A New Alexandra Ch. 15

The Jeep stopped under a brightly-lit canopy, engine humming behind the blast of the heater.

"Rock paper scissors for it?" Kira had her hands up, right fist sitting on an open left palm.

"Sure," said Alexandra. "Winner chooses whether to get out and pump or stay inside but pay?"

"Oooh, you like tough choices," said Kira. She tucked an errant strand of blonde hair behind her ear and smiled. "Fine. On three?"

"Yes. One...two..." Alexandra stared at her girlfriend, trying to figure out what Kira's rock-paper-scissors go-to move would be. Rock, she thought. Direct, powerful, no-nonsense. Then her mind flipped: No, too obvious. She'd go paper, just because I'd think she'd go rock. Or...

"Um, three?"

Alexandra instinctively threw down scissors. It was the same thing Kira had tried.

"One, two, three!" Kira said again.

Again Kira threw scissors, but Alexandra looked down to see her palm flat.

Ugh, she thought, reaching for her down jacket and thick woolen hat. Pumping gas in the middle of fucking Wisconsin in the middle of a fucking snowstorm in fucking February. She pulled the hat over her side-combed pixie and took a deep breath.

"Stop," said Kira. "Just sit right there."

Alexandra dug around her feet for her purse, which had disappeared into the darkness of the footwell.

"No, stop," the driver said again. "I won. And I choose that I'll pump the gas and that I'll pay. It's Valentine's Day this weekend and it's about three degrees out there and I love you and just sit your gorgeous ass down in that seat and I'll handle this."

"Thank you." Alexandra's voice was barely audible over the swishing of her partner's coat.

She stared out at the yellow glow of nighttime gas station lights and the swirling snow beyond. It had been a gray-sky day in a gray-sky week in the Midwest's gray-sky month, but at least it had ended in a Friday night. And that at least had the prospect of several days without crosstown Chicago commutes or brain-melting applications of economic theory.

It also had the prospect of a romantic weekend with Kira far from the big-city noise. Alexandra's girlfriend had chosen a lakeside resort in Wisconsin that probably looked better in summer but would be markedly less crowded now. And besides, Alexandra thought, Wisconsin isn't a sunshine destination at any time of the year. But a massage and some whirlpool time, with a side of wine? Yes, please.

So she sat in the right side front seat of Kira's Wrangler while her girlfriend pumped gas. There hadn't been a ton of planning: just a nice spa weekend with a king-size bed, lingerie, and no distractions.

After two too-long minutes, Kira slid back into the driver's seat, blowing on her hands.

"Forget your gloves?"

"No," said Kira. "Took one off to run my card. Then forgot to put that one back on. I'm an idiot, apparently. Fuck me, it's cold."

"Only half an idiot, right? I mean, one glove is better than none?"

"So's one brain cell, but that didn't help me either."

"Fine, dummy," said Alexandra. "Go around the outside and take my seat. I'll drive, as long as I don't have to get out."

"Look at you, Alex. Kicking me out of the driver's seat of my own car." Kira stuck out her tongue just before opening the door to another Arctic blast.

"I had to contribute something, right?" Alexandra had shifted to the left side and started the engine. "You paid for the weekend, you paid for the gas, and apparently you lost an arm doing it?"

"Shut up. Just turn the heater on. Like, all the way."

Alexandra did so and pulled back onto the dark highway. It was still an hour to their destination according to Google Maps, and she was not looking forward to sixty minutes of darkness and blowing snow.

For a while, only the sound of the blasting heater broke the silence.

"Remember that time coming back from the airport that truck blew a tire in front of us?"

"Yes," said Kira. "I do tend to remember near-death experiences." She paused. "Also, that was like a month or so ago, and I'm not quite that dumb."

"You're the one talking about having one brain cell. And with that platinum hair, you look the part-"

"You know what Dolly Parton said about dumb blonde jokes, Alex?"

"Wait, I was just-"

"She said they didn't bother her."

"Okay..."

"Dumb blonde jokes don't bother me, Alex, because like Dolly I know I'm not dumb. Also like Dolly, I know I'm not blonde."

Alexandra shook her head. "Sometimes I'm still not sure whether you're joking or making a serious point."

A small, ancient sedan passed them in the left lane, going too fast for even normal conditions.

"He must have..." Kira cut herself off. "Nah, it feels like tempting fate to make some joke about single-car accidents on snowy highways resulting in that car being totaled and thereby increasing in value."

