One Degree of Separation (3 page)

Hemma had always been and would always be the one who possessed it, whether she knew it or not.

She closed her eyes and pictured the perfect beach, the perfect sunset, the perfect woman by her side. One who could hold her, one who liked to be held. One who told her what was good about her more often than what was bad. She hungered for the velvet fullness of Hemma’s lips against her skin.

Hemma’s cries faded under Amy’s deeper groans. Amy wouldn’t stop until Hemma was taken care of. Wonderful Amy, tall, slender, intellectual, witty, all things that Marian envied. Amy gave Hemma everything she needed. Amy was a good lover, a good friend, and Hemma looked at Amy with stars in her eyes that never wavered.

Amy cried out as Hemma’s nails raked over her back, then they were rolling over and Hemma, her face glowing with desire, pressed her hand between Amy’s legs and watched her lover’s every nuance of expression. She said something fiercely and Amy’s loud, fervent,

“Yes, baby, yes,” was what Marian longed to say.

You’re such a loser, she told herself. Go get laid, have a fling. She should make up a T-shirt for the I-CARE breakfast that screamed,

“Forget the U-Haul, Just Fuck Me!”

She wiped away a tear. She’d feel better in a couple of days. She always felt better. She didn’t have needs. She’d have dinner on Thursday and bask in Hemma’s affection and Amy’s friendship. It would be okay. Her hands swept over her breasts again, imagining the Hemma of her fantasies teasing her for hours. It was Hemma’s hands that opened her thighs and touched her. She could hear Hemma’s knowing laugh at what she found, and the low promise that all that heat, all that wet, would not go to waste.

Hemma’s laughter drew her attention to the window again. Light but sultry, it accompanied the act of tossing a towel on the floor.

Spreading another on the bed, she pressed Amy down, straddling Amy’s hips. She flowed up and down Amy’s body, so sensual, so sexual, so captivating.

Marian could not stop watching and imagining, even knowing that it would never be her with Hemma. She should join Ellie in her dyke hunts. Practice whatever voodoo it was that got nearly every woman in town onto that couch of Carrie’s. Move away, start a new life, move on.

Right. That would fix everything, she thought bitterly. She’d only let Robyn into her life and her bed as a cure for Hemma, and look where that had gotten her. Her unwilling gaze turned from the window to the box in the corner where the Robyn Ruins were sealed.

Someday she would look inside again and maybe then her desire to commit murder would finally wane.

Tomorrow, she thought. I’ll think about all of that tomorrow when I can’t hear HER in my head. When I can’t hear Robyn either.

She knew that tomorrow night she’d look in on Hemma’s life again. The pain of not having Hemma’s body was one she’d learned to bear. She could live without sex, yes, she could. It was harder to see them watch television with teacups on their stomachs, or argue fiercely about something in the newspaper, or read aloud to each other from books. Sex was easy. Robyn proved that. Intimacy, real intimacy, was something Marian had never known.

She wanted to make cornbread on cold nights and dash through the house naked for ice cream and spoons after sex. To lounge outside on a summer evening with only crickets for entertainment. To share the last piece of pie by passing the tin and a fork back and forth.

Amy was rolling Hemma across the bed. Hemma shrieked as they slipped off the edge where Marian could no longer see them. Their voices rose together in harmonic laughter.

“That’s her.”

Liddy Peel ignored the audible comment and pointed look directed at her. This town was too small, too humid, too hot, too provincial, and she hadn’t even been here a week. Eight more weeks of this baking hell to go.

She was so fucking tired of being the fresh meat at the coffeehouse market. She’d even heard that description of her whispered from one woman to another. Obviously, none of these cow town lightweights had seen the inside of a women’s studies class. Not that her own foray into women’s studies had turned out so well, but that was beside the fucking point. They were worse than men, she told herself, swear to freakin’ god.

“Mocha, definitely with caffeine, on ice. With cream.” The barely legal kid behind the counter mumbled an answer. So far they’d gotten it right, and the coffee was admittedly good.

