Originally mailed on May 5, 1996

Had a perfect morning today. Nona went to early worship services and left me sleeping, but I got up as soon as I realized she was gone. I love being alone in her house; I don't snoop in drawers or anything like that, but I feel like I get to know her better just by walking through all the rooms, studying the faces in the photographs on her walls, looking through her books, touching all the knick-knacks and the throw pillows on her couch. She's lived alone, or just with her daughter, since her mother died 16 years ago, so she's never had to compromise with a lover about how to arrange things or what colors to paint the walls, and being in her house is like being inside her. All the colors are bright, and nothing quite goes together because she picks everything out piece by piece: furniture, art work, even her dishes. I thought at first she'd started with a set, but that pieces had gotten broken over time so she didn't have complete table settings anymore, but then I realized that there were no two pieces the same. She buys dishes whenever she sees something she likes, at garage sales or thrift stores or even at Hudson's if things are on sale, and she doesn't care if things go with each other. So she's got a big red earthenware mug, a blue-flowered cup and saucer, a plate with a geometric design in black and purple, a ceramic soup bowl shaped like a turtle -- it can be silly, modern, formal, whatever. If she likes it, she brings it home. Her whole house is like that, a jumble of things she's collected over the years. I like exploring it.

This morning while she was at church I poked around a little, then baked some cinnamon rolls and brewed coffee. She came through the door in her church clothes -- this week, a very tailored bright yellow suit and a red hat with yellow rickrack -- and I said, "As soon as you've changed, we can have rolls and coffee." She said, "Oh, no, that smells so good I want some right now," and so we sat on her porch steps, her still all dolled up, me in sweats and a dirty T-shirt and my bare feet, and ate right from the pan. I poured us two cups of coffee, and she said, "Better bring the pot." Some of her neighbors were out doing yard work or enjoying the nice weather, and she'd say, "Mrs. Allen, come have a bite of this cinnamon roll. My girlfriend Harriet made it just this morning. It's not from a tube; she has a recipe, can you imagine?"

She said to me, "It's part of my anti-homophobia campaign. This week it's cinnamon rolls, next week it might be cookies or those good crepes you made me that time, or an omelet. Pretty soon instead of saying, 'I just can't approve of that Nona's lifestyle,' they'll be saying, "I can't approve of that Nona's lifestyle, but that white girl she's dating sure can cook.' That's progress. People approve of good food. Which reminds me, I want you to fix something for the potluck at my church next week."

I said, "I'm making a quiche next Sunday for Grandma's church potluck. Guess I can make two."

Nona changed into grungy around-the-house clothes, and we spent a good part of the day taking down her storm windows and putting in her screens, raking leaves out of her flower beds, and mowing her lawn for the first time this season. You might not think that seems like a lot of fun, but it feels better to me than going out, even. When you're going out with someone, you get all dressed up and do things you hardly ever do, like go to a full-price movie in the evening (and buy popcorn there instead of smuggling food in your coat pockets). Going out with someone is a special occasion. But when you sleep at her house and she leaves you there alone, when you cook for her, when you rake leaves together and climb a ladder to take out her storm windows, that means you're a part of her life. I've only been seeing Nona for two months but I already know I don't want to be some special occasion for her. I want to be a habit. I want to be her serviceable car or her favorite utility knife, a piece of her every day that she hardly notices it's so common, but that she would hate like the dickens to lose.

I remember a woman I dated once, who made every date a romantic fantasy come true. It was never just dinner and a movie for her, oh no. It was a hot tub with champagne to drink and expensive chocolate to nibble, flowers floating on the water, a huge heated towel to wrap up in after. Or a picnic on the classic red-checked cloth, real silverware, a sweet white wine cooling in an ice bucket, a crusty baguette peeking out of a wicker basket, expensive cheeses and exotic fruit. I liked this woman, but being wooed that way felt artificial, formulaic. I suspected every woman she went out with got the same picnic, the same hot tub. I felt my seduction was being carefully planned and executed. I had to wonder if her technique in bed was as contrived. Needless to say, I never bothered to find out.

