Captive Hearts

by Harper Bliss

  “Laura. No. You mustn’t think that way.”

  “I don’t. Not anymore. But part of growing up is giving in to that relentless desire for your parents to be proud of you. I used to pray to God that I would wake up straight the next day. Vowed I’d do anything.”

  I can’t help it. I reach for Laura’s hand and cover it with mine. “But look what a beautiful person you’ve become.”

  “I’m not,” Laura says resolutely and pulls her hand away. “I’ve done terrible things.”

  “I’m sure whatever you’ve done is no match for how poorly they’ve treated you.” I’m a little stung by how violently Laura drew her hand away.

  “Tess, please. You don’t know anything about me. You just don’t know.”

  The exhilaration of attending the game together and the intimacy we’ve been sharing over this cozy table is quickly seeping out of me. An unreasonable anger rises within me as well. Fury at Laura’s parents for being so cruel and shortsighted. For loving Jesus more than their own daughter. “You can tell me.” I deliberately keep my voice low and soothing.

  “I can’t. Trust me, you do not want to know.” Laura sounds like a trapped animal.

  If I push a little bit harder, I think I can get her to open up to me. She’s fidgeting with a napkin and her glance skitters here and there—never crossing mine—but she’s still in her seat and she has told me more tonight than on any other occasion. We’re growing closer. This is my chance. “But I do. I do want to know.” I want to know everything there is to know about you. Everything you’ll let me.

  Laura hangs her head low, stares at her hands. “It’s not—” She’s interrupted by the door of the bar opening with a crash and two people stumbling into the place.

  “Look, Myriam. It’s Tess Douglas. Football royalty!”

  Of all the times to run into Myriam and Isabella. I can just stop myself from rolling my eyes at them. Laura was about to open up to me. I know it. That chance has now swiftly come and gone. Myriam and Isabella stagger toward us, obviously inebriated, and they both start pawing me.

  “Coach did a great job tonight, Tessie,” Myriam murmurs.

  “And who have we here?” Isabella butts in. “We’re not interrupting are we?”

  I have half a mind to tell her that, yes, they are rudely interrupting, but it would be wasted on their drunken minds.

  “Hi. I’m Laura. New in town.” Laura has pasted a convivial smile on her face and extends her hand to both of them. Isabella just shakes it, but to my horror, Myriam has the audacity to plant a kiss on top of it.

  Thankfully, Laura hasn’t lost her sense of humor and she laughs off Myriam’s silly gesture.

  “We’re the other lesbians in Nelson,” Isabella says.

  “Then I guess that makes me the fourth.” Laura seems to have perked up. Perhaps she’s just glad to have gotten out of an uncomfortable conversation.

  “Let’s drink to that!” Myriam says. “What are you ladies having?”

  “I’m fine,” Laura says.

  “The one merlot they serve here.” I hold up my near-empty glass.

  “Then that’s what we’ll be having as well.” Myriam saunters to the bar to order.

  “Did you go to the game?” Isabella asks.

  “How could I not have? It was Laura’s first Cougars game.” I resign myself to the fact that my opportunity to learn more about Laura has passed. There will be others. This is one of the perils of small town living. Around every corner awaits someone who knows you and who has something to say to you. Most of the time, I find this a pleasing thought, though not tonight. Nelson is not a big city in which you can disappear and find anonymity. But, I had planned to introduce Laura to Myriam and Isabella. It’s actually fun to be able to hang out with them without feeling like the fifth wheel on the wagon.

  “Where do you hail from, Laura?” Isabella asks. Myriam has come back with the drinks and taken a seat around the table with us.

  I watch Laura rattle off her spiel of how she ended up in Nelson of all places. She tells them about her aunt, Chicago, the work she’s doing for The Ledger and her daily runs. I enjoy observing her, the way she makes minute gestures with her hands—which makes me think of what she said about the tremors in her arm when she draws—and scratches her temple when she contemplates a reply to one of Isabella and Myriam’s questions. They’re really giving her the third degree now. I’m inclined to step in, make them back off a bit, but Laura is a big girl. She can fend for herself.

