In this hopeful queer time-travelling love story, Lucy is destined to save the whole world – okay, Vancouver – from the apocalypse. But does she really have to leave the love of her life to do it? And what’s with all the goats?
Lucy’s ex-girlfriend is missing, her heart is broken, and her shoes are way too slippery when she hits her head and wakes up 500 years in the future. The future, if that’s what it is, is perfect. Vancouver is an eco-paradise, complete with renewable energy, a gift economy, and a smart, hot historian with a big secret. Lucy’s ex is not so lucky.
However, back in the present, her gay best friend is about to be arrested for her murder, and the ancestors of people she now loves will never be born. Will Lucy stay with her true love in paradise or lose everything to save them all?
If you’ve ever worried about how we could possibly thrive after everything the world is throwing at us from pandemics to climate change, this is for you. Sprinkled with nerdy nuggets of seismology, quantum entanglement, and temporal uncertainty for extra seasoning. But goats eat everything, right?
Lucy
I scream as the fabric of my underwear lodges itself tightly and uncomfortably in my butt. He didn’t! Of course he did. Wedgie attack, just like when we were kids.
“You asshole!” I yell. Bending forward with my butt toward him, I back up into him hard, trying to knock him over. He stumbles back, letting go of the fabric, but then slides around to throw me over his shoulder. I am laughing too hard to breathe as he lifts my feet off the ground with a groan and dumps me into his van, slamming the door.
I let out a squeal of mock shock and disapproval and then collapse into laughter. “You are such a teenage boy!” I say, finally catching my breath and reaching into the back of my pants to un-stick my underwear.
“Guilty as charged.” He admits. “Distracted you from your troubles, though, didn’t it?” He hands me a take-out bag. Upon investigation, it contains a chicken burger with bacon. He resorted to bacon today. He must have thought I needed it.
“Thank you for coming. I really needed a friend today.” I take a bite, filling my mouth with chewy, greasy meat and sigh “and the bacon.” The crushed paper ball in the bottom of the bag tells me Michael has already eaten his undoubtedly healthier sandwich.
He pulls the van away from the curb and drives off, his eyes on the road. When he looks back, it hits me again, why I need him today. “Even her mother won’t tell me where she is.”
“You did call her parents, after all?”
I nod. “Her mom claimed she didn’t even know Brenda had moved out. She made it sound like I was accusing her daughter of running out on the rent.”
“She’s a homophobic ass. The Closeted One probably told her family and they whisked her off to some bible camp to be brainwashed…”
“and married off to Some Church Scion” we say together.
“Ack! The cylons have gotten her?!” says Michael, intentionally misinterpreting Scion as ‘Cylon’, the villainous and sneaky cyborgs from Battlestar Galactica. “You know they love to snatch up stray closet case lesbians!!”
I want to smile but can’t. The cylon thing is pretty funny, although infiltrating cyborgs posing as religious bigots is just too twisty and evil, even for them.
Watching my face, Michael steps out of the joking, concern showing on his face. “She just left you, hon. It doesn’t matter why. You deserve better.”
He’s right. It still hurts. I say “I know. I know. My head knows, anyhow. My heart just wants…”
“an explanation”, he finished my sentence.
“or something.” I poke Michael in the gut and give him an awkward noogie from my place in the passenger seat. “How are you?”
Michael pulls the van over and parks it in the small lot near one end of the beach. “I had a good time at the gym this morning.” Michael says. My best friend Michael is a gym proselytizer, something I try hard to overlook, and when required, ignore. “Ask me why…” his voice lilts up, like he has a big gay secret.
“Because the gym is a big barrel of fun all the time.” I intone solemnly.
“But of course.” says Michael in a fake French accent. “And I also bench pressed a personal best, thank you very much…”
“And…?” there is something else.
“Ju-dee was there, you know, from Elaine’s softball team, the smart one with the nose ring.” he said, still with the French accent. “She asked about you. I said you were a busy girl, what with being ‘single’ and all… she seemed very-”
“You didn’t! Michael! It’s too soon! I don’t need a matchmaker.”
