Dangerously Close to Bearable, Chapter 5
And so Erica and Amy finally reunite. Let’s see how it goes…
Howdy howdy! Tonight’s the night!
Hey! It’s Sarah.
So about that night
I’m really sorry. We’ve been working on my perv episodes. They happen sometimes.
Most of the time I’m good! And I’ve gotten better.
But I was in, like, a safe place, with safe, sweet people? And you were there? And you were (are) stupid pretty! When I saw you, I just kinda short circuited, and I fell back into old habits.
No spray bottles that night, so I pushed. Too much.
I’m sorry! If I made you uncomfortable, that’s not cool, and I don’t want to be that way, especially with people I want to call friends.
Tho if you ever wanna do the sweatband bondage thing, I’m down. Keep it in your back pocket, maybe Erica’s into it too.
***
Okay, hype yourself up!
Cowgirl boots, well-loved, black, moderately sexy.
A red plaid dress, tea length. Soft, comfy, form-flattering but not -fitting.
Denim vest, black hoodie stolen from Will’s closet.
The bra with the functioning underwire.
And: new—and newly washed—full brief panties!
I decide against too much makeup—I want Erica to see me and make a decision based on that, not the morning after.
Already underselling myself.
Okay. We did it. We got dressed and ready to go out, like a big girl.
I snap a photo and send it to the group chat, titled “GIRLS (SARAH BEHAVE)”.
Hearts and smileys. “You look great!” Zoey replies.
“I’m not wearing stockings tonight, letting my legs breathe.”
“Good idea,” Sarah says. “Let her see those thighs lol”
Several whooshing emojis get sent—their code for Sarah to behave.
She likes everybody, even me.
A private text from Zoey. “Hey, about the other night: sorry about Sarah. She’s usually more composed? I think that’s the word? We’ve worked on her being a horny freak, and tbh she’s been so much better lately, but, and I don’t say this to blame you, I think you set her off
“Sometimes somebody just gets under her skin (in a good way) and she tries to fuck them immediately. It’s not an excuse for her, but yeah. She likes to play slutty—really slutty—but I know her. She’s only like that for dimes. It’s not an act. I was a dime.
“Have a good night! Just wanted to let you know before you got too worried.
“Also she did the sweatbands gag on me first and it was fucking tops”
Okay then. I draw my shoulders up a little higher, looking like I’m on the tall end of 5’4.
***
Every little part of my trip feels like the most difficult thing ever.
Leaving my bedroom.
Leaving the house.
Turning on the car, driving to Delectable Dan’s Ice Cream, Burger, and BBQ Barn and Gift Shop, parking, getting out, entering the moderately lit shop, scanning the tables, and seeing…seeing…
There she is, back turned, checking her phone, putting it down, sighing, shoulders sagging.
My phone buzzes. Erica. “You here? Excited!”
I can just leave. Give her an excuse, block her number, be out of her life, disappear, just be me and nothing else nothing better nothing more—
“Behind you.” It’s sent before I get what’s going on.
She turns around.
Our eyes meet.
We both throw out little smiles.
And I realize how much I missed that face.
I think she does too.
That settles it—I’m doing this.
Erica stands up as I walk over, and then I’m in front of her, staring up, marveling at her bust (did she get taller? No—she’s wearing heels!), but also seeing her face, that same face as always, but with the perfection brought out, the angles softened and made into soft curves, the lips that need to be kissed, now more than ever.
When was the last time…?
I’m looking up at her, and I’m blanking on what to say! Say something! Anything!
“Hey stranger.” Good enough!
“Same to you.” She spreads her arms, and we hug. I bury myself in the soft fabric of her dress, and I smell her, that body wash she likes, that smells of eucalyptus and arnica, but now laced with feminine deodorant, that powdery floral scent.
It is an incredible new twist.
"So," I say, "is this an actual date?"
"Are you asking so you can kiss me?" She smirks. Smirks! At me!
"Please?"
She leans over, and I get just a little on my tiptoes. We connect, and her mouth is as—no, better than I remember.
It’s just a hello kiss: more than a peck, less than a French. We linger there, our lips touching, anxiety urging us forward and back at the same time.
Luckily, we both pull back. Stepping away, I get the chance to take her full measure.
It’s tough to describe. When I learned, and I thought about it, I sort of assumed that she would be completely different—like, presentation-wise. The clothes would change, the colors shift, the selection and construction would be radically altered, because she’s a girl now. Before, she was always sharply dressed: perfectly cut slacks, a three-piece suit, pocket watch, cuffs poking out at the perfect length. Immaculately cut and tailored, like she was born to wear it.
