what type of opportune moment I could contrive to drop it, I mentioned the possibility of telling another person as well. A woman named Sandy was in two of my classes, and I had gotten to know her pretty well around the same time I was being inducted into Pete’s clique. When I mentioned this to Penelope, her reaction was unexpected.
“Oh,” she said. “Um. Maybe.” She stopped there, and the awkwardness of the pause surprised me.
“Is that a bad idea?” I probed.
“I don’t… This isn’t because you’re attracted to her, is it?”
These words came out in such a rush I almost didn’t process them. This was a topic that had never come up in our talks, primarily because I was, by that point, so thoroughly convinced that any woman who got involved with me would pay for it with her life. In any case, the answer to Penelope’s question was no. Sandy and I had some things in common, and I had a great deal of respect for her, but there was never any sexual tension there. It would have been easy to dispel Penelope’s concern, but the fact of it intrigued me. It harkened back to Future Penelope’s revolted reaction to my question about whether we were in a relationship that hadn’t started yet. This new question made me wonder if there was a story connected to whatever she felt she needed to hide from me. I believed her when she said that we would never be a couple, besides which, Young Penelope couldn’t possibly know what lay in store for either of us, any more than I did. And yet, this now smacked of an unexpected loose thread, and I couldn’t help but tug it.
“Would that be a problem?” I asked, with an exaggeratedly feigned innocence.
“No,” she said quickly. Then, “Maybe. I don’t know.” She rubbed her face, clearly trying to regain her bearings. “Probably not,” she said finally. “But don’t tell her anyway. Let’s stick to the plan. We don’t even know what will happen when you talk to Pete. For now, let’s not complicate anything.” She waited a beat, then added, “Please?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably right,” I said, and while I was being honest about my intent to hold off on saying anything to Sandy, I filed away my certainty that something about this circumstance was the nerve Future Penelope had exposed in her younger self. There was something about my eventual relationship with a woman—perhaps Sandy, perhaps someone else, surely not Penelope—that she desperately wanted me not to know.
fter my third attempt to tell Pete about my problem, I gave up. The first time he was amazing about it. Asked me all kinds of questions, took everything I said at its face. We spent an entire afternoon talking, at the end of which he told me he had never felt more touched than he did to know that I trusted him with something that big and risky.
By the time I saw him that evening, the whole thing had unhappened. Thankfully, there was no awful moment of discovery that I would need to explain my way out of. I had become so accustomed to Penelope’s tricks for entering any conversation without exposing myself, and so used to people utterly transforming between times I saw them, all I needed was a quick probe to learn Pete knew nothing.
I tried twice more over the course of that week. The second time was a fiasco. He accused me of trying to play him for a fool, and wanted to know if I was on drugs. I had made the mistake of broaching the topic too quickly, because I already knew (or thought I did) what his reaction would be. He avoided me for two days, then reverted to a blank slate on the matter. Having learned from that, I was substantially more cautious on my third try. That one went very well, until I realized that he was humoring me, first out of amusement, and eventually out of compassion. He begged me to seek professional help. I backpedalled by informing him (honestly) that I had already tried that to no avail. When that final confession unhappened, I resigned.
Sandy
“Oh,” she said. “Um. Maybe.” She stopped there, and the awkwardness of the pause surprised me.
“Is that a bad idea?” I probed.
“I don’t… This isn’t because you’re attracted to her, is it?”
These words came out in such a rush I almost didn’t process them. This was a topic that had never come up in our talks, primarily because I was, by that point, so thoroughly convinced that any woman who got involved with me would pay for it with her life. In any case, the answer to Penelope’s question was no. Sandy and I had some things in common, and I had a great deal of respect for her, but there was never any sexual tension there. It would have been easy to dispel Penelope’s concern, but the fact of it intrigued me. It harkened back to Future Penelope’s revolted reaction to my question about whether we were in a relationship that hadn’t started yet. This new question made me wonder if there was a story connected to whatever she felt she needed to hide from me. I believed her when she said that we would never be a couple, besides which, Young Penelope couldn’t possibly know what lay in store for either of us, any more than I did. And yet, this now smacked of an unexpected loose thread, and I couldn’t help but tug it.
“Would that be a problem?” I asked, with an exaggeratedly feigned innocence.
“No,” she said quickly. Then, “Maybe. I don’t know.” She rubbed her face, clearly trying to regain her bearings. “Probably not,” she said finally. “But don’t tell her anyway. Let’s stick to the plan. We don’t even know what will happen when you talk to Pete. For now, let’s not complicate anything.” She waited a beat, then added, “Please?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably right,” I said, and while I was being honest about my intent to hold off on saying anything to Sandy, I filed away my certainty that something about this circumstance was the nerve Future Penelope had exposed in her younger self. There was something about my eventual relationship with a woman—perhaps Sandy, perhaps someone else, surely not Penelope—that she desperately wanted me not to know.
fter my third attempt to tell Pete about my problem, I gave up. The first time he was amazing about it. Asked me all kinds of questions, took everything I said at its face. We spent an entire afternoon talking, at the end of which he told me he had never felt more touched than he did to know that I trusted him with something that big and risky.
By the time I saw him that evening, the whole thing had unhappened. Thankfully, there was no awful moment of discovery that I would need to explain my way out of. I had become so accustomed to Penelope’s tricks for entering any conversation without exposing myself, and so used to people utterly transforming between times I saw them, all I needed was a quick probe to learn Pete knew nothing.
I tried twice more over the course of that week. The second time was a fiasco. He accused me of trying to play him for a fool, and wanted to know if I was on drugs. I had made the mistake of broaching the topic too quickly, because I already knew (or thought I did) what his reaction would be. He avoided me for two days, then reverted to a blank slate on the matter. Having learned from that, I was substantially more cautious on my third try. That one went very well, until I realized that he was humoring me, first out of amusement, and eventually out of compassion. He begged me to seek professional help. I backpedalled by informing him (honestly) that I had already tried that to no avail. When that final confession unhappened, I resigned.
Sandy
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