by Lola West
I glanced at the clock. The orientation started at ten, and it was already nine thirty. If I walked briskly, it took me about ten minutes to get from my room to S.A.F.E.’s front porch, which meant I had somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes to go from exhausted-mess Lua to Drew’s-drooling-at me Lua. Turning back from the clock, I intended to dive headfirst into the problem at hand, but instead, I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror that hung on the back of my closet door. Standing there, looking at myself in my bra and panties, I crumpled. I dropped to my knees, buried my face in my hands, and took deep breaths to keep myself from crying, but it was no use. As if out of my control, the muscles around my eyes clenched and a gentle flow of tears spilled forth.
This moment was not a Lua Steinbeck moment. Literally, I could not remember a single time in my life when I felt the intense panic of needing to look beautiful or sexy to feel secure. I knew that women did this. I knew that a ‘closet full of clothes but not a single thing to wear’ was a thing. I knew that what you wore was one of the ways that people perceived you, and that the assumptions they made about you before they got to know you were built on not only your physical traits but also your style choices. I knew that mainstreamers, particularly mainstream women, struggled with body image issues and feeling beautiful and that often women my size were taught to be self-conscious and they battled this by always dieting.
I knew all of this, only I knew it in the abstract. On the thrive, beauty was so much more about playfulness and nature. Beauty was about laughter and friendship. At Hamilton, I felt the pressure. I looked at girls like Chrystal and Katie and I wondered if Drew wanted that, tight little bodies that he could toss around. I looked at Raina’s loud punky look and wondered if I needed to mimic that to fit in with her and other mainstreamers that thought like the people I grew up with. I looked at strangers on the path to and from the cafeteria and the bookstore, wondering what they saw when they saw me. Did I look like someone they might want to know? Did I look like someone who could make it in the mainstream, who could stand up for what she believed in? Now that I was no longer living within the safety that the thrive provided, it was harder to maintain the self-assuredness and self-love that I felt my whole life. For the first time, I felt so lost, like I was struggling to belong every minute of every day.
And that’s what I saw in the mirror, not the strong, curvy, sexy Lua who stood in the dim light of Drew’s hotel room and peeled off her clothes, no. What I saw was a scared, lost version of Lua, who was counting on Drew’s desire to make her feel acceptable. Wanting him to want me would have been fine; it would have been a little twisted, but the kind of self-indulgent behavior that we all trip into every now and then. Needing him to want me was something else altogether. It felt like a symptom, a blaring red flag that I was never going to be strong enough to live amongst the mainstream and still uphold all that I had been taught to be, all that I wanted others to embrace and understand.
It was a super dramatic moment for me. I definitely lost my cool, all while the clock was ticking. In an attempt to regain my composure, I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and talked to myself. “You got this.”
Pep talks are not my forte. As I went to stand, I caught sight of myself in the mirror one more time, and upon seeing that my tears had rimmed my eyes in red puffy misery, the drama began again, only this time, behind me Chrystal threw the covers off, pushed her eye mask up so that it rested on her forehead, mashing her straw-colored hair in all kinds of weird directions, and huffed, “Jesus Christ, Lua.”
I was prepared for her to yell at me. My passive-aggressive noise was perhaps the first time that I might actually have deserved crazy-Chrystal’s wrath, but she didn't yell. She marched from her bed to my closet, crossed just in front of me, bent over so her little panty-covered tush was parallel to my head, and then started digging through my mess. She was finding me an outfit. Flabbergasted, I kind of just stared at her underwear. They were full coverage cotton panties, like the kind that little girls wear. There was nothing sexy about them; they were comfortable. In that moment I found myself thinking that knowing what Chrystal’s panties looked like was kind of like knowing a secret because honestly no one would ever guess that under her power bitch façade were these demure underoos.
Still bent over, Chrystal twisted to look around her right shoulder back at me and asked, “Is there a guy involved?”
I nodded.
“This,” she said, tossing a long-sleeved multicolored bohemian tunic at me.
Since ‘this’ was something I normally wore with pants, I asked “And?”
She crossed to her closet, pulled out a pair of flat knee-high brown suede boots, held them up, and said, “These.”
Somehow through the shock of this exchange, I managed to be logical. “What if we don’t wear the same size?”
“We do.” She dropped her boots on the floor next to me, offering no explanation for how she knew we could share shoes, and marched back in the direction of her bed. Once she was back under the covers, eye mask in its rightful place, she said, “Gloss, mascara, a chunk of your hair in a loose braid, and for Christ’s sake, swap that thong for some real underwear.”
I quickly pulled on the clothes Chrystal suggested and was surprised to find that this look was exactly what I wanted: sexy, casual, cool. I wondered why I never realized the shirt I was wearing made a really good dress.
I turned to say thank you but before I could get even the inkling of the words out, crazy-Chrystal opened her mouth and spewed irritation. “Oh my God, Lua, can you not see that I’m sleeping? Get on with it and go wherever you’re going already.”
