Chapter Thirteen

Tessa clung to a handrail at the edge of a wooden platform forty feet above the ground. A harness connected her to the zipline, and John was telling her that all she had to do was step forward off the edge. Easier said than done.

This particular section of zipline extended two hundred and fifty feet downhill over the top of a waterfall. John had buckled her and Eleanor into their harnesses, while Christian waited far below to help them dismount at the end of the ride. They’d had to ascend an extensive network of platforms and bridges, including an eighty-foot long suspension bridge, to reach this platform on an enormous tree house built around a giant banyan tree. The structure looked like something out of Swiss Family Robinson, Eleanor had commented as they scaled the walkway to the platform, echoing Tessa’s thoughts. The novel was one of her childhood favorites, read at a time when being shipwrecked on a tropical island with her parents and a bunch of brothers and sisters had seemed appealing.

All she had to do was step forward, Tessa told herself now. But somehow she was finding it hard to take that first step off the wooden platform into open space. Her fear surprised her. A decade before, she’d worked on the first of a trilogy of action movies inspired by a comic book about a female version of Indiana Jones. Will had trained her for months ahead of time, and she’d done most of her own stunts, including a base jump off a skyscraper in Dubai. But she’d been in her mid-twenties then and had believed she might well live forever, or at least for quite a bit longer. Now she was older and, more importantly, she had Laya. The idea of leaving her daughter alone in the world the way she had been left terrified her.

“It’s okay,” Eleanor said, standing a few feet away attached to a line that ran parallel to Tessa’s. They were supposed to zipline at the same time, tandem style. “We’re pretty well tied in. It’s perfectly safe.”

Easy for her to say. She didn’t have a child who would keep her spirit earthbound were she to die in, say, a ziplining-gone-wrong accident. “Things do sometimes go wrong, you know.”

“Maybe, but not today. Watch—I’ll go first.” And she smiled at Tessa, moved forward, and took off into midair.

All at once, Tessa didn’t want her to get away. Without letting herself think about what she was doing, she stepped forward off the wooden platform. After the first sickening drop, the line tautened and away she flew. Eleanor was just ahead, spinning around and laughing, and Tessa heard a shout of excitement that she belatedly realized was her own. The waterfall and a wide swimming hole approached and receded below, glowing in the midday sunshine, while the river and mountains formed a serene backdrop to their flight. This was freaking awesome, even better than helicopters. Why hadn’t she tried it before? Up here above the earth, she wasn’t Tessa Flanagan, Actor, anymore. She was just herself, flying freely, seemingly weightless. The only other person who could see her was Eleanor.

They ziplined half a dozen courses that day, including another tandem line that stretched a whopping twelve hundred feet across a forested hillside. Each time they took flight, Tessa forgot everything but the sensation of being alone with Eleanor speeding through the air side by side above the earth, laughing and calling out to one another, the forest a one-dimensional, seemingly smooth canopy beneath them.

In between zipline courses, they picnicked on the shore of the river, swam beneath waterfalls, and dove from rocky cliffs into crystalline pools. Eleanor photographed her flying on a rope swing out into the middle of a pond and letting go to execute what John called a perfect “rip”—a clean landing, as opposed to a “wash” (a not-so-clean splash) or the dreaded belly flop. Eleanor performed rip after rip herself, and except for the younger guide’s occasionally over-attentive presence, Tessa thought the day was going beautifully. She’d been working too hard lately, worrying about Laya and Ama and Dani and the foundation. Her daughter, brilliant creature that she was, had recognized that she needed a break.

God, she was lucky, Tessa thought as she watched Eleanor swim across a blue-green pool toward her. She would have to remember to thank Laya later.

Eleanor paused before her, treading water. Ten feet away a cascading waterfall cast spray into the air, where sunshine caught in rainbow droplets.

“What do you think?” Eleanor asked, shaking wet hair out of her eyes.

“I think it’s lovely,” Tessa said, moving closer until only a few inches separated them. “I think you’re lovely.” Eleanor gazed back at her, eyes glowing. Impulsively Tessa leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on her cheek. “Race you. Last one to shore has to make dinner!”

Tessa took off, arms moving clean and sure through the warm water. She’d arrived in L.A. unable to do more than doggie paddle. As soon as she could afford to, she took adult swimming lessons at the YMCA in Van Nuys, where she was joined by half a dozen immigrants of varying nationalities. As a newly minted Californian, it had seemed important that she know how to swim.

