Chapter Four: Shimmy Uptown, Shimmy Downtown

“And so we’re just sitting there.” Caroline and Miranda were listening intently to the story. Landen, Ben and Connor had long since given up on the dramatics of the afternoon’s story. “Well, technically we were standing there. Just kissing. You know, little passionate Willow-Tara kisses, totally not like Tom Cruise Kelly McGillis Top Gun kisses. And this lipstick, in this blue suit skirty thing is standing there with two blahs watching us.”

It was the eating part of the church service auction. The six of us were passing food around, taking the occasional bite. High school students scurried around the floor of the church basement serving drinks and refilling food plates that had run out.

“So you guys were kissing on the front lawn?” Caroline finally asked.

“Yes,” I replied quickly. “But it’s our front lawn, if I wanna make out with my boyfriend on it, I’m totally going to.”


“And you should be,” Miranda chimed in. “Right, Connor.”

“Absolutely,” he responded through a mouth full of lasagna. He turned his head towards Ben. “What were they talking about?”

“No clue,” Ben replied. “Who can actually follow them besides them?”

“Good point,” Connor said through a swallow.

“Only on occasions do I understand when they’re all together,” Landen conceded.

“That’s better than me,” Ben retorted. “I don’t think I can ever understand them. Except on the rare occasions that they speak in normal human tongues.”

“Who does that?” I said, continuing my story. “And Landen begins talking to them, and it’s all uncomfortable, and the blahs are totally freaked out by the fact that they have to talk to two mos and Landen asks them if they have children.”

“That seems harmless enough,” Caroline said.

“Well, when she-blah said no,” I explained, “Landen asked if they were practicing.”

Caroline and Miranda began laughing.

“He didn’t really. Did he?” Miranda asked.

“He did.” I replied. “And I certainly didn’t want to know that fact.”

“Did they answer?” Caroline asked.

“No, thankfully,” I said. “The point is, who watches two people kissing?”

“That woman,” Caroline said as she took a bite out of her breadstick.

“Nancy,” I added, in my snottiest snob voice. There was a pause. “What a fucking dyke.”

“Do you guys need a refill?” There was a high school boy, Tim, standing there with the iced tea pitcher. He looked around the table, alternating between eye contact and staring down at his shoes, or crotch, I couldn’t really tell.

“No thanks,” Landen answered, nudging me.

“Pray for us,” I said.

“If you need anything, let me know,” Tim said as he walked away.

“I think you scared him,” Miranda observed, taking a sip from her cup. She made a little face. “When is this shindig going to start? I need a drink.”

“Don’t say that f-word in church, honey,” Landen whispered.

“Did I?” I acted shocked. “I totally didn’t even think about it.”

“Right,” Landen replied. “Well, let’s try not to use it, kay? Especially in front of a high school student.”

“Not like they don’t use it,” Miranda said looking around, probably looking for a drink. Caroline sat up, she had been leaning against Ben, and reached into her fabric Vera Bradley, which in my opinion looks far more like a picnic basket than a purse. She passed her gin flask across the table.

“Save me some,” she added as Miranda took the flask. Miranda unscrewed the top under the table and tried looking innocent, which, as we all know, never actually makes someone look innocent. She had tucked the flask into her shirt and gracefully, clearly out of years of practice, poured a substantial amount of gin into her iced tea. She swirled her cup as if she were allowing the legs of wine creep down the glass. Miranda inhaled deeply and drank.

“Much better.” Miranda rescrewed the top of the flask and passed it back to Caroline with no discretion whatsoever. “Saved you a bit.”

“Thanks,” Caroline made a lip smacking noise at Miranda. Landen sat there, staring with his eyes wide open.

“Close your mouth, dear,” I said, as I gently pushed his lower jaw up with my left index finger.

“I’ve seen you guys do some crazy sh…stuff in the years I’ve known you,” Landen began. “But I think that this takes the cake.”

Miranda laughed as she brought her glass to her mouth. “If that takes the cake, you haven’t seen anything.” She took a long drink from it. “Too bad it’s not BINGO or I’d have lit a cig by now.”

Everyone laughed, except Landen, who didn’t actually laugh, but shook his head in a way that I could tell he found the whole situation amusing but would refuse to admit it.

