by Ann McMan
Once the boat was out of harm’s way, Montana rushed over to join them.
“Is it her? Is it Phoebe?”
Quinn reached into the net and took hold of the writhing bass. She lifted it up and quickly removed the hook from its gaping mouth.
“No. It’s not her.”
Montana didn’t seem persuaded. “How do you know?”
“I just do. This one isn’t big enough” She held it up with both hands. “Or mad enough.”
Marvin snorted. “Well it’s about the biggest damn bass I’ve ever seen. Ugliest, too.”
The fish jerked in Quinn’s hands. A glob of slime hit Marvin in the face.
“Nice one, Mavis—Marvin.” Montana was laughing. “You asked for that.”
He grumbled and muttered something unintelligible.
“Let’s get her into the tank.” Quinn carried their big catch over to the aquarium and carefully placed it inside. Montana started the aerator.
Marvin was already walking to the Kelvinator.
“I suppose this one’s gonna take two of those damn frozen grape drinks?”
“Yep.” Quinn got to her feet. “We have to keep her nice and cool for the long ride to Plattsburgh.”
Montana looked perplexed.
“You don’t want to fish any more today?”
Quinn shook her head. “Nope.”
“Why not? We still have most of another hour.”
“It’s okay.”
She looked out over the lake. The water was really settling down. With less wind roaring, she could make out the dull purring noises of other boat motors. Things would really start hopping now. All the anglers would be tearing up the lake, trying to make up for lost time. The fish wouldn’t like that. The sun was high and it was past lunchtime. They’d all want to find quiet spots to snooze until late afternoon, when they got hungry again and started moving around.
She didn’t blame them. Right now, a hot dog and a cold one sounded pretty damn good.
She smiled at Montana.
“We got what we came for.”
Kate liked the house. Shawn was sure about that. She could tell by the way she kept touching everything inside it. The painted wainscot on the walls. The woodwork. The heart pine floors. The enormous fieldstone fireplace that dominated the open living space that made up most of the first floor. The cabinets and the countertops in the big kitchen. Touch was important to Kate. Touch was her currency. And the more she touched, the more certain Shawn became that she’d managed to find the right place.
Kate especially liked the kitchen.
Shawn did, too. It was one of her favorite things about the house. The builder had paid attention to every detail. Soaring ceilings. Tastefully painted, prairie-style cabinetry. Quartz countertops. Viking gas range. Wine fridge. And windows. Windows everyplace. And outside the windows? An unobstructed, drop-dead gorgeous view of the lake.
It was breathtaking. Incredible. Perfect.
And it was hers. Theirs—if Kate chose to live there with her.
If not? Well. It could be theirs whenever Kate chose to visit.
When they finished touring the house, they walked out back to look at the spacious, fenced yard. Patrick and Allie were already out there, sniffing and zigzagging their way around the perimeter, stopping to investigate every scent and pee at the base of every tall maple tree. The lake was visible from here, too. In fact, the lake seemed to be within view from almost every vantage point.
They stood leaning against the deck railing. The winds had diminished, and now a light breeze was blowing in from the water. It pushed Kate’s soft hair around in crazy patterns. She finally gave up trying to straighten it and just let it go wherever it wanted. Shawn thought that was a good sign, too. Kate was normally pretty fastidious about her appearance.
There was something wonderful in the air—a scent that Shawn couldn’t quite identify. It came and went as the wind currents shifted. It made her feel happy and at home.
“What is that smell?”
Kate lifted her nose. “That clove-like scent?”
“Yeah. Precisely. It’s like—cookies.”
Kate smiled. “It’s Dianthus. Sweet William.”
“It’s great. I love it. It reminds me of Pennsylvania.”
“Did your mother garden?”
“My mother? Hell no. But my grandmother did. She had flowers all year round.”
Kate pointed to a spot along the fence. “See those bright purple and red flowers that look like small carnations? That’s Sweet William.”
“Well, I always want to have them.”
“I think you will. They’re pretty hearty up here.”
“Good.”
“If I’m not mistaken, they attract butterflies, too.”
“An added bonus.” Shawn grasped the deck railing with both hands and took in a big lungful of air. “What else might they attract?”
“That depends.” Kate demurred. “What else do you want them to attract?”
“Well now that I know they have these magnetic properties, maybe they can help me lure a certain TV personality up here on the weekends.”
“Hmmm.” Kate seemed to consider the possibility. “I don’t know that their reach extends quite that far.”
“I could plant more of them. You know—like a strength in numbers thing?”
“True.” Kate turned around and leaned her back against the deck railing so she was facing the house. “I want to ask you something—and it’s not something we’ve ever really discussed before.”
Shawn felt a slight prick of uneasiness. “What is it?”
“How on earth can you afford to do this? Even if you sell your house in Charlotte, it won’t come close to covering the cost of this place.”
“Oh, that.” Shawn was relieved. “I also have my book royalties and the advance on the new one.”
Kate raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, okay. You’re right. That’s not enough, either.”
“Not by a long shot. And the taxes up here are outrageous.”
