Unwrap these Presents

by Astrid Ohletz

  “I’m in my late forties, about to be a grandmother in two months,” she said as she picked through pink layette sets during our first Christmas shopping venture. “I’m not sexy at all.”

  “Lily, don’t you know what a cougar is? It’s a sexy, older woman.”

  “I know what it is. I just can’t believe you think I’m one.”

  As she bent down to examine teddy bear feety pajamas, her delicious décolleté peeked out from her V-neck sweater.

  “Trust me,” I said. “You meet all the criteria.”

  We were at a critical juncture in conversations like this. As I became more and more brazen with my remarks, her tolerance level bent to accommodate each one.

  “You’re a very attractive woman, Erin. I don’t get why you’re still single.”

  “I have discerning taste. I’m very happy to wait for Ms. Right.” I was proud of myself for sounding so smooth, until the stack of boxed baby booties I was leaning against toppled to the floor.

  She snorted with laughter as I scrambled to gather up and restack the boxes. “I get a kick out of you,” she said.

  I shifted my coat and bags of gifts from one hand to the other, following Lily as she drifted around racks of baby clothes. As “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” filled the stuffy department store, something, maybe a lack of adequate oxygen supply, dared me to lean toward her and whisper, “If you were a lesbian, would you go out with me?”

  “Oh, it would definitely be you.”

  I’m not certain if it was the response itself or the speed and conviction with which it was said that shocked us more. She stopped browsing, and we exchanged glances like we were back in high school and the teacher caught us passing notes.

  “Uh, I’m going over to men’s fragrances,” I stammered. “I’ve gotta try to upgrade my dad from Old Spice this year.”

  “Okay, uh, I’ll pay for these things and meet you over there,” she said, avoiding my eyes.

  * * *

  In the car heading home, we were suddenly Fitzgerald scholars, examining Gatsby’s enduring social relevance and deconstructing Myrtle as a metaphor for the common woman oppressed by the white, well-heeled patriarchy—anything to steer us out of the Valley of Awkward. As we neared her street, I caught her looking at me. My better judgment vanished like the moon behind snow clouds, and my mind schemed for an invitation in for a nightcap.

  “I’m so glad it’s Friday,” I said “I can sleep in tomorrow. You feel like stopping somewhere for a quick drink?”

  “I have wine at my house—unless you want something else.”

  My heart and I shared a secret smile. “No, wine is fine.”

  As we nestled on opposite ends of Lily’s sofa, I found myself less able to curb my desire for her after each sip of Malbec. I studied her lips forming each word, imagining my fingertips touching her skin, my mouth falling on hers.

  “Do you feel okay?” she asked. “You look a little flushed.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” I pressed my fingers to my hot cheek and steered her attention back to the intriguing conversation we’d started after Gatsby on the way home from the mall. “So other than traveling, what else is on your post-Frank bucket list?”

  She giggled. “Post-Frank—I like that. Let’s see, I don’t know. I’d like to think I’m open to adventure of any kind. What do I have to lose, right?”

  “That’s what I always say.”

  “What have you come up with?” she said.

  “Um, I think I’d like to try snowboarding and visit Greece to see the ruins and, well, I think I should just leave it at that.”

  “Why? What else is on that list?” She narrowed her eyes and grinned.

  I played along. “I better not.”

  She kicked my foot from her end of the sofa. “Just tell me.”

  “Nah, you’ll get mad.”

  “Why would I get mad at what’s on your bucket list?”

  “It involves you.”

  “Now you better tell me, you jerk.”

  What a turn-on when she got feisty like that, and I was feeling reckless from the wine. I hesitated, just long enough to stir up some drama. “To kiss you.”

  Lily’s jaw seemed to come unhinged.

  “See? I told you I should’ve kept that one to myself.”

  She laughed nervously. “No, I’m glad you didn’t. We said we could tell each other anything.”

  “That’s what we said.”

  She grinned, shaking her head.

  “Ever think of adding ‘kissing a girl’ to your list?” I said.

  “No, I never had—until recently.” She stretched her legs on the coffee table and sipped her wine.

  “Would I be the girl you’d want to kiss if you wanted to kiss a girl?”

  She laughed out loud. “That sounded like lyrics from a Julie Andrews musical.”

  “Oh my God, it totally did.”

  After I sang the line in my best Julie Andrews falsetto, we collapsed into laughter.

  Once we calmed down, I said, “So you’ve thought about it?”

  She nodded, staring into the fire.

  “Would you slap me across the face if I kissed you now?”

  “Slap you? What’s a kiss between friends?” She shrugged coolly as her fingers dug into the fringe throw pillow clutched to her chest.

  I blushed as I whispered, “If we’re going to get anywhere, you have to come closer.”

  “Duh,” she said with a smile. She set her wine glass on the end table and scooted over.

  I leaned over and kissed her gently, savoring the hint of Malbec on her lips, expecting her to back away. Instead, she took my hand and pressed it on her cheek as we kissed. When I flicked my tongue against hers, she responded with a soft moan. I eased her down against the decorative pillows, and she grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me harder.

