Her heart soared even as anxiety settled into
her shoulders and spine.
“When are we hanging out with this girl?
What’s her name?”
Riva knew she ought to tell the truth. She
knew she ought to confess the misunderstanding that had arisen.
She just couldn’t—not when he was finally
treating her as if he wanted her. “Her name’s Daisy,” she said.
“The three of us are hanging out Thursday.”
She prayed Daisy was free Thursday, and that
she wouldn’t freak out the way Emmy had when she asked for this
favor. Riva tried not to think about how huge a favor it actually
was.
“Daisy,” Benton said. With the name of Riva’s
new friend still on his lips, he kissed Riva breathless.
* * * *
Daisy jumped when her phone buzzed in her
purse. Beside her, Jo’s eyebrows climbed. She released the leather
skirt she’d been ogling, letting it slide smoothly back into the
rack of identical skirts.
“Who’s that?”
“I don’t know yet,” Daisy said irritably, but
her heart answered the question with hope.
Riva
. She could
feel herself blushing already.
Jo rolled her eyes, thrusting one hip out at
an angle she’d obviously calculated to be the perfect balance of
sassy and adorable. “Who texts you besides me? It’s him, isn’t
it?”
“Hey, I have other friends.”
“I know, I know,” Jo conceded. “But look at
your face! It’s him!” She stuck out her tongue. “Or I guess it
could be that weird girl you’ve been hanging out with lately.”
Daisy stepped back involuntarily, half
burying herself in a mass of thin polyester blazers. The music in
the store had suddenly gotten way too soft for comfort. What would
Jo think if she found out that the
weird girl
and her crush
were one and the same? Just about every day, Daisy made up her mind
to come out to Jo, and then Jo said a bunch of things that made her
want to crawl into the depths of the closet and hide under a pile
of coats.
“Riva’s not weird. She’s really nice. You
should meet her.”
“Right. Riva Corley. The lesbian.” Jo
gestured with her tongue in a way that sparked a flash of shamed
interest in Daisy at the same time that it made her guts twist.
“Hey,” Daisy said. She had to stand up to
this at least a little—her disastrous encounter with Emmy in the
art studio had taught her that much. “First, I’m pretty sure Riva’s
not gay. She has a boyfriend.” She concentrated as she said it,
determined not to let disappointment or hope show on her face.
“Second, even if she was a lesbian, that…” Daisy pointed vaguely at
her mouth and strained to find her courage. “That thing you did
isn’t cool.”
Jo sighed. “I was just kidding, Daisy. I
mean, I don’t have a problem with lesbians or anything.”
“It’s really not cool, though.”
Her best friend laughed. “What, are the
lesbian police watching me? What they don’t know can’t hurt
them.”
They
. And yet again, Jo had made Daisy
feel that she couldn’t come out just yet.
“Whatever.”
Jo swatted her upper arm. “You’re just mad
because I’m teasing you about that guy. You can check your phone if
you want. Don’t worry. I won’t try to read his name off your
screen.”
Daisy wanted to pull her phone out and act
totally casual, but she couldn’t help backing up a few more steps
before she opened her purse.
Jo giggled. “I knew it was him.”
The number on the screen wasn’t any Daisy had
seen before, though. She frowned and flipped to the message.
Hey, can you call me? I got your number from
one of the girls on the volleyball team. This is Emmy.
Daisy stared. Maybe Emmy felt bad about their
conversation the day before, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to
hear it. Much as she wished she could just shrug off the way Emmy
had made her feel at first, Daisy couldn’t get over the cold way
she’d congratulated Daisy on trying to come out, as if there was
something completely pathetic, not only about her attempt to talk
to Emmy, but about her very existence. She sort of didn’t want to
entertain an apology after that.
“You okay?” Jo asked.
Daisy started and shoved her phone back into
her purse. As always, she feared what her face might have betrayed
about her thoughts. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” Jo shook her head. “I
don’t get what’s going on with you.” Turning back to the leather
skirts, she began sorting through them too vehemently, jerking each
one out of the way before moving on to the next. “Did I do
something wrong? You used to, like, trust me.”
“I do trust you, Jo.”
