by Joan Opyr
The articles about Wood were vague. Though they mentioned his wife and daughter, Sylvie was never mentioned by name. Wood’s mother, Miriam, had given a couple of brief interviews. Otherwise, the articles focused on the circumstances of his disappearance rather than on his personality or character.
Frank, on the other hand, was discussed with thinly disguised salaciousness. He seemed to have lived his last year in Cowslip in constant peril of being run out of town on a rail. He’d been gone for nearly a week before anyone noticed that the county was missing a large sum of money. All of the articles had a field day with his juvenile record. I knew from my brother’s experience that while juvey records are technically sealed, Cowslip was too small for that to mean anything in practice. People talked, people speculated, and the newspaper wrote what they had to say, carefully phrasing accusations as questions. Before he turned eighteen, Frank had been arrested several times for everything from possession with intent to sell to indecent exposure. After his eighteenth birthday, he either got smarter or just more careful. The Herald-Examiner mentioned two speeding tickets but nothing else.
In the back of the folder were two photos. Sylvie pulled them out first.
“My father,” she said. A man with a bushy black mustache stared out at me, younger than when I’d known him. His eyebrows were heavy, almost meeting at the bridge of his nose, and his hair was short and straight, parted high on the left-hand side. According to the caption, he was a college sophomore.
I flipped it over and laid it face down on the coffee table. “Can I see the other one?”
The second photo was blurry, and it looked as if it had been cropped from a larger picture. Frost’s head was too large for the frame, and there was no background either above or on either side. I couldn’t tell if the blurring was the fault of the original or the photocopy. He had a broad, toothy grin and thick, dark hair cut in a shoulder-length shag. Like Wood, he also had a thick, dark mustache. He might not have made the grade as a Castro clone, but he wasn’t bad looking.
“Do you think he was gay?”
Sylvie considered the picture, her head tilted to one side. “I don’t know. Maybe he was just a tourist.”
“Are you bi-phobic?”
I was suddenly swept up in a green gaze, sharp and intense. “No. Are you bisexual?”
I shook my head. “Just plain old lesbian. How about you?”
“Never slept with a man and don’t want to.”
I put the folder down on top of the pictures and sat back, pressing the palms of my hands against my eyes. The photocopies had been fuzzy and difficult to read. Sylvie tucked her feet up beneath her and sat cross-legged, facing me.
“Do you know any bisexuals?”
I nodded.
“A. J.?”
“Yes. That’s how she identified at the time, anyway. I don’t know what she is now that she’s running around with the Lesbian Avengers. If you showed her a penis these days, she’d probably say, ‘Who, me?’”
“When did you break up?”
“Officially? Five months ago. It had been coming for a long time, though. The crunch came when she called me one night and said she’d decided to embark on a life of non-monogamy. I moved onto the sofa, and a month later, I moved back to Cowslip.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
She shrugged and sat upright, hugging her knees to her chest. “I thought maybe it was more recent than that.”
Lying didn’t seem like a particularly good idea, though I admit I considered it. “Two weeks ago, I made a big mistake. The grapevine in this town being what it is, I’m sure you already know about it. I spent one night with her. It was stupid, and I was sick and sorry.”
“If she’s been sleeping with men . . .”
“We were safe,” I said quickly.
She shook her head. “Do you still . . . ?”
“No, I don’t. I thought I did, and when we broke up, I was devastated. Now, I think I was just naïve. I need to quit expecting every woman I date to want to marry me.”
She laughed. “Does that mean I should cancel the cake?”
“Does that mean that we’re . . . ?”
“I think we should, don’t you?” Before I could answer, she let go of her knees and laid a finger against my lips. “On second thought, don’t answer that. If I let you talk, you’ll talk your way right out of this.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me back against the sofa. She looked at me for one long moment, and then she kissed me. A surge of electricity ran from the top of my head down to my stomach and then back up again. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close, kissing her back with a vengeance. I was rewarded by her sharp intake of breath.
Her hands slid under my T-shirt, and I sank deeper into the sofa cushions.
She stopped just long enough to say, “My room?”
“Who needs a room?” I asked, pulling her to me again.
We were breathing quickly now, and the blood was pounding in my ears, deafening me. I traced three fingers up the inside of her thigh and over the zipper of her jeans. I opened the top button and unzipped, slipping my hand down into her underwear. I pressed in, and she thrust her hips against me. I kissed the hollow place just above her collar bone, and she groaned.
Sylvie was pulling the T-shirt off and over my head when I heard a key being turned in the front door lock.
“Shit,” she said, sitting bolt upright. I yanked my shirt back down and ran a hand through my hair, trying desperately to snap to attention. Sylvie had her back to me now, and she was zipping up her jeans.
“Hi Sylvie,” said a voice in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
Then, I saw her. What’s more, she saw me.
“Oh, hi.” Her voice was chilly. “Haven’t we met?”
“I’ve got to go,” I said, pushing past her in a mad dash to get to the front door.
“Bil,” I heard Sylvie call, “wait!”
I paused in the doorway. Sylvie put a tentative hand on my arm.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Look, I’ll call you, okay?”
