by Jen Clarke
“Yes,” says Bri. “Which my parents aren’t really happy about but…” she shrugs. “I’m busier than I’ve ever been.”
“What are you doing?” I ask, disappointed in myself for not keeping in touch better.
“Well,” Bri smiles, “I’ve been emceeing at a slam poetry night.”
“Slam poetry? Is that still a thing? Wait. You write poetry?” This is news to me.
Bri laughs. “Not me, but it’s fun to be involved. And it’s a great way to meet people. And yes, it’s still a thing. There’s this one woman who’s really good.”
Something about the way Bri says the word really catches my attention. I’m certain she must be seeing this woman and feel an agonized twinge in my stomach.
Bri shakes her head at me. “She helped me dye my hair at home.”
The gorgeous hair is the result of a new girlfriend? Stop it, I tell myself. “So, you’ve been seeing a lot of each other?” I have no right to be jealous. Bri and I have never been involved. We’ve never even kissed. Which is all my fault.
“Well yeah, I’ve been going to these nights…” Bri’s eyes widen. “Oh you mean seeing seeing?” She laughs. “No, we’re just friends. And she’s been dyeing her own hair for years, so she offered to show me how to do it.”
“That’s great,” I say, hoping she won’t quite pick up on my tone or maybe hoping she will. I am ridiculously delighted at the news, because despite being too afraid to do anything about my crush, I’m a horrible jealous person. “It sounds like you’re having a lot of fun.”
“I am!” she says, then smiles and looks thoughtful. “Of course, my parents think I should be graduating and joining the real world.”
“Nah. Don’t be in a rush to join the real world,” I say. I laugh, but I can feel my stomach tense. I’ve been doing my best to not think about where I am in the aforementioned real world.
“Okay, I won’t be,” Bri assures me. She adds, “Do you want any more cheese?”
“Not right now. Maybe tonight when we drink that wine.” I put on a smile.
Once I tried to talk honestly with my mother about my frustrations. She immediately suggested I work for the town. Of course, she’d put in a good word for me. She had the rest of my future planned during the course of our conversation and I never brought it up again. “I’ll try not to complain about working at the restaurant,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it. As long as I can complain about my family. My parents want to have a big sit-down talk with me about not finishing school on time.” She scowls.
“Do they know you’re on Cape?”
“I told them I’m visiting a friend. I said I’d be in the area, but I didn’t tell them exactly where.”
“Well, Sandwich is practically the other end of the earth. At least it is to hear my parents talk.”
Bri laughs. “Go too far, fall off edge. I can’t believe my father used to commute to Boston every day. You’d never know it to listen to him.”
“My parents have definitely gotten worse about going off Cape,” I note. “It used to be we’d go somewhere for the day, now my mother is all, ‘The tourists! The tourists! I’m not leaving my house until September!’”
We both laugh. It’s a Cape thing.
“I have a question,” says Bri. She looked around ostentatiously. “What is this place?”
“Oh, I forgot you didn’t know,” I answer. “Okay, way back when the main house was built, this was the guest house.” I look around. “At some point, someone turned it into a year-round place, probably during the seventies.”
“You rent it?”
“Yeah,” I say. “From the family that owns the main house.”
“Do you see them a lot?”
“Weekends in the summer,” I answer. “And that’s when I work. So not very much.”
“I like your place,” Bri looks around. “It’s nice.”
Nice? I look around, seeing my cottage through her eyes. The Harvest Gold refrigerator, the sink with the broken sprayer. The battered futon couch and rugs. The drafty windows. What place was she looking at?
“This would be so cool if you painted,” she adds.
“Painted?” I ask, hesitantly.
“You could really go all out. This place is so small,” she says with a confidence I don’t share. “Do a mural or something.”
“I’m not really artistic.”
“So if you mess up, you try again,” Bri suggests, plunging onward. “I think it’d look great.” She grins at me. “It’s your little retreat from the world. Do it right.”
I remember getting excited about little projects like that. When did I stop? I didn’t want to think about it, so I change the subject again. “How is the vlog doing?”
“Great!” she says. “I actually have money coming in.”
“I remember when you started doing it.” That’s a bit of an understatement. I remembered very well. “So you can really make money doing this?” I knew people did, but they were anonymous people from the internet. It hadn’t occurred to me someone I actually knew could make money doing videos on YouTube.
“I’ve built up followers and asked people to donate. And people did,” she says. “Which is amazing.”
“I bet,” I say, feeling a bit overwhelmed.
“But I’ve kind of reached the point that if I want to grow it any further, well, let’s just say there’s a lot of competition,” she explains. “I’m trying to make the content more attention-getting. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not?”
“I…uh, haven’t watched it,” I admit. At least not since I moved back to Cape. It just reminded me…
“Oh,” she says. Her voice sounds a little hurt, and why does she look like that? It must be an ego thing I decide. I like Bri, a lot. She is the sweetest person and can always get me out of a bad mood, but she loves attention, always has.
“I’ve just fallen out of the habit of watching anything like that,” I say.
