“Get in,” Beth ordered. “Do you know if you’re allergic?”
“I’d be dead if I were.”
At the house, empty except for the two of them and the dog, Nicky turned on the shower and shed her clothes. The water felt wonderfully soothing as it coursed over her, momentarily taking the itch out of the swelling stings.
Beth sat on the toilet lid and talked to her. “It was a dreadful weekend. I expected Mark to be more reasonable, more tolerant. And if not that, then to tell me to leave. He did neither.” Nicky heard her sigh over the torrent of water and thought she whispered, “He forced himself on me.”
Shoving back the shower curtain, she asked, “He did what?”
“He wanted to know what we did, how often we did it, how long we’ve been doing it. When I wouldn’t tell him, he told me I’d better never see you again or he’d see that I never saw Matt again. Now I know how my clients feel during interrogation.” Beth looked up at her. “You’d think I’d be the last person he’d want to fuck.”
Nicky was appalled. “He didn’t mean that, did he? About Matt?”
Tears streaked Beth’s face. Her voice caught on her words, breaking the sentences into pieces. “He… can’t do… that. He was… just so… angry.”
“Where was Matt?”
“At a friend’s.” Beth sniffed and faced the mirror to repair her makeup. “That wasn’t the worst, though.” Her reflection met Nicky’s. “He cried, finally, after the anger. That was the worst part.”
Nicky stepped out onto a bath mat. “I nearly went crazy—not being able to talk to you, not knowing what was going on.” She reached for a towel but Beth grabbed it first and rubbed her dry.
“You were right. I never should have married,” she admitted, smearing cortisone cream on the welts covering Nicky. “You’re a mess, sweetie.”
“Thanks,” Nicky said dryly, attempting to put her arms around Beth.
Beth shrugged away. “Let me put this stuff on you first. I can’t stay long. He might come looking for me.”
Terrific. Were they just to have a few snitched moments now? She said, “I was frantic. If I hadn’t had Meg to talk to on Saturday, I might have lost it.” The anxiety attacks were worsening and increasing, but she didn’t tell that to Beth either. Instead, she told her about Denise.
But Beth, preoccupied and withdrawn, left as soon as Nicky was dressed, giving her a quick hug and kiss. When Nicky questioned where and when they would next meet, she said, “I’ll call you.”
After dinner that night, Dan drove with Nicky to the stranded tractor. He told her that yellow jackets, known for their aggressive behavior, retired to their ground holes after dark. Pouring gasoline down the small hole, he said, “Sorry you had to get stung. They’re nasty little buggers, but this bunch won’t bother you anymore.”
While she watched him immolate the nest, she wondered how such tiny creatures could frighten her half out of her wits. She decided that she had to look harder for a real job.
The next morning Meg knocked on the back door and opened it, calling, “Hello.” She smiled at Nicky. “What happened to you?”
“Mowing wasps.” Nicky got up from the table to pour Meg a cup of coffee. “I’m taking a day off. How about you? Why are you here?”
“I’m taking a day off too. I hoped you’d be home.” She sat down with a grunt. “How’s it going, anyway.”
“I’ve been better.” No job, no money, no lover, she thought. What a pisser. Meeting Meg’s gray-eyed gaze, she said, “How come you took a day off?”
“Have you been outside yet?” Nicky shook her head. “It’s pretty.”
“There’ve been lots of pretty days.”
“I wanted to see you alone.” She took a sip of coffee.
“You just saw me alone on Saturday.” Nicky’s pulse picked up speed. Denise would be at work today. There wouldn’t be any chance of her dropping in. “Tell me about you and Denise, how you met.”
Meg gave her another crooked smile. “Not now, Nicky.”
Nicky’s throat thickened. She swallowed coffee and choked on the hot, black liquid.
“Is Nattie at work?”
Nodding, Nicky found her voice and it sounded thin. “Beth came out yesterday.”
Meg stood and stretched. “I don’t want to talk about Beth either.”
Distracted by the outline of Meg’s body under her thin t-shirt, she asked, “What do you want to talk about?”
