Turning on the Tide

by Jenna Rae

  She cleans the blood off my body with a soft cloth, going lightly where the steel wool has opened the skin. She blots my tears. She lifts my head, and sweet, warm tea soothes my throat. She is talking to me, her voice honeyed and barely audible. I don’t hear her words, not really, but the spirit of them fills me with ease. I am quieted in my heart and mind. She puts pills in my mouth and gives me more tea to wash them down. I fall asleep, dreaming two things at once. My friend and I are dancing in the Promised Land with the other angels, lighthearted and giggling and free. At the same time, the very same time, I am slipping down, down into darkness deeper than any ocean and my friend slides down after me, screaming silently in horror and terror. I cannot know which dream is the truth but it no longer matters, not really. I know that wherever this path leads, I am on it and will be until I am done.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Janet’s fingernails must be a mess. Del almost smiled at the thought. She wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened if she hadn’t broken up with Janet. Sure, her feelings had been hurt and she’d been humiliated. She’d felt betrayed and let down and used. But what if she was wrong? What if Janet wasn’t the manipulative, lying user Del thought she was? What if Del used the article Janet wrote as an excuse to break up with her? Stuck, it seemed, in front of the Amazon Motel, Del found it hard to imagine Janet had never felt anything for her.

  Del looked over at the Suzuki, thinking about how she’d bought it without even asking Lola what she thought about that. Del had talked to the salesman about how she wanted a two-seater, but in the two months since she’d bought the Boulevard, she hadn’t asked Lola once if she wanted a ride and Lola hadn’t brought it up, either. Had Del really bought the bigger bike so she could take Lola? Or was it just a matter of wanting a new bike and using Lola as an excuse? Had she thought about Lola at all, really, since Janet had shown up? Lola was undemanding, that was for sure. Was that part of what Del liked about her, like Janet suggested? Certainly, Lola never asked more of Del than Del offered. And Del had never realized just how little she offered.

  “You’re afraid of intimacy,” one girlfriend had claimed. Who was it? Tamara? Elise? Joan? It was hard to remember, which was a disconcerting thought. At the time, Del remembered, she’d laughed at the girl, whoever she was. Now, she had to consider the possibilities. She wanted closeness, craved it. It wasn’t only a desire for sex that had sent her out night after night whenever a relationship ended—whenever Del ended a relationship—seeking a new lover. It was more than that. She wanted to touch souls. She wanted to feel completely enclosed within a circle of love and trust. She felt a shudder rip through her at the mental image. That circle looked a lot like a cage, didn’t it?

  She loved Janet. As soon as she’d realized that, Del had felt a spurt of guilt. Because she loved Lola too. How could a person love two women at the same time? It seemed impossible. It sounded like a stupid countrified ballad sung by a mediocre hack in a tacky love flick. But it was the truth. Del loved Janet’s wildness and humor and spontaneity and free-spirited, reckless, over-the-top love as much as she loved Lola’s gentleness and empathy and intelligence and kindness and vulnerability and deep, abiding, forever-and-always love. It was maybe like choosing between a cat and a dog. But was that fair? Was she really seeing the two women she loved clearly, or was she only seeing the parts of them she wanted to see? Del shook her head.

  What am I supposed to do? How do I figure this out? There was no one to ask, and no one answered. Del closed her eyes. Where were Janet and Lola right this minute, when Del was lost and lonely and confused? For a full minute, Del sat and waited. Who was that woman Lola was in the car with? And was Janet really in love with Del or was this all a game?

  Del barely noticed she had left the bike parked and was heading toward the tiny office of the Amazon. She registered under a fake name and used most of the cash in her wallet to pay for the room. It wasn’t until she was sitting on the bed and looking at nothing that she wondered what exactly she was doing.

  “I just need a quiet place to think,” she whispered. “I just need a break, that’s all.”

  Out on the sidewalk, a burst of raucous laughter sounded, and a crowd of nighttime revelers chattered as it migrated down the street. Del nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. It is laughable. ’Cause I’m not ‘taking a break,’ I’m running away. I’m a damn coward, after all. Wouldn’t Daddy be proud?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Where were you last night?”

  There was a long silence, during which Lola held her breath. Should she ask Del if she was okay? Why had her first question not been if Del was hurt? Should she ask how Janet was? Or was that completely paranoid? It probably was. It certainly was. But did Del really care if Lola was okay? Because, if she’d asked right then, Lola would have answered in the negative. She would have said she wasn’t okay and asked Del to come home and hold her and tell her she loved her.

  “I had to work. And I’m still working. Bye.”

  “Del?”

  Lola waited, pressing the phone to her ear, but Del was gone.

  The phone vibrated in her hand, and she looked down, thinking maybe it was Del, but it was a text from Sterling: Get ready.

  Lola went to the office, grabbing the phone and dialing Lauren’s number. She’d forgotten the area code and had to dial again. It was nearly an hour before Lauren returned her call, and by then Lola was limp with exhaustion.

