North Coast: A Contemporary Love Story

by Dorothy Rice Bennett

  Thankfully, Mrs. Sanchez was sympathetic. She let Gina go an hour early on Thursdays and made it up by tacking an extra hour on another day—a temporary solution until she could shift work schedules. Gina felt that the manager helped her because she had been an enthusiastic, dedicated employee. She had heard the woman turn down a similar request from another worker who had been less diligent.

  The next Tuesday, Gina reported to work at CCSF, arriving with the earliest students. At the front of the classroom stood a woman who took Gina’s breath away. “Y’all take a seat,” she roared to the incoming group. Gina almost sat down but realized she should introduce herself.

  She walked up to the stocky, dark-haired woman and held out a hand. “I’m Gina Fortenham, your assistant.”

  The woman nodded rather curtly. “I’m Linda Sue Gibbons. Thanks, but for right now jis’ sit down.” She had a strong Southern accent and was obviously used to giving orders.

  Gina did as told, blushing in the process, and then tried to figure out who this person was. Linda Sue Gibbins introduced herself to the class and, as Gina watched her and learned that she went by the handle “Rowdy,” she realized that Linda Sue was—surprise—a lesbian of what Gina would call the “dyke variety.”

  Linda Sue appeared before her class dressed in black denim and cowboy boots. She had short cropped hair, and wore no makeup. A scar ran the length of her face on the right side just in front of her ear. She paced, sometimes exposing the scar prominently or turning her face to the other side to hide it. She reeked of cigarette smoke, which Gina could smell from her seat in the second row.

  Her classroom strength was that Linda Sue could negotiate four or five foreign languages, at least verbally, and at least well enough to help her students understand what she was trying to assist them in saying or writing in English. She came across as very tough and seemed to be able to handle just about anything that could happen in the classroom.

  Gina didn’t feel comfortable around “Rowdy,” mostly because of her tough appearance, but she soon learned to respect her teaching ability. “Rowdy” could take care of herself and got things done.

  After the first class was over, Linda Sue motioned Gina to approach. “Let’s go git some coffee,” she said. It wasn’t an invitation or a request. It was a direct order.

  Gina started to refuse, to say that she had to catch a bus and get home, but she thought better of it. If she had to work with this woman, she should at least attempt to get along with her. And try to understand her.

  Linda Sue led the way on foot to a small 24-hour coffee shop with outdoor seating near the classroom building, picked out a table and motioned Gina to sit while she ordered some coffee. Gina shivered. She felt really uncomfortable in the tow of this very strong woman, but she pulled her down jacket close and sat obediently while Linda Sue ordered two coffees at the counter, along with Danish rolls. The night air was cold. Why did Linda Sue want to sit outside?

  Linda Sue brought the coffee and the pastries back to the table and put Gina’s in front of her. Not being a coffee drinker, Gina looked apprehensively at the steaming paper cup. The Danish was fine, although she was not terribly hungry. She picked at the pastry, while Linda Sue downed her hot coffee as if she hadn’t had a sip of liquid in months.

  “What’s the matter with the coffee?” Linda Sue barked, when she had finished drinking and put her cup down.

  “I’m not a coffee drinker,” Gina confessed. “At this time of the day, I would have to go with herbal tea or I’d be up all night.”

  Linda Sue laughed suggestively. “That wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it?” Gina frowned, and Linda Sue tapped her on the arm. “But seriously, why didn’t y’all say so?”

  Before she could utter a reply, Linda Sue jumped up and ordered a cup of herbal tea for her. Moments later, the hot tea was before her, and Gina began sipping it. “Thanks,” she offered. The tea helped keep her warm.

  “Y’all’s welcome. No biggie.” Linda Sue pulled out her cigarettes and offered Gina one. When Gina declined, “Rowdy” lit her own cigarette and inhaled deeply. She was considerate enough to turn away when she exhaled. So that was why they had to sit outside freezing, Gina thought. Infernal cigarettes!

  Linda Sue studied Gina. while she ate. “Y’all’s a lesbian, right?”

