Page 86 of What It's Like in Words
No, I just thought it would be easier to—
Lie?
This way he doesn’t have to worry about what he did wrong?
Ruth looked away like she was bracing herself, then turned back. Enola, maybe heshouldworry about what he did wrong. Why can’t women ever tell men that they don’t want to be with them? Why do they need to make up an excuse? I played with the lime wedge in my drink and said that I didn’t representallwomen, I representedme. She said that it would be cool if my breakup passed the Bechdel test.
Roo, I was in a relationship with a man. It was impossible for my breakup to pass the Bechdel test.
But why are you even thinking about him? she asked, like evenhis pronoun was toxic. I told her that I wasn’t and asked if she could cut me some slack. I’m sorry, she said, twirling her coaster. I’m just wound up because of the election. I said that we were lucky to live in England, and she told me not to be naïve. This is the beginning.Roe versus Wadewon’t last long. I asked if she was going to watch the coverage. She said that they were watching it in the warehouse. I waited for her to invite me, but she didn’t, and so I said that I would probably just wake up to the results.
Like Christmas morning?
Ha. Yes.
For fifteen minutes while we finished our drinks, we passed the Bechdel test by talking about tweets we had seen, podcasts we were listening to, and shows we were watching. I asked Ruth if she still wanted another drink, but she said she had changed her mind.
AT HOME,IPUTon comfy clothes and settled on the sofa, but I was still addled by our conversation. I felt shamed, which is not something that I normally felt by Ruth. I considered the women in my life. My mum, who, on the one hand, told me that women wore matching underwear for themselves, yet, on the other, was pleased that I was dating a lawyer. Perhaps her feminism was just a criticism of my dad? Then there was Louise, jumping to follow any man who could give her a new life. My grandma might have been a feminist if she had been born at a different time, but one of my earliest memories was her telling me to smile because boys didn’t like a sour face. Amy once said that she didn’t think of herself as a feminist and yet all she did was champion other women. Ruth dated women, so that automatically made her a better feminist than me; I was sleeping with the enemy. But she was right. When we were teenagers, we would tell the men who groped us that we were gay or that the male friend with us was our boyfriend. We lied so that they didn’t feel rejected. Sometimes we would even kiss each other to prove the point, but we knew deep down that we were winding them up. We liked the way that they were looking at us. We didn’t realize thattheir gaze wasn’t a compliment; it was the way that lions look at impalas before ripping their throats out.
I stood and made a coffee. I ground the beans in the grinder that Ruth bought me in part so she could use it when she stayed over. The smell of dark chocolate, figs, and raspberry diffused. When the kettle whistled, I filled the French press. Virinder once told me to let it stand for four minutes. I’m a barista, but I pretended that he was telling me something I didn’t know.
Four minutes.
An anger grew where my stomach met my chest. Did men sit around wondering if they weregoodenough orrightenough men?
Three minutes.
Millions of people with arms and brains and favorite television shows were going to vote for Trump. Millions of people didn’t consider policies that repressed women bad enough to consider voting for one.
Two minutes.
I became aware suddenly of the helplessness, the hopelessness that existed in me.
One minute.
Fuck it.I poured the coffee, opened his “happy birthday” message, and replied:
Thank you…
I turned on the election coverage and watched the map turn red and blue; then I took three painkillers and went to sleep. In the morning, I woke to a text from Ruth:
Happy Fucking Christmas.
And to another from him:
Nice ellipsis. Drink…?
CHAPTER 30
We texted lightly for a few days; politics, the weather, funny things we had seen, and then on Tuesday, I agreed to meet him. I settled on a loose dress beneath my winter coat and deliberately mismatching underwear.
I pushed the Art Deco doors, and he was at the bar with a pint. I looked at my feet, half in and half out the door. I knew that when I looked up, I could be lost to him again, but hadn’t I felt his loss deeper than my own over these past ten months? Besides, it might be fine. We might just chat as friends. I prepared to look at him as at an eclipse.
One.
Two.
Three—
