RESULT
Etymology: from Latin resultare (to rebound)
Function: noun, intransitive verb
1: to proceed or arise as a consequence, effect, or conclusion
2: beneficial or tangible effect
3: something obtained by calculation or investigation
4: what I will say when I make N look like the fool he is. Because it’s not about the money, it’s about the principle.
N and I went out to a club he worked at a few years ago. They were playing the usual pop trash, but the doormen knew us and waved us through.
It was packed with the usual bodies. A few on the floor, shaking their moneymakers, more at the bar looking everyone over. A meat market but not unfriendly for it. I leaned on a white leather sofa and looked round. A familiar face in a small clutch of men. Ten-Pence Bet. I elbowed N and gestured at him.
“Told you,” he said. Or would have said, but I couldn’t hear him over the music. Mouthed. I knew what he meant. I shrugged. Being with other men is not ipso facto gay. And the bet stood, regardless.
I saw l0-Pence Bet detach from his group and spin out in the direction of the bar. Alone. Good, because I didn’t think a confrontation would work in front of a crowd. I followed him.
Tapped him on the shoulder. “Yes?” He turned around, saw me, smiled.
“This is going to sound odd,” I said apologetically. “But I win a 10-pence bet if you’re not gay.”
“Pardon?” The music in the club was loud; he bent his head very close to mine.
“I said I win a 10-pence bet if you’re not gay.”
“Who’s the bet with?” he asked.
“I really mustn’t say. Does it matter?”
He smiled. Thought a bit. Leaned forward and kissed me. His lips were soft, slightly moist, lingered a moment. “You win,” he said. I smiled. We walked away in opposite directions.
I found N, leaned heavily on his arm. “I win,” I shouted in his ear. “Do you hate me?”
“I’ll prove you wrong,” he said, digging through his pockets.
“Yes, well.” I smirked. “Until then, hand over the coin.”
ESCAPE HATCHES-A BRIEF CONSIDERATION
• Kyle of Tongue. Pros: favored by child molesters and lovers of cold weather. They clearly go for the fantastic scenery. Cons: bleak isn’t the word. What can you say about a place where the incoming tide swallows up the main road?
• Home Counties. Pros: so soul-destroying, so boring, so obviously bad, that no one would think their new neighbor is me. Cons: so soul-destroying, so boring, so obviously bad, that no one would think their new neighbor is me.
• West Country. Pros: dairy products, moors, beaches. Pasties. Ponies. Dreamily gazing at bronzed surfers in summertime. Cons: while the trains go there, am not certain they come back.
• North America. Pros: charming accent might attract general goodwill, free drinks. Cons: am frightened by the concept of Texas.
• South America. Pros: sunshine, interesting food, mountains. Cons: rumored expatriate contingent of Nazis in hiding may prove constricting to social life.
• Australia and Environs. Pros: a few acquaintances, rumored good weather, decent confectionery. Cons: rumored expatriate contingent of Brits in hiding may prove constricting to social life.
• The Med. Pros: excellent weather, superlative food, inexpensive housing, reasonable entertainment possibilities, and not terribly far from home. Cons: Costa del Croydon is not quite the vibe I’m after.
• Fulham, South London. Pros: the transport links are decent. Cons: what does it say about a place if the ease of escaping is its highest selling point?
• Israel. Umm, no. Just… no. Not yet.
• East Anglia. Pros: good beer. Oh, I don’t half fancy a pint of IPA on a sunny afternoon. Cons: aesthetically displeasing “bump” bit of map.
• Africa. Pros: no idea. Cons: once I had a client from Zimbabwe. It doesn’t sound like a terribly nice place at the moment.
• New York. Pros: extremely menschy. Cons: if television is to be believed, pressure to meet and mate is all- consuming. I am the alpha stiletto-wearing, lingerie-obsessed, Pulitzer-reading female here and competition could be disheartening. Particularly if the quarry is an unemployed finance graduate still living at home in the Bronx.
Lately it feels I am spending more time out of town than in it. The current good weather in London is pleasant and welcome, but an unfortunate case of too little, too late. I am packing again-knickers (all varieties), books (Dodsworth, My Name Is Asher Lev, some silly crime thrillers, and the ever reliable Princess Bride), and sunblock.
In search of beaches. Will report back with detailed analysis of several of the locations discussed above. dimanche, le 25 avril
We took a holiday every year when I was young. Never anywhere too exotic, and never with my father. He claimed exhaustion from his business, until he retired and couldn’t use the excuse any longer. By the last year of school, my best friend was one of my male cousins. We have the same coloring, the same small sharp features and freckles. People think we are twins. We still acted like children, taunting and hitting each other. But that year there had been a new undercurrent of tension: we started to watch one another cautiously, for signs that one of us knew something the other didn’t.
So, our mothers take all the kids on holiday together. We drive to Brighton. I’ve never been so far south. And six of us in the car, it’s cramped, the journey feels a lot longer than it must have been. My mother’s sister, my cousin’s mother, has brought a bag of cassette tapes to keep us entertained.
Her taste in music is nothing like ours, but thankfully nowhere as antique as Mum’s. We know all the lyrics to her tapes, and we sing loudly, car windows down. It’s a sunny day. We think the holiday will be perfect.
When we get there, the beach is horrible, wet and windy. There’s nothing to do for three days. The mothers stay in and watch telly; we kids go out looking for an amusement arcade. I beat all comers at air hockey until no one will play me any longer. We spend all of our money on cotton candy, penny arcades, and chips.
I come back to the hotel, the mothers are still watching television. My cousin is in the bathroom. He’s singing, obviously unaware that the echo that makes singing in the shower sound so good also means everyone outside can hear him. He’s singing a Madonna song, and the frankly sexual lyrics-not to mention his falsetto-disturb me somewhat. Without meaning to, I can imagine him imitating the dancers in the video.
The other thing I realize is only that morning I was in the shower too, while everyone sat inside poring over street maps and the papers, and I was singing the Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself.” mardi, le 27 avril
I’m staying in a hotel right on a river in Spain; the river goes only a few miles until it reaches the sea. I take a walk by myself. Not far from the hotel-the spring is very warm and sunny, and I am distracted by the flowers. The air smells drier and cleaner here than in the UK.
My camera is low on batteries, but I manage to take pictures of some flowers. Violet bursts of bougainvillea, orange starburst-shaped blooms I’ve never seen, tiny pink flowers in a smooth-trunked tree’s branches.
There are more sidewalk cafes than anything else. I sit at one, in a green plastic chair under an umbrella emblazoned with the name of the local brew, sip a sangria and feel like an obvious tourist. Men who pass sometimes comment to me, more often things to each other. From what they say, it seems like they notice a woman’s hair before anything else.
Because I have worn the wrong shoes for any kind of walking, I have to turn back and go home early. But instead of retreading the same route along main roads, I loop through the cobble-paved back streets where white and yellow stucco crumbles off flat-faced buildings. There are two churches, their names spelled in gay tiles pressed into the plastered walls. I try to take a picture of one but the battery of the camera runs out. I could buy new ones, but I don’t know the word for “battery,” and am already acutely aware of my strangeness to the locals. The hotel is a cool refuge when I get back. jeudi, le 29 avril
So I’m sixteen, or close to it. One day my cousin and I are at a swimming pool, treading water by the ladder
