by Jody Klaire
I lay my head back into the heated seats as the car purred through the city. Rebecca’s company car was a better option than Winston in the rain. Still, Winston had his own tape deck. How many people still had tape decks, huh?
As creatures of habit, we only ever went to one Italian, Gino’s. There was no better place. It was about three miles from our flat, like I had any clue about distance. Basically with lights, rain, and traffic, it could take us at least twenty minutes to drive there. It would be far easier and quicker to actually walk but then my fluffy slippers would get wet. That was my excuse and I was sticking to it.
“Did Doug say something?” Rebecca asked as I turned off the radio. I hated the radio. I hated the nattering between songs.
“He asked me if I would go to France with him,” I mumbled, digging for something resembling music in her glove compartment.
Rebecca sucked in her breath. “Does he not get the message about it yet?”
“Evidently not.” I held up a CD, raising my eyebrows. The Spice Girls?
“Hey, they were cool.” She took it off me and shoved it in the player. A moment later I was hollering “Wannabe,” like I had a clue what it meant.
We stopped at a traffic light, still bouncing about inside as rain started to sprinkle onto the windows. “Fancy a drink while we wait?”
“Er . . . I have this baby to control and we have guests.” Rebecca rested her head on the wheel with a groan as “Two Become One” wafted out at us. “Surprise guests.”
“Doug sabotaged girls’ night.” I sounded more irritated than I felt. Was I really angry with him? What had he done wrong other than be sweet? Okay, he wanted his own way so there was an ulterior motive but still, he was a sweet brat.
“She tried to seduce me.” The red light turned to green and Rebecca pulled off. “I said no.”
I did a double take and squinted to see if Rebecca was playing with me.
“Last weekend when you were at Doug’s.” Rebecca turned and laughed at my expression. “I was so freaked out . . . so embarrassed, I didn’t even tell you.”
The city lights twinkled in the raindrops, misting up the windscreen. There was nothing quite like a rainy London night. Rebecca could have named all the buildings but to me they looked like a mass of brick jutting up into the night. Buildings were her thing.
“You turned her down?”
“Yeah . . . her come on was cringe-worthy . . . I mean, I’m not fussy but she’s . . . she’s—”
“A bitch?”
Rebecca nodded, overtaking a bus that seemed intent on blocking the whole road. “That too.” She sighed. “Never once in ten years did she act anything other than professionally towards me. I don’t get it.”
“So why now?” I didn’t understand the shift myself. To all intents and purposes, she resembled a piranha in a foot spa to me. “She’s a beautiful woman . . .”
“And was married to the director, Pip.” Rebecca bit her lip. “What do I do?” She tapped the wheel, her eyes on the Mercedes in front. “I haven’t felt this trapped since . . . well . . . since college.”
Seeing her cocky aura shatter was enough to terrify me. Rebecca had been all set to head off to university and start her degree but her father had found out about her sexuality and booted her out, cutting her off from her funding and her dream. Horrid man.
“I wanted to tell you but you’ve been . . . well . . .”
“Distant?” I was a crappy friend, a really crappy friend.
“Yeah.” Rebecca knocked off the CD as we both scanned for a parking space. “Anyway, she told me that no wasn’t acceptable.”
“Over there.” I pointed to a free space, with a celebratory grin. It was akin to finding the right pair of shoes on discount and in the right size. Go, Saunders. “It looks like she meant it.”
“She was still married, Pip.” Rebecca’s voice wobbled. “I like the director.”
“When has a ring stopped you?”
The rain blasted me in the face as we got out and hurried into the warm ambience of an Italian villa. At least it was on the inside. Outside it was sandwiched between a barbers and a DVD rental store.
“I don’t touch women who are, or have been, married. I would never knowingly do that. It just feels wrong.”
For once, I believed her words. It wasn’t something I had noticed but when had I bothered to look? Why did she suffer my company?
“Last thing I needed was for her to show up tonight.”
I patted her hand as we took a seat at the bar. Giovanni, Gino’s son, hurried over to us. “Orders, ladies?”
