Without a Net

by Kimberly Cooper Griffin

  60

  Meg raised her hand at Fiona’s door, but before she could knock, the door opened and there was Fiona, keys in hand standing on the doorstep. It was comical, really. Meg stood with her hand raised in a loose fist, ready to knock on a door no longer there, and a slow smile transformed her face.

  “Hi beautiful!”

  Fiona looked startled, but she smiled. Meg’s heartrate skyrocketed and she kissed her hello. Her stomach fluttered when their lips parted. “I hope you aren’t sick of seeing me.”

  “Not at all. I was actually on my way down to see you. I would have been there earlier, but I’m running slower than usual tonight.” Fiona gave her another kiss. “Someone’s been keeping me awake later than I’m used to.”

  Meg pretended to frown. “Anyone I know?”

  Fiona held her hand up next to Meg’s head. “I don’t know. She’s about five foot seven or eight…”

  “Seven-and-a-half.”

  “…five foot seven-and-a-half; shining brown hair smelling of the forest rain; amazing blue, blue eyes capable of melting you with a glance; soft, full, talented lips; and magic fingers that burn me with their touch… any of this ringing a bell?”

  “Hmmm…” Meg pretended to think it over. “Sounds familiar. She’s been keeping you up all night, you say?”

  “Yep. I’m exhausted.”

  “If you need time to rest, I can leave.” She tried to hide her disappointment. She didn’t want to leave. She’d be happy to watch her take a nap, but she couldn’t read Fiona’s expression. If anything, she looked a little guarded.

  “What do you want to do?” Fiona asked.

  Did insecurity drift across her face?

  When in doubt, she always went with honesty, even if it terrified her. “I’d rather sit and watch you sleep than be away from you.” She shook her head. Gross. Didn’t sound creepy at all. “Let me try again without sounding like a stalker. If you want to chill, I’m happy to be near you. But if you need some alone time, I can skedaddle too.”

  The guarded look on Fiona’s face disappeared, but she paused and Meg was prepared to go spend time at Vi’s.

  “Quite the opposite.” Fiona played with her earring but she looked relieved. “I feel the same way. To be honest. I was running slow tonight because I was wondering if I was suffocating you.”

  “What? I’m not ready to come up for air yet. Not even close.” Meg took Fiona’s hand and walked her into the apartment, out of sight of the passersby. When the door closed, she wrapped her in her arms and thoroughly kissed her. She pulled away only to catch her breath. “I love every minute with you. I don’t see it changing any time soon.”

  Fiona’s response was hardly more than a whisper. “Me too.”

  This time, when their lips met, the heat of their kiss was off the charts. Meg held Fiona’s face in her hands and tried to catch her breath. “All I can think about is taking you into the bedroom and devouring you.” Fiona played with the hair on the back of her neck, causing tingles to travel down her spine.

  Fiona traced her lips with her tongue. “I wouldn’t object. I’m kind of obsessed.”

  Meg’s breathing hitched. She was so ready. But they needed dinner and probably a little fresh air. “I like how you think. How about this: why don’t we get some dinner first? You and the baby need more nourishment than this obsession with each other is allowing. So… what if we grab some dinner to go, and head over to the park and watch some soccer?”

  Fiona kissed each corner of her mouth. “And the devouring would come after?”

  Meg’s resolve to spend some time together outside of bed was starting to crumble with each new kiss. “Yes. We watch some soccer and then come back for the devouring.”

  “Okay.” Fiona’s tone said it wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, but she kissed Meg one more time and slipped out of her arms. “We better leave now, then. Before I change my mind.” The look she gave her was smoldering and Meg almost suggested they order in.

  Meg cleared her throat. “Right. Time for soccer.”

  Fiona opened the door. “I played in college. Did you play?”

  “I used to—until I blew my knee out. Now I watch.”

  Fiona grimaced. “Ouch! So that’s the story behind the scar on your knee?”

