On her right, exactly where Jack said it would be, was a small brick building with a large sign announcing TATTOOS BY HONEY. Smaller signs on the Store’s windows proclaimed, HEALTH
BOARD APPROVED and TATTOOS WHILE U WAIT. Lily pulled into the small gravel parking lot and took a deep breath.
Walking into a roomful of people had never been her favorite thing, and since Jack’s red truck was nowhere to be seen, she’d be walking into a room full of strangers. She considered going home for a dull evening alone with Mordecai, but finally said to herself, “Goddamn it, if I can do aerobics with a bunch of straight Southern Baptist women, surely I can find the courage to walk into a roomful of dykes.”
She walked around to the rear of the building, as Jack had told her to do, and knocked on the back door. It felt so secretive. She wondered if there was a secret password, like Sappho or something.
A full-figured, fortyish woman with wavy, naturally golden hair answered the door. Lily noticed right away that the woman’s arms were completely covered by tattoos: a medieval unicorn resting in a garden of vibrantly colored flowers, a fairy with diaphanous wings sprinkling stardust with her magic wand, and a frog in a golden crown squatting philosophically on a lily pad. The designs were more fanciful than what Lily would have chosen for herself, but the artwork was undeniably beautiful.
“Hey,” the woman said, grinning. Her face was as round, flat, and wide-eyed as a Persian cat’s.
“You must be Lily.”
“Urn...yeah. I didn’t know you’d be expecting me.”
“Jack said you might come by. I kinda recognized you ’cause I didn’t recognize you. We don’t see many new faces round here.” She opened the door wider. “Come on in and meet the gang. I’m Honey, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you. Love your sleeves.”
Honey surveyed her tattooed arms with genuine pride. “Thanks. Designed ’em myself. Here, let me introduce you to the usual suspects here. The ingrate hogging the La-Z-Boy over there’s Mick. She’s my old man.”
“Hey.” Mick raised her Bud tallboy in a half toast. Her hair was cut in a salt-and-pepper dyke spike, and she wore a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt and a black leather jacket — a shocking fashion choice, given that Honey’s apartment was cooled only by two oscillating fans, which were doing nothing more than stirring the hot, soupy air.
“And over here’s Dale and Sue.”
On the overstuffed tan sofa sat a couple who were at least as old as Granny McGilly. The butch member of the duo — Dale, Lily presumed — had close-cropped, snow-white hair and wore a Georgia Bulldogs jersey and sweatpants. The femme’s silver hair was shampooed and set, and she wore a lilac shell top with matching slacks. She put a long cigarette to her lips, and Dale dutifully leaned over to light it.
“Hey, babe,” Sue said to Lily, her voice a husky smoker’s rasp.
“Lord, girl, how old are you?” Dale asked, her voice having all the subtlety and modulation of Big Ben McGilly’s. “Seventeen?”
Lily smiled. “Twenty-nine, actually.”
“What a coincidence!” Dale whooped. “Me, too!”
“Don’t you pay no attention to her,” Sue said to Lily. “I ain’t heard a word she’s said in thirty years. I just keep her around ’cause she lights my cigarettes.”
