Baked In Seattle

by Shaw Sander

  I set the white box on the keyboard and his face lit up, breaking away from his manly duty of setting up my computer.

  “Woo-hoo! Sweet!” he whistled, taking out the shiny silver and green abalone man-jewelry. “Great taste, babe.”

  “I learned it all from you, darling. Can we eat yet?”

  “I forgot the supper!” he yelled, scooting his chair out and rushing to the oven.

  “Let’s eat in front of the t.v. and let the computer boot up or whatever you call it,” I suggested. I was afraid to bump the table, afraid I’d break it.

  “We can watch the game!” he laughed, since we both hated t.v. sports except in short muted bursts from a bar stool. We were bar people, talking and drinking, spending money, feeling a little tipsy. He drank whiskey sours, no cherry.

  Simon clicked on the Sci-Fi channel, his personal favorite, then Comedy Central for me. We settled on “Five Easy Pieces.”

  “Merry Christmas, darling,” I snuggled into Simon’s muscular arm, finishing my plate and setting it on the coffee table.

  “I love you, Annalee.”

  Chapter Eight

  “It’s a girl,” Gitta said. “I’m someone’s grandmother now.”

  She was totally miserable. This wasn’t how grand-parenting was supposed to sound to me.

  “Well, what’s her name? How much did she weigh? Is she perfect? Have you seen her?”

  “Her name’s Ariel and she was C-Section. The water broke and labor didn’t start. I think she was somewhere around seven pounds.”

  “You sound so disconnected from this, Gitta. This is your flesh and blood, your son’s child.”

  “I know, right?” she snorted. “I am disconnected. It’s not my life over there on the East Side where everyone saves up for rims and ape-hanger handlebars. I can’t believe my kids chose that life, and now it’s permanent since this Ariel has been born. Fuck. You want good things for your children, ya know?”

  Birgitta started to cry.

  “You can’t control their lives, Gitta. They make choices. This little one came into the world and she didn’t ask to be born so give her a little space, okay? Her mama is happy, thrilled to have her, right? How could that possibly go wrong? It’s not your agenda, not your optimal outcome but there’s lots of joy there.”

  “Maybe it’s because I don’t feel well. I got some sort of flu or food poisoning the last day we were in Vegas and it’s lingering, kind of low-grade. We had a blast, though. Jerry won two grand on a slot machine and we bet half of it back. It was great spending money we hadn’t worked for.”

  “Go see that baby when you feel better. How’re the boys?”

  “Still in Kuwait. Still alive. Sam didn’t even get to come home for the baby being born. Rhonda talked to him on videophone, though and showed him his daughter. How’s Dew?”

  “All quiet from Chicago. I hope that’s good news. Peanut’s working. Everything seems to be going okay. Dew once told me that kids tell their parents about an eighth of what’s really going on and that’s probably true. I don’t want to know it all, I don’t think.”

  “Larry wants to have a New Year’s Day brunch. We aren’t big on the party the night before but breakfast the day after is just our speed. You guys available? Gitta and Jerry are a green light.”

  Drake was watching “Absolutely Fabulous” as he talked to me. I could hear it.

  Simon and I lounged naked in bed, the nights between Christmas and New Year’s Eve a slow, marvelous comfort. We still had to work but it was much lighter. Time slowed down.

  “I’ll ask the boss. Hang on.”

  I covered the phone with my hand and asked Simon if we might want to brunch with the gang on New Year’s Day. Reaching from behind me around my torso, he squeezed my heavy breast and kissed my shoulder.

  “Sure,” Simon whispered.

  “We’re in. What am I bringing?”

  “Your cheesecake, please.”

  “What’s Gitta making?”

  “Breakfast casserole.”

  “What are you making?”

  “Fresh squeezed orange juice, champagne, and Larry’s homemade sticky pecan cinnamon rolls.”

  “Holy shit. We are so there.”

  Simon kissed my lower back. I giggled.

  “Are you guys having sex?”

  “Right now? No. Ten minutes ago, yes.”

  “Remember when I said most gay men want to have a lover to have the appearance of having sex? So they can show him off with friends and family? It’s not like that with Larry. He actually wants me practically all the time. It’s exhausting.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Indeed. And he pays the bills. See you New Years. How’s eleven sound?”

