by J. T. Marie
So Dana started looking into graduate school, and Bethany began trolling the classifieds for jobs that would put her French degree to use. At first, neither had much luck. Then someone Bethany knew at The Washington Post heard of a staff position opening up at the French Consulate General in New York City. Would she be interested?
“Would I?” she exclaimed, telling Dana about the job. They were once again on the futon, feet up on the coffee table as they looked out at the DC skyline. No wine tonight—they couldn’t afford it—but Dana had brought home venti mocha lattes smothered in whipped cream, and they were enjoying the decadent drinks at the end of the day. “I don’t even know what I’d be doing, but I’m so there!”
Dana frowned as she licked whipped cream off her upper lip. “New York, though? That’s so far away.”
“Think of the possibilities,” Bethany argued. “I mean, the French Consulate!”
“What’s that even mean?” Dana asked.
With a shrug, Bethany sipped at her drink. “I don’t know. But I’ll find out. It’s on Fifth Avenue, too, right by Central Park. How cosmopolitan is that? It’ll be awesome.”
Dana looked at her friend out of the corner of her eye. “You sound like you’ve already got the job.”
“Not yet,” Bethany hedged.
Something in the way she didn’t quite look at Dana as she said it confirmed Dana’s suspicions that something was up. “But what? You already applied?”
Bethany sighed. “I have an interview next week. I didn’t want to tell you until I knew something for sure…”
Dana’s heart clenched. New York. So they were splitting up again so soon.
“Are you mad?” Bethany asked in a small voice.
“What? No, no!” Forcing a smile, Dana sipped too quickly at her drink and scalded her tongue. “I just—I’m surprised you didn’t tell me sooner, that’s all. I mean, God. New York. That’s…wow.”
Suddenly Bethany grasped her hand and squeezed it tight. “You’re coming with me. My mom sent two round-trip train tickets because she doesn’t want me traveling alone. We’re leaving Monday and coming back Thursday night. Do you think you can take off from work?”
Dana felt light-headed with nervous excitement. “Sure. I’ll just tell them I’m not coming in. I mean, New York! Like I’m going to say no! I’ve never been.”
Bethany gave her a quick hug. “I knew you’d come. My interview’s on Tuesday, but I thought we could stay and see the sights. Also maybe take a look at a few schools, if you wanted.”
“Schools?” Dana tried to pretend as if she didn’t know what Bethany was talking about and failed miserably. “What for?”
With a wry smirk, Bethany asked, “Hello? New York is overflowing with colleges. I know you’ve been looking at grad programs. There’s the State University, the City University, New York U, Manhattan College, yadda yadda. I don’t know what you want to do—”
“I don’t know that myself yet,” Dana admitted.
“But you’re bound to find something up there that will interest you,” Bethany finished. “All within easy distance to wherever we live, thanks to the subway. I mean, traffic is a nightmare so we won’t be needing our cars, but we’ll still be able to get around.”
Dana sat back against the arm of the futon and stared at her friend. “You keep saying we, but you’re the one with the job interview.” She’d been invited to come along to the interview, but if Bethany got the job and moved up there, who could say Dana would be able to afford to do so, too?
“Well, duh.” Bethany rolled her eyes, bemused. “You’re coming with me, of course.”
* * * *
January 1999
Three years out of college, and Dana still didn’t know what it was she wanted to do with her life besides share it with Bethany. Unfortunately, she’d made little headway in convincing Bethany how much they were meant to be together—not as mere friends or roommates but so much more. Terrance was out of the picture, their families were miles away in Virginia, all they had was each other, and still Dana hadn’t managed show Bethany her true feelings.
How could she live with someone who had no clue how much she cared about them? How much she loved them?
Would she never find the courage to admit her love to Bethany?
No, she couldn’t—what if Bethany laughed it off or turned her away? Better to be friends; at least she had something then, a part of Bethany, anything. She couldn’t risk losing it because she wanted more. If Bethany didn’t, then maybe Dana didn’t deserve more. She should be satisfied with what she could get. It was more than enough. She’d simply have to make do.
But sweet Jesus, Dana ached to hold Bethany at night, when she lay in bed alone, her friend asleep in the other room. And when they were on the sofa, sitting so close, it hurt her very bones whenever Bethany touched her so casually, not knowing what the slightest press of a hand on a thigh could do to Dana’s heart. Bethany’s smile lit up Dana’s days; her eyes haunted Dana’s dreams. As the months faded into years, Dana only loved her more with each passing hour. Bethany glittered like a star in the night, close enough to see but still out of reach, and no one else Dana ever met would ever hope to compare to her.
Dana already knew it, so she didn’t even bother looking around. She wasn’t interested in anyone else, didn’t date, didn’t hang out with others unless it was a group of friends and Bethany came along. In DC she had a few coworkers she chatted with at the coffeehouse, but she wouldn’t have called them friends. When Bethany landed a staffing position at the French Consulate in New York and they moved to Manhattan, Dana quickly found another barista job and met new people, but no one she particularly liked.
Why should she? None of them was Bethany.
