#1 Lesbians in Hawaii

The whole point of jetting off to Hawaii right after New Year's was to get away from the rain and cold and embrace the warm sun. For Nadia, though, it had thus far been anything but sitting poolside and eating her weight in good, local food.

"You said so yourself that you needed a new bathing suit." Eva, Nadia's wife of three years, didn't look up from her phone as she sat on the edge of the room. Her big, comfy chair was more inviting than the dais Nadia now stood upon, a woman taking her measurements. "What better place to get a quality one than right here on Oahu? If I didn't already buy a new one last month, I'd be buying one too."

Nadia sighed, her arms in a T-pose as a tape measurer extended from her armpit to her wrist. Why this lady must measure my arms, I have no idea. It was bad enough that her bust and hips had been scrutinized for a bathing suit fitting, but Nadia had long stopped asking why her wife put her through these paces. Eva came from a completely different background than Nadia, who grew up thankful for a Wal-Mart or Target in her town – especially since both big box stores usually had more variety in plus sizes.

When Nadia had brought up her size to her wife, however, Eva only used it as more fodder for why they should get a new swimsuit in Hawaii. "There's more variety in sizes here than back home," she had argued on the plane ride from New England to Oahu. "Besides, it's part of the experience, right?"

This wasn't Nadia's first time being fitted for clothes in Hawaii. They had come at least once a year since meeting, as the Warren household had a condo right on Waikiki Beach. It may not have been as glamorous as the private island they owned in the middle of the Caribbean, but it never stopped someone with the last name of Warren from hopping on a plane to spend Christmas in Hawaii.

Yet this was the first time Nadia had suffered through this since marrying the woman who now scrolled through her phone. In those past three years, Nadia had gained weight like most married women in their thirties. During a pandemic, no less. The Warrens may have had access to the healthiest food imaginable, but that never stopped curvy Nadia from stress-eating whole bags of potato chips and guzzling soda because the familiarly flavored fizz reminded her of the happier times of her childhood. Plus, when we had to suspend most of our staff for our safety, nobody stepped in to cook. For months, the Warrens had food delivered from all across their New England city. Only Nadia and her sister-in-law Monica knew how to cook anything, and they were often too busy or too stressed out to care.

Now, Nadia faced the dreaded numbers as they appeared on the seamstress's tablet. Have I really added that many inches to my waist? No wonder some of her favorite work clothes no longer fit. The biggest insult had come when Eva had some of her wife's clothing readjusted by the family tailor. Sure, the dresses and blouses fit now, but at what cost to her poor ego?

This was simply the final insult. Especially when the seamstress turned in her numbers and the saleslady assigned to their account brought back a bright orange bikini that accentuated a woman's every exposed inch.

"Oh, no." Nadia waved her hands before her spilling cleavage. Everywhere she turned, her reflection rejected everything it faced, whether her long red hair rested on her left shoulder or her right. "No way. I am not wearing this out in public!"

Eva glanced up from her phone. "Ooh. I like that. Your ass is divine in orange!"

Nadia almost accidentally untied the back of the bikini top when she whipped around and stared down her wife. "I don't want anyone checking out my ass! Not like this!" To the saleslady, she curtly requested sensible one pieces. Soon, Nadia and Eva were left alone in the dressing room.

"You already have that adorable sarong that I love," Eva pointed out. "Besides, I love a good excuse to cover you in sunscreen."

"You love any excuse to touch my boobs."

"Well, duh."

Nadia didn't take Eva's flirtatious bait – this was the woman who commented on her wife's body at least ten times a day. After a while, Nadia barely recognized the compliments as anything but general commentary.

"I have gained so much weight." Nadia hissed those words through her teeth as she turned around in front of the mirrors, fingers tugging on the bikini's bottom until it covered up more of her cellulite. "You'd think I don't get up and move around multiple times a day." She had a sedentary job, and that was especially true during the height of lockdowns when she worked from home, but that had been two years ago. Where had that weight come from? Genetics? Aging? More like taking terrible care of myself. Yet she couldn't pinpoint the exact source, even if she tried to blame herself and a lack of self-control. Most of her meals had returned to being healthier than average. She hit the home gym multiple times a week to keep her blood flowing. You know I'm in the gym too much when your brother-in-law becomes your spotter. Eva rarely touched the gym equipment. Monica? She barely knew what the machines were called.

