[Repugnant Abomination]

4th draft. I think this one is a lot better, and quite a bit different. Thoughts/comments are mucho appreciated.

Privilege
It always started the same, anxiety and stress, gradually increasing to sweaty palms, stomach pain, increased heart rate, and shortness of breath. It always ended the same too; two fingers down her throat and vomit in the toilet. Today was a good day. Tamara was coming home early from the tattoo parlor, and they were going to spend the afternoon looking at apartments. Amber washed her mouth out in the sink, and glanced at the mirror. She saw black, accentuated cheek bones and a wide nose. She frowned.
The living room smelt of worn leather and rain. Dirty dishes, Pat’s, littered the stained oak coffee table, in front of the green sofa they bought at a garage sale for 15 dollars. The walls were adorned with pictures of the ocean she had taken for a photography class she dropped out of 3 weeks in. Rays of light cut through dark Seattle rain clouds and trickled in through the far window, illuminating a ‘1500 words you should know’ book that belonged to Pat. The tick-tocking of the cat shaped clock filled the room. Amber worked her bottom lip between her teeth. She walked to the front door and looked through the peephole, then paced in the dim hallway, pinching her palm between meticulously manicured nails. 3:15. She dialed Tamara’s number, sucking in her slender stomach and prodding it. No answer. She walked to the living room and sat down, crossing her legs and drumming her fingertips on the arm of the couch. She picked up pat’s book and opened it to the middle.
Pulchritude (PUL-kri-tood), noun
Beauty. Pulchritude is derived from the Latin word for “beautiful.”
Amber tossed the book aside and looked at the clock, 3:17. She got up and opened the front door, wandering into the hallway and looking around, and then she went back inside and locked the door.
***
“I’m home!” Tamara called out, dropping her bags in the hallway, “are you ready to go?”
Amber rushed across the room and wrapped around Tamara, kissing her before she could speak.
“I missed you,” Amber said.
“Are you ready to go?”
Amber paused, “let me get my purse.”
***
In Seattle there is every kind of rain. Today it poured fat droplets from the backdrop of a gray sky, like the speckles in Tamara’s eyes. They beat on the surface of her 91 Honda, saving her a trip to the carwash.
“So I was like, hey, relax, you can say black, I’m not gonna get pissed,” Tamara steered with her left hand and massaged Ambers thigh with her right, “you know? Anyway, I think it’s this next left.”
“What did he say?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before,” Amber said.
“African American,” she rolled her eyes, “like I’ve ever been to Africa. Here it is.”
A group of crows picked at indistinguishable road kill in the middle of the road, then scattered as Tamara parked beside the curb.
“Lovely,” Amber made a face at the death scene, and then reached for Tamara’s hand.
“Not right now,” she said, putting her hands in her pockets.
The apartment complex was painted yellow and chipped in places, worn by rain and time. A narrow cement walkway lead to the entrance, flanked by dry brown grass with scattered toys across it. Amber caught an elderly woman in a rocking chair peering at them through her window, who made no attempt to hide her curiosity once noticed. A soda machine hummed dully as they passed and a mangy cat with brown spots skittered out from under it and disappeared into the bushes on the other side.
“23 D, this is it,” Tamara said, twisting the bronze doorknob. The smell of cigarettes and mold lingered in the stuffy room. There was a hole in the wall to the right, and the carpet was brown and splotchy, with bronze lining along the edge to separate it from the cheap tiled entrance.
“No way,” Amber said, standing in the doorway.
“Look, it has a dishwasher.”
“No.”
Tamara grit her teeth, “fine,” she pushed passed Amber.
The wind picked up on the drive home, rocking the car along the highway. Amber gripped the edge of her seat and pressed her feet against the floor, “slow down, Tamara.”
Tamara pressed harder on the gas. There was a silence Tamara’s twitching jaw dared Amber to break.
“Tamara -“
“What?” she cut her off.
“That place was a dump.”
“Well maybe if you got a job we could afford something nicer.”
