Chapter Six
Julia stood at the corner of the restaurant, peeking through the large foggy window at Erin in the back corner. The room buzzed with friends and families, young and old, laughing over unheard conversations. The red and white striped rubber benches gleamed, contrasting against maroon walls. An LED pizza slice flashed above her, shadowing her face in a subtle red glow.
Erin sat with her legs crossed beneath the table, one foot tapping the floor. She stared at the door, sipping a beer she gripped in her hand. Julia almost thought she looked nervous as she tapped her pen over the papers before her. Her brow furrowed as she lost herself in thought, small wrinkles forming like squiggly lines on her forehead.
Julia couldn’t help but wonder if it was the good kind of nervousness, like Erin couldn’t wait to see her smile again. With her luck? It was nervousness from having to break off from this very messy situation. Maybe she wasn’t interested in women–a mistake made under too much chardonnay and bad lighting. Maybe she regretted how much older Julia looked sober, crows feet resting at the corners of her eyes. Maybe she didn’t have a reason at all, and that was okay, too.
She opened the door, a bell jingling above as she released it. She bore all the confidence she manifested on the drive over. By manifestation, she breathed ‘this will be fine’ over and over on repeat like a trashy Brittany song. She screamed it to the wind as she drove with the windows down, cooling down her already heated cheeks.
Erin looked up and smiled. Not a fake hey, I’m doing this out of obligation, but a smile that said I would definitely do it all over again. Julia knew the feeling. Oh, she could still get lost in its embrace.
Get it together!
Erin’s hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, her shirt partially tucked in the front; not messily scrunched in like Julia’s was when they first met. No, everything about Erin was deliberate, as if she hand-picked the location of each stray strand of hair that framed her face, the freckles dotting her chest. She had no makeup on, but her skin seemed to glow so naturally, beaming against her flawless smile.
Julia was wrong before. Her freckles weren’t stars; they’re millions of distant galaxies shining, each brighter than the last. She wanted to trace those freckles and see what path they took beneath her clothes–to witness how they wrapped around her tanned skin in a Milky Way pattern–how they shined in the light. She wanted to stare at them until she could map out their very resting place in the night sky, until she could draw it out by memory.
As their eyes locked, Julia could see the twinkle in Erin’s piercing gaze, the corners of her eyes lifting with her smile. She was stunning. No, not stunning. She was everything.
It would, undoubtedly, not be fine.
“I’m happy you found the place.” Erin beamed, standing to meet Julia at eye level.
“I love the location.” Julia pushed her jacket onto the bench as she slid towards the wall. She wiped her already sweaty palms on the sides of her jeans.
“I figured we would both be more comfortable in a different part of town.”
“Thank you,” Julia said softly. It was the perfect location, no expectations.
“I figured we could talk first and then tackle scheduling and logistics?”
Julia contemplated that for a moment. “Maybe we should work first so we aren’t distracted by anything personal?”
Her question hung in the air as she watched Erin’s smile slowly fade. She wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet. She needed time to release the tension in her shoulders first. She still had to come up with a plan.
“Julia, can I be honest with you?”
“I would hope for nothing less.”
“I,” she paused and then leaned more over the table. In a hushed tone, Erin admitted, “I don’t think I can get through a conversation on any topic until we talk personally first. It’s all I can think of when I –”
Her words trailed off, her gaze momentarily fixated on Julia’s lips before returning to meet her eyes. Was that intentional? The seductive way her eyes scoped her out–like a wolf stalking its prey–took Julia’s breath away. How could she be forward, so flirty?
“Erin,” she breathed, sitting up straighter as she shifted in her seat. Did someone just turn the heat up? Suddenly she wished for the brisk 30-degree chill outside. Stepping out for a breath of fresh air wasn’t suspicious, right?
“I don’t know why I kissed you like that in that bathroom, but I would do it again,” Erin blurted out, still leaning towards her. “Even though I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years it would be you I had to meet the next day, I would do it again.”
Julia didn’t know what to say. She opened her mouth to speak, but she didn’t know if the twirling in her stomach would betray her brain.
“I wished I got your number,” Erin admitted. “I asked Greg, but he wouldn’t give it up. Would you like to know what he told me?”
Julia’s stomach twirled as goosebumps spread up her arms. She wanted her number. She would do it again. She would kiss her again, but they couldn’t. Professional responsibilities, and all that other crap. She couldn’t risk two decades of work within Kleinton. That was what rested between the lines, the lines they didn’t want to read.
“To jump ship while you can?” Julia was only half joking.
“That he didn’t know what or who or why, but he knew you’d been through enough heartbreak for a lifetime,” Erin paused as she leaned back in her seat, her voice a whisper compared to the bustle of voices around them, “and that anyone who was going to get your number would have to prove themselves worthy of you.”
