Sashi was the only work friend who knew all this about the inimitable Ms Rose.
And maybe Hailey was right to keep hush-hush about being trans. Who knows? Sure Sashi was an advocate of living out loud and proud, but she was in no position to judge. Sashi had it easy, in a sense. The way she figured, a gym teacher (well, half-time phys ed, half-time biology) was bound to be read as a big hairy dyke. She didn’t need to go around telling everyone. They already knew. Hell, she was a stereotype! She was very aware of that fact.
And why not be a stereotype? Why not wear cargo shorts and walk around with wildly unshaven legs? Why not hang with the guys and talk sports? That’s where Sashi felt comfortable. If it also encouraged people to view her as a lesbian, that was icing. No messy coming out. She’d never set foot in any closet.
Hailey Rose was different—eminently passable in the world of women. Nothing to see here, folks.
Passable. What a stupid word that was. It called to mind a set of exams from her worst-ever grade nine science class. As a whole, weak results, and yet not one student failed. Those kids’ work was lousy, but passable. Passable wasn’t the word for Hailey. No one would ever imagine Ms Rose’s biological sex didn’t match her gender presentation.
For starters, she was a hell of a lot more feminine than anybody else Sashi could call to mind. Everything about her shouted, “I am woman!” Correction: whispered, not shouted. Shouting isn’t very ladylike and, whereas Sashi was the picture of sportive ruggedness, Hailey could easily head straight from work to tea with the Queen. She was graceful and elegant, revelling so obviously in the dresses she’d spent a painful twenty-something years never wearing.
It didn’t take Sashi long to realize she held more than idle friendship feelings for the bashful Hailey. Physical attraction started the ball rolling. Who wouldn’t be drawn to Hailey Rose, with her full, shimmering lips, with her adorably dimpled chin, with eye shadow and nails in matching shades of plum, with eyebrows plucked to perfection? She took such pride in her appearance, and the time she spent at manicure and maquillage heightened the natural beauty of her rounded features.
There was nothing like a good mystery, and Hailey was about as enigmatic as they come.
As she sat in Hailey’s cinnamon-scented kitchen, the speech Sashi had repeated to herself on the ride over here disappeared. Her mind was white noise, echoing only the last word she’d thought: Hailey the enigma, enigma, enigma, enigma.
Slipping Hailey’s hand into hers, Sashi took a deep breath and said, “Hailey Rose, you are an enema.”
Hailey erupted in laughter. She’d broken away to cover her mouth with both hands before Sashi got a chance to rewind and replay those words.
Shit.
Her face prickled with the heat of humiliation. She’s spent two weeks working up the courage to have this conversation, and then she goes and fucks it up! Just perfect!
Sashi bowed her head and mumbled, “I meant to say enigma...”
Hailey hadn’t stopped laughing. “Oh God, I’ve got a cramp in my side!”
“I meant enigma,” Sashi repeated. “Would you stop for five seconds? I’ve got something important to tell you.”
“I’m sorry.” Hailey wiped a tear from her eye. “I’m sorry. Go on.”
But before Sashi could speak, the giggles returned. Okay, sure, it had been funny at first, but now Sashi was just getting irritated. Rising from Hailey’s kitchen table, she said, “I really like you, okay? I’ve been trying to say so all night.”
The laughter fell away. Hailey’s expression fell, too. She didn’t say anything, at first.
Sashi stared down at her untied shoelaces, which were grey where she’d stepped on them again and again. A phys ed teacher who didn’t have the wherewithal to keep her shoes tied? That pretty much said it all.
“I like you,” Sashi repeated, more quietly this time. “In more than just a friendly way.”
Hailey’s voice sounded shaky and nervous when she said, “Oh, is that all?”
“It’s a lot,” Sashi said.
Hailey tossed an errant curl behind her shoulder. “I suppose.”
Sure Sashi was relieved that she hadn’t been completely shot down, but it would have been nice to receive a more encouraging response. Maybe Hailey wasn’t getting the point. “What I’m trying to say is...”
