by Kay Bigelow
Once they were in the SUV, Alex asked, “April didn’t really need another container of chicken broth, did she?”
“How did you know?”
“You were blushing when I got back and I noticed she didn’t even bother opening the container I brought back. What did she ask you that had you blushing?”
“She asked if we had slept together yet.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her not yet. Then she asked why not, and I was saved from having to answer that question because you came through the front door.”
“What would you have told her?”
“The truth. I don’t know why we haven’t slept together. Do you? How would you have answered the question?”
Alex didn’t answer for a minute or two. Then she said, “I would have told her the right time hadn’t come yet.”
“Good answer. If she asks me again, do you mind if I use it?”
“Go right ahead. I know we’ll both be ready when the time is right.”
“I know that, too.” Lauren said.
“I’m glad my grandmother likes you. I trust her opinion of people. It’s like she has the power to know what’s in other people’s hearts.”
When they reached Lauren’s house, she asked, “Care to come in?”
“Not tonight.”
“Okay,” Lauren said, not even trying to hide her disappointment.
Lauren spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out why Alex had refused to come in. Maybe the evening hadn’t gone as well as I thought. Maybe…Stop that. She had her reasons. Period. Let it go.
Still, her mind roiled with reasons why Alex hadn’t wanted to spend more time with her. Each thought was far more fantastical than the last. By the time she was getting ready for bed, she’d convinced herself that Alex had had a change of heart and didn’t want to be with her ever again. Stop overthinking this. Alex may have been tired or not wanting to put either of them in the position of having to say no to the other. My new mantra has to be Stop. Overthinking. Everything.
Chapter Twelve
Alex wasn’t sure why she hadn’t gone inside with Lauren. She did know it was getting harder and harder not to take Lauren to bed. Maybe it would be wiser to be together in public places. Being alone with her is becoming too hard. Why not just sleep with her and get over this? The longer you wait, the more pressure you put on yourselves. We’re both grown women, for God’s sake. We’ve had a couple of dates, we both know we want to make love, so what is the issue?
When Alex entered her loft, the peace and familiarity of the space seemed to wrap her in a quilt of tranquility. Instead of changing clothes and grabbing a paintbrush, Alex sat down in the rocking chair her grandmother had given her when she moved into the loft. According to April, she’d rocked Alex to sleep many a night while her parents were traveling on business. Now, whenever she sat in the chair, the rhythmic rocking soothed her mind.
Alex suddenly understood that the reason she wasn’t making love to Lauren that evening was because at a deeper level than her need to touch Lauren was her need to be free of Lucia before she made love to Lauren. She wanted both her heart and her body to be Lauren’s. Right now, all she could give Lauren was her heart. When she could give her every part of her, then she’d make love to Lauren.
Suddenly restless, Alex got up and walked across the room to her studio. The drawing of her and Lauren in a shower was bathed in moonlight from the skylight above. She wondered if she could adequately add moonlight to the painting. It was, undoubtedly, her best work thus far. Clean, simple, and fraught with emotion. She loved it. She doubted she would ever sell the piece.
On impulse, Alex dialed Lauren’s number. A sleepy-sounding Lauren answered the phone.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Alex asked.
“No. I’m in bed trying to quiet my mind, though.”
“What’s bothering you so much you need to quiet your mind?”
“You know, great important questions like ‘Why?’ and ‘Why not?’ And a few not so earthshaking like the ‘When?’ question,” Lauren said.
“Oh, those questions. I’ve had a few of those myself. But I called with only a single simple question.”
“Thank goodness, I don’t want to think too much more today.”
“Are you busy this Saturday?” Alex asked.
“No.”
“Would you spend the day with me?”
“I’d love to. What are we going to be doing?”
“Do you like Yo-Yo Ma?”
“I adore him. Why?”
“I have lawn tickets to hear him at Tanglewood. It’s only about an hour and a half drive from here. And it’s the last concert of the season. Will you go with me?”
“I’d love to.”
“I’m so glad. I’ll pick you up at ten-thirty. That will give us time to walk on the grounds before the concert.”
“Alex? Thank you. A day with you and Yo-Yo Ma sounds like a dream come true.”
Alex was wearing a silly grin after thumbing off her phone. Just the sound of Lauren’s voice made her happy.
Alex changed clothes, found her sketchbook, and returned to the rocker. She made sketch after sketch of Lauren. The one she decided she liked best was of her grandmother sitting with Lauren at the kitchen island sipping tea with a celadon teapot between them. It had an Asian feel to it while at the same time it spoke of a connection between generations.
Alex continued to fill page after page of sketches of her grandmother, Lauren, and the two women together until she was tired enough to sleep. As she lay in bed waiting for sleep to overtake her, she thought about how happy she was. She couldn’t remember a similar time in many years. And, she was looking forward to making her own dream come true: Tanglewood and Yo-Yo Ma with Lauren on Saturday.
As she was falling asleep, she re-ran the film in her head of the time they’d spent with Sobo. It had been fun and comforting in equal measure. She was glad Lauren and her grandmother liked each other. She would have been devastated had they not. Her last cogent thought was whether Lauren had living grandparents. She hoped so. She wanted to meet Lauren’s large immediate family.
