Songs without Words (30 page)

Chelsea called the following day. She was wary. Understandably. Harper proposed a picnic, just to talk. No hidden agenda. She suggested Tuesday evening for the free concert in the park. Chelsea agreed. Their phone conversation was brief and guarded.

As Harper packed picnic supplies Tuesday afternoon, her mood was light. When the phone rang, she jumped, alarmed, fearing that Chelsea had changed her mind. It was just a telemarketer. Hanging up the phone, Harper saw, through the screen door, Chelsea’s black Honda pull up at the curb. Her pulse quickened. Chelsea’s hair, golden light in the sunshine, surrounded her face like a halo. She strode up to the door, one bare knee showing through a sizeable rip in the fabric of her jeans. Harper noted her familiar shy smile with a pang of affection.

She pushed the screen door open, and Chelsea stepped inside, smiling. She hugged Harper close, warmly, but not sexually, and Harper closed her eyes, letting her body feel for just a second the sensations that were like a siren song to her blood and skin. Then Chelsea released her and stepped back.

“Thanks for coming,” Harper said. “Everything’s ready. Do you want to walk?”

Chelsea nodded. She was silent. Perhaps nervous. They walked the four blocks to the park, carrying a small ice chest and a tote bag.

“It’s good to see you,” Harper said, searching Chelsea’s face for some clue to her feelings.

“You too.”

They found a spot on the grass some distance from the musicians and most of the other picnickers and spread out a blanket. Harper had put chardonnay in a Gatorade bottle, which she poured into paper cups.

“Liquor’s not allowed in the park,” she explained.

Chelsea took the cup and swallowed a mouthful of wine as if it were medicine. She seemed distracted, watching the other people, avoiding eye contact. Harper hoped she would relax.

The nearly white hairs on Chelsea’s forearms glittered when a ray of sunlight hit them. Harper was reminded of a singular day the previous summer in a secluded cove they had found by chance, having walked quite a distance from a public beach. After plunging into the surf for a while, they had reclined on their towels on hot sand. Harper had removed Chelsea’s bikini top, revealing her gorgeous breasts to the sun. She had traced a finger along the tan line up over the curve of one breast, down into the groove between them, and then over the other, brushing off a few grains of quartz. Chelsea’s skin always sparkled in the sun. The fine, blond hairs that covered her caught the light like crystals. Chelsea lay on her back, her eyes closed under her sunglasses, her lips curled into an effortless smile. Her sand-dusted hair was splayed out on the blanket. Looking now at Chelsea’s arms in the dappled light under tree branches, Harper recalled this scene in vivid detail, recalled bending her head down to lick the shimmering layer of sunshine from Chelsea’s skin.

Delicious memories like these assailed her senses, retelling themselves intensely with sounds and tastes and smells. That day had been one scene in a tale full of promise in which each detail was brimming with meaning and magic. It had been a day full of awe, a day of honest joy like almost every day she had spent with Chelsea last summer.

“How’ve you been?” Harper asked.

Chelsea turned her attention to Harper. “Good.”

“You’ve got a tan already.”

“Swimming.”

Chelsea continued to hold herself at a distance. They ate pasta salad and chunks of watermelon in almost total silence as Harper tried to think of a way to draw her out. She yearned to recapture some of the emotional closeness they had had, even if the physical were now denied.

“Are you writing poetry?” Harper asked.

“Not so much right now. Maybe you didn’t know, but I finished my master’s degree in January. I’m going full time into teaching. Starting next month, I’ve got a fourth-grade class.”

“No, I didn’t realize that. I didn’t know you were serious about that. I thought the teaching was just something you wanted to have to fall back on, if you needed it someday.”

Chelsea picked at the grass absentmindedly. “Originally that’s what I planned, but I’ve been feeling lately like I need to do something more useful. The poetry, it’s an indulgence. It’s not a profession. I hoped it could be at one time, but it isn’t going to be. I can always write poetry, of course, as an avocation. I mean, I can’t just be Mary’s protégé all my life, now, can I? The time comes when you’re no longer the student. You have to become the teacher. In this case, literally.”

Harper glanced at the band playing some distance away and then back to Chelsea. “How do you know when the time comes to be the teacher? I mean, there’s always plenty more to learn.” “Well, sure. I don’t know. I suppose you just want to be pretty sure you know more than the students do.” Chelsea laughed, a light, pleasant laugh like the tinkle of a glass wind chime.“There’s always going to be more to learn. In that sense, you’ll be a student all your life. You can be both.”

That’s true, Harper thought. You could be both. She hadn’t really thought of it that way before.
You still have much to learn, Grasshopper
, she heard in her head.

“I think you’ll make a wonderful teacher,” Harper said. “I’d never be able to do that. The math alone would send me fleeing out the door.”

