by Nicole Conn
“Why...why it’s Claire Jabrowski!” The southern belle intercepted her. “Tara. Tara O’Hara!” The blonde did not recognize her. “From the writer’s convention in Atlanta!”
“Yes. How could I forget.” Cheeky reply, but then she carried it off, as Maggie guessed she usually did.
“Well. I’d never expect to find you up here in the wilderness. After L.A. an’ all.” Tara winked as if they shared exclusive sophistication.
Claire looked at her wearily. “One jungle’s as good as the next.”
“I—I’ve read every one of your books.” Lynn boldly stepped forward and then shrank back. “I...I really love them.”
“Thanks.” Claire smiled with genuine pleasure then caught Noel and Maggie observing them, and her face changed as if she had been caught taking part in a social experiment.
“Adrienne King.” The poet extended a lanky limb.
“Shilo—”
“—Shilo Starbright,” Tara finished for her. “Isn’t it fascinatin’ how these holistic types come up with such conceptual names.”
“Unlike your own.”
Tara completely missed the jibe as Claire extended her hand to Shilo and then Lynn.
“Lynn Schroeder.” Maggie couldn’t figure out if she felt sorry for this miscast character among this band of what she suspected could be rapier-edged conversationalists. Maybe the experience would somehow strengthen the backbone of this Stepford housewife whose fragility seemed more a result of haggard abuse than inherent weakness. “I’m so thrilled to be here. I’ve never...well, that is, I’ve got a short story published...but really, to be in the company of so many celebrities,” she fairly gushed, “This is...great!” she whispered loudly to Tara.
Maggie leaned to Noel. “Sorry to leave you to your own devices, but I’m in dire need of refreshment.” Another beer would help her endure the rest of this prattle. As she passed the huddle she heard Lynn gasp, “Isn’t that.. . oh, the tall one, leaning by the fireplace—”
“Noel Benedict. Dahk-tah of lu-u-uv.” Tara pulled Claire conspiratorially to her side. “I haven’t read The Naked Truth myself, but from reliable sources I hear she lets it all hang. Simply every which way.” Tara sighed for emphasis. “Personally I think she’s a frustrated eunuch.”
“I think you have the wrong term,” Claire corrected. “Eunuch describes a castrated man.”
“Well, I always say, if the shoe fits.”
Claire studied Noel, confused by Tara’s inference.
Tara resumed self-importantly. “She’s not just your run of the mill ‘sex-therapist’ on the talk-show circuit, ya know. She’s a ravin—”
“Excuse me.” Claire cut her short as she did the contact with Noel.
Maggie watched her make her escape. She also watched Noel, whose eyes followed her every movement.
She watched her toes in the bathtub, the steaming water almost burning her as it gushed around them. When she could no longer bear the heat she extended her leg, and then her toe to twist the HOT faucet handle off. She soaked. Numb. The hot water made her feet itch, but the delicious pain could not ease the swollen thing that had become her heart.
Apathetically she swirled the water about her breasts, then stretched her arm before her as if pulling beads of water in solid form, scrutinizing them as they plopped into the surface, forming perfect round smoke rings of liquid. She stopped suddenly and stared at her hand. She studied it for a very long time. A tear rolled down her cheek.
She had been sitting just so for an hour. If she thought about when it was good, the pain struck, as if she might have a heart attack. A heart-ache attack. It began slowly, a nagging sensation that could be swished away like an annoying gnat, but, like the incessant rumbling of traffic below her office when she most needed to concentrate, the pain became more noticeable. And then came the words. All the words. They had both promised. Forever.
She sighed. It never went away. Like an emotional neuron spiraling around its mother atom. And then there was another memory whirling towards her from some outlandish association and pretty soon all the memories and electrons and neurons whirled around her heart and made her want to choke.
But she cried instead. Silently. She wasn’t sure if her muffled sounds could be heard by what she now felt was an interloper. After all, last year she and Erika had spent nothing less than a magical month together here...even if it was hidden away from the world, reality. And why did she have to agonize over her now, when she had so clearly dealt with this months ago? Why now?
Should she apply a new theory to delayed trauma syndrome? Could you do that with everything, she wondered. Like programming the VCR. Eight events at a time. My, how progressive.
This delayed pain was cruel. It beat on you when you least expected it. Even for someone who played games on pain with her patients. Controlled, and contained, willing pain away by simply intellectualizing its departure. But what about the unexpected? Those moments you have no control over? The minute she smelled the ocean air, its briny traces recalling every moment they had walked hand in hand by the water’s edge, the snap in the air, the slant of the sun as it fell against the carpet where they had made love long into the afternoon. And music. She couldn’t listen to any of her favorite music. Restaurants, movies, TV shows. Anything you did together became masochistic indulgence.
Her toes were wrinkling. She observed this with the detached professionalism she utilized with all her patients. Victims of grief, pain, abuse, and never-ending horror stories of the human condition. Every cell on her skin was waterlogged. Water therapy. She had recommended it a number of times. Water therapy as a compromise to liquid abuse. She would rather be soaking in a tub of bourbon. Now all she could do was stare at the rubbery skin that slipped and slithered into grotesque forms as her tears came faster and fuller. They slid down her cheeks, dropped on her breasts, salted tributaries into deadened grey water.
