Love, From A to Z

by Robin Alexander

  “It’s a very serious viral illness that’s fatal for dogs,” Zoe said as she led Alicia to the door.

  “Okay, so it’s not a mood thing.” Alicia hugged the turtle to her chest. “Good news Speedy, you just have a bad temper.”

  *******

  Alicia fought hard to stop grinning goofily when she noticed a car turn into the parking lot of the marina. She didn’t want to appear overly excited, but when Zoe got out of that car, Alicia lost control of her face. Her grin turned into a big smile as watched Zoe approach wearing a pair of white denim shorts and a dark blue T-shirt. Alicia’s heart thudded with a mixture of joy and desire.

  “I’m not used to you looking happy to see me,” Zoe said with a smile as well. “It was a little startling at first, because you were smiling like that when you tried to hand me gift-wrapped cat shit.”

  “I swear I don’t have any cat shit on me. I’m genuinely happy to see you, but I won’t deny for a few seconds I worried you wouldn’t show to make me the butt of an elaborate joke. I guess we can’t help but be a little paranoid given our past.” Alicia punched a code into the keypad on the gate and opened it. “I won’t shove you in the water, or take you out on the lake and abandon you on the opposite shore or wave a snake at you.”

  Zoe took a step toward the gate when Alicia gestured for her to go ahead and stopped. “I kinda worried you’d stand me up too, but those things didn’t cross my mind. I can still swing a bat, and even though I don’t have one I’m sure I’ll find something to use instead,” she said with a slight smile as she continued through the gate.

  “Do you think I would’ve gone to the trouble I did to see you today just to prank you?” Alicia asked as she followed.

  “No one challenges Gladys Hutchins, she’s a scary woman. I think Dr. Hutchins is terrified of her. I don’t think even you would defy her just to mess with me.” Zoe smiled as her gaze swept over Alicia’s blue-and-white shirt and white shorts. “We’re almost dressed alike. I was going for a nautical look, but you did it better. You look great, and you even took your strips off.”

  “I think you look great. That’s why I couldn’t stop smiling when I saw you and I can’t stop now. My uncle asked why you used four thin strips instead of one wide one like his doctor did for him when he busted his chin. Then he showed me his scar. It looks like a butthole. You had prime opportunity to deliver the payback of all paybacks and you didn’t take advantage of it. Plus, you looked as shocked as I felt when you admitted I was the third girl. Did the words just jump out of your mouth?”

  “That’s how I felt, yes,” Zoe replied with a laugh. “My mouth took over my brain and spilled the secret I’d been alluding to, kind of hoping you’d read between the lines.”

  “I wanted to tell you a secret when I went to your office today, but I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. You still may not believe me when I do tell you.”

  “Are you about to claim you really weren’t the one who poured milk into my book sack when we were in the sixth grade, again?” Zoe asked as she and Alicia walked along the dock.

  Alicia held up both hands in surrender. “I really didn’t do that, but I was at the scene of the crime as lookout while Lindsay did it. You got me back when you put green peas in the pocket of my jacket and smashed them.” She laughed. “Don’t even try to claim you didn’t.”

  “I did that without a lookout,” Zoe said with a grin that quickly changed to a look of surprise when Alicia stopped and pointed at a boat. “Are we going on this? What is it?”

  “It’s a cabin cruiser. I think you’ll enjoy it more than that aluminum—that’s not where you climb…aboard, but okay,” Alicia said when Zoe leapt down onto the rear deck and went through a door. “I had it lined up perfectly so all you’d have to do is walk on.”

  Alicia entered the boat through a side door and ran into Zoe who exclaimed, “It’s like a split-level house. It has bedrooms and bathrooms.” She held out her hands and turned in a circle. “This is a living room with a little adjoining kitchen. What’s up there?” She didn’t give Alicia a chance to answer before she sprinted upstairs, and a few seconds later she raced back down. “You could live on this thing.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of weekends on it.”

  Zoe sat down on a couch, kicked off her sandals and dug her toes into a white, gray, and black striped rug. “I love the color scheme you have going on in here. What were you going to tell me that you don’t think I’ll believe?”

