Diva
Ten
“IT’S A LITTLE LATE FOR BREAKFAST,” Dad said when he saw us at the door. “Would you like to join us for lunch?”
“Sorry, Dad,” I said sheepishly. “I was drawing. The time kind of got away from us.”
Dad nodded his head. Mom came to the door, raised one eyebrow at me, and we headed down to lunch. We sat in a little café and it was apparent to me that something was bugging my folks. There wasn’t much I could do about it unless they asked something. I certainly wasn’t going to provide details about my sex life, or lack thereof.
“When Tony was a little boy…” Dad started. I cringed. This was going to be another embarrass Tony story, I could tell. “He must have been, oh… about ten, I think. He disappeared. He was gone an entire summer day. We called the neighbors, all his friends. No one had seen him. It was beginning to get dark and we were getting very worried.” He took Mom’s hand and she nodded her head.
“We’d called the sheriff and were on the phone to the police,” Mom continued Dad’s story. “The minister came to our house and our next door neighbors brought over a casserole.”
“That’s the Midwest for you,” Allie chimed in. “If there’s an emergency, there’s a casserole.” I couldn’t see a casserole helping with any emergency of Allie’s.
“I looked out the window and Tony was pedaling his bicycle as hard as he could up the road and into our driveway,” Dad said. “I never hit Tony in my life, but at that moment I was torn between hugging him and taking my belt to him. The hugging won out, but I had to be stern and lecture him about how worried we were and how worried the neighbors were, and that the sheriff was looking for him. Then the preacher got in on it and he cut me off.”
“We’re not very religious people, Allison. So the simple fact that the Lutheran minister had stopped by to see if we needed help, was very impressive.”
I knew the rest of this story now. I was still going to be embarrassed.
“Rev. Larkin said, ‘Tony, everybody is worried about you, but why don’t you tell us where you were?’ I hadn’t even thought to ask that,” Dad said. “Well, Tony looked at the preacher and just said, ‘I was drawing.’”
I remembered it clearly. I’d been completely caught up in just watching and drawing. It was a point that I thought of now as the first time I’d entered ‘the zone.’ I just forgot everything around me.
“The preacher wasn’t satisfied,” Mom picked up the story. “He asked to see what Tony had drawn.” I decided to get into the story myself.
“I’d been given a sketchbook for Christmas the year before and some pencils, but I’d never had a particular interest in them. For some reason, that day they just seemed like the most important things in the world to me,” I said.
“Tony pulled out the sketchbook and showed us what he’d drawn. The book was full. It was like giving a kid a camera and letting him go, so I’m told,” Dad said. “They take pictures of everything, and sometimes they take many pictures of the same thing. The sketchbook was like that. The first half dozen pictures were of the same rock in a stream not far from our house. Then there was a picture of a tree trunk, one of a sign that I recognized as being about a mile from our house, one of the abandoned barn out in Wilson’s back forty. There was even a picture of a chipmunk. I couldn’t figure out how he’d got the little critter to hold still for so long. It was like Tony was discovering the world in a new way.”
“Rev. Larkin quietly leafed through the book,” Mom said. “Every once in a while, he’d show us one of the pictures. He just nodded his head, patted Tony and shook our hands. He quoted some Bible verse about the prodigal having come home and to rejoice. Then he left.”
“The thing is,” Dad said, “we never knew Tony had that talent until that day. Since then, I’ve never questioned him when he said he was drawing.”
And with that, Dad left the question hanging in the air. Mom and Dad wanted to know what I’d been doing all morning (and all night) with Allison. They were completely willing to accept that I was in love with two women, but they were absolutely horrified by the idea that I’d cheat on them. I was getting steamed that my parents were prying into my personal affairs, so to speak. It really wasn’t any of their business and I was ready to tell them so when Allison jumped in.
“Did he listen to music while he was drawing back then?” she asked simply.
“No,” Dad said smiling. “That came a while later.”
“I wanted to listen, too,” Allison continued, “but his player doesn’t sound good without headphones or speakers, so he had me sing while he was drawing.”
