M or F? (16 page)

Patricia came into the living room and gave us a twirl. “How do I look?”

“What is Uzbekistan?” Dad said to the TV, not that it counted. They had
Jeopardy
repeats on the weekend, and we'd seen this one before.

“You look fabulous,” Frannie told her.

“You really do, Momma,” Dad added without looking up.

She had on a pair of stretch jeans tucked into black cowboy boots, and a denim shirt with red lassos embroidered on the shoulders. Her hair was pulled back tight in a silver ponytail that made her look younger somehow. She did, in fact, look great. The whole Western thing, though, was giving me a bad feeling. All Patricia had told us was that we should dress comfortably.

She waved at Arthur through the living room window. His face lit up when he saw her. He looked very Texas himself—definitely shopped at Big and Tall. He had on jeans and an open-collared shirt and oh yes, a big gold chain around his neck. When the doorbell rang, Frannie practically skipped across the floor to get it. She was loving this already.

“What is
Breakfast at Tiffany's
?” I grumbled at the TV.

Dad nudged me. “Good one.”

A big Texas voice boomed from the doorway. “You must be Frannie. Just as pretty as Patricia said.”

“Well, thank you.” I could have sworn she threw in a little twang of her own.

Dad turned off the TV and we stood up as Frannie led Arthur inside. He filled the room with his take-charge energy. “Don't tell me,” he said. “Patrick and Marcus. Real good to meet you.” I tried not to show the pain on my face when he shook my hand.

“Good to meet you too,” Dad said.

We looked around. Patricia had disappeared in the confusion. I knew she wanted to make an entrance. That's the Southern belle in her. “Be right there,” she called out, as if on cue.

“So where are you all headed tonight?” Dad asked Arthur.

“I think that's supposed to be a surprise,” he said, jabbing Dad with his elbow just as Patricia came in. “Oh my,” he went on. “Two gorgeous ladies and two lucky gentlemen. You sure you won't join us, Patrick?”

“Patrick isn't invited,” Patricia said, coming out of her second fashion twirl of the evening, this one for Arthur. “Tonight's a double date. No room for a fifth wheel. Sorry, honey.” She reached over and grabbed Dad's chin affectionately.

“No problem,” Dad said. It was the most jealous of him I'd ever been.

“So y'all have already met?” Patricia said.

“We have,” Frannie answered for us.

“Isn't he divine?” Patricia leaned into Arthur and put her skinny arms as far around his middle as she could get them. He was a good foot taller than her, too, but you could just see how they clicked together.

Well, good for Patricia, I thought.

“Where are we going?” I tried again on the way to the car. “Line dancing or something?” It was supposed to be a joke.

“I thought you were making this a surprise,” Arthur said to Patricia, and my heart sank.

Frannie smiled even harder, if that was possible. She tried a little do-si-do with me on the lawn, but I wasn't buying.

There are plenty of gay stereotypes I fit into, but “good dancer” is not one of them. In that department, I'm a shame to my people. A drunk baby ostrich with no sense of direction. Two arms and two legs that never know what the others are doing. A natural disaster, set to music.

“Marcus thinks he doesn't dance,” Patricia told Arthur.

“Marcus
knows
he doesn't dance,” I said in return.

“Come on, honey, it'll be fun.” Patricia joined Frannie and started shimmying around me, bumping hips and pushing me across the yard. I wondered how many neighbors were watching and went straight for the car.

The inside of Arthur's ride smelled like leather upholstery, pine air freshener, and cigar smoke. I was hoping for a nice long (or maybe endless) drive, but that didn't pan out. Arthur got us onto I-94 and back off again somewhere west of downtown Chicago in some kind of record-breaking time. We pulled into a strip mall, generic looking except for the big pink-and-red neon sign that flashed LINE 'EM UP! . . . LINE 'EM UP! . . . LINE 'EM UP!

“You kids are going to love this place,” Patricia said. “And the food's great. The ribs are to die for.”

“Sounds good to me,” I muttered to Frannie.

“Ribs?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Dying.”

She took my arm and leaned into me affectionately as we crossed the parking lot. “I just have one word for you,” she whispered. “Paintball.”

“I thought you were going to say payback.”

“That too.”

Inside, the cowboy music was thumping. I could feel it on my cheeks. The place was huge. There was a restaurant in the back, and here in the front, a giant dance floor, where hundreds of people were kicking and stepping and turning and whooping, all in perfect unison.

Frannie started bobbing her head. “Looks fun!” she shouted. I tried to shoot lasers out of my eyes at her, but she wasn't paying attention anyway.

“Let's get a table!” Arthur said. We followed him back to a quieter spot. Our booth had a giant set of steer horns on the wall overhead. As soon as we were settled, Patricia scrootched against me to get back out again.

“Come on, Frannie, let's tinkle.” Frannie followed her obediently away, leaving me and Manfred alone at the table.

“What do you think?” he asked me, looking around.

“It's, um . . . a very big place,” I said.

“Don't worry. We'll have you kickin' up dust before you know it.”

The waitress showed up, saving me from the sarcastic comment I was about to make to a man who, after all, seemed like a very nice person, even if he had just driven me straight to cowboy hell. Arthur ordered two Cokes and two rum and Cokes. I was staring hard at my menu when Frannie and Patricia came back.

“Let's go, boys. These songs aren't going to dance themselves,” Patricia said.

“Sure, they will,” I said into my menu. I hated being the boring one, and that was just one more thing to be annoyed about.

“You guys go ahead,” Frannie said. “I'll work on the party pooper here.”

