First Time for Everything (35 page)

That made Max smile and realize something for the first time. “Yeah, me too.”

As they walked through the crowd, heading for the concession stand, Max was super glad Sasha had talked him into going to the comic con. He was going to have to dress up like Logan more often.

A
NDREA
S
PEED
writes way too much. She is the writer of the Infected series for Dreamspinner Press and is Editor In Chief of CxPulp.com, where she reviews comics as well as movies and other stuff. She won a Rainbow Award for best horror/paranormal novel in 2012, and feels she may be ubiquitous on the web. But she is not (sadly) the Italian DJ of the same name that often comes up first in Google searches.

Visit her website at http://www.andreaspeed.com and her Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/andrea.speed.3. She tweets at https://twitter. com/aspeed.

A
LLISON
W
ONDERLAND

I
N
OUR
junior year of high school, my best friend shared with me her plans for the future.

When I’m in college, I think I’ll be a LUG.

I had to request a translation.
Isn’t that a verb?
I inquired, foraging in my closet for my teal cardigan sweater.

It’s actually an acronym
, she replied.
It stands for Lesbian Until Graduation. L-U-G. See? Basically, I’ll be a lesbian for a limited time only.

I remember feeling conflicted after the explanation. On the one hand, I resented her for having the audacity to go after girls who were and always would be lesbians, like me, and who would end up hoodwinked and heartbroken when she traded up for a guy. On the other hand, I envied her for having the gumption to go after what she wanted, even if she didn’t want it for very long.

Me, I didn’t even have the guts to ask a girl out.
Bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk
. I did accept dates when they were offered, though they weren’t offered often, as I didn’t exactly put myself out there. In fact, I spent the majority of my time in high school being out but never going out, instead sublimating my attraction to girls with the kind of asexuality that abstinence-only advocates can only fantasize about.

I had a whole slippery-slope scenario worked out in my head: I meet a girl. I fall for the girl. The girl doesn’t fall for me. I fall into a deep depression. I fall behind on my schoolwork, inevitably flunking out of school. Shortly thereafter (because where else is there to go but down?) I fall off from humanity, and later, a cliff.

It sounds silly, I know, but there was safety in self-denial. As long as I didn’t put myself out there, I didn’t have to worry about rejection. As my mother is fond of saying:
Gina, you need a serious attitude adjustment. Stop putting yourself down
. (My mother is also fond of saying that I’m her little lezzie. She considers it a term of endearment.) But she’s right, as mothers often are, and even though it took me almost four years, I finally managed to acquire a smidgen of self-esteem and get that trajectory of tragedy out of my head. I got tired of being a window-shopper—always browsing, never buying; always looking, never touching. I vowed that as soon as I finished secondary school but before I started the third, I would get a girlfriend. It would be my graduation present to myself. Plus, I did
not
want to be the least experienced lesbian on campus.

But fulfilling my promise hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk. What my efforts lack in success, they make up for in failure. My first biggest problem is that I have no idea what to look for. What’s my type? Femme, I suppose, but if I only look for femmes, I’ll be limiting my options, right? Yet I have to exclude some candidates. I can’t be open to everyone, because then I might wind up taking what I can get instead of getting what I want.

My second biggest problem is that I have no idea where to look. I’m too young for the bar scene or the club scene. I could try the online scene, but then I’ll have to worry about what to put in my profile. And what if it doesn’t get any hits? What if no one looks me over and everyone overlooks me?

There’s always the mall scene. The mall is the source of most of my other graduation presents, so why shouldn’t I… shop around for female companionship? I spend enough time there anyway. In fact, I’m there right now.

Not to, um, check out the merchandise. I don’t really have time for that. I’ve got an interview at the park district in two hours for an internship in Program and Event Coordinating. I spent hours picking out my outfit, wading through an ocean of shirts and skirts and messes of dresses before I finally found something suitable to wear. Then I took one look in the mirror and nearly called and canceled. I’m feeling anxious about this interview, and when I get anxious, I get acne. I thought I would outgrow that once I hit eighteen, but clearly I thought wrong because I am, at present, spottier than a Dalmatian. I need professional help.

