“Ow!” Mary Kate was jarred from her sleep by a weight that fell across her hips.
“Shit! Goddamn it!” It was Brad.
“I knew that was going to happen,” Addison muttered.
They unzipped their bags and crawled out of their collapsed tent to repair the damage from where he had tripped over one of the ties. Several others awakened at the commotion, and Drew and Jim hurried out to help reset their stakes. Mary Kate and Addison then ventured across the rocky terrain to the latrine before resettling in their tent.
“I don’t feel sleepy anymore,” Addison said.
“Me neither. But it’s four thirty, so we got about ten hours of sleep. I don’t think I moved all night.”
Even though they were now wide awake, there was nowhere else to be but zipped up inside their sleeping bags, given the cold, howling wind.
“I slept like a baby, except for the nightmare about your friend beating me up.”
“You mean Deb?” Mary Kate smiled as she envisioned Addison meeting her friends in Mooresville, something she had said she might actually do. “She’s been my best friend since we were in second grade. One day on the playground, she beat the shit out of some boy who was picking on me.”
Addison laughed. “I get the impression she likes to fight.”
“Not really. She’s a sweetheart, but she doesn’t take anybody’s shit.”
“So what’s it like for her being a lesbian in a place like Mooresville? Does she have a girlfriend?”
“Oh, no. Mooresville isn’t ready for something like that. Hardly anybody knows for sure about Deb, but they all gossip about her like they do.”
“Why would they gossip?”
“They don’t have anything better to do. Some of them probably still gossip about me too, because that’s what started everything back in high school. We used to do everything together. We stayed over at each other’s houses. We shot hoops together after school.”
“They thought you two were lovers?”
“Yeah, a couple of the girls on our team thought we spent too much time together, and they started that rumor. It got all over school, and since my mom taught there, she heard it one day in the teacher’s lounge. She told all the teachers it wasn’t true, but then she came home and gave me this big lecture about how the other girls my age were dating, and that people wouldn’t be saying stuff like that if I went out with boys. So I eventually got a boyfriend, and—”
“A real boyfriend or one just for show?”
“As real as it gets when you’re sixteen, I guess. There isn’t much to do in Mooresville, so dating means going to parties or football games together. Nothing serious.” Someone from Miami would probably go insane in Mooresville, she thought. “Anyway, Deb and I quit staying over at each other’s houses. The funny part was that we were sneaking around anyway to see each other like we really were lovers.”
“That’s cool you stayed friends, though. I came out to one of my friends in college and you would have thought I had leprosy.”
“That’s ridiculous. Being gay doesn’t make you a different person.”
“It does to some people.”
Mary Kate reluctantly acknowledged to herself that most people in her hometown would think so. “I don’t see what the big deal is, or why it’s anybody’s business what people do in the privacy of their homes.”
“People shouldn’t have to be private, though. If I want to walk down the street holding my girlfriend’s hand, I should be able to do that without worrying that people are going to treat me differently. The rules ought to be the same for everybody.”
Addison’s sudden mention of a girlfriend jolted her. “You have a girlfriend?”
“Not right now, but I used to date a woman who did the news on one of the local TV stations, and she wouldn’t go anywhere in public with me, not even as a friend, because she was paranoid about what people would think.”
“I bet you have the most interesting friends.” Now she felt totally silly for telling her boring stories of Mooresville.
Addison snorted. “I didn’t say we were friends. Things didn’t end very well, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Not really, if you look at the big picture. Pilar was a lot older than I was, almost forty. That probably stressed her out more than being a closet lesbian. But I got tired of sneaking around to go see her.”
“I don’t blame you. But still, it must have been exciting to have a famous girlfriend.”
“It kind of takes the shine off it if you can’t tell anybody. Finish your story about Deb.”
Mary Kate groaned. “There isn’t much more. She finally told me one day that she’d had this big crush on me for years. Of course, I didn’t feel that way about her, and I know it hurt her feelings. But we both got over it and stayed friends.”
“Did you ever think about…? Never mind. That’s probably too personal.”
“I actually did wonder…if that’s what you’re asking.” Feeling her face flush, she was glad it was still dark. She had never told anyone about making out with Becky Dugan, but the idea of telling Addison gave her an inexplicable thrill. “I messed around a little with one of the girls on my basketball team in college. We just made out, but I…I guess it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t feel anything.”
She bit her lip as she waited for Addison to answer.
“I never told anybody that story before, so when you come visit me, please don’t blurt it out in front of my sister. She’d probably faint.”
Addison chuckled softly. “I wouldn’t tell anything you’ve shared with me in confidence, Mary Kate.”
Mary Kate was touched by the sincerity in her voice. “I know. I already feel like I can trust you.”
“You can.” Addison squirmed in her bag in order to roll over on her side. Her head was only inches from Mary Kate’s. “How did you feel about the other girl?”
“I…well…” she stammered, searching for the right words to describe an experiment without coming off as totally naïve. “She was just a friend, really. I liked her, but…”
“You weren’t attracted to her.”
“No.”
“But you made out with her.”
“Yeah, I guess I was curious about how it would feel.”
“Have you ever been attracted to another woman? A woman you really wanted to kiss?”
Mary Kate tugged on the zipper to let a little air inside her bag. It excited her to finally have a chance to talk about these things with someone who wouldn’t jump to conclusions. “I’ve had crushes on a couple of girls—friends of mine that I thought were really nice.”
“But you never acted on either of those.”
“No, they weren’t like that.”
“How do you know?”
“I just knew. One of them was this girl from high school who had a different boyfriend every week. That was just a little crush, though. The big one was my college roommate. I was a bridesmaid at her wedding.”
“Why was she the big one?”
Mary Kate was amazed to hear herself talking about these things with someone she had known only three days. “Jessica, I don’t know, she fascinated me. I always felt so lucky that we were friends. Then she met Chuck. They got married during spring break our senior year, and I was really happy for her, but kind of sick about it at the same time.”
“You were grieving.”
“Yeah, it felt like that.”
“Did you feel the same way about your boyfriend? The fascination, I mean.”
Mary Kate felt a wave of uneasiness, not so much at the question, but at having to admit the answer was no. “No, that’s why I knew the thing with Jessica was just a silly crush. It’s like it just comes out of nowhere, and it’s a bunch of feelings that don’t have any rhyme or reason. You just want to be with somebody all the time.”
“I always thought that was love.”
“Love’s different. Love is something you have to work at so that it grows. You feel confident about planning your future together because you want the same things.”
“No, what you’re talking about is a relationship. We have to work at those, but nobody should have to work at being in love. And I wouldn’t dream of having a relationship with someone I didn’t find fascinating.”
There was no doubt that fascination was missing from what she felt about Bobby, and that if she had even a hint of it, she could go forward with the life he and her whole family wanted. The problem was that she had been fascinated exactly twice in her life—once with Jessica, and ironically, once with the woman sharing her tent.