by Julia Watts
“If you say so, dear.”
“So anyway, Charlotte and I had been having this affair, and she tearfully confessed to me when she got pregnant with Mimi, that she was sure that I, not Dez, was the father ...”
“Where did you come up with this story, Soap Opera Digest?”
“We both know it’s absurd, and Charlotte and Dez are probably giggling in their graves at the idea.
But don’t you think they’d want us to do whatever it took to keep their baby away from those Cobb County cretins?”
“Of course they would. I just don’t see where this flight of fancy is taking us.”
“Wake up and smell the patriarchy, Lily! If I can convince a jury that I’m Mimi’s biological father, then I’ll have a legitimate claim on her.”
“But they can do tests for that kind of thing now, if the judge orders it. DNA ...”
“Which brings me to my family. My brothers were what you might call mischievous when they were growing up. Mother and Daddy bought them out of so much trouble with the law that they own the judge of the juvenile court in Faulkner County — he’s practically a house pet. There’s no way Judge Sanders is gonna make a member of the McGilly family take a DNA test. He knows a McGilly’s word is as good as his next payoff.”
“So how are we gonna manage to get this case tried in your hometown?”
“That’s where we come to the part of the plan that’ll make the whole thing work.” Ben cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow. “Lily, will you marry me?”
She had seen the question coming, but she still couldn’t stifle her laughter. “I swore when I was in first grade I’d never marry a man.”
“It wouldn’t be like a real marriage. I’m not gonna take advantage of your virtue or anything. The one time I tried to have sex with a woman, I threw up on her.” He sat back down next to Lily. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We get married, we move to Faulkner County for the time being, convince my parents our marriage is the real thing, give them time to fall in love with Mimi. And that won’t take any time at all, because they’ve got grandsons out the wazoo, but not one granddaughter. We’ll have the case tried there, get joint custody of Mimi, then we can move back here to our respective condos. We can stay married for the insurance benefits or get a divorce, whichever you want.”
Lily’s heart was racing. “You make it sound so easy, but this ...this goes against my whole personal philosophy.” She rolled up her sleeve to show her woman symbol tattoo. “When I got this tattoo, I was nineteen years old. I swore then that I’d always be true to my lesbian identity ... that I’d never closet myself, or use vague pronouns, or —”
“That’s all very moving, hon. But is your pride worth allowing your daughter to be raised a Southern Baptist?”
Lily collapsed with her head in her hands. “Oh god.”
“If it helps, you can think of this as a subversive act. We’ll not just be lying out of self-protection; we’ll be beating the straight people at their own game.”
Lily sat in silence for a moment. Hellish as the plan was, it was the only course of action she could think of that might give them a chance of success ... if they could pull it off. “I won’t have to, like, wear a white dress or anything, will I?”
“Hell, no. We’ll just have a justice of the peace do it. You can wear jeans and a Lesbian Avengers T-shirt for all I care. The thing is, though, in front of my folks and the judge, we’ll have to make it look real. We’ll have to be affectionate with each other, and in order to play well in Faulkner County you’ll have to take my name —”
Lily started laughing so hard she couldn’t get her breath. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“What is it?” Ben asked.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” she said when she could finally speak. “My whole life I’ve sworn never to let men influence my identity, and now I’m going to be named Lily McGilly.”
CHAPTER 4
Ben’s Lexus sped along the interstate, taking Lily into a world so different it was hard for her to believe they’d been in Atlanta a scant fifty minutes ago. The only traveling Lily had done in the past several years was for book signings. She’d drive to the Atlanta airport, board a plane, and be deposited into another metropolitan area. A native Atlantan, Lily had seen little of the expanses of country that lay between major metropolitan areas.
She looked behind her, where Mimi was snoozing away in her car seat. As always, Lily saw Charlotte’s face in Mimi’s. She hoped she was doing the right thing.
They passed a green sign that read FAULKNER COUNTY. “Last chance to back out,” Ben said.
His tone was only half-joking.
Lily replied, “I’m willing to go through with it if you are. Although I must admit I’m surprised you’re willing to go so far to help Mimi. I mean, you don’t even like kids.”
“Look, I know I’m not the most touchy-feely person in the world, but Dez meant a lot to me. He brought me out into the gay world, and even after we weren’t lovers, he was my best friend. Babies are noisy and erratic and have no control over their biological functions, but that baby in the backseat carries Dez’s genetic material, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna see her raised in a way Dez would disapprove of.”
“So,” Lily said, “which are we gonna do first, go see your folks or get married?”
“Oh, get married, definitely. If we don’t, Mom’ll try to rope us into having a big church wedding, and I don’t think either of us is up for that.”
“God, no. Weddings are barbaric. I’ve never understood why people think they’re romantic — all that heavy-handed symbolism about virginity and fertility ... it’s about as romantic as throwing a virgin into a volcano.”
Ben laughed. “Well, we’re lucky. In Faulkner County, they have this deal where you can get married in a day. The blood test, the license, the ceremony... you can get it all done in about an hour, if it’s not too crowded.”
