Substitute for Love

by Karin Kallmaker

  “I want… I want tomorrow.” Reyna was off the bed as she spoke, gathering her clothes. She did not know where she found the strength. “I have to go.” In a panic, she buttoned her shirt and yanked on her pants. If she didn’t

  leave now she never would. Tomorrow would come and with it her future smashed to bits again. Holly’s future, and her mother’s future, too.

  She stumbled to the door, but hesitated when Holly said, “Wait,” behind her.

  “I have to go. Now.” Reyna stood in the open doorway, knew if she looked back she would be lost in Hades forever. She walked out into the empty night.

  Holly chased after her, not yet buttoned, and caught up to Reyna as she threw her leg over the bike. “I’ll be here next week. Say you’ll be here.”

  “I can’t.”

  Reyna kept her gaze on her hands and fought the desire to look up at Holly one last time. She put on her helmet and chanced a sideways look. Holly hadn’t buttoned her shirt and she was naked underneath. Reyna’s mouth watered and she was dizzy with heat.

  Holly kissed her then, a hard, demanding kiss, a kiss meant to get Reyna off the motorcycle and into bed again.

  Reyna whimpered with the pain of saying no. “I can’t.” Holly said something else, but the bike’s ignition drowned it out. In a heartbeat she walked the bike backward enough to clear the parking space. In another heartbeat she was gone. Her heart wasn’t even beating, she thought, not anymore. There was no air, no tomorrow, not even a tonight.

  Holly sat on the motel bed, her mind a whirl of information she strove to sort and quantify so she could make use of it. She tried to draw up equations to explain Reyna, but nothing made any sense. Reyna was a closeted conservative, who sought out anonymous lesbian sex from time to time. Otherwise, she was deeply involved in promoting antigay organizations. Wouldn’t the result of such conflict produce either shame or a tissue of rationalizations that the sex meant less than it did?

  Reyna was clearly not ashamed of liking sex with a woman. She acted like someone with a secret, but not one based on self-hatred or denial. She loved sex and had not afterward tried to characterize it as less that it was.

  The rejection Holly felt was intense and humiliating, but if she just knew why maybe she could bear it. Who was Reyna Putnam really? How could she find out?

  She felt powerless, and it had been less than thirty minutes since she had felt powerful for the first time in her life. Leaning over Reyna, listening to the rhythm of Reyna’s breathing and feeling the pulse of Reyna moving under her — she had never felt so connected to anyone, never sensed that she could have such an impact on someone else. She had loved the feeling and hated the way she felt now. And she did not know what she could do about any of it, except live with it.

  “Miss Putnam.”

  The voice came from far away.

  “Miss Putnam.”

  Reyna waved one hand to make the voice leave her alone.

  “You can’t stay here.”

  Why was her head so heavy? She reached up and touched it. Oh. Her helmet. She loosened the strap. It was easier to breathe.

  “You have to pull yourself together.”

  Hateful voice. It belonged to… someone not hateful, but not a friend. She had no friends. She wasn’t permitted.

  A hand touched her elbow and she slapped at it. She wanted to stay here. Where was here?

  She opened her eyes. She was lying on a bus stop bench. Her face felt a mess, her eyes like sandpaper. She had been crying.

  Holly.

  She was seized by a torrent of sobbing, and the hand became an arm, levering her off the bench and into a car that smelled of stale coffee in styrofoam cups.

  They were driving, where she didn’t know. “My bike,” she was able to say, finally.

  “It’s hanging most of the way out of the trunk. I think you fell off.”

  “I stopped for the light and I couldn’t hold it up anymore. I had to sit down.” So I could cry, she could have added. So I could try to survive this pain. Not even giving up Kim had hurt like this.

  “Do you just leave the bike in the garage? Is there a key?”

  She looked out the window and realized finally that they had come to a stop. Marc Ivar had obviously been able to follow her, finally. “Under a mat at the top of the stairs.”

  “Trusting guy.” He went up to get the key. Reyna got out of the car to help ease the bike out of the trunk. She was amazed that it had fit at all, and as Marc had said, it was more out than in.

