She pulled off her jacket and stood up. Her teeth were still chattering and she couldn’t stop shaking, but she forced everyone else to take a step back. When she did, she saw Tess standing at the end of the dock. Ash had to summon every ounce of control not to blow her top.
“What the hell, Tess?” she demanded.
“It was an accident.” The girl shrugged, but she couldn’t manage to wipe the smug look off her face.
“Oh, Tess, you didn’t?” Carrie said, horrified.
In that moment, everyone seemed to realize that Tess had dunked Ash on purpose. Their angry stares only made Tess more self-satisfied.
With mock innocence, she told Ash, “I thought you said no one can control a canoe from the front.”
*
“Mind if I join you?” Carrie asked, pulling back Ash’s tent flap early that evening before Erin and Kevin could invade.
“Sure.” Ash scooted over to make room.
Carrie took a seat next to her and held out a sweatshirt and a pair of shoes. “I thought you might like to borrow these.”
“Thanks.” Ash took them and placed them next to her.
“The shoes are Michael’s. Apparently he brought several pairs.”
“Ah, leave it to a gay man to pack a suitcase full of shoes.”
Carrie smiled. “Well, it’s not all Kenneth Cole. The sweatshirt is mine. I’m not sure it’ll fit, but it’s better than nothing.”
“I’m sure it’ll be great.” Ash seemed touched. “You really didn’t have to do that.”
“I feel partially responsible for what happened,” Carrie admitted.
She’d panicked when she saw Ash go into the lake. She held her breath until she surfaced again, but the relief she felt was short-lived. Ash was obviously freezing, and while Tess probably hadn’t realized the danger in a prank like that, Carrie certainly did.
“You were nowhere near that canoe,” Ash said.
“Yes, but I should have warned you.”
“You knew Tess was planning on giving me a cold bath?”
Carrie laughed. “No, but I know what she can be like when someone makes her mad.”
“Oh, so you thought you should have told me that Tess has a temper and that I have the uncanny ability to set it off, just in case I hadn’t noticed?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, that wouldn’t exactly have been a news flash, now would it?”
“I guess not.” Carrie wondered how Ash could be so good-natured about everything. It was times like this that made her second-guess her impression of Ash. Her understanding and sense of humor didn’t mesh with her reputation as self-centered.
“So, are you still having a good time?” Carrie asked.
“I am now.” Ash moved a little closer. “There’s just one thing that would make this better.”
“Ashton…” Carrie didn’t finish her thought. She felt a shiver run down her spine.
Ash leaned in and her lips lightly brushed against Carrie’s. It was just an instant, a split second of contact that set every nerve of her body tingling.
“We can’t.” Carrie pulled away. She heard a soft moan of protest.
“Why?”
“It’s just not wise.”
“Wise?”
“Yes. It would be too complicated.” She struggled to remind herself why—her dean, her students, the tenure committee—anything to take her mind off the way Ash made her feel. Her breathing came heavily and her cheeks felt warm.
“It doesn’t have to be.” Ash leaned in again.
Carrie drew back farther, looking in Ash’s eyes briefly before shaking her head. “It would be for me.” Resolutely, she started to get up.
“Carrie, wait.” Ash kicked her sleeping bag out of the way. “Don’t go.”
Carrie stopped just as her hand reached the zipper of the tent.
“I’m sorry, okay? Just stay.”
Carrie hesitated. She could hear something outside the tent. Some of the teenagers were talking and from the sound of it, Tess was once again asserting her independence.
“What is it?” Ash asked.
“Shh.” Carrie placed a finger to her mouth. She moved back toward Ash and they both listened.
“I don’t care what she says,” Tess announced. “She can rant about homosexuals all she wants. It doesn’t matter to me. I do what I want to do.”
“How did you get your mom to let you come with us this weekend?” one of the boys asked.
“Oh, I just lied and said we’d be back in time for church on Sunday.” Tess laughed.
Carrie gasped. She couldn’t believe Tess had put her in this position. Her mother would have her head over something like this. Before Ash could stop her, she bolted from the tent and marched over to the kids.
“Tess, please tell me you didn’t lie to your mother,” she said.
Tess tried to shrug off the question. “I had to get out of that house for a weekend. You know how it is.”
Carrie ran her hands through her hair and exhaled forcefully, trying to calm herself. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“She can’t do anything about it now,” Tess answered defiantly.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Carrie responded. “We’re already walking a thin line. It’s taken years for me to build up enough trust with her to let me bring you to these functions. When you do something like this, you undermine all of that.”
“Like I said, I had to get out of the house.”
The reply was so casual and Tess’s attitude so patronizing that Carrie lost her temper. “Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed every minute, because it’s probably the last time. And since you’d rather drown people who give up their time so you can have fun, I’m sure that won’t bother you too much.”
Without waiting for a reply, she strode away. She couldn’t believe how Tess had betrayed her. It was the first time she’d taken the brunt of the girl’s defiance. Even when Tess had lashed out at everyone else around her, she’d been willing to listen to Carrie. Now she was slipping further from her reach every day. She had to find a way to get through to her before it was too late.
