by Clare Lydon
“Sounds awesome,” Harriet replied. “I remember how crazy-talented you were.”
Sally blushed, looking out to the lake. “I still remember that summer so clearly,” she said. “I remember the feelings like they were yesterday.”
“It was all so new then. All so… fresh, exciting, unknown.” Harriet shook her head. “I’ve often tried to recapture what I felt that summer at the lake house with you, but I don’t think it’s possible. I guess it’s called being 18.”
Sally’s head throbbed as she nodded, and she took another slug of her water. “We were both young, it was something so…” Sally shook her head. It was still the most exciting summer of Sally’s life.
“So… what?”
Sally swallowed down the old emotions swirling around her body where Harriet was concerned. Every hair on her body stood up, woozy with feeling. Blood zoomed to her cheeks, and there was the familiar tingle in her stomach. She was momentarily dazed, surprised. The old feelings were still there? That couldn’t be right, could it? So much had happened since, not least that she was no longer 17, no longer hanging on Harriet’s every word.
She blew out a long breath. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” she said, straightening up. “It’s a long time ago, and nobody forgets their first, do they?”
She heard Harriet draw a breath at that, then she looked away, her chest rising and falling fast, like she didn’t dare look at Sally. “Your first?”
It might be years ago, but Sally still recalled how hard it had been to function when Harriet left, like someone had ripped away a limb and asked her to just carry on as if nothing had happened. She’d tried to, but her best efforts at life had been wonky, haphazard. And back then, she hadn’t been able to put a name to what she was feeling, to call out the pain and devastation she’d felt even thinking about Harriet.
Picturing her in her mind. Picturing them both, naked, on the boat, wrapped in each other’s arms.
No, back then, it had been far too painful.
Sally nodded. “You knew you were my first, I told you that.”
“Right,” Harriet replied, her face clouding over. “You mean first sexual encounter.”
“Of course,” Sally said. “What did you think I meant?”
She knew what Harriet was getting at, she just didn’t want to admit it.
Yes, Harriet had been her first love, the grand first love that had marked her for life, made her run screaming back into the closet, made her doubt herself and her feelings for anyone who came afterwards.
But she was over that now, wasn’t she? She wasn’t the type to hold on to feelings; she’d been through enough therapy to know that did no good at all.
“What about you?” Sally asked, changing the subject swiftly.
Harriet chewed her cheek. “Me?”
“Yes, relationship, job, the works. We seem to have been talking about me a lot, but you’ve said nothing. The great Harriet Locke, have you got a girlfriend hiding at home?”
Harriet snorted at that. “Nope, no girlfriend, I’m very much single. You think I’d be here if I did?”
Sally’s heart sank: was she the consolation prize where Harriet was concerned?
Harriet twisted in her seat and took Sally’s hand in hers, covering it with both her palms. For a moment, Sally thought she was going to lift it to her lips and kiss it; but if she had been, she thought better of it and took a hand away.
“That didn’t come out as I meant it,” Harriet said, wincing.
Sally narrowed her eyes, taking her hand back, closing down her body for self-preservation. Her head was still aching and she didn’t need Harriet messing with it tonight, too. She pictured her massive kingsize bed and how she was longing to crawl into it, sink into its Egyptian cotton sheets and drag the duvet over her head.
She didn’t need any of Harriet’s mind games now or ever: she’d survived this long without them just fine.
“Sounds like it came out exactly as you meant it to me.”
Harriet shook her head. “It didn’t, believe me,” she said, squeezing Sally’s hand. “What I meant was, there is no-one at home, and I’d be lucky to have someone who could compare to you.”
Sally shook her head. “How do you know what I’m like anymore? We haven’t seen each other in half a lifetime. I could have turned into an awful person, be really selfish. I might have treated all my girlfriends terribly.”
“I doubt that,” she replied. “I don’t think the core of anybody changes that much from who they were when they were young to who they are now. And you were always one of the kindest, sweetest, warmest people I’d ever met — you were so open and generous, I’d never met anybody like you. And you’re right, I don’t know you now, how could I? But I’d lay bets you’re still warm, smart, and funny, all the things I loved about you back then. So I’m sorry if I upset you, okay?”
“Just then, or when we were kids?” Sally asked, the hurt from both occasions surging around her like a hurricane. She needed some food, lest she start feeling sick again.
“Both,” Harriet replied, fixing Sally with her gaze, and Sally was powerless to move from it. Instead, she immersed herself in it, wanting the warmth it had always bestowed on her, but then shying away from it, knowing its power and its history.
She shook herself and yawned, covering up what she was feeling. “Shall we walk to the pier and get some food?”
***
They walked over to the edge of Navy Pier and leaned against the railings, eating their hot dogs, topped with onions and ketchup. As soon as it hit her stomach, Harriet wanted more: turned out she was hungry, and she realized she hadn’t eaten all day. She’d been too nervous about tonight — for good reason. If nothing else, even if she never saw Sally again, she wanted to leave her with a good impression of the current-day Harriet Locke.
