Substitute for Love (33 page)

If everything went as planned, Nancy would be waiting at the curb to take her home. If anything had come up since the last time they had connected, it would be Tori waiting.

Thoughts of Tori made her grin. Tori’s last e-mail had relayed amusing news. Murphy finally got hooked, and by an Irvine professor she had apparently been in love with for some time. The professor was divorcing her husband and she and Murphy were living together. Tori and Jo had gone out of their way to forward articles and links to the latest stories and events, but that bit of gossip had been by far the most salacious.

The brief moment of glee was overrun by jet lag as she propelled the cart up a long incline toward the front of the terminal. She was going to have to find a way to travel with less stuff, that was plain. When she went back, after four months in the States, she did not want to be lugging around so much junk with her.

After discussing it at length with Audra, using the wonder of private chat rooms, she had decided that U.C. Irvine would be the university of record for her master’s program. Audra’s sensible advice had been a godsend, and worth every bit of trouble she and her new partner had gone through to get her online. Audra had been suspicious of computers, but was now addicted. Holly still couldn’t find anything dehumanizing about it — her laptop and modem allowed her talk to Audra once or twice a week. They were more connected, not less. They had so much time to make up for.

She had to take a minimum number of courses at Irvine, though her work with Professor McKay in Australia would also provide a lot of her course credit. She had turned down several offers from other universities because she wanted to be here, in Irvine, for a while.

She had not had any contact with Reyna, and had not expected any. What was the point of keeping in touch when just being friends wasn’t a possibility? They had parted in tears, not wanting to give or take more than the other could honorably afford.

When she finally got her Internet access set up and started receiving e-mail again, she’d found scads of articles forwarded by Jo, all about Reyna’s coming out and the subsequent frenzy surrounding her father’s possible presidential campaign. Only then did she really understand what Reyna had spared her by sending her away from the hospital. For a few weeks after the big announcement Reyna did television and radio interviews. Holly was even able to download streaming video of one. And only then did she realize that she did not really know who Reyna was.

She had never seen this poised, cool woman, who listened calmly while interviewers asked pointed, personal questions. Reyna appeared to be firmly on the path to her new future. They’d made no promises. She was meeting a lot of new people, Holly theorized. There was no reason for Reyna to remember her as more than a body.

She told herself that hard fact, over and over, and tried to make herself believe it. The articles about Reyna had finally fizzled out. There had been no news of her for two months.

Holly had sometimes forgotten about her, when she was deep into the other thing that she loved. After several weeks of looking at the data already accumulated on Ramsay 5,5, she had made her prediction about what its value would be, based on laborious work with the formula she’d suggested in her high school paper. Only time would tell if she had got it right again.

Then she had left Ramsay numbers behind and submerged herself in the joy of chaos theory and the universe of randomness, where it seemed her best instinctive efforts were centered. The goal of mathematics was to reduce randomness, to shine knowledge on uncertainty, to quantify what could not even be described. Professor McKay wanted her to concentrate solely on conceptual theory, but she had not forgotten her strong desire to teach. She still wasn’t quite sure what she would do. In the meantime, she would divide her time between home and Australia, and never flinch from the future she had chosen.

There were nights, however, when she had left behind the endless puzzle-posing and dart games of her fellow students, and she had gazed up at unfamiliar constellations. With two mirrors, the horizon and a star map she could tell exactly where she was. She longed to know where Reyna was, who she was with, if she was happy. Reyna could not see these stars, she knew that, and yet she had felt an inexplicable pull inside her, as if a thread in her heart had been forever caught by Reyna. She would wonder if Reyna was looking up at the sky then, wondering where Holly might be.

She stopped the cart for a moment, out of breath and yawning. She wished someone would invent a transporter that first and foremost transported weary travelers from airports to home in the blink of an eye. Of course, if they could do that, she mused, there would be no need for airports. When she got home she would shower and sleep, and then she would somehow track down Reyna. Just call her, just say, “Hi, it’s me,” and see what happened. She would never forgive herself for not trying.

It was vivid in her mind, the way she had willed Reyna to look up that night in the bar. Her head was suddenly full of Reyna, and she didn’t fight it, now that she was home.

