Twice in a Lifetime Read online

  “I guess,” she replied. “It’s pretty at sunset.”

  Sally gave her a look, her piercing blue eyes vibrant under her long lashes. “It’s pretty all the time.”

  At that look, something stirred deep in Harriet’s belly, but she ignored it. “We can go for a swim in the lake tomorrow — did you bring your suit?”

  Sally frowned. “I did, but you know me and water. I might dip my toe in, but that’s all.”

  “I thought you took lessons?”

  “I did, to please my mom, but I’m still not comfortable.”

  They settled down side by side, a breeze wafting from the left laced with the smells of the Sugar Maples. Ahead, the lake was silky, and her family’s speedboat rocked gently against the larger of the two wooden jetties.

  Harriet leaned back on her elbows and closed her eyes, finally away from prying eyes, just she and Sally, relaxed.

  She turned her head, to where Sally was watching her.

  Sally looked away instinctively, her reddish hair swishing around her pale face.

  Harriet wanted to tell her there was no need.

  “You know, there were times in this school year I never thought this moment would come, did you?”

  “Uh-uh,” Sally said, picking lint off the blanket and rolling it in her fingers. “Especially with all the tests we had to take.” She paused. “But that’s it for you, though — how does it feel?”

  Most of Harriet’s friends had jetted off to sunnier climes on their parents’ expense accounts when school was done, and were now partying in the sunshine, getting wasted. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to do that, but she was also acutely aware this was the last summer for her and Sally, before Harriet left for Harvard.

  Having spent so much time with Sally over the past year, that thought scared Harriet so much. She didn’t want to leave her, but she couldn’t stay either. However, there was something she could do about the time they had left, and that was to spend as much of it with Sally as possible.

  But it didn’t stop Boston seeming very, very far away from her best friend.

  “It feels… kinda numb. Like I had this whole school experience, and then, that’s it, done. I got the grades, I got into college, the next part of my life is just about to begin.” She sighed, looking over at Sally. “I want to leave home and go to college, but I kinda still like this part, too.”

  Sally looked at her with such intent, Harriet’s heart began to boom.

  “Yeah, I know exactly,” she said, before looking down at her fingers.

  Harriet’s whole body tensed, but she took a deep breath and gave Sally her best smile. “Shall we have some food and wine, and toast to what might come next year?”

  Sally shrugged. “I guess we should — make the most of now, right?”

  “Exactly,” Harriet said. “This time next year it’ll be your turn, and you’ll be going off to some elite art college, far more exciting than me.”

  Sally gave her a look. “You’re going to Harvard. I think most people would disagree.”

  Harriet shrugged, grabbing the wine and unscrewing the cap. “I’m studying law, it’s hardly sexy or anything I want to do.” She paused. “Thank god for non-corkscrew wine,” she said, pouring it into the plastic stemmed glasses Robert had included in her picnic box. “And here’s to Robert for the food and glasses.”

  “Everybody needs a Robert in their life,” Sally agreed.

  “Amen,” Harriet replied, raising her glass to Sally. “To a fabulous weekend, I’m glad you could come.”

  “To you and your future. And to us — I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Sally replied, her gaze burning a hole in Harriet’s soul.

  All of which made Harriet’s insides churn anew, and she gulped down her wine to cover it up. Was she reading this wrong? Just how were you supposed to read girls? She had no fucking idea.

  Not for the first time, she wished she could talk about it, open up to Sally, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t like Sally was a boy and this was what they were supposed to be doing. Her parents weren’t concerned about her being on the lawn with Sally because she didn’t have a penis.

  What they didn’t realize was what Sally had was way more dangerous than that: she had beauty, charisma, style, the works. And while Harriet still couldn’t put a finger on exactly what she was feeling, it was strong, that’s all she knew. And it was brewing, sloshing around inside her, waiting for a release.

  But what she was going to do about that, she had no idea.

