Give, a novel

by Erica Carpenter Witsell

  CHAPTER 51

  Emma

  As soon as she arrived, Emma wished she hadn’t come. Outside, the afternoon sun was bright. Bare-armed people milled on the crowded sidewalks, and Dolores Park, when she had passed it on her way, had been a patchwork of blankets and bodies. Inside the club, however, it was windowless and dark, the music blaring. Emma resisted the urge to cup her hands over her ears as they entered.

  She followed Meg and Becca to the bar. Becca ordered them all shots, and Emma drank hers dutifully.

  “Believe it or not,” Meg had told her dryly a few days ago, “Katherine is not the only fem lesbian in the Bay Area. Just come out with us. You’ll see.”

  Emma had thought of the last time she had gone out with Meg and Becca and hesitated.

  “I don’t think Dykes Get Down is really my scene,” she had said.

  But Meg had taken offense.

  “Oh, come off it, Emma. You like women, don’t you? So say you’re a dyke already. It’s just a word, for God’s sake. And it’s in the afternoon. Do you have something better to do on Saturday afternoon?”

  Emma could think of a half a dozen things that she would prefer to do on Saturday afternoon, but she was tired of arguing.

  “Fine,” she had said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Now Emma moved her mouth close to Meg’s ear, so that her friend might have some chance of hearing her over the din.

  “Why do they do this in the afternoon, anyway?” she asked.

  Meg narrowed her eyes at her.

  “Why do you think?” she bellowed back. “It’s not like they’re going to waste prime clubbing time on a bunch of dykes. Come on, let’s go dance.”

  Meg took Becca’s hand and pulled her toward the dance floor. Becca caught her eye.

  “You coming, Emma?”

  Emma hesitated. She didn’t feel like dancing. To tell the truth, she wanted to turn tail and go back outside, but she didn’t dare tell Meg and Becca that. Emma knew that it had been Meg’s little triumph, getting her here in the first place; she clearly thought Emma had been moping for too long. She saw the couple pause a few feet from the bar. Meg glanced back at her, her eyebrows arched expectantly. Emma sighed and fell in behind them.

  They pushed their way into the crowd. Women shifted around them, making room; in an instant, they were swallowed by the mass of bodies. As soon as she was in the crowd, Emma felt her spirits lift. A moment before the club had seemed artificially dark and deafeningly loud. Now Emma saw the flash of limbs in the strobe lights, felt the air pulse with the heavy bass. An unexpected thrill of excitement shot through her.

  All around her, bodies quivered and writhed. Emma watched the swaying limbs and undulating torsos, saw the press of back to breast, the hands that rested tenderly on grinding hips. Meg caught her watching and grinned at her. See? I told you so, her friend’s look said.

  Emma flushed and grinned back—Yes. She could feel the alcohol loosening her arms and legs; her body seemed to pulsate with the music of its own accord, so that she hardly felt that it belonged to her. One song ran seamlessly into the next. Sweat beaded on Emma’s forehead; the bass thrummed in her pulsing veins. She felt the music lift her up, the sweep of something close to joy.

  A hand grazed her hip. Emma glanced behind her and saw a woman’s face, too close. The pressure of her fingers on Emma’s hip grew; she was tugging her backward, pulling her close. Emma stepped quickly away.

  She felt the hand on her hip acquiesce to her refusal. The pressure of the fingers eased and then was gone. Emma looked back to see that the woman who had touched her had moved toward another, a beautiful woman with luxurious black curls who did not step away. The two women moved together, torsos undulating in sync, mouths and eyes half open as if in rapture.

  Emma turned away. The etherealness of the moment before flickered and was gone. Suddenly Emma was just herself again: an uptight dyke not willing to play along. Her arms felt leaden; her swaying ceased. She leaned into Meg’s ear and bellowed that she was going to the bathroom.

  Emma threaded herself through the crowd of dancing women, turning this way and that to avoid their undulating limbs, the little dips and dodges her body made like a solo dance of her own. Finally, she reached the edge of the dance floor. She glanced back at where she had left Meg and Becca; she had imagined that she had felt their disappointed eyes on her as she retreated. Now she couldn’t even see her friends in the press of bodies on the floor.

