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Posner has been sitting at the bar for twenty minutes before she walks in, and when she walks in it’s as though a choir of angels have burst into song. She is tall and muscled and she has glitter all around her eyes and a bright pink stole draped across her shoulders. Her dress also glitters. Despite himself, Posner lets out an audible gasp.
She makes a beeline and heaves herself up onto the stool next to him. “Honey,” she says, and Posner can’t be sure whether she is greeting him or announcing herself. And then she says, “I need a drink.”
The expectation is clearly that he will buy her one. So although it is three in the afternoon and Posner has never seen her before in her life, he calls the barman over.
“Another water?” the barman asks, eyeing Posner’s glass as though he expects it to bite.
“Whatever she’d like,” Posner says. He gestures over his shoulder. “On his tab.”
The tab belongs to Scripps, who is also the reason Posner is here on a sunny afternoon when he would otherwise still be in bed with the blackout shades closed. Scripps is across the room conducting an interview with a wiry man wearing a knit cap, introduced to Posner as Matt. Or maybe it was Mike. They continue talking, oblivious to Honey’s arrival.
“Oooh,” says Honey, when her drink comes. It is large and red and filled to the brim. She hovers above it and takes a large gulp. Her Adam’s apple bobs.
“Careful,” says the barman. “We don’t want a repeat of last week.” He winks at her.
“Fuck off,” she says, then leans across the bar and gives him a kiss on the cheek.
He laughs, and swats her away. “Just be sober for your set. And clean up back there. It’s starting to look like a charity shop.”
“A charity shop would be what I’d call it if we ever fucked.”
The barman sighs. “I love you too,” he says, and walks off.
Posner can’t decide what to do now, or whether it falls to him to do anything. This is why he doesn’t like to go out. Tentatively, he takes a sip of water and pretends to read a sign on the wall.
“Thank you,” says Honey. She has turned back to Posner and is giving him a very frank once-over. “Now I need you to know that I don’t usually look such a fright at this time of day. Only I didn’t go home last night.”
“You don’t look a fright,” Posner says, then blushes. “You look lovely. And don’t thank me.” He points at Scripps. “Thank him.”
“What are you, his assistant?” Honey asks, straightening and smoothing the sequins down on her dress. “His Girl Friday? His Jimmy Olsen?”
“I’m his boyfriend,” Posner says, though to say so still feels profoundly odd. The oddness lies entirely with the situation. For a long time to think of Scripps as anyone’s boyfriend, let alone his, was an exercise in cognitive dissonance. Scripps was just there, wise and kind and loyal to a fault, until he was suddenly more. Until suddenly it felt sometimes as though Posner would willingly jump off a cliff if it would get Scripps smiling in his direction.
He is trying to think less absolute in terms these days.
Besides, Scripps never needed grand gestures; all he needs is Posner with him and safe. That’s what he says, anyway, and Posner is trying to believe it.
“Well would you look at that,” says Honey, almost purring. “He’s a dish. Look at those forearms. He gives you a good seeing-to, I’d imagine.”
Posner’s face is on fire. “He’s wonderful. He’s a journalist. He’s doing an interview just now, or I’d introduce you.”
“I wouldn’t,” says Honey. “I’d keep him to myself.” She smiles, shows she’s not serious. “And you’re here at three on a Tuesday because…”
There’s something about Honey. Posner thinks he can hear a hint of a nearly-quashed brogue in her accent. She has sleepy eyes under false lashes. Seated, she appears to be Posner’s height, though it’s impossible to forget her massive heels, as every time she leans forward for a sip of her overfull drink she skims the side of Posner’s calf. Accidentally, he assumes.
He can’t pinpoint which of these things makes him want to tell her, only that there’s something about her that invites honesty, so he says, “I’ve been thinking about pills.”
“Their formulation?” Honey asks. “Their regulation?”
“Their ingestion,” says Posner. “Specifically, huge handfuls until I’m dead. So for now I’m tagging along.”
Honey considers this. Finally she nods. “Yes, I see. It’s Take Your Suicidal Boyfriend to Work Day.”
Posner giggles into his glass of water. He’s never met anyone like her. “Something like that.”
“Right,” says Honey. She taps the side of her glass with one long fingernail, glances over at where Scripps is still in animated conversation with Mike-or-Matt. “Is he going to be long?”
Scripps has been gesticulating and running a hand through his hair. Posner can tell, because it’s puffed out and pointing every which way. “Ages,” says Posner. “He loves a good interview.”
“Then come with me,” says Honey, rising to her feet to tower over Posner, “and I’ll show you something fabulous.”
Walking into Honey’s dressing room, Posner thinks first, absurdly, of Hector. The similarity begins and ends with the walls, but it’s enough. It’s nearly too much to take in, so Posner focuses on small things. In the corner is an honest to God divan. Honey flings herself down onto it. It creaks ominously, but does not give in. “Take a look,” she says.
