Breathless Read online

“Are you going to play today?” Vicky asked. Jeep flushed red, squirmed, said she doubted this was the time or place, but she let her violin case peek over the table so Vicky could see it. Annie wondered if she came across to others like Jeep did: the blushing butch.

  R got up and moved behind Vicky, hands on her shoulders. “How are you, Victoria?”

  Vicky craned her head around to look at the woman and gasped. Annie started to rise. Had the witch done something to her old lover?

  “Rosemary!” cried Vicky. “Is that you?”

  Rosemary? That was Rosemary from Yale who came out with Claudia? If so, she’d aged. Aged terribly. The extreme short hair—she’d always been gawky, but—had she had a mastectomy?

  Rosemary was talking to Vicky, but looking at Annie. “Oh, Claudia hasn’t exchanged a word with me since I married.”

  Annie had been disgusted at the news from San Francisco, via Vicky, of Rosemary’s marriage to a man. When Rosemary came out, it had been the political decision of a radical feminist and she’d proceeded to tell all the lesbians she met how to be lesbians. Annie’s old friends from the bars still laughed about her.

  Yet she’d learned from Rosemary to be enough of a feminist that she’d brushed marriage aside like she would a spiderweb across a doorway. While the commitment marriage demanded had its appeal, she was uneasy about the whole concept of having, and being, a wife. She didn’t want to own Chantal and that’s exactly what Rosemary had preached back then, that marriage was about making women chattel in the power of men.

  “And she’s got twin sons, don’t you, R?” Clara called from the far end of the table. Clara had been flitting in and out of the kitchen nonstop and finally sat. As far as Annie could tell, this spare woman in her seventies, and her big-bellied husband Hector, were the only straights there. “All grown up, but they came to get you with their father when you had the cancer, didn’t they, R? They got her the best treatment.”

  Hector added, “Doesn’t have a pot to pee in herself.”

  “My hair still hasn’t grown back.”

  She exchanged a look with Vicky. R’s sharp and universal discontent hadn’t changed with her name. “R”? “Rattlesnake?” Marrying? Bringing up sons? Commuting between that world and this micro-lesbianville in the mountains? Where was the rabid man-hater? Who was Rosemary now?

  Then she laughed at herself; life did lead to strange decisions. Chantal might well be getting ready to dump her, for all she knew, and be uninterested in working on what they had together. At the end of the day, what had she to offer? Happy in a dead-end low-paying job she happened to love, her birth family all gone, and her longevity pretty genetically iffy. To get healthier, she’d taken up bicycling and took a spin every day after she got off work at 3:00 p.m. The first downhill whirl, that was a daily thrill. Breathing came easy as she explored her valley’s nooks and crannies before Chantal got home from the office just after 5:00. She loved the new solidity of her thighs. So did Chantal.

  Rosemary hadn’t gotten any less weird, and she wasn’t exactly Hollywood hit material herself, she thought. Watching The Closer reruns with Chantal was the other highlight of her day. She genuinely enjoyed Chantal and looked forward to a week in Provincetown every summer and a visit to Rockefeller Center every Christmas where they would take in a show at Radio City Music Hall and spend the night at Dr. Turkey’s place.

  They had a history together, she thought with some warmth. Dr. Turkey was Chantal’s name for Annie’s oldest friend, Turkey, who was now a professor of sociology. Someone chose that moment to pass the platter to her. She smiled at the memory of Chantal’s running family joke. Every Thanksgiving she would tell the littlest grandkid about Annie’s famous friend in New York City who invented turkeys.

  She gave the platter to Sarah and accepted gravy from—what was the name? Jeep.

  “So,” Jeep said, “you’re an East Coaster?”

  She grinned. “I’ve always been a fan of wizard-style towns, like where Harry Potter shops.”

  With a rush of enthusiasm, Jeep said, “That’s exactly how I imagine New York City, or Boston, or places like Hoboken, New Jersey, and, let’s see,” Jeep scratched at her dark, brushy hair. “New Orleans, though that’s not exactly the East Coast, is it?”

  “A different kind of magic,” she said.

