Significant Others

by Armistead Maupin

  “You guess so?”

  “Well, I’ve known him such a long time. We’re more like brothers or something. I know he’s good-looking, but I really don’t think of him that way.”

  He was jealous, he realized suddenly. He was actually jealous of Brian.

  Campfire Tales

  DRIFTING BACK INTO CONSCIOUSNESS, BRIAN STIRRED on the sofa. The corduroy gave off a faint aroma of mildew, which tingled in his nostrils. He could hear a noisy bird behind the house and Michael’s laughter down by the creek.

  He wasn’t sure whether he’d been there for thirty minutes or three hours. The headache that had nagged him on the road had subsided somewhat, but the spot in his gut was still burning. He was hot all over, in fact, and his mouth tasted foul.

  His tongue made its usual rounds, searching for raw spots that hadn’t been there earlier. Finding nothing, he propped himself up on his elbows and gazed out toward the creek. Michael and Thack were still sunning on the rocks.

  Brian found his shaving kit and dragged himself into the bathroom. He splashed water on his face, then brushed his teeth, then examined his face in the mirror. His grinding fatigue had made itself known in charcoal smudges under his eyes.

  He left the house and walked down to the creek. The guys didn’t see him approaching, so he hollered: “How ‘bout some grub, men?”

  “We gotta go shopping,” Michael answered.

  “That’s what I meant. I’ll do it. Tell me what you want.”

  Thack sat up. “Great.”

  “Take the car,” said Michael.

  “Nah,” said Brian. “I need the exercise. Whatcha want?”

  “Hot dogs,” Thack replied, “and baked beans and nachos … and stuff for a salad.”

  “And Diet Pepsi,” Michael added. “You know where the store is?”

  “Yeah,” said Brian.

  “We’ll get a fire going,” said Thack. “We thought we should cook out.”

  “Good,” said Brian.

  He left them and headed toward the Cazadero road. It was late afternoon now. Dusty shards of sunlight pierced the redwoods along the creek. As he walked, a family of quail scurried to avoid him. A blue-bellied lizard flickered like a gas flame, then dove into a mossy woodpile, extinguishing itself.

  With a mission in mind, he felt better already, picking up his pace as he passed the little green-and-white frame church that marked the edge of the village. By the time he’d reached the Cazadero General Store, he was calmer than he’d been in days.

  After assembling the food they needed (plus a Sara Lee lemon cake for dessert), he waited in a short line at the cash register. The woman in front of him—huge breasts, huge hips, startling green eyes—turned and smiled warmly.

  “Dinner?”

  He looked down at the contents of his red plastic shopping basket. “Yeah. We’re gonna cook out.”

  Her emerald eyes widened. “We?”

  “My buddies and me.”

  “Ah.” Without actually smiling, her full mouth registered amusement at some private joke. Something about her seemed familiar, but he was positive they’d never met. He would have remembered for sure.

  He looked around the store. “This place is handy. It’s got a little bit of everything.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Doesn’t it?”

  There was flirtation in her tone, but he pretended not to notice. What was left of his libido had been beaten into cowering submission. He had never gone for such a long time without being horny.

  The woman paid for her purchases and left. As the clerk tallied his bill, Brian peered out the doorway in time to see her cop another glance in his direction.

  Grinning, she fluttered her long pink fingernails at him, then climbed into a white sedan and drove away.

  Thack had found firewood under a plastic sheet behind the house, but there wasn’t enough for a big fire, so Michael foraged for flotsam along the creek.

  When he returned to the cabin, Thack was hunched over his fire, blowing on a stack of crisscrossed twigs. The sky was still indigo, but here beneath the trees, darkness had come early. The light of the fire cast a coppery glow on Thack’s pale features.

  Michael laid the wood down. “Your faggots, milord.”

  “Aye, and fine faggots they are.” He smiled. “This isn’t illegal, is it?”

  “What?”

  “Building a fire.”

  Michael shrugged. “Someone’s obviously done it here before.”

  “Right,” said Thack, feeding a dry branch to the flames. “Good enough for me.” He looked up at Michael and smiled again—fire builder to wood gatherer—and Michael smiled back. It was a moment of prehistoric domesticity. Words would probably have ruined it.

