We stay out in the raw, wild drizzle of the Nisqually Delta longer than I expected, and by the time we get back to Andrew’s VW van around noon, we are all drenched and on the verge of hypothermia, or so it feels. Andrew picked me up at seven this morning and, after stopping in town for coffee and donuts (the day’s only sustenance so far), we arrived at the Delta an hour later, so we’ve endured the elements for close to four hours. Water swirls in the bottom of my new REI hiking boots (I forgot to apply waterseal last night, as instructed), and I’m hobbled by blisters on the backs of both heels and three or four toes.
Jenny is absent. Andrew stopped by her ASH apartment before picking me up, but found a note on the front door saying she had decided not to come and apologizing for making him go out of his way. So, it was just me, Andrew, and his friend Blaine, whose extra pair of binoculars helped me spot the owl, a regal, singular creature I feel lucky to have seen in the wild. We walked aimlessly for about an hour before we saw her far across the Delta, and we had to thread our way through a maze of pools and bogs for another half hour before we got a good look. We never got closer than a hundred yards or so; any closer and her alarm system went off. Once she sensed intruders, she would fly to another perch, and we would again have to find a path through the aqueous labyrinth. This happened four times. On the third, the majestic bird apparently decided to get a close look at her pursuers and flew right over us, lightly carried by the wind, on her way to the next refuge. She was immense, about two feet long with a wingspan of at least six feet. Or that’s what Blaine, the bird expert among us, estimated. Her bright white plumage was dazzling but seemed like an ill-considered costume, and potentially dangerous. What is perfect camouflage in the owl’s native Arctic habitat shone like a beacon against the mottled, blue-gray backdrop of the Delta, making her easily visible to predators.
After a long shower, I walk up to the CAB to see if anything is open. On the way back from the Delta, Andrew stopped at a small corner grocery, and I bought some cheddar cheese and whole wheat bread, but now I’m craving something sweet.
As I approach the CAB, Angelica appears from the nearest doorway.
“Hey there, I didn’t know you were around?” I say.
Avoiding the implied question, she greets me silently with a long, desperate hug. She seems upset.
“Seattle didn’t work out.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“Well, I knew that Dawn hadn’t come out to her parents yet, but it’s one thing to show up for Thanksgiving weekend with a black friend—that was weird enough, it turns out—and another to get caught sneaking a slobbery kiss on the back porch just as the football game is ending. I was on the Greyhound south before the turkey was out of the oven.”
“Shit, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, it sucks. But it’s better to know sooner than later, I guess, right? How’s your weekend going? You look a little off. Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. I just spent four hours walking around the Nisqually Delta, and I’m still chilled.”
“You should get some tea or hot chocolate or something. The snack bar is open.”
“That’s what I was hoping.”
“Mind if I join you? My weekend schedule kind of opened up.”
I get a hot chocolate and a slice of pepperoni pizza from the snack bar, while Angelica scrounges some mint tea. We find a table in the corner near the floor-to-ceiling glass wall.
“I don’t know how human beings have relationships,” Angelica says. “How did our parents do it?”
“Not so well, in my experience.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, my mom and dad split when I was pretty young. My dad has such an unpredictable temper that he was making my mom sick, too sick to care for my brother and me, I’m told. We were sent off to live with him and my new stepmother, who is better at fighting back, I guess. But that just meant there were two people yelling a lot of the time.”
“Ugh. I’m pretty sure my parents love each other. They have their differences, and there are times when they could use a break from each other, but they never yelled at me. Almost never. I came close to burning the house down when I was about ten. I’d been playing in the snow and when I came inside, I took off my wet pants and put them on the heater. The voices were raised then, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll bet. That’s funny. Well, not funny at the time, I’m sure. But I know what you mean about relationships. I have this girlfriend in Long Beach, not really girlfriend, just a friend, who’s a girl, who I used to spend a lot of time with, to the point that it felt like we were a couple. But there was no physical, you know . . . anything, really.”
“You think she’s gay? I mean, I wouldn’t assume anything, but you’re an attractive guy. Did you ever try to make out with her or anything?”
“Not really, but I told her I was attracted to her.”
“You said that? That you were ‘attracted to her’?”
“Not exactly. I said I thought I was in love with her.”
“Hmm, and you hadn’t even gotten to first base? That might not have been terribly smart.”
“So, I shouldn’t have told her I was in love with her?”
“Were you? Are you?”
“I think so . . . ‘was’ . . . ‘am’.”
“OK, I may be a little jealous about that, but have you been in touch with her since you left?”
“I write her almost every week. She’s written back once. I was supposed to see her this weekend. She wrote and told me that if I was in town for Thanksgiving I could go up to the mountains with her and a girlfriend, to her parents’ cabin. I thought I had a ride down, but it didn’t work out.”
“She said ‘if you were in town you could go with her and her friend’? That is either the most unromantic chick I’ve ever met, a dyed-in-the-flannel dyke, or a girl that just wants to be friends. And, you know, I can see how someone might want to be friends with you but not want to fuck you.”
