by Harper Bliss
“No, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s my fault. I handled it all wrong. I mean, I didn’t want to…”
“What’s going on? You’re unraveling in front of me,” Sheryl says.
Oh, what the hell. I need to talk to someone about this. Sheryl might not be the ideal choice, what with her being my boss and Caitlin’s friend, but she’s also an open-minded, intelligent and strong woman, whom I’ve known for a long time.
I close her office door behind me and sit in the visitor chair unbidden.
“She asked me out. I said yes. Then I realized I couldn’t possibly go out with her, and said no. She’s hardly said a word to me at the Pink Bean since, which I get. But having to welcome her here is so awkward. I’m sorry to let you down because of something so stupid.”
“Why did you change your mind about going out with her?” Sheryl drums her fingertips on her desk.
“Because… I shouldn’t have said yes in the first place, she just caught me off guard. And she’s Caitlin James. Of course my gut instinct was to say yes. But can you imagine her and me on a date?” I shake my head. “The thought is ludicrous.”
“Why?” There’s genuine surprise in Sheryl’s voice.
“Because she is Caitlin James and I am me.”
“I’m used to much better arguments from you.”
“It doesn’t make sense. I can’t for the life of me figure out why she would even ask me out.”
“Maybe because she likes you?”
“What? No.” I shake my head to emphasize my beliefs.
“Why is that so impossible for you to fathom?” Sheryl gives an incredulous huff.
“It’s just not possible.”
Sheryl draws up her eyebrows. “Well, I say it’s perfectly plausible.” Sheryl’s tone is insistent. “And I’ve known Caitlin for a very long time.”
“You really think so?” Sheryl wouldn’t make something like that up. “Because I find it very hard to believe she would genuinely be interested in someone like me.”
“Oh, Josephine.” Sheryl looks at her watch. “I wish we had more time for this conversation.” She shakes her head. “I will tell you this, though. A while back Caitlin asked me for some names of experts on body positivity. I told her that despite your relatively low profile, Caitlin could do a lot worse than to approach you.”
“You did?” I’m surprised, but feel too uneasy because of having put Sheryl in a position where she feels she has to cheer me up to have her words sink in properly.
“Of course, but if I’d known you felt this way about yourself, Josephine… Most students who have come as far as you have don’t. All the things we discuss in lectures and tutorials… But I guess real life is more complicated than that.”
I’m having trouble keeping up with Sheryl’s train of thought.
“Let me tell you one more thing.” She puts her spectacles back on and leans over her desk, regarding me intently. “You are just as worthy to go on a date with Caitlin as any other woman she has ever asked out.” She scoffs, probably remembering Caitlin’s reputation. “And there is absolutely nothing wrong with you and her going out. Nothing.” She pauses. “Well, she is quite a bit older than you, but that’s not the issue at hand here, I believe.”
I so desperately want to believe Sheryl’s words, but she doesn’t know what it’s like. She hasn’t walked in my shoes—she can’t possibly fathom how much my feet, and all the rest of me, suffer under the weight of my body.
“Thank you for saying that.” I get up. “She’s about to arrive. I’d better welcome her.”
“Okay. Josephine, I always mean what I say.” Sheryl pushes her chair back. “Let me just put my vest on and I’ll go with you.”
There must be three hundred students attending Caitlin’s lecture, many from departments other than ours. The auditorium is filled to the brim and at the back there are double rows of people wanting to catch a glimpse of her.
On the podium, she shines. She talks with an ease I admire and perhaps also envy a little. I’ve watched numerous YouTube videos of her but it’s different when you’re in the same room. The energy she projects and the charisma that drips off her have the audience enthralled.
I try to attentively listen, drink in every word she says about the differences between feminism in the United States and Australia, how in some fields we are years behind and in others we’ve just naturally taken a huge lead. But seeing her up there is distracting, even for an academic like me. During the ten minutes Sheryl and I spent with her before the lecture she gave me the cold shoulder again. For someone who thrives on making herself as invisible as possible—oh, the irony—it stung. Having her attention taken away from me does not feel like a relief at all.
I look at her, at her confident hand gestures and the way she can get the crowd to break out into laughter on cue, I realize I might have made a mistake. No matter what Sheryl or anyone else says, I’m still convinced Caitlin and I shouldn’t go on a date—the incongruence of it is too much for my mind—but I should have handled it better when I said no. I never believed Caitlin could have felt rejected by the likes of me.
I’ll need to talk to her again. Ask her out for a drink. Maybe some sort of friendship can be salvaged from the mess I’ve made of this. Because she’s too much to ignore, to just forget about. Seeing her nearly every day at the Pink Bean isn’t helping—and it’s not as if she’ll suddenly start frequenting another coffee shop. I need to make this right, somehow.
The audience breaks out into a loud cheer. I missed the end of Caitlin’s lecture. But these are modern times and guest lectures like this one get recorded and the video distributed online. I’ll be able to watch it over and over again.
I get up from my seat in the front and position myself against the wall, waiting for the auditorium to empty.
“That was amazing.” Eva sidles up to me. “Can you introduce me?”
“I’m not sure.” I can just about suppress a groan.
