by Allison Moon
Renee cocked an eyebrow. A half-smile nudged at her cheek, making her look feline and all-knowing. Lexie’s ears turned hot, her blood pressure rising with her shame.
“Boyfriend?” Renee goaded.
Lexie shrugged, resorting to communication via mute gestures.
“Okay then,” Renee said, shoving the completed cocktail into Lexie’s hand with a flourish and a smile.
Lexie peered into the cup. The smell of the drink made the hairs inside her nose twirl like sand eels. The celery stalk stuck out at a jaunty angle, its leafy end busheling over the rim of the glass. A small plastic sword held two fat olives that stared up at her through the red juice like amphibious eyes peering from beneath a pool of blood. Lexie had never drunk before, not really. She had shared a beer with her dad once in a while, but beer wasn’t a real drink, just alcoholic soda. This was a cocktail, the kind that came with fancy living rooms, high-class conversation, and women who looked like Renee. Lexie stared at the concoction, willing herself out of her dislike of tomato juice in that very moment. Renee leaned the heel of one hand on the countertop and placed the other expectantly on her hip.
Lexie took a reluctant sip. The thick, peppery taste swelled her salivary glands, a shock to her esophagus. Perspiration dewed at the nape of her neck and her sinuses flared open in protest. Halfway down her throat, it felt as though the caustic fluid switched directions and followed her spine straight up to her brain. A cough fought against her throat, jaw, and good sense for release, the air rushing out her nostrils making her sound like an impudent horse. She forced the diabolically-willed cocktail down her throat. Only once the fluid was safely ensconced in her belly did she remember where the hell she was, and she theatrically fanned her face, partially as a joke for Renee’s benefit, and partially because her head actually felt aflame.
“Wow,” Lexie choked through half-breaths.
Renee smiled and slapped Lexie on the shoulder. “Atta girl.”
“Hi, Mitch.” Lexie stood at the barbecue, empty plate in hand, a fresh beer in the other, to soothe her shocked taste buds.
“Hey, Sexy Lexie. What can I getcha?” Lexie’s ears grew hot at the nickname, but she forced herself to focus on the food. The spread was impressive: three different kinds of burgers, a variety of sausages and hot dogs, marinating mushrooms, and some fancy-looking shish kabobs.
“Wow. Um. How about a hot dog?”
“Turkey, Tofurky, or Seitan?”
Lexie stared blankly, confounded by the riddle. Finally, she conceded. “What?”
“Good answer. One hot dog, coming right up.” Mitch threw a few dogs on the grill with a flourish that she seemed to reserve solely for culinary activities. She took a swig from her beer bottle, which wore a foam cozy declaring, “Riots Not Diets.”
Lexie found Mitch more relatable than any of the other girls she had met so far. Her aesthetic was familiar, her mannerisms reminiscent of Lexie’s father on his better days. Yet an obtrusive distance seemed to linger between them.
As Mitch plopped a toasted bun and glistening hot dog onto her bamboo plate, Lexie blurted the question that niggled her brain. “Hey Mitch, can I ask you something?”
“Go for it,” Mitch answered, monitoring the various calculations and countdowns of the grill.
“Something about using the word ‘she’ to describe you feels odd.”Attention still on the grill, Mitch gave a half-smile, her dimples digging creases into her cheeks. Lexie breathed easier.
“Okay,” Mitch said. “Was there a question in there?”
“Oh . . . um, yeah. So, do you prefer ‘she’?” Lexie took a big gulp of her beer. “Because ‘he’ seems more . . .”
Mitch’s smile widened to a toothy, round-cheeked grin. “You can call me anything you want,” Mitch said, sliding the steel spatula under a burger and flipping it. The fire hissed and flared. “As long as it ain’t ‘Nancy.’”
Mitch plopped another perfect, juicy dog onto her plate, smiling as though in on some joke that remained a mystery to Lexie.
“‘He’ is cool. Thanks for asking, Lex,” he said. Lexie smiled and turned to go. “Hey,” Mitch said. “Is it okay I called you ‘sexy’?”
Lexie smiled and nodded as she walked away, a full plate in hand. Talking with Mitch was easy. Now to brave a sea of conversations that she had no idea how to navigate.
