Significant Others (7 page)
DeDe snorted. “I was in the Junior League, wasn’t I?”
D’or’s eyes became obsidian. “Don’t make fun of this. I won’t have it. Wimminwood is very important to me.”
“You’ve never even been there.”
“I went to the one in Michigan. I know how it feels, O.K.? It’s part of who I am, and it’s … something special I want to share with you.”
DeDe poked at her dessert. “That’s what you told me when we left for Guyana.”
Her lover gave her a long, incendiary look. “That was low.”
Feeling the reprimand, DeDe looked away.
“You’re becoming your mother,” D’or added darkly. “Is that what you really want?”
“Talk about
low,”
said DeDe.
D’or shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
“It
is
not. I’m nothing like her.”
“Well, you’re not a substance abuser.” The very phrase was pure lesbianese, epitomizing everything DeDe hated about D’or’s reemerging consciousness.
“C’mon, D’or. Can’t you just call her a drunk and be done with it?”
This was a bit harsh, DeDe realized. Widowed nine years ago, her mother had struggled valiantly to keep the bottle at bay, never fully capitulating until her remarriage in 1984.
DeDe’s stepfather had been their next-door neighbor in Hillsborough for as long as DeDe could remember. (That is, his tennis courts bordered on the apple orchard at Halcyon Hill.) Her mother had married him nine months after the death of his first wife and moved into his rambling postwar ranch house.
That had left the mock-Tudor pile of Halcyon Hill for the sole tenancy of DeDe, D’orothea and the children. Absolutely nobody objected, since her mother and D’or were always at odds, and her mother’s new husband had no intention of living under the same roof with his lesbian stepdaughter and her eight-year-old Eurasian twins.
By implicit mutual consent, they got tipsy on white wine spritzers at the Baybrick Inn.
When the floor show began, a sinewy stripper in full police drag made a beeline for their table, bumping and grinding all the way. DeDe giggled uncontrollably as the cop began gesturing lewdly with her nightstick.
“Did you set this up?” she asked her lover.
D’or’s eyes were full of mischief.
“Moi?”
“I’ll get you for this. I swear.”
“She’s waiting. Give her something.”
The stripper began to hump the back of DeDe’s chair, egged on by the roar of a hundred women.
“Money, you mean?”
“Of course money!”
The cop doffed her helmet and held it out to DeDe, who fumbled frantically in her purse. The crowd was going wild. “D’or … how much?”
“The twenty.”
“Isn’t that a little too …?”
“It’s for AIDS. Give it to her.”
She placed the bill in the helmet, to the sound of tumultuous applause. To show her gratitude, the cop leaned over and stuck her tongue in DeDe’s ear.
“You looked utterly stricken,” D’or told her later as they sped home to Hillsborough in their big Buick station wagon. “I wish I had a picture of it.”
DeDe laughed along with her. “Thank God you don’t.”
When the city lights were gone and the highway became a dark ribbon through the hills, they both fell silent for the final stretch, with DeDe stealing occasional glances at the volatile, loving woman behind the wheel.
“D’or?” she said at last.
“Yeah?”
“Could we take the children?”
“Where?”
“Wimminwood.”
D’or turned and smiled at her sleepily. “Sure.”
“Well … maybe you’re right, then. Maybe it would do us some good.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I mean … I’m willing to give it a shot.”
D’or reached over and squeezed her leg. “I figured that stripper would do the trick.”
Their baby-sitter was a leggy freshman from Foothill Community College. When they got home, she was watching
Love Letters
on the VCR. Since they’d acquired the movie for the sole purpose of ogling the naked body of Jamie Lee Curtis, DeDe had the uneasy sensation their privacy had been violated.
The sitter, however, seemed totally oblivious of the smoldering eroticism on the screen. “This is so lame,” she said without getting up.
D’or grinned wickedly at DeDe, who said: “Well, you two can settle up. I’ll go look in on the children.”
The kids were dead to the world, sprawled like rag dolls across their respective beds. Their almond-eyed faces seemed smoother and rounder than ever, gleaming like ivory in the bright summer moonlight.
A little healthy exercise in the woods would be good for them, she told herself. There would be other children at Wimminwood, playmates with similar home environments. What better reinforcement could she find for them?
