Unforgettable (26 page)

“Rett.”

She turned in the direction of the voice.

Cinny stood in the shadows. “I need to talk for just a minute. Alone.”

“Okay.” Rett joined her in the shadows.

“You and Angel — pretty serious, huh?”

“Yes,” Rett said honestly. “Very serious.”

“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“That makes me the most pathetic person on this planet.”

“Cinny, don’t. You’re not pathetic. You’re just trying to figure it out as you go along, just like the rest of us.”

“I don’t want your pity.” Cinny put her arms around Rett and hugged her tightly. Rett began to wonder how she could extricate herself without further hurting Cinny’s feelings.

“I made my choices and I’ll live with them.” She let go and stepped back.

“Do what makes you happy, Cinny. That’s what matters.”

“What makes me happy … If only I knew what that was when I could actually grab hold of it.”

“Oh, Cinny.” Rett didn’t know what to say.

“I know. I blew it.” She turned on her heel and went into the house, leaving Rett to fight demon guilt — there should have been something she could have said to help Cinny through this. Not every lesbian sprung from Martina’s forehead fully developed and clad in boxers.

She followed Cinny’s path to the back door and kicked off her soaked shoes into the pile with the others. Her pajamas were plastered to her. She’d have to sleep in the T-shirt she’d brought for the morning.

Mary was pulling what looked like one of Ted’s T-shirts over her head when Rett went into the kitchen. “Bunny will find you something.” She gave Rett a puzzled look. “You’re in pretty bad shape.”

Rett went on to the living room where everyone had changed but Cinny. Bunny stopped in the middle of handing Cinny a T-shirt to stare at Rett.

“What happened to you?”

Rett looked down. The fabric over her breasts was highlighted with brilliant orange dye — the very same color as Cinny’s silk pajamas. The stain continued less intensely to just below her crotch, where Cinny’s short pajamas ended. She could feel everyone’s gaze going back and forth between them, matching up the body parts that had obviously been in prolonged contact.

Think fast, Rett. As naturally as she could, she said, “Geez, Cinny, it never pays to get silk wet, does it? It must have happened when I helped you down from the tractor.”

Kate was the one who didn’t want to leave it alone. She looked Rett up and down from her seat on the floor atop her designated sleeping bag. “Uh-huh. That was some assistance.”

“Drop it, Kate,” Angel said. She did not meet Rett’s gaze. “Nobody here owes anyone explanations about anything.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” Rett said. Angel was making it worse. Why wasn’t Cinny helping out? 

Cinny just stood there, ghostlike.

“Hey, after all that talk of sex, I can’t blame Cinny for trying. I’d try it if I thought it would float my boat.” Kate chewed on the end of her straw and she listed to one side before pulling herself upright again.

What bullshit, Rett thought. “Is that what you think? I’ll hop into bed with any woman who says she’s willing to give it a try?”

“Maybe you’re your mother’s daughter.”

Rett exhaled slowly. “You’ve had way too much to drink, Kate.” Why wouldn’t Angel look at her?

“This isn’t productive.” Bunny tried to ease the tension. “We’re all half drunk —”

“I haven’t had more than a couple of swallows,” Cinny said. “I’m not drunk.”

“Then you knew exactly what you were doing, didn’t you?”

“You can be such a bitch sometimes, Kate.” Cinny stripped off her wet pajamas heedless of modesty and yanked Tom’s T-shirt over her head. “Rett said something nice to me and I hugged her. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

Angel said with utter conviction, “Of course there wasn’t.”

Rett’s world went right again.

“Must have been something very nice.”

Mary appeared from the kitchen. “Will you just shut up, Kate?”

Cinny was shivering and Rett knew it wasn’t cold. “She told me I should do what makes me happy. The first person in my whole life to think I could make a decision about what makes me happy.”

“It’s okay, Cinny.” Bunny tried to get Cinny to sit down, but Cinny shrugged her off.  

“Everybody knows what makes you happy,” Kate said. She drained the rest of her glass. “New clothes, a Caddy that zigs, nice husband with money, lots of compliments about how you never seem to get any older.” She hiccuped and lost her battle with gravity. Sprawled across two sleeping bags she said, “I think you’ve been sacrificing virgins.”

“I’d be happy if you’d shut up,” Lisa said. “You’ve been a bitch since the divorce and Cinny’s just the person handy.”

This wasn’t going to end well for anybody. A slumber party — it sounded so innocent. Rett tried to derail Kate with, “Is your divorce final?”

