Women

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018

Copyright © Chloe Caldwell 2014

Cover design and illustration

by Anna Morrison

Chloe Caldwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008254919

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008254926

Version: 2018-02-01

Dedication

For my mother, Michele

And in loving memory of Maggie Estep

Epigraph

Girls are cruelest to themselves.

Anne Carson, The Glass Essay

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

What I know …

My mother still …

Your book was …

The first few …

Finn and I …

I know I …

It is the night …

I excitedly tell …

When my father …

On an unusually …

Things seem to …

Just before I …

As a writer …

Finn gives me …

Lesbians can suck …

The quick transitions …

I always want …

Like church, my …

It surprises me, …

On a park …

A few months …

Finn pretends sometimes …

After sex with …

Sabine visits me …

Finn and I …

My mom’s birthday …

The day of …

The first three …

I can’t see …

I don’t, of …

Later, after we’d …

While writing this …

By summer I …

I attend a …

In Finn’s absence, …

There is a …

Growing up, I …

We begin seeing …

I buy a …

Things hurt worse …

During my break …

In her book …

Finn asked me …

She breaks the …

Mania hits me …

Somewhere along the …

A few weeks …

My mom visits …

The last three …

On the couch …

If I put …

Any discipline that …

This is what …

The beach is …

I become familiar …

Sabine comes to …

In her book …

At a literary …

On my day …

The second to …

She used to …

A week later, …

The last place …

The night I …

Home. My mother …

In the dead …

There are thousands …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

What I know for certain about this time: My pupils were expanding. I never figured out if this was a symptom of falling in love or a side effect of the Chinese herbs my transgender friend Nathan was hooking me up with. Either way, I was stoked because I read an article that explained you are perceived as prettier when your pupils are dilated. A few years later, my pupils have shrunk back to their regular size, staring back at me, sometimes small as pinheads, each morning. But I don’t take the Chinese herbs anymore either, so, who can really know.

Sometimes I wonder what it is I could tell you about her for my job here to be done. I am looking for a shortcut – something I could say that would effortlessly untangle the ball of yarn I am trying to untangle here on these pages. But that would be asking too much from you. It wasn’t you who loved her, or thought you loved her. I wonder what I could write that would help you to understand that it is profoundly easy to fall in love with an olive-skinned woman that touches you just so, and who has a tattoo of a quote from Orlando trailing down her back. Show me your tattoo again, I’d say in bed. She’d pull up the bottom of her shirt, and I’d trace my fingers over the cursive words by Virginia Woolf that read: Love, the poet said, is a woman’s whole existence.

My mother still lives in the house in which I was raised – a woodland cottage in a small hamlet in the country. As a child, I adored the woods and spent the days playing in streams, sitting on my singing rock making up songs, crowning my head with dandelions and using berries as lipstick. I loved chewing on mint leaves and chives. My mom showed me how to soak Queen Anne’s lace in food coloring overnight and we’d wake in the morning to bright pink and blue flowers. We often took walks in the woods, sometimes together, sometimes alone. In my teenage years, it was inevitable that after an argument, the door would slam and one of us would trudge off toward the woods. When I was sixteen, a lesbian couple in their forties built a house across the woods from us. This was significant as we’d never had any neighbors. The woods behind the house were chaotic. Walking through you were bound to return home with scratches and tick bites. But when the lesbians moved in, they landscaped the woods so that there would be a loop on which they were able to walk their dogs. Right away, my mom took to walking the circle as well. We’d leave notes for each other on the kitchen counter, Went to walk the circle. The lesbians were an intriguing couple, one was wealthy and of some notoriety, the other a struggling artist. My mom often chided me when I was a teenager for calling them ‘the lesbians’ but the only reason I called them that was because she did.

Ten years later, in late summer, some nights before I move out of my mother’s house, she takes a gig dog sitting the lesbians’ poodles, and I join her. We pack overnight bags and cut through the woods to their home. Their house is something out of Home & Gardening magazine. There have been articles written about the house describing how it is ‘non-toxic’ and ‘cutting-edge.’ While the sun goes down, we sit outside, marveling at the view, drinking expensive wine from their wine cellar and eating their exotic cheeses. While we have a warm buzz, we get the idea to pull the pillows off of the lounge chairs, lug them up the hill. We lie on our backs, giggling, looking at the stars, pointing out constellations. I remember thinking to myself that this was one of the best nights I’d ever spent with my mother. I felt content in her company, like there was no one else I’d rather be with. As though I never wanted to leave. But a few days later, I left. I boarded a plane and was gone.

