Be Straight with Me

by Emily Dalton

  I mean, you’re gay.”

  The hopelessness on your face

  softens into disappointment—

  I should know better; I should know you better.

  “I wish you could just see me as me

  and not try to label me with stupid words.”

  I want to tell you that there has never been

  and there will never be

  any word

  in any language

  worthy

  of labeling you—

  worthy of saying

  how I see you.

  ZANDER

  A week has passed since I told you about Rob.

  I walk into your suite on the sixth floor

  to find Theo and Ramona standing in the common room.

  Ramona is wrapped in a towel,

  and Theo is drinking a can of High Life.

  “Is Max here? I think I left my bag in his room.”

  “He’s in there. With Zander,” Ramona says

  in her signature monotone and points to the bathroom door.

  The only Zander I know

  is a gay guy

  on the swim team

  who you’ve been with

  once or twice before—

  the one who we laughed about

  and imitated in robot voices.

  I stare at the bathroom door

  and hear the shower running.

  I hear banging on the shower walls

  and squeaking against the linoleum.

  Ramona nods, and Theo chuckles.

  I can’t help but notice the unfamiliar pair

  of sneakers on the floor next to your boots.

  Then, the unfamiliar leather jacket hanging

  over your desk chair.

  Part of me feels terrified of actually seeing you

  with this other guy, but then

  a sense of peace, even happiness,

  washes over.

  You’re hooking up with guys again!

  We can just be friends, after all!

  Maybe now everything can go back

  to the way it was before.

  Now I can talk freely with you about Rob,

  and we can giggle about the details,

  and you can tell me all about shower time with Zander,

  and then we can compare notes on hetero and homo pleasure.

  The shower is still running.

  I sling my backpack over one shoulder,

  wave goodbye to Theo and Ramona,

  and leave the suite, smiling to myself.

  BUT WHEN YOU AND I HANG OUT

  it feels like a forced visit

  between child and divorced parent.

  And the more I feel

  the strength of our bond deflating,

  the less attracted I feel to Rob,

  like losing you is his fault

  in some sideways manner.

  That he can’t even come close

  to making me feel the way that you do

  only darkens the void.

  When I’m with Rob now, some switch

  inside my brain flips, and suddenly

  I’m the girl I was in high school:

  a girl who gave an admirable performance

  but was not exactly herself.

  This girl is committed to finding a strong, masculine husband

  who will devote himself to taking care of her.

  She’s stuck thinking that she needs taking care of.

  This girl hasn’t yet considered it possible

  that something different could

  make her even happier . . . or

  that she might be strong enough to take care of herself.

  With Rob,

  it seems,

  I find myself

  in character.

  He’s just so nice to me,

  so easily pleased by how well I play the girlfriend.

  It seems foolish to fantasize about something else—

  about something more real.

  A PREGAME IN ROB AND DOUGLAS’S DORM

  The drink of choice is straight shots of cheap liquor.

  I look around through the dim light, wondering

  whether you’ve arrived yet.

  An hour or so later Rob is shouting, “Let’s go!”

  and pulling me to the beer pong table.

  I laugh as I take a Ping-Pong ball from his hand

  and then look across the table

  to measure up our opponents.

  And there they are . . .

  those icy blue eyes.

  They stare straight into mine

  from across the table.

  They’re all it takes to sober me up—

  those eyes that see through my straightened hair

  and dark mascara and still perceive beauty;

  those eyes that can absorb all my pain

  and reflect it back to me as something to feel proud of,

  something that makes me strong and unique;

  those eyes that have come to feel like home.

  Next to you, Douglas is busy rearranging cups.

  I watch your eyes as they move from me to Rob

  and then back to me again.

  The blue inside deepens

  and then empties to a dull, distant glare.

  For a split second, I wonder whether you

  might just carry on and play.

  You drop your neon orange

  Ping-Pong ball into one of the cups.

  You lean in to whisper a few words to Douglas,

  then weakly pat his back and leave the table.

  I watch you disappear into the hallway,

  and, without another thought,

  I tell Rob to find someone else to play with

  and dash out after you.

  The door to the far stairwell is closing.

  I run down and swing it back open,

  pulling with such desperate ferocity that

  the handle leaves a dent in the adjacent wall.

  You’re halfway down the flight of stairs

  when I shout after you.

