“Luz! Syd!” she called up into the attic. “We’ve got to get over there.”
She texted Beatriz. How’s the bride?
Beatriz texted back, Full drag. U will either die laughing or crying.
Beatriz was being an enormously good sport about this. She’d thrown herself into it as if it were community theater. Topher too had been a good player—he had a faggy crush anyway on Beatriz, who looked like a beautiful twink with her art mullet and muscle tees.
And here was Andrea, in a dress, preparing to sit in the audience and take photos she’d have to upload to Flickr, setting: Public.
Andrea replied: Can’t wait to get you out of that dress.
Beatriz: Not so fast—u might like being fucked by a girl.
The backyard of Topher’s tidy little gray ranch house was properly bedecked: a rented white tent over the food, grills lined up alongside it; a vintage bamboo bar covered in bottles; tiki torches everywhere, ready for dusk; a few dozen mismatched borrowed kitchen chairs on the lawn, split by an aisle of grass. Robin had hung sprays of wildflowers along the wooden fence. Sydney and Lucia broke into awed smiles. “Dust off your knees now, before people start taking pictures,” Andrea told them.
All of it was for the photographs: authenticating detail. The beribboned gift boxes were in fact packed with household goods Andrea and Beatriz and Topher had harvested from their own homes. Just that morning, Andrea had looked high and low for the blender before remembering that she’d already wrapped it up.
Miracle of miracles, a clear sky on a mid-September Saturday afternoon. Their friends were already filling the yard. Andrea unclipped the leash and Bullet, now white muzzled and stiff in the hips, wandered about amiably sniffing people’s hands before she sprawled under the cheese table and waited for luck to fall to the grass.
Flynn was walking around taking photographs with a camera lens the size of a dachshund. “Andy, kids, smile,” he called out, and they posed obediently. Sydney turned out her foot like a red-carpet pro. “You guys look sharp,” he said to Lucia and Sydney, and then to Andy, “Honey, it’s a wedding, not a funeral.”
“The bachelorette party took a toll,” Andrea said. “Bow ties are a thing now?”
“They are.” Flynn gave her a hug. “Don’t worry, this will be over quick—and then we get to keep Beatriz.”
When Lucia was born and Andrea’s entire concept of love was abruptly and totally rewired, she had realized, with a nearly electric jolt, what a poor love match she and Flynn had actually been; what she’d pined for all that time was her idealized fantasy of the relationship. And when Lucia arrived, Flynn showed up. Flynn brought Andrea food and supplies and cleaned her house when she came home from Lucia’s birth; for an entire academic quarter, Flynn and Flynn’s girlfriend came and watched the baby on Wednesday evenings while Andrea attended night class to finish her BA. In 2005, when Flynn returned from top surgery in San Francisco, Andrea joined the rotation of friends who helped him drain the bags of blood and fluid, swapped out hot packs and cold packs as needed, cleaned house, brought him DVDs and sudoku puzzles. And as Flynn healed, he settled into his skin in a new way; he went from restless and perpetually uncertain to a person quick to joke, with a deep laugh and a new, sturdy broadness to not just his body but his presence.
“Thank you, buddy,” Andrea said. “I’m really grateful you’re in charge of the evidence. Seriously.”
“Wouldn’t miss it. It’s the event of the season.”
“Have you seen her yet?”
“The blushing bride?” Andrea hit his arm. “No,” he said, “but I think you’re not supposed to.”
“I’m not the one who’s marrying her,” Andrea said.
“Oh yeah.” Flynn nodded toward the house. “Living room sofa, last I saw.”
Sydney perked up. “We have something to give her.” She started toward the house.
“Ah-ah.” Andrea caught her arm and gently tugged her back. “I’ll deliver it. You guys go ask Lawrence to help you set up the sound system.” She gave the kids a little push toward Lawrence, over by the punch bowl with her doppel-banger girlfriend Carson, who looked like a younger, long-haired version of Lawrence. Within a month of dating they had adopted each other’s speech mannerisms and merged their collections of band T-shirts. They didn’t live together yet but there was already talk of a kitten.
