Chapter Twenty-Three

Eleanor hadn’t managed to finish all six of Jane Austen’s novels over the summer as intended. Somewhere along the way the plan had lost impetus, and now as she settled into life in Madison without Tessa and Laya, she was glad she’d left Northanger Abbey for last. Its purposeful melodrama and tongue-in-cheek discussion of what made a suitable heroine perfectly suited the way she felt as, each night after she’d made a dent in her abundant homework, she opened Austen’s earliest novel and read until her eyes drooped and she could no longer hold up the book. Often during those first weeks in Wisconsin she awoke to her alarm only to find the novel resting on her chest, bedside lamp still shining. Each time this happened, she remembered the light in Tessa’s bedroom ingeniously hooked up to The Clapper.

Despite the fact that she was in an entirely new location, somehow nearly everything still managed to remind her of L.A., a situation not helped in the least by the prevalence of Tessa’s face and story in the news. Eleanor had learned of Tessa’s father’s death while driving along the 15 near Rancho Cucamonga on the Sunday morning she and Sasha left L.A. (a day earlier than planned) when Allen called to see if they’d heard. She’d actually considered turning the car around and going back to L.A. to comfort Tessa, but Sasha had squeezed her hand and cast her a look that reminded her of her mantra: “Clean break, clean break, clean break.” As if there could be a word more appropriate than “excruciating” or “agonizing” to modify “break.”

The drive across the western half of the country had seemed to take forever, but now that it was over, she didn’t remember most of it. She and Sasha had taken turns at the wheel, and Sasha had done a tremendous job at keeping her mind off what she was leaving behind, partially by gamely staying awake most of the hours she wasn’t driving and partially by bringing along a variety of entertainment options. There were plentiful books on tape (many pinched from the holdings at her firm, which provided audio books as a service to its employees to help prevent road rage), several boxes of Trivial Pursuit cards, and assorted road trip games they vaguely remembered from childhood and modified now as they saw fit.

But Sasha couldn’t be expected to stay awake the entire time, especially not crossing the monotonous western plains where an occasional abandoned farmhouse was often the only object to break the otherwise flat landscape. The day they crossed Nebraska, Eleanor was alone for hours at a time with only her thoughts and whatever iPod playlist Sasha had selected before dozing off. She watched the miles roll past and thought about Tessa and Laya and wondered if a clean break was really what she wanted, after all. Wasn’t she being a coward by turning tail and running? Shouldn’t she have given Tessa another chance, or at least said goodbye in person?

The night after she left Tessa’s, Eleanor had gone out for sushi with Sasha, Allen and Luis, all of whom had assured her that she was right to walk away. In fact, they agreed, it was really her only choice. While trust might be a hard commodity to come by in cynical Hollywood, it was nevertheless a basic requirement for any serious relationship. Eleanor and Tessa had had a good time, and they’d even fallen in love, Sasha had pointed out, Luis and Allen nodding in agreement, but Tessa evidently wasn’t ready or able to commit to the next level. Eleanor couldn’t do all the committing. Better to learn now than later.

Intellectually, Eleanor suspected that she had made the right decision. As soon as Tessa had admitted she wasn’t sure what to think, their relationship was basically over. Eleanor just didn’t feel like it was over. What was more, she didn’t want it to be. She still wanted to fall asleep next to Tessa every night and wake up to the sound of Laya’s footsteps in the hall. She missed them both so much, more than she missed her mother, more than she’d ever missed anyone. She had fallen in love with them both, and now a life without the Flanagans seemed dismal, colorless.

At least she still heard from Laya regularly. Tessa’s daughter called her every few days and Skyped her at least once a week. The first time she’d heard the “Life in the Fast Lane” ring tone, she and Sasha had been crossing Utah. Eleanor had literally gasped (a reaction Sasha had kindly ignored) and let the call go to voice mail, simultaneously relieved and disappointed a few minutes later when she heard Laya’s childish tones through her Bluetooth headset. Laya sometimes e-mailed too, her typing skills as freakishly advanced as other kids of her socio-economic status but her spelling and vocabulary skills clearly signaling her age. The day she arrived in Madison, Eleanor received an e-mail to which Laya had attached one of the pre-Spago photos of Eleanor and Tessa in their Oscar finery, Laya between them, all three looking so happy as they posed together that Eleanor promptly burst into tears.

Fortunately, she managed to hold it together during her regular chats, video and otherwise, with Laya. She knew that Tessa had to be involved in these contacts, monitoring her daughter’s technology usage, but Tessa stayed in the background, apparently respecting the instructions in the Dear John letter Eleanor increasingly regretted leaving on the bedside table that last morning.

