Jackie would find this apartment unbearably gauche. Cecily loved every bit of it, down to those last six inches. It was glamorous and daring, sophisticated and worldly. In a word, it was everything that Cecily was not. Rorie fit in perfectly, though, just like she probably fit in with the rich and powerful Hollywood people who owned places like this.
Rorie may not have grown up rich, or even earn vast sums of money now, but Cecily was certain that when Rorie attended one of those parties, she was in her element. Looking at her now, with her understated vintage ensemble and her long braids caught up in an elegant clip, there was no way she didn’t completely own every room the moment she entered it. Cecily could never attend a party with Rorie at a place like this. Everyone would know she had no business there, and would probably wonder what Rorie was thinking for being with her. She wondered the exact same thing herself.
She felt Rorie’s hands on her shoulders and leaned her weight back into the embrace. She closed her eyes, shutting out the multi-million dollar view in favor of giving her complete attention to something infinitely more valuable, this precious time with the woman she loved. She felt the heat of Rorie’s lips on her bare shoulder, melting away some of her doubts.
Her touch had that effect on Cecily and always had. Rorie’s confidence radiated from her, enveloping Cecily and making her feel like more things could be possible than she dared to believe. Experience told her it was a dangerous illusion, but with everything at stake, there was nothing so intoxicating as hope. It filled her heart even as Rorie’s fingers and tongue filled every long-forgotten crevice and fold of her body with fire, made her believe that there was some way for it to never end, if they searched hard enough.
Later, in the bedroom—it may have been minutes, or hours, or years, but time had lost its hold over her the moment she’d felt Rorie’s touch on her skin—Cecily spoke. “I can’t bear not to see you again.” It wasn’t a request or a demand, just the truth.
“I feel the same way,” Rorie whispered, and her response made Cecily’s heart sing.
She rolled to face Rorie in the dark, taking a deep breath to give her courage. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but she’d had an idea that might buy them more time. “You know, there’s a house not too far from me that’s for rent.”
“Hmmm?” Rorie responded, absently stroking her fingers along the swell of Cecily’s breast with decidedly more attention than she was giving to her words.
“And I was thinking that maybe it would work for you,” she continued nervously.
“For me?” Rorie’s fingers retreated from Cecily's breast. “Why would I need a house? I have one in LA.”
“Well, I was thinking you might come back. Maybe do another show at the Oakwood sometime?”
“Susan would love that. But I have a job already. In LA. It’s not a movie this time, either. It’s television. It could go for years.”
“Oh.” Cecily felt the hope inside her deflate.
“Look, I’m not saying I can’t get time off. There’s summer, and usually a hiatus around the holidays. I’d have time to travel then.”
“And you’d need a place to stay. I mean, I know I have room, and Chet’s never there, but the neighbors would definitely wonder, so—”
“So, I should rent a house nearby, but not too close, and sneak through your back door after dark?”
Her voice was hard and Cecily could feel Rorie's body stiffen beside her, drawing away from her and leaving a cold space between them. Cecily’s stomach tightened. Somehow she’d gotten this all wrong.
“No, Rorie, that’s not what I meant.”
“Really? It’s how it sounded to me. Like you want me to spend all my time off work—which I get precious little of by the way—hiding out in a house in Connecticut, pretending to have a sudden desire to work in a small-time regional theater for a fraction of what the rent on that house would be, and definitely not letting on that I’m the lesbian lover you sneak into your bed when your husband’s away.”
She had a point. It did sort of sound that way. Shit. “No, Rorie, listen. That’s not at all—”
“No, you listen.” Her voice was icy. “I can’t let you do this to me again.”
Cecily felt the bed shift as Rorie moved away from her, and heard the soft rustle of clothing being dragged across skin.
“Rorie, wait!” Desperation was building at the thought of her leaving, immediately and forever. It couldn’t end like this. “Please, what is it you can’t let me do?”
