A Window to Love Read online

  Mandie wasn’t sure how she felt about the text from her girlfriend. Heading to the winery was becoming a frequent occurrence. Combined with Mandie’s already shitty day, she was irritated. No, she was pissed. Maybe she didn’t want to talk about the firing or be on the receiving end of Caroline’s advice. Wasn’t your girlfriend supposed to at least try to support you?

  She ignored the text message and punched in the number for the skydiving place. Before sanity took over, she made arrangements for a dive on Saturday. Caroline wouldn’t care one way or another. She often had plans on the weekends that didn’t include Mandie. They had been drifting apart over the last year and needed to put their dying relationship to rest. End the misery. It was a habit, like work. Mandie had continued on, because everyone expected that of her. She giggled as she thought of Caroline coming into the condo. You’re fired. I found a new girlfriend who actually likes experiencing the great wines of the Northwest.

  †

  Mandie’s cell phone started to vibrate across the heavy wooden coffee table. She absently flipped it over, expecting to see Caroline’s name. Her father’s name blinked on the screen. Insistent. Unrelenting. She kept ignoring the buzz, as it intermittently pulsated on the hard surface. Mandie was just as relentless in her refusal to answer; no matter how many times he called. His calls in the middle of the day were never an emergency. It hadn’t mattered how many times she’d reminded him she couldn’t talk during work hours. He didn’t know she’d been fired.

  Ever since her mother’s death, her father had felt the need to call all the time. Frank Sr. had mentioned, on more than one occasion, that all he had to live for these days was his children. Mandie felt guilty for not answering. The guilt wasn’t enough to overcome the shame.

  Her father had an inflated view of her job and the ultimate importance of her role in the organization. Coming clean and telling him she was fired could only be avoided by not answering his call. Lying to him was not an option. She’d already disappointed him by not having children. Frank Sr. would definitely not consider her furbabies an appropriate equivalent to grandchildren. The bitter chuckle bubbled from her throat and felt like bile filling her mouth.

  Mandie scratched Xena’s head as she cuddled up next to her on the couch. “If only you could answer Dad’s call and redirect him so I don’t have to confess.”

  “Meow,” Gabrielle answered from her relaxed position at Mandie’s feet.

  “Oh, so you think you can push the answer button with your paw? I probably should have pursued another line of work. What good did it do me to become a boring administrator if that isn’t any more stable than an artist? God forbid I would have pursued photography.”

  “Brrppp, meow,” Xena answered.

  “Hmm, I guess you won’t be left out of the conversation, huh, Xena? Well, good for you. Now stop distracting me, you two, Mamma really needs to find a new job before Dad finds out his daughter is not the successful career woman he brags about to his friends.”

  Chapter Two

  Mandie had been on her computer for four hours straight, looking for executive positions that might match her skills. She didn’t want to move, but that might be her only option. After emailing a recruiter, Mandie learned of an opportunity in Nebraska. Was she desperate enough to consider a position in the Midwest? When she heard Caroline’s key in the door, she pushed up her glasses and stopped typing.

  “Hey,” Mandie greeted her girlfriend.

  “I see you didn’t waste any time. Find any good job prospects?”

  “How’d you know what I was doing?”

  “Oh please, like you wouldn’t jump right on your laptop and start searching. You don’t do idle.” She held up a bottle of wine. “I’ll pop the cork and you can have a glass with me.”

  “Why would I want to drink wine right now?”

  “You can either drown your sorrows or celebrate a much-needed, forced vacation. You were starting to hate the job anyway. Serendipity, I say.”

  “You do know that finding a job grows exponentially more difficult when you don’t have one, especially at my age, don’t you? What if I never work again?”

  “Drown your sorrows it is. At least you have a tidy nest egg. I think you should push for more severance. You know it’s because your boss is a homophobic bitch.” Caroline set the cork on the counter and reached for two wine glasses in the cabinet. “By the way, your dad called me. You should have answered his call. He said he tried like five times to reach you today. Persistent bastard, isn’t he?”

