Heteroflexibility (23 page)

“You don’t know the half of it,” Nikki said. “Keep them coming,” she said. “And bring on the queso.”

Krieg dashed back into the room. “They’re organizing out front, but they don’t seem to be coming in. We’re trapped, but we’re safe.”

“Bloody Prop Haters,” Nikki grumbled. “Give me a drink.”

I took a thin-stemmed glass, the broad bulb filled with gold and bobbing with ice, trimmed with a slice of lime. Nikki held hers aloft, “To the wingnuts, who have won the battle but not yet the war. Let today be the Stonewall of our wedding weekend, and bring on the madness.”

We all held our glasses up and I snapped the shot, blind, holding the camera next to my shoulder, and hoped for the best. I’d look at it later. For now, like the girls and Bradford, I would drink.

Chapter 27: Patty-Cakes

“It’s about time we found you Hoebags!” A voice called from the entrance to the patio, and we all turned to it.

A muscled twenty-something with white-blond hair led a group of women toward our table.  She grabbed a chair, turned it around, and sat, straddling the seat back. “Are you Hoes drinking without us?”

“Hell, no!” Nikki said. “We’ll get another round coming.” She waved at Robert. “Double the margaritas and shots!”

I leaned to Bradford. “Peppermint Patties?”

He nodded.

Bella passed her shot glass down the table. “Ivy, you can take mine.”

Ivy accepted it with a mock toast. “That’s quite a dress you have there, Bella.”

She blushed. “It’s a little traditional, I know.”

Nikki wrapped her arm around Bella’s neck. “That’s my girl.”

Ivy downed her shot and surveyed the table. “Fine mess you all got into. Why didn’t you run the name of the minister by me? Jacob freakin’ Haverty. He’s pretty well known in these parts.”

“How?” Mary asked.

Ivy tapped the orange plastic chair back. “He’s an anti-gay grandstander with a fetish for being on the news. They’re all talking about the Texas homosexuals. You’re their mission.”

“A mission from God,” another one said in her best Blues Brothers accent, but no one laughed.

“Will they find us?” Mary’s face had turned ashen.

“It’s a big town,” Ivy said. “But there’s still the issue of your wedding. You girls still trying to go through with it?”

“We’re screwed,” Jenna said. “It’s a Saturday. Courthouse is closed, so we can’t go to the JP. We don’t have a minister. Prop 8 rallies are everywhere.”

“I’ll say,” said another of the Peppermint Patties, pointing at the silent television angled down from the corner. “Check out the television.”

“Ooooh, it’s Rekha,” one said. “She’s hot.”

“It’s the minister!” Mary said. “Quick, turn it up!”

Nikki shoved a chair beneath the TV mounted to the wall and stepped up to crank the volume.

“It’s another victory for supporters of traditional marriage,” the minister said, his face purple. “ We must not release anarchy, a sexual insanity that will break lose on California. Let this be a warning to all the people of this nation. We are on the cusp of Armageddon! However goes California, goes the world!”

“What was that creep’s name again? Haverty?” Nikki asked.

The reporter turned to the camera. “And today, at San Diego’s QualComm Stadium, 10,000 Christians have gathered to pray and show their support for Proposition 8 to end gay marriages.”

“What?” Mary stood up, walking closer to the television. “There’s a huge rally today? On our wedding day?”

“Good choice, Mary,” Blitz said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ivy said. “There’s stuff going on all over the state.”

“Is the amendment going to pass?” Nikki asked.

“Shouldn’t. It’s down in the polls.” Ivy pointed back to the monitor. “Looky there, one of their misleading commercials.”

We all stared up at the television.

On screen, a young girl approached her mother in their kitchen and  showed the cover of the picture book
King & King
.

Nikki whirled around and stormed back to the table. “That is such crap! Manipulative bullshit!”

“It’s working,” Ivy said. “We had an eleven-point lead in the polls earlier this year. Now it’s down to three percent.”

Robert returned with a tray of margaritas. Ivy drained her second shot. I angled my camera toward her, trying to remain unobtrusive.

“The ads are all over the place, look there’s another one.” She pointed at the screen. “I love this one. They have all these sickly looking kids supposedly poisoned by a field trip to a lesbian wedding.”

“Where is the opposition to the amendment? Aren’t they organized?” Mary asked.

“They are,” Ivy said. “But the money going into this election by the fundies is unreal.”

