This Grateful Face
By Jesaka Long
The table sags in the middle where the dry oak wears a tiny crack. It’s my favorite of the found Formica, cracked vinyl, and rickety seating options framing the performance area. An old barber chair nuzzles against a shelf of used books. The routine of claiming our spot tends to calm me. Not tonight.
I want to sag, too.
Instead, I reply to my mom’s text with a quick “got it, keep you posted” and shove my phone back into the pocket of my skirt.
“Do you know what time they close here?” I ask Kennedy. The Nerve, a combination café-used bookshop-performance space-comic store, seems like it’s always full of people, but they must shut off the lights at some point. Even on its popular open mic Friday nights.
She glances up from the stack of sugar packets she’s emptying into her latte. “Random Q there, Nomi. Pretty late would be my guess.”
“Yeah, but how late?” I stare into Kennedy’s drink like it’ll offer up an answer.
“You sure you don’t want one?” Kennedy asks, tucking a long strand of her near-white blonde hair behind her ear.
“One what?”
“The latte you’re fixated on.”
That. Kennedy must be sick of bankrolling our hangouts, but she keeps offering. Given my mom’s text, my earlier refusal of coffee was an unfortunate, uninformed choice. “Actually… yeah. I mean, yes, I would like one.”
“Happy to do it,” she says and pulls out a platinum AmEx card from her wallet. “Can I get you anything else?”
I shake my head even though my dinner will be the stale granola bar in the bottom of my backpack. Kennedy turns to go and I grab her hand. “Ask how late they’re open.”
She gives me a “Nomi’s being weird look,” one I know well, but Kennedy doesn’t linger.
The Nerve isn’t too busy yet; it’s early in the evening. We’re breaking community policies by saving several seats at our table. None of the employees have said anything to us, so maybe not everything is “as usual.” At least tonight. I could try tucking myself away in one of the bathrooms, breaking a huge rule, but it’d offer privacy. Although…that’s one place I know the staff monitors at closing, probably for the exact reason I’m considering it now.
I could bail on everything and start my two-hour trek to meet up with my mom and little brother in Aurora, but the thought of two buses and at least one half-hour walk is daunting. On a night when it’s supposed to snow, this trek sounds like something out of a melodramatic, required-for-English-class novel; and, yet, that’s the reality of modern Denver transit when you can’t afford something like Lyft.
Taking on that trek would also mean missing a performance—and I’m so close to meeting the minimum to join the competitive group QueerioSlams. They had a batch of newbies leave after the freak out of first performances. Now you’ve gotta show you can do this.
Kennedy’ll be chill about me crashing with her again. She knows my mom’s trying to save up to get us a new place. Still, I don’t want to talk about Mom having to scramble for a place tonight because her friend, who’s been housing us, had an unexpected fleet of family show up on her doorstep. Reason three to stay: bailing on tonight’s open mic would mean I switched around a babysitting gig for no reason.
“Fuck, Nom, I gotta jet.” Kennedy sets a to-go latte and a pile of food in front of me. There’s an odd mix of snacks, pastries, and a sandwich. “Wasn’t sure what you’d want, but you’re gonna need dinner.”
A tiny flare of anger rears its orange head at Kennedy’s assumption of my food situation, so I take a breath, reminding myself that Kennedy often shows her love through giving things; it’s what she knows. I can’t deny that a mozzarella and tomato sandwich is luxurious compared to old oats and sugar pressed into a rectangle.
The luxury I need is the space to feel ugly, to exhale so hard my whole body sags, to invite every roll and bulge to spread out in all their glory, to force my face out of its always-on smile. To not have to be so fucking thankful.
Tonight is not that night.
“Why are you leaving?” I want to whine that Kennedy’s my support system for the open mic and my place to crash.
“My parents found out I busted the fender of their precious custom Tesla,” she says as she twists her heavy key necklace. “I’m so fucked!”
I give Kennedy a sympathetic smile even though I don’t get her interest in cars. I can’t argue with her: she’s not supposed to touch that obscenely expensive car and is fucked indeed.
So am I, but I’m not about to burden Kennedy with that right now.
“You’re going to be okay,” I say. “Grounded for life, sure, but they’ll forgive you.” And feed, shelter, and clothe you. Not that my mother doesn’t do her best, she just has to do it without the wealth of Kennedy’s family.
“Wanna ride home?”
Her offer is kind—and the easiest way for her to delay her pending parental confrontation. But I can’t.
“This open mic gives me five of the six performances I need. Next week’s the cut-off.”
“They’d give you an exception,” Kennedy says. “Just do that one poem you did about your grandmother. It’s a total tearjerker.”
I shake my head, my curls bouncing around my ears. “Too competitive.” A whole cascade of reasons pile up behind my words, the loudest one being that, somehow, in a way I can’t explain, QueerioSlams is a way I can see a life for myself beyond Denver, Colorado.
