—
After the thing with Jessica started, and before I came out to my parents, and when Ruthie still wasn’t talking to me, I went to Dan’s almost every day after school. He was supposed to be teaching me how to cook so that I could help with suppers at home. But mostly I overcooked chicken breasts and burned scones and put way too much salt into stews. I was so nervous that Dan might guess, just by looking at me. As if I’d changed when I came out to myself, and he could tell. As if gaydar was a real thing, which it might be and it might not be.
And then one day I was so nervous that I dropped a dozen eggs and they all smashed on the tiles. I followed Dan out to his chicken coop to look for two new ones to use for the cake I was making for Mom’s birthday, and when I found one nestled in the straw, I handed it to him.
“I’m gay,” I said, when I’d meant to say, “Here’s an egg.”
“Well, my recruitment quota is now full.” Dan gave me a big hug and made the cake for me while I fidgeted and stuttered and told him all about Jessica.
Jessica Elena Elliston-Haywood, who was as beautiful and stuck-up as her name, and such a good kisser.
I didn’t tell him about Ruthie, because I wasn’t sure what to say about her. And then later, after what happened, I didn’t want to tell him at all. But that first afternoon, when I told him about Jessica, I felt buoyant and light. I kept holding on to the stool because it felt like if I let go, I’d drift up to the clouds, beaming and feeling ridiculously wonderful. It was so good to tell someone. And easier than I’d thought.
When the cake was cooled and decorated, Dan packed it into a box for me to carry home.
“Just a minute, sweetie.” He disappeared into his bedroom and came back with a ratty old T-shirt. It had a rainbow on it, with FRIEND OF DOROTHY printed underneath in faded bubble letters.
“I get the rainbow,” I said. “But who’s Dorothy?”
“People used to say that as a way to tell each other that they were gay without actually having to say the word,” Dan said. “Because it was so dangerous back then. So they had a code. Friend of Dorothy. Say I wanted to hook up with a handsome married businessman at a vacuum-salesman conference in Oklahoma in 1952. I’d sidle up to him and ask him if he was a friend of Dorothy.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“As in Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz,” he explained. “Which is the gayest movie ever. Somewhere over the rainbow? There’s no place like home? Those fabulous red shoes?”
—
So the girl with the violin case and the rainbow patch was a friend of Dorothy. And I had a forty-minute ferry ride to let her know that I was too, if my nerves would let me.
I couldn’t find her. I looked everywhere. Corbin sold more jokes for more quarters and spent the whole crossing in the arcade. Owen followed me around, so close that he tripped on my heels twice.
“Why don’t you go join Corbin?”
Owen shook his head. “It’s too loud in there. And he won’t share his quarters.”
“I’ll give you some quarters.”
“I don’t like it in there. There’s always big kids who push me around.”
“Fine, then. But give me some space, okay? Hold my hand instead.” He took my hand and skipped to keep up with me. “Where are we going?”
“We’re looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“That girl.”
“What girl?”
“The one in the waiting room.”
“The one we talked to?”
“Yes, Owen,” I said with a sigh. “Could you just let me focus? I need to focus.”
“Sure.” Owen hummed a little tune. “I can do that.” He lifted Hibou up into the air and turned her one way, then another. “Hibou says zero sightings.”
The girl with the rainbow patch was nowhere. But I’d think I’d seen her turning a corner, or up ahead in one of the seats we were looking at from behind. She wasn’t in the cafeteria, or the gift shop. She wasn’t upstairs. When I pushed open the heavy door that led to the outside decks, Owen pulled me back.
“It’s too windy,” he protested. “It hurts my ears.”
“Put your hands over them. Or wait here.” He came with me, his hands pressed against his ears, Hibou tucked safely in his shirt. The wind was bracing, but it was warm. I checked that level, past the lifeboats and tourists with their cameras, a couple making out at the bow. I checked the upstairs deck too, while Owen whined about wanting to go back inside.
I even checked the bathrooms, waiting for every stall to empty, just to be sure. She was truly nowhere. As if she’d vanished off the boat altogether. I was more disappointed than I should have been. I should’ve talked to her more, as we’d boarded the boat. I should’ve made the boys go to the left, like the girl had done, instead of to the right, toward the arcade. We’d shared a look. It wasn’t just a regular look. It was a look. Right? It meant something. Or, no it didn’t. It didn’t and I was just being a freak, making it into something it wasn’t. Change the story, Maeve. There was no look. There wasn’t anything. She was just being nice. She was just a girl. Just one girl out of billions and billions of girls in the world. I told myself that, and believed it.
Only I didn’t.
Or did I?
And then there she was, too far away to do anything about it.
We were walking off the boat, and she was nearly at the parking lot. She was the head above a group of little kids wearing red shirts with black violins on the back. She was ushering them onto a big yellow school bus, taking violin cases and piling them to one side and shaking parents’ hands and talking to another girl who was holding a clipboard. Even if I sprinted up there, even if I could get to her before she got onto the bus too, what would I say? And whatever it was, I’d have to say it in front of those parents and those kids and that pile of violins and that other girl. That other girl was the worst. Did she know her? Were they friends? Clipboard girl smiled at violin girl. She reached out and touched her arm. Her ponytail bounced as she laughed at something violin girl was saying. Who was I kidding? I had no reason to talk to violin girl. And she had no reason to talk to me. The bus pulled away, and what did it matter anyway?
Dad’s chronic lateness came naturally to him, passed down by his chronically late mother. The passengers from our ferry all went their separate ways; then the next ferry loaded, another bus came and went, and still Grandma wasn’t there. We went to the beach and skipped rocks and looked for baby crabs. By the time we wandered back up to the parking lot, I was considering getting the next ferry home. My phone buzzed. I hoped it wasn’t Grandma, because if it was, it meant that she hadn’t even left yet. It was my mom.
I do text you back. Perhaps not right away, but as soon as I can.
Earthquake risk? Remote. But I know you. You’ve already moved on to thinking about something else. Am I right?