Crossing Read Free Page A

you from getting a boyfriend, you don’t know how awesome you are.”
    “I just know from experience that guys that look like him, or hell, guys that don’t look as fine as him, like to be entertained by me. Maaaaybe they like me enough to kiss me when no one else is looking or sleep with me when they’re drunk, but I’m just not a sexual entity otherwise.”
    “Fuck those fuckers!” Elizabeth lifts her foot to my cheek and runs her seriously grody bunioned big toe down my cheek.
    I grab her foot and pretend to bite it. “What did I just get done telling you? Nobody is going to be fucking anyone.”
    “You know what I meant. Did you ask Kristin and Cam if they want to go to RUMORS with us tonight?”
    “Yeah, I told them we’d swing by on our way.”
    “Cool. What do you want to do about dinner? I had a nasty salad at Dairy Queen for lunch, so please say you’ll make us something better than that.”
    I roll my eyes at her. “I could make us shit on toast and it would be better than that.” Lifting her legs up, I duck under and go into our tiny, olive green tiled kitchen to see what I can dig up.
    I open the fridge. “Leftover Chinese from…three days ago? Nevermind. Or I could make an omelet.”
    “What kind?”
    “The kind with eggs.”
    “I know that, bitch. I meant, what filling?”
    “Um, three day old Chinese food, bitch. We need to go shopping.”
    “Ugh. Maybe you could go this weekend? Eggs sound good.”

    X

    “I’m already regretting my shoe and wardrobe choices,” I say as we near RUMORS.
    “You look cute,” Kristin says, finishing off her cig and dropping it to the ground. “Besides, it’s going to be all women here anyway. I mean Ladies’ Night is literally Ladies’ Night at this joint isn’t it?”
    “That’s why I’m worried about my clothing choices!” I scoff. “Straight guys don’t care about what we wear, but women, gay or straight, have opinions. This is going to be a night of judgment, I can feel it.”
    Elizabeth punches me on the shoulder. “Not everyone is as hypercritical as you are—”
    “And you are—” I say
    “And I am,” she says. “Are you freaking because I made you wear that halter? Because you’ve got a fucking cardigan on over it, which negates any effect that it would otherwise generate. If anyone judges, it’s because of the black wooly flipping cardigan, not how hot your boobs look in that top.”
    “Or my sparkling personality?”
    “Or your goddamned sparkling personality.”
    We approach the door. Elizabeth gets in without having to pay the cover or show her ID. Cam and Kristin have to pay the cover, but not show their ID. I have to both show my ID and pay the cover, and I sort of get the feeling that the bouncer would’ve been willing to give me my money back if I’d kept my cardigan buttoned up to my neck. I tell myself he’s gay and that my boobs look like two gigantic elbows to him, therefore, who wouldn’t be repulsed?
    Things are in full swing inside, even though it’s only nine. Bars close at two in Eugene, but people always show up early to catch happy hour or avoid the cover.
    Elizabeth waves me over to the half of a table she’s managed to snag for us. She motions for me to take my cardigan off, but I leave it on. “I’ll get the first round,” I say loudly.
    I don’t bother to ask what the others want. We want whatever drink is on special unless it’s Long Islands or White Russians. Lucky for us it’s vodka gimlets. I wait patiently in line, three deep behind the server’s station, because I know from experience I get nowhere trying to weasel my way up to the bar. Plenty of other women are trying that and succeeding, but plenty aren’t. I worry less about my top when I see a middle-aged lady wearing a golf shirt buttoned all the way up. Who knows what her rack looks like, but it could be a nice one. I get a flash of rack pride and take the cardigan off, first slinging it over my forearm and then tying it