by Chris Zett
Had Lena noticed? Since when did she fantasize about feet? Or Lena? She couldn’t stand her and wasn’t attracted to her. Or was she? Why had her libido chosen this moment to wake up?
This was the fault of all the endorphins altering her brain chemistry. Nothing to worry about, a completely normal reaction for anyone. She suppressed a snort. Right, blame it on hormones. Like everything else that’s happened in your life recently.
An eternity—or at least what felt like one—later, they finished with the same circular motions as in the beginning.
Lena pulled the dressing gown up over Jess’s back and placed a large, fluffy towel over her legs like a blanket. “Jess, rest a little bit and relax while Heather dresses. Then you can take a shower if you want so you don’t stain your clothes.”
Relaxing wasn’t possible for Jess right now. The thought of lying here—naked—and showering—still naked—in Lena’s house sent all the wrong signals to her body. Hormones. Just hormones. A normal reaction to a massage. Okay, that had never happened before, but it was still normal. Just because she felt that way didn’t mean she was going to act on it or anything.
Quick steps announced Heather’s return from the bathroom. “Thank you, Jess.”
She raised her head as far as she could. “You’re welcome. Have fun on your honeymoon.”
As soon as the door closed behind Heather and Lena, Jess climbed from the table.
Dizziness claimed her, and she had to lean against the table for a second until her vision cleared. Then she hastened to the bathroom to dress. Oil stains were the least of her concerns. She wanted to be gone from the house before Lena returned.
Chapter Ten
When Lena left the house at ten to six, Jess was already in the garden. She wore loose sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt. With her back to the garden house, she showed no sign of noticing Lena’s approach.
Last night, Jess had been gone from the house when Lena came back. She had expected her to stay and apologize, to explain her behavior. Sneaking away under the cover of darkness didn’t seem like Jess’s style at all. But a part of Lena—the tired and emotionally wrung out part—had been grateful to avoid the confrontation after a long day.
For Jess to show up this morning was a surprise. It was too soon to tell if it was a good or bad one.
An idea popped up. Should she? Lena usually wasn’t the teasing type, but something in Jess’s demeanor pushed her to provoke as if poking a stick in a hornet’s nest. Not that she would do that to hornets, because she was neither stupid nor cruel to animals.
“What are you doing here?” Lena said, loud enough to startle Jess, who flinched. Good.
She spun around with a frown. The fire Lena had hoped to stoke flared in her eyes. Jess opened her mouth as if to berate her but closed it again as the angry lines transformed into a half smile. “I live here.” There was slight irony in her tone as she acknowledged Lena’s joke.
“What a coincidence.” Lena decided to let her off the hook for now. She hadn’t had her daily dose of tai chi and she wasn’t in the mood for an apology if that was why Jess was here. And she wasn’t up for more discussion. Maybe tai chi would have the same calming influence on Jess as it had on her? It was worth a try.
“Join me?” Lena took a few steps into the middle of the yard and kicked off her shoes. “You can leave them on if it’s too cold for you.” The dew on the short grass woke her up better than Rachel’s coffee. She positioned herself and wriggled her toes to connect to the earth beneath her.
When she sensed Jess had positioned herself next to her, Lena started her ritual, explaining as she performed it. “I’m not a tai chi instructor, but I can share with you what I’ve learned. We start with a warm-up to develop internal focus and strengthen the core. Standing with legs as far apart as your hips, we turn to the east and greet the sun three times.” She opened her arms and lifted them outward and upward in a wide circle, bringing them together over her head. She pressed her palms together with fingers pointing upward, then pushed them down toward her navel, exhaling slowly. “Again. Inhale going upward, exhale coming down. Send the warm breath from your middle through your legs and arms, pushing it to the tips of your toes and fingers.”
She had no idea if Jess was following her instructions, but she could hear breathing that matched her own. “Once more.”