  “Let me take you to your car,” he said when they had locked the garage again.

  “I’ll walk.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I’ll take you.”

  “You’re not my father,” she snapped.

  He made no reply, so she got back in the car. He circled the block, then idled next to her car where it sat at the curb. “Get some sleep,” was all he said.

  She made it to the parking garage in her building, and stumbled up to the apartment. She doubled over several times, holding her stomach against the grief. Once inside she let go again, and cried into the carpet. It was where she was when she woke up hours later, with a blinding headache that, in the end, she thought she deserved.

  14

  “You’ll never guess who just called me.”

  Tori sounded excited, but Holly had to dig down to find even a meager level of interest. She felt dead inside. She’d felt that way for the last three days. “Since I’ll never guess why don’t you tell me?”

  “Sue from Alpha, who, you may be surprised to learn, is a lesbian.”

  “I had wondered about her,” Holly admitted. “What did she want?”

  “Well, she’s out now. Jim Felker has been sent to diversity training and relocated to the Shreveport office. Sue has been authorized to offer me not only my job back, but, without admitting any wrongdoing, a track in their in-house actuarial training. And back pay.”

  “Wow.” The possibilities for Tori did perk her up a little bit. “But I thought you’d accepted the offer from United Indemnity.”

  “I was going to call them this morning. I had my hand on the phone when it rang. And Sue is going to call you, too.”

  “I’m not interested in going back,” Holly said. “I mean, I’m happy for you, if that’s what you want.”

  “I think I do. Geena says it’s up to me. Everything will be like it was, except I’ll get a promotion, eventually, and I’ll work for an out lesbian. Sue is so closed-mouth, but I think she ripped Jim Felker a new one, and didn’t stop there. She just handled things in her own way.”

  She might never have needed to quit, Holly thought after she had hung up. What a mind-boggling thought. She might still be with Clay, not knowing the physical ecstasy of being with a woman. She might not have this almost unbearable ache wearing her down. Reyna Putnam was the ache. Her mysterious behavior just compounded it.

  She’d read all she could find on the Internet, even bought Grip Putnam’s autobiography. Reyna was his illegitimate child, and had grown up here in Irvine as a part of a small, closed society formed by the conservative politicos of the area. But there was little more than that to be known. She had an impressive educational background, including a Ph.D in governmental policy from Georgetown. None of that explained why she would stay in the closet. Solve for the simplest answer, Holly told herself for the hundredth time. She stays in the closet because it’s personally expedient.

  That solution worked until she remembered the anguish in Reyna’s eyes when she’d ridden away.

  The phone rang and it was indeed Sue, offering her old job back. Holly explained that she was going back to school, but congratulated Sue on being able to patch things up with Tori.

  She had just hung up the phone when it rang again. After she said hello, a gravelly voice said, “U.C. Medical Center, fourth floor ICU, room four thirteen. It will be worth your trouble.” The line went dead.

  What on earth? It had to be a wrong number. What could possibly b
e of interest to her at the medical center?

  Her mind wouldn’t leave it alone. Because she spent most of her time listlessly thinking about Reyna, she began to assume the call was about Reyna. After all, true coincidence is rare, she told herself. A mysterious phone call probably does relate to a mysterious woman in your life.

  It was ridiculous, and contrary to common sense. Sometimes, common sense was more valid than formulas and axioms and unproven theories. She wasn’t going to go running about on the proverbial wild goose chase.

  Of course she went.

  She’d been to the emergency room once, when she’d cut herself with a kitchen knife, but she knew nothing more about the hospital than that. She found the fourth floor intensive care unit easily, though, and then felt foolish and conspicuous. She walked the corridor slowly, trying to find where room 413 was without prompting anyone to offer help or ask who she was.

