Lemon Ville
by Elizabeth Grantham
University of Nebraska
Elizabeth Grantham is currently a junior at University of Nebraska at Omaha, studying to be a high school English teacher. She is on tack to graduate May 2024. Her hobbies include skateboarding, roller blading, writing, and hiking. At the moment, her favorite author is Brandon Sanderson followed closely by J R. R. Tolkien. She appreciates you taking the time to read her work and hopes you enjoyed it.
The problem with Christine’s new boyfriend was that he didn’t have any problems. Or, rather, he did (having no problems would be a problem in of itself), but the problems he had were ultimately nothing more than the problems any human had.
Not that Ronnie had known him long enough to know for certain. Not that she had known him for very long at all. A few minutes, really. But she had known Christine across the years, and she did know for certain that whoever Christine picked for herself would be of the very best quality.
And so, Mr. Chicago was of the very best quality. He was a tall, dark-skinned young man with a ready smile and a silver cross tucked slightly beneath his polo shirt. His hair was frizzy and long, but Ronnie imagined he would put gel in it for Sunday church. He would probably put on his best suit too. His eyes were sharp and intelligent with a kindness nestling behind them that was sure to soften even the toughest of hearts.
For a second Ronnie had entertained the thought that he was ‘just a friend’, but deep down she knew immediately he was so much more than that. It was obvious by the way Christine had eagerly grabbed his hand, the way his arms came up so naturally around her shoulders, and the way Christine so trustingly and gently allowed herself to be held by him.
Which, of course, was the real problem with Mr. Chicago. Christine was his. Completely and utterly his.
***
Ronnie remembered the way Christine had leaned on her own shoulder, the way her eyes had lit up with delight and amusement whenever Ronnie had done something incredibly reckless and sweet, the way she looked so content and at rest whenever she was with her friend. She had claimed it was like she was “platonically falling in love” with Ronnie and that their relationship was like a “romantic friendship.” Ronnie had almost laughed out loud. From the ridiculousness of such statements, but also from the utter bliss of knowing that this beautiful, wonderful girl had fallen in love with her of all people.
They had sat on the floor of Ronnie’s bedroom and discussed it, unsure of what to do next. Christine had suggested there were plenty of close same-sex friendships in the bible which were considered perfectly good and wholesome in scripture.
“Take David and Jonathan,” she had said, rummaging through her bag and fishing out her leather-bound bible. She flipped to a certain page, “Your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women.’ Maybe we have something like that. Maybe we could have a love surpassing the love of men.”
Ronnie, who had been nervously running her skateboard back and forth in front of her, looked up, meeting Christine’s gaze with a sort of bewildered amusement, “My dude, how is that not just a closeted gay relationship?”
“But it isn’t! David and Jonathan both clearly had other people in their lives! They just…also had each other. Platonically.”
“So…three-ways?”
Christine threw a pillow at Ronnie.
“Hey, no fair!” Ronnie exclaimed with a shriek of laughter and quickly threw the pillow back. Christine gasped in indignation and this time sent a pencil hurling in Ronnie’s direction. Ronnie ducked and suddenly launched herself at the smaller girl, pinning her down in a wrestling hold.
Christine squirmed, “Really? Really, Veronica Bergman? That is cheating!”
“Using my superior size against an opponent is being tactical, not cheating,” Ronnie responded.
Despite herself, Christine let out a short bark of laughter. Ronnie couldn’t resist a grin. She admired Christine for so many things and her ability to laugh at herself was one of them.
As was her ability to fight.
Ronnie’s eyes widened in surprise as she found herself suddenly flipped to the side as Christine kicked at her. For a girl who couldn’t have weighed anything more than a hundred pounds, it was a surprisingly strong kick. Ronnie tumbled away. Her momentary loss of control gave Christine the perfect amount of time needed to throw the pillow at her again.
“Screw you!” Ronnie tried to say, but she was laughing too hard for any actual words to come out.
