St Louis & Royal

Dinner had, of course, been ordered months ahead of time, as it was every year: Oysters Bienville and lobster bisque and several whole roasted geese, truly a feast of epic proportions – as it was in the beginning, I guess – yet from time to time I felt her hand on my thigh, drawing little electric circles with fingernails, playfully getting closer than close, and once I saw Rickie looking down, and then he smiled at me. Like he understood, like he had known all about us from the beginning of time. Like he was in on an inside joke – and I wasn't, not yet.

It was like, when he saw her doing that with her fingers, he realized all was right in his little corner of the universe. All was as it should be. Except it wasn't. Not even close.

He tapped me on the shoulder at one point and leaned close, bid me to lean closer still, then he whispered in my ear. I remember the feeling, how he got so close his lips were tickling my ear, and then he sighed, told me he loved me more than anything in the world, and that he always would.

I'm not sure what I looked like, but a moment later my mother asked if I was feeling alright. I shook my head and excused myself, then headed aft through the labyrinth of private dining rooms to the restrooms. And a moment later I felt him coming up behind me, trying to catch up.

"Goose. Wait up," he said, and suddenly the last place I wanted to be was alone with him in a bathroom, so I ducked into a large green dining room, one reserved for real royalty, and he followed me in, shut the door behind us. Then Claire came in, too, almost out of breath – and she locked the door behind us.

"What's going on with you two?" she asked.

I shook my head, turned away.

"I told him how I feel about him," her brother said.

"Oh," she said, and I could hear it her voice. Then she looked at me, a million questions in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but I don't know what's going on here. And I don't know how to feel right now."

"I just wanted you to know, Goose," he said, tears now forming in his eyes, "because you've always been my best friend, and this is, after all, Christmas."

"Christmas?" I cried. "What has Christmas got to do with this?"

Claire nodded her head. "Oh," she sighed. "I get it."

"Do you?" Rickie said, looking right at me.

"Sure. We've spent almost every Christmas together. Since we were kids."

"I look forward to Christmas, every year," Richard said, nodding his head, "because that's when we're together, the three of us. And I love it when we're together, I love this feeling more than anything else in the world."

I turned and looked at him.

"That's all I meant, Goose. Really. It just came out wrong."

I was not convinced. No, not at all, but we went back to the table together and finished our very special dinner, but when I looked at Richard, Rickie, I could see a light had gone from his eyes, that I had done something terrible to him – and that I really didn't understand any of it. Claire seemed sympathetic to us both, maybe my mother did too, but it was the look in my father's eyes that unsettled me most of all. He looked at me, then Rickie, and I could see his jaw working.

Never a good sign, if you know what I mean.

And I saw Dean Collins looking at Claire as we left, and the sorrow in his eyes was the most barren landscape I'd ever seen in my life.

+++++

We rode back to the hotel together in silence, my parents and I, and the silent routine continued in the elevator. I said goodnight when my floor came, and I looked at my father as the door closed and knew this night was far from over. I walked down to my room and realized I didn't have the key – but the door was open, the lights on inside – and despite very real misgivings I went inside.

She was waiting for me, of course.

"My father will be down here in a second," I said, yet she didn't move. She looked at me, love manifest in her every breath, but she just looked right into my eyes.

"I know," was, in fact, all she said – and those two words came out as a whispered plea.

And true to form, Brigadier General Amos Wainwright, USMC, came strolling into the room a minute later.

And when he saw Claire, he came to a shuddering halt.

"What are you doing here, young lady?"

"Waiting to talk to you, sir," she said.

There was pure electricity in the air now, pregnant expectation hanging in the air, apparent.

"Indeed," he said. "Well, you have the floor, so fire away."

"Your son is not a homosexual," she said, and I could see my old man visibly relax.

"Oh? What was all that with your brother at the table? Or," he almost sneered, "should I say – your sister."

"What?" I cried. "What do you mean, sister?"

And then the three of us sat. We sat and talked for hours, and for the second time that day I knew my understanding of life had been altered forever. We talked about the facts of life, variations as my father understood them, then variations as Claire understood them. We came to crossroads and impossible canyons, and we worked our to an understanding. A complete understanding, I think my father hoped, but as it so often was in the beginning, he was wrong. We weren't even close. Yet.

