Anika takes the long way home up soul mountain: A lesbian romance (Rosemont Duology Book 2)

by Eliza Andrews

  “I… maybe. We’ve talked about that. I think we’re both at a place in our lives where we’re open to, well, trying something. Even after she leaves Ohio and I… go wherever.”

  “And what are you going to do next?” PJ asks. His voice softens. “Is it true what Dutch said — about your career being over?”

  I think about the crazy plan I hatched shooting hoops the day before. The call I have in to my property manager in Phoenix, the meeting I’m planning with Jenny on Monday.

  “I kind of wanted to talk to you about that,” I say. “But not right now. Maybe Monday?”

  “Mom’s surgery is Monday, right?”

  “Yeah, true. Tuesday?”

  He nods. “Tuesday it is. Whatever you need.”

  I take a step forward, give him a light, affectionate punch in the shoulder. Because I’m not exactly a hugger. “Thanks, Peej.”

  “Sure thing, Ani.”

  And thanks to PJ, I get out of Soul Mountain a little before five, which gives me more than enough time to get home, take a shower, borrow a tie and a dressy shirt out of Gerry’s closet, and make it to St. Peter’s a few minutes after six o’clock.

  Chapter 36: The last wedding I enjoyed was my own.

  I push open the heavy wooden doors of St. Peter’s and step inside, scanning the crowd for the now-familiar head of Jane Lane dark hair. But then I remember she’s a bridesmaid. Which means she’s probably off doing bridesmaid-y things. Which means I’ll have to find someone else to sit with.

  Damn. Why did I agree to this, again?

  Some dude bumps into me from behind, mumbles a quick “Excuse me,” heads off to my left. My eyes follow him, fall on a long table draped with an elegant white tablecloth, punch bowls and clear plastic glasses stacked on top.

  I head for the punch table, adjust the black blazer I’m wearing as I walk. It’s tight around my shoulders, and I’m tugging down on sleeves that are a few inches too short for my long arms. It’s what I get for crossing the Atlantic Ocean with only a gym bag; I had to raid Gerry’s closet for a dress shirt, dress pants, tie, and blazer. Fortunately, the kid’s only a couple inches shorter than I am, and we share similar tastes in clothes. I ended up going with an all-black ensemble, accented with a red tie.

  It’s probably more suited for a funeral than a wedding — in fact, the whole get-up probably makes me look like a six-foot-three Blasian Grim Reaper.

  A bunch of dudes stand around the punch bowls, sipping red punch. They’re laughing, and from the snippets of conversations I catch, the humor apparently has to do with wives and shopping and where does all their hard-earned money go?

  One of them glances at me when I reach for a plastic punch cup, scoots to the side out of my way with silence and a wary look.

  I ignore him, ladle myself some punch. Slices of lime float around on its surface. I hope to God there’s alcohol in it.

  A cluster of women stand a few feet beyond the men, all of them coated in layers of too much makeup, wearing too much jewelry, and enough perfume that I can smell them from all the way over here. One of them says something that looks like it might be conspiratorial, lifting a well-manicured hand and placing it on the shoulder of a girlfriend like it’s a punctuation mark at the end of whatever story she’s telling, and the girlfriend immediately gasps and covers her mouth. Little kids weave around the knees of the women, carrying on their own conversations three feet below, and one little girl looks over at me, big blue eyes climbing up my Grim Reaper frame until they meet mine.

  Annie. Ani.

  I give the little girl a friendly smile, which leads to her immediately hugging the calves of the woman in front of her and burying her tiny face in the back of the woman’s knees.

  There are no daughters in my future, I remember. No sons, either.

  I take a sip of the punch, glad to taste the familiar bite of rum.

  “Remind you of anything?” asks a voice on my left.

  I glance over to find Marty McFly standing at my elbow. He’s in his usual uniform of jeans and that ridiculous puffy red-orange vest, but tonight he’s also wearing a polka-dotted bow tie. Dressed up for the wedding, I guess.

