“Golly, I know a way to hug and hold onto each other and scream together that’s a lot safer than that thing looks.”
Lily patted Robin’s cheek. “Well, sweetie, since we aren’t going to do that here, we might as well do this.”
“I take it you’ve ridden this thing before?”
“Not this one but I ride the roller coaster every chance I get. I even made Mic…” She stopped short, not wanting to bring Micki between them. She was already too present.
“It’s okay, Lily, I know you had a Micki in your life. But tell me, did she jilt you because you made her go on a roller coaster with you? Or was it because you teased too much?”
She seemed to be joking. Then again anger veiled as humor seemed more likely for someone as kind as Robin than full-out rage. The comment felt like a knife in the gut in any case. She wondered where it was coming from, this sudden anger. It wasn’t her fault that things kept coming up. Was it? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then squeezed Robin’s arm. “Not funny.”
“Well, I don’t find the thought of riding this monstrosity funny, but let’s give it a go.”
Robin’s body stiffened as the attendant locked them into their car, her creamy skin drained of color and she gripped the bar in front of them with white-knuckled hands. Lily wrapped her arm around Robin’s waist to comfort her and felt Robin’s heart pounding. Would she panic? But after the third rise and fast drop, the look on Robin’s face went from white with fear to pure exhilaration. They screamed and hugged until the car slowed and stopped. Then Robin insisted they ride it again. And again. On the third trip, Robin was sufficiently relaxed to take two or three selfies of them with her phone.
After the fourth trip, Robin cornered one of the people running the thing and shot questions at him until Lily dragged her away to walk on the beach. But Robin couldn’t stop talking about the wooden roller coaster.
Lily listened attentively but herded Robin toward the beach.
At the edge of the hot, dry sand, they removed their shoes and walked hand in hand, enjoying the feel of the cold water lapping at their feet. Occasionally Robin ran ahead, leaping like an antelope, at first singing “Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah,” then making up happy songs about the thrill of the roller coaster and of being with the beautiful Lily. Had she misread Robin? Maybe she wasn’t angry.
By dusk, Robin had won Lily an elephant on the midway and was starting to droop. She texted Tanya. While they waited for their ride, they discussed names for the elephant but couldn’t seem to agree on one.
Lily bumped Robin gently. “If we can’t agree on a name for a stuffed animal, how will we name our children?”
Robin’s face darkened. “Maybe it’s a sign that we’re not meant to have children.”
Lily studied Robin for a moment before responding. “Having second thoughts?”
“Just saying.” She blinked. “I mean, we agreed that there is no us, so it seems silly, childish even, to talk about children if we aren’t in a committed relationship.”
Lily nodded. “Does this mean you want a committed relationship or you don’t want children?”
Robin looked away. “I’m not—”
Tanya sounded the car horn as she pulled in front of them. Robin quickly reached for the door, helped Lily in, then slid in next to her. Instead of continuing their conversation as Lily expected, Robin changed the subject. “We have reservations at an Italian restaurant, Al di la Trattoria, in Park Slope, but we could go somewhere else, if you prefer.”
“Italian is always good for me.”
On the half-hour drive to Park Slope, Robin asked Tanya about her afternoon.
“I took my aunt to lunch at a Russian restaurant, then we hung out in her condo until you called.”
Robin gave her a blow-by-blow description of riding the roller coaster, walking on the beach and winning the unnamed elephant. Clearly, she wanted to talk about anything but their relationship or non-relationship.
Mel was waiting when they walked into the restaurant. Lily was surprised. “How did Mel get here?”
“Didn’t you see Tanya make a call after we confirmed we were coming here? I guess she took the subway from work.” Robin cleared her throat. “Should we ask Tanya and Mel to join us tonight rather than sit at a separate table?”
“It’s up to you.”
They seemed surprised to be invited, but they were interesting women, both former military, both widely traveled, and not at all obsequious as Lily had anticipated. But she found her mind wandering back to the discussion she and Robin had started, the one that Robin now was avoiding. She’d thought they were moving toward each other, toward committing, but now she wasn’t so sure. After all, Robin had made it clear up front that she just wanted to have fun, that she didn’t do commitment or relationships.
