Heteroflexibility (16 page)

I shook my head. “It’s embarrassing to me. This is where I grew up.”

“Are you like them?” Aud asked. “Despite growing up in the exact same environment, are you mean and intolerant and a jerk?”

“No.”

“Then you’re fine by us. They can wallow in their ignorance and bigotry.”

“Unfortunately, they are the ones controlling what we get to do,” Bella said. “Look at us, flying all the way to California to get married.”

“I’d rather spend my money in Austin,” Mary said. “But we can’t.”

“And we don’t exactly get to invite all our friends either,” Aud said.

“We’ll have a kick ass reception later,” Nikki said. “All of us. Invite the whole damn town.”

Mary leaned forward. “Bradford, you don’t think they’ll annul our marriage licenses if Prop 8 passes, will they?”

Bradford clenched the wheel. “They did in 2004.”

“Isn’t that when you moved to Texas?” I asked. The pieces were beginning to come together.

He glanced at me, his lips pressed together. I was becoming familiar with his facial expressions already. “It is.”

“Then our weddings will be for nothing,” Aud said.

“Nah,” Nikki said. “Doing something this important is never for nothing. No matter what happens.”

Bella said, “All they can take away is the paper.”

I stared out at the dark flat shadows of the land where I’d grown up. It didn’t seem possible that the people in that bar, people I could have known, might have even married had I stayed in town, could be so different from me. Sure, I’d never even talked to a lesbian before Tuesday, not knowingly, although with my gaydar, it was certainly possible. But I didn’t hate them, or think they were weird or gross or immoral or going to hell.

“Why does anyone care whether or not you guys get married?” I asked.

“The straights are threatened,” Aud said.

“I just don’t see why. What does it matter to someone like me?”

“It’s all about the children.” Aud stared at the roof, her short hair sticking to the seat back, her features dark in the dim light. “We’re corrupting them. They might grow up to be homos.”

“And that will be the end of the world,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“There’s not enough of us to really be heard,” Mary said. “Only if the straights get involved can we make anything happen.”

Aud shook her head. “It’s not a cause many straights think about.”

“I never did before Tuesday,’ I said.

Aud said, “I bet the girlfriend of that ass crack could be the poster child for Vagisil.”

Nikki laughed. “I bet her snatch would make your fingers stink for three days.”

“You should always sniff first,” Aud said.

I stared out the windshield, my face burning with Bradford right beside me.

Nikki tapped me on the shoulder again. “You getting’ all this, half-homo?”

“I don’t think it’s ever going to come up.” I didn’t look back, afraid to even glance at Bradford in passing. I’d have preferred to disappear all together.

“Not by the looks of things at Rainbow,” Nikki said. “Two-snatch Sammy would have loved to get all up in your business.”

“And that could have been some nasty snatch,” Aud said.

I covered my ears with my hands.

“Awww, look, we’re traumatizing her again,” Nikki said. “You want to know why she’s called Two-Snatch?”

I shook my head for no.

“Good. Supposedly it’s because she has some birth defect that makes her have two of everything in her plumbing.”

“Wow,” Bella said. “Poor thing.”

“Yeah, double the douche,” Nikki said. “Which she doesn’t. But we really started calling her Two-Snatch after she doubled up with Ming and Shanna that time.”

“She did a threesome with those two?” Mary asked.

“You betcha,” Nikki said. “So Zest, if you want on the fast-track, she’s your woman.”

This was too much. “I don’t think she’s going to want to see me again,” I said.

“Ha,” Nikki said. “From the spectator’s box—”

I groaned. This was not to be borne.

Nikki chuckled. “From the spectator’s box, it looked like she could be convinced.”

I stole the quickest glance at Bradford. He concentrated on the road ahead, his fingers gripping the steering wheel with both hands. I knew I had no chance with him anyway, obviously, being gay, but still, I liked to preserve what little dignity I had. I pictured him in the kitchen once again, looking at the image of my mom, and telling me he loved my crazy hair.

He was the only person in the world who knew my worst secret.

