Hayley took a breath. “Hi.”
Merle turned. She looked a bit fearful, as well she might after Hayley’s outburst, but she responded. “Hey.”
Hayley walked into the living room and sat down on one of the armchairs at right angles to the couch, then folded her hands. “I owe you an apology.”
“No, you don’t. It’s my fault.”
“Yes. I do. Don’t interrupt me.”
“Sure.” Merle fell silent but scratched Arthur’s neck. Hayley felt worse because Arthur was staring at her, panting in his usual way. She was sorry she’d scared him.
“I had a bit of a meltdown. I guess I thought after last night, things would turn out differently.” Hayley inhaled and gathered her courage. “Do you want me to move out?”
Merle looked shocked. “No. Not unless you want to.”
“I don’t, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or cause any problems for you.”
“Look, Hayley. I need to apologize to you too. I’m not handling this very well at all. I don’t want to hurt you I just can’t…Last night was a fluke, a lovely fluke but—”
“I know. You can’t be in a relationship right now. I get it. You’re actually right about me too, even if I don’t want to accept it. I’m not good relationship material myself.” Hayley didn’t actually believe that, but it sounded good.
“It’s not that. You’d be a wonderful lover.”
“Just not for you.” Hayley couldn’t help injecting a little bit of a dig. She was still smarting from the rejection.
“That’s on me. Not you.”
“Sure. I understand. So we can go back to what we were before. I can be a grown-up.”
“I honestly want you to stay, Hayley. I really do. I like you, a lot. Arthur,” she looked down at him, “he loves you. You’re good for us.”
“Nice to hear. Well, I guess that’s that. You okay?”
“Yeah, I am. I hope you are too.”
“Yep. Just fine. I’m glad you want me to stay.” Hayley manufactured a decent smile. “So we’re clear?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay then. Good night.” With that, Hayley went upstairs again, leaving Merle and Arthur sitting on the couch. She lay down on her bed with her elbow over her eyes and cried some more. In spite of her brave speech, she was far from fine.
Chapter Thirteen
Hayley carried on a conversation with herself as she drove over to the Women’s Building for the coming-out group meeting. She was debating about whether to come clean with the group about what had happened with Merle.
She’d been to a few meetings and was relatively comfortable with the women there, though this process was still new to her. She’d never talked about anything intimate with anyone, let alone with a group. But she didn’t have any one else to talk to.
They settled in and Inga opened the discussion. When her turn came, Hayley said in a rush, “I slept with Merle, but we talked about it and it’s okay. It was all because of the stalker.”
Okay, so some of that was for dramatic effect. It worked. A chorus of questions erupted around the room.
“Wowie, zowie. What the heck happened?” Moira looked alarmed.
“What was it like?”
“Were you nervous?”
“Are you in love with her now?” Diana asked.
“Are you going to be together?”
“How do you feel? Over the moon?” Diane asked. Hayley wanted to be irritable at her sarcasm, but she felt that Diane’s insight was actually pretty good if uncomfortably close to the truth.
Amy said, “Whoa, time out, women! Let’s give Hayley some space to tell us what she wants to tell us, at her own pace.”
The group stared at Hayley expectantly. They already knew about Sherrie and her peculiar behavior and Hayley’s ambivalence about dating her. Hayley described her sudden arrival at Merle’s home and what had happened. But she left out the details of their sex. She wasn’t ready to reveal quite that much.
At last, she said, “We talked the next day and agreed that it just wasn’t the right time for either of us to start a relationship.” As she said it out loud, she sounded calm and together, but the painful truth lurked under her straightforward declaration. She’d wanted to continue but Merle hadn’t. They hadn’t agreed. She had only acquiesced to reality.
“Your first time! With your roommate, of all people.” This was Sheila, the most romantic and dreamy one in the group. “The way you talked about her, I knew something was going on there.”
That startled Hayley. She’d mentioned Merle, naturally, but she hadn’t said anything about her feelings because she considered them juvenile. Had something about the way she talked about Merle given her away? Or was Sheila making it up?
Betty said, “I want my first time to be romantic, and, I’m sorry, but that didn’t sound romantic at all with the stalker.” This sent them all off on a huge tangent arguing about the meaning of “romantic.” Amy let it go on for a while until she brought the focus back.
“Hayley? What do you think?” That was precisely the question, wasn’t it? Hayley thought she and Merle had handled the whole thing gracefully, aside from her little fit of temper. They were cool. But Amy’s question caused her doubt to resurface.
“I don’t know.” Her talk with Merle had made it seem final, but she wasn’t sure she could let her feelings go.
Diana said, flatly, “I’d move out. If I really liked someone and it wasn’t going anywhere, I couldn’t stay. That would be awful.”
“But what if she changes her mind?”
“Yeah, that’s not happening. Time to cut your losses.”
“There’s no way to tell the future.”
“What about finding another place to live that’s as good? You don’t find places to live in SF that easily.” Hayley had boasted, in a mild way, about the house and location and Merle’s fine qualities as a roommate and their compatibility, and so forth. That all seemed cruelly ironic.
