Crossroads

Chapter Ten

Annie stared at the plate. She’d piled nine chicken wings onto it without even noticing. Glancing around, relieved no one was watching, she redistributed the wings between the three plates. She’d examined hundreds of patients in her life—women she cared about, women she’d come to love—and she’d never felt anything like the brief brush of her fingers over Hollis’s forehead. Heat as bright as summer lightning had flashed through her hand, up her arm, and struck somewhere around her heart. Her body still pulsed. The dark blue depths of Hollis’s eyes still threatened to pull her under. She was afraid to think of what her reaction meant. Her mind conjured answers, but her emotions, her heart, recoiled from the obvious explanation. She had no experience with something so simple that moved her so much. She’d thought she’d understood passion and desire and love when she’d been with Jeff, and she’d learned the hard way she’d been totally wrong. Now she didn’t trust anything she felt, especially when she had no good reason to feel that way about someone she wasn’t even sure she knew. When she looked at Hollis she saw two women—the one from her past who was tangled up in disillusionment, disappointment, and overwhelming loss, and the other, a stranger she had just met who stirred her in ways that defied common sense. Both Hollises were dangerous, and she vowed to be more careful about crossing boundaries.

“Mommy?” Callie tugged at Annie’s hand. “Are we going to have potato salad? And what about corn? And Jell-O?”

“Jell-O definitely—after dinner.” Annie stroked the red-gold waves that fluttered around Callie’s innocent face. She’d do anything to preserve her trust and faith, even though she knew she couldn’t protect her innocence forever. “And yes—salad and corn too. Come here.” Callie lifted her arms and Annie scooped her up. “Can you reach the big spoon? You put the salad on the plates.”

Callie carefully scooped salad onto the three big red plastic plates.

“Excellent.” Annie set Callie down and finished filling the plates. “Here’s yours.”

“Can I go eat with Mike and Jack and Sandy?”

Annie searched for Callie’s friends. Robin and Linda sat at a big picnic table with a handful of children not far from where Hollis stretched out on the lounge. “Yes, but don’t leave that table. I’ll be right over there with Hollis.”

“Okay.” Callie hurried away, her plate balanced carefully out in front of her.

Annie started toward Hollis, her face warming when she realized Hollis was watching her, a somber, intent expression on her face. Annie felt exposed and didn’t know why. She smiled and put on her sociable face. “I hope you’re as hungry as you said.”

Hollis smiled too, but her eyes held questions. Fleetingly, Annie wondered if Hollis could see through her mask of confidence and polite distance. Everyone else accepted her self-sufficient, self-assured façade so readily. Hollis made her feel naked, as if her innermost thoughts and feelings were displayed on her face like images on a big blinking billboard. She was alternately uncomfortable and attracted to the sensation of being so open. So seen. Searching for something to distract Hollis’s unwavering focus from her, she gestured to the plate. “I went a little overboard.”

“Good.” Hollis sat up straighter and put her legs on either side of the lounge chair, making room for Annie. “I’m starved.”

When Annie sat, she was very nearly in Hollis’s lap, but she couldn’t think of a good way to change position without making it obvious. So she carefully kept her bare knee away from Hollis’s leg, even though Hollis wore jeans and probably wouldn’t notice the glancing contact. She would notice. Just being this close to Hollis had electrified her to the point she feared sparks would dance from her skin.

“I didn’t get us anything to drink,” Annie said, putting her plate on the grass. She had to move. “I’ll go get something now.”

Hollis grasped Annie’s arm. “Stay, it’s my turn to hunt and gather. What would you like? Beer, wine…?”

“Just sparkling water, or if they don’t have that, any kind of diet soda.” Annie’s muscles turned to stone—she couldn’t move now if she’d wanted to. And she didn’t, even though her head screamed Run. Hollis’s fingers were strong and warm. The slight pressure from her fingertips harnessed all the errant electricity racing through Annie’s body and sent it streaking straight to the pit of her stomach. The tingling in her depths blurred her reason, and all she knew was she didn’t want it to end.

