Baked In Seattle Read online

  Both kids now were tickled and happy for fresh interesting blood in the family. They’d been amply schooled in diversity when they were coming up, marching as we did with the lesbian mothers in the Pride Parade. Besides learning camping and fishing from Angel, Shelly had taught them a little Spanish and her lover Blake had taken Dew to the macho action flicks I hated. Malcolm had shown Dew how to shoot a rifle and Peanut how to play spoons, and Drake had given them worldly advice on fashion, books and the ugliness of ignorance.

  “I was always proud,” Peanut told me, “that my mom was different.”

  “If whoever you pick is anything like Malcolm,” Dew said, “he’ll be totally cool.”

  Chapter Three

  Since Shelly drove for DHL, I often saw her downtown. We’d squeal, hug and try to fit in a coffee break, though that was rare. Usually we were too deep in the time-terror crunch used universally by freight companies against hourly employees.

  Our livelihood depended on pissing clear so it made sense to stay sober and clean. Shelly and I went to AA or NA meetings once in a while to show face, keep an eye on the peers and gossip. We also got the best free group therapy ever invented though we weren’t crazy about all the players at the gay AA Alano Club, a huge yellow Victorian house in Capital Hill.

  Some of the dykes were cool, like Diane and Babs, but some were loony as bedbugs.

  Anna droned on and on about her landlord issues, her victimized rant setting everyone’s teeth on edge for months. Diane’s ex-lover was a cryer and always seemed to have “a burning desire” to speak at meeting’s end, prolonging closure another ten minutes. Reed, who had bad facial tics, had been committed to a mental hospital, locked up for being gay as a teenager by Jehovah’s Witness parents. Etta had been in a car accident, her frequent non-sequiturs and rush to anger displaying her real cognitive damage.

  Some of the worst cases fit in every meeting the Alano Club hosted---AA, OA, NA, GA, OCDA, Alanon, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Codependent No More, Inner Child Tuesdays, Bradshaw Study Group Meetings, Shop-aholics, Sexual Abuse Recovery, Incest Survivors. At meetings they’d be functioning at a crisis level, in tears despite rugged street personas.

  Over lunch one day our commercial vehicles sat at the curb next to each other, me in Shelly’s passenger seat. Shelly began talking about people she detested but with whom she had to remain cordial, like the fucked-up Alano Club dykes who dissed her for being bi.

  “Or the assholes on route,” I said, another favorite subject since we delivered freight to many of the same places. “Do you ever go to that little building just down the street from Regence? Top floor, some architect’s office?”

  “Yup, I was there last week,” Shelly said, taking another forkful of salad. “Man, the bleu cheese really makes this thing. Wanna try it?”

  She held a fork toward me.

  I nodded and opened my mouth, leaning toward her. As she fed me pine nuts and romaine, her own mouth opened watching me, like mine had done when I’d fed my children.

  “Isn’t he a dick, that receptionist guy?” she said as I chewed. “He called me stupid last time I was there and I was pissed. I reported him to my boss but that went nowhere since Mr. Personality had already called DHL to complain about me. I got a letter in my file over it, too. Bastard.”

  “It is a good salad. He has that little dog, you know? Bit my ankle and then the guy gets pissed at me when I kick the thing away. He called FedEx, too, and complained about me. Closet case.” I was finished with my sandwich and flipped through the Time magazine Shelly had on her front seat.

  “I need this job and he knows it so I have to hold my tongue and just take it. Closet-case maricon motherfucker,” Shelly spat.

  “Don’t you wish there was some passive-aggressive way to get back at people like that without repercussions? Like the whiners at the meeting? Or that asshole?”

  The magazine opened to a Special Edition Barbie Doll, wearing a black skin-tight cocktail dress with the taffeta pouf at the calf. When I was a little girl, Fawn Camp had debated over whether to have Barbie dolls or not, and finally agreed, dressing them in home sewn coveralls. I’d coveted that black dress.

  “Look at this,” I said, showing Shelly the full-page ad. “We had this doll. Man, I wonder what they’re worth now. Mine would be worthless even if I had it since the tits got smashed in. We threw her off the barn roof playing Supergirl.”

