What We Left Behind

by Robin Talley

  At least, that’s what I think will happen. I haven’t talked to Toni in a while. T always says it’s never a good time to talk on video chat, which I understand given the horrific roommate situation. When I send a text, I always get a reply, but lately when I call Toni’s phone, it’s been going straight to voice mail. Then I get a text half an hour later with an apology saying Toni was out with the guys and didn’t hear the phone ring.

  The thing is, I know that happens. It happens to me, too. There’s a lot going on for both of us. A couple of weeks ago I started going out to the middle school in Inwood with Briana to coach their debate team for our volunteer project, and I realized that holy crap, it takes a long time to prep for debate-team coaching, and it also takes a really long time to get to Inwood. Between homework and volunteering and the alternative spring break group I joined just in case I’m still here in the spring, plus all my regular life stuff—going to the gym, hanging out with Carroll, trying to read the news so I have a vague idea of what’s going on outside the Village—it’s really hard to find time to sign on to chat in the first place.

  It’s just that sometimes it feels like I’m the only one who’s even trying.

  Well, if Toni doesn’t want to talk to me, that’s my own fault. I’m the one who lied.

  I shake my head. Subtly, so Samantha won’t see. I don’t want to think about that now. I don’t want to think about that ever.

  “Right, right, okay.” Sam’s quiet for a minute, and I think she’s going to let me read. Then she asks, “How do you know how to kiss? Who starts?”

  I give up and close my laptop. “Either one of us. Same as with straight people. You don’t always let guys kiss you first, do you?”

  “Yeah.” Samantha says this like I’m really dumb. “That’s how you’re supposed to do it. Let them think they’re the boss.”

  Considering that she’s wearing about three pounds of black glitter eyeliner, a black leather skirt and dark green fishnets, my roommate is really very old-school.

  Carroll is coming by soon. We’re going shopping for the outfit I’ll wear to the Halloween dance at Harvard. Samantha has been fascinated by this ever since I told her I was going. She’s been fascinated since she found out I was gay in the first place.

  That was Carroll’s doing. When they met, the first thing he said to Samantha was, “Hey, you’re from the South, right? Will your parents yank you out of school when they find out your roommate’s a gay?”

  Samantha thought he was joking. She played along for a while. Then she went online and saw the photos of Toni and me.

  She turned out to be totally fine with it all. I think that was partly because this way she got to ask a real, live gay person all the questions that had been building up in her head for eighteen years.

  I’ve steered clear of mentioning the word genderqueer, though. I’m dreading a whole new round of interrogation. Plus, I’m still trying to avoid thinking about all that stuff that came up when Toni told me about the pronouns. I’ve done some research, so I feel like I have a better grip on the basics, but Toni’s crew talks about all the nuances of gender day in and day out. Anything I say is bound to sound dumb. It’s safest to avoid the topic altogether.

  “Are you going to get a dress with rainbows on it?” Samantha asks me.

  I laugh, remembering Toni’s story about the girl who always makes rainbow cupcakes for their UBA meetings. “No way. Carroll wouldn’t allow that. Too tacky.”

  “How come you’re going shopping with Carroll? Is he a fashion genius? Like Tim Gunn?”

  “Tim Gunn has nothing on me,” Carroll says through our open door. “Except about forty years.”

  I bang my imaginary cymbals for his little joke. “Buh-dum-dum!”

  “You ready to go?” He eyes my sweatshirt and jeans. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  “What difference does it make what I wear to buy clothes?”

  “At least put some decent shoes on. You have to wear heels to try on dresses. Otherwise your calves won’t be the right shape.”

  I laugh, but Carroll is totally straight-faced.

  “I don’t have any high heels,” I say.

  “Then what are you wearing to the dance?” Samantha asks. “Flip-flops?”

  I’ve never worn high heels in my life, and I’m not starting now. When I tell Samantha and Carroll that, they look aghast.

  “Trust me,” Carroll says. “The missus will love you in heels.”

