A New Ice Cream Flavor.
The sun cracked in through the window. Criminy did my head hurt. What did I DO last night? I sit up in bed, the images somehow breaking through my throbbing skull. Lila, me, the bathroom...OH GOD...did we? Did I...I have to talk to Pheebs before school! Like, NOW!
I take a quick shower and wash off last night, Lila's ketchup red lipstick running off me faster than she kissed it on. It felt so good. And yet, so confusing. I tried to concentrate on getting clean, but ALL I could think about was how dirty I was. How being with Lila made me somehow untouchable. Stained. What did that even MEAN? What did ANYTHING mean anymore? Did Arnold's leaving make me...I mean I know you don't just MAKE someone...they just...are...I guess. Right? RIGHT? I have to get to Phoebe!
"Is that shampoo in your hair?"
"Criminy Pheebs! FOCUS!" I finish off my second cup of coffee and start my third cig.
"Right! Well...for most of the 20th century The Diagnostics and Statistical Manual classified homosexuality as a mental illness. When it was removed from the DSM II in 1973 people started to see sexuality as kind of a three-pronged fork. You were either hotomosexual, heterosexual, or both, meaning bisexual. But studies have since showed that gender as well as sexuality is more like a spectrum rather than a fork. You could be strongly heterosexual, strongly homosexual, strongly bisexual, or anywhere in between."
"So where does this leave me!"
"San Francisco?" she giggles. The waiter comes by with my third cup and I grab it, not caring that it's covered in foam.
"But what about...you know...ice cream."
"Sounds to me like you want a whole new flavor."
"Meaning I must be gay, right?" I let out a cloud of smoke.
"Helga...for years people have been confined to one box, one option. But you don't have to! If I tell you what I THINK you are you'll accept it because you're desperate for an answer, and my answer could be wrong! Sorry to say this Helga, but until you figure this out for yourself, you'll never know."
"But...but..."
"Come on...let's get to school." And run into Lila? NO WAY! Not after...OK! Get yourself together Hel-girl! You can DO this. You didn't even recognize her in the bar...chances are she'll blend blend in like always and you'll do the same and nothing will change until the end of freaking time! I gulp my last cup and stomp out my cig, not wanting to get into with the teachers.
It's not that I care or anything, it's just...I can't take the lectures. And the calls home. Everytime they get one Miriam always slurs to me, "I didn't bring you into this world just so you could smoke your way out!" Right, and drinking rum-soaked smoothies is...what? Doctor recommended? Yea probably by that quack on TV Dr. Oz. I mean, criminy! How many lies can this guy sell a second? Man...Oh well...I have to get more smokes anyway. I wonder if Lila smokes...Nah...she wouldn't! Would she?
I see her in my head, her hair wild like an animal, dress tight as snake skin, and a long thin Virgina Slim sticking out of her pouty mouth. She lets the smoke slip out the sides as I float to her, dying to stick my tongue where the cig is...to catch the blessed puffs as they leave my woman. Wait? MY woman? Is she mine? What am I THINKING! I need HELP!
"HELLO! Earth to HELGA!" Phoebe says, snapping her fingers.
"Huh? Oh, sorry Pheebs."
"Hurry up! We'll be late!" I get up and leave a Lincoln on the table. The caffeine is already swimming through me and I know today is going to suck. And it's too late to ditch! Sides...I have to...OH MY GOD! Is that Lila! I see her walking towards us, in the same gingham getup she's always in, her hair down and flat. My god...she looks amazing with flat hair! So smooth! So Silky! So...sexy...What am I saying! CRAP!
"HIDE!" I grab Phoebe's hand and dart us to the other side of the building. I peer back and see her walking past the coffee shop, chewing on some gum. I would KILL for that piece of...NO! Get a hold of yourself!
"This again Helga? Hide all you want but I'M not going to loose my Ivy League spot just because you can't deal with your emotions."
"I AM dealing!" I whisper.
"No, you're hiding. Just like you always do. Now if you'll excuse me, I have advanced chem to get to." She lets go of my hand and walks forward to school, leaving me to jitter away. That's it...I'm calling Dr. Bliss.
"And that's why I came to see you," I say, my legs shaking against Bliss's long couch. Even after a full day of darting behind walls and rushing to classes to avoid Lila I am still buzzing, caffeine swarming inside me.
"I see," Bliss says as she hands me a glass of water. She sits with hers. I watch the ice, not her eyes.
"So what do you think it means? Does make me a lesbian?"
"There are many gay men and women who do heterosexual things but that doesn't make them anymore straight then your hook-up with Lila makes you a lesbian. What makes you a lesbian is your feelings. How did being with Lila make you feel?"
"Criminy! I don't know! Good, I guess."
"And why do you suppose you felt good? What about it was good?" The rush, the kissing...Lila's wild yet soft hair, her sugary skin...But mostly... it was the fact that for once I didn't back off or hide away. I went for something, and got it. I didn't hesitate, I didn't keep silent, I just...let go. Let my body feel what it's supposed to feel.
"I don't know..." I start, "I mean...at first I thought it was the Wild Bill's I had. But now that I think of it...it had to be because I finally went for something I wanted. With Arnold I was SO scared of what people would think, that he would say no if I asked him out. But when I saw Lila, really saw her for who she was, I KNEW I wanted more than conversation. Something about her drew me in."
"Ah..."
"And..." I pause. And what? If Lila's honestly with herself attracted me to her, then what attracted me to Arnold?
"And?"
"And nothing! OK!"
"You're getting pretty defensive for just 'nothing.'"
"So, I can get defensive if I want to. Free country bucko!"
"Helga, you know that when you get defensive you're setting up walls around your problems, and that's not healthy. You can't wall off what you don't understand. You have to face it."
"But what if facing it means redefining myself as a person? What if...criminy why does this have to be so HARD!" I flap back on the long couch, the image of Arnold floating above my head. He winks, his transparent face slowly fading into the ceiling. Is that what I'm doing? Letting my feelings for him fade? Or am I realizing that my feelings for Arnold were always faded, tainted by the background of my reality, just as his face was now tainted by the background of Bliss's ceiling.
But then...if my feelings for Arnold weren't real, what is? My feelings for Lila? Or my feelings of being alone, destined to walk the world with only my footprints to follow.
I silently go over my life, desperately combing out what's real. My friendship with Phoebe, my sisters unending want for a connection we'll never have, and my parents Bob and Miriam. Bob yelling for a white belt, Miriam shrinking in the corner with a smoothie...and...oh god? Is THAT why I liked Arnold so much? I sit up, trying to process my burgeoning epiphany.
"I think..." I start again, "I think...maybe...I never really loved Arnold at all. I just loved the idea of him, the idea that his family could be wacky yet, loveable. That even without parents he was cared for. But mostly, I loved how he paid attention to me. Criminy... that first day of preschool...without even knowing me he gave his umbrella so I could get dry. I wanted all of that. Every, little, bit."
"And what did you want when you saw Lila?" Bliss asks.
"Her," I say firmly, "I-I wanted her."
"Then meet Lila for coffee! See where it goes!"
"And then what?"
"And then maybe you can be happy for once." Happy? Me?
"Well, I believe that's all the time we have for today. Let's meet next week at our usual time, OK!" Bliss gets up and writes the appointment down in her book and hands me a reminder card. I stare at it as I get up, contemplating a move that could change the core of me. That could finally help me be...happy. Huh.