Katie and Danielle shared a perplexed look with one another. Katie, however, went one step further by mouthing “What the fuck?” over Arlene’s shoulder to which Danielle, truly having no idea what, indeed, was the fuck, shrugged.
Before leaving America for Britain nearly two years ago, Danielle, somewhat belatedly, considering she was over thirty at the time, traveled to Arizona with Katie and Max and came out to her parents as a bisexual, presenting Katie as her female lover and the woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Her father, Harold, had taken the news in stride: a career spent on a university campus can have the effect of making one rather liberal-minded about concepts such as alternative sexual identities. Arlene, on the other hand, had, at first, reacted as though she were a candidate to replace George Bush in the White House. She had been convinced that Katie was behind Danielle claiming to be bisexual, somehow brainwashing her daughter into believing that she was attracted to women. And since Arlene believed that Danielle’s union with Katie meant that Danielle’s union with the rich and famous Max Bland was kaput it was even harder to accept. Arlene’s bragging rights in Fountain Hills, after all, would be gone.
Then Max showed up. He had left the house to give Danielle and Katie a chance to talk to Danielle’s parents alone and when he returned Arlene instantly rushed to him begging the celebrated author not to forsake her daughter (and by extension herself) and insisting that they could work together to get this “silly bisexual notion” out of Danielle’s head. Max, of course, then had to explain to Arlene, that not only did he see nothing wrong with Danielle’s bisexuality but that it was he who had encouraged her to pursue a relationship with Katie.
And just like that, amazingly, but perhaps not so amazingly considering the Fountain Hills-ness of it, Arlene’s mind was changed. Heaven forbid she appear so narrow-minded before the great Max Bland, who had written a groundbreaking novel about a lesbian pope. Thus was Katie welcomed into the family by Arlene. However, as time passed it was evident that Arlene viewed Max-Danielle as far more important than Katie-Danielle. There were no relationship health checkups for Katie-Danielle whenever Arlene spoke to her daughter on the phone; and during the one trip the trio made together to Fountain Hills since moving to London a year and a half ago Arlene had fawned over Max like a disciple but had paid only cursory attention to Katie, leaving that duty to Harold.
Therefore, the exuberance with which Arlene was now greeting her daughter’s wife was surprising, suspicious even, and after the second hug Katie reached behind herself with one arm to feel her back, just to be sure Arlene hadn’t stuck a “Kick Me, I’m a Lesbo!” sign on her.
“I have been so eager to see you, Katie,” Arlene gushed, beaming.
“You have?”
“Terribly eager,” Arlene confirmed. “I have some wonderful news for you, for both of you, actually, but I suspect you in particular will be thrilled, Katie. I just cannot wait to see your faces when I tell you!”
“So tell us and we won’t keep you waiting,” Danielle said. Was it her imagination or did a cold breeze which left her shivering just blow through the hallway?
Arlene frowned.
“I was hoping Max would be here when I made the announcement. But I understand from your housekeeper that he’s busy with the Queen.”
“Mom,” Danielle said, and only Katie was perceptive enough to hear the nervous tension in that one word, “just tell us, please. I’m sure if it’s such good news you won’t mind repeating it to Max over dinner, right?”
Her mother thought it over for a moment then smiled again.
“You’re right, darling. You’re absolutely right. Besides, I’d better get used to saying it, haven’t I?”
“What?” Danielle said with barely controlled impatience. “What do you have to get used to saying?”
“Well, this, darling: I have decided to become a lesbian.”
