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“I was just saying I have a proposal for you.”
“Oh?” I hope my voice is as nonchalant as I’ve tried to make it sound. Like maybe I wasn’t just reciting gel colors to keep my imagination from running away with the noises she made eating a brownie.
“Well . . . I don’t know if you know this, but I like to do makeup.”
“Yeah, you do the shows and the . . .” I gesture to my face. “The shows for the makeup and the . . . yeah.”
Why am I so fucking awkward?
“And I actually have kind of a big following on my social media accounts for my makeup . . .”
She doesn’t seem to have noticed how awkward I’m being. Or she’s used to it. Either way, her nonresponse helps me relax a little.
“Like how many?”
“Hmm . . . like, twenty thousand?” she says and opens her Diet Coke, taking a sip with a shrug.
My jaw practically unhinges as it drops open.
Jade rolls her eyes and slaps my arm playfully. “Oh, stop. It’s not a big deal.”
“Jade, that’s a huge following. I don’t even have social media and I know that’s huge.”
“Yeah, well, I need to actually post every once in a while, and I had this idea for a makeup design for a character, but it’s harder to do on myself . . . and I was wondering if maybe you’d let me do the design on you?”
Before I can say anything, she holds up her hands as if to ask me to wait.
“Now, before you say anything . . . I’m willing to do something for you in return,” she says, raising her eyebrows at me.
“Go on,” I say, dragging out the vowels. I can play her game.
“I saw the look on your face when Anastasia told you to try a New York accent at rehearsal last week,” she says, and I roll my eyes.
“Oh my god, the accent.”
“And I saw how you struggled,” Jade says with a meaningful look.
“I’m listening.” The corners of my mouth tick up into a smile.
“I’ll get Anastasia to drop the accents if you let me do the makeup on you,” Jade says, and I hold my hand out to shake. She takes it with a big smile.
“Deal.”
“Thank yousomuch.” Her whole face brightens, her megawatt smile lighting up not just her face but all the space around her too. The energy in the room shifts with her joy.
“I would have done it for free, but I appreciate the bribe,” I say, and she feigns shock and indignation, reaching out toplayfully swat me again. I catch her wrist. The temptation to pull her close and just brush my lips against hers startles me, and I drop her hand.
It’s too soon for that.Right?
Ever since Jade mentioned the word “demisexual” to me, I’ve been mildly obsessing over it. I’m not on social media, but I made an account just to see what other people’s experiences are with the word. I read through threads in online forums of people talking about how they knew they were demi, and every time I read something, all I could think was “me too, me too, me too.”
I’ve been reconciling all my experiences with relationships and sex through the lens of this new identity, and it feels like I’ve put on a piece of clothing tailored to me.
But now I’ve got to make sense of this experience. I’ve known Jade for six weeks. It’s the earliest I’ve ever developed a crush, but I’ve seen her every day for the past three weeks, even if it was just for a half-hour run-through of the script, so it feels like I’ve known her longer.
I want the internet forums to make sense of this situation for me, but the only thing I can consistently find is “it’s different for everyone.” Which means if it took me six weeks from meeting Jade to having a crush on her, my experience is valid.
A freeing and terrifying thought.