  ***

  Two hours later, they dragged their food debris and blanket back into the house. In the living room, the TV flickered as Harriet’s parents watched, but Harriet didn’t go in and say hi like Sally would. Rather, she simply put a finger to her lips and took Sally’s hand. It was still the same thrill as the first time she’d done it earlier.

  Sally’s limbs were a little floppy, but she wasn’t too drunk: the alcohol had greased her system, allowing her to move freely and not seize up at the slightest touch from Harriet.

  They got back to Harriet’s room and collapsed on her double bed, which squeaked as they did. They both giggled at the sound, warm skin touching, arms and legs in the air comparing mosquito bites. Even though they’d sprayed before they’d gone down to the lake, the insects had been hungry tonight.

  “Stupid things, spoiling a romantic moment,” Harriet said, before freezing, glancing at Sally.

  A romantic moment? Sally had thought so, but had Harriet too?

  If this was a boy, Sally would know she had to wait till he kissed her: that’s just how things went. But when you wanted to kiss a girl, to tell a girl you liked her, who made the first move?

  She sighed and slumped onto the bed, putting an arm over her eyes. Her insides were tight like a coil and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she just say something, see if Harriet thought the same? And even if she didn’t, wouldn’t she be cool about it, after what she’d said about Daniel? She shook her head as Harriet wriggled beside her, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

  Sally’s mind went blank. She couldn’t wait to be older when she’d have it all figured out.

  As it was, she was lying beside the most beautiful girl in the world, and she was stuck, with no idea how to change it.

  A wave of sleepiness washed over her and she felt herself succumb to it. Maybe going to sleep was the easier option, because she wasn’t sure how she was going to survive if she had to put up with much more of this tension that was building a wall inside her.

  Sally sighed. “What time is it?” she asked, her body heavy, yet every hair on it standing to attention.

  Harriet checked her watch “Nearly ten,” she said, glancing at Sally, her breath caressing Sally’s cheek.

  “I’m tired. You think it’s too early to go to bed?”

  Harriet shook her head. “No — fresh air does that. You wanna get ready?”

  Sally nodded, even though getting into bed with Harriet didn’t sound any safer.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was shivering under the duvet in her skimpy white cotton T-shirt and boy shorts, even though it was a balmy night and the room had no AC.

  Harriet grinned at her as she crossed the room, a streak of toothpaste at one corner of her gorgeous mouth, and the bed squeaked again as she got in.

  “You’ve got toothpaste on your mouth,” Sally said, glancing at her.

  Harriet sat up on one elbow, facing her. “This side?” she asked, pointing to her right.

  Sally’s eye was drawn to the skin on her chest that was revealed by Harriet’s V-neck T-shirt: tanned, smooth, eminently lickable. As she thought that, her tongue ran across her bottom lip, and when she looked up, she knew she’d been caught.

  She waited for Harriet to say something, to admonish her, but Harriet said nothing. Rather, she just held her gaze and then her eyes traveled to the same part of Sally’s skin, making her squirm inside, even though her body stayed stock still.

  I
t was all she could do to still breathe.

  “No, the other side,” Sally replied, her voice coming out an octave lower than usual, not sounding at all like her own. What was going on? Her body was pulsing, her chest heaving, and she could feel herself getting wet, just like when she touched herself. Only this time, it was happening with another live person and in a bed.

  Holy sweet mother of god, if she had to do something about this now, she might faint.

  At Sally’s direction, Harriet poked her tongue out to the left side of her mouth and licked off her toothpaste.

  Sally closed her eyes, wondering when this torture might end.

  Harriet gave her a final stare, before settling down under the covers, until all Sally could hear was their breathing, hot and heavy. It was a few moments before Harriet spoke again.

  “Sally?” she said, her voice a whisper.

  “Yes?”

  “I,” she began, before pausing. Then Sally heard her head move on the pillow next to her, and she turned to meet the whites of Harriet’s eyes. “I just want you to know that we’re in a double bed together and you know, we might touch each other tonight. I mean, I might accidentally cuddle you, whatever. But if that happens, we should just go with it, you know? I mean, it’s no big deal, we hug anyway, don’t we?”

