Next Time (2 page)

“That’s how I made it through school.” Payton looked over her shoulder at the pair seated at the table behind them. Embroiled in conversation, they hadn’t ordered drinks. Jana’s gaze was riveted on Melanie. “I think we may have a match.”

Ryann glanced at them and nodded. “Jana is all Melanie has talked about for the past few weeks. She’s a good woman in case you were wondering. She lives next door to us, we’ve known her for years.”

“Jana’s good, too. She’s not a play-the-field kind of girl. Once she decides she likes someone, that’s it.”

“Are you doing the online thing, too?”

“No, but I probably should. I mostly work from home now. I don’t meet that many people.” Payton sighed. “I say this because I’d love to play the field, I just don’t know where it is. I’m thirty-seven, too old in my opinion to hang out in clubs, hence the fix-ups. I haven’t gone on one of those since the last one…two—no, three years ago.”

“I know a—”

“No.” Payton smiled and picked up her drink. “No thank you. I’ve taken my love life into my own hands…please don’t read too much into that statement.”

Ryann laughed and raised her own glass in a toast. “I wish you success.”

“I wish you continued happiness,” Payton said as she met Ryann’s glass with her own. “How’d you meet the love of your life?”

“I have a friend who considers himself a matchmaker. He wanted to set me up with a friend of his and threw a dinner party. The woman I was supposed to meet didn’t know Cameron’s plans and surprised Cameron and I both by bringing a date who just happened to be Leigh.” Ryann smiled and ran a hand through her hair again. “The attraction was instantaneous. Cameron said he could see the sparks flying when we looked at each other. The next morning when Cameron woke up, he found Leigh sitting in his driveway, and she asked him for my number.”

“Y’all were just meant to be,” Payton said with a winsome smile.

Ryann looked away and nodded. “What type of woman are you looking for?”

“Is your inner matchmaker asking, or is it curiosity?”

“The latter,” Ryann said with an impish grin.

“Looks are important.” Payton put up her hand. “Don’t judge too quickly, I mean that I’d like to be attracted to her physically, but personality is really the key. I’d like someone who knows who she is, who isn’t afraid to self-analyze. Of course, that comes from experience after what Courtney did. When she came back, she said she really didn’t know why she did what she did and claimed that she never stopped loving me. I never could get her to admit why she felt unhappy. Maybe if we had talked before she took off, whatever was going on inside of her could’ve been worked out. I want a woman who isn’t afraid to talk about what she’s feeling. I want to be comfortable enough with her to do the same.” Payton tapped the bar with her index finger as she thought. “My work is important to me. I need someone who will understand when inspiration hits, I need time to work on it. That’s kind of hard to jam into the hours between nine and five. A sense of humor is a must and a good work ethic. I can cope with many things, laziness isn’t one of them. Is my list too long?”

“No, not at all. You know what you want, that’s important. Most of what you just said would make a provoking profile on a dating site.”

“Oh, don’t you start,” Payton said with a laugh. “Jana was trying to talk me into that on the ride over here.”

“I won’t deny that there are a lot of people who misrepresent themselves on those sites, but look at the pair behind us.”

Payton peered over her shoulder again. Jana and Melanie held hands as they talked. Jana’s face was alight with happiness, and Melanie seemed just as enamored. Payton was genuinely happy for her best friend because she’d gone through a great many oysters until she found what looked like a very promising pearl.

Ryann regarded Payton as she gazed at the couple. Payton appeared to be a good catch. She was certainly good-looking. Had Ryann been single, she would’ve picked Payton out of a crowd in a heartbeat. She liked what she considered Payton’s daring hairstyle. It was dark blond, so short on one side it bordered being shaved, and on the other was a shock of messy curls that hung down to her jaw. Her blue eyes were dazzling even in the muted light of the bar. Her sense of style was certainly appealing. Beneath a blazer, she wore a lightweight sweater, the tails of an oxford shirt hung halfway down her thighs. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but Ryann could tell that Payton took care of her skin. Lines were faint around her mouth and eyes. She smiled easily, and Ryann liked that.

