Romeo Fails

by Amy Briant

  She had almost forgotten what it was like to wake up with someone else. She could feel the warmth of Sarah’s body next to hers under the covers. Could feel her breathing on her shoulder. She stretched lazily, trying not to wake Sarah.

  Sarah stirred, then spoke without opening her eyes.

  “Hey,” she said sleepily. “Are you starving? I’m starving.”

  “I’ll be happy to make you some breakfast,” Dorsey replied. “Whatever you want.”

  “Whatever I want,” Sarah repeated drowsily, then turned to bury her face in Dorsey’s neck.

  Dorsey waited a few moments, then when Sarah’s breathing became slow and measured again, she gently untangled herself and went upstairs. She was at the kitchen counter drinking a glass of orange juice when she heard Sarah coming up the basement stairs not too much later.

  “Are your brothers here?” Sarah asked in a stage whisper from the doorway to the stairs. “Do we have to be quiet?”

  “Nope, I know Good’s not back from GC yet ’cause his truck’s not in the driveway,” she said with a glance out the kitchen window. “And if Shaw’s here, he needs to be up anyhow. He’s supposed to be at the store by seven thirty this morning to open.”

  “What about you? Are you working today?”

  “Yeah, I’m due there at noon.”

  There was fresh coffee in the pot. The kitchen was bright and warm with sunshine slanting in from the east-facing windows. Sarah had reclaimed her festival tank top, temporarily at least. Since their sleepover had been planned, she’d brought a few things of her own, including the flannel pajama pants she now wore. Dorsey appreciated just how low those flannel PJs rode on Sarah’s slender hips. Sarah poured them each a cup of coffee while Dorsey checked out the food situation.

  “Looks like we’ve got some doughnuts here. Some melon too. What appears to be somebody’s sub sandwich. And eggs and bacon, of course, if you want the full deal.”

  “The coffee’s fine for now,” Sarah said. “Do you mind if we check out the news? I’m curious to see what the weather forecast is. I was going to check it on my phone but I can’t find it. Maybe I left it at home.”

  They went back to the recliner in the living room where Sarah sat on Dorsey’s lap with Dorsey’s arm around her while they drank their coffee. Dorsey tuned in the local news from a Grover City station just in time for the weather report. More storms were in their future, which was not surprising for that time of year. At least it wasn’t tornado season yet. She hit the mute button as a commercial came on and set the remote down next to her thigh.

  “Hey,” Sarah said, as if suddenly remembering something, “I meant to ask you about your bed—did you build that yourself?”

  “Of course,” Dorsey said. “Why? Does it matter?”

  “Well, it just—” Sarah started, then stopped.

  “What?”

  “It just makes it even more special,” Sarah said slowly, looking deep within her coffee mug. She leaned over to set it on the end table without making eye contact.

  “So…was it special?” Dorsey asked her.

  Sarah met her eyes then. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “It was.” She looked at Dorsey, studying her for a moment. “And for you?” she finally asked.

  “The best I’ve ever had,” Dorsey said simply.

  Sarah smiled a huge smile and leaned over to brush her lips against Dorsey’s. “I’m so glad I found you again,” she said.

  Dorsey felt a burst of pure happiness. It just felt so right with Sarah—from the way their bodies fit together to the different ways they’d found to please each other already. It was like they had known each other in another life. Or for much longer in this one.

  The kiss that followed was slow and tender and exploratory. Much was familiar after all the time they’d spent together in the week before, but there were still new surprises to be discovered. Dorsey’s hips moved in the chair, a slight moan escaping her as Sarah teased her with short, sweet, wet kisses with a pause in between each that was only a moment, but on the brink of unbearably long nevertheless. She loved the feeling of Sarah’s weight pinning her to the chair, holding her back while she strained ever forward, ever upward. It was then Sarah’s turn to moan as Dorsey’s hand moved up her flannel-clad thigh and in between her legs to first gently, then demandingly stroke and coerce. A gasp broke from Sarah’s lips as she twisted to receive the tantalizing touch of Dorsey’s strong fingers. Dorsey’s lips were on Sarah’s throat now, with Sarah’s arms wrapped around her with all her might.

