Tala Read online

  “Snick-ers.”

  “Sneek-ers. That is what I said.”

  Kelsey laughed good-naturedly. “I’m Kelsey by the way.”

  “I am Tala.”

  “Pretty name.”

  Tala felt a shy blush spread across her cheeks. “Salamat,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Salamat…Filipino, right?”

  “It is Tagalog, yes.”

  Kelsey nodded. “I was in the Philippines once. Beautiful place.”

  “My husband thinks so too.”

  “You don’t?”

  Snickers purred happily as Tala gently scratched behind his ears. “I imagine tourists have a different view of it.”

  Kelsey remembered the poverty she’d briefly seen in Manila before island-hopping to more touristy destinations and instantly understood what Tala was saying. She didn’t dwell on it though.

  “It’s funny,” she said, abruptly changing the subject. “I see your husband a lot on my morning runs, but I don’t usually see you.”

  “I see you,” Tala openly admitted. She felt a little shy at her own words but there was no denying she saw Kelsey regularly, watched for her even.

  Kelsey leaned across the top of the fence and Tala watched a small bead of sweat crawl down the side of her long neck. “Is that so?” Kelsey said.

  Tala’s dark eyes darted away in embarrassment and she rose to her feet, the soft hem of her dress grazing her ankles. “Well, I must go prepare dinner for my husband Stephen now. It was nice speaking with you, Kelsey.”

  “Perhaps we’ll see each other again,” Kelsey said. Tala intrigued her. She seemed to be a woman who spoke her mind freely, but regretted her own words shortly after.

  “Perhaps,” Tala agreed. “Would you like your cat now?”

  Kelsey nodded and Tala passed Snickers over the fence. Their hands touched briefly and their eyes locked, but neither made mention of the charge that passed between them.

  “It was nice meeting you Kelsey,” Tala said, sincerely. “Bye Sneekers.”

  Kelsey watched Tala disappear into the house, still smiling at the adorable way the woman pronounced Snickers.

  At home, Kelsey made her own dinner and thought about her exchange with Tala. She turned on some music and sat at the dining room table with a bowl of red beans and rice and a glass of wine, wondering what Tala was cooking. Would Tala soon be sitting at her own dining room table with her husband Stephen?

  What did they talk about, Kelsey wondered. They couldn’t have had much in common. Stephen was at least twenty years Tala’s senior. Tala didn’t appear to be more than twenty-six and Stephen had to be at least fifty. Was it money that brought them together? Daddy issues?

  Kelsey didn’t think it was the latter. She considered herself to be a pretty good judge of character --with pretty good gaydar to boot-- and her gut told her that Tala liked women.

  Chapter 4

  Stephen Wright sat at the kitchen table enjoying his wife’s offering of steamed flounder with ginger and scallion, and a plentiful side of rice.

  “Stop glaring at me Tala,” he said, knowing his wife was upset with him. “We’ll go out for dinner tomorrow night instead.”

  Tala had not been pleased when earlier in the day Stephen had called to cancel their “dinner date” and asked her to cook instead.

  “I never get out of this house Stephen,” Tala complained, carrying her own plate to the trash can and scraping off the few remaining scraps of fish bone and soy sauce.

  Stephen took a final bite and pushed away his plate. “I know you enjoy date night—“

  “I enjoy getting out of the house,” Tala corrected. She hated when Stephen called it date night. Dates were for people in love, not people in marriages of convenience.

  “Tala, I’m tired. I’m working on the biggest case of my life right now and I’ve been in meetings all day.”

  “You’re trying to save an innocent man, I know.” Tala rolled her eyes as she grabbed Stephen’s plate from the table and carried it to the sink. “They are all innocent, aren’t they Stephen? Not one of the people you defend has ever actually committed a crime.”

  “I didn’t say that, Tala. But as a defense attorney, it is my job to defend them.”

  “Kalokohan.”

  “English,” Stephen demanded. He hated when his wife muttered to herself in Tagalog.

  “Ridiculous,” Tala said, stressing the word as if speaking to a child.

