"What did you do? Doc seems like she'd forgive just about anything."
"Jenny is a very forgiving and understanding woman but she couldn't take having her trust violated the way I did it." Laura looked up at Crystal. "This isn't something that's easy for me to talk about. I loved Jenny very much and I still do. If I could go back and change what happened I would in a heartbeat." Laura face mirrored the guilt she felt in her heart. "But time isn't something I have any ability to change and once a trust is ruined it can't be restored."
"I don't get it," Crystal said. "You and Jenny both seem to be these 'deep in touch with your feelings' kinda people. You two couldn't have worked whatever it was out?"
"Apparently not," the writer said sadly. "We tried for about six months but we just couldn't get past it. Jenny waited until after Christmas to finally make her decision and move out." Laura shook her head sadly. "It was pretty much over by then anyway. Jenny was sleeping in the spare room by then anyway."
"Jeez, I guess you did piss her off."
"Infidelity will do that," Laura said. "I had a brief affair with a fan while I was in Colorado at a lesbian writer's festival."
"And you didn't think Doc would find out?"
"I didn't plan on it to happen. Well, I guess deep inside maybe I did. I knew Lisa was interested in me she had made it clear to me more than once that she didn't care I had a lover. I knew she was going to be there and I didn't say a word to Jenny about it."
"So when the cat's away the mice will play?"
"It wasn't like that," Laura protested. "I had plenty of opportunities before that to be with other women and I never ever took them up on the offer." The writer leaned back and ran her fingers through her dark hair. "This is going to sound so shallow but I let myself become attracted to all the attention and fawning Lisa was giving me. I worked for a year and a half on Moonbeam Mysteries and now I was getting my due for all that hard work. I was on the recommended lists and when I was at that conference I felt like a celebrity. That had never happened to me before. From the moment I walked into the hotel Lisa was by my side, getting me drinks, sitting next to me in every workshop, following me around like a puppy."
"Sounds more like a fox than a puppy," Crystal said. "So she wanted the great writer and she got you, hmm?"
"I didn't just open the door to my hotel room and rip all her clothes off. We were there for five days and it didn't happen until the last night." "So how did Doc find out? Your guilty conscience?"
"No. That's probably what hurt her the most. She found out by accident. After I got home from the conference, Lisa wouldn't stop emailing me. I told her that it was a one time thing and couldn't happen again, that I was in love with Jenny, all of that. Sometimes I'd have four or more pieces of email from her a day. I finally stopped answering them hoping she'd get the message."
"And she didn't, right?"
"Oh, she got it all right. Lisa became angry when I wouldn't answer her emails and began calling here. I even called the phone company to change my number but before they could get it done Lisa had called while I was out and left a rather detailed message on the answering machine about what happened in Colorado. Jenny got home before I did."
"Oh boy," Crystal said, shaking her head. "You fucked up good, didn't you?"
"I most certainly did although I wouldn't use quite the same words to describe it."
"Of course not, Mary Poppins but that's what you did."
"Yeah it is. I messed things up horribly. I should have known something was up when I came home and all Jenny wanted to talk about was the conference. It was at least a month later and I never made the connection."
"So you pretended nothing had happened, right?"
"Exactly. Then Jenny played the message on the machine and I just about died. After lying to her there was no way I could minimize the damage that message caused. I think after that Jenny spent all her free time working on that Thing and I spent my time hiding up in the bedroom writing. We grew apart and it got to where we wouldn't even go to bed at the same time anymore." Laura looked away sadly and wiped her eyes. "But the night Jenny slept in the spare room instead of coming to bed with me, that was when I knew it was over."
"That really sucks," Crystal said quietly. "I don't know what to say."
"I've never really talked about it. Peter and Michael knew we were having problems but they made it a point not to take sides or get involved. Even now Peter knows only the barest details about what happened." Laura shook her head. "But I guess it's all water under the bridge now. I live here and Jenny lives there. I suppose it all worked out for the best anyway. We're still very close as you can tell."
"Do you want her back?" Crystal asked, needing to satisfy her curiosity.
"I tried for quite a while after she moved out but now I think things are best the way they are. I think being single suits me." The dark haired writer leaned back, sinking further into the overstuffed couch cushions. "At least that's what my track record tells me."
"Yeah, I don't see any great romances in my future either," Crystal lamented. "You remember those colored cubes back when we were kids? The ones with different colors on each side and you had to get all the same colors on the same side?"
"A Rubik's Cube," Laura said. "Yes, I remember them."
"Sometimes I feel like one. Like I'm all mixed up and I'll never get everything back in order again." A mischievous grin came to her lips. "I used to break it apart and put the pieces back in the right way."
"I bought the book on how to solve them," Laura admitted. "I hated not being able to solve them."
"I bet you showed off to all your friends about it too, didn't you?"
"Me?" Laura feigned an innocent look. "I have no deep inner need for approval." The innocent face lasted for barely a second more before she broke into a smile. "Everyone who had one they couldn't solve knew to bring it to me. I could do those and the snake ones too."
"Figures. My friends came to me for cigarettes," Crystal said proudly. "Patty showed me how to get them. The bowling alley had a cigarette machine in the same room as the video games. I'd buy a pack for three bucks and charge my friends twenty-five cents per cigarette. That's how Patty and I had any spending money."
"Ah, you were the kind of girl my mother warned me not to hang around with," Laura said with a smile. "She thought keeping me away from the bad element would make me grow up to be a prim and proper military wife like her. Her best chance at grandchildren and I turn out to be a lesbian mystery writer with no intentions of parenthood."
"I'm sure the scrapbooks just open right up at our mother's places, eh?" Crystal said with a wry smile. She sat up straight and pantomimed opening a scrapbook. "Here's your mother showing off pictures of you graduating high school." The blonde pretended to turn the page. "Here you are graduating college. Oh what a catch. Brains and beauty. I bet she was thinking about your wedding as the next pages."
"Right down to the color of garter belt and order of songs," Laura agreed, assuming the same position and opening an imaginary scrapbook of her own. "She had it all planned for years. The only thing missing was the dashing young military boy to marry me off to. The best she could look forward to was a blessing ceremony Jenny and I had here in the back yard and I think she was madder that I didn't let her plan it than who I was committing myself to. She came to it but didn't take any pictures. Must have complained to me six times about the centerpieces not being symmetrical."