I didn't know- NaNoWriMo project 2015 - Chapter 5

Five

Fey was filled with energy after her afternoon with Lilian and decided to use her motivation to finally change her hair again. She'd already had her current style for more than two months, sticking far longer with the dark brown with a bright blue streak than she usually did. She hopped into a drugstore on her way home and decided for a dark orange fitting with her overall very autumny feeling.

At home she heard the familiar soundtrack of gaming coming from Markus's room. She unpacked all her supplies and went to work in their small bathroom. Washing, letting her hair dry, starting a new book (Hannah McDonald's epic love story “Kettle & Pot”) although she wasn't finished with the mermaid story, bleaching her light blue strand even lighter so it would take on the new color, washing again, applying the color, waiting and reading, washing for a final time. The process and its movements had become routine for Fey. She hadn't been to a hairdresser in years, dyeing and cutting her own hair since she'd quit college.

Her parents hadn't been happy with her decision to quit her business studies and after a particular bad row had cut her off financially. It was during her search for cheaper accommodations that she'd met Markus and gotten her lifesaving job. That era of her life had been shaped by the constant feeling of having to economize and the need to show her parents and herself that she could succeed on her own. Her style, always a bit too alternative for her mother's taste, had intensified and she had felt liberated and proud of her life, probably for the first time in her life.

Fey'd never felt proud of the things she had been handed by her family. Her father, coming from a family with a long history that he reminded her of constantly, was chief physicians in a private clinic on the edge of town, her mother head of sales for half of Europe in a large pharmaceutical company. They had both wanted her to go to college and study, like her brother had, to have a good career and start a family as well. It had been a heavy disappointment to her parents when they realized that the perfect life they had pictured for her had always been far from Fey's mind.

It was only through the patient and tedious conciliation of her brother Alex that they had started talking to each other again. He was their parents poster child, stepping in their father's shoes as a doctor, finishing college in no time at all, all while managing to meet the beautiful interior designer Sarah (although admittedly Fey had had a hand in that) and getting married. He also had a greatly coveted job with excellent career perspective.

To top it off he really cared for Fey, checking in on her often to make sure she wasn't living on the streets or starving when their parents had turned away from her. She loved him and was grateful to him every day, even for reconciling her with her parents. They still didn't have a “calling twice a week and having Sunday dinner together” kind of relationship and Fey didn't receive any financial aid, which she wouldn't want anyway, but they saw each other for the holidays and an occasional family dinner, usually initiated by Alex.

Fey rubbed her hair dry and removed the towel to appraise her new hair color in the mirror. Her whole hair had a reddish hue and the formerly cyan part of her hair was now a vivid orange. She was quite pleased with her handiwork and decided to go out to celebrate. She reheated some of the leftover curry and then started to get ready. Markus appeared in the kitchen to get something to eat as well.

“The color suits you, pumpkin.” She didn't remember how the nickname had started, but she didn't mind.

“Thanks. It was time to change and it fits with the season. I'm going out later, wanna come with?”

“No thanks, I'll just kill some goblins and safe the world. You know, the usual.”

She almost always asked him to join her, though he rarely went along. When they had only lived together for a few months she repeatedly nagged him until he agreed to go with her just to get her off his back. She'd hoped to set him up or at least get him to go out more often, but she soon had to admit that he was apparently not interested in a relationship or even a hook up and mostly left him alone after that. She did ask him just out of courtesy when she went out, but took no for an answer easily. Markus regularly met up with a few friends to hang out and play video games and Fey wasn't really worried that he would lose touch with the outside world. Their interests just didn't overlap too much apart from a weekly bad movie night and that was okay.

“Just asking, you know. Have fun and kill a few goblins for me as well!”

She went to the bathroom to get ready. She put up her hair in a way that showed off the colored strand effectually, accentuated her eyes with dark eyeliner and put on her favorite dark red lipstick. Standing in front of her wardrobe she considered her options and went for another fifties style dress in black with a low neckline and ending just above her knees. She chose almost see through dark tights and black high heels to go with it and her beloved denim jacket.

“Bye Markus, don't wait up.”

“As if I ever do. Take care, pumpkin.”

