Twenty-one
“Did you girls sleep well?” Mom asked when we went down for a late breakfast the next morning. Cara and I looked at each other and then away. If we stared too long, I would have burst out laughing.
“Uh huh,” we both said in unison as Mom dished out slices of spinach quiche and roasted potatoes and bacon.
“Good, good,” she said, distracted with getting breakfast on the table. Dad finally came back from the kitchen with a plate of toast.
“What is with all the food? This is enough to feed three families,” I said, pointing my fork at the spread.
“Oh, we just wanted to make sure you were eating well,” Mom said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I said, shoving a forkful of potatoes into my mouth.
Cara kept sneaking her hand onto my leg under the table and causing me to drop my silverware, or choke on my tea or orange juice. I nudged her with my foot under the table and slipped her a look to cut it out because I couldn’t eat under these conditions.
“What are your plans today?” Dad asked.
“I think we’ll go to the nature preserve and get lunch at the café and then maybe ice cream?” I said, looking at Cara. That was our usual routine when we came back here. The city had nature, but nothing like the preserve where you couldn’t hear any traffic or honking horns and could see more wildlife than just aggressive squirrels and birds.
“Sounds good to me,” she said, folding her napkin and putting it on her plate. My parents were probably the only people in the world outside of a restaurant that still used paper napkins.
“You sure you don’t want to hop on the tractor for me?” Dad said, a wicked gleam in his eye.
“That’s gonna be a no from me,” I said, and he laughed.
“I would also like to pass,” Cara said, raising her hand.
“Why didn’t I get any children who enjoyed machinery?” Dad said, shaking his head sadly. Mom patted him on the shoulder.
“Sorry, but that store closed a long time ago. No more children for us.”
“Ew, gross. I don’t need to hear about that, thank you,” I said, cringing.
Mom just smirked and started to clear the table.
“WHY WERE YOU DOING that at the table? They could have seen,” I said as soon as we were out of the house and into the safety of the rental car. This time I was driving.
“They weren’t paying attention,” Cara said, waving me off.
“I think you underestimate my parent’s ability to pay attention to every freaking detail of everything.” I turned the radio on low and found the local pop station, bopping my head along with the song that was playing.
Cara rolled the window down and gazed out.
“What are we going to tell everyone?” she said as I slowly bumped along my parent’s driveway.
“Tell everyone about... us?” We still hadn’t even hammered out those details. We’d passed out before that had been discussed.
“Yeah,” she said, looking back at me and smiling, the air from the window whipping her hair around. Fuck, she was beautiful. So beautiful I almost drove into my parent’s mailbox.
“I mean, what are we going to tell them? We didn’t exactly talk definitions and moving forward and all that. Why am I the one saying this? You’re the planner, Cara, this is freaking me out. I can’t be the planner in this relationship.” No way, no how.
She grinned.
“Being the planner isn’t easy, is it?” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“No, it’s horrible, make it stop.” She burst out laughing and that made me laugh.
“But seriously, what is happening here because I need to know?” I said.
“Uh, what do you want to be happening here? Do you want to be together?”
“I thought I made that pretty clear last night.” We had both made that clear last night. No gray area there.
“So you’re going to be my... what? Girlfriend? Wife? Life partner?”
“Huh. Yeah. Technically you’re my wife, but... I’m not sure if we should dive right into being married without the dating step in between. But we should probably still call each other wife and so forth around our friends. Ansel is going to lose his fucking mind.”
“Yeah, I bet he is,” Cara said. “He sort of knew that I was questioning. That’s what we were talking about that day. I’m sorry I was so weird for so long. I just had no idea how to talk to you about this without telling you the other stuff.” It had been a lot to take in all at once, but I had adjusted, mostly because it was as if everything in my entire life suddenly made sense. A peace had descended over me that I had never known. As if something had been out of place and had suddenly clunked right where it was supposed to be.
It seemed silly to say that all of this had happened to put Cara and I together. I was pretty sure some higher power hadn’t arranged for my grandmother to die and leave me a bunch of money if I got married and then to make both Cara and I need said money at the same time after making us into best friends. There was no way.