  “It’s dark back there, right? I mean, compared to the Left Coast?” Jeep was spooning green beans with sliced almonds onto her plate, trying valiantly to keep the gravy from soiling them. Annie slipped her knife from her pocket to help with the dam.

  “A silver Swish Army knife? Now that’s slick.”

  Annie quickly opened all the tools. “This is the best,” she said, jabbing a finger at the saw.

  Jeep reached in her pocket and displayed a well-worn green Girl Scout knife. “A Kutmaster, from the 1960s. Old.”

  “Oh, man. That thing has definite street cred,” Annie said, thinking that the 1960s weren’t all that long ago. They exchanged knives and inspected them.

  Jeep ran her thumb along Annie’s blade. “You keep that sharp.”

  Sarah laughed and said, “Chick! Look at the bois with their dueling pocketknives.”

  In a flash, everyone seemed to zero in on them, all smiling and curious. Quickly, they handed back their knives and concentrated on the food. “Great grub, Donny—everybody!” Jeep said.

  “They’re shy!” Sarah teased, but the talk went back to food.

  She recognized herself in Jeep, though she was into hats, not strange haircuts.

  After she turned fifty, her enthusiasms had become selective. She was older than that Girl Scout knife. Jeep was obviously still giving megawatt energy to everything equally. She was young and adventurous—and ready to accept settling down forever. She watched Jeep wave knife and fork in the air to illustrate a point. Sarah reached across her to capture Jeep’s hand.

  “Oh. Right. Chill,” Jeep said and laid down the knife. Jeep’s adventures were with Sarah now.

  So maybe it wasn’t Chantal, thought Annie. Maybe it was herself, slowing down. Chantal might be sensing that and scared that Annie had lost interest.

  “So, really, where are you from?” Jeep asked.

  Annie was glad to be taken away from her simmering brain.

  “I grew up in Beantown, but I live in Connecticut.” She’d learned that people out west had only a vague idea of the original thirteen colonies’ geography and that it did no good to offer details.

  But Jeep perked up, if it was possible for her to be any perkier. “Katie’s filming in Connecticut right now. In some little town—Waterbury? Do you know where that is?”

  “You bet. It’s just northwest of where I live in Morton River. Who’s Katie?”

  Jeep glanced across her at Sarah. “A mistake I made once,” she told Annie.

  Sarah’s tone was gentle. “Don’t say that, Jeep. You had some oats to sow. And you found us this wonderful community.”

  Jeep nodded, looking at her plate, lips tight. “I’m just glad it’s done,” she said, then, eyes alight, told Annie, “We live over our store, too. Do you know we have a store?” Jeep smiled at Sarah. “Chick and Donny helped out. So did Clara and Hector.”

  “Garage Sale Dandy, she calls it,” said Sarah.

  “Oh, super name,” Annie told them.

  “You need to come by tomorrow,” said Jeep.

  “You’re open?”

  “Yes! You’d be surprised. The day after Christmas people sell us loot they don’t want and can’t return, then get something twice as good or twice as many. Like if you wanted to bring in your ‘cauldron’ present. Kids with Christmas money buy used video games. It’s not a great day for musical instruments, which I mostly sell and buy on eBay anyway, but why drive all the way to a mall when Garage Sale Dandy has it all? That’s our motto.”

  “She’s so busy I help out the days before and after Christmas,” offered Sarah.

  “Sarah’s on school break. I gave up my job wrassling preschoolers
with disabilities to run the store full-time, and they hired Sarah to replace me. How cool is that? She’s taking classes in special ed.”

  “I’m working on the certification. They always need special ed teachers. See, Jeep? You found me my calling, too.”

  “I thought you were an architect?” Annie asked. “The buildings in Waterfall Falls are right out of an old Hollywood Western.”

  Sarah sighed. Jeep explained, “Sarah can design any kind of building: retro Western, modern, you name it. But finding a job? Hard enough in the big cities.”

  “And I refuse to sit in front of a computer doing CAD work for some guy. That’s incredibly boring.”

