Trace
December - Saturn is Returning
The day had been anointed. Trace wasn’t sure what it was, maybe the shade of the light through her blinds that morning, or the specific temperature of their apartment - two degrees too warm for the duvet cover - or perhaps it was the allure of opening her eyes three minutes before her alarm sounded. Either way, she woke up resolved. She made herself coffee and thought about what she would say to Jordan. She brushed her teeth and anticipated the reaction she’d face: confusion, sure. There would likely be a long discussion. Lesbians love to process. They liked dissecting their Costar compatibility, treating their cats like children and talking about their feelings, often long into the night. Trace was prepared. She would block off at least two hours on her calendar when she got to work.
There was an urgency Trace felt, a pressure at the base of her throat. It had been building since her last therapy session. The questions Wendy asked cut through Trace the wrong way, allowed slivers of doubt to push through. She wanted to have the conversation before those slivers became shards. She wanted to do it before she changed her mind. Christmas was approaching. The timing couldn’t have been worse. But it was never the right time for something like this. Trace’s life felt like a lie. She itched to reveal her truth.
Trace stepped into khakis, buttoned a shirt up to her neck and threaded a brown leather belt through the loops as she took deep, meditative breaths hoping to slow her heart. Breathing was a self-regulating tool Wendy had given her. They’d done it on sessions in the past, when Trace couldn’t stop crying to speak - in for two beats, out for three. Usually, it hardly worked. But this morning, a sense of calm came over her.
Jordan had left them a year and a half ago, shortly after Silvia and Trace got engaged. She took the job in New York, a new adventure, and Trace had felt a twinge of jealousy, so slight it dissipated when she took one look at her own left hand, the base of her forth finger surrounded in gold. Things had changed since Jordan left. Silvia and Trace had settled into life on their own, routines and cadences that made Trace feel as if she was standing still. Trace spoke to Jordan often, on group chats, on Instagram, on drunken FaceTimes with Silvia when they made it out to the Wildrose and were desperate for Jordan to be with them. In some ways it was like she never left. In others, it was like the past 18 months had lasted twenty years.
Trace rubbed product between her palms and pushed her hair back with short swipes of her fingers. Everything stayed where it was supposed to, like the universe knew she needed a win. Trace zipped up her North Face windbreaker - sensible and also somehow stylish in the Pacific Northwest - and realized her hands had begun to shake. So much for calm.
By the time Trace left the apartment, Silvia was awake, sitting at their kitchen table with a mug of steaming peppermint tea in front of her. She was reading something from a magazine, and didn’t take her eyes from the glossy page as Trace said goodbye, just tilted her chin upwards for a kiss. Their lips touched, a feeling as familiar now as her thumb moving across the pane of her phone, and Trace was surprised not to feel an aftershock of guilt, even when she said “I love you,” and Silvia responded with, “Love you too, babe.”
From the moment Trace stepped onto the bus that took her from Phinney Ridge into downtown, the day became a blur, a black hole she would later only be able to recover bits and pieces of. In the morning she sat through three client meetings, nodding her head and smiling so hard her cheeks began to ache. Today, she would give them whatever they wanted. Most days, she would give them whatever they wanted. Trace was excellent at reading people. Her instinct was to please. It was why she’d put off the call for so long.
At lunch she took two bites of a Caesar salad before the dressing curdled in her stomach. Trace threw the rest in the compost bin in the kitchen. Her only meeting in the afternoon, right before she was planning to make the call, was with marketing. A strategy meeting for a new brand deal. They presented a deck to Trace that she hardly glanced at. When they asked her for feedback she nodded and said, “We’re definitely heading in the right direction, keep at it,” and then quickly left the room, unsure what direction it was they were taking, or if it even made sense, but not caring, her brain already ahead of her, voices pinging back and forth as she imagined Jordan’s response, her own explanation in return.
