Women - Chloe Caldwell

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park to calm my nerves. When the reading ended, I watched her saunter off. The weather was impeccable, I was drunk, and she somewhat intrigued me. The next morning, Finn emailed to say that she had loved my reading; that I should do more readings. I do not know where this photograph is though I have spent time searching for it. By the time this book is published, the photograph will be three years old.

      Three months after I took the photograph, I moved to the city Finn lived in for various reasons, none of them Finn. I needed a change – I was becoming a bit too comfortable living at home, and pain pills were becoming a casual part of my life, too easy to find in my small town. I was snorting opiates a few times a week and hating myself for it. Moving to a new city meant an absence of drug connections. I’d also met a guy named Isaac through a mutual friend, and we’d begun dating long-distance. I knew I wouldn’t be with Isaac forever as we didn’t have a passionate connection. We were quite different. For one, he didn’t do opiates, he was more interested in sports than books, but he was kind and smart – and I wanted to surround myself with drug-free people. We enjoyed each other, and the relationship was benign, and I thought it would be good for me. He offered for me to stay with him until I found a place of my own, and I took him up on it.

      On a Sunday morning after the move I was messaging with Finn on Facebook while Isaac was watching football and we were drinking coffee. Finn said she was watching football and drinking coffee too. Finn’s really cool, don’t you think? I said to Isaac, who had met her at the same reading. He agreed, I don’t know her well, but she does seem pretty cool.

      Isaac and I broke it off about a month after this exchange (the break-up consisting of two low-drama text messages – me saying, I think we’re better off as friends, and him replying, Yeah, you’re probably right). This cleared a place for Finn, and she slowly began to fill up my life.

      I don’t know if I will be able to get you to see her the way I saw her. I worry that if I cannot make you fall in love with her inexplicably, inexorably, and immediately, the way I did, then you will not be experiencing this book in the way I hope you will. When my editor read the original manuscript, she sent me a text message that said, I’m falling in love with Finn from the details in the opening paragraphs.

      But it is now occurring to me that by offering you these details about Finn, I could ruin things for you as well. I could tell you her favorite book of poetry or how she liked her hamburgers cooked, or the words tattooed across her knuckles. But depending on what I tell you, I could lose you. So I’ll tell you some things, leave out others.

      I never knew her birth name. She would not reveal this. She’d changed it to Finn when she was twenty-two, long before I met her. She liked drinking Salty Dogs and champagne and dark beers. She was nineteen years older than I was and called me ‘champ.’ She wore men’s clothes, usually from high-end shops and she wore her jeans slung low. She had friendly-looking crow’s feet around her eyes when she laughed. Her eyes changed from blue-green to gray, and when she was happy, they looked almost yellow. She had hairless skin like velvet. I feel like people say this a lot and it should be banned from all books, but she smelled like cocoa butter. She read books avidly. She walked with a certain swagger. My friend Nathan saw her walking down the street, and told me, I can’t tell if she’s incredibly cocky or incredibly tortured.

      It would be unfair for me to keep this from you: Finn was gay and in a long-term relationship with a woman. They lived together. They had for ten years.

      Isn’t it sad to talk about ex-lovers in the past tense as though they are dead? I have a friend who this immensely bothers. He claims he wants to fill a red wagon with the women he’s loved, but he doesn’t want to let go of one woman to put in another.

      The first few months after my move, I am unemployed. I live on bagels and energy bars, soup and ramen noodles. I apply for food stamps, which I qualify for, but I miss one of the questions and am too lazy to re-apply. During this time, Finn emails me and says that she knows it is hard to be new in a city. She says if I need a laugh, she’ll meet me for a beer. The first time we meet alone for a drink, she shows up with a collection of short stories in her hand, and tells me I can keep it. It is fall, and we sit outside at a picnic table, across from one another. Growing increasingly drunk over IPAs, I pull out a piece of paper. We exchange stories, adventures we’ve had, and tales of heartbreak. You have to write about that! we say. We scrawl down lists of titles for each other to write stories about. I remember waking up and finding the list in my wallet. I held onto it for months, until finally I misplaced it, or it was thrown out. It’s probably in a book somewhere.

      Finn and I usually hug when we part ways. I feel comfortable around her and she seems to see me in a good light – as if I can do no wrong. I show her stories I am writing and she is unconditionally supportive. She champions me, saying things like I got you. If I put myself down, she counters it. I talk too much, I say once. You do not talk too much. Talk more, she answers. She tells me I am special, that I am golden. She is effusive in her emails, effusive in person. I feel if I need something like five dollars or a ride somewhere, she will give me those things. This feels important, as I am new to the city, do not have many friends yet, and do not have a support system.

      Around Thanksgiving, I apply for a job at the Public Library. Finn has worked at this library, and encourages me to do so. I am hired for an entry-level position. My title is ‘Library Page.’ I am responsible for placing the returned books back on the shelves, and some days I have to shelf-read to make sure the books are in order according to the Dewey Decimal System. I like the job, despite its obvious monotony, as it allows me to live in my head. I love peeking through the aisles of books and spying on people. I fantasize that I will lock eyes with someone, and they will turn out to be my soul mate. My co-workers range from bored college students to elderly women who have been working at the library for twenty years. Finn would be working at the same library, but she’s recently been promoted to another branch, as a technical service librarian. On foot, the libraries are thirty minutes apart.

      I know I find Finn’s aesthetic attractive, but I haven’t yet explored feelings of being attracted to her, in part because I haven’t yet explored my ability to fall for a woman. I figure if I was going to be with a woman, I would have been with one by now. I would know if I was bisexual or gay. Being a writer, I assume I am at least mildly self-aware. It also has not occurred to me that Finn might be attracted to me. It doesn’t occur to me she might be interested in me as more than a friend.

      It doesn’t occur to me, even though she writes me an email in which she says she wants me to read on a barstool under dim lights for her while she sips on a beer. Yeah, book it, her email ends. Book it. And I do vaguely remember staring at her brown hands while she spoke, her knuckle tattoos, thinking they were the most beautiful hands I’d ever seen.

      It is the night before New Year’s Eve. Finn has just returned from visiting her family in Florida for the holidays and when she got back, her girlfriend left to visit her own. This leaves Finn and me alone in the city with no plans for the weekend. After some Facebook messaging, she drives over to where I am house sitting. I have changed into a blue and white baseball shirt and gold hoop earrings. I don’t know what to wear, and want to look tomboyish, not super girly. I don’t know what Finn likes. And, apparently, I care.

      When she arrives, the energy between us is palpable. I offer her a drink and we both sort of pace around each other, making observations about the apartment. She sees the self-help book Women’s Moods on my bed, picks it up, studies the cover and before chucking it back down, jokes, I know everything in here, whatchu wanna know? (It would turn out she actually didn’t know everything in there. Neither of us knew how volatile my moods would become.)

      We finish our beers, leave the apartment and walk to the bar. It is a cold night. I wear an enormous winter coat, Finn has on only a hooded sweatshirt. At the bar she orders a beer sample platter for us to share. I say, I never go out and drink with anyone anymore, and she says, Neither do I! She reaches across the table and begins going through my wallet.

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