Cecily said, “I wanted to take a pair of scissors and trim that man’s eyebrows. The lawyer.”
She was driving too fast for the rain. Instead of asking her to slow down, Yale said, “I’m famished.” It was true; it was 3 p.m., and they hadn’t eaten beyond their gas station snack.
They stopped at a restaurant that advertised a Friday fish fry and rooms upstairs. Inside they found mismatched tablecloths and a long wooden bar.
Cecily said, “Are we getting back on the road after this, or are we drinking our troubles away?”
Yale didn’t even have to think about it. “I’m sure they have space.” Tomorrow they could drive home in sunshine.
Cecily sat at the bar and ordered a martini; Yale asked for a beer and said he’d be right back. There was no pay phone in the lobby, but the innkeeper let him use the house phone.
Charlie picked up after ten rings.
Yale said, “We’re definitely staying overnight,” and Charlie said, “Where are you again?”
“Wisconsin. The spiky part.”
“Who are you with?”
“Jesus, Charlie. A woman who looks like Princess Diana’s older sister.”
Charlie said, “Okay. I miss you. You’ve done too much vanishing lately.”
“That’s deeply ironic.”
“Listen, I’m going out to Niles tonight.” Yale had lost track of Charlie’s protests, but he believed this one was about a bar the police kept targeting. Yale had let him know, when they first got together, that he’d never be joining in; his nervous system was fragile enough without the threat of billy clubs and tear gas thrown in.
He said, “Be safe.”
“I’d look great with a broken nose. Admit it.”
Back in the dining room, the bartender was telling Cecily how Al Capone used to stay here, how the gangster’s men would drive carloads of liquor across the frozen lake from Canada. Cecily gulped down the last of her martini, and the bartender chuckled. “I make ’em good,” he said. “Now I do a cherry one, too, call it the Door County Special. You care to give that a try?” Yes, she did.
They sat there long enough that the room slowly filled. Families and farmers and lingering vacationers. Cecily was drunk, and she picked at the potpie she’d ordered, said it was too greasy. Yale offered her some of his fish and chips, but she declined. When she ordered herself a third martini, Yale pointedly asked for more bread.
She said, “I don’t need bread. What I need is an avocado with some cottage cheese. That’s the diet food. Have you ever had avocado?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you have. I mean, not to imply.”
“I’m not sure what that could possibly imply.” He glanced around, but no one was listening.
“You know. You guys are more urbane. Wait, urban, or urbane? Urbane. But listen.” She rested two fingers on his thigh, close to the fold his khakis made near his crotch. “What I want to know is, don’t you ever have fun anymore?”
Yale was baffled. The bartender, passing, winked. He supposed they made a believable couple, even if she was several years older than him. Waspy career woman and her young Jewish boyfriend. He whispered, hoping she’d follow suit. “Are you talking about me personally, or all gay men?”
“See? You are gay!” Not too loudly, thank God. She didn’t move her hand; maybe it wasn’t a sexual move after all.
“Yes.”
“But what I was saying was, I was saying how gay men—I mean, I’m sorry for assuming, but I assumed, and I was right—how gay men used to have more fun than anyone. You used to make me jealous. And now you’re all getting so serious and staying home because of this stupid disease. Someone took me to the Baton Show once. The Baton Club? You know. And it was amazing.”
There was still no one listening. A toddler pitched a fit over by the window, throwing her grilled cheese on the floor. Yale said, “I’d say there was a good ten years where we had a lot of fun. Look, if you know people who are toning things down, I’m glad. Not everyone is.”
Cecily pressed with her fingers, leaned in. He worried she’d fall off her stool. “But don’t you miss having fun?”
He carefully removed her hand and set it on her own lap. “I think we have different ideas of fun.”
She looked hurt, but recovered quickly. She whispered. “What I’m saying is, I have some C-O-K-E in my purse.” She pointed to the pale yellow bag under her barstool.
“You have what?” He couldn’t have heard right. She hadn’t even gotten the bong joke.
“C-O-C-A-I-N-E. When we go upstairs, we could have a party.”
Yale had quite a few simultaneous thoughts, chief among them the fact that Cecily would be horrified in the morning by how she’d acted. He was so embarrassed for her that he wanted to say yes, to snort coke right here off the bar. But lately his heart couldn’t handle more than one coffee a day. He hadn’t so much as smoked pot in a year.
He looked at her as kindly as he could and said, “We’re going to get you a big glass of water, and you’re going to eat some bread. You can sleep as late as you want, and when you feel ready I’ll drive the whole way back.”
“Oh, you think I’m drunk.”
“Yes.”
“I’m actually fine.”
He slid the bread toward her, and the water.
Cecily might take it out on him, try to screw him over on future Brigg bequests—but really, no, he had dirt on her now. He wouldn’t blackmail her, nothing like that, but this might put them on a more equal footing.
He said, “When you wake up, don’t worry about this. It’s been a good trip, right?”
“Sure,” she said. “For you.”
In the morning, Yale ordered pancakes and coffee. He’d written Cecily a note last night, in case she couldn’t remember the plan, and propped it on her dresser when he saw her to her room: I’ll be downstairs whenever you’re ready.
He read the Door County Advocate and the Tribune, and in the latter he found two articles to mention to Charlie: one on the proposed anti-Happy Hour legislation, the other an editorial on Congress’s paltry AIDS spending. A minor miracle that people were still talking about it, that the Trib was giving it space. Charlie had been right; he’d said what they needed was one big celebrity death. And poof, there went Rock Hudson, without the courage to leave the closet even on his deathbed, and finally, four years into the crisis, there was a glimmer of something out there. Not enough, though. Charlie had once sworn that if Reagan ever deigned to give a speech about AIDS, he’d donate five dollars to the Republicans. (“And in the memo line,” Charlie said, “I’m gonna write I licked the envelope with my big gay tongue.”) But at least now Yale was overhearing the word on the El. He’d heard two teenagers joking about it in a hotel lobby where he went to pick up a donor. (“How do you turn a fruit into a vegetable?”) He’d heard a woman ask another woman if she should keep going to her gay hairdresser. Ridiculous, but better than feeling like you lived in some alternate universe where no one could hear you calling for help. Now it was like people could hear and just didn’t care. But wasn’t that progress?