It’s spring, and Monica has all the windows open.
Rachel is flopped into one of the kitchen chairs, reading a magazine. It’s one of those late, lazy mornings, and her hair shines a little golden in the light. Monica would call her angelic , except she hates metaphors, because most of the time she doesn’t understand them. Now, though. Now she can see why people use them. If that’s even a metaphor to begin with. It probably isn’t.
Monica knows she isn’t allergic to pollen, but her throat is constricting. It has been ever since that day Rachel crashed back into her life in a sodden wedding dress. Her skin crawls. Maybe she is allergic to pollen. It would explain all this … feeling that’s going on.
But Monica knows she isn’t allergic to pollen.
She has to do it. She has to tell Rachel, right now, or she’ll combust on the spot.
“Hey Rach?” she says, hovering near the table.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Rachel throws down her magazine, folding her arms and looking at Monica with a concerned tilt to her eyebrows.
“I … have to tell you something.”
“Okay,” says Rachel. “What is it?”
Monica doesn’t say anything. Suddenly she can barely breathe. Her ears are ringing. How has she done this before?
“Oh, hey hey hey, honey, it’s okay,” says Rachel, reaching out. Monica instinctively twitches back, and Rachel retracts her arms, a bit of hurt splintering her face before she pulls it back to concerned.
“Is it …” she tries. When Monica stays silent, she claps her hands over her face, frantically rising from the chair. “Oh my god. Oh my god! You’re pregnant?”
“No!” says Monica. Pregnant? Does she really look — “No, that’s not — Rachel, I’m not —“
“Oh my god.” Rachel grabs her arms, tight. Monica wrenches herself free. “Whose is it? What are you going to do?”
“No, Rach, that’s not — I’m not pregnant.” Monica takes a deep breath, willing her voice to stay steady. “It’s something else.”
“Oh,” says Rachel. “What … what is it?”
“Actually, Rach … actually, I’m a lesbian.”
Rachel blinks. “You what?”
“I’m a lesbian. I — I like girls, Rachel. Women. Girls.” Monica’s hands are shaking. She fights the urge to fidget with her sleeves, trying to keep her arms still at her sides.
Rachel looks dumbfounded. “You like … girls? To date?”
“Yeah, Rach. I’m a lesbian.” Monica almost laughs. Every time she says it, it seems to get a little easier, and now that she’s said it she doesn’t want to stop saying it. “I’m a lesbian. Into women.”
Rachel gathers her into a rib-crushing hug. “Oh my gosh, honey, that’s — thanks so much for telling me, Mon. I feel really special, oh my gosh.”
Monica grins into her shoulder, taking in the scent of her shampoo. “Of course. You’re one of my closest friends.”
After a minute, Monica has to tap out, worried for the safety and well-being of her ribcage. She flops onto the couch, letting out a relieved laugh. Rachel flops down next to her. Monica was right — there is pollen all over the couch, courtesy of the open windows, but that doesn’t really matter right now. She can vacuum later.
“So,” she says, “I gotta ask.” And Monica is suddenly terrified. She knows from experience that some people take it well at first and then, after thinking about it for a bit, have a sudden change of heart.
But all Rachel says is, “Is it nice?”
“Is what nice? Dating girls?”
“Well, yeah.” Rachel shrugs, looking away, her cheeks dusted in strawberry-pink. “It just seems so much better than dating guys, you know? I’m sick of guys. They’re all smelly and messy and they never have decent enough manners to call back and, well, girls are …”
“Girls are not that,” finishes Monica. “You’re right. Guys suck .”
“All of em,” says Rachel. “Especially Ross. Sorry.”
“ Especially Ross.” Monica lets her head hang back against the couch. Her eyes sting, just a little. “Don’t apologize. Ross is a first-class idiot.”
“Did you tell him?” asks Rachel.
“Yeah. He wasn’t — he really — well, he’s Ross . I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” says Rachel, and looks away.
For a moment they just sit, listening to the sounds of the city coming in through the window. Someone on the street is yelling over a revving car engine. Monica feels something in her chest loosen, like she can finally breathe again, like she was drowning and now she’s over the barrel and it hurt for a second, coughing up the dark water, the secrets, but now it’s passed and she can breathe again.
Maybe she is a little allergic to pollen, because she’s tearing up. Just slightly.
“You didn’t really answer my question,” says Rachel.
Monica lifts her head. Rachel is avoiding her eyes, playing absentmindedly with the ends of her hair. “What question?”
“What’s it like … dating girls?”
“Oh.” And Monica has to stop and think, for a second.
She wants to say it’s like … coming home. Coming home to your place in the world, where everything stays in its spot, where the table is always set perfectly for two. It’s like coming home to a room filled with fresh flowers, a kitchen warm and inviting, a sense of comfortable familiarity hanging like steam in the air. To Monica, loving women is like coming home — and it was coming home, for a little while at least, in college. She had a friend with an apartment off campus, an apartment with an extra mattress and set of sheets, except Monica never slept on the spare mattress when she slept over. She slept in her lover’s soft arms, long hair tangling together on the pillow as they dreamed.
Monica doesn’t say any of that. Instead, she says, “It’s nice, I guess. I haven’t dated that much. Just in college and a little after. It’s been what, four years, maybe?”
Rachel is looking at her now.
“Almost four years,” says Monica. “But. It’s nice.”
“I guess I’ve always wanted. To try it.” Rachel’s voice is soft, tentative.
“Dating girls?”
Her voice is barely a whisper. “Yes. Or, one specific girl.”
And this. Cannot be happening to Monica right now. If Rachel’s about to say what she thinks she’s going to say —
“I guess you’ve just — left an impression on me, Monica. I never really considered it before I — before I moved in here.”
Monica’s face is on fire.
“So I guess what I’m saying is, do you want to try this out? I know you’ve dated girls before, and it’s been awhile, but —“
“Yes!” says Monica, before she can stop herself. “Rach, are you asking to date me? Because yes. Of course, yes. It might be a little awkward at first, I guess, and we’re definitely talking more about this later, but. We can try, right?”
“We’re going to try.” Rachel’s grinning at her, golden and flushed and heavenly. “Do you wanna go get coffee?”
“As a date?” asks Monica. “Right now?”
“Yes, right now, Mon. Of course as a date!”
And suddenly Rachel’s got her by the hand, dragging her out the door into the great sweet springtime. They leave the windows open behind them.
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