by Romi Hart
“Oh, give me a break! I’m not afraid of you. You’re a hot shot, big city woman. You’re beautiful, smart, super talented for sure. But let’s be honest. All you’re looking for is someone who will show you a good time. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what we both have in common?”
I didn’t answer him but turned my head sideways, so he could not read my face.
He was a little drunk, a little belligerent, and appeared very much like a young boy trying to explain why he broke the neighbor’s window. He stood in front of me a few seconds longer, then sauntered back to his group, attempting to appear as casual as possible.
Angelique sidled over from the end of the bar and set his beer glass next to my drink. “It looks like the gloves have come off.”
“Nah,” I replied. “We’re all just having fun, don’t you know.”
8
Cody
I was supposed to feel…vindicated. I had taken one for the team, going after the sophisticated nightclub entertainer and humbling her. Winning the game that we both seemed to be playing.
It sure was the most expensive fling I ever had, not just materially but time-wise. And mentally. It was a huge investment. It had taken three months and even led to the embarrassment of one of my best friends. Which was pretty funny, all things considered.
I was glad there wasn’t any time to see her during the baseball season, as my resolve to forget her might have weakened. Each day on the field, as our team surged into the finals, we had visualized victory. I tried to visualize victory. I even thought of commitment like a ball I was trying to hit, silky smooth like an elixir, tantalizing, all rolled up in the ball, and I reached out and swung at it! Sending it sailing away, winning point after point.
Truth is, I had another talk with Nate Jigger. Damn, the guy sure has changed! He’s actually getting married! Turns out he owes me a hundred grand since I predicted this Amanda girl would get a ring out of him. I found the whole thing hilarious that the notorious Nate Jigger finally caved to the pressure and fell in love. What a hypocritical piece of shit! He was all macho talk but when the time came, he was just putty in a girl’s hands.
And that’s when it really hit me. The happily ever after ending for Nate Jigger of all people, scared me shitless. I realized right then and there, I’m not ready for marriage or commitment or all that. That’s just not in my blood!
That’s kind of why I liked Diana in the first place. It was just fun, just flirting. Eventually sex. But we were both resistant to the idea of changing our entire lives just for romance. It didn’t seem natural at all. We were better off by ourselves, free and liberated.
What I tried not to think about were those nights when we had surrendered ourselves fully to each other. I refused to relive the sensation of drowning in each other’s dreams, of entangling ourselves so close together, that we felt like one.
I refused to think about the next morning when I had propped myself on my elbow to study her face in repose. Diana’s cheeks bloom while she sleeps, and her lips look like a rosebud. So beautiful.
But I shook those thoughts off! I refused to think about the cove I had shown her, that was secretly tucked away within the circling embrace of two hills that had converged, then fell back, eaten away by erosion. Only a thin, dusty trail led to it, and only the locals used it. Tiny wild flowers bloomed alongside the path, and immaculate white sand covered the closed in the beach.
I refused to think about how her eyes glowed with astonishment when she found her first sand dollar, and how beautiful she looked with the sun coming down and the wind rifling through her hair.
I’m not in love! I can’t be. I’m not going to fall to the same fate that destroyed Nate Jigger. I’m not the settling down type of guy, I realize that now. This is the way it has to be.
* * *
I had anticipated returning to the Lamplight. I had anticipated Diana’s distress, her anger in not having heard from me.
But I hadn’t anticipated that she would move up in the billings, nor that her performance would be better than ever! She was on her way to her own fame as a music hall vocalist, with no help from me at all. Damn, I was kind of proud of her.
She had a remarkable ability. She could take decades-old songs and make them sound modern or turn modern rock and roll into blues. It occurred to me, her fame could last longer than mine, that she would be singing with the same crystal clarity twenty years into the future as she sang now.
Me? My baseball career would soon be over. Most players didn’t make it much past forty and I was already twenty-six. At least I would be rich, money well-invested.
