Tell Me It's Real

  He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “Trust me, no one can handle me and Helena.”

  I thought about Darren and the way he’d been watching Helena perform, but I pushed it away. Other things to focus on now. If this didn’t blow up in my face like I certainly expected it to, I’d make sure that Helena knew the Homo Jock King wanted to lick her ball sac. Or whatever Darren wanted to do. “Okay, so let’s go over the plan again.”

  He looked baffled. “There was a plan? First I’m hearing about it. I distinctly remember you shrieking into your phone, telling me I needed to get my ass over to your house because you’d made a big mistake and wanted to marry Vince and have his babies forever and ever, but before you could give him your soul, you needed my help in breaking into the hospital to see the dying first lady of Tucson to receive her blessing so that you could live the rest of your life with your future husband and what will most likely be an ethnically diverse rainbow of children from such far-flung countries as Sudan and Iceland.”

  I gaped at him in horror. “I never said anything like that!”

  “Semantics. And you should really flip down the collar to your coat. It’s not 1987, and even if it was, you’d still look ridiculous. No one is going to recognize you by your neck. And where did you get those sunglasses? They look like a pair of mine that I lost under a suspicious set of circumstances last year and, at the time, you said you had no idea where they went.”

  “Yeah, I stole them,” I admitted, not feeling bad in the slightest. “I didn’t have the heart to tell you that when you wore them, it looked like you were trying to do a really awful impression of Tom Cruise from Top Gun.”

  “Gayest movie ever,” Sandy declared rightfully. “Anytime you do any kind of slow-motion scene involving men playing volleyball almost naked automatically puts your film in the pantheon of homoeroticism. And poor Val Kilmer. What happened to him? He used to be so attractive! Now he looks like a live-action version of Gollum.”

  “He aged, I guess,” I said, putting down my collar because it was not 1987.

  “Yeah, but his version of aging was like he got fast-forwarded sixty years. If that ever happens to me, I expect you to tell me and then drive me home after I get extensive plastic surgery.”

  “Ew,” I muttered. “You’re not that vapid. For the most part.”

  “Neither was Val Kilmer, and look what happened to him.”

  We offered a moment of silence for Val Kilmer because Sandy had a good point.

  “So what is the plan?” Sandy demanded. “And the flowers must be part of it. I didn’t spend thirty-five bucks on flowers not to have them in our diabolical scheme.”

  “They’re very pretty,” I assured him.

  “Thank you. The guy at the flower shop called it a ‘summer bouquet’. He was adorable. I almost asked him what kind of bouquet he’d recommend if I wanted to ask a guy selling flowers what it would take for me to sit on his face, but somehow, I was able to resist the urge. This seemed to be more important.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I thank you that you were able to hold yourself back from sitting on the flower guy’s face. I know it must have been so hard for you.”

  “No, but it could have been hard.”

  “Puns? Really? That’s what you’ve settled for? I don’t think the flower guy would’ve gone for that.”

  “Oh, so you’ve been in love for twelve hours, and now you’re suddenly the expert?”

  “Don’t use that word!”

  “Love, love, Paul’s in love!”

  “Shut your face, you damaged queen!”

  He stuck his tongue out at me. “Make me, lover boy. You better let me perform at the wedding. If you don’t, our friendship is over.”

  I was hurt. “Of course you would perform at the wedding. Who else would I get—Oh, for fuck’s sake! I’m not getting fucking married! You tricked me, you scandalous bitch!”

  He smirked evilly at me. “I guess we know what you’re thinking about.”

  “Can we talk about this later?”

  “You bet your sweet ass we will. I see it more of a fall wedding, with leaves and centerpieces shaped like autumn squash—”

  “Sandy!”

  “Paul!”

  “Focus! How are we going to get in?”

  “Okay, okay. Let me think.” He frowned and tapped a finger to the side of his head. “So, we don’t know what room she’s in, only that she’s in hospice care. And since you won’t go the easy route and just ask Vince, we need to find her first. We’ll have to ask someone if they know where she’s at.”

