Every word was exactly what she needed to hear, and she pulled Bea into an embrace. “I like being your girlfriend.”
“And you’re also stepmother to a spoiled rotten, bouncing, slobbering fur ball with occasional bad breath.”
“Dexter! Poor baby. He’s been by himself all night.”
“He’s fine. I took the panel out of his dog door in case I got home late…or not at all, as the case may be. One of the great things about dogs is they forgive and forget. Once I get home, it’ll be like I never left.”
“I wish you could bring him back here, but they’d probably kick me out.”
“We could always move the party to my place. I have a nice big bed too, and I could easily spend the entire day in it with you.”
“Except if we go to your place, you’ll have to feed me.”
“There is that.” Bea snuggled again into her side and skimmed a fingertip across Allyn’s prominent hipbone. “Can I tell you something? Sure I can, because we just agreed we could talk about anything now.”
“I can’t wait to hear this.”
“That day when I saw you at the Pak & Ship, the one you go to now, I was horrified to see how much weight you’d lost. Horrified. Please tell me you aren’t still losing.”
What once had been a battle for self-control had turned into a visible symbol of her own defeat, not surprising since a part of her had wanted to punish Melody by destroying herself and forcing her to feel responsible. That urge was mostly gone, replaced by a wish to have Melody see her looking better than ever so she’d know what she’d given up. “Believe it or not, I’ve put back about five pounds from the worst of it. With my luck it’ll all come back eventually and I won’t have anything to show for my misery. Back to my pudgy old self.”
“Your old self was pretty damn cute if you ask me. And yes, I noticed you years ago. Kit gave me hell every single time you walked through the door…she always said I was flirting with you, but I didn’t mean to be. I thought you were nice and I wanted us to be friends. Melody too.”
It would have been nice to have had someone to turn to after Melody left. “I asked her about it a couple of times. I remember you invited us once to a cookout on Pride weekend and then to a basketball game at the UW. She always had one reason or another why we couldn’t go. I never thought much about it when we were still together, but then when she left I discovered that all of our friends were actually just her friends.” It was a mess of her own making, she admitted to herself. As she mentally scrolled through all the women she’d met through Bea, those who’d followed the softball team to JoJo’s, she acknowledged she was repeating that pattern. Left to her own devices, she’d likely have no friends at all.
“What are you thinking about?” Bea asked.
Allyn hadn’t realized she’d gone silent for so long. “Nothing really…us being friends. It should have happened. That was my fault for always letting Melody decide who we’d hang out with. She was leery about meeting new people except through her friends, but she should have tried harder for my sake.”
“I would have liked that back then but you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing if it meant not being right here, right now.”
She rolled toward Bea, pushing her onto her back, and sprawled over her with a knee wedged between her legs. “Has anyone ever told you that you have an uncanny gift for saying the perfect thing?”
Bea smiled up at her, her wide green eyes sparkling behind the jagged strands of dark hair that covered her brow. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth, your honor.”
Even more uncanny was how quickly Allyn had come to need those assurances. It hardly seemed possible that only two weeks ago she’d been mired in despair and now she was on the verge of falling in love again.
Chapter Thirteen
“Parked in fire lane. Burn some rubber,” the text read.
Allyn laughed and pounded out her reply. “With blazing speed.”
She’d returned home from Bea’s house only an hour ago to shower and change for the Labor Day picnic at Woodland Park. She wore a gold top with capped sleeves and brown knee-length pants that sported half a dozen pockets. Leather sandals showed off her cherry-painted toenails, though she was taking along a pair of sneakers in case someone organized a pickup game of softball or volleyball. She finished off her outfit by pulling her ponytail through the back of a beige canvas ball cap.
As promised, Bea was parked next to the building, and she started her car the moment Allyn appeared.
“Wow, I didn’t know you were in such a hurry,” she said before giving Bea a quick kiss and turning to pet Dexter.
“I have forty pounds of ice melting in my trunk and about a hundred cans of pop. I should have just given Kit money for the ribs and chicken like you did. At least I didn’t have to cook anything. My friends know me well enough not to ask.”
For dinner the night before, Bea had gone out to her back porch to grill a pair of salmon steaks, which she served atop a fresh salad. “You’re not as horrible as you led me to believe. I liked what you made for dinner.”
“Enough to eat it every night? I don’t have a lot of variety in my skill set.”
Allyn’s first inclination was to answer that she’d be happy to handle the cooking, but it shocked her how such overt discussion of their division of labor made it sound as though they were setting up permanent housekeeping. Two days together did not a marriage make.
“I can’t believe you were only gone for an hour,” Bea went on. “I missed you like crazy. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the week after we go back to work.”
Unless Bea was willing to start her day by heading home at five thirty in the morning, Allyn’s work schedule would make it all but impossible to spend the night together except on the weekends. That was a lot to ask, especially since it meant leaving Dexter on his own. On the other hand, it would be difficult to sit home alone knowing Bea was only ten minutes away.
“I missed you too. We’ll have to figure out something.” She remembered from her early days with Melody the desperate need for private time together, which had driven them to move out of their college dorm and into an apartment after only a month.
