Sweet Creek

by Lee Lynch

  No, they hadn’t, but wasn’t that why you got together with someone, to start your forever? Jeep couldn’t say her heart was broken. It was kind of like she felt stripped of who she thought she was, stripped of purpose and focus. She was lost in space.

  After nearly three months on women’s land, Katie had finally agreed to move out of their tent to town, and Jeep had put the last of her savings on her half of the firewood and rent for this moldy oldie mill cottage. What could she find in town that was cheaper now that she was alone? She didn’t even have enough for a Greyhound out. If only her old tin can Chevy hadn’t died back in Reno. She slammed another log onto the pile.

  Katie cried, “Look out!”

  The woodpile wobbled, then pitched over.

  Jeep jumped, but took one on her right foot. With her back to Katie, she squeezed her eyes shut until she could balance without screaming in pain. It wasn’t a hand, it wasn’t a hand, she chanted, small comfort though it was.

  Through tearing eyes she saw Sheriff Sweet patrolling on her horse. “Get it over with, Katie,” she managed to say through clenched teeth.

  Katie obliged. “I have to do this, Jeepers. It’s not the sex. You and I were great in bed. And nobody’s ever made me laugh like you do. But R puts me in touch with my spiritual side.”

  The thought that Katie didn’t want her any more had Jeep on the edge of howling in protest and begging her to stay. “This is completely cheesy,” she said instead. “Spirit stuff goes here.” She held out one hand, palm up, and then the other. “And sex and laughing go here?”

  But Katie wasn’t listening. Her eyes were following the sheriff, and Jeep could hear her thinking, “That sheriff’s hot.” Now she felt rage. Katie had never stopped cruising women in all the months they’d been together. Jeep had thought it was a game; now she knew better. “Go genuflect to her genitals then.”

  Katie picked the wrong moment to ask, “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Just go!”

  And she did. Super cool, super sexy, killer fun Katie Delgado, who’d rescued her from terminal loneliness and sleazy Sami. With that girly swivel in her walk that always made Jeep want to do something outrageous, like grab her ass, she went quickly to her red Honda. Her Katie, who’d thanked Jeep for being nuts enough to run off with her and help her get off the media merry-go-round.

  A few months ago, after they’d bummed around the West and Midwest so Katie could go on interviews at a few TV stations and get disgusted with their corporate mentality, they’d headed to women’s land in Waterfall Falls to visit Jeep’s old music shop customer, Solstice. They’d both been seduced by the clean air and back-to-basics way of life. She hadn’t imagined that there could be a life without Eminem’s lyrics assaulting her ears everywhere she went. Being away from m.e.n., period. Katie’s stuff was still in storage in the Bay Area, locked up. Now Katie had locked herself up too, driving off to Spirit Ridge with the few belongings she’d had in the rental. Driving off to R—who actually liked being called Rattlesnake behind her back. R, with her drumming and her coiled gray hair, who wore inner peace like a sexy nightgown yet could lash out like her deadly namesake.

  Her non-stop tears felt like the fabled winter rains they’d endured in a tent that first month. She hobbled through the mud in the backyard to resurrect the fallen logs, but the pain in her foot made her gasp. Why bother? Why stay in this dyke Siberia with the crunchy granola set where a gay film fest meant Mrs. Doubtfire at the drive-in forty winding miles away and she got to play fiddle before no brighter lights than a campfire? Why bother moving away, for that matter? She’d still be Katie-less.

  Jeep eased herself into a seated position on the back steps and took out of a back pocket the small harmonica she’d had since before she’d even started taking violin lessons. She played a wistful tune that sounded to her like the whistle of a train headed out of Reno into the desert. God, she’d hated the grimly hot desert. So had Sarah.

  Hot or no, she was thinking she’d been better off back in Reno where every day after work she’d race Sarah across the hot, dry parking lot of their apartment complex into the dingy courtyard tiled in orange and aqua. Their mailbox had been layered with the residue of decades of gummed labels that had come before their own: G.P. Morgan and S. Teitel.

  Nestled in the junk mail and bills one day was the white envelope she’d been waiting for.

  “Is this the scoop?” Sarah had asked in a whisper. “Finally?”

