Winter's Harbor

by Aurora Rey

  Lia did and found herself in the middle of a gorgeous open space. Sliding glass doors opened to a private balcony and a stunning view of the harbor. The living room furniture was casually elegant and the kitchen looked brand new. On the kitchen table was a spread of crackers and cheese, olives, hummus, fruit, and more. It was enough food to feed eight people.

  “I hope you don’t mind a picnic style dinner. I didn’t want things to get cold.” She walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine. “Shall we?”

  Lia still didn’t understand where they were, or why. “Are you staying here?”

  “I am. I thought it would be better if we could speak in private. I picked up things from that little market. You could walk there from here if you wanted.”

  “It’s a beautiful place.”

  “Yes, it is. Wine?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Lia sat at one of the chairs while Dani poured. It was exactly the kind of thing Lia had craved when she and Dani were together—something thoughtful and casual for just the two of them. So many nights, Dani worked late. She would come home, saying she’d eaten a protein bar and only wanted to go to bed. Other times, Lia found herself as Dani’s plus one at a business event, sipping cosmos and making nice with her colleagues’ wives. Lia wondered if Dani appreciated the irony of the situation.

  Dani sat in the other chair. She sipped her wine and plucked an olive from one of the bowls. “This is really nice.”

  When Lia only mumbled her agreement, Dani took the reins of the conversation. She told Lia about some of their mutual friends—one couple was expecting a baby and another was moving to Charlotte. She talked about a couple of her projects at work, yet another promotion.

  Suddenly, she shifted the conversation. “I can’t stand the idea that you hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you,” Lia said after a long moment. “I’m not even angry, really. I mean, I was, but I don’t do angry very well. It takes a lot out of me.”

  Dani’s expression was sad. She seemed almost, maybe, vulnerable. “I hated you for not ever getting angry with me. It was as though you didn’t care enough to fight.”

  Lia shook her head. “I didn’t want to have to fight for your love. I wanted it outright. I wanted you to want to give it to me.”

  “We were so good together.”

  The regret in Dani’s voice seemed sincere. Lia thought for a moment that she might even cry. Lia considered Dani’s assertion. It wasn’t entirely untrue. They’d made a nice home, had a lot of mutual friends. They managed the day-to-day business of being a couple well. “We were, in a lot of ways.”

  “We could be that way again. I know I treated you badly. I would need to make up for that. I would do whatever you asked to earn your forgiveness.”

  For weeks after she’d discovered the affair, Lia had longed to hear those words. She’d lie awake at night and think about whether she’d accept them graciously, whether she’d make Dani grovel. To realize that she no longer needed it—didn’t even want it—was overwhelming. “I do forgive you, Danielle.”

  “So you’ll come home with me, and we can put this whole nonsense behind us.”

  Lia sighed. “No, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  Dani’s eyes went dark. “You’re going to make me beg.”

  Lia cringed. Of course that’s what Dani would think. It was kind of annoying, but mostly sad. “No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that I can forgive you, but I can’t be with you. We can’t be together again. I mean, I don’t want to be with you. I’m not in love with you anymore.”

  Dani laced her fingers together. Her knuckles turned white and Lia could see the veins start to protrude on the back of her hand. She took a deep breath and braced herself.

  “That’s a very dramatic thing to say. Okay, let’s say you go off on your own, permanently. How will you even support yourself?”

  “I do have income. I own a business, if you recall.”

  “And you’re accustomed to combining that income with another that is six times as large.”

  Lia narrowed her eyes and looked Dani up and down. As always, she was effortlessly chic. She’d changed from the checked shirt and white pants into buff-colored linen slacks and a black silk tank. Even her casual wear was designer label and perfectly tailored. Lia had often thought Dani would make an excellent model. She had the angular features and aloof way of looking at the world. There was a time when Lia found this woman glamorous, found being with her glamorous. Now, it all seemed like a flashy veneer on something utterly hollow.

  “I don’t need a two-thousand-square-foot Manhattan apartment.”

  Danielle sighed. Her face softened. “I know you’ve not relished living in the city. That has been rather selfish of me. What if we started looking for a place on Long Island, or maybe in Connecticut?”

  “It’s not about that.”

  Dani ignored her. “You know, I’ve actually been thinking how nice it would be to have a summer place. Although I was leaning toward something in the Hamptons, there’s no reason it can’t be here.”

  Lia expected Dani to bring up money. There was no doubt that being on her own would require a level of frugality that Lia hadn’t had to think about in years. It surprised her, however, that Dani would start throwing around something as major as a piece of real estate to appease her.

  “You want to buy a place in Provincetown?”

  “Think about it. You clearly enjoy it here. We could spend a few weeks of the summer together. You could even come up and work sometimes while I’m back in the city. It would be the best of all worlds.”

  Lia’s brain was struggling to keep up with processing both Dani’s words and their unspoken subtext. It made her wonder how many of Dani’s colleagues did just that—buy the dream home wherever the wife would be happy and live together on weekends and holidays.

