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“How you holding up?” She pulled back but kept her hands on Melinda’s shoulders. “I’m glad you called me. That was really brave.”
The choice of words couldn’t have stung more if she’d called Melinda a waste of space, and Melinda took rapid deep breaths.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Melisa embraced her once again. “I know, it’s the absolute worst when you’re vulnerable and someone’s nice to you. You can make it if you can fake it, right? And here I go rubbing salt in the wound.” Melisa held Melinda until she got herself together, then pulled back, checked Melinda’s face, and circled the table to slide onto her seat.
“What are we doing first?” Melisa asked. “Food or feelings?”
Melinda’s lips twitched. “They’re basically the same to me. Let’s do food first. Otherwise I’ll keep thinking that we could be eating now if we’d just ordered sooner.”
Both women scanned the list of items and Melinda used the time to calm down. She had requested this lunch date. Melisa was the one person who could understand her right now. Talking about this would be therapeutic.
Right.That was why her stomach was in knots.
“I recommend the falafel.” Melinda forced buoyancy into her voice. “And the hummus here is really good. Lots of garlic, if you’re into that. Unless you have clients this afternoon?” she added as she imagined a healing treatment from someone with garlic breath.
“My afternoon client canceled. Bring on the onions!” Melisa grinned as the waiter came over and took their order. “Wine? Beer?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Melinda replied.
“And now...the rough stuff.” A smile softened Melisa’s face. “How’s it been? The police haven’t shown up at our apartment yet so I’m guessing you’re still thinking things over?”
Melinda appreciated Melisa’s willingness to discuss the legal side of the dilemma, but nothing was leading her in that direction.
“I don’t know how much to tell you,” Melinda began, and then searched the other woman’s face. Melisa touched the back of Melinda’s hand.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve admired Grant, or the projection of Grant that I’ve heard about, for a while now. Whatever happened between you two is safe with me.”
Melinda gave her a watery smile, but no tears came.
“I told you a little bit already. Well, to set the record straight, I seduced him.” Melisa’s brows lifted. “But I should start further back than that, because it started right from the beginning, when he picked me up at the airport.” She thought a moment. “There was something about him. I’d never experienced that with anyone before. It was...magnetic. We were flirty, we talked. The air sizzled, you know?”
Melisa nodded.
“And then we passed my car and he turned just awful. There’s a partition in that Mercedes, do you know that?” Melisa shook her head. Her face had worn an expression of convivial acceptance and now it broadcast shock. Melisa would know what that partition meant, what terror Melinda would have suffered.
“Yeah.” Heat crept up her throat as she relived that night. “The driver can block out the back seat passenger. He didn’t believe that I wasn’t you, and he was all keyed up because we had this connection, and he took out his frustration on me by shutting me out. Good to know about a person, really.” She studied an adjoining table.
Don’t forget, though: you spot it, you got it, her mother said in her mind. The expression was shorthand for saying that Melinda, too, dealt with her feelings by shutting out other people.
Give it a rest, Dr.Sen.
“Anyway, he felt terrible when we got to the cabin and it turned out I wasn’t you. We had driven all the way up there and were stranded, and he had the wrong person. There was no way out. And then he gave me Paul’s gun.” Melisa’s eyes widened again. “But I stopped carrying it pretty quickly because he made it completely unnecessary. He didn’t touch me once. He tried so hard to make me comfortable. And it turned out that he was into me.” Melinda half-smiled at her shredded napkin.
“Also as it turned out, he’s pretty nice. Handsome. Wonderful,” she added quietly. Melinda traced her index finger around the rim of her wineglass. Their unorthodox adventure hinted at the edges of her vision. Building the snowman. The branch, and Grant carrying her back to the cabin.
“I cooked basically every meal. He ate everything I made for him, which is key for me, of course,” Melinda smiled. “But he was the one going outside all the time to get snow to melt for water. He was the one splitting wood so he could keep the fire going. He tried so hard to make it up to me.” Melinda gripped her fork. “For me. With me. I’ve never had a man do that before. He just...really listened when I talked,” she finished lamely.
But it was more than that. What was it? Melinda’s mind churned. It was time to talk about it. She dragged her fingers through her hair.
“I got a very distinct taste of what it was to not feel lonely,” Melinda said, throat tight. “And instead I felt close, and connected, and wanted.” The pain in admitting that hit her like a blow and her stomach clenched. “I guess not feeling wanted is kind of a thing for me.”
Their food arrived, and Melinda realized they hadn’t touched their wine. That wouldn’t do at all. She took a long sip and said a silent prayer for salvation.
“I would have fallen for him, too,” Melisa said. She leaned across the table and fixed Melinda with gray eyes. “Hook, line, and sinker. So if there’s any part of you feeling shame about what you did, hug it and tell it it’s okay, but then let it go.”
Melinda closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
When she opened them, Melisa was lifting her glass, sipping, and sighing her appreciation. “This is the way to do it,” she said. “Wine and feelings for lunch.” She took a longer sip, and Melinda joined her.
