by Jane Frances
“Whoa there girl,” Steph held her hand up to halt Lisa mid-sentence. “So both of you liked each other?”
Lisa nodded.
“But neither of you had any idea the other was also lesbian?”
“Cathy later told me she was almost sure I was, but I was totally clueless about her.”
“So, what happened? Did one of you do the big there’s something I want to tell you thing?”
Lisa felt heat rise up her neck. “No, not quite.”
“Ooh,” Steph sensed Lisa’s discomfiture and correctly interpreted it as owing to a juicy snippet of information. “Do tell.”
“Come on,” Steph coaxed when Lisa steadfastly refused. “You know I love all the how we got together tales.”
Knowing she had to say something or they’d never move on, Lisa decided to be obscure. “Let’s just say everything became obvious when I discovered Cathy was big on water conservation.”
Steph frowned, “What?”
“Figure it out for yourself.” Lisa reached for Steph’s yet-again empty coffee cup and rose to turn the kettle on for a refill. “Now do you want to hear past day one or not?”
Settled back at the table Lisa continued. She told of her coming out to her folks, the decision to live together and an abridged version of the night Cathy presented her with her ring. That Cathy’s family was what she could only describe as super rich was a detail Lisa omitted. Cathy had been reluctant to make that aspect of her life common knowledge and Lisa didn’t feel it her business to spread the word.
It was while relating the interrogation given by Cathy’s father on her first visit to the Braithwaite estate that Steph snapped her fingers and said, “A shower.”
It was Lisa’s turn to frown, “What?”
“A shower.” Steph repeated, a triumphant grin spreading. “You and Cathy had a shower, or maybe it was a bath, together.”
“Shit Steph,” Lisa couldn’t believe Steph was still back at the starting blocks. She wished she’d just been forthright instead of cryptic. “Have you heard a word I’ve said since then?”
“Of course.” Steph treated Lisa to her most haughty look. “Let me summarize.” Points were ticked off on her fingers, as she said, “You find a woman with looks, brains and personality who you adored and who obviously adored you right back. You shared the same goals, got on like a house on fire, and yet you break up with her—”
“Hang on a sec,” Lisa interrupted. “I haven’t told you who broke up with whom yet.”
“But it was you who broke it off wasn’t it?” Steph said confidently.
“Yes.” Bewildered, Lisa asked, “How do you know?”
“Just call me an astute observer of the human condition.” Steph held her cup up in a self-congratulatory salute. “So,” cup back in its saucer, she leaned forward on the arms she folded across the table. “Tell me what happened.”
Lisa sat silent, pulling the sugar bowl closer to give her something to fiddle with as she tried to find appropriate words. “I don’t know Steph. It was as if one day I was madly in love and worshipped the ground Cathy walked on, then the next our perfect little world didn’t seem so perfect anymore.”
“The rose glasses came off?”
“No.” Lisa said slowly. “It was more me that changed.”
A vague feeling of discontent toward the end of the second academic year had been the first clue that all was not as it should be. Initially Lisa discarded the feeling as being jaded from the hard slog she put in all semester. She had to work that much harder than Cathy to get grades that weren’t as high. She was tired and she just wanted the academic year to be to be over and done with. Come the contact-free week leading up to exams, she hit the books without enthusiasm.
It was while poring over a mock exam question for her auditing unit that the vague feeling finally crystallized, I don’t think I could do this every day for the rest of my life. When Lisa told Cathy this, she received a consoling squeeze around the waist. “Honey, it’s just a unit we have to get through,” Cathy said, and launched into the inventory of what their practice would and wouldn’t be specializing in, and auditing wasn’t part of it. Usually this future accountancy practice planning brightened Lisa’s spirits—it was the goal they were both working toward—but on this occasion it served to further dishearten.
“I felt I was being swept away by Cathy’s plans.”
“But they were your plans too.”
