Everything Pales in Comparision

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Everything Pales in Comparision Page 23

by Rebecca Swartz


  She was surprised by her little speech, surprised she had managed to pull off a casualness she did not entirely feel. Slightly shaken, she reached for her beer, took a deep swallow past the lump forming in her throat. The action allowed her to regain a measure of her composure.

  “That’s so…cruel,” Marlene said softly.

  “What kind of a man would do that,” Steve asked, sounding more puzzled than outraged, “just drive his own daughter away, his own flesh and blood, because of who she is?”

  “Dad, not everyone sees things that way,” Daina pointed out quietly. “Not everyone is like you and Mom.” She looked back at Emma. Her expression was sweet and kind. There was no evidence of pity; Emma could not have stood that.

  “My father was a good man,” Emma said to Steve. “I idolized him.” She realized she was speaking of him in the past tense. That hurt her, but she didn’t know, hadn’t thought of a way to refer to him, since she did it so rarely. “There was a strength in him that I loved, that I admired. Not a physical strength, though he certainly was a strong man, but a mental strength, like steel, like…titanium, that made you think he could stand up to anything, face anything, and never back down.”

  Emma thought she was coming dangerously close to babbling, but speaking in this way felt cathartic. She’d never really done so and she would never have brought it up on her own, at least not in this company, under these circumstances. Yet it didn’t feel wrong or out of place to speak of it now.

  “It’s in you,” Daina suddenly spoke up. “That’s you.”

  Emma looked at her in surprise.

  “That strength, it’s in you,” Daina repeated, and smiled slightly, just a corner of her mouth lifting. “Only it’s…different. Softer.”

  “I could never be that unyielding, that unaccepting. And though I recognize his faults, I don’t fault him for them.”

  Daina returned her look thoughtfully.

  “Well, then you’re a better person than he is,” Steve opined.

  “No,” Emma immediately returned, with a shake of her head, “just different. That’s all.”

  “Well, then, here’s to being different,” Daina said, holding her bottle aloft and smiling.

  The four of them clinked the necks of their bottles together, in a toast to echo Daina’s salute. They spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes in idle conversation, interrupted once by a quick trip to the garage so Steve could show Emma his workshop. Daina seemed to find this highly amusing and laughed, shaking her head.

  “What?” Emma gave her a puzzled look, as she rose to her feet to follow Steve.

  “That’s hallowed ground. He never takes anyone in there.” Daina winked at her. “Consider yourself special.”

  Later, back at the table, Emma glanced at her watch. “I should really be going,” she announced regretfully. “There are things I need to attend to.”

  “Will you come back?” Marlene asked as they all stood, chairs sliding back almost soundlessly on the smooth deck surface.

  “Yes, I’d like to, very much.”

  “How about tonight then? Join us for dinner.”

  Emma grinned, unable to stop herself. Glancing at Daina, she wasn’t at all surprised to see she was amused all over again. “Sure,” she said to Marlene, “that would be wonderful. Thank you.”

  “Seven o’clock?”

  “Seven o’clock.” Emma nodded. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you both.” She was again embraced by Marlene, again shook Steve’s hand.

  “I’ll walk you to the car,” Daina said.

  Stopping before the SUV, Emma leaned back against the grille, reaching to take Daina’s hands in hers. “They’re wonderful.”

  Daina smiled. “They think you are.”

  Emma cocked her head. “How do you know that?”

  “I know.”

  Emma searched her eyes, as blue and as deep as an uncharted ocean, eyes that anchored her even when she lost herself in them. She knew, with sudden clarity, that this was it, the time and the place. “I love you,” she said, calmly, with utter certainty, words she’d never said to any other woman. The sheer simplicity and beauty of the statement caused a shiver to race through her.

  Daina never lost her smile. “I know,” she said.

  Her response made Emma smile in return. Daina’s eyes shone, and Emma was possessed of a delicious want, a need to kiss her. Then, somewhere behind her, in the driveway, she heard a sound. Daina’s eyes shifted past Emma, over her shoulder; a second later, her face visibly paled with shock.

