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Forging a Desire Line

Page 18

by Mary P. Burns

By the time she got to the Y, she knew she wasn’t going to push Joanna to talk about anything she didn’t want to tonight. With the balance stone now in Neely’s pocket, she decided all she needed at this point in her life was the realization that had come to her during her walk on Long Beach. The idea that she couldn’t necessarily control things was still foreign, but she sensed it was the best way to be, especially with Joanna, who definitely didn’t seem like the kind of woman who could be controlled or handled.

  She spotted the Post-it note on Joanna’s usual locker. Got here early, already in the pool. She quickly drew a smiley face on the bottom, changed, and headed downstairs to her class. When she got back upstairs afterward, Joanna was nearly dressed.

  “You’re Speedy Gonzalez tonight,” Charley said.

  “No, just got here early so I could do the weight room circuit and the pool.”

  “Wow. Everything okay, or are you just a glutton for punishment?” Charley stood looking at her, her towel around her neck. Something about her seemed subdued.

  “Maybe a little of both.”

  “Many years of therapy have taught me how to listen, if you want to talk.”

  Joanna pulled a necklace out of her jacket pocket. “I’ll think about it.” She bent her head to the side in that graceful movement to sweep her hair out of the way, and Charley held her breath, a servant to her emotions. Joanna’s fingers met at the nape of her neck to hook the clasp, but she faltered, and a silver heart fell to the floor, the chain dangling in her hand. Charley picked up the heart and took the chain from her, noticing the look of surprise in her eyes. She threaded the heart onto the chain and stepped behind Joanna to secure it.

  “You had a very different pendant on the night we had coffee.”

  “I did.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “No?”

  Charley didn’t respond. The tiny clasp locked in her fingers.

  Joanna turned to face her. “For all the ways that we’re alike, there are ways we’re not.”

  There was no mistaking her meaning, and a slick of fear snaked its way up Charley’s gut, a vein of excitement she’d only experienced looking at certain types of photos opening up right behind it.

  “A gift? From a friend?”

  “A very close friend.”

  Charley immediately felt like an outsider. There was someone else in this equation, wasn’t there? Then, Joanna used Charley’s towel to wipe water from her face that had dripped down from her hair, and the intimate act brought her back into Joanna’s realm. Still, it didn’t quell the disquiet that had arisen from this new admission.

  “Seems it’s my turn to wait upstairs for you,” Joanna said, picking up her coat and bag. “Take your time.”

  Joanna opened the front door when Charley came upstairs, and they headed east. She decided not to say anything at all, but to let Joanna set the evening’s tone. She wondered with surprise what that tone might be when they were standing outside the Palm Too restaurant around the corner.

  “This is rather high-end,” she said.

  “I called this afternoon. Apparently, dress codes have gone the way of the horse and buggy. Besides, we’re only sitting at the bar.”

  They’d been there a few minutes with their drinks in front of them when Joanna finally said, “You’re not going to rescue me, are you?”

  Charley looked at her questioningly.

  “You always manage the conversation. Fill in the gaps.”

  Charley was amused. By her own admission, she’d caught Joanna out. “Silences. I fill in the silences. You leave yawning chasms of them sometimes.”

  Joanna shrugged. “Well…I’m a minimalist, too, I guess. When it comes to talking about things.” She cleared her throat. “Emotional things. I’m not really good at that.”

  “Well, lucky for you, I am good at those. Provided they’re not my emotional things.”

  Joanna regarded her, then took a swig of scotch. “We were together for eight years. It ended just over a year ago and she went to San Francisco when we broke up, opened a satellite to her business here, but when the New York shop began to falter recently, she came back. And she called me. Because she needed a friend.”

  It was another precious piece of the puzzle dropping into place, and Charley waited patiently for whatever was coming next, a sense of dread working its way in and curling around the anxiety she already harbored.

  “Her call was like a landmine explosion.” Joanna glanced at her. “Sort of like what I imagine must’ve happened to you when your ex called?”

