I’m not a PDA kind of person. I’ve never started kissing someone in public; I just don’t have the kind of selfless abandon that you see in teenage couples who are forever making out or walking down a street with their hands tucked halfway down each other’s pants. So I’m not saying that I’d necessarily walk down the street with my arm around the woman I love—but I’d sure like to know that, if I were so inclined, I wouldn’t attract a trail of shocked, uncomfortable stares. We’re conditioned to seeing men holding guns but not men holding hands.
When the movie credits roll, people begin to get out of their seats. As the lights come up, Zoe’s head is on my shoulder. Then I hear, “Zoe? Hey!”
She leaps up as if she’s been caught in the act of doing something wrong and pastes a huge smile on her face. “Wanda!” she says, to a woman who looks vaguely familiar. “Did you like the movie?”
“I’m not a big Tarantino fan, but actually, it wasn’t bad,” she says. She slips her arm through a man’s elbow. “Zoe, I don’t think you’ve ever met my husband, Stan? Zoe’s a music therapist who comes to the nursing home,” Wanda explains.
Zoe turns to me. “This is Vanessa,” she says. “My . . . my friend.”
Last night Zoe and I had celebrated a month together. We had champagne and strawberries, and she beat me at Scrabble. We made love, and when we woke up in the morning she was wrapped around me like a heliotrope vine.
Friend.
“We’ve met,” I say to Wanda, although I am not about to point out that it was at the baby shower for the baby who died.
We walk out of the movie theater with Wanda and her husband, making small talk about the plot and whether this will be an Oscar contender. Zoe is careful to keep a good foot of distance away from me. She doesn’t even make eye contact with me again until we’re in my car, driving back to my place.
Zoe fills the silence with a story about Wanda and Stan’s daughter, who wanted to join the army because she had a boyfriend who had already shipped out. I don’t think she notices that I haven’t said a word to her. When we reach the house, I unlock the door and walk inside and strip off my coat. “You want some tea?” Zoe asks, heading into the kitchen. “I’m going to put up the kettle.”
I don’t answer her. I am a thousand shades of hurt right now, and I don’t trust myself to speak.
Instead I sit down on the couch and pick up the newspaper I never got a chance to read today. I can hear Zoe in my kitchen, taking mugs out of the dishwasher, filling the kettle, turning on the stove. She knows where everything is, in which drawer to find the spoons, in which cabinet I keep the tea bags. She moves around my house as if she belongs here.
I am staring blankly at editorials when she comes into the living room, leans over the back of the couch, and wraps her arms around me. “Any more letters about the police chief scandal?”
I push her away. “Don’t.”
She backs off. “Guess the movie really got to you.”
“Not the movie.” I turn around to look at her.“You.”
“Me? What didIdo?”
“It’s what you didn’t do, Zoe,” I say. “What is it? You only want me when no one else is around? You’re more than happy to come on to me when nobody’s watching?”
“Okay.Clearly you’re in a crappy mood—”
“You didn’t want Wanda to know we’re together. That was obvious . . .”
“My business associates don’t have to know the details of my personal life—”
“Oh, yeah? Did you tell her when you got pregnant last time?” I ask.
“Of course I did—”
“There you go.” I swallow, trying really hard to not cry. “You told her I was your friend.”
“Youaremy friend,” Zoe says, exasperated.
“Is thatallI am?”
“What am I supposed to call you? My lover? That sounds like a bad seventies movie. My partner? I don’t even know if that’s what we are. But the difference between you and me is that I don’t care what it’s called. I don’t have to label it for everyone else. So why doyou?”In the kitchen the teakettle starts to scream. “Look,” Zoe says, taking a deep breath. “You’re overreacting. I’m going to turn off the stove and just go home. We can talk about this tomorrow, when we’ve both slept on it.”
She walks into the kitchen, but instead of letting her go, I follow her. I watch her movements, efficient and graceful, as she takes the kettle off the burner. When she turns to me, her features are smooth, expressionless. “Good night.”
She walks past me, but just as she reaches the kitchen doorway, I speak. “I’m afraid.”
Zoe hesitates, her hands framing the door, as if she is caught between two moments.
