Emily has a past!

Janet talked to one of the couples at Epiphany, who asked around, and it turns out that everyone thought Emily was on a break from men and just liked hanging out.  Emily was not pleased.  “Maybe it is the Reverse Katharine Hepburn Syndrome.”  She looked crestfallen.

I felt funny acting like a therapist, but I had to try.  “Well, how many men have broken your heart?”

“Just my graduate school boyfriend.  We had an understanding that we’d get married when we got our degrees, but he decided he ‘wasn’t ready to be tied down’.  I was afraid I’d missed my chance and would never get married.  One of my friends said that if I felt that way, I needed to go to a woman’s support group, so I did and I fell in love with the group leader.  Her name was Michele.”

“What happened?”

“We went out for a while and then a new woman in the group fell in love with her.  I was heartbroken until I realized that that was Michele’s thing, hitting on new members.  I still felt bad and I told myself that she didn’t know what she was doing.”

I snorted.  Even I am not that innocent.

“Well, we were all so open and liberated that I stayed in the group with both of them, but it worked out because she’d done it to another woman, Wendy, who was still with the group and she and I hooked up.  We bonded over how badly she’d treated us and how guilty we felt that we were jealous.  Anyway, we were together for three years and then I got my degree and got the job here.  We tried to keep up the relationship, but it didn’t work out, especially when Michele saw that Wendy was alone.  I don’t blame Wendy; she couldn’t help herself.  None of us could.”

“What did you do?

“I was so busy trying to get tenure, I really didn’t have time to find anyone else.  Wendy and I are still friends.  She finally got fed up and told Michele that she didn’t care if it meant she was bourgeois, neurotic, and possessive, she wasn’t going to put up with any more crap.  She and Michele were living together and Michele always had someone after her.  Wendy says she didn’t think she was doing anything, but she wasn’t discouraging it, either.”

We both snorted.

Janet told someone who told someone who told someone that Emily wasn’t just interested in hanging out.  So now when she gets invited for coffee, she gets more than coffee.  And I don’t mean a cookie.