by C. E. Case
Adam giggled.
Leah said, "I'm going to get more coffee."
* * *
When rehearsal broke and Leah was soaked with sweat and Ward had finished yelling and insulting her, Adam informed them they had a week and a half off while costumes were sewn and lighting was programmed into computers.
"I hear there are some good plays nearby," he said.
She could sit through Macbeth again. Somewhere Sophia couldn't see her, because that would be creepy. She shrugged. Adam smiled. He brought it up again at dinner. The three of them were together at the house, eating chicken breasts with capers and wild rice.
"Come clubbing with us Friday," Adam said.
"Where?"
"Flamingo," Ward said.
"No thanks. I don't want to be the only woman in a gay bar. You remember what happened last time."
Ward glanced at Adam.
"They thought she was a man," Adam said.
"You didn't have to tell him that."
"It was very unpleasant," Adam said.
"Very."
Ward took another bite of rice.
Leah glared at Adam.
"So go to a girl bar," Adam said.
"Adam. We're in North Carolina."
He pushed a copy of the local weekly newspaper across the table. "I circled some. You haven't been out since we got here."
"Neither have you."
"Well, that's got to change. If you don't go clubbing, at least go to a party."
"We're hosting one," Leah said.
"In a week, and that's for our show. Hardly the event of the century," Adam said.
"Some people are born social, and some have socializing thrust upon them," Ward said. He waved his fork at Leah.
Adam gently pushed Ward's arm down, and said, "Leah never missed an event in New York. She's the toast of the town."
"Have you ever met anyone famous?" Ward asked.
"Your momma," Leah said.
Ward grinned.
"What's wrong, Leah?" Adam asked.
"Nothing's wrong except Jeopardy!'s on and I need to feel smart." She took her plate into the living room.
Ward and Adam finished dinner in the kitchen, whispering to each other, touching benignly. A hand on a thigh, a finger tapping an elbow. Adam came and took the dish from her when he went to clean up. She watched the television silently, her thoughts too much in turmoil to think of the answers to Adam's questions, or hear what Alex was saying.
In New York, she knew everyone. Every star and writer was a friend of Leah Fisher. Even in their most boring iterations of the same stories--the reason she'd left in the first place to try something new--there was camaraderie. A stranger was just someone new in town, new to the stage, to be introduced to her. She got invited backstage to every show on Broadway, and into the dressing rooms of half. She had done what she wanted.
She'd wanted to leave.
Now, to walk into a room and not know anyone felt unreal. Last night's efforts at the bar had been intense and draining and probably futile. She'd been on the scene since she was nineteen. Since she had convinced her parents it was all right to let her minor in theater, because a college degree was a college degree, that it was no worse than English.
Going to the Flamingo with Adam and Ward would not cheer her up. No one would recognize her. She'd be their third wheel and though beautiful young men would probably dance with her, and charm her, and maybe even buy her a drink, there'd be nothing for them to share, nothing to take home. She didn't want to escape, she wanted to be remembered.
But staying home in the empty, large house seemed worse. The drug lords and prostitutes would know, and they'd come for her. They'd steal the piano. She shivered. If that was going to happen, she didn't want to be around for it.
"How am I going to get there?" Leah asked. Adam and Ward were taking the rental car.
"You can walk," Adam said, beaming. "It's ten blocks. Here, let me help you dress."
"I can't dress myself to go to a lesbian bar?"
"Were you going to wear jeans?"
"No."
"Oh, honey."
She sighed.
He put her in her tightest blue jeans and the only pair of high-heeled boots she'd brought.
"I can't walk ten blocks in these," she said.
"I put in insoles."
"Adam."
"Hey, I need you on stage an hour a night. Good foot care is important."
"And gay," she said.
She picked her sluttiest top and did her own makeup, which Adam marked over with brighter lipstick and more eye shadow.
"I look like a tramp," she said.
"A vamp. You look like a vamp."
"Rhymes with tramp."
He grinned.
"Do you expect me to bring someone home?" she asked.
"It'd be good for you. How long has it been?"