  “Lemme see that,” Shelly said, pulling the perforated tear-out order form out of the magazine. “I think I am just about to be brilliant.”

  She studied the little square sheet and grinned menacingly at me, her eyes twinkly with barely contained glee.

  “That guy. The one we hate. I’ve got it.”

  My dating career began in earnest following all the rules Malcolm had prescribed. After a while, it became second- nature to control the interaction with time, place, limits and first right of refusal. These cautious constraints made a smooth journey from first sip of lunchtime coffee to first time in bed.

  And Malcolm had been right. The replies rolled in like clockwork, the pile growing larger every day. I didn’t know Seattle had that many men of color. There seemed to be hundreds of black men out there hearing my clarion call. I weeded them out online, over the phone and then with coffee.

  Though in the back of my mind I would have liked a serious partner, I wanted to have a little fun. I missed sex which with lesbians had been spotty at best. Suddenly there were available men everywhere who were interested in me. It was an emotionally starved woman’s dream. Three nights a week, if I wanted, I had a date, dinner out or an evening at home rolling in some daddy’s arms. It was incredible how efficient the game of dinner to sex could become, getting to the point faster via the internet. Men had to lay out their pedigree, their portfolio and their ability to charm before they even got an email out of me.

  Condoms were employed to keep everything cool.

  Every time I’d call Drake before leaving and every time I’d call him that night or next day to report all the juicy details. I spent a whole winter regaling him with my bawdy tales.

  The guy on Lake Washington had humiliated Drake at a party in front of other snobby rich men so Drake was focusing on a younger man from Portland.

  “He thinks I’m dreamy,” Drake reported after they’d talked on the phone all week. “That’s the word he used. Am I ready to be adored as The Older Stable Man?”

  “You are dreamy, darling. He’s right. Stable? Maybe not so much.”

  “Oh, thanks a lot, Miss Conventional. Speaking of stable, how’s the rotating stable of studs going? Found Mr. Right?”

  “Nope. Having hella fun, though. I think I might prefer serial dating to marriage. I am certainly eating well.”

  “There’s the thing about being The Older Man,” Drake began, dropping ‘stable’ from the mix. “I am expected to be the paying sugar daddy. That’s what I’m looking for and here comes this kid looking at me like my receptionist job is gonna pay his college loans? I need a facial and a microderm abrasion, honey. I feel ancient.”

  “Just be up front about the money. Long distance alone is costing you a fortune. And then you’re going to meet, yes?”

  “This weekend. He’s coming here. I’m terrified. What if I hate him or worse, think he’s boring? Or ugly? What if he doesn’t like me?”

  “That’s why I have coffee with these fools first, then dinner….out of state dating is rather…rushed…as far as progression goes, simply by geographic challenge. I don’t envy you there. But you boys do it differently, anyway.”

  “Has he gotten anything yet?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Shelly and I were parked next to each other, our trucks along the back wall of Dick’s in the alley. We munched Deluxe burgers, double orders of hand cut greasy fries and chocolate shakes. Dick’s Drive-In on Broadway had been the first place Angel had taken me when I’d moved to Seattle and the first place I had taken the children when they’d a
rrived that summer for our first visit.

  A tradition had soon taken effect, with the rear door of my Subaru wagon open and all of us hanging out the back, throwing fries to the pigeons and watching the Broadway freak show pass by. Peanut refused to eat the pre-made burgers unless I scraped all the “icky stuff” off, pulling at the inside of the bun to remove even the ketchup stain before she’d touch it. She liked her food “plain” like I had as a child. Dew always ordered a strawberry shake, his love of strawberry in place since infancy. Every December birthday he’d want fresh strawberries and I’d searched everywhere until I found them, paying any price.

  We all loved the Dick’s experience. Shelly and I met there for lunch when our routes overlapped.

  “I can’t wait to see his face when the shit starts rolling in, mamacita. He’s such a Type-A personality, he’s gonna completely go loco.”

  Shelly was grinning, congratulating herself on her vindictive idea. I had stood back in wonder at its magnificence, following her instructions at Bulldog News. We’d discreetly pulled out every single tear-away sheet for every subscription and purchase we could find. Marking the “Bill Me Later” box, we’d ordered Mr. Personality with the ankle-biting doggie everything we came across.

