It was one a.m., and the grounds of the Extended Stay Deluxe were empty. Avery sat by the pool. Occasionally, an airplane roared by overhead, but even the airport seemed to be half asleep. Soon it would be time to leave. Leaving had always made her feel better. A bad visit with her mother, a season that fell flat—the answer had been simple. Just go. But the planes looked unsteady, and the summer night would be so beautiful if Merritt were lounging in the plastic lawn chair beside her.
The water in the pool was motionless. She stood up. She was still wearing a dress, but she stepped into the shallows anyway. The dress floated around her knees. Greg would be appalled. She was wading tearfully (and fully dressed!) into a pool, right beneath a sign that said DO NOT SWIM ALONE. Dan Ponza could be in the bushes. Hotel guests could be out walking their dogs.
She took another step in, then dipped her head under the water, holding her breath for as long as she could, listening to the water pressing against her ears. She tried to imagine herself someplace else—Atlanta, Montana—but she was right there. Her breath ran out and she popped up. Her hair hung in tangled curls. She thought about Merritt stroking it off her forehead while she lay in the bath. I don’t want to hurt you.
“You did,” she said to the empty water. Then she dipped under again, swimming the whole length underwater.
She had always been a good swimmer. She wished Merritt could see her. You didn’t give me a chance, she thought as she surfaced, turned, and swam back. I messed up at eighteen. You can’t hold that against me forever. I won’t break your heart. She dove again, swimming down to the bottom of the pool—all eight feet of it—and sitting on the bottom. It wasn’t fair to do that to a plain girl. Merritt with her slim body, her perfect face, her shop, her freedom, her friends, her effortless talent at everything. Merritt could have a career on television without Marlene Crown or plastic surgery. She forced her eyes open. The chlorinated water burned away her tears. Far away she imagined music playing, a familiar song, one of DX’s softer ballads. Then it struck her: It was her phone!
She surfaced in a rush and launched out of the water. She managed to touch accept despite dripping fingers.
“Hello?”
There was a moment of silence.
“You’re worth it,” Merritt said.
* * *
A few minutes later Avery slid into the driver’s seat of her comped pink convertible. She was a bit drier, although the dry dress she had thrown on now stuck to her legs and her hair dripped down her back. But soon she was parking behind Hellenic Hardware. She crept up to the front doors, glancing up and down Burnside. Nothing stirred inside the shop, not even the intermittent blink of a security camera, but she heard a strain of music. Avery looked up. A story above her, Merritt sat in a windowsill, outlined by the orange glow of a lamp. Her back rested against the window frame. She had tucked one leg up in front of her, her chin on her knee. The tip of a cigarette or a joint glowed at her fingertips, but she wasn’t smoking. Only thinking. At least that was what it looked like from below.
Avery stood for a long minute. As a teenager, she had always felt nervous before showing up at Merritt’s door. She had thought, What if I’m not good enough? What if she’s changed her mind?
“So it’s a spectator sport?” The concrete wall carried Merritt’s voice like a tin-can telephone, quiet and yet right in her ear. Merritt looked down, her face in shadows. “What are you doing, Avery Crown?”
What was she doing? Dan Ponza was somewhere in the city.
“I’m coming up.”
Merritt disappeared from the windowsill and returned a moment later.
“Catch.” She tossed a set of keys.
For an instant Avery saw them lit by the streetlight like a heavy snowflake. She felt more than thought that she would remember that image forever. Merritt’s keys frozen in the air. The glow of Merritt’s lamp. The strange sensation that she had once again become the person she was at sixteen. Then she caught the keys.
Inside, Avery made her way past the front counter. Merritt met her at the foot of the narrow staircase, fully dressed, like someone who had had no intention of going to bed. Upstairs, the apartment looked like the home of a lonely bachelor. Avery wished she could decorate the place. Even shag lawn carpet would make it look cozier.
“Why are you wet?” Merritt asked, putting her hands on Avery’s waist.
“I was swimming.”
“In this dress?”
“In a different dress.”
“I like it.”
If Dan Ponza had followed her, his camera would be glued to the window.
As if reading her mind, Merritt drew the curtains. Then she kissed her. It was wonderful. It was everything. And it was so not enough.
“I want this,” Avery whispered.
She pressed herself against Merritt. She felt the same searing desire she had felt in the Peculiarium, but now it was better and more unbearable because she knew soon Merritt would touch her. Surely sensing the urgency of her need, Merritt lifted the skirt of Avery’s dress over her head.
“Come to bed,” Merritt said.
Avery stepped out of her heels and followed Merritt into a bedroom that was as sparse as the rest of the apartment. One pillow. One end table. One sad torchère lamp in the corner.
“Where are your antiques?” Avery asked.
“I didn’t think I’d be here for so long.”