  Gina looked around the area. She still wasn’t used to such open discussion among strangers, and there were other souls braving the evening chill. She finally nodded.

  “But y’all’s not from here, right?”

  Gina shook her head. “Illinois, with grad school in Arizona. I’ve been in Eureka the last year. I just got to the City a few weeks ago.”

  “What are y’all doing in this ESL class?”

  “I’m looking for a college teaching job in English lit, and this has been the first thing I could come up with that moves me in that direction.”

  Linda Sue grunted and puffed on her cigarette. “Y’all in a relationship?”

  Gina blushed, increasingly uncomfortable with this very pointed conversation. “Well, there’s someone I care about but, no, I’m not officially in a relationship,” she admitted, surprising herself by the confession. Where did that come from?

  Linda Sue nodded. “Y’all been to The Castro yet?”

  “I’ve been through the district on a bus, but I haven’t been there to go to a bar or a club or anything.”

  Linda Sue laughed. “Greenhorn, huh?”

  Gina wanted to turn the conversation around. She took a deep breath and asked, “Where are you from? You sound a bit Southern.”

  Linda Sue smiled at Gina, took a puff, kept silent for a moment, and then decided to answer. “Texas, originally. Been lots of places, picked up a little here an’ a little there. Been in ‘Frisco for four years, tryin’ to git through school. I do this ESL stuff to pay for my tuition. ESL don’t take a lot of formal education, because y’all dealin’ with such basic English, but it takes guts and tons of patience. I got the guts for it. The patience I’m workin’ on.” She leaned close to Gina and spoke conspiratorially. “Some o’ these folks ain’t gonna make it in academia, if y’all git my drift.”

  “What’s your major?” Gina asked, knowing fully well that literature would not be Linda Sue’s field.

  “Women’s studies,” the Texan said. She grinned. “I was raised pretty much as a boy on the ranch. I’m tryin’ to git a handle on what all this women’s issues stuff is all about. I never thought much about myself as a woman, but I guess I am one.”

  Gina studied her for a moment. “So,” she observed, “if you were raised like a boy, you got to do whatever you wanted—just like a boy would. And you don’t know what it’s like to be told you can’t have something or do something because you’re a woman?”

  Linda Sue laughed uproariously. “Yep, li’l one. Y’all got it. Bein’ an oppressed female is outside my life experience.”

  Gina studied her teacup and nodded. Without further comment, she finished her drink and looked at her watch. It was getting really late. She thanked Linda Sue for the tea and Danish and told her that she needed to catch the next bus. Linda Sue offered to walk her to the bus stop and this offer Gina accepted willingly. She had noticed that this wasn’t the best of neighborhoods, especially after dark. Linda Sue walked beside her and stood by her at the corner until the bus came along. Then she waved goodbye as Gina climbed on board.

  Gina took a seat on the almost empty bus and thought about her encounter with Linda Sue. She found it hard to think of her as “Rowdy.” She shivered. What a strange woman—but someone who could teach her a lot about survival here, as long as she could set firm boundaries. Gina was not an expert on sexual harassment in the workplace, but she suspected that whatever the rules were, Linda Sue would push the edge of the envelope at any time it suited her.

  As Gina had anticipated, the ESL classes were tough. She had to concentrate really hard to understand individual questions from the students, who spoke in heavily-accented halt
ing English and often reverted to their native tongue when they got confused. Since Gina couldn’t understand them at all in their own language, she had to find a way to steer them back to English. It wasn’t easy. And grading their papers was a real pain. Interpreting handwriting that had been learned in another country was difficult at best. She began to think the instructors had the best part of it and the assistants the worst. She had to smile because even she knew that such a reality was often the norm in the public workplace and in the academic world as well.

  Linda Sue continued to impress Gina as a good instructor—colorful, expressive, down-to-earth, humorous, and somehow able to bridge the gap between English and the many other languages represented in the class. Gina doubted she could ever become that effective in the classroom, and watching Linda Sue at work made her question whether teaching was really her destiny. Gina was so much the quiet intellectual, and getting up in front of a group of people would always be hard for her. She tentatively concluded, as she watched Linda Sue artfully handle the class, that she was more the writer/researcher type than someone to take center stage at the front of a classroom.