Nona's too down to earth to spend evenings lounging in a hot tub or picnicking on the greensward. I won her over by finding small places for myself in her daily life. "Sorry, I can't see you tonight, Harriet," she would say. "I've got to grab a quick dinner and get to Bible study, and I'm going to be late." "Don't worry about dinner," I'd say. "I'll bring something by the church," and I'd throw some cold fried chicken, a few carrot sticks, a couple of leftover dinner rolls, and a cold Coke into a paper bag, and hand it out the car window to her in the church parking lot. "Thanks, honey," she'd say. "Why don't you come by for a cup of tea around 10?"

"No, Harriet, I can't have dinner on Sunday, because my daughter and her husband are bringing the baby by." "Well," I'd say, "why don't I just come over and help fix dinner? I can keep you company while you cook, and I'll head home when they get there so you can have some time alone with them." Or, "I'll bring a book to read while you work on your taxes, and if you want I can double-check your math when you're done."

What made it work was that I was completely sincere. I do just want to be with her, and I'm happy if that's for an hour in the kitchen, or ten minutes over tea, or reading a book in her living room while she finishes her taxes. Or even 30 seconds out the car window as she's heading off to Bible study.

Last week she said to me, "Harriet, every time I turn around, there you are. You're reading in my living room, you're cooking in my kitchen, you're still sleeping in my bed when I get home from church."

I said, "I'm sorry if I'm a nuisance, Nona. I like being in your house."

She said, "Oh, you like my house?"

I said, "Don't tease me. You know I like you."

She said, "Oh, you like me."

I said, "Please don't tease me, Nona. You know I'm serious about you. I've tried not to push, but if I'm crowding you I can back off some."

She said, "Harriet, be a little more secure and optimistic, OK? I was just going to tell you that I'm getting used to it. I like having you around every day."

I said, "Nona, I like it, too, but it's more than that for me. I'm in love with you. And there's something I've been wanting to know for a long time: Do you think being used to having me around might turn into being in love at some point?"

Nona said, "Harriet, I've been in love with you since March. It's easier to be in love with someone than it is to be sure you want to have them around all the time. Believe me, 'I like having you around all the time' is better than, 'I'm in love.' Haven't you ever been in love with someone it made you miserable to be with? It makes me happy to be with you."

I said, "Could you repeat that? I didn't hear anything after, 'I've been in love with you since March.' No, on second thought, just repeat that first part again."

She laughed. "Harriet, I do love you." That was April 29. I marked it in my calendar.

Now I'm just waiting for her to suggest that it's silly for me to carry clean underwear back and forth (well, clean underwear forth and dirty underwear back) and that I should just move in. It's too soon for that, isn't it? I know it is, but I feel so eager for it. I wouldn't change a thing about her house. I'd just sit on her couch with Fang and Speedball and think to myself, "I belong here."

I went bowling with Splash and her new sweetie the other night. Boy, talk about things changing fast. Last fall I met this dyke at a party, Romney. She played the violin. I thought she was pretty cool. Well, she's not a dyke anymore. She's Romney, the female-to-male transsexual, and he's dating Splash. I said to Splash, "What makes him an FTM when he still looks exactly like Romney, the violin-playing dyke, still wears Romney's clothes, is still named Romney? I'm confused. And what are you now? It's like you're dating a dyke, so that seems OK, but at the same time it's like you're dating a guy, and that...well, that seems OK, too, After all, Louella's bi. Are you bi? I'm just wondering."

Splash said, "Romney will change more as the hormones get to work. Right now it's more of an internal change, or maybe it's an external change, expressing an internal truth which has either been constant throughout his life or possibly has changed recently."

I said, "You're not much help. Did Romney always feel like a guy?"

Splash said, "Yes and no. He never felt much like a woman but thought that was from being a butch dyke. And you remember how after you came out, you looked back and realized there were lots of hints you didn't pick up on at the time, but only with hindsight? It's like that for Romney about boy stuff."

I said, "I was always out, but I know what you're talking about. But what does this make you? Are you still a lesbian?"

Splash said, "I'm still queer, I know that much."

I said, "But if he's a guy and you're a girl..."

Splash said, "But he's a different kind of guy and I'm a different kind of girl, and besides, there's something deliciously queer about the very fact that he's a man and I'm a lesbian. And even queerer that he's a man who still has breasts and doesn't have a penis. Don't you ever get off just on the queerness of something? I do -- I like the friction of going a little off the smooth-worn rut. Besides, Romney is really cool and I like him. I always liked her."

