Les Tales (31 page)

On that sunlit Los Angeles day, something must have alerted Kai to Chloe's presence, because she opened her eyes and smiled. Their gazes met across the small distance. Chloe remembered locking with the green and gold orbs, feeling a tightening in her belly, a melting and spilling over of all the love she had for Kai. The other woman's eyes fluttered away. For a moment, it was like she saw Chloe, really
saw
who she was, for the first time. Then Kai's gaze returned to her, startled, almost afraid, before it skittered away again.

“I saw Chloe surrounded by all the other college girls,” Kai said. “Beautiful women with their booties out in shorts and little dresses. And I remember thinking how much better than all of them she looked. How beautiful and . . . sexy.” Kai cleared her throat, then slowly turned around. She tapped the empty whiskey glass against the surface of the bar. “I left LA as soon as I could and have avoided her for the most part ever since then.”

“Until last night, when you fucked her.”

Kai sighed. “Yes, until this week.” Her distinction made it clear that last night was not the first time.

“Fuck.” Noelle shot to her feet like she wanted to attack her friend again. “Fuckin' really, Kai? Really?” Chloe had never heard her curse that much in . . . ever. She stepped away from Chloe, her footsteps stiff and awkward. “I don't . . . I can't even look at you right now. I really can't.”

“Mom, stop this—”

“No. Noelle is right.” Kai's face was wet with tears again; her stoic façade in ruins. “I'll leave.”

Chloe jerked to her feet. “No! This is your apartment.”

But Kai was already slipping past her. She came back from the bedroom within moments in the same jeans and sweater from a few days before. Her feet were still bare.

Chloe started to go to her. “Baby! Your shoes.”

Her mother shot Chloe a poisonous look. “Get the fuck out of here, Kai!” she shouted, still staring at Chloe. “And don't come back until we're gone.”

Kai's eyes darted toward the bedroom, where her shoes were, before she seemed to make a decision, grabbing her keys and rushing from the apartment barefoot.

“Mother! Her feet! It's cold out there.” Chloe rushed toward the bedroom to grab a pair of shoes for Kai, but her mother blocked her way.

“
Fuck
her feet!” With her hands braced on her hips, her mother stared her down. “Tell me everything that happened with Kai,” she said. “Starting from the very beginning.”

Chloe sipped her mimosa and uncrossed her legs, nodding along, as if she was paying attention to the story her coworker was telling the entire table. She hid a yawn behind her champagne flute.

It was Saturday, a bright summer afternoon in New York City. Chloe sat with three other women at a sidewalk table of her favorite brunch spot in the East Village. All dozen or so tables were filled with weekend unwinders, and the air sparkled with the sound of people laughing, the tapping of knives and forks against plates, traffic rumbling past on the street only a few feet away.

She'd been in New York for the past eight months, and she'd gotten to know most of her coworkers well. She spent time after work with the three she connected with the most. Lisa, a self-described man-hungry bisexual. Billie, a Trinidadian lipstick lesbian with a big dick complex. Dion, a German transplant who'd been trying to push up on Lisa for as long as Chloe had known them.

The eight months had been about more than just work. It had also been a time that Chloe had spent nurturing her relationship with her mother. She'd visited Noelle Graham every month and shown her that she was a woman grown enough to be in love with Kai, not the overindulged and unprepared child she often imagined her mother saw her as.

During those months, she'd frequently mentioned Kai to her mother, but Noelle had never wanted to talk about her former best friend. That hadn't stopped Chloe from trying to get them to reconcile. Just a few days before, she'd written her mother a letter, begging her to forgive Kai and laying out the reasons why it was better for the two women to be friends again. She had put everything in that tear-stained letter. Her grief over what she had done. Her love for her mother. Her longing for Kai, which she knew could never be satisfied.

Before she'd left for brunch that afternoon, Chloe had got a postcard from her mother. “Message received,” was all it said. She put the mimosa to her lips, wondering what her mother meant by that.

Just then, the waitress stopped by their table to refresh their drinks. The bow-tied butch gave Chloe a flirtatious smile and a wink before moving on to another table. Everyone stopped what they were doing to give her the eye.

“Chloe, you have
got
to tell me how you always look amazing, even after working all damn night, then coming back at six in the morning.” Billie pointed her glass of mimosa at Chloe. “Right now you look like we all didn't bust our asses in the studio until nearly two a.m.”

Their studio was working on a science fiction TV show on a tight schedule, which meant long hours, lots of coffee, and far too much time with coworkers.

Chloe didn't bother to tell Billie the truth, that when she felt her worst was often when she looked her best. And the past eight months had been hell. Between pulling herself together enough to realize what she'd done to her mother's friendship, apologizing profusely to Noelle Graham, and even plotting to see Kai and truly apologize and face her like a woman, Chloe had had a rough time of it.

