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  "Was it a... woman?"

  Rayann resented the tiny hesitation and snapped, "She's still a lesbian. So am I."

  Her mother took a deep breath, let it out, then said, "You know your room is always there for you."

  It was what Rayann had been hoping her mother would say. She wasn't going home tonight. She didn't have enough courage, and curiously, not enough anger. "I don't know what I'm going to do, Mom. But knowing I can come home if I have to helps."

  Rayann woke early, startled, but then oddly comforted by the clunk-thunk the plumbing made when the hot water was turned off upstairs. A few minutes later she heard her mother's blow dryer. She could almost pretend she was seventeen again, but not for all the money on earth would she be seventeen again. She'd have to come out again, for one thing, and she'd probably still end up right where she was.

  She searched the dresser and found some of her old clothing. Her panty size hadn't changed since she'd lived at home and when she found a pair it didn't matter that they said "Sunday" and were covered with little hearts. Images from a previous life. She showered quickly, then dressed in the sweater and jeans she'd worn the day before, and hurried downstairs to share a cup of coffee and some breakfast with her mother.

  "Mmm." Rayann hung her nose over the steaming cup of French roast she'd poured. "This smells wonderful. What else is in it?"

  "A little vanilla bean," her mother croaked, glancing up from the Wall Street Journal.

  Rayann smiled as she sat down with her English muffin, hot from the toaster. She'd forgotten her mother's voice took two cups of coffee to warm up.

  "Made any plans?" Her mother folded the paper away.

  "No." Despite lying awake for the better portion of the night, Rayann had come to absolutely no conclusions. But staying away for the night should show Michelle that Rayann wasn't totally dependent on her. "I'm going to go home and talk to Michelle. I don't know if we can save anything."

  "Do you want to save something?"

  "We've had three years. I'd say it was worth a try."

  "If things don't work out," her mother said slowly, "and you have time, well, I know three groups who are hoping to find a graphic artist who'll help design some publicity pieces. There's the Center for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and —"

  "I don't do graphic design anymore." Rayann's tone was flat. A practical voice inside said they might be good opportunities, while a creative voice said they sounded like fun — but it meant the life with Michelle as it had been was over. The dream of being an artiste was over. She wasn't ready to admit that yet.

  "I know you haven't done it for a while, but this would give you a chance to get your hand back in, get your name circulated — if you have the time for it now."

  "I don't know that I do."

  "Dear, I only meant if you don't work things out with Michelle then you would have something to look forward to —"

  "Jobs you arrange for me?" Rayann couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice. This was an old argument. Her mother hadn't changed.

  "Jobs I'm only letting you know exist. And these aren't even jobs — just high-visibility pro bono opportunities. You don't have to take them." Her mother quietly pushed back her chair and carried her plate to the sink.

  "Good. Don't plan my life for me yet, Mom. It's too soon for you to start dancing in the streets because I left Michelle."

  "I'm not dancing —"

  "You never liked her."

  "No, I didn't, but I still—"

  "So don't try to lure me away. It won't work." Rayann stood up and marched to the sink with her coffee cup. She rinsed it, then smacked it down on the counter.

  "You're being very unfair to me," her mother said quietly. "I'm not trying to lure you away. I'm just trying to let you see your options."

  Options. Rayann wailed inside. She was tired of considering her options. She wouldn't be doing it at all if Michelle hadn't — "The primary of which is giving up this lesbian silliness and finding a man, right?"

  "I said nothing of the kind." Her mother's voice was clipped as she picked up her briefcase and suit jacket.

  "But you were thinking it." In her anger, Rayann could see her mother was upset at having been found out. "You sent me all those books, remember, about how I could be cured, remember?"

  "I'm not going to argue about what I've already apologized once for. You do what you have to do," her mother said. She walked quickly to the door that led to the garage, then turned. "Your room is there if you need it."

  Rayann was so angry at her mother and — and everything that she practically snarled her response. "As long as I behave the way you want me to, right?"

  "I made no conditions," Ann Germaine said. "But if this is how you're going to behave, then maybe I should." She shut the door quietly behind her.

