“And you think I could use more practice at it?” She slid a bottle of water from the minibar into her bag. “Want one?”
“Good idea.” Paris tucked it in her backpack’s side pouch. “More practice at what?”
“Using my real name and not feeling weird about it.”
Paris held the door for her. “I didn’t say a thing.”
Diana bounced on her toes in front of the elevator, loving the luxury of wearing trainers. “You didn’t have to. Behave, Ms. Paris Ellison.”
Paris flushed. “I shall attempt to do so. You don’t make it easy.”
Diana waited for the elevator doors to close before she asked, “How do I make it difficult for you to behave?”
Paris let out a strangled half laugh and simply shook her head.
“What?” Diana’s teasing air faded at the look in Paris’s eyes. The elevator car seemed to shrink and fill with heat, waves of it that Diana felt in her face and her ears, her palms, between her legs. It was frightening, almost painful, and impossibly full of wonder. She gasped and closed her eyes when Paris’s fingertips grazed her cheek then gently cupped her jaw.
Paris kissed her, her lips warm and soft against Diana’s. It was so welcome that her fears melted, leaving amazement and desire behind.
“Oh,” she whispered when Paris stepped back. She opened her eyes in time to see Paris forming the words, “I’m sorry,” but Diana didn’t want to hear that it was a lapse in judgment or that the ice cream had gone right to her head. She laughed, giddy and breathless. “You’re wearing my lipstick.”
“Oh.” Paris wiped at her mouth.
She found a tissue in her bag. “It’s not your shade.”
The elevator pinged. As the doors opened Diana wasn’t entirely sure she heard Paris right. But she thought Paris said, “I’d like it to be.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Idiot, idiot, id-i-ot.
Paris decided she’d lost her mind. The shell she’d built around herself for safety was cracked to pieces and now she was being stupid, reckless. As if she didn’t know perfectly well that when you’re playing a new game where you don’t know the rules, kissing mysterious women in elevators was a bad idea. Where would it end?
Diana had diverted to chat with the concierge, and was asking for tips on getting around the city. Her face was still glowing from the shower, and she’d quickly reapplied her lipstick—it was as if the kiss had never happened. Which was for the best, Paris thought. Just pretend it never happened.
“Most people use Lyft or Uber these days.” The young man’s voice was as pale as he was.
“We don’t have smartphones,” Diana said. She was using the accent Paris had decided was her real one. It sounded very English private school, but was lower in pitch than either the Fiona or Anita voices.
His nearly white eyebrows shot up as if their lack of tech was shocking. Yeah, Paris thought, that’s the strangest thing about the two of us.
“Then of course a cab will do. The subway is very efficient and will avoid the traffic, but Sunday service isn’t as frequent.” He pulled a map out of his desk drawer. “Personally, I’d take a cab to the park. My favorite place to start is Strawberry Fields. Tell the driver to go this route.” He drew circles in several places, refolded it and handed it to Diana.
“Ready?” Diana’s eyes were bright and eager as she turned to Paris.
“Yes,” was all Paris could say. The truth and a lie all at once. She was getting good at it because she didn’t feel a single pang of anxiety.
The next few hours were bliss. Paris decided the sun was brighter because the shadows over Anita Topaz’s future were gone. There were hints of spring in all directions, from the brave shoots coming up through the sidewalk cracks to the colorful pots of flowers in front of stores and peeking over balconies. It felt as if winter had lasted forever and was finally losing its grasp.
They alighted alongside Central Park and followed the signs to Strawberry Fields. A pond with frogs and lily pads attracted tourists and their phone cameras. A bridal party posed in their finery with the green of the park behind them. Every time someone shouted, “Congratulations!” the bride and groom waved. A picnic with two men and three kids, all five of them different colors of the human rainbow, had a boom box playing, “All You Need is Love.”
Diana read all the historical markers, stopped to watch an artist sketching, and peered at the little signs that gave the botanical names of the trees and flowers. Paris watched her breathing all of it in and wondered if she’d been born with double curiosity points.
