Looking for Julie (24 page)

“You have to be quiet,” she whispered when she slid her hand between Karen’s legs and Karen moaned.

“But that feels so sweet.”

She didn’t want Nita bursting through the door. However, Karen’s gentle touch felt so good that she heard herself making little sounds like whimpers.

When it was over, she lay back to catch her breath. Karen’s arms were wrapped loosely around her as she nibbled at her neck. Maybe this was the way to forget about DeWitt. She certainly forgot everything else when they were doing it.

She imagined him barging through the door while they were in the bed. He’d broken in before. What would happen then? She thought of all the ways that scenario could work out. Some of them excited her and made her ashamed.

Sunday morning she awoke hungry and remembered she hadn’t eaten since noon the day before. She wolfed down two big bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios, while Karen ate toast with jam, their laptops open on the small table.

Nita came yawning and stretching into the room. Karen looked at her, clad in flannel pants and a T-shirt, and asked, “Where’s Carmen?”

After pouring herself a cup of coffee, Nita leaned against the counter. “We’re not together anymore.”

“When did that happen?” Karen asked.

“Last night.”

“Hey, I’m sorry.”

Sam was staring at Nita. Even wrinkled and rumpled with sleep, she was gorgeous. Her thick black hair hung loosely around her shoulders. Her dark eyes looked soft and sort of unfocused.  “Me too.”

“Want to talk about it?” Karen said.

“She’s fucking scared when she’s here.” She shot an angry look at Sam.

“You know, it’s bad for you to be mad all the time,” Karen said.

“Sam’s friend Jamie is the reason Carmen is afraid to hang around with me.”

“He was your friend too,” Sam said.

“Yeah, well not anymore. You’re sitting in my fuckng chair, Karen.” There were only two chairs at the table.

Karen went to Sam’s bedroom and rolled her computer chair into the kitchen. “Which fucking chair do you want, Nita?” With a hand on one hip, Karen looked Nita up and down. “You are so pretty till you open your mouth.”

Sam ducked her head and continued eating.

Nita sat down in the rickety chair across from Sam. “You wouldn’t be laughing, Sam, if you lost your girlfriend.” Her lower lip was quivering.

“Sorry, Nita.” She reached across the table and covered Nita’s hand, but she couldn’t resist adding, “Karen’s not afraid of anything.”

Nita went to her room. Karen shut her laptop after a while and said she needed to go to the dorm to get clothes.

“Want me to come with?” Sam asked, looking up from her computer.

“Nah. You stay and study.” She jerked her head toward Nita’s room. “Maybe you better check up on her.”

She knocked on Nita’s door after Karen left. No answer. She knocked harder and turned the knob. The lights were off. She walked toward the curled up figure on the bed. Nita was asleep. In her hand was a bottle of pills. Sam gently loosened the container and read the label. Vicodin.

She shook Nita’s shoulder, startling her awake. She sat up on the bed and glared at Sam.

“I thought maybe you had taken too many,” Sam blurted.

“They’re to help me sleep.”

“Did Carmen get these for you?” The labeling had been in Spanish and English.

“Yes, if it’s any of your goddamn business.” She ran her fingers through her luxurious black hair, rearranging it.

“You scared me,” Sam said, looking into her dark eyes.

“I didn’t think you cared.” Nita flopped back on the bed and yawned. “What’s it like with Karen?”

Caught off guard, Sam shrugged. “Like it is with Carmen, I suppose.”

“Carmen doesn’t do sex. She’s a good Catholic girl.”

Sam wondered what to say and ended up with, “Maybe you should be seeing Julie.”

“Maybe you should show me what it’s like. Hmm?” Nita took her hand and pulled her onto the bed.

“I can’t,” she said and then realized that she could and she wanted to. She’d always had a thing for Nita. She kissed her, something she’d longed to do for years, and Nita put her arms around Sam and pulled her down.

Sam didn’t waste time taking off clothes. In the back of her mind she knew Karen could return anytime. She pushed Nita’s shirt up and buried her face in Nita’s breasts. The nipples were dark. She smelled like soap. Nita gasped when Sam slipped a hand in her sweatpants. She came quickly and quietly, quiet enough for Sam to hear the door open and know that Karen was back.

She pulled her hand free and turned over in time to see Karen turn her back. “Don’t go, Karen.” She jumped up and rushed into the kitchen where Karen was shutting her laptop and into the bedroom where Karen grabbed her things and shoved them into her backpack. “I didn’t mean to. It just sort of happened.”

Karen raised her chin, and Sam got a look at the pain that screwed up her face and turned her gray blue eyes stormy. “Please, Karen. It was a mistake.”

Karen shoved past her toward the door, dropping her key to the apartment on the floor. In a minute she was gone.

“Was it a mistake?” Nita said, coming to the door of her bedroom. “I don’t think so.” She leaned against the frame, her dark hair tousled, and crossed her arms. She looked incredibly sexy.

On Tuesday Edie called Claire to say she couldn’t make it on Wednesday. “We’re leaving for the Birkie.” Which was a half lie. They were leaving on Thursday, but she was feeling a little frantic about how the book was going and felt she needed those two days to work.

A long pause ensued, while Edie waited. She was hooked on this woman. It didn’t seem to matter that Claire was rude and had no interest in Edie’s life. It was all about sex, which must have been why Edie couldn’t let her go. Even now, with Claire on the phone, she longed to lay her down on the bed.

“Are you going with Pam?”

“No, I didn’t know she was going,” she said.

“Well she is, with Donna Hesselmeier.”

This was one of the most informational conversations she’d had with Claire. “Maybe I’ll see them there.”

“You won’t see me. I may have to start working Wednesday afternoons.”

“Then I should call next Tuesday and make sure you’re going to be home Wednesday.” She held her breath, thinking maybe it was over.