It took her a while to get motivated enough to start looking into college again. She tried a few community center classes first—nothing with a degree attached, just things she thought she might be interested in, like pottery and jewelry making, theater and writing. Most of them were taught at a local art gallery not far from the small efficiency apartment Dana and Bethany rented in Chelsea. She learned pretty quick she didn’t particularly like acting, but she enjoyed working backstage with theater productions, doing wardrobe and scenery, stuff like that. Some of the crafts she enjoyed, too.
The writing classes were a huge disappointment. She thought she’d like them and didn’t. All her poetry sounded sappy and lovesick, like something a teenage girl with an unrequited crush would write. The stories she wrote never came together very well, and when she tried a memoir writing class, she was so embarrassed by the journal she kept, she never bothered turning it in at the end of each session for the teacher to read. Blame Bethany, she thought. It was painfully clear she either had to come clean and tell her friend how she felt, or she had to give up on the woman and find someone else to love.
Either way, one thing was obvious—Dana had to get laid.
Problem was, no one interested her the way Bethany did. No one was as gorgeous, or as funny, or as empathetic. No one knew her as well as Bethany, or had known her as long. No one got her the way Bethany did.
I don’t want anyone else, Dana thought miserably. I want her. Dear God, can’t you just make her wake up queer one day and solve all my problems? That isn’t asking too much, is it? Okay, thank you, bye.
Bethany’s job at the Consulate kept her working late most of the week, and Dana needed something to stay busy—the coffee shop and cheap art classes only went so far to take her mind off who Bethany might be talking to so prettily en français. Three years wasn’t too long after college to think about returning for a master’s degree, was it? January was a good time to start looking, too; Dana could gather information about nearby graduate schools, figure out what sort of degree she wanted to get, then begin applying for the fall semester if it wasn’t too late. Before taking the writing classes, she’d thought she might go for a Master of Fine Arts degree but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe Library Science. That could
be interesting.
Who was she kidding? She still didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life and here she was, almost thirty. If only Bethany was home, she’d have someone to commiserate with her about it over a glass of wine…
Only she knows now what she’s doing, Dana reminded herself. She has a good-paying job—no, a career, excuse me, doing something she loves. I’m the one doing jack shit. Who knows even when she’s going to be home? I’ll just swing by the store on my way home from work and get a bottle of wine and drink it myself. I don’t need her.
But she did. And she knew she did. And that was part of the reason she was in such a funk to start with.
Dana was at the coffee shop until seven—she had another fifteen minutes before her shift ended. Maybe I’ll get two bottles. It’s going to be a long night.
* * * *
By the time she returned to the small apartment she shared with Bethany, it was already quarter after eight and dark as sin outside. No matter how long she lived in Manhattan, Dana swore she’d never get used to the sheer volume of people always out and about. She no longer owned a car and walked or took the subway everywhere she went, and had grown used to the jostling crowds and taking longer than normal to get around, but still…it was insane! Even now, as cold as it was outside, as dark, and as late, the sidewalks were packed, the streets jammed, every bodega and shop overflowing. Dana didn’t know where everyone came from, or where they all went. Back in college, she used to think DC was a busy place, but compared to New York? Apples to oranges, man. Apples to oranges.
Dana suspected Bethany wasn’t home from work yet, but she called out to her roommate anyway as she locked the door behind her. “Bethy?” The wine bottles rattled together dangerously in the paper bag she carried under one arm so she set them on the pass-through counter and walked into the living room, turning on lights as she went. “Bethany? You home?”
They were on the sixth floor of a brownstone building with small windows and thin walls. When the radiators turned off, she could hear the neighbors’ television blaring next door and the traffic outside, which never seemed to cease. In DC, she’d had a gorgeous view she had never grown tired of in all the time she’d lived there. Here, she could open the blinds and get an eyeful of the building across the street, a hulking behemoth of epic proportions that took up an entire city block and rose so high, it eclipsed any sunlight they might have otherwise gotten. It looked like the Empire State Building laid on its side.
Dana hated it.
She peeked out of the blinds at the damn thing, as if hoping against hope it might have lumbered away while she was out, found somewhere else to squat and let her building out of the shade for once. But no, there it was, big piece of shit. She didn’t even know what sort of businesses it housed; she just knew she loathed it and everything in it. If she had bothered to look out the windows at the view when they were scoping out apartments, she would never have chosen this one.
Aw, hell, who was she kidding? It’d been next to impossible to find a place to rent in Manhattan that was close enough to the Consulate for Bethany to commute daily and which they could afford. The apartment barely fit the two of them as it was, but it worked for what they needed at the moment. And if things were a little close, Dana didn’t mind. How could she bitch about the view outside the window when she sometimes got a glimpse of Bethany strutting around the tiny apartment in a bra and panties?
Cheap thrills, she thought, letting the blinds fall shut.
Heading into the kitchen, she uncorked the first bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. It was a merlot, a deep garnet color, and a fruity scent wafted up to her from the wide-brimmed glass that made her mouth water. With the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other, she retreated to the living room to make herself comfortable on the sofa. An honest-to-God couch this time, from a thrift store but at least it wasn’t a futon, and it still looked new. Dana kicked off her shoes, tucked her feet up under her, and sipped the wine.