  I look at her sideways. She has the most beautiful blue eyes—so rare in someone with dark hair like hers. She still hasn’t had her hair cut. Does that mean she listened to me when I said I liked it like that? I wonder what it is that she thinks is so awful that she can’t tell me. I simply can’t imagine someone as soft-spoken and gentle-minded as Laura to have done something terrible.

  “What do you think, Tess?” Laura asks me.

  Our eyes meet and I can tell from the way she’s looking at me that she knows I wasn’t following the conversation, that this is her way of inviting me to rejoin. And in that instant, be it my imagination or not, I can feel there is something between us. Whether she likes it or not.

  Eleven

  Laura

  After that evening at the football game and the subsequent drinks, it’s as though my life changes, almost overnight. There’s barbecue night at Myriam and Isabella’s. I have dinner with Coach Ingersley, Megan, and the children. I get my hair cut at Connie’s who fills me in on all the local gossip about people I don’t know. And Tess and I end up seeing each other almost every other day.

  Yet, I manage to avoid coming close to telling her about Tracy like I did that night after the game. If the other two hadn’t come in, I don’t know what would have happened. If I would have told her or not. I don’t even know how I could possibly get those words to cross my lips.

  Even to Aunt Milly, whose mental state seems to be worsening by the day, it is clear that I’m becoming happier, more myself again, less worried about keeping my guard up at all times.

  Most of all, I enjoy Tess’s company. So much so that, these days, when I draw on the computer, my hand only shakes half as much as it did before I attended my first Cougars game.

  It’s still spring in Texas but the first signs of the summer humidity already hang in the air on the day that Tess asks me to go for a picnic in a spot she hasn’t shown me yet.

  “Okay,” I say, “but only if we run there.” My stamina has increased exponentially and after visiting Aunt Milly at Windsor Oaks I’ve taken up the habit of straying off my habitual path and exploring the outskirts of the town.

  “No can do, Baker,” Tess says. “I know you don’t drink but I’m planning to take an excellent bottle of vino just for little old moi. It’s not that I don’t want to, of course. You must know that I’m dying to demonstrate my excellent fitness levels to you, but someone has to carry the wares. You can run. You’ll be nice and sweaty when you arrive. It’s a good look on you.”

  I shake my head at her. “You know what, Tess? A simple no would have sufficed.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s hardly the Douglas way.” She shoots me one of her grins—I have noticed that they’ve become more and more seductive. But she hasn’t asked me out anymore, though we go out together plenty. Just not as a couple. Which is, perhaps, not the way Tess wants it, but it suits me just fine.

  Tess drives us a few miles out of town, to the middle of nowhere, then stops. “This is it,” she says.

  “There’s nothing here,” I reply.

  “That’s the whole point.” She bounds out of the car and grabs the picnic basket from the trunk. “Just you and me and the Texas skyline. How does it compare to Chicago’s?”

  “So much more impressive.” I follow Tess onto a field. “Aren’t we trespassing?”

  “Nope. This is Douglas land. My land, in fact. I could build a house here if I wanted to.” She turns around and looks at me triumphantly.

 
“Really?”

  “Well, I’d need to get permission, of course. I haven’t actually looked into it. But one can dream.”

  “One can.”

  Tess starts walking again. She lets her gaze drift over the surroundings, as if she’s looking for the perfect spot. “Here will do.” She takes a few more paces to the right and spreads out the blanket.

  “You have excellent taste.” I look her over as she distributes the goodies she brought. Bread, made fresh by Earl, who has recently taken up baking as a hobby. The bottle of wine for her. A bottle of San Pellegrino for me. Egg salad. Grapes. Bread and cold cuts.

