Cars tended to be American-made late models or well-tended cla.s.sics. It was the kind of neighborhood where a walk down the street told you what dinner was planned in each house, and the presence of a playset in the front indicated whether there were kids or not.

Uncle Bert's Town Car was parked in the driveway of my old house, and the narrow street was parked up. It seemed all too fitting that I had to park a block over and trail up the steps like a distant relative. I'd go in the freakin' front door, I thought. No back door for me. I wasn't really welcome, only tolerated.

I rang the bell, waited, then rang it again to get somebody's attention. The babble inside was loud, and that was just immediate family. After the services the house would be packed, a regular party. Maybe I'd park the Geo on the lawn, slap Pink in the CD player and get the party started.

Right.

"Brandy, darlin', how you've grown!" Aunt Dot opened the screen and gave me a not-quite hug.

"I've been this size for quite some time." My tone, I feared, did not sound all that jovial. I thought again of having a tongue stud and had to suppress a near-hysterical giggle.

She glanced at my black slacks but held back the sigh I knew was there. She was my mother's youngest sister but every bit the stickler for propriety, for other people's kids at least. Her daughter, my cousin Judy, was a "gifted" artist and had always been allowed to dress, talk, walk, breathe and f.u.c.k whomever she wanted. What's a mother to do, Aunt Dot had worried aloud, with an artistic child? As if Judy had some sort of disease.

When I went over to their house for dinner, somehow I was the one who helped set the table and did the dishes, and was told to sit up straight. Judy drew pictures that were downright p.o.r.nographic, if you asked me, but as long as every so often she cranked out a luminous Virgin Mary she could do as she liked.

Somewhere in a box I had one of her dirty drawings. For a long time I had wanted to be Judy and live at Judy's house. Then I'd seen Uncle Bert drunk at a wedding and realized we were both not exactly blessed in our parents.

The parlor was picture perfect. Waxy calla lilies flanked the settee with funereal stiffness. My mother was dabbing her eyes with a lacy white kerchief that contrasted starkly with her black dress and jacket. To either side sat my two older aunts, Emily and Letty. Each patted one of Mom's hands, and each looked pained to be thinking how their poor sister Irene would manage without her dear, devoted Wally.

I waited to be noticed. n.o.body would speak to me until my mother did. I was d.a.m.ned if I was going to speak first.

I didn't have to wait long. My mother looked up and spread her arms with a long, drawn out, "Oh, Brandy! I was so afraid you wouldn't get here in time!"

"I got here as soon as I could." I was d.a.m.ned if I'd cry, though the room was so laden with heavy emotions it was hard not to respond to it.

My aunts cleared out, and I found myself in charge of the hand-holding and patting.

"How was your trip? Where are you staying? Do you have to hurry back?"

"Fine. I decided to drive. Air tickets were so much more expensive, and they wanted me to fly through Dallas to get here."

The detail was distraction enough. Uncle Bert promptly dominated the conversation with, "The airline industry constantly has its hand out to Uncle Sam, but they don't know how to run their business. It's corporate welfare, I tell you!"

"The last time Emily and I went down to Boca, we had to stop in Atlanta," Uncle Mike contributed. "That airport is a disgrace. We couldn't find a place to sit near the televisions and when we did the news was full of murders and bombings and queers getting married. It was disgusting."

Uncle Sal had something to add, but I tuned it out. My stomach was threatening to turn over as I choked with a flood of incoherent rage. I had wanted to stay away from this place and, in particular, these men. They talked loud and long, yielding the floor only to one another. They read the same newspaper, listened to die same radio shows. They treated their wives with a hostile affection that made Archie Bunker seem like a New Age Sensitive Guy. Was it any wonder I was a d.y.k.e? What kind of alternative did the likes of them give me?

Under the flow of the important, all-male conversation, my mother asked me again, "Where are you staying? Do you have to hurry back?"

I had thought I would stay here, I wanted to say, but the price wasn't worth the horrible churning going on inside me. I wanted out, away. I wanted to be free. How could they still get to me? I felt like a scared eight-year-old and I hated the feeling.

"I need to head back as soon as possible. The official policy is three days." It wasn't a lie, exactly.

