She took my hand in both of hers. “Good to meet you.”
“Happy birthday,” I said. Her face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t imagine why.
We followed Gigi through the crowded rooms, clearly not the only people wowed by this woman who sparked the air around her. Even her husband seemed shadowed by her radiance. Gigi led us into the back garden. “Take a look around,” she called out, turning to greet more friends. We were offered a joint by some people taking in the sunset on the patio. Jet joined them, leaving me and Rick to explore the winding paths of Gigi’s garden. It was wonderfully wild with climbing roses and blooming purple irises everywhere.
All I could think of was Gigi. What a smile! And hadn’t I heard her voice a thousand times before? I had become interested in past lives and I thought we might have known each other in an earlier incarnation. I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
At the end of the evening Gigi and I agreed that we wanted more time to get to know each other. She invited us to dinner the following night. I didn’t even check with Rick, who was beside me as I confirmed, with sparkling eyes, “We’ll be there, Gigi. Let me know what I can bring.”
For years I had fantasized about being intimate with a woman, and Gigi was exactly the kind of woman who attracted me. Levine had tantalized me with stories of women loving one another, and it was my favorite fantasy in my own sexual pleasuring. But I was too shy to pursue fulfillment of my fantasy, and no woman had ever approached me.
The fragrance of bread baking and a fire blazing in the woodstove welcomed us the following evening as we entered Gigi’s home and were swept into the arms of the divine mother within her. She served us a delicious meal and then we took seats by the wood-burning stove while the men visited at the other end of the room. Gigi’s son, Mitch, was twelve, a gorgeous young male image of her. I told Gigi she reminded me of my mother. “I know this sounds strange, but you smell like my mother, Gigi,” I laughed. I told her about a cream my mother wore, from a cosmetics company that an old friend of hers had founded.
Gigi sat up straight. “My aunt founded a cosmetics company!”
“This was a long time ago. I think my mother started wearing that cream when my dad was in the army and they lived in Carlisle.”
“My mother lived in Carlisle! My dad was stationed there.”
Chills ran up my spine.
“What’s your mother’s name?” Gigi asked.
“Mary Graham Cusack.”
“I can’t believe this! I know that name.”
It was too late to call Gigi’s mother and tell her she had met her old friend’s daughter, but she would call her first thing the next morning and then call me. “She always wondered what happened to your mom after the war. She is going to be so excited.”
As Rick and I drove in silence to Jet’s house that night, I could feel something shifting in me. A missing part of me was falling into place. No one had a context for what was occurring between Gigi and me. I was about to see my own beauty reflected back through the recognition of it in Gigi’s eyes. I was about to discover that my sexuality was mine, to be shared as I wished with whomever I wished. I was about to be reborn into a more faceted version of who I thought I was.
The next morning, Gigi called. “Wait ’til you hear this, Kern. Our moms were best friends in that apartment complex during the war. My mother babysat you when your parents went out or your mom had to run to the store. She gave your mom her first jar of that cream around the time you were born. Mom wants us to come over immediately.”
Gigi picked me up at Jet’s house and Rick stayed behind while we drove to her mother’s house in Carmel for this remarkable reunion. Her mother beamed as she opened the door and swept me into her arms. She plucked a cotton ball from deep inside her abundant cleavage: there it was, my mother’s smell. She said, “You loved to pull these from my bra when I held you in my arms. You always knew where to look for that good smell, sweet Carolyn.”
I inhaled the familiar, soulful scent of my mother.
We sat together talking and Gigi and I learned that we are the third generation in both of our families to become friends through accidental meetings. Our grandparents had met each other while traveling with a group to Greece, and back home in Kansas and Ohio they had continued their friendship. Our fathers ended up in the same platoon in the army, their wives had become close friends, and now Gigi and I had met. It was destiny.
A week after our return to Ojai, I turned around and drove back to Carmel Valley to fall into Gigi’s arms. Her husband was out of town, and Mitch was staying with his grandparents. Through the day we walked hand in hand along the streets of Carmel, stopping into boutiques to browse and buy trinkets that pleased us. We tried on cute hats that framed our faces and delighted in each other as we left the store wearing them. We bought flannel nighties to warm us as we talked late into the night. We played with our passion, exploring each other sexually. We lacked the expertise to express our passion, but we met each other full of desire, certain that there was room in both of our marriages for the truth of this aliveness to express itself.
Who would start the lovemaking? What would we do? I wished I had paid attention to exactly what those men did when they placed their soft lips upon my goddess button of passion. Should I lick softly or with more pressure, faster or slower, up and down or sideways with circles? How would I get a breath of air or keep my neck from cramping? Did she like it? Should I be looking at her? How could I ask her for directions with my mouth buried in her yoni? And if she did come, should I keep on going? We were total novices with 100-horsepower passion fueling us as we curled up close, content to be together this way. When we picked up Mitch on Sunday we both wore big Cheshire-cat grins.
After a few perfect days with Gigi and Mitch, I went home. I felt lost, alone, and confused in Ojai. We called each other every day. We admitted that we felt constricted with our men and expansive with one another. We felt completely seen by each other, something we did not feel in our marriages. What did this mean? What trouble had we started? Our identities were heterosexual, yet we loved each other in a way I had never known with anyone.
Gigi and I were the sisters we both had always wanted. We also were each the child our parents couldn’t figure out, the one who caused the big stir in the family. Gigi had gotten pregnant with Mitch when she was in high school. I had married at eighteen. We had disappointed our parents, never going to college and fitting into their picture of the perfect daughter, the only daughter. But here, with each other, we found the unconditional love we needed.
I began traveling often between Ojai and Carmel. Rick saw me dizzy with excitement whenever I spoke with Gigi on the phone or packed a suitcase to go and see her, and he never said a word. He must have felt threatened and sad, but I think he didn’t want to interfere with my happiness. And I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t know where my relationship with Gigi was going any more than I knew what to do with this man I loved and had married but wasn’t sure was right for me.
In Carmel Gigi and I spent endless hours curled up with cups of tea talking about our marriages, our fantasies, our sexual histories, our longings, and our passions until we finally had to admit we would rather be free to be with each other—or anyone else, for that matter—than living the lives we were living. We encouraged each other to make whatever changes were needed to claim our sovereignty as autonomous women.
Within months after our meeting, Gigi told her husband she wanted a separation and eventually they divorced. I remained unresolved about what to do with Rick. Our primary challenges were how to bridge our extreme differences and his financial frustrations. Meanwhile, Gigi and Mitch kept the home fires burning and counted the days until my next visit. I loved seeing her come in from the garden