by Jean Andrews
“Who said I was in trouble?” I backtracked.
“Marney, who met me in town for coffee this afternoon before I drove out. She was a veritable font of information. She has guilt over introducing you to Judith. She didn’t know Judith was gay, and she doesn’t want to be responsible for ‘turning you into gay,’ as she put it. She also snooped in the red cabin while they were doing the housekeeping and found a rubber dick stuck in the lamp.” She waited for a response and, when she didn’t get one, kicked off her heels. “I don’t need one of my authors generating bad press with lesbians and other people’s husbands.”
“What other people’s husbands?”
“Ralph got caught in his drowning-boy-rescue story, so he threw you under the bus. Said he was trying to get away from you.”
“Oh, my God. Marney must hate me!”
“Marney’s got Ralph’s number. The lying little lard bucket can barely swim, so he couldn’t rescue a drowning teenager in a wading pool, much less the lake.” She glanced over at Sass’s litter box. “Is that a wading pool?”
“Kind of. Yes.”
She got up to retrieve a glass and some ice. “You’re thin and tan. You look great. No wonder that Judith-woman is chasing you. Don’t let me forget that I’ve got a contract from your publisher out in the car, for the book you’re writing.” She arched an eyebrow, letting me know she’d told my publisher I was writing, and therefore I’d better be writing. “She also asked me to get a picture of you so she can be reminded of what you look like,” she said slyly.
Someone knocked on the door, and Ramona said, “Let me handle her.” She walked to the door, and from across the room I could see Levade standing there, managing to look amazingly gorgeous at all hours of the day in her shorts and polo shirt.
“Well, hello!” Ramona said in an appreciative tone.
Levade took one look at Ramona and turned, saying over her shoulder, “I’m sorry this isn’t a good time. I’ll come back.”
I bolted from my chair, pushed Ramona aside, and ran down the steps calling out to her, but she had already disappeared into the woods. I returned breathless and despondent.
“My God, you’re like some horn-toad teenager. Was that Levade?”
I nodded.
“Well, you’re right. She’s gorgeous!” Ramona playfully sang the refrain to “Sister Golden Hair.” “1975, America.”
“Is that the last year you remember any music?”
“Maybe I should stick with real lesbians. They’re not as snarky as straight women trying to make the transition.”
Sasquatch had heard Levade’s voice and bounded into the living room. Ramona yelped, jumped back into her chair, and tucked her feet up under her. “My GOD, that’s a big cat!”
“And he sleeps on my head,” I said.
“Are you sure he’s not a lynx or something?” she asked, keeping her eyes on him.
“He’s a cat.”
“I had no idea they made them that large.”
I tried to get Ramona to let me cook something or make her a sandwich. She said she’d eaten and just sipped her whiskey.
“So in addition to saving your ass, I really came up here to share some things with you that I thought would be more interesting in person.”
“Are you okay? Is your health okay?”
“I am in magnificent health,” she said. “You brought up Maynard, and how he went on about your Uncle Jake seeing his wife.”
“Aunt Alice must have been so embarrassed.”
“No. She was so relieved because your aunt Alice was having a love affair with Angelique Bisset, the equestrian woman on the Point.”
“Nooo!”
“They met in their late forties and for thirty years spent every summer together here, meeting clandestinely. I was Alice’s dear friend and their ‘beard,’ passing messages and going out with them sometimes, so people would think we were just girls looking for men, when in fact only one of us was. I’ve never seen two people more in love.” She paused to take a sip from her chic little flask. “They were just happy to be together. They needed no one else. Here.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a yellowed envelope.
Inside were three pictures—one with Angelique standing next to Alice with her arm around her, Angelique significantly taller. The second photo showed the two of them bareback on a white horse—Alice, in a white linen dress, her arms wrapped around Angelique’s waist and her face pressed against her back as if they were riding off into the sunset, leaving every care behind them. And the third was of Angelique reclining on the porch swing out on the Point, Alice leaning back in her arms, both looking very much in love. “I took these, of course,” Ramona said softly.
“Oh, they’re so beautiful together. It makes me sad that they lived apart. Why didn’t Aunt Alice just leave Jake?”
“In a way he was great cover, and in those days, women needed cover.” She held up the third photo of the two of them in the swing so I could see it again. “This is what love looks like, darling. And great sex. They were in bed constantly!” She laughed a raucous laugh.
I grabbed the postcard off the desk. “I found this in the desk drawer.”
“That’s Alice’s handwriting. She said the flourish on the L was her secret code for ‘I love you.’”
My heart stopped. The note on the screen door at Levade’s cabin saying she had to leave and hoped I was inspired had that same L on it. I must have been floating out in the stratosphere contemplating the joy of that secret message, when Ramona snapped her fingers and brought me back to the present.
“I haven’t been here long enough to cause you to leave your body.”
“Sorry. It’s the L for ‘I love you,’” I said dreamily, thinking of Levade, but Ramona thought I was talking about Aunt Alice.
“I know. Isn’t that sweet? She obviously meant this postcard for Angelique but didn’t get to send it. When Angelique died, Alice said it was too painful to come back here, but she didn’t want the cabin to go to a stranger, so I bought it.”
