Chapter 2
“Uh... hi” Amy’s face went pale. She hadn’t seen Hope in over a year but somehow, inexplicably, she felt like it had been only seconds since they parted lips. It was as if she could just feel the weight of her body pressing against her.
“Hi” Hope smiled.
That gesture on Hope’s face was the hardest muscular exercise she had done in her life. And she had done rock cycling. Please, Hope, she thought to herself, please, use all that practice you did through high school and please look and act as careless as a breeze.
“Hi” Amy repeated.
“Hi” the girl next to Amy also replied.
Hope hadn’t really noticed her. She had small white teeth and a round face with asian features. Her hair was short and curly and she was beautiful.
“This is Daisy,” Amy introduced her without taking her eyes off of Hope “she’s… she’s my…”
“I’m her girlfriend” Daisy completed the sentence casually and waved at Hope.
“Hi, Daisy” Hope said with a plain dry unreadable expression on her eyes.
She hadn’t stopped smiling, but her face was kind of straight. She didn’t want to be a bitch, she didn’t want to make them feel uncomfortable either. But she couldn’t help but look at the other girl with envy disguised as distance.
“Did you...uhm… come just to see George?” Amy asked. She was rubbing her hands nervously, her back was sort of arched inwards as if she was becoming a small little girl right before Hope’s eyes. She also looked away. Hope didn’t. “Or are you in New York for a long time?”
“Just came to see George” Hope replied, without saying anything else. “I’m leaving Monday.”
She didn’t really think that through, she wasn’t sure why she was lying. It felt like a self-defense automatic reply. If the two of them were alone in that big city during their freshman year, they might confuse their physical and geographical closeness for an emotional nearness that Hope wasn’t sure she could handle. Especially if Amy had a girlfriend now.
The people summoned at the small teathre’s entrance started walking inside.
“Gather round, people!” the woman at the entrance said, raising one hand. “It’s showtime!”
Suddenly, two girls crossing frantically the street started shouting from the other sidewalk.
“Not without us, biatch!”
Amy and Hope turned around. Dear Lord, that was Molly Davidson running as if there was no tomorrow, followed by the tiny slender figure of Annabelle.
“What the fuck?” Hope whispered to herself.
“D’you really think that we were going to miss the opportunity to shout at George from an audience? Did you really?” Molly said, catching her breath, bending backwards, palms on her knees. She stood up and walked right towards Amy in small jumps. “Sorry, bitches, this LADY HAS TAKEN ALL MY BREATH AWAY, DAMN.”
She snapped her fingers in the air.
“You, my dearest Molly Davidson, look as if God had just freed one of his angels and sent them straight down to Earth” Amy replied with a pouty mouth and a look filled with so much sass Hope just had to smirk a bit. Damn that cute nerd.
The four of them plus the Daisy girl, standing outside George’s play, was an image that Hope wouldn’t have guessed in a million years. She suddenly felt less lonely. Not that she minded feeling that way, ever, but it was nice to see familiar faces.
“How on Earth…?” Hope looked at Annabelle in disbelief. “You, bitch”
“Surprise, asshole” her friend smiled.
“George wouldn’t shut up about this when the three of us met in L.A back at the beginning of the summer, so we had to make sure he wasn’t lying about this sudden strike of fortune.” Molly recalled. “And it was better if this was surprise.”
Amy looked at Hope searching for answers. Hope shrugged.
“Molly actually made me not tell you cause she thought you might not show up” Annabelle confessed to Hope and she didn’t blame the two of them. Had she known, she probably wouldn’t have gone and would have insisted Triple A they met alone instead.
“Anyway, we should get going, right?” Molly said, pointing at the drag queen at the door who was putting her hands on her waist and giving them a bad look.
“That was quite a scene” she shouted at them “but I have more drama inside the theatre.”
All of them walked towards the theatre in line and very quickly. Molly was the first one to go in, followed by Annabelle and Daisy who was guiding Amy inside as well by the hand. Hope followed them at the end of the line. She was putting out a cigarette before having to go inside.
“It’s...uhm… it’s nice to see you, Hope” Amy said in a very low voice as her girlfriend was leading her into the theatre and had a split second to look back.
“Careful, nerd, you might walk into a wall if you don’t look ahead” she replied trying to hide the bitterness. “But it’s nice of you to say and it’s nice to see you too.”
