Lucky Love: A Lesbian Romance Page 15

  So, she hadn't told her parents. I should have known by the way she held herself when she met me. By the fact of her parents being missionaries, and all. I should have known she would have secrets. Yet the fact that she wanted me to be one of them?

  Why had I thought I could trust her? What made me think that?

  She did. She'd hammered my defenses away until I was a snail without a shell, unable to protect myself from the bluebird overhead. I felt naked. I felt stupid that I'd fallen for it. She hadn't even really told me how she felt about me after I told her I had feelings for her.

  The whole thing was a mess.

  Did she want me? Or did she not want me?

  After a couple of hours, her breathing leveled out, and I made the decision for her. I pushed aside the covers and tiptoed into the room I'd been using as my own. As quietly as I could, I packed my stuff in my duffel bag. I double-checked for chargers and toothbrushes and sundry other items, and zipped it all up, my life in one bag. Then I walked down the stairs in my stockinged feet and left Alice a note at the base of the stairs.

  In the early morning light, I took one more glance around the newly emptied house.

  "Good riddance."

  ...

  ALICE

  I woke to the sound of birds on the roof outside the window. It took me a moment to remember where I was. As soon as I did, I turned over. The sheets beside me were cold. I sat up.

  "Lena?" I called.

  Only the ticking of the loud grandfather clock downstairs greeted me. A chill ran down my spine. I slid out of bed, creeping into the hall where I had left my underwear. I slipped it on and immediately felt better. I found my blouse and put that on as well. Lena had picked up her clothes somewhere along the way. I smiled to myself.

  Neat freak.

  Maybe she had gone to the store to get us breakfast, like the time I'd stayed at her house after losing Ronald. She would be back in a few minutes, no doubt. In the meantime, I could make us coffee. I could explain to her what I'd been trying to say last night.

  In the night, in my physical and mental exhaustion, the whole thing with my parents had seemed insurmountable. But I was an adult. I had long been an adult. Before this, my parents simply hadn't been around enough for me to tell them. I had been single when they did come home, and it hadn't seemed pressing. I was ready for this now—ready to tell them.

  In my deep slumber, I'd dreamed a tidal wave was rising high above me. As it was curling at the peak of its crest, I reached out and took someone's hand. I couldn't see to whom the warm hand belonged, but she—it definitely was a she—gave me comfort. I liked to think it was Lena.

  I walked down the stairs, but before I hit the bottom step, I saw a piece of paper.

  Lena must have dropped it or something. I hadn't seen it before. I sat on the stairs and picked up the note.

  Alice—I can't do this. Please send the rest of the money from the sale of the furniture through the estate's account as you've been doing. Lena.

  I reread the note four times before I let myself try to figure out what it meant. Gripping the paper, I ran upstairs to the room Lena had been using. Her stuff was gone, the bed neatly made. The room looked as if no one had stayed in it. I ran to the bathroom next. Her toothbrush and shampoo were gone. I ran to the room where we had been sleeping the night before. The bed was unmade, an impression of two heads on the pillows. I hadn't imagined it. Lena was there and now she was gone.

  I found my purse and dialed her number with unsteady fingers. I could still get her to come back, right? The phone connected and rang, and it went right to voicemail.

  Where could she have gone? Back to San Francisco? Without saying a word?

  In my bare feet, I padded to the bed and lowered myself onto it, trying to find the recording of what happened in my mind. We had had sex. Then had sex again and again, and then we'd had a conversation. The topic of my parents came up and I'd asked her to leave the house for a little while. I knew it wasn't great, but it was done out of fear and I wanted to explain to her that I would take it back. But where was she?

  I tried her phone again, but again it went straight to voicemail.

  I knew with certainty then, she was on a plane. I might never see her again. And for what? Because of a stupid little fight? People in real relationships didn't leave when they had a fight. They worked it out.

  But maybe there was something else to it. There had to be. Maybe once she had seen the real me, naked entirely, she found me repulsive. Maybe she was looking for a way out and this was that way out for her. It made complete sense.

  I stood and found my skirt, slipping it over my underwear. Then I buttoned up my shirt and tucked it all back into place. In the mirror, I brushed out my hair with a comb from my overnight bag. I twisted it into a low bun at the nape of my neck. I applied fake eyelashes and layered on the foundation to cover up my blotchy freckles and put on some smoky eyeshadow. My red lips came next, first an outline with a pencil, then filling it in bit by bit. Lastly, I added some blush—just a little, not too much.

  When finished, I glanced at myself in the mirror and saw a mask looking back at me. My eyes filled with tears, but I swallowed them back.

  Tears would only ruin my makeup.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  LENA

  The flight from Boston to San Francisco is a long one and gave me far too much time to think. I tried not to, most of the time, but that had never been a successful tactic for me. Somewhere over Chicago, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. She would be awake. She would know I was gone. Was she worrying about me?

  By Denver I didn't care. It was not my business to care. My relationship with Alice, if you could call it that, was a mistake from the beginning. By the time I landed and had access to my phone again, I had decided I'd done everything just right.

