A Good Woman

by Liz Cronkhite

  “Well, thank you. For the filling out. Not the ‘no ass’. I’d like some,” she said getting into Erika’s car.

  Erika laughed again. “Can’t help you there.”

  This time when Erika turned on the car it was Ke$ha. It was very loud and she shut it off.

  “You’re going to go deaf before you’re fifty."

  “Probably.” Erika slipped on her aviator sunglasses and Aly looked out the side window.

  On the way to Downtown Summerlin, which was not a downtown but an outdoor business, entertainment, and retail development in the southern section of the Summerlin community, they fell into their default topic, the girls. They discussed Mike Kent and Whitney’s first date. “Thirteen is so young, Aly.”

  “You were fourteen.”

  "A year makes a difference at that age.”

  “Not to parents. You’d say the same thing if it was a year from now. You know at forty two how ridiculously young she is. But she doesn’t feel that way. It’s the natural time for her to start.”

  Erika was quiet for a few blocks. Then she said softly, “You are wise, Aly Wong.”

  Aly was struck, not by Erika’s words, but by how they came out softly, after reflection. As though Erika really believed these generous things she said about her. A few weeks before, she felt panic at the thought that Erika saw something in her that wasn’t there and would expect things of her she couldn’t deliver. But this time, she only felt wonder.

  She had been out with Erika before, always shopping, to Costco or Whole Foods, and a couple of times to other stores. But each time they had the girls with them and Erika was mom and Aly was the childcare assistant. She would hang back, just a bit, to let Erika be with her girls. She was, in her mind, the help, the back-up, though Erika and the girls never treated her that way.

  Alone with her, the habit of hanging back was with her still. She walked a little behind, like a Prince Consort to his Queen, and she hung back while Erika shopped if she wasn’t perusing something herself. It wasn’t that she was her employee. She knew Erika wasn’t looking at her that way that day. It was that Aly felt they were not in the same stratum.

  The shopping mall of Downtown Summerlin was made to look like a downtown with shops along wide sidewalks and streets. They stopped in small boutiques as well as the larger anchor stores. Aly wanted black jeans that fit at the hip and a matching belt for Halloween and beyond. Those were easy. She wasn’t sure about the top, though. A fitted T-shirt or something dressier? Erika had something in mind for herself and after a couple of misses at boutique stores she found at Dillard’s the kind of sharply cut top she favored, and that Aly thought looked so good on her.

  They were in Macy’s when Erika pulled out a simple, trim button down with darts front and back. “This would look good on you. You have great shoulders.”

  You look good. Great shoulders. Sexy voice.

  Aly tried it on and it fit her as if it was tailor made. Only the darts in front ran from her breasts down and she wondered if she had enough to justify any emphasis.

  “You have a nice handful. They’ll do,” Erika said matter-of-factly.

  Handful. Whose hand?

  As Aly bought the blouse she thought of how casually one woman could talk to another about the advantageous features of her body and it meant nothing. Only with lesbians it was more complicated. Aly knew about hiding feelings. When only two percent of the female population was available to you, you learned very young to disguise your whole opinion. Does “you have great shoulders” mean “they’re one of your best features” or “I find them hot”? Certainly, with straight women she would not share all of her opinion if it went beyond an observation. But also with other lesbians she would hold back when she didn’t want her attraction to be revealed.

  However, she had no illusions about Erika. If Erika was out of her league, she was in a league Erika certainly didn’t consider.

  Shopping done, they went to the food court for lunch. “You want McDonald’s,” Aly said as they looked at the options. “You know you do.”

  “But there’s no wine to make it complete. We’re done here aren’t we? Why don’t we go out for a real lunch?”

  “Okay. But I’m buying. It’s my day off so you don’t have to feed me.”

  Erika laughed. “I will not argue with that.”

  They chose Mexican, and Erika drove them across the parking lot to Pancho’s. It was busy but they were seated right away at a table against a wall. The atmosphere was outdoor villa, bright, airy, and timelessly Mexican.

  “I’m driving if you want wine,” Erika said.

