Give, a novel

by Erica Carpenter Witsell

  “Not necessarily. You were saying?”

  “Nothing really. Just how the kids used to tease me for wearing a backpack, and now it looks like it’s the cool thing to do.”

  “Ah, well. You’ve always followed your own path, Jessie.”

  Jessie shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “You have. You’re like me, Jessie. We are who we are, and we’re not afraid of that.”

  Jessie glanced at her mother. She opened her mouth to object, then immediately changed her mind. Instead, she picked up six letters from the little wooden tray in front of her.

  “Take a look at this,” she said, carefully arranging them on the board. “That’s thirty-four points with the triple letter.”

  “Now that’s more like it,” Laurel laughed, picking up the pencil and score pad. “I was worried about you there for a minute, Jess.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Emma

  Emma didn’t feel like a lesbian. Or maybe she did. She noticed that when she went into the coffee shop on Piedmont Avenue, her eyes sought out the dyke behind the counter; she hoped that she would be the one to take her order.

  “So, do you like her?” she could almost hear her sister asking. “If you like her, you should ask her out.”

  Emma considered this. No, she didn’t like her, not like that. Nor did she particularly want the other woman’s interest. Emma just enjoyed the feeling that that woman might look at her and know.

  It was the language that always tripped her up. Know what? That Emma was a lesbian? She didn’t feel like a lesbian. In high school, when she had first started making out with her boyfriend, she had been shocked at how wet her underwear would be afterwards. The third time it had happened, she had snuck into Jessie’s room and secretly borrowed her sister’s copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves, then stayed up late that night reading until at last she had figured it out. Afterwards, she had felt slightly peeved to have been so in the dark. All that talk about blood and periods, but no one ever bothered to tell you what desire felt like.

  Later, in college, when Emma had started having sex, it was never like that again. It was as if the act itself stifled the desire that had always risen in her so easily before. But the desire had been there, she couldn’t deny that.

  So how could she claim to be a lesbian?

  She couldn’t. She didn’t. Mostly, she avoided the language. Bi felt too wishy-washy; dyke too burly. Queer was better—broader, anyway. And yet still it didn’t fit right.

  “I just feel more into women right now,” she had told her sister recently, and really, that was the best way to put it. Emma would sit on the BART train on her way to work and quietly check the women out: their small, smooth hands, especially, and the lovely ridge of their collar bones. She loved the taut skin of their bellies where it disappeared into their jeans, the push of their breasts against their shirts. The irony wasn’t lost on her; in college she would have reared up with indignation if a man had dared to objectify her so. And yet now she sat with her unread book open on her lap, secretly staring. It made her mouth go dry, watching those women, imagining.

  “We’re going to a show tonight,” Meg told her over the phone. “Want to come?”

  “Where?” Emma asked, although it didn’t matter, really; she knew already she would go. Meg and her girlfriend, Becca, had been together since college, and Emma jumped at any chance to be with them. How she envied Becca. Becca had told Emma once that she had known that she was a lesbian since she was four years old. It had not been an easy road. It had taken her parents years to accept their daughter’s sexuality, and of course high school had been a living hell. And still Emma envied her the easy knowledge of who she was, the unequivocal direction of her desires. Meg’s path had been more similar to Emma’s own, with a series of boyfriends that had ended only when, drunk at a basement party, she had found herself in Becca’s arms.

  That had been three years ago. Afterwards, Meg—whom Emma had known since their freshman year—had seemed almost entirely unchanged. If her new relationship with Becca had unleashed any crisis of identity, she had not let it show. Meg had stuck a rainbow sticker to the rear bumper of her pickup; occasionally, she had gone with Becca to meetings of the Queer Alliance at the student center. But, for the most part, Meg had appeared totally unaffected by the new direction her life had taken.

  Emma had dared to ask her about it once. How did she explain it to herself? But Meg had only shrugged. “I’m only surprised I never saw it before,” she’d said.

  Emma thought back to her own younger days, wondering what hints she, herself, might have missed. There had been a few. An older girl in the advanced class at gymnastics whom ten-year-old Emma hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off. A role model, her mother had said, smiling, when Emma had told her about the girl.