  “Toni likes me to be comfortable,” I say.

  Carroll makes a face at Sam. “Lesbos. So resistant to change.”

  Sam laughs.

  I give up, say goodbye to Sam and tow Carroll out of the building. He gets over his shoe-related huff and leads me to his favorite vintage shop. We stroll down sidewalks packed with people sipping out of coffee cups and chattering into hands-free phones. I love this time of year, when it’s cold enough for a sweater but not a coat, when the summer smell of sweat and fried food has faded into crisp, clean fall. The air buzzes with energy. Nothing in Maryland has ever felt like New York City in the fall.

  The store Carroll brings me to is crowded and loud. It’s mainly other college students, plus the occasional middle-aged hipster giving us resentful looks. Before we’ve made it halfway in, Carroll has handed me four dresses and is combing the racks for more.

  “How many of these am I supposed to try on?” I ask.

  “As many as it takes! This is tough, because it’s a Halloween dance so it should look like a costume, but we don’t want to go too far because we need to make a good impression on all the stuck-up Harvard people. We’ll aim for a chic, Mad Men vibe but mix it up with some seventies glam.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say. “Look, sweetie, I don’t have time to try on a hundred outfits. I have to finish my Met Studies reading and go over my notes for the debate team, and then tonight I have an alternative spring break meeting.”

  Carroll throws another dress onto my pile. “Please tell me you’re not dragging me to one of those again.”

  “Don’t you want to be more involved in the planning?”

  “I trust you and the rest of the activities geeks. Just let me know how much sunscreen to bring. Besides, I have my own extracurriculars to worry about.”

  “You do? That’s great!” Except for the times he’s tagged along with me, Carroll hasn’t joined any student groups or signed up for any volunteer programs. I’m always bugging him about it because everyone says you have to have good extracurriculars to get into a decent grad school. “What are you doing?”

  “I think his name is Victor.” Carroll throws something pink and lacy at me. “Here, try this one, too.”

  “I refuse to wear pink.” I hand the dress back. “Sorry. Anyway, seriously, what club did you join?”

  “I was serious. Victor and I met up for the first time last night. Didn’t go all the way, but maybe next weekend. Come on, let’s hit the dressing room.”

  I follow him to the back of the store, struggling under the weight of all the fabric. “How did you meet this guy? In class?”

  “Nah. He doesn’t go here.”

  “What, does he go to Columbia?”

  “Uh-uh. Columbia’s for boring people.”

  “So where does he go?”

  “He’s, uh. He’s already out of school.”

  I stop with my hand on the dressing room curtain. “Please tell me it’s not that sketchy guy from the club.”

  “It’s not that guy.” Carroll shoves me inside the room and pushes the curtain closed. “Which isn’t to say Victor’s not sketchy.”

  “You met him online, didn’t you?” I call through the curtain.

  “Guilty,” he calls back. “I’m an internet skeezeball.”

  “Why can’t you meet guys at school like every
one else? It’s not as if NYU has a shortage of attractive gay guys.”

  “That may be, but I prefer to play at my own level. Okay, show me.”

  I pull back the curtain and pose for him in the first dress. It’s blue and frumpy. Carroll shakes his head. “Next.”

  The next dress is red and way too short. I don’t want to show him, but Carroll insists.

  “I don’t trust your judgment,” he says. “You chose to put on that awful gray plaid hoodie the other day. I still have the PTSD.”

  I open the curtain. Carroll’s eyebrows shoot sky-high when he sees the hemline.

  “I see we’re leaving nothing to the imagination, eh?” he says. I yank the curtain closed, and he passes a black-and-purple dress to me through the gap.

  “I told you, I don’t care what I look like,” I say. “Neither does Toni, usually. It’s weird that T asked me to go shopping for this.”

  “She knows you have me in your life now. She’s probably expecting me to transform you into a New York fashionista. I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint her. Sure, the raw materials are there, but if you won’t even put on a pair of kitten heels, I don’t know what I’m supposed to—oh, hey, that one might work.”

