Renny slid a CD into the small boom box Mara had danced to and enjoyed alone, with no one to see her or touch her. That was the way to dance, alone. Alone and un-groped. It was loud. It was… she strained to connect the notes to a title, but though the specifics escaped her, the category was clear from the first synthesized drum beat. Disco.
Renny grabbed her hand and pulled her into the center of the room, expertly stepping and clapping to…
“Bus Stop.” Amy, the name she’d finally put with the redhead yelled it, so it must be the title. Mara didn’t know the song or the steps or anything about inviting someone to
ring my bell
.
Ring my be-e-ell
. She stepped side to side so she was at least moving while Renny led the line dance. “Right, step together, right, tap with left, left, step together, left, tap with right.” Her brain told her body to step, to tap, but the translation was riddled with mistakes. When the moves evolved to forwards, backwards, quarter spinning, she turned three-quarters the wrong way, banged her shin on the coffee table and still loved it.
“You can ring my bell, you can ring my bell.” They sang the ding dongs as loudly as they could, and she laughed and turned once the right way.
The music moved right into the harmony of the tough Pointer Sisters, whose
your love burns deep inside
always made her think somebody needed antibiotics. She danced right through it into the high-pitched Gibb brothers and their dreamy baby brother, Andy, who just wanted to be her everything. By the time
It’s Raining Men
came on, Mara’s stomach muscles were sore from both the dancing and the laughter.
Donna Summer’s
Last Dance
signaled the end of the CD, and she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. She’d given it everything she had, and she felt the night work its way to the end. She wanted to hang on, to not let it go yet, but she was so winded, she fell onto the couch. The party collapsed with women on the floor, the bar stools, the wicker grandma chair.
She sighed as the energy in the room clicked off with the CD player. Jodi grabbed a blanket off the couch and curled up on the carpet, and Amy looked ready to camp out in the Grandma wicker. No one seemed capable of driving even if they had the gumption to and clearly they didn’t. Like moths gathered near warmth, they were staking spots to crash.
Renny moved from a bar stool and sat next to her. She felt the cushion indent and held her breath. This was it. This was the romantic move, the pass, the
hey baby
.
Would a woman have a different line than a man? Well, of course she would. Women were more subtle. They were gatherers not hunters. A woman might say
nice shoes
or
I love your hair
or
aren’t men idiots
? If Renny asked one of those, she was ready. She’d say, thank you about the shoes, thank you about the hair, and of course men are idiots. But could she answer the question of how she felt about it? Not how she felt about men being idiots because the answer was clear. She currently felt annoyed about male idiocy. How, she took a breath, did she feel about a woman? About Renny specifically who sat next to her ready to channel a Randall Simpson pounce? Naturally, she didn’t want anything to happen since she was completely straight, and it wasn’t like you got to choose your team. She hadn’t been born to do anything particularly different or interesting, unusual or unique. She accepted that she was an average player with an average score on an average team.
Amy’s snore startled her. Everyone would be sleeping right where they fell, and she’d be awake with Renny and no Mrs. Carpell to call
hand check
. Even as she thought it, she felt Renny’s cat eyes on her and forced herself to turn her head. Renny smiled. “You didn’t know everyone stays over, did you?”
“Uh, no. Not exactly.”
“We clean up in the morning. We may be lesbians, but we’re still women.”
“Well, of course you are.” She tried to slow her breathing. She hadn’t just made one of those
you people
comments had she?
“And you’re not in any danger…”
Mara snorted to show her dismissal of any such thought, although it was currently the only thought in her brain until Renny leaned closer, and she felt the warmth of her mixed with the smell of wine that manages to be sweet and good when you have it on your breath too, and then Renny kissed her. Mara felt her brain just stop, stuck in the moment she registered just one impression. Soft. She’d never felt anything as soft as Renny. Even a hard woman had lips so much softer than a man’s.
Renny broke the kiss, smiled in that wise cat way she had. “You’re not in any danger, Mara… tonight.”
