by Radclyffe
Deva looked up at the phone, eyes wide as saucers.
Yvonne shrugged.
Neither of them did anything. Where were finger cots when you needed them?
He was breathing. His chest rose and fell. They didn’t really need to put their fingers in his mouth, did they?
“Have you done it yet?” the operator asked.
“My wife is doing it,” Yvonne said. “Or, not my wife—not yet. My fiancée. We were on our way to our wedding when we found him.”
“Oh,” the operator replied, hesitantly, like she wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. “Well, congratulations. The ambulance should be arriving in a matter of minutes.”
“He’s a terrible person,” Yvonne said. “He hates us. He hates lesbians, hates gay people. He thinks we go against god. And look at this! It’s our wedding day and instead of standing up in church, we’re shoving our fingers in his mouth.”
“Well, not really,” Deva whispered.
“You’re very likely saving his life,” the 911 operator said. “You’re doing a good thing.”
Yvonne’s eyes filled unexpectedly with tears. She choked them back. She didn’t want to cry on her wedding day, not for any reason.
“Now,” the operator went on, “if your neighbor starts vomiting you’ll need to dig into his throat and pull out any traces of stomach contents so he doesn’t choke. Are you prepared to do that?”
Deva obviously heard what the operator had asked, because her jaw dropped. For a moment, she just stared at Yvonne, stared at the phone. Deva was the strong one, the ready-for-anything partner, but would she go so far as to dig vomit from a homophobe’s throat?
“Sure,” Yvonne said. “Why not?”
Deva burst out in silent laughter, chuckling so hard her shoulders shook.
Yvonne egged her on. “Of course we’ll remove Mr. Rosetti’s regurgitated stomach contents on our wedding day. We’s good people, over here.”
Deva fell to the side, rolling on Mr. Rosetti’s lawn and laughing her ass off. Nothing spelled joy like Deva’s laughter. It made Yvonne smile so hard her jaw hurt.
The 911 operator didn’t seem quite so amused. “Is the patient breathing?”
Yvonne watched his chest rise and fall. “Yup.”
“And still unconscious?”
This time, Yvonne shouted his name. When he didn’t react, she slapped him in the face. Still nothing, but damn that felt good. “He’s out like a light.”
“The ambulance is on its way. I’ll need you to stay with him until the paramedics arrive.”
“Sure.” Yvonne cast her gaze in Deva’s direction. Something behind her had caught her wife-to-be’s attention. She turned to find a woman with a dog, a man holding a small child on her bicycle, and a group of joggers grouped around the sidewalk, their attentive gazes fixed on the scene like they were watching live-action reality TV.
Yvonne didn’t know how to feel—like the star of the show? Or was that Deva’s role?
“What happened?” one of the joggers asked, breaking the fourth wall.
Deva responded. “We don’t know. We found him passed out in the garden. He’s breathing, but we can’t wake him up.”
“You should have left him there,” said the woman with the dog. “That guy’s a jerk. He deserves to die.”
When she walked off, Yvonne exchanged knowing glances with Deva. In that woman’s place, Yvonne probably would have said the same thing. She still wasn’t sure why she felt good about helping someone who’d never been anything but nasty to her. Maybe it was just the right thing to do—help him because he was human and he was in trouble.
“I hear voices,” the 911 operator said. “Has the patient regained consciousness?”
“No, it’s just people from the neighborhood. They don’t like this guy any more than we do.”
The operator sounded like she was about to say something, but then fell silent.
Deva looked up, over the assembled crowd, as sirens rang out from the main street, approaching fast.
“The ambulance?” Yvonne asked.
Deva nodded and signaled to the crowd to get out of the way. The man and child moved a smidge, but the joggers remained exactly where they were, like they just had to find out how the show would end.
The ambulance roared onto the street, tearing toward the crowd. Yvonne could just see it knocking all those joggers over like bowling pins. Then they’d end up with two emergency situations to deal with.
