I SLEPT DEEP and warm beside Daniel, but I dreamed of Mark holding me tight and close, our bodies sweating from the mountain's summer heat, youthful exploration beside a dying campfire. Waking beside Daniel brought security and contentment to my weary body. Physically trying to erase Mark from my mind, I shook my head, then watched Daniel sleep for a few minutes, his chest rising and falling with each breath. I edged over to him and traced the line of hair down his stomach with the tips of my fingers, waiting for him to stir. So innocently, he arched his hips as my hand traveled lower; I knew he had to be awake, so I slid my fingertips back up to his chest. He stretched his arms over his head and yawned; a smile played across his lips. I straddled his chest and pinned his arms to the headboard. "So, Mister Kaperonis, have you any last words?"
"Please be gentle. I'm new to this, and I worry that I might like it." He almost got it out without laughing.
I slid down lower so that we pressed face to face, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, crotch to crotch. "You seem to be wide awake," I said.
He swiveled his hips. "You, too."
I licked his lower lip, still holding his arms against the headboard, then whispered in his ear, "Don't move." The sensation of my body pressed against his, skin touching skin, the heat, the rhythm of our breath, the pulsing of our hearts, bound us as one person. The silence of the night folded around the bed, so that all I knew at that moment was Daniel. Nothing else mattered, no time or place existed outside of us, no history, no threats, no deaths, no secrets, no family. "I wish we could stay like this forever."
He pulled his arms loose from my grip and wrapped them around me. His lips found mine in the dark, and the world dissolved in his kiss.
DANIEL LEFT FOR work while I stayed to clean up after the royal breakfast I had cooked for him. With the last pan and plate stored away, I glanced around the kitchen, the place where he lived day after day. The sun glimmered through the window over the sink, catching a hanging crystal that showered the small kitchen with prism rainbows. I wrote a quick "Thank You" note for the evening and stuck it on the refrigerator door.
Entering the den, I looked around at the room. The ashes from last night's fire lay flaky and gray under the grate; the wool blanket we had shared was still slung over the back of the couch, until I folded and placed it in the leather trunk Daniel used as a coffee table. The wall behind the couch was lined with bookshelves; I ran my hands over the spines and read a few of the titles: mythology, classic and contemporary fiction, current events, biographies of Robert Kennedy, Randolph Hearst, and the Binghams of Louisville.
The self-help books caught my eye. What would a man like Daniel need to improve on? One book on maintaining long-term gay relationships almost jumped into my hands. "Well," I reasoned to myself, "he's bound to have had a few relationships in the past, maybe even a couple of long-lasting ones…" I turned to look at the photographs on the mantel. Some pictures, I assumed, of his family, since the older couple and the two guys and girl with him all had the same dark handsome appearance; in fact, in a picture from the beach, the three buffed brothers stood side by side in front of the breaking waves in nothing but their swim trunks. That could be the makings of some great fantasies, I thought. "Brothers doing it," I mocked an ad I'd seen for a porn video. "The closer the kin, the deeper it goes in." Obviously, the other two brothers were straight, because no gay man would wear those big loose-fitting trunks; Daniel stood in the middle wearing Speedo briefs. As I replaced the beach picture, I saw another it had hidden. A younger Daniel sat on a mountaintop picnic table with a cute blond guy, both in mid-nineties grunge flannel shirts and ripped jeans. I took the photograph down for a better view. The blond looked familiar, but I couldn't place the face. "All blonds look alike," I snipped, and put the picture back.
Some newspapers scattered on the floor next to the bookcases asked to be straightened. I stacked them next to his desk in the corner. A file folder on the desktop got my attention. The label read: Vernon Harris.
Daniel's private file. I wanted to read it, but the betrayal of his privacy weighed me down with the mass of unspoken suspicion. Trust him? Most of the time I trusted him, but how well did I really know him? He wasn't family-yeah, like that would lead to trust.
I glanced around the room, then sat down and carefully opened the folder, trying not to disturb the order of the pages. Several articles, some written by Daniel, filled the file, along with hand-written notes. Descriptions of political positions and past deeds that supported them covered most of the note pages, but one page had my name on it. I read it quickly, not believing he had written the words. My head spun as I finished. Placing the file back in its original position, I pushed the chair back under the desk. I crumpled up the note from the refrigerator, shoved it in my pocket, and pulled the locked door closed behind me.
I fought tears driving back to Ruby's house, then pulled into the driveway and hurried up the steps. Wanting to talk to someone, but with Ruby still in the hospital, and Valerie and Mark both at work, I picked up the phone and dialed San Francisco.
"Emma, it's me." I knew she would be at home, probably still asleep. "Did I wake you?"
