Read Online Significant Others by Armistead Maupin - Free Book Online

course.”
    “That’s sweet, Mother, but we’ve already made plans. I was giving a lunch myself, but I’m canceling it.”
    D’or smiled victoriously, then reached over and stroked DeDe’s thigh.
    Her mother wouldn’t give up. “Oh, darling, please say yes. I’m gonna be all alone.”
    “Why?” asked DeDe. “Where’s Booter going?”
    “The Grove,” said her mother bitterly.
    “Oh. It’s that time of year again.”
    “Do you realize,” said her mother, “how many times I’ve been a Grove Widow? I counted it up. Thirty-two times. It isn’t fair.”
    DeDe had heard this sob story all her life. Grove Widows, as they were popularly known, were the wives left behind by Bohemian Club members during their two-week encampment at the Bohemian Grove. The Grove was a sort of summer camp for graying aristocrats, an all-male enclave in the redwoods, whose secret fraternal rituals were almost a century old.
    DeDe’s father had been an ardent Bohemian, provoking her mother to bouts of acute depression during her annual ordeal of separation. Since her mother’s new husband was also a Bohemian, the torment had continued unabated. “You should have married a commoner,” DeDe told her.
    “That isn’t a bit funny.”
    “Well, what do you want me to say?”
    “I want you to come to lunch.”
    “Mother … we’re going away.”
    “Where?”
    “Just … up north. We’re packing the kids in the station wagon and taking off.” Wimminwood, in fact, was only a mile or two downriver from the Grove, but to say as much would only heighten her mother’s sense of familial desertion.
    “I worry about her,” she told D’or later. “I can’t help it.”
    D’or pulled her sleep mask into position. “What’s the matter this time?”
    “Oh … Booter’s taking off for the Grove.”
    “Christ,” sighed D’or. “The crises of the rich.”
    “I know.”
    “This happens every year. Why didn’t she plan something?”
    “She did plan something. She invited us to lunch.” DeDe reached over and turned off the light.
    “And now you’re feeling guilty as hell.”
    “No I’m not.”
    D’or paused. “Of course, we could always bring her along,”
    DeDe flipped on the light. “What?”
    “Sure. Gettin’ down with her sisters … tits to the wind. She’d like that.”
    DeDe turned off the light again.
    D’or kept at it. “Turkey baster study groups, S and M workshops …”
    “Shut up, D’or.”
    Her lover chuckled throatily and snuggled closer, hooking her leg around DeDe’s. “It’s gonna be great, hon. I can hardly wait.”
    DeDe said: “We don’t have to go topless, do we?”
    Another chuckle.
    “Don’t laugh. I think we should discuss it.”
    “O.K.,” said D’or. “Discuss.”
    “Well … whatever we decide, I think we should be consistent.”
    “Meaning?”
    “That we either both do it, or … you know … both don’t do it.”
    “Maybe,” said D’or, “if we both bared one breast …”
    “Ha ha,” said DeDe.
    “Well, gimme a break.”
    DeDe paused. “I just think it would be disorienting for the children, that’s all.”
    “What are you talking about? The kids’ve seen us naked plenty of times.”
    “I know, but … if one of us goes topless and the other one doesn’t …”
    “What you’re saying is … you plan to keep your shirt on, and you want me to do the same.”
    “O.K.,” said DeDe. “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    DeDe hesitated. “We don’t … well, we don’t need to prove anything, that’s all.”
    “Who’s proving anything?” said D’or. “It feels good. What’s the big deal? You went topless all over the place in Cabo last summer.”
    “That was different. It was secluded.”
    “This is secluded.”
    “Hundreds of people, D’or. That is not secluded.”
    “Well, they’re all women, for God’s sake.”
    “Exactly,” said DeDe.
    “What are you talking about?” asked D’or.
    She was talking about jealousy, of course, but she couldn’t bring