Shane slouched alone at the usual table, contemplating her cell phone, her fingernails, and the toes of her boots. A stray ray of sunlight fought its way through the heads of those seated near the window, coming to rest right in the middle of her eye. Idly, she wondered where her sunglasses and her friends were, but she wan’t sure she wanted to bother with either. She was drinking coffee and thinking of cocaine when she heard a whisper…
“There you are”
She looked up in suprise to see Bette. A very pale, small, staring Bette with bruises on her neck and face.
“Bette, holy *****.” Shane’s funk dissipated in a flash at the sight of her obviously-in-some-kind-of-trouble role model.
“Where is Tina? Where is everybody?” Shane’s hand shot toward her cell phone, but Bette got to it first.
“No.” Bette said with suprising resolve, “they are probably with Tina.”
Shane looked up from Bette’s hand on hers and into Bette’s eyes. Bette held her glance for a long moment, feeling exposed and ashamed, but finally a little less alone. She continued to hold Shane’s eyes with hers, slowly allowing every emotion of the past week to pass through her, willing at least some of it to show on her face and tell Shane the story without words. She watched Shane’s expression change from concern to comprehension to compassion and she knew she had come to the right person. Finally, Shane lit a cigarette and began.
“Well, would it help you more to talk or to listen? If you want to tell me what happened, that’s cool, or we could talk about my evening, which was also pretty heinous.”
“Oh, *****, Shane, that’s right, Cherie Jaffe. Tina told me about that and I hardly even heard her…” Tear hovered on the edge of Bette’s eyes. “I’ve been so caught up in …”
“Bette, it’s ok. You couldn’t have stopped me, I wasn’t listening to anyone. I was just following what I felt. I thought nobody could possibly understand. And I ended up not only hurting myself, but almost breaking up an entire family.” Shane’s voice broke and she quickly looked down, wishing she had sought out her shades when she’d had the chance.
“Me, too” Whispered Bette, watching Shane’s shoulders silently trembling. “I had a family. We lost our baby but we still had…”
Now Bette was sobbing loudly and Shane tossed her cigarette away and pulled her roughly into her arms, pushing Bette’s face into her shoulder and crying into her hair as she stroked it.
“You don’t have to tell me about it, Bette. You know you don’t. You know I know how it is.”
“I know. I knew you would understand better than anyone, but I was so afraid that you would be disappointed and disillusioned. I know how you have always looked up to us, how you have said we give you hope. I didn’t want to see you lose that hope.”
“Well, I guess I’ve learned how strong marriages can be. It seems pretty clear that Cherie’s marriage will survive me. I have faith that yours will survive…whatever, Bette, I do. And you should, too. Have faith in Tina, and her compassion and her faith. None of us has a heart like hers, Bette. I feel that she’s going to amaze us all someday, and I know you’ll still be there when she does.”
“Yes, yes…” sobbed Bette. “She will, she always does.”
“And Bette, a love like that is not something you can deserve. You can’t earn it, all you can do is accept it. And maybe it isn’t fair to her for me to say this, but I don’t think she has a choice. It flows through her from somewhere else whether she wants it to or not. She’s trying to find some way to stop it right now, I bet, but it’s going to half-kill her to do it, and if you are still around when she gives up, I know that love will all still be there, just saved up there, ok?”
“I know, I know” sobbed Bette, crying even harder. “But how long will it take? Every minute I have been sitting here seems like the last minute I can stand it and I don’t know how many more minutes it will be. I don’t know how I am going to get through the days, my job…” she cried even harder.
Shane embraced her again and kissed her temple, smoothed her hair back and then kissed her forehead. After a moment, Bette stopped crying and reached for a napkin. Drying her eyes, she looked up and seemed to study Shane’s face.
“Shane.”
“What, sweetie?”
“What you just said about Tina…”
“Yes?”
“You were talking about you, too, weren’t you?”
“….uh..” Shane fumbled in her pocket for her cigarettes.
“You’ve learned how to be in love, Shane. That wall you always had is totally gone.”
“Not totally. Maybe it was going away, but after what happened I don’t see-”
“No, Shane. You know. You know now why all the rest of us put ourselves through the ***** we do. You know now and you can’t stop that knowledge. And someone is coming pretty soon that will make you glad you learned it.”
“I don’t see how-”
“Someone’s coming, Shane. I can feel her in the air.”
“Well, if you say so..”
“I do. And I also have to say that, oddly enough, I feel a little better. I feel like maybe I could go home and open the mail and be okay for like a half an hour, maybe. I don’t know about after that, though. It will be getting pretty close to dinnertime after that.” Bette’s lip trembled again. Shane reacted quickly, glad of the change in topics.
