We like to think that our lives are the sum of our choices. After all, we're modern individuals, aren't we, not primitives who believe in Fate, or medieval retards who trust a God to regulate their lives? We celebrate our free will, and the superiority of our rational intellect.
So far, so good.
Chapter One -- Irene.
Evelyn Connors didn't consider herself vain, she just had a hard time getting past mirrors, or reflecting windows, or whatever allowed her a glimpse of her face and body. But that was just natural, wasn't it? So, this early summer's afternoon, she checked her face in one of the smoky-glassed mirrors in the tasteful restrooms of the Société La Biche, better known as La So', a lesbian club in the big town she'd moved to.
Primping her copper-colored, wavy hair, she watched her face from left and right, telling herself once again she shouldn't hate her almost transparent skin, even if it blushed ridiculously easy and would burn to a purplish red if she exposed it unprotected to the sun for longer than half an hour.
The day was hot, outside. It was why she'd done her hair up, leaving her slender neck free, just like her shoulders and arms, softly shimmering with sunscreen. The simple cotton dress she wore was sky-blue; it only reached halfway down her thighs, making her look very young; much younger than her 25 years. She wasn't small; she was 5 feet 8, slender, not thin, with long, good legs. But her face was cute, people said, sweet and cute and young. There were times she hated looking cute.
She had to work hard to be taken seriously, or even to be included at all. There were moments when men used that smile, you know, and even women did. At La So' she didn't mind; at the club a lot of things didn't seem to bother her. It was why she was here, wasn't it? To be... free? Freedom wasn't a word for Evelyn; it wasn't a concept or even a thought. It was a memory that took her way back, past her fifteenth, fourteenth year to a place smelling of hay and grass and the sounds of wind and birds -- the whinnying of horses...
La So' was a surrogate for that place, she knew; a surrogate that had to make do. Staring deeper into the mirror, she studied her clear green eyes; they never stopped earning her compliments, just like her hair and skin did. Compliments that sometimes irritated her, because they caused her to blush and she hated blushing. Blushing was childish, her brain said. 'But ah, the attention,' her body answered.
In what she considered the real world, outside the club, Evelyn Connors was at war with her body; it was a war of woman against girl, mind against hormones, common sense against impulse. Ah, well, maybe 'war' was too big a word; let's call it an ongoing skirmish. Most of the time, especially these last few months, she wondered who'd win -- or if there ever would be a winner, and what that victory would look like.
'Let's consider this place a truce,' she mused.
Checking her lip gloss, her mind wandered to the evening she first visited this club, a chilly winter night, about half a year ago. And as always, she wondered if it should be regarded a fond memory or a doomed one.
She'd been downtown for work, that night, and as nobody waited for her at the apartment on the other side of town, she'd taken a simple solo dinner in a pub with way too much white wine. When she was busy deciphering the check, a woman came up to her small table. She was tall and thin; in a novel they'd call her gaunt, she guessed. She had pale blue eyes and ash-blond hair in a bun; or was it gray? The woman was mature, fifty, maybe, or a bit older. She smiled as she looked down on Evelyn. Her hands held a small purse -- her very long fingers ended in well-kept nails done in the fuchsia color of her lips. Fuchsia, why would a word like that cross her tipsy mind? 'Fuchsia' and 'gaunt' and 'ash-blond?' Long, shining pendants dangled from the woman's earlobes, like sparkling quote marks for her smile.
"I just wanted to come by and tell you you're beautiful," the woman said. Evelyn knew she blushed like mad. Concentrating on the check, she tried to think of a response. 'Beautiful.' She looked up into the smiling face; a long face, old but attractive. Composed it was. Classy. The woman wore a pearl-gray suit: a long, silky-sleek jacket over an ivory blouse, and loose, wide-legged slacks. Italian, the thought, expensive, tasteful, mature. She was a tall, benign ghost visiting from places Evelyn would never have a passport to. Paris, Milan...
She herself wore a wool business suit, that day, one she was very proud of. Buying it had burned a wide hole in her budget, but she knew she looked good in it, a tightly-cut jacket over a pencil skirt -- it made her feel significant, grown-up. But now, next to the woman, she wasn't at all sure anymore. Or, who was she kidding, she knew she looked cheap, of-the-rack. Same old story, nice try, Evelyn, but no dice.
The woman introduced herself in the same calm, breezy voice she'd used before. Irene was her name; Evelyn mumbled hers. The woman sat down.
"I'd love to share a drink with you, Evelyn," she said. "That is, if you'd have me, and have the time?" Behind the sweet modesty of her question, Evelyn felt a hint of something she'd never expected from a woman like this: nervousness -- an ever-so-tiny tremolo of uncertainty.
"I, yes... well, I just, ehm, was going to leave, eh, more or less," she answered, cursing herself for the eternal wishy-washiness of her voice. The woman, Irene, reached out over the table, touching Evelyn's hand.
"Please?" she said. They'd had another white wine. Evelyn decided to hardly touch it, but after a few minutes of small talk, she saw her glass was already half empty. Irene was very easy to talk with, especially after two more glasses. Small talk slipped into big talk without her noticing; big talk meaning the 'stories of their life" of course.
When the woman offered to take her to 'the club' as she called it, Evelyn had emptied yet another glass. She recalled walking into the salon of Société La Biche, ankles wobbling in her pumps, her jacket left at the checkroom. The place was bright and pink and sparkling. It was also packed with faces and bodies and bare skin and smiles, as pink and sparkling as the room. They were all women.
The place was a steaming whirlpool, one Evelyn fell into 'tits first' as they say. Head over heels might be a better expression for the complete and drunk immersion Evelyn's first visit to La So' was. Names were exchanged, there were voices and smiles and faces, warm hugs and soft lips, clouds of perfume. There also had been more glasses of champagne. Evelyn wondered if this was what rock stars felt when they threw themselves into their audience.
In the small town she'd grown up in, Evelyn had heard about clubs like this. 'Lesbian,' even saying the word out loud was a taboo back there and then, making her heart race. Born in a strictly Catholic home in a very conservative nick of the woods didn't leave you much space, did it? Her parents were from French-Moroccan and Irish decent. Her grandfather migrated here via Marseille and Dublin, where he married her grandmother. It might explain her hair and skin and the color of her eyes.
Where she was brought up, you shouldn't even know the word lesbian. So, returning from state college one summer with a girlfriend and telling her dad and mom they were lovers didn't just take their breath away, it left them no choice. In the mirror, as she studied her looks, the imagined face of her girlfriend, Leila, popped up; it was clouded by feelings of guilt. Leila was from Syrian parents, refugees. She'd inherited her mother's black eyes and olive complexion, and a deliciously petite body. Telling her family she preferred girls over men, would make Evelyn's coming out seem like a walk in the park, so she never did. Leila wrote a letter and they found temporary shelter with friends.
Being banned from their Muslim and Catholic homes was like dying -- every contact broken off. The two of them lived on the far side of death, one might say, two young girls alone in a desert that stretched as far as they could see. It took hard work to keep their tiny oasis green, and their love alive. Evelyn dropped out of college, finding work to pay for Leila's tutoring and the cost of living. After Leila graduated and found a job in the city, they moved there. Evelyn took courses in graphic design and website building and started her little home-based business, still doing waitressing jobs on the side.
