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Natalie made some choices, at some point, that must have led her here. Here, stuck in a coat room with Jackie Taylor.
Technically, it’s not actually a coat closet but a small bedroom that, for the purpose of this overcrowded house party, seems to be functioning as a coat closet. The coats make a pile on the bed closest to the door, and the rest of the room is furnished with typical college student furnishings from IKEA. Nat didn’t bring her coat, but she found herself in the coat room anyway, because Jackie apparently needed company just to put her coat down. Jackie never spends as much time with Nat as she does when she and Shauna are in a fight. Not that Nat’s complaining, exactly.
She's complaining. When Jackie and Shauna aren’t on good terms, they make it everybody’s problem.
“I mean, can you believe she would say that?” Jackie is saying, clutching her cream coat to her chest. In her other hand, her spiked lemonade sloshes in its cup. “It’s like, the third time this week she’s lied to me. Yesterday, she said she’s not afraid of heights anymore. That is such bull.”
“Yeah, that’s super messed up," Nat says. She reaches for Jackie’s coat to set it down for her, but Jackie tightens her grip on it.
“You’re not even listening,” Jackie accuses, and Nat rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, I was. You were talking about Shauna.” This is admittedly what Nat would guess if she hadn't been listening; Jackie is pretty much always talking about Shauna, even when she talks about things that have nothing to do with her, like Pantone colors or how pretty Winona Ryder is.
Jackie opens her mouth indignantly, but Nat beats her to it. “Look, I didn’t plan to spend this party hanging out in some sad room with everybody’s coats. Why don’t you go find Shauna and make up already?”
This is clearly not the right thing to say, since Jackie pointedly does not put her coat down. “We would already have made up if she would just apologize.”
“You’re mad because she went to the movies, Jackie, what would she even apologize for?”
“That’s not what happened,” Jackie snaps. “She told me she was too busy to go shopping on Thursday because she had to write a paper, but then what does she do on Thursday? She goes to the movies with that—that freshman,” she finishes, like it’s a dirty word.
“Melissa?”
Jackie’s eyes narrow. “Yes. They saw The Wedding Singer. The Wedding Singer! Can you believe that?"
"Crazy."
Jackie finally sets her coat down, then sits on a bean bag nearby. "Anyway, that's why I asked if you'd go to the mall with me that day. But somehow everyone's a busy bee all of a sudden."
"I was working."
"You've worked, like, every day this week. Can't they run that place without you? You work too much, Nat."
Nat snorts. “Thanks, I didn’t realize.” She picks up a lot of shifts at the movie theater where she works lately. She has her scholarship to help with tuition, but she likes to have money left over after rent, so she can afford luxuries, like decent food and the occasional joint.
“Well," Jackie continues, "I want to go see Titanic again some night next week, so you should come with me then. Just ask to leave early or something.”
"I get paid by the hour, Jackie, do you know how that works?" Nat really needs to grow a pair and tell Jackie this has been enough heart-to-heart. They need to leave this room and go out to the party. This has gone on long enough.
Nat doesn't say that. Instead, she sits down on the rug across from Jackie. She takes a sip of her beer.
Jackie sighs. “This isn’t what I thought college would be like at all.” She looks forlornly at the bass guitar propped against the desk in the corner, probably thinking about how much Shauna loves Weezer, or something else Shauna-related. “I guess I thought it would be more like high school.”
“Thank god it’s not," Nat grumbles. She wouldn’t go through high school again if somebody paid her.
Jackie’s expression twists with a sort of embarrassed nostalgia. “Yeah.” She looks into her cup and tentatively takes a sip. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“It can’t just be me doing all the talking.” Nat opens her mouth to ask if she’s sure about that, but Jackie adds, “Tell me something that’s bothering you. I can give good advice.” She looks hopeful, like hearing about Nat’s problems will make her feel better. Misery loves company and whatever.
Nat shrugs. “Nothing’s bothering me.” This isn’t totally true, but she’s good at compartmentalizing, or postponing the inevitable, or whatever.
“Right,” Jackie says skeptically. God, things are dire if she doesn’t even believe Nat. She’s not exactly known for her powers of deduction.
