Wedding Season

by Mark Abramson

  “Who’s that?”

  “Pat Montclaire was a fabulous drag queen—what a transformation!—but she was an even better seamstress, used to do costumes for some of the big shows in Vegas. She was Empress once too, over twenty years ago.”

  “No, the other one.”

  “Edith Head? She did costumes for movies and, contrary to popular belief, her middle name was not ‘Givesgood.’ Edith gives good head, get it? Oh, Phil… you young kids don’t know half the fun you missed out on back in the day. Which one is your favorite?”

  “It’s too early for me to think,” Phil grumbled. “I had a new client at the Hyatt Regency last night. Whatever drugs he was on made it impossible for him to get off, so he hired me overtime. That’s when I can really rake in the bucks, but I’ve hardly had any sleep. You’re lucky I’m so damned responsible that I showed up on time.”

  “I don’t want to hear about your tricks and I don’t approve of drugs, you know.”

  “I wasn’t doing drugs; he was.”

  “Whatever. Don’t you make enough money here playing the piano? Do you really have to resort to prostitution?”

  “I’m an escort, Artie. What I do is completely legal and above board. People pay me for my time. That’s all!”

  “Oh, sure,” Artie snorted. “I suppose they want you to don a tuxedo and they take you on a date to the Symphony on a Saturday night, walk into Davies Hall on your arm and then to Farallon for a quiet dinner afterward.”

  “I do own a tuxedo, Artie, and it has been known to happen, but not on a Saturday night. I’m always right here playing this damned piano for you.”

  “And whoring after you get off work…”

  “Escorting,” Phil insisted, “We might meet at the bar in his hotel lobby and then if we happen to hit it off, we might connect, that’s all.”

  “Do you wear a yellow hat or a rose boutonnière for him to recognize you?”

  Phil ignored Artie’s last remark. “Right this minute there are probably dozens—no—hundreds of couples who paired off last night, waking up in hotel rooms all over San Francisco. Or in apartments or in dungeon playrooms or at one of their grandma’s house—what difference does it make? It’s nobody’s business and with me, no bodily fluids are ever exchanged. I’m not stupid!”

  “Yeah, right!”

  “Don’t be such a prude, Artie. Besides, I intend to buy real estate before I’m forty. I don’t see anyone leaving me a house, the way Tim got his.”

  “You never know.” Artie realized when he was defeated and it was time to change the subject. “Look, Phil, I dragged out all my old sheet music. I was looking for a love song, something suitable for a wedding show. I’ve performed each and every one of these in my illustrious career. There’s got to be one we can whip into shape.”

  Phil picked up one of the folders, spread it out above the keyboard and plunked out a few notes of La Vie En Rose, Artie stopped him. “No, my French is too rusty and I can’t get into that little black dress.”

  “You did Edith Piaf?” Phil laughed out loud.

  “Don’t be a such a smart ass. I did a couple of Piaf songs. I never looked like her, but I had a beret and a little black dress—I was a lot thinner then, okay?—never mind! Rosa’s Italian, not French and black wouldn’t be right for a wedding show, anyway.”

  “How about this one?” Phil began to play My Funny Valentine.

  “Too slow, I think, but it is in my range.”

  “What range is that? Baritone?”

  “Find another one! We’ve only got a few weeks to resurrect my persona and my singing voice.”

  “I’ve Got You Under my skin? Or maybe Stardust? Phil played and sang:

  “Beside a garden wall where stars are bright

  You are in my arms

  The nightingale tells its fairy tale… of paradise where roses grew…”

  “You have a lovely voice, Phil.”

  “Thanks, Artie.”

  “Maybe someday we should work up a duet.”

  “Yeah, right.” Phil tossed Artie’s phrase back at him.

  “But not this time. I’m the one who’s making a comeback and I’m doing it alone and I’m doing it my way.”

  “Sinatra? I don’t know. My Way? For a wedding?”

  “Shut up. Here, try this one. From this Moment on.” Artie sang,

  “From this moment on,

  You for me, dear, Only two for tea, dear, From this moment on...”