Grad school, once it started, took up significant space, ably distracting her from her broken heart for whole hours at a time. There were meetings and classes to attend, names to learn, endless studying. She was only taking two classes this first semester, but they were doozies: “Advanced Psychological Statistics” and “Applied Behavior Analysis.” The older grad students assured the handful of newbies that the first semester was the hardest, both in terms of work levels and expectations. The professors wanted to weed out anyone who wasn’t entirely committed. As long as the new cohort of students attended every class, did their reading and turned in the requisite work on time, the older students told them, they would be fine. So Eleanor willingly plunged into the work and used Northanger Abbey to fill in the odd moment when she wasn’t reading or thinking about high-level statistics or experimentally derived principles of behavior.

Her fellow classmates were all younger, as anticipated, and prone to complaint, she’d discovered when she attended a group study session in the library the first week of classes. Three others were women and two were men, and they all seemed more interested in gossiping about their professors and the older students and complaining about the massive workload than actually tackling the statistics project they were supposed to complete by the following class meeting. After inventing a headache, Eleanor went home to her mostly unpacked apartment and decided that studying was probably going to be more of a lone-wolf endeavor. Good thing she loved her apartment—its high ceilings made the space seem bigger than it actually was, and the kitchen and bathroom had both been recently remodeled. As she’d predicted, it was nice to be surrounded by her own furniture and family photos again, even if she wasn’t surrounded by the people she’d come to think of as family.

While her classmates seemed uniformly uninteresting, Reed, the music student she’d met in August, had invited her to brunch with a handful of local lesbians her first weekend in town. Some were grad students at the university, others professionals of varying ilk who had moved to Madison to enjoy the college town’s reputation as a lesbian-friendly community, an apparently rare commodity outside of the region’s big cities. She was just getting to know these women, but already Eleanor sensed the possibility of a social network similar to the one she’d enjoyed in Boston, where Smith and Mt. Holyoke and even Wellesley alums had congregated in great numbers, their petty Seven Sisters rivalries forgotten in the face of a world that didn’t particularly prize recent women’s college graduates.

At the end of brunch, Reed had asked her about Tessa, and Eleanor had smiled tightly. “Neither of us is the long-distance type,” she’d said, and Reed let the subject drop, for which Eleanor was grateful. The news about Tessa had focused on her father’s imprisonment and death. Seemed the press hadn’t yet discovered that Eleanor was no longer living with the Flanagans.

By the time the third Friday in September rolled around, she still wasn’t any closer to getting over Tessa, but she was becoming more settled in her new life. Neither of her classes met on Fridays, so she slept in that morning, got up late, and went for a run along the shores of Lake Mendota, loping along the imaginatively named University Bay Marsh and out along the heavily forested Picnic Point. With its downtown built along the lakefront, Madison reminded her of a larger, more cosmopolitan version of her hometown, Newport, minus the green mountains hulking in the distance. But the air along the lakeshore smelled the same, and it was just as cool on a late September morning in Wisconsin as it would have been in Vermont. Meanwhile, L.A. was probably still stifling. She pictured herself jogging up Runyon Canyon slowly in the sweltering desert heat, weighed down by a half gallon or more of water. She much preferred this type of run. Of course, L.A. offered something Madison couldn’t.

Eleanor allowed herself to imagine what the Flanagans would be doing on a Friday morning. Laya would be in class at Barclay, probably reading or practicing numbers or drawing. She’d been assigned to Mrs. Blakely, an older English woman who had been exceedingly kind to Eleanor during her short tenure at the school. Tessa, meanwhile, would probably be downtown in the high-rise she’d pointed out to Eleanor as future home of the as-yet unnamed foundation. Or maybe they’d named it by now. Eleanor was still trying to steer clear of media coverage of her now ex-girlfriend. Given the usual span of the celebrity news cycle, the story of Tessa’s family history had blown over by now. Which was good and bad, Eleanor thought—good because she didn’t have to accidentally encounter repeated images of Tessa everywhere she turned, bad for the same exact reason.

The previous weekend, she’d fallen off the wagon and spent Sunday afternoon watching the comic book trilogy Tessa had starred in, back-to-back on DVD. How was she supposed to forget about Tessa when all she had to do was load a disc in the DVD player and suddenly there she was, dashing across the screen looking gorgeous and a tad butch in close-fitting cargo pants and a safari shirt unbuttoned lower than it really needed to be. Midway through the film fest, Sasha had called to see what she was up to, and Eleanor had muted the television and said, “Homework.” Sighing audibly, Sasha had ordered her to turn off the TV that instant and go for a walk. Obediently, Eleanor had done so. But she’d returned to watch the third movie before falling asleep that night and dreaming of Mele Honu’ala. What she wouldn’t have given for a glimpse of the lagoon from the soothing waters of the hot tub there, the feel of Tessa’s skin slick against hers, the scent of chlorine and jasmine rising about them…

Pushing thoughts of Hawaii from her head, Eleanor tried to focus on her breathing and the dappling of sunlight through the oak and elm trees and off the lake as she ran. She was happy, she told herself. Or if not now, she would someday be happy here in her new home.

