by Robbi McCoy
She had lowered her voice to a whisper, jerking her head toward the other tasters gathered around their bread cubes and saucers.
“Foodies,” Lauren answered. “We’re a strange bunch, but we’re growing in numbers. There are foodie tours all over the world nowadays.”
“I remember you always wanted to go to Tuscany. Even I know food and Tuscany go together. Do you think that’s where you’ll want to go next?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t thought much about traveling.” Lauren dipped a piece of bread into a murky, greenish oil. “It wouldn’t be the same without Faith.”
“No, it wouldn’t be the same. But it would still be fun. You love to travel. You don’t want to give it up.”
Lauren stared momentarily into Cassie’s encouraging face. This wasn’t the time for a discussion of all the things she no longer felt any desire to do.
As they left the olive orchard, Cassie asked, “Now we go to the winery?”
“Not just yet. One more stop.”
She unlocked her car doors with a chirp from the remote. “What is it this time? Fruit, nuts or berries?”
“Flowers. It’s an organic flower farm.” Lauren slid into the passenger seat.
“Sounds lovely, but I thought you were writing about food and drink spots only.”
“I am. Edible flowers.”
Cassie looked startled, then seemed to comprehend. “Oh, like sunflowers. Sunflower seeds.”
“No. Like violets and roses and nasturtiums. Oh, you’ll love it. They’ve got a little deli on site where they serve gorgeous salads. And desserts too, if you prefer, decorated with brilliant little pansies.”
Cassie sat behind the wheel and stared for a moment. “I bet it was really hard for you to find ways to combine your research with Faith’s. I mean, how did you manage to integrate artisan chocolates, for instance, with mummies?”
Lauren laughed shortly. “Believe it or not, it wasn’t that difficult most of the time. Of course, the mummies and chocolates did require two different stops.”
“Hey,” Cassie suggested, “you could write a book about the best places to grab a bite whenever you’re out raiding a tomb or digging up graves.”
Lauren laughed.
“Limited audience, I suppose,” Cassie continued. “Archaeologists, mainly. Anthropologists too, and the odd black market treasure hunter.”
“And grave robbers and mad scientists,” Lauren added. “Don’t forget them.”
“Yes! An unusual audience for a restaurant guide, I admit, but at least you’d be branching out from the West Coast foodie crowd. It’s always a good idea to broaden your appeal.” Cassie’s grin relaxed into a warm smile. “Nice to hear you laugh,” she said.
It was nearly dark when they arrived back at the beach house with their purchases, including a blossom-studded salad of baby lettuces, roasted yellow beets and chèvre. They sat at the kitchen table and popped open the plastic boxes. Cassie handed Lauren a fork and then sat staring at her salad for a minute without touching it.
“What’s the matter?” Lauren asked.
“I don’t know whether to eat it or put it in a frame and hang it on the wall.”
“You haven’t eaten since noon, so I’d say eating it would be preferable.”
Cassie tasted a beet. “Now that’s good. I’ve never had yellow beets before. I like them. Very earthy. I have to say, Lauren, a day with you is a day full of adventure.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. Faith always said each day should have something unexpected in it, to keep you interested.”
“Well, today had several unexpected things in it, at least for me.” Cassie dug into her salad with enthusiasm.
For me, too, Lauren thought, marveling over the day, at how much she’d enjoyed it. She’d had fun. More than expected. She’d laughed a lot, just like she had ten years ago when Cassie had come for her spring visit. After ten years, she would have expected something to be different. She felt different, like a different person altogether sometimes, from that young woman who hadn’t yet known the sting of life’s indifferent brutality. She would have said, if anyone had asked, that that woman, with her happy, innocent heart, no longer existed. That was why she’d been surprised today at the sound of her own frequent laughter, at the effortless lightness of it.
“Cassie,” Lauren said, “there’s something I’d like to ask your opinion about.”
“Sure. You can ask me anything.”
“It’s something I’d like you to read, actually.”
“Oh, one of your articles? You want a critique?”
“No. More personal than that. It’s a letter Faith wrote to someone before she died. She wrote letters to dozens of people. Telling them she was thankful for them. Saying goodbye. This particular letter was returned. The address was no good. I kept it for a couple of months after she died, intending to find the correct address and resend it.”
“But?” Cassie prompted.
“But I opened it and read it instead.” Cassie raised her eyebrows. “I know I shouldn’t have done that. But at the time I was torn up pretty badly. Well, anyway, that’s what I did. And it was disturbing what Faith wrote to this woman.”
“Who was she?” Cassie looked concerned, then alarmed. “Did they have an affair? Did Faith cheat on you?”
“No. Not exactly. I mean, they didn’t have a physical relationship, but— But it upset me anyway. This woman, her name is Emma, she was a student of Faith’s, years ago. She was in love with Faith.”
Cassie sputtered and waved her hand dismissively. “That happens all the time with students. No big deal.”
“Yes, I know. It did happen. I mean, it happened several times. But this was different. Well, you can see that from the letter.”
Lauren retrieved the letter and put it on the table in front of Cassie. She then sat across from her, folding her hands together to stop them from fidgeting, going through the letter’s contents in her mind as Cassie read.
