Winter's Harbor

by Aurora Rey

  Jan chuckled. “If you say so. It’s good to see you again. How are you settling in?”

  Lia shrugged. “Getting there. I’m heading to the grocery store now, but wanted to stop here first and take a look at the photos.”

  Twenty minutes later, she left with two photos for herself and one for her parents. She also had an invitation to play poker with half a dozen lesbians on Sunday, and she was pretty sure most of them were twice her age. Amused and rather pleased with herself, she headed to the store.

  Despite having the best intentions, she spent over three hundred dollars at the market. On the drive home, she convinced herself it wasn’t really all that unreasonable, considering she was stocking a kitchen from scratch. She needed everything. Once home, however, and she had to unload it all, she wondered what the hell she’d been thinking. It felt as though she had bought at least one of everything.

  She spent a couple of hours putting things away, filling the fridge and organizing the tiny closet pantry that was still bigger than any pantry she’d had in New York. When that was done, she made a turkey sandwich, then spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking. The closet and dresser provided plenty of room for her clothes. She arranged her jewelry and makeup, placed some of her books and family photographs in the bedroom and living room. She’d need to get frames for the new photographs, but there was a perfect spot for them on the wall that connected the living room to the kitchen.

  By the time Lia was satisfied that her new home felt sufficiently homey, the sun had set and it was once again dark outside. She flipped on a couple of lamps and headed to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. She considered cooking something, but opted for cheese and crackers instead. Dani, the health nut, always chided her for eating too much cheese, too many carbs. With that in mind, she cut an extra-generous amount of Brie from the wedge she’d bought, putting it on a saucer with a stack of cracked wheat crackers and a bunch of grapes.

  Lia picked up her dinner and wandered into the living room, setting the plate down on the coffee table. She browsed the bookcases as she sipped, glad to have so many books at her disposal, even if they weren’t her own. There were a couple of rows of classics, a few oversized art books stacked on their sides. Other than that, Lia realized, every other shelf was packed with books about lesbians.

  Biographies sat next to anthologies of erotica; there were photo books and books about gender theory and sexual identity and lesbian history. And romances. There was an entire shelf of them. She had never seen such a collection in one place, excepting perhaps the gay bookstore she’d discovered in Greenwich Village. She’d never even heard of many of the titles now lined up neatly before her.

  Intrigued by the title, Lia pulled The Persistent Desire from the shelf. On the cover, there was a photo of two people from the hip down, lying on the ground with legs entwined. One was clad in trousers and boots, the other in a short skirt that rode up to reveal the tops of stockings and pale thighs. The subtitle announced it was a femme-butch reader.

  Lia took the book and her glass of wine over to the couch. She turned on the table lamp and sat down, tucking her feet underneath her. Two hours later, her glass was empty and her cheese and crackers long gone. She’d plowed through nearly half of the stories and essays. She looked around, blinking and pulling herself back to reality. She stood to stretch her now stiff limbs, feeling aroused and restless and unsettled.

  It wasn’t as though she’d never heard the phrase butch-femme before. A girl couldn’t attend Smith College and identify as a lesbian without learning the lexicon. In truth, lots of people had asked her if she was femme when they learned that she was gay. According to Dani, it was because she wore skirts, liked makeup and jewelry. Dani had a personal disdain for the intricate layers some people used to explain their sexual preferences. She brushed it aside, calling it outdated and anti-feminist. Since, at the time, she considered being Dani’s girlfriend her primary identity, she never questioned her or bothered looking into it on her own.

  It was, Lia realized irately, just one more instance where doing things Dani’s way had come back to bite her in the ass. She paced back and forth between the kitchen and living room areas. Femme. She turned the word over in her head a few times. She tried saying it out loud. It felt…obvious. Dani wasn’t especially masculine in how she dressed, especially for work, but she did have a powerful, at times aggressive, personality. Lia thought of the other women she found attractive, women like k.d. lang and Rachel Maddow. She also thought about her newest acquaintance, the incredibly sexy owner of the Flour Pot Café—the way her jeans hung low on her hips and the dark gray chef coat pulled slightly over broad shoulders and arms. Now that she wasn’t with Dani, Lia could explore, and maybe even embrace it.

