Between Lovers - Couverture souple

Chapter Two

Nicole says, "I still want you to meet her."

I don't respond to that.

I lay there in the bed with my eyes closed. Nicole is on top of me, her hands tracing over my body, wide awake like she's been IV'ed to a double latte mocha cappuccino espresso.

Another commuter train rumbles by out on Embarcadero.

She kisses my lips before she heads for the bathroom. Nicole walks in a way that lets you know she used to do ballet many moons ago, as a child, that she does yoga as an adult, using the core of her body to move herself, her abs and inner thighs tight from doing most of the work.

Nicole leaves the bathroom door wide open. She sings a Pru song, the one about the candles. She sings that all the time. Her singing is terrible, but it has raw passion. The toilet flushes.

The sandman sprinkles sleep dust all over me. Try to shake it off. Body heavy.

Water runs in the sink. She's washing up. Her bracelets jingle with her scrubbing.

She asks, "Did you hear me when I said that I want you two to meet?"

I sit up. We stare. I tell her, "I'm not deaf."

"Last month, when I asked, you said that you'd think about it."

"Help me out here. Why would you want us to meet?"

"Then I won't feel guilty. Like I'm cheating."

"Are you?"

She pauses. "Then you won't act like she doesn't exist. I love you. I love her."

"You don't love her."

"How do you know?"

I say, "Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve."

We stare at each other, restless, indeterminate gazes that reach deep.

She says, "I'm a divided soul, sweetie. And I can't go on like this. Not much longer."

"Then choose."

This is a discussion we've had countless times since the wedding. Each time it becomes harder.

She tells me, "I have a solution. If you're still open to new things, it can work."

She wants me to ask, but I don't.

With a wounded smile, she hand-combs her locks, untangles that hairstyle that started off as a sign of resistance, and still is, and she takes my running shoes from the closet, tosses them at my feet.

She gently says, "Get dressed."

Fog walks the streets. Dark skies give Oaktown that Seattle appeal.

I have on black running tights, white T-shirt, gray St. Patrick's Day 10K sweatshirt. She wears blue tights and a black hooded sweat top, a red scarf over her golden hair.

We take a slow jog out of the Waterfront, by all the gift shops, head through the light fog. Rows of warehouses that are being converted into lofts line the streets. All in the name of profit and gentrification, the reversal of the White Flight is in progress. The homeless are out peddling Street Spirit papers for a buck a pop. Some are sleeping on the oil-stained pavement while people pass by in super-size SUVs and foreign cars that cost more than a house in the 'burbs of Atlanta, Georgia. The dirt poor, the filthy rich, all live a paper cup away from each other in the land of perpetual oxymorons.

I say, "You want me to meet this chick-"

"Don't say chick. That's a misogynistic word."

"Nicer than what I usually call her."

"Which is disrespectful. Yeah, I think meeting will benefit us all."

"So, this thing with her is pretty serious?"

She smiles because I've given up the silent treatment. "It's serious. There's more to it."

Acid swirls in my belly.

Nicole goes on, "I think we can resolve this situation."

"More like what?" I ask. "What more is there?"

"We ... just more." She has a look that tells me this is deeper than it seems, but can't tell me all, not right now. She says, "Let's talk while we run."

We take the incline up Broadway, my mind trying to react to what she just asked me about meeting her soft-legged lover, whirring and clicking and whirring as we jog by the probation department. We come up on a red light and stretch some more while we wait for it to change. The signal makes a coo-coo, coo-coo, coo-coo sound when it changes to green, that good old audio signal for the blind folks heading north and south. It chirps like a sweet bird going east and west, so we know we have the right-of-way and it's okay to get back to running north toward freedom.

Before we make a step, a Soul Train of impatient drivers almost mows us down.

We jump back. Both of us almost get hit. That lets me know that both of our minds are elsewhere.

Nicole says, "Be careful here, sweetie. This is where all the assholes rush to get on the Tube."

Someone driving a black car with a rainbow flag in its window slows and allows us to cross.

I run behind Nicole. Check out the fluid movement of her thighs. Seven years ago they weren't so firm. Back then she had a whacked Atlantic Star hairdo that hung over one eye and she looked like Janet Jackson, not the Velvet Rope version, but the chubby-faced Penny on Good Times version. Now her belly is flat and the muscles in her calves rise and fall, lines in her hamstrings appear, her butt tightens; all of that shows how much she's been running, doing aerobics, hiking up every hill she can find.

It fucks with me. I try not to, don't want to, but it fucks with me and I can't help thinking about her being naked with another woman. Keep thinking about all the videos I've seen with women serving women satisfaction, but refuse to see Nicole in that light, in that life. I want to believe that they sit around baking cookies, knitting sweaters, and watching Lifetime Television for Women.

