Crossing Over Pt. 01

"Good," she smiled and glanced over her shoulder as the first customers entered the bank, "I'll explain it all later."

"Okay," I replied as she reached out slowly and in full view of the staff, touched the brooch.

"That's pretty, where did you get it?"

"It belonged to Cathy, she got it in Egypt."

"Very nice," she smiled as a customer started filling out a deposit slip.

As I followed her back behind the counter I noticed Melanie looking at me and she had a crooked smile on her face.

"You can help me today," she inclined her head, "when are you lunching?"

"When Sigrid takes her lunch."

"Good," she inclined her head, "let's make it look like we're working."

It was a busy morning and we don't get a lot of time for small talk but at about one o'clock Sigrid signed off her terminal and Melanie nodded at me.

"Go on, be back in an hour," she stared at me and winked.

So far she hadn't given me a hint about why she'd taken the step of openly warning the staff about the way some of them had treated Sigrid instead of letting me do the dirty work, but as we walked up the alley between the bank and the cinema, Sigrid let it all out and her explanation was a lot simpler and more moving.

"Melanie told me what she'd asked you to do," Sigrid looked across as we passed in front of the cinema, "I think she wanted to warn me in case I thought you were coming onto me."

"Which I wouldn't," I sighed, "honestly."

"I know and at first I was angry, not at her but the others. I've been dealing with this kind of shit off and on for years but as Melanie put it the other day, haven't we gotten past this yet? I didn't want her to put this on you because you're going through a lot of shit. I can handle myself but I don't want you getting involved."

"I kind of volunteered," I tightened the grip on my handbag.

"I know and that gives me hope," she nudged me, "which is why I went out and got this from a little craft shop near my house."

I took the paper bag and came to a stop as I read the familiar inspirational quotation on the laminated A4 card.

Don't walk in front of me I may not follow.

Don't walk behind me I may not lead.

Just walk beside me and be my friend.

A tear slid down my cheek. How could she have known? It had hung above the wall of Cathy's bedroom for years. I looked up and wiped the tear away.

"Yes, I really need a friend."

"Good because I need a lover like a case of crabs," she gave me a hug, "as the song goes, I've looked for love in all the wrong places," she released me.

"Come on, I'm starving."

The poster went up on my lounge room wall that night in a frame I'd picked up at the Sunday flea market a while ago. I sat looking at it for a while, drinking in the memory of that lunch. I'd opened up a little more about my life, offering up titbits that would have embarrassed me a few months ago but having Cathy totally dependent on me had forced me to suppress things. Sigrid listened without interrupting and as I drove home that afternoon it occurred to me that Sigrid was the only person apart from Cathy and Melanie to listen like that.

It was the first of many lunches over the next few weeks. Sigrid became my new lunch partner, which raised eyebrows with Mary and Jane but it did put paid to their little revolt. If the longest serving staff member had made friends with Sigrid then the world could go on. Our lunches soon morphed into Friday night shopping trips at K-mart in Boronia or Knox City. On some of the hotter evenings we'd go back to my place and change into bikinis and duck over the road to the pool. A friend once asked if that was where it started and I had to say no. I mean she had a beautiful body but I never had the urge to touch her in that way. What started it off was when she invited me to meet her parents.

"It's just dinner, nothing special, probably leftovers, they want to meet my friend," she draped a towel around her shoulders as we crossed the road after a Thursday night dip in the pool.

I said yes without thinking but that Saturday night dinner date sent me into a tailspin when I tried to find an outfit and eventually I rang Melanie.

"She's invited me meet her parents."

"I see," Melanie replied, "and you're calling me because?"

"I don't know what to wear."

"So what would you wear if I invited you to dinner?"

"Something casual, a top and jeans or a skirt."

"There's your answer, go with the flow."

Go with the flow.

I eventually settled on a cream shirt and jeans, smart but casual. Sigrid ran a casual eye over my outfit when she stepped out of the car.

"What? Is something wrong?"

"No," she pulled a wry grin, "you look nice."

