by Suzie Carr
We paused, staring at each other. “When am I going to see you again?” I asked.
She reached out and put her hand to my cheek. “You’ve got a wedding to plan, baby.”
I put my hand to hers and closed my eyes. “I know.”
“I wish I understood why, though.”
I wanted to understand too. I removed her hand from my cheek and brought it to my lips and kissed it. It felt soft as velvet. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
“Then, why is it?”
If I didn’t have scruples, I’d fling my old life aside and run wild. But, my conscience grounded me. I rose, letting my hand slide from hers. “Because it has to be.”
She followed me to the door. Before opening it she pulled me into my arms. “Promise me something?”
“What’s that?”
“Promise me that if you don’t marry this guy, I get to be the first girl you kiss.”
“How about we make a pact that even if I do marry him, we get to kiss.”
“I don’t think you’re that kind of girl, Emma.”
“I meant in the future.”
“How far in the future?”
“When we’re eighty.”
“When who’s eighty? I’ll reach it a couple years before you.”
“Well, then you, of course.” I pulled back, “For now you can savor this.” I kissed her cheek.
She touched her cheek and smiled. “That’s not going to hold me, just so you know.”
I sighed. “I know. But, that’s all I’ve got for now.” I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “Now go get ready.”
“There is something so wrong about all of this.”
“Wrong about all of what?”
She leaned her head against the door. “About there not being a you and a me.” She began closing the door, slowly disappearing from my view.
How I wished I could abandon my principles and still live with myself.
Chapter 10
Colin arranged a meeting with our new realtor for that afternoon. He insisted we purchase a house instead of throwing any more money away on renting. He would purchase it in his name so we could purchase investment properties in my name down the road. He always planned ahead. The last thing I wanted to think about was house-hunting with my fiancé.
In less than five months, we’d be married. Yet, all I could think about was the cute way Haley’s lips curled when she smiled, the way her eyes twinkled when something excited her, the way she tilted her head back when she laughed.
I wondered what everyone would think if they discovered I had feelings for a woman. I doubted they’d ever understand.
Goldie might irrationally go back in time and try to assess my actions towards her. She would try to figure out if I had ever showed signs of attraction towards her when we did things together. She would think back to the times we went bathing suit shopping or sunbathed topless on her rooftop. She would freak out wondering if I, her oldest and closest friend, was really a pervert wanting to grab hold of her boobs. She was like a sister to me – a little older, wiser, and too hard-nosed to ever find sexy. She would be more freaked out than understanding. Our friendship would change. She would probably be afraid to leave me alone with Tatiana for fear I’d turn her into a lesbian.
My dad would be the biggest obstacle. He’d never approve. How would I ever tell him? I couldn’t handle the disappointment he would feel for me. He couldn’t stand my working in a fiche room; what would he ever think about me being gay? Nope, I could never tell him. How could I ever really be happy with someone like Haley if the most important person in my life would never be able to share in that happiness?
And Colin. The enormity of my confession would devastate him. He wouldn’t be able to get past the fact that I found someone else more sexually stimulating than him, someone he’d never be able to compete with. He would walk away. And away with him would go my chance at a normal, socially-respected life—the life where I could walk down the street on the arm of a man I could be proud of. The man my dad approved of. The man that I’d no longer be able to introduce as my fiancé and have people’s obvious approval and recognition that yes, this was the man they pictured a girl like me with—strong, confident, masculine. Gone would be the potential dad that would play baseball in the backyard with our sons and hold the limousine door open for our daughter on their way to the father-daughter dances. Gone would be the man that would dance to “Daddy’s Little Girl” at our daughter’s wedding and a few years later, the favorite granddaddy, sneaking candy and reading stories to a small audience of his grandchildren by the fire. Yes, this was the man that everyone admired. The man with great potential.
I had to marry him. I had to have this life. It had to be enough.
Marrying him was the life I was meant to live.
But if it was so right, why did my heart throb for someone other than him?
What was wrong with me?
Goldie had to straighten me out. I had to put my fears aside and trust in the strength of our friendship. I needed her to yell at me, to set me straight before I screwed my life up with Colin.
****
After parking my car, I phoned her.
“Goldie, I know it’s early. But, I seriously need to talk to you.”
“I knew you’d be calling me. I could feel it.”
“I don’t need your psychic interpretation. I just need a friend.”
“Of course, come over right now and I will have some chamomile tea waiting, okay?”
“I’m actually right outside your door.”
****
I sat on the edge of her sofa with my hands clenched. She fretted with the tea bags and commented on how wonderful chamomile tea was for a weary soul. “They say natural herbs can sometimes heal better then prescribed medicine. Did you know that?” She stirred brown sugar into my tea with an over-sized tablespoon.
I needed to confess at that moment or I wouldn’t at all. “I need to tell you something, but I don’t know how to start.”