“A donut with peanut butter in it?” Diana pointed at the vendor cart. “That sounds disgusting.”
“It’s dipped in chocolate,” Paris pointed out. It sounded good to her.
Diana was digging in her purse for her wallet. “I have to try it.”
“But you think it’s disgusting.”
“What if I’m wrong?”
Paris watched her conclude the transaction, chatting with the vendor about business and the weather. Once she had the treat in her hand she gave it a steady look, took a deep breath and bit into it.
“Well?”
Diana chewed for a while, her face impassive. After swallowing she said, “I wasn’t wrong.”
“You are so weird,” Paris said. “It looks delicious.”
Diana grinned and handed it over, then drank deeply from her water bottle. “Never make me peanut butter brownies, okay?”
“Okay.” Then she wondered what world would have to exist where she could make Diana brownies. She wanted to live in that world. But it was nowhere near the one they actually occupied. The donut was fresh, the chewy-salty-sweet peanut butter and chocolate combo exactly what Paris thought it would be. Yummy.
They rambled through the Ramble, doubling back on footpaths with a general plan to reach the other side of the park to find real food and very cold drinks.
“Look! How fun!”
She followed Diana’s pointing finger and saw a dance lesson in progress. The bright trumpets of Latin music reached her. The instructor was showing off footwork while a dozen students in pairs copied the moves.
“I think it’s the mambo.” Diana tossed her bag on the ground close by. “Let’s try.”
“I’ll step on you.”
“I won’t break. Your other hand goes on my shoulder—” She peered at the dancers. “I’ll lead. I step forward, you step back.”
She managed to avoid tromping on Diana, but just barely. “I don’t think Doc Martens are made for this kind of dancing.”
“We’re doing fine—and step, two, three. Everyone over there—and step, two, three—is sixty or older—and step, two, three.”
Paris had noticed. Kerry crossed her mind, because the idea that they’d grow old and happy together had been where Paris had hoped they were going. A future like that seemed impossible with Diana. They were very different people living in different worlds with different rules. She wrote that sort of story in her novels, and it always worked out—but that was fiction.
Diana was impulsive about life. Dancing in a park, trying a new food even if she suspected it would disappoint. The most impulsive thing Paris had done recently was kiss Diana in the elevator and it had exhausted her supply of risk-taking. Even if it had been so worth it.
She could protest all she wanted about not knowing why she’d done it, except the fire in her hands where they touched Diana was very clear with the answer. She was attracted to her, in a big way, and what was she going to do about it that didn’t make her like Reynard? And didn’t leave her broken with regrets?
“And step, two, three. There!” Diana gazed up at her. “You’re good at this, you know.”
“My mother loved to dance to Big Band. We cleaned the house on Saturdays and listened to Glenn Miller.”
“Did she dance professionally?”
“No, she was a medical technician. A wonderful mom.”
“It sounds like it.” No lon
ger following the music, Diana swayed closer to Paris. “What’s the best lesson she ever taught you?”
Paris thought about it. “Even if the world is falling apart around you, how to get up and get on with it.”
“Keep calm and carry on.”
“Like that. After she died I found a little notebook in her night table where she wrote down what I took to be her regrets. They all began with ‘I wish I had’ and ended with ‘and I ask God’s forgiveness.’”
Diana’s head was nearly on Paris’s shoulder. “What kind of regrets, if you don’t mind telling me.”
Paris breathed in the scent of Diana’s shampoo. “The notebook was about fifteen years old. The very first entry was about not marrying my father. That she never tried to find him. He took off after she told him she was pregnant, after all, but she wrote that she’d never known if she’d done the right thing, struggling on her own instead of forcing him to pay child support which meant letting him into my life.” Her mother had rarely talked about him and Paris had never felt the urge to track him down either. “One of the latest entries was that she wished she’d looked into her roots earlier. She’d gotten her DNA done. She had no idea she had Central and South American ancestry.”
