Damn Straight Page 7

  "Well, Todd," said Genie, bending to look him in the eye, "you're the hero of the night, aren't you?" She was trying to be casual, but I noticed her hands trembling.

  When we went back to bed, she said, "Play me some music, will you? Know any lullabies?"

  I got out my mandolin and slowly played "Green Grow the Rushes-O," and "Lord of the Dance," and a few other tunes, while she snuggled down beside me in bed. Her eyes flicked around anxiously, then, it seemed with great deliberateness, she willed her body and mind to relax, and she drifted into sleep. Her face in repose was beautiful and somber, I thought, like a medieval princess's.

  I sat up a while, playing soft two-note chords.

  Chapter 11

  I didn't know what to think. This weird thing had gone down, and Genie wanted to pretend nothing had happened, but she was scared, very scared.

  I'd been feeling a growing protectiveness toward my lover, along the lines of "Wouldn't it be fun to look after you." But now it was more like "Goddamn it, I don't want anybody bothering you." It was real.

  When I saw dawn pinkening up the sky, I slipped out of bed, showered, and started to pull my stuff together, so Genie could quickly drop me off at Truby's, then swing over to the highway to Palm Springs.

  She woke up looking glad of the day, then, remembering, she clouded over. While she was in the bathroom the phone rang. I didn't answer it, and neither, I guess, did Hesper, as it rang ten times then stopped. Genie came out of the bathroom, toweling her hair and trailing a wake of warm Neutrogena smell. The phone rang again. She glanced at me, then casually went over and, turning away from me, picked it up.

  "Hello?"

  After a moment she made a half-sound, a truncated exhalation that caught in her throat. Her shoulders jumped up around her ears. She put the receiver back.

  I waited, trying to gauge her thoughts by her sleek naked back. With effort, she was breathing regularly. As I watched, she began to regain her usual easy control of her body: Her breaths moved from tight in her chest down to her belly, her shoulders slowly dropped.

  "What is it?" I said.

  She heaved a huge sigh, then turned to me. "Wrong number."

  "You expect me to believe that?"

  "I don't care whether you believe it."

  "Genie."

  All of a sudden her eyes welled up and her lips got tight. I went and sat down next to her, putting her robe, a blue silk kimono, around her shoulders, which started to tremble. She choked out something I couldn't catch. I reached her a tissue and said gently, "Why don't you tell me about it?"

  She looked at me miserably. "I can't."

  "How come?"

  "I just can't."

  "Who's bothering you?"

  "I—I don't know." She looked down at the crumpled tissue. "I honestly don't."

  "Well, then—"

  "Look," she said, sounding suddenly tough, then she stopped. She sat there thinking.

  I was outraged, absolutely livid, that someone was harassing her, right at the beginning of the most important tournament of the year. My heart was bursting with the desire to protect her. I didn't let it show, though.

  "Are you afraid?" I asked.

  "No."

  "I'm not convinced."

  She leaned close. "I love you."

  "I love you, too." You know how you just automatically say that?

  The fact was, I liked Genie a hell of a lot, I was in awe of her, and we sure clicked in the sack, but it was too early to know whether I really loved her. It was certainly too early to let myself start loving her deeply. She was this big superstar, and I was this little Larry Fortensky over here, and everybody knows how those things work out. On the other hand, maybe we could beat the odds.

  I pictured Genie Maychild and myself aboard an ocean liner, en route home from winning the women's British Open, feeding each other oysters and throwing the shells out the porthole while "It Had to Be You" drifted in from an orchestra somewhere. I pictured Genie ramming laser-straight drives down the throats of the fairways at the Dinah while I walked outside the ropes, nodding, frowning, providing discreet encouragement. I pictured myself sitting at a camp table beneath a palm tree on a tropic isle, working on my important new book about clean energy or Baroque troubadour songs or the secret life of Eleanor Roosevelt, while Genie massaged my shoulders with her strong good hands and hummed softly.

  "Look," she began again, "you've saved my life once, and your rabbit saved maybe all our lives. That's twice, and so it's very clear to me that you are powerful magic."

