Page 48 of The Happy Month
“Bebe Neuwirth.”
“Who is that?” I asked. I only knew who Ann Reinking was because I lived with Ronnie. And even she was fuzzy.
“Lilith. Frasier’s ex.”
“She can sing?”
“Hopefully.”
I saw our tenants, Brown and Melissa, and was about to go over and say hello when a young woman dressed as a bridesmaid came out of the house and said, “If everyone could take a seat…”
Ronnie grabbed us a couple more champagnes and westepped over to the chairs, taking seats about four rows back on the aisle. Phillip and Octavio sat further up. I noticed Robbie, who I’d worked with at The Hawk. He was with an older, larger guy with a beard. A bear. His type. I suspected it was the partner he rarely talked about.
People settled. Ronnie took my hand and held onto it. I couldn’t help thinking of Ivan and Patrick. This was no longer the world they’d lived in. That was a good thing. It wasn’t perfect. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Sharon Hawley we were still illegal in twenty-six states, but it was also getting better.
Today was an example of that. Yeah, it wasn’t legal, and I didn’t expect it ever would be. They’d manage to keep that from us, but slowly, incrementally, we’d take everything else. We’d live our lives the way we wanted. Sharon Hawley was jealous that we seemed so free. I wondered why she couldn’t see that we’d taken it for ourselves. And why didn’t she take whatever freedom she wanted for herself? Because that’s what freedom was, something you took, even when they tried to keep it from you.
The wedding march started. We all turned around and watched as the attendants came out from behind the garage and down the aisle alone. First, was the girl I’d seen looking like a bridesmaid even though there was no bride. She carried a small bouquet and tried to look demure, though I was fairly certain she was anything but. Then the best man wearing a Hawaiian shirt to which he’d added some well-placed sequins.
Under my breath I asked Ronnie a question I should have asked long before, “Why Hawaiian shirts?”
“Honeymoon.”
Well, that explained it.
The attendants took their place under the tent. Anactual minister in robes had snuck in while I wasn’t looking. After a slight pause, Doug came down the aisle with an older woman who was obviously his mother. Doug was in his twenties, around Ronnie’s age and pretty enough to be an actor, something he’d tried for a few years. He noticed that the guests were all wearing Hawaiian shirts and made a big show of shock, though I suspected he’d been in on the joke for quite some time. Robert and his mother followed. He was older, also flawlessly handsome, his mother around the same age as Doug’s.
The ceremony itself was overlong. First, the minister talked about his church and how it was accepting of the LGBT community, which after a minute or two started to sound like an infomercial. He kept emphasizing thelove thy neighboraspect of religion, ignoring the long history of religion doing the exact opposite. Then the boys said the vows they’d written themselves, which were sweet and would be terribly embarrassing if things didn’t work out. And then it was over.
The bridal party took over one corner of the yard for photos, and we were asked to step away from the dancefloor while tables were brought over and chairs spread around them. As we waited, I said to Ronnie, “I didn’t know the boys knew Brown and Melissa.”
“I put them together. They want to foster. Brown and Melissa know all about that. You know what, I just remembered something. Doug’s mother used to work in the industry. I wonder if she knew Ivan Melchor.”
Looking over at the wedding party posing for photos, Doug’s mother was definitely in her early sixties. She’d have been born in the early thirties, the depth of the depression. She’d have been old enough to work after the war. That would have given her an overlap with Ivan of a couple ofdecades. Of course, the industry was large. Different studios. Different departments. They probably?—
“Come on,” Ronnie said, pulling me around the dance floor. The mothers seemed to have been dismissed. Doug’s mom was hovering nearby but now separate.
Boldy, Ronnie walked up and said, “Hi. You’re Doug’s mom. I’m Ronnie Chen. I sold them the house, and this is my partner Dom Reilly. He’s an investigator.”
I could tell he desperately wanted to put ‘private’ in front of that. His interest in my being a P.I. didn’t make much sense until I remembered him saying how much he’d lusted after Magnum P.I. when he was a teenager. I was his own personal Tom Selleck.
“Dotty Bridges.”
“Someone told me you were in the industry. Do you happen to know Dwayne Whatley?”
I cringed a little. Dwayne had the same last name as the man I had killed, the man Lydia claimed she’d killed. The police had tried to make something out of that, but dropped it when they couldn’t find a connection. Ronnie was continuing, “He’s in development. Sony or Paramount. I can never remember which.”
“I was in crafts. Costumes mostly.”
“Oh. Do you remember Ivan Melchor? He was at Monumental.”
“Of course, I remember him. I was in and out of Monumental during the fifties and early sixties. I didn’t work as much after I had Doug.”
“So, you knew him?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I knew who he was. I saw him. In the commissary or around the lot. And, of course, people talked.”
“What did they say?”
