Reboot Pt. 02

Jenna pulled into Sumita's garage and walked over to the front door. She went in without knocking, called out "hey", and made her way to the kitchen. That's where she usually found Sumita when she came over. Sumita was waiting for her, and Jenna could immediately sense something was wrong. Jenna couldn't quite look her in the eye.

"You had no right," Sumita said to her. Her voice was soft and low, but there was no mistaking the fury behind it.

Jenna felt sick, like she'd been punched in the gut. Even worse, she didn't know why.

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," Sumita said.

"I honestly don't," Jenna replied. She could feel the panic rising in her chest.

"Gita is MY daughter, MY responsibility," Sumita said, and the words hit Jenna's chest like hammer blows. "You should have told me."

"Did Gita say something about Halloween?" Jenna asked.

"No," Sumita replied, fuming. "I had to hear it third hand, from Vivek. He noticed a photo last week of his boys at that stupid party on Bill's Facebook or Instagram or whatever feed. When he interrogated Bill, the boy gave up everything, including the tall, scary, mysterious woman Gita called after that kid OD'ed, the one who he recognized later from Diwali."

"Sumi, I'm sorry," Jenna said, and finally looked into her lover's face. "I promised Gita I wouldn't say anything."

"That's not your decision," Sumita said. "Gita was all I had left after my husband died, and it's my job to keep her safe. Not yours, or anyone else's. And don't tell me she's an adult just because she's eighteen years old. She wasn't acting like a fucking adult when she went to that party."

"Sumi," Jenna said, "Gita was trying to do the right thing. She was trying to help a kid who was in trouble, under tough circumstances. She really is a smart, responsible girl. You raised her right."

"Nobody gets to talk to me about how I raise my daughter," Sumita said, her voice raised almost to a shout. "Nobody, not even you. I think maybe you should go."

"So, what?" Jenna snapped. "I'm good enough to show off to everybody as your girlfriend, good enough to fuck, but I'm not good enough to help your daughter out of a tough spot? As soon as things get serious, you want me out. Figures."

Jenna spun around and headed for the front door.

"Jenna, wait," Sumita said, but it was too late.

Jenna flew through the door and slammed it hard behind her. She was in her little green Toyota, squealing the tires as she pulled out of the driveway, and then she was speeding down Lake Sammamish Parkway toward the freeway, and then home.

She burst through the door from the garage into the house and startled Rose, who was watching TV on the couch. Brendan was in his room with homework.

"Jesus, Jenna," Rose said when she saw her sister's tear-streaked cheeks and puffy eyes. "What happened to you?"

"I got into a fight with Su..." she said, not quite able to say Sumita's name out loud. That made her feel even worse.

"Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry," Rose said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No!" Jenna cried, and charged up the stairs to her bedroom. She curled up into a ball on her bed, still dressed, and cried some more. It was Tess, all over again.

A beautiful, smart, rich woman decides to go slumming, to see what it's like to date a real, honest-to-goodness dyke. Has fun scandalizing her friends; feels like she's subverting the social order. Only she's just playing at it, and sooner or later she'll realize that there's more to it than just playing, and she'll dump her poor butch girlfriend and go back to her beautiful, smart, rich life. And her girlfriend will have to go back to her non-beautiful, non-smart, non-rich life with her heart in pieces.