Your book was amazing. These were the first words Finn said to me. She wrote them on my Facebook wall when I still lived with my mother. I’d been visiting Finn’s city frequently, to see friends and attend literary events, but Finn and I had not yet met in person. We began emailing, discussing books and authors we loved and didn’t. I enjoyed our back and forth; she was witty and verbose. There was talk of meeting for coffee together on my next visit. I would be in town to do a reading that summer. My mother was coming with me – we were making a mini-vacation out of it.

We never did get coffee that summer, but Finn attended my reading. I took a photograph of her. We’d barely talked thirty seconds and looking back I find it odd I would take a picture of someone I did not know, while they were not looking. I carry the image of her from that day in my mind. Cocky smirk of a smile. Slouched posture. Men’s jeans that looked both broken-in and new. A long-sleeved shirt, soft, semi-fitted. A baseball hat. Arms crossed against her chest. Sneakers. Leaning her weight back onto one foot. She’d come alone to the reading. The sun is hitting her face and the grass she’s standing on is bright green. In the photograph, I can see half of my mother’s body – she’s standing just a foot away from Finn, though they never met. I do not remember who introduced Finn and me, if we were introduced. I do not remember what Finn said to me and I do not remember what I said to her. I do remember I was flirtatiously calling her by both her first and last name. I’d been drinking wine with my mom before the reading, and continued to drink at the park to calm my nerves. When the reading ended, I watched her saunter off. The weather was impeccable, I was drunk, and she somewhat intrigued me. The next morning, Finn emailed to say that she had loved my reading; that I should do more readings. I do not know where this photograph is though I have spent time searching for it. By the time this book is published, the photograph will be three years old.

Three months after I took the photograph, I moved to the city Finn lived in for various reasons, none of them Finn. I needed a change – I was becoming a bit too comfortable living at home, and pain pills were becoming a casual part of my life, too easy to find in my small town. I was snorting opiates a few times a week and hating myself for it. Moving to a new city meant an absence of drug connections. I’d also met a guy named Isaac through a mutual friend, and we’d begun dating long-distance. I knew I wouldn’t be with Isaac forever as we didn’t have a passionate connection. We were quite different. For one, he didn’t do opiates, he was more interested in sports than books, but he was kind and smart – and I wanted to surround myself with drug-free people. We enjoyed each other, and the relationship was benign, and I thought it would be good for me. He offered for me to stay with him until I found a place of my own, and I took him up on it.

On a Sunday morning after the move I was messaging with Finn on Facebook while Isaac was watching football and we were drinking coffee. Finn said she was watching football and drinking coffee too. Finn’s really cool, don’t you think? I said to Isaac, who had met her at the same reading. He agreed, I don’t know her well, but she does seem pretty cool.

Isaac and I broke it off about a month after this exchange (the break-up consisting of two low-drama text messages – me saying, I think we’re better off as friends, and him replying, Yeah, you’re probably right). This cleared a place for Finn, and she slowly began to fill up my life.

I don’t know if I will be able to get you to see her the way I saw her. I worry that if I cannot make you fall in love with her inexplicably, inexorably, and immediately, the way I did, then you will not be experiencing this book in the way I hope you will. When my editor read the original manuscript, she sent me a text message that said, I’m falling in love with Finn from the details in the opening paragraphs.

But it is now occurring to me that by offering you these details about Finn, I could ruin things for you as well. I could tell you her favorite book of poetry or how she liked her hamburgers cooked, or the words tattooed across her knuckles. But depending on what I tell you, I could lose you. So I’ll tell you some things, leave out others.

I never knew her birth name. She would not reveal this. She’d changed it to Finn when she was twenty-two, long before I met her. She liked drinking Salty Dogs and champagne and dark beers. She was nineteen years older than I was and called me ‘champ.’ She wore men’s clothes, usually from high-end shops and she wore her jeans slung low. She had friendly-looking crow’s feet around her eyes when she laughed. Her eyes changed from blue-green to gray, and when she was happy, they looked almost yellow. She had hairless skin like velvet. I feel like people say this a lot and it should be banned from all books, but she smelled like cocoa butter. She read books avidly. She walked with a certain swagger. My friend Nathan saw her walking down the street, and told me, I can’t tell if she’s incredibly cocky or incredibly tortured.

It would be unfair for me to keep this from you: Finn was gay and in a long-term relationship with a woman. They lived together. They had for ten years.