The joggers shifted as a pair of paramedics spilled out of the vehicle. They raced up the driveway, and then onto the lawn. A black man and an Asian woman, both in bulky blue uniforms, lifted Mr. Rosetti off Yvonne’s grass-stained wedding gown.
“We’ll take over from here,” the woman said, shooing Yvonne and Deva away.
Yvonne had grown so accustomed to the weight of Mr. Rosetti’s head on her thigh that it felt weird to be without it. “We found him unconscious on the lawn, here. He’s breathing, but we couldn’t wake him up.”
“We’ll take over,” the man repeated, driving the point home.
Deva helped Yvonne to her feet, and they inched down the rock garden together. “Wait, my shoes.”
One of the paramedics was half sitting on them, and it took Deva’s daring to sneak dangerously close to her butt and pluck them out of the earth.
“I thought they’d want us to help or something,” Yvonne said. “Or I thought they’d at least ask us for information.”
“I guess they got it from dispatch,” Deva replied.
Yvonne looked down at the phone in her hand, and then brought it to her ear. “The ambulance is here. The paramedics have taken over.”
The operator offered a word of thanks, but that was that. Why hadn’t she wished them a happy wedding day before hanging up? Maybe she had to stick to a script or maybe she’d forgotten already, but it would have been nice.
Another paramedic came out of nowhere, clearing the sidewalk by asking the crowd to give them space. Yvonne let Deva drag her away, but she said, “I want to know what’s happening. I want to know what’s wrong with him.”
“Me too, but we’ve got a wedding to get to, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Yvonne smiled as one of the joggers asked, “Are you two getting married?”
Well, duh! Why else would they be dressed in a bridal gown and a tux?
Deva said, “Yeah, we’re getting married right now, right down the street. Want to come?”
Yvonne laughed, but Deva was serious.
“No, that’s okay,” the jogger said. “We don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not imposing. We’re inviting you.” Deva looked from the group of joggers to the man with the bicycle girl. “Everybody loves a wedding. And we’re all neighbors. Might as well.”
The dad looked to his little girl and shrugged. “Want to watch the heroes get married?”
Heroes. Yvonne’s heart swelled.
The little girl chewed her hair and bashfully nodded. She whispered to her father, “They’re all dirty.”
“That’s because they just saved a man’s life.”
One of the joggers said, “If they’re coming to the wedding, I wouldn’t mind going.”
“Me too,” another one said.
“Yeah, I love weddings.”
Yvonne looked to Deva. “Should we go home and change first?”
“We’re late enough as it is.” Deva gave her an obvious once over—her dress was a disaster, but so was Deva’s tux. “And think about it. We’ll always have a story to tell.”
“True.” Yvonne dusted a bit of dirt from her sullied white dress. “Better get a move on, I guess.”
So, hand in hand, they took off down the sidewalk, followed by a train of joggers and a girl on a bicycle kicking up the rear. Yvonne would like to say she never looked back, but that wasn’t entirely true. She did look—to see if the paramedics were carrying Mr. Rosetti into the ambulance. As much as she despised the guy, she couldn’t help w
ondering what happened to him, why he’d lost consciousness. Maybe he’d seen the lesbian brides marching up the sidewalk and fainted dead away.
They’d probably find out through the grapevine at some point in the future. Anyway, they’d devoted enough of their wedding day to him. The rest of the day was all theirs.
Squeezing her bride-to-be’s hand, Yvonne said, “I love you, Dev.”
“I love you, too.”
Deva leaned in and gave her a sweet kiss. As they walked in the sunlight, the crowd behind them cheered. Going to the chapel, and we’re grungy and grass-stained…
FOREVER YOURS, EILEEN
Rebekah Weatherspoon
I’m sitting in a Manhattan diner with my grandson June. He’s named after me and right now he’s driving me nuts. I would have come alone, but I’m waiting for Eileen. It’s been fifteen years since we’ve seen each other, so yes, I’m nervous. Juney offered to be my support today. I wanted to turn him down, but his chatter is distracting me. He came out to me when he was very young. We helped each other, I like to think. He’s the right person to have by my side.
