Getaway - SF7 (2 page)

"Sure. It would be a tough commute to school, but if it would make you happy—we’re here."

"I guess this is better as a getaway than as a full-time residence," Ryan decided, knowing that Hillsborough was too far from home even if Jim didn’t hate her.

Jamie was holding Caitlin, who was having as good a time as her big cousin. The waterfall-type showerhead propelled a foot-wide stream of water onto their heads, and the baby laughed while she sputtered and spit, trying to get the water out of her eyes. Taking pity on her, Jamie moved back in the stall, where she immediately shot a puzzled glance down at her leg.

Ryan saw the look on Caitlin’s face and knew that she was relieving herself on Jamie’s leg, but she wasn’t about to break the news if Jamie didn’t notice it. Regrettably, Jamie caught her in mid-stream, making a disgusted face as she grasped the baby and held her at arm’s length. "Gross!" she cried, maintaining her sour face.

Please don’t add any solids, Caitlin
, Ryan thought, wisely keeping that thought to herself. "Does this mean that you won’t indulge in my fetish for golden showers?" Ryan asked, trying to look innocent.

"I’m not absolutely certain what that means," Jamie admitted, "but given the context, I’d say that’s a resounding no!"

"You’re no fun," the taller woman muttered, adopting a look of dismay.

"Speaking of fun," Jamie asked, "what do you want to do with Munchkin the rest of the day? Should we take her back to the city with us?"

"Well, if I had my choice, I’d like to cut her hair," Ryan suggested. "She looks like a nut with this goofy haircut, and I’ve been itching to get my hands on it for months. Annie gave me carte blanche to do anything I want, including shaving her head."

Jamie pretended to be considering that option. "I don’t think that would flatter her," she decided, "but she does need some help here."

Getting out and drying off, Jamie tried to slide a wide-toothed comb through the baby’s wet locks, which featured at least 16 different lengths. The very fine hair on the back of her head was short, but permanently tangled from sleeping on her back, and it was clear that Annie had declared the area a total loss. Very long strands of golden hair grew from the crown of her head. They were not bad looking, but they were uneven and they blew around Caitlin’s head in the smallest breeze. The worst part of the cut, however, were the very short, annoyingly uneven bangs that zigged and zagged haphazardly across her forehead, looking more like they had been chewed than cut.

"Da has a set of clippers at the house," Ryan suggested, seemingly in earnest.

Jamie’s eyes grew round as saucers, as she stared at her partner in horror. "Absolutely not!" she cried. "Neither of us knows how to cut hair with a clippers! I will not have this adorable child look
worse
when we’ve finished with her."

Ryan scratched her head pensively, shaking it slowly. "I don’t think she
could
look worse, Honey."

"Ryan, the child needs a good haircut, and she’s going to get one." With that, the determined woman strode across the pool deck, baby in her arms.

I do believe this is one of those, "Give up, Ryan" kinda days
, the brunette mused as she watched the blondes head for the house.

Ryan sat at the kitchen table, watching her partner make arrangements to take Caitlin to Giancarlo for her first official haircut. "Three o’clock is fine," she said into the phone. "No, just a cut. Great. See you then." Turning to Ryan, she announced, "Let’s go home, get packed up and then head over to Berkeley."

"Okay. Let’s go tell your mom."

Catherine was pleased with the plan, and she offered to take the baby separately so that Jamie and Ryan could get packed up more efficiently. That settled, Ryan decided that she needed a little lunch, so they repaired to the kitchen for the noon meal. The day was getting away from Ryan, and she knew that she had to talk to Jamie, but she found herself trying to think of another reason to delay. Deciding that she was just making matters worse by waiting, she sat down at the table with the baby and cleared her throat. "Um…Jamie?" she said, getting a questioning glance from both mother and daughter. "I mentioned this to your mom last night when you were gone, but I’ve been putting off telling you something."

"What is it, Honey?" the smaller woman asked, pulling up a chair right next to Ryan.

