by Lynn Ames
“No coat?”
“Nope. They stay in the tropics now. It’s never below twelve degrees. Centigrade,” she added, when Laurie’s eyes widened briefly.
“You didn’t mention underwear.”
Taj laughed again. “He wears it, but he usually buys a couple of pair when he gets to where he’s going. He wears his shoes until they fall apart, then gets whatever the local people are wearing. It wouldn’t bother him to go without, either. He’s the simplest man you’ll ever meet.”
“I feel like I know your parents from their writing. I’d give anything to be like they are—real writers.”
“You’re not a real writer? Why not?”
“I’m a hack,” she said, sounding disgusted. “I crank a book out in a month.”
“Why do you write if you’re not proud of what you do?”
She looked so ingenuous that Laurie could feel tears of shame come to her eyes. “I’m good at it. I make a nice living from it, and I like plotting the books out. That part is a lot of fun. But doing the actual writing has gotten so formulaic.” She practically moaned the last sentence.
“Then make it less formulaic.”
“I can’t. My publisher wants me to keep repeating the formula until sales fall off. Which they are definitely not doing,” she added, chuckling. “I convinced them to let me do another series, but now I’m stuck doing three different formulas. I’ve got my original series, the one I write under my own name. That’s set in the current day.”
“That seems most logical.”
“Not for mysteries. I got smart and put my next one in the seventies, which allows me to write without having cell phones and computers and all of the things that make mysteries easier to solve.”
Taj’s eyes twinkled with interest. “Very smart. I’ve never considered how technology would make it harder to write a tight plot.”
“It can, but it can also help. My latest is in two thousand forty, which lets me make up all of the stuff I want.”
“That’s pretty clever.”
“Yeah, it kept me interested for a couple of years. But I really want to try to write something more…literary.”
Taj rolled onto her belly, her head propped up by her braced hands. “Then do that.”
“I guess I should.”
“I used my sharp powers of observation to discern that you’re not crazy about your agent. What does she think?”
Giggling, Laurie said, “I really showed some fantastic attributes today, didn’t I?” She shook her head ruefully. “She wants me to chug them out and never call her.”
“That’s not uncommon.”
“I know. I just wish she’d help me try to find my voice.” She shrugged. “I guess that’s unfair of me to expect. That’s not what her interest is. I’d need an agent that can sell what I’d like to write.”
“Let me introduce you to our agent. He’s great at finding homes for books that won’t ever be in the airport kiosks.”
With a smile slowly blooming, Laurie nodded. “I’d love that. But I still need to put out new mysteries to earn a good living. Literary fiction doesn’t sell.”
“Then live with less. You could cut back.”
“Yeah, I guess I could, but my father…kinda depends on me.”
“Oh.” Concern colored Taj’s expression. “Is he ill?”
“No, he’s fine. He’s just…my aunt says he’s a user, but he says he’s never gotten a break.”
“Who’s right?”
“My aunt.” She sighed and lay down, looking up into the amazingly clear night. “Look at the stars! I’ve never, ever seen this many stars!”
Taj looked, not mentioning that there were places in Africa where the sky was nearly white from the vast number of visible stars. “It’s nice. Tell me more about your dad.”
“Well, he’s always asking me for money, and I tend to give it to him. My aunt, his sister by the way, says he’s always been a mooch and that I’m only rewarding him for his bad behavior.”
“I’m glad I’m an only child. I’d hate to have my sister say that about me.”
“Yeah, me too. There’s no love lost there. But my aunt’s been like a second mother to me.”
“Your mom…?”
“Died when I was twelve. Blood poisoning.”
“What? That’s a pretty third-world cause of death. What happened?”
“We didn’t have health insurance and she didn’t go to the ER until it was too late.”
Taj flinched in sympathy. “That’s horrible. Just horrible.”
“It was,” she agreed, her voice soft and shaky. “I blame my dad for not providing for us, but I blame her too. She married him,” she added, disgust in her tone.
“That sounds very hard.” Taj reached over and took Laurie’s hand, chafing it gently. “My parents had their faults, but I always knew they’d protect me. It must make the world a scary place when you don’t have that.”
Laurie turned her head just enough to let Taj see that her eyes were bright with tears. “The world was a scary place for me. We moved all the time, and each time was worse. Eventually, I stopped even trying to make friends.”
“How did you learn to be so friendly? So easy with people? You interacted with your fans as though you didn’t have any barriers at all. You seemed really genuine.” Taj had been tenderly stroking the skin on the back of Laurie’s hand. Her eyes seemed so focused on making out all of the details of that single piece of her body in the dim light that Laurie felt freer to talk about her feelings. It was always easier for her when she didn’t have to look another person in the eye.
“Thanks for saying that. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I came out of my shell when I started writing. Having that vent allowed me to start being who I guess I really am.” She smiled sadly. “The person I would have been a lot sooner if I’d had a more stable home.”