She continued to fix my tea, turning it taupe-colored with creamer. “Spill your guts, sweetie. God knows, I’ve unloaded on you many times so it’s payback time for me to be the listener.”
“Something is happening to me that is strange and if I don’t talk about it with you and have you straighten me out, it may ruin the rest of my life.”
She stopped stirring. “You’re starting to get the gift too?”
“The gift?” I asked.
“Yes, the gift. Like I have?”
“Is everything in your life focused on auras?”
“I wish you would take my life burden more seriously.”
Burden? I wished I had some mystical power to tell me what to do with my life. “How can you even consider your psychic power to be a burden?”
“So you do believe that I have psychic power?”
“Yes, I do. And I take it seriously.” My confession sat in my mouth pressurizing, ready to explode. “Now, about my burden—”
“Wait. I’ve waited forever to hear you say you believe in—”
I latched hold of her hand unable to bear the burden alone another second. “I think I might be a lesbian.”
There, I said it. I used the words I and lesbian in the same sentence. I freed the thought. Put it out there to be pushed around and examined. And maybe by getting it out of my head, it could never come back in again.
She sat in silence, staring at me.
“Well?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows and a crooked smile crept on her face. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting that at all.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Not for you to just blurt out the fact that you’re a lesbian.”
“Correction — I think I’m a lesbian.”
“You’re not a lesbian, Emma.”
“I’m attracted to Haley in a way I’ve never been attracted to anyone.”
“Who wouldn’t be flattered after receiving a
little attention from her? She’s sexy and alive with so much spirit.”
I expected to hear reprimands, threats, even nasty insults. Not agreement. “You think she’s sexy, too?”
“Not in a way that I’d ever consider myself a lesbian.”
I wished I could admit the same. “I know,” I groaned.
“Did you kiss her?” She crossed her legs under herself, ready for the juicy details.
“No.” I matched her position. “But I wanted to.”
“Have you ever kissed a woman before?”
“Never.”
“That’s your problem, right there. You’re not a lesbian. You’re a horny woman who never acted on a normal fantasy.” She spoke with such dryness to her tone that a bystander not really listening to the content would think we were discussing something as trivial as hair coloring.
“Normal?”
“Yes, most girls want to know what it would be like to kiss another girl. It’s wrong by archaic societal terms, so it’s a temptation that is preset into our systems. What you can’t have, you want. It’s as simple as that. I kissed a woman once.”
My heart leapt. “You did? What was it like?”
“I was sixteen years old, playing spin the bottle. My boyfriend drooled as Angie laid it on me. The thrill of having my boyfriend turned on by my kissing a girl sent me reeling into his raging hormonal arms after they all left.”
Nothing about my fantasies of Haley had to do with turning on Colin.
“Did you feel anything?” I asked.
“It was fun and harmless. I had wondered a little what it would be like, and I found out. It was no different than kissing a guy, in a sense there’s a tongue and a set of lips touching mine. Now, I don’t have the curiosity. I got it out of my system,” she said this with the clinical voice of a doctor.
When I kissed Colin, that’s all it was to me, a set of lips and a tongue making contact with my own. “So you think this is just a silly fantasy that, because it’s gone by unrealized, is perpetuating itself?
“I think you’re just curious.”
“How do you explain the fact that I don’t feel anything with Colin?”
“Have you ever?”
“Not like I do for Haley.”
“You know what I think? I think you need to kiss this woman and get it over with. Once you’ve tried it, you will stop obsessing and it’ll most likely enhance your sex life with him. You’ll feel sexier than ever. You’ll see that it’s not that exciting and then you’ll be able to push forward and concentrate your efforts completely on him.”
“You don’t think that would be cheating if I kissed her?”
“Let’s put it in perspective. It’s a kiss. You’ll be doing him a favor if you do this before you get married.”
“Seriously?”
“Let me put this in terms you’ll understand. You’re on a diet. You’ve avoided all traces of sugar for a week and lost a few pounds. You’re in your living room studying for a big exam. There’s a plate of chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen that you are trying to avoid. Every time you read a sentence, you think about the cookies. They call out to you. They tempt you. You can’t get past the same sentence you’ve read thirty times. Your concentration is gone. If you only just took a bite, you’d be able to concentrate again and go on with your studying and ace your exam.”
“You’re comparing my life to a plate of cookies?”
“That’s the level of seriousness I think you should be taking this at. Your wanting to kiss Haley is just like that plate of cookies. It’s tempting you. And until you actually sample it, it will continue to tempt you. There’s still time before the exam. Be done with it already.”
I had no idea if the opportunity to even see her again would occur. Though, if she felt even a morsel of the way I did, we’d undoubtedly be seeing each other again. “But, what if this kiss turns out to be more than just a kiss to me? What if I can’t resist the rest of the cookies on the plate? You know how weak I am with sweets. What’s to say that I’m not that weak with women?”
“It’s good to find out before you walk down the aisle.”
