Dating Sarah Cooper

by Siera Maley

  “Well, the big one is The L Word,” Sarah explained. “It’s about a group of lesbians from, like, California. Then they all hook up with people. Like Sex and the City but gay.” She clicked around for a few more seconds. “Glee and Pretty Little Liars are on here too; we’ve seen those so we’re good. But I haven’t heard of any of these movies, wow.”

  “Let me see.” I leaned over her shoulder to look at a list she’d pulled up. None of them rang a bell, with the exception of one. “Wait. How is Bend It like Beckham a gay movie?”

  “Maybe we missed something when we watched it the first time.” Sarah looked like she was trying not to laugh. “Okay, anyway, we’re gonna have to study if we want to pull this off. Didn’t you get the tiniest feeling that that Jessa girl didn’t buy any of it yesterday?” She grinned as she asked the question.

  “Yeah,” I sighed out. “Just slightly.”

  “So if we can learn a little bit about each of these movies, she’ll think we took the time to watch them all, which makes us way more convincing. And I say we pick one to watch tonight, and then you go home and watch the pilot episode of The L Word while I try to find an online pdf of a popular young adult lesbian novel. Tomorrow morning, we finish trading notes, and mission accomplished, we are officially knowledgeable about lesbian culture.”

  “Why am I totally unsurprised that you’re treating this like a school project you need to ace?” I sighed out. “Do you really think it’s worth doing so much work? I mean, obviously we want to put some sort of effort in, but say we don’t necessarily go the extra mile and then one girl doesn’t buy it. Does it really matter as long as everyone else does?”

  “That one girl could cause a lot of problems if she gets snoopy,” Sarah pointed out. “And besides, you’re the one who wanted us to do something good here. If we learn about lesbians, we’ll come to understand more about them, and then we’ll be more open-minded in the future.”

  “They’re not aliens, Sarah,” I mumbled, going back to channel-surfing. “They just date girls instead of guys. Not that hard to understand.”

  “I know that. Look, it just can’t hurt to be prepared. You know how I am.”

  “Yeah, alright. Fine,” I gave in. There was no use arguing with her when she was on a mission to learn something. “Just tell me what to do.”

  We spent the next two hours memorizing character names and plotlines and movie titles and endings, and it wasn’t fun. Sarah did a better job than me, which wasn’t surprising, but I had to admit I was a little impressed with her even though I hated having to do all of the memorization in the first place. Yes, she’d made the blunder that’d gotten us to where we were now, but she seemed to realize the ramifications of her actions and was now genuinely trying to make the best of it.

  She sent me home with a link to the pilot episode of that show she wanted me to watch, and once I’d gotten through dinner with my parents – which had become much more stressful over the past couple of days now that I was keeping a massive secret from them – I headed to my bedroom and forced myself to start the show. It was like Sarah’d described: six women in California were gay and did gay things and had gay drama. But it kind of sucked me in, honestly. By the end of the first episode I considered watching the second, but then I realized I was about to get sucked into a show explicitly for and about and probably by lesbians, and I couldn’t get past that mental block.

  My phone went off on my nightstand just as I was setting my laptop aside. I had one new text message from an unknown number. It said: “So here is something random, and u don’t know me. U should get ur shit together and go out with me.”

  I stared as I tried to make sense of the less-than-intelligent string of words, and when they finally sank in, my grip tightened on the phone and I resisted the urge to reply. Instead, I scrolled down my contact list until I came to Jake’s number, and then debated only for a moment before I pressed the button to call him.

  He sounded a little sleepy when he picked up. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Jake. It’s Katie.” I laid back on my bed and stared up at my bedroom ceiling as I asked him, “Did I wake you up?”

  “It’s fine; I was just taking a nap. Is everything okay?”

  “Not so much.” I sighed and closed my eyes. “Some idiot got my cell number, so I’m getting harassed from the safety of my own bedroom now, which is lovely.”

