Cure for Insomnia

by Laina Villeneuve

  “Hello,” I finally managed.

  “Hi, it’s Remi.”

  My breath was still coming fast. “I know.” The adrenaline combined with the stairs I’d run made it impossible to catch my breath. I felt light-headed and reached for the stair rail to steady myself.

  “Wow, you weren’t kidding about that not being able to breathe around me,” Remi laughed.

  “You caught me…running up…the stairs.”

  “Should I let you go?”

  “No! Don’t let me go!” My heart and lungs would not cooperate with my desire to talk to Remi.

  “Don’t let you go?” Humor continued to warm her voice.

  I heard how dorky I sounded and smacked my forehead. “You talk. I have to catch my breath.”

  “Are you running because you’re late?”

  “For a workout with Valerie.”

  “We can talk later.”

  “No. It was ridiculous to try to catch her.” My breath coming more easily now, I descended the stairs anxious to get out of the echoing stairway.

  “You work out a lot?”

  “Trying to. Valerie guilts me. She says it’ll help me with the ladies.”

  “You do not seem like the kind of person who would have any trouble with the ladies.”

  “I’ve been told I spend too much time at work.”

  “By your girlfriend?”

  “Ex,” I quickly clarified. “When I was doing my postdoc.”

  “You have more time now as a researcher?” Remi asked.

  Should I answer honestly? Valerie would tell me to lie, but what the hell? It wasn’t like I could invent time for dates that I didn’t have. “Not really.”

  “Oh good!”

  “That’s good?”

  “My ex was always on my case about how little time I had for her, too. Maybe we should set them up.”

  “I hope you’re not serious about that!”

  “Not in the least.” Remi’s voice felt good in my ear.

  “So you have no time this week?” I asked.

  “None at all!” Remi said, her voice equal parts amused and relieved. “And I was so worried about explaining that. I want to see you, but Saturday is the earliest I could swing it.”

  “Saturday sounds great,” I said. We arranged a time and place and chatted a little more before disconnecting. Valerie pushed through the door as I slid the phone back in my pocket.

  “You’re here!”

  I started to do jumping jacks, but Valerie narrowed her eyes. “You don’t fool me for a second. You haven’t been working out at all.”

  “No, but I have a date!” I squealed.

  Valerie released the leg she’d been stretching and punched the air. “Yes! You could have told me you were ditching me to speak to Remi, you know. I would have understood.”

  “Actually, I ditched you to talk to that student intern I told you about. That’s a different story, though. I was on my way to meet you when Remi called, and I had to take it.”

  “Of course you did. Where are you going?”

  “She invited me for ice cream, that place you and Emma like.”

  “Where you never get anything. What were you thinking?”

  “It’s fine. It’s no big deal.”

  “You’re going to have to eat something. Otherwise, weird.”

  “I know. I’ve got this. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’m your best friend. That’s my job!” She hip checked me.

  So much felt right in the world as we strode across campus. At the spot we parted ways, I gave Valerie a quick hug. Happy to lose myself in thoughts of Remi as I walked to my building, I was jolted back to reality by the sound of my name. I saw Maricela standing wide-eyed next to an older woman who shared her daughter’s stricken countenance. Both of them looked from Valerie to me and back again.

  “I’m late getting back. Hooroo, mate!” Valerie waved as she quickly trekked away.

  I waited for Maricela to say something. She was the one who had called out to me, but she stood frozen and silent. I awkwardly waited for her to speak, maybe to introduce me to her mother, but one look at her mother’s dark expression made me anxious to leave. “I’m expected back at the lab as well. See you this week?”

  “I checked in with the lab. I’ll be there Thursday afternoon.”

  “Find me. I want to hear what your bio professor had to say.”

  Maricela’s mother scrutinized her daughter and then me during the short exchange, and it bothered me that she seemed so upset. Surely she would appreciate me trying to help her daughter. Then I remembered Remi’s expression when Valerie threw her arm around my shoulder. I could see how others might easily see us as a couple. The way we had been walking together could have produced the tightness on Mrs. Gonzales’s face. If that was the case, I said a little prayer that Maricela wasn’t a lesbian.

  Chapter Eight

  I knew the ice cream parlor Remi had suggested. It sat directly across the road from the beach and always had a line outside from the moment they opened. At one o’clock, the beach was packed with families and sunbathers. A handful of boogie boarders chased waves, and younger children played in the sand as gentle waves rolled in. I rested against the patio railing telling myself to watch the waves instead of the people on the sidewalk. However hard as I tried as I waited for Remi, any movement at my periphery caught my attention. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to figure out whether our phone conversation setting up this date moved us into hug territory.

  Remi’s voice brought a smile to my face.

  “So sorry I’m late. I have no excuse since I’m the one who picked the spot!”

  Of course Remi would pick the one moment my eyes were shut to materialize. “I hardly count two minutes as late.” I admired Remi in her cream capris and flowing blue blouse. Her hair was as perfectly styled as it had been at the science fair.

  “You didn’t even look at your watch. You knew I was late. I hate to be late. If I’m not early, I’m late.”

