Substitute for Love (21 page)

“.. . admitted she’d been sleeping around, and I mean all around. Angie was such a slut, you just wouldn’t believe it, and it’s not like I’m pure as the driven snow or anything, but Angie…”

Her first coffee date had been a little bit better, but it had been Candace who began looking at her watch shortly after Holly explained that conceptual mathematicians primarily play games. She’d lost Candace somewhere between dart theory and Ramsay numbers.

“So what do you do?”

Holly missed the question initially, and floundered in her desire to hide the fact that she’d been thinking about other things. “At the moment I’m considering going back to school.”

“Really? To study what?”

“Mathematics.” Perhaps she ought initially to go easy on the conceptual part.

“Really? You mean stuff like stranger/friend theory — what’s that called? I can never remember.”

Holly blinked. “The stranger/friend theory side of things. Ramsay numbers.”

“That’s right, Ramsay numbers. My great-great uncle was Alan Turing. Mind you, I don’t like get any of it and I’ve tried, but I do know that stuff is like hard. I just don’t have a head for math. It was the only thing Angie was good at — she could add up how much something cost with tax and ask me to pay for it in the blink of an eye. Angie…”

Well, that was frustrating. She had found someone who actually understood a little bit about the subject dearest to her heart, but that someone was completely and totally fixated on her ex. She had had high hopes for a meeting time of eight-thirty for coffee and dessert. They might have gone to a movie and then on to more private pursuits. Those pursuits might have led to a lovely Saturday morning breakfast and the beginning of something sustained.

The U-Haul Syndrome was sounding like a darned attractive disease, now that she thought about it.

It was just another frustration in a long week of them. It was patently clear that she needed a faculty sponsor at the university of her choice, but she couldn’t choose a university unless she had a good idea that she could find a sponsor there. She could send out a battery of letters to department chairs and see what happened, but it might take weeks, months, to stir interest. Her problem was she had nothing to intrigue anybody except for a four-year-old college transcript. Calling herself a conceptual mathematician was — like, you know — overreaching. With another four years of college she might be able to claim the title.

“I’m really sorry, but I have to rush off. I just lost total track of time.” Gayle was rising. “This was fun. Maybe we could do again sometime.”

“You have my number,” Holly said. Gayle smiled happily, but something in her little sigh said that in the romance equation, Holly did not equal Angie. Add the fact that Galina had never returned her phone call. It totaled up to major depression.

She had not been straight for an entire week. Jo would be calling for an update in what she referred to as Holly’s Orgasm Quest. After all the years they’d known each other, it was still a surprise to find out that Jo was downright… bawdy.

She longed for chocolate, and that was after just inhaling an enormous hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles on top. She wrapped her new coat around her and wondered what she would do over the weekend. All days seemed alike, actually. Only the traffic congestion clued her in as to what day of the week it really was.

She was driving home when great big drops began to pelt the windshield. She hadn’t gone so far as to buy a television, which meant home would be dank and dreary. She had discovered her maximum daily intake of mathematics journals and message boards was nine hours. With all the extra time on her hands she’d given meditation another try, but with no more success. She needed to be entertained. If that was a character flaw, so be it.

Through the smear of rain she saw the marquee for the university’s Friday night movie marathon. Now that was a good idea, and she was just in time for the first feature.

She bought an overpriced Hershey bar and a soda and headed inside. Someone had left a theater schedule on a seat and she glanced through it.

Tonight was mother-daughter films. As the theater went dark she was thinking maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

She made it through Barbara Stanwyck’s Stella Dallas without crying, mostly because she’d seen it before in a class on feminism in film. It was maudlin and manipulative but Stanwyck gave it everything she had, which was considerable. Her voice was lovely to listen to. It was easy to imagine that voice being her mother’s.

Having survived the first movie, she decided to stay for the next one. She hadn’t read The Joy Luck Club, but she had read about it. The film was not supposed to be as good as the book — what film ever was? — but the screenplay was by the author and had been critically applauded. It was an intellectual decision to stay.