  “Dorsey,” she whispered, her breath laboring. “Dorsey Larue…”

  The screen door on the back door to the kitchen opened with its usual squawk, then banged shut as someone came in the house. Heavy male footsteps crunched across the floor and stopped at the sink, apparently, as water gushing from the faucet was the next thing they heard. In those frenzied few seconds, they went from frozen in shock to a wild, but silent disentangling to a more or less decorous presentation of Sarah still perched on Dorsey’s knee. But at least both were upright and clothed, if a bit flushed and short of breath. Sarah ran her hands through her hair, trying to smooth it back down to a semblance of normality.

  A half second later, Shaw wandered into the living room with a carton of milk under his arm, a paper-wrapped sub sandwich in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. He was still wearing the Chicago marathon T-shirt and stained khakis from the night before. He plunked down on the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table and started unwrapping his breakfast of champions. Glancing first at the TV, then over at the two of them in the chair, he gave them a big smile and a nod, said, “Hey” by way of a greeting and then “So what’re we watching?”

  He was so obviously and completely oblivious to the fact that they had just been having A Moment that the two women had to crack up. When they realized the TV was now showing some sort of nature documentary on warthogs—courtesy of Dorsey’s butt changing the channel on the remote—more hilarity ensued. Dorsey’s eyes were wet with tears when she finally pulled herself together.

  “Sarah,” she said, “this is my younger brother, Shaw. I don’t think you two were formally introduced at the store. Shaw, meet Sarah.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sarah,” Shaw said composedly, despite the fact that both women were still fighting off the giggles. He clearly had no idea what they were laughing about, but being Shaw, was courteously humoring them. Dorsey could almost read the indulgent thought bubble above his head: “Girls.”

  “So, where have you been?” Dorsey said to her younger brother. “Out all night doing who knows what,” she said as a joking aside to Sarah. His only answer was a big grin that was visible around the edges of his sandwich.

  Sarah laughed out loud and said, “You too, huh?”

  Dorsey was pleased to find that Sarah and her younger brother hit it off immediately. Of course, Shaw was pretty easygoing anyhow. Just about everybody liked Shaw, with Justin Argyle being a rare exception. And while she was crazy about Sarah, she realized she’d been worried—without consciously realizing it—that her brothers might think differently. It was important to her that Shaw and Good liked Sarah. And she’d never worried about their opinions of her love life before. But everything was different now with Sarah. Different in the best of ways.

  “You need a haircut, Shaw,” Sarah was telling him. She turned to Dorsey. “Did I tell you I know how to cut hair? I took a course at the community college one summer, just for fun.”

  “You are just full of unexpected talents,” Dorsey told her with a smile.

  Shaw stood up to examine his shaggy locks in the mirror over the mantel. He peered closely at his reflection, his nose almost touching the mirror.

  “I guess I could use a trim,” he said musingly.

  Dorsey was surprised—Shaw was never one to take much notice of his appearance. Haircuts were something to be endured rather than planned. Which was much the same way she felt, come to think of it.

  “Well, com
e on,” Sarah said cajolingly. She jumped to her feet as well. “Let me cut your hair, Shaw. You won’t regret it, I promise.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t, Sarah, but I’ll have to take a rain check, okay? I’ve got to get to work. Maybe Dorsey will let you take a try, though.”

  He headed upstairs to change.

  “Hmmm, he’s right—you need a haircut too, Dorse.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Dorsey said with some of her customary alarm at the thought of subjecting herself to someone else’s idea of beautification. Although if she was ever going to subject herself to someone, it would certainly be Sarah…

  “Come on,” Sarah said coaxingly. “Please? For me? It’ll be fun!”

  “Okay,” Dorsey said, caving but shaking her head at her feebleness. “For you.”

