Warm November

by Kathleen Knowles

  “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If it had something to do with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well. Okay. I don’t want you to ever feel like you can’t be honest. I want us to be okay.” Hayley reached out and put her hand over Merle’s. Merle’s hand and arm went rigid.

  “Yeah. Sure. I know. Don’t worry.” She looked as though she wanted to leap out of the chair and run from the room. She jerked her hand back. Hayley didn’t know how she could do anything but worry. But in the meantime, she had her date with Sherrie.

  *

  “There’s a place in Bernal Heights we could go for coffee,” Hayley said.

  “I’d prefer a drink right now, if it’s okay with you.” Sherrie’s eyes shone in the dark. At their first meeting on Bernal Hill, they’d been sparkling and merry but now looked sinister, maybe a little crazy. They were walking toward Sherrie’s car in the Stonestown United Artists movie-theater parking lot. Despite her misgivings, Hayley had given in and let Sherrie drive. If she got stuck somehow, she could get a cab. She was likely being overanxious.

  “Sure. That’s fine.” Hayley got the sinking feeling Sherrie wanted to get a few drinks in her so she’d be more amenable for whatever Sherrie had planned. They drove to the Castro District and then spent an agonizing fifteen minutes finding a parking space.

  Sherrie got very impatient. “This makes me so crazy. Why can’t they put in more parking?”

  Hayley wondered just precisely where those new parking spaces would go. “Well. You know, it’s Friday night and a lot of people are out.”

  “Yeah. Guys picking up guys.”

  Hayley didn’t know what she meant by that other than the obvious.

  When they walked from their car over to Twin Peaks, Sherrie took Hayley’s hand. She wanted to snatch it away but counseled herself to be patient.

  The Twin Peaks Tavern certainly wasn’t a cruisy bar since the median age of the clientele was at least fifty. They had to sit close together in the crowd, and Sherrie took full advantage of their proximity, touching Hayley’s leg and pushing her breasts against her arm.

  “I’d like to leave now,” Hayley said when she saw Sherrie was on her third drink.

  “Sure, can I finish?” Sherrie held up her glass and pointed.

  Hayley nodded and sighed. She should have driven herself because she was going to be trapped in a small car with a half-drunk woman who was trying to seduce her. This was definitely not how she’d expected things to go. The sophisticated romantic scenes in The L Word she’d imagined for herself seemed in another universe.

  She supposed she should be happy that Sherrie wasn’t falling-down drunk. They walked the several blocks between the bar and where they’d parked. It was up a pretty big hill, but Hayley walked as quickly as she could manage. She just wanted to go home, but she still had to break that news to Sherrie and doubted it would be well received.

  As they drove from the Castro District to Bernal Heights, Hayley picked Sherrie’s hand up from her thigh and replaced it on the steering wheel.

  “You’re pretty safety conscious, aren’t ya?” Sherrie asked with a little bit of an edge.

  “Yep,” Hayley said, keeping her eyes forward.

  “Come on. Live a little. It’s Friday night in San Francisco. We just saw a great movie.” Sherrie’s car, a Mini Cooper, careened around the corners and up and down the various hilly streets between the Castro and Bernal Heights.

  Hayley looked out the window over at the lights twinkling and in the distance the dark shadow of San Bruno Mountain as they drove down Cortland Avenue.

  “Turn here.”

  All too swiftly, they were in front of the homey Craftsman house. Hayley wondered if Merle was home. It was likely she was.

  “So?” Sherrie said, her arm draped over the seat back behind Hayley’s head.

  “So.” Hayley gathered her wits and attempted to form sentences that would be clear without being cruel.

  “Are you going to ask me in?” Sherrie asked, her tone arch and seductive.

  “No. I’m not. Look. I’ve had a good time, but I don’t think we quite have the chemistry.”

  “Aw, sure we do. I can feel it…” Sherrie leaned toward her, and Hayley put a hand on her chest, at her collarbone to fend off the assault.

  “I’m sorry, Sherrie. We can be friends but that’s it.”

