Page 13

Jude

“Just for fun, when would you estimate was the last time this place was inspected by the health department?” Kat asked as they slid into a booth at Jude’s favorite diner, looking dubiously at the dingy newspaper articles on the wall and the ripped red cushions on the chrome stools at the counter.

Jude put her hand on her heart. “I promise this place has had no recent rodent infestations.”

“ Recent? ”

“Sure, a few people may have died in the past, but don’t you believe in giving second chances?”

Katrina glared. Jude laughed. “This place is really good, I promise. My mom used to bring me here as a kid.”

“Okay. I’ll take my life in my hands, then, and order”—Kat flipped through the extremely long menu—“the lobster? Really?”

“Okay, definitely don’t order that,” Jude said. “I can vouch for the pancakes, but not for anything of the shellfish variety.”

Kat was deep in the menu now. “Pasta with clam sauce? Moussaka? Beef bulgogi? There are, like, eighteen different cuisines in here.”

“That’s a New York diner for you. If it doesn’t have a menu that looks like it was composed by a poet in a fever dream, then it’s not authentic.”

The waiter came over, and they placed their orders. Once he left, Kat slumped down in the booth, her entire body going limp. “Oh my God, I’m so happy to be out of there.”

Jude smiled at her. At the beginning of the night, Kat had seemed like a different person. She’d barely looked at Jude, and Jude had wondered why she’d even invited her. Now it felt like some filter had dropped away, and the real Kat was back.

“Don’t you have to go to that kind of party all the time?” Jude asked. “Aren’t you used to them?”

Kat sighed. “I should be,” she said. “But it’s different now.

When I was a kid, all I had to do was take directions and not complain.

But now, getting cast, staying relevant, it’s all so political.

And usually I can handle that, but today, I don’t know…

I just got overwhelmed.” She hesitated for a second, then added, “This was my first time being seen in public with another woman,too. I think that threw me off a little.”

“Oh,” Jude said. Why hadn’t Kat told her that in advance? That seemed like important information for her to have. “Is that why you invited me? You wanted to be seen with a woman?”

Kat blushed. “No, no, no,” she said hurriedly.

“I needed a date. And I had just met you and you seemed really nice, so I thought, why shouldn’t I bring a woman?

I’m ready for people to know I’m gay. Although, actually, I don’t even know if I am gay.

” Jude raised her eyebrows and Kat hurried to amend.

“I mean, I definitely like women. I just don’t know if that’s all I like. ”

Jude nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?” Kat looked down at the table. “I mean, shouldn’t I just know that? If I have to think about it, isn’t that some sort of sign?”

“I don’t think so.” Jude smiled at Kat gently, even though Kat was avoiding her eyes.

“When people spend your whole life telling you that you love hamburgers and asking aren’t you excited to have hamburgers and don’t you think that hamburger looks delicious, it makes sense to like hamburgers.

But then if you go somewhere like this with a forty-page menu and realize there are a lot of different foods out there, it makes sense that you’d start thinking, Hey, maybe I’m actually a steak person.

Or a vegan chicken substitute person. And it would take time to try those foods and decide what kind of person you are.

Maybe you like all the foods. Or maybe you try steak and it’s so good that you think, man, I can’t believe I’ve been settling for hamburgers all these years. ”

Kat snorted with laughter—actually snorted, wrinkling her nose up adorably. Jude grinned at her, feeling giddy. She couldn’t believe she was actually sitting here, in her favorite diner, with Kat.

“So, men are hamburgers and women are steak, then?” Kat made the words sound flirtier than they had any right to be.

Jude held up her hands. “Don’t hold me to this metaphor. But, okay, yes. Women are much higher quality than men.”

Kat looked up at Jude through her eyelashes. “Guess I’ll have to give steak a try, then.”

Jude swallowed. She hoped her eyes weren’t bugging out of her head like a cartoon character. She tried to channel every last possible scrap of smoothness that she had as she leaned forward slightly to say, in a low voice, “I think you should.”

They held each other’s eyes. It seemed like they were breathing in sync, like Jude could feel every breath that Kat took moving through her own lungs. Their bodies seemed to be humming at the same frequency, and Jude wished desperately that there wasn’t a table between them.

A throat cleared, and they both snapped back in their seats as the waiter dropped two plates in front of them. Jude could see a faint blush on Kat’s cheeks as she busied herself with the syrup.

“You know, that’s the metaphor they use in church, too,” Kat said.

“What is?”

“About why you should wait for marriage to have sex. ‘Why have hamburger when you can have steak?’?”

“Ew. I did not mean to channel that energy,” Jude said, biting into her burger. “Did you grow up religious?”

“Yeah, fairly. I grew up in a suburb outside Albuquerque, and church was a big part of my parents’ social scene.

Although they definitely used it in part as free babysitting.

They worked a lot, so they would drop me off for whatever kids’ class the church was having, and someone’s mom would take me home afterward.

” Kat popped a bite of pancake into her mouth and shrugged.

“It wasn’t so bad. I got a lot of coloring books full of gruesome bible scenes. ”

“Can I ask how you got into acting?”

“Through church, actually,” Kat said, reaching over and helping herself to one of Jude’s fries.

“We used to do these pageants. The big one at Christmas, of course, but in Sunday school we would do little skits to act out bible scenes. And I loved it. I used to beg my mom to let me try out for a Disney show. But my mom wasn’t about to drive me ten hours to L.A.

So when I was nine, I went on the family computer, started googling, and found some local commercials that were casting instead. ”

“Damn,” Jude said. “And to think I was just messing around on Neopets.”

“Well, I did a lot of that, too,” Kat said. “Hasee Bounce was my jam.”

“So, your mom let you try out for commercials?”

