by Robbi McCoy
Copyright© 2010 Robbi McCoy
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First Edition
Editor: Katherine V. Forrest
Cover designer: Linda Callaghan
Photo Credit: Penny Shield Tocher
ISBN: 978-1-59493-214-4
Also by Robbi McCoy
Not Every River
Songs Without Words
Waltzing At Midnight
To Pollyanna
Acknowledgments
My deepest appreciation and affection go to my life partner, Dot, for her patience, understanding and indulgence during all of the trials I put her through during the painful writing of this book. Your wisdom and unfaltering devotion, darling, have made this story what it is, a testament to enduring love. You are my rock.
Many thanks also to my editor Katherine V. Forrest, an expert guide in our fictional landscape. Yet again, she’s the bomb!
About the Author
Robbi McCoy is a native Californian who lives with her partner and two cats in the Central Valley between the mountains and the sea. She is an avid hiker with a particular fondness for the deserts of the American Southwest. She also enjoys gardening, culinary adventures and the theater. She works full-time as a software specialist and web designer for a major West Coast distribution company.
Part One
Yangtze River, China, before the dam
Chapter One
“The water’s going to rise a hundred meters in some locations when the dam is in full operation.” The slight, gray-haired engineer, whose name Lauren had already forgotten, raised his hand level with his forehead, as if to illustrate a hundred meters. “Two million people will have to be moved, which means rebuilding cities from the ground up. Whole cities, big cities, brick by brick.”
“A massive undertaking,” Faith said, her attention completely caught up in the conversation.
She had that rapt look on her face, the one that encouraged people to go on talking indefinitely. As soon as Faith had heard this guy was an engineer with more than a casual knowledge of the dam, she’d parked herself at the top of the staircase and engaged him in conversation. She now stood leaning against the brass railing, one hand in the front pocket of her jeans, her sunglasses on top of her head where she’d perched them after moving from the afternoon sunshine into the interior of the ship. Her straight, thin nose was pointed directly at the engineer, who stood no more than two inches above her five-five height, and her forehead was knit into her serious business-like expression, the one Lauren thought of as “the scientist.”
Lauren stood self-consciously near the doorway, her attention drawn to the artwork on the walls and the richly patterned carpet, the gleaming stair banisters and the chandelier above them. It wasn’t that the Three Gorges Dam project didn’t interest her. It was just that they had boarded the ship only moments before and she was anxious to see everything, especially their cabin. Besides, she had read about all of these statistics already while researching the trip. Lauren smiled to herself as she recognized one of the essential differences between them, that Faith preferred to get her information from people and Lauren preferred to get it from books, or from the written word, at least, in whatever form it came to her these days.
“In the United States,” continued the engineer, “such a thing just wouldn’t be possible. Can you imagine the outcry, all the lawsuits, everybody asserting their rights? I’m not knocking America. I’m just saying it’s different here in China. They’ll all cooperate and lend a hand. Whoever doesn’t like it will keep their mouth shut and plenty of people will get screwed.”
“It’s a different mindset,” Faith agreed. “Do you think they’ll make the schedule?”
“Fully operational by 2009? I think they might, yes, with the exception of the ship lifts. Those suckers probably won’t be up until 2014, but the dam will be producing electricity in just a few years. No doubt about it.” He shook his head, awed at the prospect. “This kind of job would take twice, maybe three times as long somewhere else. At this level of technology, I mean. They’re going to tear down these towns and rebuild them with manual labor! I’ve seen crews of workers everywhere breaking up concrete with hammers and chisels.”
“One thing they have in China is people power,” observed Faith.
He nodded. “Amazing what people can do when you’ve got enough of them. Look at the pyramids, for instance, and they didn’t have a single truck. At least here they’ve got a few machines.”
Her cheeks flushed, Faith said, “Speaking of the pyramids, all things being equal, do you think there’s any modern engineering feat to rival them? I mean, given all our technology, have we achieved anything as impressive as that?”
“God, no! We’d have to build a stairway to the moon to claim something equivalent.”
Faith laughed her deep, carefree laugh.
“I’m going to go find our cabin,” Lauren said, excusing herself.
“Okay,” said Faith, glancing around at her. “I’ll be right there.”
Lauren turned into the narrow hallway, which was flanked on both sides by identical doors, reading numbers as she walked the length of the hall to locate their room. When she arrived at their cabin, she realized with frustration that Faith had both key cards. She could go back, but decided to wait. She stood her suitcase against the wall, then sat on it facing the door to their cabin.
Another passenger came along, a tall, athletic-looking blonde wrestling a large suitcase. She stopped to look at the room numbers, then came up to Lauren and said, “I think ours is just past you.”
“Oh, sorry,” Lauren said, standing flat against the wall to let the woman pass by. She was in her mid-twenties, Lauren guessed, cute, dressed for warm weather in a short-sleeved shirt and twill cargo pants. Her straight hair was in a ponytail under a white baseball cap. She stopped at the cabin next door, verifying the room number.