Those silver bracelets jingle as she gets a little ahead of me, not much. My shoes crunch potato chip bags and golden leaves. Buses spit black clouds of carbon monoxide in our faces.

The light at 13th catches Nicole. I catch up and ask, "Why does she want to meet me?"

"Because. Curious, I guess. I love you; she knows that. Sometimes she sounds intimidated."

"Because I'm a man."

"Maybe. After seven years, we have a solid history, don't you think?"

That makes me feel good. The simple, five-letter word solid makes me feel good. The signal coo-coos three times. We run north.

We race the incline toward Telegraph, a liquor store-lined street that leads into good old Berkeley.

At 20th, under the shadows of a sky-high Sears and World Savings building, she turns right toward Snow Park. We avoid a million chain-smokers who are congregated out in front of Lake Merritt Plaza, the black-lunged outcasts of a politically correct world, then cross several lanes of fast-paced traffic and head toward the children's park and petting zoo called Fairy Land.

I maintain a steady pace and ask, "This hooking up, is this for her, or for you?"

"For me. Because I'm in fucking purgatory."

"Where do you think I am? I'm standing next to you."

"Feels like I'm dancing naked on the sun."

"That sounds painful."

"Wanna see my blisters?" She clears her throat, spits. "It's important for her because she needs to get comfortable with my needs, and wants, with my love for you, to be secure. And it's for you."

"How in the hell is this hooking up for me?"

"Because I see how much it hurts you. You're an open book."

"Don't go clich? on me."

"You put it in all of your books. Especially the one with the orange cover. The one where you wrote about the wedding."

"A fictional wedding."

"Save that bullshit for your fans. I read your books and I see me, hear the things I've said, see you, your words, hear your voice, feel sad and bad because I know that all the pain you write about is us."

"Maybe you should write a book. Let me know how you really feel, what's going on with you."

She goes on, "Be honest. Would you be this, I don't know, well, for lack of a better word, understanding if I were-"

"I'm not understanding; I don't understand this whole lesbian shit."

"I'm not a lesbian," she says with force. Then she backs off. "Sweetie, I'm not a lesbian."

I tell her, "Look, I'm being patient. Waiting for you to get through this ... this ... this phase."

"Okay, patient. Would you be acting like a stunt double for Job if I were having a relationship, okay, even living with another man?"

"Hell, no. I'd break his neck. Go Left Eye and burn down the house. Not in that order."

She says, "Going Left Eye. Now that turns me on. That evil side you try to hide."

"Try me."

"I'm serious. I want you two to meet. We have to. I want both of your spirits to be at ease. I want my spirit at ease. I want all of us to be able to lunch together from time to time, have conversations, run races together, that way I don't have to be stressed and trying to figure out who I'm going to be with. It's a lose-lose for me, and I'm trying to make it a win-win for us all."

"So, she's scared of me."

"You don't see her as a threat, not the way she sees you as a threat."

"Nothing that menstruates is a threat to me. Ain't scared of nothing that bleeds."

"Okay, Mister Macho."

Nicole has immeasurable passion when she talks about her soft-legged lover. I wonder if when she's talking to her friend about me, if she speaks with the same heated tongue, one that drips adjectives made of sweet mangos, verbs made of ripe kiwis, says my name as if it were a fresh strawberry.

I say, "So, this is for me, you, and her."

"At this stage in my life, I do know what I want. And I'm going after it. I'm being honest with myself and I have the courage to follow it."

"How long did you practice that Fantasy Island-sounding speech?"

She extends both her middle fingers my way.

I ask, "You want it to be like that?"

"Ideally, yeah. If could wake up every day knowing I was going to share my life with two people I adore, do that without any stress, yeah, my world would be perfect."

I say, "World ain't perfect."

"Our world can be perfect enough for us. We can create new boundaries, new love."

We. I notice she uses the word we a lot. The ultimate team player. A company woman.

"Dunno, Nicole. Dunno. Me, you, and your friend. That puts a chill in the pit of my stomach."

"Tha...

With each new novel, Eric Jerome Dickey has established himself as one of the freshest and most exciting writers on America's contemporary fiction scene. His latest book is no exception. Set in the San Francisco Bay area, Between Lovers brings together three irresistible characters. The novel's narrator—a Los Angeles-based writer—is still reeling from being dumped by Nicole after seven good years followed by an aborted trip to the altar. Nicole grew up during their time together, and changed—she became a successful career woman, moved north to Oakland, and fell in love with another woman. But she's still not satisfied. She likes what she has, but misses what she had, and wants to find out if she can have it all. She's playing with fire, not to mention the feelings of the two people who love her most in the world, but Nicole lures her former fiancé back into her new life, opening the floodgates of anger, passion, pain...and refreshing honesty. How these three fascinating people handle this unusual and complex love triangle makes for one of Dickey's most provocative and unforgettable novels.