Chapter 33
The meeting was... bearable, I suppose. Keith didn't bring Keira, presumably in some fit of 'good faith', and he was reasonably cooperative with the various logistic ins and outs that Alex had managed to plan out. The rest of the week went by in a flash, which was just fine with me as I was looking forward to spending time with Jonas.
Having my son back was good on many levels; it meant I didn't spend all day and night buried in my work, it got me out of the flat, and most of all it was just good to see him. We had our share of issues - he threw more than enough stroppy teenager fits over the two and a half days we spent together that weekend - but I still hated seeing him go on Monday morning.
I had another busy week ahead, however. Alex - fortunately now recovered from her ankle and back to running around being everywhere at once, although she still seemed to limp slightly by the end of the day - was working on pulling together the final touches in time for the Summit, Keith was finally (with Keira holding his hand although at least not literally) getting properly stuck back into his own projects and teaching, and I had a busy week of meetings on top of my usual teaching schedule.
One of the meetings was actually more of a mixer - one of my least favorite parts of being head of department was the inter-departmental functions that, while not absolutely mandatory, you would be frowned upon for missing. This one, apparently, was a 'business outreach' affair, an evening liason between academia and local small-to-medium businesses, which I at least approved of in principle.
As it turned out, it was an eye-opening evening, although not in quite the way I'd expected.
"Hors d'œuvre? I stole more than I need."
The woman who'd sat down next to me wasn't an academic. Her suit was too well-tailored, her short hair too recently styled and highlighted, for her to be the type who spent most of her time in an office or a lecture hall - or in the field I suppose.
She wasn't a 'small local business' type, either. I'd her asking questions after the short talk given by our Communications and Marketing rep about business ties, and I could tell that she was involved in something on the larger end of the scale from not just the questions she asked but her tone and attitude as well.
Now she was smiling at me, showing white, even teeth, and holding out a plate which was indeed stacked with more finger food than she probably needed.
"As long as they don't involve meat I'd be happy to help you lighten your load," I conceded, nodding. "That quiche is probably safe..."
"Ah, a herbivore," my new companion said with a knowing smile. "Vet med?" she guessed.
"Hah. Do I really look like I spend all day elbow-deep in doggy guts?"
"I've learned that people are rarely quite what they appear," the woman said with a charming, slightly asymmetrical smile, the shade of an American accent apparent in her voice. She offered me a hand to shake. "Joyce. Winter and Heath Solicitors."
"Kathryn Sinclair, head of Ecological Sciences," I said, taking her hand. "Are you Winter, or Heath?"
"Hah, you flatter me," Joyce replied, her handshake, warm, dry, and confident without being bonecrushing. "But yes, I'm Winter."
I wondered briefly why she had approached me if she didn't know who I was, but these functions could be a bit tedious, so I didn't blame her for striking up a conversation, even if it was with a random stranger. "Well, forgive me for prying, Joyce Winter, but what are you doing here? You seem slightly out of the league of most local businesses - did the university court you specially?"
Joyce nodded toward a man I vaguely recognised as a Head of School somewhere in the Humanities. "I take on paid apprentices every summer from the law faculty and occasionally guest lecutre on civil rights law," she said. "So I get invited to all these things. Occasionally I'm actually able to make it. Besides," she added with a slight smile, "being successful doesn't stop us from being a local firm. What about you? What do the Ecological Sciences have to offer local businesses? Free bird boxes?" It took me a beat to realise that she was teasing.
"I'm sure we could whip something up if that's what you're in the mood for," I replied, chuckling slightly. "But no, it's more on the scale of sustainability practices and green energy options advisement. Just because they're small there's no reason why any business shouldn't strive to be more ecologically friendly."
At this, Joyce suddenly looked rather interested. "So you'd be interested in liasing with businesses on green initiatives?" she asked. "Guidance on best practice, innovative ways of genuinely keeping down our carbon footprint, and so on? I had a consultant in once to assess our practices, but he was rubbish - buzzwords and outward facing stuff but no real commitment."
