The message was a long one. Well, okay, you asked, so I’ll try to give you a good answer. You never seem interested in guys. You don’t look at them, but you do look at girls. You never talk about wanting guys or even which celebrities you think are hot. On the other hand, when a hot girl is around, you get all weird and flustered.
Yolanda instantly wrote back. I had a boyfriend! She sat with her fists clenched, the phone right in front of her so she could grab it the second it vibrated. It did so less than a minute later.
Rochelle: I know you dated Truman, but you never seemed that into him. You were more like friends who sometimes held hands than a couple. You guys never seemed to have chemistry. You seemed to just want a boyfriend more than you wanted him in particular.
Yolanda: Wtf? We have a kid!
Rochelle: Which means you had sex once. It doesn’t say if you were into it or if you enjoyed it. Or if you had it again since Jessie was conceived.
The song came to an end, and Yolanda was jerked into motion when the club went silent. She hastily clicked on the first thing she saw on the screen. It was the same song she had played less than half an hour ago, but it would do. At this point in the night, the clubgoers were drunk enough to dance to anything.
Once that was set up, she looked at her phone again. There was already another message from Rochelle. There’s a good amount of gay people with kids, you know. It doesn’t mean anything. People get married, have kids, then figure out years later that they’re not actually attracted to their spouses. You wouldn’t be the first by a long shot.
Yolanda: Are you saying you think I’m gay, too?
Rochelle: Look… you asked why people think you’re gay, so I’m telling you. You’ve always said you’re straight, so I won't argue with that, but my honest answer as your friend is that’s not what I see. I hope you won’t hate me for that.
Yolanda slipped the phone back in her pocket, thinking about how incredibly wrong Rochelle was. They had known each other for so long, and Rochelle should have known better than to think that. She had dated Truman for close to a year, for Christ’s sake. They’d had sex practically all the time—at least once a week. And she had enjoyed it. Truman had done most of the initiating, sure, but it was pleasurable enough. She liked it. She always came… eventually.
She wasn’t a lesbian. There was no way. What Rochelle said about her looking at girls was just her imagination. She didn’t do that, she looked at men. Like… hmm… she couldn’t remember the last guy she’d been attracted to, but that hardly said anything. She was busy. Too busy for relationships. She had a job. She was a mother! Jessie took up all her time.
Yolanda glanced at the crowd, immediately looking away when she saw girls gyrating in low-cut dresses. If she was gay, she’d be attracted to those curvy bodies. She was definitely not into that, not at all. It made her stomach tighten.
Yolanda leaned back, pressing her back against the chair. So it wasn’t some personality tic or style of dressing that made people think she was into women. At least she knew she was okay in that sense, but maybe she had to give this some more thought.
Just for the hell of it, she imagined taking Whitney into her arms. She swallowed hard, imagining Whitney’s toned body pressed against her. Their lips might meet, their arms would encircle around each other. She was slightly taller, so Whitney would nestle into her arms.
Yolanda’s stomach churned. The reaction was so strong that that she cut off the fantasy there. She was repulsed by the mere idea of it! But her groin ached, and she bit her lip in dismay. What was happening to her?
She was straight, completely straight. There was no room for debate. She knew who she was, and who she always had been. There was no way that someone else could see something about her before she saw it herself. She was who she was, and everyone else was just wrong. She had nothing to worry about.
A waving hand came into her consciousness. She snapped to attention, realizing that a group of people was behind the divider. She blinked at them, unsure of what was happening. “What?”
“Hi,” a girl said. She stood an inch closer than the rest of the group, wearing a tight red top and several gold chains that dangled into her cleavage. “We were wondering if you could play a request.”
“Sure, whatever. What is it?”
The girls behind her giggled wildly as the leader spoke. “We want to hear Wannabe by the Spice Girls.”
If Yolanda was so straight, why was she so aware of that girl’s tits? Lost in thought, she clicked around on the laptop without thinking. “There you go, ladies.”
The girls erupted in even louder laughter as they thanked her and walked away. Mel B’s first line exploded across the room.
Yolanda was into guys, not girls. She sat there, trying to convince herself for another moment. She couldn’t quite do it. She took a moment to realize that she had just put on a Spice Girls song in a nightclub.
As she looked around, customers stared at her. Yolanda blinked again, coming out of her trance, and shook her head. She clicked another song, the first one that her mouse fell on. The music changed to a hip-hop beat, and people started to dance.
And Yolanda sat motionless again, wondering at herself.
Twelve
As the customers trickled out the door, Whitney cleaned up the bar, putting everything in its rightful place. The blister was a little sore, but she’d bandaged it for the moment. When she was ready, she’d go in and see her prosthetist.
Last call had been an hour ago and she had been cleaning up ever since then, so she didn’t have that much to do. She finished up just as the manager, Ron, waved her over.
Ron had a box in his hands, and Whitney assumed it was the posters they were supposed to be putting up. She walked closer to hear what Ron had to say.
“Everyone needs to go out,” Ron explained. “We’re going to absolutely flood the town with these posters. I want one on every street pole, every lamp post. I don’t want to see a single possible surface without one plastered on it.”