Isn’t it sad to talk about ex-lovers in the past tense as though they are dead? I have a friend who this immensely bothers. He claims he wants to fill a red wagon with the women he’s loved, but he doesn’t want to let go of one woman to put in another.

The first few months after my move, I am unemployed. I live on bagels and energy bars, soup and ramen noodles. I apply for food stamps, which I qualify for, but I miss one of the questions and am too lazy to re-apply. During this time, Finn emails me and says that she knows it is hard to be new in a city. She says if I need a laugh, she’ll meet me for a beer. The first time we meet alone for a drink, she shows up with a collection of short stories in her hand, and tells me I can keep it. It is fall, and we sit outside at a picnic table, across from one another. Growing increasingly drunk over IPAs, I pull out a piece of paper. We exchange stories, adventures we’ve had, and tales of heartbreak. You have to write about that! we say. We scrawl down lists of titles for each other to write stories about. I remember waking up and finding the list in my wallet. I held onto it for months, until finally I misplaced it, or it was thrown out. It’s probably in a book somewhere.

Finn and I usually hug when we part ways. I feel comfortable around her and she seems to see me in a good light – as if I can do no wrong. I show her stories I am writing and she is unconditionally supportive. She champions me, saying things like I got you. If I put myself down, she counters it. I talk too much, I say once. You do not talk too much. Talk more, she answers. She tells me I am special, that I am golden. She is effusive in her emails, effusive in person. I feel if I need something like five dollars or a ride somewhere, she will give me those things. This feels important, as I am new to the city, do not have many friends yet, and do not have a support system.

Around Thanksgiving, I apply for a job at the Public Library. Finn has worked at this library, and encourages me to do so. I am hired for an entry-level position. My title is ‘Library Page.’ I am responsible for placing the returned books back on the shelves, and some days I have to shelf-read to make sure the books are in order according to the Dewey Decimal System. I like the job, despite its obvious monotony, as it allows me to live in my head. I love peeking through the aisles of books and spying on people. I fantasize that I will lock eyes with someone, and they will turn out to be my soul mate. My co-workers range from bored college students to elderly women who have been working at the library for twenty years. Finn would be working at the same library, but she’s recently been promoted to another branch, as a technical service librarian. On foot, the libraries are thirty minutes apart.

I know I find Finn’s aesthetic attractive, but I haven’t yet explored feelings of being attracted to her, in part because I haven’t yet explored my ability to fall for a woman. I figure if I was going to be with a woman, I would have been with one by now. I would know if I was bisexual or gay. Being a writer, I assume I am at least mildly self-aware. It also has not occurred to me that Finn might be attracted to me. It doesn’t occur to me she might be interested in me as more than a friend.

It doesn’t occur to me, even though she writes me an email in which she says she wants me to read on a barstool under dim lights for her while she sips on a beer. Yeah, book it, her email ends. Book it. And I do vaguely remember staring at her brown hands while she spoke, her knuckle tattoos, thinking they were the most beautiful hands I’d ever seen.

It is the night before New Year’s Eve. Finn has just returned from visiting her family in Florida for the holidays and when she got back, her girlfriend left to visit her own. This leaves Finn and me alone in the city with no plans for the weekend. After some Facebook messaging, she drives over to where I am house sitting. I have changed into a blue and white baseball shirt and gold hoop earrings. I don’t know what to wear, and want to look tomboyish, not super girly. I don’t know what Finn likes. And, apparently, I care.

When she arrives, the energy between us is palpable. I offer her a drink and we both sort of pace around each other, making observations about the apartment. She sees the self-help book Women’s Moods on my bed, picks it up, studies the cover and before chucking it back down, jokes, I know everything in here, whatchu wanna know? (It would turn out she actually didn’t know everything in there. Neither of us knew how volatile my moods would become.)

We finish our beers, leave the apartment and walk to the bar. It is a cold night. I wear an enormous winter coat, Finn has on only a hooded sweatshirt. At the bar she orders a beer sample platter for us to share. I say, I never go out and drink with anyone anymore, and she says, Neither do I! She reaches across the table and begins going through my wallet. She sees tons of unnecessary business cards and says, Jeez, dude. She takes out a New York Public Library card I have, and says, This is the coolest thing you have. Emboldened by the beers, after an hour or so, I tell Finn that I don’t understand how lesbians have sex. Dildo? I ask. Vibrator? Fingering? Humping? She shrugs, clearly amused. It’s different for everyone, she says. It’s different every time.