"Ah, well. There I think we could help you." Before I knew it I was deep in discussion with Joyce Winter, going over her (surprisingly thorough) mental notes about the firm and their practices, scribbling things on napkins and discussing options.
The 'mixer' drew toward a close, and Joyce looked a little disappointed. "Do you have anywhere to be? We could continue this somewhere with better wine..."
"I know just the place."
"...So all-in-all, we're a good match. Simon does all the bar work, as it were, and occasionally writes officious letters, and otherwise generally just sits on his arse making us sound good with the 'Heath' name, the Great British legacy and all that, and I do... well, everything else. And in exchange for all the work I get to run the place the way I see fit, which suits me just fine."
We'd moved on from sustainability practices now - in honesty there'd been very little left to discuss by the time we got to [the bar] but I was very much enjoying Joyce's company and was happy to simply move onto other more 'getting to know you' topics. Joyce had removed her jacket now and beneath it was wearing a perfectly cut waistcoat over an equally well-tailored collared shirt, complete with cufflinks. Her figure was lean - long-limbed and athletic, and she carried herself with such poise and energy that although I could tell from her face that she was probably a little older than me she actually made me feel a little tired by comparison - despite the fact that I knew perfectly well that I was as fit as a woman half my age.
"Sounds like you have it all worked out," I commented, sipping my chardonnay. "I have to admit, our office is currently going through some reorganization of its own - nothing to affect our services," I hastened to add. "Just a bit of readjustment after someone returned from sabbatical and decided to hire an extra member of staff."
"Sounds like the sort of someone who needs to be pulled into line," Joyce commented with a single raised eyebrow and that charming lopsided smile. "You don't seem like the type to just let something like that go."
"Mm, yes, well. Matters are a bit complicated by the fact that he used to be the de facto co-head of department before he left. And also my husband."
An interesting-yet-unreadable expression flickered across Joyce's face, and she leaned forward slightly. "That can't be easy for you," she said.
"Oh, you think that's bad... that member of staff he hired? Used to be my old assistant. Before she decided she'd rather shag him instead." I was slightly drunk by this point, which probably explained the laughter that threatened to bubble up at any moment.
"Are you serious? My God, that's some gall..."
"It's fine, it's fine... good riddance to them both. Except they came back, so it's not really riddance at all."
"Is he at least good at his job?"
I gave her a look. "I wouldn't have had him back if he wasn't."
Joyce sat back a little, holding up her hands in mock-defense. "Hey, I'm not judging - we all do crazy things for love sometimes." I got the vague impression that I was being tested somehow but I wasn't sure how or why.
"Believe me, love had nothing to do with it," I muttered, shaking my head. "I guess I understand why everybody thinks I must be heartbroken, but really, can't they believe me when I say I'm fine?"
"So you weren't in love?"
"Oh, don't tell me you're going to start insisting I ought to be traumatized too..."
"Not at all," Joyce said, shaking her head, her tone still one of sympathy, but without that patronising note I was used to. "You found someone with whom you had a lot in common, who you found it easy to live with, could see yourself spending your life with, and so you jumped at it - plenty of people would and it can work. And you were comfortable. Until one of you fell in love for real." She tipped her head slightly to the side, her eyes boring into mine. "Sound about right?"
I was speechless for a few seconds; no one had ever managed to sum up exactly what had happened so accurately. "Pretty much," I managed eventually, taking a gulp of wine. "Well, more like exactly. Yes. That's exactly right."
Joyce nodded slowly. "And you're rewarded for your pragmatism with the slap on the face that you were only enough until the real thing came along," she finished. "It stings when someone you love does that to you, whether you were in love or not," she said then. "I've been there."
"Oh. Well. I'm sorry," I said, a bit stupidly, still resonating with the accuracy of her summation. "That's too bad."
Joyce shook her head. "You probably wouldn't have thought so at the time - I was in your husband's place."
"You... Oh. I see. Well, ah... It's not like I can really blame you. Or him. Everybody wants love, don't they?"