  Two women in white were conferring at the nurses’ station, and didn’t look up as she passed. She heard one say to the other, “Next patient. Langston, Gretchen, updated meds order,” before launching into a string of indecipherable terms. Holly kept going, and considered retracing her steps to the elevator when what she had heard suddenly clicked. Langston had been Reyna’s birth name. Her mother… The name had been something Germanic starting with a G. Gretchen could be it.

  She found herself in front of room 413. It seemed bizarre to be here. The door was propped open, so she peered inside, having no idea what she would find.

  There were two women asleep in the room. The one on the hospital bed had to be Reyna’s mother. They shared cheekbones and a jawline, and the same dark hair and brows. She looked as if she would float away in even the gentlest of breezes. Her skin was tautly stretched over her frame, and even in sleep deep lines of pain were etched into a face marked with vivid red patches.

  The other woman was seated in the room’s only chair, resting her head on her arms on the bed, and breathing steadily and deeply. She’d never seen Reyna asleep, and even now she couldn’t see her face.

  This was a clue, but not one she could comprehend. She remembered Reyna saying at the theater that her mother was dying from a long and painful illness; she felt the only thing she could do was work to pay the bills. There was an answer here, but one so private she felt abruptly that she could not pry, even though her heart begged her to try. And who on earth had called her? She turned to go.

  “What are you doing?” The nurse at the door had a no-nonsense directness. “Who are you?”

  “I’m lost,” Holly whispered. “I think I got the room wrong.”

  “What patient are you looking for?”

  “Maternity,” Holly stammered. She was a bad liar, and knowing she was didn’t help.

  “Maternity is on eleven.”

  “I didn’t know.” That, at least, was the truth.

  Someone stirred behind them and Holly froze. There was the rustle of someone getting to her feet.

  “What’s going on?” Reyna’s voice, sleepy and unfocused.

  Holly had no choice but to turn. Recognition hit Reyna like a sledgehammer. She literally staggered.

  “I’m sorry,” Holly whispered.

  Reyna recovered, then crossed the room toward her. “You have to go,” she said tautly. “I don’t know what coincidence brought you here—”

  “There’s no such thing as coincidence,” Holly told her.

  “Should I get security?” The nurse seemed poised to do so.

  Reyna shook her head violently at the nurse, but spoke to Holly. “You have to go.”

  “Reyna?” The thin voice stopped them all. Holly saw Reyna close her eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “Just someone lost, Mom.” Her eyes opened again and silently pleaded with Holly to go, and quickly. Reyna’s mother said, “You must be Holly.”

  Reyna was faint with fear. Her mother gestured to Holly to come closer, and Holly was going. All she had suffered, all she had done would be for nothing if Holly was discovered here.

  “Who told you I was coming?”

  “A nice detective who dropped in earlier today,” her mother answered. “He used to work for the agency Grip has always used. He told me an interesting story.”

  “Mom, he was just a troublemaker.” Marc Ivar was a dead man.

  Her mother ignored her. “When did you meet my daughter?”

  “Last week,” Holly answered. “Wait, two weeks ago, but the first time didn’t count. I’ve only known who she was for about a week.”

  “Yes, she said you didn’t exchange last names.”

  Holly had known who she was when they had last met, Reyna realized. She had known. Some of the things she had said now made sense. Her confusion and that flash of disdain when Reyna had at first refused to get undressed — my God, she thinks I’m like Irene. She thinks I like the kicks, but I don’t consider myself gay.

  And yet, she had stayed, and had made love to her, knowing who Reyna was and what she did for a living.

  Her mother’s inquisition had not stopped. “I do apologize for the fact that the detective delved into your background a bit. Apparently, that was a standing order when Reyna was involved — no matter how casually or how seriously — with anyone. He said you lost your mother when you were young.”

  “I did.” Holly went on answering her mother’s questions, questions Reyna had longed to ask but couldn’t, not when there were no tomorrows.

  She was desperate to get Holly out of the building. The hospital’s nurse was listening avidly, but she left abruptly when her beeper sounded. Reyna quickly shut the door.

  “Mom, you need your rest.”

  “I just woke up, dear. What exactly does a conceptual mathematician do?”

