Authors: Daphne Uviller
“I know my rights!” the taller woman, dressed in a glittering, zebra- striped pantsuit, yelled at the cops. She swayed back, hands on her hips, chest forward. “I have a human right to relieve myself in a dignified fashion!”
“That is her
right!”
emphasized her rainbow- hued friend, jutting her finger in front of the shorter cop’s face.
“Ma’am,” the taller, redheaded cop said loudly, with exaggerated patience, “no one is denying you—”
“‘Ma’am,’ you said ‘ma’am’!” shouted Zebra Stripes. “So you concur that I am
indeed
a woman! Now, Officer, you let me into this bathroom!” She crossed her arms in front of her ample chest.
The short cop shook his head and groaned. “O’Ryan, man, why you gotta go and say that?”
“Now, you listena me,” said O’Ryan quickly to Zebra. “I am calling you ‘ma’am’ out of respect for your choice, but you cannot inflict your choice on other persons, who may want to utilize this public restroom that they paid for with their tax dollars.”
“Are you accusing me of tax evasion?” Zebra shrieked. “I am being falsely accused!” She looked around wildly. “You tell me who I’m inflicting on? Who?
Her?”
She pointed at me and my stomach clenched. Oh, God, why had I stopped? The four of them looked at me crouching over my laces, and I smiled wanly.
“You,” Zebra yelled at me, her eyes blazing. “Do you have a problem with me using this ladies’ restroom? Do you reject me because I was not as fortunate as you to be born into the body that I was meant to be born into?”
“Amen!” bellowed Rainbow in a baritone voice.
“Okay, enough,” said the short cop. “We don’t gotta take a survey. I tell you what. If the bathroom’s empty, you can use it.”
“What? I… I… !” stuttered Zebra in a crescendoing falsetto.
“Take it or leave it,” he said, resting his hand casually on his nightstick.
No, no, no, I thought. I wanted excitement, but not this. I didn’t want to be involved in a brawl. I didn’t want to witness police brutality. I liked cops, I liked trannies, and I didn’t want to be in a situation where I’d regret dropping out of med school.
Zebra crossed her arms haughtily and Rainbow followed suit.
“Miss,” the cop said.
“Me?” I said, pointing to my chest and standing up.
“Yeah, you. Would you please enter the ladies’ room and ascertain for us whether it’s vacant?”
“Her he calls ‘miss,’ ” Zebra muttered, her voice suddenly dropping two octaves. “How come I get ‘ma’am’?”
I was going to be part of the solution! My confidence returning, I rolled past them, contemplating a career in mediation and also noticing that all four squabblers had stubble on their cheeks. I pushed open the door and peered inside.
“Anybody in here?” I called out. I skated in and looked under both doors. Just as I spotted a pair of feet, a nervous voice answered, “Yeah?”
What would a mediator do?
“Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “there are two … women … outside who would like to use this bathroom, but I believe that they are, perhaps, in possession of…” How did I get here? I suddenly thought. Just before I burst out laughing, I said in a rush, “I think they have male genitalia. Does it bother you if they use this bathroom?”
I heard some grunting, shifting, then a snapping sound like a rubber band, and the owner of the feet let out a loud, relaxed sigh.
“Not. At. All. Nothing bothers me. Chicks with dicks. Dicks with chicks. Wha- ever. Tha… as cooool.” The voice faded away.
I listened for a moment more, then left the bathroom. The quartet looked at me expectantly. I couldn’t deny that I was getting a small thrill out of being in the middle of this situation, rather than making it up to amuse myself at some wingding for the ambassador from Venezuela.
“The person in there does not seem to mind anything. In fact,” I turned to the Eves with Adam’s apples, “you may want to let these nice officers go in there first and make sure it’s safe, because I suspect that whoever is in there is beginning her morning with a needle in her arm.”
Zebra and Rainbow gasped dramatically, while the cops cursed under their breath.
“Drugs, honey?” Zebra reached out to me as though she felt faint, her enormous biceps rippling against her sequins. She closed her eyes, placed her other hand on her chest, fingers splayed, and went through the motions of regaining her composure.
“I do not want to be around anyone messing with drugs. Evian, let’s go. We’ll relieve ourselves somewhere respectable.”