Easing into a relaxed position, she smiled at Nicky. “I don’t want to talk.”
Nicky’s heart hammered erratically. She gripped her coffee cup with whitened fingers. She had known this moment was coming; she just hadn’t known when or what she would do when it did. Noticing Meg’s tongue dart over her lips, she licked her own.
Meg reached for Nicky’s hand. “Come on.” When Nicky shook her head, she said, “Please.”
Sunlight covered the quilt on the bed, the braided rug on the wood floor. The whites, reds, greens, blues and browns looked bright and clean. Nicky felt as if she were in a dream. She told herself it wasn’t too late to say no, but something inside her wanted to know what Meg would be like in bed. She remembered the preview.
Meg lifted Nicky’s shirt off, then slid her shorts and panties down her legs and off her feet. She hurriedly removed her own clothes while Nicky sat naked on the bed.
The sun played over their bodies when they lay down together. With a fingertip Nicky traced the delicate blue veins showing through the pale skin of Meg’s breasts. Meg’s gray eyes, slightly hooded and dark with desire, kept track of her touch until she took Nicky’s face between her hands and kissed her.
Their tongues laced and they reached between each other’s legs. Nicky felt the ache of desire—familiar and exquisite—gather and grow with the rhythm of Meg’s fingers. She surrendered to it. Unable to hold off climax, she moved with Meg’s touch and increased the speed of her own. Hearing their ragged breathing and soft moans, she was unable to differentiate her sounds from Meg’s.
After the passion, Nicky wondered about its intensity, its origin. They lay gulping air, steadying each other with an embrace. She was not prepared when Meg started to move down her body. Grasping her under the armpits, she met Meg’s eyes. “No.”
With raised eyebrows and a seductive smile, Meg replied, “Yes, I want to.” And before Nicky could protest further, she turned around and twisted out of Nicky’s grip.
Feeling the warm tongue, Nicky gasped and arched away from it. But in the ensuing moments, she felt herself quivering toward it. Finally, consumed with lust, she pulled Meg’s hips downward to taste her.
As they lay under the cover of sun, their ardor fulfilled, Nicky felt shame. Beth cheated on her with Mark all the time, but this was the first time she had been unfaithful in return. She wasn’t responsible for Meg’s behavior, but was she herself just another in a long line of Meg’s conquests? Fearing she’d been an easy lay, that she hadn’t resisted enough, she said, “We shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?” Meg asked, kissing her on the mouth.
Nicky sniffed for her own scent and didn’t find it. “You know why. I’m with Beth. You’re with Denise.”
“You can’t even see Beth without sneaking around,” Meg pointed out. “She’s married.”
Stung, Nicky shot back, “And you’re controlled by Denise.”
Meg let her go and rolled onto her back. She put her hands behind her head, her fair hair fanning out under and between her fingers. Lying on her side, Nicky attempted to keep her eyes off Meg’s full breasts.
“You’re right,” Meg conceded. “I’m afraid of her mouth. When I met her, I’d just come out. She had a job. I didn’t. She supported me through my last year of school.” Meg turned her head and met Nicky’s eyes. “I went to college late, after I’d been out of high school five years.”
“You feel obligated to her?”
Meg shrugged tan shoulders. “I guess I do, and I know she loves me.”
The bed was cooling beneath them without the heat of their desire and the warm sunlight. Nicky found the top sheet with her toes and pulled it up, then covered them both. She hated hiding Meg’s breasts. “Do you do this often?”
Meg held Nicky’s gaze. She looked serious. “I’ve done it a few times, yes. Denise isn’t very sexual.”
The back door slammed and Scrappy, who had been lying on the braided rug, leaped to his feet and scrambled out of the room. Nicky jumped from the bed and started for the bedroom door. “We better get dressed,” she said in a low, panicky voice. “We don’t need to get caught.” She didn’t pause to wonder whether anyone had the right to hold her actions against her. Reaching for the doorknob, she bumped into Natalie.