At home she’d turn around now, check out who was in the place, on the off chance she would know someone. Not that it would have been likely, even in the student union. But she didn’t know anybody here. She didn’t want to know anybody here. The last thing she wanted was to make eye contact with one of the boa constrictors.

She couldn’t go back to Cal, either. She was a graduate, finally.

This job had come along at exactly the right moment in her life and she was lucky to have it.

She waited with her back to the rest of the long, narrow shop and the clusters of tables and groupings of sofas and easy chairs. To be fair, the Java House was as comfortable and collegiate as similar establishments in Berkeley. All it lacked was a plastic drum band outside. The radio was even tuned to the university station. Just like at home, she tried and failed to focus on what must be a vitally serious topic to engender such passion from the panelists. It sounded worth-while, burning oat hulls instead of coal, but it just wasn’t something she could get all worked up about.

Liddy edged sideways to make room for a shorter woman now ordering, who also wanted an iced mocha. They probably went through ice by the ton in the summer.

“Did you find what you needed about writing to the Queen of England?”

The oddity of the question made Liddy glance at the woman next to her, who was actually managing to hold a conversation with the taciturn boy. He was even smiling. Who knew?

Liddy took her mocha from him and added fake sugar and chocolate sprinkles. Her drink well-doctored she took a breath and turned to face the room. It was only about twenty feet to the door, but the most direct route took her past the boa constrictors. With relief, she detoured instead to the stack of
Daily Iowan
newspapers. Maybe somebody at the university was doing something remotely interesting this weekend.

She flipped it open to scan the headlines. Trailer-park residents were suing Coralville. All she knew about Coralville was that the city logo on the water tower was blue. ...f Iowa student was the first Iowan to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. The university was also proudly the home of a one-of-a-kind model lake, useful for numerous experiments.

One of the boa constrictors called out, “Marian! They’ve got brownies today.”

“After the cake last night I really couldn’t. Could I?” Liddy wanted to roll her eyes. Lesbians and chocolate—what a cliché.

There was an abrupt silence and Liddy could feel the traded glances behind her back. The brunette with the overprocessed high-lights whispered, “That’s
her.
You were standing right next to her and you didn’t say anything?”

The woman named Marian said in a normal tone, “Ellie, I’m quite sure she can hear every word you’re saying.” Liddy stiffened her back and slowly turned around. “I may be new, but I’m not deaf.”

Marian, at least, was looking her in the eye. “I’m sorry, I know what it’s like. We were all new once.”

An older woman with wedge-cut gray hair chimed in, “I’m the only native in the bunch.”

“Oh hush, Terry, even you ended up on Carrie’s holistic love couch,” the brunette muttered. Her sharp brown gaze caught Liddy’s for a moment and her smile grew conspiratorial. “You’ll know Carrie when you see her.”

Liddy didn’t know whether to give vent to the indignation she felt at having her proclivities presumed, or to laugh, say something meaningless, and escape.

“It’s okay,” Marian said. “Ellie can’t help herself.” Liddy found a tight smile. “Fortunately, I can.” Marian chortled appreciatively. “Good for you.” She turned to the brunette again. “I have to get back to work, El. See you Friday night if not sooner.”

Liddy headed for the door as well, not wanting to be drawn into any conversation with Ellie. She wasn’t in the mood for sex. Maybe never again. She didn’t need a girlfriend to be whole, and she didn’t need sex to feel alive, swear to freakin’ god.

She found herself following Marian down the wide Pedestrian Mall—what a
creative
name, she thought. The open-air mall was dotted with planters, benches and tables placed under broad, canopied trees. The smell of falafel and tahini sauce was evocative of home, and Liddy nearly got a pita just for comfort. But the coffee was refreshing enough.

The mall reached a dead end at a multistoried hotel, and, like Marian, she turned left, away from the fountain. She glanced longingly over her shoulder at the children running through the spray.

To have no worries ... sometimes being a grownup sucked. Liddy followed Marian past a massive play structure—deserted in the swelter of early afternoon—and around brightly painted construction barriers on South Linn. Marian turned into the large public library.

Was that where she worked? Marian the Librarian? Swear to freakin’ god, Liddy thought, this town is
small.

