Significant Others Read online

  She’s not the only one, thought DeDe.

  “This is Sabra’s first time at Wimminwood,” D’or added. “I’m giving her the grand tour.”

  Sabra smiled obligingly. “It’s truly wonderful,” she said.

  “Isn’t it?” said DeDe.

  “Can you join us?” asked D’or.

  “Not really.”

  “Oh … O.K.” D’or’s insistent smile finally faded. “See you back at the homestead, then.”

  “That’s up to you,” said DeDe.

  Twenty minutes later, when D’or returned to the tent, DeDe was waiting for her. “One of us should go get Anna,” she said coldly.

  “She’s meeting us at the chow hall,” D’or said, kicking off her boots. She turned and gazed at DeDe. “I wouldn’t have believed it.”

  “What?”

  “You are actually jealous.”

  “I’m embarrassed, D’or. I’m embarrassed for you.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mind if I ask why?”

  “C’mon. Look at you. Flashing your tits all over the place as soon as a famous woman—”

  “Now, wait just a goddamn minute.”

  “It’s unworthy of you,” said DeDe. “That’s all.”

  “It was hot today.”

  “I noticed,” said DeDe.

  D’or drew back. “Oh, boy … ohboyohboyohboy.”

  “I also don’t appreciate your blabbing it all over camp about Booter working for Reagan. If you can’t respect our privacy—”

  “Wait a fucking minute.”

  “Well, did you or did you not tell Rose?”

  “Who?”

  “The one who deported our son.”

  D’or looked totally dumbfounded. “I haven’t even seen her since—”

  “Well, you told somebody!”

  D’or’s brow wrinkled. “I may have mentioned it to Feather at the Salvadoran workshop.”

  “And Feather told that runty, big-mouthed lover of hers….”

  “DeDe …”

  “O.K., forget runty…. Vertically challenged. How’s that?”

  D’or shook her head slowly. “It was just a lighthearted remark. I can’t imagine how …”

  DeDe rose. “I’m sure you get plenty of mileage out of it. Why don’t you try it on Cruella de Vil?”

  Slack-mouthed, D’or observed her, then broke into raucous laughter.

  “Keep laughing,” said DeDe as she charged out of the tent. She was heading for the loud-and-rowdy zone.

  Adoring Fan

  AS NIGHT FELL, WREN DOUGLAS FOUND HERSELF ON the deck at Fife’s, a gay resort on the outskirts of Guerneville. The evening was so balmy that several dozen people were still gathered outside. Shaking the rocks in her Scotch and water, she stood at the rail and watched as a blond man in parrot green shorts swam laps in the pool.

  She felt crisp and glamorous tonight in serious makeup and a turquoise-and-white sailor suit, fresh from a country Martinizing. She’d expected to be recognized—hoped for it, in fact—and she was.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “You’re Wren Douglas.” He was brown-haired and brown-eyed, mustachioed. The mischief and sweetness in his expression would have betrayed him as gay at a PTA meeting in Lynchburg, Virginia.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  He stuck out his hand. “I’m Michael Tolliver. I was in the audience when you did Mary Ann in the Morning. You were fabulous. You’re always fabulous.”

  She smiled and squeezed his hand. She was used to this kind of homo hyperbole, but it never failed to please her. “You didn’t see me on Donahue,” she said with a rueful expression.

  “No. What happened?”

  She shrugged. “Some large lady from Queens called me … let’s see … ‘an insult to decent fat people everywhere.’ ”

  “Oh, no.”

  “It was a big breakthrough for me, I’m tellin’ ya. I wasn’t just fat anymore … I was a fat slut. What a revelation! A minority within a minority, and getting more specialized all the time.”

  He laughed, but it sounded a little lame, carrying the weight of dutiful fandom. She wondered if he’d heard her tell the same story on the Carson show.

  “What … uh … brings you here?”

  “Where? This place?”

  “Well … the river.”

  “I’m staying over in Monte Rio,” she explained. “A friend of mine rented a house there.”

  “Same here,” he said. “We’re in Cazadero. Know where that is?”

  “Mmm. Love their general store.”

  “Well, we’re not very far from there.”

  “And ‘we’ means …?”

