Heteroflexibility Read online

  Whatever. I’d be lucky to not get trampled in the shuffle.

  “Get close to him,” Fern whispered. “Don’t let anyone else beat you to his table.” She glanced around, narrowing her eyes. “Several of the women have their misguided sights set on Mark.”

  “Ready, ladies?” Lila called. “I’ll give you a one-minute warning when your session is near its end.”

  The six women hovered, loose-limbed, poised as if ready to run the hundred-meter dash. All wore variations on black, trendy yet casual, with perfect hair and high heels, other than one woman who already seemed to be almost six feet tall.

  I couldn’t stand the tension. It felt wrong, all wrong. And still, I hovered, knees bent, frizzed hair flat-ironed by Fern, ready to race to a man. Lila rang her gold bell, and we rushed, jostling each other to find a seat, like a bachelorette version of musical chairs.

  I got to the stool opposite the friendly man just as another woman did. We fake-smiled at each other, neither giving in for a moment, and then I acquiesced.

  The other women had settled into stools, so I chose the empty one. I quickly perched on it, arranging my skirt, then looked up.

  The man wasn’t bad looking or ill dressed. He had an average build, neither wimpy or oversized. But something about him didn’t quite work. “I’m Joshua,” he said. “I’m not sure if we should shake, or wave, or what.” He laughed nervously.

  “I’m Zest,” I said, my brain still trying to work out the problem. His teeth were fine. Hair cut, in normal range, a typical shaggy crew. Skin pale but clear. Maybe it was just bad chemistry, my set of likes not matching up to his qualities. But then, no one else had rushed for him.

  “So what do you do, Zest?”

  “I’m a photographer,” I answered automatically. Was it his eyes? They were grayish, and set close together. Or his nose? It seemed piggish, slightly upturned, maybe a bit feminine. Yes, he was very girly, only with boy-hair. That must be it. He’d do great in drag.

  “Well, I’m an accountant,” he said, grimacing.

  Oh crap, I’d been ignoring him. And staring.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have a tendency to evaluate people’s photogenic qualities. It can be…awkward.”

  “Occupational hazard?” he asked. His smile was quirky, a little off center, but cute. He was all right, actually. I shouldn’t be so judgmental.

  Unlike Fern. I stole a glance at her, leaning on her elbows, halfway across the table, gazing up at some long-hair who looked like an 80s throwback, but was, admittedly, gorgeous. I wondered briefly if she’d steered me to the other end of the room to keep me away from him, but the boy was far more her type than mine.

  “Zest?”

  Ohhh, focus. “So what do you do?” I asked.

  He glanced away for a moment, drew a breath, and then returned. “An accountant.”

  Shit. “Yes! You said that! I’m sorry. I’m new to this. I’m just a little…nervous, I guess.”

  He nodded. “It’s okay. It’s my first time too.”

  “Really? I couldn’t tell!” Cripes, I was gushing now. “You seem so confident!”

  He smiled, slow and lazy, and I could tell I’d overdone it. “Thank you.”

  “One minute!” Lila called.

  “Already?” I said, then wished I hadn’t, as what’s-his-name inched his hand across the table as if to touch me.

  “It went fast for me too,” he said. “I will mark you as someone I want to see again. Is that okay?”

  “Of course!” I said, too brightly. “That’s what we’re here for!” I glanced down at the list of names to figure out which one he was. Damn my distractedness. Ben, Daniel, Joshua, yes, Joshua! I marked a check by “yes” with relief.

  The bell tinkled. I stood up, taking care to keep my hands busy. “Nice to meet you, Joshua,” I said.

  “I’m glad I came,” he said.

  Arrrghhh! I felt hemmed in suddenly. And irrationally. He just wanted to see me. It’s not like I was already getting married again.

  The women scurried, and I looked back to friendly man, but he was popular, and the tall girl had already taken the seat across from him. I could take Mark or the rock star.

  I went with Mark.

