"Was it fun?" I asked.
"Kind of. Mostly it was a lot of singing Vietnamese nursery rhymes and talking about food. When I was twelve I stopped going because it conflicted with cheerleading. My parents were upset, but I managed to get my way.”
Faye giggled and then her face relaxed back into that soft trust I loved so much.
“Tell me about them,” I invited.
A look of sadness and fear washed over her face.
“That bad?” I asked.
"No...” she hedged. “They're okay. They're paying most of my tuition. And my rent. The only compromise is that I have to come back to San Antonio when I'm done."
I bit my lip, worried. "When do you graduate?"
"Hopefully never," Faye said with a sad smile. "I don't want to go back."
“You like it here?"
"I do," Faye said, some of the happy glow returning to her face. "I like it here so much."
And though she was speaking of San Francisco, the way she looked at me made me feel like maybe she meant something else.
Soon I heard my phone buzzing and groaned. I didn't want to be shaken from the peace Faye and I had finally found. I rolled over and grabbed my purse off the floor with the intention of shutting off my phone, but I saw it was Dave calling. I felt bad ignoring a call from someone as nice as him, so I slid the call open and gave Faye an apologetic wince.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Hey, Riley," Dave said, his words rushed and panicked. "I need you do to do me a huge, huge favor.”
I cringed. I had a feeling that he was calling to ask me to cover his shift, which I didn't want to do.
"You know I wouldn't ask unless I was in a total bind," he said. "But is there any way you can work my shift tonight? Michael's parents came into town last minute and they want to take us out for dinner. I'll give you an extra fifty bucks and work a shift you don't want and also owe you big time. Pleeeease?"
I slumped, regretting having answered the call. I had been looking forward to a peaceful night in bed with Faye, but I knew that I'd feel guilty if I made him work just so Faye and I could snuggle. So I took a deep breath, trying not to resent him for asking. "I guess..."
"Thank you so much," Dave gushed. "Seriously, Riley, you are a benevolent princess who deserves to have flowers spring up everywhere she walks."
"Easy with the sweet talk; Michael will think you're coming on to me," I joked. "It's no problem, Dave."
Dave let out another sigh of relief and another string of praises before hanging up.
Faye looked disappointed when I hung up. "He asked you to work tonight?"
"Yeah..." I said. "He was desperate, and I could use the money."
"I get it," Faye said. She wasn't upset, just disappointed. "You're a good friend, Riley."
"I know," I said, rolling my eyes as though it were a terrible burden.
"I mean it," Faye said, reaching for my hand. "We're lucky to have you."
I squeezed her hand back, my regret at having agreed to work doubling as I looked at the beauty in the bed I'd be leaving behind. "Want to come? I'll sneak you drinks all night." I was a little hopeful she'd say yes, but knew she'd probably say no.
"No thanks," she sighed. "I'll probably just work on an assignment and go to bed early. We can hang out tomorrow before my afternoon class."
Smiling at the prospect of spending the following morning with Faye, I grinned and leaned down to kiss her. "Sounds perfect," I said. "I'll be over as soon as I wake up and join the world of the living."
I got to work, already fatigued. Thinking about Faye in her warm, cozy bed made it worse.
I greeted Abby when I walked in, muttering to myself that my night was going to be intense because she was a terrible employee. I honestly saw no reason for her to be working in a bar, especially one as busy as Jules'. She was too lazy.
As the night picked up and the volume increased, I stepped into the zone. My interactions were more with bottles and bills than with the customers exchanging them. I barely made eye contact, grumbling as I resented Dave for asking me to take his shift.
But then I felt guilty for resenting him. He had finally found a boy he adored and was doing something to impress him. Picturing his boyish smile whenever he talked about Michael, I resented him a little less.
The crowd grew rowdy, and I burrowed deeper behind the bar. My neck grew stiff from keeping my gaze down. The bar was sticky and wet no matter how many times I wiped it down, and the rows of men waiting for drinks tumbled over each other like waves. It was one of the busiest nights I'd ever seen at Jules' aside from Pride weekend. We always had five bartenders on staff during Pride weekend, but tonight it was just me and Abby.
