Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 12

Chapter 12 Date Night

There was a low wall surrounding the building, with some modest shrubbery and plants in the space between the wall and the building itself. Perhaps someone thought it would give it class, perhaps back in the day when it was a proper restaurant. Shane sat on the wall down from the entrance, over which the neon light still flashed "Girls Girls Girls," although at 2:30 in the morning traffic on the boulevard was pretty scarce. Shane could hear music still faintly emanating from the strip club, and somewhere down the street a car alarm suddenly went off, and a minute later stopped. Shane smoked a cigarette and thought about nothing more complicated than the night air.

Jenny came out of the club and was pleased to find Shane sitting on the wall down at the corner. "Hey," she said.

"Hey, lady," Shane responded.

"What are you doing here?"

"Came to see you." Shane got up and handed her lit cigarette to Jenny to finish. They walked down the sidewalk toward the bus stop, where there was a concrete bench.

"What did you think?"

"You were good," Shane said, being polite.

"No I wasn't, I sucked." Jenny took a drag and gave the cigarette back to Shane. "Here. It doesn't matter if I'm good. Nobody in there cares."

They stopped at the bus stop sign.

"Why are you doing this?" Shane asked, after a moment.

"Because, when I'm in there, it's my fucking choice when I take off my top and I wanna show my breasts. And it's my fucking choice when I take off my pants and I show my pussy, and then I stop when I wanna stop and it makes me feel good because I'm in charge, and it helps me remember all this childhood shit that happened to me. You know, like, I have to. It's important. Do you remember what happened to you as a child that makes you not wanna -"

"Jenny, what - what - what do you mean --"

"No, seriously, no, no, no, just hear me out," Jenny overrode Shane. "Do you remember the shit that happened to you as a child that makes you not wanna trust people as an adult?"

"Yeah, I probably do," said Shane, whose memory on that score was just fine.

"Well, then, you're fucking lucky."

"I don't know how that makes me so lucky."

"You're lucky because you can get on with your fucking life and you're not dogged down by these horrible, oppressive childhood memories, and you know, you stand a chance of being a normal, productive person," Jenny said.

Shane thought that over for a while. "Well, do you know what happened to you?"

Jenny stared down the empty street, then shook her head, more to herself than Shane.

"I don't know. I remember things, and then, like, I think, 'Is this true? Did this stuff really happen, or am I making it up?' Because, you know, the older I get, things - the memory sort of becomes a little blurry, and then, it's like, I can't ... ." Jenny stopped, and shook her head again, as if to clear it. "I don't know, but ... you just don't know the truth anymore."

"Right. I get that. But you don't have to do it with that." Shane gestured toward the strip club.

"I know."

"So what is this?" Shane asked.

"I know I don't have to do this."

"Just know that ... I'm just saying that you don't have to -- you know, you have me, you have other people, you don't have to do this alone. Go through whatever you're going through, alone."

"I know. No, I know, I know. I'm not alone, but I want to ... do this. Work something out."

"Just be careful," Shane said.

Jenny stared at Shane, and after a moment smiled and looked away.

"All right," Shane said, not sure if she'd accomplished anything or not.

And then Jenny put a hand on Shane's shoulder to indicate everything was okay.

"Let's go home," Shane said.

"No, I'm gonna take the bus," she said, pointing at the bus stop sign. It meant she wanted to be alone, and Shane respected that, even if she didn't think it was the best idea. She started to walk away, and turned, walking backwards so she could she Jenny, sitting on the bus stop bench.

"Promise you're gonna be safe? I'm gonna see you at home?"

Jenny nodded, and watched Shane walk reluctantly away.

***

In the morning they learned that Bette and Kit's father had died the night before. It had been expected; Bette and Kit had brought him to Bette's home several weeks earlier. With the help of two hospice workers plus all their friends from The Planet they had done what they could to ease Melvin Porter through his final days. Kit and Bette took turns reading to the old man even as he slept and slipped into his last coma. There wasn't much for the Friends to do, but they visited from time to time, bringing food for Kit or Bette, not that they would eat much. Shane and Mark ran a few errands for them from time to time, going to the supermarket or the pharmacy for whatever was needed. One morning when she had no production work, Carmen came over and sat with Bette for several hours, not talking much, just ... being there. Alice and Helena stopped in a couple of times, just to offer a hug and ask if there was anything they could do, but of course there wasn't.