Christine was laughing too. Big hard laughs that forced her down on the floor and sent tremors through her shoulders. She laughed and laughed and laughed until tears rolled down her face and suddenly, she was longer laughing at all, but sobbing. Great, terrible sobs that twisted around and through Ronnie’s heart and eventually pierced the center.
“What are we going to do?” Christine whispered, rocking back and forth, “What are we going to do?”
Ronnie gently wrapped her arm around her shoulder and then pulled her close. Christine’s breath hitched and shuddered, and her fingers grasped at the back of Ronnie’s jacket as if she were hanging on to her for dear life.
“Don’t let go,” she begged, “Don’t let go.”
“I won’t. I swear, I won’t.”
The promise seemed to calm Christine down a little. She still held onto Ronnie tightly, but it was less desperate and animal-like, and felt more controlled and even. Ronnie slid her hand through the other girl's dark mass of curls and quietly began to sing.
Life’s as sweet as lemonade
Least when you’re sitting in the shade
Yeah, the sun is burning up the sky
But all I see are God’s great green eyes
It was a younger song, quiet and melancholy with just a hint of mourning in it. It wasn’t anything with emotional significance to either one of them, but it was the melody stuck in Ronnie’s head and it seemed to fit the moment so that’s what she sang.
Lemon Ville is colder when the sun is out
Guess that’s the reason for our winter droughts
Don’t say a prayer, I’ll find a way to get us out of here
I’ll hurl up lemon zests onto the ground
‘cause vomit’s sweet when you’re around
Falling from the sky is fine when I know you’re falling by my side
The music filled the room with a strange sense of yearning, the notes marching down, down, down, and then stretching back up, their words demanding to be heard and felt. Ronnie’s soft alto voice carried them along dutifully, matching their sorrow.
We’re all dead in Lemon Ville
Let’s build our graves up on a lemon hill
Take me down to the lemon church
‘cause faith will save me, it’ll just kinda hurt
Lemon Ville is colder when the sun is out
Guess that’s the reason for our winter droughts
Don’t say a prayer, I’ll find a way to get us out of here
I’ll hurl up lemon zests onto the ground
‘cause vomit’s sweet when you’re around
Falling from the sky is fine when I know you’re falling by my side
The last of the notes slowly faded away as Ronnie fell silent, the melody in her head finally brought to life. Christine had stopped crying, but she still hung on to her friend tightly, murmuring into her jacket, “You have a beautiful voice.”
Ronnie didn’t answer. She didn’t think her voice was that good, but she was grateful Christine liked it. She continued playing with her hair, massaging those wonderful, marvelous curls of hers as gently as she could.
“Ronnie?”
“Yeah.”
“What will our parents say?”
“Fuck what they say.”
“What will God say?”
‘Congratulations, you two look great together’ was what Ronnie wanted to answer, but the words got caught in her throat.
“I don’t know,” she whispered at last, “I don’t know.”
“I…wanna know why I wear earrings all the time? Because I’m broken, Ronnie. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know who I am. I wear jewelry because it makes me look pretty and if I look pretty on the outside, well, then maybe people won’t notice just how terrible I am on the inside. How wrong I am how. How fucking-I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I-I-I….” her breathing becomes broken and shuddering. Ronnie hugged her closer.
“I-Is that…” Christine sniffed. “The reason you wear your jewelry all the time?”
Ronnie glanced down at herself. Black rings, silver chains, and a spiked bracelet around her wrist. She forced herself to smile. “Nah, homie. I wear this stuff to embrace my inner biker.”
Christine made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Well, I guess it matches your leather jacket.”
“Exactly. Think I should change my name to BJ or something?”
Christine made the sound again. “BJ is not a biker’s name.”
“It could be,”
“Could it? Could it really? ‘cause I don’t think so.”
“Okay, what about TJ? Would TJ work?”
“Dude, that’s pretty much the same name!”
“Tell that to a TJ or BJ!”
