Substitute for Love (12 page)

A few days later Reyna discovered her mother had had a seizure — and no nurse had been with her. Her father claimed it was just an oversight, but Reyna no longer believed in coincidences where he was concerned. Again, yes, she was tired of freedom.

When she’d met Margeaux for the last time, Margeaux had said it was for the best. Her grades were too low to maintain the program, and she’d just received notice she was being academically suspended. Her family had sacrificed a lot for a Georgetown law degree, but Margeaux would finish at an upstate New York college, closer to home. It was more affordable. Her father had just been laid off, too, and, well, she had to accept the realities of her situation.

They’d gone back to Margeaux’s apartment and Reyna had not known it would be the last time she’d feel a woman moving against her, under her, on top of her. She had relived that night hundreds of times in the years since because it, and Kimberly, was all she had to treasure. A few months later a letter from Margeaux revealed that her father had been miraculously rehired and she had received an unexpected scholarship at her new school. Shortly after that, during a seemingly casual visit, her father had mentioned that her “little friend” seemed so much better off in her new locale.

When you did what Grip Putnam wanted, everything was fine.

She was not doing what he wanted, not tonight. She couldn’t stand it anymore. At a meeting earlier in the day, discussing public relations opportunities to improve the image of the National Rifle Association, she’d found herself listening with interest to the rules for obtaining a handgun in California. Her sense of horror had made her feel faint. Regarding herself in the bathroom mirror a few minutes later she realized something was going to break, and badly. She was caught in a fabulously gilded cage that swung at her father’s whim over the black hole of his designs. Without a taste of freedom she would do something unspeakable, either to her father, who deserved it, or to her mother, who did not.

Though she usually drove with one eye focused on her rear-view mirror, looking for the private detectives she knew were always lurking, tonight she didn’t care. They would follow her to a place where she’d gone many times — the university’s Friday all-night art film marathon. Bergman’s faith trilogy was on the marquee, leading off with Through a Glass, Darkly.

She bought a ticket and a box of Raisinets, just as she always did. Her black jeans and Armani leather jacket allowed her to be just another dark-haired woman in the theater. She waited for the movie to start, then, under cover of the dim light of the cinematic Nordic night, she slipped out the rear exit. From the alley she walked to the next block and up the stairs to the apartment over the motorcycle repair shop.

“I was beginning to wonder if you were coming tonight.” Tank Pena eased his bulk onto the tiny landing, leading the way down to the shop’s rear door. “I finished her yesterday and she purrs like a kitten.”

Tank had found the motorcycle for her, refurbished it and then registered it in his own name, though she would be the only rider. It was a minor informational fraud, Reyna had rationalized. He chattered about the idiosyncrasies of Yamaha bikes and 750 cc’s, but Reyna only saw the silver name melded into the black body: Virago.

Tonight, it fit.

Borrowed leather gloves and a black helmet transformed her from a research and media specialist for conservative causes to unrestrained biker chick. It felt wonderful.

She realized Tank was waiting for some acknowledgment. “She’s beautiful,” she said belatedly, but with feeling. The engine purred so cool and clean she didn’t even have to raise her voice. Kim had taught her to ride. Her father had never noticed her driver’s license also allowed her to ride motorcycles, or he would have surely told her to give it up. The link between bike and dyke was too close.

Cash had been all Tony needed to fix Reyna up with something — he just wanted to see another beautiful bike on the road. He hadn’t asked many questions. He was still enough of an anarchist to like the secrecy and the tax-free income. She had plenty of money of her own. The Institute or her father paid for almost all her expenses. Her after-tax income was embarrassing, and yet it couldn’t begin to cover the medical bills that mounted up with each dialysis treatment and trip to the ICU. What she had saved up so far would get them about eight months before there was nothing left. But she kept saving and investing because sooner or later, money would mean independence.

She withdrew hundreds of dollars in cash a month but spent little of it. The rest was squirreled away in her apartment for things she wanted to buy with no way for her father to find out — like a motorcycle, or a motel room for a few hours.

