Chapter eleven
Tania and Christopher sat on red vinyl barstools at Minneapolis’ oldest queer watering hole.
“Maybe I’m not straight,” said Tania.
“By your age, it’s not something you wonder about,” said Christopher.
“Maybe I never let myself be gay.”
“Well, does anyone here attract you?”
Tania looked around. She covered her mouth with her hand and spoke into Christopher’s ear.
“All the women look so . . . so gay.”
She stared into her Bloody Mary.
“I did find a girl attractive when I was in college. She looked like John Travolta in Grease. If we’d been in prison, I’d have gone out with her.”
Someone tapped Tania on the shoulder.
“Ellen! What are you doing here?”
The manager of the Good Karma Cafe answered, “I’m here with my girlfriend, Willow; she’s in the Womyn’s room.”
A Paul Bunyan of a girl poked her head out from behind Ellen.
“Her real name’s Debbie Bernstein. She changed it to Willow Whippoorwill at the festival in Hart.”
The big girl stepped forward and tilted her head in Ellen’s direction.
“Her friend here named herself after an airline. What was it again?”
“Aer Lingus,” murmured the cafe manager.
Everyone laughed.
“I’m Kendra the Karpenter,” said the girl.
She handed Tania an oversized business card.
“I’ve been looking for a carpenter to fix the back stairs of the building I manage,” said Tania.
“Really,” said Kendra. “I’ve been looking for some back stairs to fix.”
Christopher waved to a guy he recognized from an anonymous sexual encounter in a bathroom at the East River Flats; Ellen and Willow shot pool. Kendra leaned into Tania.
“About how many stairs are we talking about?”
Kendra started work a few days later. Tania watched her kick a stair nosing with the steel toe of her Red Wing work boot and caught a glimpse of the white tank she wore under a blue denim shirt tucked into her khaki shorts. Then Kendra pried a tread from its rising with a crowbar. Her shirtsleeves were rolled up tightly over her biceps.
Tania thought, God, she’s strong, and her arms look like Bruce Springsteen’s . . . only bigger . . . and browner . . . and smoother.
“Can you get my tool belt, Tania? It’s on the top-floor landing.”
Tania went upstairs and spotted the brown leather belt; pouches full of wrenches, screwdrivers, and pliers hung from it. She picked up the belt with both hands.
Shit, this thing is heavy.
Tania lumbered down the stairs and fixated on Kendra’s work shirt hanging from the newel post.
“Whoa!” she exclaimed, tumbling onto the landing.
Kendra seized hold of her.
“Easy, girl.”
Kendra took the tool belt from Tania with one hand. She buckled it around her waist while Tania snuck peeks at her unshaven armpits.
Later that day, Tania grabbed a menu from the hostess stand and sat a male customer at a table on the patio of the cafe. She retied the ribbons of her picture hat under her chin and called over to Billy Rawson.
“William, we need to get this gentleman some water. If you bring the pitcher, I’ll get a glass.”
She picked up a tumbler from the outdoor wait station; he came over with the pitcher. Tania set down the glass on the gentlemen’s table, and Billy filled it.
“Your server will be right out to take your order,” she said.
Tania headed into the dining room and spotted Randy reading the sports section of the Star Tribune and drinking an iced coffee.
“I just seated someone in your section,” she said.
“Tell ’im I’ll be there as soon as I finish picking my nose.”
“Tell ’im yourself.”
Out of nowhere, Jack Rawson charged into the dining room and took hold of Tania’s wrist.
“I want to show you something.”
Jack dragged Tania through the restaurant and out the front door. He pointed to an old white Cadillac hearse parked at the curb.
“Look what I just got,” said Jack.
Tania broke away from his grip.
“It’s . . . it’s very nice . . . and roomy, too.”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “. . . good for deliveries.”
Tania turned to head inside; Jack stopped her.
“I thought we could go for a little ride.”
“ . . . but I’m not dead, Jack.”