She met his eyes in the mirror and said, "Not long enough."
"Who?" He placed his hand on her back, and looked at her earnestly.
"No one," she said, pulling away.
"Leah."
"Just some guy."
"And?" Adam prompted.
And every time he'd touched her, she'd wanted to die. It wasn't his fault. He was the sound technician from her most recent anime gig. They'd joked together about the crazy love story she was recounting, in high-pitched oration. She'd been the one to invite him to dinner, and then a second, and when the kissing had been fine--a little exciting, even, she'd let the rest happen.
He'd been gentle, mistaking her trembling as he undressed her for excitement. And she'd touched him, remembering how it had felt to hold Grace, marveling at how different it was even when all the parts weren't that different. He'd used his mouth, and she cried and begged him to stop, and when he wanted to hold her as he slept she'd felt suffocated, had escaped, had never spoken to him again, despite the flowers he sent, despite his apologies.
He had no idea what he was apologizing for.
Adam wrapped his arms around her waist and held her, and when she relaxed back into him he murmured, "Bring home a girl. Do I have to draw you a picture?"
Chapter Nine
She almost lost her nerve walking the ten blocks. She stopped in the dark, under a maple tree that draped heavy branches over her head. Going back meant the empty house. Ward and Adam were going to a club an hour away. Even if she cried into the cell phone for them, it'd be useless.
Forward lay civilization. Adam promised her that she was hot, and not desperate, and that her hair was really more of a dirty blonde than a mousey brunette and not too straggly in the way it brushed her neck. Perhaps she'd even run into some of the local crew there. She'd have a drink, she told herself, maybe two.
When she arrived, Lost Girls at Sea was packed. The club was one large room, mostly dark with stage lights pointed at the dance floor, flickering, and light above the bar. She paid her ten dollars at the door, and pushed through the crowd toward the bar at the back. There she could sit--the crowd was mostly on the dance floor, or along the back wall. She ordered the special and drank it in one swallow and then ordered another to carry while she mingled.
The crowd wasn't all younger than her, though those on the dance floor looked to be about eighteen. The girls with the piercings and the shaved heads caught her eye first, but mostly everyone wore jeans and held beers. The hair, when present, was poofier than what she usually saw in New York, the accents made her giggle, and finally, after thirty-four years of living, she saw her first mullet.
Despite Adam's promises, she didn't recognize anyone. She smiled sheepishly at girls, all in groups of two or three, who smiled back, but then turned away. She sighed. Women traveled in packs. Lesbians were no exception. She sipped at her drink, hoping to make it last so that her hands were occupied, and surveyed the dance floor.
She caught a flash of Sophia.
"Crap."
No one heard her through the thundering disco music, and Sophia hadn't see
n her standing in the dark along the edge. She finished her drink and made her way onto the dance floor. Only when she was two feet from Sophia, about to interrupt, did the awareness of Sophia in a dyke bar, dancing with a woman, reach her. And now it was too late to run.
"Are you--?" Leah asked clumsily, instead of "Hello."
Sophia's eyes widened as she recognized Leah--a good sign, at least--and she asked, "Are you?"
Leah glanced around at the sea of women, and then back at Sophia, and nodded. "I guess, tonight, I am."
Sophia smiled.
"Anyway, sorry to interrupt, enjoy your dance," Leah said, backing away. She decided to head for the bar. A third drink would do her good.
"No, I'll dance with you," Sophia said. She gave her partner an apologetic wave and hug, and then grabbed Leah.
"But--"
"Come on. It's good to see a familiar face."
Leah allowed herself to be tugged into an awkward, swaying hug. Sophia was warm, and her skin shone with faint sweat, and her hair stuck to her face. She was smiling, wider than Leah had ever seen.
"Are you drunk?" Leah asked. She put her hand to Sophia's flushed cheek. The heat burned into her palm.
"Little bit," Sophia said.
"You a fun drunk?"
"Little bit," Sophia said, and lunged forward. Leah stumbled back as Sophia's mouth touched her temple. The spark that shot through her was instant, and powerful, and she held onto Sophia to keep from falling.
