted to even make it out of my chair, my body a limp mass of flesh and bones.
“
This was not how it was supposed to go.”
“Or maybe it was.” Kay pours us both a bit more whiskey. “Either way, we have all the time in the world.”
Chapter Nineteen
I wake up with Kay’s arm around me. My brain is fuzzy from the crying and the whiskey, but alert enough to remember that nothing happened, only a replay from the night before. I check the alarm clock. It’s 4.30 in the morning and, outside, the first light hasn’t broken through yet. Kay purrs softly behind me, her breath hot on the skin of my neck. Deep inside me, the throbbing ignites. It doesn’t help that her breasts poke against my back and that, when I glance down, I catch a glimpse of her strong, long fingers.
Slowly, I try to slide onto my back, attempting not to disturb her too much, but once I’ve managed to roll over, her hand rests dangerously close to my breast. Despite wearing a t-shirt, my nipple instantly reaches upward and any chance of more sleep leaves the room.
Kay stirs in her sleep, her breath on my cheek now, her chin resting on my shoulder. Physically, we could be closer, I guess, but not by much. It’s in my heart I feel closest to her, anyway. She stayed. She listened to me and decided not to leave.
In the circles I moved in in Boston—brainy university couples, glitzy art crowds, gay men in designer clothes and no one boasting less than a master’s degree—I never came across someone like Kay, and if I had, I most likely wouldn’t have given her the time of day. I always went for the likes of Thalia, well-dressed, well-off and no qualms about showing it. Mouthy, well-spoken women who wouldn’t dream of jumping into a lake naked. Women who had their heads too far up their own asses to give a much needed conversation an extra five minutes, or who reacted to one of my outbursts with stone-cold silence—the kind I knew so well from being raised by my mother.
