Chapter 32
THEN: DIANA
Diana looked around her old room. She hadn’t been to Maplewood for almost a year.
With Julia having graduated and having the same sentiments about home, they’d agreed to find ways to meet up anywhere else.
Julia was currently traveling through Europe for the summer, and Diana hadn’t been invited.
It might have something to do with her latest fling, as Julia had never been one of the “I’m backpacking through Europe” types.
She’d spent last summer with Jay and Michaela, helping them organize various community events.
Her time at Berkeley over the last two school years had been one full of self discovery, which turned out, was a great distraction to a broken heart.
Jay and Michaela had introduced her to a group of fellow queer people, and Diana had started reading and taking classes here and there on gender studies and sexuality.
The entirety of her freshman year and summer had simultaneously ripped something out of her and filled her back up.
She had a sense of self, an understanding she hadn’t had back in high school, and she thought that had to do with having words to finally describe her thoughts and feelings.
She was grateful, and could understand how such illuminations had caused Jay and Michaela to shine so brightly, even amongst a sea of continued troubles in their community.
Shifting her weight on her childhood bed, Diana craved the comfort of that apartment across the country.
The space with Jay and Michaela. The three of them had carved out a safe haven, a comfortable space for the three of them.
They’d grown close enough that Diana had been welcomed to their bed on more than one occasion, which was magical; the part she loved best was the brief moment when she’d wake up, always the last one, and catch a glimpse of the way the two women looked at each other.
Diana’s heart would swell for Jay, but inevitably she’d roll over and remember that she’d felt that way about Maggie, and Maggie was gone.
Maggie hadn’t answered an email from her in over a year.
In addition to being heartbroken, Diana was sad that Maggie didn’t have what she had, the knowledge, the love, the support.
The thoughts always choked her, and she was grateful to have Jay and Michaela to share their love with her from time to time to quell the pain.
She was happy to still have Jay most of all.
But that was all over now. Two weeks ago, Diana had asked for two women to split an off-campus apartment with her, and while the two agreed, Jay had drawn new boundaries into their relationship.
“Diana, you will always be special to me, you know that, right? I love you. But I also love Michaela, a lot. And while I am okay with the way things are, Michaela just doesn’t feel the same about things now that we’ve graduated, and she believes we can try to build a life together.
I think maybe we have a poly thing going on?
And that’s not Michaela’s thing. Please Diana, do this for me?
” Jay had asked about two weeks ago when they were supposed to do a final walk through of an apartment before signing a lease.
Diana hadn’t been surprised, especially when Jay had shown up alone.
She had felt the change, and while she loved Michaela, she wasn’t in love with Michaela, not the way Diana seemed to be with Jay.
She loved them, but she loved them as them as well; she was so happy that Jay had found her person.
Of course she’d agreed to limit their physicality to just cuddles and the occasional kiss.
All Diana had been concerned with was if they were still going to live together.
“Michaela could have come with you, I really love you both, you know? And I’m glad you told me. I hope this doesn’t mean we aren’t sharing the apartment?” Diana had said when the other woman had hugged her.
“She wanted to come but, I don’t know, I felt like I just wanted to meet up with you first. And, well, she was somewhat afraid that you may not want—”
“Oh my God, I love you–again both of you, okay? I asked you to move into this apartment so you both could continue to do the work you both are doing while getting whatever else you need from the university, this is separate from us,” Diana reassured Jay.
She was putting the other two women on the lease, but she was the one paying the rent.
She was pretty sure she had secured the apartment because she had agreed to pay a year up front, out of her trust. If anything, it meant so much to her that Jay would even have this conversation and not feel pressured to continue doing something that would make Michaela uncomfortable.
In truth, her plan was to buy the apartment eventually, and let them stay.
Michaela was going on to get a Masters in Education, and Jay was going on to continue her studies in business, while still focusing on her computer engineering skills.
Both wanted to find a way to help queer youth.
Michaela had been shut out of her family and would likely have had to drop out of school and join so many homeless queer folks if it hadn’t been for Jay’s support.
Diana thought it crazy that two people who wanted to do so much good wouldn’t be able to do so due to financial constraints she readily had available by just existing, not to mention that those financial restraints were tied to the bigotry they experienced as women, minorities, and as queer people.
Diana didn’t understand how they’d ever be able to have what she had, and she suspected she only had what she did because people like them couldn’t.
Paying for their home was of no detriment to her comfort, and she felt it was the least she could do.
The other two women were in that apartment now, probably still asleep as it was early afternoon in Vermont.
Diana shuffled on her old bed, a bed she hadn’t wanted to sleep in since Maggie had broken her heart in this room.
It felt like a lifetime ago on some mental level, but emotionally, Diana would be lying if she said it no longer hurt.
She loved Jay. And she loved Maggie. She loved them both differently; she’d had different relationships with both women.
And Jay had Michaela now and Diana had—well, she still had Jay.
She couldn’t understand why it seemed that to have one the other couldn’t stay.
Diana sighed and slid off her bed. Her mother would be sending someone after her at any moment, or worse, her mother herself would appear.
She had pretty much demanded that Diana come home for the summer.
And today she had specifically asked that Diana dress decently, as she had planned a small garden luncheon.
Diana hated these things, and the prospect of not even having Julia there made it all that much worse.
But she’d promised herself this was the summer she would make an effort to learn more about the orchard, the business, and apply some of her horticultural and botanical studies to the property.
She planned on doing an independent study next year on the orchard, and now was a good chance to get a head start.
Her father had been happy to see her taking her inheritance seriously, as had her mother, so much so that she hadn’t mentioned the Blacksmiths once.
Small victories.
She slipped on a pair of flats and smoothed her hands over the garden party- style dress her mother had purchased for her and left in her room.
It made her look like a quasi-1950s housewife, but it was best not to upset or argue with her mother at a moment like this.
Besides, without Julia, she didn’t really have backup and it was late May; she had the whole summer ahead of her.
As she approached the area her mother had set up for the luncheon, she could already see some guests milling about.
Her mother had had several round tables set up near the house.
Beautiful arches with the spring’s best blooms decorated the area, giving it a feeling of being in a room outdoors.
Diana was just wondering what kind of food, or lack thereof, she’d have to endure during the event when two women excitedly turned and smiled at her.
“Diana! Wow, you sure have grown up!” one exclaimed while the other smiled at her. Diana wracked her mind for who the women were and the last possible time she could have seen them, because to her, she’d been grown up for quite some time.
“Barbara Caulder,” the overly excited woman said.
“You probably don’t remember me, it has been some time since my husband and I have been back in Vermont.
We’ve been in the DC area for years, but now that my Larry is retired, we are happy to be back!
” The two women looked at each other knowingly and laughed.
Whatever had passed between them, Diana wasn’t sure, nor did she care.
“I’m Jackie Wheeler, I used to be neighbors with this lady here and so she brought me along since our husbands are off playing golf at one of your parents’ courses, but please, get to the rest of the party. You look lovely, it was so nice to meet you!”
Diana wasn’t sure it had been, considering neither woman had asked her anything about herself, though in these circles, that tracked.
People always used information to one-up you, and so Diana happily took the out.
As she got deeper into the gathering, she spotted someone she definitely didn’t want to see and was surprised she was there.
Mary Wright was standing with her parents, Diana’s mother, and a plain looking boy, who Diana assumed was her boyfriend by the way he lightly kept touching her arm as he talked.
Surprised her mother would have even invited the Wrights, Diana was momentarily distracted and did not turn in time before her mother caught her eye and called her over.