“Right now I don’t even want to let you out of my sight. Just don’t let me wear out my welcome.”
“Not going to happen.” Allyn clutched her hand and kissed it, noticing for the first time her aqua Run Seattle T-shirt, which she wore over cuffed denim shorts. “I didn’t know you were a runner too.”
“I’m not. I just like the color. Reminds me of your eyes.” She returned the gesture, raising Allyn’s hand to her lips.
“You’re quite the flirt. I can’t believe I never noticed.”
“I’ll make sure you notice now.” Bea slowed considerably when she entered the park. “Keep an eye out for Kit’s truck. She was supposed to get here early to set up.”
A rainbow flag fluttered from one of the pavilions where at least two dozen women had already gathered. “There she is. Pretty hard to miss, huh?”
Kit met them at the car to help carry ice and drinks. “About time you got here. Would it be rude to ask what took you so long?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it would,” Bea said, chucking Kit with her hip as she opened the trunk. “Stand there like a pack mule while I stack these bags in your arms.”
“Watch my shoulder.”
Despite the warning, Kit didn’t appear fazed by her heavy load, nor did Bea, but Allyn’s arms trembled when she finally dropped two cases of pop on the picnic table. Then she hurried to brace Marta, who was standing atop a step stool decorating the pavilion with gay-themed streamers. “Thanks, Allyn. Kit promised to help me do this but she’s too busy being in charge.”
“Good thing somebody is.” Melody would never have participated in such a conspicuous display of gayness, but Allyn felt right at home, especially when she noticed most of the women were softball teammates and their partners, the same crowd that gathered at JoJ
o’s after their games. It was nice to feel like one of the gang. Even though she’d met these women through Bea, she felt connected in her own right because she was part of the team.
“Allyn?”
The voice belonged to a familiar face, but it took her a moment to place the woman in this context, since she wasn’t part of their usual Wednesday night group. Candace Landini, the girlfriend of a woman who worked with Melody at the university. Short and full-figured, she wore jeans that could have been a size larger and a T-shirt stretched across her ample breasts. Her coloring was dark, consistent with her Italian heritage, and she had a dime-sized mole next to her left eye that distinguished her pretty face. “Candace, how are you?”
“Not too bad considering. How about you?”
Considering what? Allyn was struck by how much calmer she felt talking to Candace, whom she hadn’t known very well, versus Jillian, who was clearly Melody’s ally. “It’s been a tough few months, but things are looking up.”
“That’s great to hear. I felt really bad for you after what Melody did. Lark and I both were shocked by it. It was so sudden.”
“Where is Lark?”
Candace made a small clicking noise with her tongue and shook her head. “We aren’t together anymore.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
“I shouldn’t say too much for now. Lark has a few things to work on, and if she does, we might get back together one of these days. I don’t want to poison her with any of our friends.”
“That’s really kind. You’re a better person than I am.”
“No, I’m just a psychotherapist with ten years’ experience counseling people about their relationships. I’m trying to take my own advice.”
She’d forgotten that about Candace, and it made sense now why she seemed easy to talk to.
“Besides, anyone would find it hard to be nice to someone like Melody after what she did. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to say a kind word about her ever again.”
“Good, because I don’t know what that word would be.” Until right then, Allyn had no idea she had anyone in her corner from her former life, especially after hearing Melody had brought Naomi back to Seattle to meet her friends.
She filled two party cups with ice and they fished around for cans of diet pop.
Candace said, “Kit told me we’d need chairs so I brought a couple. Want to go sit in the shade?”
With a quick scan of the park, Allyn spotted Bea joking around with Kit as they set up the barbecue grill. “Sure. How do you know Kit?”
“She used to work at my post office. I was in there all the time because I was selling stuff on eBay.”
Allyn smiled.
“What’s funny?”
“That’s kind of how I ended up here too. I used to have a mailbox at the Pak & Ship in Ballard. That’s how I got to be friends with Bea Lawson.” She nodded toward the grill. “The woman over there with Kit getting ready to set the whole park on fire.”
“I know her, at least I know who she is. Kit works for her now.”
“Right.”
“She’s the one whose wife got paralyzed. So sad.”
Bea would hate hearing herself described that way, but it was difficult for anyone to forget a marker like that. “They’re still good friends. Wendy divorced her, you know, because she wanted her to move on…which is lucky for me, since we’ve started seeing each other.”
Candace strained to lean forward in her sling chair and held up her hand for a slap. “You go, girl! I sometimes tell my clients there’s a reason for everything. I don’t necessarily believe it, but it makes them feel better. If it’s true, then I hope Bea turns out to be the reason you had to go through that hell with Melody.”
Allyn didn’t want to believe in that kind of fate, not if it meant Wendy was supposed to end up paralyzed. “Oh, look. They’re setting up a volleyball net. Do you play?”
“Afraid not. There isn’t an athletic bone in this body, but I’m a great cheerleader. I cheer for whoever is winning.”