But it would surely be a hassle if she had to look for another place to live. She didn’t want to go through the process again.
After the meeting, Amy pulled Hayley aside and said, “You’re the only one who knows what’s best for you.”
Hayley nodded.
“Are you in love with her?”
“I don’t know if it’s love or just hormones. Can women our age have trouble telling the difference?” The evidence said yes.
Amy grinned ruefully. “Unfortunately, I don’t think our advanced age gives us any special insight when it comes to love. We can exercise better judgment, but we’re not immune to heartache.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Amy hugged her, and Hayley felt better, if only a little bit.
*
Merle updated her inventory spreadsheet with some new items, then saved and closed it. She sat in her office at her desk, staring at her computer monitor. She had a bunch of things to do but no motivation for any of them. It was the week after she’d slept with Hayley, and in spite of their “clear the air talk,” she felt no better. She was mired in guilt, an emotion she considered one of the most useless feelings of all. And it was right up there with resentment in likelihood of making an alcoholic drink. She didn’t really think she would drink, but she felt like shit in spite of her assurances to Hayley that all was well. All was clearly not well.
She’d tried to self-talk her way out of it. Hayley, after all, had seemed to recover, and that should have made it all right. Except she wasn’t okay, not even close. She wasn’t worried about drinking, but she certainly was on an emotional bender.
She sighed, shaking her head. This was so ridiculous. It was bad enough that she’d succumbed to blind lust and ended up in bed with Hayley. Now she couldn’t get over herself and move on. She needed to talk this out with somebody. She usually discussed her problems with Sigrid only, but maybe this time, if she brought Clea into the conversation, it would be more helpful. Three heads or maybe two and a half. Her
ability to think clearly had been severely compromised, that was obvious. She’d slept with her roommate. That was pretty good evidence she was screwed up.
“Merle?” She jumped. One of the grad students, Jacques, was standing at the door.
“Uh-huh?” She supposed it was time to focus on work.
“I think Anik’s got a problem.” He’d turned out to be one of those types who had a hard time recognizing her authority or listening to her because she was female and didn’t have a PhD.
“What sort of problem?” She didn’t want to hear about problems right now.
“The PCR is acting up.” The PCR, an instrument that measured DNA, was a vital tool for the researchers.
“Okay. Be right there.”
She put on her lab coat and went to the equipment room where Jacques and Anik stood staring at the offending instrument as though their mind control would make it work. “What’s the trouble?”
Anik rolled his eyes, and Merle wanted to slap him.
“The sample compartment lid won’t close.”
“Did you try resetting it?”
“Yes. It still doesn’t—”
“Here, let me in there.” She moved past them quickly. She was being unusually abrupt and saw the confused looks on both men’s faces. Jacques was generally quite deferential to her, which she appreciated. After too many ego-ridden post-docs to deal with, grad students were usually like amiable children.
Anik, however, looked irritable and disdainful. “Don’t you think we should call for service?” he asked.
“No,” Merle said. “Not yet.”
She stood in front of the instrument and stared at the digital display. It was designed to measure DNA in tissue samples labeled with a fluorescent marker. It wasn’t a complicated piece of equipment. Most of the time, Merle prided herself on fixing things without having to resort to expensive service calls. She’d never bothered to reconcile her ability to fix things at work with her reluctance to do home repairs.
She switched the machine off, then back on again. She tapped on the sample chamber cover and jiggled it. She frowned. Nothing was wrong that she could discern.
“How long has this been broken?” She glared at Jacques and Anik, who glanced at each other. She instantly knew Anik had mucked with the PCR and likely had caused the failure.
“Just this morning I tried it,” Anik said, “and it wouldn’t work.”
“What did you do?”
“No-nothing. I warmed it up for a few minutes. Then when I tried to lift the lid, it…”
To Merle, he looked guilty, but she had no way to know. In any case, the damage was done and it was her job to deal with it. This was a serious problem since not being able to use the PCR could stop their research.
“Did you hit it with something?” Merle was being a total jerk, but she was powerless to stop, it seemed.
The two young men shook their heads as one.
“I’ll get the tools and try to repair it. I’ll let you know when it’s fixed.” They drifted off, unwilling to argue with her, which was A-okay with her.
She leveraged a screwdriver under the metal lid and pushed it gently. No movement. She tried the other side. Still nothing. It was stuck. She shoved the screwdriver farther under the lid and slammed her hand down on the handle. The lid popped off and clattered to the floor.
She picked it up. The hinge was broken. She looked at the sample chamber. Broken there too. She’d have to call the service technician. The PCR was out of commission until further notice, and she put a sign on it.
After she made the necessary phone call she slumped in her chair and put her head into hands. She felt like she was losing her mind. Hayley’s face drifted into her inner view. She looked exactly like she looked when they were making love and she was about to come. Merle shook her head so hard she made herself dizzy. Stop. I have to stop thinking about her.
*
Hayley called Robbie to ask him if he’d talked to his grandmother.
“Yeah. She’s not sure why you had to change your life right now. She thinks the divorce has left you with a few screws loose.”