Back at the apartment, she showered and fixed herself a veggie omelet with the last few slices of smoked gouda. Sasha had taken her shopping before she flew back to L.A., splurging on all of Eleanor’s favorite foods as a housewarming gift. When mending a broken heart, Sasha had reminded her, it was important not to skimp on the little things that made you happy.

As she dug into the omelet at her kitchen table, an IKEA purchase now seeing her through a third breakup, Eleanor cracked open her Applied Behavior textbook and picked up reading where she’d left off. The weekend stretched dauntingly before her. Except for drinks with Reed and her girlfriend tomorrow night, she didn’t have any plans for the other sixty-odd hours facing her between now and Monday. Probably she should call someone in her class. One of the women, Rachel, a twenty-five-year old from Chattanooga, seemed okay one-on-one, away from the group. Maybe she would want to check out the local indie movie theater. Assuming she didn’t worry Eleanor was hitting on her.

In the first week of classes, she’d discovered that out of the thirty or so students in her program, she was the only lesbian, a fact that neither surprised nor thrilled her. Her graduate experience in Wisconsin was going to be very different from her undergrad experience, she’d already deduced, for a variety of factors—most notably the size of the student body (40,000 at U-W versus 2,800 at Smith), gender makeup and sexuality, in that order. There was an active GLBT group on campus, she’d learned, but she didn’t walk around campus with her gaydar going off constantly like she had at Smith. Definitely different.

She spent the next few hours on her Applied Behavior reading, only stopping for food and beverage breaks, and was finally feeling reasonably caught up to the rest of the class, all of whom were much closer to their undergraduate studies and none of whom appeared to be suffering from a broken heart, when her cell phone rang. Sasha.

“Yo, sistah,” Eleanor said, just to mess with her.

But Sasha only said, “Did you ever hook up your cable?”

“Right after you left. Why?”

“Do me a favor and pull up the onscreen guide.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, but Sasha didn’t respond to this comment either. Something was clearly up.

Eleanor moved the five paces from her kitchen table to her coffee table (the kitchen and living area were opposite ends of a single extended room) and picked up the universal remote. “What am I looking for?” she asked as she pulled up the guide. Cable came with the apartment—Jonah, the young econ professor who owned the house and lived on the first floor, let the upstairs tenant piggyback off his cable for free. A techie, he had outfitted the house with broadband wireless Internet access, also free. This was one of the reasons Eleanor felt okay paying a slightly higher monthly rent.

“I want to confirm when Noelle airs in your little Podunk town,” Sasha said.

Noelle Robinson was a former model turned talk show host trying her best to rival Oprah and Ellen for daytime supremacy. An out lesbian and lifelong Chicago resident, she had dated Tempest Maxwell, one of the leading point guards in the WNBA, throughout the late 1990s and well into the 2000s. Until they split up, she and Tempest had been one of the best-known African American lesbian power couples.

Eleanor scrolled through the guide. “She’s on in fifteen minutes. Since when are you interested in Noelle?”

“It’s for you, not me,” Sasha said. “Check the info on the show and make sure it’s not a repeat.”

Eleanor read the description of the episode aloud: “All new. Stars of Reality TV, plus the best omelet ever—a little late for that—and how to find a bathing suit that fits. Okay, Sash, what gives? You know I don’t watch reality TV, so that can’t possibly be the draw.”

“You’re going to want to watch this one, Elle,” Sasha said. “Or so my sources tell me.”

Her sources? She didn’t mean… Eleanor stopped the thought before it could leech into her consciousness. “I can’t. I have a ton of reading.”

“And zero social plans for the weekend, I’m guessing.”

“Wrong. I’m going out for drinks with Reed and her girlfriend tomorrow night.”

“Ooh, look out Madison.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Wait,” Sasha said quickly. “Just promise me you’ll give the show a chance. Please? I gave someone my word, and I don’t like to lie.”

“You’re an attorney. You live to lie.”

“At work, yes. But this is personal.”

Eleanor allowed her earlier suspicion its full form. “Does this have something to do with Tessa?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Sasha obfuscated, “but it would behoove you to find out. Gotta run. Call me later.” And the line clicked.

Eleanor turned off the TV and went back to her textbook. She wasn’t about to watch daytime television. She had better things to do with her day. Things that apparently didn’t include studying, she realized as she read for the third time a paragraph about specifying criteria for evaluating the significance of behavior change, the words trying valiantly but failing utterly to penetrate the brain fog Sasha’s call had induced. Eleanor stared at the blank TV screen, still glowing slightly, and hit the power button on the remote. Wasn’t like she had to watch the whole episode.