“Ah.” Paris could feel Diana smiling. “That’s why you mambo so well. And your mum loved Shakespeare, which is another point in her favor.”
“She was a voracious reader. Stacks every week from the library. I’ve always been grateful she didn’t name me Tybalt.”
“Or Ophelia.”
“I am so not an Ophelia.”
Diana laughed. “I went to school with an Ophelia and the Good Lord help you if you ever called her that. She went by Gemma.”
“I never wanted to go by another name, until Anita Topaz.”
“Where did you come up with that?”
“Anita was my mom’s middle name. Topaz was her favorite gemstone. That picture wasn’t of me, but at least the name was part of me.” She added quietly, “I miss her. This morning—Reynard—it reminded me of the day she died. A series of strokes, out of the blue.”
Diana nodded and moved closer again, this time snuggling her head on Paris’s shoulder. “I’m sorry she’s gone.”
Paris managed to say, “Thanks,” as she battled the usual flush of tears that accompanied thoughts of her mother. They were swaying together and a breeze ruffled through Paris’s hair. “What about your mother? What’s the best lesson she taught you?”
“I’m not being a copycat,” Diana said. “But it’s the same thing. Keep calm and carry on. Don’t whinge and remember people are counting on you. She’s a very decisive woman, my mother. She doesn’t tend to revisit her decisions. If she’s made a mistake she will simply go about fixing it. No hand wringing. No excuses.” Diana’s fingers moved rhythmically over Paris’s shoulder. “She regretted marrying my father. Will admit that she overlooked his previous two marriages and the stories the ex-wives told because he was a big social step up. His eight-hundred-year-old family line mattered a lot to her. But she didn’t hesitate to leave him when he demonstrated that the stories were true. The second time he hit her she wrapped up her broken arm, took his bank book, packed up me and my Paddington Bear, and went to the cop shop to swear out a complaint.”
“That was brave.”
“I think so. She had some money and a lot of status, which made it easier, but not easy. The older he gets the less effort he makes to hide what an awful man he is. I keep thinking I’ll hear some day he’s in jail. He ought to be.”
“So you took the—what was it? A bowl?”
Diana was so close now that Paris could feel her smiling. “Yes I did. It was very like him, to collect things and then abuse them.”
She felt the slight shudder that ran through Diana’s body and hugged her, savoring the soft touch of Diana’s ear against her jaw.
“It worked out. She remarried, never regretted that. And in the totally weird way of English family names and titles, if you were ever married to an earl, you’re a countess for life. Purely a courtesy, but she revels in it.”
Paris laughed. The music had stopped but she wasn’t going to let go. “Diana?”
“Hmm?”
It was the sunshine and too much sugar, she tried to tell herself. The truth was that Diana fit in her arms, and holding her close, at least for now, filled all the places that she thought she’d never open again. “Can I kiss you?”
“That’s funny,” she said. She pushed Paris back slightly. “I was just going to ask you that question.”
Startled, she asked, “Why?”
“Symmetry.” Paris didn’t know what to make of the light in Diana’s eyes. “I didn’t do my part earlier. I think—I think it would be even nicer if I did.”
Only two days ago she’d screwed up her courage and embarked on this trip to take control of her future. Not even a month ago she hadn’t known Diana existed. Five years ago her soul had been stretched so thin she’d felt see-through. Boss Anxiety was whispering in her ear that her battle with it never went away, could not be defeated, and this woman was unpredictable, lied easily, jaywalked through life, would never be the calm stability that kept Paris safe.
And she was aglow with life and strength, and Paris wanted so much, so very much, to believe the other voice in her head, reminding her that she been hounded by evil yet survived by clinging to her own stories of valor and love, hope and beauty.
Why couldn’t her stories come true for her?
All these thoughts whirled through her brain until, standing on tiptoe, Diana kissed her.
