Motel. Pool. (27 page)

“Are you ready, then?” Tag asked.

“Yeah.”

Jack looked out the Camry’s windows as Tag drove. “I don’t recognize Omaha anymore. Hardly anything looks the same.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I think it’s easier this way.” He turned his head to grin at Tag. “I’m not the same either.”

Tag turned off the main drag onto a smaller street. Instead of fast-food joints and strip malls, this street was lined with big old foursquare houses, well maintained and with tidy front yards. He drove slowly, letting Jack get a good look at their surroundings. When the GPS device told him to turn again, he did.

“I wonder…,” Jack began.

“Yeah?”

“If I’d never gone to Hollywood, what would have happened to me?”

“What do you think?” Tag idled at a stop sign while Jack thought. There was nobody behind them, and even if there had been, the other driver would have paused politely. Gotta love the Midwest.

“I suppose I’d have stayed at the plant. I would have gotten my own place eventually, so maybe sometimes I could bring a fellow home instead of just fucking him behind a bar. But I’d never have found someone like you, that’s for sure. I’d have been one of those bachelor uncles. Probably bitter. Definitely lonely.”

“You don’t know that. You might have found someone. People did, even back then.”

“Occasionally. But jeez, Tag, it was so much harder. You can’t imagine.”

“Because I’m just a young whippersnapper?” It was one of their in-jokes, one that brought occasional puzzled looks from eavesdroppers since Tag appeared to be the elder by several years.

“Yep. These kids today….” Jack squeezed Tag’s thigh, way up high where the squeeze was interesting instead of just friendly. “It’s good like this, Tag. You’re worth sixty years of death.”

Tag put his foot back on the accelerator. As they proceeded, the houses grew smaller and newer—modest ranch houses with attached one-car garages. They were probably built around the time Jack headed west. The front lawns were uniformly green and well mowed, and some houses had tiny front porches with potted flowers or plastic chairs. One two-tone green house had giant butterflies affixed to the exterior walls. Tag tried to picture Jack in a house like these, spending his weekends grumbling at his old Ford and watching football on TV, growing old, and finally retiring to complain about the government and reminisce about the good old days. But that picture wasn’t right. Jack was too exotic for a fate like that.

Tag stopped at a one-story house with a brick-and-clapboard exterior and an enormous tree dominating the front yard. There were no flowers, but the bushes lining the house were neatly trimmed, and a small colorful flag fluttered from a garden stake. Tag cut the engine and pocketed the key, and they both just sat there.

“You can still back out, Jacky. I won’t think you’re chicken.”

“No. I’m going to do this.” He reached for the door handle but paused and turned back to Tag. “You’ll come with, won’t you?”

“Every step of the way.”

Tag was true to his word. He walked at Jack’s side to the front door, and when Jack took his hand before ringing the bell, Tag didn’t pull away, even though Jack was squeezing him painfully tight.

“God,” Jack muttered. “What if she won’t believe me? What if she has a stroke or a heart attack and croaks? What—”

The door swung inward.

The woman looked younger than Tag had expected: tall and slender, her white hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, her eyes a familiar bright blue. She wore blue slippers, black yoga pants, and a red sweater; glasses hung on a chain around her neck. She glanced at their joined hands and smiled. “Can I help you?”

Jack didn’t seem capable of speech, so Tag gave it a try. “Betty Ellebruck?”

She was still smiling in that vague polite way that meant she had no idea what they wanted, whether a charitable donation or an attempt at religious conversion. “Yes?”

“Uh, hi. My name’s Tag Manning, and this—” He waved his free hand in Jack’s direction.

She focused on Jack’s face for the first time. Her eyes went wide, she gasped, and she covered her mouth with her hand. Her other hand reached up to grasp the doorframe. After the longest moment in the history of mankind, she took a deep breath and let her hands drop. “Are you…. You must be my brother’s grandson. You look so much like….” She let her voice trail away.

Because Jack had turned to stone, Tag stepped up to the plate again. “Mrs. Ellebruck, this is Jack Dayton. Your brother.”

“And
your
husband,” Jack said hoarsely to Tag. Tag couldn’t help but grin back—that short phrase was still so sweet.