“You don’t *want* a matchmaker, what you need is something entirely different,” he said with a little fake leer. “You need to-“
“ut tut tut tut! I’m not listening, I’m not listening…” I cover my ears, feigning horror.
“Fine.” He is giving up easily. I am suspicious.
“Listen” I say “I know you think-“
“You need to stop moping and get out more.”
This is true, but if he says so one more time, I might have to give him a wedgie like I did when we were kids. Besides, I owe him a wedgie.
Michael is taller than me, but compact and muscular, with curly dark hair that he wears in a tousled style that always looks freshly styled. He has blue eyes that suddenly look at me with the zeal of the exercise evangelist. “You should come to the gym with me sometime” he tells me, as if he’d just thought of it, which he hasn’t. “You’d get to like it, and it might make you feel better. There are lots of interesting people there…”
Wedgie, wedgie, wedgie…. I’m saying in my head but instead I say “Which part of it would I like more, the sore muscles or the slipped vertebra when I put something out of joint trying to lift the damn weights?” I raise both my eyebrows to emphasize the point.
“That was only the one time” says Michael, “and I think you just pulled something.”
“Or maybe listening to my attractive puffing and panting in a nice crowded public place full of fit people? Exercise should be dignified…”
“or at least done to loud music so no one can hear you puff and pant” we intone together.
“Gay men who look like models are in no position to know what would make a curvaceous amazon such as myself happy”
“humph.” But Michael means well. I don’t have to tell him that meeting him for lunch or a walk on the beach on his late lunch break, timed close to the early end of my ridiculously early workday, is the highlight of my week. I myself am not chiselled. I am tall, which is all right, but more than slightly chunky, with wavy hair that I think of as blonde, but is probably kind of a light brown. At least my hair, cut in a spiky style that earns me the ‘you’re on the team’ smile from women in the gayborhood, is all right. It frames my face, as my hairdresser Delia would say. And mostly I think I’m curvy, strong and not too out of shape, when I’m thinking kindly about myself.
I’ve been having a hard time thinking kindly of anyone lately, least of all me.
After Brenda left two weeks ago, Michael has helped keep me moving. He means well, and he loves me. And he needs to get back to work. I can do this.
“Hey” I say, “I don’t need a ride home, I’m going to leave you here and walk for a bit on the beach.”
“Not the best day for it,” says Michael “foggy.”
“Yeah, but at least it won’t be full of tourists”
“Well there is that.” I unbuckle my seat-belt and turn. “Bye, baby!” he says, giving me a sideways bear hug. I rest for a moment pressed against my friend, taking a deep breath, then get out of the van. I wave as he drives off. It’s chilly, so I button my coat against the weather and head onto the courtyard above the short stairwell leading down to the beach, a courtyard that, if not exactly rainproof, is at least sheltered from the wind by thick trees.
In the courtyard, the old stones look time-roughened, or perhaps time-smoothed from a still rougher state centuries ago. The fog lays low on the ground in a layer. Above it, in the early-darkening November sky, the moon is an arc of platinum light, pale baby hair against the black – just shy of first quarter moon, waxing crescent.
Brenda didn’t really get my spiritual beliefs, but she liked the Pagan ideas about the phases of the moon being auspicious. Seeing a moon like that, Brenda would have said it’s time for good new beginnings.
But she won’t be saying it to me. Not anymore.
I want my life to be a science fiction novel. I want to live where anything can happen. I want the truths that hold me from stretching out into life to be only one version of reality, and a highly unlikely one at that. If I can’t have that, I just want to live in a world where Brenda and I can be who we are.
Where the hell is Brenda? I know she was mad, but why just disappear? It’s not like I am going to stalk her or something. She made herself quite clear.
“I don’t know why you need to tell everyone. It’s nobody’s business.” Brenda said during our last, dismal failure of a fight, after she once again allowed her mother to set her up on a blind date with a man.