Not that I wasn’t thrilled that all this had worked out so perfectly. Tied up in a neat bow. Of course that wasn’t how life worked, but at least this one thing had worked out for both of us. We’d have to figure everything else out on our own.
“I was paranoid that you hated me. Or that you wanted to stop living with me. That was why I asked you. I was so scared to lose you, Care. I’m still scared to lose you. It terrifies me.” The only thing that compared to losing Cara would be losing my parents.
“Let’s not think about that because I’m not going anywhere.” She held up her left hand, her ring sparkling there. I hadn’t taken mine off either.
“Agreed. But I have one question.”
“What’s that?” she asked, reaching for my hand. I clasped my fingers with hers.
“How do you date someone you’re already married to?”
“No idea, but I have the feeling we’re going to find out,” she said, kissing the back of my hand.
“SO, THIS IS OUR FIRST date,” I said, as I handed Cara her mint chocolate chip ice cream cone.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” she said licking her cone. I was instantly distracted from anything else but what her tongue was doing to that ice cream cone.
“You look like you fell over and hit your head,” she said, and I pretended as if I hadn’t just been gawking at her openly.
“I kind of feel that way. You be careful with that tongue of yours.” She grinned maliciously.
“Why, is it bothering you?” She stuck her tongue out and gave her cone a long lick.
“You are being obscene right now,” I hissed, looking around to make sure no one else had seen the display.
Cara cackled and did it again.
“If you don’t stop, I am going to... do something!” She gasped in shock.
“Oh, no, not something! Anything but something!” I glared at her.
“I am inches away from shoving this entire cone in your face, Cara Lynne. Provoke me at your own risk.” I shoved my cone at her just to watch her recoil a little.
“Haha, that’s what I thought,” I said, going back to my ice cream cone, which was now dripping down my arm.
“You are ridiculous,” Cara said in between licks. I was not going to stare at her tongue and remember how it felt licking the inside of my mouth. I was NOT.
“Yes, I am. And you’re the one who married me, so what does that say about you?” She rolled her eyes.
“That I am a lover of the ridiculous,” she said with a flourish of her hand.
“True enough,” I said.
WE GOT BACK TO MY PARENT’S just in time for another lavish dinner.
“Dad, you really don’t have to keep doing this,” I said, as I loaded up on veggie and steak skewers cooked on the grill outside.
“It’s nice to have more than one person to cook for. Well, two people, if I include myself,” he said, wielding a spatula as if it was a sword. He was also wearing a ridiculous apron that had a crown on it and the words KING OF THE GRILL. My mom had gotten it for his birthday, along with the grill. If anyone else were here, I would have begged him to take it off.
“It’s so nice having you girls here. Sometimes I wish you would both move back and stay with us, but I know that’s not realistic. You’re both adults, out on your own, doing your own thing. We just get lonely here sometimes.” Ah, it was time for the Mom Guilt Trip. I had been waiting for this. Usually she did it on the first day and not the second. We were leaving tomorrow afternoon, so she had to get it in when she could.
“We’ll visit more,” Cara said, cutting of whatever I might have been about to say. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it under the table.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. We’re not completely helpless without you. We have lives. I just like to see both of you so happy. Gives me hope for the future of the world.” I shared a glance with Cara. Mom was really laying it on thick.
“We miss you too,” I said, and Cara gave me a nod of approval.
“You’re so sweet,” Mom said, coming over and kissing me and Cara on the top of our heads. No matter how old we got, we would always be little girls to her. I guess it could be a whole lot worse.
“Dig in,” Dad said, setting down his spatula. Finally.
“WE SHOULD TELL THEM,” Cara said that night as we lay in bed together, our noses almost touching. We hadn’t done much of anything beyond a few kisses since last night, and I didn’t know if anything was going to happen tonight. Not that I would mind having another middle-of-the-night make-out session with Cara. That was the best possible way to spend my time. Who needed sleep? Kissing took priority.
“My parents?”
“Yeah. Before we leave.”
“Do we have to? I really don’t want to get into it with them and have to field questions. If you want to come out to them, I’ll totally support you. They were great when I came out, so I’m pretty sure my mom would throw you another party complete with a parade.”