  Once we’re both seated, Tess’s legs tucked away chastely under a black summer dress with huge white polka dots, and beverages are poured, Tess says, “I just wanted to thank you for brightening up my life. I wasn’t unhappy, but you really have done so. I wanted you to know that.” She holds up her glass for me to clink mine against.

  “Way to get the heavy stuff out of the way.” I softly touch my glass against hers.

  “That’s not heavy. Wait until I start on my speech,” she jokes, then sips from her wine. “Gosh, that’s good.” She glances over. “You really never drink?”

  Here come the questions, I think. I also can’t picture myself enjoying alcohol ever again after what happened the last time I drank. “I used to and I could surely use a drink from time to time to lessen my inhibitions in social situations, but I feel so good since I stopped drinking. A life without hangovers isn’t so bad.” I chuckle, hoping that my response was light-hearted enough—despite the reason for my not drinking being anything but.

  “Is there a specific reason why you stopped?” Tess asks. Over the past few weeks, ever since I almost spilled the beans at that bar, Tess and I have spent a lot of time together, but never in a setting like this. There were always people around, even just Mary at the café. And we’ve worked hard on The Ledger. I’ve even gotten some calls from local business owners asking me to work my magic on them. Even more so since Tess gave me a free ad in the last issue of The Ledger.

  I gather she has brought me here, to this idyllic, discreet spot, to find out more about me. I understand the compulsion, but I don’t feel like ruining this beautiful afternoon with my life’s sob story, so I decide to turn the tables. “Is there a specific reason why you do drink?”

  “There are many.” Tess drinks again and paints an overjoyed expression on her face, then smacks her lips. “Because it’s delicious. Because it makes me a little more audacious than I would otherwise be. Because it takes the edge off after a long day. And I guess, also, because it’s just how we grow up these days. You hanker for it as a teenager, then you reach the legal drinking age, and there are no more limits.”

  “Look, Tess, I’m going to be honest with you.” I don’t want to lie to her, not even a little white lie. “There is a very specific reason why I don’t drink anymore, but I’m not ready to talk about that. Is that okay?”

  “Very much so. I appreciate your honesty.” She has such a carefree air about her, as though no matter what I say, anything would work for her today. Perhaps I read it wrong, and she did only bring me here to enjoy my company, the quiet, and the view.

  “Thank you.” We fall into an easy silence and I drink in my surroundings. The sun hangs low in the sky, not quite ready to hide behind the horizon just yet, and casts a pale-orange glow over the infinite green around us. “I’m so glad I didn’t move to another city,” I muse. “It would have been so much easier to move to New York or San Francisco. Easier for work. Easier to remain discreet. Easier for a lot of things, but I would have never even known this existed. There’s a purity here. Maybe it’s being surrounded by nature. Or just the general, more gentle way of the people I’ve met here. It’s less harsh. Less demanding.”

  Tess ponders this for a moment. “Small town life comes with its challenges too.”

  “Everything does.” Although, at the moment, I feel entirely unchallenged.

  “Have some Douglas bread. Mom is going crazy now that Dad spends so much time in the kitchen. It’s safe to say two people have suffered for this bread.” She tears off a chunk with her hands and passes me the loaf.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I ask while I rip off my own piece of bread. I smell it while I wait for a reply. I’ve always held off asking Tess too many intimate questions out of fear they would bring up more reciprocal ones.

  “Anything.” Her mouth is full, which makes me snicker.

  “When was your last serious relationship?”

  “Serious, huh? When you live here, where there are not many takers, everything always tends to become much more serious than it has to. Because of the distance. I don’t know. Doing long-distance always seems to speed things up because there’s so much more talking and processing involved. But… to answer your question. The last time I dated someone for longer than a few months was three very long years ago. Her name was Marla and she lived in Conroe, which is a bearable number of miles away.” Tess takes a sip of wine and slips a grape into her mouth before continuing. “We met at an LGBT fundraiser event in Houston. Hit it off. Went on a few dates. Started referring to each other as ‘partner’. She met my parents. I didn’t meet hers because they live in Florida. But, you know, I wouldn’t leave Nelson for her, and she didn’t want to move here.”