And yet, that’s exactly what she did. Because as the credits rolled across the screen, the camera panned back and showed the stage with its postcard image of the Chicago skyline, Noelle in her customary armchair chatting with a guest who was most certainly not a Reality TV star. Tessa sat in a matching chair beside her, dressed in a collared shirt and familiar gray trousers, looking wonderful and significantly calmer than Eleanor felt.

“What are you doing?” she demanded of the TV Tessa, and then sat back against her comfy couch to watch as Noelle proceeded to interview her ex-girlfriend about her childhood in Chicago.

Photos accompanied the interview, youthful pictures of Tessa that Eleanor had never seen before, shots in which she looked shell-shocked and sick, pale and overweight, nothing like the healthy, well-adjusted adult Eleanor had come to know. Noelle asked her about the years before she lost her parents, her experiences in the foster system, what it was like growing up knowing that her father had caused her mother’s death.

“Difficult, of course,” Tessa said, her knuckles white on the chair arms. Relax, Eleanor thought, and as if on cue, Tessa took a breath and loosened her grip. “I loved both of my parents and I know they loved each other. I genuinely believe my mother’s death was an accident.”

“And your father?” Noelle prodded. “He died of a heart attack, is that right?”

“Technically. It may sound strange, but I think he really died of a broken heart. His life had become unrecognizable. I think he became unrecognizable to himself.” She looked down, and Noelle nodded sympathetically before asking the next tough question.

She made it a statement: “But you chose not to see him again once you finished high school.”

Tessa lifted her chin bravely. “I decided when I left Chicago fifteen years ago that I wanted nothing more to do with that part of my life. That included my father. I didn’t write to him or see him or speak to him again, not even once. In hindsight, it’s a decision I regret. My refusal to forgive him meant he died completely alone. He was only fifty-eight. I think I thought there’d be more time.”

Noelle nodded understandingly and the audience made sympathetic noises. Then Noelle said they needed to take a break, but to stay tuned for more from Tessa Flanagan after these messages.

Alone in her apartment, Eleanor sat on her couch, stocking feet curled under her, stunned. “You could go on TV and share your story,” she vividly recalled saying the night Tessa told her about her parents. And now here Tessa was, reaching out to the throwaway kids in America. Did that mean she was on-set in Chicago right now? Or had she taped the show another time? Eleanor suddenly wished she’d learned more about the television industry during her sojourn in L.A. Maybe then she’d know the odds of Tessa currently being within driving distance.

There was one way to find out, of course. She glanced at her iPhone resting innocently on the kitchen table a few paces away. She hadn’t deleted Tessa’s cell phone number yet, even though Laya only ever called from the land line. Now she wished she had. The temptation to call was nearly overpowering, just as it had been the day she’d watched six hours of action adventure starring the woman she still wasn’t even close to getting over.

When the show resumed, Noelle inclined her head toward Tessa and said, “I’m sure our audience is asking the same question I asked you during the break. Why now? Why give this interview on national television when you’ve always been so private before?”

“For one thing,” Tessa said, “it’s a little late for privacy. The entertainment press has already ‘pursued the story to its natural conclusion,’ as they like to say. But for another, someone very special to me—”

Eleanor couldn’t help noticing that Tessa’s phrasing made it sound as if this special someone was still in her life.

“—suggested that I might be able to offer hope to kids in similar situations, kids living in foster care without families of their own, who aren’t sure where the next blow will come from. Because I was like that. I didn’t have hope myself.”

“Then what got you to where you are today, if not hope?”

“Stubbornness.”

The audience laughed.

“I’m sayin’.” Eleanor jabbed a finger at the television.

“That’s the Irish in me,” Tessa continued. “And assimilation—that’s my Filipino blood. I kept telling myself that if I could just make it out of high school, get away from Chicago, then everything would be okay. And as it turns out, I was right. I’ve been lucky enough to have a career I loved, I have a beautiful daughter I love even more, and I recently partnered with two terrific women in L.A., Jane and Elizabeth Byerly, to start a charitable foundation that will provide financial assistance to the causes closest to our hearts: HIV/AIDS education and prevention, poverty assistance, domestic violence prevention and aid, anti-bullying programs and other children’s issues.”

“Does this organization have a name?” Noelle asked.

“It does. We’ve decided to call ourselves The Mercy Foundation, for my mother, Benita Reyes. Her middle name was Mercidita.”

“The Mercy Foundation,” Noelle said, nodding at the audience. “I like that.”

They talked about the foundation for a few minutes, then took another break, during which Eleanor called Sasha. She reached voice mail and left a lengthy, slightly rambling message about how this wasn’t helping the clean break and remember, Sasha was the one who had convinced her to remain incommunicado with Tessa. Damn it.

When the show came back again, she dropped back down on the couch and listened attentively as Noelle said, “Now, you told me during the break that this is your first time back in Chicago in more than fifteen years. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Tessa said. “I had the opportunity to do some film work here, but my agent knew I wouldn’t accept a job if it required me to be on location in the city.”