  In junior high there had been another one. Tiffani had been Emma’s classmate for years, although she could not have been called a friend, for Tiffani was in the “in” crowd and Emma was decidedly not. But Tiffani had always been nicer to Emma than the other popular kids were, and Emma’s loyalty to her was absolute. With Tiffani alone would she share the answers from her homework, and, in return, Emma would get to stay close to her while she copied, close enough to smell her hairspray and admire the perfect smoothness of her shaven legs.

  At the time, Emma had thought nothing of it. Tiffani was a role model, just like her mother had said of the other girl: a model of perfect girl-ness. Why shouldn’t Emma admire that?

  It was not, she thought, so very different from how she felt about Becca now. Becca was a bona fide lesbian. Emma was sure that Becca did not waste time agonizing, as Emma herself did, about why, or who, or for how long. Becca was tall and slim, with long, wavy blonde hair that she sometimes twisted into a knot at the back of her head. Emma guessed that Becca did not stare at herself in the mirror, wondering how a lesbian should wear her hair.

  “I’d love to go,” she told Meg now. “What kind of show is it?”

  “You know, I’m not really sure,” Meg said. “Becca knows more about it, and she’s not here. Maybe drag? Erotica? No, really, I have absolutely no idea. But good, I’m glad you’re going to come.”

  Emma suspected that Meg was just being polite. She rarely saw the couple now. Meg and Becca lived in the city; they had a large circle of friends through Becca’s job which did not include Emma. But Meg occasionally reached out to her, inviting her to the parties they hosted periodically at their enviable, rent-controlled apartment on the edge of Pacific Heights. Still, Emma knew that her friendship could never be as valuable to them as theirs was to her, and this knowledge disheartened her a little. But Emma was not proud. She was glad to be included; she had no other lesbian friends. She would be happy to go to this show with them, whatever it was.

  The club was in the Mission. When Emma entered, the show had not yet begun, although the room was already full. She scanned for Meg and Becca among the clusters of women gathered around the stage, but saw immediately that they were not there. Feeling self-conscious, she weaved through the crowded tables toward a small empty one she had spotted along the wall. She sat down and began to survey the crowd.

  It was mostly couples, Emma noticed. All over the club, women had their arms draped around each other or their fingers jammed into the back pockets of their girlfriends’ jeans. Emma sat alone. At a table near her, a slender woman with a pixie cut sat with her back toward her. Emma watched the soft feathers of hair at the base of her neck, the way they moved across the pale skin of her nape every time she turned her head. Beyond her, she could see the door of the club. She watched it, waiting uneasily for Meg and Becca to appear.

  “Waiting for someone?” a voice said. Emma started.

  She nodded. “Just some friends.”

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  The woman was heavy-set, with a broad face and a boy’s cut. Emma hesitated.

  “What, bull dykes not your type?” she asked seriously, but with a note of bellig
erence in her voice. Then, before Emma could even think how to respond, the woman burst out laughing.

  “I’m kidding! Boy, you should have seen your face. No offense, but you’re not my type either, so don’t get all worked up. You just looked lonely. And, from the looks of it, we’re about the only single girls in here.”

  Emma smiled. “Yeah. I noticed. Why is that? I’m Emma, by the way.” She extended her hand.

  “Lily. Nice to meet you.”

  As her hand disappeared in the other woman’s, Emma let out a little laugh.

  “What? Don’t I look like a Lily to you?” The large woman batted her eyelashes.

  Emma shook her head. “Not really. But seriously, why is it only couples in here?”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  Emma smiled. “From a couple.”

  “It’s lesbian bed death.”

  “What?”

  Lily grinned. “Pardon my asking, but are you a dyke?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “I thought as much. Baby dyke, right? May I?” Lily gestured to the empty chair at Emma’s table, and Emma nodded.

  “Lesbian bed death, my dear,” she went on, sitting down, “is the unfortunate but widespread phenomenon endured by lesbians across the country—perhaps the world? Some of us, unfortunately, just seem to stop doing it.”

