“Tell me about your friends,” Kate said.
“They’re the best,” Rowan answered without hesitation. “Alycia, Kris, and I have all been friends since high school. I kinda had a rough time in school until I met them. I wasn’t exactly popular. I struggled with my weight and, well, teens are mean. Plus, I was the only out lesbian in my school at the time. It was pretty much hell. But Alycia, Kris, and I all ended up in a film class together and we’ve been inseparable ever since. When Kris started dating Hannah, she became a part of the group, like she had been there the whole time. Alycia and I were roommates through college, so we’re especially close. She’s my person.”
Rowan thought about Alycia, and how they had hardly talked since her move. “She was my person, anyway.”
“What does that mean?”
She frowned, not wanting to kill the mood. “The move has been hard. I guess I didn’t think it would change much between us, but she’s been busy, and we’ve hardly had a chance to talk. I didn’t realize that being in a different state would matter so much.”
Kate leaned in closer, her gaze gentle and caring.
“I guess I was naive about the move. I thought things would stay mostly the same, except I’d be working at my dream job in Texas.” she sighed. “It sounds silly now when I say that out loud.”
“Leaving home was never really part of the plan, was it?” Kate asked. There was no judgment in her voice, just a gentle acknowledgment.
“God, no. I love Portland. I’m really close with my parents, and I have a great group of friends. I have good roots there. But the job? It was too good to pass up. It’s not the kind of opportunity you say no to.”
Kate was quiet for a long moment, but her eyes shone with admiration when she looked at Rowan. When she spoke, her voice was low and quiet. “It was brave of you to move here like that.”
Rowan shrugged. It didn’t feel brave. It felt scary and lonely.
Kate took a long sip of her margarita, and her gaze was no longer holding Rowan’s as she looked out at the restaurant with a distant, indiscernible expression.
“Is everything okay?” Rowan asked.
Kate nodded. Rowan didn’t believe her.
“Talk to me?” she begged.
Kate exhaled slowly, clearly weighing whether or not she should voice whatever was on her mind. “What exactly are we doing?”
“Eating tacos?” Rowan answered in question, not sure what exactly Kate was asking.
“I mean in a more general sense, smart aleck,” Kate said. “I like you. And I think you like me.”
“I do,” Rowan acknowledged.
“I’m actually really enjoying getting to know you. I think there might be something kinda special sparking between the two of us.”
Rowan agreed, but she didn’t say so, waiting for the “but” that she knew was coming.
“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but I think there’s potential here. And yet you’re not exactly grounded here, are you?” Kate asked. “I saw your apartment when I picked you up for dinner. Your things are still in boxes. And when you talk about Portland . . . it’s all present tense. It’s not just where you’re from. You’re still there at heart.”
“I haven’t even been here two months,” Rowan said.
“I know,” Kate replied. “And like I said, I’m not trying to put the cart before the horse, so to speak, but I don’t know where all of that leaves me if we get involved. I have so much going on in my life. Everything with Daddy . . . I need to be careful right now, that’s all.”
“This isn’t a vacation,” Rowan said. “My job is here. I’m not about to pack up and move home. I’m trying to settle in. I really am.”
Kate nodded, but she looked sad. Rowan could understand where Kate was coming from, but she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. She couldn’t say that Texas all of a sudden felt like home. It wasn’t home. She wasn’t sure it ever would be. On good days Texas was a new adventure. The rest of the time it was more like a bad dream that she couldn’t wake up from.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine,” Kate answered. “Let’s enjoy our dinner. I didn’t mean to make things so heavy. I think I just need us to slow down a little while you figure some things out.”
“Okay.” Rowan took a bite of her Baja shrimp taco. The dressing was rich and flavorful and the shrimp well seasoned, but she couldn’t enjoy it. Kate was the best thing about Texas, but Rowan’s heart was in Portland. She couldn’t wave a wand and make her homesickness disappear, even if it meant that she couldn’t commit to Kate.
She tried to relax back into the conversation. They could enjoy the evening as friends if nothing else. She needed a friend in Texas, even if that wasn’t everything she wanted.
❊ ❊ ❊
Kate sat on the porch with an ice-cold sweet tea, listening to the cicadas singing in the trees, and watching the lightning bugs flicker through the bushes. It was quiet on the ranch away from the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex’s constant roar of traffic, but she couldn’t relax, because her mind played through a memory reel with a deafening intensity.
She had been six when her mom left. She had kissed Kate goodnight one night, and in the morning she was gone. Kate woke that day to find her dad sitting on the porch. She had been too young to recognize that anything was wrong, and she’d gone out there tugging at his shirt and begging him for breakfast until he’d broken down and started sobbing. It was the first of only a couple of times that she could ever recall seeing her dad cry.
Kate used to wonder what she would say to her mom if she ever saw her again. Now, she hoped that day never came.
