As La Vista Turns

by Kris Ripper

  I fell asleep in her arms.

  This was it.

  Me and the stick. Again. In a showdown.

  “You and me, buddy,” I told the inanimate stick that I’d peed on and put aside.

  The stick, being inanimate, didn’t reply.

  Dred wasn’t awake yet. No one was awake yet. It was light out, but barely. Shortly after 5 a.m.

  I tried to breathe. I tried to read. I checked my email, realized I didn’t care about any of it, and closed the app.

  I looked at my list of things to do for the wake. Two more days. So much to do.

  None of it mattered. The only thing I cared about right now was the fucking test. I stood and straightened the towels on the rack. I squared off the soap in the dish.

  The fucking test wasn’t responding. Did that mean it was negative? No. It had only been a minute.

  I started rearranging the shampoo and conditioner and body wash bottles in the shower. Good plan. That had to take, what, like another minute? Easy. Each shelf belonged to someone. I’d just put the bottles in order. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash. Who didn’t have conditioner? Emerson, probably.

  My hand slipped and the entire rack somehow disengaged from the showerhead and crashed to the floor of the shower.

  “Oh shit.”

  I held my breath, but the noise had been loud and the upstairs wasn’t that big.

  James’s confused sputters got me moving.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” I whispered, stepping into his room. “Hey, baby, hey, it’s okay. James, it’s okay, it was just me, freaking out in the bathroom. No biggie. Don’t cry, James, come on—”

  His face screwed up, and he waved his arms and legs around. I knew that face. I knew what was coming.

  “No— James—”

  But it was too late. He hollered his rage at being woken up before he was ready. People all over La Vista were probably wondering who was killing the kid.

  I grabbed him out of his crib, trying desperately to soothe him back to sleep before the police were called.

  A hand on my shoulder. Obie. Looking half-dead.

  James all but dove into his arms and rage-cried at him in a garble of words and half-shouted expletives. Probably. That was what it sounded like, anyway.

  I knew he was telling on me.

  Obie shushed him authoritatively, and James’s complaints wore down to a more conversational recitation of my flaws. Obie offered me a tired smile and bounced James in his arms.

  Dred’s presence, in the doorway. “You trying to wake the house?”

  I winced. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I got antsy and started organizing the bathroom and then sort of lost control of the shower caddy and . . . um. . .”

  There was a slight twitch at the corners of her lips.

  “Do not laugh at me!”

  “I’m not, Z. Even though the thought of you at five in the morning reorganizing the shower is pretty funny.”

  “Shut up. I was anxious!”

  Emerson’s voice cut through Dred’s laughter. “Um, guys?”

  Obie shot an irritated glance toward the hallway. “Dude, everyone be quiet, he’s almost back to sleep.”

  I sighed and followed Dred out the door. To where Emerson was standing, face pale, one hand braced on the wall outside the bathroom.

  “Have you— Did you look at your thing? I’m not fucking touching it, because I’m pretty sure it’s got pee on it, but—” He shook his head.

  I scrambled into the bathroom and grabbed the stick, the fancy kind, with the digital display, not the lines. I’d decided I’d earned the fancy test by waiting this long.

  “Well?” Dred pinched Emerson. “What’d it say?”

  He shook his head, an insignificant motion in the top of my vision.

  “Z?”

  I held it out to her, willing her to see what I saw, watching her face. Maybe I was making it up. Maybe it was a trick of the light.

  Except Emerson, behind her, was staring at me with the same stunned expression I could feel on my own face.

  “Well, shit. You’re fucking pregnant.” And Dred smiled. The light from the bathroom reflected off her teeth. The scarf she wore to bed was coming untucked on one side, exposing her hair. “Congratulations, Z.”

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t be. I couldn’t possibly be. Except even with my eyes closed I could picture the test, which had exactly one word on it: Pregnant.

  She touched me, hands on my shoulders. “Z. You did it.” Then she kissed me, and it was everything, it was all the yearning, all the hope and faith and joy I had carefully stoked for thirteen cycles.

