My Lady Lipstick

by Karin Kallmaker

  She would get a few more minutes with Paris. They might not be good minutes, but better than none, surely.

  But now she’d never make the plane and her mother didn’t care. Might even not want her to, though she’d thought after their heart-to-heart last night that her mother was okay with Diana’s choices.

  This was her mother being her mother. Her blood pressure wasn’t helped when the car fell in behind a delivery van that apparently didn’t have a working accelerator. She wanted to bite something, hard.

  When the car finally stopped behind the house, there was no sign of her mother. Stomping up the stairs she felt completely justified at using every bit of her ability to project her voice as she yelled, “I’m back!”

  “There’s no need to shout,” her mother said from behind her.

  “Mum! This is so—”

  “Go out to the gazebo.”

  “What the buggery—”

  “Lady Diana Beckinsale! For once in your life do as you’re told.”

  “I always do as I’m told!”

  “Never the first time. It’s always the second or third time with you.” Her mother pointed at the door. “Go.”

  “I’m twenty-seven, Mother, and you can’t order me around like a toddler.”

  Her mother closed her eyes for a moment. Her expression softened to a smile. “She likes smart women with dreams. You might start there.”

  To Diana’s aggravation, her mother went into her study without another word and shut the door.

  “Thou art all ice! Thy kindness freezes, Mother,” Diana shouted through the door.

  “Don’t be childish,” came the muffled reply.

  “It’s not childish. It’s Shakespeare,” Diana muttered. She drew back her leg to kick the study door, but thought better of it.

  Even as she swore to herself that she would not do what her mother wanted she peeked at the gazebo from the withdrawing room. Someone was pacing in the small structure.

  She made her way through the kitchen and mudroom and out into the root vegetable garden. The gate at the end opened onto a path into the meadow. The visitor’s back was to her. She would have called out, but the gardener’s leaf blower was too loud for her to be heard.

  Ten paces from the gazebo she realized who it was. She halted, her feet rooted to the spot.

  Everything her mother had said last night was still running through her head. She shouldn’t make decisions about what Paris could and couldn’t handle—that was up to Paris. And yet she didn’t want to cause Paris pain. Was love always like this? Knowing that happiness came with a price? What if only one of you paid?

  Diana didn’t know if she could handle that kind of debt. She didn’t know if she had her mother’s backbone. Did she believe in love or didn’t she?

  She was not ready for this conversation. She’d planned to rehearse all the possible dialogue on the flight, and while she sat nursing a beer, possibly day after day, hoping to see Paris again.

  She’d been so eager to get back on a plane that she hadn’t taken the time for makeup, and had planned to put on something other than slacks and a T-shirt when she landed. Her hair was a mess. She was going to cry and her eyes already felt red.

  For a moment she hated and loved her mother in equal measures. Paris was within her reach and she couldn’t make herself move.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Wondering why Evelyn didn’t return, and frustrated with the lack of flights back to Boston suggested by her supposedly best-thing-ever phone, Paris tried to cast off the accompanying anxiety as the sun came out again. The warmth bathed her face and she inhaled the scent of the honeysuckle blossoms. This place could easily be enchanted, she thought, and any gesture could make magic happen. If she searched carefully, she might find a portal. A portal that would lead her to her heart’s desire, even.

  Half laughing at her foolish hopes, she turned in place.

  Her heart’s desire was standing right there.

  She blinked. Those charming freckles were still there, as were the shining brown eyes gazing at her.

  The sun went behind the clouds again and Diana’s eyes went cold. Diana crossed her arms and glared at Paris. “Why are you here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “I don’t know why. I would have thought my note was clear.”

  Paris wasn’t sure why she had thought it would be helpful to hear Diana say that the note was, in fact, her final word. It was as if Diana had stabbed her in the heart and now she was begging her to rip off the stitches, just for good measure. She flexed out her fingers. “It was. Brutally so.”

  Diana’s expression hardened. “I realize that our time together was intimate and special, but it’s over now. We’re not a combination that works.”

  “Are you afraid to be out—to be with a woman? Is that it?” I can handle it, if that’s the case, Paris thought.

  Diana’s eyes widened in genuine surprise at the idea. “No. Of course not.”

  “There’s no ‘of course not’ in this world for women like us. We’re not safe—not yet. I understand if you’re scared.”

  “That’s not it.” Diana’s irritation was obvious.

  Paris bounced lightly on her toes. “But something is. I’m pretty sure that was your first time.”

  “It was that bad, was it?” There was finally something in Diana’s expression that wasn’t cold reserve. Hurt, perhaps?

  “That’s not what I meant. It’s okay if you’re feeling weird in your own skin. I was scared when I realized that on top of everything else that made me different I was also gay. It felt like the universe was piling on.”

  Diana was staring at her feet. “That’s not it.”

  “So what is it? Tell me and I’ll go.”

  Diana swayed slightly. This is it, Paris thought. Magic happens or she breaks us both. She shook her arms slightly, visualized anxiety dripping from her fingertips. The yellow flowers went gray. She couldn’t help herself—she was holding her breath.

  “It’s that,” Diana said. She pointed at Paris. “All those things you do because you’re anxious.”