  Anytime now they’d start to arrive.

  Heirloom dolls, Marine Corps electric trains, John Wayne commemorative plates, Ronald Reagan beer steins, Oreck vacuums, plastic hamster Habitrails, a bird-chirping-chime clock, a talking map of the fifty states, a deluxe satin sewing basket, ceramic lifelike newborn babies, zoysia grass, Amaryllis bulbs, Holly Hobby ragdolls, white calfskin leather Bibles with gold page-holders, Precious Moments keepsakes, cubic zirconium bracelets, Princess Diana dolls, Velcro bras, cat calendars, bronzed baby shoes and a Mario Andretti slow cooker were all being sent to his office.

  Interest cards were procured for him for the NRA, both WWFs, Shaklee, Amway, The Pride Foundation, NAMBLA, NOW, VFW, American Legion, Masons, Oddfellows and Rebekahs, Jerry Falwell’s True Believer’s Circle, The Jewish Defense League, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association.

  This jackass who griped about our services and begrudgingly signed our delivery logs would get Esquire, Vogue, Newsweek, Lithuanian Ladies’ Monthly, the Catholic Digest, Business Leader, Wall Street Journal, Time, MS., National Geographic, Men’s Health, WWD, Reader’s Digest, Tiger Beat, Seventeen, Elle, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Mother Earth News, Redbook, Jugs, Bodacious Ta-tas, Nothing But Skin, Atlantic Monthly, Pussy-licious, Ebony, Blue Boy, Cooking Light, Nickelodeon, Crosswords and Puzzles, Buns of Steel, Playboy, Maxim, Hustler and Playgirl.

  The poor man had been secretly signed up to contribute on a regular basis to The Ocean Conservation Fund, both the Republican and Democratic parties, Save the Children, NARAL, the Fireman’s Find, The Benevolent Policeman’s Association and both The Sons of the Confederacy and The Southern Poverty Law Center.

  We couldn’t wait to see him go apoplectic over the flood of incoming goods. Fortunately, all the shit due to hit his fan was ordered postal service so Shelly and I were neither suspect nor impacted, unless, of course, we were busted for mail fraud.

  “How’s the manhunt going?” Shelly smiled, waiting for details.

  I told her the latest tale, of the white guy whose email response made me laugh so hard I actually went out for coffee with him. His tag line was: “I’m Jewish and my ex-wife’s half black---does that count?” I had to give him props for trying.

  “Guess what I saw on LOGO last night,” I said, taking a huge gulp of my chocolate shake. “Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse Five.’ Haven’t seen it in years. Man, Valerie Perrine had gorgeous tits. But you know the funny thing?”

  “Whazzat, mamacita?”

  “Holly Near is in it. She plays Billy Pilgrim’s daughter Barbara.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. Hair all up in a ‘do, wearing tight dresses and horn rim glasses. Her face looked really round.”

  “Miss ‘Gentle, Angry People’ in a tight dress? Miss ‘Nina’ in hornrims?”

  Shelly began to sing “Hay Una Mujer Desaparaceda.”

  “Yup. Man, I loved her stuff. I still have a Fire In the Rain cassette somewhere.”

  “Did I ever tell you, chica, I went to Carnegie Hall to see Meg Christian and Cris Williamson?”

  “Hell, no, you never told me that! What was it like?”

  “A sea of tuxedos and lavender cummerbunds.”

  “How did a downtrodden oppressed lesbian former fruit picker such as yourself ever get to Carnegie Hall?”

  “Practice, girl. Practice,” Shelly grinned, waggling her fingers as if on a piano keyboard. She burst out laughing as I made a face. “No, for real. My first lover was a white woman from the family who hired my family. She got me special treatment on the job then got me out of the fields altogether. We became lovers, she turned me on to all the lesbian music. Gave me Lesbian/Woman, Rubyfruit and all that. She got the tickets as a surprise. I’d never been on an airplane.”

  “What a fucking great story!”

  “It was heaven. I’d never seen that many lesbians before. I thought Claire and I were the only two in the world. She loaned me the money to get the hell out and on my own. But anyway.”

  “You told me about her before but you never mentioned going to New York.”