  Dew and Peanut got together at her place in Madison a day after Christmas and called me late, putting me on speaker phone. Chad was practicing guitar in the next room, strumming the same three chords over and over, while Dew and Peanut threw popcorn piece by piece to their dog as they talked.

  “Nothing, Mom. Christmas just doesn’t mean that much. It means no school.”

  They both laughed, their grueling college classes in a lull.

  Dew sounded back to his old self.

  I wondered if he would do harder drugs again or if he’d gone around the wheel enough for one lifetime. Pot was different than any other drug, so in my book, pot was soft. You never heard about anyone robbing a convenience store high on pot, or hurting themselves or others after smoking a joint. I hoped he was thinking along those lines.

  “Yeah, well, it just means peak season to me. I haven’t enjoyed Christmas since Drake wore a cape.”

  “That was Drake?” Peanut ribbed me. “For real? I thought that was the real Santa Claus and all the other Santas had just misplaced their fashion accessories.”

  I laughed.

  “Did you get the books I sent?”

  They both chorused yes, like good children, and rushed to thank me for “As Nature Made Him” and “A Walk In The Woods.”

  “Well, I liked the donation to Heifer International very much,” I said. “It was thoughtful of you.”

  “We know you like them. We figured you didn’t need another sweater.”

  The New Year came in with fireworks outside and in, my hands gripping the massive Mediterranean headboard as Simon moved under me, holding my hips. Our voices beamed in the eternal echolalia of love, rising in unison. Flooded with slippery sea-salt union, our skin slid in ecstatic chiaroscuro.

  That day I’d begun my latest essay, aiming for the high-minded literary mags that paid poorly but gave good street cred. I was at the doors of wordsmith fame, banging the kick plate hoping someone got tired of me and gave me a chance. I needed to make my own luck. This idea felt like a possible in.

  It would be a break-through narrative, exposing progressives who blurted out the most insane things when asking about Simon and me. The constant references to his dick size seemed rather odd, something not inferred with a white boyfriend. Some Seattle liberals still had bewildering beliefs under all that socially aware Gore-Tex.

  Revealing their un-evolved ideas, I’d be a star of the NPR circuit, signing inside covers at a little table at Powell’s and Elliot Bay, flying to New York to spend three minutes at 0500 hours on Good Morning America. I’d see my book displayed in stores, be recognized on the street.

  Mixed couples would thank me for speaking the truth.

  With my inner fame virtually sealed and Simon’s dick hitting just the right spot, fireworks exploded in purple and emerald green throughout my aura. It was gonna be a good new year.

  “We brought some little brioche from that nice bakery in Ballard,” Gitta said, setting down her quilt-wrapped glass casserole dish. Jerry unloaded a cloth grocery bag from Whole Foods with a bouquet of forced spring daffodils in purple paper sticking out the top.

  “Nice to see you!”

  Jerry and Simon did the manly straight guy hug: shaking hands while pulling in tight to touch opposite
shoulders and slapping the other man’s back.

  “Hey, Gitta, you look great!” Simon said, kissing her cheek. “Something’s different. The hair? The makeup?”

  Simon always tried to notice the niceties about the ladies, which had always kept him popular. And Gitta did look different. I couldn’t place it but Simon was right. She looked great, with high color. We hugged hello and I kissed Jerry.

  “It’s the cool weather. Suits my Norsk side.”

  She shot a look at Jerry and he smiled gently.

  Jerry and Gitta cheek-kissed Larry and Drake.

  We all admired the hosts’ vintage aprons over their rugged 501’s that Larry had gotten a decade before at Ruby Montana’s funky Second Avenue store. Drake’s was black with martini glasses printed in red and green, while Larry’s was white with cherries, olives, citrus slices and paper umbrellas. Larry wore Christmas-bell house shoes that tinkled when he walked.

  “I’m a Christmas Fairy!” Larry twirled. “I wore these shoes for the Children’s Benefit Show as Fey the Christmas Tinkerbell. It was SRO. Made more than the goal for the Foundation and I had a blast.”

