Does She Love You?

by Rachel Spangler

  “Wow.” Cass sat back in her chair, concern crossing her refined features. “You’ve really got it bad for this one.”

  Davis sighed. So much for being reserved and cautious. “Yeah, I really do.”

  *

  “Let’s call a painter, Belle,” Nic said. “You don’t need to worry yourself over the color of the guest bathroom.”

  “Honey, I’m not worried. I think it’ll be fun to do something together. Come on, it’s just a small room, and I’ve already bought the paint. We could do it in an hour.”

  “Okay. If you really want to do it ourselves, let me go get the edging tape.”

  Belle kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  Nic wandered into the garage. She didn’t want to spend her weekend working on something they could pay someone else to do, but she owed Belle big-time, even if Belle didn’t know. Still, she would’ve rather paid up in other ways, like roses, jewelry, a trip to the beach, even seeing chick flicks with her. Why did she want to paint? She would’ve thought with all the money Belle had growing up she’d be above jobs like painting or cleaning or yard work, but she’d been raised on a ranch. Her family fixed things and built things and got their jobs done right.

  Nic, on the other hand, had been raised in a trailer down at the end of a pockmarked road. When something broke, it stayed that way or got jerry-rigged with duct tape. Their yard was always littered with car parts her father only pretended to know what to do with. He was a deadbeat in the worst sense because he was too lazy to walk out on them. At least then they would’ve saved the money he spent on beer and cigarettes, but no; he had to stick around to spend his days bitching at Nic.

  She remembered one time in their gravel driveway, handing him parts to an old Pinto he’d won in a poker game. It was at least a hundred degrees during the tail end of a southern Georgia summer, with visible heat waves radiating off the elevated hood of the car. Nic was late for a student-council meeting. She needed to start walking if she had any hope of making it, but her father had it in his head that the car was just minutes from running. He slammed the hood and wiped his grease-stained hands on his filthy shorts, then climbed in the driver’s side, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Give it a push while I start ’er up, Nicky.”

  Even then she understood it was douchey for a grown man to sit in a car while his fifteen-year-old daughter pushed, but she knew better than to sass him, so she threw her weight behind the car as he popped the clutch. The engine coughed and sputtered, pushing hot, black smoke across her legs as the car started to roll. Her father cranked and cranked the starter, but the car’s only movement was clearly powered by Nic pushing. Hot, sweaty, and dirty, she had to get going or she’d miss the meeting entirely, so she stopped and stood up. He father cussed a few more times before getting out to stare at her disapprovingly. “Well, you fucked that up. For someone who gets such good grades you’d think you could at least follow simple directions.”

  Nic didn’t dare reply, but she couldn’t resist rolling her eyes, and that was enough to set him off. “What? You think you’re too good to work on cars?”

  “No, sir. I just have to get to school.”

  “Bullshit.” He spat, only nearly missing her shoe. “You don’t have to go to school on a Saturday. You don’t have to go to school at all. You’re just trying to be better than where you came from, and I don’t like it.”

  She kept quiet. The best thing she could do when he got like this was let him burn himself out.

  “All school does is put big ideas in that thick skull of yours.” He tapped a pudgy finger on her forehead for emphasis. “You’re no better than anyone else. Hell, if you keep chasing those stupid Ivy League dreams of yours, you’re actually dumber than most. You learn to cook, you learn to fix cars, you learn how to make babies, and maybe you’ll be okay, but if you keep your nose stuck in schoolbooks or up the ass of some teacher, you’re on your own. You ain’t coming back here to beg at my door when you don’t know how to do anything useful. You hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No, you don’t.” He flicked his cigarette and waved her off. “You might be listening, but you’re too stupid for any of it to sink in. Get out of here.”

  “Sir?” Nic asked.

  “You’re going to keep fucking up anyhow. Just go to your meeting.”

  Nic had shown up to school late and disheveled, only to have her teacher lecture her about the importance of keeping her commitments. Once again Nic held her tongue and opened her mouth only to politely apologize. Nothing would come from arguing with her father, and she wouldn’t gain her teacher’s respect by trying to pass blame, so she soldiered on, using each insult, each disapproving glare, each condemnation to fuel her fire. She’d kiss all the asses she needed to in order to make sure someday things worked the other way around. Not only was she going to have it all, but she’d also make sure she had other people to take care of it all. She’d never again have to get dirty or sweaty if she didn’t want to, and she’d never kiss any ass she wasn’t attracted to. But she was attracted to Annabelle, and more than that, she loved her.

  She loved Belle because Belle had loved her before she’d become the woman she was now. Sure, she’d done well for herself at the University of Georgia. She’d maintained the grades to hold a full scholarship in business, but she had only begun to come into her own while Belle had already cultivated so much style, grace, and social status. A third-generation member of the most elite sorority on campus, she had been formally introduced to society and had the eye of every eligible young man of good breeding. Belle had eyes only for Nic. She’d been the first person who’d truly believed Nic would be as successful as Nic believed, and she’d risked all her family comfort and social status on a glorified trailer-trash lesbian. The unconditional love, the unfailing loyalty, and the unabashed pride Belle had shown in her were foreign concepts to Nic, but she’d quickly grown accustomed to them, and what’s more, she’d used Belle’s confidence to bolster her own.