  “I’m prepared to buy this place for you.”

  It took her a moment to register what Dani said. Even when she understood the meaning, it didn’t compute. “What?”

  “I didn’t rent this place for the weekend. I’m staying here as a potential buyer.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Dani pushed her plate aside and set her elbows on the table. “You’ve obviously enjoyed your time here. I get that. So before I came, I did a little research and I found this place. The renovations were complete only last year, and the furniture is included. It’s a great investment.”

  Lia still couldn’t fathom what Dani was proposing. “You’re offering to buy me a condo if I take you back?”

  “I’m offering to buy this condo for us and for your personal use and pleasure, as a good faith gesture toward making our relationship work.”

  It sounded to Lia like Dani was describing a corporate merger. Perhaps that was the crux of the matter all along. To Dani, their relationship was a business deal. It was all about negotiating terms that were agreeable to both parties, and coming out on top. Rather than making her angry, the realization made Lia profoundly sad. After a long moment, Lia shook her head. “No, that isn’t the kind of arrangement I want.”

  “You’re in love with this baker? Is that it?”

  Lia knew it was important to choose her words very carefully. “She has nothing to do with this.”

  “Of course she does. You’re infatuated with her and have talked yourself into believing that whatever is going on between the two of you is better than what you and I have.”

  “Whatever feelings I have for Alex, whatever feelings she has for me, they have nothing to do with the fact that I am no longer in love with you.” She instantly wished she hadn’t used Alex’s name. It personalized it, brought her into the equation in a way she wanted to avoid.

  “I asked about her, you know. Around town. She’s got quite the reputation.”

  “You asked around town? What are you, my father?”

  “I didn’t have to dig very much. She hooks up with women—one or two or five
—all summer long.”

  Dani had a habit of ignoring whatever was being said to her once she had a train of thought going. It was one of the things about her that drove Lia the most crazy. “What business do you have coming here and digging around in my life?”

  “I care about you, Lia. I don’t want to see you hurt. I’m sure you have her attention right now, but what’s going to happen come May? What’s going to happen when a parade of dozens of beautiful, available women pass through her doors?”

  Lia swallowed and tried to keep her hands from visibly shaking. She unsuccessfully tried to block the image of Kim from her mind, of Sabrina, of God knows who else. She’d been prepared for Dani to pressure her. She’d been prepared for her to throw around the length of their relationship, the money disparity that in some ways gave Dani the upper hand. She’d even been prepared for, if not groveling, some heartfelt apologies. This, however, this artful injection of doubt, tapped into the fears that were already dancing in the back of her mind.

  “I do not want to talk to you about this.” Lia wanted to convey strength and certainty, but her voice sounded feeble.

  “Lia,” Dani reasoned, “you’ve been here in the summertime. You’ve seen the women in the bars, on the beach. Girls in bikini tops and tiny shorts who are up for whatever good-time lesbian comes their way.”

  Lia was trembling now. She wanted desperately to be alone, preferably in a dark and quiet place. She needed to calm down and try to regain some semblance of control over what was happening.

  “Sweetheart, you don’t even like how you look in a bathing suit.” Dani said it softly and without malice. It was a talent she had, that unique brand of pity that passed itself off as sympathy. It was more undermining than any garden variety insult. Lia had always been especially vulnerable to it.

  Lia looked at her. As she could have predicted, Dani wore her concerned face—head tilted and lips pursed ever so slightly. It was a look that had always made Lia crave an embrace and some words of reassurance. This time, however, rather than care and love and protection, Lia only saw manipulation. She was convinced that this was no less a tactic than the hard and imposing stance Dani used to get her way in the boardroom. It was all about leverage and getting what she wanted.

  Lia stood. “I need to leave.”

  Dani gave a mildly impatient sigh. “Lia.”

  “No. No more. I’m done. I’m leaving and, honestly, I don’t want to see you again.”

  “Lia, you don’t mean that.”

  Lia fixed her ex with a hard stare. “Danielle, you have no idea how much I mean it. When I left, I thought the problem was that you didn’t love me anymore. I realize now that the problem was much bigger than that.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Lia could almost see the wheels in Dani’s head turning, assessing the turn of events and calculating the right next move. She wondered how she’d missed it for so long. “I’m talking about me. The real problem isn’t that you don’t love me anymore. It’s that, when I’m with you, I don’t even love myself.”

  Dani was stumped. Lia could see it in her eyes. Under other circumstances, she might have taken satisfaction in it. Now, however, she felt nothing. After the hurt and confusion and anger, feeling nothing was quite amazing. She no longer trembled; she felt invincible.

  “I really do need to leave now. I don’t care if you drive back to New York tonight, or stay until tomorrow, or buy this condo and stay here forever. We are done, and we’re done talking about it as well.” She stood up. “You don’t need to drive me. I can walk from here.”

  Dani stood as well. “You’ll regret this. That trashy butch is going to break your heart and you’re going to be all alone and you’re going to wish you could come running back to me.”

  Lia lifted her chin. “Whatever happens, I can assure you that your arms are the last place I’ll come running.”