  He pointed down to the pool. “The guy who’s swimming laps, and … over there, under the trees … the one in the plaid shirt.”

  “Well …” She raised an eyebrow artfully. “How nice for you.”

  He laughed. “The one in plaid is straight.”

  She nodded soberly. “Gay guys haven’t worn plaid for years.”

  Another laugh. “As a matter of fact, he’s married to Mary Ann Singleton.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “The woman who interviewed you.”

  “Oh, God, yes. Miss Terminally Perky. Poor guy. He’s married to her?”

  He looked a little upset. “She’s O.K. once you get to know her.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “She just hasn’t … responded well to being famous.”

  Right, thought Wren. World famous in San Francisco. She glanced over at the man in the plaid shirt and admired his dimpled chin with a sudden twinge of déjà vu. “Oh, him,” she exclaimed. “We’ve met. I tried to pick him up at the general store.”

  He laughed. “Seriously?”

  “You bet. I seriously tried. He didn’t mention me?” She made a hurt face. “I’m crushed.”

  “Well, he’s been kind of under the weather lately.”

  I could cure him, she thought.

  “This is such an honor,” said Michael.

  She cocked her head at him. “Thanks.”

  “Would you … uh … possibly care to have dinner with us?”

  “Thanks, but …” She checked her watch. “I’m meeting my friend back at the house.”

  “Oh.”

  Her eyes perused the man in plaid again before returning to Michael. “He’s leaving about ten o’clock, though. You could come up for a nightcap.”

  “Really?” He seemed genuinely elated. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  “All of us?”

  “By all means,” she replied.

  Trouble in Chem-Free

  DARKNESS HAD COME EARLY TO THE LOUD-AND-ROWDY zone, a loose configuration of tents and RVs near the gate at Wimminwood. After less than half an hour there, DeDe had come to feel curiously comfortable, like a child who’d been kidnapped by gypsies and had grown to like it. Or maybe like Patty Hearst; she wasn’t sure.

  “Pour that girlie another drink!” This was Mabel, apparent high priestess of the Party Animals. “She’s lookin’ all mopey again.”

  “No,” said DeDe, covering her tin cup with her hand. “I’m fine, really.”

  “Pour her a damn drink. Ginnie, get some more rum out o’ the tent. Get your ass in gear and fix this sweet thing a drink.”

  Ginnie, who’d been absorbed by her own bongo music, stopped playing and looked at DeDe.

  “Well,” said DeDe, “maybe a little one.” She’d been holding back out of some sense of obligation to the kids, but it seemed silly at this point. Edgar had his own life now, and Anna was at the chow hall with D’orothea.

  Oh, God. Was Sabra with them?

  “Smile,” barked Mabel.

  DeDe smiled.

  Mabel winked at her. “Attagirl.” She was reclining on an air mattress in front of her Winnebago. With her short gray hair and lumpy gray sweatsuit, she bore an uncanny resemblance to a plate of mashed potatoes.

&nb
sp; “I know that bitch,” said Mabel. “Her and me go waaay back.”

  For a moment, DeDe thought she meant Sabra. Then she remembered her other nemesis, the one she’d told them about. “You mean Rose?”

  Mabel grunted. “She confiscated my crossbow at the Michigan festival. Fuck her.”

  DeDe tried to look sympathetic, but had a hard time of it. Mabel with a crossbow? Mabel drunk with a crossbow in the midst of a thousand people? Please.

  “All that shit about Goddess this and Goddess that. I told her: ‘I’m gonna get you back, I swear to God.’ And she said: ‘Anybody who swears to God is only bowing to the patriarchy.’ And I said: ‘I’m gonna patriarchy your butt all the way to East Lansing, if you don’t get the hell out o’ my Winnebago.’ ”

  One of the other rowdies let out a whoop. “Go get her, Mabel.”

  “I’ve been beatin’ men at their own game for sixty years. You think I need some sorry-ass little drill sergeant tellin’ me how to talk like a dyke? Tellin’ me I’m a threat to the general welfare because of a harmless little crossbow?”

  DeDe watched as the bongo player swapped smirks with a lanky woman seated on an ice chest next to Mabel’s air mattress. Mabel and her trusty crossbow had obviously become a central motif in their shared familial lore.

