Millie perked up. “How much time do we have?”
“She’s picking me up at six and I still need to shower.”
“Go get showered and we’ll hit Bette’s again. You really do need some new clothes. No offence.”
“None taken,” Amy said. She trusted Millie’s good taste. “We’ve got to be fast, though.”
“Bette specializes in quick fixes.”
***
Bette’s shop was off Dorset by a block. It was a good location with more parking than if her shop had been on the main drag. The bell on the door tinkled as Millie and Amy walked in. Before Bette had a chance to greet them, Millie said, “We’ve got an emergency. Hot date, no clothes.”
“I don’t know if it’s a hot date,” Amy said.
“Darling, if you’re buying clothes for it, that makes it a hot date,” Bette said. She was stylishly dressed in a short black Chanel jacket with pencil-legged pants and a white silk blouse. She would’ve been considered tasteful in any part of the world.
Millie was already picking through the racks. Bette pointed at her. “That is the mature woman’s rack. We are not putting this gorgeous creature in pants with elastic waistbands.”
“I’m looking for moi. I won big at bingo and I want a new outfit. I’m leaving Amy to you,” Millie said.
Bette swished her hand at Millie, saying, “Carry on. But I get final approval. I can’t have people thinking I sell a bad look.”
“I know that, too,” Millie said, sliding clothes across the rack.
Bette studied Amy, mentally taking her measurements. “What kind of hot date? Are you going out or staying in?”
“In. Dinner at her place.”
“Casual but sexy, hmm. Go take your clothes off.”
“That’s what’s Parker will say with the right outfit,” Millie interjected. She pulled out a sky-blue velour running suit, the kind you don’t actually run in. She held it up and looked it over.
“Millie!” Amy said, heading for the fitting room.
“You’re embarrassing the poor child, Millie,” Bette said. She pulled several outfits off the rack.
“When are you two going to stop pretending? It’s love if I’ve ever seen it,” Millie said.
“We’ve only known each other a week,” Amy said, over the top of the fitting room door.
“Since when has that stopped anyone?” Millie retorted.
“I met my first husband on a trip to Paris. A whirlwind romance and we married a month later,” Bette said.
“First husband? What happened?” Amy asked as she pulled her T-shirt over her head.
“I caught him in a whirlwind romance with another. I broke his toe with his favorite objet d’art. It was very satisfying.”
“You should’ve hit him in the gonads,” Millie said.
“I tried. Too small of a target,” Bette said, setting a small pile of clothes over the top of the fitting room door.
They all laughed.
Amy tried on the first outfit. It was perfect. It was a flair sleeved, paisley blouse with mid-rise olive drab jeans. She came out and posed. “I love it.”
Millie and Bette stood, heads cocked, eyes narrowed and studied her. “It works,” Bette pronounced. “Now, shoo. Go try on the rest.”
“But this one is great,” Amy said, already feeling possessive of her new outfit.
“Humor me,” Bette said.
Amy humored her and by the time she left the store she was the proud owner of several new outfits. Her wallet was considerably lighter, but she looked good. According to Bette, Amy had mix-and-match outfits of good quality clothing that would carry her through the summer and into fall. She’d purchased a burgundy crepe, off-the-shoulder shirt, black skinny jeans, white linen trousers, a black and white striped shirt, an over-sized, rolled-sleeved black denim shirt, blue jeans, a white crepe blouse, and an ivory long-sleeved dress with a revealing V-neck. Bette threw in four light-weight soft cotton T-shirts of baby blue, tangerine, coral, and deep purple. “This will get you by,” she stated, “in a crunch.”
The entire transaction took only thirty minutes. Amy felt like a stressed out runway model.
“You have a real nice figure. Bette did a great job accentuating that,” Millie said, helping Amy put her shopping bags in the car.
“How come you didn’t get anything? You were looking at stuff,” Amy said.
