Mira came back inside just as the lunch hour was ending and librarians were beginning to pour into the hallway. She’d spent the morning sessions scribbling distractedly on her conference program and feeling awful for the blunt way that she’d dismissed Chelle after the keynote, but she didn’t trust her own emotions enough to spend the day by Chelle’s side. The Board of Trustees was coming for their quarterly meeting in just one week and Jack would eat it up if he saw any further evidence of a relationship between her and Chelle.
Separation and avoidance seemed like the only option, particularly after she read the text Chelle sent her during the keynote presentation. Mira didn’t want to go back to the way things were, shrouded in secrecy and hidden from the world, especially after the taste she’d gotten this morning of how it would feel to really be with Chelle. But they could never have that – not so long as it was a choice between the fiery redhead who always knew exactly how to make her smile, or a career that she’d dedicated her life to for nearly a decade.
How could Mira make that choice?
When it was time to go to lunch, her whole chest felt tight at the thought of seeing Chelle and having to keep herself together long enough to choke down a meal. Mira couldn’t decide if she wanted to bend her over a table and make love to her, or never see her again – she was at a complete loss for what to do, and running painfully low on coping mechanisms.
So when she got to the ballroom, one of the first to arrive after bursting out of her second session feeling like her heart was pounding out of her chest, she did the only thing she knew. She ran.
Mira went right past the buffet and down the hall toward the hotel lobby. She crossed it and then kept going out the front door, desperate for a little fresh air to clear her head. Outside, the sun beat down on the pavement and a breeze blew in from the lake on the other side of downtown Granville. Mira put her hands on her knees and breathed deep, sucking in air and feeling her pulse slowly fall back to a normal level.
This was the closest she’d ever come to a panic attack, but after a few minutes the tension in her chest began to ease and it became a little easier to breathe. She started walking, taking a lap around the packed parking lot, and the longer she walked, the better she felt. She walked all the way around the hotel grounds, the heat of the afternoon dampening her clothes and making her hair flatten on her forehead, but she didn’t care. As long as she was walking out here, away from Chelle and Jack and everything else, no decisions needed to be made and she felt okay.
Eventually, though, it was time to go back inside. If Max and Ruby didn’t have an afternoon session that she’d promised to attend, she would have continued to walk until it was necessary to face the car ride back to Westbrook. But she couldn’t miss her friends’ first conference presentation and she reluctantly headed back into the conference center, taking deep, steadying breaths as she went.
Chelle was standing outside of Max and Ruby’s session room when Mira arrived, and her heart rose up in her throat, tears threatening to well in her eyes, when Mira saw her. She weaved her way through the crowd and came over to Chelle.
“Hi,” she said sheepishly.
“I’m so-” Chelle started to say, but Mira held up a hand to stop her.
“Don’t,” she begged. “I can’t do this right now.”
It was all she could do to stop the tears from flowing – it had been a long day, and the only thing she had energy left for was to get through this session and then – by the grace of god – make it back to Westbrook in one piece. She couldn’t have this conversation right now, even if Chelle looked about as torn up inside as Mira felt.
“Come on, let’s find a seat,” she said, struggling to address Chelle in her managerial tone. She gestured Chelle into the room and then followed her in. Max and Ruby were standing near a podium at the front of the room, Ruby beaming and Max looking a little anxious. Mira gave them a wave, then pointed Chelle to a pair of empty seats in the middle of the room.
As soon as they sat, Chelle tried again. “Mira, I didn’t mean-”
“Shh,” Mira shushed her. Again, she donned her manager’s voice and asked, “How were your morning sessions?”
“Umm,” Chelle said, looking a little lost, “They were okay. I met one of Jack’s former coworkers.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She doesn’t like him any better than the rest of us,” Chelle said.
