“Wow. Impressive.” Langford was a well-known, up-and-coming software technology firm in the area. Landing a job there straight out of college was quite a feat. “What happened?”
Darby shrugged. “I didn’t like Corporate America, you know?”
Molly nodded.
“It was all designer suits and ass kissing and…I didn’t feel like I could be me, like there would ever be a chance of me fitting in. I thought a software company would be more hip, more open-minded, but it felt like high school all over again. The cliques and the hierarchy. I couldn’t stand it. I stayed for three weeks before I bailed.”
“Well, I admire you. It takes guts to stand up for what you believe in.”
“Now I manage a Blockbuster.”
“Oh. That’s…a change.”
Darby laughed. “It’s okay. You can be horrified. Everybody else is. But it’s a good company to work for. I get great benefits, I can watch whatever I want for free, and I like it there. I’m happy.”
“Happy counts for a lot,” Molly said, her voice wistful. “Happy counts for just about everything.” She stepped slightly off the path and her boot sank into the snow up to her calf. “Damn.” She reached out and balanced herself on Darby’s shoulder, feeling Darby’s surprisingly strong arm slip around her waist to keep her upright.
She tried to ignore the zing of pleasure that shot through her and dug the snow out of her boot, taking longer than necessary. She was having trouble reconciling Darby the kid who was stored in her memory and Darby the woman—the very sexy, attentive woman—who was holding her steady now. Clearing her throat, she smiled up at her and felt a quick jolt of surprise at the blueness of Darby’s eyes, so completely different from the deep brown of her aunt’s.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Sure.” Darby kept her arm around Molly until she let go of her shoulder, not wanting to release her. They continued to follow the three up ahead, but Darby narrowed the space between herself and Molly just a little bit, walking as close to the other woman as she could without bumping into her. She could smell Molly’s perfume and she tried to be subtle about the deep, greedy breaths she took.
“Tell me more,” Molly requested. “About you. Where do you live? Are you seeing someone? What do you do for fun?”
“So many questions. Well…I have a little apartment in the city that I love. I could use a little more space, but mine is such a great place that I’m hesitant to give it up. I really want a dog, but my hours are kind of funky, so I’ve settled for a cat. His name’s Chuck and he’s very cool. Am I seeing someone?” She shrugged. “I see a lot of someones.”
Molly laughed and Darby felt her heart warm at the sound, feminine and musical.
“For fun? I don’t know. I go out with my friends. I play softball in the summer. I read. I watch a lot of movies.” The threesome in front had moved quite far ahead of them and Darby had the sudden sense that she was on a stroll through the woods with just Molly. She didn’t dislike the feeling and she fought off the urge to simply push her against a tree and kiss her senseless. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Where do you live? Are you seeing someone? What do you do for fun? Come on. Eye for an eye.”
Molly looked up at the blue sky and watched a chickadee zip by. “We’ve got a house by the canal. It’s a little too big, but it’s very pretty and it’s in a nice neighborhood. I miss the city, though. We used to have a place on the East Side.”
A house on the Erie Canal didn’t come cheap, Darby noted. “And then suburbia?”
“And then suburbia. We thought that’s what we were supposed to do, the next logical step.”
“And ‘we’ is?”
“‘We’ is me and Kristin. We’ve been together for a little over seven years.”
“Wow. Congratulations.” Darby forced cheerfulness into her voice. Of course somebody like Molly had a partner. Why wouldn’t she? That didn’t really mean anything anyway, did it?
“Thanks.”
Molly’s voice contained slightly less pride than Darby expected, but she left it alone for the time being. “Is she coming this week?”
“She had some work stuff to take care of. She should be here today.”
“Oh. Cool.” Darby didn’t like the far-off quality that suddenly encompassed Molly. Wanting to get her talking about happier subjects, she prompted, “Keep going.”
“Going where?”
“Fun, smart-ass. What do you do for fun?”