  Jeep leapt up then to take care of something in the kitchen with Donny. Sarah and Cat fussed over Luke’s cranberry stain. Annie looked at her watch. Too soon for Chantal’s call, but she felt unbalanced here. How did you tell if you should be living your life differently? If moving, or splitting up, or enjoying the heck out of what you had was right? She’d caught herself looking at the houses on the way from Vicky’s. Imagining herself in a rental in Eugene or out in a very small town, like Waterfall Falls. Everyone here seemed happy. She felt happy.

  When a few women rose to leave the table and her offer to help in clearing or cleaning had been refused, she asked if she could see the store.

  “Of course,” said Chick, showing her the indoor stairs and flicking a light on for her. “I’ll come down and give you a tour in a few minutes.”

  She bounded down the stairs like a top spun hard and set free. As she wandered the place, she noted that it was no hole in the wall. Food, personal care, supplements, even organic wines. There were two booths and a couple of tables that probably came from Garage Sale Dandy. She sat by a window. The corner sign read Stage Street. Was there a theater? Then it hit her. Waterfall Falls must have been a stagecoach stop. Wow, she thought. Despite growing up a T ride from Boston’s Freedom Trail, history had never seemed so close. Otherworldly ornamental cabbages—light green, purple, ethereal white—grew in a long wood and tin planter out front. That’s where the horses once were hitched. Wow, wow, wow. She wished she could show it to Chantal.

  The truth was, she missed her Chantal. Maybe she should quit waffling and, now that it was legal for them to marry in Connecticut, go ahead and do it. Vicky had gone along with Jade’s wish to marry. She’d go home, get down on her knees, and ask Chantal to marry her. Would that get them back on track? It might fix her own wavering affections. They’d have a sweet wedding and a honeymoon that would jump-start them. She imagined Chantal saying, “Com’ere, sugar,” in her throaty voice, leading her, that swing of her hips promising everything a woman can promise. Annie, as usual, wanting to fill her hands with those hips, insisting that she undress Chantal herself. That golden moment when Chantal’s breasts would come free of her bra and fill Annie’s waiting hands. What a rush that was, every time.

  “Congratulations, Mrs. Heaphy,” she’d say. Chantal’s light blue eyes would go dreamy. She would kiss Chantal’s near-constant wedding-day smile. This was what they’d needed to do, she’d say with her hand between Chantal’s legs, her own excitement another “I do.” Chantal on her back, beyond ready for Annie to demand entry and reach far inside so Chantal could close around her fingers, and open, and close, and come with all her being. Then, whispering that she was still feeling it, turn to touch Annie with her delicate fingers.

  It was more like half an hour before Chick arrived downstairs. Annie was whistling as she aligned items on the shelves.

  Chick said. “Let me give you a big old hug. I didn’t have enough of a chance earlier.”

  Annie found herself enveloped for a second time by a woman taller and softer than Chantal. Chick’s scent took her back to the seventies, when essences, rather than perfumes, were used. She put her arms around Chick’s back and gave her a quick tight squeeze. When she stepped away, it was with reluctance.

  “You feel good,” Chick told her.

  “If I had my druthers, I’d stay like that all day.”

  “Don’t you have a girl back home?”

  She tried to cover her shock. It wasn’t, she understood in a flash, it wasn’t the sex, the fussiness, the kids or the sameness of her daily life. It was this: the plain human affection Chantal had once given out like the sun gives light was gone. Touch was rote: a peck hello or good-bye, some moments in bed after the big event. Then it was back to business, whether it be sleeping or working, making a phone call or doing chores. Annie felt untouched. Did time do that to every couple? Was she expecting too much?

  “Are you all right, Annie?” asked Chick.

  “Yes. Yes, I am. You just made me think of something I’ve been trying to figure out.”

  “Stop working on the shelves. We pay people to do that. Come sit down.” Chick led her by the hand to a booth. She was all too aware that it was evening and the earth was spinning away from the light of the sun. It seemed so sad. Every day had to end. Did every love have to also?

  Tears came to her eyes when Chick looked at her and asked, “What’s going on?”

  She carried a rainbow bandana for special occasions and hated to mess it up as it was the only one she owned, but she pulled it from her back pocket now and dabbed at her eyes and nose. “Maybe it’s the time of day or the time of year.”