The play was… interesting, to say the least. It was an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet but instead it was re-interpreted in the eighties during the AIDS health crisis and the characters were all male and gay. Of course, had it had more budget and a decent casting direction it could’ve been better. But it was cringy and painful to watch. George played the character who might have been Mercutio. His modern name was Mark and had a weird lisp which Hope was sure that had been George’s idea to make the character stand out more among the his castmates. She could’ve easily slept through the play, but a ball grew bigger and bigger in her stomach everytime she noticed Daisy drawing small circles on Amy’s arm or caressing her knee or grabbing her hand randomly. She kind of wished she could do that, so easily and without any care at all, meaning their relationship would’ve gone all the necessary phases so that they would have no trouble in showing their affection in public and, more importantly, in front of their friends.
The show was done after seventy inexplicably long minutes. The lights were turned on and they were all able to look at each other’s faces. Molly had obviously fallen asleep and a thread of saliva had left the corner of her mouth, leaving a line of dry spit. Annabella had cried during the last scene and was wiping her tears carefully so that no one else would notice. Hope just yawned. After leaving, they decided they would wait for George outside.
“I’ll go get cigarettes,” Hope told Annabelle as they left the theatre.
“I’ll join you”
They walked down the street to a nearby Seven Eleven while the others waited for George. It felt nice to have Annabella back. Hope liked it when they spent time together not saying much at all but still aware of the possibility that if they wanted to, they could tell anything to each other.
“Just ignore her” Annabelle finally said.
“What?”
“Daisy, just ignore her. She’ll be back in Madison before you know it and Amy will realize she belongs with you”
Hope laughed bitterly. Idiotic romantic ideas were not her cup of tea.
“First off, I am not sure that’s correct. Secondly, when did you become a romantic loser? You are spending way too much time with Davidson.”
Annabelle didn’t say anything, she just rolled her eyes.
“I saw you crying at the end of the play” Hope continued. “And it was a shitty play.”
“Could you just drop the sarcasm and own your shit?” her friend said abruptly. “It’s clear you can’t stand the fact that she’s with someone else.”
“We just made out in high school, A.” Hope reminded her. “Once. At a party. We were both drunk.”
“Yeah and then you sexted and then she had all these ideas of you going to visit her.”
“Did she, really? Did Molly tell you that?”
Annabelle shook her head.
“No but Molly mentioned she had a crush on you. Big time. And that she was sad when you guys drifted apart.”
Hope’s heart shrunk at the image of lonely Amy in her little bed back in Botswana, wondering why she wouldn’t visit.
“I think I fucked up, then” Hope confessed. “I lied, I told her I would go back to L.A on Monday. She specifically asked if I would be staying in NYC.”
“Why did you lie?” Annabelle was surprised.
It was not like Hope to not own her shit and lie about it. The Daisy situation had clearly gotten to her head and made her lose her feet. She was not being herself. She needed to get it back together as soon as possible.
“I don’t know,” Hope said, giving in. “I just don’t want to see her cause if I do and I can’t be with her then… I’d have to pretend that being friends is ok and it’s not.”
“Well” her friend sighed after a long pause while they were getting back to the others “you did fuck up cause Molly already told Amy you were accepted at NYU and that you are crashing at your cousin’s near Columbia for a while.”
Damn it. They returned to their friends and as they walked back, Hope could see Amy turning around before any of the others and stared at them while they approached them. George had just come out of the theatre and was at the center of the round, joyfully recalling everything that had gone down inside.
“... and I just had to go onstage and the damn zip wouldn’t go up and the costume guy was like, Georgie, this is not gonna work, you need to take the shirt off and just not wear a shirt during the last act…”
He stopped at the glance of Triple A and Hope appearing behind the crowd.
“Well, if it’s the other city girl, right?” he yelled and took Hope by her arm. He pushed her towards him as he did the same to Amy who was on his left. “We are the Dixie Chicks of New York City, we’ll have so-much-fun this year. Oh my God, I have so much planned.”
Hope smiled awkwardly and could feel Amy’s eyes directed right at her.
“You know, Alan has prepared this wonderful dinner back home cause we knew that you guys would be coming. We can head over there, have a couple of drinks, maybe go out afterwards… what do you say?”
“Why isn’t Alan here?” Molly asked.
“He’s a drama queen and he can’t take not being the center of attention” George answered, “but, anyway… what do you say?”
“Let’s do it” Annabelle accepted.
“I’m in” Hope said, without much thinking. She looked at Amy who looked at her girlfriend. That hurt.