  They decided to set up in the kitchen as there was much more room and light in there than in any of the bathrooms. Shaw had left for work by the time Dorsey found herself in a kitchen chair, towel tucked around her neck and Sarah starting off with the electric clippers. Dorsey had jumped in the shower to quickly wash her hair before the cut—but then Sarah had jumped in too, which delayed the start of beauty school for another hour. She’d heard the phone ring while they were, ahem, shampooing but figured whoever it was would call back later. Both heads were damp as Sarah carefully buzzed the back and sides of Dorsey’s head. She had redonned her PJ pants and the festival tank top to avoid getting hair on her other clothes. The buzz of the clippers at the nape of Dorsey’s neck was always an unpleasant sensation for her. Unpleasantly visceral. Some sort of low-level, primitive response to a sensed, but unseen danger…

  Sarah stood back and admired her work thus far. She had promised to just shape and trim Dorsey’s existing buzz cut. Dorsey hoped she wouldn’t regret this little exercise in trust too much.

  “Not bad,” Sarah said over the buzz of the clippers.

  “What?” Dorsey said, craning her head around to look at her.

  “I said—”

  It was the screen on the front door they heard squawk then, its high-pitched shriek cutting through the monotone middle range buzz of the clippers. The front door wasn’t locked. Who locked doors in Romeo Falls? Sarah and Dorsey exchanged a quick, questioning glance. Dorsey rose to her feet as Sarah shut off the clippers, the sudden silence somehow as startling as the interruption.

  “Dorsey? You home?” The voice from the living room was unmistakably Maggie’s.

  Sarah shot Dorsey a horrified glance. She looked wildly about the kitchen as if she might bolt out the back door or down the basement stairs, but there was no time. Maggie’s footsteps were approaching the kitchen doorway.

  “Dorse? Goodman? Anybody? I’m looking for Sarah if you guys have seen her…”

  Dorsey swallowed.

  “We’re in here, Mags,” she called. What else could she do?

  Maggie appeared in the doorway, a note clutched in her hand and a look of relief on her face.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” she began. “I’ve been looking all ov—”

  Her voice faltered, then faded as she took in the scene. The two of them with their hair still wet from the shower. Sarah in her pajama pants, wearing Dorsey’s tank top and clearly nothing else. Her expression was unreadable, her eyes dark as she looked away from Maggie’s searching gaze.

  After a long moment, Maggie said to her, “You didn’t answer your phone.” Her voice sounded odd. There was a flatness to it that was completely unlike Maggie’s usual tones.

  Sarah said, “I can’t find it.” Normal, everyday words, but they sounded off too.

  Dorsey realized she was holding her breath and made herself breathe. There was a terrible feeling of pressure in the room, all the worse when compared to the happy time they had just been having.

  Sarah was looking at Maggie now, something almost angry and defiant in her stance. Her chin was tilted upward recklessly. The shaft of late morning sun coming through the kitchen window put her cheekbones in relief and cast her eyes in shadow. Dorsey thought she’d never looked so beautiful. Sarah set the clippers down on the table with a jerky motion and walked carefully over to the basement door as if she weren’t entirely sure her legs would carry her. She disappeared down the stairs without another word.

  When Dorsey looked back at Maggie, she found that her lifelong friend was staring at her with something close to hostility. Oh, no, Mags, she thought despairingly—not you, Mags. Not you too.

  “Why did you do it?” Maggie said to her.

  “Why did I—what?” Dorsey replied in confusion. She and Mags had never fought, not once in their twenty years of friendship. She couldn’t believe they were fighting now.

  Maggie took two steps toward her, then stopped. “Why did you have to take advantage of her, Dorsey? You know she’s fragile right now. Vulnerable.”

  Dorsey couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Take advantage? Mags, it’s not like that. You don’t understand…”

  “You’re damn right I don’t understand,” Maggie fired back. She must have been incensed beyond reason to use the D word. “How could you do this to her, Dorsey? To me? Running around behind my back for Lord knows how long? Lying to me? You know this is wrong. You know she’s not…like you.”

  “Look, Mags, I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” Dorsey said in a desperate attempt to retrieve the situation. If only she could get Maggie to understand… “I know this is a shock, but maybe it’s better for all of us that you know the truth. Sarah is gay, Maggie. And I’m…well, I’m falling in love with her.”