“Thanks,” she said, parking her suitcase and shoving her hands in the pockets of her pants one by one until she produced the card that would open her door. Her suitcase, Lauren noticed, had a rectangular rainbow sticker on it. Lauren looked her over again, more interested, as she stuck the card in the slot and pushed the door open, then shoved the suitcase in the doorway to hold it ajar.
“Cassie!” she hollered, waving her arm and looking back down the hallway. “Right here!”
Lauren turned to look at the woman heading toward them pulling another suitcase. She was older, about Lauren’s age, mid-thirties, had thin, brown, shoulder-length hair parted in the middle and swept behind her ears. She wore a plain yellow T-shirt and blue jeans. Her glasses reflected the overhead lights, obscuring her eyes. She was nice looking, Lauren thought, in a casual, comfortable sort of way. There was no doubt now. Their neighbors were lesbians. American lesbians. Strange coincidence, she thought, as Cassie caught her eye and smiled warmly. She too wedged past.
“Looks like we’re neighbors,” Lauren said.
“Yes.” Her eyes were clearly visible now. They were deep brown, lit by enthusiasm and amusement. “I’m Cassie Burkett.”
Lauren took hold of her offered hand briefly, noting the dimples which appeared as she smiled again.
“Lauren Keegan.”
The cute blonde took Cassie’s suitcase and carried it inside. Cassie turned back to Lauren and said, “That’s Jennifer.”
Lauren recognized the awkward moment of not knowing how to introduce the lesbian lover—partner, girlfriend? No ma
tter how comfortable you were with yourself, this scene played out over and over with strangers. Is this a moment to make a stand? Take a chance, knowing nothing about this other person? Or just let the moment go down easy for everyone?
“My partner Faith is just around the corner,” Lauren said, offering a crucial piece of information.
“Ah,” said Cassie, looking enlightened and surprised. This wasn’t an Olivia cruise, after all. No reason to expect more than one gay couple on board a boat with a mere sixty passengers. Not to mention having one next door. “Nice to meet you, Lauren. We’ll see you at dinner, then.”
Cassie disappeared into her room just as Faith rounded the corner, key card in hand. She looked bright-eyed and invigorated, her cheeks still rosy.
“Sorry, honey,” she said as she arrived at their door.
“That’s okay. It’s been more interesting waiting here than you might think.”
Faith opened the door and led the way inside the small cabin, their home for a four-day cruise on the Yangtze River. There were two twin beds separated by a small table. Sliding glass doors opened onto a private balcony with two plastic chairs. The shower was tiny, but functional. All very cozy and smart.
Once they were inside with the door shut, Faith slipped her hands around Lauren’s waist and kissed her. “Welcome to your stateroom, Madam,” she said.
Lauren ran her fingers through Faith’s short, platinum hair, noting the childlike glee in her eyes. Faith pulled her closer and kissed her more passionately. She felt a familiar need rise in her. Later, she promised herself, pulling reluctantly away.
After the long flight from Portland to Beijing, then the flight from Beijing to Wuhan, they had slept in their hotel for a solid ten hours last night. Now it felt like they had finally arrived, refreshed and ready for this first leg of their vacation.
“Let’s get unpacked,” Faith said. “Only twenty minutes to dinner. By the way, what was so interesting about waiting in the hallway?”
Lauren heaved her suitcase onto one of the beds. “I met our neighbors.”
“Stuffy old retired postal workers from Florida?” She pulled a stack of shirts from her suitcase and placed them in a dresser drawer.
“Couldn’t be further from it. They’re lesbians.”
Faith tilted her head and eyed Lauren with curiosity. “No shit? Are you sure?”
“Positive. Their names are Jennifer and Cassie.”
“Oh, you know their names and everything.”
“Well, not everything. Actually, that’s all I know.”
Faith stood and looked at the wall separating them from their lesbian neighbors. “You don’t suppose somebody did that on purpose, do you?”
“Put the lesbians next door to one another?” Lauren laughed. “No, I don’t think so. There are dozens of widows and divorcees on this boat, all sorts of women rooming together. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t recall checking any box that said ‘lesbian.’ Or even any euphemistic, badly-translated Chinese version of that, such as ‘women of the Sapphic persuasion.’”
Faith brightened, recognizing a challenge. “Or women sans bon hommes.”
“Or even women sans mal hommes.”
Faith struck a whimsical pose. “Women who go gaily amid perverse delights.”
Lauren laughed, then shook her head. “You win. But, seriously, I think it’s just a coincidence.”
“Yes, you’re probably right, but you know what your Aunt Rachel always says.”
“There’s no such thing as a coincidence. Yes, I know, but Aunt Rachel also believes in leprechauns and dragons.”
Faith grinned. “Don’t you?”
Lauren smiled at the irony of the question. Faith believed in nothing that wasn’t a scientific fact. She was a refreshing and unlikely combination, a cynical optimist. The things she took pleasure in—myth, magic, science fiction—they all occupied the realm of fantasy for her. She saw a sharply delineated line between the real world and the imagined one. Though she lived exclusively on the harsher side of that line, life in general delighted and rewarded her. She expected the best things to come her way and she was not often disappointed.
