Fag Hag (Robert Rodi Essentials) (4 page)

“Morris, hello, it’s Natalie Stathis.”

“Oh, hi, Natalie.” She detected a touch of perplexity.

“I’m sure Peter has told you that you’re dining
chez moi
tonight,” she said, sounding as pleasantly authoritative as possible.

“That’s right.”

“And I thought, since I won’t get home in time to serve anything fancier than pizza, wouldn’t it be nice to have some special touch to mark the occasion, like flowers? And then I thought, if I’m to buy flowers, it must be from you!”

“Well—thanks. That’s very sweet of you.”

“So let’s put together a big bouquet. Everything you like, all your favorites. Give yourself a nice, fat commission. Money is no object, now that my dearest friend has found his partner for life.”

A long pause; that had taken him aback, as it was meant to. “Okay—sure,” he said, his voice a little smaller now. “I won’t spend too much, though. Don’t want to break you.” He laughed nervously.

“I’ll stop by after five and pick it up. Thanks so much, Morris.” Mor-RISS; she’d said it perfectly, just like he did. “See you then. Oh, do you take American Express?”

“Yes—uh, actually, Natalie, now that I think about it, I feel I should bring something myself. You’re going to all the trouble of feeding us; why don’t I let the flowers be my treat?”

She was genuinely surprised; she might actually like Morris after all. Too bad he was doomed to become her newest victim. “What a sweet thought, Morris; no wonder Peter’s crazy about you. I tell you what, do a
spectacular
arrangement and we’ll split the cost. We’ll knock Peter’s eyes out. He’ll be so pleased that we collaborated behind his back to pull it off; he wants us to be friends.”

“So do I.”

“I feel we are, already.”

He paused. “Well—wonderful.” Apparently he wasn’t ready to say the same. “I’ll see you after five, then.”

“Bye, Morris.” Mor-RISS.

She hung up and turned her attention to the three calls that had come in while she’d been busy with Morris.
I’m not just a strategic genius,
she thought;
I’m a genius under fire!

A
FTER WORK
,
SHE
hopped a cab and dashed across the Loop, then wove her way through the rabbit warren of shops and restaurants that connected the various buildings of Illinois Center until she found Amlings. Morris was waiting for her, with a pillar of green paper standing next to him.

“Oh, I don’t get to see it first!” she said with a pout.

“Sorry, I had to wrap it during the slow part of the afternoon; business starts picking up now, and I don’t get off till six.” He was smiling; they were coconspirators—they’d forged a bond.

“What’s it like?” she asked, as he delivered it into her pudgy arms.

“Tropical; lots of bird-of-paradise.”

“Ooh! Thrilling!”

“Got to get back to work. You can pay me your half later. See you tonight.”

“Okay, thanks, doll; remember, seven-thirty
sharp.”

Success so uplifted her spirits that she decided to cab it all the way home. The thought of handling this tower of flora on the 151 bus was just too daunting.

She lived at Broadway and Aldine, in the heart of the city’s gay ghetto. A fair number of its residents knew her by name, so that when she got out of the cab it was only natural that she ran into someone she knew.

“Nata-LEE,” cried Curtis Driscoll from across the street. “Wha’choo be takin’ into yo’ house, main?” Curtis was black, but he only affected a jive dialect on the streets, as a kind of joke. In private conversations he always sounded like a statesman. He worked as a waiter at a downtown restaurant, and was just heading off to work when Natalie passed him.

“Beautiful flowers, Curtis,” she called back as she fumbled for her key. “Birds of paradise.”

“Get outta town! Got yuseef a hot lay, Nata-LEE? You kin tell Curtis.”

“Curtis can go fuck himself,” she sang sweetly as she swung open the door and entered the vestibule.

Curtis laughed like a hyena, then saw his bus pull up at the corner and sprinted away without a goodbye.

She climbed the stairs blindly, stumbling now and then, the paper rustling in her face.
Thank God Peter’s never been attracted to black guys,
she thought;
only way I’d ever get rid of Curtis would be to push him down a manhole.

A
S
N
ATALIE WAS
fond of pointing out, “Only God and myself are perfect,” so it followed that Peter must have at least one human failing, and his failing was lateness. It was, of course, an uncalculated lateness—he had no consciousness of fashion, no desire to make a grand entrance. It was merely his inescapable fate to be persistently fifteen minutes behind the clock. But as this was his only flaw, he was always gentleman enough to offer an apology on arrival.