  “My job is ridiculous to you? The same job that allows you to live in such comfortable surroundings and send money home to your family every month? I could always retire you know, but that would mean the monthly payments to the Philippines would have to stop.”

  “Do not threaten me Stephen,” Tala warned, rinsing dishes and loading them into the dishwasher. She’d been working in the garden all day and her back was killing her.

  Stephen saw Tala wince when she bent down to place another dish in the machine and came up behind her.

  “You should schedule a massage,” he said, rubbing her shoulders.

  Tala cringed a little at Stephen’s touch but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “It will be fine,” she said, removing herself from his strong hands. Tala did not believe in paying people to touch her.

  Stephen shrugged. “Okay. I’m going to bed. But tomorrow we are definitely on for date night. Goodnight, Tala.”

  Tala allowed Stephen’s chaste peck on the cheek and watched him walk upstairs. It was only eight-thirty. He had just gotten home at seven-thirty. She supposed she should be happy that Stephen’s work tired him too much to ask for sex more than once a month; but she was lonely for companionship, and regular sex with her husband would have been a small price to pay in order to have him awake long enough to talk to.

  Tala thought about her brief encounter with Kelsey. Kelsey seemed like someone she could talk to. Someone she could maybe even become friends with. It didn’t hurt that she was also pleasing to look at.

  Tala had known Kelsey was attractive even from a distance. She could tell in the few seconds she watched her jog by each day, but after seeing Kelsey up close, Tala decided that Kelsey was more than just attractive; she was stunning. Her auburn hair contrasted beautifully with her creamy white skin, and her green eyes had a seductive quality that called you into them as she spoke. Her arms were long, with a few scattered freckles that zigzagged from wrist to elbow. Her smile was wide and bright.

  In fact, there was an overall brightness about Kelsey, Tala had noticed. In their short exchange she’d been able to gather that Kelsey was an easygoing person who looked like she truly took pleasure in life.

  It reminded Tala of how she too had once been that way. Back when her heart was full of hope and she still believed she had a future. Now she was trapped in a marriage with a man she did not love and leaving him was impossible because her entire family relied upon his money.

  Often she thought about getting a job but Stephen was quick to remind her she had no marketable skills. He liked to ignore the fact that in the Philippines, she was just a few credits short of obtaining her BAC. Surely, she could find a way to finish her degree in America, or at the very least, get a job as a bookkeeper for a small company.

  The problem was Tala was afraid. What if she started on this journey only to find she could not make enough money to support herself? Let alone send money home to Manila.

  Once, she had suggested that she could get another housekeeping job and Stephen had gotten upset, claiming that as an attorney, he could not have a wife who cleaned hotel rooms.

  “I am not proud,” Tala had argued. “I would like the opportunity to make money too.”

  Stephen’s solution had been to give her a three-hundred dollar a week “salary” for maintaining their home and doing all of the cooking and cleaning.

  Tala had accepted his offer and immediately began stashing money away. When she bought a new shirt or a dress, she inflated the cost so that Stephen would not suspect she was
hiding money. In the four years they’d had this arrangement Tala had managed to accumulate almost ten thousand dollars in a secret savings account. It wasn’t enough to sustain a new life, but it was certainly enough to give her a head start should she ever get the courage to leave. And all the while she saved, Stephen assumed she was spending most of the money and sending the rest of it home to her family.

  **********

  The garden was a project Tala regularly tackled with joy. She was pulling weeds and tossing them into a tall bucket like she often did when she heard a small, pained meow behind her. She turned to find Snickers slowly limping toward her.

  “Sneekers, what happened to you?” She asked, alarmed.

  Snickers let out another painful meow and it was more than she could bear. Gently, she lifted him from the ground, making sure not to touch his injured leg, and carried him into the house. There she wrapped him in a blanket, Googled the address on his tag --which seemed quite a distance for someone who jogged by her house twice a day-- and called a cab. She didn’t have a car because, even though she did have a driver’s license, Stephen didn’t think she needed a car.

  She cursed him under her breath the whole way across town.

