I Came Out for This? (23 page)

I took Kimba to see Dr. Bobb and he was almost as excited as when he sees Nicky and gave her a hug. “You have no idea how thrilled I am that you have rescued Joanna,” he said. Willi, my friend and ex-therapist, would think Dr. Bobb is absurd to say that someone “rescued” me instead of that I
chose
to be with her. But I suppose you can choose to be rescued. Kimba asked Dr. Bobb to show her his top, and he pulled it out of the drawer, and they both played with it. Kimba loves to play. She likes to shoot pool and play Frisbee and poker and basketball. She soon got the hang of Dr. Bobb's top and was shooting it higher than he ever got it and he said, “You bitch,” and she smiled, and I said, “What kind of therapist calls his patient's lover a bitch? It's very unprofessional.”
I said to Kimba, “Dr. Bobb and Nicky are in love with each other,” and Kimba said, “I've heard.” Dr. Bobb said, “It's the purist of Platonic loves. I am hopelessly heterosexual.” And I said, “But you don't have a girlfriend. We have to find you a girlfriend.” Dr. Bobb said, “I keep telling you that, but what have you done about it? After all I've done for you, your failure to produce a suitable woman for me is inexcusable.”

On Friday, Kimba and I took personal days and Nicky finished some work at home and we decided to go to Rock Creek Park and fly Kimba's kite. We got in Nicky's Jaguar and Nicky said, “Let's go get Bob Bobb. Maybe he'll come with us.” Nicky's still mourning Jerome, so to make him happy we went down to Dr. Bobb's office. He had just finished with his last patient and said he would be delighted to go with us. We drove to the park, singing to oldies on the radio, and we traipsed to a soccer field and we gave Dr. Bobb the kite. He got the string tangled up and Kimba had to untangle it for him, and then the kite fluttered up and crashed to the ground, and Kimba instructed Dr. Bobb to turn around so the kite would fly in the direction of the wind, and finally the kite went up and we all gazed up at it. “I never flew a kite before,” Dr. Bobb said. “In Jamaica they put you in jail for kite-flying.”

“Oh, baloney,” I said. “They did not. You just weren't cool enough to fly kites in Jamaica, so you make up a story that they put you in jail for it.”

“Well, that's true,” Dr. Bobb said. “But they handed out very stiff fines for kite flying in Jamaica.”

“He lies like a rug,” Nicky said to Kimba. “You can't believe a word of what he says. He's clinically insane.”

“But he cures people,” I said. “That's the scary thing about it.”

“I cure people because I care about them,” Dr. Bobb said. “And because I help them to liberate their life force.

“A
OOOW
!” I howled, as the wind got hole of the kite and it fluttered in the sky. When I looked up at the kite, I saw how beautiful it was. It was a silver, orange, and green box kite with a long tail. “Where'd you get that kite, honey?” I asked Kimba.

“I made it,” she said.

“You made it?”

“Yes.”

“When did you make it?” I figured she had made it back when she was in school, for an art project or something.

“I made it last week,” Kimba said. “I've always wanted to make a kite.”

It occurred to me that she made the kite so we could both fly it. I went over and hugged her.

“You see?” Dr. Bobb said, as he unraveled more string to make the kite go higher. “You found the right girl. She's an artist, like you.”

Terri and I had lunch today down at the Afterwards Café in Dupont Circle. She's seeing some woman, but she doesn't like her much. I was glad that she wasn't all la-la-la in love. I'm not in love with Terri anymore, but seeing her sitting there at the table I felt as though I'd come home, just as I did when I ran into her last week at the Cherry Blossom Festival. I couldn't say no when she asked me out for lunch. I don't like to toss people out of my life. I even kind of miss that crazy man Jerome, even though I won't touch him with a ten-foot pole because he would use me to get to Nicky.

Dr. Bobb said I was crazy to make a lunch date with Terri. He said, “She treated you like shit and you're making nice with her? What are you, a wimp? Little wimpy Joanna, having lunch with the woman who broke her heart. I suppose you'll pay for the lunch too.” But as a black man he should know what it's about. It's a tribal thing.

Years ago I read a book called
The Gypsies
, an autobiographical account of a boy who ran away from his middle-class Swedish home back in the thirties and joined a tribe
of Gypsies. Once, when his adopted family made camp, a caravan of gypsy slobs showed up. The author's family, who maintained high standards of behavior and hygiene, was disgusted by these newcomers, who were infested with scabies and trashed the camp and dumped their waste downstream, polluting the water. But the family tolerated these lowlifes because they were gypsies. They were “family.” It's like Robert Frost's observation that “home” is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Perhaps I shouldn't compare an unkempt gypsy family with Terri, who showers every day and keeps her waste separate from her drinking water. But like the gypsies, we're “family.” We're in the same tribe. And I realize now that, even though she wasn't so nice to me, she had her reasons. When I met Terri, she was still mourning the only woman she'd ever loved, and then her mother died, and I was there mooning over her. She wanted to love me, but she couldn't. I was too nuts. She wanted a more grounded woman, someone who'd been around the block a few times, not a 45-year-old teenager. Not that it excused her insensitivity to me, but I wasn't exactly sensitive to a lot of the men who fell for me. I used some of them the way Terri used me.

I loved her. Everyone said I was obsessed, and maybe I was, but I also loved her. I'm not talking about at the beginning, when I fell in love with her. “In love” is a misnomer that has nothing to do with love. I'm talking about after she broke my heart. Strangely, that's when I got to love her, because that's when I got to
know
her. She was a little shit at times, but I still loved her. I loved
her because she was a sassy Jewish girl from Cleveland, Ohio. Because she tried to win love through achievements. Because she hid her vulnerability behind layers of attitude. Because underneath her forced charm she was an angry, lonely child. I loved her because she was me.

