Saturday afternoon – 1:05 P.M.
“What do you mean?” Blane asked. “What did he say?”
He was laying with his head on Heather’s lap. Heather was sitting against the headboard on her queen sized bed.
“I don’t care if he is the Lipson CFO, he’s very rude,” Heather said. “Someone should teach him some manners.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that I couldn’t be married to you because you’re gay. Then he, kind of, went on and on. I got so mad. He implied that you weren’t good enough to be my husband.”
“I am gay,” Blane said. “You’re straight. And we are married.”
“We were arguing when Tanesha told him to shut his pie hole. She told him that only a real asshole would get a pregnant woman so angry. She dragged me away from him.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to do the same.”
“What’s his problem?” Heather asked. “Is he like the marriage police?”
Blane shrugged.
“What?”
“I used to date his brother.” Blane’s face dropped with sorrow.
“What did his asshole brother do?”
“I thought…. Anyway, it didn’t work out.”
“You thought what?”
Tres Sierra had pushed Heather’s loyalty button. She was mad.
“I thought he was the ‘one’. You know, like Sam and Celia, Val and Mike….”
“Jill and Jacob,” Heather said.
“Yeah.”
Blane’s face set hard as stone.
“We were together for a few years… three I think. Dated off and on, then seriously for a while. We lived together for nine or ten months.”
“What happened?” Heather asked.
“He found out about me.”
“He found out you were gay?” Heather asked.
Blane laughed.
“I would think he would know you were gay,” Heather said.
“He found out about how I…. You know….”
“I don’t,” Heather said.
“Promise you won’t divorce me if you find out? Our family, strange as it is, is the best thing I’ve ever….”
“I don’t care what you did in the past,” Heather said. “You’re a good husband, Blane. Now in the present. Honest, loving, kind. You just give me your checks so I can run out household. You even buy me little presents or things for the baby. I’d be a fool to divorce you for something you USED to do.”
“You’re a good wife, Heather,” Blane said. “You’ve really made a home, not just for you but for us. I have space for myself, my studies, and space to hang out with you. I wouldn’t be able to get through this medication stuff if you weren’t taking care of me. You’ve taken the chaos of my life and made everything work. I’m really happy.”
“It works for us,” Heather smiled. “What did jerk-off find out about you?”
“When I was twelve or so, I got addicted to drugs,” Blane said. “It’s like one of those after school movies. I’d been in foster care all of my life. Abused. Used. I mean in foster care, everybody uses you for something – sex, money from the state, vent their anger, whatever. Drugs were a great escape.”
“What kind of drugs?”
“Everything. I didn’t like hallucinogens – LSD, XTC – but… everything else.”
“What did you get addicted to?”
“Heroin. In the end, it was only heroin. That’s how I got interested in acupuncture. It helped me kick it.”
“That’s why you have so much pain,” Heather said. “And won’t take pain pills.”
“Right.”
Blane was silent for a while.
“You were telling me about something, but I’m not sure what,” Heather said.
“I used to work Cheesman servicing the men on their way home to their wives,” Blane said.
“As a prostitute?”
“Yeah, hooker, whore, whatever. I worked Cheesman, the bathhouses, and the bookstores. I never did in call work because… well, I was just a kid.”
“Is that how you got sick?”
“Yeah,” Blane said. “Or dirty needles. I didn’t care. I didn’t really expect to live very long. Kids like me usually only make it three or four years.”
“How awful,” Heather said. “I mean, I thought about doing that. You know, we were really poor. I wanted nice clothes or whatever. But Sandy? Jill? Tanesha? They talked me out of it. We were all in the same place. Over the years, we all thought about it. Well, except for Sandy. She was always going to do hair. But hooking? It seems… easy, you know?”
“It’s not,” Blane said.
“Yeah, I can see that now. But at twelve, I don’t know what I would have done,” Heather said. “So what did the jerk do?”
“It’s my fault too,” Blane said. “I should have told him. He found out at a party. Someone made a joke about it. He was so horrified that….”
“That what?” Heather asked.
“He threw me out, called me awful names, threw my things in the street. I didn’t have anywhere to go so I went to the Castle. Jake was just back from Maine. It was like three in the morning and he took me in, found me a bed, then stayed with me while I cried. He got my things, dealt with the guy…. His name is Enrique. Ric.
“What I didn’t realize was that Ric told everyone we knew. I was the butt of every joke. I lost my job. My friends. I wanted to die. How do you overcome something you did so many years ago?”
“What did you do?”
“Jake was like a rock. He hired me as his assistant. He believed in me, like Celia did. When they hired Tres, I had the final say. Jake wouldn’t have it any other way. They helped me buy this house about six months later. Family. Jake and Sam really came through for me like real family.”
“Well, screw Enrique,” Heather said. “And his brother too. They suck. Oof.”
Blane’s head jerked as the baby kicked him in the head.
“Hey! Did you feel that?”
Blane sat up to put his hand on Heather’s belly.
“Yes. Our boy has a kicking leg on him,” Heather said.
“I wonder if he’ll do it….”
The baby’s kicked again.
“That’s so cool!”
“I think he agrees,” Heather said.
“With what?” Blane asked. “Come on baby, do it again!”
“That those Sierra brother’s suck.”
“The problem is….”
“What?”
“They are very hot.”
“Tres is hot,” Heather said. “We have to think of them like the pretty gardens on the side of highways. Beautiful, but you just drive on by. We won’t deal with either of them ever again. They’re just cute garbage on our journey to real husbands.”
“Highway gardens,” Blane nodded. “I like that.”
The baby kicked his agreement.
Denver Cereal continues tomorrow….