13. Zoe
Zoe
Iwasn’t sure if I was asking to stay here because of my discomfort being alone in my grandmother’s house when she was still a stranger, or because I wanted to stay close to Gretchen.
Likely it was a little bit of both. But I couldn’t deny that I had a strong urge to stay close to Gretchen and get to know her better.
Maybe repeat that hot kiss we had this afternoon.
When she didn’t answer me I decided I’d made a misstep.
“I’m sorry. I never should have asked you that, it’s too much,” I blurted out. “You’ve already put yourself out to let me stay here last night and you fed me and I know I probably made you uncomfortable by kissing you.”
“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” she said firmly. “I wanted that kiss as much as you did. But it was probably a bad idea.”
“Oh sure,” I said automatically, my stomach sinking even more.
Then I replayed her words. “But why was it a bad idea exactly?”
“You’re my guest,” she said, ticking off the reasons on her fingers. “I don’t want you to feel like you owe me something.”
“I don’t.”
Well, I kind of did, but not a kiss.
“You’re my neighbor’s granddaughter, and if we pursue something and it ends badly, it could affect my relationship with Jan, which I don’t want to happen. And you’re much younger than me --.”
“Only eight years,” I interrupted.
“You’re in a vulnerable position right now,” she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Not to mention that you’re only in town temporarily.”
“What if I decide to stay here in Seattle?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“That doesn’t negate all the other reasons,” she said patiently.
“Well can we at least be friends then?” I asked. I wanted to be more than friends, but if that was all I could get, I’d settle for having her as a friend.
“Sure, of course, I’d like that.”
“Well okay friend,” I emphasized the last word. “Can I stay at your house until my grandmother gets back?”
She was quiet for a few seconds like she was thinking, so I rushed to add, “I’ll pull my weight. I’ll help around the house. Do yardwork. And when I get a job I can pay you rent and chip in for groceries. You won’t even know I’m here. Well, unless I’m doing something helpful.”
For just a second, Gretchen looked pained. “Yeah, okay, you can stay here until Jan gets back, but on one condition.”
“What?”
“You let me teach you how to lift weights. The way you were struggling to push the lawnmower with your skinny little spaghetti arms was a travesty.”
There was no sting to her words, and it was true I’d struggled to push the mower.
My arms were killing me. The combination of not eating enough and not doing anything active besides serving drinks was coming back to haunt me.
I was shockingly weak and I wanted to be strong, like Gretchen. She was just the woman to help me.
“Deal.”
The rest of the afternoon passed quietly.
I worked on my application for the on-call shelter position, hunting and pecking through the keys and digging back through my memory to reconstruct my work history.
Most of the jobs I’d had I’d filled out a single page application and if I looked okay to the hiring manager they put me on the payroll.
This application was more complicated. More professional.
“If I get this on-call position and stay in Seattle, do you think it could turn into something else?” I asked Gretchen a little while later.
“It’s not my department, but I know that the agency likes to promote from within, and there’s a fair amount of turnover amongst the shelter staff.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“I think a lot of people get into social work thinking it’s one thing and it turns out to be another.
And working with that population, seeing the impacts of poverty and domestic violence on women and kids, it wears on a person.
But if you get the job you can learn a lot from Julia about managing vicarious trauma and maintaining boundaries.
She’s a great supervisor, very passionate about the work. ”
Gretchen went downstairs to grab some clothes from the dryer and when she came back I was still using the iPad, looking at local job listings in case the shelter position didn’t work out or didn’t give me enough hours.
The problem was that I wasn’t qualified for much more than working in bars and restaurants.
Not that I was against doing that work again, but thinking about the shelter job had made me consider doing something else, something that actually helped people.
“I was thinking about ordering a pizza and watching a movie tonight,” she said, pausing by the table with a basket of laundry balanced on her hip. “Would you be up for that?”
“Only if you let me buy the pizza,” I said.
I didn’t have a lot of money right now, but I had enough to buy pizza for the woman who’d taken me into her home. She paused and I thought she was going to argue, but instead she nodded.
“Deal,” she said, echoing my response from earlier. “But I have a feeling you’re going to be disappointed in Seattle pizza.”
“Why?”
“I hear from friends and coworkers from Chicago that every Seattle pizza pales in comparison to your hometown pizza.”
“How bad could it be?”
The answer was, very very bad.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. The item that was delivered wasn’t pizza.
Not real pizza. It was something else, a poor imitation of the pizza I got at home.
I picked up a slice and examined it carefully before taking a bite.
My mouth scrunched up in dismay. It was…
okay. It didn’t taste terrible, but the crust was all wrong, soft and doughy, the sauce was bland, and why was the cheese on the bottom?
“Disappointed it’s not deep dish?” Gretchen teased, watching my reaction.
“Deep dish is for tourists and special occasions,” I said. “Real Chicago pizza is what they call tavern style. It’s got a cracker thin crust, spices in the sauce, and the cheese goes on the top, sealing in the ingredients, not underneath.”
I took another bite. “I mean, this is okay, but it’s definitely not pizza. It’s something… pizza adjacent.”
“Who knew you’d turn out to be a pizza snob?” she teased as she picked up the remote. “What should we watch?”
“When Harry Met Sally,” we both said in unison.
That cracked us both up. We settled on the couch with the pizza on the table in front of us as we watched Harry and Sally make their way from Chicago to New York, go their separate ways, and later find each other again.
“This is my favorite part,” I said, drawing my knees to my chest as Sally faked an orgasm in a deli to prove that women could easily fake orgasms.
“Have you ever done that?” Gretchen asked.
“Fake an orgasm, or demonstrate my orgasm technique in a restaurant?” I jokingly asked.
“Either.”
“I’ve never made a spectacle of myself in any restaurant, at least not knowingly,” I said. “But yeah, I’ve faked it a time or two. But now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever faked it with a woman.”
“Same here,” Gretchen said. “When I used to date men, sometimes it was way easier to let them think I was done, especially if I could sense that they were getting frustrated that it was taking too long. But with women, well we understand what needs to happen better, and we’re more patient in taking the time to get there. ”
“True. It definitely takes longer than people think, at least for me. I need a lot of foreplay. And forget about repeat performances like you see in the movies.”
Apparently just talking about foreplay was enough to turn me on. I pressed my thighs together as Gretchen asked, “What do you mean?”
I turned my head to look at her, the side of my face resting on top of my knees.
“I’m not, what do they call it? Multi-orgasmic? I’ve never been able to come more than once, not without a lot of recovery time.”
“Seriously?”
Why did she seem so surprised?
“Yeah, and every woman I’ve been with has told me they have the same problem.”
“Hmm.” Gretchen raised one eyebrow but didn’t elaborate.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“It’s just that if you can’t come more than once you’ve clearly not been with the right woman.”