  A nearly full moon looked down on them as Michael finished off his salad. “We should’ve done baked potatoes,” he said. “You know … in mud.”

  Brian said: “When did you ever bake a potato in mud?”

  “When I was a scout.”

  “You were a scout?” asked Thack, sounding a little too amazed.

  “I was an Eagle,” he replied. “Thank you very much.”

  “So was I,” said Thack.

  “Really?”

  Thack nodded.

  “I never made it past Tenderfoot,” said Brian. “I hated it.”

  “Why?” asked Michael.

  “Well, it was fascist, for one thing. We had a belt line at my troop. You know, where we all took off our belts and whipped this other guy’s butt while he ran past us.”

  “That’s not fascist,” Thack said dryly. “That’s all-American.”

  Michael threw another log on the fire. “I hated it too. I did it, but I hated it. My father had been an Eagle, so damned if I wasn’t gonna be one too.”

  “I liked camping trips,” said Brian. “I liked that part.”

  Thack nodded. “Same here.”

  “I went to Philmont,” said Michael. “You know … that Explorer camp in New Mexico?”

  Both Thack and Brian shook their heads.

  “Well … anyway, it was a big deal. Guys went there from all over. It was a big deal for me, anyway. I found out about love.”

  “Oh, God,” groaned Brian.

  Thack chuckled.

  “I was fourteen,” Michael said, “and my Explorer troop went on this two-week trip to Philmont. We went by bus, and we stayed at army bases along the way….”

  “What did I tell ya?” said Brian. “Fascist.”

  Thack laughed, then turned back to Michael, waiting for him to continue.

  “They fed us army food, and we bunked in barracks buildings, and went to movies at base theaters, and … God, I’ll never forget those soldiers as long as I live. Most of them were just four or five years older than I was, but … vive la différence.”

  Thack said: “Vive la similarité.”

  Brian laughed.

  “It was total fantasy,” Michael continued. “I wouldn’t have had the slightest idea what to do. But … it got my engines going. I was hornier than a two-peckered goat by the time I got to Philmont.”

  “Isn’t he quaint?” said Brian, turning to Thack.

  “One night,” said Michael, ignoring them, “we were camped in this canyon, and there was this hellacious hailstorm, which knocked down our tents and got everything wet, so we were more or less adopted by this group of older scouts—”

  “Wait a minute,” said Thack, grinning. “Didn’t I read this in First Hand?”

  “First what?” said Brian.

  Michael ignored them. “So … we went over to the other camp, and dried off in front of the fire, and this older scout shared his poncho with me. He put his arm across my shoulders, and I sort of … leaned against him.” He stared into the firelight, remembering this.

  “And?” said Brian.

  “And … I just leaned against him. It was the most comfortable, wonderful, amazing thing….”

  “That’s it?” said Thack, joining in the torment.

/>   Brian looked at Thack. “Pretty scorching stuff.”

  Michael scowled at them both. “You had to be there.” He picked up a stick and used it to rearrange the embers. “That’s all anybody wants, isn’t it? That feeling of being safe with somebody.” Hideously embarrassed, he looked at Brian, then at Thack, and dropped the stick into the fire.

  Later, back at the house, the three of them went about their separate rituals of ablution, passing each other like salesmen in a boardinghouse, toothbrushes in hand, unnaturally formal. Brian went to bed first, falling asleep almost instantly on one of the studio couches. Thack stripped to his underwear and took the other couch, leaving Michael with the convertible sofa, which he didn’t bother to convert.

  He slept fitfully, awaking just before dawn. Thack was still asleep under his blanket, breathing heavily. Brian stood across the room in his boxer shorts, awkward and disoriented as a wounded bear.

  “You O.K.?” Michael whispered.

  Brian held up a corner of his sheet. “Look at this,” he said. It was drenched with sweat.

  “There’s fresh linen in that cedar chest,” said Michael. “I’ll just get—”

  “What the fuck’s happening, man?”

  Michael took a sheet from the chest and flung it over the studio couch. “Lie down,” he said.

  “Look, Michael …”

  “Go on. Lie down.”