And before my father left us in the night, he did a very funny thing.

He called room service, had a bottle of champagne brought to my room. He tipped the waiter, opened the bottle and set it back in the ice, then looked at us and winked. "Don't forget," he said, "we're opening presents at eight." Then he left us, shut the door on his way out and I looked at Claire.

"I think he's celebrating," she said, "the fact that you're not in love with Rickie."

"I think I am too," I managed to say.

She smiled, then looked at me for a long while. "Would you know if you were?"

"What? In love with your brother?"

"She's not my brother anymore, remember?"

"I know, I know...it's just going to take me time to make the switch, you know?"

"It's taken all of us a long time."

"That's not what he meant, was it?" I asked. "At dinner, I mean, when he said that."

She shook her head. "No. She loves you, just like I love you."

I remember swallowing hard, thinking about all the implications of those words. "You know what the hardest thing was – about today?"

She shook her head, grinned.

"Well, the easiest thing was realizing that I love you, but it was the hardest thing too."

"Oh? How so?"

"I think I've wanted to love you all my life. Then it just happened, all this," I said, sweeping the room with my hands, "and now I can't believe this day really happened. Like maybe it was all a dream."

"I know." She looked at me then, an odd look in her eyes. "Do you think this is really real?"

"What do you mean?"

"Today. That what we did was real. That it really happened?"

"It sure felt real."

She nodded her head. "Good. It did to me too."

"I've never had this stuff before," I said, lifting the glass of gold bubbles to my nose. "You know, I think I know the reason why."

She giggled. "It's not so bad. Once you get used to it."

We talked through the night, talked about life and what we wanted. All the things we'd never talked about before, and sometime before the sun came up we finished the bottle, then we showered again and drove out to Metairie. And I never wanted to get used to this. Never take her – or this feeling that had come to us – for granted.

+++++

There's always been something enchanted about our Christmas mornings, something beyond all the presents and flurries of wrapping paper scattered about the floor. Something about the all-knowing gaze of our parents watching us, about that moment, I guess, when we could forget about the day-to-day grind of school for a moment and reach out with our other, more generous selves. And I think I felt that way for the very last time that Christmas morning.

I spent that morning, at least in part, watching Claire, but I watched Richard too. Fragile, resolute Richard. Rickie, my friend. The kid I threw the football with, who helped me build model airplanes. The kid who had reached out to me the night before, the kid who'd had to cover his tracks when I pushed his love away, out of sight, out of mind.

We, the kids, had never exchanged presents before, if only because our parents loaded the tree with more than enough to go around, but that morning Rickie went to the tree and pulled out a present and brought it to me.

"From me," he said, and I looked at him for a moment.

"Thanks, Amigo," I said, then I opened it and found a book about the Battle of Britain inside. I opened the book and found the inscription I knew he'd written, and I turned the words over carefully in my mind. 'For all the battles yet to come,' he'd written, then, 'I'll always love you, my bestest Amigo.'

Claire came over and read the inscription, then she squeezed my shoulder, nodded at a package on the carpet by my side, so I picked it up. It was from me, and oddly enough to Rickie, and when I looked up at her she smiled, nodded at her brother. I got up and walked over, handed him the package and he looked up, surprised, then tore it open.

He'd always loved art, and he had become a somewhat gifted painter over the last few years, so 'my book' from The Art Institute of Chicago was a hit – but then he turned to the inscription and read 'my' words. He dropped the book and flew into my arms, kissed me once on the cheek then ran back to his book and carried it over for Claire to look at. She of course sat by me so I could look at it while she read...

There was an old Polaroid of the three of us taped inside, taken when Rickie and I were, perhaps, three years old. We were sitting in a wading pool somewhere in Canada – at the Banff Springs Hotel, I think –and you could tell there was something special between the three of us, something special about the way we smiled, a secret kind of smile, as if only we knew what was hiding in those lips. 'To my bestest Amigo' was inscribed, and though I had a hard time remembering when we'd first started saying that to each other, it had been going on for a long, long time. We had always been the 'bestest,' hadn't we? Joined at the heart, somewhere along the way.

