Atmosphere(54)

“But?”

Joan looked Vanessa in the eye, then. Forced herself to not look away. “I’m always alone, Vanessa.”

Vanessa looked down. Their hands were just an inch apart and Joan wanted to move her pinkie, to reach out and touch her. But she couldn’t bring herself to.

“I do understand what you’re telling me,” Joan said. “You won’t wait forever.”

Vanessa shook her head. “No, Jo. You don’t get it at all.”

The amber of Vanessa’s eyes was almost gold when the light hit it. The look of them, especially in this moment, was so complex that they reminded Joan of what her mother always said about her favorite landscape painting, which hung above the dining room table at their house. It “rewarded your attention.” Joan could stare into Vanessa’s eyes for hours and still never tire of all that they held.

“I’m scared I will wait forever,” Vanessa said, her voice a whisper. “And it will kill me.”

Joan’s heart began to pound.

“I’m begging you to tell me not to,” Vanessa said. “Please. Tell me I’m wasting my time. Tell me I’m crazy. Put me out of my misery, Joan. Can you do that?”

Joan looked at her. “I can’t tell you that.”

Vanessa stared at her.

“And I don’t want to tell you that.”

Vanessa held her gaze a moment longer and then pushed Joan up against the door and kissed her. Joan put her hands on Vanessa’s face and kissed her back. And, in that second, almost everything Joan had known about herself became untrue.

And everything she never thought she’d want or have was in her arms.

Vanessa tasted like salt. And she smelled the way she always smelled, but richer, the scent thicker. Joan pulled her closer, as hard as she could. For a moment, she worried that she was hurting her, pulling her that tight. But Vanessa sighed. And Joan’s arms went loose as she let go of her weight against the door and sank into her legs in a way she never had before.

Vanessa pulled away then, but Joan pulled her back. And it was partially because Joan was afraid to look at her, to face what she was finally letting herself do. But it was more that she had to have Vanessa’s body against hers, had to feel the weight of her. She wanted to be trapped between Vanessa and the door. To be asked to surrender to her.

Joan let her go, finally. And Vanessa pulled back slightly but did not go far. She looked at Joan, and Joan felt herself blush. Vanessa took her thumb and grazed it across Joan’s jaw. Joan’s muscles melted, and she felt like she could dissolve.

Joan knew then that Donna was not an idiot. And the Beatles were not nonsense. And that there had always been a place for her in this world. She had just been walking past it over and over again, never noticing that there was an unmarked door, waiting for her to discover it.



Oh, but what now?

Joan did not know what she was doing!

She did not know when it was okay to smile at Vanessa at work and when she should hide her feelings. She did not know if she was standing too close to her when everyone was out together at a bar.

And so, instead, Joan spent over a week with her pulse racing, desperate to find herself alone with Vanessa as if by accident. Which was not an easy feat.

“We should go away,” Vanessa said in a low whisper, one afternoon when the two of them finally ran into each other alone on campus. Vanessa moved so effortlessly, appeared to know where to look with such ease.

“Okay,” Joan said, aware that her tone sounded eager but unable to hide it. “Where?”


They drove down to Rockport separately, so that they would not drum up suspicion. That had been Vanessa’s suggestion. And Joan was starting to get a sense of how this would work.

Joan got to the hotel early, and so she sat in the grand lobby having an iced tea, watching the brass revolving doors. Families and couples walked in, a few businessmen. When a girl Frances’s age walked in the door, Joan felt the pang of missing her. She’d called Barbara to make plans so she could be sure to see her the following weekend, but it still felt uneasy, choosing to go away.

Joan finished her iced tea quickly and a waiter brought her another. After she finished that one in two big sips, she declined a third. Her bones were already jumping within her skin.

Joan saw Vanessa’s car pull up at the front entry. She stood up, as if to greet her, then felt silly and sat back down.

Vanessa got out of her car, put the top up, and then handed the valet her keys.

As Vanessa walked through the revolving door, she did not see Joan. And so Joan waited, watching Vanessa walk toward the reception desk to check in. Vanessa smiled at the woman behind the counter. And then, as the woman looked up Vanessa’s name in the records, Vanessa scanned the lobby and her eyes landed on Joan. Vanessa’s entire face lit up. She took the hotel key from the receptionist and walked toward Joan.

“Hi,” she said when she got near.

“Hi.”

Joan tried to hide her smile, but it just kept opening up across her face.

“Should we drop off our bags in the room?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Joan grabbed hers and walked alongside Vanessa toward the elevators.

Joan simply could not stop smiling. She kept thinking about when Frances was four or so and got really into what she called “playing tricks.” She would throw a blanket over herself or hide under the bed with both legs dangling out and Joan would say, “Jeez, I wonder where Frances went.” And Frances would giggle, as if she was doing the funniest, most daring thing anyone had ever done. If the giant blob the size and shape of Frances under the blanket or the dangling legs didn’t give it away, Frances’s gleeful laugh certainly would have. But Frances could not contain her joy.