Chelsea smiled. “I guess teaching isn’t for everyone. At least not elementary school. Mary, for instance, thinks it would be absolute torture. She doesn’t understand why I’m willingly doing this. Children make her nervous. She thinks they should be put on another planet and segregated from society until they’re eighteen and have achieved a certain level of civility. It’s sort of funny. She has strong maternal instincts, but they don’t kick in for anybody who hasn’t grown to adult size.”

“How is Mary, by the way?” Harper asked.

“She’s well. Working on an exhibition. Opening next month in Santa Rosa.”

“Does she know you’re here, with me?”

Chelsea shook her head. “She’s very touchy on the subject. I thought it’d be better not to mention it. No point getting her worked up over nothing.”

Harper, nodding, thought to herself,
Is this
nothing
, then?

“You’re happy?” she asked.

Chelsea said, simply, “Yes.” She held her cup out for a refill. She wasn’t going to elaborate, which meant that she was being loyal to Mary, loyal to the privacy of their relationship.

A plaintive saxophone solo drifted through the still evening air. Harper was disappointed. She had hoped, more than she had admitted before this moment, that Chelsea and Mary were having trouble, that maybe they weren’t even together anymore. If there were any problems, though, they weren’t something Chelsea wanted to share. Harper had to respect that. She let the subject drop.

“How about you?” Chelsea asked. “What schemes have you been hatching?”

Harper thought over the past year. “Well, I’m still working on that video series, you know, the female artists. Got four of them now.”

“Good. Really worthwhile project. The one you did of Mary, it’s just beautiful. The music, especially. Well, that’s where you excel, of course. Do you remember that day, Harper?” Chelsea asked, smiling freely for the first time. “You played the baby grand for us.”

Harper nodded. “I remember. I played
Appassionata
.”

“That’s such a beautiful piece. Every time I hear it now, of course, I think of you.” Chelsea averted her gaze and let her last word trail off almost inaudibly, as if she’d said something she regretted. “So, who are the others, then?”

“There’s Catherine Gardiner, thanks to Mary.”

“Sure. I knew about that one.”

“And Wilona Freeman.”

“The photographer?”

“Right. I’ve known her for years and finally got around to including her this last winter. And Sophie Janssen, the sculptor. One of her larger pieces is in Oak Park. It’s a big metal...”

“Pear! Yes, I’ve seen it. Very sensuous. How do you know her?”

“We met at the dedication ceremony, actually. The symphony performed for that. She’s very approachable. Totally down-to-earth and no-nonsense. You’d never guess she was an artist just talking to her.”

“Artists aren’t all whack jobs, Harper,” Chelsea pointed out.

“No, I know that. But they do tend to be a little different, usually.”

Chelsea looked amused. “Must have been a challenge for you, then, to make her seem interesting.”

“No, not really. She’s a fascinating woman, despite the sanity.”

“So you have a painter, sculptor, photographer and poet, but no musician?”

“No, no musician.”

“That seems odd to me. I would have expected you to feature a musician right off the bat.”

“I just didn’t think of it.”

“Sometimes I think you don’t value your own art as much as you do other people’s. You take it for granted or something, but to the rest of us, musical talent is mysterious and impressive. Maybe one of those soloists they bring in for the symphony would be an interesting subject. Like that oboe player from last season.”

“Yes, you’re right. I’ll keep my eye out, then, for a musician.” Harper put a cover on the pasta salad. “Do you want any more of this watermelon?”

Chelsea shook her head. Harper longed to know her thoughts. There was so much that wasn’t being said between them.

“Have you been dating?” Chelsea asked.

“Some. A little.”

“Women?”

“Oh, yes! After you, what else?” Harper laughed. “I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

“Even after how it ended up?”

“Absolutely. It seems like I’ve been looking for something all of my life, and now I know what it was I was searching for, what my personal truth is, you know?”

“You finally figured out that you’re gay, you mean? You make it sound so mystical.”

Harper shrugged, recognizing the gentle criticism that had always been a part of their relationship. It was one of the things she appreciated about Chelsea, her insistence on looking at things a little more starkly than Harper was inclined to do.

“So how is it going, then? With these women, I mean?” Chelsea’s blue eyes looked searchingly into hers.
What does she want to hear?
Harper wondered.
This wall between us is simply maddening. What would she say if I told her right now that I’m still madly in love with her and I would do almost anything to be lying in bed beside her one more time?

“Nothing’s come of it,” Harper said. “Nothing serious. I went to a women’s festival a couple of months ago. That was an experience.”

“Yes?” Chelsea asked, expectantly.

“I met a woman there, a Turkish tanbur player who called herself Astral. She was fascinating.”

“What’s a tanbur?”

“Sort of a lute. A stringed instrument with a long neck.”

“I can see why she caught your eye, then.”

Harper nodded, then said, “We spent the night together.”

Chelsea arched her eyebrows. “How was that?”

“Fun. Enlightening.”

“Good,” Chelsea said with no evidence of jealousy. “Have you seen her since?”

Harper shook her head. “It was a one-time thing.”