She was in tears within minutes. Each of the eight stories unfolded another facet of both the tenacity of mothers to survive against crushing odds and their relationships with their daughters, who grew up ignorant of their mothers’ histories. They never knew the mothers who had sacrificed their bodies, their love, their futures, even their lives, all so that their daughters would never have to face those choices. It got under her skin, and the grief she’d always carried for her own mother broke free. Behind it came the anger she’d been bottling up since Audra’s revelations.

She huddled in her seat, unable to see for the tears, trying desperately not to make any noise. The theater was thankfully sparsely populated, and in short order she used up the only tissue in her pocket. Her hands wiped away an endless stream of scalding tears and at times she could hardly breathe.

“Here,” a voice whispered. A slender hand from the row behind her proffered several tissues.

She couldn’t voice thanks as she gratefully pressed them to her face. Get up and leave, she told herself, but her tears felt so thick that finding up wasn’t a certain proposition. She tried to tune out the movie but found herself picturing Audra watching her tenth birthday party through the fence. Such sacrifice, and for what? She felt as if her head would explode. She was so angry with her aunt — she’d called him uncle. Her mother had endured such an unspeakable violence and looked on the result with nothing but joy. She ached for her mother, wished she could somehow go back and make it better, but she couldn’t because of that stupid, stupid accident. She couldn’t say thank you. There was no way to acknowledge what her mother had done, to honor it.

Out of the maelstrom of loss and rage came an answer. She could honor her mother by living a good and happy life. Otherwise, what had any of them accepted substitutes for?

She clung to the lifeline the revelation offered, but her misery didn’t abate. She had to leave, tried to stand, but stumbled.

“Let me help.” It was the woman who had given her the tissues. “It’s okay. Lean on me.”

The proud thing to do would have been to refuse assistance and manage on her own, but the simple truth was she couldn’t manage on her own. She accepted the bracing arm around her shoulders and did her best to navigate up the side aisle.

Moving helped, and so did the cold, wet paper towels the other woman offered her when they reached the semi—privacy of the cramped women’s restroom. Finally, she managed, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t doing so well myself.”

She managed a quick glance at her Samaritan and was relieved to see signs of recent tears on the other woman’s cheeks. She looked back at her own reflection. The paper towels had heightened her ruddy face and she felt hot and dizzy. “I shouldn’t have come. It’s … too close right now.”

“I know what you mean.”

Their gaze locked in the mirror and Holly caught her breath. The moment when they ought to have gathered their individual pain under an air of “all better” stoicism came. It went while they gazed at each other.

She hadn’t been able to tell Jo. Or Tori. Not anybody. The words tumbled out of her. “My mother died a long time ago and I just found out that I exist because a friend of the family raped her. And — and the aunt who raised me after she died married the man and I lived under his roof and I never knew… what he did. And he’s dead and I’m glad.” She gulped for air.

The other woman put her hand on Holly’s shoulder and squeezed, hard. “It must seem unbearable.” At Holly’s nod, she went on, “Have you thought about talking to a professional? Just to help you cope?”

She shook her head — it hadn’t occurred to her. “I must seem a little crazy, talking to you like this.” The hand was warm and soothing.

“No, I didn’t mean to imply that. You just seem at the end of your rope.” The other woman swallowed hard and took her hand away. “I recognize the feeling.” Her translucent skin stained with red again as she blinked back tears. “My mother is entering the final stages of a terminal illness she’s been battling for seven years. She’s in so much pain and I can’t help. I can’t… all I can do is work. To keep the medical bills paid.”

Holly turned from the mirror, looking into the other woman’s eyes directly for the first time. They were like the color of melting ice, so light, but they seemed endlessly deep. She felt something ease inside her, then she was abruptly aware of the dark hair and brows that were at odds with eyes so fair. The easing gave way to a confusion of curiosity that surprised her. She tried to push it away. Was that what people meant when they described a mouth as tender? What kind of shoulders were cloaked under the long, supple leather jacket?

