Heteroflexibility (26 page)

The woman nodded. “I’m Alexandra Green. I have about an hour before the next ceremony.”

Mary smoothed her pantsuit nervously. “Is there a spot we should go?”

“The owner said we could hold the ceremony out here on the porch at the far end, so that if guests arrive early for the three o’clock, they won’t disturb us.”

“We so appreciate you doing this,” Mary said. “We’ve really been stuck.”

“Yes, you ladies have caused quite a stir, I hear. I’ve been here all morning, so I didn’t catch any of the broadcasts. Reverend Haverty, was it?”

“That lowlife blackguard son of a—ooof.” Blitz silenced when Krieg’s elbow landed in her belly.

Alexandra laughed. “That about sums up how many of us feel. I hope he doesn’t have all your paperwork.”

“Oh no, we did that ourselves.” Mary gestured to Jenna, who set Butch down to dig in a satchel and produce a folder. “All our licenses are here.”

Alexandra accepted the documents and gestured to the far end of the porch. “Then let’s get started.”

We arranged each couple between a set of white columns, looking out over the grounds where a cleanup crew rapidly removed the remains of the previous reception.

I had to angle the shots carefully to avoid a distracting background of tables with cloths thrown up over leftover china, kneeling to keep the sky behind the women’s tired but relieved faces.

They recited their vows, one by one, in sickness and in health, as long as they both shall live, and got their “I now declare you spouses for life” and a kiss.

Nikki covered Bella’s belly protectively for their photo. Blitz and Krieg stood back to back, holding champagne flutes. Mary cried in her portrait while Jenna held an embroidered cotton handkerchief her grandmother had carried in her own wedding. I lingered by Aud and Audrey. Both repeated the rites with clear strong voices, holding hands and never taking their eyes off each other. Hopefully Fern never even crossed their minds.

Bradford kept at a distance. As much as I wanted to sympathize with his bad memories of the place, the fight in the car made me stay away from him.

The Patties arrived halfway through and stood across from us, by the wall, and signed the documents at the end. The Ball Breakers had not made it to the Plantation, but Amy got word that they had all escaped in the limo, save Horatio, who decided to remain behind to torment the minister. His willingness to interrupt and argue the blustering man’s every point had made the news, and apparently a counter rally in support of the Ball Breakers had formed in front of the restaurant.

“What now?” I asked Mary as we thanked the JP and headed back to our cars. The guests for the next wedding were arriving and looked curiously at all the women arm-in-arm.

“You and Bradford have the night off,” Nikki said. “We have some consummation to take care of.” She ran her free arm through mine. “Unless you’re ready for that threesome!”

I kissed her cheek. “I can’t have you knocking me up too!”

The pink limo had returned and waited in the lot. The driver opened the door, taking off his hat and bowing to us. “Got the, errr, men, home safely, ma’am,” he said. “Time to go back to the hotel?”

Mary hugged him. “You’ve been so wonderful to us. Yes, we can all go home now.”

“I don’t know,” Jenna said. “I’m still dizzy from that 180 across the median.”

He laughed. “I may get fired on my first day.”

“We won’t tell if you won’t,” Nikki said.

The women hugged the Patties goodbye, promising to be in good shape for game the next morning. They loaded into the cars, and we closed the door to the limo.

“The Ball Breakers left a few things behind,” Jenna said, holding up a scrap of stretch material.

“It’s the gaff!” Nikki said. “Drop it! Now!”

Jenna tossed the fabric in the air and it landed on Bella’s lap. She picked it up with tentative fingers, holding it up to the window. “I’m sure I’m going to deal with worse than this in a few months,” she said. “No use being squeamish.”

“Ugghh, am I going to have to change diapers?” Nikki asked.

“Oh yes,” Bella said. “And I’m going to give you all the nasty ones.”

Chapter 30: When Gary Wed Marvin

The images were unbelievable. Horatio. The kiss. The spinning minister. Mouths frozen in angry shouts. I rapidly watermarked the digital files and tried to connect to Flickr to start uploading them.

No connection.

I checked my wireless settings again. The hotel staff had assured me I could log on from my room.

Still nothing.

My palm smashed into the desk with a WHAM. I was not going to let some silly internet issue come between me and what I was sure would be a very excited audience for these images.