  “I love how your lips feel,” she whispered. “You’re so soft.” She caressed my back and then squeezed me to her.

  “All girls are,” I said in her ear.

  “But you’re the only one I’ve ever made out with.” She slipped her hands up my shirt, digging her fingers into my skin.

  When I bit her earlobe, she squeezed me tighter.

  “We should stop,” she said.

  I made a half-hearted attempt to sit up, but she wouldn’t release her grip on me. She searched my eyes as though in them she could solve a million mysteries

  She kissed me again, and for a while, we helped each other forget all about a lonely Christmas.

  * * *

  After she shifted to her side, I draped my arm over her like a blanket, waiting for her afterglow to fade and to be ushered out the door, baby, no matter how cold it was outside.

  I woke with a chill to the dying embers and checked my watch.

  “Lily, I have to get going,” I said, lifting her arm off me. “It’s almost four.”

  “That late?” She slurred her words, still half asleep. “Why don’t you stay?”

  Anticipating the particular awkwardness of a morning-after breakfast, I declined her offer.

  I drove home to the hum of tires hugging asphalt and icy wind through my cracked window, pondering the numerous reasons our night together would likely end our friendship. I hoped it wouldn’t, but what if she woke up and in an attack of guilt resented me for seducing her?

  I spent all Saturday starting and cancelling text messages to her. Finally, about nine that night, I picked up the phone and called her.

  “I’m not sure whether to tell you how much I enjoyed last night or apologize,” I said.

  “Don’t apologize. It was wonderful.”

  “Then you don’t hate me?”

  She chuckled softly. “Not at all, but I haven’t been able to think straight all day.”

  “Nice pun.”

  “What? Oh, ha ha. Speaking of that, does this mean I’m not straight anymore?”

  I had my suspicions of what it meant, but I felt compelled to reassure her. “
Oh, I don’t think so, Lily. One experience doesn’t decide whether you are or aren’t anything.”

  “But I enjoyed it—I mean I really enjoyed it, more than I ever did with my husband.”

  I felt so petty grinning into the phone, but how could I not at a revelation like that? “I don’t know. Maybe he just wasn’t the greatest lover.”

  “I was with a couple of other men before I married Frank. I don’t ever remember feeling like that, and I don’t just mean physically. The whole experience was so different, so emotionally gratifying.”

  I loved what she was saying but hated the distress I heard in her voice. I sighed. “I don’t think I have the answer to what you’re asking me, Lily. Like I said, one experience is nothing to get nervous about. Lots of straight people have tried it.”

  “But I bet not so many straight people felt like this the day after.”

  “Like what? Guilty? Violated? Degraded?” I said it half-joking, only half.

  She chuckled. “No, you fool. Quite the opposite.”

  I wanted to ask for clarification, but I didn’t. I liked the sense of possibility in leaving it to my imagination.

  She exhaled deeply. “I should probably stop thinking so hard about it.”

  “Right, and, hey, now you have something you can cross off your list, too.”

  “Hmm, I wish it was that simple. Last night was much more than just a bucket list adventure, Erin. That I know.”

  “For me, too.” After a brief silence, I said, “Well, I guess I’ll see you Friday if you still want to go to Martha’s.”

  “Of course I want to go. Erin, I hope this isn’t going to ruin our friendship.”

  “It won’t for me.” I sounded confident, but I couldn’t imagine how I could be near her and resist reaching for her hand or her irresistible lips. After making love to her, I realized I had been in love with Lily before we’d even kissed.

  “It won’t for me either,” she said. Yet the week came and went without as much as a text from her.

  * * *

  By Friday afternoon, the text I’d been driving myself crazy waiting for all week finally arrived. She asked if I could pick her up earlier than usual so we could talk over dinner.

  As I waited for her to broach the subject, Lily pushed around more of her Caesar salad than she ate. I was convinced I was the cause of the glass of pinot she ordered instead of diet Coke. She remained quiet. All I could do was prepare for the inevitable.

  “Erin,” she said.

  Here it comes, I thought. “Hmm?”

  Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. And then, “How is your wrap?”

  “Spicy. Want some fries?” Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry for any of it.

  She shook her head. “Erin, I can’t stop thinking about you.” She looked into her plate and jabbed her fork into a grilled chicken strip. “And I can’t believe some of the things I’m thinking.”

  “I’ve been thinking about you, too.”

  She dropped her fork in her dish and scratched her chin. “I mean I’ve tried to stop, to focus on other things. God, I really want to kiss you again, but I know I shouldn’t.”

  “It’s okay. Look, I never expected to be more than your friend anyway.”

  “How can I have a relationship with you? I’m not a lesbian.” She pushed her plate away and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “But I keep thinking about being with you again, making love with you. I want to make love to you.” Her eyes grew dark and dreamy. “This feels like one of those movie romances where the woman gets all breathless and swept away. I always thought those stories were just in some writer’s imagination, but that’s how you make me feel.” She let out a deep sigh. “That probably makes me a lesbian, huh?”