"So do you," I glanced at the white, checked shirt and buttoned denim midi skirt, "very Western. I have a belt that might go with that skirt, wait there."

The belt was black with a large brass buckle and Sigrid admired it as she fastened it.

"I bought it at the flea market."

"Melanie told me about the flea market," she grinned, "we must go one Sunday."

"Maybe tomorrow? You're staying at my place tonight anyway."

"It's a date," she squeezed my arm, "come on, babe, we have to stop by the bottle shop and pick up some wine."

Ingrid and Jens Fønsmark lived in a five bedroom house in Wantirna and my first impression was that they thought Sigrid and I were an item despite Sigrid's reassurances on the way. Ingrid greeted me with a hug and a kiss, Jens with a kiss on the cheek and a handshake.

"It is good to meet Sigrid's hygge."

"Hygge?" I glanced at Sigrid, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Danish."

"It's hard to translate into English," Ingrid replied, "but it means taking pleasure from simple everyday rituals like a cup of coffee, dinner or in Sigrid's case, spending time with you. I think the closest English translations would be happiness, cosiness, comfort or security but there are other words too."

"Oh," I smiled, "I think I get it. How do you spell it?"

"H-Y-G-G-E," Sigrid smiled, "hygge."

"My God, how do you get hue-gah out of that?"

"You have to live it in here," Jens touched his belly, "it is when you don't have to be somewhere yesterday."

"Give me more of that," I sighed.

Hygge became a word used often after that and if I was honest about it, I found hygge with the entire Fønsmark family and by then I'd met all the Fønsmark girls. Yet at first, I was only dimly aware my feelings were changing. There was one instance not long after that when Sigrid rested a hand on my knee whilst I was driving back from her Elke's house in Ringwood.

"Sorry, I forgot," she moved her hand.

The next occasion came about completely by accident when we were driving away from Agnetha's home after a night in front of the television.

Sigrid yawned and stretched.

"I'm buggered, I can't wait to get home and climb into bed."

It was an innocent statement but almost identical to what one of my ex boyfriends had said more than once and I was startled to realise I'd actually agreed.

"I mean separate beds," Sigrid patted my leg briefly.

"I know," I blushed.

Our houses both had other bedrooms and by that stage we had become used to sleepovers, usually at the weekends but sometimes we'd sleep over on a Friday night if we were both working on a Saturday morning. She took Cathy's old room, which had been slightly rearranged and I took the second bedroom in her home in Olinda. I preferred her one because it was nestled amongst the trees and had a beautiful verandah out the front and a paved pergola out the back. A couple of times we invited Melanie and her family over for a Sunday barbecue, but I only got to meet her husband once, the rest of the time it was just Melanie and her children. More of that later but suffice it to say, spending time out in Olinda was a very necessary part of my healing process.

The relationship between mum and I by that stage was well and truly over, she'd actually written me a very cold letter telling me that I was now a child of Satan. Sigrid was devastated by that letter but I simply ignored it because by then I'd found new parents. Ingrid and Jens. They knew of the letter I've since been told but said nothing about it. I did notice they reached out much more after I got the last letter from mum.

The honeymoon came to an end one night after we ducked out to the cinemas at Croydon to see a movie, it was City of Angels and because the cinema was just down the road from my house it was only logical she stay at my house.

After the movie we ducked around the corner for a coffee at the pizza shop and Sigrid's attention was briefly diverted to two women sitting at a table near the back.

"Those two are together," she murmured.

I turned around to look at the women. One was much older and kind of stocky but the other was slim and definitely prettier.

"How can you tell?"

"They were holding hands."

"Oh," I digested this information in silence.

After the coffee we went back home, nothing more had been said about the two women and as I slipped beneath the duvet I heard the toilet flushing followed by running water and then she came down the hall to my room. I turned to the door as it opened and she stepped inside, she was yawning but came to a dead stop as she saw me.

"Fuck," she ran a hand through her hair, "sorry, I had a blonde moment there."

I was propped on my elbow and she looked past me for a moment.

"It's all right," I offered.