  Anger quickened Rayann's stride. Her mother had been doing the same old thing, trying to break her and Michelle up. She didn't need her mother's help. Michelle and she would work this thing out. Michelle's 300Z was in its parking space as it had been the afternoon before, covered with early morning mist. As she approached the building a car U-turned and came toward Rayann. She glanced disinterestedly at the driver and then froze. The driver was the woman Michelle had been in bed with.

  That bitch spent the night! Rayann felt speared by the truth — Michelle had not cared enough to come looking for her. Michelle had gone back to that woman, had gone on making love to her. She couldn't care less about me. Three years —

  The pain slowed her steps and she leaned on the Z while she gasped for breath. Her vision cleared after a few minutes and her body went blissfully numb. What am I going to do? Bette Davis would have known. Straightening her shoulders, Rayann walked resolutely up the apartment steps. What a dump, she thought contemptuously. I'm going to get the hell out of here and good riddance.

  Even before Rayann's steady hand turned the key all the way, Michelle was pulling open the door.

  "What did you for—" She broke off with a noiseless gasp. Rayann looked at the shining blonde hair with the red glints, attractive long, dark lashes fringing pale blue eyes. Her courage began to fail her. She had forgotten Michelle was beautiful.

  "Where the hell have you been? I've been worried sick!" Even in anger, Michelle's voice was beautifully pitched. So often Rayann had imagined how comforted Michelle's patients must be by that lovely voice.

  "That's rich. I saw her driving away. Did she adequately fill the void my absence created?" Rayann headed for the bathroom. She'd just pack some clothes.

  "You could have at least called. I don't care how angry you were."

  "'Angry' isn't quite the right word," Rayann said, her tone as aloof as she could manage. "And why would I call? To say I was fine and tell you to enjoy yourself?" She stopped in the doorway of the bedroom. Her favorite sheets. Lilacs and roses intertwined like legs and arms. Rayann realized she would never have known about the other woman if she hadn't seen her with Michelle. She realized then that yesterday probably hadn't been the first... indiscretion.

  "Are we going to be rational about this? Aren't you even going to look at me?"

  Rayann kept her back turned. Then the love she had felt for Michelle began to throb. Is this what love feels like when it's dying — or is it coming back to life? "Was she the only one?"

  "It was a mistake."

  Rayann turned to study Michelle's expression. "What was a mistake? What I know I saw? Just an optical illusion maybe? Or going to bed with her? Was that a mistake? A mistake that lasted all night and well past breakfast?"

  "It was the first time."

  Rayann saw the corners of Michelle's eyes crinkle slightly, then relax again. "The first time with her or just the first time in our bed?"

  "You're not going to listen to me, are you?" Again the slight crinkle.

  Rayann suddenly knew that the little facial change she'd never noticed before meant Michelle was hiding something. She frantically searched her memory. How many times when she didn't
come home after her shift and said she'd filled in for someone else — how many of those times did her eyes do that? How many lies have there been? Just how stupid am I? "You're answering questions with questions. But the answers don't matter because I'm leaving."

  "Look, Lori was a mistake. I invited her home for a drink because our shift was absolutely shitty and one thing led to another."

  "I really didn't want to know her name." Rayann went to the closet and rummaged in the back for one of her suitcases. She'd fill the medium-sized one. When she set it on the bed, Michelle leaned across and held it closed.

  "What do I have to say to make you believe me?"

  Rayann looked down at Michelle's hands. She wanted to snatch the suitcase away and heave it against the wall. And then break everything until there was nothing left worth having. In a whisper, she managed, "I believe you've slept with every woman from here to Denver. I think every time I look at my friends I'll wonder which of them betrayed me."

  "Well that's just great!" Michelle stomped to the other side of the room. "Go ahead! Walk out on our relationship if it makes you happy."

  "Are you going to tell me she was the only one you had sex with besides me?"

  "Of course she was." Michelle's expression of outrage didn't alter — except for the tiny crinkle at the corners of both eyes.

  Hot anger surged through Rayann and her vision blurred for a split second. "You've lied to me all along, haven't you? You knew I'd hate it, so you lied and lied!"