After dinner, Robin dozed in the car and then, pleading exhaustion, she dropped Lily in front of her building with a quick kiss good night.
Chapter Seventeen
Riverside Park
Robin couldn’t stop smiling. Lily was adorable, excited, high energy and bubbly like a little kid going on an outing, but also very much an adult, drop dead gorgeous in her shorts and tank. She considered trying to get her into bed before they went out to breakfast. Might not be that hard, she thought. But this was Lily’s day, and she didn’t want to spoil it. Wait a minute. Since when would sex spoil a date? The unease she felt the other day burbled up. Her feelings for Lily were starting to feel like commitment. And she didn’t do commitment.
Lily pulled her along. “Just another block. Here we are. Edgar’s Cafe.”
She stared at the huge painting of Edgar Allen Poe hanging on one wall of the small restaurant and wondered if she could actually eat with that face staring down at her. Lily’s taste in restaurant décor left a lot to be desired. But the waitress and the owner greeted Lily like a long-lost relative, and she responded with her usual Southern charm.
“It’s a beautiful day. You okay with sitting outside, Robin?”
Robin eyed the minuscule outside area, typical of a small neighborhood restaurant. “Sounds like a terrific idea.” Much better than having Poe glaring at them.
After they had ordered, Lily smiled across the tiny table. “Thank you for humoring me. I often come here with my computer to write. Some days I have breakfast, then I get into working and suddenly it’s lunchtime, so I order lunch. Nobody rushes me. I love it.”
“Well, my smoked salmon, cream cheese and scallion scramble was truly delicious and the people seem very nice.”
Lily’s face lit up. “I told you.” She slapped Robin’s hand away when she reached for the check. “My treat today. Remember?”
Outside, Lily took her hand. “Come. We’ll walk west on Ninety-first Street. There’s an entrance to Riverside Park there. That way we’ll see the flower gardens, then walk down to the Hudson River. Annie says it’s beautiful.”
The park was teeming with people jogging, biking, skating, reading or walking with and without children and with and without dogs. A woman with a cat on a leash and a man with a parrot on his shoulders were sitting near the flower gardens, which were not the neat, regimented rows or circles of similar plants she’d expected but an assortment of different plants of varying heights and colors enclosed in two large fenced-in areas. The gardens seemed untamed, bursting with energy and color, beautiful and free. They circled the two plots hand in hand in the bright sunlight, pointing flowers out to each other, then they strolled through the park, walked down a steep hill, through a short tunnel and onto a path along the Hudson River. Behind them was the George Washington Bridge, which seemed to hang over the water. To their right was New Jersey, which looked close enough to swim to, and before them was a marina with boats bobbing in the sparkling water.
Robin pulled Lily into a hug. “Annie was right. It is beautiful.” Their eyes met. “But not as beautiful as you.”
Lily brushed Robin’s lips. “Shall we sit for a while?”
&nbs
p; “Tired already, my little Southern belle?”
“No, I want to feel your body next to mine, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to lie down on the path.”
“Well, in that case, let’s sit.” She led Lily to one of the benches facing the water, put her arm over her shoulders and pulled her in close. “Does this do it for you?” Lily’s head was on Robin’s shoulder, her breath warm on Robin’s neck.
Lily’s voice was husky. “For now.”
The words ignited a flame that burned through Robin. She knew sex with Lily would be fantastic, and she hoped there would be no interruptions tonight. She ran her hand up and down Lily’s arm.
Lily shivered. “If you keep doing that, I might lose control out here in public.”
“Hmm.” Robin smiled. That made two of them.
“Distract me. Tell me about Katie.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m yours for today and I’m all ears. Well, not all ears, most of me is nerve endings that are popping all over the place. Unless it’s painful and you’d really rather not, please tell me.”
“You may have popping nerve endings, but I find it impossible to think about anyone but you and anything but sex, with you breathing on me.”
