"Of course."
"Well, Bets really got mad when I started thinking that way. Before she and I became lovers, she wanted me to be absolutely certain how I felt. I give her credit, she did her best to help me find out." I felt Dewey's hand slide back, feel around, and finally find my thigh. Gave me a gentle pat. "That time you and I tried to sleep together? Bets knew about it. In fact-and this is something I never told you-it was mostly her idea."
She didn't have to tell me because I already knew.
Now I was more aware of what Dewey's hand was doing than of what my hands were doing… her fingers exploring around on my thigh… stopping here, pressing there… maybe searching for something.
"Don't get a big head."
That startled me. I said, "Huh?"
Her voice had gotten softer, sleepier. "Because I said you're the man I was thinking about. Let's face it, Ford- you're not what anybody would call handsome. Kind of interesting-looking, yeah. Big and solid and safe-looking. And maybe that's it. You're a nice guy."
I thought: You don't know…
She said, "Some of those guys used to come sniffing around our group were such jerks. Know what this one said to Bets? This dude-he's a little drunk; got the jive attitude-he comes swaggering up and he says, 'Ma' lady, the only reason you're the way you is 'cause you never been with a real man.' I mean, Bets, all of us, just cracked up laughing. Four or five of us standing there, laughing in this idiot's face. Didn't even have a clue what we were all about."
"Apparently not," I said.
"So that's what happened. I finally told Bets: 'Hey, I think I'm a lipstick.' Some of the other girls had already been saying it-they can pretty much always tell. Even if a woman doesn't realize it herself. Like we're on the street and they see some woman, has a couple of kids, hubby there guiding her around. They make eye contact with the woman, nothing more, and we walk away and one of our group would say, 'She's a jock, doesn't even know it.' Or 'She's borderline lipstick, probably never even tried.' They know. They really do."
"And now you want to find out if they're right."
"Yeah, but another thing was… pretty much the main thing, really"-Dewey removed her hand from my thigh, getting serious-"I told Bets something that really pissed her off."
I said, "Oh?"
"I told her that I was thinking about kids. That I was thinking about having a child, I mean."
I almost stopped rubbing her back but caught myself.
"I told Bets that I'd thought about it and it was something I wanted to do."
"I can see why that would surprise her."
"Because I'm gay, you mean? No, that's not the way it is. A lot of gay women have the urge, but I think it was the combination of the two: I'm feeling attracted to men and women, and I want to have a baby." Felt Dewey's hand return to my thigh, feeling around as she settled herself on the bed; heard her say, "No, there was a third thing, too. When Bets told me she had to go to Madrid, I told her then maybe I'd fly down to Florida and see you."
I felt her hand slide up higher on my thigh; felt her fingers fumbling with my zipper. "We had a big fight about that one. But after she left I started to feel guilty, so I decided to fly to Madrid and apologize. After that, I wasn't in the mood to apologize anymore."
Heard my zipper open-the sound of silk tearing-felt her fingers patting around, not finding anything.
Heard her say, "Oops, wrong side," then laughter. Told myself I should pull her hand away as she said, "My oh my, you really are a right-hander."
Which is when the phone rang.
Tomlinson calling from Havana…
4
The way Tomlinson's voice faded in and out, it was as if my house, elevated on stilts off Sanibel Island, was connected to Havana by a piece of string that was being battered by a Gulf Stream squall. On a crow-flies course, the only landfall between Sanibel and Cuba is Key West. Couple of hundred miles of water stood between us; all that dark ocean out there… Tomlinson's voice straining to get across it.
"This is serious, Doc. I shit you not. They took my damn boat!"
Talking about the Cuban military.
"You've got to get down here with some money. Cash. They won't take credit cards, they won't take checks, and my good character wouldn't get me a cup of their damn sugar on loan. I'm talking about No Mas!"
No Mas, his 35-Morgan sailboat. It's one of the curious things about water-people: Sailors love their boats-or pretend to; power-cruisers almost always hate their boats-but pretend as if they don't.
Tomlinson said, "When I got here, I had close to two grand stashed away. You know where I kept it-in that little hidey hole forward the bilge? I was damn lucky to get it out before the bulls took my boat."
Dewey was up off the bed now, giving me her "You-were-a-jerk-to-answer-the-phone" look; a little brazen, a little shy. She'd seemed comfortable touching me; comfortable with my hands on her. Not tense, not working at it too hard… not at all like the first time we'd tried.
Tomlinson said, "So now I'm down to five hundred bucks or so 'cause they're charging us on a day-to-day basis. You know what they're hoping-"
Yes, I knew what they were hoping. 'They' was the Guardia Frontera, the harbor-tasked body of the island's largest governmental agency-MINFAR, which stood for Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Largest and also the most corrupt branch of a very, very corrupt government. All under the control of Raul Castro, Fidel's younger jockey-sized brother.
I said, "They want you to spend every cent you have so you have to abandon your boat. Put you on some government flight out."
"Exactly! That's just what I've been thinking." The flavor of panic was beginning to fade from Tomlinson's voice; he was sounding more and more like the old laid-back hipster and sociology guru that he had once been. "So how long before you get here, Doc?"
There was something I had to communicate to him, but I couldn't come right out and say it. I knew from newspaper reports, and also friends who are paid to know, that the Cuban government had gotten sloppy and desperate and meaner than ever, but there were probably still a few good people around doing their jobs, manning the Lourdes eavesdropping systems that the Soviets had left behind.
The call probably was being monitored.
I said, "Look, buddy, how's an American go about getting into Cuba?" Gave it a hick-hard inflection. Said, "It's illegal, right? I mean it's not like I've been there before."
Tomlinson said, "Huh?"
I watched Dewey cross to the telescope; watched her stretch the bra around, sliding the cups down over her breasts, then snapped it tight as I said, "What am I supposed to do, call my travel agent? Or maybe run down there by boat? But I do that, hell, they'd probably just take my boat, too."
I was rewarded with Tomlinson's guarded tone-he understood. "Yeah
… well, I was thinking maybe you could take a plane. Fly in here. I've heard they've got flights from Nassau and Mexico City. Americans fly in, the Cubans don't ask any questions, give them a temporary visa right at the airport. They need the tourist money."
"That's why you sailed there? As a tourist?" Changing the subject, like I wanted a little time to think about it.
"Hell, no. Why do you think they took my damn boat?"
"That's what I'm asking," I said. "I get there, carrying all that money, what makes you think they won't try to keep me, too?"
Tomlinson said, what had happened was, he'd met a woman in Key West, the night of Fantasy Fest, and she'd talked him into taking her on an extended cruise.
"Julia DeGlorio," Tomlinson told me. "That's her name. I'd let you talk to her but she's up in the room right now. Very handsome woman; Cuban-American. Her family came over January second, 1959, and she was born nine, ten years later. In New Jersey. That was the day after Fidel came to power. January second, I mean."