  I went straight to the office from the airport. When I opened the door and dropped my bag to the floor, Tara looked up from her desk.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked.

  "You paid me. I thought that was your apology."

  "It wasn't." I picked up my bag and walked to my office.

  Tara followed me. "You were way out of line, you know."

  "I know. I made the mistake of bringing our personal lives into work, and I'm sorry for that."

  "Me too," Tara said.

  I rounded my desk and dropped my bag again, surprised at Tara's apology. Surprised at my own. She shrugged, and I started going through my stack of mail.

  "I brought Sarah Huck back into the fold," she said casually.

  I stopped. "You did?"

  "I was actually just about to call you to tell you we have a meeting with her next week."

  I evaluated Tara again. When was the last time I'd really given her a chance? "How the heck did you do that?"

  "Bribes."

  "Tara!"

  "I'm kidding." She laughed, and it was almost like old times again. Almost, except the laugh dropped off more quickly than old times. Tara drummed her fingers on the desk. "Does that mean I have my job back?"

  "Yes, of course. As long as you close on her." Truthfully, I was starting to doubt my ability to take on as many roles as I had. "She's going to be a huge benefit to us. I'm impressed."

  "Thank you." Tara beamed. "What are you doing here? I thought you were going to be gone through Christmas."

  "Changed plans. I'll be totally focused on this project now. You'll have me day and night. Whenever there's a problem."

  "Are you going to go back to Mass?"

  I examined the bare walls of my office. I'd thought it minimalist once, but now I realized it was just boring. "I might just stay right here. Why not?"

  "Because your apartment has been empty for months."

  "I let it go."

  "Oh," Tara said.

  "For the money," I filled in. "Not that you care."

  "It does affect me," Tara said, getting that edge to her voice.

  I'd been awake for virtual
ly twenty-four hours and was too tired to fight with her. I settled in my chair, leaning my head back against the leather. I was so tired I wasn't even sleepy any longer. My head buzzed with what had happened with Alice. I couldn't help it... it just kept coming back.

  When I opened my eyes, Tara stood in the doorway, her dancer's body cocked at an angle. She had been a model and still always held herself with poise.

  "I was a terrible girlfriend, wasn't I?" I asked.

  Tara melted, her angles becoming curves. "You weren't great."

  "I was distracted."

  "To say the least."

  "What else was I?" I leaned back in my chair and swiveled from side to side. A friend of mine had rented me the space at a discount and we had a full view of the bay and Golden Gate Bridge. I'd never really noticed the beauty of that either.

  "Well, you were a good lover."

  "Better than the one you have now?"

  Tara raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "I'm not answering that question."

  I swiveled my chair back around. "But you do have a lover now, right?"

  "Yes." Tara smiled, and there was a lightness about her I had never noticed. Maybe she'd never had it with me.

  "Good," I said. I turned back to the bay, noticing how the light glinted off the water, off the red of the bridge.

  "Who's Alice?"

  The question caught me by surprise. "How do you know about Alice?"

  "She called looking for you."

  I nodded, stroking my chin.

  "Do you want me to let her know you're here?"

  "No."

  "What would you like me to do?"

  If Tara was the magical princess she resembled, I would have asked her to turn back time. And when would I pick? To the moment where Alice first showed me how to identify a Chippendale table? Or perhaps to the night where Ronald was lost? Or to the time in the shed? Or perhaps to the moment Lois had met Alice. Any of those moments would have been good. We could play it through again, resetting the course of history.

  "Lena?"

  "Leave her message here. I'll take care of it."

  Tara moved like a gazelle, her footsteps muffled by the carpet. The absurdity of us struck me then—how different we were. How we never would have made it in the real world. I waited for her to leave, but I didn't hear her footsteps retreat.

  I swiveled my chair back around.

  "Alice is someone special to you, right?" Tara asked.

  A denial came quickly to my lips, but I couldn't do it. Perhaps it was because I was too tired for subterfuge. Perhaps it was because I had seen a glimpse of the truth, and once you saw the truth, you couldn't unsee it. Like one of those reversible image optical illusions. "She was."

  "What is she? Like, eighty?"

  "No, she's thirty, or around that age, anyway. She just has an old-fashioned name."

  "And why is she looking for you?" Tara raised an eyebrow, folding her arms, settling in.

  "If I tell you it's none of your business, will you go away?"

  "Nope. I'm not scared of you any longer, Lena Luck. Plus, you already tried to fire me and look how that worked out."

  "It's none of your business." I stared at her, and she stared back. There was nothing in the stare, and I wasn't sure there ever had been. Our sex had been just okay compared to the sex I'd had with Alice, and we'd often spend hours on our computers working. Sure, we'd fought, so I'd always thought there'd been passion, but something in me said it was just because we thought we should. I'd blamed her when she was the one who knew, when she was the one doing the right thing. Our whole relationship had been like that.

  "Fine if you're not going to tell me, I'll guess. Alice is someone you met in Gardner while you were selling the contents of your grandmother's house. And you fell for her."

  "How do you know that?"

  "You disappear when you fall for things."

