“She sticks her fingers in her ears and sings ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ When she has no choice but to acknowledge Mimi, she refers to her as ‘your friend’s daughter.’ ”
“Well, obviously we’re not gonna get much help on that front.”
Lily poured another glass of wine. “Ben, nobody’s gonna help us except other queers, and nobody’s gonna listen to them anyway ’cause ... well, they’re a bunch of queers.” She slammed her wineglass so hard on the coffee table that the base broke, nicking her index finger. “Goddamn it!” She stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I am most certainly not okay. My daughter is going to be raised by Republicans.”
Ben sat down next to her. “Lily, I need to ask you a question.”
“So ask.” The cut on her finger was almost a relief — a small dose of physical pain to distract her from the pain that mattered.
“Okay, I’m very serious here. Would you do anything to keep Mimi?”
She didn’t have to pause to think. “Yes. She’s all I have left. If anything had a chance of working, I’d try it.
“Even if it meant putting yourself in a hellish situation?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, buddy, I’m in a hellish situation right now. Stop being so damned mysterious. What are you thinking?”
Ben sighed. “Okay. My family — they drive me nuts, but they have the two things that might get us out of this situation.”
“An AK-47 and what else?”
“Better than that. They have the two things in this country that can get you out of just about any situation: money and power.”
Lily had always known that Ben was on the payroll for some family business he rarely did any work for. The way Dez had told it, Ben’s parents kept him paid off so he wouldn’t come back to his small north Georgia hometown and flaunt his homosexuality. “But from what I’ve heard from you and Dez, your family hasn’t exactly joined up with P-FLAG. Would they be willing to use their money and power to help us?”
“Under the right circumstances.”
Lily smelled compromise — an odor she hated. But she had said she would do anything to keep Mimi, and she meant it. She took a deep breath. “And what circumstances would those be?”
“Okay,” Ben began. “Suppose — just suppose for a second — that I’m actually Mimi’s biological father.”
“But we both know Dez is.”
“For a writer, you’re not being very imaginative. Let’s say that unbeknownst to you and Dez, Charlotte and I were having an affair.”
