Harper let her guard down. “How did you find me?”
“Well,” Ruthie said. “I haven’t mentioned it before now, but I was a Gamma Kappa here years ago. Probably lived in one of the same rooms as you in that old house.”
“You were a Gamma Kappa?”
“Pledged in nineteen fifty-five.”
Feeling even more vulnerable and gracious, Harper stuck out her hand and gave Ruthie the secret handshake.
“I saw the Gamma keychain on your backpack. Finding you was as easy as a phone call.”
Dating herself, Ruthie didn’t look a day over sixty. Harper imagined Ruthie had had an interesting life, one that would trump her own even if she lived to be over a hundred.
For much of the afternoon, Harper asked questions and Ruthie opened up about her years before teaching. They drank several pots of tea and ate a box of vanilla wafers. Ruthie told Harper about her youthful days of activism, protests she spearheaded, marches on Washington, political rallies she staged
on campus, and about the night she spent in jail for refusing to let go of her friend’s hand outside the Capitol. In awe, Harper listened as Ruthie shared with passionate energy her calling for social justice.
Harper was fascinated and intrigued by Ruthie’s colorful life, as she had never stood up for anything she could remember, only passively lived in the shadow of her parents, of Grace.
After she ran out of questions, Ruthie got up to fill her glass.
“Can I tell you one last story?” Ruthie asked, standing at the water cooler.
“Of course. I love your stories. You can go on all night.”
Ruthie was pleased by this. “In the summer of nineteen fifty-eight…it was a long time ago, I know…a fellow Gamma and I joined this radical animal rights group on campus.” Ruthie pulled her chair closer to Harper. “I’m not sure how it is now, but back then, the house looked down on stuff like that.”
“It’s still kind of that way.”
“This group caused all kinds of ruckus at the medical school.
They were notorious for breaking into the labs and letting the testing animals out of their cages. They called the mission Noah’s Ark and pulled a renovated paddy wagon up to the back doors to load the animals. This was way before it was cool to be a vegetarian. And way before they had sophisticated alarm systems.”
Listening intently, Harper tucked her leg under her seat, engrossed in Ruthie’s world, in her hazel eyes.
“On this particular night, it was late, way past midnight, when Cheryl and I met the others near the football field,” Ruthie explained. “We were dressed in black. We were going to hit the campus big time. Rescue more than twenty animals. Everybody was given their orders, and because we were rookies, Cheryl and I were given the easiest task, one that would, unbeknownst to me then, change my life forever.”
“What was it?” Harper was intrigued.
“We were to hang a canvas sign from the top of the Science Building. It was huge. I remember when we unrolled it, it hung down three stories.”
“What did it say?”
Ruthie paused before she told Harper. “Arizona = Animal Auschwitz. It was a full moon, so it was easy to climb to the roof. I remember how campus looked from up there. The blue glaze on the buildings. The palm trees like ice. I’d never seen it so bright. The luminescence was magnificent. Everything was silent and still. After we nailed the banner into place, we sat on the fire escape and shared a joint Cheryl pulled from her bra.”
Harper smiled, remembering the one Grace had pulled from her bra in front of the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.
“She was wearing a black silk scarf around her head,” Ruthie said, getting lost in memory for a moment. “With our feet swinging beneath us, we passed it back and forth and talked about our childhood dreams. She told me she wanted to be a ballerina.”
Ruthie set her tea bag on the saucer. “I’ll never forget how she looked that night.” Again, briefly, she drifted off somewhere else. “I didn’t even see it coming,” she said, playing with the fringe on her dress.
“See what coming?” Harper asked, imagining police surrounding the building or the fire escape breaking.
“Out of nowhere,” Ruthie said, looking toward the window,
“Cheryl kissed me.”
Wham!
“And…and just like that, everything changed. The lens I saw the world through, the way my heart beat. Everything.
Changed.”
Harper squeezed the pillow she was holding and blushed.