  “So how long have you known Fern?” he asked. I glanced at his card, which was already marked with five checks for “yes” and one “no.”

  “You’re decisive,” I said.

  “I usually check them all. The men do.”

  I nodded. “Did you say no to Fern?”

  “No, actually. The tall one.”

  “She’s probably a perfectly wonderful person.”

  “She’s a woofer.”

  I hated him. Damn beauty-centric, snap-judgmental, egotistical shit.

  “So, Fern,” he prompted.

  I clamped my jaw. I didn’t want to relate the story of how we met, our mutual humiliation. I didn’t even want to talk to him anymore.

  “I leave you speechless.”

  I wanted to stand up, hit him. I saw what Fern hated in him now.

  “We met in college,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “She ever ask you to go three up?”

  I blinked. “Three up?”

  “Nevermind. I can see it’s a no.”

  “Sounds like your frustrated fantasy to me.” I glanced over at Fern, who sat across from a scholarly looking type, sweater vest, lean, long sideburns.

  “I see this isn’t going to work out too well,” he said, making a big show of scribbling out the check by “yes” and switching it to a “no” by my name.

  “You are quite the asshat.”

  Talk ceased for a moment, and I realized how shrill my voice had become.

  Fern leaned back to get a better look at us. “Exactly,” she said.

  The couples laughed nervously, then returned to their conversations.

  “This is going well,” Mark said, straightening on his stool.

  “I’m sure there are gullible women here you can prey on,” I said.

  He stood. “Excuse me. Little boys’ room.”

  I sat on the stool, burning with embarrassment and more than a little anger, fingering my card. I made a hearty check by “no” on his name. I was tempted to erase my “yes” by Joshua too, but I didn’t want Lila to think I’d blown off the whole lot of them.

  There was always friendly guy. I watched the other couples talk, the girls with their nervous over-animated gestures, the boys’ attentive gazes, carefully not dropping to cleavage-level. Overall, actually, this wasn’t a bad way to go about it. Lila obviously carefully screened her group.

  “One minute!” she called.

  I didn’t dare turn to look at her, worried she’d shoot a disapproving or sympathetic look my way. I caught a glimpse of Mark standing in the shadowed hallway by the restroom, waiting for the signal. This was too humiliating to be borne. Come on, bell.

  And it rang.

  This time I elbowed everyone out of the way and plunked myself down across from the friendly man the moment the previous girl moved away from the stool. He was still looking down at this card, as if hesitating on his answer.

  “Hi, I’m Zest.” I was not going to blow this one, if for no other reason than to vindicate myself.

  He looked up slowly, languorously. His eyes were blue. I remembered suddenly a short story I’d read in college, about a woman who fell in love with a man who rescued her from a shipwreck, and the pair had spent days alone in a life boat, surrounded by ocean water, like the blue of his eyes.

  “I’m Sebastian.”

  Sebastian. “Nice to meet you.”

  “First time?” he asked.

  “You can tell?”

  “No, I just find it an easy starter question.”

  I gripped my card. “Is it yours?”

  “Second, actually.”

  “How did it go last time?”

  His lips quirked into a smile, exposing lopsided dimples. “How did he say it in Top Gun? First ti
me I crashed and burned.”

  “And the second time?” I could channel my inner Kelly McGillis.

  “I’ll let you know in a little while.”

  I was beaming like a little kid. “I remember the first time I saw that movie. I was twelve years old and my friend Kristy and I kissed the screen at the end when they rolled the credits.”

  “Nice. Poor Tom isn’t the most popular fellow these days, is he?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I can still reminisce the old Tom, the pre-sofa jumping, Brooke bashing, Scientology freak version.”

  “We can indeed.”

  We sat a moment, grinning foolishly at each other.

  “So what next?” I asked.

  “Hmm. What can we talk about that isn’t a cliché?” He leaned his elbows on the table. “What do you do? What are your hobbies? These things are always full of clichés.”

  I fingered my pencil. “How about, ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you.’”