  “To this metropolis? How dare she?” It doesn’t look as though Tess is still cut up about Marla.

  “I know, right? Anyway, since then, I’ve always tried to make it very clear from the beginning that I’m not moving to Houston or Dallas or Conroe for anyone. I have land in Nelson, for Christ’s sake. Why would I leave my land?”

  “You’d be crazy to.” I reshuffle my legs because they’re starting to tingle from sitting in the same position. “That’s a big sacrifice to make though.”

  Tess sticks out her bottom lip and shakes her head. “Not for me. I only have one family. I wouldn’t know what I’d do without them. I talk to my sister every single day and I don’t go two without seeing her. Maybe it’s a twin thing. But I’d miss them too much if I moved away, which, eventually, would taint the relationship. Of course, I do understand that this is one of the main reasons I’m single. I mean, it can’t be lack of charm or anything like that, can it?” She flutters her eyelashes.

  “It most certainly cannot.” I happily concur.

  “And the thought of not seeing the kids. And missing a Cougars home game. Nu-uh. My life is here. No matter how limiting that might be.”

  “No wonder you’re so happy I live here now.” I hope she takes it as the casual remark that it’s meant to be.

  “You have no earthly idea.” She purses her lips and holds my gaze for an instant.

  “I’m glad I met you too. You’ve made my life in Nelson so much easier and agreeable.”

  “And I gave you a job that brought in a thousand bucks. Don’t forget!”

  “And introduced me to Myriam and Isabella,” I add.

  “Who are dears, really. Dears with big mouths who drink too much, but dears nonetheless.”

  “I haven’t met anyone in this town who even comes close to being timid,” I tease. “Or minces their words in the slightest.”

  “It’s the Texas way. What can I say? We live and talk large.”

  “Never in my life could I have imagined that I would ever end up in Texas. In a town the size of a postage stamp. Doing up a house day-by-day. Watching YouTube videos on how to apply wallpaper.”

  “How many times has my dad offered you to help with that? But no, the lady must prove her independence by suffering through it on her own.”

  “The lady must. It’s important to me to do it on my own. For the sense of completion it will give me once it’s done. So I can look at it and say, I did this.”

  “How’s your arm, by the way? All that painting isn’t having too bad an effect?” Tess refills her wine glass.

  “It only shakes when I draw. It’s the strangest thing. I suspect
it might not be a purely physical thing. If anything, doing some manual labor helps make it stronger.”

  “But it’s better?”

  I’m strangely touched by Tess’s concern. “Yes. Quite a bit.”

  I can almost see her swallow her next question. So I help her out by asking one of my own. “Any other exciting women in your life since Marla?”

  Tess stares at me for a second. Is she trying to remember or considering me for that role?

  “I had a one-night stand with a woman in Houston. It wasn’t very satisfying.”

  As a joke, I whistle through my teeth. Though, I guess, seeing as Tess didn’t really enjoy it, it’s a little inappropriate.

  “I’m just an old-fashioned gal, you know? Not that crazy about putting out on the first date. I like to introduce them to my momma and poppa first.” Tess snickers.

  In that moment, I know what I like about her so much. She doesn’t take herself seriously at all. Unlike Tracy, who was always very serious about everything—especially herself.

  I laugh and let my head fall back, looking up at the sky. “Uh-oh. There comes trouble.”

  “Is it a cowboy with a gun?” Tess asks, her chin tilted and the last of the sun catches in her hair, before it’s swallowed by a massive black cloud.

  “It’s a big fat menacing cloud.”

  “That’s the East Texas spring for you.” Tess maneuvers herself up. “Best pack up.”

  “Thank you for this,” I say, intently holding her gaze before she starts putting the leftover bread away. “It was great fun.”

  Twelve

  Tess

  “She’s driving me crazy, Megs. And she doesn’t even know it.”