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Monica said nothing. She didn’t like talking about her mother. She didn’t like talking about anything personal. But, at the same time, she wanted to make a connection with Chenoa.
“Your mother.” Monica jerked her chin to where Mrs. Whitecloud was now emerging from the bathroom. “I like her.”
Chenoa looked over at her mother. Instead of returning to their table, she edged her way in among the other union members gathered at the bar.
Chenoa shook her head. “She’s stubborn.”
Then she looked over at Monica and graced her with such a dazzling smile that it tore at Monica’s heart. “But I love her, too. And, well, I wanted you to know that despite how I must have come across, I’m glad you got her involved in the union.”
“You are?”
Chenoa took a drink from her beer and nodded. “When I left for grad school, I was afraid she would just go to that awful job at the hotel, get off work and then sit at home worrying about me.”
She laughed. “And that’s exactly what she did. Ran her phone bill up, calling me every day. But then she got involved in the union. Oh, she still worries about me but it isn’t a twenty-four-seven kind of thing, you know? She has something else to occupy her mind. To make her feel important. Needed.”
“It’s empowering,” Monica ventured.
Chenoa screwed up her face. “Yeah, I suppose so. Although I hate that word. Sounds so…yuppyish.”
Monica laughed. Chenoa took another drink of her beer and Monica admired how her long, smooth throat worked as she drank. Soon the table between them was littered with beer and with the labels Monica had torn off the bottles as her state of inebriation and subsequent horniness had increased. She hadn’t meant to drink so much but the more she and Chenoa had talked, the more relaxed she had felt and the more beer she had ordered.
Chenoa, however, had stopped after one beer and switched over to club soda.
Mrs. Whitecloud came over to the table. “Silas is taking me home. Are you going to stay here, Monica?”
Monica shook her head and wished she hadn’t. “I need to get back to my hotel room. I’ve got a meeting in the morning with management.” Monica stood up and swayed. She’d driven over to the bar in her rental car but she knew she was in no state to drive back to the hotel. “I’ll call a taxi.”
“No, Chenoa can drive you,” Mrs. Whitecloud offered. “You can get your car tomorrow.”
Monica looked over at Chenoa, who shrugged. “Sure, I can take you.”
She rose from her chair and Monica, after making sure she wasn’t going to pitch face forward onto the floor, followed her outside.
Monica slid her key card through the reader on the door. She opened the door and stepped inside. Chenoa walked in behind her. Then, when Monica saw the state of her room, she wished she had not invited Chenoa in.
Clothing, underwear, books, computer discs and an assortment of half-opened bags of cereal bars and potato chips were strewn across her bed. The desk near the window was in no better shape, covered as it was with her laptop, stacks of flyers, newsletters and boxes of union buttons.
She looked over at Chenoa and gave her an embarrassed smile. “Excuse the mess.”
Chenoa shrugged. “No problem.”
She went over to the bed and, surprising Monica, swept everything on it onto the floor. Then she jumped on the bed, leaned back against the pillows and looked over at her. She patted the empty space next to her.
“Well, come on.”
Monica stared at her. Was this some kind of alcohol-induced hallucination?
Chenoa laughed. “Don’t tell me a big-time union organizer like you is bashful.”
“I’m not…” Monica stopped and drew in what she hoped was a head-clearing breath of air. “…a big-time union organizer.” She pinched her fingers together. “I’m more like a flea on the humped, bristly back of the union.”
“Really?” Chenoa smiled wickedly. “I thought you were going to insist you weren’t shy.”
Chenoa sat up and pulled off her T-shirt. She was braless. Her breasts were round and full with dusky-brown areolas.
Monica walked over to the bed and sat next to her. “What I am is confused.”
Chenoa reached over and caressed the line of Monica’s jaw, her cheek, the side of her face. Her voice was a low whisper. “Confused about what?”
