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OVER THE SEA AND FAR AWAY
Linda and Rowena have had a passionate one night stand but can this ever go further given the fact that Rowena is still very much a Christian? Can she have a foot in both camps or will she have to give something up? She’s not the only one facing choices though, Linda is facing up to her own inner demons but a chance meeting with another woman might just change the dynamic. I’m not sure if there are more stories with these two characters but I’m not closing the door yet. There will be a series about Petra though.
Author’s note: I would like to thank all of my readers for their support in 2018, your comments have helped make me a better writer and I wish you all the best for 2019. I won’t be around for the next two weeks as I’m off to Denmark and Sweden but I will be back soon.
Cheers, Shaima.
*****
Bridget and I are polar opposites and when we were younger we fought like wildcats, much of it had to do with the two year difference. I was constantly wanting to be involved with her friends and she was trying to be cool in front of her friends. It was only when she moved to New Zealand that we actually drew closer together, which is an odd thing to say but there you have it. Bridget initially went there for summer work at a hotel and ended up with the head barman who was doing a course in management in his spare time. Daniel and Bridget perfectly complement each other in that way, they’re both highly organised and competent managerial types. They run a bed and breakfast hotel outside of the town centre but Daniel is part owner of a bakery and she runs her own accountancy business from home.
Only Bridget could manage to do that but she’s very much a boots and all woman, she’s either right into it or not interested at all, she has two speeds, pedal to the metal or a standstill. In that way she’s probably more like Rowena because she’s constantly having to keep up appearances, she has a very active lifestyle and is a keen hiker and cyclist. She’s also very much into DIY and if something breaks down she’s more likely to try and fix it before replacing it. I remember one time an electric kettle broke down and she actually hooked up an old coat hanger to use as a switch, it was only when I turned up that she gave in to her husband’s nagging and bought a new kettle.
Another thing that drew us together was our mutual distrust of mum. I mean don’t get me wrong, she is our mother but mum lives interstate and is very involved with her new husband, she’s onto man number four and that’s just the ones she’s married. We’re from the first marriage and whilst she is maternal it kind of self destructs whenever she decides to come visit because once she’s in your house she has to organise not just your house but your life. Thus the fact she’d decided not to come to her oldest daughter’s birthday party was a relief.
“Imagine if she came over, I had a minor heart attack when she said she was mulling it over but then she came back a few days later and said she couldn’t make it.”
“Probably too busy with Max.”
When it comes to homosexuality Bridget is quite supportive, she once admitted she was actually relieved when I came out because it meant there was no chance I would get involved with any of her boyfriends and she was quite sexually active even before she moved to New Zealand. Because she’s older than me I tend to bounce ideas off her but even so I was still a little reluctant to broach the curious case of my ‘Christian’ girlfriend but she must have read it in my eyes because as we drove away from the airport she asked who I was with now.
“I’m not with anyone, kind of.”
“Uh huh,” her eyes shifted, “so, who is she? You haven’t looked like that since Wendy.”
I winced at the mention of my ex girlfriend and managed to mumble something about it being a bit complicated.
“Why? Is she with someone?”
“Um no, she’s um, she’s Christian.”
“Whoa,” her eyes widened, “you never did things by halves. So is she coming out or staying in her closet?”
“The second I think, which is why it’s complicated,” I fiddled with my phone, “we’ve agreed to take a step back for a week and see how things develop.”
Bridget didn’t say anything for a minute or so.
“Well, I just hope you’re not getting your hopes up, that’s all. I mean I don’t know any bible bashers but from what I’ve heard about them over the years they tend to be a little homophobic. You might have unlocked something she wanted to keep locked up, so tread carefully.”
As if she needed to tell me that! Nevertheless, I had a little over a week because I’d flown out on the Sunday afternoon and wouldn’t be flying back until Monday night, and because of the way my employee contract worked I’d have the Tuesday off as well. So my initial plan was to let things go until Monday and try to meet up with Rowena on Monday night or even Tuesday but I’d forgotten about my social media feed. I’m a keen Instagrammer, I’m forever posting stuff even when denizli escort I think it’s just trivial shit. Admittedly it has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of my pictures are on the phone so it’s easy to upload stuff when I’m just sitting around.