  Soon she’d landed a prime internship in advertising for the largest cable company in the region. Belle had set up a home for them, one she was proud to bring colleagues to, and they entertained often. Between her own drive and Belle’s social acumen, they’d soon been welcomed into business and society circles that wouldn’t generally be open to a lesbian of low degree. At times it all started to feel tedious or she wondered if any of the accolades held any real meaning, but she preferred them to the insults she’d faced in the early part of her life, and even in the most mundane tasks she saw herself accomplishing the things she’d set out to do.

  Nic had rapidly moved up the corporate ladder, becoming a full-time sales rep, then making one of the quickest leaps into management any of her colleagues could remember. Now she stood on the brink of another rise in status, one most would find utterly disproportionate to both her age and upbringing. Sometimes she marveled at how quickly everything had happened, as if her life had simply taken on a life of its own.

  She’d worked hard, put in long hours, and learned quickly, but she understood Belle played more than a supporting role in her ascension. Belle had opened doors and given her both the confidence and skills necessary to walk through them. She ran their home with military precision and angelic grace. Plus, she always managed to look stunning while doing so. Nic liked to think of herself as a sort of self-made mogul, but when completely honest, if not for Belle’s faith and grace, she might be painting other people’s houses instead of her own.

  She grabbed the tape out of a shiny toolbox filled with supplies she rarely used but enjoyed the look of. Belle was already in the guest bathroom waiting for her, wearing a pair of sweat pants and one of Nic’s old Georgia Bulldogs T-shirts. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail that curled just at the very end, and her eyes shone with delight as she saw Nic. She nodded to a square patch of robin’s-egg blue she’d painted in the middle of the largest wall. “Hey, handsome, you like what you see?”

 
Nic grinned. Despite all their complications and all the ways she’d rather spend her Sunday, she did still very much like what she saw.

  Chapter Four

  Annabelle ran the iron over Nic’s charcoal-gray suit pants while Nic sat on their bed with her laptop balanced on her outstretched legs and checked e-mail. They were both preparing for her trip to Atlanta the next morning. “You know I tell you this every road trip, but it bears repeating. I can iron my own pants.”

  “I know you can, but as I tell you every road trip, I like to do it for you,” Annabelle replied sweetly.

  Nic shrugged and looked back at her computer. “Okay. I’m not complaining. You do it better anyway.”

  “It’s my job to make you look good, and it’s your job to make the company look good.”

  “Then we make a great team. With you taking care of my wardrobe, I should be vice president in no time.”

  “I hope so.” Annabelle felt Nic’s eyes on her the second the words were out, but she kept her own gaze focused on the crease she was working into the wool trousers.

  “I thought you didn’t care about my title or paycheck.”

  “You know I don’t, but it’s been so nice to have you home for six nights in a row. I get spoiled by having you all to myself.”

  “It sure is nice waking up to your beautiful face every morning.”

  “And when you get promoted to vice president—”

  “If I get promoted to vice president.”

  “When you get promoted,” Annabelle continued, glancing up just long enough to see the corners of Nic’s mouth twitch upward, “you’ll work from Athens more.”

  “I’ll still have meetings in Atlanta.”

  “But not nearly as many in places like Boston and Cleveland. You’ll have a team of people to handle those calls, and even the meetings in Atlanta will be cut way back since you’ll only have to go to the corporate offices and not out on any actual sales calls.”

  “True,” Nic said, not unhappily, but sounding decidedly less than thrilled. She was probably checking sports scores instead of e-mail now. She always got a little glazed over when any game anywhere hit its final minutes.

  “You’ll be home almost every night, and our lives will finally settle into a nice routine.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We can have dinner at the same time every night, and then play tennis or maybe even take up a new hobby together.” Belle looked so forward to those days. She’d understood Nic’s drive from the beginning, and she had so much faith in her ability to be whatever she wanted that it wasn’t hard to play the role of supportive wife. She’d even enjoyed the business trips early on, especially in the summers when she could go along. They’d seen a lot of the country, and even when she couldn’t travel with Nic she’d enjoyed hearing stories of far-off places. Over the years, though, she’d lost some of her wanderlust and had begun to plan for the days when Nic would climb into bed with her every night.

  “You think I’m cut out for a nine-to-five office job?” Nic asked in a tone that made Annabelle suspect she’d been paying more attention than she’d initially let on.

  “I don’t know if the transition will be effortless, but you’re good at everything you set your mind to. The work will still be challenging.”

  “I suppose so. I like the idea of not sleeping alone more than I have to, but I like the excitement of being on the go. I’d hate to get into a rut.”

