Wedding Bell Blues - [40]

pivoting her head. A closed door next to the couch led to what she assumed was the bathroom. A doorwith a beaded curtain led to the bedroom, where Lily could see a queen-size bed covered with one of thechenille peacock bedspreads Jack had described. It really was gorgeous, in a garish sort of way.

The walls of Honey’s apartment were hung with posters depicting dragons, unicorns, fairies, andwizards, and the small bookcase beside Lily housed a collection of science fiction and fantasypaperbacks.

When Honey brought Lily her beer, Lily asked, “You like Marion Zimmer Bradley?”

“Oh, lord,” Mick groaned, lighting up a Marlboro Red. “Don’t get her started talking about thatcrap.”

“Mick’s not much of a reader,” Honey explained.

“She don’t care about nothin’ but riding around with that big ole Harley-Davidson vibratorbetween her legs.”

Suddenly there was a pounding at the screen door and a gruff voice yelling, “I heard there was abuncha dykes holed up in here!”

Lily stiffened at the perceived threat.

Honey rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s just Jack. For somebody with a Doctor in front of hername, she acts like she don’t have a brain in her head.” She turned toward the door and hollered, “Get onin here, you crazy woman!”

Jack swung the door open wide. She was wearing faded Levi’s and a crisp white, button-downshirt. It was the first time Lily had seen her wearing something other than coveralls and mud-caked boots.

“Hey, y’all.” Jack yanked a can of Bud from the six-pack she was carrying and put the rest of thecans in the fridge. “Lily,” she said, grinning broadly. “Glad you could make it.”

“Glad to be here.” Lily watched as Jack made a quick circuit of the room, shaking hands withMick and Dale, giving Honey and Sue courtly kisses on the hand. To Lily’s surprise, Jack settled down onthe floor next to her, making the room a study in butch/ femme pairings.

Lily knew that Jack sitting next to her shouldn’t make her nervous — after all, Jack was the onlyperson in the room whom she’d met before tonight—but it still did, and she found herself knocking backher beer a lot quicker than was probably good for her.

“Hey, Jack,” Honey said, “you’ll never guess who I ran into over at the Piggly Wiggly the otherday.”

“Oh, I bet I can guess,” Jack laughed. “Was it Sandy?”

“Sure was. She’s as pregnant as a cow, too.”

Jack shook her head. “I’m not surprised. Sandy never does anything halfway. When she decidedshe was straight, I knew she was gonna be squeezing out pups as soon as nature would allow it.”

“Sandy used to be a regular at these little get-togethers,” Mick explained to Lily. “Her and Jackwas together for a while, but then ole Sandy kinda retreated to the enemy camps.”

“She went back to her ex-husband,” Jack added. “Decided that what she was doing with me wasjust an ‘experiment’ ... like I was her chemistry project or somethin’.”

Honey laughed. “I wonder what she did about that pink triangle I tattooed on her ass. I notice sheain’t had the guts to come back here and ask me to cover it up.”

“Oh, I’m sure that dumb redneck husband of hers ain’t even noticed it,” Sue drawled. “And if hehas, she probably told him it’s just a birthmark he hadn’t noticed before. I’m sure he’d be stupid enoughto believe it.”

Dale laughed and draped her arm around Sue’s shoulders. “Lily, I bet you think we’re awful.

You’re sitting there thinking, ‘These country dykes don’t do nothin’ but sit around and drink beer and talkbad about people.’ ”

“Hey, drinking beer and talking bad about people are two of my favorite things.” To illustrate herpoint, Lily popped open her second tallboy.

“Well, you’ll fit right in here, then,” Sue said.

“Actually, Lily, being from the city, you probably don’t think we’ve got any educational stuffaround here,” Dale said. “But right while you’re sitting here, you’re looking at a natural history exhibit.”

Lily knew she was being teased, but played along. “And what’s that?”

Dale grinned. “Why, you’re looking right at the oldest known lesbian couple in the history ofFaulkner County, Georgia.”

“That’s great,” Lily said, her insides aching as she thought of all the times she’d imagined growingold with Charlotte. “How long have you two been together?”

Sue squeezed Dale’s age-spotted hand. “We met at the WAC training base in Fort Oglethorpe innineteen and forty-four. I had a boyfriend back home, but when I first saw Dale, I knew I was throughwith the boys.”

Dale smiled slyly. “Our first weekend pass, we checked into a hotel in Chattanooga and didn’tcome outta that room for two whole days.”

Sue slapped Dale’s leg. “Now don’t go telling that!”

“A while back,” Dale said, “when all that gays-in-the-military foolishness was going on, I couldn’thelp laughing. The military’s brought more dykes together than any of them silly women’s music festivalshas.”

“Hey, I went to one of them once,” Honey protested. “It was fun.”

Dale shook her head. “Not my kinda music.”

“Not mine neither,” Mick added. “When Honey dragged me to that thing, I thought I was gonna