Looking for Julie (4 page)

“Me and Nate? You’d have to sleep with him.”

“I’m going back to bed.”

“Why don’t you climb in with Nita, and I’ll get into your bed.”

“Ah, that’s what you want. My bed. Well, you can’t have it.”

The next morning Jamie looked like he’d been on a binge the night before. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair flattened on one side like a crushed violet. He and Sam were drinking coffee, waiting for Nita to finish in the bathroom.

“What’s on your agenda?” Jamie asked.

“I have to go to the restaurant and talk to Bruce about working hours. God, I hate waiting tables. All I get are complaints, and students don’t leave tips.”

“I’ll go with you. Maybe I can land a job. I’d like to be a waiter.”

She looked at his hair. “I don’t know. Bruce is a pretty straight guy. Maybe he’ll give you my job, though. You’d be better at it.”

“You gotta stop thinking that way, like you can’t do anything.” He started counting on his fingers. “You can’t get Nita in bed. You aren’t good at your job. Nobody likes you.”

Sam stared into his brown eyes floating in a red sea. “I never said nobody likes me. I just feel like an outsider, and I’m not sure Nita is queer. She had a boyfriend in high school.”

“Yeah, that stud of a quarterback. I had the worst crush on him.”

“And I had a crush on her.” She’d hardly believed her luck when Nita had wanted to rent an apartment with her.

Nita came out of the bathroom ready to go, makeup and all.  “No wonder it took so long,” Sam said.

“Honey, you look terrific. I love how your hair shines. What
is
the secret?”

“Shut up, Jamie.” But Nita was smiling. She must have known she looked wonderful. “Pantene,” she said. “You don’t want yours to shine. Trust me on this. I’ll give you a bottle if you dye it back the way it was. Wasn’t it a nice brown?”

“Dishwater blond,” he said.

“Hey, blondes have more fun, don’t they? Certainly more than violets.”

“Why don’t we just go with her to work,” Jamie said.

“I’m going right now.” Nita was putting on her heavy jacket and gloves.

“You look so cool,” Sam said a bit wistfully.

Nita smiled sweetly. “Thank you. By the way, I’m bringing a friend home after work.” She left a blast of cold air behind her as she went out the door.

Jamie walked with Sam to the restaurant. They made dirty snowballs and shot them at trees and each other. Chili Verde was packed, the floor slippery slurry. Nita was showing a group of students to a booth. Bruce, the manager, was guarding the cash register. He spied Sam and his pale face lit up. “Hey, Sam, ready to go to work? We can use another waitress. We’re doubling up on tables.”

“Sure,” Sam said, turning and grimacing at Jamie. “Later.”

Jamie stepped forward. “I’m a good waiter.”

Bruce looked at his hair and scowled. “No thanks, buddy. Weird hair turns people off their food.”

“Ridiculous,” Jamie muttered as he left.

After work, a stunned Sam walked home with Nita and her friend, Carmen. Sam felt as if there were a fist in her chest where her heart was supposed to be as she listened to Nita and Carmen prattle on as if she weren’t there. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and hunched into her jacket.

When they reached the apartment, Sam unlocked the door and once inside, Nita said, “Carmen and I are going to study in my room.”

She looked at them as they sort of leaned into each other. Carmen’s skin was kind of sallow, her hair dense and black. Sam nodded dumbly and went to her room. She did not even have the heart to call Jamie.

When the digital clock on the bedside table registered eleven p.m., Edie put her book down and turned the light off. She hadn’t seen Lynn since Jamie and Sam had come to ski. It had been surprising that Lynn had spent that night with her. Lynn slept better alone. Edie knew that.

She fell asleep on that thought and woke up in the dark. Six o’clock and pitch black outside her window. After showering and dressing, she walked quietly to the kitchen where she made coffee and ate a piece of toast, leaning against the counter. She refilled her cup and went to her office, which had been converted from a bedroom.

What she’d wanted to do in her youth was teach literature and write—short stories and books, like the ones she read. She’d gone to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop after graduating from UW-Madison. There she’d written a pretty good short story, submitted it to a national magazine contest and won second prize. She’d taken a job as a salesperson in a bookstore to be part of the world she loved and worked on a novel in the evening. The story’s main character was a salesperson like herself, who is wooed by a young man who keeps returning to the store to buy books. It was a love story, she realized when it was finished, and she sent it to Horizon Romances, a publisher of romance novels. They mailed her a contract, suggesting she write under the name of Lauren James, and offered her an advance of five hundred dollars. She was thrilled.

For years she worked at the bookshop before finally becoming the manager. She stocked lesbian and gay books, thinking it was the least she could do since she wasn’t writing them herself. Her parents were still alive. Although her mother read her books faithfully and told her how good they were, Edie was sure she hoped that some day she’d write something that could be called literature. Fleetingly, she wondered how they would react to a lesbian book, but she’d never told them she was a lesbian, so how could she explain such a book?

When she felt financially secure enough to quit the bookstore, she moved back to Point. Her dad had died at fifty-five from a massive heart attack, and her mother lived alone. Edie had carried on a long-distance relationship for thirteen years with a woman she’d met at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, but when she moved to Point instead of Ames, Iowa, both knew the relationship was over. Shortly after her return home, her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died within a year. Edie was so bereft that it took a long time to occur to her that her mother’s death freed her from her expectations, imagined or real.

She was in her late thirties when she met Lynn at a Democratic fundraiser for Dave Obey. Lynn taught psychology at UWSP. She was also an advisor for the LGBT student organization. Her passion was equal rights for the LGBT community. She believed that if everyone came out, sheer numbers would demand that gays be recognized and respected.