  At their door, Jeep gave her the keys and said, “My hands are shaking. I haven’t been this scared spitless since—remember when my roommate decided to skip class and walked in on us with our blouses undone?” She watched a stray dust mote drift by. “What a weird word, ‘blouse.’ It sounds like what it covers—round, round, round, you know?”

  Sarah laughed as she swung open the door. “That was as far as we’d ever gone—open blouses. I had no clue how much more we’d do!”

  The late afternoon sun shone in a wide sheet across their scuffed hardwood floor. Sarah moved through the light, long silver earrings flashing, and Jeep thought she’d never seen anyone lovelier. So what if she wasn’t invited to audition for the Reno Philharmonic? She had Sarah, sunshine, her violin. Her fiddle! If this letter didn’t take her along the flight path she and Sarah had planned, then a fiddle it would be again. She’d go electric.

  “Open it, Jeep.”

  “This is, kind of like, so heavy.” She tore through the envelope with a forefinger, unfolded the light blue Philharmonic stationary, saw the word “sorry,” and felt herself sag. She handed the letter to Sarah.

  “Oh, my poor Jeep.”

  “I guess Mr. Beethoven and his cronies will have to get along without me.”

  A sideways smile lifted Sarah’s grand crown of brown curls. “These people are a bunch of snoots, Jeep. I don’t understand why they won’t even listen to you.”

  “They probably heard how totally lame I was at the one audition I did get.”

  “You were nervous.”

  “Does this mean we have to move to Idaho?” Jeep asked. With no more prospects in the city, Sarah had been lobbying to return. “It’s too cold there.”

  “Desert rat! It’s deliciously chilly.” Sarah hugged herself as if she could feel the mountain air. “Since you never see your family even though they’re right here, my family would love to have us nearby. I’m not sure I could take living that close to them.” She looked thoughtful. “No, I love the mountains and the country, but that’s no place for a lesbian to live. I had to come to school in Nevada to find out I love women—and you.”

  Sarah’s parents were college-degreed old hippies who’d gone back to the land, but left organic farming to open a family counseling practice in their home. Now her dad headed up the county mental health program, and her mom had become the discharge planner at the medical center. She’d told Jeep that they’d farmed, canned, built their own house, and made their own clothes long enough to give Sarah a taste for the country way of life, and then turned into boring solid citizens. Jeep, when she’d visited them, thought they were pretty affected, hicks who ordered fancy coffee by mail and covered their coffee table with Robert Maplethorpe and Ansel Adams books. Their CD player filled their ranch house with Tibetan monks on bells and aboriginals on dijideroos. Sarah was into the home arts in a major way, but kept trying to fit into big city life. That she wasn’t quite sophisticated enough for Reno told the whole story, Jeep thought.

  “I wouldn’t fight landing someplace less like a frying pan than Reno, but your family thinks I’m a no-talent after I blew the audition they finessed for me over there. I really let them down. And there’s no good old-time music in Idaho.”

  “Old-time music? I thought you decided that was tatty antique music, Jeep. You haven’t played any in ages.”

  Jeep felt a sulky look take over her face. Sarah hated the thought of her going on tour, which she might have to if she was playing old-time music. So Jeep had been concentrating
on music she could play for a living in Reno. “You’re so freakin’ certain I’ll find a way to do what I love close to home, but who has time to hold down a job, try to break into the straight music scene, and play what I love?”

  Sarah looked hurt. “I didn’t know you were so unhappy, Jeep. Maybe we should consider Idaho. If we lived in the mountains you’d find an old-time music audience. You could give lessons and make money buying and selling instruments on line. And doing repair work—you said your father taught you a lot. And for once my family came through when I asked them to support you too. Didn’t they all go to hear you, Jeep—Mom, Dad, my grandmothers, my grandfather, my brother’s fiancé? My sister’s dumb-as-a-rock boyfriend thought you were great.”

  “Right. They were here for your graduation. I was in the orchestra.”

  “But they came to the casino too and thought you were terrific.”

  “My big three-bar solo? I really thought I’d be showing them my stuff in the symphony next time. It’s been eight months and four days since we left Miners’ U, and I’m no closer to supporting myself with music.”

