Page 11 of Best Woman
“You deserve so much better than that,” she says, echoing her words from before. She’s laying it on thick, which feels like another point in my favor.
The waiter reappears and sheepishly apologizes again before telling us he’s comped our entire meal. My ears burn with embarrassment, and I hate how he lingers, desperately eager to make sure he’s forgiven for his mistake. But I don’t hate that Kim hasn’t let go of my hand. I don’t hate it at all when she squeezes it as the waiter finally rushes away.
“Are you worried something likethatwill happen at the wedding?” she asks. “Like, outright ignorance and hostility?”
“No, everyone uses the right name and pronouns. It’s nothing…obvious.” That would be too easily disproven at the wedding. “They’ve been great on paper. To my face.” I dig up that awful first year, when people were bumbling and thoughtlessbut, generally, trying. “There’s what peoplesayand then what they think, what theybelieve,deep down inside. The way people like, falter for a minute when they have to introduce you to someone. Or never call you pretty, just say you look nice. Or pretendbuddyis a gender-neutral term.” I’d rather die than use the termmicroaggression,but I don’t even need to. Kim is one hundred percent the kind of girl who has readConflict Is Not Abuse.
This part is true. My whole life, I’ve been the odd duck, not quite the black sheep but maybe…the gray goat. Before people knewwhatwas different about me, they still knewsomethingwas, and that difference was like bulletproof glass between us. They could see me, and I could see them, but sound and meaning had no way to travel through. As the years went by and more and more family members coupled up, figured themselves out, and started having kids and mortgages while I moved across the country and changed almost everything about myself that I possibly could, the distance between us became a chasm, one I didn’t know how to cross.
But remarkably, transitioning had been the bridge. People who’d always thought I was quiet or sensitive suddenly had an explanation as to why, and though the mechanics of it confused them for a while, it also brought into focus some element of me that had previously eluded them. I made more sense than I ever had before.
But Kim didn’t have to know that.
“Have you thought about just, I don’t know, not going?” She’s treading carefully. “That’s shitty, but it would be understandable if you bailed.”
Too far,too far,now I have to backtrack. I need something alittle more logical than just playing the martyr. Kim would want a woman who stands up for herself.
“If I don’t go,I’mthe bad guy. I’m a drama queen, I’m making their special day all about me. I’d be the snowflake so sensitive she skipped her own brother’s wedding, and the rest of my family…” I trail off. I must be careful here and not say anything that will be too obviously disproven by reality. Is there a relationship in my life so inscrutable, so intrinsically complicated, Kim would never know if that person and I were obsessed with each other or wanted each other dead?
I think again of Kim’s senior year and know exactly what to say. “Anyway, my mother wouldkillme.”
I can’t even look up to see how she takes this, but her hand spasms against mine. She shifts our palms so that we’re holding hands on the cold marble tabletop.
My stomach falls directly into my ass and my head is starting to throb like it’s been stomped on by the mules my drink is named after. It’s a brutal combination of success, guilt, and lust.
“I get it,” she says, voice tight. I am, officially, horrible. “And hey, you won’t be in this alone.” She grins. “I’mthe maid of honor now, and I’m gonna make sure you have thebesttime.”
I’m riding too high on my win to see it as the loss—for my conscience, my self-respect, whatever—it really is. “I’m going to show up at that wedding and be sofuckinghappy for them,” I promise, which was already the plan, but now there’s sexy intrigue behind it. I’m going to convince Kim that everything sucks by being completely normal. It’s kind of genius. Evil genius. But whatever, it’s a couple of days of little white lies to get some attention fromKim Cameron. “I’m going to be so fuckingniceabout it and I’m going to lookfuckingincredible!”
The warm, sympathetic look she’s been giving me turns speculative, and if I’m not mistaking it…appraising? Maybe even…hungry. “I could see that,” she says with a little smirk.
The waiter drops off our appetizers and scurries away as we dig in. I eagerly shove food into my mouth to stop me from running it and getting in deeper than I already am.
Kim starts putting together a Thai lettuce wrap, and even herhandsare sexy. “Are you bringing a date?” Am I going crazy or is there a bit of sheepishness in her tone?
“I don’t have a lot of prospects right now.” My last relationship—if you can call three months of admittedly incredible sex with a married Park Slope lesbian a relationship—ended in August when Sharon decided she’d rather take her toddler to Disneyland than fuck me in the back seat of her Subaru. “What about you?” I scoop artichoke dip onto a red tortilla chip.
“Flying solo,” she says. “Ugh, I don’t know why I said it like that. I’m not bringing anyone. I’m single.”
We catch each other’s eyes for a moment, but the moment’s broken when the hot dip burns my mouth. I squeal and spend the next few minutes with my tongue pressed against a glass of ice water as Kim laughs delightedly.
“I suppose I can save you a dance at the reception,” I say, keeping my tone light but letting my interest show a bit. “The maid of honor and the best woman should be able to…get along.”
She leans back against the booth, too beautiful to believe. “I think we’ll get along just fine,” she says, and I hope she’s right.
“Are we allowedto be here?” I ask, carefully clutching my drink so as not to spill it on the fur rug.
River, clad in leather pants so tight I’m worried about their circulation, admires their legs in the mirror. “Oh absolutely, Hannah G and I are basically family.”
From his perch on said pop star’s marble vanity, Kyle snorts. “How many phones has she thrown at you this year?”
River smiles, snapping a selfie. “Three. I got to keep this one when my nose cracked the screen.”
We are staked out in the pop star’s SoHo loft, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and the kind of furniture you only buy if you become very rich very quickly but have no taste. Maybe I should connect Hannah G with Everett and try to get a commission out of it.
After mixing a round of cocktails (“If she were here she’dobviouslyoffer us a drink,” River had insisted) we’d decamped to a walk-in closet straight out of a Russian billionaire’s YouTubehandbag collection tour. The “dressing room” is the size of my entire apartmentandthe bodega downstairs. Every wall is full of floor-to-ceiling shelves, every shelf filled with designer bags, shoes, and clothing. When we arrived, Daytona grabbed a Birkin and told us she’d be in the guest bedroom taking nudes. She’s been gone…awhile.
Giving their leather-clad legs one more satisfied nod, River meets my eyes in the mirror. “Jules, I’m so happy you changed your mind. We are going to find you somethingsickeningto wear to this bar mitzvah.”
