Chapter Two
The week after she returned from the Mendocino trip, Merle stepped out her front door with Arthur, straightened her shoulders, and took a deep breath. To her left, just beyond the downtown skyline, the San Francisco Bay was a sheet of blue, no whitecaps disturbing its surface. To her right, the path up to the summit of Bernal Hill beckoned her to climb. This scene had sealed the deal for her when she and Kay had first seen the house.
Kay had complained that it cost too much and wasn’t close enough to public transit. Merle had argued for the other amenities of the neighborhood: its beauty and village-like atmosphere. It wasn’t gentrified but was still funky in a sweet way, not in a dangerous way, and it was full of lesbians. And there were lots of dogs. Merle had always wanted a dog and to live in a place where it would be pleasant to walk with one. In retrospect, she’d gotten everything she wanted and perhaps Kay hadn’t. Well, Kay had agreed to buy the house and that was that.
During the time they’d lived in Bernal, she’d lost track of the number of failed relationships she and Kay had heard of. If lesbians loved to couple, they also tended to uncouple at a high rate. She remembered another old joke, “It takes lesbians two days to move in (via U-Haul, naturally) and ten years to break up.” Apparently it was true.
She circled the bottom of Bernal Hill, steeling herself. She hadn’t walked up to the main congregation spot on the south side of the hill since Kay had moved out because she simply didn’t want to have to face their acquaintances and neighbors and tell the truth. The dog-owning lesbians in the Bernal Heights ’hood were a tight-knit, gossipy bunch.
But she had to do it sooner or later, and it might as well be on this sunny June Saturday afternoon. She walked to the end of her block and onto the well-worn path up the hill. A few feet above her home, the path intersected with the access road that encircled Bernal Hill called, appropriately, Bernal Heights Boulevard. It was blocked to car traffic past the houses so she and Arthur zigzagged back and forth on the wide road. He loved to investigate the smells of his neighborhood and mark them.
Merle waved at a few people she knew but didn’t stop to talk. They reached the parking lot where the biggest crowd gathered. When she stopped to let Arthur drink at the fountain she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around to face Miley, one of her least favorite neighbors. Miley was a major gossip and had always seemed to flirt with Kay whenever they met. Not that Kay had walked much with their dogs. She’d usually come up with some reason she couldn’t, so Merle gave up asking her. She liked her walks with their dogs.
“Hey, Merle. Haven’t seen you in a while.”
Merle forced a friendly grin and watched Arthur slurp water. He could take forever sometimes and she’d be stuck talking to Miley.
“Yeah. Been busy. Out of town for a few days. You know.”
“I hear you. How’s Kay? She didn’t want to walk today?” Miley was either being dumb or had a very short memory.
Merle didn’t want to lie. That would come back somehow and smack her in the face.
“Yeah. Well. We split.”
Miley stared and her eyebrows flew up.
“Really? No kidding. That’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear that.” Surprisingly enough, she even sounded sincere.
“Oh. Well. Thanks.” Arthur finally finished his drink, shook himself, and looked at her expectantly. “Got to get moving. The big guy needs to walk.” She turned toward the path.
“Oh. I’ll go with you.” Miley gave her dog’s leash a tug. Her boxer, Tucker, followed her. Merle would have to make conversation now. She’d wanted sympathy from Clea and Sigrid, and she’d processed the break with them. She didn’t want to discuss anything with Miley, let alone her split from Kay.
Merle tried to set a fast pace, but Miley kept up with her. That was the problem. Everyone in Bernal Heights was fit from all the walking and hill climbing, and she wasn’t going to be able to lose Miley by moving faster.
“So what happened? Do you mind my asking?”
“Oh. The usual, I guess, drifting apart, different needs.”
“I know, I know. You can’t depend on anything. I always thought you were just an ideal couple. You seemed so right for each other.”
Merle refrained from rolling her eyes. Maybe it had seemed that way to those not in the know. Kay would certainly have projected that aura, and so did she if she was honest with herself. She dragged herself away from her memory. Miley was still talking.