She thought back on her evening with Rowan, her stomach still twisted in guilty knots. She’d asked Rowan to dinner because she’d wanted an evening of easy conversation and laughter. Spending time with Rowan was meant to cheer her up. She should have enjoyed the tacos and flirting and maybe even some kissing afterward. She was really sad there had been no kissing. Rather than relax into the evening, she had heard Rowan talk about her friends and Portland, and all she could see was their inevitable end. Rowan didn’t want to be in Texas.
And yet she’d known that from the start, and she was still the one to ask Rowan out, to kiss Rowan, to make all the first moves.
Kate took a drink of her tea. The entire evening had gone wrong. She’d opened up to Rowan, and suddenly things had felt more intimate. She’d shared something of herself, and that opened her up to loss. She couldn’t take any more loss.
She looked out at the pastures, seeing the barest outline of the cattle silhouetted in the pale moonlight. Stars peppered the night sky in a multitude that couldn’t be seen through the light pollution in the city. She could see constellations, the North Star, and even the faint line of the Milky Way.
When her dad had caught her kissing her first girlfriend at fifteen— before she had even understood her own sexuality, let alone thought about telling him— she had run out to the pasture, lain down, and looked up at the stars until the panic subsided and she was able to go inside and talk to him. She’d lain in that same field, looking up at the stars, while she applied to colleges. In her naivete she’d believed she was making a decision that would affect the rest of her life. She’d lain under those same stars when she got to the ranch the night of her dad’s accident. She hadn’t moved back yet, but she needed to let Patch outside, and once she got there, she allowed herself to fall apart. Everything had changed in a day, but those stars, that field, always the same.
Now she sat on the porch with her tea, seeing those same stars, wondering what her life might look like in a year. She hoped the ranch would still be running. She hoped to God she could be sitting out on the same porch in a year’s time.
Her thoughts flashed back to Rowan.
There was no point in even hoping that Rowan would feature in that image. She didn’t have time for distractions, and she didn’t have time for heartbreak when it didn’t work out. Everyt
hing was riding on her shoulders.
A shooting star flashed across the sky. She quickly closed her eyes and wished for the ranch to be okay.
She felt silly, like a child, placing her faith in something as juvenile as a shooting star, but she needed the wish to come true. She needed to make it come true.
Chapter Nine
When Rowan was nine, her parents had taken her to Disneyland. She vividly remembered standing in front of Cinderella’s castle, looking up at the palace, in complete awe and reverence while she fought the crowd for the opportunity to hug Cinderella herself. She had been old enough to know it was all a charade, but she had been completely absorbed in it all the same. She was in a whole different world: one that she had not realized existed.
Being in Texas felt pretty much exactly the same, except the princesses were cowboys, their tiaras were rifles, and she didn’t look forward to meeting any of them.
But she definitely felt she was in a whole different world. She had moved to Texas, bound and determined to be independent, and now she was lost in the giant world that existed outside of her own small corner of the universe.
That trip to Disneyland had been the only time she had left Oregon prior to her move. Her parents worked hard to get by and didn’t have a lot of money to put toward vacations. Any extra money she had been able to save went toward her school tuition. She’d always wanted to travel and see what else existed in the world, but she’d always assumed she’d go on vacation— always returning home to Portland.
She sat on her couch with her laptop open, looking up the cost of a flight home. If she flew out of Texas on a Sunday morning, she could spend a couple of days with friends and family before flying back in on Tuesday in time for her work shift. It would break the bank, but God, it was tempting. Even just a day with her people . . .
Her mouse hovered over the “purchase” button that she knew she couldn’t click, but she felt an almost irresistible urge to do so anyway.
Her mind flashed to Kate, and she once again saw the worry in her eyes when she’d commented on Rowan’s still-packed boxes. At the time Kate’s concern felt unfair, but maybe it was justified. She moved the mouse away from the “purchase” button. It was possible that in her homesickness she wasn’t giving Texas a fair chance. She lived here, but she had one foot out the door.
She exited the travel site and brought up her search engine. She typed in, “Best things to do in Fort Worth, Texas.”
Kate had called her a tourist, but she had been wrong about that. Rowan hadn’t even taken the time to see Texas as a tourist. She had driven her U-Haul to her new apartment and waited for it to feel like home. She hadn’t seen the city, besides what Kate had shown her and her drive to work, which still required GPS mapping so she didn’t turn down a wrong street and get horribly lost. Maybe she needed to see what the tourists would see in Fort Worth before she could hope to see the place as a local.
She looked up the reviews of various places, activities, and restaurants in the area. She had the night off work, and she decided that this time she wasn’t going to stay in and wallow in thoughts about the things she wasn’t doing with her friends in Portland.
The sheer number of activities that the internet suggested was overwhelming, and she had no idea where to start. Evidently the city was quite large, and Rowan barely even knew her own little corner.
It was time for that to change.
