The Right Thing Easy

by Laina Villeneuve

  “Bruce. So good to meet you, Hope,” the short, stocky man said, standing to shake her hand. “Your father has told me so much about you.”

  Hope grasped his sweaty palm and held it a few counts to avoid seeming rude. Had her father’s briefing included her spotty church attendance? His weathered hands sported no ring, and he, like Hope, was past the typical marrying age.

  “I recently moved to the area,” he provided. “I teach chemistry at the high school in Portola.”

  Hope forced herself to smile, sure that her father had brought the two of them together because of their single status. Once, she would have felt thankful that he was at least the appropriate age, but now she knew better than to think age had anything to do with her feelings. She observed him objectively, already hearing herself telling Dani how he wasn’t bad looking, thick head of hair, pleasant smile. He clearly spent a lot of time outdoors and cared about his appearance. He was trying really hard. Hope realized she should at least try a little. “I wanted to say hello before we served dinner. I’m sorry to be late.”

  “No apology required,” he said, smiling even more broadly. He had nice teeth.

  “We’re ready to sit,” she said to them both.

  Halley had done all the work setting the table using the special china, and filled their glasses with water. All that was left was the platter of ham, but Halley was seated, leaving Hope to carry in the final piece. She felt like both her father and her sister had construed the moment to present her as a content homemaker as she self-consciously set the platter down.

  Her father delivered the blessing. Hope sat between Halley and Bruce wishing she were sitting across from Dani, either on her couch eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or across from her at the burger place in town. She hadn’t been ready for their afternoon to end and felt completely unprepared to battle her father’s plan.

  “Have you been to all of these temples?” Bruce asked, gesturing with his fork at the pictures that hung in their dining room.

  Hope was happy to let her father identify the temple where he had been sealed to her mother, and those they had visited on family vacations. Bruce listed the temples he had visited and then moved into talking about his mission. That prompted her father to proudly share stories from Harrison’s and Hyrum’s missions. Temples and missions, Hope thought, listening to Halley talk about her own plans, surefire topics for a bunch of Mormons.

  Get a bunch of lesbians together, and they tell coming out stories. She’d always felt left out of those conversations too, others moving on quickly when they found out that she was not yet out to her family. She’d always felt they were thinking she wasn’t very lesbian, as if the more people you were out to, the more gay you were. Listening to the dinner conversation felt just the same, like both parties were establishing just how Mormon they were. At what point did she interject that she was mostly Mormon by association?

  “I’d be happy to take you to the Reno temple the next time I go,” Bruce said, placing a hand on Hope’s shoulder.

  “I hardly ever have the time to get away,” Hope said, hoping she sounded apologetic enough.

  “It’s important to make time,” he said, his hand moving to her knee.

  She rose abruptly to clear plates and bring out dessert, anxious for the evening to end. She stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, comparing the table conversation to chatting with Dani. Talking to Bruce felt like trying to push a wheelbarrow loaded with bricks through the mud.

  “This is one of Hope’s creations as well,” she heard her father say. She wondered if the entire evening had been some kind of audition. Can she cook? Bake? Take a look at those childbearing hips going to waste.

  She set the cobbler down with more force than she’d intended.

  “Hope?” Her father’s voice was more sharp than concerned.

  “I’m sorry. I…”

  “Are you feeling okay?” Halley’s voice held concern. “Is it one of your migraines?”

  Her father’s expression darkened.

  Don’t bring up any medical issues that might scare off the suitor, Hope thought bitterly. “I’m fine.”

  “You seem distracted.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she was, on many levels. Sorry that she’d spent so many years thinking she could ignore who she was. Sorry that she had never been honest with her family, and most of all sorry that she’d left Dani’s house. She should have kissed her goodbye. She’d felt more at home in Dani’s arms than she had anywhere in the world. She’d been so tempted to pull back just enough to find Dani’s mouth. She knew from the way her eyes kept drifting to her own mouth that Dani’s would welcome her. Hope wrapped her arms around herself, trying to settle the fire that ignited within her just thinking about what Dani’s lips would feel like on hers.