Inside Topher’s house, the kitchen was jammed with people. Summer was swiftly beheading pink and orange begonias and arranging the blooms around the base of the cake. No Beatriz in the kitchen. No Beatriz in the living room. Down the hall, Andrea knocked and pushed open each door, until behind the last one: Beatriz, in a simple long white dress hitched above her knees, sprawled on her back on the bed, eating cheese puffs from a bag. In her black hair, sleeked back femme-ily, was an actual gardenia. Between her spread knees, a glimpse of her tighty-whities.
“Oh my god,” Andrea said. “There you are. In a dress.”
“Babe! I know, I haven’t worn one since, like, confirmation.” Beatriz propped herself up on her elbows. Her low voice had a sweet graininess and an emphatic way with consonants. “I was hoping you’d come find me. I left my phone somewhere out there and Topher won’t let me out to find it.”
She reached for Andrea, and Andrea hopped up onto the bed and straddled her waist. “I’m disturbed by how well this fits you,” she said, tracing Beatriz’s bared collarbone, which was still tanned from a summer spent in tank tops. “Are you not wearing a bra?”
Beatriz popped a cheese puff into Andrea’s mouth. “Just two Band-Aids over my nipples.” She slid a hand under Andrea’s dress and then the bedroom door opened.
“Scandal!” Topher cried.
“I know, she’s going to get orange powder all over her dress,” Andrea said.
“Or your underwear,” Beatriz said, wiping her thumbs on the waistband of Andrea’s panties.
“My treacherous bride,” Topher said. “It’s enough to drive me into the arms of another man.”
A knock at the door frame: Robin, hair piled into a minor beehive, smoky eyed and regal. Tattoos ran up her plump arms, ducked under her dress straps, and tunneled into her cleavage. “Well, hello,” she said.
“You never saw this,” Topher said.
“Don’t tell immigration,” Beatriz joked.
“What, femme-on-femme action, with a man watching? This is the straightest thing I’ve seen all day.”
Topher brightened. “Oh! Someone text Flynn and get him back here with the camera.”
“Actually, I came back to round you guys up. I think it’s time to get moving.”
“Hang on.” Andrea dismounted Beatriz and the bed, dug into her bag, and pulled out a costume ring encrusted with fake diamonds encircling a blue stone. “Lucia and Sydney wanted me to make sure you got this. They found it in the attic. Old, borrowed, and blue. Three down.”
Beatriz sat up and slipped it on her long, banged-up pointer finger. She’d been doing carpentry and house renovation for work and even a prenuptial manicure couldn’t hide the damage. She laughed her throaty laugh. “You used to wear this?”
“I went through a vintage femme phase early in college.”
“And you still have it! Such a hoarder.”
“Oh lord, you should have been here when we helped her move into that house,” Topher said.
Andrea cringed. “I’m sorry. I know. I keep everything.”
“Even me,” Beatriz said.
“Oh my god, especially you.”
“Let’s go make it official then,” Topher said. “Time to get hitched.”
“One more cheese puff before I go?” Andrea asked.
Beatriz gave her two at once. “Te amo.”
“You really do. I love you too,” Andrea said through the crumbs. “Wait, you need some lipstick.”
Applying lipstick to a butch was like collaring a deer: unnatural, hopefully temporary, trust required. Andrea traced Beatriz’s mouth with her own red lipstick.
B’s face was expectant, still, vulnerable. “There.”
Beatriz carefully closed her lips, rubbed them together. “Good?”
“Perfect.” Now the person marrying Topher no longer seemed like Beatriz, but a character Beatriz was playing: a dark-haired woman in a white dress and red lipstick.
Beatriz took Andrea’s cheeks in her hands and kissed her carefully but firmly on the mouth. “Some for you too.”
At the kitchen door, Beatriz stayed behind as Topher walked ahead to where the wedding party was assembled, and Andrea took her seat in the front row beside Sydney.
