Juliet Takes a Breath

by Gabby Rivera

  “I’ve lost my love,” she said. Harlowe wiped her eyes. “And I’m not good at apologies, sweet Juliet. I honestly didn’t think I’d said anything wrong or mean about you. But I shouldn’t have used you as an example. Zaira baited me and I countered. But even before all of that, my love thing with Maxine was in a rough spot. I’m good at ranting about the world. It’s harder to be a participant in it. I’ve got some work to do if my spirit is ever going to clean. And I’d like to offer you a session of care.”

  “A session of care?”

  “Yes, I traded my friend Lupe a one-on-one writing workshop for an hour of acupuncture. I got the acupuncture for you.”

  “I’ve never done acupuncture before. Does it hurt?”

  “Nope. It’s glorious.”

  Her apology mixed itself up in personal heartbreak and feelings of guilt about everything from the reading to not being honest with herself about Maxine. It was a lot to take in and still not what I needed. I didn’t know how to just dive in and say what I wanted to say without feeling pushy. Ava’s harsh but mad real sentiments about Harlowe banged around in my head. Funny how Harlowe was worshipped among one group of gay people and dismissed by another. Or maybe it was gays vs. queers? I wasn’t sure of the difference. How had I been so naive? How could anything as huge as feminism be universal?

  I had one week left in Portland. Seven days. If I just kept my head down, my ass in the library, and focused solely on my internship, perhaps all of this would be fine and the complications would unravel themselves. Maybe I made things complicated when they didn’t need to be. What did Harlowe owe me anyway? Nothing, right? Instead of unpacking my suitcase, I took a long, undisturbed nap.

  23. Poke

  Harlowe reminded me of her self-care trade: writing for acupuncture. A gift from her to me. I wanted to be thankful or something, but what did I need acupuncture for anyway? Was this some sort of hippie bribe? I asked myself these questions and then felt hella guilty for questioning Harlowe’s motives. I hated feeling this way. It was much easier to be in groupie love with her, to keep her on that Pussy Lady pedestal. But I couldn’t do that anymore either. I existed in this strange purgatory of love and doubt. Also, I woke up craving a thick and juicy cheeseburger. Was that the first sign of backsliding into the Dark Side? Did Portland even serve cheeseburgers made from real meat? If I agreed to have needles stuck in my body, maybe Harlowe would find me a burger.

  I didn’t mention the burger to Harlowe. I chickened out when I saw her eating tofu for breakfast. She told me that the acupuncturist was named Lupe and they’d been friends for years. I sat at the table and made myself a cup of coffee. Lupe was married to Harlowe’s other friend, Ginger Raine, who was also a writer and preggos with their first child. That caught my attention. I’d never met pregnant, married lesbians before. Harlowe didn’t even have to mention acupuncture again. I was excited and curious to meet her friends.

  I asked Harlowe to stop somewhere so that I could bring her friends some flowers. Grandma Petalda always told us to bring something when you visit someone’s house for the first time. It’s an offering of respect and a gift to whatever spirits may live in the house. We picked up some tulips from her weed dealer’s garden. Her dealer was a short, tattooed and super chubby woman named Planks. I tried to pay her for the flowers but she wouldn’t take any cash. Instead, she slipped a joint into my back pocket and told me to come over anytime. Damn, I loved Portland folks. We hopped in Harlowe’s truck and we were off.

  Lupe appeared in the doorway holding a silver cane. She walked towards us, her black hair flowing down her back, majestically. She moved with a slow and steady limp. A tattoo of a hammer graced her right forearm. Her other forearm had a railroad spike tattooed down the middle. Lupe, the patron saint of badasses. I wondered if she was Latina or Native or both. I was almost mad at Harlowe for not bringing me to her sooner. Harlowe got out of the truck and rushed over to Lupe. Big hugs all around. I followed and Lupe wrapped me up in hugs too.

  “Juliet,” she said, “I’ve been super excited to meet you. We should go straight to my office so I can poke you, get the energy flowing.”

