Delight Guaranteed

“So you found my letter...and then what? How did you find me?”

“It was the conversation you wrote about, with your grandmother, the sex therapist? Only one in town.”

“Well, then…?” Maggie blushed.

“I made an appointment.”

“Are you serious? You went to see my grandmother? What did you say?”

“I told her I was contemplating being with a woman.”

“No!”

“Yeah, then she went on and on about her granddaughter…”

“No!!”

“Nah, but she did have a photo of you framed on the wall. I asked who you were and she said, Maggie, her granddaughter. Didn’t take much after that.”

“Where did you find the book?”

“Blackbird point, wedged in some rocks by the water. Your letter was...”

“Tucked inside the front cover...I’m so embarrassed…”

“That you were reading To all the Boys I Loved Before? Or that the letter was damp?”

“I haven’t actually read the book. I found it on my way to the rocks in one of those little free libraries. When I read the title, I suddenly felt this urge to write a letter of my own. I can’t believe you read...that I am right now sitting in front of a complete stranger who knows more about my tragic love life than…”

“Your sexy grandmother?”

“Shut up!”

“I loved your letter.”

Maggie quickly cupped a hand over her mouth, lines spilling up and over it, past her eyes like wings of a bird about to take flight

“Well, what now, why did you want to meet me?”

“I’m considering being with a woman. I thought you might be able to relate...perhaps you’d have some advice. Your grandmother’s more the questioning type.”

Maggie reached for the Merlot and was intercepted, their fingers barely brushing around a bottleneck of held breath.

“May I?” Tess poured them both a glass as Maggie’s every sense anticipated their next moment of contact. She made out at least five distinct birdsong, a breeze shifting direction, twigs cracking beneath her knees.

“Thanks.” Maggie reached for the glass, the tips of her fingers still tingling.

“What inspired you to write the letter? I mean, other than the book…”

“I wanted to be done, looking for ‘the One’...I thought it would help.”

“Have you ever wondered what romance is like without it?”

“The one?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I have.”

“Any ideas?”

“This wine.”

“How so?”

“I get to sip this glass of wine, here with you, a stranger, just this once. If I try to hold onto it, the next moment won’t have a chance.”

“I’d always be a stranger.”

“What inspired you to consider being with a woman?”

“You.” Tess cracked a half smile as Maggie nearly spit her first sip of wine all over their floral print on white picnic blanket.

“And a high school crush I never made a move on.”

“Why not?”

“She was dating my heart-axe murderer of an ex-boyfriend.”

“Mmm”

“I did finally kiss a girl though, my college crush. That was the end of my contemplations, until your letter.”

“What do you mean ‘the end?’ Why?”

“I’d been fantasizing about being with her for weeks. Then the minute we got into bed everything in me froze. The kiss felt all wrong. I decided I must only be mind bi, you know, like only in my imagination without my body’s cooperation. I’ve been attracted to women since, but disregarded it as some kind of Scorpio tendency to sexualize everything?”

“So why now, why my letter?”

“I’m embarrassed to say.”

“Come on! You owe me.”

“The whole truth?”

“Yeah, I mean you got the moment I fell on my face, tripping over my Valentine dumping me at the 8th grade dance...etc etc.”

“Ok, fine. I read your letter and everything in me lit up. Yada yada...colors were brighter, there were these clouds shaped like two cats all curled up with one another on top of a giant ice cream cone.”

“Ha Ha.”

“Then like a bolt of lightning,” Tess laughed “I realized there’d been a handful of men in my life who inspired the exact same freeze response as my first girl kiss. I thought, ‘holy shit, what if my body really does like women? What if something else was off that night?’

Before I found your letter, I was sitting on the rocks watching the ducks, in pairs, wondering where my ‘one’ was, if there was a one, feeling sorry for myself really.”

“So you’re still looking, hoping…”

“For ‘the one’?”

“Yeah.”

“I was, it took me a while to find you.” Tess winked. “Your letter inspired me to write my own.”

She pulled out a folded piece of paper from her pocket.

“Here it is, my list, of all the ones lost. It took me a week to write and by the time I was done, I realized I’d lost more of myself than anyone else. Whenever I’d thought I found my future husband, within a few months, often less, the chains would inevitably come out. There was always something I felt I had to hide or shut up for fear of losing them.

By the time I finished my letter I’d decided even if there was a one, I didn’t want it anymore.”

“May I?”

“Another glass?”

“Kiss you?”

Tess reached a hand to Maggie’s left cheek and answered with a moment of Merlot stained lips. Maggie had never felt less strange. Then her chest flinched with fear, the image of chains resonating more deeply than she cared to admit.

A flock of blackbirds rushed to the blazing white branches of the cottonwood trees their lips met under, sending a burst of seeds dancing down around them.

Maggie sat back, gazing up in bright eyed wonder “Thank you.”

“For…” Tess caught a handful of fluff and made a ring around the top of Maggie’s head.

“For beginning my next letter, one full of all the moments like this I’ve had, will have... Memories of times I find myself with another, completely unbound. Like building a quilt, I’ll write a letter I can wrap myself in whenever I’m afraid of falling again.”

“Falling in love?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve had enough trips for one lifetime.”

“Ever wonder what rising in love might be like?”

Just then the blackbirds took flight, painting every inch of ground around them cottonwood white.

Tess and Maggie stretched their summer snow angel bodies over the soft earth.

Maggie reached a few fingers towards Tess who took hold, pulling herself slowly closer until her head rested on the supple cushion of Tess’ chest.

“How does this feel?” Maggie whispered.

Tess reached a hand around Maggie’s lower back, moving it up along the spine, pausing before pinching her between the shoulder blades. “Just feeling for your wings...You know, that bottle of Merlot came with Bright Cellar’s guarantee to delight. Shall we keep it?”

“Did it come with ice cream too?”

“Sure, except I left it in my freezer…no guarantees I haven’t already dipped a licked spoon in though.”

“Then yes, let’s keep it for at least as long as it takes for the ice cream to melt in our mouths.”

“And then?”

“We’ll share the rest with a friend.”

Tess pulled at Maggie’s chin, and the next thing they knew they were soaring...