Chapter 8
Max was right, Danielle considered…she should never have given her address to her mother. In a world of cell phones, the Internet, e-mail, text messaging and webcams what purpose was there, really, in sharing one’s physical address? And she was certain Max hadn’t been joking when he had told her earlier that his parents believed he lived in Scotland; that was typical Max Bland, taking steps to ensure his parents could never show up on his doorstep unannounced and thus upset the very delicate balance which determined whether he’d have a good day or a bad one. It was a brilliant scheme, she now mused, and it proved once again that Max—with all his misanthropy, his cynicism, his glass is half empty way of looking at life—had a point: the world will take any opportunity it can to kick you in the teeth and once you realize that fact it’s much easier to defend yourself. It is an absolute brilliant way to live, Danielle grasped now, and had she understood this earlier, lived her life according to the Book of Bland all these years instead of spending those years thinking he was a deranged but nonetheless lovable kook, her mother could now be lost in Scotland rather than here in London coming out as a lesbian.
How would Max react, Danielle wondered, if he was in the same boat? If Rondella T’Keyah-Bland suddenly announced to her son that she was becoming a lesbian? What page out of the Book of Bland could Danielle now use to help herself cope with this idiotic situation?
But it was no good. Put Max in this situation, Danielle figured, and he would just look his mother in the eye and probably say something along the lines of, “Mom, you’re seventy-one. Who becomes gay at seventy-one?”, and he’d say it in that way of his, the way that makes it clear he thinks his listener is the Grand Monarch of the Planet Stupid, and that would be the end of the matter, Rondella would never bring it up again. Danielle doubted that would work for her now. Still, it was worth a shot…
“At your age, Mom?” she asked Arlene. “Who becomes gay at your age, Mom?”
“I beg your pardon!” Arlene retorted. “I am only fifty-three and still a long way from the old folks home!”
“Aaarrrgghh!” Danielle fumed. She stomped past Arlene into the kitchen where she immediately made for a cherry wood cabinet where the brandy was kept. Katie and Arlene followed her into the room.
“Mom, please,” Danielle began, retrieving a snifter from the same cabinet, “you are not a lesbian and it’s silly to even think you can just become one at the snap of your fingers.” She poured a healthy serving of the amber liquor and took a big sip.
“I have too become a lesbian!” Arlene insisted. “After what your father did to me I see no value in men anymore and I’m giving them up! Pour me some of that, too, darling.”
“You don’t drink brandy, Mom, it upsets your stomach, remember?” Returning to the cabinet from which she got the brandy Danielle now extracted a bottle of Ketel One, poured a small portion in a glass and handed it to Arlene before motioning with the bottle toward Katie. Katie declined.
“So the only reason you’re saying you’re a lesbian has to do with what the lying bastard did to you, is it? Sorry, that’s not good enough.” Another swig of brandy. “You’re still in shock from everything that happened, Mom, and that’s fine. So take a holiday, travel a bit, find a hobby, don’t date for awhile…but don’t tell us that you’re now a lesbian. To begin with, it’s insulting to those of us who actually do like having sex with women.”
“Are you insulted, Katie?” Danielle’s mother asked, turning to the blonde.
Katie said, “Um…surprised is more like it.”
“I mean think about it,” Danielle went on, “you’re suggesting that a person’s sexual preference can be changed as easily as, I don’t know, switching shoes: if this pair pinches your feet then put on something more comfortable. But you, Mom, cannot make yourself gay anymore than Katie can make herself straight, okay? Katie is a lesbian. Our friends Nita and Marianne and a bunch of other women we know are lesbians. When Katie sees a man all she sees is a human being; what she doesn’t see is a possible lover. Case in point: Katie and Max both like walking around here na
ked and lots of times I come across them sitting together talking, without any clothes on, but Katie doesn’t get turned on by him because all she desires are women.”
“And I think I annoy him too much to turn him on,” Katie added, nibbling a breadstick she’d taken from a basket on a counter.
Arlene said, “Darling, what your father did to me was the eye-opener. Suddenly I was faced with the realization that maybe men are not the way for me to find happiness.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Danielle rejoined with a harsh laugh. “All my life you and your silly friends measured your happiness by all the things your menfolk were able to give you.”
Her mother waved that off.
“Oh, darling, those things? Do you really think my definition of happiness is so shallow and empty?”
“Yes.”
But Arlene ignored the insult.