But I would be forgotten eventually. No more groupies, no more fame or instant fan worship. That’s just how it goes.
“Georgie-porgie,” I muttered when I returned to the table. The fangirls didn’t please me quite so much anymore. I didn’t even want sex.
Don’t get me wrong, the women were pretty, well-built, willing as puppies to make friends, but there was something disturbingly routine about it all, I figured.
Nothing ever changed. The last exciting date I experienced had been in my teenage years, when I first began to explore the world of girls. That was before I discovered I didn’t have to do much of anything at all to make girls cluster to me.
I could have been a major jerk too, the kind that gave a bad reputation to all guys devoted to tossing around a ball. But I didn’t really want to be like that. I had noticed while still in school, there were entire groups of people who didn’t care much for jocks, who never followed sports, or if they did, didn’t care greatly for the people who played them. Even my sister avoided the sports crowd, preferring the laid-back atmosphere of Mendocino’s health resorts.
Dammit…I like to be liked! My biggest reason for stepping outside my sphere of usual entertainment to visit the Lamplight was because I had been drawn to this inclusive set of high brows, artists and professionals who lived by their own code.
They failed to explain their rules to others. Because maybe they believed their real friends would “figure them out” as they moved along.
Part of me really wanted these people, her people, to like me.
And yeah, the regulars had begun to accept me. They smiled now when I came in. They had begun to laugh at my jokes. Some even called me by name when I waved to them.
I leaned back in my chair and drawled more for the benefit of the nearby tables than the girls that surrounded me.
“Did I ever tell you about the time when I decided to go camping on the beach a little up north from Humboldt? The coastline there is full of these little coves and hide-away places. The rocks are too sharp and the ocean too rough for swimming, so they’re usually deserted except for biologists, beach combers and the like. You find things in the shallow pools like a hermit crab and little fishes. In some spots, you can watch pods of whales swimming by.”
They listened. They loved it.
“I’d been camping out for three days and found a few things to bring back to the house, like driftwood and abalone shell. I was just thinking of moving on when I heard barking. I thought at first it was a dog, but when I looked over the bank at the rocks below, what I saw was a mother seal and her baby. That baby seal was the cutest thing I ever did see, with its big, round eyes and whiskers. I snuck away as quiet as a mouse because I didn’t want to disturb them.”
I looked out of the corner of my eye to measure the effect of the story at the other tables. I was happy to see they were listening avidly, their eyes soft and mellow at the thought of a baby seal with its mother. It was a true story.
I really did have a tender spot for animals. I had just never thought to reveal this part of me before. How surprising that my usual audience, superficial and shallow people, ate it up like candy.
But if this is what victory or freedom tastes like…it’s somewhat bland. If I’m honest with myself.
“Diana,” I heard Angelique say in an over-dramatized stage whisper. “Is it true you received an
invitation to sing at the mayor’s home?”
“Shh,” Diana said, her voice carrying despite the low tone. “It’s supposed to be a secret. It’s not the mayor who invited me. It’s the mayor’s wife. It’s a surprise for his birthday.”
“You won’t be jumping out of a cake, will you?” I asked, trying to bring the audience back to my side.
Her announcement had caused a charge of excitement as the customers began murmuring among themselves this piece of news even the paparazzi didn’t know about yet.
“Why Cody James, that’s a good idea!” she purred. “I don’t think anyone has thought of that. It’s so original.”
“Well, ma’am. I know it’s a plain, ordinary thing to do but men like that. It doesn’t matter who they are. They like women jumping out of a cake. It’s like champagne, all happy and bubbly.”
“I’ll take it up with my choreographer. Maybe you have some other suggestions for me?”
“Heck no, ma’am. I’m a simple country boy. I don’t know anything about showbiz. Around my parts, we’re happy if a girl shakes her hips and yodels like a cowboy. I don’t expect you’d be doing something like that.”
“I don’t expect I would. But if you could teach me to yodel, it might come in useful.”