“Ah.” Molly nodded and Darby could feel her returning to their conversation. “Let’s see. I garden in the summer. Flowers and vegetables. And I have a lot of houseplants, so that helps to keep me busy in the winter. I love to walk. That’s a huge advantage of living on the canal.”
“I bet. I like to take my bike there and just ride and ride.”
“I’ve got a bike, too.” The corner of Molly’s mouth turned up slightly. “You should come get me some time. We can ride together.”
“I’d like that.”
Before they could continue, they heard a shout from around the bend ahead of them. As they rounded it, the others came into view, off the path and into the woods about twenty yards.
“What do you think of this one?” Jo asked, squatting down next to a small evergreen. It stood about five feet tall, its branches surprisingly thick and lush.
Molly had completely forgotten the hunt for a tree and realized she’d never even glanced at one as they walked. “I think it’s perfect,” she said.
Darby nodded and stepped forward to help her aunt as she sawed.
“We’ll have to remember to come out here and plant another one in the spring,” Amy commented.
“We’re in the middle of a forest, Aunt Ame. Who’s going to see one little bare spot?”
Amy shot a stern look at Darby. “We always replace what we take, unless it’s fallen all on its own.”
Darby made the face of a child who’d been scolded. “Okay, then.”
Twenty minutes later, they were nearly back to the house, Darby and Jo dragging the small tree behind them. Sophie was describing the design she was working on for a client when a shrill beeping cut through the air, causing many of the women to jump.
“Jesus.” Amy laughed, pressing a hand to her chest.
“Sorry,” Molly said sheepishly. “It’s me. I forgot it was in my coat.” She pulled a cell phone from her coat pocket and glanced at the screen. “It’s Kristin. She’s probably on her way. I’ll catch up with you.” She walked backward, putting distance between herself and the group.
Darby watched over her shoulder, barely able to register Molly’s voice as she moved farther away. She turned face forward just in time to catch a low-slung branch on the forehead.
“Ow.” She rubbed the spot.
Aunt Jo studied her with a cocked eyebrow. “Watch where you’re walking,” she suggested mildly.
“Now you tell me.”
*
“Found it.” Amy came up from the basement carrying an old metal tree stand and handed it to Jo. “I have no idea why it’s here since we’ve got no decorations, but…”
“I brought it up last fall after we got a new stand at home, remember?” Jo had moved a knee-high table in front of the living room window and she and Darby balanced the tree on top. The extra height centered it perfectly. “What do you think?”
Amy suppressed a grin.
“You’re warming to it,” Jo said, waving a finger at her beloved. “I can tell.”
“It looks terrific,” Amy conceded. “Good call, Darby.”
Darby looked pleased with herself as she took the stand from Amy and helped Aunt Jo position the tree’s trunk correctly.
Sophie came out of the kitchen with a bowl of microwave popcorn. “Got a needle and some thread?”
“I’m sure I do.” Amy glanced toward the door. “Where’s Primo? Is she still out there?”
“Why do you call her that?” Darby asked, holdin
g the tree straight in the stand while Jo tightened the screws against the trunk.
Jo chuckled in anticipation of the adorable story.
Amy rummaged through a drawer as she spoke, found a small sewing kit, and handed it to Sophie. “I used to baby-sit Molly way, way back. She was four, I think, the first time I met her. I was twelve.”
“Wow,” Darby said. “You have known her a long time.”
“Longer than you’ve been alive, honey. Anyway, when Molly was little, she had trouble with her Rs and she couldn’t quite pronounce DiPrima correctly. She was ‘Mauwy Pweemo.’ I started calling her Primo and it just sort of stuck.”
Sophie and Darby looked at one another and then gave tandem awwwws at the idea of tiny little Molly trying to pronounce her own name.
As if on cue, the front door opened and Molly came in, stomping the snow off her feet. Her sunglasses covered her eyes and she made no immediate attempt at removing them.
“Everything okay?” Jo asked innocently.