Ruthie looked at her. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”
Harper felt her skin stretching. “No. No. Please. Go on.”
It was at that moment Harper began to fully understand the passion she had for Grace, the tiny tugs she’d always felt toward women through the years, those that got stronger as she began to mature, her breasts beginning to fill out. They all started to push from the inside out.
“That night was a turning point,” Ruthie said, looking at Harper intently now.
“How do you mean?”
The soul-searching philosopher in Ruthie answered: “I
guess, sweetie…looking back, my growth as a woman is best measured by stepping stones. Most have been small and flush with the river. I’ve moved quickly across those. However, some of the rocks have been monumental. Strong and enormous. That night, Cheryl, the kiss we shared, that was a big one. It was for both of us.”
In her mind, Harper saw Grace in the snaps of light in their Amsterdam suite. She heard the thunder, smelled the incense, and felt the river’s current change as Harper held on for dear life.“It could have been anyone, really,” Ruthie continued.
“Cheryl was just a springboard to the next stone. One I’m really thankful for. Even though, for a while, I’d worked it all out in my mind. Negotiating, justifying really, that it was simply her, that our friendship had just reached an uncommon, intimate level.”
Ruthie shook her head. “Deep in my soul, I knew I was a lesbian. And had been my whole life. Funny now, I can see it so clearly. My sexuality chasing me around the playground as a child. It’s been woven into every friendship I’ve ever had.”
Harper sat back. “Are you guys still together?”
“No. After graduation, we moved to Berkeley for graduate school,” Ruthie said. “Not long into the program, she fell in love with one of our professors. He was a judge. As far as I know, they’re still together. I’ve got a great partner now. Her name is Frieda. We’ve been together for thirteen years.”
Harper stood and went to the sliding glass door. From her patio window, she watched the cars in line at Taco Bell as the room ran out of air and she processed the possibilities—what if Grace actually fell in love with Jamie and they never saw each other again? Up until that point, she’d been so sure of Grace’s devotion, so certain of her unwavering love. She’d never considered such a thing. At least not consciously. Was there a chance they wouldn’t be together? That they’d drift apart?
Harper was faint, and Ruthie helped her back to the couch, where they sat as Harper uttered words she’d been running from her whole life.
That afternoon, Harper told Ruthie everything. Every little detail.
Ruthie confessed that from the moment she saw Harper’s tears in the bathroom she’d known that she and Grace were more than friends. “I could see it in your eyes when you said her name,” Ruthie admitted.
As the sun set, Ruthie flipped on a light and brought Harper a box of tissues as she came to the most recent events, Grace telling Harper she was leaving.
“I don’t know what to do without her. I can hardly function.”
“I know,” Ruthie said. “I was heartbroken when Cheryl left.
I understand.”
“It’s different though.” Harper blew her nose. “You guys were like a gay couple.”
“How’s that different?”
“I don’t know. I mean, Grace and I are best friends. We’re not gay really.”
Had Ruthie caught her on a different day, say another week later, her wounds might have healed just enough that she’d have been able to hide the raw anguish from Ruthie, deny herself and deflect the pain like she always had. But Ruthie’s intuition was sharp, and she trusted her gut—just like Ruthie told Harper she should—and taken a big risk that day. Together, they’d both jumped to a new stone.
Besides the details of their scandalous love, Harper confessed to Ruthie about what she’d found in the dumpster.
“She threw away everything I’d ever given her,” Harper cried. “After my cards and letters, I found pictures, even the best friend charm we got when we were kids.”
“I’m so sorry you had to find that stuff,” Ruthie said, still holding Harper’s hand on the couch. “Were you able to salvage any of it?”
“I kept the best friend charm and a few other things.”
Harper saw Grace’s journal, pictured it in the drawer by the side of her bed. Its stained brown leather, the bent oil-spotted pages. “I found her journal from when we were living in Europe last summer. I haven’t opened it. I’m too afraid of what it says.
