by Cara Malone
“Oh,” Jessie gasped as their bodies collided, her hands going out to steady herself and finding Melody’s hips on accident. Her head filled with Melody’s peppermint scent and suddenly she was feeling a little dizzy.
“Whoa,” Melody said, her lips close to Jessie’s ear, and she could feel the vibration of Melody’s voice. It sent a shiver through her whole body and she was acutely aware of the way her hands were lingering on Melody’s hips.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but she didn’t let go. She couldn’t let go.
“My fault,” Melody said, those gorgeous round eyes coming up to meet Jessie’s gaze.
They hadn’t been this close since last year’s recital, in the moment when they almost kissed. Jessie spent an entire year thinking about that moment and expanding it into a whole series of fantasies in which she got the girl and Melody’s lips tasted exactly as good as they looked.
She could do it now. It wouldn’t be anything to lean in a few more inches and press her lips against Melody’s. The way those chestnut eyes were studying her, Jessie knew Melody was waiting for her to do just that.
“What the hell is going on here?”
The words were not spoken in anger, but they made Jessie’s blood run cold nonetheless. Everything slowed down and it was like watching a reaction sequence play out in slow motion. Steve’s voice echoed down the hall and Jessie watched Melody’s eyes go wide with surprise as she looked over Jessie’s shoulder.
Then Jessie jerked her hands away from Melody’s hips, spinning around to face her husband. He was standing ten feet away from them with a look of betrayal on his face.
“I have to go,” Melody said quietly. “I have to get the next group.”
Then she hurried down the hall toward the dressing room and Jessie didn’t blame her for running away from this mess. She told herself that given the opportunity, she would not have actually kissed Melody. Hadn’t they had a few dozen opportunities in the last year? She resisted them all, but Steve hadn’t seen that just like he hadn’t seen the way they collided in the hall. It just looked bad out of context.
“Steve-” Jessie began, her heart racing with guilt while shame burned in her cheeks.
His lips were pressed together, his face red, and if she wasn’t mistaken, there were tears threatening the corners of his eyes. It was a little disconcerting – after five years of utilitarian marriage, Jessie had no idea he was even capable of having such strong emotions about her.
“Are you with her?” he asked quietly.
They had the hall to themselves for now, but it wouldn’t last – not with Melody and Mary Beth running around corralling kids – and Ellie was probably waiting for Jessie in the dressing room, eager to change out of the tutu and put on her next costume.
“No,” Jessie said. “No, of course not.”
“Don’t lie to me, Jess,” Steve said, his voice taking on a pleading tone that made Jessie want to cry. “I know.”
“Know what?”
How could he know the contents of her heart, the fantasies she tried to content herself with, or even the quiet glances she and Melody shared over the reception desk? Jessie spent most of the last year confused and tormented, so how could he possibly know what it all meant when she didn’t?
“I know about the books you’ve been reading,” he said, his tone taking on a slightly more petulant quality. “I saw them. I read them.”
“Books?”
“The lesbian books,” Steve hissed, trying not to raise his voice so it wouldn’t travel down the hall.
That word shot through Jessie like a lightning bolt, frying her nerves as she realized he must have looked in her phone at some point and found the ebooks she’d used to spark her fantasies about Melody. Another wave of guilt washed over her and suddenly Steve’s moodiness in the auditorium made sense. He had noticed that look Melody gave her after all and he was upset about it, coupled with Jessie’s choice of reading material.
How long ago did he find those books, though? Now that Jessie thought about it, he’d been distant for a while. In the rare moments when they spent more than five minutes together, he only wanted to talk about their work schedules and Ellie’s homework and who was going to do the grocery shopping that week. He never seemed to want to be in the same room as Jessie anymore, and she just hadn’t noticed because she was too busy juggling everything else. That had begun months ago – how long had he been holding all of this in? Probably not longer than Jessie had been bottling up her feelings for Melody.
“You’re not the person I thought you were,” he said. “How could you lie to me for so long?”
“Steve-” Jessie tried again, but he didn’t let her finish. That was okay because even if he let her speak, she had no idea what the rest of that sentence would have been. There was nothing to say and no comfort to give in this situation and all Jessie could do was look at the disappointment in Steve’s eyes.
He took his keyring out of the pocket of his jeans and plopped it into Jessie’s hand.
“Take the car,” he said. “Tell Ellie I’m really sorry I missed her solo. I can’t be in the same building as you and that ballet instructor right now.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but if I stand here any longer I’m pretty sure my heart’s gonna explode.”
“Okay,” Jessie said meekly, watching him walk away down the hall. She shoved the keys into her back pocket as anger suddenly began to rise in the back of her throat. How could he walk out before his daughter’s big solo performance, regardless of what Jessie had done to provoke him?
She set her jaw and fought back a couple of tears, knowing she needed to clear her head and get into the dressing room to help Ellie with her costume. The show must go on, as they saying went.
