Old Ties, page 10
Frankie took a deep breath. New places, new faces were not going to give respite from the maze of emotions where she stumbled blindly, getting nowhere, tripping and kicking her own heart like an endless game of kick the can.
“Yeah, I’ve been there a time or two. It’s funny how you feel like you’re gonna die and then one day you start to feel better. You realize you’re healing, and then you move on,” Cecil said, looking at Frankie sideways, trying to measure the effect of her words.
Their eyes met for a moment, and Frankie noticed how blue Cecil’s were, and Cecil fell into Frankie’s.
“You know, I don’t know who dropped you in my living room, but it was an awfully nice present,” Cecil said. “Say, you want to go for a walk on the beach and grab a cone on the pier?”
Frankie blushed for a moment. “Sure.”
They walked along the beach and talked. Cecil wanted to know everything about Frankie. She told most things, but she didn’t talk about Cleo. It was too fresh. But she told her about Electra and why she had gone away. She told her about her music and where she hoped it would go. Cecil confessed all her past transgressions, and together they laughed about how mucked-up things get. They built a gigantic sand castle and then went for drinks at the Pink Flamingo.
It was Friday night, and the place was packed. Cecil bought her a beer, and they gawked at all the girlies. Cecil explained her rating system.
“How come nobody’s snatched you up yet?” Frankie asked.
“Cause I’m hard to catch,” Cecil said, winking at her.
“No, really.”
“I just don’t pick the right ones, I guess. Either they’re ready to get married and we just met, or they dodge commitment like it was some kind of terrible disease, or they’re psychotic. I’ve been kinda sticking to myself lately trying to recoup. I like to look. It’s the touching that gets you in trouble.”
The DJ kicked on a good song, and Cecil grabbed Frankie. “Come on, girlie, let’s go dance. Best way I know to exorcise those demons. We’ll get ya cleaned out.”
“You make it sound like an enema,” Frankie said, getting up.
“Whatever it takes, darling,” Cecil said, grabbing her hand and moving her in the direction of the dance floor.
They spent the night dancing. Every song was a good one, or so it seemed. They only stopped long enough to chug beers. The dance floor was packed, and when the music really got going and the song was right, women began taking off their shirts to reveal bras of all assortments. It was a bar perk. Cecil grabbed Frankie’s T-shirt and pulled it off. They kept dancing cooler and free. Frankie had forgotten how wild the city could be. She got caught up in the dancing, drinking, and the half-naked women around her.
As they shuffled out sweaty and smiling at closing time, Cecil looked over at her and asked, “What’s next?”
Frankie surprised them both by answering, “I want to go to bed…with you.”
Cecil smiled. She had wanted to touch Frankie all night. Dancing was the closest she got, but when they swung and twirled around each other, Cecil knew there was more than friendship flashing between them.
Instead of answering, she took Frankie’s face in her hands and kissed her.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” she said, taking Frankie’s hand and leading her in the direction of the apartment.
They kissed at every street corner, walking faster until it seemed they would never get there. Cecil undressed Frankie in the middle of the living room, ran a bath, lit candles everywhere, and thanked her lucky stars that Electra wasn’t there. In the tub Cecil washed Frankie’s hair, caressing her body with soap. Frankie lay against Cecil’s chest while she ran her hand down Frankie’s taut stomach, reaching deeper. Frankie thought she would come right there, but Cecil whispered, “Wait,” and lifted her from the tub.
They wrapped themselves in towels, and Cecil led them to the bedroom. Frankie quivered with delight, aching to be touched, to be made love to until she couldn’t think anymore, wouldn’t hurt anymore.
Cecil eased her back onto the bed and parted her legs, taking Frankie in her mouth, entering her slowly, then more quickly, until Frankie cried out and reached for Cecil, bringing her down and feeling her deep down, drowning in the flesh of her nighttime lover. They took each other again and again from every conceivable angle, one top, one bottom, not knowing who was who until finally satiated they fell into a deep sleep.
