Wherever the Dandelion Falls (55 page)

"Oh I know," Faye giggled. "But he called you ma'am."

I chuckled and brushed it off. "Only ma'am I ever want to be is a Madame."

Realizing that I'd just brought my weird stripper humor into a fancy restaurant with a beautiful, vanilla girl, I felt embarrassed.

"Really?" Faye asked, forehead crinkling.

"No," I said, eager to reassure her. "I have no interest in going back to prostitution. Maybe working in relief for kids who are forced into it on the streets or helping women self-advocate and set good boundaries with their clients, but not doing direct work." I lifted my water glass and felt the cool relief of the icy water flow down my throat.

Faye studied me for a minute and said, "You'd be brilliant at that."

I stumbled over her compliment and felt myself almost choke on my water. I wasn't used to being told I'd be brilliant at anything. Not even taking off my clothes.

Faye must have seen my surprised, because she said, "I'm serious. You'd be a great public health advocate for sex workers."

Although the idea had never crossed my mind, as soon as Faye said it, I realized she was describing something I would love doing. I'd heard of women who drove around at night with vans full of condoms and postcards for sex-worker-friendly health clinics, and women who advocated fiercely for legislation that kept sex workers safer, but I'd never pictured myself as one. Until now.

Faye squeezed my hand. "When you first told me about being an escort, I was biased and naive. When you told me about how you made your client get tested and how you set limits about what you would and wouldn't do and how you always used protection, it made me think of sex work differently. You could help a lot of people. Not just sex workers, but people like me who judged you unfairly. Stigma is a public health issue too."

I was suddenly so overrun with ideas and questions, it took me a long time to respond to Faye. All I could do was slowly agree. "Stigma is indeed a public health issue."

At that, our waiter returned to the table and, after reseating us, asked if we'd like anything to drink. Faye glanced up at the waiter and then at me, sheepishly.

"Um... a bottle of the house red?" she asked.

Even if she was the bravest girl I knew, she was still so sweetly unsure sometimes.

I gave a subtle nod and she smiled, confirming that we wanted a bottle of red. The waiter bowed again and walked away.

Faye turned back to me, squeezing my hand on the seat as she said, "I know you'll figure out what you want to do."

Suddenly, I had a lot more uncertainties. She had just implied that I didn't want to be a stripper permanently. Which I didn't, but I hadn't told her as much. It was quiet as we looked at our menus.

After our wine arrived and the waiter did the formal taste-test dance with Faye, I decided to find out how she really felt about my job.

"Does my job bother you?"

I felt anxiety rush through me as I prepared myself for her answer.

Faye held my gaze as she thought through the best words to use.

"It's not my favorite thing about you," she said, solemn but gentle. "I'm working through how I feel about it, but I wouldn't date you if I couldn't live with it."

Relieved she was honest, I nodded.

"I mean, it's just a job, right?"

Not sure I was telling the whole truth, I nodded and echoed, "It's just a job."

Faye gave a lighthearted shrug. "As long as it's just a job, I'm okay with it. You'll know when you're ready to leave."

Concerned and unsettled, I bit my lip and said, "What if I'm never ready to leave?"

Faye gave another light shrug. "Then you're lucky to be doing something you love."

I gave her a grateful smile and nodded, lifting my wine glass to hers.

"Cheers," I said.

She lifted her glass to mine, but she didn't make eye contact, so I held my glass out of clink's reach.

"You have to look me in the eye," I said, eager to change the mood back to something more fun. I lowered my voice and said, "Otherwise it's seven years of bad sex."

Faye's eyes went wide in mock alarm and she breathed, "So
that's
what happened to me before..."

I giggled and she grinned wider because I'd liked her joke. Then her smile settled into the corners of her eyes and she gave me a meaningful look as we clinked our glasses together.

"To finding our passion," Faye said, lifting her glass with a subtle rise of her eyebrow.

It was rife with innuendo.

I stumbled over her sudden flirtation. She had turned our conversation about careers into something about sex. Sex between
us
, nonetheless.

All I could do was murmur, "To finding our passion."

I took a sip and realized that dating Faye was going to be a lot more exciting than I'd anticipated.

The night before Faye's parents arrived, we had silently planned to spend as much time together as possible. I hadn't gone more than a few hours without seeing her in weeks, and the thought of being apart from her for seven days was awful. I didn't want to miss anything about her; her sleep breathing or her shy smiles across the room or the feeling of her body pressed against mine. But I didn't have a choice. Her parents were on their way and I didn't get a say in how things would unfold. I didn't get a say in much at all lately.

As we made love that night — at least I like to think it was making love
—
I felt as though she was pressing apologies into my skin, hoping each kiss and touch and orgasm would fill a reserve of reassurances I would need from her for the coming week. Part of me wished they could. But the bigger part of me, the scared part, hoped that these weren't our last hours together before something was shattered or lost. Time was moving forward toward change, and I wasn't ready.