I let this news rumble around in my head. From a child’s perspective, she was my loving old aunt who cared for kids, and cooked, and laughed, but behind all that she was so much more she couldn’t share. “Aunt Alice had a lesbian lover who was the woman on the Point who is now the ghost.”
“I don’t know about the ghost part, but yes. I brought a letter I found in Angelique’s things right after she died.”
I took the letter out of her hand and read it out loud.
I have never wanted anything or anyone more than I want you. When I’m touching you, I am in heaven. When you’re inside me, I am whole. When you are gone, I am desolate. Come back to me soon.
Loving you forever, Alice.
“Pretty hot, yes? Ramona grinned.
“Wow, Aunt Alice.” I sighed.
As if giving me lessons, Ramona said, “And that’s what love sounds like.” She hoisted herself out of the chair. “Wait, there’s more, but it might require food.”
She headed for the bathroom, and I slung together a ham-and-cheese sandwich and some chips, taking it to her in the living room.
“I saw the quilt on your bed in there, the one with the horse squares. I remember when Alice made that, so she’d always sleep under something that reminded her of Angelique.”
Loving her so much she wanted to sleep beneath the quilt that was a reminder of her, how lucky the two of them were to have found each other. I sighed.
Ramona was on to a different subject, talking as she chewed. “So you know that Levade is Angelique’s niece?”
I nodded.
“Well, rumor has it that Levade had an affair with Frank Tinnerson’s wife.”
“Levade is the woman who had an affair with Frank’s wife and got her murdered?” My heart nearly stopped. “Why would she do that? She must have known how crazy Frank is!”
“After what you’ve done, you can’t hold that against her.”
My mind was buzzing. “How lo
ng were they together? Why would she have an affair with his wife?”
“I’ve told you all I know, and I have a plane to catch tomorrow. Let me read the first chapter tonight…the first paragraph even.”
“I’ve got nothing,” I lied, preferring not to allow piecemeal readings of my work, and waved a blank sheet of paper in the air for emphasis, while still upset that Levade had had an affair—apparently an intense one, to risk Frank’s discovering it.
Ramona admonished me. “You have to balance writing and fucking. Great fucking can make great writing. Too much fucking makes no writing, and you’re fucked. I have a contract in the car, for God’s sake!”
I put her to bed in the bedroom off the living room and then sat for hours, propped up on the pillows in my bed, staring out at the reflection of the moon on the lake and thinking about Levade having an affair with Frank’s wife. I was agitated and angry.
Maybe if I could have her, make love to her, I could think again. Although wanting her has put passion back in my soul and enabled me to write. Is that all she is to me—lust and a literary muse? But in my heart, I knew it was much more. Secretly, I believed Levade had put the L on her note to say she loved me; and Angelique had put the L on the opposite side of the card to remind me of that fact, and to tell me not to give up. It might just be a story I was making up, but I held that story close to my heart.
* * *
We were awakened early by a knock at the door. I ran to open it, hoping it was Levade, and was startled to see Frank there, draped over the porch rail, swaggering while slouching, if that were possible.
“Frank, you’re not to come by any more, and if you continue to do it, I’ll call the sheriff.”
“Ohhh, the sheriff.” He gave me a mock-terrified look. “Speaking of which, Sam stopped by and told me you’d showed up at his office to complain about me, and you were real upset about what happened the other night.” Frank was clearly communicating that nothing happened in these woods that he didn’t know about and control. “Anyway, I thought I’d better come by and offer an apology,” he said, his tone derisive.
“Leave!”
“Just so you know, I like a woman who fights back. Truthfully, I don’t know what came over me. Must be you smell so good, and you’re so soft. I never met anyone as soft as you.”
“Get the hell off this property. I have a gun and I will shoot you, Frank.”
“Heard you got a gun. Guns are dangerous. My poor, loving wife could tell you that.” He sauntered off. Ramona was behind me when I turned around.
“I don’t know why he’s focused on you, but you need to get the hell out of here.”
All I could think of was Levade in bed with Frank’s wife. “I think he needs to get the hell out of here,” I said, surprised at the steel in my voice.
* * *
Ramona was packed and finishing her coffee, and I hated to see her go. Obviously worried and sad at leaving me, she reached for levity. “The damned cat came to see me last night and slept on my head.”
“I should have locked him in my room. Sorry.”
“It was nice actually. I felt like a member of the Queen’s Royal Guard with his long, furry paws hanging down around my neck like chin straps. We’ve become very close. Just don’t let him claw the damned couch.”
She hugged me good-bye, patted Sass, and was headed back to what she called “civilization.”
“Why did you buy this cabin if the woods freak you out?” I asked.
“I’m more sentimental than you know. Besides, you can own something you’re not, if it helps you give up something you are.”
“Wow. Who knew you were that deep,” I teased. “I don’t even think I know what the hell that means.”
“I love you too. Write something, will you?”