The annoyance of the customers was palpable, no doubt because we were both girls. I knew I was just as competent as the male bartenders, but Jules' laser-refined, spray-tanned, man-icured customers often thought differently. I kept my imaginary horse blinders on and counted down the minutes until Abby and I could lock the front door and collapse with exhaustion.
I glanced up to take my five-hundredth order of the night to see a young man waving his arms. He was yelling something, but I couldn't hear anything. I frowned and yelled back, "What?"
He made dramatic gestures toward the bathroom and yelled something that sounded like "We're out!"
Assuming he meant that the bathroom was out of toilet paper, I ventured out from behind the bar to the back closet that held the toilet paper. Doing so distanced me from the jukebox, and I could finally hear a little better.
The man followed me, agitated as we wove through the crowd, but when I reached the cabinet he put his hand over mine before I could unlock it with the key on my belt.
"No!" he said. "There's someone passed out!"
Realizing that he was alerting me to an emergency, I felt myself surge with anxiety. "Someone's passed out?" I asked.
"Yeah!" he said, pulling me toward the bathroom.
Before we arrived, I smelled the putrid mixture of urinal cakes, vomit, and soggy toilet paper.
"I can't go in there," I said, desperate to avoid a bad situation. "Management only allows guys."
"I don't see any guys working here tonight!" the guy yelled.
Realizing that I was standing in for Dave and that if management had known, they wouldn't have allowed the shift switch for this very reason, I grew even more anxious. Deciding that an emergency was more important than management policy, I pushed the door open.
"Girl coming in!" I yelled. "I'm an employee!"
There was no reaction other than a deep grunting sigh from the far stall. Seeing two pairs of feet on the floor, I deduced that the sigh had nothing to do with me announcing myself.
My eyes scanned the marble floor speckled with droplets of water and bits of wet toilet paper. Immediately I saw a crumpled man in a stall who appeared to have fallen from being draped over the toilet. The door was closed, so I pushed on it. It was locked.
"Shit," I said.
The man who had alerted me to the problem was pinching his nose. "You can say that again," he said, making a disgusted face. The grunting from the far stall came again and he said, "How can they even be doing that in here? It smells like death."
Panicked and annoyed, I said, "Hey, dudes, this isn't an hourly hotel."
I knew plenty of customers had sex in the bathroom — I mean, we had a bowl of condoms by the sink — but it was another thing to stumble upon it actually happening.
Knowing that we needed to get the unconscious man some medical attention if he didn't respond to us yelling, I banged on the stall door. "Are you okay in there?"
There was no response other than the continued grunting of the men in the far stall.
"Shit," I muttered again. I turned to the man who had led me in. "We gotta get him out."
The man nodded, face paling at the thought of what that would entail. Knowing that it was my responsibility as an employee, I looked around the room, steeling myself. I bit my
lip and tried one last time to kick in the door. Then, sighing and taking a breath of disgusting air, I walked into the adjacent stall and slithered under the partition into the one with the unconscious man.
It was a tight fit, and the pool of vomit on the floor and toilet seat made the entire place feel like it was crawling in bacteria. The smell was overwhelming. I felt my stomach curl and worried that I would vomit too. This was the most disgusting thing I'd ever had to do.
The man in the stall was curled partially around the toilet, an empty bar cup loose beside his hand. There was vomit on his shirt and on the floor and on the toilet seat.
Being careful not to touch anything inside the stall, I flipped the lock open and maneuvered my body so I could move back into the slightly-less-disgusting main portion of the bathroom. I was gagging and having trouble breathing. I looked back at the young man on the ground and realized that he was one of the regulars. Tommy, I thought. I was pretty sure that was his name.
"Hey!" I yelled, tapping him firmly on the shoulder, shaking him a bit. "Are you okay?"