***
Ellie was just perfect during her solo dance, executing the whole routine with a grace that Jessie was quite sure she herself would never be capable of if she had a million private lessons. She filmed the whole thing with the junky camera on her phone while a mixture of anger and guilt ate at her stomach. Steve had petulantly stormed out of the building rather than staying to watch his daughter dance, but Jessie was the reason he missed it. At least he could watch this grainy version of Ellie’s solo when things settled down.
Jessie was grateful when Ellie wanted to sit at the back of the auditorium with her friends from the beginner ballet class – eager to get accolades from them for her solo – because it meant she wouldn’t have to explain Steve’s absence just yet. She found a seat by herself a few rows away, where she could keep an eye on Ellie chattering with her classmates, and Jessie had no idea whether to cry or be angry as she watched the rest of the dancers perform their routines without really seeing them.
She didn’t see Melody again for the rest of the night, and that was probably for the best. The moment her hands had landed on Melody’s hips it was like she turned into a teenager again, unable to control her impulses.
When the recital ended, Jessie collected Ellie and they headed for the parking lot.
“Where’s daddy?” Ellie asked with a frown.
“He had to leave,” Jessie said. She’d spent most of the recital trying to decide how she would explain that she was responsible for Steve missing Ellie’s big moment on stage, and she still hadn’t come up with anything halfway sufficient. In the end, she did the only thing she could think of – she lied. It wasn’t right, but she’d done a lot of things wrong tonight. What was one more? “I’m sorry, bug, but daddy had a work emergency. He saw you dance, though, and he said he’s really proud of you, Ellie.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning as Jessie helped her into her booster seat in Steve’s truck. “Okay.”
“You know what would be fun?” Jessie asked as she climbed into the driver’s seat, trying to make her voice as convincing as possible. “A sleepover at grandma’s house! I filmed your solo dance and I bet she’d love to see it.”
Jessie had no i
dea where Steve had gone without the truck or his house keys, and she didn’t know if he’d come home tonight, but if he did there was a big discussion looming for them, and it was one that she didn’t want to have in whispered tones to keep Ellie from hearing them fight.
“Okay,” Ellie said with a sigh.
She was a smart kid and she might not know what was going on between her parents, but she knew enough to realize that the sleepover wasn’t up for debate. Jessie glanced over at her, heart breaking as she saw how dejected Ellie looked. She was still wearing her solo costume, but all of the excitement she had on their way to the high school was gone now. Jessie had robbed Ellie of something tonight and she vowed to make it up to her, one way or another.
She dropped Ellie off at her mother’s house, pulling her aside to explain that she needed to talk privately with Steve and then taking a few minutes to show her Ellie’s dance. That livened her up a bit, and when Jessie left she was performing the routine in grandma’s living room.
Jessie was exhausted by the time she pulled into her driveway and she would have liked nothing more than to go to bed and forget all of it until morning. The light was on in the living room, though, and Steve must have used the spare key hidden under the welcome mat. She sighed as she put her hand on the door knob, all of the fight going out of her, but they had to have this talk tonight. It was now or never.
She found Steve sitting at the kitchen table, two empty beer cans crumpled in front of him and another one in his hand. She dropped his keyring on the table and said, “I wish you didn’t leave before Ellie’s solo.”
“I wish you didn’t spend the last five years lying to me,” Steve spat back. “Do you have any idea how it feels to be the fucking idiot who has no idea his wife is a lesbian, working my ass off to keep us afloat, meanwhile you’re out there just having a good old time with that girl in front of everyone?”
“Fuck you,” Jessie said, her voice seething. She thought she was more tired than angry and she could count on one hand the number of times she and Steve had lost their temper with each other, but suddenly blood was boiling into her face. “I’ve never been anything but faithful to you.”
“Bullshit,” Steve grumbled into his beer can.
“You’re not the only one working their ass off around here,” Jessie said, and now she was spitting mad. Being polite and working through things like the adults they always pretended to be had gotten them where they were now, so maybe it wasn’t so great. It felt good to finally yell. “Everything I’ve gone in the past five years has been for Ellie and you know that. Melody is Ellie’s teacher and that’s all.”
“Bullshit,” Steve said louder, putting the can down hard on the table. Little droplets of beer flew out of it and he growled at Jessie, “Maybe you’re not fucking her, but you know she’s more than just Ellie’s teacher. Jess, I know what it looks like when two people have feelings for each other and what I saw in that hallway was a hell of a lot more than a parent-teacher relationship.”
“Then why didn’t you say something sooner?” Jessie screamed. It felt like every repressed emotion and unspoken word from the last five years was fighting its way to the surface all at once, and if she didn’t let it out she might explode. Suddenly her legs were giving out and she slid to the floor against the kitchen cabinets, tears streaming down her face. The salt got in her mouth as she sobbed. “If you know so well what it looks like to be in love then why the hell did you marry me?”
“You were pregnant!” Steve said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “What was I supposed to do, read your mind? How could I possibly have predicted all of this?”
Jessie put her head in her hands, unable to stop the flow of tears from her eyes. They wetted her palms and streaked her face, and she would have given anything in that moment to go back to the comfortable numbness she had been cultivating so successfully before she met Melody and everything got turned upside down.
