“Who else, Tim?” She figured she might as well hear it now. “Who else have I met?”
“Who else what?” Tim asked. “Oh, you mean… who else is positive?”
“Yes… is Nick?”
Tim swallowed and looked away. He let his gaze move to the box that still held the hard drive of Ruth’s computer and then to the window and out past the panes of glass to the trees across the street and the neighbors’ window boxes along Collingwood. He wondered how many hundreds or thousands of times he had stared out this window when he lived here alone before his Aunt Ruth came, before he even knew Nick. Tim whispered, “Yes, of course he is.”
Ruth cringed.
“But Nick is in even better shape than I am. He’s on the cocktail, and he’s doing fine with it.”
“Who else do I know?”
“Let’s see, you know Jake, the waiter with all the tattoos and the pierced… everything. Patrick is too, but he could have gotten it from a needle just as easily as from sex. He was shooting up crystal meth for a long time. Jason was positive, too.”
“Is that where you got it, Tim? From Jason?”
“I don’t know. If we hadn’t known Karl was infected, Jason could have just as easily gotten it from me. What difference does it make?”
“The date on that pill bottle was several years ago. That means you must have known for a long time. You must have some idea who did this to you!”
“Nobody did anything to me, dammit! We all did it to each other. It only takes one slip, one broken condom… one careless night. When are people going to stop looking for someone to blame? Kids like Ryan White got AIDS from blood transfusions. Who is there to blame for that? Doctors didn’t know any better then. I was only eighteen when I got to San Francisco. I was right out of high school. Everyone talks about safe sex, but it doesn’t always happen. People get loaded and forget what they’re doing sometimes. It could have been any number of people in those first few months after I arrived. I was like a kid in a candy store in my late teens and early twenties. I could have even gotten it in Minneapolis. There were a couple of other guys besides Dave Anderson.”
Ruth frowned at the sound of the name. She thought she had erased that period of time from her memory—Tim in high school, his parents finding out about the scandal with the track coach, throwing him out of their house—but it all flooded back now. Tim had no choice but to move in with her and her husband, and she was thrilled to take him in. That was the good part, but still… “What about Phil, that piano player at Arts?”
Tim’s shoulders stiffened. “I don’t know. If anyone should have been infected, it would be Phil, statistically, considering his sideline of work, but he’s probably too careful. It might cut into his business, so I doubt it. Theodore is positive. Leonardo isn’t.”
“That means that Teresa has probably never been in any danger of catching it.”
“Ha! Not from Leonardo, anyway… not from what she’s let slip about the last few years of her marriage… I mean… Leonardo? They weren’t exactly steaming up the windows. I doubt she was in any danger of catching anything from him, even if he had been HIV positive.”
“Isn’t Leonardo afraid?”
“They’re probably very careful, Aunt Ruth. I’m sure he gets tested regularly, and I’m even more certain that they practice safe sex,” Tim said. “God, I don’t even want to think about those two!”
“What about safe sex?” Ruth asked.
“Ugh, I don’t want to think about the two of them having sex at all. It’s just that they must have each gained a hundred pounds since they got married and moved in together. It reminds me of that old Charles Pierce joke: ‘How do you make love to Shelley Winters? Roll her in flour and look for a wet spot.” Tim laughed.
Ruth glared at Tim and even though her tears were still flowing, she laughed too. “Tim, you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Shelley Winters was a wonderful actress. That’s an awful thing to say!”
“I know.” He grinned. “But I finally got you to stop blubbering.”
“Look for a wet spot?” Ruth coughed to keep from laughing again. “Who is Charles Pierce?”
“He was a famous drag queen. Artie has an old videotape of him. We should borrow it and watch sometime. Charles Pierce is dead now, too. He was famous for his Bette Davis impression. Artie knew him back in the day. He said Charles was a really nice guy.”
“Did Charles Pierce die from AIDS, Tim?”
