Butterflies in Heat (37 page)

In the distance, the motor of the bus could be heard, as it crossed over the bridge and began the long route back to the mainland.

"Okay, okay," she said in despair.
"Miss
Fern Cornelia
Blanchard sure had a triumphant return to Atlanta."

"Forget that!" he said harshly. "Let's deal with the realities." He spun her around, staring deep into her soggy eyes. "The note you left for Leonora. Where did you leave it?"

Tangerine hung her head low. "I didn't really write it," she said. She tugged at his arm. "But I meant to."

He sighed. "Come on, baby, we're going home."

Two weeks later, Leonora with straight-back carriage walked into the patio of Sacre-Coeur.

Numie was stunned.

Behind her purple sunglasses, she was a tall red rose—haughty, statuesque. Hercostume simulated that flower, the fabric draped like rose petals along her slender frame. On her head was a great stalklike concoction, studded with diamonds that glistened in the light.

"Wow!" he said. She was truly majestic. "What's the occasion?" Her presence seemed to envelop him like a placenta.

"We're going to a wedding." This morning already was disturbing her, as all mornings did when she couldn't find what she termed her geographic center.

"You're wearing
that
to a wedding?"

Her back stiffened. Questions from anyone, especially servants, annoyed her. "Of course." She breathed in the air of the patio. Fresh morning air usually made her cough. "There will be a photographer there from the newspaper. Whenever I
m.ake appearances, my public expects me to wear something daring and provocative." She stared at Numie. He aroused mixed feelings in her. She didn't know whether to assign him to oblivion or else amalgamate him into her own family. "I never know what that miserable drag queen is going to have on. I can hardly afford to have her take attention away from
me."

Numie was leery of Leonora. He knew his suspicions didn't make sense, but he felt he was her victim in some way. "Lola's going to be there?" he asked. "I can't imagine anyone inviting Lola to a wedding."

"It's
her
wedding, dear heart." Leonora looked into her purse and pulled out a mirror. In it she studied her reflection more carefully. The costume was outrageous—no doubt about that. But then she loved to outrage the public. She remembered the day when one irate woman attending a fashion show chased her around the room with a hatpin to show her outrage at Leonora's latest collection.

Just talking about Lola filled Numie with a vague anxiety. "Lola getting married?" he asked. "To who, for Christ's sake?"

"The commodore," Leonora said, matter-of-factly.

"I can't believe it," Numie said. "We're not going to a wedding—more like a spectacle." He laughed sardonically at the whole idea.

She closed her purse. "The commodore wanted me to hold the wedding here at Sacre Coeur, but I just couldn't." She virtually spat her words with disgust. "I'd be the laughing stock." She felt a sharp pain in her heart.

Numie paused. He looked at her again with suspicion. "Why are you going?"

'The commodore is my business associate, she said. "And closest friend," she added as an after-thought. She moved through her patio and garden, feeling it was a tomb—and she'd been interred alive. "It would be unforgivable not to attend. When you have a close bond, as we do, you must overlook certain eccentricities in the other person." Her long arms hung disjointedly from her shoulders. "Lola, of course, is the biggest eccentricity I've ever had to overlook—other than my husband, Norton Huttnar, the degenerate." She remained rigid, looking straight ahead into the garden, her eyes filled with distant memories of horror. "Lola's drag is mild compared to what my husband used to wear. He left me with an inbuilt loathing of drag queens."

Numie turned around, ready to go. His boots clumped along the bricks. Blinking at the sky, he looked toward the gate. He was always nervous and uneasy around Leonora, more so this morning than usual.

"Don't be impatient," Leonora said, almost reading his thoughts. Self`doubt about her appearance was stabbing at her. Her bones seemed to have a certain rudeness this morning, as if they were rebelling against their stations after all these years. She couldn't trust them. For one brief moment, she considered canceling her appearance. "We're late, but I wanted to arrive after everybody else was there." Her face became grim and ominous. "After all, I am the most important guest."

Numie steered the Lincoln in between Lola's white Facel-Vega and the commodore's antique Rolls-Royce. The town's barflies were waiting between the curb and the bar, ready to enjoy the show.

The doors were wide open, the wedding crowd assembled inside.

Standing at the entrance was a minister, about thirty-five, his dark, wavy hair combed neatly. He was really a clean-cut, all-American boy type, with pale green eyes.

"Miss De la Mer," he said warmly, "I'm Roy Alberts. I've heard a lot about you, and I've been anxious to meet you. I had everybody wait until you arrived."

Like an eccentric red raven, Leonora extended her red-gloved hand. 'That was kind of you, my young man." She was observing a tiny knot of drying blood on his white shirt collar, probably from a shaving nick. Right away she determined that anyone so careless about his appearance wasn't to be trusted.

"You look beautiful as a rose," he said, eying her costume. "More so."

She smiled benignly, not being one to succumb to flattery ever.

Numie was noticing an old drunk eating peanuts, crushing their shells, then tossing them on the sidewalk.
It
was like enjoying popcorn at the movies. Right at this moment he knew he'd feel more comfortable joining the drunks than participating in the action in any way. Instead, he stepped up to the minister and said, "I'm Numie Chase."

The minister shook his hand, a firm grip. "Glad to meet you, too."

Numie liked Roy Alberts at once.

