“Nah, I live here. I’ve been lots of times,” Tim said, shaking his hand out behind his back to try to return the sensation to his fingers.
There appeared to be some kind of hold-up that caused a block-long gap between parade contingents. “This is going to be a long day at this rate.” Tim looked at his watch and picked up a sheet of lavender paper off the sidewalk.
“What’s that?” Ruth asked.
“It’s a list of the parade entrants in order of appearance. There are over a hundred and fifty contingents this year. The Dykes on Bikes are always first and then Mikes on Bikes. They’re number two, see?”
Ruth took the sheet of paper, but she didn’t look at it. “There’s a big gap now, Tim. The next thing coming looks like someone on the back of a convertible. See him way down there? It must be one of the Grand Marshals or the mayor or someone important.”
“If it’s a politician, it must be a Republican. They always hold up anything gay. I guess that’ll give these Mikes plenty of time to ride around in circles.”
“Look at this one on the bike with the baby strapped to his back.” Ruth’s enthusiasm would not be deterred by any long delays. “How adorable!”
“Yeah, everyone’s raising babies these days. You know, between that hot daddy with the cute little boy on MUNI and those guys we just met—Danny and Elliot, with their girl, it almost makes me want to have a kid.
Ruth shook her head. “Have you ever in your entire life been responsible for so much as a pet?”
“No… when I was little, my mother said I was allergic to cats and dogs, but you know what? I’m not. I’ve spent lots of time with other people’s pets and they don’t bother me. Why don’t you ever ask me to take care of Bartholomew when you’re out of town?”
“I never knew you wanted to and Teresa’s so convenient… maybe next time.”
“Nick was talking about getting a dog, just the other night. We could share him, maybe keep him in the country part-time at Nick’s and part-time in the city at my place.”
“Maybe you should start with a goldfish, dear.”
Tim rolled his eyes at his aunt.
During the next hour the Fresno lesbians twice offered Ruth a beer from their ice chest. She finally accepted one. “It’s nice and cold,” she took a sip, then handed the can to Tim and pointed, “My word! Look what’s coming next!”
Tim was trying to find where they were on the lavender list, but he put it down and just looked. “It’s Rosa Rivera. Great car!” The Italian TV personality was on the back of a shiny white Mercedes convertible. Her dress was white chiffon with billowing sleeves and a plunging neckline trimmed in gold sequins.
“Her makeup is awfully garish for daylight, don’t you think?” Ruth asked.
“And look at that tacky dress!” Tim laughed. “She must have bought it on Mission Street.”
“That’s right… that’s what she reminds me of… one of those beauty pageant winners in the Cinco de Mayo celebration!”
“She looks more like a drag queen!”
“A Mexican drag queen!” both Ruth and Tim shouted at the same time and then burst out laughing.
“She could be on stage at Esta Noche tonight!” Tim said. “Ooh, but look at those muscle numbers in Speedos escorting her car.”
“How cute… they’re all wearing bow ties and old fashioned men’s garters.”
“They must be some of Bruno’s gym buddies. I wonder where Bruno is, anyway…”
“Look, he’s the one driving.”
There was a paper sign taped to the side of the car:
“Let’s Make it Happen”
Watch Rosa Rivera’s Wedding Season
~ LIVE from Arts on Castro Street ~
Saturday July 9 at 4PM
“At least the restaurant is getting some free publicity,” Ruth said. “Artie told me he wants to ride in the parade next year… as Artie Glamóur, of course.”
“He says that every year,” Tim said, “but he always backs out.”
“Oh look, those guys dressed as grooms are handing out something. Stand in my place, Tim. You’re taller. See if you can reach out and get one.”
“They’re just applications for the wedding. According to Artie, they already have hundreds turned in. At this rate, she’ll have to move the show to the Cow Palace!”
Rosa was gesturing wildly and yelling at Bruno, but a siren drowned out her words. Bruno slammed on the brakes and Rosa toppled over and slid down onto the seat. By the time she had assumed her regal position, the siren stopped and everyone could hear their voices. “Drive your own damn car, then!” Bruno threw the keys in her lap and climbed out. “I’m sick and tired of your bitching. You’re never satisfied, dammit! I quit!’