Nat keeps her expression neutral. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’m not disappointed.” Jackie’s cheeks are warm, rosy with blush. She always applies her makeup cross-legged on the floor in front of the framed mirror in her and Shauna’s room. Once, she asked if she could do Nat’s makeup, give her a new look, talking about just to see and you have such nice bone structure, whatever that means. Nat had told her respectfully to fuck off, that this wasn’t the end of the fucking Breakfast Club or something.
A guy walks into the coat room to toss a couple of windbreakers onto the pile. He barely glances at Nat and Jackie, but his mouth moves around the joint in his mouth as he says, “Just so you know, s’ fine if you hang out in here, but no hookups.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Nat says, without considering it’s strange he would say that. Sure, her clothes and her current sitting position probably make it pretty easy to clock her as not-straight, but who could look at Jackie and think she’s likely to engage in a girl-on-girl hookup in the coat room? Well, unless Shauna were here.
“That’s gross,” Jackie says. Her forehead creases with annoyance as she looks at the guy’s threadbare Bon Jovi t-shirt. “Will you leave us alone? We’re having a conversation.”
The dude exhales a malformed smoke ring and shrugs as if to say, Whatever, and leaves.
Nat wishes she would’ve thought to ask for a puff of his joint. Her beer tastes like it was brewed in an old shoe.
Jackie’s expression shifts disconcertingly, open with attention, like she’s looking at Nat for the first time. “He thought we were going to…”
“Scissor passionately on top of the coats, apparently,” Nat finishes.
“Scissor?” Jackie says, like this is ridiculous to her, but her cheeks flush an even deeper pink.
Nat smirks, enjoying this probably a little too much. “You know what scissoring is, Jackie, c’mon.” She sets her beer between her legs so she can make scissors with both hands and fit them together to demonstrate, like she’s all of twelve years old.
Jackie, however, looks morbidly interested. “Is that something you do a lot?”
“Nah. I mean, some girls do it, but other stuff works better, so it’s not really a go-to.”
“Oh. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Natalie expects Jackie to ask something every “straight” girl loves to ask, like How did you know you liked girls? Or maybe What exactly do lesbians, you know, do together? Or maybe Jackie wants to try weed and will ask Nat if she can borrow some.
It doesn’t turn out to be any of those things. Instead, Jackie Taylor takes a deep breath and opens her mouth and says in perfect English, “Will you sleep with me?”
Nat blinks as if she hasn’t said anything, or like she sneezed or something. She blinks again.
Jackie’s eyebrows knit together, and she leans forward. “Well? Say something!”
“I’m—” Nat shakes her head. “Thinking.” She’s not sure she’s actually capable of thought, just confusion and a distant sensation of terror. Terror that Shauna Shipman will probably hunt her for sport no matter how she responds to this situation.
Jackie chews her lip. “How much longer do you need to think about it? Jeez, at least give me some idea—”
“What the fuck, Jackie? I mean, what the fuck?”
“Don’t you hook up with girls all the time?”
“Seriously? I’m not some kind of…” Nat shakes her head again. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I can’t just sleep with you.”
“Why not?” Jackie asks, offended, as if Nat said she doesn’t like her outfit or something.
Nat tilts her head. “Oh, I don’t know, how about we start with, Shauna would fucking kill me?”
“Shauna doesn’t need to know.”
“What happens if she finds out? Have you seen the way she handles a knife?”
“You’re being dramatic.” Jackie flattens her palms in front of her and leans forward. “Besides, if the only reason you don’t sleep with me is because you think Shauna wouldn’t like it, then you’re like, totally undermining my independence and my right to make decisions about my body. And as a woman, I just don’t see how you can stand for that—”
“Okay, okay, give it a rest. You know, sleeping with me to get some weird, psychosexual revenge on Shauna is taking it a little far, even for you guys.”
Jackie’s expression dances through several shades of irritation. “I didn’t ask because of Shauna.”
“So then why?”
“Because.” Jackie stops, like the words take a moment to form on her tongue. “I need to know if I’m attracted to women. Why else?”