Evian made an “mmm, mmm, mmm” sound of disapproval and tottered off beside Zebra.
The cops shook their heads at me like it was my fault they had to go deal with a junkie on a clear, sun- drenched Thursday morning.
I adjusted my wrist guards and took off down the path, my arms spread, hugging the breeze as I rolled along beside the Hudson River.
* * *
W
HEN I GOT BACK, MY BUTT AND THIGHS WERE CRAMPING,
but my day kept looking up. Gerard, the chipper Vietnam vet who wore pith helmets in summertime and a Ruskie top hat of the variety favored by Hasidic Jews in wintertime, was in our foyer, chucking mail bundles into metal slots. Gerard and I had become buddies during my various professional- school forays. He had presented me with every application, every test score, and every acceptance and rejection letter, proffering predictions with each one.
“You scored high,” he would say, weighing my LSAT results in his open palm.
“I don’t think you should apply here,” he’d warn, handing me an application for a medical school that was far from home, making me wonder whether he was secretly in the employ of my parents.
“I don’t think you got into this one.” He’d wink, handing me a thick envelope.
“Bad news,” he said now, handing me my mail. A bright orange envelope peeked out from under a Sierra Trading Post catalog.
“Jury duty,” he said gravely, as though he were a doctor diagnosing cancer.
I froze.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You can get out of it. Just tell ‘em you got a crack on your ceiling you gotta watch. That’s what my cousin did.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to indicate his cousin’s dismissal from service.
“Jury duty?” I repeated.
“Seriously?”
I tore open the envelope and there, in my hands, was my call to civic duty. My ticket to a front- row seat at the best show in town. My personalized pass to the most crucial of American
responsibilities. My guarantee that I would be expected somewhere every day for at least a week. Best of all, the notice had been delayed by misdelivery and redelivery, so I was expected downtown in just four days. I turned to Gerard and puffed up with self- importance.
“Gerard!” I chastised. “You put your life on the line for this nation. You lost friends, brothers, countrymen, and you’re telling me to evade jury duty?”
Gerard had the good grace to look sheepish.
“Do you know how
great
jury duty is?” I asked him, already picturing myself, inexplicably sepia- toned, in a high- ceilinged courtroom, savoring the weight of responsibility. I would be the fairest juror that ever was, I solemnly promised both parties.
The last time I was summoned, I’d been dismissed after two days, not having set foot in a courtroom. I was horribly disappointed, especially because my dad had prepped me for an hour on how to be picked. I was to say as little as possible about myself without actually evading the lawyers’ questions. I was to appear detached without crossing the line into dim- witted.
It was a tricky dance, but I was ready. This time, I would land a seat in that wooden box. I tore off my Rollerblades and ran upstairs to shower, trying not to let my mood plummet at the sight of my non- blinking answering machine broadcasting my non- messages. Forget Gregory, I reprimanded myself. I would meet the love of my life on jury duty. On our first day of deliberations (we’d tell our kids), we would vehemently disagree, practically spitting venom across the copper- colored water pitchers. In the ensuing days, though, I’d be so articulate that he’d come to see my point of view and be in such awe of my verbal acrobatics that he would fall madly, helplessly in love with me. We’d be like Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy
in
Adam’s Rib,
but jurors instead of lawyers. Was there a paying position whose requirements included exceptional execution of jury service?
Just as I was about to step under the hot spray, there was a pounding on my apartment door. I grumbled as I wrapped a towel around myself, wondering whether it was Gerard coming to apologize for his un- American attitude. I padded down the hall and cracked open the door.
Gregory.
I wanted to drop my towel, grab him, and throw him to the floor. I also wanted to smack him—left cheek, right cheek, left cheek, like a slapstick routine—until he begged forgiveness. I opened my mouth to demand reasons for his radio silence.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked me hotly, his eyes blazing, arms folded tightly across his chest.
I stared at him, furious and light- headed, suddenly aware that I had been bracing myself for the possibility of never seeing him again. The physical reality of his lanky body and warm scent and long eyelashes was such a relief that, to my complete mortification, I burst into tears. Angry at both of us, I started to slam the door in his face. To my relief, he shot one hand out to keep it from closing.