“You don’t have to go.”
“Tonight,” I said. “I promise.”
I cast a quick look at the woman standing behind her, and then I left. It was the woman I’d seen Sylvie with at Jackie J’s.
Chapter 23
I took the steps as quickly as I could, tripping over the last two in my hurry to get out to the parking lot. I reached my truck and managed to get in and shut the door before I burst into tears.
The woman had keys to Sylvie’s apartment. I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t get past hating myself for being so stupid. What was it with me and non-monogamous women? For a long time, I rested my forehead against the steering wheel. Then I sat up and looked at my face in the rearview mirror. My eyes were red and swollen. I wiped them off as best I could on the sleeve of my borrowed T-shirt. It smelled like Sylvie.
As I shifted the truck into reverse, someone tapped on the passenger-side window. I shifted back into neutral, and she got in.
I said, “If you and I were the last people on earth, A. J., I’d still shove you out the door at fifty-five miles per hour.”
She laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “You don’t mean that, and you look to me like you could use a friend.”
“I could. You, however, have never answered that description.”
She shook her head sadly, and I switched off the engine. “Come on, Bil. You don’t hate me nearly as much as you pretend to, and I don’t hate you at all. Let’s bury the hatchet and be friends. You want to tell me why you’re sitting in a parking lot, sobbing your eyes out?”
“I’m not sobbing.”
“Fine. Why are you crying then?”
“You can’t imagine,” I said, turning the full force of my anger and frustration on her, “that I would tell you?”
She backed away but made no move t
o get out of the truck.
“I didn’t realize it was that serious.”
I looked at her. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her wearing anything other than a femme fatale combat kit, but now she had on a soft, ivory-colored fisherman’s sweater and a pair of loose khaki pants. Her hair was combed back behind her ears, and the only makeup she was wearing was a little mascara.
“What are you talking about?”
“You and Sylvie Wood,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were serious about her.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Not as much as I thought. It was pretty clear that afternoon at the coffee house that she was flirting with you. It was also clear that you were responding. I just didn’t think you were serious.”
“What did you think?” I leaned back in my seat and waited for her to continue.
“I thought you’d seen me,” she said finally. “I was sitting inside by the front window when you came in. I thought maybe you were putting on a show for my benefit.”
I was puzzled. “Why would you think that?”
She looked at me for a moment. “Because I’m stupid,” she replied, and then she blinked and looked away. “I thought maybe we could . . . I don’t know. Pick up where we’d left off.”
“We didn’t leave off very pleasantly.”
“I know that. I guess I just hoped. Then that night I met you outside of the Underground . . . Bil, I never wanted to break up with you, I just wanted to . . .”
“Branch out?” I suggested.
“You make it sound cheap.”
I laughed. I might as well tell the truth. Any dignity I might have had was now lying in a heap on Sylvie’s sofa. “You hurt me, A. J. I thought I was in love with you, but we don’t have anything in common. We don’t look at things the same way. It’s true that I didn’t just stop caring about you when we broke up.”
“And now?”
“Look at me.” She looked up, and I pushed a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear. “I think I’m in love with Sylvie. I don’t know how she feels about me, not yet.”
She said nothing for a minute or two. “So you’ve opted for monogamous bliss.”
Monogamous? Maybe. I’d push like hell for it, though in that moment, I knew I’d take Sylvie on whatever terms she offered. I nodded.
A. J. said, “Can we do the lesbian thing and still be friends?”
“Maybe.” I laughed. “You know, I used to lie awake at night thinking about how much I hated you. If that wasn’t love, I don’t know what is.”
She smiled. “Thanks, I think.”
I held my hand out to her. She took it, holding it for a moment in both of hers.
“So,” she said, “why did you come tearing out of Sylvie’s apartment like that? I was sitting in the car, waiting for Nancy, and you ran past me like the building was on fire.”
“I left because . . .” I stopped, finally putting it all together.
“Because?”
I felt the urge to burst into tears again. “I left because I’m a fucking idiot. Nancy’s her roommate, the Lesbian Avenger.”
She nodded. “She’s the one who invited the rest of us here to help organize. I can’t believe you haven’t met her yet.”
“I thought she was imaginary.”
“You what?”
“I’ve just humiliated myself, as usual.”
She laughed. “Actually, I think this is good. Not the humiliation,” she explained, “but the fact that you’re in love with Sylvie. She’s in love with you, too, you know. I wasn’t planning to tell you that, but I guess I owe it to you. She’s a lucky girl.”
“What are you talking about? She lives with this Nancy woman.”
“Who do you think told me? In fact, I spent most of last night holding Nancy’s hand and listening to a catalog of the wonders of Sylvie Wood. She’s so gorgeous, she’s so smart, and she’s so blind to the charms of the woman who shares her apartment. Nancy would like nothing better than to settle down to a life of dull monotony . . .”
“That’s monogamy,” I corrected, “and how would you know it’s dull?”
“Touché. Anyhow, she apparently confessed her devotion the other night and got turned down flat. Sylvie was kind and apologetic, but she’s all wrapped up in someone else.”