Taking a gulp of air, Ryan said, "The morning that you left for Rhode Island, your dad came to our house in Berkeley."

Just that much of the story caused Jamie to clench her fists, her mouth a grim line. She said nothing, but it was clear that she was expecting the worst.

"We had words," Ryan said, cutting to the chase. "Mostly about money, of course. The um…bottom line, Honey, is that he told me that I had to move out."

Catherine cast a worried glance at her daughter as the young woman rose from the table, muttering a tense, "I’ll be back," before stalking out of the room.

Ryan sighed heavily, shaking her head as she watched her partner depart. "Well, that went well," she said ruefully.

"Why did she leave?" Catherine asked.

"She doesn’t like to yell at me, so when she’s really angry she likes to be alone to blow off some steam," Ryan informed her. "I guess she also didn’t want to start hollering in front of Caitlin."

"But why is she angry with
you
, Ryan?"

"Because I didn’t tell her when it happened," Ryan said, having known the entire time that she was doing something her lover would be hurt by. "She hates to be treated like a child."

"She always did," Catherine mused thoughtfully, "even when she was one." She looked out the large window, just able to make out her daughter’s shape in the distance. "You know, Ryan, I think that’s one of the reasons that I never took her to places like Disneyland. She never seemed like she would enjoy those child-centered places. Even at Caitlin’s age, she was rather serious and quite somber."

Ryan sighed again, realizing that she had made a mistake in trying to control the flow of information that her partner received. "I think I’ll go find her to apologize," she said.

"She’s on the tennis court," Catherine hazarded, even though she couldn’t see the court from where she sat. "That’s where she’s always gone to deal with her frustrations."

As predicted, Jamie was trying to smash the covers off the fluorescent green balls that the electric ball machine shot at her. Sensing rather than seeing Ryan, she growled, "You’d better give me some time. I am not responsible for my mouth right now."

Ignoring the warning, Ryan continued on her course, sitting down quietly behind her partner. A few minutes passed as she watched Jamie whip the balls down the line. "How about if I talk for a minute," she suggested. "I came to apologize, Jamie. I know that what I did was wrong, and I want you to know that I’m really sorry."

"Do you know why I’m angry?" the blonde woman asked through gritted teeth, grunting with each hard-hit shot.

"I think so," Ryan admitted. "I think you’re angry because I tried to think for you. I tried to determine the best time to reveal this to you rather than sharing it immediately. I think it really pisses you off to have me, or anyone else, keep you in the dark about something—especially something like this."

"That’s about it," Jamie grunted. "Good answer for somebody that obviously didn’t realize that just last Sunday."

Her derisive tone stung, and Ryan took a breath to control herself from snapping off a sharp rejoinder. "Jamie, I said I’m sorry. I will try never to do that to you again." She pushed herself up, walking dejectedly to the opening in the fence that surrounded the court. "I can’t do any better than that."

She quietly closed the gate and had traveled about 15 feet when she heard her partner’s rapid footsteps scampering across the court’s surface. "Ryan, wait! Please!" she cried, flinging the gate open.

Ryan paused, waiting patiently but not turning. Soon she felt Jamie’s damp hand on her own, and she turned to face her flushed partner. "I’m sorry, too," Jamie said. "I know that you must have had a good reason for keeping this from me, even though I don’t like it."

"I’m not sure that I do, Jamie," the taller woman said softly. "I think part of the reason that I didn’t tell you was because I just didn’t want to deal with it. I was down in my little isolated cocoon, and I was able to put it aside by not talking about it. I couldn’t have done that if you were all upset about it."

Snaking an arm around Ryan’s waist, Jamie laid her head against the warm chest that was presented when Ryan raised her arm. "That’s a pretty good reason, in my book," she said. "I know last week was hard for you, Baby. I’m sure you did the best you could."

"I tried to, Jamie," Ryan whispered, placing soft kisses on the top of her head. "I’ll admit to being a chicken," she said quietly. "I just felt so odd and unstable being locked away down in Santa Cruz that I really went out of my way to keep things calm. I’m sorry if I made things worse for you."