"What time is it?" her groggy voice asked.
I checked the clock. "Ten, then it's seven there. Sorry, I didn't realize it was quite so early."
She coughed, and I heard the click of her lighter. "Are you okay? I haven't heard from you in over a week." I could visualize her sitting up in her bed, smoking her first cigarette of the day, surrounded by piles of discarded clothes and fashion magazines.
"I told you about Daniel, the guy I met," I said trying to jog her memory and giving her time to wake up.
"Yeah, the stud reporter. Excuse me, I need to pee."
I waited, thinking she would put down the phone, but she didn't.
"Go ahead. I can listen and pee at the same time."
"You have the phone in the bathroom with you?"
"Yes, I do my best talking in here."
The intimate visual was too much now. I sighed and tried to decide where to begin my story of emotional trauma; finally, I just blurted it out. "I found a folder in Daniel's house about my uncle Vernon."
"The idiot Republican?" She flushed the toilet.
"Yeah, but the file also had information about other members of my family, and a couple of pages on me."
"You? Like what?" Now, apparently in the kitchen, she clanged the coffeemaker's pot under running water.
"Stuff I had told him in confidence. Like some phone calls I had received after his article came out and Ruby's assault."
"Her what?"
"It's a long story," I said. "But, he also had my sister and brother's names written down, plus my parents." Shock and betrayal shrouded my logic; I needed Emma to help me think, to take an unemotional view, to console me.
Emma stayed quiet for a while. "Okay, maybe he just wants to remember things you told him. You know, to keep things about you straight… No, shit, that sounded lame even as I said it. What are you thinking?"
"I want to believe he's not up to anything, but I can't understand why he's keeping notes on me." I kicked off my shoes and grabbed my cigarettes. "He has notes on everywhere I told him I've been."
"What can he do with that information?" she asked, then answered her own question, "Nothing." Cabinet doors slammed in the background, and her muffled voice came through from the phone wedged between her shoulder and chin. "I need more sugar, damn. Sorry, now the notes on you were in the file on your uncle. Why?"
I thought for a moment, my mind making and breaking connections. "Could be that the file really is about Vernon 's campaign, and my notes are just to get more information about his family, which just happens to include me." Not sure if that fit, but glad to have something, I relaxed my clenched jaw and lit a cigarette. "But, I don't want to be used for politics. He can get his information from other places. The file must be political. You think?"
"Could be. The file didn't have your name. God damn it! That fucking cat shit on the side of the litter box again. Lola," she screamed, "you whore!"
Just like being there, I thought. "Hey, Emma, you leave that cat alone. At least it wasn't in your shoe."
"My shoes!" Footsteps and the phone ran back to her bedroom. "Good thing for her ass she didn't get near my shoes." Emma's voice calmed. "When you coming back? We miss you."
"Sounds like you and Lola are getting along better since I left." They had been mortal enemies since Emma moved in.
"Yeah, we're bonding."
"Two divas in the same house will always cause friction," I said.
"Darling," she purred, "three divas usually occupy this place. When are you coming home?"
Home. A moment passed before I realized she meant San Francisco. Charlotte had slipped into my soul as the place of family, the place that needed me, that I needed. The idea of leaving didn't appeal; it didn't even seem possible, I had so much to do. Mark and I had to resolve our relationship; Valerie needed encouragement to marry and start her own family; Ruby deserved someone to watch over her; Tim had to have someone on his side, someone to trust; Dad wasn't getting any younger, nor Grandma. Gladys and Vernon could rot in hell. But overall, the pluses outweighed the minuses of life in Charlotte.
"Hello? You still there?" she asked.
"Yeah, I don't know yet. I'll call you in a couple of days." We said our good-byes, and I hung up the phone. Ruby would be released from the hospital soon, so I decided to straighten up the house, then get to Carolinas Med to bring her home.
RUBY HAD HER clothes on and bag packed when I walked in her room. Her cardinal-crested hair had been coiffed for the short ride home. I noticed the style partially covered the bump on her forehead.
"Look at you," I smiled. "I feel lucky to have such a beautiful woman to escort out of here."
"Sally came by this morning and set my hair." She patted the side of her head with care.
"Sally?" I asked.
"She's the girl that fixes my hair. Valerie called her." Perched on the side of the bed, she beamed.
"That was very nice of Val to think of it."
"I just feel a hundred percent better with my hair done."
Another diva in my life, I thought. "I know what you mean. Nothing feels better than looking good."
"I taught you well," she smiled. "So when can we go?"