  “Hey, don’t call my father a bastard.” Mandie clenched her fists.

  Caroline waved her hand in the air. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, but I’m not going to be your shield. You need to call him.”

  Mandie sighed. “I know. It’s just that his vision of a successful career woman is so deeply embedded into his perception of me. I can’t really pop that little fantasy balloon of his. My mother started him on that path.”

  Caroline poured the wine and crinkled her brow. “Your mother?”

  “Yeah, when I was younger and at that perfect age for marriage, my great aunt asked about my prospects for a husband.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope, Italian matriarchs never kid about that. She used sly comments about breaking the hearts of all those young men and asked why didn’t I want to settle down.”

  “You don’t look one bit like your mother. I still can’t believe you’re half Italian. Did you tell her you were breaking the hearts of all those young women instead?” Caroline joked.

  “My mother quickly answered that I was a career woman and didn’t need a husband to take care of me. My dad chimed in with something like, ‘Mandie runs the hospital.’ Obviously, that was a gross exaggeration. I think my mother thought it was the acceptable feminist thing to say. I knew she was embarrassed about my sexuality. It hurt when she pulled me aside to ask me not to say anything about being a lesbian. That was something she would never be proud about.”

  “I think your mom was okay with you being a lesbian. She was always gracious with me and didn’t seem bothered by us being together. I get the sense your dad never cared about you being a lesbian either.”

  “Maybe, but he certainly gives me grief about not getting married and having kids. He used to remind me all the time that lesbians get married and have kids.”

  Caroline frowned. She brought over the wine and set a glass on the coffee table. She settled next to Mandie. “You don’t want to get married, do you?”

  Mandie choked out her answer. “No! Of course not. We haven’t exactly followed the lesbian handbook. After five years, we aren’t even living together.”

  “That’s because you insisted on us both keeping our own places, just in case.” Caroline lifted the glass of wine and took a generous sip.

  “I did not. That was all you. You said something about the market not being right for either of us to sell.” Not wanting to get into an argument, Mandie changed the subject. “I’m going skydiving tomorrow. How do you feel about Nebraska?”

  “You’re going skydiving in Nebraska? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “No, the skydiving place is in Spokane. Nebraska has a Chief HR job, and the recruiter thinks I’d be a perfect fit.”

  “You know I can’t move. I have a good job with the college. You’ll find something else, or not. Retire early. Take up photography again. Your photos are good.”

  “Photography will not produce a six-figure income.”

  Caroline shrugged. “The Prophets are playing tonight at the bar. Let’s go, okay?”

  Friday night was usually date night, the one day a week neither would make plans with anyone else. They could invite other people, but they tried to spend the time with one another.

  Mandie took a sip of wine. “Not really in the mood to go out.”

  “All right. Is it okay if I go? Robin and Lacey are going.”

  “I thought they broke up.”

&nb
sp; “They did, but you know lesbians, we remain friends no matter what. There are too few of us in these tiny towns not to.”

  Mandie decided to push down the little green monster and ignore the reason the couple had broken up. Robin was madly in love with Caroline.

  As if the earlier comment about skydiving had just broken through, Caroline stopped mid sip. “Wait, are you really going to jump out of an airplane?” Her faced contorted in apparent disgust.

  “Yeah, I didn’t make a reservation for you, because I didn’t think it would be your cup of tea. Was I wrong? I can go on the Internet and add you to the reservation.”

  “No, I don’t want to go, and I think you’re being a bit rash. Let this job thing settle and then you’ll be rational again.”

  Mandie glared at Caroline. She wasn’t looking for sympathy after her shitty day. But damn, Caroline didn’t seem to register the full weight Mandie felt. Maybe skydiving was a crazy way to symbolically remove that weight, but she needed outrageous right now. Caroline the Naysayer wasn’t helping. “I’m going. You and Robin can go wine tasting. It’s what you always want to do anyway. I’d rather not spend hours at the winery.”