"Well, fate tempted, seeing as you just said the entire joke out loud, my dear blondie."

"No, the version in my head was much worse. It had -"

"Nope, don't wanna hear it. Besides, the Dolly quote doesn't work for you. Dyeing your hair from blonde to blonder doesn't mean you're not a blonde."

"Now who's got the single brain cell, Miss Henderson? That's exactly what I was telling you."

"Huh?"

"Like Dolly Parton, I am not naturally blonde."

Alexandra's head spun for a moment, just at the same moment that a car on the opposite side of the highway fishtailed and slammed into the guardrail.

"Jesus! Did you see that?" She realized she was shouting only when Kira covered her ears in mock irritation.

"I did. News flash, conditions suck. I mean, I assume that's why you're doing fifteen under the speed limit?"

Alexandra checked the speedometer. She was indeed fifteen under.

"Fine. I'll stop worrying about that guy who just brained himself on the southbound there and go back to talking about hair dye."

"Better than focusing your mind on it and becoming the next wreck."

Alexandra breathed deeply. She felt sick for a moment and inhaled large gulps of warm air, trying to make the nausea subside.

"Need to pull over?" Kira's voice had lost the sarcasm.

"I'm...fine. Just...fine, I guess."

"Alex. This is going to sound harsh, but there are things we can control and things we can't. Us sitting here, already two miles away, worrying about a crash that fifteen people will have already called in, is firmly in the latter category. Just keep the two of us safe and we'll be good. Now you're sure you don't want me to take back over?"

"I'm a big girl, Kira Manning. And I am not going to crash your damn Jeep, so just keep talking. I'm going to be driving, not talking."

She received a soft kiss on the cheek in response.

"So, Alex."

"Kira."

"You've got about forty-five minutes left driving, during which I suppose you have to listen to me. Or turn on some music and pretend I'm not here, but it's my car and that'd be a little rude."

"Yes." And where is she going with this?

"Last weekend. Your parents' visit. What did they think of me?"

Alexandra inhaled. Always direct, Kira. Always direct, aren't you?

"My dad really liked you. He clearly thought you were hot, but I'll let that totally awkward fact slide because I do rather agree. My mom really liked you and is still coming to terms with me being gay."

Kira laughed. "Sorry to disappoint her."

"Me too," said Alexandra. And I suppose on some level, I mean it. But I wouldn't trade who I am for anything. "But, um, present company is pretty nice company." Her eyes flitted to Kira, batting her eyes.

"Eyes front, Henderson. I'm not spending four hundred dollars a night for a sexy weekend in order to miss it due to my own death."

"Aye-aye, Captain."

"I thought that was pretty much their impression. My parents, by the way, absolutely loved you, although I assume you already know that given that you didn't ask."

"I think they liked that I was game to get on a plane to Houston at three hours' notice for no bigger reason than attending a basketball game," said Alexandra.

Kira chuckled. "Yeah, the carbon footprint on that wasn't great. But it was better than letting all those frequent flier miles expire?"

It had been. The whirlwind of grabbing a pile of clothes and leaving directly for the airport within ten minutes, only to end up spending a weekend in Kira's parents' mansion in between two alcohol-soaked first-class flights, had been one of the more impulsive things Alexandra had ever done. Which, she thought, was saying something in the context of the past few months.

"But hadn't you said something about fucking me on your parents' piano?" The snow had slowed down enough to make driving almost tolerable. It was still a far cry from Houston's shockingly pleasant February weather.

"I had," said Kira. "But when my mother insisted on following you everywhere like a new and valued puppy that she was worried would run out onto the highway if she took her eyes off you, it kinda took that one off the table, no?"

"Off the piano, brain cell."

"Love the woman, hate her jokes," said Kira.

"Who, me or your mother?"

"Yes. Both of you. You'd have thought she wanted to send me back to Chicago and keep you."

"Well, you're from Texas, and you're nearly thirty and unmarried, so..."

"So I'm about five years past my expiration date and a couple months away from even when the most unethical supermarket would toss me out as unsaleable. Yes, I know. But there's a dilemma for a conservative Texas family: would you rather have your daughter be single at thirty, or have her happily partnered with another woman?"

Alexandra stole another glance at her girlfriend. This was the first time she'd ever even hinted at animosity towards her upbringing or cracks in the foundation.

