The Long Way Home

by Rachel Spangler

  Only three of the six students approved her announcement. The others were either Cubs fans or had no idea what sport she was talking about. She walked them out, threw her overnight bag into the trunk of her car, and headed for the library.

  Beth was waiting for her in the parking lot. She had on a white turtleneck under a red Cardinals T-shirt. Her dark ponytail was threaded through the back of a baseball cap, and her blue eyes sparkled beneath the bill. She would’ve been unbearably cute except that her dark blue jeans hugged her hips and thighs, adding a decidedly sexy touch to the sporty ensemble.

  Raine was still surprised that Beth had agreed to on the trip. After her and Kelly’s behavior at last week’s softball game, Raine was sure Beth would have some making up to do. When Chris called to say Beth would be joining them, he joked that her hot date must’ve disappointed her, which was probably truer than he knew.

  While Raine was sorry that Beth had such a terrible girlfriend, Kelly’s loss was her gain. They planned to meet the guys in St. Louis and stay the night. She couldn’t wait to spend time with Beth outside of Darlington, and she was eager to see if her good-girl persona would hold true in the big city.

  “Hey, you,” Beth said, tossing her bags into the backseat and getting in beside Raine. “Ready for some Cardinals baseball?”

  “I’ve been ready all week.” Raine pulled off campus onto the state highway that led away from Darlington. She hadn’t been out of town in six weeks, and her burdens lightened as soon as she passed that stupid city-limits sign.

  “Thanks for driving,” Beth said. “I’m terrified of driving in the city. I even hate it on the interstate.”

  “A lot of people around here are like that. My parents are afraid of the city too.” Raine shrugged. “Maybe that’s why I loved my early days of zipping around Chicago. There’s something liberating about facing your parents’ worst fears and surviving. It frees you up to believe they were wrong about other things too.”

  “Your parents were wrong about a lot of things,” Beth said quietly.

  “Yeah, they were. They told me I’d never make it if people knew I was gay. I’ve been proving them wrong ever since.” Raine was both proud and sad about that fact. “But that’s not good road-trip talk. Why don’t you tell me what changed your mind about coming with us?”

  “That’s not good road-trip conversation either.”

  “I doubt that. Seems that you’ve got woman troubles, which is the perfect reason to get away. Distance offers perspective.”

  Beth smiled weakly. “We aren’t going far enough to get the perspective I need.”

  “We’ll be in this car for over an hour, and we have to talk about something. Why don’t we take turns? I’ll tell you about my last significant relationship, and then you tell me about yours.” Without waiting for Beth to agree, Raine began to talk about Ali Suppan, starting with when they’d met at a HRC fund-raiser and ending with her leaving because Raine was poor and boring.

  “I have a hard time believing anyone could find you boring.”

  “Well, I am.” Raine laughed. “Women want Raine St. James to be exciting, dangerous, and controversial. They want to be seen on my arm at all the big events. They expect me to always have something witty to say. They want to date a celebrity, and they always end up disappointed when I don’t live up to my reputation.”

  Raine wasn’t sure where her tirade had come from. It was true and she’d known it for some time now, but she’d never told anyone. Beth’s silence seemed to indicate that the blunt summation had surprised her too.

  Finally, Beth squeezed Raine’s hand. “Perhaps you should stop dating girls who’re only interested in Raine and focus on ones who’d be better suited to Rory.”

  Raine’s throat went dry as Beth lightly caressed her hand. Her smooth skin, paired with Beth’s intimate tone, nearly clouded over the fact that Beth was suggesting that Raine should go back to being Rory.

  “None of the women I know would’ve given me a second glance back when I was Rory, and I don’t blame them.”

  “I do. Everything good about Raine stems from Rory. She may not have been as fancy or as polished, and she certainly wasn’t as angry. But your charisma, your exuberance, your defiance, your sense of humor were all there before Raine came along. You might not have been able to see it, but I did, and so did everyone else who knew you as Rory.”

