“I do too. How was Aunt Lana after I left?”
I had left Friday night so I could have the weekend at home to write my lesson plans for the following week, leaving my poor mother to deal with the rest of the family who was staying until Sunday. After the blowout during Thanksgiving dinner, however, the atmosphere was more relaxed and easy-going than I had ever seen it at any other family get-together in the past.
“She and I sat down and had a long talk. Your father and I have been married for thirty-two years and I learned things about your aunt I never knew were possible.”
I laughed. I could only imagine what they talked about. All families had secrets, and usually they resided in the most outwardly great family members. Maybe my mother’s outburst had brought forth problems the family usually ignored, allowing them to discuss them head-on.
A click came through the phone and Mom said, “Oh, that’s the plumber. I’ll have to call you back later.”
“OK, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you too. Bye.” Then the phone went dead.
I unmuted the TV and flipped through the channels. I barely registered what was on each station as my mind wondered what Alice was up to.
“…this match-up was always expected, Charlie,” an announcer was saying as the channel changed to sports. Usually I would have skipped over it as quickly as possible, but my eyes focused on the screen and there was Alice, hands high in the air holding a sign with the number “1” on it. My heart contracted as I watched her lithe body walk around the ring, her hips swaying and her breasts jutting out.
I did not realize until that moment how much I really missed her. Her laugh, her smile, her lips.
Tears rimmed my eyes and I gave into them for the first time, allowing them to flow unchecked down my cheeks. I lay on the sofa, drew a pillow into my chest, and cried harder than I had ever cried before. Fear and pain coursed through my body and I was soon gasping for breath as the sobs became harsher.
At least ten minutes passed before I finally pulled myself from the small ball I had formed with my body. My eyes burned and I got up to grab a tissue and wipe my eyes and nose. An ache continued inside me as I reached for the remote and turned the channel to watch a movie I knew I would not be able to concentrate on.
How much I missed her. Was there any way we could make things work? Me, the shy, quiet teacher who maintained a safe structured life and she the loud, boisterous model who took risks and lived life to the fullest. How I envied her while at the same time feared to be like her. But my life felt empty without her in it.
My friend Karen’s words came to me. “You’re a lot more self-assured than the last time I saw you.” Everyone mentioned how my clothing style had changed, all for the better. Maybe I was picking one negative and focusing on it and not looking at so many other ways that Alice had influenced me for the better.
I picked up the phone and pulled up her number, staring at her name for several minutes, unsure whether to hit the call button or not. Then I closed it out and put the phone back on the table.
No, it was for the best. It would hurt, it always did. But we could not make this work.
Chapter Sixteen
“Good morning, Chris,” I said as the boy passed me at the beginning of the school day.
“Hi, Miss Johnson,” he replied with a huge smile. “Mom took me to the bookstore.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out three books—one on painters, one on famous paintings, and one on how to paint.
“Oh, wow, those look like great books,” I gushed as I held them in my hand as if they were priceless artifacts.
“They are!” he exclaimed. “Do you think we can read these for group today?”
I looked at him. There was no way I could say no. “OK, just for today. You can also read them during choice-time, if you’d like.”
“Yes!” he said while pumping his arm in toward himself, making me laugh.
“All right, why don’t you get ready for group time.”
“OK.” He headed toward his desk and then turned around and grabbed me around the waist. “Thank you, Miss Johnson.” He said as he gave me a quick hug. Then his face went red and he made his way to the coat and backpack hooks.
I stood there in shock until Jenny Rogers pulled lightly on the sleeve of my shirt.
“Sorry, Good morning, Jenny,” I said, giving her hug for the morning. But my mind turned to the boy whose hug had meant more to me than many others I had ever received, and I had to fight the tears that threatened to spill over my lashes.
Wait until Susan heard about this!
***
“Some-thing you mi-mi…” Chris said, stumbling over the words of his book.
“Might.”
“Might not know a-bout Michaelangelo is that he put him-self into his paintings.” Chris looked up at me, his mouth open. “Whoa! Does that mean that puts himself in his pictures?”
“That’s what it sounds like. I didn’t know that either.” I could not believe how much better Chris was doing with his reading. “So, you’ve been practicing your reading, haven’t you?” I said with a smile.
He beamed. “Mom has been taking me to the library and the bookstore. She even took me to the Picasso exhibit at the Denver Arts Museum during Thanksgiving break.”
His mother had been true to her word. I was happy for her and her relationship with her son. Chris had shared with me earlier that she had implemented a bedtime for him, something he was not too happy about. However, sitting before me was a bright-eyed, and awake, boy that barely resembled the Chris who started the year with me three months ago.
“OK, Chris, we are done for today…”
“No, Miss Johnson! I want to keep reading!” he begged.
“And you can…at your desk,” I said, smiling. Such a different child.
“OK,” he sighed, but he smiled as he made his way back to his desk.
So much had changed in so many lives over the past couple of weeks. Mom and Aunt Lana had gone to lunch since their altercation at Thanksgiving. Chris and his mother were getting along, as were Chris and I.
The only thing missing in my life was Alice.
