Chapter 1 #7
“Let me give you my number,” he says. “If you do move to Brooklyn to become a lesbian someday, we should hang out.” He writes his number on her arm with a black marker that he pulls from his pocket.
His area code is 631, just like hers. “Seriously,” he says, and she can tell he means it.
“Anything you need. It’s my sacred duty to help the queers escape Long Island.
” He pauses, studying her face for a moment, and then adds, “Just giving you an opening if you need one.”
The other man pulls him by the hand and they walk away, waving.
Susan is trembling so hard that she takes a minute before going to the car.
I’m not gay.
She wonders what would happen if her friends found out about this conversation or, worse, if people she isn’t friends with found out. It’s bad enough that she’s so alternative and has a reputation as a slut; she’d never fit in if she was a lesbian, too.
Lesbians are her gym teachers with their mushroom haircuts and high-waisted khaki shorts. Lesbians are Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres. Lesbian is the word the popular kids sneered at her and Katie while they sat together at lunch.
No, she wasn’t that.
She liked boys, or, at least, she’d liked Kyle.
Plus she’d felt his little hard-on over his skinny jeans and she hadn’t …
what, exactly? Melted, wicked-witch style?
She suddenly wasn’t sure why she’d always assumed that lesbians couldn’t—due to the inexplicable laws of an all-powerful universe—encounter a penis and survive it.
And anyway, regardless of this abstract, borderline religious belief she held in her mind about what lesbians could and couldn’t do, she had survived it.
But she hadn’t liked it, hadn’t felt curious or horny or pleased with herself, though after the fact her life had gone on just the same, and surely that has to count for something.
Unless …
She picks at her bracelet, a pink leather wristband with silver pyramid studs. She counts the studs. She tries to breathe.
The amps and cables have been removed from the stage. The door girl lingers at the entrance, waiting for her. Susan is the last person left. It’s time to go, but it takes a few more moments for her to remember how to use her legs.
“Well?” Katie says, as Susan climbs back into the driver’s seat.
Susan holds up her arm, showing the phone number. She doesn’t need to tell them the rest. If she speaks, she’ll start crying.
“Wow,” Eliza says. “I stand corrected.”
There’s something in Eliza’s voice that Susan can’t place. It sounds a little bit like jealousy. Maybe she’s not used to someone else getting male attention.
“I knew it!” Katie shouts, and throws her arms around Susan, who is still trying hard not to cry.
“Yay,” Jake says. “Susan gets a boyfriend.”
“Bitch, finally,” Katie squeals.
In the back seat, Kyle puts his arm around Eliza, who is looking out the window and not saying anything.
“Where to?” Susan says, desperate to change the subject.
“Diner?” Katie says, and everybody agrees.
Under the diner’s fluorescent lights, they all squeeze into a sticky booth.
The interior looks like it hasn’t been updated since the ’80s.
Simpler times, Susan imagines. Everything is a primary color; the booths are red, the bar is blue, the signage glows yellow.
There’s even a jukebox. It’s the only building on the corner of a busy road that leads to the expressway, surrounded by empty lots. Outside the windows, cars fly by.
Everyone orders things that are fried, breaded, and covered in cheese, butter, and salt—Susan ordering slightly less than she feels hungry for, knowing that Katie will be footing her bill—while Eliza gets nothing.
“I don’t eat carbs at night,” she says, and sips her Diet Coke.
“So that’s why you have such a hot bod,” Katie says.
Next to her, Susan laughs nervously.
“What?” Katie says. “We were all thinking it.”
“We were,” Kyle says.
Eliza rolls her eyes. “Uh, thanks,” she says. “Now that we’ve objectified me, can we move on?” Eliza seems like she’s used to people talking about how hot she is.
“Yes,” Jake says, and pulls his flask out. Looking around, he pours some of it into his soda and then passes it under the table to Kyle.
Their drinking—especially in public—makes Susan nervous, but it’s not worth saying so. They’d just tease her.
Kyle passes the flask to Katie, who then passes it to Eliza.
“I’m good,” Eliza says, giving it back to Jake.
“You straightedge?” Jake says.
“No, I just don’t drink anymore,” Eliza says.
Susan doesn’t know why she finds this so surprising.
Eliza looks like she’s the kind of girl who loves to drink and have fun.
Instead, she’s proving to be serious, thoughtful.
It’s unnerving. Meanwhile, Jonny’s words are still clamoring in her head.
Lesbian lesbian lesbian lesbian lesbian lesbian.
She shovels food into her mouth to keep from having to speak.
Across the table, her friends are starting to seem drunk.
Their voices are getting louder, and Katie is laughing uncontrollably at something Susan must have missed.
