Her One Indiscretion

Meghan didn't revisit the topic again and took it as a win when she'd catch Marlo glancing at the photograph every now and then.

Chapter Four: A Helpful Intermission (Long Island, New York)

Fiona blinked her eyes open. Someone was gently shaking her awake.

"Ma'am," it was Tanya Cross, her head of security, "We're here."

"Thank you, Tanya, I appreciate you making all this happen with very little notice."

Tanya smiled, "Of course! I'm always up for a trip to New York! Ready?"

Fiona nodded as everything was loaded into a waiting car. She sent a quick text to Mona to say that she'd arrived.

They wove through the roads of small town of Brookes Cove before winding through a long driveway to Mona's house. Fiona barely had a chance to stretch before Mona flung the front door open.

"Honey!!" Mona gave Fiona a big hug, "Welcome! How was the flight over?"

"Long, but uneventful," Fiona hugged Mona right back, "This is Tanya, she keeps me from doing anything crazy, and keeps my mother from indulging in insane paranoid fantasies of me getting kidnapped."

"Welcome!" Mona smiled warmly. She pointed at the right side of the house, "You guys must be pooped. We're going to put you in this part of the house, it's partitioned off a little; two rooms upstairs and a small den downstairs. Perfect for when my parents or the in-laws come to stay. Liz is a fricking genius - she had this built earlier this year."

Fiona smiled, "Thanks for waiting up for us."

"No need to thank me! You're welcomed any time!" Mona replied, "You're the last to arrive, most people got here this morning, and the neighbors will be shuttling through all weekend. Go settle in, and we can catch up in the morning."

Fiona followed everyone into the house. When she'd freshened up, she went down to the kitchen; she was too jetlagged to go straight to bed.

"I'm making tea" Mona opened a cabinet, "Do you want some?"

"Sure," Fiona slid into a seat at the kitchen table.

"I thought you'd want to crash..." Mona put the kettle on.

Fiona stretched, "I'm on West Coast time... and my brain is on hyper-drive so I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Mona brought over two mugs of tea to the dining table.

"Not much to say - I can't even get it to make sense in my head."

Mona blew on her tea, "Make sense of what? RJ getting married? What are you going to say to her tomorrow?"

Fiona shrugged, and cupped her hands around her mug, "I curious - deeply curious - to know what changed her mind. That photo of her and Lauren, they look so happy. And she was absolutely adamant that it wasn't what she wanted."

"You can't help who you fall in love with, Fiona. RJ fell hard for Lauren. We didn't really believe it at first, but she did. Why's this important to you?"

"I took a page from RJ's book. I realized I shared her preference for simplicity. Relationships - especially in my context - are complicated. She thought the same. I felt like I found an ally in RJ. But it turns out she was the marrying kind, too!"

Mona looked up quizzically, "Relationships for you are complicated because why? You basically run the world?"

"Because people have expectations and I may not want what they expect me to want..."

"But... who cares?" Mona raised an eyebrow, "It's your call. What you do want?"

Marlo. Fiona sighed, "Something I can't have. Kind of makes it moot; what other people expect."

"But who cares," Mona repeated, "What's standing in your way? To get what you want?"

"Marlo." Fiona said quietly.

"Marlo?"

Fiona nodded. The secret was hard to talk about.

"Oh, honey," Mona knew Marlo quite well - she was, after all, Fiona's best friend. During college, Marlo had visited quite regularly. Oh, I see... Mona nodded, suddenly thinking that she understood the issue.

"Marlo has a hard time with you falling in love, right?" Mona guessed, "I mean, it makes sense, I guess."

Fiona looked up her friend, confused, "What? What do you mean?"

Mona tilted her head, "You said Marlo was the one standing in the way of you having a love life. And I think it makes a lot of sense. But -"

"Wait," Fiona interrupted, "Sorry... hang on, can you explain what you mean?"

Mona leaned back and took a moment before she responded, "When you said Marlo was the one standing in the way. I thought about all those times she visited you, and all those times we all hung out together, and it was clear - at least to me - that she was in love with you. That's why I said it made sense to me that she'd be the one who'd have the hardest time with you being in relationships... you know, if she's still in love with you."

Fiona's mouth opened and shut. She blinked a couple of times and stared down at her tea, speechless with shock. What? It can't be true...?

"I thought you knew, Fiona," Mona was surprised... and even more confused now, "I'm sorry. I thought you knew."

Fiona was numb. Nothing was connecting.

