Very Nice

by Marcy Dermansky

  “What does this have to do with gender roles?”

  “Not a thing,” I said. “Your worrying about me just makes my penis shrink.”

  “I did not need to know that.”

  Kristi offered to drive me to the airport, but I had already arranged to have my tattooed writer take me. I had almost cracked, I had almost told Kristi about Becca, but instead, I’d pissed her off on a political level. That was better. I was getting better, as if I were recovering from a long illness. I thought about my grandmother. She had believed in me. I had achieved writer stardom beyond any writer’s wildest dreams and she had not been surprised.

  “I hope you get the job,” Kristi said, walking me to the front door.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I knew that I would get the job. I was fairly sure that I would not take it. I was pleased with myself. I liked thinking this way. Envisioning my future. The house, the woman, the rocky beach, the swimming pool. The dog. The book. My destiny.

  This time, my driver didn’t charge me for the trip to the airport. I knew that she wouldn’t.

  * * *

  —

  Becca picked me up at the airport.

  I wrapped my arms around her in a passionate embrace. I put my hands in her hair. She put her hands on my ass. I had left her, I had risked everything we had, and she was waiting for me.

  We kissed until we were out of breath. I could feel people walking around us, making a safe circle for our love. We took a step apart and I beheld her beloved face.

  “Zahid,” Becca said, and I loved the way it sounded, hearing her say my name.

  “I want to make love in a bed,” I said.

  Becca nodded, efficient and wise. She called her daughter, asking her to walk the dog. We would make love in a bed. It would not be her bed. This made sense to me; it also made me sad. I did not want for us to be a secret any longer, but I understood. I had not told Kristi about Becca. I was keeping our love safe. Becca was doing that, too. Every day, I was more and more impressed with my new lover.

  “I’m having dinner with Shelley,” she said on the phone to her daughter. I had never heard of this Shelley. Becca had a friend named Shelley. I listened to Becca lie. She was terrifically good at it. I would have believed her. For a moment, I began to worry that she had changed her mind about sleeping with me in a hotel bed and had made other plans.

  “I have been drinking wine,” she said. “Yep, windy roads, getting dark soon, so I decided to stay over. Mm-hmmm, I’ll be back tomorrow. You’re fine?” Becca nodded. “Are you sure?”

  I listened to her, it was a different role, mother, and I almost felt jealous of Rachel, who had no idea how lucky she was. “The morning. Not too late. Just feed Posey and take her out before camp. I’ll pick you up from work, okay? At the café.”

  There was silence.

  “I have no idea,” Becca said, and I knew she was talking about me. There was a new defensive quality to her voice, and I felt almost relieved; she was not the best liar. I watched Becca bite her lip, look away from me.

  One day, Becca and I would have to tell Rachel about us, but I hoped we would be able to put this off for a very long time. Rachel, of course, had the power to destroy us. I was terrified of this young Rachel. Suddenly, I wanted to ask Kristi what she thought. I wanted to know how she thought I could fix this situation. But she had explicitly and repeatedly told me her opinion about rich white people and sleeping with students.

  You are a fucking moron. That is exactly what Kristi would say to me. I had made the right choice, not talking to Kristi. I would stay strong. I realized I was probably done with Kristi. Our friendship had run its course. It had been a difficult time for me, being publicly dumped for the asshole that I was. After the humiliation, I was able to go out with Kristi on my arm. She had not taken sides. I had nominated her for the award she had won. We were even.

  It made me feel sad.

  We had broken up, Kristi and I, and she did not even know.

  Becca drove us straight to a hotel in New Haven. She had only her left hand on the steering wheel so that we could hold hands. We did not talk.

  At the front desk of the hotel, Becca asked for a room and she paid for it with her credit card, and then we fucked on a king-sized bed, and it was different, it was better, our bodies did not get stuck in the cracks of the plastic pool chairs. When we were done, we fell asleep spooned together, and when we woke in the morning, still spooned together, she turned over in the bed and kissed me and I felt happy.