  I kissed her back, desperately holding her close, feeling every millimeter of her lips on mine, the light brush of her breath on my skin. “Oh my god,” I whispered.

  She laughed. “Yeah. Pretty much.” She grabbed my hand and started tugging. “Emerson, you guys get James if he wakes up, okay?”

  “I look like a fuckin’ babysitter to you?”

  “Yep.”

  He shook his head. “Hey, Zane.”

  “Hey, what?”

  “You’re gonna be a kick-ass mom. Even if you do pick really weird times to clean.”

  I swallowed. “Thanks.”

  Then Dred pulled me to the bedroom and I didn’t really have time for a more elaborate response.

  Dred’s idea of celebrating my apparent fertility was to go down on me, endlessly, until I was begging in whispers for her to let me come. My entire body was a trembling nerve ending, keening at some frequency humans couldn’t hear, all the relief and fear and excitement jacked up by Dred’s lips and tongue and fingers until I had no thoughts, no awareness outside of my body.

  I tried not to cry out—that would be a truly embarrassing way to wake up James again—but it was too much, and when the orgasm hit it wasn’t pure pleasure. There was too much restraint behind it for it to be simple. It felt like all the months of waiting crashed down over me at the same time, a little bit painful, a little bit vicious, with a rough edge of uncontrolled hedonistic joy that crossed all my wires and wiped me out.

  I couldn’t stop twitching. My clit, my thighs, my fingers, the small muscles in my neck. I panted, trying to catch my breath, and she kissed me. “Yeah, I’ve been waiting to do that for way too long.”

  “I think you broke me,” I mumbled.

  “You needed it.”

  My entire body let out a breath. I swore I could feel myself deflate.

  She kissed me again.

  “Hey. Wait. We’re kissing?” I tried to bring all of my brain cells together. “Are we kissing?”

  “Now that I’ve fucked you into a stupor, it’s time for us to talk, Z.”

  “Uh.”

  She smiled.

  I squinted up at her. “Sometimes you look like Aunt Florence.”

  She stopped smiling.

  I laughed.

  “Don’t bring up Aunt Florence right now!”

  I would have zipped my lips if I’d had enough energy to move my arm. “Pretend I’m zipping my lips. I’ll be good. Swear.”

  She brought her fingers to my lips. And zipped them.

  Oh, god, come on, that was hot.

  “You’re gonna need a new list. Because you closed out the last one.” She kissed my zipped lips and took a deep breath. “So the first thing on your new list is gonna be ‘Marry Dred. In a small non-ceremony at the county clerk’s, with no more than seventeen guests, and a very small reception, which will be catered by the San Marcos Grill, because we’re classy like that.’”

  I unzipped my lips, tried to think of something to say, and pulled out my phone.

  “Z, seriously, what the—”

  “Shh. I’m making a new list.”

  She shut up.

  “But I’m not adding all the extra stuff. I have to be able to look at it and immediately know what’s important.” I saved my note and held it out to her. Marry Dred. “Good?”

  A flicker of uncertainty crossed her face. “I thoug
ht you were going to argue it’s too soon.”

  “Oh my god, did you just pretend-propose to me? Because no take-backs.”

  “No. And anyway, I heard what you said to Emerson the other day. I know you can’t resist me. But I thought you’d at least try.”

  “You’re a filthy eavesdropper!” I kissed her. “God, it’s so good being able to kiss you. I’m going to kiss you all the time. Every day. All day long.”

  She groaned. “Come on—”

  “No, you proposed. We’re getting married.” I paused. “Oh shit. Wait. We can’t get married. Where will we live? You can’t move out of the farmhouse. And I can’t move in. There’s no room. And there’s, I mean, there might be—”

  Her hand slid over my belly. “We have room. Obie’s been working on Emerson to move downstairs for months. He’s got a whole plan drawn up for the totally accessible bathroom he’s gonna build, and how he’ll section off the workroom and the bedroom. But you don’t have to give up your place.”

  “I think if we’re getting married, we’re probably supposed to live together.”

  She smiled. “Z, we can do whatever the fuck we want.”