“Instant heterosexual respectability in an hour, huh? Pretty amazing.”
Ben put on his turn signal as they approached the exit sign marked VERSAILLES.
“Versailles?” Lily asked.
“Actually, everybody pronounces it Ver-sales. Trust me; it’s more appropriate.”
The interstate exit for Versailles was home to only two businesses, a ramshackle fruit stand selling Georgia peaches and boiled peanuts, and the Lazy J Truck Stop, which, according to its sign, offered both FRIED CHICKEN AND HOT SHOWERS.
Downtown Versailles was a scant block long. All the businesses seemed to be lost in the early
‘60s. The window of the La-Di-Da Dress Shop displayed pastel suits that looked like bargain basement versions of what the queen of widows had worn before she was given the moniker “Jackie 0.” Next door to the La-Di-Da, the Chatterbox Beauty Shop looked as though it might dole out hairdos to match the dress shop’s anachronistic clothing.
The only downtown eating establishment was a diner called the Dinner Bucket. “You know,” Lily said, “somehow I just don’t find bucket to be a very appetizing word.”
Ben pulled over in front of a squat brick doctor’s office. “Yeah, it does sound kinda like slopping the hogs, doesn’t it? And the really awful thing is that nobody in town calls it the Dinner Bucket — they just call it the Bucket.” He put the car in park and looked in the direction of the doctor’s office. “So ... are you ready to bleed?”
“Do we need an appointment?”
“Nope. That’s why you can get married in a day here. They’ve got a lab tech on staff whose only job is to draw the blood of the betrothed — no appointments necessary.”
Mimi was sweaty and cranky from her nap in the car. As soon as Lily took her into the doctor’s office, she got to work making her a juice bottle while Ben waited at the front desk to check in.
A heavy woman in a white polyester uniform emerged from behind the EMPLOYEES ONLY door and promptly crowed, “Well, Benny Jack McGilly, as I live and breathe!”
Lily s
tifled the guffaw she felt rising from her belly. Benny Jack? Mr. Tommy Hilfiger-wearing, Wall Street Journal-reading, Emory University alumnus over there was named Benny Jack?
“Hi, Maybelle. We need to get blood tests today.”
Maybelle grinned. “Blood tests? Do you mean to tell me the oldest McGilly boy is finally getting married? I never thought I’d live to see the day!”
Ben glared up from the form he was filling out. “Believe me, neither did I.”
“You having a big church wedding?” Maybelle asked, taking his paperwork.
“No. Actually, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about it. It’s kind of a secret.”
“A secret?”
Lily felt Maybelle’s eyes on her as the chunky woman suspiciously regarded Lily’s nose ring and the baby on her lap. Lily gave the woman a jaunty wave, but it didn’t seem to alter her opinion.
“A secret. I understand,” Maybelle said.
Maybelle called Ben back first. Mimi was calmer now, sitting in the chair next to Lily and playing with her toy camera. There was precious little in the waiting room to keep patients amused: ancient copies of Field and Stream for the menfolk, equally antiquated issues of Good Housekeeping for the ladies. The kiddies were expected to amuse themselves with the Children’s Illustrated Bible, the cover of which depicted an Aryan-looking Jesus talking to an equally Aryan-looking group of children.
In the lab, Lily sat down on a stool with Mimi on her lap. Although she was sure that Mimi was too young to comprehend what had happened to her mother, Lily had noticed that since the accident Mimi had clung to her like a baby koala bear. Tiny though she was, she seemed to sense that she had already lost one of her mothers and that she needed to be extra-careful not to lose this one, too.
The lab technician swabbed Lily’s arm with alcohol and nodded at Mimi. “That Benny Jack’s little girl?”
Lily reminded herself that this was the lie she was supposed to be perpetuating. She was going to have to be careful to keep her story straight. A lifetime of honesty hadn’t prepared her for this kind of skullduggery. “Uh, yes,” she said.
“I thought so,” the lab tech replied. “She looks just like him.”
Sure, lady. Whatever, Lily thought. But she smiled benignly. “Let’s see. I guess you’ll have to put your little girl down while I draw your blood. She can crawl around on the floor; she won’t hurt nothin’.”
Lily set Mimi down and turned her head as the needle entered her non-tattooed arm. Tattoo needles, she could handle. But she hated having blood drawn.
As Lily queasily watched the syringe fill with red fluid, a middle-aged, smiling nurse stuck her head in the door. “Hi, honey,” she said to Lily. “I just wanted to stop by to ask if you had any questions about ...” She pursed her lips demurely. “Married lady things. I’ve got all kinds of pamphlets, if you need
’em.”
“Mama!” Mimi squealed happily. Despite the lab tech’s certainty that she wouldn’t “bother nothing,” Mimi had managed to dump an entire bag of cotton balls on the floor and was petting them as if they were kittens.
The nurse looked at the baby, then at Lily. “I guess you won’t be needing any pamphlets, will you, hon?” She scurried off.
