Old Ties, page 2
They made dinner and afterward they lay on the living room rug finishing off the blackberry wine Cleo had made.
“Why won’t you let me seduce you?”
“Because it would spoil a perfectly good friendship.”
“No, it wouldn’t. I love you. I want you. We could still be friends.”
“Until we broke up and you wouldn’t speak to me. I guarantee you, this is better.”
“No, this is platonic, prepubescent lust with no end in sight. This is frustration and futility.”
“See, when you talk about sex you change.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I still wish you’d let me seduce you.”
What Bobbi didn’t know and what would keep Cleo safe was that discussing the probabilities of sex ruined it for Cleo. If Bobbi had been more like Romaine, she would have scooped Cleo up in her loving arms and carried her off to bed, saying nothing and kissing defenses from her lover’s lips.
After another bottle of blackberry wine that almost happened.
Bobbi poured Cleo another glass of wine, waited for her to finish, and then kissed her. Bobbi didn’t stop until she felt Cleo kiss her back. Bobbi felt the darting precision of Cleo’s tongue and waited for the soft moans she knew would come. She kissed Cleo’s ears, her neck, her breasts, those lovely breasts she longed for daily. She loosed them from their hiding place and kissed them. She kissed Cleo’s flat, hard stomach with its carefully sculpted navel that whispered welcome. Cleo sat up.
“No, no, I can’t,” Cleo said, starting to cry. Her dark eyes filled with sadness. Bobbi held her and never touched her again.
They joked about it later, how Bobbi and she made torso love and that it had been nice.
That evening was the closest infidelity Cleo ever committed against Romaine. Even though Romaine was sleeping with Sheila then, when Romaine found out, she cornered Cleo in her studio.
“So what’s this about you and Bobbi? Are you dating or, better yet, sleeping together?”
“No, we’re just friends. Contrary to you, I love my friends, but I don’t make love to them. There’s only one woman for me, and she won’t have me.”
Romaine sat on the corner of her desk and reached out for Cleo, who walked willingly into her arms, nestling her face in Romaine’s dark hair.
“I miss you,” Romaine whispered. “And I still love you.”
Romaine carried her off to bed, finishing what Bobbi had started.
* * *
Cleo watched the sun set behind the red rock cliffs, their vibrant color growing muted as the light faded. It was the first time they made love while Romaine lived with another woman, but it was not the last. She remembered lying in Romaine’s arms wondering what it meant. Was it infidelity? Romaine had girlfriends, but Cleo was her wife. Sometimes they didn’t live together, but they never stopped loving each other.
She remembered the shadows of clouds from the skylight windows passing across their naked bodies. She remembered being satiated yet wanting more. She had rolled on top of Romaine and ardently seduced her again and again, until they both lay panting, glistening with the sheen of desire. It was as if Cleo was drowning, and making Romaine come was her only lifeline.
Sheila couldn’t hope to compare. Romaine kept wandering back to Cleo’s bed to get another taste of that sweet, sweet stuff.
Perhaps that was why Bobbi wanted Cleo. Perhaps that was why Sheila never looked directly at Cleo. Cleo possessed something that they did not, and they craved it.
When Romaine missed Cleo, she missed her loving. She missed the way Cleo made her feel. There was something about her that Romaine couldn’t get out of her system. Maybe the girlfriends were an attempt to exorcise herself. It had yet to work, though through the years Romaine had tried diligently.
Whenever Romaine told her this, Cleo looked away. She had nothing to compare herself with. When she made love to Romaine she reached deep down inside her. She touched her light, held it in her hands, stroked its softness, cooed her love. Romaine would cry out, hold her tight, and beg for more, soaring into the universe.
* * *
Cleo stopped rocking and dropped her head in her hands. That was how Frankie found her, lost, wandering aimlessly through her memories, knowing she was as much Romaine’s invention as she was her own. How could she possibly separate the two?
“I didn’t know you lived here,” Frankie called from across the gate.
“Now you do. Where do you live?”
“Two blocks down on Howard.”
“What are you doing?”
“Going home.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“Have a beer,” Frankie said, stuffing her hands in her pockets.
“Why don’t you have one with me? You know I’m harmless. I’m sure Alice has told you the story. And she wonders why I don’t get dates.”
“I thought you didn’t want them.”
“I don’t. I wouldn’t know what to do anyway.”
Frankie opened the little green gate and walked up to the porch. “I guess I could have a beer so long as you’re harmless.”
Cleo brought her a beer.
“Is it true that you and Romaine have been lovers off and on for twenty years?”
“Unfortunately it is, and unfortunately many people have gotten hurt in the process. It’s an endless perverted game we play. See that you don’t get yourself caught up in it. Romaine always takes a shine to the new girl in town.”
“Are you telling me this so I won’t go out with your wife or because you don’t want me to get hurt in the cross fire?”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I might like you, given the chance.”
Chapter Three
On Friday night the singing waitress was out front waiting for the show to start.
“Are you nervous?” Cleo asked.