The Friends knew very little about Melvin until these, his final days, since Bette and Kit had never talked about him. From bits and pieces they'd acquired over the past few weeks of his illness and days of his life, they had learned a few things about him: That he had been stubborn, ornery and difficult; that he had disapproved of Bette's lesbianism in general and in very particular of Tina. Almost until the last he had only ever referred to her as "Miss Kinnard," and had never treated her as he should have, as a defacto daughter-in-law. They learned that, in his own highly dysfunctional way, he loved his two daughters, and they, in their own dysfunctional ways, loved him back, no matter what, in that way that fathers and daughters must, no matter how much the relationship had deteriorated.

Late on the Sunday morning before he died, a stunning revelation had come to Alice as she and some of the the Friends sat in The Planet sipping their lattes and picking at brunch. They had been talking about Melvin, and how difficult it had been for Bette and Kit to cope with his terminal cancer, taking care of him in Bette's house-turned-hospice.

"Look at us," Alice said, gesturing around the table as the revelation swept over her. "We're all fatherless. Every one of us. None of us has a relationship with the one and only man who could possibly have a relationship with us. Since we're all lesbians, that can only be our fathers. And we don't even have that."

She gestured at herself. "I haven't seen my dad in fifteen years, and we have no relationship. Helena, you hardly even know who your father is, and you have no relationship with him. Shane, same with you. Carmen, your dad died before you were born, and you had a stepfather for a while when you were growing up, but he died years ago. Shane, Carmen and Helena all grew up fatherless, and I might as well have. Tina, your father's alive and you send him a Christmas card and a birthday card, and that's the sum total of your relationship. Jenny, you aren't close to your birth father, and you basically hate your step-father. Dana, you have a relationship with your dad, still, but you're hardly close buddies, and since you've come out it's gotten a lot cooler. And Bette and Kit weren't close to Melvin, until very recently, and I'm not even sure 'close' describes what it is when a parent is dying right in front of you."

"Metaphorically, we're all orphans, almost, except Carmen and a little bit of Dana," Jenny said. "Maybe that's why we're so close with each other here. In the absence of our birth parents, we've formed our own extended family of sisters out of our friends and lovers. It sounds like a cliché, but it's literally true in our case: All we really have in this world is each other."

"I'm the odd one out," Carmen said. "I still live at home, with my mother and my Abuela, that's what we call my grandmother. And I'm still close with my sisters and my cousins and my Aunt Begonia. There's my Uncle Mike, and my brother-in-law Carlos."

Alice nodded.

"I think I'm envious of that," Shane said. "I miss never having had much of a family, and sometimes I think I would like being part of one. Do the rest of you guys feel that way?"

"Well, I have my two children," Helena said, "but I don't have custody, and I miss them terribly sometimes. But I guess I'm just not too maternal, or whatever it is. I'm not a nest-builder, not like ... well, like Bette and Tina had been until they broke up. I suppose out of all of us, except maybe for Carmen, they were the two people most into having a family."

Shane looked around the table. "I suppose, though, that in one way we're all pretty lucky. None of us here has ever lost a parent, had a mother or father who died, at least while we were alive. But Bette and Kit lost their mother years ago, and now they are losing their dad."

"I lost my step-father, when I was thirteen," Carmen said.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Shane said. "I didn't know that."

"So I'm still the odd girl out," Carmen said, but smiling.

"No, Carmen. Shane lost somebody, once, too," Alice said.

Carmen turned to Shane. "Did you? I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Shane blew it off, patting Carmen on the arm, and assuming that no one but Alice knew the story of Harvey, which was a silly assumption given Alice's predilection for story-telling. But everyone at the table except Carmen pretended not to know about Shane's background, and Jenny quickly turned the conversation away to something else.

At the funeral on the Saturday a week later they all learned one last major thing about Melvin Porter: that he had been much more widely known and widely respected and even admired by many more people than they'd ever known or expected. And if Bette or Kit had known that, they'd never given any hint of it over the years.

Hundreds of people came to the funeral and the burial service, politicians local, state and national; civil rights leaders from all over the region, with telegrams of condolence and bouquets of flowers from as far away as Washington, D.C., and New York; a couple of "elder statesmen" in the black Hollywood community, actors and actresses who'd led the forefront of black entertainment and film-making in the 1960s and 1970s; and not all the mourners were black. Among the most prominent people who came to the funeral was Gloria Steinem, who Bette and Kit greeted and hugged and briefly cried with as old, dear friends.

