Still, it’s one thing for me to have it in my head that I’m not going to do it and quite another for Ryan to have it in his head. Because the more he insists I’m going to flake out, the more I want to prove him wrong. There’s definitely a double standard here—there’s no way he would do it, either. But I’m the one who’s being dared.
We bicker along these lines for a few more minutes, and then it’s midnight and the DJ is telling all the underwear contestants to make their way to the bar. The bartender puts all the names in an upturned pink wig, then yells my name out first, followed by nine others. The man next to me immediately starts to take off his clothes, exposing a steel-armor chest and graph-paper abs. I think I may have seen him swimming in the Olympics, or maybe it’s his Speedo-shaped underwear that’s tricking me. The bartender says we’ll be starting in a minute.
“Now or never,” Ryan tells me. From the way he says it, I can tell his money’s on never.
I kick off my shoes. As Ryan watches, dumbstruck, I pull off my jeans, then remove my socks, because leaving my socks on would look ridiculous. I cannot give myself any time to think about what I’m doing. It feels strange to be standing barefoot in the middle of a packed club. The floor is sticky. I pull my shirt over my head.
I am in my underwear. Surrounded by strangers. I thought I’d be cold, but instead it’s like I’m feeling the heat of the club more fully. All these bodies clouding the air. And me, right at the center of it.
I don’t think I’d recognize myself, and that’s okay.
The bartender calls out my name. I hand my shirt to Ryan and jump onto the bar.
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
There are loud cheers, and the DJ throws Rihanna’s “Umbrella” into the speakers. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I am standing on a bar in my red-and-blue boxer briefs, afraid I’ll knock over people’s drinks. Obligingly, the patrons pull their glasses down, and before I know what I’m doing I’m … moving. I’m pretending I’m in my bedroom, dancing around in my underwear, because that is certainly something I do often enough. Just not with an audience. Not with people hooting and whistling. I am swiveling my hips and I am raising my hand in the air and I am singing along with the “-ella, -ella, -eh, -eh-.” Most of all I am looking at the expression on Ryan’s face, which is one of pure astonishment. I have never seen his smile so wide or so bright. I have never felt him so proud of me. He is whooping at the top of his lungs. I point at him and match his smile with my own. I dance with him, even though he’s down there and I’m up here. I let everybody see how much I love him and he doesn’t shy away from it, because for a moment he’s not thinking about that—he’s only thinking about me.
I take it all in. The world, from this vantage point, is crazybeautiful. I look around the crowd and see all these people enjoying themselves—having fun with me or making fun of me or imagining having fun with me. Pairs of guys and pairs of women. Young skateboarders and men who look like bank presidents on their day off. People from all over the Bay Area patchwork, many of them dancing along, some of them starting to throw money my way. Clark Kent’s in the crowd, looking me over. When I see him, I swear he winks.
I feel my gaze pulling itself back to Ryan. I feel myself coming back to him. But along the way, someone else catches my eye. Before I can return to Ryan—while I’m still up there in my underwear, thinking he’s the only person in this whole place who knows who I am—I see another face I know. It’s like the song stops for a second, and I’m thrown. Because, yes, it has to be her. Here, in this gay bar, watching me dance near naked over a carpet of dollar bills.
Katie Cleary.
The senior I sit next to in Calculus.
2
Kate
“Tell me about her again,” I say.
I change lanes on the top deck of the Bay Bridge so that we get the best view of the city lights, even though June and Uma are kissing in the backseat, oblivious to the scenery, and Lehna is busy scrolling through her phone for the next song we should listen to.
She laughs. “I don’t know if there’s anything left to tell.”
“It’s okay if I’ve heard it before.”
The first chords of “Divided” by Tegan and Sara start to play, and for a moment I remember what it felt like for Lehna and me to stand in the sea of girl-loving girls at their concert when we were in eighth grade, how I felt something deep in the core of my heart and my stomach that told me yes.
“She got home on Tuesday,” Lehna says. “And she was pretty jet-lagged, but she told me she was used to traveling, not getting much sleep, keeping weird hours in general. When I talked to her on the phone she was sewing sequins onto a scarf. She says she likes to sparkle at Pride.”
“Do I look too plain tonight? I am the opposite of sparkling.”
I began worrying about what to wear several weeks ago, but that didn’t make me any closer to a solution by the time today got here. I ended up choosing what I hoped would look a little bohemian, effortless but still put together. A soft, light chambray button-up tucked into darker jeans. A brown belt with a turquoise buckle. High-heeled boots. Long, diamond-shaped bronze earrings and bright red lipstick. I put my hair into a loose side braid that falls over my shoulder. In between moments of almost-paralyzing self-doubt, I looked in the mirror and thought, for about half a second, that I looked like the kind of person I might like to know if I didn’t know myself already.