Mona sat forward and put her hand on Fiona's, "Oh sweetie, I thought you knew. The first time she and I met, do you remember? She joined us for Spring Break - you'd convinced your parents to let you come with us to visit my dad's family in Barbados?"

Fiona nodded, "Yes, they agreed only because Marlo was going to come along."

"Do you remember that fight you had with Marlo when she first arrived?" Mona lifted her eyebrows.

Fiona frowned and thought back to her freshmen year. Her eyes narrowed, "Yes! She said she was pissed because my parents made her ditch plans with her girlfriend or something."

"That was her story," Mona crossed her arms, "She stopped being pissy once I told her I wasn't trying to date you."

Fiona stared at Mona in disbelief. Mona gave a knowing look, "Cross my heart, that absolutely happened. She got crazy jealous after she heard my mother talking about how well you and I got along."

Fiona's mouth dropped open, "It can't be true. She dates... so many other women! I mean, she's told me I'm not her type more times than I can count. She's never shown any interest in me. She doesn't even look at me that way!" Fiona's voice broke at the end.

"... And you... want her to?" Mona was quickly reframing her hypothesis; all of a sudden, it seemed unbearably obvious. "Oh, Fiona, maybe you and Marlo just need to talk about this!"

Fiona was finding it hard to focus on any one emotion; there were dozens flying at her at once: excitement, doubt, bewilderment, surprise, sadness, helplessness, hope...

After a few moments of silence, Fiona asked quietly, "Did RJ ever tell you what happened that night? After dinner at your place?"

Mona shook her head, "No."

"Remember I told you there was something about RJ that I couldn't quite put my finger on?" Fiona brushed an errant strand of hair off her face, "I didn't figure it out until RJ left. I mean, RJ was wonderful..."

Fiona blushed at the memory. Mona chuckled, "She used to get a lot of good, uh, reviews..."

Right at that moment, a woman's soft and urgent moan drifted into the kitchen.

Mona smiled wider, "... and Lauren certainly would agree!"

"That's coming from their room?" Fiona blushed again.

"Pretty much the same thing as last night..." Mona chuckled, "Maybe it's sounding familiar to you?"

Fiona held her hands up, "What happened that night stays happily in the past, but my point was more about my realization that being with RJ was my brain's clumsy way of recognizing my feelings for Marlo. I grew up with Marlo, and I always felt safe and completely at home with her. It'd never occurred to me that I'd been in love with her all this time. I thought falling in love would be this thunderbolt thing. But it just is that way with Marlo. I love her. And I feel stupid saying this, because it's so obvious now... but it wasn't before. But Marlo wasn't much help, she's shown no interest in me..."

Fiona stopped to catch her breath. I love her! And... just maybe... she loves me back!

Mona finished up her tea as she let Fiona process her thoughts. Eventually, she asked, gently, "Why talk to RJ? Seems to me that this is something you and Marlo need to sort out..." Mona got up and put her mug in the dishwasher.

Fiona shrugged, "At first, I was mad - I thought I had this kindred spirit in RJ in that we'd keep life simple... and then she goes off and gets married! I wanted to get her to tell me what changed. Now, I think I actually want to talk to Lauren..."

"Huh?"

Fiona laughed softly at Mona's blank look, "Well, if Marlo and I have been in mutual denial about how we feel about each other, I need some tips from Lauren on how she won the heart of the famous 'one and done' RJ Kan."

"Straight girl magic," Mona joked.

"I don't care what it was, I need as much help as possible if I'm going to get my best friend to look at me as a mate."

"Pfft," Mona scoffed, "I bet Marlo's been hard to pin down because she's trying to distract herself from holding a torch for you." Mona paused for a moment as a glint of mischief gleamed in her eye, "Although I'm curious to see what Lauren's got to say for herself - RJ fell so hard for her it's amazing she didn't get a concussion!"

"Makes me want to meet Lauren even more," Fiona laughed, "Do you think it might be weird, though...? I realize I represent a part of RJ's history that Lauren might not like... even though I did ask RJ and RJ said it was totally cool..."

"Lauren knows who she has in her bed," Mona replied, "If RJ says it's cool, she means it's cool for both of them. You'll understand when you see them together. Let me put it this way, I really had to see it to believe it, but even Liz is convinced now, and she's known RJ the longest and was the biggest skeptic when RJ and Lauren first got together."

"Where's Liz?"

Mona tried to stifle yawn, "Milo's been waking at up two a.m. every night this past week for some reason; and Liz took the brunt of it. She crashed around nine tonight. Which was right around the time RJ and Lauren started their nocturnal activities..."

