Watermark

by Karin Kallmaker

  She grabbed her room key, wallet and the five bucks in quarters she'd been given when she checked in. No cost to the hotel — they knew the quarters were headed right for their slot machines. She'd have just enough time to lose them all before she joined up with the others at the rooftop restaurant.

  She had put all of the hotel's quarters into a machine, then dropped another twenty quarters of her own when the machine began ringing wildly and coins clinked out. She was just thinking that gambling was

  easy when she realized her so-called jackpot was four dollars. Crud.

  She was not cut out for gambling. You're too sus¬picious, she told herself. She changed her quarters to bills and headed for the elevator to the restaurant.

  When the doors opened at the top floor her father was there. She landed in his arms with a banshee whoop that would have left Vivian's sensibilities fainting.

  "It's so good to see you," they said in unison.

  "You look great, punkin!"

  She tugged on the beard he'd been cultivating the last two years. "Still growing this sad excuse for facial hair?" He looked great, too. Love agreed with him.

  "I had it trimmed for the occasion," he said with mock dignity.

  "What, with baby nail clippers? That took all of two seconds."

  "You have no respect for your elders."

  "I do so. I just don't have any —"

  "— respect for you," he chimed in. "Ha ha ha. Mel and Ken are at the table. Come on. Beliave."

  She'd met Melanie last Christmas, when she'd flown down to L.A. to spend winter break with her father. She'd liked the older woman well enough, but would have made more of an effort to be welcoming if she'd realized Melanie meant so much to her dad. Melanie had a steady, gray gaze that shone with humor. She was carefully made up, but not at all in the same league as Vivian in terms of fussy precision. Her lightweight knit set made Teresa very glad she had taken the time to wear something nice.

  "You remember Mel, of course. And this is Ken."

  Ken, Melanie's son, rose to shake her hand. He

  was roughly her own age and several inches taller. Teresa immediately disliked him. Don't be silly, she chastised herself. First impressions can be very wrong. So his handshake was a little damp and limp and his mouth turned down slightly with an air of long-suffering. So his eyes held none of his mother's humor. He had a nice mom — how bad could he be?

  Her father held her chair for her, then said with a laugh, "I almost introduced Reese as my best girl. But that was going to get me into trouble."

  "You're going to have to come up with another way to introduce me, Dad." She grinned at Melanie. "He can be a little slow."

  "Reese?"

  "Yeah, Dad?" She studied her menu.

  "Shup."

  "Okay," she said, adding in a stage whisper, "At least until after the wedding."

  Melanie laughed. Now Teresa remembered one of the reasons she'd liked Melanie — she found as much to laugh about as her father did.

  The waiter filled her wineglass and Ken cleared his throat. "I want to propose a toast," he said formally.

  Ken, Teresa decided, did not laugh enough. Maybe she could loosen him up.

  "To my mother," he continued.

  "Hear, hear," her father said. He was watching Ken indulgently. He must have some good qualities, Teresa decided.

  "And to Alan," Ken went on.

  "Hear, hear." Teresa tapped her knife on her wine¬glass for extra effect. Ken stared at her until she stopped. "Sorry," she muttered. "I come from a long line of interrupters." She sat on her hands.

  "You're obviously blessed to have found each other," Ken said. "May you find joy in your life to¬gether and God's gift of happiness."

  Teresa's inner alarms went off. She was too gay not to worry a bit when strangers said something religious. God, if you do exist, please let him not be a Lou Sheldon supporter. I don't really need any cosmic jokes, okay?

  "Thank you, sweetie," Melanie said.

  The restaurant was mellow and the service atten¬tively slow. Her father and Melanie did most of the talking when they weren't dancing.

  She and Ken ate their desserts while Melanie and her father foxtrotted to their hearts' content. After two minutes of silence, Teresa leaned forward with what she hoped was charm and asked Ken what he thought of Las Vegas.

  "I had read they were trying to make the Strip more family-friendly," he said. "I don't see it. I can't think of a single way that gambling could support a family's values."

