Paulina studied them for a split second and then shrugged, evidently deciding not to pursue the topic. “Jim and I are New Englanders,” she explained. “We’re retired, and we wanted to experience the West Coast. Chilly winters and heavy rainfall are not unknown in the Northeast, but the climate here is still a little less extreme. We get our cake and eat it, too, as they say.”
Valerie considered them too young to be retired, although Jim might be in his late 50s she now decided. “You must have been very successful, to be retired so young.”
Jim grinned. “Pharmaceuticals,” he acknowledged. “I sold them for several years. Very good money. I invested in the market and luckily got out before the big downturn in 2000. I didn’t have any insider information, but I was close enough to the trends to sense what was coming. Some of my friends didn’t move quickly enough and lost their shirts.
“Yes,” he continued, “I was very lucky. I bought Sweet Dreams and I sleep well at night.”
Valerie pursued another thought that had occurred to her. “We have very little real summer here on the North Coast. Quite chilly and still often rainy days. How do you get enough sailing time to make it worth bringing such a beautiful boat up here?”
“Good question,” Jim responded with a warm smile. “We get out when we can, when it’s decent enough. But in late August and early September there is a little spot where the weather along the Northwest Coast is usually nicer than the rest of the year. When we get to that time, we pack our gear and head north along the Oregon and Washington coast. A real holiday and a real cruise.”
“Sometimes,” Paulina added, “we are able to get as far as the Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, and even do some exploring along Vancouver Island in British Columbia. There are so many places to go that it would take a lifetime to see them all.”
Valerie noticed that Gina seemed a little uncomfortable with the conversation. High finance, big sailboats, and lengthy cruises certainly didn’t match her current life as roomer and worker at three entry-level jobs. Val felt for her. But if Gina’s personal problems hadn’t gotten in the way and she had taken a good teaching job, she might be talking about the stock market and making money too. Gina was young so maybe financial success would still come to her one day. Val, herself, was on more familiar turf, having had professional parents and having lived in a major urban area all her life. She had known many people like the Johansens and was comfortable around them.
“Does your dog Max like sailing?” Valerie asked, steering conversation to a little easier territory.
Jim laughed. “We’ve brought Max out a couple of times, but he doesn’t really like it. He shivers and shakes the whole time and it’s wrong to put him through that. We leave him at home with the housekeeper,” he said.
Gina turned to Valerie. “What do you think Sam would do?”
Valerie grinned. “She’d love it but she’d be over the side in a moment, because she’s fearless and so used to jumping around and bounding up and down stairs. She’s chased birds into the water at the beach. I don’t think that she would realize that to jump here she’d be in the deep ocean.”
They sailed in a northwesterly direction most of the afternoon, since the wind was from the south-southwest and filled their big white sails when they were on a starboard tack. “Starboard is the right side of the boat,” Jim explained to Gina. “Port is the left.” Later in the day he steered a bit closer to land. “The coast here is really pretty in the late afternoon, so we’ll come along it on our way home. The wind is supposed to shift to the west and that will help us a lot,” he said.
Gina seemed fascinated with the mechanics of sailing. Jim showed her the wind vane at the top of the mast, the compass, how he set a heading and then steered by it, and how the lines were tied and loosened when they shifted direction. Jim put her on the helm, and soon Gina was calling “Ready to come about.” Paulina looked amused, watching her take over. Val wondered if she was seeing a budding sailor in Gina.
“You call this boat a sloop?” Gina asked Jim.
“Yes,” Jim replied with a smile. He was obviously enjoying her interest in his craft. “A sloop has one mast and usually it has two sails—one rigged from the mast and going back toward the stern and one coming from the mast but also attached to the bow, up front, called the jib. This sloop is a cutter-rigged sloop, because it has two sails before, or in front of, the mast.”
“Wow,” Gina said.
