Significant Others

by Armistead Maupin

  She didn’t give a damn, really. She was more content now than she’d been in ages, and she was being paid handsomely for it. Her bed time with Booter had totaled less than two hours so far, and his requirements had been reasonable and few.

  Besides, she liked the old buzzard.

  “Where is it?” she asked him when he arrived for his third visit. It was late afternoon and they were standing on the porch.

  “Where’s what?”

  “You know. This mystical scout camp of yours. Point it out to me.”

  He gestured vaguely off to the left. “You can’t really see it from here. It’s a sort of bowl. You can only see it from Bohemian property. That’s the beauty of it.”

  She gave him a teasing look. “When you’re plotting world domination.”

  He smiled thinly and shook his head.

  “Don’t you swim in the river?” she asked.

  “Sure. That part down there with the platform. We call it the swimming pool.”

  She followed his finger to a gray pier, a row of tented changing rooms. “Those teeny little people … they’re Bohemians?”

  He nodded.

  “They don’t look very Bohemian from here.”

  He chuckled. “And even less so close up.”

  She laughed. “And there are no girls allowed?”

  “Not during the encampment.”

  “I bet I could get in.” This made him flinch a little, so she added: “Not that I would, of course.”

  “The gate guards are pretty smart,” he said.

  “I’d swim the river,” she said. “I’d wait until it got dark and I’d swim the river naked, with my clothes in a plastic bag. Then I’d—”

  “I hope you’re not serious.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “I like making you nervous, Boo-Roger.”

  His relief was evident. “I don’t know you that well,” he said. “I don’t know when you’re joking.”

  “I was right, though, wasn’t I?”

  “About what?”

  “Getting in. That beach is your weak flank.”

  He shrugged. “You’d still be a woman. You couldn’t do much about that. You’d be spotted the first time you showed your face.”

  She smiled as cryptically as possible.

  “How about a drink?” said Booter.

  “You’re on,” said Wren.

  She left him there in the dwindling light and went to the kitchen, returning minutes later with a couple of Scotch and waters.

  “Thank you,” said Booter.

  She clinked her glass against his. “I’m a helluva gal.”

  He smiled faintly, then turned his gaze back to the river. “So it’s … back to Chicago after this?”

  “Yep.”

  “You like it there?”

  “I adore it,” she said.

  “What about San Francisco?”

  “What about it?”

  “Did you like it?”

  She shrugged. “It was O.K.”

  “Just O.K.?”

  She laughed. “Good God!”

  “What?”

  “You’re all alike here.”

  “How so?” he asked.

  “You demand adoration for the place. You’re not happy until everybody swears undying love for every nook and cranny of every precious damn—”

  “Whoa, missy.”

  “Well, it’s true. Can’t you just worship it on your own? Do I have to sign an affidavit?”

  He chuckled. “We’re that bad, are we?”

  “You bet your ass you are.”

  He swirled the ice in his glass, then took a gulp and set the glass down on the porch railing. “You have a … uh … beau back in Chicago?”

  “Sure,” she replied.

  “Nice fellow?”

  She smiled at him. “Don’t know any other kind.”

  He nodded. “Good.” The light in his eyes seemed almost paternal.

  “He’s Cuban,” she added, just to catch his response. It showed in the set of his mouth, a brief involuntary twitch of the mustache. “Thought so,” she said, smiling slightly.

  “What?”

  “You’re a bigot.”

  His jaw became rigid.

  “It’s O.K.,” she said, wiggling his fleshy old earlobe. “It’s your generation, that’s all. Tell me what your wife is like.”

  He was thrown off balance for a moment.

  “Do you like her?” she asked.

  “She’s a fine lady,” he said finally. “She drinks a little too much, but she’s … very nice.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “That she drinks?”

  She made a goofy face at him. “That you like her. That she likes you.”

  “Oh, we’re friends,” he said. “Most of the time.”

  “Amazing. After … how many years of marriage?”

  He smiled. “Almost two.”

  She laughed. “C’mon.”

  “We were next-door neighbors for thirty years,” he explained. “We were married to other people, but … they died. So it made sense.”

  “Were you in love when you were still married to the other people?”

  “We aren’t in love now,” he said.

  She nodded. “But she’s still your significant other.”

  He gave her a blank look.

  “Your spouse and/or lover and/or best buddy.”

  “Somewhere in there,” he said.

  They laughed in unison, creating a momentary intimacy which seemed to unsettle him as much as it did her. “Actually,” he said, shaking his drink, “I was closer to her husband.”

  “Oh?” She arched an eyebrow at him.

  “Nothing like that,” he said.

  She aped his expression, looking stern and jowly. “No, of course not.”

  “He was in my camp,” said Booter, “down at the Grove.”

  Wren gazed down at the distant swimming platform, conjuring up the happy couple, genial and spider-browed, stretched out platonically on the gray wood.

  “He was a good man,” Booter added.

  Wren nodded.

  “He died about ten years ago. He brought a mistress here himself. He told me so.”

  “I’m not your mistress,” said Wren.