  “Fine. I can see you’re in a mood. I’ll just go and stay at my place tonight instead…” She let the words trail, gulped down her wine, and stalked out the door.

  Mandie blinked at the retreating figure that was her girlfriend and wondered why it didn’t bother her one bit that date night was a bust. I almost wish Caroline and Robin would get together tonight. The inertia that had taken root might loosen and force Mandie to do what she knew was inevitable.

  Over the years, Mandie had become less enamored with alcohol as a central focus of their date nights. She wanted more variety. When did Caroline lose interest in cycling or attending a musical in Seattle? Had Mandie evolved and changed in one direction and Caroline in another? Maybe Caroline hadn’t changed at all. Caroline had always enjoyed going to the bars or wineries, and so did Mandie, in the early years. Lately, kayaking and cycling had become a much more prominent part of her life. The world was huge, and Mandie wanted to explore more than her tiny neck of the woods. Maybe she wanted to take dance lessons or a photography course. Lifelong learning was important to Mandie but not to Caroline. It was time to work on that bucket list. Change is good, isn’t it?

  Screw it. Mandie decided it was time to stop obsessing over Internet job boards. She jumped onto the social media sites where people often posted pictures and talked about their shared passions. She posted her latest photo, a fluke after glancing up from her computer and noticing the beautiful sunset over the lake. She knew it wasn’t anything spectacular. Photography was merely a hobby for her.

  Before Mandie realized, several hours had passed and it was almost time to settle in for the night. She wasn’t sure if it was terror or excitement that kept her awake. She’d officially lost her mind when she made the reservation to jump from a plane. Fear had always crippled her anytime she climbed too high on a ladder. Now, she was twelve hours away from facing her fear of heights with the granddaddy of adventures. Fear of the jump settled into the lethargy of depression.

  Lethargy. Now that was a great word. Right now, she couldn’t muster enough emotion to feel scared or motivated by anything other than wasting her precious time on the ever-present social media suck. Did social media cause more depression?

  When was the last time she’d been inspired by anything? She’d been like a robot lately. Up at four thirty, exercise for an hour, work at the office for ten hours, return home and scrounge around for dinner, read and retire for the evening. Rinse and repeat. The walls had closed in and she hadn’t even noticed.

  Would ignoring her father’s calls come back to bite her? No way was she prepared to fess up. Total and utter devastation clung to her like cheap perfume that penetrated her pores and wouldn’t wash off.

  She shrugged, grabbed her tablet and started a new book. The pop-up messages dragged her back into social media; the temptation was too great. She bounced back and forth between the reading groups and the photography sites. Her head bobbed up when she heard the key in her door.

  “Shit,” Caroline giggled.

  Mandie assumed she’d stumbled on the five-gallon water jug in the hallway. Caroline was drunk. Pushing the covers aside, Mandie got out of bed and greeted her girlfriend. “You’re drunk.”

  “No, I’m not.” A hiccup punctuated her declaration.

  “You shouldn’t drive after wine tasting. You know how all those small sips add up.”

  “What? Don’t I get a kiss?” Caroline pushed her lips out.

  “I thought you were staying at your place tonight?”

  “I changed my mind. Women do it all the time.” Caroline took an unsteady step toward Mandie. “You look sexy in your sleepy clothes with your hair all tousled.” She planted a sloppy, wet kiss on Mandie.

  “Come on, let’s get you settled in bed. I’ll bring you a bottle of water and some aspirin.” Mandie sighed and pulled her girlfriend by the hand.

  Caroline began pulling her clothes off and tossing them on the bedroom floor. “Come on, Mandie, get naked with me.”

  “Just get into bed, okay? I’ll join you in a minute.”