“You’re studying me,” Payton said as she slowly turned and faced Ryann.

“Yes,” Ryann admitted without hesitation. “I like your hair.”

“Oh, thank you. My hairdresser talked me into this. She said my look was too dated and suggested something edgier. I was in a mood for change, so I just let her do her thing. I nearly hyperventilated when what looked like a two-foot pile of hair hit the floor. My hair’s naturally curly, and honestly, I did look like a poodle that had been electrocuted. She wanted to add what she called subtle highlights, but it was too much change in one day for me.” Payton patted the short side of her hair. “I’m still trying to get used to this.”

“I really like it. I feel like my look is matronly. My boss knows I’m a lesbian, but it’s frowned upon to ‘advertise’ it in my line of work, according to him. By that, he means nondescript hairstyles and clothing. The more you blend in, the more relaxed everyone is, which I think is stupid since we’re supposed to ‘gently teach’ equality. It’s a private school, and Mr. Barnes doesn’t like to make waves.”

“I don’t see matronly at all. I would define your style as elegant.”

“You don’t think I’d look cooler with a mohawk and a teardrop tattoo on my cheek?” Ryann lowered her voice to a whisper. “Because that’s what I feel like inside.”

“Hey, it’s what’s inside that counts,” Payton said as she took a drink.

“I blast rap and club music in my car on the way to work and switch it to easy listening a block away from the school.”

Payton laughed. “What other
wild
things do you do?”

“That’s it,” Ryann said with a frown. “I’m afraid I’ve become a sedate adult. Mardi Gras, forget it, I prefer to be able to sit down in comfort and go to the bathroom when I want. Concerts make my ears ring. Now it’s just lazy Sundays and an occasional dinner out. The wildness of my youth has coalesced into a comfy spot on the sofa and a good glass of wine.”

“When I’m feeling really frisky, I turn my songs into profane ditties. Like Ponkey the Donkey I mentioned earlier, that mule gets really nasty and starts spanking a turtle named Myrtle.”

Ryann laughed so loudly that even Jana and Melanie turned and looked at them for a split second. Ryann wiped her eyes and asked, “Have you ever gotten your dirty songs mixed in with the children’s stuff?”

“On purpose once. I have a studio in my house, so I’ll write and record the projects there, then I send them to Tex. This particular tune was about washing your hands and went something like…” Payton shook her head and laughed. “I don’t think I should sing this in front of you. I’m trying to make a decent impression since we’ve only just met.”

“Oh, sing it. I have to hear this,” Ryann said with a laugh.

Payton inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. Her voice was gruff when she began to sing, ‘Hello, friend, you know it’s a sin if you don’t wash your hands. You extend them to me after you take a pee, and don’t understand why I shy away. I haven’t been lurkin’, but I know you’ve been jerkin’ the gherkin—Ryann, breathe.”

“What are you doing to her?” Jana asked with annoyance.

Ryann was slumped against the bar wheezing with laughter. Payton shrugged. “I just sang her a little song.”

They watched Jana and Melanie for a moment, and Payton sighed. “We may be watching destiny unfold over there. Wouldn’t it be cool for us to be able to say years from now that we were here the night their future as a couple began?”

“You have a romantic heart,” Ryann said with a smile.

Payton turned back to the bar and took a sip of her drink. “Maybe all of us who are single are inclined to be that way. You dream of the moment like they seem to be having over there. You envision yourself with someone special doing something mundane, and it fills your heart with longing. But I’ve been there before, and even though I know the reality is that it’s a struggle to not get bored and a battle not to focus on those little nagging things too much…I still want it. All of the arguments and compromise are worth that initial all-consuming fire.”

Ryann’s smile faltered, and her gaze moved to her glass. “Where does it go?”