I searched the walls for an Ethernet hookup, clutching my Cat 5 cable like a lifeline.

Nothing.

Arrrgghhh! I lunged for the telephone and dialed the main desk.

I cut off her greeting. “Why isn’t your wireless working in the room?”

“It should be up and running.”

“Well, it’s not!”

“If you can’t connect with your equipment, try after a system reboot. Or you are welcome to come down to the bar area or lobby. It’s working fine here.”

I slammed the phone down and rebooted my machine, tapping anxiously. News like this would not be news long. The television droned on with the volume low. We hadn’t made CNN or anything national, but the local stations was covering Prop 8 like crazy, including their favorite clip—Haverty with his legs sticking out of a trash can, the protest sign around his neck crumpled and smashed.

The monitor blinked back on. I rechecked the wireless, still nothing.

I yanked the plug out the back and clutched the laptop to my chest as I hurried out of the room and down to the main lobby.

The entrance was a crush of people and kids checking in. I waded through the crowd and into the bar, a cool dark cave that was empty save a few couples curled together in booths.

I settled on a stool at the bar itself. The bartender approached but I waved him away. “In a minute,” I said. “Let me check the wireless first.”

I hadn’t even closed the lid of my laptop on the walk down, too impatient to wait for it to power up a second time. I refreshed the network, and YES, a connection. I leaped onto it and immediately logged into my Flickr account.

On second thought, upon seeing all the old images of me and Cade, I logged out and signed up again as a new user. I didn’t want clutter on my photo stream.

Only when the first set was loading into the new account did I look up.

Two middle-aged men had settled to one side of me.

“The doll rejoins the world,” one said in a falsely high voice, a gold tooth glittering when he flashed me a patronizing smile. “You working hard or hardly working?”

The bartender set down a highball glass before each of them and nodded at me. “You ready for something?”

 “Crown and coke,” I said. “Thank you.”

“A polite one,” the man said, turning around on his stool to face the open part of the room. He patted the other man on the knee. “You should take lessons, Gary.”

I shook my head and shifted my attention back to the screen. Polite, I was not.

One of my favorite images, a shot of Horatio kissing an old lady with a white beehive, had an odd arm shooting up from behind him. It appeared as though he had an appendage growing out of his veil. A bystander, no doubt, but it looked odd, and I wanted to Photoshop it out before I uploaded.

“Look at that hunk of love in drag,” my neighbor said. He was not going to shut up. “Gary, look at the doll’s pictures.”

I quickly used the stamp tool to erase the errant arm, saved the image, and dropped it into the upload.

“You got more of him, honey?”

I clearly would have to endure the company. “I do.”

“Show me!” His hair was thinning, slicked down with an overkill of gel. He had a long pointed nose, and now that I was looking, eyeliner.

Gary, his companion, leaned over his back to look. Early fifties, both of them, but Gary had normal hair and a rather ordinary ruddy face with squinty dark eyes. “We should introduce ourselves.”

“Oh yes, let’s do.” The closer man extended a hand, damp and chilly from his glass. “I’m Marvin, and this is my lover Gary.”

“Husband,” Gary corrected.

“Of course! Oh yes. We got married today.” Marvin turned to kiss Gary’s cheek.

“Congratulations.” I flipped over to an image of the whole bridal party, the one in the restaurant, with the Hoebags and the Ball Breakers. “I photographed a wedding today.”

“I just knew you were a professional! Look, Gary, at what she’s done.”

“And this.” I clicked the image away, revealing a close up on a mostly naked Horatio.

“Bless my buttons, look at that one,” Marvin said. “Wow, wow, wow.”

Okay, enough. “Don’t tell me you just said ‘bless my buttons,’” I said.

Gary nudged Marvin. “You can kill the fag bit.” He wrapped an arm around his husband’s neck. “He’s in a show, at a cabaret, for straights mainly, and he tends to let it bleed over into real life. He’s really a straight-up fag.”

Marvin set his glass down with a clink. “How Mattachine of you,” he said, in the same almost-falsetto. “But okay.” His voice changed completely into a baritone.

I shrugged. “What’s Mattachine?”

“A society, darling, one who tried to show how gays were like everyone else.” Marvin wagged his finger at me. “Gay history.”

I sent the next set of pictures up to the queue. “I’ve gotten quite a dose this week. At this point, nothing would surprise me.”