Sometime during the night, Jenna finally got to sleep. It seemed like it was only about five minutes later when her alarm went off.

~~~

The next day seemed to last forever, which was fine with Jenna. As long as she had work to do, she could avoid thinking about Sumita. The boxed lunch schedule was fairly light - day before a holiday weekend - but after her delivery run, she had to get back to the kitchen to help Rose cook Thanksgiving dinner. Specifically, eight different Thanksgiving dinners for eight different families, all delivered on Thursday morning before Jenna, Rose, and Brendan drove out to Poulsbo to spend the holiday with their parents. They didn't finish until nearly ten at night. It was exhausting, but it was also more profit than they had made for the entire rest of the month.

When they finally packed up to go home, Jenna checked her phone. Seventeen missed calls, three voice mails, and a dozen texts and emails, mostly from Sumita. She ignored them all - she had absolutely no need to hear how badly her life had been fucked.

Thanksgiving morning was just as early as a normal weekday - there were a few more turkeys to cook, and rolls and other things that couldn't be done the night before. Jenna and Rose made the delivery run together, making eight families very happy and getting paid quite well for it. Around ten, they went back home to clean up and change and then they left again, this time with Brendan, a couple of vegetable casseroles, and a pumpkin pie. They got to the downtown ferry terminal about fifteen minutes before the Bainbridge Island ferry left. Rose turned off the car, and they all climbed out to watch the ferry coming in and unloading.

"So, um..." Jenna said to Rose and Brendan, "Could you guys not say anything to Mom and Dad about Sumita, or Diwali, or anything?"

Brendan looked confused. Rose looked her son in the eye, making sure he was paying attention. "That's fine, Jen," she said. "We won't talk about anything to do with Sumita. Isn't that right, Brendan?"

"Sure, I guess," Brendan replied. "Whatever. I'll be good."

Rose held his gaze a moment longer, and then tousled his hair. He gave her an annoyed look, like he was getting too old for that sort of thing. They walked back to the car and boarded the ferry.

Jenna let Brendan's constant commentary distract her through the half-hour ferry ride, and she just zoned out for the drive to Poulsbo and then up to the house, watching the trees go by and thinking about nothing at all. Rose had to nudge her to get out of the car when they arrived.

Jenna and Rose's parents' house was built in the thirties - about the same age as Rose's house in Seattle - but it could just as easily have been a hundred years older. For years, it had been a farmhouse, and they still kept a garden, an orchard, and a chicken coop on their two and a half acres.

A long covered porch stretched the whole length of the front of the house, complete with a pair of hand-carved rocking chairs. Inside, the house was all wood. The floors were wooden planking, polished smooth by boots and bare feet, the walls were exposed wood, stained rather than painted, and the furniture was solid and functional wood block. The few flashes of modernity - the computer monitor on top of the roll-top desk; the newish fridge across from the old gas range; the one small TV in the den - only served to highlight the agelessness of the rest of the house. It looked much as it did when Jenna was born.

Jenna's mother Ingrid, a blonde, big-boned, red-cheeked woman, was in the kitchen, fussing over the gravy. Jenna deposited the vegetable casseroles next to the oven, and Rose set the pie down on the counter.

"These just need five minutes in the oven," Jenna said to her mother. "You really should have let us bring more, Mom. Thanksgiving is a lot of work."

"Nonsense," Ingrid replied. "If I'm doing the turkey, then I have to do the gravy and the stuffing, and the potatoes aren't that much effort. You girls brought the rest."

"'The rest' isn't very much," Rose said, shaking her head at her mother. "You just can't stop yourself, can you?"

Ingrid did not respond. Everyone in the kitchen heard the back door slam shut, the floorboards creak, and a pile of wood settle on the floor next to the hearth. Jenna's father Richard, a tall, wiry man with chestnut hair just a shade darker than Jenna's, appeared in the kitchen a moment later. After wiping his palms on his blue jeans, he held his right hand out for Brendan and Jenna, and then he bent down to give Rose a hug.

"Good to see you girls," he said brusquely. Turning to Brendan, he added, "You too, grandson." That was about as emotional as he ever got.

Jenna stepped into her traditional job of stirring the gravy while everyone else flowed around her, assembling all the pieces into the traditional Ibsen family Thanksgiving dinner. When Jenna finally poured the gravy into the gravy boat, they were ready to eat.

The meal was exactly what it was supposed to be, what it had been for her whole life. The turkey was moist and tender, the potatoes creamy, the gravy smooth, and the stuffing balls appropriately crunchy. Even the one store-bought item, the canned cranberry jelly, tasted exactly right. Or at least Jenna thought so; she didn't eat much, and she didn't really taste what she did eat. Her stomach was tied in a knot, and putting food into it was not something she really wanted to do.

The conversation mostly centered on Brendan, from school to after-school sports to that girl-friend named Amy who was definitely not a girlfriend. Brendan was the one topic that was safe and interesting to all the adults at the table, though Brendan himself didn't really enjoy being the center of attention.

Jenna spaced out again during dinner, and she had to be reminded to go into the kitchen with her mother to help serve the pie. Jenna, Rose, and Brendan did the dishes after dinner, and they left soon after. They didn't want to miss the six thirty ferry.

"Are you okay, Jenna girl?" Jenna's mother asked as they said their goodbyes.

"Yeah," Jenna replied. "Just a little distracted."

Rose snorted, but she didn't say anything.

"Alright, dear," Ingrid said to Jenna. "If you don't want to tell your old mother, that's fine. Just take care of yourself, okay?"

"Okay, Mom," Jenna replied, forcing herself to smile.

That night, Jenna went downstairs to paint. She had finished two of the four figures in the forest piece, the ones on either end. They were sharp, vicious things, spirit guards who met invaders with violence. The two central figures had proved more challenging. One was meant to be dark and mysterious, a hidden power at the heart of the forest, and the other was dangerous but alluring, even sensuous, like the woman know you shouldn't fall for but do anyway.

It was all supposed to be so simple, initially. The forest was angry, at the logging and the pollution and the unmanageable fires, and the figures in the painting were simply out for revenge. After talking about it with Sumita, though, Jenna saw it more clearly. There was more to it, and she couldn't finish painting it until she got to the bottom of what it was.

That train of thought just reminded Jenna of Sumita and their big fight, and she couldn't paint at all. She went upstairs to bed and tried to sleep. She did, eventually, but it didn't feel any better than being awake.