Living with this paragon of positive thinking, Lauren struggled with her natural tendency toward pessimism and managed, most of the time, to land somewhere in the middle.
“No,” Lauren said with finality. “Merely a coincidence, I’m sure. But it might make the cruise a little more interesting.”
“It’s hard to imagine it being more interesting. We’re about to travel back through two thousand years. No rift in the space-time continuum necessary.”
Lauren huffed at Faith’s sci-fi reference. “Based on that hotel we stayed in last night, I’d say we already traveled back a few hundred. This is much nicer.”
“Oh, much nicer, yes.” Faith put her hands on her hips and frowned at the beds. “Let’s move that table out of there and push these beds together.”
“Are you expecting to get lucky tonight?”
“You never know. Gotta be prepared.”
Faith’s eyes twinkled mischievously. At forty-four, she was a dynamo of energy and Lauren had trouble keeping up with her, despite being seven years younger. Faith just seemed more alive than most people. More lively, anyway. She got up in the morning ready to attack the day and went to bed at night generally satisfied with how well she’d done. Lauren, on the other hand, had never been able to muster that kind of joie de vivre, especially in the early morning. They were just different types of people. And that was okay. Fifteen happy years together had shown this to be a compatible pairing with little strife and no regrets.
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Lauren said, pulling the table out from between the beds, “if we both get lucky tonight.”
Chapter Two
The dining room was arranged eight to a table with a complement of eight tables, precisely accommodating the sixty-four passengers. Faith felt an involuntary smile come to her as she made this observation. That was typical of the Chinese. They wouldn’t have considered a scattering of two or four-person tables, allowing some flexibility for the passengers, even though the room could have fit more tables. That would not have been the most efficient design. The Chinese were masters of efficiency.
Cassie and Jennifer and four other women were already seated at their assigned table. Was this part of the plan, too, Faith wondered, that the straight married couples would be seated together and the apparently single women would be grouped at women-only tables? The table was round. The dishes were placed on a lazy Susan in the center so the diners could spin them around and help themselves. Faith recalled their earlier trip to China. This was the arrangement for all lunches and dinners. Breakfast was different, usually an American-style buffet with a few Chinese items, like rice and stir-fried vegetables, thrown in.
The first offering tonight, a whole fish, milky eye looking up, was laid down as Faith and Lauren arrived. This was Faith’s first look at the other lesbian couple. She picked them out easily by their ages—as the only women at their table under sixty—remembering that Lauren had described Cassie as close to her own age and Jennifer as younger. Cassie looked up with recognition as Lauren approached. She had a comfortable smile and an animated face. Her glasses made her look intelligent and down to earth. Jennifer was stunning, a beautiful young woman, dressed in a smart two-piece outfit, tan knit slacks and a short matching jacket.
Among the older women, one of them might have been as old as eighty. Her hair was dyed bright red and she was serenely attractive in the way of certain women who have led untroubled lives, making her age indeterminate.
As introductions were made, Faith learned that three of the four older women were widows and the fourth was a divorcee, all of them long divested of husbands. Cassie and Jennifer were from Albuquerque where Jennifer was an EMT and Cassie was a high school English teacher. Faith noticed they didn’t mention to the group they lived together.
Lauren’s eyes lit up when she heard the phrase “English teacher.” She’d been an English major in college too before she changed to soil science. Maybe they’ll hit it off, Faith thought, scooping a chunk of flaky white fish from the platter in front of her. Lauren was shy and awkward with strangers, but Cassie, it was obvious after just ten minutes, was outgoing and unselfconscious, and would easily take charge of any social situation. If the odd coincidence that had thrown them together as shipboard neighbors should extend to friendship, even only four days worth, so much the better.
When it was her turn, she said, “I’m Faith. I teach at Portland State. Anthropology.”
“Oh,” said Nancy, one of the widows, “that’s wonderful.”
“Lauren here is my life partner,” Faith continued, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Fifteen years of unwedded bliss.”
Faith smiled at Lauren, hoping she wasn’t embarrassed. She colored a little, but smiled back.
“And I’m Lauren,” she said. “I’m a soil conservationist with the USDA in Portland.”
“Oh, well,” said Cassie gleefully, “if we’re coming out, Jen and I are lesbians too!”
Jennifer’s mouth fell open and she stared at Cassie, who grimaced in mock horror at her indiscretion. Lauren giggled discreetly. Faith glanced around at the other women. None of them seemed particularly alarmed. They were all probably seasoned travelers. They weren’t the sort to be disturbed by a few lesbians. Or if they were, they weren’t the sort to show it.
These women exhibited varying degrees of competence with their chopsticks, with most of them managing well enough, but Jennifer didn’t even attempt it, asking immediately for a fork and saying, “I’ve given up on those things.”