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Synopsis
Sydney Gray worries. In fact, she is excellent at it. So when she loses her house, job and credit score she ought to have been prepared. But she never imagined it could all happen at once—or that she’d be single too.
Out of the lesbian dating scene for three presidents, Sydney is wary of Ellie Hundersson from the start. Too interesting, too lovely and too…everything. Determined to fail, Sydney discovers Ellie does have big secrets, giving her the perfect excuse to do what she does best: run.
Filled with foibles of modern lesbian life, Renée J. Lukas’s debut romance is a love story about getting it all wrong on the way to finding what feels right.
Table of Contents
Cover
Synopsis
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Bella Books
Copyright © 2015 by Renée J. Lukas
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
First Bella Books Edition 2015
Editor: Medora MacDougall
Cover Designer: Judith Fellows
ISBN: 978-1-59493-427-8
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
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About the Author
Renée J. Lukas is a humorist and cartoonist, as well as a screenwriter and novelist. Her work can be found in all four corners of the United States and points in between. When she’s not teaching screenwriting, she loves to overanalyze films. Originally from Tennessee, she now calls Massachusetts home.
For my parents
Richard and Marita,
who always believed in me.
For my sister Jennifer,
my hero and best friend,
who always inspires me.
For Jackie, Cason and Hayden,
Tucker and Hunter,
always follow your dreams.
For Julie and Tony,
for all your encouragement.
And for Beth,
who I’m lucky enough
to share this journey with,
whose love and support
make it all worthwhile.
Chapter One
“Văldemort”
Recently I was diagnosed with chronic anxiety disorder. So I don’t just worry; I worry chronically. Like everything I do, I try to give it a hundred percent. And once again, I’ve gone the extra mile.
It’s no surprise when you come from a family of neurotics who, before you board a plane, don’t wish you a safe trip but instead smile and wave and say, “Call us if you make it!”
But you get used to it, and that becomes your normal. Like happiness. For some people, it’s an everyday feeling that is just part of their experience, like blow-drying their hair a certain way. For others like me, it’s a fleeting, elusive thing that I might catch for a few moments a day—like a lightning bug in my hands.
This would not be a day for lightning bugs. Today I sat in a strange apartment and watched streaks of rain make different shapes down the window. All at once it hit me—I had lost everything in one month—my job, my relationship of twelve years, my house, my credit score, everything. Again, I gave it a hundred percent.
“I have great dishes from IKEA, so we’ll use mine.” Debra’s voice chirped in the other room, trying to make small talk to keep me from crashing into a sea of despair. She was my best friend who invited me to come live with her after my foreclosure. She was always breaking up with her boyfriend, Kurt, and now that they were on a long break, it seemed like a good time to stay with her. Aside from his guitar in the corner, the bedroom was all set up for me. But it was filled with boxes from a life I didn’t recognize—my own.
At forty, I got laid off from my job, declared bankruptcy and was single for the first time since three presidents ago. I’d been “off the market” for so long, I didn’t know what to do or how to do it. And magazines like Cosmo and Glamour weren’t going to help me, either, because they were all about pleasing a man—how to ask him out, how to tell if he’s cheating and how to do that thing he won’t tell you that he really wants you to do in bed.
Debra came in. “You wanna have dinner soon?” She had dark hair and big brown eyes filled with concern.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“You have to eat,” she insisted. “First it’s ‘I’m not that hungry,’ then you’re not eating at all, then drinking too much, having blackouts under bridges, then wasting away until you’re just another statistic.”
I’d never noticed it before. Debra was as dramatic as my sister.
Why does everyone have to shield you from a bad mood? Sometimes you have to just let it crash on you. Feel the shards of glass poking you in the eyes. Feel the pain. Experience the blood and gore and darkness. Then later let the sun come out and sing Disney songs.
Debra wouldn’t understand. Someone who broke up with her boyfriend every other week couldn’t understand a breakup after twelve years—and everything that went with it. Nor could she understand losing a long-held position in a coveted industry. I’d defined myself by my job as an advertising copywriter. I took pride in every stupid toothpaste jingle or hotel billboard. And Debra Lansing, with her Gucci purses, couldn’t possibly understand the humiliation of a layoff, let alone bankruptcy.
“I’m too stubborn to waste away.” I resumed my blank stare out the window. It probably was a bit creepy.