  Beth spoke so confidently that Raine didn’t dare challenge her. She was eager to let this conversation drop and just focus on the feel of Beth’s hand on her own. Why were they ruining the moment by talking about something she didn’t want to think about? She’d spent ten years teaching herself to be Raine so she’d feel confident in who she was and how people saw her. She didn’t want to hear that some people liked Rory better.

  “It’s your turn now,” Raine said after a moment. “How’d you and Kelly hook up?”

  Beth inhaled a breath and released it slowly. She probably hadn’t told many people this story, if she’d ever told it at all, so Raine remained quiet and let Beth gather herself.

  “When my parents died while I was in college, I was lost without them. I could hardly get out of bed in the morning, much less focus on their wills, the deeds to the farm, and all the inheritance taxes. I was a mess, and while everyone in town was so supportive, I didn’t even know how to start executing my parents’ last wishes. I worked with Kelly’s dad. He was my accountant and helped handle some of the financial stuff, but I was a basket case, and I took up a lot of his time.

  “I was almost ready to give up when Kelly stepped in. She wasn’t a CPA yet, but she knew enough to get me through the initial stages of inheriting and selling the farm. She would come over a few nights a week to check on me, and eventually we talked less about the farm and more about ourselves. We became friends. She helped me through the hardest time of my life.”

  “When did you start going out?”

  “It didn’t happen all at once. We were each other’s firsts, and neither of us was completely sure what we were doing. And Kelly was always afraid of being found out. It was a year before we actually slept together.”

  “Kelly was afraid of being found out? I thought you wanted to remain closeted too.”

  “I worried about betraying the people in town who’d been so good to me. I wanted to live up to the kindness they’d shown me, but I was also falling in love for the first time. It was hard to hide those feelings, especially after the pain and grief of losing my parents.”

  Raine was angry again. Kelly had killed Beth’s desire to share something so pure as her first love, and the town of Darlington had made her feel like she had to choose between being cared for and being herself. “You’ve lived like that all these years?”

  “I didn’t intend to. I thought things would get better, that she’d come around, but instead I’ve become more like her. Hiding is almost second nature to me. It used to bother me that she never stayed the night, but I rarely think about it now.”

  “She doesn’t stay the night?” Raine was so appalled she barely kept the car from swerving off the road. “I’m not perfect. I’ve had a few one-night stands, but I always stick around until morning.”

  “It’s not that she doesn’t want to,” Beth said defensively.

  “She just wants to protect her own ass more.”

  “You don’t understand what it’s like.”

  “You’re right.” Raine let out a bitter laugh. “I have no idea what it’s like to lie about the most important person in my life, and I hope I never do. If I ever fall in love, I’ll want the whole world to know it.”

  “Some of us don’t need public declarations to feel validated.”

  “That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve them, Beth.”

  Raine thought she detected a tremble in Beth’s hand that still rested on hers, but when she tried to meet Beth’s eyes, she looked away. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

  “Sure.” Raine shrugged. The topic upset her as m
uch as it did Beth, and she didn’t want to think about what that meant. “Who’s your favorite Cardinal of all time?”

  Beth smiled. “Stan Musial.”

  Raine let the baseball talk lift her spirits, but the sadness she sensed in Beth’s account of falling in love only to have that joy overshadowed by fear and paranoia would haunt her for a long time. Someone ought to thrash Kelly for putting Beth through that turmoil and shake Beth for letting her.

  *

  Beth and Rory arrived early enough to check into their hotel room and walk down to the new Busch Stadium. Rory had never been there and wanted to explore a little before they met Chris and Tyler. As they stepped out of the shadows of the concourse into the sunlight of the stands, Rory abruptly stopped at the breathtaking view. “I’ve really missed this,” she said.

  “There’s nothing like your home field.” Beth was giddy at the pure enjoyment on Rory’s face. The view from where they stood was beautiful, but not because of the brilliant green of the grass or the red dirt of the infield. The most striking part was the woman standing next to her.

