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It is a truth universally acknowledged that an asshole in possession of a great fortune must be in want of even more money. That’s how it goes, isn’t it? Phoebe isn’t sure. Regardless, something along those lines must be true, because while watching a re-run of Bill Nye (the best thing to come out of the nineties), a sudden ad break shows a terribly bright (that’s not even the colors of the lesbian flag, dammit!) three minute long plea for money in exchange for nothing less than…a three thousand dollar coffee machine. She’s racking her brain for a reason anyone would want a rainbow coffee machine for that amount of money when Melody floats into view.
“Huh. That’s…that’s legal?” She asks, brow knotted in confusion.
“What, the exploitation? Unfortunately, yes.”
“No,” she points to the image of two women, kissing over a cup of coffee while the Chappell Roan’s Coffee plays in the background. Not appropriate for the situation, but sure.
“That.” It takes Phoebe a second for it to click.
“Shit. Yeah, it’s been legal for years. 2003 was when it was legalized nationally and uh…Well, I can’t remember when gay marriage was an option, but sometime recently.” Silence in response.
“Mel, are you okay?”
Silence again. The ad ends, and Bill Nye’s image appears on screen, yapping about gravity. Melody inhales sharply, strange considering that she doesn’t need to, and her form blinks out of existence, crackling and fizzing like a light bulb dying. Phoebe’s eyes hit the ground and drift, while the perky scientist pulls a switch and a rush of water falls on him, soaking him completely.
It takes two days for Melody to come back, and in those two days, the amount of rainbow tie dyed stuff sold by some old white guy on TV makes Phoebe want to scream. It’s inescapable, and while she would prefer fake niceties to the complete silence of some years, she would like to kill the next billionaire who says slurs in private but in public gives dry speeches about accepting and celebrating our differences in lifestyle choices like some sort of con man. Oh, wait.
She appears when Phoebe is staring at the ceiling contemplating getting out of bed for Pride. There’s always next year, and besides, people are disgusting. She’s questioning whether it’s worth bumping into that many people, or the interaction, for the brief high that comes from queer joy, and-blue fizzles into her periphery. Melody’s tear stained face comes into view as she settles for looking down at her, mascara running.
“Mel?”
“I just went to the Pride festival. It’s so much happier now.” Her eyes glazed over.
“Mel…”
“It was 1979. I was staying with a roommate. Pride had just started, we had spent the day celebrating. She was a little drunk….She couldn’t defend us. She had promised me when I had to move out that she could handle homophobes, and when they attacked, I didn’t know what to do. I got hurt a couple months earlier, we couldn’t pay electricity because I had to go to the hospital. So I lit a match….when I heard the door crash down…we had been to a couple protests, people knew our names. We thought they might be coming. I dropped it. And I watched as the only person I cared about in the world, the person who had taken me in burned. Her name was Judy.”
They had never talked about how she had died.
“So yeah. I got attacked, I was scared. You know who went after us? The police. They wanted to question us because we weren’t very subtle about being gay, and we died. And you know what I just found out? It’s been legal in New York since 1980. If I had just made it a few more months, that wouldn’t have happened.”
Phoebe stood up. Melody had moved to sit on her bed while she was talking, and she put a hand on the translucent shoulder of her partner.
“I’m so sorry, Mel.” She hugged her.
“I’m so sorry.”
They sat like that for a while. And even though it wasn’t fixed, this would never be fixed, not fully, maybe she could help make it feel a little bit better. And maybe by then, the world would be healed enough to apologize for all it has done wrong.
“Happy pride, Pheebs.”
“Happy pride.”
This year wasn’t happy. But there was always next year. Next year will be better…for sure.
Nothing turns out like I pictured it
Maybe the emptiness is just a lesson in canvases
…
Maybe it’s all gonna turn out alright
And I know that it’s not but I have to believe that it is
Julien Baker,
Appointments
(Turn Out the Lights, 2017)