  “Yeah, I was a forward and one day I pivoted on a long drive and that’s all she wrote. Mid-season during senior year at college. Surgery fixed it, but fear of reinjuring it made me give it up. The day my knee blew—” She winced at the memory. “I remember the way it popped. The pain was excruciating, but the sick feeling I got when I found my kneecap floating where it shouldn’t have been…” She puffed out her cheeks. “Just thinking about it makes me nauseous. What about you? What position did you play?”

  “I was a defensive mid-fielder. I stopped playing during undergrad. It was too much to keep up with all the practice and studying.”

  When they neared the park, Fiona smelled pizza, so they decided to grab a slice from the food truck for dinner. When they took a seat on the metal bleachers, the teams were warming up on the field in their brightly colored jerseys.

  Fiona took a bite of her slice. “It’s salads for me from now on. Pizza three times in one week is a little ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong... I love it. But I’m going to gain a ton of weight if I keep eating junk food at this rate. Hold on. You have a little grease right…” She bit her lip and wiped Meg’s chin with her napkin.

  Meg grinned at the grease-wiping gesture. “Thanks.”

  A whistle from the referee signaled warm-ups were over, and the teams took their positions. Right from the kick-off, it was apparent the teams were mismatched. A few of the women on the less-talented team had good control of the ball, but most of them had lousy footwork and almost no strategy. Nevertheless, it was still fun to watch fit women compete for the ball, and Meg and Fiona kept up a steady conversation as they watched the game.

  “Tell me about Cornell,” Fiona said, during a timeout. “I’ll bet you had the grades and test scores to get in on your own, but did it help coming from a long line of alumni?”

  Meg sighed. “It’s a long story. The grades helped and a soccer scholarship didn’t hurt, but the alumni thing is probably the only reason I actually got in.”

  Fiona gave her a soft shoulder bump. “Sounds like there’s a story I need to hear.”

  Meg snorted. “It’s boring.”

  Fiona gave her the smoldering look again, making Meg’s stomach flutter. “I find nothing about you even remotely boring.”

  Meg laughed. “Remember, you asked. Let’s see. To sum it up, I subconsciously attempted to sabotage my acceptance by forgetting to submit my application on time.” She shrugged.

  “Explain ‘subconscious sabotage’.”

  She should have known Fiona would want details. “I think I told you before, it was a forgone conclusion CJ and I would go to Cornell Law?”

  Fiona nodded. “Like your parents and grandparents.”

  “Well, somewhere along the line, I decided I had a voice in the matter. I decided I’d go to the University of Washington.”

  “University of Washington over Cornell?” She narrowed her eyes. “Was it a girl?”

  Meg held up a finger. “Bingo. A few of my friends were headed there, too. But, mostly it was because of Hannah Wertz. She was so pretty, and an amazing soccer player. I was crushing hard. Plus, the more my family pushed toward Cornell, the more I pushed back. Classic teen rebellion. My mom made me fill out the paperwork for both schools while I complained about the unfairness of it all.” Meg laughed to remember her angsty teenaged attitude. “It was pathetic. I hadn’t told my mom I was gay yet, so I couldn’t tell her about Hannah. The reasons I was giving her were weak. It caused a lot of stress. I threatened to run away.”

  “Would you have done it?”

  “I was jus
t being dramatic, but my parents freaked out. That’s when I started seeing a therapist and she encouraged me to come out.”

  “Your teen angst was in full bloom, huh?”

  “And then some,” Meg said with a smile.

  “I can’t imagine you being so emotional.”

  “Trust me, I have a hard time believing it, too. It threw my folks for a loop, for sure.” She could laugh about it now, but she imagined how frustrated her parents must have been in the war zone she’d created back then. “The thing is, I always knew I would end up going to Cornell. I don’t know why I pushed back so hard. My crush on Hannah faded, yet I continued to push back. It came to a head when my mom found both packages, stamped and ready to go, but sitting on my dresser a few days after the submission deadline. Mom never snooped—at least not in my room. Despite my bad attitude, I was a good kid. My brother, on the other hand…” She waved a hand. CJ was a piece of work. “Well, he was a different story. I don’t remember why my mom went into my room, but I’ve never seen her so angry. She was li-vid. Normally, the angrier my mom gets, the calmer she acts. She’s a lawyer, after all. You should have seen her, though. She was furious, actually spitting as she yelled at me. I had no excuse, either. I had simply forgotten.” She shook her head at the memory.