  The black-and-purple dress is okay now that I’ve got it on. It’s not too short. But it’s got way too much lace, and it’s too tight.

  “I can’t breathe in it,” I say. “See if they have it in the next size up.”

  “You’re not supposed to breathe,” he says. “Did Marilyn Monroe breathe? No. She knew how to sacrifice.”

  “Marilyn Monroe died. Give me the next dress.”

  “No.” He comes inside the dressing room and pulls the curtain closed behind him. “We can make this one work. Here, hold your breath and I’ll rehook the corset. You did it all wrong.”

  “Sorry. I’m not up on my vintage corset hooking techniques.”

  He unhooks the back of the dress and does it back up again. “You’ll have to wear special underwear with this. A bustier, maybe.”

  “How did you learn about bustiers in rural New Jersey?”

  “It’s not that rural. We have YouTube. Hang on. I’ll see if I can find one.”

  I do my best not to suffocate while I wait. Two minutes later Carroll is back, pulling the curtain closed behind him and clutching a purple witch’s hat and a black lace wraparound thing with bra cups. It looks like a torture implement.

  “No damn way,” I tell him.

  “Relax,” he says. “Trust me, the girlfriend will love it. Here, hold still.”

  I put the hat on and try not to move while he jiggles the contraption under the top half of the dress. It’s kind of awkward, because we’re friends, but I’m not sure we’re necessarily the class of friends who can see each other naked yet. But Carroll spends the whole time muttering curse words about how the hooks aren’t working, and it’s about as nonsexy a moment as you can get.

  “Ta-da,” he finally says.

  It does look good. Plus it’s not as hard to breathe this way. Who’d have thought a torture contraption would lessen the pain?

  “There’s no way I’ll ever get this on again without your help,” I say.

  “It’s not rocket science. Get the girlfriend’s roommate to do it. I’ll draw her out a diagram.”

  I give up resisting. I even let him pick out some close-enough-to-flat shoes for me with buckles on them that look sufficiently witch-like. Only after I’ve spent my entire credit card allotment for the month does he allow me to leave the store.

  Carroll is grinning. I am, too, actually. That was more fun than I expected.

  “I’m famished,” Carroll says. “You have to reward my expertise by buying me lunch.”

  “I don’t have any money left. Your expertise has already cost me two hundred dollars.”

  “Well worth it,” he says. “Fine, I’ll treat, but we have to go somewhere cheap.”

  We wind up in a tiny Indian restaurant. Carroll has never had Indian food before, so I try to explain the menu and keep him from doing imitations of Apu from The Simpsons when the staff are in earshot.

  While we’re waiting for our food, Carroll unrolls one of the huge paper napkins on our table. “Do you have a pen?”

  I give him one.

  “Leaving your phone number for the waiter?” I ask. Our waiter is in his seventies and keeps calling me “baby doll.”

  “No.” Carroll chews on the pen, then writes at the top of the napkin.

  “Aww!” I laugh and clap my hands, scaring the dog sleeping by the front door.

  Carroll chews on his pen for another second. Then he writes:

  I stop laughing. “Aww.”

  Carroll ducks his head.

  I turn the napkin around to read it again. “Can I keep it?”

  “Sure.” He’s blushing.

  My phone buzzes with a text. I glance at the screen long enough to see that it’s from Toni, but I’m sure it isn’t anything urgent. I tuck the phone away.

  “Thanks for this,” I say. “I really, really love it.”

  The waiter brings our food. Carroll starts eating too fast.

  “Don’t do that,” I tell him. I fold the napkin into quarters and tuck it into my bag so it won’t get torn. I wonder if I can tape it up on my wall later or if that would be weird. “Seriously, slow down. It’s spicy.”

  He doesn’t listen. Soon he’s reaching for the water, downing a whole glass in one gulp.