I had no idea how she knew I was about to talk to her, but I didn’t try a second time. I slipped out of our room, wondering if crazy-Chrystal might just be more than a stereotype after all.
S.A.F.E.’s orientation was half business, half reunion. Everyone who was connected to S.A.F.E. was there, current work-studies and volunteers, members, people thinking about being members. Being a member basically meant that you got an email anytime the organization was holding an event, and you were also allowed to hang out and use the building’s different lounges anytime you wanted; all you had to do was sign in. In my mind I had pictured orientation as very structured and formal, Raina standing in the front of the room lecturing us all on the right and wrong way to do things, but it wasn’t anything like that. Instead, it looked more like a career fair. There were balloons and streamers everywhere, and there was a circle of manned tables marked with signs that had different keywords: gender, sexuality, race, economics, ability, religion, body size. And then there was a larger round table out in front of all the others. Hanging from the ceiling above this large round table was a garland that read Start Here.
As I came through the door, just barely on time, I was approached a tall good-looking dark-skinned guy who was one of the people manning the Start Here table. He was striking, hard to miss. He had skinny dreads that were twisted into a bun at the crown of his skull and black horn-rimmed glasses. He was wearing jeans, a pale-green t-shirt, and a tweed vest. The look was smart, stylish, and made me think he might be hoarding a pipe somewhere on his person.
“Lua, right?”
Although we’d never met, he knew me, probably from television, but to my surprise I also knew him. He was in all the current pictures hanging on the walls. One in particular had caught my eye the other day. It was a group shot from a Halloween party. People were wearing all kinds of things, but it was this guy—his name was Isaac—that I noticed and not just because he was easy on the eyes. In the photo he was dressed as a Native American chief, with a huge feathered headdress and suede pants with fringe along the seams. Rather than don a shirt, he had written a message in white across his chest. It read, Costumes like this perpetuate harmful stereotypes and stigmas, the foundations for racist action. Raina had caught me looking at the image and explained that on his back he’d had her write Native Americans are a people, not
a costume. Check yourself. I’d been looking forward to meeting him ever since.
“Isaac,” I said, extending my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Surprised to hear his name, he smiled, a big, kind, open smile, then he took my hand in both of his and said, “Good to know–we’ve both got reputations to live up to. I thought you were going to win that round, for sure.”
I knew he wasn’t flirting with me, but he wasn’t not flirting with me either. A presence moved in behind me, tall and tense; I felt a flitter of heat at the small of my back, like a hand reaching to rest there, only it never actually pressed into the fabric of my shirt. I knew it was Drew immediately. His smell encircled me, and my heart started to race. He tried to fall in line with the conversation Isaac and I were having, but when he spoke, it was uncomfortable, his voice just loose enough that you wouldn’t call it a snarl, but you’d remember it that way.
“Sorry, buddy. I’ve got you both beat. No chance anyone will be talking about your reputations when they have mine to chew on.”
It was quick but while Drew was talking, Isaac glanced between us, his eyes tightening for a second, and it became clear to me that he was assessing the space between Drew and me. Instantly, I knew we were too close. According to proxemics, the study of human special requirements, Americans like distance. Even with our close friends and family, we are likely to stand at least a foot and a half away from each other. Drew wasn’t a foot and a half from me; he wasn’t even half a foot from me. If he took a deep breath, his right pectoral muscle would press into my left shoulder. There was no way that anyone would be comfortable this close, unless they wanted to be close.
Drew was too busy being jealous to notice it but there was no question, Isaac took one look at our proximity and he knew. I watched it happen. His face was calm as he assessed us, then he glared inward, thinking it through and when his gaze settled back on my face, he lifted the left corner of his mouth just a smidge in confirmation. Drew’s irritating and inappropriate caveman show wasn’t helping. Honestly, he might as well have grabbed me and kissed me or maybe peed on my leg, because that behavior wouldn’t have been any less obvious. I swallowed, uncomfortably realizing that I really didn’t want anyone to know about what happened with Drew. I didn’t want our one night together to shape how my new friends thought of me. Isaac caught that too, my discomfort. He squeezed my hand which he was still holding, and I felt like he was saying, no worries, I got this.
With absolutely no malice, and radiating genuine excitement, Isaac turned to Drew and said, “Dude, you have no idea. I am gonna chew, chew, chew.” Then he clapped his hands together in gleeful emphasis, and spinning to the table behind him, he grabbed two cards and asked, “Are you ready to get started?”
Behind me, Drew seemed to hesitate. I felt him back up just a hair, and then he said, “Um, sorry. I just need to…” He pointed, and then he was moving, crossing behind me and then walking past the orientation tables in the direction of the bathroom. It was awkward, but it was Drewish. Gone as quickly as he arrived, as usual.
Knowingly playing the fool, Isaac raised his eyebrows at me. “It seems this semester, that”—he angled his head toward the space that Drew had just vacated—“will be a handful.”