“You can’t quit. Vaffanculo! You’re fired!”
“You can’t fire me. I already quit! Stronzo!”
“You can’t quit. Vai a farti fottere. I already fired you!”
“Mother… just shut the fuck up!” Bruno stomped off toward the other side of Market Street and leapt over the barricade.
“Wow, did you see that jump he took? Bruno must have been a gymnast,” Tim said. “That would explain the great body. I’ll bet he’s off to find a Tenderloin bar that’s open.”
Ruth could hardly believe what she’d heard. “Bruno just called Rosa Rivera ‘Mother,’ didn’t he?”
“I think you’re right.”
The Fresno lesbians nodded and Maryellen said, “Yes he did, Ma’am. We both heard him say it. If I’m not mistaken he called her a bitch, too!”
“Did you know Rosa was Bruno’s mother?”
“No way,” muttered Tim.
“I don’t think anyone would have suspected,” Ruth said. “She must have been very young—”
“And I thought life was hard with my mother. I almost feel sorry for Bruno now.”
Ruth reached for Tim’s arm and patted his hand. “Nobody ever said life was going to be easy for any of us, dear. Oh, look at all the balloons coming up. Look at the drag queen on the Moped! Look on your list there and find that float that Nick worked on. We’ll have to tell him how nice it was. Oh, Tim, this is so much fun!”
Chapter 22
The Fourth of July weekend was relatively quiet in the Castro, downright dead if you compared it to Pride, the weekend before. Arts got by on a skeleton crew, which meant that Tim got to spend a rare weekend at the Russian River and Ruth stayed in Hillsborough. A few foreign gay tourists stuck around California for another week after the parade, but most of them moved on to visit Los Angeles or Portland or Seattle. Lots of the locals got out of town for the long weekend, too.
Ruth wanted nothing more than to relax at Sam’s house before next Saturday’s big event at Arts. But during the second week, Artie called her every day, begging her to come back to the city early. He was a nervous wreck and he suspected that Rosa was losing it. No one had seen Bruno since he stormed off and left his mother in an empty convertible in the middle of Market Street. The cameras just happened to get a close-up when she slid into the back seat. The thirty-second clip that ended with her legs in the air had gotten so many hits on YouTube that Rosa was now even more famous outside of the Bay Area. Or infamous. The live TV broadcast had cut to a commercial while one of the boys in black Speedos and a bow tie took Bruno’s place behind the wheel so the parade could get moving again.
Ruth was torn between curiosity and dread about the coming weekend, knowing how temperamental Artie would be, not to mention Rosa’s enormous and demanding ego. Ruth let Artie talk her into working Thursday and Friday nights behind the bar plus Saturday, for the big day and then that was it! She needed Sunday to recover and pack. The following week she and Sam were flying to Chicago for Adam and Alexandra’s wedding, which was sure to be lovely and traditional and far less exciting.
Frank and Delia had already left for Chicago, so Ruth learned to find her way around the Hillsborough kitchen and discovered that she enjoyed making dinners for two. Having the p
lace to themselves, she and Sam went skinny-dipping in the pool under the stars every night and Ruth felt free to sunbathe in the afternoons with her straps unfastened. Sometimes when she took a dip to cool off she didn’t even bother to put her top back on. They’d spent most of Sam’s spare time this week playing tennis and making love. Sam reminded her of a teenager in that regard and she wasn’t complaining.
Ruth also got the chance to poke around and get a closer look at the house this week. She pondered what full-time life might be like in Hillsborough. She’d been happy to leave suburban Edina behind and pare back her belongings to fit a one-bedroom apartment in the Castro. Now the thought of expanding again it was a little frightening, but when she looked at Sam’s sweet smile every day, the idea was growing on her.
