“You always tell me,” Dusty said softly, continuing her tantalizing massage.
The bells on the front door chimed. Baxter let out a low groan, or maybe it was a growl. Either way, it lacked conviction.
Tess flinched but had no time to move.
In an instant, Eve was in the room. “Hi there,” she said, glancing down to Tess’s feet in Dusty’s lap then up to the two of them. “Boy, what a day.” She stepped around the dog and flopped down on the couch against the side wall.
“Was it a long one?” Tess asked. With as much nonchalance as she could manage, she eased herself around to sit forward in the chair.
Dusty kept her hold a second longer then released it with obvious reluctance.
“Yes. And busy. I didn’t even get lunch.”
Tess had been gradually getting to know Eve over the past couple of weeks, and she liked her. Eve had a youthfulness to her, but at the same time, she already knew what was important in life. The struggle she was feeling between being a mother and possibly being a lesbian touched Tess. She didn’t fully understand it, since she saw no division between the two, but she could identify with Eve’s inner conflict. After all, many people wouldn’t comprehend her own ambivalence regarding moving forward into a new relationship, but it had been, and continued to be, a battle for her.
“Do you have any plans for the evening?” Tess asked.
“Just to change clothes and relax.” Eve stretched.
“That’s it for me, too,” Tess said.
“What about you, Dusty?” Eve asked.
“I dunno yet. It depends on what’s for dinner.”
Tess smiled as she watched Dusty fix her mask back into place and stare at the television screen as though she had been deeply engrossed all along.
The front door opened again, and Addison’s voice carried into the room. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I just said I’m kind of tired.”
Baxter scrambled to his feet and trotted off.
“I know, dawtie. You’re just tired a lot lately. Is there somethin’ I should be worryin’ about?”
At the sound of Maggie’s voice, Dusty jumped, grabbed the box of chocolate-covered cherries, and shoved it under the footrest of her recliner.
Maggie stopped in the doorway of the room. “Isn’t it nice to have everyone home this evenin’? Is everyone stayin’, or do you have other plans?”
“I’ll be here,” said Tess.
“Me, too,” said Eve.
“What’s for dinner?” asked Dusty.
Maggie frowned. “If you haven’t already filled up on junk, maybe we could order pizza, I’ll make a big salad, and we could watch a movie.”
Dusty’s expression brightened. “All I’ve had is fruit, Maggie Mae. Pizza sounds great. I’ll even treat.”
“All right, then. We’ve a plan. I’ll start on the salad. Addison, will you be a love and call in the pizza?” The couple moved out the doorway in mid-conversation, Baxter at their heels.
Tess eyed Dusty. “You know, you’ll probably go to hell for lying to Maggie.”
Eve let out a giggle.
“I didn’t lie. Cherries are fruit.” Dusty reached beneath the chair and retrieved the box.
“I don’t think they count as fruit once they’ve been dipped in chocolate.”
“Augh, you’re so analytical. Can’t you just be?” Dusty drew out the word in exaggerated serenity.
Tess laughed. “You’re going to just be sorry when Maggie finds out you ate the candy her sweetheart gave her out of the blue.”
Dusty’s expression looked momentarily serious, but she covered it quickly. “Well, unless you tell on me, she’ll never know. I’ll buy her more tomorrow.” Her tone still held a playful note, but her mind had clearly followed another thought.
Chapter Eleven
Eve stood in Maggie’s kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. She plucked a tea bag from the Good Earth box and dropped it into the mug on the counter. Her emotions were raw after the night she spent with the boys in the home she’d shared with Jeremy for so many years. She’d wanted some extended time with them, so Jeremy had gone to the Friday night Angels game with friends and crashed on a couch afterward, while Eve and the boys went out for burgers and spent the rest of the evening watching The Lion King for the hundredth time over a bowl of popcorn. They’d laughed and snuggled, worked on Christmas lists for Santa, and cuddled up to sleep in Jeremy’s and her king-sized bed. Overall, the boys seemed at ease with Eve’s absence, as they were accustomed to her being away at conferences and training seminars for work several times each year. Only once had Daniel asked, as he always did in their telephone conversations while she was traveling, when she’d be home. She’d responded that she’d be with them again soon, and they had appeared reassured by the same answer she’d always given, but Eve’s heart ached as she wondered if it were true this time.