When she had finished the third round, Lena raised her arms again. “Now we stand here, rooted to the earth like trees. Hold your arms as if you’d hug a tree or hold a giant ball. Concentrate on the flow of your breath. There is no right or wrong pace, but just feel it flowing through you.” There was so much more to this exercise, but she didn’t want to overwhelm Jess in the first few minutes.
When Jess’s breathing had settled into a comfortable rhythm, Lena twisted her head to look at her. Jess had closed her eyes, and her expression was calm, but her body was still stiff, her arms already shaking a little, pulled down by gravity.
“May I show you something that can help you hold this position more easily?” Lena asked in a low voice.
Jess opened her eyes, and her arms fell to her sides. She nodded, and her eyes sparkled with interest.
“To let the energy flow and to gain the strength from your connection to the earth, it’s important to stand straight but not ramrod straight. You want to relax your lower back and lengthen the spine, and that’s best achieved by tilting your pelvis forward.” She demonstrated by shifting her pelvis a few times, then turned sideways so Jess could see her profile.
“Like this? It’s…um…awkward.” Jess blushed and angled her pelvis to the front. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No. I promise. It takes a while to feel natural.” Lena demonstrated again. “Look at the rest of my body. If you bend your knees a little, your center of gravity is perfectly aligned to keep you standing upright without effort. And if you pull back your shoulders, your arms automatically rise a bit.” She showed her. “Again, it’s all about finding your center, your middle. It shifted a lot during pregnancy and is probably still not where it was.”
Jess had begun to mimic her, but at the last comment she stopped and glared. “What are you saying? I’m fat?”
“What? No!” Lena raised her hands, palms outward. Why would Jess think that? “I’m sorry if I said something offensive, but I wasn’t talking about your weight. At all. I was talking about an internal sense of balance, your center of gravity. And not that it matters, but I don’t think you’re fat.”
Jess snorted and looked down. Some internal battle was going on, but after a few seconds she squared her shoulders. “So what did you mean?”
Lena smiled, relieved Jess had worked through another confrontation instead of letting her temper flare. “Let me show you. If I stand as I would normally, I’m not really steady. My center isn’t stable.” She stood like Jess had a minute ago, reasonably straight but not at all well balanced. “Shove me at the shoulder.”
Jess did after a short hesitation, so light the touch barely registered.
Laughing, Lena made a come-on motion with her hand. “A bit harder. I’m not made of glass.”
The second shove was better. Lena swayed a bit but regained her balance in no time. “Did you see that? It wasn’t too hard, but I had to work to remain in my position. My balance was off.” She repositioned herself in the correct pose. “Now shove me again.”
Jess did, and this time Lena had no difficulty holding her balance.
“Again, much stronger.”
Jess lifted her eyebrows. “Really?”
“Really. I promise, I’ll survive.”
This time, the contact would have been sufficient to tumble her had she not anchored herself with her center to the earth. “That’s it. Did you see? If you’re a master, no one can push you over, not even with all your strength.” She laughed. “I’m not, so please spare me.”
Grinning, Jess raised her hands, palms outward. “I won’t. That was amazing. So this is a kind of fighting stance?”
“Tai chi is based on the same principles as kung fu, but this is not about fighting. This is about finding your inner strength and holding on to it.” Lena swallowed. The last sentence echoed in her mind in the voice of her grandma, who had shown her this technique to help her handle the changes puberty had thrown at her. At first, she had thought it was all about physical aspects. Only years later had she understood that her mind had been shaped as much as her body.
Jess positioned herself again, trying to emulate what Lena had taught her. It was far from perfect but a massive improvement.
“Looks much better. Does it feel different?”
Jess closed her eyes and shifted her weight a bit by rolling back and forth on her feet. “Yeah.” Her voice was full of wonder. “Yeah, it does.”
“Wonderful. You won’t master this in one day, but the key is practicing regularly. We’ll do this now for the next ten minutes.”
“Ten?” Jess opened her eyes, and all her poise vanished. “Isn’t that boring?”
Lena laughed. “No. Concentration. Breathing. Inner strength. Remember? But I’ll go easy on you, and we’ll only do five minutes today. And you can lower your arms any time you need to. Mainly concentrate on your breathing and your center.”