“How do you know it’s me?”
“Don’t be a dork. I’m already getting fed up with being the sympathetic and platonic friend, so don’t drag this out. You’re in love with Sylvie, and she’s clearly in love with you. So there.” She leaned forward and grasped my chin in her hand. “Perk up.”
“What the hell was she doing with Nancy in Spokane then?”
“Nancy’s from Spokane. If you’re talking about Monday afternoon, Sylvie offered to give her a ride home. Nancy wanted to beg her mother for some extra cash. We’ve got a big event coming up. In fact, I’ve been trying to call you about it. Are you free on Friday night? There’s going to be a town meeting and . . .” A. J. laughed. “Are you listening?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It does seem a little unfair that Sylvie has two tall, dark, and handsome women weeping over her, and all I get to do is sit and console them. Suddenly I’ve turned into Miss Lonely Hearts.”
I smiled at her. “A. J., I could just kiss you.”
“I think you’re going to have to,” she replied. “It’s my standard fee for services rendered.”
I leaned across the seat, intending to give her a chaste little peck, but she pulled me to her and kissed me hard. Very gently, I pushed her away.
“Just checking,” she said.
“You always were one hell of a kisser.”
I could see Sylvie’s living room window from the parking lot.
She said, “Go back upstairs, Bil, and give it the old college try, but I warn you—lesbians should be careful who they sleep with because one way or another, they’re stuck with them forever. I don’t think I have any friends I haven’t slept with.”
“Tell me about it.”
“All right,” she said, smiling. “Actually, I haven’t slept with Nancy.”
“I expect you’ll soon remedy that. Besides, you know for a fact that she’s available.”
“And what about you?” she asked, gesturing in the direction of Sylvie’s living-room window.
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can go back just yet. This time, I’ve truly surpassed my humiliation threshold. I need to drive around for a while and get myself together.”
“I don’t know what you did up there, but don’t leave it too long. You’re very good at backing yourself into impossible corners.” She opened the door and climbed out. “You might try calling me sometime. I’ve left my number with your mother about ten thousand times, and you know where I’m staying. I’m here until the election. After that, you can call me in Seattle.”
“Okay.”
“Do you mean it?”
“I said okay, didn’t I?”
“Don’t get huffy. If you do call me, though, don’t tell Tipper. I don’t think he likes me very much. I don’t know what you told him.”
“The god’s own truth,” I replied sternly. “No embellishments necessary.”
She actually looked moderately embarrassed. “Well, try to put in a good word for me now. The Avengers and I have to work with him and his mother for at least another month, and she looks to me like she’s packing a concealed weapon.”
“Get out of here,” I said. “What’s her face is over there waiting for you.” Nancy had emerged at the bottom of the staircase and was hesitating on the edge of the parking lot.
A. J. blew me a kiss and closed the door. The clock on the dashboard said it was eleven o’clock. I cast one last glance up at Sylvie’s window. I couldn’t face her, not yet. I’d been too stupid for words.
I started the truck and headed for Fort Sister.
The padlock was off and the gate was open, so I drove all the way to the
front door. Captain Schwartz was out on the softball field, shooting skeet with a 12-gauge over-and-under. Jane was pulling clay pigeons for her two at a time. I stopped for a moment to watch her. Captain Schwartz never missed. She blew two pigeons to glory before she lowered the shotgun and waved to me.
“He’s in the kitchen making omelets,” she called, removing her hearing protection.
“Everyone else?” I called back.
“Ha! If you mean that load of lazy queens, they’re still lolling about in their bunks.”
I walked around the back of the house to the kitchen. Tipper was standing by the stove, flipping an omelet into the air with a quick flick of his wrist.
“How do you do that? You’re as amazing with a skillet as your mother is with a shotgun.”
“I’m showing off,” Tipper replied. “Just like her.”
“Why is she showing off?”
“Why do you think? It’s been Annie-Oakley-gets-laid all week. She’ll be shooting through quarters with a target pistol next. Here,” he said, sliding the omelet onto a plate and handing it to me. “Sit down and eat this. The Faeries are all upstairs sleeping it off.”
“Wild night?”
“All the way around,” he said, joining me at the table. “We sat up late with the Folksong Army playing truth or dare. We always picked truth, and they always picked dare. You can see which is more exhausting. Toast?”
“Please. And butter.”
When we’d finished eating, he said, “So, are you ready to tell me everything? You should be warned that I know some of it.”
“Like what?”
“Well, we could start with where you’ve been for the past two days.” He held up his hand to forestall any comment. “Don’t interrupt. I won’t ask what you’ve been up to, not yet anyway, because I know you haven’t been up to it with A. J. She and the Avengers had their kiss-in at Union Square yesterday afternoon, and you and someone else were conspicuous by your absence. Now, as for the rest, you might have told me about Sam’s near-death experience, about Burt Wood’s autopsy, and about the fact that they’ve taken Kate Wood in for questioning.”
I stared at him blankly, and he laughed. “As you might recall, one of our county cops has a thing going on with Miss Suzy.”