  I made note of that and smiled at the babble that made me think Remi could be nervous. “Being on time is a thing. Got it.”

  “My whole day is meetings. People who show up late to meetings ruin the entire day. I don’t want to be the cause of someone’s ruined day.”

  “You haven’t ruined mine,” I said, thinking of how Remi’s mere presence lifted my spirits. I wanted to throw my arms around her, but we’d been talking so long, it felt like the time to hug her had passed. We stood awkwardly. “Are you ready for ice cream now, or did you want to worry more about being late?”

  “Now that you’ve admitted I was late, we can have ice cream. Hello, by the way,” she added, stepping forward to hug me.

  Our embrace was brief, the self-conscious negotiation of how much contact was acceptable. The barest brush of bodies and slight pressure of hands on shoulders. Still, I drank in the lilac perfume I remembered from the bar. Now I was close enough to notice how sweet her hair smelled. Too soon, the hug was over and we were inside.

  I’d been to the shop with Valerie and Emma whose sweet tooth often dictated an after-dinner walk down to the beach for a cone. The first time I had tagged along and hadn’t ordered anything, Valerie assumed my diabetes awareness made me avoid the sugar. I couldn’t very well decline ice cream now since Remi had picked it for our meeting place. I compromised by ordering the smallest serving hoping that Remi wouldn’t even notice.

  I felt Remi’s eyes on me as I ordered a small cup of strawberry and didn’t choose any of the vast array of toppings. Cup or cone wasn’t up for debate at all. There was no way I was going to lick a cone in front of Remi. Remi ordered the same size but chose vanilla, also leaving it unadorned. I reached for my wallet, but Remi already had hers out and was waving off my offer to pay. Glad for Remi’s distraction, I fished a pill from my pocket and swallowed it quickly and then accepted the cup of ice cream from the teenager behind the counter.

  Remi followed me outside and we fo
und an empty table.

  “What was that?” Remi’s voice was too cool to be merely curious.

  “What?” I said, stalling.

  “The pill you took.”

  It wasn’t a big deal, but I hated to say. I would have taken it earlier, but it was most effective if I ingested it right before I ate ice cream.

  “While I was paying,” Remi prodded. I wasn’t ashamed, but I knew telling her would make her feel bad. Remi crossed her arms, scowling. “I do not like secrets.”

  “It’s nothing.” Her scowl deepened. “I’m lactose-intolerant,” I finally said, chagrined.

  “What?”

  “My system doesn’t deal well with dairy.” Now my face flushed.

  “I grasp the meaning of lactose intolerance. I’m simply…Oh, how embarrassing! Why ever didn’t you suggest a different place to meet?”

  “This is what you picked. I didn’t want to argue with your choice.”

  Remi laughed and pointed at the small serving of strawberry. “So that’s why you got the small.”

  “You got a small, too,” I tossed back.

  “I thought you must have decided things might not go well.” She gestured between the two of us.

  “You’re joking, right? I’ve been thinking about you since I met you at the fair. Please tell me you didn’t get less ice cream than you wanted because you were worried that I didn’t actually want to be here!”

  “No.” She took a bite of her vanilla and grimaced slightly. “I don’t particularly like sweet things.”

  “Get out! You could have picked coffee!” I said.

  “Coffee seemed too…”

  “Boring?”

  Remi bit her lip, searching for a word.

  “Hot,” I guessed. Remi blushed, so I leaned forward and added, “intimate?”

  Remi swatted me, and I savored the short amount of contact between her hand and my skin. “Unmemorable.”

  “That was my next guess.” She rolled her eyes playfully, making every cell in my body hum. “I am certainly going to remember your willingness to subject yourself to something you don’t even like purely to be in my company.”

  “I’ve never met someone who didn’t love ice cream. I’ve always been the odd one out.”

  “Stick with me, and we’ll be the even ones out,” I said.

  Remi’s eyes rested on me, reading me. I could see her picturing me by her side at future events and hoped we looked as good together in her mental projections as we did in mine. “So the ex liked ice cream?” she asked.

  “Quite a bit. If she was angry, a pint of something rich helped smooth things over.”

  “But not enough to fix everything.”

  “No. There is a limit to what ice cream can fix. What about you? Did you know of this place because of an ice cream-loving girlfriend?”

  “No. There are times I like to listen to the waves, and I’ve seen the lines here and construed that it must be good.”

  “Valerie told me to come clean and ask to meet somewhere else.”

  “Did she? She is aware of your lactose intolerance?”

  “Yes. She and her wife live a block away. After dinner, they like to come down and walk along the beach. They stop for ice cream here often enough that I couldn’t find an excuse every time.”

  “You and Valerie seem close.”

  It wasn’t an accusation the way it would have been had Ann delivered the words. It was merely an observation. “She says we were bound to be friends because we’re the only two lezzies on campus.”

  “That isn’t the case?”

  “I don’t think shared sexuality predicts friendship. It gives us something in common, but it would be like someone from Australia hearing her talk and assuming they’ll be best pals because they both lived in Australia.”