  “I don’t drink during the day. Puts me to sleep.”

  “Me too.”

  They both chose iced tea. Tortilla chips and salsa arrived, they made their choices from the menu, and sat back to munch.

  “So how are things with Kylie?” Erika asked. “I guess you like her.”

  Oh, my god. Kylie. Aly had hardly thought of her all morning, except in the background, vaguely, as the one she was going to Anita’s Thing with. She had been completely absorbed enjoying Erika.

  “I do. It’s nice, seeing someone. It feels…well, it’s a first step.”

  “The first one, after marriage, it’s hard. It’s hard to shift gears from ‘I’m committed to this person for the rest of my life’ to ‘Oh, I can date again.’”

  They crunched on chips thoughtfully for a while. “I guess you were right about my haircut. Signaling being ready for a change.”

  “There you go!”

  “What was your change? You changed your hair months ago.”

  Erika thought about it for a moment. “Huh. Well, now you’ve proved me wrong. Nothing’s changed in my life.”

  She dipped a chip in salsa and had it half way to her mouth when she stopped and looked at Aly. For a moment she looked as though she might say something, but instead she brought the chip the rest of the way to her mouth and crunched.

  After lunch, which both found heavy, they wandered the stores that surrounded the parking lot to walk off the meal. It was too awkward for Aly to walk behind Erika and speak with her so she walked next to her. Their conversation was relaxed and wide ranging. Aly enjoyed this as a way to get to know her better and she liked what she got to know.

  “Thank you for spending the day with me, Aly,” Erika said as they got into the sun warmed car an hour later. “I’ve really enjoyed myself.”

  “Me, too.” She regretted that her day alone with Erika had to end and wondered briefly if there was some way to prolong it. Did Erika have plans that evening? But she didn’t want to infringe on her free time and let it go.

  23

  Aly saw Kylie again on Monday and when they kissed goodnight in the parking lot of a bar where they had gone to see a new band, Kylie’s physical response and words indicated she wanted a repeat of Saturday night. But there was no place to go.

  Kylie wasn’t comfortable yet bringing someone home when her sister was there and Aly was grateful for this. She would not want her first introduction in someone’s home to be a pass through greeting on the way to sex in the spare room.

  It was a little depressing to Aly, who had owned her own home, that she did not have a place to bring a lover. In time, of course, she could introduce Kylie to Erika and have her over when the girls were gone. But she felt all sorts of awkward squirming within at the thought of bringing Kylie into Erika’s home for sex. Maybe if she knew Erika was not coming home one night herself. This idea did not, however, mitigate Aly’s feeling that she was too old to be searching for a way to be with a lover.

  On Wednesday, Kylie’s sister and her partner went out for the night, so Aly met her at the apartment after she saw Lu and Whitney off with Julio. Dinner could wait, and they took advantage of the empty apartment and went straight to bed.

  It was nice.

  Afterward they went out for a late dinner of sandwiches at a Quiznos. Kylie was really looking forward to the party on Saturday. She had dec
ided she would wear the reverse of Aly, white jeans and a black top.

  Aly was home by eleven and found Erika in the kitchen making her chamomile tea. She was usually in her bedroom by ten. She seemed distracted.

  “You okay?” Aly asked as she got her water for the night.

  “Hm? Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. Then, for a moment, she looked like she was going to say something more. But she just smiled and said goodnight.

  ◆◆◆

  Whitney was aflutter with nerves on Saturday. She was distracted and there was no keeping her still, though she was as quiet as usual. Lu, on the other hand, was excited, and noisy about it. Since everyone else had a party to go to, Julio planned a special father-daughter dress up dinner at an upscale restaurant just for the two of them.

  Erika felt guilty. She sat with Aly at the bar after breakfast. “I should not have my own plans when Whitney’s going on her first date. I should be here to hear all about it when she gets home.”

  “Yes, because Whitney is so forthcoming. You know she will go back to Julio’s and close herself in her room and relive it and absorb it and no one will hear peep about it for days until she’s ready to let it out slowly in her own quiet way. Now, Lu, on the other hand, you want to be there for that first date. She’ll come exploding through the door full of it all and talk nonstop for hours.”