"You look radiant," Eva said with a decisive sigh. "If I could, I'd eat you up right here."

"Here I thought you were about to say something very different." The saleslady returned. Nadia kept any other naughty misinterpretations to herself.

A pink strapless one-piece appeared before Nadia. "Would you like to try this one next?"

Nadia knew that fighting back was pointless. When Eva put her mind on something, she didn't care what anyone else said. If she wants to buy me a new bathing suit like this, we're not leaving until I find something I like. Sometimes, Nadia lied about what that was, just so the event ended. Today, however, she had little patience. She'd blame jetlag, but she had slept most of the flight to Honolulu. It's not like my sleep schedule is totally off since we got here yesterday. Granted, they had arrived late in the afternoon and had gone straight to the condo, where food awaited them. After showering and eating, Nadia crawled into the king-sized bed she shared with her wife and watched TV until she drifted back to sleep again.

Eva wasn't letting her wife get away with inactivity, though. Right after brunch in a hotel restaurant across the street from their condo building, they came here to buy Nadia a new bathing suit. They were supposed to use one of their membership cards to gain access to a beachfront swimming pool, but that had been beyond Nadia's ability once she let slip that her old bathing suit was "just terrible" That's code for not fitting me correctly anymore.

To Eva's credit, she never mentioned the obvious: that her wife had gone up at least two sizes, while she still had the flat stomach she possessed when she first met Nadia.

Hate her for it. Nadia loved her wife, but she hated Eva for that.

"All right, I like that, too." Eva put her phone away as she gazed upon Nadia in a pink one-piece. "As much as I like some bare skin, sometimes it's nice to leave things up to the imagination. What do you think?"

Nadia pulled on the heart-shaped bodice that the saleslady claimed was "perfectly in place." Rather hard to believe when Nadia's breasts threatened to fall out again. "I feel far from secure in this thing. Are you sure it's not going to fall the moment I step outside?" she asked the saleslady.

"I've never heard of that happening to anyone who had a suit that properly fit them," the woman curtly said.

How do I know this properly fits me, huh? "I think I'd like something with straps."

"Certainly. I'll be right back."

Eva groaned. "You're adding more fabric to that gorgeous body of yours?"

"I'm not wearing anything in public unless I'm sure it's staying on. I also don't want people staring at me."

"You know I'm not one to burst your bubble," Eva muttered, "but people absolutely stare at us. Especially you. You've got that great hair and a body to die for. Honestly, I think they only stare at me because they're jealous I get to curl up to you every night."

"More like getting handsy in her sleep…"

"Problem?"

Nadia softly snorted at her reflection. "No." She pulled down the pink one-piece, hiding her naked front from her wife, who would comment on it. By the time the saleslady returned with a royal blue that tied behind the neck, Nadia had decided to take it so they could get out of here faster.

Luckily for her, it was by far the best for her ego that day.

"You know I'm gonna struggle to do anything but untie this when we're by the pool." Eva had stood up to grace Nadia with her presence. Only on a dais am I almost as tall as her. Eva towered at nearly six and a half feet tall. Nadia, on the other hand, was a good bit shorter. Try over a foot shorter. At least Eva wasn't wearing heels that day. Ever since landing in Hawaii, she had traded her boots for sneakers and sandals. "I think it's a good call, though. You know I love this color of blue on you."

Nadia scrambled out of the bathing suit so the saleslady could box it up and take it to the register. "You love every color on me."

Eva stopped the woman about to leave the room. After audibly whispering, "Pack the bikini version, too," she returned to her wife and said, "Now, that's not true. As much as I hate to admit it, green looks bizarre with your complexion. All shades. It's unfair. Oh, and baby pink flushes you out."

"That makes two of us on the ‘no green' train." Nadia motioned for Eva to help her snap her bra back into place. "Except, in my case, it's because I always got teased growing up for looking like Christmas threw up."

