Rogue Nights

by Ainsley Booth

  Shae is part Jersey, part Irish, and all Southern, which explains why she never shuts up. When she’s not chained to her laptop, she enjoys cooking, traveling, watching baseball, reading voraciously, giving and receiving hugs, and wearing tiaras. In her copious spare time, she volunteers as director and editor of the Dragon Con on-site publication, the Daily Dragon.

  You can find Shae hanging out on Twitter most any time @shaeconnor, but for the more direct route, you can email her at shaeconnorwrites@gmail.com or visit her website at shaeconnorwrites.com.

  Love Your Face

  Ainsley Booth

  Fifteen years ago, Fred left the Midwest behind and moved to New York City. Return visits have been rocky, and this Thanksgiving promises more family drama Fred really doesn’t want to deal with it. Her best friend’s surprise appearance smooths over a difficult holiday, but raises new, complicated personal feelings when the very straight Ami confesses she’s not very straight after all.

  For everyone who has to spend any holiday time with someone who doesn’t know their own privilege.

  1

  Fred

  I hunker down in my chair, making myself as small as possible in my cubicle and press my mouth right against my phone. “Fredericka Jane DeWitt.”

  “Can you spell that?”

  I do, as quietly as possible, but an awful heat still crawls across the back of my neck. Awareness, embarrassment, and beneath both of those, a bitter resentment. I should change my name legally. I should, I know I should, but I’m a single woman living in New York City. I don’t have an extra penny to spend on frivolous legal things like name changes.

  It’s not frivolous, it’s who you really are. I hear my best friend’s voice in my head and it turns my embarrassment into strength.

  She’s right.

  Ami is always right, because she’s the calmest, most logical person I know.

  The travel agent on the other end of the phone finishes clicking around on her computer, gives me a confirmation number for my flight to Madison, and I gratefully end the call.

  I hate how much I just paid for that ticket, speaking of unnecessary expenses for a single girl in the city.

  Ugh. Guilt is such a toxic bitch.

  I don’t want to go home to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. It’s not home, not anymore. But my grandfather’s health is failing and I will feel like shit if I skip and he dies before Christmas.

  My work neighbor’s head pops up. “Fred is short for—”

  I give him my middle finger. “Shut it, Chuck.”

  “I prefer Charles.”

  “So, you get the whole preference thing and decided to still poke your head up like a nosy little prairie dog? If I had any hope in you understanding, you’d reflect hard on that irony. But since you won’t, I remain firm on my stance that you should fuck off.”

  He sinks back out of sight, muttering about a toxic workplace.

  He’s not wrong. I’m toxic as fuck right now, and unapologetically so. My capacity to filter for other people’s thoughtlessness is at a lifetime low, and it’s never been my strength. So going home for Thanksgiving is a guaranteed bad move, but I’m doing it anyway because…guilt.

  And my comic books. I’m pretty sure there’s still a box of them in my parents’ attic that could pay for the flight and next month’s rent, so I’m going home out of guilt and a new mercenary interest in milking my childhood for as much as humanly possible.

  I turn back to my computer screen, where I’m on my fourth click-bait article of the day. Speaking of milking my childhood. Five 1980s Toys That Would Never Get Made Today. It’s not as good as Three Ways Xennials Are The Weirdest Micro Generation, but it’s better than GameBoy: The Original SmartPhone App?

  Full disclosure, that last one didn’t even really deliver on the title, but it doesn’t matter.

  Nothing about my job actually matters.

  On my desk, my phone lights up. I glance at the screen. It’s Ami, and her copper-hair-framed face—calm, serene, only a tiny bit mischievous—shines at me from the light up display.

  Ami: Were you just mean to Charles?

  Fred: He ratted me out?

  Ami: He’s concerned about your well-being.

  Fred: He overheard me giving the travel agent my full name, and that didn’t go well.

  Ami: I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of him.

  Fred: You don’t have any reason to apologize.

  Ami: And yet I am anyway, because it feels good. So you’ve decided to go home?

  Fred: Yeah. I leave on Wednesday, so I’ll have to take a day off work.

  Ami: It’ll be fine.

  Fred: No it won’t.

  Ami: No. You’re right. It’ll be what it’ll be. But you will survive it, and until you leave, I can distract you. Want to go check out Camilla’s set tonight?

  I smile despite myself. Yes, a night of hilarious as fuck lesbian comedy is exactly what I need right now. I tell her that, then put my phone away.

  “Sorry, Charles,” I lob over the partition as I start typing again.

  “Me, too, Fred,” he mutters. “Ami’s a good go-between.”

  She really is. I frown. I need to stop leaning on her for that. It’s not fair. And it’s not like she gets anything in return.

  When I get back from Wisconsin, I’m going to have to find the courage to say something about that. The last thing I want is for Ami to get sick of me.

  2

  Ami

  I set a timer on my phone. I’ve got twenty minutes to skim through two articles and summarize them for my study group. That will give me enough time to shower and get changed before we go out tonight, because I’m still in my pjs, and I was in them all day yesterday, too.