The only conference room available was in the center of the floor. Trace worked in a tall mirrored building in the middle of downtown Seattle. There was a big window on one side of the room so that those passing could see in. Trace hoped it seemed like she was on an important call with her doctor or a family member. One could argue Jordan was family.
If she craned her head, Trace could see the green ripple of the Puget Sound through the nearest window. A ferry was passing, moving away from the city. The sky was blue, a confusing color to see in late December. Trace had learned to love shades of gray after years in Seattle. But white and cream spans of sky were still uplifting.
When Jordan picked up, the connection wasn’t great. Jordan’s voice, when she responded, seemed much further than 3000 miles away, like she was in a remote part of Mongolia instead of tucked inside the largest city in America. Jordan asked, what’s up, so casually, not at all concerned, so unprepared for what was to come, Trace almost changed her mind. She opened her mouth and something burst apart inside of her. When she finished speaking her chest heaved, like she’d run a marathon.
There was a crackling on the line, like Jordan was readjusting, pressing the phone closer to her face, or moving it to the other side.
“I love you too T,” Jordan said. She didn’t get it.
Trace clarified, “No Jordan, I am in love with you.”
The pause then was long. It stretched on for so many seconds that Trace pulled her own phone away from her ear to check that the call was still active.
“Jord—” Trace started, but Jordan cut her off.
“Is this a joke? Is Silvia there? Silvia? Is this some funny way of asking me to officiate the wedding?” Silvia was five miles away, at the cafe she managed near their apartment. Trace could see her, bandana wrapped around her head to control her dark brown curls, rag stuck into her waistband swinging as she pulled espresso shots. Or maybe she was in the back office, a room just big enough for a desk, one scuffed Blundstone pulled into the edge of the chair as she adjusted the schedule for the next two weeks.
“No,” Trace said. “It’s just me.”
Trace wondered where Jordan was. There was no background noise, so Trace figured she was still at the office or already home. Trace imagined Jordan sitting on the edge of her bed, her camera bag - a black backpack nearly as large as she was - propped up next to her.
The silence stretched on again. Jordan was the quiet one. She processed internally, revealing her thoughts only when she was sure. When they’d met in college, ten years earlier, Trace spent months wondering if Jordan even wanted to be friends with her, before realizing Jordan was a sponge, silently soaking up each environment she was in.
“And by in love with me, you mean,” Jordan said.
“I think I want to be with—”
“Oh my god. What the fuck Trace.”
“Let me explain.”
“Is something going on with you and Silvia? Did she do something?”
“No I jus—”
Jordan interrupted again, her voice further away, like she’d lifted her head up to look across the room, pulling her mouth away from the microphone. “I can’t talk about this right now,” she said. “I have to go.” Jordan paused again. “Please don’t text me Trace. I just. I need time.”
Trace heard the click when Jordan ended the call. She put her phone down, ran a hand over her head. She was overdue for a cut she realized, her sides were too long. The product from that morning had lost its hold. So much for winning. So much for processing. She felt messy, uncomfortable. A coworker walked down the hallway and glanced at Trace. Trace focused on adjusting her features. She was never good at hiding her thoughts. Every emotion that passed through her body was visible on her face, a constant exasperation for Silvia.
On the table her phone lit up with a text from Silvia. She was asking about dinner. They had pizza every Friday night but still debated about it throughout the day as if suddenly Indian might be more appealing on a given week. It was only then that it occurred to Trace she might have gone about this the wrong way. She should have talked to Silvia first. What if Jordan told Silvia herself? What if Silvia figured it out because Jordan was acting weird? Trace was scared of Silvia’s reaction. She’d taken the easy route.
Trace responded: pizza sounds great.
She stood up, smoothing out the front of her pants, and slipped her phone in her back pocket. Trace left the conference room and walked back to her desk. She made sure her speed was not too fast, nor too slow, as if everything was normal, just a regular Friday afternoon, and not as if she had just ruptured her entire world.