~~~

"Jenna, wake up," she heard Rose saying. Rose had grabbed her by the shoulder and was shaking her.

"What?" Jenna asked. "What time is it?"

"Almost ten, sleepyhead," Rose replied. "Meaghan's on the phone. She called me because she couldn't get through to you."

Jenna sat up in bed and took the cellphone Rose handed her. "Hey, Meaghan," she said, her head still full of sleep. "What's up?"

"Are you okay, Jenna?" Meaghan asked, with real concern in her voice. "Sumita's been worried sick about you. She finally gave up trying to call you and asked me to see if I could get through, and then when I tried, I couldn't get you either."

"Sorry," Jenna replied. "I turned off my phone yesterday at my parents' house - no reception out there - and then didn't turn it back on."

"I'm glad you're okay," Meaghan said, "but that doesn't explain why you've been ignoring Sumita since Tuesday. She was imagining you dead somewhere on the roadside."

"Oh, ah, yeah," Jenna said, and the pit of worry in her stomach turned into a sharp, sudden ache. "We kind of got into a fight, and I stormed out. I didn't think she'd ever want to see me again."

"Well, then, you're being an idiot, Jenna," Meaghan said. "Sumita's desperate to see you, or at the very least to know you're still alive."

That just made Jenna feel worse. "Fine," Jenna said. "I'm alive - you can tell her that. But I don't want to see her. I don't need to be reminded again how much I don't belong in her life."

"Look, Jenna," Meaghan said, "I don't know what it is that you two fought about, but whatever you think happened, Sumita still wants to see you. She was basically crying into the phone when she called me."

The ache in Jenna's stomach cracked open into a boundless void, threatening to swallow her completely. The idea of seeing Sumita again made her sick, but the idea of not seeing her again was even worse. She had to face Sumita, now, or she would be lost.

"Do you know if she's home?" Jenna asked. "Whatever is going to happen, I should do this in person."

"Yes, she's at home," Meaghan said. "What do you want me to tell her?"

"Tell her I'm coming, I guess," Jenna said. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Okay, I'll tell her," Meaghan said. "And Jenna, everything's going to be okay. If you care about Sumita at all, and I know you do, then you can work things out."

"Thanks, Meaghan," Jenna said, though she didn't believe her. "I should go."

"Bye, Jenna," Meaghan said, and hung up the phone.

It took Jenna a very long hour to shower, dress, and drive over to Sumita's house. Every traffic delay felt like the world conspiring against her personally. Eventually she pulled into Sumita's driveway and parked behind Gita's little gray Audi.

She walked to the front door, her heart in her throat, stood for a moment, and raised her hand. Here goes nothing, she thought, and knocked. Her knuckles hit the brown-stained wood with a solid thump. No cheap, hollow plywood here.

Sumita was waiting for her, and she opened the door after the first knock. "I'm sorry," was the first thing she said. "I'm sorry you got dragged into the middle of a fight that should have been between me and my daughter. I'm sorry I yelled."

"Oh," she said. "Um, okay." That was not what Jenna expected. She expected Sumita to justify herself and explain why everything Jenna did was wrong. That's what Tess would have done. Tess never apologized.

When Sumita reached out and took Jenna's hand, Jenna realized that she was standing there outside Sumita's front door like an idiot, and she was freezing. It was clear and very cold, and she had forgotten to put on a coat.

"You should come in," Sumita said, gently pulling her inside. "You're shivering."