When she was done, she folded the pages and slid them back into the envelope, then looked up. “I don’t really know why this bothers you. It sounds like Faith did the right thing.”
“But she had serious feelings for Emma. She never even told me about her. It feels like she lied to me. Or at least kept something important from me.”
Cassie breathed deeply, then said, “Lauren, the relationship with complete honesty doesn’t exist. Everyone keeps something to herself. We do it to protect something. Ourselves or our lovers or our relationship. It doesn’t mean she loved you less. It doesn’t mean she regretted anything. Look what she said about you in this letter. She adored you. She loved her life with you.”
“Then why did she fall in love with Emma?”
“You make it sound like she cheated on you.”
“It feels sort of like that,” said Lauren, feeling distressed. “That’s how I felt over you, after all. I felt I’d been unfaithful, not even because we kissed, but because of the feelings I had. I had feelings for you I wasn’t supposed to have. Even now, I don’t understand why that happened. In so many ways, the emotions are more important, more powerful, than any act.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“I always thought I was ‘the one’ for Faith, you know, the person she was meant for. That there was no room in her heart for anyone else.”
Cassie shook her head. “People come into your life, Lauren, people who have something to offer you. It just happens. What matters is how you handle it. Faith was faithful to you. And you were faithful to her. You chose to stay with one another. That’s all that really matters.”
Lauren took a deep breath, not feeling particularly comforted by Cassie’s words.
Cassie stood, stepped over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t really believe in ‘the one,’ do you? That there’s only one person for each of us?”
“I always did believe it. That’s one of the reasons I was able to stop myself from wanting you. I thought F
aith and I were meant for each other, that nobody else could possibly ever mean as much to me.”
“Do you still believe that?”
“I still think it’s true for me.”
Cassie took her hand from Lauren’s shoulder and turned away briefly, then said, “Lauren, the human heart isn’t like a pie you slice up and give away till it’s gone. It’s unlimited in its capacity to love. It’s infinitely renewable. Faith loved you. Maybe she also loved Emma. But she never did anything to suggest she wasn’t happy with you and didn’t want to be with you. There’s nothing in that letter to give you any reason to think so. It’s no wonder Faith kept it to herself.”
“I guess that’s the part that really hurts, that she didn’t ever tell me. She didn’t feel she could talk about it.”
“She was trying to protect you, to keep from shattering your idealistic concept of what it means to love.” Cassie knelt in front of Lauren and took hold of her hands. “You’re a very lucky woman to have been loved as well as that woman loved you.”
Lauren nodded weakly, feeling chastened. Cassie stood, releasing her hands.
“What are you going to do with that letter?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“It belongs to Emma. You should send it to her. Do you need help finding her address? Shouldn’t be too hard. Lawyers can find anybody, unless they’re really good at hiding.”
“I don’t need help finding her. She was over at the house the other day.”
“Oh?” Cassie sat back in her chair. “Why’s that?”
“She wanted to look at some of Faith’s research. She called me. It was quite a surprise.”
“And you didn’t give her the letter?”
Lauren shook her head. “She doesn’t know anything about it. She doesn’t even know Faith... cared for her.”
“And you don’t want her to know?”
Lauren, feeling sheepish, nodded and stared at the table. “I know it’s petty, but I feel like Faith’s last ‘I love you’ would be going to another woman. That should be mine.”
Cassie gazed sympathetically across the table, but said nothing.
Chapter Thirty-Two
For the next two days, Cassie and Lauren knocked off the food tourist sites, visiting the places Lauren had scoped out and a few they happened across on their travels, like the U-pick berry farm where they’d spent an hour filling a bucket with blueberries. Cassie’s mouth, stained purple, explained why her contribution to the bucket was so meager. After these adventures, they returned to the house each evening to assemble their purchases—fruit, nuts, bread, cheese—into a conglomerate dinner of some kind, usually a salad or sandwich.
On Thursday, it was Cassie’s turn to plan their outing. They packed a lunch and walked south on the bluff trail under a clear blue sky. It had warmed considerably since Lauren’s first day and they were both wearing shorts and T-shirts. After a mile walking parallel to the shoreline, they followed the trail as it dipped down to sea level through a ravine that cradled an ocean-going stream.
“We go inland here,” Cassie said. “We’ll follow the creek.”
She led the way through dense brush and tree cover on a narrow dirt path. They were in shade now and it wasn’t long before the sound of the crashing waves on shore had faded away. There was no noise other than their steps on the ground and the trickling of water in the stream to their right. Cassie paused to point out tiny wildflowers on occasion and once she stopped quite suddenly and held a hand out behind her. She pointed to the opposite bank of the stream where a doe and fawn stood in a sunny clearing. The doe was watching them with black eyes, her ears twitching. They waited, unmoving, for a couple of minutes until the deer walked gracefully into the brush.
“Have you been on this trail a lot?” Lauren asked as they continued.
“Three or four times. Any day now there’ll be some ripe blackberries along here.”
“Doesn’t anybody else know about this trail? We haven’t seen a single person.”