She’s tougher than Pendican, but the reading list is way more interesting. Like Bornstein-interesting, not Dworkin.
I can’t believe my sister and I grew up in the same house. She actually voted Libertarian last year, can you believe that nonsense?
I think I’m just going to shave my head. If you can’t do it in college, when can you?
This town is so fucking tiny, I want to kill myself. You can’t even get a decent goddamned burrito here. I can’t wait to get back to LA for fall break.
The steel drum group meets every Friday at the Union. If you’re really good, they’ll put you up front, but I’m still learning, so I have to work my way up.
The clamor of words rattled in Lexie’s head. She weaved a path to the only quiet part of the yard, where an empty lawn chair idled in the shade. On the way, she passed by two girls cuddling on a blanket, a cloud of lavender smoke lingering above them.
“Hey,” came a slow, low voice from the blanket. “What’s your name, stranger?” The red-eyed girl lounged on the ground, a blown-glass pipe resting atop her curved belly. Her hair was knotted in blonde dreadlocks that splayed like Medusa’s snakes from her head.
“Lexie.”
“Like Alexandra?”
“Alexis,” Lexie corrected with a small grimace.
“I’m Corwin,” the girl replied, her speech muffled as she pressed the green glass pipe against her lips and flicked her lighter. The other girl draped herself across Corwin’s belly. She was dark-skinned and buxom, wearing a flimsy black sweater-vest that struggled mightily to contain her generous breasts. The girl’s brown eyes narrowed as she watched her girlfriend share a smile with Lexie.
“I had a cat named Alexis,” Corwin said, puffing tiny clouds of purple smoke from her mouth.
“That’s rude!” the other girl said, slapping Corwin’s chest.
“What’s rude?” Corwin laughed and coughed at the same time.
“Saying that a girl you just met shares her name with a cat!”
“Why is that rude?”
“It just is.”
Corwin shook her head and rolled her eyes, her dreadlocks shaking.
“I’m Sharmalee,” the other girl said, flitting her fingers in a half-hearted flirt, like a child beauty queen who understands the basic motion but not the purpose. Her long, black hair draped in loose, thick waves across her shoulders. Her skin was the color of incense and rolled like smoke over her ample figure. She smiled perfunctorily at Lexie, then turned Corwin’s chin back toward her and kissed her fully on the mouth. Lexie took that as her cue and continued with her lunch to the lone lawn chair.
The day dwindled into late afternoon. The rest of the freshmen excused themselves to go home or to the library while they still nursed healthy buzzes. Lexie claimed her lawn chair and ate, the hot dog putting only a small dent in her hunger. She watched Hazel cling to her position in the hot tub, unwilling to sacrifice her nudity to the chilly air. Though no taller than a fourth-grader, Hazel was shaped like a Vargas girl. Lexie looked away when she realized she was staring.
Mitch had been working the grill since Lexie’s arrival, and after delivering a plate of veggie dogs to Hazel, spa-side, he seemed finally satisfied that every woman was fed beyond her wont. He reclined in the hammock with the last of the microbrews to enjoy the end of the final summer barbecue.
Jenna walked barefoot among the tables in the yard, stacking the dirty plates and cups in her arms amid the weak protests of the other girls, who insisted the housework could wait and that she should relax. Jenna shooed their protests away with a wink and a smile. Clearly this was a familiar patter to the
girls. Lexie wouldn’t be surprised if the same routine happened every time they entertained. Jenna’s teal skirt flowed about her like cloud cover, a cherubic smile curving her lips.
Lexie hid in her chair, happy to have survived Renee’s digestive tract-scathing Bloody Mary and an unending sequence of small talk with all-too-forgettable women about majors, relationships, and career ambitions. She hated feeling unwilling to count herself among those girls, but the truth was, she couldn’t care less. Nonetheless, in a masochistic sort of way, Lexie was happy to be among the women of the Pack.
A cool evening breeze rushed across the lawn. Lexie nudged the zipper of her hoodie up a few more inches.
“This is that time of the year when the days start getting noticeably shorter.” Blythe strode across the grass to Lexie’s lawn chair. She looked as fresh as a fairy, alighting on the end of the lawn chair and wrapping her hand amiably around Lexie’s ankle.