He reaches across the table toward the stack of envelopes I’ve tucked under my arm. I smack his fingers away.
“Ow, Grandma!” He laughs, though.
“You know better than to get all grabby.”
“I can’t believe you save all of these letters.”
It was Mama’s idea initially. Keep all the letters, and one day when we’re old ladies, we can laugh about them. I’m too anxious to laugh now.
I shrug and gaze out the diner window. I think about the pages and pages I have in my hands, and there’s not a second thought about having a choice in the matter. God wanted me to keep the letters. The letters are what got us here.
“Can I please read one?” June asks.
“Fine, but don’t rip it.” I reach down to the bottom and pull out the first envelope. There’s two letters tucked inside, the first letter I ever wrote to Eileen, and the first letter she ever wrote back.
It’s April 1956, and we’re driving away from our home. Mama and Daddy fought for weeks over selling the farm. It was the first piece of anything Granddaddy ever owned. Mama was born in that house, but as Daddy has said a whole heap of times, “The South ain’t what it should be, and it’s time for us to go.” Mama’s upset because Grandma won’t come with us. She’s too old for the Klan to bother her, she says. She moves in with our uncle, who says he’s not scared enough to walk away from his job in Jackson. Daddy calls him a fool, but he understands. My uncle doesn’t have any sons.
I’m only nine, and even though I understand why we’re leaving, I cry all the way to Tennessee. Later, after I have three sons of my own I’m finally able to wrap my mind around my parents’ decision. You do what you have to do for your children. Daddy can fight for himself, but he doesn’t trust his boys in the hands of Jim Crow. All the same, I cry with my head on Fredrick’s shoulder all the way across the state line. I already miss Grandma and our dog Mickey. Mr. Hammond bought him with the farm because he’s good at chasing small creatures that like to tear up the garden. Most of all, I miss Eileen.
She’s my best friend in the world. We met when we were knee-high in Sunday school, and our mamas would joke that it would take the hand of god to pull us little devils apart. The hand of god or my daddy’s determination. Mama said I could write Eileen letters. It would be a great way for me to work on my spelling and my penmanship. Plus I’d have my very own pen pal. And that’s what I did. The minute we got to Brooklyn I wrote Eileen a letter, not caring a lick about my penmanship.
Dear Eileen, I hate it here. The people are weird. There’s no grass and everything smells like gasoline and poop.
My grandson looks up from the paper. He’s about to crumple with laughter. “Brooklyn smelled like poop in the fifties?”
“When you’re used to fresh air everything in the city smells like poop. Do you want to read the letter or do you want to make fun of me?”
He laughs again. “Sorry. I’ll be good.”
It takes forever for me to hear back from Eileen, but her first letter is the first bright spot in our move. We come all this way and Fredrick gets beat up on his first day of school. George gets mussed up trying to help him. It takes Daddy forever to find work. Almost four months go by with the five of us living in my cousin’s living room. Mama is cleaning rooms at this lousy hotel. She’s exhausted every time she comes home, but she’s always looking on the bright side. We finally get our own place, and the last day I’m helping Mama pack up our things, the mailman brings Eileen’s letter.
Dear Juney, Sorry it took me so long to write back. I was waiting for something juicy to happen so I’d have some news. Nothing happened. Mama said you all were smart to leave. I asked her if we could move to Brooklyn too even though you said it was bad, but she said no.
“I can’t handle how adorable this letter is,” my grandson says.
I shrug again. “We were adorable kids.”
“Are you nervous?”
“No.”
“Well, you look fly, Grandma.”
I glance down at my leather jacket and my matching boots. June helped picked out my jeans. He keeps me young. Finally I smile. “Thanks, baby.”
“Let me read one more.” I fish out the last letter I sent in junior high school. After that Eileen and I both start to mature, and there’s things your grandchild doesn’t need to know.