  Annabelle smiled. She wasn’t offended by Nic’s suggestion that life here could get monotonous. She lived with that prospect every day. Never content to just be content, Nic needed a challenge, and Belle loved that, but she also knew excitement didn’t always have to come from the business world. Once upon a time Belle had been the object of Nic’s drive to be better, and she was certain starting a family would produce that same desire. “Well, it certainly won’t get too predictable when we have the baby.”

  “Oh, yeah, dirty diapers, spit-up on my suit, and sleepless nights.”

  “And tea parties, and backyard campouts, football games, and sidewalk chalk.”

  “It’ll be much harder to find time for tennis matches and nights out, but I suppose that’s what we’ll get a nanny for.”

  Belle stiffened. “Nanny?”

  “Yeah, don’t people with babies get nannies?”

  “Nic, what makes you think a woman like me, a woman who won’t let you hire a cleaning lady or a painter, will allow our child to be raised by a stranger?”

  “Surely there’s a difference between having a nanny and giving our child up to a stranger. We’ll need some help and some time to ourselves every now and again.”

  Belle allowed herself a flash of worry at the comment, then tamped it down quickly. She didn’t want to negate Nic’s fears. It was completely natural for her to question whether she could handle the responsibilities of parenthood. Belle might’ve been more worried herself if she had other obligations, but she’d let all her other childhood dreams fall by the wayside. She’d married Nic when she was barely more than a child, leaving little time to grow into other aspirations of her own. Motherhood remained the only wish she ever expended energy on anymore, so she’d had ample time to consider things Nic thought of only occasionally. “Of course my mama and my sister will help babysit on occasion so we can make time for us, but raising a child is a full-time job. One I’m looking forward to.”

  Nic rubbed her face. “I’ve got a very demanding career, and I don’t have experience with kids. You already do so much around here. I don’t know why you don’t choose an easier road when we can afford it. I worry about you taking on too much.”

  Annabelle smiled at the underlying sentiment. Whenever she worried Nic was stalling, she’d say something that revealed how truly selfless her fears were. She always put Belle’s needs first. “My mother ran the biggest horse ranch in northern Georgia. She kept the books, kept the house, kept her husband happy, and still managed to raise two debutante daughters. I’ll be fine with nothing to do but cook for you and watch a baby. Besides, it’s not like I’ll be alone. You’ll be the most dedicated, doting parent our baby could ever ask for.”

  Nic shifted nervously on the bed, and Annabelle tried to act like she didn’t notice her discomfort. She lifted the pants off the ironing board and threaded them through the hanger, then covered them with their matching suit coat and took care to hang them neatly in the closet for tomorrow. Nic had sworn from the beginning that she wanted kids. Early on she seemed even more serious about the prospect than Belle, but she’d also expressed a great deal of concern for her parenting ability. She feared her own upbringing skewed her understanding of parent-child relationships to the point that, even if she committed herself to good parenting, she wouldn’t be capable.

  “You’ll be a great parent,” Belle finally said as she climbed into bed with Nic.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know you. You’ve never been bad at something you wanted to be good at.” Belle snuggled in and rested her head on Nic’s shoulder. “Our little boy or girl will adore you. She or he will wait at the door for you every night and want you to coach her T-ball team, or want you to be the one to read his bedtime stories every night.”

  “I never did any of those things with my parents.”

  “That’s why you’ll be extra good at doing them with our baby. You’ll want our child to have all the things you didn’t.”

  “I do want that, Belle. I never want to disappoint you or our family, but I don’t have the faith you have in me.”

  “Shh.” Belle kissed her softly on her cheek. She hated that Nic still had such unfounded insecurities about her abilities as a partner. It was almost like she had some invisible life of phantom failures, because all Annabelle saw was utter perfection. “Don’t worry, honey. I have enough faith for both of us.”

  *

  Davis tried to sound as casual as possible with a text message that simply read “R U in the ATL?”

  Her emotions st
ill warred with her logic. Emotional Davis wanted to say things like “I miss you,” or “Why haven’t you called me for a whole week?” or “Don’t they have phones where you live? And by the way, where the hell do you live?” Maybe Emotional Davis wanted to mention that hours of great conversation plus mind-blowing sex might have equaled falling a little bit in love if Logical Davis wasn’t beating her about the head and shoulders for thinking such romantic drivel.

  Logical Davis told her they hadn’t made plans and Nic hadn’t said when she’d be back in town. Logical Davis also said fifteen minutes had passed since she sent the text and she hadn’t heard back. How hard was it to type a simple yes or no? Logical Davis said she needed to let go. If Nic wanted her, she knew how to reach her. If not, why fool herself? Emotional Davis saw no harm in trying one more time.

  As usual, Logical Davis lost and was reduced to rolling her eyes while Emotional Davis typed another text. “Got Roller Derby tickets tonight. Want to go?”

  Her phone vibrated in her hand, causing her to jump. Nic’s number popped up on her screen, and she did a happy little jig before composing herself and answering as calmly as possible. “Hey, pervert.”

  Nic laughed. “Hi, Davis.”

  She fought the urge to ask why the hell she hadn’t called and forced herself to act cool. “So, do you want to go to the match tonight, or should I go troll the park for someone else?”