“Yeah, I hate this part of the year,” Lexie said with a labored sigh.
“I love the autumn. It’s my favorite season by far. The woods stay lush with these smatterings of vivid color,” Blythe gestured to the forest’s edge, where bright blotches of yellows and oranges flamed against the darker greens. “The rain, the clouds, the longer nights. Lovely. I’m from San Diego. You pray for weather there, and it never comes. It’s death by perfection,” she said with an arched brow and a chuckle.
Lexie noted the small irony: Blythe, with her impeccable face, deriding the beautiful and the pure. Lexie felt aglow by sheer reflection. Everything about Blythe cast its own opalescent aura, purity reflected with the grace of sculpted steel.
“So,” Blythe continued. “How do you like the Pack?”
Lexie struggled for the right adjective. Terrifying, she wanted to say. Invigorating. Petrifying. Inspiring. And on and on in a steady stream of unease. The simplest truth was that she liked them, so she said so.
“You were getting along well with Renee,” Blythe pressed.
“Yeah. I’ve never met anyone like her before.” Lexie gauged her pitch and pace, pleased to find herself holding it together.
“How so?”
Lexie choked on a response. Would it be racist to say she’d never met someone who looked like Renee before? To say she liked her hair? Her freckles? The simple question caused her brain to crash.
“She’s so . . . beautiful,” Lexie stammered. This was also true, though not the complete truth. Separating her beauty from everything else about her undermined the veracity of the statement, and she cringed as she said it. Yet, within those words was an admission of allure, of aesthetic intrigue that could be considered, what? Attraction?
Blythe’s blue eyes brightened. “She thinks you’re pretty, too.”
Lexie couldn’t seem to make her voice work. It wasn’t just that someone considered her pretty, but that someone like the unflappable Renee had mentioned such a thing to Blythe. It was a pleasant feeling, though it did nothing to assuage her anxiety about the kinds of feelings Renee had ignited in her.
“Stick with the anatomy class you mentioned. Renee T.A.s for a bunch of the labs. Smart as hell. If you’re headed down the Bio track, she may be able to offer you some academic guidance, if you’re in the market.”
Lexie screwed up her mouth. “I don’t know what track I’m on. It’s hard enough for me to navigate the day-to-day here. Any thoughts about the future just give me a headache. I’m not ready to label myself yet.”
Blythe eyed her. “Oh, we don’t do labels here. But if not academic, Renee could give you some extracurricular ‘guidance’ that you’d really enjoy. Unless,” Blythe raised an eyebrow, “you’ve got yourself a girlfriend.”
“Why does everybody keep asking me that?”
“It’s an honest question. A couple of the girls want to know if you’re available. I’d like to know. That’s all.”
“But why not ask if I have a boyfriend? Why is everyone assuming I’m gay or whatever?”
Blythe’s spine straightened and she adjusted her glasses. “I don’t think anyone’s assuming anything, Lexie. Except maybe you.”
“Me?”
“Labels are just part of the patriarchal code of binary bullshit. They’re a way of categorizing things so people can know exactly who to hate, who to war with, and who to eliminate. Labels mean nothing to self-actualized womyn.”
Lexie rested her head on her knees. Before coming to Milton, Lexie had never heard most of the five-dollar words that Blythe dropped like bread crumbs for pigeons. Perhaps this was a language she could speak, too, if she only listened hard enough. But the listening made her more frustrated. What mysteries of the world did the women of the Pack grow up understanding that had eluded Lexie? She wondered if those slumber parties would have been worthwhile, after all, if only she had ever been invited. Now, she sat at the table of the erudite, wishing that she had the wherewithal to know what questions to ask. Lexie’s stomach lurched with anxiety, or perhaps it was the remnants of the Bloody Mary. Either way, she felt a sudden pressure to absorb all she heard to make up for lost time.
Lexie took a breath. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“If you have a binary,” Blythe said, “you have opposition. Place values on those things, good versus bad, and you have conflict. White is good, black is bad. Straight is good, gay is bad. Male is good, female is bad. And on and on. That shit serves no one but the people who deem themselves the good ones, i.e. White, Straight, Men.” Blythe’s white teeth glinted as she sneered through those words.
