After they left, Lily said, “God, I guess it sounds condescending to call them adorable, but they really are.”
“Oh yeah, they’re great,” Honey agreed. “I always call them my lesbian grandmas.” Honey grabbed more beers for the four of them. “So,” she said, fishing a tin cookie box out of a kitchen drawer,
“now that the grannies are gone, anybody want some weed?”
“You know I do,” Mick said.
“And you know I don’t,” Jack said just as decisively. “Can’t get myself too muzzy-headed. I could get a farm call in five hours.”
Honey laughed. “Well, you could never smoke no how. The one time I did manage to get you stoned, you kept getting up to look out the window, to see if there was cops outside.”
Jack laughed along with her. “Dyke or not, I guess I’m pretty much a law-abiding citizen.”
Honey took out a packet of rainbow-striped rolling papers. “These are so cool. Mick found ’em up in Chattanooga.” She folded a tissue-thin paper in half and began distributing pinches of green flakes across its length. “How ’bout you, Lily? Can I offer you some homegrown hospitality?”
“Not tonight, thanks. I think I’ll just stick to beer.” Lily had liked pot back in college; it was arguable that she had liked it too much. And now, when Honey offered it, she felt a tug of temptation to surrender to the weed’s friendly, familiar oblivion. But with the trial coming up, there was no way she was going to have the dregs of an illegal drug floating around in her system. What if the Maycombs’
deranged right-wing lawyer ordered her to take a drug test as evidence of her debauched lifestyle? Any risk that might cost her Mimi was a risk not worth taking.
Getting stoned, as Lily remembered it at least, wasn’t boring. But watching other people get stoned sure was. Mick was already the silent type, but under the influence of marijuana, she was practically a mute. The only phrase she uttered for thirty minutes after smoking the joint was, “Honey, we got any of them Chee-tos left?”
Apparently sensing that the evening was slowing down, Jack said, “Well, I reckon I’ve sobered up enough to drive.”
“Yeah, I guess I ought to be heading home, too.” Watching Mick and Honey laughing and feeding each other Chee-tos, Lily surmised that they would like to be alone together — that as soon as the company left, they’d be making a beeline for the chenille peacock- covered bed.
Honey switched back to hostess mode. “Well, Jack, I know we’ll be seeing you soon, but Lily, I hope you’ll be coming back, too. I’m sure this is pretty boring compared to what you’re used to in the city
—”
“Not at all. Actually, this is one of the most pleasant evenings I’ve spent in a while,” Lily said, meaning it.
In the tattoo shop’s gravel parking lot, Lily suddenly shouted, “Goddamn it!”
“What is it?” Jack asked. “You too drunk to drive?”
“No, I had my last beer over an hour ago. It’s just that it dawned on me...I can’t go home tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