Then before their conversation could go any further, the room fell into a hush as Ruby stepped up to the podium. She was in her element, grinning out at her audience as she introduced herself and Max and started in on their presentation. Mira gave a small sigh of relief – at least she could spend the next hour just sitting there and listening, not needing to face Chelle or tell her all the fears that had been running through her mind all morning.
***
Mira and Chelle let the crowd buffet them outside after the session let out, planning to meet Jack at his car in the parking lot. She wanted to address the elephant in the room, but there were far too many people milling around, too many cars trying to inch their way out of the lot, and too many directions Jack could ambush them from to have a real conversation. So Mira just stood beside the Buick while Chelle leaned against the bumper and they waited.
“Get off my fender,” Jack barked at her as he came across the lot to them, and Chelle obediently stood up while he unlocked the car.
The ride home was nothing like the drive to Granville, all three of them sitting in silence, and Mira hated every second of it. By the time they got back to Westbrook, she was ready to scream from the tension, but instead she pulled out her phone to text a covert message to Chelle.
Can you come over to my place? I want to talk. – M
Chelle read the message, but rather than texting back, she just shot a quick look at Mira across the wide back seat and nodded. Relief washed over Mira just as Jack pulled into the parking lot of WPL, stopping the Buick just in front of Chelle and Mira’s waiting cars.
“Get out,” he called, ever the cheerful chauffeur.
“See you tomorrow,” Mira said wearily as she climbed out of the car, dragging her overnight bag across the seat behind her while Chelle got out on the other side.
Jack drove away just as soon as they’d shut their car doors, leaving Mira and Chelle to face each other. Mira looked around the lot – the library would be closing in an hour and there were a few bikes chained to the rack in front of the doors, plus the cars of the staff members on closing duty, but other than that the lot was empty. It was probably safe to talk, especially after watching Jack burning rubber on his way out of the parking lot, but after everything that had transpired over the last twenty-four hours, Mira just wanted to know for sure that they were alone.
“Meet me at my place in a few minutes?” She asked. She’d driven her car to work on Thursday morning, leaving it in the lot overnight just in case it was raining or very late when they got home after the conference, and as much as she didn’t want to let Chelle out of her sight, they had to keep up appearances by driving separately.
“Yeah,” Chelle said, digging her keys out of the front pocket of her backpack. She looked exhausted, just like Mira felt.
The short drive back to Mira’s apartment was torturous, watching in the rearview mirror all the way and expecting to see that Chelle had changed her mind and decided to go home instead of following Mira. But they arrived together, Chelle parking discretely on the street while Mira pulled into the carport on the back side of the apartment building. She walked around to meet her, then they went inside.
Chelle stood in the kitchen, patiently waiting for Mira to lock the door, and it didn’t feel like any other time when she’d come over. There was no excitement or desperate sexual tension, and they weren’t pawing at each other the moment the door latched shut. Instead, Mira had a sour feeling in her stomach as she realized what she was about to do.
She went to Chelle and took her hand, and tears welled once again in the back of her throat, and she couldn’t bring herself to look Chelle in the eyes. Mira led her into the living room and sat down on the futon, pulling Chelle down beside her.
“Don’t,” Chelle whispered, seeming to already know what was coming. But it was too late, and Mira was powerless to stop it.
“I’m sorry,” Mira said. “I can’t-”
But Chelle cut her off, pleading again as her voice went watery with tears. “Don’t do this. I understand I crossed a line this morning and I shouldn’t have asked you to be with me out in the open. You’re my boss and it wasn’t fair – I get it. But you can’t throw all of it away just because I said something stupid.”
“It’s not that,” Mira said. “Or it’s not just that. Jack knows.”
“What?” Chelle asked, her mouth dropping open. “How?”
“At the social hour,” Mira explained, “he made a pretty strong hint to me that he knows we’re together.”
“The social hour?” Chelle asked. “He was trashed from the open bar. Are you sure?”
“No,” Mira admitted, “but it doesn’t matter. I can’t take the risk.”