Tommy didn't respond.
Terrified that he was drugged or choking on his vomit or — oh god — dead, I looked at the man who had brought me in and gestured toward Tommy's feet. The man stepped forward and we pulled. Completely limp, Tommy's body resisted our efforts, but eventually slid, uncurling into a straight line, until he was lying face-down on the bathroom floor.
I saw his wallet in his back pocket and opened it, hoping to get some identification.
"His name's Tommy," I said, looking at the confident, perky smile on his ID. He looked so sweet and young. Barely twenty-one. "He comes here a lot."
"I know him," the man said, suddenly grim. "I see him at meetings."
Pausing for a moment, I remembered that the man I was talking to never ordered alcohol at the bar. He scored all the perks of being a designated driver, which were mostly free sodas and knowing winks from the bartenders. "Meetings" meant that this man was in AA.
"Shit," the man said, running his hand through his hair. "He almost had six months…"
Realizing that the man beside me had just informed me that Tommy was an alcoholic too, I felt stricken.
I had served Tommy several times tonight. I hadn't even realized what I was doing.
"Should we call 911?" the man asked.
I nodded frantically. I reached for my phone, but realized that it was too loud to hear anyone on the phone, even in the bathroom. "I gotta go outside," I said. "Stay here."
"Do I have to?" the man asked, pinching his nose again.
"If those guys want to keep watch, no," I said, glaring at him and gesturing toward the guys fucking in the far stall.
"Fine," he said.
I dashed out of the bathroom, taking huge gulps of air as I pushed my way toward the door. Gripping my cell phone, I dialed 911 and hit "Call" just as I made it out onto the sidewalk. There were a few dozen drunk boys smoking elegantly up and down the street as I waited for the dispatcher.
"911, what's your emergency?" a lady said with a fatigued, nasal voice.
"I'm an employee at Jules' Bar on Sanchez Street," I said. "We have a customer unconscious in the bathroom."
Feeling my heart start to race as I gave the dispatcher all the information I had, I wished more than anything in the world that I hadn't taken Dave's shift.
There was a sweet, young man lying unconscious on the bathroom floor after blowing his sobriety and it was all my fault.
I entered the coffee shop, clutching my purse to keep me grounded. I didn't know what to expect, except tears. Faye was probably going to cry. I hoped I wouldn't cry too. I didn't like feeling that vulnerable.
When she saw me walk in, she stood, looking relieved.
"Hi," she said, voice low and whispery. "Thanks for coming."
"Of course," I said.
I stiffened a little when she hugged me. It was odd - I used to relax into her arms at every opportunity, but now they seemed foreign.
She pulled out my chair for me and waited until I sat. I saw a cup of cocoa sitting in front of me, and I gave her a grateful nod.
There was an awkward moment of silence while she clasped and unclasped her hands.
"So," she said. "Did you have anything you wanted to ask?"
I kept my gaze locked on my cocoa as I said. "Yeah. But first I feel - I feel I owe you an apology."
"What?"
"I overreacted the other night. I was already a little freaked out and hearing that you outed Callie was the final straw that broke me."
Faye's face shifted from surprised to concerned. "Why were you freaked out?"
I let out a sigh, embarrassed to tell her the truth. "I--I just felt a lot of pressure."
"From me?"
"No," I said. "I was putting it on myself."
"About having sex?"
I bit my lips. "Partly."
Faye's hand lifted toward me. "Why didn't you tell me?"
I gave a guilty shrug. "You were so excited."
"Yeah, but I don't want to do anything you're not totally on board with."
I looked down, still embarrassed and perplexed as to why I was so hesitant to sleep with her. I was intensely attracted to her, and earlier that week I'd had no reason to be hesitant, other than things that had nothing to do with her.
"I know," I said.
Faye kept leaning toward me, brow crinkled in confusion. "You can just say you're not ready. You don't owe me an explanation."
I sat still and gave a little nod. I felt so young, like the embarrassed teenage girl my mom had sat down and lectured on how to say no.