  Charley acknowledged the question with a single nod.

  “Our relationship was rocky from the day we met, but Georgia owned me in so many ways. I can’t explain it. But I found I couldn’t say no when she called. I needed to find out if she still…” Joanna’s unfinished sentence hung in the air.

  “If she still owns you.” And then it dawned on Charley. “That’s what the handcuff necklace is about.”

  “Partly, yes.”

  “And that’s why you told me you were toxic, isn’t it?” Charley asked quietly. “Have I complicated things for you?”

  “More like you complicated things for her. I was finally back on my feet again. In fact, I was looking to find someone to have some fun with again.”

  “Oh?” Charley was crestfallen. Was that what she was, a bit of fun?

  “And then I met you.” Joanna sighed. “And now quite frankly, I don’t have any idea what I’m doing anymore.”

  “Well.” Charley picked up her drink and drained it, relieved, realizing the door was open to her, and that what she wanted to do was unobtrusively walk through it and close it against Georgia. “It’s a good thing you asked me if I needed a pool buddy because I’d say we’re both in the deep end here.”

  “I’ve complicated things for you?” Joanna asked.

  “I never thought my ex would make an appearance again. I’m not the kind who looks for someone to have fun with, and I definitely wasn’t looking for another relationship.” Charley sucked a partially melted ice cube into her mouth. “And then you showed up out of nowhere.”

  Joanna had finished her drink and signaled the bartender for the bill. “This could be bad, couldn’t it? What do you suppose we should do?”

  “Tread water?” Charley asked. “Keep each other from drowning?”

  Joanna considered the suggestion as she riffled through the bills in her pocket, pulled a couple out, and set them on the bar under her empty glass.

  “Then again,” Charley said, “like that blinking orange sign you sometimes see along the highway, we could proceed with caution.”

  Joanna snorted. “Why do I get the sense that’s going to land one of us in trouble?”

  “Why did you show up out of the blue?”

  Joanna looked at her questioningly.

  “I’d never seen you before September,” Charley said.

  “Oh.” Joanna was clearly relieved. “I didn’t like the pool at the Y downtown. Someone told me your pools were better. They were right.”

  Out on the sidewalk, Joanna tucked her scarf into her coat and eyed Charley’s open jacket. “You’re amazing. Not cold?”

  “Upstate winters inured me. The cold doesn’t bother me until it hits twenty degrees.”

  “Not going downtown tonight?”

  “No. She doesn’t need me.” Charley reached to free Joanna’s hair which had gotten caught inside the scarf, and then she kissed her. She tasted the scotch on her lips, put her hand on the back of Joanna’s neck, felt the almost imperceptible pressure of Joanna leaning into her.

  “You’re not treading water,” Joanna said, her lips skimming Charley’s.

  “No. I thought I saw the orange blinking light.” She kissed Joanna again, caressing her cheek.

  “You’re not proceeding with caution, either. And how is your hand so warm?” Joanna took Charley’s hand; hers was cold so Charley clasped it between her hands to warm it.

&nb
sp; “How are your lips so soft?” Charley asked. She looked at Joanna’s mouth, the lines on either side of it framing it like parentheses, the slight cleft in her chin highlighting it. Asking the question made her feel like a teenager, but she couldn’t help it. She’d wanted to kiss her since the first day she’d met her.

  Joanna’s forehead was touching hers as she looked at their hands. “Anatomically speaking, all lips are soft, Charley.”

  “Hmmm…I see what you’re doing there. The practical nurse in you is weighing in.”

  Joanna looked at her.

  “And she’s going to stop us, isn’t she?”

  “I’m not sure I’m free to do this yet.”

  Charley ran her thumb over Joanna’s lips, inhaled the cold air, and let her breath out slowly. “Georgia. All right. The practical nurse doesn’t want to be bandaging anyone.”

  “But we could certainly continue this conversation next Monday.”

  “I’d like that.”

