The Dirty Girls Social Club

by Alisa Valdes

  Andre arrives right on time. Of course he does. That’s one of the reasons he has been so successful, I’m sure. He is punctual. He is a tall man, with a very dark complexion, almost purely black, and strikingly handsome in a classic sort of way. He makes quite an impression in his elegant tuxedo with the terra-cotta bow tie and cummerbund.

  I spot him across the room, shaking hands, smiling, and greeting people as he moves. His manners are easy and excellent. As with the most sophisticated of people, he is so comfortable in his graciousness that you are not aware he is being gracious. All his focus is on others, on the people he makes contact with. He is interested in them, makes them feel good about themselves for knowing him. Isn’t that the goal? People do not find you appealing because you impress them with who you are; they find you appealing because you make them feel good about themselves for knowing you.

  I stand to greet Andre, and he moves our handshake smoothly into a polite embrace and warm kiss on the cheek. He has not done this with anyone else he greeted in the room. “How are you, Rebecca?” he asks, searching my eyes with his. They are exquisite, almond-shaped and dark. He smells of cinnamon. I am excited to be near him.

  “I’m fine, Andre, thank you,” I say, a slight quiver in my throat. “How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you,” he says with his English accent. We remain standing and continue talking. He congratulates me on a recent Boston magazine profile of me. I congratulate him on an item I saw in the paper about his company acquiring a smaller software firm last week. People approach, and we both socialize with the confidence and grace of true professionals.

  Once we sit down and everyone has turned their attention to the introductory speaker, Andre leans over to me and whispers quietly in my ear, “You look stunning tonight, Rebecca. Truly stunning.” I am surprised. I consider returning the compliment, as he does indeed look stunning, but I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to do so. I smile politely and thank him, aware that my cheeks blaze. He observes me, and stares longer than is appropriate.

  After new members are welcomed and everyone is updated on the issues concerning the organization, including hirings, promotions, and other important milestones for members, dinner is announced. Waiters begin running salads to the tables, and people begin to eat, some at the right moment, others not, some with correct forks, others not. One of the organizers approaches to indicate it’s time for me to make my way to the stage. I excuse myself and follow her. I am surprised when the lights are dimmed and a five-minute video on the success of Ella is shown on a screen at the far end of the room. I did not know this would happen. I choke down the urge to cry. People clap and cheer when the video ends, and I climb the steps to the podium. Standing here before more than one thousand people, I realize once again: This is mine. I have accomplished my goal.

  I give my speech. People laugh when I hoped they would, and clap when I expected they would. I mention nothing of my personal life, other than to thank my parents for instilling in me a strong work ethic and commitment to professionalism. With a sincere smile, I tell the incredible story of Andre Cartier and his magical check, and use it as a lesson to those in the room who have succeeded to be fearless in offering a hand up to others. Andre stands when I ask him to, and accepts his applause. In spite of myself, I feel an almost electric shock through my body as I look at him. I compose myself and finish the speech.

  I get a standing ovation. I return to the table and a beaming Andre. I eat the parts of the salad that have not been contaminated with gooey dressing.

  Andre offers champagne to celebrate our success with the magazine, but I refuse. I don’t drink. He sips his single glass alone, watching me with a smile in his eyes. A sexy smile. I realize I am starving.

  I look away and fill my stomach with water.

  After dinner, an R&B band starts to play Stevie Wonder covers, and people make their way to the dance floor. Andre winks at me. “Are you going to give in this time?”

  “No,” I say. “I can’t dance.”

  “Everyone can dance,” he says.

  “It’s not that I don’t like to dance,” I say. “I honestly can’t.”

  “Nonsense,” he says.

  Though I never talk about myself, I tell him about how I tried dancing in college only to have the sucias laugh at me. As I recall, Lauren used that opportunity to remind me I was “Indian,” which I’m not. “Your people can’t dance,” she said. I’ll never forget that.

  “Those aren’t friends,” he says, simply.

