“Kate invited me to join them, said it was low-key.”
“I wish I could bring you home with me, but I wouldn’t subject you to all that that entails.” Dylan saw the question in Seneca’s eyes and didn’t want her thinking she was ashamed of her in any way, especially now, when she was probably feeling pretty vulnerable. “I want you to meet my parents, but I would be so embarrassed if you saw them on full display. My mother is enough to handle when she’s not in hostess mode. Maybe we could do the first introduction at a slightly less formal event.”
“Oh, of course,” Seneca said. “I completely understand. I was looking forward to spending it with Kate anyway. I’d like to meet your family though, and it means a lot that you want me to come.” Seneca was beet red.
Dylan let her off the hook and the conversation turned back to school, their armor, and the class they shared. Dylan realized it had quickly become her favorite, even if she had initially signed up only to annoy her mother. She knew Seneca’s presence was the reason for that. She was going to miss her when they didn’t have that guaranteed time together.
“I’m going to miss not having class with you,” Dylan said quietly, wanting Seneca to know how she was feeling, but not wanting to scare her.
“Yeah, me too. I’ve gotten used to having you around. We can keep up the tradition, sign up for some crazy class next semester. I’ve always wanted to take horticulture.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Dylan was lost in thought, not able to fully comprehend she was less than a year from graduation.
“Or not.” Seneca pushed her ice cream away.
Dylan snapped back to the present. “What? No, I would love to take another class with you. I was thinking about graduating. I don’t feel ready. And I don’t want to lose you when I do.”
“I’d like that too, Bob. Not losing you, I mean.”
“Good,” Dylan said. “Maybe I can show you all the potential jobs I’ve got on my radar and you can choose the one you think is best to ensure that for us.” Dylan was only half kidding, and her pulse sped up at the prospect of making a decision so big based on something so tenuous.
“Aren’t you supposed to choose a job after college based on a bit more than being close to the person you’re dating?”
“I don’t know how you’re supposed to choose,” Dylan said. “I’ve spent my life, my school life, at least, as one of the smartest kids in the room, and being told I would ‘change the world.’ Even here, we’re at a prestigious women’s college and are supposed to be doing amazing things with the gifts we’ve been given once we graduate. We’re told all the time about how alums go on to change the world. I have no idea how to do that. My goals are much smaller. I want to have my own apartment and not have to eat ramen every night. I don’t know how to change the world.” Dylan spooned another mouthful of melted ice cream into her mouth to shut herself up. She hadn’t meant to unload.
“There are a lot of ways to change the world, Bob. If you cure cancer, sure you’ve changed the world in a really dramatic way, but if you rescue a puppy, you’ve changed the world for that dog. Or if you’re nice to someone who limps badly when no one else is, you just might have changed their world too.” Seneca looked at Dylan shyly. They were still holding hands. Seneca squeezed Dylan’s. “I can’t think of anyone more equipped to figure out how she is going to make her mark on the world, even if it’s just paying your rent on time and eating egg noodles instead of ramen.”
“How is it you know the perfect thing to say?” Dylan asked, feeling buoyed by Seneca’s vote of confidence.
“It’s the ice cream. It brings out my wisdom. Is business and corporate America really what you want to do? You never answered me when I asked.”
“It doesn’t really matter that I would rather do something else entirely, unfortunately. There are expectations to live up to. I had my chance to be free of them in Australia. Now I’m back to the real world. The world I have to change, I guess.”
Seneca didn’t look like she was satisfied with that answer, but she didn’t push. Instead she stared down at their hands, a frown forming. “No matter what you do, I’m not sure about what I said earlier. I don’t know if I’m the one to be with you while you take on the world. You don’t want me, Bob. I’ve got…issues…I wouldn’t be any good to you.” Seneca looked immensely sad, but managed to get all her words out without stopping. “What if you get a fancy job and you have to bring a partner to a work event? You couldn’t bring me. I know that’s a lot of steps ahead, but it doesn’t change the truth of the situation.”
Dylan didn’t say anything as she watched Seneca’s eyes fill with regret and emotion. She wasn’t sure what had happened between their sweet moment and right now. Something had wiggled its way into Seneca’s head and was causing her doubt. Dylan wasn’t going to stand for it. “You done?” she asked, not letting go of Seneca’s hand.
“What? Oh, um, yeah.” Seneca threw her napkin in the semi-empty cup and stood.
Dylan guided Seneca’s hand to her waist. She didn’t want the physical connection they had been sharing to be lost just yet. “I’m only going to say this once,” Dylan said, moving even closer to Seneca, pleased to feel she didn’t shrink away as their thighs brushed. “You don’t get to tell me what I want. I get to decide that…AND,” she said loudly as Seneca started to protest again, effectively cutting off Seneca’s response. “Don’t let me ever catch you talking bad about my pirate queen. Saying she’s not fit for corporate dinners and stuffy golf outings. I simply won’t allow it. I get the sense you don’t like to be told what to do, or forced into something you don’t like. Who does? But don’t do that to me either.”