“I thought we might drive over to the river and chase each other around. You could read to me. What do you think of that?”
“Everything I wanted to do with you, Jack . . . I did with someone else.”
Tania walked back into the restaurant.
Randy and Billy stood at the wait station on the patio. Tania came out the screen door; Jack followed.
“There was another dollar on that table; where is it?” demanded Randy.
“I stuck all the bills under the saltshaker,” said Billy.
“You lyin’ faggot,” said Randy.
Billy looked at Jack.
“Give ’im the money,” said his father.
“I didn’t take it, Dad.”
Jack reached in his pocket and pulled out a dollar. Randy snapped it out of his hand and shoved it in his apron.
“Thanks, Boss.”
Around closing time, Jack came out of his office with Randy while Tania stood at the register ordering her employee meal from Bunny, the cashier.
Jack said, “The guy says he doesn’t have all the cash, so I tell him to give me the doom buggy.”
“I want the steamed vegetable plate, not the stir-fried,” said Tania.
Bunny erased what she had written.
“What’s the big difference, anyway?” said the cashier.
Jack put his arm around Randy and handed him the keys to the hearse.
“Hurry back; I’ve got a hot date.”
Jack walked up behind Bunny and leaned against her.
“Right, Hot Stuff?” said Jack.
Bunny giggled. Jack looked at Tania; their eyes met. She took the meal ticket from the cashier and left.
Billy and Tania shared a table on the patio and ate their employee meals.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Billy.
Tania forked a turnip and shook it at him.
“ ‘This above all,’ ” quoted Tania. “ ‘To thine own self be true.’ ”
“Yeah, or else I’ll wind up like my dad selling health food out the front door and cocaine out the back.”
Randy came up and tossed the hearse keys on the table.
“Give these to your old man, faggot, cuz I need to split. Your Aunt Peggy’s waiting to give me a blow job. Maybe I’ll let you give me one tomorrow.”
Jack kicked back some Jose Cuervo and closed the cafe. He drove the hearse over to Bunny’s and rang the doorbell. She greeted him in a shocking pink bra and panties; her belly roll hung over the low-cut panty and foot fat bulged out of the tops of her ankle-strapped platform heels. She arched her back and stuck out her chest.
“I ordered this from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue; pretty sexy, eh?”
Jack pushed himself into her studio apartment.
“I’d like it better if I had some booze; got anything to drink?”
He looked around.
“What’s with all the candles?”
“They make it more romantic; they’re vanilla.”
“Shit, I think I’m gonna puke,” said Jack.
“You should lie down,” said Bunny.
She shoved Jack onto an opened sleep sofa covered with black satin sheets and paper rose petals. Bunny blew out the candles. The room filled with smoke. Jack started coughing.
“Where’s the john?”
Jack threw up in the toilet and rinsed out his mouth at the sink.
“Got a clean towel?” he called out.
“Not really; use the one on the rack.”
Jack eyed the stained bath towel. He unrolled a wad of toilet paper and blotted his mouth; some of the paper stuck to his face. He pulled it off and threw it on top of a used panty liner in an overfilled garbage can.
Jack came back into the living room. Bunny lay on the sofa bed holding a pair of handcuffs.
“I’ve gotta go,” said Jack. “I don’t feel so good.”
Bunny reached out her leg and massaged Jack’s crotch with her foot; Jack looked at the ceiling.
“Where’s Jack’s popsicle? Bunny wants popsicle juice.”
After a few moments, Bunny sat up.
“What the hell is wrong with you, anyway?”
Jack drove by Tania’s house on his way home. He parked his car and looked up at the darkened windows of her apartment. It was three in the morning.
I guess she goes to bed early, he thought.
Around noon the next day, Tania and Kendra left the top and sides of Kendra’s Jeep Wrangler behind and drove out to the Elm Creek Park Reserve. At a red light, they pulled up next to two guys in a pickup truck. The passenger looked over at them and muttered to the driver. He leaned forward to check out the women.
