Wild Things (8 page)

"Stop it!" No, I vowed. I won't go through this again. I am not a virginal schoolgirl caught up in her body's first passions.

"Maybe you don't want me," Renee said. "But I'll never believe you've given up on women. So right now you're with a man. You'll come back eventually."

"Not to you," I said. Then I realized what I'd admitted.

She smiled and without warning cupped my face. I pulled away, stunned that she would touch me when I'd made it so plain I didn't want her to.

I was too stunned. She saw it. And I knew it. Her hands had been soft against my cheeks. But Eric's hands are soft, too, my mind cried. But not the same. My body was electrified, and telling it that
these feelings were an abomination, a sin, made no impression.

I was shuddering as I said, ''Damn you, Renee. Don't do this to me."

"Do what? This?" Before I could back away, even if I had wanted to, her hands were on my waist, then over my ribs, and she cupped my breasts.

I felt the ground turn to water under me. My vision narrowed to only her face as her touch ignited me. Time stretched as she tipped her head down to mine. I remembered what it felt like to anticipate her kiss. How she would move so slowly toward me. How I would long to close the distance and finally ask her to kiss me.

She whispered in my ear, "You can't fight your nature, Faith."

"I can," I said, before I realized I had admitted a second time that my nature was ... that I was . . . like her.

My senses were spinning, but I found one moment of clarity. I might want women, but I did not want Renee Callahan. My skin chilled and I pushed her away. "I don't want you," I said coolly. "Please don't touch me again."

"Suit yourself." She turned away. "Sure you don't want a lift? No? Well, good-bye, then." She walked a few steps towards Liz's, then turned back. Her eyes took on a feral glint. "Faith, I won't make trouble for you. I care enough to wish you would accept the truth, though."

I turned and walked away with my dignity in tatters.

* * * * *

I got home late enough to go straight to my room without running into Michael or my parents. I wanted to scrub myself in the shower again, but I slipped into a nightgown and into bed, huddling not so much for warmth, but for the comfort that comes with being warm in your own bed.

Comfort didn't come. I was beset with unwanted memories. I told myself that Renee was wrong. She had spoken nothing but lies. Everything was wrong. I didn't have the feelings Renee had aroused in me. The feelings were lies.

We had not left a late lecture and wandered through the building looking for any unlocked room. We had not stumbled inside the science lab. She had not sat on one of the tables, leaning back on her hands, legs open and ready to wrap around me. I had not seized her hips so hard I left scratches, I had not buried my face into her wetness. I had not been drunk on the taste of her.

I had not, lying on my back, begged her to straddle me and bring herself to me again so I could feel the slick wet of her on my lips again. I had not been thirsty for her until, for once, she pushed me away.

It had not happened. It was a lie. It couldn't be real.

Because if it was real, then Renee was right. I wanted to be with women and I was damned.

"Merciful Mary," I whispered. I rarely looked to the Christ figure in church, but always to the sweet and gentle Queen of Heaven when I was troubled.

I stumbled for the old words and sought their familiar comfort. "Hail Mary, full of grace..." But even her comfort eluded me.

4

A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars.

— Revelation 12:1

I wouldn't say I was hiding myself when I stayed in my room most of Saturday and read research material I'd downloaded. I didn't cower under the covers, but I avoided my parents and strategically went down for my meals when I knew they were both gone. I didn't need another confrontation with them. Between my parents and Renee, I felt hollow and limp.

But not cowed. If they were going to slam the door behind me, then let them. And I had told Renee — the symbol of all the feelings I didn't want to acknowledge — to go away again. Without Renee to remind me, the feelings would go away as well. If I just concentrated on something else for a while. Like my book, or my new apartment.

James would never know how much his advice affected my life. There was no way I could tell him. Our friendship was not the type where he would appreciate either my gratitude or the responsibility for having had such an influence. Besides, only time would tell if I should be grateful to him.

When I could clear my mind enough to work, I went through the articles about Eleanor I'd downloaded from the Medieval Academy of America.. Much of the materials concerned her Court of Love where the rules of courtly love in all their complicated manners were explained.

Rule: A Knight may love a Lady who is married, but may not love an unmarried Lady unless he is of sufficient station to ask for her hand.

Rule: If a Knight loves a Lady who is married, he may hide in his shield some remembrance of her, but no one else may know.

Rule: If a Knight loves a Lady who is married, he may, under certain conditions, woo the Lady to a display of returned love, but no others shall ever know of it.

The conditions to allow adultery were numerous, complicated, and mostly concerned for the Lady's reputation and her needs. For example, a young Lady with an elderly husband might be excused a lapse in
her marriage vows if the Knight is particularly persistent, persuasive, and properly humble.

They were worse than the Balk Rule in baseball. I laughed when I read the other conditions, some of which seemed arbitrary, impossible to achieve or tacked on later to get rid of a loophole in an earlier rule. Eleanor's Court of Love were having fine sport with their idle time, in between petty bickerings, blood feuds, and schemings by the various knights (when not in the Holy Land on crusade) to get their hands on someone else's land.

I had to wade through considerable material on the Court of Love to discern aspects of her personality. Most of her biographies, particularly the shorter synopses of her achievements, dwell on the Court of Love as Eleanor's primary accomplishment. This makes her seem foolish and occupied with feminine affairs of the heart. They use the Court of Love to balance out a lifetime of political astuteness, a biting wit, and an ability to take action, ignoring the fact that in addition to affairs of the heart, the Court of Love set out the rules of conduct for the upper class, praised learning and encouraged literacy. It elevated bards to protected status and charged all knights with the protection of the weak. Eleanor's notions of noble behavior would forever influence the French and English consciousness.