“I could, but not all in one night. It’s not an easy thing to do, you know.”
“You’re saying you can yodel?”
“I’m not saying I can yodel, and I’m not saying I can’t. I’m saying it would be hard to teach you all at once.”
“And you would have to make time for me.”
“I would have to make time for you, which I’m not going to do. You’ll have to learn by yourself.”
“Why, you’re just full of advice this evening, Mr. Cody James. But the show’s over and I’m ready to go home.”
Right on cue, Angelique brought her coat. He hadn’t removed his make-up. It looked odd to see someone who looked so much like a beautiful woman, behave like a gentleman escorting a lady.
That was the most annoying part of it all. Diana WAS a lady, more than any girl I had ever met! I saw it. Maybe I always have known it, but only now, at that moment, did I fully realize what it meant.
She wasn’t out the door more than three seconds before I followed her out.
She was on her way to the diner, her hand secured to Angelique’s elbow.
“Don’t walk away from me, Diana! Do you hear me? Don’t walk away from me!”
All of a sudden, I ran up to the couple until I was in front of them both. My emotions were running high, a strange feeling. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t believe what I was saying. I could hardly even think my thoughts before I spoke them.
“Please don’t turn your back on me.”
She cocked her head, as she so often did, the blue streak running like a river through her jet-black hair. “Why shouldn’t I? You haven’t given me one good reason not to walk away.”
“Because it isn’t over until I say it’s over.”
“Your macho act isn’t going to work with me. I thought we both understood each other.”
“We did. We do. But…”
“But what?” she asked with a tilt. “I need something better than that.” She whispered that to me as if reading my heart and mind and figuring out what I was too afraid to say.
“Then what? What do you want me to say?”
I wedged myself between her and Angelique, who fell back a few steps to watch discreetly. “That I can’t get you out of my mind? That no matter what I do, you’re always there in the background, robbing me of every moment of happiness? That I need you to make things right for me again?”
“Eh, not bad.”
“Not bad?! No! It’s very bad! What am I supposed to do, Diana? I…I can’t live without you. I can’t be happy…without you in my life.”
“Tell her you love her,” whispered Angelique.
“What?” I took her shoulders and stared at her. The heavily curtained eyes stared back. So dark not a single expression that ran across them was readable. “Is that what you want? I’m supposed to tell you that I love you? That you defeated me?”
“Well, if that’s how you see it.”
“How do you see it? How was the game? Did you enjoy it? I mean…all I really know is that Nate kept talking about some game he always played. And what I know is that some woman defeated him. Got him to marry her! Nate of all people, the man who swore he would never fall in love and get married. And now…I just don’t know what to think.”
“Love is never a game to me, Cody,” she said sadly. “Whatever you may have thought, it wasn’t a game. Love is an adventure, there’s no doubt about that. It’s hard sometimes. Cruel once in a while. It’s very hard to trust somebody…especially when we can barely trust ourselves or trust our own instincts. But when our hearts are involved, it has to be real. It has to be sincere…or else love…life…is all for nothing. I know you understand what love is. I see the way you treat your parents, your friends, and me, and my friends. But what you can’t do is open your heart. You’re afraid to speak what you really feel.”
I held her so close, so tight I felt I might crush her! I couldn’t let go. I put my lips against her ear, inhaling the fragrance of her light perfume, my hands buried in her hair.
“I am afraid to say what I feel.”
“Is it unbecoming of a baseball player to say such things?” she laughed. “I’m sure even someone as wild as Nate understands. Bravado only goes so far in life. At the end of the day, we want friendship. We want romance, and sex but we also want a true emotional connection.”
“That’s what we have. I think I knew it…so long ago, way back then. I just kept thinking I wasn’t capable of it. But now, I know…I know what I want.”
“And what’s that, sug?”
