Cai
Tansy is avoiding me. It’s a sneaky kind of avoidance, because it’s not like she’s icing me out. She still stands next to me, and we’re together pretty much all day. First we go with Beth to the deer processor, where we run into some guys that Beth and Tansy both know. They’re funny and accepting of both my presence and Beth’s in-your-face butchness. Mitch offers us a choice between home brew and a Budweiser. I pick the home brew and it’s surprisingly good for someone who’d also drink Bud, with enough hoppiness to keep it interesting.
It’s a weird feeling. I laugh it up with the group as we lean on tailgates in the street outside the processor’s cooler where we’ve dropped off the deer to be turned into sausage and leather gloves. They swap hunting stories, and everyone finds it pretty funny that I willingly passed up my shot this morning. Eddie, a tall guy with a handlebar moustache, volunteers that it’s probably about how I can’t exactly take a whole deer on a plane, and I take the olive branch. Good enough for me that they want to understand; I don’t exactly crave their approval.
It’s Tansy that I watch the whole time. She’s on fire, alive in a comfortable way that says she knows her own skin and where she belongs in the world. The only other time she’s looked this relaxed is when I told her to crawl to me.
I’ve got to admit that I like that version of Tansy’s relaxation better. It’s selfish of me, I know it. I don’t give a fuck. I want to take her home to California.
Except then I feel like the biggest bitch possible, because our afternoon stop is lunch with Tansy’s grandmother. Her stooped, white-haired grandmother who wears a sweatshirt with high-fiving kittens on it. Tansy collects her from the small set of apartments one block away from Main Street and Ethel comes out holding Tansy’s arm. She’s a few inches shorter than Tansy, though it’s hard to tell if that’s because of her curved back. I think she has a tiny bun knotted at the top of her head, but her cloud of hair is so curly that it’s hard to tell how it’s held up. Maybe pure force of will.
The café is cute. The counter is wood topped with white, and the floors are a dark maple. The chairs are a mishmash of unmatched origins, but the tables are pretty much all the same. A large blackboard announces the daily specials—with a high emphasis on sandwiches and omelets—and that they proudly serve one hundred percent Kona coffee. There’s even bulletproof coffee on the list, which I find kind of surprising for some reason. Through an open archway, I see a room that looks like someone’s living room, except it’s got multiple comfy chairs instead of couches. A big TV is turned to the Food Network.
When we walk in, there’s no one at the counter, but a guy immediately hops up from the back room and hustles out to meet us.
“Hi, Ethel,” he says. He’s kind of chunky, with a receding hairline even though he doesn’t seem that old. “Want your usual red-eye?”
“Not today, sweetheart. Give me a dirty chai with coconut milk.”
I double take. Sweet old ladies are supposed to order . . . I don’t know, regular coffees that they add plenty of milk and sugar to. She sees me looking and smirks while Tansy orders a mocha. She had seemed like a standard grandma at dinner the other night.
“Up you go,” she says, shooing me to take my turn. “This place’ll put a shine on any of those Starbucks you’ve got in the big cities, just you see. Order anything you want. Nicky’ll have it.”
I tuck away the first smile I’ve felt since Beth’s revelation this morning. “A large latte with vanilla and cinnamon?”
“Powder or syrup?”
“Syrup. And soy milk.”
“One horchata latte coming right up,” he says with a smirk that matches Ethel’s. “Got it. Any food for you guys?”
I laugh, letting my guard down. “Okay, how’d you know that one?”
“We’ve got Hispanic people in town,” Ethel says. She wags a finger at me. “Don’t judge us and we won’t judge you. Okay?”
“Plus I do have Pinterest,” Nicky pipes up. He takes oversized mugs from a shelf beneath the syrups and starts zipping around the espresso machine. The steaming milk is a comforting buzz.
“I make sure all my baristas stay up on the latest.” Ethel sniffs and takes the mug Nicky hands her. It’s shaped like a panda head. I kind of wish I’d gotten that one.
“This is Nanna’s place,” Tansy says in response to my confused look. “It’s been a coffee shop since she moved to Idaho.”
“Back in 1966, that was.” She leads the way to the back room, where she takes the remote from the box that’s labeled Do Not Touch. Guess if you own the place, you’re the one who sets those rules. “It was different then. Had just a coffeepot and some homemade brownies.”
I open my mouth, suddenly wondering exactly what kind of brownies she was serving in the mid-sixties. I glance at Tansy, wanting guidance, but suddenly I realize that she’s still doing that seeing-not-seeing thing. Motherfucker. The wide plank flooring falls away beneath me. “Was it still here? In this building?”
“Sure, sure.” She settles into a pink chair that looks soft, but not squishy enough that it’ll eat her alive. I know old people have a hard time getting out of furniture sometimes. “Tansy’s great-grandfather owned it. When I married his son Harold, I told Harold I wasn’t going to be your average housewife. I didn’t want to leave Chicago, and if I was going to for him, he had to give me something to do. And here we are.” She waves a hand to encompass the building.
The place suddenly seems stiflingly hot. Stripping off my coat makes it somewhat better. Tansy curls up in her chair, tucking her feet under her butt. “I used to come here after school a couple times a week.”
