One Small Step

by M. A. Binfield

  “Now there’s an offer that’s hard to refuse.”

  Cam turned back to the fish and pronounced it ready. She turned the swordfish steaks onto large dinner plates, spooning a generous helping of baby potatoes and ratatouille alongside each before artfully arranging some fresh parsley on top. It looked and smelled heavenly.

  Cam carried the plates to the table and placed them carefully down. Iris followed her and, without thinking, pulled out Cam’s chair for her to sit down. She hadn’t meant the gesture to be anything but polite, but Cam reacted, looking slightly flustered and gazing at Iris with an odd expression. Iris felt silly, wondering where the hell that gallantry had come from. She tried to remember the last time she had pulled out a chair for Hazel or Casey and, of course, the answer was never. The gesture was much more than polite. She knew that; she had to hope Cam didn’t.

  * * *

  Iris sat in her own chair, self-conscious now, and poured them both some wine. Cam tasted it and darted her eyebrows upward. “Nice wine.”

  “That was lovely, Cam…cooked to perfection.” Iris sat back in her chair.

  Cam blushed at the compliment. “I love fish, but Ryan totally hates it, even the smell drives him crazy, so I don’t really eat it much at home. It was a real treat for me too.” She sipped her wine.

  “I know what you mean. I had a girlfriend who hated eggs. I used to wait till she was out for the day and make myself egg on toast. It became this really guilty pleasure. I had to open the windows afterward and hope the smell didn’t linger. It was like trying to hide the fact I smoked dope from my dad.”

  “And what happened with you and your egg-hater?”

  “We wanted different things and not just menu-wise. It didn’t last very long.”

  “Yet you lived together so it can’t have been that casual.”

  “We did. Something you might not know about lesbians is that we tend to become very quickly committed in relationships. Take a removal van along on the second date is the standard joke, get a rescue cat on the third.” Iris raised her eyebrows playfully.

  “So does that mean that you and Priti are moving in together soon? Two games of pool and a ton of flirting has to count as a first date.” Iris had expected all of Cam’s questions about Amanda, about how they’d managed to get along on Sunday night, about how Iris had felt seeing her again, but she’d forgotten all about Priti, hadn’t expected it to have registered with Cam.

  “Priti is a very sweet girl, but I don’t know what to say other than anytime anyone starts off by describing anyone as ‘a very sweet girl,’ it’s not a good start. Plus, she beat me, twice. I swore that my next relationship would be with someone I could beat at pool. It’s not good for my self-esteem otherwise.” She held Cam’s gaze, wondering why she looked so unsure of herself.

  “You always do that.”

  “What?”

  “Make jokes to avoid answering questions seriously.”

  “I do. I know. It must be frustrating.” Iris held up her hands as if in apology.

  “Not frustrating. It’s more that I feel that it puts up a barrier between us.” Cam hesitated. “A barrier I don’t want, that I think we should be well past by now.”

  Iris felt the challenge was a fair one, but something about the way Cam said it, the way she was gazing at Iris, made her heart beat a little faster. She liked that Cam wanted them to be honest with each other. She had the same feeling.

  Iris took a breath. “Okay, being serious, I’m not at all interested in Priti, and that’s not just because she’s a teammate and I don’t want to cause any drama, it’s because I’m not interested in Priti that way. I don’t find her attractive.”

  Cam nodded and did the lip biting thing again. Iris had come to understand it meant she wanted to say something but felt she shouldn’t.

  “And what do you find attractive?”

  Iris blinked. Cam’s curiosity shouldn’t surprise her anymore but somehow it did. “I don’t know. I don’t really have a type. It’s a cliché, but it used to be the connection that I was looking for. Not so much the physical attributes, though I can obviously appreciate an attractive woman.” She smiled but Cam did not. She was looking serious.

  “And you’ve really not met anyone you felt that way about since you and Amanda split up?”

  Iris badly wanted to make a joke, push Cam and her questions away, but Cam had a way of making her want to be known.

  “I dunno. Maybe I got choosy along the way or maybe I’m still a little scared, but there’s been no one. I want someone who challenges me, someone smart and interesting, and funny. Someone who gets me, even when I’m being weird and inconsistent and proud.” Someone like you. She pushed the thought away. “But maybe that’s too much to hope for and I should compromise somehow.”