Kennedy hugs me, chair and all, then grabs her bag. “I’ll let you know what’s up.”
As Kennedy makes their way through the crowded chairs and tables, I shiver and pull my heavy cardigan closer. It was the last one Bubbe knitted me before she passed. She knew to make the arms extra-long and the shoulders wide enough to fit my tall frame. Even though she’d take me to the yarn store with her, she almost always bought some shade of gingerbread brown, saying, “it goes with your freckles and cloud of curls.” She always called me her little dreamer, her luftmensch. I wish we could’ve kept her house, but no matter how hard Mom and I rallied, we couldn’t cover the skyrocketing property taxes.
I am straight-up raw. Kennedy’s departure has me feeling like I left my security blanket on a crowded rush hour bus. You know you’ll never see that cozy thing again. What I need to do is get on the list for the open mic, but now The Nerve’s also starting to fill up, people vying for tables and grabbing chairs without asking. I shove the food Kennedy bought me into my backpack so that it’s not mistaken for help-yourself-to-them snacks.
I twist around in my seat, and Jo catches my eye as she makes her way through the aisles of bookshelves. She turned it up tonight with her almost-ugly, loud purple plaid blazer, skintight black jeans, and thick black eyeliner. The purple is especially radiant against her brown skin. I get a little flutter right in the you’re-fun-to-kiss zone. Although Jo and I have gone out a few times—and, yes, enjoyed some body connection—she’s a little risky. For me. For me she’s risky.
Jo’s nearly inseparable from her friend Hannah and though they’d both deny it, there’s something between them. That’s kind of defeatist thinking. I have chemistry with lots of my friends; whether or not we act on it is a choice, not an inevitability. Jo could be an option for me…for what, I’m not sure. Asking for a place to crash seems a little too intimate.
I droop in my chair, like someone piled huge bags of flour on my shoulders and back, just to see how much I could withstand. I’m so worn down from having to be so grateful, so fucking polite and smiling. Mom’s BFF chatters on about how she loves having us around, how much she loves being an auntie to me and my brother, but her house is not capital-H home.
I wave Jo over.
She grins and greets me with a kiss on the cheek. “Thought I might see you tonight.”
“Fierce look,” I say, taking her hand. “Hey, before you get settled anywhere, can you watch my table while I go get on the open mic list?”
“Is that my price to see you perform?” she asks.
“Just this once.”
“Anytime,” Jo says, her eyebrows tilting up toward her forehead, giving her that earnest-yet-cocky expression I hate to admit gets me every time.
I grab my latte and gulp down half of it as I head over and up the stairs to the platform to sign up for the open mic. This is where the MC wields their power over all of us pensive poets and our long-suffering friends who stay through the brilliant and the tragic to watch us stand on stage for a minute, or two, maybe four.
“Hi,” I say to Coco, the MC, who stands in the corner, their perfect old school Hollywood star eyebrows, creased in concentration. Coco’s finger-waved hair, tight sweater dress, and heavy motorcycle boots complete a badass femme vibe. Those same boots were part of a hot masc boi look last week. “I’d like to read tonight if you still have spaces available.”
“Barely,” they say. “Lots of people inspired by the slam championships, I guess.”
Like me, I think. I scribble my name and turn to go, but then stop. “Hey. What time does this place close?”
“Friday and Saturday, three a.m.,” Coco says, lifting their eyes from the clipboard. “Morning crew opens the doors again at seven. How the masses here can go without their coffee and comics during those four hours is beyond me.”
Coco’s sarcasm makes me laugh.
“Do you work that late?” I ask. Coco seems like they’re my age, but maybe they’re older.
Even though my mom doesn’t know where I’m staying tonight—that’s a detail the universe has chosen to withhold from all of us for the time being—I know she would not be happy if I took a job where I work until the wee hours of the morning. Or night. Mom would definitely call that night.
“God, no. My grandmother would never allow that,” Coco says.
“Any job openings here?”
They study me for a moment, their smile never changing, but something in their eyes shifts, like when you can see someone putting together clues. “It’s rare,” Coco says. “Remind me later and I’ll ask. The baristas will always tell people no, but that’s not necessarily accurate.”
“Sorry to be a bother,” I say, pushing down the fantasy that I could be hired tonight and spend the four hours this place is closed curled up on a hidden couch somewhere.
“I got you. We queers need to stop apologizing for our fucking existence,” Coco says and then tilts their head, like they can see a little deeper into me.
“Does that mean you have?”
A tiny smile tugs at the corner of Coco’s lipsticked mouth and then spreads itself across their lips. “Working on it.”
*
I stand at the microphone in a small pool of light and make a last-minute change. Since Kennedy had to leave, I’m doing one for her. I couldn’t say these things if she was here to hear them.