“Bah!” Julie choked on a laugh. “I am the person who gets left, not the person who is sought after.” Well, that was a little extreme for casual conversation.
She couldn’t believe what just came out of her mouth. Something about this woman made her want to pour out every hidden secret before her in fine print. She was already in too deep to run. This conversation had to happen, but it most certainly didn’t have to be sober.
Julia reached for Erin’s beer and finished the rest in one swift gulp. Erin leaned back in her seat, watching her carefully. She had a slight twinkle of amusement in her eyes.
“Okay, where do you want to start?” Julia asked, setting the empty can back down and pulling out the professionalism she kept tucked away in her back pocket.
“Can we start at the beginning, Mrs. Jenner?”
Julia sighed louder than she meant to. That one word hung on a string between them. She could use it to her advantage. She could lie and say she was happily married. She could say that with too many tequilas, she’d sleep with anyone. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to those kind, emerald eyes. She wouldn’t be the reason that smile disappeared from her lips, even if just for a moment.
Lost in thought, Julia stood up and walked to the counter. She paid for two more beers, ordered two slices of New York-style pizza, and returned to the table. She decided at that exact moment–in the place in-between her brain telling her to run like a track star out of there and her skin wanting to feel that spring-time warmth–she would tell Erin everything, even what only Keegan knew. She had nothing to lose.
“I am married,” she began.
She watched Erin stiffened in her seat, her shoulders rolled back as she cracked open the beer. Then, her expression softened, and she sighed almost imperceptibly, as if those three little words were what she came there fearing.
“But it isn’t what you think,” Julia hastily added, her defense tumbling out. This was harder than she thought it would be. Saying those words aloud would be like choking on air–the moment of suffocation as smoke rises, drowning everything else out. “My wife left me over a year ago. There’s no one else. There never was.” Julia gulped, pausing in an attempt to slow her quickening heart rate, to stop the ringing in her ears. “But I am still married to her.”
She only admitted that once before. Talking about something so intimate, so personal, to a stranger should’ve embarrassed her. It should’ve been harder, but it wasn’t.
Erin looked up from her beer and studied her for a moment. Julia tried to steady her breath, hoping the redness of her chest couldn’t be seen through the sheerness of her blouse.
“I’m so sorry, Jules,” Erin murmured, shaking her head apologetically, her eyes brimming with genuine compassion.
Jules. Oh.
Julia looked up suddenly, her lips parted in wonder. The name slipped off Erin’s lips so effortlessly, and her heart skipped a beat when it did. She hadn’t heard that name in a long time.
“She used to call me Jules,” Julia confessed, a slight puff of air escaping her chest. A pained look clouded her eyes, her hands instinctively sheltering in her lap. She shouldn’t have admitted that. She didn’t know why she said that aloud.
“I won’t call you it aga-”
“No, it’s okay.”
She didn’t admit that she liked the sound when it came from those rosy lips. It should’ve stung, should’ve pulled her back to that dark place where only Marin’s absence lived. But it didn’t. It hugged her instead–the warm embrace of summer air.
They both sat smiling at each other, the silence wrapping them in comfort from across the table. An older Italian man covered forehead to knee in flour approached the table and plopped two slices of cheese pizza on paper plates before them. They nodded with gratitude, but their eyes went back to each other. Intoxicating.
“Is she why you wouldn’t–” Erin paused as if unsure if she should finish her thought, “even though it’s been that long?”
Time can be a peculiar thing. A year can pass in the blink of an eye for some, while a single day can stretch into an eternity for others. For Julia, that year was a relentless storm cloud refusing to dissipate. And yet, a year wasn’t long enough. Two years wouldn’t be long enough. Would a lifetime ever be enough? A lifetime without Marin. A lifetime without unraveling those red strands of hair from the drain, without that raspy melody echoing through the attic.
“I don’t think I realized it at the time, but yes. I’m not,” she hesitated, “not ready.”
“That’s okay,” she whispered softly, reaching her outstretched arm across the table. Julia kept her hands in her lap and the disappointment was written plainly across Erin’s face. “Your pizza is getting cold.”
“Right.” Julia swallowed.
They both smiled weakly, and then Erin pulled her hand embarrassedly back, but she hid it well. Taking the pizza, Julia nibbled on the edge. Erin, on the other hand, folded it in half and took the biggest bite she could manage, the grease dripping onto the paper plate in orange stained blots. After the first bite, she folded the pizza the opposite way and then took another bite.
“Eating a slice of pizza like that should be criminal!” Julia smirked, hiding her amusement with a hand over her full mouth. “What kind of strategy is that?”
They sat down their slices and laughed, tears forming in the corner of Julia’s eyes. It wasn’t a small laugh that a napkin could hide; it was a laugh that threw their heads back, their mouths agape as they held their stomachs. She needed that. Oh, she didn’t realize how badly she needed that.