  Erika cocked her head and studied Aly with her beautiful eyes. “You know them well.”

  For a moment their eyes locked and Aly’s heart accelerated. What, Erika? But if she was going to say more it slipped away as Lu came bounding in chattering about what she planned to wear that night.

  For the rest of the day Erika was as distracted as Whitney and Lu was bouncing off the walls. Aly was the only one who simply looked forward to the evening.

  Finally, the time to prepare came around and everyone felt better to have something focused to do. Whitney was going as Beyoncé. It was mostly about the gold wig and tight, shimmery costume, but there was some facial approximation Whitney and Erika attempted with make-up. Aly wondered if Mike Kent was going as Jay-Z, but Whitney didn’t know. Apparently one was to surprise, not coordinate with, their date.

  Julio arrived dressed in a handsome trim blue suit with a silver tie. Lu dressed in a pink trapeze dress with silver slippers and jacket. Perhaps they had coordinated.

  Six o’clock rolled around and the chime indicated that someone had crossed the driveway. Whitney let out a nervous moan and went to the door. Everyone gathered a ways behind her, eager to see the mysterious Mike Kent. But when she opened the, it was to a very tall Albert Einstein.

  Aly, who was standing behind everyone, saw Erika’s hand go up to her mouth. Julio tucked in his lips and looked at the ground. Lu said, mercifully low, “What is that?”

  It was hard to make out the real boy behind the mass of grey hair and bushy grey mustache and eyebrows. He had very white, freckled cheeks and green eyes. At fourteen he was already Julio’s height. A few steps behind him stood his father, a man in his late thirties, a good six inches over six feet, with short, wavy orange hair and very white, freckled skin.

  Greetings and introductions were made all around, hands were shaken, pictures were taken, and Julio gave Boris Kent his address so he could drop off Whitney there at the end of the dance. Then Erika shut the front door and everyone but Lu tried not to laugh. She was simply baffled. “Who was he supposed to be?”

  “Albert Einstein. A famous physicist,” Erika explained. “Well, she knows him from science camp.”

  “Somehow I imagined ‘Mike Kent’ to have a strong jaw and blue black hair,” Julio said.

  “You’re thinking Clark Kent,” Erika laughed.

  Julio and Lu left for their fancy dinner and Aly and Erika went to their separate bedrooms to get ready for the party.

  Aly was driving so Kylie could drink. She knew Erika had plans for dinner before the party, but didn’t know the details. She left before she was out of her room. As a courtesy she texted, “Gone. See you later.”

  Erika texted back, “See ya” with a winking emoji.

  When Aly picked up Kylie she met her sister, Bryn, who was a forty year old, more filled out version of Kylie. Kylie wanted to be sure they met before they ran into each other some morning. Bryn was making dinner and said hello and waved from the kitchen. Her partner did not seem to be around.

  Aly took Kylie to dinner at an Applebee’s on Rainbow that was on the way to Anita’s. The party started at eight but she didn’t want to be there before nine. She knew from past experience that’s when people really began to arrive.

  Kylie was alternately quiet and chatty. Aly surmised she was swinging between nervousness and excitement. She remembered being the same way for her first Anita’s Thing.

  There was a light but steady stream of cars heading into Spanish Trail when they pulled up to the gate. She assumed most of them were heading for Anita’s. She gave her name at the gatehouse and pulled into the residential enclave.

  Large stucco homes surrounded a championship golf course that was built in the eighties and, unlike much of the new parts of the city that were required to xeriscape, they had mature, lush landscaping. It was an oasis in the desert.

  So the residential streets would not be clogged with strange cars, Aly had been directed to park at the clubhouse. There they boarded a small shuttle bus to Anita’s five thousand square foot, white stucco, two story Spanish villa on the ninth hole. They disembarked to the sound of dance music pulsing into the street, and she wondered what sort of arrangement Anita made with her neighbors. Maybe she invited them to be the token straight people at the party.

