Coalescence - SF3 (22 page)

"Nor I you," her beaming partner agreed.

Ryan closely studied all of the pictures of a tiny little Jamie being brought home from the hospital, shots of her being baptized by her grandfather, and some adorable ones of her covered in food while she attempted to feed herself. There was one poignant picture of Jamie’s mother sitting by her crib, her arms crossed and resting on the top rail as she gazed lovingly at her tiny baby. She clearly didn’t know that she was being photographed and, judging from her weary face, she had been in that exact position for quite a while. There was something so familiar about her expression that Ryan felt like she was looking at her lover, even though their features were not terribly similar.

"You may have your mother’s height, but you look a lot more like your father than your mom," she observed quietly, still staring intently at the photo. "Except in this one picture." Ryan tapped her finger on the image, a little furrow in her brow. "Here, she has the exact same expression I’ve seen many times on your face. It’s nice to see you in another person. Do you know what I mean?"

She could tell that Ryan was thinking about her own mother by the distant, bereft look that invariably clouded her face when she thought of her. "I do." Jamie scooted a little closer to her partner and snaked an arm around her waist. "Do you share any features with your mom?"

A short shake of her head signaled both her lack of common features and her desire not to talk about the matter any further. Jamie honored her wish, giving her a squeeze to let her know she understood.

Looking at the album again, Ryan turned to a photo of Jim at his law school graduation. "You’ve got your father’s nose and his chin. And your grin is identical to his," she said fondly, turning her gaze from the picture to Jamie’s grinning face. "He has green eyes too, doesn’t he?"

"Yeah, mother’s are a nice deep brown. They look good with her blonde hair."

"So you get your hair color and your height from your mom?"

It seemed important to Ryan to learn more about her mother, so Jamie gave the question some serious thought. "Yeah, that’s about it, physically, don’t you think?"

Before giving her opinion, Ryan studied another photo, this one of both of Jamie’s parents. Catherine was a little shorter than Jamie and much smaller boned. She actually looked a little frail, being quite thin and not very muscular. Her face was quite striking, with a delicate nose and prominent cheekbones. She was a beautiful young woman, and she and Jim made a very striking pair. He was tall--about 6’3", Ryan guessed--with broad shoulders and a trim waist. He looked like a jock with his casual stance, appearing very comfortable in his body. His hair was a sandy brown and he had an easy smile and twinkling eyes, very much like Jamie’s. "Your parents are a very handsome couple," Ryan observed as she looked up at Jamie.

"Yeah, I guess they are," she agreed. "Daddy looks his age now, I guess from how hard he works. But Mother looks quite a lot like she did then," she observed. "She spends a lot of time on her appearance, and I guess it has paid off."

"Do you think they’ll like me?" Ryan asked quietly, a small frown playing at her forehead.

Jamie thought about that question for a long while. She looked at Ryan carefully as she answered, "If they were to get to know you as my friend, I’m certain they would. You’re terribly charming, you know," she said with a smile. "But if their first opportunity to really know you is as my lover...I don’t know. I really don’t know, Ryan." She looked down at her hands, fervently wishing that she could reassure her partner, but being completely unable to do so.

"Are they open minded about things in general?" Ryan’s tone was gentle and reflective, but Jamie could still hear the longing in her voice.

"In a way they are," she replied, trying to put a good spin on her answer. "I’m certain that Mother has a host of gay men in her retinue. She has a number of people who cater to her needs, you know, her hairdresser, her interior designer. I’m guessing she doesn’t know many lesbians, though. She’s pretty straight, and really proper about things in general."

"Hmm, I thought she’d be kinda…I don’t know…kinda laid back," Ryan conjectured. "I mean, she’s almost 15 years younger than Da, and she was raised in the Bay Area during a pretty wild time…"

"She seems to have escaped the 60’s unscathed," Jamie said dryly. "She was at Stanford, in a very conservative sorority, and I don’t think she experienced a lot before she met my father."

"Surely she’s tolerant about homosexuality in general, right?" Ryan asked, hoping that the Evanses’ views would reflect the usual Bay Area tolerance towards gays.

"Yeah, I think so. I don’t think she’ll be bothered by the homosexual aspect of our relationship, per se. I think the issue will be that this makes me ‘different’. She doesn’t like me to stand out in a crowd, even for good things. I think it really bothered her that I was on the boys’ golf team. I don’t think she wanted me to call attention to myself like that."

"What about your father?"

"I don’t know, Honey. He’s changed recently, and that has me confused about his reaction. He’s a big supporter of the Democratic Party, so it seems like he should be pretty liberal. He’s a big advocate of Mayor Brown, and as you know, the Mayor is positively gaga about gay issues." Ryan nodded her assent to this assessment. "A year ago, I would have said that Daddy would be completely cool with my being gay, but he’s said some things this year that have really bothered me. He made a big deal about one of the partners bringing his lover to a firm party. It really surprised me, and I think he said it purposely because he knew I was friends with you," she said sadly.

"Did you tell him that I was gay?" Ryan silently hoped that her lover had been honest about her.

"Yeah, I think I told him right after we started working out together."

Ryan breathed a small sigh of relief and felt the muscles relax that she didn't know she'd been tightening. "That’s not an encouraging sign," she agreed. "But, he was very friendly to me after the ride. He knew I was gay, and he knew we were together constantly for a week."

The look on her face was so filled with hope that Jamie felt her heart clench in her chest. She reached up and took both of Ryan’s hands in hers. "Ryan, I want them to approve of us. I truly want them to like you. But if they don’t, it won’t change one thing between us. I promise you that."

Ryan graced her with a fond smile and tilted her head to place a gentle kiss on her lips. "I appreciate that, Jamie. I know this might be tough, but one thing I’ve learned from working at the talk line is that you’re usually surprised by your parents’ reaction. Sometimes it’s a good surprise, sometimes it’s bad, but it’s usually a surprise."

"Well, that’s something to look forward to," she said with a wry smile rolling her eyes. She got up and stretched, then put the album back. "So, what do you want to do today?"

"It’s up to you, Sweetness. You pick."

"Well, I’ve got a golf lesson at ten. Maybe lunch and some shopping after that?"

"Shopping?" Ryan repeated weakly, looking a little ill.

"Come on," Jamie urged. "It’ll be fun."

Ryan sighed deeply and shook her head a little bit. "You know," she said slowly, "If you’re going to be a real lesbian, you’re gonna have to stop the shopping thing."

Jamie’s nonplussed expression caused Ryan to pull back from her teasing. "Hey, that was a joke, Babe. There’s room in the lesbian community for a shop-a-holic."

The absent nod that greeted that comment showed that Jamie was still bothered by the joke, though, so Ryan tried to draw her out. "Tell me why that upset you," she insisted. " ‘Cause I know it did."

Jamie patted her hand, nodding briefly as she tried to collect her thoughts. It took longer than Ryan was comfortable with, but Jamie finally got to the issue. "I’m…I’m not sure that I like that term," she finally said.

"What term?" Ryan asked, trying to remember the exact terms she had used. "Shop-a-holic?"

"No, no," Jamie said quickly, "that one’s accurate." She drew in a deep breath and turned to face her partner fully. "I’m not sure I like being called a lesbian."

A very deep head nod greeted this information. "Okay, I promise I won’t use that term for you again," Ryan said clearly. Her stomach did a small flip, but she had a feeling that her partner’s reaction was mostly a question of semantics.

"But…"Jamie asked plaintively, "what am I, if I’m not a lesbian?" The look on her face reminded Ryan of a four-year-old who has just discovered there is no Easter Bunny.

"You’re you," Ryan assured her, as she took her in her arms and hugged her tightly. "You don’t need a designation to be you. You’re the same you that you were before we kissed for the first time. The term doesn’t make you who you are, Jamie."

"But you have one," Jamie complained, her words muffled slightly by the skin of her partner’s shoulder.

