The Monday before Thanksgiving, Andy emerged from her music room earlier than usual. Brooke was at the dining room table, making yet another list of ingredients for her dinner.
“Hey,” Andy said, resisting the urge to cross the room and give Brooke a good morning kiss. Since the concert, her desire to touch Brooke had been growing stronger, fueled by the knowledge that Brooke wanted her too. She had to keep her distance until Brooke decided whether she wanted Andy for keeps, or just for a night. She busied herself at the sink instead, washing her coffee mug. “I don’t have lessons today since it’s a holiday week. Do you want to go to Pike Place and get some food for Thursday?”
“I’d love to,” Brooke said, waving the piece of paper she had been writing on. “I have the menu finalized, so we can get our produce there at the market, then stop at Whole Foods on the way home for the rest.”
“Sounds good,” Andy answered, glad to see the excitement in Brooke’s eyes. Her mood seemed to be lifting as Thanksgiving approached, and Andy wanted to encourage that as much as she could. Even if it meant turning her small kitchen into a disaster area.
The fall day was clear but chilly, so Andy pulled a fisherman’s knit sweater over her T-shirt then grabbed her car keys. Normally she wouldn’t drive downtown for a shopping trip, wanting to avoid the hassle of city parking, but she figured Brooke would have too many bags of groceries for them to comfortably carry on the bus. She was winding a scarf around her neck when Brooke came out of the bathroom.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, as Andy avoided her eyes.
“Nothing,” Andy said. “You look very nice.”
Brooke looked down at her navy turtleneck sweater and jeans. “Really? I thought this outfit seemed a little ratty,” she said, tugging at the hem of her sweater. Andy made a strangled sort of sound as Brooke’s movement made her turtleneck pull even more snugly across her breasts. She slapped lightly at Brooke’s hand.
“Stop doing that,” she said. “You’re driving me crazy.” Andy held Brooke’s windbreaker for her to put on, but she didn’t move toward it.
“Do I need to change?” she asked, confused. “You’re looking at me like I’m wearing my underwear on the outside.”
Andy sighed. “I’m looking at you like that sweater shows every curve of your body and makes your eyes look like incredibly blue diamonds,” she said, flapping the windbreaker slightly to make Brooke move. Brooke turned and slipped her arms into the jacket. “And your ass looks amazing in those tight jeans,” Andy added, giving her a playful swat. She was rewarded with one of Brooke’s laughs and a light kiss on the cheek. Those little intimate gestures, when Brooke acted like they were a couple, turned Andy on more than any overtly sexual move ever had.
Andy drove toward Puget Sound, luckily finding a parking place on one of the side streets near Pike Place Market. There were people everywhere, and they jostled their way among the masses, Andy only occasionally placing her hand on Brooke’s back to keep them from getting separated. She was careful to drop the contact immediately once they were in a more open area. Although Andy didn’t like the crowds, they were worth enduring just to feel Brooke’s mood change. Everything about her became more animated, from her gestures to her walking speed, and her interest flickered rapidly from one subject to the next. This Brooke was such a different woman from the one Andy first met, sitting alone in the coffee shop, closed off from the world around her. They wandered aimlessly, checking out the produce stands stocked by local farmers and peering at the bakery display cases. The breeze off the Sound was getting colder, so Andy steered them into the covered section of the market.
“I used to come here with my grandfather when I was little,” Brooke said, a contented smile on her face as she stopped to take a taste of some locally harvested honey, picking out a subtle hint of blackberries in the sweet aftertaste. “I remember how exotic it seemed, with people speaking different languages, and the smells of spices and fish and salt water. I used to pretend we had sailed to a foreign country. Ooh, look!”
She darted across the aisle with Andy in tow and accepted a piece of organic pear from a vendor who was cutting up samples. “Wow, try this.”
She fed Andy a bite of her pear, using a finger to wipe away some juice that caught in the corner of her mouth, lingering there a moment before she withdrew. It was such an innocent touch, perfectly safe in public. Brooke’s thoughts were anything but.
“It’s very good,” Andy said.
Her voice gave nothing away, but when Brooke saw Andy touch her tongue to the spot where Brooke’s finger had rested, and then smile, Brooke had the suspicion that Andy felt the same desire she did.
“Do we need pears for Thanksgiving?” Andy asked.
“No, but we should get some while we’re here.” Brooke shrugged, paying the farmer for a bag of fruit. So I can feed them to you when we get home, Brooke added silently. She handed it to Andy. “Now, isn’t there a cooking store around here? I need some pans.”