  “And now,” Mabel added, “she’s treatin’ you like dirt too. Small damn world, huh?”

  “I guess so,” DeDe said.

  “Somebody should have a talk with that girlie.”

  “Oh, no,” said Ginnie wearily. “Here we go again.”

  Puffing a little, Mabel hefted her weight onto her feet. “Somebody should just go tell her it’s time to stop pushing my friends around.”

  DeDe glanced nervously at Ginnie. This wasn’t for real, was it?

  “You should be flattered,” said Ginnie, smiling sardonically. “Your honor is about to be defended.”

  DeDe turned back to Mabel. “Mabel, really, I appreciate your concern, but I don’t …”

  Mabel lumbered past her toward the Winnebago. “Yessir-ree-bob,” she said as she climbed inside.

  Panic-stricken, DeDe turned to Ginnie and asked: “The crossbow?”

  Ginnie laughed. “It’s back in Tacoma. Don’t worry.”

  Thank God, she thought.

  “She gets like this,” offered the woman on the ice chest. “She was with the Post Office for thirty-seven years.”

  Mabel emerged from the Winnebago, gave DeDe a rakish salute, and began marching down the road toward the chem-free zone.

  “You don’t even know where she is,” yelled Ginnie.

  Mabel maintained a determined gait. “The hell I don’t.”

  “She’s doing this for you,” said the woman on the ice chest, addressing DeDe. “She’s showing off.”

  DeDe felt utterly helpless. “What’s she gonna do?”

  Ginnie shrugged. “Kick butt.”

  “Look,” said DeDe, “the last thing I want is some horrible fight over … Can’t somebody stop her?”

  “She’s not gonna do anything,” said the woman on the ice chest. “She’s blowin’ smoke.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” said Ginnie. She turned to DeDe with a look of gentle concern. “Maybe you’d better go after her, huh?”

  “Me? I don’t even know her. Why should I be the—?” She cut herself off, suddenly envisioning Mabel and Rose locked in woman-to-woman combat. She leapt to her feet and bounded down the road after Mabel.

  She caught up with her as they approached the border of the chem-free zone. “Mabel, listen …”

  “Comin’ along for the fun?”

  “No! If you’re doing this for me …”

  “I’m doin’ this for me, girlie.”

  DeDe strode alongside her, breathing heavily but keeping pace. “But if she thinks that I sent you down there to …”

  “Who the hell cares?”

  “I care, Mabel. I’m here with my lover and kids, and … I’m just trying to have a good time.”

  Mabel slowed down a little and smiled at her. “How’s it been so far?”

  “Shitty,” said DeDe.

  “Well, see there? It’s time we had us some fun.”

  “Mabel, a rumble with the security chief is not my idea of a good—”

  “Shhh,” Mabel ordered, whipping a forefinger to her lips. “There it is.”

  “What?” DeDe whispered.

  “Her lair.” She seized DeDe’s arm with a grip of iron, pulled her into a thicket of madrone trees, let go suddenly, and flung herself to the ground like an advancing infantryman.

  Rose’s tent was beneath them, at the bottom of a gentle slope. A lantern burned inside, making it glow like the belly of a lightning bug.

  “Mabel, I want no part—”

  “Get down!”

  DeDe dropped to the ground, her heart pounding furiously. Mabel gave her a roguish wink and made another silencing gesture with her finger. There were sounds coming from Rose’s tent. Not voices exactly, but sounds.

  First there was a kind of whimpering, followed by heavy breathing, followed by: “Yes, oh yes, uh-huh, you got it, all right, O.K., there … yes ma’am, yes ma’am …”

  DeDe tugged on Mabel’s sweatshirt, making a desperate let’s-get-out-of-here gesture. Mabel used her palm to stifle a snicker, then peered down the slope again, obviously enthralled by the drama of the moment.

  The sounds continued: “Uh-huh, oh yeah, oh yeah, mmmmmm, oh God, oh God please … oh Gawwwddd …”

  Mabel shot a triumphant glance at DeDe, then sprang to her feet, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Don’t you mean Goddess?”

