Chapter 46

The following day was uneventful, and it passed in a haze of melancholy and uncertainty. Valerie and Dana shared no more deep conversations about her feelings, only polite pleasantries. Valerie wished she knew how to break the ice that seemed to be forming between them, but she could never seem to draw Dana out when the woman did not want to speak; and being honest with herself, she still felt hurt and wary.

Dinner was simple and quiet— steamed rice; small, chewy cubes of fried tofu; and Chinese broccoli. Dana made a dark, spicy sauce flavored with small, twisted mushrooms and fermented garlic. Valerie watched her cook, and the process still seemed like some sort of magic.

In earlier times, they would have chatted while Dana cooked; her asking Valerie gently probing questions about the girl’s past, and occasionally sharing small tidbits of her own. That evening, they cooked and ate silently, accompanied only by the clinking of dishware.

Valerie cleaned the dishes, a matter of only a few minutes. Dana’s anger seemed to have dissipated, if it was ever real at all; but the mood was still off-kilter and she could not precisely identify what was different. She, herself, felt only an indefinable sadness and a sort of fog-like anxiety.

Dana disappeared back into her office while Valerie cleaned, and she found herself at loose ends once the kitchen was again spotless.

Evening became night, and Valerie, as was often the case, had no way to pass the time other than lying listlessly and staring out windows. On some level, she knew that rousing herself from that and exercising — or even just scrubbing already-clean kitchen counters — would be good for her. She tried and failed to force herself up off the couch; as much as she knew that movement would help, she could not will herself to begin.

The rivers of light along the distant highways and the scattered glow of street lights and building lights became the only things visible as night fell; and then even these thinned or went dark as the hours slowly dripped by.

Eventually, Dana’s reflection appeared in the window. Valerie felt she ought to stand and assume some subservient pose at the woman’s appearance, but her limbs felt heavy, and some part of her resisted the demonstration.

They made eye contact through the window’s reflection. Valerie broke away first, feeling slightly flushed; she shut her eyes and turned her head away. She often felt like Dana’s gaze could slice her apart; she felt less and less sure, these days, that it wouldn’t. With a sigh, Valerie untangled herself from the same itchy wool blanket she had been wrapped in earlier, and rose to standing.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Dana said, eventually.

Her voice was hesitant, and this somehow deepened the sadness that Valerie was feeling. At the same time, she realized she did not want to share a bed with Dana that night— and that she had no choice. She would have preferred, even, to sleep in the cell downstairs. The dimness and solitude of the bare concrete somehow felt like a safe space to her, even if rationally she knew that the opposite was more true.

She nodded, nevertheless, in silent acquiescence, and followed Dana to the bedroom. Valerie’s night time ritual was simple— brushing her teeth, cleaning her face with the mild, expensive cleanser that Dana provided her, and gently massaging a small amount of moisturizer in afterward. Her skin had seemed clearer and perhaps even a touch more youthful over the past few months, but that night the dark circles under her eyes seemed more pronounced. Her head ached dully.

She found that even looking into her own eyes in the mirror was uncomfortable; she slipped out of the bathroom and into bed while Dana was still braiding her hair. Valerie hoped to fall asleep before Dana finished her own care tasks, but her thoughts were too busy for her to slip away so easily.

She kept her eyes squeezed shut as she heard Dana’s footsteps approach her side of the bed; feigning a sleep that had not claimed her. Dana had always at least locked her collar to the bed frame; the chain and padlock were a small shiny puddle on the bedside table. Valerie was relieved when, after a moment of contemplation, Dana circled around to the other side of the bed and climbed in, leaving her unbound.

The next morning, Valerie awoke to find that Dana had laid out some of her old street clothes. She barely recognized the garments as her own clothing, and she still had no idea where Dana kept her things. She seemed to have ready access to them, but they were not in any of the closets that Valerie had seen.