  “No,” said Booter. “I meant …”

  “That her first husband fucked around too.”

  “Yes,” he said meekly.

  “Does she know?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did your first wife know?”

  “No.” He looked decidedly uncomfortable. “This hasn’t been a regular thing.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s just that … when I saw you—”

  “I know,” she said, cutting him off, “and I’m the kinda gal who takes that as a compliment.” He gave her a hapless look.

  “Lighten up,” she said. “We understand each other.”

  Up a Creek

  HONEY-BLOND MEADOWS FLEW PAST THEM IN A BLUR as the VW left the freeway and headed west toward the river. Michael and Brian were in the front seat; Thack was in the back. This unromantic arrangement had been Thack’s doing, since he had climbed in first, but Michael had chosen not to take it personally.

  “Well,” said Brian, out of the blue. “Mary Ann wasn’t exactly thrilled.”

  “About what?” asked Michael, playing it safe. As agreed, he’d said nothing to Thack about Geordie.

  “This trip,” said Brian. “I didn’t give her much notice.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m gonna miss Entertainment Tonight.”

  Michael didn’t get it. “Can’t you tape it?”

  “No, I mean … I’m gonna miss being on it.”

  Thack leaned forward. “You were gonna be on Entertainment Tonight?”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” said Michael, even more impressed than Thack.

  Brian shrugged. “She was gonna be on it. I was just gonna be there. Part of her goddamn persona.”

&nbs
p; “Hey,” said Michael. “Ease up.”

  “That’s what she said. Persona is exactly the word she used.”

  “Well …”

  “Your wife is in show business?” asked Thack.

  “She’s got her own talk show,” Michael explained.

  “That’s great,” said Thack, turning to Brian. “What sort?”

  “The regular sort,” said Brian. His tone was colorless, bordering on hostile.

  “She’s good,” said Michael, trying to keep it light. “She got some major dish out of Bette Midler….”

  “What about here?” Thack pointed to the side of the road.

  “What?” asked Michael.

  “We’re off the freeway. Let’s put the top down.”

  “Oh … right. Good idea.” Michael swung off the road into the dusty parking lot of a fruit stand.

  “I could use something cold,” said Thack. “How ‘bout you guys?”

  “Sure,” said Michael. “Apple juice or something.”

  “Yeah.” Brian nodded. “Fine.”

  “I’ll get ’em,” said Thack. “You get the top.” He slid out from behind Michael’s seat and strode toward the fruit stand.

  Michael turned and looked at Brian. “You O.K.?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This was a rotten idea, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you don’t seem to be having a good time.”

  “Would you be?” Brian wouldn’t look at him. “This was gonna be our time, man. I mean, this guy is perfectly nice, don’t get me wrong….”

  “I’m really sorry,” said Michael.

  “Don’t be. I can handle it.”

  It didn’t look that way to Michael. “I thought this would work out great. He likes you, Brian … I mean, he seems to. And you seem to like him.”

  “C’mon. He likes you a helluva lot more than he likes me.” He threw up his hand in a gesture of resignation. “That’s cool. I’m a fag hag. I can handle it.”

  Michael laughed. “Stop it.”

  Brian offered him a game smile. “I just don’t wanna be in the way.”

  “C’mon.”

  “Well, you guys are an item.”

  “Says who?” asked Michael, nursing the faint hope that Thack had told Brian as much when he, Michael, had run back to the house for his sunglasses.

  “Well … I just assumed.”

  “We don’t all go to bed with each other, Brian.”

  Brian shrugged. “This one looks like he might.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Another shrug. “I can tell with you guys.”

  “Oh, yeah?” It amused him that Brian considered himself an expert on fags—prided himself on it, in fact. “Wrong again, Kemo Sabe.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “This is strictly brotherly.”

  “O.K.”

  “Maybe even sisterly, for all I know.” There hadn’t, after all, been so much as a peck on the cheek the night before.

  Thack returned with the juice. “Nice job,” he said, handing them the bottles.

  “Of what?” asked Michael.

  “Taking the top down.”

  Michael grimaced. “Oh, fuck.” He set down his juice and reached for the chrome clamps at the top of the windshield. “We started talking and …” Standing up, he pushed back the accordion roof until it fell into place of its own weight.

  “Sunshine,” said Thack, vaulting into the back seat.

  “Hey,” Brian said to him, “why don’t you let me get back there?”

  “I’m fine,” came the reply.

  “You sure? It’s kinda cramped, isn’t it?”

  “No. Really. It’s great. I can stretch out and look up at the redwoods.”

  “It’s not much further,” said Michael, disassociating himself from Brian’s effort to remedy things.

  When they reached Guerneville, Michael announced: “Here it is, boys—our humble tribute to Fire Island.”

  Thack, who’d been recumbent in the back seat, sat up with telling suddenness and scanned the men along the main drag. Seeing this in the mirror, Michael felt some distant cousin of jealousy, nasty but manageable, like a paper cut on the finger.

  “I came up here once,” said Brian, “to the jazz festival.”

