Page 29 of Best Woman
A few more beers and one embarrassing and anticipated loss later, Kim drives me home. I’m climbing out of her rental when she stops me with a hand on my arm. “I had a really good time with you tonight,” she says, and my stomach twists so hard, wanting this to be real.
“Me too,” I croak out. “The way you eviscerated that dude was…”—hot, sohot—“…impressive.”
“Oof, I kinda lost it for a minute there.” She looks chagrined, but also clearly pleased. “I’m just so sick of feeling unwelcome in places that are ostensibly for all of us when really, they’re just for cis gay men.”
I nod. “It sucks. I’ve never felt super comfortable in gay bars, even when people just assumed Iwasa cis gay man. But like…where else are we supposed to go?Straightbars?”
We groan in unison, laugh, and say our goodbyes. There’s a moment, before I close the door and she’s still looking at me, when I let myself thinkwhat if,what if Kim grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the car and we made out like teenagers and she tucked my hair behind my ear and told me I’m a good girl or a bad girl or anything,anything,so long as I’mhers,wouldn’t that be wonderful.
But she doesn’t do any of those things, just gives me a little wave and watches me through the windshield as I walk inside.
The house is dark, but my mom’s keys are right by the door in the same place they’ve been for almost twenty years, so it’s easy to grab them and squeeze my palm around them so they don’t make a sound. I wait a few moments to be sure Kim has gone before I let myself out the door I just came in, unlocking my mom’s car and texting Ben to let him know I’ll be there in fifteen.
I make it in ten.
We don’t bother with pretense this time. I’m pulling my shirt off as Ben locks the door behind me. Ben’s house—or perhaps just any space Ben inhabits—has always been one of the only places in Boca I’ve ever felt truly comfortable. There’s an understanding between us born out of our familiarity with each other’s bodies combined with a life lived going to the same schools,eating at the same restaurants, talking to the same people, but always feeling slightly outside. Ben’s just always been able to…pass better than me, and when we’re close like this—
his hands in my hair, his mouth on my neck, how hot he is inside
—some of that ease and self-assurance bleeds into me, if only for a little while.
“You good?” he asks later, stroking a hand down my back. I’m not much of a cuddler, but it feels nice to lie curled up beside him, allowing that one point of gentle contact. I wish, fiercely, that I could scoot back and press my back to Ben’s chest and let him hold me all night, let him love me. I wonder if I’d let Kim hold me.
“I’m fine.” I turn my head to give him a smile over my shoulder, then I get up and pull my clothes on.
“Well if itisn’t my two favorite children,” my dad crows from the doorway.
“We’re your twoonlychildren,” I mutter, moving into an awkward hug. Even in sneakers, I’m half a foot taller than my father.
“What’s up, Pops?” asks Aiden, swooping in for his own much more genuine embrace, complete with manly back-patting.
The house is as cluttered as I remember from the last time I was here two years ago. Every surface is covered in unopened junk mail, deflated Publix shopping bags, mugs of old coffee, half-read books with cracked spines, empty take-out containers, and, of course, a metric fuck ton of cat hair. When my parents separated and my dad moved into a new apartment, the first thing he did was adopt a cat. My mom was incredibly allergic, so it was the perfect symbol of his new life away from her.
The fact thatIwas also incredibly allergic to cats didn’t seem to factor into his decision. Most of my memories of weekends spent at my dad’s are clouded by a haze of Benadryl. I wouldtake library books out to the community pool behind his apartment building and read all day while Dad and Aiden watched sports, coming inside only when I had to pee or was so hungry I thought I’d faint. As soon as Dad dropped us back off at Mom’s I’d strip off my clothes and throw them in the wash, but I’d still be sneezing, bleary-eyed, and drowsy for days afterward. When I turned fourteen, I stopped going altogether, filling my weekends with rehearsals and trips to the mall. Dad never seemed to miss me.
“Good to see you, kid,” he says. He’s always careful to call me things likekidso there’s a lesser chance of him forgetting to call me Julia. It hasn’t happened in years, but I still feel anxious around him, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“How’s the Big Apple?” he asks after we’ve cleared off enough of the couch to sit on. One of his three cats winds its way around my ankles, so these jeans are definitely getting washed later, or possibly burned.
“Good.” There’s a beat of silence before I realize I should probably expand on that. “Yeah, everything’s fine, same old same old.”
“Job’s good?”
“Yeah.”
“How much money are you making now?”
“I don’t really feel comfortable answering that.”
“Aw, come on, you’re my…kid. What’s the big deal?”
Aiden joins us on the sofa, handing out cans of Diet Mountain Dew—which Dad drinks instead of water—and rescues me. “Come on, Dad, not everyone feels comfortable talking about money like that.”
“How am I supposed to know anything about your life,” he asks me, “if you won’t tell me?”
You’renotsupposed to know anything about my life,I’d like to say. “So you need us to find your suit, right?”
Aiden and I leave Dad on the couch watching a game (I’m not sure what sport it is and I’d never ask) and head to the garage. If the house is messy, the garage is postapocalyptic. There are boxes everywhere, bikes that likely haven’t been ridden since the nineties, broken furniture, and a lingering smell of what can only be described ashopelessness. If we’re able to unearth a suit from this, there’s no way it can be worn to a wedding this week.