“No, Aunt Ruth,” Tim said. He stood up from the couch but left the Kleenex box beside her in case she needed it again. “Charles Pierce lived a long and healthy life. Some gay people die of other things besides AIDS, you know. Look at Jason. He had HIV but ended up getting murdered. He should have lived to a ripe old age. He was doing fine on the new drugs.”
“You said Artie was positive, too. How’s he doing?”
“Fine now, at least as far as his HIV is concerned. He’s still a frustrated performer, though. He wants to fit into his dresses again and pull old Artie Glamóur back out of the closet. He says it’s either that or become a professional patient for the rest of his life.”
Tim went back to unpacking the computer. “Do you want the printer over here or on that side?”
“To the left, I think,” she said and blew her nose. “Tim… what was it you were you saying about Nick having cocktails?”
“Not cocktails… the cocktail… singular. It’s a combination of drugs that keep the disease from multiplying. They call them protease inhibitors. Nick’s t-cells are nearly a thousand, and his viral load has been undetectable for years.”
“What about you, Tim?” Ruth stared at the bottle that Tim had called poison and imagined a skull and crossbones on the label. “Are you taking a cocktail? It sounds like a drink.”
”No, not right now. I was, but my doctor put me on a drug holiday.”
“Is that why I never saw you taking any pills here when I visited you this summer? All I ever saw was vitamins.”
“Yeah, I’m a stickler about supplements,” he said. “Nutrition and exercise… those are the big things.”
“I don’t see you running as often as you used to, Tim.”
“I know… I’m not as disciplined as I should be. I go through phases. I’ll get back into it again. My doctor wants me to. I go in for blood tests every three months nowadays. As long as I stay over 750 t-cells—I was at 825 last count—and my viral load remains undetectable, he says I can stay off the cocktail for at least a year.”
“When is the year up?”
“Christmas… then we’ll see.” He gave her an optimistic smile, hoping his aunt would return it. “He might put me back on something then. I trust my doctor, Aunt Ruth. That’s important, too.”
“Cocktails, holidays…” She stared at the dusty bottle in the palm of her hand and tried to remember how it got there. “Christmas will be here before you know it, honey. Is your doctor now the same one who prescribed these pills? Lionel Andrews?”
“No, Dr. Andrews died. He had full-blown AIDS. His disease had already progressed too far by the time the new drugs came along. He was a nice guy, too.”
Chapter 11
That week while Ruth settled into Tim’s old apartment on Collingwood Street, Nick rearranged the middle greenhouse. He woke up earlier each morning, bolted down a cup of coffee and skipped breakfast or stopped at Pat’s in Guerneville for bacon and eggs on his way to work. If he couldn’t focus on projects at home, he could take out some of his frustrations at the nursery.
By the time his employees arrived, Nick was usually in the midst of it. One morning when he heard the side door open he yelled, “Hey Jen! You wanna help me move these flats of geraniums into the next greenhouse? Then we’ll get those bags of fertilizer up off the floor before the mice get into them.”
“I’m sorry I lost the letter, dammit!”
“What?”
“I said I was sorry the day you found it, and I’ll say it again, but how many times do you w
ant me to friggin’ apologize?”
“What are you talking about? What letter?”
“That stupid letter from your damned cousin! If I hadn’t gotten it mixed up with a pile of other mail you might have seen him by now, and you wouldn’t be acting like this! I didn’t know! Just have Kent handle all the mail from now on. I’d rather do the grunt work, anyway! I didn’t list secretarial skills on my resume when you hired me!”
“My cousin hasn’t shown up anyway. Letter or no letter. And I’m acting like what?”
“Like a jerk. Move the geraniums! Get the fertilizer off the floor!”
“Jenny, you always help out with this stuff. Kent threw his back out last time. Why does that make me a jerk?”
“You didn’t say please!”
“Oh, Jeez, Jen… please! I’m really sorry. I’m just going through a little frustration right now, but it will pass. What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m having my period, dammit!”
“Do you need some time off, Jen?”
“No! I’ve worked through it lots of times. It’s just that for a dyke, it feels like such a huge waste of time. Even if I met someone and settled down and grew up to be in one of those relationships where we wanted to raise a slew of kids, we’ll either adopt them or she can have them. They ain’t comin’ outta me!”
