The One That Got Away (19 page)

“Put them in your pockets.”

At the first peal of the bells, Natalie checked her Rolex. “It's twelve o'clock,” she declared. “Everyone has to kiss the person standing next to them.” None of us did.

I could have told Natalie that it wouldn't work. You can't trick people into kissing you. I had tried back in high school, when I invited Jerry Greenblatt to a holiday party and from the hallway light, hung a sign that said:
This isn't mistletoe, but you can kiss me anyway.
When Jerry walked through the front door he read the sign, laughed—and kissed my hand.

So Maxine stared out at the brilliant colors punctuating the night sky while Bridget and Natalie exchanged a perfunctory kiss. I didn't want to impose my lips on Bridget's; I wanted her to kiss me on her own terms.

I thought of Angel, then remembered that Bridget had kissed me once—the first time I gave her a t-shirt for no reason except my feeling that she would like it. It was the night she told me she was monogamous. And, in fact, there was nothing about the kiss that was disloyal to Natalie. It was a solemn event, shy and fleeting.

“I'm cold,” Natalie said. “Let's go.” Maxine turned and began walking with Natalie, joining the exodus from the rooftop.

Bridget touched the sleeve of my coat. “Let's hang out here for a minute. There are way too many people for those tiny elevators.” Then, as she led me away from the balustrade, she asked, “Shall we dance?”

It wasn't exactly intimate: wool coat to wool coat. Our cheeks were chilled at the first touch, but they quickly thawed into a patch of warmth. We danced in silence, without words or music. And I thought that if it was true that your life passed before you when you died, I wanted to revisit this moment.

Bridget was the first to move her head, permit her lips to drift across my cheek. I followed her, my lips setting a path of their own. Our mouths were slightly open in anticipation of meeting. The tip of her tongue touched mine, gently as a snowflake, and a shooting star fell through my body, rushing out between my legs in a Niagara of heat. I swayed a little as I stepped back from her, into the silence. Bridget noticed and smiled—a pensive echo of her usual beam. Then she turned toward the door and I followed her lead once again.

Chapter 21

Passion Flower had only twelve tables, each accommodating just two people, so reservations for the restaurant had to be made at least three months in advance. Small lamps fringed with pink silk shades provided soft, flattering light and orchids spilled across the milky damask tablecloths. Framed erotic drawings, prints, and photographs of women together hung on the walls.

I had had some concern about my three-inch crimson heels, but Angel was wearing her cowboy boots, so the difference in our heights was not that much more than usual.

Angel touched her wineglass to mine. “To the debut of my thigh harness.” My heart raced and I felt some moisture and pulsing farther down. I would have run my foot up her leg, but my shoes had straps and I couldn't slip them off.

A few weeks earlier, Angel and I had marked up a Good Vibrations mail order catalog. I used a pink felt tip pen; Angel used purple. We both put a check next to the Chocolate Mocha Love Crème, which I was now carrying in my purse. In
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
, Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei Lee loves finding new places to wear diamonds. I love finding new ways to eat chocolate.

Dessert is the first thing I look at on a menu. In my family we always had at least three or four dessert choices at holiday gatherings, because those who were supposed to bring an appetizer or side dish almost always brought dessert as well. Passion Flower's menu boasted of having “the best tiramisu on the East Coast.” I thought perhaps I'd save the love crème for another night.

“Did you hear that Celeste and Francine broke up?” Angel asked.

“Yes,” I said. “In fact, I saw Celeste last week. She looked—fantastic.” I felt a little guilty acknowledging this.

Angel was nodding her head. She had a cynical yet sage expression on her face.

“Celeste has a whole new image,” I said. “Before, she was a bit . . .”

“Dowdy?” Angel suggested.

“Well, yes. But now she's a really snappy dresser. She was practically swaggering down the sidewalk when I saw her.”

Angel began to expound on one of her favorite theories—lesbian couples stayed together, no matter how unhappy or bored they might be, because the prospect of dating seemed worse. In her opinion, almost no one was having sex.

But if Angel saw the glass as half empty, I saw it as overflowing. I was convinced that everyone was having sex all the time.

I told Angel that she should run her theory by Maxine. Maybe it was my thinking of her, but I suddenly realized that Natalie and Maxine were seated at a table in the opposite corner of the room.

Natalie, having inhaled and swirled, had apparently decided to reject the wine. The wine steward was an imposing woman—tall, intricately tattooed, and blatantly
packing, but I knew that she had met her match in terms of
hauteur
.

“I see Natalie and Maxine,” I said.

“So?”

“Well, I just wouldn't have expected to see them here—together.”