Chapter 19: The Ghost of Bitches Past

Bradford let me out in front of Dad’s house. Aud crawled out of the back to take my place.

The last few bugs to survive autumn circled the porch light as he led me to the door.

I wanted to make everything right somehow. “I’m really sorry this night turned out so rough. It was great of you to come all this way just to make me feel better.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, inadvertently spiking a section out of place. “The girls are nothing if not loyal. You’re a part of us now.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how that happened.”

“It’s a good thing.”

The lamp lit him from the side, a gentle glow that accentuated the hard edge of his jaw, the perfectly shaped sideburns. “It is, it is.”

He touched two fingers to his lips as though he knew I couldn’t stop starting at them. Then he brushed their tips against my mouth. As close to a kiss as I’d probably get. “Good night, Zest. Get rest. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay.”

His retreating figure was lean and elegant. I saw a flash of the girls’ faces in the light when he opened his door. They all waved.

Back inside, I tiptoed through the house to my old room. Dad had left a note on my bed. “I’ll be gone by the time you get up. Have a great time in Cali. Bradford seems like a good kid.”

I laid back on the bed and touched my lips. Every image in my head was Bradford. Smiling. Frowning. Looking at my wedding picture. Drying my hands with a towel. Just when I didn’t think life could get any more ridiculous, I might have started falling in love with a gay man in a way I’d never felt about my husband.

My phone buzzed on the bedside table. I hadn’t taken it with me all day.

I flipped it open. I had twelve text messages and two voice mails. Good grief.

Both the voice mails were Fern.
I told the girls where you were. I got the idea something went wrong last night. Let me know how you are.

Just hearing her voice made my anger rise up. Why had she gone after Cade? She always thought he was nothing, ugly, pointless, beneath her. When the second message began,
I’m getting a little worried…
I cut it off and deleted it.

That left the text messages. All were from Cade.

What the hell? I flung myself back against the pillows to read them.

They started out friendly.

You doing okay?

Have friends with you?

Are you getting taken care of?

The first thing to hit me is that he’d spelled everything out. He always used proper text protocol—as few letters as possible. It bespoke of premeditation. And desperate measures. He didn’t want to write me, and yet he’d slowly, painfully, typed each word anyway. I didn’t truly believe he cared that much. But maybe Fern had ditched him. Maybe he was really upset.

I read through the others.

It’s weird to not know where you are.

Yeah, even weirder to think you were banging my friend.

I hope you aren’t holing up by yourself somewhere.

Yeah, whatever. You’re the one who’s been in Fern’s hole.

The messages began to get more urgent, frenetic, and back to texting style.

Can I call u?

Z, can u answer?

R u that mad? Do u hate me now?

I almost flung the phone at that one. Of course!

Then we started getting to the real crux of the matter.

Is Fern with u?

I tried calling Fern. Will u?

Just let me know u r ok. Or Fern.

Is Fern ok? Do u know?

I dropped the phone on the bed. If I hadn’t already figured it out, I would have now. Fern. Oh. That son of a bitch. Had they talked? Did they think I knew? Had that set him over the edge?

I glanced over the messages again. No, it seemed he wasn’t getting her either, and he wanted to know from me where she was. That was rich. Really rich. He was probably worried about his nonexistent baby. That Fern was hormonal or something, and not banging her boss, or Elevator Boy, or that rock star from speed dating.

How had I married someone so stupid? Fern, pregnant. How ridiculous.

 I tried to stop myself, but I did it anyway. Just one short text.

Rot in hell, lover boy.

Chapter 20: All Hallow’s Evil

I rolled over on my bed of plastic seats, my iPod still playing Shostakovich to block out the sounds of the airport. I tried to settle back down, but the chaos around me was building, busy travelers pushing through the terminals. Time to get up.

I had been too keyed up at Dad’s to go to sleep, so I just packed everything and headed to Austin. I prayed my lights and all would be okay in the trunk of my car over the weekend, and walked into the airport at 4 a.m., sprawling out to try and sleep a little before the plane took off.