  Michelle's eyes grew big with tears. "No!" She stumbled for words. "I was afraid — I thought you might — oh Ray, you can't go!" She burst into tears.

  Rayann's anger evaporated and she fought an overwhelming impulse to comfort Michelle.

  "I can't believe it happened, I never meant it to. It just happened. Lori... Lori wanted to. She hadn't ever been with a woman." Even in tears Michelle was beautiful.

  Rayann fought the appeal of Michelle's pleading eyes. It seemed cruelly unfair that somehow Michelle was more upset and in need of sympathy and pity than Rayann was. Her voice was hard and rough as she said, "Don't pretend you made the sacrifice on behalf of recruiting someone new to the Lesbian Nation. Blaming the other woman is an old, old line, Michelle. She wasn't the only one. You know it and I know it."

  "It was a mistake." Michelle took a step toward her, but Rayann stepped back.

  "I can't forget. I can't forgive you for bringing her here and doing it in our bed. And I can't go on pretending there's a reason to stay with you." Except for monetary reasons — lots of monetary reasons. Rayann knew she couldn't accept a future together based on money — accepting that their past had been was going to be hard enough.

  Michelle tossed her long blonde hair. Rayann remembered all the times she had pulled that hair up over her stomach while — No, it's over. "Don't take away what we have because I made a mistake in judgment."

  "What do we have? An occasional evening together? Doing the laundry? This place is yours and I'm the temporary belonging." Rayann sat down on the bed. What had they ever had that was equally theirs? What had there been that wasn't mostly Michelle's?

  "Darling, you were never a belonging, you know that."

  "A convenience then, like a built-in toaster. Handy to have around because you knew I'd be here. If there was no one else, you knew I'd be here for you." Rayann's voice shook. "I think I hate you."

  "Never hate me," Michelle whispered, and her lips went to Rayann's clenched hand.

  "Don't." At the touch of Michelle's lips three years of loving and wanting and having washed through Rayann's senses.

  "Darling, I love you. We're so good together. Don't let anything come between us."

  "It was so good because I could count on it — and you. I trusted you. And I'm not the one who has let something.. lots of somethings come between us."

  "I'll make it up to you."

  Rayann's body began to swell with the familiar wanting. "You can't make it up to me. The damage is done."

  "You want me to touch you, I can tell, and I know just how. You can't, walk away from that."

  "Yes, I can." Rayann summoned all her will, stood up, and opened the suitcase. She gathered a handful of polo shirts. Her knees were nearly liquid, but she kept going. She knew how easy it would be to say to herself, Just once more, one last time.

  "Go ahead then," Michelle whispered. "Go ahead and try to walk way."

  "Why do you want me around?" Bewildered, Rayann stopped with an armload of clothes to look at Michelle. "Every time you do anything new I'll wonder who taught it to you. Don't you see? There's no magic left for me."

  Michelle laughed. Rayann heard the edge of bitterness in it. "You've always been an incurable romantic."

  "Well, I think you found the cure. You'll have to put another notch in whatever doctors notch when they make someone well." Rayann paused. Her throat went tight with anger and tears. "Thanks. Thanks so much."

  "Can't we be adult about this?" Michelle asked. She pushed away from the wall, hands in her back pockets, and walked toward Rayann. Michelle's shirt pulled tight across breasts Rayann had caressed hundreds of times.

  "If being adult means I shouldn't feel as if you lied to me…"

  "Only to keep from hurting you…"

  "And that I shouldn't believe love and trust are inseparable…"

  "Oh, grow up, Rayann!"

  "I have! Damn you! I aged fifty years when I saw you on top of her."

  "Oh shit. Let's not do this, okay? Go ahead, hate me if it makes you feel better." Michelle turned her back.

  Rayann looked at that beautiful back and sketched a mental picture of karate-chopping the hell out of Michelle. The image twisted: anger turned to passion and their bodies were melted together, straining and climaxing.

  She broke out of her frozen stance, breathing hard.

  How easy to forget about the lies and the other lovers... How easy to live one day at a time. At least I'd have Michelle instead of no one.