“You see what I’m saying?” she asked.
Lexie nodded. “Yeah, I do.” Which was true for Lexie in fact, if not in vitriol.
A soft and heavy quiet sank between them. “I don’t have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. No ‘friend’ of any kind, really,” Lexie said.
“Alright.” Blythe’s tongue skimmed along the crests of her incisors. “But I don’t care about your relationship status, Lexie. Though I’m happy to hear you’re unencumbered by such exhaustions as love. I should be so clever.”
Lexie let another silent, weighty moment pass between them before asking, “So, are all of you, like lesbians? Or whatever?”
It was obvious to Lexie that Mitch was, and that Blythe had to be by transitivity. But the rest . . . it was confusing.
“Again with the labels. Female sexuality is so terrifying to men that they need to designate those women they can sleep with, and those they can’t. It places women in a hierarchy: If you’re available for sex, you have meaning to men. If you’re not, well, what good are you, right? That’s the beauty myth, plain and simple. A woman’s worth in this society is only how attractive and sexually available she is to men.”
“But,” Blythe said with a wink. “To answer your question, I am.”
Lexie sighed. Whatever nerve she had when Blythe had first joined her here, she was losing. She wanted to run home and leave this day behind. Lexie opened her mouth to put this plan in action when she spied Renee wandering toward them. Lexie felt doomed by the sway of Renee’s hips as she strode barefoot through the grass. Her blue cotton shorts rode so high on her thighs that they may has well have been underwear. Yet she strode so calmly, Lexie could have been fooled into believing she was on a beach in the height of summer.
Blythe smiled, “Speak of the devil.”
“And here she is,” Renee said, raising her fresh beer.
“How about you?” Blythe said with a sly smile. “You a lesbian, Renee?”
“Not at all,” Renee replied. “That’s just a vicious rumor spread by all the women I’ve slept with.” The two chuckled as Lexie tried to bury her face between her knees.“We were just talking about you,” Blythe said as Renee lowered herself to the ground, her legs folding up like tent poles beneath her. “Lexie was saying how beautiful you are.”
Lexie prayed for the sky gods to crack open the clouds and drench them in a great, cold rain, to create lightning and thunder and mass chaos, so she could flee in peace.
But no rain came, only Renee’s voice, “Likewise, ladies. Likewise.”
Renee rested her head on Blythe’s blue-jeaned thighs. Blythe peered over her, their faces in reverse, and leaned down for a kiss. Their chins grazed each others’ noses. It was a sensual kiss, moist and soft, and Renee uttered a nearly imperceptible sound of pleasure. Lexie’s eyes rested on Renee’s lips, as soft and inviting as an overstuffed sofa upholstered in satin.
The two women separated and turned to Lexie, her face scrunched up with pitiable confusion.
“Yes?” Renee drew out the word, turning the syllable into a bemused question. Lexie shook her head, hoping they’d drop the subject.
Renee picked at the label of her beer bottle as Blythe tangled her fingers in her thick, fluffy hair.
“It’s okay to be confused, Lexie,” said Blythe, “but there’s no dignity in self-censorship. The rest of the world is all too willing to silence you. Don’t make it any easier for them.”
“What about Mitch?” Lexie blurted, then lowered her voice, worried she might summon yet another one of them to her lawn chair refuge. “I just thought that you and he . . .”
“She is my partner, yes,” Blythe corrected.
“Oh,” Lexie replied, her confusion mounting. “Sorry, I just asked, um, her and she said ‘he’ works, too.”
“She’s mistaken. There is no place for the male pronoun in the Pack,” Blythe said. Lexie cringed. She regretted having brought this up, particularly without Mitch present to defend his point of view on the matter. But then, something about Blythe’s domineering bluntness made Lexie think that, even if he were here, he would keep quiet.Blythe moved on. “To address what I believe was your original point, Renee and I love each other deeply. We are sisters until the end, like all the women here. Renee is closer to me than most; inner sanctum, you could call it. We’ve been through a lot together.”
Renee smirked, “Nah, babe, I think she meant, ‘Are we sleeping together?’”
“No! I wasn’t--”