“As your regular dishwasher, I beg to differ,” Andy muttered, but she pointed across the street. “There’s a place right up here, and it’s next to a nice wine shop.”
Now that they were acclimated, they started shopping in earnest. She and Andy argued good-naturedly over the pattern of serving dishes, spent over half an hour debating which local wines to pick, and reached simultaneously for the same bouquet of flowers for the table. They were shopping together like a couple, Brooke decided, and the thought worried her. She enjoyed their comfortable rapport and could hold her own in any decision they made, but she worried she was getting too relaxed with Andy. Would she be able to separate herself from Andy’s stronger presence when it came to bigger decisions than what color napkins to buy? Brooke’s concern over their easy domesticity made her self-conscious about the closeness she felt with Andy. Every time they touched, she would lean into the contact and then pull away quickly. Occasionally their hands would brush, and Brooke would feel Andy’s fingers start to tighten on hers before she suddenly discovered something she needed to touch or pick up. The crowds and the constant push and pull of their connection were starting to exhaust her, and seemed to be wearing on Andy as well.
“If you’re going to treat me like a pack mule, you should at least feed me something,” Andy growled as Brooke slipped another bag of produce over her arm. Brooke glanced at her face, startled by her tone, but when Andy spoke again the traces of irritation were absent from her voice. “There’s a place on the next street that has great Mediterranean food,” she suggested.
“That sounds good,” Brooke said. “I’m starving.”
“How can you be hungry after you’ve sampled half the market?” Andy asked with a laugh. “You’re like a two-year-old. Everything you see goes in your mouth.”
“Hmm. I thought you liked that about me,” Brooke said with a grin, resettling the small sugar pumpkin she carried under her left arm and hooking her right hand under Andy’s elbow. She pulled her hand away again and moved the pumpkin back to her right side.
“It happens to be one of your best traits, if I remember correctly,” Andy said. “And you know, you can touch me.”
Brooke bumped Andy with her shoulder, just hard enough to knock her off-balance. “How’s that?”
Andy took a few awkward steps with her heavy packages but managed to stay upright. “That wasn’t what I meant by touching,” she said, taking a swipe at Brooke with the bag of wine and narrowly missing a man who was trying to pass them. He stepped off the sidewalk and glared as he walked past. “See?” she said to a giggling Brooke. “He probably wouldn’t have noticed if we had just been holding hands.”
Brooke, still laughing, moved her pumpkin again and slid her arm through Andy’s as they walked the short distance to the restaurant. “I’m only doing this to keep you from knocking over any pedestrians,” she said.
Andy dropped into a seat at one of the street-side tables surrounded by their bags, while Brooke went into the restaurant, barely the size of Andy’s kitchen, and ordered their food. After sharing a plate of falafel with tahini sauce, sitting close enough to Andy so their thighs brushed under the table, Brooke’s spirits were improving rapidly. She relaxed enough to get sidetracked by the flavors as she scooped up the last bits of saffron rice with a piece of pita bread, and she decided they needed to return to a spice shop they had passed so she could try to recreate the meal.
They were almost out of the market when Brooke veered off again, following the smell of cinnamon to a kiosk selling doughnuts.
“Granddad and I used to get these,” she said once Andy had caught up. They watched the tiny doughnuts drop into the fryer, and Brooke bought a bag for them to share.
Brooke popped a doughnut, still warm from the oil, into Andy’s mouth since her arms were too laden with bags for her to eat on her own. Andy was watching her as if mesmerized while Brooke licked cinnamon-sugar off her fingers, until her gaze suddenly shifted to a point over Brooke’s shoulder. Brooke turned to see what had caught Andy’s attention, but at first all she saw was a crowded seafood stand. “It’s funny that almost every TV show about Seattle shows those guys throwing fish around. I don’t get why…” Her voice faded as she saw Jake standing with a couple of people from the office. They were laughing and talking as if trying to entertain Jake. She watched silently for a moment. “That’s Marianne and Steve from the law firm,” she said finally.
“Do you want to go talk to them?” Andy asked reluctantly, breaking Brooke out of her trance.
“No.” She shook her head and turned back to Andy. “Jake and I have talked enough. I don’t think we’re ready for a casual meeting in public.”
