Scissor Link, Georgette Kaplan [best 7 inch ereader .TXT] 📗

drank, and made a somewhat gratified, somewhat pained noise when it hit.

“Okay, you can hold your liquor. I’m starting to approve of you.” Elizabeth took the mug back and drained it. “Boss isn’t here. I haven’t goofed off like this in five years…my point is, all this shit she has? It’s her shit. It doesn’t go away just because she’s gone down on you—”

“She hasn’t gone down on me—”

“Fuck you, get that shit. Are you a lesbian or aren’t you?” Elizabeth slammed the mug down on the desk. “Making us look bad…listen, she is the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and she is also one of those Indiana Jones boulders of neuroses and regrets and just, just bullshit. You take the one, you take the other. She can’t just toss this away because it’s inconvenient for you. Even if she’d love to…be worthy of you.” Elizabeth sighed and poured again. “You’re young and beautiful and now you’re rich. She doesn’t want you to waste yourself on her.”

Wendy held up her hands. “Okay, I get it; Dr. Phil, no more drinks—”

“This is for me.”

Wendy ignored her. “Janet could be getting on a plane to Bora Bora right now, so could you just tell me if she loves me or not? Did she tell you? Did she say those exact words?”

“Wendy, over the past few months, she’s said everything about you. All our conversations have had you in them. Either she’s crazy about you or she’s going to murder you.”

Wendy made a weighing motion with her hands. “Fuck it. I’m going after her.”

“She’ll be at the park.”

Wendy didn’t take the time to go around Elizabeth, just jumped up on the desk, jumped off the other side, and was out the door.

She thought she heard Elizabeth asking for a raise as she left.

It was a lovely day in the park. Janet could tell from the office—see the blue sky, the white clouds, the green grass. But she didn’t really know. That only came from sitting on a bench, feeling the wind in her hair and the sun on her skin and hearing the discordant little harmony formed out in nature. Running feet, walking dogs, snatches of conversation, even the cars in the distance, a part of the world along with the birds and the rushing wind.

Roberta Olsen, formerly Roberta Lace-Olsen, was walking with her girlfriend. It had the slowness and comfort of a walk that was entirely unself-conscious. No neurotic notions of exercise or enjoying nature or a feeling of obligation, just a desire to enjoy the day and the company in equal measure. As she walked, her girlfriend told her a story, hands gesturing to and fro, her overly-animated face miming expressions, and Roberta laughing, laughing, laughing, until she had to pull her girl into an embrace as if to stop her from joking even more.

Janet watched them from the park bench. She wondered if it had ever been so easy. Her discomfort had nothing to do with seeing them together. That provoked little reaction in Janet that wasn’t scientific. But her office had been her castle—not her home, never her home, her home and Bobbi’s—and now it was unsafe. Wendy had invaded it, revealed it to have been compromised so insidiously that Janet had never even noticed, and she couldn’t reconcile its sanctity from Wendy’s hold on it.

Wendy had come looking for her, found her, she was looking at her even now. Trying to think of something to say to her while her eyes reminded Janet how possessed she was. Her own skin felt half Wendy’s. So much of it touched by her, still hungering for her…Janet was losing too much, giving up too much that she had hoped to hold in reserve, safe and sound where it couldn’t be lost, but Wendy had been ravenous for it. And Janet hadn’t had the will to stop her. She’d signed over so much of herself that she wondered if there was any left. She worried that if there was, it went with Roberta, already too far away for her to feel.

She’d gone to the park to feel safe. It didn’t feel that way. Not with Roberta there.

Fuck it, she should probably say something before Wendy got bored and left. “Are you supposed to be a Secret Service agent or something? Sit down. For God’s sake, I’m not a deer.”

Sheepishly—as much as she seemed capable of sheepishness—Wendy came out from behind the tree she’d been somewhat hiding behind, somewhat leaning on, and collapsed onto the other side of the bench with a kind of relief. Janet guessed she thought the hard part was over.

“I was going to write you another e-mail, but then I remembered you’re old, so I thought you’d prefer talking in person.”

Janet replied, “Funny.”

“Yes, I am. Thanks for noticing.” Whatever brave face Wendy was putting up, died in the wake of Janet’s apathy. She folded her arms, played with her hair a little, she let Janet stew. Gave her time to tell her to go away.

Janet would’ve, only she wanted something from her. She didn’t know what. Maybe some kind of closure. Something to make it okay that they weren’t going to see each other anymore.

“I didn’t follow you,” Wendy said, her voice slightly bright with false cheer, and it wasn’t even very cheerful. Her eyes sought Janet’s, but didn’t find them. “Elizabeth told me where you were. And it’s been an hour, so… I wanted to make sure you hadn’t hit your head or anything. Gotten amnesia.”

“What’s that?” Janet said by rote.

Wendy smiled at her. Janet wished she could look at her. But she felt more fragile than ever—more in touch with her own weakness. She could see the breadth of it, all its dimensions, how far down it went. But then, Wendy already knew.

The least she could do was hold up her end of the conversation. “I assume Elizabeth gave you a pep talk too?”

“Full disclosure: I also got one from my sister, so a