When Chez wasn't talking about sex that she'd had with other people in Roswell, she would be talking about Kijd, her caseworker from the battered women's shelter. For her, Kijd was the most wonderful and nurturing individual she had ever met. She missed her the most when she moved out to San Diego to be with me.
When I was at work, Chez would try to call Kijd at the shelter to try to talk to her. Most of the time, Kijd was busy. (There were, of course, other women in the shelter that she needed to give attention to.) One time, I got the phone bill for those times Chez called me collect in December of 1992. The phone number for the line she was using showed up. She called that number and actually got to talk to Kijd for a little bit. After she called a couple more times on that line, Kijd told her not to call that number anymore because the other women there needed to use it to make phone calls.
Valentine's Day was coming up. Chez told me that under no circumstances was I to get her anything special. However, she wanted to send Kijd some flowers. She had me call up an FTD florist in Roswell and order flowers over the phone. Because I was the one with a credit card, that meant I had to pay for them. I then decided that if it was okay for her to get flowers for Kijd, it was okay for me to get flowers for Chez.
Valentine's Day came. I got her flowers from me and Joad with a card. She looked at me and said, "You weren't supposed to get me anything!" "Well, since you didn't have a problem getting flowers for Kijd, I just figured you really didn't have a problem with getting them yourself." I found later that she'd thrown the flowers in the trash.
I guess during one of the times she talked to Kijd when I wasn't around, Chez asked if she came back to Roswell, if she and Kijd could hang out and be friends. Kijd told her she'd have to get back to her on that, but warned her about coming back to Roswell because Road was still there and she wouldn't be safe.
A few days later, Chez, Joad and I went to the welfare office for the final step in getting benefits. They cut her a check for $600. After cashing it, we went to Toys R Us. Chez spent $200 on toys for Joad. She was very excited to have that money to spend. She was also very happy. I thought there might be a good chance she might want to try to be intimate that evening after Joad had fallen asleep.
When we got back to the house, the mail came. There was a letter from Kijd. In it, she explained that even though Chez had left the shelter, she was still considered a client and Kijd wasn't permitted to be friends with the clients. Kijd apologized, saying that when she had been a victim, she couldn't stand how the caseworkers were so fake with her and she wanted to be genuine when dealing with the clients. She didn't mean for Chez to interpret her ability to care about her situation as an opportunity to make a new friend. It just couldn't work out that way.
Chez got really furious after reading the letter. She started cussing and shouted, "...AND I WAS IN A GOOD MOOD, TOO!" I got upset, too, because that meant that there was no way I was going to be able to talk her back from this. I'm certain that if I hadn't been there, Chez would have broken down and cried for hours. And she probably did do that the next time I left the house to go to work.
After this, there would be frequent times in which she would just sit on the couch and stare into space. I knew that what she was doing was thinking about Kijd and how she wanted to go to Roswell to be with her. I'm certain that when she fell in love with me as a teenager, she would do the exact same thing when she was alone in her room. (In fact, her father later told me that when she moved out of the house, they saw the mattress from her bed. All over it she had written things like "I love Fayd," "Chez Ogolon," "Mrs. Fayd Ogolon," etc. Obsession seemed to just take over her brain when it came to her feelings for other people.)
One day, I asked her, "The way you feel about Kijd, does it feel like you're in love with her?" Her reaction was abrupt: "WHAT? YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE ME SOUND LIKE A LESBIAN!" "No, not that at all. But are you experiencing really strong feelings for her?" "YOU THINK I'M A LESBIAN!" I think she was angry because I had so precisely identified what she was going through and she didn't like how that demonstrated how well I knew her. Only Kijd was supposed to know her that well.
Even though I denied thinking she was a lesbian, I would drive her by several of the places where gay and lesbian people hung out. We drove past The Flame, a known lesbian bar. I pointed it out to her. As we slowly drove by, she would just stare in curiosity. I knew she wanted to go in there so badly, but she was still 20 years old at the time. Anytime the Ken Cinema was showing a movie about lesbians, I would drive her by there in between shows so she could see all the women gathered outside. I know she wanted to jump out of the car and start some conversations, but she didn't want me to think she was a lesbian.
Later, Chez was able to negotiate a loophole in the client rule. Kijd said that while they couldn't really be friends, they would be able to talk to each other from time to time if she were to attend the same church. This made Chez want to move back to Roswell even more, but she was stuck with me, and she just could not ever see that as a good thing.
Of course, our situation had nowhere else to go but downward. More on Monday.
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