“I know what you’re going through,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Well, not everything. When I screamed at Kurt, he just ignored me. Can you believe that? All I could hear were
his stupid dirty boots clomping down the stairs. Then…nothing.” Debra waved her hand dramatically. She’d always wanted to go into theater but settled for a job as a financial analyst instead. She saved her best monologues for her friends.
“Seriously? You and Kurt? You’ll take him back in a week. And please give me enough notice, okay?”
Debra stared at me strangely. “You look pale. I mean really pale.”
“I am pale.”
I wanted to be alone without anyone staring at me, checking on my “condition.” I was naturally fair-skinned, and my short hair, which used to be naturally a white-blonde typically found in a Clairol bottle, was now a shade of blonde that looked like it was never washed quite enough. I wasn’t about to look in the mirror today. All I’d think about was that I was aging faster than the picture of Dorian Gray and couldn’t afford a bottle of hair color now if I wanted it.
“Do you want to be alone?” Debra asked.
“Yeah.” My voice cracked.
“Okay,” she replied. “But it’s not good to be alone for too long. Your head starts getting messed up and crazy.”
“You need to quit watching Dateline.”
She smiled faintly and shut the door, as I inhaled the scent of Chihuahua throughout the apartment. Luckily, Rebel, her four-legged oversized rat, was on the other side of the closed door. After my cat hissed at her, they had an understanding.
I searched my thoughts, trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. Valerie and I had been together for twelve years, and because we couldn’t be legally married in Connecticut there was nothing binding us together except our word that we’d stay committed to each other. I could have stayed angry that I was left with a mortgage that was in my name and that my financial awareness was pitiful enough to make Suze Orman scream at me in front of a live studio audience. But the bigger truth was that we’d been living a lie for a long time and denying it, washing it down with beer at places we didn’t even like—Scruggy’s Sports Bar & Grill—places where we pretended to understand the rules of baseball.
Valerie was a striking woman who carried herself like she owned the world. I was proud of her accomplishments as a top-notch prosecutor. She and I had bonded with our belief in justice for all people. But the flame had long since died, and we kept marking time with visits to theme parks, family get-togethers, new ornaments on the Christmas tree each year, anything to make us feel like everything was okay. Comfortable.
And it was comfortable. Sometimes, comfortable is not where you want to be, unless you’re talking about shoes. Doing things that scare you, that give you those butterflies in your stomach, those are reminders that you’re alive. We never talked about the elephant in the room until it was so big the roof was starting to pop off. Finally, we talked about it. When we did, we knew it was over. Breaking up something so comfortable was both frightening and exhilarating.
Dating someone again could feel similar to going skydiving and being next in line out of the hatch with nothing but sky to greet you. I wouldn’t know. I’d never been skydiving. But after more than a decade of having someone to spend holidays with, it’s very scary. You don’t know what’s out there.
My friend Penny knew. She lived online. Every other weekend we were taking her to the airport to meet someone she’d had “chemistry” with over the phone. They had all ended thus far in heartbreak—and one restraining order. So I’d gotten a glimpse of what was out there and discovered, through Penny, that online was where all the psychos hung out.
* * *
Later that night, I was tossing back a few beers with Debra when my good friend, Maddie Kimball, banged on the door. Maddie was a stocky, intense woman with a movie star face: dark curled hair and a general bitterness toward the world. She’d turned forty-nine last year, but she remained a perpetual Peter Pan, still figuring out what she wanted to be when she grew up. Most of the time she was angry at her love life and disappointed when she came back from lesbian cruises without having met the dream woman. Of course, she had very specific criteria for this dream woman—right down to chest and thigh measurements. Maddie was looking for Sophia Loren, Angelina Jolie or anyone with a butt you could set a drink on.
I suddenly realized that Debra and Maddie didn’t know each other very well.
When Debra opened the door, Maddie came right in, carrying a six-pack of imported beer. “Is everything closed in Connecticut after eight o’clock?” she asked, popping the top off one. “Maddie.” She extended her hand to Debra, who looked slightly afraid.
“Debra Lansing,” she said, shaking Maddie’s hand.
“We met at the Christmas party last year,” Maddie explained, taking a seat. Then she turned to me. “How are you holding up?” Her bright blue eyes searched my face.
“I’ll make some crab-stuffed mushrooms!” Debra excitedly ran into the kitchen where she could try out recipes she’d collected online. I knew she was thinking of this as some sort of dinner party. What she was about to witness were lesbians in their natural habitat, and with my friends, it was usually a lot more casual than what Debra probably had in mind.