Lily shifted to face the water. Robin took a deep breath. Where to start? What to say? How much to reveal? They’d said they’d be honest with each other about their history, and she was sure it hadn’t been easy for Lily to tell her about being jilted. So far nothing she’d revealed was as close to the bone as that. So she should do it or stop this…what? Flirting with Lily? Romancing Lily? Trying to maneuver Lily into bed? All of the above? She blew out her breath.
“The August after I graduated high school I turned fourteen, and a couple of weeks later, I left Florida for Harvard on full scholarship.”
“Wow, that’s young. You must have been scared?”
“I was terrified. My sixth grade teacher, Barbara, who was the first to recognize my intelligence, got me on the fast track and guided me to a full scholarship to Harvard. She was my guardian angel and I wanted her to take me there to help me get settled, but she and her partner had long-standing vacation plans, plus she thought it might help me bond with my dad if he went with me. I barely ever spoke to my dad, but she got him to commit to fly to Boston and help me get settled in the dorm. She gave him a list of clothing I would need and he promised he’d take me shopping in Boston.
“At the last minute he changed his mind. He said Barbara had arranged all of this and she should be the one inconvenienced. I knew Barbara was away with her lover until after Labor Day, so I said, ‘Forget it, I’ll fly to Boston on my own.’ He was a drunk, so he didn’t question it, nor, actually, did he care. Thankfully, Barbara had arranged for an old friend of hers who lived outside of Boston to meet us at the airport and drive us to the campus.”
“Laura was surprised I was alone with just one small suitcase, but she drove me to the dorm. She wanted to come to my room, but I didn’t want her to see how petrified I was, so I insisted I was okay. She put her hand on my shoulder, which almost undid me, and asked if I was sure. I nodded and smiled so she dropped me off and drove away. When I found my room, I closed the door and started to shake, then sob. That was when Katie appeared. She was a sophomore, but she’d spent two years in the Peace Corps before starting Harvard so she was older. She sat next to me on the bed, pulled me into her arms and let me sob. I’d had very little physical contact in my life and I wanted to curl up inside Katie and purr. But being so close to her, smelling her, feeling her breasts against me also awakened a yearning, which I later realized was sexual feelings. I wanted more but didn’t know how to ask. So once I stopped sobbing, I responded to Katie’s not inconsiderable physical charms by groping her. But she grabbed my roving hands, tilted my face so I was looking at her, then kissed my forehead. ‘No, sweetie. I believe you need comfort more than you need sex. Let’s just be friends for a while?’ I was shocked. ‘Sex?’
“Because I was so young, the dean had assigned me to Katie’s suite and had given her a small stipend to look after me. And that’s what she did. That day she helped me unpack and make my bed, then introduced me to our four suitemates, Mei, Emma, Nicole and Winnie. She and I had singles, but the others shared two rooms. When she realized I hadn’t had lunch, she took me out to eat, gave me a tour of the campus, then accompanied me to the freshman orientation sessions. Afterward, we had dinner in the dining hall. It says something about my life up to then that I had never felt so cared for.”
Robin glanced at Lily and was surprised to see tears streaming down her face. “What’s wrong?” Lily used the bottom of her tank top to dry the tears. “I’m crying for that poor fourteen-year-old girl.”
Robin added empathy to the list of qualities she admired in Lily. “I survived and thrived. Katie made sure of that. It turned out we had two classes together, but she walked me to all my classes every day until I felt comfortable on my own. We studied together every night, either in the suite or in the library, and ate all our meals together. She was like an older sister, really a mother¸ very protective, very nurturing. And I learned from her that it was okay to be physically affectionate. I hadn’t realized how unhappy I was until I felt real happiness with Katie.
“My father never wrote, never called, never sent any money, and if I’d had to depend on the small stipend that came with my scholarship, I probably would have frozen to death that first winter. But when it started to get cooler, Katie noticed this Florida girl’s wardrobe consisted of a couple of pairs of shorts, a pair of jeans, sweat pants, a few T-shirts and sandals; no warm clothes, no winter coat, no shoes, no boots, nothing. My father’s promise to take me shopping in Boston was forgotten in his drunken haze and, of course, he hadn’t given me any money when I left.