  She exhaled as if Diana had punched her in the stomach. Sharp-edged anguish sent a spasm of pain down her spine. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You can hardly tolerate being near me.”

  Her throat was so tight she could hardly force out the words. “These things—all the compensations I do, they’re not about you.”

  “Aren’t they? How many times just since we met have you nearly had a panic attack?”

  “You can trigger me. Anybody can. I choose whether to expose myself. That’s up to me.”

  Much of the coldness in Diana’s face had been replaced by a kind of desperation. “I trigger you.”

  “I’m the way I am. I’ll be this way whether you’re around or not.” She swallowed hard, and put the truth into words. “If you can’t handle being with someone like me, fine. I thought it was because I’m a woman, which I can’t change. But it’s really because I’m neurally different than you, which I can’t change.” She managed to shrug. “Same thing.”

  It didn’t feel the same. It hurt much, much worse.

  “I’m a thief.” Diana’s lips were hard and firm. “Sometimes. I don’t want to give up who I am.”

  “I’m not asking you to. I am interested in who you are, right now. The risks you take make me anxious, of course they do. I choose to be near you anyway. If you’ll let me. I can handle who you are, believe me, or I wouldn’t be here. I couldn’t be here.”

  Diana glanced over shoulder, as if she heard her mother’s voice. “It’s my turn to say that I don’t believe you.”

  Paris reached into her Bag of Holding. She hadn’t been sure she would find Diana, but had held out hope. “Then why were you going to Boston?”

  “Who says I was going to Boston?”

  “Florence.”

  “She doesn’t know my plans.”

  A kind of calm unexpectedly settled on Pari
s. She wasn’t sure why for a moment, then she had to smile. “I think you should know that I can tell when you’re trying to lie to me.”

  Diana finally moved, taking a step closer, but still outside the gazebo. Paris sat down on the bench and opened the plastic bag she’d taken out of her knapsack. Diana craned to see what it was.

  “I used acid-free cotton to protect it. It has signs of having been kept in too dry an environment,” Paris said conversationally. She extracted the bundle from the plastic bag and held it out. “I didn’t know what to do with it after that. I had two reasons for coming to see you.”

  Like a feral cat wary of any offering of food, Diana came close enough to her to take the wrapped object. “What is it?”

  Paris didn’t answer.

  Diana unwound the cotton strips, her gaze going back and forth from the object in her hands and Paris’s face. The moment a corner of dark obsidian came into sight Diana dropped onto the bench next to Paris. “It can’t be.”

  “It is.”

  “But how—”

  “Because I could. Because it wants to go home.”

  Diana wiped her eyes with one hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Gobsmacked would work, maybe?”

  “I never expected you to do anything, take a risk like this, that was never the plan.” Diana finally—finally—looked into Paris’s eyes. “I don’t want to put you in that position. I never meant to unleash anything on you.”

  “I took it when Heather left us alone. You left before I could tell you.”

  Diana was silent for a long time, the hammer on her lap. She stirred finally. “It should be in California. The Chumash still exist.”

  “Can you get it back to them?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said distractedly. “You said there were two reasons you came to see me.”

  “Isn’t the other obvious?”

  “Yes.” A smile broke through a suddenly watery smile. “I’m going to make you say it.”

  “I’m pretty sure I fell for you the moment we met. I’d like to find out for sure. However we might make that work.”

  Diana carefully set the hammer to one side.

  “We could try traveling together. You could spend time with me. I think you’d like my landladies. And I could spend time here with you. Your mother seems to—”

  Diana kissed her. Hard, breathless, quick. “Stop talking for a minute.”

  The next kiss was like fire and Paris’s head filled with the scent of Diana, mingling with honeysuckle and sunshine. There was no other choice that made sense except to hold her close. Tomorrow was forever away, and right now she was whole.

  They kissed until they were both laughing. Limp with relief and exhilaration, Paris drew back enough to study Diana’s beautiful face.

  “I was going to Boston to tell you how sorry I was.” Diana’s eyes were glowing. “And hopefully to sleep with you again.”

  Paris sucked in a deep breath.

  “I’m trying out the honesty thing.” Diana raised her eyebrows suggestively. “You know all my secrets so why invent new ones?”

  She filled her hands with Diana’s hair. A warm breeze stirred the honeysuckle blossoms and the leaf blower had stopped. There was only the sound of her heart thrumming in her ears and their breathless whispers.

  Diana glanced toward the house before kissing Paris again. “We don’t have to solve anything right now. It’s important not to ignore that there are still issues…We need to talk it through. The things…problems…” The speech had sounded better in her head when she’d rehearsed it in the car. “We don’t want to end up like Romeo and Juliet. If they’d had twenty seconds of conversation—”

  “Double suicide becomes wedding instead.” Paris couldn’t help herself. Her hand slipped behind Diana’s neck and they kissed until her lips felt swollen.

  Diana brushed her cheek against Paris’s, soft as a hummingbird. “There’s also that I don’t know how to be gay.”

  “You could have fooled me.” She bit softly on Diana’s lower lip, enjoying the responsive shiver.