Maybe that was true, but not in the way her mother thought. It wasn’t the divorce, which was a long overdue event and very good idea. It was her so-called new life that had her emotional screws jiggling, but she didn’t want to admit that to her son or to her mother.
“Did you tell her that being a lesbian is okay now?”
“Sure did. She doesn’t care if other people are gay. It’s okay for everyone else. She just doesn’t see why you have to be this way. She doesn’t see it in a very positive way. I think, Ma, you ought to sell it a little more.”
Robbie was right, but Hayley wondered how to sell something she wasn’t actually feeling that good about. So far she’d experienced the walker, the talker, the stalker, and then Merle. So far, this new life had turned out pretty crappy. But she wasn’t going to share any of this with Ellie. That would surely further convince her mom that being a lesbian was a terrible idea. She sighed. The only other option was Angie, but that was a black box. She decided to wait until she was in positive place to talk to her mother again.
“I’ll have to go and see her again.”
“Righto. So, how are you, Ma? What’s up?”
“Oh, not much.”
“No? I thought you’d be a social butterfly. A million dates. You know. Hook-up time?”
“Robbie!”
“Easy. I’m just teasing. Seriously, are you okay?”
“Yes, sweetie. I’m fine.” She asked him about his work and his friends so she wouldn’t have to talk about herself. Good thing he could be easily diverted. She wasn’t doing all that well, but she wasn’t about to reveal that to her son, no matter how close they were. She felt like a failure and didn’t want to admit that to anyone.
She and Merle were polite but distant with one another. It wasn’t excruciatingly uncomfortable, but Hayley missed the old times, pre-sex. What, if anything, could she do? Probably she ought to date someone. That would surely help her get over Merle, but she’d have to find someone first. That was the issue. She needed some distraction, though, because coming home every day and seeing Merle, remembering their night together and knowing it wouldn’t be repeated, was way too painful.
She went back to scanning the OkCupid profiles, but none sparked her interest. Her calendar pinged. It was time for another meeting with Angie and Tom.
That was something to be happy about. She could exchange warm glances with Angie while Adam and Tom talked. They had a settlement conference with Tom’s employer in a couple days. Adam sometimes recommended settling cases in this manner. It saved a lot of time and money to not have to go to a jury trial. The success of a settlement conference depended on so many factors, though: how intransigent the employer was, how good their client’s case was, and more.
Hayley had already made copies of all the letters and other documentation. She went to the conference room and set out the documents. Adam was a bit old-fashioned in that he liked paper copies. Some of the other attorneys simply emailed documents.
Angie and Tom entered, and everyone made their greetings and sat down. As always, Adam opened the discussion with some small talk to relax the clients. On this occasion, he talked about the San Francisco Giants, who’d made the National League play-offs and were looking for another World Series chance. This topic got Tom and Angie animated and chatty since they were both huge baseball fans. Hayley was neutral about baseball, but she didn’t mind looking at Angie while they all talked.
“So. Here’s the deal.” Adam opened his folder and scanned something. It was an offer letter from Tom’s engineering firm, which Hayley had already read. “We’ve got an offer from Kallman, but it’s not an especially good one. That’s normal.”
Adam grinned. “The good news is they came with an offer first, because they know you have a good case and their position is weak.”
Adam had told Hayley that Tom was an exceptiona
lly good client. He’d saved every single piece of paper he’d ever gotten that related to his employment. During the depositions, he was clear and concise. Even better was that, the HR reps from his company weren’t especially good at justifying his abrupt layoff. Adam was confident that the Kallman Company knew it had a weak case, and the powers that be were scared.
“Sometimes, these guys just don’t believe a loyal employee would ever sue them,” Adam told Tom and Angie. “Then you do and they get rattled.”
Adam schooled Tom on the settlement process, and Hayley and Angie made eyes at each other in a most pleasant fashion while Hayley listened to her boss and prompted him with facts where necessary. Tom would be called for the settlement conference when it was scheduled with Kallman Engineering’s attorneys. Adam discussed the terms for their response to the offer and got agreement from Tom on what he proposed.
On their way out, Angie went to the ladies’ room, and on impulse, Hayley followed her. She waited until they were washing their hands to speak.
As they stood at neighboring sinks, smiling at each other’s images in the mirror, she said, “So this may all be over sooner than we think.”
“Do you think? Is Tom going to get his job back?”
“I’m sure he will. I’d be very surprised if he didn’t, along with some money for the hassles he had to endure.”
“That would be so wonderful.”
“Well, it’s not over till it’s over, as they say. Adam likes to be cautious, but things look good.”
Hayley shook water off her hands and then reached for some paper towels. Angie was next to her so she made eye contact directly as she palmed the dispenser’s electric eye.
“And when we settle, and I mean when and not if, I’d hope I could see you. Outside of the office, I mean.” She moved aside to give Angie some room.
Angie didn’t answer immediately, but she grinned as she tossed her paper towels into the compost bin. She opened the door for Hayley and said, “I hope so. I would really like that.”
Everyone shook hands in the lobby, and Hayley’s heart was lighter when she went back to her office. Maybe there was hope for her love life after all.
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