When we had exhausted ourselves and lay dazed in her sheets, room eerily neat around us in preparation for her parents' arrival, I decided to speak up.

"I'm scared of something changing," I said quietly.

At that, Faye curled into me, running her hand over my ribs and around to my back to press me into her.

"Don't worry," she murmured into my hair.

And though it was sweet and more than I had expected from her, I couldn't help but want more. She could have said
Nothing will change
or
A week from now we'll be right back here like nothing happened
. But she hadn't said those things. She'd just counted on my blind faith, which I was all too accustomed to giving her.

I guess that's what love is.

In the morning we said a somber goodbye and I tried to soothe her anxiety about hosting her parents. I gave her a few more suggestions for entertaining her hard-to-please parents and pressed long, deep kisses into her lips before I left her apartment. As I walked outside into the foggy chill, I felt as though I'd left a piece of me inside that I couldn't go back for. I trudged toward my house and let myself into my apartment. It almost didn't feel like mine anymore, I came home so infrequently.

I tried to spin the silver lining of having so much free time without Faye. I needed to start building relationships with equipment rental places and getting acquainted with the different social media accounts that Michael used to promote his business. Chatting with Michael, I'd realized that much of my work could be done from home, which was nice. I imagined lying in bed with my laptop, planning an event, while Faye lay next to me writing a paper, occasionally reading passages out loud to get my input. It was a future I hoped would eventually happen.

I didn't know what to do with myself without Faye around. Even though we never did structured activities, time always seemed to pass quickly around her.

I set about organizing my belongings, putting away the clothing strewn on the bed and shoes cluttering the floor, cast off when I visited home to get more clothes or check the mail before going back to Faye's. I set down the large bag she'd asked me to bring home for the week, not wanting to unpack it, for fear that that would mean the things inside would never return to my drawer at Faye's. This week was temporary. It had to be.

I ventured into the kitchen and discovered there were no dishes to do. There was no mess to tidy, no magazines to recycle, no hair to clean from the floor or drains. I looked around and realized that I must be the messy one in the apartment if my absence meant the apartment stayed so tidy. I made a note to ask Justine if I was pulling my weight with the cleaning.

Thinking of Justine, I pulled out my phone and texted her, asking what she was doing and if she wanted to hang out. It struck me that, even if she had time, she may not want to hang out with me. I hadn't been the best friend or roommate lately. I'd gotten sucked into Faye and neglected Justine. I decided to make her dinner to apologize.

I pulled up recipes on my computer before walking to the grocery store to buy the ingredients I needed for an authentic molé sauce. Justine would love it. But as I fried the peppers and raisins and sesame seeds and tortillas, all I could think of was Faye and if she would like my cooking. I wanted to share the sauce with her, but I knew I couldn't.

As the week went by, I found more things to occupy myself with. I saw a few of my friends from grad school, called my parents and sister, and patched things up with Justine. But there was a kind of emptiness, an anxious waiting that didn't abate with the few texts I got from Faye. She sent pictures of the touristy things she did with her parents, and a beautiful picture of her between her parents on the bridge. Her long hair was blowing across her face in strands, and she was trying to smile as her arms reached around her parents' backs. But something in her eyes was so tired and sad, I couldn't look at the picture for more than a few seconds before I deleted it.

I started to wonder if the joy I got from Faye was real. If it was so easy for her to put aside, to deny to people she cared about, was it one-sided? Did it exist outside my own head? I began to worry that I'd been creating an elaborate illusion. I had no way to soothe myself, since I couldn't contact Faye.

As the weekend approached, my anxiety increased. I knew Faye was introducing her parents to "Dave," who's name was coincidently Dave, on Saturday night. With Faye's permission, I had briefed him on the situation. At first he had balked, asking me how I could possibly be okay with him filling in for me at dinner with her parents. Sidestepping my true feelings, I'd insisted that it was something Faye needed to feel safe, and he had begrudgingly agreed. But his discomfort had only served to increase my own. I didn't want him filling in for me at all.

That night was the worst one since we'd said goodbye on Monday morning. I had tried to make plans with friends, but nothing had worked out. I'd even asked Justine if I could hang out with her and Avery, but they were in Santa Cruz for the weekend, and I couldn't go because I had to be in town to oversee Open Mic Night at the café on Friday.

Now, alone in my clean and quiet apartment on a Saturday, I felt lost.

I decided to go out and see a movie. I was an independent woman who didn't care about sitting alone in the dark. So I went and saw a movie, relieved to escape a little of the anxiety of knowing Faye was perpetuating her lie to her parents. Tomorrow would be the last day of our hiatus, and I had planned to borrow Justine's bike and ride through Golden Gate Park. Hopefully the weather would cooperate and I could sail to the finish line of our break without anything unexpected happening. I slid into sheets that no longer smelled like the laundromat under Faye's apartment and desperately sought sleep.