She parted from Tank with a wave. With the thrill that only a completely forbidden activity could bring, she headed for the open road, feeling for the first time in years that eyes were not on her every move.

For the next thirty minutes, just riding was enough. She almost felt like she could take the bike back and it would be enough to dance around the black hole and know she wouldn’t fall in. She could smile tomorrow, cooperate, listen to clients who described gays as pedophiles, lesbians as man-haters, feminists as Nazis, the NAACP as radicals, amen, world without end. She could help them write their speeches, twist research to suit their arguments, find new ways to present hate disguised as morality. It was what the Putnam Institute did, and she was good at it, a real chip off the old block.

It was from an outraged male client that she had learned about the monthly ladies’ night at the nearest gay bar. Wasn’t it outrageous that women who ought to be ashamed of themselves would parade around as if they had a right, dance to that disgusting music, cruise for perverted sex, and so close to where they lived? Reyna’s heightened perception had detected the undercurrent of salacious arousal at the idea. Coping with her own revulsion, she had almost missed what the information could mean to her.

She cycled a cloverleaf to head west on the 405, leaning hard into the turn as the wind billowed her jacket open. The air was like ice but it made her feel even more alive. Orange County was the conservative center of California politics, and some neighborhoods were little better than restricted communities. The Putnam Institute was located in the county’s political heart, Irvine, and nestled deep in Bonita Canyon, a few miles from the University of California at Irvine.

She left it all behind, whipped past the John Wayne Airport, then a short jaunt north to the border zone between Costa Mesa and Santa Ana. The bike didn’t want to slow down, but she followed the route she had memorized. Another generic L.A. boulevard gave way to a still busy strip where restaurants were only now beginning to close their doors. At the far end she turned into a parking lot choked with cars.

She cruised slowly past the front door to Jack’s. A small sign indeed proclaimed it Ladies’ Night. Even over the vibration of the bike she could feel the bumping pulse of the music inside. She eased into a spot between the nose of a Subaru SUV and the wall of the club. With the engine off the music was even more pronounced. Above that she heard the babble of women’s voices.

It hurt to be so close and not be part of it. She kept her helmet on until she was inside, then checked it, the gloves and her jacket with a pouty, bored blonde. The ten-dollar bill she tithed to the doorkeeper trembled in her shaking hand.

She stepped inside and let Madonna carry her to the dance floor where it was dark and no one cared that she was dancing alone.

She never learned the woman’s name. She didn’t have to know. It was better that way. What she didn’t know her father would never learn. It was just for tonight, just for an hour, maybe two.

Her teeth felt sharp on Reyna’s throat. From a mutual recognition on the dance floor they had moved to the outdoor patio, which was screened from the outside world by thick shrubs, and dark enough to ignore what other couples were doing. She heard a gasp nearby, knew what it meant and wanted to feel that gasp herself, to take and be taken. She moaned and unbuttoned her blouse, eager to be naked, to be skin to skin with this stranger. She was a woman and that was all that mattered.

“We’re going to get tossed if you show any more skin,” the woman murmured. “But if you want to show it, we could get more involved in my pickup — it’s parked outside.”

In her father’s world it was sordid, but how could it be to her? She had to hide, lie, disguise herself to be here, and her father’s world drove her to those extremities. That she could find any kind of bliss, no matter how short-lived, under these circumstances was a matter of solace. If this was all there could be, she would survive on it. The mattress that occupied the entire bed of the pickup was meant for just this purpose, as were the thick curtains that darkened the windows of the enclosing shell. Privacy, anonymity — it was what she had come there for, and it felt like salvation.

The kisses were as penetrating as the fingers inside her, stealing her breath, stopping her cries, holding yesses between their mouths. She filled her hands with hair and skin, with breasts and thighs. They coiled around each other, trading places but always entwined, moving together toward having enough.

Longing and denial made her feel as if she’d never tasted a woman before, the salt of her, the wet, welcoming slick. How could anyone give this up? God had given her the capacity to love this, to share this intimate act with another woman. Wouldn’t turning her back on it be hubris? Who was she to deny how God had made her?