  Women, and a man here and there, seemed to be coming from all directions to funnel up Anita’s driveway to her wide front door. Heavy wood double doors were blocked open for the evening. The temperature typically does not dive for autumn in Las Vegas until Halloween, three days away. It was a pleasant, mild night in the low seventies, expected to fall into the low sixties. It was perfect for a party that was open to the outdoors and pretty views of lit homes across the dark golf course.

  Anita, the only one dressed all in black, her tight jeans and T-shirt delineating her muscular body, was greeting her guests at the door. She gave Aly a big hug and Aly introduced her date. When Kylie had passed, Anita took Aly’s arm and said in her ear, “Very nice.”

  She laughed and waved off Anita's puzzled look. “Inside joke.”

  The living room, like the rest of the house, had an old world southwest décor to match the home’s architecture. All of the seats were already filled with women. The living room shared with a large dining room a sliding glass wall that was fully open to a stone patio where women were dancing under fairy lights. There was a barbeque kitchen to the side and a small yard beyond the patio. It was bounded with a low, caped fieldstone wall to distinguish it from the golf course.

  “Wow. So many women in one place,” Kylie grinned.

  “And it’s not even in full swing yet.”

  The dining room table had been removed and there were finger foods on a long buffet against a wall and a bartender in the corner. Aly got herself a glass of wine, all she would have for the evening, and Kylie had a margarita. “To go with the house,” she said.

  Down a hall off the dining room that ended in the kitchen they found the toilet with a line already formed. And, in a study nearby, a weed bar, newly legal in Nevada. It had a small sign that said, “Happy Halloweed”. This really got Kylie’s attention, and that was something new Aly learned about her. She smoked some socially in her twenties, but she really preferred wine or beer over hard liquor or pot.

  They went outside and sat on the low stone wall and drank and danced a bit. And then Aly saw Cass. A couple of weeks before she found Cass was open to a long talk about recognizing Toni’s growth. So she had news. “We’re talking,” she said of herself and Toni. “I think we might go to counseling.” Aly gave her a hug and introduced her to Kylie.

  Aly saw some ot
her friends and acquaintances and played catch up. Even Kylie found people she knew.

  About an hour after they arrived, she was standing just on the patio outside the dining room speaking with Kylie when she looked toward the front door and saw a woman she knew. For a half second she was disoriented seeing her out of context. Her mind seemed to recognize and to not recognize the woman at once. I know you, but where do I know you from? And then her mind cleared and she knew. A spontaneous rush of love engulfed her, knocking the wind out of her, and freezing her to the spot.

  The last time Aly saw Erika like this across a room at a party she saw the Ice Queen. When had the Ice Queen melted? No, there had never been an Ice Queen. The ice had only been in her own eyes. That Erika never existed. She was a figment of her and Toy’s imaginations. Erika Milton was, as Anita said, a lovely person. She was unfailingly warm, generous, loving, thoughtful. She always had been. She was the loveliest person she had ever known.

  She turned away, wanting to cry, but uncertain why. Something unexpected had happened. Some unforeseen bend had come in the road. Only she had already taken it and could not recall when.

  “You know what I mean?” Kylie asked and Aly came back to her. She had no idea what she was asking, but it did not seem to matter. Kylie turned to speak to someone else.

  Anita was suddenly at her elbow. “Honey, Toy’s here. I didn’t invite her. She came as Delia’s plus one. Not a date, just friends.”

  The ground rose firmly under Aly’s feet again, though she remained shaken. She pushed her epiphany to the background to deal with this new situation. It was six months since she last saw Toy. Anita indicated with a lift of her jaw where she was, outside at the edge of the patio. She braced and looked. But it was just Toy. All Aly felt was that she was familiar.

  “I’ll go say hello and get it over with,” she said and told Kylie what she was doing.

  Toy looked like the Phys Ed teacher she was. Five foot seven, husky, with the pasty, soft white skin of a Caucasian from the Midwest, grey eyes with a friendly expression, and medium brown hair cut very short. She was dressed in white jeans and a black and white rodeo shirt. Aly recognized the shirt.