Say Cheese (2 page)

The not-so-good news? Among those screaming jetliners had been We'll Take You There! Lines' one and only non-stop flight to LAX, which was now winging its way westward—without Shep.

“It's just that we
really
wanted pancakes,” Shep told the ticket agent. “And then there was this car accident—”

She interrupted him gently. “At this point, it's not so much about
why
you missed it,” she pointed out.

“Right. Well, what do I do? How do I get home?”

“Let's see....” She turned her attention to her computer. She clacked a few keys, muttered a few
hmm
s. “I can put you on our ten o'clock flight to Houston,” she eventually said. “From Houston, we have a ton of flights to L.A. They're all jam-packed at the moment, but we'll put you on standby. You're bound to get on something.”

“You think?”

She shrugged. “People miss flights all the time. Take you, for example. All you need is for some poor sap to go to the IHOP in Houston and you can take
his
seat.”

“They teach you to call customers ‘saps' in your training, do they?”

She shrugged again. “You wanna talk to my supervisor about my qualifications, or you wanna go home? The Houston flight leaves in twenty minutes.”

“Nah, I'll take it,” Shep said. “Let the next poor sap worry about your attitude.”

“That's the spirit.” She handed a boarding pass across the counter, then yelled “
Next!
”

Well, this won't be so bad,
he thought as he wound his way through the security line. Missing an airplane certainly wasn't the biggest trouble he'd ever gotten into tagging along with Billy Bonami, and Houston was only like three hundred miles away. What would he be, an hour late getting home? Two, maybe, if he didn't get on a flight right away? No big deal. He texted Felix, mostly out of habit.
Missed my flt Billy etc, going thru Houston, b home soon. Miss u wanna kiss u.
He signed off with their habitual
143
, a throwback code for ‘I Love You' from the pre-cell phone pager days of old—or from
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
from days of older, depending on who you asked.

He was already on the airplane, wedged into his middle seat, when Felix buzzed him back.
K. Hurry home. 143, 2.
Shep smiled, even let out a little
Aww
. Felix had attached one of their favorite photos to his text message. Of them, naturally. Both in black shirts, both with big smiles. The deserted bar of the Clarion Café in the background, their first kiss mere moments away....

THEY'D WORKED together for close to a month. Felix was an L.A. native helping a high school buddy get the white tablecloth restaurant of his dreams up and running; Shep was fresh off the boat. Well, fresh off a Southwest Airlines 737, anyway. He hadn't come to Hollywood in pursuit of any particular agenda, other than To Get The Hell Out Of New Orleans. If a joint in the French Quarter had a rainbow flag in its window, fluttering over its patio, or hanging above the jukebox, Shep had tended its bar, with his T-shirt hanging out of his back pocket, for at least a couple months. The boys in New Orleans were often charming, handsome, and loads of fun, but they were also crazy, and it got to the point where he couldn't even go to the grocery store without danger of tripping over a romantic entanglement. He was too zit-pocked and skinny to be a model. He'd never acted—beyond pretending Billy Bonami had actually surprised him with his ‘Second Annual Twenty-Ninth Birthday' party. When he danced, he looked like he was doing an especially poor impression of the Tin Man, and the Unitarian Universalists had kicked him none-too-gently out of the Sunday choir. He harbored no illusions about his chances of finding fame or riches in Los Angeles, but a guy had to go somewhere. Ellen had washed up in L.A. when she left New Orleans, after all, and she'd done all right.

His apartment was a dump. His rent was three times what he'd paid for his own place in New Orleans, and he shared a shoebox with a smokin' hot, jaw-droppingly inconsiderate prick with a scandalously rudimentary hygiene regimen, who'd apparently been raised to regard the white porcelain bowl in the bathroom merely as one of several suggested receptacles, as he sprayed his pee on the seat, the floor, and all over the sink without compunction.

But the weather was gorgeous. Eye candy littered the sidewalk as though someone had busted open a piñata. And he loved his job.