Chapter Twenty
Ramona had no sooner driven off than I put on my jeans and headed through the woods to the Point. I was hurt and mad and feeling like a whole lot was going on that put both Levade and me in danger, and I wanted answers.
I banged on the screen door, and Levade appeared in her nightshirt, which knocked the anger right out of me. She had obviously just gotten out of bed. This is how she looks when she first wakes up, I thought, wishing I could wake up beside her.
“Why didn’t you come in?” I asked.
“You had company.”
“Well, so did you. Who was the horsewoman you were dining with the other night? Why don’t you just have the decency to tell me you’re seeing someone?”
A smile played on Levade’s lips. “That woman was here to ask me to head up the dressage chapter in our area.”
“And she had to grasp your arm and spend the night in order to get that done?”
“I am not involved with her, Taylor. But, speaking of guests, who was the attractive older woman answering your cabin door yesterday?”
“That’s my publicist from New York, and I’m staying in her cabin. She came all the way across the country to tell me things you might have shared with me and saved her the trip.
“Such as?”
I pushed the screen open and walked across the porch and into the house as if I owned the place. “Well, for starters, my aunt Alice and your aunt Angelique were lovers—”
“Soul mates,” she said softly.
“For thirty years.”
“Yes.”
“And you had an affair with Frank’s wife.”
“No, I didn’t. She came to me for readings and advice, because he beat her so badly on a couple of occasions. Ultimately the fact that she came to see me got her killed. He accused her of an affair with me, but that wasn’t true.”
I relaxed a little, feeling possessive of her and now able to release the picture of her in bed with another woman.
“Then who was Frank’s wife seeing?”
“Dolores was seeing a woman at the tavern…Kay.”
I stopped to contemplate that information. So Kay, the woman who bought me a glass of wine in this goldfish-bowl town, was making a living in a bar where the owner belittled women and where her lover, Dolores, was murdered by her husband, and the murderer was still walking around being a big-shot, sport-fishing celebrity.
“Is Kay afraid of him?”
“The last time I saw her, I got the sense that she was growing stronger. She just wants him to pay for what he did.”
“So Frank won’t allow you to have a relationship because he doesn’t want you to have someone when he doesn’t? Or is he just a crazy rapist, or a murderer, or what?”
“Frank is my stepbrother.”
Goose bumps ran up my arms, and my jaw slackened.
Levade walked out on the porch and sat down at the table where she did her card readings, and I followed. To provide me with answers, she gravitated to the place where she got most of hers.
“When I was eight,” she sighed, beginning slowly, “I told our parents he had molested me. His father, my stepfather, didn’t believe me, and he and my mother fought over it often. Finally, she sent me to live with my aunt. That move changed my life, because one day Angelique let me ride her horse, which she never allowed anyone to do. It was in that moment that I felt stronger and more powerful than I ever had, like no one could hurt me. The horse gave me his power until I could find my own.” She paused for a moment, and I started tearing up. “After I left home, my stepfather beat Frank, and then ultimately he divorced my mother. Frank has always tried to harm anyone or anything I love because of what happened. He blames me for breaking the family apart.”
“And what did your mother say about what Frank did to you?”
“By the time I was old enough to know I wanted to have a conversation with her about it, she’d developed Alzheimer’s, so most of the time she thought I was her nurse.”
I took her hands in mine, clutching them as if I would never let her go, and the tears that had welled up in my eyes spilled over onto my cheeks. Having her stepbrother molest her, her family reject her, her parents blame her
for their divorce, and her stepbrother still torture her, no wonder she kept to herself physically and emotionally. And no wonder she wants someone who will be with her forever. She has no one.
“I want to protect both you and Alizar from him,” I said, and although I felt that pledge in my heart, I also felt a gentle breeze move across my right ear, as if Angelique was whispering to me, telling me what to say, and making me say it out loud. That sensation was both crazy and oddly comforting.
Levade stood up and began nervously pacing. “Frank will never let me alone. He said he moved here for the fishing and because Dolores was from here, but it was primarily to keep an eye on me. He made a name for himself. He’s protected here. He’s a champion fisherman, the man other men call Crazy Frank the Muskie Man, but they still want to live vicariously through him. He’s the guy who outsmarts everyone and gets away with anything. And that’s why he’s so dangerous.”
“A sick, cowardly killer—that’s all I see when I think of him.” I reached for her and pulled her close, but she stiffened.
“What were you doing with that woman in the red cabin?”
I was caught off guard and searched for a plausible explanation. “You didn’t seem to want me. I needed to find out if anyone would.”
Levade’s cheeks reddened, and her eyes were wet and hot. “Don’t ever lie to me, Taylor. I don’t have to literally see things to know things.”
That’s a frightening thought! “I wanted to know what lesbian sex was like.” There, I’d told her the truth.
She shoved me away from her. “What are you doing, TJ?” No one had called me by my nickname since I was a kid in Missouri. “You’re treating the most intimate experience two human beings can have as if it’s all about shoe size’”
“Give me a break. I’ve gone from being a hard-core heterosexual to being, well…involved with you. From being completely unemotional about sexual relationships to being pretty obsessed with you. So I think I just need a little training.”