Fey grabbed her purse and click-clacked down the stairs, on her way out greeting her downstairs neighbors, a single mother with two boys in kindergarten. She sometimes looked after the children in the evening, although she wasn't very good with kids in general and relied on Markus to help her keeping them busy. But she admired the young mother who was only a year older than herself and remembered the time she had gladly accepted the help from friends far more willingly than from family so she tried to help where she could.

Before she reached the front door a thought occurred to her and she doubled back.

“Hey Tina, do you maybe know anybody who's single?” Tina worked as a waitress in a vegan restaurant down the street.

“Who are you asking for? Are you settling down?” She opened her door and let her sons in.

“Ha, don't make me laugh. No, I'm asking for a friend. She's really shy and has trouble speaking with people so I'm helping her out.”

“Hm, let me think... Guy or girl?”

“She's a girl, didn't I say?” Fey was confused.

“No, silly, I mean is she looking for a guy or a girl?”

Fey was taken aback. “I... I actually don't know. I just assumed...”

“Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? Everybody just always assumes everybody to be straight, don't they? Just ask her the next time you see her. And for the future: try not to assume anything, it doesn't feel nice to be thought of as something you're not.” Her voice had a slight edge to it.

When Fey looked up at her she saw a bitter touch in her smile.

“Are you...?” She didn't know how to even ask that question.

“Just because I have children doesn't mean I'm straight, Fey.”, she answered with arched eyebrows like it was obvious.

“I'm sorry, Tina, I didn't know.”

“And it never came up.” She huffed out an exhausted breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, I had a long day. Don't worry about it too much. You're not the first and you won't be the last. Now you know. But seriously, for someone reading so much you are a bit oblivious sometimes.” There was a bang coming from the apartment behind Tina, making her turn around worriedly. “I have to go now before the little ones tear apart the kitchen looking for candy. You look nice, by the way, the hair suits you. Have fun tonight!” She finally went into her apartment, leaving a stunned and unsettled Fey standing on the landing.

'Who else have I misjudged?' she asked herself as she made her way slowly down the stairs to the front door.

She had just assumed Lilian to be straight, like everybody she met. And so far there never had been a reason to think differently. It didn't come up in casual conversation and if it had nobody had ever corrected her. She wondered how many people she'd put in the wrong box just because it was the biggest box and there hadn't been any evidence to the contrary.

Fey walked pensively to the subway station. While she waited she studied the movie posters hanging along the platform. One showed a ruggedly handsome white man in his thirties with his arm around a typically beautiful woman looking admiringly up at him. Of course they would get together in the course of the movie, that was expected. Now that Tina had made it painfully obvious to Fey how non-inclusive she'd been in her thinking she couldn't help but notice how heteronormative everything around her was.

Movies, ads, TV series, even her beloved books. With horror she realized she hadn't read a book with a love interest that wasn't of the opposite sex. And if she, someone who read so much and from all genres and age groups, hadn't come across a book like that then the chance the majority of their customers hadn't either was very high. 'There must be books like that.', she thought to herself, not wanting to admit that books had let her down.

Lost in thoughts she made her way to her favorite club The Jukebox. The small club was mixing up old classics with new pop songs, allowing the patrons to choose the music for half of the time via an old jukebox giving the club its name. There was a small dance floor that was usually well filled. She greeted the barkeeper Victor as she walked in, scanning the medium sized room for familiar faces. She soon made out a couple of people she knew, but didn't feel like dancing yet so she turned to Victor to order a ginger ale.

“Nice hair!” he shouted to her over the Elvis song that was just blasting out of the speakers as he handed her the drink.

“Thanks! It was long overdue!” She handed him a bill and watched him turn to get her change and wondered if she had put him in the wrong box as well.

He handed her her change and attended to the next guests. Fey leaned against the bar and took a sip. A guy she recognized from the last time she'd been here gestured for her to join him on the dance floor. She waved at him and pushed herself from the counter. It wouldn't do to brood over her newly found perspective on life for the evening and all the boxed there were. She'd gone out to celebrate her awesome new hair color and celebrate she would. There would be enough time for brooding.

With an accentuated sway of her hips she joined the dancing crowd.