What was she trying to say?
It was always the same concern that kept Sashi from hitting too hard on other girls: will the object of her desire respond positively to her advances? How will a girl react if she’s not interested? There was so much at stake with Hailey—not only a close friend, but also a co-worker.
“Never mind,” Sashi said. “It’s not important.”
Hailey seemed pregnant with sublime concern when she said, “Sorry, go ahead.”
Sashi couldn’t contain herself. She blurted, “I think I’m in love you.”
And then her heart stopped.
There it was, out in the open. No going back now.
As an unseen clock tick-tocked the long seconds of silence in Hailey’s retro kitchen, Sashi truly thought she was about to die.
* * * *
Days turned to weeks.
Hailey avoided Sashi in the hallways, avoided her in the staff room. The way they’d left things hadn’t exactly been encouraging, but it’s not like Hailey had said they’d never be a couple. It’s not like Hailey had even said she didn’t love Sashi back.
She’d basically said, “It’s late. Go home.”
And that was that.
For weeks.
Until one day when Sashi walked into the staff room to find Hailey alone on the coffee-stained sofa. No one else was around, since it was the middle of fourth period, when they both had spares.
Sashi marched right up to her and said, “Run away if that’s what you need to do, but I want you to know something, hayseed: I can’t stop thinking about.”
Hailey’s eyes widened. She squeezed her coffee cup. “You’re not going to believe this, but I was just about to say exactly the same thing to you. Don’t you love it when we’re on the same wavelength?”
Sashi hesitated before offering a non-committal, “Yes...?”
“What are you thinking now?”
“I’m thinking you’ve had waaay too much coffee,” Sashi said with a grin.
“Oh my God, you have no idea! I haven’t been sleeping, so I’m kind of loopy, and then I load up on coffee so I’m super-loopy.” She laughed and said, “It’s bad.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Hailey’s expression darkened, but she fought whatever was on her mind with a smile. Smoothing her fingertips along a patch of duct tape keeping the couch cushion together, she said, “Sit with me, Sashi.”
Sashi did as she was told.
Would Hailey want to know what she thinking now? What would this fragile blossom say if she revealed she was jealous of duct tape? That she wished Hailey would to touch her with sensual abandon?
“What’s wrong?” Hailey asked.
“I was just thinking about thinking about you.”
Hailey giggled. “Thinking about thinking about me?”
With a nod, Sashi said, “Thinking about the way I think about you. I’m not sure we are riding the same wavelength. I seriously doubt you think of me the same way I think of you.”
Wide-eyed, Hailey admitted, “You’ve lost me. What way do you mean?”
There was something inescapable in Hailey’s charm. She roped Sashi in, got her pulse going, and gripped her snake-like until she had no choice but to reveal every secret lurking behind her well-guarded walls.
“The way I’ve been thinking about you...” Sashi picked at the duct tape, too. “Well, it’s not all sweetness and light.”
“Oh, I get it.” Hailey nodded with a face like stone.
Thank God! Sashi wouldn’t have to put herself on the line and risk being shot down.
“You’re a serial killer,” Hailey said.
&nbs
p; “What?”
Counting ideas on her fingers, Hailey said, “You’ve been thinking about me obsessively...”
“Hold up, now. I never said I was obsessed.”
“...but they’re not happy thoughts...”
“Happy doesn’t even scrape the surface,” Sashi replied.
“...no, they’re grim, horrific visions of blood and guts, decapitation, cruel disembowelling. You’ll throw me in the incinerator and then it’s off in search of the next victim. I see what you’re up to, Sash. It’s all clear to me now. Can’t pull the cashmere over my eyes.”
Sashi sighed. “Are you done?”
Hailey nodded like the cat that got the canary.
“Good, because I’m not a serial killer.”
A casual shrug. “Whatever you say.”
“I’m really not obsessed with you,” Sashi assured her, maybe a little too defensively. “At least, not in a Psycho way.”
“Are you saying obsession is not psychological?”
Now they were getting tangled in knots. “No, I was saying I don't think I'm obsessed with you.”