She adjusted Edgar’s blanket, then leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. His eyes popped open instantly.
“You weren’t asleep,” she whispered.
“Did you have a good time?” he asked.
“Yes, darling.” She sat on the edge of the bed and brushed the hair off his forehead. “How ‘bout you?”
“That sitter is a retard,” he said.
“Why?”
“She likes David Lee Roth.”
“You didn’t give her a hard time, did you?”
He shook his head.
“Go to sleep, then. In the morning I’ll tell you about a great trip we’re gonna take to the Russian River.”
“D’or told me already,” he said.
“She did? When?”
“Long time ago.”
She wasn’t surprised. It was typical of D’or to marshal the forces before mounting the attack.
“I can’t go,” Edgar added, “cuz I’m a boy.”
“Who told you that?”
“D’or.”
“Well, she must have been joking, darling.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You misunderstood her, then. We’re all going. We would never go anywhere without you.” She pulled the blanket up under his chin. “Go to sleep now. Before we wake up Anna.”
She descended the staircase to the foyer, her face burning with anger. She could hear the sitter’s car spewing gravel in the driveway as she cornered D’or in the kitchen. “Did you tell Edgar he couldn’t go to Wimminwood with us?”
D’or opened the refrigerator and took out a half-gallon carton of milk. “No. Of course not.”
“He says you did.”
“Well, I didn’t, dammit. I told him just the opposite, in fact. I said we should all go this year, because he’s not ten yet.” D’or set a saucepan on the stove and poured milk into it.
“And?” prodded DeDe.
“And … little boys don’t get to go when they’re ten. It’s the rule, DeDe. I wanted to be up front about it. Children can understand rules.”
“This is what I hate, you know. This is exactly what I hate.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“This doctrinaire bullshit, this … this …”
“You want some cocoa?”
“You hurt Edgar’s feelings, D’or. A little boy doesn’t understand what’s so threatening about his penis.”
“I’ll talk to him—all right?”
“When?”
D’or opened the cabinet, removed a can of cocoa and handed it to DeDe. “Fix us some and bring it to the bedroom. I’ll be there in a little while.”
DeDe was still fuming when D’or finally joined her in bed. “Is he O.K.?” she asked.
“Just fine,” said D’or.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him they made that rule about little boys because ten-year-old boys were almost men, and men were all rapists at heart.”
“D’or, goddamnit!”
“All right. Jesus … don’t hit me.”
“Then tell me what you told him.”
“I told him I explained things all wrong.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I told him it wouldn’t be any fun without him along, and that I love him just as much as you do. Then Anna woke up and asked me what smegma was.”
“What?”
“That Atkins kid called her smegma today.”
DeDe groaned. “That little brat has the foulest—” The phone rang before she could finish the tirade. D’or reached for the receiver, mumbled hello, and passed it to DeDe. “It’s your mother,” she said, grinning. “Ask her what smegma is.”
DeDe gave her a nasty look, then spoke into the receiver. “Hello, Mother.”
“Don’t use that tone with me.”
“What tone? I just said hello.”
“I can tell when you’re being snide, darling.”
“It’s after midnight, Mother.”
“Well, I would have called you earlier, but I got busy.” “Busy” sounded more like “bishy.”
“Go on, then,” said DeDe.
“Were you asleep?”
“No, but we’re in bed.”
“Don’t be vulgar, DeDe.”
“Mother …”
“All right, I called to ask if you and D’orothea would come for lunch on Sunday. With the children, of course.”
“That’s sweet, Mother, but we’ve already made plans. I was giving a lunch myself, but I’m canceling it.”
D’or smiled victoriously, then reached over and stroked DeDe’s thigh.
Her mother wouldn’t give up. “Oh, darling, please say yes. I’m gonna be all alone.”
“Why?” asked DeDe. “Where’s Booter going?”
“The Grove,” said her mother bitterly.
“Oh. It’s that time of year again.”
“Do you realize,” said her mother, “how many times I’ve been a Grove Widow? I counted it up. Thirty-two times. It isn’t fair.”
DeDe had heard this sob story all her life. Grove Widows, as they were popularly known, were the wives left behind by Bohemian Club members during their two-week encampment at the Bohemian Grove. The Grove was a sort of summer camp for graying aristocrats, an all-male enclave in the redwoods, whose secret fraternal rituals were almost a century old.