  When Mandie returned to the bedroom with the water and aspirin, she heard the telltale sign that Caroline was out for the night. Her snoring joined the sound of the ceiling fan, creating what Mandie called gray noise. White noise, like soft music, helped her fall asleep. Gray noise polluted the air waves and kept her alert. At least the book she’d started was good. She left the water and aspirin on the night stand.

  Chapter Three

  Gail rushed inside her house, looking for her keys. She was always scurrying around. There weren’t enough hours in the day. Something had to give, and it had. Two months ago, Desiree finally had enough. A broken date on their anniversary was the final straw. The whole reason Gail needed to keep ungodly hours was her girlfriend’s discriminating taste in clothes, food, and everything else. Des appreciated quality. They’d lived beyond their means for far too long, and Des left Gail up to her eyeballs in debt. She’d had to continue working all the time just to keep her house. She didn’t even like the house. Like every other demand in her life, time was at a premium and hadn’t allowed her to draw up plans for her own home.

  She’d bought the land ten years ago with a dream of designing her own house and living a more authentic life. Des hadn’t wanted to live out in the “boonies.” Small town living wasn’t her cup of tea.

  A stack of unopened mail sat beside Gail’s keys and her ringing cell phone. “Hey, yes, I know. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in an hour. I promise.”

  Dale grunted his response, “This is important, Gail, and they aren’t interested in talking with me. They want your special touch. Do you have the plans?”

  “Don’t worry. They’re in my car. I think. I’ll make sure. I’m leaving right now. Gotta go if you want me to be there on time—or close.”

  “Don’t speed, that’ll just delay your arrival. That cherry-red car is a beacon to the police, especially since you’re on a first name basis with the cops.”

  “Funny.” Gail ran into her garage and peered into the back seat. She sighed in relief that the cardboard tube with her plans lay right where she’d left them. She must have tossed them into her car the night before. Lately, she felt like everything was leaking out her ears. Keeping her schedule, a comprehensive to-do list, creative ideas, and any other important thought in her brain, was becoming increasingly impossible. She was so busy, she didn’t know if she was coming or going.

  Who was she kidding? Leaving this late in the morning almost guaranteed she would be stuck in traffic and late for her meeting. Her business partner wouldn’t have to worry about her getting another speeding ticket. She’d be crawling along the highway. Forget a primo parking space that was only available to early birds. She added find affordable office space that isn’t smack dab in the middle of downtown Seattl
e to her mental to-do list. Of course, there was the distinct possibility that thought would magically disappear.

  Lately, they were making a lot of money—enough to afford the office and her mortgage. Maybe her life was finally turning a corner, and she could begin to ease up on her frenetic schedule.

  †

  Gail glanced at her watch. Not bad, only fifteen minutes late. Dale could cover by getting the clients settled with coffee and pastries. The bakery down the block was a selling point for the current location of their office.

  Dale had insisted that having a downtown office would make them appear more reputable than working from home. She supposed it did help, but at what cost? In her humble opinion, the addition of a few high-end clients did not compensate for the hassle of commuting into work or the increase in office costs. When she’d added the cost of parking, it was almost a wash. The recent surge in business was tipping the scales in favor of downtown Seattle. She had to grudgingly admit that he might have been a tiny bit correct.

  The parking lot three blocks from the office left her baby exposed to the elements. Her cherry-red, 1989 Porsche 944 had been a birthday present to herself when she turned forty. The fact that Desiree thought it was a stupid purchase made it all the more satisfying to drive after her girlfriend walked out, a tiny rebellion after capitulating to Des’s every suggestion. She’d made her wishes known about what events they should attend, the type of clothes Gail should wear, the neighborhood they should live in, and a hundred other decisions about Gail’s life.

  Gail grabbed the tube of architectural drawings and repositioned her handbag over her shoulder. After locking her baby, she jogged down the street to the high-rise office building. Her long, brown curls flowed as she attempted to reduce the number of minutes she would be late to the meeting. She thanked whatever higher power was out there that it wasn’t raining.