Chapter 1

“I used to be a hopeless romantic.  I am still a hopeless romantic.  I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don’t expect to be happy. I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy.  I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution.  I think of love as a force of nature – as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving. And when it burns out, the planet dies.”-Jeanette Winterson

I was shocked, yet equally excited, when I heard your message telling me you were coming to town. 

“Bette, its Tina.” You laughed nervously and took a deep breath.  For a minute I wondered if you would continue. “I know it’s been a while.  I got your card last month.  I’m…it made me happy…you remembered. Almost forty…amazing how time just kind of goes…” You pause again almost as if you’re considering the effects of time.  Maybe that’s just me thinking. “Anyway, you once told me if I ever made it back to LA to give you a call.  Well, I hope your offer still stands.  I’m going to be in town for a couple of days next week.  I’m arriving Tuesday the 9 am flight and fly out again Wednesday night.  It’s mostly business, but I really would never forgive myself if I didn’t see you at least for dinner.”  There it is…the seemingly well-intended offer.  I reprimand myself when I doubt your intentions.   Surely, you mean it in the most platonic possible way.  Why do I always assume there’s this alternative motive when you want to see me?  As if you read my mind you begin to back pedal, “That is if you are available.  No pressure though.  I understand if you…if you can’t.  I hope to hear from you…goodbye, Bette.”

I wasn’t sure why you had called to tell me and the thought of seeing you again made me nervous.  I could hear the strain in your voice.  Almost as if you were begging me to see you.  Then my thoughts bombard me with speculation about the reasons why…reasons I’m not entirely certain I care to know.  I don’t know if I could…if I could see you and let you leave without knowing when I might see you again.  I don’t know if I could be there for you if you needed me to be…no matter how much I would want to be.  That seems to be our history…for so long I was a convenience and I always allowed it just to give myself a purpose for being in your life.  Is that really all I was?  I desperately want to believe that I was more to you than a means to an end.  Then there are the paths we’ve chosen.  The last seven years have brought enormous change to both our lives.  Would I still know you?  That question lingered in my mind as I fumbled with my phone, garnering the courage to dial your number.  There were other questions as well.  My mind forced me to wonder if after all this time was it worth all the possible negative outcomes just to see you again? I had to believe that things had happened as they should have.  What right do I have to interfere? For so long after you left I questioned the direction of my life…tried to place blame on myself, on you, anywhere I could that might take responsibility for the ultimate fuck-up that I felt my life had become.  But after a while I knew that neither of us should have to carry that burden.  Life, unfortunately, had reasons for separating us and no matter how much I loved you I learned to accept that the life you were leading was the one you wanted.  Now as I sit here staring at the phone, debating my choices, I realize I can’t afford to go back.