“I know,” Erin said through broken laughter. Her cheeks began to turn the crispest color of pink. “It’s the worst habit I picked up from my father!”
“I can never unsee that,” Julia teased.
It took a few minutes, but after the bubbling in their stomachs settled, Julia spoke first. “I have to ask, why do you walk so much at night, alone? That’s not safe, even in these parts of town.”
“Dr. Jenner, are you concerned for my well-being?”
“A little, actually,” she admitted, once again unsure how to keep her thoughts to herself. Erin looked up at her with a slight smile.
“I’ve always walked a lot. I guess it is my form of stress relief. It keeps my figure.” Erin shrugged her shoulders and then chuckled, but Julia had to fight the flush in her cheeks as she thought of that figure. “I sometimes park my car in parks and walk around the neighborhoods. That’s how I found this place.”
“Are you from New York?”
“Oh, no!” Erin’s head shook vigorously as she swallowed another bite. “I would never move to New York.” There was that smile again, one that could fill a room of any size. “I’m from Virginia where it is nice and warm. In the summer when I’m not working, I feel like I live in the ocean.”
Thoughts of Erin in a tiny bikini crept into Julia’s mind, and her eyes went wide with horror. She had to get it together. This will be fine.
“Do you travel a lot for McSellen, visiting other states,” Julia paused, a playful grin curling her lips, “that aren’t as frigid as New York?”
“Actually, it is pretty even in the warmth distribution. Although, of course, I’ve had to stay in the lovely arctic of New York for the past year.”
“I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy.”
“How does it get so humid in the summer and so cold in the winter?” Erin smirked.
“Probably the same reason why we have at least four false springs before actual spring each year.”
“Luckily, I have just four months left of my contract here,” Erin said, sitting up a little straighter, “and then I can head back home.”
“Well, at least your last four months will be a breeze! Kleinton High is quite prestigious, if I do say so myself.”
“I can tell you take very good care of that school.”
“It’s my baby.” Julia beamed.
“Speaking of,” Erin paused for a moment, considering her words, “do you have children within the district?”
The question hung in the air, heavy with unspoken emotions. Julia’s gaze shifted, her eyes briefly tracing the contours of Erin’s face before settling on her hands. Memories flooded back, dreams shattered. The ache of what could have been gnawed at her heart. She thought she buried those thoughts deep within, locking them away in a vault sealed with liquid regret.
Julia never spoke of children with anyone else, not even Keegan. In the grand tapestry of her life, there were too many threads unraveling. She had a picture in her mind of where she would be and what she would have before she reached the age of forty, and for a brief moment years ago, she thought she had it all.
She had the woman, one with a heart of gold and flaming beauty that made her skin sing. She had the professional accolades. She had the respect of all of her peers. She had the job. She had the friends, the house, the car. She felt like life couldn’t get any better, but that’s when it started. That was when the complacency and comfort sunk too deep–a fissure beginning to pull apart the stitching at the seams–when the house began to seem a little less full. When it all began to fall apart, thread by thread disintegrating like a moth’s last meal. It became unrecognizable.
“It never was quite the right time,” she responded eventually. She lost focus as she looked off into the distance. “Lately, I’ve been finding myself looking back a lot, questioning the choices that led me to where I am today.” Erin just looked at her, that knowing look pulling at the corners of her eyes. “Do you?”
“It’s never been the right time for me, either. I tend to throw myself into my work rather than have a personal life.” Gosh, that smile. Right then, right at that very moment, Julia realized she would tell her anything. “I feel like you probably know the feeling.”
Oh, Julia did. She knew that feeling because it took up roots in her soul, weighing her bones down like rocks at the bottom of a pail. She wanted so hard for her life to mean something–to be more important than just her–and so she hurtled into her work like a child running downstairs on Christmas morning.
Now she looked back and wondered what she could’ve done differently, if she could’ve put Marin any farther to the front than she already had, if she could have given any more of herself. If she had, if she gave Marin the last piece of herself left, what would she have left now that she walked out? Looking back, was 15 years of marriage too long? Or was it not long enough? If Jack and Rose managed to share the wooden door as the Titanic sank, would they have made it?
Desperate to shift the conversation, Julia asked, “are you excited to go back?”
“I am,” Erin said, but her smile was almost sad. “It’s been too long.”
“Have you made friends here in New York?”
“I spend a lot of time writing up my reports,” she answered. “I’m kind of one of those people who’d rather have the little bit of free time I get by myself than be surrounded by others that I don’t really know.”
Me too.
“I understand that.”
“It’s hard to make friends in different places that I might not ever get to see again.” Erin’s focus pulled towards the scratched laminate tabletop.
“Some days I feel like my office has a revolving door. There are weeks I wish I didn’t have to see another face again.”
