Chapter Six. I was pleased she went back to sleep

I was pleased she went back to sleep. It was easier to leave. I didn't want to go. I wanted her to come with me, that was what I wanted. Life made more sense when I was with her. But that wasn't going to happen at midnight and the journey was not getting any shorter. I covered her with the comforter from my bed, wrote a note that part of me hoped she wouldn't find, and quietly took a shower.

The village was settling down and quiet as I slipped out the door. I said good-bye to the guard at the gate and popped a CD into the player of the little fuel-efficient Geo. Even as the bounce of a club mix washed over me, all my thoughts were with the woman I'd left sleeping on my sofa. I wanted to wake her and love her again, enjoy the soft, sleepy need of her body, the sweet warmth of her smile, and the insights of her laughing mind.

We had made love, and it was different than everything we'd done before. It was different than anything I'd felt with anyone else. I'd had good, bad and mediocre sex, but even the very best, like with Celine, hadn't felt like that. I wanted to do it again, and again.

I was torn about her finding the note. There was no taking it back. I had first written just my mother's home phone number and the word Emergency.

Then I'd wished for a Hallmark card or something that would be far more eloquent that I would ever manage. Something had changed between us and I was scared to put it into words.

I am coming back, I'd written. / want breakfasts and silly hearts and valentines. We can talk about it when I get back.

The Geo's tires thumped in rhythm as I drove across the causeway that separates Sanibel Island from Fort Meyers. Before I was really aware of any distance at all, I was merging onto 1-75 and settling in for the first leg of the trip.

I'd driven it before, just once, right after I got the job at Club Sandzibel. I don't know what I'd expected, but my parents' chilly reception, and my brother's open contempt for my job, had ended any desire on my part to go back. When I had the chance to sell my fume-belching Firebird, which needed a new ring something or other, I'd taken the deal.

In the dark all of Florida looks the same. That might sound silly, but the interstates run through nowhere. Once I'd skirted Tampa and turned northeast on I4, there was nothing to look at but the lights on other cars all the way to Kissimmee.

I changed CDs several times, and at the outskirts of Orlando thought irrelevantly that someday I'd like to go to Disney World. I was willing to bet that I was going to get asked if I'd been, given that I lived in Florida. I don't think most people realized how big the state is, and that toll roads and two-lane highways with low speed limits made getting around tedious. Rajid, who had lived in Los Angeles for several years, said that Californians thought nothing of a hundred-mile daily commute, and the only tolls they paid were to cross bridges. In Florida, a hundred-mile drive required days of planning, maps, a cup full of quarters and a supply of bottled water.

I realized I didn't have any water and was instantly thirsty.

I took my first break at a bustling truck stop near Daytona Beach where campers, truckers and tourists alike mingled. It felt safe and I bought several bottles of water and a few packets of nuts. I ought to have raided the dining room for fruit, but I hadn't been thinking earlier. Gas was more expensive than I thought, and I was more grateful than ever for the envelope of crumpled folding money. My coworkers, many of whom I couldn't say more than hello to in their own language, had shown me more consideration than my family had.

I'd read in plenty of places about how gay people create their own families, and build communities to compensate for their families of origin, blah blah blah. Well, the laugh was on me, because for the first time I had an inkling what that all meant. Community had always seemed abstract to me. Now I got it. When life shoved you off balance, your community was the steadying hand. When something happened that flattened you, your family was the people who'd pick you up, ply you with chicken soup, alcohol or chocolate and set you back on your feet.

Maybe I could figure out family and community, but... relationship. I was in love with Tess, but the idea of a relationship was completely foreign. Nobody stayed together these days, and those that did were like my parents. Look what marriage had done for them. My father had slept with his secretaries and my mother knew the words "yes, dear" and that was about it.

Why try? If there was no happily forever, why even make a commitment? I didn't really understand why anybody—including gay people—wanted to get married. Wasn't a wedding vow these days just, "I'll stay until I don't feel like it anymore"?