“Well. I’m glad you’re sticking around. You got the house, huh?” Miley’s expression was speculative.
“Yeah. She wanted to move. Hey, could we change the subject? I’m still sort of raw and it’s tough to talk about.”
“Uh-huh. Sure, I get it. Say, after we finish you wanna come over for a visit?” Miley looked absurdly hopeful and sweet. Was she asking Merle for a date? She wasn’t ready for that. Not with anyone, and certainly not with Miley.
“Um. Can’t. Not this time.” Not ever. “But thanks for asking.” She made sure her last sentence was spritely and cheerful. She wanted to sound grateful but wasn’t going to promise anything.
“Do you have Kay’s number, by the way?”
At this, Merle frowned and shook her head. It was a lie, but she didn’t want Miley calling Kay. Miley was a piece of work.
Merle marched forward with Arthur, tugging him away from a sniff of some interesting glop on the road.
As they rounded the top of the hill, Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s ugly microwave tower at the summit loomed on their left. It was the only flaw in the Bernal Heights ambience. Merle tried to ignore it and concentrate on the 360-degree panorama of San Francisco. She never tired of the view, and it was a great alternative to having to talk to Miley. She took a good deep breath and looked toward Diamond Heights to the northwest. Being on her hill with her dog and the view and the fresh air was healing.
At least Miley would take care of informing the rest of the ’hood so she wouldn’t have to make the announcement over and over. When had she become so antisocial? She needed to get over that eventually. She might not be young but she wasn’t dead! Gah, she’d have to start dating sometime. What a miserable prospect. Merle shook her head. She’d have to face it in the future. And she’d have to not see it as miserable but as an adventure. She hadn’t had a date in ten years. That was a long time. But she didn’t plan to start with Miley. Miley had been babbling the whole time, and Merle hadn’t said a word.
Miley stopped mid-sentence. “Something wrong?”
“No. Just thinking. Oh, hey. Here’s Abby and Susan.”
The couple was way more palatable than Miley. And she wouldn’t be asked on a date.
“Hi, Merle! How are you? Hi, Arthur, you sweetheart.” Abby bent to pet Arthur. He soaked up the attention. Merle was hoping that Miley and Abby and Susan would start talking and relieve her of the need to participate.
“Hi, you guys. What’s up?” Miley asked her question in the manner of someone who doesn’t truly want to know but wants instead to tell you something.
“Not a lot. What about you?” Abby was greeting Tucker, while Susan tried to get their overly sensitive corgi, Mig, to settle down. Once she started barking she wouldn’t stop. High-pitched, piercing barks.
“Me? Nada. But Merle here has some big news.” Miley made it sound as though Merle had won the California lottery.
Abby raised an eyebrow while Susan tried to soothe Mig into silence. A treat finally did the trick, thereby ensuring Mig would repeat the behavior. Merle was grateful Arthur was easygoing.
“Oh? What’s that?”
Miley looked expectantly at Merle. At least she wasn’t going to take it on herself to give the news to Abby and Susan. Merle supposed she was grateful for that.
“I, um, Kay and I, eh, broke up.”
“Oh no!” Susan stopped paying attention to the dogs and caught the eye of her partner, who stared back at her, seemingly struck dumb. Maybe they were afraid that whatever had caus
ed Merle and Kay to split was catching. That idea amused Merle.
“Did you hear that, honey? Merle and Kay broke up!”
Abby scrutinized Merle, looking for wounds, apparently.
“How are you? When did it happen?” Abby asked like she’d been in a car accident. The breakup had been happening for a long, long time, but she wasn’t about to try to explain that.
“About a month ago. I’m fine. No big deal.” Merle shrugged. Both Susan and Abby were therapists. Merle really didn’t want to talk to any more therapists.
“Well. Good. Susan, honey. We better go.”
“Right. See you!” And they walked off so fast, Merle was sure they were afraid of catching the breakup disease.