“Really? Why?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” I sigh. Bri’s full attention is on me, as if she really wants to know the answer. I look around the room for inspiration. Why did I move back here? If I’d stayed in Amherst, I’d be deep in debt by now, but I’d also be going to local food pot lucks and poetry events and have friends who did cool things like vlogs. I bet there’s not a single person at the Whale’s Tail who even knows that video blogging is a thing.
“I should play you this one vlog,” says Bri. “It was for Saint Patrick’s Day, only it was an alternative Saint Patrick’s Day event and I interviewed people.” Her eyes sparkled. “Called a ‘Bring Back the Snakes’ party. It was at Kay’s house, and she’s Pagan, so she decorated everything black instead of green. Then someone pulled up the YouTube video of Sinead O’Connor on Saturday Night Live ripping up the picture of the Pope and we put on the Dropkick Murphys…”
While Bri talked, I nibbled on one last cracker with cheese. I tried to imagine the faces of most of the people I saw every day, what they would make of such an event. Denise approved of the Dropkick Murphys and she’d probably approve of Sinead O’Connor ripping up the Pope’s picture. I wasn’t sure it was my kind of party, but I also knew I wanted to be someplace where people did things like that. Instead, I was stuck in the gravitational pull of Cape Cod.
“You should come for a visit,” Bri suggests.
“Summer’s hard,” I state. I couldn’t decide if visiting Bri was a good idea. Just seeing her brought back all these feelings. I couldn’t tell how much of it was really about missing Bri or missing the life I once lived. “I’m working two doubles over the next two days.”
“Oh no!” says Bri. “I was really hoping to see you.”
“Just two days,” I suggest.
“It’s just unfair,” she says. “They clearly don’t appreciate you there, but they’ll suck up your time.”
She sounds really upset about the restaurant and I can’t disagree with her, but it’s not like I can do m
uch about it either. “Well, after that I have time off,” I tentatively suggest. I’m not sure what else to say, so I add, “What do you want to eat tonight?”
Bri’s eyes widen. God, they’re so beautiful. “Are you going to make me something?”
I hadn’t planned on it, but it was a great idea. I could make something good. I glanced outside. The earlier drizzle had cleared, but the sky was still gray. Good day for staying in. “Sure, I can make you something. What do you eat these days?”
“Still an omnivore, but not too much red meat.”
“I can find something,” I say. A trip to Stop & Shop also meant I could pick up dish liquid and coffee. I started making a mental list in my head. I needed to look at the wine she’d brought again.
“Your car or mine?”
“You want to go shopping with me?” I ask.
“Sure, it’ll be fun,” Bri says, looking surprised at the question. “Also, if you need to work tomorrow, we should hang out as much as we can today.”
“Definitely,” I say with a nod and a smile, really looking forward to spending the afternoon with her. Just then, I hear the strains of music coming from Bri’s front pocket.
“That’s my parents.” Bri frowns, then pulls out her phone with a sigh. “Hi, what’s up?” She squinches her face up to show me her irritation and I try not to laugh. “Uh-huh,” her face takes on a bland openness. “Well, I’m not there yet…”
I walk to the kitchen to let her discuss whatever she needs to discuss with them and try to be quiet as I put the remaining soup away in the fridge.
“Hold on,” I hear Bri say. “Let me try going outside.” I hear the door close behind her and I begin washing dishes and watching her through the window. She paces back and forth the entire time she speaks on the phone, her movements restless and jerky with none of her usual grace. I finish the dishes and sit back on the couch until finally my door opens and she comes back inside.
“I’m on borrowed time.”
“What’s up?”
“My brother blabbed,” she says. “So, now my parents know I’m coming to Cape and want to see me at dinner tonight.” She sighs.
“Oh, so you need to go over there tonight?” I ask, regret seeping into my voice.
“No,” Bri says grimly. “I have to go over there now.”
Now? I couldn’t hold in my disappointment. “That was a pretty mean thing for your brother to do,” I commiserate.
Bri shakes her head. “He can’t keep a secret. I should have remembered that.”
“Will you be back after dinner?” I ask.
Bri shakes her head. Her body language is still off. It’s like she’s a completely different person and for the first time I realize I’ve never seen her on Cape before. “I’m not sure.”
I stand up, miserable, and try not to show it. “Well, that’s too bad.”
Bri stands up straight. “Well. I’ll let them have their say and they’ll get it out of their systems,” she says, sounding half like she’s convincing herself not to explain it to me. Then she reaches out her arms and says, “And then I’ll come back here!”
“Promises, promises,” I tease and lean in to give her a goodbye hug. She feels distant. During her earlier hug, all of her had been present. Now only part of her was. I wondered if she if still resented my bad mood earlier, but I hadn’t imagined her agitation when she’d talked with her parents. It wasn’t me and her arms were as warm and welcoming as before.
I stand at my kitchen window and watch her drive away and think of the last time we’d said goodbye.
Chapter Six
“You look forward to it for so long and then Pride’s over,” someone said behind me. She sounded almost as sad as I felt.
“Ellen, want some?”
“Sure,” I said, taking a handful from the bag of chips. “Thanks.” I munched quietly and looked around at our little group, tired and sunburned after being outside all day. I tried not to think about my car, packed and waiting.