  Deep inside, Rayann balked. She thought of her mother suddenly, and knew that while she'd defend being a lesbian to the death, standing in line for Michelle was something she couldn't defend. She knew that if she gave in, Michelle would take it as permission to go on having affairs. And she would become the equivalent of a kept woman, the number one wife, the steady mistress, the head bimbo. She wouldn't be able to face herself in the mirror.

  "You're not very good at playing the martyr," she said to Michelle's back. "I'm going to pack now."

  Michelle turned, her hair a shining cape.

  How easy to just reach out and touch it one last time.

  "Where are you going?"

  "What does that matter to you? Lori and all the others like her will comfort you in your hour of need, I'm sure." Rayann found her loafers under the bed and then added a half a dozen pairs of socks to the suitcase.

  "I lied to you because I knew you'd be childish about it. But I've never said I love you to anyone but you."

  "Next you'll be saying that love means never having to say you're sorry. Don't stoop to clichés or I might start thinking you never did have any class."

  "Maybe you're right," Michelle hissed. "I loved you."

  Rayann drew in a sharp, aching breath. Okay, it's over. Bette, if you're up there, please don't let me cry.

  Michelle watched her in stony silence as Rayann carried the suitcase out of the bedroom. She filled her backpack with some of her wood tools, then realized she couldn't carry them all. She didn't want to leave them, and she didn't want to leave her computer which had been under the bed for almost two years now. And there were the half-started projects and a few pieces of her early work Rayann hated but wouldn't part with for the world. She almost cried when she saw her first creation — a whittled ashtray she'd made for her father, who hadn't smoked. There were two armloads of mailing tubes full of rolled posters she had designed — before Michelle.

  The books, and albums and the rest of her clothes she'd have to leave, for n
ow. She picked up the suitcase and slung the backpack over one shoulder. She held her head up. "I’ll send for my things," she said. I'm the emancipated Judy Holliday, but I've got no William Holden on my arm. But to believe Michelle's lies, Rayann reminded herself, would be naive.

  "I could have some movers take them to your mother's house. That's where you're headed, isn't it?" Michelle spoke spitefully and Rayann winced.

  "I'm not going home to Mother," Rayann said stoutly. But that's exactly what you were going to do. "Not that it's any concern of yours."

  "Aren't you forgetting this?" Michelle was holding Rayann's last anniversary present.

  Rayann looked at the sixteen-inch square of mahogany. It was so thin that light shone dimly through it, making the design dance in red and orange. The carving was her finest work — suggestive of a woman's form, stretched and taut, hair flowing outward to form the textured pattern of the beveled edges. Michelle had hung it in the front window where it glowed in the setting sun. "I meant it for you. You can keep it as a sample of your patronage of the arts."

  Michelle remained where she was, clutching the mahogany square. Rayann opened the front door and without a backward glance struggled down the steps outside the apartment. She didn't hear the door slam — her ears seemed as numb as the rest of her — but she knew it had been slammed because the stairs shook and the ground rocked as she walked unsteadily away.

  2

  Finding a Niche

  Rayann wanted to sit down on her suitcase and cry. The cold fog bit into her exposed hands and face while she began to sweat under her jacket. When she finally made it to the Muni station she just wanted to get on the next train and let it take her somewhere as long as somewhere was not here.

  After Michelle's scathing remarks, Rayann would not go back to her mother's. I won't play Alice Cramden or Ethel Mertz. She thought about calling Judy, but Dedric and Judy had enough strays in and out of their apartment. Rayann at least had credit cards — there must be an inexpensive hotel somewhere in the city. She laughed to herself even as she considered the idea. Not in San Francisco.

  Judy, then, or back to the bar. Maybe she would run into someone who would be willing to put her up, just for a few nights. Even as she considered it, Rayann felt a sharp stab of embarrassment and fear. Everyone would know she'd left Michelle. And which ones would know why — which of her friends had been with Michelle? Would she go into the bar and find out, from the looks and whispers, that she was the last to know? She couldn't face anyone. Not until she proved she didn't need Michelle, or her mother, or anyone. She was just fine on her own. When a train bound for Embarcadero came along she got on it.