Was it just her, or were she and Bethany drifting apart? Their jobs had them out at all hours—they were hardly ever home together anymore. It saddened Dana to think they’d come so far only to fall away from each other now. If that happened, what would Dana do? She only came to New York because Bethany asked her to. If Bethany suddenly moved on, who would Dana have to turn to?
No one. The thought depressed her. No one at all.
When was the last time they had sat down and talked—really talked, the way they used to back in college? About books and movies and random shit that interested them? About favorite quotes, and songs that spoke to them, and whether animals have souls, and which things various religions got right? Deeper things, too, like how they would choose to die, if they had a say in the matter, and where they thought they went once they were gone. What had happened to them? To those long nights they used to spend together just enjoying each other’s company? To who they used to be?
Dana sniffled as she downed her first glass and poured another. She was feeling sorry for herself, that was all. Getting drunk wouldn’t make her feel better, she knew, but she could think of nothing else to do. Nothing else she cared to do.
The evening stretched out before her like a migraine. Dana drank down the wine in the hopes of chasing it away.
* * * *
She was swirling the dregs of the first bottle into her glass when she heard Bethany’s key scrape in the lock.
The apartment was lit only by the light on over the stove in the kitchen, which threw shadows into the living room, draping it in darkness. Without turning, Dana heard the door open, heard Bethany struggle with paper grocery bags the same way she had herself when she’d come home, then heard something fall to the floor with a solid thunk! A bottle of some kind—milk, most likely. Bethany might be closing in on thirty but she still liked a bowl of cereal every morning before heading out to work.
Dana waited until she heard her roommate set down the other bags with a grunt to retrieve the fallen one before she asked, “Need some help?”
Bethany let out a startled yelp. “Jesus Christ!” she cried. “You scared the hell out of me! Where are you?”
Without turning around, Dana raised a hand and waved it the air.
Suddenly the kitchen light clicked on, flooding the apartment with brightness. Dana had to squint as she poured the last of the wine into her glass. “What are you doing sitting here in the dark?” Bethany wanted to know.
“Having a drink.” Dana held up the empty bottle and shook it, as if to prove her point. “When you get a moment, can you bring me the other one? It’s on the counter.”
The sound of groceries being put away came from the other room. “That’s probably not a good idea,” Bethany said. “What number are you on already?”
“First one.” Dana leaned her head back against the couch to grin drunkenly at her friend. “Scout’s honor. This is some good stuff. Grab a glass and I’ll pour you some.”
“I don’t need any.”
Dana cajoled, “Come on. Have a seat. Right here.” She smacked the cushion beside her, as if that would entice Bethany to join her on the couch. “Tell me about your day.”
With a sigh, Bethany started, “Dana—”
“En français,” Dana commanded, trying to be playful. Then a thought occurred to her. “What would my name be in French? Would I still be Dana?”
“I’d hope so. I’ve gotten used to calling you that.” Bethany’s smile was evident in her voice. “Though if you want to know the French equivalent of your name, it’s probably Danielle.”
Dana wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Ugh, no. That’s like here, you got a girl instead of a boy, just feminize the name you were going to give him. I’m so not a Danielle.” She sipped her wine, careful not to down the glass—she wanted to make sure it held out until Bethany brought over the other bottle. “Your name sounds French already, isn’t it? Bey-thah-knee. Bey-thah-knee.”
Her French accent was atrocious, and she knew it.
What she knew of the French language could be written on the back of an envelope with room to spare, and that was only what she’d managed to pick up from living with Bethany for so long. She still marveled whenever she heard her roommate on the phone conversing in flawless French. Hell, half the time Dana got tongue-tied in English; another language seemed out of her league.
The kitchen light clicked off, and before Bethany could come over to join her, Dana prompted, “Don’t forget the other bottle of wine.”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” her friend asked.
Dana threw a glance over her shoulder. “Well, I meant for you. Bring yourself a glass, too. Jeez.”
At the counter, Bethany stared Dana down until it was obvious Dana knew she knew Dana wasn’t interested sharing the wine. Then she turned and retrieved the bottle and a second glass, and came to join her in the living room. Dana was sitting in the center of the two-cushion couch, and didn’t bother moving one way or the other as Bethany approached, so she had to squeeze into a spot between Dana and the arm of the couch. As she uncorked the wine, she said, “For the record, Bethany only sounds French, but it really isn’t. It’s Hebrew, and in French it’d be pronounced Bey-teh-knee. The French don’t have the th sound. Even the word for tea, which is spelled like the, is pronounced tay.”
“Look at you, teaching me French.” Dana leaned against Bethany’s arm, her glass out, eager for more wine. “Hit me one more time, baby.”
The light from the above the stove cast deep shadows over Bethany’s face, masking it so Dana couldn’t read her friend’s expression. But Bethany poured her another glass, then filled the second glass, as well, without commentary.
As she set the bottle aside, Dana chinked their glasses together. “Cheers,” she said, then downed her glass in one swallow.
Bethany frowned at her. “Dana, what’s wrong?”