I glance around, glad to see that we’re nearly alone in the cafeteria.
“I thought you said I was attractive?”
“You are, but you’re kind of intense and, I don’t know, telling a girl you’re in love with her, in your earnest, ultra-serious way, might freak her out. Especially if maybe she’s trying to figure out her sexuality.”
“I suppose. So, then, this other weird thing happened this weekend.”
“Do tell? I’m glad I ran into you. It’s making me forget . . . uh, what was her name?”
“Ha ha! Anyway, I went to Thanksgiving dinner at Willowberry. I ran into Alma at the movies Wednesday night, told her of my holiday orphanhood, and she invited me. And I had this, um, ‘romantic’ experience with Jenny.”
“What?! Wait, was Ezra there? Or did they split up?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t sure whether they were together actually, but no, he wasn’t there. I mean, he was, but . . . Let me start again. So, before dinner, Jenny was showing me around the farm and she ended up leading me through the woods to this remote meadow full of beautiful bushes with bright purple flowers. They’re called ‘princess flowers,’ she said. The sun had just come out, and the meadow was filled with sparkling raindrops and these gorgeous plants, and we had a long, kind of erotic embrace in the middle of this enchanted meadow. It was very romantic and kind of magical. And I don’t think it was just me. She felt it, too. I mean, she initiated the, uh . . . romantic part.”
“OK, I can see you don’t want to give me the juicy details. I’ll take your word that it was erotic, or romantic.”
“Definitely, at least for me.”
“And Ezra wasn’t around?”
“He was back at the house, or in the barn playing music. It was at least a ten-minute walk through the woods.”
“So, that’s it? A walk in the woods and an, er, ‘embrace’?”
“Yeah. But it didn’t last long. She remembered she’d left the potatoes on the stove, and when we got back to the house, dinner was ready. After that she pretty much ignored me. There were a bunch of people there, and it was a long dinner—tons of food, nonstop gabbing—but she was at the other end of the table, so I couldn’t talk to her.”
“And after dinner?”
“I did a lot of the cleanup, because I hadn’t brought any food, and that took a while. By the time I was done and back in the living room where everyone was hanging out, she was sitting with Ezra in a big, raggedy beanbag chair, and the pot was going around, which, you know, I’m not really into. So, I said goodbye and left. I had to walk home, and it was dark by then.”
“She didn’t say ‘goodbye’ or anything?”
“She did. She walked me out to the road, and gave me a little peck on the cheek.”
“Which doesn’t mean much, because that’s what Alma and Jenny do.”
“Right. But she said she’d see me today. She was planning to go with us on this hike in the Nisqually Delta, but she bailed on it. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe Ezra sensed something was going on with you two.”
“Could be.”
“But you said you’re still in love with, what’s her name, your friend in Southern California?”
“Emily.”
“And you and I were making out a couple weeks ago. What’s going on with you, dude?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m talking to you about it. But you sound kind of confused, too.”
“Me? I’m not confused. I know who I’m into, ‘was’ into, maybe still am, but I didn’t think she was into me when I started messing around with you.”
“Gee, thanks. That makes me feel good.”
“Hey, I was up front with you about it.”
“You were. Damn, why can’t you be straight?”
“Now don’t start that, my friend. You think we’d be talking like this if I were straight?”
“Maybe not.”
“But you’re right, I don’t know what’s going on with Dawn. I don’t think I can be with a girl whose parents are racist and homophobic, who doesn’t get that inviting me home for the holidays might be a problem, and . . . Oh, I don’t know if she can handle me anyway.”
“So, now we’re both screwed.”
“Not literally.”
“Ha, maybe I could come by your place?”
“Nice try, kiddo. Besides, Sandy’s around. I’m not risking her wrath for a romp with a cute little white boy. I do need a place to live this winter.”
“There’s always my place. My roommate won’t be back until tomorrow night.”
“Now that’s the kind of self-confident approach you need to take with those straight girls. But . . . you know what? What the hell. Let’s go.”
“What? Now?”
“Yeah, now. Before I change my mind, or you say something stupid.”
Angelica rises from the bed and walks, gloriously naked, slow and lazy, into the bathroom.
I wonder if this is the kind of sex that bisexual women have with guys, or whether this could happen with straight women. Except for a couple of tentative forays, we avoided each other’s genitals, but spent a lot of time skin-to-skin, some of it with the help of a jar of coconut oil Angelica dug out of her bag. We focused on pleasing ourselves, watching each other intensely from a close distance, a tremendous turn-on for me. Then we lay naked together for almost an hour, talking about music and our families, before Angelica decided it was time for a shower.
I’m tempted to join her, or at least see what her reaction would be, but I don’t want to push my luck. Angelica is so straightforward about sex that if she wanted me to join her, I’m pretty sure she would have said so. When she emerges from the bathroom, a towel is wrapped around her waist and another is draped over her shoulders, covering her breasts. Despite her alluring habiliments, the playfulness that characterized the last couple of hours is gone from her face, her brow lined and corrugated as if she had aged a few years during the shower.
