The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel (11 page)

W
e are family!” Mary Bennett sang as she boogied over to the table. She was wearing a shimmering pink disco dress. “I got all my sistahs with me.”

She squealed and hugged Patsy, Tammy, and me in quick succession. We were seated in a part of the Stardust Discothèque called the Mellow-Out Lounge. It was much quieter than the main room with the dance floor, but we could still feel the thumpata-thumpata of the music surging through our bodies.

“Actually, one of our ‘sistahs' is missing,” I remarked. “Where's Gerald?”

“Geraldine's coming later. And guess what? He's bringing his hunny bunny,” Mary Bennett said with a sly wink.

“What?” I gasped.

“It's high time,” Patsy said. “I thought he'd never come out of the cupboard.”

“I think you mean
closet,
Swiss Miss,” Mary Bennett said with a chuckle. “But you're right, it did take him a while to figure out what we've known all along. My gawd, he's been living in San Francisco now for years.”

We all nodded. Gerald never talked about his sexuality, and we'd never pressed him about it, not even the brazen Mary Bennett.

“He called to tell me he was bringing someone tonight,” Mary Bennett said, settling herself on a padded stool. “He was all giggly about it, too. Sounded like a schoolgirl.”

“It's 1979,” I said, raising my Jack Daniel's. “Queer is in!”

“You don't think he and his friend will be kissing, do you?” Tammy said with a scowl. “I'm no Anita Bryant, but I don't want to see two guys with their tongues down each other's throats, either.”

“Would it hurt your feelings if I pointed out that you're completely full of shit?” I asked. “How many times have I had to watch you and Bob swap spit?”

“That's different,” Tammy said with a sniff. “Kisses between the opposite sex are completely natural.”

“Tammy Hollingsworth,” I said sternly. “It's taken our dear little Gerald twenty-eight years to finally express his
own
completely natural sexuality, and you want to begrudge him a few smooches with his sweetie?”

“Here! Here!” Mary Bennett said, raising an empty glass. “You tell her, Jill.”

“You're right, you're right,” Tammy said in a contrite voice. “I'm sorry. Please don't tell Gerald—it was just a momentary lapse into ig'nant dumbass—I don't even know where that came from!”

“For a minute there you sounded like SONNY BUTTS,” I said with a shudder.

The last time the Queens had been together was two years ago, for Patsy and Jack's wedding in Atlanta. Jack, a defense attorney, is a huge, strapping blond from Wisconsin, and when he and Patsy got together they talked so fast we could hardly understand a word. But there was always plenty of cheese on hand.

Mary Bennett handed the waitress her credit card, ordering a gin and tonic and every appetizer on the menu for us to share. “Gerald is just going to have to listen to the reruns. I cain't wait to hear what's going on with y'all.”

“I have some big news,” Patsy said, her cheeks even pinker than usual. “Jack and I are expecting a little bundle.”

“Boon dull?” Mary Bennett said with a raised eyebrow.

“Bundle!” I translated. “Patsy's in the family way.”

“You've done got yourself knocked up, Swiss Miss?” Mary Bennett grinned. “Well, ain't you sump'n. Congratulations! We need to celebrate. A whole round for the table and your very softest drink for our little friend here,” she said to waitress, who'd just returned. “On me.”

“Miss,” said the waitress, who wore a low-cut, short leopard-print dress. “I'm afraid your credit card was declined.”

“Really?” Mary Bennett said. “That doesn't sound right. I could have sworn—”

“I'll get it,” I said, handing over my American Express. “You're always picking up the tabs.”

“Just this one time,” Mary Bennett said, shaking her finger at me. “So when is this little Yankee due?”

“Six months, in December,” Patsy said, rubbing her small swell of a belly. “And Mary Bennett, this baby won't be a Yankee. He or she will be born in Atlanta as a true-blue Southerner.”

“Sorry, hunny,” Mary Bennett said. “But jest 'cause a cat has kittens in the oven doesn't make 'em biscuits. But don't you worry—I'll still love the little beester anyway 'cause he'll be
your
Yankee.”

We gabbed about the baby for a while. Talked about possible names. Patsy favored Katrina for a girl and Olaf for a boy. Mary Bennett said that either of those names would be a serious handicap for a child growing up anywhere in the South, particularly Georgia, and suggested Bubba for a boy and MaryBubba for a girl.

Once we'd exhausted the topic of Patsy's baby, Tammy fixed her gaze on Mary Bennett and said, “So let's hear about this new boyfriend of yours. The actor.”

“Brian is sublime,” Mary Bennett said, swirling her straw in her drink. “We met in an off-off-off-Broadway production called
Bald.
It's a spoof on the musical
Hair,
and the entire cast wears bald caps. It's kind of sexy, 'specially in the third act when everybody gets nekkid.”

Tammy gasped. “You take your clothes off onstage?”

“Get your tonsils off the table, hunny,” Mary Bennett said. “It's all in the name of art. Besides, showing your bare hiney in public is the latest thing. Think of all those people going around streaking. The human body is a bee-you-ti-ful thing.”

“You wouldn't say that if you worked in a weight-loss clinic all day long,” I said drily. “But let's get back to Brian. Tell us about him.”

“He's tall, dark, and handsome,” Mary Bennett said with a winsome sigh. “He thinks the sun shines out my ass and he is an absolute MINK in bed—Jill, hunny, he knows ALL ABOUT ‘the little man in the boat'!”

I squealed—with a mixture of delight for the good fortune of my friend and a twinge of embarrassment over my former sexual naïveté.

After a round of laughs at my expense, the ensuing silence at the table was so thick you could have carved it up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

“Well,” I said, wagging my eyebrows at Mary Bennett. “I guess you know what we're all thinking.”