A chef from one of Dean's restaurants was whipping up something in the kitchen, so the parents went off to the living room and drank coffee while the three of us went out back and looked at all the stuff we'd just gotten our hands on. Dad had given me a couple of Perry Como records, Mom a bottle of Bay Rum cologne, the little glass bottle wrapped in straw. Dean Collins, on the other hand, had given me a fancy Italian 20 gauge over/under shotgun – and I had to (guiltily, no doubt) wonder about the prescience of his choice – or, perhaps, the word I needed was irony. It was a gorgeous thing, and he made noises about wanting to go bird hunting with me and my father some day soon, but now – sitting out on their patio with books in hand –and a shotgun across my lap – my feelings felt oddly disconnected from the moment.

Watching Claire, and her father, the night before had left me unsettled, then talking through the night about all the things I didn't know or understand about our world had left me wandering in the dark. I was groping my way through this morning, more attuned to the people around me than was the norm, for me, anyway. And shotguns aside, there was something about Dean Collins and his smug restauranteur act that was weighing heavily on my day.

Rickie excused himself and went inside, leaving Claire and I alone on the patio, and when she came over and sat by me I reached into a pocket and pulled out a band-aid.

"Gotta cut?" she asked.

"Nope. Could I see your left hand, please."

I unwrapped the band-aid and she gave me her hand; I put the bandage around the third finger and looked her in the eye. "I know this is stupid, and I know I'm young enough to know better, but this is all I've got right now. Would you marry me?"

I think she was speechless. I think she had good reason to be speechless, then she just nodded her head. "Yes," she said, "if you're sure that's what you really want."

"I know I'm sure. What about you?"

"Since I was three. Yes."

And just then I saw my father standing in their living room, looking through a window at the two of us, and I'd never seen a smile on his face quite like the one I did just then. It was an all-knowing smile, full of worldly understanding yet almost condescending – like he'd expected no less of me than such a vapid display of immaturity. He stared at us for a minute longer, then disappeared, and Claire kissed me on the cheek. Rickie opened a window up in his bedroom just above us, then he leaned out and asked me to come up for a minute.

"Just you, okay?" he added.

"Okay."

I almost remembered the way to his room, and after one false start found it and went on in. There was a girl sitting on the bed, a really very pretty girl, then I saw it was Richard – my bestest Amigo Rickie. I stared open-mouthed for a moment, at his legs in stockings and garters, his high heels and makeup understated, almost classy. He looked satisfied with my reaction, too.

"Are you growing breasts?" I asked.

He nodded his head. "This is who I really am, Goose," he said, still looking at my face, still gauging my reaction. "Just so you know."

Speechless, I nodded my head.

"Am I as cute as Claire? To you, I mean?"

"Rickie, no one's as cute as Claire. To anyone."

He nodded his head. "You really do love her, don't you?"

"Yup. I think I always have."

"I know you have."

"So, what's this all about, Richard?"

"You'd better call me Rebecca from now on. It'll be official soon enough, anyway."

"Rebecca?"

"Yes. I've always loved that name."

"You really want this?"

"Not a question of wants and needs," he sighed. "It's just who I am."

"Well, who's going to build models with me now?" I asked, smiling.

"Me. You let anyone else help and you'll need a doctor to get my foot out of your ass." He looked at me for a minute, hesitated, then said "Claire didn't come home last night. Was she with you?"

"She was with me and my dad. We had a long talk last night."

"About?"

"About how stupid I can be sometimes."

"Oh. I've had that one with my dad, too. She told me a while ago she hoped you'd come around."

"Come around?"

"To see just how much she loves you."

"Oh."

"Do you?"

"I do."

"You know, since we were in Mexico all I've wanted is for the three of us to be together."

"How so?"

"Just that. I don't think I could ever be happy unless you were both with me."

I looked at him, wondered where he was going with this. "What do you mean?"

"Just that."

"Don't you want someone of your own to love?"

"No, not really. I'll always have the two of you, so why would I need anyone else?" And he smiled then, a smile I'll never forget. Not an innocent smile – and almost, but not quite sinister, his was rather an all-knowing smile – like he alone was in on one of the universe's most obscure secrets. Or jokes.