Cecil woke up in the middle of the night, still finding herself wrapped around Frankie. She stroked Frankie’s hair from her face. I wish you were mine. But I know you’re not. Whoever holds your heart was a fool to ever let you go. Love at first bite and I am smitten. Alas for an evening liaison. Cecil smiled, pulled Frankie in tighter, and fell back asleep. Some is better than none.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was midmorning when Frankie awoke, looked over at Cecil, and let the memories of last night wash slowly over her. She felt better and then instantly worse. Alice was right. She and Cleo had been too careful, and because of that they lost each other. In being cautious not to want too much too quickly, they put their love on hold waiting for Romaine’s next move.
Their making love had been inevitable, and it was as much Frankie’s fault as it was Cleo’s. Frankie sat up in bed, realizing for the first time she was losing the love of her life without ever having known it.
She slipped out of bed and found her clothes. She looked remorsefully at Cecil. She deserved better than this. Frankie hoped she would find the love she needed. Guilty, she left the house, thinking only a thief leaves without saying good-bye. Cecil would be gracious, but Frankie knew she couldn’t afford to stay. She crept away, hoping Cecil would know where and why she had gone.
When Electra came home expecting to find Frankie, she was disappointed. Instead, she found Cecil still in bed, arms behind her head, smoking a cigarette and smiling.
“What pair of cat’s pajamas did you eat?” Electra asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed and reaching for Cecil’s cigarettes. She crossed her legs, lit a cigarette, and took a long drag. “What little darling did you stun with your loving ways?”
“What makes you think that?” Cecil said.
“Because, darling, you only look like this after you’ve been thoroughly fucked. Now tell.”
“If you must know, it was your ex-wife.”
“Frankie?”
“I believe she’s the only one you have.”
“Where is she?”
“Alas, my angel has flown the coop already, but it was heavenly while it lasted. Electra, you were a fool to let her go. She’s in love with someone, in love and trouble. I wish it wasn’t so, because I’d take her in my arms and never let her go. Still…” Cecil said, taking a drag and exhaling slowly, savoring the thought.
“But for the memory,” Electra said, wrapping her gauze train around her arm and sauntering from the room with a theatrical flourish.
Cecil snuggled back beneath the covers wishing those beautiful blue eyes were still looking at her.
* * *
Alice was wiping off the last few tables from the lunch rush when Cleo came in. Romaine had just left. She was helping out at the restaurant trying to make amends for scaring off most of the help.
“Well, look who’s back. Is it a special occasion?”
“I’m sorry, Alice,” Cleo said, lowering her eyes like a truant schoolgirl. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I wish you’d tell me when you’re going to go off so I could make arrangements. Romaine’s been helping out. Shocking, isn’t it? It seems remorse motivates her, for now, at least.”
“Is she gone?”
“Romaine?”
“No, Frankie.”
“Yes. It seems she ran off shortly after you did. No one’s seen hide or hair of her since. Ella’s a little concerned.”
“Frankie’s a big girl. She’ll be all right. It’s probably best for both of us,” Cleo said, pulling a sparkling water from the bar.
“Cleo, how can you say that? You two love each other. Don’t let it go like that. For once fight for someone.”
“And I loved Romaine and Bobbi loved me and we all let go. This time is no different. I don’t have the strength to fight anymore. If we were meant to be, none of this would have happened. End of story. Now I don’t want to talk about it anymore. All right?”
Alice shook her head. “You’re a fool, Cleo.”
“Then I’m a fool,” Cleo said, heading out the back toward the garden.
She took the wheelbarrow and set about clearing out the dead plants and weeds. Soon the garden would be back to its old self. Cleo hoped she would too. Time the healer, the most wicked and wondrous of creatures. She’d done it before; she could do it again. One day, she thought as she overturned the thick, black dirt, she would stop hurting, start to forget, and then begin to fill her life with herself again, reclaim what she had given away. She swore to herself she would never let it happen again. Cleo never hurt Cleo. It was the others, the ones she let close. But this was the last time. Not even Romaine would get through.
