Royal settled onto the rock and pulled food and two colas in glass bottles out of her pack. She hadn’t brought a blanket this time, but she did have a couple of cloth napkins. She’d made them sandwiches and brought one serving of Mrs. Watkins’s peach pie in a glass container. She’d eaten two pieces of pie and stolen one more for their picnic before her grandfather even got to sample it.
She watched Lovey take in the view for a few more moments before sitting down beside her on the rock. Lovey smiled as she saw what Royal had prepared for them.
“This is really fun, Royal. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Royal offered one of the sandwiches to Lovey and then took a bite from hers. They sat quietly eating and absorbing the bounty of nature all around them.
After lingering long enough to let their lunch settle, they started to walk back down to where they’d left the car. It was nearly six in the evening and the shadows were lengthening all around them. The sun having dropped low in the sky darkened the ridgeline above them as if cutting the world in half. Dark and light.
Royal loved this time of day. Twilight. The magical space between day and night.
As they entered a thick grove of trees, Royal reached for Lovey’s hand and pulled her to a stop.
“Sometimes when I’m in the woods at this time of day, I feel at any moment I might stumble upon something miraculous. Something I have long looked for without knowing that I was searching for it.” Royal pulled Lovey close. “Or someone I didn’t know I was searching for,” she added in a whisper. They were pressed together, every part of their bodies touching in the deepening shadows of the heavy canopy above them, the thick, tall trees like a cathedral surrounding them.
Lovey felt Royal’s hands slowly move down her ribs to her hips. Royal applied gentle pressure pulling them closer, but Lovey felt herself resist. She was struggling to understand her attraction to Royal. She felt an intense physical tug that she was at a loss to explain, having never been with a woman before in this way. Why now? Why Royal?
She relinquished and sank into Royal as they began to kiss. They moved against each other. One of Royal’s hands dropped lower still and pulled Lovey more tightly against her.
The pounding of her own heart filled her ears, and she knew she couldn’t stand this exquisite torture any longer. Their lips separated and Lovey whispered against Royal’s cheek. “Where can we go to be alone together?”
“I have a place.” Royal kissed Lovey for a few minutes longer before breaking away and pulling Lovey toward the car.
They drove back toward the town square. Main Street weaved around a central courthouse and then Royal took the second right and parked near a tailor’s shop, a two-story brick building that seemed to have a separate side entrance. Once they were inside the side door, they climbed stairs to a second floor with a long hallway. Doors every so often on either side lined the hall. They had hardly talked on the drive, and Lovey was a bundle of nerves because of her own suggestion to be alone with Royal.
They stopped in front of a door midway down the long hall, and Royal produced a key that allowed them entrance. She held the door for Lovey.
“What is this place?” Lovey asked. She stepped inside and quickly took in the simple fixtures of the room. A washbasin along one wall, a small table set with a typewriter and nearly covered with loose-leaf papers, a bed, a nightstand, a lamp, and an upholstered chair featuring some worn nondescript pattern. She turned around as she heard the door close quietly behind them.
“Remember when I said I had a place I go sometimes? This is the place.” Royal dropped the knapsack on the floor and her keys on the table. “The second story is all rooms for rent, and I keep this place for when I need time away. Or time alone.”
Lovey walked over to the table, curious about the typewriter and papers. She read the text on one of the pages.
Peering inside one of the relic’s former windows
She tried to imagine what things it must have known, what life it carried.
She looked up to study Royal’s face before she slid the paper aside and read the words scribbled on the page underneath.
Of a life lived in the spaces between
A hollow of shadows
Like the space in my chest that aches with yearning
For a place of belonging.
“Who wrote these?”
“I wrote them. They aren’t finished yet.” Royal crossed her arms and shifted her stance. She seemed self-conscious.
“You write poetry?”
“Yes.”
“And you drive fast cars?”
“Yes.”
“Royal Duval, the daredevil poet.” Lovey held the papers in her hands as she turned to face Royal, who laughed softly.
“Yes, I suppose that’s as good a description as any.”
Lovey felt Royal watching her as she read more of what she’d discovered. This added a new dimension to who Royal was, and Lovey now realized she was in terrible danger of falling for her. If she hadn’t already suspected it based on the chemical reaction that seemed to take place every time they touched, then finding out Royal wrote poetry would have certainly tipped the scales even further.
“Royal, these are really good. You’ve got real talent.” She looked up from what she was reading to see a sheepish look on Royal’s face. “Have these been published?”
“I’ve never submitted anything.” Royal’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“You’ll drive a hundred miles an hour down a winding road at night, but you won’t submit your poems for publication?” Lovey set the papers back on the table surface but allowed her fingertips to keep light contact with them.
“The words, they mean something to me. They’re too personal.”
Lovey reached for Royal, entwining the fingers of one hand with hers and then brushing her cheek tenderly with