That help comes in the form of a beauty consultant at one of the way too many cosmetics counters in the only department store at which I can afford to shop. I don’t even have an appointment, but Simone, as her nameplate proclaims, senses my desperation and instructs me to hop onto a stool and get comfortable.

It takes me awhile to get a good look at her, as I spend most of the time with my lids lowered, like a doll with sleepy eyes, terrified of being stabbed in the pupil with an eyeliner pencil.

“Gina, I know what I’m doing,” Simone assures me, though she doesn’t sound insulted. “You can keep your eyes open ’til I tell you to close them, all right?”

“All right.” I comply and raise my lashes in time to see her swipe a blush brush through a rectangle of peach powder.

“This color will look really good on you,” she says, sweeping the bristles across my cheek.

Since my eyes are conveniently open, I decide to make the most of it. I study Simone’s face as she paints mine, noting the hazel color of her irises, an appealing complement to the hazelnut color of her skin. Her tapered tresses, pepper black with brown sugar streaks, are clipped below her chin, outlining the square shape of her face. Even beneath the unremitting glare of department store lighting, the kind that’s designed to alert you to flaws you never even knew existed, Simone looks flawless.

I can’t tell much about her figure, though, as it’s concealed by a shapeless white coat and, under that, a charcoal-colored blouse and matching slacks. But I do detect the contour of a breast, the undulation of a hip.

When Simone pauses to select a shade of eye shadow, my gaze wanders. I glance at my reflection in the magnifying mirror. I look… almost attractive, a conspicuous improvement. But Simone has already seen my naked face. And what kind of person would be intrigued by a connect-the-dots complexion?

Yet in spite of my doubts, Simone seems interested in me. We talk while she works, and it feels like we’re having a genuine conversation, not the frivolous sort of chitchat employees are obligated to engage in with potential clients. I tell her about my plans for college. She says her sister majored in Leisure Studies too. I tell her about my impending interview. She says I should put my best foot forward and knock their socks off. And when she finishes, she doesn’t ask me if I want to buy any of the products she applied. Instead she says, “Keep me posted about the internship, Gina,” and I tell her I will, because she sounds like she means it.

And then I say, once I’m back on solid ground, “I’d like to see you again.”

I pray that the amount of blush she used is sufficient to camouflage my own. “Um, what I mean is,” I splutter, fearing another breakout, “I’m really happy with what you did… with my face, and I’d like you to be my… my regular makeup artist. Er, uh, beauty consultant. If, you know, you want to.”

Simone smiles and removes a business card from her pocket. “Well, it says in my job description that I’m supposed to—how did they word it again? ‘Create and maintain relationships with clients’? Of course, it also says that I’m supposed to sell you stuff, but I like the relationship requirement a lot better.”

Ditto, I think, making sure to touch her fingers as the card changes hands
.

“T
HAT
’
S
TOO
bad about the internship.”

I shrug, averting my eyes, directing my attention to the marshmallow-colored cushion of the stool. “It’s not your fault.”

I feel like a fraud. I landed the internship I interviewed for at the park district. But I told Simone that they selected someone else, as well as three other interns for three other internships that I purportedly applied for. I should have been honest with her, but I was afraid if I told her I’d been hired, I would have no reason to see her anymore.

I know, I know—I need a serious attitude adjustment. Not only am I a fraud, I’m also a fool.

At the moment, however, I’m nobody’s fool. I’d like to be Simone’s if I could, but I don’t see much chance of that happening, especially when she reveals me for the fraud that I am.

“So, Gina, do you have a boyfriend?”

Simone’s voice transports me back to Earth. “Hmm?”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Oh. No.”

“I probably shouldn’t have asked you that,” Simone remarks, frosting my lips with a glittery gloss. “Not because it’s a personal question, but because it just seems sort of counterintuitive for me to assume that you’re a hetero when I’m a lesbo.” She reclines against the counter, twirling a carousel of lipstick tubes. “You’re into girls, aren’t you?” Simone inquires, posing the question as though she merely wants to confirm something she already knows.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m… into girls,” I respond, so panic-stricken I’m practically scared straight.