  I looked into Becca’s blue eyes.

  I looked at the lines around her eyes.

  Her long brown hair.

  “I love a good hotel,” I said.

  Did she know that this was my way of saying I love you? I did not want to scare her. I traced the creases around her eyes. I kissed her nose. I kissed her mouth. I liked kissing Becca in the morning. She tasted different, she tasted like sleep.

  “Coffee?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “Breakfast?” she asked. “Are you hungry?”

  I nodded again.

  She ordered room service.

  She kissed me, a real kiss, none of this butterfly-on-the-nose business. There we were, in our hotel bed. I was naked. Becca had put on a shirt to sleep in. I slid it over her head.

  Khloe

  I didn’t like the movie.

  It was one of those art house films about a girl who was different, growing up, brave enough to be herself. It kind of made me nauseous how earnest and quirky and well done it was. I was supposed to love it, I knew. Jane and Winnie would have loved it. And this was why I had a job in finance. Why I was not in the arts. I was way too fucking cynical. I would rather have a chase scene in my movie. An actual movie star. I would have taken a black character, for fuck’s sake. The sidekick best friend was overweight instead. She was cute actually.

  Rachel Klein, of course, loved the movie. Jonathan Klein kept looking at his phone. He sent more than one text, which was very bad movie behavior. Something was going on with him, obviously. There had been no crisis at work. The woman in the row behind hissed at him every time.

  “Cunt,” my boss whispered under his breath.

  It was a bad choice of words, not that I wasn’t used to it. Guys at work, this language, it was all the time. I could give a shit. I felt bad for Rachel, because this was her father and she must have heard him. It was terrible to have to realize that your father was a shit. My father had died when I was in high school and maybe because he was dead, he had been become perfect in my mind. A saint. The very best dad. He had married a black woman before it was okay to marry out of your race. But our whole childhood, somehow, it had been okay. Life in a midwestern college town. A happy bubble. I had had a happy childhood. My father would never have called a woman a cunt.

  I guess I did give a shit. It was at that moment, when my boss thoughtlessly cursed a woman under his breath, using a word that derogatorily described her genitalia, that I realized I didn’t like him. I realized I might want to get another job. After I got my bonus.

  In the taxi on the way to the theater, Jonathan had said how glad he was that his daughter had met me. He said that I was a good influence. This, of course, was after he learned that I was a lesbian. But I did not give him points for that. It was okay that I was a lesbian because I was the femme kind. It was the same way that I was black, the good kind, attractive and well educated. I wanted to say something to blow his mind. I wanted to channel some radical Kristi rhetoric and bust out some Angela Davis black feminist manifesto, but I didn’t have the vocabulary.

  “She doesn’t know what she is majoring in,” Jonathan had said, as if this were a real problem.

  This clearly annoyed his daughter. A recurring conversation. Rachel glared at him. She was wearing a black T-shirt and tan Capri pants, her long b
rown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, a style as boring and nondescript as clothes could be. Still, she was pretty. She was young and she was effortlessly pretty in a way that suggested she did not know how pretty she was. She was not what I would have expected. I had always been suspicious of rich kids. Rachel Klein seemed all right. She was, I realized with a start, the student, the one Zahid had messed around with. I felt something catch in my throat. Poor kid, I wanted to say, then and there. I wanted to kiss the top of her head. Zahid should have known better.

  I gave her my business card.

  “Because I am, like, a mentor figure and all that,” I said.

  I didn’t think she would ever call me.

  * * *

  —

  On the way home, I stopped off at a bar in my neighborhood. I wanted a drink, two drinks, maybe possibly three. I felt loose and free, glad to be away from the Kleins, my boss and Rachel, with her sad kitten face. I had a feeling that anything that involved Zahid Azzam would turn to shit.

