Fragmented (24 page)

“You’re perfect.”

There was coffee in her mouth, and when she looked up at me her cheeks hollowed as she held the liquid in her mouth for a second longer before swallowing it down.

I leaned my arms on the breakfast bar. “And I’m totally U-Hauling,” I sighed.

She hummed and brought the mug of coffee to her lips.

“How did I not wake up when you got out of bed?” I asked. “Are you a ninja?”

“You must be a really heavy sleeper. The bed was moving all over the place when I got into my chair.”

“I guess that’s why I dreamt we were on a pirate ship,” I joked.

“I hope you don’t mind.” Raleigh gestured to the coffee cup and the newspaper spread out on the table. “I kind of made myself at home.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “No, I’m glad you did. What kind of hostess sleeps in?”

“A hostess who exhausted herself giving her difficult partner multiple orgasms last night?”

I raked my fingers through my sleep wild hair. “I, uh, if you’re sure.” I’d never had complaints before, but maybe my past hookups had lied to make me feel better.

Raleigh reached across the table and stilled my fidgeting hands. “Last night was amazing, Harper. Thank you.”

“So, um, what’s up for today? Do you have to go back to your aunt’s right away? Or can you hang out a little longer?”

“I can give her a call and tell her I’m spending more time in the city today—if you’d like me to stay, I mean.”

“Stay! Definitely, yes!”

“Then it’s settled.” She smiled and thankfully didn’t tease me about my excited outburst. I couldn’t play it cool; I couldn’t pretend to be indifferent about wanting to spend more time with her.

A thought struck me. “How were you planning on getting home last night if I’d said you couldn’t stay? The trains don’t run that late.”

“That was never in the plan. I knew you’d say yes.”

“Awfully sure of yourself,” I noted.

She looked nonplussed. “I keep an optimistic attitude and good things tend to happen.”

I would have been more than happy to stay in bed all day, continuing to explore Raleigh’s body, but I didn’t want her to think I was a sex addict or that I only wanted a physical relationship from her. We’d had one official date, and we should probably have more.

Millennial Park, Chicago’s version of Central Park, was only steps away from my apartment, so we spent the day playing tourist and taking funny pictures under the iconic giant silver bean. Chicago was a big city—the third largest in the country—but its neighborhoods made it feel smaller. I rarely ventured out of my own neighborhood of Hyde Park except to watch Sasha. So although I had lived in the city for more than three years, I was as much of a tourist in the Loop as any out-of-towner.

I normally stomped from one place to the next like a woman on a mission. I never took detours; I walked at a brisk pace to get to my next destination. I liked to be efficient with everything I did. Being with Raleigh, however, necessitated that I slow down. Unless I was the one powering her chair, she couldn’t move as quickly as I could walk, and we had to take long, winding handicap ramps instead of climbing three or four stairs to get into buildings. It was an exercise in willpower and patience. More so than the pace at which we moved, however, I had to become accustomed to the way people looked at us. I’d first been exposed to that feeling of being the center of strangers’ intrigue at the county Harvestfest. I wasn’t used to so many eyes on me, but Raleigh had a singular talent for distracting me from the one thing that made me the most anxious.

At the end of our day together, we stood on the elevated platform waiting for Raleigh’s train. It would have been more convenient for her to spend the night with me in the city so she wouldn’t have to make the trip back the next morning for class, but we both knew her aunt wouldn’t be keen on letting her spend two nights in a row with me. That was a hurdle we’d have to eventually confront if we both wanted to pursue this relationship.

I was still unsure where Raleigh was on that topic, and to what extent she was Out to her friends and family, but I knew I was all in for her. She made me want to be brave; she forced me to put on blinders and ignore strangers’ perceptions of the kind of person I was. None of that mattered, especially if it made me miserable. I was tired of the anxiety and the looming dread of an illness that might never come. My mother’s doctor had been right—I needed to enjoy this while I was still healthy and not live my life like I was already sick. Monday would bring school and real life, but for once I wasn’t worrying about the immediate future. I devoted my attention to the beautiful woman in my present.