Covering up the pink showing under the coat, I smiled. “Take away if you don’t mind. We have guests.”
He smiled, his brow shiny. He whipped out a handkerchief to mop it. “Wonderful, usual for you two?”
We nodded.
“Extras?”
I counted the orders on my fingers. “Pasta e fagoli and . . .” Crap, I’d forgotten to ask what Doug wanted. “Hold on . . .” I looked for my mobile. Crap, it was on the table. “You got yours?”
Rebecca shook her head. “You can’t remember his favourite?”
“Yeah, any dish that involves as many types of meat on it as possible.” I sounded irritated again. I hoped Rebecca didn’t notice.
“Meatballs with spaghetti, thanks,” she answered for me. It was as good a shot as any.
Giovanni smiled and hurried off while I tried to study the beer mat with fascination.
“I spilled,” Rebecca said, her voice low. “Your turn.”
“It’s nothing.” Her eyes seemed to burn into my cheek until I looked at her. “It’s nothing . . .”
“Tell me.” She leaned on the bar. “Or I will get you hammered and drag it out of you.”
“Do you want me to tell Doug to make her leave?” I wasn’t sure how I could make good on that promise as I had no phone but maybe Giovanni would let me use his. He’d once given me extra breadsticks. Maybe he’d be charmed by my fluffy attire.
“She said I give in or she will tell the director that I came onto her.” The sound of defeat ebbed from her and I leaned my head against her shoulder.
“That sucks.” Miss Evans was indeed a bitch.
“Yeah.”
I nudged her shoulder. “I like your hair.” She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “I mean it, it’s growing on me.”
“Liar, but thanks.” She prodded me in the ribs. “Now, spill it.”
Fear, guilt, tension, and that flash of excitement shot through my stomach and once again I broke out in a sweat. My neck itched and burned. The secret had been buried for so long that to speak a word, to actually say the words out loud, felt like unleashing a slumbering beast. Two sides to every story, maybe, only one side of mine led to the other and I couldn’t even think about it without getting nauseous.
“Could it be worse than my sad tale?”
Little did she know. “Yes.”
“Good.” She motioned to the bartender. “Double whiskey for my dear friend and a lemonade for me.”
“It won’t work.”
Nudging the glass towards me, Rebecca batted her eyelids. “It’s to calm your nerves.” She smiled a cocky smile. I needed to tell her at least some of it. I couldn’t just daydream my way through every single day. I was going to get married, at some point. I needed help, support, therapy.
Rebecca took my hand. “I’m on your side what—”
“I fell in love with another woman.”
Rebecca slipped off her stool. I grabbed her to stop her clattering to the ground.
She retook her seat and stared wide-eyed at me.
“Well . . . say something.”
“In France?” Her brow wrinkled up her nose, her voice squeaky. “Like a female woman?”
Now she was just being daft. “Yes, I fell in love with another woman.” Didn’t those words sound freeing and terrifying all at once? This was how people who had committed crimes felt in confession, I was sure. �
��In fact, I had a yearlong affair with her.”
“You’re . . . but you’re not . . . I mean . . . you love Doug.”
“Of course I love Doug.” What the relevance was in that I didn’t know. “It was years before him.”
“Like . . . a love affair . . . I mean . . . like . . .”
For someone so keyed up on seduction, she looked more shocked than I had expected. “It was a long time ago.”
“Oh shit.” She put her head in her hands. “This woman still lives there?”
My whiskey arrived.
Rebecca downed it.
“Oh shit . . . Oh, this is bad.”
I stared back at her. Great support. “You’re not making me feel better here.”
Rebecca signalled to the bartender again. “Pip, he is totally set on you.” She bit her lip. “It’ll break his heart.”
“Why does he need to know?” I frowned at her and folded my arms. “I haven’t cheated on him.”
“But the woman still lives in Marseille?” The second time she’d asked the same question.
Another whiskey arrived.
She downed that too.
“Yes, but it’s a big city.”
