Schooled (15 page)

Sarah bought a simple black cocktail dress from a small boutique. The dress was short, ruched along the side, and strapless. She wasn’t much of a shopper, but was a wonderful shopping sidekick, complimentary and helpful. Sarah enjoyed purchasing the touristy things in New York: knockoff purses in Chinatown, a Yankees hat at a shop in Times Square, and fake Chanel sunglasses from a stand in Greenwich Village. She wanted to go to a lot of places, but was fast at each destination. I only wanted to go to a few places, but took an eternity at each place. We complemented each other well. I was impressed that we pulled it all off in five hours and still had time to kill and get ready.

When Sarah and I walked into Nobu, heads turned, which was beyond flattering since it was a celebrity hot spot and gorgeous people ate there daily. Loving anything peach flavored, we both ordered the Bellini Martinis. The martinis were strong, but thirst-quenching and delicious.

“Sushi? Japanese! I thought this place was a steakhouse.” I said when I looked at the menu. All this time, I had been dying to go to Nobu. I’d thought it was an upscale steakhouse. How could I have missed that one important fact? “I hate sushi.”

Sarah was choking on her martini. “Are ya kidding me? Nobu? Did you think it was American food?” I didn’t know what I thought. “Have you ever even had sushi?”she asked.

“No, but I know I hate it.” I was so pissed. We could’ve gone to Serendipity instead, another celebrity favorite. Hell, that place could be Indian or Tai food for all I knew. Every day, I was realizing how little I truly knew about things.

Sarah said that she loved sushi and was as equally excited about Nobu. I figured it would be smart to just let her go ahead and order for both of us. She ordered the scallops with spicy garlic sauce for me and a sushi sampler dinner for her. I was happy that my meal would be thoroughly cooked and that I could pronounce and understand each item I’d be eating. Sarah was a little more cultured than I remembered her.

“Sarah, what made you move back to the area?”I inquired. It seemed as if being away agreed with her.

“My girlfriend and I broke up and there didn’t seem to be anything left there for me.” She answered nonchalantly. I must have looked surprised, because she said, “Yeah, Vivian, my girlfriend. We were together for two years. Guess ya didn’t know that I’m gay? Jasper tells you nothing!” She was so confident, not worried about my reaction at all. Jasper knew? That explained everything. Jasper loved lesbians, always befriended them. No wonder he and Sarah were getting so close. He was so afraid of “gold-digging whores,” because he was convinced they’d try to get knocked up to steal his money. Sarah was obviously not interested in his money or his sperm. But, there were girls out there like that. Lauren, the skank, was like that. Dating was grueling and terrifying for him.

“Ummm, I guess I never thought about it one way or another.” I didn’t know if that was a rude statement, offensive, or not. But, I didn’t tend to judge whether or not people were gay or straight. I always joked that I had no sense of “gay-dar” at all. I’d have to be slapped in the face with it, or not, to know someone’s sexual orientation. “Well, didn’t you date that Jake kid from the Lacrosse team in high school?” I remembered that they were inseparable their senior year. She was even devastated when they’d both applied to James Madison , and he hadn’t gotten in.

“Jake? Yeah, he was my first love. My first everything, loved him.” She seemed reminiscent when she talked of him. I didn’t quite understand. I wanted to ask her more about him and about Vivian, but our food arrived, getting us a little sidetracked.

“Miss Garrity, just try one roll and if you don’t like it, then I’ll never say anything about it again.” She was preparing a roll for herself. It looked disgusting, not appealing or appetizing at all. “You just need to know how to eat sushi, how to mix the favors for the ultimate taste. Please.”

“Alright, but if I puke, ruin my dress and miss
Wicked
because of your raw fish, then I’ll make Jasper fire you.” I warned. She laughed and said that it was a deal. She gathered a roll, spicy shrimp roll, put a light coating of green Wasbi goo on it, covered the goo with thin, pink ginger junk, and dunked the entire roll into a small bowl of brown soy liquid. This was not going well at all. She took her chopsticks, expertly picked up the roll and leaned across the table, offering the roll on her stix to me. I hesitated, scowling at the sushi; she inched forward, urging me to taste it. I opened my mouth; the sushi roll went in. I paused, refusing to actually move my tongue and taste the sushi. Finally, I sucked the roll further into my mouth, biting down on the rice and shrimp. I swear I heard angels singing and saw bright flashes of heavenly wonder. It was orgasmic. Sushi was fantastic; why had I waited 29 years to eat this delicious treat?