She screamed.
Silently.
****
Claire stumbled into the kitchen, grabbed the coffee beans, pried the lid carelessly from the grinder. Pre-ground coffee scattered the countertops and covered her from nearly head to toe. When she got her bearings, the deduction sank in. She cocked her head towards Noel’s room, more than irritated, as she slammed the grinder back on the counter. Round Two goes to the stalwart Dr. Benedict. It took every effort on her part not to storm in and assert her rights to the kitchen. Something held her back. And then a mischievous smile fell over her face. This was definitely the beginning of war.
****
Noel studied the pages before her, wondering if she was more upset with the content of the material—the cruel statistics of the nation’s obsession with the pornographic visual medium—or her inability to concentrate. She had spent one month for each of the last five years in this cabin, primarily isolated with her work. Regardless of the group of writers, Maggie had kept this particular cabin for her annual vacation. But Maggie hadn’t gotten around to repairing the plumbing in the cabin next to hers and she was the one suffering the consequences. Her privacy was paramount to her, not only because she was a private person, but because she did her best work alone. Now she was too clearly aware of another’s movements. This cabin was too intimate. That and those damn cigarettes. Foreign. They might be the height of fashion in L.A. but they were nothing more than a rude intrusion to her.
She turned to stare at the artwork she had brought here a few years back, left in this south room of the cabin for Maggie and others to share. It gave her a sense of self. She could lose herself in the complex, textured nudes, appreciating the bold and individual style of the artist, an ex-patient, who had very little money but a great deal of talent. Noel had treated her for free and had been gifted with these rare pieces in exchange; the better end of the deal. They usually provided her with a great deal of comfort, but as Claire’s cigarette smoke got thicker, Noel found it difficult to feel at peace.
Noel got up and walked to the living room. Claire s
at at the couch staring at the screen of her laptop. She groped with one hand and lit a cigarette, unaware she already had one going, completely focused on the task at hand. Noel shook her head, then found herself momentarily taken back by Claire’s nonchalant appearance. Her hair was casually and sensually pulled back. She was clad in a loose fitting white tank top and holey jeans, another fashion statement that lent more farm girl innocence than an air of sophistication as Claire tackled her work in this rural setting. Smoke swirled furiously about her as she gulped coffee that appeared to have been sitting there for hours, followed by an intense drag from her cigarette. Noel was jolted into her reasons for disrupting her own work in the first place.
“Excuse me.”
Claire continued typing.
“Excuse me! Is it quite necessary to have two going at the same time?”
Claire merely ground the cigarette in the ashtray, and continued typing.
Noel was about to continue but Claire put her hand up. “I am really focused here. Can it wait until later?”
Frustrated and recognizing a roadblock when she ran into one, Noel exhaled loudly and returned to her room.
****
“Where are you?” Maggie studied her good friend’s face. It was hard for her to look at the raw pain. It infuriated her because she knew there was nothing she could do about it.
“Hmmm?”
Maggie poured the final dregs of a rare Cabernet into Noel’s wineglass. “Shall I call in the local exorcist?”
Noel shook her head gently, stared into the fire. Her jaw tightened, the muscles rippling her fine-lined face. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Just remember, darlin’, never-ending agony is so addictive.”
“I’m over it Maggie. Really.”
“You’re full of shit. Besides it’s so alluring on you, Noel. The mysterious therapist who made brooding a fine art. And for what?” Maggie’s voice was acerbic. “Definitely not the ‘objet de passion.’” She sighed plaintively over a sip of wine, trying to figure out how best to soothe this woman with whom she shared an uncommon but binding friendship.
Five years now. And though they seldom saw one another, her connection to this fine woman was one of the closest she had ever allowed herself.
It had begun in Boston. One of the rare occasions she traveled anymore. An old pal had died from AIDS. She had lost many friends and her anger was bubbling just beneath the surface. She needed a drink. Or two. She had taken a cab to the Park Plaza Hotel, marveling at the city’s ability to wed modern architecture to the gentrification of proud old Boston. She had gotten out, lit up a cigarette, and noticed a man lying, face down, in the flower patch by the bus stop. She looked around. People passed by, so caught up in their own worlds they didn’t see or didn’t care. Maggie rushed over in the same instant a tall, slender jogger knelt by the man’s side and carefully picked up his wrist to check for a pulse. The jogger authoritatively took charge, commanded one of the minimally gathering crowd to call an ambulance as Maggie covered the man with her thread-worn pea-coat. The woman loosened his tie and stood up. Only she and Maggie remained until the ambulance arrived and packed him in. He had suffered a mild seizure. When the lights flashed and the siren boomed its way through traffic, Maggie and the woman shared a relieved smile.
“May I buy you a drink?” Maggie definitely needed one by this point.
“I think we deserve it.”
“And doesn’t it mean if you save someone’s life with a perfect stranger that you, I don’t know, have to marry each other’s second cousins or something...”