"Of course," Joyce said, leaning forward a little again, "but we have a responsibility to the people we care about as well. It sounds as though your ex husband is being a little thoughtless, caught up in his own happiness without taking time to consider yours."
"It's fine," I said, shrugging. "Besides, shouldn't I be in charge of my own happiness?"
"Absolutely," the other woman said, nodding, her eyes flickering briefly across my face, taking in my expression. "Of course you should." She hesitated, seeminly deciding not to go on and straightening somewhat in her chair, picking up her wine glass once more. "So what have you been doing about that? Your own happiness, I mean. How's that going?"
Briefly I considered that this was a strange turn for the conversation to be taking, but I really didn't care - it had been a while since I had been able to talk about this to someone other than Alex or Mike, and Joyce certainly had a different perspective than either of them did. "It's... fine, I suppose. I'm happy enough."
"Happy enough. But not as happy as you could be?"
"I really haven't explored my full capacity for happiness," I snorted. "Maybe this is as happy as I get."
Joyce raised her eyebrows a little. "And does that work for you? If this was as good as it gets, would that be okay?"
I didn't know quite what to say to that, so I shrugged and sipped my wine. "I'm sure I'd survive."
My companion for the evening gave me a long look at this, her eyes never leaving mine as she lifted her own wine back to her lips. "Let's talk about something else," she said then. "I'm sorry, it's my instinct to probe - I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable..."
"You must be very good at your job," I said with a wry smile.
"Not if I get caught doing my digging," Joyce countered. "You're more than welcome to ask me impertinent questions in return," she added, spreading her hands before her and shooting me a disarming smile. "I'm an open book."
We ended up chatting long into the night. I diverted the topic onto hobbies and from there we meandered through travel, politics, and for a brief time touched upon exercise regimes - I was not surprised in the slightest to hear that Joyce was a runner.
"I bet you get bored running, though," Joyce mused, tipping her head to one side, "particularly in the gym, where you're not even going anywhere. You like even your exercise to engage you mentally somehow, am I right?"
"Guilty as charged," I admitted with a chuckle. "Preferably I like exercise that doesn't feel like exercise - though I'll resort to the cross-trainer if I have to."
"See, me, I like to just pound the pavement, get out of my head completely," Joyce said. "Just push out every thought and run myself until I think I'll be sick, run until everything's gone. Don't you ever just want to empty your head of everything in it?"
"God, no. I'd spend the rest of the day trying to put everything back in again."
Joyce laughed, reaching again for the bottle between us to top up our glasses. "I'll bet."
"Besides, that sounds more like sex to me - emptying your head completely." Okay, I had definitely had too much to drink at this point. I could feel my cheeks start to burn.
"Really?" She sounded intrigued again, once more sitting forward slightly. "That's what you do during sex? Empty your mind?"
"Well, you know... You know what I mean!"
"Not really," Joyce said, shaking her head. "Well, I mean, I do in the sense that we discussed the emptying of one's mind, but for me, when I have sex, I'm right there, the whole time, completely absorbed in my partner, absorbed in the moment." She shot me a tiny smile now, leaning just a little closer. "I never find such clarity of mind as I do during a good hard fuck."
Maybe it was her choice of words that made me squirm and blush deeper, or perhaps it was the fact that what she was saying was pretty foreign to me. Sex had never been one of those things that 'cleared my head' - I had had just as many things running through it when Keith and I made love as any other part of the day. "Erm, well," I mumbled, looking down at my glass. "Whatever floats your boat."
"Hey, don't get shy with me now," Joyce said gently, almost cajoling. "I didn't mean to offend, I'm sorry. I'm just... straightforward. Well, when it matters."
"No, it's okay, really. It's fine. I suppose I'm just... a little rusty. It's been a while for me, good hard fuck or otherwise," I admitted, glancing up at her sheepishly.
"Wow, I could listen to you use that language in that accent all day," came the response. "Sorry, non-sequitur. Well, I'm surprised to hear that - I'd have thought a beautiful woman like you would have no shortage of eligible offers."