“This is called Table Poem,” I say. Then I continue:
“When I told you I miss my grandma’s kitchen table,
You asked, What’s a kitchen table?
Your elbows and shoulder blades as sharp as the marble corners
Of the kitchen where your mother says,
Do not eat here. That’s disgusting.
Like the disgust I see in her eyes
When she stares at me, standing there in my need
She sharpens her jawline with a knife
Her hunger carves canyons that harden
Rock solid
Where you try to shrink to fit, to wedge in a crevice.
You lean into my fleshy shoulder
Press your face into my soft bicep
Hide your tears in the extra fabric of my shirt
Your marble fingers dig into me
Like I am a sculpting clay
And you’re making plates
She’ll never let
You fill.”
I step back from the microphone to let loose a long exhale, sending with it the last of the nervous energy that kept the muscles around my knee clenched.
When I step off the small platform and into the cramped little “off-stage” area, Coco stands up from their high-legged chair. “Now that you sucker punched my heart, park your gorgeous talent right here,” they say. “And don’t flutter a muscle.”
With a command like that, I’ll do whatever they say. I wait while Coco introduces another performer with “Let’s welcome Miles, for it’s not an open mic without his ingenious Indigenous mic drops. Consider yourselves lucky he loves you enough to share.”
Coco’s introductions are an art form, although I can’t ever remember what they’ve said about me. I’m always too busy trying to emerge from my own stew of nerve juice before stepping out there. Still, something about Coco suggests we’re supposed to be friends. I like the vibe between us. It’s definitely not sexual or romantic. Too kindred for that.
Stepping into the tiny off-stage area, Coco links arms with me and pulls me close, whispering, “Normally I’m better than talking during someone’s performance, but I’m sending you up to the coffee counter. Ask for my—just ask for Scout. The café manager had to go deal with a cereal supply crisis, but Scout knows we need a barista. They’ll get you the application.”
“Thank you,” I stage whisper although I’d like to shout with gratitude. Still, I need to figure out what I’m doing tonight and if the manager isn’t here, it seems unlikely that in the next few hours I’m going to get a job with bonus couch for employees to crash on overnight.
“Don’t linger here,” Coco says as they flap their hands for me to get moving. “This is not an opportunity to let get stale.”
I wonder if Coco knows they sometimes sound like a grandparent. One with an attitude. It makes me miss my Bubbe and wish for the millionth time that she hadn’t moved to the other side of the mountains to live with her youngest sister. I squeeze Coco’s hand and carefully edge away from the little curtained-off area and out into the sitting area. I hurry along the edge toward my table—where I find Jo waiting for me.
“You were fire up there!” Jo grabs me in a big hug, and I wrap my arms around her silky blazer. She lingers in our embrace, running her hands up my back, over my cardigan.
I want to hang out with Jo. I need to get to this Scout person. I pull back from Jo, then miss the warm, solid feel of her arms, which surprises me.
“What are you up to later?” Jo asks. She lifts my fingers to her lips.
Maybe Jo is my answer for the night.
Hannah rushes by, casting some kind of look at us. I don’t know if Jo saw her. It’s a selfish thought, I know, but I’d prefer to have all of Jo’s attention, at least right now.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask Jo, looking at her through my eyelashes, knowing full well that I’m hedging. We don’t know each other well enough for me to be straight up with her about needing a place to crash. I shouldn’t be embarrassed about this—I’m not embarrassed about my situation. I. Just. Hate. Asking. Seems like that’s all I do.
None of this matters, though.
Jo saw Hannah.
She’s trying to be sly about it, but it’s obvious Jo’s gaze is focused on the overstuffed, dusty bookshelves behind me. There’s no point in being subtle here. I don’t have the time.
“Go get her,” I say and take a firm step back from Jo to make sure there’s no question that I meant what I said.
Jo stares at me, so striking with her eyeliner and purple plaid blazer. Damn.
“I really like you—”
“But Hannah,” I say.
This moment was always probable, but I’d held out some hope. I step to the side and gesture toward the bookshelves. “She looked like she was in a hurry.”
Jo searches my face for a moment and, although I’d like to imagine she’s thinking about what she’s losing with me, I’m sure she’s gathering courage to talk to Hannah. Then Jo heads down the aisle, following Hannah’s footsteps.
I sent the girl I like after someone else. I’ve gotta talk to Scout about a job. I need a place to sleep tonight. And I’m really fucking tired. Maybe I should’ve asked Kennedy for a ride to Aurora. She wouldn’t have minded delaying her parental confrontation for a drive across town.
Inhale.
I take a deep breath, pulling air from the floor, in through my feet, and feel it fill me up so that my shoulders roll back. Then I push it all out, trying to expel the exhaustion.
As I head toward the coffee bar and café area, I have to thread my way through the aisles of books to get there, so I make sure to choose a different path than the one Jo took to chase Hannah. I can feel that damn “I’m so grateful” expression wedging itself across my face, like it’s the way my lips and cheeks move into default now.