  Lupe’s Chicana lilt killed me. I wanted her to talk forever just to hear it. I followed Lupe into her home where I met the very pregnant Ginger Raine. I offered her our bouquet of orange and yellow tulips. She knew right away they were from Planks garden because that’s how tight all the Portland dykes are. Or at least that’s the joke Ginger made; I liked her immediately.

  Lupe led me down a narrow staircase into the basement. A green shag carpet lay under a long table. A faded piece of parchment hung from the back of the hall door. The human body, spliced in half and divided into sections stared at me. Bones, muscles, segments of spine: all of the parts of the body were listed and connected to lines and black dots. Straight lines connected points to explanations. A dot under the right buttock connected to a line ending at “Sciatica.” A dot in the middle of the back connected to “Lumbago.” Next to the English words stood Chinese characters. I studied the acupuncture poster. I’d never thought of my body as cross sections of flesh to be diagrammed and poked. I wondered if that was what Lupe saw when she looked at me.

  Lupe told me that acupuncture could cure anything as long as I was open to it. We sat across from each other on the couch and talked about my mental and physical health. Asthma and heartache were my main issues. I didn’t know how much I could let out because she was Harlowe’s friend. Could I tell her that I also felt hella weird around Harlowe and that I vacillated between loving her and wanting to demand an apology? Oh, and guilt, because from the beginning Harlowe and I have been as honest with each other as we could be. I mean, when did this internship get so skewed anyway?

  I felt like Lupe was someone I could trust. I told her about the breakup with Lainie and then I switched gears. I thought about Lil’ Melvin and his letter.

  “My little brother says he’s pyrokinetic. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I know it’s connected to fire. Do you know anything about whether or not a person can control fire with their bodies or their minds or is my little brother buggin?”

  Lupe stood up with her cane and walked over to the massive bookshelf that ran along the back of the room.

  “Fire is inside all of us, camarada. Your brother isn’t bugging. He probably just feels the pull,” Lupe replied. Her hands ran along the volumes of books, “Fire is a virtue. It’s connected to the heart and to joy. And the best thing about fire is its transformative qualities. If your brother feels connected to fire, then it could mean that he’s ready for great change and he wants to be the one to do it.”

  Lupe pulled a slim book from the shelf and tossed it at me. She said that if he wanted to study how to utilize and shift energy, he’d be studying for a lifetime, which would be beautiful and powerful. But if my little brother wanted to indulge his curiosities, this book was about the practice of Qigong and it was a graphic novel. She told me to keep it.

  “Accept it as a gift and an apology,” Lupe said.

  I flipped through the book, “Apology for what,” I asked.

  “For not finding a way to get you here sooner or checking in on you,” Lupe replied. She pulled out a box of fresh needles. “Harlowe doesn’t have the best track record with interns. I mean you’re probably on that impossible hunt for unknown women. Ginger and I usually check in, but with the baby on the way, we got distracted. And we heard about the reading, so please keep the book.”

  I sat there numb. Once again, the words didn’t come. My mind raced. Harlowe had other interns? She said I was the only one. Maybe I was misunderstanding Lupe. With everything else going on in my head, I shrugged it off.

  “And Harlowe told us that you’re Puerto Rican from the Bronx, and I should have connected with a fellow Latina sooner,” Lupe said. “But for now, let’s focus. If you’re comfortable, it’d be easier to work on you with your T-shirt off. If not, I can work around it. Whatever makes you feel more relaxed.”r />
  Lupe tapped the massage table and turned to her needles. I slipped off my shirt and lay down on the table. while I prepared for the acupuncture treatment. She stood over me and stuck slim, semi-frightening needles into different spots in my body.

  “Deep breaths, Juliet,” Lupe said, as her hands pushed needles into my back to ease the pressure in my lungs.