“Yup. There was one being cast not too far from our house with auditions on a Saturday, so she finally gave in. Burt’s Auto Dealership.

I didn’t even have lines. I just had to walk onto the lot and look wowed by all the shiny new cars.

But they paid me two hundred dollars. And once she realized we could make money, my mom was suddenly a lot more willing to drive me to auditions. ”

Kat smiled like it was a joke, but Jude could see bitterness in the sides of her mouth, and how she stabbed her pancakes with particular force.

Jude hesitated before her next question.

She didn’t want to pry, but she also wanted to understand what kind of life Kat had lived, how she’d become the person she was today.

“How did you get to L.A.?”

“My mom lost her job. She was a receptionist at a law firm, and they laid her off. Money was tight, and she had some free time on her hands, so she drove me over there. I went to nine auditions in three days and I got one.” Kat shrugged.

“The pay was good enough that my mom let me keep trying out. After a couple of small roles, I signed with my manager, Jocelyn, and then I got the big one.”

As she talked about acting, Jude could feel Kat’s walls starting to creep back up—her shoulders tensing, her voice becoming less expressive. Buttoning herself back up. So she changed the subject. “How are the pancakes?”

“Oh my goodness, they’re incredible. Here.” Kat pushed her plate across the table and Jude took a bite, smiling to herself.

Kat laughed, watching Jude chew. “You really love these pancakes, don’t you? I’ll admit it, your restaurant did not turn out to be as gross as I thought.”

“First of all, it’s a diner, not a restaurant,” Jude said, swallowing.

“Big difference. But the smiling is because I’m having a really nice time.

I was worried that I’d hurt your feelings by telling you I didn’t send that DM, so I was really glad when you asked me out again.

Because I really wanted to see you, even if I wasn’t the one who messaged you. ”

Kat looked down, the laughter fading out of her face. She slowly cut another bite of pancake. Jude wished she hadn’t said anything. Had she made things weird? She ate some of her burger to cover her discomfort.

“Can I ask you something?” Kat said suddenly, putting her silverware down.

“Of course.”

“When did you know you were queer?”

Jude paused to think. “Well, I was always really tomboy-like. Even when I was a little kid, people were always asking if I was a boy or a girl, and I always wanted to do whatever the boys were doing. I went through a phase in middle school where I wore skirts and tried to be more like the other girls, but that didn’t last very long.

And I’d kind of always had crushes on girls.

So part of me always knew, but I didn’t officially come out until the second half of high school. ”

“What was that like?”

“I mean, shitty. It’s New York, so most people were liberal and supportive of gay people in theory, but in practice…

” Jude shrugged. “It wasn’t like I got beaten up in the hallways or anything.

People just whispered about me. Laughed when I spoke in class or asked me why I wanted to look like an ugly man.

That kind of thing. But when I was sixteen, I met my friend Rhys—the one who works in the store.

We didn’t go to the same school, but having a queer friend made me feel so much better.

It made me realize that my experiences were normal, and I wasn’t a freak.

Having queer friends is really important, especially when you’re first coming out. ”

Jude watched Kat drag the tines of her fork through the pools of drying syrup on her plate. Her brow was furrowed and her lips were pressed together, as if in concentration.

“Want to hear something weird?” Kat finally said.

“I knew then, too. I was thirteen, and I had this crush on one of my costars—this girl a few years older. And I remember thinking, Wow, guess I’m into girls.

And some part of my brain was just like, No thanks, that sounds really complicated, let’s shove that one down for another decade or two.

” She let out a hollow laugh, as if that would convince Jude that she didn’t really mean it when she added, “Isn’t that messed up? ”

“I don’t think so,” Jude said in a soft voice.

“You don’t?”

It would be possible to get lost forever, Jude thought, in the gaze that Kat was giving her right now.

In those big, vulnerable eyes looking so hopefully at Jude.

When was the last time someone had looked at her like that, like Jude was a safe harbor in a storm? Like she was strong instead of fragile?

“I think it makes sense,” Jude said. “I mean, you were a kid. You knew that dealing with all of that would be really complicated and that the adults around you wouldn’t be supportive. So your brain decided to wait to process it until you were ready.”

“But I wasted so much time,” Kat said. “I missed out on having the chance to do all of this when I was the right age. And now I have to figure it out years after everyone else, and totally embarrass myself because I have no idea what I’m doing.

Plus, it’s not like I can just walk into a queer bar and see how it goes, because I’d be recognized. ”

“You’re not late,” Jude said. “Some people don’t figure this out until their forties, fifties, sixties—eighties, even. You’re so much earlier than so many people.”

“It doesn’t feel that way,” Kat said. “It feels like I’m starting at a new school halfway through the semester, and now I’ll never find friends to sit with at lunch.”

Jude reached her hand across the table without thinking, palm up. “I’ll sit with you at lunch.”

Kat hesitated. Then she reached out and put her hand in Jude’s.

Jude stopped breathing. Her whole body felt light, as if she were floating a few inches off her seat.

Kat’s soft hand fit in Jude’s palm like it was made to be there.

Her thumb rested on Jude’s wrist, light enough to cause goosebumps.

Jude felt a sudden urge to lift their hands and press the back of Kat’s hand to her lips.

Before she could, Kat pulled away. “I should get home.”

Jude wanted to stay at this diner all night, listening to Kat talk. She wanted to unwrap the layers of this beautiful human in front of her, find her way past the various fronts and faces Kat put on.

But she could take her time. Clearly, that was what Kat needed.

Kat stood to go, pausing for a moment, lingering by the table. “You’ll come with me to Richard Gottlieb’s party tomorrow, right?” she finally said. “He invited both of us.”

Jude couldn’t help the enormous grin that filled her face. “I wouldn’t miss it.”