I pushed the thought away as one of the students, Daniel, came up to ask me a question about his work.
I had other things to focus on.
***
I was so excited about the connection I had finally made with Chris, I decided to treat myself to a decaf cappuccino and an evening of window shopping at the mall.
Being the middle of the week, I found the mall to be decently quiet, which was a nice way to spend my time. No children ran around shouting, making for a much quieter experience. I had enough of that at school. A few people hustled past, most certainly on a path to a particular shop, while others, mostly women, meandered past windows, stopping to look at the displays or look through the sales racks sitting outside sop entryways.
I was of the latter group, sipping my hot drink and enjoying the Christmas displays. Money on a teacher’s salary was tight, but luckily window shopping was free, minus the price of my drink.
My typical path for window shopping consisted of the more business-style shops with clothing I would wear to work. However, tonight, I found myself looking at what I typically considered the ‘younger’ styles—low-cut shirts, tight jeans, high heels. As I made my way past these shops, my thoughts kept returning to my visit with Alice and her insistence that I buy clothes that were more fun, hipper, and sexier. That day I had been embarrassed, but I realized I had had my teacher glasses on. Now, looking at the displays, I found myself drawn to these once alien styles.
I entered a shop where a blue shirt with a low-cut neckline was displayed on the wall. “The color will bring out your eyes,” the clerk said as she walked up to me.
Just what Alice had told me about my blue dress. A dress that now hung in my closet. I had not worn it since the party in Colorado Springs, and I found myself wanting to wear it again. I felt sexy, beautiful, and desired when I w
ore it for Alice.
“Can I try it on?” I asked the clerk.
“Of course.” She pulled down a medium. “I usually wear large,” I said.
She smiled. “I can get you a large, but you really are a medium,” she said.
I wondered about this, but said nothing. Instead I made my way to the fitting rooms in the back of the store.
The shirt was tight and made my breasts push out, but it still fit nicely. I wondered about this. Was I trying to cover myself with my other clothing?
I looked at myself in the mirror again. Sure, I would not be able to wear it at school without a blazer or sweater over it. However, it certainly could be appropriate for weekends.
“I’ll take it,” I said. I was in awe of how quickly I made that decision and not once did I consider what was appropriate for a teacher. This made me smile.
“Hello, Miss Johnson,” a voice said behind me.
I turned to see Pam Rogers, Jenny’s mother, behind me. “Hi, Mrs. Rogers, how are you?”
“I’m well, thank you.” She looked at the shirt I was buying and I held my breath. Would this parent judge me for buying something so low-cut?
“I love that shirt,” she said with a smile. “I bought one just a couple of days ago.”
I let out my breath and returned her smile. “Yeah, I love the color.” I paid the clerk and grabbed my bag. “It was good to see you. Tell Jenny I said hi.”
“She’ll be so jealous she wasn’t here to see you. You know she just loves you.”
“She’s a great girl, a great student. I’m honored to have her in my class.”
Pam beamed. “Well, she’s lucky to have you. Have a good night, and I’ll let Jenny know I saw you.”
I left the store, my mood even lighter than it had been when I got to the mall. To some, buying clothes would not seem like a very risque activity, but for me, it was a moment of triumph. It was as if my real self, my genuine self, was finally coming out.
Chapter Seventeen
By the time I got home, I was flying. My real self was starting to come out, and it was freeing. However, as I looked around my apartment, I also realized that something was missing.
I put my new shirt in a drawer, folding it lovingly and patting it as if it were a baby before sliding the drawer back into place. My mind turned to the blue dress and I walked over to the closet, opened the door, and pulled the dress out, holding it away from me and seeing myself once again wearing it, Alice’s eyes traveling down my body, filled with a desire that I knew was a mirror of my own. She brought out something in me I never knew was there. And now that I had found it, I didn’t want to bury it again. I wanted to be that person, that woman that was admired for both her brains and her beauty. I wondered how I got to this place where it had to be one or the other.
The conversation with Karen came to mind and I realized that somewhere along the way, I had become a different person. It was not a bad change per se, but it certainly was not who I was inside.
I went to the living room and plopped myself onto the sofa to watch a movie. Scanning through my list of favorites, MOVIE popped up and my heart stopped. I quickly changed the TV to watch cable and flipped through the channels, stopping when an MMA match showed on the screen.
Would I never get away from all these remembrances of Alice? First the dress, then the movie, and now this match?
I threw the remote on the coffee table. For whatever reason, I could not get that woman out of my head. She was there at every turn. My brain, and my heart, felt like they would explode at any moment.
Then I did something I had not done since I was a child. I picked up a pillow from the sofa, shoved it against my face, and screamed into it as hard and as loud as I could. The muffled sounds were barely heard in the room, but they reverberated in my head. I pulled the pillow away, took a deep breath, and screamed into the pillow again, forcing all of my frustration, all of my anger at myself into it until I was spent. Tears ran down my face when I finally put the pillow down.