DeDe’s father had been an ardent Bohemian, provoking her mother to bouts of acute depression during her annual ordeal of separation. Since her mother’s new husband was also a Bohemian, the torment had continued unabated. “You should have married a commoner,” DeDe told her.
“That isn’t a bit funny.”
“Well, what do you want me to say?”
“I want you to come to lunch.”
“Mother … we’re going away.”
“Where?”
“Just … up north. We’re packing the kids in the station wagon and taking off.” Wimminwood, in fact, was only a mile or two downriver from the Grove, but to say as much would only heighten her mother’s sense of familial desertion.
“I worry about her,” she told D’or later. “I can’t help it.”
D’or pulled her sleep mask into position. “What’s the matter this time?”
“Oh … Booter’s taking off for the Grove.”
“Christ,” sighed D’or. “The crises of the rich.”
“I know.”
“This happens every year. Why didn’t she plan something?”
“She did plan something. She invited us to lunch.” DeDe reached over and turned off the light.
“And now you’re feeling guilty as hell.”
“No I’m not.”
D’or paused. “Of course, we could always bring her along,”
DeDe flipped on the light.
“What?”
“Sure. Gettin’ down with her sisters … tits to the wind. She’d like that.”
DeDe turned off the light again.
D’or kept at it. “Turkey baster study groups, S and M workshops …”
“Shut
up,
D’or.”
Her lover chuckled throatily and snuggled closer, hooking her leg around DeDe’s. “It’s gonna be great, hon. I can hardly wait.”
DeDe said: “We don’t have to go topless, do we?”
Another chuckle.
“Don’t laugh. I think we should discuss it.”
“O.K.,” said D’or. “Discuss.”
“Well … whatever we decide, I think we should be consistent.”
“Meaning?”
“That we either both do it, or … you know … both don’t do it.”
“Maybe,” said D’or, “if we both bared one breast …”
“Ha ha,” said DeDe.
“Well, gimme a break.”
DeDe paused. “I just think it would be disorienting for the children, that’s all.”
“What are you talking about? The kids’ve seen us naked plenty of times.”
“I know, but … if one of us goes topless and the other one doesn’t …”
“What you’re saying is … you plan to keep your shirt on, and you want me to do the same.”
“O.K.,” said DeDe. “Yes.”
“Why?”
DeDe hesitated. “We don’t … well, we don’t need to prove anything, that’s all.”
“Who’s proving anything?” said D’or. “It feels good. What’s the big deal? You went topless all over the place in Cabo last summer.”
“That was different. It was secluded.”
“This is secluded.”
“Hundreds of people, D’or. That is not secluded.”
“Well, they’re all
women,
for God’s sake.”
“Exactly,” said DeDe.
“What are you talking about?” asked D’or.
She was talking about jealousy, of course, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
T
HE DEFLORATION OF HIS NEPHEW BECAME BRIAN’S PET
project. After reviewing half a dozen candidates for the job, he narrowed it down to Jennifer Rabinowitz and Geordie Davies, two Golden Oldies from his personal Top Forty. Jennifer, it turned out, was in Nebraska visiting her brother, so the honor fell by default to Geordie.
Geordie was thirty and lived alone in a garden apartment near the southern gate of the Presidio. They had met one night at Serramonte Mall while buying software for their Macintoshes. Feverish with lust, they had babbled clumsily about Macpaint and Macdraw before beating a hasty retreat to the parking lot. He’d followed her home in his Jeep.
Since that night—two, almost three years ago—he’d visited her cottage less than a dozen times. Neither her lover nor his wife had intruded on their lovemaking, which was refreshingly devoid of romance. Geordie was a true bachelor girl, who liked her life exactly the way it was.
The problem, of course, was how to set it up without scaring Jed off, but Geordie would probably have a few ideas of her own. When he called her cottage in midafternoon, he got her answering machine, which surprised him with its minimalist instruction to “leave your name and number at the tone.” Usually her tapes featured barking dogs or old Shirelles tunes or her own unfunny impersonation of a Valley Girl.
His guess was that she was home auditioning callers, so he used his manliest tone of voice when he left his name and number. It didn’t work, or she was out. You never knew for sure with Geordie.