Steve let her cry for a minute, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. He asked, “So are you…”
He trailed off and Jessie looked up at him. He looked about as lost as she felt and she already regretted yelling at him.
He sighed and tried again. “Are you a lesbian?”
“Yeah,” she said, and a strange smile came to her lips before she could tell herself that it was bad form to be grinning in this particular moment. She’d never said it out loud before – she barely even thought it because she was married and there was no point. But now that it was out there, she realized how right it felt. She held her head a little higher and said, “I’m a lesbian.”
Steve looked at her with the same expression of helplessness that she’d worn the day she took that pregnancy test with Blaire by her side. She’d had to live with that feeling for five long years, and now apparently it was Steve’s turn to take it for a spin.
“I don’t understand,” he said after a moment of contemplation. “You agreed to go out with me. We had fun.”
“I went because Blaire asked me to,” Jessie said with a sigh. “I went for her. Steve, I’ve always liked you. You’re a good guy and a wonderful father. But I never liked you that way. I’m sorry.”
She winced as she said this last part. It seemed so harsh, especially after five years of marriage. She studied Steve’s face for signs of pain, but was surprised not to find any. It had all washed away, and a little smile played in the corner of his mouth instead.
“What?” she asked.
He let out a guffaw that echoed through the kitchen, tears coming out of the corners of his eyes. Then he said, “And here I was thinking that you find me revolting on a spiritual level. Turns out it’s just that I have a dick!”
Jessie wasn’t quite sure how to take this outburst, but she laughed a little. She looked at her husband with sympathy and said, “Yeah, in a nutshell.”
“Hoo boy,” he said, still roaring with laughter, “I bet you really hate those.”
Jessie couldn’t help but laugh at that one, and when they got it all out of their systems, Steve got up from the table and came over to Jessie. He slid down to the floor beside her and she asked quietly, “So what do we do now?”
Steve took her hand in his in a gesture that neither of them had bothered with since the early years of their marriage, when they were still invested in trying to be a normal couple. He squeezed her hand and said, “Look at me, Jess.”
She did, and he sighed.
“I felt so confused and betrayed when I found that lesbian book on your phone,” he said. Jessie opened her mouth to respond, but he went on. “And it hurt like hell when I saw you with Ellie’s teacher today. When I left the school I just started walking and I didn’t know where I was going, but after a while I realized I was walking home. That’s when it dawned on me that the thing that hurt most was the fact that you and I are never going to have the kind of connection I saw between you and that girl tonight. I’ve known that for a long time and I just didn’t want to admit it. We’re just not meant to be married, Jess.”
“What are you saying?” Jessie asked quietly. Her heart was pounding and she was squeezing Steve’s hand, afraid of what would come next. This was the moment she had been running from ever since she saw Melody for the first time and knew that her feelings could be dangerous.
“We’re a great team when it comes to Ellie,” he said. “When I was sixteen, I never thought I’d be happy living hand to mouth like this and working in that damn factory for the rest of my life, but I’d do it all over again for Ellie. You and I have worked like hell to give her a better life than either of us could have given her on our own. But Jess, you have to admit we are a terrible couple.”
“So what do we do?”
“Stand up,” Steve said, getting off the floor with a little bit of effort and holding his hand out to Jessie.
“Why?”
“Just do it,” he said, pulling her to her feet. Then he sank down on one knee and she gave him a funny look. He held her hand and loo
ked up at her. “Jessie Cartwright, will you divorce me?”
“Stop it,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Steve got to his feet. “I’m serious. We’ve wasted a lot of time being unhappy together. Let’s be divorced and happy. If we did this good a job raising Ellie while we were miserable, I’m sure we can figure out a way to do it separate but united.”
“Okay,” Jessie said, taking the cheap silver band off her finger and handing it to Steve. Of all the teen pregnancies and subsequent shotgun weddings in the world, she lucked out when she got stuck with Steve.
CHAPTER 24
Jessie’s first date was with Steve Cartwright. She’d seen him around school – Lisbon High wasn’t a big place and everyone knew each other at least by sight – but he was one grade ahead of her so they never had a class together and she’d never spoken to him. She was going on this date as a favor to Blaire and her heart was pounding as she got dressed and then paced around her living room waiting to be picked up.
Blaire was obsessed with the idea of a double date. She and Josh had been going steady for six months and she wasn’t interested in hanging out with Jessie alone anymore. She needed another couple to do stuff with and the idea was that Steve would become Jessie’s boyfriend. He was Josh’s friend from the football team and Jessie figured agreeing to this date was as good a way as any to spend a little more time with her best friend.
She’d barely seen Blaire since she started dating Josh, and as it turned out, she didn’t see a whole lot of her on their double date, either.
The four of them went to a diner in town and Blaire spent most of the meal absorbed in Josh, kissing him and giggling and generally making Jessie feel like puking. She tried to talk to Steve, but it took about ten minutes before she realized there was no chemistry between them. Certainly not like Blaire and Josh had – they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
So Jessie and Steve ate in silence and Jessie spent most of the meal wishing the boys would just disappear. She wanted her best friend back, and she found herself wishing she could take Josh’s place. It would be three more months before she figured out what that really meant.