Startled, they release the bottle and putter through their menus. They discuss the entrees, nervously laugh at mispronouncing the dishes, and agree on some appetizers to share. The waiter takes their orders and then they are left alone again save the feelings that brew between them.
"I don't know where to begin," Stef continues, her voice weighted with all the anticipation of this moment.
"I already know," Lena answers.
"So now what?"
"You tell me," Lena says. She slides her finger – one finger – across the table cloth and pushes hard against Stef's ring finger. "Is it really over for you?"
It's a question that Stef has never had to answer aloud; a question that she has not even answered herself, in her heart.
"All I know is – " Stef says.
"Wine, Mesdames?" the waiter interrupts, holding a bottle wrapped in a cloth napkin. He replenishes their glasses and stays a moment longer – too long –to suggest another wine selection to have with their entrees. Stef is on verge of relinquishing the words that she is about to speak. They both nod a 'thank you' smile to the waiter before he leaves.
With a sip of liquid courage, Stef starts again, "All I know is, this is the most right I have ever felt in my life. I told Mike I met someone."
Suddenly, neither of them have an appetite for what they just ordered. Stef's throat is filled to the brim with words she dares say. Lena's heart is wrenched open for this woman across the table yet it is also guarded by her mind's logic – past experiences and past hurts – which protects her.
Lena sips her wine, actually two consecutive sips, then a gulp.
"What did he do?" Lena asks.
"He didn't take it well. He thought he and I had a chance; that we could start again and have a future together, but then…"
Lena's eyes widen with anticipation.
"Then, when he saw us at the coffee shop," Stef says, "he saw us holding hands – it put him completely over the edge. I had told him about a week earlier."
Lena's heart jumps in her chest, she asks, "But how could you have been…How could you be so sure?"
It occurs to Lena that Stef knows nothing about her. Stef doesn't know how she feels, what she's thinking, how this is affecting her or whether her feelings are mutual. Yet, she's being implicated as the wedge in Stef and Mike's failing marriage.
"If you only knew how long it took me to tell him. I lost so much sleep. But every time I saw you or talked to you, I just knew that I could never love him again or be with him again the way he deserves. Lena, there's a part of me that …" Stef stammers, her voice catches.
"Your appetizers, Mesdames," the waiter interrupts. He places steaming dishes - small edible art installations in the middle of small white plates - in front of them. The women barely remember what they ordered.
Stef composes herself before she continues, "A long time ago, I felt something right here" – Stef places the palm of her hand on her belly – "and I knew that it was the truth. It was louder and stronger than anything I had ever felt before.
"I was fifteen and I had this friend. I'll never forget her; she was so different from anyone I knew. She wasn't like me nor did she feel the same way as I did. She just stood out and did what she wanted to do without worrying about what anyone said or thought."
"She was dangerous, she took risks" Stef says, her face glowing with the memory, "she challenged her parents in a way I could never imagine doing to mine. We did everything together. She took me on her sprees, to her parties, on her ride to experience living, really living. I was totally on board until everything changed."
Lena leans forward, concern spreads over her face.
"One evening", Stef continues, "we were home alone watching a horror movie. Scared to death, we're huddled under a blanket preparing to cover our eyes waiting for the next thing to happen. My dad comes in – he must have just gotten home –he suddenly turns on the lights and we scream our heads off, holding on to each other for dear life. We didn't know what was happening. Then he shuts off the TV and tells my friend – her name was Tess – to go home. We were in our night clothes, tanks and shorts; she was supposed to sleep over. I got into a really bad argument with my dad that night after Tess's dad picked her up. I didn't speak to my dad for days. Then a week later, out of no where, he's driving me to our church to speak with Father McMillan."
"Oh," Lena responds with both a surprised and pained expression.
Stef continues, "…and the priest's talking to me about sex and boys and girls and sin and all this stuff that just confused me...and I can barely remember what he said. It was horrible. It made me, everything about me, feel so wrong."
Stef wipes a tear from her cheek; she doesn't realize that she's crying.
"Anyway, when I met you," Stef says. "When I saw you, when we shook hands, all those feelings came flooding back; adventure, lightness, excitement, risk, fire…it felt different, I felt different and I was okay with it. I felt free and most of all I felt my truth again. When its quiet, you're the first person I think of."
Stef takes a sip of wine, two sips, and says, "Lena, I'm…I'm…this life I've had…Mike and I…it's not me….who I am….I'm…"
Reaching across the table, Lena lays her hand atop Stef's and says, "Its okay."
"It's okay?" Stef says with the countenance of an earnest child.
Lena nods and says, "Try again."
Stef grips Lena's hand like she's about to descend into an abyss. She inhales deeply and exhales the words, "Lena, I'm gay." Then Stef says to herself, "I'm gay."
The candles could have blown out and the restaurant patrons could have disappeared, the table between Stef and Lena could have fallen away, the background noise could have crescendoed, and they would never have noticed. It was just the two of them at that moment and Stef laying bare, surrendering to the channel that she just opened.
"Stef," Lena responds, "so am I."
"Really?" Stef says asks with disbelief, squinting at Lena.
"Yes, really," Lena says laughing at the expression of curiosity and uncertainty in Stef's face. "Really, really."
Stef laughs too, hesitantly, but laughs just the same. They join hands on either side of the table.
"And I really like you, Stef," Lena says. "I really like you and I'm falling for you and it scares me to death because you're so…you're so new and you have so much to end and so much to begin at the same time."
"You like me?" Stef asks.
Lena nods and says, "More than I can bear."