Heteroflexibility (28 page)

“Get what?”

“What is there to hate? So two guys get it on. So what.”

“Religion. Children. Survival of the human race.”

I kicked at the sand. My strappy shoes were already caked with it. “I think we’re overpopulating the world already.”

“The gay community crosses over with a lot of already unusual populations—artists, activists, people who say what they think, act the way they want.”

“Most everybody I’ve met are just normal people.”

“Yes, but the more colorful ones get the attention. People just aren’t comfortable.”

“I’m comfortable.”

“How comfortable were you a week ago?”

The first meeting with Jenna and Mary. A lifetime ago. “Got me there.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just saying, you’ve changed in these few days.”

“I have. A little.”

“Would you have taken up the cause last Saturday compared to this one?”

“No. It wouldn’t have applied to me.”

“And yet today you’re uploading dozens of photos with the purpose of raising awareness on Prop 8.”

“Okay. I’ve really changed.”

“And what about your dad? Did he ever think about gay issues?”

“Not likely.”

“But now he will.”

“He’ll back anything I do.”

“So you’ve changed one other person. This is how social progress happens.”

We approached another burning drum, several people sitting beside it. The same beautiful boy from the night before played his guitar, his face burnished in the orange glow. My heart slid a little toward my stomach. I had gotten Bradford’s attention, and now I would lose it again.

The boy sang a different tune this time, but equally melancholy. My eyes started to burn when I recognized it.
When a man loves a woman.

This man didn’t love any women. My nose started to run. I was going to cry.

Hell no. Hello, snark. I wanted to kick the guitar suddenly, throw sand in the boy’s eyes. Eliminate the competition.

Of course, Bradford wouldn’t want me if I was the last girl on earth. I was still a girl.

I made myself stop. The nastiness was going to ruin the moment.  I had a mission, and I needed to focus. I led us straight to the singer and halted.

Bradford waited, his head tilted in curiosity, eyes never straying once to the boy. He wasn’t looking! I felt empowered, and I took his hand. Success! “You can dance, right?”

He nodded.

“Well, I can’t. So you’ll have to take charge.”

“You did pretty well at Rainbow.” He pulled me closer to him, his arm reaching around my waist.

“You calling me out on a lie? You think I’m a secret ballroom queen?”

He smiled at me. We were almost the same height, so his mouth was ever so close. The humiliating moment in the bathroom tried to force itself forward, but I shoved it back.

“I wouldn’t dare call you a liar,” he said.

“Please tell me I don’t have to lead.”

“You don’t have to lead.”

The guitar player clearly appreciated having extra fans, singing louder, with more expression.

We circled slowly, not going very far, our shoes dragging in the sand. I could feel every imprint of every button on his jacket, the stitch of the pockets, the bulge of his…cell phone.

The boy kept singing although we edged away, toward the waves, the roar starting to overtake the guitar, the air smelling of sea salt and wet weeds. I didn’t want him to pull away, for this part of the night to end, but my traitorous body shivered in the chill.

“We should get you back.” He let go of my hand and steered us toward the streets. “The nights get pretty cold here.”

Yes, yes, they do.

***

He walked me down the hall, as familiar now as home. “It’s our last night here,” I said without thinking.

“It is.” He took my key card to open the door, such an old-fashioned gesture that it was hard to imagine that he was really a very modern, ultra metro, fashionable gay man on the front edge of social change.

I didn’t want the evening to end, the trip to end. “We still have the game tomorrow, though.”

He slid the card through the lock. “That should be a good time.”

“And the plane ride back.”

He tilted his head quizzically at me. I was gushing, I knew, embarrassing myself. Getting sentimental. But I might not even seem him again after tomorrow. Tonight was definitely the last time I’d get him alone.

Maybe I should kiss him. Just do it. I’d managed the hand hold.

But dancing was an excuse. He probably didn’t want to kiss girls.

Or maybe it was like Marvin said, beauty knew no sexual orientation.

Except I wasn’t beautiful. Not even close.

“I’m still really sorry about the car ride,” Bradford said.

“It’s okay. Really.” And it was.

“My past is not my strong suit. I stay away from it.”

“Mine is getting that way.”

“Right. The ex-husband.”