“Because you needed Bette more. I’ll stop by next week. Despite thinking I have good taste, I do not. She knows it and so do I. We do this dog and pony show all the time. Now, let’s get you all dolled up. You are going to wear the paisley blouse and jeans? You looked hot in that outfit.”
Amy had a hard time getting used to Millie’s use of slang. It seemed odd coming out of her mouth, but Millie, despite her advanced years, was not a stodgy old lady. She was full of surprises.
They pulled up in Millie’s driveway. Millie checked her neon pink Swatch watch. “You’ve got twenty minutes. You best get on it.”
Amy rushed into the house and changed while Millie hung the clothes in her closet. “I’ve never dressed this well in my entire life,” Amy said. “The people I hung around with in the city fancied themselves as more cerebral than physical.”
“How awful for them,” Millie said, standing back and admiring Amy’s new clothes hanging in the closet.
“I hope Parker likes my new look,” Amy said, studying herself in the full-length mirror.
Millie came up behind her and looked over Amy’s shoulder at their reflection. “She will, honey. You look beautiful.”
“Parker always looks good, no matter what she wears,” Amy said.
“She is a handsome woman.”
They both jumped when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Millie said.
Millie opened the front door to find Parker dressed in well-fitting black jeans, a turquoise shirt, and Doc Martens.
Amy stood behind Millie. “Oh, my, you look stunning,” Amy said before she could stop herself. Parker never ceased to amaze Amy. She was stunning, plain and simple.
“You look beautiful. Although I haven’t seen the full view,” Parker said, leaning over to look around Millie who was standing dumbstruck.
“I’ve never seen you with your hair down,” Millie said.
Parker blushed. “I thought I needed a change. I keep it tied back at work because it gets in the way.”
“That makes sense,” Millie said. “But you wear it down when girl-watching.”
“There’s only one girl I like watching,” Parker said.
“And who might that be?” Millie teased.
“Oh, she knows who she is,” Parker said, reaching around Millie and taking Amy’s hand. She raised the hand to her lips and softly kissed it.
If Amy had been a southern woman living during the Civil War, she would’ve swooned. Now, she just hoped she didn’t have a sweaty hand.
“Oh, you two,” Millie said, “Shoo. Go have fun.”
Parker drew Amy nearer. “You ready?”
“I want you in bed by midnight,” Millie said, shaking a warning finger at Amy. “And if you’re not, come on home.”
Amy couldn’t help but laugh. Millie waved from the front door as Amy and Parker got in the Porsche. The top was down. She worried about her hair. Would it be a tangled mess by the time they got to Parker’s house? “I should’ve brought a scarf for my hair,” Amy said.
“I bet you’d look nice in one,” Parker said.
“Very Joan Crawford.”
“You’re much prettier than her,” Parker said, putting the car in first gear.
“Why, thank you,” Amy said.
Amy soon realized that talking in a convertible was out of the question. Because of the wind, you couldn’t hear a thing. That was okay with her. They had the whole evening ahead of them and she didn’t want to run out of things to say.
Amy leaned back in her seat and breathed in the scent of crisp air not polluted by smog. The air was r
edolent with the smell of fresh cut lawns and lilac bushes. The evening sky was turning indigo with streaks of pink and gold. The farmland on the outside of town was furrowed neatly with rows of baby corn and sugar beets. Amy didn’t know if they were going the long way around to Griffin Lake nor did she care. She watched Parker’s hands on the steering wheel, her long fingers effortlessly guiding the car.
Amy imagined what those hands would feel like as they caressed her naked body. Her mind wandered further. She imagined them kissing each other, bodies intertwined, her teeth nipping at Parker’s ear…she made herself stop. She wasn’t even sure if this was a date or not. It looked like one. It felt like one. But with Parker, one never quite knew.
Then Amy had to ask. “Is this like a date-date or just dinner?” Her heart raced as she waited for a reply.
“What?” Parker asked over the rushing wind, as she shifted down going around a hairpin turn.