  The sensation the needles produced was strange and exhilarating. At first, I was freaked out by them standing on their own, poking into and out of my skin. But they didn’t cause any pain; it was more like small bubbles of tension that eventually subsided. Lupe finished pressing the needles into my skin and told me she’d be back for me. I inhaled and exhaled and got caught in a daydream. Water rushed all around and above me. I was stuck to the sandy bottom of the ocean. My purple notebook hovered in the air, rippling in the light. It burned red and orange. Flames of Pentecost. Voices of everyone I loved and had met on this trip called to me. I couldn’t understand them. The water flowed fast but I wasn’t afraid.

  Lupe returned and pulled the needles out of my back. She offered me a glass of water and told me to move only when I was ready. I laid on the table for another ten minutes too spent to stand. My whole body was relaxed. Damn, I still wanted a cheeseburger though. After a few more moments, I went upstairs. Ginger Raine was sprawled out on the sofa. She rubbed oils from two containers over her massive belly. Harlowe and Lupe sat at the dining room table. Maxine and Zaira sat across from them. Pages and pages of writing were stacked along the table, some typed, some handwritten.

  “And that’s why kegel exercises are so important,” Harlowe said, as she made marks on one of the pieces of paper.

  I stood there stunned. How were Maxine, Zaira, and Harlowe all together at the table? Had I walked into the Twilight Zone? Wasn’t everyone broken up and angry?

  Zaira and Maxine got up and gave me lots of love. I looked from them to Harlowe and back.

  “Wait, not to be rude but like how is everyone friends again and working together?” I asked.

  They all laughed. I must have lost my mind. What was funny? Was this some sort of hippie Portland therapy session for lesbians?

  “Just because Harlowe and I decided to no longer be primary partners doesn’t mean that we’ve also dissolved a decades-old friendships,” Maxine said. “Besides, we’ve been planning this anthology for months and wanted to get it done before the cleansing.”

  The anthology! I’d forgotten all about it. The short story I’d written was still tucked away in my notebook.

  “So like it’s all good? Just like that?” I looked at all of them, brow wrinkled.

  “Relationships are always going to be complicated, Juliet,” Zaira said. “We’ve all known each other for a long time. Lupe and I were in a band together: the Zealots. Harlowe, Ginger, and Maxine used to run around the music and poetry scenes and somewhere along the way I think we all realized that our friendships were more valuable than relationship drama.”

  It made sense, but it didn’t. I thought Zaira and Maxine were like magic anti-white privilege freedom fighters or something. I’d imagined them charging out of Portland and starting movements across the U.S. leaving Harlowe and all the other whiteys in the dust. I didn’t ever think that they were all part of an unbreakable multiracial community of women. Did this mean that they didn’t have my back? I thought they understood how fucked up the reading was. How was it all okay?

  “So no one has any weird feelings?” I asked, again because maybe I’d missed something.

  “Everyone has weird feelings,” Maxine said. “But we don’t run from each other. And we’re all going to be goddess mothers to Ginger’s baby.”

  Okay, I’d heard it all. My head spun. I took a deep breath and thought about the voicemail I’d left Lainie. Perhaps, this is what the sentiments of that voicemail looked like in real life. Awkward but beautiful.

  “Okay, I think I get it,” I said. I hung in the doorway and took in their faces. I’d probably never see them all again after this week and it made me feel a certain type of way. Melancholic. Reverent.

  “Were you planning on submitting your short story?” Zaira asked. “I bet you wrote something good at the workshop.”

  “I wrote something but I’m not sure about submitting it,” I said. I bit my bottom lip.

  “Well, get sure, because I’m sure of you and your voice is important,” she said.

  I shrugged. The space felt cramped all of a sudden. I needed some air. I asked them where the nearest post office was. Lupe gave me directions that involved making a left at the house with a statue of Medusa on the porch and continuing forward until I hit the vegan waffle truck. With the Qigong book under my arm, I took off. The walk felt good. The more I thought about it, it made sense that these adult women worked hard on their friendships, even when sex and romantic love weren’t part of the equation. It made me wonder about all the ways that we are able to love each other and how movies and TV make it seem like you have to discard people once they break your heart or once the love disappears. Maybe that was a horrible lie, a complete disservice to real love. Maybe those women in that house were love renegades and I needed to take notice. The vegan waffle truck stood before me in all its glory.