Luckily, Sarah didn’t mind sharing our meals. The scallops just couldn’t cut it compared to the sushi sampler. To think that I was chowing down on spicy eel and octopus was mind-blowing. Char had been begging me for years to go to our local Sushi joint, and I’d always refused.

“Yeah, growing up in Ohio, we don’t get introduced to much more than fried chicken and pizza. Vivian turned me on to sushi, and to well, quite a lot of other things.” She blushed. Apparently, the Bellini Martinis were starting to get to Sarah; she was getting a little more loose-lipped. I wanted to pump her for more details, but we needed to get our check and get to the theater.

At the theater, I wanted to make sure we had time to use the restroom and find our seats before they dimmed the house lights. Sarah stood in line to get our wine, while I ran to the restroom before the show started. I couldn’t believe how far my students had come, how much they’d grown and matured. I felt satisfaction, knowing that I had given them some of the courage it took to reach their goals and find their dreams. I was feeling proud of myself. I was so impressed with how much I was learning about them and even about myself. I’d just eaten sushi. No one thought that’d ever happen. Life was full of surprises.

******

“Are you okay Miss Garrity?” I couldn’t move. That was the most amazing first act of a musical I’d ever seen. I was bawling and completely speechless. My Madonna musical would never reach such emotion. Defy Gravity? Metaphorically and literally, it was profound and inspirational. I’d never be able to find the words to illicit such feeling from a musical.

“Yeah, I’m just… just…blown away by that last song.” I knew at that moment. I wanted to be better, to live my life to the fullest, to make sure that I wasn’t going to get old and die with a lifetime of regrets and what ifs. For seven years, I’d had a poster on my wall in my classroom with a quote from John Greenleaf Whittier, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been!”

I always knew that I liked the poster and the quote, but I realized that I needed to live the quote. I needed to ensure that I didn’t have regrets. My parents. They got it. It took my aunt’s death and my mom’s lump to understand it, but they got it. Jocelyn probably understood it when she had kids; Japser, I didn’t know about him. But me, I just figured it out. Char was right (again); this Marcus business was a life bump. I was going come out of this, all of this, a better person. I had things to do, time to do them. No more regrets. No more worrying about what everyone thought. It didn’t matter. It was my life. My life to live. Life was flying by. I needed to fly too, “defy gravity.” To think, I spent my life hating the Wicked Witch of the West, and now? It was amazing how my opinion could change so drastically; I believed one thing for so long, only to realize how truly wrong I was. The Wicked Witch of the West just inspired me to fly, defy everyone’s expectations, and be who and what I wanted to be.
Wicked
. Wow. I couldn’t wait for Act II.

“Okay, so it was by far the best, the best musical ever.” Sarah and I were at the hotel bar, drinking more martinis and enjoying one another’s company. “I mean,
Grease
is good and all, ya gotta love Sandy and Danny, but
Wicked
, nothing could compete.” I couldn’t stop talking about it.

“I know, I know. I’ve agreed with you a hundred times.” Sarah was losing patience with my newfound obsession with
Wicked
. Granted, I’d been talking incessantly about it for nearly two hours. It was only a matter of time until she silenced me. We were both getting pretty drunk; I was thankful that we just had to stumble to the elevator to our rooms and not worry about driving or getting cabs.

“Alright, I’ll stop. Tell me about Vivian; what happened?” I’d wanted to know all night, but hadn’t mustered up the courage to ask. The alcohol was giving me a little more confidence than I was accustomed to, and I was glad. I wanted to know.

She didn’t hesitate at all; she’d wanted to talk, to open up. “Well, we fell in love, head over heels, in love.” She paused, took a deep breath, looking reminiscent. “She taught me so many things; she was wordly, open-minded, and so spiritual too, but welcomed all sorts of religious and spiritual beliefs.” Sarah said, looking sad, forlorn. “She was the smartest, most enlightened woman I’d ever known.”

The suspense was killing me. “I don’t get it, so what happened?”

“Turns out, she was a fraud,” she shrugged and quickly bit her lip. Then finally said, “She couldn’t practice what she preached. She kept telling me to open up, be myself, be proud of who I am,” she confessed. She took a long drink of her martini and closed her eyes for a few seconds. “Then, right after graduation, when we were deciding where we wanted to live, where to spend the rest of our lives, she dropped the bombshell.” Sarah was shaking her head, twisting her straw around her finger, over and over, cutting off the circulation, making the tip turn blue.