  Sherrie slumped back in her seat. Even in the dark, Hayley could see the pout. It was unattractive, especially for a woman of their age.

  “Huh. I could have sworn. Well, fine.” She turned the key in the ignition.

  “Thanks for a nice evening. I really enjoyed your company. Good night.”

  “Yeah. Good night.” She sounded depressed. Hayley felt a little bad but not enough to change her mind.

  Hayley said to herself as she walked up to the front porch, “Phew. Dodged a bullet there.” She went inside, hoping Merle was awake and felt like talking. But when she climbed the stairs to the porch, the house was dark. Hayley let herself in and, after getting a glass of water, walked past Merle’s closed bedroom door to her own room and got ready for bed, disappointed.

  *

  “Thanks for coming out to coffee with me,” Merle said as she watched Sigrid stir soymilk into her cup. Sigrid nodded and smiled vaguely but said nothing. Merle knew she was waiting for her to start talking about what was bothering her. Sigrid never tried to drag confessions out of her.

  “Promise you won’t tease me, please. I’m serious this time.” Merle flicked her eyebrows, and Sigrid nodded with a straight face. Merle sighed deeply and stirred her own coffee, attempting to frame what she wanted to say so it would be truthful but not too incriminating.

  She wanted help but didn’t want to look silly. Typical. She wanted Sigrid to hear about what she’d been obsessing about for the last month. She wanted to confess, more or less, and get the truth out there, just to get it out of her head. But she also needed Sigrid’s insight. For all her teasing, she was the one person who could help her sort out her dilemma.

  “First off, you were right. I’ve got a thing for Hayley.”

  “A thing?” Sigrid’s lips moved just a smidge, as though she was trying not to burst out laughing. Her ice-blue eyes sparkled. “What kind of a thing? A love thing or a sex thing?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe both.” Merle took a gulp of coffee. She thought about and quickly dismissed the idea of a scone. Caffeine was good enough. She didn’t need a hit of sugar though she desperately wanted one. An orange scone would be just right, though.

  “Huh. Have you said anything?”

  “No!”

  “Why not? Are you afraid she’ll run screaming from the room and then move out?”

  “I doubt she’d scream. She may move out. If I were her, I wouldn’t want to share a house with someone who had the hots for me.”

  “Isn’t that what Kay did for years?”

  “Sigrid. You promised.”

  “All right, that’s true. Sorry. I won’t say anything else like that.”

  “Thanks. I’m serious here. I think she knows something’s up, but I don’t want to tell her.”

  “Why not?”

  Merle couldn’t help it; she rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Number one, she doesn’t feel the same. Number two, she’s just coming out, and I don’t want anything to do with that. Number three, we’ve got a great relationship. We get along. I don’t want to have to find someone else if she moves.”

  Sigrid narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing Merle. “Let me ask you something. Are you over Kay?”

  Merle was dumbfounded. She’d thought about Kay less the past couple months, but she still thought about her. “I believe so.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “No, I guess not. I don’t want to date anyone, I know that. Never mind about Kay. What about Hayley?”

  “What about her? You don’t know what she’s thinking unless you tell her how you feel. She might be holding back fo
r the same reasons you are. She thinks you’re not interested.”

  “She just might be. But still I can’t get involved with her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jesus Christ, Sigrid. I just told you.” Merle was losing patience. Sigrid often used the Socratic method to get Merle to figure out for herself what she was really feeling, but she wasn’t in the mood.

  “Simmer down. I’m not trying to yank your chain. That’s a real question. What if she does like you? What if she is ready to settle down? You seem to be assuming, without any evidence, that neither of those things is true.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “‘Oh, yeah’ is right.”

  “But even if she’s ready like you say…”

  “Careful, love. I didn’t say she was. I just said you don’t know if she is or if she isn’t.”

  “Right. Well, whether or not she is, I’m not.”

  “Why not? Is it Kay?”

  “No, absolutely not. You said I can’t afford to make any more Kay-like mistakes. Remember saying that?” Merle stared at Sigrid, challenging her.