Holding up her fingers to order another, Rebecca looked at me as though I would grow tentacles at any moment. “So . . . are you saying that you are . . . I mean . . . is that why?”
“For a gay woman, you’re a terrible confidante.” The third double arrived. I placed my fingers over the glass. “I love Doug. I am marrying Doug.”
“And the woman, I mean, she must have been some woman.” The way she hung on the word “some” was reminiscent of a teenage boy. Shocked hadn’t made her less smutty it seemed.
Giovanni hurried over with our order and I pulled Rebecca away from the double before she grabbed for it.
There were women, then there was her.
“I think I . . .” I wasn’t sure how I could explain all that had happened as we headed out into the downpour. What words could adequately describe her? “I mean . . . I don’t know . . .” How to pinpoint why she had overwhelmed my senses. “You see . . .” How to justify how one woman had untied every knot in my heart and shred every resistance I’d had. “She was French.”
Rebecca took the bags as I got in the driver’s side. “That’s it? You land that on me and put it down to the woman’s nationality?” She shook her head as I pulled off. “There’s a load of people living in France and you weren’t ban—”
I shoved a bread roll in her mouth. “You’re so crass.”
“How did you keep that secret?” Rebecca chomped on the roll. “I mean, how did I not get any vibes from you?”
I turned right, the rain got heavier. “There are no vibes to find. I don’t feel anything for any other woman, I promise.” That was the truth. I’d never felt even an inkling towards anyone else, full stop. I’d been oddly surprised I was actually attracted to Doug. He wasn’t her but he was nice. I liked nice. Nice didn’t make my brain dribble out of my ears.
“You sure?”
“Trust me . . .”
Rebecca and I had watched countless romantic films and I’d even read a couple of the steamy novels she so enjoyed. I wasn’t revolted and I wasn’t overawed. Perhaps I was not that kind of woman. My relationship with Doug was steady and comfortable.
“I love Doug, there is no question about that. I’m marrying him. That is all that matters.”
“You’re right not to tell him.” I was glad she agreed with that. “He’ll think I’ve been getting it on with you too.”
“It would be like kissing my arm.”
Rebecca frowned. “Hey, I’ll have you know that I can kiss better than any French chick.”
Not her, not those long languid kisses that permeated my dreams. Not the sweet promising caress or the hot heavy demand—
“It’s red.” Rebecca flicked my ear, snapping me to the present.
“Red, right.” I stopped the car.
“You have that look again.” She frowned. “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m thinking about Doug.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.” I was glad she was eating her way through the rolls, hopefully it would soak up the two doubles. With Miss Evans around, she needed her wits about her.
“He’s on a promise.” I flashed her a dazzling smile, the light turning to green. “It’s only fair as he was trying to help.”
“Right.”
I shoved another roll in her mouth. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“I can’t help it. You just told me that you had a sordid affair with another woman.” She laughed around her roll. “I mean, you, the upstanding moral compass.”
“Maybe I was experimenting.” I pulled into a spot close to our flat. “That’s what they call it, right?”
Rebecca shook her bread roll at me. “Oh no . . . experimenting is a night, a few too many drinks . . . it’s not twelve months.” She chomped another piece as we got out of the car and I took the bags as she locked it. “Experimenting is not getting in a cold sweat at the mention of the country.”
“Fine.” Rebecca took a bag as we entered the lift. “Whatever it was, it’s in the past. I would really prefer it if Doug and I didn’t bump into her. Me not going to Marseille guarantees that.” It also guaranteed that I never had to face what had happened. Oh, that rolled my stomach.
“Hey, you got no annual leave . . . none . . . I told you that I’ve got your back.”
“You also got my whiskey.” I opened the door and we stood in the entrance hall. Hmm . . . so the lift was working as well as always.
We stared up at the steps. I took a deep breath only to realise that Rebecca had done the same. “After you?”
“I can’t believe you had a lesbian affair and it wasn’t with me,” she whispered at me as we huffed our way up the three flights. “That’s mean, Pip.”