It was well after dark when she got home. She apologized to Marlowe the cat. Romaine had obviously been feeding her. Romaine did have her good points. She’d always been there when Cleo felt the world was closing in on her. Romaine took care of her. She didn’t make a good wife, but she was a steadfast friend.
“What do I do to make them leave?” Cleo asked the night sky. “I loved them both, but I couldn’t keep either one.” She wrapped her arms around herself and cried, letting the night be the only witness to her pain. By morning she would put her placid face back on and walk through the rest of her life with herself as sole companion. She was the only one she could trust with her heart. Everyone else was a demon thief waiting to steal her precious organ, flaying and roasting it, making a snack of something that should have been a banquet.
She watched the moon and the stars burst forth and wondered what in the human makeup creates the need for companionship. Most of the time in a relationship is spent being bothered, upset, and fretful about a companion’s lack of this or that. Nothing is ever settled. Love is an endless disappointment. Patterns persist, and so does the desire to find the perfect, ever elusive mate. We are forever thwarted in our search, yet we can’t stop it. We have an autism of the heart and are unable to rid ourselves of the fixation. To be whole is to have someone love you, the biggest lie the human race has ever told itself. For all your intellectualizing, you are still a fool, Cleo told herself, picking up the cat and going into bed.
“I have shared my bed with you longer than any woman,” Cleo told Marlowe, who settled down in the middle of the comforter, happy to have her home.
* * *
Cleo was having breakfast when she heard the distinct click of Romaine’s boots on the wood floor of the restaurant. She swiveled around.
“Good morning,” Cleo said.
“You could have called,” Romaine said, getting herself a cup of coffee.
“Enough already. First Alice and now you. I know, I know, I know. I promise to behave better in the future,” Cleo said, smiling at Romaine.
Romaine wrapped her arms around her and whispered in her ear, “If you ever scare me like that again, I’ll never forgive you. And believe me, I’ll come up with an awful punishment. Is that understood?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry.”
“I missed you and I’m glad you’re back and I’m sorry too,” Romaine said, kissing her cheek and letting her go.
“I hear you’ve been helping out while I was away. I’m impressed,” Cleo said.
“I don’t know why you guys are so surprised. I used to help out all the time,” Romaine said, knitting her eyebrows and obviously perturbed. All the commentary on her good behavior made her wonder where she’d been and what she’d been doing to make her behave so badly. I must have been a real shit. Funny, I never noticed it before, she thought.
“Used to are the key words,” Alice said, trotting off to take Floyd and Charlene Perkins’s order.
“That was before you got bored with it. You used to get bored real easy,” Cleo chided.
“I’m working on it. Some of us are late bloomers.”
“Forty-two is pushing the limits of puberty. This should have happened a long time ago,” Cleo said, thinking if it had she wouldn’t be hurting like this and another sweet woman would have been spared.
“It’s that hindsight thing, a wonderful reminder but a relatively useless commodity,” Romaine said.
“You and your commodities. Thanks for feeding Marlowe,” Cleo said, taking Romaine’s hand.
“Cleo, if there’s anything I can do to, you know, fix things, I would,” Romaine said, furrowing her brow and looking worried.
“I know.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Romaine was painting and Cynthia was editing at her desk when they looked up to see Frankie standing in the doorway looking tired and dirty from the road.
“I just want to ask you one question,” Frankie said.
Cynthia gathered up some papers. “I’ve got some things to fax,” she said, leaving the room to go downstairs to the gallery.
Romaine grabbed a rag and started to clean her brush.
“What do you want to know?”
“Is it over? Is it really over?”
“It’s really over,” Romaine said, setting the paintbrush down and looking at Frankie.
“And how do you know that for sure?”
