Page 37 of Sunsets & Other Dangerous Things

He was sipping his coffee and looked out the window, as though this wasn’t the most terrifying conversation Esther had been a part of in recent memory. “What happened after she kissed you?”

“Well, then I told her I was straight.” Maybe it was nice he wasn’t looking at her. She couldn’t make eye contact with anyone right now.

There was a pause as he took another sip of coffee. “Why’d you tell her that?”

“Well, because…because I thought it was true?”

He nodded and went back to eating. And for a while, that was where they left it. No pressure to say more. She could change the subject if she wanted. The pause was long enough that it wouldn’t seem odd. And it was Uther. He wouldn’t judge her if she didn’t say anything. But he wouldn’t judge her if she did either. They finished their food in silence, Esther both unsure how to continue and also not ready to change the subject. So, she left it floating there until she was eating her last bite of quesadilla and the check materialized.

“Toss a coin to your server,” sang Uther, while pulling out his wallet. “Oh, valley of plenty.”

Finances settled, they stood to leave.

“Uther?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you know? I mean, I guess you always knew. And if at some point you didn’t…know. Or something different. I don’t think I’m saying this right.”

“I’m going to be honest,” He held the door for her. “I’m not sure what you just said, but I have a good idea where this conversation is headed.” He nodded toward the lake. “Did you want to take a walk?”

Esther turned to the lake and took one fortifying inhale through the nose and out through the mouth then nodded. “All right.”

The gravel crunched beneath their feet as they walked to the shoreline. The summer season was long past, and most of the boats were dry-docked for winter, the piers along with them.They took the path through a miniature forest of boats and masts, following the gravel jetty out into the lake.

“So, you like Ashley, huh?” Uther kicked at a rock, sending it skidding to the edge of the water.

“Okay, so…” Esther grabbed the rock and hurled it as far into the water as she could. It made a satisfying plunk and inspired her to look for more rocks. “I never considered dating a woman before, or…I guess I was only considering men? I was interested in them so—you know, the men, I mean. It’s easy to just not think any harder about it.” She found another rock and threw it. This one sounded more like a pink than a plunk. “There were probably signs. Occasionally, I’d think ‘that girl is hot. I’d like to be her friend,’ and then be flattered when the friendship got territorial. I can’t be friends with that other person because I’m already friends with her. You know, girl stuff.” She threw a stick this time, and it made an unsatisfying splash and floated to the surface. She watched it bob for a while. “And even if it wasn’t just girls being girls, that’s a handful of cases to a lifetime of Orlando Bloom posters and Sadie Hawkins dances. I mean even if I am…”

Gay. The word echoed in her head, pushing to come out, but if she said it out loud and to another human, it would be real. Recorded in history for all time. In her head, it was a rough draft. Something bold to consider, but maybe too hastily written for the final draft.

“How much is enough to count?” She braved looking up and found Uther seated on a discarded, plastic chair under one of the two trees, one leg resting across the other.

“Okay.” He steepled his hands, squinting at something invisible in front of him like he was using his mind to unravel the tangles of Esther’s life. “I think the best analogy I’ve heard for this discussion is the purple metaphor.”

“Okay.” Esther nodded like this was the most normal conversation in the world. Uther was her gay Jesus speaking in parables, ready to present her with all the answers.

“So purple is thought of as blue and red, right? But the proportions aren’t set in stone. Like fifty percent blue and fifty percent red is called purple, but so is twenty percent blue and eighty percent red. Lavender, plum, fuchsia, electric purple. They’re wildly different, but if we were told to pick a Roy G. Biv category, we’d stick them all into purple. Right?”

“Yeah, that sounds right.” Esther was pacing along the shore, nodding like a bobblehead ready for him to wrap this up with something all-knowing and personal to her life. She waited. And waited. “Is that it?”

“Oh. Did I need to spell it out for you?”

“Damn it, Uther. You just gave me an art lesson on the color purple. I learned this in grade school.”

“It’s called bi, Esther. Or pan or queer or whatever label you’re comfortable with. You can like men eighty percent of the time and women or any other gender the other twenty percent, and it’s still enough to count. There isn’t a cut-off on how gay you need to be to fit. Labels are inherently a social construct made to both help us understand and categorize ourselves and also to needlessly stress us the fuck out.”

“Oh.”

“The label doesn’t matter, Esther. So stop stressing over it. Just be you and know, whatever that looks like, it’s all right.”

“Okay.” She was back to nodding and pacing. Taking in everything he’d said.

She knew gender and sexuality were on a spectrum and also the labels used for them were all social constructs. Anthropologists, sociologists, and plenty of others had written on this concept for decades. But hearing it out loud, that labelsdon’t matter? She felt like a balloon freed from its tether. Both exhilarated and terrified.

“Okay, thanks” she said. “I can live with that.”

“You feeling good?” He scrutinized her. “Did you need to talk about it some more?”

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