Valerie smiled at her technical interest. The earlier tension over her physical contact with Gina now forgotten, she just enjoyed relaxing. Val soon picked up her sketchpad and, after some adjustments to the motion of the boat, she was able to make sketches of Sweet Dreams from a variety of angles. She could see a painting or two coming from this afternoon’s sail. She also got out her camera and photographed Paulina and Jim and then Gina at the helm. Gina was obviously ecstatic. Gina in turn took the camera and photographed Valerie holding the wheel for a moment. And Paulina took a picture of the two of them together at the big wheel, smiling broadly. Gina, too, now seemed comfortable with Val again.
Late in the afternoon they came along the coast, and Jim pointed out landmarks on shore that they would recognize, including Mad River Beach where they had gone that one Saturday with Sam.
Before dark, the sails were taken down and they were motoring through Humboldt Bay on the way to the docks. They had been on a marvelous adventure, both Valerie and Gina told each other. Food for the soul, Valerie would muse to herself.
They hugged Jim and Paulina on the dock, offering thanks to their two hosts. As they piled their belongings into the Volvo, they chattered happily about the experience and the fun they had. Gina climbed into the passenger seat and slid down low. “Wow, what a day!” she exclaimed.
“You can say that again,” Val agreed, as she put her key in the ignition. “I don’t know when I’ve had so much fun.”
On the drive home, neither of them mentioned Val’s arm finding its way over Gina’s shoulders as they had slept on the deck of Sweet Dreams.
Sam barked at the front door when Valerie’s wagon turned into the driveway. “Coming,” Valerie called out, hoping to appease the retriever. She and Gina unloaded the car and went up to the front door. Val opened it with her key, only to be practically knocked down by Sam in her enthusiasm to see them again.
Val ruffled her fur. “Sorry, girl, I know it’s been a long day. I’ll take you for a walk in just a minute.”
Gina put her duffle bag by the door. “You want me to take her out?”
Val sighed. “Would you? I’m totally bushed.”
“Sure.” Gina found Sam’s leash, clipped it on, and took the dog out to the sidewalk for an around-the-block before sundown stroll.
Sam looked back toward the house to see if Val was coming and then turned her attention to Gina, following her with a wagging tail.
Val watched them from the dining room window for a moment. She smiled to herself and then collapsed into a chair. The sailing was great, but it had certainly taken a lot out of her energy reserves. Whew!
Later that evening, as she cleaned up the kitchen after a dinner snack of soup and crackers shared with Gina, Valerie put down a bowl of kibble for Sam. Gina had disappeared upstairs, and the dog had gone with her. “Sam,” Val called out, “your dinner is ready.”
The dog didn’t appear, and Valerie murmured to herself. “I think Sam really is Gina’s dog now.” She shrugged. The food was there, the dog would get to it eventually, and it was natural for her to miss Gina as well as Val when both had been gone all day.
She switched off the lights in the kitchen and sat down in the living room for a few moments. The house was quiet, and Valerie started thinking back over the day’s adventure. It had been a very good change after the weeks of confinement with Josie. It was as if the universe had rewarded them for their caring.
She considered Paulina and Jim and their successful lives, and she was grateful that they were basically real and u
npretentious people who were willing to share their bounty with others. She would have to do something nice for them to say thank you. Maybe a small painting of their boat.
And Gina. She had loved watching Gina come to life. She had seen many sides of her in the past months, but most of them were serious. Gina could and did laugh at times, and she could be enthusiastic. But there was a core to her that, perhaps because of her troubles and the debt she had to pay off, was basically heavy. Today she had been different, a sea sprite. Jim had obviously enjoyed teaching her about sailing, and she had taken to it avidly. It was cute and Gina had been adorable out there on the sloop, her ponytail flopping in the wind. Valerie liked the way the day had gone for all of them. She did still wonder about that dream. The details had already begun to fade from her memory, but why had she dreamed about that, and why had she, in sleep, reached out physically to Gina? She forcefully pushed the question away. There is no point in going down that path, she told herself.