  "I didn't disappear when I fell for you."

  "That's because you never really fell for me."

  "I—"

  "It's okay. I'm only saying what we both know." Tara pulled out the chair on the other side of my desk and fell into it, her long arms hanging over the edge.

  She was the closest thing I had to a friend. I couldn't keep it in any longer, or I was going to explode with it. I needed someone to tell me I was right. "I was ready to move to Massachusetts for her."

  "Wow." Tara scooted forward. "She really was important to you, then."

  "Yeah. She was."

  "What happened?"

  "She told me to leave while her parents are visiting over Christmas."

  "She's not out?"

  "Her parents are missionaries."

  "Oh." Tara shook her head, her eyes going wide again. "Wow. That's. Wow."

  "Yeah."

  Tara set her elbows on her knees. She folded her hands. "You fought and then what? What did she say?"

  "Then I left."

  Tara nodded, doing a much better job at a poker face than she ever had when we were together. Had I lost the ability to decipher her cues? "Did you tell her why?"

  "No."

  "And you didn't try to work it out with her?"

  "I told her I wanted to be with her. Then she fell asleep."

  "You left in the middle of the night?"

  I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, and I paid an arm and a leg to get here, traveling after Thanksgiving and all."

  Tara shook her head, her dangly earrings sparkling in the overhead light.

  "Look. I did everything I was supposed to do. I went to Thanksgiving and met her great aunt. I told her I wanted to be with her. The truth is... Alice is ashamed of me."

  Tara's mouth had dropped open while I was speaking, and now she closed it. She bit her lips and looked away from me. "You're doing it again."

  "Doing what?"

  "You're running away from her because you're scared."

  I stood from my chair. "What are you talking about? She's the one running away from me."

  "What do you expect from her? She barely ever sees her parents, I'm assuming, and she hasn't told them who she really is yet."

  "But she asked me to leave."

  "For a week. That's not forever."

  I shook my head. "I can't believe you, of all people, wouldn't understand this. She's doing the same thing that I did to you at the end. She's trying to phase me out."

  "She's trying to figure out how to make all parts of her identity work together."

  "I offered to help."

  "Then you left right afterward."

  I swung around, facing the window for some clarity, but the beauty of San Francisco seemed faded, dulled. Had I really left Alice in a lurch? I went over the conversation again and again. I had been open. Loving. Caring.

  "Let me ask you something," Tara said.

  Haven't you already said enough?

  "What do you like about her?"

  This was easy. "She's different. Quirky, really, and much smarter than I thought she was at first. She's thoughtful and kind and, not to mention, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

  Tara rolled her eyes. "Thanks."

  "No offense," I said, smirking despite myself and with the lingering image of Alice in my mind.

  "None taken. And what don't you like about her?"

  That was also easy. "She pisses me off. And she retreats behind a mask sometimes and I don't know how to get to her."

  Tara was silent for a long time. "I know someone else who does the same thing."

  "Who? Your new lover?"

  "You."

  "Me?"

  "You have this mask—an unreadable mask."

  "I don't wear any makeup. I try my hardest to be authentic. Always. I never sugar-coat anything."

  "No, but you've figured out how to arrange your features so that no one can read them. Here's the thing." Tara reached out her hand, and for some reason, I took it. "Over the years I've learned everyone has a mask they retreat behind when they're scared. It's more obvious i
n some people than it is in others, but it's just protection from whatever hurt them in the past. If you want to get past that with Alice, you have to prove to her you'll be there no matter what."

  It struck me as odd in that moment how wisdom came from the strangest places. "How do you know this?"

  "I'm a model. We wear masks on purpose."

  I squeezed Tara's hand. "Were you this smart while we were dating?"

  "Yes, you doofus." She pulled her hand away and swatted at me.

  I laughed and pulled back. "You're really happy now, aren't you?"

  "Yeah, I am."

  "I'm happy for you."

  "I'm happy for you, too. There's still time. You can fix this. Call her. At least, give her the chance to do right by you. We all deserve a chance, you know."

  ...

  ALICE

  I went back home and retreated to my room without a word to Aunt Helen. I remained in there past dinner and through the night, staring at my phone and the note from Lena, attempting to read into the words what wasn't there. Was that flourish meaningful? Was that dotted "i" really a heart? As time passed, the secret message lost its power.

  It didn't take twelve hours to get from here to San Francisco. Even with a layover. Even with the time difference. It just didn't. Which meant Lena had received at least one of my messages and decided not to call back. As the day turned into night, my thoughts turned sour.

  What if she was getting back together with her old girlfriend Tara? I wondered what she looked like. What Lena's type was like. Her voice had sounded sexy when I'd left a message for Lena. So, I did a little research. I found the Facebook page for the app Lena was working on and scrolled through the posts until I found a mention of a Tara. Tara Grinmel. From there, I googled her name.

  A little excerpt appeared at the top—she had her own Wikipedia page. It explained she was a fashion model in Europe, twenty-five now, and worked as a PR person. Her picture was a headshot. A very pretty headshot of a pretty but conventional woman with blond hair and blue eyes.