Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

tenancy of DeDe, D’orothea and the children. Absolutely nobody objected, since her mother and D’or were always at odds, and her mother’s new husband had no intention of living under the same roof with his lesbian stepdaughter and her eight-year-old Eurasian twins.
    By implicit mutual consent, they got tipsy on white wine spritzers at the Baybrick Inn.
    When the floor show began, a sinewy stripper in full police drag made a beeline for their table, bumping and grinding all the way. DeDe giggled uncontrollably as the cop began gesturing lewdly with her nightstick.
    “Did you set this up?” she asked her lover.
    D’or’s eyes were full of mischief. “Moi?”
    “I’ll get you for this. I swear.”
    “She’s waiting. Give her something.”
    The stripper began to hump the back of DeDe’s chair, egged on by the roar of a hundred women.
    “Money, you mean?”
    “Of course money!”
    The cop doffed her helmet and held it out to DeDe, who fumbled frantically in her purse. The crowd was going wild. “D’or … how much?”
    “The twenty.”
    “Isn’t that a little too …?”
    “It’s for AIDS. Give it to her.”
    She placed the bill in the helmet, to the sound of tumultuous applause. To show her gratitude, the cop leaned over and stuck her tongue in DeDe’s ear.
    “You looked utterly stricken,” D’or told her later as they sped home to Hillsborough in their big Buick station wagon. “I wish I had a picture of it.”
    DeDe laughed along with her. “Thank God you don’t.”
    When the city lights were gone and the highway became a dark ribbon through the hills, they both fell silent for the final stretch, with DeDe stealing occasional glances at the volatile, loving woman behind the wheel.
    “D’or?” she said at last.
    “Yeah?”
    “Could we take the children?”
    “Where?”
    “Wimminwood.”
    D’or turned and smiled at her sleepily. “Sure.”
    “Well … maybe you’re right, then. Maybe it would do us some good.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah. I mean … I’m willing to give it a shot.”
    D’or reached over and squeezed her leg. “I figured that stripper would do the trick.”
    Their baby-sitter was a leggy freshman from Foothill Community College. When they got home, she was watching Love Letters on the VCR. Since they’d acquired the movie for the sole purpose of ogling the naked body of Jamie Lee Curtis, DeDe had the uneasy sensation their privacy had been violated.
    The sitter, however, seemed totally oblivious of the smoldering eroticism on the screen. “This is so lame,” she said without getting up.
    D’or grinned wickedly at DeDe, who said: “Well, you two can settle up. I’ll go look in on the children.”
    The kids were dead to the world, sprawled like rag dolls across their respective beds. Their almond-eyed faces seemed smoother and rounder than ever, gleaming like ivory in the bright summer moonlight.
    A little healthy exercise in the woods would be good for them, she told herself. There would be other children at Wimminwood, playmates with similar home environments. What better reinforcement could she find for them?
    She adjusted Edgar’s blanket, then leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. His eyes popped open instantly.
    “You weren’t asleep,” she whispered.
    “Did you have a good time?” he asked.
    “Yes, darling.” She sat on the edge of the bed and brushed the hair off his forehead. “How ‘bout you?”
    “That sitter is a retard,” he said.
    “Why?”
    “She likes David Lee Roth.”
    “You didn’t give her a hard time, did you?”
    He shook his head.
    “Go to sleep, then. In the morning I’ll tell you about a great trip we’re gonna take to the Russian River.”
    “D’or told me already,” he said.
    “She did? When?”
    “Long time ago.”
    She wasn’t surprised. It was typical of D’or to marshal the forces before mounting the attack.
    “I can’t go,” Edgar added, “cuz I’m a boy.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “D’or.”
    “Well, she must have been joking, darling.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “You misunderstood her, then. We’re all going. We would never go anywhere without you.” She pulled the blanket up under his chin. “Go to sleep now. Before we wake up Anna.”
    She descended the staircase to the foyer, her face burning with anger. She could hear the sitter’s car spewing gravel in the driveway as she cornered D’or in the kitchen. “Did you tell Edgar he couldn’t go to Wimminwood with