She knew she’d been at fault for their break-up, but college had just been too distracting — plus there were a lot of girls there. But when Harriet had told Sally she didn’t think they should carry on, she could still see the salty tears that had rolled down her flushed cheeks, still see her shaking shoulders, the fault all hers.
Her actions had devastated Sally, but they’d crippled her, too. Yes, they’d been at different stages of their lives, but it had never stopped Harriet wondering what might have been. What if?
Of all her exes, Sally was the one who’d never left Harriet’s heart. After they split, Harriet had concluded a clean break would be better for both of them. Better to cut all ties and get on with their lives than stringing it out and prolonging the heartbreak. It was only a few years later, when she was much older, she realized how stupid she’d been.
“I’ve had three long-term relationships, to answer your earlier question,” Harriet said, once her hot dog was done.
Sally was still only halfway through hers, but she wasn’t looking nearly as green as she had been an hour ago.
“None of them have lasted more than two years, and none of them have ever resulted in me moving in with someone. Daniel says this makes me a very unattractive prospect now, that I’ll be far too set in my ways for the unfortunate woman who has to try to change them.”
Sally gave her a sad smile. “Is Daniel right?”
“No, I think he’s selling me a little short, but that’s brothers for you. I could totally live in harmony if I met the right woman. If that happened, I’d be willing to bend and twist in ways Daniel hasn’t even dreamed of.” She blushed as she said it, not meaning for it to sound so flirtatious. She hoped she might stop putting her foot in her mouth sometime soon.
She closed her eyes to try to recover her composure, but when she reopened them, Sally’s soft gaze was caressing her face, a smile playing around her lips. “Possibly best not to tell him that. If he’s anything like he used to be, he’d ask you to spell out exactly what you mean.”
Harriet nodded. “Nope, still the same, that’s exactly what he’d say,” she said, smiling. “Anyway, that’s me —
I’ve been focusing more on my business and getting that up and running — it’s why I was in New York the day I stole your suitcase.”
“What do you do?” Sally said, before eating another bite of hot dog and wiping some ketchup from the side of her mouth.
Harriet’s fingers itched to reach up and wipe it away herself, to look after Sally just like always, but she kept her hands right where they were. There was a time and place to be doing things like that, and she was pretty sure this wasn’t one of them.
“We’re called Panache — mainly because that’s what we supply. Big stores and picky clients want something that sets them apart from the crowd, and so we showcase cutting-edge and brilliant designs that otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day. Stuff like stationery, accessories, gadgets, little items that you didn’t know you needed but will make your life infinitely better.”
“You don’t sell spiralizers, do you?”
Harriet let out a bark of laughter at that. “We try to only market stuff that will survive trends. No spiralizers have crossed my palms, promise. We champion companies and designers who are doing things that little bit differently, but they then don’t want to put all their time into trying to market their products. We’ve got contacts with stores, big and small, all around the world, and we can place those creations where people want to buy them. We also have a list of individual buyers who’ll pay a premium to get this stuff before anybody else.”
Sally nodded her head, licking a crumb from her index finger.
Harriet watched as she trailed her tongue briefly along its tip, before sucking it slowly into her mouth. A shudder ran down the length of her body, but Sally was blissfully unaware.
Harriet needed to focus, and not let her mind draw back the curtain on when that had happened before.
When Sally had sucked Harriet’s finger into her mouth, before sucking Harriet into her mouth completely.
Harriet swallowed and brought her mind back to the present.
“Wow, who knew stuff like that even existed? I work with a ton of artists in New York and they’d kill for a company like yours to come along and discover them.”
“Well, you have to have been in business for a certain time and have the capacity to scale up and increase your production by quite a way. We’ve been burnt before and so now we only deal with clients who are ready. If you’ve only been used to supplying 40 units of whatever it is you make per month to the market, and then suddenly one of our clients orders 1,000 for their stores around the globe and they need them in two weeks, our suppliers have to be ready. We do our homework.” Harriet smiled. “Saying that, your friends might be viable, who knows? What I know is there are so many talented people everywhere looking for a break, and we want to make that happen.”
Sally eyed her now as if for the first time, turning up one side of her mouth as she did so. “You’ve surprised me, Harriet Locke.”
“I have? In a good way?” Please say in a good way.
“Yes, in a good way.”
Phew.
“Your dad’s a corporate lawyer, your mom’s a financial whiz, and you were brought up to do something traditional, something staid that makes a lot of money. And while I’m sure you make enough money from this — I’m not naive enough to think you do it out of the goodness of your own heart — this business is serving a need, one that means that artists can make enough money from their work, and that’s priceless.”
Harriet grinned. “I’m glad you get it.” She hoped her line of business was gaining brownie points with Sally, which she could clearly do with scoring.
Sally rolled her neck before she spoke again. “You mind if we get a coffee? I think my system could do with a pick-me-up.”
“A coffee this late?”
Sally smiled. “I will sleep the sleep of the dead tonight.”
They walked away from the pier, leaving the tourists behind them, through the sculptured Polk Bros Park and out into the city’s heartbeat, pulsing with lights, people and cars. As they navigated North Lake Shore Drive, Harriet went to take Sally’s hand — it was such a natural response, she almost did it without thinking — but she stopped before she connected.