“Choose Chet and this comfortable life that you say you hate instead of me!” Her voice cracked and when she cleared her throat it sounded like a sob.
“No! Rorie, sweetheart, I never did that. I never chose him over you. I told you that.” Cecily scrambled out of bed as she spoke, searching for her own clothing in the dark but coming up empty-handed.
“How can you say that? When you left me and never said goodbye? You abandoned me!” Her breath was ragged, and left no doubt of her tears.
“I didn’t want to. I had to!” Cecily pleaded silently for her to understand.
“How did you have to?”
“Because I was pregnant!” Cecily wailed.
There was silence for a moment. Cecily could hear the traffic sounds from outside, and the thundering of her heartbeat in her ears. Then there was a slight squeak of springs as Rorie sat on the edge of the mattress.
“Oh my God. How did I not put that together when I met Tyler? I feel like an idiot. Did you know that morning, when you left me at the hotel?” Her voice sounded weak and small. “Is that why you went away and didn’t say goodbye?”
“No, I didn’t know. And I tried to wake you up to say goodbye but you wouldn’t open your eyes. Finally, I just had to leave. Our flight changed and I needed to get to the airport. I was queasy when I left the hotel that morning, and I threw up as soon as I got on the plane. I was convinced I was just sick, but—Mother took one look at me and she knew. Mother’s intuition, right?” Cecily sighed heavily. “She made us stop at the pharmacy as soon as we landed. I swear, I thought she was going to stand over me while I peed on that test stick. And when it came up positive, all I remember is crying. For days. Mother took over. By the time I really knew what was going on again, we’d already gotten the marriage license.”
“And since you had the license already, you just figured you’d go ahead and go through with it, I guess.” Bitterness saturated Rorie’s words.
“That’s not fair. I was twenty-two and pregnant. Not to mention my father was a senator in the Bible Belt. What else could I do?”
“To start with, how about not just leave me without a word?” Rorie’s voice cracked. “You said you loved me, and then you didn’t even have the decency to tell me what was going on. We would’ve figured something out.”
Cecily wiped her face with her palm. It came away wet and she was grateful for the darkness of the room. “You’re right. I should have. I was just so ashamed—of being stupid enough to get pregnant, of letting my mother railroad me, of not talking to you until it was too late. And I thought once you knew about the baby, you wouldn’t want to be with me anyway.”
“But I would have!”
“But I didn’t know that! And I could say that I didn't want to make you choose, but honestly it never crossed my mind. It was 1998, Rorie. People were still reeling from the shock that Ellen was gay. I didn’t have a clue that raising a baby together was something we were even allowed to do.”
It was silent again, except for the sound of their breathing. Cecily heard Rorie sigh, but couldn’t tell if it was in a good or bad way.
“Come with me.”
Cecily’s breath caught. “What?”
“Come to LA with me. Tyler’s grown, your marriage is a facade, most of the people who are supposed to be your friends are back stabbing bitches…”
Cecily couldn’t help but laugh at the truth in that last bit, although to hear her life so starkly characterized made her squirm. After eighteen years
, was that really all she had? “I don’t know, Rorie. It’s not great, but my life is still here, and Tyler’s still in school, plus Chet—”
The buzzing of Rorie’s cell phone interrupted her.
“I’m sorry. I’ve gotta take this,” Rorie said, her face illuminated by the glow of her phone. “It’s one of the producers on the new show.”
After Rorie left the room, Cecily rested her head against the pillows, feeling faint. She wasn’t certain what to do. Right now, the thought of moving to LA terrified her almost as much as getting up on stage used to do. How could she leave everything behind and go to a place where she would never fit in? Rorie was a busy professional in Hollywood, a powerful woman who needed the right type of partner at her side. How would she feel when it became obvious that Cecily could never succeed in that role?
The phone call dragged on for almost an hour. They were gearing up to start production on the new show and her absence was being felt more keenly than Rorie had hoped. There was no way around it, she couldn’t delay another day. Reluctantly, she’d agreed to book the first flight she could get to LA in the morning. She would catch a cab straight from the apartment to the airport, and arrange to have Susan send her things after. Now to break the news to Cici.
