If Gina Gershon and Parker Posey had a lovechild, it would be her… And 25 other reasons I should stop talking to my straight friend until I am no longer stuck at home with my computer. 

1. I google her and read articles she wrote years ago, which received unending Twitter praise from hip heterosexual males.

2. I google images of her.

3. I am willing to DM on Instagram with her for several hours, something I would normally find tedious.

4. I ask for her mailing address so I can send her a “West Coast-inspired care package.” She says “OMG that’s so sweet, yes.” (She says that’s so sweet that’s so sweet that’s so sweet.)

5. I tell a friend that I think I have a crush on this straight girl. He asks, “Is she bi-curious?” and I deadpan, “That is not relevant,” but I feel ashamed and guilty, a lecherous old dyke, and I think of Sister George.

6. I am relating hard to the lovesick Laura of the 1950s lesbian pulp fiction novels by Ann Bannon.

7. I wonder if I can blame all these feelings on the fact that I’m currently reading the 1950s lesbian pulp fiction novels by Ann Bannon.

8. I plan on getting Asian fusion takeout from the lesbian restaurateur I messaged with, the one with the kid who wants a long-term partner with family values, so we can meet in person and maybe have a casual fling even though it’s quarantine time.

9. I tell my crush that skunk cabbage actually smells pretty good when it’s dried and would she like some potpourri in the care package? She says yes. She says yes! I would sooner send her rose petals, but I go with skunk cabbage because humour is a great disguise for my fantasy that she is gay (enough) and we are going to get married and be a stunningly successful writing power-couple.

10. I realize my idea about a quarantine fling with the family-values lesbian is really dumb and potentially kind of mean.

11. My crush sends me an audio message musing whether things that are written quickly retain that energy. She intones statements like questions, but at the end she says with a downward slide, “And I’m into that.” And I am into that.

12. I send her an excerpt from my story-in-progress, “Midden,” describ­ing my lesbian protagonist’s erotic and tortured response to a video in which a woman harvests pearls from a freshwater mussel. I joke, “That was pretty much your experience of that video, too, right?? lol” (she has seen the video). She replies, “My fallopian tubes, like, did ache as I was reading.” I consider this evidence of something.

13. I google images of her, scan for queer subtext. The way she mugs for the camera. Ironic sexy poses. Something in the mouth.

14. I read tweets dating back two years.

15. I gather beach rocks for the care package. Beach rocks.

16. I tell my ex-girlfriend about my crush. “She probably has feelings for you, too,” she says; my ex does not believe our bodies respond to nothing. It doesn’t matter anyway, I think—whatever the chemistry, it’s going to be bad medicine. She suggests I confess my crush and I think this is a terrible, terrible idea. But I feel less ashamed and guilty having spoken about it. We complete our hike and she tells me to say hi for her. They have never met.

17. I don’t say hi for her.

18.  One night, I have phantom fissure pain, an aching rectum that keeps me awake and crying for over an hour. I tell my crush about this and she says, “Maybe we are becoming more linked telepathically” (she is dealing with a fissure). When she suggests later that she saw an Oodie ad because I’d seen an Oodie ad, I think she is referring to our psychic fissure bond. If she were a lesbian, that is exactly what she’d be referring to.

19. Fissure. Bond. 

20. I write a listicle because I can’t concentrate on my story-in-progress, its post-mortem of past relationships or relationships-that-might-have-been, infused with imagery of molluscs and crustaceans, torn apart and consumed, and musings on nociception and the experience of pain.

21. I wait for the next message.

22. …

23. I wish I could send her this for editorial feedback.

24. Maybe I can just send her this for editorial feedback.

25. Maybe a year from now I can send her this for editorial feedback and she’ll say, “You had a crush on me?” and I’ll laugh, like oh yeah, quarantine, amiright? And she’ll say she actually had a crush on me, too, but she didn’t want to tell me because of that thing I said about straight girls kind of messing with lesbian heads because they aren’t into it as much, could never be, so there isn’t really much at stake for them. So she thought maybe she was like one of those straight girls, but she realized later that actually she wasn’t, and the reason she goes “cold” after being “hot” with the men in her life is because she really is a lesbian and thus, inevitably loses interest in these men because she never psychically connects with them in the same way she is drawn to connect with women. “Really?” I’ll ask, to be sure, double sure, because she does have this unusual sense of humour, but by this time she has moved out west and is in fact at the same university program as me, so she’s right in front of me and her sincerity is obvious. “Do you still have a crush?” I’ll ask, and she’ll laugh that shy way she did when I first met her, where she’s laughing at herself and me and the situation and how it’s like an awkward scene in a play, watching herself go through these scenes, but still genuinely in them, too. And she’ll say yeah. And then I’ll say I lied about it being a quarantine thing and that’s it! It’s easy. Because by then she’s gay, she really is, and I know what to do with that, and I won’t care about editorial feedback because I’ll never publish this stupid listicle, but I might read it at our wedding reception because it’s funny.

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