At some point over the course of the night, the streetlight dimmed and sunlight took over its job, but Mara waited to open her eyes and enjoyed the glow behind her lids. She’d never given it much thought before, but it had to be the blood coursing through the tiny capillaries. It gave off a bright red light when sun came through the thin of skin there. She saw red, felt the warmth of the sheets so soft and silky. No, her sheets were cotton. The silky… She opened her eyes and stared at Renny’s neck.
She stopped herself from panicking. Who hadn’t woken up at some point in life with their head on a woman’s shoulder? It wasn’t like everybody didn’t have a mother. Or a sister. Many, many girls were in a scout troop. She shifted her head carefully back onto her own pillow but met another body part there. She sat upright and surveyed the bed. She was next to Renny.
On
Renny in recent history and Amy’s foot was on the other corner of her pillow because… She looked to the other end of the bed. Sure, you could fit more people on a mattress head/toe/head/toe. And, yep, Jodi slept on the other side of Renny with her head at the end of the bed. Well, thank God nothing had happened. Anything involving a head/toe arrangement remained illegal in lots of states, probably Canada too, and what would a Mountie do to her? She felt a zing at that possibility, and it reassured her. A good lesbian wouldn’t be giving any thought to what a Mountie could do to her.
Movement across the room caught her eye, and she scanned past a couple more females asleep on the floor to Gretchen on the couch, and then the doorknob making its way to the left, a quarter inch, a half inch. Shit, she should have locked it, and she should be watching it move in centimeters since she was living in a metric country. She held her breath as it swung open.
Dan made eye contact right away. He would. Holding a white box of donuts in his arms, he smiled as if to say,
hey, Janie, I see you there. Just you. Just you in the bed you’re temporarily renting until you come to your senses
. Then his smile changed. She watched it leave, really. Instead of changing, it just dropped off his face.
She saw him take it all in. First, there was Renny’s shoulder, and she wondered if she should check to see if she’d drooled on it. She’d slept pretty hard. Dan seemed to lose more of his
hey, Janie
expression as he spotted the foot on the pillow. He noticed the toe nail polish. He’d call it pink, but it was really a coral. She followed his eyes to the foot on the other pillow. Head/toe. Head/toe.
He scanned the females passed out on the floor, Gretchen on the couch, and, oh good, plenty of empty bottles tipped over on the bar. He should get the whole picture.
She heard the thump as the bakery box fell to the floor, unharmed she hoped, because something good should come of him being there. Plenty of bad was ahead.
He staggered over to the grandma chair, and she braced herself for the explosion that would surely follow once he’d sucked in enough air to really yell, but he sat down, threw his head between his legs, and panted like a dog.
She leapt out of bed. “Dan? Dan. Breathe slower, I think you’re hyperventilating.”
Dan lifted his head and gasped, “I know.”
“Then stop. Stop it.”
He put his head back down and visibly struggled to slow his breathing, and it was all her fault. Hadn’t she just violated her marriage vows? She’d slept with women, even if it was sleeping sleep, but before that there’d been dirty disco dancing, and she’d consumed way more wine than ever, and she was… “so sorry. I just needed a picture of Audrey Hepburn and then there was this party and it kinda snowballed and there was disco and the deal is nobody goes home, but I didn’t know that nobody goes home.” And, god, she wasn’t even going to remember that Renny’d kissed her.
She watched his breathing return to something closer to normal, and felt compelled to at least partial disclosure. “Dan? Don’t freak out more or anything but…” She looked around the room and whispered, “they’re lesbians.”
His head snapped up, his eyes enormous. “I know!”
He’d said it loudly enough that Amy stirred, and Gretchen started to wake up, the ripple effect causing the day to begin for everyone. But how had he… “How’d you know?”
He shrugged. “I met Gretchen, remember?”
“You could tell?”
“Well, yeah.”
If he’d known about Gretchen way before she had, why the hyperventilating? She studied his face trying to puzzle it out. “When you came in, you knew I was in bed with lesbians?”
He let out a shaky breath. “The second I saw it.”
“You’re not mad…” Her eyes narrowed, and she sucked in her breath in shock. “You got all…” she imitated his panting, tipped her head down.
