Chapter 4

The door clicked shut as quietly behind Grace as she could possibly will it. She was scotch free for all she knew, up at five in the morning to trapeze across town to make it home before sunrise, before questions from Frankie could surface. She felt quite possibly like a teenager again, a giddiness evaded her senses, spread across her chest in a pleasant curl for only a few moments later and she would be up in her room, showered and refreshed with even the possibility of a few hours of sleep before Frankie would even stir from sleep.

Yes, only a few steps more and she would be home free, would have any sign of Allison washed from her, though the sensation from the previous night left her feeling high. Higher than any pot might. How two bodies could do such things, how she felt no need for the vibrator upon which she was amassing a small fortune, was quite perplexing. How she had kept sex with a woman from herself for so long made her heart ache just a little bit, an exquisite pain for all those wasted years, yet beautiful for it was bittersweet to experience it now. To feel what a passionate kiss could feel like, what a gentle, caring caress conveyed. Grace had never felt this way before, had never been treated in such a manner. Not by Phil and especially not by Robert.

She had stalled too long in the entranceway. Something stirred and her heart hammered in her chest, fear paralyzing her, freezing her to the spot. Something had moved.

The TV was on, had been on since the night they were robbed, but she had not noticed the body in the chair. She flashed back to the night she had shot at dummy Frankie and wondered if this was dummy Frankie II. She willed herself to reign in her fear, to be strong. For either Frankie or her look-alike could not harm her. And she no longer had her gun.

Plus it had moved, it had to be…

"Grace," Frankie's voice sounded so tired, so devoid of her normal cheer. She sounded her age in the early morning light and Grace felt her heart thud. "Grace, is that you?"

"Yes, Frankie."

"You're not an intruder? We don't have a gun anymore so I'll just have to defeat you with my tai chi moves." Frankie was slowly waking, regaining her bearings.

"I don't think you could hurt anyone with your tai chi moves." Grace sighed, settling her bag down atop the counter before moving into the sitting area. So much for trying to disguise her late-night antics. She was still wearing the black dress from the previous evening, the gold jewelry somewhere at the bottom of her purse now, her hair a mess. She wished she could smooth it all over, sneak up the stairs and change in a flash and come back when Frankie was really awake. But she was too old to move that quickly, reminded of this when her hip creaked.

"Why are you just getting back, Grace? You know I can't sleep when you're not here." Frankie groaned, watching Grace as she moved to sit in the chair beside her. Grace felt her body sink down into the fabric of the chair, exhaustion coming on. She was not a twenty-one-year-old anymore. Not that she had ever been a normal twenty-one-year-old anyway – no one night stands or messing around with college boys. No, Robert had been her one and only. Unfortunately. She had missed so much, and now she was making it up. All of it and it was too much.

"How would you have survived in Santa Fe with just Jacob then?" Grace spoke without thinking, too early to sensor herself.

"Really Grace, you know that's a sensitive subject for me. Why do you keep bringing it up? Why?" Frankie turned to her, sleep no longer evident in her tired eyes, only pain and sadness.

"I'm sorry, Frankie, I-" I'm just too tired. I just had too much sex trying not to think about such things.

"I'll forgive you this once if you'll just tell me where you've really been, Grace. You owe me that. I don't want to be in this big house without you at night." Frankie looked so fearful.

Grace reached out to take her hand, holding it gently in the reassurance and apology that she could not quite verbalize. "It was a late night."

"With your friend." Frankie looked on at Grace with that pained, knowledgeable look that told Grace that she didn't want to be lied to.

"With my friend." Grace patted Frankie's hand. "Her name is Allison."

"So it's really a she?" Frankie looked out at the moonlit ocean stretched out before them through the living room windows.

"It is a she." Grace confirmed.

"She must be a good talker if she can keep you out this late." Frankie's voice was low, haunted sounding.

Grace couldn't respond. She squeezed Frankie's hand and then broke the contact, feeling embarrassed.

"I never thought you were straight and narrow by any stretch of the imagination." Frankie's voice broke into the morning mumble of their home, shocking Grace.

"Well I've certainly been able to resist your charms." Grace tried to play it off, thinking that if she hit the nail on the head then perhaps it would advert the truth of the matter.

"Oh, please. I haven't even given you the real Frankie Bergstein treatment yet." Frankie laughed to herself.

Grace didn't laugh, found herself incapable.

"Grace," Frankie's voice sounded concerned. She would get to the heart of the matter. "You're a strong, independent woman and you have every right to sleep with a woman. It's a beautiful experience, truly." Frankie sounded as serious as Grace had ever heard her sound.