  Brian lay on his stomach. Michael blotted his back with the wet sheet, then kneaded the knotty muscles above his shoulder blades. There was a moment of deceptive quiet before Brian began to sob into the cushions.

  “Hush,” whispered Michael. “It’s O.K…. It’s O.K.”

  DeDe’s Duty

  DAY BROKE AT WIMMINWOOD. DEDE WAS THE FIRST IN her family to stir, rubbing her eyes until they focused on the smooth green ribbon of river, the shimmering willows along the shore. She slipped free from the comfy entanglement of D’or’s arms and eased herself out of the sleeping bag.

  She sat there naked for a while, hugging her knees, listening to the wrens in the madrone trees. As much as she treasured D’or and the kids, she couldn’t help savoring a moment when the world was all hers.

  Things had gone beautifully, so far. Edgar had acclimated instantly to Brother Sun, displaying a knack for communal living which had dazzled even Laurie, his overseer. When his NCQ, (Non-Competitive Quotient) was measured, he had beaten the socks off all the other kids in the compound.

  DeDe, D’orothea and Anna had sampled most of the wonders of Wimminwood. They had played New Games, learned to face-paint, and splashed in the river like overheated ponies. The night before, with a thousand other women, they had sprawled on their backs under the stars while Hunter Davis sang to them:

  You ‘re the perfect match / for the imperfect me / coming on when I hold back / holding back when I come on / and darling I love you.

  Hearing those lyrics, DeDe had turned and gazed at the miraculous planes of her lover’s face, the bottomless black eyes tilted toward the moon.

  Then, almost instinctively, she had reached for her daughter’s hand, so small and silky-cool in the evening air.

  She was happy, she realized. She had everything she wanted. D’or had been right about Wimminwood.

  They ate breakfast, as usual, in the open-air vegetarian “chow hall.” Food servers clad only in aprons and boots, all four cheeks ruddy from the grills, plopped mounds of steaming oatmeal onto their plates, ordering stragglers to “move it, please, move it.”

  They found a place at a picnic table with three other people. “Listen,” said D’or, digging into her oatmeal, “Anna and me thought we’d go visit Edgar, then maybe check out the Crafts Tent.”

  DeDe looked at her daughter. “Shopping again, huh?”

  “D’or said it’s O.K.”

  “We have a limited need for stoneware, you know.”

  Anna made her grumpy face.

  “The same goes for tattoos, temporary or otherwise.”

  The little girl shot D’or an accusatory glance. “Did you tell her?”

  D’or acted as negotiator with DeDe. “Maybe just a little one, huh? Femme. Something in Laura Ashley.”

  DeDe laughed in spite of herself. “Well, you’re the culprit if it doesn’t wash off.”

  “Yay!” crowed Anna. The child was a chronic shopaholic, DeDe realized. Like her grandmother. Like DeDe herself back in her post-debutante, pre-People’s Temple days. Was it something in the genes?

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” asked D’or.

  “No,” said DeDe. “My work duty is this afternoon, so I’m gonna goof off for a while.”

  “Go to a workshop,” said D’or. “I might,” said DeDe.

  “There’s one just made for you in Area Five.”

  “What?”

  D’or’s lip curled mischievously. “Check it out. Ten o’clock. Area Five.”

  Alone again, DeDe stood at the bulletin board and considered her options:

  9:00–10:00 CRYSTAL WORKSHOP: Cleaning and caring for quartz crystals. How to use different crystals for healing, dreaming and meditation. Mariposa Weintraub, facilitator. Area 8.

  9:00–10:00 BODY AND FACIAL HAIR: In slides, stories and song. Bonnie Moran, facilitator. Area 3.

  9:30–11:00 YOUR DIET COLA IS OPPRESSING ME: How the patriarchy kills fat wimmin through dieting and harassment. Sandra Takeshita, facilitator. Area 4.

  10:00–11:00 DOWRY DYKES SUPPORT GROUP: A chance for wimmin with money to share with each other their feelings about the personal and political issues connected with inherited wealth. Leticia Reynolds, facilitator. Area 5.

  Dowry Dyke, huh? So that’s what she was. Finally, she had an identity.

