"Satisfied, no, with the love when I'm in it.
The smaller the hill, the more I want to push it.
The closer to the truth you get, the more I want to disprove you."
~Melissa Ferrick, "Street Light"
November 1994
"God, I feel like a fashion doll. Dress me up in whatever you like, it's a game."
Grace's disembodied voice was coming from the inside of the dressing room made Karen laugh. She knew there was no frustration in those words, no hostility. Grace was having just as much fun as she was. She walked over to the stall that Grace was in and tossed another dress, this one a deep navy blue, over the door. "Hey, Fashion Doll," she said. "This is the last one, I promise. Let's not forget that this was your idea to begin with."
The other day, they were sipping coffee in Greenwich Village when a lull in conversation was growing larger and larger. Grace was the one to break it. "How come I've never seen your life? You take me everywhere you think fits the way I live, but I've never seen how you live. Why is that?"
"If I'm bored with the way I live my life, I can only imagine how you're going to feel if I bring you into it." She looked at Grace for a minute as she took a sip of coffee. "You really want to go somewhere I normally go?" Grace nodded. "I'll take you out to dinner this week. And let me take you shopping tomorrow so we can find something for you to wear."
This afternoon, Karen held up her end of the bargain and took Grace to find a dress. It was mainly her doing, picking up pieces that she thought would suit Grace along the way to the dressing rooms, Grace becoming a fashion doll of sorts. Outfits of endless possibilities, and the fun is in dressing her up. Now, Grace opened the door to the dressing room stall in the dress she was just handed, and walked out for Karen's opinion.
"Oh god…honey, that's the one, it's perfect."
To see Grace emerge in the dress, hugging the frame of her body before falling at the waist into a waterfall of fabric that lands at her feet, the thin straps resting against her shoulders, was a brilliant sight. But as soon as the wonder wore off, the ache to simply touch her came back full force. It's funny how something so simple can trigger something so complex. She saw Grace's smile as she went back into the stall to change back into her own clothes as she tried to make the feeling go away.
The next night, when Karen picked Grace up for dinner, it was as if she had never seen her before. She was wearing the dress, but still managed to walk out from her apartment building a different person. She had taken a straightener to her hair, trading her traditional curly locks for flowing hair that fell just beneath her shoulders. And that alone was enough to make Karen do a double take. And the ache she had the previous afternoon doubled. "If you're looking to impress," she managed to say, "you definitely succeeded."
Grace's laugh started off her reply. "I just wanted to make sure I looked okay tonight." She did a little twirl on the concrete of the sidewalk, let the fabric whip around her legs before coming to a standstill underneath the streetlight. It was as that was a spotlight just for her. "What do you think? How do I look?"
"You look like the finest fashion doll there has ever been." Grace let out a laugh at Karen's comment as she wrapped her arms around her. She opened the door of the limo and slid in.
She never would have told Karen, but in all honesty, Grace had taken more extreme measures than usual to prepare for the evening because she figured that if she built a convincing enough costume, she'd be able to forget the feelings of her true self and adopt the ones of this new character. Will once said that every time she started to feel something for someone, something more than a mere physical attraction, she automatically put four walls around her, even if she didn't try to. But she knew that now, she was only making the walls stronger. She didn't want to block that kiss in Washington Square. But she didn't want to be in love either. And she knew that since she already held Karen in such high regard, one kiss could easily make her fall.
And if she told herself enough times that she wasn't going to fall, maybe it would stick. Maybe she would believe it.
Grace had been silent for most of dinner; half of it was the fact that she was taking in her surroundings—so beautiful, so extravagant compared to her usual cuisine of Chinese takeout or two-dollar pizza or something of the sort—and watching as Karen interacted with the people she recognized (they had to be friends of Stan's, there is no way Karen would find these people interesting on her own. But the other half was the fact that she couldn't keep her mind off of Washington Square. And she was afraid of what she might say if she spoke.
Karen looked at her for a moment. Grace was staring at her plate, barely touching her food. Immediately she thought it was her. Maybe she shouldn't have brought them here. Maybe a glimpse into her life wasn't the best idea. She decided to break the silence between the two of them.
"Are you okay? You haven't said anything for a while. Did I do something?"
Grace looked up from her plate and into Karen's eyes. This was what she was afraid of. She didn't want it to be now, she didn't want it to happen there, but it didn't look like she had a choice. She didn't want to lie. She faltered for a little before finding her footing. "Are we…are we really not going to talk about it?"
There was no use in playing dumb, playing oblivious. Karen cared about her too much for that. "It happened over a week ago, Gracie." She had slowly but surely started to call her "Gracie," if only for the way Grace's eyes lit up when she said it. But this time the light wasn't as bright as it used to be. "If we didn't talk about it back then, I didn't think we were going to talk about it now. I made a mistake. I can't take it back, but I apologize. It's in the past. Forget about it and move on."
"No," Grace said quietly. "It wasn't a mistake."
"You're right. But it wasn't just me leaning in. And since you're having a hard time acknowledging any of this, it's just better if we call it a mistake."
"That's not what it is. It's not a refusal to acknowledge anything. I'm in love with Danny."
"Are you still hanging on to that?" Karen didn't say it in a harsh way, but it still hit Grace just as hard. "You can tell me time and time again until you're blue in the face that you're in love with that man. But you don't see the look in your eyes whenever you talk about him. I do. And it's filled with a sadness that hurts even me. No one should ever willingly hurt like that."
"He can be really sweet sometimes."
"But you never tell me about the times he does something special for you. Whenever you mention him, it's about how selfish he is, or how he's upset that you're spending a little less time with him. Tell me some of the good things, and I'll be able to back off the subject."
Grace looked meek, like a child being scolded. "He hasn't done anything like that lately," she said in a small voice.
Karen winced at her own behavior. God, she was horrible. This was in no way what she planned for the night. It wasn't how she ever wanted to be around Grace. Grace came to her looking for a haven, to take her mind off of everything. That was what she gathered the deal to be. Instead, she was only giving her a magnifying glass and forcing her to analyze her problems further. "I am so sorry, Gracie." Her voice was cracking with deeper and deeper realizations of what she had done. "It's not my place. What I meant to say was…"
Well? What did you mean, Karen?
"All I wanted to do was to tell you the reason I did what I did in Washington Square," she continued. "He makes you so sad and I wanted to take that away. You let me wrap my arms around you. You moved in closer. I was only going with what I thought was the flow. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I didn't mean to make it awkward. I just thought that the feeling was mutual. And I was wrong. It happens. It's embarrassing," she said with a smile, "but it happens."
Grace looked at her for a moment and could feel herself soften. She shook her head. "Please don't apologize. It's not that I didn't want it. It's that it shouldn't happen. But I want to make it up to you. Anything. Please let me know, Karen. What do you want?"
It was a loaded question. They both knew that. But Karen tried to ease the impact a little bit.
"I want you to take me back to your place."
Grace looked at her with a bit of confusion.
"I've only ever seen the outside of the building. You've never invited me inside."
Grace laughed a little and smiled. "It's nothing like what you're used to."
Karen nodded. "And that's what I want."
