Chapter 14
INDEPENDENCE GAY
I was sitting on the bar counter, kicking my sneakers against the wall and reading Hannah’s copy of The Color Purple, when she suddenly plucked the book from my hand and dropped it on the countertop.
“Hey!” I said, reaching for it. “I didn’t mark my page!”
Hannah crossed her arms and gave me a shrewd look. “What’s going on?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been sitting there humming and smiling weirdly for, like, twenty minutes. You did the same thing when you came back from your three-hour errand yesterday.” She raised her eyebrows. “So? Spill.”
I felt Aubrey’s name on my tongue, dancing with sparks. “Am I that easy to read?”
“For a school counselor? Yes.” She leaned her elbows on the counter and stared expectantly at me. “So?”
“You are so annoying.”
“I’m aware. Go on.”
I told her about my surprising conversation with Aubrey, though I made sure I didn’t use her name or hint at her identity. Hannah let me talk without interrupting, but her eyes widened in all the right places.
“So your—enemy—came out to you? In a Target parking lot? After rescuing you from your cartoon villain grandpa?” She looked at me. “Wait. Do you have a crush on her?”
“No!” I said too quickly. “And God, Hannah, who says ‘crush’? You’re so old.”
“Oh, you definitely have a crush.”
“I do not,” I insisted. “I’m just—I don’t know, happy—that I have another queer friend here.”
“What am I, a hetero?”
“Another queer friend my age.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Stop making that face! I’m serious!”
“So are you gonna invite Target girl here, to the bar?”
I drummed my fingers on the book spine. “I tried inviting her already, but she shot it down.”
Hannah saw right through my attempt at disinterest. “Oh shit, you’ve got it bad.”
“Will you stop?”
“Why did she say no?”
“She’s not comfortable, like, being out in Rustin. I’m the only person she’s told.”
That was enough to make Hannah stop teasing me. She took on her compassionate elder expression and clucked her tongue. “I hate that for her.”
“I know.”
“Well, give her time. All you can do is be her friend.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
That Friday, for our Independence Gay party, I stole one of dad’s denim shirts and tied my hair back with a red bandanna to look like Rosie the Riveter.
Hannah showed up wearing a navy Y’ALL MEANS ALL T-shirt with shooting star earrings and an American flag cheek tattoo.
Midas put us both to shame with his full Uncle Sam costume, complete with a top hat and an elastic white beard.
Hatch, of course, made absolutely no effort and defaulted to his favorite maroon polo, which prompted Hannah to berate him for a quarter of an hour about how maroon and red were not the same.
I tried to tamp down my smile, thinking of sage and seafoam linens, until Midas jammed his top hat over Hannah’s head to make her shut up.
“We need more blue food coloring,” Midas said just before the doors opened. “Lou, can you get it from the back?”
“I can create some, if you’d like,” said a mild voice.
Edge had arrived early and was now sitting at a two-top, twirling his USA drink stirrer around his martini glass.
He had opted to dress down in a Hawaiian print shirt and khaki pants, but he still brought his briefcase and handed it to Midas to stash behind the bar.
Hatch sat across from Edge, sipping his own martini while he counted money from the cash box.
He had acquiesced to Hannah’s request that he wear a Fourth of July headband, which sat ridiculously on top of his sleek white hair.
“That’s okay, Edge, thanks,” Midas said good naturedly. “Lou, can you—?”
“Go get it, Louisa,” Hatch barked without looking up.
I scowled but went to the storeroom and found the food coloring Hannah had picked up from Piggly Wiggly.
When I returned, Otis Penny had joined us, fresh from the barber and wearing suspenders of all things.
They were bright red with spangled silver stars, and I could tell from the way he puffed out his chest that he thought he was the cat’s meow.
Until the actual cat jumped on his back and set him screaming.
“God damn it!” Otis yelled, throwing RuPaw off his shoulders. She clung to his pressed shirt, ripping a tear in the fabric, while Hatch roared with laughter and made no effort to help him. “Damn cat! Can’t you put her up for the night?”
“She’s an American, too, Otis,” Hatch said innocently. “She deserves to celebrate.”
“Yeah, and she’d better wear that patriotic bandanna Hannah forced me to track down,” Midas added.
“There’s a snag in your suspenders, Otis,” I said, fingering the catch in the fabric that had clearly attracted RuPaw’s attention. “She wanted to play with it.”
“I swear it’s George egging her on,” Otis said darkly. “He was always jealous of my style.”