To an innocent bystander it would appear that he was talking about his own interactions with Drew, but I knew what he was really saying. I had been taught to trust my instincts and my instincts told me that Isaac was already a friend, someone who wouldn’t wish for my discomfort. So there was nothing to do but laugh and build on the camaraderie I was already feeling. With a longing glance in Drew’s direction, I shrugged my shoulders and quietly said, “Perhaps a couple handfuls, but I'm hoping not.”
He accepted my admission with a scrunched-nose smile and then brought his index finger to his newly pursed lips, confirming that he knew we were in the land of secrets.
Once all the Drew-drama was out of the way, Isaac handed me a large index card that had been turned into a grid. The left-hand column was divided into two categories, ‘privilege’ and ‘oppression,’ and the row across the top reflected the same words that the tables were marked with: gender, sexuality, race, economics, ability, religion, and body size. Isaac explained that this first phase of orientation was about getting to know each other and also about exploring the different aspects of our person and considering how the culture responds to those attributes. Basically, we had to walk around the room and decide if our relationship to each topic was one of privilege or of oppression. At each table there were a couple veteran representatives of S.A.F.E., who were ready to discuss their table’s topic. Clearly, I could have filled out my card without a second thought, but I took the time to go from one table to the next, introducing myself.
Everyone I met was welcoming and warm. Many of them knew who I was, and they were excited that I was working at the center. The conversations being had were political, lively, and invigorating, exactly what I wanted out of my college experience. In general, the S.A.F.E. representatives seemed to assume that I would understand what they had to say, and I found that I was often confirming their points. For example, at the sexuality table, there was a little debate happening. A lesbian who presented as quite masculine was respectfully telling a gay guy that he was culturally more acceptable than she was. The S.A.F.E. representative at the table, another gay guy whose name was Chris, made the point that while there was some conversation to be had about the nuances of how the culture was shifting in terms of moving away from homophobia—both lesbians and gays still had to fight to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. I added that we still understood heterosexuality as the norm.
Chris nudged me to explain further, so I did. Speaking quickly because I was so delighted to be in my element, I offered up a personal experience to make my point. “The other day I was in Target and I got all excited because there was a section in the greeting cards marked gay marriage, which basically just meant that the gender pronouns in the cards were either nonexistent or they used wife or husband twice. Anyway, at first the idea that there was a gay marriage section at all seemed like a win, right? But then I got to thinking, if being gay was totally understood as part of the norm, then we wouldn’t have to have a special section for gay marriage; instead the cards for varying sexuality would either all be marked marriage or there would be three categories for easy sales: wife/husband marriage, wife/wife marriage, and husband/husband marriage. Right?”
As I came to the end of my point, my eyes landed on Drew who was leaning with the base of one foot pressed against a wall about fifteen feet from me. He was just off to the right of the table marked race. The wall was parallel to where I was standing so I could only see him in profile. He was wearing a navy-blue t-shirt and jeans, with one of those stupid canvas preppy belts. I couldn’t see it from where I was, but there was a definite possibility that there were little whales or crossed tennis rackets circling his waist. His hair was longer than in New York, but it was still perfectly messy, and he had his head hung forward so the disheveled strands shadowed his eyes.
I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t loving this experience as much as I was. His shoulders were curled, his body language completely closed off. And yet, even from where I was standing, I could see he was smiling. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking at his shoes, just glow smiling. It was odd until I stopped talking. The three people I was talking to all expressed their agreement, and the conversation continued, but my eyes repeatedly flickered back to Drew. When I had completed my thought, he took a beat, and then he glanced right at me. Surprise flashed across his face when our eyes locked. He hadn’t expected me to be watching him, and it was then that I realized he was listening to me from across the room. He was smiling at me, at what I was saying, and his smile wasn’t condescending or snarky. It was proud. He was listening to me do my thing, and that made him glow.
I expected him to turn away, to hide what I had caught him doing, but he didn’t. As far as I was co
ncerned, that was Drew’s M.O., duck and cover. Only this time, he stood firm. He turned his body so that he was facing me and with soft sad eyes, he shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t even close. But it was something. It made me think back to the moment on the bed in New York when he admitted that he’d been thinking about my lip gloss ‘for weeks,’ the moment when he reminded me that his feelings for me weren’t just about a singular night in New York, but they were formed over time, starting from those first moments at Bonnaroo. That’s what that little shrug from across the room said; it said he wasn’t going to act on his feelings for me, but he wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t have them either. It was a bittersweet moment, a moment that made me ache to thread my fingers through his.
So, I looked away.
Because I couldn’t stand it.
A girl needed to breathe.
I moved through the rest of the tables, very conscious of my effort not to acknowledge Drew. I ended at the table marked gender, which happened to be the table Raina had assigned to herself. Raina had so much energy that she was practically buzzing, roaring delight.
“Jesus, Lua, look at all these unsuspecting young minds, just waiting to be blown.” She spoke with the same evil genius glee that she had when she realized that both Drew and I were working at S.A.F.E.
I wanted to be awesome and feel all giddy with her but that little shrug from Drew had me all twisted up. So, all I could think to say was, “They are just barely younger than we are.”