"You do have this bold red hair that I love."

Nadia picked up her loose T-shirt. It needed to go on her body before the elastic waistband shorts that went down to her mid-thigh. Far from fashionable, but I don't care. The older she got, the less she cared about dressing up when leaving the house. Unless it was for work or a charity function. There are too many of those, so there you go. If Nadia was on vacation in Hawaii, damnit, she'd wear whatever was comfiest. The heat did not play on this island, and like most other redheaded girls, she had to watch the UV exposure.

"I got a text from Henry," Eva said as they grabbed their shopping bag and stepped out into the tropical island sunlight. Almost immediately, Eva donned her Givenchy sunglasses while Nadia stuck with her clearance Armani Exchange. She knew the average tourist couldn't tell the difference, but this was Hawaii in early January. Most of the haoles she saw were of the richer variety. If not filthy, nasty rich like the Warrens, then well enough that they either planned this trip months in advance or don't worry about sending their kids to college. Nadia was used to it now. Unfortunately. "They're at the pool already. I guess Abby couldn't shut up about wanting to go and Monica finally capitulated."

"I mean, if I was a kid in Hawaii, I'd be screaming about the kiddie pool too." The one they accessed with their "residency" was a treat for the eyes, too. Nadia wouldn't say it, but she was an adult, and she hadn't shut up about it in her own head.

"Why don't we put this hot bathing suit on you and head to the pool?"

Nadia glanced at her wife's casual outfit. "I think we can head straight there and visit for a bit. I don't plan on getting in the water right now. Not after the huge brunch I pigged-out on."

Although Nadia couldn't see the eyes rolling behind her wife's sunglasses, there were other tells in Eva's body language. Like her pace slowing and her balance slightly off-kilter. Eva didn't have bad eyesight, but whenever she rolled those eyeballs, she always lost balance for a few seconds. Like now, when she almost stepped out onto Kalakaua Avenue. "Puh-lease. I ate more than you."

"I'm getting older. I have to watch what I'm eating."

"I'm older than you."

"I don't have your top-tier genetics, Eva. Both of my parents fall asleep after a big lunch. It's destiny over here."

"Anyway." Eva directed Nadia down the street where their condo building lurked near the beach. "We can go straight to the pool. You know how kids are, anyway. They don't shut up about going somewhere and then complain once they're there. Who knows how long Monica's putting up with it?"

"Kindergarteners."

"You said it, not me."

Nadia's sandals flopped against the asphalt until the pavement turned to cobblestone. Eva brandished her membership card to open one of the iron gates. Signs written in English, Chinese, and Japanese explained the rules and stipulations to the locked-out public while Nadia once again wondered what it was like to grow up with such privileges at one's fingertips. This is the kind of place my mother always wanted to come to, but we could never afford it. Since marrying Eva, Nadia had taken her mother on more than one dream vacation. What good was this family money if she couldn't spend it on her family, too?

Although the pool area was for hotel guests and other members only, the place was packed that early in the afternoon. Every cabana was rented. The main pool that pushed up against the beach was at capacity, and the one lifeguard on duty had his work cut out for him. Yet there was one nice thing on everyone's side as Eva and Nadia approached the separate entrance for the shallow, kid-friendly pool: a whole group of children exited with their grown guardians, each one dripping wet and bursting with excited smiles.

When Eva stepped through first, her arm waved through the air and her tone changed to the one she used for her niece, who currently splashed in the water.

"Ready to compete in the Olympics yet?" Eva sat on the edge of the pool, feet already dangling in the water as a blond girl in a full set of floaties paddled toward her. A few feet away, Monica lingered in the water, her big straw hat and sunglasses keeping the sun at bay. Now that Auntie Eva was here, Monica could zone out while waiting for her husband to return from wherever he wandered.

"I went from there," Abigail Warren pointed to the other end of the pool, "to there!"

"Wow." Before Abigail reached her, Eva kicked her foot out of the water and splashed her niece on top of the fair head. Giggles echoed against the water falling from a fake volcano.