Even from several feet away, Whitney could see the flyers clearly enough to see the pictures of girls in white T-shirts. Under the collage of pictures was a few lines about the wet T-shirt contest.
This seemed to be news to some of the staff, and Whitney wondered if Ron hadn’t told all of them earlier. She guessed it didn’t matter. She hadn’t gotten the news directly from him, in any case.
As the others reacted, Whitney noticed they hadn’t chosen teams yet. Some of them were joining up to carpool together—but they were only deciding that now. Whitney looked around, wondering why exactly Yolanda had wanted to go with her.
As Ron told them to team up, Maxwell approached Whitney. “Want to team up?”
“Sorry, bud. I already made plans to go with Yolanda.”
Maxwell waggled his eyebrows at her. “Have fun with that.”
As Yolanda came to her side, Whitney avoided the others’ eyes. They weren’t looking at her, but she made sure to look at the floor anyway. She hoped no one would come to the wrong conclusion. Whatever Maxwell meant by his little comment, it wasn’t true. She and Yolanda were just doing this platonically, and she was completely fine with that. She could deal with working with a straight girl she had feelings for.
Jumping down from the stage, Ron proceeded to hand a stack of posters to each team. Everyone groaned as they saw how big the piles were. “These are going to take us forever,” Maxwell said.
“You’re working with someone,” Ron reminded him.
Maxwell sighed and turned to his partner. “Right. You want to get started now?”
As the others dispersed, Whitney looked at Yolanda. “They must be crazy for going out now,” she said with a yawn.
“Are they? At least they’re getting it over with.”
“At this hour, they can’t even put them up inside stores. They can only put them outside.”
“It’s a start,” Yolanda pointed out. “If they staple one to every pole in town, th
ey won’t even have to go back and put them in stores.”
“Are you saying that’s what you want to do, too?” Whitney asked.
“Only if you’re up for it,” Yolanda said.
Whitney’s eyelids were heavy. It was past three-thirty in the morning. “Tomorrow might be better.”
They took a few steps toward the door, still chatting mildly about this and that. As they got to the parking lot, Whitney looked at her car. The only thing ahead of her was a drive alone, and then a night in a cold bed by herself with only Valentine for company.
“You know, I might be up for putting them up now after all.”
“Sounds good,” Yolanda said. “That works for me, since I walked here today.”
They got into Whitney’s car together, and Whitney took a breath at having Yolanda in her passenger seat. Sitting so close to her like this, she could smell her fruity shampoo.
“So, let’s head to Main and Highton,” Yolanda said. “I think there will be a lot of poles there.”
A little turned on by their proximity, Whitney exhaled. She made herself recite the beers the nightclub had on tap to get her mind off Yolanda’s body. Heineken, Corona, Guinness, Bud Light, PBR… By the time she got to the end, she was feeling slightly better.
She managed to drive to the intersection Yolanda had mentioned, where they got out of the car. The first pole was right by where they parked. Whitney figured the double-sided mounting tape was going to be particularly tricky to deal with. “Here, you cut the tape and I’ll put up posters,” she said.
“No, it will be easier if I hold the tape and you cut it.”
They tried it that way, and it worked—although again, Whitney’s closeness to Yolanda made it hard to concentrate. She could feel the heat emanating off Yolanda’s slender body. Knowing Yolanda’s dark eyes would set her on fire, she avoided her gaze.
“That looks good,” Whitney said, taking a step back. That got her a little further from Yolanda, and also allowed her to take a look at the first poster. It did look pretty decent.
“We did good work,” Yolanda said.
Whitney looked at the stack of posters in her hand. “Now, to do that about five hundred more times.” It was only a slight exaggeration. As they walked to the next pole and the next, the stack of posters hardly seemed to get smaller. Whitney had mixed feelings about the amount that they had to do. While it was extra work, it also meant spending extra time with Yolanda.
“This could go faster if we put up ten posters on each pole,” she joked.
“What, five on one side, five on the other?” Yolanda asked, gesturing.
“I meant more like putting a stack of ten and taping it down. That would hold, right?”
As they kept walking, Whitney felt more comfortable with Yolanda again, as if all the awkwardness had never happened. “This is kind of fun,” Whitney said. “It’s kind of calming with how repetitive it is.”
“Calming? More like boring,” Yolanda said. “We need some music to liven this up.”
“Do you have some?”
“I’m a DJ, so, duh. I never go anywhere without music.”
Yolanda pulled out her phone. Whitney noticed that she grimaced at whatever was on the screen when she opened it. But she went to the music player, and after a moment, the sound of death metal blared out of the speakers.
“This is what you listen to?” Whitney asked, covering her ears.
“Sure. I mean, I listen to everything, but metal owns my heart. Why, what do you like?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure you wouldn’t have anything like it on there.”
“Try me,” Yolanda said, raising an eyebrow. “My iPod has a hundred and twenty-eight gigabytes of music on it. That’s enough to listen to for forty days straight.”
Whitney shrugged, cutting another piece of tape. She couldn’t say that the screeching sounds were pleasurable to her, so she might as well tell Yolanda what she was into. “All right. I like deep house music.”