The creaks and quiet noises coming out of the other side of the house had not ebbed at all. Fiona laughed quietly in sympathy.

"I know," Mona yawned, "Once you hear one bedspring hard at work... it's really hard to ignore..."

Fiona noted her friend's yawn and stood up, "Go put some earplugs in! I've kept you up too late. Go to bed..."

Mona chuckled and hugged Fiona tight.

Fiona smiled, "I have to say, they've got stamina!"

Mona snorted, "Don't be surprised if I come running into your part of the house if it starts up again. Liz sleeps like the dead, and will be no help to me whatsoever."

"Remember to warn Tanya first - otherwise you'll get tackled..."

Mona smiled and nodded, "Ok. Fair enough. Are you going to be okay? This Marlo stuff's a lot to process."

"It's less of a dumpster fire than before... best I go stare into space for a while."

"You sure?" Mona stretched, "I'm happy to listen to you think."

"Be careful what you wish for... but I think I'm okay..."

Mona gave Fiona's shoulder a squeeze, "Thanks for trusting me with all this. I know it hasn't been easy."

Fiona sighed, "Feels easier now that I know what my options are. Thanks Mona. I'll see you in the morning."

The two women headed off to their respective rooms. It was a restless night for Fiona, which was not helped by her mother's flood of texts pleading with her to call. When Tanya knocked on her door in the morning to check-in, both of them looked wrecked.

"Good morning ma'am," Tanya cleared her throat, "You asked me to wake you at eight."

Fiona sighed, "Oh, East Coast jetlag's no fun at all."

"When I said 'I'm always up for a trip to New York,' I lied," joked Tanya.

Fiona chuckled, "You should go back to sleep. Nothing's going to happen to me out here. This is Liz's hometown, she can probably call in all the reinforcements we need if something crazy happened."

"Sorry, ma'am, no can do," Tanya smiled, "You're stuck with me."

Fiona threw her hands up, "Fine. Have you eaten? I'm starved."

"I grabbed some breakfast already. Your friends' kids are really cute, by the way."

"They're up already?" Fiona swung her legs off the bed, "I suppose I should make myself presentable..."

Tanya smiled and said, "I'll wait for you downstairs."

Fiona shuffled into the bathroom and took a quick shower. When she made her way into the kitchen, it was already chaotic and happy with activity. There were Mona and Liz and their three children, all under the age of ten, Liz's brother Stuart and his family, and someone who introduced herself as a neighbor. Tanya had found an unobtrusive spot right off the kitchen. There was no sign of RJ or Lauren.

"Say hi to Auntie Fiona!" Mona shouted to no one in particular.

An asynchronous volley of 'hellos' ensued as Fiona made a beeline to the coffee maker. Liz gave her a side-hug as she flipped an assembly line of silver dollar pancakes on the griddle. Mona was next to her, chopping up some fruit.

"Holy pancakes, Batman, how many are you making?" Fiona was pre-coffee, but she didn't need caffeine to know Liz was making enough to feed an army.

"There are six children who are about ten minutes from imploding into a hunger fugue. Best solution is to stuff food into them... the rest of us old people can graze on the remainder as the day wears on."

"And believe me," Mona chipped in, "none of us old people want to be up this early. It's a parenting liability nobody really fully warns you about beforehand."

As if on cue, one of the children ran headlong into the corner of the counter. Stuart scooped up his screaming progeny, and quickly declared an 'all clear.' The child in question stopped crying the moment Liz's mountain of pancakes made its way to the breakfast table.

Not long after each child got their allotment of breakfast, a gradual quietude materialized in the kitchen.

Fiona, who had decided to stay in close proximity to the coffee maker, took a sip of her coffee and said, "Wow Liz, you couldn't have timed that better."

Mona gave her wife a quick peck on the cheek, "It's one of her uncompensated skills."

"There are many different types of compensation, honey," Liz smirked.

Mona didn't miss a beat, "I'll have to remember that for later."

Fiona laughed. She was about to say something when she heard her name. She turned towards the archway that connected the kitchen to the living room and saw RJ striding in.

"RJ!" Fiona felt genuinely happy to see her erstwhile dinner companion.

There was no awkwardness at all; RJ gave Fiona a warm hug, which Fiona happily reciprocated.

"Happy belated birthday, by the way! Any controversial dates for this year's party?" RJ teased.

Fiona laughed, impressed with RJ's memory, and shook her head, "No, I cut the cake all on my own... although now my mother's up in arms about me being perennially single. Can't get it right, I guess... and you! You owe me an explanation, Ms. Death-taxes-and-never-getting-married!" Fiona crossed her arms in mock anger.