  Sigrid met her challenging gaze straight on and mirrored it right back at her. “Yes. I do. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Oh, really? Are we?” Merle was getting grouchy because she knew Sigrid had backed her into a corner even if it was for the best possible reasons. She was trying to get Merle to see her path forward.

  “Yes. I believe you know what to do.”

  “I’ve got to be honest with her.”

  “Righto. She can make up her own mind about what she wants to do with the information, and you’ll get some useful information back. You don’t know what’s going to happen, remember? Stop speculating. Get more information. Then decide what to do next. Besides, once you’re honest with her, you’ll feel better. You must be about to explode, trying to hold in all that energy.”

  “It’s not easy. Maybe if I tell her, I can start getting over it.”

  “Maybe you will or maybe you won’t.” Sigrid grinned at her evilly.

  Merle chuckled and shook her head. It was time to talk to Hayley and clear the air. If she could be honest, she’d feel better. If it caused Hayley to want to move, that was that and she’d have to find another roommate. But she didn’t know what would happen, she reminded herself.

  First, though, she’d have another cup of coffee and an orange scone. It wouldn’t kill her.

  *

  Sherrie emailed her again and left two voice mails. Hayley was concerned. Her polite brush-off hadn’t worked. She felt like she was being stalked. This was so peculiar. Hayley thought of stalkers as creepy straight guys who couldn’t take no for an answer, but this obviously wasn’t the case. Here was a lesbian stalking her. She asked one of the attorneys at work what to do, but he shrugged.

  “Unless she makes threats to your safety, nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nope. This area of the law is a big mess.”

  That was putting it mildly. Hayley supposed she could have her arrested for trespassing if she showed up at the house. But she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She ought to warn Merle about the possibility of Sherrie showing up to Bonview Street out of the blue. During the past couple of weeks, she and Merle hadn’t crossed paths much. If she were the paranoid type, she would have thought Merle was avoiding her. This evening, she’d try to catch her at home and tell her about Sherrie.

  Hayley was depressed about her lack of luck with dating. She’d met the walker, the talker, and then the stalker. That made her giggle a little. There was also Merle, but she still didn’t know how to approach her, and it was likely futile anyhow.

  She’d become afraid to open her email. This was no way to live so she changed her email address. That was helpful: no more emails from Sherrie. She didn’t want to change her phone number because she’d have to inform everyone she knew. That would be a hassle. She could delete voice mails and not answer Sherrie’s calls. She’d have to give up eventually, wouldn’t she?

  Hayley opened her front door, and Arthur warmly greeted her. She went to the kitchen with him at her heels. If she got home first, she would feed him, and he’d gotten used to that. She gave him a bowl of kibble, and after he’d inhaled it, she sat at the kitchen table petting him and telling him, “Arthur, honey, I really want your mom to like me. But if I tell her I think she’s amazing and wonderful and I want to sleep with her in the worst kind of way, she’ll boot me out. Then I’ll be back to square one with nowhere to live.”

  Arthur wagged his tail and pricked his ears up. He was so endearing, she hugged him. Then he bolted back to the living room. Merle was coming in the front door. Hayley stayed put and let them have their greeting. It seemed to take forever, but Merle came into the kitchen and said, “Hi there,” just like normal. Hayley’s conviction that something was wrong seemed ridiculous. Merle put a couple of grocery items in the refrigerator, closed the door, and said, “That cheese you like was on sale at Rainbow. How about enchiladas for dinner?”

  “That sounds good. So you’ll be able to have dinner?” Hayley thought she sounded a bit forlorn and didn’t like it, but what could she do?

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll even cook.” She looked at the clock on the stove. “I’m going to take a walk with Arthur first. So how’s six thirty?”

  “Fine. Sure. No problem. Do you want me to start anything?”

  “Nope. I got it covered.”

  Hayley wanted to be asked along on the walk but didn’t think she ought to invite herself. Their talk could wait until dinner. She turned on the TV and watched the talking heads on MSNBC for forty-five minutes until Merle and Arthur came back.