“Happens all the time.” Renny’s voice made them both turn toward the bed. “Men love lesbians. They think we’ll let them watch.”
Dan’s eyes rolled back a bit in his head, but before his mouth could form the word
watch
, Mara yanked him out of the chair. “This is the Grandma chair, and you’re not thinking porn thoughts in it.”
“What do you know about porn?” He tried to stand his ground even though they both knew he didn’t have any to stand on.
“Nothing, but it doesn’t go with chintz.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him to the door even though he tried to crank his head around to get a last glimpse of what was apparently a teen boy fantasy not easily outgrown. She pushed him out into the hall and closed the door, waiting a second for the knock. She yelled as loudly as she could. “You don’t get the donuts either.”
“So…” Renny stretched like the cat that suited her eyes, “you are available.”
Dressed in coral in honor of Amy’s toenails and just hung over enough to remember she’d partied like a rock star, Mara entered Abundance and was greeted by Celia like she was a celebrity. “Mara! Ohmygod, the party.”
“How’d you know…”
Celia flinched, pointed to the back room, and Mara stepped around the desk, moving slowly given Celia’s flinch. Flinching could only be bad. She entered the main work room and took a second to register John and Dan. The Abundance charmer and her husband were engaged in what looked like a friendly conversation. Dylan hung around the edge of it, and not one of them even noticed her. She moved closer and heard John describing Gretchen like he was talking about a car. “She’s a good looking woman.”
“She’s hot.” It was exactly how Dylan described cars.
“There were half a dozen of them.” Dan sounded twelve.
“Naked?” Dylan’s voice cracked.
“We were not naked!” She advanced on the males, and they jumped back from each other. Men seemed to think if they could distance themselves from the one in trouble, they’d be immune, but they were all in trouble.
Dylan seemed to underestimate her irritation and continued his conversation with Dan. “They weren’t having one of those panty pillow fights were they? I’d like that.”
“Women do not have pillow fights in their underwear, and I want the gossiping to stop right now. My friends deserve better.”
Dylan stood straighter. “Men don’t gossip.” But she gave all three of them the stare of disapproval until she saw Dylan and Dan blink.
John just smiled at her and in defiance turned to Dan. “Anyone part-way naked?”
Dan’s eyes took on a dreamy look as if remembering some past Eden. “I saw a couple of feet.”
She punched Dan on the arm, which sent Dylan off to his work table where the wise boy put in his ear buds and buzzed his music on, presumably to be unable to testify later against his fellow man.
John held his hands up, his head tilted to the side in a charming beg for forgiveness. “We’re just playing.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Gretchen’s a good looking woman?”
“Okay, that part I meant.” He grinned, enjoying the game, and she answered the volley by rolling her eyes.
Dan swiveled his head between her and John. “Hey, what’s going on here?”
She turned her annoyance back on him. “What?”
He pointed between her and John. “This thing. I want it to stop.”
“Well, I want you to stop bringing donuts by as some kind of cover for stalking me.” She imitated his hyperventilated breathing at the loft.
He straightened in a useless attempt to regain his dignity. “I’m your husband.”
“Estranged.” John dropped the word in then did the charming head tilt again, and she heard Dan’s breath suck in, indicating he may be less charmed by the move than she was. But John shrugged, all innocence. “I’m just saying, you live in the United States, and Mara lives in Canada. I’m not really sure how that’s not estranged? Should I say
separated
? Is that politically correct?”
“Separated?” Dan choked out, and she could tell the two men looked one comment short of an arm wrestle, or worse, a pissing contest. She considered her options as quickly as she could and came up with none. Movement made them all look up at Stella leaning over the balcony and rolling her eyes at the men.
Her voice floated down like she was just saying hello. “I had a girlfriend right out of high school.”
The two men stared at her, all the fight gone out of their bodies.
Mara just loved Stella.
“She was older and lovely, a lovely woman. I was a virgin at the time, so I held her at second base ‘cause at eighteen I wasn’t the kind of girl to give it up just because somebody bought me dinner.”