The Touch of a Woman (6 page)

She briefly considered changing from her exercise tights, but thought it silly to dress up just to dash over to her neighbor’s.

Summer answered the door with a wide grin and immediately crossed her eyes. “I hope you brought the straitjacket. I’m going to need it.”

“I had an inkling you were in over your head.” She held out the plate of cookies.

“Way over. Uh-oh, their mom warned me about sugar.”

“Trust me on this,” she whispered. They were sweetened with applesauce and raisins. Ellis had fed them to her kids to stave off hunger pangs through the night.
“Just add milk.”

“You’re my favorite person in the world right now. Come on in.”

The children were already in their pajamas and lying on a queen-sized air mattress in front of the TV. Nate craned his neck to see what was happening. “Cookies, Bree!”

Summer directed them to her small dinette and poured milk. “Decaf?” she asked Ellis.

Ellis spotted the one-cup coffeemaker on the kitchen counter. “Make mine high-test. It doesn’t faze me.” It was then she noticed Summer too wore pajamas, plaid flannel pants with a long-sleeved T-shirt. And no wonder—eight-thirty was bedtime for children as young as Nate and Bree. “Are you sure it’s okay? It looks like you’re ready for bed.”

“Actually, we’re
prepared
for bed…just in case we happen to fall asleep. That was the deal. But I promised to let them stay up as long as they wanted if they settled down.”

The apartment had the same institutional look as hers. Off-white walls, beige carpet and vertical blinds. It was somewhat smaller, apparently a one-bedroom unit since there was only one door off the hallway. Same kitchen with barstools, same dining nook, same compact washer-dryer. The similarities ended there.

By the look of it, Summer’s furniture had been purchased to fit the space. An overstuffed sofa in synthetic leather, the kind you fell asleep on while watching TV. A matching captain’s chair with a halogen reading light peeking over its arm. Judging from the tablet computer on the ottoman, that was Summer’s chair. The room’s centerpiece was an enormous TV mounted on the wall.

“We just finished
The Princess and the Frog
, and now we’re going to start it over from the beginning. Want to join us?” She lowered her voice. “Or maybe you’ll show some mercy and rescue me from having to watch it again. Sit here at the table and we can have our coffee.”

After two cookies each, the children dutifully brushed their teeth and returned to the air mattress to start the film again.

Having raised three children, Ellis knew all the tricks. “Now go back over there and turn the TV down really low. They’ll have to be quiet to hear it, and they’ll fall asleep.”

Summer followed her tip and took an extra moment to tuck the blankets around them and lower the lights.

“They seem like good kids.”

“You weren’t here when they were fighting over whether or not frogs needed underwear. So glad I was an only child. I hate to fight.”

“Speaking of which…” Ellis wasn’t asking just to be nosy. Summer was starting to feel like a friend. If they were going to hang out together, it would be nice to know the issue with the ex-girlfriend was over and done. “Any more problems with your ex?”

“No, but this is her usual MO. Rita makes an ass of herself and then disappears for a while hoping I’ll forget. The next time she shows up, she’ll be stone cold sober and tell me she’s turned over a new leaf. I can set my clock by it.”

Ellis didn’t have much experience with drunks, though she had a good idea what it was like to have an addict in the family. “My nephew on my husband’s side had a cocaine problem. Went into treatment twice before he finally got clean. I wasn’t around Michael all that much, but I know he put his family through hell.”

“That’s pretty much what it’s like.” Summer stared at her coffee mug, twirling it slowly. “We gave up alcohol together about sixteen years ago. I never felt like I had a problem with it—not personally—but I thought it would help her if we just cut it out of our lives. It worked for a long time, but then she started sneaking around. Drinking out of other people’s cups at parties…stopping on the way home from work. Eventually she had a little stash in the garage. If she was going to cheat and lie about something, I wish it had been an affair. But that kind of betrayal…it’s got to be the worst.”

No it wasn’t, Ellis thought. Not even close.