“We’ll be gone soon,” Avery said. “It’s less than a month now. God, it’s only a few days really. I’m sorry you had to wait to move into the Elysium. I know how much you wanted to be there.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Merritt said. “I’m fine here. I’m fine tonight.”
The disappointment Avery had felt when Merritt strode out of the Peculiarium melted away beneath the heat of Merritt’s gaze. Her dark eyes burned with desire, and the care with which she moved seemed to bely an urgency that was not careful at all. Avery was so overwhelmed with wonder—she was here! Merritt was here!—she could barely unbutton Merritt’s shirt, but she did, and she cast it to the floor. They kissed for a long time while standing at the foot of Merritt’s bed.
When Merritt drew away, Avery delicately nipped her bottom lip. “You’re so good at everything and you’re so cool and you know you’re intimidating.”
“Are you intimidated now?” In one graceful move that Avery didn’t fully understand, Merritt fell backward on the bed, managing to carry Avery with her so gently Avery felt like she had been set down on a cloud. They lay side by side. Merritt held her, her embrace strong and light at the same time.
Merritt shed her clothes, undressing while lying down and managing to still look graceful. Then she unhooked Avery’s bra and cradled one of Avery’s breasts in her hand. She stayed there for a long time, massaging Avery’s breasts, kissing one nipple and then the other, flicking the hardening flesh, rubbing it between her fingers. Avery felt her body grow more and more sensitive. Then very slowly Merritt kissed her way down Avery’s belly and slipped off her underwear. She pressed her lips to the curls above Avery’s sex and then lower. Avery thought she would faint with pleasure. Merritt was right there but so gentle. Merritt took her time as though there were no next step, as though this were the culmination of lesbian sex. Avery raised her hips. Merritt placed a hand on her belly and held her down.
Avery undulated between peace and frantic need until Merritt found a rhythm that spoke to both. Merritt kissed her harder. Avery felt like a wave rising and rising until it was filled with sunlight and then breaking on itself. She clasped her hand to her mouth as she came, stifling a cry that would surely have called Ponza to the window.
Avery sank into the mattress as she caught her breath. When she opened her eyes and again looked over, Merritt lay with one hand between her own legs, moving with an urgency Avery recognized.
“It’s okay,” Merritt whispered. “You don’t have to do anything.” She closed her eyes, moving faster, digging her fingers in harder. “This is enough.”
The strain on her face said it wasn’t.
“Slow down,” Avery said. “Shh.”
Avery closed her hand over Merritt’s, feeling the frantic jerking of her fingers, and eased it to a stop.
“I’m fine.”
“Shh,” Avery said again. “I think there are other ways.”
She drew Merritt’s hand away, kissed her lips, her neck, her breasts, and then slid down Merritt’s body until she lay between her legs. She gently parted them. “May I?”
“You don’t have to. I want it. Don’t think I don’t want it, but it’s just…I don’t usually…I don’t let women because...It’s not you. Please know it’s not you. It’s just so…much more than I’m used to.”
“Is that a no?” Avery leaned on one elbow.
For the first time ever, Merritt looked timid. She shook her head. “It’s not a no. God, I’ve been thinking about it for days. I shouldn’t think about you like that when we’re filming, but if you go down on me…I won’t know what to do.”
Avery laughed deep in her throat. “You don’t have to do anything. That’s the point. All you have to do is trust me.”
Merritt’s body was swollen, beautiful, and complicated. And Avery wasn’t sure she trusted herself to satisfy Merritt. Merritt made love to her like a woman who had practiced her part to perfection. Maybe she had read Dr. Bingo Sterling’s book on cunnilingus. Avery wasn’t sure she remembered the lessons she had learned at Powell’s Books, and none of her other lovers had taught her much. But a career in television had taught her a few things. If the scene doesn’t play well, you changed tactic. If you got it almost perfect, go again. Go again. Go again. You’d know when you got it right.
Avery dipped her tongue deeper into Merritt’s body. Then kissed, sucked, and released her clit. Merritt gave a surprised “Oh!” Then Avery shifted her kiss a little bit.
“There!” Merritt said suddenly. “Harder. Slower.” Then, “Oh, faster! Yes. God, yes!” Her back arched. Her hands clutched the sheets. Then she fell back. “Yes,” she sighed, as though she had lost a fight she hadn’t wanted to win.
But when their eyes finally met again, Merritt looked lost.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“Sweetheart,” Avery said. “We’re women. We cuddle.”
Merritt moved toward her so tentatively, it might as well have been her who nearly cracked her ribs in a bicycle accident. But when she rolled into Avery’s embrace, her whole body fit perfectly, and Merritt buried her face in Avery’s hair and sighed. It was only as Merritt slowly relaxed that Avery thought she might have made a terrible mistake, the one she apparently could not escape making. She had lured Merritt in, and she had touched something fragile beneath Merritt’s bold swagger. And she was leaving in less than four weeks. You’ll break my heart. Go again.