Thus, being in Queenstown just made it all the more urgent. As I mentioned earlier, both Bridget and her husband lead busy lives and so I spent a lot of time walking around looking for things to photograph and that’s pretty easy to do there because of the spectacular views. The most talked about feature is the mountain range called the Remarkables, easy to remember and aptly named because they are a remarkable sight and it makes a nice change from suburban Wantirna, but on this visit I added something extra thanks to Rowena’s fashion influence. I took pictures of clothes, some of which I bought and others were just shots of clothes I like.
I gained a few new followers and a lot of likes but one of the people who responded with her own Instagram fashion pictures was Rowena. Most of the pictures she took were of her own clothes but there were some I knew were taken at nearby Eastland. I paid more attention to her likes and posts than to others simply because of our one night stand before I flew to New Zealand. She hadn’t seen me off at the airport because she had to go home but when I sent her a text telling her I’d landed she did reply with a thumbs up icon.
However we hadn’t spoken about what happened because neither of us knew exactly what to say, she’d crossed a line and I’d willingly gone with her. As to whether she could stay on the other side and still maintain her Christian faith was very much up in the air and I guess that’s what was on my mind the most. It might sound strange that as an out there lesbian I’d be concerned about her faith but over the last few weeks I’d come to both admire and fear that part of her because she was quite strong about it all. This wasn’t some kind of mantra that she quoted over and over to keep the devils at bay, she actually thought about her faith and could disagree with people using bible verses to justify homophobia, anti-feminism or a slavish adherence to Israel. To put it bluntly, she was the kind of Christian who made other Christians seem fake. If you were hungry she’d feed you, if you were thirsty she’d give you something to drink, and if you were cold she’d give you one of her many coats.
Thus, it goes without saying that the last thing I wanted to do was engineer some kind of personal crisis that might have unintended consequences. What I didn’t realise is that everything we do is like ripples in a pond, we may not always see the final effects of our actions but in this case I was a witness and an integral part of another love story.
It began innocently enough when Bridget introduced me to the woman who’d invested a sum of money in their bed and breakfast hotel. Alicia is part Maori on her mother’s side, she has the darker pigmentation but distinctly Caucasian features. It’s only when you see pictures of her maternal grandmother that you can see the Maori ethnicity.
Alicia lives in Wellington and back then she was quite happily single, having ended her fifteen year marriage some five years ago. Emerging from the darkness of an unhappy marriage she reinvented herself when she threw herself into a university course and did a course in app development. This led her to develop an app specifically for the tourist industry that had taken off in a big way, which led her to diversify some of her profits into local businesses and Bridget’s bed and breakfast was the perfect opportunity for her and Bridget.
I had little knowledge of that however when I snapped a selfie with Alicia that it would echo across the ditch to Melbourne and in particular, Petra. The first I knew of it was when Petra became one of my newest subscribers and her comment caused me to raise an eyebrow.
Petra: Tell Alicia I said hello.
As it happened, Alicia was sitting on the other side of the table and when I showed her the comment she too raised an eyebrow.
“My God, it’s been years.”
“You know Petra?”
“You could say that,” she murmured, “we did a course in university when I was in Melbourne.”
“What was the course?”
“Theology,” she propped on her palm, “believe it not, I’ve got a doctorate in divinity, not that it could save my marriage and to be honest the church and I parted company long before I left my husband.”
“He wasn’t abusive, was he?”
“Rob was never violent, thank God, but he had real problems with intimacy and relating to women in general. I blame his mother for raising an only child in a one parent family, when he married me he tended to hold me up against the standard of his mother and I could never measure up.”
She pulled a wry grin.
“Eventually I told him to go back to his mother and she was more than happy to take him under her wing again.”
“What about kids?”
“Two adana escort kids, and that’s where I first started seeing problems. She sent my first son, Eamon, a bible when he was a year old. Most grandparents give their first grandchild a stuffed toy but Christine wanted to give him a bloody bible, and when I said that it was a nice present considering he hadn’t learned to read yet she thought me ungrateful.”