“Rita’s biggest issue is that first step. She won’t admit she has a problem. She’ll say the words sometimes, but then she convinces herself she has it all under control. I wish Donita—She lives in the apartment above me. She’s the one who called the cops last week—I wish she’d gotten the whole thing on video so I could show it to her. Hell, I’d have posted it on Facebook so everybody could see it. Maybe then all our friends would quit nagging me to take her back.”

“Oh no, you don’t want to take her back.” Seeing the gloomy effect the subject had on Summer, she regretted bringing it up. “Listen to me offering you advice on your girlfriend, and I don’t even know her. It’s not any of my business. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay.” Summer smiled weakly. “There aren’t a lot of people I can talk to. Most of our friends just want us to work everything out so it won’t be so awkward for everybody. I get that. They like both of us and don’t want to have to pick sides.”

“But they don’t have to put up with it every day.”

“Exactly. And they don’t have to worry what she might do to somebody when she gets behind the wheel like that. God, if Rita had hurt somebody…I couldn’t have lived with myself.”

With every word, Ellis was struck by how much they had in common.

“I’ve been asking myself if I made a mistake the other night,” she continued. “I thought I was helping her by getting our friend to come over and take her home, but maybe I should have just let her go to jail. That could have been the wakeup call she needed. If something happens, I’m going to kick myself over that.”

“Why? You aren’t responsible for what she does.” The sharpness of her tone surprised even her, and she caught Summer looking to see if the children had heard. “I’m sorry. I…I just remember how Michael’s parents blamed themselves. You can’t do that to yourself.”

“I know that intellectually. It doesn’t stop me from worrying about it though.” Summer got up to peek in on Nate and Bree. “Amazing. They’re both sound asleep. I’m officially hiring you as my babysitting consultant.”

Ellis didn’t want to risk a return to the unpleasant conversation. “I probably should go and let you wind down. Don’t think for a minute you’re going to sleep in tomorrow. I’ll bet you anything those two are up by six a.m.”

“Thanks for the warning. And the cookies. And especially the company.” Summer surprised her by hooking elbows as they walked toward the door. “I like having a friend close by to talk to. Feel free to stop in anytime.”

She’d come to Sacramento for a fresh start. A new job, a new home. New friends. Was Summer Winslow someone she could trust? The next few days would tell—either she’d open up about the person she used to be or retreat back into her shell.

“Eight-ball, side pocket,” Summer said, tapping the side rail with her cue stick. With a gentle tap, the eight dropped and the cue stopped well short of the corner.
“That’s all she wrote, ladies. Who’s got next?”

Courtney slapped her hand with a high five, celebrating their third win in a row as partners. Courtney took her eight-ball seriously. It also didn’t hurt that it was her billiard table. No doubt she practiced every night and knew all of its quirks.

Summer relished the twice-monthly potluck nights at Courtney’s, which usually drew about a dozen women, most of them couples. The food was nice, but the real attractions were the raucous games they played after dinner. Billiards, ping-pong, Twister, poker…whatever struck their fancy.

As luck would have it, Rita didn’t enjoy games, so there was never a concern about her showing up. That made it one of the few places Summer could hang out with friends and know she could totally relax.

Of all her lesbian friends, Summer liked Courtney in particular because she was hospitable to everyone, no matter who was on the outs or why. She didn’t involve herself in other people’s drama. From a practical standpoint, it meant Courtney wasn’t one of the voices clamoring for her to take Rita back.

“I guess no one else is brave enough to take us on,” Courtney said. She gestured toward a pair of barstools from where they could watch the others play Pictionary. “How’s your toe?”

Shouting so everyone could hear, Summer replied, “My toe is better, but I’m never playing Twister with Norma again.”

That got the attention of Norma Serrato, whose sliding foot had sent Summer’s into a table leg. “Can I help it if you’re fragile? You need to drink your milk, build up those bones.” She flexed her biceps.

“I’ll show you fragile,” Summer threatened. “Next time I’m wearing steel-toed boots.”

“Speaking of next time,” Courtney said, her voice low, “I went out to dinner last week with Norma and Vicki. They had a new friend they wanted me to meet, a woman Vicki works with at the convention center. Tracie Carlson. She just moved up here from the LA area.”

“Interesting…did you like her?”

Courtney rolled her eyes sheepishly. “It wasn’t a date. Besides, you know me.”