Amber didn’t feel like talking anymore.
***
The sound of sizzling meat greeted them in the hallway, and
The smell of sausage wafted through the apartment. They hadn’t spoke, and Pat’s voice was a welcome distraction, “Hey, I’m making spaghetti and sausage if you girls are hungry.”
“Thanks Pat, maybe later,” Tamara said, smelling the food over his shoulder.
“I’m not hungry,” Amber said, grabbing a diet coke from the fridge and disappearing into Tamara’s room.
Pat sprinkled garlic powder over the sauce and licked his fingers, “I’m thinking about joining the chess club at school.”
Tamara rolled her eyes, “stick to checkers, Pat.”
Pat kept his eyes down, his blood bubbling like the sauce he stirred.
“I’ll be back later,” she said, heading for the door before he could ask where she was going. He put a lid over the sauce and sat at the kitchen table, picking his book up and studying the chess diagram. ‘Can white save himself by playing King-takes-Rook in this position?’ After careful deliberation Pat concluded yes and turned the page. ‘No. In this case the Queen, which is giving check, also protects the Rook. White is checkmated.’
***
Amber heard the door slam and sighed. The walls around her were white, and covered in posters and pictures: Bob Marley, Malcolm X, Sylvia Plath, The Beatles, a Disney Princess collage, photos of Tamara and Amber together, and pictures Amber had taken of different sceneries. The faint smell of sweat and sex lingered around the bed, just large enough to accommodate two bodies. Atop the corner desk the pale glow of a laptop screen pressed against the darkness. She sat and turned it on. Her desktop background was a close up of Tamara laughing. It was taken the night they stayed up drinking wine and talking about when they came out. ‘My dad was so flustered I thought he was going to explode,’ Tamara had said with a grin. Amber clicked the internet icon and google searched cupcakes. Her stomach growled as she clicked through pictures, imagining how the multicolored frosting would taste. She pretended to smell them and feel their texture against the roof of her mouth. She traced her fingernail along the surface of the desk, wondering where Tamara went, and thinking about the apartment that would never be theirs.
***
The night life was in full bloom. Faces she had never seen before were everywhere, yet they were always the same. The under 21 crowd, the drunk college kids, the 30 but I’m still cool guys, the 50 year old couples coming back from dinner and ice cream, and the sordid 40 year old men looking to pick up on any girls who had too much to drink. She didn’t fit in with any of them, she thought. She was the gay black girl, who studied medieval Russian literature, had a piercing fetish, and was adopted. She veered left as group of attractive college girls from her literature theory class brushed by.
“Dyke,” one of them said, just loud enough to hear, followed by muffled laughter. Tamara stopped and glared at them over her shoulder, but they didn’t notice. She pressed on. She walked several blocks, until stopping in front of a white house with green trimming and a modest yard. The porch light was on. She thought about Amber moping around her and Pat’s apartment, the faithful girlfriend who couldn’t give her what she wanted, and made her feel guilty about it. She thought how her decisions were always compromised by her relationship, always leaving her unsatisfied. About the summer she wanted to buy a motorcycle and travel across the country so she could feel what it was like to be free, a creation of God, between sky and ocean, and how Amber didn’t approve. She lingered on the sidewalk, looking over her shoulder and kicking a small stone. Finally, she walked through the yard and knocked.
Sarah opened the door and pulled her inside, “you came.”
“Of course,” Tamara smiled.
Sarah had flawless white skin, except for a few freckles on her nose. She was tall, and had shoulder length blonde hair that was braided. She kept a neat house.
“Come on, I’ll put on some tea. Do you like peppermint?”
“Yes, thank you,” Tamara said, hanging her coat on the rack. She followed Sarah to the kitchen and sat down on the counter. Sarah filled the cherry red kettle with water and set it on the stove. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled over her shoulder, “I made some fudge if you’re hungry.”
“Sure.”
She removed a tray from the oven and held it up for Tamara, who took a piece and ate it in one bite, “Mmm, Sarah, this is delicious,” she said, covering her mouth as she spoke.
