Salt & Vinegar Ch. 05

"It's ... it's perfect, Lena. Oh, my love, it's perfect!"

She took my left hand and gently slid the ring onto my fourth finger. The fit was perfect too.

"How did you get the size?" I wondered. "I mean, I don't wear any rings."

"You know the jewellers have those little mandrel things with gradations? I just stuck one in my mouth and found the diameter that felt right. I know what size your fingers are."

"No! Tell me you didn't?! Holy shit, you did, didn't you!?"

"The fucking look on the sales assistant's face was something else when I said, 'She's that one.' And pointed to the size."

"You are one crazy bitch, you know that", I smiled.

"A crazy bitch who's crazy in love with you", she smiled back. And kissed me hard.

I cried again.

"I'd like to get you a ring too, Lena", I said shyly. "Is there something you'd like?"

"I can't believe I'm going to fucking say this. What about matching? Gah, what have I become!?"

"Aw, that's cute. Maybe platinum for you though rather than rose gold which, by the way, is just gorgeous!"

I held out my hand to admire the ring as it shone in the lamplight. It looked right. It looked more than right. It felt right, the rightest thing in the whole world.

"Hold up", I said peering at her shrewdly. "You just want to see that sales assistant again, don't you?!"

"Yeah, you got me. I'm really into fifty-year-old queer guys", she quizzed me with a grin.

----------

LENA

We knocked and a different Tom opened the door. Gone was the fashion trailer-wreck from last weekend's swinger party. He looked for all the world like he'd just got back from the fucking country club.

"Welcome, girls. Come on in. Barb's just finishing up in the kitchen."

As we ate, Tom thanked us profusely for our help and apologized for the first impressions.

"We have a bit of a fling with friends once a month or so, but we're pretty quiet most of the time. We like to dabble in the 'scene' but couldn't really do it while I was working. Not the sort of job where you want that sort of thing to get around. Barb tells me I get a bit flirty after a few drinks so I'm sorry if my language offended."

I grinned and told him we didn't mind at all. And that we weren't shocked. We weren't strangers to the 'scene' either.

"But that's not an invitation", I said with a firm look.

"I should hope not," Barb tittered, "seeing as we're old enough to be your grandparents!"

I sat chatting in the living room with Tom as Barb and Jus cleared the dishes away. When they finished, they came back in and Barb sat down on the floor and leant her head against Tom's knee. She smiled softly and her eyes glazed slightly as Tom stroked her head.

I caught Tom's eye and glanced down at her.

Tom smiled affectionately at her but with a small crease between his brows.

I raised an eyebrow.

He looked a little grim for a moment and then smiled again with a hint of resignation.

I nodded.

He glanced across at Justine.

I shook my head slightly.

His turn to raise an eyebrow.

I moved my hand slightly on my knee and I saw him notice the ring on my finger.

Another smile.

Justine was watching us.

"There seems to be a conversation that I'm not being included in", she said with a bit of a pout.

"Sorry, babe. We're just exchanging professional courtesies. May I share, Tom?"

"By all means. We don't mind."

"Barb is Tom's Pet. She's not well and getting worse."

I glanced back at him and he nodded confirmation.

"Dementia."

"He was also asking whether I owned you and I told him, no, we owned each other."

I held up my hand with the ring Justine had bought me yesterday. I smiled at Jus and she smiled back as we remembered the event. The look on the sales assistant's face had been all we'd hoped when he recognised me. And then he'd been insufferably exuberant in congratulating us both and finding a matching ring for me. He'd even shed a tear like it was his own fucking engagement! But it was sort of sweet.

"How is Barb?" asked Justine.

"She has good days and bad days. She forgets things. OK so long as there's a routine. Not good in a crisis or any situation which requires decisive action as you saw on Sunday. The doctors estimate we have maybe two years before she'll need a level of care that I won't be able to provide her by myself and we'll have to move into a home. That's why we're enjoying life as much as we can now."

He paused, then looked at me as if reaching a decision. I expected a question, but he turned to Justine.

"Barb's out to it for the moment, so would you mind getting us coffee please, Justine? White, no sugar for me. Barb will have a weak milk tea."