"Aren't you the 'gay pope'?" Leonora asked, her voice smooth as cold steel.

The reverend frowned. "I hope not."

Numie instinctively backed away. He was beginning to learn when Leonora was preparing for the kill.

"Yes," she continued, "I think I've heard you called that when you're not being referred to as the 'gay Billy Graham'." A nerve tugged at her left wrist. She really didn't know why she was insulting this kindly man. These unexplained impulses took over now and then. However, now that she'd launched the attack, she was determined to see the battle through.

"I resist labels," Alberts said softly. "I believe that God didn't limit love to jocks and bunnies."

Numie was surprised at his use of those words. This man didn't talk like any minister he'd ever met. He smiled to himself, wishing his own mama had the pleasure of meeting Roy Alberts.

"That's why I gladly accepted the Commodore's invitation to perform the wedding ceremony." Alberts went on.

Leonora searched his face carefully, her eyes probing it like a needle after a splinter. She was determined to find one weak and vulnerable spot. She focused on his mouth. It was petulant. Now she knew why she instantly disliked the man. She positively loathed petulant mouths. "But I read that a bishop suggested calling these gay marriages a 'celebration of commitment'. Why not that?"

'That's up to the individual," the reverend said.
"If
Miss
La
Mour and the commodore want to be joined in the eyes of God, then it's my duty to help them achieve that union."

She glanced ahead at the shadowy figures in the bar, but they were too dim and her eyes too weak to make out any distinct features. However, she could sense that all eyes were on her. "But they don't believe in God," she said, raising her voice. "I happen to know both of them are devout atheists."

"A devout atheist," the minister said, "is about the same as a true believer."

"Frankly, dear heart," Leonora continued, "I'm attending this so-called wedding because the commodore is a business associate of mine." She moved closer to Alberts, although his cheap shaving cologne offended her sensitive nostrils. "Confidentially, I disapprove mightily of homosexuality. It's a disgusting perversion!" She stepped back to survey the damage she'd caused. Indeed, the reverend's face showed his anguish. "I, myself," Leonora went on, "was married to a most delightful creature, a darling man named Norton Huttnar. I loved him so much I've never been able to look at another man since his untimely death at the age of seventy-eight."

The minister's back stiffened. "Miss De la Mer,' he said, "I don't understand you at all. You know I'm a self-admitted homosexual, yet you insult me by calling my love a disgusting perversion." His hand trembled. 'The commodore and Miss
La
Mour represent a new style of family. Disgusting to some maybe, but so is hatred of all things we don't understand."

The heat of the morning was causing her to see spots. She'd have to go inside and quickly. "But this flamboyance," she protested. "Even my chauffeur here called it a spectacle." Her eyes wandered around in search of Numie, but he was off somewhere talking to a drunken bum.

"Maybe it is,' the reverend said, "but I prefer flamboyance to
closet queens."

Leonora's fingers began a crawling descent down her costume. "I beg your pardon."

"Between us,
dah-ling,"
the minister said, effecting a mincing, high-pitched voice, "in that rose number, with a diamond stalk coming out of your head, you're the biggest drag queen here."

"My God," Leonora said, "I've never been talked to this way in my life." Motionless, she stood at rigid attention.

"If
you don't want to attend," the minister said, resuming his natural voice, "you don't have to. To me, this is a serious ceremony of two people pledging fidelity to each other as abiding friends—husband and husband or husband and wife, whatever you want to call it. You can either enter into the spirit of it, or else
leave.
Good day, Miss De la Mer."

'The vicious swine!" Leonora said to Numie, now at her side.

Numie sighed with relief at his own good judgment at staying away for a few moments so he wouldn't have to hear their words. "Do you want to get out of here?" Numie asked. "I do."

"Darling," she whispered, "all my life I've been the victim of the vilest type of character assassination." Hand at her forehead, she was breathing with difficulty. The intense heat seemed to be molding her costume to her body. In fact, the whole grimy sidewalk seemed to be molding itself to her. She wanted to turn and go, but dared not. Unsteady for a moment, she reached out with her long fingers for Numie's hand. But it was sweaty, and she withdrew instantly at the touch. "I'm not going to allow one faggoty minister's attack to rile me." Her voice was shrill, like a wounded leopard. "I am going to attend." By now she'd regained her balance and those blasted spots were disappearing in front of her eyes. "My public expects it of me." The dim figures in the bar were taking actual shapes—vague faces she recognized on her rides throughout the town. "See," she said, gesturing to Numie, "they're looking at me now."

About seventy persons were gathered. Never had the bar been filled to such capacity. A newspaper photographer near the door recorded Leonora's entrance. She tipped her head slightly to acknowledge his presence.

Once again, Numie had an image of Leonora as a silent-screen star arriving at the premiere of a film. The outfit was different, but the stiltlike stride was the same as the first night he'd met her.

Leonora's pique at the gay minister faded quickly in the wake of attention she was receiving. Her rose costume attracted much interest. Lola was nowhere in sight.

Numie retreated to the far comer of the bar.

"Violet eyes," came a voice. "Don't step on my toe. It's infected with pus." There stood Castor
Q.
Combes, holding his calico cat.

"You follow me everywhere," Numie said. He didn't understand why he was always glad to see Castor.

"The other way around, if you ask me," Castor countered. "Who was taking a shit at the bus station when you came barging in?"