Angel directed a professionally surreptitious glance toward Natalie and Maxine, turned to me, and gently placed her hand on mine. “I worry about you,” she said. “You've been speculating about their relationship for as long as I've known you. This should confirm your suspicions. Believe me, those two are together.”

“How can you tell?”

“I see this kind of thing all the time in my investigations,” Angel said. “That kind of knowledge comes with the territory.”

I thought of Bridget, who was at a meeting of the International Society of Hosiery Makers in Paris, Texas. I'd asked her to bring me a pair of stockings.

Then, Angel whispered the name she growls into my ear in the dark, and she had my full attention.

Angel slid the velvet dress up and off me. Standing in my silk leopard print slip, black lace garter belt, and stockings, I experienced the familiar fear of being found ridiculous.

“What?” Angel asked, but she kissed me before I could answer.

Later, while we were getting our second wind for the second time, I told Angel that Natalie had put Bridget on a very strict diet, and that Ellen and Annalise had speculated that there was a sexual reason.

“I like a woman to have some padding,” Angel said, settling into mine. “Bone rubbing bone is no good.”

Chapter 22

I squeezed fresh oranges using my grandfather's Sunkist juicer and made French toast with lots of cinnamon because Angel loved it that way. I served the French toast with sliced strawberries and bananas, and even warmed the real maple syrup.

I let Angel make the coffee because she was particular about it, and I'm not, so long as it has caffeine.

After breakfast, we took a shower together. I don't know if we actually saved any water or spent more time soaping and stroking than if we'd done it separately, but as it turned out, in planning for Pride Sunday, Angel had allocated for the time spent, if not the water. We had plenty of time to dress before making our way down to the Village to watch the parade.

I put on a faded lavender t-shirt with a snarling wildcat emblazoned in black across the front.

“Where'd you get that?” Angel asked.

“My first lover sent it to me after she returned home to London,” I replied. “She told me I was fierce.”

Angel smiled. “You are.”

“Have you ever wanted to ride a motorcycle?” I asked Angel as the Sirens roared by.

“No,” she replied. “But I do have a leather jacket.”

“I'll settle for that,” I said. I've always preferred the merry-go-round to the roller coaster anyway. “Will you wear it with a white, ribbed-cotton undershirt?”

“If you'll wear one of those old-fashioned, white nightgowns.”

“With long sleeves and lots of little buttons and a high neck that ties with a ribbon?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Oooh, am I a good girl?”

“You are,” Angel said. “But secretly you want to be very bad.”

“So you're going to do me the favor of taking me to some den of iniquity and doing terrible things to me?” I asked happily.

“That's right,” Angel said. “And you are going to be very, very grateful.”

I could hardly wait.

Eduardo had planned to march with the Gay Men, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgender People of all Colors and Classes United to Fight the Right for the Right to Marry wearing bridal regalia, but the organization had had some PR concerns.

“They said to me, ‘Eduardo, you know that the TV people are going to photograph you, you'll be representing the gay marriage movement on the local news, you may even end up in some propaganda film that will be shown to church groups. All the straight people will point at you and scream,
See, that's what we're going to get
, and the athletes and actors will all stay in their
closets because they don't want to be identified with you. Please, Eduardo, couldn't you just wear a white polo shirt like the rest of us?'”

“Do you know your queer history, honey?” Eduardo asked me. “It was the drag queens that started Stonewall, not some little button-down boys quibbling over who's going to sit at what table.”

So Eduardo marched with four of his friends, all dressed up as bridesmaids, keeping a discreet distance from the official group. They opted for a Southern belle theme, and Eduardo looked very fetching in his off-the-shoulder, hoop-skirted bridal gown. He carried a sign that read: Gay Marriage Today, Not Tomorrow at Tara. I was proud of him. I felt that any man who walked over fifty blocks in high heels was a better woman than I was.

An older cop, showing signs of stoicism and sunburn, stood by as one of Eduardo's bridesmaids tossed his bouquet to a younger cop who was more likely to be voted one of New York City's finest. The officer caught the flowers in an impressive display of reflex reaction, and to the delight of the crowd, tipped his cap at the bridesmaid. A product of sensitivity training—or perhaps a future member of the Gay Officers Action League.

Stepping in time to the beat of the drums, a baton twirler—a slim proud figure a bit apart from the mass of band behind him—tossed his silver wand into the bright summer air. I followed it to the apex of its flight, two or three stories above the street, and back down again to where it landed, firmly, in his waiting hand. The whistles and cheers soared up and around as the baton twirler moved on. Had he wanted to twirl in high school? His high school's loss is our gain, I thought. Some good comes from dreams deferred.