I trusted Goldie and her judgment more than my own at that point. I expected yelling and finger-pointing, but got understanding instead. “You’re not weirded out by this?”
“It takes a lot more than my best friend telling me she wants to suck face with another woman to weird me out.”
“So you think this is harmless?”
“Just don’t be eating more than one cookie. I know you. You like cookies. You’d eat the whole plate if given the chance. Use your self-control and you’ll see how quickly this silly fantasy will pass.”
“What if I don’t want to stop eating the rest of the cookies?”
“Then, we stop talking in cookie language and get serious. Deal?”
“Here’s to sticking with cookies,” I said, clanking my tea cup to hers.
****
A few weeks had passed since Haley returned to Denver. We had emailed every day since. We were crazy about each other. And, neither one of us knew what to do with this. Then, on one of our nightly calls, she surprised me.
“Today, my boss and I went to a convention and I met the most incredible person.”
“What’s her name?” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Actually his name.”
“His name?” My voice sprang out an octave too high.
“Yes, his name.”
“Who did you meet?”
“Ken Chartier.”
“The Ken Chartier?” I asked. “The life coach with all those CDs and books?”
“Yup. And I’ve got two tickets to his upcoming sold-out seminar in a few weeks here in Denver. Are you up for a trip?”
“Me? You’re inviting me to go with you?” My heart pounded. “You think I could use some coaching?”
“Yes, yes, and yes.”
I jumped up and down in my living room, internally celebrating my excitement like a teenager who just heard snow closed my school for the day.
I loved Ken Chartier. He helped me through so many of my down-in-the-dumps days. Through his coaching, I learned to pursue my passion for drawing. I realized, because of his lessons, that I had a gift that could improve my life as well as the lives of others. But my true excitement wasn’t about Ken—I was going to see Haley again.
“I’ve listened to him in my car. I’ve read him in the bookstore. I can’t believe I’m going to meet Ken Chartier!”
“I knew you’d be excited.”
“How did you know I’d be a fan of his?”
“I’m a saleswoman. My job is to be aware. I saw his CD on your backseat the day I bumped into your car.”
How did this woman remember such a detail? I was lucky if I remembered my own birth date. “I’m completely impressed.”
“So what do you say?”
I didn’t care what I had to do or what lie I had to tell, nothing would keep me from going to Denver. “I’m there.”
“It’s on a Saturday and Sunday so you’d need to fly in on a Friday night and take off on Monday. Is that doable?”
“I’ll make it work.”
“I’ll arrange for everything and send you the air ticket via email. I have credits from my traveling that I can apply. And it’s up to you—I have an extra bed or I can make hotel reservations for you.”
There was no way I was traveling to Denver and staying at a hotel separate from her. “I’ll take the bed. No need to spend the extra money.”
“Great. It’s a date then.”
****
After a couple of dozen house viewings, Colin and I stood inside our beautiful new home in a development not far from Hill Financial. The home had four bedrooms, a finished basement, even a room above the garage that could serve as an art studio if I could persuade him. As I stood in the foyer of my new home, I stared up through the skylights and wondered how I could feel trapped in such a roomy, spacious home.
Fo
ur months to go before my wedding.
I wondered if my accepting Haley’s invitation to go to Denver was really the wisest decision. Over emails and phone lines, remaining innocent was easy. Face to face, I wasn’t so sure I could be strong.
In just a few weeks Goldie would walk me into a room filled with people showering me with house-warming gifts picked straight from my bridal registry and I’d bring those shiny new well-wishing gifts to our new home and fill my drawers and cabinets and linen closets with them.
Colin held my hand and stared up at the enormous staircase that graced the foyer in elegance. “This is all ours, sweetheart.”
How would I ever tell him I was leaving for Denver? He thought Ken Chartier was a psycho babbling fool. I’d find a way to tell him the next day. I didn’t want to cloud the day with a fight. “It sure is,” I said, slipping my arm around his waist.
****
The next day at work, I slipped to Sharon about my trip to Denver. She had become somewhat of a friend to me.
“I hear this time of the year it gets hot during the day and real cold at night,” Sharon said, piling a chunk of blueberry muffin in her mouth.
“I’ll be inside a convention hall the whole—”
The doorknob jingled. Above the pile of boxes I had put on the counter that morning, I saw the top of Colin’s head.
He walked over to me, and handed over some requests from upstairs. He offered Sharon a glance. “So, Sharon how is it going down here? Is my fiancé treating you well?”
She wagged her red face up and down, not taking her eyes off of him. “Oh yes, she’s been fabulous!”
“I’ve heard nothing but the same about you.”
Now was as good a time as any to tell him about Denver. I motioned for him to follow me out to the hallway. “You want to grab a coffee?”
“Well, it was nice to see you again.” He extended his hand to her.
“Likewise.” She flashed him her crooked smile. “If I don’t see you, enjoy Denver. I know Emma’s got one foot on the plane already.”
What a freaking idiot.