“She’s been looking for me ever since,” Harper said. “And remember that snowy night I freaked out and ran after the train in Portland?”
Ruthie’s mouth was wide open. “Yes.”
“It was her.”
“No way. I said you were going crazy.” Ruthie laughed, rocked backward.
“I know.” Harper laughed along with her. “I thought I was too.”“So you’ve obviously seen her.”
“Oh I’ve seen her.” Harper looked out on the sea, rain clouds thundering in like the ones she’d painted, her tear ducts filling.
“Tell me everything. What was it like?”
“We kissed the other night.”
“What?”
“And Alex.” Harper stopped. “Saw the whole thing.”
“No.” Ruthie was suddenly stern again. “Harper.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes, shook her head.
“How did it happen?”
Harper’s heart raced as she told the story.
“I don’t know what to do,” she concluded. “Tell me what to do.”Reaching over, Ruthie put her hand on top of Harper’s.
Frieda delivered a tray of steaming drinks and patted Harper on the head.
“Are you still in love with Grace?” Ruthie asked.
Harper looked up from stirring cream into her coffee. “I wish I could say it was the alcohol. Certainly the slip of judgment was, but”—Harper sighed—“I still think about her every fucking day.”Ruthie sat with this admission as she sipped her cappuccino.
“So,” she said, “what happened once you went inside? I mean, what did Alex do?”
“She took off running. Drove straight home and started packing the house,” Harper said. “And then she left.”
“You’re kidding. She didn’t give you a chance to explain?
Time to try and make it right?”
“Nope. I tried to explain, but I guess I didn’t need to. She found a bunch of stuff I’d been hiding in the attic. All of Grace’s things.”
“You’d been hiding?” Her tone was incredulous.
“I never told Alex about Grace,” she admitted. “I never got around to it. You know? I never thought it was important and I’d moved on so long ago. Remember when my therapist told me I’d turned a corner? I mean, you agreed. It was right before we bought the house.”
Shaking her head, Ruthie said, “Why did Alex think you were in therapy all those years?”
“For my other issues,” Harper said with a laugh.
“Right.” Ruthie bit her lip.
“Where is Grace now?”
“I haven’t seen her since we kissed. When she saw Alex in the
window watching, she ran away, too. In the opposite direction.”
“You haven’t called her?”
“I promised myself I wouldn’t.” Harper played with the tassel on the tablecloth. “She said she’d never gotten over me.”
Five minutes went by as they both watched the surf.
“Believe it or not,” Ruthie finally said, “I don’t know what to tell ya. I know this is a first.”
“I’m a fucking fool. That’s what you should tell me.” Harper’s eyes welled again. “I just needed to vent, I guess. And see you.
You always make me feel better.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Ruthie said, reaching for Harper’s hand again across the table. “We all make mistakes.
None of us are infallible. Alex’s had her share of slips, too. Don’t forget that.”
“I know, but things are different now. Or they were. We were doing so well. This was all so unexpected.”
“Well life’s that way. And you mustn’t hold a grudge. Not forgiving yourself will only give you cancer. You’ve got to let it go and move forward as soon as possible.”
Ruthie glanced around to see where Frieda had gone. “Look at Frie,” she whispered. “Not going home for her mom’s funeral has eaten her alive for twenty years. She’s never been able to forgive herself, no matter how contentious their relationship was. I know that’s why she can’t get rid of the cancer.” Ruthie let go of Harper’s hand. “It’s come back three times.”
A long run on the beach was just what Harper needed in the afternoon. The adrenaline, rushing through her veins, helped clear out some of the anxiety she was feeling. Finally. Release.
By late afternoon, the Oregon coast was covered with a blanket of fog. Socked in, the weatherperson said. The beach cottages were a medley of sporadic lights, fuzzy and golden through the mist as Harper’s feet pounded the damp sand. One foot in front of the other for an hour.
About a mile from home, Harper took off her shoes and walked in the water. She picked up and skipped sand dollars, the
flat skeletons coasting like Frisbees on top of the bubbling surf.
Getting lost in the ominous waves, Harper thought about the decisions she’d made—right and wrong—the path she was on, and now off. And she reconsidered what Ruthie said, the weight of her sage words.
As she got closer to Seasmoke, someone, a cloudy figure, was walking in the hazy distance.
It was Grace. In Harper’s yellow raincoat. Harper would know Grace’s mannerisms anywhere. The measure of her steps.
The way she carried herself.
Grace was smiling under the hood, a shy gesture revealing much—her desires, her trepidations. Embarrassment.
“I followed your footprints,” Grace said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind.”
Grace was beautiful. And Harper’s attraction was bigger than ever, even bigger than days before when she’d pulled Grace frantically against her in those careless moments outside.
“It’s good to see you.”
Grace put her arm through Harper’s as they walked up the berm toward Seasmoke. “You okay?” she asked.
Harper paused, unsure. “I think so.”
And it was true. Despite the pain and destruction she’d caused, part of her was relieved. Especially after spending time with Ruthie. For so long she’d denied what she wanted, what her soul really needed. It was refreshing not to be running any longer.