“Oh, yeah. Fine. Kristin’s going to be stuck longer than she thought, so she won’t be here until tomorrow.” The group was silent and Molly continued on. “Hey, the tree looks fantastic. Very nice.” She took off her boots and lined them up neatly on the mat, then shed her coat and hung it up on the rack. Clearing her throat, she excused herself to the bathroom upstairs, her sunglasses still shading her eyes.
Amy and Jo exchanged glances and Amy waited a couple minutes before following her friend up the stairs.
The sun spilled through the window of the guest room, making the dust motes floating in the air visible like tiny snowflakes and bathing the quilt-covered bed in warm, inviting light. Despite the ambience, Molly felt cold. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands tucked between her knees, and gazed out onto the snowy landscape. The sunglasses were tossed onto the nightstand.
Amy sat gently next to her. “You okay?” Her quiet voice still seemed a loud disturbance in the stillness of the room.
“Do you think she’s having an affair?” Molly didn’t turn to look at her friend.
Amy inhaled and slowly let out her breath. She tucked a lock of Molly’s dark hair behind her ear. “Do you?”
“I don’t know. I want to say no. I want to say I know her better than that, that she’d never do such a thing, but the truth is, how would I know? I never see her. We hardly ever talk any more. I can’t even remember the last time we made love. She spends so much time working, it seems like all she thinks about is more money. I feel like I hardly know her anymore. And she certainly doesn’t know me.”
“What do you mean?”
Molly stood and crossed the room to her bag. Rifling through it, she came out with a square blue box and sat back down next to Amy. She handed Amy the box. “This is what she gave me for Christmas.”
Amy opened the hinged box and sucked in a breath. Nestled in the navy blue velvet interior was a watch. It was gold and dainty, exceptionally fancy and encrusted with diamonds. “God, it’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“Isn’t it?”
Amy looked up and met Molly’s green eyes, tinged red around the edges. She’d known Molly for thirty years and though she cleaned up tremendously well and was an extremely beautiful woman, she was also what Amy liked to call “earthy.” She wore denim skirts and cotton blouses and hammered silver jewelry. She preferred a ratty sweatshirt to silk, she preferred leather to gold. She wore a single silver band on her left hand, not interested in a diamond version at all. The watch Amy held was as far from Molly’s personality as one could get. Shouldn’t her partner know that?
Molly watched the pieces fall into place on Amy’s freckled face.
“You’d never wear this,” Amy stated.
“No. I’d be afraid to.”
“I bet it was expensive.”
“Hugely. Ridiculously.”
“Does she know how you feel?”
Molly snorted. “Of course not. I oohed and aahed over it like a good little wife.”
“Jesus, Molly.”
“I know.” Molly closed her eyes. “I know.”
“You have got to talk to her. I don’t like that she’s spending so much time away from you either, but in her defense, the girl’s not a mind reader.”
“I know,” Molly said again.
She was well aware of her propensity toward passive-aggressiveness. It came from her mother, from years of watching a good, kind-hearted woman think too little of herself and allow others to make all her decisions, run her life, and trod all over her like an old doormat in the process. You do that long enough and you don’t know how to live any other way, and Molly had followed obediently in her mother’s footsteps.
Now, she found herself breaking out in a cold sweat, dread seeping into her bloodstream like poison at so much as the thought of a confrontation that might end unpleasantly. Better to go on miserable but conflict-free, right? She’d had this conversation in her head so many times, it was practically scripted. She was starting to understand, though. The reality of what was happening was becoming searingly, painfully clear. If she didn’t do something—and do it soon—her relationship of more than seven years was doomed. That thought made her stomach churn and bile rise in her throat.
“I love her so much, Ames,” she choked out, tears welling in her eyes. “And I miss her. God, I miss her.”
“Oh, I know you do, sweetheart.” Amy wrapped an arm around Molly’s shoulders. Molly leaned into her, a quiet sob escaping from her lips.
“I’m so unhappy.” Her voice was no more than a whisper and it broke Amy’s heart. She kissed the top of Molly’s head and tightened her hold on her dear friend, hoping to convey her love and support through her arms as she rocked her gently back and forth on the bed.