  “The last wedding I was at in Marcine was Dutch and Matt’s,” I say. “That was five years ago. But this doesn’t remind me of that wedding. Theirs was outside. In the summer.”

  McFly nods thoughtfully, reaches behind me for a clear plastic punch glass. “I was thinking of another Marcine wedding. A church wedding a couple weeks before Christmas.” He fills his punch glass and uses it to gesture at the crowd swelling in the church pews. “It was a lot smaller ceremony than this one, though. A more select crowd, you might say.”

  I know what he’s talking about, but I don’t say anything.

  “It was still a nice wedding, though,” he continues. “Remember? Simple but elegant. Intimate. You enjoyed it.”

  “I was so happy that day,” I say.

  “Would you go so far as to say it was the happiest day of your life?”

  I think about his question for a moment, spin it around like a basketball in my mind.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “I can help you remember. We can go back there if you like. Then you can know for sure.”

  I shake my head. “Not now. This is about being here for Amy. With Amy. The last thing I need is to start thinking about my fucking wedding day.”

  He reaches up, puts his hand on my shoulder. “That’s the funny thing about memories. They come on strong sometimes, whether you want them there or not.”

  #

  Back to the future: Sixteen years ago. My wedding day.

  I choose a light grey tux for my wedding, a traditional thing with a slightly darker vest underneath, black tie tucking into it. Jenny had argued the choice with me, complaining that my color choices were too light for a winter-time wedding, and that the black tie wasn’t cheery enough, but the grey and black is a nod to Rosemont Raiders colors, and with Alex as my “best man,” I wanted colors that we already knew looked good on both of us.

  Jenny had intended to get married in the church she grew up in, a Lutheran place called St. Peter’s, but the conservative old minister straight-up refused to marry us, so here we are in a Unitarian-Universalist church a few towns over, not quite all the way to Columbus. It’s a disappointment to Jenny; a church whose sanctuary decor includes posters with liberal political slogans on them doesn’t match her idea of a “traditional wedding,” and I misstep by reminding her that we’re not exactly a traditional Ohio couple. The statement earns me a lot of tears and at least one night of yelling in the weeks leading up to our wedding, but eventually she accepts the UU, glad to find any church that will marry us and fulfill her little girl dreams of an old-fashioned white wedding.

  There are only a few minutes to go, and I’m standing in front of the altar to the minister’s left, hands cupped before me, bouncing up and down on my toes.

  Alex catches my eye from the back of the room, where she waits near the sanctuary entrance. She gives me a silent admonishment by raising a single eyebrow.

  Relax, the look says. Stop fidgeting.

  I force my feet to be as still as my hands, turn my head fully towards the sanctuary entrance, the place where Jenny will walk in. Despite the fact that I’ve forced myself into stillness and set my jaw as if I’m facing Rhianna Fucking Jerkins at a tip off, butterflies flit around inside my stomach, trying to escape up into my chest or throat.

  I catch a glimpse of my mother and father when I turn towards the entrance, and the sight does nothing to calm my nerves.

  My mother’s never gotten to the point where she totally accepts my relationship with Jenny; at best, she accepts that she’s not going to change me, but that doesn’t mean she approves. I’m pretty certain that I have my father to thank for what little reluctant acceptance I have from her. I imagine he probably pointed out that between having a gay second daughter and having no second daughter at all, a gay daughter is at leas
t slightly better.

  As it is, her lips are pressed together into a tight line, and unseeing eyes stare straight ahead. While I watch, my father reaches into her lap, wraps a hand around one of hers, and his knuckles literally go white with the force of his squeeze.

  She’s not crying, though. At least there’s that. On the other side of the aisle, Jenny’s mother — who I still think of and address as “Mrs. Pearson,” even after all these years — is crying up a storm. And trust me, these aren’t the kind of happy tears you usually see at weddings. These are, “Oh my fucking God, my baby is marrying a fucking woman. No, scratch that — she’s marrying a beast-sized black woman.”

  At least she came. Jenny’s father didn’t even show up. One of our old friends from high school, Mason, is the one giving Jenny away.