  "What if the parents are bookies?" The look on Ken's face made her quickly say, "I'm joking, of course."

  "What were your first impressions of Las Vegas?" He was obviously just being polite.

  "That it was hot. I mean, that was my very first impression. This is my first vacation since I left school, so I'm feeling very easy to please. I was amused by the architecture."

  "Your father said you work in a museum."

  She nodded. "It's not one of the big ones, but the collection is unique. We specialize in small art — small sculpture, work on paper. Preliminary sketches, early

  works. We also have one of the best collections of Man Ray." Ken looked a little dazed. "Not very many people know his work. He was an American con¬temporary of Marcel Duchamp — you have probably seen his Nude Descending a Staircase." Thank God, a small nod.

  "Man Ray is primarily known for his dada works and for the innovation of spray-gun painting. .. um, and he did a lot of photographic impressions on sensitized plates."

  "I've never been much of a fan of modern art. I guess I don't understand it."

  "Don't tell my thesis professor, but neither do I." She swallowed hard. "Just another little joke." She cleared her throat. "Very little. Um. Let me guess — you like to know what you're looking at."

  Good lord, was that a hint of a smile? "I guess so. Yes, that's true. A black square with blue lines around it looks like a black square with blue lines around it to me. Not art."

  "How did the black square with blue lines around it make you feel?"

  "Confused."

  Teresa sipped her wine. "Maybe that's what the artist wanted — to make you confused about what art really is."

  It was a smile, lordie lord. "Okay, I can buy that. Now explain fifty-seven of them."

  "Everyone gets in a rut."

  Ken actually grinned and Teresa did a mental happy dance. They could be one jolly family now. "I get it. You're joking again."

  "I do that a lot. I'm my father's daughter."

  "So am I."

  Teresa pantomimed a wide-eyed peek over the table at Ken's lap. "Good disguise."

  The smile disappeared. "I meant that I take after—"

  "After your father." She managed to stop herself. "Sorry. I do that a lot, too. I come from a long line of people who finish other people's sentences."

  "You can't blame genetics for everything."

  Teresa blinked at him. "You're making a joke, aren't you?"

  The man's face was utterly blank. "A very little one.

  "You need an applause sign."

  "You're not the first person to tell me that." He took the last bite of his cheesecake and watched his mother dancing. The expression on his face softened — there was a decent human being under there some¬where, Teresa thought.

  But he doesn't like me, she added. What did that matter to her? Well, after tomorrow they were going to be related, sort of. This would not be the last time she had to spend time with him. It wasn't that he didn't like her, he didn't want to like her. She sus¬pected, why.

  "What else did my father tell you about me?" She kept her smile disingenuous.

  Ken lifted his eyebrows as if he hadn't thought about it. "That you have a Master's degree in art and you live in San Francisco."

  "Actually, it's in fine arts administration. I can draw well, and my computer-assisted design is good, but I'm not the next Picasso." When Ken made no

  comment, she went on, "Did he tell you that m
y mouth often outpaces my brain?"

  His lips twitched. "No, that he didn't mention, but I'm not surprised."

  She gave him a narrow look. "Here's an example. I really should think better of this, but I'll just say it. Why don't you like me?"

  He looked incredulous and guilty. "I barely know you."

  "What you know, you don't like. Look, we're going to be family. I want my dad to be happy. You want your mom to be happy. If there's a problem I'd like to put it behind us so they don't get involved."

  "There's nothing to discuss." He looked in vain at his dessert plate, but no distraction was available there.

  "Just tell me. I think I can guess, anyway."

  He gave her a long, level look. "I don't approve of the homosexual lifestyle."

  Teresa nodded as she resisted the impulse stick him with her fork. "Well," she said slowly, "I don't approve of people who disapprove of millions of other people based solely on an assumption of how they live their lives. So we're even."

  "I believe what my father taught me about the Bible."

