The Kiss That Counted

by Karin Kallmaker

  Pam's voice was slightly tinny, but otherwise clear. "I'm running a little late myself. Do you want to cancel?"

  "I'd hate to, but that's purely selfish. I mean I'm starving. But we're overrun."

  "Well, why don't I grab a pizza or something and join you? Maybe I can help out."

  Karita picked at some of the multiple types of animal hair that clung to her best pair of slacks. Dog or cat? She peered closely. Marmot. "That's way more than the call of duty. You don't—"

  "No problem. My folks raised sheepdogs and I love animals. This is great actually. I'll skip going home to change and be there all the earlier. Give me an address."

  Karita explained how to find the converted store, and added, "Can I be a total scrounge and ask you to bring two pizzas? I don't think Nann has eaten all day. Oh, and she's a vegetarian, too."

  "If I get half of one with pepperoni will that spoil the other half for you?"

  Karita laughed. "No, I don't mind pepperoni cooties."

  Karita went to tell Nann the happy news and then spent the next half-hour doling out water and chopped fresh grass to feed the rest of the marmots that occupied two sets of the outdoor cages. Some of the critters were half singed, all were scared and out of their element. Once the fire was contained they'd release them all back into the area. She peeked at the mountain lion, whose cage faced away from the others. The burned cat was heavily sedated until risk of infection passed, and it wasn't tending to drink much water. Nann was worried it would need a saline drip, and she wasn't equipped to administer one. They'd have to call the Department of Wildlife for one of their experts. To her relief, the water bowl showed some consumption. She noted the level on the clipboard hanging outside the cage.

  When she went back inside the clamor was overwhelming. The vast majority of the new arrivals were dogs, most of whom had tags, but their owners were in the evacuation zone. The barking was non-stop and the mouths to feed almost triple the usual.

  A weary-looking, forty-something volunteer firefighter arrived with a young Labrador and an older Husky. Right behind him, a welcome sight indeed, was Pam, with two wonderfully aromatic pizza boxes. Karita hoped her eyes said, "Thank you," before she gave her attention to the dogs.

  The firefighter surrendered the makeshift leads with a sigh of relief. "How many more can you guys take? We're still sending folks here when they come up to the line with critters they've found."

  "I'll have to check with Nann." She clucked soothingly to the dogs. "Be right back."

  She glanced back at the doorway and was pleased to see Pam offering some pizza and the volunteer looking like he'd been brought back from the brink of exhaustion at the prospect. Once on the other side of the separating door, she called, "Hey, Nann, two more large breeds. Do we have a cutoff yet?"

  Nann looked up from applying salve to a poor puppy's blistered paws. "Well, they said they weren't going to increase the evac zone, so we're okay through the night for whatever they find We need a vet here, though, so I called my brother. If they get to full containment we can start making calls in the morning. Oh, and the answer is still no, sorry, we can't handle a buffalo."

  "There's a stray buffalo?"

  "Evidently one got out of the Genesee herd." She wiped her already sooty face, adding a gleam of ointment to her cheek.

  "Pizza's here, by the way."

  "Oh, I think that's the best thing I've heard all day."

  "It gets better. Pam's folks raised sheepdogs, so she's ready to roll up her sleeves after she's fed."

  Nann popped the squirming puppy back into the cage with two others its size. As she joined Karita on the way to the lobby, she said, "What does it mean when the prospect of pizza and a willing body leaves me thinking about nothing but a nap?"

  "That you work too hard." Karita introduced the two women and promptly helped herself to a large slice of deep dish cheese and olive. "Does the newbie have to do the litter changes for the cats?"

  "Hey," Pam protested. "I brought the food."

  "I already did it," Nann said. Her bright red hair had half-escaped from the ponytail tie. Somehow, combined with soot across her pale cheek, she still managed to look elegant. "At least I think I did."

  "I'm just teasing," Karita said. "I usually do it when I'm here, so I will, if you didn't."

  "Nice place you got here. I gather you're not usually this busy." Pam mopped a dollop of tomato sauce off her chin.

