Volume 1, Issue 3 & 4 - Diverse Voices Quarterly

Want some lotion? she asked. If I’d said yes, she’d have known I wanted to
touch her or at least something her hands had held. If I’d said no, she wouldn’t have
noticed.
It was just lotion, thick, purple, fruity hand lotion, but I said no.
She put it away and I told her I had sensitive skin, that I used to be a paperwhite
blonde, so blonde that in black-and-white photographs, my hair and face were
white with two black spots for eyes and a grouper’s gape for a mouth.
What color is your hair now? she asked. As if she couldn’t see and she was
looking, staring at my hair, trying to strip off the years and see the baby white.
Gray, I answered. I shook it at her.
How often do you color it? she asked. Her tone was even, neutral. She held up
her end of the conversation, but she was bored. I’d known her long enough to know.
I color it when I want, when I remember. I didn’t say I wouldn’t let my hands
touch those toxic chemicals. I pay some drug addict who found God in a beauty salon
to do my hair. She has the touch. When she washes my hair, I hear angels sing.
Linda Jean tilted her head back and held her water bottle two inches above her
lips. She shot a steady stream of water down her throat, and I watched her swallow
like a long-necked heron. The boat rocked; I spread my legs to dry my wet thighs in
the sun.
Linda Jean jabbed my waist with her finger. Good dive, she said. I grabbed the
water bottle. Hey, I said. I’m thirsty. The boat shook as another diver climbed on
board, and the water dribbled down my neck and between my breasts. Linda Jean’s
long smooth finger circled the hollow in my throat. She leaned over and blew on the
water dripping down my chest, and because it was freshwater against salted skin, she
painted secret signs on my body.
Are you a lesbian? Linda Jean asked me this with all the seriousness of a
woman passing out religious tracts.
She might as well have asked Have You Found God?
No, I said. I think there is no word for what I am.
Linda Jean let out a whoop and from the wheel the dive master looked at us. He
honked the boat horn.
Linda Jean bared her lovely feet, her booties and fins thrown to the side.
Without her wetsuit she was small and thin and the color of amaretto. I waited for the
dive master to pull up anchor. The open sea relieved me; for miles I saw waves
strengthening as they crossed the space between the horizon and our boat.
Linda Jean rested on the bench with her head in my lap. Turning away from the
Diverse Voices Quarterly, Vol. 1, Issue 3 & 4 40