  “You are such a snob, Jeep. You don’t need to play classical to be a great musician.”

  “I thought that was what you wanted me to do.”

  “It seemed like the best way for you to get what you wanted. And why do you use those put-down names for the U? What’s wrong with going to a school with a seismology lab?”

  “The Mule Team String Quartet is not exactly the fast track to the top, Sar. Reno’s a famous backwater, but it’s still a backwater.”

  “Give me a break, Jeep. Having Julliard or the Berklee College of Music on your résumé wouldn’t guarantee you work.”

  “This town is a closed shop, but it would help. I’ve tried the opera company—well, you know, I’ve tried everywhere.” She’d tried for too long not to feel discouraged, but what was the use? Why hadn’t she been born with a burning desire to be a wife and mother and maybe a cage cashier for a casino? That would have been an easy tune to play in this town. Sarah’s family, like hers, said they were okay with her being gay, but were concerned she’d end up old and alone. She could read between those lines. Like men didn’t die long before their widows. If that was their reasoning, they should be glad she liked girls. No, she didn’t see moving to be with family.

  At the coat closet, Sarah pulled out a tangle of wire hangers with an irritating jangle and wrestled to get one free. When they fell, she kicked them inside and slammed the door shut. “Dorky things.”

  Sarah seldom got rattled like that. “Aw, Sar, I’m being a flake. Reno’s not gay Paree, but we’ve got our privacy—finally. I’ve got you to myself—finally. We can conquer the world tomorrow.” She held her arms open. The word “finally” was a code word for them and always made them laugh and hug, like they’d finally found each other.

  Sarah stepped out of her pumps and leaned into Jeep’s embrace. Her hair smelled faintly of pear shampoo. Jeep rocked her, saying, “You’re so soft. See that little bird out there flitting up and down in the bush? That’s how your fingers feel when you touch me.”

  She kissed Sarah’s neck, right in the curve that felt like home. How could she get annoyed at a woman whose skin smelled like fresh bedclothes when you were really really tired? She was looking past her un-trusty old light blue tin can Chevy Spirit hatchback which was barely a vehicle and to the border of the lot, with its hardy shrubbery and newborn leaves. She reached under Sarah’s skirt and slid a hand up her thigh, drumming it on the soft, smooth, cool skin below her panties.

  “You always say I’m a bird,” Sarah accused, voice light again, and pirouetted away from Jeep’s hand across the bare wooden floor, her long dark hair lifting off her shoulders.

  She loved to touch Sarah. A part of her would be happy to do nothing but touch Sarah and play fiddle for the rest of her life.

  “Ouch!” Sarah cried. She held one foot in her hand, balancing, then pulled off her knee-hi nylons.

  Jeep moved quickly to help. “I’ll sterilize a needle.”

  “No, prop me up while I get to the chair.”

  She watched as Sarah pulled a big splinter from her heel. “We could use that rug your mother offered.”

  “We’ll have our own soon,” Sarah predicted and limped to the table in the dining nook where her tilted drawing board was kind of a member of the family. On the board lay an unfinished plan of the house Sarah was designing for them to live in when Jeep came into demand as a musician or they won the lottery. Sarah looked from it to the kitchenette at the end of the living room, then took a metal tape and measured the refrigerator.

  That, Jeep thought, as she sat two years later on the rotting steps of the house she’d shared with Katie all of, what, maybe a week and a half, was the memory of Sarah that never failed to bring tears to her eyes. She knew the damage she’d done when she betrayed Sarah’s innocent trust that they had a future together. Betrayed it even while Sarah tried to fit a rehearsal/music lesson/instrument repair space into that dream of their house. She feared neither of them would ever again trust a dream.

  With disgust at herself she burst out of her gloom and stood upright. “Oh, geez!” She’d forgotten her foot. It was her toe, the big one—it hurt like a son of a gun and she couldn’t bend it. She gritted her teeth against tears, but they weren’t only about her foot and there was no stopping them. Why isn’t there anybody to tell me what to do? She reached inside the front door to grab her skateboard and hopped off the porch, trying to stem the tears with anger. She slammed the board to the road. Though she was only a block from the main drag, there wasn’t even a sidewalk.

