“Yes, yes, I will send someone right up,” he assures me.
At the Cairo airport, I run through bland, chaotic terminals, cluttered with a pileup of luggage carts, toward what I’m told is the flight to Aswan. As I push through a large group of people, I hear my name, “Tina!” in the now familiar Middle Eastern accent.
I turn to see a tall, handsome Arab man—maybe thirty or so—smiling and walking toward me. He’s completely unfamiliar.
“Yes?”
“You were at Allah’s disco last night, right?” His grin has me suddenly worried. Did I black out?
“Oh, hi . . . sorry, I need to catch a flight to Aswan,” I cover.
“You’re the American who’s going to Aswan?”
“How do you know?”
He laughs.
“I work with Happy Tours. I came to your hotel this morning, early, but you weren’t there. Now I know why!” He laughs again.
“I thought when my driver said three thirty pickup, he meant this afternoon.”
“We were able to get you on the flight to Abu Simbel—impossible this time of year. You will go there first, and then you will go to our boat afterward. That’s why so early,” he explains, handing me a ticket.
This is like a creepy scene from a movie where I’ll be thrown on a private plane and stabbed with a syringe, an American kidnapped and held hostage while suffering from amnesia. I take a deep breath, trying to clear my head. Dad’s arm is long, organizing everything for me—the fancy hotel, the personal service, and now some side trip to a place I can barely pronounce.
“What’s Abu Simbel?”
The disco agent’s raised eyebrows remind me of Dad when I ask what he deems a stupid question. “Bloody Americans know nothing about the world outside of their own backyards!” Dad regularly complains.
“Something you will never forget,” he assures me.
Even on the other side of the world, Dad provides the unforgettable. I hope someday, like my father, I will be capable of making anything happen.
* * *
The hefty driver stares at my naked legs as I board the bus with mostly middle-aged, English-speaking tourists in floppy sun hats. I barely slept on the small plane—which had maybe twenty seats—and I’m deeply hungover. Although it seems everyone from D.C. to Cairo went the extra mile to get me this exclusive once-in-a-lifetime sightseeing opportunity, all I want is a bed, a pillow, and some blackout curtains.
The bus parks among a long line of other vehicles, and the group files into the blistering heat. Wobbly legged, I follow the crowd, curious, but also eager to lie down. Summoning the power of mind over matter, I make the long walk silently through the desert surrounded by chatty, excited tourists with cameras poised. All of a sudden, we turn a corner and it appears. Shockingly magnificent, at nearly 100 feet tall and 115 feet wide, the Great Temple was carved out of a massive rock during Ramses II’s reign. It stands alone in the middle of the desert, and it takes my breath away.
After taking the tour of the main temple and meandering through parts of the smaller temple—dedicated to Ramses’s favorite wife, Nefertari—I bow out, losing steam despite the gorgeous scenery. Dying to sit down away from the scorching sun, I am greeted on the bus by our driver, who sits wide legged with the windows down. I smile politely and head to the back.
“Did you like?” he calls.
I nod.
After a few minutes he asks, “Coca-Cola?” gesturing as if he’s drinking a bottle.
“No, that’s okay,” I deflect, and go back to resting my head on the hot window while he speaks to some men out his window in Arabic.
A moment later, he appears in the back of the bus holding a bottle of icy Coke.
“For you.” He smiles, sitting across from me.
I slide over to the aisle seat and take it, grateful—it’s probably exactly what I need. Gulping it down, I feel his eyes on my bare legs again. He probably doesn’t get a lot of blondes in short shorts in the middle of the Nubian Desert. Then, with the entitlement of a man with diplomatic immunity, he reaches his hand between my legs. I let him touch me for a second, then move his hand away. The driver gets my message and walks back to his seat. I feel surprisingly strong, allowing and disallowing. My decision. Not his. I close my eyes, desperate for a long rest, hungry for my cabin on the river, where I will be my own beautiful companion.