Tania thought, Yeah, we’re gay, assholes; you got a problem with that?
Kendra and Tania arrived at the reserve. They parked by the swimming pond and hiked a nearby circuit trail. Kendra led the way in her Red Wings; Tania followed behind in Birkenstocks. Then they headed down to the beach and paid the daily rate. They set their stuff on the sand, and Tania stripped down to a fruit print bikini bottom with a matching double drawstring top. Kendra raced into the pond wearing cutoffs and a black tank. Tania clung to the shoreline and tiptoed in and out of the water. She watched Kendra freestyle across the pond.
She, Tarzan; me, Jane.
Finally, Tania took the plunge and breast-stroked, then side-stroked, then elementary back-stroked over to Kendra. They treaded water. Tania pulled up Kendra’s tank top and rested her fingers on Kendra’s breasts. An air horn sounded. Tania pulled her hands away. A lifeguard got on the public address system.
“May I have your attention, please.”
Tania thought he was going to say, Run for your lives; carpet munchers are in the water.
Instead, he announced, “Due to an approaching thunderstorm, everyone must vacate the premises.”
Tania and Kendra scrambled to shore and grabbed their things. They hurried to the Jeep. Black clouds closed in on them. They tore out of the parking lot and got on I-94. Kendra peeled off the highway at Lyndale Avenue. They were drenched by torrents of rain.
“There’s a sign for a self-serve car wash up on the right,” shouted Tania.
Kendra pulled into a stall at the car wash and turned off the engine. They leaned back in their seats and turned their heads to face one another.
“Let’s pick up where we left off,” said Kendra.
Tania put her hands on Kendra’s breasts.
“I’m going down on you, Tania.”
You are?
Kendra pulled down Tania’s bikini bottom and threw it on the backseat. She nudged Tania’s legs apart and licked her pussy. She sucked on her clit. Then Kendra thrust her tongue inside Tania’s vagina.
Am I going to have to reciprocate?
Kendra pushed up Tania’s bathing suit top and squeezed her nipples.
Cuz I don’t think I can do that. Jesus Christ, I’m . . . cumming . . .
A tornado touched down in Maple Grove a little after 5 p.m.
Seventy-mile-an-hour winds cracked windows at the KARE TV station in Golden Valley.
Rain pelted the roof of the car wash, and Tania’s vagina was still pulsing as she pulled away from Kendra.
“Please don’t take this personally, but I can’t eat your pussy,” said Tania. “I’m just not gay enough to be gay.”
“I knew that.”
A vinyl GRAND OPENING banner blew into the car wash stall and clung to the front of the Jeep. Kendra jumped out and grabbed the banner. The women threw it over the arch bar that spanned above the front seats, and Kendra cut slits in the vinyl with a pocketknife. They secured the four corners to the rear-view mirror arms and arch bar braces with the laces from Kendra’s Red Wings and the ties from Tania’s bikini top. The car rolled out of the stall and onto the flooded street. Rain pelted the banner; the women held it up with the palms of their hands. Finally, they arrived at Tania’s apartment building.
“Will you still be my carpenter?” asked Tania.
Kendra pointed to the bikini strings holding the banner in place.
“Sure, if you let me keep these until tomorrow.”
The next morning, Tania and the rest of the staff cleared debris from the patio of the cafe. Kendra’s Jeep pulled up to the curb. Tania headed toward the vehicle. Kendra and another woman got out.
Kendra said, “I want you to meet my girlfriend, Sunny.”
Wait a minute; I thought I was your girlfriend.
“Really, how long have you two been together?”
“. . . since about an hour ago,” said Kendra.
Sunny laughed and put her hand in the back pocket of Kendra’s khaki shorts. Kendra gave Tania her bikini strings.
“There’s a word for women like you, and it starts with a c,” said Kendra.
Oh shit, here it comes.
“Curious; that’s what you are, Tania, curious.”
Jack opened the screen door to the patio.
“Has anybody seen Billy?”