Rorie felt a knot in her stomach as she remembered what they’d discussed. She’d thought about asking Cecily to visit her in LA, maybe warm her up to the idea of moving little by little over time. She hadn’t meant to just blurt it out. Knowing Cici, she was panicking right now, and Rorie didn’t blame her. What she’d asked her to do was a huge step under any circumstances, but especially these.
Reuniting like they had, and their whirlwind romance, made it feel like no time had passed. But of course it had, enough time for Cecily to have a grown son, ready for college. Rorie still couldn't believe she hadn't connected the dots on that one. They’d been apart for eighteen years and, good or bad, they’d built their own lives and had other people they had to factor in. Being asked to give up all of that in a heartbeat must have sounded shocking.
Rorie yawned and felt the weight of sleepiness press down on her brow. It had been a long day. She sat on a settee in front of the window in the dining room, staring at the glow of the Empire State Building against the dark night sky. She closed her eyes for a moment and let her head rest against the cool glass.
The early morning sun shone through the window when Rorie jolted awake. She twisted her wrist in a reflexive movement, glancing down to see the time, and froze when her eyes landed on her watch. Its chunky silver face was so familiar, like a part of her own body, that she hardly noticed it any more. She’d worn that watch every day for eighteen years, ever since she found it sitting in its box on the pillow beside her in an otherwise empty suite at the Hotel Bentley. She’d worn it first in hopeful anticipation, then as a reproachful reminder, and finally out of sheer habit, and because for many years it made a better impression than anything she could’ve afforded to buy on her own.
She noted the time, seven o’clock, then slipped the watch from her wrist to study the back. It was engraved with the letters R and C entwined, and below that read ‘Each second closer’. The sentiment had gotten her through Christmas break that year, waiting by the phone and hoping each time it rang to hear Cecily’s voice on the other end. It had mocked her when she went to find Cecily at her dorm in January only to discover she’d moved out and some new student had taken her place.
One of Cecily’s sorority sisters had pointed her in the direction of the marriage announcements in a December issue of the Baton Rouge newspaper, The Advocate, unaware of how seeing Cecily’s name printed there beside Chet’s would tear a hole in her soul.
Lately she’d taken a more philosophical approach, and took the phrase as a reminder to live life to the fullest, since every second brought her closer to death. She hadn’t been the most cheerful person before Cecily reappeared. And frankly, that interpretation—that one day the seconds would tick by enough times that Cecily would enter her life again, had never occurred to her in her wildest fantasies.
And yet, here she was.
And already the seconds all had ticked away, and it was time to go.
Rorie stretched as she rose from the settee, then padded down the hall to the bedroom where Cecily slept, her naked body tangled in the sheet. Rorie's eyes trailed along her sleeping form, appreciating each line and curve, committing them all to memory. A wave of longing swept over her, not merely physical desire but the aching need for this woman to be in her life.
She wanted to stay but knew she couldn’t, and it hurt so deeply that she would agree to almost anything to make it stop, even staying hidden and stealing moments together in the dead of night. She wanted Cecily to wake up and say she would move to LA, but the chances seemed remote. Cecily didn’t like change or discomfort, and Rorie’s plan promised plenty of both.
Rorie’s hand was poised above Cecily’s shoulder, ready to rock her awake, but she hesitated. There were times when she could look at Cecily and almost hear the words inside her head, but this was not one of those times. If she were awake, what would she say? That she couldn’t do it, or needed more time to think? Would she say goodbye, and if she did, would it be for the last time? Rorie drew her hand back, then reached into her pocket and pulled out the watch from where she’d placed it a few moments before. She set it on the pillow beside Cecily’s head.