Simone smirks. “Thought so,” she gloats. “I got the gaydar prototype. It’s like a sixth sense.” She taps the base of the halogen lamp sitting atop the counter. “Guys just don’t appeal to me,” she continues. “They’re, uh, anatomically incorrect, if you will.”

I attempt to giggle, but my voice sounds like a squeaky toy.

“I’d like to see you again,” Simone says, resuming her place behind the glass enclosures.

Pump pump pump
, goes my heart, giving the foundation dispensers a run for their money. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“You say that like you’re hoping I’m not,” she ribs.

“I’m not,” I splutter, struggling to keep my nerves in check. “I mean I’m not hoping you’re not. I… I’m hoping you are.”

Simone smiles and plucks a card and a pen from the pocket of her coat. She flips the card over and slides it across the counter. “Write down your number,” she instructs me.

I scribble a series of digits on the back of the card, but my fingers are twittering and my fours resemble nines and my fives look like sixes. When I’m done, I read the digits aloud, lest there be a remake of
Sorry, Wrong Number
. “Call me whenever,” I say, giving her carte blanche. “And we can, um… you know….”

“Make a date?” she supplies, adjusting the cuff of her coat.

I nod—I think.

Simone hands me a tissue and indicates I should use it to blot my lipstick.

“Good luck with what had better be your last interview,” she says. “I’ll give you a call tonight.”

I hoist my handbag onto my shoulder and climb down from the stool. “I’m looking forward to it,” I manage to reply.

“Ditto,” she says, making sure to touch my fingers as the card changes hands.

S
IMONE
SHIFTS
on the couch, folding her feet beneath her. I am close enough to inhale the fragrance she is wearing but not savvy enough to identify it. “Favorite TV show?” she asks.

“
I Love Lucy
,” I answer, twirling my bendy straw, watching as the grape juice sloshes against the glass. “Favorite candy?”

“Corn. Favorite superhero?”

“Pippi Longstocking, if that counts. Um… favorite horror movie?”

“
Jesus Camp
.”

“That’s a docu—”

“Favorite movie actress?”

“Oh, um, Joan Crawford.”

“I need sex for a clear complexion, but I’d rather do it for love,” Simone shares, gliding her thumb along the silver chain of her necklace. “Hey, can I see your room?”

The change in subjects is sharp and sudden, like an orgasm. I groan inwardly and push my thighs together as discreetly as possible, regretting my choice of thoughts. Dropping my eyes, I direct my attention to the denim-colored cushion of the sofa. Sex? My room?

My parents are out (well, not like
that
) and even though I’m out to them, they trust me to be respectful. Somehow, I don’t think having sex in their house with an older-than-me-by-two-years woman on our very first date qualifies as respectful. Or even wise. Oh boy. Any minute now, my pores will instigate a mutiny and my face will be dappled with puffy pink pimples.

“Hey, I didn’t say it, Joan did,” Simone clarifies, doing little to relieve my confusion. She chuckles, squeezing my knee. “That was a quote,” she elaborates. “I need sex for a clear complexion? Joan Crawford said that. It’s true too. It has to do with endorphins and circulation and the release of toxins and all that.” She removes the bottle from my hand and returns it to the coaster on the coffee table, next to hers. “Let’s see that room,” she requests, unfolding her body from the sofa.

With an unsteady hand on her arm and an even less steady grip on myself, I escort Simone down the hallway, my pulse outpacing my footsteps.

As we near our destination, my anxiety kicks into high gear, and I seek refuge in the bathroom.

“Gina, you all right?” Simone calls from the other side of the door.

My heart punches my ribcage,
whap whap whap
, like a fist connecting with a boxing mitt. “Yes,” I croak, clutching the counter. I watch as the color disappears from my knuckles. “I just need a little bathroom break, that’s all.”