"It’s okay, Babe. Let me turn off the ball machine, and we can go back inside."

Ryan gave her a firm squeeze and said, "Thanks for being so understanding about this. I know that I screwed up."

"No you didn’t, Baby. You did your best…you always do."

The rest of the discussion went very well now that Jamie was no longer angry with Ryan. Catherine reaffirmed that the house was in her name alone, and that she would not allow Jim to dictate who was allowed to live there. Jamie wasn’t very happy with that, not wanting her mother to be put in the middle, but since she didn’t see many options at this point she agreed.

"I don’t think this is going to place me any higher on Jim’s favorites list," Ryan worried, knowing that the powerful attorney was not the kind of guy that she wanted to have angry with her.

"He’s just having a tantrum," Catherine assured her. "This will all blow over quickly, Ryan. Don’t give it another thought."

Wouldn’t that be nice?
the dark woman thought wistfully.

At three o’clock, Jamie stood in the doorway of Giancarlo peering down the street, looking for her mother. Luckily, she spotted the pair nearly running down the street, Catherine clutching the baby in one arm and several shopping bags in the other.

Handing the baby to her daughter, Catherine panted, "I’ve got to put some money in the parking meter. Be back in a few." With that she was gone, heading in the direction whence she had come, at nearly the same pace. Ryan approached from the other direction, having spent the previous 15 minutes looking for the ever-elusive parking meter.

Seeing Jamie enter, Carlo immediately came over to them and began to make over the baby in the most excessive fashion that either woman had ever witnessed. After a few moments of admiring the child as she shyly nestled in Jamie’s arms, Carlo shot an admiring glance at Ryan. "How did you do this?" he demanded, his hands on his hips. "Jamie tells me how talented you are, but this…" he indicated the baby, "is too, too much!" He turned to Jamie and said something in Italian that had her nearly in stitches. She replied with a comment that had him howling with laughter as he snatched the baby from her and took her over to the sink to wash her hair.

"Okay," Jamie said as she leaned in close to her lover. "I promised I’d try to keep you in the conversation, so here goes. I’m not sure that I can do it, but I’m gonna try to translate this so it has the same punch." She took a deep breath, furrowing her brow a bit as she struggled to find an appropriate translation. "Carlo asked if you were a…gorgeous transvestite or an extremely talented lesbian who could produce a baby by the…um…skillful use of your tongue."

Ryan rolled her eyes as a deep blush crawled up her neck. "Wha…what did you say?" she stammered.

"I said," Jamie replied as she got even closer to Ryan’s bent head, "that I had explored every inch of your precious body and that I could assure him that you were a gorgeous, talented lesbian who could in fact do marvelous things with your tongue, but producing a baby was not one of them."

Ryan pulled her head back as she stared at her lover for a moment in stunned silence. "Honey," she finally said as she slid an arm around her shoulders, "don’t bother to translate any more. I kind of like being kept in the dark."

With Ryan still shaking her head, they walked over to where Carlo had set up shop with Caitlin. Much to the baby’s pleasure, he had stripped her completely naked and placed her in the deep sink used for hair washing. She held a short comb in each hand and was splashing around happily in the few inches of water that he had drawn. He looked over at Jamie and gleefully informed her, "The baby, she likes, no?"

"She likes water very much, Carlo. Excellent idea."

He washed her hair with a minimum of fuss and not too much splashing due to the depth of the sink. Jamie came over with a smock that she insisted Carlo put on after she saw one too many water droplets hit his Armani slacks. Since he was so well protected, he decided to cut her hair while she sat in the sink. Caitlin was very much in favor of this, as she giggled and splashed in her makeshift tub. Ryan sorted through the backpack she had brought to carry all of Caitlin’s essentials, and she found some plastic toys that the baby was particularly fond of. Now Caitie was really in heaven, and she barely noticed that a stranger was carefully assessing her hair.