Did she really have to say it again? She didn’t think she could. Instead she said, “It sure is pretty out here.”
“Wait until you see the lake from this side,” Parker said. “The park as the backdrop is awesome. It’s all forest behind the marina. One of our more prominent citizens bought three thousand acres so the developers couldn’t get their hands on it. Guess what she called it? The Hundred Acre Woods. You know, like in Winnie the Pooh. It’s open to everyone. We can hike there once the Mayflies die off. It’s hell hiking with those things flying up your nose.”
The lake came into view and Parker was right. Evening crept in but Amy could still see Griffin Park across the lake. The road up to Parker’s house was lined on both sides with enormous fir trees, black walnut, and silver maples. Parker pulled the car under a carport built out from the two-story house. It was painted a sky blue with bright yellow shutters. There was a red door at the top of a set of stairs, its railing painted the same bright yellow as the shutters.
Once again Parker opened the passenger door. Amy crawled out and Parker shut the car door with a loud screech. As they walked out from under the carport, Amy realized the house was on stilts. On the side of the house facing the lake, there was a dock and two boats. When Parker had said it was on the lake, she meant it literally. “Your lair is awesome.”
“My lair?” Parker asked.
“That’s how I think of it. You’re like a regal lioness keeping her lair safe from intruders by virtue of its location.”
“A lioness, huh? If I’m a big kitty, then you must be a gazelle in danger.”
“We’ll see about that. Right now, I want a tour.”
“That won’t take long. It’s a small lair,” Parker said as they walked up the stairs. She opened the door and Amy stepped in.
Inside was pure Parker—burnished wood floors, open-beamed ceiling, and a stone fireplace. A comfy leather couch and two leather recliners furnished the living room. Bookshelves lined one wall of the living area and the other had a flat-screen television with a stereo cabinet underneath. The entire front of the house was glass so it looked like the backdrop of the lake was the wallpaper.
Amy stood in the middle of the room and gaped. When she recovered, she said, “Parker, it’s gorgeous. You made it sound like you lived in some horrid trailer with junk in the front yard and a bad septic tank.”
“Oh, this isn’t really my house. My trailer with the bad septic tank is out back,” Parker joked.
Amy chuckled and swatted Parker on the shoulder. “Show me the rest.”
Parker led Amy into the kitchen. It had a large island and a breakfast nook that looked out over the lake.
“Nice,” Amy said.
“Now if I could just learn to cook,” Parker said.
“I’m sure you do all right.”
“Want to see the bedroom?”
“Sure,” Amy replied.
Parker led Amy down a small hallway, saying, “It’s nothing special, bed with the bath right off it.”
Amy gasped. The bedroom, like the kitchen, had two walls of glass looking over the lake. The third wall had French doors leading out onto a deck. It was, quite simply, the most romantic master bedroom Amy had ever seen.
Parker stood next to her. “Well, what do you think?”
Amy turned around. “It must be amazing waking up in this room every morning.”
“It is.” Parker said.
“You’ve made a great home for yourself.”
“For me a home has more than one person living in it. I hope one day I will have a home,” Parker said. “Come on, I should get the grill up and running or we’ll never eat. I’m old-fashioned. I still use charcoal instead of propane. I even got these new bourbon-soaked wood chips to give the steaks some smoky flavor. Steph recommended them.”
“She would know about smoky,” Amy joked. She followed Parker out of the bedroom, hoping one night she’d be following her back in there.
Parker opened the stereo cabinet and pulled out an LP. Amy came over. “You have records?”
“I do. I have all the other stuff too, you know, the iPod, CDs, and streaming, but I like my vinyl. You know, all the cracks and pops, and just the rich, thick sound of it.”
“I haven’t seen a turntable in forever. Come to think of it, when I go through my bedroom at the house I might even have some records.”
“You need to do that sometime,” Parker said softly, not berating her, but letting her know what they both knew—that Amy wasn’t ready to sift through her old life yet. “I can help you when you’re ready to do it. I’ll get a kick out of looking at your old memorabilia.”