“The flame? It’s smothered by misunderstandings, bills, lack of communication, distrust. I suppose those who have stood the test of time figured out a way to reignite it. Everyone wants to know how. There’s books, talk shows, magazine articles that tell us how to do it, but for every couple, the mysterious key is different.” Payton held up a finger. “This is why I believe in soul mates. Some people are just joined at the hip because they need each other. Some people stay together because they fear they might end up in something worse, like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Some have just given up, become complacent, and cohabitate with a lover who’s become a roommate. Then there are those two people who are so deeply connected that their souls have fused together. All the things that smother the fire are still there, but the communion between them is unbreakable. That’s what I’m searching for.”

Ryann took the last swallow of her drink and motioned to the bartender for another. “At night, when it’s really quiet, I can hear the whistle of a train. I have this crazy fantasy of stealing away in one of the cars not even knowing its destination just for the adventure of it. Leigh and I used to lay there and come up with all sorts of silly plans to make this happen and what we’d do. Now…” Ryann sighed. “Responsibility is a dream crusher, isn’t it?”

“It sure can be. I have a runaway fantasy, too. Actually, I’ve done it once, so I guess I can’t dub it a fantasy. Last year, my brain completely locked up, I couldn’t compose a thing. It was like ten in the morning, and I got in my car to go grocery shopping, but I just kept going when I should’ve turned into the parking lot of the store. Next thing I know, I’m on the interstate doing about eighty, headed to nowhere. I rolled down the windows, turned the music up, and just drove. I kept thinking I would stop, but I didn’t until I got off the interstate in Florida.”

“How long did you stay?”

“Just overnight,” Payton said with a laugh. “I got a hotel room, walked the beaches, stared at the water for a long time, and drove home the next day. No one even knew I was gone. Truthfully, you’re the first person I’ve ever admitted this to. It would’ve been more fun if I’d had company, but the experience did help clear my mind.”

“You didn’t pack anything?” Ryann asked. “It was really that spontaneous?”

“The only thing I had with me was a grocery list, wallet, and phone.”

Ryann smiled. “I think that’s much better than hopping a train. You can come back when you want, if you want, and there’s no danger of being run over. How far into Florida did you go?”

“Destin.”

Ryann blinked rapidly. “That’s a…”

“A four-and-a-half-hour drive. That’s about how long it took for me to have the ‘oh, shit, what am I doing?’ moment. I got off the interstate, filled up my tank, and bought a Nerd Rope and a Slurpee. The sugar rush made me giddy, and I decided to continue on with my adventure.”

“I’m going to have to try that,” Ryann said sincerely.

“You should. Grab Leigh and just go.”

“Leigh…” Ryann looked at her watch. “She’s going to be home from work soon. I should make sure Melanie is comfortable and go.” She waved at the bartender. “I need to settle my tab, please.”

“Are you sure you won’t let me take care of the drinks?”

Ryann smiled and handed the bartender her credit card. “Drinks are on me, and it’s my pleasure. This evening has been such a break from the norm, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it because of your company.”

“I’ve had a good time, too. Thanks for restoring my faith in relationships.”

Ryann’s smile faltered again for a second, then she turned when the bartender presented her card and receipt. Payton watched Ryann sign the slip of paper, wishing their night wasn’t coming to an end. Had Ryann been single, she would’ve asked her out, but it was just her luck that the most alluring woman she’d met in ages was taken.

“If those two lovebirds over there take off, we might have the opportunity to see each other again,” Payton said as Ryann stood and gathered her things.

“I believe they will.” Ryann extended her hand, and Payton took it. “So let’s say until next time.”

Payton nodded as she reluctantly released Ryann. “Next time.”