Her plan had been to take the room at Maggie’s for a while to give herself a little distance to find the answers she needed. Now that she’d been here a couple of weeks, she definitely could say she’d done the requisite thinking—thinking was all she’d done—but she felt no closer to any new answers than when she first arrived, nor had she made any attempt to meet any women other than those who lived with her. She hadn’t been able to figure out why until she sat and watched her children sleeping in the big bed. The one answer she was certain of was that she couldn’t leave them. How could she reconcile that with the rest?
What she’d managed to figure out was that she did love her family. She loved those beautiful boys, and Jeremy. But she’d also realized that she felt a distinct draw to the intimate interaction and connection between two women. Watching Maggie and Addison as they shared their lives with one another, as they maneuvered through whatever troubles they seemed to be having, and seeing the tenderness between Dusty and Tess, whatever the heck was going on there, stirred a longing in the depths of Eve’s soul, a smoldering heat that she now had to admit she’d never felt with Jeremy. With him, she felt a strong connection, a commitment to his well-being, a safety in the structure of their life together. For him, she felt deep caring, even love, but now that she was being more honest, not the kind of love a woman would expect to feel for the man she married. She wasn’t in love, although she wasn’t sure what that actually meant.
The kettle whistled and Eve poured water into her cup and allowed the tea to steep as she made her way with it into the living room. She settled into one of the swivel chairs and gazed out the windows at the lush mountainside.
The love she held in her heart for Jeremy was the kind that grew and strengthened between intimate friends who were always there for one another, who couldn’t, wouldn’t, go a day without at least checking in and sharing some small piece of life, who had collected so many inside jokes and so much knowledge of one another they, many times, didn’t even need to speak to share a thought. He was her best and dearest friend.
Even Jeremy, however, had said that wasn’t enough, not for a marriage. She’d told him the truth, that she always felt something was missing for her, felt an emptiness deep within her. He had said that he never wanted to be the cause of anyone, most of all her, living an unfulfilled life.
“I’ve seen you watch other women,” he confessed to her one night. “Sometimes you watch them the way a man does. I think I’ve always known there was an attraction there for you and that maybe someday you’d need to explore it.”
That’d made it easier for her, at least where Jeremy was concerned. She knew he’d be fine. She knew they’d remain close friends. She even knew they’d continue to parent well together, and she had no doubt that some other woman, one who’d be able to love him the way he deserved to be loved, would come into his life.
But what about the boys? How would her decision to find love with a woman affect them? Would it confuse them, hurt them, even damage them? Would they be teased for having two moms—if it ever came to that? Weren’t all kids teased, though, re
ally? Daniel had been already. By the beginning of first grade, he’d been dubbed gimpy because of a slight limp left over from a surgery during his infancy. And Enos…what awaited him? At the time, she and Jeremy had thought it sweet to name their children after ancestors from both families, but on the playgrounds of the future, the only consideration of Enos’s name would be the ease at which it could be made to rhyme with penis. What had they been thinking, for God’s sake? Who could even imagine what stigmas might lay ahead for them without her throwing a lesbian mom into the mix? She could always just stay in her marriage until the boys were grown. Or stay single, so at least Jeremy could be happy.
Jeremy seemed to think, however, the decision had already been made. He knew something was missing for her with him, and he didn’t want a pretense for a marriage any more than she did. She’d gotten the feeling he was not only resigned, but already moving forward.
Eve sighed and took a swallow of tea. Somewhere a door closed and some footsteps sounded on stairs. Another door opened.
“Hey, I’m glad I caught you.” Dusty’s voice traveled down to Eve.
