Lesbian Stepmother (22 page)

My father picked up the remote and found the right
channel while Susan and I took our spots on the couch. I sat a
little closer to the middle, and I was extremely pleased to see that
she did, too. I felt that she was really my friend now, and not just
my father’s.

Then my father turned around and looked at us, making
no move to sit in his chair.

“Something wrong?” I asked him.

He shrugged, licking his lips. “You want to take
a turn in my chair?”

The question annoyed me. It was his chair and he
always sat in it. I’d made the mistake of sitting in it only
once before, very soon after he’d bought it, and he’d let
me know in no uncertain terms that it was his chair. The couch was
mine, he’d said. Now, with Susan there, he suddenly changed
his mind. Of course, it would have been unreasonable of me to not
move and allow him to sit beside his girlfriend, but it still
bothered me. “Sure,” I said quietly. I felt the
familiar wave of sadness come over me as I got up and moved away from
Susan, taking my place in his big dumb chair.

I watched as he plopped himself down right in the
middle of the couch, taking another sip of his little drink. He set
it on the coffee table and then turned up the volume on the TV just
as the movie was starting.

Susan, I saw, slid a little closer to him and then his
arm came up and went around her shoulders. She leaned into him,
seemingly very content and satisfied. It hurt me to see this, and I
looked away. I still felt my father didn’t deserve her for
some reason. He didn’t even strike me as being a real man. Of
course, considering what Susan had told me, that was kind of why she
liked him.

I sat and stared at the TV, paying no attention
whatsoever to the movie. I no longer wanted to watch it, or even be
in the room. I felt bitter and somehow betrayed. It was senseless,
I know, but it’s how I felt.

I sat there with my eyes half-closed, losing myself in
a little fantasy. In my fantasy, Dianne was there, squeezed into the
chair beside me. We had our arms around each other, just like my
father and Susan, only we were much happier and really in love. I
felt better while pretending she was there, but every once in awhile
I’d sneak little glances at the two of them and I’d
instantly feel rotten again. After forty minutes or so I got sick of
it and stood up, telling them I was going to read my book in my room.

They acted surprised I didn’t want to watch the
rest of the movie, but I really didn’t. I hadn’t paid
attention to a single minute of it. I said goodnight to them and
retrieved my book from the coffee table.

Then I walked down the hall and went to bed.

Chapter 7

If anything good came
of that night, it’s that I was no longer infatuated with Susan.
I mean, maybe I was, but I no longer allowed myself to believe that
I’d ever be with her other than as a friend, or perhaps as a
stepdaughter. I was still very friendly to her, and I did help her
move, but I was also somewhat distant. No more hugging her coat or
trying to intentionally inhale her perfume. No more hugging
her
,
either, as much as I wanted to. I’d just be torturing myself
if I allowed that to continue.

She moved in with us slowly during the course of the
next week or two, and began sleeping over in my father’s bed.
It made me feel even worse than I thought it would, knowing they were
in there together. I began to wish I’d never been so
enthusiastic about her moving in. I was well aware that the entire
dilemma was the result of my own unreasonable inclinations, but that
didn’t make it any easier for me. I spent more and more time
alone in my room, trying to keep her out of my mind.

She must have noticed the change in me, but she was so
busy trying to keep my father happy that she didn’t pursue the
cause of it. At least that was my impression. Maybe she just
figured the novelty of her being there had worn off, and that’s
why I paid so much less attention to her.

She was always the first one home now, and when I
returned from school she’d be in the kitchen cooking away.
Sometimes I’d offer to help her, and sometimes she’d take
me up on it, but for the most part she did the cooking. I spent most
of my free time reading. I liked having my mind elsewhere, where it
wasn’t so depressing.

Eventually, she was all moved in. Her and my father
went through a little lovey-dovey phase where they sat together on
the couch every night and went to bed together, always at the same
time. There was no animosity, or hard feelings; I don’t want
to give you that idea. I still found Susan thrillingly attractive,
and secretly wanted her for myself, but I had come to understand it
would never happen, and so avoided her much of the time for my own
peace of mind.

* * *

The days and weeks passed without anything really
interesting happening. When Valentine’s day arrived my father
took her up to some fancy hotel in New York and I had the place to
myself for one night. Susan had the house fairly well stocked with
wine by then, which was her drink of choice, and I helped myself to a
bottle of it while they were gone. I drank it right out of the
bottle while lying on the couch and watching TV. I imagined that
Dianne was with me, but of course she wasn’t. That was my
Valentine’s day. I woke up with a hangover the next morning,
but still went to school.

By the middle of March it began to finally warm up, and
the giant piles of ice and snow slowly shrank down to dirty heaps of
slush. Spring was in the air, and it seemed as though everyone had
somebody to love except me. Even my boring old father.

I continued to wade through the endless days, with
nothing to look forward to. I had given up on the college
applications, no longer really caring about school. At that point I
couldn’t even contemplate another four years of school, let
alone one ten times harder. I figured I’d graduate high school
and find the best paying job I could; I’d worry about college
next year. I needed a little time to figure things out first.

It was at about that time I began to notice that Susan
and my father were no longer sitting together on the couch every
night. I don’t think it happened all at once, but I admit I
wasn’t paying as much attention to them as I once had.
Sometimes they would still cuddle up there, and sometimes they
wouldn’t. But my father seemed to be back in his chair more
often, with his big piles of papers, and Susan would be lying on the
couch watching television. I kept thinking they were drifting apart,
and I’d start getting these crazy ideas about how I would end
up winning Susan’s affection and steal her away from him, and
then the next night they’d be back on the couch, leaning into
each other and looking happy as clams.