“Ready to head down the hill?” she asked Miley, who was smiling at her with an expression somewhere between avidity and sympathy. Merle didn’t want either emotion directed at her.
As they made their way back, Merle stuck to an innocuous subject: dogs. If they weren’t gossiping about each other, the Bernal dykes could be relied on to talk dogs. Ad nauseam. Or the price of housing, an obsession they shared with all San Franciscans.
“So, see you around!” Merle told Miley cheerfully when they reached the path back to her house.
Miley squeezed her arm. “Call me if you need to talk. Or whatever.”
“I sure will.” Merle turned Arthur and hurried away, glad it was over.
Abby and Susan would no doubt tell everyone they knew. So would Miley. What would happen once the news was spread? More date requests from undesirables? The cold shoulder from nervous couples? She just wanted it all to go away.
Back at home, when she walked through the front door, the emptiness of the house washed over her. She stood still, unconsciously expecting Kay to be there. How long would it take to get over that feeling?
*
The biggest problem with being single other than the monstrous loneliness was that Merle had to do all the household chores herself. This made her miss Kay more. She’d never thought about how well they divided up the necessary tasks like grocery shopping. Kay had done it, although she drove the car every time, no matter how often Merle had pleaded with her to use a shopping cart. Kay hated to walk and loved to drive. Merle had only her own motivation.
She dutifully dragged her metal grocery cart eight blocks up and down the mini hills around Bernal Heights to the Good Life Grocery. They were, correction, she now was lucky to be close to a decent grocery store. The first time she’d had to go the week after Kay left, it had been oddly uncrowded and she hadn’t run into anyone she knew, which was a great blessing.
This time it was midday on Saturday, and she was sure a ton of people would be there. Hopefully the word had spread so she didn’t have to say anything should she encounter anyone she knew. She could just smile bravely in response to the questions of how she was feeling.
She slid her cart behind the handle of the grocery basket so the wheels kept it from falling and started her circuit in the produce section. She zeroed in on the green vegetables. Next to her, an unfamiliar lesbian couple spoke to each other earnestly, their heads together. Merle needed a plastic bag, and the dispenser was directly over the head of the woman nearest her.
“Excuse me.” Merle essayed a polite smile. The woman turned to her, blinked, and didn’t say a word, though she moved slightly to one side and returned to her conversation with her girlfriend / partner / wife. Neither of them even acknowledged Merle’s existence. They were oblivious, as though they were in a bubble, a couple bubble. Merle kept going. She’d worried that she’d have to talk to people, and the opposite was true. The sudden stab of loneliness surprised her. This was ridiculous because she and Kay had rarely shopped together. Merle cruised on to the deli counter and stood before the display of free-range, organic meat and fish in a quandary. What to buy?
She was on her own. She’d been part of a dysfunctional couple, it was true, but still she was with someone. Now she was single. In the Good Life Grocery, that realization truly hit her. Everywhere she looked she saw pairs of women who seemed completely absorbed in each other. This was so unnerving. Why had she never noticed the Good Life Grocery clientele was entirely composed of lesbian couples?
Also, in the long run, food for one was more expensive than food for two. She didn’t mind cooking, but cooking for herself really depressed her. Merle slid into a full-blown black, bottomless funk. She wasn’t with Kay anymore. At her age, how the hell did you start over, and where the heck would she find women? Merle didn’t think she wanted to try dating in AA. One alcoholic in a relationship was enough, even if they were both sober. Clea and Sigrid were the exception that proved the rule.
She walked up the juice aisle. Since she didn’t drink alcohol, she indulged in fancy organic juices. They’d moved the Knudsen juices. Again. They were up on the top shelf. Yet another lesbian couple stood next to her. God. Was there no end to them? Merle reached up to grab a bottle of the Morning Blend. After their first night together, she and Kay had sat in bed, exhausted and covered in sex juice, and toasted each other with Knudsen Morning Blend. Better choose another flavor. She tried to return the juice to the shelf, but her hand slipped and the bottle of juice crashed to the floor, spraying glass and orange, grapefruit, and mango juice everywhere, including onto half of the couple nearest her.