Chapter 2

“I want you to understand that I won’t make your names public, and you’ll be able to read what I’ve written before I submit it,” Olivia said, meeting Ryann’s and Payton’s gazes for a moment. “With that said, I’d like to ask—”

“We didn’t cheat, and I wasn’t the cause of the breakup between Ryann and Leigh,” Payton said and sighed. “I left the bar that night feeling like I’d lost something.” She grinned. “We have this debate over love at first sight. I say it’s real. Ryann says it’s euphoria brought on by physical attraction. But the night we met, she took something from me. It was a while before I discovered that it was my heart.”

“We do have a difference of opinion on love at first sight,” Ryann said. “Something did happen in that bar. It wasn’t physical, the only time we touched was to shake hands. As I look back on it, I still feel a little guilty. I’d always considered being unfaithful as having sex with someone other than the person you’re committed to. I left that night feeling like I gave her something that should’ve been reserved for Leigh.” Ryann shrugged. “I had a desire to tell her all my secrets, and I wanted to know hers. On the ride home, I realized that I’d stopped caring about what went on in Leigh’s mind, and I had no idea when I had changed. Payton’s right, she didn’t cause the breakup, but after meeting her, I did start doing a lot of personal inventory.”

*******

******

***

March 2011

“I’m going to ask you one more time what you’ve done with her.” A single brow rose when nothing met Ryann’s ear but silence. “One or all of you know what happened. I will fold each of you into tiny little squares until I find her,” she said to a pile of towels and washcloths on her couch. She tossed the single sock aside. “Turn your back…or toe…don’t watch me do this. I
will
find your mate.”

Ryann had always surmised that those who talked to themselves were either lonely or crazy. She felt she was both. Leigh left at five thirty in the morning for work each day and didn’t come home until nine or ten at night. The only day she didn’t go into the office was on Sunday, and she slept most of it and was a grump when she woke up.

Leigh was caught in the middle of a corporate power struggle between two divisional offices that had merged into one. She was fighting to keep her job, which Ryann understood and supported. She made sure Leigh had something hot to eat when she came in, regardless of the time. Ryann also made sure that all of Leigh’s clothes were washed and pressed, so all she had to do was don them and go off to battle.

She just wished that her pencil-wielding knight could be more reasonable. When the long days and nights started, Leigh asked Ryann to wait for her to do things with their friends. As weeks grew into months, Ryann got tired of spending every free hour she had alone. The night she’d gone with Melanie to meet Jana was the first time Ryann had been out of the house in ages to do anything besides work, and that had caused a fight.

When they’d first started dating, Leigh’s jealousy and possessiveness were endearing, cute even, but the jealousy had grown into a monster very quickly, and Ryann grew tired of placating it. They were supposedly working on the issue, but things were only peaceful when Ryann didn’t rock the boat.

“Ah ha!” Ryann pulled the missing sock from a towel melded there by static cling. “Your mate, milady,” she said as she laid it with the other. “I shall now vanquish her kidnapper and—” It’d been so long since someone knocked on the front door she almost didn’t know what to make of the sound.

“Ryann, open up, my hands are full!”

Ryann sprinted across the living room and unbolted the door. “What’re you doing here? I was coming to see you today.”

“I know,” her younger sister Shelly said as she laid a sleeping bundle in Ryann’s arms. “Evan made the boys fries—for
breakfast
and guess what? He didn’t turn the stove off when he finished. They were all in the den watching some stupid game he recorded when the smoke detector went off. I left to keep from killing him.” She paced back and forth, diaper bag still hanging on her shoulder and slippers on her feet. “The only thing going for me is the ride over put Anya back to sleep. Do you have any tequila?”

“It’s nine in the morning, and you’re breastfeeding.” Ryann closed the door gently with her foot. “How about coffee?”

Shelly was vibrating with anger and waved a hand in front of herself. “Do you really want to caffeinate me?”

Ryann nodded. “Good point. Tea or juice?”

“Water,” Shelly said grumpily as she followed Ryann into the kitchen.

“How much damage did the fire do?”

“I couldn’t go in there, for no other reason than I would kill Evan in front of witnesses. I’m not even dressed, look at me.”