I guess I never really stopped wanting Susan. I just
stopped letting myself dwell on it.

It was the first week of April, when the weather really
started warming up, that my father announced to me that they were
going to be getting married. I was stunned, although I’m not
sure why. If I had to guess, I would have said they were more likely
to break up than to get married, but of course I didn’t know
everything that was going between them, nor did I want to.

I congratulated him, and her, and wished them well. I
made a promise to myself that as soon as I graduated high school I’d
take the first job I could find and the first apartment I could
afford, and move out. I was no longer comfortable living there. I
felt like an outsider.

They decided not to have a wedding, but just to get
married in a courthouse. Or, I should say, my father decided. He
hated the idea of spending his hard-earned money, and a wedding
probably would have wiped him out.

A few days before they were due to get married, Susan
knocked on my bedroom door. It was well after dinner, and I was
lying in bed reading. I called out for her to come in, and she did.

She stood there gazing around my room, looking
painfully beautiful in a loose fitting t-shirt and a baggy pair of
shorts. She couldn’t avoid looking beautiful if she’d
tried. She smiled sadly at me and asked if I had a few minutes to
talk.

“Of course,” I said. I put my book aside,
which was Hunger, by Knut Hamsun. She had bought it for me as a
gift, and I was loving it. She had very good taste in books.

“Can I sit down?” she asked.

I sat up in my bed, swinging my legs out of the way to
make room for her. “Sure.”

“Thank you.” She lowered herself onto the
mattress and grinned at my progress in the book. “How do you
like it so far?”

“I love it. I’m almost afraid to finish
it, because I don’t want it to end.”

She laughed quitely. Her hair was messy and uncombed,
making her look wild and sexy. I began to feel very aroused having
her there on my bed. My god! How could my father have ended up with
such a remarkable woman? It made no sense. “I know what you
mean. But you can always read it again. I think I read that one
four or five times.”

“I know I’ll read it again. Every book
you’ve recommended to me so far is one I’m planning to
read again.”

She smiled, appreciating my comment. “I’m
glad. It’s nice to have somebody to share all my favorites
with. I’ve never had a friend who likes to read as much as you
do.”

I nodded. I felt glad that she thought of me as her
friend. “I’ll be ready for another one real soon.”

“Don’t worry. Just let me know when you
finish that one. I’ve got another one ready and waiting for
you.”

She was very thoughtful, and it made me sad to think
I’d been ignoring her so much. I was only doing it to protect
my own feelings, but I think at that moment I realized that it was
hurting her. “Thank you,” I said. “I wish I had
some to offer you.”

“Don’t worry about that. I think I’ve
already read all the good ones.”

We sat looking at each other for a moment. She’d
never come into my room and sat on my bed before, and I was wondering
exactly what was going on. I hoped she’d get to it soon,
because all the love and desire and longing I’d kept bottled up
inside me over the past few months was threatening to spill out at
the sight of her sitting there like that. “So what’s
up?” I prompted.

She chewed her lower lip almost shyly, and it made me
want to gather her up in my arms and hold her. It was so hard being
near her and having to be so far away, too. “I wanted to talk
to you about a few things.” She looked me in the eyes,
appearing almost nervous. “There’s a lot on my mind, and
I just wanted to... try and talk things through with you.”

“You can talk to me about anything, Susan. Any
time.”

She licked her lips. I wanted to lick them, too.
“Thank you. I wasn’t sure.”

“Is this about getting married?”

She shrugged. “Some of it is. Some of it’s
not.” She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and held her
gaze steady. “I have to admit, I’m really nervous about
the whole thing. And I want to make sure that you’re still
okay with it.”

“Of course I am.” I really wasn’t
sure if I was or not, but I wanted to make her feel better. “What
matters is that it’s what you want.”

“Yeah. But it matters to me what’s right
for you, too.”

“It’s fine with me. I think it’s
great.” I was unable to put any enthusiasm in my voice, and
she looked at me skeptically. “Really,” I added.

Surprising me, she reached over and took my hand. She
held it in both of hers, and my heart began pounding at the intimacy
of her touch. “Amy, when I first met you, you seemed as though
you really liked me. I was so excited about that. You made me feel
so welcome, and so good, and I honestly believed that you and I were
going to be such good friends.”

“We are,” I tried.

“We’re not. You seem to distance yourself
more and more from me. You hardly even talk to me anymore, except
about books. It makes me feel as though I’ve done something
wrong, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.”
The sadness in her eyes and in her voice was breaking my heart.

“You haven’t done anything wrong.” I
had to look away from her for a moment.

“Are you mad at me? Upset with me?”

“No. Not at all.”

She squeezed my hand. “Amy, that’s not
true.”

I looked at her again. “It is true. I’ve
never been mad at you.”

“Okay, maybe you’re not mad. But something
is definitely wrong. Is it because I’m planning on marrying
your father?”

I had to look away again. “No.”

“It is, isn’t it? You don’t want me
to.”

“That’s not it.”

She squeezed my hand again and stroked it with hers. I
wanted to hold her so bad I began to tremble. “Then what is?
Please, Amy, this has been driving me crazy. I think about you in
here every night, wondering why you don’t want to be around me
anymore. Why you seem to be resentful toward me.”

“I’m not resentful!” I hated this.
It wasn’t fair to either one of us, but I didn’t know
what to do or say about it.