Part 1 (1/2)
Kristin Ashe Mystery.
A Safe Place to Sleep.
Jennifer L. Jordan.
Kristin Ashe is a successful young entrepreneur who does investigative work for women in her spare time. Destiny Greaves, a well-known activist and the ”most famous lesbian in Denver,” comes to her with an unusual request. She wants Kristin to find her childhood.
When Destiny was four, she lost both parents in a car accident. Because she has no memory of them, or of herself as a young girl, she asks Kristin to reconstruct her life through other people's memories. This seemingly simple task becomes increasingly complex as Kristin finds herself hunting for the missing pieces of her own childhood as well.
A Safe Place to Sleep.
Jennifer L. Jordan.
I've waited a long time to tell this story. If it were just her story, I could have told it years ago.
Her name was Destiny Greaves. She was a strong, beautiful woman who hired me to look into her past.
I wasn't prepared for what I found in her past... or in mine. But then, how could anyone have prepared for what we discovered? Such loss. Such gain. In such a short span of time. I've often wondered if there are limits to the amount of pain and joy human beings can feel. I think I found my own limit on this case.
I wonder if Destiny found hers.
Sometimes, I like to think back to that very first day, to the day when I first heard about her. It was a day full of such hope.
I remember it as if it were yesterday....
Chapter 1.
It was an unusually warm Sunday afternoon in late February. I'd just returned from an exhausting thirty-mile bike ride through the streets of Denver. The phone was ringing as I opened my apartment door. I propped my mountain bike against the living room wall and ran to catch the call before my answering machine did. I just made it.
”Kris, you're never going to believe this a” I met the most incredible woman at the Book Garden yesterday!” my friend Mich.e.l.le gushed.
”Hold on a sec, Mich.e.l.le, I just got in.”
I set the phone down, took the keys out of the door and wheeled my mountain bike out onto the nineteenth floor balcony. I tossed my bike helmet on the couch, walked into the kitchen, and poured myself a stiff drink a” Dr. Pepper on shaved icea”as a reward for having exercised intensely. All of this, I did at a leisurely pace. Over the years, I'd heard enough of Mich.e.l.le's descriptions of women she'd met. Invariably, they were long and excruciatingly detailed. No sense hurrying for one.
I plopped down on the couch and ma.s.saged my rubbery legs which were still cool from the crisp Colorado air.
”Okay.”
”Geez, Kris, did you clean your whole apartment?”
I ignored her question. She'd seen my apartment. She knew I couldn't clean it in a full day of hard labor much less in three scant minutes.
'Tell me about this woman.”
That simple request magically restored her good humor.
”I'm in love, Kris. I swear it. This time, I'm in love.”
”I'm sure you are.” Mich.e.l.le fell in love more often than most people grocery shop.
”I know what you're thinking,” she said, as if reading my mind across the phone lines. ”It's another one of Mich.e.l.le's silly crushes, but this time, it's different. At least it feels different.”
”What's her name?” I asked as I restyled my ”helmet” hair, using a nearby spoon as a mirror.
”Destiny Greaves.”
”Yeah, right. Real funny!”
”I'm serious.”
”Oh, sure,” I answered, completely unable to believe that my friend Mich.e.l.le had met the most famous lesbian in Denver.
”Kris, c'mon, I'm not kidding you.”
”Are you talking about the Destiny Greaves, the one who's an activist, the one we see on TV all the time?”
”Exactly.”
”The one who runs the Lesbian Community Center?”
”Yes, yes, that's who I met.”
'The one who's tall, blonde, and incredibly beautiful?”
”Even more so in person than on TV.”
”Wow!” Now that she had me convinced, I was impressed. ”By the way, what were you doing at the Book Garden? You don't even like to read.” I loudly slurped my drink.
”Women's bookstores are not just about reading,” Mich.e.l.le said as if she were explaining the most simple idea to a child. ”I went to an author's lecture yesterday to meet women.”
”What author?”
”Who knows? She was quite boring. I can't even remember her name. Anyway, after the reading, several women stayed around to browse and chat. That's when I met Destiny. I went right up and told her I thought she was an interesting person, and I'd like to get to know her better.”
”What did she say?”
”Well, first she laughed. But then, she asked me what my name was. I'd been thinking so hard about what I was going to say that I forgot to tell her my name. Anyway, we couldn't talk in the Book Garden because everyone was standing around, and a lot of women were staring at her. All the attention seemed to make her uncomfortable, so the next thing I knew, she asked me out to lunch. I'd already eaten, but I gladly accepted. We had a great lunch a” she's a fantastic woman. She's done so much with her life.”
”Hmm.” I tried to think of more to say, but I was too shocked. Mich.e.l.le Spivack and Destiny Greaves. How odd!
”And you'll never believe this, Kris. The best part of all is that she's not in a relations.h.i.+p!”
”That is good,” I said. For Mich.e.l.le, it was not only good, it was a veritable miracle. She had a bad habit of falling in love with women who were already in relations.h.i.+ps or otherwise unavailable.