“Oh, come on. I thought you were thick as thieves now?”
“Some other time, okay? Look at her. The woman is being bombarded.” I nod at the front of the room where Caitlin is being surrounded by a mob of enthusiastic students. Good thing I’m not on bouncer duty.
“Yeah, don’t really want to mingle with those first-year groupies. So beneath me,” Eva says. “I’ll take a rain check.”
“I don’t remember giving you one.” I shoot her a grin.
“I know you’ll come through for me either way, buddy.” She winks. “See you later.”
I watch Eva walk off and wait patiently for the crowd to thin. It takes forever and Sheryl finally steps in. As the group of people disperses, Caitlin appears in my field of vision again, and something coils in my stomach. Can I ever truly be friends with her without constantly pining for more? Provided she would even want to still be friends after the way I treated her.
“Will you escort Caitlin to wherever she wants to go please, Josephine? I’ll catch up with you later. I just got a message from the Dean.” She rolls her eyes. “He wants a debrief. Now. Tsk.”
“I still know my way around this place, you know,” Caitlin says. “I was only a student here for about ten years.”
“That may be so, but we can’t have you wandering around here all alone. Not for yours or the students’ sakes.” Sheryl elbows Caitlin in the arm gently. “Gotta go. Why don’t we meet at The Flying Pig later?”
“Do you have an office here?” Caitlin asks me, her voice flat.
“Yes.”
“Can I use it for a couple of minutes just to decompress?”
“Of course.” We walk to my office. Though the turn-out for Caitlin’s lecture was big, the campus is quiet because it’s Friday afternoon.
What I call my office is a glorified broom closet, filled to the brim with books and papers. There’s really no room for two people in there.
“I’ll give you some space.” If I had known Caitlin was going to be in my office, I would have
made it look a lot more acceptable. Just before I close the door behind me, I turn around. Caitlin’s looking around, her eyes flicking left to right, her presence making the room feel even smaller than it is. “Can we talk for a second? I’m really sorry about the other day. I didn’t mean to make you feel…” Feel what? Christ. I should have prepared this little speech better, though I know that no matter how many times I practiced the words in advance, they would never come out the way I would want them to.
“Can I sit in your chair?” she asks.
“Sure.” I lean awkwardly against the door frame.
“Close the door, please.” It’s uncanny how it already feels more like her office—her turf—than mine.
I close the door and lean against it.
“I’m listening,” she says, making me feel like I’m taking an oral exam I haven’t studied for at all.
“I went about it all wrong. I hope you didn’t even for a minute feel it was about you or, er, that it was a rejection of some sort, because it wasn’t.”
“I agree that you handled it wrong. And please explain how I’m not supposed to perceive it as a rejection when it so clearly was?”
“Because…” I hate having to stand up like this, towering over her—over the entire room. “I wasn’t rejecting you. I was rejecting myself as someone suitable to go out with you.”
“And how is that different exactly?”
“You know I’m a fan of yours. I’ve admired you for years. Surely you must know it’s not about you.”
Caitlin shakes her head. “Those are two very different things. It’s not because you’re a fan of my work that you’d want to go out with me. I’ve admired many a person in the course of my life, but I’ve rarely wanted to take them out for a drink. Well, at least the kind of drink I wanted to take you out for.”
“I’m not good enough,” I blurt out. Oh shit. I bite my bottom lip, hoping it will stave off tears.
“Says who?” Her eyes flick over me.
“Says me,” I stammer.
“And who made you the judge of that?”
Pull yourself together now, I say to myself. I take a deep breath and respond to her glance. “How about we go for a drink and try to be friends?”
“Friends, huh?” Caitlin pushes herself out of my chair. “We can try.” Something playful crosses her face. “I’ve always liked a challenge.”
“I’m not usually drawn to such lack of confidence,” Caitlin says. We’re sitting in The Flying Pig, waiting for Sheryl, who has already texted me to say she’ll be a while. “But I guess it took some nerve to say what you just said. In its own way.”
I’m not sure what to reply to that. “I’m sorry,” I say, again, feeling foolish.
“You must stop apologizing for who you are, Josephine. I’m surprised that wasn’t the very first thing Sheryl ever taught you.”
“Perhaps it was, but I might have forgotten.” I give her a small smile. “My first class with Sheryl was quite some time ago.”
“Were you immediately smitten with her?” Caitlin’s drawing circles around the rim of her glass again.
I puff a breath through my nose. “No, though she was very impressive.”
“She’s been through a lot. I’m not even sure this is a good place for us to meet, even though she’s the one who suggested it.” A quick raise of her eyebrows. “Oh damn, did I just say too much?”
I shake my head. “I know she’s a recovering alcoholic. It’s kind of hard not to when you’re her TA.”
“Phew.” Caitlin draws her lips into a smirk. “I sometimes have a tendency to speak before thinking.”
“Not today in that lecture, though. You were amazing.”
Caitlin perks up—something she always seems to do when I give her a compliment. A subtle straightening of the spine and a little glint in her eyes. “Ah, students are easy.”
“Tell me about it,” I quip.