Posner looks. The room is cluttered; the objects in it range from bucket full of mops and cleaning products (had she commandeered a closet?) to an ornate art nouveau clock, and every square inch of every wall is covered with pictures. He can identify people like Hedy Lamarr and Goldie Hawn, but there are also faces he doesn’t recognize. He points to a glamorous woman standing over a stove. “Who’s this?”
Honey glances up from where she is curled, inspecting a run in her stocking. “Oh. That’s my gran.”
“You look like her,” Posner says, though it couldn’t be further from the truth. Honey, for all her heft, gives the impression of impermanence. While her grandmother—
“Those tits,” Honey says. “I don’t have those.”
“I suppose not,” says Posner, though he would never have dared to presume.
For whatever reason, this sends Honey into hysterics. “‘I suppose not,’” she cakcles. “What are you?”
Posner shrugs. “Incessantly myself.”
“Well,” Honey says. “Cheers to that. Now sit down.”
He sits on the only unoccupied surface, a chair pulled up close to a rickety desk strewn with an assortment of makeup. Honey stands, crosses the room, and cups Posner’s chin in her big hand. He is so caught off guard that he doesn’t think to pull away, or even wonder. He sits there and looks up at her.
“Lovely,” she says. She turns his face gently, this way and that. “You’ve got heartbreaker eyes.”
“Heartbroken,” Posner says, surprisingly vibrato. He clears his throat.
“Hmm.” She drops her hand. “Maybe once upon a time. Now a boy could get in some real trouble over you.”
Was that what Scripps had gotten into? Posner wondered. In some ways their coming together had felt as effortless as their friendship had been. On the other hand, Scripps had his job and his parents to consider. Not to mention people like the mad woman in their street, brandishing a copy of The Sun, yelling about how in the coming year God’s wrath would rain down on people like them.
Then again, Scripps is proving himself capable of being his own trouble. Scripps is out there right now interviewing a man whose remarkable best friend died of AIDS. He is meant to be working on the article he’s been instructed to write on Freddie Mercury, which, it has been impressed upon him, better leave the whole messy business out.
He feels so proud. There are suddenly tears in his eyes. He wipes them quickly away.
Honey is still watching him, though she doesn’t say anything, merely reaches into her décolletage and pulls out an overwhelmingly masculine handkerchief. Posner thanks her, wipes his face, blows his nose, and then, because Honey is looking at him with what he hopes to God is fondness and not pity, he takes a moment to examine the corner embroidery. “EMB.”
“My father,” Honey says, taking the handkerchief back with a flourish and shoving it, to Posner’s horror, back from whence it came. “And also me. But mostly him. Now. Let’s see to you.”
Dakin would say something suggestive, most likely to get ahead of his alarm, but Posner trusts Honey completely in a way he hasn’t trusted anyone in quite some time. He tilts his head back and closes his eyes. The makeup brush, which it touches his eyelids, feels like some sort of benediction.
“Now, if you look too beautiful,” Honey says, “you’re not allowed to come back. I don’t need you stealing my audience.”
“Don’t worry about that,” says Posner. He imagines he’ll look a fright, no matter how good the brush feels, how gentle the moment. “I’m not a performer.”
“I’m not sure I believe that,” Honey says, off. There’s the sound of her searching on the desk for what she wants. When she returns, she takes hold of Posner’s face. “Don’t open your eyes.”
“I used to sing,” Posner says. The brush is back. “I still can, I suppose.”
“Stick to that, then,” says Honey. “There’s no money in drag.”
There’s not much more in singing, Posner thinks, and even less in what he does, which is nothing. He doesn’t say this, though. Instead he says, “You’re not going to make me look like an idiot, are you?”
“Never,” says Honey. “I’m only doing your eyes, anyway. I’ve seen All About Eve.”
They both fall silent. Posner keeps his eyes closed. Honey works. He could fall asleep like this, only he doesn’t want to miss anything.
That’s a surprising thing to realize, and he can’t help smiling. It’s perilously close to curiosity. Or excitement.
“There,” says Honey. “Look.”
Posner opens his eyes, and sees that Honey is handing him a medium-size, extremely dusty mirror. He takes it, and looks.
He’s never considered his own eyes. He supposes Honey might be right; there might be something to them. Scripps might mean something them he stares when their heads are parallel on the pillow. Posner is surprised to stare into his own eyes and find not a void but a challenge. And yes, there are pinks and blues and a delicate violet and pinches of glitter to show them off, but they are fine alone. They are nothing to be ashamed of.
“Shall we show you off?” Honey asks.
“Yes,” says Posner, and stands.