I said, "I think you should just be who you are and not worry about whether it crosses the mainstream or not, especially when the very queer thing you're doing is going to look not-queer to the masses. I mean, a guy and a girl together is a guy and a girl together to most folks."

Splash said, "But not to us, and don't pretend you don't know there's a difference. Look at you and Nona."

I said, "What do you mean, look at me and Nona?

Splash said, "You're totally butch-femme."

I said, "We are not! Where do you get that idea?"

Splash said, "From that new suit from the menswear department at JC Penney you wore to dinner the other night, Nona on your arm in a low-cut dress and heels. You think I didn't notice you pull out her chair for her? I'm surprised you didn't ask the maitre d' to bring her a menu with no prices on it."

I said, "Hmph."

Splash said, "And it's totally about the way you have sex with her, too."

I said, "What do you know about the way we have sex?"

Splash said, "I know everything about the way you have sex, Harriet Mageehan. I've read The Persistent Desire. And I've had sex with you. There's this stone-butch side to you I bet Nona totally responds to. I can just imagine you, taking off her shoes and stockings, running your hands up under her skirt, undoing her buttons one at a time, stroking her all over with oil, making her come, and when she cuddles up to you after your jeans aren't even unbuttoned. Unless you had to undo them to get your dildo out. And you're holding her and thinking you don't even care about coming yourself because you're totally satisfied by having pleased her. 'I love to take care of my Nona,' you say to yourself."

I said, "Splash, you make it sound so tawdry and one-sided."

Splash said, "No, I know better than that. I'm just trying to point out to you that, to the 'masses,' a butch in a suit packing a dildo with a femme in a red skirt and two-inch heels is somehow trying to be the same as a bio-boy in the same suit and a bio-babe in the same dress, and you know it's not, so you also know Romney and I are not some straight couple."

I said, "Bio-boy? Splash, you are way ahead of me. I just don't know about all this."

Splash said, "But I know you'll catch up, Harriet, because you've got a good and loving heart."

Well, however much Romney's relationship with Splash confuses me, he did give me some tips that improved my bowling by 10 pins a game. Nona laughed when I told her that; she said, "See, I'm using the cooking gambit on my neighbors, and he's using the bowling gambit on you. How can you think ill of anyone who's got you picking up four out of five spares?"

I said, "Aren't you just the least bit uncomfortable with this?"

"Romney's got to find his own way in the world," Nona said. "The answers I've gotten to prayers on this subject tell me I've got to let him, and help him if I can. Where's the harm in it?"

I said, "Hmph." I feel like everyone around me is speeding into the 90s and I just want to hang out in the late 70s, sitting around in woman-only space in my flannel shirt listening to Alix Dobkin. But Splash is right about me and Nona; I'm not the same as I was.

Louella's new house, Nona's house, and Grandma's house are all within a half-mile of each other. Sometimes in the evening Nona and I take a walk after dinner and go by Grandma's, visit a little, pick up Flopsy and take her by Louella's to play with the puppy, visit a little there. We leave Nona's after dinner, while it's still light out. Nona holds my hand; now that it's spring and windows are open we can hear people talking in their houses or out on their porches; dogs bark at us or come running out to say hello.

At Louella's we help with the boys; we give them their baths or help them choose their pajamas or act out the parts in their bedtime stories. At Grandma's, we tell her everything Flopsy did on her walk, what dogs she said hello to, whether she pooped, which of the neighborhood kids walked with us for a block holding Flopsy's leash. Grandma and Flopsy head up to bed, and we turn off the lights and lock the door behind us. As we walk home to Nona's, we notice trees budding that weren't budding last week, flowers beginning to bloom, a freshly-painted fence or newly-hung porch swing or brand-new Bathtub Mary in someone's front yard. At Nona's, I lead her up to bed through the dark house, and she's quiet as I make love to her, mindful of the open windows. She breathes in my ear, wiggles under my hands, opens wide for me, bites my shoulder and comes almost silently, my hand inside her. It's springtime, and I'm counting my blessings.

Love,

© Copyright 1994-1999 Su Penn. Design by David Dierauer.

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