Like a Book

by Bette Hawkins

  All morning at the library she looked for June. Trish stared at the entrance every time another student walked through the door, but June never came in. June must be tired and was most likely at home in bed. She’d had even less sleep than Trish, because she had come over straight from work at the bar.

  When Trish was alone at the desk, it all came flooding to her. It had happened so fast, and it was so raw and urgent between them. Trish had never been uninhibited like that. It was strange and wonderful that she’d been that way, given that it was their first time. Even though Trish and June had not spoken much over recent weeks, she had trusted June enough to let herself go in a way that she never had with anyone else, not even Katrina.

  During her lunch break, Trish sat in the breakroom and blew at the top of her mug to cool down her coffee. There was no way she could see Katrina again tonight. She picked up her phone and typed a message.

  “I can’t do tonight, we’ll need to reschedule. I’ll call you later.”

  “Hey, there,” Trish said, turning her phone over as Ms. Rose pulled a chair up to the opposite side of the table.

  “How was your weekend, dear?”

  “Nothing special. How about you?”

  “Very busy. Went to a leather bar, checked out a strip club on King Street. The usual.”

  Trish laughed, then covered her mouth as she yawned.

  “You look tired. Late night?”

  “Yes, but not because of anything as fun as a leather bar. My house was broken into last night.”

  “What are you even doing here today!” Ms. Rose said. “Why don’t you take some sick leave and go home?”

  “Thank you but I’m okay.”

  “It’s quiet, we can manage without you. Go on home,” Ms. Rose said, patting her arm.

  Trish smiled at her. “You know, you’re right, I should do that.”

  Trish used the free time when she arrived home to call a locksmith. It was a pointless exercise to have the locks changed but it made her feel better to do it. Once everything had been arranged, Trish sat and looked at her phone.

  She had to call June. It wasn’t right that they hadn’t spoken since falling asleep in one another’s arms. June had held her from behind, a hand splayed over her stomach while her face was buried in Trish’s hair. June’s breath was light on her skin. Right before she’d fallen asleep, June had kissed her shoulder. Trish was desperate to know how they had gone from that to the empty space in her bed. Her mind kept filling the space with ideas, like maybe June had been in another accident on her way home. There might be something serious that had prevented her from coming to the library that morning.

  Finally, Trish drew a deep breath and dialed. As she had feared it might, her call went through to message bank, and she froze at the request to leave a message. Afterward she sat and stared at her screen for a long time.

  Trish typed, “hello June” then changed it to “hey.”

  She deleted “Thank you for coming by,” instead writing, “thank you so much for coming over.”

  “When can I see you?” was replaced by, “I hope I can see you soon.”

  She hit send, then sat staring at her phone to wait for a reply.

  While she was still holding it, it rang, and Trish grimaced at Katrina’s name on the screen.

  “Hello,” Katrina said, her tone clipped.

  Trish’s head dropped forward. “Hey Katrina, what’s up?”

  “I was wondering when you were going to call and explain why you broke our date.”

  “Someone broke into the house while I was sleeping last night,” Trish mumbled.

  “Someone broke in? You should have called me, I would have come over.”

  “Thanks, but I had someone else come around,” Trish said.

  “Oh. Leigh?”

  “Not her, a friend.”

  “Well…I can come over now? We don’t have to go out, but I could keep you company?” Katrina said.

  “Thanks for offering, but I really just want to have an early night. I didn’t get much sleep at all. I wouldn’t be very good company anyway.”

  Trish imagined Katrina sitting on the other end of the line, trying to calculate how much further she could push things until Trish would relent. She was so good at wearing Trish down. Thankfully, she dropped it.

  “How about the morning? I could get some coffee, buy a couple of things for breakfast. I’ll cook. What do you think?”

  Trish put a hand over her face. She wished she had the energy to just ask for more space. “Sure. That sounds great, thank you.”

  Trish got into bed after having checked the locks for the fifth time. She thought she would have trouble sleeping under the circumstances, but she was so weary that she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. She glanced at the clock when she woke up, shocked that it was almost time for Katrina to come over. Trish had told herself the night before that she was going to spend some time in the morning thinking about what she wanted to say to Katrina, and now there was no opportunity.

  Katrina knocked at the door insistently until Trish answered. Coming inside, Katrina put down the coffee and the brown paper bag that held breakfast provisions, then hugged Trish. Trish stood stiffly, then brought her arms around Katrina.

  “I’m so sorry. How did they get in? Were any of the windows broken?”

  “Oh, they did something to pick the lock. I’ve already had them change it for a better one.”

  “Good, I’m glad to hear it. You let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  Katrina had released her, but her hand was on Trish’s arm. Trish stared at the brown bag, not really seeing it.

  “Shall I start getting this together?” Katrina asked.