  The house looked effortlessly perfect, holiday touches everywhere. A stained glass window mosaic threw a multi-colored slant into the corner of the great-room, the dining and living area combined. Larry and Drake’s table had grown by a leaf and was covered in lacy mauve silk. A Barbie-sized feathered replica of the ‘Angels In America’ angel was their centerpiece, a little holiday wreath around his head. His wings spread over a bowl of speckled Rainer cherries and unbearably cute tiny pink and green Lady apples.

  Hot cider with cinnamon sticks sat in a silver warming carafe, the handle wrapped in a gingham red-check napkin. Off to the side of the teak island counter sat the one-handled orange juice squeezer, a ceramic Italian bowl underneath to catch the rinds. A pitcher of juice was three-quarters full on the butcher block.

  My cheesecake with raspberry sauce had turned out beautifully. The cake sat on a crystal pedestal, dripping deep red icicles down its edges. A bright circle of mint leaves I’d added off-center gave it a complete holiday feel.

  Heavenly aromas wafted from the oven where warm cinnamon rolls rose, sticky with pecans and raisins, slick white icing waiting at the ready.

  Drake popped the Dom Perignon, spilling a few drops on the carpet while we applauded.

  “Happy New Year, darlings!” Drake cried, as he held the bottle over the sink. “Here’s to all of us!”

  Filling the champagne flutes with o.j. and bubbly, he handed them out.

  Gitta set her drink down and got a serving spoon for her breakfast casserole.

  Larry brought out a silver tray lined with romaine, on which sat paper-thin sliced lox, tomato wheels, onions and Swiss cheese, toasted onion bagels and a block of cream cheese.

  “Drake says you’re half a Jewess so I thought I’d make you feel at home.”

  I was stunned, touched at his offerings, and immediately smeared cream cheese on a mini-bagel, piling on onions, cheese and lox. The taste sensation in my mouth was wonderful, filling my brain with images of my grandmother in Philadelphia on Rittenhouse Square.

  “Awesome! Thanks, Larry,” I mumbled, my mouth too full to talk.

  “Something I can do to help?” Jerry asked Drake, rubbing his hands together. Straight men felt useless without a project, I was starting to notice. Simon was poking through Larry’s CD collection and had pulled out Harry Belafonte’s Christmas Album. He then studied the CD player.

  My eye caught the art-deco green Lenox “Autumn” china on the sideboard, festooned with tiny baskets of fruit hand-painted in dots and rimmed in real gold paint. I had never seen anything so exquisite in my life.

  “Larry, where did this china come from? Lenox still makes this pattern but now it’s white. They haven’t made this style in decades.”

  “Isn’t it incredible? It was my great-grandmother’s, passed down to each first-born. If I’d have had an older sibling, swear to God I’d have killed ‘em just to get the ‘Autumn.’ I love it that you know your hope-chest name brands. Since you have such a nose for finery, missy, come see the silver with my family crest. I even have the little salt dishes with the tiny spoons. We used those in big piles of coke once upon a time.”

  Larry swept his hand across the china hutch filled with incredible antique silver.

  “What’s the middle initial for?”

  “Lawrence Horatio O’Toole the third.”

  “La-HOT triple X, I call him, darling,” Drake said, sweeping in. “SSSSSSSSSSS,” he hissed, licking his thumb and pressing it to Larry’s hip. “Hot as hell, this one. Grrrrrr,” Drake growled, turning to go check the cinnamon rolls.

  Larry blew Drake a kiss.

  “It’s all gorgeous, Larry,” I told him, hooking his arm to admire his lovely things.

  “Where did you learn about such things living under a mushroom in the forest?” Jerry asked me. He pushed his horn rims up on his nose, reaching for his Mimosa.

  Hundreds of Christmas cards on a gold string wreathed the mantel behind Jerry, lending a homey air to the masculine wood and leather room. Framed by the fireplace, Jerry looked comfortable, like the quintessential white man posing for his holiday portrait with a libation in hand, leather patches on the elbows of his sweater. All he needed was a pipe.