“I’m sorry,” Grace said. “I never intended to cause such trouble.”
“I know,” Harper said, pushing the door open with her arm, backing into the house. She smiled. “But you did.”
“What happened”—Grace stepped inside—“after I left?”
Throwing her running jacket on the couch, Harper stopped in the middle of the room. “She left,” she said, turning to Grace.
“I tried to convince her that what had happened was nothing…a drunken mistake.”
“Was it?”
They stood face-to-face, the coffee table between them.
0
“I don’t know,” Harper said, hesitant. “I need a shower.”
Harper turned the water as hot as she could stand it before getting into the clawfoot tub. Steam billowed as she stepped in, puffing from the shower curtain like a smokestack. In the old bathroom, as Harper stood in the piercing jet, she thought about their kiss, a trespass against someone she loved. A trespass against herself.
But the kiss. The cigarette smoke, her breath.
With her arms up on the wall, Harper let water massage her scalp.
Her hands. Her tongue. The burning.
Beneath the showerhead, in the soft lamplight, Harper showered until the water ran cold. She was falling again. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
Grace was leaning against the counter eating raspberries when Harper came out. She was wearing jeans and a shrug sweater over a wide-neck top, her hair down. Candles were lit.
There were two champagne glasses and a chilled bottle waiting to be opened.
“Are we celebrating something?” Harper asked.
“I don’t know. Are we?” Grace said as she popped the cork.
Standing with a towel wrapped around her body, Harper took a glass and stood across
from Grace.
“Seems crazy to celebrate the last forty-eight hours, no matter how much I enjoyed kissing you.”
“OK. Not celebrating,” Grace said. “Honoring.” She stepped closer.
“Honoring works.” Harper held up her glass.
They tapped and drank, their eyes intensely connected, just like old times at Ernie’s, when it was all they could do to escape the caged moment, the nosy bystanders, and quench the thirst intensified by the jukebox.
But this time there were no prying eyes. No walls. Nothing between them now.
There might have well been a jukebox in the corner, for Grace hit one button on the remote control and, just like that, they were transported back to the Nineties. Chaka Khan’s familiar beats pulled the moment further into the past as they headed back through the fire.
Harper took Grace’s hand and they danced as angry squalls pounded the beach outside. They were both barefoot. Both nervous.
Before the song ended, Harper took Grace’s face into her hands. Slowly, their bodies came even closer together. Their foreheads and noses touching.
“I never stopped loving you,” Grace whispered, closing her eyes.
With everything she had, Harper kissed Grace, completely and wholly this time. No fear. Sober. Their insatiable fever, the one constant in their relationship, was a different temperature than it had been twelve years prior, even a few nights before. In the past, it was crazy hot and they were ravenous, overwhelmed by their desire, unable to get close enough, tearing at each other’s skin. But now, standing as grown women with nothing to lose but each other, it was even bigger than before.
This time, they both knew what was at stake. Harper led Grace down the hall and up the steep staircase to the bedroom, where the ocean wind licked the wainscoted walls and the high-beamed ceiling. At the balcony door, Grace undid Harper’s towel, and let it fall to the ground.
Harper kissed Grace again when she went for her clothes, more forceful and impassioned as Harper undid her blouse one button at a time. She was in control.
Lowering Grace’s body to the bed, Harper let her eyes move down Grace’s torso, examining what she’d missed since they last made love, the naked body so telling. At one time, she’d had a belly button ring; now above her innie was a small scar the size of a sesame seed. She’d never stopped working out. While there wasn’t a six pack anymore, her pubic muscle was still cut below her waistline. Perfection, Harper thought.
Harper started at the top, kissing Grace’s face before moving to her neck, her pulse beating against Harper’s lips. She licked the skin around Grace’s breasts and bit at her nipples, remembering she liked it hard.
Tracing Grace’s ribcage with her hands, she counted each bone as she moved farther down. Grace’s legs tensed, and then relaxed as Harper gently spread them open.
The closer Harper got, the more Grace arched her back until she was finally in Harper’s mouth.
Crack boom.
There was an explosion. A big one.
The entire evening, as the moon moved from east to west behind a layer of marine clouds, they took turns with each other, one orgasm after another. Sometimes together.
Finally, after they collapsed in exhaustion, Harper purposefully took her time dissolving into another world. In the sea of white linen, she relished the evening—the tears, the whispers, the trembling honesty—as Grace slept on her chest.
There was calmness. Still an easy silence about them.
The doors leading to the balcony were wide open and the wind, blowing in from the sea, caught the wisteria blooms and carried their sweetness into the bedroom, where Grace’s scent lingered on the sheets. From the bed, Harper could still see the tip of Haystack Rock poking over the vines which had grown the full length of the house. Through the northern windows, the purple, low rolling mountain range seemed to crash into the coast like the waves beating its rugged shore, like Harper had crashed into Grace once again.
Was this really happening? Harper wondered.
She almost couldn’t believe it.