“I’m sorry I can’t stay tonight, but if I want to keep my aunt from asking too many questions, I should probably sleep in my own bed tonight,” Raleigh said.

“And you’d have to borrow more of my clothes,” I smiled. “Although you look really good in my jeans.”

Despite her words, she hadn’t really been planning on a sleepover, so I’d let her raid my closet. We were about the same size, something you’d only notice after laying in bed together, but our style in clothes was vastly different. She was pastels and summer dresses and high heels, and I was a jeans, boots, and button-up shirt kind of girl.

She grabbed my hand. “I know my aunt is another reason why dating me sucks.”

“She’s not so bad. I get why you have to be careful though.”

“It’s only for a little longer.” Her hand tightened around mine. “It just doesn’t make much sense for me to sign a year lease when I don’t know what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be doing it after graduation.”

Graduation. It had been such a whirlwind semester already that I’d hardly had enough time to freak out about what my next step would be after school. I still had my gig with the Henderson’s lined up for the summer months, but nannying wasn’t going to pay the bills forever. I needed to really start focusing on my Plan A.

“Shit.”

Raleigh’s features clouded with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“My ex-girlfriend is here.”

“Where?” Raleigh dropped my hand and sat up straighter in her chair as she scanned the assembled crowd on the elevated platform.

“Tall blonde, short hair in the olive green coat.”

She hummed when she spotted Jenn. “Cute.”

“I guess,” I said noncommittally. I refused to look in her direction.

“Is this the one who broke up with you in a text message?” Raleigh asked.

“Uh huh.”

“The one you were still dating when you brought me to Harvestfest?”

“Yup.”

“I can’t wait to meet her.”

I continued to stare at the wooden planks beneath my feet. “That’s never happening.” I wanted to avoid a confrontation at all costs. Jenn had never been good at civility or pretending to be an adult.

“You may not have a say in that.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s coming this way,” Raleigh murmured.

There was no place to hide unless Raleigh’s train magically appeared within the next few seconds and stole us away. This was going to happen.

I watched as Jenn erased the distance between us in a few strides of her long legs. “Harper,” she said, stopping in front of me. “Bumping into you is starting to become a thing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were following me.”

My mouth opened and closed, but no audible sounds came out.

“Hello.” Raleigh inserted herself into the conversation and my pulse raced. This couldn’t go well. My only saving grace was that this interaction was happening at a crowded L station and not in a more secluded location. But I knew from experience that Jenn didn’t care about crowds or the observation of third parties.

Jenn’s gaze lowered to Raleigh’s level as though she hadn’t noticed her before. “Oh, hi.”

Raleigh reached out a gloved hand. “I’m Raleigh.”

Jenn took the proffered hand. “Jenn,” she returned. “How do you know Harper?”

“We go to school together,” Raleigh supplied.

Jenn continued to shake Raleigh’s hand. “So you’re one of those friends she never introduced me to when we were dating. Did you know Harper’s gay?”

“I did, actually,” Raleigh confirmed, not missing a beat.

I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my jacket. “I told you I was Out,” I mumbled.

“I guess so.”

The recorded voice warned us of the impending arrival of an outboard train away from the Loop.

“Is that your train, or are you going west like us?” Raleigh asked. She looked remarkably unfazed by the conversation, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Not much rattled her.

“This is me,” Jenn said, nodding toward the incoming train that rattled the platform beneath us. “I’m meeting up with some people for a poetry reading at Northwestern.”

“It was nice meeting you, Jenn,” Raleigh said, raising her voice to be heard over the volume of the arriving train.

“You, too.” Jenn looked in my direction, and our eyes briefly connected. “See you around, Harper.”

The train doors opened and she disappeared inside the car. My sweaty hand got caught in my jacket pocket, and I waved my goodbye a beat too late. The train’s warning chime sounded and the doors closed. A moment later, the train tumbled away towards the north side.

