at first is actually a pile of rocks and broken concrete chunks, which I highly don’t recommend sleeping on. I feel around in my pockets; as expected, my van keys are gone.
15) I wake up again, maybe half an hour later, and Manny has me by the legs. His skateboard’s underneath me like a little hospital gurney, and he’s facing forward, pulling me by both my feet. One of my shoes is gone.
I try to open my mouth to thank him, but it hurts to talk.
He tows me from under the bridge, and out there it’s a bright sunny morning, the first I’ve seen in Portland for a while. I’m looking straight up into the sky, from my one good eye, at the clouds and the sun and lampposts and power cables. Manny pulls me across the street, through a crosswalk, and I can see a lady in a Volvo looking out at us like,
HUMMINGBIRD BY ZOE TROPE
Amy doesn’t want to go to Cathie’s. I don’t care. “You deserve orgasms!” I tell her.
She flushes and pushes her long, sideways bangs out of her eyes. “Shut up,” she says, and turns up the volume on the TV. We’re watching
“Luke doesn’t make you come, right?”
She doesn’t answer, which means yes.
I stand in front of the television. Amy crosses her thin arms and looks past me, focusing on Duff Goldman, the chef, who is up to his elbows in fondant. She can be pissy sometimes, but we’ve been friends since we were both straight. That was sixth grade. Then puberty hit and Amy fell in love with Samir Rajkumar, who, after two dates that involved making out at the movie theater, admitted to her,
“Amy, come on. It’ll be fun. I’ll buy you a coffee.” She ignores me and changes the channel. There’s a lady on the news with pink lipstick and bad hair talking about a sexual predator on the loose.
“Who is this guy?” Amy asks as an artist’s sketch lingers on the screen.
“Some meth head who’s been ‘harassing women outside a local nightclub.’” I wiggle my fingers in the air, putting quotes around the second part.
“What does that mean?”
I smirk. “He’s been harassing dykes outside E Room, asking if he can help them come. That’s what Julia told me, anyway.”
“How would she know?”
“Her friend Emma works there.”
“With our luck, we’ll run into some guy like that at the porn shop.” Amy gestures at the screen and wrinkles her tiny, cute nose.
“Cathie’s is very classy,” I assure her. “It’s women-owned. Minimal meth head exposure, I promise.” Her green eyes move from the screen to my pleading, grinning face. “Orgasms, Amy!” I do my Martha impression, which she loves: “It’s a good thing.”
Amy cracks a smile, turns off the TV, and picks up her tiny purse from under the coffee table. I see her pull out her phone as she gets into my car.
“Who are you texting?”
“Luke.”
“Gonna let him know that you’re going to buy his competition?”
She doesn’t say anything as we drive down Eighty-second, past Vietnamese restaurants and brothels with names like Honeysuckles Lingerie and The G Spot. I wonder what she’s writing.
There’s techno music playing in the cafe, which is mostly deserted except for a guy checking his e-mail and two teenage girls reading magazines in the back. Amy orders a latte. “I hate the way those bubbles feel in my mouth,” she says when I order a taro root smoothie with tapioca pearls. “They’re so slimy.”
“Nah, they’re kind of like candy,” I explain.
Amy argues, “I don’t think you should have to chew your drink,” and adds another packet of sugar to her cup. She grabs two swizzle straws and pushes them through the hole in the lid.
We drive further south, past the community college, the Taboo porn shop, and two enormous Chinese restaurants.
I ask Amy if she came with her last boyfriend, Del, who she dated her junior year. He was tall and tan like a Ken doll. I liked him, right up until he called Samir a faggot behind his back. I did the only thing a sensible lesbian would do-I gave him a black eye. Del snitched to his parents, telling them a crazy dyke tried to kill him, and I had to spend time with my mom and a juvie youth counselor talking about why I was such “an angry young woman.” I got probation. Amy broke up with Del and didn’t talk to me for a month.
Amy shakes her head about Del. I suck the bubbles up from the bottom of my cup. “That blows,” I say.
She stares at her phone, mid-text. “His dick was too big. It hurt.”
“Okay, well, moving forward. Top 10 best things about vibrators. I’ll start. They come in shapes like dolphins and beavers. Your turn.” Amy will play Top 10 anything. It’s my way of making her feel okay about things she doesn’t want to do. One time we played Top 10 best things about abortions.
“Uh,” she finishes her text and puts her phone away in her purse. “Some of them ejaculate, I’ve heard, which is absolutely hilarious.”
“Good call. Number three, some of them light up. I even had one once that had glitter in the middle.”
“Isn’t that a health hazard?” Amy asks.
“Not if you wash it properly. Your turn. Four.”
“They don’t forget your birthday,” she offers.
“Oh, bitter. I like it.”
She adds quietly with a smirk, “And they can’t get you pregnant, either.”
I nod. “Six. They never get jealous when you sleep with someone else.”
Amy rolls her eyes. “And they never choose to play Xbox over you.”
“You can easily twist the base to adjust the speed.”
“Number nine… When they get tired, you can just put in more batteries.”
“Excellent point. And number ten, of course-multiple orgasms. Thank God for the Hitachi magic wand.”
Amy puts down her cup mid-sip. “Wait,” she says. “I thought the Bunny was the best one.”
“You mean the Rabbit. And you watch too much
“So then which one do I buy?”
“Well, that depends,” I reply, “on whether you have clitoral or vaginal orgasms.”
Amy bites the tiny swizzle straw in her latte, opens her mouth, and then closes it again.
I try to translate. “Neither?” I ask as we pull into the strip mall parking lot. The windows are frosted white and the neon sign above the door is written in swirly red letters with a heart dotting the i:
