I didn't think it would happen like this. So simple, so sweet. Just a laugh, shared over a bottle of wine at the end of a very long day. Just a joke, told by a woman who jokes so frequently it's as natural as breathing to her.
Something happened, something was born in that laugh, that amazing belly laugh she gave me as a gift, something amazing and strange and overwhelming.
Love, I think, is born from laughter, more so than from physical attraction or emotional connection or any other of the many attractants that psychologists claim brings two people together.
She made me laugh tonight, something so sweet and silly and weird that I couldn't help but kiss her, gently, on the lips. I want to say she reminded me of him, that her weirdness and intelligence and goodness are some kind of substitute for the husband I lost and with whom all connections are intertwined. But Debbie is Debbie, and I can't delude myself into believing she's just an emotional substitute for my dead husband.
I have only kissed one other woman in my life, again after too many glasses of wine, back in college when those things were sort of expected from overly intelligent girls at liberal schools. It was nothing like this, all fumbling and awkward and intense as it was.
No, kissing Debbie was like nothing I've felt in a long time. Not like kissing Jed, that familiar lifeline connection sparking between us each time our bodies touched. Not like kissing whatsername from Pi Mu, who wanted so desperately to be arty and cutting edge. Not like the dozens of boys I kissed as I wandered through the dating pool on my way to life with Jed Bartlett.
Kissing Debbie was like coming home. It was like the most awful day of your life has just ended, and coming home to find the house spotless, all the dishes cleaned, fresh bread baking in the kitchen, dinner hot and waiting to be eaten, and your favorite Cary Grant movie just starting on cable TV. Kissing Debbie was like finding your favorite pair of jeans, and discovering they still fit despite the fact that you haven't exercised in weeks.
Kissing Debbie was like thinking life was over, only to discover in a heartbeat that a new adventure was just about to begin.
She smells like peppermint. She tastes sweet and salty, and her lips are very soft. She holds me gently, like she's afraid I'll break, and her eyes are so deep with words she won't say that you think you'll fall into them and never come out again. She is irony incarnate, and loyalty with a fist of steel. She will never hear a negative word said against Jed Bartlett's memory, but she's been in love with his wife for years.
Kissing Debbie is like discovering a new room in your home, a hidden place of wonder and discovery you never imagined you could find. Like finding a secret talent, or $50 tucked into an old paperback.
I can't tell you why it happened, or where it will lead. We retreated to our rooms, both embarrassed and shy after the kiss. Debbie Fidderer and I are neither renowned for our shell-free personalities.
What happens now, now that the ice has been broken, now that we can't tell ourselves she is the only one who feels attraction? What happens now, now that I've discovered this new place in me, the place where Debbie belongs, and only her? The place that is larger than I would have suspected, and demanding to be filled?
Jed would be laughing now. He'd love this, I know he would. He'd tell me to go for it—chances are, with her wild past, Debbie's a better lover than I could ever hope for. He'd tell me to expand my horizons, and laugh when I got mad and embarrassed.
She's in her room, the same room she's occupied in the house for years, yet it seems miles away now. Just the thought of her makes me lonely, and that makes me mad. Angry, because I don't want to need someone again, and she's gotten under my skin. Afraid, because neither of us is young anymore, and I can't go through losing another one. Jed was too hard, losing him was too hard, I tell myself, even as I know I will go to her, maybe even tonight, probably within the next few days. I'm too afraid, I've been too hurt, I rationalize even as I slip my robe on, cross down the hallway to her room, as I've done so many times before, in the middle of the night, just for some girl talk.
Maybe we'll just be friends. Maybe we'll kiss again. Maybe it will be more.
Maybe.
The End