She gave her coworker a flirtatious smile. “You mean this old face?” Chloe tossed her imaginary long hair over her shoulders and batted her lashes.

“Billie's right. You are gorgeous every single day.” Lisa glanced at her with a slightly jealous smile. “When you first started working with us, I was sure you couldn't keep up this supermodel glam. Now, almost a year later, you haven't missed a beat.” Lisa pursed her thin bright pink lips. “Girl, you have been noticed.”

The three women at the table examined her thick, shining hair, the white cotton dress that came to mid-thigh, and the quartet of turquoise necklaces draped around her neck. She knew her makeup was flawless. She'd seen to that before she left the apartment that morning.

“I don't know what y'all are noticing.” She sipped her mimosa and fussed with the menu in front of her, uncomfortable under their regard.

“No worries, doll face. Pretty girls always make other bitches uncomfortable.” Dion stirred a straw in her screwdriver and shrugged, then glanced around the sidewalk. “It's a law of the jungle or something.” She stopped the movement of her straw when something made her pause. “Damn!”

“What?” Lisa immediately turned around to gawk over her shoulder.

Chloe, who sat next to Lisa, only sighed with quiet relief that their attention had turned elsewhere.

Dion whistled. “That is one
fine
mama jama.”

Lisa laughed. “Mama jama? What are you? Sixty?” But when she saw who Dion was looking at, she lost her cool points too. “God. Damn.”

Billie and Dion, who were sitting across from Chloe and Lisa, had the better view of whatever was going on. Billie nodded in appreciation. “She's not quite my speed, but she is
wearing
that vest and fine face of hers, surely.”

Over the past few months, Chloe had gotten used to seeing some of the most beautiful people in New York. Models, actors, everyday women who probably had starring roles in many wet dreams. Seeing women like Sanaa Lathan or Samira Wiley was expected, and appreciated, but it was no longer a cause to go crazy, like everyone else at the table seemed to be doing.

“Come on, Chloe. Even you aren't too fine to check out this gorgeous sista.”

She rolled her eyes, annoyed that Lisa would say something like that. But she turned around, anyway, to see what they were all gawking at. Her eyes widened, and she spilled her drink all over herself.

It was Kai. She stood at a storefront only a few feet away, talking with someone whose back was turned to the women's table. Yes, she looked incredible. Her thick hair was loose around her face and rippled in the summer breeze. She had on a peacock-blue vest, which was unbuttoned over a V-necked white T-shirt, and jeans that clung to her slender thighs. Her stance—hands in the pockets of her jeans, legs planted wide, head high, and chest up—made the most of her already impressive everything.

Although she'd known that Kai was in New York, it still startled Chloe to see her. Her mother, who said she wasn't speaking with Kai, somehow knew that her former best friend was in the city that week for work. When she let that slip, Chloe took it as the perfect opportunity to see Kai and lay everything between them to rest. If only her mother had been able to come to New York, like Chloe had suggested.

A nervous tremor began in her fingers.

She'd spent the eight long months crying and praying and straightening her backbone to become the kind of partner the woman she loved could one day see herself with. With a plan and an apology in mind, she had decided to see Kai at her apartment the next day. The
next
day. Not now. Chloe wasn't ready to face her yet.

She blushed and grabbed a napkin, dabbing up the wasted mimosa from her dress. The drink had immediately stained the white cotton yellow, plastering the thin material to her breasts.

Lisa snickered. “Is she
that
fine, though?”

As the women laughed, Kai looked up. Chloe felt her bright eyes on her like a rough caress. Then Kai's face shuttered to hide whatever it was she was feeling. The woman she was with turned around to see what she was staring at. It was Adi, the friend of Kai's she'd met in the park months before. She smiled and blew Chloe a kiss. Flustered, Chloe turned away to refocus on wiping the drink from her chest and lap.

You're such an idiot.

She had eagerly embraced her new life in New York and had tried her best to accept that for now, and maybe forever, she could not be with Kai. It was hard. She ached every night for the feel of the other woman's arms around her, for the sound of her laughter, for things they had not gotten the chance to share together. Though she knew there was a chance she'd run into Kai before she was ready, seeing her on the street just then felt like a punch to the stomach. Chloe reached for her water and gulped it down, trying to control her reaction but not quite succeeding.

“Damn. Is she coming over here?” Billie hurriedly straightened her blouse, fluffed her straightened hair.

She was. Chloe could sense Kai, could almost smell her coming closer in the hot summer air, bringing temptation and all the twisted guilt she felt over what had happened between them. Seconds later, she stood just on the other side of the divider between the sidewalk and the restaurant.

“Chloe. What a surprise to see you here.” The women at the table gawked at Kai. She inclined her head at them before facing Chloe again. “Can we talk?”