“You wouldn’t have believed it, Mom,” I said. In a few words, Allison had completely defused the situation. What a great girl! “Just when we’d finished, this guy stops outside our door and claps yelling, ‘Brava, Diva!’ She is really a good singer.”
“I’d love to see that drawing!” Dad said enthusiastically. Suddenly, Allison was very shy.
“Um… I’d rather not show you,” Allie said. “Tony gave it to me to take home. It’s kind of…”
“Oh don’t worry, dear,” Mom said. “We know Tony paints nudes. We won’t pry any further.”
“It’s unusual, though,” Dad mused. “Usually a girl wants a picture of her boyfriend, not of herself.” I shrank into my chair. Dad! Geez!
“First off, there are two answers to that double-sided question, Saul,” Allison said before I could blow up. “The first is that Tony isn’t my boyfriend. I’d like him to be, but as much as I love Melody and Lissa, I just couldn’t be to them what they’d need me to be. You know, if you date one of them, you date all three.”
Oh! Way to go, Allison! I was afraid this was really going to hell, but I chose to stay silent and trust to the goddess beside me that it would come out okay.
“The second answer is that I know what Tony looks like and I have a very good memory,” Allison said. “What I didn’t know is what Tony sees when he looks at me. No mirror would ever show me that.”
Mom was crying. Dad reached over and took my hand. He just nodded his head to me. Mom had to explain, though.
“It wasn’t your father, Tony. I really like Melody and Lissa, even though I haven’t met them in person yet. And the boys are so precious. I kept your father up all night, and not in a good way. I was so worried about what would happen today when they… when Melody gets here. This week just didn’t go the way anyone planned.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” I soothed. I could never stay angry when my mom was distressed. “Allison is our very good friend. Very good. But she would never do anything that would hurt Melody, Lissa, or me. And I wouldn’t hurt them, Mom. I’d die if I hurt them.”
“Well,” said Dad. “I think we should go watch some racquetball, unless you have other plans. Isn’t your friend Karl playing this afternoon?”
Racquetball. Ya gotta love it.
I was excited. The good thing about having been eliminated from the tournament was that I could take Allison to the airport in Dad’s car and pick up Melody when she flew in. Melody’s flight was scheduled to arrive at six-twenty that evening and Allison’s was taking off at half past eight. We carefully scanned the security lines when we got there to make sure that Allison wouldn’t have difficulty making her flight if she waited with me at baggage claim for Melody. It would be a brief reunion, but fun.
With the sexual tension between us relieved, Allie and I were completely at ease walking through the airport hand-in-hand. She had one more year at KSU and wanted to know what tournaments I’d be playing in so she could meet us there. Of course, I had no idea what the schedule would look like. In fact, I almost dreaded finding out. I still didn’t know how I was going to handle my class schedule, which was totally screwed up because not only was I pursuing two different degrees in two different colleges, but PCAD was a semester school and SCU was on a quarter calendar. It was going to be a train wreck.
We stopped at a huge board showing arrival and departure times for everything in and out of O’Hare airport to find Melody’s baggage claim area. While I was looking down the list of arrivals, Allie shouted from the other end of the board.
“My flight’s delayed! It’s not leaving until nine-thirty. I don’t have to rush away when she gets here.”
I laughed as she grabbed my hands and danced in a circle. I was wondering who was more excited about seeing Melody. Okay—stupid question—I was. But Allison was pretty excited, too. Of course, Melody’s flight was delayed as well, but only half an hour, so we figured we’d still have a good overlap. We sat with cups of coffee and waited near the exit from the gates for Melody. Man, they can’t even make national brand espresso taste good in an airport. Most of my cup went untouched.
“I’ve got a question,” Allie started.
“Should I get one of those guys at the information stand?” I asked before she could continue. She slugged me in the arm. Glad I wasn’t planning to play more racquetball this week.
“Those are Moonies, not information,” she shot back at me. “I’m serious.”
“Go ahead and ask, then.”
“I’ve got a year of school left, but I’ve been investigating what I’m going to do afterward.”