They were different people now, with their own lives. She couldn’t just take Sally’s hand as if she still had the right to — she’d forfeited that quite some time ago.
Five minutes later, they found a small diner on a side street still open, two metallic stools empty at its white counter. A thick-set middle-aged man near the door was tucking into a plate of meatloaf with gusto, his lips smacking together as he ate. At the back of the diner, a young couple were holding hands across the table as they shared an ice cream sundae.
Their youthful exuberance reminded Harriet of her and Sally before she’d fucked it up.
Behind the counter, a serious-looking coffee machine made a statement in polished chrome, and several fruit pies stood inside a clear cabinet.
Harriet and Sally sat down on the empty stools, their metallic legs making a grating sound on the scratched floor as they shuffled them forward. Harriet ordered two coffees and some cherry pie, insisting Sally could use the sugar, and she didn’t argue.
The woman serving gave them their drinks in thick, white mugs, and the pie arrived with steam rising off it, the sweet smell curling into Harriet’s senses. The woman dolloped two scoops of vanilla ice cream on the side of the plate and presented them with a fork each, and their cutlery clashed as they dove into the pastry at the same time.
They both grinned, and just as Harriet was about to say something about the cherry pie being “damn fine,” Christina Aguilera’s Dirrty began blaring from the radio, taking her back to that summer: the summer of them.
When she looked up, Sally was giving her an intense stare, and Harriet didn’t look away.
“This takes me back,” Harriet said.
Sally nodded. “Uh-huh.” She finished her pie before continuing. “You, me, Robert’s food, a bottle of wine, and Christina serenading us.” She flicked her gaze away from Harriet, staring at a point over her shoulder.
“Christina was a constant, wasn’t she?” Harriet cleared her throat as Sally nodded. Thinking about that summer was making sitting here with Sally feel a little claustrophobic, so she flicked the subject matter back to now.
“Big news with your aunt investing — does that mean your business could really begin to fly soon?”
Relief swept over Sally’s face as she toyed with the pie, flicking her gaze back to Harriet. “That’s the plan. Right now, it’s just me working out of a studio complex in Queens, right around the corner from my apartment. But if things work out, I might expand and think about stepping up my marketing plans. It’s scary but exciting.”
“It sounds like it,” Harriet said. “I’d love to see some of your work sometime.”
“I’ll mail you a card,” Sally replied. “A thank-you for the hot dog and the pie.”
Harriet smiled. “Maybe I could stop by the next time I’m in New York and we could do lunch or something.”
Sally eyed her thoughtfully. “We’ll see.”
Harriet nodded, not sure what to make of that sentence.
Sally was silent for a while, a slight frown on her face when she spoke. “But seeing as I’ve messed up tonight being hungover, we could meet up again tomorrow if you like.” She paused. “So long as you’re not working.”
Harriet cast her mind forward to tomorrow and the mountain of work she’d been planning to do, as well as going to visit her dad. However, she already knew that going out again with Sally McCall trumped both of those. “I’d love to,” she replied.
Harriet stared into Sally’s eyes and what she saw almost took her breath away. It was as if the intervening 17 years had never happened, and they were teenagers again. Before life got in the way.
“I’ll get my work done and we can meet for dinner later? Properly this time, when we can eat dinner sitting at a table. A table is a prerequisite, wouldn’t you say?”
“I always said you were the classy one,” Sally replied with a renewed smile. “But seeing as we’re catching up tomorrow, you mind if I duck out early tonight and get some rest? Daytime drinking and me are not friends.”
Harriet shook her head. “No problem. So long as tomorrow is a definite.”
“It’s a date,” Sally replied, before blushing bright red. “I mean not a date, but you know…” she stuttered, before looking at the floor.
“I know what you mean,” Harriet replied, putting a hand on her knee.
Sally took an audible intake of breath at that, before looking up at her.
And when she did that, time stood still, and Christina Aguilera faded out. The only sound Harriet could hear was her heartbeat booming in her ears and the distant sound of Chicago traffic outside. But when Sally jumped off her stool, the colors came back, and all of a sudden, everything was too loud.
“I really should be going,” Sally said, taking a gulp of her coffee. “Thanks for tonight. Text me about tomorrow. You’ve got my number.” She reached over and squeezed Harriet’s hand.
Harriet shuddered.
Another scorching look from Sally McCall, and then she flitted behind her and out the door, leaving Harriet alone to rake over what just happened.
It was a lot to process.
Chapter Thirteen
Two hours later, Harriet led Sally out across the lawn, the sun just beginning to descend over the water, its rays still pink and warm. Harriet was carrying a red checkered woolen blanket and a chilled picnic bag, while Sally had a bottle of contraband Pinot Grigio wrapped in her sweater.
“This place never fails to impress,” Sally said, as Harriet spread the blanket over the grass, putting the food on one corner: their chef, Robert, was a sweetheart and had thought of everything. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”
Harriet loved bringing Sally here, loved seeing the world through her eyes. She often wished she could feel the joy Sally felt at stuff like this: for her, it was all too tied up with her family, a place she couldn’t wait to get away from.