The One That Got Away (16 page)

With Angel curled behind me, her arm draped across my stomach, I listened to the nocturnal city sounds of the occasional car or subway train passing, and remembered Jean, my only woman before Angel. “You should make love with lots of women,” she'd told me, and it wasn't so much an endorsement of promiscuity as an acknowledgment of pleasure taken and given, a kind of blessing. While my skin cooled and the scent of sex still lingered, I pictured myself lying on soft, shaded grass, entwined with an Amazon Bridget, then spreadeagled beneath the gaze of an imperturbable Maxine. But they were remote figures on my fantasy stage; it was a delightfully mortal Angel whose breasts caressed my back with every breath.

I was starting to doze when a new sound intruded. The snoring was impossible to ignore. I sighed, wondering if I'd ever get to sleep.

“It's not me,” Angel said. “It's the dog.”

I placed my hand over Angel's to hold her to me, and closed my eyes.

Chapter 19

“Look!” I said to Angel, holding up a purple silk camisole trimmed with café au lait lace. “It was on sale—reduced three times. I couldn't find the tap pants or slip that should go with it, though.” I frowned. “I guess I'll just have to sort through my underpants for something.”

“Why bother?” Angel said. “Just leave your bottom bare. In fact, why don't you wear those feathered stockings with it?”

I was shocked. “I can't wear those stockings with this camisole, Angel. They don't match.”

“I promise not to notice, B.D. I'll have other things on my mind.”

And so, on Halloween night, I dressed for Bridget's party in the purple silk camisole and the black feathered stockings, made decent by the nun's habit that I had rented again.

I'd been hoping that Angel might accompany me, so that I could finally introduce her to Bridget, Natalie, and Maxine. But Angel had yet another scheduling conflict. Dating a private investigator wasn't nearly as much fun as reading about one.

“But it's Halloween,” I complained.

“My source is very paranoid. Halloween is the one day of the year when he feels it's safe to meet in person because so many people are wearing some kind of disguise.”

As Angel drove me to Bridget's house, she kept touching the feathers circling my thighs with the tips of her fingers, as if to reassure herself that they were really there. With each touch, the fabric of my nun's robe stirred ever so slightly in response. I was sunk low in the seat with my knees drawn up in an attempt to keep from flattening the feathers on the underside of my thighs.

Angel stopped the car across the street from Bridget's house and leaned toward me, resting one arm behind my head. “Have a good time, sweetie,” she whispered. I wriggled in my seat. When she kissed me, I expected her to pat the feathers one more time, but she surprised me with a caress that was equally delicate but directed between my thighs. The kiss ended with my panting a little and Angel saying, “I'll be waiting for you.”

I had lost interest in the party at that point, but then I remembered that Angel had an appointment. “I won't be late,” I said.

“B.D., this is Robin.”

I recognized Robin immediately as the woman I had seen draping herself all over Bridget at the All-Girl Gala.

“Ohmygod. B.D.! I have heard sooooooooo much about you.” The neck brace Robin was wearing detracted from her pirate's costume, but when I inquired about her accident, Robin said she always wore a neck brace
at Bridget's to keep Alice B. from killing her by biting her jugular vein.

Alice B. was the smaller of Bridget's two cats. She had made what I thought was an eminently reasonable decision to devote one of her nine lives entirely to Bridget. Alice B. disdained the attentions of lesser beings, and could be quite vehement in her rejections.

“I can't see Alice B. committing murder,” I said.

“Do you believe everything everyone tells you?” Bridget asked.

“B.D., you don't look anything like the way I pictured you,” Robin said.

“Well, I don't usually appear as a nun.”

“There seems to be a connection between lesbians and nuns,” Robin observed. “Can you explain it?”

“Lots of passion, not much sex,” Maxine interjected as she walked by with an empty bowl. It seemed an incongruous object for her to be carrying, for she was in leather from head to toe, bearing more chains than Marley's ghost.

“Nice costume, Max,” Robin said.

“This isn't a costume.” Maxine gave Robin a look that should have reduced her to road kill.

Maxine had deemed Robin's status within Bridget's crowd as “undecided,” but according to Bridget, Robin had made no secret of her intent to make Bridget her first woman lover. Undeterred by Bridget's monogamy, Robin was operating on the theory that Bridget could be lured into the perfect bed. She spent her weekends testing mattresses, fingering sheets, and reviewing the ratings of and recommendations for down comforters in
Consumer Reports
Buying Guide. I admired her methodical approach, even though I couldn't very well support her objective, since it directly conflicted with mine.

I grabbed a handful of candy corn from a conveniently placed bowl and sat down in the chair next to it. I slunk down, resting my head on the curved wicker back of the chair, knees up, feet resting on the ottoman—my other reason for choosing that chair. I pictured the feathers drifting out beneath my habit like seaweed under water, and began munching the candy corn, contented as the proverbial cud-chewing cow.

“What's up, B.D.?” Bridget asked, taking the seat next to me.