“I know. But as I was coming to the realization that just because I was reasonably good at the accounting thing it didn’t mean I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. Our shared plans suddenly became Cathy’s. In my mind anyway. I felt like the future had been all mapped out for me and I didn’t like it.”
“Did you tell Cathy this?”
“No.” Lisa squirmed uncomfortably. “I didn’t. And things just sort of snowballed from there. I became enthralled with the lifestyle that Jack and Evelyn led and—”
“Hang on,” Steph interrupted. “Back up a bit. Who were they?”
“Sorry.” Lisa explained meeting Jack and Evelyn at Rottnest, how she had taken an immediate liking to them, and how they seemed to lead such exciting lives. From what they described they had a huge circle of friends and were out almost every night. When they weren’t at a pub or a club, their one-bedroom unit was overflowing with people.
“Doesn’t sound very exciting to me.” Steph sniffed.
“I’d agree with you now,” Lisa said, nodding. “But at the time it sounded like it was. And listening to them describe their lives just served to make me feel more like I was missing out on something. So when we got back to Perth and they asked us out I jumped at the chance.”
“But Cathy didn’t?”
“No. That was the night we had our first real argument.” Lisa glanced from her sugar bowl to Steph. “I hated it. I felt so bad for making her cry.” Unable to hold eye contact, she fidgeted more actively with her prop, watching the sugar crystals fall from the spoon she kept dipping into the contents. “But that was only the first time. I was such a bitch to her, Steph. I knew how much I was hurting her each time I walked out the door, but I still went.”
Lisa fumbled her way through the days and weeks leading up to her leaving. What at the time seemed real and valid reasons for her actions now sounded like feeble excuses.
The hardest to admit was her growing obsession of what it would be like to sleep with another woman. Initially the thought never crossed her mind—she was out to have a good time, a few drinks, dance and meet people. But the attention she received— that every new face at the club received—got to her. Women bought her drinks, showed more than fleeting interest, flirted with her. She flirted back, shamelessly. But she never went beyond that.
“So although Cathy was convinced you were having an affair, you weren’t?”
“No. I was faithful to her until the end.”
Steph picked up on the clue immediately. “And after the end?”
“I was screwing someone else two days later.”
Stealing a glance to see Steph’s reaction, Lisa was surprised to find she wasn’t registering either surprise or shock. Instead of some disparaging remark, Steph asked, “Was it everything you were looking for?”
Lisa shook her head. She could remember the night, although she couldn’t remember the woman’s name. It happened on the couch in Jack and Evelyn’s lounge room. That was her temporary bed; she landed there straight after walking out on Cathy. It was late, a bevy of friends had not long left and Jack and Evelyn—their own breakup having lasted the sum total of one day—had retired to their room. But this woman stayed. Lisa remembered the episode as hot, sticky and excitingly physical. She also remembered being wracked with guilt afterward. The woman held her as she cried, telling her it was all right, she’d done nothing wrong. Lisa woke alone the next morning, which was just as well, as she probably couldn’t have looked the woman in the eye anyway. She also avoided meeting the eyes of Jack and Evelyn. Sh
e was sure they had heard the whole thing. Lisa spent the day curled up in a corner of her bed/couch, chewing on her fingernails and quietly fretting. It was when Jack left to pick Evelyn up from work that Lisa reached for the phone. She only dialed three digits of Cathy’s number before she pressed on the tabs to cancel the call.
“I just couldn’t do it,” Lisa replied when Steph asked why. “I felt so bad, and I knew she’d be able to tell what I’d done as soon as I spoke.”
“So what did you do?”
Lisa gave a wan smile and said, “I called mum instead.”
Steph knew how close Lisa and her mum were. “And she passed a message on for you?”
“Yeah. Mum told me Cathy had been asking if she knew where I was, so I gave her Jack’s number.”
“But Cathy didn’t call?”
Lisa shook her head. “No. I waited for two days.”
“And you didn’t try calling her again?”