  This made me want to protect Jane. She somehow believed she needed his next book. This was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. She was a great editor, the editor of many successful books. Jane did not need Zahid. I knew the real Zahid. I had seen him puke all over his own home.

  I had not heard from Jane in a couple of days. I did not know what the rules were. Obviously, Jane wanted to maintain some distance, and I would respect that, stupid as it was. I was waiting for her to call me. That was why I’d gone to the movies.

  I was not going to go home with anyone I met at the bar, no matter how cute she was, because I was with Jane. But I could always buy a woman a drink. I was making up rules in my head when I opened the door and saw Jane and Winnie, deep in conversation at a booth in the back of the bar, sitting next to each other instead of across the table. Jane’s hand was stroking Winnie’s hand, a hand that was on Winnie’s knee. The intimacy of this told me everything, explained why Jane had not called, had not answered my texts.

  Jesus fuck. Fucking hell. I had put an end to that. I had taken Jane home from the literary party and she was with me.

  I was going to turn around, leave, but they saw me.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Winnie waved me over. Jane removed her hand from Winnie’s hand. Honestly, this kind of shit did not happen to me. I was tall and biracial and sexy. But then there was Winnie. Her blond hair fell straight like a pane of glass. This was who my Jewish babysitter wanted? I had planned on seducing Winnie, with the idea of making Jane jealous, but had gone home with Jane instead. No more games, I had thought, and now this. This. Motherfucking fuck.

  I stood there, just inside the bar, where I had so desperately wanted a drink. The air-conditioning felt much too cold. Kristi had been so psyched for me. She had understood. The babysitter, she’d squealed, and I had squealed with her. I had told Kristi about Jane and I had fucking sabotaged myself. I knew better than to tell Kristi anything anymore and I’d told her anyway.

  After all these years, Jane still didn’t see me as a person. I was still that little kid. I remember giggling, reading books, snuggling under the covers, refusing to let her go, begging her to stay in my bed with me until I fell asleep. I remember Jane kissing my nose, kissing my ears, kissing my toes. Go to sleep, sweet Khloe, she said, and I would beg her to kiss me some more. Fuck, I was blinking away tears.

  I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.

  Get a drink and bring it over to the booth in the back.

  Get a drink and sit at the bar.

  Turn the fuck around.

  That seemed like the best option. Even though they had seen me. Even though I desperately wanted that drink.

  “Khloe,” Jane said. “Come here. Come sit with us. Let’s talk. This is fine. This is okay. We are all friends. Come here.”

  Oh. So we were supposed to be mature. That was how we were supposed to play it.

  “Please,” Jane said. “Please. Come sit down.”

  I walked the fuck out of the bar.

  * * *

  —

  I got a text message.

  I thought it would be from Jane, apologizing.

  It was from Rachel. Rachel Klein.

  How the fuck did she get my number?

  I had given her my card.

  I was back in Zahid’s apartment, drinking beer. I’d finished an entire beer in three sips and then opened another.

  Rachel: I figured out who you look like.

  Me: Who?

  Rachel: This writer I love. Kristi Taylor.

  I spit out my beer. First popcorn, then this. Fuck.

  Me: I am her twin sister.

  Rachel: Holy shit. Identical?

  Me: I dress better.

  Rachel: I didn’t know she had a twin.

  This had already happened to me a couple of times this summer. Kristi had always acted like she was famous, she talked about that literary prize as if it should mean something to me, but I had never believed her until I’d moved to Brooklyn.

  Rachel: This may sound weird. But would you want to go out for coffee?

  I thought about Jane and Winnie at the bar, Jane’s hand on Winnie’s knee. I cracked open another beer. If I had to pick between beer and coffee, I would pick beer. I felt good about this. I nodded to myself, as if I had made an important decision. I would rather drink beer.

  Me: Drink?

  Rachel: Sure. If you’re buying. I am ever so slightly underage.

  Me: How old?

  Rachel: 19

  I could deal with that. I had no interest in drinking coffee as a social activity. Going out for coffee was a cultural activity I did not understand. A waste of time.

