Page 61 of The Woman in 3B
Her hands left my face, but her right hand took up residency in mine. In the background, I noted a cheer erupting from the stands—our team must have finally done something good—but the score of the baseball game was the farthest thing from my mind.
We walked out of the stadium together, hand in hand. As we crossed a busy intersection to return to the underground parking lot, Anissa slipped her arm around my waist and rested her head on my shoulder. I should have been jubilant about the open intimacy, but Anissa hadn’t spoken a word since we’d left the women’s bathroom.
I didn’t know if I’d done the right thing in leaving the game. A part of me worried that I’d too readily run from confrontation. I should have insisted on challenging the woman whose hate speech had made Anissa cry in a public bathroom. That would have been the right thing—the brave thing—to do.
I could only imagine what it must be like to be a person of color in this country. I was gay, but I was also femme and could pass for straight. I had the privilege of choosing who to Come Out to and when to be openly affectionate in public. It certainly wasn’t easy being queer in America, but Anissa would have experienced triple jeopardy as a queer woman of color as well as guilt by association for being tenuously connected to the Middle East.
It was just layer after layer of discrimination and oppression. My heart ached for her.
Anissa only untangled herself from my side when we reached my parked car. We had to detach to get into the car, but I didn’t like it. I wanted to scoop her up and put her in my protective pocket, away from all the hate and ugliness. But it wasn’t my job to save her. She’d been doing a fine job long before I came along.
Anissa broke the silence once we were outside of my car. “Do you mind if we go back to your place?”
“Your house is closer,” I pointed out.
“I know. But I’d like to see where you live.”
“It’s nothing special,” I resisted.
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t see where you live?” she questioned. “Do you have a secret, double life I don’t know about?”
“Just poverty,” I tried to joke.
Anissa didn’t laugh or even smile, but I didn’t blame her. It wasn’t very funny.
“I’ll take you to my place,” I gave in.
As I steered my car in the direction of my apartment, Anissa continued to sit in silence. She leaned her head against the passenger side window and stared outside. The final inning of the baseball game played quietly in the background on my car radio.
“I’m sorry,” I heard her quiet murmur.
“For what?” I glanced briefly in her direction. Her eyes were closed and her head was still against the window.
“We were having such a nice day.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I tried to insist.
She sighed, but didn’t make additional comment.
“Does that happen a lot?” I knew she probably just wanted to put the day’s events in the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t help asking.
Anissa regarded me with a frown. “I don’t know what a lot is. Everyday? No. Once a month? Probably.” She sat up straighter and ran her fingers through her hair. Her thick, careful curls had somewhat wilted under the summer heat. “In my neighborhood, everyone looks like me. I don’t have to worry about taking up too much space or standing out. But then I leave that bubble and I’m not protected anymore.”
She sighed and chewed on her lower lip. “It’s hard because I travel so much. Airports bring out the worst in people, plus I’m not always traveling to big cities. Try looking like me in the deep, rural South. It’s worse in the summer, too.” She held out her sun-kissed arms for inspection. “I get more tan, which makes me look more ethnic, more ‘Other,’ I suppose.”
“It’s not fair,” I spoke aloud. It was a massive understatement, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“No,” she sighed again. “It’s not.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I had to insert my front entrance key at just the right angle and wiggle the door handle with just the right amount of pressure to get my apartment door to unlock. Most days I didn’t mind the song-and-dance, secret handshake details of opening my door, but with someone else waiting in the hallway with me, my anxiety only heightened.
I was a little embarrassed to show Anissa where I lived. It wasn’t a dump, but it also wasn’t a grown-up space like her suburban McMansion. In fact, most of my neighbors were senior citizens on fixed incomes or college students, also with limited budgets. I didn’t know many people in my building because of the constant turnover of the demographic.
Anissa silently entered behind me. I closed and locked my apartment door and watched her survey the room. I knew what she was thinking; it was the very reason I never brought people over—not even Kent or Gemma. This wasn’t a home. It was a storage container. The separate bedroom and kitchenette were the only things elevating my apartment from a college dorm room.