And yet I wanted to make promises to Tess. I wanted to be bound in some way because what I was feeling inside was so huge, and so magnificent, and so scary, that pretending it wasn't there would destroy it, as well as parts of me that might not let that feeling ever grow again.

In the rest stop bathroom I glanced at myself in the mirror, surprised.

I didn't look any different. Same eyes, same wild hair. Same nose, same ears. I didn't look like a woman in love. For the first time in years, though, I thought the outside of me didn't quite fit the inside. My hair still looked like high school. I wanted something else, something that said that I was in love, and with a woman, and that it was the most marvelous feeling in the world. I totally understood why straight men liked women— women are just the best. I wanted to look in the mirror and see that truth emblazoned on me somehow.

Thing is, I didn't know what that would look like. I just knew when I put on the black clothes and the stupid hat for church, I was going to look even less like I felt on the inside.

The sun was teasing the horizon when I crossed into Georgia on I-95, and I had a greasy, overdue breakfast in Hardeeville, South Carolina. The place was busy but the grits were good. There was a little market adjoining the diner and I stocked up on bananas, oranges and Slim Jims. No long car journey was complete without an extruded, extra salty mystery meat product.

I knew Tess was up. I wondered if she was doing Morning Stretch, or if Moika was doing it because Tess would have two Body Pumps to lead. I wondered if Tess had found my note. What had I meant? What was I asking for? For her not to be with anyone while I was gone, even though she was walking around a buffet of female treasures? Did I care about other women, given that last night we had shared something incredible that I doubted I'd feel with anyone else?

I guess I did care. I don't know. Her body was her own. I wanted more than just her body. The highway was boring and I pictured Tess with Celine, getting fucked the way I had been. Would Tess give up an encounter like that for me?

The bigger question was, I suppose, would I give up the Celine Griffins for Tess? Yes. No.

Yes. No. Relationship. I just didn't get it.

By the time I got to North Carolina I had Tess in bed with woman after woman, learning what stone butch and pillow queen and flippable top meant. She'd learn all the labels and wonderful secrets about how women made love. When I got back I would be just another dyke in her life. She'd forget all about me, forget all about the way we'd been last night.

She wouldn't want me.

For the next two hundred miles that was all I heard, going around in my head like the sound of the tires on the asphalt. She wouldn't want me. The only variety was the equally unwelcome And why would she?

I pulled off the road at noon in Dunn, North Carolina, bought a Snickers from the rest stop vending machine, then waited a few minutes for a parking space in the scant shade. Windows rolled up and doors locked, I made myself marginally comfortable on the backseat. I was asleep in minutes.

I would have liked to have woken up after one or two dream-born epiphanies, but instead, several hours later, the blare of an eighteen-wheeler jolted me awake. The car was stifling and I was sweating. My head was thick with sleep and no amount of thinking seemed to have a point.

I peed, drank water, had another candy bar and an orange and hit the road again. I knew I needed protein or I'd never clear my head, but I wanted to get a few more hours on the road before I stopped for the night. I was more than halfway to Baltimore. I still felt no eagerness at all to get there but damned if I wouldn't arrive, and in time.

I wasn't sleepy when I got to Weldon, ninety minutes shy of the Virginia border, but I was tired. Tired enough to know my reflexes were waning and I needed a decent meal and extended sleep. It was after six and I was afraid if I drove on, the cheap but decent motels would fill up. It would be nice to have some chicken, veggies, and maybe even a glass of wine along with it. If I left at an early hour in the morning, I would be in Baltimore by noon. That would leave an hour of family reunion before the funeral.

I didn't realize until I opened the car door that the air had changed. Inside, the car smelled like Florida, but outside it was cooler, fresher. There was a reason why people loved the Carolinas and Virginia, I thought. The landscape rolled with hills that parted to show off well-tended farms and red barns. Low-rising mountains, thick with green, broke the faraway views. I knew in June the humidity would be as bad as Florida's was year-round, but in April I found it more than bearable. If anything, I'd wish I had a sweater after dark.

The motel room cost more than I had hoped, but was not as expensive as I had dreaded. The room was very clean, which was my priority. Nothing skittered when I turned on a light in the bathroom.