  “I’m sorry, Katie,” said Jake. “All I can say is that you have to focus on the good. Your friends all still love you, right? A lot of people that come out can’t say that.”

  “But what am I supposed to do about everyone else? I have to spend every day with people staring and making comments and sending stupid anonymous texts to me about how I need to get my shit together and go out with a guy? How do you deal with it?”

  “You need to start blocking numbers, honey,” he told me. “That’s the only thing you can do about the texts. For the people at school… you can only do what the rest of us do: Learn to be snarky, get a thick skin, and hope it gets better. People react to girls and guys differently though when we come out. Someone like Jessa could probably give you better advice than me.”

  “I don’t think she likes me,” I admitted. “She was a little cold at the first meeting.”

  “She just takes some time to warm up to new people,” he said. “Give her until next Tuesday, when we all meet up again. And look, Katie, try to remember that you’re really lucky. A lot of us don’t have someone by our side when we come out. You have Sarah. Just being there for each other is gonna help both of you out a lot. I mean, imagine if you were alone in all of this.”

  “Yeah,” I told him faintly, thinking that even after just one day of faking being gay and of having Sarah by my side throughout it all, it was easy to see why so many other gay kids wound up clinically depressed. Sarah had thought it’d be easy to be a lesbian, and while I’d had the presence of mind to know this wouldn’t be easy, I’d had no idea it’d be this hard. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jake.” I said. “Bye.”

  “Bye, Katie.”

  I didn’t see him the next day, and that turned out to be one of many of in a string of disappointments I experienced that day. It started with small stuff: Annie, the girl I sometimes exchanged hellos or waves with in the hallway when we’d pass each other on our way to class, decided that our new tradition was that I’d wave and she’d look at her feet and ignore me. So that was cool.

  I pretty much forgot about that, though, when I ran into Austin. We nearly crashed head-on in the hallway, looked up, saw each other, and then did everything we could to hastily side-step each other and move on. As he walked away, I heard some guy shout something to him that I couldn’t quite make out. I spent my next class period wondering if Sarah and I’s lie had had negative consequences for Austin somehow, and I walked around with a heavy heart for the rest of the day.

  Sarah wasn’t much help, and the reason for that was obvious: Sam Heath spoke to her. It was while we were at her locker together, and it wasn’t much: just a sly “cute” as he eyed the two of us up and down while on his way to class, but I thought Sarah might burst out into song at any moment, and I had to elbow her in the side to remind her she was supposed to be into me and not Sam. It wasn’t until Sarah’d already gone off to her next class that I saw Jessa glance at me from just a few lockers down, and realized that if she’d seen that entire exchange, we were probably screwed.

  And as if that wasn’t nerve-wracking enough, I also had a pop quiz.

  It all wasn’t as bad as yesterday had been, but it wasn’t great, either, and I still left school feeling terrible. Sarah and I walked out to her car together; she planned to drive me home today so we could finally share what we’d learned last night. Before we could get into her car, however, the last person I expected to see trying to talk to me jogged over to us.

  Austin’s hands were shoved into his pockets and his lanky form was hunched over just slightly, like he was trying to humble himself. His eyes darte
d back and forth between us as he cleared his throat uncomfortably, and I nearly jumped when I felt Sarah’s arm snake possessively around my waist.

  “What do you want, Austin?” she asked him, and I could practically sense her eyes narrowing at my side. I wondered how hilarious she was finding this, inwardly.

  “Uh… can I talk to you, Katie?” he asked, his voice quiet. “I promise it’ll be quick.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, both to him and to Sarah, and he nodded his thanks, turning and walking away. I followed, and when we were out of Sarah’s earshot, he paused and faced me, letting out a sigh and squeezing his eyes shut.

  “Okay.” He looked at me. “The whole school’s saying you and Sarah are…”

  “Yeah,” I interrupted swiftly, biting my lip. “I know.”

  “So that… back there, she was-” He cut himself off and glanced behind me, where Sarah stood, probably watching us. “I just wanted to know if that… if that was why we… why you ended things with us.” His eyes found his feet. “Everyone’s saying I turned you gay.”