"It's not the amount of offers that's the problem, it's the people making them. I just feel like... I'm too old to start sleeping with random arseholes just to scratch an itch, you know?"
"So, what's it to be, The One or nothing else? Accept no substitutes? That could get lonely..."
"It doesn't have to be The One - just someone I'm attracted to who doesn't have me gritting my teeth in annoyance by dessert." I sighed. "Is that too much to ask?"
"Not at all. Sounds like you've had some pretty bad luck."
"Well, until tonight, at least," I joked, smirking.
Joyce's only response was that smile, and a slightly quirked eyebrow. My laugh turned into a nervous chuckle, and I suddenly found myself playing with the coaster in an effort to occupy my hands. "I just mean... tonight has been really lovely. I'm glad you had too many hors d'oeuvres."
"Mm, I actually loaded my plate up extra just so I could come over and use that line," Joyce said matter-of-factly and now, looking at her, I couldn't for the life of me figure out whether or not she was kidding.
"Uh. Right. Well, it's late, and if I don't show up tomorrow the department's likely to fall to pieces, so I should get going..."
"Oh, well, fair enough," Joyce said, though she didn't move, just taking another sip of her wine. "I've had a really nice evening, Kathryn. I'm sorry it has to end so soon."
"You have my card," I offered, feeling slightly bad for leaving so suddenly, but unable to stay any longer for some strange reason. "Give me a call and we can do lunch, maybe."
"Sure, I'll definitely do that," Joyce replied smoothly. "Which way is 'home'? Just, if we're in a similar direction we could share a taxi."
As it turned out, we were both in the same direction - I lived closer than Joyce, but it seemed reasonable enough to share a ride home. Sliding into the backseat of the black cab was slightly nervewracking, and not just because of the amount of white wine I had had over the course of the evening.
Joyce herself seemed entirely relaxed, settling into the seat next to me, back in her suit jacket now and looking as poised and confident as ever. Her expression turned a little curious as she looked at me now, however, my usual ability to hide my emotions when necessary failing a little in the face of wine and this new, strangely disarming company. "Something on your mind?" she asked, turning to face me in her seat, tipping her head to one side a little.
"No," I said, shaking my head firmly. "I mean, yes, there's always things on my mind, but there's nothing specific at the moment."
"So you're not 'gritting your teeth in annoyance', then, at least?" she murmured, and even in the dim light of the back of the cab I could tell she was smiling a little again.
"Of course not. I enjoyed this evening, I told you. It's been... really nice."
"Then why do I get the feeling I've done something to make you uncomfortable?"
"...I don't know what you're talking about," I murmured, shaking my head.
There was a long pause - probably the longest silence there had been between us since the moment we met. "D'you know, I believe that," Joyce said, and she shifted a little in her seat, sliding slightly closer to me. I felt her hand touch lightly to my leg as she placed it on the seat between us to lean on it, and as surprised as I was I couldn't seem to move away as she shifted closer and closer. In shock my gaze dropped to her lips, which were slightly parted and very pink, and before I knew it they were on mine. My surprise doubled as I found myself leaning into the kiss, though I don't think I had taken a breath or blinked in quite some time.
It wasn't overly passionate, or particularly long - though those few seconds did seem to stretch out and I did feel the slightest touch of her tongue to mine even as I didn't realise I'd opened my mouth against hers. Nonetheless I felt as though I was gasping for breath as she pulled back - not far, just far enough to meet my eyes, her fingers touching lightly to my cheek. "Sorry," she murmured, though she didn't sound sorry at all. "I don't do anything by halves. Not even causing discomfort and confusion."
"No, that's..." I was going to say okay, only I realized it wasn't, mainly because my head was spinning now and my heart pounding and I had the very distinct feeling that whatever had just happened I shouldn't have liked it as much as I did. "I have to get out. I need to... stop the taxi!"
The taxi did draw to a stop, although Joyce had reached to place a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, wait a second - I mean, go, by all means, if you need to, but hang on just a second..."