  Maggie’s normally pink and friendly face was a shocking, angry white, with two red dots of color on her cheeks in startling contrast.

  “She is not gay. My cousin is not gay,” she said emphatically, raising her voice.

  Dorsey felt her temper slip. She took a step forward and grabbed Maggie’s arms, thinking perhaps the physical contact would break the awful spell. “What, it’s fine for me to be all queer, but God forbid someone in your family is?”

  Her voice was shaking. She looked down at Maggie and saw that she was crying. She released her hold and walked to the sink to stare blindly out the window. She could not believe this was happening.

  “You are my family, Dorse,” Maggie said in a voice choked with tears. A voice full of hurt. “You know that. But—”

  “But what, Mags?” Dorsey turned around to face her friend.

  “She is fragile, Dorse. I know she tries to act tough and all put together, but she’s not been herself this summer. Losing her job and those pills and lying to me—that’s not like Sarah.”

  Mags wasn’t finished. “What I’m trying to tell you, Dorsey, is—is that you’re not helping her. How can this possibly end well for either of you? As soon as she finds a new job, she’ll be gone and you’ll still be here. I don’t know what you think you’re doing with her, but—leave her alone, Dorsey. Just leave her alone. You’re not helping her. Or yourself, in the long run.”

  There was a long moment of silence as the two friends stared at each other. The worst part was the ring of truth in Maggie’s last statements.

  But I can’t help what I feel! Dorsey cried out inside.

  The door to the basement stairs opened. Sarah stood there, dressed in her jeans and Henley shirt. She looked like she’d been crying too, but for the moment was dry-eyed and stony-faced.

  “Let’s go,” she said to Maggie shortly.

  “Sarah—” Dorsey began, but Sarah cut her off with a look that was both pleading and demanding, at the same time.

  “I’ll—” Sarah started, then stopped, seeming at a loss for words. “I’ll talk to you later,” she finally said.

  Dorsey could see she was barely holding herself together. It was with an effort of will that she made herself nod and let Sarah go with Maggie, leaving her alone in the kitchen, with the dust motes doing their slow perpetual dance in the shaft of morning sun.

  Her heart was breaking. Had s
he lost Sarah…and Maggie too?

  Chapter Twelve

  The best week of Dorsey’s life was followed by the worst. The days and nights seemed fragmented and disjointed. Broken splinters and shards. She moved in a nightmarish daze from home to work and back again. The pain of losing Sarah threatened to overwhelm her, but she tried her best to dull it with routine. She tried her best to hope.

  She found out eventually that Maggie and her mother had come home early from the convention because Mrs. Bigelow’s ankle had been bothering her. Maggie had been trying to reach Sarah on her cell phone to let her know they were coming back. When there was no answer and Sarah wasn’t there when they got home Saturday morning, Maggie became alarmed and went out looking for her cousin.

  Her cousin. Family. If only Sarah had been a complete stranger, Dorsey thought in her bewildered agony. If only… If only there hadn’t been Maggie in the middle of this. There had been a moment of hope when Maggie came to the store after a few days had passed. Just for a moment, she thought Maggie was coming to tell her everything was all right. That they were friends again. That she was okay with her and Sarah.

  Maggie asked if they could speak in private, which was unusual in and of itself. Shaw watched the cash register while the two of them went in the back. But Good was in the office, on the phone with a distributor, so they found themselves talking in the alley behind the store. A suitably wretched place, Dorsey thought later, with the sour smell of the Dumpster and dirty puddles of water shining too brightly in the late morning sun.

  “I’m sorry, Dorse,” Maggie began. But her voice had that strange flatness to it again.

  “I’m sorry too, Mags,” Dorsey replied. And she was sorry. Sorry that Maggie’s feelings had been hurt and that she had lied to her friend. Or at least concealed the truth from her. But she wasn’t sorry about Sarah. How could she be sorry about even one minute of that? She’d fallen in love with Sarah—something she’d begun to fear she would never be able to do. If she could only make Maggie understand the depth of her feelings, she surely wouldn’t make her choose between the two of them—would she?