“We're sorry,” said a shame-faced Patsy. “We shouldn't have.”

“Yes, we should, and we're dying to know—what's WRONG with him?” I said, laughing.

Mary Bennett's mouth puckered into a frown. “I am deeply disappointed in all of you.” She took a quick swig of her cocktail. “I'll have you know there is absolutely NOTHING WRONG with Brian—he doesn't have a record, he's never even been arrested; he's not married, never done that, either; he doesn't live with his mama or his big butch sister; he doesn't have any children, tiny dogs, OR parrots; he doesn't collect stuffed animals—and, he's not a vegan! There's NOTHING WRONG with this one, I swear—and y'all, for the first time in my life I think I might be in love.”

After Mary Bennett's rhapsodizing over the seemingly flawless Brian, Tammy sang Bob's praises (Patsy and Mary Bennett had never met him because they'd eloped) and talked about her job and how much fun she was having wearing cute little costumes on the air, i.e., a down jacket and earmuffs when it was cold and a bright red raincoat with matching boots when the rain was raining. And on the weekends, she had a regular singing gig at the piano bar in the University Club. Bob would sit at the bar, watching, listening, and worshipping.

“Jill,” Patsy said when Tammy took a breath. “What've you been up to?”

They were all staring at me, and I was reminded of the last day of high school when the rest of the Queens were showing off their trophies and I was empty-handed.

“Well, I do have some news,” I said, grinning.

The Queens leaned forward in their seats with interest.

“I renewed my driver's license a couple of weeks ago and, believe it not, this picture is even more hideous than the last—I look just like that big fish on the front of the sports page today, MUD CAT.”

“Oh, Jill,” Mary Bennett said, punching my arm. “Listen to you—will you EVER stop putting yourself down? Nobody gets a good driver's license photo—I think it's against the law, and it's universal. There must be some special photography school they send those folks to—and if they accidentally take a flattering picture, they fail. Mine makes me look like I have no teeth!”

“She's also being modest,” Tammy said. “Jill got promoted at the Quick Weight-Loss Center. You're looking at their new manager.”

Tammy's announcement was met with hearty approval—way more than my piddling little accomplishment deserved.

“Enough already,” I said finally. “It's not like I discovered the cure for cancer or anything. They
had
to promote me. I've been working there since high school.”

And with Penny, the raging
bosshole,
I sure as hell don't have a whole lot more authority,
I thought.

“There's Gerald!” Mary Bennett said suddenly. She waved her hand. “Over here.”

Gerald swished over to our table. Gone were his long locks and hippie clothes. His hair curled around his ears, and he wore a tweed jacket and a turtleneck, looking every inch the professor that he was. Mary Bennett gave him a noisy smooch on the cheek. “Gerald just got his Ph.D., so we're going to have to call him doctor now. Maybe you can give me a private examination later, Dr. Gerald?”

“Maybe,” he said, not playing along as usual. He was blinking rapidly and his hug felt stiff and perfunctory.

“Where's your hunny?” Mary Bennett asked.

“The restroom,” he said, looking nervously over his shoulder. “We can't stay long. I promised my parents we'd stop by their house in an hour or so.”

So that's why he was so uptight. I knew his father had worried about Gerald's lack of girlfriends. He must have “come out” to his parents earlier, and now they'd be meeting his love interest for the very first time.

“Let's get you a drink,” Mary Bennett said, patting the stool next to her. “I know this is a big, big step, bringing your sweetie home to meet everyone.”

“I'm a wreck,” Gerald said, sagging onto the stool. “Could you…? Would you…? Just be a little…”

“I know egg-zactly what you're trying to say, sweetheart. Fret no more,” Mary Bennett said. “We Queens are going to be on our best behavior for your hunka hunka burnin' love. You hear that, Swiss Miss? Keep those off-color remarks to yourself.”

“I'll wash my mouth out with soap and not even rinse,” Patsy said with a laugh.

“We'll be as wholesome as a troop of Girl Scouts,” I said, putting my right hand over my heart and raising my left.

“That's good because…oh, there she is,” Gerald said, jumping up from his stool.

“He calls his boyfriend ‘she,'” Mary Bennett whispered. “Isn't that precious?”

“Ladies,” he said, gesturing over an imposingly tall black woman with an impressive shelf of a bosom and enormous feet. “I'd like you to meet my girlfriend, Sheila.”

“Girlfriend?” I repeated, trying to understand. I could see the questions in the other Queens' eyes.

“Actually,” Sheila said, her voice booming throughout the lounge, “Gerald proposed to me a month ago, so technically I'm his fiancée.”

“That's right,” Gerald said, blushing. “I haven't gotten in the habit of saying ‘fiancée' instead of ‘girlfriend.'”

“No biggie,” Sheila said, brushing imaginary lint off Gerald's jacket. “In a couple of days you'll have to switch to ‘wife,' anyway.”

Our faces must have given voice to our confusion. Gerald clarified it: “We've decided to elope—run over to Livingston, Alabama, and just DO it. They've been marryin' fifteen-year-olds from the tristate area ever since I can remember—let's see how they handle US!”

After some awkward congratulations from the Queens, Gerald proceeded to introduce us to Sheila individually, and I could tell that everyone was trying very hard not to seem too shocked.

“How long have you two been seeing each other?” Tammy asked.

“About a year,” Gerald said with a tight smile.

“Men!” Sheila said with a harsh laugh like a seal's bark. “It's been eleven months, thirteen days, three hours, and”—she glanced at her watch—“seven minutes.”

Sheila had deep grooves around her mouth, like a lifelong smoker, and pronounced crow's feet. It was my guess that she was at least ten years older than Gerald.

“How did y'all meet?” I asked.

“We both teach at San Francisco State,” Sheila said. “I teach in the new Women's Studies department.”