Continuing to gaze and play with Laurie’s hand, Taj said, “Sometimes I play around trying to figure out who I would be if I’d been born to a couple of regular stay-at-home people in Chicago or Minneapolis or someplace normal.” She let out a low chuckle. “It’s impossible. There are so many factors that go into making each of us unique that it’s folly to try to add or remove a variable.”
Laurie had a sudden need to see Taj’s beautiful eyes. She gently touched her cheek and their eyes met. “You don’t speak like a woman who didn’t graduate from high school.”
Grinning, Taj said, “I don’t know if that’s a compliment for me or an indictment of formal schooling.”
“I think the latter. Your parents did a good job.”
“Thanks. I’m pretty happy with my education. The only thing I know nothing about is popular culture. I’ve seen a lot of television, but most of it has been overseas.”
“Did you ever own a television?”
Taj laughed. “No. Not by a long shot. But just about everybody else on earth has one and when we’d stay with other people we’d sometimes watch.”
“So if I talk about The Sopranos or Seinfeld, you don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“I’ve seen an episode or two of Seinfeld. My uncle really likes it and I think it’s on once or twice a day when I’m at their house. I’m aware of The Sopranos, but only from reading references to it.” She looked thoughtful for a few moments. “It’s kind of like hearing about a very close friend’s family. You know a lot of things about them, but you couldn’t necessarily pick them out in a crowd. That’s how I feel about most popular television shows. As for the less popular ones, they never cross my radar.”
“But I bet you know a zillion things about a bunch of different countries. I think I’d trade my TV trivia knowledge for some of yours.”
Taj’s eyes shone brightly even though only the starlight and the glow from the traffic on West Side Highway provided illumination. “You don’t have to trade away your knowledge. If you want some of mine all you have to do is travel and keep your eyes and ears open.”
<
br /> Laurie’s smile betrayed her embarrassment. “You probably won’t believe this, but Canada is the only foreign country I’ve been to.”
Taj didn’t look particularly surprised. “That’s not uncommon. When I tell people that I’m American quite often they ask me why I bother coming to their country. People often say that they’d never leave America if they could only get here.”
“I’m very interested in other countries and other peoples, but I’ve always found it satisfied me to read about them. I have to travel around the country for book tours at least once a year. I honestly hate every day I’m away from home.” She rolled her eyes. “You must think I’m a real rube.”
“Not a bit. I’m a firm believer in doing what makes you happy. Now, if you were unhappy being at home, I’d think you were selling yourself short. But if you like it, no one has the right to tell you to live differently.”
“I like the way you think. My friends are always telling me that I don’t know what I’m missing by not traveling.”
Taj’s smile was wicked. “I agree with them on that. You can’t really know what another place is like until you go there. But a lot of people prefer their own space to any other. So, you’d know what Botswana was like by going there, but you might hate every minute of it.”
Laurie looked at her for a few moments, clearly seeing that she was teasing. “Do you think I’d like it?”
Taj pursed her lips and her eyes narrowed in thought. “I’m not sure. The Kalahari Desert covers the majority of the country. How you feel about deserts?”
Getting into the game, Laurie said, “Hmm, I feel pretty good about them. Especially if they have animals I wouldn’t get to see anyplace else.”
“You can probably see most of the animals they have at the Bronx Zoo, but if you want to see them running free, you’ve probably got to leave New York.”
“What else do they have?” Threading her fingers together, she put her hands under her head and scanned the star-filled sky while waiting for Taj to respond.
“If you get tired of the desert, there is an area up in the north of the country that has a few good-sized hills and more varied terrain. That part isn’t tropical, so the weather is more…interesting. That’s where most of the really good basket weavers live too. Do you like baskets?”
“Who doesn’t like a good basket? So far it sounds like I would like Botswana.”
“I like it. Things have been good for quite a while now. The economy has been growing and people seem to get along well. They’re trying to increase their tourism, so they’d be happy to have you.”
“If I were to go somewhere, somewhere exotic, where would you send me?”
“That’s a big question. I’ve spent most of my time in Asia, South Asia, and Africa. So my view of the world is definitely skewed.”
“It has to be less skewed than mine is. I went to the trouble of getting a passport to go to Canada. I wanted to make sure I could prove who I was in case I got into a scuffle and was thrown into one of those Canadian jails.”
Taj had been discreetly studying Laurie’s face and she started to smile when the corner of Laurie’s mouth twitched. “I’ve heard about those jails. People in Turkey often say they’d go to North America if it weren’t for the threat of being thrown into a Canadian prison.”
“You can’t be too sure."
Taj furtively moved her hand across the space that separated them and gave Laurie a playful tickle. “I think you can be too sure. You have to tolerate some uncertainty to see the fun side of life.”
“Do you really think that’s true?”
“I’m afraid it is. Life is brutal, painful, demoralizing and tragic. And it’s over in the blink of an eye. I believe you’ve got to find pleasure and take it whenever you can.”
“My mom wouldn’t have liked you,” Laurie said, her smile looking a little sad. “She thought that life was all about having a little security and holding onto it as tightly as you could. Don’t ask why she married a man who had bill collectors chasing them all over New York.”