Mary plucked at a loose string on her silk sleeve. “I just wanted to have a fun weekend, and get married, and have a great softball game.”

“You didn’t know this would happen,” Ivy said. “I didn’t know it either, or I would have warned you.”

Robert slid baskets of chips onto the table, but no one touched them. He seemed to know not to say anything and didn’t even bring menus.

Ivy turned to me. “So you’re the straight girl, right? The photographer?”

I nodded.

“What to you make of all this mess in California?”

I shrugged. “It’s worse than Texas right now.”

Another of the Patties leaned forward. “I hear it’s rough out there. You girls have problems?”

“Not really,” Nikki said. “Austin is a magnet for liberals.”

“Unless you try to go to a restaurant on Valentine’s Day,” Bella said. “Remember how that girl quit waiting on us after we started making out?”

“I’d stop waiting on you if I had to watch that,” Blitz said.

“It sucked,” Nikki said. “But nobody said anything to us.”

“It’s better than 2004,” Ivy said, glancing at Bradford. “Gay bashing reached a height. Boys especially got the crap beaten out of them.”

I stole a peek at Bradford, wondering if he’d ever been targeted for that, how often it might happen, like at the piano bar. I suddenly raged with protectiveness.

“Nothing like those naked marches,” Nikki winked at Bradford.

I tried to picture him, wrapped in a flag, arms linked with other men.

“I wasn’t there for all that,” he said. “Had my own personal demons.”

“I recall that little drama queen,” Ivy said. “That’s how we met.”

Queen? Drag queen? I couldn’t picture Bradford with a man who dressed like a woman. But what did I know. His face was pretty enough to win a drag contest, hands down.

I hoped they would keep talking about Bradford’s past, but Mary said, “You girls have any ideas for us? If we don’t get married today, and the measure passes, we won’t be able to do it at all.”

“You can always go to Canada,” another woman said. “That’s what we did.” She squeezed the hand of a petite girl next to her. “The license doesn’t travel, but it carries weight for legal stuff. Though my parents have never recognized that we had a ceremony.”

“I don’t think anything was worse than me having to tell my redneck daddy I was gay,” Jenna said. “I still don’t think he’s gotten over it.”

“At least he’s not still asking if you’ve met any boys,” Mary said, nudging her.

“I haven’t spoken to my mom in six years,” Audrey said. “She disowned me when I came out.” Aud threaded her arm through Audrey’s.

“You think she’ll ever come around?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

Ivy rocked forward on her chair. “What exactly was her problem with it? Did she say?”

“She wanted grandkids.”

“You can do that!” Bella said.

Audrey rested her small chin in her hand. Bradford had rolled her hair into an intricate updo, glossy and near black, with tiny rhinestone flowers dotting the backward sweep. “She couldn’t save face to her Bunko friends, I think. They were always bragging about their handsome successful sons-in-laws, the weddings that were too lavish for words, the country club outings.”

“How did she let you know you were disowned?” Bella asked.

“She wrote me a letter actually. Said it was too painful to talk about. Asked me not to contact her anymore.”

“And you let that happen?” Ivy asked. “You just allowed it?”

Audrey fingered a dangling earring. “What else do you do? Make them accept you?”

Ivy slammed down her margarita glass. “I fought back. When I brought Amy over for Thanksgiving and announced we were dating, my parents tried to pull the ol’ silent treatment. I just kept talking. And when they put sheets on the sofa for Amy, I just took them right off and put them in my room.”

“You’re braver than me,” Audrey said. “I never was good at disobeying my mom.”

“You were not disobeying!” Ivy’s pale face had flushed red to her roots. “You act like you wrecked the family car! You were being who you are.”

“It’s not that easy,” Bella said. “It took two years for my parents to get used to the idea. That’s one thing that will be different about this little one,” she smiled up at Nikki. “He won’t have to grow up like we all did, with that built-in assumption that he has to be like his parents.”

“God help me if he turns out to be some Tonka truck crashing macho man,” Nikki said.

I caught on first. “Are you saying that Bella is—”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out!” Mary said. “Bella!”

Everyone jumped up and began hugging her. I stood, snapping shots, the first happy smiles since we’d seen since the minister.

“I so hope you get some strapping young buck, chasing skirts and driving you mad,” Ivy said. “Justice.”