  “So why are you best pals?” Remi asked.

  “I’m a sucker for accents. Even if she were boring, which she isn’t, I don’t mind listening to her talk.” I grinned widely.

  “Is that why you called? Because of my accent?” Remi drew out her words, teasing me.

  “Maybe.” I smiled. “Could be I needed to talk to you longer to figure out what it is.”

  “How are you doing with that?”

  My brows tipped downward, and I studied her intently. “I’m going to need to collect more data.”

  “A scientist to your core.”

  “That’s me.”

  “Or you could simply ask what languages I speak.”

  “Languages!” I exclaimed. I paid the price for talking around a bite of ice cream and fell into my familiar coughing fit.

  “Do you need water?”

  I nodded, and Remi disappeared into the store. She returned a few moments later with two bottles of water, one extended. I drank from the bottle and cleared my throat. “Sorry about that.”

  “I keep taking your breath away. That can’t be a bad thing. You’re surprised I speak more than one other language?”

  “I struggle enough with Spanish. My family says that science takes up too much room for me to remember another language.”

  “They speak it, then?”

  “Mostly my sister because her husband is fluent, and he wants his kids to grow up knowing Spanish. I was picking up some when the kids were little, but I have to say that Rosa blew by me and I gave up. I remember enough to say hello to my nieces and ask how they are. And swear.”

  “At your nieces?” Doubt laced Remi’s voice.

  “If they deserve it, sure!”

  A chortle lifted from deep within Remi catching the attention from every table on the patio. Most smiled along to her obvious delight. When she was finished, Remi relaxed in her chair. “You’ve never sworn at your nieces.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You don’t have it in your voice. That and you said your siblings teased you. You might say something like that to them to try to keep up with them, but convincingly? No. You are too innocent.”

  “And you?”

  “Not so much in English. Greek, yes.”

  “Greek! I never would have guessed that.”

  “But it is so obvious!” she gasped.

  I tipped my head, not following.

  “My given name is Greek.”

  I smacked my forehead. “Andromeda.” We were talking about her accents but had not discussed her ancestry. “Are your parents Greek?”

  “My father is of Greek ancestry. He was pleased when he was able to move his family to Greece though none of his relatives were there anymore.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Telling you would reveal another of my languages.”

  “Then don’t tell me. I’m going to guess the next one.”

  “Three.”

  “Three more?”

  Remi nodded.

  “Five in total!” I was impressed. “Okay. No hints.”

  “You think you can guess?”

  “That means it’s not something obvious, like Spanish.”

  Remi lifted her shoulder. “Is that an official guess?”

  “No. I’m going to need more time listening before I take another guess.”

  “That may be possible.” Her head was inclined toward the cup, and when she glanced up and flashed me a smile, my insides melted.

  I so wanted to spend more time in this captivating woman’s company. “When did your family move to Greece?”

  “When I was ten. I still remember it so vividly. There was a man who lived near us who owned burros. I still have this image of him herding them down a narrow, cobbled road. I can’t imagine where he was taking them, but it is one of my favorite memories.”

  “How long did you live there?”

  “Three years. My father was a diplomat for the United States. I’d tell you where else he served, but it will give away the other languages I speak.”

  “I’m not ready to give up yet,” I said. “What else do you remember about Greece?”

  I could have listened to Remi
forever as she talked first about the mainland and then about the beautiful Greek isles. “It sounds amazing,” I said when Remi finished a story about visiting ancient cave paintings that were being restored. “Why did your family leave?”

  Remi took her cup and reached for mine. “Finished?”

  “Yes,” I said, startled by Remi’s abruptness.

  When she returned from throwing their our away, she picked up her water and drank half. “We had to leave because of my brother.” Her eyes caught and held mine. She seemed to be assessing me, weighing her choice of words. “My brother’s behavior necessitated our return to the States. My parents…What is the expression? Hit a wall?”

  I nodded.

  “They could not handle it, him, any longer.”

  My mind whirred, and I intuited that my response was important. I was at a loss. “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh.” Remi looked away.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. We cannot choose our parents.”

  Her statement shocked me. I had never once wished for parents other than the ones I had and said so.

  “You had better luck. I am glad for you.”

  “I’ve never thought of myself as lucky. That’s always been my brother. He’s the one to take to the track.”

  A smile returned to Remi’s lips. “Do you go?”

  “Hardly ever. Is it something you enjoy?”

  “I’d rather be on the horse than watching it run.” She looked across the street. “Do you have time for a walk?”

  “Absolutely.” Once we’d crossed the street, I removed my sneakers and tucked my ankle socks down into the toes before stepping into the warm sand. We walked together toward the surf, turning horizontal to the tide when we reached the more tightly packed sand.

  “You were with your sister at the fair, and you allowed yourself to be the subject for her daughter’s project. Are you as close with your brother?”

  “We get along okay. I see my sister more often because she and her family live with my parents. I see my brother at Sunday dinner.” We walked in silence, Remi’s eyes on the mirror-like surface of the sand at the water’s edge. “Are you and your brother close?”