“You sure? Because I can tell you’ve got
things going on, and you won’t tell me the truth about any of
them.”
Daisy opened her mouth to reply, but she
didn’t really have anything to say to that. Jo was right, after
all. She knew Daisy well enough to read her emotions, and she’d
picked up on every one of them.
“I got in a fight with someone yesterday,”
Daisy admitted, trying to give Jo as much as she could. She
frowned, recalling that she and Emmy hadn’t actually yelled at each
other. “An uncomfortable conversation, anyway. She just texted that
she wants to talk to me.”
Jo’s face relaxed slightly. “Who is the
bitch?”
“Bitch?”
“Yeah, I mean, if she’s got a problem with
you, she has to be, right?”
Daisy accepted the concession for what it was
and grinned back. “Well, she’s probably not a bitch all the time,
but she was kind of a bitch to me yesterday.”
“About what? Who is it?”
Daisy wanted to answer, really. When she
tried to think of how to explain, though, she came up against
another mass of things she couldn’t say. “I…can’t tell you. I’m
sorry.”
Jo’s expression had begun to open, but it
snapped shut again at that. “Of course you can’t.”
“I swear I would tell you if I could.”
“Yeah, that’s the same thing you said last
time I brought this up. But since then, you’ve managed to have a
secret conversation with some girl you won’t tell me about. Are we
even still best friends?”
“Jo! We are! Forever!” Daisy put her hand on
Jo’s arm, and the touch was more of a shock than she expected. Her
hand felt so large compared to Jo’s delicate biceps, and she
realized it must have been a long time since she’d touched her best
friend. Daisy swallowed guiltily. She must have started
unconsciously avoiding doing that at some point, probably after
she’d realized she was gay.
Jo shook her off. She turned toward Daisy,
tears shimmering in her eyes. “Seriously, if I did something, I
want to know what it was. It’s not fair for you to just…shut me out
all of a sudden like this.”
Daisy had to tell her the truth. Their
friendship wouldn’t survive if she couldn’t. Even if Jo couldn’t
accept her coming out, that would be better than watching her hurt.
Daisy took a deep breath.
“Is it something about that Riva girl?” Jo
asked. “You’ve been acting so weird since you started hanging out
with her. I don’t even get why you’re hanging out with her
anyway.”
That was an opening. Daisy did her best to
take it. “Yeah, it sort of is about Riva. I’m…I’m…”
“Yeah?”
Jo turned toward Daisy, her face smooth and
earnest. She seemed so perfect just then that Daisy felt dizzy. How
did Jo manage to fit every article of clothing just right, and to
fit her
life
just as well? She barely had to try things on
at the store. Clothes slipped onto her body as if they’d been made
especially for her. No matter what she did to her hair, it was
good. She didn’t even seem to struggle with makeup, though Daisy
thought most colors were designed for white women. Jo somehow found
the perfect complements to her golden complexion.
“I’m…” Daisy tried again.
Lesbian
was too long. Three whole
syllables to get out of her dead-dry throat. But
gay
. That
was one simple word, only three letters long. She could do it just
like the main character in
I Can’t Think Straight
, make a
statement of fact that cut through nonsense and history and
complicated relationships.
“You shouldn’t be hanging out with Riva,” Jo
said abruptly. “I didn’t want to say anything, but you
shouldn’t.”
“Huh?” The sudden declaration threw Daisy off
completely. She didn’t know how to find her way back to what she’d
been trying to say.
“I’m not jealous of her, if that’s what you
think. I’m just saying you shouldn’t be hanging out with a girl
like that. Everyone thinks she’s a perv. You don’t want them to,
you know, think you’re like that, too.”
There it was again. Cold, helpless fury
settled into the base of Daisy’s stomach. “You mean people think
she’s a perv because they think she’s a lesbian.”
Jo wrinkled her nose. “Whatever she is, she’s
got you all hung up on this social justice warrior stuff. Nobody
cares anymore if somebody’s a lesbian. It doesn’t matter.”
“Right. Sure.”
“I’m just saying, people are going to start
talking about you.”
“Because nobody cares if somebody’s a
lesbian.”
Jo gave a frustrated growl. “I don’t get what
your deal is lately, Daisy.”