My mother nodded and I realized that my answer wasn't unwelcome. I was here to complete the picture, nothing more. "That's a shame. You'll make it back if you leave this evening, won't you? But the roads are good, aren't they?"

"Yes, Mother, the roads are good." I patted.

The doorbell rang and my mother said hopefully, "That'll be Roger, I expect."

My stomach churned again when Roger came into the parlor. He looked more like my father than ever, including the little pig eyes that swept over me as if I was slop even he wouldn't touch.

My mother flew from the settee to my brother's bracing hug. "I don't know how I'll manage everything-"

"Don't you worry about anything, Mom. I've got it all covered. You just sit down and rest."

"h.e.l.lo, Roger." I had escaped the settee as well. I wanted to keep going and escape the whole neighborhood.

"Glad you turned up."

Well, there was nothing more to be said, so I went to the kitchen for a gla.s.s of water. The counters and table were already groaning with food. On the vague hope they'd settle my stomach, I swiped two Wheat Thins from a platter of cheese and crackers. How could I have forgotten that being in this house made me feel this way?

When I went back to the parlor, there was an expectant hush.

"Irene," Aunt Emily said gravely, "we'd probably best be heading to the church."

As if magic incantations had taken root, everyone launched into action. Uncle Bert went to warm up the Town Car. The flowers were moved carefully to Uncle Sal's Regal while Roger himself escorted my ailing mother after Uncle Bert. I hoped to be forgotten, but after she was seated in the back she said in a loud voice, "Where's Brandy?"

Without answering, I went around to the door where Roger was waiting. He opened it for me a split second before I reached for it. I got in and barely had my feet clear before he slammed the door.

I started to swear at him, but I saw the look in his eyes. He'd meant to startle me, every bit the bully my father had been.

n.o.body said a word the entire drive to the church. My mother didn't seem to require anything from me. I thought about Tess, about how alive she was, and I missed her with every beat of my heart.

As we pulled up to the door of Christ the Nazarene, my mother opened her handbag. "I knew you would need this."

I took the tiny hat-two bits of lace with some bobby pins to hold it on. It wasn't that the church required it, it was just the tradition of the ladies in the auxiliary, and every generation fell in line. I reflexively lifted it to my head, then stopped myself. I took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm not a member of this church, so it's hypocritical of me to wear this, Mother." "Don't embarra.s.s me this way." "I will do my best, but I'm not wearing a lie." My brother snapped, "Just wear the d.a.m.n hat, Brandy!" "You wear it, Roger, if it's so important to you." My mother got out of the car with a flounce. Leaving the hat on the seat, I followed her before Roger could help me in any painful way. Up the steps we went, one big, happy family.

I didn't listen to the service. I think if I had tried to listen I would have found it impossible not to cry or rant. I couldn't bring myself to look at the casket and I certainly wasn't going to walk past it at any point. Reverend Carter hadn't changed, and his voice flowed right past my ears, never entering.

I stood when it was time to sing, then sat again, staring down at my shoes. There was nothing anyone could say that would change my opinion of my father. He was a bully and a hypocrite. He condemned me for f.u.c.king women when he'd done plenty of that himself.

Elsewhere, I just wanted to be elsewhere, like on the beach at the resort, hunting for sh.e.l.ls, or in a sunny garden of fragrant flowers, bees buzzing lazily while hummingbirds flitted from blossom to blossom. I would want Tess there with me and when I closed my eyes she was. Her body was curved over a flowerbed as she smoothed soil with her gloved hands. The light was soft and warm, and it seemed like a waste to spend another moment on anything as mundane as weeds.

I turned her face toward the light, then bent to kiss her sweetly, but with promising heat. I knelt next to her in the soft gra.s.s so I could take her into my arms.

Our bodies were suffused with the golden light that seemed to radiate from her eyes and smile. We were falling together, mouths feathering kisses on any skin we could reach. Touching her anywhere felt like touching sunshine. Her shoulders were as warm as her mouth and we were in danger of losing our edges, our form, as we melted together.

I bared her body and let the sun kiss her, too. The moon had seen us before, but not the sun, and I wanted to love her in all this light. Her rising nipples were peach in the daylight, and the flush of her arousal rinsed her face and neck with rose. I hovered over her like a hummingbird, taking sweetness wherever I found it, from her mouth, the hollow of her throat, the tawny concave of her stomach.