What if it says she loves Jamie?”
“Where is it?” Ruthie asked.
“In the bedroom.”
“Can I see it?”
For fifteen minutes, Harper lay next to Ruthie while she thumbed through the pages. Wrapped in a fleece blanket, she watched Ruthie’s facial expressions, trying to gauge what she was discovering.
Finally, Ruthie set the journal down. “You’ve got to go home tomorrow and fight like hell for her,” Ruthie said. “In those months leading up to your first kiss, her feelings were just as strong as yours. She was falling in love with you while she was in Spain. There’s no mention of Jamie. On this page”—Ruthie flipped to it—“she even called you ‘ Mi Amor,’ which means my love.”Harper sat up. “What else does it say?”
Ruthie read some passages:
“I can’t remember her face, mi amor. Is it round, like the Spanish women I see on the streets? No, I remember now. She’s beautiful. I hope she calls soon and that she’s good and high tonight. She’s so sweet and unguarded.”
“I’m on the train headed to Amsterdam where my sweet Harper waits for me. As I race past the countryside, I wonder if she’s missed me like I’ve missed her. I never expected it to be so intense. This wanting. I wonder if she, too, feels this strange fire.”
Sitting in the soft light of Harper’s apartment, with only a small green lamp lighting the room, Ruthie and Harper came up with a plan. The next day, Harper would pack a bag, drive to Paradise Valley and show Grace what they had was worth saving.
She’d do whatever it took to prove to Grace they were meant to be together, and no matter what the pressures were, Harper wouldn’t let Grace slip away like Ruthie had Cheryl.
Harper wouldn’t allow Grace to become a faded moonlit memory.
“Hangin’ By A Thread”
Jann Arden
Harper broke the speed limit all the way to Phoenix. She held the pedal down and focused on what she’d say to Grace, rehearsing her monologue.
She’d win her back, Harper vowed, as she drove through Casa Grande, halfway to Phoenix, listening to a beat-up mixed tape Grace had made her, one anonymously left in Harper’s school mailbox months before. It smelled like Dolce & Gabbana and was loaded with sexy songs lifted from the jukebox, tunes that were a salient ingredient in cementing their souls together.
When Harper arrived at the Dunlop house, it was clear they hadn’t left for the airport; the garage door was open, as was their Bentley’s backend. On her second drive by, when she saw Cilla on the phone in the office, Harper kept driving. She was way too early.Even though the sun was setting, Harper drove to Camelback Mountain, only a stone’s throw from Grace’s house. She wasn’t sure what drew her to the trailhead that night—it was where she often went for hikes during the day when home—but it was pulling her in like a magnet, like her attraction to Grace, a force she had no control over.
Harper parked outside the gates, already locked for the
evening, and took her journal along with a flashlight she found jammed in the emergency kit under the spare tire. Also in the kit was a small candle and a book of matches.
With each step on the trail, Harper looked for rattlesnakes in the twilight, listening for their cobbed rattlers. They always came out with the moon. As she was headed up, late afternoon hikers were laboring down the dusty rocks. They looked at Harper, and then at her sundress and sandals when they passed, saying “Good evening” and “Careful.”
As darkness covered the Valley, Harper arrived at the cave.
The abandoned Indian ruin was off the beaten path, tucked around a rock face that appeared to go nowhere. Carefully, she held onto the small finger holds worn into the rock as she scooted along the tight, nondescript trail.
As Harper stepped inside the ruin, she ran her fingertips along the rough rock. The organic room looked like a hollowed-out potato with puttied walls straight out of a Native American museum. She’d always wondered what lucky Pima family lived there back in history. Before they were run out by settlers, rich white people with guns, whiskey and whores—not a far cry from modern-day Scottsdale.
Harper sat down where she always did and let her feet dangle above the barbed labyrinth of cactus. On the edge of the cave, she pushed the votive into the soft soil and lit the wick.