As she pulled herself out of the pool and reached for a Kipu Falls Ranch beach towel, Tessa saw Christian turn away. Then Eleanor climbed onto the shore beside her, a fair goddess with an impish grin on her luscious mouth, and Tessa remembered that she had kissed her before racing away.

“How about stir-fry?” Eleanor asked as she toweled herself dry.

Tessa removed her gaze from the hint of cleavage revealed by Eleanor’s two-piece suit. “What?”

Eleanor smiled some more, and Tessa knew she’d been busted. “Dinner tonight,” she clarified. “I was thinking stir-fry.”

“Sounds perfect,” Tessa said, smiling back at her. And later, after dinner, she thought… Well, time enough when they were alone to find out what the look in Eleanor’s eyes meant. Maybe girls’ day out would last beyond sunset. Just then, she couldn’t remember why it shouldn’t.

Surprisingly, Eleanor thought, Laya stayed awake on the ride home, listening to their stories and examining the digitized evidence of her mother leaping from the rope swing earlier that afternoon. She even tried to keep up her end of the conversation over the rice and tamari tofu stir-fry Eleanor whipped up back at the house, regaling them with occasionally disjointed tales of her adventures at Camp Hyatt. But toward the end of dinner, she lost the battle and put her head down on the table, too tired to remain upright any longer.

“You can take her up if you want,” Eleanor said. “I can clean up.”

Tessa shook her head. “You cooked, which means I’m on clean-up duty. Do you mind munchkin duty?”

Eyes still closed, Laya giggled.

“Not at all,” Eleanor said, thinking that it was, in fact, her job. But she didn’t want to remind Tessa that she was The Nanny, not when they both seemed to be pretending that the contract she’d signed at the lawyer’s office back in L.A. didn’t exist. Tonight it felt like they were more than employer-employee, chopping vegetables together, chatting about their day over dinner, helping Laya when she struggled to pronounce a particular word.

The sensation only intensified as she carried Laya upstairs. The girl’s arms were around her neck, and she smelled like tamari and peanut butter and sea salt. Eleanor felt her heart expanding, her love for the girl surrounding them both in a cozy cocoon.

In her room, Eleanor helped Laya change into pajamas and crawl beneath cool sheets. Then she brought her a glass of water from the bathroom and sat down on the bed beside her. “All set, kiddo?”

“Uh-huh. I’m glad you’re here, Elle,” Laya said sleepily.

“Me too, Mahal.” The Filipino term of endearment, which she’d heard Ama and Tessa both use, slipped out, and she remembered Luis and Sasha discussing the tendency of the dominant culture to misappropriate the language of the oppressed minority. In this case, she represented the dominant culture, even though Tessa had more money than many third-world nations, according to O magazine.

Laya picked up Eleanor’s hand, turned it over, and placed her much smaller palm against it. “Mommy needed a friend. She was lonely. I mean, I’ve got Luke and Rayann,” she said, naming two of her regular playdate pals back in L.A., both of whose parents were film bigwigs of some sort, “but she didn’t have anyone. That’s why I wanted her to meet you.”

Eleanor blinked, trying to decide which line of questioning to pursue. It probably didn’t mean anything that Tessa had failed to introduce Laya to any of the men she’d been linked to in the press. Or, apparently, to any women, for that matter. “What do you mean, you wanted her to meet me?”

“She came to school with me that one time because I asked her to. I knew she would love you as much as I do and now she does.” Laya yawned, squeaking like a puppy one of Eleanor’s students back in Boston had brought to school for show-and-tell.

Eleanor smoothed the girl’s hair back from her face. “I love you too, Laya.”

“Ditto, pal,” she said, a reply that Eleanor knew drove her mother crazy. Then she rubbed her eyes with her fists. “Do you mind if we don’t read a story tonight? I’m ’zausted.”

“I don’t mind. Sleep well, sweetie. See you in the morning.”

“Not if I see you first,” Laya mumbled, eyes already closed as she recited the line Ama had taught her years before.

Eleanor brushed her lips against the girl’s forehead and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. So Tessa hadn’t come to school that first time to scrutinize her teaching skills, as Eleanor had believed, but rather at Laya’s behest. Why, then, had she come back?

Downstairs, the feeling of familiarity continued as she and Tessa stood together at the kitchen sink finishing up the dishes. They talked about Laya as they worked, Tessa sharing stories of past trips to Kauai and the scrapes she’d managed to get herself into with the assistance willing participation of the other kids from Camp Hyatt sometimes, Ama and Dani’s grandchildren at others.