Gina’s skin was burning and she put on some lotion before climbing into bed. She didn’t care if she had gotten sunburned. She was so happy to have gone sailing, and she couldn’t wait to tell Rick and her other friends at the theater about it. She hoped to be able to go out on the ocean again someday.
After sending Sam upstairs to be with Val, Gina turned out her light and settled into the bed. She punched her pillows so they were just right and cuddled up surrounded by her comforter.
Gina smiled to herself when she thought about the fact that Valerie had introduced her as a Ph.D. and hidden the fact that she was a roomer. At first she had been shocked but then, as the atmosphere surrounding these wealthy people began to sink in, she realized that Valerie was kind of protecting her. Giving her a chance to be on an equal footing with them, not like some charity case. She did have her doctorate, but it wasn’t a very meaningful part of her life these days. So she found being treated as special rather nice.
What a day! And Valerie had been fun, too, in her quiet sort of way. More mature, more settled. But Gina couldn’t help it. Her own enthusiasm just burst out. Sailing was really fun! It had been especially neat when they fell asleep on the foredeck, but what had been going on in Valerie’s mind when she put her arm over Gina’s shoulder? Gina had been so shocked when Paulina awakened them and she felt the weight—and the intimacy—of Val’s touch. She tingled now even thinking of it. But what did it mean? Maybe Valerie was just lonely and missing Doreen and in her sleep just reached out to another woman. But what if she was really expressing something toward Gina? Should she welcome that, or not? She had to admit that Val’s touch had felt good. Well, whatever the meaning of it, it was a puzzle that she couldn’t solve. Gina tried to stop analyzing and drifted off to sleep, just warmed by the memory of that arm over her shoulder.
Chapter Ten
Valerie sat in the shade of a coastal redwood, sketching an enormous tree that rose majestically before her. She really loved the ancient trees that grew in northern California. They were so awe inspiring—how they had lived for thousands of years and during the less rainy summer months the way they had fed their hearty thirst for water by absorbing mist in the daily fog that settled along the coast. Every so often Val took the hour-long drive down the 101 to Humboldt Redwoods State Park and walked, sat and thought or sketched. Other than the ocean, these stands of redwoods were her favorite inspiration for painting.
Walking around the massive base of a redwood, she would stare upward along the trunk that appeared to reach all the way to the sky. She drew these trees both in their realistic form and in softer impressions that emerged within her mind. The trees were awesome, that was for sure, and she tried to capture that amazing spirit in her drawings.
As she sat sketching, she was reminded of what Gina had once said about how being out of doors was better than being in church. Whatever God meant to Valerie, and she was not always too sure about that, she had to admit that redwoods were indeed part of some great spiritual reality. She had been capturing the trees on paper for several hours this summer afternoon, with Sam stretched out by her side. Dogs weren’t permitted many places in the spacious state park, but she had found a spot where she could draw while the retriever relaxed nearby.
She thought as she worked. Mulling. Going back over the past few months.
Her life had changed a lot in the year—now more like a year and a half—since Doreen’s death. She would always miss her partner, but she had to admit that the present was becoming as rewarding as the past. Paulina and Jim had bought two more of her paintings and had referred friends to her. Those friends had also purchased some of her work. She had, with Lanie’s help, set up a web page on the Internet, resulting in several other inquiries. No actual sales yet, but some new possibilities. She had to laugh because she was not into the Internet herself and did not even have her own computer or e-mail address like everyone else she knew. She did understand the power of this modern technology but didn’t want to fool with it. Lanie, however, was really “into the Web,” as everyone was always saying, and she came up with the plan for Val’s web page and took the time to print out the inquiries for her.
“You are going to have to get on the Web eventually,” Lanie had told her more than once.