“Deep house? That’s not even unusual. Just a second.” Yolanda tapped on her phone, and a second later the sound of Armand Van Helden came into the air.
Whitney looked at her in surprise. “Not bad. I wouldn’t have thought you would have this. Then again, I don’t even know what you think of the music we usually play at the club.”
“I like it,” Yolanda said. “Sure wouldn’t be too fun if I didn’t. I like just about everything, though.”
“Did you ever play an instrument?”
“Only ten years of piano and eight of guitar,” Yolanda grumbled. “That really helped with my social life when I was a kid.”
Whitney had to laugh. “You’re lucky, though. I would love to have some ability with music. I’m completely useless.”
Yolanda pulled another paper off the stack and held it up to the pole, not looking at Whitney. “Maybe I’ll give you a lesson sometime.”
Whitney licked her lips, which were suddenly dry. Yolanda was seriously confusing her. She kept finding new reasons to spend time with her, yet still insisted it was platonic.
In the light of the streetlamps, Yolanda’s face was shadowed and her long ponytail hung down into oblivion. The sight made Whitney’s head spin.
How had Whitney ever thought this could be platonic?
Thirteen
Yolanda should have felt stiff as she put up flyers with Whitney. Being this close to a woman who was attracted to her should have made her ill at ease. She would have thought the closeness that sprang from working together with Whitney would leave her uncomfortable.
But being here in Whitney’s presence felt as natural as breathing. Yolanda pressed a piece of tape to a pole, her hand shaking ever so slightly. If she were to admit it to herself, she was actually enjoying this. Spending time with Whitney was kind of nice.
When Yolanda got a few steps ahead of Whitney, Yolanda opened her phone. There was a text from Rochelle that she hadn’t replied to earlier. Whitney was struggling with the tape scrunching up, so Yolanda tapped out a quick reply. I do still say that I’m straight. There’s no question about it.
As she slid the phone back into her pocket, she wondered again if that was completely true. Whitney looked different under the streetlamps than she did in the club. And different from in the light of day, like when they had been on the hike. Here Whitney looked softer, gentler.
Whitney was a beautiful girl, no doubt about it. She could almost imagine running her fingers through her blonde hair. But why would she want to imagine that? Her gut tightened, and something funny happened between her legs. She wasn’t into Whitney. She wasn’t into any girls.
But, as she looked at Whitney, she had to admit that if she was going to find a girl attractive, it would be Whitney. Whitney just had that style, that body, and Yolanda could admire it without it being gay. Yolanda could see what someone else might see in Whitney without that meaning she was into her herself.
Yolanda cleared her throat, wondering what Rochelle would say to that. “How did you get into bartending?” she asked, trying to change the subject.
“By juggling,” Whitney said, and laughed.
Yolanda liked the sound of Whitney’s laugh. She had laughed at her own joke without Yolanda even knowing why it was a joke. Somehow that genuineness appealed to Yolanda.
So she liked Whitney’s personality, too. So what? That didn’t mean anything. They were friends, that was all.
She felt Whitney’s eyes on her and realized she was supposed to respond. “Juggling?” she asked, her voice tight.
They moved to the next pole as Whitney spoke. “I took it up when I got back from Iraq. It helped me take control of my life. Keeping balls in the air was almost like a metaphor for what I had to do. I heard about flair bartending, so I took a course in bartending, and then I specialized in the fancy stuff. There’s only a few bars in town, so I jumped on the opening at Heat Wave.”
“That’s quite the path,” Yolanda said. “I got here similarly, actually. N
ot a whole lot of choice in town, and moving wasn’t exactly an option what with my family being here.”
Whitney nodded. “Hey, let’s go to the other side of the street and make our way back. We’ve gone at least two blocks from my car.”
“You’re right. I didn’t realize how long we’ve been doing this.”
As Whitney walked ahead of her, Yolanda checked her phone again. It really doesn’t matter to me either way, Rochelle had written. I support you no matter who you’re into, guys, girls, or little green aliens.
The message was little comfort to Yolanda. She’d heard the same sentiment many times before; not just from Rochelle, but from all corners.
At the intervention her family staged, they had assured her that they were okay with her sexuality and encouraged her to come out. When she said she was straight, they nodded and then looked at each other with concerned eyes. They might as well have said out loud, “We don’t believe you.”
She had started dating Truman shortly after, come to think about it.
Yolanda’s parents had told her it was okay to be gay from the moment she first learned the word. They had almost pushed the message on her, making sure she got to see movies and TV shows with positive representations of gay characters.
It had quieted for a while during her relationship, and then they’d been caught up in being grandparents after the baby was born. A year or so after Jessie’s birth, it had started up again. “We love you no matter who you love,” they had told her.
They just wouldn’t accept that who she loved was men. As many times as she told them, it didn’t seem to get through their heads. It was ironic that their message did the opposite of what it was intended to do. Instead of making her feel more accepted, it drove in the point that they didn’t accept what she told them about her sexuality.
She wrote a quick message back to Rochelle before they got to the next pole. Thanks, but I don’t need your support. I just need people to listen to what I’m telling them. I’m straight. That’s all there is to it.
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