A light breeze stirred the air that enclosed us, and cherry blossoms drifted into her hair. She was as beautiful as fairy folk might be. That she let me hold her seemed to me to be a blessing beyond price.

And I knew that I would love her for as long as she would let me. I would know more and better love with her in a fantasy than my father had ever experienced in any real-life encounter.

I loved women, and he did not, and maybe that was all the difference between us I needed to understand.

I had escaped, I realized. I was not him, and would not ever turn into him. Whatever frustrations my life would bring I wouldn't take it out on anyone, certainly not anyone who couldn't hit me back.

I didn't belong in this dark church, or that airless parlor, or the Town Car or on the receiving end of one of Roger's petty little cruelties. Let Roger turn into our father. I pitied his kids, if he ever had any. I had loving arms to go home to, and home was where Tess was.

If she would have me.

I didn't even know what I would ask of her, or what I could promise, but that I wanted to ask meant something.

Throughout the rest of the service I felt like a ghost whose only power was to take up s.p.a.ce and create a zone of silence. Were it not for my mother's talon-tight grip on my arm I would have left the church with everyone else, but instead I stood next to her, accepting condolences and inviting people back to the house.

"Oh, yes, so sudden, yes... what a shame... please drop by, no, nothing needed ... so sudden..." I just kept murmuring the same words, over and over. n.o.body knew me here. They never had.

Back in the Town Car, which seemed so small now, we set out at snail's pace behind the hea.r.s.e, a long line of vehicles with orange FUNERAL placards in our front windows. When I got out of the car and smelled the fresh aroma of cut gra.s.s for a moment I forgot it was a cemetery. It was alive, and growing. Life, a little subdued to be sure, but life. Bees quietly went about their work while we walked, with great solemnity, to the graveside.

I managed to yield my place to Aunt Letty and moved carefully to the position farthest from the coffin yet not completely out of the grouping. I didn't want to be noticed. Words were muttered, my mother sobbed, and I wanted to be in my own home, with light and color, music and love.

What was I supposed to feel? My father had said his father smacked him around daily, was a harda.s.s, rode him till the day he died. I suppose I was lucky. He hadn't hit me that often, and I'd been able to escape the riding for the last few years. I'd gotten a college education, too, more than my father had ever had. I didn't have to convince anybody to buy plumbing supplies or the latest line of kids' clothes. I didn't have to live his life. All right, maybe his life hadn't been so great. But I wasn't cutting him any slack. He fed me, clothed me, and never let me forget I was a burden.

Standing there I recalled for the first time in years overhearing him argue with my mother about the cost of Tampax. The bargain brand was cheaper, he'd insisted. I wished I'd had the courage then to do what I had wanted, which was to tell him to shove both brands up his a.s.s and tell me he couldn't feel the difference.

Roger had Levi's and I had Kmart generic. He went out for basketball; I stayed in for ironing. He got paid ten bucks a C and I got five bucks an A. It's just the way it was. If I ever have kids, it won't be that way.

Did less want kids? Had she thought about it? Where we lived wasn't exactly conducive to maternity, nor was a job that ran ten hours a day nearly seven days a week.

You're standing in a cemetery, thinking about babies, Brandy. You're flipping your lid. I stifled a chuckle. First time in ages I wanted a joint. I didn't know where I was staying tonight, but part of my evening plan was coconut milk, ice and a bottle of spiced rum.

More handshakes and condolences. I was popular today as long as the conversation was short and ended with a firm goodbye.

Cousin Judy, wearing red-but what do you expect of an artist-actually hugged me. "I'm really sorry this is what brought you home."

"Wish I'd worn red," I said in her ear.

"You'd be surprised what you can get away with when you just can't help yourself." She widened her eyes dramatically after our hug ended.

"Anything but being queer," I said under my breath.

She laughed. "You capped your career with that one. I'll never forget the day you outran the entire boys' track team."

I grinned. It was a crowning achievement to a track career for which I'd had to buy my own running shoes when Roger walked around every day in Reeboks, courtesy of Dad. "I guess it's okay to f.u.c.k them, but you can't outrun them."