  “We should get moving first, so we’ll be in the perfect spot for the sunset. Would you like something to drink? I have a great red wine.” Alicia held up a hand. “I don’t have a cultured palate, but I think this wine is really tasty.”

  Zoe smiled. “I’d love to try it.”

  “I’m gonna get us ready for takeoff,” Alicia said as she took a bottle from her wine cabinet. “You enjoy the wine, and feel free to roam around and look at whatever you want.”

  Zoe hopped up and plucked the wine opener from Alicia’s hand. “Well, let me at least open the wine since I have no idea how to help you with boat things. Should I pour you a glass too, and what else can I do to help?”

  “Open and enjoy the wine for now. I’ll have some once we drop anchor on the lake.” Alicia took a glass from a cabinet, set it on the counter and gazed at Zoe with a smile for a moment. “I’ll be right back.”

  Zoe watched Alicia go, and opened the wine. She poured a glass and took a sip as she opened cabinets and doors peeking at the contents. She inhaled sharply and whispered, “There’s a TV too.” She stopped digging around when she noticed a large framed photo mounted on the wall. Alicia and Lindsay were posing next to a school bus in their volleyball uniforms sporting big smiles with their arms wrapped around each other. As Zoe stared at it she remembered when she began to see Alicia differently.

  Zoe had missed a week of school while she was out with the flu, and when she returned she’d stayed late one day to take a test she’d missed. While getting into her car to go home she dropped one of four books she was carrying. She sat in the driver’s seat, tossed her books onto the other seat and reached out of her open door to retrieve the other book. At the same time, a couple of students ran through the parking lot and one of them collided with Zoe’s door and slammed it on her arm. Zoe couldn’t make a sound from the shock and pain, and the other student continued on, unaware that he’d injured her. All of the sudden, Alicia appeared while Zoe was trying to catch her breath. Alicia picked up the book and tossed it past Zoe into the passenger seat. She was dressed in her volleyball team practice uniform, and she was holding an ice pack against a knot on her head. She gently placed the ice pack on Zoe’s swelling arm that she was clutching to her stomach. Without a word, Alicia walked away, and a few minutes later one of the teachers arrived to help Zoe.

  The pain and the surprise of Alicia suddenly appearing had struck Zoe mute, but the next day she tried to thank Alicia for what she did. She encountered Alicia in a hallway before their first class, and tried to speak to her, but Alicia walked past refusing to look at Zoe even after she’d called out her name. Zoe tried again at lunch, but Alicia wouldn’t acknowledge her presence then either. Given their past, Zoe assumed Alicia didn’t want her friends to know that she’d come to her rescue. That act of kindness, though, caused Zoe to see Alicia in a different light that grew brighter every day.

  “You may wanna come up top. Some people get seasick down there when the boat is moving,” Alicia yelled.

  Zoe climbed the stairs to the helm and sat on a bench as Alicia navigated their way out of the harbor. “This is a yacht?” she asked when she noticed an emblem mounted on the instrument panel that read: Yacht-Cruiser.

  “It’s an old baby yacht,” Alicia replied with a laugh. “We were in junior high school when it was built, but it was all I could afford—I thought. I probably could’ve bought a new one, because I have spent a fortune restoring this thing.”

  “It looks brand new to me.” Zoe stared at all o
f the gauges and switches without the faintest idea of what they were for, except for the air conditioning controls. “Aside from the time I’ve spent with you, I’ve only been on a boat maybe a couple of times when Dad bought one. It wasn’t anything like this, and if I remember correctly, Dad sold it a year after he bought it. He said they’re floating money pits that never pay off.”

  Alicia nodded. “They can be. It really is an extravagance because I paid a lot for something that isn’t a utility like a car. I’ve always loved boats though, and even though I work on the water it’s a great stress reliever to take this old lady out and just ride with no particular destination in mind. Stress relief is how I justify the expense.”

  “Then it’s worth it.” Zoe took a sip of her wine. “Okay, tell me what you think I won’t believe.”

  “Once we get out a little further you can take the wheel if you want.”

