Page 30 of Semantics

CHAPTER 9

She stared at the clock on the garage wall. It was one of those digital ones, with bright, red numbers. Arlowe had been the one to suggest it, telling them years ago that it would help her stay on task and on time. Violet rarely looked at the thing, leaving it for Arlowe to worry about and change a couple of times a year with daylight saving time, but after her strange and intriguing encounter with Stella at the café, she couldn’t get what Stella had confessed to her out of her mind. Stella Ross had wanted to sleep with her when they’d been back in school. Violet would be lying if she said she’d never thought about that herself, but it had only been once or twice, and it had been one of those normal, ‘she was away from her girlfriend, and there was a pretty girl around,’ kind of fantasies where it hadn’t mattered who it was. It was just that she had needed some inspiration, and Stella had been there.

She’d returned home and back into the garage without the drinks that she had promised her friends, and while they hadn’t asked her why she’d gotten home so quickly, she had offered an excuse anyway.

“The place was packed, so I didn’t even bother getting in line for my own drink. Then, I felt like I might as well save some money and have coffee here.”

Thankfully, she’d finished her own coffee on the drive home and had left the cup in her car to toss out later, so there was no evidence of her lie. She had gotten back to work, but just barely, because she couldn’t exactly call checking email and otherwise staring blankly at the document on her screen actual work.

When Violet thought back to that time in her life, hindsight being what it was, she could easily see how she should have seen her ex-girlfriend as the cheater that she was. She’d always wanted a text before a call, citing the time difference and her class schedule. Sometimes, there had been sounds in the room that her ex would explain away as being one of her roommates in the three-bedroom apartment that she shared with two other people. There had been more, but Violet had ignored all of her concerns, feeling lucky to have a girlfriend at all.

Then, there had been a few instances when her girlfriend hadn’t been up for a call, or she had done something to tick her off, and she’d be out with her friends or just in her own dorm room, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about how angry she was, and Stella’s face would appear to her for some reason. Violet would think about her instead of the woman she was actually dating, but she had only touched herself to those thoughts once, and while it had been good, she’d felt the guilt hit her after, and she hadn’t done it again.

Now, Violet was thinking about the fact that Stella had thought about them doing that back then, too, and she could picture twenty-two-year-old Stella pressing her up against a wall in a crowded bar in Amsterdam, kissing her neck while her hands roamed her body, and whispering into her ear that they should go back to the dorm. Violet could even picture herself shoving caution to the wind and going with her. Of course, that never would’ve actually happened. She wouldn’t have gone back to Stella’s dorm, and they wouldn’t have had sex. She’d had a girlfriend, and she never would’ve cheated on her. Stella was also not at all her type, and that was still clear to her today with how cavalier Stella had been about admitting something so personal to a woman she barely knew.

“Hey, what do you guys want to do for dinner?” Enya asked. “I was thinking about the Indian place.”

“They don’t deliver,” Arlowe replied.

“I’ll go pick it up,” Enya said. “Violet, can I take your car, though? You’re parked behind mine. It’ll be easier.”

“No!” she half-yelled and turned to Enya. “Uh… I’m not going to be here for dinner.”

“Okay, weirdo,” Sarai said. “Why are you acting like a zombie today?”

Violet was thinking about the coffee cup and the lie that came with it, and she didn’t want Enya asking why her usually perfectly clean car had an empty to-go cup in it when she’d told them that she hadn’t been able to even get in line.

“And it’s after seven. You’re not hungry?” Sarai added.

“Also, where are you going?” Enya asked.

“I have plans tonight.” Violet stood up from her desk. “I’m not allowed to have plans?”

“You can have plans, but you never do,” Arlowe replied. “Why are you acting so cagey right now? This isn’t an interrogation.” She leaned over. “Did you kill someone earlier or something? Hit them with your car? Is that why you didn’t get us coffee?”

“What? No!” Violet shook her head. “It was just busy there, and I was too lazy to stop anywhere else. I’m going to get ready, but I’ll talk to you all later.”

“Well, yeah – you live here, where we also live,” Sarai said.

“Do you need to talk?” Enya asked. “You seem anxious.”

“I’m fine. I just need a night out to myself. It’s been a little crazy around here recently, and I love you all, but I feel like I’ve been locked up in this house for the most part. I’m a thirty-two-year-old woman with three roommates, and we all live and work together, so I could use a night out to myself. That’s all.”

“Okay. Well, drive carefully, I guess,” Enya replied.

“Thanks. I will,” she said and hurried out of the garage, leaving her laptop there, plugged in to charge.

She went to her bedroom, closed the door behind her, and tried to gather her thoughts. She had nowhere to go tonight, yet she’d said that she had for a reason she didn’t get until just now.

“No,” she said to herself. “Just tell them you’ve changed your mind, and you’ll pick up the food instead,” she added and sat down on her bed. “You do not want to go to that bar. You do not want to see her.”

She had no idea when Stella would get to Buddy’s, and Stella had told her that she was meeting someone, which probably meant that it was a date. Violet didn’t want to crash someone else’s date, but there was something about hearing Stella admit that she’d thought about taking all of their anger and tension out on one another in the best possible way that had her standing up and moving to her closet to find something to wear that would show that she didn’t care but also that she did at the same time.

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Violet parked around the block and just sat in her car, looking down at the coffee cup that she needed to throw out. She could toss it into the trash can outside of the convenience store to her right, go in there to shop around for a few minutes, and head home. She could walk around the block a few times and do the same. She could also go to the pizza place down the street, sit down at a table by herself, and order a slice, but instead, she was staring at the red brick wall of Buddy’s Bar. Around the corner, there was the door to the place, and she could walk in, sit down somewhere, order a drink, see if Stella was there, and leave whenever she wanted.

Of course, this was all ridiculous because Violet could just call, text, or email Stella whenever if she decided that she wanted to talk further about Stella’s revelation. She didn’t have to spy on her and a possible date in some bar.