She was about to muscle the cart back into motion when she shivered. Gooseflesh dusted her arms. She seemed to hear a voice, longed-for, whispering in her ear. “Look up,” the voice said, “it’s me.”

It was a startling sensation and might have been the product of her weariness and wishful thinking. She wasn’t used to hearing voices that suggested actions to her, like looking to her left, to the bare stretch of wall just beyond the airport lounge, past the blue awning, not that way, back to the left, that’s right —

She was caught by those eyes and their melting light. There was no air, nor did she need any.

Reyna had cut her hair. Wearing blue jeans with a simple shirt, she looked about as far away as she could get from the tight-spined woman being interviewed on television. Her mouth curved in a smile of greeting, but more than that, it seemed to relax after the smile, as if happiness of a sort had found her. The lines of strain had been replaced by the beginnings of laugh lines.

Reyna walked quickly toward her, then slowed as she reached the cart. She seemed about to stop a polite distance away but then she kept going, stepping so close that Holly could smell her skin and hair and a faint hint of a complicated cologne.

“Welcome home.”

“I… Why are you here?”

“There’s no such thing as coincidence. You told me that,” Reyna said. “I remember everything you’ve ever said to me.”

She wanted Reyna to kiss her. It was as if the last four months had been a day. They were sharing air, sharing light. She tried not to close her eyes and raise her mouth with a hunger that seemed to know no propriety. “How did you know when I’d arrive?”

“I had help. A friend.”

Whoever it was, she wanted to give thanks. “How is your mother?”

“Her condition has deteriorated somewhat, but not as rapidly as we feared. The pain management has improved and we’re able to spend a lot of time together every day, reading, watching old movies.”

“I’m glad.” She swallowed hard and caught herself before her gaze had lingered overlong on Reyna’s breasts. They made her ache with thirst.

“She wants to see you.”

“I’ll be happy to visit.” What about you, she wanted to add. Do you want to see me? Of course, she does, silly, why else would she be here?

Reyna was standing so close. Her shoulders were rising and falling more rapidly now, and Holly realized that Reyna was staring at her mouth. The trembling between her legs was back. Two minutes and she was a mess. No, not a mess. A mess was chaos and she was not random. She knew exactly what the resolution to her need was.

She could only think about how she’d forgotten the shape of Reyna’s hands and the way her body moved. Forgotten the taste of her but not the softness of her mouth. She had forgotten the sensation of Reyna inside her, but not the blazing ecstasy that followed.

“Where do you go from here?” Reyna sounded far too casual.

“Home. A friend is meeting me.” She ought to be pushing the cart toward the front of the terminal. Nancy was no doubt wondering where she was.

“And after that?”

“To bed.” It was an invitation — Holly knew it as she said it.

Reyna’s voice was low from an intensity of emotion that Holly felt as a wave of heat. “I don’t have any right to ask for anything from you.”

Fiercely, Holly said, “Ask for what you want.”

“May I have tonight? If there is no one who’s expecting you?”

“Is that all you want?” Holly fought the urge to unbutton her blouse. She wanted to give herself to Reyna, the way she had that first night. Naked, without reservation.

Reyna shook her head.

“Ask for what you want.”

Reyna had tears in her eyes, which shimmered like melting ice. The dark distance was gone and the thaw seemed permanent. “I want tomorrow,” she said.

“Is that all you want?” Holly put her hand on Reyna’s neck, slowly moving around to the back of it, pulling her head down even more slowly. Their lips were inches apart. “Ask for what you want. Don’t you know that I’ll give it to you?”

“I want all the tomorrows you can give me.”

“Yes,” Holly murmured. “They’re yours.”

Reyna kissed the corner of her mouth and Holly forgot where she was until a loudly cleared throat brought her back to the time and place.

Nancy, looking both curious and congratulatory, was leaning on Holly’s boxes. “Don’t mind me.”

Holly disentangled herself from Reyna. It was no easy thing to do when her body didn’t want to listen. “Nancy, this is Reyna. I didn’t know she was meeting me.” She could hardly explain that she and Reyna hadn’t communicated at all for the last four months and in less than a minute had picked up exactly where they had left off.