So, feeling very uncomfortable, I nodded and left his room, walked downstairs and back out on the porch – all while trying to get the image of him sitting up there out of my mind. I sat for a while, by myself, then went in and ate lunch in silence. Claire and Rickie sat across from me, and I sat between my parents. I rode back to the hotel with them after lunch, and went up to my room while Mom and Dad retreated to the comfort of golf on the television set. A few hours later I heard a knock on my door, and got up to open it, yet I checked the peephole first.

Paranoid?

Nah...

And Claire was out there, looking very lonely in the distorted, fisheye perspective of the cheap lens, and I grew lost in that moment – didn't quite know what to do. In the end I opened the door and she darted inside, went to a chair by the window and sat – and I could tell she'd been crying – for a long time.

"What's wrong?" I asked, though I could guess.

"What did Rickie tell you?" she said, her eyes now swirling maelstroms.

I told her. Everything he'd said when I was up in his room, then: "Why do you think he wants the two of us to himself?"

She looked away, and I knew.

"Has he done something to you?"

Again, she refused to even look at me.

"You said something yesterday, that you'd never done it before. Is that true?"

She closed her eyes, shook her head.

"Could you tell me how it happened?"

I saw just the slightest, most imperceptible shake of her head.

"Do you love me? I mean, really love me?"

"Yes," she whispered, but she started crying. Lost, and crying in the dark...looking for someone to love.

"That's all that matters, isn't it?" I squeezed into the chair beside her and we held one another for the longest time – until I heard another little knock on the door. She tensed as I stood, then I walked over and looked through the peephole, saw my father standing in the fishbowl and opened the door just a bit.

"Your mother's gone to visit Jack Daniels," he sighed, despairing of her alcoholism one more time. "I was going to go down and walk Bourbon Street for a while, and wondered if you'd like to come along." He tried to look into the room but didn't force the issue, then he added: "Both of you, of course."

I turned and looked at Claire, who nodded her head.

"Yeah, Dad. How 'bout we meet you in the lobby – in just a minute?"

"I'll wait by the elevators. Take your time."

"Okay," I said – knowing that 'take your time' meant 'move it – on the double time!" so I helped Claire get her eyes back in shape and grabbed a coat, then we walked down to the elevators.

Dad took one look at her eyes and shook his head, but we rode down to the lobby in silence. Once out on Royal we found a slate gray sky and a cold mist waiting, and I took my jacket off, put it around her shoulders – and I found dad trying to do the same – but he looked at me and just nodded his approval, then we walked off together, disappeared into the jostling crowd. He led us to a small, quiet club off Jackson Square, and we went inside – drawn by the music, I suspect. Mellow jazz, dark and moody greeted us as we took a table, and a waitress came over and Dad ordered a bottle of something – and three glasses.

"Now what the devil is going on with you two?" he said.

I looked at her. She looked at me and nodded, and I told him what I knew. He shook his head here and there, wrinkled his nose in disgust when I got to the point where I laid out what I'd surmised was going on with Rickie, then he looked at her carefully.

"Claire, I need to know, right now," he said, looking her in the eye, "is this the God's honest truth?"

"Yes, sir," she said, looking him in the eye.

"How long has this been going on?"

"A while."

"Nope, not good enough," he said. "I need to know the truth, the whole truth."

She looked at him, or tried to, anyway. "Right after Mexico," she managed to say.

"Does your father know?"

And she looked away then, started crying openly. She tried to speak a minute later, but was choked up – and had nowhere left to go.

"Claire, what are you trying to tell me?"

"My father," she gasped, then she broke down completely and he got up, went around to her and held her.

"What is it, baby," he said. "What about your father?"

And she whispered in his ear.

And my father turned to stone. Magmatic stone, white-hot and seething. The waitress came to the table and my father poured one massive drink, then he drilled it down in one go – all this with one hand, mind you – while he cradled that girl to his breast and held on to her for dear life.

I knew the look in his eye. I pitied the Japanese that came upon him when he had that look in his eye, then the North Koreans and now, apparently, the North Vietnamese were about to get a dose of him, as well. I couldn't even imagine what she'd told him, but she'd rattled the foundations of Hell, and I knew all Hell was about to break loose, too.