Love in Disguise

Friday, May 30 Kya and I had now lived together for nearly a month. Things were still wonderful between us. I never felt better. I remember thinking to myself, if only the judge knew just how much he’d blessed me with the day he sent me to Star Jail—when in fact, it was really the other way around. Things were about to change. “Want to go out to dinner tonight, to, say, some Chinese place?” Kya asked. “Sure,” I replied. Once seated in the restaurant, I received the most unusual request. “Sativa, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but what do you think about cutting your hair?” I glanced up from the menu, confused. “My hair?” “Yeah, you know, that stuff on your head that’s overly long? Do you really need all that hair?” I thought about it for a moment. “No, I suppose I don’t. Why? Do you think it’ll look better shorter?” “It’s not so much that it’ll look better, but I think it’ll make things easier. It gets in the way in bed, and I don’t mean just during sex. The other night I suddenly felt like I was suffocating or something and woke up to find your hair strewn across my face.” “Oh, sorry,” I said, chuckling. She laughed briefly herself. I thought about it some more. The expression on Kya’s face seemed hopeful. “Well,” I began, clearing my throat, “I always thought that anything above the shoulders on a woman detracted greatly from her femininity, but perhaps I’ll cut it to the middle of my back or a few inches higher.” “That’d be nice,” said Kya, seeming both relieved and pleased. “I’ll take you to whatever hairdresser you want to go to.” “Nah, that’s okay. I prefer to cut my own hair. You just never know how scissor-happy some of the more eager hairdressers might get on you.” We laughed. A part of me wondered if cutting my hair really was the right thing to do. I had learned that when it was assumed, expected, or demanded of a woman to give up things like jobs, children, and friends—or to change her appearance—she was being controlled. But Kya didn’t assume, expect, or demand. She had simply asked, informing me of my right to say no. I’d cut my hair for her simply because I wanted to, not because she was forcing me to, I reasoned with myself. A young Mexican girl was seated next to us with a male companion. I thought she looked remarkably like Rosa, but I knew it wasn’t her. She was undoubtedly down in Mexico. Rosa’s letter had been returned to me saying she was no longer in custody. Knowing that she couldn’t have gone to trial that fast led me to believe the charges against her had been dropped and that she had been deported. At least, that’s what I hoped had happened. Kya noticed me staring at the girl. She didn’t seem too happy about it either. “I was just noticing the amazing resemblance to Rosa,” I explained. Eyes now lowered, Kya still appeared unhappy as she slowly set her glass back down on the table before shifting her gaze back up to meet mine. She placed her elbows on the table and clasped her hands together. “Yeah, well, you noticed for quite a long time, don’t you think?” “No,” I said with surprise. She looked at me with skepticism. I was growing more confused by the minute. “Kya, what are you insinuating?” “Nothing,” she said, stirring her straw around in her soda. “Nothing at all.” After we ate our dinner and declined dessert, I went to use the bathroom while Kya waited for the check. I went more to ease my discomfort than to empty my bladder. I approached the sink and checked my makeup in the mirror. A woman about my age, also a petite green-eyed brunette, exited a stall and began washing her hands in the sink next to mine. “You’re with Kya, aren’t you?” I froze, glancing at her in the mirror. “Who are you?” “I’m Laci, and you do not want to be with that woman,” she said, stressing the word not. I turned to face her directly. “Why do you say that?” “I say that because of this.” She showed me scars on the palm of one hand. “She put my hand down on a hot stovetop one day.” I stared at her, speechless. “I can’t even remember why she did it. I lost track of all the millions of things I was supposed to have done to deserve all the kicks, punches, and verbal abuse I got from that sick twist out there. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out while you can. She’ll treat you like gold for the first month or so, then—watch out!” She turned and left. I stood there, visibly shaken. I thought of the fact that it had been just about a month since Kya and I began living together and recalled her strange display of jealousy at the table a few moments ago. Finally, as if my feet had been glued to the floor, I summoned enough courage to return to our table to confront Kya, who was collecting change from the waitress after she’d rung up our bill. Before I could say anything, Kya sensed something was wrong. “What’s up, babe?” she asked as she reached for a packet of sugar for her coffee. “Well,” my voice trembled, “I met Laci in the bathroom.” Kya’s hand froze in midair. Her eyes riveted up toward mine in an instant. “Oh, yeah?” I nodded. “She said you beat her and that I should get the hell away from you before it’s too late.” She resumed the act of reaching for the sugar. “So what do you think, Sativa?” she asked as she ripped the packet open and poured it into her coffee. “Well, why would she say something like that? She said you burned her hand on the stove. Just what did happen?” “What happened was that Laci was a very disturbed girl involved in a case I was working.” “And?” “And she’s a very spiteful person.” “You mean you guys were never lovers?” “No. She wanted to be, but I continually turned her offers down. Something she obviously didn’t take very well. She’d call my house and leave all kinds of notes.” “Way out in Maricopa?” “I lived in Phoenix back then.” “Why didn’t you arrest her for harassing you?” She guzzled the coffee, then slid out of the booth. I followed her. “Because I was too nice,” she finally answered in the parking lot. “But maybe that’s what I should’ve done.” We rode home in silence. Kya seemed pretty upset by my little meeting with Laci. Although I was more confused than ever and didn’t know what to make of it, I tried to lighten the mood. “Don’t worry about it,” I said in the cheeriest voice I could muster. She turned and looked at me for a second, the whites of her eyes glowing in the darkness, then refocused her blank stare once again out the windshield. “If you didn’t do anything, you didn’t do anything, and you have nothing to worry about.” I slowly placed my hand on her firm thigh. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t respond either. I slowly pulled my hand away and stared out into the darkness beyond the passenger window. “It’s not your fault,” she finally said as we were nearing home. “You didn’t ask to meet the nutcase, after all.” I thought about Laci. Was she a jealous, unstable woman unable to handle rejection? Or was she truly the innocent victim of abuse that Kya had inflicted upon her? That night, Kya seemed rather distant, mostly keeping to herself. Her parents, who were very open-minded and aware of our relationship, called to say hello at some point during the evening. When it finally came time for us to hit the sack, she relented when I began massaging her and kissing various parts of her body, and we made love. With a little more oomph than I’d have liked, but I still enjoyed it. The only thing I didn’t like was being made to feel like I’d done something wrong. She said it wasn’t my fault that Laci had told me what she told me, yet she sure had a way of making me feel like it was. I knew Laci was the one she was mad at, but I still felt like I was being shunned. Come the next day, Kya acted as if the incident had never taken place, so as long as she wasn’t going to bring it up, neither was I.