“That’s two questions,” Romaine responded. “Come in and let’s have a beer. You look dry.”
Frankie hesitated for a moment.
“You want an answer, don’t you?”
Frankie nodded.
Romaine pulled two beers from the fridge and led them out onto the deck that overlooked the town. She handed Frankie a beer and then looked out over the buildings to the red cliffs beyond. Her eyes followed a white kite in the distance as it bobbed and twisted in the wind. Frankie followed her gaze. Romaine smiled, thinking of Cleo in her backfield, the wizard with her kite playing in the wind. Cleo was a master with a kite. Romaine had always admired her diligence, the time it took to learn the finesse of handling cloth and string against the will of nature, harnessing the wind to the point of dance, a ballet of wills producing swirls and dips of gentle motion.
Romaine turned to Frankie. “It’s over because Cleo loves you. It’s never been over before because Cleo never loved anyone but me. I could go back then. I can’t now. And Cleo’s right. It’s time we stopped doing this to ourselves and to the women caught between us. Frankie, believe it or not, I want you to be with Cleo. I want you to make her happy. And I think you can.”
“You didn’t always think that,” Frankie said.
“No, but as you now know, she’s not an easy woman to let go. I’ve known her most of my life. I’ve spent almost every day with her for half my life. It’s hard.”
“Then why did you let her go?”
“That’s three questions,” Romaine said. She let out a deep sigh. “I don’t know why. I never did know why. Maybe I was afraid that if I stayed she’d be the one to leave, that if I gave everything I’d have nothing and that being empty would make me weak. I could never allow myself to be vulnerable, so I made Cleo be the one. But as time went on, she became as strong as I was, and it took more to hurt her then.”
“So you slept with other women in her bed and that made it better,” Frankie said, feeling vicious, wanting Romaine to hurt as she was hurting, as Cleo was hurting.
Romaine looked away, watching the kite. It was getting higher and higher.
“Yes, I suppose so. I don’t expect you to understand my psychosis, but I’m the one that lives with its consequences. I lost her, but you’re letting her go. Which one of us is worse? I hurt her, but you’re hurting her now.”
“I slept with someone else,” Frankie blurted, needing to absolve herself.
Romaine chuckled. “It happens. Psychological paybacks, maybe. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I feel bad.”
“Don’t. You’re even now.”
“Is that what it’s about…being even?”
“You tell me. It seems that’s what we’re always doing, getting even.”
“Do I tell Cleo?”
“No, she doesn’t need to know. It’s not part of you two. Save her the pain of knowing. Lord knows she’s known enough. Don’t do it again.”
Frankie looked over at her with a raised eyebrow.
“I know, like I should talk. But why don’t you be good for all the bad that I’ve been?”
“Can I still go back? Will she let me?”
“When she finally lets herself love you, she doesn’t stop. If you want her, go get her. And make her happy. Maybe you can be all the things I never could. She deserves that.”
“Is she home?”
“Follow the kite, and you’ll find the woman,” Romaine said, studying Frankie’s face and thinking that Frankie would know Cleo in ways that she couldn’t. Romaine winced a little, knowing it was finally over. She and Cleo would never be lovers again. It was a hard thing to know.
* * *
Frankie raced across town, pulling up in the drive and sending gravel flying. She watched Cleo maneuver the kite. She took a moment to look at the woman she would spend the rest of her life with, letting the thought penetrate her heart like the first ray of sun as it spreads across the landscape. She walked toward Cleo. Slowly a smile crept across Cleo’s face. She knew why Frankie had come.
Frankie didn’t say a word. She walked straight up to her, put her arms around Cleo, and kissed her deeply, trying to say with her body all the things she felt. Cleo kissed her back, letting the kite go, wrapping her body around Frankie.
Frankie looked into her eyes and said, “I love you, I want you, I need you. I don’t care what’s happened, I just want to be with you.”
“Please,” Cleo said, starting to cry.