  "Funny, I believe what my father taught me about Christian love and tolerance." Their respective parents were headed for the table. Teresa said quickly, "We don't have to like each other. I'll be a pervert, you be a bigot and we'll just leave it at that."

  "That's not what I meant," he hissed.

  "Didn't you?" Teresa forced herself to smile as if she hadn't had such a pleasant conversation in ages. "Let's agree on one thing. Being honest." She added an inane giggle, then said to her father, "You guys look pretty good."

  Melanie dropped into her chair and fanned herself with her napkin. "Your father is smooth."

  "Smooth operator — oops! I wasn't supposed to say that."

  Her father swatted her. "You are a troublemaker. Dance with your old man."

  The slow swing rhythm was easy to follow. It was the first dance he'd ever taught her. Her father quickly asked the question she was dreading. "What do you think of Ken?"

  She tried to be politic. "I'd never peg him for Melanie's son."

  "He is a bit... dry."

  "A-yup."

  "A bit conservative."

  "A-yup."

  "I haven't had a chance to ask him his views on lesbians in the family, but I'm willing to guess he's a bit—"

  "A-yup. You might have warned me."

  "I thought I'd see if your undeniable charm won him over."

  Teresa laughed. "I put my foot in it as usual."

  "Mel tried to raise him properly, but Ken's father is a piece of work. It happens in the best of families."

  "I'm just glad you're straight, Dad. She's the much better catch."

  Her father pulled her close. "You know I love you, punkin."

  "Yeah, I know."

  Ken's voice in her ear startled her. "Mind if I cut in? It looks like both of our parents did a good job with dance lessons."

  Teresa smiled brightly. "Lead me," she said breathily. As her father left the floor, Ken looked as if he regretted his impulse. "Just a little joke," she muttered.

  "Not everything is a joke."

  "It ought to be. Humor keeps the homicide rate down."

  "I didn't come out here to argue." He turned her the same way her father had and she said nothing as she navigated a push-me-pull-you. When they were face to face again, he said, "I don't want you to think I'm a bigot."

  "What would you call it?"

  "I have a right to my opinion and it's based on my faith."

  "That sounds a lot like what those two kids in Wyoming said. Good reasons to beat someone and leave him staked out on a fence post."

  Ken's arms went rigid. "That was a terrible thing and indefensible. I would never condone it."

  "Would you stop it?"

  "Absolutely. You know, you're doing the same thing."

  Teresa stopped dancing. "Let's look at the skyline, shall we?"

  Ken nodded, and they stepped off the dance floor and through the doors that led to a small observation deck. "You think you understand me because I'm Christian."

  "Not because you're Christian, but because you

  pre-judged me." She turned her back to the silhouette of two pyramids and a Roman temple. "I get up every day. I go to work, do my laundry, scrub the sink. I pay my taxes. I go to the movies. To the library. Some¬times I go out with friends. I'm just hoping to meet someone who will make me happy. Who I can make happy."

  "You can't deny that your lifestyle by definition means you're promiscuous."

  Teresa shook with anger. "You're a charming fellow, you know that? How do you define promis¬cuous?" She was not promiscuous, and she didn't have to tell him that lack of opportunity was the reason.

  "Sex outside marriage."

  She gestured at the wide gold band he wore. "First of all, if gay people could get married a whole bunch of us wouldn't be having sex outside marriage. And so what if we do?" Her voice trembled on the last word.

  "It's immoral." The turned-down mouth was in full evidence.

  "You know what, Ken? I have to get up every day in a world where a man can stalk two women out hiking for several days, shoot them after he sees them kissing, and then claim that uncontrollable disgust made him do it. You have to get up in a world where most people are having more and better sex than you. I'm surprised you can get out of bed in the morning in the face of all that horror."

  His jaw was mulish. "Sometimes it is hard to get up. Watching people every day squander the gift of life."

  "Do you really think it's better for someone to live a lie, deceive their loved ones, pretend to be someone

  they're not? Is Christ really that cruel? And I have never understood the Book of Job."