I hesitated, looking up from my frantic rummaging in my bag for change to meet her eyes. I knew I must look a mess but couldn't really help it - I wasn't very good at being taken by surprise.
"Okay, listen to me. You are a stunning, intelligent, witty, exciting woman, and I would like nothing more than to take you home with me right now," Joyce said, her voice low and her tone more serious than it had been all night, "...but I can see that that's not going to happen and even I know when I'm beat. And that's okay - and if this whole thing was just an unpleasant shock then I apologise profusely for misreading you, and for pushing the matter. But Kathryn, I don't think that everything I got from you there was shock. And even if you never see me again, I think you should think about that. Remember..." - and now she'd lifted her hand to my face again, cupping my jaw just briefly, and somehow I wasn't pulling away - "it's never too late to meet the girl of your dreams."
"Jesus - and then what happened?"
"And then I stumbled home, poured myself into bed, and somehow managed to miss my alarm the next morning anyway." I sat back, feeling both relief and apprehension at having gotten everything off my chest. Mike had certainly looked interested, but he hadn't really given me any opinion yet... and I was a bit worried what it might be when it came.
"Well." He sat back, taking a careful sip of his pint - which was still nearly full as he'd been too enthralled even to drink up until now. "Sounds like one hell of an evening."
"Yes, it certainly was. Completely unexpected."
"Really?" Mike raised his eyebrows a little, looking mildly surprised. "I'd have though, a smart, individualistic woman like you'd have tried just about everything at some point or another. I mean," he went on quickly, "not in a seedy way, just..."
"I was married for twenty years, remember? Didn't leave a lot of time for 'experimenting'," I said, rolling my eyes. I didn't know if I was thrilled with his assumption, but at least he wasn't drooling on the table or condemning me outright.
"Okay, okay..." he held up his hands defensively and I flashed back to Joyce doing the same thing the other evening. Had I always been this defensive? "At least you're free to do all the experimenting you like now," he offered as if by way of consolation. "If you wanted to."
"Yes, but I..." Didn't want to? Was that really true? I was still off-kilter about the whole thing, but hadn't I spent a lot more time than was strictly necessary remembering that kiss over the last few days. "It's a bit odd, isn't it?"
"I don't think anyone being attracted to you is odd," Mike said matter-of-factly.
"No, I just mean - thank you - I just mean the sudden 'middle age lesbian crisis thing'. Just because there was a tiny something there with Joyce doesn't mean I'm... well, wouldn't I have noticed by now?"
"You're probably asking the wrong person," Mike admitted, "but just because there's never been anything before does that mean there wouldn't be now? I couldn't stand blue cheese until after my fortieth birthday. These days I can't get enough of the stuff." He shrugged. "Besides, is there a rule that if you go one way there's no going back? I thought women were entitled to keep their options open these days..."
"I don't know what the rules are, that's the problem. I was clueless enough about internet dating, and this is a whole other can of worms..."
"I think you might want to worry less about the rules and more about finding out what you actually want," Mike suggested, reaching for his pint again.
I scowled at him not because he was wrong, but because he was probably right. The problem was that I had no idea how to go about this - it wasn't as if I could just grab a woman and say "I need to figure out if I actually fancy women, let's shag". It would be wrong on a lot of levels, and as much as I got the feeling that Joyce was really quite interested in me (as far as I could remember through my nervousness) I didn't think she'd be up for being an 'experiment'. "Yes, well," I grumbled, keen to change the subject. "Speaking of which, have you figured out what you're doing about your car? I swear you'll thank me if you go hybrid..."
To my relief, Mike had let me change the subject and we'd gone on to have a spirited debate about transport and the fuel crisis, and for a while I forgot all about the incident that had plagued my mind in the few days since it occurred. It wasn't until I was leaving the pub - still quite early as we'd grabbed dinner right after work - that I received a text from Alex which for some reason brought everything roaring back.
I fussed with my phone as I headed for home, typing and erasing several replies until I had one I was happy with.
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