For some reason, even after seeing the picture she sent, I expected sundresses and flats.
“I tried the sundresses and flats thing,” she says, smiling, “but it felt weird.”
“Let’s get in line,” I say, “I want to look at you.”
She laughs. “I figured. Who’s going to walk backwards?”
“What?”
“I’m looking too, you know.”
I look away, blushing. “Oh, stop.” Yes, at an overweight middle-aged woman, who is patently unworthy of standing next to perfection.
‘’You’re just as gorgeous as I remember.”
I want to assume she’s lying, and blow up and call her on it, scream and stomp my feet. But then I turn back to her again, and the smile deepens.
My brain tries to freeze frame her as we walk over to the line. Her black sheer stockings with red leather heels. The solid black knee-length skirt. White button-up blouse, black blazer, a pocket watch in the breast, three tasteful gold chains on her neck, each longer than the next.
She moves with control, precision, grace—from the heels, probably. Her hair is pulled back and up into a tight bun, to show off the softness of her face, her skin glowing just a little bit from a tan.
A text. The group chat.
Sarah: “you gay for her yet”
And another chorus of wind emojis.
“Yes!” I type.
Hearts and happy faces.
I’m not sure yet. I’m gay for Erica, I know that much.
Is that gay? Is it just her? Just feels a little…premature.
***
“So, what’s new with you? Aside from, uh, the obvious?”
Erica responds with mock-shock. “I guess you noticed.” She stares down at her food.
Oh shit, what did I do now? “Oh, hey, I’m—“
“It’s true, I’m coloring my roots now.” And she gives me a little sneering smile.
“Ass,” I say, laughing.
We’re walking back to our table with our meals: cafeteria trays with an array of protein, carbs, and a canned soda. She’s got brisket, Mac and cheese, and green beans. Sausage and turkey, potato salad, and Cole slaw for me.
Sitting back down, we forget about our food. “How have you been?” She asks.
How honest should I be? “Best I can, given the circumstances,” I say. “Robert was cheating for years, finally got her pregnant, used it as a sign.
“Then she miscarried, and I was forced to feel bad for her. And the way he stuck by her…” shame on me. This isn’t therapy. “Sorry, I don’t want to bring down the mood.” Minutes after we begin.
“No, I’ve been there. The moment I started talking about it seriously, Claudia clammed up and got really Catholic. Once she saw I had an Endo appointment, she immediately left, and moved back in with her mother.”
An outside observer would be rightly alarmed. We used to front load the shitty stuff at the top, so we knew our convos wouldn’t get heavy later on.
“Was it annulled?” I ask.
Erica nods. “Somehow. She wouldn’t even let me offer any assets. Called them tainted by ‘gender ideology’.”
“At least she committed to the bit,” I say, and my mouth hangs open in shock. Yes, I said that.
Erica nods. “Indeed. I sold the house, put half in a trust for her. Least I could do.” She pokes at her food. “I wanted it to work, but things just…yeah. It got—“
“Too hard to deny.”
“Exactly.” And she smiles. “You get it.”
“Comforting the woman my husband has been fucking, consoling her, reassuring her that her life isn’t over, and meaning it? I don’t know if I’ve ever hated myself more.” Her crying, Robert’s name tattooed on her forearm (terribly), Aiden and Will sullen in a corner…telling her it’s not the end of the world, that she’s not broken, that she’s got a life ahead of her, doing my most Mom comforting in the world—for her, for this fucking home wrecker cunt.
“Imagine going to mass and being denied communion,” Erica says, sipping her soda through a straw. She’s dainty as ever. I mean, we’ll see—away from prying eyes she was a messy—
Assuming I’m taking her home.
“Since then,” I say, “it’s been shockingly similar to being married. Wake up, shower, kids off to school, work, bad interaction with a man, sleep, repeat.”
“What do you do now?” She asks. “Did you manage to get the studio thing going?”
I shake my head. “No. I do tech support for a pro app, sometimes on-site consults. I managed to work with a studio as a mixing assistant, but that band got dropped by their label and the budget dried up. So, here I am. What about you? Your master’s recital was one of my favorites.”
She blushes. “I put the vocal performance aside when Claudia and I met. She wanted to start a family, I was looking to settle down for real, stop the voice in the back of my head. Got in with her family’s shipping company, found out I’m good at logistics and managing people—skills you pick up in a touring company, apparently.”
“You toured?” I’m in awe of her, truly. She had a life after me.
Of course she did. She didn’t have two kids and a burnout dipshit nipping at her heels.