“Tell it all, sister,” Marvin said. “We’ve got nothing here but time.” He winked at Gary. “We have to endure a little recharge here and there.”

I uploaded the last set of images. “Let me post some comments to a couple news sites first. I want to link to my pictures.”

“Go right ahead, honey,” Marvin said. “Do Channel 6 first. Their weather girl is hot!”

“Aloha!” Gary said. “That’s her name.”

“She can say Aloha to me anytime.” Marvin faked swooned.

I Googled “Channel 6, San Diego.” Aloha, the meteorologist, was featured on the home page. Now I was really confused. “But, she’s a girl.”

Marvin shook his near-empty glass, setting the ice to tinkling. “Beauty knows no sexual orientation.” He sipped his drink, frowned, and set it on the bar. “I’m such a fucking lush.” He leaned in close. “Haven’t you ever been into a girl? Just for a minute?”

I thought of Samantha at the bar. I shrugged. “Maybe.”

Marvin turned abruptly to Gary. “See! Even a super-straight like this doll can be flexible.”

Oh, that again. “So how did you know I was straight?”

“You don’t eye the women in your pho-toes, doll. You oogle the men. It’s plain as the sunburn on a naked man’s ass.” Marvin tapped the top of his drink to signal the bartender. “Now this hunk heading over.” He nodded as the bartender took the empty glass. “Six-one. Dark curly hair. No styling products. Moderately muscled but not over-zealous on the work outs. Equally flirty with girls—” he paused as the man dropped ice into a fresh glass, “and boys. He knows his town.”

He swiveled to face me. “So what would your conclusion be, doll, gay or straight?”

I had no idea. “You’re asking the wrong hetero. I’ve been flirting with a gay man for five days.”

“Girlfriend!” Marvin’s voice hit high again. “That will never never do! It only leads to heartbreak!”

“I know, I know.” I already regretted saying it, but it felt good to admit it to someone. “And I knew it all along too. It just…happened.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” He leaned in close. “Well, for the record, that one packs more fudge than Lucille in a candy factory.”

“I have the gaydar of a lemon.” I tried to recall all my schooling from the last few days, Adam’s apples, sizes of hands, but it was such a jumble. There was no way to know. They were just…people.

Marvin chuckled. “Watch the eyes. Where they look. Where they glance and where they linger.”

I rapidly typed in a line about my pictures in a comment on the news story about Haverty and the “Texas Brides,” as they were calling the Hoebags. I added a link to my Flickr account.

“You keep working, girl, get yourself famous with those photos,” Marvin said. “But you have to tell me about your gay boy.”

“Probably just a post-divorce thing,” I mumbled, clicking to another news site.

“You’re divorced? Poor thing!” Marvin said. “Recently?”

“Not even done yet. He served me papers last weekend.”

“Oh my stars!” his voice went high again and Gary nudged him.

Good grief. “Oh my stars?”

He lowered an octave. “Well, god damn it, that’s a son of a bitch.”

I had to laugh. “Yeah, left me for my best friend.” Maybe each time I said it, the edge would dull a little.

“Good riddance,” Marvin said, swishing the air as if to wave away flies. “And so you met the boy.”

I sent a comment to the final site on the list. I could search around for other places, but that was a good start. I twisted around on the stool. “He came along on this wedding gig. Hair and makeup for the brides.”

“And you fell in lo-ove,” Marvin sing-songed. “But not happily ever after, because he wants rods, not cones.”

“Something like that.”

“He’s just a rebound, baby. A safe, safe rebound. It’s a cliché, the way women flirt with us.”

“I have no female friends,” Gary said.

“Harrumph.” Marvin crossed his legs, agitated. “You’re forgetting the two-bit hussy.”

“She hasn’t lived out her year yet. Doesn’t count.”

I had no idea what he meant. “Lived out her year?”

“Transgendering, doll. Before you can do the knife, you gotta live the life.”

Gary added, “Well, it depends on where you live. Used to be you always had to wait, but now it’s up to the docs, and sometimes, legal mumbo jumbo.”

“So your friend,” I said slowly, “is a man changing into a woman, and Marvin considers her a female friend.”

“He’s a little bitch that way,” Gary said, laughing.

Marvin pouted. “I hate it when you call me a little bitch.”

“You love it.”