The house hadn’t seen a woman’s touch in a long time… or had it? Delia was much more of a chef than a decorator and Sam’s first wife—Jane’s mother—had been dead for years. Had Sam been celibate all that time? Ruth wondered about so many things, like who had built this house and when and for what purpose? It was a lot older than Sam. She’d been here so many times that she felt contentment among the smells of the paneled wood walls and the scent from years of crackling fires in the hearths, but she’d never asked the most obvious questions. Her focus was always on the wonderful man who lived here.
The more Ruth thought about becoming the second—and last—Mrs. Sam Connor, the more curious she became. But she had plenty of time. There would be years of breakfasts in bed, long summer evenings on the patio or rainy winter nights beside the fire when she could listen to Sam’s stories and tell him all the things he wanted to know about her past as well.
It was different here when they were alone… all alone and in love. It wasn’t the giddy foolishness of a teenage crush. It wasn’t like her first wedding night when she stood at the threshold of her life. She was past all that, past her prime, in fact, and so was Sam. She wondered how things might have been if she’d met Sam when they were young. Would she be more confident when she was a little thinner? Could she have loved Sam any more when he was a little more buffed and had more hair? Oh, plenty of guys half Sam’s age had less hair than he did. Ruth decided that being past their prime was a delicious place for them both to be.
She was lounging beside the pool on Thursday morning feeling wonderfully relaxed. She rolled over on her back, lifted her arms above her head and stretched out in the sun like a cat. Where was the Bartholomew? “Ba—art!” Ruth sat up and looked around. “Bartholomew! Where are you, kitty-cat?”
The cat was adapting well to life here. He seemed to love exploring the grounds and chasing field mice behind the potting shed. Bartholomew had already picked out his favorite spots to nap as the sun moved from the windows near the breakfast nook to the master bedroom in the afternoon to the dining room windows in the early evening. From there it was only a few steps to see if someone in the kitchen had a treat for him.
“Meow,” he padded up and gave Ruth’s hand a lick.
“There you are, sweetie.” She petted him until he rewarded her with a loud purr. “Are you enjoying yourself, Bart? This sure beats living half our lives in the snow, doesn’t it?”
“What’s that, dear?” Sam was standing at the kitchen doorway.
Ruth turned toward the sound of his voice as the cat yawned and ambled toward the house. “I was talking to Bartholomew.”
“He seems happy here.”
“I’ll say.” Ruth watched the cat step between Sam’s feet, arch his back and demand some attention. “He’s never had it so good. I remember the first time he got outside when he was a kitten. There must have been three feet of snow on the ground. He dashed back inside the house so fast! This must feel like heaven compared to being cooped up in my little apartment on Collingwood… or Teresa’s.”
“Yes, you mentioned Teresa was taking care of him for a while.”
“It was Birdie most of the time, actually.”
“Birdie?”
“The policewoman,” Ruth reminded him, “Artie’s old friend from his North Beach days… Birdie Fuller… she was house sitting for Teresa and taking care of Bart.”
“Where was Teresa?”
Ruth was sure they’d had this conversation before, but it was just like him to forget a little thing like that. “Teresa went to a class reunion in Seattle with her ex-husband and his current husband. I was sure I told you all about it.” Fortunately, Sam was good at remembering the things that really mattered.
“Maybe you did.”
“And then Teresa spent some time at her mother’s. I’ve hardly seen her since she got back, but she mentioned that her mother was doing better. When I asked about the class reunion, she seemed… I don’t know… reserved, I guess, which is unusual for Teresa, if you know what I mean.”
Sam laughed. “Jane used to tell me stories when she and Ben and the kids lived above Tim and below her.”
“Well, it’s true, she can be a bit loud, but she has a heart of gold. I’d trust her with my life, you know. It’s just that lately she seems like a person who is either madly in love or in some kind of trouble.”
“Those two situations can be similar, depending on the circumstances,” Sam said with a chuckle.
“Is that how you feel about me, Sam? Does loving me trouble you deeply?”
“Never! I’ve never known anyone to trouble me less, while at the same time being exciting, provocative and downright sexy.”
