Best Lesbian Romance 2009 Page 4

  Nobody knows why she goes by Nebraska. If asked, she laughs and admits the closest she ever got to Nebraska is Iowa. Nobody at the Shady Times Bar knows—except me.

  “You want another one of those?” Nebraska looked down the bar at me with the smile that had claimed my heart more than three years ago.

  I tipped my club soda at her and a few moments later caught the filled glass as she slid it down the bar toward me. A noisy group jostled through the big swinging front door and made a beeline for the round table on the far end of the dance floor. It was early and the jukebox was still set for Elvis. I was lonesome tonight, but that was the status quo.

  A few minutes later, the waitress murmured the party’s order, and I watched Nebraska go into action. Her hands caressed the necks of tequila, rum, gin, and vodka bottles, deftly tossing them hand to hand. Glass flashed in the light, sparkling like miniature rainbows. Blue, green, and red prisms refracted in the mirror, spilling colors over her white-blond hair. Peach juice splashed color into the mix, followed by deft squirts of cola from the tap. I never could take my eyes off her, and tonight was no different. I watched her fingers nimbly twist lime slices and remembered that night, six months ago, when those fingers had been as deft with parts of my body, leaving me as filled—and mixed up—as the contents of the shakers she lined up across the bar.

  One by one she tipped, flipped, and poured the shakers’ contents into the row of tall glasses, and topped off her signature Nebraska tea with a wedge of orange. I could taste it against my lips, the fruit filling my nostrils as the smooth liquor warmed my mouth before sliding seductively down my throat.

  I shook my gaze away from her hands on the next batch of drinks. It had been six months since I’d tasted the magic of her mixology. Six months since I’d tasted her lips, too.

  “You’re quiet tonight, Rikki.” The flurry of activity completed, she leaned against the bar, looking at me with Amaretto eyes. “What’s new in the exciting world of insurance?”

  “There’s nothing new and nothing exciting.” I set down my club soda. Tonight was a night it would only make me thirstier. There was no courage in that glass. “Nebraska, I—”

  “Two Buds, two Coronas, and a pitcher of premium margaritas,” the waitress called.

  Nebraska faded back to work, and I stared into the dull bubbles of the club soda. No courage in that glass, but the thousands of glasses that had had Dutch courage in them, that I’d consumed sitting on this very barstool over the years I’d loved Nebraska, hadn’t helped me tell her how I felt either.

  Maybe if I had one drink tonight, then I’d be able to take the chance. Just one drink.

  A bowl of peanuts slid down the bar toward me, and I intercepted it. Nebraska winked as she uncapped bottles of beer. I knew if I asked her for one of her Nebraska teas, just one, she’d make it for me. She was nobody’s cop. She wasn’t my sponsor.

  If she made me that drink, I’d be back in the tank, all over again. She’d never go out with me again. I’d be just another alcoholic whose commitment to AA was a revolving door. Of course here I was, sober as church, and she still wasn’t going out with me.

  I had trouble swallowing the suddenly dry peanut, and I closed my eyes to the ever-present memory of the gentle ruffle of her fingers in my hair. After a couple of years of flirting, laughing, and me downing her Nebraska tea, we’d had that one night, six months ago, when she’d been depressed, she’d said, and I’d still been at the bar at closing. She’d let me take her home and it was all a blur, except she tasted sweet, her body had been my fantasy brought to life, and her vocal appreciation had brought out the laughing explanation of the nickname. That old ex in Iowa had said she could be heard in Nebraska when she was particularly pleased. She’d been pleased that night with me. It was a good name for a bartender, but her real name, Jennifer, suited her better.

  At least I thought so. The shapely jeans, sparkling hoops of gold that tangled with her long hair suited a Jennifer very well. I remembered her laughing, in the afterglow, and telling me about her nickname as the upstairs neighbor pounded on the floor about the noise. Alcohol-induced sleep had already been claiming me, and my next memory was close to morning, when she stirred. I felt her sit up but was too woozy to react.