  “It was a trip, for sure. The concert was awesome and seeing the other lesbians was an eye opener. An endless waterfall of dykes, filling up and spilling over. There were so many fat women there. I’d never seen so many women taking up so much space.” Shelly giggled. “Did you ever hear the circus joke about the fat lady marrying the midget? They get married and all the circus people crowd around their tent at night to try and peek in to see them having sex. They can’t imagine it, since she’s so fat and he’s a midget. So they finally get a spot where they can peek in and they see the midget jumping up and down all over the fat lady, hollering ‘Acres and acres and it’s all mine!’”

  “Nice. You are full of surprises, Shell. I think I’ve heard all your stories and then you pull another one out of your phenomenal brain. No wonder I love you.”

  “Okay, okay, mamacita. Don’t go all mushy-homo on me. Back to work,” Shelly said, looking at her watch then wiping her hands on her pants. “My pickups are already heavy.”

  Birgitte sipped her tea over Sunday brunch, a rare treat we were indulging. She lived north of downtown between Ballard and Fremont, and I was way the hell south so getting together was a luxury.

  “I hate it that you’re having so much fun while I’m dealing with this lunatic ex-husband. We are never in the same place at the same time.”

  Birgitte stirred more lemon into her brew and looked out at the incredibly grey drizzle. She continued her melancholy rant.

  “I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving already. I never even got any summer, I was so twisted up with this idiot.”

  “If we were in the same place at the same time, we wouldn’t be able to be there for each other,” I insisted, hoping it was the right thing to say. “Divorce is always fucked up even when it’s theoretically cordial.”

  Poor Birgitte had a maniac on her hands, a wild man careening in every direction at once. She’d changed the locks, installed a security system, gotten a restraining order. Her eyes were always looking around and she’d become understandably jumpy.

  I tried to speak softly.

  “Maybe you could move?”

  “I refuse to sell the house and disappear just because he’s an asshole.”

  “Good for you, then. Stick to your guns.”

  “I think I’m gonna go back to school.”

  “Gitta, that’s a wonderful idea. Very strong and focused. Have you thought about Alanon anymore? Shelly says to tell you there’s meetings everywhere.”

  “Hey, I went. I found out they were at that church just down from the Troll and I nerved up and went.”

  “Th
at’s great! How was it?”

  “Every single woman there…it was all women…they were all singing my song. It was Kyle to the 10th power. He’s everywhere.”

  “Did they say anything helpful?”

  “Yup. I’ll go again. Let’s see…what was it? ‘We felt too shameful to let anyone else know, and too fearful of disappointment to take the chance of being let down’ or something like that. I also heard that I didn’t cause Kyle’s drinking and I can’t fix it, either. That stuck in my head. I like that idea. I guess I always felt responsible somehow.”

  “That’s how he wanted you to feel. It gives him power.”

  “Do you know what he told me?” Birgitte said quietly, looking out the window again, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Oh, Gitta, don’t cry, please.”

  “He said I would end up a skinny old maid and never find someone to love me.”

  I started laughing and apologized through my choking.

  “I’m sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you.”

  I took her hand across the table. I felt a few eyes on us, or rather, on her.

  “Gitta, darling, you are so fucking hot and so smart, you will find hundreds of people to love you if you want them. Don’t believe a word of that shit, babydoll. That’s why I laughed, since it is so ludicrous. He has you wrapped so tight, you can’t see what everyone else sees. Kyle sees it, too, and it’s very threatening to him.”

  “Sees what?” she sniffed, blowing her nose. She wasn’t ready yet to believe me, still holding back, a little hurt at my laughter.

  “He really beat you down, honey. Look up, Birgitte. Look around this room. Slowly. Notice the men cruising you. Hell, even those dykes over there noticed you but they can’t figure out if we’re together so they don’t want to step on my toes by looking too much if I’m your butch. You are a treasure, honey, pure pleasure on the eyes and then you’re smart besides. Kyle was terrified that you’d realize how precious you are and that you wouldn’t need him. That motherfucker knows what a thing of beauty he threw away over drinking. He’s just trying to take you down with him. Keep going to those meetings, babe. They’ll help a lot. You’re doing great. Now tell me, how’re the twins?”