  “I’m not driving this Winnebago on water, baby yacht thing after you just told me you spent a fortune on it,” Zoe said with a laugh. “I’m getting the impression you’re crawfishing on whatever you wanted to tell me.”

  Alicia laughed too. “Yeah, my tail is tucked and I’m backing up.”

  “You shouldn’t have piqued my curiosity. I have to know,” Zoe said as she gazed at Alicia’s profile.

  Do you remember our junior year when we had to sit at the same table in one of the classes we had together?”

  “Yeah, I kept waiting for you to accidently kick me under that table,” Zoe replied with a smile. “I don’t remember the subject, but the teacher was Mrs. Dalton. She couldn’t remember names so she made us sit in alphabetical order to match her seating chart.”

  “When you sat down across from me the first day I thought, aw shit we’re gonna get suspended. We hadn’t been that close to each other since the third grade, and you weren’t in that chair two seconds before we started whisper fighting. Poor old Mrs. Dalton was losing her hearing too because she couldn’t hear all of the shit we were talking.” Alicia laughed. “You called me a barf bag whore, a lot.”

  “You used to tell me ‘bitch, do us a favor and bag your face.’ That was your favorite. When we couldn’t think of anything else to say we’d have staring fights.”

  “You were out a whole week of school and I think someone said you had the flu. I missed you because you kept me from being bored. Our fight had stopped feeling like a fight, and I felt like we were sharing something we both enjoyed, a game. The day you came back and sat down you smiled at me, and it didn’t seem like the ‘you dirty bitch, I hate you’ smiles we always gave each other. It caused this weird flip-flopping sensation in the pit of my stomach, and that happened every time you came to class.” Alicia laughed nervously. “I started noticing things about you that I liked. The webbed leather bracelet you wore, the glossy stuff you painted on your lips, and all of the sudden it was as though you punched me in the face. I realized I was attracted to another girl, and as you say ‘it just had to be you.’” Alicia held up a hand. “This is where I have to admit I was really stupid. I was mad at you all over again. I didn’t want to accept that what I felt was coming from inside of me. Seriously, I would’ve rather believed that you’d intentionally cast a spell over me to make me gay for you. Did you notice that I stopped calling you names and giving you shitty looks?”

  “Yes,” Zoe said with a thoughtful gaze. “I was just thinking about the time you put that ice pack on my arm. You liked me, but you were mad at me because you liked me?”

  Alicia glanced at Zoe. “I was trying to break your spell. Lindsay helped with that in our senior year. She came out to me then, and we…did some experimenting. That shithead wanted to experiment with everybody, so my best friend feelings didn’t develop into anything else.”

  “That ice pack incident made me start seeing you differently and that’s when my crush developed. You wouldn’t look at me or return my digs at you for the rest of our junior year and half of our senior year. You liked me, but you were having sex with Lindsay.” Zoe smiled wryly. “Oh, I hate her, and right now, I kinda hate you a little bit.”

  “I thought you hated me back then. Why didn’t you tell me you liked me?” Alicia asked, pulling back on the throttle gradually.

  “You refused to talk to me, or even look at me.” Zoe pursed her lips. “No, that doesn’t matter. There was no way I would’ve admitted to you that you were in all of my fantasies.”

  “Right, so don’t hate—fantasies?” Alicia shook her head. “Don’t even give me a hint of what went on in them. I might run into something again. You say you had a crush on me, but you turned into a super shit our senior year.”

  “I couldn’t stand you ignoring me, and I wanted you to at least flip me off to at least acknowledge that I existed. That’s why I had to accidentally drop my lunch tray down your back,” Zoe said and then smiled. “That fixed the problem, and the bird started flying again. Did you stop thinking I was attractive because you were screwing Lindsay?”

  Alicia glanced at Zoe. “No, but again, I thought you hated me, and you thought I hated you. Then you went off to college.”

