Chapter 18
THE SKY WAS DARK, AND RAIN pelted the windows.
It was the following Friday, and Simone was perched on a stool in Ryan’s kitchen.
Her boyfriend stood on the other side of the counter with the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows and his hands in a large metal bowl.
The muscles of his forearms flexed as he worked the beef, egg, onion, cheese, and breadcrumb mixture.
He’d decided to make spaghetti and meatballs for dinner on this blustery almost-spring evening.
Simone looked away from Ryan’s forearms and turned back to the images on her phone.
Women with shags, mullets, wolf cuts, and under cuts.
While Ryan was preparing their dinner, Simone had secretly googled “curly queer hairstyles for women.” She’d been to the hair salon last month and probably didn’t need another cut until August, but still—she wanted to see what would come up.
As she pictured herself with short bangs or a part of her head buzzed, she couldn’t help but wonder: Maybe if she’d had one of these hairstyles, those jerks outside the Rainbow Museum would have recognized her as one of their own.
Funny how she’d spent so long trying to convince the world she was straight, and now she was sitting here worried that she didn’t seem queer enough.
Whenever she’d been out with Ryan in the past week and they’d encountered a visibly queer couple, Simone had resisted the bizarre and overwhelming urge to shout that she was bi.
The urge felt something like panic—a desperate need to belong somewhere.
Simone wasn’t straight, and if queer people didn’t want her, either, then who did she have?
She’d started to find herself envious of Lucy and Holly, and Seth and Claude, and Nina and her partner Dani, who was a lesbian trans woman.
Not to mention Ryan’s moms, with their fortieth-anniversary dragonfly tattoos.
No one who saw any of them together would ever question whether they were queer, but when people saw her and Ryan together, they automatically assumed she was straight.
Of course, if they saw her with a woman, they’d probably assume she was a lesbian, which wasn’t true either—but at least they’d still assume she was a part of the community.
Ryan muttered under his breath that he’d forgotten to add parsley.
He washed his hands, grabbed a pair of scissors, and went to the little herb garden he nursed on the windowsill.
Why did I have to be attracted to men in the first place?
she thought to herself. My life would be so much easier if I were a lesbian.
Shame consumed her as soon as the thought crossed her mind.
Simone knew she was privileged to be able to pass for straight.
Sure, those guys outside the Rainbow Museum had been jerks, but she didn’t have to worry about homophobic aggression when she was out in public with Ryan.
If she wanted to get pregnant, she didn’t have to worry about a sperm donor; all she had to do was stop taking her birth control pills and let Ryan come inside her.
Simone knew it obviously wasn’t easier to be a lesbian.
But passing for straight meant she also lived with the constant pain of not being seen for who she really was.
The following evening, Simone stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, running her hands down the sides of her pastel floral sundress.
She was attempting to scrutinize herself through the eyes of Seth’s party guests later tonight, when Ryan came up behind her and put his hands on top of hers.
His eyes lingered on the hint of her cleavage visible above the scalloped neckline. “You look so fucking good in this dress.”
She responded with a wishy-washy “Hmm.” She hadn’t worn this dress since her sister-in-law’s baby shower last spring, which had been held under a tent in the rose garden at her parents’ country club.
She remembered standing in a circle with her mother and some of her mother’s friends, who were gossiping—as always—about the members of their social circle who weren’t present that day.
At one point, Kathy leaned in closer to the other ladies with raised eyebrows, a signal that she was about to launch into something especially juicy. “Did you hear about Marcy’s daughter?”
“The one in high school or university?”
“University. She broke up with that boyfriend of hers, and now she’s decided to become a”—Kathy lowered her voice to a whisper, like she was uttering a curse word—“lesbian.”
“Oh, that poor boyfriend. She brought him to the club a few times. He was lovely.”
“Poor Marcy, too. She thought they were going to get married.”
At this point, Simone knew she liked women but didn’t want to admit it.
These ladies had no idea what was going on beneath her pretty pastels.
This was a dress that screamed straightness, and Simone was about to wear it to an astrology-themed party at the home of her Rainbow Museum colleague—with her straight boyfriend on her arm, no less.
Ryan surveyed her face in the mirror. “You don’t think you look good?”
I don’t think I look queer, she wanted to say, but she didn’t want him to think she was trying to impress other women.