So Natalie felt quite safe, after having told Morris to be at her door at the stroke of seven-thirty, in calling Peter and leaving the message, “Honey, it’s me; have your gorgeous ass here by eight.” That would give her close to forty-five minutes alone with Morris, in which to fill his head with whatever she wished; and then would arrive trustworthy Peter, begging forgiveness for being late. Morris would, of course, think that Peter was apologizing for being forty-five minutes late, not fifteen, and they were unlikely to compare notes later and discover the discrepancy in their invitations. And if by some odd chance they did, she’d blush and say she merely wanted to be alone with Morris to get to know him better, as this was impossible with Peter around drawing all his attention.

Morris ended up being late himself, which irked her; he arrived at seven-fifty, his face red. “Sorry,” he gasped as she let him in; “I barely had time to get home from work, wash my face, and rush over here.” He was still wearing his work clothes.

She kissed him on the cheek and cooed over his exhaustion, then led him into the apartment.

“Peter here?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she said innocently. “I’m afraid we’re all running a little late. Help me set the table?”

“Sure,” he said, following her to the apartment’s tiny kitchen. He looked around. “Nice place.”

“Thank you,” she said in her most gracious manner. She climbed atop a footstool and opened a cabinet. “I’m sure you like Peter’s better, though.” She winked at him.

He blushed. “Oh, well.”

“Do you think it’s big enough? I told him not to worry, but you know Peter.” She handed him three blue Fiestaware plates and climbed down.

“Seems to fit him fine,” he said cautiously.

“No, I mean, for the two of you.” She kicked the footstool back under the sink, then looked up and saw that he was astonished.

“Oh, how stupid of me,” she said, waving a hand in dismissal; “forget I said that. Here.” She opened a drawer and started foraging through it, handing him knives and forks as she found them.

She’d deliberately delayed laying place settings because she wanted the things she was going to say to have a casual, chitchat air about them, as though she weren’t saying anything she thought remarkable. If they’d been sitting down, eye to eye, everything that passed her lips would’ve had a certain weight to it; he might guess at her motives. But as she took dishes from the shelf and grabbed cutlery from a drawer, it seemed almost as if she were discussing the weather when she brought up the subject of Peter and Morris living together.

He helped arrange the table in silence, while she chattered on about how wonderful the flowers looked. She noticed that the clock had now inched past eight. Time for Morris’s second injection.

They went back to the kitchen and she took the bottle of Pinot Grigio from the refrigerator. “Would you be a love and uncork it?” she said. “I’ll get the glasses.”

As he reached for the bottle she grabbed his wrist. “Morris,” she said in a low voice, “I
hope
you’ve forgotten what I said earlier. If you haven’t, at least promise me,
please,
that you won’t tell Peter. He’d be so angry. I just forget myself sometimes; I’m a very dizzy girl.”

Her face was so close to his, he would have agreed to anything just to get her a respectable distance away. “Course I won’t tell him,” he said. “It’s just—living together—I mean, that’s nothing we’ve come close to discussing ourselves. It’s very early.”

She shook her head. “I don’t dare say anything more. Don’t tempt me.” And she went to another cabinet, babbling about how Pier One Imports is such a good place to get inexpensive wineglasses, and who’d ever have guessed that?

For ten minutes she prattled on about her favorite low-end stores and Morris responded with an occasional attempt at enthusiastic agreement, but she could tell that his mind was now a million miles away.

Then the doorbell rang, and it was Peter. She buzzed him in, and he loped up the stairs three at a time. He breezed into the apartment, kissed her, and said, “Sorry I’m late.”

“Not at all,” she said with fulsome benevolence. “Morris and I have been getting to be great friends.”

“Wonderful,” he said. He went over to sweep Morris into a flamboyant lover’s embrace, but Morris went stiff and it ended up being an awkward peck on the lips. Peter, a little mystified, said, “You okay? Your day go all right?”

“Fine,” said Morris, and Natalie, who was on the phone with her back turned, knew she’d scored a direct hit. The tone of that “fine” spoke volumes.