“Shut up, ho’!” Nikki shouted, laughing. “But it’d serve me right, with all the trash talk I do about boys.” She glanced at Bradford. “No offense.”

He held up a palm. “None taken.”

“So what did you do?” Audrey asked. “Sperm bank? Was it expensive?”

“The old fashioned way,” Nikki said, and this time Bella flushed red.

“Oh no you didn’t!” Audrey said.

Nikki elbowed Bella. “Well, you know she used to date boys.”

“Nikki, stop it!” Bella lightly smacked her on the knee. “I did no such thing.” She turned back to Audrey. “But we didn’t do IUI. Insurance wouldn’t cover it and it was going to cost six thousand dollars.”

“Six thousand!” Mary said.

Bella nodded. “We picked a friend we know and love, and he was the donor.”

Jenna leaned forward. “You did the turkey baster? That really works?”

“It was a little more intricate than that,” Bella said, her face blossoming red again. “It took a few tries.”

Nikki held up the glass. “I got the honor, thank you very much.”

Aud tossed a napkin at Nikki. “No wonder you were hot to get married!” she said. “You knocked her up!”

Jenna grasped Mary’s hand. “We were hoping to do medical IUI. But it’s expensive.”

“What’s an IUI?” Ivy asked. “Don’t be using all these inside code-words.”

“Inter-uterine insemination,” Jenna said. “They unfreeze the little squirmies and stick them in you.”

“Is that the technical description?” Ivy asked. “Because if that’s the technical version, I don’t want to know what really happens.”

Aud rolled her eyes. “No details!”

“Where else do we get details?” Ivy asked.

Nikki slapped the table. “Did you know it takes fifty million sperm to fertilize an egg?”

Ivy jumped up from her chair. “No way.”

“But it does! Because none of them will ask for directions!”

The collective groan was punctuated with laughter. “She got you, Ivy,” Jenna said.

Ivy shook her head. “I should have seen that coming.”

A petite Asian woman with sleek black hair popped through the doorway and waved. “Sorry I’m late!” she said.

“Ameeeee!” the Patties chorused.

“Our fearless leader,” Ivy said, leaning to pull an empty chair near her. “And love of my life.”

Amy leaned over to drop a quick kiss on Ivy’s mouth and sat down. “I’ve been on the phone and here’s what I found out.” She looked around the table. “There’s a JP I know who can do the wedding.”

“Really!” Mary said. “Oh, Amy!”

“Here’s the catch. We have to go to him because he’s sandwiching us between two ceremonies today already.”

Nikki jumped from her chair. “So let’s go! I’ve got to make my honey legitimate!”

“Sit down,” Amy said. “We can’t just walk out of here.”

Nikki crossed her arms. “What are you talking about?”

“The protestors are pretty serious outside.”

“What do you mean?” Nikki glanced at the patio walls.

“Out front,” Amy said. “Nobody’s coming in, actually. The manager’s not thrilled about it. I hung out for a while to see what was going on, then walked around and came in through the delivery entrance.”

“So we’ll sneak out the delivery entrance,” Nikki said. “Let’s go!”

“But the limo,” Mary said.

“You Patties got cars, right?” Nikki said. “We’ll ditch the limo.”

“We might could make it,” Ivy said. “It’s worth a try.”

“I wouldn’t,” Amy said. “They’ve got handcuffs.”

“They’ve got what?” Nikki stopped her pacing across the floor and whirled around.

“They’re planning to stop your wedding no matter what.”

Mary dropped her head to the table. “Why are they doing this to us?”

“It’s show time for Haverty,” Amy said. “He’s hell bent on stopping you, and now that the media’s involved, he doesn’t plan to lose.”

“I’m going to go check out the back,” Nikki said. “This is ridiculous.” She hurried through the door to the restaurant.

“Can we call the cops? Isn’t that assault?” Audrey asked.

“We could,” Amy said. “But if we get detained, you’ll miss the chance to get married.”

“We have to be careful with Bella,” Mary said. “We don’t want a scuffle.”

“I’m ready for a scuffle,” Blitz said.

Krieg tweaked her ear. “You’re always ready for a scuffle.”

“Let’s not get arrested,” Mary said.

My cell phone pinged with a text message. Fern, of all people.
Where r u?

I ignored it. I didn’t have time for that drama.

It beeped again.
We have 2 talk.

Ah. Somehow, she knew I knew.