  I smiled and pointed a long French fry at her. “Probably.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I’m teasing, Lily. Look, you’ll figure this out eventually, whatever there is to figure out.”

  “I don’t know. I just know I love being with you and talking with you and kissing you. But I don’t know what it means. I don’t even know what I want it to mean.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while, you know, so you can process all of this.”

  She sat up straight in the booth and sighed. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  Wait a minute. I just said that to be polite. She wasn’t supposed to take me up on it.

  “I hope you understand,” she added.

  What could I say? Yes, I understood, but I was also crushed. The inventor of the bucket list never stipulated that all wishes were subject to cruel and swift cosmic irony.

  “I understand,” I said. “Maybe we should skip Martha’s tonight, too,” I added, indicating the snowflakes in the streetlight. “It would be really inconvenient if I had to crash on your couch because of the roads.”

  “You wouldn’t be on my couch. That’s the problem.”

  I glanced out the window again. “No, the real problem is that only one of us sees that as a problem.”

  “I’m sorry, Erin. I just don’t know what to make of all these crazy feelings. This is the last thing I expected to happen to me.”

  “Do you think I expected it?”

  “No, but at least you’re used to this kind of thing with a woman,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been totally broadsided.”

  “I can imagine. But who can really anticipate what’s going to happen next in life?”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “I haven’t cared much for surprises since the last one was Frank walking out on me.”

  “Would it have hurt any less if you knew it was going to happen?”

  She shrugged and looked out at the snowflakes piling quietly on the windowsill. “I could’ve braced for the fall.”

  * * *

  The following week, Lily declined my invitation to pick her up for book club. In fact, she wasn’t going at all. “I’m helping my daughter wrap Christmas presents,” was her reason.

  “Who wraps anymore? Isn’t this the age of the gift bag?” I replied in jest, but there was no giggle on the other end.

  I knew it was an excuse. I knew I had to give her space, as much as she needed, forever if she needed that. As the holiday drew closer, I went to the drug store and leafed through the remaining Christmas cards—‘for my wife,’ ‘a new love,’ ‘seems like we’ve always been in love.’ When was Hallmark going to cater to the sorely underrepresented market of those who fell in love with someone they never should have slept with? It was impossible to find a generic card that expressed my feelings. I settled on a ‘thinking of you’ card with a classy silvery bulb on it, wrote by hand what burned in my heart, and left the rest to serendipity and the US Postal Service.

  * * *

  Christmas night we sat on barstools around Lily’s kitchen island, sipping amaretto-laced eggnog. After a noisy afternoon with my large family in my brother’s small house, the soothing hum of a Sinatra Christmas CD smoothed out the edges the amaretto missed.

  Lily took a sip of her drink and licked the hint of foam off her lip. “So was Santa good to you today or did you get coal?”

  “Santa brought me the best gift ever last night—your text.”

  “Your card was beautiful,” she said. “And since three weeks away from you have done nothing to help me forget you or move on, it was something I needed to do for myself.”

  “I’ve missed you, Lily. I don’t know if I should say that, but it’s true.”

  “You should say what you want to say.”

  I offered a cautious grin. “I will if you will.”

  She exhaled deeply. “I’m happy when I’m with you, Erin. I’ve felt that way even before we slept together.”

  “Me too.” I put my hand on hers, and she grabbed hold of my fingers.

  “Remember when I told you I used to think being gay was just about sex?”

  I nodded as my skin tingled with the recollection of our passion.

  “Now I realize I wish it was that simp
le.” She paused as her lip quivered. “My heart has never missed anyone more, my body’s never craved anyone, and my thoughts have never been so involved with anyone until you. I’m in love with you.”

  I took her by the waist and kissed her like I was about to wake up from the best dream ever.

  We walked into the family room where the fire blazed. She stopped me by the tree and kissed me in the glow of its white lights. “Thanks for making me love Christmas again.”

  We sat on the couch, and she pulled me into her arms. “By the way, I think I now have a pretty good idea of what went on between Jay and Daisy that afternoon.”

  “That Fitzgerald,” I said, shaking my head with a smile.

  Season’s Meetings

  Andi Marquette

  Rae glanced at the departures board yet again. Cancellations were piling up like the snow on the tarmac, so she figured it was just a matter of time…yep. As she watched, the status of her flight went from “delayed” to “cancelled.” She sighed, not surprised, but still bummed. At least this was her home airport. She took her phone out of her pocket and speed-dialed Jeri, who picked up on the first ring.

  “Where are you?” she demanded.

  “Hey, sis. No deal. Flight’s cancelled.”

  “Shit. Did you even get out of DC?”

  “Well, sort of. Reagan Airport is in Virginia, you know.”

  “Smart ass. You know what I mean.”

  “Sorry. Technically, no, I didn’t. I guess that’s good. I won’t have to sleep in an airport, at least. The snow’s coming down here pretty hard.”

  “Can you go see if they can get you out tomorrow? I know that’s Christmas Eve, but at least you’d be here for Christmas Day. The boys would love to see you.”