He waited until she had gone back to the kitchen. Then again with the steady look.

"Your name's Sanchez, isn't it? Or maybe de Iturbide?" he said quietly but watching me intently.

It wasn't the question I expected.

"Sanchez", I replied carefully.

"And you're about, what, 24 or 25?"

"Not sure what business that is of yours."

"Easy, easy. I'll take that as a yes. You in touch with your Papá?"

I froze. That one took me completely by surprise.

"That son of a bitch?! I haven't laid eyes on the fucker in over ten years. I thought he might have been dead. I'd hoped he fucking was!!"

Justine was out of the kitchen like a shot.

"Lena, what the hell? Everything OK?"

Tom had his hands up placatingly.

"Sorry, didn't handle that well. Once a cop, always a cop. Justine, give us a moment while we simmer down if you wouldn't mind finishing those drinks? Bring them in and I'll explain."

Barb hadn't stirred through the exchange and still had her eyes closed with a slight, dreamy smile on her face.

Justine brought the steaming mugs in. She gave Tom his and put Barb's on the coffee table. She searched my face as she handed me mine. I don't know what she saw, but she sat down next to me on the sofa instead of the other lounger where she'd been.

"OK, talk" I growled at Tom.

He told us he'd been a cop in LA. They'd moved to San Francisco when he'd retired to be closer to Barb's family as her health deteriorated. He'd worked narcotics. Antonio 'Tony' Sanchez had been a person of interest for a long while before my mother died. He was back across the border by the time they found her. She'd OD'd alright, but maybe not by her own hand. No one had told me that. But then I'd been given into the care of a distant relative who either didn't get told the details or maybe thought I shouldn't know. And I'd left as soon as I was old enough to look after myself.

Tony had been involved in a hit a few years ago and they'd finally nabbed him in San Bernardino. Tom was on the squad that saw him put away in Pelican Bay for a string of offences, but my Mom's murder had never been proved.

"When I met you the other day, you laughed and it bugged me", Tom said. "Felt like I'd met you before. Dug back through some old files I'd kept. You look very like your Mom and laugh like your Dad. I'm sorry for the shock. I'd assumed you knew your old man was in the big house."

----------

JUSTINE

Lena was very quiet, her face pale and taut.

We were back in our apartment. I handed her a scotch. She drained it and held it out for another.

"Fucking bastard", she whispered.

I assumed she meant her father and not Tom. I sat next to her and waited.

"Fucking bastard!"

She'd told me her Mom had died of a drug overdose. Other than that, she'd told me very little about her family or her past. It sounded like a lot of what Tom told us was as much news to her as it was to me.

"I didn't think I had any family left. And if I do, I don't want it to be that fucker. I don't!" she said.

"How can I help, Lena?"

"You can't fucking help."

That hurt, but I knew it came from pain and it wasn't directed at me.

"Fucking bastard."

Lena reached out and grabbed my hand in a crushing grip and looked me hard in the eyes.

"You won't fucking leave me, will you Jus? Will you?"

"No dearest, I will not. Whatever happened in the past, I'm your family now. I'm here for you always."

She sighed.

"Thanks, Jus. They say, 'you can choose your friends but not your fucking family'."

"Yeah, but you chose me remember?"

Her hard eyes softened.

"I did, didn't I?"

I leaned over and gave her a soft kiss on her cheek.

"And I reckon you chose pretty well, if I do say so myself."

"Saucy bitch", she laughed. Good girl, Lena.

"You know how I was planning to go visit my folks for a weekend next month since I haven't been back home for a while? Why don't you come with? I know you probably can't get away on the Friday, but you could fly up Saturday morning. We can also catch the end of the Art Fair. It's a pretty big deal."

She looked at me.

"What is this, like, meet the fucking parents?"

"Scared?" I grinned.

"Fuck off."

"I'll book you a ticket then. Besides, my Dad can't be as scary as yours."

She laughed again.

----------

An extra note for those interested in detail behind the story.

Same-sex marriage was (re)legalised in the US state of California on Friday, 28 June 2013.