Page 8 of Secret Desire
“Coq a vin. It’s one of my favorite dishes.”
The waiter returned with our drinks and a little platter of bread, cheese, and fruit. We gave him our lunch orders, then tuckedinto our appetizers. After a few minutes, the conversation turned personal.
“I realize I don’t really know anything about you now other than your professional experience,” Maeve said. “Well, and what I remember of you as a kid.”
I suppressed a sigh, wishing she would see me as a woman, not someone’s kid sister.
“Well, I no longer have boy band posters on my wall,” I joked. “And I’ve given up my dream of owning a pony.”
Maeve smiled.
“Tell me about the real you. What happened after you graduated high school and left home. Ariel has mentioned you here and there, but honestly she hasn’t said a lot. I’d really like to get to know you as a person.”
My sister didn’t tell her a lot because we were practically strangers. I heard more about what was going on with Ariel from our parents than I did from my sister herself. I suspected it was the same for her.
“Well, you know my work history but I’m not sure if you know that I got my degree in interior design at RISD?” I said, referring to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design.
Maeve nodded. “Oh, that’s right.”
“While I was at RISD I was able to… spread my wings a little. As you probably remember, my parents were not happy when Ariel came out to them.”
“Oh I remember.”
There was a lot of weight in that answer, telling me that she was more than aware of how shitty my parents had been to Ariel.
They still seemed half convinced that being a lesbian was just some kind of phase Ariel was going through, even though she was engaged to a woman. They also were sure that I’d ‘turned into’ a lesbian just to emulate my sister and irritate them. It was a sore subject, and I did my best not to discuss it with them.
“I realized I was a lesbian in high school, but I didn’t date any women until college. My first real girlfriend was this cool girl named Riley. I got really involved in lesbian causes, and the two of us were pretty active in the Queer Affinity Group at school,” I explained. “We dated for a couple of years, but eventually we fell out of love, the way you do sometimes. We broke up right before graduation. Riley’s parents loved me – I think they were more upset about the break-up than either of us.”
I paused, suddenly wondering if Maeve’s question had been more about my hobbies instead of wanting me to tell her my dating history. Why was I sharing all this?
“Do you still talk to this Riley?” Maeve asked, a strange edge to her voice.
“Yeah we’re still good friends. She lives in New York, so I don’t see her very often, but we usually text each other a few times a week and get together when we can.”
Maeve didn’t look happy about that for some reason.
“When did you come out to your parents?” she asked.
“After my college graduation when I moved back to Chicago,” she said. “I wasn’t comfortable hiding it any longer. Plus I figured with my luck I’d run into them while I was on a date, and I didn’t want to have some awkward scene. Good thing too, because you heard how they acted when they ran into Ariel and Sadie that day, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah, although I thought that was more about them being upset that your sister was dating a house cleaner than the lesbian thing.”
Ariel and Sadie had been on a date at Millenium Park early on in their relationship when they ran into our parents. Dad was relatively calm about it, but Mom had been apoplectic, especially when she realized that Sadie wasn’t from what she called ‘a good family’. In Mom’s estimation, even if we were lesbians, we still needed to marry well.
“Have you dated a lot since you moved back?” Maeve asked. “It’s been what? Six years since you graduated?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve mostly had casual relationships since I moved back to Chicago,” I admitted. “I’ll date someone for a month or two, maybe six, and then for some reason I start getting itchy.”
“Itchy?”
“You know how sometimes you have a shirt that you wear for a while but one day the tag feels scratchy and it irritates you?” I asked.
She nodded.
“It’s like that,” I said. “I date them a few months, and when I realize they’re not the woman I’m going to spend my life with, I’m ready to move on, no matter how good the sex is. And for the most part, I’ve had spectacular sex.”