When Ash caught up with her, Carrie had fought off her tears and was making plans. They would have to go back to town first thing in the morning.
“Do you think her mother would care if she missed church?” Ash asked. “I had the impression there’s not much of a home life.”
“Yes, she’ll care,” Carrie said. “You don’t know this woman. She’s as stubborn as Tess but without her sense of humor.”
“What do you think she’ll do if Tess isn’t home until tomorrow afternoon?”
“I honestly have no idea. Sometimes she’s in a forgiving mood, but other times she’ll go on fire-and-brimstone rants that could shake the roof. I’m not going to take a chance on her calling the police and reporting Tess missing.”
“You think she’d go that far?” Ash looked incredulous.
“I think she’d love to have an excuse to call us a bunch of homosexual predators who kidnap teenage girls.”
“Can’t you call her and tell her what happened?”
Carrie knew that was probably the right thing to do, but she hesitated to arm Tess’s mother with any more ammunition. “I worry about what it would mean for Tess. I mean, her mother certainly knows she has a tendency to rebel, but still I think she would blame us for making her worse.”
“And that would be the end of Tess’s involvement with the center?”
“Very likely.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but maybe that would teach her a lesson. She got herself into this mess. Why shouldn’t she have to face the consequences?”
“There will be consequences,” Carrie said. “I’m going to take her home first thing in the morning.”
“How are you going to do that? You two rode out here with me.”
“This isn’t your problem. Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to Mary and we’ll figure something out.”
Carrie hesitated. She knew Mary well enough to know Ash was probably right. And the car shortage was a problem. She wasn’t sure how she was going to handle the situation, but she didn’t want to involve Ash. She’d put up with enough from Tess already.
“I’ll take you home,” Ash said abruptly. “If we leave at dawn, Tess can make it to church. You can deliver her to her mother, just as she expects. Then everyone else can stay here, enjoy themselves, and come home as planned.”
“Why?” Carrie asked. “Tess has been nothing short of awful to you. Why do you care what happens?”
Ash met her eyes and something shifted in the depth of her gaze. The look was strangely tender. “Because you do.”
Chapter Ten
“I’m surprised we never met before,” Ash said.
They stood in Mary and Sharon’s driveway, watching Tess and Michelle load their stuff into Carrie’s car. Tess had been quieter than Ash expected on the way back. She guessed the teen was probably dreading what awaited her at home. The thought gave her less satisfaction than she’d expected.
“I don’t have much of a social life,” Carrie said. “Everything is about work.”
“Still, it’s strange that we’ve never crossed paths.”
Ash suspected from her conversation with Mary that there was a reason she’d never set eyes on Carrie before. Mary and Carrie had known each other for two years. Mary must have avoided inviting them both to the same events. She obviously thought Carrie deserved better than a one-night stand. Ash was starting to agree.
“I guess we just don’t run in the same circles,” Carrie replied.
Ash wondered if there was more to the comment than what was actually said. Was it that Carrie had a Ph.D. and Ash had barely finished high school? Or did it have to do with Ash’s reputation? Either way, she couldn’t think of a throwaway response. The truth was, both alternatives bothered her.
“Thanks again for bringing us home,” Carrie said.
“Not a problem,” Ash said.
“Well, you didn’t have to, and it was a big help.”
They stood there looking at each other as if neither wanted to say good-bye but they couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?” Ash asked.
“I should probably look at some of my students’ papers.”
“Oh, yeah.” Ash nodded dumbly.
“So I’ll see you later?”
Something in Carrie’s face registered with Ash. She looked expectant, almost hopeful. Ash had seen that expression before, many times on the faces of many women. Except that in Carrie’s case she wasn’t sure what it meant.
Unsettled, she asked, “Wednesday, right?”
Carrie paused for a second as if trying to remember why they would see each other on Wednesday. Not exactly brimming with enthusiasm, she said, “Right, the bookcases. Yes, I’ll see you then.”
“Great.” Ash got back in the car, silently cursing her own awkwardness.
What was she thinking? Why ask what Carrie was doing later and then drop the subject? She’d wanted to ask Carrie out, maybe to dinner or a movie. She didn’t even know what she had in mind, now that she thought about it. She didn’t know how to date, and she wanted to keep it that way. Whatever was going on with her, she wanted it to stop.
Ash fired up the Mustang and turned on the radio. Bruce Springsteen was singing “Born To Run,” and Ash smiled at the serendipity of the moment. She was born to run, and she liked that. She rolled down the windows, turned up the volume, and sang along as she drove as fast as she could through the sleepy streets of Roosevelt. Drowning out her own thoughts in the noise of the radio, wind, and engine, she convinced herself that she just needed to clear her head. If she found something entertaining to do for the rest of the day and then got a good night’s sleep, she would be back to her old self in no time at all.