  I made it to the post office and mailed Lil’ Melvin the book with a note.

  Brother,

  You are everything you believe yourself to be. A healer gave me this book for you. She said fire brings about transformation. So burn deep, brother.

  Love you to the moon and back,

  Juliet

  I cried a little as I watched as the mail person weighed his package. I missed his chubby little face covered in chocolate from those damn Twix bars. I missed his stupid laugh. I missed being little and safe at home like him. I wanted Lil’ Melvin to burn so fucking bright that his fire would scorch the earth.

  I walked alone until I came upon a restaurant that smelled like cheeseburgers. I stopped inside, sat by myself at a table for the first time ever, and ordered a bacon double cheeseburger with French fries and a Coke. It was fucking glorious. Everything else could wait.

  24. The Sun, the Sky, and the Moon

  Post-burger and fries, I went for a walk. It was sunny but not hot, with a nice soft breeze floating in the air. My lungs felt lighter than they had in forever. The acupuncture energized me; I didn’t know how it worked but everything inside of me felt serene and strong. My heart and mind benefited from it, as well. I didn’t feel laden with uncertainty. A whole peaceful vibe settled into my spirit and my body. I liked it. I wanted to do that acupuncture thing every day.

  I took deep breaths as I walked. I realized that I hadn’t talked to my Mom since our harsh conversation in Miami. I had to call her back. I could handle it. I was so open and filled with all this patience. If she brought up Eduardo and me dating men, I’d just roll with it. Titi Penny said she was trying to love me the best way she knew how. I had to trust them both. I sat on a bench and dialed the house number. Mom picked up on the first ring.

  “Nena, are you back in Portland?” she asked.

  “Yes, Mom,” I replied, shocked to all hell that she’d remembered where I was, finally.

  “Titi Penny said that you were wonderful. I’m thinking we should plan a big family trip to her next summer, what do you think?”

  “That sounds perfect, Mom. Titi Penny told me that you were reading my books.”

  “Oye, that Titi Penny talks too much, doesn’t she?”

  “Mom, I think that’s so good. I’m glad you’re reading them. It means a lot to me.”

  “Listen, nena, I don’t know what you’re going through but I want to try. I don’t want us to be a mom and a daughter that don’t talk and all they do is fight. I cannot do that with you, my Juliet.”

  “I can’t do that either, Mom,” I said. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

  “We won’t let that happen to us,” she said. Her voice softened. She sniffled.

  “Mom, I mailed something
to Lil’ Melvin today. Will you keep an eye out for it and make sure he gets it?”

  “Oh my gosh, of course, he’s going to be so excited. He’s been really into dragons lately,” she said.

  I laughed, thinking about Lil’ Melvin either imagining himself to be a dragon or a magical little gay boy riding a dragon. Either one of those worked for me.

  “Dragons are cool. We should get him a dragon for Christmas,” I said.

  “I’ll talk to your father, maybe he’ll get a puppy instead,” she said.

  In the small pause, I heard her afternoon soap operas on in the background.

  “Are you doing okay, Juliet? I know your time is almost done over there. Are things good with Harlowe?” Mom asked. “Are you all ready to come home?”

  I was quiet for too long, unsure of how to answer. I looked up at the trees around me and wished Mom was sitting right next to me.

  “Nena, talk to me,” she said.

  “Mom, I don’t know if Harlowe is the person I expected. I don’t know if it’s because she’s some random white lady or if it’s because we’re from different worlds. I just don’t know,” I said.

  “White lady or not, her book inspired you so much. Don’t deny yourself those feelings. We’re all from different worlds.”

  “I just thought she’d be different, Mom.”

  “But what did you think of yourself?” she asked. “What did you want to learn from this experience?”