The Love Sucks Club (21 page)

“Oh, wouldn’t that be fun,”
Esmé
intones.

I suddenly realize that Sam has no idea that Roxanne and I had a
little thing the other day. She stands. “Come on. We can totally do this.”

Before I can open my mouth, Roxanne stands too. “No, it’s fine.
Now that I’ve had a lovely cup of coffee with
Esmé
,
I’m ready to go home and get to work in my garden.”

Sam smiles and slides back onto her stool. “Okay then.” She
wiggles a twist tie around the counter, catching Frank’s interest.

Roxanne walks toward the door without looking at me. “Bye,
Esmé
. It was a pleasure talking to you this morning.”

“And you,”
Esmé
says, smiling. “We must
do it again sometime.”

“Bye, Dana,” Roxanne says.

“Bye,
Rox
,” I reply as she walks out the
door.

“She obviously has a crush on you,”
Esmé
says after the door closes.

“What?” Sam looks up from playing with Frank. “Roxanne has a crush
on Dana?”

Esmé
nods. “A woman can sense these
things.”

“I’m a woman and I can’t sense a thing,” Sam says.

“We’ve both always had a bit of a crush on each other,” I say,
twisting out of
Esmé’s
grip and busying myself at the
coffee pot. “It’s nothing.”

“It better be nothing,”
Esmé
says. “I
mean, she’s old enough to be your grandmother.”

“No she isn’t,” Sam says, indignant. “She’s less than twenty years
older than I am.”

“Well, your mother then,”
Esmé
continues.

Holding up my hand, I glare at her. “Leave it alone,
Esmé
.” I don’t want to hear any slams on Roxanne.

“Well, please,” she says. “In ten years, she’ll be in a nursing
home and you’ll still be youngish and fit.”

“I said to leave it alone,” I growl. “Roxanne is my friend and I
don’t want to hear it.”

Esmé
looks up at me, her eyes
welling with tears. “Well, maybe I should go.”

“Maybe you should.”

She whirls on her heels and heads toward the bedroom. Sam looks at
me questioningly. “Don’t you think you should...I don’t know. Do something or
something?”

“Like what?”

“I said I don’t know. I’m not good with women.”

“Good enough to fuck straight ones.”

“Hey, don’t get pissed at me! I didn’t do anything.”

 
Esmé
storms back out of the bedroom
and heads for the front door.
“You know, something pretty amazing
happened last night.”

“I know, I know.”

“Well, you’re not acting like it now,” she spits. “Are you trying
to be cool in front of your friend?”

Holding up her hands, Sam shakes her head. “Hey, she never has to
be cool in front of me. I know she’s not.”

“Funny,” I mouth at her before turning back to
Esmé
.

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I just don’t want you mocking
my friend.”

Walking back across the room, she puts her arms around my waist.
“You know, I had a pretty intense night, too.”

“I know you did. But maybe our takeaway from last night is that we
can finally let Fran go.”

Wrenching herself away from me, she glares at me again. “Speak for
yourself
,” she says. “I have more questions than
ever.”

“How can that be?” I’m flabbergasted. “We know why she killed
herself. She was seeing aliens. What more do you need?”

“I need to know the truth.”

“The truth is that you know everything you are ever going to
know,” I reply.

Glaring at me one more time, she storms out of the door, slamming
it hard behind her.

Sam looks at me, shrugs, and goes back to playing with Frank.

“You sure have a way with women, my friend.”

Chapter Nineteen

Frank is sitting next to my face with one paw on my nose when I open
my eyes. “Frank, it’s the middle of the night.”

He meows and I open my eyes. It’s already light. Picking up my
cell to check the time, I realize I’ve already missed a call from
Esmé
. I should have called her yesterday, but I somehow
never got around to it. I might as well get it over with.

“Hi Dana.”

“Hey. How’s it going?”

“It’s good. I had a good time with you the other night.”

“Yeah, yeah.
I liked it.
Some
of it.
Kind of intense in some ways.”

“Well, sometimes things get a little intense when you are trying
to dig deep into the dark places of the universe.”

Sighing, I roll my eyes at Frank who is still sitting next to my
head. “Look, we dug deep and we got the answer we’ve been looking for. I mean,
I still feel like shit that I lost her, but I don’t think I could have saved
her. How could I fight her particular demons?”

“Don’t you want to know the truth?”

The truth.
Do I want to know the truth?
Somehow, I always thought that I did. I wanted to be completely inside of Fran
and know everything that she knew, feel everything that she felt. Now that I’ve
had a taste of it, though, I don’t think I want to know more. I don’t know why
I find it so easy to accept that I could somehow take my mind into my dead
girlfriend’s head and see what she was seeing in her last moments, yet can’t
wrap myself around the possibility that she was truly communing with aliens.
Still, I have what I needed. I had to know what I could have done differently
on that day to keep her alive and I realize that there’s nothing.
Nothing at all.

