You meet her on a weeknight, at dinner with a mutual friend in a diner in Iowa City where the walls are windows. She is sweaty, having just come from the gym, her white-blonde hair pulled back in a short ponytail. She has a dazzling smile, a raspy voice that sounds like a wheelbarrow being dragged over stones. She is that mix of butch and femme that drives you crazy.
You and your friend are talking about television when she arrives; you have been complaining about men’s stories, men’s stories, how everything is men’s stories. She laughs, agrees. She tells you she’s freshly transplanted from New York, drawing unemployment insurance and applying to MFA programs. She’s a writer too.
Every time she speaks, you feel something inside you drop. You will remember so little about the dinner except that, at the end of it, you want to prolong the evening and so you order tea of all things. You drink it—a mouthful of heat and herb, scorching the roof of your mouth—while trying not to stare at her, trying to be charming and nonchalant while desire gathers in your limbs. Your female crushes were always floating past you, out of reach, but she touches your arm and looks directly at you and you feel like a child buying something with her own money for the first time.