Heteroflexibility (22 page)

Nikki grabbed Bella’s other hand and yanked her back. “Where are you going with my girl?”

Bella stood suspended between the two women, Nikki in her black tux, and the woman in her pink wool.

“I think there’s been a mix up,” Bella said.

“Oh no, we’ve been waiting for you!” The woman let Bella go and pushed the ballroom doors open wide. Inside rows and rows of women listened to another pink-bedecked speaker up on a platform.

“And look who’s here!” the speaker called, gesturing to all of us. “Our models, here for their makeovers.”

The women turned in their chairs as the speaker continued. “We have many looks to practice today. I can’t wait to see how they turn out.”

Several other pink-suited women circled our group and pressed us forward.

“I don’t THINK so!” Blitz turned and barreled back out the door, almost bulldozing the Vasigmilla reps in her way.

“Blitz! Wait!” Krieg followed quickly. I looked around at the others.

“Stop!” the first woman shouted. “We have to do your new looks!”

Nikki put her fingers in her mouth and let out a tremendous whistle. “Run!”

The brides took off down the hallway, following Blitz and Krieg. I stayed to the back, watching the Vasigmillas, who looked around quizzically. The speaker shouted into the microphone, “Somebody, get them back in here! We’re already off schedule!”

The pink ladies gave chase. I couldn’t believe it. I jerked the cap off my lens, shooting madly as the brides sailed down the long corridor. Bradford waited beside me. “This is the most bizarre thing ever,” he said.

Behind us, a thundering sound alerted us that more of the women had gotten out of their chairs to see what was happening. I turned for a moment and caught a glimpse of the undulating wave of rose-colored dresses coming toward us.

I took off in a dead sprint and Bradford followed suit,  passing through the high-heeled Vasigmillas and moving in on the brides. “The bathroom!” Nikki said and we burst through the doors, Bradford included, cramming into the long narrow room and flipping the lock.

“WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU GOTTEN US INTO NOW!” Blitz bellowed. Her hair was in total disarray, sticking to her sweating scalp. Krieg clasped her in a hard bear hug.

“I didn’t get us into THIS!” Mary said.

Bella slipped into a stall. “Don’t listen to me pee!” she said. Nikki turned on a water faucet. Voices murmured outside the door.

“Now we’re really stuck,” Jenna said. “We’re in a hotel bathroom.”

“Nope,” Aud said. “When you have to barricade the door, somebody always opens a window.” She looked up.

About six feet off the ground was a high, wide window with a sliding glass. Aud rolled the trash can underneath it and hiked her scarlet satin skirt, revealing a long pale leg. I snapped the shot, her low-heeled sandal poised on the edge of the metal cover.

“That’s not going to hold your weight, Hoebag,” Nikki said.

“I’m not a diesel dyke like you,” Aud shot back.

“Snap!” Nikki said, smiling. “I’m not the one looking like a hooker on her wedding day.”

“Carpet muncher.”

“Boob skank.”

“Skeezer.”

Bella smacked open the door of her stall with a bang. “Stop it!”

Aud scrambled up the trash can. “Lucky it’s one of these blow hole types, so there’s room for our feet.”

“I’m not even going to touch that one,” Nikki said.

“It always comes back to whales,” Jenna said.

They lost me at blow hole, but the trash can did have a very narrow opening, which made it easier to stand on. Aud opened the latch on the window, slid it open, and heaved herself up to sit on the ledge. She peered out. “The ground is actually high on the other side. It won’t be hard to hop down.” She swung her legs through.

Audrey began scrambling up next, struggling to manage the long skirt.

“This is a crock of shit,” Blitz said.

“You’re the one who bolted,” Nikki said.

“I was the one who had to pee,” Bella said.

Aud helped Audrey through the window and they both disappeared outside.

“I guess I’m next,” Mary said. “At least we’re in pants.”

“How will I get out with Butch?” Jenna asked.

“Pass him up to me once I make it,” Mary said.

“I don’t think I can get up there,” Bella said.

Krieg watched Mary haul herself up, then shook her head. “You know, I think I’m just going to walk out of here. They can’t exactly mascara us to death.”

She unlatched the door. “See you on the other side.”

The hallway was empty again. The Vasigmillas had moved on. Mary hopped off the trash can. “Let’s go then.”

We slinked down the corridor, heading for the exit closest to the limo, all of us praying that no doors would open.