Finn gets a rise out of engaging with strangers and I love watching her do it. People sometimes approach her when we’re out, telling her she looks like someone they know. She is charming and can hold conversations. We meet a guy with weed cookies and convince him to give us a couple, which we quickly eat. We meet a guy who stutters. (Who meets a stutterer? we ask ourselves, laughing for weeks after.) Like in that book about animals, Unlikely Friendships, we are an unlikely pair, and when the stutterer asks us how we know each other, one of us says, We’re cousins, and he believes us. When we return to my apartment, we sit on the couch and roll a joint with a page from a book since we don’t have rolling papers. Finn walks around the room commenting on the books on the shelves. She is hard on books, making snobby, but humorous, comments. We lie in bed together, stoned from the cookies. The bed is against a brick wall and I begin to imagine we are alone in a different city together. Let’s pretend we’re in Paris or Brooklyn, I say. Finn gives me her sweatshirt to wear that night. I fall asleep in it. Later, she wakes me to retrieve it, smoothing her hand over my temples, kissing my forehead, before leaving.

The next night, New Year’s Eve, she emails and asks what I’m doing. I probably won’t want to do something but will, she says. I’m the opposite, probably will want to do something but won’t, I reply. I’ve been invited to a party of an acquaintance, so I ask Finn if she wants to go with me. She says yes, and picks me up. I went to the hair salon that day and paid too much money for highlights. My hair is blonder than usual. The hair is good, Finn says to me, flashing her white teeth, It’ll turn heads. The party is low-key, almost boring, and Finn and I plant ourselves in the living room, mainly socializing with each other. I am sitting across from Finn on the couch, and she is in a chair. She pats her lap and points to my feet. I move them into her lap, as though this is the most natural thing for me to do, and Finn works them with her hands nonchalantly, as though this is nothing new either. Later, a guy at the party mistakes us for a couple. Neither of us minds, we laugh, possibly it’s what we were after.

After midnight Finn asks do I want a ride home or do I want to sleep over and I say, sleep over. When we get to her bedroom, she asks do I want shorts or pants to sleep in, and I say, pants. She lends me a T-shirt that says I Don’t Do Drugs I Am Drugs, on it. I am on the inside of the bed near the window. Finn is standing near the dresser and she says, You’re in my bed! She sounds bewildered, triumphant, amused. (She would speak with this exact intonation two more times, when we weren’t just friends anymore, when we were beginning to fuck, to fall in love: You answered the door in a towel! and You sat on my lap!) And though we’re just friends, she puts her arms around me, asking, Is this okay? I tell her it’s okay. We say goodnight. I can’t sleep, I say, a few moments later. I know, me either, she laughs, tell me a story. I cannot think of anything interesting, and I mumble and slur in a drunken stupor until I fall asleep.

We wake in the same position we fell asleep in. I move the curtain from the window to check the weather. The sun surprises me. Sun! The sun is out! I start saying that sort of thing. Finn stands in the doorway, watching me. I think it’s cute when people are excited about the sun, she says. Instead of going to change in the bathroom, I change out of her shirt and back into my dress while still in her bed. I feel self-conscious though, and aware of it, wondering if it is too intimate an act. While Finn is in the bathroom, I look around the apartment. Everything is in its right place. Knick-knacks and what look like expensive Japanese paintings on the walls. I wonder which one of them – Finn or her girlfriend – is the lover of Japanese art. I see no photos of her girlfriend, though I try not to look. I let my eyes be lazy. As we walk out of her apartment building, Finn mentions that she isn’t going to tell her girlfriend that I slept over, because she wouldn’t understand. Okay. Right, I say. Besides, nothing happened. What is there to tell? I understand and yet I don’t understand.

While Finn drives us downtown, we sing along with the radio. She tells me it’s the first time in a decade she hasn’t taken a shower before work and I say something like, Man, you gotta loosen up. She smiles. In this moment I remember noticing myself affecting her habits, in what could be considered either a negative or positive way. We park and decide we want to grab coffees to bring to work. It is one of those days that feels fake or cinematic, because parking is free and the streets are dead. I feel like I’m on a movie set. My mom calls my cell phone. I answer, telling her I’m with Finn. Finn and I are both smiling and laughing. (Later Finn told me I looked beautiful that day, with sun on my newly lightened hair. She said my eyes lit up when my mom called.) We order our coffees and Finn insists on buying mine. We hug before we go our separate ways. A couple weeks later Finn emails me a song, says it reminds her a little of us. The lyrics are about waking up hungover with someone, about watching them get dressed as you block the sun from your face.