From her seat, she could see the six-bedroom Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home where she’d been raised. It was surrounded by a wall of mesquite; three illuminated palm trees sprouted from the backyard. She wondered what her parents were doing inside. They were home that month.
Around the bend, Harper saw the Dunlop’s Tudor estate encircled by towering eucalyptus trees and Malibu lights. A few blocks from the Dunlop’s was the country club’s golf course.
Her eyes followed the jet-black maze that wove through glowing multimillion dollar homes. In the blue distance, perched high on a nearby hill, just beyond the groomed links, was Nonna and Papa’s house. Their kitchen light was on.
As she sat in the red dirt looking out over the Valley, Harper’s chest hurt—not the acute pain of a heart attack, but a bulging
discomfort that pushed on her organs. Something inside her wanted out, tearing at her ribcage.
Harper crossed her legs and opened her journal.
Ruthie had given her an assignment the evening before, a personal one that had nothing to do with ceramics. She was to write two letters. The first was to the young Harper. “Write a letter to yourself,” Ruthie said, “to the seven-year-old you.” The second letter, the more important of the two, was to be written to the grown-up Harper from the seven-year-old’s point of view.
It seemed like an impossible task. Harper wondered where she’d start, what she’d say. She stared at the blank page and clenched the sweaty ballpoint, hearing Ruthie’s words: “Keep the pen moving,” she said. “No matter what comes out, don’t stop.”
As she started her letter to the young Harper, no divine inspiration came—no lightning bolt split a nearby Joshua tree, no shooting star burned across the sky.
It was much more subtle than that. Her truth crept into the cave slowly.
Dear Harper,
I have no idea what to say. You’re so far away. It’s almost like I’ve blocked you out entirely.
There are many things I still don’t understand even though I’m much older. I know you feel alone, like no one ever stays for long, but just trust that one day you’ll find someone who will always be there, who you’ll always be able to love.
Once Harper got the first few sentences out, it made way for a weak voice which had, before this night, been completely stifled.
I’ve betrayed you.
I had a little secret, huh? I danced with the boys even though I didn’t want to. I met them in the baseball dugout even though I’d rather have helped Miss Jensen in her room af
ter school. I’d rather have scrubbed Miss Jensen’s floors with a toothbrush, but I went to kiss the boys anyway. It was just like I planned.
0
I lied about the first time I touched myself. Remember how it smelled like sour candy? The church said I’d go to hell if I liked how it felt, so I shut that part of myself down too. I made sure the lights were off before I stuck my hand under the covers, denying it even happened.
The thick skin pulled over us makes it hard to breathe sometimes.
I’m sorry. I wish I had more to offer you, some hope even, but I don’t have much to spare. It seems I’ve lost my way.
Where should we go from here?
Harper
She stopped writing and bit her lip, gripping the corners of her journal as her nose started to run. She wiped it with her bare shoulder.
Her fingers were firm around the pen and her chest wide open as the young Harper Alessi finally got her chance.
Dear Harper,
On the playground, I hate the names the boys call me. Tomboy.
Lezzie. I try to fight back under the jungle gym, but I don’t have the words to make them cry. My fists are sore from punching their stupid arms.I like to sit on top of the slide and watch everyone play. It feels better up there. It feels better when I’m alone. I’m not like other girls. I wear different clothes and bring different things in my lunchbox. Mom and Dad are never around.
I hate my skin. I always have. With the brush in Mom’s shower, I scrub as hard as I can, but I get in trouble when school sees the scabs.
Mom and Dad get called in for a conference. Questions are asked.
Questions that never have answers.
Even though I smile, and try and hold my head high like Daddy says, everyone knows I’m not like the others.
Friendships with girls are my toughest battles. Sometimes when Sloan teases me about having a crush on Miss Jensen, I tell her that people call her fat behind her back. My words do just as much damage and they aren’t even true.
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