  She’d sighed, and then I’d heard her say, low, “What are you doing, Jenny? You promised this wasn’t gonna happen. You don’t need another drunk.”

  Her fingers had stirred my hair, gentle and kind. And then she’d left.

  When I’d turned up at the bar that night and asked only for club soda, she hadn’t commented. Night after night she’d fizzed club soda into a tall glass and added a twist of lime, six months of nights, and never said a word about my change in habits. Club soda and peanuts were all I had these days. But I knew I was still a drunk to her, one of the people who can’t say no to it, who have to have it, who’ll lie and connive to keep the booze available. Another person who couldn’t control her choices, including where she spent hours every night. I was a drunk as long as I sat in this bar, eyeing the shakers and the bottles. How could she know if I was there to watch her or to yearn after the booze when I still wasn’t sure myself?

  She was mesmerizing, making use of several years as a street juggler while she’d gone to art school. She liked the Shady Times, and the owner certainly liked her ability to draw a crowd. When annoyed, she talked about going to work for one of the downtown hotels where the money was even better, but she never did. Sometimes, after we spent a slow evening picking apart a movie or book, or fixing the world’s problems, I thought she stayed because of me. Nothing in her eyes, not since that night six months ago, confirmed that.

  I got out my cell phone, my sponsor’s speed dial ready to go. I wanted that drink, I wanted that courage to get up off this barstool, walk behind the bar, and kiss her. And say, in a sober voice, with clear eyes and a brain that connected one thought to another, “I want to go to the movies with you. I want to find out what makes you laugh so hard you can’t breathe. I want to watch you sleep, and wake you in the night. I want to spend the rest of my life seeing if they can hear you in Nebraska, calling out my name.”

  I tossed back the rest of the club soda, tired of the taste of peanuts and lime juice. If I called my sponsor, he’d say I should get the hell out of the bar, that I was asking to fall off the wagon. That I’d lose what was left of my self-respect. If he knew about Nebraska, he’d tell me she’d lose all respect for me the moment I asked her for that drink. I was still a drunk every moment I sat on that barstool, regardless of what was in my hand. Some nights I lusted after the alcohol almost as much as her. I wanted to stay, and win her affection. I had to leave to maybe earn her respect. Either way, I lost her. Choices like that only make the booze all the more attractive.

  “Another soda?” She was back in front of me, wiping the bar with her rag. “Did you finish that mystery? I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  “Yes, and I did finish it. I don’t know—I figured out who did it pretty early on. The detective is hot but not all that bright. I kept thinking if I were in trouble, she wouldn’t be the first person I called.” I slid my phone back into my pocket.

  “Oh, I didn’t have a problem with that,” she said as she returned with another frosty glass of club soda. “I liked her sexy but ditzy. But I got lost when the bad girl changed overnight. Page like one-eighty she’s wicked and evil. Page one-eighty-one she’s suddenly cooperating with the police. It didn’t make sense.”

  “She changed for love, didn’t she?”

  “So what if she did?” Nebraska shrugged. “That kind of change doesn’t stick. If the woman she loves goes out of her life, she’ll go right back to being evil. She never repented the things she’d done. She didn’t change to be a better person, just to get the girl. It felt like a costume to me, clothes she put on to attract the other woman. Like when a dru—” She flushed. “Sorry. I guess some of it hit home. You know about my ex.”

  I nodded. That’s right, she’d
been talking about what’s-her-name, not me. “Like when a drunk stays sober until the first argument, then tells you you’re the reason she fell off the wagon.” I tried not to flush, remembering me doing just that to my last girlfriend, who’d left me about the time my nightly hours at the Shady Times had become a new habit.

  “Like that. Drunks blame everybody and everything but themselves.” She left to prep a second round for the big group in the corner, and the night’s trade began in earnest. The swinging door whooshed steadily in the background, making the noise swirl around me in uneven waves. It got so busy that her boss came out of the back to do the simple orders and run the credit cards. There was no mystery about why he was called Shorty.