She couldn’t hear the response, but she identified Addison from the tone. She savored the comfort of her drink as she tried not to eavesdrop. She gazed out the window.
“It’s none of your business.” Addison’s voice rose.
“Think about what you’re doing. What you’d be throwing away.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You have in your mind, and there’s only one thing after that. And you’re not gonna be able to fix it with a box of chocolate-covered cherries or a bunch of roses.”
Addison’s answer was hushed but fervent, then a door slammed on the second floor. As the conversation continued in muffled, unintelligible words, Eve returned to her own reflections. Whatever drama was going on in the house, it wasn’t her business.
Had she made a mistake by telling Jeremy her thoughts and emotions before she had figured them out and come to some kind of conclusion? He had said he didn’t want to be in a marriage that was a lie, and of course, neither did she, but nor did she feel ready to be pushed out into the world, especially without her children.
She set her tea on the coffee table and pressed her face into the warmth of her hands. Tears burned her eyes. If she followed what she thought was in her heart, how badly would those she loved be affected? Even though Jeremy obviously did, would Daniel and Enos understand what it meant to follow one’s heart—if not now, ever? How could she explain it to them?
Eve heard an upstairs door open and close once more, and footsteps were coming her way. She sucked in a soft sob that was already halfway out and managed a hurried swipe across her wet eyes and cheeks before Dusty strode into the room, her motorcycle helmet under one arm.
She froze in mid-step. “What’s the matter? Jeez, is this whole house coming apart?” she muttered.
“Nothing’s the matter.” Eve continued to wipe at her tears.
“Oh, right. You’re just sitting here crying for no reason?”
Eve swallowed. “It’s nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Well, which is it?” Dusty shifted her weight. “Nothing? Or something I wouldn’t understand?”
Eve thought about the discretion with which she’d been tiptoeing out of Tess’s room the previous week, the ease with which she’d forgiven Addison for whatever had taken place between them the day Eve moved in, and the gentleness Eve had felt between Dusty and Tess the night they’d all ordered pizza. But she also recalled Dusty’s arrogance at their first meeting and feeling mocked by her over the Lesbian Sex book. What did she have to lose, though? Dusty was a full-fledged lesbian through and through, after all. Maybe she would have some insights that could help. She was certain she couldn’t feel any more lost than she did right now, no matter what Dusty’s reaction might be. “I’m afraid of losing my children,” she blurted before she could change her mind.
“What?” Dusty stared. “I didn’t know you had kids.”
Eve blew out a deep sigh. “Never mind.”
“No, wait,” Dusty said, still standing just inside the doorway. “Give me a minute to catch up. So, you have kids? Where are they?”
“They’re with their dad.”
“Oh, okay. And you’re afraid of losing them.” Dusty hesitated. “Have you ever lost them before?”
“What?” Eve blinked. “No, I’m not afraid of losing them like in a grocery store. I’m afraid of…you know…losing them. Not being able to be their mother, anymore.”
Dusty had been nodding as she listened, but she stopped and her brow furrowed. “Why wouldn’t you be able to be their mother? They’re your kids.”
“You know. Maybe being with me wouldn’t be good for them.”
“Why not? Are you a druggie, or a child molester, or something?”
Eve glared at her. “Of course not.”
“An alcoholic? Mental patient? Ooh, a bank robber.”
“Stop it.”
“What, then?”
Eve considered Dusty in her black leather jacket, tight jeans and boots, her soft blond hair dipping down across her smooth forehead. The same pang of arousal she felt whenever she looked at Dusty for too long clutched at her abdomen. She sighed. “You, of all people, should know.”
“Well, I don’t.” Dusty mimicked Eve’s tone. “Why don’t you tell me?”
She was going to make Eve say it—the L-word. She took a deep breath. “I might be a…lesbian.”
Dusty blinked. “Might be? I thought you were. I mean, are.”