“I thought you were still seeing what’s-her-name?”
“Sherry… no, she took a job in San Diego. She’s getting back together with Carla, the woman she dumped when she moved to Santa Rosa to be closer to me.”
“I’m sorry, Jen.”
“She was too old for me, I guess. She was an Anne Murray dyke, and I’m into Tegan and Sara.”
“Who?”
“Nevermind! What’s up with you and Tim?”
“Nothing… I mean… Tim’s fine. I’m fine. Maybe we’re moving too fast, that’s all. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to take it out on you, though. Have I really been acting like a jerk?”
“No more than usual. What, can’t a girl kid? Shit, between having my period and the fact that I tried to drown my sorrows last night with a bottle of wine, I’m a little hungover, too. It’ll pass. I’m sorry. I have no reason to take my shit out on you, either. Let’s move those geraniums, boss.”
“In a minute. First I’m gonna call Tim and tell him I changed my mind. To hell with my cousin.” Nick didn’t think he’d been behaving differently, but if Jen noticed anything he’d said or done, he didn’t want to be that kind of boss. Waiting around for Nate was a dumb idea. Maybe he should forget about being so damned strong and allow himself what he really wanted. He should drive down to the city this weekend after all. He picked up his phone and punched in Tim’s number. Still no answer, but this time Nick left a message.
Ruth could hardly sleep. She tossed and turned as much as she did on her last night in Minnesota before heading west. She would have been nervous about her upcoming date with Sam, but now she was worried about Tim. She wanted to believe his reassurances, but she couldn’t help worrying.
She made up her mind about one thing. Now that her computer was set up, she would research everything she could about AIDS and these drug cocktails Tim mentioned. Ruth believed that knowledge was the best way to counter fear. When she finally gave up on sleep, she pulled on her robe, walked to the kitchen and pushed open the back door. The sky had begun to turn light. Bartholomew scurried out between her legs and scratched at the soil under a begonia.
“Well, good morning to you too, Bart.” Ruth left him outside and turned on the coffee maker before she plodded back to the shower. She needed something to clear out the cobwebs. Her next chore would be to sort through all her clothes again. The dress she had confidently picked out yesterday for her date with Sam tonight seemed totally wrong this morning. At this rate it was going to be a hell of a day.
If she were in Edina she would simply run to the mall and pick out a new dress. She almost told herself, “If I were back home in Edina…” but she wasn’t about to start thinking that kind of nonsense. Ruth Taylor was not the sort of person to indulge in homesickness. This was home now. She pulled out a peach-colored short-sleeved frock she’d worn to an outdoor wedding in St. Louis Park last summer. She held the scalloped collar to her neck and frowned into the mirror. Even with a diamond necklace, it wasn’t dressy enough.
She really did want to be here in San Francisco. She needed a new start in life. She also thought Tim needed her a little bit, too—in a healthy way—considering he was so estranged from his parents. She lifted her little black cocktail dress out of a box and gave it a twirl. It seemed like the one garment she could always count on. What a funny word! That was the trouble with the black dress; it was a garment… not a gown.
Whether or not she ever saw Sam Connor again after tonight, she was going to make the best of things. Ruth couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on an honest-to-goodness date. She stared at herself in the full-length mirror in the hallway. That was one good thing about moving into a gay man’s apartment; there was no shortage of mirrors. Ruth couldn’t imagine that they had always been there. The place was built before the earthquake of 1906. Tim must have installed this one and left it behind when he moved out.
Ruth moved in closer to her reflection. The trouble wasn’t the dress, but her hair. Tim was right about that. It was the same style and color she’d worn for years. Her complexion looked downright sallow. She didn’t have time to get a suntan, but it was a darned good thing she was getting her hair done this afternoon. Tim had made her an appointment with his friend Rene who would… how did Tim put it? “…do something fabulous with that mousy old brown.” It did look mousy, didn’t it?