  While Tim got ready to go for his run, Nick pulled on his jeans and boots, then put a finer grade of sandpaper into the machine and began the next phase of the kitchen floor. Tim came out of the bedroom in sneakers and running shorts and stared at Nick a while. He was amazed sometimes at how hot Nick was, especially when he didn’t know anyone was watching him. His muscles moved under his broad shoulders as he pulled the machine across the floor as easily as mowing a lawn. Nick’s white paper facemask reminded Tim of a surgeon.

  Tim still saw himself as the sickly, skinny Minnesota kid who was never very good at anything. Why would this big handsome Nick want him? “What could he see in me?” Tim asked himself the same question over and over again.

  Nick looked so sexy that Tim almost changed his mind about going for a run. Instead, he opened a couple of windows to let the dust out, kissed Nick on the forehead and mouthed the words “see you later” over the noise from the sander. Tim intended to run around Dolores Park, but the sun was breaking through and the top was down on the Thunderbird. He climbed behind the wheel and headed south under the palm trees of Dolores Street and slid out onto 280.

  A few minutes later a huge tanker truck slowed in front of him and Tim couldn’t see to pass, so he pulled over to the right and turned off at the next exit. Rockaway Beach in Pacifica wasn’t a place he usually stopped on his way to San Gregorio or Devil’s Slide, but an old VW bug covered in daisy decals vacated a parking space and Tim grabbed it. Sunlight played across a layer of late morning haze above the waves and the fog had burned back to the horizon. The sun was nearly overhead by now and felt hot on Tim’s shoulders.

  He pulled off his T-shirt and took a sip of water, then climbed over the boulders and started to run, trying to focus on something outside of himself. He thought about the plans Nick had showed him for the new deck. He pictured Artie in drag at his Aunt Ruth’s surprise birthday party. He tried to imagine Teresa’s new boyfriend and hoped that this time she’d found someone who wasn’t a jerk. He tried to think about Rosa Rivera’s television show and her sexy assistant, Bruno. Tim tried to think about anything besides what he feared most, the imminent reunion with his mother.

  This was not a gay beach. It was dotted with families, dogs and kites. Like any California beach, the roar of the surf and cries of seagulls drowned out most other sounds, even the screams and giggles of children. Tim didn’t need a gay beach today. He had Nick waiting for him at home.

  Things were going well these days. Tim’s life had settled back down. It had been a couple of weeks since they’d found the suitcase and even longer since his mother had gone into rehab. Yes, life was just fine the way it was. He’d gotten used to having Nick drive down from the Russian River every weekend, always affectionate and horny. He could still flirt with his regular customers and the tourists who showed up at the restaurant on Castro Street. He even had the freedom to meet someone new from time to time, although he hadn’t been tempted to take things any further than flirtation in a long time. And Nick hadn’t mentioned marriage in a while either, thank heaven. Maybe he’d forgotten about it. Tim didn’t want change. Things were perfect the way they were.

  Tim ran south along the surf’s edge. Ahead of him the cliffs rose out of the sea and he would have to turn back. There was a runner ahead, a little taller than him and a lot more muscular. He was about Nick’s build, but darker complexioned. Tim checked out the long legs and the ripe buns sliding in perfect rhythm under his gray shorts. The other runner reached the end of the beach and turned back. N
ow Tim watched as each step created a rhythmic back and forth a few inches below the man’s waist, a swaying pendulum barely under wraps. When they met there was no smile, no sly grin, no lasting eye contact… definitely not a gay beach.

  Tim reached the end and turned back too. This run felt good, the fresh salt air and the sunshine. He’d spent years trying to forget about his parents. They didn’t want him when they found out he was gay and threw him out of the house back in high school. That seemed like a lifetime ago and he barely remembered the mistreatments of his earlier childhood. He didn’t want to think about those times and he didn’t need his mother trying to finagle her way back into his life now.

  Tim watched the other runner drop to the sand, pick up a water bottle and take a long swallow. A woman beside him was all cocoa-buttered legs and fleshy breasts held inside a few scraps of silver fabric.