"Did you know they knew Gloria Steinem?" Jenny whispered to Alice, who knew everything.

"No, I had no idea," Alice whispered back. "But anything is possible. Bette's a real big shot in the art world, and Kit used to be a prominent singer once upon a time, so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that they know some major movers and shakers."

As it turned out, not only was Gloria Steinem one of the mourners, but she also gave one of the eulogies, during which it became apparent that she had known Melvin well, had worked with him quite a lot over the years, and truly loved and admired him. After the services, Bette and Kit hosted a modest reception back at the house, intended for their closest friends and those closest to Melvin. Not surprisingly, Gloria was one of the latter. Shortly after they had all arrived at Bette's house, some of the Friends found themselves sitting at a table with Gloria and a couple of members of the band Betty, whom they all knew by now.

"Look, Gloria, I've been begging you for fifteen years to sleep with me, and it's because I care about you and I love you. I don't want you to miss out, and I know, I know not every feminist is a lesbian," one of the Betty members said.

"Yeah, you're right, 'cause I haven't slept with a woman and I am definitely a feminist," Kit said, laughing.

"Ditto for me," another Betty member said.

"But, you know, we're in a country where people think all feminists are lesbians, right?" Gloria said.

"And they think that all feminists are man-haters, so, naturally, they're lesbians, right?" Dana put in.

"It's really bananas," Gloria said, "because, in my experience, it's the women who live with men who hate men." Everyone laughed. "The lesbians can kind of take it or leave it alone. They're friends with men, right?"

"Another big misconception is that if you're a lesbian, you're automatically a feminist, whereas a lot of gay women that I know are absolutely not feminists, right?" Jenny said, gesturing at Shane.

"Yeah," Alice said.

"That's for sure," Carmen added.

Jenny smiled at Carmen and then Carmen stared at Shane, whose head swiveled back and forth between the two of them. "Wha - I like women!" Shane said, as everyone laughed again.

"Okay," Gloria said, "but you have to admit that that's what guys say. 'I love women.'"

"Well, yeah," Shane conceded.

"All right," Alice jumped in, "can I just say, speaking as someone who sometimes likes the you-know-what --"

"'You-know-what' means ... sex with men, right?" Gloria laughed.

"Yeah, I didn't want to offend you, but ... I like the penis," Alice said. Everybody but Jenny laughed.

"No, no, no. You don't offend me. I like sex with men, too," Gloria said. "Let's just say that I'm predisposed. I bet a lot of you are predisposed, right?" She looked around the table expectantly.

Carmen threw both her hands in the air, laughing. "Predisposed! Right here!"

Dana grinned but Alice didn't.

Shane backed up Carmen, nodding. "A hundred percent," she said, referring to herself.

"As far back as I can remember, yeah, me, too," Dana said thoughtfully.

"Not me," Alice said. "I follow the heart, not the anatomy." Dana rubbed her shoulder.

"It's always so complicated, isn't it?" Jenny asked. "Some people have a choice, and some people don't about this thing, right?"

Shane nodded, "Mmm-mm."

"Right," Gloria said.

"You know what?" Carmen said, raising up her glass in a toast. "To choice."

"Right. To choice." Everyone raised their glasses and clinked them in the toast.

"Cheers," Shane said, and the others echoed it.

"And to Melvin," Jenny said, adding another toast.

"Yes. To Melvin," Gloria said, and the others agreed, "To Melvin."

"Ladies," Gloria said, "it was lovely meeting you all, although I wish it had been in different circumstances. I've got to run, because I'm giving a speech tonight and I've got to go back to my hotel to get ready."

Everyone said goodbye, and Shane jumped up and said, "I'll walk you to the door." When they were out of earshot of the Friends, Shane told Gloria, "We're all coming to your speech tonight. I'm bringing Carmen, who you met back there. She's a huge, huge fan of yours. It's ... uh ... it's a date. My first date with her. My first date ... with anybody, actually."

"Oh, terrific," Gloria said. " I'm honored to be a part of your special occasion. I'll look for you guys. Make sure you bring her up and say hello."

"I will," Shane said. "Thanks."

