Page 82 of Life Out of Order

“Enough, Celia.”

“Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Clare.”

I slide my hand across the table and Celia takes it. An elderly white woman two tables over frowns at us. Celia smiles at her and says sweetly, “Ain’t they got any lesbians where you’re from?” The woman averts her gaze. Celia says to me, “I’ve discovered that I can get away with being much more obnoxious when I’m dressed like a Republican than when I’m dressed like RuPaul.”

“You should try collapsing the economy just to see if you can.”

“Nah, it’s been done. Though if I could get my hands on all that evaporated cash and use it for my foster kids I might give it a try.”

We order pie with our coffee, pecan for me and peach for Celia. I pay up at the register and we take the elevator back down to the cool brass and marble lobby where we pause before stepping out into the abnormally hot April sun.

“Seriously for a minute, Clare,” Celia says, her hand on my bare arm. “If it can’t be me, then Beck seems all right.”

“Um, thanks. I’m just confused, I guess.”

“You’re going to be fine, Clare.” Celia reaches up to hug me, and as I wrap my arms around her gently I wish I could give her what she needs. Out on the sidewalk we part ways. I watch Celia marching across Wabash; her halting gait makes it easy to pick out her slight figure in the crowd. She doesn’t look back.

Speculations Upon the Nature of Love

Sunday, April 18, 2010 (Beck is 34, Clare is 38)

Beck: She is not the obvious person, she isn’t who I was expecting. The person I imagined is a man, is Black, is slightly older than me, is tall, is so Black he is night-in-human-form, is a poet, is a force to be reckoned with, is a lover of dogs and children, is an artist, is sex personified, is subtly different from me but somehow is my male twin, is Blacker than the heart of the universe before the big bang, much Blacker than me; I was looking for a fighter-lover, a defender of all my misdemeanors, a rock my rage could break upon, a jinn who would offer me three wishes: an impossibility.

Instead I found Clare—so patient, so sad, so white: a widow with a guarded expression in her gray eyes; Clare who is eager and polite, who is afraid she’s offended me, who worries about me and wants to take care of me: somehow it is Clare to whom I tell all my stories and secrets, Clare who listens and Clare who understands. Her femininity is an unexpected lure, a sweet prize I never knew I craved. Her whiteness is a barrier, a hurt, a question I can’t answer. But Clare makes herself vulnerable to me and I try to respond with my own softness. Clare admires me and pets me, asks questions about my work and actually listens to my answers. I find myself thinking about her, wondering what she’s doing, how she feels; is she thinking about me?

Is it love? It feels too easy—no one is playing hard to get, no one is trying too hard; if I ask a question, Clare just answers it, she doesn’t give me a look as though I should have already known. She introduces me to her friends, and they seem like people I’d enjoy knowing; we meet my cousins for lunch near O’Hare one day when they have a layover, and she gets along with them immediately—we are joking around together before the drinks arrive. Is love this comfort, this compatibility? It’s unnerving. It’s too good to be true.

I haven’t said anything to Jasper, or to my parents. Clare hasn’t introduced me to her daughter yet. But this morning, when I arrived at my studio later than usual, Isadora asked me where I’d been, and before I could answer, she said, “You were with Clare.” She said it matter-of-factly, as though she understood that Clare continues to exist when she’s not talking to Isadora, and that when I’m not in the studio with her, I am with Clare. It’s an either/or. I was about to tell Isadora about false dilemmas, but then I just said, “Yes, I was with Clare.”

Isadora said, “Clare is a wild thing.”

I told her, “She’s in the wild thing club, sweetie.”

Isadora replied, “Wild thing, you make everything groovy,” and then I started to cry, as though we’re going to live happily ever after, after all.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Clare: We have to get a little drunk beforehand, and even then we aren’t sure, no one is in charge, we’re both virgins again; finally she says, “Now?” and I say, “Yes,” and then we have to walk ourselves into the bedroom and just . . . begin. It’s all so different because she is she and I am not the same me that used to make love to Henry, but I remember some things from long ago: the shyness, the worry that I won’t be what she wants, and this time I have no assurance from my future beloved that this will all be okay. But here we are. She is sweet and I feel humble because I don’t know anything and Beck is a mirror and a mystery and oh—!

Beck and I lie side by side, a little stunned, not speaking, because what can be said? And I start laughing, just out of relief, and joy, just wow, that happened, we did that, I had forgotten how strange sex is—and Beck seems alarmed, but then she catches it: the improbable wonder of us together—and she starts to laugh, too—we are laughing together, holding on to each other, shaking, trying to breathe, until tears streak our faces and the laughing passes, like a rainstorm or a train.

I say, “You’re perfect.”

Beck replies, “Don’t burden me with that. Sooner or later I’ll disappoint you and what then?” I start apologizing and Beck shushes me. “Don’t worry. Let’s just be, here.”

“Here and now,” I say. I want to say I love you but it catches in my throat. Instead we let quiet fill the room, and lapse into wonder, and then sleep.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Beck: Clare always stays at my place. I figure it’s because of Clare’s daughter—she’s only eight, no reason to be too in-her-face about sleeping over. Plus, I still haven’t met her. So Alba stays with her grandfather or Mrs. Kim, and Clare comes to my apartment. But eventually I start to doubt. We are getting ready for bed when I muster the nerve to ask Clare. “If Alba is going to stay with Richard or Kimy anyhow, couldn’t I come over?”

Clare looks uncomfortable. “Well . . .”

I’ve noticed that she has a hard time telling me no. “Is this about Henry somehow? Like, you don’t want me trying on his slippers or sleeping on his side of the bed?”

“It’s weirder than that. I don’t want you running into him at breakfast.”

“Ugh. Okay, I take your point. But wouldn’t he have mentioned that? ‘Um, sweetie, are you shacking up with some brown lady after I’m gone?’”