  They walked over to Forty-Second Street in silence, Charley realizing it was the same comfortable sense she’d felt last week as they’d walked down First Avenue from Bar and Books. Except that now Georgia seemed to be with them.

  “Text me over the weekend?” Charley asked.

  “I’ll think about it.” Joanna kicked at a bottle cap on the sidewalk. “And…thank you for understanding. It’s nice to have a pool buddy.”

  Charley summoned her Bogart impersonation. “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  “Casablanca. I love that movie.”

  “Then we’ll have to watch it together some night.”

  Joanna headed down Forty-Second Street, Charley again watching her go.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Tuesday morning, Charley set up a Skype call for Emily with Jenny, the assistant she’d be working with in the Middle East, so they could all go over finalized plans for the trip. She’d sent Jenny a number of delicate questions about the country’s customs that she felt Emily should be aware of, and that she couldn’t answer even after doing online research and talking to some of the British assistants she’d befriended, asking Jenny to weave the answers in as though they were part of the conversation. She didn’t want to embarrass Emily or put Jenny on the spot by asking them herself during the call. The one piece of information she made no bones about imparting to Emily before they dialed up Jenny: that homosexuality in the United Arab Emirates was a crime, so if Emily was the type to wander from her marriage when she traveled, this was not the place to do it.

  “I should be scandalized by your thinking you had to tell me that,” Emily said, “but I realize you’re only doing your job. And probably saving my life if I was the type to step out on my wife,” Emily remarked as the Skype dial tone sounded.

  “I learned a long time ago never to judge a book by its cover or assume that you know everything about someone.”

  “Hey,” Emily said when she closed Skype half an hour later, “you haven’t talked to me about our dinner. It’s this Saturday, right? At Per Se?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are you bringing? Is there anything I need to know about her?”

  Charley was caught completely by surprise. She was sure she’d told Emily the reservation was for three. “I wasn’t going to bring anyone.”

  “Oh, you have to. To a three-star restaurant of this magnitude? There must be someone in your life who’d jump at this chance. And who’d want to spend an evening with you. By the way, Terry’s looking forward to it. She told me to tell you you’re a genius for managing to swing this reservation.”

  Charley felt like she was in some bizarre time warp, caught in one of those moments that used to be at the heart of the Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies of the 1960s where they played a mismatched couple who had to conform to some societal norm for everybody else’s convenience and then found they were, of course, perfectly matched. Because she immediately thought of Joanna. But she would be working Saturday night, so that settled it. Charley took out her phone and looked at it. A moment later, she was walking down the hall hitting Joanna’s contact, hoping she wasn’t waking her. She realized she had no idea what her schedule was on her days off.

  “Hey, Charley, this is nice. What’s up?”

  “I didn’t wake you, did I?

  “It’s three in the afternoon. I should hope not.”

  “I have no idea what your schedule is. I’ve never actually known anyone who works nights.”

  “Well, this is the beginning of my day. So. Are you drowning in the shallow end, is that why you called?” Joanna chuckled at her own joke.

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “Oh?”

  “Can you by any chance get Saturday night off?”

  “I could, yes. But what am I getting myself in for?”

  Charley explained the situation. “If you can, I would so appreciate it. No, I’d be in your debt. Whatever you want, you could have.”

  “Hmmm. Tempting. I’ll put that marker in my back pocket. Let me call Alexandra and see if we can trade shifts. I’ll text you, but I think it’s safe to say you’ve got yourself a plus-one.”

  Charley breathed a sigh of relief when she hung up.

  Late in the afternoon, Emily had a meeting that took her out of the building for the rest of the day, and Charley had set that time to interview the candidates for Tricia, using the department’s small conference room. Anyone seeing her name on the door would figure she was preparing for Emily’s trip. She spent almost forty-five minutes with each candidate. Having had enough interviews in her day, she knew exactly what she was looking for with every question she asked. Blaire smacked of Lauren Bacall, just the kind of sultry efficiency Tricia usually hired. But it was Ted who won her with his outgoing demeanor, and the style that extended from his handshake to the pocket square that matched his tie, to the way he artfully painted a picture of who he was with every answer he gave her. She set up follow-up interviews for both of them with Tricia for Thursday evening at her apartment.