“So, what about your faith now? Are you into it or not?”
“I believe less now than I did back then. What put me off Christianity were the inconsistencies, I mean if you’re going to create a divine manual at least make sure the different parts don’t end up contradicting each other. Petra was different,” she looked at my phone.
“She tried hard to rationalise or explain the wrinkles, it was what drew us together in the first place, we both saw the silliness of the creation narrative and the stories about Jesus walking on water or turning water into wine. Now that’s a trick I’d love to see,” she smirked, “there’s plenty of times I’ve run out of wine and being able to turn water into wine would have saved the day.”
Her phone beeped and she tapped the screen to open her Instagram feed.
“Well I’ll be,” she murmured, “she hasn’t aged a day, well almost,” she tapped the screen.
“You want to hear a secret?”
“Sure.”
“If she’d been prepared to go beyond one night I would never have married Rob,” she glanced up for a split second, “that’s a secret by the way. I mean I don’t care who knows but it could affect her job if people found out.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I promised, “I like Petra, she seems to accept me the way I am.”
“Yeah, that’s Petra for you,” she grinned, “she knew I was struggling with my sexuality at the time but that didn’t stop her from becoming my best friend.”
She studied me for a few moments.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I replied, “I’m kind of in a similar position with Rowena.”
“You want to talk about it?”
I hesitated before opening my mouth but then I let it all out. It didn’t feel like a betrayal, she’d let me in on her secret and to be honest I was needing a sounding board. To her credit she didn’t even interrupt me, and her advice afterwards was timely and sound.
“If you want this to amount to more than a one night stand then you need to be prepared to evolve and change. My biggest mistake with Petra was thinking that our feelings for each other would be enough but they couldn’t answer the bigger questions like where did we come from and what happens to us when we die. I honestly didn’t realise that Petra was on her own journey, I was in love and it hurt me when she seemed to put it into a neat little compartment and get on with her search for meaning,” she paused for a moment.
“Give her room to breathe, I know it’s a trite little saying but it’s true that if you love something then set it free and if it comes back it’s yours. I held onto it for grim death and she felt constricted by it and so we parted,” she tapped her screen again.
“It’s weird that we’re back in contact though, I was just thinking about her the other week. I hadn’t thought about her for years and then this song that we both liked came on the radio and it was like a stone in my shoe.”
I felt a little saddened afterwards, I too had put too much into relationships only to find that the other person felt claustrophobic and the funny thing was I couldn’t even say that I was obsessed with the other person. My problem was that I tried too hard to be the perfect partner, it’s a part of the human condition and while we see what we’re doing at the time it’s like your actions are stuck in an eternal loop and you’re just an observer. If something was going to change then it had to start with me, I came to that revelation the following night as I sat in a pub nursing a beer.
The first change I made was the decision to stop chasing her, if anyone was going to chase anyone it was going to be the other way around. To that effect I didn’t reply straight away to her comment when I posted a selfie in the pub but when I did reply it was with a rather casual, ‘right back at ya.’ I then followed that up with a picture of the street outside. It was just a random shot but I think she was looking more at a group of women sitting outside at a table because she asked if they were friends of mine, probably because they were looking in my direction when I took the picture. I just replied that I didn’t know who they were but the dark haired one looked hot.
Rowena: Hotter than me?
Linda: Don’t push it, you’re still hot.
Rowena: Good, because I do miss you.
I hesitated before replying.
Linda: I miss you too, how’s work?
Rowena: It’s still there, Bazza is putting on the hard word again? Does he not take a hint?
Linda: The trick to talking to Bazza is to put your hand on one ear while you speak into the other, otherwise the words shoot out the other malatya escort side, hashtag echo!
Rowena: LOL! Must remember that one.
My phone rang a few moments later, it was Bridget and she was pissed off.
“The band I hired for my birthday had to pull out.”
“Why?”
“Their singer has laryngitis.”
“Fuck, that’s no good. What are you going to do?”