She saw a flicker of amusement in Seneca’s eyes, and then a smile crept across her beautiful mouth. Dylan was powerless against that smile, the way it lit up Seneca’s face, changing her hardened features into focused, chiseled beauty. She stood on her tiptoes to reach Seneca’s lips with her own.
The kiss was not long, and by most standards conservatively chaste, but it left them both breathless all the same. Seneca reached a tentative hand to her own lips and touched them as if to make sure they were real.
“Shh.” Dylan kissed Seneca lightly on the lips again before grabbing her hand and stepping back, swinging their joined hands gently in front of her. “I feel it too. There’s some kind of magic that happens when you kiss and you’re both smiling.”
“No,” Seneca said, shaking her head and giving Dylan’s hand a squeeze. “There’s something magical about kissing you.”
Chapter Twelve
Dylan looked around the crowded formal living room of her parents’ house and felt completely alone. She wished she hadn’t been so stupid as to exclude Seneca from this gathering. She had said she didn’t want Seneca to see her family in full display, which was true, but she was also worried how her family would react to Seneca, something that very well could have shown their truest, darkest colors.
“Don’t worry, Dylan. I don’t like most of them either.” Her cousin, the no longer struggling artist, brought over more silly sized nibbles for them both.
“How did you know that’s what I was thinking?”
“The look of revulsion that makes it look like you’d rather be anywhere but here was a bit of a giveaway. Same look your mother makes.”
Her cousin kissed her on the forehead and was off again. Dylan pondered the comment about her mother. Given that all of this was her mother’s idea, how could she want to be somewhere else? Dylan wandered toward the kitchen, Lady Walker’s domain. Even on Thanksgiving, despite desperate pleas from Dylan’s father, they didn’t hire help, order prepared food, or change the way Thanksgiving had been done since the beginning of time. Dylan was secretly glad, because after all, what would be the tradition in having people cook and serve you? Oddly, though, Dylan had never been allowed to help her mother with the cooking on this, the most important of family holidays.
“Dylan, what are you doing in the kitchen?” her mothe
r asked as soon as she walked into the beautiful, sprawling space. “You should be out, enjoying our guests, helping your father with hosting.”
“You’re not looking so good, Mom. You okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. It’s Thanksgiving. What better day is there? What do you mean?”
Dylan saw her two aunts and a few cousins laugh behind her mother. There were a few other women in the kitchen as well, but none of them seemed willing to laugh at Lady Walker.
“You have flour on your cheek and all over your shirt, you have what I’m going to assume is potatoes on your pants, and I’m going to leave your hair well enough alone. Aside from looking like you’re wearing our meal, you look stressed.”
“Cooking is messy work, Dylan.”
“I see that. Anything I can do to help?”
“You can get her out of the kitchen,” at least three women shouted in unison. Everyone laughed, including Dylan’s mother. It was an ongoing joke, and every year, at some point, she was booted from her own kitchen so she could go clean up and take a breath.
Dylan took her mother’s hand and led her from the whirring stand mixers, hot ovens, and bubbling pots. “Time to let it go.”
“Not really a strength of mine.”
“You don’t say.”
They made their way quickly upstairs so her mother didn’t get waylaid by guests looking like she’d been frolicking in the Thanksgiving dinner. She left Dylan in her dressing room and went to shower, leaving the door cracked so she could shout to Dylan. “Anything new at school? Are you seeing anyone?”
Dylan froze. That was what her mother chose to lead with? There wasn’t a more loaded topic for them to discuss. She took a deep breath. Now that the door was open, she may as well step through.
“I am,” Dylan said.
“And what’s his name?”
Dylan rolled her eyes. Of course her mother would be purposefully obtuse.
“Her name. Her name is Seneca. Seneca King. And she’s wonderful.”
“I can’t hear you, darling. You’re going to have to speak up if you want me to hear the gentleman’s name.”
“You heard me just fine,” Dylan said. “Pretending I didn’t say it won’t change anything about the way I feel about her. I wanted to bring her today, but I didn’t think anyone here would treat her very well so I didn’t invite her.”
The water shut off abruptly and Lady Walker appeared in her robe, still mostly dripping wet. “You told her we wouldn’t treat her well? Dylan, why would you do such a thing?”
“I see your hearing has returned.”
“Dylan.” Her mother didn’t seem to be in a joking mood.
“I didn’t tell her that. I made another excuse. But I would have liked to have her here today. I’d like to think that you would want to meet someone important to me. But she came from a different background than I did, and you get all, whatever it is that you just did, when I mention women and me in the same sentence, so I didn’t bring her.”
Her mother looked thoughtful, a little embarrassed, and cold.
“I don’t do the best job with the idea of you dating women, it’s true. What did you say her name was?”
“Seneca King.”
She smiled slightly after searching Dylan’s expression for a moment. “It’s hard to argue against your daughter’s happiness when her face lights up that way. If I promise to try a little harder, will you promise to stop disparaging the family’s good name?”
“How about you get back in the shower before you freeze to death and we can go from there?” Dylan said. “Your lips are turning blue.”
“I think there’s still soap in my hair.”
“I’ll see you downstairs, Mom. And, thanks.”