“Well that was interesting,” Raleigh observed when the platform was once again empty.

The wind had picked up, but I was sweating beneath my jacket from the interaction. “You can say that again.”

“She didn’t seem so bad,” she noted wistfully. “Although that was pretty bad form to try to Out you like that.”

“Mmhm.” I chewed on my lower lip. “Is there a reason you didn’t tell her about us?”

“What would I have said?”

“I don’t know.” The conversation felt uncomfortably similar to many that Jenn had had with me, only the roles were now reversed.

“I didn’t see you jumping to tell her about us, either,” Raleigh pointed out.

“I was only looking out for you,” I explained. “I didn’t want her to push you off the platform. She was always the jealous type.”

Raleigh shook her head and laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”

+ + +

The next day, I was having a hard time staying focused in class—even more so than on the first day Raleigh had shown up at my school. Midterms were in the rearview mirror, and it was too soon to be thinking about final exams. It was the sweet spot in the semester where the entire school seemed to take a long exhale. There were no papers or projects to worry about yet. Even my professors seemed to step off the gas pedal.

Professor Berry had his back turned to us as he wrote some overly complicated Latin translations on the blackboard. Raleigh chose that moment to grab my notebook away from me. The protest died on my lips, realizing that I couldn’t very well shout at her in the middle of a lecture. She turned away from me and curled her shoulder over the notebook so I couldn’t see what she was writing in my book. My attention went back to our professor who’d turned again to address the class. I clenched and unclenched my right hand in the absence of something to do.

When Professor Berry went back to the chalkboard, Raleigh slid the notepad back in front of me. I scanned the page, looking for what she’d done. My own hurried, chicken-scratch handwriting covered most of the page. My handwriting looked psychotic. Hers looked like it belonged to a ballet dancer—efficient and graceful—or like she was penning a handwritten love letter to a nineteenth-century paramour.

It had felt like she’d confiscated my notebook for much longer, but there was only one sentence written on the page that didn’t belong to me:
I can’t stop thinking about last weekend.

My face broke into a smile, but she had her blinders on and had resumed the careful transcription of Professor Berry’s lecture.

I was completely useless for the remainder of class, and I had Raleigh’s single sentence to thank for that.

“Do you want to hang out with Sasha and me this afternoon?” I asked when Professor Berry wrapped up class.

“That would be lovely,” Raleigh said, head bobbing. “After getting a little taste of freedom over the weekend I’m finding I’m not as eager to get back to my aunt’s house today.”

“A little taste of freedom?” I smirked. “Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”

Her pale cheeks immediately colored, and her gaze went to her lap. She cleared her throat. “What time do we pick up Sasha?”

The rest of the school day couldn’t go by quickly enough. Spending time with Sasha was always fun, but more time with Raleigh was even better.

When we arrived at Sasha’s school at the end of the day, the long line of stay-at-home moms and dads and the other nannies like myself already stood like a fortress around the short wrought-iron fence that surrounded the school grounds. I gave a short wave to my friend Marco, whom I hadn’t seen in a few weeks now that the weather was turning colder and the semester was getting busier.

“Who’s that?” Raleigh asked, noticing the interaction.

“Marco. He’s another nanny.”

“He’s cute,” she observed.

“And a flirt,” I supplied.

“
Oh
really
?” Her voice rose along with her pale eyebrows.

“Uh huh. Not that you have anything to worry about,” I casually added.

“Not your type?” she smiled serenely.

I showed my teeth. “Not even close.”

Sasha tumbled outside like she couldn’t escape her school soon enough. “Harper!” she frantically waved.

She bounded down the concrete stoop in front of her school. I was sure she was going to face-plant if she wasn’t more careful.

“Harper! Can we go to the zoo?” Sasha asked. Her miniature body bounced with barely contained energy as she tolerated my help putting on her coat. “Justin Wagner went this weekend, and he said there’s a baby elephant.”