  You stop without turning and stand still

  on the steps for a moment.

  When you face me, your eyes pierce my heart,

  and the expression on your face is unlike anything

  I’ve seen before—a heart-wrenching mix

  of agony and resignation—

  and no trace of anger.

  Your voice comes out soft and sad,

  “Don’t worry about it,” as you turn back down the stairs.

  I rush after you and grab your arm on the landing.

  “Max, please, wait. I hate this. I don’t want it to be like this.”

  Your head tilts as you breathe out

  and look me straight in the eyes.

  “You don’t want it to be like what?”

  I stare back at you, my heart pounding and my mind racing.

  “Max, I miss you so goddamn much. I miss us.

  And I don’t know what to do.”

  The trace of anger that had been

  absent from your face before

  begins surfacing, welling in your eyes

  and creasing the lines between them.

  You’re about to walk away from me as I hesitate in replying.

  “I’m sorry, Max! I panicked, okay?

  Everything got so confusing and weird

  and scary between us, and I panicked!”

  “You panicked so much that the only thing

  you could possibly think to do

  was start hooking
up with my friend?

  What did you even have to panic about?”

  “About falling in love with you, Max!

  About falling head over heels in love with you

  and then losing it all—that’s what!”

  I choke up in shock and fear and regret

  as I speak out loud this truth

  I’ve been hiding, even from myself, for months.

  The tension in your face slackens.

  You take a step toward me.

  I look into your eyes—

  drains, slowly sucking me from reality,

  out into an ocean of some sublime unknown.

  “You’re in love with me?”

  “I don’t know! Like, yes, Max!

  I think I’m in love with you.”

  I wipe my eyes and turn away from you.

  There’s relief in finally saying the words,

  but a tainted sense of it.

  Even after all the kissing and cuddling,

  after seeing each other naked

  and touching each other’s bodies,

  I’ve been holding on to the hope

  that we can return to being best friends.

  Max and Emily World, right?

  But saying those words—

  admitting them to myself and to you—

  puts it all in jeopardy.

  You exhale, and your brow is furrowed again.

  You lean back against the wall and look up

  to the ceiling.

  You close your eyes.

  “Well, fuck, Em.

  I’m in love with you, too.”

  IN YOUR EYES, I’M AS BIG AS THE SKY

  It’s a gorgeous spring day, full of sunshine

  and warmth and budding new life.

  We press the pieces of mushroom,

  like seashell fragments,

  into the peanut-buttered bread,

  then blanket it with another slice.

  It’s Sophie, Theo, Paul, you, and me.

  Each of us holding a small square of sandwich,

  we cheers before biting into the day.

  There’s a subtle, acrid crunch.

  I chew

  and chew

  and chew.

  We wind through a field dotted with round bales of hay

  wrapped in white plastic, like giant marshmallows

  or globs of mozzarella cheese.

  You climb on top of one,

  sit with your legs dangling over the edge.

  We come upon a stream with a narrow walking bridge.

  Just a few planks of wood, barely wide enough

  for two side-by-side bodies.

  The five of us sit on the bridge, pulling apart cattails

  and soaking our feet in the cool stream water.

  Glimmers of sunlight dance around on the surface.

  A pair of joggers approach,

  and instead of following the four of you

  to the other side of the bridge to make room,

  I step down into the water,

  and everyone laughs as my legs disappear into the stream

  and my feet squish into the muck at the bottom.

  Bright green reeds shoot up from the streambed

  and sway around me,

  calmly letting the current pull them

  one way and the soft wind another.

  Standing here next to the footbridge,

  submerged in the stream from the waist down,

  I realize, even after the runners have passed,

  that I’m in no rush to get back out.

  I’m doing something intuitive,

  unexpected,

  different from everyone else.

  And I feel genuinely good

  about doing my own thing, without an ounce

  of concern about what anyone else thinks of me.

  No fear of getting wet, of sinking my feet

  into the unknown texture of the streambed,

  of creepy-crawly creatures dwelling beneath the surface.

  Today,

  with the sun shining overhead

  and reflecting off the ripples,

  and the bright green stems

  gracefully bending back and forth

  against the current, the water feels

  inviting and refreshing, and the mud at the bottom

  oozes sensually between my toes.

  I crane my head toward the sky and smile

  at its unapologetic expanse.

