After a rousing feast of a dinner to celebrate the closing of the tournament, Hana had spent the early evening clearing away the arena with the rest of the organizers, and had lost track of Lillian, who’d been told to go get herself cleaned up. Hana had gone looking in the house, pulling on her loose wool cardigan and rolling up its sleeves as she went, but the only ones inside were those sitting and chatting in the front rooms, and Lillian’s grandmother, who had already tucked herself into bed. According to them, Lillian hadn’t come back to the house at all.
Though the main festivities had ended, and most who’d made the trip up to the farm had already departed, a group of locals and those determined to stay and close out the weekend with panache were still drinking, laughing, and talking raucously under the remaining tent. As hot a day as it had been, the heat of the sun and the sweltering humidity it had brought with it had lessened the further it sank beyond the horizon, making Hana feel glad at her decision to put on an extra layer. In a bid to drive away both mosquitoes and the encroaching chill, two small bonfires had already been lit by the last of the revellers, a few of them roasting sausages and marshmallows in the open flames; others had dragged folding chairs over to the small pits, nursing drinks while trading stories through the haze and the smoke.
A group of Lillian’s cousins seated at the far end of a long picnic table had waved Hana over, noticing her glancing into the remaining crowd from the edge of the tent, but she’d stayed where she was, at the periphery.
“Have you seen Lillian?” she had mouthed, slow and exaggerated, over the din. “Lil-li-an!” she had repeated upon seeing their furrowed brows, arms waving in a poor attempt at miming.
It had taken a moment, but the cousins had finally seemed to understand, some of them giving exaggerated shrugs or shaking their heads. One of them had gestured back toward the house, though, and Hana had sent a simple smile and a wave in return, not sure how to signal that she’d already checked there.
It had been worth a shot.
The noise had dampened the further away from the crowd under the tent that she had gone, the caked-on mud covering her boots brushing off at the sides as she walked through the field. There were depressions here and there where small tents had been set up and where cars had been parked only hours earlier, but they were nothing the grass wouldn’t bounce back from in a day or two.
Then the depressions had vanished entirely.
Hana would not have come this way at all, except that she had noticed, as she’d rounded the corner of a tent pole, that one of the old barn doors was ajar, a cinder block propping it open. The ramshackle structure was otherwise hidden from view behind the modern barn, its coat of paint in most places entirely gone. The few patches that were left may well have been teal, or else a sun-bleached blue — the old photos of it that she’d seen once were in black and white, so it had been impossible to tell what the original paint colour had been. Maybe Lillian’s grandmother would remember. The open door was particularly careworn, stripped of paint and so splintered at the bottom that a cat could slink underneath it without issue.
It was so quiet, she could hear the crickets and the sound of her own breathing.
She curled her fingers around the edge of the door that was still closed, and peered into the dim space, immediately taking notice of Lillian’s turned back where she had made herself comfortable atop a bale of hay. Hana smiled fondly. There were only a few bales left, all stacked like building blocks in the far corner of the barn — it wouldn’t be long before they ploughed the fields to fill the space back up. Storage, for whatever couldn’t fit inside the main barn’s hayloft.
The floor of the barn was exposed earth, pressed bare by the constant weight of hay and parcelled now between strips of burnt orange light; the sunset was strong enough to filter through the gaps in the walls’ wood panelling, lending the air a murky sort of warmth. With her eyes, Hana followed the path of one of the strips of light where it rounded Lillian’s right thigh, raced across her back, only to splash, diffuse, against the east wall.
With one foot already inside, Hana gave the door a cursory knock, the sound muffled by the old, splintered wood.
“Hey.”
Lillian turned to look back at her intruder, posture relaxing once she recognized who it was.
“Welcome,” She said dryly, flinging her arms wide in a display of over-the-top drama, “to my dressing room.”
Hana giggled. “So lavish.”
Lillian faced forward again, beckoning her in with a lazy gesture. “Figures you’d find me… I did do my best to hide, you know.”
“At least I gave you to the count of ten.”
“So generous,” came the playful echo.
“Doesn’t really look like you got cleaned up.” Hana remarked, making her way into the cavernous space.
Lillian glanced back again, her eyebrow raised as if to ask without asking whether or not she should take offence.
Hana continued her approach with an expression of open curiosity, undaunted.
“The bathroom was occupied,” Lillian finally supplied in an overly-dignified tone.
It was Hana’s turn to raise an eyebrow, lips trembling with mirth.
Lillian was silent a moment and then turned away again, letting out a long sigh. “Fine. I would have had to talk to relatives for half an hour if I’d gone in the house so I figured I’d slip away ‘till things quieted or people went to bed. I’ve done enough mingling for a month, my social meter is full, etcetera, etcetera — I chose of my own volition to remain filthy until after nightfall.” Partway through the spiel, she had begun waving her hand unconsciously to illustrate the width and breadth of her ill humour.