  “I’m not afraid to be with you and for the world to know it. I’m not used to it. Not the way you and Heather seem to be. Like you spoke another language.”

  “We didn’t start out so awesome.” Paris leaned away so she could see Diana’s eyes. With a gesture at herself she said, “I don’t know about her, but this took practice.”

  “It showed, the practice.”

  She gave Diana a Spock eyebrow lift. “I trust that you enjoyed it.”

  “I did.”

  “Serious question.” Thinking was increasingly difficult. “Tell me honestly, was that your first time? Ever?”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “You seemed surprised that it felt as good as it did.” The passion and satisfaction on Diana’s face were memories Paris wanted to add to.

  “I was surprised.” For the first time Paris saw uncertainty in Diana’s face. “It was scary, but scary good. Really good. Which made it more scary.”

  “I’m not sure that makes sense.”

  Diana quoted primly, “Reason and love keep little company together.”

  “Show off—which play?”

  Diana poked her in the chest. “Midsummer! What kind of Shakespeare geek are you?”

  “I’m not in your league. I got lucky is all.”

  She meant so much more than Shakespeare, and would have kissed Diana again if the sound of approaching footsteps hadn’t intruded. They both quickly tidied clothing that had somehow gone askew.

  Their visitor wasn’t the Countess, at least, but Florence, whose eyes were very large with curiosity. “Mother would like to know if Paris is staying to lunch and if Mrs. Cotton should prepare a room for her.”

  Diana looked at Paris for an answer, her face alight with an inviting smile.

  “I have a flight to Italy this evening.” Diana’s expression faltered slightly and Paris quickly said, “Come with me.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you want to. If you have no other plans.”

  “The wedding celebration was over yesterday,” Florence offered. Her innocent tone took on a faint quality of mischief. “She went on a bender during the hen party, but the hangover is gone.”

  “Go away, brat!” Diana ordered. “Don’t you have to go back to school today?”

  Unperturbed, Florence nodded. “Yes. I’m leaving in a bit. Shall I tell Mother that lunch is yes, room is no?”

  “No comment.”

  Paris studied the grounds and buildings again as Florence took a meandering path back to the house. Diana’s home was much larger than she had thought it would be. As they’d talked there had been a steady increase in the number of people going about various duties. She wanted to go back to kissing Diana, but privacy wasn’t going to be easy even in a house this size.

  Diana may have reached the same conclusion because she squeezed Paris’s hand and let go. “Let’s go in the house and talk.”

  “Sounds dull.”

  “We’ll adjourn to my room.”

  “That doesn’t sound dull.”

  Diana pulled her to her feet. “It will not be—and step, two, three. You can kiss me—and step, two, three.”

  Paris laughed and they fell into easy, mutual rhythm. It was a magic meadow after all.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Do you think they like me?” Diana cuddled into Paris’s side in spite of the heat. Boston’s muggy night air threatened to turn her Vera Wang cocktail dress into damp rags. At least she wasn’t wearing a wig.

  “Of course they do,” Paris said. “Grace and Adya think you’re charming.”

  “I think they’re adorable.” The past three months had been a whirlwind, with far too much time spent on airplanes. Finally meeting Paris’s landladies had been grounding, but Diana still felt on probation. They didn’t seem to mind that their tenant had only been there for a handful of days until the past week, but they weren’t ke
en that Paris was leaving in a few days for Toronto. “I’m on probation though, I know it.”

  “We’re coming back here after Toronto and they’ll love you even more,” Paris predicted.

  A black sedan made a U-turn a few doors down and pulled up in front of them.

  “Right on time.” Diana slithered into the backseat while Paris confirmed with the driver that after he’d dropped them he would return and wait for Grace and Adya who were still getting ready.

  It was a short drive to Mona Lisa’s, but Diana had pointed out that while she was happy to walk there, not when she was wearing party clothes. “Tonight should be fun. If it’s not, we can leave.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Paris tucked Diana’s arm under hers. “Sweetie, don’t anticipate my stress for me. There’s no reason for both of us to feel it. Trust me to say something.”

  “I’m learning.” She felt Paris’s anxiety and didn’t think that would ever stop. What she was learning was how to cope with its effect on her.

  “I love you for that.” She kissed the top of Diana’s head. “And for a few of your other special talents.”

  Diana was deeply pleased that Paris was wearing the Pierre Cardin cologne she’d given her for their two-month anniversary. “Glad to know you’re not bored yet.”

  “I’m not. But I noticed you were looking through an auction catalog this morning.”

  “I was.”

  “Do you have your eye on something?”

  “I think so. The catalog is from two years ago. I need to track down a few of the items. Find out where they ended up.”

  Paris’s fingers moved lightly on her slacks. “Okay.”

  “You have a deadline. Doing this will keep me busy.” Diana put her head on Paris’s shoulder. They’d done a lot of talking, but not found a magic wand that fixed everything. Given that they could afford to travel between their homes, and that Anita Topaz was suddenly a very busy woman, picking one place to live over the other hadn’t been crucial. As long as they kept talking, it seemed to work. They had agreed to one thing, though: neither of them would be someone they weren’t to make the relationship work.