“Find myself a DJ. It’s too late tonight but tomorrow morning I’m going to have to get cracking or it’s going to be a boring party.”
“Well if you can’t find one I can do it, I’ve been doing a bit of sound work for Rowena’s band.”
“Well, you’re a dark horse, she doesn’t feel like coming over to sing does she?”
“I can always ask.”
“I’m kidding,” she replied, “what time will you be back?”
“A couple of hours, I’m on my second beer but I’ll grab something in town.”
“Don’t waste your money, I’ll keep something aside for you, love you.”
When I came back to my Instagram feed there was another message from Rowena.
Rowena: Well, I’ll leave you to it then, catch you tomorrow.
I paused for a moment before sending the next message.
Linda: Sorry, was on the phone to my sister, the band had to cancel, their singer has laryngitis so I may have to DJ.
Rowena: So she needs a singer?
Linda: Yeah, I kind of suggested you but I think she’s worried about the cost.
Rowena: If she pays half the plane fare I’ll come over for the weekend and sing for free.
I blinked as I read the message again.
Linda: Hang fire while I call her.
Bridget hesitated before replying.
“Half a plane fare? Is she serious?”
“If Rowena says she’ll do it then yeah, she’s fucking serious.”
“What’s her number?”
I gave her the number and after she’d hung up I told Rowena to expect a phone call.
Rowena: No worries.
That half an hour was the longest half hour I’ve had in a long time. To summarise, Bridget agreed to pay the whole air fare and day’s wages for the Friday if she’d agree to sing with the band she’d had booked originally. The whole thing was organised via an impromptu conference call and in the true Anzac spirit the Kiwis came through brilliantly after seeing a couple of her You Tube videos.
Rowena: Well that’s brightened my day, and I’ll get to see you as well.
I think I floated home that night and it had nothing to do with the beers I’d had!
Nevertheless, it very nearly didn’t come off when airport staff at Auckland voted to go on strike on the Friday she was due to fly out, a few hours later we heard that airport staff at Christchurch were also joining their colleagues in solidarity. It meant that Wellington and Queenstown airports would have to shoulder the burden as flights were rerouted to those airports. I actually prayed for real that day when I asked God to step in because there was a good possibility that she’d have problems with a connection to Queenstown. Bridget had planned on booking a direct flight to Queenstown but due to the fact she was talking to Rowena and one of the guys from the band at the same time the flight was booked before she realised her mistake. Changing the booking would have cost too much and so she just left it at that.
As it turned out God didn’t have to step in when an eleventh hour deal was struck just as the evening news was on. The union accepted the deal on paper but had to take the deal back to their members, so we had to wait until the following morning when it was finally confirmed that the deal had been approved.
Friday morning arrived and I hadn’t felt this nervous in years, I think the last time was when I dated a model back when I was nineteen. I spent a good hour getting ready, changed clothes three times until finally Bridget took charge and loaned me one of her white shirts to go with a pair of jeans. This was despite the fact that I’d already tried on a white shirt but her one was fancier, it was made of chiffon with a silk backing and puffy sleeves.
“If she doesn’t notice you in that then she’s not worth worrying about.”
“Um, it’s not quite like that with lesbians,” I muttered, “we do like nice clothes but it’s more to do with the way we are with each other.”
“I never saw the attraction myself,” she smirked, “I like men because they’re easy to manipulate, but a woman would see right through me.”
“Well there is that as well,” I turned to look at myself, “you don’t think the skirt is too much?”
“Not at all,” she glanced at the leather skirt that was fastened with a single zipper down the front, “it’s the first time I’ve seen you in a skirt since high school.”
“And it might be the last,” I sighed.
“Will you try and smile,” she replied, “women like it when you smile.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I grimaced.
Despite the work I’d put into my outfit Rowena still outshone me when she entered the arrivals hall at Queenstown. She was also wearing a white blouse but hers was made of sateen and was tucked into skin-tight black jeans, a matching leather jacket complemented the outfit and snakeskin boots completed it. I swear at least a half dozen men coming out with her were checking her out.
“My God, look at you,” she stopped in front of us, “love the skirt.”