And besides, her dress matched the floral T-shirt she’d gotten him, and Seth had been adamant that everyone take the vernal equinox theme seriously.
“I was worried the dress didn’t fit quite right,” she said instead.
“I’ve started doing those lifting classes at the gym, so I’m a little more muscular that I was before, and—”
“It fits you perfectly.” He bent down and kissed the side of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. “I’ll go put on my shoes, and then we’ll head out?”
Simone swallowed. “Sounds good.”
Seth lived with a roommate on the top floor of an old Victorian house in the Annex. As they climbed the rickety stairs, Simone could hear the din of voices. What would she say when she met Seth’s friends?
I’m Simone, and this is my boyfriend, Ryan.
I’m bisexual, though.
Just for the record.
At the top of the stairs, Ryan held the apartment door open for Simone, who led the way inside. It was crowded with people in flower crowns, sundresses, linens, and, in Seth’s case, a gauzy green robe that billowed behind him everywhere he moved.
Seth glided over and welcomed them both with hugs. Then he stepped back to admire their outfits. “Okay, power couple in matching florals!” He leaned closer to Ryan and lowered his voice. “I heard you two made it official. Congrats.”
“Thanks, man.” Ryan then performed the staggeringly bro-y gesture of shaking Seth’s hand and clapping him on the back.
“Lucy and Holly have a wedding tonight, but Nina and Dani are on their way. C’mon, I’ll show you around.
” Seth gave them a quick tour of the apartment, pointing out the bathroom, the snack table, and the makeshift bar in the corner where his roommate, a woman with short blond hair named Vanessa, had taken on the role of mixologist. “She’s a teacher now, but she misses her old bartending days,” Seth explained.
“Whenever we do a party like this, she spends weeks testing recipes and coming up with a menu. You have to try her cocktails. But there’s also beer and club soda in the fridge, if that’s more your thing. ”
When Seth got pulled into a neighboring conversation, Simone suggested they make their way to the bar. “No beer tonight,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. It was half a joke and half a warning.
While they were in line for drinks, someone passed them a printed-out menu to peruse.
There were four drinks to choose from: Water Sign, which was gin-based and clear; Fire Sign, made with a smoky mezcal; Earth Sign, which had “mushroom-infused bourbon”; and Air Sign, a bubbly prosecco-based drink.
Simone had now studied enough queer hairstyles to know that Seth’s former-bartender roommate, Vanessa, was sporting the shag-mullet hybrid known as a wolf cut.
She had an eyebrow ring, too. Simone was instantly self-conscious again in her baby-shower dress.
Vanessa greeted them with a friendly smile. “I haven’t seen you two before! Are you friends with Seth?”
“I’m Simone—I work with Seth at the Rainbow Museum. And this is my boyfriend, Ryan.” She felt ashamed when she said the word boyfriend. Then she was ashamed for being ashamed, because Ryan was the best, standing proudly beside her in his floral T-shirt.
“Aww, that’s awesome!”
Simone couldn’t tell what, exactly, Vanessa thought was “awesome.” That she worked at the Rainbow Museum?
That she and Ryan were a couple? Or that Seth’s token “straight” friends had shown up in costume to his very queer, astrology-themed house party?
She glanced over her shoulder and saw there was no one else in line for drinks, so there was no rush to put in an order.
She reached across the bar and touched Vanessa’s wrist. “I am obsessed with this menu. Seth said you spent weeks on it.”
“The mushroom-infused bourbon took me a while to perfect.”
“You’re so impressive.”
Vanessa smiled demurely. “Well, you haven’t tasted anything yet.”
Simone smirked. “I can’t wait to.”
For some reason, it had suddenly felt urgent that she signal to Seth’s roommate that she, Simone Whitaker, was Also Attracted to Women?.
Explaining that she was a Pisces, she ordered the Water Sign, to make Vanessa think she knew more about astrology than she actually did.
Ryan ordered the Earth Sign so they could both try the mushroom-infused bourbon. Vanessa nodded and got to work.
Ryan turned to Simone and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Are you okay?” There was that crease between his eyebrows.
“I’m great,” she lied, because the truth was something she couldn’t possibly admit: that she hadn’t been able to stop herself from flirting with Vanessa right in front of him.