“Thanks. Apparently culinary school wasn’t a waste of money after all. All I did was add a cup of sugar and –“
“Amber and I looked at apartments today,” she said, cutting her off.
Sarah paused, and then set the tray down. She leaned her hip against the refrigerator and folded her arms, “Did you find anything? I hear there are some nice places on the east end of the city.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
Tamara slid down from the counter and tried to hug her, but she turned away as the kettle began to whistle and turned off the burner.
“I can’t do this anymore, Tamara. I’m almost 30 and I need some security in my life,” she poured two cups of tea and offered Tamara one.”
“You’re only 27,” she blew on the tea, “but yeah, I know.”
“You need to decide, it’s either her or me.”
Tamara went to the kitchen table and sat down, cupping the mug between her hands. Steam swirled up, and she closed her eyes and breathed deeply the aroma of peppermint tea leaves. Sarah followed and sat across from her, her light blue eyes trying to read Tamara’s face.
“I love you,” she reached across the table and took her hand, “what are you thinking?”
Tamara felt the warmth from the room envelope her, like Thanksgiving, when friends and family get together for one day, and cast aside any bad feelings, because in the end what’s important is to love, and be loved by. She opened her eyes and squeezed Saraha’s hand.
***
Amber came out into the living room to find Pat on the couch in his pajamas, staring at the ceiling. She followed his gaze and then looked at him like he was crazy. She walked passed him and stopped in front of the bookshelf, looking it over before squatting and rummaging around the pile of papers on the floor. She blew her bangs out of her eyes and stood up, looking around, hands on hips. She checked the coffee table, then the kitchen table, sighing louder each time. She went to the movie cabinet and searched it.
“Ugh!” she glanced at Pat and then coughed and cleared her throat several times. Finally she stomped to the front of the couch and kicked his shin.
“Hey!”
“Ow!” Pat leveled his gaze on her, rubbing his shin, “what?”
“Have you seen my digital camera?”
“Yeah, like I’m some kind of impotent, all knowing God or something. No I don’t know where your camera is.”
Amber’s lips twitched, and she folded her arms over her chest and tilted her head to the side, “Yeah, you’re definitely impotent, Pat, unless you meant omnipotent,” she said, “better keep studying your book.” Pat’s cheeks flushed and he lowered his eyes. Amber frowned, wishing she hadn’t said anything. She turned, when Pat said, “Where do you think Tamara is?” Amber faced him, pinching her palm between her nails, and glanced at the clock.
“I don’t know,” she said, lowering to sit beside him.
“You know,” Pat began, “When I was in high school I was the captain of the football team. I guess I was the stereotypical jock. I did everything I thought I was supposed to do, based on my social status at school. I would give underclassmen wedgies and sleep with as many girls as I could. Senior year I asked the homecoming queen to be my date – she accepted, of course, it was more a formality than anything else, something high school royalty, if you can stomach that idea, did,” he adjusted his body to face her, and continued. “She was a total bitch and I was miserable the whole time, like I knew I’d be. I almost left the dance to go get drunk with my buddies, and that’s when I saw Anita. She was a girl in our school who was in a wheelchair. Everyone politely ignored her, because she made us uncomfortable. I decided to do something unexpected of me – I asked her to dance, and it was the most fun I ever had at a dance. I had no idea how funny she was.”
Amber squinted and chewed her lip gently, “I don’t understand, what am I –“
“The point is,” he continued, “is that I took that homecoming queen, Jennifer, to prom because I thought it was a good match, I thought it was the natural choice. After I danced that night with Anita I decided to never make that mistake again.”
“Is that why you want to join the chess team?” she asked.
Pat shrugged and grabbed the remote, turning the TV on. Amber’s phone rang from Tamara’s room. She jumped off the couch and ran into the bedroom, answering, “Hello?”
“Hey.”
“Hi Tamara,” Amber said, sitting down.
“We need to talk.”