  Walking home, she talked herself through her sense of trepidation at working with Neely tonight at the library. Of course she knew plenty of women who’d remained on good terms with their exes, although she really couldn’t categorize Neely as an ex. Except in the case of Brooke, and by happenstance, Charley had never been of that camp, finding it incongruous to make small talk with a woman she’d been intimate with in bed for several weeks and then dropped. But this was different, with Neely. There was something deeper here, above and beyond that physical moment. At least there was for her. And she guessed there would be for Neely once she could get past it and see Charley in a new light.

  Bing was waiting by the door when she came into the apartment, but Bob was nowhere in sight, baffling her. He was usually the one pacing by the dinner bowl. She got out the can of cat food, sure he’d come running when he heard the lid pop. Nothing. Worried, she put the bowls down on the floor and walked toward the bedroom. And that’s when she saw the masses of toilet paper spilling out of the bathroom like a big white snowdrift. Why, you little devil! He hadn’t run amok with the toilet paper in a while, and she knew exactly where he hid when he did. She bent down, lifted the dust ruffle of her bed, and saw him cowering in the far corner. “Don’t bother to come out for dinner, you little dust bunny. Not until I’m gone, anyway.” She couldn’t really yell at him…he only acted out like this when she wasn’t home enough, so now he had her feeling guilty as she changed into jeans and a long-sleeved polo shirt and left to meet Neely.

  * * *

  Tricia called her in the middle of the night and Charley went right down, hearing the note of panic in her voice. Tricia had spiked a fever but couldn’t stop shivering. Charley had held her in bed to warm her up.

  “Listen, it’s not that I mind coming down when you call—”

  “But you do. I know.”

  They were sitting on the couch watching the sun rise, Charley holding Tricia and gently run
ning her fingers through her hair like her own mother had done when she needed comforting as a child. “These nights at your place are beginning to chip away at me. We need to talk about a night nurse, don’t you think?”

  “No, not yet. I’ll go it alone until Friday.”

  “You’re aware you’re fraying a bit around the edges. I’m not sure I want to leave you alone.”

  “Double-edged sword for you.”

  Charley was slightly alarmed at the recent change in Tricia’s pallor, the beautiful rose of her skin slowly taking on a chalky color over the last couple of weeks. And she could feel the utter fatigue in her body as she lay against Charley. “I have a friend who’s a private duty nurse. Let me to talk to her.” Charley could still feel Joanna’s kiss on her lips two days later, but she wasn’t about to share that with Tricia.

  “I’ve already researched. I can go over it with you later. I’m not ready to admit I need it this soon. Give me a couple days. I won’t go over the cliff. I promise.”

  “Well, at the very least, we should have breakfast before one of us goes over the cliff.” Charley disengaged herself from Tricia and headed for the kitchen. While the eggs poached, she put the hollandaise sauce she’d made the other night into a small saucepan with a dash of hot water, whisking it back to life. When she threw a handful of spinach into the microwave, the time on the clock caught her attention: she was going to miss her aquatics class. A moment later, she realized Neely would wonder if something was wrong after how smoothly last night had gone, the two of them talking over each other’s edits before spending a couple of hours working in peaceful silence, so she texted her to let her know where she was, and why. Moments later, she had a short reply with a hug emoji. They’d weathered not only the awkwardness of seeing each other every morning when Charley went into class, but now they’d also begun to forge a deeper friendship.

  When the cab dropped her at her apartment a couple of hours later, she was tempted to text Emily that she’d be in late so she could get some sleep, but she didn’t want to borrow on that bank of time yet. Something told her to build up a deep reserve because she was going to need it. So she took care of the cats, a contrite Bob hanging back as she dished out breakfast. Then she dressed and went into work.

 

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