  She wiped the harmonica with the American flag bandanna she kept in a back pocket and started toward town through a driving drizzle. She was wrung out. The emotions that raced through her at any given moment this week left her feeling like a space wreck. It was awkward, using the skateboard left-footed, but there was no way she could push off with her bunged up right foot. She could feel her toes swell up even on their wooden gurney. She rolled past the sprawling mill. It was an abandoned dusty shadow of itself, the bitter workers competing with her for jobs at the remaining mills, Dairy Queen, and the hardware store.

  Maybe she truly was a space wreck. Alone now, with no Katie, no Sami, no Sarah, she was floating outside the atmosphere, a battered, unrecognizable object equipped with a temporary and obstinate consciousness. Someday, without warning or after a long agony, her lights would shut down. Space junk, that’s all I am, she thought. A cast-off scrap dyke unmoored in a galactic ooze of emptiness.

  “Do not forsake me oh my darlin’,” she hummed.

  She should never have left Sarah. Except—she hadn’t known any other way out of Reno and—into life. The five-minute skateboard ride to Natural Woman Foods took fifteen because she had to rest her foot so frequently. She’d wanted to hang out at the store from day one, but it’d been hard without wheels of her own. Since moving to town and catching on to Katie’s roving eye, she’d been like some kind of scrap attracted to a magnet, but felt too humiliated to admit Katie had dumped her. Now her need was greater than her shame.

  Donny’s dog Loopy was in her customary spot outside. She stroked the dog’s cowlicked fur, resting so she could lose the limp before she went in, but then focused so hard on looking good that she forgot the old wooden step, tripped through the door and, unable to balance because of her toe, fell, her skateboard flying down the main aisle of the store while her cool shattered into a million shards.

  “Yo,” she groaned to the long skirt and floppy chinos that hurried her way.

  “Honeybunch, this is one of those new city girls. Did I tell you they moved to town?”

  She’d forgotten the warm slow voice that flowed from Chick.

  Donny, in her overalls, asked, “Don’t know how you stood it up at Spirit Ridge so long. Can you get up, kid?”

  Jeep cursed herself. Off-key dweeb. “Of course I can. But give me one good reason why I sho
uld.”

  “There might be a customer,” Donny said mildly. “At least I hope there’ll be another customer.”

  She felt four strong hands lifting her. The door was still open and that silly-looking Loopy was standing, staring at her with what looked like alarm on her face.

  “Whatever.” Jeep struggled to the wooden stool Donny offered. Donny had skin the color of brown chalk, a non-stop wide delighted smile, seriously short hair, and green eyes that seemed to beam amused love. Oh, mortification. She’d been introduced to the mythic butch Donny in passing the few times they’d come to town, but had never been this close before. It was like meeting a movie star. She’d sort of timed her visits this past week so she’d miss her and get Chick all to herself. Chick made her feel like she could do no wrong.

  Now Chick carefully removed Jeep’s Doc Marten and handed it to Donny. “About time you came back to see me, dreamboat.”

  “Ow!”

  “Maybe a broken toe. Donny could swing you over to the clinic, but they can’t help that toe.”

  Another wave of weeping threatened and Jeep just managed to whisper, “I don’t have insurance anyway.” Stop feeling sorry for yourself, asshole, she thought.

  “Strap it up with adhesive tape till you can walk on it,” Donny suggested.

  “It’s a good thing you’re not still up at Spirit Ridge,” Chick said. “You’ll need to be icing that foot, and you couldn’t exactly freeze anything there.”

  She didn’t even try to swallow her bitterness. “Could we get anything but ice at Rancho Rattlesnake? It was so freakin’ cold in that tent—that’s why we moved to town. Now Katie’s headed back to be with that bizarre character. I’m wondering if Katie didn’t engineer the move to get rid of me.”

  “You poor little thing. I don’t know how any woman could leave you, you’re so cute.” Chick pressed Jeep’s head against a well-cushioned chest that smelled of clothing dried in fresh air.

  Like Sarah, she thought. Life had been so much simpler with Sarah. Maybe I should call her.