My cell phone line only crackles with electric silence. “I just, well, just wanted you to know,” I stammer, pacing the length of the small room anxiously. “I thought you should know, before you came over tonight and all, ’cause Laurel sure brings out my dark side these days.”
“We all have a dark side, Michael,” she answers evenly. “You’re not unique in that.”
“But you don’t know what an asshole I turn into around her.” And that’s really what has me more upset than anything right now, the way I shouted at her in the guest room a while ago, the way I shut her out when she was trying to bridge the gap between us.
“Does she deserve it, you being an asshole?” she asks. “Does Laurel deserve that?”
“She deserves,” I heave a weary sigh, “a lot of things.” My love, my gratitude, my supreme hatred. Reaching out, I trace my fingers along the rails of Allie’s favorite board, perched right on top of the rack, and presto, like it’s a magic talisman, we’re up in Santa Cruz, late July. Laurel’s sprawled on the sand beside me in her bikini, telling stories on her brother while he just lazes on my other side, belly-down, listening.
They laugh, giddily remembering some near-forgotten tale from their childhood. Their voices fall into easy harmony as sentences and stories are finished, back and forth between them while the sun marks time down the length of the sand. Me, right in the middle, the cavernous loneliness that had dogged me all my life swept mystically out to deepest sea. I had a sister and a brother and a lover and a family, all wrapped up in just those two that afternoon.
“Michael,” Rebecca interrupts, “don’t you know by now that you can’t scare me off?” Her soft voice pitches low, like maybe she’s hiding out, too.
“What if you don’t know everything?” I press, needing to gauge what her reaction would be.
“If you were going to freak me out, that would have happened a while ago.”
That one actually makes me chuckle out loud. “Yeah, good point you make there, O’Neill.” I mean she’s in this thing with me, after all—and here I am hiding in a closet from my gay lover’s sister, after all these years.
“I’m in the closet.”
“What?” she asks, clearly confused. “I thought Laurel knew you and Al—”
“No, no, I mean literally. I’m calling you from a closet in the back of the house. I wasn’t ready for Laurel to know about…well, me.”
“You being with a woman.”
“Yeah, so guess I’m in the closet literally and figuratively, matter of fact. It’s the bisexual dilemma, you know.” An inexplicable wave of sorrow washes over me. “We’re always in the closet with somebody.”
“But you’re ready for me to come over tonight? You’re sure?”
“I can’t be away from you and do this, Rebecca,” I explain. “Can’t keep the truth about you from Laurel, either, ’cause like I told you, I’m falling pretty hard here.”
“Well, Michael,” she replies, comforting as an unexpected summer rain. “At least that makes two of us that feel that way.”
And before I can even answer, she hangs up the phone.
Chapter Seventeen: Rebecca
By the time I arrive at Michael’s place, his house is dark except for the light over the kitchen sink, illuminating the window like a magic lantern. As I head up the flagstones to the front door, the shadowy interior reminds me of a movie soundstage with all the key players standing hushed in the wings, breath held, waiting for their cue.
There’s the drifting aroma of charcoal and burgers grilling, and I realize everyone must be out back, but I ring the bell anyway. When nobody answers, I test the knob and enter. I know my way here now; I’m comfortable. It’s becoming a kind of safe haven for me, I think, stepping confidently inside and walking toward the darkened sunroom that leads to the deck.
Outside, through the sliding-glass doors, I spy Andrea at the table with Laurel, their heads bent together, coloring. I mean, that has to be Laurel, even though she’s nothing like I expected. She has a cascade of inky black hair, like spun silk, flowing straight down to her lower back—and she has this statuesque quality, an elegance that I’ve never felt I possess. Without any rational explanation, jealousy riots through every fiber of my being, based on nothing but a single look at Alex’s sister.
I thought she’d have red hair and freckles and be a little gawky. I thought she’d be earthy like Marti and put me at ease. But this woman wears beauty like a mystic aura, and I know instinctively that my own broken loveliness won’t ever compete.
“Didn’t hear you come in,” Michael says from behind me, causing me to jump.
“Oh!” I cry, spinning toward him guiltily. “I rang the bell, but—” I point toward the porch in explanation.
“You were watching her.” He’s staring beyond me to where Laurel inclines her head toward Andrea’s, lost in some secret world. I thought this was my domain, that I was the only one who could make the sacred connection.
“She’s beautiful,” I admit.