  “No, they are. They’re just very honest. Two left feet here.”

  He continues to search my eyes, says nothing. He lifts one eyebrow, and waits.

  “I can’t dance,” I repeat. I’m uncomfortable.

  “Nonsense,” he says.

  “I look like an idiot when I dance.”

  He stands up and holds out his hand.

  “No,” I protest.

  “Yes,” he says. He leans toward me, brushes a finger along my cheek. “You can.”

  And there, bang, there it is. Lust, for the second time today. To think I had almost forgotten what it felt like.

  He takes my hand gently. “Come.”

  I stand up. “I don’t know.”

  “Just relax,” he says.

  “I’m warning you, it’s not my fault if I step on your toes or hurt you.”

  He moves closer, looks directly into my eyes, and whispers suggestively, “I think I’d like it if you hurt me … a little.” I blush all over my body and say nothing.

  The band has switched from Stevie Wonder to something vaguely recognizable. He sweeps me onto the dance floor and smiles. I’m suddenly very nervous. The music is good, the band is good, and I recognize the song from my middle school years, a funky old song with a strong bass line, something about strawberries. Andre is moving smoothly, easily, and, I can’t help but notice, sexily. Not like he’s trying to, but just because he is one of those people who is full of sexual energy, a powerful, intelligent person, confident and happy. Women all around us stare at him.

  “Like this,” he says, moving my shoulders with his large hands. “Loosen up. Just feel the music.”

  I do a step to the side, bring my other foot in, step-together, step-together. Even I can tell I am stiff. I might as well be in aerobics class.

  “That’s it,” he says with a winning grin. “That’s it.”

  I feel like I should be marching in a military parade. My body doesn’t move to music, at least not when people are watching. Step-together.

  Andre matches my movements, adds a little twist of his own, exhibiting impeccable manners even now. I remember some of the lyrics from long ago, from a time when life was simpler. I mouth the words.

  “That’s right,” Andre shouts over the music. “Let yourself go.”

  My head feels light. I am enjoying myself. Is that a sin? When you marry a man, before God and your family, you are supposed to purge your heart of the ability to feel what I am feeling now. You are not supposed to become breathless near another man. You are not supposed to wonder what it would be like to be with him instead of your own husband, not supposed to imagine the two of you walking along the Charles River in the spring.

  The music changes to a slower song. Andre moves closer to me, and I back away. He allows me to keep my distance, but we continue to dance. The song is melancholy and I start to feel a little bit sad in spite of my efforts not to. I lean over toward his ear.

  “Do you think I’m earthy?” I whisper.

  He tilts his head to the side like a bird to indicate amused confusion.

  “Earthy? No, I can’t say that’s what comes to mind when I think of you. Why?”

  “Well, how would you describe me? I’m curious.”

  He grins enormously, pulls me closer, holds me tight, and we sway. People stare, I know they do. Andre begins speaking softly into my ear. “Rebecca Baca, to me, is brilliant—and knows it. She is cultured—and knows it. She is spectacular
ly beautiful, but does not know it, and she is extremely lonely, but she does not reveal it.”

  I want to turn and run away, leave this place. Leave what I am feeling. I step back, but he pulls me in again, gently.

  He continues, low, fast, and urgent. “Rebecca Baca is the woman I think about as I am falling asleep, and she is the woman I think of when I first wake up in the morning. She is the most astonishing woman I know.”

  I cannot control my heart, or my blood, which feels like it has drained out onto the floor. I am weak with joy. I can’t think of anything to say, and am not prepared for any of this. We dance until the band stops playing, and I don’t want to stop.

  “You know,” he says as we gather our coats from the coat check and head out to the valet line, “we could keep going. It’s Friday night. I know some nice clubs in town.”

  “It’s late,” I say.

  “Not true, not true,” he says with a good-natured laugh, checking his Rolex. “It’s only eleven o’clock.”

  “I don’t think it would be appropriate,” I say. “You should know that.”

  He looks puzzled, then offended.