“How do you know that?”
“Viv.”
“Of course.” Shawn rolled her eyes. “God. That woman has a better news network than CNN.”
Kate nodded. “So?”
Shawn sighed. “Don’t worry that I’ve made an insane financial decision, okay? I have the money for this.”
“You do?” Kate still sounded dubious.
“Yeah. I have . . . other money.”
“Other money?”
Shawn nodded.
“Who are you? Paris Hilton?”
“No. It’s not that bad. But I have some inheritance money. My paternal grandmother was a Pew.”
“A pew?” Kate looked genuinely perplexed. “What kind of pew?”
“Not ‘pew’ like church pew. Pew like Sun Oil Company Pew.”
Kate’s eyes grew wide. “You mean like Sunoco gas stations?”
“Yeah.” Shawn smiled sheepishly. “They’re my people.”
“Good god.”
Shawn took hold of Kate’s elbow. “Are you okay?”
Kate sank down onto one of the built-in benches that lined the deck railing. “I just need a moment.”
“Come on, Kate. It’s not that big of a deal.” Shawn sat down beside her. “You can’t tell me that this never occurred to you. How do you think I afforded to live in Japan for a year?”
Kate gave her a blank look. “Loans?”
“Well. Okay. I guess that would’ve made sense.”
“So.” Kate spread her hands to take in the house. “You paid cash for this?”
Shawn shrugged.
Kate slowly shook her head. “I guess I don’t have to worry about paying for Patrick’s braces.”
Shawn was confused. “Patrick needs braces?”
Kate looked at her like she had just taken complete leave of her senses.
“Oh. You’re joking. I get it.”
Kate was still staring at her with wonder. “I
just can’t believe this.”
“Why? It doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything.”
Shawn was crestfallen. “It doesn’t have to.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I know.” Shawn bumped her shoulder. “But I’ve always been crazy.”
Kate took in a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out. She shifted her position on the bench so she was facing Shawn. “I was going to tell you this later, but now seems like a good time.”
“Tell me what?”
“I accepted Linda’s offer.”
“You did?”
Kate nodded.
Shawn was elated. She threw her arms around Kate and hugged her. “Oh, my god. That’s fabulous.”
She could feel Kate nod against her shoulder. “I know.”
“I was afraid to ask.”
Kate gave Shawn a quick squeeze and sat back so they could see each other.
Shawn kissed her on the forehead. “I’m so happy for you.”
Kate smiled. “It was a no-brainer, really. I just needed a little time to sort things out.”
“I guess. When will you go back to Atlanta?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
Kate reached into her jacket pocket and fished out a small, tissue-wrapped package. It was tied up with a piece of string. “On what you think about this.”
She handed it to Shawn.
“What is it?” Shawn turned the small package over in her hands.
Kate sighed. “It was supposed to be a down payment—but now you don’t seem to need that.”
Shawn untied the string and began to unroll the small wad of bright blue paper. “Down payment on what?”
“On us.”
“Us?”
Shawn finished unrolling the tissue and was stunned to see that it contained a beautiful, hammered-copper ring.
“Kate.”
“Please don’t tell me you hate copper. My choices were limited. It was either this or an indifferent alloy.”
“I love copper.” Shawn was practically speechless. “It’s beautiful.”
Kate smiled. “Barb made it for me.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Kate took hold of her hands. “Yes would be good.”
Yes? Shawn felt her insides lurch.
“I’m . . . Are you . . .?”
Kate squeezed her hands. “I’m told there’s no waiting period in Vermont.”
Shawn’s head was spinning. “You’re asking me to marry you?”
Kate nodded. Shawn had never seen such an expression of vulnerability on her face. It made her look shy and adorable.
“Now?”
Kate sighed and nodded again. Shawn could sense that some of her normal resiliency was creeping back in. “Contrary to popular opinion, I can be nearly as impulsive as you are.”
“You want to marry me?” Shawn was still having trouble letting it sink in. “I never saw this coming.”
“Didn’t you? I did. Of course, initially, I was going to offer to share the house. But since you’ve already taken care of that, I’ll just offer to share your life.” Kate tugged her closer. “I promise to make a good return on your investment.”
Shawn closed her eyes and leaned forward until their foreheads were touching.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Kate kissed her. “So I’m guessing this is a yes?”
“Oh, it’s a yes, all right.”
Kate gave her a shy-looking smile. “I’m happy.”
“Me, too.”
“We sound like idiots.”
Shawn kissed her again. “Who cares?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Kate held up the ring. “Want to try it on?”
Shawn beamed at her and held out her hand. The ring fit perfectly. The metal felt warm and solid. Just like Kate always felt whenever Shawn held her close.
She wrapped an arm around her.
She couldn’t remember ever feeling this content. Sunlight was glinting off the lake. Patrick and Allie were rolling in the tall, lush grass behind them. They were sitting together on the deck of their new house. And the air around them was thick with the sweet smell of cloves.
“We’re getting married.” She couldn’t stop thinking it, so why not say it aloud?