Eve lowered her gaze. “I don’t know what I am. I’ve been married for eight years, and I should be happy. Jeremy’s wonderful. We have a great home, a nice life. But something’s missing. There’s this emptiness inside me. Do you know what I mean?” She looked up at Dusty.
Dusty stared at her with a vacant expression.
Eve knew she didn’t, but continued anyway. “I keep getting too close to my women friends, wanting something I can’t have. I wasn’t even sure what that something was until recently. But then there are the boys, my sons.” The image of their smiling faces flashed in her mind. “If I let myself have that something, I could lose them.”
“Wait a minute.” Dusty shifted her helmet to her other arm. “Are you saying you think if you’re a lesbian, that for no other reason, you can’t be a good mother?”
Eve sniffed, tears pooling in her eyes again. “Maybe. I mean, how could I be? I’d be sleeping with women. How could they understand that? They’re so young. How could they understand my living…you know…an alternative lifestyle?”
Dusty burst out laughing. “Babe, you’ve been listening to too much Dr. Laura.”
Eve’s anger flared, replacing her self-pity. “This might be funny to you, but this is my entire life—everything I cherish.”
Dusty cleared her throat and gained control of herself with obvious effort. “Okay, I’m sorry.” She extended her free hand in a gesture of openness. “It’s just that…That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” She dissolved once more into a fit of giggles.
“All right, fine. Go ahead and ridicule me. I need just one more emotion today to fully flush out the degree of humiliation and terror I feel.” Eve swiveled her chair away from Dusty. “I’m glad I’ve been able to amuse you.” Pressure built in her chest. A tear spilled onto her cheek.
Dusty watched her for a long moment.
Eve grew uneasy.
“Hey, I’m really sorry.” This time Dusty’s tone held sincerity. She moved a little farther into the room. “Just cuz you sleep with women and live an…” She faltered, then said quickly, “an alternative lifestyle, doesn’t have anything to do with what kind of mom you are to your kids. You know, unless you’re some kind of slut-puppy who’s out partying all the time, which I haven’t seen any evidence of. Hell, you never go anywhere. You walk around here like Boo Radley, peeking out the windows and stuff. Do you even know any lesbians besides me, Mag
gie, Addison, and Tess?”
Eve found Dusty’s words oddly comforting, or maybe it was the change in her manner. She sniffed again. She did think it strange that Dusty knew who Boo Radley was, but she chose to ignore it. Was she right? Eve couldn’t think. “Look, just forget it. Get on your hog—isn’t that what they call it—and go do whatever it is you do.”
Dusty’s eyes widened. “Hey, you know what? I’ve got an idea.” She held up her hand. “Wait right here.” She ran back upstairs.
Eve rolled her eyes. She wished she didn’t find her so intriguing. She swore half the time Dusty was insane.
Within minutes, Dusty raced back down the steps and into the living room doorway. She carried a leather jacket. “Here, put this on. It should fit well enough. I’ve got an extra helmet down in the garage.”
“What?” Eve asked in surprise, but she found herself rising and slipping her arms into the jacket Dusty held for her.
“I want to take you somewhere. It’ll be great. It’s just what you need.”
*
Forty-five minutes later, Eve climbed from the back of the motorcycle, her legs shaking from the vibration of the bike and the exhilaration of the new experience. Or maybe it was from the feel of her body pressed against Dusty’s back, her arms around her waist. She’d never been so close to a woman for so long before. She pulled off her helmet and scanned the parking lot and the adjacent park. Families picnicked, children played, a dog chased a squirrel up a tree. Nothing appeared so out of the ordinary that it would hold the solutions to Eve’s questions.
A child squealed. “Dusty!”
Other excited yelps followed.
Eve looked across the grass to see a group of children running toward them. She smiled. “Your motorcycle gang?”
“Very funny.” Dusty fastened the strap of her helmet to the handlebar, then took Eve’s and did the same. She squatted just as the children reached them, and one little boy threw himself into her arms. She scooped him up and lifted him high into the air before she settled him onto her hip. “Hey, how’s the birthday bud?”
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