Chapter 4
Chris doesn’t end up calling, which is completely fine. It’s his loss. It’s more just annoying because I had that sense that
he would and I don’t like being wrong.
But it’s probably better to keep him as a stranger and preserve the mystery of illusion before the uninspired reality of being
with an accountant ruins the vibrancy of the things I can fantasize about it. Not that I am fantasizing about it, but I could if I wanted to. That’s all I’m saying.
Spring slopes sharply into summer and the Redstockings spend basically all our free time out in the garden, begging for a
breeze. Our window A/C units work only when they want to. I’m torn between being proud of the A/C’s rebellious streak and
furious because we’re basically reflective with our own sweat, that’s how shiny we are.
One afternoon we’re all out there in the garden and I’m practicing lines with Tara for a musical she’s been cast in.
I’m standing in for the lead. It’s this character who travels through time and breaks a heart in every century.
I’m really pouring myself into the role, ad-libbing left and right and left again.
It makes me wonder if I threw in the towel a little too soon when it comes to acting.
Then I remember how the directors would try to squash my creative liberty, demolish it under the formulaic treads of their shoes.
I won’t stand for that, so I’ll have to keep my talent underground.
Sometimes darkness is the brightest place.
Tara has landed a supporting role for an off-off-Broadway show. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is by New York
standards. It’s a huge fucking deal. The only problem is she’s got imposter syndrome. I think it traces back to the whole
foster kid thing and how she tried to fit into all these different families that only half wanted her and she felt like she
was never enough.
No imposter syndrome for Hal. She’s abandoned the bra-humbug idea, deciding that the most progressive and environmentally
friendly bra is no bra at all. I must’ve inspired her when I shared about my late-night topless stroll, plus the original
Redstockings burned bras back in the seventies, so that’s really the precedent to beat all prejudice.
Now she’s onto something new, a horoscope/telescope app that maps your zodiac chart with stars in the sky that are giving
off vibrations on any given day so you can physically sync up with the stars. Hal hasn’t actually built the app yet, but that
doesn’t deter her.
“All the guys out in Silicon Valley do it,” she keeps saying. “It’s all about getting investors to buy into the idea before
the product exists, then using their money to build it.”
I’m not big on zodiac signs. Looking to anything external for guidance is just a capitalistic ploy or patriarchal tactic to
keep women from realizing we’re in control of our own destiny. But I’m obsessed with Hal’s confidence. It’s contagious and
it’s always easier to believe in the unbelievable when I’m around her. She says the same about me.
Today Hal is curled up in the egg chair working on a business plan, and Jenni is sitting at the wobbly patio table, scrolling
through her phone.
Jenni has started posting pictures of her Polaroids across her socials so she can get a following and monetize the talent.
It’s slow going right now. She hasn’t exactly reached influencer status yet, but I think it’s better that way.
It’s a slippery slope when you start pandering to a social media audience.
I know because I posted some writing on there for a bit, but then I deleted my account.
It wasn’t because I only had forty-three followers; it was because I felt like I was writing to get other people to click Like rather than writing something that I actually liked myself.
I have too much artistic integrity for those games.
Jenni speaks without looking up from her phone. “Peter’s going to stop by the Inn for a few minutes,” she says very casually,
like she’s announcing that she’s putting in our usual pizza and garlic knots order from Tony’s.
Tara stops her line mid-sentence. Hal lifts up her heavy-duty headphones, like a bomb just detonated, which it basically has.
I respond first. “Peter?” I try to keep my voice calm, try to give her the benefit of the doubt that perhaps I was so swept
up in my lines that I misheard her. “As in your boyfriend?”
Jenni’s plan to ask out her old boss went very well, she’d tell you. Or very badly, I’d say. He’s snatching her away, bribing
her with air-conditioning and laundry machines; the man has no shame. He’s gotten her crawling into a cage and thinking it’s
a castle. They’ve gone from zero to serious in no time flat. Hal and Tara have assured me it’s just a phase Jenni’s going
through, but I don’t like it, and here’s the proof that things have escalated to a dangerous level.
“Yep, that’s the one,” Jenni says, like she thinks I’m being playful. “He wants to meet all of you and see our place before
we go to dinner. Don’t worry—he’s not staying over or anything.”