“Wow. You weren’t fooling around,” Noelle said, glancing at her audience who provided the requisite laughter. “What changed your mind? Let me guess—was it that same special someone?”

Tessa nodded, glancing at the audience.

“And is that someone very special still in your life today?”

Tessa paused, and Eleanor held her breath. “No, she isn’t. Not currently.”

Not currently. What did that mean?

But Noelle was interested in a different angle on what Tessa had just said. “She,” she repeated. “Does this mean the tabloid rumors about your sexuality are true? You haven’t commented one way or another.”

“Yes,” Tessa said, and looked into the camera. “I’m a lesbian. I always have been.” And she shrugged nonchalantly, offering one of her trademark raised eyebrow smiles.

“Dang, girl,” Noelle said, fanning herself with her note cards. She exchanged another look with her audience, who tittered nervously. “When you decide to give an interview, you don’t kid around, do you?”

In her apartment, Eleanor wished she had someone to exchange a high five with. Tessa had just come out publicly on national television—the first American A-list movie star ever to do so. People would be talking about this moment for years. It was almost too much to fathom.

Onscreen, Noelle was asking Tessa why coming to terms with her sexuality had taken so long, and Eleanor winced. She knew that this often incorrect assumption was a sore point for gay and lesbian actors, the same way GLBT teachers fumed over accusations of pedophilia.

“In fact,” Tessa said, her smile nowhere to be seen, “it was never much of an issue from my point of view. It was probably easier for me than for other people, to be honest.”

Noelle gave one of her trademark What you talkin’ about, Willis? looks, and Tessa continued.

“What I mean is, I didn’t have parents to disappoint, or anyone else to disapprove of me. The first time I fell in love, shortly after I moved to L.A., it was wonderful. I finally felt like I knew who I was.”

“If you knew who you were all those years ago, then why are you just now sharing the news with the rest of the world?”

“What kept me from being open was the same thing that keeps other gays and lesbians firmly in the closet—the fear of losing my job. In Hollywood there’s this belief that coming out ruins careers. Studio executives are convinced that the public won’t buy a gay actor in a straight role. The thing is, American audiences certainly accept straight actors who play gay for pay. Why not the reverse?”

“Gay for pay,” Noelle echoed. “Admit it, you stole that line from the L Word.”

Tessa’s eyebrow quirked. “You got me.” Then she turned serious again. “But just look at Brokeback Mountain and Milk, both of which won multiple Oscars. Or Felicity Huffman’s brilliant performance in Transamerica. Why is it that sexuality doesn’t matter when a straight actor plays a gay character, but it does when a gay actor plays straight? Success in Hollywood is supposed to be based on the performer’s ability to play a convincing game of pretend. Shouldn’t I be proof enough that gays and lesbians can successfully play it straight on the big screen, just as Heath and Sean and Felicity showed the opposite?”

“You’re preaching to the choir here, my friend,” Noelle said, nodding. “But I guess we’ll have to let American audiences decide the answer to that one.”

The show wound down then. As the end credits rolled and the camera panned out from the stage, Eleanor leaned back against her couch and released a pent-up breath. Could people really change, she thought, remembering Sasha’s claim. Tessa had seemed warm and open on Noelle’s show, as if she truly had nothing more to hide nor any desire to do so. What did it mean? Other than she had retired from acting too soon.

She knew Tessa had learned early on that she’d had nothing to do with the leak. Luis had called while they were still in Utah to tell them that prison officials had found certain documents in Tessa’s father’s personal effects indicating that she was his daughter, Mary Therese O’Neil. The information had found its way to the press from an enterprising member of Tessa’s own publicist’s staff, who had promptly been fired and even more quickly snapped up by a rival agency and given the promotion such a stunt usually earned in Hollywood. Typical, Sasha and Luis had agreed.

Eleanor had wondered if she would hear from Tessa when the source of the leak had been publicly identified, but no dice. Tessa was thoroughly respecting the wishes outlined in a letter Eleanor had written at five in the morning on an hour’s sleep, tops, with a hangover impairing any and all judgment. When the sun had come up later that morning, she’d already been at Sasha’s. As the day arrived and things didn’t seem quite as desperate as they had in the middle of the night, she’d wished she’d observed the same rule she used with e-mail—she never allowed herself to send a potentially contentious or emotional e-mail until a twenty-four hour cooling period had passed and she’d reread her missive from a more rational space. But Sasha and Allen and Luis had assured her she’d done the right thing, and Tessa had maintained complete silence even as the story of her hidden history boiled over and then abated.