  As Emma made her way down the narrow hallway that led to the restrooms, the volume relented a little. She felt the pressure beneath her temples ease.

  Women had taken over both bathrooms, but still there was a line. It didn’t matter; Emma was glad to have this respite. She leaned into the wall as she waited, idly watching the women as they left the restrooms. She took in the cropped hair and the nose rings, the low-slung jeans. Meg was right, she thought. Katherine was not the only fish in the sea. But even that acknowledgment felt distant from her, as if all these women were part of a world that did not include her.

  Suddenly, Emma’s breath caught in her throat. Katherine had just come out of the restroom, was walking back along the hall. Emma tried to hide her face, but it was too late. Even as her eyes darted away, she saw Katherine notice her.

  “Emma? I’m . . . I’m surprised to see you here.”

  Reluctantly, Emma turned to face her.

  “Yeah? Well, it’s a small dyke world, isn’t it?”

  Katherine gave a little smile. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” Emma said coolly. “Where’s Melinda?”

  Katherine thrust her chin in the direction of the dance floor. “Out there.”

  Emma looked away again, ashamed of the spiteful hope that had flashed through her, that Katherine’s greener pastures had gone sour.

  “Em,” Katherine said. “I . . . uh, could we talk?”

  At that moment, the line moved. The woman in front of Emma was entering the restroom; she held the door so Emma could step inside, as well.

  “No,” Emma said, moving through the open doorway with relief. She pushed the door closed behind her. It moved sluggishly beneath her hand, and she pushed hard against it until the latch clicked into place. Emma’s heart beat a little faster. She almost wanted to open the door and shut it again, just for the mean little thrill it had given her to shut Katherine out.

  When Emma finished in the bathroom, she found Katherine still waiting for her in the hallway.

  “Can we talk?” she said again.

  Emma let out her breath. “Why?”

  “Emma, I just—” Katherine sighed. “I just want to . . . to talk to you for a minute. Please?”

  The thrill of the closing door had vanished. Emma nodded. She followed Katherine back down the narrow corridor and away from the dance floor to a far corner of the club, where the music was not so loud.

  “Well?” she said, when Katherine stopped and turned at last.

  “Look, Em,” said Katherine. “I know you probably hate me. And I get that—no, wait, let me finish. I do get it. But I don’t want . . . I really don’t want for that to be how you remember me, Emma. I don’t want that to be how you remember us.”

  Emma snorted. “Katherine, you don’t get to have it both ways. You don’t get to leave and still expect to feel good about it. You don’t get to be a bitch and still have me think of you with little hearts and rainbows.”

  Katherine flinched visibly and looked away. “I know,” she said. “I don’t expect that. I’m never going to feel good about it, Em. But what choice did I have?”

  Emma raised her eyebrows. “Choice? No one made you leave, Katherine.”

  “I know. But . . . Jesus, Emma. I wasn’t in love with you anymore, okay? What was I supposed to do?”

  Now Emma flinched. But she met Katherine’s eye and said quietly, “I don’t think that’s how it works, Katherine.”

  “What’s not?”

  “Love. Love is a choice, Katherine. You
didn’t just fall out of love with me. You chose not to love me anymore.”

  Katherine sighed. “Is that what you think? I—”

  “Yes, Kat. It is. That’s the way love works. You just have to keep on choosing it.” She shrugged. “Or not.”

  Katherine shook her head emphatically. “I guess we just see it differently then. But regardless . . . I just wanted you to know that I do feel badly about how it happened. That it was so sudden and . . . well, you know.”

  Emma stared at the wall beside Katherine’s head; her face felt set in stone.

  “I really do care about you, Emma,” Katherine was saying. “I’ve thought about you a lot, and I have felt really, really badly about—”

  Emma scoffed. “Not as bad as I have felt, I can assure you.”

  “I know. That’s what I’m saying. Look, I know you’re not going to forgive me, Em, but I just wanted to say it, okay? That I’m sorry. I really am sorry about how it all happened. I should have been more . . . self-aware. But, Jesus, Em. You had me so high up on that pedestal, I was bound to fall off—”

  “Fall off? You dove off, Katherine. Don’t put that on me. I loved you.”

