Tats Too (38 page)

Damn, the only thing this movie premiere is missing is the dancing ponies.

Then I see the most amazing thing. Off to the side are the Winkle sisters. They’re all done up in fancy lace and high-necked gowns from another era and George Burns is puffing on his cigar with one scrawny arm wrapped around each sister.

I’ll be double-damned.

Fake Drew and Fake Hilary grab me and Vivian, and pull us to a bouquet of microphones strategically placed in front of some blazing lights. They push us nose to nose with the mics.

“You ready?” Fake Hilary whisper-asks.

“Ready for what?” I whisper back, blinking in the harsh lights.

“The reporters,” she answers like I’m dumb. She turns to Vivian and asks, “Didn’t anybody tell you we were going to be interviewed before the movie starts?”

“What kind of questions?” Vivian asks.

“Be prepared for anything,” Fake Hilary warns with a smile that seems out of place. “And just smile a lot.”

Fake Drew and Vivian add at the same time, “And show your tits.”

They both laugh and hug each other. Fake Hilary and I look at them and roll our eyes at the same time, which makes us both laugh.

“We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”

Holy shit. A whole gang of people dressed in rainbow colored T-shirts descend on us out of the sea of people like they’re invading Normandy or something.

They drown out Lulu’s chorus girl routine with their constant chant of “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!” Some of them are slinging about signs and posters which read:
Don’t tolerate intolerence
and
Get Out
and
Out is In
. There must be a good one hundred of them and they all have angry, red faces. They point their angry faces and fists right at me and Vivian as they chant.

What the hell have we done?

Oops, I think I just said that out loud into a microphone.

“It’s what you haven’t done!” yells a big woman with a flat-top hairdo. “You haven’t come out!”

Everybody shushes and turns to look at us. The media, sensing a high-drama moment, pans cameras and mics back to us. It’s like I’m facing a firing squad. But without the blindfold.

Flattop yells again, “You people in the closet are costing the rest of us! You’re lesbians and you won’t admit it!” The crowd of rainbow-wearers circles around me and Vivian like a school of piranha around a cow in a river.

“
You people
?” Vivian shouts back at her, shoving me out of the way.

Uh-oh. Vivian looks pissed. F.T. obviously doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.

“You people!” Vivian shouts again, even louder.

F.T. moves in closer and crosses her meaty arms under her big boobs. She cocks her head at Vivian and asks, “You are a lesbian. Correct? Or do you deny it?”

Vivian shakes her head sadly at the woman, “What is it
with
all the labels?”

“Are you saying that you and Ms. Hammond are not lovers?”

“No, I’m not saying that,” Vivian states, “Lee and I love on each other as often as we can.”

F.T. holds both palms up in the air like she’s waiting for a bird to shit in them and says, “Then you are a lesbian? Can you look at the cameras and say that? Or can you not even bring yourself to say the word lesbian?”

Accepting the dare, Vivian smiles sweetly at the closest camera and says, “I, Vivian Baxter, love and make love to another woman.”

The rainbow crowd boos and flaps their hands at Vivian. F.T. shushes them with a wave of her own. “Doesn’t that make you a lesbian?” she shouts at Vivian.

“I don’t like labels,” Vivian says simply. “I am a woman. I am a mother. I am a Native American. I am also a card-carrying member of the NRA.”

She is? I think maybe she’s lying about that last one.

She continues, “But I don’t feel the need to put those things on a T-shirt and accost other people.”

“And why is that, Miss Baxter? What are you ashamed of?” F.T. asks.

Vivian reaches out and grabs the nearest microphone out of a reporter’s hand. She aims her words to F.T., “Isn’t the whole idea to
not
put labels on people? Isn’t that what you’re fighting for? Equality? To live in a world without labels of any kind? To live side-by-side without drawing fences and lines around others?”

“Ideally,” F.T. says, then adds, “but we’re not at that point yet. Gay people like myself and all the people standing behind me with these signs want that, yes. But we’re still fighting the good fight. The war isn’t over. And people like you, who are celebrities and standing on camera denying their homosexuality by omission are not helping us to win that war.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, honey,” Vivian says, flipping the back of her hand dismissively. “I’m not denying anything. In fact, we were planning on getting married. Is that gay enough for you?”

The crowd erupts into applause at this pronouncement. I wrap my arm around Vivian’s shoulders and pull her close. “I love you.”

She looks up at me and smiles, “I love you, too, baby.”

I recognize a good moment when I see one. I drop dramatically to one knee and holding Vivian’s hand, I gaze up at her and ask, “Will you marry me?”

Vivian laughs (which I realize is just buying time for the cameras to pull in for a close-up) and answers, “I thought you’d never ask. Yes. Yes, Miss Hammond, I would be honored to accept your proposal of marriage.”

The crowd, even the rainbow contingent, claps and cheers. And F.T., I notice, has a small smile playing across her lips.

I climb to my feet and spot Rachel and Lulu hovering at the edge of the crowd. “Rachel?” I ask. “Will you officiate?”

“Right now?” she asks.

“Can you think of a better time?”

She grins and snakes her way through the crowd.

“Lulu?” Vivian shouts out. “Come be my maid of honor?”

Lulu pushes her way up to Vivian’s side.

Damn, if Viv has a maid of honor, I really need a best man. I scan the crowd.

There she is.

“Hey, Mikey? Get yer ass up here and be my best man!”

