Tansy
Cai is weird as heck for the rest of the day. We take Nanna back to her apartment and go in for a while. Nanna first shows off my baby pictures—which is part of why I’d never pushed Jody to visit. Wherever I go, I get treated to trips down memory lane. They’re a blast for me, of course, but it’s like I have Jody’s ghost sitting next to me and rolling her eyes.
It makes me prickly. I keep checking in with Cai, who says everything’s fine. She asks Nanna about different pictures, things like what it takes to get a blue ribbon in barrel racing and what 4-H stands for. She was sad earlier, and that’s still there, lurking like a wolf beneath her words, but it’s different now. She’s sad and . . . wistful?
“It’s getting late,” I say, and it’s kind of true. The sun is going down, at least. This ought to be late for an eighty-one-year-old woman.
“Just a minute, just a minute. I’m almost done with you.” When Nanna disappears into her bedroom and reemerges with a photo album I’ve never seen before, I don’t like the direction this is going. “This one I keep in my nightstand.”
She’s going to tell me it’s got pictures of her being a stripper or cavorting on a nudist colony or something, and I’m simply not going to be able to handle it. I always knew Nanna was quirky. She did some of the same thing as other grandmothers in town, like baking really great cookies for the softball team bake sales. But in addition to running the café, she also collected rents from the other shops in the building and from the set of apartments she bought in the eighties. Everyone knew she was a firm businesswoman. I always admired that about her.
I keep my hands folded in my lap and my spine rigidly upright. I go for totally noncommittal. “Oh yeah?”
“I’m not showing you everything in here either.” She’s holding the leather-bound album between both hands as she sits in her favorite chair. At her elbow is a small table covered with a white doily she crocheted. Four pill bottles are lined up in a row next to a potted ficus. She flips through the book and draws out a photograph.
“Here you go,” she says as she passes it over.
Cai gets it first since she’s sitting closest. “Is this you?”
Nanna nods. Her eyes are twinkling and her cheeks are rounded by her smile. “It certainly is.”
I lean toward Cai only so that I can see the picture. The woman in it is wearing capri-length black slacks with a boat-neck blouse. She’s in profile, looking at the guy next to her, and her super short curls give her the look of a pale Audrey Hepburn. They’re standing on rough-hewn steps in front of a doorway. “Nanna, were you a beatnik?”
“For a little bit. It turns out that I like having hot water more than I like living ‘the authentic life.’ Recognize anyone else?”
The guy is handsome enough, with a strong nose and a decent mouth. He’s wearing a plain white T-shirt that could be from any time, but the sharply parted hair is pretty old-fashioned. “That doesn’t look like Grandpa.”
“Is that . . .?” Cai looks up at Nanna, her jaw gaping. “Is that Jack Kerouac?”
“Such a dish. Such a thinker.” She shrugs, and the kittens on her sweatshirt look like their high fives actually connect. “So crazy too, but what can you do?”
“You’re badass,” Cai says, and I flap a hand at her to shush her, but Nanna is eating it up. “Nah, Tansy. Can’t hide it. Your grandmother was a wild child.”
“Like recognizes like, don’t it, girl?” The finger she points at Cai is gnarled and the knuckles thick with arthritis.
Cai leans back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. Her long-sleeved T-shirt is shoved up to the elbows, and the position shows off her tattoos. When she narrows her eyes, I shiver a little bit—in a good way. She bares her teeth in a smile that verges on feral. “That mean you want to go out for a night on the town?”
“Not tonight.” Nanna stands, and Cai and I both take it as our cue to stand as well. “You two should go now. It’s getting dark.”
I look out the window, and I’m surprised that she’s right. Time got away from us. “That snuck up on me.”
“Days are getting shorter. Happens when you’re this far north.”
Is she warning me? Just making conversation? I don’t know how to put my thoughts together, much less dig through her words for deep meaning. When I hug her, it’s like holding a tween. She’s so tiny. If I moved back home, I could take her out to dinner regularly. She has a standing invitation to Mom’s house, but she only ever goes about once a week. Something about not wanting to interfere in her daughter’s life, but I think it’s more about liking her own space as well. Nanna has always been an independent soul.
In Cai’s rental SUV, I stare out the window as she drives the couple of blocks back to the motel. Salmon is so small. Everyone’s taken me back with open arms. I missed them. I missed absolutely everyone, all the way down to Mitch and Eddie this morning.
Eddie once threw a wad of paper at me in health class because he’d resented being forced to partner with me for tennis in phys ed. I’ve got to be delusional for how much I like everyone, right? Maybe I’m coloring it all with the exhilarating freedom of actually being able to talk to whomever I feel like. If it had been Jody with me this morning . . .
But it hadn’t been. It was Cai.
I reach across the console and touch her thigh. Through her thick denim, it’s not much of a stroke, but I take it. “Have you checked in to your flight?”