  “We play games a lot.” Holly had a patient smile. “I say we, but I’m not actually one, not yet. I’m going back for my master’s though.”

  “That’s a good idea. There’s no substitute for education.”

  Holly glanced up at Reyna, who was trying to figure out how to drag Holly out of the room. Out of the room and into the nearest bed. Stop it, she willed herself. This won’t work.

  “Well, very few things.” Holly ran one hand through her hair. Reyna couldn’t help but remember that hand and how it had felt on her. “I didn’t finish my studies because I thought I was in love, but that didn’t actually turn out so well.”

  Holly’s eyes were dark with a misery that Reyna recognized. Behind the dark was a kind of silvery light, as if some dim glory was nurtured and would someday be set free. Was that pity? No, she didn’t want that from Holly. She didn’t want it any more than Holly had seemed to want it, when she explained the circumstances of her conception. Neither of them wanted anything founded on pity.

  “We all make mistakes when we’re young.”

  “Mom, Holly has to go.”

  “No, she doesn’t.” Her mother spoke with surprising asperity. Reyna hadn’t seen her so animated in a long while. “Have you ever seen a detective here in the hospital? I think we’re safe, for the moment. The detective seemed to think so, since he is assigned to you this weekend and no one in his office yet knows he has resigned.”

  Fuck Marc Ivar. Fuck him and his pension and his meddling. “I don’t know what he told you, but you don’t need to worry about it,” she said tersely.

  “That’s my job. You should have told me.”

  “I think I should go,” Holly said.

  “Oh, fine, now you want to go,” Reyna snapped. “Great.”

  “Don’t leave yet, Holly. Please sit down.” Her mother reached for the water, but let her arm fall back to the bed with a grimace of pain. Holly quickly picked it up and offered the straw. “Thank you. I have more questions and sometimes it’s hard to talk.”

  “You should save your strength,” Holly suggested.

  “You’re probably right, I’m going to need it. Stop flitting about, Reyna. You’re giving me a headache.”

  “Mom, you don’t have to be inv
olved in this. It’s between me and him.” She could feel Holly’s gaze on her. She couldn’t cope with pity and would not meet her gaze.

  “But it’s all about me.”

  She should never have told Marc Ivar the truth. Damn him, he had had no right. He didn’t know anything about her mother’s condition or what the stress of this encounter would do to her. “You don’t need to worry.”

  “I thought after we talked last week that I would see you happy again. But you only look worse. I’ve never seen you so depressed. I knew there was a reason and I knew I’d never find out from you. You keep secrets, just like your father. I didn’t know he was married for the first three months we were together.”

  “I’m not like him.” The very idea was repellent.

  “When it comes to the stupid certainty that nothing can be done in this world unless you do it yourself, you are exactly like him.” Her mother stopped abruptly and turned her gaze toward the water. Holly brought it to her without speaking. “Thank you,” her mother said again.

  There was a knock at the door. Reyna hurried to tell whoever it was to go away.

  “If that’s the stenographer, have him or her come in.”

  Stenographer? Mother of God, what was going on? It was a stenographer. He was neatly dressed, and tucked under one arm he had a transcription machine like those used in courtrooms. She let him in because he was expected, but she didn’t know for what.

  Holly gave up the chair as he settled in.

  “I’m afraid I racked up quite a phone bill this morning.” Her mother introduced everyone to the stenographer, whose name was Scott, then said to him, “When we’re done each day how long will it be before I get copies back?”

  “Less than twenty-four hours if you like.”

  “If I asked you to deliver another copy to someone else, could you do that?”

  “Certainly. It’s often done.”

  “That’s wonderful. Let’s begin then.”

  Holly was standing in the corner near the window and she looked as dazed as Reyna felt. Reyna was furious with her for staying when she had pleaded with her to go. Her mother didn’t have energy like this to spare. She was all stirred up because of Marc Ivar and now meeting Holly. She didn’t know what was going to happen when her father discovered what had transpired. And he would find out, and when he did, everything would shatter, starting with her.