  That got the dimples back. “Maybe it should be, ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.’”

  I mock pouted. “But the early bird gets the worm!”

  He smiled. “Ah, but all the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.”

  I wagged a finger at him. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

  “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

  My throat closed up, so I looked across the bar where a cocktail waitress hoisted a tray of drinks to her shoulder.

  “Recent breakup, then,” he said.

  I nodded.

  He reached across the table and grazed my fingers. “People like Lila tell us not to talk about exes when we first meet, but I think it’s okay.”

  I gripped my pencil so tightly it might have snapped had it been a normal length. “What I don’t understand about cheating, and cheaters,” I said. “Is why anyone would want to be with someone who is already married. If they cheat on their spouses, won’t they cheat again eventually?”

  “Everyone considers themselves the exception.”

  Now that I had started, I couldn’t stop. “I can’t get my head around it. He got her pregnant. Did he want out?”

  “Some men just get caught up.” His blue eyes were calm, a few lines starting to spread from the corners. He was thirty-something, surely.

  “You seem to know a lot,” I said.

  “I’m divorced. Marriage lasted three years. We were mutually cheating. I’ll confess to that.”

  “Who started it?”

  “Hard to say. We just didn’t respond to each other anymore. Should have quit before we started probably. Got carried away in all the post-college weddings. We were the last holdouts.”

  “Did you guys admit it or get caught?”

  He sat back in his chair, as if to move away from my question. “I got caught. Wanted to get caught, by then. I left plenty of evidence.”

  Just like Cade. The idea that this was common, not something that just happened to me, opened a flood of relief. “So it was a way of getting it over with.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  God, another man who didn’t take marriage seriously. Which was worse? The recent cheater you knew, or the old cheater you didn’t?

  “One minute!” Lila called out.

  He fingered his card. “Time flies when you’re spilling your guts.”

  “How long has it been since you divorced?”

  He hesitated, and in that pause my wariness grew. How damaged were we all? So much seemed stacked against anyone being happy. “Eight years,” he said.

  My head whirled with what that could mean. Maybe he hadn’t met anyone since then. Or maybe he found himself no longer able to commit.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I’m sorry for both of us.”

  “Well, here’s to a fresh start,” I checked yes by his name. “Again.”

  The dimple returned. “One can never have too many of those.”

  He took his pencil and marked “yes” by my name. “I look forward to seeing you again. Would you like that too?”

  “Of course.”

  The bell tinkled, and the women shifted around, but as I headed toward the rock star, Lila tugged me by the arm.

  “Zest, I think we may have a problem.”

  I turned to her, still mildly hypnotized with hope about Sebastian, that he could be salvaged, that I could. “Did I forget to fill something out?”

  “You marked ‘separated’ on your form.”

  “I didn’t really have a good option. We’ve filed for divorce but haven’t done anything else yet.”

  “I’m afraid our rules state that you must be legally divorced to participate. It prevents people from coming just to feel out the market.” Lila pursed her thin lips, lined in pink. “This is going to mess up our evening, the odd number. Can I have your card, please?”

  I pulled the card to my chest. “Why?”

  “You aren’t eligible, my dear. Give it over.”

  “Why is that an option to check then?”

  “It’s my little test.”

  I turned my body and she reached around to grasp the corner of the form. She couldn’t take it! I glanced around to find Fern, but she was merrily talking to Sebastian herself. Rock star sat alone, drumming his fingers on the table.

  She got a firm grip on the card and yanked. I felt the sharp edge slide along my palm and let go with a yelp. A line of red welled up. Bloody paper cut.

  “Feel free to stop by again once your proceedings are over,” she said gaily, as if we were ending some friendly chat. She tore my card into pieces.

  I watched the paper come apart and despaired. My head felt like it might explode. I had driven, but Fern could take a taxi home. Or go with the rock star. Or bartender man.

  Mark sneered at me as I passed. Something internal snapped, and I crossed between the tables to pause beside him.

  He looked at me, bemused. “Need my number? Woofer?” he asked. “Bow, wow?”