“Look, let’s just forget it,” Daisy said. She
gestured toward the leather skirts. “Do you want to try one of
those on?”
“No.” Jo shoved the rack hard enough that it
rocked. “I want to hang out with my best friend. But apparently I
don’t have a best friend anymore, because all you do is avoid me,
forget to tell me stuff, and bug me about everything I say or
do.”
“Jo…”
“No, forget it. Go answer your mysterious
text message.”
Daisy thought about trying to convince Jo to
calm down, but she knew there was no way Jo would relax until Daisy
told her a bunch of things. She really didn’t feel like talking
about any of that right now.
She didn’t see what choice she had but to
walk away, but she didn’t miss the shock on Jo’s face when she
did.
“That’s seriously what you’re going to do
now?” Jo asked. “You’re just going to leave?”
Daisy considered pointing out that Jo was the
one who had told her to leave, but she got what her confusion was
about. For most of the years they’d been friends, Daisy wouldn’t
have walked away from Jo no matter what had been said or how nasty
the fight. She would have begged and cried and done everything
possible to make up with her.
In her heart, she knew walking away was the
worst betrayal so far, the strongest evidence that Jo had been
right and they weren’t really best friends anymore. The point,
though, was that she
couldn’t
make it right, no matter how
badly she wanted to. Jo wasn’t going to accept anything less than
the truth, and Daisy could not give that to her right now.
Tears blinded her as she stumbled out of the
store, trying not to notice the way people stared. Daisy had never
felt so alone. She had believed that keeping her secret was the way
to keep Jo in her life, but now she was afraid she would lose Jo no
matter what she did. She made her way to the food court and slumped
into a chair in a back corner near the restrooms. The floor was
sticky, and the trashcan nearest Daisy smelled weird.
She fiddled with her purse and remembered
Emmy’s text. Daisy took out her phone and stared at her screen with
distaste. She didn’t want to call Emmy, but what else did she have?
She didn’t know how to repair things with her best friend, and
whatever was growing with Riva could be destroyed at any time by
the desires Daisy wouldn’t admit.
Emmy picked up almost before the phone
started ringing.
“Hey,” Daisy said quickly. “It’s me.”
“Look, I shouldn’t have acted like that
yesterday. I get why people come to me to talk about stuff like
that. I just get tired of it, you know?”
“I can understand.” A slender Asian girl
walked through Daisy’s line of vision. Daisy straightened,
wondering if Jo had come after her. The girl turned her way,
though, and she wasn’t anyone Daisy recognized. Daisy deflated.
“I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to
graduate soon, and then people might not have anyone to talk to at
all. Maybe we should start a gay/straight alliance or something. I
bet Mrs. Figueroa would sponsor it. She’s pretty cool.”
“We?” Daisy echoed.
“Yeah. Because someone’s going to need to
take over as president after I graduate. You probably don’t want to
be everyone’s therapist either, but maybe we could steer people
toward talking to Mrs. Figueroa or the people in the guidance
office or whatever.”
“Me?”
“Am I talking to someone else? Of course,
you.”
“I just…” Daisy cleared her throat. “I’m not
sure if I’m ready to, like, tell the whole school about myself. I
barely managed to tell you, and that didn’t exactly go well.”
There was a long pause on the other end of
the line, and Daisy tensed, afraid Emmy was about to humiliate her
again.
“Are you there?” Daisy asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. No, I get what you’re
saying, I guess. You haven’t had too much time to think about
this.” She sounded dubious and disappointed.
Daisy couldn’t let herself throw this away.
Emmy had made an overture of friendship. She was trying to include
Daisy. The one thing Daisy desperately needed was to learn to be
herself. “I mean, I will think about it. I am thinking about it. I
want
to come out to the whole school. I’m just scared.”
“You probably should be.” Bleak as the
statement was, it didn’t sound like a threat. In some ways, that
scared Daisy more. “I didn’t think it was going to be that big a
deal, but it was. It’s probably smart of you to take your
time.”
Exhaling slowly, Daisy summoned the courage
that never seemed to be there when she needed it. It came through
this time, just enough. “Maybe we should get together this week and
talk about it? Make some plans? See if Mrs. Figueroa is up for
it?”