  “Why would they tell us? Isn’t it supposed to be secret? They won’t let us in to see the First Lady of Tucson if we just ask.”

  “Two things: one, I don’t know if ‘First Lady of Tucson’ is a real thing. I just said that because it almost makes her sound like a princess, and that makes me happy because it makes me think that when you get married to Vince, it will almost be like a royal wedding since he would be the son of a princess.”

  “And the second thing?” I asked warily.

  “Hmmm?”

  “The second thing? You said there were two things.”

  “I did? Oh. Sorry. I forgot. I got distracted by the idea of a royal wedding. How dashing would Vince be in a uniform?”

  “So dashing,” I said dreamily. After a moment, I shook my head, clearing my brain of images of Vince in a blue uniform with a sword and scabbard attached to his hip. “We’re off track again.”

  “It was your fault that time,” he said. “Anyway, so since we have to incorporate the flowers somehow—”

  “We don’t have to incorporate the flowers at all—”

  “You shut your face! We do and we will. So, since we will be using the flowers, and that is nonnegotiable, we can say that we are there to deliver the flowers to the First Lady.”

  “Won’t they think we’re like paparazzi or something?”

  “Well, you, maybe, but that’s why I’ll be the one asking.”

  “Wait. Why would they think I was paparazzi and not you? I feel like I should be offended.”

  “You’re thinking too much about it,” he said, patting my arm. “I was born to act. You’ll just look more believable if you stood off to the side away from me like a scene extra.”

  “Hey, I can act! I was in a play once. I was the best thing about the whole show.”

  “I know. You were eight. It was about the four food groups. You played a block of cheese and had to sing a song about calcium. Your mom spent four weeks on the costume and it made you look like you were an orange dice. You cried after the first show because you had to pee so bad and they couldn’t figure out how to get you out of your cheesy prison.”

  I smiled, remembering. “I brought the house down with my last line, though. ‘Give me dairy or give me osteoporosis!’ It was my greatest role.”

  “And that’s why you won’t be playing the role of flower-delivery guy,” he said. “You can be Stand Off In The Corner guy.”

  “Fine, but what about the Secret Service?”

  “The what now?”

  “The Secret Service. Won’t they be guarding the First Lady’s room?”

  “I don’t think we really understand how local politics work.”

  I shrugged. “I just go into the voting booth and vote for the Democrats. If there is more than one, I go for the one whose name I like better. That was really hard once when there was one guy named Diego Valdez and the other one was Rocco Cordova.”

  Sandy paused for a moment. “You went with Rocco, didn’t you?”

  I grinned. “Yeah, only because I made up a song that got stuck in my head. ‘Hey, it’s Rocco! Sucking my cock-o!’”

  “How are we not famous?” he asked, seriously baffled.

  “The world isn’t ready for us.”

  “So, Secret Service? No Secret Service?”

  I shrugged. “I have a feeling we’re going to wing it once we get inside. The best thing I can think is that if s
omeone pulls a gun on us, we should probably run.”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re going to jail today,” Sandy said. “It’s a good thing you’re in love with the mayor’s son. Hopefully that means we can get out quicker.”

  “I really wish you’d stop using that word,” I said with a scowl. “It’s like you’re rubbing it in now.”

  “What do you think sounds better? Paul Taylor or Vince Auster? Eh, now that I say it out loud, Paul Taylor makes it sound like you own a big-and-tall clothing store for single women above the age of fifty. Vince Auster sounds much more refined. He should get your name.”

  “Duly noted,” I ground out.

  He ignored me. “We doing this?”

  “It’s go time,” I said, only because I always wanted to say something like that.

  “Hands in, then,” he barked at me. He held his hand out and I put mine on top of his. “The usual on three! Ready! One! Two! Three!”

  “Rock out with our cocks out!” we shouted at each other.