“I’ve got that to look forward to when we get back.” And homelessness. My stomach hardened over again, steeling itself for upset.

And here I was, lingering, making a fool of myself—again! I remembered my closed-eye moment the night before, thinking Bradford would kiss me. Oh, the humiliation.

And there HE was again, leaning forward, just like before.

I could not be that stupid again. I would not let him think I was some silly little hetero who couldn’t keep a husband OR a best friend, and fawned over someone out of my reach.

My head banged the wall as I pulled back. I turned and my shoulder pushed the unlocked door open and I stumbled through. Bradford still stood, paralyzed somehow, confused and a bit startled.

“See you tomorrow!” I waved and closed the door, leaning on it.

At least I hadn’t made a fool of myself again.

Chapter 32: Throwing in the Towel

They were painting Jenna’s dog pink.

“She’s going to be soooo mad!” Horatio said. I almost didn’t recognize him without the veil, but then when he squatted down to watch the skinny man in a pink cheerleading outfit run a wand of non-toxic finger paint through Butch’s fur, I recognized the thighs.

Another man bearing pom pons loomed over them. “I don’t want to be around when that girl sees what you’ve done.”

“Won’t that make the pooch puke?”

Butch turned to investigate his new color, sniffed at the paint, and turned away.

“See, she’s a smart puppy!” the pom pon man said.

The effect was actually pretty cute. Butch remained white at the roots, pink on the fluffy ends of his coat.

I snapped a shot of the slender brush flowing through his fur.

I had ridden with the girls over to the softball field in a van, our suitcases now piled up along the dugout wall for our journey home. I wasn’t sure if I was sad or what, but it had certainly been a trip.

I glanced around for Bradford, who had come over separately with Horatio. I wondered if they were rekindling something.

I spotted him on the far end of the bleachers, leaning against a tree with several Ball Breakers. They were trying to keep Jenna busy while this new crew, all men dressed as cheerleaders, dealt with Butch. Horatio stood, wiping his hands on a towel. “My work here is done.” He busted out laughing as the Pomeranian suddenly shook herself, spraying pink droplets. I raised my camera just in time to catch the tail end of the moment, the cheerleaders shielding their eyes with their hands, Butch a puffball in pink and white.

Horatio shook his head. “Jenna’s gonna be one displeased dyke.”

More pigtailed and pleated-skirt men dashed over now that the deed was done.

“What a dog!” said one in a gravelly voice. He had more mascara than Tammy Faye Baker and two day’s growth of a beard. I shook my head and lifted my camera. He became energetic then, striking a saucy pose, one pom pon in the air, mouth open in a big girly smile.

“So are you guys a team, or just a fan club?” I asked.

The man with the stubble said, “I’m the fabulous Martin(a)—that’s with parenthesis around the a—you get that right on the Google search. We’re the un-official cheerleading squad of the Gay Athletic Alliance teams.”

A chubby cheerleader with several inches of belly between his top and his skirt pushed forward. “I want to talk to you. Zest, right? I’m Harold.” He shook my hand. “I saw your pictures on the internet.”

“Dirty pictures?” asked Martin(a).

“You wish,” said Harold. “From the protest. Girlfriend, they’re everywhere.”

“Did we look good?” Horatio asked.

“Uggh,” said Martin(a). “You boys should not do drag in public. Sloppy, sloppy work.” She wagged a finger at Horatio. “I saw your junk.”

“You did not.”

“Did too.”

“Ladies!” I said, before I realized what I’d said, and my face flushed. “I mean, gentlemen.”

They all laughed. “Poor little straight girl,” Martin(a) said. “It’s all right.”

“I got someone who wants to meet you,” Harold said. “Owns a gallery here in town. Wants to display your pictures.”

“Really?” I absently reached down to pet the dog, grimacing when I got a handful of pink, sending the cheerleaders into a fit of giggles.

Harold acted like he didn’t notice. “Come with me. I’ll introduce you.”

***

I felt like skipping across the field as the players lined up for the coin toss. A certain Vincent Amagordo, owner of not one, but two galleries in L.A. and San Diego, wanted limited edition prints of my pictures, immediately, to hang in his gallery for an Election Night Party. I already had a check for five figures and an invitation to attend my own opening if I wanted to stay in California a few more days.