“You always know how to say just the right things, Sam. Do go on…”
“You’re getting a healthy glow, dear. It becomes you, but don’t get sunburned.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got a gallon of sunblock on my face. How are you doing? How is your work coming alone? Shall I fix us some lunch?”
“I was getting myself another cup of coffee before I go back to it, but if you’re hungry, darling, I can take a break any time.”
After lunch the sun was hot. Ruth sat with her feet in the pool and finally finished the Stephen King paperback she’d been reading for weeks. She looked at her watch and realized she needed to get ready to leave. Bartholomew was asleep in the sun and surprisingly easy to get back into his carrying case. Sam was making progress at his desk, he told her, “…but I’d better keep working. I can finish this paperwork tomorrow and drive up to the city by the time you’re done at the restaurant. Artie invited me to the big show on Saturday, too.”
“Are the kids coming?”
“Jane said she would. I just talked to her a few minutes ago. She told me Artie roped her into helping with the applications and she wants to see who wins. The kids are too little to sit through all that. Ben said he’d stay home with them and maybe watch it on television.”
“You and Jane can sit at the bar and keep me company, then. Scott is working the end near the kitchen, so we’ll have you near the front door. You can slip out if it gets to be too much for you. It’s sure to be quite a production and I’ll need the moral support.”
“Alright, darling Ruth,” Sam stood and kissed her goodbye. “Drive carefully and I’ll see you tomorrow night. No matter what happens, once Saturday is over we’ll be together.”
All in all, Ruth felt pretty satisfied with herself all the way back to the city. She turned the corner from 19th Street up the steep incline of Collingwood, hoping to luck out and find a parking place. There was one near the top of the hill and she grabbed it. Cars without a blue “S” parking sticker in the Castro neighborhood had to move every two hours. Her car insurance might be cheaper in Hillsborough, but Ruth intended to keep her registration at her Collingwood address forever, just for the sake of parking. She could leave her car in this spot for a couple of days until street cleaning time.
She set her purse on the kitchen table, let Bart out of his carrying case and flipped through the mail on her way to the front of the apartment. Ruth flicked on her computer to warm up and get her email. Then she looked at the calendar above her desk and gasped out loud. “Oh
no! What an idiot I am!” Her voice was so loud that Bart came running. “Your mother is insane, Bart. She’s a madwoman. How could I have been so thoughtless? I can’t be in two places at once. Oh, what was I thinking?”
Ruth realized for the first time that she and Sam would be in Chicago for Adam and Alexandra’s wedding at the same time Betty was getting released from the Redwood Valley Ranch. She grabbed a pen and notepad and reached for the phone. “Well, Bart, if anyone can solve this mess, it’ll have to be me. I guess it’s time to put the rest of my plan into place and find out who my real friends are.”
Chapter 23
Tim dreaded Saturday at Arts as much as his Aunt Ruth did. He had more than enough drama in his life these days already. His kitchen was still a mess, work on the new deck had begun and worse yet, he lived in fear that his mother would pop up at any moment and shatter the comfortable patterns of his day-to-day existence.
All these crazy dreams about his childhood didn’t help matters, either. Early Saturday morning his dreams had to do with work, what he called waiter nightmares. The kitchen was backed up and lines were out the door. Customers were irate and Tim was dropping things on the wrong people. Why couldn’t he ever spill hot coffee on the jerks in his dreams?
“You okay, Snowman?” Nick wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Bad dreams again? What time is it? What time do you have to be at work, babe?”
“Aw, I don’t know.” Tim opened one eye to read the alarm clock. “It’s not even six. We don’t have to be there ’til noon. We’re not serving food because of the TV show… sorry I woke you.”
“It’s okay. Were you dreaming about your mom again?”
“Yeah. No. I don’t know.” Tim usually remembered important dreams, but these had already slipped away into darkness. “I haven’t thought about my mother in years until the last few weeks. There’s no way I want to see her! Do you think she’ll really try to find me when she gets out of that place?” Tim asked, but Nick had already fallen back to sleep.
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