  I smiled, hiding the fact that I thought so, too.

  She explained that she'd rented a house near the tournament course, and that Todd and I were to stay there with her through the week.

  "Us and who else?"

  She looked at me curiously. "Most golfers on the tour travel light. I hadn't counted on meeting somebody like you. I hadn't counted on any of this."

  .

  So I beat it out of L.A. with star athlete Genie Maychild, pausing only to phone Truby and arrange to meet her for lunch at the Howard Johnson's in Palm Springs, where we were supposed to stay. I caught her as she was packing and wondering where the hell Todd and I were.

  It's 130 miles from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, but it travels fast because you're leaving Los Angeles. Roads out of L.A. always travel faster than roads in. After a while the lanes open up and you can get out from behind the semis and roll down the windows and breathe clean desert air. Cleaner, anyway.

  We drove through to Rancho Mirage and stopped at the house Genie had rented for the week, inside the Mission Hills complex. It was a low stucco place—the kind people these days call a villa—that on the outside didn't look like much. But inside it was rich with wrought iron, mosaic tiles, and a host of peculiar statuary nooks. Comfort-wise, it was tricked out with everything you'd need to entertain a sultan, or whoever's left of the Onassis clan.

  There was a very nice den-type room that I quickly rabbit-proofed. I set up Todd with some provisions and his newspapers and hung out with him for about an hour while Genie changed clothes and fussed over her equipment. The house was right on the tournament course. It was the sixteenth fairway lying there just beyond the patio, Genie told me. I looked out at the velvety golf course dotted with contestants and their caddies.

  I thought she'd run me over to the Hojo's, but she drove straight to the clubhouse. Golf pros, caddies, and security guys bustled around, everybody looking fresh and eager. It was the beginning of tournament week and you could smell the optimism.

  "There's Peaches," said Genie. "You take the car after he gets my clubs out. I'll get a courtesy car to take me home later. Or why don't you and Truby come out to the course after lunch?"

  "Will do. You'll be all right without me for a couple of hours?"

  She laughed a genuine, relaxed laugh. She felt safe and happy here, you could tell. She was about to greet the majestic Dinah Shore course again.

  The Howard Johnson's was right on Palm Canyon Drive, the main thoroughfare of Palm Springs. When Genie and I passed through, I'd expected the main drag to be swankier, you know, like Beverly Hills, but the few fancy boutiques were squeezed in between T-shirt stores, travel agencies, and sandwich places. I think I saw a wig shop. Nothing against any of this, it's just that I was thinking about all the movie stars that supposedly hung here. Later somebody told me the movie stars had gotten bored with Palm Springs and moved over to Palm Desert. It was strictly retirees for a while, and now gay guys who couldn't afford San Francisco were buying up the vintage mid-century houses and redoing them.

  The Jaguar, an XJ sedan, drove beautifully. I'd heard that model of car has an unbelievably powerful engine, supercharged up to about 300 horsepower, but after about four minutes behind the wheel I believed it. Not lightning off the blocks, but smoothly responsive to the gas. A very rich, heavy car. This one was finished in a deep burgundy lacquer that was flawless. As big and comfortable as the car was, though, I could still feel every p
ebble in the road through the steering wheel. Genie and I had driven in with the windows down, letting the desert breeze cool us.

  A young lass on a Harley-Davidson pulled up next to me at a red light. The growling Harley was one of the big ones, and the woman was one of the small ones, but she was enough for that bike, all right. Every inch of her was drawn up straight in the saddle. Mirrored sunglasses, studded leather with lots of fringe, and great big black leather boots. Her arms were tanned to perfection. She gunned her motor and gave me a tough look. I smiled and showed my tongue, and she responded with the sweetest, hugest grin.

  Only after getting blasted by the air conditioning in the Hojo's, which actually turned out to be a Denny's attached to a Hojo's motel, which was disappointing, did I realize how hot it was outside. I bet it was above ninety. The fabled dry heat of the desert. The climate inside the restaurant was a dry cold. I walked past a bus stand and smelled the bleach water for the wipe rags. Then I smelled a good hamburger and my mouth watered.