“That’s because you used Kim as a math tutor when she was supposed to be working for me.”
“You didn’t mind,” Tansy says serenely, then sips her mocha. She’d gotten an Alice in Wonderland mug assigned to her, and the Cheshire cat’s grin leers at me.
My latte is perfect, even if it’s served in a Don’t be a salty bitch mug, with a drawing of the Morton’s salt girl. I’m choosing to believe it’s not a dig at me. I guess.
“I was hoping it’d remind Kim that she had a brain.” Ethel shakes her head. “Shouldn’t have gone chasing after that Reynolds boy. She’d have been better off on her own, even with their daughter.”
“Sometimes I think you don’t believe in marriage, Nanna.”
“It’s a fine enough thing for some people,” she says. “Others, not so much. I was always the marrying kind.”
“Did you and Harold have a good marriage?” I ask. It’s hard to hold up my end of the conversation when even innocent questions like this are filled with layers. Tansy still isn’t looking at me. I turn my mug around in my hands so that Salty Bitch is pointed at me.
“Pretty good. He was a nice man.” She smiles wistfully. “Always remembered the important days and picked wildflowers for me. I’d have probably married my first girlfriend if I’d had the opportunity, though.”
Tansy chokes on mocha and has to cover her mouth with her hand. “Nanna!”
“What?” Her eyebrows lift. She’s proud of blowing our minds, I think. “You don’t think lesbians these days have the market cornered, do you?”
I try to imagine what Ethel would have looked like in the mid-sixties. Maybe something like Tansy? I can’t quite picture it. I look down at the swirly top of my latte. Let Tansy deal with this one.
“No, Nanna. But . . . you married Grandpa.”
“I believe you younguns call it bisexuality.” She nestles into her seat. “Big cities don’t have a monopoly on everything. Or anything, for that matter.”
I’m dying of laughter. “Tell us about the girl you’d have married.”
“We went to secretarial school together. Very sweet girl who still lived at home with four brothers, and she was the baby of the family. Her name was Tansy,” Ethel says, and Tansy absolutely collapses. She has to set her coffee cup on a table, she’s laughing so hard.
She puts her hands on her head as if she’s holding in her brains. Her eyes scrunch up as she giggles. “Oh my god, you’re kidding right? Mom named me!”
“She liked Tansy very much.”
Tansy gasps. “She knew? They’d met?”
“Well, I can’t as much say as she knew.” Ethel taps a finger on her jaw as if she’s trying to remember. “Tansy came for a few visits through the years. She became a secretary for a VP at one of the car companies out of Detroit. Never married, so she traveled a lot. Always used to take your mom out to the movies.”
“Did grandpa know?”
“Sure, sure, he did. I was always honest with him about my life before him. Just the same as he told me about the girl down in Idaho Falls who he knocked up.”
Tansy claps her hands over her ears. “Nope. I’m done here.” She drops her hands and looks at Ethel. “Wait, do I have an aunt or uncle out there somewhere?”
“I’m afraid not.” Ethel shakes her head. “The girl miscarried. Her and Harold’s relationship didn’t survive the difficulty, which I suppose is for the best. There’s a lot of stuff that has to be weathered in a good marriage. It’s not all hot cocoa on the porch and wild sex when the kids leave the house.”
Good lord, this lady is a hoot. Tansy is blushing so hard that her skin is positively splotchy. I smother my own laughter. “That part sounds like a good time.”
“You can make a good life in this town,” she says pointedly.
She’s on team Stay in Idaho, I guess. I should have expected that. I’m sure all Tansy’s family wants her to move home, and why shouldn’t they? Her presence makes my life shinier. They must miss her.
That still doesn’t mean I intend to give her up.
Unless I don’t have a choice. Unless it’s better that she’s free.
I stare into the bottom of my cup as if I can use the last dregs of foam like tea leaves and read my future. There’s never been a brash choice that I’ve passed up, but not all of them have worked out perfectly. On rainy days, my elbow throbs to remind me—it hasn’t healed right since the fall I took in Guatemala, hiking up the side of Pacaya. Literally breaking my ulna had been worth it to be able to see three volcanoes at once.
I didn’t get singed then. I might be burned to ash now. It’s the honorable thing to do, letting Tansy go. Holding on to her would be almost cruel, especially after the promises I made in the beginning. I told her that I wasn’t a permanent kind of woman, and that she shouldn’t rely on me for forever. Those words came out of my mouth. I even said them in a far more rational time than when I said that I love her.
How do I even know what love is? If I truly love her, I should want what’s best for the life she’s meant to live. And I do. I really do. She fits this town, this countryside. She stood out in California because she’s never lost the sweet innocence that came with living in a town where everyone loves her. Hell, no wonder she was ripe pickings for that bitch of an ex. She must have taken absolutely everything Jody said at face value.
Just like she takes everything I say at face value. She doesn’t realize that I made my declaration in the throes of passion. It’s probably not a real emotion. One day she’ll wake up and realize that I’ve unfairly tied her to me and dragged her back to SoCal and she’ll start to resent me. Nothing could survive that.
If Tansy ever came to despise me, I don’t think I’d be able to go on.
I can’t let that happen.