Christine laughed, a real laugh this time. “Homie…listen. A biker name. Like, maybe Mike or Hank or…or…I don’t know! Just not BJ.” She shuddered.
Ronnie grinned. “Maybe we’re overthinking this. Maybe I don’t need a name change. Maybe I just need to buy a motorcycle, get a mohawk, and start dating some hot white chick with blonde hair.”
The moment the words were out, Ronnie regretted them. Her grin faded. Christine looked away.
Do I really have to rethink my whole sexuality-my whole religion- because of this?” Christine whispered after a moment. “It’s not like I’m attracted to women overall. Just you. But you’re-”
“a woman.” Ronnie finished with a sigh.
“Yeah.”
“It’d be easier for both of us if I was, huh?”
“I don’t want you to be a guy. You wouldn’t be you if you were a guy.”
“I know.” Ronnie swallowed as the last bit of her earlier good humor faded into nothing. “But it would still be easier. Because on one hand, I’m, like, ‘God wants us to have deep, intimate human relationships’, but on the other hand I’m like, He also clearly said ‘girls are off limits”. Like, I know that’s what He said. Ever since I was a little kid, I did so much research on what exactly Christianity teaches and people who claim that God is perfectly cool with homosexuality…well…I’m sorry, but they’re wrong!”
Christine sat up and turned her face, so she was directly facing Ronnie. Deep compassion and sadness were etched inside her eyes, “And you still stayed. Even when you found out your attractions weren’t pleasing to God, you still stayed.”
Ronnie’s eyes shifted away. She picked at a nearby tuft of carpet as the memories came rushing back to her, “I wasn’t going to lose my Lord.” Her eyes snapped back up and something sharp and determined slid into her gaze, “And I’m not going to lose you either!”
The silence that followed between them after that statement was thick enough to be chopped up into cubes and served on a dish. Ronnie’s cheeks were flushed bright red, and it took all her strength not to look down again. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes, and she gritted her teeth, ashamed of her own weakness. Despite herself, she found her head ducking down to hide them.
“The idea of losing you,” came Christine’s voice very clearly and very firmly, “is more terrifying to me than the idea of losing anything else in the world. So, no, I don’t want to lose you either. I…I love you.”
Ronnie’s head jerked back up. She tried to speak, but all she could do was stare and stare and stare.
***
Ronnie wrapped her jacket closer around her body, trying desperately to trap as much heat as she could. It was Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, and there was snow on the ground. Snow. In April. Wonders like that could only ever happen in the Midwest.
“Shouldn’t have walked,” she muttered to herself as a gust of wind blew at her, “Car would have been warmer.”
But she didn’t really regret it. Ronnie liked walking and, since the church was so close to school, she tried to do it as often as possible. Back in 2020, she had walked to mass every day in the morning before her classes. It had brought her a sense of peace at a time when she felt so restless and out of control. Of course, with recent events going on, she had been trying to avoid church as much as possible, dreading especially Sundays when she was required to go, but today she wanted to.
Well, not exactly.
It had been about two months after Christine had officially become her girlfriend and since then they had spent multiple nights in a row, up close and personal in Ronnie’s twin-sized bed, cuddling and hugging the night away. She told herself not to feel guilty about it and she didn’t, but even so, she couldn’t stop the migraine headaches that would attack her out of nowhere or the horrible thoughts telling her she was trapped and needed to end it all or the way she couldn’t bring herself to eat anything or how she was perpetually tired or how she had to ask three separate professors for an extension on six separate assignments when she had never had to ask for an extension once in her entire life.
But the scariest moment came one day at work when her thoughts became so loud that Ronnie found herself automatically picking up a nearby butter knife and sawing at the back of her hand. She wasn’t trying to hurt her body. She loved her body. It’s just that she needed to focus on something beyond her thoughts. She needed to feel actual pain instead of invisible pain. And she needed this all subconsciously. Ronnie had no idea what she was doing until she looked down and saw red marks covering the back of her hand. She had thrown the knife away from her as fast as she could, horrified at what she was doing, but the damage had been done. The marks on her hand were physical evidence of the war in her head and it frightened her in ways she could not even begin to express.
