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almost a siren, and I was surprised the other patrons didn’t stare.
    On the day I called in sick, we took a round trip on the Staten Island ferry. I loved the view coming back toward Manhattan. The buildings seemed all pressed together, without space. I told Jean it reminded me of a scene in an illuminated manuscript. Then we went shopping in the Village. Jean bought me a t-shirt and I bought her a ring she’d admired—a plain, silver band inlaid with a black enamel triangle.
    On Jean’s last day in New York, we sat on a bench in Riverside Park and watched the Hudson River flow by. Jean kissed me, and even as some small part of me worried we might be attacked, a much bigger part ofme, stocking up for the cold time ahead, wanted to have as much of her as possible.
    Jean cried first, smearing tears over her cheeks with the back of her hand.
    That was all I needed to set me off. “I’m afraid no one will ever love me,” I sobbed.
    â€œB.D. you’ll always be my baby dyke.”
    I liked the sound of that. It wasn’t like my mother saying I would always be her baby when I was no longer a baby, either physically or mentally. But Jean would always be my first time and later lovers would not change that.

Chapter 8
    Bridget and Natalie had just returned from celebrating their third anniversary, and Bridget had asked me to meet them for brunch. Natalie had invited Maxine. Although Bridget and Natalie had been dating for three years, this was their first trip together, for Bridget preferred to go to places where there was at least the possibility of a coup d’état, while Natalie sought the coup of a bargain. Rarely, if ever, did these objectives coincide in one location. Finally they compromised, which meant, I gathered, that Bridget had acceded to Natalie’s wishes this time with the understanding that at some unspecified future point Natalie would proffer some sort of quid pro quo. And, as a practical matter, retail is easier to get to than revolution, especially if all you have is a long weekend.
    â€œSo what did you do up in Maine?” I asked.
    â€œI dared Natalie to try the lobster at McDonald’s. And she shopped for shirts for me at the L.L.Bean store after she tore my favorite one,” Bridget said. She turned to Natalie. “I would have taken it off if you asked. You didn’t have to rip it.”
    I forced myself to swallow a bit of Belgian waffle whileI digested the implications of what Bridget had just said. There is no trouble that cannot be cured by a Belgian waffle.
    â€œI told you I’d buy you a new shirt to replace it and I did,” Natalie said.
    â€œBut it had been washed to just the right amount of softness,” Bridget said. “The new shirts will be scratchy and I’ll have to start all over again.”
    â€œWho took care of your cats?” I asked.
    â€œMy friend Dana. Alice B. coughed up a really huge hairball on the bathroom floor, and Dana stepped on it when she got up to pee in the middle of the night.”
    â€œYou had quite a few hairballs too,” Natalie said, smirking at Bridget, who blushed and frowned, shaking her head.
    I imagined grinding Natalie’s face into her eggs Benedict. “How was the weather?” I asked, and glanced up from my plate across the table.
    Maxine didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. Slumped in her chair, she was sculpting her scrambled eggs with her fork.
    â€œWe have more important things to discuss than the weather, B.D. I hear you finally got some,” Bridget said.
    â€œWhere did you hear that?” I suddenly felt quite shy about Jean. But since I continually speculated about Bridget’s sex life, it seemed only fair to allow her to inquire about mine.
    â€œThe lesbian community is like those tribes that live hundreds of miles apart, with no apparent means of communication, yet somehow they know everything that’s going on with each other,”