  I watched him carefully for a moment. The heavy feeling in my chest intensified, and I didn’t know what to tell him. Which was better: To lie and tell him I’d left him for Sarah, or to be honest and say I’d left him because I just didn’t want to be with him? I wasn’t even sure being left for a girl was preferable to being left for no one at all.

  “You didn’t turn me gay, Austin,” I said at last. “People either are gay or they aren’t. Anyone who tries to tell you you ruined guys for me is full of crap.”

  That answer didn’t seem to satisfy him. “Look, all I’m saying is that you broke up with me without any explanation. I’m trying to get one now.”

  “Why now?” I asked him. “I wanted to talk to you right after it happened, but you ignored me.”

  “Yeah, I was a little pissed,” he shot back. “Can you blame me? You were the girl of my dreams and you dumped me.”

  I sighed, trying to keep calm. “I get that. I do. But I still wanted to be friends. I still want to now.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” he said. “But it might help to know that at least you were just gay and I didn’t do anything wrong. You started dating Sarah right after we broke up, right? Did you leave me for her?”

  He was looking at me knowingly now, and I swallowed hard. “No.”

  He shook his head. “That’s bullshit, Katie. C’mon.”

  “I didn’t,” I insisted. “That happened after. All of it.”

  “And you expect me to believe our breakup was totally about the two of us even though you switched teams and started dating your best friend within a few weeks? We were together for a year.”

  “Look, I broke up with you because I never had feelings for you, okay?” I burst, and it was like the floodgates in my chest had been opened, and everything I’d held back to spare his feelings when we’d broken up came pouring out now. “You were my first everything, and I know that that’s special and all, but I just didn’t feel the way about you that I could tell you felt about me. You were a nice guy, and I felt pressured to start dating because all of my friends were doing it. I mean, I cared about you, but it wasn’t-”

  “Like it is with her,” he cut me off. His eyes were looking past me again, at Sarah. “I get it. So you really always were gay.” He turned away, adding a quick, “See you,” and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from correcting him as he walked away; to stop myself from pointing out that just because I didn’t like him didn’t mean I didn’t like boys. But that would’ve blown my cover, and so I let him walk away, and then rejoined Sarah by her car, where she was leaning against it, idly examining her fingernails.

  “What’d he want?” she asked.

  “Validation,” I told her shortly, and she wisely didn’t ask any more questions.

  Despite my conversation with Austin, Sarah and I had an amusing drive home. As it turned out, she’d been worse than me; I’d feared she’d tease me when I revealed that The L Word was actually mildly addicting, but in reality I’d showed restraint where she had not. The young adult novel she’d found had taken four hours to read, and so that’s what Sarah had done from about six to ten o’clock last night.

  “And how was the ending? Satisfying?” I asked her, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Shut up. It was okay. They didn’t end up together though, which was total bullshit.”

  “Why not? It seems pointless otherwise.”

  “Well, one of the chicks was just experimenting, so she went back to guys and the other one realized she was actually into girls. The story was more about the second girl, I think. Anyway, how was The L Word?”

  “Uh, sexual.” I shrugged.

  “Sounds like my kind of show,” she joked. “So how many episodes did you watch?”

  “Just the one I was supposed to.” I shot her a sly smile. “Why, did you expect me to have spent, say… four hours on it?”

  “Shut up!” she repeated, but she was hiding a smile. “It was a good book. What happened on the show, seriously?”

  “Um… I don’t know. Girls hooked up, there was this writer girl with a boyfriend – Jenny – but you can tell she’s gonna realize she’s gay.”

  “So what I’m gathering from this is that you should know how to have lesbian sex now.”

  “Oh, I’m an expert.” I rolled my eyes at her as she chuckled. “I’ll teach you all about it.”

  “I’m sure you will.” She winked as we pulled into my driveway, and I rolled my eyes again as I got out of the car.