“Danielle, I am a woman in my prime, darling. Mere trinkets are not going to satisfy me anymore. Oh, I’ll admit I like having nice things, particularly if they are given to me; but I’m now recognizing that I need to be emotionally satisfied as well. Your father is an anthropology professor, dear; he has trouble being emotional about anything less than a thousand years old.”
True, Danielle conceded privately. Though she and her father had had a fantastic relationship and he had spoiled her rotten he nonetheless had always struck her as being rather emotionally bereft. Never cold, just a tad more aloof than the TV dads.
“Furthermore,” Arlene continued, “as a woman in my prime I also require sexual fulfillment.”
“Oh God, Mom.” Danielle poured more of the St. Agnes brandy.
“It’s true, darling. Especially after the marriage I had.”
“Pleasedon’tPleasedon’tPleasedon’tPleasedon’t”, Danielle incanted quietly, shutting her eyes to give the prayer more force.
“Do you realize, darling, that in over thirty years of marriage I never once had an orgasm? Well, an orgasm that I didn’t give myself, that is.”
Danielle winced, then looked heavenward and mumbled, “Thanks for listening.”
Her mother, meanwhile, went on.
“It’s true, darling. Your father is a terrible lover…”
“Mom, please…”
“…has no imagination…”
“Mom…”
“…not enough time on the foreplay…”
“I’m begging you…”
“…always over-wet my breasts…”
“I will end up in therapy for years…”
“…refused to go down on me but certainly expected me to go down on him…”
Danielle began whimpering.
“…and just between us girls he isn’t…well, let’s just say that genetics wasn’t kind to Harold Edwards in a certain anatomic region.”
“Enough!” Danielle practically shouted. “That’s enough!” This day had started out so well, she thought: sex with Max first thing in the morning followed by firing useless twats at work. How in hell had it devolved to a level so low that she was now hearing about how tiny her dad’s penis is?
Arlene was surprised at Danielle’s discomfort.
“Darling,” she rebuked, “we’re all adults here. Besides, I was under the impression that this is what people of your generation did: discuss sexual matters openly with no embarrassment. Your father has a small dick, darling. I’ve never said that to anyone, not even him, not even to my friends, and it’s liberating to finally say it out loud. He has a small dick. If it weren’t for him lying atop me grunting like a boar when we had sex I never would’ve known anything was happening.”
“Um…Arlene,” Katie suddenly jumped in, seeing by how pale her wife was getting that some support was needed, “With respect, Danielle is right, you know. Just because you’ve had a crap experience with Harold doesn’t mean that becoming gay is the answer. In any case you actually have to be attracted to women in order to want to sleep with them.”
“But I am attracted to women,” Arlene insisted adamantly. “I always have been, truly I have.” Then she told a story about how, during the cruise across the Atlantic she had become completely infatuated with one woman in particular, who also was traveling alone and who also, coincidentally, had just gone through a divorce. They had attached themselves to one another, dining together each day, gambling in the shipboard casino, taking the sun on deck, seeing the “Flamenco Follies” show one night and the magic show another…
“Did you sleep with her, Mom?” Danielle suddenly interrupted.
“As a matter of fact I did!” Arlene said.
Her daughter’s eyebrows shot up and she exchanged a look with Katie.
“Are you serious?” Danielle queried. “You actually slept with this woman?”
“Yes,” her mother said, but then added a little sheepishly, “but to be completely honest it’s probably not at all what you think. We both had had a few too many cocktails one night and so Tammy ended up staying in my cabin.”
Danielle laughed; Katie smiled.
“So a woman passed out in your cabin at sea? Oh yeah, you’re a lesbian now, Mom. Katie, tomorrow we’ll take her down to headquarters, get her an ID badge and teach her the secret handshake.”
Her wife giggled.
“You sounded so much like Max just now,” Katie said.
“I know, he rubs off on me, and you know what, maybe I do need to learn from Max in this case, sweetie because maybe sarcasm is the only real way to respond to something so stupid.”