It might have worked if Cinny hadn’t leaned over Kate and said slowly and clearly, “Do you really want to know what makes me happy, Kate? Really?”

“Tell me, Prom Queen, what makes you happy? Hugging Rett here, who has been doing the deed with Angel all week?”

Cinny went down on her knees and straddled Kate, lowering herself inch by inch as she spoke. “You know what makes me happy? A woman’s tongue reaching places that you’ve never had touched, and a woman’s body hot with sweat as I touch and lick places inside and out to make her scream with ecstasy. You’ve never screamed, have you, Kate?” Cinny’s lips were inches from Kate’s. “What makes me happy is the kind of screaming, scratching, wild jungle-fever sex that only another woman can possibly do for me and if I never have sex again for the rest of my life I’ll die knowing I still had better sex in one minute with a woman than you’ll ever have no matter how many men you ever find to take pity on your sorry, drunken ass.” 

“Jesus, Cinny.” Kate made a feeble attempt to back out from under her.

“So don’t you ever assume you know what makes me happy.” Cinny got to her feet. “I need a drink.”

The only sound in the room was Bunny’s pouring a rum punch over ice. She handed the glass to Cinny without a word.

Lisa broke the silence. “Urn, Cinny? Are you trying to tell us something?”

Cinny perched on the sofa with her legs curled under her. She shrugged. “It shut her up, didn’t it?”

“Bravo,” Natalie said. “She’s also passed out.”

“Thank God,” Mary said. “I love her like a sister, but lately when she’s had too much she gets mean. She always says sorry the next day, but the damage is done.”

Angel said quietly, “She needs help if she does this all the time.”

“The divorce just killed her. That bastard cleaned out their accounts and moved to St. Paul in a single weekend. Left her with the mortgage and the car that has a payment.” Mary lifted Kate’s head and slipped a pillow under it.

“Men are bastards,” Lisa said.

“We’re back to a safe topic,” Bunny said. She indicated the glass in her hand. “Damn. I’m sorry I made these things.”

“They’re potent,” Natalie said. “I’ve had my limit.” She laughed. “I want to be sober if Cinny wants to go through that little speech with me.”

Everyone laughed, but Rett saw the speculative glances that Bunny and Lisa shared. Cinny must have seen them, too. 

“I lied,” she said into the silence that fell after the laughter. She started to sip from her glass, then set it down with an expression of distaste. “Dutch courage.”

“You are trying to tell us something, aren’t you, Cin?” Lisa sat down next to her. “Maybe you should tell Sam first.”

Cinny was looking right at Rett. “I already did. Yesterday. Pity I didn’t wait until tomorrow.” Her gaze flicked over Angel.

“I’m so sorry, Cinny.” Good God, Rett thought. She did it for me. After all these years, she did it for me.

“I’m not,” Cinny said carefully. “You know I’m not sorry at all. It’s over.”

Lisa put her arm around Cinny. “What are you trying to say? Just tell us.”

Cinny’s usually flawless skin was mottled with red patches and her eyes shimmered with tears. “I’m … I’m like Rett. And Angel. And Natalie.” In a whisper she added, “A lesbian.”

“Christ, Cinny, are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, Bunny.” Cinny pushed Lisa away. “I spent twenty-three useless years trying not to be one. I’ve walked away from love and I’ve hurt Sam, who doesn’t know what hit him. I’ve made a ruin of everything because I just couldn’t admit it to myself, and because I was afraid you’d look at me just the way you’re looking at me now.”

“It’ll take some getting used to.” Bunny was looking everywhere but at Cinny. “You know as well as I do there’s folks in this town who won’t like it.”

“Fuck them.” Cinny picked up her drink and drained it. She lurched to her feet. “I’ve been what everybody wanted me to be for way too long and now it’s my turn.” She stood in front of Rett. “I have lousy timing. If I’d found some courage a couple of days earlier it might have worked out.”

“Don’t torture yourself about it,” Rett said. She wanted to make it better but knew her words could hurt too. “We might have had something together once upon a time, all those years ago. Who knows?” she said softly. “I’m hers, like I was meant to be all along. She’s the only one who knew what she wanted from the beginning.”

Rett looked at the faces around the room. Angel clearly had sympathy for Cinny, but her eyes shone when she met Rett’s gaze. Mary was carefully noncommittal, while Bunny seemed stunned into silence. Natalie, on the other hand, had the look of a woman who had just won the lottery.

