Lauren Holmes - Barbara the Slut and Other People

When I got there, James’s parents were in the driveway and they gave me hugs and got into their van and drove away. I wondered how they knew what I was about to do.

James looked happy to see me. He also looked monogamous, straight, and alive. He gave me a big hug and a kiss and he went back in to get the lemonade he had made from scratch. I sat down on the wicker couch on the porch.

“I’m so happy to see you,” he said when he came back. He sat next to me.

“Uh,” I said.

His face fell a little.

“We need to talk.”

His face fell the rest of the way.

“I don’t think I want to be together anymore,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” he said. “What changed?”

“Nothing changed,” I said. “I just want something else.”

“There’s someone else?” he said.

“No, I want something else. From my life.”

“What else do you want?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But don’t you want something else too? Something different?”

“No,” he said.

“I think this will be better for you,” I said. “You’ll find a better girlfriend.”

“No I won’t.”

We sat there for a minute that felt like a year. Finally the effort of keeping my eyes open made one of them water.

James looked at me and then put his arm around me and tried to guide my head to his shoulder. I realized he thought I was crying so I put my head down, even though that was the number one last thing I wanted to do. He wrapped his arms around me, and we sat like that forever.

Finally he let go and said, “We don’t have to make a decision right now.”

“But I already made a decision.” That sounded bad so I added, “I’m really sad about it, though.”

Now he put his head on my shoulder and started to cry. I patted him on the leg. Soon, but not soon enough, his parents came back, saw him crying, gave me a look of death, and went inside.

“I guess your parents hate me now,” I said.

“No they don’t,” he said. “I will never hate you.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess I should get back on the road.”

James walked me to my car and gave me a very long hug that involved swaying from side to side. When he let me go I got in the car, and I felt something give under my right foot. I shut the door and looked under the mat, where there was now a hole that I could see his driveway through. I thought I would have more time before the floor crumbled. I rolled down the window.

“Is your car okay?” he said.

“Yup,” I said, “great.”

“I’ll see you in September,” he said.

“Yup,” I said, hoping that he wouldn’t. “I’m sorry again.”

He didn’t say anything. I backed out and was about to pull away when he yelled, “Wait!” He pointed to a spot on the blacktop. “Did that just fall off your car?”

“Nope,” I yelled. “I don’t think so.” I waved and pulled away.

• • •

Driving back to the mall I thought I would feel electrified or something, but instead I felt calm. When I got there, I pulled into the parking lot and called my mom and Noah. My mom came out of the mall.

“Mission accomplished?” she said.

“Mission accomplished,” I said.

Noah and Petey came out of the trees and got in.

We headed toward Charlottesville. The sound of the road tore through the hole in the floor and filled up the car.

When I moved to San Francisco with my fiancé, he started practicing law and I started selling toys. I was supposed to start practicing law too, but I didn’t have the heart. I almost didn’t even have the heart to take the bar, but I found it when my dad threatened to cut me off. And then he cut me off right afterward anyway, because he said it was time to get a job, and if I didn’t want either of the jobs he had found for me, I was on my goddamn own.

I did apply to two law firms in San Francisco but I got rejected from both of them. Actually, rejected would mean they considered me, which there was no evidence of them doing. So now my job search strategy was to look for Help Wanted signs in windows, which would have given my dad an aneurysm, and which concerned my fiancé. Danny gently suggested that I stay home until I could think of something I actually wanted to do and apply for it. But I couldn’t think of anything I actually wanted to do.

I applied to some restaurants and some stores, but they all wanted someone with experience. And I didn’t have any experience except working at my dad’s firm in high school, another, bigger firm in college, and another, bigger firm in law school. My dad’s firm and the last firm were the two that had made me offers, but they were both in Los Angeles and Danny’s offer was in San Francisco, and since I didn’t care at all and Danny cared a lot, we went to San Francisco.

I tried to look for small stores that didn’t require folding T-shirts or any other special skills, and that looked like they might not have a lot of customers. One day I went out and applied to two movie stores in our neighborhood, where both of the managers were teenagers. Then I applied to a bagel store where all I would have to do was work the register. No putting cream cheese on bagels, because I needed training for that. Then I rode my bike to Dolores Park and walked around. Near the park I saw a Help Wanted sign in the window of an adult toy store called Desert Hearts. I went in thinking I would look around and then talk to someone, but the store was about ten feet by fifteen feet, and there was only one person there, so I had to talk to her right away. She was maybe sixty and she had short hair and a rat tail.

“Hi, can I help you?” she said.

“I was wondering if you guys are still hiring,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Yes we are. Are you, uh, lesbian?”

I looked around and took note of the wall of dildos.

“Yeah,” I said, “I am.” I gave her my biggest smile.

“Oh,” she said, “great. Well, I’m just filling in here, but I know they’re looking for someone full-time. The manager works at our store in the Castro. Ask for Chad.”

“Thanks so much,” I said. “I’m Brenda.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Eunice.” She smiled and we shook hands. I realized my engagement ring was on my other hand and hoped Eunice hadn’t noticed. She gave me a business card and I left.

I looked up directions to the store, Making Love, and rode back through the park to the Castro. When I got there I put my ring in my pocket, and went in and asked for Chad. Chad was huge and black and he was wearing a T-shirt that barely fit around his arms. I was pretty sure I could see every muscle underneath.

“Oh, great!” he said when I told him I wanted to apply to work at Desert Hearts. “That’s great!”

He took me into the back and asked me a million questions about my employment history, my sexual history, and what I was doing in the hilly city. I told him I moved with my girlfriend Nadeen, who was a lawyer, and that I’d been a sexual health educator in college. The man at the bagel store had seemed concerned that I graduated from law school, so I decided to leave that part out. The sexual health educator part was true. And Nadeen was not completely untrue. I slept with her my freshman year of college after my dad told me that he didn’t want to hear about any of this “gay until graduation” stuff if I insisted on attending a girls’ school.

Then Chad told me about the stores, talking a mile a minute, and soon we were out on the floor and he was showing me the lesbian section and the exclusive harness they carried and the line of dildos they sold to go with it. The harness was really special because it was made out of leather and the ring was internal. Chad let me hold the harness and feel the ring, which apparently was around the hole underneath the two layers of leather. I didn’t ask what the ring was for or why internal was better.