A Year and a Half Later
Emma
Emma closed the door quietly behind her; she didn’t want to wake Katherine. Her heart quickened a little as she heard the latch click into place. Emma couldn’t explain it, this little rush of excitement that came over her every time she crept outside in the early morning. It wasn’t that she was leaving. That was the worst part of it, really; it was always with an effort that she tore herself away from the warmth of Katherine’s side, the scent of her between the sheets. But Katherine would be there when she returned, and here was the cool morning against her skin, with the city laid out before her, rousing itself after the briefest of nights.
Seven months ago, she and Katherine had found an apartment together in Oakland, a detached mother-in-law suite behind a Victorian house in one of the city’s older neighborhoods near Lake Merritt. The apartment had only one bedroom, and Emma had worried about putting both their names on the rental application. A family with two young children lived in the main house, and even in the Bay Area, sometimes people’s prejudices surprised you. Emma had tried to send Katherine flowers again on the anniversary of their first date, but the bouquet had not been delivered.
“We were busy,” the florist had said flatly when Emma stormed in to complain. “I’ll refund your money.”
Emma thought of the little notecard she had filled out in the florist shop—“Happy Anniversary, baby. I love you.”—and had wondered. Still, it was impossible to prove that the mistake had been intentional, and Emma had swallowed her rage and held her tongue. Instead, she had snipped a single rose from the rose garden where she had taken Katherine on their second date, slipping it into Katherine’s water glass while she slept.
The family that owned the apartment, though, had chosen theirs from the dozens of rental applications they had received. The dot-com boom was in full swing by then. Apartments rented the same day they listed; people lined up at open houses with their credit history reports and pay stubs in hand. When the landlord had called Emma to say the apartment was theirs if they wanted it, she had thought she would burst with gratitude at their luck.
The apartment was small, but cozy, with crown molding on the ceilings and built-in bookshelves in the living room. Emma still felt a small thrill when she saw Katherine’s books there beside hers. Emma loved that when she and Katherine were together now, there was never the looming specter of their parting, with one or the other always having to go home.
But they weren’t joined at the hip, unlike so many of the lesbian couples they knew. Often, on Saturdays, they did their own thing, Emma going for long bike rides in the Berkeley Hills, Katherine hiking in Pt. Reyes with some friends she’d made at work. Sundays they spent together. Katherine would be up by the time Emma got back from her morning run, sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee, reading the poetry in The New Yorker that Emma rarely understood. They would make breakfast together, and maybe afterwards go back to bed.
Emma smiled to herself at the thought, quickening her pace. She ran along the path that circled Lake Merritt, keeping her eyes up so that she didn’t see the trash that crowded in the shallows. Her thoughts turned to her sister as she ran. Jessie had called late the night before, fairly bursting with her news. She was engaged, the date set for the following summer. Hiding in the bathroom with her phone—Katherine was asleep already—Emma had laughed a little when she’d heard. Jessie had always insisted that of the three siblings, she would be the last to marry, if in fact she ever did. There was a kind of arrogance in the way she’d said it, as if, of the three of them, she considered herself the least constrained by convention. Emma and Jay might marry, but she would have more important things to do.
But there Jessie was, giddy as anyone over her engagement, and willing to let herself be teased a little for getting it wrong after all. Emma was excited for her sister, and pleased at the idea of a wedding. Katherine would go with her, and then everyone would know.
She smiled, imagining it; she couldn’t help her pride. She felt it swell within her, so that she practically floated down the path around the lake. But Emma knew it wasn’t just the anticipation of her sister’s wedding that had made her spirits soar. It was that Jessie had found it: the one person with whom she would spend her life. Heath wasn’t just one more link in the chain of her sister’s relationships. The chain was over; Heath was the final ring. The thought was vertiginous. If Heath could be the one for her sister, maybe Katherine was—
Emma wouldn’t let her mind finish the thought, but her heart raced.
Emma ran for forty-five minutes and then opened the door to their shared apartment with as much excitement as when she had closed it.
Katherine was in the kitchen, making coffee. She moved out of the way so that Emma could fill a glass with water at the sink.
“Emma, you’re dripping.” she said.
“Sorry.” Emma grabbed the dish towel from the rack and mopped her face. “You’re never going to believe this.”
“Please don’t put that back.”
“What?”
“That towel you just used to wipe your sweat.”
“Oh. Okay.” Emma draped the towel over the back of a chair. “But guess what?”
“What?”
“My sister got engaged.”
Katherine looked up. “Really?”
“Yes!”
“Wow.” Katherine poured some soy milk into her coffee and took a sip. “That’s big.”
“I know. I can’t wait for the wedding. It will be the perfect chance for you to meet everyone.”
Katherine didn’t respond. Emma downed the glass of water.
“I’m going to go take a shower, and then let’s make breakfast? I thought we could go to the flea market later.”
“I can’t, Emma. I’m going hiking.”
“But . . . it’s Sunday.”
“Well, Melinda had family in town yesterday, so I said we could go today. I thought I told you.”
“Well, you didn’t. And who’s Melinda?”
“No one. Just someone new at work.” Katherine opened the refrigerator and put the soy milk away, then glanced at Emma. “Look, I’m sorry, Em. But you and I didn’t have any plans, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’d invite you to come, but . . . I don’t know. I wouldn’t want her to feel like a third wheel.”
“It’s just the two of you going?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I guess I always thought it was a bunch of people.”
“Well, sometimes it is. But everyone was busy this weekend.”
“Is Melinda a dyke?” Emma asked suddenly.
Katherine hesitated. “Yeah.”
“Katherine.” Emma took a step toward her, but Katherine sidestepped away.
“Emma, sorry, but you’re disgusting. Don’t worry, though. She’s got a girlfriend.”
“You used to say you liked me this way,” Emma protested.
“All sweaty and gross?”
“Yeah. You said it was sexy.”
Katherine shrugged. “Oh.”
“So why isn’t the girlfriend going?”
Katherine turned away. “I don’t know. Why don’t you go take a shower?”
Emma was almost to the bathroom when she heard Katherine call her. Her heart leaped.
“Yeah?”
“You forgot this sweaty towel, Em. Can you take it with you, please?”