The Woman Upstairs

by Camryn Eyde

  “Why not,” Ricci said, stepping away from the offer.

  “Because I don’t want it.”

  “But it’s just a gift.”

  “And I said I don’t want it.” Tara stepped closer to Ricci and shoved it into her chest. Ricci watched the woman spin away and stride to the kitchen. Frowning a little, Ricci put the bag aside and said, “Are you okay?”

  Tara nodded as she gripped the edge of the counter.

  “You don’t look it.” Ricci bit her lip and asked, “What just happened?”

  “Long day, I suppose.”

  “A long day at the office doesn’t make you cry, and today is Saturday. You worked for three hours,” Ricci said, stepping closer as she realized tears welled in Tara’s eyes.

  Tara huffed a laugh. “You’d be surprised what can happen in three hours.”

  Ricci pulled her Santa hat off and put it on the counter. Awkwardly shuffling beside Tara, she tentatively reached out and put a hand on the woman’s back. “Want to talk about it?”

  Tara shook her head.

  “‘Kay.”

  They stood there in silence for a few minutes, with Ricci slowly rubbing Tara’s back. Her dreams were full of caressing the body she was touching, but with each step toward friendship, Ricci was slowly curbing her desire. Slowly. Tara was always warm to the touch, and that always heated Ricci in some way.

  The silence broke with Tara’s hoarse voice. “I hate Christmas.”

  A little startled at the break in silence, Ricci said, “I noticed.”

  “My…” Tara took a deep breath. “Never mind.”

  “No. Hey.” Ricci pushed at Tara’s shoulder to make her face her front on. “I’m your friend remember. You can talk to me.” Ricci lifted Tara’s downcast chin with a finger. “About anything,” she said as Tara looked at her.

  “My parents disowned me at Christmas.”

  Ricci’s jaw dropped open. “What?”

  Tara made a noise of frustration and stormed to the lounge. Sitting down, she patted the cushion beside her. “Come, let me get this over with.”

  “Uh…you really don’t have to get over anything. You’re not obliged to explain.”

  Tara sighed and her posture softened. “I want to. This time of year makes me…tense.”

  “I noticed.”

  Tara patted the cushion again. Ricci took the hint.

  “I was eighteen. My parents just found out I preferred the company of women, and demanded I marry the son of a tycoon they were familiar with. I refused. For three months, they made me go to counselling. It took me five minutes to realize they had paid the man to convince me to marry the man to save both my reputation, and that of my family’s. After eighteen years of dancing to every tune they asked of me, on this, I wouldn’t budge. The psychiatrist told them I was incurable, and they changed the locks on me. My own parents abandoned me because I didn’t conform. I haven’t celebrated Christmas since.”

  Ricci cleared her throat, moist with the tears she tried not to shed. “I can understand why.” Ricci spied the bag and reached for it. “Christmas is a time for celebrating the gifts you do have. The friends you’ve made. The successes of your year. It’s a time to celebrate life and all the good things in it.” Ricci swallowed to wet her mouth. “I think you’re a gift. At least, you are to me, so…I really want you to have what’s in here.” She held a hand up. “I’m not going to force you to take it, but I’d like you to think about it.” She made a puppy-dog face to plead her case. “Please?”

  Tara took a deep breath and glanced at the bag. When she looked back to Ricci she nodded slightly. “I’ll think about it.”

  Ricci beamed. “Great!” She put the bag on the counter. “Now, I need to go change. You’re still okay to come today?”

  Tara nodded.

  “You sure? Because, you know, you can back out. I won’t think any less of you.”

  Tara smiled. “I’m not backing out.”

  “Your mistake.”

  Tara shook her head. “I’ll be down in a couple of hours.”

  Ricci gave her a thumbs up, a bright smile, and a kiss on the cheek.

  Ricci and Tara drove in companionable silence to the Bronx. Glancing across at her companion, Ricci wondered what she thought of the neighborhood they were frequenting. Tentative steps in friendship over the last few weeks had opened Tara’s life to Ricci. A small portion of it anyway. Tara had parents on the Forbes 500 list, and spent her childhood surrounded by high society. Ski resorts, trips to Europe, the best schools and getting everything she desired had been the staple of her upbringing. The split from her parents was a sore subject Ricci never broached, and the reveal about hating Christmas that afternoon was a massive share that had Ricci panicking about what her family had in store for the evening. They were Christmas fanatics, and Ricci had visions of them traumatizing Tara, and at the same time, repulsing her.