“I want to make sure you understand this isn’t going to be a ‘thing,’” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed, but not too close, making it clear that a resumption of physical intimacy is far from her mind. “And I’m saying that because I like you. I know who I am, and what I want, and that doesn’t include getting serious about some well-meaning white boy.”
“I know. You’ve made that clear, and I appreciate it, much as I might wish it weren’t so.”
“For one thing, you need to stop thinking about ‘relationships.’ You’re young, you don’t know much about women, and you’re too trusting. There’s no need to rush things. You need to get more experience and some self-confidence. Getting me into the sack was a good start. Now, I don’t know anything about this girl Emily, but I think you need to forget about her. My guess is she’s still figuring things out. Maybe I’m wrong, but unless she throws herself at you when you see her at winter break, you need to let that girl go.
“And I’d recommend you be careful with Jenny, whatever is going on with her and Ezra. I think she’s trouble, and that’s nothing against her. She just seems damaged, somehow. The kind of person who wants things too much but doesn’t trust them when she gets them, maybe because she’s used to getting them too easily. I have this feeling that Jenny was hurt badly at some point, I don’t know. Her cousin is almost the opposite: strong, savvy, self-assured. Alma just instinctively knows who to trust and who not to trust.”
“How do you know all this? How can you tell all that about them?”
“Because I pay attention.”
“That’s it? You pay attention?”
“Of course. I have to. I’m black and I grew up around white people. I had to learn who to trust and who not to trust early on. All black people do. We can’t get by on just not trusting people. That’s a cynical white boy thing: don’t trust the government, don’t trust anyone over thirty. But if you’re black, and especially if you’re black and gay and intelligent, like me, you’re not going to survive unless you find some kind of crew, some kind of community that will have your back when you need it. And that’s something you need to learn. If you can.
“I’ve got a head start on you, but now that you’re away from your sheltered, liberal, college-professor bubble, you need to try to figure people out for yourself, and especially women. If you get fixated on one little ‘princess flower’ you’re not going to learn anything. It’s funny that Jenny’s little erotic nature retreat is filled with ‘princess flowers.’ She’s a bit of a hippie princess herself. She lets people do things for her—people want to do things for her, and not just men—because she’s so beautiful, and has that melancholy, big-eyed waif thing going on. But then she doesn’t trust the people she lets in. That may be a good instinct, but I don’t know that she can tell the difference between people who are likely to take advantage of her and people she can trust, people like you, who would never knowingly do anything to hurt her. I do hope she wasn’t abused or anything when she was young.
“But you need to avoid princesses. There are plenty of good women out there. They don’t all have to be gorgeous, idealized versions of your perfect mate. I tell ya, what you need is a good black woman or Latina. But, of course, you’re not going to find too many of them at Evergreen.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“Well, most of them here are gay, or haven’t decided that they’re gay yet.”
“Decided? I didn’t think that was something you just decide.”
“It’s not, but you do have to decide whether you’re going to accept it in yourself or whether you’re going to fight it. It’s not easy being black, or brown, and gay. Especially if you like sex, like I do. There’s no end to the shit I have to look forward to. I might as well just change my name to ‘Ho’ right now, the number of times I’m going to get called that in my life. And why do I know that most of the black and Latina women at Evergreen are gay? I don’t. But how many places do you know where an ‘out’ black girl isn’t going to immediately be ostracized by pretty much everyone around her? Not that Evergreen is an idyllic outpost of acceptance and generosity, but there is a bit of a chance here.”
“I feel like such a sheltered, clueless little shit.”
“Nah. Unless I’ve completely misjudged you or there’s something you’re not telling me, you’re not a shit.”
I laugh. “That’s good, I guess. But I’m not sure what you’re telling me. I need to find someone like Alma?”
“Not Alma herself. That girl’s a queen. Unless she fancies you as a sweet, pliable boytoy, she’s way out of your league. But that’s OK. She would eat you up. But see, there you go again, you need to get rid of this notion of ‘finding someone.’”
“I’m confused.”
“Of course you are. Look, I’m just saying that you need to try to get to know more people. You like different kinds of food, right? Try hanging out with different kinds of women. Don’t get stuck on one ‘type.’ That whole ‘my type’ thing is bullshit anyway. You worry too much about whether you have ‘something in common’ with people. But hell, look at us. What the fuck do we have in common? And yet, here we are. Just treat people like human beings, which I know you’ll do ’cause that’s you, and listen to them, make an effort to take an interest in what they’re into. Maybe you’ll like it. And if it doesn’t work out, then you probably learned something.
“Of course, I’m talking like I know anything, and I just got booted out of Thanksgiving dinner by the racist, homophobic parents of an upper-middle-class white girl. Then I let a paleface get naked with me for some reason I’m still trying to figure out. But at least I’m trying things, and I’m learning. You need to do the same.
“OK, there you go, Angelica’s free, lovelorn-white-boy therapy service. Saving the world one confused honky at a time. It’s all on me, honey. Now, what are we going to do about dinner?