It broke the tension. The woman laughed a wonderful laugh that filled her eyes and broke the sternness of her jaw. They made their way to Cheers and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening examining their own lives through each other’s eyes, veritable strangers, given permission to unlock doors by the bizarre machinations of circumstance.
Maggie watched Noel attempt to cover a single tear that escaped her brimming eyes. “Obsessing over something you can’t have is the biggest turn-on.” Her voice was gentle. “You crave passion like you’re sniffin’ it up your nose. And possession, ah...nine-tenths of nothing. It never existed, Noel.”
“Maggie.” Noel’s voice was affectionate. “You’re such a goddamn pain in the ass when you play shrink.”
“But I’m such a lovable pain in the ass.”
Maggie poked at the fire, sat back and tried yet another tack. “Dating?”
“Not seriously.”
“Sleeping around.”
“Oh...occasionally...and cautiously.”
“But no one—”
“Maggie! What in the hell possessed you to put that woman in my cabin?”
Maggie responded rather sheepishly. “Hmmm... I was wondering when you were going to get around to that.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I thought she’d be good for you. Get you out of yourself...Maybe...I don’t know—”
“She’s...she’s rude. Disorganized. Cluttered. She smokes like a truck driver. And...she’s so...” Noel searched for the definitive adjective. “. . . straight.”
“But interesting.”
“About as interesting as a black widow.”
“Dangerous, huh?” Maggie took great delight in egging her on.
“Intolerable.”
Maggie’s eyes were a mixture of genuine sweetness and condescending wisdom. She took another sip of wine. “I knew you’d like her.”
****
Noel had to smile, even though she was irked with Maggie’s transparent little scheme to break her from her idyllic memories and longing for Erika. She meandered down the steep and eroding path to the beach with renewed respect for mother nature. In one year the raging winds and shifting tides had almost made it unnavigable. And Maggie seemed less able to repair or simply less inclined. Dear, dear Maggie. Such a sweet curmudgeonly enigma; short and compact, cutting a dashing if somewhat dated figure in her Birkenstocks, red flannel shirt and jeans. She might be mistaken for a throwback, but there was clear intelligence in her eyes, and she was still a very handsome relic in her forty-seventh year. However, her well-intentioned friend’s maneuver of ameliorating loneliness with someone as aggravating as her cabin-mate would not be her own first avenue of remedies as a therapist. It was simply going to take time. Time. God, why did it always have to take so much time? Healer of all evils.
The cool air felt good. She was still a bit lightheaded from the wine. Maybe a moonlight stroll on the beach would clear it. She needed a good night’s rest if she ever hoped to get any work done.
Noel wound her way to the beach. The tide was low and calm as she walked along the rippling ebb.
“It doesn’t have to be over.” She had stood in her office overlooking the expanse of lights glittering in the deep blue of dusk and reflecting magically off the Willamette River. Her city. She towered above it and the rest of humanity in her professionally austere cubicle, with the most beautiful view a lease could buy, protected from those stick figures that buzzed about twenty-six floors below, and now from the woman who floated somewhere behind her. If she turned around it wouldn’t be over. The shadow of the woman moved toward her, put a hand out to Noel’s shoulder.
From the moment they had laid eyes on each other that weekend they were inseparable. Noel always had very little use for the term “love at first sight,” having been inundated by never-ending tales of woe that particular phenomenon had caused in the larger part of her client base. She had never bought the contrived romanticism that flooded American culture, and having only once been infatuated, she considered herself immune to vagaries of the heart. But when those eyes captured her own in the small Italian restaurant she and Erika had escaped to, Noel discovered an altogether new reaction to feminine beauty. And it had very little to do with clear or rational thought.
They barely touched the vegetarian lasagna. Dabbling over Tiramisu and brandy, Noel was amazed by the freshness and unusual capacity f
or light this woman brought to the table. In their mutual profession conversation tended towards shop. But not with Erika. Erika had no interest in discussing anything but Noel and her life, dreams and desires. It wasn’t until the weekend was over that Noel discovered Erika wasn’t in the profession. Merely interested.
That first night had been unlike anything Noel had ever experienced. She had been aware for several years, with clinical detachment, that she was a lesbian. She had slept with two women up to that point. One as an experiment and the other as a possibility for a relationship. They were great friends but lousy lovers. Erika was simply the most exquisite thing that ever happened to Noel’s sexuality. There wasn’t one part of Erika’s well-proportioned hard-won physicality that didn’t arouse her. She loved every smell and taste that was Erika.
Noel closed her eyes with a long expired sigh. The face floated before her, once again. She could either exorcise the delicate features and go to bed, or she could entertain them in the blurred edges of reality. She would anyway, in her dreams.
This was hopeless. Noel followed the path back to her cabin. She had to stop the memories prying beneath her contained surface, unlocking battle scars that would do nothing but impede her progress. She knew all this stuff. She knew it until she was sick to death of it. Theory and practice were the oddest of bedmates when they were clearly the worst kind of strangers.
She opened the door. The cabin was dark and she could barely make out the shadows of the furniture. But as she edged forward the smoke from Claire’s cigarette caressed the moonlight where she knelt at the bench by the window.
They exchanged a brief glance, then Noel made an abrupt move to her room.
“Noel?”