Dylan wasn’t sure what progress she had made with her mother, but it was the first time they had directly addressed the fact that she was going to date women and might want to bring them home. Australia was one thing, Sophia and after-college life was another, but clearly, it might not be as big a deal as she thought it would be. She fished her cell phone out of her pocket. Talking and thinking about Seneca wasn’t enough. She wanted to hear her voice.
Kate answered but put Seneca on the line. “Happy Thanksgiving,” Seneca said, sounding happy and relaxed. Dylan missed her even more.
“Happy Thanksgiving. I wish I were spending it with you. My family is in full Walker mode, but I still should have brought you here, or refused to come home and stayed with you.”
“Is everything okay? Are you all right?”
“Of course it is. But on Thanksgiving you’re supposed to make a list of the things you’re thankful for, and given the choice, I’d prefer to spend my day with the person at the top of my list.”
“Thank you,” Seneca said. She sounded a little shy. “You’re at the top of my list too. And just so you know, Kate and Lisa are following me around the house trying to eavesdrop on everything we’re saying. Even Hank is in on this.”
“Who’s Hank?” Dylan was glad that Seneca was being so well cared for, but she ached to be part of the relaxing scene she could imagine.
“The dog. He might be after my turkey rather than good gossip.”
Dylan’s father called her name from downstairs and she frowned at the interruption. “Seneca, I have to go. I hear the masses looking for me in the other room. I just wanted to hear your voice and tell you that I miss you. Say hi to Kate and Lisa and take pity on poor Hank. It’s Thanksgiving. Give the boy some turkey.”
Dylan hung up the phone to Seneca’s sweet laughter. Her artist cousin was immediately by her side.
“The wolves are in there looking for fresh blood. You’re up.”
“Geez, thanks.”
She hadn’t even found a seat in the living room, near her father at least, before her family started in with the questions.
“How’s college treating you?”
“Why are you going into business? There’s no future in that.”
“That women’s school isn’t going to make you a homo, right?”
“You should really consider law school. It pays much better.”
“Have you talked to your uncle about getting an internship after school is over?”
“Do you have a job lined up after graduation?”
“Did you hear about your cousin’s promotion?”
Dylan wanted to flee, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. She knew everyone meant well, or at least everyone except whoever was worried about her coming down with a case of the homos.
“Dylan is rather insistent on the business path,” her father said kindly behind her, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I always thought she was the one most likely to do something wild like open a small business or become a chef, but I was clearly wrong. I have no doubts that whatever she chooses to do, she’ll be wonderful at it.”
“A small business?” Dylan asked, looking at her father. She couldn’t believe he was serious.
“Sure, why not? You’d be great at it. It just seemed like the kind of thing you might take a stab at. The corporate rat race surprised me.”
“I think it’s a sound decision,” one of her uncles said.
“Small businesses are too unpredictable. Do you know how many of them fail?”
“And how many of them end up having a lasting impact on the world?”
Dylan wasn’t even sure who was talking anymore. She felt like she needed to raise her hand and be called on to have a chance to speak. “A good friend told me if you cure cancer, you’ve changed the world in a really dramatic way, but if you rescue a puppy, you’ve made a difference in that dog’s life.”
“What’s your point?” her cousin, the corporate tax lawyer said.
“My point is, there are lots of ways to have a lasting impact on the world,” Dylan said.
“So true,” her father said. “The hard part for each of us is figuring out how to carve out enough meaningful space for ourselves to do it.”
The rest of the room ke
pt buzzing on, but Dylan was lost in thought. Her father had just given her a whole new way of looking at her plans after college. Maybe she should think a little more carefully about Seneca’s question of whether the business world was really where she wanted to end up. She’d always assumed her parents wanted her to be some big, successful hotshot. It hadn’t even occurred to her they might be okay with her actually doing something she wanted to do. She smiled at her mother when she entered the room, suddenly far more proud of her family than she’d ever been before. Maybe she really could have it all.
Chapter Thirteen
Seneca lounged in the golf cart, enjoying the crisp late fall air. The khaki pants that were part of her work attire were less threadbare than her own jeans, and with the neat fleece pullover Kate had given her, with Sophia College embroidered on the chest, she was quite comfortable. The fall sports season was starting to wind down, but a few teams were making last-minute playoff runs and needed to practice.
She was parked at the top of the small hill overlooking the fields below. It gave her the best perspective to watch the athletes going through drills and wind sprints. She could hear the shouts of teammates and the encouragement of coaches, but her vantage point left her far enough removed to not get caught up in the drama playing out on one field or the other. It was her job to watch over them all, making sure she was available if someone got injured.
Kate, she knew, was overseeing a tennis match on the courts behind and to the right of Seneca’s position. Kate hated tennis matches, complaining they continued forever and she couldn’t keep track of the score. She had played volleyball and softball in college and didn’t understand tennis’ appeal. Seneca would have gladly traded with her, but she wasn’t a licensed trainer, and one had to be at every home contest. Kate had told her to head over to the tennis courts when practices were over, to keep her company, or there would be no more weekly dinners. Although she knew Kate would never make good on the threat, she was happy to stay late and hang out with her.
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