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Anything for my girlfriend.” She grinned. “Especially since we’re cute together!”

  “The obsession never stops,” I deadpanned, waving goodbye to her.

  “Never!” she called back as she drove away.

  I dodged dinner this time and spent the rest of the night in my room alone, absorbing and reevaluating everything I’d been through in the past few days.

  I was torn on what to do about Sarah and I’s little ruse. She’d hate the idea of calling it off now, I knew, given that she’d gotten one more word than usual out of Sam, but I didn’t feel obligated to her, honestly. I felt obligated to Jake and to the other LAMBDA members… and I have to admit I was a little afraid of how much worse I’d be treated for faking lesbianism, given how awful it was to actually be a lesbian.

  I could picture the insults now, from the shallow ones to the ones that attacked the very core of who we were: that we’d do anything for attention; that we’d manipulated and used a minority group for our own gain. Maybe we really were already in too deep to back out now.

  But at least tomorrow was Friday, and all I had to do was get through seven more hours of school and then I’d be able to take the weekend to have some quiet time to myself.

  I got on my laptop eventually, and hadn’t been online for more than a half-hour before a window popped up telling me that Sarah was requesting a video chat. Confused, I accepted, and a second later her face was on my laptop screen.

  “You are not gonna believe this bullshit,” she fumed, trying to show me something on her phone. I squinted, the blurry video quality making it hard to see.

  Finally, the picture cleared and I could barely make out the words of a text message. I read aloud, “Hey, I hear bi chicks are freakier in bed. Come sit on my-” I made a disgusted face and stopped reading, and Sarah pulled her phone away, looking embarrassed.

  “Sorry, wrong text.”

  “Wait, who sent that?” I asked her.

  “Unknown number. Whatever,” she shrugged it off, and if I hadn’t known her as well as I did, I might’ve genuinely believed she was unaffected. “This is the one I meant to show you.”

  “Wait, I’m getting them, too. I figured you’d be cut some slack because you’re not saying you’re a lesbian, though.”

  “Yeah, well, apparently the bisexuals don’t have it all that great, either.” She sounded impatient
. “Look, that’s nothing compared to this.”

  I forced myself to drop the subject for the time being, and focused on the new message she was holding up to the screen. It was another from an unknown number, but the text cleared up who’d sent it right from the beginning. “This is Jessa. I saw you in the hallway and I know what you two are up to, and it’s really shitty of you to use actual gay people like this. I’ll give you until the meeting on Tuesday to come clean or else I’m telling everyone. I’m serious.” My eyes widened. “Uh, that’s not good.”

  “Can you believe she’d send me that?” Sarah yanked the phone back, infuriated all over again.

  I shifted uncomfortably, already thinking ahead. God, people were going to absolutely loathe us. But a part of me was glad that the lying would be short-lived. I don’t think I could’ve pulled off an entire eight months, so it was all kind of bound to come crashing down eventually. I just hoped we wouldn’t lose our friends from lunch. “Well…” I hesitated. “I mean, yeah. She’s right.”

  “That doesn’t mean she gets to call me out on it! Doesn’t she know who we are?”

  I rested my chin in my hands and let out a sigh. “Yeah, considering everyone else does, I’d imagine so.”

  “How are you being so chill about this? Like, if we don’t do something drastic our cover is blown.”

  “Something drastic? It kind of seems like it’s blown regardless. There isn’t anything we can do except to apologize and hope Jake and everyone else doesn’t hate us, and then do what we can to make amends if they do.”

  She shook her head. “No way. C’mon, we can’t only last two days, Katie. We just need to work a little harder.”

  “You always do this,” I sighed out. “Sometimes you can stockpile every resource you have and it just isn’t enough, Sarah. We did the homework and we did a decent enough acting job, but you were the one who gave it away by obsessing over Sam. You know that’s what she saw, right?”

  Sarah groaned, and her head fell forward into her hands. “We’re seriously gonna go down like this, though?”