  Emma glanced back at the neck of the woman she had been watching. She imagined tracing her tongue along the feathery line of hair, her hands cupping the ample breasts beneath her shirt. A flash of desire shot through her. Lesbian bed death—no, it wouldn’t happen to her.

  Lily was watching her. “Mind if I ask . . . Ever had a girlfriend?”

  Emma nodded, blushing.

  “Her first, too?”

  Emma nodded again.

  “How long?”

  “Five months.”

  “And what happened?”

  Emma shrugged. “It was when I was in college. We went our separate ways, I guess.” She was embarrassed by the truth. The semester had ended; she and Ana had had different summer plans. Ana had returned to her hometown on the coast to work at a bookstore. She mentioned casually in an early letter that her high school flame was also in town. When the letters turned chatty and infrequent, Emma had read between the lines. There had been no drama, no hard feelings. When she and Ana saw each other back on campus in the fall, they had hugged like old friends, but that had been the end of it. Their paths had rarely crossed again.

  “No time for bed death then, I guess,” Lily said.

  “No. But what does, um, what does lesbian bed death have to do with—” Emma thrust out her chin at the room. “With this?”

  “Oh, come on. It’s porn. You know. Spices things up a little.”

  “This is going to be porn?”

  Lily laughed. “Porn, erotica—what’s the difference?”

  “Emma!” It was Meg. She was holding her black, curly hair back from her forehead with one hand and maneuvering her way through the tables to where Emma sat. Becca, behind her, was almost a head taller. She wore a tailored, button-down shirt that accentuated her lovely chest. Lucky Meg, Emma thought, glancing at the buttons.

  “Hey,” Meg said. “Sorry we’re late. Becca wanted to drive and it took us forever to find parking.” She turned toward Lily. “Hi. I’m Meg. And this is my girlfriend, Becca.”

  Lily stood up to shake Becca and Meg’s hands, then gestured toward her chair. “You guys can have this one. Emma, it was nice meeting you.”

  “Wait,” Meg protested, “you don’t have to—”

  “That’s okay. I was just keeping Emma company. But the show’s about to start. I’m gonna rush the stage.” She winked at Emma and made her way through the crowd.

  “Who was that?” Meg asked, watching her.

  “Lily,” Emma said. “We just met.”

  Later, Emma supposed she should have been more prepared. After all, Lily had called it porn. Emma wasn’t sure what she had expected, exactly—some lesbian version of a strip club, she supposed, with half-naked dancers getting dollar bills stuffed inside their panties. But she had not expected the enormous strap-on dildo that the performer in the first act released from her pants.

  Her partner—in life, or just the act? Emma wondered—dropped to her knees in front of her and took it into her mouth. The crowd roared while the woman on her knees licked and sucked and groaned. Emma winced involuntarily. She searched the faces of the women in the crowd. Most were grinning, some laughing, a few shouting encouragement. Emma didn’t get it. The last thing she would want to do with a woman in bed was give her fake penis a blow job. She glanced at her watch. It was already close to eleven. If she had stayed at home tonight, she would already be in bed.

  The next act was tamer. A curvaceous woman with a head of wild black curls did a burlesque-style striptease. She worked the crowd easily; it was an easy crowd to work. Emma clapped and smiled when clapping and smiling were appropriate, but instead of feeling one with the audience, she felt somehow set apart. She saw the back of Lily’s head near the stage, could imagine the uncomplicated enjoyment on her face as she watched the act. Emma glanced back up at the dancer, who was spinning the tassel pasties on her two enormous breasts. The crowd whooped.

  Again, Emma looked at her watch. She suddenly wanted desperately to be home. She regretted her decision to take BART. It would take her at least forty-five minutes to get home, longer if she had to wait for a train. As the act ended, she swallowed the last of her drink and tapped Meg on the shoulder.

  Both she and Becca turned. “I’m out of here,” she said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Just tired, I guess. And I’m on BART, so it’ll take me a while to get home.”

  “If you want to hang out for a while, we can take you home,” Becca said. “It’s not a problem.”