“Stupid!” Arlene gasped. “Darling, I am talking about a major life decision here!”
“What you’re talking about is a snap reaction to a traumatic event, Mom,” Danielle countered.
Just then the grandfather clock in the foyer announced the arrival of six p.m. with a pleasant series of gongs. Katie took the opportunity to divert the conversation toward the topic of dinner. Arlene, as it turns out, was famished, having last eaten on the ship. Even Danielle, she with the newly minted lesbian mother and therefore, presumably, with better things to think about, admitted to wanting to eat soon and even had the presence of mind to suggest using Max’s name to score a table at Gordon Ramsay as a way of welcoming her mom to London in style. Arlene, of course, wanted to shower and change first, an idea Danielle eagerly supported as it would buy her some time to talk with her husband and wife alone. So, after Danielle drew a map on a napkin showing Arlene how to once more find the bedroom she had been assigned Arlene headed off in the direction of the west staircase and Danielle picked up the kitchen telephone. She dialed the extension for Max’s office.
“Max, meet us in your bedroom now…Max!...I don’t care!...Max!...Just do it!” And she hung up, took Katie by the hand and led her wife toward the eastern part of the mansion.
***
“This really shouldn’t surprise you,” Katie said as soon as she and Danielle entered Max’s bedroom.
“And why not?” asked her wife.
Katie went on.
“Look, a lot of women do this, okay? In fact, we authentic lesbians have to always be on the lookout for it.”
“On the lookout for what?”
“Well, these women who think that they’ve finally had enough of men and would be better off dating women. It’s always the women who have boyfriends who beat them up or cheat on them repeatedly or things like that.” She made herself comfortable on the bed. “You really have to watch out for them, though,” she continued. “They don’t make good girlfriends usually. They start off being eager and excited but after, I don’t know, a couple of months they usually go running back to the dark side: men.”
This caught Danielle’s attention.
“So you’re saying there’s a chance Mom won’t actually live the rest of her life as a lesbian?”
“Trust me,” Katie answered, “that’s how it is with these women; they’re flaky, especially the older ones. Every lesbian who’s been around the block a few times has their own horror stories about them. I have, li
ke, three.
She eyed Danielle.
“You know, I was afraid you were going to turn out to be like that.”
“You did?”
“Sure…pampered little rich girl living with a writer a dozen years older than her; I figured I was just some way to inject some excitement into your life.”
“And when did you know I wasn’t?”
“Easy; the first time we had sex. You certainly proved that you knew what you were doing.”
Max entered just then; Danielle told him to shut the door although, quite frankly, the precaution was unnecessary. Thanks to Max’s earlier foresight Arlene’s bedroom was nowhere near this one, practically in a different postal code.
“Okay, what’s up?” he asked. He took up a position leaning against a small desk near the window.
Danielle, with color commentary provided by Katie, filled Max in on the state of things. It took only a few minutes, much of that time used up by Danielle reiterating in various ways how absolutely crazy she now thought her mother was, and when the tale had been told Max simply stared at his wife, slowly shaking his head.
“Scotland, Danielle,” he finally stated. “My folks think we live in Scotland.”
“Good for you,” was her response. Then she had a thought. “By the way,” she said to him, “how would you react if Rondella suddenly announced she was a lesbian?”
“Please,” the novelist said dismissively. “My mom’s over seventy years old. Who becomes a lesbian at seventy years old?”
Danielle smiled, rose and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“What was that for?” Max inquired suspiciously.
“I just like that I know you so well,” Danielle replied. “Anyway, what the hell am I supposed to do about this, guys?”
“We could kill her,” Max suggested.
“Tempting…” Danielle mused.
Katie said, “Don’t do anything, sweetie. You’ll end up frustrating yourself. If your mom has this idea that she’s a lesbian let her be.”
Two for One-Relatively Speaking (The Two for One series) Page 7