by Jen Clarke
“You okay?” she asks, turning to look at me. Her face was very close.
“I’m okay,” I say and move away so I can sit up. “I think I’m just getting cold.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bri says. “Do you want to get going?”
“Yeah, let’s do that,” I say. “Especially if we’re going to go to Provincetown tomorrow.” I want to keep lying next to her, watching the sky together, but instead we walk up the wooden steps to the car. The wind is picking up and I feel my hair whirling around my face as I walk. Bri’s coat flutters in the wind. I yawn as I unlock the car.
“Going to your parents wear you out?” asks Bri.
“Yeah. I’ve been working a lot too. I think it’s been all catching up to me.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Bri says. “I’m forgetting all about that and keeping you awake. Want me to drive home?”
“That’d be great,” I admit, feeling a little relieved. “I’m a little buzzed.” I am, but I also want to drink more at the same time. Or I wanted to be in bed right now and not have had the last half of the Scorpion Bowl. I hand my keys to Bri, then stumble slightly as I walk to the passenger side.
“Remind me where I should go,” Bri says. “I don’t know this part of Cape.”
“Well you want to take a left,” I direct her. She puts the blinker on. “Long way or the short way?” I ask.
“Let’s do the long way,” she says, “unless you just want to get home.”
“No. That sounds good,” I assure her. “Pick up 28 at this rotary. We’ll see the water and cranberry bogs.”
For the most part, Bri drives in silence, slowing down when we head past Pleasant Bay. The tide is high and for a moment I imagine it crashing over the road, the way it sometimes does during a storm. She slows down again when we reach Harwich Port and the harbor with all the boats.
“Oh, take Lower County Road,” I break the silence. “It’s a left.”
After that, I had to keep giving her directions, to get through the maze of little roads. Bri finally drove into my driveway. Thankfully, I’d remembered to turn the outside light on.
Going inside, I switch the light on over the stove and pour us each a glass of water. The pu pu platter had been good, but salty.
“I love your little place.”
“What?” I say, startled.
“Yeah, I know, but…” Bri looks around. “It’s all yours. Your own little space. Nice and peaceful. This is the kind of place where I want to live.”
“You love going out and seeing people, and you love sharing with people. Isn’t that why you have a vlog?”
“That’s different,” she says. She walks over to the counter and sorts through the bottles of liquor. “Do a shot with me?”
The smart thing would be to say no and go to bed. “Sure. What do you want to do?”
She mulls it over for a moment, turning bottles around and examining each one. “You decide.”
“Vodka,” I say without reservation. Vodka seemed safest after tonight’s Scorpion Bowl. Bri pulls a couple of shot glasses from the window sill above the sink and looks through the bottles.
“No vodka,” she notes with disappointment.
“It’s in the fridge.”
“Good plan,” she says, and pulling the bottle from the refrigerator brandishes it in the air, then sits down on the couch with me and fills the glasses on my little coffee table.
“To…going out and staying in,” Bri says.
“To going out and staying in,” I agree. We clink and down our shots. She leans back, adjusting the plush throw over her legs.
“You look cold. Want some of my blanket?” she asks.
Actually, that sounds fantastic, but I, once again, demur. “Oh, I can get my own.” And, I do, but I wish I was under the blanket with her. It was a good thing she was going soon. Being so close was agonizing. Wonderful, but agonizing.
Bri laughs. “Oh, look at this, a friend just posted this of her cat.” She tilts her laptop so I can not quite see it and motions for me to get closer, and I realize that no matter which way I turn tonight, Bri wants to create intimacy between us. Why not go with it? I think to myself. It’s a daunting thought. That’s what she wants. It took me a while to figure it out, but I’m sure of it now. I imagine myself nestled against her, her arm around me. Or the other way around. It’s what I want too. But then she’d leave and I’d be stuck by myself, and the vodka shots are hitting me on top of the Scorpions and I’m not sure that I’m really right or that it’s a good idea..