Ryann knew better than to laugh as she regarded Shelly. She had on one of Evan’s dress shirts buttoned incorrectly, a pair of boxer shorts, also Evan’s and way too big for her, fuzzy pink slippers, and a single curler dangling from a strand of hair.

“Where’re the boys?” Ryann asked as she watched Shelly root around in her refrigerator.

“Grant saw the look on my face and disappeared somewhere in the yard. Brody was being given a tour of the firetruck. I love my sons, but I need to be far away from anything that has a penis. That’s why I came here.”

Ryann was happy to see Shelly and thrilled to cuddle her new niece, but she’d truly been looking forward to getting out of her house. Shelly was the only sister who lived locally and about the only person Ryann could spend time with without Leigh throwing a jealous fit. She was about to ask Shelly if she wanted to go to the mall and do some retaliatory spending when she noticed the big smiley face on the butt of the boxers. The likelihood of Shelly fitting in anything she or Leigh owned was a million to one.

The youngest of Ryann’s siblings, Shelly drew the short straw when it came to height. Though her driver’s license stated she was five feet tall, she was really four-eleven. Breastfeeding had stripped off her baby weight fast, and she was skinny as a garden rake. Ryann would never dream of taking offense over being confused for a child, but it incensed Shelly because all her life, she’d just been little. But Shelly made up for her size with her big personality.

“Do you want to sit out on the patio? It’s like summer outside,” Ryann said, trying not to sound disappointed.

“I have a love-hate relationship with this kind of weather. We get a day like this, and it makes me feel like planting a garden, then boom, the cold comes back and really pisses me off.” Shelly slammed the refrigerator door. “Yes, let’s go outside. Maybe it’ll clear the smell of smoke out of my senses.”

They chose the swing since it was mostly in the shade, and the first thing Ryann did when she sat down was pull Anya’s socks off, so she could see her tiny little toes. “Month-old baby binkies, so adorable.”

“If you start kissing on them and wake her up, I will choke you. She’s been fussy since four this morning.” Shelly growled low. “Evan has a pristine safety record at work. He’s never had an injury, has never done any serious damage to the equipment. When he comes home, though, it’s like his brain goes on vacation. He’s like a zombie that can talk, enjoy whatever sport that’s on TV, and beg for sex, but he can’t seem to do anything else that takes a thought process. The other night—no lie, he put the milk in the laundry room. I watched him do it, and I asked him why. He claimed he had no recollection. I need to get his head examined. He’s thirty-six, way too young to be senile. Leigh’s been working a lot, is she that bad when she’s home?”

“She showers, eats, and goes to bed. One grunt for yes, two for no.”

Shelly scrubbed at her face, sniffed her hands, and huffed. “Let’s talk about something else. I feel myself getting really pissed off all over again. What’ve you been up to lately?”

“Work, that’s about it.”

“I don’t know how you do it. There’s no way I could be cooped up in a room with someone else’s kids. I love my boys, but there are days I could just slap the freckles off of them.”

“Because I get to leave my kids at the end of the day,” Ryann said as she stared at Anya’s sleeping face. “Oh, my God, but they start off precious, don’t they?”

“Uh-huh, but at four in the morning when they’re screaming their heads off, not so cute.” After a moment or two of silence, Shelly said, “I’m not happy that my kitchen is scorched, but it is nice to be able to talk alone. I’ve been wanting to ask what’s wrong with you.”

Ryann looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

Shelly gazed at Ryann, studying her face and eyes. “Maybe you haven’t noticed that you’ve changed. You used to be silly, we’d laugh at the dumbest things. Now you’re just blah.”

“Are you saying I’m boring?”

“No, you’re not yourself. You haven’t been for the past year, maybe longer.”

Ryann looked away. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“My life is chaotic. I start thinking about you right before I fall asleep at night, and I think to call you, but I know you’re already asleep. You’re just not yourself. If I changed like that, you’d be all up in my face demanding to know what’s going on.”