“Because if obsession is not of the mind, what is it?”
“I’m not arguing with you, hayseed! You're arguing with yourself.”
On no sleep, Hailey reminded Sashi of her little niece Lalika, playing off in the corner with plastic dinosaurs, worlds away from reality.
“Sorry,” Hailey said. “I sure need some shut-eye.”
“I wasn't disagreeing with you,” Sashi explained for the third time. “I was trying to tell you that, sure, I think about you a lot, but I don’t think I’m obsessive.”
“Oh, sorry.” Hailey blushed. “See, I have this obsession with talking things through.”
“I can see that.”
“I really need some sleep.”
“I can see that too.” Sashi picked at the duct tape, even though it was the only thing keeping the cushion from erupting like a foam volcano. “Okay, even if I am a little obsessive, it’s nothing you need to be scared about. It is possible to become addicted to a person.”
“Addiction is physical,” Hailey said. “Obsession is mental.”
“Okay. Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”
Sashi was just about to reassure Hailey that her obsession was a very minor case, perfectly healthy, no treatment required, when the staff room door swung open. In waltzed Mr. Walters, captain of the music brigade. He headed for the coffee pot and grimaced when he found it empty.
“If you take the last cup, you make another pot,” he said, pointedly, to Hailey.
“I didn’t think anyone else would want any so late in the day.”
“This is a school,” he replied. “Not a... clown circus.”
Sashi’s laughed and said, “You’ve obviously never seen my fifth period biology class. Speaking of which, I’ve got prep work to finish.”
When she got up from the couch, it made a lovely farting sound.
“You’ll have to tell me more about what you think of thinking of me,” Hailey said quietly. “Another time?”
“Another time,” Sashi agreed, and gently touched her shoulder while Mr. Walters searched the cupboard for another bag of grounds.
* * * *
Fifth period biology was always a shitshow, but after that conversation with Hailey, even Sashi couldn’t concentrate. The kids were supposed to be writing up lab reports, but they were mainly just talking amongst themselves. Sashi let it go until she heard one of the boys at the back of the class say something about transgender people “like Ms Rose.”
“Nate!” Standing up, Sashi pointed her pencil at him. “What’d you just say?”
Nate’s eyes bulged like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Ms Rose,” he said. “She used to be a dude. Didn’t you know that? I thought you two were gettin’ it on.”
This wasn’t a high school—it was a gossip factory. “Nobody’s getting anything on. Where’d you hear a rumour like that?”
Nate shrugged while his pals poked him with rulers. “Way to go, loser! You spoiled the big surprise.”
“I wonder how big,” one kid laughed.
“I wonder if it still works.”
“No, she probably had the surgery where they turn you inside-out,” Nate said matter-of-factly.
His posse mocked him. “You would know!”
“That’s right, I would know.” Nate crossed his arms over his chest. “Because my aunt had it. She used to be my uncle.”
The other guys either couldn’t think up a good dig or they just weren’t interested, because they let the topic drop.
Sashi didn’t quite know how to respond, though the moment to do so had passed. She felt like she was hovering over her body, looking down at her own expression of disbelief. She’d been so convinced Hailey was utterly and completely passable, when all this time a bunch of high school students could read her like a picture book. But that was love, wasn’t it? Love subdues reality’s harsh fluorescent lighting.
Anyway, did it matter if the kids knew?
It would, to Hailey. If she knew they knew.
Snapping back to reality, Sashi said, “That’s enough, everybody. You can’t be talking this way about one of your teachers.”
The whole class looked up at her like she had three heads. Five minutes had probably gone by since that conversation ended. The kids were all talking about other things now.
A B student, Cat, spoke up and asked, “Why can’t we talk about a teacher being trans? We don’t give a fu...uuudge.”
“You don’t?”
She shrugged. “Ms Rose can lay eggs for all I care; I’m getting a ninety-two in her class.”
Cat’s friend Nicole said, “Ms Rose is so nice. She helped me edit my entrance essays for three different universities, and I’ve never even had her as a teacher! She’ll help you even if she’s never met you before in her life.”
