‘Yes, unconditionally.’ I slapped her thigh hard to drive the point home, a smile flickering on my lips when she winced. ‘There’s nothing you could say or do to change that. Unless you’re about to tell me you’re packing in your job to sell essential oils online.’
‘God no, I’m not a monster,’ Suzanne replied. ‘I’m gay.’
There we were, perched at the heart of Disneyland on a Thursday afternoon, me and my thirty-seven-year-old sister, who just decided this was the perfect place to come out.
And honestly, why not?
‘Oh,’ I said, popping the last inch of churro into my mouth. ‘OK.’
I chewed in silence, eyes wide, taking my time with every chomp while Suzanne stared at me in disbelief.
‘OK?’ she repeated. ‘I just told you I’m gay and all you have to say is OK?’
Wiping my sugary hands off on my jeans, I juggled all the words running around inside my mind, trying to decide on the best ones to make this right.
‘Brilliant time for you to decide you don’t have asnappy comeback,’ she muttered. ‘Thanks, Phoebe, thanks a lot.’
‘I’m thinking!’ I replied, reaching out to grab her wrist when she started to stand. ‘Sit back down immediately. I’m trying to think of the best thing to say, not whether or not I think it’s OK. It’s more than OK, it’s brilliant! Or it’s neither good or bad? I don’t know exactly what to say, but I do know I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I’m happy you told me and I’m completely on board and I love you. Is that good?’
‘Oh,’ she said, welling up. ‘OK then.’
Suzanne Chapman, in tears, twice in one day. It had to be a record.
‘I’mthrilled,’ I said, doubling down on my enthusiasm as I worked through my reactions. ‘A bit surprised, didn’t see it coming, and just a heads up, I’m probably going to ask some really insensitive questions.’
‘What’s new there?’ she replied, slapping her hands on her thighs. ‘While we’re getting everything out into the open, let’s go, what do you want to know?’
‘It’s really all right to ask? You can totally tell me to piss off.’
I wanted to make absolutely sure. This was much more important than the time she told me I could borrow her Juicy Couture tracksuit top but went absolutely spare when I wore it to Alton Towers and brought it back covered in chocolate milkshake.
She turned her whole body towards me and crossed her legs up onto the bench. ‘Go for it.’
‘How long have you known?’
‘Always? When I say gay, what I mean is not straight.’ Her shoulders inched down from up around her ears.‘I’m not really sure which label to put on it. Right now, I’m mostly interested in women, but that’s not to say I couldn’t ever fall for a man. I did love Victor. We didn’t break up because I was living a big gay lie; we broke up because he wanted to buy a second-hand Ford Mondeo and a semi-detached bungalow around the corner from his mum while I wanted, well, this.’
She waved her hand around the Magic Kingdom. Poor Victor, I thought. He wanted to settle down and knock out a bunch of kids but my sister was dreaming of tripping the light fantastic with an anthropomorphized mouse. Their love was not meant to be.
‘I always knew it wasn’t just men for me but I never said anything. You remember how it was when we were kids; we hardly grew up in the most tolerant, enlightened time in history.’
‘Not wrong there,’ I said, widening my eyes with agreement. Everyone said kids could be cruel but what they really meant were kids can be savage little monsters without a shred of empathy, who haven’t realized you absolutely cannot use the most sensitive, difficult things a human is dealing with against them for a laugh. Kids weren’t just cruel, they were sociopathic.
‘The older I got, the clearer it became, but at the same time, it was more difficult for me to tell anyone,’ Suzanne explained. ‘Everyone thinks it’s so easy to come out now, a cute TikTok or an Instagram post with a green velvet couch, but it doesn’t work that way when you’re my age. Coming out to the whole world when you’re in your thirties is not appealing, Pheebs, you’re supposed to be set by then. Everyone’s made up their mind about you, everyone knows who you are. And I’ve read everythingthere is to read and it’s not a one off thing, you don’t say ‘guess what, I’m queer’ and they give you a certificate. You have to do it again and again and again, every single day. I couldn’t face it, so I didn’t do it. But I’m ready now.’
A marching band swelled behind us and kids screamed and parents yelled and I was feeling so many feelings, altogether too full of sugar and caffeine to process them in any meaningful way. All I wanted to do was bundle her up in a massive hug and cry hysterically because I was so bloody proud of her and loved her so much but she’d only come out, not turned into a completely different human. If I even made a move in that direction, she’d likely slap my legs right out from under me.
‘Are you out at all?’ I asked instead. ‘Does anyone know? Like, here in LA?’
‘I’m not not-out,’ she replied. ‘But I also haven’t made a point to discuss it with anyone. I don’t really talk about my personal life as you might have noticed.’
I had. I had noticed.
‘So you’re not seeing anyone?’
She shook her head and switched from fidgeting with her earring to flicking the little wooden stick from her ice cream. ‘The being too busy to date thing wasn’t a cover-up. I’ve heard relationships where two women are involved move much faster than straight ones, and I haven’t got the time to move someone in after three dates.’
‘At least you’ve got plenty of room.’ I pinched her cheek and she swatted me away. ‘If I wasn’t your sister, I’d go out with you just for the pool and the hot tub.You’re really hot and mostly nice and very rich. They’re going to be banging your door down.’