“It was a regional company in the Pacific Northwest, we did lo-fi, DIY-style shows. Cabaret, Chicago, we did a one night only illegal performance of Hamilton. Lotta Rent, lotta Spring Awakening. I don’t miss it.” Her wistful sigh tells me otherwise.
“So what are you doing now?”
“Voice lessons and conducting for a civic ensemble, and I manage shipping lines for a couple of regional couriers.”
“Busy busy. I’m just doing the one thing,” I say, “I wish I had more to do.”
Erica shakes her head. “Nuh uh, no you don’t. You raised two kids while finishing your degree, and now they’re…are they gone?”
“Well, my oldest is going to college, and Aiden, my younger son, is attending a Fine Arts magnet school. And it’s more convenient for him to live with Robert.” We agreed, it wasn’t acrimonious, but I still hate it. Aiden isn’t happy with it either, but he’s as avoidant as me. He still knows he can text Mama whenever he needs, and his choice is the most important one (much to Robert’s chagrin).
She leans over, resting her chin on her hand. “Look at you, Ms. Boss Bitch Mama.”
“What? No. I’m…I’m just me. I fucked up. A lot. But I love my boys, and I’ll do whatever I can for them.” I never bullshit the boys. I told them that their father messed up so bad we couldn’t stay together. It didn’t change how I felt about them, and hopefully didn’t change how Robert did. But I was always clear that he broke us, so he could have what he wanted.
“I don’t want to be all, like, ‘rah rah women’, but you did a lot,” She says. “You’re brave. You’re funny. You’re sweet.
“And you’re still beautiful.”
For a second, I dare to look into her eyes. I push past all the fear, all the self-loathing, all the hate that gummed up my brain, and just try to let myself feel her gaze.
And when our eyes meet, everything that’s happened, the world wearing me down, every single ugly comment about my weight, my hair, my looks, my job—none of it matters, because the person that I’ve had feelings for since the moment we met is looking at me again, and she’s smiling. Smiling, and tearing up a little, threatening to ruin her flawless smoky eye.
***
We met for the first time at a freshman music mixer. I was production and composition, she was vocal performance.
She was dressed so formally, other people made fun of her. But I thought she was dashing. I was decked out in jean shorts and a bootleg Bart Simpson t-shirt.
“Hey,” I said, nudging her.
“Oh?” She looked around, above me. “Who’s there? Are you near my ankles?”
“Ass.” I nudge her again, and she looks down.
He was (then, this feels like the only time I’ll say it like this) so handsome. He had a chiseled jaw, a sharp chin, and perfectly angled cheekbones.
She smiled at me, and I felt like the most special girl in the world.
“Are you here to tell me I look faggy?” She asked.
I shook my head. “I think you look great.”
Her eyebrows go up. “Okay. Well then. How about that.”
“Wanna smoke?” I held up my pack—Marlboro 27’s.
“Nah, but you seem like okay company.”
“It’s been said.”
***
We’re outside. It’s too cold for ice cream, but we’re eating it anyways.
Waffle cone and cookies and cream for me, white chocolate frozen yogurt in a cup for her.
“When did you get such good manners?” I ask, a drip falling onto my dress.
“When I started paying too much for my clothes,” she replies, taking another tiny bite. “Looking this good is not cheap.”
“I guess you just stop caring when you have kids.” It’s true. That, lockdown, general antipathy for propriety, did the rest.
“Claudia and I would get into arguments over it during lockdown. ‘Why are you wearing that’? ‘Because I’m not depressed!’ ‘Yes you are!’ And so on.
“I think that’s where it started? The whole gender thing. Just needing to be different for a reason that I couldn’t understand.”
“Mm. Yeah, Lockdown was fucking hell. Stuck inside with Robert, all the fucking weird porn he watched—and paid for, then deleted. I watched it, too, gave me ideas that scared him.” His fault for liking latex that much. “Kids in zoom school, busting our—my—ass to make sure they didn’t fall behind, then Robert got COVID.
“From Lacey.
“And neither of them died.” That was when it began, at least, in my reckoning.
When I started letting myself fall apart.
I keep eating my ice cream, trying to use the cold and the sweet to numb whatever the fuck is bleeding out inside me. Why am I dumping on her like this? She’s my best friend—not really, she’s my friend with whom I lost contact, then called because I was in a vulnerable state of self-loathing looking to get off with a familiar face and she was first on my list—
There’s a hand on my leg. I look down, and she’s touching me, and I can feel the moisture of the ice cream through my dress. Not caring, I lean in. She’s so close, she’s so beautiful, I feel like I need her more than anything in the world, messy ice cream stains be damned.
She recoils from me. Of course she does. I know why, but it still hurts.