Jenna followed Sumita into the living room and sat down next to her on the couch. "You're really not mad at me?" she asked.

"No," Sumita replied. "I am not mad at you, Jenna. You did give me a scare though. Please don't ever do that again."

"I just thought, when you told me to leave..." Jenna said, and then broke down crying.

"Hey, hey," Sumita said gently, putting an arm around Jenna's shoulders. "It's okay, Jenna. Everything is okay."

Jenna sobbed a little while longer, and Sumita got up to fetch a box of Kleenex. "I'm sorry," Jenna said. "I shouldn't fall to pieces like this. It's just ... I really like you."

"I really like you too," Sumita replied, with a hint of warm, indulgent laughter bubbling underneath her voice. "Do you want to tell me why such a smart, confident woman is so afraid of getting hurt? Whoever she was, you must have been crazy about her."

"Was it that obvious?" Jenna asked, managing a weak smile.

"Not until just now," Sumita replied. "She was the woman in the painting, wasn't she? The one in Sarah's office."

"Her name was Tess," Jenna said, nodding. "We dated for about a year, a long time ago, and she was wonderful."

"Until she wasn't?" Sumita asked.

"No, she kept on being wonderful, long after we broke up," Jenna replied, with some acid in her voice. "The problem was me."

And then the whole story spilled out. How she met Tess in a downtown night spot while she was tending bar to supplement the income from her day job. How Tess got hit on by five different men that night, all in expensive suits, and dismissed each and every one with just a glance. The first time they went out; the first time they slept together; the first time they spent a weekend away. The times Tess took her shopping, bought her just the right clothes, sleek and stylish, neither feminine nor masculine. The parties Tess took her to, full of bankers and lawyers and politicians, a world she never imagined seeing.

"Trouble was, though," Jenna said, "I never knew quite how to be at those things. I was beside this stunning, powerful woman, hanging on her arm like a decoration. I felt like an afterthought. I didn't understand what she could possibly want to do with me."

"So what happened?" Sumita asked.

"Eventually," Jenna said, "she stopped taking me to parties, and she stopped wanting to be with me. At the time, I was convinced it was because I wasn't good enough for her. When she couldn't turn me into the person she wanted, her own little Eliza Doolittle, she gave up."

"That sounds awful," Sumita said.

"It wasn't her fault," Jenna said. "I can see that now. I was so afraid that I wasn't good enough for her, that I was going to lose her, that I stopped being somebody she could want. If I had trusted her a little more, maybe things would have been different."

"And yet you're doing the exact same thing with me," Sumita said.

"Yeah, well," Jenna said with a snort, "nobody's ever accused me of being flighty and unpredictable. I'm sorry I was an idiot and ran out on you, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Gita and that damn house party."

"First apology accepted," Sumita said. "As for the second, you have nothing to apologize for. I was out of line, and I'm the one who should be sorry. Gita asked for your help and your trust, and you gave her both without reservation. If you had ratted her out, she'd never be able to trust you again, and I want her to trust you."

Sumita kissed Jenna on the forehead while Jenna wiped up the last of her tears and blew her nose, and then she pulled Jenna into a hug and held her tight.

"So what do we do now?" Jenna asked.

"It's cold, but it's a lovely day out," Sumita replied. "We could go for a walk in Marymoor Park."

"That's not what I meant," Jenna said.

"I know," Sumita replied, "but that's still my answer. We spend the weekend together and do things that make us both happy. We can figure the rest out later."

"Isn't Gita here for the weekend?" Jenna asked. "I saw her car outside. Are you okay with me spending the night with your daughter home?"

"I'm fine with it if you are," Sumita replied. "It's not like Gita doesn't know we're dating."

Jenna blushed. "Well, okay, then," she said.

~~~

With the emotional fireworks over, Sumita and Jenna bundled up for a walk outside. Jenna borrowed a heavy sweater, hat, and coat from Sumita, since she hadn't brought anything with her in her haste to get there. She looked very un-Jenna-like in the bright red hat and bright blue coat, but she stayed warm, and that was all that mattered.

"Can I ask you something?" Jenna asked while they walked. "I'm not being stupid again; I just want to know."

"Sure," Sumita replied.

"Why did you notice me, of all people?" Jenna asked. "I know how much you like pretty girls, with pretty hair and pretty clothes. I'm not pretty. I'm butch, I'm flat-chested, and I have the most boring wardrobe in the world."