"So it must have been a relief that they liked me."

"It was a relief in the sense that it felt like I was putting my entire existence on the line and hoping they didn't rip my heart out. It's one thing for your parents to accept on an intellectual level that you might be gay. Another entirely for them to meet the woman you sleep next to every night."

"She says to someone who's had that experience even more recently."

"Yes." Kira's voice had taken on a strange quality. Soft, but ragged. Alexandra looked over just in time to see her wipe away a tear. "It's just that it was a big moment for me, finally taking someone home and saying 'Hey, y'all, this is serious.'"

"I know." Alexandra felt a lump in her own throat. There must be a reason she chose to have this conversation now, in a moving car where I can't confront the full weight of these emotions.

"And thank you for listening," Kira said. "I'm sorry I need to get out of our normal day-to-day in order to talk about feelings and things."

The disembodied voice of Google Maps interrupted Alexandra to inform her that she needed to exit in two miles.

"Don't apologize for being who you are, Kira. Seriously. But why did you wait for now to bring this up?"

Kira shrugged. "Seemed like the right time, I guess. And I guess I've been spending too much time thinking about us."

The lump in Alexandra's throat grew.

"In one mile, take the right lane..." said the monotone dashboard drone.

"Good thinking or bad thinking?"

"Thinking that this is the first time in my life where my head and my heart have been aligned this well as to someone. Thinking that my mom is a crazy Texas lady but that she's absolutely right about you. Thinking that I could spend a thousand Valentine's Day weekends with you and it would never be enough."

Alexandra let the words sink in. Exited the highway and listened to Google Betty direct them onto a wide, clear road. Let them sink in some more.

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say to that," she finally said.

"A simple 'I love you too' would suffice."

"That sounded like a lot more than an 'I love you." You say that every day."

"In one mile, take a left turn -"

"Kira, you cannot avoid discussing emotional things by impersonating a GPS."

"I just did."

"You are the most infuriating woman I have ever been in love with," said Alexandra, rolling her eyes.

The GPS gave an authentic direction, and Alexandra found herself turning towards a brightly-lit driveway lined with shrubs coated in several inches of powdery snow.

"Wow, welcome to Wisconsin," Kira said. "Where snow can be on the ground for hours and not turn grey."

The comment triggered something in Alexandra's memory.

"Wait. We never finished that earlier conversation. Were you being serious about your hair color?"

"Yes." A pause. "I think the main lobby is up here on the right." Kira gestured to a pair of large sliding doors, closed against the winter chill but with a red carpet still outside. "I'm a natural brunette. Just a smidge darker than yours. Been dyeing it consistently for so long that you'd have a hard time finding a picture of me with dark hair."

Alexandra thought back to the family photos she'd seen of the Mannings at their Houston mansion. Even in photos of Kira as a teenager, she had the same blonde hair as her mother. Until recently, the exact same shade, Alexandra realized now.

"Am I supposed to care?" said Alexandra, pulling under a massive stone portico and stopping the Jeep. It had stopped snowing.

"No. But you are supposed to know." Kira opened the door to a renewed blast of Arctic air. "I'll get us checked in. Be right back."

Instead of waiting, Alexandra hopped out and unloaded their bags, leaving the engine running. She rolled them inside the hotel's entrance area, a marble-floored, marble-columned area that looked like it dated from the 1920s and practically smelled of old money.

Kira stood in front of a massive counter at the far end, nodding repeatedly at what the front desk worker was saying. Her snow boots looked wildly out of place in this place of marble, mahogany, and chandeliers.

Alexandra turned around and came face-to-chest with a snooty-looking bellhop.

"May I help you, ma'am?" he said. Christ, he even has the faux pseudo-British accent, she thought. His forty-something face was impassive, red-nosed, and puffed with the bloat of a committed alcoholic, but it still managed to convey a level of contempt that rankled Alexandra. "Perhaps with a set of directions?" Meaning, directions to either where to drop off the food, or really to anywhere but here, because we don't want you here, little miss gay twenty-something.

She took a step back.

"No," she said. "If you'll just excuse me, I'd like to go park my car while my wife checks in. But it seems you're obstructing the doorway."

The man's eyebrows lowered, but he stepped aside.

"Also, what's that smell on you?" She wrinkled her nose. "It's like an old dog drenched in whiskey."