* * *
I step into the suite of the ship’s executive director, Phanes—a pint-size Egyptian whose family owns this Nile cruiser. The lights are dim; the leopard couches are shaped like half moons; beads hang in doorways; church candles burn. If they weren’t Dad’s friends, who had invited me to their private quarters for dinner, I might worry from the look of things that Phanes and Tat were hosting a Middle Eastern séance. Dad explained that Phanes, the black sheep of the family that owns Happy Tours, and Tat, the ship’s hairdresser—whose hair actually looks like a black sheep’s—are lovers. Despite my exhaustion and need for an immediate nap upon boarding—skipping the first excursion, to the Aswan Dam—the guys insisted I join them tonight for dinner.
I settle into my vodka tonic as Phanes and Tat sit across from me, legs crossed, with the ease of people who are used to having whatever they want, whenever they want it. There’s no rush for anything. No pushing, no hunger. Their servant sits outside the door, awaiting their needs. Life is elegantly simple: an olive offering here; the private servant silently refreshing cocktails; spotless cream shag carpet; an exact crease in their expensive linen trousers; Tat’s shiny tasseled loafers, perfectly coiffed hair, and smooth, well-cared-for skin.
Their neatness, beauty, and entitlement are seductive, turning me on like nothing else I can think of. The otherworldliness of it all sparks my hunger to see every corner of the world. Is this how Dad feels when he travels? No wonder he doesn’t want to be home.
“How did you meet my dad?” I ask, leaning back into the luxurious fabric, matching their relaxed pose.
“My family. You know, Happy’s works with Sir John. And we have had many evenings together in Cairo,” Phanes explains, lighting up a black cigarette.
“Never on the ship?” I pry.
“We have invited him many, many times, but always Sir John must keep traveling,” Phanes explains.
“He only works.” Tat laughs.
“Well, he doesn’t ALWAYS work, right?” I smile, testing them.
They smirk like teenage boys with a secret.
“Did you ever go out dancing with him?” I dare boldly.
They look at each other knowingly, for the first time at a slight loss as to who wants to speak. Then Tat confesses, “Sir John likes to dance.”
“I know, we go out to clubs together,” I share, playfully imitating Dad’s drunken moves.
Phanes and Tat crack up as I sip my vodka, enjoying the safety of being around people who understand, who accept the way things are, and who are like me.
“Your father told us.” Tat winks.
Their familiarity and acceptance of Dad is comforting. I like that they appreciate him. And me.
“Does your family know about you two?” I ask Phanes.
Tat rolls his eyes and looks to Phanes, his hands passing the question to his lover like a silver platter.
“Egypt is a traditional country, my family, too, and we don’t speak of it.”
Tat can’t resist adding, “It’s for the reason, they give him the job on the ship.”
Phanes picks up his drink silently, the hurt rising in his eyes, his family’s shame about his being gay impossible to mask. Tat rests his hand on his lover’s knee, giving it a gentle shake, a reminder that he is loved, no matter that his family put him out to sea.
12
Defrocked
Driving alone to Shescape, I’m smart enough to know putting the convertible top down is not an option. My white ass would be asking for trouble. Washington, the Murder Capital, is notorious for having one of the highest per capita murder rates in the count
ry. So, with windows up and doors locked, I blast Chaka Khan and make my way to the lesbian dance club on the wrong side of the tracks—two short blocks from the Lost and Found. I create my own parking spot along the side of the warehouselike building—a shorter walk for me and my Candies.
“How do you walk in those, Tina?” my mom asked as I stood in the dining room an hour earlier, wanting to rush out but feeling guilty. Another Saturday night alone with her crossword puzzle and a box of Ritz crackers, while her husband is off doing God’s work with a bishop and a bottle of Sambuca.
“Tina, help me. The clue is ‘Not allowed by the Party.’ Seven letters. Begins with D and ends in E.” She sounded desperate for an answer.
It was so obvious.
“Divorce, Mom,” I told her.
Before stepping out of the car, I slip off my skirt. The matching lightweight houndstooth blazer is long enough to cover my ass. Barely. I had, unsuccessfully, begged the salesgirl at Commander Salamander to sell me just the jacket, because I knew immediately that I’d be wearing this padded-shouldered jacket not as part of a suit but as a dress. Or as Precious calls it, “a very wide belt.” She’s the one who got me into clothes.