Hana giggled again.
“You can’t laugh when I’m being cantankerous. It ruins the effect.”
Hana climbed up onto Lillian’s hay bale from behind, sliding her arms over the other woman’s shoulders as if enfolding her in an invisible blanket. Lillian caught and kissed the inside of one of Hana’s forearms as it slipped past her lips, the skin there smelling earthy and a little metallic; then she felt Hana kiss her cheek and settle in against her back, could feel, rather than hear, her steady breathing.
“You were great today.”
“I always am.”
Hana couldn’t help but laugh fondly at the overt assertion. “You always are,” she agreed.
Lillian’s hand stayed on Hana’s forearm, holding it in place against her chest. “Didn’t win, though,” she conceded, after a moment.
“A footnote to the premise of the weekend,” Hana murmured, pressing their cheeks together.
“Which is?” Lillian prompted, dubious.
“I got to see you kick ass at regionals and make Dubé work for that trophy.”
There was a long pause.
“It’s very sneaky, how you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me feel like I’ve won no matter the outcome.”
Hana hid a smile against Lillian’s cheek, nuzzled her there.
“I was trying to sulk.”
“I know,” Hana assured her with a chuckle.
“Gotta admit, I would have liked to have ranked high enough to win a prize though.”
“We don’t need the money.”
“No, but it would have been nice,” Lillian pointed out, matter-of-fact.
“It would have,” Hana had to admit.
They sat silent, companionable in their shared warmth. For a minute or two, anyway.
“I see the flower is still intact,” Hana murmured, brushing her fingers against the slightly crushed petals of the marigold she had pinned into Lillian’s hair before her first match.
“I should hope so… took you forever to get it to stay up there.”
Having gotten out of bed extra early that morning, Hana had decided to take a short walk through the back garden for inspiration and been enchanted by a patch of marigolds. Knowing that Lillian’s grandmother would heartily approve of the use she intended to put it to, Hana had pinched one of the small blooms clean off partway down the stem and carried it back inside. In the kitchen, she’d crossed paths with Lillian’s aunt and uncle, exchanged cheerful good mornings in a whisper, and crept back up the stairs with the soft sounds of them starting to make breakfast at her back.
She’d woken Lillian with several gentle nudges to the shoulder just before her alarm would have gone off. Morning light had been filtering in through the antique lace curtains over the window, sending warm stripes and flecks up the far wall of their bedroom. Lillian, yawning and stretching her tired muscles without saying a word, had been easy to coax into a sitting position. And there on the sun-striped bed, bobby pins held firmly between her lips, Hana had set to work.
“Well,” she remarked in a rather indulgent tone, “favours are important.”
“You’re damn right, they are,” Lillian agreed in earnest. “There is nothing more vital than receiving a favour from your wife before a big match. And come to think of it, I did feel a weird tingle at the back of my skull just before I managed that double-bullseye in the semi-final.”
“It was very impressive,” Hana assured her. “I’m getting wet again just thinking about it.”
Lillian let out a bark of laughter at the mischief in the other woman’s voice. “Shush…” she admonished, sealing the weak protest with a kiss to the inside of Hana’s wrist.
“How’s your leg feeling?” Hana asked, laughing along with her.
“Not bad, actually,” Lillian admitted. “Even better now that it’s getting some air.”
She bent her knee to demonstrate, the tip of her shin nearly knocking her prosthetic over where it was propped up against the side of the hay bale. She reached down immediately to catch the implement and steady it, Hana still draped, loose-limbed and warm, over her back.
The barn creaked slightly as the wind picked up outside, making the fading strips of daylight shift against scattered patches of straw on the exposed ground. The sun was almost completely down, just a tiny, too-bright glint between a gap in the west wall’s wood panelling. Then the glint disappeared.
Hana slipped her arms off of Lillian’s shoulders and came around to sit in her lap instead.
She felt those familiar hands take hold of her hips, fingertips sliding just past the seams of her back pockets, pulling her closer. The last light of dusk no longer reached past the few windows in the barn or the open door, so Lillian was just a silhouette in the dark — they found each other’s lips by sense-memory, exhaling softly between each kiss. Lillian’s hands slipped further into her back pockets with a gentle squeeze as she pressed a kiss to Hana’s neck, to a warm spot just below her ear.
Slipped the wool cardigan from her shoulders.
“Welcome,” she murmured, voice low and seductive, “to my undressing room.”
Hana bit her lip.
And then began giggling in earnest.
Lillian kissed every last trace of the mirth from Hana’s lips with absolute patience, drank it down.
.
August 04, 2021.
The 65th episode of The Side B Anthology podcast.
An original short story by Janique EA Bruneau (Jea).
This standalone, queer short story is part of the jumble that has been stowed haphazardly in The Glove Compartment sub-anthology, as it doesn’t yet fit with another narrative.
If you feel so inclined, I would gladly welcome a comment below, or a tip.