So I stand up from the bench, and walk away. I try to be graceful in my exit, but my toe catches the sidewalk, and my slight trip makes my ice cream fall to the ground.
I look down at it and cry. I embody every mean cliche about middle-aged fat women, and cry over dropping my fucking ice cream.
I glance behind me, and she’s gone.
Nice.
***
What does it really mean to just fucking fail? At everything? To be someone who always comes in late, over-budget, and under-spec? To be so cosmically incompetent that you can’t even go on the lowest stakes date of all time, what should feel like an easy lay-up of catching up and a sweet kiss goodnight without getting in your own fucking way and drop your fucking ice cream when your friend got their hand dirty on your nasty fucking dress and they justifiably pull away and leave you alone to stew in your own prison of gendered bullshit that you built brick by brick so you could have an easy justification for any sort of subsequent failure and you could absolve yourself of actually attempting to try to be better or more present or pretty or worthy of affection—
***
I’m suddenly looking at two cones. Chocolate or rocky road.
“Pick,” Erica says, behind me.
“What?” She’s gonna tell me how many times I said that at the end of the night.
“Take one. You looked so lonely, I went inside and got you another, then I couldn’t remember if you like rocky road or not, so I got chocolate, so now I have two cones, one for you and one for me.”
“You…you…you got me more?” I say, my voice shaking, taking the rocky road. “I do like it. I love almonds.”
“See? I remembered something about you.”
“What else do you remember?” I ask, turning around.
She’s wearing a bib. By God, she’s taking a risk.
Least I could do is meet her there.
“I remember you telling me you were pregnant, and how excited you were.
“And when you got your degree, after you gave birth to Will.
“The day you let me meet Aiden before Robert.”
“Oh my god! I did!” He was on my shit list—too busy playing Call of Duty or something.
“When you called me. When you called back. When I realized you weren’t afraid of me.”
I lean in, rest my head on her chest. “Hey, don’t put it like that. I never felt like that.”
“I know, I just needed…to tell myself that.”
“I could never be afraid. Never.” No, I would love her—purely as a friend!—forever. No matter what. Not even if she transitioned into the most beautiful woman who’s ever paid attention to me (I’d put Sarah at second place—which is weird, because Zoey couldn’t catalogue half the stains on her shirt).
I take her hand—her soft, dainty, beautiful hand—and walk her back to the bench. We very carefully sit back down, and angle ourselves to eat with the least mess possible.
“Why would people not be bedding you all the time? Provided that’s what you’re looking for?” I ask.
“Kinda,” she replies, sniffling a little, “but it’s tough. The usual shit, you probably know: I’m trans, and people are fucking weird about it. When men find out I don’t have…the anatomy, they bounce.”
“Oh, I had no idea.” Mostly. Robert had a drunken tirade where he got really defensive about some trans porn on the family computer. I tried to tell him it was the porn part that was the problem.
“About what?” She eats her ice cream fast, her hand covered in napkins to minimize mess.
“Both…I think? So you have a pussy?” Yo! You just asked that! Out loud!
“I do, I do, and everyone freaks out about it.”
“Why?”
“Gendered expectations, stereotypes, words you hear in therapy. I’m not the fantasy.”
“Speak for yourself.” I don’t mumble, I don’t mutter, I don’t whisper, I say it at full volume, like I want her to hear me.
“Oh? Do we have something to share?”
It was always going to come back here. Back to her. Back to us. Then. Now. Later.
Me.
“Yeah. I’m…I’m…” why am I getting so fucking nervous? I’ve said this already. But I want to say to to her, here, with my full fucking chest, while I look her in the eye. “I’m really, really, REALLY attracted to you—to YOU, not your gender or your genitals or anything else—but you’re also super pretty and…” I take a deep breath. “I’m not done. I like you and I want you. There.”
Erica just stares at me, the melting ice cream soaking into the napkins.
“This was making my tummy ache, anyways.” She tosses the cone in the trash, pulls me to her by my waist, and kisses me.
I drop my cone, again.
No…
Okay, now I’m unashamedly being the sad fat girl.
But it’s a real kiss. She’s hungry, her mouth consumes me. I part my lips and let her in, and she pushes through like she’s been starving, her tongue exploring me, and I cross over to her.
Every second of time apart evaporates. The bad decisions, the lonely nights, the screaming matches, lawyers, sons crying—all of that pain was worth it, just to be here, now, with her.
I want to show my boys that they’re worthy of love, that they don’t have to fucking settle. They can find someone incredible, someone they deserve—whoa there, getting a little ahead of myself there, right?
Right?
Erica breaks the kiss. “Did you want to go back to your place? I’m a little far away.”
Oh, I’m right on schedule.