Before she became my sophomore-year girlfriend in high school, my fashion sense was a set of colored watchbands that I changed to match the ribbon in my hair. But stylish Precious handed me a pair of designer jeans and platform shoes with a cork heel, and I’ve never looked at anything monogrammed again. I did wear the matching skirt to get out of the house respectfully, in front of Mom. But my intentionally ripped black hose brought on the Inquisition:
“Do people really dress like that?”
“My baby’s going out looking like Raggedy Ann?”
“What happened to all the sweater sets I bought you?”
As I lock up Dad’s Buick, I promise myself: out of here by 1 a.m. and no tequila shots because I have to work out tomorrow. Two women step out of a shiny red Mazda RX and join hands. They could be brother and sister. Dark, tall, lean. One beautiful femme, one handsome butch. I reach the entrance first and wait for them, holding the door.
They smile at me.
“That’s sweet,” the femme says. Her fingerless gloves, strapless cutup dress, short black boots, and deep cleavage could have been ripped from the pages of Vogue. I smirk and follow her flawless bare back into the club. Waiting in line behind them to pay the cover charge, I smell the cologne coming off the butch—Grey Flannel. As the couple steps toward the small window, I step in front of them.
“I’ve got it,” I say, sliding a one-hundred-dollar bill to the little redhead working the door.
“That’s all right,” the butch says.
“No, no, I insist.”
I can feel the femme staring at me. Receiving a bunch of drink tickets with my change, I hand them over while looking into her brown eyes. Gotcha. I feel a tingle up my back, adrenaline shooting through me, like I’m ready to take the court.
Shescape is actually big enough to play a full-court game of hoops. At its center is a large round dance floor with a four-foot wall around it—a roller rink waiting for the derby to begin. Gals lean against the wall smoking and drinking, waiting for someone to make their head spin. I love watching the locals who drop in from the neighborhood. No one would fuck with these tough chicks—some with linebacker-size thighs, shaved heads, and round asses raised up toward the disco lights. They move with the ease of maple syrup, pouring themselves into each other. One grinds on the dance floor, one hand on her drink, the other on her woman’s ass. Her girlfriend has her hands up in the air like she’s waiting to get frisked or praise Jesus. Shescape may be 80 percent white girls, but it’s the girls from Southeast who get the party started.
Nic and I came down here last New Year’s Eve. As soon as we hit the dance floor, she became aggressive, in a way I’d never seen her. She shoved her hand down my pants, reenacting a scene from my graduation night.
I had let two Latin men sandwich me on the dance floor at the bi club in Georgetown, and my hands found their way around. She must have seen the whole thing while sipping her White Russian.
I head to the bar for a drink, catching an older platinum blonde in a sexy vintage dress checking me out. She leans arched against the wall, sipping out of a thin glass. I stare back, stone faced, trying to act cool.
At the large three-sided bar, an androgynous woman wearing a free nelson mandela tank top and a red bandanna on her head is zipping around like a machine.
“Absolut sea breeze with lime, please.”
Rosie the Riveter is off and running. I survey the club—mostly couples.
“Here ya go, baby.” The bartender sets a tall glass in front of me with a straw. I hand her a twenty and lose the straw.
“Keep it,” I say, then down half my drink.
I check on Platinum, who’s posed up against the wall now, talking with two women, a six-foot big-boned gal with cropped brown hair and a pretty sun-kissed chick with dirty blond hair in a ponytail. Platinum catches me looking at them and smiles; her friends turn around and look. Polishing off the rest of my sea breeze, I take the dance floor. Madonna’s “Borderline” bounces out of the speakers, and the brother and sister beat me to the dance floor. The butch catches me out of the corner of her eye and glides her girl away across the wood floor. Smooth move. I dance alone, getting lost in my own universe; happy the sea breeze has kicked me into gear. Happy to be moving my muscles. I close my eyes, dropping into the free zone. Anything goes.
“Ya mind if we dance with yew?” Platinum says in a heavy southern accent. She sways next to me, moving her asymmetrical bangs out of her eyes; her two friends dance together. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s thirty-two, straight, mad about Bowie, cool enough to have gay friends, and drunk enough to check out a lesbian club while she’s in town from who the fuck knows where down south.