Kimba encouraged me to have lunch with Terri. She understands about these things. In fact, tomorrow she's having lunch with her ex, who broke her heart almost as badly as Terri broke mine. And then next week we're having a Cinco de Mayo party at Kimba's and we're inviting both of them. I don't want to invite Terri because she'll distract me and I still hate her with all my holy talk about forgiving her. But I'm doing it anyway because I'm used to cooking myself up into a stew. With all my improvement, I'm still hard-wired for stress.

Dr. Bobb wants to use me as a guinea pig for a machine he's building in his basement. He said it alters the hard-wiring in your brain, and as soon as he irons out the kinks he will try it on me.

“Are you going to try it on yourself?” I asked.

“Not on your life,” he said. “Do you think I'm out of my mind?”

“Well, then, why do you want to use it on me?” I yelled.

“Because you
are
out of your mind,” he said.

Maybe I am. But so is everyone else in this town, including him. What an adventure this has been. Sometimes I still feel crazy, in spite of my happiness, because who can be sane in Washington, DC? It's in a different dimension from everywhere else. I may as well be living in Oz. One day the city is shimmering with color and life and everyone's skipping down the yellow brick road and
the next day it's as overcast and ominous as the sky where the flying monkeys sped on their evil errands. Today, in the spring of 2001, the first official year of the new Millennium, the city is shimmering with color and life.

I wish I could stop time.

Lisa Gitlin

Lisa Gitlin grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father was a newspaperman and she always knew she wanted to be a writer. When she reached adolescence she realized she was attracted to girls, and in order to distract herself from her forbidden longings she engaged in a lot of mischief. She settled down in high school, had lots of rebellious fun at Ohio State University, and after three years moved to New York City. She was enchanted by New York's rough edges and stayed in the city long enough to write a lot of poems and short stories and complete college at the New School for Social Research (now the New School for General Studies). Eventually she ended up back in Cleveland, where she forged a long freelance writing career and was published in many local and national publications. Finally, in her forties, she came out with a big bang, fell madly in love, and moved to Washington DC. She plans to move back to New York City one day.

Acknowledgments

I could not have written this book without the love and support of the following people:

My wonderful family:

Mom—I'll sing the Friday song any time you want—You are the best mom ever!

Thanks to my sister Queen—for enriching my life with her love, sweetness and humor. Thanks also to Kathy, my sweet and salty big sis; brother Bobby (Crunchy)—my true hero; and brother Marty (Ginch)—(maybe it
is
a get-together!). Thanks to Barb, David, Mitzi for loving them and me. To my charming niece Emily who loves pink, and my wild niece Melanie, aka “Search and Destroy”—you both fill me with joy. To Auntie who loves me no matter what, and to all my cool cousins. Bobie and Zadie, your love endures inside of me.

My fantastic friends:

Thanks to Klo—my best friend—you'll always be a part of me (but I know our birthdays are separate). Rogey, I would be a quivering mass of jelly without you. Click, you are one of the main “peeps” I speak
for! Boy—my soulmate—we'll travel through time together. T—IKIN2BDP. Lortie—you're my bush peppy brother—love you endlessly. Love you too, Ben! Thanks to Els and Mortie and Jockey and Kathy C—old friends who nourish my spirit.

And to my beloved DC/MD friends: TiVo, guess who's my REAL BFF? Dood, you're the best “lagniappe!” a girl could ever ask for! Kaboo-die! Thanks for being “you.” Jubee—you own a piece of my heart duh-uh! Puck you rock girl love you lots. T.C. and Margaret and Puddin' and Kaye, Norma and Linda—you are true and loyal friends. Thanks to my dear Shabbat girls—“Peaceful” Annie (smile), buzzin' Bethany, Kati the Hungarian spitfire, smart and sassy Cindi, and Judy the New York latke queen—you are all the greatest. Romie—you're a true kindred spirit.

Reverend P.—thanks for being a good sport. You know I love you.

Shirley—thanks for enduring the trials of Job.

Special thanks to my readers: Kati and Tivo, you opened my eyes—Jubee and Puddin', thanks for helping me fine-tune, thanks also to Edie Harriet, and most of all, thanks to brother Robert, fellow writer and staunchest critic—when you gave your thumbs up all was well.

Shout-out to my special kids—Sammy, who delights
me with his energy and humor, my scintillating goddaughter Olympia, who fills me with pride, and dear Sophie, whose loving spirit sweetens the world—Thank you all for lighting up my life.

Thank you to Bywater Books for having faith in my “baby!”—You have made possible the best moment of my life. Thanks to Marianne for your support, wisdom, and empathy, and to Kelly, for your commitment to my book, editorial astuteness, and respect for me as a writer—I'm happy and proud to be a member of the “Bywater family”!

And finally—Sydney—I don't have to say it because you know everything.

Love and thanks to you all—

Lisa

Bywater Books represents the coming of age of lesbian fiction. We're committed to bringing the best of contemporary lesbian writing to a discerning readership. Our editorial team is dedicated to finding and developing outstanding voices who deliver stories you won't want to put down. That's why we sponsor the annual Bywater Prize. We love good books, just like you do.

For more information about Bywater Books and the annual
Bywater Prize for Fiction
, please visit our website.

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Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Gitlin

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Bywater Books First Ebook Edition: February 2014

Bywater Books First Edition: June 2010

Cover designer: Bonnie Liss (Phoenix Graphics)

ISBN 978-1-61294-019-9

This novel is a work of fiction. All persons and events were created by the imagination of the author.