  When Merle went to the kitchen and began cooking, Hayley decided to just keep watching TV until she was summoned. She tried to relax, but her mind kept veering toward what to tell Merle about Sherrie and what she wanted Merle to do or say if she did tell her. Again she returned to thinking it wasn’t a big deal and that she was overreacting. The emails had been awful though. They veered between pleading and vaguely threatening, and they were tense and repetitive. Something really bad was going on with Sherrie, and Hayley wanted to stay away from her.

  She looked back toward the kitchen. Arthur sat at the door, his tail thumping on the floor as he watched Merle cook. He was right at the threshold, Hayley noted, but not a bit of his body was over it. All of a sudden, he ran to the front door, barking furiously. This startled Hayley, and she sat up and said, “Arthur?”

  The doorbell rang. That was so odd. Their street was such a backwater, no one had come to the door during the entire time Hayley had lived there. In the Sunset, Hayley had had to regularly turn away Jehovah’s Witnesses and neighborhood kids soliciting babysitting and yard-work jobs.

  “I got it!” she yelled.

  She opened the front door and there stood Sherrie, a bouquet of flowers in hand, her eyes shining.

  “Arthur. Sit.” He obeyed her but made a sound like a growl low in his throat.

  “What’s going on?” Hayley heard Merle’s voice behind her.

  “Are you going to let me in? Can we talk?” Sherrie’s tone was plaintive and pleading.

  “I—Yeah. Okay. You can come in for just a moment. We’re getting ready to eat dinner.” That was true, and it might help hurry this intruder out.

  “We?” Sherrie asked, her tone suspicious.

  “Merle’s my housemate. I told you about her. Now tell me why you’re here and what exactly you want. I thought I was clear in my email—”

  “Can’t we speak privately?” Sherrie was back to pleading.

  From behind her, Hayley heard Merle say, “I can stay if you want. Or not. Arthur, sit.” Arthur was whining. Hayley had never heard him do that.

  Still facing Sherrie, Hayley said, “You weren’t invited but still you’re here. We’ll sit and you can tell me what you’ve come here to say. Then you can go. Merle, I don’t think you need to stay.” Hayley hoped her tone conveyed the right message, ev
en if her words didn’t penetrate.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  Hayley turned to face Merle. Their eyes met, and Hayley saw that Merle was ready to do battle if necessary. Hayley was shaken by Sherrie’s sudden appearance, but Merle’s words and her clear resolve calmed her. Merle nodded and closed the kitchen door.

  “Please have a seat,” she said, coldly. She took the armchair that sat at right angles to the couch. Sherrie perched on the edge of the sofa with her hands clasped. She was flushed and her eyes were watery. Hayley got a whiff of alcohol. That was only going to make things worse.

  “I’m sorry I had to come to your house without an invitation. I didn’t see any other way because you didn’t answer my emails or voice mails or texts, and I needed to talk to you.”

  Hayley told herself to keep calm, let this woman have her say, then quietly and firmly ask her to leave. She nodded to Sherrie, indicating she should continue.

  “So. So. I want to know why we can’t see each other again. I thought we were great. I really like you and I really think we could—”

  “Sherrie.” Hayley interrupted her because it wasn’t clear she was going to stop talking. The stalker and talker all in one. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I told you we can’t date anymore. I don’t think I can be any clearer. You need to leave.”

  Hayley stood up but Sherrie didn’t. She stayed on the couch and wrung her hands.

  “Please, Hayley. I’m sure you and I could get to know each other better and then you’d feel differently. I know you would. Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

  Hayley balled her fists. “Sherrie. Please go. Now.”

  To her dismay, Sherrie began to cry loudly as she continued to speak. She was barely making sense. “Oh my God. This is so awful. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I thought you were different. I thought you were nice, not like the other ones. But you’re just like all the rest. You’re awful. You’re such a bitch.” She leaped up and threw herself on Hayley and began to slap her haphazardly. Hayley caught her arms and yelled, “Stop it. Stop!”