I stand up and glance at the screen, then say, “I am kind of tired.”
“Okay, you want to get an early start tomorrow? I should probably do an update anyway.”
I can hear the disappointment or I think I can. “Update to your vlog?”
“Not tonight,” she says. “I’m too tired. But…oh!” Her eyes sparkle. “I’ll make the Provincetown trip the focus of the next installment. And update my social media.” She shrugs. “You know, keep myself out there.”
“Well, I’m going to get some sleep. Good night!” I turn and walk toward my bedroom, hardly hearing Bri’s enthusiastic goodnight in return. I really am exhausted. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I wonder what I’m thinking. I should go back out there. I don’t though. Instead I start to get undressed and for a moment wonder where the mud stains on my jeans came from before remembering Bri’s spying game from earlier in the evening. Despite myself I smile, and lie down. The last thing I think of before falling asleep is crawling in the bushes with Bri.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning, I tiptoe out of my bedroom to find Bri still asleep on the couch. Her laptop is open on the floor, with her glasses resting on the keyboard. She stirs slightly as I make coffee, so I know she’s alive, which if she drank nearly as much as I did, is something not certain.
I take my shower in peace, get dressed, and come out. Despite my mood of last night, I’m looking forward to the day.
I pour two cups and stir in the cream and sugar. “Hey Bri,” I say quietly. “Wake up. There’s coffee.”
Bri yawns.
“Now you’re the one who’s sleepy for once,” I can’t resist saying.
“I stayed up too late,” she says, then yawns and reaches for her glasses. “Look at this,” she suddenly sits up, alert. “I posted pictures of last night. Look how many likes it has.”
“That’s my hand,” I say.
“Your hand’s the star,” she says. “I thought everyone was going to want to see the picture of the tiki barware, but instead everyone wants to know about your rings.”
“My rings?” I laugh. “Well, I guess that fits in with today’s trip. I got them both in Provincetown.”
“Oh that’s great,” says Bri. “I’ll post that. At a gallery?”
“No,” I say, with a smile. “At a tourist place that sells jewelry.”
“Even better,” she says, typing her update. “Keeping it real.”
I’m not much of a fashion person, but both those rings are prized possessions of mine. I’d gotten the first one during high school, the summer after graduation. It seemed like a fortune at the time, but I was still wearing it. The second one was from my first summer back. I spent a lot of time hanging out in Provincetown the summer between freshman and sophomore year. I couldn’t go to bars, but I did go to a lot of shows, laughing along with everyone.
“Do you want to have breakfast?” she asks.
I think for a moment. “No, let’s get it there. I’d rather be on the road. I have a travel mug if you want to take coffee with us. There’s only one. We can share.”
“Okay, let me finish up,” Bri says, typing away. “There! I’m caught up on my social media.”
She showers and dresses quickly. We have an uneventful drive and make it in a little under an hour, since there’s no traffic. It can be a lot longer at the wrong time of year. (Now I sound like my mother.)
“Shore road or straight 6?” I ask.
> “Shore road?” Bri answers quizzically.
“The one that leads down by all the little cottages on the bay?” I remind her.
“I don’t think I know where you mean. We always went straight up Route 6, then there’s a sign.”
“Well that answers that, we take the shore road,” I say and make the left.
“Oh look,” she says.
“I know,” I say as I eagerly take in my first glimpse of Provincetown Bay, as we round the curve into the North Truro highlands. “This is why people live here.” Why did this place have to be so gorgeous? I slow to a crawl as we drive past the row of white cottages with green shutters, only feet from the water.
“Oh, stop for a second,” Bri rolls down the window, and sticks her arm out with her phone so she can take a picture. “Can we drive through town first?”
“Sure,” I say and veer left onto Commercial Street. “Maybe we can park at the town pier. There’s also meters at the Town Hall. We might be able to get one of those. It’s early in the season and the morning.” I slow down again, since the road grows ever narrower.
“Is that a space?” asks Bri.