I write to her about Mrs. Stein and how she’s invited me to take her ballet classes. Mama is wary at first, but after Mrs. Stein explains that her dream of dancing again is what got her through the war, Mama knows I’m in good hands. I hear people aren’t so happy about her teaching mixed classes, but no one tries to stop her. I tell Eileen everything I’m learning, all the French terms. I promise I’ll show her if we get to see each other again. When she writes back, she promises we will.
She writes me about the etiquette classes they started offering at the church and how her mama is making her go after she caught Eileen wiping her hands on the back of her sister’s dress.
Our junior year in high school, Eileen writes me about her first boyfriend. Mama won’t let me date. Some of my friends at school have steadies, but I think they are all jokers and my friends are silly for mooning over them. I want to think that maybe Eileen will shed some light on the appeal of liking a boy, but as I read her letter I find something other than curiosity rising in my mind.
It’s a strange thing, Juney. I thought it would be different. Clara Winston and her boyfriend are always pawing at each other, but Harry doesn’t want to neck or anything. He’s going to college in the fall and he wants to be a doctor. I asked why he’s not trying to get in my pants, and he said a gentleman waits until he’s married. How sweet is that? I think that’s why I like him. He’s smart and he’s going places and he listens to me when I talk. It’s not a game of grabby hands when we’re together. We did kiss, though. It was nice.
She sounds happy in the letter, and I’m happy for her, but later when I reread those particular pages I realize how jealous I was. I wait a while before I write back. I tell Mama about Eileen’s boyfriend. She assures me it won’t last. “It’s just young love, Juney. He’ll move on when he goes off to school.”
“But you and Daddy met when you were young,” I remind her.
“And I was the only girl around who wasn’t bucktoothed or his cousin.” She’s teasing to make me feel better. When I finally answer Eileen’s letter, I ask an obnoxious number of questions about Harry. When she writes back she tells me she’s sorry for talking about him so much. I think she means it.
After a time, I finally see Eileen again. I’ve finished my third year at SUNY and she’s finished her third year at Spelman. The government’s just sent Fredrick’s body back to us from Vietnam. Mama’s a mess and she makes George promise he’ll dodge if his number comes up. Daddy doesn’t argue. I do what I can to hold it together, but I fall apart when I call Eileen. I can
’t wait for her reply in a letter. She lets me sob in her ear for as long as Daddy will let me be on the phone.
I come unhinged again when she shows up with her daddy at the funeral. She holds my hand the whole time, and I think that’s the moment I realize I love her. I can’t put it into words yet, but the warmth of her fingers is the first real comfort I’ve felt since we left Mississippi. I don’t want her to leave, but of course she does. Her daddy can only miss so much work.
The following Christmas, Harry proposes to her. She calls me. I convince her that I’m happy for them. We all go down for the wedding that spring. Fredrick’s with us too because a year later the war is still going strong and the cloud of his death hasn’t lifted. Eileen looks beautiful. I can’t keep my eyes off her, and I let the joy of seeing her and the comfort of being home get me through the day. I’m cordial to Harry, genuinely grateful that he does seem like a nice man. On the trip back to New York, I cry again. I tell Mama I miss Fred.
Back in Brooklyn I quickly find that I make a good secretary, but I make an even better dancer. I ask Mrs. Rosenbaum, Mrs. Stein’s daughter, if she’ll let me teach a class at her studio. She says yes. I meet Walter on the bus one night on my way back from class. He’s new to the city from Boston. He likes that I still have traces of my accent. He walks me all the way home one night and many more nights after. He asks Daddy if he can marry me. I beg Daddy to say yes, not because I love Walter, but because I know I’m supposed to. Daddy says yes.
I call Eileen to tell her the news. She tells me she’s pregnant. I think we both pretend to be happy for each other. We keep writing to each other. I actually find that her pregnancy mends things I didn’t realize were broken. She focuses on the baby now and not Harry or her church friends. I like hearing about her joys and her fears of being a mother. She’s too far along to come to our wedding, but I send her a few pictures and she sends us pictures of her baby girl.