Afterward she wanted only air, to breathe with happiness and savor feeling like a woman. Her companion seemed content to do the same for a few minutes.

“Jesus,” the woman finally said. “You just about put me to sleep. Good lord.”

The thigh pillow under Reyna’s cheek moved and reluctantly Reyna sat up, nearly bumping her head on the roof. Fingertips brushing her breast took her by surprise, but the hot swell of desire felt wonderful as it flushed her skin.

“Let me say thank you,” the woman murmured, and Reyna let her.

She walked the bike into Tank’s garage, then slipped the key under his door. Across the street, down the alley, to her car — she walked slowly as if Bergman had wearied her. She shook her hair around her face to hide what felt like a glow of peace.

Seventeen boxes and two carloads — Holly had gotten it right. The motel room was stuffed with sagging, bulging cartons, leaving her only the bed to rest on. Stretched out, she had no choice but to think.

Clay had not taken it well. She could even see it from his point of view. He could easily explain it to a friend with, “She flipped out. One day she quit her job and two days later she packed up and left. I have no idea why.”

When she’d come in out of the rain, the party had been winding down and Clay drove them home. He didn’t appear to notice that she was soaking wet. As she shivered in the car, she considered that she was lucky that their lives weren’t complicated by children or entangled financial affairs. Remembering what Tori said about realizing she’d never given her future to Geena, Holly knew the same was true of her and Clay. She’d never asked herself where they would end up together. They had worked hard to keep everything the same from day to day, as if tomorrows would never come and neither of them would ever change.

She took a warm shower when they got home and was relieved that Clay had already fallen asleep. She dozed off, finally, but only for a few hours. She had left Galina’s card to dry on the table next to the bed. In the morning she tucked it back into her bra and tried to forget what it represented. Work clothes were the order of the day. She made him breakfast for the last time and then went to the garage for boxes.

“What’s up?” Clay was frowning into the refrigerator, obviously not caring for its contents.

“I’m leaving.”

“Where to?” He closed the door and looked up. She did not flinch from meeting and holding his gaze.

Calmly, carefully, “I’m leaving.”

Abruptly, he looked like a balloon with all the air out. “You’ve had another one of your brainstorms,” he accused.

She wanted to be gentle, but she also felt a tide rising inside that pushed her to this moment. “Call it that if you like. I realized in the last few days that we share the same space but hardly connect, and not even physically.”

He was shaking his head. He always shook his head while she was talking. She jotted that onto her mental list of Why I’m Leaving Clay Today. “Are you giving in to socialization about romantic ideals? No one can live up to those images. Most of the world doesn’t equate love with passion, or expect them to arrive at the same time. It’s only expected in modernized countries, where a massive marketing machine keeps these ideas prominent in our psyches. So we’ll buy roses, and chocolate and greeting cards—”

“I don’t want roses and chocolate, Clay. Christ.” It was cruel, but she would never get through otherwise. “I want an orgasm.”

He flushed and she had to look away.

More carefully, she went on, “At a very basic level, we’re not sexually compatible. I don’t think I — I don’t think you can give me what I want, and I will never agree that what I want is somehow wrong.”

Harshly, he said, “What is it you want?”

“Passion would be good — oh, stop looking like that. I’m as much to blame as you. I never told you that I didn’t — that it wasn’t working for me. I admired you, and I wanted to be there for you. And I was. You were the worst housekeeper I’d ever seen, so I cleaned for you. You never ate because you never shopped, so I did that too. You believed that growing our own vegetables was a good thing, so I did it. Whatever you expressed as lacking in your life, I tried to fill the void.” She wiped away a tear — it was just tension. “I worked at a job you hated so you could take a sabbatical, and I stayed at that job because we needed the money for the mortgage.”

“I — I didn’t realize you felt it all such a sacrifice.”

“I didn’t, not until recently. Then I had to ask myself, for all I gave up, for all the work, how did you balance it out? You were able to take on more classes, but you stopped your private studies. You’re pompous about what a simple life is and judgmental about everyone else who doesn’t have Holly the acolyte to make living a simple life so very easy. I’ve enabled all the worst things about you. I made you lazy.”