Plan B

Chapter One

I was 26. For over a year, I had been gone. I lived in the same apartment, and slept in the same bed, and even looked the same.  But the girl I had been was gone, replaced by a creature lacking substance, emptied of everything but grief.  Marcus breaking up with me - long distance at that - had killed more than my happiness in the present. Everything I thought I wanted was tied to him. When he left, the knot was severed. I felt my dream of a family - a husband, kids, - a future - had been cut off, too.

Of course, I should have known better than to invest all the potential for my happiness in a man. It was 1995, after all, and we were well past the first and second waves of feminism. But I didn't know better.    In that first year, I cried so much my face had taken on a permanently blotchy pink hue. My only solace was my friends, who tended to me like one would a chronically ill patient in an extended hospital stay:  visiting me in my room, leaving me food, magazines,  and various versions of the chicken soup recipe for healing:Chicken Soup for the Grieving Heart; Chicken Soup for the Soul; Chicken Soup for the Lonely .  When I went to class, which was the only time I went out, my friends kept me close by their side, knowing it was as if  I had been turned inside out and every contact with the outside world burned my tender flesh.                    

Like any chronic illness or injury, I eventually had to get on with life. I thought of my Aunt Rosie with her bad hip and told myself I had to move even if each step hurt, and I would always walk with a limp. One day, I poked my head out of my room, and came to sit with my roommate Jane in front of the television.  I remember she was watching a rerun of Mary Tyler Moore.  Watching TV led to visits together to the local coffee shop, and eventually to the occasional movie.  My life was still a dark hole, but I was prepared to grope around in the dark.    

*******

I looked at myself in the mirror.

'You ready yet?', Jane called from her room.  'Let's go!' 

I pulled at the hemline of my dress.  'Do lesbians wear dresses, Jane? They are going to know I am not a lesbian.  Look at me.  I am wearing a short dress and lipstick. ' 

Jane came and stood in the doorway to my room.  'Juliette, you look fine'. I leveled my best death glare at her .

'I mean, you look intriguing, sexy.'

That didn't sound right.  'Sexy? Like sexy funky or sexy bombshell?  Isn't it offensive in a girls' bar - to want to look the bad kind of sexy?  Shouldn't I want to look like I haven't been co-opted into male stereotypes of female beauty?'

'No, it's not offensive.' The stoic face of my best friend  softened and she looked at me with a warm, suffering expression.    'Don't worry. You won't stand out. And you will be with me. A newly initiated, bonafide lesbian!'

I marginally conceded her point. 'huh.'

'And besides, I think Daytonne likes you in a dress.'

I cut her another haughty glare as if daring her to say anything on the subject after our last blow out.

'Sorry' she mumbled.

'What makes you think she will be there anyway? Just because she is a lesbian? Is it a rule that you all have to go to this particular club the third Saturday of every month?'

'It is the only lesbian bar in Toronto, Juliette.'

'Should I know that?'

Jane laughed. 'I must give you the handbook! You ready? Franca will be here any second.'

As if Jane had called for her, we both heard the door of the flat upstairs slam shut and the stomping of feet down the stairs. There was a banging on the door and then Franca walked right in. 'You ready? I can't wait any longer.  Let's go get drunk and meet some women!'

to be continued....:)