  “You idealized me. I was the perfect girlfriend to you, the . . . the perfect girl. I’m not that perfect, Emma.”

  Emma let out a dry laugh. “Apparently.”

  “Look, Emma, this is pointless.”

  “You were the one who wanted to talk.”

  “I just—look, I am sorry, okay? I’m sorry that I hurt you like I did. You’re a wonderful person, Emma, and I know it must have been hard on you. And you . . . Well, you didn’t deserve to be hurt like that.”

  Katherine’s words whirled in Emma’s head. Just days before, hadn’t she said almost the same thing to her sister? Her own words came back to her: It should never have been so hard on you.

  Emma sighed. Nobody deserved to suffer, and yet they did, in spades. There was no avoiding it; it was the cost of human frailty. Had Katherine been wrong to leave her? Until this moment, Emma had believed that to be true. You didn’t just walk out on love. But now she hesitated, and something else she had said to her sister came back to her. Laurel’s leaving . . . that was the best thing that could have happened.

  Emma believed that. She always had. If Laurel hadn’t left, her father might never have married Sarah; Sarah would certainly never have become her mother. All of it—the whole mess of mistakes her parents had made—it had all been for the best, hadn’t it? And yet Emma had never forgiven Laurel.

  Without meaning to, Katherine had touched on Emma’s own little pocket of guilt. How might Laurel’s life have been different if Emma had not rejected her so absolutely? Emma had been a child, yes, but even then she had felt her own cruelty. She had not let Laurel love her; she had not wanted her love. Her rejection of her mother had been unequivocal and absolute. Emma had felt the grim weight of it her entire life.

  “Where’d you go?” Katherine said gently.

  “I was just thinking about . . .” Emma shook her head as if to clear it. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Katherine nodded. “Well, thanks for hearing me out, at least.”

  Emma nodded curtly. It’s not my job to make her feel better. There was an icy pleasure in the thought. If Katherine was suffering with her guilt, it was no less than she deserved.

  But even as Emma’s mind formed the thought, she knew that she was merely taking the pulse of her own anger. She felt its feeble beat, felt it falter. She let her eyes meet Katherine’s.

  “Actually, I was thinking about . . .” She hesitated. “About forgiveness.”

  Katherine smiled wanly. “Oh.”

  Emma motioned at Katherine’s hair that hung loose around her shoulders.

  “You grew out your hair,” she said. “It looks good.”

  Katherine shrugged. “Yours, too. You look good, Em.”

  For a moment, they stood there wordlessly, each studying the other’s face. Emma felt a tiny bud of forgiveness begin to bloom inside her. She waited in silence as it unfurled.

  “Well,” Katherine said at last. “I should probably . . . Take care of yourself, Emma. And thank you again for hearing me out.”

  Emma nodded, her heart suddenly in her throat.

  “It’s okay, Kat,” she managed at last. “I survived, you know. I’m . . . I’ll be fine.”

  Katherine smiled at her. “I never doubted that, Em. But thank you.”

  Emma waited until Katherine had disappeared in the crowd, then she made her own way back past the bar toward the dance floor. She didn’t feel like dancing, but she needed to find Meg and Becca, to tell them that she was leaving. She didn’t mind doing it now. Twenty minutes earlier, she had wanted to flee, and she had been ashamed of that. But now . . . Now she wasn’t running away. She just wanted to go home.

  When Emma pushed open the door to the outside, she was surprised to see that it was not yet fully dark. Inside the windowless building, she had forgotten how early it still was. Now she stood for a moment, breathing in the dusk. The fog was rolling in; she could feel the chill of it on her bare shoulders. She opened her mouth and imagined she could feel the tiny droplets on her tongue. She was about to set off down the sidewalk when a voice stopped her.

  “Emma? It is Emma, right?”