  “So…we’re here,” Ricci said, pulling up in front of a brown townhouse identical to the remaining ones on the block. As Tara grabbed the door handle, Ricci stilled her with a hand on her leg. Tara glanced at it before looking quizzically at her. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “It’s hardly torturous.”

  “I know, but it’s my mother and my brother at the same time.”

  Tara put her hand over Ricci’s and gave it a light squeeze. “It’ll be fine. Stop worrying.”

  “I’m not…I’m just…” Ricci shut her eyes on a long exhale. “They’re huge into this time of year, and…they’re convinced we’re dating.” Ricci peeled open an eyelid.

  “Dating?”

  Ricci felt her cheeks go pink. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “About what? Let them think what they like. We know the truth of the matter, and that’s all that counts.” Tara patted Ricci’s hand and climbed from the car.

  “The truth of the matter,” Ricci mumbled. Even she didn’t know what the truth was. Several evenings a week Tara joined her for dinner or a glass of wine after work, and most weekends, they enjoyed each other’s company in various pursuits. They spent much of their spare time together building a comfortable and familiar friendship that felt a lot like something else. Blowing out a breath of air, Ricci joined Tara in the bitter weather on the sidewalk.

  “I suppose we should do this then.” She limbered up with a roll of her shoulders.

  “We’re not going to war.”

  “Feels like it,” Ricci muttered. She stopped complaining when Tara took her hand and led her up the path.

  “Rica, my darling girl!” Her mother pulled her in for a long and squishy hug.

  “Geez, Ma. I only saw you two days ago.”

  Her mother clucked at her and gave Tara an equally as squishy hug. “How are you sweet darling child?” Ricci’s mom asked Tara in Spanish. Tara replied in the same language, earning herself a beaming grin. “Oh, how I love this girl. She’s perfect. You’ve done well, mija,” she said to Ricci as she moved into the living room.

  “See!” Ricci whispered at Tara.

  Tara smiled and shook her head. “I agree with her.”

  Ricci snorted in disgust. “You’re not as perfect as she thinks you are.”

  “Mmm.” Tara smirked as she followed Gloria.

  Ricci counted to ten before entering the robust fray of voices in the living room. This is going to be horrible.

  And it was.

  The house looked like a garland factory explosion, and Estella spent a lot of time explaining her Christmas wish list with Tara. Ricci had spent that time watching for signs of stress or panic like what she’d witnessed a couple of hours ago. Tara, in the end, gave her a glare to tell her to stop staring. Ricci pouted, catching Estevan’s attention and subsequent teasing.

  Estevan taunted her the entire evening about crushing on Tara, and had been obvious and embarrassing in declaring that. Tara, for her part, just smiled and shook her head. She took the teasing better than Ricci did. Estevan earned a punch on the arm, which in turn, earned
a threat from her mother about missing out on dessert.

  “I hate you,” she muttered at her brother as she evacuated the scene for the chilly backyard. Best to avoid being near him lest her mother go through with withholding dessert. She would cry if she missed out on crema catalana.

  “You shouldn’t let him get to you like that.”

  Busily kicking at a stick, Ricci spun and nearly landed on her ass. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” She caught herself on the trellis of dead-looking vines just in time.

  Tara chuckled at her. “He’s just trying to get a reaction.”

  “He’s just being an ass.”

  “From what I gather, that’s what siblings are supposed to do.”

  “Maybe so. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Ricci sat on the bench against the kitchen wall. “I’m sorry about him.”

  “He’s right though, isn’t he?”

  And here we go. Death by mortification and my inability to deal with my libido. “No.”

  Tara raised an eyebrow at her when Ricci chanced a peek. “So you’re saying you don’t want to make babies with me?”

  “God. No.”

  “Wow. Thanks for that.”

  “What?” Ricci stared at Tara open-mouthed. “I’m sure you’d make beautiful babies. I mean, you’re really, umm…your babies would be super cute and I’ve no doubt there’d be women lining up around the block to have them for you.”