I took the straw from her, and threw it under the table, away from her sight and grasp. “What bombshell, what happened?” I knew it was painful for her to talk about, but I was fascinated and freaking curious.

“She confessed that she’d never told her parents that she was gay and that she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to. I told her that we could do it together. She refused. She said that she’d rather let me go than admit what she was to her parents.” It was heart-breaking; I could see the heartbreak in Sarah’s eyes.

“So that’s it? That’s how it ended?” I couldn’t believe it. How could people be afraid like that of their own parents? It wasn’t right. Weren’t parents supposed to love their children unconditionally?

“We tried for a while. I tried to convince her the same way she convinced me. But truthfully, I’d lost respect for her, and by losing that respect, that awe, I started to fall out of love with her.” Sarah was so honest, so open. Vivian was stupid—despite that Sarah thought that she was so intelligent.

“Have you dated anyone else?” I wanted her to find someone new, to be able to love someone openly, freely.

“Nah, I’m not ready, not looking. Just wanna work, keep my mind off her.” She shrugged, and got up to get us more martinis, which we certainly didn’t need.

I noticed that when she walked back to the table, guys and girls both stared at her. She was adorable. She was small, petite, with long red hair that she wore in a sophisticated pony at the nape of her neck. Her skin was lightly freckled with big green doe eyes that shone when she laughed. Her lips were full, perfectly defined, and dark pink, all natural. She always reminded me of someone who should be on Disney channel or a Clearsil commercial, just cute, fresh, and wholesome all around. I hated Vivian for hurting her. Vivian. What kind of name was that anyway?

“So, what about you, Miss Garrity? What’re you gonna do about your cheating husband?” She asked. She was so blunt and straightforward.

“What? How do you know about that?” I was taken aback and caught off guard.

“Jasper. So, what’re ya gonna do?” She took a drink of her martini, a long drink, probably giving me time to process my answer.

“I don’t know. Ummm…call me Janelle, especially now that you seem to know all my secrets,” I laughed nervously. “I guess, I’m gonna leave him. ” I was leaving Marcus. I had no intentions of anything else. Admitting it was hard though, not to myself, but to others. Admitting failure sucked; I wasn’t used to it.

“Good. He sounds like a douche. You should date my ex, Jake. He was the best.” She smiled. “Do you want me to call him for ya?” She laughed, picking up her phone, pretending to dial.

“No, thanks. I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I laughed. I was having as much fun out with her as I did with Char. Almost as much. Char would love Sarah, and Char didn’t like female competition out at bars. Sarah would be a great addition to our twosome, because she wouldn’t take guys from Char. “So what happened with you guys, did you have to come out to him?” I asked, full of curiosity.

“We broke up before I’d left for college. We didn’t wanna try the long-distance thing.” She looked a little sad.

“I’m sorry if I’m bringing up painful memories.” I didn’t want to hurt her more than she was already hurting. Clearly, Vivian did a number on her.

“No, Jake and I left things amicably. He was a great guy, wonderful really.” She was beaming, obviously having a lot of respect and love for him still. “He was even the first person back home that I came out to. Once I convinced him that he didn’t ‘turn’ me gay, he became a great support, a great friend.” She explained.

“So, did you guys? Ummm…”

“Have sex? All the time. Nonstop my senior year.” She said, laughing.

I didn’t know how to ask her the questions that I wanted to, didn’t know if I was going to offend her or hurt her. She must have sensed my hesitation, because she said, “What? What do you wanna know?”

“Well, when you were with Vivian, did you ever miss, ya know, a….” I couldn’t finish my question. I was too embarrassed.

“A penis, a deep-dicking?” I must have looked like a deer in headlights, because she exploded with laughter, loud, room-filling laughter. I laughed too; it was contagious. Once we calmed down, she said, “There wasn’t one moment when I missed a penis, not ever. My ability to reach climax, to have an orgasm, has very little to do with penetration.” She answered so matter-of-factly. I had such difficulty talking so openly about sex with anyone other than Char. Why was I so inhibited, so afraid of my own sexual exploration and sexuality? I needed to stop being so afraid. “Defy gravity.” God, I loved that musical.