  Her eyes snapped open when Halley kicked her under the table. She hadn’t even been aware that she’d shut them. “This is especially delicious,” Halley said.

  Hope looked at Bruce and her father and smiled weakly, pushing the delight of an imagined kiss aside. She rejoined the conversation as much as she could, her mind more occupied with the fact that the part of her life she had always kept distantly removed from her town and her family was very much now present and demanding to be addressed.

  Bruce finally left. She’d felt bad at the silences that stretched between everyone at the table, knowing that her father expected a draw between her and Bruce to fuel the conversation.

  He’d hugged her awkwardly, in her space in the wrong places, his hands hot on her back. “Thank you for the invitation,” he said. “I haven’t had such a nice evening in a long time.”

  She wished she could say the same in return instead of thinking how it was her afternoon which had swept her off her feet. She quickly escaped her father with the excuse of dishes to be done, declining Halley’s half-hearted offer to help. She needed the time to herself, and she was relieved her father left her to the task. The disappointment in his eyes told her she’d have to talk to him about it. When they did…her hands paused in soapy water, unable to proceed. She felt slightly ill. When they did talk, she would have to be honest about why his setups were all certain failures.

  To have that conversation, she would also need to talk to Dani. Butterflies skittered through her stomach. She remembered the way adrenaline would flood her system when it was her turn to bear her testimony in church, the way her heart would race, her hands shake. No matter what, though, once she began talking, her heart would settle and she would find strength in her words. Hands gripping the counter, she tucked her head down between them, trying not to hyperventilate. Thinking about it was making it worse. She should just go. She dried her hands and grabbed her car keys.

  “Be right back,” she hollered, slipping into her coat and pulling on a cap and scarf.

  Key in the ignition, she sat poised to crank it, turn over the engine and go.

  She fell back against the seat and put both hands to her temples. She couldn’t drive out there until she knew what she was going to say. What would Dani think if she appeared on her porch unannounced, uninvited. She should at least call. Hope folded her arms on the steering wheel and rested her forehead against it. She didn’t even have Dani’s number.

  Unaware of how long she’d been sitting in the car, her head jerked up when the passenger-side door opened and Halley jumped in.

  “Are we there yet?” she said cheerily.

  “Halley, what are you doing out here in the cold?”

  “I could ask you the same thing. Clearly you don’t know or you’d already be there, so let’s go get ice cream.”

  “It’s December. Don’t you think it’s too cold for ice cream?”

  Even in the relative dark of the car, Hope could see her sister’s withering glare. “Says the woman who has been sitting in an ice-cold car for twenty minutes. C’mon. It’s either ice cream or family prayer.”

  Hope could not face her father. She needed to, soon, but not tonigh
t. Not before she collected herself. “I guess the ice cream won’t melt as fast.”

  Halley rubbed her hands together. “Now we’re talking!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I spent a long time rubbing down Eights after I worked her hard in the round corral, steam rising from her. A winter coat is hard to comb out, and I wouldn’t have bothered working so hard at it had the circular movement along her coat with the curry not soothed me. I wondered if the mare’s mind was as busy as mine. I couldn’t let go of what Hope had wanted to say before she left the day before.

  Winter break was not the best time for her to drop something like that. I had nothing but the horses to distract me. I didn’t even have the next book in the series and had had to resort to trolling for fan fiction on the Internet to keep myself from driving into town looking like a desperate addict in need of a hit. I could’ve gone to the library, but Pauline was there every single time I’d ever visited, and since that dance with Hope, I was even more wary of her keen librarian intuition. I sensed I would face an inquisition.

  Eights didn’t appreciate the extended grooming and constantly fidgeted, making me fight to keep my space. As I brushed, she kicked at her belly like I was a pesky horsefly, so I finally accepted defeat and headed up to the house, the cold night already heavy with smoke from all the stoves in the valley. The kitchen light at the main house was on. Mrs. Owens probably had their dinner just about ready. She hadn’t called Gabe and her husband because the office light still glowed. I’d been down at the barn longer than I’d intended, so I used the flood of light from their house to navigate up to my place, unworried about approaching a dark porch because I trusted my feet to find their way to the door.