  “Shit,” Zoe said distractedly. “When I came back here after vet school and I walked into Jack’s, you looked surprised to see me at first, and then your face just went blank. I could’ve been a barstool for all you cared. I was an adult, I’d been around, I’d had some hot experiences with women. I mean serious, brain-melting sex that—”

  “Images!” Alicia waved a hand around her head. “You’re making me visualize things and that’s what I’m gonna be seeing when I run us aground. So, you walked into Jack’s and...”

  “That expressionless gaze drove me crazy,” Zoe said between fits of laughter. “I’d been around, had experiences, and I felt your disinterest shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I felt disappointed, sad, and mad at myself for feeling that way, and mad at you for making me feel that way. Then you knocked a ball off the pool table, and it rolled right over to where Ashley and I were sitting. I should’ve picked it up and handed it to you, but I was distracted while I debated if I should speak to you, and if I did, what would be the right thing to say. You just walked over, avoiding eye contact, picked up the ball and turned around to walk away. I was so pissed off that you didn’t at least look at me, I couldn’t stop, ‘you’re still a bitch’ from flying out of my mouth. What was going through your head then?”

  “I don’t know if you noticed the woman I was shooting pool with, but that was Brooke, the ex I told you about the other day. I thought our relationship was good then, and I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up. I saw you walk in and my heart started pounding and I started sweating. Brooke even asked me if something was wrong because my face was flushed. In a matter of seconds I started questioning my love for Brooke because just the sight of you was making me sweat. When you called me a bitch it was like being hit with a bucket of ice water and I calmed right back down.”

  “I have so many regrets,” Zoe admitted with a sigh.

  Alicia nodded. “I do too.”

  “Yes, I remember Brooke,” Zoe said, staring into space. “She had beautiful, shiny, long and straight dark hair. Big eyelids that made her look disinterested even when she smiled. It was kind of a sexy look, unless she was looking at me and her right eyebrow would rise a little. She did that every time she caught me looking at you discreetly, letting me know you belonged to her. That’s when I really realized we were on the same team, and that made that night even worse.”

  “That asshole was probably flirting with you.”

  “No, those weren’t sweet eyes she was making. They we were clearly saying ‘look at her again, and I’ll see how far I can shove this pool cue up your nose.’ I risked brain damage a few more times though,” Zoe said with a grin. “I went back to Jack’s after that night, but you were never there.”

  “I’d get off the boat and go straight to Brooke’s house. We didn’t do things in town very often because I was afraid people would realize
we were a couple. My family didn’t know about me then, and I didn’t want them to find out.”

  “My parents still don’t know,” Zoe admitted somberly. “How did yours react when they found out?”

  Alicia laughed. “It was horrible. I hadn’t officially moved away from home yet. All of my stuff was still in my room, and my dickhead brother—not Tony, Joey dug around in there and found a shoebox. I kept notes and cards in there from other girlfriends. He read every single one, and picked the absolute worst card to show Mom and Dad. When they confronted me and wanted to know who Courtney was, I realized they had her card. I tried to say Courtney was just joking with me. Then Mom read the card aloud, and Dad ran out of the room. ‘I can’t wait to fuck you again’ was the tamest thing that Courtney had written. I ended up snatching the card out of Mom’s hand because I couldn’t stand hearing those things coming out of her mouth.”

  “Oh shit, and you’re still alive?”

  “I didn’t think I was gonna be for long. Mom was furious and she was screaming things that didn’t even make sense. Dad had to separate us. He asked me to go to Grandma’s so they could talk. I really wanted to go to Brooke’s apartment, but I knew that would make it all worse. I told Grandma everything because I was afraid Mom would read that card to her and she’d have a stroke and die.” Alicia smiled at Zoe. “The only thing she said to me was ‘what happens in the bedroom stays there, so keep it that way from now on.’ I know she loved Grandpa, but when he died, Grandma visited an out-of-town, female friend a lot. I think Grandma is on our team, but I’ve never had the guts to ask her.”

  Zoe shook her head. “I don’t blame you. What happened after that with your parents?”

  “They talked all night, and then Dad called Grandma and asked her to tell me to come home. They asked me so many questions I didn’t want to answer.” Alicia groaned. “When they finally accepted that I was gay, Mom made one request and that was don’t date any more women who spell twat with two a’s.”