  Sally’s breathing stalled as she nodded. Was this code? Should she be deciphering something, like they did in World War Two to win the war?

  At a loss for something to say, she simply nodded her head.

  “Good. I’m glad you think so, too.”

  She couldn’t make out Harriet’s facial expression as she said this, but her eyes never left Sally’s face, and in turn, Sally never turned away. It was like she was caught in Harriet’s headlights, with nowhere to run, and it felt gloriously risky.

  Sally had never felt so alive or so vulnerable in her life, and she never wanted to leave this state. Ever.

  “Right,” she agreed eventually.

  She heard Harriet smile then, her cheeks squeaking just like the bed. “Good,” she said, turning onto her side, throwing an arm over Sally and pulling her close, Harriet’s bare legs touching the back of hers, her bare arm slung casually over her torso, her hand ending just above Sally’s crotch.

  Sally breathed in and held it, wanting to feel as small and streamlined as she possibly could in Harriet’s arms, to fit perfectly. When Harriet had said she might cuddle her, she’d been lying. That preamble was clearly just a run-up, getting permission to take Sally in her arms.

  But she wasn’t complaining.

  Far from it.

  The heat from both their bodies swirled around her head and the feeling of being held in Harriet’s arms was intoxicating, like Harriet had just put a spell on her.

  But Sally still hadn’t moved: it was as if as soon as Harriet had claimed her in the bed, Sally had frozen solid to the spot, unsure how to act, what to do. How did Harriet know? Had she done this before? Had there been other women in her bed, in her arms?

  But that thought only made Sally stiffen, which Harriet clearly felt.

  “This okay?” she asked into the back of Sally’s neck, her words tickling Sally’s skin as she said them.

  Only if you haven’t done it with anyone else, Sally thought. But she didn’t say those words out loud; she wasn’t an idiot.

  Instead, she made a noise that sounded like a grunt, and then tried to relax. But in doing so, she breathed out and moved her legs, and then Harriet responded by pulling her closer, which made Sally freeze all over again.

  “Just relax,” Harriet said from behind. “We’re just getting comfortable.”

  Sally breathed her in, the scent of her, the feel of her.

  Comfortable? Right, she could do that, of course she could. She took a stuttering breath in, then out, just as Harriet’s hand stroked her belly over her T-shirt.

  Sally felt it right at her core.

  Boom.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The following morning Harriet woke up in bed alone. She frowned: where was Sally? They’d fallen asleep last night in each others arms and it was almost perfect, with just that final step to take. The one that Harriet was so worried to, because who knew how Sally would react? She hadn’t said no to getting close in bed, and that had felt… just wonderful. Beyond anything Harriet had ever felt with anyone else.

  Her last thought before she’d drifted off was how delicious Sally smelled, and her smell infiltrated Harriet’s dreams, crisp and sweet.

  When she’d woken up in the middle of the night, Sally had been curled up in a ball on the other side of the bed, but she’d smiled to have her there, anyway. Whenever Sally was around, Harriet felt calmer, more sure of herself, of who she was.

  Her parents and her classmates all thought she was this sassy, strong-willed young woman who could get any boy she wanted: and she was. But Harriet was also starting to think boys weren’t the only option. Girls were, too.

  All girls? She wasn’t sure — but definitely a girl named Sally McCall.

  Sally McCall was quickly becoming everything Harriet had ever dreamed of.

  Harriet shrugged off the duvet, stopping as the scent of Sally rose into her nostrils from her pillow. Harriet allowed herself a brief stoop to take her in, then she shook her head. What was happening to her? She had no idea.

  She got some shorts from her white dresser drawer on the left-hand side of her room and walked over to the balcony that faced out to the back of the house, to the Green Mountain Maples behind. And there sat Sally, soaking up the morning sunshine, one leg curled underneath her body, scribbling in what Harriet assumed was a journal.