“I’m so hungry,” said Andrea. She still intimidated me, but I’d come to realize that Andrea intimidated everyone. I now knew her curt, slightly bored tone was habitual, not personal.
“You’re always hungry,” said another of our group. I didn’t remember her name. She had rainbow ribbons in her braids and a button read “Femme Pride.”
I’d gotten distracted this year. Returning to Cape was the smart thing to do. My grades this year could have been better. A lot better. It was better to leave school and save some money.
“Can everyone hold up their signs?”
“Pride’s over,” said Andrea.
“I need footage…please just do this?” asked Bri.
Doing the smart thing hurt. I’d just started to find my place. I’d dated! More than one person! I’d even had a girlfriend for a couple of months. Now I was leaving it behind.
Andrea grunted. “Okay everyone,” she said, raising her voice. “The sooner we do this, the sooner we can get something to eat. Let’s all gather in front of these steps…”
Obediently, everyone went over to the stone steps of the old building. It now housed a collection of stores, mostly boutiques catering to the Smith crowd. A sign posted read, “No bicycles or loitering.”
“Wave your signs,” directed Bri, as she held up her phone.
“Waving, waving,” said someone in back of me.
“Say ‘vagitarian’ everyone,” said Bri.
“My feet hurt,” complained Femme Pride.
“Are we done yet?” Andrea asked.
“We’re done,” said Bri. “Thank you.”
Andrea and Bri were no longer a couple. Which cheered me up more than I really wanted to admit. Although, it wasn’t like Bri was ever single.
“What’s this for anyway?” asked Femme Pride.
“Well,” Bri started. “I started doing a video diary for my Queer Media Studies project, but I found I really liked doing it.”
“Plus, she has all these followers,” Andrea noted, nudging Bri.
“Ellen, you’re quiet,” Bri said, her voice sounding concerned. “Sad Pride’s over?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m going to miss being here.”
Bri nodded. “You’ll need to visit,” she said, as her voice trailed off.
“I will,” I agreed. Money was going to be tight for a while, but I was sure I could drive out here. I looked around... something looked very familiar about the storefront we’d just passed. “Hey, isn’t that the place where…”
“Yes!”
“This is the place where the clerk yelled at the lesbian couple!”
“Fuck you, homophobic store!” Andrea yelled.
“Let’s do something,” someone suggested. “Let’s have a kiss-in.”
“Like all at once?”
“Yeah, let’s take turns making out in front of their sign. Bri, record this and put it on your online thing.”
“Andrea, you and me,” said Femme Pride, not even trying to hide her motivations.
Andrea rolled her eyes, but dramatically pulled the other woman close. “I don’t usually go for femmes, but…” She grabbed the back of Femme Pride’s hair and tipped her head back. They tongue-locked while we all cheered. Andrea looked up and asked, “Well, is it just going to be us?”
Several people eagerly stepped up and paired up. I took a nervous step back. Full tongue, making out wasn’t what I did with my friends. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed when no one approached me. I stood next to Bri while she recorded, the two of us watching the show.
“You going to any after-parties?” asked Bri.
“No, I need to get on the road,” I said glumly. “I already called my parents.”
She didn’t respond, and for a moment I thought Bri hadn’t heard me. Then she finally said, “I was hoping you’d stay another day.” She adjusted her glasses and added, “You could crash at my place.”
I was tempted. I could call my parents back, tell them it’d
be another day.
“I can tell you’re thinking about it.”
She was so close, staring at me with those big eyes, her voice sounding so hopeful. She stooped down so our faces were close. I felt dizzy.
“This is weird,” I said, motioning at everyone kissing. I looked around. Were they ever going to stop?
Bri laughed. “Well, if you can’t beat ‘em…”
“Join ‘em,” I finished automatically.
“We should,” said Bri. She grinned at me.
In my head, one voice screamed, No fucking way and the other voice screamed Do it, just do it. I took a step back.
“No, no pressure,” she said, her eyes widening with distress. “I just thought it would be fun.”
Fun for her, not for me. For me, it would be frustrating and leave me feeling shitty. “I can’t,” I finally said. “Sorry.”
“Ellen, I didn’t mean…”
“Bri, you finally met someone who doesn’t want to make out with you, congratulations,” said Andrea. “Are we getting food or not?”
“I don’t think I can stay for dinner,” I said with a sigh. “I really need to get on the road.” I should have just done it. I could have kissed her. Why hadn’t I? The moment was over and I was full of regret already.
“I thought you were going to stay over for one more night,” Bri said.
“No, I thought about it. I really need to go.”
She insisted on hugging me, and then whispered, “Iwill miss you.”
I was going to miss her too. Hugging. More hugging, and then I just wanted to go. It was too painful. Finally, I was in my car. Going was sad, but saying goodbye was horrible.
I got a text from her on my way back to Cape, but we never spoke about Pride again.
Chapter Seven
Letting the memory go and returning to the present, it occurs to me that Bri’s absence gives me a chance to clean up the cottage. The living room is a loss—I couldn’t really do anything with her stuff everywhere—but I give the kitchen a good mop. Then, I dig for quarters. After grabbing groceries, I head for the laundromat in Dennis Port.