“Speaking of scrapes,” Tessa added as they carried their wineglasses out onto the patio where a wicker love seat faced the ocean, “yours didn’t seem to bother you today.”

Her road rash had scabbed over rapidly, so much so that Eleanor had almost forgotten about the accident. “No, I’m fine,” she said, sitting down on one side of the love seat and gazing up at the sky. Tinged pink by sunset, it stretched toward the distant point where ocean and sky melded into a single line.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Tessa said. “You had me worried.”

“Did I?” She glanced over and felt her breath catch at Tessa’s beauty—those dark eyes and long lashes, her mane of curls and full lips. Eleanor had thought that with time she might become accustomed to the way Tessa looked, but whenever she focused on her, she still felt the same jolt, the same sense of incredulity that this stunning woman was with her. Not that they were really with each other, she reminded herself, glancing back out at the ocean.

After a moment, Tessa took a swallow of wine, set her glass on an end table and said, her tone light, “So I have a question for you.”

Relieved by the mood change, Eleanor said, “Shoot.”

“What does your middle initial stand for? I saw you write it on the waiver this morning.”

She took a quick gulp of her own wine, thinking fast. She couldn’t really tell her, could she? “Right. Well, I’m gonna have to plead the fifth on that one.”

“Come on. You know I could find out if I wanted to.”

That was undoubtedly true. Gazing out across the idyllic scenery, Eleanor thought that nothing seemed real here. Or was it the opposite, that everything seemed more real here?

“All right,” she said, “but don’t laugh. Promise?”

“No.”

She was going to laugh. This was why Eleanor didn’t tell people. “It’s Rigby.”

“As in…?”

“Yes, as in the Beatles song. Apparently it was my parents’ favorite song of all time. Personally, I think they were high when they picked my name. Vermont in the ’70s—you do the math.”

Tessa was laughing openly now. “Go Mr. and Mrs. Chapin. But isn’t that song about a woman who never got married? Do you think that’s why you’re gay?”

“Shut it,” Eleanor said, elbowing her.

Unexpectedly, Tessa caught her arm and tugged her closer. What was she doing? Only Eleanor knew—it was what she’d wanted to do herself but couldn’t quite work up the nerve. Tessa took the wineglass from her and set it on the end table. Then, her eyes on Eleanor’s mouth, she murmured, “If you don’t want me to kiss you, you might want to say so now.”

Finally, Eleanor thought, and closed her eyes as she leaned in. Then they were kissing, lips pressing together tentatively at first, and then more insistently as the heat rose quickly between them. Tessa tasted of lip balm and red wine, the scent of roses mixed with an earthier fragrance wafting from her skin. For a moment, Eleanor couldn’t breathe without filling her lungs with air that passed from Tessa’s lips to hers, couldn’t focus on anything except the feel of Tessa’s mouth burning against hers. Then—she was making out with Tessa Flanagan, she thought incongruously. And just like that, the realization of who she was kissing kicked her out of the moment.

As if sensing the change, Tessa pulled back. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” Eleanor shook her head and stood up, trying to put some distance between them. The breeze off the hillside felt cooler suddenly, and she wrapped her arms around her body.

After a moment, Tessa came to stand beside her, carefully separate. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you wanted to.”

“I did,” Eleanor said. “I’m just not sure…”

“It’s okay,” Tessa said, her voice cool. “I shouldn’t have… Let’s just pretend it never happened, okay?” And she turned away, heading inside.

Eleanor stayed where she was, watching Tessa through the picture window as she strode across the living room and vanished up the stairs. Why had she stopped? Was she crazy? Tessa Flanagan wanted her and Eleanor wanted her right back. But for her, it was more than simple desire. She already cared way too much about both Flanagans at this point to protect herself if sex was all Tessa wanted. Right now, she couldn’t begin to guess what Tessa wanted from her other than sex. Which would be amazing, she thought, her pulse speeding up again, thighs tingling as she thought about the touch of Tessa’s lips on hers. If a simple kiss could get her this hot, what would the feel of Tessa’s naked body against hers do?

If she had any sense, she would run upstairs this instant and throw herself at Tessa. But what if Tessa turned her away? Maybe it had been a temporary, one-time-only offer born of the exhilaration of ziplining, the romance of Kauai.

“Damn it,” Eleanor muttered, hunching her shoulders. Now what? She couldn’t go upstairs yet. She sat back down on the love seat and picked up her wineglass. No need to let the alcohol go to waste. Like everything else she owned, Tessa’s wine selection consisted only of the finest labels.

One of these things is not like the other, Eleanor thought, lifting the glass to her lips.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 589