Enter Jacob. “Do you guys want some coffee?” All six of us turned and smiled at him. He got real nervous, real fast. He smiled and held up the coffee pot. Landen and I flipped over our cups.

“Is it good?” Landen asked. “Because if it’s good, we’d love some.” He smiled and his eyes glistened and twinkled as if he were winking, which I discovered when I started dating him was one of his tricks of the trade, as it were. It did the trick and the tension in Jacob’s body rushed into the floor.

“I can’t guarantee that it’s any good,” Jacob began, “but I’m sure it’s not that bad. Look at all the people drinking it.”

We looked around and it was true, there were lots of people drinking coffee.

“I noticed that a lot of them were older,” I added. “Maybe their taste buds have expired and they can’t taste it.”

“Possibly,” Jacob responded. “But you’ll never know if you try.”

He had us. Landen and I looked at each other mock seriously. “We’ll go for it.” Landen finally said.

“Excellent choice,” Jacob responded as he poured the coffee into our cups.

“Do you have some tea?” Caroline asked when Jacob had completed pouring our coffee. Jacob looked at her full iced tea glass. “I meant hot tea,” she amended.

“Yeah, just give me a couple minutes,” Jacob responded. Miranda grabbed Jacob by the shirt as he was leaving.

“What time does this auction thingy start?”

“They should be handing out the lists shortly,” he replied. “It should start about five minutes after that.”

“Thanks,” Miranda said, turning back to us. “What lists?”

“I think,” Ben started, “that he means the list of whose ‘selling’ what.”

“You’re zoning,” Landen said to me, bumping me with his coffee-drinking elbow.

“Hmm?” I replied. “He’s gay.”

“What?” everybody said, but Landen. Landen merely looked at me.

“Jacob.” I answered.

“How do you know?” Connor asked, looking around to find Jacob.

“He beeped,” I replied. Landen nodded through a sip of coffee. Caroline was “discreetly” looking for Jacob. And just for the record and clarity, by putting discreetly in quotes implies that she wasn’t discreet at all.

“First of all let’s not all look like we’re trying to…” I would have completed the sentence but Jacob had arrived with Caroline’s hot water and tea bag.

“Thank you so much,” Caroline said, almost too happily.

“You’re welcome.” Jacob scanned the table, looking at us one at a time. Miranda smiled and forced a small wave. “Here are some lists, we’ll be starting in just a moment.”

“Could you guys have been more obvious?” I asked, reaching over Landen to grab a list after Jacob had walked away. I placed it between us. “What are you going to buy me?” I smiled broadly at him.

“I already told you what I’m here for,” Landen said, scanning the list.

“A houseboy?” Caroline asked, with Miranda only a quarter of a second behind, giving a charming echo effect.

“That’s what I said,” I replied laughing.

“No,” was all that Landen could say.

“He’s getting a dog walker,” I said.

“A dog walker?” Ben asked. “Isn’t Shoned use to you guys not being there and holding pee and all that jazz? You’ve had her for three years or something.”

“This is more for when we’re not home,” Landen explained.

“He’s taking me to Paris for Christmas,” I told Caroline and Miranda.

“Why don’t you ever take me to Paris?” Miranda said, gently hitting Connor. Caroline just looked at Ben.

“What?” Ben asked.

“I never get to go to Paris,” Caroline whined.

“I’m not taking him to Paris,” Landen explained after finishing off his coffee. I pouted. “I just thought that it would be good to have someone to take care of Shoned should we ever go somewhere. And if he or she can clean the house, all the better.”

“Yes, because you’re not clean enough,” Caroline said as she dipped her tea bag.

“So it is a houseboy,” Connor clarified.

“No,” Landen stressed. “A houseboy implies nakedness. And a boy. There will be no nakedness and I might just buy a girl.”

All four of them looked at him.

“I said ‘might,’” Landen said.

“I think you should get Jacob,” Miranda said, not looking up from the list she was studying.

“What?” Landen and I asked in unison.

“Oh, yeah,” Caroline interrupted. “It says he cleans, does yard work and other assorted handy things.”

“Handy things?” Ben asked.

“What? I didn’t want to go through the whole list.”

“Yes,” I exclaimed. “I want Jacob.” I smiled even more broadly than I had when asking what Landen was going to buy me.

“You want Jacob?” Landen asked. I nodded. “You sure?” I nodded harder. “Alright, whatever.”

