Chapter Nineteen
Zoe
Keely already knows everything.
She knew before I told her because Keely has a sixth sense for when I’ve had sex the same way dogs have a sixth sense for earthquakes.
She FaceTimed me Sunday morning while I was walking home from Teague’s apartment in sweats that weren’t mine and a Black Flag t-shirt and she took one look at my face and screamed so loud her roommate threw a shoe at the wall.
She got the details. All of them. She asked follow-up questions.
She took notes, which I’m not sure was a joke.
She rated my experience on a scale she invented on the spot and informed me that my first orgasm from another person scoring a nine out of ten was “statistically elite” and that I should “protect this woman at all costs.”
So when I bring the full group to Anthem on Friday night, Keely already has opinions.
“That’s her?” Keely whispers as we walk in.
Teague is behind the bar, pink hair freshly touched up, septum ring catching the neon, rings on every finger.
She’s shaking a cocktail for someone and she looks exactly like the woman your mother warns you about, which is exactly what she is.
“Zoe. She looks like she could kill someone.”
“She gave me a Shirley Temple the first night I met her.”
“I don’t care if she gave you communion wine. Look at her.”
Jordan, Mia, and Raquelle are behind us, filing in, doing the same visual assessment they did last time except now it’s different because now they know.
Keely told them. Of course Keely told them.
Keely told them and Mia told her sister and Raquelle told her mom and somewhere in the chain of information my orgasm has become community knowledge and I’m fine with it because I have nothing to be ashamed of.
We take the corner table. Teague sees me and starts making a Moscow mule without being asked, and I feel a small warm pulse of something at the fact that she knows my drink and starts making it when I walk in and that’s just how this works now.
I go to the bar to get the first round.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” Teague sets the mule in front of me. Her eyes move past me to the table. “Full squad?”
“Full squad. They want to meet you properly.”
“They met me last time.”
“Last time they didn’t know I was sleeping with you.”
“And now they do?”
“Keely told everyone. I gave her permission. She was very thorough.” I lean on the bar. “Are you okay with that?”
Teague looks at me. Her expression is unreadable in the way it gets when she’s processing something that doesn’t fit into her usual categories. Then the corner of her mouth moves.
“What did you tell them?”
“Everything.”
“Define everything.”
“I told Keely you went down on me on your couch and I saw God and the next time I went to your apartment you let me touch you and you said my name when you came and I slept in your bed and you told me to stay.”
Teague’s hand, which was reaching for a bottle, stops midair.
“You told her all that.”
I purse my lips, suddenly questioning my choices which were so solid a moment ago. “She’s my best friend. Was I not supposed to?”
“No, you—” She picks up the bottle. Pours something. Sets it down. “You can tell her whatever you want. I just wasn’t expecting the full broadcast.”
“Broadcasting is my love language. Among other things...things you do very well. With your tongue. Let me know if I'm being too subtle.”
She almost smiles. Almost. I take the Moscow mule and the round of drinks she’s assembled, Aperol spritzes and vodka sodas, and carry them back to the table where four women are vibrating with anticipation.
“So?” Keely says immediately. “Is she coming over here?”
“She’s working.”
“She can work and talk.”
I laugh. “She doesn’t do small talk.”
“Who said anything about small talk?” Keely picks up her Aperol spritz. “I have questions. Specific questions. About technique.”
“Keely.”
“What? I’m doing research. For all of us. Mia’s boyfriend could learn things.”
Mia laughs, but we all know it's true. He's apparently terrible in bed.
“Please don’t tell Teague that.”
The night goes the way nights go at Anthem when my friends are here. Loud. Warm. The music plays and the drinks flow and Raquelle challenges Jordan to pool and loses spectacularly and Keely keeps glancing at the bar, building up courage.
At ten, Keely makes her move.
I watch from the table as she walks up to the bar with her empty glass and her biggest smile and says something I can’t hear. Teague responds. Keely laughs. Then Keely leans forward and says something else and Teague goes completely still behind the bar.
Keely comes back to the table looking triumphant.
“What did you say to her?”
“I said thank you for giving my best friend her first orgasm. She seemed surprised.”
“Keely.”
“She also seemed pleased. She tried to hide it but I saw it.” Keely sips her refill. “I like her, Zo. She’s intense but she’s real. You can tell she actually cares about you.”
“How can you tell that?”
“Because she didn’t kick me out for saying that. Anyone who tolerates your friends is in deep because let's be honest, we're a lot. Like a lot a lot.”
Mia brings up the music. She’s been listening to the playlist all night, head tilted, trying to identify things. “Is this what you’ve been listening to? This punk stuff?”
