On Saturday morning I texted Jamie to ask if she wanted a ride, but she said she wanted to bike, even though the shop was at least five miles away from her house. It stung a little, and I wondered what she thought was going to happen if she got in my truck. Did she think that being side by side in such a confined space would make me cry, or beg for her back? I would have been offended, except I was a little afraid of the same thing. When we were apart I could believe I’d reached acceptance, but my body still reacted to her presence in a way I couldn’t seem to shut off.
I was too nervous to listen to music on the drive over, so I called Ronni on the speaker’s Bluetooth instead. She answered after three rings.
“What’s up.”
“Nothing much,” I said. “Just headed to Triple Moon to meet Jamie.”
I could pretty much hear Ronni close her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I actually think it’ll be really good,” I added.
“You’re a masochist, you know that?”
“I don’t know who that is,” I said, only half joking.
“What are you gonna do?”
“Homework.” Silence. I strained my ears. “Ronni?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna give you a chance to come up with something more believable.”
I laughed. “I’m serious! I brought my books and everything.”
“Just don’t cry,” said Ronni. “Even I can’t help you come back from that.”
“I’m not going to cry,” I said, which made me feel a little like crying.
“Okay, well, I was about to go for a run,” she said. “But you can text me after.”
“You’re running today? Now I feel guilty.”
“Just go later.”
“Okay, I will,” I said. We both knew I wouldn’t.
“Gotta go.”
“Okay, byeeeee, I love youuuuuu!” I sang, and Ronni hung up.
The coffee shop was mostly empty when I arrived, so when I walked in the door Dee saw me right away.
“Q!” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Come here!”
I grinned and rushed over to give her a hug across the cafe counter.
“How’ve you been?” I asked.
“Good, good. Happy to see you.” She gave me a concerned-mom look. I recognized it not from my own mother, who had treated me like an adult since I was six years old, but from TV. “How you holding up?”
“Much better,” I chirped, lying. “Jamie’s meeting me here.”
“Oh, girl.” Dee sighed.
“What? God! We’re just gonna do homework!”
“All right.” She shook her head. “Just don’t do the endless-processing thing, okay? A dyke can lose years off her life that way.”
Dyke. I still got a little thrill whenever she said it. To Dee and Gaby, Jamie and I were baby dykes. To us, according to them, they were dusty dykes, old-fashioned and just plain old. To hear them tell it, you’d think no one had ever been gay before their generation showed up. As they often reminded us, they were our foremothers in dismantling the heteropatriarchy, and so they said the word dyke as readily as they said our names, with a kind of defiant urgency. As a word, I liked it so much better than lesbian—the hardness of it, the single middle-finger syllable.
Of course, it depended who said it. Coming from Dee or Gaby or Jamie, it was like a secret handshake. Coming from that blond girl on the Valhalla soccer team sophomore year, after I stole the ball and she tripped over my leg, it was like being spit at.
“We’re not processing,” I promised. “It’s over.” A lump formed at the base of my throat, and I thought of Ronni, frowning at me. I had to change the subject fast. “Where’s Gaby?”
“Hungover,” she said, rolling her eyes. “She’ll be in in a bit.” Gaby was the shop’s co-owner, and also Dee’s ex-girlfriend, though they both cringed if you reminded them. That was two hundred years ago, Dee would say. The queer library had been Gaby’s idea, as was the shop’s early adoption of every new nut- and plant-based milk, and she organized every event they hosted. She was vegan and spacey and liked going to protests and decorating boxes and mirrors with sea glass she plucked off the beach. It was hard to imagine that she’d ever been in love with Dee, and vice versa. Dee loved meat and the WNBA and her dogs and that was about it.
“Good,” I said. “I want to tell her about this band that wants to play here.”
Dee adopted Gaby’s airy, earnest tone. “Are they aligned with the queer anti-capitalist intersectional feminist cause?”
I considered. “I don’t think they’re against it,” I offered.
“Good luck with that.”
The bell over the door rang, and I turned to see Jamie walk in, helmet in hand.
“Jamie!” Dee cried, and the tiniest bit of jealousy prickled the back of my neck.
Jamie waved and ran a hand through her curls, wild as ever even after her bike ride.
“Hey, Dee. How’s it going?” she asked. To me, she added, “You have a table?”
“You pick,” I said.
Dee gave me a look as Jamie unpacked her bag, and I grinned. “Better get to work, I guess.”
“What do you guys want to drink?”
“Two iced vanilla lattes,” I said.
“Just iced coffee for me,” Jamie interjected.
“What?” We always got iced vanilla lattes at Triple Moon. They tasted like milkshakes.
“Sit down, Q. I’ll bring them over.”
Dee waved away my cash, so I dropped a five in the tip jar when she wasn’t looking and crossed the room to take the seat across from Jamie’s. In just moments she had the whole spread assembled: laptop open, notebook out, planner with to-do list ready to be crossed off, favorite pen, favorite backup pen. In my bag I had my physics textbook and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, of which I needed to read fifty pages by Wednesday. Still, I hadn’t actually planned to read it now. I sighed and pulled it out of my bag.
“It’s good,” said Jamie, eyeing the cover.
“Oh yeah? When’d you read it, fourth grade?”
She grinned. “Last year.” Jamie was in AP Lit. AP everything, really. AP Dumping. Ha.
Dee moseyed over with the drinks. “Iced vanilla, iced coffee. Make space, Jame.”