  “Maybe. But maybe…well, maybe it’s worth waiting for the right person rather than just settling because you feel you should.” Cam hesitated before leaning forward and pouring them some more wine. Iris saw a shadow of what looked like sadness pass across Cam’s face.

  “Anyway, what about you?”

  Cam looked surprised at her question and Iris cocked an eyebrow at her. “What? You think you’re the only one who can ask questions? Just because you’re soon to be an old married lady doesn’t mean you don’t get to fess up.” She pointed her glass at Cam. “If you weren’t with Ryan, what would your type be? And don’t describe Ryan, that’s too obvious.”

  “Do you want the glib answer or the honest one?”

  “Either…both. I don’t mind.”

  “Okay, the honest answer is that I’d want someone who would really see me, support me in my choices, and make me alternate between shivering with lust and sighing with happiness when I catch sight of them across a room.”

  Iris felt the impact of Cam’s words in the tightness of her chest and the slight pulse between her legs.

  “And the glib answer?”

  “They’d have to be tall, dark, and impossibly handsome.” Cam’s expression was hard to read. It was wistful but also maybe a little angry. “Though I guess in reality I’d settle for half of that.”

  “Didn’t you just tell me that settling was a bad idea, and that it was worth waiting for something better? You can’t give me advice and not follow it yourself.”

  “That’s exactly what I do, haven’t you realized that yet?” Cam put down her glass, picking at the edge of the tablecloth. “I’m all about talking the talk, rather than walking the walk.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment, before lifting her head.

  “Anyway, changing the subject for my own sake, I might have created a bit of drama at work with Jess yesterday without meaning to.”

  Iris sat up straighter. “What happened?”

  “Well, you know how she’s still so in love with you?”

  “I am irresistible.” Iris waggled her eyebrows.

  “I’m serious, Iris. Sometimes the way she looks at you, the way she talks about you…it’s not right. At lunch, when she heard we were having dinner, she said all this stuff about you, about me, about us hanging out all the time. She said I should ‘watch myself’ around you and you’d probably make a move on me tonight.” Iris felt herself grow warm with embarrassment. She had done nothing to feel bad about, yet Cam’s words made her feel ashamed.

  “I didn’t stand for it of course. I told her not to be so nasty and not to make assumptions about people who just want to be friends. But you could tell she was so jealous. She looked at me like she really hated me.”

  “What? No way. I’m sorry you had to be on the receiving end of that. But she’s just being Jess. She loves to create a bit of drama.”

  “Tell me about it. She also said she took Ryan to one side in the pub and told him he should watch me around you, or you around me, or some such BS, basically that you shouldn’t be trusted.”

  “What the hell.” Iris felt shame and rage mingling in her veins.

  “I don’t know exactly what she said. I ask
ed him about it last night, but he brushed it off though I could tell he was annoyed.”

  “Oh, Cam, I’m sorry. I’m sure Ryan will know it’s rubbish. I mean, he knows we…that you’re not…like that. First chance I get I’ll speak to Jess, tell her to lay off.” Iris wanted to strangle her.

  “I don’t need you to speak to Jess on my behalf. I can handle her. But you should talk to her for your own sake. She trashes your reputation constantly because you won’t give her what she wants. You shouldn’t put up with her. You deserve better than that.”

  Iris couldn’t argue. Cam was right. More than right, she was inspiring. She inspired Iris to believe that maybe she did deserve better.

  “It’s just that she’s between girlfriends right now. Normally, when she’s in love, I don’t get a look in.”

  “I don’t think it’s that, Iris. It’s me, it’s us. She hates that we’ve gotten so close. She’s trying to sabotage it.”

  Iris liked hearing Cam say that they’d gotten close. Iris had felt it, but she hadn’t assumed Cam felt the same way. “You might be right. She’s a pain in the arse and I let her get away with far too much because I feel bad about how I treated her.”

  “That was so long ago, Iris. You need to start living in the present.” Cam sounded so serious, looked so beautiful, that Iris felt things tilt a little.