  “How’d they fix it? Application deadlines are strict,” Fiona asked.

  “My parents enlisted anyone they had ever known who had any pull with the admissions office. Something worked, because the board of admissions, which never, ever, ever made exceptions, finally relented. Then we had to wait for the formal acceptance letter. By then, I’d gotten over my rebellion. I was never so relieved as when the letter came.”

  “I take it your brother had no problems with his application?”

  “My mom filled out most of the application for him and supervised the essay parts. She even took it to the post office for him, and then followed up with calls to key decision makers. I’m sure CJ’s acceptance was almost exclusively based on the family alumni thing. His grades barely met the minimum acceptance criteria.”

  “Your parents are tenacious.”

  “You’re telling me.” Meg snorted. “All of the hard-sell efforts they did for CJ made the additional calls they had to make for me that much harder.”

  “I’ll bet,” Fiona said.

  She wrinkled her nose, unsure what she hated more; coming off as an entitled rich kid to Fiona, or her actions as a child, which made her sound like she’d always been an entitled rich kid. Basically, both. She sighed. “I’m grateful for everything they did. I know most people don’t have the resources and ties my family does. I’m embarrassed about my behavior, though. I acted like an entitled brat.”

  Fiona squeezed her shoulder and Meg leaned into it. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You had some issues to work out.”

  “True. A couple of years of therapy taught me that my efforts to undermine my acceptance into college were an attempt to break free from my family’s expectations.” Oh, God. Was she coming off as some new-age hippie? She needed to stop over-thinking things.

  Fiona’s brow knit. “Oh yeah? In what way? Their expectations of you being straight?”

  “They were actually cool about that part. Everyone except CJ, but that’s a whole different story.” She swept her hands to the side, probably a little too vigorously, but it wasn’t something she wanted to get into right then. “The main thing was being a vet and breaking tradition, but I already told you about that.”

  Fiona tilted her head. “It seems kind of old school the whole following in the family footsteps thing.”

  Meg sighed and shrugged. “It was expected. We knew we had to work to get into Cornell, but we also knew we had a leg up on the other applicants. CJ always wanted to be a lawyer, but he seemed to think it was going to be handed to him. My parents were always pushing him because of his iffy grades, using me as an example. It became this thing I was supposed to do, and I went along with it. Until I didn’t. And then, bang. Rebellion time.”

  “You definitely don’t seem the type to purposely shake things up, but it’s nice to know you haven’t always been so perfect.” Fiona lightly punched her in the arm.

  Meg couldn’t help the incredulous look on her face. “I’m far from perfect, as you’ll eventually find out. So, there’s my story. Were you out to your parents when you were a teenager? How did they react when you came out?”

  The game started back up and their attention was caught by the activity on the field. When Fiona didn’t answer her question after a few minutes, Meg wondered if she’d stumbled onto something she didn’t want to talk about.

  The ball ended up near the weaker team’s goal almost immediately and the stronger team scored another goal. It was almost painful to watch.

  “My parents died before I ever had to tell them. And because I rarely dated, it didn’t come up with Aunt Corny before she died, either.” Fiona sounded sad.

  “How do you think they would have reacted?” Meg asked. Fiona’s sadness was understandable. It would be so hard not to have a family to talk to about this kind of thing.