  There’s something marvellous about mostly online courses.

  Also something entirely dangerous about never having to leave your house.

  Except that I have a best friend to cheer up tonight, which is the best reason ever to not only go outside, but do it looking like an adorable snack.

  Nineteen minutes later, I hit send on an email to my group, and cackle in glee at the timer. “Fourteen seconds to spare, sucker,” I crow.

  My phone doesn’t care.

  I jump in the shower, then let my hair air dry to get a bit of natural wave to it as I figure out my super awesome outfit for tonight.

  Fred never dresses up. It’s not her way. So I, as her adorable bestie and eternal wing woman, have to attract some eyeballs. They won’t linger on me. For one, I’m not their type. I radiate a strictly-dick policy, even though that’s not exactly my deal. I mean, it has been my deal in the past. But it’s 2018. Let’s be honest—most straight women who aren’t mainlining internalized misogyny like it’s cocaine have considered broadening their horizons.

  I haven’t slept with a guy in six months.

  No interest.

  But my best friend is super gay. She’d tear a strip off me if I dabbled in her waters for political reasons.

  Not her waters, of course. The general waters in her area. Someone else’s—

  Fred would kill me if I tried to sleep with a woman just because men are generally disappointing right now and I wasn’t totally into it.

  And I don’t know if I would be, so…I haven’t slept with anyone in six months.

  Thank Goddess for porn and fingers and toys that suck on clits.

  No, when I say that I need to attract attention, I mean literally. I need to dress like a neon sign, and then they flick directly from me—hey, straight girl, nice tits—to my best friend. And then it’s like, whoosh, wet panty city, because Fred is gorgeous.

  She’s an elf, all small boned delicateness, with a shock of dark electric blue running through her otherwise dark hair. Big eyes she rims in smudgy kohl, her only nod to makeup, and that’s just because she was a Goth in high school and it’s hung on a bit.

  I love those pictures of her. She freaked out a bit when I found them, because she’s older than me and she hates that. />
  Like everything else about her, I love that, too. There’s something so real and centering about Fred’s age. We click way more than I do with anyone else in their twenties. People my age are the absolute worst.

  And none of them know how to smudge an eyeliner quite the right way. It’s all extreme wings that make them look like—

  I cut myself off.

  What other people look like doesn’t matter. Me. Focus, Ami. What I look like matter.

  I grab a royal blue t-shirt with a rainbow heart on it made of sequins. If anyone runs their hand up and down it, the rainbow turns to silver and back again.

  It’s my favorite, and it makes Fred roll her eyes. It’s perfect.

  She’s waiting for me outside the club. I dash the half-block from the subway, skidding to a breathless stop in front of her. I’ve got nearly six inches on her, and she looks up at me with faint amusement. “You didn’t need to run.”

  “How long have you been waiting?”

  “I was early, it’s fine.” She wraps her arms around her small frame and rolls her neck. “Come on, let me buy you a drink. Call it a thank you for talking me down today.”

  I fall into step beside her as we pay for our tickets and head down the stairs to the basement comedy club. “Did you and Charles make up?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Good.”

  She doesn’t say anything else, not until we each have a glass of wine in our hands and we’ve found a table with a good view of the stage. Then she gives me a sideways glance. “Why do you care?”

  “That’s a big question.” I take a sip of wine, needing a minute. “Do you mean specifically about your workplace relationship with the angry man next door, or in general about your welfare?”

  That gets a smile, which I return. “The latter.”

  “Because you’ve been there for me in the past.” I want to call her a dork here, but she’s been fragile lately, and we don’t call each other names anymore. It stopped being cool a while ago.

  We’re all a bit fragile and a lot more aware these days.

  It’s good, but it’s sometimes hard, too. It leaves some silences in conversations that we used to fill with practiced thoughtlessness.

  “That was a long time ago,” she finally says.

  Yeah.

  Fred and I both exist on the fringe of a couple of overlapping social circles. There’s an art loop, and a business sphere, and a social activism space, and neither of us has committed hard enough to any of them, so we both flit around. It didn’t take her long to recognize me as a fellow small-town transplant from the fly-over states, making rookie mistakes based on my limited world-view. I was well-meaning but painfully unaware of a lot of my own privilege.

  She took me under her wing, teaching me to listen more than talk, promising me that the world was in fact a lot bigger than I could imagine.

  She wasn’t wrong. And her words rang in my ear every time I felt awkward at a political fundraiser, a public march, a gallery opening, or a job interview. All humility I have, all the grace I’ve learned to live, is because of Fred.

  She was less jaded then. Her eyes used to shine with optimism. Then she was laid off from her PR job, spent a painful length of time on the job search market, and now she hates everything.

  It’s my turn to be the rock.

  And, because I have a one-track mind, I think she needs to get laid. I shrug out of my jacket and do my first scan of the club.

  “Looking for someone?” she asks, then she looks down at my t-shirt. “Ami, no.”

  “What?” I grin at her and lift my wine glass. “Come on, you know this shirt attracts new friends.”