“Yes!” I agree, almost in shock. Fortunately for my parallel parking abilities, there’s plenty of room. “Lucky for us, this must be an unpopular weekend.”
“Lucky for us,” Bri repeats as she unfolds herself from the car. “So where are we going to go?” she asks, looking around.
“Do you want to get something for breakfast? There’s the Portuguese bakery.”
“That sounds great,” agrees Bri.
“Is breakfast too early for Malassadas?”
“What’s that?” she asks.
“Portuguese fried dough.”
“I’ve never had fried dough before,” she says, “Portuguese or otherwise.”
“Really?” I ask, shocked. “Not even at the fair?”
Bri shakes her head. “My parents didn’t like us eating sugar.”
“Wow,” I mutter. Bri’s upbringing is sounding more and more foreign to me. “Well, the Portuguese bakery is better than anything at the fair.” I hope Bri likes it. I grab a plastic knife from the counter to cut it in half and we go outside and sit in the grass in front of town hall. “Ugh, it doesn’t want to cut,” I complain, as I stare hopelessly at the pastry.
“You take a bite and then I’ll take a bite,” Bri suggests.
“I’ll tear it,” I say quickly. Bri’s suggestion was too romantic for my taste. “Here’s your half.”
“Oh, this is good,” Bri says after taking a bite.
“Isn’t it?” I try not to watch too obviously as she licks the powdered sugar off her fingers, but I can feel my pulse racing. “Death by fried dough,” I mumble.
“Death by fried dough,” Bri agrees. She scrubs at her face with a paper napkin. “Now, something I have read about, but never seen. There’s a vibrator museum?”
“There’s a what? Oh…” I laugh. “Yes. It’s part of a sex toy store.”
“Oh, I need pictures of that. Do you think they’d let me take pictures inside the store?”
“Probably. I mean, it’s good publicity for them.” I hoped our entire day in Provincetown wasn’t going to be taken up by Bri thinking of updates for her vlog. Although, it is what she does for work. “Yeah, why don’t we go check them out and then we can take a walk around?”
We pick our way through the streets. In another few weeks we’d be elbow to elbow with other people trying to do the same thing we were doing: looking at Provincetown for a day. But this early, two people could walk next to each other without having to dodge crowds, so Bri and I do. It isn’t long before we arrive at the shop.
“I definitely need to get a picture of those mannequins,” Bri says, as we stop in front of the window display.
We step inside after Bri gets her picture. The vibrator museum is actually another display window, just inside. Some of those vintage vibrators with their fraying cloth-covered electrical cords scare me and I say so.
“That’s what you get when it’s a medical device.” Bri pauses. “Imagine being a Victorian housewife,” she says. “And having to go to a doctor to be…vibrated.”
“I can’t imagine,” I agree. I don’t have a vlog like Bri, but I own a vibrator. Actually, I own more than one. We talk about this stuff all the time, or in my case, we read about it online. What was it like when people didn’t discuss any of this and didn’t have any access to information? I tried to imagine my life being only what I knew about from talking to my family or people at the Whale’s Tail. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
“Of course, they managed to have some fun,” Bri says, peering through the glass and reading a card. “Voluptuous spasms.”
The reference sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. I’m about to ask Bri about it, but I look up and she’s already talking to the store clerk.
“So, I wanted to ask. Can I take pictures and upload them?”
“What is this for again?” the clerk looks skeptical and concerned. “I think I need to ask…” She turns to another clerk, who’s gazing at Bri like she’s the Second Coming.
“Excuse me, are you Bri the vlogger?”
“Okay, clearly you know about this,” says the first clerk, glad someone knew what Bri was asking about.
“Anna, you’ve got to watch her show! She is so funny! Bri, I loved the tour of your family’s house!”
“Oh that!” says Bri, laughing. “I did that because I was bored out of my mind.”
“Oh, it was great!” squeals the clerk. She waves frantically at the other clerks behind the counter. “Come over here, we have a celebrity today!”