  “Be careful!” she yelled at the man. A drop of his sweat must have landed on her and Tim couldn’t believe anyone would complain about a little thing like that. Some guys Tim knew would almost pay to taste the sweat from the pores of a hunk like him. Then she reached for him and smiled. She was a knockout too. Her fingers moved back and forth across his chest in the motion of a hand wiping steam off a window or a mirror. She licked her lips as her fingers slid below the waist of his shorts as he nestled in closer.

  Tim picked up his pace again. A small blue jet, like a fighter plane, appeared out of nowhere, did a death spiral and shot out a stream of pink smoke. Why? Fleet Week was still months away. Tim half expected to see it skywrite SURRENDER DOROTHY and he wasn’t even stoned.

  Tim stepped up over the rocks again and looked back at the couple on the beach. The man was on top of her now and it didn’t look like she was complaining. Tim climbed behind the wheel of the Thunderbird and took another swig of water. It had been a long time since he’d cruised a straight guy by mistake. That was one good reason to live in the Castro. Now he wondered how soon he could make it back to Hancock. He hoped Nick was still ready for him. Silly thought… Nick was always ready. This time Tim was ready too… ready and horny and longing for it.

  Artie snapped his fingers and said, “Pick up the tempo a little… that’s it. From this moment on. For you’ve got the love I need so much, Got the skin I love to touch, Got the arms to hold me tight.”

  Artie sang the next few words staccato:

  “You’ve

  got the

  sweet lips

  to-ooh

  kiss me

  go—od

  night.

  “Okay, Phil, big finish, now…

  “From this moment on,

  You and I, babe,

  We’ll be ridin’ high, babe,

  Ev’ry care is gone

  From—this—mo—ment—on.”

  Arturo and Phil both applauded, but to Artie it sounded like the empty restaurant was SRO with his adoring fans.

  Chapter 17

  Tim was vomiting into a toilet bowl the size of a six-man hot tub. He’d call it a six-person hot tub outside of San Francisco, but Tim hadn’t been in a co-ed hot tub since he left Minnesota. He’d been dreaming about Minnesota most of the night, but this was the dream that woke him. He ached everywhere and the hacking came from deep in his body, below his center of gravity, below the stomach, maybe below his knees. Yes, even his toes hurt from puking so hard.

  His mother stood over him. She moved in slow motion and he couldn’t hear her words, but she was clapping and shouting and he could read her lips: “Good boy, Timmy! Throw it all up. There’s a good boy!”

  He almost didn’t recognize her with so much henna in her hair. She wore a pink gingham apron over a green print housedress with a strand of pop beads. Tim had tried not to think about his mother for years, but ever since he and Nick came across her old suitcase in Aunt Ruth’s apartment he thought about her all the time and his dreams about her were even worse.

  Then a doctor and a nurse appeared. They were smiling too. Everyone acted like they were proud of Tim for throwing up.

  Tim lurched out of bed and ran to the bathroom. Why did Nick have to leave the lid down? He must have been raised better than Tim was. Everything about Nick was better than Tim was, but he tried not to let him know. He lived in fear that Nick would find out. No, he didn’t. It was only when his dreams were so vivid. Dreams could bring on the paranoia. Everything was okay except the pain in that place below his stomach.

  The normal-sized toilet seemed so small. Tim lifted his face from the cold rim and he wasn’t sick at all, but he was wide awake now. He rose to his feet and figured that as long as he was naked at the toilet in the middle of the night he might as well empty his bladder. He hoped he hadn’t woken Nick.

  Dreams like tonight’s reminded him that he meant to ask Aunt Ruth about his grandmother’s dreams. Were they like these? Did she have visions that nobody wanted to talk about? Tim wasn’t sure he believed in visions, but he knew dreams. If they could be traced back to his grandmother, his Aunt Ruth should know. Were they inherited or were they drug-induced? He’d been having the dreams as long as he could remember and he hadn’t taken any drugs as a child—or had he?

  Tim stepped into the kitchen. Sawdust was everywhere, spread so thick that the ridges on the wainscoting looked smooth. Tim stared out the window at where the redwood tree used to be. The view of downtown was covered in fog except for the light on top of the Transamerica Pyramid.