  The game was on.

  AND the game turned out to be much easier than we thought it would be. I was almost disappointed at the lack of Secret Service agents second-guessing whether we were paparazzi and the complete lack of the necessity for me to use my acting skills that I’d honed while playing the difficult role as Chuckie Cheddar Cheese.

  We walked into the hospice entrance and glanced around quietly. No one appeared suspicious of a skinny guy carrying flowers and a husky guy wearing sunglasses indoors. I certainly didn’t see anyone speaking into their watch and saying things like, “Red leader, red leader, the whale has breached. Repeat: the whale has breached.”

  Sandy pointed to a corner that he apparently wanted me to go stand in like I was a four-year-old child who wasn’t capable of speaking on my own. Then I thought of the last time I’d been in the hospital and had called the sassy black nurse (I still don’t know what an “administrative professional” is) a bitch and a dog and convinced her I was way into incest, so I figured it was probably for the best. But just to show my individuality and the fact that I wouldn’t be bossed around, I stood in a different corner than the one Sandy told me to. He rolled his eyes at me.

  I was shocked when he walked over to me only a moment later and said, “Room 214.”

  “What? How did you get that?”

  He looked a little surprised himself. “I changed the story at the last second and said I was dropping these off on Vince’s behalf. The nurse gave it to me right away with this sort of faraway look in her eye like she wanted to climb Vince like a tree house. Competition is always healthy, I guess.”

  “I’ll fucking cut her,” I snarled.

  “Easy there, Mrs. Jackson. The good news is they said his mom is having a good day today, whatever that means. The mayor apparently is going to be here this afternoon, so there shouldn’t be anyone up there.”

  “Well, there hasn’t been any Secret Service, at least from what I can tell.”

  “Gee, you’re such a good lookout.”

  “Shut up, Sandy.”

  We started following the signs that led up a flight of stairs to the second floor and off to a quiet section of the hospital, which was the hospice wing. It seemed muted somehow, a shade darker than the rest of the hospital. People spoke in hushed tones, and no one paid us any mind.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Sandy asked quietly. “Maybe you should just talk to Vince first.”

  I shook my head, resolute. “No, we’re here. If she’s able, I’d like to talk to her. At the very least to let her know that Vince is going to be in good hands, even after she’s gone.”

  Sandy stopped me by grabbing my hand, the flowers in his other. I glanced back at him, curious about the guarded expression on his face. “What?” I asked him.

  “You need to think about what you just said,” he told me, his voice a-tremble. “If you’re planning on telling a dying woman that you’re going to take care of her son after she’s gone, then you sure as shit better plan on doing it. If you don’t, even I don’t think I could forgive you for that, Paul.”

  I knew he was thinking about his own parents, and the bright anger in his eyes did little to calm me. “Sandy….”

  “No, Paul. You do this and that’s it. He’s yours. No second-guessing yourself. No flip-flopping. No angst for the sake of it. You do this, you stand by it. It’s not fair to anyone if you don’t, but especially that woman in there. She may not like the fact that her son is gay, she may be ridiculous enough to hate him for it, but you don’t get to go in there and make promises you don’t intend to keep.”

  I looked down the hall and could see room 214 a few doors down. And I knew that Sandy was right. If I did this, I had to be in for it completely. This couldn’t be some half-assed thing. This couldn’t be something that I would pull back from weeks or months down the road. If I did this, I needed to do it right.

  And I’ll be honest, I almost turned around and walked out. I almost retraced our steps until I was standing outside the hospital in the bright sunlight and breathing in air that didn’t smell like sickness and death. I almost walked back to get into the car and drive away and forget that I ever even came to this place. Maybe Vince would have told me about his mom, maybe he wouldn’t have. Maybe I wouldn’t know the day she died. Maybe Vince would suddenly say that he needed to go out of town when in actuality he would be going to her funeral.