Nancy shook Reyna’s hand. Nancy had heard about Reyna on their first drive to the airport, four months ago. “Why don’t I take charge of your stuff and you two have a, um, reunion.”

“I can’t do that to you,” Holly protested. It would be rude. “You’re not my personal stevedore.”

“So you’ll owe me,” Nancy said. “Besides, you haven’t seen the piece I decided to paint on your bedroom wall, and I want you in a good mood when you do. I had all this leftover blue and red and came up with the most bitchin’ purple — but we’ll talk about that later. Really, I don’t mind, especially if you put the time to good use.” Her eyes were twinkling.

They all helped get the heavy cart out through the crowds and into the short-term lot. Once the boxes and suitcases were loaded Holly waved good-bye to Nancy, and turned beet red when Nancy whispered that she wanted all the details later.

She looked at Reyna after Nancy had backed out, and all the desire was there. But there was more. There was time for details. Time for honesty. “I’m here for four months,” she said. “Then I go back for six months or so. Then I’m back here again for a while. It’ll be that way for the next two or three years. I might… I might have good reasons to settle there.”

“I understand,” Reyna said. She was still on the other side of the parking space and it was entirely too far away for Holly’s liking.

Holly crossed the distance that separated them and smoothed Reyna’s cheek. Her thumb caressed Reyna’s lips and was quickly kissed. “I wish Australia was closer.”

Reyna moaned as Holly’s hand slid down her neck to her chest, to her stomach. “You have a life to get on with, I understand. I won’t stand in your way when you have to go, wherever it may be, with whomever you choose.”

Holly’s hand stilled. Hadn’t Reyna understood what Holly meant by all her tomorrows? “What are you asking for? What are you giving me? I can’t be confused about it. I need to know.”

“All you want of me, of this,” Reyna answered. She kissed Holly with a bruising hunger and Holly felt her body ignite. Reyna pushed her against a hard concrete column and her mouth was demanding, then tender. She broke away with a low moan. “I’m sorry. I want you so much.”

“No,” Holly said. All the blood in her head had drained to places south. She felt faint and yet she could still think. “No,” she repeated.

“Did I hurt you? What—”

“It’s not good enough.” Holly tried to steady her voice. Her heart and mind were in total agreement about the future.

Reyna looked wounded to her core, and turned so pale that Holly was afraid she would faint. “I misunderstood, then.”

“Look at me.” Holly captured Reyna’s face in her hands. “I’m going with you tonight, wherever you want to go. I know that before you’re done with me I’ll be screaming and dying, and begging, and I’ll do all I can to make you feel the same way, and there will be nothing you ask of me I won’t try, and I’ll learn every inch of you again, and it will be magnificent.”

Reyna was moving against her as she spoke and Holly could hardly see for the pulsing between her legs.

“But it won’t be good enough. Because as bad as I want it, I’m not going with you if you didn’t mean you wanted all my tomorrows, even when I’m away. Because that’s what I want. No matter how long we have to be apart, I can bear it if I know that I have your future. I give you mine, right now. It’s the only thing of value we can give each other.”

Reyna’s eyes shimmered. “I didn’t dare hope. I can’t imagine what you thought of me, the way I lied, the hypocrisy of it all.”

“We’re agreed on tomorrow, right. All the tomorrows?”

Reyna nodded and swooped in for another hard kiss.

“Then we’ll talk about that tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll prove to you that I’m not just about sex. Tomorrow. Because tonight sex is all I can think about, you and sex and you —”

Reyna’s mouth was on her, traveling from forehead to chin, to her throat. “We have to get going or we’ll get arrested.”

Holly murmured her agreement, but it was several minutes before they parted, clothing askew.

Reyna pulled her quickly toward the elevator to the next level of the garage, then toward the section where motorcycles were parked. The Virago was at the end.

“You really weren’t planning on suitcases, were you?”

Reyna looked chagrined. “I didn’t think for a minute that you would want me. I just had to see you. I wasn’t even going to speak to you, but then you saw me.” She laughed shakily. “But I had hopes of seeing you soon.” She unlocked new compartments on each side of the bike and withdrew two helmets and two leather jackets.