The second clue was about a year after high school, working at Wherehouse when my lesbian coworker’s female friend, newly back in town, came to visit her on a day that I also happened to be working. Because then he couldn’t see me shrinking into my seat as my face turned red and my stomach did somersaults. He kept falling asleep, and I would nudge him awake, saying “dude, wake up, this movie is so funny” – until it came to the romantic scenes between two women, and then I couldn’t be more grateful that he had fallen asleep. Wait, no – actually, my first clue was going to see the film But I’m a Cheerleader my senior year of high school in an empty movie theater with my friend, Sean. Even though I was raised very conservative Christian and identified that way, I never looked at her any different. One of my coworkers at the store, not much older than me, was an out lesbian with a very serious girlfriend who she called her wife. I never really thought much about sexuality, except for when I fabricated crushes on my best guy friends like I thought I should.
I was living in Orange County, where I was born and raised, working at Wherehouse Music in San Clemente, a now defunct record store chain like Tower Records.