  The figure on my porch startled me. “Hope,” I exclaimed. Who knows how long she’d been waiting. Dusk was upon us, and had I not been pumping my arms up and down brushing Eights, I would have been cold. Sitting on my front porch, she had to be freezing. “Come inside out of the cold,” I said before she could speak. I tugged off my muddy boots and left them on the porch and filled my arms with wood from the porch to stoke up my stove. I was glad to find Hope already standing by the heat source when I kicked the door shut behind me. I shoved in some dry wood and opened the damper to get it burning hotter.

  We stood there staring at each other for a few minutes, minutes that I thought I could be holding her.

  “You should have a kettle on your wood stove,” she said. It looked like she was trying to hide that her teeth were chattering. She’d wrapped her arms around herself and stood hunched over the warm stove.

  “You didn’t come for tea.”

  “No,” she agreed. “A teakettle will put moisture back into the air. Wood stoves suck all the moisture out of the air.”

  She was here to talk. I knew it, she knew it, and her crazy opener was just to get her voice working. “Look, I’m going to stink this whole place up if I don’t change out of these mucky clothes. Grab a blanket on the couch. I’ll be quick.” I hung my heavy coat on the peg by the front door and watched Hope settle herself on the couch. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, meeting my eyes. She looked just like she’d looked on the road when I stepped toward her to retrieve Gabe’s mules. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what had her so rattled, but I wasn’t about to turn her away, either. I trotted through the kitchen and into my bedroom where I shucked off my jeans and reached for my sweats. A voice in my head screamed sweats are not sexy. So what if you don’t look sexy? What if she’s here to tell you to back off, I tried to reason with myself. Exasperated, I pulled on a clean pair of jeans instead. I pulled on some wool socks and a soft, thick sweatshirt that I hoped didn’t smell like the barn and washed my face and hands. I tried to settle my gut. I hadn’t felt so nervous since the last time I’d circled Daisy around before racing through the open gates toward another title.

  From the kitchen, I peeked in at her. She sat cross-legged on the couch, running her hand along the throw as if she were petting the herd of wild mustangs in flight. Without asking, I pulled some leftover tortilla soup out of the fridge and threw it in a pot with the heat high. I sliced up an avocado and grated some cheese to add to the soup. Call me insensitive not to rush to her sooner, but I knew myself well enough to know I needed food, and I knew from her expression that what she had to say wasn’t going to be quick. I balanced bowls on my arms and delivered them to the living room, letting Hope help unload my arms.

  “You’re good. If you ever need work, I could have you pick up some shifts at the diner.”

  I scowled at her. “What have you heard that makes you think my job is in jeopardy?”

  She tilted her chin and looked at me for a long time before she answered. I wanted so badly to know what she was thinking, how much editing she did before she spoke. “I was trying to think of whether I’ve ever heard anyone say a negative word about you. I haven’t. You have to know that this entire town is completely taken with you.”

  I pressed a bowl of soup into her hands. “Eat. I know you have stuff to say, but I’m hungry, so humor me. Warm yourself up with this.”

  She didn’t argue, and we sat sipping soup like it was exactly what we’d planned to do, the popping fire the only sound in the room. I’m a quick eater and sped through my bowl in no time. Hope’s comment about the entire town had my mind spinning. Had she meant that literally? Was she really including herself in those taken with me? Hope wasn’t shivering anymore, so I got up to adjust the damper while I waited for her to catch up. “Tea?” I offered.

  “No. This was delicious. Thank you.” She set down her bowl though she wasn’t finished with its contents. “Please just sit.”

  I did. I sat next to her, and when she didn’t start talking, I reached for her hand. She glanced at our hands and then up at me. She swallowed and said, “When we were dancing the other night, Gabe said something to me. He said having you here is like having Kristine back in town. That doesn’t mean that he thinks of you like a sister, does it?”