“Oh, I thought you must be sick or something,” Natalie said, her dark blue eyes widening when she spied Meg. Her face reddened and she turned on her heel.
Nicky pulled on her clothes and chased after her. “Wait, Nattie,” she called, but her sister was already out the back door and crossing the yard. Slumping against the kitchen doorframe, she felt defeated and fearful. This wasn’t how she meant to come out to her family.
A few moments later, Meg emerged from the bedroom. She looked at Nicky and started to laugh. Hooting, she bent over and clasped her knees.
“I’m glad you find something funny about this. Maybe you’d like to share it with me?” Nicky said sarcastically.
Meg straightened. She began to say something but burst into more laughter.
In spite of herself, Nicky found herself responding. A small giggle escaped her.
Pointing a finger, Meg said, “Your clothes are on backwards and inside out.”
“My mind is, too,” Nicky remarked, looking down at herself. “What the hell am I going to say to Natalie? What if she tells my mother?”
Still smiling, Meg shrugged. “Nattie’s okay. She won’t tell.”
Chapter Nine
She was actually more worried about how she would explain Meg to Nattie than whether Natalie would tell their mother. She took the Massey out of the barn and down the road. As she drove the tractor off the blacktop and into the ditch, she reached down and turned on the power take-off. The heavy blades vibrated, shaking the mower deck as they began whipping around.
A rabbit shot out of the undergrowth and bounded into a field of corn next to her. Knowing the lethal power of the mower blades, she kept an eye out for movement in the weeds alongside and in front of her. So far she had unintentionally mowed up a few rabbits and one possum. She’d had to finish off the mortally wounded possum with a large wrench out of the tool box—a mercy killing, which she refused to think about.
Bumblebees settled on the purple blossoms of tall thistles, even as the thick stalks fell under the front end of the tractor. The thistles struck her legs, piercing her jeans, leaving prickly chaff stuck to her clothes and ankles. She cringed and pulled her legs in close.
Eventually, the large bees lit in her hair. She felt two of them crawling across her scalp and frantically tried to dislodge them with gloved fingers. Before she succeeded, they each stung her once. When she turned the tractor toward home late in the day, the bee stings—at first numbing—had created itchy lumps.
Filling the Massey at Dan’s fuel pump, she saw neither him nor Natalie. They weren’t around the house either when she slammed the screen door and went straight to the shower without even checking the answering machine.
She left off wondering what she would say to Natalie and thought instead about Beth. Perhaps Beth would sneak out more often during the week for short visits, or maybe she would confront Mark with her need to see Nicky. Knowing that both were just wishful thinking, based on her inability to give up Beth, she glumly considered her miserable options.
Washing her sore scalp thoroughly and scrubbing off the residue of weeds and pollen, she stepped out of the tub and rubbed herself dry. Scrappy’s bark told her someone was probably in the house. Since Meg’s car had been gone when she returned from mowing, there was a good chance the someone was her little sister.
Turning when Nicky entered the kitchen on bare feet, Natalie said, “I don’t want to talk about it. You want to fuck women, go ahead. I prefer men.”
Startled, Nicky replied, “Tit for tat, huh?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said I don’t want to discuss what I saw.” She looked angry. “But what about Beth?”
Surprised, Nicky asked, “What about Beth?” Then added, “We’re best friends.”
Nattie snorted derisively. “Sure. That’s all the two of you do behind closed doors is chew the fat.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t.” She swung toward the stove. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Mom and Dad or Nancy or Neil.”
Nicky took a step toward her sister. “Why are you so upset?”
“I don’t know. I think I knew. I just didn’t think about it.” Her voice rose in anger. “You’re my sister, for Christ’s sake, and I catch you in the sack with another woman who happens to be a friend of mine. And on top of it, you’re in love with still another woman who is married and has a kid.”
Nicky was dumbstruck. Was it all so obvious? And was it really as sordid as it sounded? There were no good explanations. They all sounded sleazy. She could say she was horny and that she couldn’t have sex with Beth right now, that she and Beth had been lovers before Beth married, that Meg came on to her not the other way around. There were lots of reasons for her behavior, but none of them came across as honorable or even defensible. She shrugged and went outside with Scrappy. At least he accepted her as she was.