  She imagined talking with Alex, casually working it into the conversation. “I’m femme,” she could say. Or, maybe, “It must be a femme thing.” She wondered if Alex identified as butch. She suddenly had an image in her head of Alex wearing trousers and boots, lying in the grass next to Lia’s stockinged legs and exposed thighs. Although slightly embarrassed by her thoughts, she found herself aroused. Very aroused.

  She walked into the kitchen and refilled her wine. She tucked the book under her arm and headed upstairs to continue reading in a nice hot bath.

  Chapter Seven

  Although she was officially giving herself a break from alarm clocks, Lia was wide awake at 6:45. It seemed that ten years of routine had given her a pretty reliable internal alarm clock. Still, she felt rested. Since she’d stayed up past midnight reading, she attributed it to getting a good night’s sleep. Well, that and the fact that she’d slept twelve hours the night before. Given the restlessness and insomnia of the past few months, it was refreshing.

  She tossed back the covers and got out of bed. She looked around, still trying to absorb the details of the space so that they would become familiar, so that the room would feel more like home and less like someone’s guest room. She then proceeded with what she called her token yoga. It was less a formal meditation or workout and more a series of poses and stretches that made her feel limber. She should probably find a studio and start with classes again. Like so many things in life, she needed structure to accomplish anything beyond her comfort zone.

  When she was done, she plodded into the bathroom. Once again, her hair stood out at odd angles, flat on one side and an oversized mess of curls on the other. Perhaps she should invest in a shower cap like the one her grandmother used to wear. She smiled at the memory, as well as the thought of how ridiculous she’d look in a shower cap, and stepped into the shower.

  Lia washed her hair and loofahed all over. She shaved her legs. It made her tights feel good on her skin and now was certainly not the time to let herself go. She toweled off and took the time for full-body moisturizer. As she rubbed lotion into her skin, she realized just how much her pampering and grooming had become tied to whether or not she thought Dani would be in the mood. She huffed at the thought.

  Since she’d been so thorough in her unpacking and organizing, she was able to walk over to the closet to find something to wear. She found herself thinking about Alex, about wanting to look nice, about feeling sexy. Although her first instinct was to rein herself in, she shoved the thought aside and pulled out one of her favorite fall skirts and a matching sweater. There was no harm in feeling good about herself. Being put together didn’t mean she was on the prowl.

  The fact that she’d even thought the phrase “on the prowl” made her chuckle. She decided to go for it, putting on just a hint of makeup, earrings, and her favorite knee-high brown boots. When she was done, she assessed herself in the mirror, making sure it didn’t look like she’d put in too much effort. Chuckling to herself again, she headed downstairs. She stuck her head out to check the temperature then put on a light coat and her favorite scarf. She grabbed her bag and keys and headed out the door.

  When she arrived at The Flour Pot, it was significantly busier than it had been the
morning before. Checking her watch, Lia realized it was just a little after eight, a full hour earlier than she’d ventured out yesterday. It made sense that there would be a rush before the start of the average workday. As she stood in line, she watched people place their orders for coffee and muffins and croissants. Everyone in front of her took their order to go.

  Alex worked the register and wrapped up pastries while a guy who appeared to be in his twenties made espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes. When it was Lia’s turn, she stepped in front of the register and smiled. “Good morning.”

  There was a flicker of recognition in Alex’s eyes and then she flashed a smile of her own.

  “Good morning, Lia. What can I get for you today?”

  Alex remembered her name and it gave Lia a flutter. And that smile. It was a dangerous smile, she decided. She had no doubt that many hearts beat a little faster when it was bestowed. She gave little thought to her heart racing these days, but she could at least appreciate it. “Chocolate croissant and a latte, please, and I’ll have them here.”