It was way more information than anyone should be expected to take in at once, especially a septuagenarian from Nebraska. Betty had gone very pale. But she surprised Tag by taking a small step back and motioning at them. “Please. Come in.”

The fireplace mantel was crowded with photos of Betty and a tall, kind-looking man who must have been Hank. Rick’s brother had told them Hank had died a few years earlier. There were other people as well—the Ellebruck children and grandchildren, Tag assumed. It was hard to tell from pictures, but they looked like a happy bunch. Quite a few of them bore a resemblance to Jack.

Betty gestured them onto a beige couch, where Jack sat very close to Tag, still not relinquishing his hand. She hovered for a moment. “Can I… get you something to drink?”

Jack finally spoke. “Scotch?”

“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I don’t have anything stronger than tea.”

Jack shook his head. Like Tag, he rarely drank alcohol. “It’s okay,” he murmured.

Betty sat in an armchair across from them. A stack of library books tottered on the table beside it, one of them with a bookmark sticking out.

An awkward silence settled over all three of them until Tag cleared his throat. “I, uh, know this is a little strange….”

“A little,” she replied with Jack’s wry smile. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Jack ran his free hand through his hair. “Betts? I… I missed you. God, it’s such a long story.”

“My brother disappeared almost sixty years ago. He used to send me postcards once in a while—I still have them—but then he stopped. We never knew….” Her hand was shaking slightly, so she clutched it in her lap.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“I thought something horrible must have happened, or else he would have written me once in a while. He sent such funny little notes.”

“Betty, I—”

Her gaze became very sharp. “What did you call me when we were children?”

A slow smile spread over Jack’s face. “Betty Spaghetti. And you called me Monkey Feet.”

A small sound escaped her throat. She rose slowly to her feet and crossed the space between them. Jack let go of Tag’s hand—not without a brief look of gratitude—and stood to meet her. They faced each other. And then she flung her arms around him so suddenly and so hard he was rocked back on his feet. “Jacky! Oh, my Jacky!”

Betty cried. Jack cried. Tag had irritating specks of dust in his eyes.

Even when Betty pulled back, she didn’t let go of Jack’s shoulders. “How can this be?” she asked, sounding very much the younger sister looking to her older brother for an explanation.

Jack sniffed. “It’s sort of complicated. I was a ghost for a while. But Tag saved me.” When Betty turned her head to look at Tag, Jack added, “I love him, Betty. I’m queer and I always have been and I wouldn’t change even if I could. So if you have a problem with that, I’m gonna—”

“Jacky! Does he make you happy? Is he good to you?”

“Yes,” Jack answered, his voice cracking.

“That’s all that matters.” She tilted her head slightly, just like Jack did when he was thinking. Then she grinned. “I have a brother-in-law! Hank only had a sister, and she never married. I always wanted a brother-in-law.”

Jack started crying and hugging her again, pausing only to reach over, grab Tag’s hand, and make him join in. Betty included Tag right away. She even kissed his cheeks. Then she made a teasing comment about wanting to steal Jack’s adorable husband, and Jack dared her to try, and it all felt like… family.

Eventually everybody settled back into their seats. Betty managed to unearth a bottle of wine after all. It wasn’t very good, but that didn’t matter. They drank it all while Jack and Tag told their story. Betty laughed at some points and wept at others, and she kept exclaiming over the wonder of it. But she didn’t hesitate to accept the truth laid before her. In her own way, Tag concluded, Betty was as amazing as her brother.

“I saw you in a movie,” she said when the tale was told. “I never told Mother and Father, but I was so thrilled. You played a delinquent….”

“
Central High
,” said Jack.

“Yes! And I thought you were wonderful. I told Hank you were going to be a big star.”

“I wasn’t. I never would have been. But that’s okay. I’m something better.” He slung an arm around Tag’s shoulders and planted a noisy kiss on his cheek.

Betty beamed at them. “And what are you two doing now? When you’re not shocking old ladies.”

“It’s just like the policeman said to Tag. We sort of travel around. We run into people who need, oh, a helping hand. A couple shoulders to cry on. Some good advice. Low-key exorcisms. We do what we can for them.”

“How do you find these people?”