Jake sticks french fries up his nose. Kyle is singing the guitar solo from some screamo song to himself.
Besides Susan, only Eliza is quiet, taking small sips of her diet soda and examining her fingernails, which are ballet slipper pink with white tips.
“You wanna come over after this?” Kyle asks Eliza.
“Sure,” Eliza says, in a voice that doesn’t sound at all like she wants to go to his house, or maybe Susan is just overthinking it.
“Sick,” Kyle replies.
The weary waitress stops by their table, looking as though she’d rather die than serve these rowdy, impolite teens. Susan feels a pang of recognition; this is how she feels at work, too.
“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress says through her teeth.
In solidarity, Susan clenches her jaw.
Susan pulls up in front of Kyle’s house and puts the car in park. “We’re here,” she says.
“Aw, fuck,” Jake says. “I don’t want the night to end.”
“I know you love going on dates with me,” Kyle says.
Jake sings in reply, “I was born in the shadows under your eyes.”
Susan catches Eliza rolling her eyes in the rearview and smirks.
“Hold on,” Susan says. The street is a dead end. “Let me just turn the car so I can get out of here.”
She puts the car in reverse and then rests her right hand behind the passenger seat, twisting around to watch where she’s going. Before her gaze gets to the back window, though, her eyes get stuck on Eliza, who is staring directly at her from the middle seat.
There’s a slow smile spreading across Eliza’s face as she continues to look at Susan with her head tilted to the side. Susan’s foot is still on the gas but she can’t look away from Eliza. She wants to smile back but instead she just kind of feels her mouth hang open.
Suddenly there’s a loud scraping sound. Metal on metal. Susan slams on the brakes.
“What the fuck?” Kyle says, and jumps out of the car.
“Shit,” Susan whispers, gripping the wheel.
Kyle starts screaming her name.
“Fuck,” Susan says. She’s frozen in place.
“Oh shit, Suzie,” says Katie. “I think you need to go see what the damage is.”
Susan shakily gets out and sees that she’s dented and scratched the entire side of a parked car.
“This is my dad’s car,” Kyle says. “He’s going to kill me. Really nice job, Susan. Amazing work.”
It’s almost pitch-black outside but for her taillights. She wouldn’t have seen the parked car even if she’d been looking, which she hadn’t been.
“I’m so sorry,” Susan says. “It was an accident.”
“Was it?” Kyle says, walking closer to her, leering down at her aggressively. “Was it an accident, Susan? Are you sure you didn’t do it on purpose?” He’s wielding her name like a weapon.
She takes a step backward. “Of course it was,” she says. Her eyes fill up with tears. “I’ll pay for everything.”
“You think?” he shoots back.
Susan has $900 in her bank account from her summer job at the jewelry kiosk.
She will probably have to take all of it out to pay for the damage.
She’d been saving it for college, or at least for an iPod and some new clothes.
If it doesn’t cover everything, she’ll have to ask her parents to help, which is probably the worst part of all of this.
She knows how far they spread their paychecks each month, with very little, if anything, ever left over for nonessentials.
“I’m sorry,” she says again.
“You’re such a fucking freak, Susan Goldstein,” he shouts at her.
And then his voice drops to a whisper, so that only she can hear him.
“First you practically stalk me for a year, and then you basically force me to like you. And then once I do—and I did like you, Susan, I really did—you start ignoring me? Who the fuck does that? You’re a terrible person.
” He doesn’t just sound angry now. He sounds hurt, too.
Susan is shocked. It hadn’t occurred to her that she had the power to hurt Kyle.
“You’re the one who told everyone I’m a slut,” she says, in a rare moment of assertiveness.
He laughs. Slaps his knee. Snorts.
He seems crueler than Susan had ever noticed. She’s never seen him like this. She’s scared. She hears the door of the car open and shut.
“Kyle, that’s enough.” It’s Eliza.
“Stay out of it, babe,” he says.
“I think you should go inside now,” Eliza says, calm but firm. “Susan will call you tomorrow to deal with the car stuff, right, Susan?”
Susan nods.
Kyle snickers.
“Kyle,” Eliza says, “go inside.”
“Aren’t you going to come in with me?” he asks Eliza.
“Not after that display,” she says. Susan wonders how much she could hear from the car. Eliza puts an arm around Susan’s shoulders. “Come on, Susan. You can drive me back home, right?”
Susan nods. “Yeah,” she whispers.
“You’re acting like a bunch of fucking high school girls,” Kyle says, and kicks a rock before turning and walking up the steps to his parents’ house.
“We are high school girls, you fucking creep,” Eliza shouts after him.