Right Woman
What follows is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
After my ex-Jamie announced her engagement (to a man), my therapist implored me to get into situations where I would be in a better position to meet actual lesbians. Deciding to boost my odds beyond the mainly bi-curious table scraps my friends were scavenging for me, I half-heartedly accepted my friend Heather’s invitation to a Gay Pride Parade brunch. Walking down Christopher Street, I tried to revel in the fact of being surrounded by gay people until I found myself walking behind the one gay person (and her picked out Afro) who I was actively trying to avoid. Susan, “call me Angela” Davis was getting an MFA downtown and she was one of Jeff’s desperation stable finds. After observing her from across a crowded theater party, I declined being set-up on less than convincing grounds. Something about not dating graduate students. Patently false, but less offensive than the truth: afros were a big turn-off.
I had yet to figure out how to explain this without making it sound like Afro-Americans were the real problem. And no, I hadn’t forgotten that I myself was an ex-afro wearer (granted, I was four and it was beyond my control) and a current Afro-American. My therapist was good, but she wasn’t fast and so we hadn’t quite worked up to investigating this particular quirk, yet to be determined a phobia. Thankfully, Susan was engrossed in a heated conversation with a transman in a dashiki about the chauvinism of yams and failed to see me as I darted past her.
Still reeling from my non-encounter on the street and vaguely curious about what was so offensive about yams, I entered Heather’s apartment, already regretting my decision to stay in the city for Pride. Parades that whipped people into a froth such that they would be chanting and gyrating as if at a Holy Roller tent revival frightened me. But, the prospect of ending up in another long-term relationship with a straight woman was enough to make me face my fears if it meant I might meet a bona fide lesbian before the Rapture carried us all away in a sea of rainbow glitter and foam.
Inside Heather’s apartment the men, excluding Martin, Heather’s securely effeminate boyfriend who was wearing a flowery apron and serving up frittatas, were definitely ready to get whipped up. One guy was leaning out the window baring his unnaturally smooth chest, which was decorated with a lightweight bike chain. From the street, he could be mistaken for a naked free spirit straight of out the Stonewall chapter of my high school AP History book. From the inside, his close-fitting mint-colored chino shorts dotted with periwinkle golf clubs and broken-in boat shoes gave him away. He was just another Ivy-Leaguer cloistered in an exclusive party being thrown in an apartment that few of us, even the ones who were lawyers and bankers, could rent without parental guarantors.
But, the men didn’t really matter. I wasn’t exactly shopping for a husband. Today, I was going to find a woman who was really a lesbian, not just a woman who played a lesbian on her resume. Already exhausted by the day, barely in progress, I scanned the room for the woman who had the most potential to sustain a meaningful and hopefully stimulating conversation. I settled on the wrong woman. The popped polo shirt collar paired with a gauzy grey skirt screamed straight sorority sister (Kappa, most likely) but the pixie cut carefully worked over with product to look tousled and the heavy plastic glasses suggested at least a streak of bi-curious potential.
In reality, she was engaged to the frothed up faux naked guy with the smooth chest and bike chain necklace (Wharton MBA, newly minted VP at a Wall Street investment bank). Once she heard I was a lawyer, she asked whether being a first-year law student would cut into her ability to plan a Nantucket wedding. I assured her it wouldn’t if she joined the right study group. For this miscalculation, I spent the next twenty minutes with a frozen smile and canned tips on how to get through the first year without really trying. I hoped to convey polite interest rather than disdain, while trying to decide how I might cut my losses and move on. Cutting my losses and moving on still wasn’t one of my strengths.
Thankfully, after the fourth round of inane mimosa toasts, Heather and Martin finally suggested that we go outside. Frothed up fiancé took off his bike chain, put on the lavender polo dangling from his back pocket, and grunted a hello at me as he claimed his wedding planning bride-to-be. They’d probably spend no more than five minutes outside at the Parade before heading back to their alcove studio in a Midtown East doorman building (the kind my mother wished I would move into), proud of themselves for being so progressive. Out on the street, I waded into a sea of secure sexuality with my insecurity weighing me down, wondering if it was too soon to call it and head home. If I left right then, I would make it home in time to catch the Hollywood Housewives of South Dakota marathon.
“So, how do you know Martin and Heather?” I turned to find one of the women from the brunch standing next to me. While inside, I had avoided her for a number of reasons. One, the combination of her dark curly hair and light blue eyes made me think of Jamie. Jamie was the one responsible for me being stuck at a parade that I had sworn I would never go to, avoiding an afro-[American] that I would never date, blindly or otherwise. Two, based on some of the woman’s earlier comments about ex-boyfriends (overheard as I pretended to care about J. Crew’s wedding dress line), I assumed she was straight.
“Heather and I went to college together. Martin came later. What about you?”
“Martin and I went to grad school together. Heather came at the same time,” she smiled.
Wanting nothing more than to figure out a non-creepy way to continue looking at her, but knowing this would lead me closer to the clown car of craziness that was never far from a straight girl crush, I forced myself concentrate on the parade. After standing next to one another without talking as the first five floats passed by featuring drag queens working it and multicultural gospel choirs singing mash-ups club songs and spirituals, my interest began to flag. Rather than talk to her, I pulled out my phone, even though it wasn’t ringing. She appeared undeterred by my increasing interest in the five-day default forecast for Cupertino.
“Do you live around here?” It was a simple enough question, but her cute smile and lack of social awkwardness, threw me off. I should have started looking for an exit, but movement was somewhat difficult and without a strategy for reuniting with the rest of the brunch crowd, I was destined to end up next to the wrong woman again. So, I decided to stay where I was, tuning out the warning bells clanging in my head. I found myself babbling about Jamie’s infuriating claim that she would always be bisexual because of her time with me and finding this woman to be a wonderful listener. I wanted to know more about her, but knew that would exile me to the land of ex-boyfriends, a place I didn’t want to be sent just yet.
“I like your bag. Where did you get it?”
“Paris,” I tried not to notice her raised eyebrow. “It was a present from one of my best friends from college. She was taking photographs in the banlieues.” My voice trailed off. I knew that the rest of the story was not any likelier to undo the snob scent I was starting to throw off. Merde. Time to abort. “Anyway, it was really nice to meet you, but I’ve got to go. The subways are bound to be mobbed if I wait.” If I was lame at small talk, I was even lamer at lying.
“Oh, that’s too bad. I was going to ask if you wanted to grab dinner. I’m beginning to reach my Cher impersonator limit.”
And because I wanted to scream yes, I mumbled no thanks, and made my way toward the West 4th Street McDonald’s where I planned to drown my sorrows in an order of large fries. It wasn’t because I was upset that I had gotten stuck next to the wrong woman. Not only had I managed to find myself in the straightest grouping on the gayest day of the year, I had managed to find myself standing next to a woman who felt very right and for me, that was reason enough to leave.
-Ara Tucker