Curling onto her side, Eleanor closed her eyes. She was happy for Tessa that she had finally freed herself from the burden of her secrets, proud of her for using her experiences to try to help those who were considerably less fortunate in circumstance. But the “currently” Tessa had invoked during the interview kept coming back to Eleanor. Did Tessa think she would be back in her life at some point?

Her phone beeped, alerting her to a new text message. Sasha—the little shit hadn’t even had the nerve to call back. She grabbed her phone from the coffee table, then almost dropped it as she read the sender’s name: Tessa. Eleanor licked suddenly dry lips, opened the message and read, “Just wondering if you wanted to talk about the show? I have it on good authority that you got a chance to see it this afternoon.”

Eleanor knew exactly who the authority was. What she didn’t know was why Sasha had all of a sudden changed teams. She stared at the words inscribed on the iPhone screen. She didn’t have to answer. There was nothing to prevent her from deleting the message and pretending she’d never read it. But New Englanders weren’t very good at playing pretend. Not even the ones who made a career out of teaching kindergarten.

“I wouldn’t call her good,” she typed in reply. “But congratulations on the show. You did beautifully.” She hesitated, then hit send.

“You didn’t answer my question,” the reply came back almost immediately. “Do you want to talk? Please. I’m sorry about L.A. I’ve missed you. Terribly.”

The neat words flashing on her iPhone screen melted Eleanor’s resolve, but she shored it up again. Tessa had all but accused her of betrayal. Although now, in hindsight, it was possible she’d overreacted. Just possible that she’d been so worried and upset about leaving L.A. that she’d subconsciously used their disagreement as a means of lessening her guilt at leaving Tessa, who had been abandoned by everyone who had ever loved her. Possible, though not likely.

“Maybe,” she typed. She hesitated again. “Are you in Chicago?”

“Not anymore.” The answer came back immediately, and Eleanor tried not to notice that Tessa had come within a hundred and fifty miles of Madison without even trying to get in touch with her.

Then the phone beeped again, and she read, “Come outside.”

It only took her a second to realize what the message meant. She leapt off the couch, then looked down at her pajama pants and ratty Smith T-shirt with holes in both armpits. This would never do.

“Just a sec,” she texted back, and raced into her bedroom. Good thing she’d taken a shower after her run. Two minutes, a pair of jeans and clean shirt, and a quick brushing of teeth and hair later, she was opening the hall door and jogging down the steps to the main hallway she shared with her landlord. Taking a deep breath, she turned the doorknob and stepped outside. Parked at the end of the stone walkway beneath the elm trees that shaded the front yard was a limo with tinted windows. As Eleanor watched, Tessa emerged from the car clad in the same outfit she’d worn on Noelle, and gazed up at her with eyes that Eleanor could tell even from here held nothing but hope.

She stood motionless on the porch, trying to fix the image in her mind. She wasn’t sure what would happen next, couldn’t have said for certain what she wanted. But that wasn’t entirely true. She just didn’t know what Tessa wanted, or if their individual desires would fit together again the way they had before she’d left L.A.

One way to find out. She started down the steps.

What do you do when your worst fears are realized? Sometimes you figure out that what you dreaded all those years isn’t nearly as powerful as your fear itself.

Over the past few weeks, Tessa had buried her estranged father, withstood yet another press onslaught into her personal life, and gradually come to realize that the revelation of her family’s history had not led to any particular earth-shattering change other than Eleanor’s disappearance.

Only she wasn’t ready to let go of this sweet, intractable woman she’d come to love and rely on. So, with Melody’s assistance, she’d devised a strategy that would allow her to reach out in the exact way Eleanor had suggested. The foundation was designed to help people in need, but it offered a form of assistance that would allow her to maintain a careful distance from the people it served. The route Eleanor had advocated was necessarily messier and meant revealing more of herself than she really wanted to. But perhaps by embracing the disparate halves of her life and holding them out for the world to see, she would be able to meld the distinct before and after chunks into a single, seamless entity.

And if she didn’t manage such a transformation, at least this way she might be able to help someone other than herself even as she attempted to convince Eleanor she was worthy of a second chance. She wasn’t sure that baring all would be interpreted as anything other than an exercise in typical Hollywood narcissism, but Eleanor seemed to think she had something to offer. That was enough for Tessa.

Now Eleanor was walking toward her down the walkway Tessa recognized from the Google street view images she’d pored over these last weeks, imagining Elle going about her new life in the green, lake-strewn Midwestern city. As she drew closer, Tessa stared at her, drinking in the way she walked quickly but not too fast, the look on her face simultaneously tough and vulnerable. She looked different in warm-weather clothes—jeans and a long-sleeved shirt—instead of the summer gear Tessa was used to, her hair fastened back from her face in a single barrette. She looked wonderful. She looked like herself.

They met at the gate, and Tessa smiled hesitantly. “Hi,” she said, the apology she’d planned slipping away as her gaze found Eleanor’s. She’d forgotten what a look from those clear, open eyes could do to her.

