“Not this time, it isn’t.”
Diane and I had started hanging out more with Floyd and the rest of the Students for a Democratic Society crowd by then. The men in SDS were cool, but, well, they were men. One night after a meeting we stayed up late writing a Students’ Bill of Rights. It started off serious, with things like “Ban the draft” and “Freedom of assembly” and “Respect all people.” Then everyone started trying to be funny. The longer the night went on, the longer the list got. By the end Floyd and Tom had added “Free booze for all,” “Free dope for all,” and “Free women for all.” Diane and I told them to cross the last one out, but they just laughed and said, “Girls never get jokes, man.”
After that, Diane wanted to tell them about us more than ever, but I wouldn’t let her. If men thought those sorts of things were funny, I figured that only proved they’d never understand about Diane and me. They’d never look at me the same. And their “jokes” would only get worse.
Diane and I slide into line with the other marchers gathered on Columbus Drive. A woman at the end of a row with dirty hair and a stoned-out expression smiles and makes the V sign at me. “Right on, sister.”
“Right on,” I reply, linking arms with her. Usually I stay away from the serious hippies — the ones who’ve been living on the streets so long they smell — but there are so few women here we’ve got to stick together.
Diane links onto my other arm. “Thank God we got rid of them. Floyd is driving me batty.”
I stop smiling. “Take it easy on him, would you?”
“Oh, give it a rest. If you seriously like him, you should at least tell him the truth. Unless you want me to do it for you.”
My heart thuds. “You wouldn’t really. Would you?”
“No.” Diane sticks her lower lip out in a pout. “Not unless you said it was all right. I need to know, though. Are you serious about him, or was this just a short-term thing while your dad was visiting? Because you know it isn’t right to string him along like that. Any more than it is me.”
The hippie woman next to me leans over. She’s watching our conversation, her lip quirked.
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to ignore the hippie’s breath on my neck. “It’s complicated.”
“You should’ve just lied to your dad,” Diane says. “Did you think he’d somehow suspect you were a lesbian unless you proved otherwise?”
The hippie’s jaw drops. I wish we’d found a different place to stand.
“You act like it’s so easy.” I try to keep my voice down so only Diane can hear. It’s hard in the crowd, though. “You know it’s not that simple. I care about Floyd, okay?”
Diane sighs. “Jill, I’m not asking you to break up with him. Just be honest. Tell him you’re a lesbian.”
I glance from side to side again. I wish she’d stop using that word. “Look, I don’t even know if I am a lesbian. I don’t believe in this whole philosophy the way you do. I don’t think being with a woman proves anything except that it can be fun to be with a woman.”
The hippie is gaping at us openly. Oh, well. It’s not like she’s going to tell anyone. Certainly not my dad.
“All right, then tell him that.” Diane pulls her arm free from mine and throws her hands up in the air. “You act as if it’s something to be ashamed of.”
“Well it is, kind of,” I say.
Diane turns to me, her forehead creased. “You’re ashamed of me?”
“Not of you, just —” I shake my head. “You don’t want your parents to know either. That’s because they’d think it’s wrong, isn’t it?”
She shrugs and looks away.
“Even in New York, even here, lots of people think it’s wrong,” I say. “You really want to shout it out to the whole world?”
“No,” she says. “Just to your boyfriend.”
I sigh. “You really think he’d keep it to himself? The whole school will hear about it the next time he gets stoned at a party.”
“And that would be so terrible?”
I shake my head. I don’t know what to say.
“I just hate lying to our friends,” Diane says. “Especially your so-called boyfriend. God, even that word, boyfriend. It sounds like such a lie. It’s so conventional, and you’re so not.”
I want to argue with her. I was as conventional as they came before I left home.
Everything about life in New York felt so radical compared to what I’d known before. In New York, you can hear three or four different languages just walking down the block. Women wear pants every day. Black people and white people sit next to each other on the subway like it’s nothing. There are student demonstrations every week for peace, for poverty, for civil rights.