Part 10 (1/2)

”Of course I'm right, but if you want, I'll call her and ask her if she wants to see you even though you're a lesbian.”

”It is kind of absurd, isn't it, that this is what I worry about?” She gave me a half smile.

”It could be worse. You could be worrying that she's a lesbian, too.”

We both laughed.

”What if I do see her, Kris? What next? Do I have to go to her house every Sunday for dinner? Do I have to drive her to church? Do I have to care for her when she gets sick?”

”Whoa, whoa!” I put up a hand to slow down her thoughts.

”I can't take all that. I really can't. That's too much commitment for me.” The words spilled out of her.

”Destiny, slow down. You're way ahead of yourself here with worry. I'll set up a dinner, one dinner, that's all. You can just see how that goes first.”

”One dinner?” she asked meekly.

”One dinner. I promise that's it. We'll take this one small, safe step at a time. We'll go as far as you can go, then we'll see if you can go any further.”

”Okay.”

'That means you'll do it?” I asked, letting the excitement creep back into my voice.

aIall do it....”

”Great!” I started to cross the room to hug her.

”Not so fast, Kris. I'll do it on one condition....”

Not so great. I stopped dead in my tracks.

”What is it?” I asked and this time, my arms were folded.

”You have to come with me.”

”Me?” My voice cracked.

”Yes, you. Will you come with me?”

”But don't you want to be alone with her the first time you meet?” I asked, using my most persuasive sales voice.

”No, I don't. I'm scared to death to meet her. I need you to come with me. Can you do it or not?”

”Of course I can. How does tomorrow night sound?” The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to consider them.

”That would work. Thanks for everything, Kris. You're a good woman. Now I've got to run. Call me when you've set a time, and do it soon before I change my mind.”

”I hear you,” I said.

I called Marie Kenwood back and told her Destiny and I would join her for dinner. I tried to talk her in to letting us take her out to eat, but she wouldn't hear of it. She insisted we come to her house for a home-cooked meal.

Briefly, I wondered if I was getting too involved in this case, but as soon as the thought entered my mind, I dismissed it.

Chapter 9.

Because I knew my way to Marie Kenwood's, I drove and picked up Destiny on the way.

She lived just a few miles from me in a great old mansion in Capitol Hill. Built in 1896 for one very wealthy family, the place was now home to Destiny and four other women, each of whom had a separate residence. With her parents' help, Destiny had bought the house a year earlier, when Denver's real estate prices were at their lowest. One of the women who lived there was a carpenter, so she renovated in exchange for rent. One room at a time, she was restoring the building to its original majesty. Destiny told me all of this as she gave me a tour.

She lived in what was once the living room, dining room, and receiving room (for receiving guests, not packages). In the old living room, she had a fifteen foot long fireplace, and an entire wall of windows. She slept in the former dining room, using the built in china hutch as a dresser. The ceilings in every room were twelve feet tall.

There was clutter everywhere, but the place wasn't messy. Just full. She had tons of furniture, none of which matched (”I have a weakness for garage sales and Capitol Hill has the best garage sales in the world”). But her place was comfortable and, for a second, I wished I lived there instead of in my high-rise, high-tech environment.

In the car, we didn't talk much. I tried to initiate conversation on a variety of topics: the front page news, her work, my work, but none of it seemed to interest her. When we were close to her grandma's house, I gave up on the mundane and got right to the heart of it.

”Are you nervous, Destiny?”

”A little. Do you think I'm doing the right thing?”

I nodded, though I wasn't sure.

”All day I've been thinking about this dinner,” she said, never looking at me, her eyes riveted on the road ahead. ”I've been wondering if what I'm doing is the right thing, if I should ever have hired you.”

I didn't say anything. I had my own ambivalent thoughts about the merits of crawling back into the past.

”It's easy to wish I hadn't ever started asking the questions. It's easy to live my life as I've always lived it. What's much harder is this change, these confrontations. Without them, my life would go on as usual a” with holes in it, but without this risk. One day, I woke up and decided the holes were too big. That's the day I called you, Kris.

”But so many days since then, I've woken up, slapped myself on the forehead and said What the h.e.l.l were you thinking, Destiny? What are you doing to yourself?' Because this, what I'm doing here, this is the hardest thing I've ever done. So hard that most days, the holes don't seem so big after all, and I want to stop. Does any of this make sense?”

I nodded, afraid to say that it made all the sense in the world to me, that every day I asked myself the same question. I'd thought my life was empty, so I'd started looking into my past, hoping to find the source of the emptiness. Yet, the more I looked, the more sources I found, and the larger the emptiness seemed. The holes I'd sought to fill, instead seemed to grow bigger, big enough to consume me, I sometimes feared.

I knew all too well what Destiny Greaves was afraid of, but I couldn't say that to her. Not then. Not as we were pulling into her grandmother's driveway.

”I'll be right here with you,” I reached over to squeeze her hand. ”You say the word and we're outta here, okay?”

”Okay.” She gave me a weak smile.

Before we could make it to Marie Kenwood's porch, the door flew open.

”You're early,” the older woman said. She looked at her watch. ”Three minutes to be exact.”

What was it with this time fixation? Maybe it was her way of covering her nervousness, I thought forgivingly.

”We would have been here later,” I said lightly, ”but I knew my way this time.”

My humor was in vain. No one was listening to me. She and Destiny just stood looking at each other. I couldn't read the emotion in either of their faces. I broke the silence with formal introductions.