Rosemarie and Sparrow were friends and maybe the tiniest bit more if Rosemarie counted the one time their humanities class went to the movies and she and Sparrow sat next to each other and Sparrow held her hand during the scariest part and then they kept holding hands even when the scary part was over. They held hands walking out of the theater together and only let go when they went into separate stalls in the bathroom. They locked fingers again on their way to the rumbling buses in the parking lot. Sparrow’s hair was thick, crow black, braided down her back when she played field hockey. She was captain. She clipped her pens to her shirt collar and, for reasons unknown, was usually almost late for their English class, barely sneaking in before Mrs. Perkins closed the door. Sparrow sat right in front of Rosemarie—Kim, Kingston—and smelled like Bath & Body Works Cucumber Melon mist. Rosemarie hated the smell of cucumbers and melons coming from anywhere else, but when they came from Sparrow, they were her favorite.
Rosemarie hadn’t crushed this hard on a girl in real life before. Celebrities, yes. Especially Old Hollywood. There was a photo of Dorothy Dandridge above the light switch in her bedroom, a postcard of Elizabeth Taylor—in her slip from Butterfield 8—in her bathroom. Thinking about them was fantasyland and so was imagining being able to ask a girl to prom in Goldie. Sure, she was raised by hippie parents who loved every bit of her unconditionally, but Goldie was in the South, and she, along with most people in town, had been raised in the church.
Her romantic feelings for girls crept to the first boiling point the summer between middle and high school when she decided to let Ada, Caro, and Kasey know she thought Lisa Bonet was hotter than any boys in town. Ada had laughed and brushed her off, but Caro and Kasey knew what she meant. When Ada realized it too, she’d said, Just so you know, I will never care who you want to touch your itsy-bitsy, Roses. As long as it’s what you want. It’s your business, not mine. Then Ada went on a rant about how maybe she was kind of lesbian too because she totally would’ve kissed Marilyn Monroe if they’d been alive at the same time.
Later that afternoon, when it was just Rosemarie, Caro, and Kasey, they’d asked her if she ever had a crush on either of them, since she wasn’t shy when it came to talking about liking girls anymore, and Rosemarie did lie a little when she told them she never thought about it, because they were like sisters.
She’d thought about it, but it hadn’t gotten very far. She’d only been testing out the feelings, like a new pair of shoes. They were her sisters, so she didn’t want to hurt their feelings by telling them if she had to date one of them, it’d be Kasey because with her dark hair and eyes, Kasey looked the closest to the girls Rosemarie crushed on.
Rosemarie didn’t have a role model for how she was feeling, and she didn’t know how long her feelings would last. Maybe they were temporary? Maybe they’d be forever? She hadn’t suddenly stopped liking boys or anything. It was both. Why couldn’t she like them both? It made way more sense than it didn’t.
One neighborhood over, there was an older lesbian woman who was friends with her mom. She and her daughter visited about once a month to buy eggs from their chickens, and occasionally, the woman’s girlfriend would tag along. They were both kind and affectionate and called her Little Rosemarie no matter how big she got. Sometimes the woman’s girlfriend wore a rainbow pin on her jean jacket.
And everyone knew Gary Green was gay. He was friends with her parents and taught ceramics at South Goldie High. The kids called him Gay Gary Green so much he wore it like a badge of honor. He disappeared to Mexico for winter breaks and summers and sent the Kingstons pears and chocolates for Christmas. Rosemarie knew of quite a few gay people in Goldie, but it wasn’t like there were any aggressively openly gay couples in town she could look to.
“Ugh, I don’t know. The dresses are so expensive. I do have money saved up, but I don’t want to spend it on something I’ll only wear once,” Kasey said.
“I saw a powder-blue dress on the rack at Lily’s that would look so good on you it makes me want to die. We’re getting it tomorrow. It’s not that much! I’ll buy it with my own money—I don’t even care! I was going to let you do this yourself, but you’ve left me no choice, Fritz,” Rosemarie said. She sat up so Kasey could see her roll her eyes properly. Rosemarie was going to wear the dress her mom got married in, which was the only thing that made it a wedding dress—it was a pretty, petallike purple dress with ruffly straps and a dip in the back.
“How much was it?” Kasey asked.
“Like, ninety-nine dollars.”
“I have ninety-nine dollars, but it feels like a waste when I could save it.”
“You won’t be saying that when it’s on Silas Castelow’s bedroom floor at the lake house. You’ll be looking at it there on the floor next to his nightstand where he keeps his…”
Kasey nodded a go ahead.
“His…I don’t know! What’s he keep on his nightstand?”
“Last time I was there, it was a Garfield book; like, a half-empty can of pop; and his wallet. He also has this plastic Yoda next to his alarm clock,” Kasey said, showing Rosemarie how big it was with her fingers.
“Wow. Okay. So, you’ll look at that blue dress on the floor next to Silas’s Garfields and think to yourself, I’m glad I let him take it off me. Rosemarie was right.”
“I don’t know if we’re gonna have sex on prom night or not, though. I haven’t decided yet.” Kasey put her hands behind her head, keeping her eyes on the sky.
“Right, I know. Okay, so, think of this as one of many possibilities. You need the dress anyway. Listen! We’re getting the dress, damn it!”
“Yes, ma’am. Now that that’s out of the way, are you gonna ask Leo to go with you or not? Who’s Sparrow going with?”
Ada, Caro, and Kasey knew about Rosemarie’s crush on Sparrow, and they teased her about it the same way they would’ve if Sparrow were a guy. No one else knew, not even Rosemarie’s mom. Even though her mom was one of those women who was excellent at intuiting things, she and Rosemarie hadn’t spoken about it outright—at least, not yet.
“I don’t know. I heard maybe Frankie was gonna ask her,” Rosemarie said, shrugging and lying down. The spring sun was warm, not hot; the wind, refreshing and cool. Rosemarie could’ve stayed like that all day with the big oak tree half shading them and the birds happily clicking at the seed in the feeders, even though they reminded her of Sparrow.
“Are you too jealous to talk about it?”
“Eh, I don’t know,” Rosemarie said, imagining Frankie Mattingly with his hands all over Sparrow, the two of them dancing together, what color her dress was and how she’d do her hair. “Yeah. I guess I am,” she said, unable to keep it in.
“For what it’s worth, I think she likes you back. Maybe she’s shy about it too. She’s always talking about how cool and funny you are. I’ve heard her!”
“Leo ain’t too bad of a second choice,” Rosemarie said after some quiet. He was cute and breezy. Charming. They’d been friends their whole lives. Leo was a brilliant musician and could play every instrument. He was going off to Boston to study music theory in the fall. He was cool in an important, nerdy way and reminded her of Dave Brubeck, whose bespectacled face she found adorably smiling back at her from her dad’s jazz albums. Leo had dark, floppy hair and glasses, plus a pair of dimples that she and a lot of the girls she knew went crazy for.