Indeed she did. Courtney’s partner Janine had died in a foggy freeway pileup nearly ten years ago, and she’d been single ever since. If not for her unapproachable vibe, Courtney would have a line of suitors out the door. She had a lively look, with short silver hair and sparkling blue eyes. As chair of the social sciences department at the local community college, she also was well-read, meaning she could converse intelligently about anything. But her most prominent personality trait was that she never seemed to relax. Everything she did was in high gear—the parties, the games, the outings. Most of their friends thought she was overcompensating for her loss by surrounding herself with people.

“I got the idea she’s already feeling homesick for Southern California,” Courtney went on. “That’s why they wanted to introduce her around, so she could start making some friends. I think she’s going to fit in really well. She was supposed to come tonight, but Vicki said her niece was in town from San Francisco.”

At the mention of the City, she thought of Ellis Keene, also new to Sacramento. Sacto, they called it. For the briefest moment, she wondered if Ellis would ever consider coming to one of Courtney’s potluck game nights. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had brought along a straight friend.

Courtney scooped a handful of nuts and offered her the bowl. “Anyway, I thought Tracie was nice. Cute too. Early fifties, but she looks a lot younger. Blondish hair, a little darker than yours, big brown eyes. One thing I liked about her was that she had a genuine look…you know, she didn’t go overboard with the makeup or frilly clothes. Reminded me a lot of you.”

Summer took that as a compliment. She liked thinking of herself as genuine, even though her fair complexion and light hair left her looking washed out unless she wore a touch of foundation and a little eyeliner. “Sounds like Tracie made an impression.”

“Not like that,” Courtney reiterated, this time with a backhanded swat.

“That’s too bad. She sounds like a catch.” All of their friends would be thrilled to see someone work her way into Courtney’s heart.

They stopped to watch Vicki drawing a hideous rendering of what turned out to be a pastry chef, which made her think of Ellis showing up at her apartment with cookies for the children. Truth be told, lots of things made her think of Ellis—the copy of
Vista
at her hair salon, the AAA renewal notice, and even the woman buying Lean Cuisine dinners at the supermarket, with her pink fingernails and designer workout gear.

“That’s why I’m telling
you
about her. I talked with Norma and Vicki, and we all thought you two might like each other.”

The suggestion took her completely by surprise, especially coming from Courtney. It wasn’t like her to get involved in other people’s personal affairs. “Wow, I didn’t see that coming. All I’ve heard since Rita and I split up was how everybody wanted us back together.”

“That’s because you were good for Rita and everybody knew it. But she’s not so good for you, and you shouldn’t have to be responsible for somebody that way. It’s been what, a year?”

“A year and a half since I moved out. It’s my own fault people keep expecting us to get back together. I move out—she stops drinking—I move back. Rinse and repeat.”

Courtney tossed a peanut and caught it in her mouth. “Plus the fact that Rita tells everybody things are going great and she thinks you’re going to work it out any day now.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Is she still doing that? She’s delusional.”

“Forget her. You want to meet Tracie?”

Summer could honestly say she hadn’t given a thought to starting a new relationship. It was ironic in light of their conversation that she continued to feel she wasn’t free of Rita. “I don’t know. I almost hate to subject somebody to Rita. She’ll probably start stalking her. Do you know she still shows up at my house when she gets drunk?”

“I heard about that from Queenie and Sam.”

On the other hand, there was no better way to demonstrate once and for all that she was finished with Rita than to start seeing someone else. And there was no one among her lesbian friends she’d consider dating. Why not meet someone new?

“You know…maybe I should meet her. Yeah, let’s go for it.”

With that settled, they turned their attention back to watching the game. Norma had drawn a crescent moon with stars, a plus sign and a four-legged creature that, from its crude saddle, appeared to be a horse. Her teammates shouted possible answers to the puzzle. Star horse. Moon ride.

Summer recognized it immediately…and hoped it wasn’t an omen about meeting Tracie.
“Nightmare!”

* * *

Ellis tucked the phone under her chin as she wriggled into her pajama pants. “Mom, don’t you dread having to drive that monstrosity all the way home?”