“Tell me about you. That’s the deal I’m willing to make if you want to be friends. Until Sheryl arrives, you need to tell me some things about yourself. It’s entirely up to you what you say.” She sits there gloating.
I inhale deeply and take a sip from my wine. “Okay.” I pause to think. “I go for a run almost every day.” I search her face for any sign of surprise, but find none. She just rests her chin on an upturned palm and looks at me through hooded eyelids. “I share an apartment with my best friend Eva, who would love to meet you.” I shift on the bar stool, take another sip. “The other day when you drove up to me, I was singing a Sia song very loudly. I like to sing.”
Caitlin doesn’t interrupt me, just stares at me intently.
“I guess one of the reasons I was so reluctant to actually go out with you is because Amber said you and her had, er, you know, and it made me believe that was the type you were going for.”
“I don’t really have a type as such,” she says. “And variety is the spice of life.”
I have to laugh at that. “I have heard the rumors, of course.”
“Please, enlighten me.” Caitlin smiles back at me.
“It is said that you’re a bit of a player, I guess. Earlier, even Sheryl hinted at it. She thought I was upset because you had been up to your ‘usual tricks’ again.”
Caitlin nods thoughtfully. “I have two things to say about that.” She holds up her index finger. “The first one is a long exposé on non-monogamy, which is not what most people think it is. I won’t go into detail now, because Sheryl will surely roll her eyes at me if she hears me talking about it when she arrives. But hey, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that once we’re friends.” A sparkle in her eyes. “Second, and more importantly because I couldn’t really give a rat’s ass about my so-called reputation, why were you so upset?”
I want to take another sip but find my wine glass empty. “I was enjoying getting to know you so much. It was like a dream come true, really. When you asked me out, at first I was totally taken aback and of course I said yes. But when I started thinking about it, as I tend to do, I was sure it must have been some kind of hoax. Or the result of a nasty bet. Anything that didn’t have to do with you actually liking me and wanting to go out with me. I freaked out.”
Caitlin sucks her bottom lip into her mouth before she speaks. It makes her look even more attractive. She has dressed to impress again today in a cream pants suit and bold, red blouse. “You know what this reminds me of? My time in grad school. My friends and I, Sheryl included, used to have conversations like this all the time. Analyzing everything to death before it even had a chance to happen.” She finds my gaze with hers. “Sound familiar?”
“I guess.”
“For the record, and because some people just need certain things spelled out for them: I do like you, Josephine. But if you want me to back off and if my advances make you feel uncomfortable, then I’ll shut up. Simple as that.”
“I—” I start saying something I haven’t thought through at all when Sheryl arrives.
“Glad you two are getting along again,” she says. “Another round?”
“We can go somewhere else,” Caitlin is quick to say.
“Here is just fine. What are you having?”
When Sheryl heads to the bar, Caitlin leans over the table and says, “Even though I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, I have few regrets. Not being there for Sheryl when she needed me most and being too preoccupied with myself to even see something was going on with her is one of my biggest regrets. She’s had it rougher than most, I’ll tell you that.”
“Sometimes you have to go through stuff on your own. That’s the only way.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Sheryl comes back with the drinks. Wine for me and Caitlin, water for herself.
“The Dean must have talked your ear off,” Caitlin says.
“I think he’s about to offer you a permanent position. You know, one of those prestige professorships that have more to do with image than substance.” She chuckles.
>
“Well, thank you very much,” Caitlin says. “That’s so very American.”
Sheryl raises her glass. “Thanks for a wonderful lecture. If we can acquire you, Gender Studies will become the most popular department.”
“I’m feeling very popular right now. The other day I got approached for a position at ANBC as well. You know Zoya Das?”
“Zoya Das of the TV show with the same name?” My ears have certainly perked up.
Caitlin nods. “I met her in the States a few times and we’ve been friendly since. She called me up yesterday, asked me to come in for a meeting with the head of the Cultural News Division. It’s all set up for next Tuesday.”
“You’re moving up swiftly in the world,” Sheryl says. “And, oh yes, I know who Zoya Das is.”
“She came out a few years ago.” I’m just stating the obvious. I guess I’m trying to find out something about Caitlin’s friendship with her.
“Who do you think told her to finally get over herself and do it? The amount of revenue she generates for that network. And this isn’t the nineties anymore.”
My eyes go wide. “You?”
Caitlin brings her arms wide and shows her palms. “I’m a woman of many talents.”
“That’s really great news,” I say. “Good luck.” I’m none the wiser about Caitlin’s relationship to Zoya. All I know is that they would make a striking couple together. I make a mental note to google Zoya Das later and find out everything there is about her private life. Frankly, it would surprise me if a woman like her were single.
“How did that meeting with your publisher go?”
“Not bad,” Caitlin says. “It’s early days, but I may have another book in me. I pitched some ideas, though there’s one I’m very enthusiastic about.” She looks at me. “Body positivity and fat acceptance in Australian culture. And I think I know someone who can help me with that.”
My belly tingles. I’m both elated and miffed. The conversation I’m part of astounds me—all this talk of TV shows and books—but what Caitlin just said puts all that has passed between us into a new perspective. She wants to pick my brain on my thesis subject. It’s all starting to make sense.