  “That’s okay. I’m happy to take BART.”

  Becca nodded. “Just be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Emma paused at the door to the club, looking back to where Lily stood by the stage. She wanted to at least wave good-bye, but the woman’s broad back was still toward her. She pushed through the door into the cool evening air.

  Outside, Emma was surprised by the number of people on the streets. She buttoned up her jean jacket and felt her pocket for her wallet. As she walked to the station, she passed three panhandlers and heard one casual catcall, but she didn’t feel unsafe. There were so many people.

  At the station in Berkeley, it was different. The few people who had gotten off at her stop headed in the opposite direction, and Emma walked home on empty streets. She tried to walk quickly, purposefully. When she passed a man alone, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his corduroy jacket, she made eye contact and nodded hello, but after they passed each other, she glanced back, just to make sure he hadn’t turned. She picked up her pace a little, hating her nervousness, how it jarred with the peace of the evening air, ruining it. She wished she had left her bike at the station. She imagined how much better she would feel if she were biking home, free from these ridiculous nerves. This was her neighborhood, she chided herself. Why did she feel so nervous in her own neighborhood? She didn’t want to feel this way.

  It was only when she turned onto her short block that she felt herself relax. She glanced up, hoping to see stars, but there was only a low canopy of clouds, tinted gray-yellow with the lights of the city. She ran up the three steps to her stoop and let herself in.

  It was almost eleven the next morning when Emma’s phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Emma? It’s Becca. I just wanted to make sure you made it home okay last night.” Her voice sounded gravelly.

  “I did. Are you sick?”

  “No, I just woke up. We ended up staying out later than we’d planned. You missed a great show.”

  Emma shrugged. “Yeah? Oh well . . . Honestly? I wasn’t that into it. I mean, do you get it, Becca? Why would . . .”
There she was, tripping over the words again. But she went on anyway. She still felt unsettled by what she had seen the night before, and wanted to talk about it with someone. She had called her sister earlier that morning, but Jessie had said little more than, “Wow, that is weird,” and “I can’t even imagine,” as Emma had tried to describe to her the two acts that she had seen.

  Becca, on the other hand, had been there. And she was a lesbian. Emma plowed ahead.

  “Why would lesbians . . . Why would women who love women want to suck a dildo? Actually, why would anyone want to suck a dildo? I just don’t get it.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I mean—” Emma began again, but Becca interrupted her.

  “It’s just play, Emma,” she said. “Personally, I don’t want to blow a dildo either, but I do get it. It’s . . . Look, it’s just a . . . it’s an appropriation of male power, right? It’s a way to, you know, reconfigure the power dynamics of sexuality.”

  Emma sighed. “You sound like a women’s studies textbook,” she said.

  There was another pause. “Yeah? Well, anyway, I’m sorry you didn’t like it. But, I’m gonna go, okay? I need to make some coffee. We just wanted to make sure you’d gotten home okay.”

  “Thanks. Yeah.”

  Hanging up the phone, Emma felt worse. She knew she had somehow offended Becca without meaning to. For what did she know, really, of lesbian sex? Lily was right. She was a just a baby dyke; all those heated make-out sessions with Ana didn’t count for much, really. She worried that she had sounded belittling, and almost called Becca back to apologize. But then she thought of the phone ringing in their light-filled apartment, Becca making coffee, Meg probably still lounging in bed, her dark curls mussed and sexy, and she dismissed the idea at once.

  The picture that had formed in Emma’s mind—of Meg and Becca’s lazy Sunday morning, together in their apartment, loath to be disturbed—did not lighten her mood. Emma could feel her spirits sink. Usually, Emma cherished living alone; it was a rare thing here in the Bay Area, with rents as high as they were, and Emma did not take it for granted. In general, she loved the freedom of her tiny studio apartment, each day hers to do with as she would. But there were times, like this morning, when she felt her solitude not as a buoy but as a weight. Glancing out her window, she could see people in the street below, walking in twos and threes, heading to brunch or church or who knows where. Even to the solitary figures her mind gave some purpose or destination: a friend waiting at a bakery or café, a partner at home.