He loved the guys he worked with, anyway. The day-to-day of the job was more you've-poured-one-martini-you've-poured-them-all, but the staff at the Clarion Café was solid gold. In fact, most nights the hostess, a six foot two drag queen named Frieda Swallow, looked like she was auditioning for
Solid Gold
, wig bouncing and fringe a-glitter as she glided among the tables. The Clarion was high-class and high volume. The tables turned, the kitchen was chaos, and you ran from open til an hour after close, but the owner worked as hard as the bus boys, the food was flawless, and the cash tips rained down from the dramatically lit ceiling.

Felix was his favorite server from the get-go. Partly, yes, because he was the handsomest man Shep expected he would live to see. Butterscotch skin no blemish would ever be so gauche as to mar, a belly so pancake-flat Shep wanted to lay him across the bar, pop the buttons on his black dress shirt, and lick butter and syrup off him til morning. He was all playful cowlick, laughing brown eyes, and smackable round ass. Cute as a bug's ear, but totally unselfconscious about it, like maybe he'd never looked in a mirror. In a town—hell, in a restaurant—full of good-looking dudes who wanted to be thanked just for showing up and being handsome, Felix wore his looks like a comfy old sweatshirt. Shep imagined a casting agent discovering Felix at a soda fountain, crying out
That face!
and Felix saying
This old thing?

He was unfailingly polite when he called his order over the bar, and always had a wink and a smile for Shep when he swung back by to collect the tray of drinks. He had a line from
The Golden Girls
for every occasion, knew the French words to every Melody Gardot song Pandora piped in, and referenced Cary Grant and Grace Kelly as naturally as Jay-Z and Beyoncé. He kissed hello and said, “Charmed, I'm sure.” Every waiter at the Clarion wanted to be an actor—Felix longed to be a Star.

The night the photo was taken hadn't started out as anything special. It wasn't the staff Christmas Party, or anybody's birthday. It was just some random Tuesday where, by the time Felix busted out his cell phone for selfies, they were the only two left in the bar. Raul was tucked back in his office, counting receipts or trolling Growlr, or whatever it was restaurant owners did at three o'clock in the morning. Marc and Randy had stumbled off down Santa Monica Boulevard, having downed their customary two bottles of after-work wine apiece. Frieda was long gone, and Shep and Felix were rattling the ice cubes around in their highball glasses. Work was over, the whiskey bottle was empty. It was way past time to say good night, but each time they looked at each other, they agreed on another bogus reason to stay.

“Let's take a picture,” Felix suggested. “We're friends now, and I like having pictures of my friends.”

“What a cunning little camera,” quoth Shep while Felix orchestrated their close-up. He couldn't help himself—
The Philadelphia Story
had been his grandmother's favorite movie. He'd watched it with her no fewer than a thousand times, and could deliver a note-perfect staged reading of the entire film by the time he was six. He couldn't remember the last time someone had snapped a photo in his general vicinity that he hadn't channeled Tracy Lord.

“I'm afraid I'm an awful nuisance with it,” Felix riposted, not missing a beat.

“But you couldn't be,” Shep deadpanned. “I hope you'll take loads.”

Felix replied to this line by snapping a shot. When Shep blinked the flash out of his eyes, they posed again, all smiles, for another.

“I love that movie!” Felix gushed.

“I can play
Lydia the Tattooed Lady
on the piano,” Shep said, referencing Tracy's little sister Dinah's most triumphant scene.

“You'll have to show me some time,” Felix said with a sleepy grin. “That's a line I haven't heard before.”

“Wow,” Shep said. “I'm impressed with myself. I wouldn't have thought there could be a pickup line
you
hadn't heard.”

Felix laughed. “Right, cuz nobody's ever dropped one on you before?”

Shep shrugged. “What's your favorite?”

“I'm a traditionalist,” Felix said. “‘I've lost my phone number, can I have yours?' ‘Shall I call you for breakfast or just nudge you?'”

Shep laughed. “Nobody's ever used that on you.”

“Has so. Then he kicked me out in the morning without so much as a Pop Tart to go. I was like, Dude... nice follow through....”

“No kidding. I mean, if you're gonna use it....”

“Right? You don't have to
buy
me breakfast, Mister Starving Artist, I get it. But you could at least have some eggs in the fridge.”

“A piece of toast...?”

“Okay, confess—what's the worst line that's ever worked on you?”

Shep lowered his eyes. “He was really fine, though....”

“Uh huh. What'd he say?”