  And in this crystalline moment,

  I love the endless blue for letting me feel

  so inconsequential and small, like I can do and feel

  whatever I want and it won’t make any difference.

  When I bring my attention back down to earth,

  we lock eyes, and you smile at me

  from the other side of the bridge.

  And just like that,

  I’m big again.

  Big

  but, somehow,

  still free.

  WHAT WOULD MICHELLE OBAMA DO?

  It’s Sunday morning,

  and we wake up in your bed

  still totally drunk,

  and we’re hung up

  on how unfair it is that Michelle Obama

  has to stay inside all the time.

  She stares at me from the corner of your room—

  a life-size cardboard cutout—

  as we debate getting out of bed.

  “What would Michelle Obama do?” I ask.

  “She would go outside and organize

  a Zumba class on Battell Beach,” you declare.

  “She so would,” I reply flatly.

  Twenty minutes later, we’re walking

  across the big open lawn that is Battell Beach,

  holding Michelle between us.

  We’re quite the threesome—

  Michelle in her formal turquoise pantsuit,

  you in sweatpants and flip-flops,

  and me in the tight dress from last night

  under one of your soft flannels.

  As we make our way to the dining hall,

  students stop and stare.

  Some of them shoot us judgmental glares,

  some just laugh, and others,

  the best of them, shout things like,

  “Oh my god! It’s the First Lady!” or

  “Hi, Michelle! I love you!”

  We allow photos and take them

  for the random students

  who want to pose with the First Lady

  as we carry her through the breakfast line,

  sit with her in the dining hall,

  and lounge with her outside in Adirondack chairs.

  Our friends text us about the celebrity spotting,

  and a few of them come out to hang.

  Anyone who doesn’t know us would assume

  we’re conducting some kind of political

  or social experiment for a class.

  But those who do know us know the truth:

  We’re stirring up as much chaos

  with as little effort as we can,

  just for our own stupid entertainment,

  here inside Max and Emily World.

  LAST DAY OF SOPHOMORE YEAR

  We’re sitting on the stone wall behind Ross.

  It’s late and dark outside,

  but I can see your face glowing

  in the orange light of the burning end

  of the spliff we pass back and forth.

  I’m leaving tomorrow morning.

  You’re staying on campus a few mor
e days.

  And since I’ll be in Prague and you’ll be in Berlin

  studying abroad next semester, neither of us knows

  when we’ll see each other next.

  “Why does time have to happen like it does?”

  I ask you, more as a rhetorical lament.

  “Because we have lives to live

  before we can really be together.”

  I turn to you, taken aback by such a statement.

  “Really be together?”

  “Yeah. Together forever.”

  I snort, but then I realize

  there’s no sarcasm in your voice.

  “We would have the best wedding ever, wouldn’t we?”

  I smile, envisioning

  the laughter,

  the silly dance moves,

  the beaming faces watching it all happen.

  Your arm is around me,

  and I can feel the warmth

  of tears behind my eyes

  as I move in closer to rest

  my head on your chest.

  Visions of boyfriends past

  flash through my mind,

  and I realize

  how silly I was to have thought I’d known love

  before this.

  HEADING WEST

  I take a job working at a dude ranch

  for the summer with my sister, Laura.

  We pack up Laura’s car, Jane Honda,

  and drive out to Creede in Mineral County, Colorado

  near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

  Working on the 4UR Ranch—

  an all-inclusive luxury resort-type of ranch—

  is like summer camp for adults.

  I’m on the housekeeping staff,

  so each day, we’re divided into teams of two

  and make our way through the guest cabins,

  one team to a room, until all the rooms are clean.

  We ride from cabin to cabin

  in golf carts filled with supplies.

  We make the beds, vacuum,

  clean the bathrooms, and restock.

  Downtime on the ranch consists of

  casting an aimless fly rod into the Rio;

  competing to find the most antler sheds

  during hikes through the mountains;

  sucking the sweet nectar from Indian paintbrush wildflowers;

  lounging on the back porch of a staff cabin,

  soaking in the hot, dry sunshine,

  listening to banjo music and

  the echoing pops of BBs hitting beer cans.

  I figure I’ll be spending most of my free time

  this summer on adventures with Laura,

  or on the phone with you,

  but then I meet Val.

  VALERIE

  She’s one of my four bunkmates.