"Wellfleet" by Lily Meyer

Lily Meyer is a translator, critic, and author of the novel Short War. A contributing writer at TheAtlantic, her translations include Claudia Ulloa Donoso’s story collections Little Bird and Ice for Martians.

Photograph by Les Talusan


​Lindsay Forbes Brown received her MFA from American University, where she served as Editor in Chief for FOLIO. She is a Kenyon Review and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference alumnus and is currently Assistant Editor for Grace & Gravity. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is featured in or forthcoming in Barcelona Review, Cimarron Review, Gargoyle, Hobart, J Journal, JMWW, Off-Chance, Pembroke Magazine, River Styx, So to Speak, Sonora Review, and on her website: lindsayforbesbrown.com. 

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introduction to "Wellfleet"
By lindsay forbes brown

Lily Meyer’s “Wellfleet” is quiet—a mere whisper carried on the back of an eastern sea breeze. There is something perennial about this story. The conversation Meyer’s characters have one afternoon about the pitfalls of love might be an echo of the same one you’ve had. We begin at the beach with a scene straight from Lena Dunham’s HBO show Girls—a trio of post-grad women discuss the selfish nature of boys who come themselves to sleep without a care in the world whether their partner orgasms or not. Throughout the day, the women poke fun at one other and comfort each other. They cry behind their sunglasses, trying their best to separate the frivolous, distracting loves from the once-in-a-lifetime loves. Mostly, they wax poetic on love’s stretchiness and cast futile wishes that “next time” they will be able to protect themselves from heartache. However, the pure magic of “Wellfleet” is not in how easy it is to see ourselves in these women or to connect with their problems, but in the masterful volta in its final lines.
 
While the story revolves around conversation, it is not bereft of striking details. The hairs on Della’s shins are “glittered with salt.” Waves lick close, “leaving streamers of seaweed.” “Seawater nips,” stinging the corners of their eyes. The beach is the perfect setting for a final swan dive into a buoyant space where the women can find release. We meet the charming, somewhat innocent Della, who wishes she could convince her boyfriend Tony that the Virgin Mary “doesn’t care if [they] bang.” Della bemoans the fact that she doesn’t believe in God; this might ruin their relationship for good. There’s Rosie who is in love with bi-curious Carmen who will never give her what she wants. (Ironically, Carmen wants Lucas, the man who doesn’t give her what she wants.) We learn the most about the unnamed narrator, who is a hopeless romantic. The narrator maintains an open relationship with Gabe, who is traveling abroad and who very well could have “fucked every hooker in Thailand.” These are modern women, and this is a modern love story, where happiness is just out of reach for them all.
 
This story reflects our society at large, where people “talk” instead of date, where hookup culture and apps run supreme. There is a hyperfocus on experimentation, co-habitation, and hesitation toward commitment. These women are rightly confused. They feel defeated by the fact that men are still coming out on top. In the end, they rebel the only way they know how.
 
Sara Ahmed, the British-Australian writer and scholar, describes the act of resisting misogyny as a “feminist snap” in her book Living a Feminist Life, saying, “We could think of feminist history as a history of snappy women” (Ahmed 209). “Snap is a collective impatience… sisterhood is a snap” (Ahmed 212). According to Ahmed, “feminist snaps,” are the foundation of social change, providing women with the support necessary to counter patriarchal norms and oppression. Female friendships and the spaces women create to speak freely, just as Della, Rosie, and the narrator do on the beach, bolster their own small rebellion.
 
There is a youthful exuberance in how Della says, “Last one out of her suit’s a rotten egg,” and in how the women relish in their nakedness. But of course, childhood is over. The narrator notes that their crumpled bathing suit bottoms are “piled like burst balloons.” At once it seems there is not much to celebrate. But then something magical happens. Precipitated by feelings of pain and the daunting unknown, the narrator kisses Rosie first and then Della.
 
In a story bereft of the women’s physical characteristics, we are treated to a single, beautiful descriptor of Rosie: “There was a black ringlet flattened against her cheekbone… Her mouth was softer than I expected.” If swimming naked is to baptism, then the kisses between the women are to Ahmed’s “feminist snap.”
 
After the kisses, there are no words, only the empty resounding of “someday,” as in someday the women will know how to love without pain. We know they won’t, but that isn’t the point. The point is that this story does not work without the kisses; it hinges on them. These kisses are unspoiled by lust or questions in need of answers. Unlike between Carmen and Rosie, Della and Tony, or even the narrator and Gabe, the kisses demand nothing—no grief, no anguish, no tears—just pure love in return. With the kisses, the women assert their belonging in a male-dominated sphere and in a world in which they know so very little about.
 
In her novel, Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen writes, “Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” These fragile yet strong women are an amalgamation; three worlds in one. While they have different hurts and histories of love, the pain of that love is the same. Their pain is what makes them human, and through that pain they offer each other the strength to keep going. Though there is no protection from the trauma love inevitably brings, there is only the choice to keep trying. If it doesn’t work out, at least they have each other.
 
At one point in the story, Della talks about her relationship with her ex, Lucas. She explains how she was happy just to be with a hot guy who wanted to be with her. As time went on, she allowed herself to become smaller, to be silenced, until she finally plucked up the courage to break up with him. This small act of courage is a snap. As are the kisses between the women. As it turns out, “Welfleet” is only deceptively quiet. The kisses are the loudest moments of all.

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