“I’m always nervous,” Frankie said, clearing her throat.
Alice announced her and Frankie went in, giving Cleo one last look.
Cleo smiled at her. “You’ll do fine.”
“I hope you’re right.”
* * *
Cleo sat at the bar. She ordered a shot of tequila with a beer chaser. Romaine, with her new girlie, would inevitably be there. Cleo wanted to be firmly anesthetized, not that Cynthia really mattered. She was a fill-in and a payback.
Romaine was angry with Cleo over issues of trust. After their last breakup, Cleo had refused to surrender certain freedoms and certain pieces of property, namely, the house. She told Romaine she was tired of dividing things up. She wanted them to keep things separate. It would be easier. The breaking point had been the house.
Romaine wanted her to sell it so they could buy property out of town and build another house. Cleo refused. The house meant everything to her. Seven years of sorrow went into rebuilding it and making it her own. It was as if Romaine was asking her to sell her very skin. Romaine accused her of loving the house more than she loved her. Cleo did. I can count on waking up to my house, I can’t say the same thing about you, she thought. Romaine couldn’t understand why Cleo didn’t trust her.
Everyone else did. Romaine had spent the last twenty years falling in and out of love with Cleo and then breaking her heart each time. “Honey, hang on to the house,” Alice told her. Bobbi, who hated Romaine with more fervor than Cleo ever mustered, thought Cleo crazy for going back.
Romaine had a memory quickly selective to fort the pain she put her lovers through. She expected absolution and was angry when most weren’t willing to give it. Cleo was the only one stupid enough to forgive the transgressions. But Romaine didn’t know that each time she broke Cleo’s heart, there was less of it left to give the next time. Cleo loved Romaine and she would always love her, but each time she kept more pieces of herself hidden so there would be less to hurt when Romaine walked.
All the lezzies, as the local straight population referred to them, thought Cleo the strangest creature for putting up with it. Half of them had gone out with Romaine, but Cleo’s little eccentricities and generous nature won them over. They soon forgot who she went home with.
* * *
Frankie started to sing. She looked good up there, her loose dark hair hiding one side of her face and her leather jacket sloping off one shoulder as she played. She sat on a stool, one sandal kicked off, her toes wrapped around the stay. Cleo was admiring the song with its simple lyrics and sparse acoustics when Romaine and Cynthia strolled in arm in arm.
Cleo sat listening, trying to ignore them. The first time out was always the hardest. She had experience on her side now. The first time Romaine had left and Cleo had seen another woman on her arm, it had nearly killed her. Cleo had drunk herself blind, gone outside, and thrown up.
She remembered looking at her vomit-covered shoes through teary eyes. That was what being in love did to you. She vowed never to fall for another woman. It didn’t count that she kept taking Romaine back; that was the same old, tired love. It wasn’t new love. As long as she stayed away from new love, she’d be okay. She’d been successful thus far.
Romaine was in a mood for paybacks. She kept touching and kissing Cynthia, making sure Cleo would see. Cleo rolled her eyes and took her beer outside, saving Romaine the public humiliation of mauling her girlfriend, Alice watched her go; so did Frankie. Frankie turned back to her guitar. When she looked up again, Cleo was standing outside the open window watching her. They made eye contact, and Cleo smiled.
After the show Frankie went out to see if Cleo was still around. She found her, feet up, Birkenstocks kicked off, drinking a beer on one of the couches on the veranda of the old-house-turned-restaurant.
“Good show.”
“You liked it?”
“Of course. It was sensitive without being sappy; it was ironic and sarcastic without being abusive. I like that. You’ll be a great star someday, I’m certain.”
“Yeah, sure,” Frankie said, sitting down.
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Why not? You do it all the time. Why do you put up with her?”
“Romaine?”
“Yeah, it’s not like she has to flaunt her girlfriend or anything.”
“Oh that. It’s a payback for the undies. It’s no big deal. Can I buy you a beer?”
“Sure.”
They sat talking and drinking until it got late. Romaine and Cynthia came out the door and looked over at them.
“Romaine, Cynthia,” Cleo said.
“Hello, Cleo, and I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name?” Romaine said, giving Frankie a cold stare.
“Her name is Frankie. You’ll remember that when she’s famous for her delicate lyrics,” Cleo said, gently slapping her leg.
“I’m sure. Good night, ladies,” Romaine snarled.
“Isn’t she a treat?” Cleo said good-naturedly. “Are you hungry?”
“Sure,” Frankie said.
“Let’s go to the five and diner and get some breakfast. You don’t have plans do you?”
“In this town, are you high?”
“No, but I wouldn’t mind. Maybe we’ll do that later.”
Frankie sat across the table from Cleo, sipping coffee and waiting for their breakfast.
“Now that you know all about me, I think it’s time you shared something. If that’s all right with you.”
“It’s no big secret. Breakup after three years, tried seeing other people, got sick of my job, and I needed a break.”
“Slim pickings, dear. She doesn’t have a name? You don’t know what went wrong?”