  “Lola?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you—”

  “No, I’m glad to hear from you. Where are you? Are you okay?”

  Lola didn’t know how to answer that. “I guess so. Yes.”

  “That’s not exactly convincing, Lola. Are you alone? Are you safe?”

  Lola nodded. “Yes, fine. I’m fine. Sorry for worrying you. Listen, I live in San Francisco now. I was hoping you could refer me to a therapist who’s closer to the city. Can you do that, please?”

  “Sure, of course.” There was a moment of silence. “Do you need more immediate help? Are you able to wait for an appointment?”

  “I’m okay.” She cleared her throat.

  “We can talk over the phone, if you like.”

  “I appreciate that, but I think I need to set up something regular here.”

  “Sure thing. Just give me a moment.”

  Lola heard her typing on a keyboard. She could picture the little computer Lauren always had in her lap, typing with the lid partway up and partway down, covering her hands. She’d always maintained eye contact with Lola and typed only occasionally, but Lola had often found herself listening for the little tapping sounds that meant Lauren wanted to record her impressions. She felt for a second like she was in Lauren’s cheerful office and hadn’t already made a thousand mistakes in what was supposed to have been her new and better life.

  “What? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “You sure you’re okay, Lola?” Lauren’s voice brought Lola all the way into the present.

  “Yes, sorry. What was that?”

  “I have a couple of names for you.”

  Lola wrote them down and assured Lauren that she was fine, and she knew she’d probably never talk to Lauren again. It was too hard. It made her feel helpless and lost, and she couldn’t afford that.

  She called the first therapist on the list, making an appointment for the next day. It was only after she’d hung up that she wondered how Lauren had selected the particular therapists she had. People who specialized in patients who were too weak and too broken and too pathetic to get along without some kind of emotional crutch?

  “Turn off that record,” Lola told herself. But it didn’t stop playing in her head.

  Del had been gone since the previous morning and wouldn’t be home until, at the earliest, the next night. There was nothing Lola could think of to do until she could go to the new therapist’s office. She printed out the directions, cleaned the house, sat at the computer and wrote, what, she didn�
�t know. The cell phone, which she’d brought with her, buzzed now and then, and Lola checked it each time. Sterling, every time.

  “What should I do?”

  She asked the phone, but it sat, useless, in her hand. She didn’t read the texts until long after she’d gone to bed and listened to it buzz across the top of the nightstand five times. She counted.

  “Thirty-four?”

  Sterling had texted her thirty-four times since that morning? Lola shook her head and skimmed the first several, slowing down when the tone changed from friendly to pleading to raging. By midafternoon, Sterling had cycled back to friendly. By bedtime, she’d gotten back to outraged again. Lola felt like the phone had become an enemy, and she put it in a drawer in her dresser, unsure what to do. She couldn’t sleep now, and she sat on the side of the bed, unable to think. She listened to the phone buzzing in the dresser drawer and watched the clock, counting down the minutes and hours until her nine o’clock appointment.

  She got to the new therapist’s office nearly an hour early. The waiting room was a study in beige and muted blues. It was soothing, Lola thought. Like the beach, maybe. Not that she’d ever been to the beach.

  “Lola?”

  She startled awake and looked up. A slight woman with curly red hair was smiling at her.

  “Yes, hi. Sorry.”

  “I’m Margaret. Are you ready to come in?”

  Her office was small. Lola looked around while the therapist asked her a few questions. Everything was white and ivory and very light beige. There was a tall white vase on the table near Margaret’s white chair, and the flowers were white. The stems were green, but faintly, almost apologetically so. It could have been a cold room, medicinal looking, but it wasn’t. It was more like what Lola imagined a spa would look like, not that Lola had ever been to one. This was a running theme, wasn’t it? Lola’s Litany of Lost Living. Lola realized that Margaret was watching her.

  “Sorry. I like your office.”

  “Thank you.” Margaret crossed her legs. “Did you hear me ask you why you called?”

  “No, uh, I’m just—” Lola shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” Margaret had close-set, dark brown eyes, and she wore square tortoiseshell glasses. She looked over them at Lola expectantly, clearly awaiting a real answer.

  “A couple of things are kind of out of control. Lauren McMillan was my therapist back in Sacramento, and she recommended you.”

  “What things?”

  “My girlfriend has been kind of weird lately. I think maybe she’s still in love with her ex. Plus, I met this other woman, I told her I have a girlfriend, but she’s texting me a lot, and I think she might be kind of disturbed. It’s freaking me out. I’m not sure what to do.”

  “When you say you met another woman, do you mean that you’re also dating her? Or want to?”

  “No, no, I told her I’m not. And she, I don’t really—anyway, it’s my girlfriend I’m worried about. I mean, about us. I want to talk about that, please.”

  “Okay. Lola, it would be very helpful if we could talk in general terms for a bit about you and what’s going on with you on—”

  “I’m sorry, could we please really focus on what I want?”