  Tim heard a flute in the distance, but who’d be playing a flute at this hour of the night? The nearest bar was the Last Call, formerly the Men’s Room on 18th Street at Noe. Sometimes he heard drunks singing their way home from Castro Street. Maybe the flute was only the sound of a strange summer wind that had come up in the night.

  He meant to question his Aunt Ruth, but his desire to get to the bottom of things usually faded away with the dreams when morning came. Sometimes when Nick was around, when he heard Tim cry out in his sleep, Nick would encourage him to find out more, but tonight Nick was still fast asleep.

  Tim looked at the footprints of sawdust he tracked from the kitchen to the bedroom carpet. The socks he’d pulled off earlier were on the floor beside his bed. He used them to wipe the soles of his feet and then tossed them toward the hamper. He pulled the covers back and there was Nick, half-hard, always ready for him. Tim was happy that Nick could spend the night, especially when he was having his dreams.

  Tim slid into bed and felt the weight of Nick’s sleeping arm wrap around him like a favorite blanket. Tim drifted back to sleep and it wasn’t until nearly morning that he had any more dreams. This time he and Nick were on a rowboat on the Russian River. Nick’s hair was thin and white and his eyes had a thousand tiny lines around them, but they were as blue and full of love as ever.

  The kitchen floor spent the week under tarps and Tim spent the week dusting. Nick would come back down on the weekend to seal it, but in the meanwhile Tim gave the entire flat a thorough cleaning. He vacuumed the tops of every door frame and window. He dragged a soft cloth over every picture frame and tabletop. He dusted books and lamps and the leaves of plants. He washed clothes that weren’t even dirty. On Saturday morning when the sun came in across the kitchen, he and Nick removed the tarps and put on the final sealant and it was perfect. Then they went out to eat and celebrate while the floor dried for 24 hours.

  The Sunday brunch shift was busy and Tim was on automatic pilot. He kept forgetting the day’s specials, but this time of year they were usually the same. Arturo mixed up an elaborate concoction of fresh fruit with three kinds of berries, seedless red and green grapes and melon balls of crenshaw and honeydew. Tim recommended this to people who wanted something light and healthy for brunch. Then he talked them into an order of French toast to go underneath the fruit (with lots of butter, of course) and warm maple syrup drizzled over it all.

  Tim barely noticed when the canned music stopped and the piano started. He was taking an order for a young man and his partner and a set of parents. Tim
tried to guess which of the gay couple the father resembled more. Tim’s back was to the piano when the mother said, “Beethoven. How lovely. I’m glad you suggested this place, Ian.”

  Tim had never heard classical music at Arts before. When he got to the bar he asked Artie, “What’s going on? Where’s Phil?”

  “I have him rehearsing with me so much lately for Rosa’s TV show that I gave him the day off. Her name is Mimi. She’s from the Music Conservatory. She doesn’t speak much English, but she plays beautifully. When I called I told them I wanted someone to play instrumental music only. No sing-alongs.”

  Jake arrived at the waiter’s station. “Two Mimosas, please. Artie, where’s Phil?’

  “He’s off today. I think this will be a nice change.”

  “No show tunes, huh?” Tim asked.

  “Well, that was another thought I had,” Artie said. “You know that guy who’s been coming in every weekend? The loud one?

  “Oh yeah,” Tim said. “He’s built like Pavarotti and he thinks he sounds like him. What a jerk when he gets a few drinks in him. I think his name is Joe.”

  “He prefers Joseph,” Artie corrected. “And his weasely little lover’s name is Lionel, but at least you never hear a peep out of him.”

  “Josephina!” Jake said. “And look out! Here he comes now.”

  The enormous man stepped up to the bar and was about to order drinks from Scott when he noticed the change in atmosphere. “Where’s Phil?”

  “I guess he’s not working,” Scott said. “He has another night job when he leaves here, you know. Do you want your usual, Joseph?”

  “I’m not sure if we’ll stay or not. Does this new girl know her stuff? She looks like a child in an evening gown! What the hell is she doing here, anyway?”

  “Artie says she’s from the Conservatory.”