The thing is, I almost get why Brenda needs to pretend she’s not gay. She’s from a homophobic Catholic family, newly out, and it’s a big thing, coming out to your parents. I was even okay with it at the beginning, when it was clear Brenda wanted me, and the love and attraction, or maybe just the pheromones, were so powerful. But after two years as my partner, and six months living together for Goddess-sake, she needs to grab a pair of ovaries and just tell her mother to stop fixing her up with men. A closeted gay relationship feels like long underwear full of sandpaper, invisible and grating. I didn’t want to keep pretending we were just roommates, and Brenda couldn’t understand that. My partner of two years should not be going on fix-ups with men because she is too chicken to tell her mother she’s already in a relationship. A lesbian relationship.
Well, she’s not in a lesbian relationship anymore, is she?
Brenda’s guilt and intrusive religious family are these big concrete blocks chained to her. Every time she gets an inch from the closet those blocks pull her back. I don’t know how she breathes with the weight of them. We had separate bedrooms, in case her family dropped in unexpectedly, and she was afraid they’d drop in all the time. We used to have sex, good sex that made me distracted in waves all through the next day at work, but after two years of fighting about being out, we barely talked, let alone had sex. Without intimacy, we are – we were – almost the roommates we pretended to be.
Then one evening after work a couple of weeks ago, I came home and Brenda and most of her stuff was gone.
She didn’t even leave a note. Was I just not important enough to leave a damn note? That’s what really hurts, more than even sci fi joking can cover.
I couldn’t handle not knowing anymore. So this morning I got desperate enough to finally call Brenda’s mother in Abbotsford.
“Is this Mrs. Camiolo?”
“Yes, who is calling?” said Mrs. C, in her formal, yet cordial voice.
“This is Lucy, Brenda’s roommate.”
“Oh, yes dear, what can I do for you?” Brenda’s mother was pleasant enough, although I know she doesn’t like me. I don’t know which is worse for her, me being not a Catholic, or me being a feminist. She couldn’t possibly suspect Brenda and I were together, not with all the work Brenda put into hiding.
I tried to sound like a helpful roommate rather than a worried spouse. “Um… Brenda left the apartment, and her things are gone. Since she didn’t say where she’d be, I was hoping you’d know where to send the rest of her things, or if she’d be coming by for them…”
“She moved out? Are you sure she’s not on vacation? I think Frank said she was on vacation. Maybe she left early? She wouldn’t move out without giving notice…” Her voice sounded suspicious, as if she thought I was making something up.
Of course, I was. And she wouldn’t move out on anyone else without giving notice either. But I’m not anyone else. I broke. I managed to get out “Sorry to bother you” before the sudden burst of tears got too obvious in my voice. I hung up.
After that, I just couldn’t bring myself to call Brenda’s work for information. It would freak Brenda out so much if anyone at work caught on she’d been in a relationship with a woman. I’m hurt, but there are some things you just don’t do.
Here, now, in the courtyard, everything is deserted and grey with stone and rain. A low granite wall at the edge blocks some of the view of the water, and there’s an opening to a short flight of stairs down to the rock-strewn beach.
This courtyard was where we met. Not in the rain, like now. In the sun. I had been sitting there in the sunshine a lot longer than usual, eating my after-work snack while watching the birds finish the last of someone else’s.
That seagull was so brazen, or maybe I looked like an easy mark. He hopped up, and while I was resting my eyes, he snatched my sandwich right out of my hand then…
Suddenly there was Brenda. A warrior queen brandishing her umbrella like a sword, defending the sandwich against the foul encroachers. I close my eyes, now, and Brenda is still here, tall and dark, dashing, capable and decisive, all well-muscled bare legs and arms.
“I can’t let you defend my honour so valiantly without saluting you with at least a latte.” I’d said. I couldn’t believe, even then, that I’d been so bold. It was as if there was a flirtation train going by and suddenly, I was on it, unable to figure out how to get off.
That coffee led to weekends spent in bed and eventually a U-Haul, until she left one day while I was at work, and I didn’t hear from her again.
She was so strong and decisive, brave and articulate in most of her life, but was a quailing coward when it came to that last challenge, being honest about her life.