  The place was doing a fantastic business this lunchtime; dykes from all over the world were fortifying themselves for a week of golf-watching and parties.

  "Becky! I can't believe you made it!"

  "Wouldn't have missed it. Been coming since '81."

  "How're you keeping your sweet self?"

  I don't guess the place saw this much hugging in all the other fifty-one weeks of the year. An elderly couple watched knowingly. They wore normal retiree clothing—no Palm Springs logos—so they were locals. I nodded pleasantly to them as I looked for my friend.

  She was drinking a Coke at a table in the corner, away from the glare bouncing in from the windows.

  "Starmate," I said.

  "Starmate. Sit."

  It was good to see her intelligent, quick face again. "You go first," I said.

  "What's a dental dam?"

  "Oh, Lord. Where the rubber meets the road." I explained about the little latex sheets and their varied uses.

  "I don't get it," she said, "I mean, why?"

  "To ward off disease, basically. I mean, lesbians can get AIDS and pass STDs back and forth."

  "Have you ever used one?"

  "No. I'll have a Coke, too," I added to the waitress who'd stopped by. She was young and buff, with spiky hair and sleek black glasses, and she was getting rather special attention from her customers this day. I think she was having a pretty good shift.

  "Just a second," Truby said to her. "Have you ever used a dental dam during sex?"

  "I would if you wanted me to."

  Truby shook her head pensively. "I can't imagine it."

  I stopped laughing long enough to tell the waitress, whose name tag said Oh Miss, "Give us a few minutes, please. Trube, why don't you back up a little bit? Did dental dams come up in a discussion with your amour? What's her name, anyway?"

  "Yes. Lucy. She's a little strange, but she really likes me."

  "Do you really like her?"

  "Well, we've had these tremendously long talks, mostly wonderful. About all sorts of things. And she's beautiful."

  "She is, I do remember."

  "I find myself staring at her breasts and going all dreamy."

  "Have you masturbated while thinking of her?"

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  "We've had dinner twice now, but—"

  "Did you tell her you're experimenting?"

  "Oh, yes. I decided I had to be totally honest about this, even if it slows me down."

  "I'm impressed. I expected you to lie."

  "Lillian!"

  "Well, gosh, hon, you seemed so desperate. All's fair in love and Roller Derby, anyway."

  "She told me it didn't matter to her that I'm inexperienced with women. I think if I were a kid, you know, really young, she might've gotten spooked."

  "But you haven't hit the sack yet?"

  "No!"

  "Well, what the hell did you talk about?"

  "It was so much fun to talk about what buttheads men are. It was like being with you. Turns out she's had a boss who shoved his tongue down her throat, too. When we started talking about pop culture, though, I sort of lost my way. She talked about all these singers and comics I've never heard of, except for, like, Ellen. And movies. I never knew there were so many lesbo movies out there, and here I'm working in the film industry!" She took a pull of her Coke. "Then the subject of books came up, and she said she was a big mystery fan, so I started mentioning P.D. James and Minette Walters, and, oh, Patricia Highsmith, but she started talking about these totally different writers—"

  "Like who?"

  "I can't remember."

  "Katherine Forrest? Mary Wings?"

  "Yeah. Both of those, I think. Plus she's wild about some Calico something. A series about a detective, that sounds like complete shit."

  Ouch. "Ah, yes." I said. "When cultures collide."

  "I don't feel they collided so much as just sort of blew right by each other."

  "Yeah."

  "I've got some homework to do."

  "Yeah. Did politics come up?"

  "No, thank God."

  "Thank God."

  Truby was the only person I knew, besides Mrs. McVittie and my own self, who never could stand Bill Clinton. All the rest of my friends went on worshiping him through every betrayal, every self-pitying whine.

  Our waitress came back, and I ordered a hamburger, Truby a grilled cheese. She licked her lips and seemed about to say something more to Oh Miss, but changed her mind.

