Page 34 of This Is Who I Am

She wasn’t kidding about the mess, nor the dust. She stops in the hallway for a moment, as though the state of the house surprises her as well.

“We can also just go to yours.” She shrugs. “I’m trying to see the place through your eyes and I now realize it’s not, um, you know, as it should be, but I don’t notice it anymore. It’s like I’ve become blind to the shambles this place is in.” She turns to me. “I wasn’t really thinking about this when I invited you over.”

“What were you thinking about?” As if I care about the state of Estelle’s late father’s house when I’m standing so close to her I can smell her perfume.

“Scotch, of course.” Her grin is so mischievous, it’s obvious she wanted to say something else entirely.

“Then by all means, take me to your scotch.” I reach for her hand again, as though I already miss it, and I’m taken aback by what her touch in the privacy of this house does to me. It feels as though my clit has woken up from the longest hibernation and, hesitantly but unmistakably, says to me, “Hey, I still exist. I’m still a part of your body.”

Thank goodness Estelle pulls me into the living room, stacks of paper everywhere, toward a bar worthy of a top-notch restaurant.

“Daddy Raymond liked a tipple,” I say, admiring the dusty bottles crowding the shelves.

“Funnily enough, he was more a collector than a drinker. He added a lot of bottles while not many got thrown out.” Estelle sighs. “It was a nightmare when he moved back here, but he wasn’t one for downsizing, either.”

“When did he move back to Clearwater Bay?” I have my eye on a bottle of Macallan.

“Three years ago, when he turned eighty and the dean finally convinced him to leave the university—not an easy thing to do.” Estelle reaches for the bottle I was eyeing. “This one?” She nods approvingly. “Excellent choice.”

While we head to the living area, Estelle grabs two glasses. “In hindsight, I think that’s when his dementia started to become an issue. In Berkeley, he was still known for his sharp mind, but his body wasn’t very able and willing anymore.” She pours us each two fingers of scotch. “But he didn’t want to stay in his house in Berkeley after he left the university. He didn’t say it as such, but it hurt him too much to no longer be a professor. It truly was his pride and joy. Clearly, he’d made enough money to no longer have to teach, but it was everything to him.” Estelle gazes into the amber liquid. “I think it might be one of the reasons I held on for so long at my own job at Berkeley. I didn’t want to disappoint him by quitting. I would never have quit as long as he was alive. I’d rather have dragged myself through day after day, completely mentally exhausted, than having to tell my father that I no longer wanted to be a professor at his beloved Berkeley.” She exhales deeply, then holds up her glass. “The day I got tenure might have been the best day of his life. You should have seen him.” She shakes her head. “To Richard Raymond, a wonderfully complicated genius and the best father a girl could ever wish for.”

I tap my glass against hers. “To Richard Raymond.” While I take a sip, I make a mental note to google Estelle’s genius of a father tomorrow—if I manage to think of anything else but her.

CHAPTER18

ESTELLE

For the first fifteen minutes of sipping my dad’s scotch with Cass, I’m a little embarrassed about the mess, but this isn’t my house. Although technically it is, because Dad left it to me—along with a hefty sum I never saw coming. But being with Cass is relaxing. Combined with the scotch and our pleasant evening, the state of the house is the last thing on my mind.

Of course, her words from before are sticking in my mind: ‘sex is off the table.’Hallelujah.But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself—not with a woman I’ve only just met. After all, I once fell deeply in love with an amazing asexual woman, convinced I’d won the romantic relationship lottery, only to have her make a swift shift on the spectrum and start wanting to experiment with sex. It didn’t work out. It never does. I take another sip.

“Is it fair to assume,” Cass’s buttery voice cuts through my thoughts, “that you might linger in town a while.”

“Look around you.” I point at my dad’s stuff that couldn’t be more prominently on display around us. “I still have some work to do.”

“What are you going to do with all of this?”

“Go over every single sheet of paper.” I nod sharply. “I have to. God knows what he was working on when he had good days. I owe it to him to find out.”

“What about the problem he left you? Have you solved it yet?”

“No,” I say on a sigh. “At this point, it’s impossible to know whether I can’t solve it because it’s unsolvable or whether it’s too difficult. The two options are equally possible.”

“If you need help with any of this.” Cass points at a stack of paper threatening to topple over. “I’m available.”

“You have a restaurant to run.” Looking into Cass’s kind face gives me that cozy warm feeling again.

“Savor is always closed on the weekend, so I’m free SaturdayandSunday.” Some women simply look even better with a glass of fine scotch in their hand—Cass is one of them.

“That’s very kind of you, but I need to do the first stage on my own. I need to go through his work and only then can I start disposing of old furniture and clothes and whatnot.”

“Just say the word and I’m here.” Cass’s eyes are so blue—and all tenderness and generosity.

“Thank you.” I don’t look away as I take another sip.

“Can I ask what happened to your mother?”

“She died a long time ago, when I was only sixteen.”

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