Ryan smiled and patted her blonde hair in an affectionate fashion. "That’s because that’s what I feel like, Honey," she explained. "I have always been exclusively attracted to women. If I were stranded on a remote island with 100 good-looking men and no women, I’d never have sex with a partner again. It actually feels wrong to me to even think about being with a man. When I was a kid, and people would tell me that I’d get married some day, I would actually shiver a little at the thought. It just seemed perverse!"

"Really?" Jamie asked, now fascinated by Ryan’s vehemence. "You would honestly go without sex for the rest of your life rather than have a man touch you?"

"Yeah," Ryan said confidently. "I love men, as you well know. I feel completely comfortable being with them…but the thought of touching them sexually is actually repugnant to me."

"That’s a pretty strong reaction, Honey," Jamie said, smiling at her with a bemused grin.

"No it’s not." Ryan gave her a quizzical look and tried to make her point clearer. "Take my brothers as an example. I’m sure they would do without sex if the only option was other men." After a beat, she corrected her statement just a bit as she added with a chuckle, "Well, Conor would find some way to rationalize it, but Brendan and Rory wouldn’t."

Jamie laughed at her partner’s comments, fully able to see Conor trying to find the most feminine looking man in the bunch. "Your point was what?" she asked, after removing the image of Conor and his new boyfriend from her mind.

"My sexual orientation towards women is just as firmly affixed as my brothers’. But because I’m a woman, and a man’s parts fit into me, it’s hard for people to believe that. Even you," she said with a flash of hurt passing across her face.

Jamie sat back and stared at her partner for a moment as she forced herself to admit that it did seem like an entirely different thing to her. "I’m sorry, Babe," she said, trying to apologize, but not really knowing what to say. "I guess I have some preconceived notions that make this hard for me to understand."

Ryan’s expression softened, and she wrapped her arm around Jamie’s shoulders, giving her a good squeeze. "It’s okay, Honey. It just bothers me sometimes when you don’t completely understand me. It’s no big deal."

"I just…I guess I assume that
you
could
be with men if you so chose. But I couldn’t imagine your brothers, or Jack, or my father having sex with a man. I guess it is a double standard."

"Thanks for acknowledging that," Ryan said with a smile. "I know this is complex, Honey. We just have to keep talking about it so we understand each other better."

"Well, I feel funny not to feel like you do," she added after a minute. "It’s like I don’t belong in the club."

"No, no, no," Ryan said emphatically. "You don’t have to feel any particular way or call yourself any particular thing, Jamie. You are who you are...with or without a label."

"Have you been with other women without labels?" she asked tentatively.

Ryan smiled indulgently and gave her a gentle squeeze. "You know I have, Babe. You know I dated that woman who was in a relationship with a guy. I’m sure she would never call herself a lesbian."

"Is she the only one?" Jamie asked, hoping that many others shared her feelings.

"Of course not. I’ve been with women who fall everywhere on the continuum of sexual orientation. It’s very, very difficult for many women to pick a spot they feel comfortable with on that scale, Jamie. It’s much easier for a woman like me, who can’t imagine being with a man."

"So it doesn’t bother you that I’ve been attracted to men?" she asked in a timid tone.

"Ummm, Honey," Ryan gently reminded her. "Something about that engagement thing gave me a clue that you liked men. This isn’t a surprise to me."

"Oh, Ryan, you know what I mean," she insisted.

"No, Babe, I really don’t," Ryan replied. "Tell me what bothers you about this."

"What…I mean…um…what if I
still
like
men," she asked in a very quiet voice.

"Well, why wouldn’t you?" Ryan asked warily. "That doesn’t mean that you want to sleep with them, does it?"

"No, of course not," Jamie said immediately. "I just…"

"Look, Honey. I like women…a lot. If we weren’t together, I’d probably still be dating as many women as I could get my hot little hands on. But I’m committed to you. So my attraction to other women stays strong, but my desire to be with them is almost nonexistent."