The sunshine blasted as we burst through the doors and into the parking lot. Aud and Audrey had circled the building and were standing puzzled before the line of limos, trying to remember which one was ours.

We caught up with them. “It’s the first one,” Nikki said.

“No,” Bella said. “I’m pretty sure we were second.”

“Good fucking grief,” Blitz said. She banged on the windows of each limo. None of them had drivers.

“Where did they all go?”

“I see them,” Krieg said. “They’re all smoking behind a tree.”

Mary dashed over to them to find our driver. I watched the street, expecting a news van to cruise by at any moment.

And right on cue, it appeared. “Oh, shit, ladies! Get behind a car!” I shouted.

They all turned, horrified, to the entrance. The van slowed, the window rolling down. The parking lot was vast, so maybe they hadn’t seen us. We clamored to the back side of the limos.

“Shit, shit, shit, it’s turning in,” Jenna said.

Mary dragged our driver behind her. “Get us out of here, now!”

He dropped his cigarette on the asphalt and opened the door. “I’ll close up,” Bradford said. “Just get in there and get us moving.”

We piled into the back, a jumble of satin and taffeta. Butch, who had been calm and quiet during the hotel excursion, started a low growl. Jenna petted her gently, murmuring quietly by her fluffy ear.

The limo eased away from the curb, idling down the row of pink Caddies.

Nikki walked, bent over, toward the front. “Take your time,” she said to the driver. “Don’t do anything sudden.”

“We should have swiped a Vagisil bumper sticker,” Audrey said.

“Surely they didn’t see us,” Aud said. “The parking lot is huge.”

“If we could see them, they could see us,” Krieg said.

The van moved slowly along the next row, a crew member hanging out the passenger window. We approached them, driving in the opposite direction, toward the exit, and everyone held their breath as we moved side by side, separated only by a meager row of pink cars.

The man watched us pass, elbowing his driver. He pointed at the line of limos, then at us, seeming to argue about something. Then he gestured to speed up.

“He knows it’s us!” Krieg cried. “Hit it!”

I watched from a side window. The man in the news van opened his cell phone and dialed. I didn’t like the look of it.

Our driver stomped the gas, flying out onto the street without looking. Cars bleated at us as we careened in front of them, but nobody hit us. I could faintly hear him mutter, “Just like James Bond,” as he raced down the road.

“Where should we go?” Nikki asked. “Who knows this town?”

Bradford shifted forward. “I do. But I don’t think we should go back to the hotel just yet. Maybe head to Pacific Beach, get him to drop us somewhere and leave so we can regroup.”

“Yeah, without the lipstick Nazis,” Blitz said.

Krieg rubbed her arm. “Nobody’s going to make you over.”

Blitz grunted. “Like they could.”

A buzzing sound overhead silenced everyone. We stared up at the roof of the limo as if we had x-ray vision.

“That isn’t what I think it is,” Nikki said.

She pressed her cheek against the glass. “Fuckin’ a. It’s a news helicopter.”

“Try two,” Kreig said, staring out the back. “I think our fifteen minutes of fame are about to begin.”

We stopped at a red light and the driver looked back at us. “What should I do?”

“This is only going to get worse,” Bradford said. “Let me figure out where we are.”

“Already worse,” Krieg said. “We’ve got a convoy behind us.”

I sat up from my position on the floor to look out the back window. A dozen cars approached, some not even pulling up to the light, but hovering beside us, including the news van.

The light turned green and Nikki rolled down the window, shaking her fist at them. “Go fuck yourselves!” she shouted over the mayhem, chants and honking and the buzz of helicopters.

Jenna hugged Butch close to her and tugged the veil off his collar. “It looks ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

She rolled down the window and let the veil lose. I caught the image just in time, her fingers releasing the white gauze into the air, her profile etched against the light of the morning and repeated in the long snout of her prized Pomeranian.

“Is it too early to start drinking?” Blitz asked.

“Hell, no,” Nikki said. “It’s 11. Practically lunch time.”

Nikki turned back to the opening in the partition. “Stay the course, my good man,” she said. “Find us a bar and we’ll buy you a drink.”

“No drinking on job,” he said. “But we are almost to the PB.”

“Will anything be open?” I asked.

Bradford reached down to pet the dog, who was shivering. “Something’s always open. There’s Mexican restaurants, if nothing else.”