“Hi,” Eleanor said.

Then, before Tessa had a chance to work her way into her prepared apology, Eleanor was throwing her arms around Tessa and covering her lips in a fervent kiss. She tasted like toothpaste. Tessa wrapped her arms around Eleanor’s neck and kissed her back, moaning a little as their tongues met. God, even better than she’d remembered.

Eventually it occurred to her that they were making out in broad daylight on a Wisconsin city street in broad view of anyone who happened by. She pulled back, keeping her hands locked behind Eleanor’s neck. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, you shit.”

“I was a shit, wasn’t I? Can you forgive me? Again?”

“Of course,” Eleanor said. “It’s one of the first lessons I teach my kids—everyone makes mistakes. But is this what you meant when you told Noelle I wasn’t ‘currently’ in your life? Were you planning all along to show up here and sweep me off my feet?”

“Planning’s a bit strong, but I was hoping. I thought I better not give you a heads-up, though. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about seeing me.”

“I’m thrilled to see you,” Eleanor said.

“Ditto, pal,” she said, smirking, then laughed as Eleanor pushed her away.

A few minutes later they were upstairs sitting cross-legged on the couch facing each other and trying to get caught up on everything that had happened during their few weeks apart. Tessa informed Eleanor that Laya was adjusting to first grade and liking her role as a bigger girl and presently enjoying a few days at Rayann’s house. The foundation was open for business, she added, and Eleanor congratulated her on the milestone and complimented her on the name choice. Tessa asked her how school was going and listened as Eleanor explained that even though classes were only a couple of weeks in, they were already harder than she’d expected. But Reed, the lesbian she’d met back in August, and her girlfriend were nice and had introduced her to some other cool women. So far, she said, Madison was living up to her expectations in a mostly good way.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Tessa said, tracing the back of Eleanor’s hand with a finger. “I’ve been trying to get information out of Laya after every call. I was hoping what happened between us wouldn’t muck up things for you here.”

Eleanor turned her hand over, intertwining their fingers. “I’m sorry I left like I did. I could have at least said goodbye instead of leaving you that awful note.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You were right to leave, Elle. I didn’t deserve you.” Tessa leaned in to kiss her again, slowly, lingeringly. She wanted to deserve her now. She needed to deserve her. Life made more sense when Eleanor was in it.

They made out for long minutes, tongues dipping into each other’s mouths languidly before retreating, lips touching lightly then more firmly as the kiss deepened. Tessa lifted her hands to Eleanor’s collarbone, then trailed her fingers downward, feeling Eleanor’s nipples tauten and strain beneath her touch. As Eleanor caressed her breasts in return, Tessa moved one hand between Eleanor’s legs, feeling the damp heat through her jeans. She stifled a groan against Eleanor’s mouth. It had been way too long. She didn’t think she could wait any longer.

“I need to taste you,” she murmured against Eleanor’s mouth.

“God, yes,” Eleanor returned, her breath coming quicker.

Tessa slipped to the floor and knelt before her, helping as Eleanor quickly pushed her jeans and panties down. Then she slid her hands beneath Eleanor and pulled her forward to the edge of the couch. A familiar scent reached her, and she breathed in deeply as she pressed Eleanor’s legs apart. She lowered her face to Eleanor’s wet center, parting the folds and stroking her with her tongue first lightly, then more firmly, sliding from the tip of her clit to the slick opening below and back again. She’d barely even started when suddenly, Eleanor’s hips rose up off the couch and she cried out, sounding nearly as surprised as Tessa felt. Whoah. That was not part of the plan.

Above her, Eleanor was laughing sheepishly. “Well, shit,” she said. “Is this what guys feel like when they ejaculate too soon?”

“Ew,” Tessa said as she resettled on the couch beside her. “Thanks for that mental image.”

“You should be flattered,” Eleanor said, leaning her forehead against Tessa’s. “Shows how much I missed you.”

“Or what a hussy you are.”

“Hey, now.” Eleanor smacked the side of her hip lightly.

“You can do better than that,” Tessa said teasingly.

The next thing she knew, Eleanor had flipped her over onto her stomach and was tugging her trousers and undies down over the back of her legs. Tessa lifted her hips helpfully, burrowing further into the obscenely comfortable couch. This was the infamous Sears find? And then she forgot about the couch as Eleanor lay back down and slipped one hand between her legs. Tessa closed her eyes, the ache inside growing as Eleanor’s fingers explored her, brushing here, rubbing lightly there. Then she felt the tip of Eleanor’s thumb circling her opening, sliding in a little, then retreating, entering again a tiny bit, pulling out once more. Tessa bore this teasing for as long as she could, and then all at once she pushed back against Eleanor’s hand, taking her thumb as deeply as possible and rubbing her clit against Eleanor’s fingers. Almost immediately Eleanor withdrew, tormenting Tessa again with feather-light touches. Finally she moaned in frustration.