"And afterward," Gloria said, raising her eyebrows suggestively, "I hope you get to first base!"

Shane blushed and lowered her head awkwardly.

Gloria laughed. "Looks like I hit a nerve. See you tonight."

***

Shane had no sooner pulled up in front of Carmen's house than Carmen ran down the front steps and jumped into Shane's pickup. This had unwittingly ruined the first of a series of moves Shane had carefully thought out, which was to run around and open Carmen's door for her, as a man would do on a formal date with a woman.

"Hi! All set! Where we going?" Carmen asked, happy and bubbly.

But Shane was still processing her thwarted move, and was still rebooting. "Uh, er. Uh, hey. Wow. Um. You look great. Uh ... well, you'll see where we're going when we get there," she managed.

"Okay, great," Carmen said. "You know I like surprises."

They were well out Wiltshire Boulevard and a few blocks from Western when Carmen said, "Bet I know where we're going."

"Hope you aren't disappointed," Shane said.

"Oh, heavens, no!" Carmen said. "We're going to the Wiltern, right? To hear Gloria Steinem again, and Heart is playing, along with Betty and Kinnie Starr. I wanted to go see Kinnie on the Scrappy Bitch Tour last year with Oh Susanna and Veda Hille up in Canada but I couldn't find a hole in my schedule. So this is really great!" She was so happy she turned and grasped Shane's face and gave her a big kiss on the cheek, which almost caused Shane to veer into oncoming traffic. "And I get to hear Gloria, twice in one day, yet. Wow."

Shane pulled into a parking garage next to the theater, and drove up the ramps to the open top deck. They were early, which you have to be to get a good spot at the Wiltern.

"I just love this place," Carmen said. "This might be my very favorite venue in the whole city. But I haven't been here since they renovated it last year, so I'm dying to see what they did."

The Wiltern was a large art deco movie theater built in 1931, and over the years converted into a music hall. It was in some ways a small, intimate place, where the audience --if they got there early -- could get to within just a few feet of the stage and the performers. When packed to the gills, it could hold more than two thousand people on the various levels and in the balconies. The marquee over the front of the building announced that tonight was a benefit for Steinem's Ms. Foundation, and listed the performers, the group Heart, the group Betty, who'd been to Melvin's funeral that afternoon, and Starr.

"Yeah, this should be cool," Shane said as the pickup entered the top deck and she cruised to a good parking spot.

"Awesome," Carmen said. "Thanks for inviting me. "

Just as Carmen was about to open her door Shane grabbed her arm and said, "Hold on." She jumped out her side, walked around the front of the truck, and came to Carmen's door. She opened it with a modest flourish.

"What's this?" Carmen asked, grinning and laughing.

Shane smiled nervously and shrugged. She looked like a shit-scared kid on a first date. Which, pretty much, she was.

"Okay, thank you," Carmen said as Shane handed her out of the pickup.

"Is it okay?" Shane asked anxiously. Carmen was about to close her own door but Shane jumped in. "No, no. I've got it." She closed Carmen's door for her.

"Oh. Wow." Carmen whispered, impressed. "Sure. I - I don't know. I'm just not used to being treated like such a girl, I guess."

"Oh, what are you talking about, 'treated like a girl?'" Shane frowned, skittish and afraid of every move she'd carefully planned.

"Oh, okay."

"No, I thought I'd treat you ... ."

Carmen smiled. "Okay, right. I get the difference." She put her hand out and touched Shane's cheek to tell her it was okay.

"Are we ready?" Shane asked.

"Yeah!" Carmen replied. Shane held out her hand, but then quickly changed it to offer her elbow instead. Carmen wasn't quite sure how to respond, and she just pushed Shane on the shoulder, but it was okay, they were playing with each other now, some of the old chemistry back. They went in.

***

They got a good table up close to the stage, and over the next few minutes most of the other Friends showed up, including both an exceedingly pregnant Tina and Kit with her son David, whom they'd only ever met for the first time the day before, when he'd flown in for Melvin's funeral. They all got drinks from the bar -- just ginger ale for Tina and for Kit -- and had just settled in to chat while waiting for the rest of the crowd to arrive when Tina predictably had to go to the bathroom. Bette went with her, and a few minutes later Carmen decided she needed to go, too. When she got to the ladies room she found Bette helping Tina, who was standing shakily near the wash basins in a small pool of water on the floor.