"I don't think it's about sex," I admitted.
"Okay..."
"I think... I just can't do something with my body that doesn't match up with my feelings."
Faye leaned a few inches back, looking worried. "So... you want to just be friends?"
Surprised Faye had interpreted what I'd said as a breakup line, I shook my head. "No, no. I just -- I have a hard time opening up."
Faye reached forward to take my hand, clasping it in hers. "Dating is scary, Riley," she said.
Somehow, talking about how hard it was to be open made me even more embarrassed. "Not for you," I mumbled. "You're so together and so willing to take risks."
"Only because you're worth it."
I warmed with embarrassment at her compliment. "Thank you."
"Don't think I don't have my baggage. I have a lot. Color coordinated to match my purse so it doesn't get lost in the airport."
I gave her an appreciative chuckle.
There was a moment of quiet before she said, "The contents of those suitcases are yours for the viewing, if you're curious."
I took a breath. I had to find some resolution about the Callie situation, otherwise it would plague me for months. "What happened with Callie?"
Faye took a breath too, steeling herself. "We dated for six months. It was great for the first three, and then it went sour. It's tough being in the closet. I thought I was up for it at the time, but I was young and I didn't know how hard it would be. I was naive enough to think she'd eventually make a public statement for HRC or The Trevor Project or something. And then she cheated on me, so..."
I nodded, trying to imagine what Faye had been through.
"Did you like dating a celebrity?"
"No. I always had to be fit into her schedule, even though I was working two jobs, too. It was hard."
I tried to imagine what it was like to date someone in secret. I knew that someone like Callie had taken precautions to make sure her secret didn't get out. Those precautions couldn't have been convenient or reassuring to Faye.
"Did you have to sign an NDA?" I asked.
"No," Faye said. "She wasn't as famous when we met. And I don't know if it would have made a difference. They can't prove it was me that outed her."
I felt myself tense up again at the casual nature with which Faye brought up doing something so wrong.
Faye seemed to sense my discomfort and leaned forward, lowering her voice. "I don't want you to think that I'm someone who outs people. I know what I did was wrong. I was just young and dumb and angry. I can't undo it, so I've tried to let it go."
I wanted to believe that Faye had felt stronger remorse at one time. She was right; it had been a long time, and she had been young. I resolved to letting her be flawed and try to move on from something she couldn't change.
Faye leaned forward, lowering her voice to a hush. "I would never, ever out you," she said. Her intensity was overwhelming. "I promise."
I held her gaze because breaking it felt rude and avoidant. Instead, I just said the first thing on my mind: "Trust is hard."
Faye bit her lip and nodded. "If you want to keep dating, we'll figure it out. Somehow."
I reached forward and took her hand. "I do want to keep dating," I said. I felt my nerves surge as I said it. "And I want to try being more open with you."
Faye leaned forward and placed her other hand over mind, protecting it, promising to keep as much of me safe as she could. "I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that. I thought I'd blown it."
I mirrored her gesture and placed my free hand on top of hers so our hands were piled in a protective double-clasp on the table.
"You didn't blow it."
Faye bit her lip and nodded in gratitude. "We'll go slow, okay?" she said. "I'm not even going to bring up sex. You tell me when you're ready."
I nodded, glad to have that particular issue off the table for now.
It was quiet for a moment, and as I looked at her, I saw some of the unsteadiness and anxiety she claimed she had. She seemed more human, and I felt the need to reassure her. So, because it was true, I said, "I want to kiss you."
She gave me a shy smile.
"Right now," I said. "Where everyone can see."
Her grin grew wider until finally she extracted her hand from between mine and reached over the table, leaning forward as she rose from her seat just far enough to cup my cheek and bring our lips together for a moment. It was sweet and gentle and assured me I was doing the right thing. Her kisses, no matter what kind, were still exciting. I knew someday soon I'd be ready for more.
Wherever the Dandelion Falls Page 33