Page 5 of Best Woman
“Do you need a ride home?”
I look up from where I’m surreptitiously reading the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction I printed out at home last night, dazed by the muggy Florida heat. Standing in front of me, haloed by the August sun, is her . Kim Cameron. My eyes catch on her legs in their ripped fishnets for a moment.
“Me?”
“Do you see anyone else out here?” She has a hand on her hip and looks like she’s already regretting this.
“No.” Everyone else is gone, rehearsal having ended almost an hour ago.
I’ve been waiting for Aiden to pick me up.
Sharing a car and splitting the monthly payment was a great idea in theory before he got his license, but since I’m always at rehearsal after school and he’s out the gate the second the final bell rings, I am constantly waiting around for him.
He hasn’t responded to my last three calls and I’ve resigned myself to withering away in this parking lot with nothing but my forty-seven pages of smut and a Luna Bar.
But here she is, currently starring as Cinderella in the fall production of Into the Woods, while I, who barely made it on to the props crew, dangle paper birds over her lovely head during the prologue.
Today I accidentally hit her in the face, scratching a tiny paper cut into her nose.
Is that why she’s offering me a ride, so she can murder me and dump my body on the side of the road?
It’s a diabolical plan, and there’s no chance she’ll get caught—I doubt anyone at home would miss me.
The twins are firmly in the terrible twos and our entire house has fallen under the thrall of the Wiggles, whose videos and CDs play at top volume all hours of the day and night.
“You live on the west side, right? I’ve seen you at the Publix on Powerline.”
“Yeah.” I’ve seen her there too, buying sushi with her friends to take to the beach as I trail behind my mom, who insists that I need to start drinking the diet Arizona iced tea instead of the regular.
“Come on, it’s so fucking hot out here.”
Feeling almost disconnected from my body, I get up, sling my messenger bag over my shoulder, and follow her to her black Honda Civic.
It smells faintly of pot and the floors are dirty, sprinkled with sand and empty water bottles.
At least she doesn’t have to share it with anyone. She’s an only child.
I give her my address and she starts the car, exiting the school parking lot. The late-summer sun hits her face through the window and I try not to stare at her glowing profile.
“I’m sorry about hitting you with those birds today,” I blurt out, immediately wishing I’d stayed quiet. I read somewhere that being cool is about waiting for other people to ask questions and answering as vaguely as possible.
She laughs. “It’s OK, you didn’t do too much damage. Just don’t let them peck out my eyes like they do to the stepsisters.”
We laugh, and I realize that I’m in Kim Cameron’s car. With Kim Cameron, a year ahead of me, the girl who received a standing ovation in the cafeteria last year for punching a guy in the face when he called her a dyke.
She powers on the radio and flips through a few stations, evidently finding them lacking. She reaches behind her seat when we hit a red light, and her T-shirt rides up as she twists. My eyes are stuck on the curve of her back and I shamefully whip away as she turns back around, CD case in hand.
“Find us something to listen to?”
Oh god, the pressure! I unzip the book and flip through pages of albums I’ve never heard of, mix CDs with esoteric titles like Beach Vibez and Mike’s Hot Jamz Vol 69 .
There are a few Broadway cast recordings mixed in, but I’d rather throw myself from the moving vehicle than suggest we sing along to Wicked .
A name catches my eye. “Who’s Ani DiFranco?”
She gasps, eyes wide. “What kind of question is that?” She’s overdoing it a bit, but she’s not the star of the school play for nothing.
I shrug. “One someone who has never heard of her would ask?”
“Put it in, put it in!” she insists, turning up the volume. We listen in silence for a moment to something that sounds more like poetry than music, and then a plucking guitar arrives. “I like it,” I tell Kim after a few verses.
“I can’t believe you don’t know who Ani DiFranco is,” she says, making a left turn past the complex where my pediatrician’s office is. “Are you sure you’re gay?”
My breath catches. “I’m not gay.”
She looks over at me, mortified. “Oh my god, I…I’m so sorry. I thought…I heard some people talking at rehearsal, they said you came out over the summer.”
I turn my head to look out the passenger window, hands twisting in my lap. “I did. I’m, uh, bisexual?” I hate the way it comes out as a question.
“Oh,” she says. Over the speakers, Ani is scatting little “aahs” and “ohs.” We listen to her sing about drowning for a moment before the girl beside me sighs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”
I still can’t look back at her. I don’t know why I feel so embarrassed.
“It’s OK. I know a lot of people think it’s basically the same thing, or that I’m just…
pretending I like girls too so I don’t have to like, actually be gay.
” I turn toward her, weirdly angry and maybe a little hurt.
“But if I was gay, I would have said I was gay. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m bisexual.”
“Use your education, and take an educated guess, about meeeeee…”
She turns in to my neighborhood, drawing up to the security gate.
I give the guard my name and he waves us through.
We drive by golf courses, a canal full of ducks, and rows of identical houses with identical cars parked outside.
An old woman grips a walker as she makes the journey from her battered Cadillac to an open front door.
We pull up to my house, and as I expected, my car is sitting in the driveway.
I’m sure Aiden is upstairs taking his daily post-school nap, and my calls and texts are ignored on his phone.
I grab my bag. “Thanks for the ride.” Before I can open the door, her hand is on my arm.
“Hey,” she says. I look back at her. It’s golden hour and the sun is streaming through the window, illuminating her face. She is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. “Thank you for correcting me. I’m sure it’s fucking annoying to have people…get you wrong.”
My throat is tight. Her hand is so hot on mine. “Yeah. Um, you’re welcome?”
Something lingers between us for a moment. But then I remember that she is older, is into girls, and whatever camaraderie she just extended about me isn’t really about me, but about something that’s shared between us. And right now, that’s enough.