Showered and refreshed, I drove the length of town to view my choices and decided on a chain restaurant that specialized in after-work happy hours and fried appetizers with cute names. I was in the mood for a fried appetizer with a cute name. I hadn't eaten away from the resort in weeks and weeks.

After my wine arrived, and I'd ordered, I wished that I had thought to bring a book. I hadn't packed any and wasn't likely to find something I'd like in the mega-store at the interstate strip mall. I'd go browse though. I'd get a book, open the cover and do what I'd done countless times: drop off to sleep by the end of the first paragraph.

I drank the wine a little too quickly and felt slightly loopy. My dinner looked good when it arrived—a platter of chicken breast skewers paired with spinach and mushrooms rolled into tortillas. I ripped into the chicken, feeling better just knowing I'd soon have protein in my bloodstream. The rolled thingies were tasty, too. I was nearly done when a voice behind me almost made me choke.

"Maybe you need another glass of wine to wash that down?"

I reluctantly looked up at die tall, black-haired guy. I knew he'd have a God's-gift smile even before I saw it. Good-looking, yes, I suppose. I felt like I knew his type—they were at the resort every week. At the resort I was certain of my coworkers' protection.

"I'm fine, thank you. I don't need anything."

"Sure?" He moved like he was going to sit down in the booth across from me, so I held up a hand.

"I am absolutely certain."

"Oh, come on—just a friendly drink."

"Really, I'm certain."

"You probably think I'm hitting on you, don't you?" He didn't say bitch but it was in his eyes. What is it with men that they don't think I can see that in their eyes even before I say no? The charm was all a facade. I was a bitch the moment I walked in the door and his dick twitched. The only difference was he was willing to withhold his opinion of me until after he'd seduced me. If I said yes, I would still be a bitch, with the addition of slut. I'd rather be just a bitch.

I wasn't at work. I didn't have to be diplomatic. I was also no wilting female trained to do anything to avoid being embarrassed in public. I glanced at his hand and said, "It doesn't matter what I think, but I'm sure it matters to your wife."

He said it and turned his back.

That is, until I said, very loudly, "Excuse me? What did you call me?"

Heads turned, and he didn't want that. My server came into view, looking like he'd seen this scene so many times it held absolutely no surprise.

Baltimore was in the South, unquestionably, but it wasn't the Deep South. Still, I was acquainted with the various buttons I could push on Southern men, and in this situation it didn't pain me at all to bat my eyelashes, look helpless and say, again very loudly, "This married man just called me a rude name because I refused a drink."

" She completely misunderstood."

"Perhaps you'd like to return to the bar," the server suggested to God's Gift. Unfortunately, the waiter was too bored to be convincingly unctuous.

The massive, broad-shouldered man at the next table, with off-duty cop written all over him, cleared his throat meaningfully. It was too much attention for God's Gift, who stalked back toward the bar, cursing under his breath. I heard the bartender offer him a free drink. I understood the tactic—nobody wanted to call the police, it was bad for business. But it wasn't right.

My server, ineffectively checking that I was okay, got the brunt of my anger.

"No, really, I'm not okay. He harasses me, calls me a rude name, and then gets a free drink? Where's his incentive to be respectful toward your female patrons?"

The manager scurried over. I realized that in his mind, I was now the troublemaker because I wasn't going to laugh it off. "Ma'am, I'd be happy to comp your meal because of the unpleasantness. You've got apple cobbler on order, I see. Should that be brought out now?"

"No, thank you. I would like to leave. I realize you're not responsible for that man's behavior, but I don't feel safe anymore. In a half-hour he's going to hit on someone else, but I'm going to be upset about this all night. That's what's not fair."

"I understand, ma'am." Maybe he did. Some guys do get it. "If you will wait just a moment, I'll have the cobbler put in a box to go and I'll walk you to your car. I really am sorry about all this."