“With your voice, you should be headed for New York. I’d be there for every opening night,” I smiled.
“That’s like telling a high school girl that with her figure she should go to Hollywood and become an actress. It doesn’t work that way. You have to pay more than union dues. Right now, all my credits are college theater. I need professional credits, eventually,” she said.
“And New York isn’t where you get professional acting experience?”
“No. One of my professors said that trying to make it on Broadway was like trying to get a last minute ticket for the Titanic. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still the biggest. But theater is happening all over the country now. In fact, there’s a dinner theater near where you live that employs nearly one percent of the working Equity actors who are employed on-stage at any given time.”
“That has to be the LaRoque Dinner Theater, right?” I asked. I was new to the area, but I was aware of some of the things that went on culturally around town. “Do you think you could get a job there?”
“Maybe. I was wondering… This is a little awkward… I wondered if I’d be welcome if I moved near you. I did a little research while I was there. I couldn’t party and play racquetball all the time you guys were in class. Anyway, there’s not only the opportunity to work in theater, there are also a couple of good graduate programs and a light opera company. But, I’m not sure if I should apply to anything out there because…”
I was up out of my seat and around the little table we were sitting at before she could finish her sentence. I pulled her up out of her chair and wrapped her in a big bear-hug.
“Allie, you will always be welcome near us. Don’t ever think we don’t want you around. None of us knows what life is going to be like a year from now, but we will always want our friends and family near us.” I was hugging her so tightly that she actually pushed me away a little so she could catch her breath. I was about to kiss her when my eye caught something else.
“There she is!” I shouted when I saw Melody coming around security. Then my heart jumped higher than I had. “Both of them! They both came!” Allison was right beside me as we rushed to sweep my lovers into my arms.
I shared a deep three-way kiss with my lovers as surprised passengers stepped around us. Allison wrapped her arms around all three of us for a group hug.
“Lissa, you came, too!” I was still so excited that my voice was an octave higher than normal.
“I couldn’t miss this weekend with the parents,” Lissa said. “Believe me, darling, if I hadn’t been so sick I’d have been out here on Monday as soon as the boys started feeling better.”
“Besame, besame mucho,” I sang, slightly off-key. I’d listened to the song so many times the past three days that I was getting the hang of it. I pulled Lissa to me for a very enthusiastic one-on-one kiss while Melody faced Allison.
Allison’s eyes were sparkling, shifting from Melody to Lissa and me and back to Melody. Her chest was heaving as if she was having trouble breathing. Then, as Lissa and I parted and looked at her, Allison pulled Melody to her and planted an enthusiastic kiss on her that so surprised Melody that her eyes popped open in wonder. That didn’t stop her from returning Allison’s kiss, though. When Allison broke away she was panting even harder and without waiting for anyone’s response, she pulled Lissa into an equally hot sampling of her luscious lips. Lissa got a very dreamy look on her face as Allison pulled away.
“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god,” Allison panted. “Oh god. That was so good I almost forgot you were girls. God! I wish I could… I want… damn, I love you guys!” And with that she cleansed her palate by attempting to swallow my face.
“Wow!” Melody said. “That was nice, Allison.”
“But Allison,” Lissa said quietly, putting her arm around the brunette. “We’re not trying to convert you. You don’t have to do anything with us you don’t want to do.”
“Tony told me… showed me,” Allie said. “I don’t know if I can ever physically love a woman, but I know that after these two weeks I love all three of you. It’s going to be so hard to go home and deal with 150 pre-teens a week at summer camp. All the time I’ll be thinking of the three of you.”
We collected Lissa’s and Melody’s bags and then walked with Allison to the security lines for the boarding area. Once there, we had another round of hugs and kisses—a little more demure this time. Just before Allison was out of reach in the line, I reached over and grabbed her hand. She watched as I took her index finger and sucked it into my mouth. Then I held the next finger and Lissa slipped it into her mouth. I could see Allison flushing as Melody took the ring finger into her mouth.
I kissed Allie on the cheek and whispered, “In case of emergencies.”
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