It was tempting to go play, but talking to a friend who knew what she’d been through with Melody was a rare treat, provided Candace didn’t try to turn a friendly chat into a therapy session. “Do you still keep up with Lark?”
“Kind of. She keeps up with me if she has anything to talk about. I don’t see her though. I’m not going to do that again until I’m sure she’s made some big changes.”
“Does it bother you when you don’t hear from her?” Allyn remembered too well her frustration at never hearing from Melody unless she needed something related to the divorce or sale of the house.
“It bothers me because I worry about her. If she goes a long time without getting in touch, I wonder if it’s because she’s not dealing with her problems like she promised to, or if she’s thrown in the towel and given up on us.”
Lark was probably into drinking or drugs, Allyn decided, and she deeply admired Candace’s courage to take a stand. “Aren’t you afraid she won’t come back?”
“Sure, but I was more afraid of staying with her the way things were. Would you want Melody back if you knew she was going to keep cheating on you?”
“Hell, no!” What’s more, now that she had Bea, she no longer thought about getting Melody back.
*
Bea lunged backward as the coals flared, singeing the hair on her arms. “Down, Sparky!”
Kit tossed her a squirt bottle filled with water. “Here, use this to keep the flames down. You’re going to char everything and it’ll be raw on the inside.”
She never had this trouble with her gas grill. “I warned you not to make me cook.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kit grumbled. “So what have you been cooking with Allyn Teague?”
Nonchalance wasn’t an option, not once she broke into a grin. “I’d say she definitely knows I’m flirting now, since she’s flirting back.”
“Do tell.”
“We spent the weekend together.”
“Hot damn!”
“I’m pretty crazy about her, but I’m not sure she’s over Melody yet. With my luck, I’ll fall head over heels and then Melody will come back.” She looked over toward the trees where Allyn was deep in conversation with a woman Bea didn’t know. “Do me a favor. Don’t say anything to Wendy just yet. If this comes to anything, I’d like to be the one to tell her.”
Kit was grinning as though the happy news were hers. “No problem. I can tell Marta, though, right?”
“Sure. It’ll probably leak out soon, so I may have to make an unscheduled run up to Vancouver. I don’t know who all Wendy Skypes with or emails these days. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything, but I don’t want her to hear it from somebody else first.” She walked around to the other side of the grill so she could keep an eye on Allyn. “Do you know who that woman is that Allyn’s talking to?”
“Candace Landini. Used to be a customer of mine at the post office.”
“I remember now. She’s a therapist of some sort. Came to one of the Huskies games. Her girlfriend is the one with a cool name.”
“Lark. They split up not too long ago because Lark’s become a compulsive liar. I’ve never seen anything like it. Marta and I went to their house once for dinner and Lark told us this bizarre story about hiking up into the Hoh River the day before to catch the salmon we were eating. Except Marta ran into Candace that morning at Pike Place and saw her buying it. You should have seen how red her face got when Lark was telling that whopper. She told us later Lark did it all the time, and always about stupid things. Candace got so she never knew when she was telling the truth.”
“That would be creepy.” Bea nodded in the direction of their chairs. “You don’t think I need to be jealous, do you? They’ve been over there talking a long time.”
Kit snatched the water bottle from her hand. “Go on over there and mark your territory. You’re too dangerous around a grill anyway.”
Bea went first to the pavilion to get Dexter, wh
ose leash was looped around the leg of a picnic table, and also picked up his tennis ball. Then she led him toward the shaded area, smiling with relief as Allyn came to her feet and welcomed her with a quick kiss on the lips.
“I want you to meet a friend of mine, Candace Landini.”
Candace jumped up too and held out a hand. “Our exes worked together at the UW. Who knows what they’re putting in the water over there?”
Bea appreciated how Allyn’s simple display of affection made her ripple of jealousy subside. “I remember you from the Huskies game last year.”
“And who is this doll baby?” Candace squatted to greet Dexter.
“Just the sweetest little boy on earth,” Allyn replied.
“I was about to take him over to the off-leash area so he could run a little. You guys want to come?”
Several dogs of all sizes roamed the pet area, chasing balls, frisbees and one another. Dexter had never been interested in other dogs, but he wasn’t hostile when they came around to sniff.
Bea tossed the ball and he dashed after it. “The hardest part is getting him to drop it so I can throw it again.”
Despite her commands, he steadfastly held the ball in his mouth until she pretended to throw another. Then he dropped it and took off.
Candace clapped. “That’s so cute. Let me throw it.”
Dexter didn’t display his usual boundless energy with Candace. Instead, he turned the tables, chasing the ball leisurely and lying down, which forced her to retrieve it from him.
“Smartest dog I ever saw,” Bea said to Allyn. “It’s cool you ran into Candace. Have you two kept in touch?”
“No, I figured she was like all the others, buddy-buddy with Melody. Turns out she’s not. Neither was her girlfriend. They both thought what Melody did was shitty.”
“I’d worry about the moral compass of anyone who didn’t.”
“She’s always been nice to me. I’d like to be friends with her. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” Bea said, surprised by the fact she felt she had to ask. “You should have all the friends you want, Allyn.”
Life After Love Page 12