For the first time in seven years, Mae was almost glad her twin brother was dead. Ray’s friends were moving out of state or checking out altogether, and he’d never been able to handle desertion. No matter that the person deserting hadn’t been given a choice.
Mae shoved her sunglasses on the bridge of her nose and walked across the hospital lobby. If Ray were alive, he wouldn’t have been able to endure watching his good friend and lover, Stan, waste away from AIDS-related cancer. He would have become too emotional, unable to hide his grief. But not Mae. Mae had always been stronger than her twin.
She ducked her head and pushed open one of the heavy glass doors. She was a control nut. So what. If she weren’t, she might not have been able to come to the hospital to say her final good-bye to Stan. If it weren’t for her self-control, she just might lose it before she got home. She might break down right there and weep for the man who’d helped her through the death of her brother. The man who loved a good joke, an early tee-off, and Liberace memorabilia. Stan was so much more than a skeleton waiting for his family to take him home to die. He was so much more than the latest AIDS casualty. He was her friend and she loved him.
Mae took a deep breath of the cool morning breeze and cleared her lungs of antiseptic hospital air. She started up Fifteenth Avenue toward the house she shared with her cat, Bootsie.
“Hey there, Mae.”
She paused midstride, and glancing over her shoulder, she looked right into the grinning face of Hugh Miner. A blue baseball cap shaded his eyes, and his light brown hair curled up like little fishhooks along the edges. He grasped three big hockey sticks in one hand, hooking the blades over a broad shoulder. Seeing him in her neighborhood was a surprise. Mae lived on Capital Hill, an area just east of downtown Seattle well known for its substantial gay and lesbian population. Mae had been around gay men all of her life and could tell sexual preference within minutes of meeting a person. The first and only time she’d met Hugh, she’d known within seconds that he was one hundred percent heterosexual. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m dropping these sticks off at the hospital.”
“Why?”
“For an auction.”
She turned to face him. “People actually pay for your old hockey sticks?”
“You bet.” His smile grew and he rocked back on his heels. “I’m a great goalie.”
She shook her head. “You’re an egomaniac.”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing. Some women actually like that about me.”
Mae didn’t care for his type of man, handsome and cocky. “Some women are desperate.”
He chuckled. “What are you doing today, beside spreading sunshine?”
“Walking home.”
His smile fell. “Do you live around here?”
“Yep.”
“Are you a lesbian, sweetheart?”
She thought of how Georgeanne would have howled with laughter over that question. “Does it matter?”
He shrugged. “It’d be a damn shame, but it would explain why you’re so ornery.”
Mae wasn’t usually ornery to men. She loved men. Just not the athletic type. “Just because I’m rude to you doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian.”
“Well, are you?”
She hesitated. “No.”
“That’s good.” He smiled again and shifted his weight to one foot. “Do you want to go get a cup of coffee or a beer somewhere?”
Mae laughed without humor. “Get real,” she scoffed, and moved to the curb. She glanced up and down Fifteenth and waited for the traffic to slow.
“Sorry about that, sunshine,” Hugh called after her as if she’d asked him a question. “But I don’t go in for that kinky stuff.”
Mae looked at him as she stepped between two parked cars. He was walking backward toward the hospital entrance and pointing the hockey sticks at her. “But if you’re real good and wear something slutty, maybe I’ll take you to that triple-X theater down on First. The French Orgy is playin‘, and I know how you love those foreign films.”
“You’re sick,” she muttered, and crossed Fifteenth. She easily dismissed Hugh from her mind. She had more important things to think about than a jock with a thick neck. Her circle of friends was getting smaller all the time. Just last week she’d had to say good-bye to her longtime pal and neighbor, Armando “Mandy” Ruiz. She hadn’t even known he was thinking of leaving until the day she’d watched him pack up his Chevy. He’d left Seattle for L.A. Left to answer the call of bright lights and to chase his dream of becoming the next RuPaul. Mae would miss Stan, and she’d miss Mandy, too.
But she still had her family. She still had Georgeanne and Lexie. They were enough for now. For now she was satisfied with her life.