Page 20 of July Skies
Dare Karen bring it up?
“Your mother is a lesbian, isn’t she?” Karen didn’t give Dahlia enough time to respond. Not when those nostrils flared and Kurt dropped his pencil.I’m onto something here. Now, for the second part.“You keep asking me about my divorce and my children. You’ve been asking around about everyone’s previous relationships to men and if they have ‘children out there.’ Tell me, Ms. Granger, was your mother a late-in-life lesbian who left your family to strike out on her own and start a whole new life without you?”
The silence settling into Karen’s office wasn’t merely deafening. It was suffocating, like a hand around the throat. Yet whose hand was it? Her own? Dahlia’s? The unsettling realization that what they shared wasn’t born of mutual attraction, but mutual distrust?
So much for that.
“Out.” Dahlia snapped her fingers when she referred to her tiny crew. “Both of you. Out. Now. Stop filming.”
That was directed to Wayne, who wryly looked up from his camera and said, “You’re nuts if you think I was rolling at all. Saw this coming from amileaway.”
“Out!”
Karen allowed a modicum of surprise onto her face as Wayne and Kurt were kicked out of her office. Dahlia ensured the camera was no longer rolling before shutting the door behind the guys’ backs and turning to Karen, who regained her poise.Yet my heart is thumping like I’m about to get chewed out by my own mother.
“Who the hell told you that?” Dahlia’s demand was a swift whisper, slicing open the wounds she had allowed to scar over the long years of her adult life. Karen would have pitied her, if it hadn’t driven the filmmaker to make an ass out of herself in a town with a higher tolerance for dumbassery. “Was it Wayne? He’s been running his mouth when I’m not looking.”
Since she was no longer on camera, Karen dropped her shoulders and allowed her hair to fall before her face. Long enough to push it back again, anyway. She fisted her hair into a practical ponytail. Too bad she didn’t have any hair ties on hand. “Nobody’s told me, Ms. Granger. I’m smarter than you take me for. I was able to figure it out, based on your interactions about town. And with me, for that matter.”
Dahlia was beet red, her hands balling into fists. Would they fly? Probably not. Dahlia seemed like a woman who knew the power of self-restraint. That was why she refrained from flirting with Karen, although the mayor had left that possibility open more than once. What did she often tell herself?The only way you’re getting married again is if the right out-of-towner passes through.Their first day together had given Karen a bit of rueful hope. Did she think it would really happen? Of course not. Had she entertained the thought, though? Of course!
“I have no idea what game you’re playing,” Dahlia coolly said, “but I’m here to be a professional. I assumed you were, as well.”
“Ah, yes, professionalism! Exactly what I expected when you showed up in my town, hoping to cast us in a professional light! How foolish of me to assume such a thing. You’ve had nothing but ill-intentions since you got here.”
“Ill-intentions? Excuse me?” Dahlia scoffed. “I’m a documentarian, Ms. Rath. My only purpose is to get to the truth and illuminate it for the world to see. I’m in no business of following a particular bias, no matter what youoranyone else thinks. I would be remiss to not ask the uncomfortable questions nobody around here seems to want to answer.”
“Do you know why they don’t want to answer those questions?” Karen shot back. “Because they live enough of that shit every day. You want to ask Frankie about being one of the only black women in town? Of course she has opinions about it! God knows I get an earful every time I show up at the Chamber of Commerce! Except that has nothing to do with her sexuality. Nor does Anem Singer’s religion play into what other people think of her. Judge us all you want for being small town hicks, Ms. Granger. I’m sure you’re itching to pull back our progressive façade and show us as yet another small town built on the backs of colonialism. You might be right, considering the history of the area, but this town was built to be a haven for women who love other women. That in itself is pretty radical. I’m sorry if your mother hurt you when she…”
“Donotbring my mother into this!” Was it too much to ask Dahlia to cool it on the piercing gazes that slapped a woman on the cheek – and in other places as well?It’s almost like she knows my exact type and can’t fail to deliver.Would that infuriate Dahlia more? Knowing that she was the mayor’s type? “My personal business is my own. What happened occurreddecadesago. It is inconsequential.”
“Yet you can’t help but ask me about my children and my former marriage to a man. You’re asking the high schoolers if they feel pressured to be gay.”
“I never…”
Karen continued. “I allowed you to come here – no, I gave you myblessing -–because I thought you arrived in good faith. I saw your previous depictions of other communities and thought it would be a wonderful chance for the world to get to know our little town. How foolish of me. You’d think I would’ve learned a long time ago that these things don’t happen that way. I suppose I merely hoped they would, for once.”
“I don’t know how many times I can tell you, Ms. Rath.” Dahlia stood, prompting Karen to stand as well. “I have no ulterior motive. I don’t give a crap if your Podunk town is filled with backstabbing bigotry or is a paradisiacal haven for the world’s forgotten women. I’m here for the truth. I want to amplify the voices here that don’t ever get to be heard. Because every group of people has those quieter ones who are afraid to speak up.”
Karen was prepared to retaliate, but her words left her when she saw the earnest pain in the depths of Dahlia’s hazel eyes. While Karen had intended to prick, she never intended to bruise.But intent isn’t magical. I bruise her, anyway.A woman in a mayoral position had to choose her words carefully. Like the camera lens could be a tool of violence, a politician’s words carried the potential to inflict cataclysmic harm. Maybe to an entire nation. Maybe to one poor soul who happened to stand in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
“Feel free to find yourself and make peace with your past while you’re here, Ms. Granger,” Karen said, “but don’t tear down my people in the process. They never asked for anything but to be left alone.”
Dahlia opened her mouth as if to say something else. Except nothing but cold, stunned silence fell from her lips.
“As for me,” Karen said, unable to stand the silence, “I am willing to talk about almost anything. My life is very much an open book. I have no secrets. Much to the detriment of my children. My grown, well-adjusted children who are as happy as two surly teenagers can be.” Xander wouldn’t love to be lumped into the “teenager” bracket now that he was a strong and sturdy twenty, but Karen also knew he’d appreciate the sentiment. Because he was well-adjusted like that. “But I won’t talk about them unless you have an open mind. I can’t speak for your mother or what she was going through in her life. Nor can I relate to the desire to leave your own children behind, but I’m sure she had her complicated reasons. Reasons you’ll only be able tobeginto understand if you ask us questions in good faith.”
She expected Dahlia to go on the defensive once more. Instead, the filmmaker opened the door to the mayor’s office and stepped out without a word.
Two minutes later, Wayne and Kurt came in to dismantle their equipment. Although they shared looks with Karen, who now settled back behind her desk, they didn’t offer any explanations. She didn’t expect them to, nor would they volunteer that their boss was too pissed to continue.
It wasn’t until everyone left and Karen was left to the silence of her office that she realized she had probably pushed Dahlia too far.What have I done?She stared at the back of her hands. It beat staring at her frosted glass window, hoping Dahlia would return and apologize.
Perhaps it was for the best. Karen had some of her own biases clouding her judgment.
Chapter 12
DAHLIA