  “I’m married, Andre. And I’m a public person. That’s what I meant. Not because, well—”

  He fixes me with his eye, and grins so that his dimples show. “You know,” he says, “I have yet to meet your husband. He’s never been to a single event.”

  “I know.”

  “I won’t believe you’re really married until I meet him.” He frowns in a serious mood, and reaches for my hand and plants a gentle kiss on it. “If you were my wife, I would be at every function celebrating your success.”

  “I am, I’m married.”

  “Happily?”

  I swallow hard, caught.

  “Yes,” I lie. “Happily married.” For the first time I can remember, I have a microexpression. My mouth twitches.

  Andre notices, and smiles. “You told me you couldn’t dance,” he says with a raised eyebrow. “That was a lie. You’re absolutely certain about a husband, are you?”

  I hand the valet my ticket, gain control of my face, smile at Andre. “Good night, then,” I say. “I’ll see you next time.”

  We stand without speaking until my car comes. Andre opens the door gently, and I climb in. As he closes it, he says, “Swear to me you’re happily married, and I’ll stop pursuing you.”

  I avoid his stare, put the key in the ignition, and pull slowly away without responding.

  I don’t want God to know the answer.

  I don’t love to drag up sappy anecdotes for this column. It’s a cheap trick of the trade, and I swore back in journalism school that if I ever had my own column, I’d never pull what I like to call “the Paul Harvey” on you. But fury forces me to relay some touching personal moments with you. See, I have this friend whose generosity is unparalleled in the universe of my friends. It first showed itself when we were sophomores in college and she, upon seeing a poor, coatless woman shivering in a snowstorm, gave away not just the coat on her back, but also her hat, gloves, scarf and newly-purchased paper cup of hot tea. And twenty dollars. In keeping with the teachings of The Bible, a book said friend lives by, she donates fifteen percent of every paycheck to charity, sometimes more. Whenever I mock people, which is about every six minutes, if this friend is around she’ll likely ask me why I feel the need to be so mean. I know plenty of selfish, angry people. They’re easy to find. But I don’t know many people like Elizabeth Cruz.

  —from “My Life,” by Lauren Fernández

  elizabeth

  YOU CRAZY DYKE,” the man shouts.

  I press 7 to skip the message. I don’t need to hear the rest of it. There have been dozens that start the same way. They want me dead. They hate me. Every evangelical minister in the area seems to have ordered them to descend upon me, to save me from the fires of hell.

  A few crazies have even trekked to WRUT-TV from places like Montana as if they were going to appear on Good Morning America. But instead of holding posters wishing someone a happy birthday, they wave signs proclaiming, ADAM AND EVE, NOT ADAM AND STEVE. Of greater concern to me than these well-intentioned lunatics is the fact that the producer of the national news show who had, until I was outed, begged me to join their team, now will not return my calls. I get the assistant, and from her chilly tone I sense my worst fear, after losing my mother—they don’t want me anymore.

  My life changed instantly, after the first Herald piece came out. I stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts near the WRUT downtown office that morning, for a strong coffee. The cashier, Lorraine, an older Haitian immigrant who is usually very nice to me, dumped my change on the counter instead of putting it in my hand, and clicked her tongue with disapproval. The Herald was spread out on the back counter, by the bagel toaster, open to the now-famous picture of me kissing Selwyn. Lorraine didn’t wish me a good day, as usual. She did not tell me about her children in college. She didn’t say, as she often used to, that she wished I were her child. She muttered “Disgusting,” and retreated to the back room.

  My mother must know. But she has yet to mention it. I don’t know how to bring it up. I know she makes a point of reading the Boston papers online every day, as a way to stay involved in my life. She hasn’t changed toward me in any perceptible way. We’ll speak of it eventually, I am sure. Just not now.