“Dana? Did you hear my question?”

“I heard it.”

“Well?”

“
Esmé
, I hope you find peace with
yourself now that we’ve done everything that we are going to do to put Fran’s
memory to rest.”

“We haven’t. There’s so much more we can do!”

“If you need to keep searching, please do. You’re just not getting
anything else out of me.”

She pauses. “Well, are we going to see each other again?”

Thinking about it, I absently reach out to scratch Frank’s furry
head.
He
blerts
at me before
looking pointedly in the direction of the kitchen.
“One minute,” I mouth
at him. “
Esmé
, of course we’ll see each other again.
It’s a small island.”

“That’s shit.”

“I’m sorry. I had a great time with you the other night, but that
whole situation came out of our crazy experience.”

“By situation, I assume you’re talking about us making love with
each other.”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t wonderful. It was. I enjoyed it a lot. I
needed it and I think you did, too.”

“We had a connection before the sex,” she says.

“I’m not saying we didn’t. I’m just saying that I’d like for us to
be friends.”

“Whatever.”

“Look,
Esmé
, I’m sorry.”

No answer.
“
Esmé
?”

I turn to Frank, incredulous. “She hung up on me.”

He ignores me and jumps off the bed, looking toward the kitchen
again. Tossing my cell down on the bedside table, I follow him down the hall.
He jumps on the counter while I fill his bowl and give him a couple of cat
treats as a reward for his patience. While the coffee is brewing, I sit at the
counter and watch him eat. I can hear my phone ringing in the bedroom, but the
idea of talking to
Esmé
again suddenly has me
exhausted. Besides, she’s not who I really want to talk to. Filling up my mug
with coffee, I say goodbye to Frank and head out the door.

Roxanne is in her garden when I approach her house.

“Hi,” she says, smiling.

“Hi.”

“Do you want to walk today?”
 

“No, I want to stand here drinking coffee and talk to you.”

I set my coffee down on the top of her fence and hold my arms
open. Leaning her shovel against the wall, she walks over and gives me a hug. I
collapse into it, putting my arms around her and holding her tight. She feels
firm, but soft and a little sweaty. Pressing my forehead against the side of
her face, I breathe in deeply.

“You smell lovely,” I tell her.

“Stop it.” She pulls away a bit to look at me. “I smell as if I’ve
been working in the garden for three hours.”

“So what are you working on here?”

“Replanting the coconut palms you gave me.”

Whenever I find coconuts on the beach with roots starting to
sprout, I bring them home and plant them. Even though it will be years before
I’m getting coconuts, I still love to plant them. A few weeks ago, I brought
several to Roxanne for her yard. They grow fast in the beginning. A couple of
hers are already up to my knees.

“Before you know it, we’ll be sitting under the shade of one of
them, sharing a glass of lemonade or something.”

“I don’t think so,” she grins. “Besides, we don’t want to risk
getting killed by a falling coconut.”

“Life’s full of risk.”

Releasing herself from my arms, she reclaims her shovel and
finishes digging the last hole. I bring her the coconut and we nestle half of
it into the ground, patting the dirt gently in around it.

Clearing my throat, I look down at the coconut in the ground. “So,
Rox
...”

“Don’t,” she answers. “We really don’t have anything to talk
about.”

“See, I kind of think that we
do.”

She leans against the shovel and rests her chin on top of her
hands. “Dana, you don’t owe me any explanations. Nothing has ever happened
between us except a kiss in a vulnerable moment. I have never laid a claim to
you and it doesn’t matter who you date.”

“Then why didn’t you answer your phone when I called you last
night?”

“I was just giving you some space.”
     

We perch on her front steps sharing my cup of coffee. “I’ve been wrestling
with something for a long time and I think I’ve finally started to get some
clarity.”

She doesn’t answer, waiting for me to continue. “
Esmé
helped me with that. I think, we both needed the same
answers and the only way we could get them was together.”

“And did you get your answers?”

“I think I did. I’m not really sure what to believe. But I feel
like I finally know enough to start putting her to rest.”

“Good, Dana. I’m happy for you,” she says, softly.

Leaning my head against her shoulder, I sigh. “
Esmé
was just part of that. What happened when we went into the corners of my mind
or wherever we went was traumatic and strange and scary and what happened after
just kind of followed from that.”

She puts her hand on my forearm and kisses me on the forehead.
“Dana, as I said, you really don’t owe me any explanations.”

“I feel like I do, though. I want you to understand.”

“I do understand. I honestly do.”