In the early evening my mother called me to the phone, her tone and expression laden with disapproval. I didn't feel at all guilty about not mentioning Meg's impending arrival. It was Eric, calling to remind me he was picking me up tomorrow afternoon to go to Sydney's.

"Sydney says that she has perfected her lasagna," I told him.

"She did? When did you see her?"

"At a party last night. The woman who did the radio interview invited me and 'other notables' as she put it. Sydney was one."

Eric chuckled. "She's that, all right. I'm glad you got a chance to talk. Sweetie, I have to run, but I'll pick you up at five-thirty, okay?"

I agreed and hung up before I realized I should have told him I was moving next week. He would be surprised and no doubt want to know why. My explanation would be, of course, that I was both old enough and independent enough to warrant privacy and my own household, and my younger sister's return with an infant made it practical. He might not understand the suddenness of my decision, and I could hardly mention how seeing Renee had thrown me into an inner turmoil I thought long defeated. But I knew he would be supportive. It was one of the reasons I was fond of him.

* * * * *

"I said I was offline tonight, and I meant it." Sydney paused with her hands over the lasagna dish. There was a smear of ricotta on the phone where she'd pushed the speaker option to answer it.

"But Syd, we have to have a response to them in the morning." John had never known how to take no for an answer. That's why he worked for her.

"Morning ends at eleven fifty-nine. It'll be first on the list before staff meeting, okay? Leave a voice mail for Cheryl to that effect. I really need an evening off.

My brother's coming over. And his... friend." Was that the right word for Faith? Eric had never shown this much interest in a woman before, not that Sydney knew about anyway. But they didn't seem like lovers.

"Maybe you could call me back after they leave."

Sydney counted to ten, then said, "I'm going to sleep after they leave. Sleep, John. It's a thing many people do. I thought I'd give it a try tonight."

John didn't laugh. He was oblivious to all forms of humor and sarcasm. "Well, don't blame me if we don't get our comments in on time. McClarren's notorious for closing the comment period early."

"Okay, I won't blame you. When have I ever blamed you for anything?"

John piffed into the phone. "I'm hanging up now,
pija."

"I know what that means,
pito"
The phone clattered.

She finished layering the pasta over her carefully nurtured sausage and olives. She found herself thinking about the housing policy John wanted comments on and took herself to task.

"I wanted a night off, so I'd better make the most of it."

Duchess opened one yellow eye from her sleeping perch in the sunny kitchen bay window. She closed it again without moving a whisker.

"So I'm boring you?"

Duchess didn't respond in any way, not even a flick of her tail. Sydney turned her mind to Eric and how long it had been since she'd really talked to him. They let too much time go by. Of course they couldn't just talk about family stuff with Faith there.

Faith. Still waters ran deep, Sydney suspected. She remembered looking at Faith's eyes in the mirror. Green eyes, with blue in their depths. The waters were very still, but they shimmered.

* * * * *

When I saw Sydney's home, I was struck by the difference between the choices brother and sister had made. Sydney's home occupied the top floor of one of the regal, old Stone Street condominium mid-rises that lined the curve of Lake Michigan just north of the downtown Chicago Loop. It was only about a half mile from my new apartment but in a completely different income bracket. Eric lived in a lovely Evanston split-level with two acres out back for his beloved Irish setters, an enclosed heated pool and spa, and enough rolling yard to stage a soccer game for an army of children. Sydney could have gone another mile north and escaped the bustle of the downtown district, but she was as close to the heart of the city as she could get, and in a building that wasn't high enough to completely escape the noise of the city streets fifteen floors below.

It was high enough for a heart-stopping view of the upper Miracle Mile and the vast blackness of Lake Michigan. Lights bobbed on the water as pleasure craft and shipping tankers shared the fading daylight.

Absorbed in the view though I was, I didn't miss the affectionate bear hug Eric gave Sydney, followed by a frank appraisal. "You work too hard," Eric pronounced. "But you don't look as scary as you did at that dinner."

"Scary?" Sydney turned to me. "Did I look scary?"

"Not at all," I said. "I have no idea what he means."

"Sure you do," Eric said. "She looked so official and politician-like I wondered what happened to the sister who put my best running shoes in Mom's corn-poster."

"Eric! Stop it," Sydney said, playfully slapping him as she took his coat. "What will Faith think?"

"That you're my favorite sister."

"I'm your
only
sister," Sydney retorted. She took my coat and hung it in the foyer closet with Eric's. "Come into the sitting room. I've got a fire going. Think about what you'd like to drink. Nonalcoholic, that is." She threw me an apologetic glance.

"Fine by me," I said, as I tore my gaze from the Tiffany glass skylight in the foyer ceiling. "I never acquired the taste. Not even Communion wine."

"I liked it too much," Sydney said, looking at me seriously for a moment. She glanced up at her brother, then smiled. "Glenfiddich, not Communion wine. Eight years, ten months, and twenty-one days, in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't," Eric said. "But thanks for sharing."

"Don't let his nonchalance fool you," Sydney said to me as she led the way across the large and spacious living room. "I owe my sobriety to him. And a good therapist."

I digested this information as we walked through the living room. I had developed the impression that Eric's sister could be single-minded in her pursuit of what she wanted and that she succeeded by strength and perseverance. Finding out she had had a drinking problem proved Sydney was human.