She ordered the pizza, then hung up and joined them. She could relax and enjoy herself now; her work was done. She’d dropped a pebble into still water, and tonight she could sit and watch in ripple outward, disfiguring Morris’s reflection.

B
Y MID
-A
UGUST, THE
romance of Peter and Morris, which had begun in July with such fireworks, had diminished in intensity to the level of a household flashlight. Peter called Natalie almost daily with tales of Morris’s peculiarities. “He freaks out every time we even get close to some kind of commitment,” he complained one afternoon. “Last night he made dinner, and I told him I loved his chicken tarragon, and by the time I got the word ‘love’ out I could see he’d stiffened up and gone white. Like he was expecting me to end the sentence another way. What’s he so afraid of? He never even talks to me anymore. In the beginning, it seemed like we’d never run out of things to say to each other.”

Natalie clicked her tongue in sympathy and said, “Honey, maybe you should relax a little and let him make the first move.” Or on another occasion she might advise him, “Honey, you’ve got to press the issue; he’s obviously afraid of making a commitment, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t
want
to.” And Peter would take her advice, so that Morris would end up calling her, too, to say, “Natalie, what on earth is going on with Peter? One week he’s ready to marry me and move in, the next he’s at the other end of the couch with his arms folded. It’s all up and down with him, like a roller coaster.” And Natalie always said, “Peter is an artist, you have to respect the depths of his feeling for you, and the strange ways his love manifests itself,” and Morris would say, “Oh,” as if that were exactly what he didn’t want to hear.

In spite of this, they were still inseparable, but Natalie thought that was due mainly to momentum; she had only to bring it to a halt. She found plenty of chances to do so, for more often than not she was invited to tag along on their outings. And whenever the three of them were together, Peter spent more time talking to her than to Morris.

Typically, they’d go out to dinner and get roaring drunk, and Natalie would hold court. After dinner they’d somehow find their way to a bar, where the music was loud and the drinks flowed freely. There they’d hole up in a corner and Natalie and Peter would dish everyone in sight while Morris listened quietly.

Then, after they’d closed nearly every bar on Halsted Street, Peter and Morris would depart for Morris’s apartment (Morris having grown strangely averse to Peter’s for some reason), and Natalie would lurch the few blocks to her own place, tanked.

But never so tanked as to miss any hint of an opportunity; all that she needed was the killing blow, the one that would drive Peter and Morris apart forever.

Tonight, she believed she’d found it.

A few hours earlier, they’d dined at a Greek restaurant where she’d almost got the three of them kicked out. After way too much retsina, she’d picked up a forkful of her lamb-and-artichoke entrée and complained that it looked like “a fetal pig,” at which Peter and Morris had almost hurt themselves laughing. Peter actually slid out of his chair.

Now they were at Berlin, a very loud bar with several video monitors, a dance floor, and lots of very young, Arrow-shirt-handsome men. Natalie and Peter were cutting up true to form, especially over the barflies who had obviously put too much thought into their ensembles and now stood still as emperors of China, unable to move due to the weight of their sartorial majesty.

After an hour or so, Natalie noticed that Morris had been darting his eyes in a certain direction for the better part of the night. On the pretext of scratching an itch on her leg, she leaned forward and, following the path of Morris’s gaze, saw a handsome blond against a far wall holding a bottle of beer and wearing a smoldering look. Then—oh joy!—she saw him glance in Morris’s direction.

They even looked alike. How could two such narcissists resist each other? Natalie resumed her running commentary with Peter, but in her head the gears were turning. When she and Peter left the bar tonight, they would have no Morris with them. She would see to that.

“Excuse me, honey,” she said a few minutes later, and she heard herself slurring the words.
Got to watch that,
she admonished herself.
Need to be alert now.
She pushed herself away from the corner. “Gotta visit the ol’ sandbox.”

“Actually, so do I,” said Peter. “Morris, keep our wall warm.” He giggled at the joke.

She pretended to be a little wobbly on her feet, so that she listed several steps to the left on her journey to the john. This took her directly into the path of the man Morris had been eyeing. Peter disappeared into the men’s room, so it was safe to act. She grabbed the strange man’s hand and said, “Oh, stop with the wallflower act. Come on and shake it with me, handsome!” And she started to pull him into the crowd of dancers. He resisted like a mule.