  “That Jewish grandmother again,” I replied. “A few days in Philadelphia with her crammed a lifetime of girl education into my head. She liked Noritake over Lenox, though, and showed me all the patterns from a bridal magazine. I’d never seen such feminine excess before in my life and lusted after it all immediately. Naturally, I couldn’t tell anyone about it back on the land. It wasn’t Sunshine to want expensive, elitist things. But man, I drank in that bridal magazine like it was porno. I learned about thread counts, silver, crystal, china, how to pour tea, which colors went with which seasons and fabrics, how to check for good seed beadwork on a wedding gown, how to write a proper thank-you note. I wanted all of it. Still do”

  Simon looked at me from across the room, his head cocked sideways, a little smile on his face.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Well,” he said. “This would be the perfect time, then.”

  We all stared at him. He set his drink on the sideboard and cleared his throat.

  “Drake, stop messing in the kitchen and c’mere. I got something to say. Jerry, turn that music down just a touch, will ya?”

  We all got quieter, stopping to listen.

  “I got something to say to my girl. Annalee, I loved you the minute I saw you on television. Everything fits about you. You smile at me like I matter. I love the way you grab hold of something and won’t let go, shaking it like a dog with a tug rope.”

  I heard the radiator kick on in the old house. The fireplace crackled. A bus went by on 15th, the shhh of the tires telling me it was raining again. My heart pounded in my chest as the others looked from Simon to me. He continued.

  “My kids are grown. I’ve got a good job and a military pension. I don’t have a big ring or anything, no box with a red ribbon. But with our friends as witnesses, I’m asking you to marry me.”

  My hand reached up and clutched my neck as I sucked in my breath. I was stunned.

  The grandfather clock ticked somewhere down the hall.

  Gitta cleared her throat.

  “Jesus, girl, answer the poor man! I’ve got cinnamon buns to check!” Larry fussed, the suspense killing him.

  “Holy shit. Yes, Simon. Yes! Of course I’ll marry you!” I laughed, and ran to hug him close.

  “I’m thinking King Day,” he said, immediately practical. Clearly he’d thought this out.

  “It’s a three day weekend. I always take off Martin Luther King Day. We could go to Victoria on a sea-plane afterward, or stay in town and have a big party. Either way you get a new dress and we’ll get gold-braided wedding bands at that nice Pike Place jeweler you like. Someday we’ll get Lenox china, too, I promise.
Party or Canada?”

  “Dealer’s choice,” I smiled, kissing his chest. My mouth was level with his nipples, his broad, smooth chest right under the Italian dress shirt.

  Acres and acres and it’s all mine, I thought. I wished Shelly could be here.

  “Well, knock me over with a feather, sister, aren’t we all just as cozy as little bugs snug in a rug?” Drake exclaimed. “If this hasn’t been the most domesticated year ever. Is there something in the water that bit us all? Everyone all coupled up. We might as well live in little boxes made of ticky-tacky, we all look just the goddamn same. We could start playing weekly Canasta.”

  “Bridge,” smiled Jerry.

  “Euchre,” Larry.

  “Mah-Jongg,” I murmured, still hugging my new fiancé. Who needed a diamond?

  “Hearts,” said Gitta, clearing her throat again. “And I have something to say, here, too, as long as we’re having a bonding experience.”

  Jerry stiffened slightly, pushing up his glasses and setting down his drink. Gitta went and stood next to him, twirling her diamond nervously with her thumb.

  “We wanted to wait until we had all the tests and everything to make sure it was alright, and I guess it is, because everything came back negative so I guess we worried for nothing and anyway…we know it’s going to be hard but it’s like it was meant to be so…”

  Jerry patted Birgitta’s shoulder, letting her take her time.

  “We’re…uh…I’m pregnant.”

  “Omigod!” I yelled without even thinking then slapped my hand over my mouth before I said anything else. Gitta wasn’t much younger than me. I was stunned.

  “Wow, man, good deal! Congratulations, you stud, you,” Simon jumped in, pumping Jerry’s hand.

  “I’m going to cry,” Larry choked, dabbing at his eyes. “An engagement and the pitter patter of little feet, all happening at our house. Imagine, Drake, at our age! We get to buy those expensive Natural Wonder toys down at the market and those darling little fur-lined moccasins!”

  “Now we don’t need to get a dog!” Drake laughed. “We can pour our cuteness attacks into a tiny boopsie-kins and spoil her rotten. Kids, this is wonderful news!”