“You don’t drink?” Hollis asked, her fingers loosely clasping Annie’s wrist.

“No.” Annie stared at Hollis’s hand. No one had touched her so intimately in years, and Hollis didn’t even know what she was doing. Annie gently drew her arm away. “Or smoke. Although I pretty much indulge in all the other taboos—dancing, music, fornication.”

Hollis regarded her solemnly. “I thought your…sorry, I don’t know the term.”

“Community is good. Or sect.”

“I thought your community was less restrictive than the Amish.”

“In general, yes, but religious communities tend to become isolated, and as they do, they also become more insular. Ours was a community of only a few hundred people, and the elders were very rigid about many things, including gender roles. Women were meant for bearing children and tending to their men’s needs.”

“It must have been frustrating,” Hollis said.

Annie laughed softly, surprised. “That’s the first time anyone’s ever put it that way. I don’t talk about it very much—what’s the point? The few people who know have tried to understand, but most of the time I get the feeling they’re more repulsed. And silently blaming—as if I should have rebelled sooner.”

“I don’t feel that way,” Hollis said. “I can see how much you’ve accomplished, and I can only imagine what it must have been like for someone as bright and outgoing and eager to make a contribution as you to be held back. I’m glad you found your way.”

Annie looked away, her throat tight. If Hollis only knew how badly she’d lost her way, she wouldn’t be so kind. But she didn’t want to tell her of the mistakes she’d made. “I wish I were the person you seem to think I am.”

“What part did I get wrong?” Hollis asked softly.

“I wasn’t strong or smart or even brave. I was naïve, senselessly innocent. And, I’m a little ashamed to admit, overwhelmed by the world when I finally realized how much there was of it.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that. You didn’t have a chance to prepare. Anybody would be off balance.”

“Yes, but most people wouldn’t have lost all sense of reality. I ended up grasping at the first anchor I could find—just to keep my balance. My foolishness, my weakness, could have cost me everything.”

Hollis put her plate aside. “What do you mean?”

Sighing, Annie sought Callie sitting at the table with the other children. She was laughing, a white plastic fork in one hand and a pink tumbler filled with milk in her other. She was bright and joyful and miraculous. “I met a man and thought I was in love.”

Hollis followed Annie’s gaze, saw Callie with the other children. “Callie’s father.”

“Yes,” Annie said, swinging her gaze to Hollis’s. Meeting her eyes directly. “He was one of my teachers.”

Hollis clamped her jaws together, keeping back an oath. She could only imagine how lost Annie must have felt, coming from an environment where she’d had no choices, no exposure to men except in rigidly controlled circumstances. “And you fell in love with him.”

“I thought I had,” Annie said, no bitterness in her tone, only resignation. “I know now what I really felt was need and gratitude—that a man like him would pay attention to someone like me—”

“Someone like you?” Hollis couldn’t keep quiet. “You’re kidding, right? You’re beautiful. You’re bright and warm and sexy. Who wouldn’t be attracted to you?”

Annie blushed, a smile racing across her full red lips. “Well. I don’t believe he ever actually said any of those things to me.”

“Then he should have.”

Annie laughed softly and some of the sadness left her eyes. “He showed me things, took me places I’d never imagined. So when he wanted to show me physical things, it seemed natural.”

Hollis struggled to ignore the sinking sensation spreading through her. She’d never had any explicit reason to think Annie was a lesbian, but she’d let her own attraction make her think that was the case. She’d been attracted to straight women on occasion, but rarely. It wasn’t a matter of physical appeal, but more one of personality. Subtle differences in desires and expectations always seemed to come through, but this time, she’d read the signals wrong. She put her own disappointment aside. This wasn’t about her or what she wanted or hoped or didn’t. This was about Annie. “Seems pretty natural to me, to be physically attracted to someone who’s taken an interest in you and shown you new things, new experiences.”

“I suppose,” Annie said pensively. “It never occurred to me—not once—that I wouldn’t want to be with a man when the time was right. Those things just aren’t spoken of in our community.”

“You mean being gay?”