Ruth spent the rest of the morning unpacking and arranging clothes, shoes, handbags and accessories. There wasn’t much closet space, but she’d known enough to have two dressers, a vanity and an oak armoire moved from Edina.
Tim also warned her not to be late. Now, why would he say such a thing? He knew his Aunt Ruth well enough to know that Ruth Bergman Taylor was always punctual. Her appointment was at 1 p.m so she plopped a deep-brimmed straw hat over her ‘mousy old’ self and left the apartment on Collingwood just past twelve. She hated to give up her non-metered parking space around the corner on 20th Street, but she drove to the address on Sutter and pulled into the Union Square parking garage at 12:27. She didn’t want to be early, either, so she stopped at the nearest Starbucks and sipped a cardboard cup of latte while she stared out the window at the hairdos of everyone who passed by on the sidewalk and glanced at the minute hand on her watch every thirty seconds.
Ruth assumed by his name that Rene must be French, so she was surprised to see that he was African-American. She later found out he was mostly Cajun, born and raised in New Orleans. Ruth wondered how he happened to become a hairdresser when he might have become a famous basketball player or a jazz musician or a… try as she might to avoid them, her liberal Midwestern mindset led her thoughts through a whole slew of stereotypes. He was also quite thin and Ruth wondered whether he had AIDS or was HIV positive. Now that she knew about Tim, she wanted to learn all she could, but, ‘Are you so thin because you have HIV?’ was hardly a question one could ask a stranger.
“Right this way, Miss Taylor,” Rene said with a forced smile as he looked down his nose at her straw hat.
“Please… call me Ruth.”
“All right, Miss Ruth.” Rene led her down the hallway beneath a row of crystal chandeliers past a polished marble wall toward the interior of his shop with a view of construction cranes building what appeared to be a new monolithic hotel or office building. “Give Mai Ling your little jacket,” he gestured toward the young Asian woman standing beside the chair, “and then you set yourself down and make yourself right at home and let’s have a good look at what it is we’ve got to deal with.”
Rene delicately lifted the straw hat from Ruth’s head as soon as she sat down. “You’re not planning on wearing this here hat tonight, are you
?” He grimaced and wrinkled up his nose as if something smelled bad.
“Why, no…”
“Thank the Lord for that little bit of good news!” He held the hat gingerly between his thumb and index finger, dangling it over the trashcan as he patted the top of Ruth’s head with his other hand. Mai Ling snatched the hat out of its mid-air freefall and hooked it on the coat tree next to Ruth’s jacket.
“So… Miss Thing tells me she’s treating you to this makeover and that you’ve got a hot date tonight for a concert with Mister Millionaire, so she says you’re supposed to get the royal treatment.”
“Miss thing?” Ruth asked.
“That would be your nephew, honey. Everybody is Miss somebody or other to me in this business,” he explained as he circled her chair. “It doesn’t matter to me if they’ve been married ten times and collected on every divorce; they’re ‘Miss this’ or ‘Miss that.’”
“I’m quite recently divorced,” Ruth admitted. She was beginning to regret this already.
“Well anyway, Miss Timmy says you’re supposed to get the royal treatment, not that all of my customers don’t, but in your case that would mean color, cut, set, style, manicure, and pedicure.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and asked, “You don’t need a bikini wax today… do you?”
“I don’t believe so,” Ruth whispered and shook her head.
“Good. Mai Ling here will be doing your nails, so you just kick your shoes off and relax, now, honey.”
“Gosh, I feel like Cinderella getting ready for the ball.”
“Then I’d better make like a fairy, honey, because I don’t play any step-sister parts with ugly in the job description. I can be as glamorous as the next queen, but I am nobody’s step-momma, neither!” He laughed. “I guess Mai Ling here could be one of them little mice that gets turned into footmen.”
“Aah…” Ruth sighed as Mai Ling started to massage her feet.
“You like?” Mai Ling asked.
“I like it very much, Mai Ling.”
“When she’s through with you, your feet’ll feel so pretty you’ll wish you had yourself some glass slippers to show them off. Now then, Miss Ruth… what is your natural hair color?”
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