  "You gather rightly." Nann collapsed into one of the hard chairs, chewing and talking at the same time. "I'm a sucker for hard-luck stories. I had a veterinary practice, just starting out, when someone brought me an eagle with a broken leg. Before I knew it I was far more interested in our local animal ecology than I was in general vet duties."

  "So you went a different route than you had planned?" Pam chose the chair opposite Nann. "I'm between jobs in lawyering and thinking of a possible right turn in my life as well. Estate and probate work is really lucrative but having had time to reflect, I'm more interested in family law, adoption, marriage equality, things like that."

  Karita segued from the cheese and olive to the mushroom and zucchini. It didn't last long either. She debated the wisdom of a third slice as she listened to Pam and Nann talk about animals, children, families and hiking. Pam certainly was laughing a lot. Nann's freckles were practically glowing. At first Karita thought Nann's bright color was merely the effect of finally getting some food into her stomach. On second thought, though, it was quite possible the glow was the dinner companion.

  She decided on a third slice—mushroom and zucchini again—and watched the other two women chat. She was used to seeing women roll over and ask for pets around Nann. The impish leprechaun look was very engaging. The leprechaun, however, usually needed to get clonked on the head before she'd see a naked woman doing a shimmy-shimmy dance just for her. One adorable butch in the neighborhood had brought Nann freshly baked cookies, twice, and the poor woman had only registered to Nann as "the corgi." Right now, however, Nann's hands were going every which way while she talked and Pam looked positively dazzled.

  It happens that easily, Karita thought. Eyes sparkle, words flow, and the attraction is there. So why is it so hard to find that with CJ? Why couldn't they get into an easy place and just get to know each other?

  Pam burst out laughing again, and it seemed like an auspicious time to whisper Gran's hopeful charm. If that didn't work, then later she'd clout Nann with a bucket and be more direct. Something like, "Single. Lawyer. Fetch!"

  A beep from her calendar program broke CJ's concentration, and she stretched in her desk chair before shutting off the appointment alarm. Coming into the office. had been a good idea. The quiet of a Saturday allowed her to stay focused, and she always accomplished more at the office. than if she took work home. Her lack of concentration yesterday had thrown her off schedule in some of her planned prospecting for new clients, and today she'd more than made up for it.

  Focusing on work had settled her nerves. She felt on track again, pursuing her career in order to sever all ties with her past. She hadn't thought of cleansing the past as a way to make CJ Roshe real, but maybe that was the goal, after all. There were things she wanted that she'd been telling herself she couldn't have. Evenings out with friends, for example. Dating someone more frequently than once every seven weeks. Following a first kiss with a second and if it turned into more, having some kind of life she could offer. But CJ didn't get to be real if Cassie June was still bound to her crimes. Twenty-two thousand square feet of class A office. space would get the next name off the list, and deposit a substantial chunk toward the one after that.

  For variety, she'd also worked Intellidome hard in Emily's cause, and had what she hoped was a viable fundraising appeal that started with Marguerite Brownell and ended up roping in even more monied sources. She was pleased with the overall proposal and looking forward to showing it to Emily. She'd try to do that on Tuesday evening. Not that her choice of that day had anything to do with whe
n Karita volunteered again, she halfheartedly told herself.

  Oh, give it a rest, she thought wearily. Late night coffee, repeating the names remaining on her list until she finally slept, a lazy morning, a brisk walk and some hard work had convinced her she could live without distractions. One moment she would congratulate herself for exercising her skill set on the right side of the law. Then she thought about Karita and turned into a lovesick fool, a do-gooder who helped out worthy causes, a sap who gave away her expertise for free.

  Trying to sort it out gave her a pain right behind her eyes. Aunt Bitty sniped at her lack of brain power, but CJ muttered back, "It's not my brain that's the problem."

  Well, hell, she thought. After a perfectly good afternoon's work, she was back where she'd started, at the very same forkin the road. Thankfully, it was time for her date with Lucy. Doubtless, it would be distracting, a date with a woman she wasn't interested in sexually. She wasn't sure she'd ever had one of those before.

  It just proved there was a first time for everything. That it was also the first time she'd spend an evening wondering how another woman's date was going hadn't escaped her notice either, but she wasn't going to dwell on that, thank you.