  Alarmed, Emma craned her own head around. And when she saw who stood in the driveway, her own shock felt on a level with Daina’s. And then it was gone, replaced with a sudden concern as Daina, without a word, slipped her hands out of her grasp and stalked forward. Emma turned as she went past.

  She thought she could not have been more surprised than she was by the sight of the woman standing, alone, in the driveway. She was wrong. Because as Daina approached her, she addressed the woman in a tight, challenging voice and the name she used caused Emma’s mouth to drop slightly open with incredulity.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Cathy?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Between one moment and the next, Emma went from open-mouthed surprise to cold and calculated reserve. Her gaze sharpened, narrowed, focused on the woman; her nerves hummed and sang in warning, and her muscles tensed.

  Without knowing precisely why she did it, aware only on some level that she must, she smoothly raised her left leg, placed the ball of her foot on the Explorer’s bumper, and removed her gun from the ankle holster. With fluid precision she racked the slide, chambered a round. Balancing herself lightly on both feet, she then leaned against the hood, deceptively casual. It had taken her all of six seconds to do this. She never once took her eyes off the woman standing in the driveway.

  So this is Cathy Marks. How interesting. Though the woman looked quite unremarkable and nonthreatening, uncertain and perhaps shy, there was a certain vague air of belligerence, a knife’s edge of attitude in the set of her thin, pale lips, and in the almost sly way her eyes traveled up and down and over Daina as she approached, that set her further on her guard.

  “Hello, Daina,” Cathy Marks casually greeted Daina. “It’s good to see you.”

  Daina came to a stop about five feet from her, without blocking Emma’s view. A good thing, since Emma didn’t want to reveal the fact that she had her weapon in hand.

  “Answer my question,” Daina demanded tightly. “What are you doing here?”

  Cathy looked past Daina, toward Emma. “Hello, Emma,” she called to her, sounding coolly offhand, friendly even.

  Emma retained her icy composure, her cold, contemplative expression. She didn’t return the greeting. She saw Daina angle her head almost imperceptibly and knew she was puzzled, wondering at the connection between the two of them. She’d have to explain that. Despite Daina’s claim about not caring about Emma’s past, it was a foregone conclusion that she would want to know, at least the facts, if not the details. Especially in light of what was currently taking place.

  If she had ever known the woman’s name, she had long since forgotten it. No doubt they had introduced themselves that night in the bar three years ago. But Emma had ever eschewed the use of names, preferring her choice of partner for the night to remain anonymous. It didn’t always work out that way; some women had issues with anonymous sex. This woman, she recalled, had had issues of another sort entirely.

  ***

  It had been a very warm night in September. The whole month of September had been unseasonably warm. She’d gone to the bar, Swank, with her best friend Nikki and her partner Samantha. It was a rare night out for the three of them. They were her preferred company, but she didn’t often get to spend time with them. That night she devoted her attention to them, laughing, drinking, conversing. On the periphery of her awareness, the rest of the bar was a living, breathing animal, constantly shifting, moving. Halfway
through the night, she realized she was being watched. Infrequently, when Nikki and Sam left the table, to dance or get another drink, she casually surveyed the room at large and always she noted the slim, young-looking redhead who eyed her intently from the far end of the bar.

  Emma had always appreciated and been flattered by such attention. She and her world were not sacrosanct. This time proved to be no exception. She considered, as she always did, whether to acknowledge the attention. It had been her intention this night to spend her time with her friends. But it was her friends who actually released her.

  Returning from a trip to the bathroom, Nikki said casually to her, “You have an admirer.”

  “I know,” Emma replied quietly.

  “Only one?” Sam had asked, playfully mocking. “How sad.”

  Emma chose not to dignify this with a response.

  “So what do you think?” Nikki asked.

  Emma knew what she was asking. “She’s nice,” she said, in her usual understated way. Then added thoughtfully, “She looks straight.”

  “Yeah, well, so do you,” Nikki pointed out smoothly.