  Maybe I’m paranoid. I used to look forward to spring in Boston, for walks through the greening Common with all its gardens. Now, I avoid public places. I keep the curtains closed. I work. But I hurry home and hide. Selwyn and I have tried to retain some normalcy; we rent DVDs on the Internet, eat microwave popcorn out of the big plastic Ikea bowl, paint each other’s toenails on the floor while the pot roast cooks. Selwyn has sprouted gray hairs since this began, and she gulps down Maalox as if it were water. She is like a green plant, and slowly dies without sunlight. She does not complain about the new locks on our doors, or the threats in her mailbox at the college. But I know. I know. If things don’t change, I will lose her. “I had to fall in love with a movie star,” she jokes. But there is some truth to it.

  The notoriously dull Gazette joined the witch-hunt, publishing polls and pie charts about public opinion of the fiasco. They ran a pro-gay editorial, but that did not help enough. Lauren has been kind to me in all of this, and wrote a couple of columns in support of me, telling people to mind their own business. With the exception of Sara, all my friends have stuck by me, which I didn’t expect. People surprise you.

  Lately the crazies have gotten scarier, with news of my sexuality having made it to that right-wing Christian radio show by Dr. Dobson. Now, there’s a national E-mail crusade to destroy me. They write to my boss, a form letter from a Web site. On the site is a letter for the national network as well. I am a hunted woman, a hated woman, and 60 Minutes wants an interview. (I said no.)

  My colleagues don’t speak of it. They don’t ask if I’m okay. They pretend nothing has changed. But they are uncomfortable. I can feel it in the way they avoid looking at me in the elevator. I can feel it in the fact that we are the only news outlet in town that has not dealt with my sexuality as a topic.

  What can you do with your heart at a time like this? In the darkness and the cold of my solitary early mornings, I always counted on Lorraine’s bright smile and conversation to help me start the day. We had a solidarity that comes from living in darkness, from—what is the word?—eking. From eking out our existence on the far side of the sun, from hanging our morning eyes on stars, struggling to stay awake. We usually talked for five, ten minutes. It wasn’t much. But it’s the symbol of the thing. I miss normalcy. Comforting. Sometimes she gave me free coffee. I am not welcome in my own life now.

  As I waited in the truck at a stoplight near my house yesterday evening, an unkempt neighbor, white like raw dough, laughed at me from his doorstep, eating grapes out of his fist in a way too brutal for the delicate fruit. He shouted, “What a waste. Look at ya. Good-lookin’ nigger, too. What you need
is a good man to set you straight.” He cackled. He cackled long and hard, like a crazy man. The world spun and there was nowhere to hide. Did he really grab himself there with his big, bready fingers? Did he really show me his big pink swollen tongue, this man I used to greet over my fence?

  I drove to work in a panic this morning, mi corazón flapping against my sternum, and now here I am, in the dark underground parking lot, afraid to get out, cleaning my voice mail on my cell phone. Selwyn thinks I am making far too big a deal out of what she calls the “limited, disposable controversy of your lesbianism,” but Selwyn is not a journalist. I am. I shiver, and not from the cold. The world frightens me. I have reported the news for five years. Parents strangle their children. Men torture cats. People make slaves of others. I know what evil the world is made of.

  “Don’t obsess on this,” Selwyn says in my head. That’s impossible.

  I turn on the car stereo, tune it to the AM news station. It takes ten minutes, then there it is. Liz Cruz is a lesbian, favorite topic of the day. I turn the dial to the talk radio call-in station. The host is laughing, then says, “What is it about these Spics, Jack? Are all the good-looking ones gay? First Ricky Martin, then Liz. Ricky, I don’t care. My wife wants you, buddy, so screw all the men you want, you know what I mean? It’s great. But not Liz! My wife, she’s so happy. Now she’s getting even. Life sucks. Next thing you know, they’ll say Penélope Cruz is gay. I’ll have to kill myself.”

  I hurry from my car to the elevator.

  I go through makeup and the morning meeting without anyone saying a word, though I can tell by the sidelong way they examine me now that they all want to see me gone from their midst. Of course they do. Our ratings are slipping. They all pretend it’s okay that I’m still here.