“Two white wines, and ignore Gail, Sandy; she’s ornery today.”
White wine. God, how… grown up. Get me out of here.
“Julie!” Came a voice behind us. I cringed at the sound.
“Marion! Hi!” Julie smiled in her girlish way and gave the woman a politely platonic hug.
“Marion, this is Gail. I’m so glad you finally are able to meet her!” Julie seemed genuinely pleased. “Gail, this is Marion, I’ve told you about her. Marion teaches English.”
“Hello, Gail,” Marion said, turning to me. “Julie has told me a lot about you.”
“Uh oh. That can’t be good,” I said, giving Marion a grin. I kept the hand that wasn’t holding my wine glass in my pocket.
As predicted, Marion laughed uproariously at one of the most overused icebreaking quips ever, and then she winked at me. “Oh, come now, Julie’s had nothing but good things to say.”
With a crooked grin, I leaned closer to Marion and whispered, “Well, I imagine the bruises and the leather aren’t good teachers’ lounge conversation.”
Marion’s face went white for a moment. When the moment went on just a hair too long I started to worry that Julie might have to explain that I was joking, but then Marion tried on a tentative smile. “Oh! Oh that was a joke, wasn’t it? How funny! Leather.” She looked at Julie. “Julie, she’s so funny!”
Judging by the look Julie gave me, she didn’t seem to think I was so funny. She did seem relieved, however, that Marion didn’t turn and run screaming for the hills.
“She’s a joker,” Julie said in that polite-yet-terse way of hers, and I knew I’d just firmly landed myself in the doghouse. I decided that I’d better shape up or I’d earn myself a short lead attached to a stake in the back yard to go with it. God, I hate sleeping on the couch.
“So, how do you like working at the high school?” There. That was an innocuous enough question, wasn’t it?
Have I mentioned that Julie is a science teacher? She teaches high school biology and chemistry to 10th and 11th graders. She has the patience of, well, a high school teacher. I’d kill the little bastards, myself. Either that, or I’d hang out behind the school and smoke with them. I think it’s pretty remarkable of her actually, because you know that for every one kid that can’t get enough of dissecting frogs, there are ten that are grumbling ‘fuck biology’ in the hallways.
“Oh, I enjoy it very much,” Marion replied, relaxing again. She gave me a far more genuine smile. “We have a great group of kids, don’t you think so, Julie?”
Julie was clearly happier with this line of conversation. “Oh yes, especially my juniors this year.
They have a lot of energy.”
The cocktail party lasted another hour or so, during which time I was a good pup and remained mindful of every word I uttered. I did manage to have an intelligent discussion with Marion about Virginia Woolf (it was nice to have the subject come up and actually manage to get past the word “dolorous”), and otherwise I followed Julie around. As we were leaving, I helped Julie on with her jacket and I opened the door for her. By that time I thought I had pretty well made amends.
I took Julie’s hand as we made our way down the steps and she tugged it free again. Apparently, I was wrong. “Julie?”
“Fuck you, Gail.
“Oh, come on, Julie.”
She turned the corner and walked another half a block before she finally stopped and turned around. I’d been trailing a few steps behind, waiting for her to let me have it. “Damn you, Gail.”
Crap. And there it was. “Julie, I was only joking.”
“It wasn’t funny! She’s a co-worker and that was a nice party. I can’t take you anywhere!”
“Julie, baby,” I said, trying to sound apologetic. “I’m not good at all that grin and pretend to be nice stuff; you know that.”
“Yes, Gail. Yes. I know that. I fucking know that.” Julie shook her head and turned away, heading down the sidewalk again. I might have been mistaken, but I thought maybe I saw tears in her eyes. God, I can’t take it when Julie cries. I really can’t take it when I make her cry, and it seems like I do it all the damn time.
“Julie, I’m sorry.” I meant it, I honestly meant it. “Baby?” I caught up to her and matched her angry walking pace. “I’m truly sorry, all right?”
“It might have been funny in a dyke bar, Gail, but not at a cocktail party, you know?” Julie kept walking at a good clip, making me work to keep up. “You have no sense of propriety.”
That was actually Julie’s mother talking. ‘No sense of propriety.’ Julie was raised wealthy. She never left the house without her mother approving of what she was wearing, she went to the best private schools, and she was painstakingly taught manners and etiquette. Julie reflexively says please and thank you, she doesn’t pick up her fork until her hostess does, she even raises her pinky finger when she drinks from a tea cup. Her mother, the matriarch, cares very much what people think of the family and always has, and so Julie moved fifteen hundred miles away, where she could live with me in peace and not embarrass or shame anyone.
And that was what I was up against every time the argument went in this direction. I knew I couldn’t use that particular trump card, however, because Julie would never have forgiven me.
“You didn’t fall in love with me for my sense of propriety,” I ventured.
“Gail, you’re not the one who’s going to have to hear about it, you know? That kind of shit gets around. Imagine what people will think?”
I chewed my lip. I don’t give a damn what people think most of the time, and I suppose that was the real issue here, because, like her pretentious mother, Julie does. Oh, she doesn’t care if they know she’s