Just as she slipped into sleep, she realized she hadn’t thought of Lucia in hours. Maybe that was why she’d felt so happy.
****
The next four days had sped by for Lauren. She felt the anticipation of going to Tanglewood building with each passing day. She’d always wanted to hear a concert at the venue, but had never made time to do it. She hadn’t been joking when she’d told Alex spending the day with her at Tanglewood was a dream come true.
The drive to Lenox, Massachusetts and Tanglewood the next day was delightful because they mostly stayed off the freeway and took the two-lane roads meandering through western New York and Massachusetts.
“Have you ever been to Tanglewood?” Alex asked.
“Actually, no. I’ve wanted to come out here for various events, but never did. I thought about getting season tickets a time or two, but knew if I hadn’t come to the single events, I most certainly would not attend every event offered.”
“That’s too bad. I really love Tanglewood and the artists who appear there.”
Once they were at Tanglewood, they sat up the lawn chairs Alex had in the back of her SUV.
“Let’s stroll around the grounds. They’re beautiful,” Alex said.
“Won’t someone steal our chairs?”
She laughed. “Anywhere else, but not here.”
“Why not here?”
“There’s like an unwritten law that you either bring your own lawn chairs or sit on the ground.”
“Really? It sounds good, but it’s just an unwritten law.”
Alex said only, “Spoken like a true lawyer. Wait and see.”
They left the chairs behind, but Lauren kept glancing back to make sure they were still where they’d left them until they were out of sight.
As they strolled around the grounds, Alex reached t
o take Lauren’s hand. They received a few funny looks, but many more people smiled at them. Wherever they went on the grounds, people noticed them. At first Lauren thought it was because Alex was so strikingly beautiful. Then it dawned on Lauren she’d seen many of those looks, elbow digs, and head shakes when she and Sandy had first started dating. After several minutes, she stopped noticing them because she simply no longer cared what people thought of she and Alex being together.
Alex pulled her into the gift shop saying, “I haven’t bought this season’s T-shirt yet.”
They both bought Tanglewood T-shirts, Alex a green one while Lauren decided on the black one.
They left the shop and returned to where they’d left the lawn chairs, which were still exactly where they’d left them. Lauren couldn’t believe it. In Central Park, the chairs would have been stolen the moment their backs were turned.
The concert was divine; no, it was magical. There was something so special about the virtuosity of Yo-Yo Ma, being outdoors on a warm Labor Day weekend afternoon, and listening to the music while she held hands with Alex. It was the perfect combination.
On the way back home, Alex asked, “Did you have a good day?”
“Better than good. It was magical. Thank you so much for asking me to share it with you.”
“There’ll be many more days of magic in our future, I promise,” she said.
“Why did you have two tickets?”
“I have season tickets.”
“Who do you usually take with you?”
“My grandmother.”
“Why didn’t she go with you today?”
“She said she’d forgotten we had a concert today so she made other plans. She suggested I ask you,” Alex said with a smile.
“Did you believe her about forgetting?”
“No.”
“Still, I’m glad she had ‘other plans’ today.”
“So am I,” Alex said. “But don’t tell her that.”
“I won’t.”
When they reached the outskirts of town, Alex asked, “Are you hungry?”
For you, yes, I am.
“Yes, I am. What do you have in mind?”
“Dinner at Mamacita’s?”
“Would April come out with us, do you think?”
“Really?” Alex asked, clearly surprised.
“Yes. Why don’t you call her and ask her to join us? It’s the least we can do since she gave up her ticket so I could enjoy Yo-Yo with you.”
Alex pulled off to the side of the road and called her grandmother. While Lauren couldn’t, of course, hear April’s side of the conversation, it didn’t take Alex very long to convince April to say yes.
“Thank you,” Alex said as she pulled back onto the road.
“For what?”
“For thinking of my grandmother.”
“My pleasure,” Lauren said truthfully. “I like her a lot.”
April was waiting for them on her porch when they pulled up to her house. Alex got out of the car to escort her to the SUV. Lauren got out as well and climbed into the back, leaving the front seat for April.
“Did you girls have a good time at Tanglewood?”
After a few heartbeats, Lauren understood Alex wanted her to answer April’s question.
“It was an exceptional experience. I love Yo-Yo Ma’s music, and being outdoors listening to it was nothing I ever imagined doing.”
“I’m so glad you enjoyed it. I don’t have to ask Alex whether she enjoyed it. She always does. It took me forever to convince her to buy season tickets to Tanglewood. I’m so glad she finally listened to her old grandmother,” she said with a laugh.
When they arrived at Mamacita’s, there were only a few people enjoying either a late lunch or an early dinner.
“We hit it at exactly the right time,” April said. “In another hour, this place will be packed and the wait time stretched to an hour or longer.”
They were seated immediately. While they perused the menus, April asked, “Have you eaten here yet?”
“I haven’t eaten in the restaurant yet, but I’ve had their food and it’s the best I’ve had since leaving Texas,” Lauren said.
“How did you eat the food without being in the restaurant?” April asked.
“Alex brought takeout over one night last week. I think that’s when I began to…” Lauren caught herself before she said that it was when she’d begun falling in love with Alex.
A woman dressed in black slacks and a white shirt came to the table and saved Lauren from the embarrassing silence that followed her near confession.
April stood up. The two women hugged, took a step back to look at one another, and hugged again. April appeared to have tears in her eyes, as did the other woman. They clearly knew one another. Lauren heard the other woman whisper, “It’s been too long, mi corazón.” Lauren knew just enough Spanish to know the woman had said, “my heart.”
“Lauren, this is Evita. She owns the joint,” April told her.
Lauren was surprised. For some reasons she’d imagined Mamacita would be a short, rotund woman.
“Hello, Lauren,” Evita said. “Don’t let this old woman fool you. She owns half this joint. Is this your first time here?”
“It is my first time in the restaurant, but not the first time I’ve eaten your food. It rivals the best Mexican food I’ve ever tasted.”
“Thank you. Are you from Austin, by chance?”
“You know Chuy’s, don’t you?” Lauren asked.
“I grew up on their food.”
“So did I!”
Before they could go down memory lane, Evita kissed Alex on the cheek and gave April another heartfelt hug. “Enjoy your dinners,” she told them, and walked away.
“Is she a good friend of yours?” Lauren asked April.
“She and I were lovers for nearly a decade. I loved her dearly,” she whispered.
Nothing else she could have said would have surprised Lauren more. In fact, April’s confession left her speechless. She knew better than to pursue the subject, though. She wondered how long she’d been married to her husband.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, Sobo,” Alex said.
“Nonsense. It was the perfect idea. I haven’t seen Evita in years by choice. It was simply too hard for me to be around her. It hurt too much. So even though I own half the business, I stayed away and out of her hair,” April told Lauren.
“We could get takeout,” Alex said, trying again to get April to leave the restaurant.
“And give Evita the satisfaction of knowing I still carry a torch for her? No, thank you. We’ll have dinner, you’ll drop me off at home, I’ll go to bed, and enjoy my dreams of Evita.”
The conversation while they ate dinner stayed away from April’s relationship with Evita and Lauren’s near confession about Alex. After eating more food than they should have, they left the restaurant and dropped April at her home. Alex drove to Lauren’s house, and as they neared the driveway, Lauren asked, “Will you come in for a nightcap?”
“I’d like that. I feel like we haven’t had a second to ourselves today.”
As they entered the house, Serena got slowly off the couch like she hadn’t even known Lauren had been absent for eight hours. Max, on the other hand, came running in from the kitchen, but quickly turned his back to her.
“I’m in trouble. Serena needs to go outside and Max will die if I don’t feed him right now,” Lauren said, smiling.
“Is there something I can do to help?”
“Come into the kitchen. It’ll only take a minute or two to take care of them.”
Once the animals were fed, Lauren turned around and Alex was missing. She went into the living room to find her standing in front of the living room window. The sun had already set and the twilight was awash in various shades of pink.
Chapter Thirteen
Alex had told herself over and over on the trip back from Tanglewood that she wouldn’t, couldn’t be alone with Lauren.
She needed to get her shit together and decide what to do about Lucia. Sometimes, especially lately, she wanted to be free of Lucia. At other times, when she thought about not being able to paint full-time, she didn’t see what good would come of telling Lucia they were done before she and Lauren had even consummated their lust.
Thirty seconds after deciding what she needed to do, she’d changed her mind. Just make up your mind one way or the other. Stop this waffling!
The second she acquiesced to Lauren’s invitation to have a nightcap with her, she regretted it. Not because of her resolve not to be alone with her until she made a decision about Lucia, but because when they were alone, all she wanted to do was touch her, hold her, and take the woman to bed.
What’s wrong with that? We’re both adults, adults have sex, so why don’t we? Get it over with. Get the awkwardness of seeing one another naked for the first time out of the way. Good Lord, Alex, can you be any more romantic than that? “Get it over with?” If or when Lauren allows you to make love to her, you’d better be a hell of a lot more romantic than that!
Once inside Lauren’s home again, she followed her into the kitchen, but the urge to take her into her arms was too strong so she returned to the living room.
Alex blanked her mind as she watched the sunset begin to fade to dark. It was no use, however, because her mind immediately returned to Lucia and Lauren. Maybe Lucia will continue to be my patron even though we don’t sleep together. Why would she do that? Out of the goodness of her heart? What, then, would she be getting for her money? The satisfaction of knowing she’s helping a starving artist achieve her goal of being able to support herself with her art? Yeah, right. If she were going to be that altruistic, she would have done it five years ago instead of insisting I be her lover. Wait, am I her lover? When was the last time we had sex? Alex cast her mind back in time to try to remember when they last had sex. She finally found a time; it had been six months earlier near Easter, and there was nothing since then. Still, Lucia had the right to demand sex by the terms of their agreement.