"I barely--" Leah started, and then changed her mind and asked, "Did you come by yourself?"
"I come every Friday," Sophia said, shouting into Leah's ear. "I was supposed to meet Jenny and Carlotta from the South Pacificcrew, but they didn't show. One can wonder why."
A startlingly clear picture flashed through Leah's mind. She pushed Sophia's hair out of her face to keep her hands near the burning cheeks, the skin pliant under her fingertips.
"How was the show?" Leah asked.
"Double, double, toil and trouble," Sophia said. "Forget about the show. Let's just dance."
They danced. Mostly apart, and Leah was no Fred Astaire, but she kept to the beat and let Sophia slide down her body, and wiggled her hips. Just to keep moving. Something loosened inside her, and Sophia poured drinks down her throat while they rested between songs, sitting at the bar, knees touching, watching the crowd.
They gossiped whenever they settled at the bar, and Leah was deciding her fifth drink was enough, when someone from another group came over and asked her to dance, even with Sophia, gorgeous and glistening and sweet, sitting right next to her. Feeling beautiful and flattered, she accepted.
The woman smelled of leather, and Leah let hips press against hers, and buried her nose in the collar of the leather jacket, and breathed and moved to the slow, sexy Indigo Girls song playing as hands traveled down her ass. She would never tell Adam, but it had been a good idea to come, to feel desired.
As soon as the song ended, she wobbled back to Sophia at the bar, who was regarding her oddly.
"What?"
"You're supposed to continue with her. She's looking at you," Sophia said.
"What? She's all right. But I--" Leah frowned, and considered. She shrugged and said, "I got what I wanted."
"What, are you a tease?" Sophia asked, lightly smacking her on the back, and then sliding an arm around her waist.
Leah settled her arm across Sophia's shoulders and said, "Nah, just easily pleased."
Sophia elbowed her.
"We have to walk back," Leah said forlornly, because her feet were killing her after an hour on the dance floor wearing the evil boots. She just wanted to be home so she could cut off her feet in peace.
"You should have asked that woman for a car."
"Why don't you?"
"What, and show some innocent native the roach motel? No, thank you."
"Then why did you come?" Leah asked. She dropped her arm to the bar. Jealousy from nowhere, not with Sophia pressed against her side, burned inside her chest.
"I came with friends," Sophia said, cautiously. "And found one."
Leah exhaled slowly, and then said, "If you were really my friend, you'd carry me back."
"If I were really your friend, I'd get you laid."
Leah stopped short. Sophia gave her a little grin. Leah tried to stand upright, and found that she could. "Let's go," she said.
Sophia took her arm and pulled herself up, and then let go. "Sure you don't want to take a cab? It's a bad neighborhood."
"I have high-heeled boots on. I'll kick them," Leah said as they left. The air outside felt cool. She inhaled deeply, and shook her shirt to let the air in against her skin.
"What are you doing?"
"It's the first cool night I've experienced since coming to North Carolina," Leah said.
Sophia nodded.
"You?"
"I like to get up in the mornings, right before sunrise, and go jogging, when the humidity and the dew stick to you. Everything's fresh and cool then."
Leah felt like she was going to pass out.
Sophia said, "Only sometimes. Twice a week. Not lately, since the play opened. I tend to sleep in."
"There's a reason I have a night job."
"What's that?"
"Oh, you want a real answer?"
"Yeah," Sophia said.
They were walking together, in a relatively even line, but Leah's face was flushed with heat and alcohol and she hadn't prepared for the sharing part of the conversation. Sophia waited for her, though, so she finally said, "I liked it, and I was good at it. I wasn't good at much else, you know? Not like that."
"Not like it felt natural?"
"Right. You, too?"
"Like nothing else did," Sophia said, and sighed.
They got to Sophia's hotel first, and Leah looked at the brightly lit sliding doors with drunken interest.
"Want to come in?" Sophia asked.
"No, I--" Leah shook her head. She hadn't been expecting--though now that the idea had entered her mind, arousal entered with it. She swallowed.