“I want you to stay with me, Diana. Be my girl.” My voice cracked. “I’ll be good, promise!” I giggled. “I’ll be anything you want. Just don’t leave me. You’re the only woman I’ve wanted for a long time.”
“I won’t leave you, Cody. You left first, remember? But I’m always here. I’ve always been here. Whenever you decide to let go of whatever it is you’re holding onto, I’ll be here.”
I whispered so low, I wasn’t sure she heard, “I love you”.
“Pardon?” she asked, smirking at me.
“I…love you. I love you!” I finally said loudly, even in front of a grinning drag queen. “I don’t care who knows it. I don’t care about anything anymore…except you. I love you, Diana.”
My lips found hers and she kissed me. At last, she kissed me! Her mouth tasting of lipstick and peppermint, she kissed me, and it felt different. A passionate kiss, a kiss of love! A kiss of honesty and sincerity. A kiss I had never felt before…and wanted to feel forever.
“I love you too,” she whispered back.
* * *
“What do you think, dearies?” Angelique posed in the curved entryway between the dining and living room. He was dressed like Dale Evens. Beneath his jaunty cowboy hat, he wore a blonde, poufy wig, a fringed, embroidered blouse, fringed leather gloves, a tan-colored flared skirt and white, perky, jeweled cowgirl boots. He raised one arm in the air and bumped his hip against the wall. “I’ve never been to a western bar before. Will this do?”
“You’ll be lovely,” I said. “Why, you look just like a square dancer. Can you square dance, Angelique?”
He clicked one boot over another rhythmically in what appeared more a Scottish jig than a square dance move, but it still made me clap and add a step or two of my own.
“I’ve got this! I’ve got this!” Diana called, rushing over to the record player and checking the forty-five’s she had picked up during the week. “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”.
She picked up the beat in royal blue silk; silken black hair, loose silk blouse, the sleeves dripping over the cuffs, the waist tucked into a pair of designer jeans, stiletto pumps spinning. Angelique and I clapped our hands and danced, b
oots clicking on the hardwood floor.
“Are we late getting started?” Alice cried, rushing down the stairs. “I don’t know what to wear! Oh, I don’t know what to wear. I thought at first, I could dress like a pioneer woman with a bonnet and long dress, but Larson said it just won’t do. They will think you are a church person and we’ll have no fun. I do want to have fun! I do!”
Larson clattered behind her. “Tell her she looks great, Cody. Use your country lingo.”
“Why ma’am,” I drawled, pushing back my hat. “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes? Why you’re the prettiest girl this side of four counties.”
She curtsied in her short, gathered skirt. Uncomfortable with showing off her legs, she wore underneath the skirt, which was denim with sequins skipping merrily above the frayed hem, a pair of rainbow-colored leotards. She topped off the ensemble with a round-collared eyelet blouse and a pair of knee-high boots.
“Mr. James, I do declare you have a silver tongue. Will we be riding any horses?”
Diana chided her. “It’s a bar, Alice. Not a rodeo.”
“It has a mechanical bull,” I laughed.
“Whoo doggy!” Larson yipped. “I’ve always wanted to see one of those things.” Larson was dressed as close to a cowboy as he could imagine himself. Somehow, he had gotten hold of a short-frocked, double-breasted jacket that looked like it had belonged to the confederacy, a pair of black, stove-pipe pants and a string tie for his checkered western shirt.
Stomping our feet and clapping our hands, we all danced out the door and piled into the big rig waiting at the curb. We rolled down Highway five, listening to country music on the radio and singing along with varying degrees of accuracy. We drove about fifty miles, spinning past exits for one suburbanized area after another, and by pancake houses and gas stations.
We stopped in front of a tavern that sported a painting of a bucking bronco trimmed with red and blue lights. It was a trucker’s/ bikers/ traveler’s favorite recreational place to go. It was large with high ceilings. An oasis on the stretches of desert between towns and cities. It was built ranch-style, with stout pillars in front, perfect for catching your balance on the way out.