But one girl crush back in college didn’t make her gay. Not really. I never said I was, she said when my dad teased her about being a lesbian. I suppose that I’m technically bisexual, she said. If you want to label me.
He gave her a look that I had no trouble deciphering.
Being queer was also about not being into boys. Just as it was about attraction, it was also about an absence of attraction, like white space. There wouldn’t be white space if I liked both. But I didn’t. Girls shimmered, as if all the light shone on them and not on the boys at all. Boys were hardly there, just shadows and background noise. I liked how girls talked, and moved, the way they smiled, or tucked their hair behind an ear. I watched the other girls as they changed for gym class, pulling off T-shirts and shorts, shrugging out of dresses. How they fixed their hair and teased each other. The lines of their arms and the curves of their bodies. I was always itching to draw them, even in the locker room. Which sounds weirder than it was. All those girls ignored me. They would never even have noticed me, sitting there with my sketchbook and pencils. They thought I was a loser. A geek. One of the invisible ones. And that was okay too, because the less they noticed me, the more I could admire them, even if they were bitches.
Until Jessica saw me. Actually saw me, as if I were suddenly in the light too. She was putting her clothes back on after gym. She slid tight jeans up over boy-cut underwear, a tiny, blurry tattoo of a star on her hip.
“My girlfriend did it,” she said. “With a needle and ash. That’s how they do it in the Russian prisons.”
I looked away, blushing.
“Not that I’ve ever been in a Russian prison.”
She’d come from California the week before. Some mess having to do with her dad losing his marbles and coming to her school and screaming in the office about alien abduction. Now she was living with her mom, but she hadn’t quite mapped the school population yet. Who was land. Who was water. Or maybe she didn’t care.
“I saw you looking,” Jessica said.
I was going to deny it, but I stammered an apology instead. “S-s-s-s-sorry.”
Jessica laughed. “No problem.” She grabbed her bag and closed the locker with one finger, which she then dragged lightly across my locker, the one next to hers. “I like to look too.” She patted my head, as if I were a little pet. Which was kind of how it played out, in the end.
A ponytail. A headband. Hair down. Hair up. Skirt. Shorts. A dress. Tank top and jeans. No. What the hell. Earrings? No earrings. Small earrings? Or a cute T-shirt? No. Tank for sure. Too hot for a T-shirt. Shorts to be casual. It was casual, right? Mom’s scarf as a belt. Nice touch. Too bohemian? What did it matter. Did it matter? What did bohemian even mean? What the hell.
Tank top.
Shorts with the scarf belt.
Done.
By then I had to leave, so there was no more changing my mind unless I wanted to be late. On my way out, I found Claire leaning against the kitchen counter, wincing.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She let out a breath. “Braxton Hicks.”
“Who?”
“Braxton Hicks contractions.” Claire straightened and smiled. “That’s better. Practice contractions. That’s all. Baby’s fine.”
“It’s way too early.”
“Absolutely.” She reached for my hand and placed it against her ribs. “That’s a kick. Feel it?”
Nothing. Nothing. But then I did feel it! It was like a kick, and then a push, like the baby was stretching.
And then I was going to be late, so I hurried out of the house and up the street without thinking about what I was wearing at all.
I slowed to a stop about a block away from Continental.
Was I wearing totally the wrong thing?
I should’ve worn a dress. I looked down at myself. Too casual. I looked like a slob. And had I even put on deodorant? I closed my eyes and tried to think. That morning? No. The text from Salix had thrown me off. Squeezing my eyes shut tighter, I cringed. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t.
“Hey.” A hand on my shoulder. When I recovered from the surprise, Salix was laughing. “What’re you doing?”
“I was j-j-just thinking.”
“What about?” Salix was as cute as I remembered. Maybe even more so. She was wearing skinny pin-striped pants folded up to her calves, and red suspenders and red Converse sneakers and a tight black tank top with the word almost printed on it in big white letters.
“Nothing, really. Almost what?”
“Just ‘almost.’?” She started walking. “Come on. That’s our table.”
Our table? Outside tables were highly coveted at Continental. People came in the morning and set up to stay for hours, with newspapers and knitting and friends and books and computers. And when they did finally decide it was time to leave, there were always people hovering nearby.
But there it was. An empty table with a coffee cup holding down a piece of paper with Salix’s name on it and Reserved scrawled above a skull and crossbones and signed, “Evil Pirate Overlords of Management.”
I reached for a chair, but she beat me to it and pulled it out for me.
“Thanks.”
The sidewalks were crowded with couples and old men and children and dogs and all the bustle that came with a Friday afternoon on the Drive. A bus pulled up and emptied, and a little old lady struggled to get her shopping cart off. Salix ran to help, and when the woman turned, her smile was wide and her eyes were pinched at the corners and she was wearing a pink cardigan. Instead of asking about the table, I heard Mrs. Patel, loud and clear.
Come over tomorrow.
She gave me a peck on the cheek.
I will deal the cards for rummy.
But I hadn’t gone. I hadn’t even thought about it. We went to visit Grandma. So the cards ended up on the floor instead.
I didn’t want to think about her.
I’d spent so much time thinking about her. Surely that was enough?
I could think of her later.
But images kept pushing in. An ace of hearts by her limp hand. The old pink cardigan. And the TV with the soap opera blaring. The broom and the dustpan. The walls with the shadows where frames had hung.
Salix took the seat across from me. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” The paramedics and the firefighters and the police, all just standing around her dead body. I knew there was nothing they could do, but still, they should’ve done something. I sat up and smiled. “I’m fine.”
“I used to work here,” Salix said. “For about three weeks. I broke seven glasses and three mugs and got a third-degree burn on my wrist. I was fired, thank God. But they still love me. So they saved me a table, in case you were wondering about the miracle.”
“I was wondering, I just…got lost in my thoughts for a moment. So awesome about the table.” Nothing in my voice conveyed awesome or miracle or even interesting person.
“What can I get you?”
“Oh. I don’t know—”
How would this go? Should I get up and go inside with her? Or should I let Salix order and then give her money? Was this her treat?
“My treat,” Salix said.
Had I said that out loud?
“What do you—what’s something that—” I stammered. “I d-d-don’t…” I took a breath and tried again. “What’s good?”