Sarah rubbed her index finger across her upper lip in a gesture that Annie had seen a thousand times in meetings.
She’s holding something back.
Annie wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was. A sigh of relief escaped her when Sarah walked toward the door.
But when Sarah reached it, she stopped and turned. “Then maybe you should think about why you’re reacting so strongly. If your friend Drew is so wonderful, maybe your reaction isn’t about Drew and her sexual orientation.” Sarah stepped out into the hallway. Over her shoulder, she added, “Maybe it’s about yours.”
Annie collapsed into her chair, which spun freely, just like her mind.
* * *
“I wish I could be you,” Annie said to Amadeus, who was wedged between her knee and the back of the couch, purring contentedly. “Cats have it easy. No messed-up family, no complicated revenge plans, no chaotic love life.”
She stopped herself.
Love life? Where’s that coming from?
She shook her head and focused on her laptop.
The calendar on the screen glared at her with big numbers. Just two more weeks until Thanksgiving, and with every passing hour, her nervousness grew. Her fingers moved in shaky little circles over the laptop’s touch pad, making the mouse arrow stagger across the screen.
How am I ever going to pull this off? I’ve never been so unprepared for anything in my life.
Her doubts grew. Would it be better to call off this whole plan?
Then her stubbornness asserted itself.
No!
Giving up once things got tough was something that Jake might do. Annie had always stuck it out, no matter what.
I can do this. It’s worth it. Just once, Jake deserves to know what it feels like to be tricked.
But was tricking Jake into believing she was in a relationship with Drew really what was making her so antsy? If she was honest with herself, she knew that more was going on deep inside of her. Sarah’s words still echoed through her mind on auto-repeat.
Maybe your reaction isn’t about Drew and her sexual orientation. It’s about yours.
She shoved the thought away.
One problem at a time. Calm down. Think. What do you normally do when you get nervous?
The answer was easy. Since her private life was almost nonexistent, the only thing that usually made her nervous was a client with a large, complicated account. Those situations she handled by digging in, researching whatever she didn’t know, and asking colleagues for advice.
So what’s the problem? Just do the same now, and everything will work out.
She breathed deeply and tried to calm her thoughts, which were going a thousand miles a minute.
Okay. Ask someone for advice.
The only lesbian she knew was Drew.
So ask her. You’re in this together. She’ll know how to handle Thanksgiving.
The thought that she and Drew would deal with the problem together took some of the weight off her shoulders.
Okay. What else? Research. I can do some research.
Feeling better already now that she was doing something, she opened her browser and stared at the search engine. Her fingers lingered over the keyboard. She gnawed on her lip, trying to come up with the right search words.
How to convince my brother that I’m gay?
But she couldn’t imagine that anyone else on the Internet had blogged about a problem like that.
Start with something easy.
Her fingers felt stiff when she typed in “lesbian relationships” and pressed enter.
Thirty-five million hits.
She sucked in a breath and then scanned the first page of hits—links to online dating sites, safe-sex tips, and video clips that she didn’t dare to click on. She clicked on a few links, read a bit of information here and scanned another page there. Finally, she opened a magazine article about women leaving men for other women. Her head started to buzz as she read about sexual fluidity and being attracted to the person, not the gender. She rubbed damp palms over her sweatpants. Was it really that easy?
The ringing of the phone made her jump. She closed the laptop and then scolded herself. It wasn’t as if the caller could see what she was reading. She grabbed the phone from the coffee table and glanced at the caller ID.
Oh, God. Mom or Dad. Go figure.
They called her irregularly but had unerringly found the one moment when their call was most awkward.
“Hello, Dad.” Her father’s orchestra didn’t have recitals or practices on Mondays, so Annie took a guess that it might be him.
“Hello, darling.” Her father’s baritone vibrated through the phone. “We’ve been trying to reach you all weekend, but every time we called, your answering machine picked up. You weren’t working, were you?”
“No.” She rubbed her forehead, wishing he wouldn’t start every phone call with the same admonishment. The constant criticism of her life was getting old—and this time, it wasn’t even based on the truth. She flashed back on her weekend with Drew and the T-shirt Drew had given her. “I was busy practicing witchcraft.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Annie said.
Her father sighed. “I hope you’re not staring at numbers twenty-four seven. When was the last time you went to a concert or just relaxed?”
His lecturing tone made Annie tap her fingers against the phone. Why did she constantly have to justify herself? “I wasn’t working, Dad. I was ... I was with Drew.”
There was a momentary pause, as if her father was surprised that she had some kind of contact with another human being. “Oh, good, good,” he said but didn’t ask who Drew was. It was always like that with her parents. They gave unsolicited advice but rarely asked questions to find out more about her life.
Over the years, Annie had learned not to care too much, but it was still like a thorn stuck in her side, hurting whenever someone touched it.
“Your mother wants me to make sure you’re coming over on Thanksgiving. She’ll cook a big dinner.”
“Mom is cooking?” It wasn’t that her mother couldn’t cook; she just preferred to spend her time in her studio, not in the kitchen. During Annie’s childhood, they had rarely shared meals at the table. Annie had learned to fend for herself and make do with a sandwich.
Her father laughed. “I’m sure she’ll tear herself away from her easel for this special occasion.”