“You really would?” Amy asked. It might help having Parker there. It might keep her from descending into the deep hole of depression and regret.
“I would,” Parker said. She pulled James Taylor’s first album out of its jacket and slipped it on the turntable. The needle spit and clicked and then the music started.
Amy closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of her youth.
“Sit down and relax. I’ll get you a beer,” Parker said.
Amy eased into one of the recliners and gazed out at the lake. The last of the day’s light reflected off the smooth surface of the water. One could certainly live in peace out here. She sighed deeply. This was the most restful she’d felt in a long time.
Parker broke her reverie, handing her an ice-cold Corona with a lime. “Here, this ought to keep you busy while I make a Caesar salad.”
“Aha! So you can cook,” Amy said.
“The salad comes in a bag.”
“You’re not supposed to confess that. I had a friend once who brought spaghetti to a potluck and one of the women there dogged her for the recipe so finally she had to tell her it was Ragu.”
“You mean you wouldn’t have asked about the salad?”
“Nope. I wouldn’t have.”
“The only problem is that the kitchen is in full view of this chair,” Parker said. “You would’ve seen me empty the bag into the bowl.”
“There is that,” Amy said with a laugh.
Parker went back to the kitchen as Amy sipped her beer and watched the last light fade. The lake made the darkness more complete. She felt like she was wrapped in a cocoon where she felt safe and comforted from all the hassles and cares she’d had earlier. She knew one thing for sure, being with Parker made her feel good.
Parker finished making the salad and said, “Let’s go sit on the deck and I’ll get the grill going. You can listen to the music of the lake.”
“Like crickets?”
“You really did turn into a city girl,” Parker said.
They moved to the deck. Parker turned on the deck lights which added enough light to see by, but didn’t destroy the ambience of the night. She started the grill.
“Can I help with anything? I feel like I should be doing something,” Amy said.
“You can relax, something I have a feeling you don’t do much of these days.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever truly relax again. Sometimes I feel like
the whole world is closing in on me and it’s going to flatten me and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.”
“You can lean on your friends. You can lean on me,” Parker said.
Parker was right. For the first time in her life, Amy felt a kinship with these women she’d recently met. How could that be possible? She’d been here for such a short time. Was that how blessings worked? They snuck up on you and you didn’t notice it until someone or something brought it to your attention?
The grill sparked and caught fire. The smell of charcoal permeated the air. So did the sound of crickets, cicadas, and the call of an owl. Amy straightened. “Was that an owl I just heard?”
Parker smiled. “Yep. I named her Hedwig. She’s a Barred Owl.”
“Harry Potter fan, huh?”
“Guilty as charged,” Parker said, sitting in the chaise lounge next to Amy.
“She’s got another one coming out,” Amy said. She imagined Parker sitting in her book-lined living room, the lake outside, and herself lying on the couch, both of them engrossed in books.
Parker broke her reverie by stating, “You’re probably wondering why I’m single.”
“It has crossed my mind,” Amy said.
“I can tell you why,” Parker said.
“You don’t have to,” Amy said. She took a big sip of beer, not exactly a guzzle, but definitely a nervous swallow.
Parker must have noticed. “Don’t worry. I’m not serial killer. My ex-partners are all alive and well. In some cases, they are very well.”
Amy noticed that Parker didn’t say “girlfriends.” She said “ex-partners,” which implied that these were relationships she was speaking of, not brief liaisons that fizzled out.
“I want to get it out of the way before we go any further,” Parker said.
“All right.”
“I know that people think that by our age we should be all nested up.”
“Nested up,” Amy said. She chuckled.
“What?”
“It’s just such a perfect description of what we do. Lesbians do nest up.”
In the near distance, Hedwig hooted as if agreeing.
Parker smiled. “I think Hedwig might be a lesbian.”
“Or maybe she’s bi. It’s hard to tell these days.”
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