Lisa hopped up from the sofa. “Well, I sure feel like going to sleep. Anyone else?” Six pairs of eyes looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “Please. Irony? Get it?”

Cinny wiped her eyes and turned away. “I think I’m going to go home. I’ll see everyone tomorrow night. The pajamas are ruined, Bunny. Just toss them.” She gathered up her things and went out into the night in her bare feet and Tom’s T-shirt.

Angel darted after her. Rett watched them talk for a moment, then Cinny embraced Angel before going around to the passenger side of the car. Angel looked back toward the house and Rett held up one finger.

“Angel’s going to drive her and I’ll follow to bring Angel back.” 

“You’re going out dressed like that?”

Rett looked down at her blotchy pajamas. “I look like I murdered somebody.”

Natalie took her keys out of her hand. “I’ve only had one and I’ve been snacking all along.”

‘I’m perfectly… no, you’re right, I’m not.” She’d had her first rum punch some time ago, but she’d started another and hadn’t had anything to eat. “Thanks, Nat.”

The noise of the cars faded into the night.

“Do you realize,” Bunny said suddenly, “that in our graduating class four of eleven girls are gay? Four?”

Mary crossed her legs at the ankles. “Maybe that’s all for the whole reunion.”

“There’s what, eighty grads here?” Rett thought it wise to sit down, too. She felt very lightheaded all of a sudden.

“Eighty-seven,” Bunny said.

“Then eight-point-seven of them are gay. Four just happen to be in our graduating class. That leaves one each for the other classes.”

“How do you get to be point-seven gay?” Lisa stepped over the snoring Kate to get a handful of pretzels. Rett gratefully accepted half.

“Denial,” Rett said. “That or lack of imagination.”

Bunny laughed. “Well, I won’t forget this party for a while.”

Maybe Bunny was too deep in her rum punch to see that what Cinny was going through wasn’t a laughing matter. “It’s going to be very difficult for Cinny. As you said, people aren’t going to like it because people feel like they own a piece of her.”

“You survived,” Bunny said. 

“I don’t have to live here. I’m not the icon of the all-American girl. She’s going to need her friends to stand by her. People like Jerry Knudsen can be very cruel.”

“Jerry’s a moron.”

“Doesn’t make him less spiteful.”

Kate snored and rolled onto her side. Mary sighed. “You know as well as I do that folks ‘round here hate change. Most people are live-and-let-live, but they sure hate mess. It’s going to be messy for her.”

“She going to need her friends,” Rett repeated. “People who will look the Jerry Knudsens of the world in the eye and tell them to grow up.”

“That’d be kind of fun,” Bunny said. “I think she lied for too long, and she should have never married Sam if that’s the way she was.”

“She was just doing what those prayer-can-cure-you fanatics preach. They never seem to think about the husbands and wives who get hurt when their partner just can’t live the lie anymore.”

Bunny put her hand over her eyes. “Can we talk about something else? This is starting to sound like politics, and I hate politics.”

Rett shrugged. “It’s your party. It’s been a doozy.”

“You can say that again,” Lisa said. “Buns, I’m not looking forward to sleeping on the floor, and I think I’ve had all the fun I can stand for one night. I’m going to head home.”

Bunny sighed. “You sober enough?”

“I just had the one earlier. I’ll be fine.”

“Who the hell drained the punch bowl? Kate and I did? I did, didn’t I?” Bunny tipped sideways on the couch. “I think I’m going to pay in the morning.”

Rett would have told Bunny she and Angel were also going to call it a night, but Bunny was asleep. She gathered up the things she and Angel had brought and waited outside for Angel and Natalie.

Natalie likewise decided to call it quits and promised to have lunch with them the following week after all the reunion hubbub was over. Angel was quiet most of the way back to the motel, and Rett was lost in thoughts chiefly concerned with Cinny’s future.

“You’re not responsible,” Angel said suddenly.

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“I have your number, Rett Jamison.”

“She did it for me.”

“She did it for herself. She doesn’t know that yet. She’s achingly sorry for what she’s putting Sam through, but other than that, she didn’t utter one word of regret. Don’t forget, the Cinny Keilors of this world land on their feet.”

“I hope so.”

Rett curled around Angel’s sleeping body and breathed in the warmth. The past week had been a barrage of memory and discovery, most of it good and some really bad. In those few short days Angel had become so solidly a part of Rett’s world that all her visions of what the future would bring had Angel in them somewhere. So they would live in different places. There was always e-mail and frequent flyer miles. It would work out because in Rett’s mind there was no other option.