*
It was a good half hour before Amy had Molly calm enough and cleaned up enough to head back downstairs to the others in the group. When they reached the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner, they stopped in their tracks. Amy began to laugh and Molly actually smiled.
Darby saw them first. She swept her arm over the tree like one of the models from The Price is Right showing a prize. “What do you think?”
“What in the world is that?” Amy asked.
“It’s a lesbian Christmas tree,” Jo said, an unspoken duh in her voice.
Amy glanced around, seeing the tossed-aside pair of scissors and the scattered remnants of half a dozen magazines including Curve, The Advocate, and People. The tree held more than twenty pictures of various women, hanging from branches with bent paperclips. A string of popcorn circled the entire thing. Amy and Molly moved closer, studying the “decorations” with big grins on their faces. Angelina Jolie, k.d. lang, Jennifer Beals, Maya Angelou, Mariska Hargitay, Melissa Etheridge, and Ellen DeGeneres all hung dutifully. Amy’s eyes trailed up the tree to the top where Jodie Foster was perched like a queen looking down at her subjects.
“Jodie was Aunt Jo’s addition,” Darby informed her.
“I’m not surprised,” Amy replied, knowing her wife’s age-old love for the actress. She glanced sideways at Molly and almost sighed aloud with relief. Her face was lit up, and the pain had left her green eyes.
“This is awesome,” Molly said and vowed anew to enjoy herself this week, with or without Kristin standing by her side.
Darby inched up next to her. “You okay?” she asked softly as the others were talking.
Molly shot her a look of gratitude. “Yeah. I will be. Thanks.”
“Sure.” Darby quickly touched Molly’s cheek in an affectionate way, not quite a pinch, but more than a stroke. It reminded Molly of the way her grandfather used to touch her face, with such fondness, and she swallowed down an unexpected lump.
“Hey, Molly.” Sophie held out a needle with a long strand of thread and a bowl of raw cranberries. “I saved these in case you wanted to do them. If not, I can.”
“No, no, that’s great.” Molly took the offered items, knowing some busywork to keep her h
ands moving would help calm her roiling, churning thoughts. “Thanks.”
Sophie nodded, trying not to look too sympathetic. She remembered when her own relationship was beginning to crumble, how helpless she’d felt and how much she didn’t want people looking at her like they felt sorry for her. “Here.” She offered the club chair she’d been occupying. Molly took a seat gratefully and set to work on her string of cranberries.
Amy stood with her arms around Jo’s waist, admiring the tree. “You’re very creative, I must admit. I’ve never seen anything quite like…this.”
“Only the best for my woman,” Jo said, squeezing her. “I think we should have a lesbian tree every year.”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
Sophie
Sophie Wilson was doing okay. She was doing better than she’d expected, certainly. Only five more days, she’d been telling herself. Only five more days and I’ll be home free. She had expected the holidays to be hard. It was true that Kelly had been gone for close to six months, but being alone for the holidays brought everything back in a rush and she felt like Kelly had only left her last week. She just had to get through New Year’s Eve—which she suspected was going to be the hardest of the cluster of days focused on togetherness and love—and she’d be ready to move forward with her life.
She tended to oscillate between bitter and angry, and hurt and heartbroken. Neither side was preferable. Bitter and angry at least kept her from crying constantly, but it was exhausting to hate everybody and everything all the time. And it wasn’t her; she wasn’t like that. Bitter and angry didn’t become her. Hurt and heartbroken was harder. She didn’t like feeling vulnerable or allowing her emotions that close to the surface. She didn’t like that people could take one quick glance her way and know she’d been destroyed by somebody she loved and trusted. Hurt and heartbroken sucked. Mostly, she’d thrown herself into her work. It had been the only thing that kept her sane. Ironically, she was getting more freelance graphic business now than she’d gotten in the five years she’d been offering her services. Life was so weird.
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