  When she arrived at the address she’d given the driver, she was surprised to find herself standing in front of a modest duplex with green siding and chipped paint around the windows. It didn’t look like the type of house she imagined Kelsey would live in.

  Stepping onto a slanted porch with ripped carpet, she snuggled Snickers into one arm and rang the bell with her free hand.

  A curvy woman with cold blue eyes answered the door. “Yes?”

  “Hello,” Tala said to the woman. “Is Kelsey here?”

  “Why would Kelsey be here?” The woman demanded.

  Tala nodded down at the bundle in her arms. “I have her cat. This is the address on his tag.”

  Julia crushed Tala with a glare. “That’s my cat,” she said. “And his tag certainly doesn’t have Kelsey’s name on it.”

  “But I know Sneekers to be hers,” Tala defended. “So I am afraid I cannot give him to you.”

  “Sneekers?” Julia sneered. “Give me my cat.”

  “No. He is injured.”

  Tala watched Julia whip out her phone, make a call, and impatiently wait for that call to be answered. Seconds later she said, “What the hell, Kelsey? There’s some Chinese woman on my porch with Snickers” – she stressed the correct pronunciation of his name while staring coldly at Tala—“And she’s refusing to give him to me because she claims he’s yours.”

  “Tanga,” Tala said under her breath. Stupid woman. She addressed Julia squarely. “I am not Chinese. I am Filipina. Tell her it is Tala.”

  Kelsey heard Tala in the background and asked to speak with her. Julia shoved the phone in Tala’s face.

  “Kelsey?” Tala asked, still clutching Snickers to her chest like a protective mother.

  “Tala? What are you doing at Julia’s?” Kelsey asked, confused.

  “There’s something wrong with Sneekers. I think he has broken his leg. This was the address on his necklace.”

  “Okay,” Kelsey said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Luckily she was working at a property in the area.

  “She will be here shortly,” Tala told Julia, handing over the phone.

  “And I suppose you aren’t going to give me my cat until she gets here?”

  Tala shook her head and Julia went inside and slammed the door, leaving Tala sitting on the porch with Snickers waiting for Kelsey.

  Exactly fifteen minutes later Kelsey arrived and the door swung open again.

  “What happened to him?” Kelsey asked, climbing the steps to greet Tala.

  “I do not know. He came into my yard this way.”

  Kelsey wiped her hands on her jeans then gently inspected Snickers leg. “I think you’re right. It’s probably broken.” She glanced up at Julia. “Can you afford to have it taken care of?”

  Julia folded her arms across her ample chest and glared at her ex-lover. “Keep the fucking thing.”

  Tala’s jaw dropped open and Kelsey shook her head. “Fine, Julia, I’ll take care of this. And I will keep him – but don’t think you’re going to come around in a few weeks asking for him back. In fact, don’t come around at all. Ever.”

  “Didn’t plan on it,” Julia lied. She stalked back inside and slammed the door again behind her.

  “How did you get here?” Kelsey asked Tala, realizing her Grand Cherokee was the only vehicle on the street.

  “I have taken a taxi.”

  “Kelsey’s green eyes softened on Tala’s face. “You did that for Snickers? That’s very kind of you. Thank you.”

  Tala shrugged as if she hadn’t done anything special.

  “Come on,” Kelsey said. “I’ll drop you off at home then get him to the vet.”

  “May I come with you?” Tala asked, still clinging to Snickers with concern.

  “To the vet? Sure, if you really want to.”

  “Yes, I want to.”

  Tala held Snickers during the twenty minute ride to the vet and the two women made small talk on the way.

  “That woman,” Tala finally managed the courage to say, “She was not just your roommate, was she?”

  “She’s my ex,” Kelsey admitted.

  Tala nodded and tried to ignore the flutter in her heart that appeared upon hearing confirmation of Kelsey’s sexuality. She had suspected that Kelsey might not be heterosexual, but hadn’t wanted to assume, in case she was wrong.

  “Does that make you uncomfortable?” Kelsey asked when Tala fell silent.

  “No.” Tala laughed. “She just does not seem like a very nice person.”