“I’m Violet,” she slurs.
I lean into her, not feeling like shouting. “Tina.”
She dances close.
“Well, Miss Tina, I’ve been wantin’ to tell you since you walked in how much I love your dress.” She looks me up and down. “You’re flawless.”
“Let’s get a drink,” I say, gently resting my fingers close enough to her cleavage to invoke a shriek. I walk off the dance floor. She follows me to the bar.
“What would you like?” I ask.
“A Bloody Mary. You want to go do a line?” She’s wobbly on her feet.
“Maybe,” I say, flagging the bartender.
“A Bloody Mary and an Absolut sea breeze . . . and two shots of tequila.”
I turn back to her.
“So, Miss Thing, what do you do . . . besides wearin’ a blazer as a dress?” Her tone is charming and seductive.
“I work. I go to school on a basketball scholarship. And I am trying out for the Olympics,” I tell her, crossing one ripped leg over the other, leaning against the bar.
Her laugh is a scream, like she finds me outrageous.
“The Olympics! . . . Okaaaaay.” She says it like she thinks it’s about as likely as me asking the DJ to play the hokey pokey.
“What, you don’t believe me?”
I stare at her boldly, looking at her chest. She smiles and shakes her head, sucking on her Bloody Mary.
“Well, I don’t believe that’s not a padded bra.” My eyes stay affixed.
She laughs again, then clears her throat and falls into me. “Well, Miss Thing, maybe we should find a basketball court and you can shoot for me.”
“Maybe we should go to the bathroom, and you can shoot for me.”
I hand her a shot, taking the other, and we clink our glasses. We down the tequila, quickly stuffing lime slices in our mouths. She settles, quiet for a moment, looking at me.
“Let’s go,” I whisper.
She grins and sips on her drink.
“Bring it with you,” I say, walking away.
Not looking back, I move through a small room behind the bar
with a sleek pool table and head toward the neon sign, restroom, passing by a few tough-looking girls. In the small dark hallway is a shiny pay phone and two black doors to the bathrooms.
“Here ya go, Miss Thang, no padding, just Kentucky originals.” Her voice is low, just behind me. Alone in the hallway, I turn to her. She stands with her pink nails pulling back her deep-V-neck Doris Day dress and revealing most of her breasts.
She moves toward me, not releasing her dress. Totally exposed. I throw one arm behind her back, press the other hand on her breast, and begin to tongue her deeply. She’s noisy with pleasure as I slowly dance her past the pay phone and into the darkest corner. Comments spring from women leaving the bathrooms.
“There’s a Holiday Inn down the street.”
“Fuck the hotel, I’ll watch.”
Our hands are everywhere. I catch her in a flash of light—fuchsia lipstick covers her face and chest—everywhere my mouth has been.
“Violet? Violet?” a soft southern voice calls.
Violet pulls her dress over her exposed breasts and wipes her mouth with her thumb and index finger.
“Nice, Violet.” Her dirty-blond friend stands looking at us, tosses her hands in the air, shakes her head with disgust, and walks away.
“Who’s that?”
“Sandy . . . my girlfriend,” she says quietly. “But we really aren’t together.”
I walk over to the pay phone, cleaning lipstick off my face, and rip out a sheet from the yellow pages hanging by a chain. A broken pencil lies on the silver base. I pull out my black eyeliner pencil from my pocket and write my phone number while Violet puts her image back together.
“Call me when you’re single,” I say, handing her my number.
13
Lust
There was a time I slept on a cot, they tell me, in the bedroom that is now all mine. Three of us sisters shared the back room on the third floor—the girls’ floor—where, according to my parents, no boys were allowed. But in the quiet of the night, rules and hearts got broken. Since mine has always been the hottest bedroom—the farthest away from the air-conditioning unit in the third-floor stairway—I now heat up my curling iron in Kate’s old bedroom, with her peeling découpage door; roll out my makeup on the worn Formica bathroom counter; and try on outfits in Helen’s former room, with a full-length mirror on the back of the door. With seven sisters now gone, I can spread out my beauty rituals over three bedrooms. Thankfully, the bathroom—once busier than a girls’ dormitory—is finally all mine.
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