  "She's kind of cute," I prompted, after she left.

  "Not my kind of CUPCAKE."

  "Oh, well." I waited.

  "Okay, here's the thing," Truby said, "We talked about sex and even made out on the couch both nights, and I was really ready, you know—Jesus Christ, the feel of a woman's arms, a woman's body..." She stopped, searching for words, finally giving up, saying simply, "Wow."

  "I know."

  "But every time it seemed like the next step should happen, like when we were at my place and I said, 'It would be the most wonderful thing if you could stay all night,' she sat up and started talking about her ex. Somebody named Beryl, who liked to have the TV on during sex but who could make her come like Vesuvius. Plus she talked a lot about a special cleansing diet she was about to go on, and a retreat she did last year that had a fire walk. She did a fire walk, and she did a survival course the year before, and she went on and on about it, and she, like, made a parallel between all that crap and sex. Dental dams and dildos, which I'm not terribly interested in. 'The challenge of sex,' she said."

  "'The challenge of sex.'"

  "She got very philosophical, and I'm sitting there trying to relate, you know, go with the flow and hope we get somewhere, but it just didn't happen."

  "Trube, is this a challenge you want to pursue?"

  "I'm not sure. What do you think?"

  "Dump this one and go to a party tonight. That chick from work did give you party tickets, didn't she?"

  "The whole package."

  A couple of the big hotels hosted enormous parties—dance parties, comedy parties, pool parties. Everybody went.

  "Go then and renew your search." Our food came, and we dug in.

  "Are you coming?"

  "Well," I said, then told her the story so far. "So, Starmate, you'll have the room here to yourself for at least tonight."

  "Just tonight?"

  "I'm only thinking about eighteen hours ahead right now," I said.

  Truby smiled. "Probably a good idea. Do you love her?"

  "Too early to say. Yes, to tell you the truth and goddamn it. She says she needs me. And I want to protect her. I don't know what's going on in the outback of her life, but something is, and if I want to keep on being her lucky charm, and I do, then I might have to find out what it is."

  Chapter 12

  When we caught up with Genie she was on the thirteenth fairway waiting to hit her approach shot. Her practice round partners were Lona Chatwin and one ot
her pro I didn't recognize. They and their caddies were all standing with their hands on their hips, watching the group on the green.

  The course was gorgeous; the grounds crew, I judged, must have put in piles of overtime. The trees and shrubs were perfectly shaped, and the fairways stretched green and lush away toward the mountains to the west, that ridge of peaks that prevents the ocean from sending any nasty old storm clouds over. A dusting of snow clung to the rocks way up high. The sky was so clear blue it would've shattered if you threw something at it. Yet hovering just beyond those peaks, pressing against them, was a swirl of gray clouds just aching to get over here and throw down some rain. They wouldn't, though.

  Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells—these desert towns lie on a finger of an arid basin that stretches north into the Mojave Desert, America's most serious hot place. In Death Valley, on the other side of the Mojave, the faucet taps in peoples' houses are reversed: The water coming out of the pipes in the ground is so hot you can almost cook with it, and you make cool water indoors by storing it in your hot water heater tank with no heat on. I was amazed when I learned this. To the east lie the Little San Bernardino Mountains and Joshua Tree National Park, an otherworldly place of tortured rock and gnarled trees and throat-tightening vistas.

  The desert stopped wherever the ground was watered, and began again past the reach of the sprinklers. You could smell the difference as well as see it: Green grass smells like bread next to the mineral smell of hot dirt. When I was little I had a book, The Living Desert, with pictures of a fearsome fight to the death between a tarantula and a wasp. I read that book over and over, building a permanent belief in the desert's uncaring treachery. Anything can prick you to death in the desert: cacti, tarantulas, wasps.

  The soft turf of the golf course cushioned my feet benevolently. A raft of coots and mallards clucked from the pond between the thirteenth and fourteenth holes. I caught Genie's eye; she gave me a tight smile, then, catching herself being tense, blew out a long breath and rolled her shoulders. I gave her a wink.