For veracity, they followed all the conventions. Flynn turned on a video camera. A cello started up with “Canon in D” (“we need to be as typical as possible”). Lucia came first, strewing flower petals; Robin had tucked some flowers behind her ears and the kid looked beautiful, her hazel eyes bright, a shy smile on her face. Then came three bridesmaids in their own blue dresses (Beatriz’s friend Ana, Robin, and Topher’s sister), and groomspeople dressed in black (Lawrence, Topher’s boyfriend Mike, and his favorite ex, also named Mike). Then Topher took his place at the front with Meena, who was Internet-ordained by the Universal Life Church and had flown up from L.A. to officiate in a white suit. The cello switched to the Lohengrin wedding march and here came Beatriz, unescorted, walking herself down the aisle.
Despite herself, Andrea’s eyes welled up at the sight of her beloved. Part of the reason she hated weddings so much was that despite her opposition to what they stood for—state sanction and control of personal relationships, property consolidation and transfer, etc.—they always stirred her to tears. The surreal indignity of her perfect, androgynous Beatriz in a dress, and yet this hopeless sentimentality. Beatriz, in marrying Topher, was binding herself to them all.
Lucia slipped into the seat beside her and took her hand. “Are you okay, Mom?” she whispered.
“Yes, baby,” Andrea said, wiping her eyes.
“Sad cry or happy cry?”
“Happy,” she said. Andrea slung her arm around her kid. If Lucia was anything like she had been, it might not be long, only a couple more years, before she pulled away from her mother’s hugs instead of nestling into them. But now, Lucia leaned in, and her soft hair rested against Andrea’s arm.
After the vows—brief and declarative—Sydney and Lucia went to their instruments.
Sydney turned on her keyboard, slipped on headphones, and pushed a few buttons importantly. Lucia tucked her hair behind her ears and slipped the Telecaster strap over her shoulder. She handled the guitar with extra care today—she pressed her thumb gently against the ding on its lower edge, inspected the neck. She ran her pick over each string to check the tuning. She tested the amp, adjusted a knob. She turned to the microphone and said, “Check, check.” She and Sydney looked at each other, and Lucia nodded one, two, three, four.
Lucia could play. She was one of those people who picked up a guitar and just could, the way Andrea had always been able to draw whatever people set in front of her—it might take a couple run-throughs to nail it, but it was never a problem. Even on her full-sized guitar, Lucia’s fingers stretched easily to form the barre chords, and she could sing in her clear, simple voice a tune that went one way while she plucked out a counterpoint on the strings. This musical ease, like the dimple in her cheek, must have been a gift from Ryan, not that Andrea wanted to point that out to Luz. Biology already took more credit than it was due. For ten years, she’d fielded people’s questions and assumptions about Lucia’s father or, at worst, “your husband.” Mrs. Morales. Even during her brief desperate attempt to look as butch as possible—it was pointless, she let her hair grow back. Parenting immediately ungayed you in a stranger’s eyes. But if there was any trace of Ryan in Lucia, Andrea was grateful that it was this. Lucia had an art, a lifeline she would always carry inside her. Thank you, Ryan.
Sydney kicked in with a sparse beat and a minimal yet stirring bass line on the keyboard. Two verses and two choruses about a fox and a squirrel sharing a den for the winter, a mutual survival plan that turns to love, and they ended the song on a bridge—an unexpectedly pleasing move—that Lucia sang in Portuguese. When they finished, the crowd burst into applause, and Beatriz ditched Topher to hug them both. She wrapped her arms extra tight around Lucia and whispered something in her ear that made her grin and nod. Beatriz kissed the top of her head. There, to Andrea, was the wedding’s real kiss.
Back at Topher’s side, Beatriz raised a sly eyebrow when Meena said, “Beatriz Ferreira and Topher Holt, I now declare you legally wed,” and she and Topher pressed their lips together with laugh-suppressing smiles that a third-party watcher of the video footage could reasonably interpret as irrepressible joy.
They both wiped Beatriz’s red lipstick off their mouths with the backs of their hands, and then thrust their fists into the air so the crowd could clap and cheer for the cameras.