Even so, she didn’t want to tell Christine about how bad it was. Oh, sure, she mentioned snippets of it from time to time and Christine had always responded sympathetically, but Ronnie knew that if she told her the full extent of what was going on, Christine would break it off with her immediately and Ronnie simply couldn’t bear that idea. It was too hard. Too painful.
So, Ronnie decided to turn to God instead. Not because she was exactly thrilled about the idea of going to church (in truth, she wished to avoid it as much as possible nowadays), but because she believed in a good God and a God who loved her and wouldn’t reject her no matter what she did. She still loved Him. She still wanted to be with Him. He wouldn’t turn her away.
“I’m coming, Lord,” she murmured, walking up the steps of the church, “I still love you. I haven’t forgotten you. I’m coming.”
She opened the door of the church and walked inside, expecting to feel the inner peace that she had always felt when standing before the presence of the Tabernacle.
She didn’t. Instead, she felt horror. Horror and repulsion sent the screaming voices in her head into a frenzy. Her entire body began to shake. She could feel sweat trickling down her neck, despite just coming out of the cold. Bile rose in her throat, and she found herself gagging on the taste of it. She went to dip her hand in the holy water and recoiled as the once-cool water burned her fingers.
Leave! Shrieked the voices. Leave! Run! Get out of here!
But you’ve never run from God before whispered a voice so soft Ronnie could barely hear it.
Ronnie paled and forced herself into a pew. She had never missed a Sunday mass in her life, and she wasn’t about to now.
The bell rang. The music began to play. The people rose and it took every ounce of strength for Ronnie to rise too. Her knuckles wrapped around the railing, squeezing the wood so hard they turned white. Her entire body felt like it was on the verge of collapsing. She had never felt this way before. So out of control and helpless and downright sick. A sickness that seemed to go deep within her, corrupting her very soul. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe.
Leave! Leave! Leave!
Memories began to flood Ronnie’s brain. Warm gentle memories that she hadn’t thought of in a long, long time. Her mother reading aloud to her and her siblings from The Hobbit. A fistful of chocolate cake on her seventh birthday. A makeshift canoe sinking in a shallow creek. Her first communion. Her first rosary. The tin foil sword she created to pretend to be Saint Joan of Arc.
And suddenly she remembered being twelve and daydreaming about becoming a soldier for Christ-like Saint Joan and how she always envisioned herself bravely fighting away demons on a rocky battlefield, wearing shining armor and brandishing her sword like a true hero. Ronnie could see that battlefield now. And herself on it too. Except this time, she was only wearing her jacket and jeans, and her sword was lowered and touched the ground and tears were streaming down her face both in her imagination and in real life.
Leave! Leave! Leave!
Ronnie’s teeth began to chatter. Nothing was stopping her from just getting up and walking out that church door. She could do it. It would be so easy. No one was going to stop her. She thought of going over to Christine’s place and how nice it would be just to spend the morning with her instead. How relieving it would be.
Another memory sprang to mind. She was six years old, sitting at the kitchen table, asking her mother why a good God would send people to hell. Her mother had said that He didn’t; people chose to go there of their own free will because God had become so repugnant to them, hell was the only place where they could truly hide from Him. At the time, Ronnie hadn’t understood, but now she did. If she walked out that Church door, it wouldn’t be God rejecting her, it would be her rejecting Him. He wouldn’t stop her. He wouldn’t punish her. He wouldn’t manipulate her into staying by changing who He was or what He stood for. He was allowing her to choose if she wanted to follow Him and His teachings or not.
The priest had begun to read the gospel. Ronnie was shaking her head, muttering to herself over and over, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t make such an impossible choice like this. She couldn’t turn away from God, but she couldn’t just let Christine go. How would she survive without her? How would Christine survive without Ronnie? How would…
Veronica, Veronica, Veronica.