  Trish watched Katrina while she moved around the kitchen, cracking eggs into a pan and making toast. It struck Trish that especially toward the end of their relationship, they hadn’t done much of this sort of thing. They never just hung out and talked. It was rare for her to have the feeling she had right now, that Katrina was looking after her. It made her wonder again whether Katrina had changed or if she was just on her best behavior.

  Trish was studying her, looking for clues that might solve that mystery, when Katrina caught her eye.

  “What are you thinking about?” Katrina asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Asking Katrina how much of this was real wouldn’t solve anything, it would just start a conversation that she wasn’t ready to have.

  Katrina served up breakfast, a heaped plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, which they ate out on the porch.

  Trish looked down at her drive, wondering if June had parked there the night of the break-in or if she’d been out on the street.

  It was one of winter’s rare sunny days, the air crisp. It would be a great day to go for a motorbike ride. Maybe June was out riding right now. Trish wished they were together, so that she could feel the wind against her skin, her skin against June, and the solid plane of June’s back against her.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Katrina said.

  Trish shrugged. “Why do you keep asking me what I’m thinking? It’s getting a bit much.”

  Katrina frowned. “Because of the way that you’re behaving. All skitterish. Are you nervous about the break-in, is that it? I know it must have been pretty scary.”

  “Yes, it was,” Trish said. “Very scary; it’s freaked me out.”

  “Who was it that you had come over here, anyway?”

  “I told you, a friend.”

  “I know that, I was just wondering which friend you’re talking about?”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “Is it the same friend you went to watch play roller derby?”

  “Yes,” Trish said, examining her fingernails.

  “So…who is she? How did you meet? Did you say she works at the university?”

  “That is what I said, I met her through work. You know, you really are asking a lot of questions.”

  Katrina�
�s knife and fork clattered to her plate. “Well, this ‘friend’ of yours is obviously someone you’re close to, if you can call her in the middle of the night in an emergency. I’d really like to know who she is.”

  Katrina made sarcastic air quotes around the word “friend.” Now she understood why Katrina had been so desperate to come over this morning. She was always more interested in something if someone else wanted it.

  “What business is it of yours?” Trish said.

  Trish couldn’t seem to contain her anger today, and she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to. She had never properly figured out whether she wanted Katrina back in her life and yet here she was, crowding her and taking up her morning.

  All Trish wanted was to be by herself. That was her answer. It came to her so quickly that she couldn’t understand why she had been ignoring the voice inside of her, over and over. It was obvious even before June had come over that she needed to end this.

  “I think you’re being really unfair now. If you didn’t want me to come over, you should have said so.”

  Trish looked down into her coffee. It was true. She kept acting like all of this stuff with Katrina was something that was happening to her, instead of something that she was participating in. She was being as passive as she had always been with Katrina, and it was leaving her just as unhappy as she’d always been.

  “All I’m asking for is for you to be honest with me. It’s obvious that there’s someone else in your life, I can see that things are different for you. Haven’t I always been honest with you?” Katrina asked.

  Trish had no intention of telling her anything. Her time with June was private, and she didn’t want to cheapen it by arguing with Katrina about it.

  “While we’re asking questions, I actually have one for you,” Trish said.

  “Nice deflection!” Katrina said.

  “Did your girlfriend really break up with you or was it the other way around?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I think it’s very relevant. You say that you’re honest but you’re not. You told me that you chose to break up with her. Look me in the eye and tell me that’s really the case, and I’ll be happy to drop it.”

  Katrina looked into her face and Trish felt nothing.

  “It was a mutual decision.”

  “I don’t think so. I think she dumped you, and you came back to me because you panicked.”

  “Where are you getting all this from? Trish, honey, you’re wrong.”

  “I don’t think I am. And you know what, I don’t care if I am or not. This is a waste of both of our time. I think the right thing happened in the first place, and we should just both move on.”

  Trish stood up to clear her plate, and picked up Katrina’s as well. She took no pleasure in Katrina’s pain, yet now that they were out of her mouth she believed in the absolute truth of her words. That was more important than the way either of them might feel right now.

  Trish walked to the kitchen and put the plates on the sink, leaning against the counter and taking a deep breath. She jumped when Katrina talked from behind her. “You’ve really made up your mind now, haven’t you?”

  Trish turned, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “I could tell from the first time I came over here that you didn’t love me anymore, you know,” Katrina said. “I don’t know why I persisted. I was hoping you’d remember how you’d felt before, and change your mind.”

  “Don’t talk like that. I’m sorry this hasn’t turned out the way you wanted, but I think we both know it’s for the best if we don’t see one another anymore. I’m sorry I didn’t say this before today.”

  Katrina looked back at her, then went and picked up her handbag from the entry table.

  “I wish you all the best,” Trish said. She knew that she was risking that the words might sound trite, but she meant them, and she hoped that Katrina would understand that.

  After a while, Katrina nodded back. “Same to you.”