“If you want. I have to go now. Janine is on her way.”

She failed to understand the relationship between Janine and Claire. They should be lovers, and she felt a pang thinking about them together. She called Pam whom she knew she had neglected.

“Hey, I thought I was never going to hear from you again.”

“I’m sorry, Pam. I’m trying to finish a book.”

“I’m trying to finish one of your books too. I’ve been reading them.”

Edie had to ask, “And?”

“Oh, I love them. A romance is a romance, you know.” Meaning, Edie supposed, that it didn’t matter if the hero was a hero instead of another heroine.

 “Claire said you’re skiing the Birkie.”

“I’m doing the Kortelopet with a friend. I think I’m not ready for the Birkie. I should have called and asked if you wanted to go with us.”

“I am going, actually, with Jennifer Gottschalk. She came to our table at Jacobi’s.”

“You’ll be well matched,” Pam said. She sounded happy. “I think you met Donna. She’s going with me. Are you coming to Madison tomorrow?”

So she knew. “No, I need the day to write.”

“Well, I guess I’ll stay out of Claire’s way then.”

“Why?”

“When you don’t come, she’s not fit to be around.”

“Really?” she said with a grin, “I had no idea.”

“Well, that’s how Claire treats the most important people in her life. She doesn’t want to let you know how much you mean to her. I don’t know why.”

“She doesn’t even seem to like me,” she blurted.

“Well, right now you are one of those important people. I think you outrank Janine. Janine is her default person. The one she falls back on when she loses someone.”

“No kidding.” She was amazed and delighted and disbelieving.

“Trust me. Do you want to meet somewhere?”

“I’m riding with Jennifer and her brother, so I’m not in charge. If we see each other among the thousands of people, I’ll buy you a drink after the race.”

“Sounds like a plan. Good luck.”

“You too.”

She went back to the book but had trouble picking up the thread. She had changed Al’s name to Tony and given him a distinguished look with threads of white in his dark hair. He had rescued Elizabeth from loneliness when Mary Ann had moved away. He encouraged her to create an exciting life of her own. She opened a store next to his auto shop where she sold trendy clothes from California. One night someone broke into both the auto shop and the clothes store. Tony went back to his place of work for something he forgot and was shot. Elizabeth found him on the cold floor of the office. He was rushed to the hospital where emergency surgery was performed. Mary Ann hurried to Elizabeth’s side to offer support
.

“I don’t think I could have faced this alone,” Elizabeth said.

“Well, you don’t have to. I’ll stay the night.”

“Where are Janie and Riley?”

“I called the babysitter.” Mary Ann smiled.

Elizabeth studied her face. “I’ve missed you terribly.”

“And I you.” Mary Ann took her hand. “That must have been a terrible thing to see.”

“The floor was covered with blood. I thought he was dead.”

When the surgeon talked to Elizabeth, he gave a guarded prognosis. She was allowed to go into Tony’s room. Tubes crossed his body, feeding him fluids and morphine and oxygen and carrying away urine. She held his limp hand and spoke to him in a soft voice, telling him he’d be all right, until the ICU nurse told her he needed to rest and so did she.

At home, she asked Mary Ann to keep Tony’s side of the bed warm. When Mary Ann comforted her with an embrace, she said, “I’m not sure I’m up to losing Tony and you.”

“You don’t have to be. I’ve been offered the principal position at Harrison.” It was the middle school where they had taught together. “I’m moving back here.”

Edie had over two hundred fifty pages. She couldn’t afford to kill off Tony and introduce another hero. The best she could do was let Tony recover and keep Mary Ann as a best friend.

She looked out the window. The snow on the Green Trail was soft and sticky. Water dripped from the gutters. Now that she had a vision of how the book would end she could go to Madison on Wednesday. She quickly put that thought out of her head. What she didn’t need was Claire messing with her emotionally before the race. Instead, she worked the next day, adding another twenty pages.

On Thursday she arrived at Jennifer’s house a little after four, the agreed upon time. The garage door rose as she got out of her car.

Chip walked to her open window. “I’ll back my car out and you can put yours in.”

Jennifer carried her ski equipment to Chip’s car. Her backpack was slung across her shoulder, her jacket open.  Chip put the skis and poles in the Thule roof rack on top of the Subaru.

At first they chatted excitedly. The Birkie was one of the most thrilling events in Edie’s life. Darkness fell swiftly, leaving a smudge of yellow along the horizon. Edie was riding in the back. The radio was on low, and they fell into a comfortable silence.

Around six they stopped at Phillips, more than halfway to Cable, and picked up subs, which they ate in the car. Edie was paying little attention to where they were, but when Chip turned off State Highway 77 onto a local road, she knew they must be near the rented cabin on Lake Tomahawk. 

The smell of wood smoke greeted them. The A-frame log building was dwarfed by the larger lake homes around it. Mike and Tom, Chip’s skiing friends, had turned on the cabin’s heat and lit a fire in the fireplace.

“You ladies can have the bedroom,” Chip said.

Edie tossed her backpack on the double bed and switched on a small lamp. The walls and ceiling were cedar as were those in the rest of the cabin. There was a dresser and another lamp on the other side of the bed.

The sleeping loft had been built over the bedroom, the bathroom and small kitchen. The great room stood alone with large windows that faced the lake. Snowmobiles sped across the snow-covered ice, their bobbing lights leading the way.

The five of them sat around the fire for a while, exchanging stories about past Birkies. Edie was the first to say “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She took her backpack to the bathroom where she removed her contacts, brushed her teeth and washed her face with her hands. Back in the bedroom, she stripped down to long underwear and slid between very cold sheets.

Shortly after, Jennifer joined her, also getting into bed in her long underwear. “Yipes!” she said. “I thought you’d have it all warmed up.”