"Sorry," she backed out and left the room.

I fell back into the pillow and stared at the poster on the wall just opposite me, wondering what would have happened if I just pulled the duvet aside and let her sleep with me. It's what I would have done with a straight girlfriend but definitely not a lesbian girlfriend.

I awoke a few hours later with the urge to pee and as I was wandering through to the toilet I heard the fridge opening and closing. I paused by the other bedroom, Sigrid wasn't in bed and I continued on to the toilet to do my business. After I'd finished I stepped into the bathroom and washed my hands. I was wearing a silk night shirt and shorts, she'd been wearing an oversized white shirt and I resolved to sort out her 'blonde moment.'

Sigrid was still in the kitchen, she was sitting at the breakfast bar with a glass of orange cordial.

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you," she murmured.

"You didn't," I took the concentrate from the fridge, "my bladder woke me."

"Ah that would wake me too," Sigrid replied.

"Tell me about it," I poured some cordial into the glass, "I wish I had stronger bladder control," I flicked the tap and filled the glass.

"One of my ex boyfriends had amazing bladder control. Stephen used to lie in bed with his cock rock hard and say he had to piss," I leaned on the other side of the breakfast bar.

"So I'd say, okay go to the shithouse and he'd lie there for like half an hour or more."

"Well it does stay harder that way."

"I know but he'd just lie there and lie there and eventually I'd turn round and say are you going for a piss or not because if you piss the bed you wash the bloody sheet. It used to drive me nuts because you could see he was busting to go," I sipped my drink.

"Eventually I managed to work out that he was too frightened of pissing on the wall because Percy was pointing at the ceiling."

Sigrid broke out laughing and grabbed my hand. I chuckled and turned my head and for a moment I had the urge to kiss her and this time Sigrid read the signs and stopped laughing. Both of us stared at each other and then the moment passed and then we looked away.

Sigrid released my hand and exhaled. "That was close."

"Sorry, that one was my fault."

"It happens, we're only human," Sigrid replied.

I closed my eyes and tried to find the words, I'd skirted around the elephant in the room and it had nearly knocked me out.

"About that," we both started together and stopped.

"My blonde moment," Sigrid finished for me, "it bothered me."

"Look, it was a mistake, it happens. You're gay, I'm straight, you like women, I like men. I can understand sometimes you'll just forget."

"That's what I need to talk about," Sigrid sighed.

I opened my mouth to reply and shut it again when she continued.

"We need to lay down rules, but there's something I need to say about that and don't misunderstand me. I love you in a different way but three years ago I had a straight friend, Helen. She wasn't as close to me as you are but we kind of hung out together, she was my straight girlfriend and I was actively dating but not in a serious relationship."

"What happened?"

"One night we smoked a bit of weed. One of my gay friends had given me a gram and Helen and I smoked it. We got on together that night, I don't know if it was the weed, the fact she was curious or both but it got messy because she was with a guy. She ended up breaking up with him and it killed our friendship because in the end she blamed me for the whole thing."

"Okay," I folded my hands together, "so what do we do? I like seeing you but I don't want that to happen to our friendship."

"We need rules," she studied me, "like keeping a lid on physical affection, a little hug now and then is okay but I don't want it to go further than that."

"What about sleeping over?"

"That's fine, we seem to be coping with that and it'd just be too hard. I like spending time here and it's great you can stay at my house but the physical affection can be hard for me. Sometimes you just hug me without warning and I have to check myself, although you haven't done it lately. I'm very tactile, so it's hard for me as well but we need to watch that because if we're tipsy and start hugging I might forget."

"Agreed," I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger, "this is not a gay kiss," I leaned over and kissed her firmly but quickly on the forehead.

"Now that we've sorted that out, I'm off to bed, alone."

I thought about that conversation as I was propped on my elbow drinking the rest of my cordial. I'd done pretty well I mused. Cathy would be proud of me.

Little did I know that Sigrid's late night confession and my 'non gay' kiss were stones in the pond casting ripples outwards.

To be continued...