That name. She hated that name. So beautiful, so queenlike, so absolutely nothing like herself. It felt like a sick joke. Like, God had decided to give her a feminine nature and have her entire soul rebel against it. Veronica. She wished she could wipe it off the face of the earth. When she was little, she had wanted so badly to be Veronica, to be herself, but over and over…
Ronnie clenched her fists. She thought of Christine and her earrings and then her own metal jewelry weighing down her neck and hands…oh, it was so heavy. Had it always been so heavy?
Veronica, Veronica, Veronica.
Ronnie let out a shaky breath. The priest was blessing the bread, “For this is my body…”
Let’s build our graves up on a lemon hill
“I choose Christ,” Veronica whispered feverishly, “I choose Christ!”
“…which will be given up for you.”
The voices in her head faded into nothing as she came to a decision. The tears were streaming down her face in full force now, so many it was impossible to hide them all, but even so, she managed to receive communion and then force her legs out of the church and near the grassy field outside. She stood there for a few seconds, hesitating. Veronica pulled out her phone. She dropped it because her fingers were shaking so badly but managed to pick it up again. She scrolled through her contacts until she found Christine’s name and then clicked on it before she lost her nerve. She wanted to wait to talk to her, hug her, tell her how so incredibly sorry she was, but she knew that simply wasn’t possible.
She typed out a quick message, brief and to the point, and pressed send. She blocked Christine’s number, deleted all their past conversations, and then slumped down on the ground sobbing hysterically, her soul and mind finally at peace, but her heart shattered in two.
***
Many years had gone by since Veronica had sent that message. Christine never tried to reach out or try to change Veronica’s mind, but I had simply understood, respecting the boundary with her silence. For some reason, that made the pain of the separation hurt even more. A day didn’t go by where Veronica didn’t feel guilty.
It wasn’t until Veronica was nearing her thirties that she finally saw Christine again. It was at a city carnival, and if it hadn’t been for Christine’s very distinctive hummingbird tattoo, Veronica probably wouldn’t have recognized her. She looked…younger somehow. Happier. And when she saw Veronica, she waved her over with a big smile and a laugh and asked how she was doing. Veronica felt a bit awkward and even somewhat nonplused at how easily Christine brushed the break-up off. “It was a bit hard at first, but ultimately I completely understood,” she had said with a kind smile, “It was for the best for both of us.” She then introduced Veronica to the smiling man who ran up behind her and wrapped her in a giant bear hug as she squealed in delight. His name was Mr. Chicago. He happened to like small talk.
“So, how’d you know Christine?” He had asked Veronica after Christine had gotten up to use the nearby porta-potties.
“College.”
“Oh, nice! Same major?
“Uh, not exactly. She wanted to be a traveling nurse and I wanted to be a math teacher.”
“Oh. Wow. Math. Gonna be real with you, Ronnie, I would not be able to be in a career like that.” He shuddered.
Veronica had forced a laugh. “Hey, turns out, I wasn’t either. I’m the general manager at Staples now.”
“Oooo, wow, okay. Big switch. You like it there?”
“Yeah, it’s alright.” Veronica’s eyes scanned near the exit towards the parking lot.
“What’s your favorite thing about working there?”
“Uh, the people for sure.”
“I hear you. Co-workers really make or break the work experience.”
“Mmmm.”
A moment of silence passed between them. Mr. Chicago stood there, a big grin lighting up his face, while Veronica desperately tried to think of a way to politely say goodbye. She hesitated. “So, uh…are you and Christine, um, doing well? You know. With each other?”
She winced internally at her own awkwardness. Way to go, Veronica. Great way to make an exit.
Mr. Chicago blushed. His grin had turned into one of the softest, sweetest smiles Veronica had ever seen. “It is. Going. Well! I mean. It’s going well. Really well. Kind of you to ask. In fact, um, well I was planning on proposing to her tonight.”