It was a long walk to her rented house on North Dodge. Her cotton tank was a second skin by the end of the first block, but the iced mocha was wonderful going down. At least they took their coffee seriously.

The streets were shady and most of the yards brimmed with lush gardens, so as walks went, it didn’t suck. What else would she do with her time?

Dating was out of the question. She was not interested in dating right now, and certainly not any of the predators at the coffeehouse.

It was annoying, being taken for granted. She’d been taken for granted by men before she’d realized she was a lesbian. Liking women did not make her see why she should stop being annoyed.

She was wearing an old top and even older cutoffs. Her hair looked like she’d slept on it wet, which she had. And still the looks, the overt curiosity.

Maybe she screamed “sexy” and “dyke.” She’d been told often that she did, so often it felt like an accusation, not a compliment. But she didn’t think she damn well screamed “available for the asking,” too. Swear to freakin’ god, boobs made even lesbians stupid.

She was halfway home when she realized she’d forgotten to look for a store that sold candles. Telegraph Avenue at home would have offered a half-dozen street vendors, but here she’d have to make a bigger effort, obviously. The furnished house had a funky smell of mice and mothballs. Something with the aroma of the ocean would be relaxing and useful. It was a long, long way to the nearest tide.

The house smelled old and dead and she was not either of those things, even if she felt like it sometimes.

She stopped walking for a moment, letting the waves of anger subside. She’d thought miles and fucking miles of fucking cornfields would be far enough away from the past. Far enough away that she’d stop being mad and hurt and crushed. That she’d start feeling like she could smile and not cry.

She needed to destroy something but lacked a viable target. If Jerry Falwell had appeared in front of her right then she’d have cheerfully dismembered him and then beat his fascist cronies to death with his bones.

What are you doing in Iowa fucking City, Liddy?
She pressed one hand over her eyes and took a long, steadying breath. To do a job, she reminded herself. If she did it well it could be a good future.

Swear to freakin’ god, she was not going to be thirty and still wondering what she wanted to be when she grew up.

She trudged up the driveway of her temporary home. The living room of the house was Iowa City rental chic. What matched was broken while the ugliest furniture would survive the apocalypse, forever pristine. Rates were low for summer and the lease was up July 31 when students would flood the town again. By then Liddy hoped to be home in Berkeley, where she belonged, her laptop overflowing with notes and citations.

She snapped on the boombox. Groove Armada oozed over the tick of a single clock and the drone of traffic on the busy street outside. Oatmeal and bananas for dinner?

She dialed up her voicemail out of habit and flinched at the sound of her mother’s amplified voice.

“Daddy and I are just wondering how you are. Have you looked up my cousin Selma yet? Cedar Rapids is only thirty-five miles. You take the interstate—”

She punched ahead thirty seconds.

“Then you turn left onto Runnymede. Daddy can send you the map if you need it. Are you eating something more than oatmeal?

We love you, honey. Call when you get the chance.” It was her first and only message since her arrival four days ago, so she saved it. She could listen again later and pretend she actually had a reason for voice mail.

She was only a few steps from the phone when it chirped. She snatched up the handset.

“This is Faye with University Library Services. I’m calling to let you know that eight of the nine texts you requested have arrived. They’ll be held under your name for the next four days.”

“Oh.” Liddy was at a loss for words. “You actually called.”

“We always do, as you should have been informed—”

“It’s okay. Nobody’s ever called before, that’s all.”

“Really? But it’s our policy. Never?”

“Oh, I’m new. Nobody at home ever called, I mean. In California.”

“Oh, I see.” Incredulity changed to understanding. There was even a nuance of pity in the librarian’s voice.

“How late are you open tonight?”

“Until eight on Wednesdays.”

“Great.” She could grab the books, get some dinner out for a change. Then come home and settle in to read something useful.

The rest of the day no longer seemed so bleak. At least she would get some work done toward claiming that first paycheck. She was here to work.

She’d had her doubts that the in-window air conditioning unit had any effect at all until she stepped outside just after seven. The humidity descended on her shoulders like a blanket and sweat instantly prickled the length of her back.