  “Okay. What do you want to focus on specifically?”

  “Her ex.”

  “What makes you think your girlfriend—what’s her name?”

  “Del.”

  “Why do you think Del is maybe still in love with her ex?”

  “She went over to Janet’s house—the ex. She got shot.” She took in Margaret’s widened eyes. “No, she’s fine now. She’s a cop, did I say that? And Janet told her someone was after her, but Del didn’t believe it, but then she got shot over there. I think she’s trying to help Janet, but she’s not telling me anything! Maybe she’s just annoyed with me. I’m pretty annoying, I guess. Anyway, I think maybe she still loves Janet. Maybe.”

  “Have you asked Del about it?”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “Because?”

  Lola searched for an answer. “It’s hard to—I mean—”

  Margaret just kept looking over her glasses at her, and Lola shrugged. The silence stretched out for a long minute, and Lola tried again.

  “What if she says yes?”

  Margaret took off her glasses. “Well, what happens if she says yes?”

  “I need to let her go back to Janet. Even though I love her.”

  Margaret watched her, and Lola felt cold tears slide down her face.

  “Because I love her.”

  They talked for a while longer, but that was the moment that stayed with Lola as she drove home. She heard herself saying those four words over and over—because I love her—as she put into action the plan she’d formulated in the moments after they came out of her mouth.

  By dinnertime, it was done. Lola looked around one last time before leaving her letter stuck to the refrigerator. Del’s insistence that nothing should mar the plain surface of that appliance meant anything on it would be noticeable.

  “This is the right thing,” she told the empty rooms. “This is better for both of us. I need to give her the chance to decide what she wants.” She looked around, hoping to find some reassurance, somehow, but there was none to be found. Finally, she locked the door behind her and started over to her house.

  “Hey, sweetie, what’s up?”

  “Hi, Marco.” Lola tried to sound more enthusiastic than she felt, but his face told her she’d failed.

  “What’s going on with you?” He crossed over before she could decide how to get away gracefully.

  She looked around. “Come over, if you want.”

  He turned toward Del’s house. When Lola dipped her head the other way, he frowned and followed her.

  “Did something happen? Is Del okay?”

  “Oh, yes, sorry. Del’s fine. I’ll tell you everything in a minute, okay?”

  He nodded, and they went inside without a word.

  “Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  She’d put on a pot on her last trip over, and she watched him take in the fresh fruit on the counter, her purse on the doorknob where she’d hung it when she’d lived here before.

  “You broke up?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. I hope not.”

  Marco watched her doctor his coffee and then her own. “I don’t even know what to ask.”

  Lola took a deep breath. “Okay. Well, long story short, I think we moved in together for the wrong reasons. We’ve never even been on a date, never even gone out to dinner. It’s like, from the very first minute, we’ve been acting like an old married couple. I’ve never been on a date in my life.”

  Marco watched her over the rim of his cup. “Does Del know you moved out?”

  “I left a letter for her.” When he made a face, Lola shrugged. “I’m not strong enough to talk to her. Not that I know when she’ll be home, anyway.”

  “You love her.”

  “I always will. And I hope that she gives me a chance to prove it. But I’m not sure it even matters. I don’t know how to make things right.”

  “It couldn’t have been easy.”

  Lola shook her head, fighting sudden tears. “No, it wasn’t. But, Marco, it was the right thing.” She met his eyes. “I do think, I really hope, it was the right thing.”

  “Okay.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Hey.” Marco spread his hands out. “You love Del, and you’re doing what you think is right. So, okay.”

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”

  “That sounds ominous. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He seemed to be searching for words. “The Meetup, Pier 39?”

  “What about it?”

  “Sterling. I was wondering if that, if she, had anything to do with this move.”

  Marco’s face was carefully blan
k, and Lola read consternation in that.

  “No.”

  “Just, no?”

  “I can’t—Marco, listen to me.” She tried to think of a way to explain it. “I don’t want to say more than Del would want me to.” She waggled her head. “This is just between us, okay?” She waited for Marco to nod vigorously. “I think maybe Del still has feelings for Janet. I think she’s gone so much because she doesn’t want to be around me. She wants to be around Janet.”

  “I don’t get what that has to do with—”

  “I think she’s looking for a reason to end things with me. If I tell her about Sterling, she’ll have a reason.”

  Marco’s jaw dropped. “Oh.”

  “Not because—it’s just, Sterling, I think she’s maybe not such a nice person.”

  “Explain.”

  “I just, she just, she keeps texting me and being weird. I met her for coffee—not a date, I didn’t even want to go. She was weird and it was weird, and now she’s, like, texting me weird stuff.”

  “Like what? Can I see?”

  Lola handed over her phone and watched Marco read the dozens of texts. His face was blank, but his hands gripped the phone tighter as he read.

  “You need to tell Del. This woman is a lunatic.”