Regardless of how different I thought we were, how unbelievable my ideas that her lifestyle would somehow affect my teaching job, I realized I had been deceiving myself. I had to see her again. The fear that she would not want me anymore raged through my body, but I pushed it aside. Somehow my need for her rose to the surface and everything else, the concern, the issues, all that I used as excuses made no difference whatsoever.
She was my other half, and I needed her.
***
I took a deep breath as I held my finger over the send button on my phone. Once I had calmed down enough, I wrote out a text, deleted it and rewrote it several times before finally deciding that, regardless of the outcome, despite the choices I had made in the past, I had to see her again, even if it was to explain how she made me feel. Although I wanted to lay my heart out, doing it in a text did not have enough feeling, it lacked what I needed behind the words. So, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to see her in person.
The final text was simple:
Need to talk. Important. Meet me at Thornton Park at 2 today.
I closed my eyes and touched the screen. When I opened my eyes again, I realized I had missed the button completely. Was this a sign? Did I need to go into this with my eyes opened?
I was not one to fantasize about silly things like this, so, taking another deep breath, I hit send, my eyes wide open and my heart pounding.
I received a response within a few minutes.
See you there.
I jumped up and threw on my coat. What was I thinking? I had only given myself thirty minutes to get to the park, and it was a twenty-minute drive. I hoped traffic wasn’t too heavy. After a quick glance at my reflection in the mirror, I headed to my car. She would just have to accept me the way I looked right now, disheveled and messy. What I would have preferred would be to wear the sexy blue dress for her, let her take me back to her place and make sweet love to me. But this is what I had to work with on such short notice.
Traffic was not bad, and I made quick work of the distance to the park. After pulling into a parking space, I took one more look at myself in the mirror and cringed. My hair needed to be brushed, my makeup needed touching up, and my clothes were not date-style. But I did not care. All I cared about was talking to Alice.
I saw her before she saw me and the electricity coursed through my body as I watched her sachet toward me. My breath caught in my throat and I wondered if I would have the air to even get any words out.
Her eyes caught mine, but she did not smile. This threatened to unnerve me, but I steadied myself and straightened my back. I never allowed anything to stand in my way before, and I certainly was not going to allow it to happen now.
“Hello,” Alice said formally.
“Hi,” I squeaked. “Let’s go sit in the gazebo.”
“Look, I’m only here because you said it was important. You made it perfectly clear before that we aren’t right for each other, so if you’re here to waste my time, I will just leave now.” I could hear the hurt and anger in her voice and I knew then how much I had hurt her.
“Please, I just want to talk.”
Alice sighed. “Fine,” she said and headed across the grass, me following behind her.
We sat on the bench inside the gazebo, the cold breeze chilling me, but I ignored it.
“So, what’s this all about?” Alice asked.
I cleared my throat. I knew this conversation would be difficult, but I never thought it would be this difficult. “I have been thinking,” I said finally. “I’ve really missed you.” I paused to see if she would add anything. My hope was to hear her say, ‘I’ve missed you, too! I’m so glad you called, I’ve been wanting to get back together with you since we broke up.’ How much easier it would have been if that would have happened. Unfortunately, it was not the case. Instead, she sat in silence, her seething almost palpable.
“Look, I messed up,” I continued. “I know that. There is something about you, something t
hat…”
“Yeah, I know. Something bad. Something that you can’t be seen with because of some self-righteous image you must maintain.”
“Hey, I wasn’t the one kissing another woman at that party,” I said defensively.
Her eyes went wide. “What? What are you talking about.”
“When we were at that party in Colorado Springs, you kissed that girl Jonie on the mouth, and both of you seemed to enjoy it.”
She laughed, which only made me angry.
“Jonie? Jonie’s as straight as straight can be. She’s even engaged. Trust me, we’ve been great friends, and sure, we get crazy at parties sometimes, but we’ll never be a couple. I have zero interest in any of the girls I work with. Few are interested in women, first of all, and those who are usually are bi. I’m not into that. You may find this hard to believe with your narrow opinion of me, but I’m a woman woman.”
“So, you and Jonie have never done…anything together?”
She shook her head. “Has all this been about that?”
I looked down. “A lot of it, yes.”
She placed her hand on mine. “Look, I fell in love with you on our first date. Yeah, it sounds corny but it’s true. I know that when I drink I do crazy things, but I swear to you that there has been no one else since we started dating.” She pulled out her phone. “I can even show you that I pulled my profile from that dating site right after that first date.”
I waved my hand at her. “No, you don’t have to do that. You’re right. I was self-righteous. I had built this persona for my profession that leaked into my outside life. Instead of being myself, I thought I had to be that perfect role model, that perfect person.”
“You mean a person I am not.” Her voice was almost a whisper as she pulled her hand away.
“No. That’s the thing. You are that person. You are fun, outgoing, strong. You’re everything I wish I could be. When I was growing up, I spoke my mind. I wasn’t afraid of being different, of pushing the rules. I moved out of Sterling to get away from the small-town life, to get away from the small-mindedness. The big city held an appeal to me in so many ways. But what I found myself doing instead was creating a sense of self that is not who I am.”
Perfect Match: A Lesbian Romance Page 10