“What was that?” Eleanor breathed against her neck.

“Please,” Tessa whispered. “Please, Eleanor.”

She felt Eleanor shift, and there was her thumb again, her beautiful, talented thumb filling Tessa, withdrawing, surging into her again as her long fingers caressed her clit. There was nothing teasing about her touch now, only purpose, and Tessa surged back against her on the couch, then forward, then back again in a rhythm they set together, waves of feeling mounting inside her until the pulsing built to a climax and she thrust herself back on Eleanor’s thumb one last time, her muscles tensing and releasing as colors broke against her eyelids and she heard her own voice, as if from a distance, raised in wordless exclamation.

“Sweet Jesus,” she murmured as her heartbeat slowed and Eleanor kissed her shoulder.

Beside her, Eleanor slipped an arm around her waist and said, her voice low, “I love you, you know.”

“I love you too,” Tessa said, her breath evening out. She smiled, eyes still closed. “Even if your parents gave you a lame middle name.”

“Watch it,” Eleanor said, and pinched her ass lightly. “I do have one question, though.”

“What’s that?”

“How did you get Sasha to come over to the dark side? She was pretty set against you, especially after the road trip out here.”

“She was a tough sell,” Tessa admitted. “But in the end she saw the light. She wants you to be happy and so do I.”

A little while later they moved into Eleanor’s tiny, high-ceilinged bedroom, where they shed the remainder of their clothing and made love again, Indigo Girls playing in the background. The first time, they’d been unable to get close enough as fast as they both needed, but now they moved together more slowly, taking their time as they relearned curves and slopes and sensitive spots. Afterward they lay on their backs talking in low voices, touching each other as if they couldn’t bear the thought of separating.

“Did you know,” Tessa said, her head on Eleanor’s shoulder, “that your school here has the first-ever program for the study of wildlife management?”

“Laya told you that, didn’t she.”

“She did. Looks like Smith might have some competition for her future allegiance.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that.”

They were a we again, Tessa thought, breathing in the familiar scent of Eleanor’s skin. She had missed her so much, and she would miss her again when it came time to fly back to L.A., to Laya and their life in California. For now, distance and loneliness would remain a necessary part of her relationship with Eleanor. But not the way it had been the last few weeks. Now when she went to bed alone in her house thousands of miles away, she would know that Eleanor was here in Madison thinking about her, missing her, loving her.

The distance wouldn’t last forever. There were holidays and summer breaks and maybe even, somewhere down the road, a move for Tessa and her daughter to someplace that would feel more like home. The foundation would practically run itself soon, and she could do fundraising work from anywhere. Noelle had hinted just that morning that with Tessa now embracing her Chicago roots, the Windy City might present “a unique opportunity” for the Mercy Foundation. She and Laya and Eleanor would be a family again at some point, and maybe eventually they’d even add a fourth. After all, Eleanor had mentioned she might like a child of her own, and Tessa had all that sperm banked in Switzerland…

But she was getting ahead of herself, ahead of the two of them. She didn’t want to think about the future. For now she wanted to enjoy the sensation of lying naked and entwined with her girlfriend in her upstairs apartment, surrounded by Eleanor’s books and clothes and belongings. For so long their relationship had taken place in L.A., where Tessa’s history and the expectations of her former profession had formed a dual albatross about their necks. It was a relief to be someplace new with Eleanor, a place where they could be new together.

“How does it feel to be out in every meaning of the word?” Eleanor asked.

“Awesome,” Tessa said, and smiled at her in the autumnal light that slanted through the window above the bed. “How does it feel to you?”

“Not bad.” Eleanor stretched. “I just wish my mom could have met you.”

“I know what you mean.”

They lay quietly together for a little while longer until almost in unison their stomachs began to growl. Then they pulled on clothes and padded out to the kitchen to scrounge up dinner.

As they leaned together looking into the open refrigerator, Eleanor asked, “Can we call Laya?”

“Of course. She would love it.”

“Was she upset after I left? I couldn’t really tell on the phone.”

“Nah, she kept saying that everything would work out and we would see you again soon.”

“Smart kid,” Eleanor said. She focused on the refrigerator again and pursed her lips. “How about—”

“Tofu stir-fry?”

“I was going to say shrimp stir-fry.”

“Even better.”

They set about making dinner in the warm kitchen at the back of the old house, while outside the sun set and the air cooled and the leaves on the trees rustled in the breeze. And it was just like the summer they’d spent together, only better, Tessa thought, pausing to kiss the back of Eleanor’s neck as she drifted past in the open kitchen. The only thing missing was Laya, and soon enough they’d all be together again.

“I love you,” Eleanor said, smiling over her shoulder.

“Good thing,” Tessa said, and kissed her again.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 640