Page 110 of Atmosphere

Vanessa leaned across Joan and whispered to Frances, “Hey, I saw the wedding cake over in the hallway. Do you want to go see if we can get a tiny bit of frosting off it, without anyone noticing?”

“You can’t do that—” Joan said.

Frances was already up and giggling. “Yes!” she said. Vanessa winked at Joan as she and Frances scurried away conspiratorially.

Joan’s mother leaned over to Joan. “I’m worried about her behavior. Barbara said she’s been rude to Daniel.”

Joan shook her head. “I’m sure it’s just an adjustment. It’s hard to have your mom all to yourself your entire life and then watch some guy come in and take her attention.”

Joan’s mother nodded. “Elaine did say her grandson threw tantrums the whole first year after her daughter remarried.”

“Hopefully they’ll all find a little balance as a family sooner than that,” Joan said.

“Vanessa is a delight. Good friend you got there,” Joan’s father said.

Joan swallowed and nodded. She wanted so badly to tell her parents that Vanessa was more than a friend. She wanted to open her mouth and say that lying in bed next to Vanessa at night was the only way Joan knew she’d had a good day. That the touch of her hand in Joan’s made Joan’s heartbeat slow down. That Joan did not know why everyone was so goddamn happy all the time until she met her.

But the Moral Majority was campaigning again for Reagan. Anita Bryant had come through Houston just a handful of years ago to convince voters that people like Joan should not be allowed to be near children. A couple of years ago, Billie Jean King had come out and lost $2million in endorsements overnight. At that very moment, people all over the country were convinced that AIDS was a punishment for moral failing.

Sure, her parents weren’t from Texas. They were from Pasadena, California, and had gone door-to-door for Kennedy and then Johnson. But Joan knew that they had never known a person like her, at least that they had been aware of. So how could they truly understand this part of Joan at all? Her parents misunderstood her, the same way she’d misunderstood herself for so long.

Joan wanted to tell both of them that theythoughtshe didn’t want to get married, but the truth was that she wanted exactly what Barbara had. She wanted whattheyhad. She wanted what Donna and Hank had. And what every marriage in the whole godforsaken country had.

The right to exist and to love and be proud and happy.

The right tolive.

“Yeah, Vanessa is really sweet,” she said.

When Frances and Vanessa came back to the table, Frances seemed to have forgotten all about hating Daniel.

“Couldn’t find the cake,” Vanessa said, smiling. “But we did find a tray of brownies and we snuck one.”

“It was so good!” Frances said.

Joan laughed.

Barbara and Daniel danced all night. Soon Barb’s high heels were off, and her makeup started to smear, and Daniel drunkenly, joyously, put Barb’s garter in his mouth. Which was when Joan and Vanessa volunteered to take Frances to her room at the hotel.

Frances walked on her own across the hotel lobby, and into the elevator. But once they were on the right floor, Vanessa picked Frances up and carried her. Frances was too big for Joan to carry. But she smiled to herself as she watched Frances close her eyes and let Vanessa take her the rest of the way.

Vanessa put Frances down on one of the beds. Joan took Frances’s shoes off and they both put the blankets on top of her.

“I’ll stay with her,” Joan said to Vanessa in a low whisper. Eventually, Joan’s parents were going to sleep in the room with Frances. But Joan didn’t mind waiting for them. “You can head home.”

“No way,” Vanessa said. “I want to stay, too.”

There was a balcony with two chairs and a mottled-glass coffee table. Joan grabbed two beers from the minibar and the two of them went out there. There was no bottle opener.

“I got it,” Vanessa said. She lined the first beer up along the railing of the balcony at an angle and then swiftly, confidently, slammed her hand down and popped the top off, handing Joan the bottle.

“Wow,” Joan said, standing next to her, leaning against the railing. “I feel like I know everything about you, but I didn’t know you could do that.”

Vanessa did it again for hers. “I try to remain a woman of mystery.”

“I don’t need any mystery,” Joan said.

They were quiet for a moment until Vanessa cleared her throat and said, her voice cracking halfway through, “I’m sorry that I can’t give you all this. What they have.”

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