  I watched her fill orders, eyes and hands flashing in the light, putting on a show that brought her great tips. She must have made forty Nebraska teas along with all the other drinks she mixed, and I wanted to taste every one of them. I wanted to tell her that the night we’d spent together had truly changed me. The club soda wasn’t a new shirt. I repeated that to myself, trying to believe it.

  I got out the phone. I put it away. I caught her watching me, and it felt like she knew that every time I opened my mouth I wanted to order that drink.

  By the time she announced last call, my heart was beating like I was carrying a hundred pounds on my back. The craving was so intense my stomach hurt, and I was seeing double. Get out of the bar, my sponsor would say. I knew that’s what I had to do.

  “One last club soda?” She looked up from stacking dirty glasses in the dishwashing racks under the bar.

  “What I really want is a Nebraska tea.”

  Her hands never paused in their work. “Are you asking me to make you one?”

  “Yeah.”

  She didn’t react, but it was only because of the night we’d spent together that I saw her eyes go from light amber to dull brown. She had picked up a shaker when I managed to say, “No. Don’t make it.”

  She still didn’t say anything. I realized she was watching me teeter on the precipice, guarded, too hurt in the past to let herself feel anything about whatever I might choose.

  I got unsteadily to my feet, drunk on memories of a thousand cocktails and beers. “I need to settle my tab.”

  “You can do it tomorrow.”

  “No. I need to settle it now. The whole thing. I won’t be back.”

  The bar got quiet, at least for me. There were people around, some very drunk and others just loud in their exhaustion. The jukebox faded to nothing, and there was just my voice and hers.

  Her eyes still a murky brown, she asked, “Why?”

  There was the truth, and there was what I said. “Because if I stay I’ll drink, and I don’t want to start counting hours and days again.”

  “I’ll get the book.”

  She was back in just a few moments, showed me the total, and I gave her my credit card. When she came back with the slip, pausing to wipe down one last section of the bar, I signed it and didn’t look her in the eye. My heart was still beating miles a minute, and it was all about good-byes.

  The big door swung open and closed as people left, letting in cool night air as bar noise and music escaped.

  More not-the-truth. “I’ve stayed this long because this is familiar. But I’d be better off cultivating a seat at the coffee place across the street.”

  “I understand.” Her eyes were light amber again, though they shimmered like Amaretto in a clear glass. She blinked several times before she added, “Good luck. Congratulations.”

  No courage in the glass, there was no courage in me either. I had always wanted to blame my lack of happiness and the dead-end job on my girlfriends, my boss, my parents—even the demon alcohol that wasn’t supposed to make me as drunk as it did. I never told her I loved her because alcohol kept my mouth shut. Here I was, six months sober, and my mouth was still shut.

  It wasn’t the booze, it was me that was a coward. I’d never reached for anything I wanted but the next drink.

  Her smile faded. Nebraska…eyes like Amaretto, hands like a magician. Funny and insightful—if I wanted her in my life after tonight, I had to reach for her. But not like a drink, not like an addict, not like I had to have her and if I didn’t I’d die. I had to pull her to me, like a fragile spirit to nurture. A woman I had to be good for, and who had to be good for me.

  “Jennifer,” I said, softly, so Shorty and the few customers left wouldn’t hear.

  One slender eyebrow lifted at my choice of name. “What is it, Rikki?”

  “If I stay it’ll be because I think I love you. I’m leaving because I have to do what’s right for myself, finally.”

  She stood there, her eyes shimmering.

  I turned to the door. A customer had left ahead of me, whooshing out into the night. The jukebox was back to Elvis, still lonesome, as I pushed the door open myself. It swung closed as I let go, pivoting back and forth, alternating sound between the music and the silent, cool night.

  Elvis wanted to know if she’d wish for him on her doorstep. Then I heard her voice, louder.

  “—sorry, Shorty. I won’t be back. I have to—”

  The door came to a rest, and I knew I would not come back again.

  The quiet thrum of distant traffic was all that filled the night air until Elvis, lonesome but wishing he wasn’t, sang out into the cool quiet. I was lonesome, too, but it was finally my clear-headed choice.