  She shakes her head and laughs. “You’re a hopeless romantic.”

  “Romance is not what I was thinking you need tonight.”

  “No?” Her lips twist, and she takes a drink.

  “You need sex.”

  “I have sex from time to time. It’s not life changing.”

  “I was going more for therapeutic.”

  “That I can take care of myself.” She rolls her eyes and turns her attention to the stage. “Shhh, Camilla’s coming on now.”

  So I’m left staring at my bestie, suddenly wondering how she gets herself off. And worried a little bit for myself, because I was going to say that sex with someone else is better than by oneself, except my own track record lately proves otherwise.

  Sighing, I take another sip of wine and follow her gaze to our comedian friend. Maybe we both need a hard reset.

  3

  Fred

  I’m fine right up until I get to the airport, and then I’m not. I hate this flight to Madison. In less than three hours, I’ll be landing in the land of cheese, snow, and backwards thinking.

  I say a silent note of apology to my cousin and high school best friend, both of whom are fighting the good fight on the ground in Madison. I can’t do what they’re doing, though. It was hard enough growing up in a conservative house where my identity was mocked and derided long before they knew they were talking about their own flesh and blood. I was happy to escape to New York in the mid 2000s.

  I didn’t come back much at first. I couldn’t afford it, and my relationship with my parents was rocky as shit. Then my dad had a heart attack, my mom had an attack of conscience, and they came to terms with the fact I’m a lesbian.

  Suddenly, I was the only one with a problem. Officially.

  I fucking resented the hell out of that. They’d driven me away. They’d made our relationship toxic. And then it was on me to make nice? That felt raw. Wrong.

  But over time, my mother didn’t waver. She wasn’t joining PFLAG, but she loved me for who I am, and I wanted that more than I wanted to be right.

  Then came the bloated orange turd.

  Bile rises in my throat as I see his face on the news on the television mounted on the wall of the terminal.

  My father voted for that man. I think my mother did too, although she won’t ever admit that to me.

  I’m never going to trust them again. Never going to feel okay going home, ever again. And if I didn’t need to say goodbye to my grandfather, I probably wouldn’t.

  Just as I’m thinking of calling this off and burning the four hundred bucks I spent on the ticket, my phone lights up. Ami always knows when I’m freaking out, it seems.

  Ami: All checked in?

  Fred: Is it too late to demand my bag back and drag myself back to Brooklyn?

  Ami: Yes. It’ll be fine.

  Fred: It won’t.

  Ami: It’ll be what it needs to be and you will survive because you are strong and brave.

  Fred: Stop saying nice things.

  Ami: I don’t have anything better to do right now.

  I laugh out loud at that, and her distraction has worked. A bit.

  Fred: I might want to talk until the flight boards.

  Ami: Can we talk about how you should have gone home with that blonde last week?

  Fred: On second thought, I’m going to read.

  Ami: Have a good flight, my friend. You are wonderful.

  My cheeks heat up. I don’t feel brave. Case in point, the cute blonde who Ami hooked for me at the comedy club last week—I wasn’t brave at all there.

  I just wasn’t feeling dating. Or work. Anything.

  Something needs to give, and soon.

  After Thanksgiving.

  After Survival Weekend, as Ami dubbed it.

  The flight lands in the middle of a blizzard. What the fuck, Wisconsin. Way to project that you’re going to be exactly what I fear. Everyone else claps.

  I toss back the last of the second overpriced mini bottle of vodka I bought despite my better instincts.

  The airport isn’t busy, thankfully, and the baggage drop happens fast. I’m still waiting for my phone to turn back on when the suitcases start dumping out. In the end, I’d dodged the family inquiries about exactly what time I would be arriving. I didn’t even tell my cousin DeAnne, who
is my closest friend here at home.

  It’s not home.

  No, but thirty-five years of language programming has drummed that into me.

  I’ll see everyone tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Tonight, though, I’m going to show up, hopefully just before my parents head out to their weekly bowling, and I’ll go through the attic all by myself.

  Maybe I’ll stop and get more booze on the way.

  I snort to myself.

  I don’t need to pick anything up. The house will be well stocked for a weekend of dysfunctional non-communication.

  “I think that’s your bag,” someone says behind me, and it takes a split second for the voice to register.

  I spin around.

  Ami waves, then points at the baggage carousel. “I’m not kidding. That’s—well, you can wait for it to come around again.”

  My mouth drops open. “What are you doing here?”

  It’s a stupid question. Of course she’s here to be my wing woman, which is her favorite thing in the world—something we really need to talk about at some point.

  I don’t need her this much.

  But I’m damn happy to see her. Like, my chest hurts level of happy.

  She grins, and I smile back. “Okay, so…hi.”

  “Hi,” she says shyly. “I had some air miles to use, and I heard the blizzards here were a lot of fun. Can I crash your family Thanksgiving?”

  Could she crash… I shake my head as I stalk toward her, holding out my arms. She untangles her long limbs and stands just in time for me to squeeze her tight. “You can crash whatever you want, you lovely person you.”