“We are,” Kate agreed.
Shawn hugged her closer. “When do you wanna do it?”
“Sunday?”
Sunday? Shawn drew back and looked at her. “You mean, the day after tomorrow?”
“Yes. I told you—there’s no waiting in Vermont.”
“But, how do we make that happen? Aren’t there things we have to do?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like get a license?”
“That’s easy.” Kate snuggled back in and rested her head on Shawn’s shoulder. “We just need to stop in at the town hall on our way back to the inn and do the paperwork.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Shawn couldn’t believe it. They’d gone from what she thought was zero to Mach 1 in the blink of an eye. But that was life with Kate.
She held her tighter. She hoped it would always be that way.
But something else occurred to her.
“Won’t we need someone to do the ceremony? A justice of the peace or somebody?”
“Oh.” Kate chuckled. Shawn could feel the soft vibration of it against her collarbone. “I’ve already taken care of that.”
“You have?”
“Um hmm.”
“Who’d you get?”
“You’ll never guess.” Kate was playing with a button on the front of Shawn’s shirt.
As happy as she was, Shawn knew enough to be suspicious.
“Oh, god. Who is it?”
“Have you ever heard of the Esoteric Theological Seminary?”
“No.”
“Well. It turns out that Viv is a Teutonic Chaplain.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Beats me. But all that matters is she’s legally ordained.”
“Viv is an ordained minister?”
“Teutonic Chaplain.”
“Whatever.”
Kate kissed her on the neck. Shawn felt it tingle all the way down to her toes.
“So whattaya say, Harris?” Her voice had taken on that low and sexy timbre it got when she really wanted something. Shawn called it her ‘come hither’ voice. “Got any plans for Sunday?”
Oh yeah. Kate really wanted this. And Shawn was not at all inclined to deny her.
She smiled and hugged her closer.
“You betcha.”
Essay 12
The first time she appeared to me, I thought it was some kind of paranoid delusion. That’s what they call it when you’ve grown so afraid of reality that you create another place to go where you can feel safe. I knew a lot about that. And I knew a lot about delusions, too. I had a lot of them growing up, and they only got worse after my sister died. That she died was hard enough to deal with—but how she died was the part that nearly pushed me over the edge.
It’s like that when you’re a twin. I know that people say things like this all the time, but unless you’ve been a twin, you can’t really understand how true it is. You go through life with this weird feeling that you’re half of something—that there’s always some big part of you that’s missing. I think that comes from the fact that you both came from one egg. Once that first split occurred, way down inside your mother’s womb, you both just kept right on dividing into smaller and smaller pieces until there were so many millions of fragments that you stopped being able to tell what belonged to you and what belonged to her.
It was always that way for us—even though we led completely separate lives. Felice was the serious one—the one who was good in school, always did her homework, always practiced her clarinet, never got in trouble, and w
on perfect attendance pins at catechism class.
I was the misfit. I played sports, cut class, got kicked out of band, made D’s in math, and frequently got caught smoking out behind the church when I was supposed to be inside—learning about sacramental preparations for my first confession.
People called us Frick and Frack. We looked exactly alike, but we weren’t. She did everything right, and I did everything wrong. We were behavioral opposites on the outside—but on the inside, we were identical.
Of course, I never learned the truth of that until many years later—and by the time I found out, I had already been firmly established as the black sheep in our family. That was because the only pre-teen passion I enjoyed more than smoking was “experimenting” with other girls. I got pretty good at it, too. So good that when it was time for us to go off to college, my sister got a scholarship to Loyola and I got enrolled in tech classes at the local community college so I could learn a “trade.” I guess my parents thought that being queer meant I was destined to have a career rebuilding transmissions or welding pipe.
My sister was always the quiet one, the thoughtful one—the one who kept to herself. She never shared much about her internal life, but it was plain that she spent a lot of time contemplating it. That became clear to us when she announced that she was leaving school to begin “a new life in the church.” I wasn’t exactly sure what all that entailed—like I said, I missed a lot of those catechism classes. But my parents were pretty distressed about it. I think they had high hopes that she would eventually serve them up with a big brood of grandchildren. It was pretty obvious that I wasn’t ever going to deliver on that promise.
They ended up being wrong on both counts.
It was less than a year later that she showed up on our doorstep. I was shocked when I saw the change in her. She was thin and drawn—like the camp survivors I had seen in a TV documentary about Auschwitz. She wouldn’t eat, she barely talked, and she kept herself isolated in her room. She never told any of us about whatever had happened or why she left the place she had been living. She was more withdrawn than I had ever seen her. My parents tried to get her to go to church with them, but she refused. I knew she was in trouble. I could feel it in my bones. But even I couldn’t reach her. She just retreated further and further into herself. At night, I would hear her through the thin wall that separated our bedrooms—crying. Praying. Begging for forgiveness. I felt her weakness and pain like they were part of me. But I couldn’t reach her. None of us could reach her. I knew that one day, she would just disappear from sight—like boiling water vaporizing from a pot on the back of the stove.