  Emma looked back to see who had spoken and grinned. It was Samantha, the punk rocker from the BART train. She stood leaning against the building, one foot propped on the wall behind her. Her jeans were low on her slender hips and Emma remembered the flash of skin that she had seen there, the jewel glinting in her navel like a dew drop.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you without the bicycle,” Samantha said. She looked Emma up and down, and Emma felt herself blush. “And the hair.”

  Emma put a hand to her head. “Oh, yeah. I, uh . . . I cut it,” she said stupidly.

  The woman cocked her head. “I’m Samantha. Do you remember?”

  Emma smiled. “From the BART train. I remember.”

  “You’re leaving already?”

  “Yeah.”

  “By yourself? Where’s your girl?”

  Emma shrugged. “We broke up.”

  “Oh,” Samantha said. “Sorry.”

  Emma shrugged again. “Thanks. But it’s okay.”

  Samantha nodded but said nothing.

  “What are you doing out here?” Emma asked. Her eyes went to Samantha’s hands, looking for a cigarette, but found none. “You are here for—” Emma gestured toward the door of the club.

  “Dykes Get Down? Yeah.”

  “What happened?” Emma asked. “Did you get tired of getting down?”

  Samantha laughed. “You’re funny. No, I’m just doing an experiment.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It sounds sort of stupid to say it out loud.”

  “Oh, come on. You brought it up,” Emma said.

  “It’s a bit of a long story.”

  Emma cocked her head expectantly.

  “Which maybe I’ll tell you another time.” Samantha smiled at her, and Emma felt something stir in her belly, as if a butterfly had unfurled its wings.

  “Could I maybe have the CliffsNotes now?”

  Samantha laughed. “Sure.” She paused, then spoke quickly. “Basically, a couple of days ago I decided to make sure that I’m somewhere outside for both sunrise and sunset.”

  Emma stared. It was not what she had expected Samantha to say, and Emma saw immediately what she had done. Without even thinking about it, she had designated Samantha to a different world than her own. Samantha’s world, she had assumed, was one of punk rock concerts and Dykes Get Down. Late nights in darkened clubs, not sunsets. Not sunrises. She thought suddenly of what Katherine had said, about how Emma had seen her as “the perfect girl,” and a flash of shame went through her. Katherine had been right. Emma had put her in her little box; no wonder she had wanted out.

  She looked at Sa
mantha. “Can I ask why?”

  Samantha shrugged. “Ever notice how the days just sort of go by?” she asked. “Sometimes it’ll be totally light by the time I get outside in the morning. Or it’s dark before I even notice that it’s getting late. I just thought . . . Well, I wondered what it would feel like if I paid a little more attention. You know, if I just paused for a minute . . . to notice.”

  Emma watched her closely. “That is really not what I expected you to say.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess because I saw you as this hip punk rocker with a cool belly button ring who was probably just here to scope out the babes.”

  “Yeah, well, that too,” Samantha said, grinning.

  Emma smiled back at her. “It’s nice to run into you again.”

  “You, too. It’s a beautiful evening, isn’t it?” She threw her head back to look up at the sky, and Emma’s eyes were drawn to her pale throat, the hard ridges of her collar bones.

  “Yes.”

  Emma was turning to go when Samantha called out. “Wait, Emma. I want to give you something.”

  Samantha reached into the bag that hung at her hip, and Emma waited, holding out her hand for the flier she knew was coming. Who knows, maybe I’ll even make it this time, she thought. She was surprised to find herself smiling at the memory.

  But Samantha was pulling out, not a paper, but a pen. She took Emma’s hand and uncurled her fingers, then moved the pen lightly across her palm.

  Emma stared in surprise at the neat, even digits.

  “There,” Samantha said, gently folding Emma’s fingers closed. “Hold onto that. In case we don’t run into each other again.”

  For a moment she kept her own hand wrapped loosely around Emma’s fist. Then she winked, the lid closing perfectly over one clear blue eye.

  Emma’s heart skipped. Inside her, the butterfly flapped its wings.

  “Okay,” she stammered. “Thanks.”

  The next morning, Emma woke at dawn. She looked out of the window at the grey sky and smiled to herself, imagining Samantha out there somewhere, standing on a stoop in her pajamas, waiting for morning.