Midas coughed into his shirtsleeve. Hannah clearly struggled to keep a straight face. I whipped up a Moscow Mule for Otis while RuPaw scampered away, clearly determined to avoid her patriotic bandanna.
By nine o’clock, the bar was packed and thrumming.
We weren’t as full as we had been for Pride, but the crowd was certainly thicker than a usual Frisky Friday.
I poured drinks, wiped tables, and took over the music when Midas needed a break to fix his fake beard.
All the while, I kept an eye out for Emma and Candor, who planned to make their Frisky Cricket debut tonight.
They hadn’t said whether Aubrey was coming with them, but a small flicker of hope buzzed inside my chest.
I was on my way back from the bathroom, where Hatch had dispatched me to mop up spilled beer, when someone started shaking my shoulders.
It was Emma and Candor, screaming in my ear. Their arms were suddenly around me, their purses scratching my skin. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Emma yelled above the music. “That bossy blonde lady legit told me to take a chill pill—”
I stopped listening, because standing next to Emma was—
“Aubrey!” I shouted, forgetting myself and pulling her into my arms. “You came!”
Aubrey smiled the widest smile I had ever seen from her. Her long, shiny hair was covered by a navy baseball cap—an attempt to fly under the radar, I assumed—but she was here, at the Frisky Cricket, standing so close to me that I could smell her perfume.
“I figured I could use a girls’ night out,” she said, biting her lip. Her eyes lingered on my hair. “Cute bandanna.”
I blushed. “Trying to be, you know, riveting.”
“Love it,” she replied with a silly grin, and I couldn’t look away from her.
Emma and Candor stared back and forth between us. “Um. Why are y’all suddenly cool?” Candor asked.
“What? We’re fine,” I said, trying to arrange my face into a casual expression.
“No, there was definitely tension before,” Emma said.
“We had a come to Jesus talk,” I admitted. Then I played off my own name and muttered, “Come to Ouis-us.”
Aubrey collapsed into giggles and shoved me like I was too much for her.
“What is happening,” Candor stage-whispered to Emma.
“I don’t know, but I feel like my soul is leaving my body,” Emma whispered back.
“Oh, shut up,” Aubrey said with a bright laugh. “We don’t hate each other anymore, shouldn’t you be happy with that?”
“I guess?” Emma said. “It just seems like you’re—”
“Anyway,” I said forcefully, wanting to redirect the conversation. I swept my arm across the bar, focusing intently on Emma and Candor so I wouldn’t get hooked into Aubrey’s eyes again. “What do you think?”
“It’s awesome!” they chorused. “The music, the outfits, oh my god!”
“Come on, I’ll give you the tour! You have to meet RuPaw!”
“RuPaul’s here?!” Candor screamed.
We made the rounds, the four of us grabbing each other’s hands as we slinked through the hot, sweaty bodies.
I showed them every small perfect touch that made the Cricket what it was, and their delighted smiles soaked into me like nothing I had ever felt before.
But it was Aubrey I couldn’t stop looking at, her face glowing like someone had just switched on the light, her mouth slightly open in wonder as she took in this place that was made for people like us.
I led them to the bar top, where I quickly mixed whiskey-Cokes without caring whether Hannah, Hatch, or anyone else saw me.
I paused before grabbing the fourth glass, but when I caught Aubrey’s eye, she nodded to indicate she wanted whiskey, too.
She felt comfortable enough to let her guard down. The realization made my heart sing.
We spun into the middle of the dance floor, flouncing around absurdly like we had in middle school, belting out song lyrics with everything we had. Candor and Emma pretended to tango, and Aubrey snorted into her whiskey drink, and I took it all in, my heart fit to burst.
Until someone bumped into us and sloshed an entire beer down the front of Aubrey’s shirt.
For a moment, Aubrey could only stare. I couldn’t tell whether she was more shocked by the sopping liquid or the fact that the person hadn’t apologized.
“It’s okay,” I said, grabbing her arms. “I’ve got extra shirts in the Caddy—come on—”
Without waiting for the others, I motioned her to follow me through the packed bodies. A second later, I felt her warm hand clasp mine, our fingers twining together. It’s so she doesn’t lose me, my brain said reasonably, but the pitter-patter in my heart made itself known.
There were only a few people in the parking lot: a group of middle-aged friends smoking cigarettes and a young couple grabbing every inch of each other’s skin as they made out against the brick wall.