  Lia walked to the door, opened it, and left. She didn’t look back and she didn’t pause on the stairs or the path. Once on the street, she turned up a side street to avoid seeing anyone she might know. Her brain was going a mile a minute and she couldn’t seem to quiet it enough to formulate a coherent thought.

  In the time it took her to get home, Lia’s mind settled, if only just a little. It seemed ironic that their final fight, the fight they didn’t have when Lia left, was about Lia’s entanglements and not Dani’s. It hardly mattered at this point, so she tried not to let it bother her. Instead, she focused on feeling that it was ultimately her choices, her decisions, that ended things once and for all. It was a feeling of control that had been missing in the months after she first learned of Dani’s affair.

  She also felt free. She reveled in it for about thirty seconds before her thoughts turned to Alex. As much as she didn’t want them to, Dani’s words played over and over in her mind. Lia had, for the most part, quashed her fears about Alex’s casual relationships, but now they came roaring back to life. Doubt was powerful like that. It didn’t need to come from a reliable source to do its work.

  There was also the matter of her essentially shutting Alex out of what was happening. When Lia had tried to explain how she needed to deal with it on her own, Alex agreed, but she didn’t seem happy about it. Lia worried that Alex was angry with her. She feared that this was just the sort of thing that would send Alex looking for something easy and uncomplicated. Refusing to let herself hesitate, she walked out of her apartment and straight to Alex’s.

  When Lia arrived, no one was home. Remembering the plans they had to walk on the beach, she contemplated going in search. Given how her day was going, however, it was likely she’d miss them and end up wandering around aimlessly.

  Lia decided to stay put and wait for them to return home. The keys Alex gave her sat in her purse, but she decided that now was not the time to use them. She sat on the back step and thought about what she was going to say when Alex arrived. She banged her head lightly against the door. What a mess.

  When Alex saw Lia sitting on her stoop, the first thing she experienced was relief. Murphy seemed to share the feeling and his tail began to wag excitedly. Lia’s eyes were closed and her head was tilted back against the door. Alex took advantage of being unseen and took a moment to study the woman she was in love with.

  She hadn’t gotten around to changing and was wearing the same navy blue and white polka dot dress from earlier. Her hair was loose, the curls tossed by the wind. Alex felt a lump form in her throat. The idea of losing Lia was almost more than she could stand. The thought that Lia would get back together with the woman who’d treated her so badly made her sick to her stomach.

  As if she’d sensed her approach, Lia opened her eyes and glanced over to where Alex was standing. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Alex closed the remaining distance between them.

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course.” Lia stood and Alex reached around her to unlock the door. It stung that Lia hadn’t simply let herself in, but she could see that the circumstances were less than ideal. She walked into the living room and sat on the couch, resisting the desire to pace.

  Lia followed, sitting at the opposite end. “So, more than anything, I want to apologize.”

  Alex narrowed her eyes. “Apologize for what?”

  “For the fact that you walked in on that, for the fact that she showed up at all, for the fact that I bailed on our plans so I could talk to her.”

  It was a start. “Okay. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  Lia took a deep breath. “She showed up completely unannounced, which was probably a tactic on her part. She talked about trying to move forward.”

  “So she was trying to get you back?” In this instance, Alex felt no satisfaction in being right.

  “Yes, but it was more complicated than that. She wanted to talk about how things ended. That’s why I agreed to sit down with her, to talk. When I left, there wasn’t really any closure. It felt important to try to get it, even if it was afte
r the fact.”

  Alex understood. She didn’t like it, but she understood. “Did you get what you wanted?”

  There was a long pause. “Yes.”

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  “She played the money card, which I kind of expected.”

  “Based on what you’ve told me about her, that’s not surprising.” Was Lia susceptible to that? Was she tempted?

  “She offered to buy me a condo.”

  “She did what?”

  “Instead of a restaurant, she took me to this condo in the East End for dinner. I figured it was where she was staying. And then she told me it was for sale and she would buy it—for us, but mostly for me.”

  Alex was speechless. Condos in the East End rarely went for less than half a million dollars. Even though she owned the bakery, the mortgage was a special arrangement. She couldn’t wrap her head around having that kind of money at her disposal.

  “Can you believe it?”

  “I can’t.” She tried to sound indignant, but there was definitely a layer of intimidation underneath. She could never offer Lia anything like that.

  Lia shook her head. “Not that I was remotely tempted to get back together, but that really sealed the deal. Mergers and acquisitions—that’s her specialty.”

  Alex hoped desperately that she meant it, not just being done with Dani, but being uninterested in that kind of person. As much as she hated to admit it, there could be a certain draw in that kind of money and power. “So now what?”

  Lia thought for a moment. “Well, she’s gone. At least I think she is. I walked out.”

  It was a huge relief to hear Lia say that. Alex nodded. “Good for you.”

  “I’m here, with you.” Lia offered an uncertain smile.

  Alex was still unsettled, but wanted to offer some reassurance. “That’s very good.”