Tats Too

by Layce Gardner

  “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.”

  “And…” Vivian continues to Lulu, “darling sister, you get to pose as us and get arrested and spend some time with Marshal Dillon and probably behind bars before they let you go.”

  “Oh, how exciting!” Lulu exclaims.

  “But what about you two?” Rachel asks.

  Vivian smiles. “We get to be movie stars and ride in the back of a fancy-schmancy limo
.”

  Lulu grabs Vivian and hugs her hard while Rachel and I shake hands.

  “Thanks for marrying us,” I say.

  Rachel smiles. “I guess we’re brothers-in-law now.”

  I hear Lulu whisper in Vivian’s ear, “I love you, baby sister.”

  “Will you come visit us in Mexico?” Vivian asks.

  Lulu nods, blinking away sudden tears and whispers, “I can’t wait to meet my niece.”

  All this feel-good is interrupted by a loud crash of doors and a booming voice, “Go that way! I’ll go this way! We’ve got ’em cornered!”

  I run to the edge of the screen, squat down and peek through a little rip about knee-high. “It’s Dillon and Festus!” I whisper.

  “Bait-and-switch!” Vivian orders the other two.

  Vivian grabs my hand and pulls me around the screen and out onto the stage. We stop and let the Feebies get a good solid look at us standing there in the shadows.

  Dillon aims her gun at us, shouting,“Freeze!”

  That’s when Lulu and Rachel run around the other side of the screen and squeak to a stop. Lulu gasps when she sees Dillon and gives a performance worthy of an Oscar when she says, “Not that bitch again!”

  Dillon flips her gun over to Lulu and Rachel. She looks confused for a moment, then takes the bait hook, line and sinker. “Freeze!” she orders.

  Suddenly, Lulu grabs Rachel’s hand, saying “C’mon, Lee! Run for it!” They sprint back around the movie screen with Dillon and Festus barreling after them.

  Vivian and I look at each other and smile. Hand in hand, we saunter back through the theatre, out the lobby doors and straight for the limo.

  People cheer us like we’re movie stars, holding out papers for us to autograph and cameras flash us to within an inch of our lives. We just smile a whole lot and way too big.

  That’s when Gay Cop, who almost wrote us a ticket in the desert, moves out of the crowd, saying, “Thanks for the tickets, ladies,” and chivalrously opens the limo door for us.

  The last thing I see as we pull away is Fake Hilary dressed as Elvis standing in front of the Winkle sisters, singing and giving them a damn good impersonation of Elvis the Pelvis.

  ***

  The only thing separating my ass from the expensive leather seat is a silk Armani suit. I could seriously get used to this life. I’ve lived in houses that weren’t as big or as nice as the back of this limo.

  “M&M’s!” Vivian screams, holding up a big cut-glass jar filled with the things. “They thought of everything!”

  “Miss? Where to?” the driver asks without turning around.

  “Mexico!” Vivian says. “Take us all the way to Mexico City and I’ll triple your pay.”

  “I know a sweet little cabana house by the ocean you might be interested in,” he says.

  “Really?” Vivian asks. “Do tell.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It comes with everything. Servants. View of the ocean and sunsets. Even has a little red-headed baby living there with her grandma and grandpa.”

  “What the hell’re you talking about?” I interject.

  The limo driver twists in his seat and grins at me.

  Oh my God! It’s Chopper!

  “Chopper!” I yell. “What the…? How the…? Who…?” I stumble.

  He laughs and looks back to the road, telling us, “Delia and Georgia are there right now. They went down and got set up after we got your note. I stayed on to help. Figured I’d start at the movie premiere and see if I couldn’t find you that way. Gave the real driver a little bonus and he looked the other way when I got behind the wheel.”

  The whole thing, the whole surprising thing brings sudden tears to my eyes. “Have I ever told you…” I finally manage to choke out.

  “No mushy stuff,” he warns. “I’m just doing what any father would do.”

  “If there were more men like you—”

  “I know,” he cuts me off, “the world would be a great fucking place.” He throws me another grin and adds, “I’ll stop right before the border and gas up. That’ll be a couple of hours or so. You girls get comfortable and enjoy the ride.”

  He powers up the dark, glass window separating us.

  Vivian and I look at each, stunned. She tosses a handful of M&M’s into her mouth and chews. Finally, I say, “We’re married. We’re riding in a limo. In just a few hours, we’ll be sitting on a beach with our little girl in our laps.” I shake my head at the wonderment of it all.

  ***

  “There’s only one thing left to do,” Vivian says, setting down the jar of candy.

  “What?”

  She crawls across the floor and kneels between my legs. “I think I owe you two or three.”

  I tease, “I don’t know, scuttlebutt has it that you owe me more like eight or nine.”

  “Scuttlebutt?” she exclaims. “Dammit, Lee, if you don’t stop with the—”

  I interrupt by pulling her into a kiss.

  ***

  Half an hour later, I’m naked, breathing heavy, still tingling from ecstatic aftershocks with Vivian naked and lying on top of me. She grins slyly and whispers, “I got it.”

  “Huh?”

  She holds up the Devil’s Diamond and smiles. “I got it.”

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