“Yeah, she might. I don’t know, I just think we should maybe do it all at once? Like a Band-Aid. Rip it right off.” I gave her a look.
“Do you really think they would let us leave without making it into a whole huge thing that involved lots of crying and hugging and carrying on? I’m still coming to terms with all that’s happened. Can we wait?” She thought about it for a few seconds.
“No, you’re right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t push so hard. They might feel like my parents, but they are your parents and I wouldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to.” I knew that, which was one of the reasons why we clicked so well together. Mutual respect.
“Thanks. I promise we will tell them at some point. Let’s just figure out what the fuck we’re actually doing first. This is new territory for both of us. I haven’t dated in a while and you haven’t dated girls, oh, and we’re already married. It’s not like there are tons of other people in our situation that we can ask for advice from.” She reached out and played with some of my hair.
“Isn’t that the truth.”
We stared at each other for a little while.
“This is so bizarre. I never thought, in a million years, that we would end up together. I put you in the ‘friend’ box and never even considered you as romance material. But so many things that I thought were ‘best friend’ things were actually romantic feelings that I told myself weren’t. Dating girls is confusing as fuck,” I said.
“Are you kidding me? Why do you think I’ve been tied up in knots for months? I couldn’t separate friend feelings from romantic and other feelings. I kept asking myself ‘do I feel this close to her because she’s my best friend? Or is it something else?’”
We talked all night about little things that we’d brushed off in the past as just being “really close friends.” It was so easy to do that, especially as girls. Even though I’d been out for a while and had had several girlfriends, even I lied to myself about what category my feelings for Cara fell into.
“But we’re here now. And I think the timing is a little weird, but now if we want to get married again, we can just tell everyone we’re going to renew our vows. They’ll never know this wasn’t for real. So that’s a bonus?” she said.
“I mean, it’s not the only bonus. Falling for your best friend is pretty fucking great.” I snuggled closer to her and pressed my lips to hers.
“Oh, that reminds me,” she said, pulling back. “I think we should try and take things slow. At least at first. I have no clue what I’m doing so you might have to be patient with me as I fumble through this. I looked some stuff up online.” The lights were off, but I was pretty sure she was blushing.
“Oh, you did, did you? What kind of stuff?”
“You know. Naked stuff. I’d always sort of looked at it, but I always told myself I liked it because I could relate to their bodies? The lies we tell ourselves.”
I moved my head so we were sharing a pillow.
“Did you ever like guys?” She hadn’t exactly told me that she’d picked a label, and I would set myself on fire before I would demand that of her. Labels could be important and were so individual. She never had to pick one if she didn’t want to.
“Honestly? I don’t think so. It always felt wrong, you know? That I was faking it because I wanted to be like everyone else. I told myself that when I was nervous around them that that was what I was supposed to feel like. That the sick feeling in my stomach was butterflies, not repulsion. I’m still untying so many knots, Lo.” I stroked her shoulder.
“It’s not easy, and it’s a process. Take your time. You don’t have to decide right now.” She puckered her lips for a kiss and I wanted to let myself sink into it and get lost, but she’d said she wanted to take it slow. I could totally do that, even though I had to pry myself away from her mouth.
“Thanks, Lo. That means a lot. Having you to help me through this is the best part of it. I want to figure myself out, to know myself. I can’t help wanting to make a sexuality spreadsheet, but my therapist told me to just take my time, like you said.” I laughed a little about the ‘sexuality spreadsheet.’ Only Cara would do something like that.
“As long as your sexuality includes me, that’s all I need to know,” I said.
“Oh, yes, it definitely includes you,” Cara said, stroking my face. She had touched my face a thousand times before and in a thousand ways, but her touch was electric.
“How did I delude myself for so long?” I asked, and she pressed her forehead against mine and yawned.
“I don’t know, because I was doing the same thing. All that matters is we’re together now, and figuring out what we want our future to look like.” Of course she had already thought about that. To be fair, she had had more time to think about this. I still hadn’t had a week to process everything.
“You have spreadsheets already, don’t you?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“Yes, but they’re romantic spreadsheets.”
I didn’t think spreadsheets could be romantic, but if anyone could make them, it was Cara.
“Bring on the romantic spreadsheets,” I said through a yawn.