  All sounds ceased in the tent.

  DeDe tried to shimmy away on her belly, but the underbrush enfolded her. She lurched to her feet and stumbled frantically away from the scene of the crime. Behind her, Mabel was cackling victoriously, thoroughly pleased with herself.

  “Come on!” DeDe called, suddenly worried about Mabel’s safety.

  Mabel savored the scene a moment longer before effecting her own escape. She crashed through the madrones, puffing noisily but still cackling. “Was that perfect, girlie? Was that the best damn—”

  She tripped and fell with a sickening thud.

  “Are you O.K.?” DeDe called. “Mabel? … Mabel?”

  Mabel wasn’t moving at all.

  Sick with fear, DeDe made her way back to the grounded figure, knelt, touched the side of her face. “Please don’t do this to me. Please don’t.”

  Mabel’s nose wiggled.

  “Thank God,” said DeDe.

  The old woman emitted a sporty growl and hoisted herself to her knees. DeDe was pulling her the rest of the way when Rose emerged from the tent and peered up at the two invaders.

  She locked eyes with DeDe for an excruciating eternity, then went back into the tent. Mabel shrugged and flopped her arm across DeDe for support. “You think she was alone?” she asked.

  “I’m done for,” said DeDe as they made their way back to the Winnebago.

  “No you’re not.”

  “I am. You don’t know. She hated me already. Now …”

  “I’ll protect you,” said Mabel.

  “Right,” said DeDe.

  They passed a group of tents near the edge of chem-free. She distinctly heard someone say the words “Junior League,” followed by a chorus of harsh laughter.

  They knew, they all knew. Her debacle at the gate had entered into the lore.

  It was time she got out of there.

  Making Up

  JIMMY LOOKED MOODY AND DRUNK WHEN BOOTER RETURNED to his tepee. “How was the Jinks?” Booter asked.

  No answer. “Bad, huh?”

  “I didn’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “How was the Vice-President?”

  “Fine,” said Booter. “Optimistic.”

  “About what?”

  Booter was thrown for a moment. “Well … economic indicators … the Contras
. That sort of thing.”

  “Oh.” Jimmy nodded, then looked down at the empty plastic glass in his hand.

  “You should’ve gone to the Jinks,” said Booter.

  “Why?”

  “I dunno. To give me a report. I was kinda curious.” Jimmy grunted.

  “Sounded like your kinda show.” Why was Jimmy acting this way? Because Booter hadn’t gone to the Jinks? Because Booter hadn’t invited Jimmy to meet the Vice-President? Because Jimmy turned maudlin after three drinks?

  Applause came clattering through the woods like lumber spilling from a truck.

  “There’s the end of it,” said Booter.

  “Of what?” asked Jimmy.

  “The Jinks.”

  “Oh.”

  Booter hated it when he got like this. “I thought I’d wander down to Sons of Toil … have a drink with Lester and Artie.”

  Another grunt.

  “You wanna come along?”

  “You go ahead,” said Jimmy.

  Booter frowned and sat down on the cot next to him. “Jimmy, ol’ man …”

  Jimmy rose, fumbling in his shirt pocket for a cigaret.

  “You don’t need that,” said Booter.

  “Hell with it.” Jimmy lit the cigaret and tossed the match out into the night. He took a drag, then expelled smoke slowly, forming a contemplative wreath over his head.

  “I wasn’t up at Mandalay,” Booter said at last.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Jimmy. “Where’d you meet him?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t have drinks with George Bush?”

  “No.”

  “Then what the hell …?”

  “I was with a woman, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy cocked his head slightly, like an old retriever inquiring about the prey.

  “I rented a house in Monte Rio,” Booter added. “She’s been … staying there for a few days.”

  Jimmy looked dumbstruck for a moment, then started to laugh. As usual, his laughter deteriorated into a coughing jag. Booter clapped him on the back several times.

  When Jimmy had collected himself, he said: “Why didn’t you tell me it was just a woman?”

  Booter shrugged. “You’re a thespian. You’ve got a big mouth.”

  “Then … you didn’t see Bush at all?”

  “No.”

  Jimmy smiled and shook his head in amazement. No, in relief. “A woman,” he said.