The evening had turned cool and she shivered under sweats and wet hair. Dan had just parked his truck out by the barn and was walking toward the house. He smiled at her, and she knew immediately that Natalie had told him what she had seen.
“Hey, Nicky, I got a check from the county. I can pay you,” he called.
“Leave it in the kitchen,” she replied, hurrying away. She couldn’t face two disapproving people across the supper table.
But once she reached the barn, she didn’t know where to go. Deciding that the horses weren’t going to keep her out of her own field anymore, she grabbed her rod from the old milk room and walked through the dew-wet grass to the trout stream. The horse and pony raised their heads and looked at her disinterestedly, then continued their grazing.
The days ended more abruptly now, and it was nearly dark an hour later when Dan led Brittle to his stall and started his truck. Nicky put the rod away and went inside where she checked for messages. Denise had called, inviting her to dinner on Thursday. She smiled at the sound of Beth’s voice, asking to meet her for lunch tomorrow at an out-of-town restaurant called The Hermitage. She left an affirmative message on Denise’s answering machine.
There were two lights on in the house—the one over the stove and the night-light next to the bathroom mirror. With the dog at her heels, she wandered into the kitchen and stuck her head in the refrigerator. Taped to a casserole dish was a note: Eat Me. She put the food in the microwave and sat at the table in the dimly lighted room. Propped against the peppermill was a check from Dan with a message under it: Spend Me. Nicky smiled a little, realizing that neither Natalie nor Dan was as angry or disgusted with her as she had feared.
The Hermitage, located on the banks of the Fox River, was one of the few eating establishments that offered dining outside and a view of the water. Nicky had never understood why more restaurant owners didn’t build or buy next to some of the many area lakes and rivers.
She found Beth seated on the screened-in deck, staring at the slowly flowing water. Noticing the dejected slope of her shoulders, her hopes sank. And when Beth looked up and smiled sadly, she became alarmed.
“Bad news?” she asked.
“No hello, how are you?” Beth’s eyebrows arched.
“How much time have you got? An hour, an hour and a half, two hours?” She sat down and st
ared at Beth hungrily.
Beth sighed. “You’re in a lovely mood.” When Nicky only shrugged, she asked, “Aren’t you glad to see me at all?”
“You know I am. Don’t play word games.”
“This is the best I can do right now, short of leaving. And if I leave, I give up my son—at least for now—and my job. That’s what you need, isn’t it—someone to support? Have you found a job?”
The awful choices offered Beth reduced Nicky’s reply to a whisper. “No. How’s Matt?”
“He knows something’s wrong. He just doesn’t know what.” She rearranged her table setting.
The waitress took their orders, and Nicky asked as soon as she left, “What’s it like at home?”
Beth began folding her placemat, ripping off little pieces of it. Her voice sounded thick and choked, but what bothered Nicky most was her quivering chin. “I never know when he’s going to lose his temper. And he’s so angry, I think, because he can’t control my feelings. He can control everything else. He can make me stay, but he can’t make me forget you, and he can’t make me not want to be with you.” The muscles in her jaws worked tensely. “He’s always asking me if I’ve talked to you, if I’ve seen you.” She looked at Nicky and blinked back tears. “How’s it for you?”
Regretting her own anger, which paled under Beth’s anguish, Nicky reached across the table and took Beth’s hand. “Better than it is for you. Is Mark still…” She couldn’t finish the question, not sure that she wanted to hear the answer.
Beth turned Nicky’s hand over and held it between her own. Her black lashes and hazel eyes glistened. “You know, that was a bone of contention in our marriage from the beginning.” She apparently took note of Nicky’s expression and hastened to add, “Oh, not once you and I began again but before that. Now he’s always after me. He thinks that’s why I took up with you.” She patted their clasped hands and said forlornly, “The thing is, I think he really does love me.”
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