The giant clock overhead read 8:35. Plenty of time to spruce up my appearance before I met the Hoebags at the terminal. I slipped the straps of my duffle and camera bag off my ankles, where I’d entwined them for safe keeping while I slept.

The bathroom mirror confirmed the worst: I was officially a mop-head. They could start a video series with me alone: Tresses Gone Wild. Extreme Makeover: Einstein Hair Edition. The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly. Mom’s voice almost came at me, but I shook her away. “Stop it. Bradford likes it.”

But still, I had to do something. I dug out a bottle of conditioner, remembering how Fern—oh that bitch, Fern—had sleeked my ponytail before the game. Hopefully this would at least make me presentable.

A tall, extraordinarily well proportioned Indian woman in a sapphire blue dress entered the bathroom. She didn’t have any trouble with her perfect hair, I noticed as she entered a stall. I tugged and pulled at the kinked-up mass, trying to work the thick cream through it all. After a painful struggle, half my hair was tame, the other half flying straight from my head. This was why I had never cared before, just letting it do its thing.

The toilet flushed and the woman walked up, stopping short when she saw the comb jammed against my scalp.

“You’re going at it all wrong.”

Without a word of introduction, she lifted my hands away and took over the job.

“You’ve got to go at it lightly, like you’re plucking a harp.” She chuckled. “You were digging in there like somebody pulling weeds.”

She turned me to the mirror. Our two faces, hers brown and mine pinkish-white, glowed in the bright light. “Now watch what I do. Start with the outer layer, and pick slowly through it.” She flipped a smooth section across the top of my head. “Then move it out of the way and do the next.”

I vaguely recalled various hairdressers doing this now, the few times I’d bothered to get a trim. My hair grew at the rate of fossilization.

She picked up the bottle. “Get you some good stuff. And always get it all the way through.” She squeezed it on her hand and worked it through the inner layers of my hair. “Didn’t your mama teach you how to fix your hair? You’re a grown woman.”

“My mother is dead.”

“Ahhh. Learning your hair on your own, that’s a hard life.”

She inched around, expertly smoothing out the back, then handed me the comb. “Now you do this last bit. For practice.”

I took the comb and lightly picked through the outer edge of my hair, then flipped it over.

She washed her hands. “My work here is done. Goodbye now!”

I watched her go, the shiny dress winking blue as she passed each overhead light. Her own hair bobbed, floating ethereally on the ends.

I turned back to my reflection and started tackling the rest. There did, at least, seem some hope.

My phone buzzed again. I kept my hands on my hair, peeking into my bag where the display lay face up. Cade again with a text. Good grief.

I sensed his desperation this time.
Did Fern ever call?

I set down the comb and rapidly typed a message back.
On a job. Go away.

Maybe I should have mentioned the eight lesbians.

***

Nine-o-three a.m. and not a single God-forsaken television in the whole airport was showing Ellen. The televisions loomed far above my head, and the seats were all bolted down, so I couldn’t move one to switch the channel.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. I carefully moved away from the hawk-eyed vision of any flight attendants. I could almost hear the Mission Impossible theme as I waited for passengers to bulk up around the desk at Gate 22, obscuring their view of me.

Nine-o-six. I had to act now or miss the entire opening monologue. Hopefully she had an extra-long dance this morning.

I set my camera bag on the nearest chair, glancing around to see if any thief-looking characters stood nearby. Then I rushed a garbage can, turned it neatly at an angle, and rolled it along its bottom edge to rest below the television.

A pilot walked by, dragging his rolling bag. I leaned against the trash can, saluting him. He didn’t notice me.

When he had passed, I put one knee on the lid, testing its strength. Then I saw it. A security guard eyeing my bag. Unattended luggage.

I rushed the bag, rubbing my hands together as if I’d just thrown something sticky away. “Those Cinnabuns. Whew!” I said, sliding my arm through my strap. “That frosting gets everywhere!”

He watched me for a moment. I unzipped the bag, pulled out my telephone, and dialed Domino’s pizza. When their voice mail kicked on, I said, “Hey mom! I’ll be getting on my plane in a few minutes! I can’t wait to see you!”