  “Fuck you,” Emma tossed back good-naturedly, even though she knew it was true. Nikki had once ventured that it was Emma’s lack of stereotypical attributes that attracted women to her. Emma chose to believe the reason was not quite so prosaic as that. “I’m spending the night with the two of you.”

  “If you’re spending the night with us, we need to talk.” Sam gave Nikki a pointed look.

  Emma grinned.

  In the end, the two of them had encouraged her, and in the end, Emma approached the young woman. Spent some time with her, chatted with her, warmed to her. Bought her a drink, danced with her, forgotten her name; kissed her once, twice, and extended an invitation. And been accepted. She had gone to her friends without ever once introducing the woman to them and explained she would be leaving. They weren’t surprised.

  And in the car, not hers, since she wasn’t driving, the young woman turned to her. “We can’t go to my place,” she announced, seeming tense. “My roommate is home.”

  Emma had looked at her, and in that moment, had overridden one of her other basic rules: Never take a woman to her own place. Her hormones had overridden her common sense. The woman in question was young, hot, more than nice. It was a no-brainer. Later, she had time to reflect that she hadn’t been thinking with her brain at all.

  There was a quiet kind of desperation to the girl, to her attentions, her hunger, that at first excited Emma. Soon, though, that excitement waned, and her arousal dissipated as she became aware just how desperate the girl appeared to be. The girl came hard and fast, almost against her will, it seemed. And immediately after, burst into tears.

  Flummoxed, feeling she had severely misstepped, misread, misjudged what had always been for her a relatively simple exercise, she hadn’t known how to comfort the girl. And that seemed to infuriate her.

  “Fuck you!” she’d cried, actually had screamed in a high-pitched breathless way. “Fuck you, you’re just like her, you don’t love me! Fuck you!”

  Any thought of comforting fled, to be replaced with a sad kind of perusal. Obviously, the girl was carrying a torch for someone, was probably on the rebound. “Look,” she started to say gently, “I’m sorry. I think, maybe—”

  “You’re not sorry!” the girl had snarled.

  And before Emma even knew what was happening, the girl whipped one thin arm back and around, striking Emma an open-handed blow against her face, so solid, so forcefully, her head rocked.

  Stunned, her cheek and ear stinging painfully, Emma felt a rage suffuse her, had felt for the first time in her life that she might actually hit another woman in anger. Swallowing down the heat of her fury, she said coldly, unmindful of her nakedness, “I want you to leave. Now.”

  “Or what? You’ll arrest me?” was the snide retort. “Yeah, sure, what-the-fuck-ever.”

  Emma’s apartment walls were adorned with artwork and educational certificates and diplomas. Some of the latter denoted her occupation. Obviously, the girl had seen them. Her attitude was shocking in its brazenness.

  “Leave,” Emma repeated, and this time her teeth met and her upper lip lifted threateningly. “Now.” She grabbed the girl’s clothing. “Get dressed.” She threw the clothing at her.

  “You’re just like her, you know that?” The words were spat at her hotly, vehemently. “All you fucking dykes are the same, you’re fucking whores.”

  “Yeah, sure, what-the-fuck-ever,” Emma returned icily, in a cutting parody of the girl’s own words. She gathered her own clothes and dressed quickly.

  And then the girl had started crying again and Emma, completely nonplussed, had to literally haul her off the bed, insist she dress, and escort her out to the front entrance. Mind whirling, she had returned to her suite, blasting herself for being an idiot. She could still taste the girl on her lips. She went to the bathroom and showered for what seemed an eternity in an attempt to be rid of her essence.

  And now, that very same girl stood in the driveway, looking at her almost defiantly.

  ***

  “I came to tell you I’m sorry,” Cathy Marks said, finally shifting her eyes from Emma and answering Daina’s question. “I came to tell you I had nothing to do with all of this, and I’m sorry for what’s happened.”

  Emma could see Daina’s spine was rigid with tension.

  “And so what are you doing here?” Daina demanded yet again, as if the explanation already supplied had not appeased her.