The ensemble included her winter coat— she had owned it since before transition, a bulky and shapeless red thing that had long since faded to a sort of dirty pink. She would have replaced it years before, if she had been able to afford it, but it had kept her warm through Oregon winters and had worked well enough to ward off the chilliest days San Francisco could offer. It had been one of the last gifts her parents had given her; a birthday present. She had resented the pragmatism of it; she had hoped for a new laptop.

She tried the coat on before leaving the bedroom. It had never fit well, and she was swimming in it. It was no more fashionable than it had ever been. The worn and fading fabric felt especially shabby, around all of Dana’s finery. She felt ashamed, imagining Dana going through her paltry possessions with quiet disapproval.

Dana was in her office, working, when Valerie found her. She held the coat in front of her, draped over her arms and pressed against her chest.

“Your car is here,” Dana told her as soon as she appeared in the doorway.

“My..uhm.. my Subaru?”

“Subaru? Oh. No. There’s a car and a driver outside; he’ll take you to Lucca.”

“Ah.” Valerie chewed on her lower lip.

The suddenness and lack of any further discussion did not do anything to ease Valerie’s anxieties that Dana was shuffling her off as some kind of dismissal. Panic gripped her chest and she forced herself to breathe slowly and intentionally to try and quell it. The exercise was not effective.

“Okay.. uhm..” She felt suddenly lost, and painfully shy. “Should I.. pack..?”

Pack what? Your toothbrush?

“Don’t worry about it,” Dana replied, gesturing dismissively.

Valerie nodded quietly and backed out of the office door, too stunned to fully process the sudden shift in circumstances.

She did not say goodbye; and neither did Dana.

Outside, there was a chill in the morning air, but nothing that would justify a full winter coat. She realized she wasn’t entirely sure what month it was— November, she guessed, or maybe December. She wondered whether she had missed Thanksgiving. At one time, it had been her favorite holiday; but the past couple years had been sad, meager, and worse than nothing at all.

A car sat waiting, parked in the gravel driveway. Far from Valerie’s beat-up Subaru, it was a large black luxury sedan, from a car maker that she had never heard of. A man in a black suit was leaning against the side of the car by the driver side door, smoking and staring off into the distance.

“Hi,” Valerie spoke, awkwardly, after what felt like too long waiting for the man to notice her.

“Ah! Miss Valerie. One moment, please.”

He spoke with a thick eastern European accent that Valerie had no hope of identifying. He seemed to Valerie mildly pleasant, but very professional. He crouched, put the cigarette out on some of the gravel, and pocketed the butt. He moved around the car to open the rear passenger door, gesturing Valerie inside with a small flourish, almost a bow.

Valerie settled herself nervously in the back seat of the car; it was spacious; it felt like it was approximately the same size as her first apartment. Probably bigger, she thought, recalling the tight confines of that ramshackle studio.

“Ah.. your bags, Miss Valerie?”

“No.. no bags. Uhm. just Valerie is fine..”

“Of course, Miss Valerie.”

The driver’s tone was perfectly neutral, but she still felt embarrassed, and wildly out of her element. He closed the door gently, and for a few moments she was wrapped in cocoon-like silence. Seconds later, the driver’s door was opened and the man took his place behind the wheel. The car started with a deep, throaty rumble; she felt it more than heard it, but even so it was barely discernible.

“You can connect your phone, miss, if you would like music.”

Another pang of embarrassment, and Valerie gritted her teeth, staring out the window.

“No.. no thank you. That’s alright.”

“Of course, Miss Valerie.”

Valerie sighed. She stared at Dana’s house as the car began to move. She wondered if she would ever see it again— if she would ever see Dana again. A few weeks, she had said. Valerie wondered if she wanted to ever see Dana again, but even entertaining the thought felt like trying to imagine that she was a different person, living in a different world.

Despite her turmoil, she knew that a kind word from Dana would could still twist her heart into knots. Dana could still leave her breathless with no more than a touch. Valerie wished she did not ache so much for the woman’s affections.