  She was still smiling at D’or’s little joke when a woman next to her made a snorting noise. “What do you do if you’re not hairy, fat or rich?” She herself was young, lean and tomboyish.

  DeDe smiled at her sympathetically. “Something with crystals, I guess.”

  “Yeah.” The tomboy scuffed the ground with the toe of her loafers.

  “Have you been to one yet?” DeDe asked.

  “What? A workshop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I went to the pottery one yesterday.”

  “How was it?” asked DeDe.

  “Disgustingly PC. It’s called ‘The Herstory of Pots.’ ”

  “Forget it,” said DeDe.

  “Our facilitator kept talking about the Hispanic influence on pottery, and finally I said, Don’t you mean ‘Herspanic'? and she looked at me like I’d just pissed in the punchbowl.”

  DeDe laughed.

  “I told her, Pardon me but I gotta go … I’m late for my hersterectomy.”

  DeDe giggled. “Did you really?”

  “No.” She ducked her head in the most beguiling way. “I thought of that later.”

  “Esprit de l’escalier,” said DeDe.

  “What?”

  “It’s just an expression. For thinking of things later.”

  “Oh.”

  They looked at each other sheepishly, both at a loss for words.

  “Have you been to many of the concerts?” the young woman asked at last.

  “Hunter Davis,” said DeDe. “Kate Clinton.”

  “Wasn’t Kate Clinton a riot? Your little girl is gorgeous, by the way.”

  DeDe was confused.

  “I saw you there with her,” the woman explained.

  “Oh … I see.”

  “I’m Polly Berendt.” She extended her hand.

  DeDe shook it. “DeDe Halcyon.”

  “Is that … uh … swarthy woman your lover?”

  DeDe nodded, wondering how closely they’d been watched. “This is our first festival,” she said, moving artfully from the specific to the general. “How ‘bout you?”

  “First one,” said Polly, toeing the ground again. “Got off work for it, even.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I work in a nursery. Plant Parenthood.”
r />   “Oh,” said DeDe. “Michael Tolliver’s place.”

  “You know him?”

  “Well, he’s sort of a friend of a friend. His lover delivered my kids.”

  “Jon?”

  DeDe nodded. “Sweet guy. Did you know him?”

  “No,” said Polly. “He was … before my time.” She paused. “You don’t shop there, though. I would’ve remembered.”

  DeDe wondered if she was blushing. Even before this strategic compliment, she’d been mildly distracted by Polly’s freckled cheeks and white teeth, the sun-gilded down on her forearms. “Actually,” she said, “we don’t live in the city. We’re down on the Peninsula. In Hillsborough.”

  Polly nodded slowly, taking it in. “That’s pretty swanky, isn’t it?”

  “Well … parts of it.”

  “Are you a Dowry Dyke?”

  DeDe laughed. “Not if I don’t go to that workshop.”

  Polly smiled at her. “Wanna go for a walk instead?”

  Their hour-long odyssey took them through most of the subdivisions at Wimminwood, through the chemical-free and chemical-tolerant communities, through the zone for the loud-and-rowdy, the zone for the differently abled, the zone for sober support. “God,” said Polly when they reached the riverbank, “it’s a wonder they don’t issue us fuckin’ visas or something.”

  “I suppose it makes things easier,” said DeDe, paying lip service to D’or’s argument. She wasn’t used to dealing with someone so unapologetically incorrect.

  Polly’s brown eyes wandered to the end of the beach, where a woman was sunning in the nude. “You ever take your shirt off?” she asked.

  “No,” said DeDe. “Not really. No.”

  “Why not?”

  DeDe shrugged. “My lover and I discussed it. We just don’t think it’s necessary. We don’t need to prove anything to anybody.”

  Polly looked at her sideways, then skipped a flat stone on the water. “Chicken,” she said.

  Having lost track of the time, DeDe left Polly in haste just before noon. She ran the last hundred yards to her appointed duty post, a large open-sided tent near the entrance to Wimminwood. It was crawling with efficient women in black T-shirts.

  She approached the one she recognized, the cheerful black woman who had greeted them at the gate. “Excuse me, please.”