  “But . . . you really want to marry me?” I searched her face. “I mean seriously? It took me a stupidly long time just to realize I wanted to be with you.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of the point. You’re a little slow, Z.” She shifted up to kiss me, and stayed close. “Basically I can see into the future and I know this is going to happen. You can take as long as you want to get used to it. But we’re gonna raise kids in this house together, you and me. Can’t you feel that’s true?”

  I closed my eyes against a wall of emotion.

  “Can’t you feel it, Zane?”

  “Yeah. It feels really good.” I swallowed three or four times. “The only time I’m not scared is when you’re talking to me.”

  “I’m fuckin’ magic like that.”

  I reached up to stroke her cheek. “I love you.”

  “I know.”

  We lay there awhile longer. We may or may not have been gazing adoringly into one another’s eyes. At least until Emerson shouted, “Breakfast!” up the stairs, echoed almost immediately by James shouting something that sounded absolutely nothing like breakfast, but probably was meant to be.

  I laughed. She kissed me. We got up and went down to breakfast.

  We set up the wake in the front of Club Fred’s, farthest away from the dance floor. Despite Fredi’s best attempts at stymying our cleaning crew (it would have taken two full days to really clean the bar), I swore it smelled better.

  I confided this to Emerson as people started showing up, though most of them were just the regular Fred’s crowd. He rolled his eyes. “Well. It does smell less like frat house the day after a kegger. I assume that was your goal?”

  “Thanks for your support. Jerk.”

  He grinned.

  “You know, when you smile like that you actually look your age. As opposed to ten years older than you are.”

  “I— You—” He couldn’t seem to make his mouth form words.

  “Chin up, champ.” I patted his shoulder. “You smile more than you used to. The years are just melting away.”

  “You’re older than I am!” He winced, as if hearing how weak the comeback was only after he’d said it. “Damn it.”

  I laughed and tapped Obie. “Your boyfriend needs your support.”

  He turned to Emerson, eyebrows raised.

  “Zane called me old. Or no, she called me young. She said I’m young but I look old. Goddamn it.”

  “Babe. You look like you. No one’s thinking about your age.”

  “So I do look old? Obie!”

  I left them to it and took Obie’s position propped against the wall next to Ed. Who was, as usual, scribbling in a notebook. “Tell me you’re not working right now.”

  “I’m . . . not. Ish.”

  “Ed.”

  “I’m not! I, uh, wanted to get some notes down while I’m thinking about them.”

  “You were talking to Obie.”

  He relented, looking slightly abashed. “Okay, I might have been, uh, gathering quotes. But not working, I swear.”

  I kissed his cheek. “It’s fine. Plus, I don’t think anyone’s actually here for the wake yet.”

  “You mean except for Jaq’s dad?”

  “Okay, yeah, that’s funny. Between Jaq and Dad, I think Dred’s probably seriously regretting demanding I marry her.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I doubt that. I’m really happy for you guys.”

  “Thanks. Me too.” I waved and started across the room. It still didn’t feel real to me. It had been sixty hours since I’d made a new list on my phone, with only one item.

  Were we really going to get married? Any doubt I had about the answer evaporated when I got close enough to hear the conversation currently going on between Dred and Jaq.

  “We’re not getting married in fucking March, so cram it.”

  “But you have to tie Zane down fast! She’s flighty!”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “But you’ll have the reception at Dad’s house, right? Because he’s always dreamed of—”

  “Jaq, if you want to tie Zane down and have the reception at your dad’s, then you marry her!”

  Richard and Hannah, on the outskirts, cracked up. Jaq at least had the decency to blush. “Okay, gross.”

  Dred crossed her arms. Then she caught sight of me and the set lines in her face softened. “Inform your friend that she will not be planning our simple service at the county clerk’s office. Or the reception.”

  “Jaq’s a handful,” I said. Hannah giggled. “Can you believe you had sex with her?”

  “Oh my god!” Jaq put her hands over Richard’s ears. “Mixed company!”

  Dred sent me an unimpressed glare. “That was years ago.”

  “And I’m old enough to look out for myself, Jaqueline, thank you.” Richard embraced me. “I like this one,” he whispered.