Again Lisa shook her head, eyes brimming as she recalled the moment she realized she had thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to her. She swiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “No. By then I was convinced she hated me. After all, she was the one to tell me to leave.”
“Lisa,” Steph passed a tissue dug from the depths of her handbag. “You were a bloody fool. You should have called.”
“That’s better.” Returned from her trip to the bathroom, Steph headed straight for the kettle. “I thought I was going to pop.”
Lisa declined the offer of another coffee. She watched as Steph mulled over their conversation, and agreed totally when Steph described her as a “fool.” She wondered what adjectives Steph would add when she discovered Lisa had not only not telephoned, but had sneaked back to the apartment to retrieve her things when she knew Cathy would be in class.
“Oh Lisa. You didn’t? Imagine how the poor woman felt when she got home.”
“I know.” Lisa cringed, recalling the snatch and grab, when she stuffed all her clothes and personal items into plastic garbage bags. She hefted them down to her car, then returned to the apartment one last time for a quick check. The quick check became extended, Lisa stopping in each room, running hands over furniture, fingering items on the shelves and in the cupboards, remembering. She eventually left, leaving the key on the kitchen bench, softly closing the front door behind her.
“So I guess that was the time you dropped out of your course?”
Lisa nodded, Steph correctly making the assumption that her cowardice in facing Cathy helped ring the death knell on the studies she was already doubting she wanted to pursue. She hadn’t even taken her texts from the apartment. “I officially became a Uni drop-out and joined the dole queue.”
The switchover from student allowance to unemployment benefits was surprisingly easy. As was Lisa’s new routine of doing next to nothing.
Totally lacking in motivation, Lisa made little to no effort to look for work. The only constructive activity she undertook in the first month was to find her rundown house. Despite Jack and Evelyn’s open-door policy, their cramped one-bedroom apartment was closing in on her, and her back was aching from sleeping on the couch. The space her house afforded meant it was soon another hangout for her new set of friends, and along with the friends of her three newly acquired housemates, there was never a dull moment.
“This place used to rock.” Lisa looked around her new kitchen and dining area, and although they no longer bore any resemblance to the original, she could still picture the near squalid conditions they existed in. “Poor old dear next door, I think we nearly sent her to an early grave. She called the police on us twice for excessive noise.” Lisa smiled grimly, and said, “I reckon she must have nearly had a coronary when Janice appeared on the scene and started blowing the roof off the place again.”
“Speaking of which,” Steph interjected, “Have you heard from her lately?”
“Nope. Not for a while now. I reckon she’s given up.”
“Good,” Steph muttered, closing the topic with a wave of her hand.
“Don’t be so hard on her.”
“Lisa!” Steph shot Lisa a withering look. “Please don’t tell me you’re going soft on her.”
“I’m not.” Lisa had recently come to the conclusion she was more like Janice than she cared to admit. With this realization came the feeling she was probably just as deserving of her friend’s contempt.
“Oh please,” Steph snorted derisively when Lisa tried to explain this. “Don’t ever put yourself in the same basket as her. She’s a using, manipulative little wench who flits through life not caring who she hurts in the process.”
“But I—”
“Look Lisa,” Steph interrupted. She was on a roll now, and waved away Lisa’s attempt to further berate herself. “You were young and confused and you made a few stupid mistakes. But I challenge you to find anyone who hasn’t done something in their past they regret. Besides, I choose my friends carefully.” Steph tipped her head to one side, daring Lisa to disagree with her. “And as you know, I accept nothing less than the best.”
Lisa hardly had time to appreciate Steph’s display of loyal affection before she switched tracks. “Now, I take it from your sudden need to reveal the pearls of your past that you’ve either seen or heard from Cathy recently.”
Steph phrased it as a statement as opposed to a question, but Lisa knew it was pointless asking how she had guessed. She’d just get the astute observer of the human condition explanation again. However, Lisa was glad Steph was so astute. She needed some sound advice as she’d been tying herself in knots over the past days, ever since taking the call from Cathy advising they had won the tiling contract.