"The nurse wanted Dr. McConnell to stop by to release you. She should be here any minute." I glanced at the door as if I had just given the cue for the doctor to walk in, but she must have missed it. "Got any of those chocolates left?"
Ruby just grinned, cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. "They're all gone. Those nurses must get hungry during the night."
"Nurses, my ass. Ruby Harris, you ate that entire pound of chocolate." I tried to act stern, crossing my arms and frowning.
Late on her cue, but finally showing, Dr. McConnell walked in the room. "Ms. Harris, you passed all your tests." She took a seat across from Ruby and glanced at her clipboard. "I want you to lose some weight."
I tried to catch Ruby's attention to give her an I-told-you-so look, but she kept her eyes on the doctor.
"And, I've talked with your family doctor and set an appointment for a week from tomorrow for you. Call him right away if you have blurred vision or headaches, but I think you should be fine." The doctor scribbled something on her clipboard. "Okay, you can check out at the nurse's station." She got up to leave, then turned back to Ruby. "And I don't want to see you in here again. Stop wrestling burglars."
Ruby giggled, "I bet he got the worst of it." We checked out, and once in the car, Ruby asked, "Can we drive by the cemetery? I want to see if the grave stone has been placed for Walterene."
"Are you sure you're up for it?" I asked, pulling the car out of the parking deck into the bright sun.
"I haven't done anything but rest for the past three days. I want to go. Turn right."
"Okay, maybe we can stop for lunch-if you aren't full on chocolates," I kidded. "Where's your favorite lunch place?"
She stared out the window for a while, not responding.
"Ruby? You okay?" I worried she might still be experiencing lapses from her head injury.
She turned to me with a sad smile. "I miss Walterene. We would go to lunch on sunny spring days like this, or maybe do a little browsing at Park Road Shopping Center. But here I am, old and alone."
"You have me," I offered.
Her smile widened a bit. "You have your own life back in California."
"Valerie and the rest of the family are here. I know they come to visit."
Her gaze returned to the passing houses and small shops as we drove down Seventh Street. "Do you know I have never lived by myself? Walterene and I moved into that house straight from our parents' houses." She rubbed her eyes. "I don't know what to do with myself without her."
"We're only a phone call away. Valerie is just a few minutes' drive from you." As I said it, I realized that hadn't been the case Saturday when she'd been attacked. No one was there to help her; she had been alone and vulnerable. I wanted to say I would stay with her, but knew that was impossible, even if I lived in Charlotte. My hand found hers. "Ruby, you'll be fine. We all go through changes, losses, but we keep going. Wouldn't that be what Walterene would tell you?"
She turned toward me. "Yes, Walterene would say, 'Ruby, toughen up,'" She began to cry again.
I pulled off the road into a gas station. "I miss her, too."
We hugged and cried until neither of us could catch our breath. "Okay," I sniffed, "let's not let Walterene see us bawling like two old women."
She laughed a short snort. "Right. She wouldn't like that."
At the cemetery, the day glowed warmer and brighter than the last time. Of course, the lack of hundreds of mourners dressed like black crows crying over the open grave made this visit easier to manage. Only Ruby and I stood over the dirt patch that outlined Walterene's plot. The mourning crows had been replaced by cardinal-crested Ruby and me, the scruffy robin confused about where to nest.
I wandered away from the grave to allow Ruby some time alone with her thoughts and Walterene. I found myself under the same low-branched willow oak where Mark and I had talked after the burial, sat on the cool grass, and looked up through the branches at the deep blue sky. "Walterene," I called. "Please look out for Ruby. I failed." But she probably already knew that. "I don't know how to help her, but I will do whatever it takes. You or someone up there- you know, maybe someone with a high rank and experience, like maybe Mary or Joseph, maybe even Jesus-could help me find the way to do it right, to make her feel safe and loved the way you did." I didn't pray very well in words, but I cleared my mind and pictured Ruby happy and strong, living on her own. "Thank you."
I sat quiet for a moment feeling the breeze and sunlight on my face, letting my thoughts go where my mind wandered. Daniel drifted into my meditation, not speaking, not moving, just a calm image of him. His dark eyes glistened as the wind caught his hair. I didn't allow my mind to jump into the state of why, who, or how; this wasn't the place for analysis, just reflection and observation. A slight sigh woke me from my contemplation, and I couldn't remember how long I had been there.
Still by the grave, Ruby kept her head down, lips moving. I got up, brushed off my pants, and strolled from one grave to the next, idly reading markers to give Ruby time to finish up. Walterene had the same kind of mind as me: logical, a little emotional, sometimes too judgmental, a lust for pleasure, but she had the wisdom to handle it. I did miss her. What would she do in my situation?
I smiled as the answer came to me.