*
Carrie sat staring mindlessly out the window of her home office. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been spacing out, but she wasn’t getting any work done. Judging by the sun’s position low on the horizon, she had let the entire day slip away from her unproductively. This bothered her. Normally she lost herself easily in her work and loved planning her lectures for the week, anticipating questions and imagining new ways to connect the course material to students’ lives. Today everything seemed dull, and try as she might, she couldn’t keep from thinking about Ash. They’d spent such a companionable ride home, and Ash seemed so sincere in her desire to help resolve the Tess problem, Carrie had thought how nice it would be to get to know her better. There was obviously more to her than met the eye.
Sure, Ash oozed sexuality. She was stunning, charismatic, and she made Carrie’s body react in ways she’d never experienced before, but there was more than just physical appeal to her. When she let down her guard, Carrie really liked what she saw, a sweetness, a sense of humor, at times she even seemed sensitive, but she just hadn’t had a chance to see it often due to the limited nature of their interactions so far. Carrie began to think that maybe she had been too quick to judge her. Tess had been nothing but awful to her, yet Ash had shown she could rise above petty retaliation. Before they went their separate ways, Carrie was certain Ash was about to ask her out. Yet she’d withdrawn before making the invitation. Carrie wondered why.
Puzzled, and slightly hurt, she foraged in her briefcase for the business card she’d kept there since Ash agreed to build the bookcase for her. The address on the card she extracted was downtown, probably a workshop of some kind, although it included an apartment number.
Carrie knew she was taking a risk as she got in her car and headed toward the older part of town. There was no guarantee that Ash would be at home, if it was her home address. Still, she wasn’t getting anything done and if she left it too late, she wouldn’t go at all. As she wound through the narrow streets of storefronts and warehouses, Carrie wondered what she was even going to say to Ash if she was home. Ask her out to dinner? Coffee? It wasn’t as if she could just say she wanted a real conversation to find out if Ash had a good personality.
She turned a corner just in time to see Ash’s Mustang pull away from the curb in front of her apartment. Carrie slowed down, uncertain what to do. Ash had other plans, so she should just go home. She was already bordering on desperate by coming all this way in the first place and she never gave in to crazy impulses like this one. But instead of turning around, Carrie found herself following the Mustang all the way to the Triangle Club.
Carrie had never been in the club, but she knew it was the only lesbian bar in town. She also had a pretty good idea what she would find there. A lot of booze, a lot of smoke, and a lot of women. Ash would likely be right at home in those surroundings, but they certainly weren’t Carrie’s cup of tea. She shook her head, aware that she was judging again. Just because Ash was at a bar on a Sunday evening didn’t mean her intentions were bad. Maybe she was meeting someone. That thought didn’t make Carrie feel any better.
This is ridiculous, she thought. She was a grown woman. Why was she acting like this? If she wanted to talk to Ash, all she had to do was go inside and say hello. People had conversations in bars all the time. On the other hand, if she didn’t want to go into the bar, then all she had to do was go home. No one was making her stay. Either way, she couldn’t sit out in the parking lot all night wondering what Ash was doing and who she was talking to. That would just be pathetic.
*
Ash walked into the bar and paused for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim light. The place was relatively empty. In one corner, a softball team sat around a table sharing pitchers of beer. They were carrying on loudly about their big win earlier in the afternoon. A few women were shooting pool at the back of the bar. There was no one on the dance floor. It was too early for the college crowd to be in, but that
would change in the next few hours. As usual, Lupe was behind the bar.
Ash took a seat and waited for her to finish drying a glass.
“You’re here early,” Lupe said as she walked over. “You trying to make up for the time you missed the past few days?”
“Nothing escapes you, does it?”
“You think I don’t notice when the local heartthrob goes missing on Friday and Saturday?”
“I didn’t know you cared so much about me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, chica.” Lupe chuckled. “I care about my bar, and you just happen to be good for business.”
“Then how about a Bud Light on the house?”
“How about a Bud Light that you pay for?”
“That’ll work, too,” Ash said. She liked the familiar banter with Lupe. It was comfortable. There were no double meanings or subtle hints. What you saw was what you got.
Lupe had just set down the beer when Ash felt someone settle onto the stool beside her. “I’ll have the same, please.”
The voice belonged to a trim brunette dressed casually in jeans and a white long-sleeved polo. She looked to be in her early thirties, very well kept, and neither completely butch nor femme.
“Put that on my tab,” Ash said when Lupe returned with the beer.
“Thank you.” The woman gave a brief smile of acknowledgment and extended her hand. “I’m Jeanette.”
“Nice to meet you.” Ash gave her name and took Jeanette’s hand in a firm squeeze, which Jeanette demurely returned. Ash wondered briefly why women did that. Hadn’t anyone ever taught them to shake hands? It wasn’t supposed to be such a one-sided affair.
She focused her attention back on the woman in front of her. What did she care how a stranger shook her hand? It wasn’t like her to notice something as insignificant as that. Jeanette was far from unattractive. She had curves in all the right places and a pleasant smile. No, this one certainly wasn’t hard to look at.
“I’ve been working all day. I just couldn’t take another minute in that office,” Jeanette said, trying to spark up a conversation.
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