  Or maybe he would tell me everything. Maybe he would tell me everything that night. I didn’t know if it had anything to do with trust, but with how much flack I’d given him over the past week, how fickle and flighty I’d seemed, I could see why he didn’t think I could handle this being dumped in my lap. Maybe it was the very real fact that regardless of how he felt about me, regardless of what he thought he saw in me, we’d only known each other for days. Not years. Not weeks. Not even two weeks. Days. Maybe my parents had met almost the same way. Maybe they’d known that they loved each other right away, and maybe it had worked for them, but it was still fantastical. It was still a fairy tale. Things like that didn’t happen. There was no such thing as love at first sight.

  And, of course, that brought the doubts along with it. That maybe, just maybe the only reason he’d latched onto me the way he had was because his mother was dying, because he was losing someone who meant a lot to him and was transferring all of what he felt about her over to me. Once he’d gotten over his grief, he’d realize how mistaken he was about me, of course he’d have never gone for someone like me, it was all just a phase, an awkward dream, a lapse in judgment that wouldn’t have worked out in the long run.

  I opened my mouth to tell Sandy that he was right, that we should leave. Instead, I said, “I know. And I’m going to do it anyway.”

  He watched me closely, as if trying to gauge my sincerity. I don’t know what he saw in me, but it must have been enough. He handed the flowers over to me and leaned in and kissed my cheek. We both ignored the brightness in his eyes. “Good,” he said roughly. “I’m going to go see if I can find some coffee or something. Call me when you’re done.”

  “You’re not going with me?” I asked, slightly panicked.

  He shook his head. “This isn’t about me, baby doll. Besides, dealing with one stranger is easier than two. Just… be kind, okay? You don’t know what she’s going through. She may have been a shit to her son, but that doesn’t mean she’s not suffering enough as it is. Okay?”

  I nodded, unsure of what else to say.

  “All right, then. You go do this thing and then we’ll get out of here, maybe go get your man and take him out to lunch. I think I need to get to know the guy who turned my best friend upside down so quickly.” He kissed me again and he left.

  Before I could give myself time to think (read: time to run away), I turned back toward room 214 and walked over. I knocked on the door.

  “Yes?” a voice said, much stronger than I’d thought it would be. “Come in.”

  I pushed my sunglasse
s up on my head, took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Chapter 16

  I Brought You A Healthy Dose Of Awkwardness. Get Well Soon!

  WHAT hit me first was how much Vince looked like Lori Taylor.

  Obviously, there were some minor dissimilarities; her nose was a bit sharper, her chin a bit weaker. Her skin was paler and her eyes were a slightly different shade of brown. But other than that? She was all Vince. There was Vince in the curiosity in her eyes. There was Vince in the slight, tentative curve to her mouth. Her hair was gone, her head wrapped in a pretty blue scarf. Her frame was thin and there were shadows around her eyes, almost like bruises.

  But even with that, even with the evidence of her illness etched across her skin in the thinness of her cheeks and arms, there was still strength there. There was still knowledge. There was a sense that while she’d been beaten down, she was not gone yet. Even without knowing a thing about her, I knew she was a fighter, and even though she was losing the fight, she was giving it all she could. I admired her for it, but part of me also hated her for it given that if she had that much tenacity, how much of Vince’s life had she made a living hell after he’d come out? What did she do to him that made him flinch every time his parents were mentioned?

  I had pity, yes. I had sympathy. I had concern. But I also had anger. And resentment. I was mad that she could even consider, even entertain the idea of thinking of someone as beautiful as her son as deserving of her scorn. I remembered back, seeing her on the news, standing next to her husband, waving out to the crowd shortly after he’d won the election. It was a narrow victory. Vince had been nowhere in sight. This fueled me, though I knew it shouldn’t. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been watching the same thing that day. What had he been thinking? What had to have been going through his head?

  “Hello,” she said evenly. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

  “No,” I said. “I guess you wouldn’t have.”

  “Are those for me?” she asked, pointing to the flowers.