“I could use a margarita,” Jenna said.

“I could use a shot of tequila,” Nikki said.

“I could use both,” Blitz mumbled.

“There is booze in the cabinet,” the driver said.

“Right,” Nikki said. The line of seats faced a glitzy row of speakers, cabinets, and, as we had finally noticed, a fully stocked bar. “Probably gouge us worse than a hotel.”

“I have forms for booze,” the driver said. “Champagne bottle included in wedding price.”

Someone’s phone chimed. “That’s me,” Nikki said, kneeling on the floor and tugging it out of a pocket of her coat jacket. “It’s the Peppermint Patties.” She pressed the phone against her ear as she pulled the bottle of champagne out of the fridge.

“I completely forgot about them,” Mary said. She turned to me. “The local softball team that was supposed to be our witnesses.”

Nikki nodded, glancing around the compartment. “We’re in the limo. Some area called the PB.”

Bella smoothed her white dress against her lap. “I don’t feel much like champagne.”

Blitz grunted. “Booze is booze.”

Nikki passed the bottle to Blitz. “The wedding was a trap. Fucking minister had all his gay bashers ready with their clobber verses. Saving our souls and shit. And now they’re following us.”

She slid the phone away from her mouth. “They’re coming. Where should we meet them?”

“The Marquez,” Bradford said. “It’s a restaurant and bar.” He glanced at his watch. “Should be open now.”

“The Marquez,” Nikki repeated. “We’re practically there?” She looked at Bradford for confirmation, who nodded. “Yeah, you know where that is? Good.”

She closed her phone. “At least misery will have company.”

Blitz popped the top of the champagne. She took a long slug and passed the slim green bottle to Krieg. I snapped a shot, the elegant gold label bright against her hand.

“Pass that son of a bitch over here,” Nikki said.

The limo slowed, then stopped in front of the pink façade of a stucco building.

Bradford leaned toward the partition. “Let us out right by the door and then keep going. Park somewhere other than here.” He looked as grim as I’d ever seen him, his lips pulled into a frown, the crystal eyes etched with lines that suddenly seemed more pronounced.

I grabbed the tripod and my bag, tucking the small breakaway section back inside. I assumed they’d want me to document everything, even a gloomy bar stop in lieu of the wedding. I didn’t really care anymore if they paid me or not. What was happening here was more than a wedding, it was a slice of history, the cusp of social change while the oppressed were still down.

The driver didn’t just pull up to the front, but drove up onto the sidewalk only feet from the entrance.

“Go, go, go, go!” Nikki yelled, throwing open the door and sending us through like we were parachuting onto a D-Day invasion. Maybe we were.

We hurtled into the restaurant, Bradford standing by the door, the sun outrageously bright. It should be dark outside, or stormy, lightening cutting across the sky. Life never followed cliché.

As we closed the door behind us, the driver sped away.

Bradford fell into step beside me. “We should go on the patio so Jenna can keep Butch,” he said. “That’s why I picked this place.”

“You know your San Diego,” I said, wondering again how much business and how much personal was involved in his trips here. Maybe he had been seeing someone on the side, work related, and that had led to the demise of his relationship.

“My knowledge is limited but what I know, I know,” he said.

“So you’ve been here before?”

He held the door for me. “A time or two.”

“Good memories or bad?”

“Not much either way.”

His ability to give away nothing had become maddening.

The hostess, upon seeing the Pomeranian, led us directly out to the covered patio. High walls surrounded the space, so we couldn’t see anything but a swath of blue sky.

Nikki plopped into a chair. “Ten margaritas and ten tequila shots,” she said.

“I’ll tell your waiter,” the girl said.

“I’m not a big drinker,” Mary protested.

“Who said I was sharing?” Nikki said.

The restaurant was deserted. We pushed tables together, and I sat at one end, relieved and happy when Bradford pulled a chair up next to mine.

“How many Peppermint Patties are coming?” asked Mary.

“All of them,” Nikki said. “We’ve got room.”

“I’m going to check on the front,” Krieg said. “See if they are going to follow us in.”

The sun streamed through the leaves of the crepe myrtles, a few last blooms still bright and pink on the tips of the branches. Our waiter arrived with a tray of margarita glasses and lime. “I’m Roger. I’ll be back with the shots,” he said. “Rough day already?” He nodded at Bella’s gown. “Someone make a run for it?”