“We miss you,” Roxy said to Steph. After Mel left, she had scooted into Mel’s seat between me and Steph. “Gabe keeps telling me we need a new guitarist but I can’t find anyone who gels with us like you. We’ve tried out a few people but nobody seems to work.”

“What are you going to do about the demo?” Steph asked.

“We might hire someone,” Roxy said. “We haven’t decided yet. Mel told me you did an open mic last week. How’d it go?”

“I guess it went fine. I miss you guys, too.”

“You can always come back.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“I’m all about tempting you.” Roxy glanced around. “Wait, Lisa’s not here, right?”

Lisa had passed out pot brownies when we first arrived and then gone off to find her friend Joey.

Steph shook her head slightly. “Come on.”

“Sorry, babe. You know what I mean.”

“We’re trying.”

“I know, I know!” Roxy raised her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, I take it back. Just listen. We got into QMF. It’s one day in August. You could join us.”

Steph didn’t answer for a bit. Roxy simply sat beside her as they both looked out at the park. The sounds washed over us: laughter; the roar of conversation; motorcycle engines gunning.

“I’ll think about it,” Steph finally said.

“Okay,” Roxy said, all low-key. “It’s August third in Golden Gate Park.” Then she checked her phone and said, “Mel’s texting me. I’ll be back.”

After Roxy left, I asked, “What’s QMF?”

“The Golden Gate Queer Music Fest,” Steph answered.

“You should do it.”

She took a sip of her beer. “I should, huh?”

“It sounds like you want to.”

“I want a lot of things. That doesn’t mean I get them.”

—

The Dyke March was a raucous but slow-moving tide of people waving rainbow flags and carrying protest signs and banging bongos. At first I felt like an interloper, but after a couple of blocks, I realized there was so much going on, nobody was paying any attention to me. Above us, people leaned out their bay windows, unfurling sheets painted with GO DYKES or HAPPY PRIDE!!! Some of the women in my vicinity were marching topless; one had written LOVE IS LOVE across her chest in rainbow letters. The smell of grilled meat wafted out of taquerias; the funk of weed floated on the air; and the sound of drums and dance music was a moving soundtrack around us. I was a shell buoyed by a wave in an ocean I’d never known to exist.