  “Me too.” I kissed his cheek. “No offense, Dad, but we’ll have whatever kind of reception we have at the farmhouse.”

  Jaq groaned.

  He patted her arm. “I guess you’ll have to make an honest woman out of Hannah.”

  Hannah laughed. “Oh, Richard. You know that’ll never happen. Your girl’s fickle.”

  “I am not fickle!” Jaq spun around, but Dred beat her to a response.

  “This from the woman who was so afraid to introduce me to her best friend that she dumped me and pretended we’d never met. I think you might be fickle, Jaq.”

  “I’m happy you’re fickle,” I told her. “If you’d introduced Dred and me back then, we wouldn’t be—uh—standing here now.”

  Dred smirked. “You can’t say it. Ha.”

  “I so can.”

  “Then say it. Without looking at your list.”

  Damn. My hand was already on my phone. “We’re getting married. There. I said it.”

  Dred raised a hand. “At the county clerk’s, with no more than seventeen guests. Not in fucking March. If a reception’s absolutely necessary, I guess we can have it at the house.” She glanced around, nose wrinkled. “Better than here, anyway.”

  Jaq pointed at her. “Club Fred’s is an institution!”

  Dred laughed. “Babe, have a drink. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  “You did not just ‘babe’ me!” Jaq turned on Hannah, who was already shaking her head.

  “I don’t have an objection.”

  “But—” Suddenly she stopped talking long enough to hear the song coming over the sound system. And her eyes latched on me. “Oh my god, Zane—”

  “Cher!”

  We grabbed hands and started making for the dance floor.

  “We’ll be back!” I called.

  After the whole crazy day—the whole crazy few weeks—dancing with Jaq to “Believe” was like a salve for everything that hadn’t made sense. This moment was exa
ctly what I needed.

  She leaned in toward my ear at the end of the song. “Congratulations.”

  “You already said that!”

  “Not about Dred.” Her eyes darted down, then back up. “Congrats, kid. You earned it.”

  I pulled her in. “I’m not telling anyone, really. How’d you guess?”

  “Because she said you had a new list. And I knew the only way you’d start a new list was if you finished the old one.” She kissed me, eyes shining. “I’m so excited for you.”

  “I’m so excited for you. Auntie Jaq in the house!”

  “Oh, you know that’s right. You tell Carlos and Tom yet?”

  I shook my head. “Tonight, if I get a chance.” We started dancing our way back to the wake. “It’s gonna be good, right? I keep getting these flashes of like abject terror.”

  “It’s gonna be amazing. Marrying Dred, I don’t know, but—”

  I hit her.

  “Okay, okay. I can kind of see the attraction there. If I squint.”

  “Jerk.”

  “Dork.”

  The picture boards were starting to gather small crowds. We skirted the edge and I smiled, catching little bits of conversations. “Oh, that’s—” and “Remember that time when—” Exactly what we’d wanted them to do. Here and there someone was standing off to the side, fixated on a certain photo, not reminiscing as much as they were mourning, but even that was what we’d wanted.

  A space for celebration, and also for grief.

  She dragged me to the bar and pounded on the counter. “I’d like to buy a beer for the woman of the hour!”

  “Um—” I caught Tom’s eye. “No beer. Soda is fine.” Everyone within earshot looked over, confused. I hadn’t thought through this not-telling-people thing.

  Jaq made a comical awkward face and tried to cover. “Right, yeah, my sister in soda solidarity! Two sodas, barkeep!” She lowered her voice. “Shit, sorry, forgot already.”

  Tom pushed two sodas across the bar and waved Jaq’s money away. “How’s . . . everything?”

  “Good. Um.” I couldn’t look him in the eye and not tell him. “I’m off booze for the foreseeable future. FYI.”

  His face broke into the biggest grin I’d ever seen. “Got it.”

  Jaq shook her head. “Yeah, there’s no such thing as a secret around here. There’s just no way. Queers of La Vista, Zane. It’s your soap opera. Anyway, where’s your good-for-nothing husband, Tom?”