  Sally hadn’t heard Harriet behind her, and so she stood for a moment, just taking her in: her creamy white legs, her hand clutched around a chewed ballpoint pen, her shoulders hunched, her hair still messy from sleep. Like Harriet, she’d just added a pair of white shorts to her outfit, and Harriet’s gaze settled on the piece of skin just below her neck, the place where her nose had been last night.

  Sally turned then, as if sensing her, and jumped when Harriet’s presence was confirmed.

  She let out a shriek and put a hand to her chest. “Jesus!” she said, her face winding through a gamut of emotions. “You almost gave me a heart attack. How long have you been standing there?”

  Harriet sat down beside her, a satisfied grin on her face. “Not long,” she replied. “What are you writing?”

  Sally looked down at the open page, then hastily shut her journal with a bang. “Nothing, just scribbling,” she said.

  “Have you been up long?”

  Sally looked away, then back to Harriet, gathering herself after the intrusion.

  “Not long, about half an hour. You were dead to the world.”

  “Shall I get us some coffee?” Harriet asked, getting up and yawning again.

  Sally’s gaze settled on her exposed midriff, before she looked up, nodding her head. “That’d be great. Is it okay if I jump in the shower?”

  Harriet’s mind went to go somewhere, but she shut it down. Not this early in the morning, not when she had a whole day to get through. “Be my guest,” she said. “I’ll go and see what Robert’s doing for breakfast, too.”

  When Harriet came back up ten minutes later, the shower was on, and she tried not to think of Sally, naked, just a few feet from her. Instead, her body beating with desire, she made herself walk the other way and back out onto the balcony, setting down the two mugs of coffee.

  And that’s when she saw Sally’s journal on the chair next to where she’d been sitting, an elastic band tied around it, her pen sat neatly on top of it. The journal looked expensive, blue with gold embossing on the cover.

  Harriet took a sip of her coffee, then winced: it was too hot. She cast her gaze over to the trees, but then it was immediately drawn back to the journal. Sally had looked so intense when she was writing it earlier. Had she been writing about her, about being here? Did that journal hold the key to what Sally
was feeling about her life? Harriet would love to know.

  She got up, then sat back down again. She shouldn’t read it, she knew that. It was a gross invasion of privacy, and if she kept a journal, she’d be so mad if someone read hers. Which was the reason she didn’t write one.

  Then again, Harriet was Sally’s close friend, and Sally shared most things with her. She would probably know most of the stuff Sally was writing about: school, her family, boys. The usual teenage-girl stuff.

  And that thought propelled Harriet to the balcony door once more: the shower was still running.

  It was now or never.

  Before she could second-guess herself, she was moving the chewed blue pen, slipping off the pink elastic band, and flipping open the journal to the page of the last entry. It took a moment for the words to come into focus for Harriet, but when they did, her hand started to shake, followed by a roaring in her ears and a rhythmic thumping in her chest. Harriet’s jaw locked as she took in the words, tripping over them, reading again just to make sure Sally was saying what she thought she was saying.

  She was.

  “And last night we slept together in the same bed, and when she put her arm around me, I froze — I don’t think she knows what that does to me. It’s a kind of torture, but one I’d choose every night. I’m not sure what it means or what to do about it, though. What if she slaps me if I try to kiss her? What if I have no idea what I’m doing, because I don’t? What if I’m not ready to sleep with her? This place is so idyllic, just like her. But I’m so aware she’s going away soon, and this could be the last chance I get to tell her how I feel. I don’t know what it is, or if I’m gay or bi or what, but it’s there. I can’t ignore it. Whenever she’s in the same room as me my chest tightens, and I never know if I’ll be able to speak.”

  The creak of a floorboard broke Harriet’s reading, and she took a moment to realize where she was, so enthralled had she been by Sally’s words. The tips of her fingers were white where she was gripping the journal hard, and her skin prickled as she took it all in.