“Who’s Justin Wagner?” I asked.

“A boy in my class.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” I teased her.

Sasha’s button nose scrunched up. “Yuck.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Raleigh chimed in.

Sasha seemed to only notice Raleigh after she’d spoken. She’d had tunnel vision about the zoo and probably wouldn’t have noticed if my hair was on fire.

“You remember Raleigh, right?” I asked.

Sasha’s coiled hair bobbed as she nodded her head with unchecked enthusiasm. “She brought Candy Land.”

“I hope you don’t mind me tagging along, Sasha,” Raleigh stated.

Sasha didn’t seem to know what to do with the question. I was sure no adult had ever asked permission to hang out before.  Instead of responding to Raleigh, she looked up at me. “Can we still go to the zoo?”

“Yes, we can go to the zoo,” I conceded with a laugh.

Sasha pumped her fist in the air and immediately began running in the direction of the zoo.

The Lincoln Park Zoo was minutes from Sasha’s school, and even more convenient, it was free. When I’d first interviewed for the babysitting job with the Henderson’s a little over a year ago, the neighborhood had intimidated me. Most of Chicago’s residential neighborhoods looked the same to me, but there was something about Lincoln Park that had made me ache with envy. The streetlamps burned a little brighter, the sidewalks were a little cleaner, and the roads were more evenly paved.

“She really likes you,” Raleigh murmured on our walk. “Not that I blame her,” she added.

Sasha had slowed her sprint to a bouncing skip and found it necessary to touch every surface between her school and the zoo.

“You brought Candy Land,” I reminded her. “You’ll forever be her favorite.”

We hadn’t yet reached the zoo’s main entrance, but Sasha had pulled up short. She stood in front of an ice cream vendor, gazing longingly at the display pictures. She didn’t have to say a word; I knew what was coming next.

It was early-November, not exactly ice cream weather, but Sasha was not to be denied. “
Puh
-lease, Harper,” she pled. She batted her long eyelashes and clasped her hands together to beg. She had perfected her pout.

“Fine,” I agreed far too easily. “But don’t tell your mom.”

Sasha squealed in delight and hopped on the balls of her feet. “I promise!”

“Do you want something, Raleigh?” I offered, pulling my wallet from my school bag. “It looks like I’m buying.”

“No, thank you.” She stared purposefully at me. “I’m saving my appetite for something special later.”

If she was trying to make me blush, I was up to the task. “Freedom?”

Her lips pursed. “It’s like you can read my mind.”

All day had felt like one long game of sexual chicken. If I didn’t kiss her soon, I was going to explode.

Sasha observed our conversation with her usual curiosity, but the promise of ice cream was more pressing than the esoteric exchange.

We waited for the ice cream vendor to dish out a small bowl of frozen dots for Sasha.

“Thank you,” she said in a very solemn and practiced polite voice.

“You’re a piece of work, kid,” I laughed as I paid for the frozen treat.

Sasha immediately shoveled an overflowing spoon into her mouth. “It’s cold,” she breathed around the plastic utensil.

“It’s ice cream, Sash,” I remarked. “That’s how it works.”

Even though it was mid-afternoon on a fall weekday, I had expected more people at the zoo, but we ended up being some of the only people wandering the grounds. We moved from one exhibit to the next, happy to let Sasha set the pace. It was too cold to stand outside for very long and most of the animals were in their inside habitats, so we spent a lot of time in the indoor viewing areas.

Raleigh and I shared smiles for only each other’s eyes while Sasha stood in front of groupings of wild animals with her palms flat against the partitioning glass with her nose practically squished against the clear wall. Every now and again, our hands would brush against each other’s or her wheelchair would bump into my leg. It was easy and natural and comfortable. The more time I spent with Raleigh, the more I found myself relaxing instead of focusing on the curious eyes that no doubt wondered about our little group.
It felt like we had a secret that only she and I were privy to, and in a way we did.