“I will later. I’m barely under twenty-four hours, and I’m pretty flexible about seats. Don’t care what I get.”
Because that’s Cai. Laid-back when it counts. She turns the corner into the motel. A new layer of orange and red and brown leaves has fallen across the parking lot. They rustle underfoot when I get out and follow Cai to her room.
She has to lean toward the orange-hued porch light to find which way to put the key in. Night has snuck up on us on silent feet.
I lean against her back. She’s layered with sleek muscle, enough that I feel like she could hold me up forever. But that’s not fair to her.
I have to learn to stand on my own.
She flips the switch next to the door, which lights only the lamp between the beds, and then she stands beside the TV. She looks . . . different. It’s not angry and it’s not lost.
I hate that I don’t know her every mood. As much as I want to stay in Idaho, I want the chance to know Cai.
“I should pack,” she says.
“Probably,” I agree.
Neither of us moves. She stares into space. I stare at her. I rub my upper arms, trying to fend off a cold that comes from inside.
“Do you think you’ll finish out the school year in California, or will you come back here immediately?”
“Maybe at winter break.” I step toward Cai, one hand out, but even though she doesn’t seem to be looking at me, she jerks away.
“Have you thought this through?” She drops her brown coat on the room’s only chair.
“Some.” I run a hand up into my hair, scratching my skull above my neck. I pull first, then twist tight. It’s a counterbalance to my tumultuous thoughts, but it’s not the same as what Cai gives me. “I know this probably seems impulsive, but it’s different than running off to somewhere I’ve never been.”
“I think maybe you were supposed to be here all along,” Cai says hoarsely. I wanted her to look at me, but when she finally does, it’s like I’ve been slapped with her pain. Her eyes are dark, but it’s the shadows underneath them that look like a wraith is clawing her. “You’re a small-town girl. Jody kept you from visiting because she knew she’d lose you.”
The air is completely sucked out of me. I make a noise that could have come from an animal. Wrapping both my arms around my waist doesn’t feel like it’ll keep my emotions from vibrating away from me.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s true. God, it’s so true.” I can tell because of how desperately I now want to hide. I’m so exposed, and I cover it with a little laugh. “I’m mostly really freaking impressed that you figured it out.”
The smile she manages to produce carves deeper the lines that fan from the corners of her mouth. “Not much of a magic trick.”
Cai and I are standing on the edge of two separate cliffs and trying to reach each other across the abyss. “Is this goodbye?”
Her heart is in her eyes. She holds the edge of the cheap dresser and clenches tight. “I think maybe it is.”
For the first time in a long time, I’m grateful for darkness. The single dim bulb isn’t enough to cast light on the misery of this situation. Tears rise in my eyes, and I don’t try to blink them away. Instead they crest and spill, coursing over my cheeks. “You said you loved me.”
“I do.” She crosses the vast distance between us and holds the back of my neck. She’s shaking as much as I am. “That’s why I have to let you go.”
I lift my mouth to hers, and it’s the first time I’ve kissed her instead of the other way around. I don’t want to let her go, not in word or in deed. Everything I have gets poured into our kiss. Tasting her isn’t enough. I wind my grip in the hem of her shirt, my knuckles rubbing her flat stomach.
I need to see her. She lets me pull her T-shirt over her head. She’s close to passive, and I’m close to starving. I love the expanse of her light-brown skin, the way her tattoos mark her and make her.
“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper.
She runs her hand over my hair. “You are too.”
And I notice that neither of us are talking about forever, not anymore.
I curl my tongue over the tip of her full breast. Her nipple is a tight bud. I let every taste of her flesh move through me. My hands open over her back, pulling her closer to me. Our bodies curve together. It doesn’t matter whether our shapes fit or not: we’re determined to make them fit.
I suck her nipple deep and flick the tip of it with my tongue. She likes that, her hold on my hair tightening a little in response. She’s still softer than she’s always been with me.
Part of me fears her niceness. I want the bite; I want her strong. But I push her back until she falls onto the bed, and suddenly I’m the one standing above her. She’s vulnerable to me.
There’s something I love about a woman wearing pants but no top. It emphasizes the female parts of her shape, makes her hips a heavier curve and makes her breasts seem even more generous. I stand between Cai’s knees.
She has a small smile tipping one side of her mouth. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Anything I want,” I answer, but it’s really a cover for the way I’m overwhelmed with possibilities.
She knows what this is. We’re mourning a relationship that barely got off the ground, and it’s all my fault. Three months is ridiculously soon to invite someone to my hometown—and it’s even more ridiculously soon to regret what could have been. There’s nothing to say that we wouldn’t be sick of each other in three more months. If I’d only waited until Christmas for this trip, maybe it would have been filled with sniping and bitching at each other.
Instead of the kind of vacation that could have been the beginning of forever.
I twist the switch, and the lights turn off, plunging us into darkness.