Nadia walked to the other side of the pool. "Been here long?" she asked her sister-in-law.

"Long enough to start pruning. She's enjoying it too much for me to leave, though." A smile erupted on Monica's face when her daughter vigorously waved from the other side of the pool. "You? Eva said something about taking you swimsuit shopping."

"Ugh. Don't get me started."

"Nothing good this season?"

"More like I hated how everything fit on me."

Monica was the queen of surreptitious glances. She was the kind of woman who could size-up another person with one furtive look, and there it was, judging Nadia from head-to-toe before Monica went back to pretending that she hadn't seen anything. "I understand. You may notice that I'm still wearing the suit I've had for years now. Once I find something I like, I wear it to death – and that attitude doesn't only come from my working-class background."

Nadia nodded, although she silently thought that Monica didn't know shit about this situation. For one, she's always been thin. Petite and thin, lest Nadia forgot that the future matriarch of the Warren family was a picture-perfect beauty in her own right. She caught Henry's attention somehow. Henry, like his sister, had dated his fair share of heiresses before meeting the outsider of his dreams. Unlike Nadia, though, Monica had mastered the art of fitting in. Nobody, least of all someone like Nadia, would have ever guessed Monica Graham had been anything but an heiress in her own right.

Like Nadia, though, she had been welcomed by the current generation of Warrens. If there was one thing Nadia and Monica had to unite them, it was the fact that their mutual mother-in-law would rather see them dead than rise to power in this family.

Luckily, Mrs. Warren was nowhere to be seen on this trip! Hope she's freezing to death in Montana. Nadia could dream.

"Where's Henry?" Nadia asked.

Monica tore her attention off the aunt and niece splashing in the shallow end of the kiddie pool. "Oh, you know that social butterfly. Just like his sister, as soon as he sees someone he knows, he has to go say hello. It's a miracle if they're not discussing the stock market."

"Anyone I know?"

"Perhaps. I believe he's done work with Ethan before and has probably been by the office." She referred to Ethan Cole, of Thomas Cole, Nadia's employer. "He's also been a client of my business for quite a few years. That man gets around."

Nadia noticed that Monica did not drop a name. "Lots of people vacationing in Hawaii."

"As nice as the weather is this time of year, there's a reason I prefer to go anywhere else right after New Year's. Except both Eva and Henry wanted to come here this month, so, here we are." Monica shrugged. "Please tell me that you have more exciting plans than shopping."

"I dunno. Eva was talking about hiking Diamond Head with Henry this week, but I think that's a hard pass for me."

"Ugh. Same. How dare they be so casually athletic like that? Even if my body could handle the hike, it can't handle the heat on top of it. Besides, someone has to watch Abigail. Maybe I'll take her to the aquarium while they do that."

"At least the nanny gets time off this week, too."

Monica laughed. "Good for her, I say. It's about time she found someone who wants to whisk her away to meet the folks after the holidays."

"Might mean she's quitting soon, though. How long has Matilda been working for you? Since Abby was born?"

"Basically. It'll be hard on us if and when she decides to quit. Especially for Abigail. She's reaching that age where she realizes that Matilda is an employee, not a family member."

Can't imagine that, either. Nadia happened to look up at the exact moment another woman peered over the gate separating the child-friendly section from the main pool area. For a split second, she thought she recognized the younger woman. I'm hallucinating already.

"Hard truths that are tough to swallow are a part of growing up, I guess." Nadia stepped away. "See you later."

Monica lazily gestured her farewell. That was the same moment Abigail decided to fling herself back in her mother's direction. The splash was big enough to get Nadia's legs wet as she walked by. At least the cold water was a nice addition on that warm Hawaiian day.

"Where you going?" Eva asked, her hands splayed behind her as she kicked more water with her feet.

"I thought I saw someone over here." Nadia ignored her wife's looks as she approached the unlocked gate. Sure enough, when she cracked it open, another redhead with freckles nearly leaped out of her skin.

"Holy cow!" Rebecca Pruitt, friend and fellow New Englander, slapped her hand over her chest. "What are you doing here?"

Nadia should have asked that first!