When there’s no punchline, Nat leans back on her hands. “Uh, what are you talking about?”
“It’s perfect,” Jackie says brightly, since she’s apparently the most clueless person who’s ever lived. “You like girls, and I need to figure out if I like girls, too.”
Nat stares at her for several seconds before an astonished laugh tumbles out of her. “Jackie, be fucking serious.”
“I am being serious.”
“Oh my god. I walked in on you and Shauna necking in the bathroom, like two months ago.”
“What! We were not—Shauna had a wardrobe malfunction, and I—” Nat squints at her, and Jackie’s voice gets shrill, “—I was helping her.”
“You were helping her, got it—Wow, okay, that really clears things up. I’m still not getting involved. There’s no way.”
“Nat. Please. Everything I do is…There’s no way for me to figure this out unless…”
Nat sighs. “What’s actually going on?”
Jackie swallows, and her eyes get watery. “Nothing. It’s just. I would ask Shauna, but....”
Oh, Jesus. All roads lead back to Rome. And Nat knows better than to get involved in whatever Jackie and Shauna have going on. Everyone in the tri-state area probably knows better. There’s absolutely no way, not a snowball’s chance in hell, that any balanced person with any sense of self-preservation would ever—
“Please?” Jackie clutches her gold necklace in her fist and looks at Nat with wide eyes, and it’s so fucked up, and Nat closes her eyes and orders herself, Don’t say yes don’t say yes don’t say yes. And then—
And then she opens her eyes and caves, like a dumbass. “Okay.”
Jackie’s face lights up. “Really?”
“We’re not going to have sex. That’s a terrible idea. But we can kiss.”
Jackie’s mouth puckers, and she thinks for a second, which kind of makes Nat want to laugh. “Okay. Are we doing it now?”
“What, is there some other time you want to block on your calendar?”
Jackie seems to consider this, but then she shakes her head and sits up. “No, we should do it now while we’re alone.” She stands and brushes nonexistent dust off the skirt of her blue floral dress.
“Where are you going?” Nat gets to her feet, too.
“Do you think they have mouthwash somewhere around here?” Jackie asks, glancing at the door. “I ate a chip with ranch dip when we got here, so my breath might smell a little funny.”
Nat takes a sip of beer and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’ll live.” Jackie’s dress is velvety soft as Nat tugs her close and looks at the dewy lipgloss on her lips. She tries to imagine Jackie isn’t Jackie, team captain Jackie, homecoming queen Jackie, Jackie who passed out handmade cardstock valentines in elementary school, so it’s weird.
It’s weird until Jackie tilts her chin up and kisses her, and then it’s something else. Her hands clutch Nat’s shoulders too tightly, and Nat tries to soften her mouth, and Jackie’s hands relax in response, and her nose bumps into Nat’s just a little.
Nat breaks away far enough that she can look at her. “So, did that do it for you, Taylor?” Her voice sounds deeper than usual.
Jackie’s fingers tighten on Nat’s shoulders again. Her lips glisten damply. “How am I supposed to tell after five seconds?”
Nat kisses her again impatiently, her mouth more open this time. Jackie’s kisses back insistently, copying Nat’s rhythm. It’s not half-bad, and Nat’s about to try adding some tongue when the door swings open and someone walks in with a halting, “Oh my god," and leaves immediately, shutting the door again.
Jackie flinches and presses Nat back with a hand on her chest. "Who was that?"
Nat wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "I don't know, a girl. I didn't recognize her."
"Did she recognize me?" Jackie's voice is urgent, but her expression still looks half-blissed from making out. Her lips are wet, and her bangs are tousled. She still has one hand on Nat's boob, seemingly subconsciously.
"How should I know? Your hand is on my boob, you know."
Jackie snatches her hand back. "Sorry."
"It's cool. You can touch them if you want."
Jackie raises her eyebrows. "What happened to 'that's a terrible idea'?"
“Yeah, I still think it's kind of a terrible idea."
"Oh, wow, okay. So you just want it that bad or something? I'm not in the habit of—"
"Jackie."
"What?"
"Will you stop talking for a second?"