It was the touch of hesitation and awkwardness that swept away Paris’s doubts and ignited her desire. For all that Diana could look like a woman fully aware of the power of her sensual charms, it was not the kiss of a practiced seductress. It began slightly off center and Diana corrected with a little laugh after their noses bumped. Then there was the soft, vulnerable contact of their lips in full acceptance of intimacy.
Diana cupped a hand behind Paris’s neck and Paris surrendered to the dizzying spiral of passion. Her arms went around Diana as their lips parted to allow a deeper exploration.
Her skin came alive, as if she’d left perpetual winter and stepped naked into the blaze of a summer sun. Prickles at the top of her head became an effervescent cascade of tingling that swept down her body. She wanted to feel Diana’s skin on hers and had to consciously still her hands before they wandered to the soft curves and swells where she wasn’t yet invited.
Diana broke off the contact with a gasp that was halfway between surprise and a laugh. Her gaze was somewhere near Paris’s collar. “That was—that was quite nice. Though I can’t claim a lot of experience at this.”
“You’ve never…” Paris wasn’t surprised.
“Not seriously. Not…” She finally looked up again, eyes full of light. She pressed her lips lightly to Paris’s again. “It didn’t feel like this.”
Paris ran her hands up Diana’s arms. “How does this feel?”
“Like a backflip on a balance beam.”
Did she mean frightening? “You can’t see where you’re going to land?”
Diana was smiling as she shook her head. “Gymnasts don’t jump unless they know where they’re going to land.” Her hand slid slowly down Paris’s chest. “If I can find the courage to jump, I know exactly where I intend to land.”
The sudden confidence and intent in Diana’s eyes took Paris’s breath away. She was full of questions again. Not the jumbled frustration she had felt with Diana so often, but the normal questions of confused arousal and attraction. Was this only for tonight? If Diana hadn’t really been with a woman before what would she like? Was this about sex or something more? She thought for a moment about Kerry and how naturally inevitable their relationship had seemed, like jigsaw pieces that fit easily and made the expected, pleasing picture.
She and Diana fit, at least it seemed like it, but it wasn’t an easy or predictable fit. She had no idea
what picture they made together.
She kissed Diana again, this time with a smile. “I think,” Paris said softly, “if we don’t get something to eat neither of us will survive the rest of the day.”
She didn’t say, “Let alone the night,” but she could see the thought reflected in Diana’s eyes, a gleam both shy and bold.
They held hands as they left the park and finally settled on an eatery with a hipster-funk vibe Paris recognized from places tech workers hung out in San Francisco, complete with a long list of craft beers. What had attracted them was the equally long list of vegetarian tapas. Diana led the way to a table on the sidewalk where they could still see the park.
Diana perused the cocktail menu. “I want something frothy with an umbrella in it.”
“It sounds delicious. I’m in deep need of an iced tea.”
“Do you drink?”
“No. It makes me more anxious. It also doesn’t mix well with my meds, if I decide to take something.”
Diana regarded her seriously over the top of the menu. “Do you often?”
“Not for a couple of years now. I have lots of tricks I try first.” She added with a smile, “Spells and magicks. Eye of newt and toe of frog…”
“Wool of bat and tongue of dog,” Diana finished. “Never done Macbeth. What kinds of spells do you use?”
“There’s the ‘Reset Button.’ I tell myself if I start over my physical routines to bleed off the stimulus, the anxiety that’s built up will have to reset too. Like in a game.”
“That makes sense—an interesting way to look at it.”
“You mentioned stage fright last night. Do you get it?”
Diana shook her head. “No, and I think that’s because of the athletics. Doing a floor exercise, for example. That’s a performance in addition to being a showcase of skills. A bell goes off in the venue, and I take a deep breath and go. Since about age nine when I started the junior circuit. There is no time to be afraid. You don’t survive in a lot of sports if you can’t perform in an instant.”
“How high up did you go?”
My Lady Lipstick Page 15