  At night, in her room, she tossed and turned in bed, processing what she was learning and thinking about what she wanted from life. What were her real priorities? She had always put a career in education at the top of her list. Personal relationships were always at the bottom, below adventure, travel, and enough money to keep the bills paid. Was this honestly her? Had education been so important because life was hard on the farm and she saw her mother, a teacher, presenting the only ticket out through higher education? Did she put relationships at the bottom because she had been confused about her sexual identity and avoiding relationships had been easier than figuring out who she really was?

  What a paradox. Sometimes she felt she was in a maze, looking for the way through or the way out.

  The Beetle needed to run, so Gina backed it out of the garage. Thankfully, the car started right away. She gassed it up, got a cheap car wash, and then drove to Golden Gate Park. Although it was officially winter, San Francisco was having a summer-like day. There was a mild breeze off the ocean. She had learned that ’Frisco could have any climate on any given day. Planning ahead was sometimes difficult because it rained when sun was expected and it got hot when it should be cold. And unlike other places where she had lived, 75 degrees in the City could be very hot. The only somewhat predictable element was early morning fog, and that gave no clue as to what the rest of the day would be like.

  When she reached the park, she found a place to stash the car and walked for miles, stopping at the museums, the Japanese gardens, and Spreckles Lake. As a woman alone, she knew enough to be careful. She watched for anyone who followed too closely or who was loitering or paying unusual attention to her.

  The sun broke through tall eucalyptus trees as she passed onto an open grassy area where a young man was playing Frisbee with his dog. Then she noticed a woman running with a yellow Lab. Her breath caught as her imagination turned them into Valerie and Samantha trotting along the Eureka waterfront. Her eyes misted over and for a moment she felt deeply saddened. Had she done the wrong thing—leaving Valerie and Sam and all their friends, and even Eureka, to chase this dream in San Francisco?

  Gina needed to shake off this heavy feeling. She allowed her memories to inspire her and her body responded. She took off on a run, pushing herself for a quarter of a mile. She was out of shape and she was soon winded. Every muscle in her body began to vibrate and complain, but she felt so good that she decided she would keep running every day. Her lungs needed the air. Her muscles needed the workout. Her psyche needed the lift.

  After her sprint, the sad mood passed. As Gina continued to explore Golden Gate Park that afternoon, she realized again just how much she adored San Francisco. It was as beautiful as she had dreamed it would be, and she was very glad that she was able to experience the City. And her full time job was satisfying. She had decided to stay with Mrs. Han for a while, because keeping her expenses down allowed her to do so much more. She could go to the movies, shop for clothes, and occasionally attend the opera and the ballet—an awesome experience, even if she had to sit in the last row of the balcony.

  And for the first time ever, Gina was able to put a few dollars from each paycheck into a savings account for her future. She had money in her pocket to spend any way she wanted. Compared to the tight times during her childhood on the farm, her frugal college years, and the desperate post-graduate period of therapy, she was free and, by comparison, wealthy. At times she felt almost giddy at her freedom.

  Yet her time in Eureka had changed something inside her. San Francisco had always seemed an endpoint—she would get there and she’d be home. Now she was questioning that. Was San Francisco really the end for her, or could there be another adventure along the way? Would she always want to be here? Standing in the middle of beautiful Golden Gate Park, she knew she was happy to be in this place today—and yet she didn’t know about tomorrow.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Nun’s Habit—a dark, dirty bar in the Castro District—more than lived up to its name. Mostly a women’s hangout, the venue was populated by a loud band, Sapho’s Sibs, and wall-to-wall sweaty female bodies gyrating on the dance floor. The women’s restroom reeked of marijuana.

  Gina had come there with Linda Sue—she still had trouble with the “Rowdy” moniker—because Linda Sue had asked her if she wanted to explore The Castro. Gina once had been to a gay bookstore in the area and to a lesbian writers’ support-group meeting that seemed to function more as a pick-up spot, but she hadn’t been to the bars. Her natural curiosity led her to accept Linda Sue’s offer.