“Natalie and Robin appear to be avoiding each other,” I said.

Bridget sighed. “Natalie doesn't approve of Robin,” she confided. “And Robin thinks she'd be a better girlfriend for me than Natalie.”

Of course, I thought that I'd be a better girlfriend for Bridget than both Natalie and Robin combined, but I tried to appear disinterested. My nun outfit helped to lend credence to my detachment.

“The first time Natalie came to my house,” Bridget said, “Gertrude, my big Siamese—”

“Fat Siamese,” Natalie interjected, as she walked into the room.

“—jumped from the top of my bookcase, right onto Natalie's shoulder.”

“And you thought it was funny,” Natalie said.

“The expression on your face!” Bridget laughed. Then she said, “Hey, I gave you a nice massage to make up for it, didn't I?”

“I don't like cats,” Natalie said. “They shed. And they smell. And they throw up.”

“I'll probably end up as one of those old women with forty or fifty cats,” I said.

“When I get old I'm going to eat cat food and spit on people,” Bridget declared.

Natalie's expression made it clear that this was not
going to happen in her house or in her presence. “Maybe you'll take Bridget in as one of your cats,” Natalie said. I thought she might be smirking at me. If she was, I wasn't offended. We all knew I'd take Bridget any time, on any terms.

Annalise and Ellen joined us. Ellen, wearing a Western shirt with fringe, informed me that she was Cay Rivvers from the movie
Desert Hearts
. Annalise, wearing a bathrobe, was Vivian Bell, the professor. “I'm not taking off my robe,” she said.

“That's her favorite line,” Ellen explained. “Is Angel here?”

“No,” I said. “She had some P.I. business to attend to.”

“I think you're making her up,” Annalise said.

“She's real. In fact, she dropped me off here on her way to her meeting.”

“What kind of a car does she drive?” Ellen asked.

“It has two doors and a sun roof and it's red—darker than a fire engine, but lighter than maroon. The license plate is, ‘694EVR.'” I got a little light-headed just thinking about it.

“What make is it?” Annalise asked. “What model? How much horsepower does it have?”

“I have no idea.”

Annalise rolled her eyes. “You're such a femme.”

Bridget laughed.

I placed my hands on my stomach in a contemplative pose and looked up at the ceiling, where a bare-breasted figure with wings and a mermaid tail flew above Bridget's head.

“What a beautiful angel,” I said.

“It was a gift. I hate angels,” Bridget said.

“A poet gave it to her,” Natalie said to me, placing a large, fragrant bowl of freshly popped popcorn beside the smaller bowl of candy corn. I was in ecstasy.

“I remember the poet,” Maxine said, gathering up
empty beer bottles. “She really had the hots for you, Bridget.”

“You did get more goodies from her than from most of your other admirers,” Natalie said.

Maxine laughed. “All you had to do was say, ‘Gee, I've always wanted . . .' and she would get it for you.”

“You could have done without the poems, though,” said Natalie. “You were so embarrassed.”

“Especially when Natalie quoted those poems to you in bed,” Maxine added.

“Can I help it if women who are just coming out find me attractive?” Bridget said, I thought it seemed a bit like Fred Astaire wondering why any woman would want to dance with him.

In fact, I had also bought presents for Bridget—a couple of t-shirts and some books that I thought she would enjoy. I had given them believing I was special to her. Now I saw myself as one more figure in a long line of supplicants, bearing gifts. I shrank back into the cheap black fabric like a deflating soufflé.

“Does Robin give you things?” I asked Bridget.

“What did you say, B.D.?”

“I asked you if Robin gives you things.”

“I guess so.” Bridget looked around as if she wanted to change the subject or her location.

“You guess so!” Robin had walked in on the tag end our conversation. “Didn't I bring you flowers last night? Hmm?” She tousled Bridget's hair aggressively.

“Yes, you did.”

“And?”

“And you gave me a vase to keep them in.” Bridget leaned toward me and pointed to a small table against the far wall, where what had to be at least two dozen yellow, long-stemmed roses were guarded by Gertrude, Bridget's other cat. The Siamese had the ample body of her namesake, Gertrude Stein.

“My God! That's Baccarat crystal,” I exclaimed.

Bridget looked quizzical. Robin looked impressed.

“I do bridal registries. I could run a
Jeopardy!
category on crystal, china, or silver.” I knew that vase. It sold at retail for $800. Suddenly the books I'd given Bridget seemed pretty measly. They hadn't even been first editions, although one had been signed by the author.

“I'm going to get a beer,” I said. “Anyone else want one? Bridget?” I wasn't really in the mood to wait on Bridget, but I have found courtesy to be a convenient screen for my emotions.

“Sure. Thanks, B.D.” Bridget took an ice cube from an abandoned cup and pitched the cube toward Annalise's ample cleavage.

Annalise shrieked as the cube slid home. “I'm still not taking off my robe,” she bellowed.