❊ ❊ ❊
The fountains in Sundance Square were alight with jets of water shooting into the air, illuminated in various colors. Rowan found it strangely meditative to watch the plumes shoot from the ground in short streams, medium streams, tall streams. Sundance Square was crowded with people, even though it was a Monday night. People sat at tables around the fountain area with coffee and pastries from the nearby shops. Children dashed through the jets of water, and she watched as the security worker occasionally pulled one aside to point out the sign that clearly delineated the appropriate hours for fountain play, as though even the pre-schoolers and toddlers should have been able to read the sign and know better. Parents tried to reinforce the rule, but the water was right there and oh so tempting in the heat. A man walked his puppy, who like the children had to play in the water. The puppy jumped around happily, trying to nip at the jets of water. On the far side of the square, a country band played, and she found herself tapping her foot in time with the music, despite her aversion to any music with a twang.
She liked Sundance Square. There was a lighthearted vibe to the area. Nobody was in a rush. There were stores and restaurants, country bars and coffee shops. It was an enjoyable place to spend an evening out.
She sipped a lemonade while people-watching. She’d been nervous about going to the square on her own, but she was hardly the only one there alone. One man worked on a laptop while a woman a few tables over had a sketchbook open, trying to capture the fountains.
Rowan finished her lemonade and just sat for a while. As enjoyable as it was she did wish she had people to share the evening with. But the evening was about familiarizing herself with Texas. The loneliness of being stuck there was a whole different issue. She wasn’t going to solve all of her homesickness, or her problems with Texas, in one night.
She thought of her neighbor, Dave: pro-God, pro-gun, pro-life. She was most likely never going to solve all of her problems with Texas.
One thing at a time, she told herself.
As the sun began to set, children and families headed home for the night, but the square did not go completely quiet. She sat by the fountains until she found herself growing hungry, and decided to check out the BBQ joint on the corner. If she was making a list of things she had to do as a tourist, then surely Texas BBQ needed to be at the top.
She smelled smoked meat as she made her way down the sidewalk to the small restaurant with the neon BBQ sign. Country music blasted through the front door, which was propped open, and a chalkboard sign next to it advertised “burnt ends” as the daily special.
She felt a spark of excitement as she stepped inside. There was a lot about Texas Rowan had been less than enthusiastic about. But the state was known for its BBQ. As a grill chef, she had to appreciate that if there was one thing this state did right, it was cooking meat. In that regard, she wanted to soak up everything about the Texas experience.
She got in line and read over the menu while she waited to order her food. She watched as a large brisket was pulled from the smoker and set down on the counter to be sliced. She eyed the plates of everyone in front of her, each different type of meat looking as good as the rest. She wanted to try them all, but that would be impossible.
Reason 412 why she needed her friends to be in Texas with her: She needed people to help her order and eat all of the food she wanted to try.
As she approached the counter, she saw a cooler full of ice and beer, as well as a couple of drink dispensers offering lemonade, sweet tea, and fountain drinks. She grabbed a beer and stepped up to the counter, not entirely settled on what she was going to try until she actually heard herself order the beef brisket platter.
She watched as the brisket was sliced and heaped high on her tray. Her eyes widened at the sheer volume of meat that was handed to her. More meat than anyone should ever be served anywhere.
She supposed it was true, what they said about everything being bigger in Texas.
The brisket was tender and nicely infused with smoke, and she tried it with every one of the half-dozen sauces on the table. She ate slowly, taking her time as she tried to identify all of the flavors in the spice rub. She didn’t own a smoker so it wasn’t like she would be able to re-create the dish anyway, but still she wanted to learn everything about what went into making such delicious brisket. She wondered what Kate would have thought of this place. Was it a good representation of Texas BBQ, or did Rowan need to keep searching? She made a mental note to ask Kate for BBQ recommendations. Maybe they could make a point of trying the best Texas BBQ together.
&n
bsp; She chased her food with her cold Shiner bock beer, trying only halfheartedly to chase away the thoughts of Kate. The two of them could really be something, but she understood Kate’s hesitation. Kate’s Texas roots ran deep while Rowan had barely touched down. Still, she hoped Kate would see she was branching out, that she was trying, that she was settling in.
Even if she hardly felt settled.
She barely made it through a quarter of her brisket platter before she could no longer make herself eat another bite. She looked at the massive amount of meat remaining with guilt, not wanting it to go to waste, but surely nobody could have eaten that much food.
She finished off her beer, admitted her brisket defeat, and then headed back out to walk with no set direction, just to get a sense for the area.
Sundance Square had fewer tourist trinkets than the Stockyards, but she found a variety of Texas-shaped belt buckles in store windows. She wished her friends were there. They’d have made it a scavenger hunt to see who could have found the largest and gaudiest of the belt buckles. They’d have people-watched with her, making up conversations in silly voices and putting on bad Southern drawls. Then they’d have talked about their days. They’d have listened to Rowan talk about hers.
Instead, it was only her.
She sat in front of the fountains again and pulled out her phone, tired of her only conversation being in her own mind. She missed her friends. She missed Alycia. She felt needy and clingy, but she pushed the feelings aside and hit the call button. She could either sit in the square lonely, or she could extend the olive branch and make the call.
Alycia answered on the third ring. “Rowan!”
Relief hit her like a tidal wave, and she closed her eyes, smiling at the warm sound of her best friend’s voice.
“Hey Aly-cat.”
Alycia laughed. “Bestie, I’ve missed you!”
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