When my phone rang at two in the morning, I startled awake. My hand darted out from under the covers, answering without even looking at the caller. I knew who it was.

"Hey," I hummed into the phone.

I heard her sniffle for a few seconds on the other line, trying to catch her breath. Then, painfully forced, she squeaked out, "Can you come over?"

My heart broke and sped up at the same time.

"Of course," I said, bolting upright and flinging my feet into shoes. "I'll be there in five minutes."

"There's a key... in the far end of the flower bed by the door," she said, still squeaking.

"Okay," I said, trying to make my voice pillowy-soft and reassuring.

I darted into the living room, pulled on a sweatshirt, and grabbed my keys. I ran all the way to Faye's apartment. It was times like these, times when she was scared enough that I was drenched in worry too, that I wished she didn't live alone. I liked having Justine living with me for safety and to remind me I was alive and breathing. Something about being around another flawed being makes us all feel okay. Faye was alone in her messy studio with no reminders that it was okay to be scared and to make mistakes and to hurt.

I dug in the flower bed with my fingers until I found the key. I wondered if it had always been there or if Faye had put it there recently as a way to give me a key without giving me a key. I hoped tonight be one of those times when she never wanted me to leave, touching every part of my body just to feel its realness and the way it reacted to her skin, remembering that she wasn't alone.

When I got the metal gate and front door open, I stomped up the stairs, hoping it would echo in her room and she'd know I was coming, know that relief from whatever was tormenting her was seconds away.

I didn't bother knocking, instead slipping the key into the door as though I'd done it a hundred times, and pushed into the room I knew so well, with its moving piles of laundry and stacks of dishes that had reappeared since we'd cleaned the week before. I was struck by the smell of fabric softener and Faye's lotion, and I felt my body release.

The only thing out of the ordinary in her apartment was her, crumpled on her bed as though she were a rag doll tossed without care. She almost looked inanimate, and if she hadn't shuddered with fear or tears or relief - I couldn't tell which - I might not have noticed her amidst her scrambled sheets.

"Faye," I whispered, kneeling by the bed and bending to see her face. It was washed free of any makeup or color, and her nose was red and her eyes bloodshot from crying. I wanted to call her
baby
, but settled for calling her Faye again. "Faye, what happened?"

She took in a deep, shuddering breath, her whole torso inflating up from the bed before sinking back down as the breath escaped as though through a puncture hole.

One of my hands reached forward to smooth her hair, the only glossy part of her that wasn't wracked with fear and uncertainty, while my other hand went for her hand, wanting to help her stop shaking, to have her feel whatever steadiness hadn't been jolted out of me the minute she called.

She didn't say anything, just screwed up her face with more tears as her fingers curled over mine, squeezing harder than she ever had. I understood it as a plea for being held and slid up from the floor and out of my shoes, shoving the covers aside to make room for myself. Never letting go of my hand, she curled forward into me, crying silently, save for a few gasps and whimpers.

"It's okay," I said, rubbing her back as she pressed her head into my chest.

At that, she shook her head. "It's
not
okay. I just - I want - I can't... keep..." She trailed off, too fragmented to finish her thoughts.

I let her cry. For the first time, she wanted me there with her while she did. And even though my whole body ached with her sadness, I was glad that she wanted me there.

After five or ten minutes, she settled down. She took several long, steady breaths against my chest, which was damp with her breath and tears, and then unfurled enough to let cool air toward her face. "I'm sorry I'm not ready to give you everything you need.” Her voice was surprisingly steady, and I could feel the bravery she was searching for rumbling up from her roots. I knew it was in her.

And even though I knew what she meant, and I knew that she was crying because it hurt me to not have certain things with her, her bravery felt like more than adequate consolation. So I squeezed her tight to me and said, "I have everything I need right here."

I knew I shouldn't have been denying that I wanted real dates and real words and hand holding and labels. I knew that I needed to call her my girlfriend, to know she would never freak out at me for telling her how beautiful and she was and how much I loved her, no matter how scared she felt. I needed to be allowed to be scared too, and to cry when I needed to, and to tell my sister and parents how incredible it was to be in love. But I didn't have those things, because every little step she took gave me so much hope, my patience extended.

Someone as afraid and fragile as Faye should never be called selfish. Protecting herself was her biggest job. She trusted me to protect her, I hoped. And I knew no matter how much I wanted to hold her hand in public and to call her mine for others to see, above all, I was part of the small armor that she clung to. I was part of her safety, and I couldn't be too selfish and demand she bare herself to the world. That would be the opposite of love. And I loved her a lot.

So I did what I could to get what I needed. I cherished our whispers, inhaled her sighs, studied her gazes as they bored into me like confessions. I saw the things that lived just beneath the surface, and tried not to mourn the fact that they were caged. I tried to be patient and embody everything that love is.