“Poor ole Bernice,” the lab tech said, sticking a round band-aid on Lily’s arm. “She just can’t get it through her head that there ain’t a girl alive these days that needs one of her little pamphlets on what a girl should expect on her wedding night.”
Lily laughed. “I guess girls are more sophisticated these days.” More sophisticated than you’ll ever know, she was thinking. “I’m sorry my daughter wrecked your lab.”
“Oh, don’t worry a thing about it. She’s just as cute as she can be. If you and Benny Jack wanna check back in half an hour, we should have your test results ready.”
After a quick trip to the Piggly Wiggly for cold Cokes and Pampers, Ben and Lily returned to the doctor’s office. “Congratulations!” Maybelle crowed when they walked in. “Y’all are healthy and compatible.”
At the sound of the word compatible, Ben and Lily both burst out laughing.
The Faulkner County Courthouse was typical of small-town courthouse architecture: brick, columns, clock tower. In a stark, fluorescently lighted office, Lily and Ben waited for their license to be processed along with another soon-to-be wed couple. The man looked to be in his late thirties. His beard and mustache were tinged with gray. His bride-to-be, however, couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. She was big-eyed and bony except for her belly, which was swollen with pregnancy. The girl nodded at Mimi, who was standing up while holding onto Lily’s knee. “How old?” the girl asked.
“Thirteen months,” Lily said. “She’s working on learning how to walk.”
“She’s pretty,” the girl said, with a wistful smile on her face. “I can’t wait til my baby comes, so I can play with him.”
Lily smiled at the girl, but looking at her made her sad — this little girl who was going to play with her baby like a new doll. Lily couldn’t even look at the grown man who had taken his bride’s girlhood away.
Finally the clerk returned with Ben and Lily’s paperwork. “There ya go,” she said brightly, “and congratulations.”
Lily was exhausted from hauling Mimi around. “So, where do we go to get this thing over with?”
“Over to the City Drug,” Ben said. “The pharmacist there’s the justice of the peace.”
Lily followed him down the stairs. “We’re getting married in a drug store?”
“Yup.”
“Well, it’s handy, I guess. We can get married and buy condoms for our wedding night in the same convenient location.”
Ben stumbled on the stairs, steadied himself on the railing, and looked back at Lily with an expression of animal terror.
“I was joking! God.”
The old lady in the half-glasses at the City Drug eyed Ben. “You’re Big Ben McGilly’s boy, ain’tcha?”
“Yes. Ma’am, and we’re here to get married.”
“A McGilly getting married in the City Drug? I’ve never heard the like! Why, when your little brother got married, they had it over at the country club. I heard tell they floated candles and flowers in that pond out by the golf course —”
“I know,” Ben said impatiently. “I was there. The thing is, we’re in kind of a hurry.”
The woman looked Lily up and down. “I don’t see why. She ain’t showing yet. And that little girl’s just about big enough to be a flower girl.” When neither Lily nor Ben responded, she shrugged and hollered, “Frank! Wedding!”
“Bring ’em on back,” a gruff voice called from the back of the store.
Frank was a paunchy, middle-aged guy in a too-tight pharmacist’s smock. “Y’all got your license?” Ben presented the paperwork, and Frank glanced over it disinterestedly. “All right, then. Let’s get started. Doris, you wanna witness?”
Doris, the lady in the half-glasses, presented Lily with a bouquet of red plastic carnations — the kind that would decorate graves in a cemetery near a trailer park. “A bride needs a bouquet,” the old lady said, beaming.
And a blushing bride Lily was, with a baby in one arm and a tacky plastic bouquet in the other, wearing her Good Vibrations T-shirt, cutoff Levi’s, and Doc Martens. If there were a magazine called Postmodern Bride, she would be its cover girl.
“Ben McGilly, do you take this woman, Lily Fox, to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?” Frank droned. Clearly this ceremony was no more magical for him than it was for the bride and groom.
“Sure, okay,” Ben said. “I do.”
“Lily Fox, do you take this man, Ben McGilly. ...” While Frank finished his litany, Lily’s eyes wandered to a nearby display shelf where she saw a box marked MEDICATED DOUCHE. When Frank finished the as-long-as-you-both-shall-live bit, Lily replied, “I...I douche,” and collapsed in a fit of nervous
giggles.
“Then you may kiss the bride.” Frank apparently hadn’t even heard her joke. Heterosexuals were a humorless lot, Lily decided.
Ben leaned over to kiss Lily’s cheek, but she turned so he caught her on the lips. He was the one who had said they had to make this look real, after all. The kiss was completely bland, like pecking an old aunt’s powder-scented jowl.
“Smile!” Doris said after their perfunctory kiss. She snapped a Polaroid of the three of them. Mimi was chewing on the plastic bridal bouquet. Doris handed the Polaroid to Ben. “Something to show your grandchildren.”
“Thanks.” Lily threw the god-awful snapshot in the trash as soon as they were out of the store.
“That was certainly romantic,” Lily muttered, strapping a complaining Mimi into her car seat. “It’s okay, honey,” she cooed to the little girl, “you won’t be in your nasty old car seat much longer, I promise.”