Snorting, Jess closed her eyes again. “I have a pretty precise inner clock. I’ll hold you to it.”
From her position a few feet behind Lena, Jess had ample time to study her during tai chi. Lena hadn’t spoken much. She seemed to be into all the inner peace and focus stuff. And why not? It was a good feeling to concentrate on simple things for a while, like where to put your hands and feet next.
Jess had chosen this time and place to meet Lena because her mom would still be asleep. She hadn’t expected to get drawn into a tai chi lesson before she could apologize. And she hadn’t expected to enjoy it. Yes, it was much too slow and tame compared to her usual exercise. Nothing like the endorphins she got from running or the adrenaline of competing against others. But somehow it had helped to reduce the pain in her lower back that had been her constant companion during the pregnancy. The sick feeling in her stomach persisted, but that had nothing to do with her body and everything to do with her recent behavior.
With a seriousness Jess couldn’t quite share, Lena bowed to the ground and ended the lesson. She smiled at Jess. “How did you like it?”
“It was not what I expected.” Jess wiped her palms on her sweatpants.
“Is that good?” Lena removed her hairband, and her curls tumbled down to her shoulders. She combed her fingers through them once, not that it made much difference. They seemed to have a will of their own.
“Yeah.” It would be so easy to keep up the small talk and ignore everything that had happened in recent weeks, especially yesterday evening, but that wasn’t Jess’s style. “I, um… Can we talk for a minute?”
Lena raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t we talking now?”
None of her planned introductions fit. Jess took a deep breath as if she intended to jump in icy water and held Lena’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”
Lena’s eyes widened, but the smile didn’t leave her lips.
“I’m really, really sorry for my behavior since I moved here.” Before she lost her courage, Jess continued without waiting for a reaction. “I shouldn’t have acted like an ass when I found out my mom rented the house to you, and I shouldn’t have tried to snoop around to gather incriminating information.”
“Incriminating? What did you think I was up to?” Lena’s smile dimmed, and a deep line appeared between her brows. “Wait? Did you think I was a prostitute all that time? That wasn’t just something outrageous you said to provoke me?”
“No, I mean…” Jess swallowed. “I only thought that last night…when I spied on you. Before that I didn’t have a theory about you, just a stupid suspicion something was wrong. I thought you might want to scam my mom or something.”
Lena paled. “Scam? No! I would never… I’m not like…” She pressed a hand to her mouth as if she was sick, and tears glittered in her eyes.
“I know.” Jess stepped closer and reached out a hand but was reluctant to touch her. “As I said, my assumptions were stupid, and I apologize. For everything.”
Lena’s gaze swept over her for a moment, then she wiped her tears away. “I accept your apology. Let’s start over.” She grasped Jess’s hand, which she hadn’t withdrawn, and shook it. “Hi, I’m Lena, your neighbor. Nice to meet you.”
Jess exhaled, and the sickness she’d felt since she admitted to herself how wrong she’d been slowly dissolved. “Hi, I’m Jess.” She searched Lena’s eyes for her emotions. Was it that easy for her to forgive?
Hurt still glittered in the hazel eyes like raindrops on leaves after a storm, but nothing was masked or blurred. Lena regarded her with an openness and inner calm that put Jess to shame.
“I…I better go and see if Ella’s awake.” Using her daughter as an excuse to flee was a cowardly move, but Jess needed a moment to process what had happened.
A wide smile swept over Lena’s face. “Say hi to the little one for me.”
Jess nodded. “I will.”
Chapter Eleven
“Sheila totally freaked out when she found them in the on-call room. She grabbed Scott and Courtney’s clothes from the floor and locked the door from the outside.” Kayla doubled over from laughter. “They had to pound on the door and call for help because both their phones were still in their scrubs.”
“Who is Courtney again?” Jess smiled, even though she couldn’t care less. Most residents and fellows messed around. Even she had done it once or twice when she was younger. A lifetime ago.