Arthur took Patricia's hand; Patricia let out a whoop like I'd never heard before, and they headed to the dance floor.

“Come ooo-on,” Frannie said. “As long as we're here.”

“You can lead a horse to water,” I told her.

“But I can't make him dance, I know,” she said, mock dejected. I'm sure she wasn't surprised. The girl's never seen me shake an ounce of booty. Finally, she gave up and went over to the dance floor by herself. I watched while she stood on the sidelines, bopping and making little kicks and studying everyone else's movements. I still didn't want to dance, but I felt just a little guilty and a little jealous. She looked like she was having fun, even standing alone.

Then this lanky cowboy came up and said something in her ear. Frannie looked unsure and checked back my way. I waved her on with both hands. Dance your feet off, girl. Just leave me out of it. She shrugged and followed him onto the floor, where they got swallowed up right away.

I didn't see them again until a few songs later, when the crowd spit them back out. She and the cowboy were sweaty and grinning when they got to our table. Patricia and Arthur, meanwhile, were still going at it somewhere. And if they had slipped away to make out in the parking lot, well, I just didn't want to know about it.

“Now,
that
is fun,” Frannie said collapsing back into the booth. The cowboy sat down tentatively, on the edge of the seat. He was tall, with dark hair and smoky dark eyes under a straw cowboy hat. He got my attention.

“How you doin'?” He shook my hand across the table. “You guys want something to drink?” I'd already finished my Coke, and Frannie's, while they were dancing.

“I'll have a Jones Cola if they have them,” Frannie said, “or a Coke. He'll have the same. Thanks.”

“Jones Cola?” he asked.

“She gets them at Smoothie King in Roaring Brook,” I said. “It's the only place that sells them, but she's always on the lookout for something else.” I wondered if Frannie picked up on my code, as in,
Aren't we just overflowing with options tonight?

“I'll have to check it out sometime,” he said to Frannie, which I think was a little code of his own. Then he sauntered off to get the drinks.

“Nice butt,” I said, watching him walk away. Frannie shushed me, as if anyone could hear us over the music.

“Don't worry,” I said. “I won't tell your other boyfriend.”

“It was just dancing,” Frannie said. “Besides—”

“Jeffrey isn't your boyfriend yet.” I finished her sentence.

“No. I was going to say, besides, I asked you to dance first.”

“I'm not complaining,” I told her. “I'm just glad you have a playmate.”

She turned in the booth to face me. “Just so we're clear here, if you tell Jenn or Belina I was dancing with the Sundance Kid, I will drag you back to this place every Saturday for the rest of your life. They'd never let me live him down.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “He's hot.”

“Yeah, just the kind of ranch hand I want to show up at the prom with.”

“Besides, you already have a potential prom date,” I said.

“That too,” she said.

Sundance came back with three glasses clutched in his noticeably big hands. “Just plain Cokes, sorry,” he said, and then sat down with us for a while. It turned out he was a sophomore at the College of the Midwest; originally from Oklahoma; didn't come to Line 'Em Up very often but loved country dancing; and no, he had never heard of the band Coogie Fuji, which was something I entirely made up just to see what he'd say. Frannie stepped on my foot under the table when I did it, but he passed the test and didn't try to pretend to know anything.

Patricia and Arthur finally came back to the table, and the five of us kept talking. Sundance was a big hit with both of them, and I had to fight off a chronic case of irrational jealousy. It wasn't like I
wanted
Patricia to think Frannie and I were a couple. Just the opposite. But still . . .

When a slow song started, Sundance turned to Frannie. “You wanna learn how to two-step?”

Frannie shrugged her shrug. “Sure.”

Patricia and Arthur were already on their feet. She leaned over before they walked away and said in my ear, “You're going to lose your best girl.” For some reason, that made me mad too.

“She's not my girl!” I shouted at all of their backs, but only because I knew they couldn't hear me.

“Hey, Marcus,” I said as I hopped onto a pink-and-chrome counter stool at Scoops.

 

Marcus frowned up at the clock, which has an ice cream cone in place of each number—you know, because “it's always ice cream time at Scoops.” Anyway. “Aren't you early?” he asked. I was supposed to meet him here in another half an hour, at the end of his shift.

“Yeah—about that—” I didn't quite have time to get out, “Please don't kill me,” because in the next moment Jeffrey had walked up to the counter.

“Marcus!” Jeffrey flashed Marcus a huge smile as he slid onto the stool behind mine. “I didn't know you worked here.”

For a moment, Marcus just stared at Jeffrey. His mouth dropped open. Then he snapped it shut again. His face flushed pink, and my heart sank for him. “Hey, Jeffrey,” Marcus said finally. “What a surprise.”

I gave my best friend a half wince, half smile that I hoped he understood was an apology. Marcus hates it when people from school see him in his polyester uniform. Actually, I think he looks adorable in his pink-and-white-striped soda fountain hat, but Marcus says that it makes him feel like he's wearing a peppermint stick on his head, like he belongs on a Christmas parade float or something. So he keeps his Scoops job on the double DL.

Anyway, I know that Marcus is kind of sensitive about it, and I didn't want him to think that I was just being thoughtless by bringing Jeffrey here. It had been an honest-to-God accident. “I just happened to mention to Jeffrey that I was meeting you here—” I started.

“Hey, Marcus!” Rajeev Gupta and Makonnen Kalorama were waving from across the restaurant. They were sitting at a huge corner booth with Astrid and Glenn.

“Your hat ees so cute!” Leila Manais called. She's French, so she can get away with saying stuff like that. I gave Marcus a weak smile as he sliced into a banana like he was tearing out its guts.