It occurs to me that I have no idea what the hell Scout looks like and it’s too busy here for me to try talking to a barista while they’re trying to do their job. Kennedy would; she’d march up with that bright, white smile and get her question answered—and probably be offered a free espresso on top. The world doesn’t open up for me like that.
“What can I get you?” the person behind the counter asks.
“Scout?” I blurt.
The person pushes back a swatch of thick hair, revealing an overgrown undercut. “You the one Coco told me about?”
I nod, wondering what Coco said about me. Scout reaches under the counter and gives me a paper application. I flip it over a few times, trying to focus.
“Old school, right?” they say.
“Accessible,” I reply. This means I can fill it out and not have to borrow a laptop.
Coco’s laugh echoes through the microphone and bounces around the bodies in the room behind me. I twist around to catch a glimpse of Coco on the stage, people joining in the laughter. That’s a gift. As I turn back to Scout, I realize they were still watching Coco. I wonder if Coco knows Scout is smitten with them.
“Coco’s great,” I say.
“Coco’sfuckingamazing,” Scout says as though it’s one breath. “They’re the best person I know. Or will maybe ever know.”
I squelch my urge to giggle but I do feel how rooted Scout feels about Coco as a person. Maybe I can trust Coco with my own mess tonight. Not that they have to fix it… maybe they can point me in some direction I just can’t seem to see yet.
Someone jabs at my arm. “You ordering?”
“Nah.” I step to the side and mouth “thank you” to Scout.
“Nomi?” A woman with long twists steps in front of me. She smiles, the parting of her purple-glossed lips revealing a gap between her two front teeth.
I nod.
“I’m Ree. I founded QueerioSlams back when I was in high school,” she says.
My own lips stretch into a broad smile. “Nice to meet—”
“Your poem up there was so dope, girl,” Ree says. “That last line was powerful. Bone chilling, really.”
“Wow, thank you.”
“You thinking about joining us? I’ve seen you on that stage, what, about five times?”
I nod. She looks different in person than the headshot they have of her on the QueerioSlams website. The whole time I’ve been counting performances, she’s been here, watching. Watching me.
“You’re getting better, more comfortable up there,” Ree says. “Keep it up.”
And then she’s gone, her exit as seamless as her entrance.
I want to chase after her, ask her what else I should do to improve, tell her I’ll do anything she asks if it means a spot on her team. But I need to think about logistics, about getting myself somewhere to sleep tonight. It’s just that I’m so tired. This grateful face is so heavy. Too heavy to hold up all night.
Coco’s laughter bounces through the café again, its sound tugging at the stubborn corners of my mouth. I head back to the little area offstage, which I could just call Coco’s perch, just as they get situated on their stool.
They glance at the application I’d forgotten is in my hand. “Need a pen?”
“No, but I need a place to stay tonight.”
Coco’s perfect arches reach for the stage lights.
Now that I blurted that much out, I can’t back away. Something tells me Coco will…well…I hope…they’ll get it. I don’t know this person and yet I told them something I haven’t even shared with Kennedy yet. My words, my confession—my need—still fills my body, expanding itself until it’s so heavy I can barely lift my head to meet Coco’s eyes.
Their kind brown eyes.
“Are you being harmed?”
The question startles me, but it makes sense that a queer person asking for a place to stay could be in danger. Fortunately, Mom is fiercely protective. “No. Just… houseless for the night.”
Coco tilts their head in that same sideways gaze. “Okay,” they say.
But then they’re silent again. I wait, unsure if I should reveal more or move on.
“You’ll come home with me,” Coco says in the same no-nonsense tone they use when wrangling the open mic.
“You don’t know me—”
“We’re kindred,” they say.
“Thank you. I don’t want to be a bother—”
“We don’t apologize, remember?” Coco says with a wicked grin, but then shifts back into their focused planning mode. “But there is something important you need to know.”
I don’t know what to expect. It didn’t even occur to me to ask where they live.
“My grandma’s going to tell you the only door we close is the bathroom,” Coco says. “She’s finally getting used to my pronouns being they and them, but she ‘will not tolerate shenanigans’ in her house. Grandma will say, ‘Coco likes them all.’ Since she can’t easily tell if I have a friend or a more-than-friend over, there are no shut doors in our house.”
Coco grins and I can feel the affection she has for her grandmother.
The muscles in my face shift. It takes me a moment, but then I finally recognize it: an actual, for-real smile.
Jesaka Long (they/she) is a queer, non-binary writer, editor, and teacher. They facilitate programming for LGBTQIAP+ writers of all ages through Lighthouse Writers Workshop, The Loft, and elsewhere. Their writing recently appeared in Hunger Mountain. Jesaka holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Denver with their partner Kristi.