She found a scrap of paper in a drawer and scribbled a few words. She apologized for leaving, and urged Cecily to take as much time as she needed. She promised her the space to think, and promised to always love her. Rorie set the note down beside the watch and turned to go. She didn't notice the paper slide from the pillow to the floor and come to rest beneath the bed, out of sight.
As the door to the apartment clicked behind her, Rorie clenched her eyes shut and prayed.
The sun shone bright as Cecily’s eyes cracked open, then quickly shut again. For a moment she wasn’t certain where she was, but then it came back to her and she felt a nervous flutter in her chest. Even without looking, she sensed she was alone in the room, and she wondered if Rorie had decided to sleep elsewhere out of anger, or just to give her space to think about the proposition she had made.
Los Angeles.
It was a world away. She’d been there once to visit, years ago. It had seemed strange and foreign, and even now she wasn’t certain if she could survive there, or if she could make Rorie understand her fears. She wished she were the type of person who could just jump in feet first when it came to this sort of thing. The last time she’d made a rash decision like this was during her shotgun wedding to Chet, and look how that had turned out.
Cecily rolled and stretched in bed, and forced her eyes to open once more. Her blood turned to ice in her veins at what she saw. On the pillow beside her was the watch, the one she’d given Rorie for Christmas eighteen years before. She picked it up and looked around, but there was nothing else. Just the watch, like a final message that her time was up and she was too late. Tears stung her eyes, and soon her body shook with sobbing. That she’d anticipated Rorie rejecting her eventually didn’t make the reality any easier to bear. She slipped the watch onto her wrist and curled into a ball on the bed and wept until she’d cried herself to sleep.
Chapter 26
Cecily sat on a stool in her kitchen, staring blankly at her mug of tea. She’d chosen tea this morning instead of coffee, which was unusual for her. But coffee didn’t seem right. Coffee implied a desire to get up and face the world head on. Tea, on the other hand, was something that you could curl up with while wearing the same yoga pants and hoodie that you’d put on three days earlier after returning home from being dumped by your girlfriend. Tea wouldn’t judge. Coffee demanded you do something about it. Tea invited you to go ahead and wallow for a while.
The sound of the front door opening brought her out of her haze. Tyler. Was she supposed to have picked him up from campus today, or was one of the other St George’s moth
ers driving him home? She couldn’t remember. She’d been looking forward to him coming home for Thanksgiving for weeks, and then completely dropped the ball. Was there nothing she could get right? She’d been failing as a wife for almost eighteen years, and as a lover, and now she’d failed as a mother, too.
“Mom?” Tyler looked worried as he entered the kitchen, and his voice echoed the sentiment. He nearly ran the last few steps across the kitchen floor and threw his arms around her shoulders, giving her body a shake. “Mom, are you sick? You didn’t come get me. Are you okay?”
Cecily forced herself back to her senses, for the first time since realizing that Rorie was gone. It wasn’t fair to her son to behave this way, so she was determined to do better for his sake. She sat up a little straighter in her chair and attempted to look upbeat.
“Hi, Baby. I’m okay, don’t worry,” she assured him, enveloping him in a hug. “I just haven’t been myself the last few days.” Or I've been exactly myself, messing everything up, as always.
“I was worried! You didn’t show up at school, and you weren’t answering your phone.”
Shit. It had been her turn to drive, and she’d left him stranded. What kind of mother does that? “I’m so sorry, Tyler. I completely forgot what time it was. How did you get home?”
“Doug’s mom drove me home. It was fine. I just got worried when you didn’t show up.”
Cecily let out a sigh of relief. Doug’s mom was one of the nice ones, thank goodness. She wouldn’t make a big deal out of this, or badmouth Cecily behind her back. They really are mostly backstabbing bitches, Cecily acknowledged as she remembered what Rorie had said about the other women in town. So why did she care so much about what they thought? Cecily hated herself for letting them have that power over her.
Cecily stood up and walked toward the refrigerator. “Let me make it up to you. Fix you a sandwich?”
Love's Encore Series (Books One and Two) Page 20