“You will! And the flowers had better be fabulous!”
“So…not from the grocery store?” Ainsley asked.
“Or a gas station or anyplace that also sells power tools.”
“That sounds like such a Josh thing to do,” Ainsley said. “Anyway, my chocolates had better be out of this world.”
“So…not from Walmart?”
“Or Target or anyplace where I can also buy tampons.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.”
They shook on it.
Chapter 11
On Wednesday afternoon, Rachel was at home and online.
So far, she’d had a busy day. She’d done two showings this morning but one was in Vista and the other all the way in Escondido, so there had been a fair amount of driving involved. The good news was that both showings resulted in offers being made. The bad news was she was certain one of the offers, for the Escondido property, would be rejected. Probably more like laughed at. For some reason, the buyers, a newlywed couple, the Crawleys, were really insistent on lowballing the sellers. Actually, it had been the husband who insisted on making such a low offer. His wife, who really loved the house, had wanted to make a more realistic offer, one that was only slightly less than asking. But her new husband had convinced her to go along with his way of thinking.
Rachel expected Mr. Crawley would quickly learn his lesson, though. To begin, Escondido might not be on the coast but it was still a seller’s market and there was no way the Melendez’s were going to accept such a low offer for their immaculate house.
Moreover, Mr. Crawley was going to learn that if he kept dashing his wife’s hopes like this whenever she found a house she adored, he was going to have bigger problems than paying the full asking price.
For now, however, Rachel submitted the ridiculous offer. Such was the realtor’s life. If Mr. Crawley ever wanted to get serious about buying, he’d learn to adjust his thinking or probably end up divorced. In the meantime, Rachel would show them however many more house it took before Mr. Crawley woke the fuck up. It was her job, after all.
After the Escondido showing, Rachel had then had to skip lunch and get back to Carlsbad on the double to meet Alfred, the home inspector she used for all her sales, who was going to inspect the house Ainsley bought. Ainsley was of course invited to be there also but she had told Rachel her duties at the hospital would prevent it. She sent a text saying she trusted Rachel to give her the full report later.
Fortunately, the inspection went well. Alfred pointed out some missing flashing at a couple of transition areas on the roof and he suggested the thermostat be replaced because it was rather old and most likely not very accurate, but other than that, the house was in excellent condition. Rachel had called the Havershams, given them the report and gotten assurances from them that they’d pay for the two fixes, which meant that Rachel had to then amend the purchasing contract to include that stipulation, which she did when she finally got home with takeout from McDonald’s.
Now, she was online, still munching French fries, and reading an article on Cosmo.com and discovering that she was not alone.
Other straight women had gone through what she was going through with Ainsley: suddenly finding themselves wildly attracted to another woman. Just, like, out of the blue!
For example, there was Kira (34) who realized one day that she was crazy attracted to her best friend.
Kira’s story was interesting but Rachel had never been attracted to Amy. Sure, she had always thought Amy was super pretty—anybody would think that—but never had Rachel ever felt so much as a flutter of desire for her bestie. And how many times had she seen Amy naked? Countless. How many times had they laid out suntanning on the beach together, Amy in a tiny bikini? Also countless. And how many times had they gone out together for a girl’s night out, Amy looking devastating in a short dress and high heels? The answer: countless.
Yet nothing.
No, Rachel determined that her story was more like that of Emma (27), whose story she was reading now. Emma had never had a lesbian thought in her life until a new woman started working in her office. Suddenly Emma couldn’t stop thinking about her and even fantasized about her while masturbating.
Exactly! Rachel was thinking, engrossed in Emma’s tale. She continued reading, discovering that Emma and Luce (not her real name, apparently) eventually started dating and were now living together.
And then, Rachel read the last line of Emma’s essay and it was making Rachel think Emma and her were soul sisters.
I guess, Emma had written, for me it took encountering the right woman to awaken something inside me I wasn’t even aware was there.
“Holy motherfucking shit!” Rachel exclaimed aloud. “Exactly!”
Soul sister!
But what did it mean?
Had something been awakened inside herself? Something that had been lurking there, unseen?