She didn't wait for his reaction, and didn't pull off her gloves until she was safely back in the Wrangler. Uh-oh, she thought. Now you can't let that asshole see your ringless left hand. Gloves it is for you, hothead.

When she returned to the lobby, Kira was standing with the bags, the bellhop at a respectful distance and staring intently at absolutely nothing.

"Ready?"

"Ready," said Alexandra. "Lead the way?"

Kira did. "What did you say to him?" she asked when they got to the elevator, complete with ornate and weathered brass doors.

"Who?"

Kira shook her head. "That guy who saw me coming and got out of there like I was a lioness and he was a Chinese buffet."

"Where do you even come up with metaphors like that?"

"What, you've never seen a buffet sprinting away on the Serengeti? What it lacks in speed, it makes up for in pure galumphing red-nosed embarrassment."

The elevator dinged. Doors opened to an empty, mirrored-walled space.

"If you say so, Kira."

"I do. Fifth floor."

Alexandra dragged her single rolling bag in alongside Kira's much larger one and its matching handbag.

"So what did you say to him?"

"Nothing offensive," Alexandra lied. "I think he just has an issue with women in their twenties, women with short hair, or women who date other women. Or, like, all of that."

"More for me, then. Seriously, I have, like, a Jenga stack of suitcases here. Fifth floor, please. My arms aren't eight feet long."

Alexandra mashed the 5 with her thumb and turned back to the tall blonde woman in the back of the lift.

"And when we get there?"

"Oh, you know. Get settled. Enjoy the in-room Jacuzzi. Go get some drinks. Then enjoy each other some more. Unless you have other plans?"

Alexandra took her lover by the hand. Stroked the tan skin. Felt the smoothness of the perfectly manicured nails.

"Sometimes I don't understand you, Kira Manning. Like why you bring a suitcase the size of a mini-fridge on a weekend trip. Or why you think I care what color your hair is."

"Because I'm insecure, and because there is a lot of fun stuff in that suitcase, Alexandra Henderson with the nice lips and sarcastic mouth. Answering your questions in reverse order, of course." The door dinged. Alexandra felt a room key pressed into her palm. "501. Down the hall. It's a suite. You're welcome."

--

Five minutes later, Kira still had not returned. Alexandra had spent the first twenty seconds gawking at the room, which was at least a hundred square feet larger than her apartment and laden with heavy oak furniture of which she didn't want to know the cost.

She spent the next two minutes walking around. The television's width exceeded her arm-span, and the bed had more pillows than the average home-furnishings store. There were large windows that overlooked a snow-covered lawn, with a view of Lake Michigan beyond. All the place lacked was a roaring fireplace.

So Alexandra began to fill the whirlpool tub in the marble-floored bathroom. Like everything else in the room, it was oversized, more of a backyard hot tub than a typical bathing basin.

She stripped off a seemingly endless series of layers while waiting for the hot water to fill it. And I feel compelled to fold them into a neat stack rather than just leave them in a heap on the floor. This place is far, far too nice for me, she thought.

Alexandra grinned when she remembered the contents of her suitcase. Sure, there were outfits that were fit for public consumption. I mean, we'll have to leave the room to eat dinner, right? And, like, go to the spa? The rest of the clothes were strictly for Kira's eyes.

She slipped into the tub and closed her eyes. The jets blasted her tired body with streams of bubbles. They washed away the stressful drive and the memories of a long week in the depths of winter. Only two things could relax her any further.

"I see you've made yourself comfortable."

"Ohmygod! Kira!" Alexandra's body shot upright.

"Yes... you can relax. I just brought you a drink. I mean, we do usually have one at the end of the day on Friday..." She set two ice-filled highball glasses with lime slices on their rims on the side of the tub and removed her jacket.

"Thank you," said Alexandra. "Sorry, I was just into relaxation mode and..."

"Shhhh." Kira bent lower and kissed Alexandra's lips. "Walking into a room with two drinks and seeing you already naked does not merit an apology."

"Mmm. Get in here and maybe I'll kiss a lot more than just your mouth."

Kira's full lips turned upwards into a smile. "I suppose I'll accept that as a 'thank you Kira, this weekend was a nice idea, this room is amazing.'"

"Yes. All of that. Need for validation much?"

Kira picked up one of the glasses. It was filled with a dark liquid. She dropped the lime in, took a large sip, and scrunched her eyes closed.