“ED resident. Haughty bitch. Doesn’t respect the nurses.” Kayla pushed her sunglasses up in her hair and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes, then leaned back on the desk chair. “Nice place your mother’s got here.”
As if she’d heard, Jess’s mom chose this moment to appear on the patio. She carried a tray with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and milk.
Jess rolled her eyes. Milk? Really?
“I have a snack for you, girls.” She put everything on the table and smiled at Kayla. “It’s so nice of you to visit my Jess out here.”
“Thank you, ma’am. This smells wonderful. Your garden is beautiful.”
“Isn’t it? I recently rearranged the perennials over there and—”
“Thank you, Mom. But we were just talking about work.” Jess needed to curb this before her mom offered Kayla the extended tour and Kayla was too polite to decline.
“Oh, I see. Then I’ll leave you girls to it. It was nice meeting you.” With a nod to Kayla, she left again.
Jess buried her head in her hands and groaned. What had she done to deserve this? Had her mom just called them girls? She was thirty-fucking-seven, and her mom served milk. She glanced at Kayla. “I’m sorry.”
Chuckling, Kayla picked up a cookie, tore off a piece, and dipped it in the milk. “Why? I think she’s super nice.” She stuffed the soggy cookie in her mouth and moaned appreciatively.
“She’s great. But sometimes she seems to forget I grew up.”
“As my daddy is happy to remind me anytime I visit, we’ll always be their children. You’ll see with Ella one day.”
“I guess.” Jess snatched a cookie before she could control herself. Maybe just half? It would be impolite to let her guest eat alone, right? With a sigh, she put it down next to the glass of milk she didn’t intend to drink. Lying to herself wouldn’t get her figure back.
“They are delicious,” Kayla said around cookie number two. “Don’t you like them?”
“I love them, but I need to watch what I eat. My heart can’t afford to carry around the extra pounds I gained during
pregnancy.” Jess wasn’t so sure if her heart or her vanity suffered more, but that was the only reason she would say out loud. “I’m not making good progress with working out. I still don’t have the strength to run, and the drive to my gym is too far.”
“What are you always telling your patients at the free clinic? Exercise doesn’t mean you need an expensive gym or fancy equipment. What did you advise Mrs. Jameson last year?”
Jess grimaced. “To go walking? But that’s something for old people!”
“Yeah, face it, you’re old.” Kayla grinned. “Hey, why don’t we go somewhere together now? I saw a park a few blocks away. Is it nice?”
“No idea. I haven’t been there for years.” Jess couldn’t even remember the last time. “Okay, let’s check it out. I’ll ask my mom to watch Ella.”
As they walked down the driveway, Lena’s old car came to a sputtering halt in front of the house. Jess frowned. That didn’t sound healthy at all. She had no clue about cars, but she wouldn’t trust her life to a vehicle like that.
Lena was about to get out, but she stopped with one leg on the ground and the other still inside. “Oh, hey, Jess. I’m sorry. I forgot. I’ll park around the corner.” She let herself fall back on the seat, closed the door, and started the car.
Jess guessed the wheezing sounds were supposed to be attempts to start the motor. She had almost forgotten about the stupid incident when she had yelled at Lena because of the car. Ella had been colicky all day and had just fallen asleep when the car had woken her. But that hadn’t been Lena’s fault, and Jess had behaved like a selfish ass.
She couldn’t take back her words, but she needed to rectify the situation.
Jess hurried over and knocked on Lena’s window.
Lena swiveled around, her eyes wide. She pressed her lips together and rolled down the window—manually. How old was this car?
How on earth could she have been so hostile that Lena seemed afraid to even talk to her? Jess’s cheeks burned again, as they had in too many interactions with Lena. “Um, Lena. Don’t go. Leave the car here. I’m sorry about…” She swallowed against the sudden dryness of her throat and forced herself to be honest. “I’m sorry about being an asshole before. You can park here anytime you want. You live here, and I’m just the guest.”