Brooke knew it would upset Jake to run into her when he was with his friends, to be pitied as the jilted lover. She balled up the bag with the last two doughnuts in it and tossed it in a garbage can on the way to the car. She had saved him from an awkward meeting, but she felt her own day clouded with reminders of the past.
*
They finished shopping and drove home in near silence. Brooke knew it hurt Andy when she withdrew like she had this past hour, but her mind was too full of guilt and indecision to make the effort to return to the lighthearted mood they had shared all day. They both seemed to be dragging as they hauled the groceries up to Andy’s apartment. Andy set their bags on the counter and went to check the answering machine.
“Call me.” The angry tone of the simple answering machine message startled both women.
“My dad,” Andy said grimly, heading toward her room to make the call. “Do you mind putting the groceries away while I call him back?”
Brooke shook her head and started to unpack the mountain of produce that had looked so good at the market. Now she wasn’t sure if she had the energy to do all the cutting and chopping and cooking that were required to assemble the food into a meal fit for company. She put the pears that had seemed so sweet and wonderful this morning into a bowl on the dining room table and wished she could step back in time and relive this day that had been full of laughter and teasing. This time she wouldn’t turn around and see Jake looking so dejected, and have to face the realization that she was the cause of his heartache. She was sorry about his pain, but she knew she had made the right decision. Seeing him, she realized how little she missed her old life, and it frightened her how close she had come to subjecting them both to an unhappy marriage. She had been so blind to her own needs, and she couldn’t let that happen ever again.
Brooke winced as she heard Andy’s voice rise in the other room. With the door closed, she couldn’t hear the conversation, but Andy’s tone told her it wasn’t a pleasant one. Brooke’s heart reached out to her, and she realized Andy offered a kind of relationship so different from what she had with Jake. Andy recognized and appreciated all of those wacky little traits that made her Brooke. And just being with her made even something as simple as buying groceries playful and fun. And most of all, Brooke had a nearly irresistible urge to touch her and be close to her.
Once all the food was haphazardly thrown into the fridge, Brooke sat at the dining room table and listened to the sound of Andy’s voice as she dealt with her father’s anger. He must have been told, probably by Amy, that his oldest daughter wasn’t coming home for the holiday this year. Apparently he wasn’t accepting the fact calmly. After over half an hour, there was only silence from Andy’s room. Brooke waited several minutes, then tapped lightly on the bedroom door and opened it to find Andy lying on her bed.
“Hey, sorry I didn’t help with the groceries,” Andy said quietly, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“It’s all right,” Brooke said as she sat on the edge of the bed. She reached out and gently brushed Andy’s hair back from her face. “Was he very angry with you?”
“You could hear?”
Brooke shrugged. “Not much. It’s my fault this happened. I was trying to get back at you when I invited everyone for Thanksgiving, and I didn’t realize—”
Andy grabbed Brooke’s hand that was still playing with her hair. “You did a nice thing. Everyone’s looking forward to coming. It’s just that, dealing with him when he’s so mad, I feel like a little kid again. I’d rather be here with you on Thanksgiving, but I hate disappointing my family.”
“It seems the more we try to be happy, the more we hurt other people,” Brooke said sadly. Andy couldn’t deny it. She knew that without her there as a buffer, Amy and her dad would be at each other all night. She didn’t know how she could enjoy Thanksgiving if she knew her family was miserable, but she couldn’t hurt Brooke after she had worked so hard to plan a great holiday for everyone.
“I can make us something for dinner,” Brooke offered after a short, depressing silence.
Andy shook her head. “I’m not hungry. But could you lie here with me for a while?”
Brooke nodded, and they stripped down to T-shirts before sliding under the covers. Brooke turned on her side and pulled Andy against her, wrapping an arm tightly across her waist. Andy felt the warmth of Brooke drawing the tension out of her body. Just this morning, being this close would have triggered an arousal that would have kept her awake all night, but now Andy only wanted to relax into the comfort of Brooke’s arms. A couple of months ago, she’d had some semblance of control over her life. Her relationships with Lyssa and her parents weren’t ideal, but they were familiar and predictable. Her work with the symphony was uninspiring but enjoyable. Now she was being pushed out of her comfort zone with her new symphony role of leader and soloist. Her professional life was encroaching on her personal life. In fact, it was coming to Thanksgiving dinner. And this woman had come into her life bringing complications and an untidiness that threatened the thin veneer of harmony she had been fighting to maintain. Andy drifted to sleep in Brooke’s arms, wondering why it felt so right to be with her, in spite of all the chaos she brought.