Val smiled to herself. She was still resisting the Internet because she knew it would consume a lot of her time. And she was becoming more accustomed to the slower pace of life in Eureka. She liked not being as rushed as she had been in San Francisco. And culture did exist here—it just didn’t overwhelm. A concert here, a movie worth seeing there, an event in a local park. Maybe it was because she was getting older, slowing down herself, that this less intense pace felt good. Doreen aside, she didn’t think she would want to live in the city anymore. She didn’t feel that she needed the traffic, smog, bustle, crime, or ‘Frisco’s one hundred theater groups and myriad art houses. Or Castro Street and the extreme gay scene, with political tensions between the radical left and the radical right.
There was plenty of art available on the North Coast. Eureka’s Old Town was filled with galleries, art walks, and shows, and she knew in time she would become more involved in that scene. She had started to dream about having her own gallery. Rent wasn’t too bad, a little over $300 a month for some spaces, and she had recently joined a couple of local artist organizations. “If I could rent both bedrooms on the second floor of the house, I could have a real studio and gallery right now,” she mused aloud to herself. She had visited some galleries on the upper floors of Old Town buildings. She noted that the high ceilings and tall windows allowed considerable natural light. It would be so good for her to work there—so much better than the garage.
Yes, she had discovered that Eureka had many charms for a creative person, but she still had been extremely surprised by the fact that she had developed friendships with lesbian women on the North Coast. Maybe it was the openness of today’s society, but gay people seemed easier to find. And her Eureka friends had become real friends, not just lesbians looking for sexual exploits or conquests.
She grinned at Sam and reached down to ruffle the dog’s fur. “This ol’ gal ain’t quite done yet,” she said whimsically. “I think I might want to have a sexual partner again in this lifetime. I don’t know when, and I don’t know who—and I wouldn’t confess it to anyone but you that I’m thinking about it—but I do believe that eventually it’s going to happen.” She chuckled as she continued to sketch.
Her mind shifted gears to Gina. She smiled to herself, remembering how unimpressed she had been with that tall, stringy girl on the doorstep that day. A real head case, too, in the beginning. But Gina had opened up and Valerie had to admit that she had stopped thinking of her solely as a renter and as a “kid.” Gina had gradually emerged as a friend that Val liked and respected.
She paused in her sketching. Was it possible that she was on the verge of feeling more than liking for Gina? She tried to push the thought out of her mind. That would be a bad road to go down. Valerie could
only get hurt letting herself feel attracted to Gina, she felt sure of that. Gina had clear goals and they didn’t include settling in Eureka. She was headed for San Francisco—with all its urban challenges and potential rewards. Colleges and universities in the Bay Area, where Gina might be able to land some kind of teaching position. Once in the system, she was young enough to work her way up, make a real contribution. Valerie knew that Gina was still sorting out her identity, but the big and varied gay community of San Francisco would support her lesbianism. Val felt sure, when she considered it, that before long the Gina she knew would be past history.
“Oh, well,” she said to herself. “Life is just too complicated. I’ll just have to take it a day at a time.” She looked down at Sam. “Right, Sam?”
Gazing upward with her big brown eyes, Samantha studied Val’s face and simply thumped her tail against the grass.
That evening Val was curled up with a book in the living room. It was a Friday, but her friends had been busy with one thing and another and had decided not to get together. They had drifted toward Friday evening activities so that Gina could participate. Alone on this evening, Valerie decided it was a good time to catch up on her reading.
She had just gotten to an exciting part of a good murder mystery when Gina burst in the front door.
“Hi!” Gina’s voice was charged with energy. “Guess what? I just got my hands on this lesbian film called Lianna. Rick mentioned it to me, and I found a copy at Blockbuster Video. I was surprised they would carry this. See?”
She held out the disc to Valerie, who examined the DVD jacket.
“Looks like a good film,” Val observed. She didn’t mention that it was a classic and that she had seen it some time ago.
“Well, my computer plays DVDs so I can watch it in my room—unless you want to see it, too.” Gina bubbled over with enthusiasm. Then she noticed Valerie’s book. “Oh, you’re reading. Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
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