Mom has known about me for forever. She found out almost as soon as I really accepted it myself. It was my 19th birthday. Me and mom were walking on the beach after a birthday dinner together. She was visiting me, all by herself for once, not with dad, and I felt close to her as we walked. She asked, a little too casually, “Do you hang out with any guys these days?” looking sideways at me.
This is it, I thought and took a deep breath.
I answered honestly.
“Not really, I have a couple of good guy friends, but most of them are gay.”
Long silence.
“Mmm.” said Mom, and changed the subject.
And that was that. She didn’t talk about ‘the gay’ after that, but I think she at least accepts it. Mom has met everyone I’ve seriously dated. She is kind to all my girlfriends and always invites them with me to family functions. She told me she liked Brenda and treated us as a couple just the same as she treats my brother Jeremy and his girlfriends. I figure that even though she doesn’t discuss me being lesbian, mom is fine about it. At least MY mom doesn’t try and fix me up with her friend’s sons every chance she gets.
I pass the bench where a lone seagull squats. No squabbling for leftovers today, he’ll have to go back to eating fish. “Better for you anyhow” I admonish him. “Omega 3 fatty acids are good for birds too, I’m sure.”
I need to leave this courtyard, this past. I head down the stone steps to the water, along the large rocks that line the shore, walking slowly to avoid slipping on the wet uneven surfaces. It is barely raining now, only misting. By Vancouver standards, that doesn’t really count as rain. Usually, I walk this scenic route all the way home. There is something about old Mother Ocean, who makes even grey and stormy beautiful and right.
The true rain earlier, and now the thick fog, is enough to keep the beach relatively clear, thank goodness. I can pretend I have it all to myself. The sticky, bulky mass of tears I haven’t been able to deal with sit heavy in my chest, and almost, finally, push up in a stream to my eyes. Here, the waves slip back and forth, comforting and soft, and the big grey belly of Mother Ocean seems expectant, waiting.
Tendrils of mist swirl, almost within touching range, obscuring the details of the rocks and waves, and I’m all alone inside them, separate. I feel the thin shields between me and the grief. The fog is thicker than unusual for Vancouver. Being surrounded by it feels like being in a trance, journeying to the mist-shrouded island of Avalon.
Almost every Halloween, I go to a Samhain ritual at the local community hall, held by a Pagan group. I lie on a mat on the hard floor and listen to the heartbeat of the drum and the priestess’ voice leading us into the mists. Just like the real mists, the mists in my mind drift in slowly. Following the sacred story, I ride in my mind inside those mists in a dark wooden boat, feeling the dark wood shift under me as the boat lists, eventually ending up on the shore of an island I know is full of apple trees, simultaneously in bloom, in bud, in fruit and in decay. It’s not like I see or feel it all at once, but sometimes gifts of insight emerge from the mist in fragments of sight, sound, sensation. According to some traditions, the dead go to Avalon to rest before being reborn, and if you aren’t careful, a spirit looking to become a baby in your body might tag a ride home with you as you leave. Unexpected pregnancies are not something that happens to lesbians, though.
It’s been comforting to visit the spirits of my grandmothers and grandfathers on the island. Each time I go, I feel their love, reassurance and support.
Stories of getting lost in the mists and having adventures are a folkloric staple. For that matter, so are tales of coming back after only a few days in the land of faerie to discover years had passed. Woo. Mists are mysterious. Snort!
I can see a little better in this real-world mist than my trance journeys, but not by much. These work shoes aren’t really the best for climbing on slick rocks.
Pay attention, Lucy. Brenda was always on me about wearing my nice work clothes and shoes when I suddenly needed to garden, or fix something outside, or walk a muddy beach. But Brenda isn’t here! I can walk just fine in a leather sole on a slippery rock. It is just like walking on ice, when I was a kid back home. Brenda would be…
Crunch! went the rocks nearby. There’s someone here! I turn too suddenly, a sharp pain in my ankle. I’m on my butt on the rocks for a second and then backward, my head hitting something hard, blazing pain.
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