  There were quick steps, hurrying across the parking lot behind me.

  “Rikki,” was all she said.

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  “You don’t have to.” She was standing right next to where I was rooted, unable to make my legs move. “I just quit.”

  I said the first thing that came into my head. “But you love your job.”

  “Yeah. I might love you. I can’t have both, though. You’re taking a chance. I can too.”

  “What are you going to do?” My heart went back to beating like it had inside, so quick and harsh that I thought if she was just teasing me I’d die from the pain.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll find me one of those fancy hotel bars downtown that won’t let my girlfriend sit around all hours. I should have done it before this. Where I don’t bring my work home with me so she and I can talk about books over dinner.”

  I think I was smiling. My face hurt at least, and my brain kept playing back what she’d said, trying to commit it to memory. “Why didn’t you say?”

  “I was waiting for you to know.”

  She pushed all that silky blond hair behind one ear, and I was all at once aware of the stale taste of club soda and peanuts in my mouth. I had no idea what the next step was, but I figured we would work that out. “Would you like to come back to my place and talk?”

  “It’s been six months.” Her smile flashed in the night. “Eventually we’ll talk.”

  I touched her face and shivered, realizing that the next time I kissed her I wouldn’t forget by morning. That if I kissed her right now, by morning I would remember forever the crease of her thigh alongside her hip, the muscles of her stomach against mine, and I’d know for sure if they could hear her in Nebraska.

  So I kissed her. Later, we talked.

  FINDING MY FEET

  Shanna Germain

  They say that the thing you want is right in front of you, if only you know where to look. But there’s the rub: How do you know where to look when you don’t know what you want? Or worse, when you know what you want but can’t have it? Where do you look then?

  I thought I couldn’t have what I wanted, but what did I know—I was looking at the wrong thing. I was looking at my own face in the mirror, lining my blue eyes, putting on coral lipstick, brushing my light brown hair back off my face. I was looking at Sun’s dark eyes beneath her darker brows and the way her teeth showed, small and white as Chiclets, when she smiled. I was looking at her curves beneath her wrap-around skirt while she poured our chai. I was looking at the tapestries on Sun’s wall
s, the fabrics she’d brought back from Singapore.

  I moved around her dining room, touching a red and orange fabric, a green and gold. A blue one that matched my eyes. I dared to imagine her there in the bazaar, touching the blue and buying it, thinking of me.

  “The place looks amazing, Sun,” I said. “I can’t believe you’ve only been back two weeks.”

  She pushed the hair away from her face. “Oh, thanks,” she said. “There’s still a lot more to do.”

  Sun would tell you she’s goal-less, she would lament over her inability to find her type-A gene, but then she’d spend a year in Singapore doing relief work before coming home to repaint and redecorate her house. I could almost hate her for it if I wasn’t convinced I was in love with her. Her year away hadn’t changed that, despite my…hope was the wrong word…half-wish that it would.

  I sat back down at the table across from Sun, put my hands on my warm mug. I had to keep my fingers moving—without something in their grasp, they threatened to get away from me, to reach across the table and wrap themselves in Sun’s dark straight hair, to close her dark eyes. Sun didn’t know how I felt—we’d been friends since college, when we played together on a beach volleyball team. And we’d stayed friends through all of her boyfriends, through all of my boyfriends and girlfriends.

  Most times, it was enough to know that I could be here, across the table from her, with my eyes on her face. Now that she was here, though, after so long away…I looked down and counted the dark specks of spices that floated in my chai.

  From the ceramic bowl in the middle of the table, Sun picked up a piece of candied ginger. She dropped it into my chai.

  “Sweet and spicy,” she said. “That hasn’t changed, has it?”

  I swirled my mug, letting the ginger sink. Then I took a sip: sugar-sweet, with that lingering spice in the back of my throat.

  “No,” I said. “That hasn’t changed.”

  “Good,” she said. “Some days, I feel like I’ve been gone forever.”