  “Coming right up.” Alex called Lia’s coffee order over to Jeff. She took Lia’s money gave her change, then handed her a saucer with the croissant on it.

  “Thanks.” Lia glanced at the plate. Again, it was a beautiful croissant.

  “My pleasure. Jeff will have your coffee at the end of the counter.”

  Lia stepped aside so the next person could order. Her latte appeared in what felt like thirty seconds. She took her cup and plate to the same table she’d sat at the day before. While she ate and sipped her coffee, she watched the people come and go. Alex greeted most of them by name and about half of them had a “usual.”

  It reminded Lia of Boudreaux’s, the bakery in the town where she grew up. Boudreaux’s was more donuts and apple fritters than croissants, though, and the only coffee choices were Community brand regular or decaf. Still, it was one of her favorite places as a child. And while the clientele here was far more gay, there was the same small town, close-knit feel. It made Lia feel, if not homesick, nostalgic. She nodded and smiled and said good morning to the customers who caught her eye as they left. She imagined she was recognized as an outsider, a curiosity. She wondered if that would fade. She hoped it would.

  When she was done with her breakfast, Lia pulled out her laptop and powered it on. She opened the report of findings she’d been sent the day before and read through the forty-three pages of hypotheses, experimental parameters, control groups, and results. She read the hypotheses and the results again, then opened a fresh Word document.

  After drafting the first few paragraphs, Lia glanced up and realized the pre-work crowd had cleared out. Jeff was nowhere to be seen and Alex was rearranging the things that were left in the display case. She stood up and caught Lia watching her.

  “I’m glad to see you again,” Alex said.

  “Likewise. I tend to get antsy when I work at home. Besides, y’all have pastries.”

  Alex shrugged. “We do what we can. So, if you don’t mind my asking, what is it you do that you can so readily do anywhere?”

  “I’m a science writer.”

  “Science writer? What do you write, textbooks?”

  Lia shook her head. Alex had the same puzzled look that most people got when she told them what she did for a living. “Journal articles, mostly. Scientists send me their research findings and I write them up for publication in scientific journals or for mainstream media.”

  “That’s interesting. I don’t think I ever thought about science that way.”

  Alex sounded genuinely curious. Lia decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. “I didn’t either, always. I majored in Biochemistry and English. I wanted to be a writer more than a doctor or someone who lived in a lab. My advisor in college encouraged me to look into scientific publishing. I did and it seemed like the perfect fit for me.”

  “That makes sense.” Alex leaned on the counter. “Do you do it freelance or do you work for a specific group or company?”

  “I started as an editorial assistant at The Journal of Cellular Biochemistry.” When Alex raised an eyebrow, she added, “Yes, that’s a real thing and, yes, there are people who read it.”

  “I’m not doubting.” The look Alex gave her seemed playfully defensive.

  Lia crossed her arms in mock annoyance. “Anyway. A few of the researchers I worked with asked if I could do writing for them on the side. I did that for a couple of years and then started my own company. It turns out that a lot of scientists hate to write.”

  “I bet.”

  “And I love research, but I hate actually having to do the experiments. Since I’ve got more science background than most writers, I don’t ask a lot of questions or need a lot of explanation to do the work. A few of the people I work with are social, but I think most appreciate that they hardly have to speak to me at all.”

  It was Alex’s turn to laugh. “I can imagine. Plus, you get to work anywhere.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, then, I’ll let you work. You’ve got about two and a half hours before lunch rush. And we’re open until three.”

  “Thanks, and thanks for the hospitality.”

  Alex looked at her quizzically. “That is such a Southern thing to say.”

  “Why, thank you,” Lia drawled.

  Alex chuckled. “I have no idea why or how you managed to find your way here, but I’m glad that you did. Good luck with your work.”