  “She’s not,” Kelsey agreed. Tala watched Kelsey’s thin hands grip the steering wheel as she made a left turn. “But she sure was good at faking it for a while.”

  They pulled in front of the vet’s office. Tala opened the car door and carried Snickers inside. Two hours and three-hundred dollars later, it was determined that Snickers’ leg was swollen, but not broken. The vet wrapped his leg, gave him something for the pain, and said he’d be back to normal within the week.

  Kelsey and Tala left the vet’s office like relieved parents. Snickers slept soundly in Tala’s lap on the ride home.

  “For future reference,” Kelsey said, pointing at a house four blocks from Tala’s. “That’s where I live.”

  “You are so close!” Tala exclaimed, admiring the large half-brick, half-sided home Kelsey pointed out. There was an extra wide driveway with an attached two car garage. The flower garden at the front of the house was both lovely, and orderly. The large wooden door rounded at the top and looked like something out of a fairytale.

  Kelsey laughed. “I guess I should update his tags,” she realized, turning a corner and rolling through a stop sign. She turned one more corner and they were on Tala’s street. “Can I reimburse you for the cab fare?”

  Tala shook her head. “This is not necessary.”

  “Salamat,” Kelsey said.

  Tala laughed. “You are very welcome.”

  Kelsey pulled into Tala’s driveway and turned to face her. “Would you like to have lunch some time?” She asked, startling herself. She thought Tala looked worried and instantly added “as friends, of course.”

  Tala smiled sweetly and placed a comforting hand on top of Kelsey’s. “I would love that.” She didn’t mention how much she needed a friend, or how attractive she found Kelsey. That second part was dangerous territory.

  Chapter 5

  “I made a friend today,” Tala told Stephen over dinner that night at DeMarco’s. Tala would have preferred the Italian restaurant up the street but Stephen hadn’t bothered to ask her preference. They went to DeMarco’s because it was his favorite.

  She watched his large hands make fast work of the bread on the table. He tore it into pieces and placed a thick slice on her plate.

  Stephen was huge comp
ared to the men Tala had known in the Philippines. At over six feet tall, with wide shoulders, and a broad chest, Stephen was a giant compared to Tala’s first boyfriend Philip. Philip had been short, with hands as small as his penis, and he’d had a sister who was far more to Tala’s liking.

  “That’s wonderful sweetheart,” Stephen encouraged. “How did you meet her?” His wife rarely left the house. It was odd she could meet anyone at all.

  “It is that woman who jogs. And you know the cat I feed? It is her cat! That is how we met. She was running by and she saw me with him.”

  Stephen chuckled. He knew exactly who Tala was talking about. He saw the pretty woman jog by almost every morning on his way to work. Stephen thought the woman was quite the looker but he’d never admit such a thing to his wife.

  “I’m going to have lunch with her tomorrow, if that’s okay?” Tala didn’t know why she was asking Stephen’s permission. She could have lunch with whomever she chose.

  “That’s fine,” Stephen said. “But please do make time to buy a new dress. We’re having dinner with the Greenes in the evening.”

  Tala frowned at her lasagna. “Why do you tell me these things at the last minute Stephen?”

  “It’s not the last minute. It’s tomorrow night.”

  “I have a very nice pair of pants and a silk top I can wear.”

  Stephen looked at his wife the way a parent looks at a disobedient child. “It should be a dress, Tala.”

  “Stephen you’re fifty, not one-hundred and fifty. Why must you be so old-fashioned? Besides, Evelyn will be wearing pants. She always wears pants.”

  “Evelyn Greene is one of the firm’s top attorneys. She can wear whatever she chooses.”

  “As can I,” Tala said defiantly.

  Stephen loosened his tie and calmly sipped his wine. He was in no mood to argue with his wife. “Fine, Tala, wear whatever you want. If it’s really that hard for you to wear a pretty dress, well then, there it is.”

  Tala knew Stephen wasn’t happy when she stood her ground. It was happening more and more lately and he seemed to realize there was little he could do about it. The more he fought her, the more defiant she became. Most times it was easier to just give in. He argued enough in courtrooms and across conference tables; the last thing he wanted was to argue at home too.