She doesn’t know I’m faking most of the lyrics of Buddy Holly’s “Well…All Right” and nearly all of Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.” She doesn’t mind that my guitar is out of tune and that I can’t keep up with the Crickets. And hey, let’s crack open another bottle of Rosie while we’re at it.
Alice tosses the salad and slices the bread and I keep the vino flowing. The table is set, the candles are lit, and the mood is right for me to tell her how grateful I am she has rescued me. But then I would have to tell her what it is she has saved me from. I’m not even sure myself. I tell myself it’s that long red snake in the cab of the tractor trailer. But I know that’s not really true, that all the snake did was make me run faster, make me more desperate to find a place to hide.
I’m twenty-five years old today, too young yet to know that someday this sanctuary will feel like a prison, that I’ll rattle the cage, that one day, before I’m even certain it’s what I really want, the door will unlock and I’ll be turned out. I think the unspeakable urges and desires have been banished forever by my perfect married life. I am a husband, her husband. She believes in my kisses, my lovemaking, my devotion, and if she believes, they must be real.
I make her happy. I know I do. I’m not sure that I want to know why. I don’t want to confirm what I suspect, that she loves me for the things I hate about myself, that she loves me because I am weak and soft and need protecting. She’s spent her life in the shadow of her overbearing father and her haughty older sisters, and the brash, the strong, and the self-reliant do not appeal to her. She wants someone to love like a puppy, someone who will lick her hand in gratitude when she scratches him under the chin. She is twenty-four years old, too young to understand the puppy is going to strain at its leash, snip at her ankles, and piss on her rugs.
But all of that is still years away.
Tonight it’s time to get on board with Cracklin’ Rosie, to thrill each other with our fantasies of how perfect it is all going to be.
A boy and a girl, I say. Buddy and Holly.
No, two boys and a girl, she insists.
There’s one thing we agree on. Not yet. Not for a while. We’ll wait until we’re thirty.
I think, on her part, it’s because she wants me all for herself for a while longer, at least all of me that’s available to her. Maybe she already feels something missing, some small part of me just beyond her reach. Time and effort, she believes, without kids to distract her, will deliver the whole enchilada and a family can be deferred until she carries all of me in the palm of her hand.
Come on, sweetie, one more glass before we call it a night. You only have one anniversary. Sorry, sorry, you know what I mean, I say, trying to retract the slip of the tongue that threatens to ruin the night. You only have one first anniversary, one paper anniversary. She shyly hands me a small wrapped box that holds a sterling silver calling card case. It’s too much, too extravagant, I protest because I’m embarrassed by the stationery I’d given her.
That’s your birthday present. Your anniversary present is inside, she says.
The announcement is printed on pristine new cards of the highest-grade ivory paper.
TAR HEEL HERITAGE FURNITURE
ANDREW NOCERA
VICE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SALES
It’s really the King of Unpainted Furniture’s anniversary gift to her, elevating me to a position undeserved by a failed graduate student in comparative literature who can’t tell particle board from solid mahogany.
So, hey, let’s drain the bottle in honor of the promotion and walk hand in hand to the bedroom. Yes, I may be a little drunk, okay, really drunk, but I love you, I really love you. I’m drunk enough that the ferocity of my erection surprises me, explainable only by the fact that tonight, maybe for the first time, maybe for the only time, I have complete and total faith that I am not who I am but who I want to be.
Pull over there, I order the cabbie.
The House of Pies: 101 Varieties.
I can’t face the hotel yet, afraid of insomnia and of being alone. I can’t bear the thought of cruising bars and looking for intimacy with a complete stranger. I’m so hungry I’ll eat anything that doesn’t come with chopsticks. A tired waitress leads me to a booth. She hands me a plastic menu and asks if I want coffee. She tries to be friendly, but her mind is elsewhere, probably with a sick kid at home. The dirty thumbprints on the menu kill my appetite. But there’s a five-buck minimum per table and I order a grilled cheese and coffee. I realize I have no idea where I am. The hotel might be miles away or just around the block. I’m counting the cabs passing on the street when he slides into the booth.
“What did you think of the show?”
The furry blond singer from Kiko’s flashes a Hollywood smile.
“Do you mind if I join you? I’m waiting on a friend.”
I don’t mind. I really do, but I don’t. I don’t want to talk to him, but I’m tired of sitting at tables alone. I tell him he was great, especially when he sat down at the piano and played a little boogie-woogie. He says that for what Daddy paid for four years at Juilliard, he ought to be able to fake a little cathouse ragtime for a…
“…shall we say, less than discriminating audience.”
I hear crape myrtle in that phrase. I say I’m from North Carolina, trying to bond. Why, you’re practically a Yankee, he says. He asks if I’m traveling alone, if I’m married, if I have children. Yes, no, and no. So far so good, he thinks. And what brought you to Kiko’s? he asks. Well, if it’s good enough for Jim Nabors, I say. He reaches over to light my cigarette and lets his fingers brush mine. I don’t back away.
Now that we’ve established that I am a homosexual, his flirtation becomes aggressive. He says he’s thirty-two, an obvious lie. He’s wearing light mascara and foundation. Well, he is in show business and works under the lights, I think, giving him the benefit of the doubt. He’s from Mississippi, Old Mississippi, he emphasizes. He’s setting the groundwork, establishing he is somebody and must not be mistaken for some piano player in a rinky-dink bar. Somebody, meaning somebody better than me. Daddy has been the Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court for over thirty years. Mother is old cotton money. I am appropriately impressed. He orders the California burger and a slab of lemon meringue pie and excuses himself. There’s a trace of powder on the tip of his nose when he returns.
“Mother is a dilettante,” he says, with a voice fueled by cocaine and bitterness, a modestly talented watercolorist who’s shown in galleries as far away as Boston. She has a small but solid reputation. Art in America once called her an important regionalist. But her true vocation is reigning over the Gulf panhandle arts scene.
“Oh, Mother is a cunt.” He laughs. “A real card-carrying cunt,” he says too loudly, drawing angry stares from other tables.
The thought of my own mother, insisting on driving me to the airport and waving good-bye at the gate as if she will never see me again, makes me want to grab my fork and stab him in his glassy eye. The waitress drops the grilled cheese on the table and warns us we’ll have to leave if we can’t behave ourselves. I want to protest, explain to her I’m here alone, that he’s intruded on me just like he’s intruding on the nearby tables. He rolls his eyes and zips his lips with his fingertips, mocking her prudery. He sees he’s embarrassed me and reaches across the table to touch my hand. His apology sounds almost sincere.