  Katrina left, closing the door softly behind her. Trish sat down heavily on an armchair. It had all happened so quickly that it was making her head spin. She got up and went to find her folder, the one that held the lists of pros and cons. Trish pulled the papers from their folder and shook her head while she looked them over. How could she have ever thought something like this would be helpful?

  Throwing them in the trash was not enough. Trish tore the pages into a hundred little pieces each. She would have burned them if she had a fireplace.

  Chapter Seventeen

  June rifled through her papers. There was a page that had a quote highlighted on it, one that she wanted to use under a chapter title to introduce the subject. On her first pass, she couldn’t find it, and she was making a mess. She stood up to clear a couple of dirty mugs from the table, then made separate piles of paper so that she could figure out what she’d already looked at. She was carefully reading over the pages again when a loud belt of laughter rang out from the living room.

  For the past hour, she had been trying to ignore the voices coming from the next room. Max and Ollie were enjoying a morning of drinking coffee and talking while they watched Prince music videos online. Every now and then there was a loud noise, a phrase or laugh that broke through her concentration and grated on her nerves.

  June settled back into work, and then Max’s voice was raised as part of what sounded like a mock argument. She put her head in her hands.

  This was why she started going to the university library so much in the first place. Since her decision to not go back there she’d been visiting a public library, but it was further away and it meant she wasted a lot of time getting to school for class. This morning she didn’t have much time and just wanted to cram in as much work as she could. It was impossible with all this noise.

  Ollie came into the kitchen and pulled a pizza box out of the fridge. He did it quietly, practically tip-toeing across the room, and that irritated her even more.

  “I’m only going to be working in here for an hour or so, do you think you could keep it down until then?” June said.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. What is going on with you?”

  “Nothing. Sorry.”

  A chair scraped against the ground as Ollie pulled it out from the table and sat down. “Why are you here, anyway? You haven’t worked from home in a long time.”

  “No reason, I just felt like it this morning. I’ve got an earlier class than usual. Covering for someone else.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense when the library is on campus. That’s why you go there, isn’t it? What’s happened with Trish? Did the cold turkey thing get too hard?”

  June faced Ollie and looked him in the eye, because she knew she wouldn’t get away with it otherwise. “Nothing. Like I told you, I just felt like it this morning.”

  Ollie looked back at her with narrowed eyes, and slowly got up from his seat and picked up the pizza box. “I’m here any time you want to tell me what’s really going on.”

  Everywhere she looked, there were only empty spaces where June should be. Trish glanced at unoccupied desks as she passed them, almost able to see June sitting there with her work spread out before her. There was the cheeky grin, the thoughtful sigh, the slope of her neck as she put her hand there.

  Trish had tried to call June four times now and each time it went through to voice mail. She was trying to accept the fact that June didn’t want to hear from her, though at first she’d clung to the fantasy that there might be a good reason for it. Several times a day Trish started drafting a text message to June. The words were always inadequate, and they would go unanswered no matter what she said anyway.

  When June was still coming to the library but basically ignoring her, it was painful, but not like this. At least she had the pleasure of looking at June. There were smiles now and then, or significant glances that she could tuck away. Those were the little things that convi
nced her there was still a connection between them, one that might be rekindled one day.

  Now, she was just gone.

  Trish went to the break room to make a pot of coffee. Each morning she dragged herself out of bed to go for a run, but she no longer enjoyed pushing herself. She was spending more time than ever by herself, filling her time with reading or anything that would disconnect her from her lonely reality.

  It was too hard to be around Leigh and Andrew, because Trish still hadn’t told her sister most of what had gone on with June. Leigh didn’t even know about the failed attempt at dating Katrina again. Trish wanted to talk about it all, needed to, but she had no idea where to start. She was afraid that if she talked to Leigh it would really hit home how stupid she’d been, trying to juggle two women and ending up alone.

  “Is there enough for me to have one as well?”

  “Huh? Oh sure,” Trish replied. She smiled vaguely at Ms. Rose, who kept having to remind her that she could call her Jodie.

  They poured coffee into their mugs, and Trish went to take hers back to out to the main area of the library.

  “Wait, why don’t we sit for a minute? It’s quiet, we don’t need to get back out there right now.”

  “Sure,” Trish said.

  They had been sitting for a few moments when Jodie leaned forward, putting a hand on the table in front of her.

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you something, Trish. Would you mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “What do you mean? I haven’t been messing up with anything, have I? I thought I was doing okay?”

  Trish jumped when Jodie placed a hand on her own, patting it gently before she took it away. Trish’s throat tightened at the compassion in Jodie’s face. She hadn’t been feeling very good about herself lately, or very likable.

  “You’ve been doing as good a job as always. We don’t know one another all that well but you just seem distracted to me, not quite yourself.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologize for, dear. I’m not asking you to make you feel self-conscious. But if you want to talk about anything, you can talk to me.”