“So we start being even more careful,” Chelle said, desperation in her voice. She took both of Mira’s hands in hers. “This doesn’t have to change anything.”
“For how long?” Mira asked. “You can’t tell me that you won’t grow resentful if we continue on like this and we have to keep our entire relationship a secret.”
“Don’t tell me how I’m going to feel,” Chelle said. “That’s for me to decide, and I don’t want to lose you.”
Mira took Chelle’s chin in her hand, a few tears wetting her palm as she did so, and looked into Chelle’s eyes for the first time since they sat down. She kissed Chelle, tasting the salt on her lips, and then said softly, “I want to find a way for us to be together… I just don’t know how.”
Tears were falling freely down Chelle’s cheeks now and she whispered, “Let me know when you figure it out.”
Then she stood up, letting go of Mira’s hands, and walked out of the apartment.
***
“How was the conference?” Leah asked when Chelle came home. She’d been sitting on the patio and when she heard Chelle come in, she got up to greet her.
“It was equal parts fairy tale and disaster,” Chelle said. Her eyes still felt puffy from allowing herself to cry freely on the drive home, but she’d done the best she could to wipe the wetness away with her sleeve and fan the redness out of her skin before she came inside. She didn’t want to rehash all of it for Leah, but she was finding it hard to keep inside. She dropped her backpack exhaustedly on the floor and said, “No, I take that back. It was far more disaster.”
“What happened?” Leah asked.
Chelle headed out to the patio. After being cooped up in Jack’s car for the last few hours, and then the tension inside Mira’s apartment, she thought a little fresh air might do her some good. She flopped down into one of the two Adirondack chairs where she and Leah spent the majority of their summer evenings.
Leah followed her outside, sitting down and prompting, “Well?”
“I think it might be over,” Chelle said with a ragged sigh. Ever since she started working at WPL, she’d come home at night and Leah would have a litany of questions for her about Mira and their illicit affairs. It had been entertaining for both of them at first, but now it was painful.
Leah’s jaw dropped, and it was an expression that pretty closely resembled Chelle’s own feelings on the matter. “What?”
“Thursday night was a little rough,” Chelle said, summoning the energy to give Leah the blow by blow of everything that happened at the conference. “I was just having fun, enjoying the road trip and flirting with her, and I think I spooked her at one point because I touched her in front of Jack. She got mad, but then around midnight she snuck over to my room. Leah, we barely slept all night. The sex was incredible, but the feeling of being with her, of waking up next to her and getting ready together in the morning like a real couple – it was life-altering. I’ve never had that before.”
“And then you broke up?” Leah asked, her face reflecting the pain that Chelle felt.
“I was a fucking idiot,” Chelle said.
“What did you do?”
“I told her I was falling for her,” Chelle said, burying her face in her hands. Her voice was muffled as she said, “I told her I wanted to be together for real and I put too much pressure on her.”
“Did she tell you she didn’t want to be with you?” Leah asked.
“Not in so many words,” Chelle said. “It always comes back to that fucking asshole from work, Jack. Every time we’re having a good moment, he pops out from some dark corner and scares the hell out of her and remind her that her job’s on the line if she gets caught with me. Now she thinks he knows about us and she doesn’t want to be with me at all.”
Leah sighed, reclining in her chair and turning her face up to the sun as she pondered the situation. “You really like her, don’t you?”
“She’s amazing,” Chelle said.
“Why don’t you just quit your job?” Leah asked. “You can be together then, right?”
“I probably would have,” Chelle said, “last week, or a month ago. Even though this is as happy as my parents have ever been with me and my life choices, I would have disappointed them to be with her. But I really did think that conference was incredible - it felt like coming home. I think I belong in the library. Besides, if Jack thinks he knows something, the fact that I quit wouldn’t do anything to deter him from trying to use it against Mira.”
Leah sighed again and gave Chelle a sympathetic look. “I guess you really are screwed, then.”