The un-splashed half of the couple gave her a glare that almost turned her to stone. She’d apparently splashed juice on the wife of Medusa. Merle muttered “Sorry!” and wearily went off to find a staff member and tell her of the accident. She took up her shopping again and tried to calm herself.
In the grocery store, she reminded herself she’d soon have to figure out her housing situation and interview potential roommates. Another one of those single-person things, like dating, she’d thought never to have to do again. She decided on a couple of chicken breasts that were on sale. As the butcher wrapped them up, her thoughts flew ahead. She reckoned craigslist was the way to go. Or maybe use a rental service, although there’d be a fee. Never mind. She could screen people herself.
She hadn’t lived with a roommate since the early eighties before she moved in with her first lover, Sara, the one before Kay. That was at the height of her alcoholism, so Merle was hazy about what it had been like to live with roommates. She only remembered that she and Sara had shared a flat with some people but recalled nothing else. Well, she’d have to pull herself together and find a housemate.
*
Merle heard from an acquaintance how common it was for people to lie about their financial health. It was as common as lying about sex, the woman said. She had to take that into consideration, as well as other potential pitfalls like drug addiction, alcoholism, and failure to do dishes. Not to mention just general weirdness. She’d heard stories from the neighborhood about roommate nightmare scenarios. She decided it would be helpful to make it known to the dykes-with-dogs posse that she was in the market. This entire process seemed as fraught with peril as dating. At least with dating, she could call the whole thing off after a couple of encounters. Could she kick someone out of her house after a couple weeks? She needed legal advice or something.
During her dog-walking forays, whenever she met people she knew, she mentioned she was looking for a housemate. She got more horror stories than referrals or suggestions.
“Skipped out on the rent.”
“Said she was a dyke but surprise, she was bi. Found out when the guy who stayed over was peeing in the bathroom with the door open and I stumbled upon him early in the morning. Yech.”
“Never washed a single dish. I found out she burned one of my Calphalon skillets and threw it in the trash without telling me.”
“Speed freak.”
“Slut.”
“Psycho.”
“Bitch.”
“Hoarder.”
“Pothead.”
“Thief.”
“Meat eater.” This last one didn’t seem quite that big a deal to M
erle, but some folks took it very seriously.
Merle wanted to call the whole thing off, but she couldn’t. In another month, she was going to have to choose between eating Top Ramen for dinner and not paying the mortgage or paying Kay back. She had to start doing that soon. She worded her craigslist ad very carefully and tried to think of every single thing. She even added her approximate age as a disincentive to the young and restless. Some part of her thought just maybe an older woman would be less trouble. More reliable. Easier to live with. Safer.
Clea asked her, “Do you want a friend or just someone to share the space?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it would be nice to be friends, but maybe I don’t care.”
She’d invite the prospective house sharers over for a cup of tea, then try to read their minds. A lot of people were immediately disqualified due to financial instability. Saying no to providing a credit report or references was a non-starter.
The woman who sat at her kitchen table seemed like a good bet. She was the correct age and had proof of income. She worked downtown as an executive assistant. Merle understood that to mean she was a secretary for some bigwig. No matter. She got paid a decent salary.
They exchanged pleasantries about the wonders of the Bernal Heights neighborhood and the difficulties of finding good housing in the City. Pat was her name, and she smiled and cooed over Arthur in a reassuring way and scratched his head.
Merle had interviewed people who had insisted in email they were fine with dogs but then freaked when the met Arthur, who, since he was a male Lab, was a big dog. He was eighty pounds of mush, a big baby, really, but it didn’t matter. One woman complained, “I thought you had a Chihuahua!” Merle loathed Chihuahuas on principle, but she smiled and said thank you and dismissed the woman.
Warm November Page 3