“Good.” I put the coffee mug on the step next to me so I can take
one of her hands in both of mine. “It’s just, I’ve been thinking that living
with the memory of Fran has been holding me back from being able to truly love.
And now that I’m past it, I can move on.”

“Dana...”

Interrupting her, I squeeze her hand. “Wait. Hear me out. We’d be
so perfect together in so many ways. And I love you. I want to be with you. I
want us to be together.
As lovers.”

“Dana.”

“Really.
I know I seem like an asshole
because I slept with another woman the night before last and here I am. But I’m
not asking you to have sex with me. Let’s just start off with dating and see
what happens. We can take it slow and let it build.”

“Dana, it isn’t...”

“And I know you’re probably worried about the difference in our
ages, but that doesn’t matter to me. We’re both in great shape and we love a
lot of the same activities.”

“That’s absolutely true.”

“And yes, we’re friends, but isn’t that the best way to start a
relationship?”

“It is, however,”

“And I love you. You’re beautiful. You are such an amazing woman.
I can imagine holding you and dancing with you and loving you.”

“Dana.”

“And we kiss so beautifully together.”

She holds her hand against my mouth. “Dana,” she says. “Will you
just listen to me?”

I mumble something against her hand. She removes it and smiles.
“Yes?”

“I said I’ll be quiet for a minute.”

“You are a wonderful woman and I love you dearly.”

“Well then.”

She smiles. “I don’t love you like that.”

Deflated, I pull back, leaning my back against the porch railing.
“You don’t?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry, Dana. I think you’re a wonderful woman and I
care about you so much. But I don’t want to be your girlfriend.”

Stung, I stare down at our joined hands, thinking about it.
Finally, I look up at her and grin.

“How could anyone not want to be with me?”

She laughs. “It’s a struggle.”

“Do you think there’s a chance you’ll change your mind?”

She leans over to kiss me on the cheek. “You’re sweet and you’re
very precious to me.”

“So I’m guessing that means no.”

“I can’t foresee it changing.”

Sighing again, I mime shooting myself in the head. “I guess I’m
destined to be alone.”

“You need to be alone. You’ve only just begun the process of
letting go of the past. Now you need to figure out who you are in the present
before you can look to the future.”

“Deep.”

“I amaze even myself sometimes,” she says, smiling.

“Are we still going to walk together?

She stands and offers me a hand.
“Of course.”

“What about the Club?”

Grinning, she shakes her head. “I’ll continue to hang out with you
and Sam, but I don’t want to continue calling ourselves The Love Sucks Club.”

“I don’t know what I’ll tell Olivia.”

“Tell her that love doesn’t suck nearly as much as you and Sam
have implied.”

I don’t know whether to be embarrassed about my outpouring or not.
Looking at Roxanne’s smile, I’m guessing not. I lean in to kiss her on the
cheek again. “All right, I’ve got important things to do.”

“Bye, Dana.”

Walking back to my house, I kick a stone down the lane. When I
pass George’s house, I spot him raking his leaves in the front yard. He waves
and
smiles,
and I return the gesture without stopping
to chat. Back at my door, I turn in circles, scoping out the yard. No
particular tingles of warning, no impending panic attack,
no
sense of an ambush waiting for me inside. I’ve been complaining about my
visions forever, but I don’t think I’d be happy to lose them completely. What
would I do if I wasn’t the weird, psychic writer? I’d have to accept being just
a weird writer. Imagining having this conversation with Sam, I smile to myself.

As I’m standing in my doorway, I hear Susannah’s jeep coming up
the road behind me. She jumps from the jeep and I throw my arms around her.

“Susannah, what do you dream about?”

“What do you mean? Like my nighttime dreams?”

“No, I mean, your dreams about your life? What do you want from
it? What are your hopes? Do you want to go skydiving? Do you want to paint?
Become a doctor? Travel to Europe? What is your dream?”

She pulls back from the hug and stares at me for a second. Opening
my door, she walks into the kitchen and heads for the coffee pot.

I know she’s thinking about it, so I don’t speak. She refills my
cup before pouring some for herself. When she finally pulls up a stool to the
counter, Frank jumps up in front of her and bangs his head against her hand.
Stroking him, she’s quiet for a few minutes. Patiently drinking my coffee, I
look at her, noticing the fine lines that are starting to form at the corners
of her eyes. I can feel time moving in front of my eyes. Smiling at my sister
across the counter, I can see her as an old woman, with a head of white hair.
Her face alternates between being pinched and despairing and being open and
lively, like Roxanne’s. It looks like she’s hovering on the edge of two
futures. Reaching across the counter, I hold out my hand. Susannah looks at it
for a second and then puts her hand in mine.

“Dana,” she says, quietly. “All I have ever really dreamed about
in my life is being happy.”