“Why do you want him so bad?” Connor wondered.

“Gay him forward,” I replied, excitedly.

“What?” Ben asked.

“He wants to mold him,” Miranda explained through sips of her drink.

“I don’t understand how you even know for sure,” Ben continued.

“Bannon has the most well-tuned gay-dar in the Western Hemisphere,” Caroline elucidated. I smiled.

“You’ve known us how long,” Landen asked, “and you haven’t figured that out yet?”

“I can smell a queer three miles away,” I added. “Plus his purse all but fell out of his mouth when he spoke.”

“Fifty.” Connor, who had obviously been paying attention to the auction, had just bid on a year of cookies once a month for a year.

“Did we miss it?” I asked.

“What? Jacob? Seventy-five. No, the list says he’s much later.” Connor was determined to win those cookies. Miranda rolled her eyes. “It’s for a good cause,” he reassured Miranda.

“Whatev,” she took a long drink.

“Going once, going twice, sold for seventy-five dollars to Connor Slaghty.”

“Yes,” Connor exclaimed and proceeded to do his “happy dance” which involved both arms going up and down. “Miranda, can I have seventy-five bucks?”

Miranda crossed her eyes and stared deeply at him. “You spent seventy-five dollars and didn’t bring a checkbook?”

“I wasn’t planning on buying them,” Connor explained.

“If you’re going to buy anything,” Caroline was looking at Ben and spelling out the rules. “You’d better have some money to pay for it.”

“Please, honey,” Connor had reached the point of begging.

Miranda tossed her purse on the table. She rolled her eyes as she began looking through it. “Oh, I did bring one of my flasks.” She pulled out a smaller flask with a four-leaf clover on it. “Not sure which one this is. Maybe four shots, clover, I’m guessing whiskey.”

Connor took the purse and had found the checkbook as Miranda opened the top and smelled the contents of the flask. “Yup, whiskey.” She took a quick swig now that everyone had stopped looking at us since a new auction had begun. She washed it down with a sip from her ginned iced tea.

The auction continued rather uneventfully. Ben and Caroline had bought an Indian dinner for eight for two hundred.

“Two more.” I was excitedly tapping Landen on the arm as the auction drew closer and closer to Jacob. “Paris, here I come.” I was dancing in my seat, tongue sticking out. I continued seat dancing until Jacob’s auction started. “Start it off, Landen.”

“The next lot is Jacob Brenner,” the auctioneer, who was one of the youth leaders, began.

“Yes,” I exclaimed a little bit louder than I had wanted. The other five at the table, and a couple random people around the room, looked at me. “Sorry.” I waved, apologetically.

“He cleans,” the auctioneer continued over me. “He also does yard work, knows some basic carpentry. He’s a quick study, so if you need him for something specific, he can learn it. We’ll start the bidding at twenty-five dollars.”

“Twenty-five,” Landen shouted and raised his hand.

“I don’t like to lose,” I whispered in Landen’s ear.

“I know,” he mouthed back.

The next thirty seconds to a minute happened so quickly I wasn’t really sure what had happened. The bidding had quickly increased between Landen and the one person in the church who didn’t like us and was probably only bidding against us for that reason.

“One fifty,” Landen shouted.

“Two,” the guy, Adam, yelled. I tapped Landen on the shoulder.

“Two fifty.”

“Three.” Adam smirked at us.

“Whoa,” the auctioneer said. There was a pause. Landen looked at me. I looked back at him. The other four were looking at us. The six of us turned toward Adam, who was still smirking. Landen ran his tongue over his teeth, a sign of deep thought. He looked back at me. I nodded.

“Five hundred,” he yelled.

Everyone turned and looked at us, especially Adam. It was the highest bid of the night. Adam was thinking, debating with himself as to whether or not go higher. His girlfriend, who had been at the bathroom and had heard the last two bids, clearly did not want him to continue with the bidding. There was a pause as they silently debated with each other. She kept shaking her head.

“Going once,” the auctioneer had begun to end the auction. Adam looked desperate while his girlfriend stood fast. “Going twice, sold to Landen Brinks for five hundred dollars.”

“Yes,” I proclaimed. I shimmied for the whole room, and if I had breasts, they would have been shimming with me. I made sure to focus on Adam, who, I might add, looked pissed.