  I purse my lips for a second until I realize I’m mirroring my mother’s expression.

  Instinctively, as if I’m back on the court and waiting for my point guard to call out the play, my eyes shift back to Alex’s. She gives me the tiniest of smirks, a slight curl at the corner of her mouth. And the smirk has the same effect as the eyebrow did a moment earlier. I relax a little further into my wide-legged stance.

  Something behind Alex draws her attention, and she disappears from the doorway. Moments later, the first few chords of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” waft out of the cellos sitting in the corner. The song had been my compromise with Jenny; she’d wanted the traditional “Here Comes the Bride” song, but the thought turned my stomach, and I’d argued for something more modern. We’d settled on “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” even though I told her it had always sounded like a mournful song to me. She agreed enough that we went with the Hawaiian version of the song, which is slightly more upbeat, but then she hired these two cello players to make it fancier, and now it sounds like a fucking funeral dirge. And it’s instrumental, but I can’t help but think of the lyrics, and the lyrics are actually kinda fucking dark, right?

  Oh, somewhere over the rainbow way up high

  And the dream that you dare to, why oh, why can't I?

  But Jenny walks in, arm-in-arm with Mason, and of course she takes my breath away. I forget about my mother scowling next to my father, the crying Mrs. Pearson and the absent Mr. Pearson; I forget about the fact that St. Peter’s wouldn’t marry us and we had to come all the way out here to this hippie UU church; I forget that I hate Hawaiian, ukulele a la cello version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” All I see is her. And I can’t help it — I’m an emotional fucking person — I start to cry.

  White and radiant and glimmering and beautiful — she’s perfect. So perfect. Wearing a smile so wide it takes up her whole face, blonde hair pinned up and decorated with baby’s breath, her simple, strapless white gown following the contours of her tiny Tinkerbell’s body, sweeping the floor behind her. Her eyes meet mine. The moment she sees the tears rolling down my cheeks, her brown eyes go glassy and wet.

  All these years of waiting, our tears say to each other. Everything we’ve had to go through to get to this moment. All the time apart. All the late nights, crying to each other over the phone, not sure if we could sustain a long-distance relationship even one more day… After all that, we’re here. We’re here, and we’re going to do this; we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives, and anyone who says otherwise can go to hell.

  After Jenny comes her cousin Rebecca, her hand looped around PJ’s elbow. I’d wanted Gerry to be a groomsman, too, but my junkie baby brother has been too messed up to be reliable lately, so it’s Ophelia who walks in behind PJ. She’s being a good sport about the whole thing and is wearing one of our grey tuxes, and dutifully holding Grace Adler’s dainty hand on her elbow, but Grace herself looks very uncomfortable and irritated to have been matched up with a female groomsman.

  (Female groomsman. Is that like jumbo shrimp?)

  Alex and Jenny’s sister bring up the tail end of the procession, and, thankfully, Jenny’s sister seems a lot more at ease paired with Alex than Grace does with Ophelia.

  But once Jenny’s in front of me, I don’t notice or care what the hell any of the rest of them are doing. I take her hands in mine, and even though I try to listen to the minister, the rest of the world fades away, and she and I are the only two people left on Earth.

  #

  Back to the present

  Movement and the clink-clink-clink of plastic punch glasses bouncing into the trashcan pull me out of my memories. The men and women around me disperse, finding their places in the pews. I trail a few feet behind them, uncertain about where to go. Since Amy’s in the wedding itself, I don’t really have anyone to sit with.

  I walk slowly down the aisle, scanning for faces I know. There’s Heavy-and-Pink sitting on the end of a row, a couple orange-headed preschoolers next to her. I sweep my eyes away before she sees me, find Lisa Vanderwerf on the other side. I give her a polite nod, but keep walking.

  As if some sort of weird radar system has been activated by my presence, a head of long blonde hair turns, and the brown eyes I’d been remembering only a few seconds earlier meet mine. They’re glassy, and I find myself wondering if Jenny had been replaying the same memory as me. Given the abrupt end to our conversation on Friday night, I expect her to look away again, but she doesn’t. She slides down the pew a few feet, makes room for me.

