Odd Girls Out

The scene was something out of a seedy film noir. I was late to meet a friend of a friend—a woman I did not know—and found her seated on a velvet banquette inside the wood-paneled bar. A mass of curls twisted down her back as she leaned over the table, swirling something amber in a glass and looking me up and down with a sharp, inquisitive appraisal. She was undeniably glamorous. I could practically hear the saxophone playing. Perhaps an hour in, as she placed an empty glass down beside two others, her expression turned conspiratorial. “If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t judge me?” A tipsy giggle. “I love men, like, so much,” she said. “It’s embarrassing to tell a real lesbian that. I feel like a bad feminist.”  The sax music collapsed into a flatulent jumble.