Instantly, it seems like Bri is surrounded by every clerk in the store. The second clerk, the fan girl, keeps asking her questions and saying, “I don’t mean to squee, but I tell everyone about your vlog!”
“Are you Bri’s girlfriend?” someone asks me.
Hearing it said out loud sends a shiver through me. “No, just a…” It didn’t matter; she was already walking away. I stand off to the side, trying not to look as awkward as I feel. For the next few minutes, Bri laughs, cracks jokes, and generally enjoys being the center of attention. I glance at a clock on the wall, sure it’ll all be over in a few minutes.
“We need to take your picture and add it to the wall,” says someone.
“What’s the wall?” asks Bri.
The wall was a space directly next to the cash register, filled with pictures and signatures of various gay and lesbian celebrities who had visited the shop. Some of them were porn stars or people who wrote about sex, but it was a good variety. There was even one of the chef who’d come out after being on a reality TV show. Bri smiles for her picture and signs the wall as I glance again at the clock. Have we really been in here forty-five minutes? Bri was caught in her little celebrity bubble, and I couldn’t exactly burst it to yank on her arm. After all, it wasn’t like I really was her girlfriend.
“Um, Bri…” I say, trying to remind her that I exist.
“This is my friend Ellen. She’s going to come along. That’s okay right?”
“Come along?” I ask.
“We’re going over to Allie’s apartment,” Bri waves her hand to indicate the fangirl clerk. “She has a deck.”
“Sure,” I agree. I walk a couple of steps behind the group as we make our way out the back and into one of Provincetown’s side alleys. Ordinarily, I would have been thrilled by such an invitation. In fact, I’d spent most of my time visiting Provincetown wondering if such an invitation would ever come my way. But this wasn’t my invitation, it was Bri’s invitation. I was just the hanger-on. A turn, and then we go through the back door of another business, this one specializing in T-shirts and hoodies. Up a flight of stairs and then through a door. Allie’s apartment is not unlike my cottage and I’m pretty sure it had started life as an attic. Judging by the stuff scattered everywhere, she didn’t have the place to herself.
“This way,” whis
pers Allie. “And be quiet, my roommates are sleeping.”
She leads us past a kitchenette filled with dishes and takeout boxes, opens a door whose window was covered with bent aluminum blinds, and we step out onto the deck.
“What a great view,” says Bri as she steps over to the railing and looks down. “You can see everything up here.”
It is amazing, and I know I should be having a good time, but instead I’m just getting more and more annoyed.
“Allie’s got the party spot,” someone says, pulling out a set of stacking chairs.
I decided to stand and lean back against the rail, at least until I feel, rather than hear, it creak under my weight. I look back, but all the chairs are taken by now.
“Drinking in the morning?”
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” says someone, cracking a beer.
I nab a beer, eager to not repeat the mistake I’d made with the chairs. Then I just watch. Everyone seems to know each other and they all want to talk to Bri. No one is really interested in talking to me. I feel sullen. Why would anyone want to talk to me? Even I didn’t want to talk to me. The beer is gone too quickly, so I grab another.
“Ellen, what’s wrong?” asks Bri.
There’s part of me that is annoyed, but her voice is sincerely concerned. “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed,” I say, not being quite truthful, and take a sip of my beer. “I don’t usually meet this many people at once.” And I was hoping to spend some time with you.
“Should we go?” Bri asks, looking me straight in the face, our eyes meeting.
I know what I should say. “No, no, go ahead. I’ll just hang out.”
“Okay,” Bri says and goes back to talking to people. I feel cheated. She should know how I’m feeling.
I manage to start a third beer before Bri announces, “You’ve all been lovely, but I really want to see the town.” Allie quickly offers to show her around, sending another round of irritation through me, but Bri waves her off. “Ellen is probably wondering when she’s going to get see me.” I finish the beer quickly, while everyone crowds around her to wish her goodbye. As we walk back down the steps and find our way back out to the street, I feel my stomach lurch.