“Really?” Erin appeared genuinely surprised. “When you talk in front of people, they can’t take their eyes off of you. You are so personable. I’ve barely known you for more than a day, but I could talk to you for hours.” She took a sip of her drink, as if she was willing away the words she just confessed. “I would peg you more as a social butterfly.”
“You’ll get to know the real me as we work together,” Julia chuckled. “A social butterfly will not be in your vocabulary.”
Oh, shit. Why would Julia assume that they would be working that closely together? Why would Erin actually want to take the time to get to know the real her? Julia looked up, expecting to see nervous eyes staring back at her, but there was only that smile.
They continued eating their pizza while Julia thought about asking Erin about more. She wanted to know what made Erin look twice at her, what pulled so much attention. Maybe it was the culmination of everything that was her. Erin’s eyes were large with fascination; not almond like most, but uniquely circular in such a way that you could see her lashes flutter from feet away.
She always kept her shoulders taunt, her back straight as if she spent hours in the mirror practicing her posture. Julia noticed that when she talked, often getting lost in something Erin shouldn’t have found interesting at all, she allowed her shoulders to rest as she leaned closer. She leaned closer a lot, that sensual scent of vanilla always there mixing with the fruity aroma of her breath.
As Julia savored her last bite of pizza, she glanced at the paperwork she brought with her. They’d eventually have to address it, and she knew it’d be better to do so sooner rather than later.
“Here goes nothing,” Julia sighed. “I know we will be working closely on this evaluation, and I wanted to let you know that what happened last night won’t affect our professional relationship.” Julia’s voice was soft, but serious.
For a brief moment, she detected a flicker of disappointment creeping into Erin’s eyes, but it disappeared as she picked up her beer and looked towards the door. How could Julia address it without having to talk about it? They both had to know–had to understand–that whatever happened last night was a fluke, a part of the past they couldn’t revisit.
She looked back up and met Julia’s eyes, her composure never changing. She looked like she wanted to say something, something important, but she let her lips part and then close again.
“I think we should be able to do that.” Erin smiled, but it looked forced.
It didn’t matter that Julia wanted to crash into her pouty lips again. They’d be able to be in the same room without jumping the other. Easily. We’re adults. This will be fine.
“So, let’s get down to business.” Julia pulled out her faculty schedule and the guidelines outlined by McSellen and the board. “I figured week one you can start with this department,” she pointed at her notes, trailing along the timeline while explaining who each person and department was.
“I think that would be a great place to start,” Erin agreed. “I’ll touch base with you daily to debrief.” Julia hated how much she liked that part.
“Great!”
“Oh, there is one more thing. I have to do an evaluation of you and your position as well,” Erin looked down at her own paperwork, “and the other administrators, of course.”
Nervously, Julia said, “of course.”
It almost felt as if Erin could sense her change in demeanor, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “Julia, I want to assure you that I will remain entirely objective. Whatever is occurring on a personal level will not influence me.”
Occurring? “Oh,” Julia huffed, presenting as if the thought didn’t cross her mind. “I’m not worried about that!”
Erin’s knowing smile made it seem like she could peer into Julia’s hazel eyes and see right through her. She let out a deep, lingering sigh.
“I understand why you want to keep this professional.” She looked as if she wanted to reach for her again. Would Julia have let her touch her milky skin again if she was close enough? “I won’t hold it against you, and I promise I’ll evaluate you and your school fairly. That’s what I was hired to do.”
Julia understood every word Erin said, and she believed her. It was just the choice of wording that caught her attention. She wanted to keep it professional? Wasn’t this the only way forward? Was there some hidden message in that promise?
“I appreciate that.” Julia smiled, only partially relieved. “I’ll continue to speak highly of you to the faculty. Just be cautious, though; you know what they say about teachers.”
They both laughed, the tension lifting high above them as if it was never there. They finished their beers over light conversation of how much the education system has changed and how privatization ruined reform. Erin explained her transition from private to public education. They talked about their favorite places in Virginia and New York, both getting lost in the way they clung to every word.
As the room gradually emptied and tables were being cleared, they both looked at each other expectedly. Two hours of conversation didn’t seem like it was long enough. Reaching for their jacket at the same time, they awkwardly stood and cleaned off their table. It was as if both knew the end was coming, that Monday morning was around the corner and they’d have to act like the colleagues they were. So they stood there, wiping an already spotless table with damp napkins, prolonging the inevitable.
“Well,” Erin sighed.
Julia hesitated, knowing she had to return to an empty house once she got into her car. They discussed everything they needed to professionally, organizing their four months down to the class period. All that there was left was personal conversation, and they both agreed–in more or less words–they’d keep their distance. They had a job to do.
“Do you want to take a walk with me?” Julia asked.
She knew she shouldn’t have. She knew she should keep her distance, but then there was that smile and she simply melted before it.