  “You should eat some bread,” I say. “It’s better for dealing with the spice.”

  His eyes are watering. “Thanks. I don’t know why I always make a fool of myself whenever you’re around.” He blows his nose into another napkin.

  I laugh. “Probably because I’m already a way bigger fool than you’ll ever be.” I pick up one of those tiny ultraspicy peppers and act like I’m going to stick it in my mouth.

  “Stop! Please, I don’t want anyone to suffer on my behalf.” Carroll grabs the pepper out of my hand. “If you must martyr yourself, do it for someone less pathetic.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I stir my curry. “What’s with all the self-deprecating comments today, by the way? Is this about that guy you hooked up with? Victor?”

  “We didn’t really hook up. And, maybe.” He sighs. “I don’t know. I just feel like I should’ve gotten it over with by now.”

  “What?” I say. He rolls his eyes. “Sex?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I’ve been in New York for what, two months? And what do I have to show for it?”

  “A superfabulous new best friend who doesn’t care if you’re a virgin or not?”

  “Aren’t you a sweetheart,” he says, but he doesn’t smile. “I just want to do this right. It’s been eighteen long, lonely years.”

  I remember feeling like that. Back when I lived in Brooklyn I was always in this huge hurry to have a ton of girlfriends. It was like I thought someone somewhere was keeping score. I wound up having sex for the first time with this girl from my old school who was so uninteresting I’m not even friends with her online anymore.

  The whole episode was just really disappointing. It made me not want to try again, at anything.

  Then we moved to Maryland and I met Toni and none of that stuff mattered anymore. I couldn’t care less what my stats were or how they compared to anyone else’s. It isn’t about sticking to some made-up timeline. It’s about being with someone you really care about.

  I feel bad that Carroll doesn’t know what that’s like. He’ll meet the right person sooner or later, though. Probably sooner. Like he said, this is New York.

  “The thing is,” I say, “hooking up with random sketchy guys who leave you feeling like crap the next day isn’t doing it right. You’ve got to wait until you genuinely like someone and take it f
rom there.”

  “I like lots of people,” he says. “The problem is, they have to like me back.”

  “Oh.” Awkward. “Maybe I can set you up with someone. Briana knows a ton of guys.”

  “I don’t need you to set me up. I’m a drama major. I’ve got gay guys crawling out my ears.”

  “So, with all these guys around, you really think there’s not a single one who might be interested?”

  He stabs a piece of chicken with his fork. “New topic. Did you say one of your brothers is gay?”

  All right, then. Later, I’ll ask Briana if she can think of any nice, cute, age-appropriate guys for Carroll.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Will. He’s the oldest.”

  “How old was he when he told your parents?”

  “Hmm.” I do the math. “Seventeen, I guess. I was in fourth grade.”

  “Were you there when he did it?”

  “Yeah.” I smile, remembering. “It was actually kind of funny. He was taking this fancy cooking class, and he decided to make our parents breakfast before he told them. So on a Sunday morning he got up superearly, while our other brothers were still asleep, and he made a ton of croissants with different fillings. There were chocolate and almond and ham and cheese and all these others. Back then I was obsessed with almond croissants—well, I still am, actually. Anyway, that morning I smelled them baking and I went downstairs in my pajamas and made him give me one right out of the oven. Just then my parents came to the top of the stairs. They were looking right down into the kitchen. They saw all the croissants on the table and me sitting there burning my tongue on this piping-hot almond croissant, and Will is in his apron with baking soda all over the floor, and he yells up the stairs, ‘Mom, Dad, I made you breakfast! Also, I have something to tell you!’ So our parents come downstairs and sit at the table, and Will sits down, too, but there’s this big pile of croissants in between them, and my dad pushes the croissants out of the way so he can see Will and he says, ‘Son, is this about your sexuality?’”

  I burst out laughing, because it’s still funny after all this time. Even though back then I’d had no idea what was happening.

  Carroll doesn’t laugh.