  "Don't tell my pastor, but neither have I."

  Teresa's mouth dropped open. "Are you making a joke?"

  "A very little one."

  "But... but," she spluttered. "I'm all worked up for a fight!" Her heart was racing, her palms sweat¬ing. She hadn't argued with anyone like this since... never.

  "My body clock is three hours ahead of yours. I'm all worked up for a long night's sleep."

  "Has anything I've said made an impact?"

  "I'm confused."

  "Well, think of gay people like black boxes with blue lines around them."

  His smile was tired. "Art?"

  "Painted by God to keep you confused . . . and flexible."

  He let that go. "Has anything I said made an im¬pression on you?"

  Teresa's anger evaporated. "Well, not all so-called Christians are bloodthirsty members of a lynch mob." It was unfair that tolerance had to work both ways. Her father and his silly ideas of morality.

  He leaned on the railing. "I'll admit I didn't want to find anything admirable about you. You're nothing like I thought you would be."

  "See where preconceived notions can get you?" She felt very wise.

  "Can we not have this conversation again?"

  "I'm willing if you are. After all, we're getting married in the morning."

  "Ding dong the bells are gonna chime."

  She tucked her hand under his proffered arm,

  thinking that life at the turn of the century was

  pretty fucking weird.

  The wedding itself was uneventful. Teresa found it all the sweeter for the spontaneity. She kept to herself her relief that the chapel did not have an Elvis impersonator — she knew her father's passion for all things Elvis.

  As she and Ken were waiting for their parents to finish with the license, a giddy couple kissed their way from the door to the sign-in book.

  "Is that how you spell your last name?" The man had his hand halfway up the woman's skirt.

  Ken rolled his eyes. Out of the side of his mouth he muttered, "Six months."

  Teresa sucked in her cheeks. "Is that the day they get divorced or the baby's due date?"

  He chuckled. "Both, probably."

  "Now think about it. Is that what was being pro¬tected by the Defense of Marriage
Act?"

  Ken's sigh was long-suffering. "I thought we had this conversation."

  "Well, we didn't have this conversation. This is an all-new conversation."

  Ken looked disapproving for about five seconds, then he laughed with a shrug. "Tell me this — are all gay women as charming as you are?"

  "Well, I tell ya." Teresa looked at the ceiling. "Of the hundreds of thousands I've met I would have to say the answer is... no. Mostly because they show an

  appalling lack of judgment in not wanting to sleep with me." She abruptly thought of Rayann Germaine and the way she had felt in Teresa's arms. She goose-pimpled. "Do all Christians have as good a sense of humor as you do? You're laughing at all my jokes. This is great, 'cause you haven't heard them before. I can do my best stuff."

  "You remind me of Ellen."

  Teresa did her best to look offended. "I am wearing a nineteen-thirties vintage suit, pearl gray. The jacket and skirt side-button similar to what Katharine Hepburn wore in Adam's Rib."

  "And your point is?"

  "My point, and I do have one, is that Ellen would be wearing slacks." She was sure that most of the joke went right over his head, but he laughed anyway.

  She decided she liked him sufficiently not to feel as if the family honor had been compromised by his inclusion. She would make it her personal goal for the cause to make Ken stop and think before he voted anti-gay. She'd be the little lesbian on his shoulder.

  "So, married man and married lady, what now?" Teresa liked the way her father's smile had deepened. He was illuminated from the inside. "I mean if you two want to be alone Ken and I will find something to amuse us."

  Melanie beamed. She gave her new husband a look that said, "They are getting along." She indicated the door. "Actually, we have a surprise for you. The limo should be outside."

  The surprise was a sumptuous lunch and afternoon at a new resort that featured an indoor garden with over twenty thousand blooms. They wandered the grounds to see two dozen fountains and, to Teresa's

  vast interest, they toured the extensive art museum and gallery. The whole place reminded her of estates in France.