"I suppose so." Grace didn't like the sound in her tone. It bordered on upset, but Grace couldn't fathom why. For all the jokes Frankie made about sleeping with her she never thought the woman wanted to follow through. No, this was what Grace needed, to sex Frankie out of her mind. It was bad enough she had to come home and see her here in this home that was theirs without being "theirs", hear her joke about seducing her when her heart was not in it at all. And wouldn't they ruin it all if they dared to attempt it…

"Why couldn't you just tell me, Grace? We're not teenagers anymore…even if I did get high and eat all the potato chips in the house."

"Frankie, I absolutely told you not to eat those. Remember sodium!" Grace snapped, concern for her friend disrupting her flow of self-concern.

"Hey, no taking yourself out of the spotlight on this one, missy. You've told me about everyone before and don't give me that bull that you didn't say anything because it was a woman." Frankie always wanted to go deep and Grace wasn't sure she could go deep, wasn't sure she had it in her to explain it all because the truth would hurt, the truth would repel, would alter their relationship and she wasn't ready, was too chicken to venture down that path.

"I don't know, Frankie." Grace rubbed at her forehead. She wanted sleep and to not talk about this with her. "It was different and out-of-character for me. I just, I wasn't ready to tell you."

"Would you have told me?" Frankie looked at her, her tired face etched with worry. Grace wanted to wipe it away, to make her believe that she hadn't meant to keep anything from her, that she would rather it be her that she was sleeping with, but that it wasn't right, couldn't be right because Frankie loved Jacob.

"Of course, if it…if it became serious." Grace shrugged, wishing that she could keep Allison and Frankie separate. For they were two very different entities offering two very different, valuable pieces to her life. To the life she was only beginning to live at seventy-two.

"I want to meet her." Frankie spoke definitively. There would be no getting out of this.

"Frankie," Grace groaned. The thought of these two very different women in a room together made Grace's head pound. Yes, she could feel a sleep deprivation headache coming on. She wanted to pull her tired body up the stairs and collapse into her bed.

She wanted – suddenly in that moment – to fall asleep and then to wake up to gentle arms about her, to sweet kisses, not sneaking around. These were her years to enjoy how she pleased and she wanted to be loved and taken care of. These thoughts quite surprised her, for she had assumed she would remain relationship-free, man-free. But that was before she met Allison, before the idea of a woman had even crossed her mind. Now, now she wanted to enjoy herself and her life and have all that she had deprived herself of for the last few decades.

It was too painful to think about this early. Too far away, too distant. She couldn't promise Frankie a meal with Allison. Could she? It would be torturous.

"I want to meet this woman who turned you gay." Frankie nudged her, breaking the tension that lingered in the air between them.

Grace lightly smiled, wondering if she were gay at all, had always been gay, or had just realized it? What did it matter though? Gay, straight, bi….it all felt meaningless. It was just a person who could love you. A person who could care for you and didn't everyone deserve to experience that once in their life? Frankie had Jacob so Grace deserved someone. Allison served the purpose, Allison was healing her, teaching her that there was more to love and sex than the half-hearted motions Robert put her through.

"Alright." She was too tired to think hard enough to find a valid excuse so her only way out was to agree. It didn't mean she had to immediately follow through, it just meant she could leave this conversation, this tired, strangely tainted moment between herself and Frankie. Things were off and she didn't like it.

"Good. Now I can sleep peacefully knowing you weren't abducted by aliens or stolen for the black market. I'm sure they could do something with your tiny body parts." Frankie swatted at Grace's arm and pulled her tired body up from the chair, her joints calling out in protest.

Grace steadied her with her arm, letting her hand rest on the base of Frankie's back for a moment. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"It's okay. Your first time with a woman can be a beautiful, private experience. I'm proud of you Grace." Frankie captured her hand between her own and patted it tenderly. "To bed with me. My protector has returned."

Grace nodded, watching as Frankie retreated to her studio. There were tears in her eyes as she watched, clinging to her lashes. How was it that the older she got the more she cried?

Her body was exhausted, her mind running a thousand miles a minute and she couldn't keep up, felt run down. Too tired to make it up the stairs now, she pulled the blanket that Frankie had left behind atop herself and cuddled into the chair's fabric. It wasn't comfortable, but the blanket smelled of Frankie – a mix of incense and a faint hint of pot and something natural, earthy. She held it to her face and breathed until she fell asleep.