I don’t try to muffle the scornful sound that comes out of me. I just try to recall if we ever explicitly said that we wouldn’t
bring romantic partners over in the daytime. Even if we didn’t, it still feels like a violation of something sacred as well
as a grievous oversight on my end as the unofficial but unanimously accepted leader of the Redstockings.
Jenni seems to mistake our shell-shocked silence for acceptance. She bounces up and hops inside through the broken screen door. “I need to clean up before Peter gets here,” she says.
That helps me find my voice. “You’re not actually conforming to that 1950s housewife shit, are you? Don’t you remember how
far you’ve come?”
Jenni tosses me an exasperated expression. “Come on, EJ, you’re blowing things out of proportion. Peter just wants to come
by and say hi. It’s not a big deal.”
I look to Tara and Hal to back me up on this, but Hal’s not in the mood for combat; it’s too distracting. “Let it rest, EJ,”
she says in her business voice, putting her headphones back on and resuming with the click click of the keyboard.
Tara’s my last hope. I know she doesn’t want Peter over here. I know she likes the stability of our space and feels threatened
by an outsider. But the thing is, she’s also terrified of disappointing anyone, and so she winds up just half shrugging her
shoulders. “I should go wash my dishes in the sink,” she says. “They’ve been there too long anyway.”
As she starts walking inside, I remind her that no, we’re not caving to those gender-normative pressures—we’re going to finish
rehearsing. “Opening night is only eight weeks away, Tara,” I say. “You can’t afford to blow your big opportunity just because
you’re cleaning up for some guy who’s stealing our friend from us before our very eyes.”
I realize it sounds harsh, but these are dire times. I can’t go easy on Tara and tell her how amazing she is and that she’ll
slay either way, no matter how much I want to.
The doorbell buzzer goes off. It sounds more haunting than usual, and I feel proud of our little Dunge Inn. It’s like it knows
this intruder doesn’t belong and is doing its best to scare him away.
It doesn’t work, though. Peter bounds in, big and burly like a washed-up college athlete who’s still clinging to his glory days as the only evidence of his importance in the world.
Jenni’s beaming when she introduces him, and I catch a glimpse of her younger, sheltered self.
Her hair and clothes and posture are different now, sharper now, but there’s still a softness in her face, a softness that I’m worried Peter has turned into a pillow to lay his inflated head on.
Peter doles out bottles of wine, the expensive-looking stuff we mock people for buying when they could get just as drunk on
the grocery store stuff.
“One for each of the Redstockings,” he says very proudly, like it’s some big deal he’s remembered our name or knows how to
count to four.
Jenni gives him a tour of the apartment, and you’ve got to give her some credit, she doesn’t even bat an eyelash to show him
the top bunk she sleeps on. Her self-confidence has certainly improved over the years. That’s something at least.
Everyone goes out to the garden except for me. I stay and sulk for a bit.
Eventually I cave and join them because I don’t feel like being that dramatic friend who shuts herself in her room when things
don’t go her way. I’m more mature than that. Also, my room is basically a boiler and I need the breeze.
Jenni passes out the terra-cotta cups that we use as wineglasses. I slurp greedily from mine to take the edge off the insufferably
dull questions that the others are asking Peter about where he grew up and what he likes to do in the city and on and on.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore.
“What’s your favorite bar in Bushwick?” I interject, keeping my voice nice and flat so he won’t suspect how I’m trying to
get him to walk into my trap and reveal his total ignorance of everything beyond his immaculate Manhattan bubble.
He makes a joke that it’s this garden right here, then admits it’s actually his first time in Bushwick.
I feel smug because my trap worked, but the satisfaction slips away as Jenni says it’s exciting that she gets to introduce him to Lone Wolf and General Deb’s and Le Garage and Public House. “How fun is that?” she gushes.
Peter is the dry kind of guy whose idea of a good time is talking about stock markets and sports. I wonder if he and Chris
would be friends. At first I think they would be, but ultimately I shake out that they’d only be acquaintances. They really
aren’t that similar at all because Chris at least has this underlying irony about him, this self-awareness that he’s not very
interesting, whereas Peter seems perfectly oblivious to the fact.