Her suitcase was loaded in her rental car, and Nachelle was in the passenger seat busily pairing her phone with the sound system due to a reguetón shortage on the local airwaves. Yuko was standing in Raph’s yurt where their own packed bags were stacked next to the tent flap. She could feel herself vibrating with tension. She couldn’t escape the tragic saying-goodbye-to-your-summer-love- on-the-last-day-of-sleepaway-camp vibe, and she couldn’t figure out how to scale her emotions down to suit the actual circumstances: two grown-ass adults who had known each other for three days and who would see each other in less than two weeks.
“Okay, you’ve got my number, I’ve got your number. We know when my flight is coming in on the eighth, and you have the hotel name and address.”
“Raph, everyone already knows exactly where that hotel is.”
“Regardless, you have it, and I already asked them to add your name to the room so you can get a card and go up in case my flight gets delayed or something. You still seem agitated. Am I giving you too much information, or not enough?”
“Both, probably. I’ll miss you. I’m worried things will change somehow before we see each other again. Like we’ll sober up as soon as we’re apart or something. This is strange and intense and there are a lot of feelings and I’m not sure what’s going to happen and that’s unsettling.”
Raph kissed her and smoothed a thumb over her temple, soothing. “Nothing will change other than that I’ll be incredibly glad to see you again. Can I call you tonight?”
“Yeah. That would be nice.” She worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
“Yuko? Don’t forget that I’m not going to be seeing other people while we’re seeing each other, if that helps. Not just for the eleven days, but overall. It seems so obvious to me that I was assuming it would be obvious to you.”
“You’re not?” Yuko looked at them and didn’t think it seemed so obvious, given their overall appeal and the distance between Florida and New York.
“Definitely not.”
“I think that does help. Me either, even though it’s probably crazy of both of us to throw that out there this soon.”
“It’d be crazier if we pretended that this was just a fling purely out of fear of looking foolish or out of some misguided effort to be normal. Norms are very overrated. So average.”
“I guess so. Even if it’s not crazy, it’s still strange, though.”
“Strange or not, you’re relaxing. So, that was the thorn in your paw?”
“I guess so?” she said, wishing she could interpret her own moods as quickly as they could interpret her moods.
“You can trust me, Yuko. Ok, then, kiss me like you’re not going to see me for eleven days and then drive to the airport. Carefully.”
Yuko wrapped herself around them, tangled her fingers in their hair and kissed them like she wasn’t going to see them for eleven years. Only when they were both not only wanting more but desperate for more did she stop. Faith in the future was good, trust was good, but insurance was good, too. Lust was good insurance. She stepped back and ran her hands over her hair and clothes, smoothing things back into place.
“See you soon,” she said breathlessly.
Raph looked at her hungrily. “See you very soon. Safe travels.”
“You too. And stay away from the sexy poly mechanic.”
“Stay away from everyone.”
“Roger that. Ok. Bye.”
“Bye.”
She gave them one last quick peck and then let herself out of the yurt in a hurry, feeling absolutely everything and only liking about half of it. She let herself into the rental car and shut the door and slowly buckled the seatbelt and put the SUV in gear. She backed out of the parking spot staring at the backup cam feed and mirrors with the kind of total concentration usually reserved for reattaching severed nerves or defusing bombs. Her brain needed to stay very busy for the next few minutes. Next to her, Nachelle held her peace and loaded the directions to the airport on the phone.
It took Yuko about ten minutes to get them onto the first road where they had nothing to do but go forward for a relatively long stretch. Only then did Nachelle turn to her and say, “I have been so, so, so good. The best. And the most patient. No contest. You abandoned me to the MILFs, but let the record show that I bear no grudge over it. I was assimilated into their culture and worshipped as a deity. Still, you owe me.”
“You are the best,” Yuko agreed. “I have like twelve crystals in my suitcase for you. I hope they aren’t considered weapons or I’m going to have to check my bag.”
“Fuck the crystals, Yuko, what I want is every last detail. Start at the very beginning.”
“Ok. Ok. So. I went to their class on crystals. Despite their best efforts, and I have to tell you, their best efforts involve a whole lot of impressive technical knowledge— I still think crystals are inert chunks of minerals that have no effect on people unless they are holding down a stack of papers for them or are cut and faceted and made into pretty jewelry. Raph did not hold that against me, however.”
“I’m not even going to ask if you told them all of this, because I know you did. Thank god for your looks because you can’t flirt for shit.”
“Awww. Sweet. Thank you. I actually didn’t have to tell them, they knew already just from watching me, somehow. They have some kind of weird feelings telepathy, I swear. They Vulcan mind-meld me.”
“Ok. So you took their class and then crapped all over it—nice Star Trek reference—and then?”
“Then we got cups of coffee and they offered to show me around the grounds. That was when I had some kind of weird feelings telepathy. But it was aimed at myself, not them. On God, Nachelle, it was the weirdest feeling. I got all hot all over and I just knew that whether I said yes or no, my life was going to change permanently.”
“I think that’s called insight, querida. And you actually said yes! That’s huge! I’m going to say, like, twelve rosaries tonight in gratitude.”
“Probably best if you don’t tip off Sky Parent about what we got up to, you snitch.”
“They’ll understand, trust me. They must have had a hand in it, because only a God-tier miracle could have cracked your crusty shell enough to let someone in that quickly, and you very audibly let them all the way in.”
Yuko swatted at her with one hand, keeping her eyes on the road. “Stop it. I’m having delayed-onset embarrassment about that.”
“Don’t bother. There wasn’t a MILF out there who didn’t want to be in your leggings. Or out of them, I guess I should say. You know, they were good sports about taking the L, though. I think they were genuinely kind of happy for you, or for them, or both. Probably because of all the self-actualization work they put in. I got a few thumbs-ups and winks that were intended to be passed on to you, I believe. Anyway, you two go for a tour of the grounds…”
“Really? I thought they’d all hate me.”
“Yes, really. They’re nice people, mostly. It’s a freaking yoga retreat, Yuko. It’s for people who are trying to be better at being people! You have spent waaaaay too much time in hyper-competitive environments full of backstabbing and one-upsmanship. This whole vibe is the opposite of that. I mean, sure there are a couple of cases of resting bitch face walking around, but almost everyone else I met was lovely.”
“Huh. I never thought of yoga as emotional self-improvement, really. Well, for a while we just talked about stuff. About why I was there, about the facility, about bears…”
“Like you do…”
“They gave me some pretty good insight into the reasons why the current business model isn’t working. That was very helpful.”
“Ooh, money talk. Your Achilles’ heel. No wonder you rolled over with your legs in the air.”
“I hate that you’re kind of right.”
“I’ve known you for a loooooong time, Yuko. And then?”
“Well, we were starting to talk about deeper stuff and we were about to go off on one of the trails that lead away from the camp and I decided that I wanted to go ahead and disclose before we were out of the sight of other people.”
“Ok, smart. I don’t have to ask how it went overall, but how did it go specifically? Honestly, you read just as feminine as I do, and I was born with all of this lusciousness. So I know that they didn’t know in advance.”
“They like…barely reacted. They were more focused on the fact that I got beat up in high school.”
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