  Me: Sure. I will buy you alcohol.

  Rachel: I could get you in trouble at work. With my father. Not worth it?

  I stared at my beer. I was not the kind of person who got cheated on. I was also way the fuck hotter than Jane. I was just as hot as Winnie. Hotter. Fuck. I made more money than both of them. Still, she had not chosen me.

  Now I had this little girl sending me texts. Leading me on and then cautioning me. What the fuck? I was not a child molester. I was better than that.

  I was not going to fucking get into trouble.

  I was not an asshole like Zahid.

  The boss’s daughter. Why was she writing me? I wouldn’t fuck her. I could be like a mentor, couldn’t I? Isn’t that what I’d told her? I could steer her out of the arts before it was too late. I could steer her away from playboys like Zahid. I could help her, sure, but why would I do that? I didn’t need to get involved with the boss’s daughter, even if I wasn’t going to fuck her, even if she had read the novel written by my twin sister, a book Kristi never should have fucking published, a book about the year I came out. It was my coming-out story, including flashbacks about me and my babysitter, tuck-ins and trips to the lake. Things I had told Kristi never realizing that she would one day write about me. I didn’t know what Jane thought of this book, if she had recognized herself in any way. I had never asked her. My twin sister had stolen my fucking life for her career. She thought I wouldn’t care, since I didn’t read books or hang out with people who read books.

  I cared.

  Of course I’d read the book. I had read the reviews, too, critics pronouncing the main character, based on me, to be unsympathetic. Cold. Calculating. Amoral. Borderline sociopath. In the book, I had been molested by my babysitter, but that was not what had happened. Not exactly.

  I wondered why I talked to either of them.

  Jane.

  Kristi.

  I was done with them both.

  We were over. I had decided, even if they had no idea. I stared at my phone. I was done waiting for Jane. My involvement with all of these literary people was starting to a
ffect my judgment.

  And then, Rachel? She was the student who’d taken in Zahid’s dog. Was she sleeping with him, still? Zahid was taking walks with the girl’s mother. Why the fuck was this something I was even thinking about? If I could change one thing in my life, I would not be a fucking identical twin.

  My phone vibrated on the table.

  I looked.

  Again, not Jane with a forthcoming apology. Not that I would forgive her. It was Rachel. Again. I wanted it to be Jane.

  Rachel: Forget drink. Want to go to the beach? Come to Ct? It’s not far. You can take the train. It’s pretty here?

  The beach? With Rachel Klein. Not a chance.

  But I had not been to the beach once this fucking summer. Not one single fucking time. I had been working and I had been drinking and trying to seduce my babysitter and working.

  Me: Maybe. I might. Sure.

  Why the fuck not? That is what I told myself. I got up and took another beer from the refrigerator. It was cold and good. I was getting drunk. I was still waiting for that text from Jane. Fuck, I was waiting for a knock on the fucking door. The bar was just around the corner. She should be here by now, begging me to forgive her. Begging to get into my bed.

  The knock did not come.

  My phone vibrated.

  It was from Rachel Klein, again, a link to train schedules. I was not going to hear from Jane. So I opened Facebook. I went to Jane’s FB page. There was a link to some article about one of her writers. Then a picture of her cat. She was a fucking lesbian posting pictures of her cat. I scrolled down and, yes, there was another fucking picture of her cat.

  I scrolled farther down and someone had tagged Jane in a photo. It was a picture of Jane and Winnie at some book party, their arms around each other. This picture had been posted a week and a half ago. They were both wearing black dresses. I recognized the dresses. They were from the night I went home with Jane.

  But they weren’t a couple, they were co-workers. Winnie was experimenting. She had a boyfriend. The night we met, she had told me about her boyfriend. She had shown me a picture of him on her phone and he was as handsome as she was pretty. I was the one who was in love with Jane. I had been in love with Jane since I was five years old.