“Like kissing my arm,” I muttered as Rebecca let us into the flat. I smiled at Doug who, after a few glasses of wine, was entertaining Miss Evans with golf stories. “Besides, I love you too much to have you slobbering on me.”
“Maybe I should have tried a French accent?” Rebecca placed the bags on the counter and put two bread rolls above her upper lip.
“Get stuffed.” I shoved one of them in her mouth. Rebecca, Doug, and Miss Evans all looked a little tipsy. Lucky them.
“Either way, mission no annual leave is commencing.” Rebecca grinned, her pale cheeks rosy. “I love that you have skeletons.”
“I hate that I told you.”
“I hate that you didn’t for so long.”
I gave her a quick peck on her cheek and dished out the food. I put half of mine onto Doug’s plate, knowing he would only steal it if I didn’t.
“It felt good to release it.”
I sounded so sure of that fact but why was my voice wobbling and why were my hands trembling?
“It’s not easy to deal with sometimes . . . especially when you don’t want to feel something,” Rebecca said.
Nodding, I picked up the plates. It wasn’t the full story but it would have to do for now. “I’m sorry she’s hunting you like an animal.”
“I’m sorry you’re a floozy.”
Snorting with laughter, I nudged into Doug who looked up at me with a hunger in his eyes. Oh brother.
“Now look what you’ve done,” I whispered at Rebecca as she passed.
“Maybe he should grow a moustache?”
“I hate you.”
Rebecca grinned at me and handed Miss Evans her plate. “I know.”
Chapter Three
DOUG SHIFTED IN his sleep as I tried to wrestle back some of the covers. No doubt, by the rumbling snores, I would have little in the way of peace. Giving up on a bad job, I got out of bed and crept into the kitchen. Rebecca was raiding the fridge.
“You sleepwalking or consciously hoarding?”
“Awake,” Rebecca mumbled. “You should be with the fogho
rn.”
“I can hear him through my earplugs.”
“That’s what happens when they win a tournament. You’re lucky he isn’t tied to a lamppost naked.”
Rebecca pulled out the box of pizza from the fridge and wandered to the sofa. She had a t-shirt and boxers on. A pair of boxers I knew only too well. “I take it, your bed mate is snoring too?”
“Didn’t bring her home.”
I pulled out the jam and buttered some bread. “That bad, huh?”
Rebecca sighed, her eyes staring into nothing.
“Miss Evans again?”
In the month since our little share-fest, Miss Evans had been relentless. Warning Rebecca that she was playing with fire was not an option.
“I want to tell her it has to stop.”
“But she has you where she wants you.” The woman did too. She’d gotten Rebecca nice and inebriated, leapt on her, and had taken pictures. Now, there was no escape route.
Rebecca groaned. “I hate it.”
“I know.”
I sat beside her and munched on my bread and jam. “Doug is set on me going with him to Marseille.” I took another bite. “He is obsessed with the place.”
“I told him you’d go if he opened it in Paris,” Rebecca offered. “He didn’t bite.”
“Maybe I should tell him that something awful happened there and I can’t face going back.” I shuddered. Too close to the truth. I couldn’t do that.
“You think the woman will remember?”
Would she? Had it been as unforgettable for her? Had her heart been as totally etched with that time as mine was? “I doubt it.”
“If Doug is anything to go by, she’ll be clambering over the seats to get to you.” Rebecca smiled. “Maybe I could track her down and distract her?”
“Don’t you dare.” The venom in my voice shocked me.
“You just don’t want to go back there because you’re scared.” She looked at me. “Not about him finding out . . .” She frowned. “You’re worried that she will.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not.” She sat up straighter, pizza forgotten. “Pip, you are worried how you’ll react.”
“It’s a big city.” I held my hands up. I couldn’t cope with this. We’d get to why I left and then I’d be a jibbering idiot. “She’s probably not even living there anymore. She probably went home to her parents.” At least I hoped so. It was bad enough I had deserted her without thinking of her being alone.