  She turned off her computer, snatched up her keys and headed out into the long golden shadows of late afternoon. On such a lovely day it was easy to pretend Daria had been a bad dream.

  Lower Downtown was still sleepy even though the sun was nearly touching the Front Range. LoDo's urban hip retailers and glitzy eateries had already lit their neon signs, but they couldn't compete with the late summer sun. CJ knew from dates with Abby that an hour after sunset Denver's gay district would be sparkling with life.

  CJ swung around Sixteenth one more time, hoping to luck out on a parking space. The wonderful thing about the Rockies was that no matter what, she always knew which way was west. The only place she'd ever been lost in Denver was the concrete canyons of the highrise business district.

  A van finally pulled out of a metered spot and she snapped it up. When the engine fell quiet she took a moment to study the banks of mountains. The closest was a mere seven thousand feet, but behind those foothills were nines, tens and elevens. Coworkers boasted of hiking the twelves and fourteeners beyond those. On a clear winter morning the rows of ascending peaks were breathtaking. An afternoon like this one, hazy from remnants of summer heat, let the light play tricks, and the sheer size of the Rockies made them seem like an extension of the city. She could put out her fingertips and almost touch the indigo concaves and purple shadows.

  Of all the seasons, autumn in the Rockies was her favorite. Two weeks ago Denver had sweltered in the high nineties. Next weekend, according to the forecasts, was the first warning of possible snow showers in the foothills. The orange and red of ash and maple would splash into the long stretches of evergreen conifers. Later tonight, the evening air would feel as if it had been scrubbed clean by the snow-covered peaks before falling to the city streets. I don't want to leave this, she thought. This is my home.

  The hills of Kentucky rolled. In September they were gold and dusted with gray and blue. She couldn't remember ever really looking at the landscape or feeling as if it was a part of her life. She'd spent most of her time watching the world out of the corners of her eyes, but she still remembered fragments of childhood. The quiet puff when a pussy cattail popped, the ratchet rhythm of crickets, the tickle of a squirrel taking seeds out of her hand—mostly she recalled lazy summer afternoons when it was too hot to move and almost too humid to breathe, and even Aunt Bitty rested.

  To o bad those memories were so short. Each one segued into the sound of an argument.

  A cluster of young women—probably from Metro College— strolled past her. Even in college, a long way from Fayette and the Gathering, she'd not traveled in a pack. That had been her life as a child. As a teen in detention and community college student, even the time spent waitressing, she'd stayed a loner, preferring to strike up one-on-one relationships with teachers and advisors. When she'd managed to transfer into a New York state college, she'd been a little less wary of people, though she always kept one eye on the nearest exit. The first person who had ever touched her with nothing but good feelings in mind had been a teaching assistant from the previous semester.

  Her hands had been a revelation. CJ smiled to herself, because it was a very sweet memory. She liked women, and that was something she didn't have to hide for fear someone would take it away. Maybe, she mused, you had to have a bigger secret than being gay to make being out of the closet a non-event.

  Lucy was waiting outside the brew pub, and waved a greeting from the half block away. She was a very nice looking woman, probably considerate and strong in bed, and, after the constraints of her life caring for an ailing mother, ready for more than a little serious romping between the sheets. CJ already knew she wasn't going there. She wasn't even sure why she had said yes to Lucy's invitation, and wasn't willing to consider she had been proving to herself that she wasn't going to let one kiss from one woman change everything.

  No, that kiss hadn't meant a thing. She wasn't staying in Denver when she ought to be gone. She wasn't telling some of her deepest secrets to total strangers, either. She wasn't ruling out, in advance, a potential new relationship that could be as undemanding, yet sensual, as the one she'd had with Abby.

  "Are you ready for some brew?" Lucy was dashing in jeans and a Roadrunner booster jersey, and her short brown hair gleamed with gel. CJ was glad she'd chosen a dark blue long-sleeve rugby shirt and jeans. A suit would have been out of place.

  "Absolutely. It was a long week."

  "Yeah," Lucy said. A shadow flickered over her face. "I really needed to get out and it's more fun when you're not alone."