“Ok, well, how about this- I will be there when dinner rolls around. I will come over at 5:30 and stay till you fall asleep. Maybe we’ll actually eat.”
“You can cook?” Bette was incredulous.
“Oh, I’ll think of something.”
Bette eyed her doubtfully. Shane smilled reassuringly and winked at her.
“Ok, boss” Bette said she leaned over for one last hug and glanced toward the door. Squaring her shoulders, she walked away.
“Wow.” Shane said to herself as she watched Bette leave, “Talk about taking your mind off things. Ok, well here’s a project, I guess”.
She got up and walked toward the bar hoping to get some quick cooking tips from Marina. There was a line at the counter so Shane took her place at the end, wondering to herself why in the world Dana couldn’t have kept Lara around a little longer so she could pick her brain.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry”
Shane looked up to see what the delay was and saw Marina looking amused and the customer in front of her looking frantically through her wallet.
“I’m sorry, oh my god. I can’t find any money. I know I had a five-dollar bill”
Shane put her hand on the woman’s arm and reached for her wallet, quickly extracting a bill and handing it to Marina.
“Keep the change”
“Oh, thank you..” the woman turned and and Shane…
…suddenly does not know where she is…Shane…suddenly does not know what is in her hand…It’s her wallet..she fumbles with it, puts it away…and looks at her other hand, clasped by the smooth warm white fingers of …a woman…with tears in her eyes..
“Oh, no,” whispers Shane, “No tears, ok? It’s ok now, right? It’s taken care of, let’s sit down, ok?”
Shane led her back to the table she’d been sharing with Bette and pulled out a chair for..
“I’m Shane” she said, holding out her hand and finding it still firmly grasping the hand of..
“Amy”
“Hi, Amy..” Shane smiled into what seemd like an ocean of gray eyes and glowing skin, suddenly feeling she was smiling all over her body.
“Oh, you didn’t get your coffee-”
“It’s ok. I’ve been here since this morning. I’ve had more than enough. Actually, I wanted to ask Marina how to cook.”
“You don’t know how to cook?”
“Not really, I mean look at me- If I could cook, I might have an *****, at least.”
Amy glanced down at her lap, looking shy, and then giggled.
“You have a little bit of an *****.”
“Ohhh, I see, you’re one of those damsel-in-distress types who is really a total dog, huh?”
“No..” Amy giggled, “I’m not a dog, just a total lez, I guess.”
“Really? Well, let’s talk about that, that’s very interesting. Do you have a girlfriend?”
Amy looked down at her cup and hesitated.
“Ok, never mind, never mind, we’ll come back to that one, ok?’
“Ok”
“Can you cook?”
Amy giggled.
“What?”
“Why are you so obsessed with cooking?”
“Oh, a friend of mine is going through a crisis and I sort of promised I would be there in, uh, two and a half hours to make her dinner.”
“Oh, I can cook a crisis dinner.” Shane’s breath caught as Amy became more animated, tucking her maryjanes beneath her and leaning forward.
“Crisis dinners are all about comfort food. Is your friend a vegetarian?”
“Uh, maybe?”
“Ok, let’s assume she is.” Now Amy rummaged in her Hello Kitty tote bag , coming up with a pack of cigarettes and a pen.
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
“I would love for you to smoke.”
Amy raised her eyebrows at Shane and offerred her the pack. Shane shook out two cigaretees and lit them both from her Zippo.
“Well, thank you,” Amy murmured, “Now, your friend. Will she have any groceries in the house?”
“Well, I always got the feeling her girlfriend took care of that stuff and she’s…not there right now”
“Ok, so let’s assume we need to go to the grocery store.”
“Do you know where that is?”
“Shane.”
“Yes, Amy?”
“What were you going to do if I hadn’t come along?” Amy asked as she began gathering her things.
“You don’t even want to know,” Shane said as she stood up.
“My instincts are telling me Top Ramen” Amy giggled again, then stopped as Shane looked very seriously into her eyes. They stood for a moment.
“Is that all your instincts are telling you?” Shane’s voice had become even huskier.
Amy took a very deliberate step toward Shane, paused, and then took another step. Shane’s hands itched to reach out and bury themselves in Amy’s thick brown hair, but something told her to be still. She slowly exhaled as she watched Amy’s hand rise from her side to come to rest against Shane’s cheek, then watched Amy watching her hand slowly travel from Shane’s cheek to her neck and felt the very slight pressure as Amy closed her eyes and let her lips find Shane’s and touch them very softly, just for a second before Amy turned her head and laid it on Shane’s shoulder. As Shane’s hand rose to cradle to back of Amy’s head Amy said,
“My instincts are telling me this dinner has to be perfect.”
“Yes.” Shane whispered into Amy’s neck, “Perfect…”