  Gina dressed in her best jeans, a silk top, and a sweater for the occasion. Linda Sue wore her usual black denims and cowboy boots, with a leather-trimmed vest topping a Western shirt. The two sat at a small table in a back corner and both ordered a beer. Linda Sue opted for lager, Gina for “lite.” Talking to each other was difficult over the band’s loud amp, heavy guitar, bass, and percussion. Gina sipped her beer and hoped for an intermission. Shortly, Linda Sue excused herself to step outside for a smoke.

  While she was alone at their table, Gina surveyed the dingy room and began wondering what she was doing in this filthy place. She remembered the Purple Priscilla: Rick, his friends, the lesbians she met there, and, of course, dancing with Val. Gina had liked the little Arcata spot a lot better. This one was grimy without even that stupid purple trim to give it some style. She smiled to herself and shook her head. Why had she ever left Eureka?

  Just as Linda Sue returned, Sapho’s Sibs announced a short break. There was polite applause and the dancers headed for their seats. Gina was grateful for the relative quiet.

  Linda Sue leaned back in her chair and studied Gina, who continued to watch the activity around her and check out the variously attired women—some in blue denim, some in black leather, one in a red turtleneck and black jeans. They obviously came from very diverse backgrounds, but predominant among them was a look of hardness that Gina had not previously experienced.

  Trying to divert her attention, Linda Sue asked, “Now that y’all been in the classroom a few weeks, how are you feelin’? Gettin’ the hang of it?”

  Gina pulled her focus back to the table and studied her beer a moment. Then she looked up at Linda Sue. “It’s better,” she admitted, “although it is difficult for me and I’m glad I’m not depending on this to make a living. Two nights a week is about all I can handle.”

  Linda Sue took a long pull on her lager. “Well,” she observed wryly, “this ain’t what y’all set out to do anyway, and besides y’all got a full-time job as well.”

  “True.”

  “Y’all gonna stick with it?”

  “I think so—well, I’m… I’m not sure.” Gina stumbled over her words. “I mean, if this leads to a real teaching job, even at night in a regular English class, yeah, I think so, but if I have to do ESL forever, I don’t
know.”

  “What about it don’t y’all like?”

  “Well, you’re right. This isn’t exactly what I studied to do. I was picturing a college classroom with some bright students analyzing Shakespeare or John Donne or Virginia Woolf, you know?”

  Linda Sue smiled. “Yeah, I git it. But urban America jus’ ain’t about that anymore. It’s about survivin’ in shiftin’ sand. It’s so easy to git swallowed up. Illegal immigrants, street drugs, identity theft.

  “It’s not pretty anymore, if it ever really was,” she added.

  Gina agreed. “I do see that and I am trying to decide whether my fascination with big city life is enough to build a future here. Underneath it all, I am a Midwestern farm girl and I have personal values that may not fit in this world.”

  Before Linda Sue could answer, a server appeared at their table to ask if they wanted another beer. Linda Sue nodded but Gina declined. Before the server could say anything about the bar’s two-drink minimum, Linda Sue jumped in, “Bring two beers. I’ll drink hers, if she don’t want it.” When the server moved on, Linda Sue smiled at Gina. “These places always got a cover or a minimum. It’s just easier to go along with the program than make a fuss.”

  Gina nodded. A slight smile crossed her lips. “Sorry. Just write it off to ‘small-town girl in the big city.’”

  Just then the band members returned and began a new set. Softer music this time, with “You’re The Wind Beneath My Wings.”

  Linda Sue stood up. “Would y’all like to dance?” she asked, bowing formally.

  Gina wasn’t sure she wanted to dance, but she felt compelled by Linda Sue’s request. She rose gallantly and allowed Linda Sue to lead her onto the dance floor. Gina was considerably taller than the Texan, who was powerfully built but slightly below medium height. The music encouraged close dancing and Linda Sue pulled Gina tight to her. Gina could feel her muscular body through her Western attire, but what she smelled most was cigarette smoke. Not a turn on for her. She thought again of dancing with Valerie.