  I hesitate. Then take a seat next to my ex-wife.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey,” she says. The word is a sigh.

  The processional music begins, and the whole church rises as one body.

  Chapter 37: I just have to admit that it’s all coming back to me.

  Back to the future: Sixteen years ago. My wedding night.

  We have a flight leaving for Phoenix the next morning; our honeymoon will consist of her doing some house shopping while I start practicing with my new team. Until we buy a house, we’ll be living in the finished basement of a new teammate, so this night, holed up together with all our luggage in a hotel less than a mile from the John Glenn Columbus International Airport, might be the only space and time we will have to ourselves for the next several weeks.

  I’m tipsy, but I manage to get the door open anyway and sweep a giggling, slightly tipsier Jenny off her feet as I cross into the hotel room.

  “Ani!” she squeaks when I pick her up. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought this was what you were supposed to do — carry your bride across the threshold.”

  “You carry your bride across the threshold of your first home,” she informs me. “Not across the threshold of a hotel room.”

  I laugh. “Well, sorry, little miss wedding expert. I guess I’ve got some more carrying of you to do later.”

  She doesn’t even let me make it to the queen-sized bed dominating the middle of the small room. Still in my arms, she’s climbing me like I’m a human jungle gym, gripping my shoulders, pulling herself up until she can reach my mouth, pushing a hot, insistent, alcohol-tinted kiss into me. And even though we’ve done this a thousand times before, even though we’ve been doing this since high school, my knees go watery and my heart races as a wave of heat cascades down my body.

  I stumble forward on now clumsy, uncooperative legs, barely managing to land Jenny gently on her back before I’m leaning over her, landing nipping little kisses up her throat, across the line of her jaw, over to her ear.

  Jenny reaches up, digs greedy fingers into my thick hair, pulls me down closer to her. Her lips, then her teeth, find my earlobe. I shiver involuntarily.

  “Ani,” she whispers into my ear, hot breath tickling and sending another wave of heat coursing through my body, “we did it. We’re married. You’re my wife. After everything…”

  When she trails off, I push myself up a few inches, study her face. Her brown eyes are wide, shining with tears again, just like during the ceremony.

  “Yes, baby,” I say, stroking her cheek, pushing stray hairs from her face. “We’re married. Wife and wife.�
��

  The tears spill over, sliding down her temples, leaving little rivers of mascara. “I wasn’t sure if we’d ever get to this night.”

  I kiss her. I try to put all my tenderness, all my love, all my years of patience into my lips, my mouth, my tongue, so that she can feel my answer, know that I’m telling her not to worry, that she never needed to worry, that she’ll never need to worry again.

  “Of course we got here,” I say when I break the kiss. “I always told you we would. We’re soulmates, right?”

  She pulls me back down into another kiss, but there’s nothing tender about it. She ends it by tugging on my bottom lip with her teeth. “Get me out of this dress,” she says, voice husky.

  It takes both of us working together, along with a series of giggles, to get her out of the form-fitting wedding dress. Along the way, we throw the blazer, vest, and tie from my tux unceremoniously onto the floor, and she rips at buttons without any regard for my expensive dress shirt.

  When we’re both bare, I straddle her hips on my knees, careful to keep the weight of my big body off of her. Jenny’s skin is milk-white and marble-smooth, its only mar a birthmark above her left breast, the place where her mother used to tell her she was kissed by an angel. She’s perfectly proportioned, if a little too skinny, like a blonde-haired, brown-eyed china doll. I run the pad of my thumb over the birthmark, observing the contrast between my copper-colored skin and her pale skin.

  My thumb trails down, circles her bare, pink nipple until it puckers upright. Her eyes flutter closed, and her cheeks flush with heat as she lets out a long, ragged breath from her open mouth.

  “You’re beautiful, Jenny.”

  She opens her eyes, wraps a hand around my wrist, tugs me towards her. “You’re beautiful.”