"I did say that, didn't I?" RJ chuckled as she grabbed two water bottles from a cabinet, "I'm happy to plead my case after my run, I promise."

"Good morning!" Mona interrupted, "Where do you think you're going, RJ? You promised Liz you were going to play chauffeur today for the kids' camps."

"I'll be back in time for that. Ellie and I are going to go for a quick run," RJ explained as she walked over to the sink and started to fill up the bottles

As Mona and RJ started discussing that morning's logistics, Fiona noticed how, compared to five years ago, RJ's vibe had changed. Noticeably. Before, there was an almost raw, animalistic sexuality that emanated from the taller woman. Liz called it RJ's 'voodoo' and it was appropriate - RJ definitely had a way about her that was immediately seductive. But to Fiona, RJ's once unbridled eroticism - that had been lethally indiscriminating in its impact - now felt majestically reserved. It was as if RJ had fully accepted her superpower and it was now at her fingertips to expend or withhold as she wished.

Fiona felt a tinge of envy for Lauren. Because Lauren - of all the women in RJ's life - was the one who got ALL of RJ: The superhero-RJ as well as the alter-ego RJ. I want to be that person for Marlo... Fiona wished silently.

The tinge of envy morphed into outright jealousy mere moments later. RJ had been talking to Mona, but stopped mid-sentence when Lauren walked in. Mona wasn't exaggerating; novels could be written about the way RJ looked at her wife. Fiona saw RJ's relaxed posture suddenly take on a more attentive energy as Lauren's gravitational force pulled her in. If only I had that kind of effect on Marlo!

"Good morning everyone! Ready, babe?" Lauren flashed RJ a smile. Lauren was easy enough on the eyes already, but that smile told Fiona all she needed to know. Mona watched Fiona's reaction and quirked an eyebrow in an 'I told you so' sort of way.

RJ nodded, "Uh-huh. I was just confirming times for the kids' camps today. Oh, Ellie, this is Fiona. Fiona, this is Lauren." She handed Lauren a water bottle.

"Thanks," Lauren took the bottle, and turned towards Fiona, "Fiona, nice to meet you!" Lauren extended a hand, which Fiona gladly shook; again, with no trace of awkwardness.

"We should get going - I don't want to catch hell from Liz for being late," RJ tilted her head towards the door.

Mona waved goodbye to the couple and sidled over to Fiona, who was leaning against the counter.

"Wow," Fiona muttered into her coffee mug as she took a sip, "That's the real deal."

Mona nodded, "I know, I keep telling Liz that she doesn't look at me like that anymore... usually does the trick... gets her all riled up... which I like... a lot..." Mona's eyebrows did a sly little wriggle.

"Hey, don't go rubbing salt in my wound... I don't have my shit sorted out yet!"

Mona clinked her mug against Fiona's, "Leave it to me, sweetie, I'll make sure you get to have some quality time with Ms. Lauren Calder for some pro tips..."

"I don't even know what do ask her," Fiona said semi-dejectedly.

Mona cocked her head, pretending to be in deep thought, "Hmm... How about, 'How did a straight woman seduce a commitment-phobic lesbian into wedded bliss?' That'll do the trick."

"Easier said than done," mused Fiona, "Although I might end up having to do exactly that."

"That's my girl," Mona chuckled.

True to her word, as the various guests and neighbors drifted in and out of the house through the morning, Mona managed to engineer it such that Lauren found Fiona sitting quietly by herself on the patio a little before lunch.

"Mind if I join you? RJ just drove off with a car full of children..."

Fiona looked up to find the blonde gesturing to the lounge chair next to hers, "Not at all! I was hoping to get some time to talk to you, actually!"

Lauren raised her eyebrows, "Oh?"

This wasn't the first time Lauren's found herself face to face with one of RJ's exes. In fact, quite a few had been invited to their wedding. Lauren surmised they'd all shown up to personally confirm that RJ had, in fact, decided to take the plunge into monogamy. Fiona didn't seem any different: beautiful, charming, and deeply curious about RJ's change of heart about relationships. RJ had - as always - been no-nonsense with Lauren about what happened with Fiona. It wasn't Lauren's favorite thing to hear about RJ's former lovers, but luckily, RJ's past never felt threatening to her. After all, Lauren was the one who got the proposal - and that was proof enough that RJ had moved on from that chapter of her life.

"I have a problem, and I think you might be the ideal person to help," Fiona let out a quick breath of determination.