  “But not you?”

  “Uh…I’m not—we’re not…” Tara smirked at her and Ricci pouted. “You’re having me on, aren’t you?”

  Tara’s smirk turned into a chuckle. “Maybe. You’re easy to wind up.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  Tara tipped her head back and laughed. A melodious sound that always made Ricci smile. She hid it by turning to look at the wilted vine.

  “I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea,” Tara said as she caught her breath.

  “What? Babies?” Ricci’s jaw dropped as she swung her head to the woman beside her.

  “No. That’s quite a step. I meant…” Tara bit her lip. “I wouldn’t be opposed to addressing our…attraction.”

  Ricci blinked, and blinked again. “What?”

  Tara sighed.

  “But…attraction? You’re attracted to me?”

  Tara took a moment to look around the barren backyard. “Yes. I always have been.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you’re agreeable, we could perhaps negotiate a beneficial arrangement.”

  “Huh? A beneficial arrangement? Is that your backwards way of saying one day we could start dating?”

  Tara looked at her lap. “Dating seems so crass, and sounds a lot like obligation. I’m not ready for that kind of commitment.”

  Ricci nodded and touched Tara’s forearm. The divorce was taking its toll on her friend, and the property dispute had dragged on. Officially, Zoe and Tara were separated, but not divorced.

  Tara inhaled deeply. “You mentioned once, something about benefits.”

  Frowning briefly, Ricci’s eyes opened wide. The cold seeped in and made them water, but that didn’t deter her astonishment. “Friends with benefits? Are you serious?”

  “I’m uncertain. This is an unusual situation.”

  “God. You can say that again.” Shaking her head, she said, “What about Zoe?”

  Tara’s deep breath was exhaled in a burst of steam. “I can’t put my life on hold forever. She’s not part of my future, and…you…” Tara stopped to nibble her lip. “I want to thank you for your gift.”

  “Oh. I…you’re welcome.” Ricci hoped her blushing would be hidden in the burn her cheeks already felt in the cold.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Ricci smiled. She had spent a lot of time on Tara’s gift. A small lamp, she made it herself from various pieces of metal and glass, and had hoped the whole time that Tara would appreciate it.

  “Your talent is remarkable. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

  Ricci shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

  Tara, in a sudden burst of movement, turned in the seat to face Ricci head-on. “Here’s the thing. I can’t stop thinking about you. About that night that night. About how comfortable I feel around you. I’ve never been so at peace in someone’s company. I know I’ve said things that have hurt you, but I didn’t mean any of them. I’m not used…” Tara took a deep breath. “I’m not used to feeling so…”

  “Out of control? Like one minute you’re so sure, and the next you’re terrified of what it all can mean, and how badly it can go wrong?”

  Tara blinked at Ricci before slowly nodding. “Exactly.”

  The noise from inside the house drifted out to the pair and Ricci started to chuckle as an argument broke out over who gets the first serving of dessert.

  Ricci scoffed dramatically at the noise and smiled to alleviate the tension. “Maybe we should talk about this later. We have dessert to eat.” Ricci waggled her eyebrows and Tara rolled her eyes.

  “Always thinking with your stomach.”

  “Yeah, well, I love food and I love people that cook it for me.” Ricci stopped breathing and bit her tongue. Tara always cooked when she visited her for meals. Ricci only ever reheated. “Uh…”

  Tara gave her a smile before entering the house. “You’re welcome.”

  Ricci deflated. So, so, screwed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I Told You So

  The New Year had come and gone when Tara returned from vacation. Christmas had taken her to the Bahamas on her regular ‘avoiding Christmas’ getaway, and Ricci was absolutely positive she didn’t miss her. Not one bit. Not even slightly. She definitely hadn’t sat through Christmas lunch with her family wondering what Tara was doing that very moment. Nor had she sighed over her glass of champagne as the New Year clicked over, wishing Tara was beside her to share it with. She didn’t replay the conversation in her mother’s backyard a thousand times, and she ignored completely the realization that absence made the heart grow fonder.