There was a little gasp from the nearest relative, but Judy's resounding laugh covered my f-word outrage. "Even if outrunning them is the only way to get out of f.u.c.king them, huh?"

I could hang with Judy, I decided. "Please say you're coming back to the house. I know how to unlock the liquor cabinet."

"I'd like to, but I have to pick up my kids at school. My day to carpool. I really do have to bolt to get there in time. Drop me some news from time to time, okay? Judy at JudyArt-dot-com."

Kids? Judy had kids? When had that happened? I watched her red clogs high-tailing it toward a Saturn station wagon. Judy was still a breath of fresh air, but even she had changed.

Drifting away from the plat.i.tudes and discussions of G.o.d's will, I realized I was staring at Susan Porkland. Susan Porkland of the hot lips and hot hands, and who was not too shy to put her mouth "down there."

She was in the line of people slowly walking by my mother. I didn't think she'd been at the church, but then I hadn't looked at anybody.

She caught me staring. I grinned across the distance separating us and would have walked the few steps to say h.e.l.lo except that she turned her back on me and pointedly took the arm of the man next to her. I knew her brothers, and he wasn't any of them. So, hubby or boyfriend, I had to presume.

She actually turned her back on me. On me, the girl who'd also not been too shy to put her mouth "down there." The girl she'd read p.o.r.n to and shoplifted beer with. The girl who f.u.c.ked her, and she loved to f.u.c.k. Was Susan just another straight girl who'd decided s.e.x with girls was safer and easier until she grew up?

I stared at her back and wanted to say, "You can tense that tight a.s.s all you want, Susie-Q, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen." I wanted to chase after the man she was with and say, "Did you know she loves to suck p.u.s.s.y?"

I was starting to think I was the only lesbian I'd ever slept with.

Well, there was Celine Griffin, and Celine had been mighty fine in bed. But no, that wasn't good enough for me anymore. No fan-f.u.c.king-tastic romps in bed with women who loved women. No, I had to be in love with Tess, who was wonderful and kind and fine and smart and funny and s.e.xy and lovely and might not be ready to be a woman-lovin'-woman one hundred percent of the time.

I watched Susan Porkland drive away. Which life was the lie? The frantic hours with me and the other girls I knew about? Or the one she was going to?

Another silent Town Car ride. Uncle Bert was a fine chauffeur.

Roger glanced over the seat at my mother. "I ordered an extra set of death certificates for the insurance company."

"I'm sure they'll be necessary." My mother sniffed into her handkerchief.

I finally asked the only thing I wanted to know. "What was the official cause of death? Stroke?"

Roger snapped back, "What do you care?"

"Don't squabble," my mother said automatically, giving me the evil eye.

"All I did was ask how my father died. I think I have a right to know."

"Don't shout, Brandy."

I hadn't even raised my voice. "When I'm shouting you'll know, believe me."

My mother sighed heavily and I kicked myself for letting her goad me into sounding like a teenager. "It was a stroke. Blood clot in the brain. He wouldn't stop salting his food, and all those years driving from one town to the next, eating diner food."

And boinking anything he could afford, I added silently.

Roger helped Mom out of the car, then Uncle Bert took over. I found my way blocked by my brother, who was up on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet exactly the way our father had stood when he had something to say and all nearby needed to pay heed. "He had a will and he left it all to Mom. And Mom's left it all to me. So there's no point you being here trying to suck up."

"Fine, whatever. I don't want anything. You can keep the Hummels and the Playboy magazines in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

He sneered. "You liked to look at them well enough."

"Yeah. Like father, like daughter. He liked to f.u.c.k women and so do I."

"Don't talk about Mom like that!" He leaned into my s.p.a.ce, just letting me know I was within reach of a punch.

"Who says I'm talking about Mom? I'm talking about Monica and Marilyn and Tina. I can't tell you how great it was to walk in on him and Cathy. And there's no telling who he did on his sales trips."

"You have such a filthy mind, you always were a perv."

"What about you, Roger? Not married yet?" With a sudden insight, I realized something I ought to have figured out long ago. "You don't want the Playboys, though, do you? You never liked to look."

"What's that supposed to mean?"