“Yes. It never occurred to me I was a lesbian. And then I met Jeff and…well, I made quite a few mistakes.” Annie laughed ruefully. “But I learned a lot too. I have Callie, I know who I am, and I know not to make the same mistakes again.”

“When did you realize you were a lesbian?” Hollis asked, the weight of disappointment melting away.

“Not for several years after Callie was born. Several of my colleagues are gay, and when I saw some of my patients with their partners, I saw a different life than I’d ever imagined—one that wakened something in me. I realized the reason I felt so comfortable with them, so attuned, was because I was like them. So then I knew and another piece fell into place for me.”

“Like I said,” Hollis said softly, “you’re amazing.”

“You still think that, even after I told you this story?”

“Even more so.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t deserve any thanks. You did all the hard stuff.”

“All the same—” A roll of thunder broke overhead and Annie looked up. “Uh-oh.”

Huge black thunderclouds raced toward them from the east, obliterating the sun.

Someone yelled, “Storm coming,” and a jagged bolt of lightning split the sky.

Annie jumped up and headed for Callie. Hollis barely made it to her feet before gigantic raindrops started pelting her. Within seconds, sheets of water poured down on them. Parents raced to find their kids, thunder roared, and lightning cracked. Hollis ran straight for Annie, who had Callie in her arms, and grabbed a beach towel off the back of an unoccupied chair on the way. She swung it around Annie’s shoulders and over Callie’s head. Wrapping her arm around Annie’s shoulders, she yelled, “Follow me.”

She led them toward the pool house, which was the closest shelter that wasn’t a tree. Most everyone else had run for the house or the nearby garage. Hollis pushed open the door of the small shed, and they crowded into the twelve-foot-square space next to the pool equipment and shelves filled with neatly stacked containers of chemicals. She flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. “Power’s out.”

Another crack of thunder seemed to rattle the structure around them.

“Mommy,” Callie said, her voice wavering, “I’m scared.”

Annie brushed damp hair from Callie’s face and stood with her in the open doorway. “It’s okay, baby. It’s just a big rainstorm. Sometimes when it rains this hard it thunders really loud. We’re safe inside here.” She used the towel to dry Callie’s face and arms. When she was done, she handed it to Hollis. “It’s pretty soaked. But you might be able to dry your hair a little bit.”

“Thanks.” Hollis briskly toweled her hair. Her T-shirt was beyond help—wet through and plastered to her in waterlogged folds. She wasn’t concerned about being wet, though—she was too absorbed with Annie.

Annie’s hair lay in ringlets along her cheeks and neck, and when a flash of lightning illuminated her face, her profile resembled that on a cameo carved from ivory. Her pale green top clung to her breasts and the arch of her collarbones, an eloquent invitation for fingers to follow their delicate curves. She was so beautiful Hollis’s chest ached.

Annie turned away from the storm, her expression questioning. “Are you all right?”

“I’m good,” Hollis said, though the brisk wind blowing through the open door raised goose bumps on her skin. “You’re soaking wet, though.” She used the driest corner of the towel to blot the water from Annie’s face and the angle of her jaw. Annie’s lips parted and her pupils flickered as Hollis leaned close. “Better?”

“Yes, thanks,” Annie said, her voice husky.

Callie wriggled in Annie’s arms. “I want to get down now. I want to watch the lightning.”

“All right. Just stay right next to me.” Annie kept one hand on Callie’s head but her gaze locked on Hollis. “I appreciate you getting us to shelter.”

“You’re welcome,” Hollis whispered, backing up a step, the towel clenched in her fist. Beyond Annie’s shoulder, the sky lightened. “It’s letting up.”

“Yes. These summer storms never last long.”

“No.” Hollis hoped it kept raining. Nothing in the world outside this small cocoon had ever made her feel so alive.

Annie turned away and leaned outside, angling her head to check the sky. “I need to get her home and dried off before another wave comes through.” She took Callie’s hand. “Come on, baby.”

“Right,” Hollis said following her out into the light drizzle. Annie dashed across the yard toward the drive, and Hollis shoved her hands into her pockets, shivering in the cool breeze.