He saw the affront in her face, said, "I'm not asking you for anything, Angelina. I'm telling you as an old family friend—I'd really like to find some other way."
Embarrassed now, blood trapped in her face, she said, "I wasn't accusing you—"
"Yes you were," he interrupted, a surprising lack of resentment in his voice. "It doesn't matter. I'd like to find another way, and I don't see how I can. No hard feelings if I can't. Okay?"
38
The stockings were hot, but a lot less trouble than shaving his legs.
As for the lacy bra with its built-in boobs and exaggerated nipples, he practically stopped noticing it as soon as his chest hair had been untangled from the cups. The feel of a rayon skirt softly lapping between his thighs took some getting used to, though he'd insisted on wearing his jockey shorts, and there was great comfort in that scrap of the familiar. The only things that really bothered him were the pumps with their pinching toes and mid-height heels that made his butt stick out for balance; and the auburn wig, whose starchy backing made his bald spot itch like crazy, and whose stability on his sweaty head he didn't really trust.
Big sunglasses with winged frames avoided the need to do his eyes; a few sweeps of Cover Girl, tinged apricot, did a passable job of masking the stubble on his cheeks. Lipstick, a pale coral shade for morning wear, softened the crinkled corners of his mouth. His new ally the drag queen had said, "You're no Joan Crawford, sweetie, but you'll do."
He took a taxi to the Flagler House, forgot to keep his knees together as he exited. He caught the doorman's eyes flicking rudely toward his crotch, trying to chalk up a flash of panties. Men were beasts, he realized.
Now he was skulking through the lobby, his heart thumping so that his left falsie chafed against his chest. Half-deafened by his own clicking footsteps, he moved slowly, his eyes panning without respite. He peeked furtively around potted palms, looking for his brother or his henchmen, wondering if he'd be recognized, waiting for the trap to close.
When he was not immediately grabbed, he sidled to the front desk and asked the whereabouts of room 216. In his nervousness he neglected to disguise his voice, but the clerk, unflappable, barely blinked at the unlikely baritone; he directed the visitor to a bank of elevators.
The doors slid open on the second floor, and the first part of Louie to emerge was the winged sunglasses beneath the auburn wig, big silver frames turning left and right along the corridor. Finding it vacant, he stepped out, took a breath, dragged his heels along the carpet until he found room 216.
Standing before the door, he took a final trembling glance around him, then raised his hand to knock. But his nerve deserted him, he couldn't move his arm. This was it. Either Rose was there behind that door, and he was loved, his life fulfilled, or she was not, and he'd been duped, he might as well be laughed at, used, because his whole life was a travesty. He licked his lips, tasted wax and fragrance. He reached up to mop his forehead, his wrist bumped the wig a little bit askew. He knocked.
His answer was a silence, a pause beyond all measure.
His squashed feet fretted against the carpet, his heart fell in his chest, quivered like a dying mouse against his ribs.
Then he heard the tiny click and slide of a peephole being opened. As sure as a person feels a clammy hand, he felt an eye on him, though he didn't know whose eye it was.
Inside room 216, Rose Amaro, just now waking up from an unsober sleep, was thoroughly confused. Who was this dumpy brunette with the geeky sunglasses, and why was she knocking on her door? Softly but not warmly, she said, "Yes?"
Her husband's voice somehow issued forth from the painted mouth of this unattractive woman. "Rose," it said, "it's me!"
The voice, its incongruity, only deepened Rose's confusion. She struggled to wake up. For a moment no thought whatsoever would resolve, then what streaked across her mind was the befuddling notion that, after all these years, it turned out that her husband was a fruit. Had it happened in Key West or had he always been, down deep? Was it something he was born with or had she failed him even more miserably than she thought?
Out in the hallway, exposed to gangsters and relatives, Louie was extremely nervous. "Rose," he said. "Open up. Please."
After an interminable moment, a night chain rattled, a bolt scraped free, the door of 216 fell open.
Rose Amaro stood there in a cotton nightie, her silhouette revealed by silver shafts of daylight streaming in through the partly open blinds behind her. But Louie didn't see the loosening flesh, the contours surrendering, didn't see tired eyes or a jawline going slack; he saw his wife, the woman he had courted and won and loved forever, whose occasional affection was the greatest compliment he'd ever known. He scuffed his pumps across the threshold, closed the door behind him, and moved to take her in his arms.