“That’s me,” I admit, wondering what it is about me that sticks out like a sore thumb. I’m wearing a gray, fifty percent cotton, fifty percent wool suit I got on sale at Dillard’s. Granted I’m not much of a clotheshorse, but I look better than most of the tourists who are coming in wearing anything from Bermuda shorts to college sweatshirts.
“I’m Jessie St. vrain,” she says, “and I’m starving.”
I try not to look surprised. Is everybody here androgynous?
“Good,” I say.
“We’re eating on my boss’s money.”
We sit at a table against a mirror, and I can’t get away from wondering whether Jessie is really a woman.
Harold, I remember, used the word “gal,” but I’m beginning to wonder if that holds much significance around here. Shit, maybe this is Richard Thomas’s son or daughter. Jessie’s lips are full but unpainted. John Boy wore more makeup than this woman. Jessie is mercifully oblivious to my confusion and treats me like a visiting cousin.
“Have you gotten to see anything? Ride the cable cars? We could have gone to Fisherman’s Wharf, but the prices are such a rip-off.”
I look at the menu. More expensive than home but not bad. I close it and get what I always order at home:
sweet-and-sour pork. My tastes would put a lot of people out of work, Rainey has observed. Jessie, obviously a veteran, makes several suggestions and sighs in frustration at my choice. She orders squid.
“How do you know Harold?” she asks, pouring us each a cup of tea as if we were a long-married couple who know each other’s routines.
“Isn’t he wild? I just love his show, especially that little one they call the Louisville Slugger.
If you do only one thing, you should catch it.”
Afraid to admit I already have, I say, “I’ve known Harold a while. He said you have an interesting story.”
Jessie gives me a frown, as if I have committed some horrible breach of etiquette.
“Have you got to be some place at five-thirty?” she asks, disapproval in her green eyes.
“Not at all,” I concede. Lighten up, I think. My plane doesn’t leave until tomorrow afternoon. Jessie is like a Mexican businessman. We’re supposed to entertain each other before we do a deal. I order a beer for me and sake for her. What the hell? I tell her I found the Louisville Slugger attractive, too.
“It made me feel a little weird though,” I confide.
“I have enough trouble with the opposite sex without having to worry if it’s truly opposite
Jessie laughs, revealing lovely teeth. I decide she is pretty in an unusual way. I haven’t been out with a woman who is as petite and graceful as she is in years.
Perish the thought. The last thing I need to do is go to bed with her. Even the idea of masturbation in this city makes me break into a cold sweat. Dan told me, not entirely joking, that I was running a risk by changing my underwear. I suspect that is a risk I’ll take. As she spoons her soup, Jessie begins to tell me her life story.
She is divorced but no kids. A frustrated artist, she draws in her spare time, and proving it, she whips out a pad and pen and sketches my face while we are waiting for the rest of our dinner. While she draws, she tells me she has lived everywhere except the South.
“No offense, but I’ve avoided it like the plague. We drove through Alabama and Mississippi once, and you just seem so backward and poor. Granted the prices here make you think you’re living in Russia, but the diversity is just fantastic!”
I smile, trying to avoid feeling defensive. I’m here to persuade Jessie to testify, not start a new Civil War.
Still, I can feel my hackles rising. Condescension toward Southerners is a lifelong obsession of mine.
“Yeah, the Rodney King thing,” I say, getting into my Arkansas Delta accent, “made me want to load up my old pickup and five kids and move on out. It’s hard not to get nostalgic for the old days when you see a beating like that.”
Our waiter, a frazzled Asian kid who seems accustomed to moving at the speed of light, throws on the table two egg rolls that resemble dried dog turds. Jessie downs her sake before attacking her portion. She smiles to make sure I’m joking. To keep her going, I show a few teeth. She says, “I’m afraid I’d just vegetate even in a place like Atlanta. Mainly, you just have two races, still living separate and unequal, African-Americans oppressed as ever.”
Since we are eating in a ghetto made up of a race that as far as I know has never had a governor and seems to wield little political power, I observe, “Tell me about it.
That black mayor in Atlanta rants and raves, but you know how crackers are down South. It’s a living hell all right.”
Smiling shyly, she tears off her drawing, signs it at the bottom, and pushes it at me. I’m astonished at the likeness: I’ve been told I look a little like Nick Nolte but never took it seriously until this moment.
“Not bad,” I tell her, trying not to squint. I don’t want to ruin the effect by putting on reading glasses.
The drawing somehow serves to bring about a truce, and we eat our meal in relative harmony. I tell her about Sarah and her current flirtation with fundamentalism.
As expected, Jessie expresses horror, but I wouldn’t be surprised if her own beliefs weren’t just as extreme, if Doonesbury’s Boopsie is any guide to California. At least Sarah hasn’t told me she is into “channeling” yet.
I don’t want to start a fight, so I don’t ask Jessie about her religion and am relieved when she doesn’t relate any out-of-body experiences. After dinner she reads me her fortune: ” “You find beauty in simple things. Do not neglect this gift.” ” She smiles, and I wonder if I am one of the simple things. I read her mine. ” “A wise man and his tongue are never parted.” ” Draining her third sake, she says, with a snicker, “Only with great difficulty.”
Jessie suggests that we talk at my hotel and takes my arm in a proprietary way as we walk back toward Powell Street. I confess I am nervous. From a distance she looks so much like a boy I know we are taken for a homosexual couple. Because of my acceptance of Skip, I thought I didn’t have any prejudice, but I feel myself blushing when I get a glance from tourists.
“There’s a couple of ‘em,” I can imagine them saying.
But maybe they are thinking, “Nick Nolte I didn’t know he was gay.”
Inside the Fairfield Hotel, I feel sweat soaking my undershirt.
“You want to talk in the bar?” I ask, my voice sounding plaintive even to me.
Looking up at me with her clear emerald eyes, she murmurs, “I’d feel better if we talked in your room.”
A bellman, an Asian guy in his early twenties, catches my eye and grins. He must want a tip to keep his mouth shut. I’m not doing anything wrong, I want to scream at the top of my voice. I take my hands out of my pockets as if this somehow will indicate my good faith.
“Okay,” I sigh.
“Let’s go.”
Feeling as though the entire staff of the hotel is watching us, I follow her onto the elevator and keep my eyes on the floor until the door shuts. On the sixth floor there are no guests roaming the halls, and I unlock the door to my room, relieved not to have encountered one.
Like a couple returning from a night on the town, we both head for the bathroom. Though my bladder feels like an overheated inner tube, I defer, and she says companionably, “I’m about to bust.”
Hoping things won’t get any stranger, I look around the room, wondering how to get as far away from the bed as possible. There are two chairs, and I drag them over to the window and place them a yard apart and sit down. Though I have brought a pint of bourbon, alcohol is the last thing this little party needs right now. Once she leaves, I may not even go out for ice.