“Thank you for the tea,” Vern said, assuming that was what Bridget was waiting for.
“It’s really nothing.” Bridget leaned against the side of the cabin she’d built with her own hands, her work boots sliding into dark mud. She had that way about her she sometimes got, like she wanted to smoke. She flicked the lid of her lighter open and closed, eyes on the horizon.
“Friend of mine had a bunch of toys and stuff she was gonna hand in to the Goodwill. I took them off her hands. You wouldn’t mind if I let the kids have a look? Don’t know what your stance is on toys.”
The mundanity of the question tugged Vern from her angst spiral. “That’s fine. Go ahead.”
“And Gogo wanted to know if she should get anything from the library for them when she next travels to the city.”
Had Vern really made such a mess of it that Gogo felt she had to relay messages through Bridget?
“It’s not you,” said Bridget, speaking to Vern’s silent question. “I know you’ve got this romanticized version of her in your head, but she’s got her flaws. The women in my family aren’t exactly coolheaded. It’s not our way. Besides, she’s not used to being the one to get rejected.” Bridget slid the lighter back into her pocket. She picked up a rock and skimmed it across the brown puddles forming a pool chain in the clearing. “You’re probably the first girl she’s had any real interest in, in years.”
“I thought she had lots of girlfriends,” said Vern, despite herself. She didn’t want to be thinking about Gogo.
“I don’t know that I’d call them girlfriends,” Bridget said with a snort. “But that’s kinda what I’m talking about. She’s used to getting her way with women, you know? So when she finds one she actually likes … Wounded pride, that’s all it is. She’ll come around. I like you two together. Wasn’t sure about it at first, but it’s good. Real good.”
Vern sat on an abandoned truck tire filled with gravel and rested her chin on her knee. “It’s probably better this way.”
“There’s exactly two flavors of queer drama, far as I can tell. The kind that stems from people like you and Gogo, thinking you’re above it all, all chill to the bitter end, and the kind that comes from people that can’t help but feel every peccadillo as a tragedy. Always with the waterworks, those people. I’m sure it has to do with astrology or something. My friend Coline is always tryna read my star chart. If somebody asks you your sign, Vern, they’re a waterworks queer. Just know it.”
Vern looked up at Bridget in amused silence. The two of them rarely talked beyond surface matters. Even though the weather had warmed into the high sixties, Bridget dressed in a thick, wool-lined flannel. She was diabetic and wore an insulin pump, the wallet-sized control mechanism clipped to her belt. Gogo said part of the reason Bridget had gotten so into traditional Native food was her diabetes diagnosis.
Gogo’s mom had died from complications related to the disease: pulmonary embolism post–leg amputation. “I love Bridget to death,” Gogo had said once, shaking her head, “but she’s got it wrong, you know. What’s the so-called right food gonna do when you don’t have access to good medical care? That’s why I do what I do. I wanna be there for people who don’t have anyone else to take care of them. Fuck all that eat-a-good-diet shit. What people need to live is other people.”
Gogo and Bridget were often at loggerheads, but it was easy to see how they were kin. Seeing their bond, Vern missed Carmichael.
“Anyway,” said Bridget, clearing her throat. “You should go to Gogo.”
Vern stood from the tire and jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Right now I got to focus on all this shit that’s happening.”
“But two heads are better than one, though, right? She’s helped you before. Now’s not the time to be turning away aid.”
What people need to live is other people. Vern had appreciated Gogo’s words when she’d first shared them, but pithy adages didn’t account for folks like Ollie, Eamon, Sherman, and on and on forever.
“She said she was finally able to get into that computer,” said Bridget.
Vern’s head snapped toward Bridget, who was smirking now. “You could’ve led with that,” said Vern.
“Then you wouldn’t have listened to all that good quality advice I wanted to dispense. Come inside. It’s time for lunch.”