I hugged my Canon 5D. “It’s you and me baby,” I whispered. “We’re going all the way.”

A whistle blew, and the players headed out to the center of the field for the coin toss.

I slipped back into the dugout, where the cheerleaders were arranging their pom pons across pleated skirts and bare knees. “You boys look lovely,” I said. Fern’s fashion sense would have been right at home with this crew. I shook the thought loose. I had to stop thinking of her as a friend.

“Now who’s THAT morose figure the cat’s dragging in?” asked Martin(a).

I followed his gaze toward the parking lot. A man with hunched shoulders, head bent, crossed the grass to the bleachers. He looked familiar, then as he got just a little closer, I saw it.

Cade.

Unbelievable.

I exhaled long and slow, trying to control my anger, but my hands were shaking.

“Uh oh,” Martin(a) said, putting an arm around me. “The diva awakes. Raaawwr.”

I let him approach, needing the proximity of witnesses to stop me from snatching up a nearby Louisville Slugger and popping him upside the head.

He saw me when he was about ten yards away and slowed down even more.

I forced my voice to remain at a normal decibel, but I had a sinking feeling the words weren’t going to come out exactly as I might plan them. I could just shut up, but that was about as likely as Rupaul becoming a lumberjack.

“What the FUCK are you doing in San Diego?” I didn’t have to ask how he knew where to go. Freaking GPS. I had forgotten about it in the melee yesterday. Should have thrown it in the Pacific last night. But it did mean he’d talked to Fern, to get my whereabouts. I bet that went well.

“I had to find Fern.”

“You do that?”

“No. I left a message telling her I was on a plane and she flipped out, saying she was going to have an abortion.”

Whew. “Not possible.”

“I knew she wouldn’t go through with it.”

“That’s not what I meant. She isn’t pregnant.”

“She’s not?”

“Good God, Cade. You know the story of how she and I met.”

“What?”

“Home pregnancy tests. Magic markers. Not rocket science to fake that. One line not pregnant, two lines, pregnant.”

Silence.

“Did you really think Fern was the sort of girl who would get trapped like that? She’d have told the Virgin Mary to abort.”

He wavered for a second and Martin(a) rushed forward with a lawn chair, pushing him down into it. “This is better than Jerry Springer!” he said.

Cade pulled out his phone, checked it, and put it back away. Probably an automatic act by now, waiting for Fern. “Why would she lie?”

Why had she? I tried to find a midpoint between what she had said earlier and what I already understood about her. “My first impulse is to say because she’s a manipulating hedonistic bitch. But to be kind, maybe just to test herself on someone who knew how to commit. To see if it was her fault no one ever had stuck by her. I helped clarify that it was most definitely her problem.”

Cade cleared his throat. “Will you take me back?”

“Now that’s a segue.”

“I knew it was wrong to leave you like that. You don’t have any way to make it on your own.”

“Oh no he DIDN’T just say that,” Martin(a) said. The cheerleaders were piled together, pushing against the rail of the dugout, to listen in.

“I’m doing okay,” I said.

“You won’t forgive me?’

God, in this light it was like he didn’t have any hair at all. Ha, I could still snark. I wasn’t falling for it. “Cade, you said yourself there was no love lost.”

“I was wrong.”

“No, you were right.” I choked a little on that, remembering the locket.

Ivy threw the opening pitch. Blitz was first up. The bat cracked, wild and to the left. Foul ball. I should be shooting. I slid the strap off my shoulder and held the camera in my hands, flipping off the lens cap. “Cade, I gotta go. I’m doing this gig.”

“Will you think about it?”

“There’s nothing to think about.”

“But we had five years.”

“I’d say about four, since you started banging the bimbo a year ago. This is not my problem.”

“You won’t get anything.”

I remembered the check. Good thing he made more than me, so he wouldn’t get any of it. “I don’t need anything.”

“You can’t even keep enough clients to pay for your equipment.”

“And that’s MY problem, not yours.”

“You’ll fail.”

The bat lay on the ground, too tempting, painted black with the word “Vicious” stretching across its slender length in huge white type. Martin(a) was way ahead of me. He scooped it up and passed it to me.