“Katie took me out and bought me socks, underwear, sweaters and pants and shirts and shoes and everything I would need to get through the fall and winter in fine style. She spent the entire semester’s stipend she’d received from the dean, plus her allowance for the semester. Nicole, Mei and Winnie were all on scholarship too so they didn’t have anything to spare, but Emma contributed a nice chunk of her allowance. And Katie’s parents gave her money to buy me leather boots, snow boots, hiking boots, a hat, a scarf, gloves, and a heavy winter jacket, then deposited more money into her allowance account. I had never had so many and such nice clothes. Infant that I was, I took so much kindness for granted.”
“And your teacher Barbara didn’t help?”
Robin looked out over the Hudson, then took a breath. “Not long after I settled in at Harvard, Barbara’s friend, the one who had picked me up at the airport, came by to tell me that Barbara and her partner were killed in a car crash coming back from that vacation.”
Lily hugged her. “Oh, sweetie, you had so many losses at such a young age.”
“Yes. But luckily I had Katie. And our other four roommates. I was like a chick in the hen house and they all took me under their wings and looked after me. Other than the first Thanksgiving when I went home with Nicole, I spent holidays and vacations with Katie and her family, but sometimes I went home with one of the others for a weekend. Katie found us summer jobs on Cape Cod, and we lived and worked together. I never went home again. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but since then I’ve been trying to repay her, the others too, but I don’t think it’s possible.”
“Was it ever sexual with Katie?”
“She’s straight. I tried a couple of times, but she convinced me it would be better to stay friends and that’s what we did.”
“Are you in love with her?”
Robin laughed. “I had a crush on her for a long time a long time ago. I love her like a sister or maybe like a mother. I don’t know because I can’t compare it to anything. But I’m not in love with her. She’s also my business partner.”
Lily squeezed Robin. “That’s a lovely story. No wonder she’s so important to you.”
Robi
n squeezed back. “Okay, enough serious stuff. I thought this was going to be a play day. What’s next?
* * *
Lily moved out of Robin’s embrace. “Have you ever kayaked?”
“Not for a long time.”
“Can you swim?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go. It’s not far.” She pinched Robin and took off, laughing.
Robin dashed after her. “Oh, no you don’t, cheater.” With her longer legs, she caught Lily right away and wrapped her arms around her. “You are so bad.”
Lily leaned into her. “Are you going to punish me?” She breathed into Robin’s ear.
Robin’s arms tightened. “Tease. Keep this up and I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Tie me up and torture me with your tongue?” She laughed and grabbed Robin’s hand, dragging her along the river until they came to the kayaks. “The kayaks are free. You get twenty minutes. It’ll be fun.”
She could see on Robin’s face that she’d gone too far with the sexual teasing. When had she become the person who plays with other people’s feelings? Was it a power trip? Or was it because she was scared shitless of getting close?
Lily took Robin’s hand and pulled her out of the line to an empty bench nearby. Robin’s body was rigid, her hand lifeless in Lily’s, her jaw tense. Her eyes refused to connect. Lily knelt in front of her, touched her face, and kissed the palm of her hand. “I owe y’all an apology. I am so attracted to you. Being with you, no matter what we do, is a turn on. Making love with you is constantly on my mind which is why those teasing comments pop out.”
She kissed Robin’s palm and held it to her face. Robin’s gaze remained on the river. “I admit I haven’t gone out of my way to actually make love with you. I could have let Dawn stay at my apartment and spent the night at yours and the same thing when my mama showed up. I’m a big girl and I should have been able to tell her I’d see her in the morning. But I’m still raw and uncertain and pained by what Micki did. I can’t go through that again. It would kill me. And I’m afraid if we make love, you’ll go away. I’ve gone into therapy to try to get past it so I can be with you the way I want, the way I think you want.” She looked up into Robin’s eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you. I would understand—”
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