“Why didn’t
you
call
me?”
I wailed, throwing what remained of my pride to the winds. If pride weighed anything, I’d have the upper- body strength to pitch an entire season in the major leagues.
“Why?
I’ve never had—” He raised his eyebrows to convey fornication and all its attendant complexities, “so early on in a relationship or in, you know, that
way.
I figured you had used me and I was waiting for an apology.”
A confused grunt stuttered up out of my throat as I tried to make sense of this insult.
“You think I make a habit of seducing men in my secret pink closet?” I asked incredulously, clutching my towel around me.
“We don’t know that the
closet
was pink. Too dark.” He waited, as if this were an adequate response. It wasn’t, so I remained silent. He shrugged. “Are you planning to apologize?”
“Hell, no,” I told him. “Are you?”
“Nope.”
“Bye, Zephyr!” Gerard yelled up the stairs. I closed my eyes and mashed my lips together.
“ Good- bye, Gerard!” I singsonged, accepting this final icing of embarrassment. We listened to him turn the lock and jangle his way outside.
“Can I come in?” Gregory sounded annoyed, which annoyed
me.
“Be my guest.” I waved him in and slammed the door behind him. I briefly wondered whether there couldn’t be a whole new field of therapy based on door- slamming. Kind of like primal screaming for the new millennium.
Gregory sat down hard on the couch, hunched over so that his elbows dug against his thighs. He glared at the floor.
“I think our problem—” he started.
“We already have problems?”
“Our
problem
is that we need to start over with a proper date. Have the coffee we didn’t have. Talk.”
I wondered what he would do if I suddenly dropped my towel.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, looking up at me expectantly. I mirrored his expression. He straightened up suddenly, almost violently, startling me.
“Has the feminist movement completely passed you by?”
he growled.
“You
can ask
me
out, you know, just like
you
can call
me.”
“Is that what you think the feminist movement is all about?” I asked archly, as if I were well versed in the ins and outs of Gloria Steinem’s rhetoric. I was buying time.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked again, this time in the same plaintive voice that had undone me in the alley four days earlier. Was he for real or could he just turn on the earnest puppy dog act at will?
I shook my head and shrugged. It was unbearable to me that we weren’t naked and wrapped around each other.
As if he could read my mind, he said gently, “Let’s go out to dinner Saturday night.”
It hurt that he could resist me, standing before him wearing nothing but a drape of woven cotton purchased from the discount table at the Astor Place K-Mart. But I was flattered that he cared enough to go backward, to get to know me apart from secret staircases and faulty dryers.
“Fine,” I said as lightly as I could muster. “When and where?”
“Six o’clock,” he said, suddenly cheerful and apparently oblivious to my fragile emotional state. He seemed callous in his certainty that our reset button could be pressed so easily. “I’ll come by here.”
He rose and I followed him to the door.
“Wait!” I said, remembering the JDate Jihad I had planned for five o’clock. “Let’s do seven.”
“Seven what?” he asked.
“Seven o’clock,” I enunciated slowly, wondering whether he had Asperger’s.
“Why?” Now he looked hurt, perhaps insulted, by the thought that I could hold out an extra hour. I felt vaguely,
childishly triumphant. What a sick and dysfunctional four-day- old relationship this was.
“I have something at five with my friends. Seven, okay?” I said gently, opening the door. He studied me, trying to decide whether I was telling the truth or playing a game.
“I swear,” I assured him, softening. “Meet me here at seven. Or,” I amended, thinking of his earlier accusations that I had betrayed the sisterhood, “I can come pick you up. Where do you live?”
At that moment, one floor above us, Roxana’s door flew open, and she came racing down the stairs, uncharacteristically clad in jeans and a man’s plaid shirt. She looked wan and tired, but still sexier than I could have looked in a ball gown after a week at a spa.
“I’m comeen, I’m comeen,” she yelled sullenly. She stopped short, her eyebrows traveling ever so slightly north when she spotted me in my towel, ushering the exterminator out of my apartment in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. I felt our score become slightly more even. I also felt a small thrill poking through my embarrassment that for once it was I, the vanilla, plasma- screen American, who was cloaked—or uncloaked—in mystery and intrigue.