“Tell me you didn’t give all her stuff to charity,” Maddie moaned.
“Most of it.”
“Shit, you could’ve made a fortune on eBay!” She took a swig of her drink and scowled in disapproval. “What is it with these women?”
“I told you. It was mutual.”
“It’s never mutual,” Maddie argued. “Somebody always does something. Look at Holly and me.”
“What happened to you?” Debra called from the kitchen.
“Oh, you know, it’s an age-old story,” Maddie said. “Girl meets younger girl doing laundry, is instantly attracted to her underwear, and old granny panties is kicked to the curb.”
“That’s an age-old story?” Debra smiled, trying to contain her amusement. “Wait a minute, back up. Her underwear?”
“The girl had those skimpy Victoria’s Secret panties that are shaped like underwear but don’t really cover anything,” Maddie explained. “Holly always said I wore granny underwear, and I do. I admit it. They’re big, white cotton briefs. I want to be comfortable. If I wear lacy, itchy underwear all day on the off-chance I’m going to get some later, I’ll just be scratching so much people will think I have a yeast infection.”
I shook my head. “That’s what’s wrong with lesbians.”
“Yeast infections?” Maddie asked.
“No, dummy. Because there’s no man, neither one of you initiates sex until it becomes just cuddling. And before you know it, you’ve cuddled so much you’re now watching House Hunters every night and no one’s touching anyone. It happened to me and Val.” Her name left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. “How about no one says her name again, okay? Let’s call her…”
“Văldemort,” Maddie declared.
We clinked bottles. It was perfect. Nicknaming her after the villain of Harry Potter gave me a strange sense of comfort.
It was true. I had seen every episode of House Hunters. It had gotten to the point where I could name the couple before they introduced them. “Oh, that’s Kevin and Barb from Minnesota. They’re moving to Austin.” I sounded like an old person making friends at the local pool.
“So,” Debra began carefully, “is it true that lesbians don’t have as much sex?”
“You’re talking about lesbian bed death,” Maddie replied as if she were a lesbian scholar. “It’s a myth.”
“I don’t know,” I sighed.
“Okay,” Maddie replied. “We’re not thinking with our chattahoochies all day, so we might have to work harder to get it going. But once it gets going, it’s hot.” I could tell she was trying to remember what sex felt like.
Debra, now with her mushrooms in the oven, sat in awe like she was looking at a fascinating museum exhibit.
The doorbell rang, and Rebel barked so hard Debra had to put her in her room. I was relieved. I didn’t want to watch her sniffing crotches all night. Dog owners never seemed
to notice that.
At the door was Penny Granger. She was a wisp of a blonde, a couple of years younger than I, with long hair and an attractive face. She was a contradiction of lipstick and hiking boots, and she loved to wear T-shirts with peace symbols or messages about how to be more positive. She’d heard the news about me and Văldemort and got away from her computer long enough to come over. I was touched at the show of support.
“Hey!” she called in a slight Southern accent, after introducing herself to Debra. She gave me the hardest hug I’d ever gotten from her.
“I’m glad you came.” I smiled. Maybe being alone tonight wasn’t the best thing.
Penny handed Debra another six-pack of imported beers, which Debra examined and placed in the fridge. Debra was used to wine-drinking women at her monthly book club where they read romance novels and talked about each other’s boyfriends and husbands. Tonight would be an eye-opener for her.
“Now we have a party!” Maddie exclaimed. “We’ll get your mind off that bitch.” She touched my shoulder.
Just then everything seemed like it would be all right.
“I’d love to,” I managed to say. “But don’t be so nice or you’ll make me cry.”
“Too late for that,” Debra chimed in. “I’ll get boxes of tissues, and we can watch Terms of Endearment, Love Story, The Way We Were…”
Maddie covered Debra’s mouth. “I’m going to stop you right there, straighty. That’s not what lesbians do to forget our exes.”
“It’s what I do every time I break up with Kurt. It’s healthy to embrace your pain.”
“It’s also healthy to watch movies where the women are hotter than your ex,” Maddie explained.
“Yeah,” Penny agreed. “You got Terminator Two? The one with Linda Hamilton holding that rifle? Mmm!”
We laughed at her. Sometimes Penny seemed more suited to be a princess from an animated movie.
The Comfortable Shoe Diaries Page 1