“Yeah, Ames?” Molly agreed as well.
Amy looked at Daisy over the corner of her eye. The girl looked at the floor.
“It’s just that Daisy has a very early flight tomorrow at six and…”
“Right, you want to spend your last night scissoring away, I get it” George remarked.
Hope’s stomach shrunk and her throat narrowed.
Daisy whispered something to Amy’s ear along the lines of “Just go… it’s okay… they are your friends and you haven’t seen them in a while.”
Amy looked at Daisy’s eyes for approval. It was all just too painful to watch for Hope. She tightened her teeth.
“I’ll be back to take you to the airport, I promise” Amy told her and kissed her on the cheek.
Hope looked away. She could see Anabelle and Molly noticing her lips violently pressed against each other. Daisy waved goodbye and Amy helped her hail a cab. Once she left, all of them started walking to George’s place which was not far away. George was going on a rant about the play, obviously, while Annabelle listened closely. Amy and Molly were right behind them, catching up and laughing purely while Hope followed them with a hand tucked in her pocket and the other one holding one of the cigarettes she had just bought. She could see Amy glancing at her from time to time over the corner of her left eye. Hope was hopeless. She had just witnessed Amy behave like a grown up who had been in a steady romantic relationship for a while. She hailed a cab like a pro for her girlfriend, walked her towards it and kissed her goodbye. She reminded Daisy to let her know when she got home safe and was going to drive her to the airport the next morning. Somehow, she wished it was her. And she also wished they hadn’t stopped talking. She wished she had had the guts to confront her a while back and ask her if she was mad she didn’t go visit in spite of having the money. She wished she hadn’t lied about living in New York. She also wished she had never texted George and agreed to go see him.
A few feet ahead of her, Amy kind of slowed down her pace and Hope caught up at her speed. Molly had sped up and was talking about Shakespeare’s take on romantic relationships and how those could not be converted into twentieth century queer romance. Hope would have a lot to say about that comment and she would’ve spoken her mind, hadn’t Amy try to strike up a conversation.
“Hey” she said.
“Hey.”
“So New York, huh?”
Damn it, she’s starting off from the worst place.
“Awesome, right?”
“Yeah, why did you lie?”
Amy’s abruptness caught her off guard. She wasn’t expecting her to ask her right away in that harsh inquisitive voice tone.
“It’s not easy to see you after a year with a girlfriend, you know?” Hope hinted. “It’s not an excuse but it’s just not my ideal scenario.”
“Well, I didn’t take you for a liar before today” Amy painfully added.
“I didn’t take you for a grown up in a committed relationship but I guess we are all in different places now, aren’t we?”
That stupid remark made Hope look even more stupid and immature. Who was she? She wanted to leave and pretend she hadn’t seen none of that cheesy love display between Amy and her new girlfriend.
“Look, I’m sorry for lying,” she finally said. “It’s weird that we’ll both be here for a while and I didn’t want to force this into a friendship or anything like that just because we’ll be alone and because we’ve known each other for years.”
“If I hung out with you cause we live here, it would be because I like you and we could be friends” Amy said, sure of herself.
“We can’t be friends, Amy.”
“Why not?” she asked “Queer romantic relationships once they are through are a lot more likely to become friendships than straight romantic relationships because we, as a community, need to support each other.”
“Alright, then” Hope said, feeling the acid taste of sarcasm building up in the back of her throat “So we are gonna hang out as if we were friends cause we need to support each other and ignore the fact that you got a girlfriend two seconds after we stopped talking?”
Hope could see Amy swallowing slowly, trying to hold the sudden punch.
“I don’t see why that has to be a problem”
Hope laughed ironically and that was the only kind of laughter that came from her that Amy didn’t like. She wished Amy had fought back.
“We could be friends” Amy insisted “And we could hang out if you want.”
Hope didn’t reply. She was too aware of how much that would hurt.
They arrived at George’s house. It was a tiny building with a pizza place right next to the entrance. The smell from mozzarella and tomato drifted through the walls of the apartment. Once they got in, Alan was inside getting everything ready for the guests. He had bought pizza obviously and cut them as theatre masks. Each guest would receive either the drama or comedy face, based on their personality. Molly, George and Hope got drama while Annabelle, Amy and Alan got comedy. Hope ended up sitting right across Amy. When everyone was looking right at whoever was speaking, Hope would catch a glimpse of her while she listened carefully and nodded at anything the speaker would say. Alan had gone on and on about his dilemma of accepting a gogo dancing offer and if that would interfere in his career as a serious actor. George was supportive and told him that Lady Gaga started off by gogo dancing in lower Manhattan. Alan replied that Lady Gaga had to wait several years to shake off that exotic persona and be considered a serious artist. They never reached an agreement.