“Yeah, if you were suddenly at peace, I’d wonder if you were on drugs,” Ryann said with a laugh.

Shelly smiled, but the joke didn’t throw her off topic. She continued to gaze at Ryann, as though she were trying to read her mind. “I gripe to you about Evan and the kids all the time. You vent to me about work, teachers that get on your nerves, and the audacity of the grocery store to put stickers on the vegetables. You never talk about Leigh, though. I know you’re both human, and it isn’t all roses and chocolate hearts over here.”

Ryann held her stare for a moment. “It is stupid to put stickers on vegetables and fruit. They don’t scan them at the register, and any fool knows what an apple is.”

“Ryann, come off of it.”

“I don’t like to talk about my relationship. Mom, Joan, and Paula don’t consider it as something real because I don’t have a marriage license.”

“You’re not talking to them, you’re talking to me, and that’s a lame excuse. You’ve confided in me with everything but this. That’s how I know that something’s going on over here, and you’re not happy.”

Ryann stared down at Anya’s little pink toes and debated whether or not to let it all just tumble out. Once she verbally acknowledged what was inside, she knew it would set change in motion, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to make that step yet. She knew that Shelly would be open-minded, but perhaps not as patient as she was.

“If I talk to you about this, it stays with us, and it is mine to deal with how I see fit. You have to swear to me that you won’t do or say anything without my say-so.”

Shelly let out a long breath. “I wish I wasn’t nursing and you had tequila because I sense I won’t like what I hear.”

“Regardless, you have to give me your word. If you want me to confide, those are my terms.”

“I can make that promise as long as you swear you’re not about to tell me about any physical abuse.”

“You know me better than that,” Ryann said with an edge. “Do you honestly think I’d let someone hit me?”

Shelly shrugged. “You could be beating her ass for all I know.”

“There’s nothing like that going on.”

“You have my word,” Shelly said resolutely.

As the words passed Ryann’s lips, she felt a mixture of relief and resignation. “You’re right, I’m not happy. The entire time Leigh and I have been together, we’ve been repeating a pattern, and I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can’t rally. I—somebody’s awake.”

“Of course she is because you were just about to say something interesting.” Shelly held her arms out when Anya began to fuss. She stuck a finger into Anya’s diaper and nodded. “She’s clean, that means she’s hungry.”

Ryann watched as Shelly unbuttoned her shirt. “You didn’t even put on a bra?”

“There was no time! Sirens were going off. I took the baby and ran.” Shelly settled Anya onto a breast and sighed. “It’s a good damn thing I’m packing my own dairy. Continue.”

“Does that hurt?”

“Not anymore. I’ve had three kids, my nipples are like leather, and when I’m done nursing her, these poor overworked girls are going into retirement, or what’s left of them. Now go on. I want to know about the pattern.”

Ryann blew out a sigh. “We’d been together for about a year, and she just withdrew. There was no intimacy, and at times, I felt like she resented me. I asked if I’d done something to hurt her, and she’d say no, and that was all I could get out of her. This lasted for like a month, and I thought, ‘Okay, we’re done.’ I started to mentally and emotionally prepare myself for a breakup. As my distance grew, she came back, and she was her old self.”

“So you have no idea what caused this
withdrawal
?”

“I didn’t know then, and I still don’t. The first time I thought it was her adjusting to us living together because we’d just moved into this place. The following year almost about the same time, she did it again. She became really short with me. When I talked to her, she acted like she really didn’t care what I had to say. That time, I really pushed her for an answer, and she said it was just stress and she’d gotten stuck in an emotional rut. Even after she admitted that, she was still distant, and I was so wrapped around her finger I decided to wait it out. But I got to the point again where I began to accept that we were through, and that’s when she came right back. It made me feel like she only wanted me when I got to that point. Like, ‘Oh, crap, she’s gonna leave, I better reel her back in.’”