  She held the door for CJ, who charmed the hostess into a cozy table near the window. "We can start the ogling early," she told Lucy as they sat down. She pointed out a leather-clad very high femme—probably a bartender on her way to work at one of LoDo's clubs.

  Lucy peered after the woman, then gave CJ a smile. "I feel like a kid in a candy store. At first I thought my brothers were planning the funeral too soon, but now I'm glad it's behind me. My mother would want me to move on. She said she was stealing my youth."

  "Sounds like she cared about you."

  Lucy nodded, her eyes glistening. "She did. I was talking to Em last night and she's right. I mean, I deal with grieving people all the time. People feel guilty that their loved one died because it makes their life easier, and I'm only human, too."

  "There are people who feel glad someone died because it gets that person out of their life." CJ added quickly, "You must see that at the shelter sometimes."

  "Yeah." Lucy gave her a searching look. "Good riddance sometimes comes to mind—can't say it breaks my heart when some guy who gets his jollies off kids ends up dead in prison. Okay, that's a pretty grim topic right off the bat, isn't it? Let's order some food."

  A brief discussion led to a happy agreement to share the grilled pizza of the day and sample the Railyard Ale and the Tw o Guns Pilsener.

  When the waitress delivered two tall glasses of amber and tawny ale, Lucy's eyes lit up. " To a night out," she toasted.

  They clinked the glasses, sipped, swapped glasses and sipped again. CJ felt a sense of relief as they smiled at each other. Her instincts said that right now Lucy was looking for friends, not lovers.

  "Em never said how you got sent our way. How'd you cross paths with Denver's finest?"

  "It's a very short story involving a little too much wine at a business lunch, and a stop sign. I wasn't over the legal limit but community service saved me seven hundred dollars or so. And I have to say…it's been interesting."

  "It can be heartbreaking sometimes. The holidays especially. Christmas night. New Year's Day—the night after all the bowl games. It also gets all my urges to have kids out of my system." Lucy tried the pilsener again.

  "Not in your plans?" CJ thought Lucy was probably closer to
forty than she was. "Not mine, either. I mean, not from my womb, at least." She gestured vaguely at that part of her body.

  "I work a lot of nights and I like it. Plus, well, I know lots of people in my line of work with great families, but I don't want to raise a child around death the way I was raised. I've got a couple of nephews and that's working for me. Plus, well, I always feel like I'm going to break babies. I'm not a natural like Karita."

  "Amen to that."

  "I've never actually seen anything like it." Lucy leaned back in her chair. "A baby screaming to high heaven and one touch— kid starts to quiet. She gives off such a soothing aura."

  Tell me about it, CJ wanted to say as she swallowed more of the earthy, ripe ale. But she didn't want Karita touching her the way she would a child, though, quite the opposite. That was part of the problem, she realized. She didn't want to be anything but a woman to Karita. No pity, no healing, no friends with benefits comfort. That's why she wasn't really jealous of Emily, she realized. Emily didn't have what CJ wanted from Karita. She hoped her tone seemed normal as she said, "She's a special person."

  Lucy nodded after she sipped again. "I think what amazes me most about her is, given her looks, she could model or hang on some tennis star's arm and live the good life. Instead she's helping battered women and defenseless animals."

  The waitress delivered their pizza, carved it up and plated two slices, sparing CJ any need to respond. CJ deeply inhaled the mixed aromas of olives, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese and linguisa. "Jeez, that's like a drug."

  "Perfectly legal, too."

  Lucy didn't talk about Karita again until they were picking out seats on the bleachers at the soccer game. CJ managed to mention Karita to see if Lucy would talk about her more—how fixated was that, she asked herself—and Lucy didn't disappoint her.

  "I was so wrapped up with my mom I knew I didn't have the energy to really date anybody seriously, so I never asked her out. Plus, being Karita, she'd get sucked up in the health care with my mom too, that's who she is. And we'd be about that, not actually building our own life. Besides, she's really a very happy woman with the life she has, and I think I'd make her unhappy. I'd be wanting a plan for next year, one for five years from now. That's who I am. And that's not her. She needs someone maybe a little more grounded than her, but who can still fly. I'm pretty earthbound."