Apart from a “you’re bullshitting me” comment when Lisa described the circumstances of their initial meeting, Steph listened quietly as Lisa related all the contact she’d had with Cathy since then, which in sum total was the time spent measuring up for the tiling and the “you’ve got the job” phone call. Cathy had been all business on the phone so Lisa responded in kind. Nevertheless, she hadn’t wanted the call to end. When it did, she turned her phone off, just to allow time to absorb the fact that Cathy actually chose them for the job. It was the last thing Lisa expected, even though her quote was fair. Cathy had been at the forefront of Lisa’s thoughts ever since.
“So I’ve seen her twice and spoken to her once on the phone, and for the life of me I just can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Hmm.” Steph rested her chin on her hands, regarding Lisa carefully. “Are these warm and fuzzy ‘I’m so looking forward to doing the job because it’s nice to see you again’ thoughts, or are they ‘I wish I’d quoted higher because I really don’t want to deal with seeing you’ thoughts?”
Lisa took a moment to reply as she tried to make some order of her feelings. Not overly successful, her words spilled out in a rush. “They’re ‘I didn’t think you’d accept my quote but I’m glad you did because the look and smell and sound of you drives me crazy and I want to see you again although I’m scared shitless you hate me and only accepted because I quoted cheapest’ thoughts.”
“It’s all a moot question anyway.” Lisa sighed. “Since Cathy is seeing Toni.”
“But you don’t know that,” Steph argued. “You’re only assuming.” She folded her arms. “I think you should call her.”
“Yeah, right,” Lisa answered sarcastically, forming a hand into a mock handset and speaking into it, “Hi Cathy. Lisa here. I was just wondering if you’d tell me, are you going out with Toni? You are? Okay, that’s all I wanted to know. Bye.”
Steph wasn’t convinced. “I think you should call her.”
“Come on Steph, have you forgotten what I just told you about how I treated her? Even if she isn’t seeing Toni, what are the chances she’ll even want to be friends with me?”
“Ring her and find out.”
“But I’m going to see her in less than two weeks. After eleven years, what difference is another few days going t
o make?”
The answering look told Lisa a few days meant everything.
“I don’t have her home number,” she said lamely.
Steph’s eyes darted to the kitchen clock. “It’s only just gone five. Call her at the office. And if she’s not there, try her mobile,” she called as Lisa retreated down the hallway to stand in front of the phone. Lisa glared at it like it was the enemy. Diary open to the details Cathy relayed while they made the tiling arrangements, Lisa took a deep breath, here goes nothing.
Already tense, she jumped out of her skin when the phone rang just as she placed her hand on the receiver. The romantic notion that maybe Cathy had also been thinking of her and was on the other end of the line flashed through her mind. It made her smile. “Hello.”
“Hey girlfriend.”
Relief and disappointment fought with each other for brain space. “Hi Joel.”
“You answered fast. What were you doing, sitting on top of the phone?”
“No, I just knew it would be you and fell over myself to get to your dulcet tones as fast as possible.”
“I can go one better than that. How would you like to see me in person?”
“Don’t you have a date with Scott tonight?”
“Yeah, but it’s not until he gets off work. He’s got the late shift again.” There was a slight hesitation over the line. “I was sort of hoping I could come over and hang out for a while.”
“Sure.” Lisa sensed the neediness in Joel’s tone. This was date number two between Joel and Scott the bottle shop attendant, and already she’d picked up little clues he was more serious about this guy than he had been with anyone for a long while. “You can get ready to go out here if you like, it’s closer.”
“Thanks Leese. I’ll see you soon.”
Lisa hung up the phone, closed her diary and went to face Steph, who was still waiting in the kitchen. Predictably, she was standing over the kettle, waiting for it to boil.
“So?”
“Well, we’ve got more company this evening.”
“Really!” Steph’s face exploded into a grin. “I told you so.”