After paying my cover charge at what was once the hostess desk, I had the choice to go right, onto the dance floor and toward Rio, or I could go left into the bar and get a cocktail. I chose left and a cocktail.
I stepped up to the bar and ordered my vodka and club soda, and just as the bartender placed the drink in front of me, I felt a nudge against my shoulder. It was Rio.
“Did you think I didn’t see you walk in?” he asked.
He smiled. I took a deep breath.
“It’s so good to see you, Rio.” I reached out to hug him. His body felt tight and toned. Pulling from our embrace and looking at his face, his bedroom eyes were shining and his temples wrinkled when he smiled. His coal-black hair had slight gray streaks just above his ears. That salt-and-pepper hair, I thought. That skinny, nerdy-cute guy with glasses I’d met in this same bar ten years ago had grown up. He was even sexier in Indiana.
“It’s good to see you too,” he said.
“I sure wasn’t expecting to see you here. I even thought about calling you earlier today but figured you were busy. I never would have guessed you were coming here for Christmas. Why didn’t you say something?” I said.
“Well, truth be told, I wanted to surprise you. I called the restaurant this evening to make sure you were working, and your dad answered the phone. I was going to drive up, surprise you, and have dinner. But your dad said you were heading here. So I thought I’d surprise you here!”
The bartender placed Rio’s drink in front of him.
“Here, I got this,” I said, and pulled a twenty from my wallet.
“Why thank you, sir,” Rio said. “So come on, come sit at my table. I can tell by all the activity downtown this place is going to be hopping. Well, for Evansville. They’re having a show tonight. I don’t want to lose my table.”
I picked up my cocktail and followed him. I had to admit, seeing him was an unexpected Christmas surprise. I began to feel those familiar stirrings in my stomach—butterflies, some might call them. Rio still had a way of making me all gaga on the inside.
Sitting across from him in a booth next to the dance floor was nice; conversation with Rio was always effortless.
“Doug’s here tonight,” he said.
“I thought I saw his picture on the holiday poster,” I said. Doug was my first friend at Teana Faye’s, after Chad and Sho-Bar. Unlike Chad or Rio, Doug and I were never lovers. We were drinking buddies. Doug was also a drag queen.
“Did you know he was a drag queen when you first met him?” Rio asked.
“Yes. He was in drag. Or she was in drag, I should say. His father’s boat was the inspiration for her name: Tekela Bree,” I said.
“That’s right. And Melissa was with him. That’s how you met her?”
I began to sense that maybe Rio was just as nervous as I was, that he was trying to get the conversation going by talking about a past both he and I had spoken about many times over the years.
“No. I met her a couple of weeks after Doug. We struck up a conversation when she found out I was from Fort Sackville. She’d just enrolled in Fort Sackville Community College’s law enforcement program. She wanted to know about the commute from Evansville to campus. I told her it sucked. Especially when the time changed. She asked if I thought she should move there. I said, Hell no! The commute would suck less.”
“That’s right. It’s all coming back to me now,” Rio said.
“Well, okaaay, Celine Dion,” I said, referencing her song.
“All right, smart-ass,” Rio said. We had both finished our drinks rather quickly. “You want another?”
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” I asked. “It’s kind of early for that, don’t you think?”
“That’s the plan. I’ll get this round,” Rio said. “And remember, I know you. I know exactly what it takes to get you drunk. And other things,” he added.
“Oh, okay. So we’re flirting,” I said.
“No, not flirting. Just happy to see a good friend.”
“An old boyfriend, you mean.”
“That too. I’m going to get us another round.” Rio slipped from the booth and walked across the dance floor to the bar. In Rio’s wake Tekela appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, wearing her signature white leather jumpsuit with matching thigh-high stiletto boots.
“Girl! It didn’t take you long to swoop in on him,” she said.
I laughed. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“That boy is your ex. His Puerto Rican shit will get you in trouble,” Tekela said with a wink.
“Rio is not Puerto Rican; he’s half Cuban and half German. And I fell into trouble with him a long time ago. Don’t you have a show to do?” I asked with a mischievous grin.
“Those queens backstage are working my last nerve. I had to come out and get some air and a fresh cocktail, or else one of those bitches was going to get cut.”
Rio returned with our drinks.
“Well, if it isn’t Miss Tekela Bree,” Rio said, hugging Tekela while giving her air kisses on each cheek.
“Your momma brought you up right—never kiss a queen with her face on,” Tekela said.
“You know she did,” Rio said. He slipped in next to me on my side of the booth. “Sit down. Let me buy you a drink.”
“No. Thank you, darling. This leather don’t stretch that well; I need to stand. Besides, I got my drink coming. I’ve got to get back there and get ready for my number, whip up my wig. It’s like my grand-momma used to say: The higher the hair, the closer to Jesus.”
“Oh, so we’re going to church tonight?” Rio asked.
“Darling, there’ll be some testifying and testimony before the night is over. Got my sights set on that little piece of chicken sitting right over there.” Tekela pointed to a barely legal frat boy wearing a University of Evansville sweatshirt. “Says his name is Klein. As if. I asked him if he wore Calvin Klein underwear. He said yes. I told him before tonight was over I would de-Klein him.”
“Where do you come up with this shit?” I asked. Looking at Rio, I continued, “I’ll never forget going with Doug . . .”
“Tekela!” Doug interjected.
“Going with Tekela to a drag pageant in Paducah one summer weekend years ago. Before I met you. He wrapped those young guys around his finger. They were falling all over him,” I said. “She called them chicken.”
“Finger-licking good! What about you?” Tekela said, pointing to me, then looking at Rio. “This bitch got us thrown out of our motel room for skinny-dipping with the sheriff’s son.”
“The sheriff’s son?” Rio asked, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.