“People from the prairies are always like that,” Nate said.
Sashi asked, “How did you know she was from the prairies?”
“We hear things,” one kid said.
Another added, “Teachers don’t need my nose in their business. If she’s good at her job and she helps us, like how she helped Nicole, why would I care if she used to be a guy?”
“I don’t know,” Sashi replied, stupefied by her students’ openness. “I gotta say, you are blowing my mind right now. I’m so proud of how accepting you are.”
Nicole cast a confounded glance in Cat’s direction before asking, “Why wouldn’t we be?”
* * * *
Dating was magic when you started off as friends.
No uncomfortable pauses, except when Sashi set her hand very lightly on Hailey’s knee and Hailey brushed it away. That always made Sashi feel like crap for a few seconds, until Hailey started up a cheery conversation to show there were no hard feelings.
The love was there. Just... the physical side of things wasn’t progressing. At all.
They’d been out for dinner, in for dinner, out for movies, in for movies, and after all that they hadn’t even kissed. She’d never been in a relationship like this. It reminded her of high school, when she tried to bed her best friend. But that was different, because her best friend had been unapologetically straight.
Hailey wasn’t straight. So what was going on? Not even a kiss? Was Hailey not attracted to her? Was that the problem? Did Hailey hate her cargo shorts and her hairy legs? Why didn’t she say something? Sashi was all in, here. She’d do anything for this girl.
Maybe Hailey was the wait-until-marriage type. But waiting to kiss? That seemed a little weird.
Times like these, Sashi almost wished she had some female friends to talk to. Maybe they’d understand what was going on in Hailey’s mind, because Sashi sure as hell didn’t.
“Would you ever take someone else’s last name?” Sashi asked as she drove Hailey home after work. “If you got married, I mean.”
Hailey wrinkled her nose. “I
don’t know. I’ve already changed my name once, and that was a hassle and a half. Are you talking about YOU? If I married YOU?”
Sashi almost slammed on the brakes even though her light was green. “Me? Well, no, I didn’t mean me specifically. Just talking out loud.”
“Thinking out loud?”
“That too.”
“I’m not taking your last name,” Hailey said with a smirk. “Mostly because I don’t know what it is.”
“You do so know what it is,” Sashi scoffed. “Balasubramaniam. Couldn’t be simpler.”
“Balasubra-something-something,” Hailey said, mockingly. “It’s too long. I’d never remember all those syllables.”
“Balasubramaniam.”
“Balasubra-maniac.”
“Ba-la-su-bra-ma-ni-am.”
“Hmm... Hailey Balasubramaniam...”
Sashi smiled so hard it hurt. Maybe Hailey was right. Maybe she’d brought up this topic because she had marriage on the mind.
“My wife...” Sashi mused.
For a while, Hailey was quiet. Then she asked, “Is it scary?”
Sashi could have played it like she didn’t know what Hailey was talking about, but what was the point? They were beyond that, now. “No, not scary,” she said. “Well, a little scary, but good-scary. Exciting-scary. For you?”
“I still can’t imagine what you see in me.”
“Let’s not start this up again.” Sashi squeezed Hailey’s thigh, but Hailey moved her hand back to the wheel. “Or is this going to become a theme throughout our marriage? I say I love you and you bat your eyebrows and say, ‘Why, gentle stranger? Why-ever would you do a silly thing like that?’”
“Eyelashes.”
“What?”
“I wriggle my eyebrows,” Hailey said. “I bat my eyelashes.”
Sashi grumbled, “Same dif.”
Hailey clucked her teeth. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You wouldn’t stand a chance in my class.”
“Yes, Ms. Rose.”
Sashi could hardly breathe. She’d basically just asked Hailey to marry her, and Hailey hadn’t said yes but she also hadn’t said no. Which meant there was a chance.
Who was this person, dating a co-worker on the steady, asking women to marry her? This wasn’t Sashi. Couldn’t be.
Sweet Lesbian Love Stories Page 6