  “Or being so far from home?”

  “I don’t feel far from home. This could be home as easily as Morton River is home. It’s confusing. I could pick up stakes and resettle out here, like Jeep and Sarah did, and I’d hardly notice.”

  “Oh,” said Chick, her hands on Annie’s free hand, “I think you would. Notice, that is. Do you want to leave her?”

  “Not really.” She hesitated to make her thoughts real by saying them aloud. “Lately, I’ve been feeling like a top coming out of orbit, all wobbly.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Yes, mostly. She really, really wanted me. That was a good feeling.”

  “And now?”

  “Do I destroy something, and maybe someone, for not being perfect?”

  “Don’t expect perfect, Annie Heaphy.”

  Chick was a big woman. Next to skinny Donny, they could illustrate the old nursery rhyme, “Jack Sprat could eat no fat. / His wife could eat no lean. / And so between them both, you see, / They licked the platter clean.”

  She had put on weight, too; it wasn’t just Chantal. Their imperfections were perfect together.

  Upstairs, chairs were scraping and feet were stepping, muffled by rugs. There was a silence, the sound of a keyboard and of a violin tuning.

  “Sarah’s a talented pianist, but wait till you hear Jeep,” said Chick.

  They sat there, holding hands across the table, smiling at each other while listening to Christmas songs on the fiddle. What would it take to get Chantal looking as warmly at her again?

  Where was Chantal, anyway? She could see the wall clock. It was 5:25. She always called on the dot, like she planned her whole day around it. What was she thinking? This was Chantal. Of course she would plan her whole day around it. So why hadn’t she called?

  She told Chick.

  “Are you worried?”

  “Well, yes. Chantal always has to do the calling and control the timing.”

  “And that bothers you?”

  “Not really,” Annie answered. “I’m kind of lazy about making decisions.” She grinned. “Isn’t that what femmes are for?”

  Chick said, “You’ve found our secret. Come on, let’s go back upstairs. It’s time to exchange gifts.”

  Rosemary lay on the couch, attended by the same women who had controlled the lights earlier. The sheriff and Cat were putting on their jackets, looking sort of separate and sort of together.

  Chick whispered, “Don’t tell a soul in this county that you saw the sheriff here tonight.”

  “Oh,” she said. That was another blessing with Chantal. Neither of them would want to be grand marshall at a gay pride parade, but they ref
used to be closeted. So, she thought, she’s a super lover, we have history, we’re not into closets. Was that enough? Maybe they could change something, anything, like where they went on vacation, or she could break the butch barrier and hug Chantal big, a Chick hug, regularly. And Chantal’s fussiness, was it a reaction to—what? Something she was doing? Something Chantal was afraid of? Was Chantal desperately trying to keep a lid on their life?

  While the others exclaimed over the gifts, she thought again about marriage. Chantal had mentioned it more than once; she’d never suggested doing it. But then, that was one of her charms: Chantal was an old-fashioned, small-town lady who would wait to be asked. All of a sudden her life was spinning again, and she was filled with an edgy excitement. After years together she’d considered that they were as good as married, but maybe that was a way of taking Chantal, and what they had, for granted.

  It was her turn to pull a gift from Rosemary’s cauldron and be embarrassed by everyone watching. She reached in and grabbed something small, fully intending, as she turned, to pass it on to one of the others. Chick was right behind her.

  “I don’t need any gift except being in your home and with your friends today,” she said, her voice loud in the hush of expectancy. “I want you to have mine.”

  “No, Annie Heaphy,” Chick said. “You’re not giving this gift away, too.”

  She furrowed her brow, taking in what Chick had said as she removed the wrapping.

  Chick slapped her knee and laughed.

  It was an old wooden top, painted all around with flowers. She loved the feel of it between her fingers, smooth and tiny and still.

  Her phone rang.

  This short story from Nell Stark and Trinity Tam features Valentine and Alexa from everafter, before they were turned. Book two in the series, nevermore, was released in 2010. Nell Stark is also the author of the romances Running With the Wind and Homecoming. Spread the infection at www.everafterseries.com.

  The Twelve Days of Courtship

  Nell Stark and Trinity Tam

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