This time, the crowd parts and Mikey saunters up to my side wearing a lopsided grin. I stick out my hand and she wraps her big hand around mine giving it a firm shake.

Rachel moves between Vivian and me, throws her hands in the air and shushes the crowd. She looks at Vivian, then at me and smiles. “Dearly Beloved,” she intones, “we are gathered here today to join together this woman and woman in holy matrimony.”

I take Vivian’s hands in mine and fall deep into the well of her blue eyes. And even though we are surrounded by cameras and a thousand people, I feel like there’s nobody but us. I look into her eyes and see our future.

Fifty years from now, when Vivian and I are old and wrinkled, we’ll be sitting on our front porch taking time out of our day to watch the gorgeous Oklahoma sun burn the horizon with pink edges. The clanging of Vivian’s knitting needles will be keeping time with the clanking of my false teeth. We’ll be sharing a blanket across our laps, and I’ll be thinking it’s almost time to winterize the house, and Vivian will be wondering if we’ve taken our old lady vitamins yet that day. I’ll reach out and take her hand in mine.

“I wonder where Georgia is?” I will ask.

“With her kids,” she’ll say. “Enjoying her life.”

And I’ll rest easy knowing that Georgia can handle anything life throws her way because she grew up to have the best of each of us. She has Vivian’s cheerleading streak, the ability to believe in dreams and reach for them against all odds. And she has my stubbornness and determination to get her there. She was smothered with love like only a child with two mothers can be and now, whether she’s straight or gay it doesn’t matter, she’ll know how to love and be loved.

I will grin down at Vivian and ask, “Wanna go do it?”

“With you?” she’ll tease.

“Who else?” I’ll tease back.

Vivian will smile up at me and kiss me gently on the lips before saying, “I told you the fish oil worked.”

Then we’ll go inside to our bedroom and turn the lights down low, put our false teeth in the cups on the nightstand and make slow, careful love so we don’t break a hip and it’ll be just one more beautiful memory to put in our scrapbook.

“Do you, Lee, take Vivian to be your wife,” Rachel’s voice jerks me out of my reverie. “To have and to hold from this day forward, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; until death do you part?”

“I do.”

“Do you, Vivian, take Lee to be your wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; until death do you part?”

Vivian’s bottom lip twitches and she blinks back a fat, wet tear. “I always have. I always will,” she answers.

The crowd goes ballistic, whooping and hollering. Lulu grabs the mike and sings about just beginning and white lace and
promises in a voice that would make Karen Carpenter swoon.

I lean down and touch my lips to Vivian’s. I taste the sweetness of her words and marvel at how just a year ago I was lost and wounded before this amazing woman wrapped me up in her love and—

—a gale force wind almost knocks me off my ass.

There aren’t tornadoes in California! Are there?

I squeeze Vivian tightly in the anchor of my arms and push my face into the wind.

It’s a helicopter!

The copter hovers right over the crowd, sucking hair and clothes and signs into its maelstrom. A figure leans out the open doorway with a megaphone. It’s a woman. A woman wearing a black cowboy hat. And I feel a certain amount of satsifaction seeing that she has two black eyes and a fat lip.

“This is the FBI! Vivian Baxter Perelli! Lee Anne Hammond! Freeze with your hands in the air!” Dillon’s voice booms over the megaphone.

Like hell we will.

Hand in hand, Vivian and I sprint for the front doors of the theatre lobby. We throw open the doors and I follow Vivian’s lead into the dark theatre. I hear footsteps behind me and see that Lulu, Rachel, Fake Drew and Fake Hilary are close on our heels.

Vivian slams through the exit door in the back of the theatre and makes a sharp left up a narrow staircase. I follow, but screech to a stop when I realize that somehow we’ve just ended up behind the giant movie screen.

I turn in a full circle, squinting through the darkness for an escape. What the hell’re we going to do now?

Fake Drew, Lulu, Fake Hilary and Rachel bump into my back and almost topple over like a row of dominoes. We all stand and look at each other with really stupid looks on our faces. That’s when the epiphany hits me.

There’s six of us. Three of us have red hair and look a lot alike. Three others of us have dreads, are tall and look a lot alike.

I slip out of my blue suede shoes and start issuing orders, “Fake Hilary get out of that suit and give it to me. Rachel put on my clothes and Fake Hilary put on Rachel’s.” I point at Vivian and say, “Viv put on Fake Drew’s dress, Lulu put on Viv’s clothes and Fake Drew, you get to wear Lulu’s.”

In under two minutes, we’re all stuffed into each other’s clothes. Vivian and I are dressed to kill in Fake Drew’s evening gown and Fake Hilary’s Armani. Lulu and Rachel are masquerading as us. And Fake Drew and Fake Hilary look like Lulu and Rachel.

“I’m confused,” Fake Drew admits. “And I don’t understand why you keep calling us Fake Drew and Fake Hilary.”

“It’s an endearment,” I say. “And confusion is the point. If we’re confused, just imagine what it’s going to do to Dillon and her posse.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Lulu asks.

Vivian has picked up my train of thought and explains, “Fake Drew and Fake Hilary, you guys meander back out front and hang with the drag queens and bikers.” Vivian opens her big-ass red bag and shows Fake Drew all the money stashed inside. “Give all this money to the best man, Mikey, and tell her thanks from us.”

Fake Drew nods. “Got it.” She grabs Fake Hilary’s hand in hers and they walk off together. I hear Fake Drew whisper gleefully, “The publicity from this is going to make us stars.”