She steadied herself with her hands on the counter behind her and felt vulnerable and yet not afraid. Another inch closer and the other woman could wind her arm around Holly’s waist, pull her close, kiss her.

She would have stopped imagining it if she hadn’t seen the echo of her desire in the other woman’s face. And she kept on looking into those striking eyes, reading a ripple of conflicting emotions, from desire to anguish, from disbelief to anticipation. She felt her lower Up tremble.

There was no air, nor did she need any.

The other woman’s hands moved as if they would reach, as if they would take, but the moment was shattered by the bustling entrance of two women who shouldered between them in the limited space.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.” For just a moment those fathomless eyes came back to Holly’s face. Then the other woman turned and left without a backward glance.

Something in Holly went with her. She felt an indefinable loss that defied quantification. There was no simple answer — or if there was she did not want to solve for it.

When Reyna ran headlong into the detective outside the theater’s front doors, she lost it. She had just walked away from what? He could have no idea. She still didn’t know what had just happened. Something only a fool would pass up. Something she should not have to say no to. A mouth that should know nothing but happiness, a spirit that was battered but not broken, a grace to be needful and show it. Why should she have to run? She had been about to take what was so openly offered, to put her arms around the other woman’s waist and to explore the taste of her mouth, the texture of her tongue, her lips. In that electric moment

Reyna had felt the promise that nothing would be held back.

So she lost it. “Get the fuck out of my way! Can’t you leave me alone?”

“Miss Putnam—”

“Take your hands off me!” She yanked her elbow from his grasp. Even in her fury, the fantasy in her head didn’t stop — she was back in the bathroom, in one of the stalls, taking what was offered. They twined on a bed, giving what was needed, lost in skin and heat and tenderness.

She turned to run, but he grabbed her again.

“Miss Putnam, please wait—”

She swung on him and he parried, then she was hard up against him, her arms trapped between them. She opened her mouth to scream.

“I didn’t know if you were okay,” he said heavily.

She wrenched herself from his grasp. “You’re not paid to care about me.”

“You could be my daughter.” The laconic air was gone, replaced by unwilling acceptance. “She’d be your age.”

“Smart girl to get away from you,” she said, meaning to be vicious.

He let it pass. “The other woman, in the theater—”

“I didn’t fuck her in the bathroom, if that’s what you want to know!”

“Jesus,” was all he said.

Reyna’s head was spinning with the images her words called up, of the other woman naked against her, legs around her. “If we’re all clear on that I’d like to get out of the rain.”

“Wait — this isn’t easy.” Her fury melted abruptly and she realized he was ashen with some emotion so foreign to his features that she couldn’t decipher it. “I’m breaking just about all the rules here. But there are rules and there are rules. There are things a father shouldn’t do.”

She shivered as the cold penetrated her jacket and the heat of her anger dissipated. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about — Can we sit in the car? Getting soaked isn’t going to help either of us.”

She consented because he expected her to refuse. His car was just down the street and smelled of stale coffee in styrofoam cups.

“What did you mean about my father?”

“Not him. Me.”

She waited, wondering if this was some sort of trap.

“My daughter was a lesbian. I’ve never said that to a soul.”

Feeling as cold and remote as marble, she asked, “Why do I care?”

“I have access to your files going back five years. We have directives. We know what we’re watching for. With some clients it’s drugs, others it’s gambling. We get lots of extramarital affairs. With you, we’re supposed to report if you do anything remotely noteworthy with another woman. Like tonight. I ought to be writing it up, but there’s nothing to tell. You did a good thing.”

Through gritted teeth, she said, “I don’t need your approval.”

All he said was, “The first Friday of every month.”

Her heart stopped.

“I don’t care where you’re going, and I don’t care what you do. But you’re going to get caught and I have to guess that won’t be pleasant for you. Look, I was a cop for thirty-five years. You don’t survive the job without learning to judge people. I guess your old man doesn’t want a queer for a daughter and he’s got some way of making you mind. I used to think the way he does. I tried to get my daughter cured.”