All the living room furniture was pushed against the peacock-blue walls to clear a modest dance floor. Towering speakers brought over from the rock camp filled one end of the tiny dining room. Vintage lamps lit the corners, and a tangle of Christmas lights tucked in the fireplace sent a warm glow from behind the low orange couch that now barricaded it. Lucia stashed her heel-gnawing girly shoes under the coffee table and pulled on her turquoise Chuck Taylors. Sydney shed her suit jacket and loosened her tie. They were ready to hit the scuffed oak dance floor.
But no, Lucia’s mom stepped up and held them back: the first dance was for Beatriz and Topher. “Tradition,” she said. “Sorry.” And Lawrence played a very boring slow song about wise men and fools.
Uncle Flynn knelt between them. “Want to hold the video camera while I take stills?” he asked. “Just keep it aimed mostly on B and Topher.” Lucia took the camera and held it as steady as she could while Beatriz and Topher looped arms around each other’s waist and neck and swayed dramatically. On the tiny screen, they looked like TV. That person in the long white dress wasn’t really Beatriz. Lucia looked up from the screen as the dance orbited Beatriz into her sightline. Beatriz gave her a wink and held up the hand with the vintage blue ring on it. There she was for real.
Lucia was the one who had found Beatriz. It was summer of 2008, the first time at rock camp for both of them. Beatriz arrived as the guitarist in an all-female five-piece punk band who had traveled from Brazil to volunteer and hang out in Portland for a month. Luz landed in her guitar class: three eight-year-old girls and this person with kind eyes and a ready laugh and infinite patience, who spent half her time on her knees or in a squat in order to meet them at their level. And she pronounced Lucia’s name Lu-see-a. “You said it right,” Lucia said when Beatriz first read it from her lanyard.
“Of course,” Beatriz said. “How else would you say it?”
“Sometimes people say Lucheea. Or Loocha.”
“That’s not you,” Beatriz said somberly.
“It certainly is not,” Lucia said. Here was someone who understood her.
When her mother came to pick her up at the end of the first day, Lucia clutched Beatriz’s hand and said, “Mom, this is my teacher.”
“Lucky you,” her mother said, and then blushed and focused on tightening the strap on Lucia’s backpack.
“Lucky me,” Beatriz had said. She added that Lucia was good at guitar. “She picks everything up like that.” She snapped her fingers, and now it was Lucia whose face warmed with pleasure.
The way Lucia saw it, she’d brought Beatriz into their life, and then Beatriz and her mother fell in love. Which was weird at first, but it meant Beatriz wanted to stay. Life with Beatriz in it meant Lucia had another party to appeal to in family decisions (pro), but when the decision was unfavorable, this party stuck to her guns far harder than her mother (con). It meant she could spend more time unscrutinized, undetected, because she was no longer the only other person in the house (pro). It meant that Lucia now had an actual bedtime (con), and that her mom could usually sleep through the nig
ht (pro). Andrea almost never reached that point anymore where her voice grew tight and she’d say, Lucia, if you keep stretching my patience I am going to break; Lucia would ask, How many pieces? and her mom would say, Seven, or One hundred, or if it was a really hard day, a number like Six hundred thousand and fifty-two. Her mother almost never broke now, or if she did it was only into two or three pieces, easy for Lucia to mime picking up and patching back together to earn a smile. Now, when her mom stressed, Beatriz would cup the nape of her neck and her mom would lean into the hand and close her eyes and breathe. If that wasn’t enough, Beatriz would say, “Okay, Luz, let’s go on a mission,” and they would head out for a grocery run or drive to the nickel arcade or take Bullet to the river. Beatriz said any errand could be fun if you had a buddy with you. “Want to go to Lowe’s?” she’d say, and going to Lowe’s suddenly sounded as good as Disneyland. They would walk down the lumber aisles inhaling the smell of fresh-cut pine boards and speculating about the tiny house on wheels Beatriz wanted to build in the backyard. “On wheels?” Lucia asked. “Does that mean you’re going to leave in it?” Beatriz said hell no, it meant the three of them would have a house they could live in anywhere. Or a really luxurious chicken coop.
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