  I turned to him, sitting back in his chair, legs crossed, arm casually thrown over the seat back. “This is for all the dogs you’ve undoubtedly kicked around,” I said, and released my fury with a fist into his belly.

  He bent over with an “oof.”

  And I strode out of the bar without looking back.

  Chapter 14: Rainbows & Cadillacs, and Heterobashing Music

  The cool air of Fifth Street was a welcome change from the stuffy bar. Since it was still early, only tourists and a rare couple meandered along the walkways. A few bouncers had begun to stand, randomly calling out, “No cover!” On the corner, a ratty van parked illegally while three t-shirted boys frantically unloaded a drum set.

  I slipped my jacket on and pulled it tight around me. My palm was screaming. I could go into any of the bars and have another drink, but I might get approached by early birds trying to get started on their pick up lines, and I didn’t want to deal with that. In fact, as I shuffled down the sidewalk, I averted my eyes from any man I saw, as if their Y chromosome might reach out and poke me.

  Two girls ran across the street ahead of traffic, holding hands. I slowed down, squinting, wondering if it might be one of the Hoebags or someone I met at Dog & Duck.

  They turned down the sidewalk and headed straight for me. Before I could even register who it was, one of them squealed, “Zest!” and began dragging the other in a rush.

  Jenna and Mary. “So you decided to come with us?” Mary asked.

  Come? Shit. Nikki did ask me to join them at some bar to dance. “I just—I met a friend for dinner.”

  “Well, you have to come with us now!” Mary’s face flashed red and yellow from a neon sign in a bar window.

  “I—well, I—”

  Jenna threaded her arm through mine, and we began walking. “Of course she will. Nikki would never forgive me if she knew we let you get away. She was hoping you’d come.”

  I allowed myself to be pulled along
for the second time that night. “Where are we going again?”

  “Rainbow Cattle Company. They teach dance lessons on Wednesday nights and all the Hoebags are supposed to practice, so we don’t embarrass ourselves at the reception.”

  “I should have brought a camera,” I said.

  Mary laughed. “I don’t think they’d let you take pictures at Rainbow.”

  Jenna led us beneath an overhang and up to a large wood door. The roar of music blasted us as we passed into the bar. A youngish guy with his sleeves rolled up checked our IDs. I hadn’t quite gotten my bearings when a shirtless man in a camouflage cowboy hat jumped from behind the bar and shouted, “Welcome to Rainbow! What can I get for you?” Jenna headed straight for him.

  Now my gaydar might have the accuracy of You Sunk My Battleship, but the “ping” came loud and clear. I looked around again and realized that every couple on the dance floor was the same sex. Two boys circled the stage, hat brims colliding. Girls kissed in the dark corners. For the first time in my stupidly sheltered heterosexual life, I realized the connection with rainbows—flags, shirts, jokes, and now, the name of this bar.

  “This is a gay bar!” I said, then slapped my hand across my mouth.

  “The girl is sharp!”

  I recognized the voice and whirled around to see Nikki behind me, hanging onto Bella.

  “Oh my God! I’m in a gay bar!” I really wanted to shut up, but I was so freaked out, I couldn’t stop saying it.

  Nikki let go of Bella and hooked her elbow around my neck. “No worries, penis-lover. We won’t let anyone convert you.”

  Jenna handed me a light pink drink. “A cherry bomb. I think you could use it.”

  I took a sip and instantly felt light-headed. “What is it?”

  “Cherry vodka and Red Bull,” Jenna said. “It’ll take the edge off.”

  I took a hearty swig.

  The music washed over me, and I looked around, imagining everything in still frames of a camera angle. Two bars, one with male bartenders, the other with girls. A large elevated dance floor surrounded by a rail. A long mirror lined the very back, beyond the stage. A number of couples writhed, tightly entwined, in front of it. Austin was smoke free, so the air was clear, but the lights were dim. Still, I could make out about fifty people wandering the open space.