Mollified, I accepted his offer and he did, indeed, walk me to my car. As I drove away I thought he must have daughters or something, but that made me think that my own father wouldn't have done the same. He'd have said I got what I deserved, dining unescorted in an establishment that served alcohol.

Simmering with anger at how rotten men could be and how confusing it was that some of them weren't rotten at all, but mostly at my father's attitude that championed "boys will be boys," I went to the bookstore to walk the long aisles. The motion soothed me, as did the natural quiet of the store.

There were purportedly miles of books, but no gay/lesbian section I could find, even after walking every foot of the store.

Not wanting to ask right out—and risk getting stoned—I inquired at the desk if the store had a women's studies section.

"Oh, sure, honey," the clerk cheerfully told me. "Aisle ten, halfway down. We've got quite a few."

Perhaps I ought to have asked for "feminist books" because aisle ten, halfway down, was full of cookbooks, crafting manuals and lots of texts on the theory of home decorating. Maybe it also passed as their gay section; many of the books were written by openly gay men. Life was funny these days.

I turned the corner to find aisle eleven occupied with religious studies that continued on aisle twelve. I thought with great longing of the nice women's bookstore I'd found on a rare trip to Tampa with Tess. Finally somewhat satisfied with a mainstream mystery featuring a lesbian detective—though I doubted the bookstore knew that—I headed back to my motel. Once there I bolted the door, turned the air conditioner on high, kicked back on the bed wearing just an old T-shirt and ate the apple cobbler.

I lost myself in the book for a little while. Tess would be doing kid skit night right now. I liked kid skit night, it was fun.

There was a reason I'd left my father's world, and feeling trapped in a hotel room after dark was one of them. Used to walking around the resort at any hour of the day or night, I'd forgotten what the real world was like. Sure, I got hit on every week at the resort, but it was rare that the guy actually said what he was thinking. Some guys did actually take no with grace. Tess had had a few run-ins, but then Tess was so much more attractive than I was, and it brought out even more machismo and possessiveness in men.

Was Tess flirting with someone now? Was she thinking about me? I wanted to call her, but I worried she'd think I was checking up on her in some way if I called when she ought to be in her room. If she wasn't alone I didn't want to know. If she wasn't there, I didn't want to know.

I decided to leave her a message while she was still busy at skit night. To my horror, my voice quavered throughout. "I'm safe in North Carolina. I'll get there in plenty of time." Afraid the machine would hang up if I stopped talking, I quickly added, "I miss you. I'm sorry I had to leave."

I sat there with my hand on the phone for a very long time. I wanted to call back and explain that I was confused and more than missing her. I felt bereft not to have had dinner with her, not to have crossed paths with her a dozen times or more that day. She was a constant part of my life, and a good, caring friend. She kept her psychic accounts balanced, not just with me, but with everybody.

A kindness done her was returned, considerate gestures always answered. She remembered birthdays and asked after the health of parents and offspring. If she borrowed my golf clubs she always offered her car or something else to keep us even. If I made brownies she'd make cookies. I'd had college roommates who presumed my job in life was to share everything I had. Tess presumed nothing. Something about her brought out the kindness in others. She was, I thought, the first truly gentle person I had ever known. How could I call her and say that?

I closed my eyes and heard her voice. "So, you like to be teased." A thrill went through me, like it always did.

But I also heard her saying, "Can I get you more water while I'm up?" and "I have to wash my undies—want me to throw yours in too?" When I'd told her about the time my father had thrown a bundle of pipe at me with no warning, and then laughed when I dropped it, she'd said, passionately, "I'd give anything to have a dad, but not if he's anything like yours!" When I'd added that three days had gone by before either of my parents believed that my attempt to fend off the pipe had broken a finger, Tess had pulled me into a fierce hug and said in my ear, "No one should ever be cruel to you. I don't understand how anyone could."

She filled me with tenderness in places that weren't about sex. The parts of me that were all about sex she filled, too.

In that fog of impending sleep, I thought that I would give up all the Celine Griffins for Tess to actually be there with me. She gave me something no one else could. And that something was better than sex with other people.

Every time I woke in the night I felt her body under my hand.

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