  Emma didn’t know what kind of dynamics had defined Daina’s relationship with Cathy Marks. She only knew that what she was seeing right now looked like an incendiary fuse waiting for a lighted match. Her hand flexed ever so slightly over the grip of the Glock. The muscles in her back and shoulders corresponded.

  “Tell her why you’re here,” she advised Cathy evenly. She herself couldn’t fathom why the woman had shown up. She only knew she wanted that dreadful tension to leave Daina’s body.

  Cathy shot Emma a look that was laced with anger, hatred. “I want to talk to you alone,” she said to Daina. Her voice, completely at odds with the look she had directed at Emma, was soft, subtly pleading.

  Daina was having none of it. “This is as alone as it gets. Talk.”

  Cathy looked back and forth between Daina and Emma. Finally, she said, all in a rush, “Okay. Okay, this, I want to tell you this: I had nothing to do with any of this, this whole thing, it wasn’t me. It was him. I knew about it, but I wasn’t involved. Never, I would never—if maybe you thought—I would never hurt you. I wasn’t even here, he did it all on his own. I only just got back into town today, to these messages, telling me he’d been arrested, could I contact the police. I’m on my way there now, I don’t even know what for. I wouldn’t do this, not to you I wouldn’t. I wanted to tell you. Okay? I wanted to tell you.”

  There followed an infinitesimal pause, all it took, apparently, for Daina to process the information. And then she said, with a coldness Emma had only heard from her once before, “Fine. You’ve told me. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Cathy’s face blanched, fell. “But…Daina…” Her mouth and throat worked, as she struggled with what she wanted to say. “I…Jesus, I…”

  “Don’t,” Daina interrupted harshly, and she no longer sounded cold. Now she sounded hot, angry. Emma watched as she dropped her chin and shook her head in tight negation.

  “But…I love you…can’t you…” Cathy’s voice was small, shocked, lost.

  Daina, just in the act of turning away, whirled, and Emma could read the fury in her posture. “Don’t!” she cried, even more harshly. “Just fucking don’t!”

  Emma tensed, shifted.

  Cathy Marks visibly recoiled, stepping back a foot.

  “I never asked you to and I don’t want you to!” Daina rasped. “Okay? Is that clear enough for you? Don’t! Just leave!”

  Whatever the look on Daina’s face, Emma
was not privy to it. She did note that Cathy blanched further and then, swiftly shooting Emma another one of those hate-filled looks, she turned and stumbled down the driveway to the street, began to run toward the green Sunfire.

  Emma remembered that flicker of motion within that Sunfire that she had dismissed, and she chastised herself for a fool. And then, her attention was only for Daina, who had turned, head down, and was coming back to her. She quickly ejected the round in the chamber, dumped it into her pocket, placed the gun in the waistband of her jeans. She stepped forward to take Daina into her arms. Distantly, she was aware of the Sunfire starting up and accelerating away.

  “Hey,” she said, wrapping her arms around her, pulling her in. “Hey.” Trying to comfort, because Daina was crying now, though Emma hadn’t a clue as to why.

  Daina gripped her with a fierceness that almost unbalanced her. “I’m sorry,” she said, muffling her words into Emma’s shoulder. “I love you. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry you love me?” She opted for comical confusion, trying to lighten the mood because the emotional outpouring was so unsettling.

  “No!” Daina made a sound, a cross between a cough and a laugh. She gently punched Emma’s arm. “No.” Her blue eyes swam in pools of tears. “What the fuck was that? She can’t do that, did she think she could just bulldoze her way in, that I’d just let her in? How could she do that?” She blinked and her tears ran, joining the others on her cheeks.

  Emma suddenly understood: Daina felt violated. Violation did not always occur on a physical level.

  “You’re right,” she soothed. “You’re completely right. She can’t just expect to insinuate herself into your life. She has to be invited. Somehow.”

  Daina’s tears seemed to have slowed. Emma brushed away those that remained. She briefly considered how best to say what she felt needed to be said. In the end, hoping Daina would understand, she could only ask, “Do you remember when I gave you my phone number?”

 

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