Edie had long since given up any pretense. She didn’t care who thought she was a lesbian. She and Lynn were best friends and sometime lovers who agreed on practically everything. They were pro-choice, advocates of clean air and water, fervently anti-war and, of course, active in civil rights.  What they didn’t agree on was living together. Edie had adjusted to living alone, and Lynn’s occasional stays left her feeling lonely and unsettled.

For a few minutes she thought about Jamie and Sam’s visit, how their presence had given the house life. When Jamie had stuck his head in her office to ask if she wanted to ski with them that last morning, she’d said reluctantly, “I can’t. I’ve got a looming deadline for my next book.”

“Yeah, what’s it called?”

“
Midnight Magic
,” she said, wincing at the title.

“Is it hot?” He grinned and opened the door enough so that she could see Sam behind him.

“Get outa here.”

“Hey, thanks for having us,” he said, and Sam echoed his words.

“Any time. I’ll see you soon. Stay out of trouble.” She went to the door with them.

“We cleaned up,” Sam said.

“Good.” She smiled at Sam. She was an attractive girl—sharp blue eyes, shiny brown hair, maybe a little too slender for her height, but she would fill in. “Have fun.”

Jamie had given her a hug and they were gone.

For two hours she worked. The book began when a stranger (Don) showed up at the house of the protagonist (Elizabeth) at midnight. His battery had begun to die on the nearby Interstate, but he’d managed to keep it going until he exited and made it to the frontage road. Hers was the first door he knocked on.

He was good looking in a rugged sort of way—big nose, strong chin and thick dark hair. She looked at him through the side panel and, against her better judgment, opened the door to the length of the chain.

“My engine died,” he said into the space between them.

“Go next door. My neighbor runs an auto shop.”

She watched him cross the yard and knock on that door, saw the light come on over the front door before going back to bed.

The next day Don returned to thank her. He hung around for days until she finally agreed to go to lunch with him. Their slow courtship filled pages. Don found work at UPS. There was something about him that made her wary, but finally, on page ninety-five, they went camping together and spent an uncomfortable night in a tent. Now they were back at Elizabeth’s home and he was asking her to marry him.

This was where she got stuck. She didn’t want Elizabeth to marry Don. Elizabeth had a best friend, Mary Ann, whom Edie longed to turn into a lesbian. She’d like nothing better than to write a love scene between the two women.

She looked out onto the Green Trail behind the house and decided she needed a break. There was a text message from Lynn. “Are you busy tonight?”

She shot back, “Nope.”

“I need you to take minutes for me at a meeting.”

“Find someone else,” she replied.

Lynn called her. “I need you.”

“You set a trap.”

Lynn laughed. “And you fell into it.”

“No fair.” She’d planned a little cross-country skiing on the Green Trail after work.

However, she ended up at the meeting, scanning the twenty or so people who were there—a handful of students, several older men and a few other women. The moderator was a young guy, maybe in his twenties or early thirties. Next to him sat a forty-something woman who was taking notes on a computer. She took the chair next to hers.

“I can e-mail you a copy of the minutes,” the woman said, looking at Edie’s legal pad and pencil. She had a head of frizzy grayish brown hair.

“Hey, that would be great.” She wrote her name and e-mail address and handed the scrap of paper to the woman. “You are?”

“Pam Dorschner. I’m subbing for a friend.” She had a quirky smile.

Edie introduced herself. “I’m doing the same. How coincidental.” Edie gave her a quick look-over. Framed by the unfortunate hair was a sweet face—pale blue eyes, punctuated by brown brows. Dimples when she smiled.

The moderator had begun to talk. “I’m Todd Schneider, regional director of Equal Rights For All, ERFA, …”

Pam passed around a stack of papers with the details of the new domestic partnership law. She took one, even though she knew that Lynn would not be interested in forming such a union. Nor would she. She had been independent too long.

When Todd adjourned the meeting, some of the attendees gathered up their belongings and left, others stood in groups talking. A few approached Todd. She turned to Pam, who was putting the laptop in a backpack.

“Are you here from Madison?”

“Yep. It’s a great place for lesbians. I’d love to show you around.”

Edie looked into Pam’s eyes, trying to determine whether this was a real invitation or a friendly remark not to be taken seriously. She decided to take it as the latter and said, “Thanks.”

Pam fished around in the computer bag and came up with her business card and handed it to Edie. “You look like you’d be fun.” She zipped the bag shut.

Todd turned toward Pam. “Ready?”

“I guess.” Pam pulled a heavy jacket over a sweatshirt with ERFA’s letters on it. “Give me a call when you’re in town, Edie.” She extended a hand and so did Todd.

“You’re Edie Carpenter?” he asked.

Edie nodded. “How did you know?”

“Lynn Chan told me you’d be here.” He smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same here,” Pam said, giving her a thumbs-up before walking away with Todd.

Edie watched them go, then zipped up and went out into the cold night. She folded herself into her Focus and drove home.

By the following weekend, Edie had nearly forgotten Pam. She had received the minutes on Monday via e-mail with a short note and passed them on to Lynn. Every day after getting off the computer, she had stepped into her cross-country skis and strode along the Green Trail that bordered her backyard. Night fell early, and she wore a miner’s lamp over her ear band. It lit a narrow pathway. Everything looked different in the shadows cast by the feeble light. One evening four deer dashed across her path. Their muscular hindquarters brushed against her, nearly knocking her over and taking her breath away. It was as if their warm hides burned her. Her heart beat wildly.

On Friday she was removing her skis when someone stepped out of the darkness into the light shining at the back of the house, startling her. “Who?”

“Pam Dorschner. Remember me? We were at an ERFA meeting together last week. I was taking minutes for someone. So were you.” Pam laughed. “I love the headlamp. I’m not a stalker. I had a business meeting here and I just thought I’d look you up. I’m a skier too, by the way.” All said in a rush.