Chloe muttered excuses to her coworkers, then stumbled to her feet, leaving the women staring at her out of blatant curiosity. At the exit to the sidewalk, Kai pulled the gate open for her.

As they left the restaurant, Chloe hoped that she'd remembered to pay for her share of brunch. At that moment, though, she could barely remember her own name. And all the words she'd thought and rethought about saying to Kai when she saw her again disappeared, as if they'd never been.

“It's good to see you, Chloe.”

“Good?” She clutched at her necklace with cold, nervous fingers. “It's tearing me apart to see you here.” She squinted into the sun, vaguely remembering that her shades were in the purse she carried over her shoulder. But then the thought flew from her head when Kai touched her arm, leading her around a set of Japanese tourists who were pointing up and taking photographs in the street.

“I didn't come to cause you pain,” Kai said.

“I know. And I have no one to blame but myself.”

Kai took her by the arms and dragged her from the stream of traffic and under a bright green awning advertising a deli. “Stop with this blame thing,” she said intently. “It doesn't get us anywhere.” Her hands tightened on Chloe's arms. “I'm as much at fault as you are, but it doesn't matter. It really doesn't.”

The pain Chloe had kept inside her for all those months rolled up her body and out her eyes. “How can you say it doesn't matter when I feel like I'm dying every day without you?” She trembled in Kai's fierce grip. “I wish I'd never touched you. Now that I know what it's like and how things could be between us, it feels like torture. Fuck!” She gasped as tears scorched her cheeks. “It hurts so damn much.”

“Shit.” Kai pulled her into a clumsy embrace. “Baby, don't cry. Please, don't cry.”

But Chloe was beyond simple tears. She broke down in Kai's arms, sobbing as if her entire world was ending. The tears poured hotly down her face, hiccuping sobs making it impossible for her to speak. She buried her face in Kai's warm throat and clung to her, trembling beyond control.

In the time she had been in New York on her own, she hadn't cried once. She'd kept it moving, fitting into the life she told herself she'd always wanted, slowly trying to build herself back up, although not quite succeeding. The fissure of sadness had sat inside her chest, a steady crack in her universe, but she'd managed to hold it together. Until today. She tightened her arms around Kai's waist, bawling.

Kai cursed again and gathered her closer. With Chloe tucked into the curve of her shoulder, she rushed to the edge of the sidewalk, through the crowd of pedestrians, and whistled shrilly.

Seconds later, a yellow cab pulled up. Kai quickly ushered Chloe into the back of the cab and gave the driver an address. Chloe couldn't stop crying. She sagged into Kai's chest, unable to halt the loud and ugly sobs that poured out of her. Kai stroked the back of her neck and made soothing noises as the cab bullied its way through the weekend Manhattan traffic. Soon it stopped, and Kai paid the cabbie, then rushed Chloe out and upstairs to her apartment. To the familiar couch.

Chloe cried harder and turned her face into the back of the couch, pressing her hot cheek into the rough cloth. All those months of holding on and being strong shattered, as if they had never existed.

Kai stroked her temple, her cheek. “Baby, everything will be okay.”

“You don't know. You have no idea!”

“I have every idea,” Kai said. “Every day I want to scream about how unfair all of this is. Finally, I find the woman I want to share my life with, and it's someone I can't have.” Her fingers were gentle on Chloe's face. “Believe me, I have an idea about how much this fucking hurts.”

The sadness in Kai's voice turned Chloe to her. Kai's face was a cool mask, but Chloe could see behind it. She could see the pain that Kai was holding on to and holding in.

Chloe touched that beloved face, tracing the tense muscles under her cheeks, the tight flesh over her forehead and under her eyes.

“I feel like such an asshole for what I did,” she whispered, her words thick with tears. “And I know I did this to both of us. I should have just stayed in California and worked my shit out myself.”

“No. This thing between us had to come to a head sooner or later. Even Noelle agrees.”

“You talked to her?” Chloe's eyes widened. A tiny spurt of happiness bubbled inside her. Did that mean her mother had taken her advice, after all?

Kai nodded. “She called me a few days ago. I was shocked but so damn relieved. After thirty-plus years of being friends with that woman, she means more than the world to me.”

“More than I do?” But she hated the words that came to her lips as soon as she said them. This wasn't a contest. This was about happiness and making sure that, whatever happened, Kai and her mother were all right.

“No. In a different way.” Kai stroked the backs of Chloe's hands with her thumbs. “I love you. I've had to accept that it's not wrong. You're not a child anymore, and I've never felt this way about anyone else in my life. This is something I've been processing with Adi and with your mother, trying to understand what I feel and making sure that these things aren't going to harm Noelle.”

“What did Mom say?”

“You should ask her yourself. I'm having dinner with her tonight.” A smile drifted across Kai's face. “You should come.”