"Just for a bit. Or is Adam waiting up for you?" Sophia asked, a teasing lilt to her voice.
"No, I'm sure he's with Ward," Leah said.
"With Ward?"
"They went down to High Point to go clubbing. I don't know when they'll be back." Leah looked down the street. Six blocks away was an empty house. Or one filled with sex and lust and groans that would keep her up all night, make her restless and lonely.
"You don't have go back to an empty house,” Sophia said. "I have the Cartoon Network."
"Do you have a roommate?"
Sophia shook her head. "Ensemble is two to a room, the ones that aren't local--most of them are. But Lady M?" She ended on the question and looked sad.
Leah squeezed her. "I'll walk you to your door, at least. It's only fair," Leah said. She was still drunk, and her feet were not going to allow her to walk the six blocks home.
Sophia led her through the lobby. In the elevator, they stood not looking at each other, not touching. At the door to Sophia's hotel room, Leah said, "It's weird, having a friend. I feel like I've known you longer than a week."
Sophia leaned her temple against the door and studied Leah.
Leah said, "It's hard to make friends. As an adult. Without like, school."
Sophia smiled. "There's always a new show." She pushed open the door, and looked unsure.
Leah said, "Look, I can just go."
"No, come in. If you still want to." Sophia caught her wrist, and then let her go, and went in, holding the door open.
Leah shrugged and went in. She flung herself into the nearest chair, at a small, round table covered in boxes of power bars and flowers, and groaned. "My feet."
"Not much of a dancer?"
"No. What do you do, to avoid this?"
"Insoles."
"I'm wearing them."
Sophia went into the bathroom. Leah saw the light go in the corner of her eye. Then Sop
hia came out, holding a glass of water and a bottle of Advil. "Take two," she said.
"For foot pain?"
"Whatever ails you."
Leah clutched the bottle. Her feet throbbed. She surrendered and took two. Sophia went back into the bathroom. The water ran. The toilet flushed. When she came out, her face was clean and she'd changed into a T-Shirt reading Durham Playhouse.
"Want a power bar?" She asked.
"Kind of."
"Help yourself."
Leah chose blueberry, and ate, as Sophia made coffee in the machine in her little kitchenette.
"This is like a dollhouse," Leah said.
"Are we the dolls?" Sophia asked.
Leah inhaled the scent of coffee and said, "I don't care if we are. Thank God for coffee."
"It's not Honduran fair trade."
"Next time you come over I'll send some home with you," Leah said. Sophia brought Leah a mug. "Bless you," she said, and drank.
Sophia sat on the bed, far away from Leah, at the headboard, and closed her eyes.
Leah tried not to crunch too loudly. The wrapper, though, crumpled audibly when she threw it away, and went to get more coffee. "Coffee?" she asked, to see if Sophia was still awake.
"Sure." Sophia slapped the side of the bed next to her, and said, "I'm the least entertaining person in the world, I'm sorry."
"And yet, still better than an empty house," Leah said. She went and sat next to Sophia on the unmade bed. The comforter was piled on the floor between beds, and the sheets were tangled. Sophia had stuck her feet under them, and her back was against a scrunched pillow. The sheets were cool and fresh under Leah's palms. She exhaled.
Sophia grinned. "At least I'm not annoying." She sat up when Leah brought the coffee, and took a sip."I don't know a thing about you, except that you're good company."
"What do you want to know?"
"I don't need to know anything," Sophia said. She set the coffee mug on the bedside table and leaned in to kiss Leah. Leah froze, letting Sophia's mouth press against hers. Sophia drew back when Leah didn't move, and frowned. "Was that the wrong thing?"
"No." Leah shook her head. "No, that was perfect." She had no idea how to explain how gentle and sweet Sophia's mouth had tasted, how warm and inviting, how Sophia's rumpled sweatshirt and furrowed brow were unintentionally erotic. She opened her mouth to say something, and couldn't think of anything. Sophia's frown got deeper. Leah said, "This doesn't happen--uh."