  She was, however, unable to forget their upcoming talk about friends and benefits. It was perhaps for that reason that she eagerly made her way to the top floor with a bottle of wine on the day Tara returned. Trying to suppress her grin, she knocked on the door and waited…and waited. She checked her watch. Seven o’clock. Tara’s flight was supposed to bring her back to the apartment by five at the latest. Maybe she was sleeping?

  Ricci knocked louder.

  The doorknob turned, and she smiled. The smile disappeared the instant Zoe peered around the door dressed in nothing but a towel. What the hell was she doing here, and where were her clothes?

  Zoe looked her up and down. “Yes?”

  “Uh…”

  Zoe zeroed in on the bottle. Her smug gaze slipped back to Ricci. She held her hand out, receiving the bottle from a dazed Ricci. “Let me guess. A Christmas gift?”

  Ricci nodded. What else was she supposed to do?

  “Good. Because, let’s be honest, it couldn’t be anything else.”

  “Umm…huh?”

  Zoe grinned. It was cold and cruel. “I’m sure you understand, sleeping with the help isn’t Tara’s thing.”

  That was a little startling to hear. “Pardon?”

  Zoe looked behind her and stepped into the hallway, pulling the door shut. “Tara mentioned you. A lot. Annoyingly. It very nearly ruined my holiday.”

  “Your holiday? You were in the Bahamas too?”

  Zoe flicked damp hair off her neck. “Well, of course. It was a package deal.” Zoe grinned again. “It was perfect. Just what we needed.”

  “Just what…uh…” Ricci frowned. What was she supposed to make of that?

  “Now, be a dear and scurry along. My wife and I are a little busy, if you get what I mean?” Zoe’s wink and a smirk irritated her.

  “Right. Well. Tell Tara I came by.”

  “No. I don’t think I will.” Zoe dismissed her as she opened the door and closed it behind her.

/>   Air huffed from Ricci’s lungs in shock. Though Tara hadn’t discussed every sordid detail of her relationship with Zoe, Ricci had thought it was irrecoverable. The pain she witnessed Tara live through was genuine. How she had forgotten those miserable times to pick her wife back up after a sun-filled vacation was difficult to comprehend. Either way, Ricci was left standing like a fool in the hallway belonging to a woman she let herself fall in love with.

  It was that moment, when faced with Zoe’s conceited grin that Ricci understood the ache she felt in her chest. It was love. The emotion she spent her life avoiding for this very reason. Let someone be a stakeholder in your heart, and you were screwed. Give yourself hope that your future wouldn’t mirror you mother’s, and you’d be proved a fool.

  “Stupid!” she growled at herself. Brushing hot tears from her cheeks, Ricci turned for the stairs, descending them at breakneck pace. It was time for a change. She couldn’t repeat her mother’s mistakes.

  “Rica, your Dad is a good man,” her mother would always say.

  When she was eleven, she stopped believing her. Absent for months, leaving her mother to work three jobs to keep a roof over their heads, her father returned grinning and carefree.

  “Ah, there’s my sweet Rica-girl,” he said as she returned from school one evening.

  Rica had looked to her mother’s smiling face, to her father’s expectant one. “What are you doing here?” she said. It was an innocent question, but her mother gasped and gave her a wide-eyed shake of her head.

  Her father’s grinning face morphed into anger in an instant. “You don’t talk to your father like that. Do you understand me!” He stepped across the small, dirty kitchen and struck her. “Respect me!” The sting of the slap on her cheek stayed with her for years after.

  Her father left a week after that slap, returning again with his wallet over-flowing two months later. The money ran out, drained like the beer bottles her drank, and soon he was fighting with her mother and had disappeared again. So the routine continued year in and year out.

  They were happiest when he wasn’t around, yet her mother’s lovesick face disgusted her every time he came back. How could she love a man so clearly intent on making their lives a misery? She continued to love him even when he brought guests with him. A mistress and a boy—her half-brother. The first of many half-siblings and mistresses, but it was that mistress and that son that stole her father away for good. Dying of liver failure when Ricci was twenty-one, she couldn’t bring herself to mourn his loss. Her mother had done enough grieving throughout their entire relationship. Her vulnerability simply because she loved the wrong person was a lesson Ricci would never forget. And now, she knew Tara was the wrong person.