  Rory’s eyes were greener than the grass and the natural highlights of her chestnut hair more perfectly toned than the clay. The intricate lines of the stadium’s architecture were dull compared to the fine details of Rory’s dimples. Beth had always considered the ball field one of the prettiest sights she’d ever seen, but with Rory in the picture, she had no doubt which was the greater work of art.

  “Come on. Let’s get closer to the field. I want to watch batting practice,” Rory said. In one fluid motion she took Beth’s hand and turned them toward home plate. They wound their way between other bystanders and around the seats. Beth was amazed that she didn’t bump into anything, because she was focused exclusively on the fact that she was holding hands with a sexy, charismatic woman in the middle of a crowd.

  The connection probably meant nothing to Rory, who had a childlike exuberance about their surroundings, but Beth couldn’t think about anything else. Even when they reached the edge of the field and Rory began to chatter about which players had the best swing, all Beth could think about was the strong fingers that encompassed hers. Rory’s skin was softer than she’d expected, and warmer too, or maybe that was the warmth of her own arousal because it was spreading throughout Beth’s body now.

  She couldn’t believe Rory hadn’t noticed the physical contact, but that only heightened Beth’s awareness of their differences. Rory took casual contact like holding hands for granted. She didn’t consider who might be watching or what they might think. For Beth, though, the simple act of enjoying the way Rory absentmindedly ran her thumb gently across the top of her hand, without regard to where they were, was terrifying and liberating, not to mention completely foreign.

  “Hey, pretty ladies, can we buy you a drink?” someone called from behind them, and Beth pivoted to see Chris and Tyler coming toward them from the upper concourse. Instinctively she dropped Rory’s hand and stepped away.

  Only when the connection was broken did Rory seem to notice it had ever existed. She looked down at Beth’s hand and then up at her eyes, an unspoken question accompanying her frown. Then with a slight nod, she turned completely away from Beth to face the guys.

  “Hey, guys, great day for a ballgame.” Rory put on a smile, though this one didn’t show her dimples and the spark in her eyes had faded. “Bright sun, the wind’s blowing out, and plenty of girls in the outfield bleachers.” The transformation was complete. Rory had once again been engulfed by Raine.

  “Damn right,” Chris said, failing to notice anything wrong, but Beth knew her withdrawal had caused Rory’s. She justified her reaction in a number of ways. The guys’ arrival had startled her, her years of being closeted made hiding second nature, and most importantly, she had a girlfriend and shouldn’t be holding hands with anyone else. But deep down she was sure that she’d let her own fear ruin a beautiful moment.

  *

  Raine sat forward with her elbows on her knees, soaking up the expanse of the new Busch Stadium before her. It was the bottom half of the ninth and the Cardinals were down by two. Even as she struggled to fight off the melancholy that had threatened to overtake her since before the game, she was struck by her surroundings. She loved this place, and she loved this game. A collective energy in the ballpark was concentrated on the field, and Raine could practically feel the vibrations from all the good will being emitted around her. It had overwhelmed her the minute she arrived.

  Perhaps that was why she’d allowed herself to cross a line with Beth. She’d become swept up in the excitement and the thrill of sharing it with someone she thought felt the same way. Reaching out to Beth to strengthen their emotional connection with a physical one felt natural, and for those few minutes, everything was perfect. They were away from Darlington, away from Kelly, away from fear, and they were together. Or at least she thought so. But obviously Beth hadn’t been able to find pleasure in the connection because she was too busy watching over her shoulder for any sign of danger.

  Raine sat next to Beth for the entire game, but they spoke rarely. Raine was determined to enjoy the game, and Beth seemed equally determined to ignore what had happened between them as she sat quietly and concentrated on the playing field.

  She was beautiful. Raine was getting used to admiring her, even if Beth was closeted, in a relationship, and weighed down by emotional baggage. Their brief hand-holding session had only reinforced Raine’s suspicion that Beth’s skin was as supple as it looked, and Raine wondered if the rest of her body would feel the same way.