  With that, Alex disappeared into what Lia figured was the kitchen. She sat for a moment. Was that flirting? Did she just flirt with the sexy butch baker? Maybe it was just friendly conversation. It felt more than friendly though. She was probably imagining things. After about a minute and a half, Lia realized she was staring into space. She forced herself off the meandering path of overanalyzing the interaction and got back to work.

  As predicted, people started trickling in around 11:30. Jeff reappeared and was manning the register. As with the breakfast crowd, most customers were greeted by name. She watched as he punched orders into the computer screen at the register. He’d put in a couple of orders, then disappear into the kitchen, reappearing with a bag or a plate, handing them off to the people he’d rung out a few moments before. For a two-person operation, it seemed remarkably efficient.

  More people sat down to have their lunches than had for breakfast. A few people said hello to her. If she came in more days than not, she wondered if she’d start to get to know some of them. As much as she’d wanted to get away, she felt uncomfortable being completely anonymous. It was one of the things she kept with her from her small town childhood, and one of the things she hated about New York.

  By quarter after one, things slowed considerably. She took the opportunity to order her own lunch. As tempting as she found the chicken salad sandwich, she had just enough restraint to resist consuming two croissants in the same day. She opted for a spinach salad with chopped eggs and a shallot-champagne vinaigrette. It was delicious, although not as delicious as the hunk of rosemary and olive oil bread that came on the side. She did have that weakness for carbs.

  After having her lunch, Lia worked for another hour, then started packing up her things. She didn’t want to have to be politely asked to leave when the café closed. She wanted to say good-bye to Alex, but didn’t want to make a show of it. Alex saved her the trouble by coming out of the kitchen and looking right at her.

  She felt herself blushing, and then blushing more because she was convinced that Alex had noticed. She slipped on her jacket and picked up her bag. “Thank you for the lovely setting, as well as the delicious food. I can assure you you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”

  Alex picked up a bit of paper from near the register and scribbled something on it. Oh God, was she giving Lia her number? What was she supposed to do? Lia tried not to panic as Alex walked over to where she was standing.

  Alex handed Lia two small cards. One was for a free coffee after she bought ten, the other was for a
sandwich or salad. Alex had initialed the first space on each. “You’re going to want to have these, then.”

  Lia looked at them, then at Alex. She was rewarded with her second wink of the day. Lia swallowed. “Thanks. I’ll fill these in no time.”

  “I sure hope so. Enjoy your afternoon.”

  “You, too.” Lia waved and walked out into the pale November sunshine.

  She strolled home leisurely, replaying the conversation with Alex in her mind. It was such a relief that Alex wasn’t trying to hit on her. She had no desire to get involved with anyone and she was lousy at letting people down. Alex was just being friendly, practicing good customer service. For the life of her, Lia couldn’t figure out why she suddenly felt disappointed.

  Chapter Eight

  At three, Alex locked the front door and flipped the “open” sign to “closed.” Armed with a spray bottle full of sanitizer and a clean towel, she made her way around the small dining area, wiping tables and straightening chairs. About halfway through, she noticed a scarf on the floor.

  She immediately recognized the cream colored wool and chunky knit design. It was the scarf Lia had been wearing when she walked into the shop. She picked it up and, without thinking, gave it a sniff. The perfume was subtle—something citrusy and floral—but it sent an arrow of heat straight to her gut. The scent would be stronger on Lia’s skin, warmed by the heat of her body.

  Alex rolled her eyes and placed the scarf on the counter. Apparently, not having sex for a couple of months had given her a one-track mind. She went about the rest of her routine, trying not to think about Lia’s neck or where else she might spritz her perfume.

  After finishing the cleaning, she checked that the door was locked, climbed the back stairs, and was home. One of the reasons she fell in love with The Flour Pot was the size of the kitchen. The other was the spacious loft apartment on the second floor. The copper pots she’d found at a flea market and polished back to life hung from a pot rack over the center island. Cupboards she’d sanded and painted showed off glassware and an eclectic mix of serving dishes. The commercial grade stove she bought on discount when buying new appliances for the bakery gleamed.