Annie’s heart leaped into her throat. This was her chance! “Do you mind if I bring someone home with me this year?” Her thoughts raced as she tried to come up with the right words to explain the situation and ask her parents to play along.
But before she could explain, her father said, “That’s fine. The more, the merrier.” Again, he didn’t ask any questions. “Jake said he’d be here too.”
“He called?” Had he said anything about her and Drew?
“No, he’s here right now. He drove up to have dinner with your mother and me.”
He’s short on cash and maxed out his credit cards, so he wants to borrow some money,
Annie translated.
“Do you want to talk to your brother?”
“No, that’s fine,” Annie said. She wasn’t ready to talk to him. “Just tell him Drew and I will see him on Thanksgiving.” If Jake told her parents Drew was a woman, that would just serve her father right for not really listening and not asking about Drew. Maybe that would teach her parents to pay more attention to her life.
Who am I kidding?
Annie sighed. More likely, her father would forget Drew’s name before they ended the call. “Will we have dinner at the lake house?” At least that way, she and Drew could retreat and make it back home quickly if things went wrong.
“No,” her father said. “I’m conducting a matinee at two o’clock, so it would work out better if you could come to Fresno. Your mother will call again to give you the exact time.”
He was already humming a melody, and she could tell that his attention was elsewhere. They made small talk for a few more minutes before ending the call.
Annie bumped the phone lightly against her forehead and stared at the laptop but couldn’t bring herself to open it and continue reading. The topic of lesbian relationships with its thirty-five million links seemed too daunting.
She put the laptop on the coffee table, slid down on the couch, and wrapped herself around Amadeus’s warm little body. “Why is life so complicated?” she whispered into his fur.
Amadeus didn’t answer.
* * *
Annie woke with a start. She lay staring at the backrest of the couch until Amadeus’s blaring meow from the kitchen catapulted her into action. The microwave’s clock read nine p.m. as she wandered into the kitchen and fed the cat.
I wonder what Drew is doing.
She leaned against the counter and watched Amadeus gobble down his dinner. Was Drew already in bed, sweating through another fever? The thought of Drew suffering alone made her frown.
No, she sent me flowers. She’s doing better.
She pictured Drew on the couch, watching a movie.
Instantly, a replay of waking up in Drew’s arms on that very couch started in her mind. Despite the shock coursing through her system at finding herself wrapped around Drew, the contact had felt strangely good.
Too good.
She remembered the heat flashing through her belly. Caught off guard by the direction of her thoughts, she poured herself a glass of wine from a bottle she had opened a few days earlier and took a big gulp.
The taste of the red wine reminded her of Drew.
God! Why can’t I get her out of my head?
She poured the rest of the wine into the sink, took a bottle of water from the fridge, and pressed the cold plastic against her overheated face.
Get yourself together. You’re imagining things. If you were attracted to women, you would have noticed a long time ago. People don’t suddenly turn gay. Not at thirty.
But the article on the Web said that yes, some people did exactly that.
She shook her head.
Not me. Relationships were never important to me and certainly not relationships with women. Drew is just a friend.
A friend who had sent her flowers to say thank you.
And you should thank her too. At least call her to let her know you got the flowers. It’s the polite thing to do.
And if Annie was honest with herself, she wanted to call Drew and find out how she was doing.
She returned to the living room and reached for the phone. She frowned when she realized she already knew Drew’s number by heart, despite having called her only once or twice.
“Hi, Annie,” Drew said after two rings. Her voice was still raspy, sending shivers through Annie.
“Hello, Drew.” There had been so much she had wanted to say, but now Annie found herself tongue-tied. The sweet fragrance of the flowers on the coffee table reminded her of one thing she needed to say. “Thank you for the roses.”
Drew cleared her throat. “You don’t own a vase. I hope that’s not because you don’t like flowers.”
Annie wasn’t sure. On the one hand, she tended to think that buying flowers was a waste of money. The flowers would wither and die after a few days, so the money might be better spent on something more lasting. On the other hand, she liked the feeling of being appreciated that came with getting flowers from Drew. “I do,” she finally said.
“Good,” Drew said. “I made sure to order yellow ones since Jake probably won’t see them this time.”
Yellow roses. Friendship.
Drew clearly respected the boundaries of their relationship.
How ironic. Drew has no problem being just friends while my body seems to be going through a second bout of puberty.
Not that her body had reacted strongly to anyone during puberty. She decided to change the subject. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” Drew said. She sounded as if she was smiling.
“No more fever?”
“Nope. Some trouble focusing on paperwork, but otherwise, I’m back to normal.”
Trouble focusing. Oh, yeah, I know that feeling. And I can’t even blame a cold.
Annie squared her tense shoulders. “Listen, I talked to my father tonight. My parents confirmed our plans for Thanksgiving and said bringing you is fine.”
“How did they react to our plan to trick Jake?” Drew sounded worried.
“Well ...” Annie scratched at the label of her water bottle with one fingernail. “To be honest, I haven’t told them about it.”
Drew was silent for a moment. “You haven’t told them? But, Annie, why not?”
“Jake was with them, and I didn’t want them to give us away,” Annie said. “I’ll tell them later.”
“I don’t want to cause trouble between you and your parents,” Drew said.
“There won’t be any trouble. My parents couldn’t care less about who I’m dating or not dating.” Annie pressed her lips together. “My father didn’t even ask who you were when I mentioned you.”