  Beth caught Raine watching her. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I, um…” Raine feared that her expression would make it clear what she’d been thinking about, so she quickly turned back to the game. “I was admiring the new stadium.”

  If Beth saw through that cover-up, she gave no indication. “It is amazing, isn’t it?”

  They both clapped as a Cardinal hit a ball into short right field for a single. “I’ve seen a lot of ballparks in a lot of cities. None of them compare to our home field.”

  “How many other ballparks have you been to?”

  “A lot. I try to see a game in every city I visit during the summer, and I’ve traveled a lot. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and of course both of the Chicago stadiums.” Raine would rather go to a ballgame than to a busy club or fancy reception, which had always irked her high-class girlfriends like Ali, since the fast crowd rarely appreciated the slow and deliberate beauty of the game. She considered Beth’s earlier comments about Raine versus Rory. Was she really happier when Rory surfaced?

  During a pause in the conversation, a cheer sounded for another Cardinal hit. “I’ve always wanted to see every major league ballpark. My father handed that dream down to me,” Beth said.

  “Yeah?” Raine glanced away from the game to study Beth, who was still facing the field, her blue eyes reflecting the vista before them. She rarely spoke of her parents, but their loss had profoundly altered Beth’s worldview. “How many ballparks have you seen?”

  “Just this one,” Beth replied with a sad, sheepish smile. “This is as far away from home as I’ve been since my parents died.”

  “Beth...” Raine didn’t know how to finish. She wanted to comfort Beth, to pull her close and soothe her, but she also wanted to shake her and yell that she had to stop hiding and start living.

  The crowd’s applause distracted her. The bases were loaded. She was still wrapped up in Beth, and she turned back to her to say so, but Beth was no longer looking at her. Along with forty-thousand other fans, Beth was now on her feet, her attention riveted on the man approaching the plate. It was the great slugger Albert Pujols.

  The crowd went wild. As he stepped into the batter’s box, the tension between Beth and Raine was transferred, or perhaps got sucked into, the tension of the game. Everyone around them had to feel it too. This man had the power to be a hero, to carry them all on the barrel of his bat
and out into the night sky. He could also fail them, reveal himself as nothing more than a man, leaving them to contemplate their own shortcomings. There was no in between.

  With the pitch, the crowd inhaled and held a collective breath. The crack of the bat caused them all to tense and rise on tiptoes, as if willing the ball to rise with them. Beth and Raine silently clutched each other’s arm as the ball sailed into the night sky. A heartbeat passed and then another, the sound of silence echoing throughout the crowd until the ball cleared the outfield wall, leaving an explosive roar in its wake.

  The magnitude of what they’d witnessed flooded the crowd, and Raine was swept away with them. A walk-off grand slam, the Holy Grail of baseball, and her excitement was too much to contain. Her disappointment at her earlier rejection forgotten, she threw her arms around Beth’s waist and picked her up in a bear hug.

  Beth must have been wrapped up in her own exuberance because this time she didn’t pull away. She wrapped her arms around Raine’s neck and hugged her fiercely. Their bodies came fully together—hips, stomachs, chests—and Raine felt Beth’s hands holding the back of her head.

  Having Beth’s body pressed against hers jolted her senses. She had a woman in her arms, a beautiful, sexy woman. She was clutching Beth tightly and being held in return. Suddenly the magnitude of the moment had nothing to do with baseball. As she set Beth down and steadied her with her hands at Beth’s waist, Raine could feel the supple curve of her hips and the underside of Beth’s breasts.

  Beth’s blue eyes were darker and deeper than Raine had ever seen them, their faces mere inches apart, and their bodies brushed lightly. It would be so easy to kiss her. In fact Raine found it hard not to, but even in such close proximity, her body begging her to acquiesce, Raine refused to cross the line. She had the strange sensation that she’d been careening toward this collision from the second she accepted the job in Darlington, that she was destined to lose this battle. She might have fallen right then if Chris hadn’t thrown his arm around her from behind as the sound of his and Tyler’s cheers broke the connection.