“She was bored. Her name was Electra. That wasn’t her real name, of course. She was an actress in off, off, and more off plays around San Francisco.”
“You mean to tell me you left the lesbian mecca of the West Coast to come to a small town in southern Utah. You must be completely mad.”
“It’s beautiful here, and I needed a break. Why do you stay here?”
“Because city life makes me tense and uptight, and the smog hurts my sinuses. Besides, all I really want to do is garden, take care of my house, read, and hike about on the Red Cliffs. A perfect little recluse. I can’t do those things in the city. I do travel, I want you to know. I’m not your average run-of-the-mill hick. I’m a citified hick, more like certified. You’ll have to come see my map sometime of all the places I’ve been.”
The waitress brought over their food.
“I hear she’s done it again,” Theresa, the waitress, said.
“That’s the only bad thing about small-town life. Everyone knows everything,” Cleo said, switching her plate with Frankie’s. Theresa never got the orders right. Actually you were lucky if you got what you ordered at your table and not the next one over.
“It’s a reporter this time?”
“I believe so. I haven’t perused her résumé, but it’s something like that. Theresa, meet my new friend Frankie,” Cleo said, hoping her inquisitive friend would get the hint.
Theresa smiled at Frankie.
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“You got it.”
“You two should really give it up,” Theresa said, shaking her head as if she were talking counsel from forces greater than herself.
“Now there’s a novel idea,” Cleo muttered. Fortunately, Earl Holland screamed from across the room.
“Do you think I could get some coffee ’round here?” he bellowed.
“Doesn’t it bother you that your love life is the subject of so much discussion?” Frankie asked.
“It’s not my favorite thing. But what am I going to do? Anyway, I thought we were going to talk about you.”
“Oh yeah,” Frankie said less than enthusiastically.
“What do you mean, she got bored?” Cleo asked after she doused her scrambled eggs with ketchup.
“She got tired of me. She thought I was boring.”
“Do you think you’re boring? I don’t find you boring in the least.”
“Electra needed a lot of attention, a lot of action, a lot of people around. I’m introverted. I like to spend time alone, writing songs and, you know, thinking about things. After a while, Electra couldn’t take it anymore. She said living with me was driving her crazy. She moved out a week later.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being quiet.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Chapter Four
“Cleo, why don’t you go out with someone?” Alice asked her.
Frankie raised an eyebrow. This ought to be interesting. She stood behind the counter refilling the salt and pepper shakers.
“I came here to get a sandwich, not to get grilled—the sandwich or myself,” Cleo responded, smiling at both of them.
“I get so sick of watching Romaine strut her new girlie friend in here while you sit and watch. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it pleasant. But what am I supposed to do? Move? I like it here, and if that means putting up with Romaine’s latest, that’s the way it goes. Now can I have my sandwich?”
“I know what your problem is. You’re afraid to go out with other women,” Alice said, smugly pursing her lips.
“I am not!”
“Ever gone out with another woman?”
“Not exactly.”
“You can’t count Romaine’s leftovers,” Alice said, putting her hands on her hips, obviously referring to Bobbi.
“All right, then no, I haven’t gone out with other women. It doesn’t mean I’m afraid of them. I wouldn’t know where to look anyway. I don’t like the bar. Besides, that would give Romaine way too much satisfaction having someone tell her that I was desperate and out cruising.”
“How about the ads? We’re not far from the city. Why not find someone that way?” Alice suggested.
“I’ve already thought of that, and I’ve decided that I’m going to advertise.”
“That’s great. What are you looking for?”
“I’ve decided that since I don’t do well with lesbians, I want a curious bi, no strings attached, petite, attractive femme, discreet, no psycho bitches, no lesbians need apply.”
Frankie burst into laughter.
Alice looked at both of them confused.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Have you read the ads lately? They’re an embarrassment to the lesbian community. It seems all anybody wants these days is a pretty little plaything to show off to their friends and fuck in secret. It’s disgusting, and I’d rather grow old alone and have my dignity than subject myself to those new creatures who call themselves lesbians.”
“I still say that you’re afraid of going out with other women,” Alice said, refilling Cleo’s coffee.
“All right. Then you find me someone to go out with, and I will go out on one date to prove you wrong.”
“I want you to go out with Frankie.”
“What!”
“What am I, the bargain date?” Frankie said, screwing up her face.
“No, but you are cute,” Cleo replied.
“Is that your attempt at romance?” Frankie replied.
“No, but if you go out with me I won’t have to listen to Alice bitch at me anymore. We don’t have to kiss or anything.”
Frankie looked at her and shook her head. “You know, it’s no wonder you don’t go out with other women.”
“Why? Because I’m basically incompetent?”
“You got it.”
“See, Alice, it’s not as if I didn’t try. Women just don’t want to go out with me.”
Frankie’s pulse quickened. She thought Cleo was crazy, but she found herself oddly attracted to her. It was hard to take seriously someone who wore underwear as an outfit, but Cleo was amusing and easy to be with, and right now Frankie needed a friend.