“Was that a rhetorical ‘don’t ask,’ or do you really not want to talk about it?”
“I’m happy to talk about it. I truly don’t know why she picked somebody so ill suited to what she claimed she wanted. For that matter, why would my father pick a wife who disapproved of almost everything he did?”
“That’s a tough one. I think a lot of people don’t know why they pick the person they partner with. I’m very cavalier about where I travel, but I’ll never be that way about picking a partner. I know exactly what I want, and if I can’t have it, I’m perfectly happy being alone.”
“You can’t make a statement like that without providing some details.”
“I can do that. If you’re interested.”
“I’m rapt. Give me what you’ve got.”
“Okay. My parents are so alike that they’ve almost grown into one person.” She gave Laurie a mischievous grin. “I don’t want that. I want a partner who has her own life, her own likes and dislikes, her own opinions. I don’t need someone to complete me. I want someone to complement me.”
“That’s a very good way to put it. I don’t think I’ve looked at it in those terms, but that’s kind of what I meant about my ex. She wanted to be in mylife rather than share her life with me. Does that make any sense?”
“It might. What did she do for a living?”
“Don’t think I’m an ass, but I’m not sure. She worked for a big company, but she didn’t seem to know a lot about it. She didn’t make much money, so I don’t think her position was very responsible. But I had to guess about a lot of things. If she wasn’t interested in something, she acted like it didn’t exist. I can tell you a lot about some of her coworkers, but that probably wouldn’t hold your interest.”
“I guess it depends on who the coworkers were.”
“They were mostly other people who were also treated badly. There was always some plot by management to make some or all of them miserable.”
“So she didn’t like talking about her own work. Did she want to hear about yours?”
“Oh, yeah. She was a little jealous of the fact that I worked from home, but she was genuinely interested in my life, and my friends, and my family, and my interests. If I had taken up bow hunting she would have been at the sporting goods store buying arrows and camouflage clothes.”
“That sounds kind of nice. I think everyone wants to have a lover who’s interested.”
“Be careful what you wish for. It was almost like having an imaginary friend. She was always there, which was nice, but she didn’t have any depth.”
“You’re gonna think I’m psychic, but I’m going to guess two of her qualities.” She held up a hand and tapped her index finger. “One, I bet she was very good-looking. And two, I bet the age difference between you was more than five years.”
Laurie sat up and fixed her narrowed gaze at Taj. “How did you know that?”
“It’s common for younger women to glom on to a lover and act more like a shadow than an independent person. Plus,” she added, grinning, “it’s good for the ego to have a beautiful young woman look up to you like you’re terribly intelligent and so fascinating that everything you do is worth mimicking.”
Laurie slapped her hand over her eyes and peeked out through a tiny hole she made between her third and fourth fingers. “Am I that transparent?”
“You’re not unique. It’s easy to mistake sycophancy for respect. You were pretty well known when you got together, right?”
Laurie’s other hand covered the first one, completely hiding her eyes. “She was a fan.”
“Oh, no. That’s the kiss of death.”
She moved her hands so they bracketed her eyes. “Yeah, I see that now.” She lay on her side, watching Taj raptly.
“You can’t have a real relationship with someone who sees you more as an image than a person. It’s not fair to her.”
“That’s the awful truth. The thing
s that first attracted me to her were the things that I began to resent. I should have known better.”
“But you didn’t. If you made the same mistake again you’d be an ass. But I bet you don’t.”
“I’m doing my best not to. I will never again pick up a woman from a book signing.”
Taj gave her a smile so filled with innuendo that it was as though she had boldly propositioned Laurie. “You don’t have to be doctrinaire about it.”
Laurie felt herself moving slowly in Taj’s direction. They were soon on their sides facing each other, their breath heating the small space that separated them.
“There’s nothing wrong with picking up women in bookstores. Just make sure they don’t think you’re god’s gift to women. Choose someone who’s been around the block…or even the world.”
Laurie leaned forward just enough to be able to reach Taj’s lips. They kissed briefly, then Laurie moved back to look into Taj’s eyes where she saw clear sparks of interest. “That’s damned good advice.”
“I have another piece of advice.” Taj’s voice was low and sultry. “Life is short. Never stop at one kiss.”
***
It took Taj just a moment to feel comfortable kissing Laurie. The fact that she felt so comfortable made her slightly uncomfortable. She tried to ignore the plump tenderness of Laurie’s lips, the suppleness of her body, and the delicious sensation of once again holding a woman in her arms. Pulling away, she spent a few moments looking into Laurie’s welcoming eyes, puzzled as to why she didn’t feel her usual trepidation. Deciding that the adult thing to do was to give voice to her fears, she said, “It normally takes me a while to feel comfortable with someone.” She used her fingers to flip a lock of hair from Laurie’s forehead, then she kissed the now bare spot. “Why does this feel so natural?”
Laurie’s tone was teasing, but in a gentle way. “Maybe you’re a lesbian.”