Gristle & Bone by Duncan Ralston

Author:Duncan Ralston [Ralston, Duncan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Work Publishing
Published: 2014-06-16T22:00:00+00:00

FAT OF THE LAND

I -An Invitation

"DAMMIT, WHERE THE hell is it, June?"

June didn't know the "it" he was talking about, let alone where he'd left it. What she did know was that David had been stomping around the hotel room while she got herself ready to go, huffing every once in a while in the hope of getting her attention.

Now he came and stood at the bathroom door, hands planted on his hips, a little Superman curl falling over the sulky scowl of a petulant child. She was putting in the earrings he'd gotten her for their anniversary the previous year. She hadn't been in love with them, but she was in love with David—or imagined she was, when he wasn't acting like he was now—and it made him happy when she wore them. And she did look good with them in: rectangular panels of jade and something iridescent like fool's gold, which made the green in her otherwise-brown eyes pop.

June flashed him a smile in the mirror. "What are you looking for, hon?"

"It was right there on the table when we left for breakfast, and now it's gone," he said, not quite answering the question.

June's girlfriends had once asked if she and David wanted kids. "I've already got one kid to worry about, thanks," she'd told them. The girls had all laughed at that, but it had been indulgent laughter; they all wanted children, and they all wanted to get married (being married had always seemed less important to them than the Big Day itself). Of the four of them, June was the only one currently in a relationship—unless you counted Ally's "sleeping arrangement" with her current "man friend," which of course, no one did.

After two years with David, one of those years spent living under the same roof in their tasteful yet cramped Noe Valley condo, the two of them had been happy enough not to get married.

Not that he'd ever ask you, June thought, and scowled at herself in the mirror. Thoughts like this belonged to Althea Dreese, her mother. Shut up, Mother, June shot back, putting an end to it.

Max and Darren, whose wedding they'd driven down from San Francisco to Monte Verde to attend, had been quick to remind June and David that they'd only been dating two years, and would have leapt at the chance to marry earlier. They'd even considered flying to Washington or Iowa to get hitched, before the Supreme Court had struck down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional.

"Imagine," Max Morales had said, "the Heartland of America allowing same-sex marriage before the gayest state in the country!"

June was aware Massachusetts had probably been the forerunner in that respect, but she hadn't corrected him. Max didn't deal well with criticism (Did any man? she sometimes wondered), and June was rarely comfortable doling it out, at least toward anyone but herself.

David awaited her response. She tried to remember what had been on the table when they'd left for breakfast. They'd spent

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