“It’s not all punk. There’s post-punk, riot grrrl, ska-punk, hardcore—”
“You sound like a Wikipedia article.”
“I sound like someone who’s been educated.
” I glance at the bar. Teague is serving someone else but she catches my eye and holds it for a second, just a second, before going back to pouring.
“She taught me all of it. The Pretenders, the Clash, Patti Smith, Against Me!. She knows everything about punk history.”
“And you find that attractive?”
I smile. “I find her attractive. The punk is a bonus.”
Jordan comes back from the pool table and drops into her chair. “Okay, I need the full story. Keely gave us the highlights but I want the beginning. How did you two start?”
I tell them. The whole thing. The graduation, Station 24, the campaign to get into Station 11.
Walking into Anthem on a Tuesday and ordering oblivion and getting a Shirley Temple instead.
Punk history over a Moscow mule. Coming back, and back, and back.
The song requests. The text messages. The night she kissed me after I got into Station 11.
They listen. All four of them. Keely already knows most of it but she listens again because Keely will hear your story a hundred times and react like it’s new every time. Mia’s eyes are wide. Jordan is nodding. Raquelle has her chin in her hand.
“She gave you a Shirley Temple,” Raquelle says. “Instead of getting you drunk.”
“On my first night. Before she knew me.”
“That’s a green flag the size of a building.”
Exactly. I'm glad she gets it. “I know.”
“And she taught you about music and texted you at three in the morning and kissed you after you got your dream job.” Raquelle looks at the bar. “Zoe, that woman is in love with you.”
Yeah, maybe she's not as smart as I thought. “She says she’s not the dating kind.”
“She’s the dating kind,” Keely, Mia, Jordan, and Raquelle say in unison. They look at each other and burst out laughing and I laugh too because my friends are ridiculous and correct and they’ve known Teague for two hours and they can see what Teague is still pretending she can’t.
At midnight the girls start gathering their things. Hugs, coats, the usual fifteen-minute exit that takes thirty because someone always forgets a phone or a jacket. Keely pulls me aside at the door.
“I love her for you,” she says. Not whispered. Full volume. “She’s tough and she’s hot and she looks at you like you’re the only person in the room. Don’t let her convince you she’s not into this.”
“I won’t.”
“And Zo?” Keely squeezes my hand. “Bring her to brunch. I need to ask her about the tongue thing.”
“There’s no tongue thing.”
“There’s always a tongue thing. Ask her.” Keely kisses my cheek and disappears into the night with Jordan and Mia and Raquelle, laughing, their voices echoing down the street.
I go back to the bar. Teague is wiping down the counter with the focus of someone who is thinking about fourteen things and choosing to express none of them.
“Your friend told me thank you,” she says. “For your orgasm.”
“She’s direct.”
“She told me I seemed like a good person and then asked if I’d ever been arrested.”
“That’s Keely.”
“I told her twice. She seemed delighted.” Teague wrings out the rag. “Your friends are insane.”
No arguments from me there. “They like you.”
“They like the idea of me. I’m their friend’s punk bartender hookup. It’s a character in a movie.”
She's so wrong it's almost funny. “You’re not a character. You’re the person who made me a Shirley Temple and taught me about Patti Smith and held me in your bed. That’s not a movie. That’s real.”
She stops wiping. Looks at me. In the neon light, half-blue, half-pink, her face is open in a way it only gets when we’re alone and the bar is closed and the performance is over.
“Your friends want you to bring me to brunch,” she says.
“You heard that?”
“Keely’s voice carries.”
I shrug and try not to sound hopeful. “You don’t have to come to brunch.”
“I know I don’t have to.” She picks up the rag again. “When’s brunch?”
I stare at her. “This weekend. Eleven. That place on Calloway with the waffles. I'll text you specifics.”
“I’ll be there.” She sighs a little and I know it costs her to say it.
“Teague...” I don't want tonight to end. Not yet. I want to go back to her place. Can't she tell how much I want that?
“Go home, Zoe. I’ll see you soon.”
Pouting, I go home. I walk through the neighborhood in the warm dark, past the laundromat, past the bodega, past Station 11 with its bay doors closed and its number painted in white. A different team is on tonight. I hope they have a good shift. My phone buzzes.
Keely: SHE’S BEEN ARRESTED TWICE
Me: lol i know
Keely: THAT’S THE HOTTEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD
Me: goodnight keely
I put my phone away and walk home, grinning.
By Wednesday I've texted Teague the restaurant details and casually mentioned that my parents want to come. She didn't respond for eleven minutes. Then: "fine." Lowercase. No period. Which in Teague means she's terrified but she's showing up anyway. At least I hope she will.