  “I know, I know. As long as living in the present doesn’t mean moving in with Priti and getting a cat.” She fell back on humor to move them onto safer ground, happy to be there with Cam and not wanting to sour what had started off as a lovely evening together.

  * * *

  Iris watched from the couch as Cam made them coffee. She was moving slowly, as if a little distracted, leaving pauses between the various stages in the process. Her mind not seeming to be completely on the job.

  For a moment, a long, pleasant moment, Iris felt at home. Here, in this place that wasn’t her home, she felt the pull, the desire, to sit across from Cam every night and watch her make coffee. So mundane a wish but so appealing. A voice inside Iris’s head reminded her that she didn’t belong here with Cam, Ryan did. She was just visiting the possibility of this life and the visit would end soon. Iris welcomed the cruel reminder, knowing she needed to stop herself from feeling this way.

  Cam turned back to her, coffee cups in hand, moving across the room. Iris had the remote control and was cueing the DVD.

  “This movie had better not be too scary.” Cam’s eyes widened.

  “It’s supposed to be creepy rather than scary. I read all the reviews, tried to make sure there was no slashing. And it’s Spanish so if we close our eyes when it gets scary, we won’t even be able to understand them screaming.”

  “Very funny. If I can’t sleep after this and my game is off on Sunday, I’m going to tell Megan it’s your fault.”

  Cam went back to the kitchen to get a large bowl down from a shelf. Iris took the bowl as Cam grabbed a large purple blanket from the back of the adjacent armchair. Iris poured the popcorn into the bowl while Cam draped the blanket over their laps.

  Iris felt the room warm up several degrees, and she knew it wasn’t just the blanket. How was sitting this close to Cam for two hours going to help her manage her attraction? Cam leaned across and tucked the blanket in on Iris’s side and she felt an involuntary flutter in her stomach.

  Iris tried to talk, to take her mind off the physical effects caused by being this close to Cam. “How come you’re scared of scary films when you’re so gutsy otherwise?” Iris had been thinking about it, about how Cam was often right, handled difficult things well, how she encouraged Iris to be better. “Sorry, I don’t mean that in a challenging way. I mean…I was just wondering. You give good advice, you challenge me. It seems kind of brave, at least compared to me anyway.” Iris willed herself to stop talking.

  “You think that’s what I’m like, but maybe that’s because you don’t know me very well.”

  Iris hated hearing Cam say that. She wanted to know Cam well, was trying to know Cam. “What don’t I know about you?”

  Cam seemed surprised by the question but she held Iris’s gaze, her eyes seemed sad, her expression cautious. She sighed and sipped her coffee.

  “I don’t know. I sometimes think I’m an observer, a drifter poking about in other people’s lives rather than living the life I might want to. I tried to live that life once. It didn’t go well.” Cam swallowed. “You said you felt like a passenger when it was all going wrong with Amanda. I feel like a passenger as well. Watching life go by, the people, the places, the years—not feeling that any of it is something I really chose.”

  Iris didn’t know what to say. She wanted to offer comfort, show Cam she cared, but she doubted herself, doubted that getting physically closer to Cam was a good idea.

  She reached across and took Cam’s hand anyway. “Want to tell me about it?”

  “I don’t know how it would help to tell you about it. It’s done. It’s the here and now I need to be thinking about. Making sure I have things for me, that I stop living some life Ryan wants for us, a life my mom wants for me.”

  Iris felt Cam entwine their fingers. “But thanks for asking.” Iris knew she should move but she couldn’t, she didn’t want to. She wondered if the life Cam wanted for herself would include more nights like this, whether it would have room for her.

  “Oh shit, I forgot.” Iris jumped up, breaking the contact, breaking the spell. “I got something for you.”

  Iris got her bag and fished out a folded magazine. She opened it out and held it up for Cam to see. “I remembered it finally.”

  “What the hell is it?”

  Iris sat and pulled the blanket back over their legs, her hand grazing Cam’s thigh as she did so. Cam couldn’t tell if it was an innocent gesture or if this was Iris making a move. They were alone, under a blanket, they’d had wine, and Iris had taken hold of her hand just moments ago. The thought made her scared, but also, she couldn’t deny, impossibly aroused. Iris spread out the magazine on their laps. Her face was open and excited, not showing an ounce of desire.