It’s a surprise to breathe easier. This is the best I’ve felt in the dark in a long, long time. There’s still a little bit of illumination coming through the front window, but it’s only a wide crack of orange light from the parking lot. The way it bathes Cai makes her into someone from the future. Maybe the future I could have had.
I tackle her jeans, unbuttoning and shoving them down her legs. She helps me by lifting her hips and letting me drag off her boots. It’s all confused. I don’t care. Once she’s naked, I lie down on her. We’re together and yet separated by my clothes.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her from this angle. Thank god for the dark, the way I can’t see the expression in her eyes. I think it might break me. I kiss her and kiss her, letting my elbows find the mattress above her shoulders. My hands stack underneath her head. I stretch my legs out so that they lie along hers. Even then, my toes only go to the top of her feet. I’m smaller than her. Not by a huge amount, but it’s enough for the difference to be remarkable.
It’s there in the way that I kiss her. My desperation. My wish for things to be different. I pour my emotions into her through the play of our teeth and lips and tongue. She takes it all, but it’s just that. She’s taking. I want to drive her crazy, I want to make her snap and roll me over and fuck me the way she’s done before.
I need to know she’ll hate it when I leave.
I kiss my way down her sternum, opening my mouth across the subtle arch of her collarbones. She is tight and strong. I lick her skin. She tastes like salt. We’ve walked the earth together. She’s passed up the chance to take a life, because she’s not that type. I let my hands skate over her waist, the tight turn of her ribs. I attack her with the fire of a hundred years I won’t have. My lips walk the swell of her breasts, then ski down her fullness.
All this is worship. I wish I could give it to her for longer, but I can’t even wait for her to break. I slide alongside her, holding her body close to mine. Her hip fits into the cradle of my pelvis. I force her arm over my shoulder so that she’s holding me close.
I open my fingers across her hip, where in the daylight I could see her gun tattoo. She surges up into my touch like a sinuous cat. I pet her and pet her until I’m at the top of her panties, as if it were some big mistake or accident. On some level, I’m still afraid that she’ll pull away and tell me to go.
It’s because she’s not taking charge. It leaves me adrift. I have to trust the way that I want her and trusting myself isn’t something I’ve done much.
I scratch my blunt nails across her crisp pubic hair. She’s trimmed short and narrow, but I like that there’s enough that I know she’s a woman. Not some young girl. She’s hot, and when I trace over the seam of her lips, I find her already wet.
My breath catches at the realization. Though she’s letting me take the lead this time, no part of her is uninterested. When she holds my shoulder and pulls me closer, I know it’s even more true.
She hooks my chin with a finger and tips my face up toward her. The dark is thick, but the light from the parking lot means I can still see the gleam of her eyes. I know she’s looking at me. “Think you can make me come?”
She isn’t calling me little one. “Of course,” I say, even as I’m trying to swallow past the stinging lump in my throat.
I spread her wetness wider and wider, working up and down her plump lips. She shivers under certain touches, and I make sure to do those again. This is like learning her all over again. It’s different to take her kisses rather than to let her take mine. It’s different to push pleasure on her rather than to worship her. And that’s what I’m doing—making her feel.
I like it, to an extent. I nestle against her side, her breast within reach of my mouth whenever I feel like it, but for the most part I concentrate on centering her pleasure in her pussy. I delve between her lips to rub her clit, but only for a few brief moments. Then I skirt away to circle her opening, to dip inside with only one finger. Enough to tease. Not enough to give her what she needs.
Enough to give me what I need though. The connection with her. The way she moves and writhes. This moment between us will have to be enough to carry me through long nights alone. I need to grow and be myself, but if I’m honest, my odds of finding a partnership like this in Idaho are going to be slim. Slim to nothing. No one will stack up to Cai. No one has her strength and magnetism.
I bury my mouth against her breast to hide my grief. This is what I get. Forever won’t be wrapped up in a tidy little bow. Her body echoes the pleasure that I’m giving her. The soft growls she makes turns the air into music as she gets closer to coming.
I keep up what I’m doing, not varying the pattern, but she must want something more because she grabs my hand and holds me against her. I open my eyes, but it’s still dark. My breathing ratchets faster, and I think it gets even darker. I look up at Cai, but she’s not looking at me. All I see from this angle is the underside of her chin, and she could be anyone.
My skin flashes cold. I try to stay focused on her. The hard edge of her ribs juts into mine. Her skin is so soft. The wetness under my fingertips is luscious, but I can’t un-feel the way she’s holding on to me, and my stomach flips again, and then she comes.
Saying my name. Somewhere a cat plaintively meows.
I jerk back, scrambling away to the foot of the bed. My breathing is too fast. The darkness spins around me. I want desperately to turn on the lights and prove that it’s her, that she isn’t anyone else. I’m sobbing.
Oh god, I’m sobbing and I can’t stop.