I led Aubrey to the Cadillac and dug through the back seat until I found one of the clean T-shirts I kept in there for situations like these.
“Here,” I said, handing it to her.
“Thanks,” Aubrey said, stepping under cover of the tree in front of my car. And without further ado, she set her drink on the car’s hood and peeled her tank top off in one smooth motion.
“Oh…,” I muttered.
If she knew what she was doing to me, she didn’t show it. She simply hung her beer-soaked shirt from a tree branch and shifted the new shirt around to stick her arms through. I tried not to linger on the smattering of freckles across her chest, but she caught me looking.
“What?” she asked breathlessly. Her eyes dropped to my mouth.
There was a moment where I couldn’t speak, where all I could do was look at her mouth, too—
And then one of the cigarette smokers squealed with laughter, and the moment was ruined.
“Um,” I said. “Let’s…”
“Yes,” she said hastily.
I wasn’t even sure what she was agreeing to, but when she took my hand again, I moved without thinking and led her to the empty backyard. I took a seat on the same steps where I had first encountered Hatch and gestured for Aubrey to sit next to me.
“So … how are you feeling? Being here?”
Aubrey gave me a deep, searching look. “Can I tell you something? I feel like I’m actually in my skin when I’m with you.”
My heart raced. My palms were sweating. I couldn’t stop looking into her bold, vulnerable eyes. “You’re really pretty, Aubrey.”
The loveliest blush bloomed on her cheeks. Her gaze dropped to my mouth, and I knew what was coming next. “I’d like to kiss you, Louisa.” Her eyes ticked between mine. “Please.”
I tried and failed to tamp down my smile. “You and your manners.”
Aubrey leveled me with a look. “Scrooge,” she said, like the stupid nickname held all the weight of the world, “for once in your life, shut up and use your mouth for something else.”
So I kissed her.
It was a short kiss, gentle as a butterfly finding purchase on a petal. Just enough to make contact, to know her lips were warm and smooth and tinged with whiskey. She pulled back and we looked at each other, breathless, and then I leaned forward and kissed her again.
And suddenly we were making out right there on the steps, all sense of decorum forgotten.
Aubrey yanked her baseball cap off in a rough, impatient motion and tilted her head to kiss me harder, her hands knotting into the hem of my denim shirt, her tongue hot in my mouth.
It was like every small string that kept her in place had been cut unceremoniously, and she was unapologetically hungry for every last inch of me.
She let out a low whine, almost poignant sounding, as I steadied her waist with my hands.
“Okay, okay,” she said, pulling back suddenly. Her skin was flushed and her eyes were bright. “You’re a really good kisser,” she panted, “and if you keep doing that, I’m gonna … I’m just gonna…”
I grinned and tugged on her hand. “You’re gonna what?”
“Don’t look all pleased with yourself.”
“I am, though.”
She shoved me. I grabbed her hand and kissed her again.
“I’m torn,” she said breathlessly. “Part of me wants to keep making out with you, and the other part of me wants to go back inside and suck up every detail of this place.”
I smiled. “I told you it was amazing.”
“I had no doubt.”
“Can you imagine if the whole world was like the Cricket? We wouldn’t need safe places or stolen moments. We’d have the whole earth. We could roam anywhere, kiss anywhere.”
“Maybe that’s the dream,” she said softly. “But for tonight, I’m just really glad we have the Cricket.”
“We do,” I said, glowing with pride. “And I think we should dance.”
When I looked back on it later, a few things stood out about the end of that night.
The first was the smell of Aubrey’s perfume and the shine of her hair beneath her baseball cap.
The second was Emma and Candor’s joy as they danced their hearts out to the point where Emma’s shirt was dark with sweat.
And the third was the sweet, warm thrill in my belly when “Stars Fell on Alabama” began to play and Aubrey pulled me close to slow dance.
I didn’t care that our friends were watching.
I didn’t care that Hannah and Midas were posted up in the corner beaming at me like a couple of gushing parents.
All I cared about was the heat of Aubrey’s body against mine, and the absolute freedom she felt to finally be herself in a public space, and the soft press of her lips on my cheek right as the song came to an end.
“I did not have this on my Bingo card,” Emma whispered to Candor, but I ignored them and kissed Aubrey full on the mouth, right there in the middle of the dance floor, with my heart swelling and swelling until it could have popped open the ceiling.
The music played, and the people danced, and I thought inexplicably of Uncle George, wondering if he’d gone to heaven, and if it felt like an infinite moment of this.