“It’s not a developed or maintained trail. Nobody but the locals come here. They’ll be out here on the weekend, but it looks like we have it to ourselves today. How come you haven’t asked me where we’re going?”
Lauren shrugged. “I just figured we were going on a hike. Is there a destination?”
“You’ll see.”
Most of this trail was shaded, for which Lauren was grateful. As the sun climbed higher, the day got hotter, and the uphill climb left her with perspiration on the back of her neck. But it felt good to be out in the woods. She hadn’t been on a hike for a long time. It reminded her of some wonderful adventures from the past.
The creek they followed had grown slightly larger and proportionately noisier. They stopped after a particularly rough climb to sit on a log and drink some water. Lauren tipped the water bottle up and chugged it, then handed it to Cassie, who had a goofy smile on her face.
“You look really beautiful this morning,” she said, taking the bottle.
Lauren laughed. “You like your girls sweaty?”
“It’s just the rosy glow. Lots of life in you today.” She took a drink from the bottle, then returned it to her pack. “Not much further.”
They walked along a fairly level path about fifty feet above the stream. Lauren began to hear a rush of water that grew louder as they continued. Suddenly, as they turned a bend, a waterfall came into view, a good forty or fifty feet tall, falling over a sheer cliff straight down in one thin, filmy tier to an emerald green pool below. The pool was wide and placid. At the lower edge, it spilled steadily into the shallow stream they’d been following.
Lauren gasped at the sight. “It’s gorgeous!”
Cassie smiled, then turned onto a steep spur trail that descended to the edge of the pool. It was a small private slice of paradise with the sun directly overhead, glinting on the calm surface of green water and turning the waterfall spray into showers of sparkling crystals.
Cassie removed her pack and sat on a rock next to the pool. “Like it?”
“Perfect.” Lauren sat on her own rock and took a drink of water from her bottle while Cassie unpacked their lunch. Out came the spoils of their recent junkets—a hunk of chewy sourdough bread, a wedge of gouda and a thermos of merlot.
‘“A jug of wine,” Cassie quoted, “a loaf of bread and thou, beside me singing in the wilderness.’”
Lauren laughed. “How classic!”
“I do love the classics. You can’t beat them, really.”
They tore the bread, broke the cheese and passed the thermos of wine back and forth in an informal fashion ideal for the setting. Sitting beside the waterfall with Cassie and the rustic meal, Lauren felt calm and contented.
“I love it that you can appreciate this sort of thing,” Cassie said. “I mean, a day like this and a lunch like this. And at the same time, you seem equally at home in a fancy restaurant with three forks.”
“Truth be told,” Lauren said, pulling a chunk of bread from the loaf, “I think I like this best.”
Cassie nodded. “Me too. Sometimes. You know, Jennifer would have never done this.”
“Really? What part?”
“Any of it. She didn’t like the outdoors. Too dirty and buggy for her. I think that hike in China was the last time she went for a walk that wasn’t on a treadmill. She had a very limited idea of what was fun.”
When Lauren had swallowed the bread, she asked, “What was it that attracted you to her in the first place?”
“Oh, you know, the usual thing.”
“No, what do you mean? What’s the usual thing?”
“Sex, of course.”
Lauren laughed. “Oh, come on!”
“No, I’m serious. Well, you know. It was the typical lesbian thing. We met, went out, had sex, and the next thing you know, we’re living together.”
“How much time did all of that take?”
“Two weeks.”
“Oh, one of those things.”
“Yeah, one of those things. It’s my belief that if two women go on a first date, they should be prepared to spend the rest of their lives together.”
Lauren nodded. “You’re right.”
“By the time I got to know her, we’d been living together for months. We were in a committed relationship. And it had been going along pretty well, actually. Like I said, sex.”
“All that sex in the beginning, it forms a powerful bond, doesn’t it?”
She nodded. “But by the time we broke up, we hadn’t had sex for a year. Well, I hadn’t. Turns out she was sleeping with one of the other EMTs. Ambulances were one of their favorite places.”
“Well, sure.”
“I don’t have any hard feelings toward Jen, though. We never should have been together. Not like you and Faith. You just worked so well.”
“It was just luck, though. We started out the same way. Met, went out on a couple of dates, had sex.”
“You do luck out sometimes,” Cassie agreed. “But it’s better not to leave it to luck. Better to be friends first, if you can. Take some time to see if you like someone, develop an affection based on something other than lust.”
“The classic recipe for romance.”
“Yes. The classics again.”
Together, they both said, “You can’t beat them,” then laughed.
As they finished up, Cassie handed Lauren the thermos. “There’s just a drop left there for you.”
Cassie suddenly jumped up from her rock and ran across the trail and into the trees. “Something else to show you!” she yelled back.
Lauren drained the thermos and got to her feet as a large tire came swinging by and out over the green pool. She looked up along the length of the rope to see a huge tree branch above. The tire, which appeared to be pick-up size, went across the pool, just inches above the water, and then came back. Cassie ran over and grabbed it as it came by and nearly got pulled off her feet in the process.
“A tire swing!” she exclaimed, her eyes laughing.
“Oh, no,” Lauren said. “You’re not really suggesting—”