Jack pointed at Tag, who shrugged. “Instinct. Fate. Maybe they’re just really easy to find if you know what to look for.”

“You’re a pair of guardian angels,” she said.

That made Jack laugh. “Believe me, Betts. Neither of us is an angel.”

She flapped a hand. “You don’t have to tell me about
that
part, Monkey Feet. But how do you get by? Financially, I mean.”

“Things are pretty tight. But we don’t need much, and we pick up jobs here and there. When people meet Tag, they catch on that he’s real smart. He can do almost anything if he puts his mind to it.”

Tag squirmed a little. He wasn’t used to praise, not even after a year and a half with Jack. “And Jacky just has to flash his baby blues to get what he wants.”

“He always did,” Betty said with a mock frown. “Do you want to settle down someday?”

“Maybe,” Jack answered, unconcerned. He’d told Tag over and over that he didn’t care where he was—heaven, hell, Nebraska—so long as Tag was there too.

But Tag did feel strongly about this subject. “Betty, there’s so much to see in the world. I’ve always moved around a lot, but I never
saw
. You know, last month we were near Bakersfield, California. I always thought that place was ugly. But this time of year a fog rises up out of the ground and gets so heavy you can barely see in front of you. All the sounds are muted and when you walk through it’s like you’re an explorer on another planet. It’s incredible.”

For no reason that Tag could discern, Jack flashed his brightest smile and kissed the side of Tag’s head. Then he turned to his sister. “It’s getting late. Can we take you to dinner?”

“No. You can stay right here while I rustle something up.” Her voice became slightly hesitant. “Do you… plan to stay in Omaha for a while?”

Jack and Tag exchanged glances, and then Jack nodded. “We’d like to. Can you recommend a cheap motel? I’m a stranger here now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You are
not
staying in a motel! I’ll make up the bed in the spare bedroom and you two will be cozy as a bug in a rug. You can stay as long as you like. I hope you stay for a while.”

Jack walked over to her chair and embraced her. “Thank you, Betts. That’d be great.”

She was smiling wickedly when he stepped away. “And my next-door neighbor, Shirley Potts? That old busybody’s going to be beside herself wondering what I’m doing with two handsome young men in my house. It’ll be a wonderful scandal.”

“You’re the best, Betty Spaghetti.”

She stood. “Why don’t you go bring your things inside while I find something for us to eat? I think I have some nice pork chops in the freezer.”

Tag and Jack started for the door, an extra bounce in Jack’s footsteps. But before they walked outside, Betty stopped them with a question. “Jacky? Is it all right with you if I call my children and grandchildren and invite them over tomorrow? I know they’ll want to meet their Uncle Jack and Uncle Tag.”

Wow. Tag felt his cheeks aching and realized he had a wide smile to match Jack’s.

“I’d like that,” Jack said. “You don’t think they’re going to be…?”

“Oh, they’ll be thrown for a loop, all right. I won’t tell them anything on the phone or they’ll show up ready to drag me off to a home. But they’re good kids. They’re going to love you both so much.”

Tag and Jack walked down the sidewalk, hand in hand. But Jack pulled Tag to a halt before they reached the car. “It’s all right. She’s still… she’s still Betty.”

“She’s incredible.”

“She doesn’t care about… about us.”

“She’s a smart lady, Jacky. She loves you.”

The sky above them was clear and starry. Even if a storm had magically appeared, and if a lightning bolt had flashed, striking Tag dead right then and there, he would have died a happy man. But living was going to be even better. He had Jack. He had a purpose in life. He had friends. He had the sneaking suspicion he was about to acquire a family. He had it all.

Tag pulled Jack hard against him, their kiss so long and deep that Tag’s knees felt weak. He could almost hear the theme music swell and see the ending credits roll. The best thing of all, though, was knowing this was real life, which meant this wasn’t The End at all. It was the sweet beginning of a happily ever after.

K
IM
F
IELDING
is very pleased every time someone calls her eclectic. She has migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States and currently lives in California, where she long ago ran out of bookshelf space. She’s a university professor who dreams of being able to travel and write full time. She also dreams of having two perfectly behaved children, a husband who isn’t obsessed with football, and a house that cleans itself. Some dreams are more easily obtained than others.