“We’re All Alone”
Crystal Gayle
There were rose petals from the bedroom, trailing all the way down the carpeted staircase to the kitchen, where Grace was making pancakes the next morning.
Grace’s hair was tied back with a red headband and she wore a black apron. “Buon giorno, Bella,” she said.
From behind, Harper put her arms around Grace’s waist.
“I haven’t slept that well in years,” Grace said.
“Me neither.”
With her cup of coffee, Harper sat at the island on a tall barstool and watched Grace cook breakfast. She was in Harper’s slippers.
Grace had brought home a whale watching brochure from the market and Harper reached for it, just beyond her mug.
Grace, the perpetual early riser, had already gone shopping and returned by the time Harper woke.
“In all the years,” Harper said, “I’ve never been on one of these.”
“Really?”
“We’ve gone whale watching before. But I’ve never been on a guided tour. Dad used to take us all the time. We’d go to his favorite spot, right near Heceta Head lighthouse, and we’d just
drift with the ocean current all afternoon.”
Grace wiped a dollop of butter on the steaming stack of pancakes. Harper said, “Sometimes Dad would drop a fishing pole in the water. I caught a marlin once. A baby. It broke my heart, that poor fish when it came onboard flailing about.”
Harper looked through the brochure. “Mom would pack the greatest picnic baskets.”
After a leisurely breakfast, they put on their tennis shoes and walked down the beach to the pier where they met the boat for their afternoon whale adventure. It was Grace’s idea. And she’d made the arrangements.
The forty-nine foot excursion boat was already packed with people, mostly college students from an oceanography class. It was a breezy day and the clouds were puffy cotton balls overhead, the artful blue and white a stark contrast to the dark sea, which extended out into a rounded oblivion. For the ocean, it was relatively calm. The boat rocked back and forth—slow and measured, like a baby’s cradle—and the engine purred as everyone waited for something to happen a mile offshore.
As they watched for movement, they picked up where they left off at breakfast, Grace now revealing the details of her failed marriage.
“A year after you left,” Grace said, “I married Jamie.” She looked off into space, hypnotized by the horizon’s subtle curve.
Beneath them, a wave from a passing boat slapped against the weathered wood of the Discovery.
“He was so persistent,” she said. “Saying yes was the only way to get him to shut up. He and Mummy. She was the worst.”
“I remember.”
Harper also remembered the times Jamie had annoyingly just shown up at Ernie’s or at the university to visit Grace. “Just passing though,” he’d say. “Was in the neighborhood.”
“I entered into the marriage with good intentions. I thought I could turn my life around. Somehow learn to be the good wife.
And somehow learn how to love again.” Grace touched Harper’s face. “But that’s far from what happened.” She put her head down.
“Once he took over his dad’s company, he started drinking a lot, and, I suspected, started sleeping with his secretary. And others.
It was never confirmed, but a woman knows. You know?”
Harper shook her head and thought about Jamie’s parents’
nasty divorce; it was legendary in Scottsdale.
“But what finally broke the camel’s back was me.”
Harper brought Grace’s hand up and held it against her cheek. “What do you mean?”
“I was so unhappy, you know?” Grace looked down again. “I started seeing this woman from the club. Her name was Suzanne.
She was a VP at Simons & Simons, her office was even next door to Jamie’s.”
“She
worked with Jamie?”
“For Jamie.”
“Wow.”
“I know,” Grace said. “I met her at one of his Christmas parties and then ran into her one morning at the club’s gym.
The rest, well, I’ll just say we worked out a lot.”
Leaning against a huge cooler, Harper played with a rope tied to the boat’s bow.
“It was a huge mess when her husband caught us fooling around one afternoon in their pool. He was supposed to be away on business.”
The thought of Grace with another woman was even more unsettling than Jamie.
“Probably more detail than you wanted, huh?”
Harper forced a smile. “Maybe.”
Grace, too, painted on a smile. “I knew then. Hell, I knew when we were in college. That I was different. Gay. Or something.”
“Or something,” Harper echoed.
“But you know…the truth was, Suzanne didn’t make me happy either. I was always thinking about you.”
“You were?” Harper asked, tilting her head.
“I was.”
A sweet moment passed between them as they sat with this.
It briefly fed Harper’s soul, filling one of the numerous holes in her heart.
“So how did your mom react when all this happened?”
Harper asked. “She must’ve freaked out.”
Suddenly, without any warning, a giant humpback the size of a train car breached the surface thirty feet away and seemed to stop midair before slamming back down into the water. In slow motion, they looked at each other. A monster wave doused the boat as Harper screamed, “Oh my God!”
Grace was drenched; they both were.
Quickly, Harper dug out her waterproof camera and was ready when it came up again, with another whale this time, a smaller one with spots. She captured several great images as the pod around them fed for over an hour. Each time one breached, there was a collective “Whooooa” from the boat.
The girls, still children in their minds, giggled and strolled home in knee-deep water, relishing the memory, stopping once to look at the digital images. Their faces close together at the tiny screen. Their cheeks touching.
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