Veronica felt her heart grow cold and her eyes grow wide. “Seriously? That’s awesome! Omg, I’m so excited for you!”
Mr. Chicago’s blush deepened and his grin returned, albeit tainted with a tad of embarrassment. “Thank you. I mean, well, truthfully, I’m a little nervous about it even though, I already know she’s going to say yes. We’ve talked about marriage before, it’s just more of the…idea of asking. You know? Like, some small negative part of me truly and honestly believes she’ll spit in my face or something.” He laughed nervously.
Veronica nodded her head. “Hey, I get it. It can be really terrifying especially since, well, I’m assuming this is the first time you’ve asked somebody anything like this and so, yeah. It is perfectly valid and okay to be scared. But honestly? There’s no need to be. From the very limited time I have spent getting to know you, you already seem like a great guy, and I know Christine isn’t going to want to pass that up.”
“Y-you really think so?”
Veronica shrugged. “Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”
“Well, then, thank you. That…that means a lot to me.”
“Glad I could help.”
The sound of a porta-potty door opening reached Veronica’s ears and suddenly she couldn’t stand it anymore. The idea of having to engage in small talk with Christine and Mr. Chicago was simply too much. She gave Mr. Chicago a tiny way. “Well, I should probably get going, but good luck to you both! And…I want you to know that I think you’re going to make an amazing husband and I think you guys are going to make an amazing couple. Truly.”
“Aw, thanks, Ronnie. Again, that means a lot. Stay in touch, alright?”
Veronica could see Christine walking towards them out of the corner of her eye, curls lightly bouncing in the wind. She wasn’t wearing earrings.
“I’ll do my best!” Veronica said, smiling though she felt like crying. “Have a good day!”
“You as well!”
Veronica headed off in the opposite direction, towards her car, away from them, the words life’s as sweet as lemonade playing in her head over and over and over.
Interview with the Author
1. What inspired you to write this piece? What was your thought process throughout?
My biggest inspiration for this piece actually came from a dream I had last summer. In the dream, one of my best friends was dating a guy who she said was her true love even though his name was Mr. Chicago instead of Mr. Right. Because he was her true love, she had no real use for friends anymore and was letting me know that though she appreciated our friendship, she was going to spend all her time with Mr. Chicago from then on. Thus the character was born. Combining some of my own personal experience and the fictional events of my dream, I was able to write this piece as a sort of alternate reality to a similar experience I once had to the characters in the story. I must admit, it was hard to write, but also therapeutic in a really weird way. It allowed me to work through some events in my past and taught me that inspiration can come in some of the strangest places!
2. What do you hope readers will take away from your piece? What effects do you want the piece to have on the person, community, or society?
My goal for writing this piece was to tell a story that I don't think is often told in today's society and, so, that is what I hope readers will take away from it the most. Not all relationships work out. Even relationships that seem to have so much good in them. In the story, Veronica and Christine love each other deeply, but eventually they recognize that them being together isn't necessarily for the best. And it's because they love each other that they're willing to let the other person go. That doesn't mean the choice isn't hard or that it doesn't hurt or even that you won't sometimes resent making that choice, but it does mean that love is possible even while you're walking away.
3. What is your favorite piece of fiction (short story, novel, flash fiction, etc.) that you’ve ever read? Why?
My favorite piece of fiction I've read is *Six of Crows* by Leigh Barduga. It has some of the most gorgeous writing I've ever read with sentences and paragraphs and characters that make you feel so many different things at once, it's honestly amazing. If I ever reach *half *that woman's skill with words, I will die a happy person.
4. If you plan on continuing to write, what are some goals/plans you may have for your future?
I am definitely planning on continuing to write! Beyond submitting to more magazines and literary journals in the future, I'm also currently working on a fantasy novel which has been in progress for a little less than a decade now, but I promise it will get done! Eventually. Maybe in another decade or so.