“We're at Pride, right? In Atlanta? Big ol' country-lookin' boy comes up to me, says, ‘You know what my shirt's made of?' I go, ‘What?' He goes, ‘Boyfriend material.'”

Felix laughed. “He
musta
been fine.”

“You wanna know how fine he was?”

“How fine was he?”

“He wasn't even
wearing
a shirt, and I let him get away with that line.”

“What a pushover!”

Shep laughed with a shrug:
Guilty.

Felix did a backbend over the bar, showcasing a slice of taut, tan tummy, and then straightened up in his seat with another bottle of bourbon. Shep held his finger toward the weighted bottom of his glass to indicate he only cared for a sip, smiled when Felix honored the request. Felix poured an inch over the two ice cubes in his own glass, and then raised it for a clink.

“Let me ask you something, Sheppy.”

Shep laughed. “Is it ‘May I call you Sheppy?' Cuz the answer is ‘Heavens, no.'”

Felix waved away this concern, leaned in close. “How come you've never told me I'm handsome?”

Shep's heart sank. He was funny, he had good taste in movies, even seemed to have a little bit of a sarcastic streak.
And apparently he's every bit as self-centered and insecure as every other wannabe L.A. dipshit
. How disappointing.

“I don't know,” Shep said. “I guess I figured you must know by now. Doesn't everybody tell you you're handsome?”

“All the time,” Felix said. “It's all most people see when they look at me. Guys don't care if I'm nice or I'm mean, if I'm smart or I'm stupid....”

“It's not all I see,” Shep said, surprised by this unexpected turn. He wasn't begging for empty praise at all.

“I know,” Felix said. “And I like it. Tell me, Sheppy—what
do
you see?”

“I see... passion.”

Felix raised a suggestive eyebrow. “Not yet you don't.”

Shep smiled. “Not that kind. You know—Passion. Life. I see you laugh, I see you sing. I see you dance across the room when your favorite song is on.”

“So you
are
watching my ass!”

“Hey, I said your looks aren't all I see, I didn't say I leave my eyes at home when I come into work.”

Felix smiled. “You're not so bad yourself. You wanna know what I see when I look at you, Sheppy?”

Shep drained his drink and set his glass on the bar with a thunk. “Tell me.”

Felix leaned in again, teetering on the edge of his stool. “I see the next man I'm gonna kiss.”

“Talk about a line.”

Talk about a kiss....

THE RICKETY We'll Take You There! Lines MD-80 smacked the Texas runway, bouncing along on taxi until Shep glanced out the window to see if perhaps they'd landed on a dirt road in error. Shortly, the flying bucket of bolts lurched to a halt at the gate, and Shep wasn't surprised to see two women on their knees in the jet bridge kiss the ground as he hurried past.

His pal at the ticket counter in New Orleans had given him a printed card with little more on it, as far as he could tell, than his name and the airport code L-A-X, and sent him on his way with instructions to roll up at the gate for the earliest Los Angeles departure he could find and hope for the best. He scanned the departure screens and spied an 11:15 flight. It was eleven o'clock now. If he was going to get on that plane, it would have to be close by. He was still too full of all-you-can-eat bacon to be running through airports, especially in his flip flops. Gate 52, the screen said. He looked around. He was standing at Gate 48.
Hot dog!

It was twenty after eleven by the time he finally tracked down Gate 52, just in time to see the carnival-colored airplane taxi out of sight.

“But I wanted on that flight!” he cried.

“Now you tell me,” cracked a wide-hipped, high-haired youth in a powder blue V-neck sweater lounging in a chair by the departure door. “It had seats on it, too. Where've you been?”

“Running around this M.C. Escher airport hell looking for Gate 52!” Shep said. “We came in to Gate 48! How is that half an hour away from Gate 52?”

Once he found Gate 50, two steps away from Gate 48, he'd turned in circles at the end of the concourse for five minutes in frustration. Where the hell was Gate 52? Surely this airline would have all of its gates gathered together. There was a sign overhead with an arrow for Gates 51-60, which he tentatively followed, but it seemed to be pointing backward—he passed Gate 48, Gate 46, Gate 44—surely he wasn't supposed to hurry through a hall of down-counting 40s to find Gate 52?