  Fiona’s brow furrowed. “I honestly don’t know how my parents would have reacted. The subject never came up. They weren’t religious and didn’t talk about politics, unless it was union stuff.” She lifted her shoulders. “I want to say they’d have been cool with it. But, I think I would’ve gladly dealt with any reaction they might have had, just to have them back. You know, given the choice.” She stared into the distance for a moment and then shook herself. Did she feel all alone in the world? Meg wanted to tell her she wasn’t. Not with her around. “As for Aunt Corny, I’m sure she at least suspected. She had this way of using gender-neutral pronouns when she talked about dating. ‘A beautiful woman like you must have people lined up at the door for dates’,” Fiona mimicked.

  Meg laughed. “You should always talk like an old woman. It’s hot.” More seriously, she added; “I wish I could have met your aunt. She sounds like an amazing woman.”

  “I wish you could have, too. And my parents. They were all amazing.” She sat up to stretch and Meg admired the swath of skin revealed around Fiona’s waist. She forced her eyes away before she gave in to her desire to touch it. They watched a little more of the game. The routing continued.

  “Was your family accepting when you told them?” Fiona intertwined her fingers with Meg’s and scooted closer to her on the bench.

  “It was almost disappointing, the lack of furor it caused, considering the drama queen I was back then.” Meg stroked Fiona’s fingers. “I don’t think they were overjoyed at the news, but they took my little announcement in stride. Kind of like they expected it. My dad gave me the whole ‘we love you no matter what’ speech, and my mom took me aside for an embarrassing mother-daughter moment. She wanted to know if my announcement was due to becoming sexually active—which, aside from one awkward kiss with Hannah, it wasn’t. That came later, at summer soccer camp. They were probably relieved I wasn’t gonna wind up pregnant.” Meg laughed before she realized what she said. Then she felt like a jerk.

  Fiona took it in stride. “Hey, I’m gay, and it didn’t keep me from getting knocked up!” Fiona saved Meg from a stammering attempt at an apology. Instead, they both laughed and watched some more soccer.

  The weak team finally scored a goal. Meg was sure the other team let them since the score was so lopsided. It was rec ball, after all. She gave coolness points to the team captain.

  “Every once in a while, my mother lets me know it isn’t impossible for lesbians to produce grandchildren, but mostly, they don’t make an issue about it. They’re generally supportive and curious about my love life.”

  “How about your brother? Has he outgrown his troublemaker phase yet?” Fiona asked.

  Meg paused. That was a good question. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him much in the last several months.
We had a little blow up a while back. My parents don’t even give me updates anymore, and I don’t ask. He must have told them not to. It’s like him to be petty and shitty. They did tell me he passed the bar the second time around though.”

  “You sound surprised?”

  “I kind of am. Last I knew, he was partying somewhere in Europe. When I called him to say congratulations, it was the first time we’d talked in over ten months. He was at a pub celebrating with some of his classmates, and he was sweet like he used to be. It made me miss him.”

  “What happened to cause the blow up? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “It was after he failed the bar. He laughed about it. Like it was no big deal. My parents made a big announcement about him joining my dad’s firm and when he failed and acted like it was no big deal, well, it was so… so privileged. I called him an immature asshole and he called me a self-righteous bitch.”

  “Yikes!” Fiona’s eyes widened.

  “I know. I shouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t my business.”

  “I think I would have done the same thing. Is he working in Seattle with your parents, now that he’s passed the bar?”

  Fiona’s validation was nice, even though she continued to feel guilty about causing the whole thing. “It’s probably the only thing I do know about him right now. After the way he acted, my parents won’t hire him at either one of their firms. Nor will they recommend him to any of their friends or colleagues—not until he can demonstrate he’s grown up a little.”

  Fiona’s eyes, which were on the game, suddenly went wide. She grabbed Meg’s forearm. “Oh, my God! Did you see the foul? The ref must be blind.”

  “I missed it, oh wait, yeah, she definitely cleated her. Look. She’s limping. I’ve gotten red-carded for less!” Meg had to admit she was struggling to follow the game. Even Fiona’s casual touches sent heat radiating through her.

  “This is soccer, not hockey! We came to watch hot chicks, not a brawl.” Fiona shouted as she waved a fist in the air. But her smile belied her words and Meg couldn’t help but laugh.