  Michael turned and smiled at him. Sterile or not, this man was breeder through and through. “Best of Breeder,” he had called him once. Surely there were gay men somewhere who revered jazz, but Michael didn’t know any.

  “Do they get good people?” asked Thack.

  “Brubeck,” said Brian. “I saw Brubeck here.”

  “No shit,” said Thack.

  Brian said: “Tell Michael how good he is. Michael hates him.”

  “I don’t hate him,” said Michael.

  “He hates him,” said Brian.

  “I like tunes,” said Michael. “Call me crazy, but that’s the way I am.”

  Thack kept his eyes on the sidewalk. “This is a nice town.”

  “It’s too much like Castro Street,” said Michael, mouthing the stock criticism. It wasn’t really true, but he resented the place for consuming so much of Thack’s attention. “I’m glad we’re gonna be out a ways.”

  “Where is Casanova?” asked Thack.

  “Cazadero,” said Michael. “We follow this road along the river until we get a few miles past Monte Rio. Then we hang a right and follow Austin Creek for a few more miles. We’re at the mercy of Charlie’s map.”

  “We’ll find it,” said Thack.

  What they found was a smallish, newly built structure in the redwoods along Austin Creek. Its siding was plywood, the front door was aluminum, and the main room was paneled with the sort of pregrooved faux walnut used in rumpus rooms the world over.

  Michael’s heart sank. The yawning stone fireplace he’d envisioned had been usurped by a hooded atrocity built of shiny orange metal. There was a comfortable sofa (herringbone corduroy, obviously late seventies) and a decent bathroom, but the place was nowhere near the stuff of fantasy.

  And nowhere near big enough.

  “Where’s the bedroom?” asked Brian.

  “Let’s see,” said Michael, his depression mounting.

  “You’re lookin’ at it,” said Thack. “That sofa converts, I think, and there are two studio couches.”

  Brian gave Michael an accusatory glance. “Did you ask Charlie whether …”

  “Yeah,” said Michael, “of course. He said he was sure it had at least three rooms.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Thack. “This room, the kitchen and the bathroom.”

  “Shit,” said Michael.

  Brian looked around. “We can put a studio couch in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Michael.

  “This’ll be fine,” said Thack. “There’s plenty of room for all of us.” He peered out the aluminum-frame window. “There’s a great view of the creek.”

  Michael looked over Brian’s shoulder. “Yeah. It’s really … close.” Even closer were a rusting pink trailer and another prefab cabin, slightly more soulless than theirs. “I fucked up, guys. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey,” said Brian.

  Thack just shrugged it off. “We’ve got a fire,” he said brightly. “A place to swim. Big trees. Good company. I’m happy.”

  They unloaded the car in silence. Then Brian stretched out on the sofa while Michael and Thack made an exploratory trek to the edge of the creek. When they returned, their roommate was fast asleep and snoring.

  “Hey,” whispered Thack. “Let’s take some beers to the creek.”

  “What beers?” asked Michael, increasingly disturbed by Thack’s chatty-fratty demeanor.

  “Check the fridge,” said Thack.

  Michael did; there were two six-packs of Oly inside. A minor consolation, but a welcome one.

  Back at the creek, Thack said: “Hunkering.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what this is called in the South.”

&n
bsp; “They still call it that, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Thack kicked off his loafers and rolled up the cuffs of his khakis. “I know lots of gay boys who are hunkering fools.”

  Michael followed Thack’s example, doffing his Adidas, finding a flat place on a sunny rock, sliding his pale feet into water which was surprisingly warm.

  Thack handed him a cold Oly. “It isn’t officially hunkering until the beer is in the hand.”

  “Right,” said Michael.

  From neighboring rocks, they lifted their bottles in unison. “To the woods,” said Thack.

  “To the woods,” said Michael.

  The beer and blazing sunshine lulled them like a finger on the belly of a lizard. After a long silence, Thack said: “How did you two meet?”

  “Me and Brian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well … he used to live in my building. Him and his wife both. I’ve known them since they were Swinging Singles.”

  Thack smiled. “What’s she like?”

  Michael thought for a moment. “Perky. Sweet. Ambitious. Too serious about the eighties.”

  “Oh.”

  “It doesn’t bother me. She was just as serious about the seventies.”

  “Are you friends with her?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Michael. “Not as much as I used to be, but … well, I see her off and on.” He trailed his fingers in the water.

  Thack skinned off his T-shirt. His chest was white-skinned and pink-nippled, distractingly defined. Michael caught the briefest whiff of his sweat as the T-shirt went over his head.

  “Something’s bothering Brian,” said Thack.

  “Why?”

  “Well … I think I must rub him the wrong way.”

  “No, you don’t. He likes you. He told me so.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes.”

  Thack took a sip of his Oly. “I like him too, actually. I wish there were more straight guys like him.”

  “He’s fighting with Mary Ann,” said Michael, telling a medium-sized white lie. “He gets a little weird when they fight.” That was certainly true enough. “He’s a great guy most of the time. Funny, generous …”

  “Hot,” said Thack.

  Michael felt the sting of that paper cut again. “Yeah, I guess so.”