  Barrel racing doesn’t start like roping or bronc riding. It’s not a gate being sprung, forcing you into action. It’s a decision you make, your horse a bundle of energy beneath you, the arena empty in front of you and that beam that will start the timer when your horse’s legs break through. Once you’re in the arena though, everything disappears, and it’s just you and the horse and the barrels. And time. You want to be the fastest, and it feels like you’re never going to get to the next barrel. The noise, the pounding of the hooves, it’s all pushing you forward to trip the clock again. Once you go forward, there’s no stopping it.

  The same was true now, sitting with Hope. Once I spoke the word in my head, we’d be racing toward something. No going back. Win or lose, there would be no stopping it. “No,” I said.

  I’d spent enough time with Hope that her silence didn’t scare me. I was pretty certain if she was asking, she already had the answer, and if she wanted to hear it out loud… As the silence stretched, though, I noticed her pallor. I’d thought she was just cold, but my small house heats up fast, and she was paler now than she had been when she came in from the cold.

  “Hope, is something wrong? You don’t look well.”

  She pressed her knuckles to her temples. “I’m just fighting a migraine.”

  “You don’t have to talk tonight. It can wait.” I wanted to hear why she wanted to know if I was gay. I wanted us to put our feelings on the table, but I also knew that if she was gay, she had all sorts of other stuff on the table already.

  “No. No more waiting.” She inhaled, digging deep to settle herself before she spoke again. She kept her eyes closed, and it flashed on me that the bright light might be making her head feel worse. I turned on a small table lamp behind the couch and switched off the overhead. When I was seated next to her again, she spoke, still with her eyes closed.

  “I don’t know if Gabe knows this, so you have to promise not to say.”

  “Okay, I promise,” I said easily, tryi
ng to keep up with Hope. Was she trying to tell me she and Kristine…?

  “I’m sorry. Please don’t tell Kristine or anyone. I wish I didn’t have to use her… This is just the only way I know how to say what I need to say.”

  “Not Gabe, not Kristine,” I said, giving up on trying to figure out where this was going.

  “Back in high school when I was dating Gabe…well, even before that, I used to follow Kristine around. People whispered about her. My father wasn’t happy when I started spending more time with their family, but that’s why I dated Gabe. I wanted to be around Kristine. I’d been…watching her, how she flirted with the girls from out of town.”

  “Gabe thinks you broke up with him because he’s not Mormon.”

  “I did.” She must have seen the doubt I harbored because she continued. “Back then, I thought maybe if I met the right Mormon boy…”

  “But you were following Kristine…”

  “I was curious.”

  “And now? Are you curious?” I asked warily. The last thing I needed was to be a test dummy.

  “I am gay,” she said, surprising me.

  “You know this,” I said, confused again. Why couldn’t we have started the whole conversation there? I couldn’t believe the ideas that were flitting through my brain, totally inappropriate things like whether she’d slept with a woman. I berated myself for wondering if you had to have slept with a woman to know if you were gay and for questioning Hope’s statement in the first place.

  “I dated in college. I know who I’m attracted to.” She looked up at me, confirming the reason we were talking, the attraction I felt mirrored in her eyes.

  “But nobody here ever heard anything about any girlfriends?”

  “No. Nobody in Quincy knows.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, reminding me again that her head was pounding. I reached out with my thumb, just my thumb, and placed it on her temple, rubbing small circles. Her body stilled at my touch, and I wondered so many things, how long it had been since she’d been touched, if she longed to feel someone’s hands on her. Ever so slightly, she leaned toward me, so I cupped my fingers behind her head and massaged the base of her skull. As if she could intuit what I was thinking, she continued. “None of my girlfriends lasted very long. It would get to a point where it would…” I could tell she was thinking about editing. “It would feel wrong. Here in Quincy, there isn’t any temptation. There wasn’t any temptation,” she corrected herself, “so I got used to feeling nothing.”