  “Cottoms has an in-house magazine. They produce a thousand copies a month, send it out to clients, and it goes out to the various offices to sit in reception, that sort of thing. Like an airline magazine.” She sounded animated, and Cam couldn’t help but smile.

  “I was chatting to Janie—she’s the head of Comms, works in the Bloomsbury office. She’s in charge of it.” She looked Cam in the eye. “They want contributors. She said they’re always struggling for good content.”

  Cam finally understood.

  “You could…I mean, it might be a good way to get started again. I know it’s not very glamorous, but it might get you back in the groove and it’s…” Iris hesitated. “Well, it’s words, not numbers.” Her eyes were shining. “Go on, Cam, you’d be great. I’d love to read something in there that you’d written.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. What the hell would I write about?”

  “Write about what you know, do book reviews, an advice column, an interview with Sylvia. I don’t know, Cam, but I believe in you. Do words. Make that curiosity of yours count for something.”

  “Is that your way of calling me nosy?”

  “This could be something you do for you, only for you, not your mom, not Ryan, not even me really.”

  “This is the sweetest thing, the nicest thing.” Cam could feel tears welling.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “No, it’s okay, I’m okay. It’s just so nice of you. And you know what, it’s an awesome idea. I don’t know where to start, but I’ll try.” Cam felt a light bulb switch on. “Maybe I’ll write about the football teams. We’re so close to winning the league, and I heard Liam complaining to Graham about the men’s team being close to relegation. It’ll make quite a story. Women’s team succeeds against the odds sort of thing. One condition though.” Cam looked at Iris.

  “Anything.”

  “A
nything? Are you sure about that?”

  “Er, maybe?” Iris sounded nervous and Cam laughed.

  “The poetry event at the end of the month. You have to perform. If I’m gonna do this,” she pointed at the magazine, “then you have to do that. You’ll be wonderful. I know you will. And deep down I think you know it’s time.”

  “I think I’ve just been played.” Iris said.

  Cam waited.

  “You’ll come with me?” Iris sounded adorably shy.

  “Of course I will. I’ll even help you choose something, if you like.” Cam smiled as she said it, knowing Iris usually pushed her away whenever she took too much of an interest in her poetry.

  “I kind of have something actually. It’s about my mom and dad. About growing up with him, without her. I…I mean I’ve been working on it for months, and I’ve lost sight of whether it’s any good, but it’s finally finished—I think. If I send it to you, will you tell me if it’s good enough?” Iris spoke uncertainly.

  “It’d be a privilege.” Cam paused, not wanting to push but knowing Iris needed it. “And you’ll perform it?” She looked at Iris expectantly.

  Iris blew out a breath. “Okay, I’ll do it, but only if you absolutely, definitely promise to come.”

  Cam squealed and hugged Iris before pulling away self-consciously. “I will, I absolutely will, I promise.” She offered Iris her pinkie finger and they shook on it.

  “Shall I start the movie?” Cam had her hand on the remote control. Iris reached across to the coffee table where Cam had left the big bowl of popcorn and placed it on the blanket in between their knees.

  “Yep, let’s do this. And no digging your nails into my arms during the scary bits.”

  “You said there weren’t any scary bits.”

  “Oh yeah, so I did.” She winked at Cam.

  Cam reached down for a handful of popcorn, feeling like this night had turned out even better than she had hoped.

  * * *

  Cam opened her eyes, expecting the movie to still be playing but found that the TV screen was dark. Next to her, she could hear Iris breathing, the breaths deep and even. And then she felt the weight of Iris’s head against her shoulder. She was fast asleep. Cam looked down at her, trying not to move, not wanting to wake her. She looked so peaceful, her eyelashes long and dark against her pink cheeks. She was so damn stunning. Cam’s heart skipped and she wasn’t sure if it was desire or panic. Iris’s hand was resting on her arm, the long fingers curled around Cam’s wrist possessively. Cam enjoyed the feel of it more than she had any right to.