They spent the next hour or so drinking cheap vodka and smoking cheap weed Hope had brought from L.A. She was used to alcohol and had to drink a lot in order to get drunk, despite her tiny body. Annabelle was the only one that could play at the same level, but the others were falling like flies. The original plan was to get wasted and go dancing but Alan and George’s place had a tiny balcony that hung from their bedroom and soon they realized that that could be their own dance floor. They barely fit there but the music was good, the sky was clear and the night was perfect. Hope drank enough to loosen herself a bit. That was not the kind of party where she would hide away in the bathroom. She sang at the top of her lungs with Annabelle and they danced holding their hands. It felt like a goodbye. Soon they’d start college and they would drift apart slowly until they’d have to catch up as strangers. Hope saw life in a very nostalgic way and sometimes that blurred how she approached the good times. Other times, she’d use it as material for her short stories and she would change the character’s names.
They all danced around Alan when Molly put on Telephone. Hope felt the urge to smoke but the balcony was full. Being the only open space in the apartment, she remembered a small window that hung from the kitchen. She left the balcony and stared at the others from inside. Amy was doing a quirky robotic dance with Molley and they kept laughing at the way their bodies awkwardly moved in that tiny space. She went in the kitchen, sat on the counter and lit up a cigarette. The air tinted with pepperoni pizza smell coming from the greasy pizza place from downstairs made its way inside the small place. She inhaled the cigarette air and her lungs filled as if she had taken a breath of solitude. Nostalgia matched amazingly with Marlboro lights. It wasn’t long until Amy walked in.
“Sorry, I… I didn’t know you were here” she mumbled.
“Easy, nerd, I don’t bite”
Amy seemed a bit tipsy, but not drunk. Her face was suddenly serious, changing from the giggly expression she had with Molly outside. Hoped lowkey wished she could make her laugh.
“Well, you didn’t see this carefree three hours ago” Amy replied.
Hope smiled. She was right.
“True” she said “I wasn’t being the best version of myself.”
“So, which is the best version of yourself?” Amy asked, this time with no mumbling. “The cruel bitch that made my life impossible in high school? The girl who kissed me at Nick’s party? The woman who shared her craziest sex fantasies over the phone? Or the immature coward that lied about living in New York?”
That last one hurt. Amy counted each question with each finger from her right hand and Hope was taken aback by Amy’s sudden wave of confidence and harshness.
“Wow, you didn’t stutter and those were a lot of rhetorical questions.”
Amy’s hand was still up in the air.
“I am all of those,” Hope said as she put out the cigarette and lowered Amy’s fingers with a gentle swipe of her hand. “The thing is I can be a bitch, I can be insecure, I can be bold and I can be honest. You just didn’t have enough time to figure that out.”
They looked at each other for a few minutes without saying much. Amy held Hope’s defiant look and didn’t hesitate. Without even noticing, during the whole time, they were holding hands. All of the sudden, their little bubble was broken by Molly running in the room and throwing up in the kitchen sink.
“Sorry…” she said slowly while holding on to the kitchen counter as if her life depended on it. “The bathroom has been busy for a while.”
“What’s happening in there?”
“Triple A is throwing up in the sink and Alan is throwing up in the toilet.”
Amy moved past Hope and grabbed Molly’s hair gently.
“You still look fab, babe” Amy said encouraging her friend, while she rolled her eyes at Hope. “You okay?”
“This is the best night of my life” Molly whimpered. “All of us, having fun in New York, I never even dreamed this would happen…”
Amy and Hope looked at each other and laughed silently.
“So… you were saying we didn’t have time to know each other?”
Hope nodded.
“We could have time now” Amy hinted.
Hope smiled.
“So you wanna be friends with me now?”
This time, Amy nodded.
She knew she had it in her to snap right back with a sarcastic comment and leave her behind. Probably, in time, that would prove to be the smart decision. But there was something inside her that kept assuring her that if they had run into each other without really planning it after a year, fate had something else in store for them. Molly kept throwing up right next to them and she started drunk crying.
“Alright, nerd” Hope agreed. “Let’s be friends. But I warn you, I’ll be such a great friend to you that you are never gonna wanna let me go.”