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Sticking four impulsive people in a yacht is not the best way to get things done. They’d been floating at sea for a week and a half, drifting off the coast of Florida since their escape from the Italian Opera Lovers, and arguing over where to go next. One hour Osgood would be convinced that they should go pick up his mother’s wedding dress before eloping to the Caribbean, but the next hour, just as everyone else was coming around to his point of view (maybe, if they played it just right, they could wheedle some other, more practical, things out of Osgood’s mother before leaving this now-dangerous country in their wake forever) Osgood would be distracted by a well-made martini or a flash of Jerry’s ankle as he strolled across the deck and everything would come to a standstill again. So they continued to float.
This state of affairs was much more agreeable than any of them would admit to. They were all enjoying their temporary stagnation. The weather was gorgeous, the sound of waves lapping against the hull was soothing, they could send the crew ashore for liquor and hors d’ouvers whenever luxuries started to run low. (Said crew was starting to give each other meaningful glances. They were used to Osgood’s peculiarities, but this seemed a bit much.)While the sun was out they would bask on deck and stare at the Florida shoreline, glorying in how little relevancy it seemed to have on their lives. The crew would serve them bottomless cocktails.
At night they’d put on one of Osgood’s Rudy Vallee records and dance. Sugar and Joe would sway back and forth in a corner, lost in each other’s eyes, while Jerry and Osgood took up most of the room with their enthusiastic spins and rambunctious footwork.
Tonight Jerry was wearing a dress and heels--though he didn’t every night--but his wig had fallen off during a particularly low dip and lay forgotten on the rug. His cheeks were flushed and Osgood was grinning at him.
“I can't wait for you to meet my mother,” Osgood purred.
“And I can't wait to meet her.” It was Daphne speaking right now. The high, raspy, voice that seemed to emanate from the very top of Jerry's throat, escaping sporadically in bursts of uncontrolled noise. “Let's spend just a few more days in Florida first though. It's so beautiful here.”
“Whatever you want, sweetums.” And Osgood nuzzled up into the curve of Jerry's neck as the song changed and the tempo slowed.
This was the real reason they were stagnated: there was no place for them on dry land, and they all knew it on some level. Floating on the New Caledonia nothing could threaten the tight little quartet they'd formed, but the second they stepped on shore there were a hundred things that would try and rip them apart, the very least of which was the organized crime syndicate determined to off Joe and Jerry.
One night they didn't play a record, but Joe and Jerry pulled out their instruments instead and struck up a tune. (A few members of the crew had been sent back to the hotel the day before to collect all the things that had been left ashore during the quartet’s hasty escape.) The two instruments played well together, so that nothing felt lacking, bass line, melody, and beat were all accounted for. The two musicians played even better together, knowing each other's musical ticks backwards and forwards, inside and out.
Osgood and Sugar watched them, enthralled, for two songs. The way Joe's mouth wrapped around his saxophone, the way Jerry's fingers caressed his bass, both were riveting.
As the third song began and the rhythm picked up Osgood and Sugar caught each other's eye, and then shimmied toward each other, driven by the beat. Then it was Jerry and Joe's turn to enjoy the view. When Osgood looked toward the musicians again the smile on Jerry's face was entirely Daphne's.
Osgood had gotten quite good at detecting the bits of Daphne in Jerry, and the bits of Jerry in Daphne as well. He'd even noticed how the two were bleeding into each other more and more. Osgood loved this, because it was the inconsistencies in Daphne that he'd loved to begin with.
This wasn't the first time Osgood had fallen for a woman full of contradictions. His third wife had gone the other way in fact. He had met her when she was dressed as a man. That had been phenomenol, but had lasted only till Osgood's mother found trousers that would never have fit him in the laundry. She did some snooping after that and Ellen, or Andy, had been gone three weeks later.
There was going to be no sneaking of Jerry past his mother. Realistically, Osgood knew this, despite the long, stubbornly naive conversations he and Jerry had been
having about their future. Osgood also knew that if that meant he never saw his mother again it was a sacrifice worth making.
The song ended, Joe's last long note died slowly away while Jerry's pizzicato kept a steady tempo but grew softer and softer. They were both still watching the two dancers raptly, while remaining completely in tune—and time—with one another.
Osgood and Sugar stepped away from each other, Osgood's hands lingering on Sugar's hips.
They all stood there for a moment, caught in the silence. Then Jerry struck up a syncopated rhythm in a major key and they were off again. Jerry's fingers flew across the strings—he'd swear those bullet holes actually improved the bass' acoustics.
Osgood and Sugar started swaying almost immediately and the ship didn't stop rocking till the moon set.
Once Joe's duplicity had been found out he hadn't donned a dress and heels again. He strutted around Osgood's yacht in his little captain's cap and acted just as masculine as he could for Sugar, who smiled gamely through all his posturing and loved him even more the moments he let the act drop. Jerry, on the other hand, dressed as the mood struck him each morning, and it was one day when he was tottering toward the yacht's railing in heels that Sugar, sprawled on a deck chair and watching him toddle around with barely concealed delight, asked if he wanted lessons.
“Lessons in what?” Jerry pulled on the hem of his dress, trying to get it to fall right.
“Being a woman.” Sugar stood, stepped forward and wiped something off his cheek in a motion so smooth Jerry wasn’t sure where it began or ended. “Or at least applying your make-up.”
When Jerry was younger he used to catch himself in fantasies of pulling on stockings and sashaying down the street. It wasn't exactly a spur-of-the-moment decision that had created Daphne instead of Geraldine. He had lists of other identities for himself that he'd shuffle between when there was no one around to see him. The past few weeks had been the first time he'd gotten to try one out in public though. Until now he'd let society convince him that he was entirely masculine without much of a fight--he was always reshaping himself at the slightest pressure. This was a trait that Joe had taken advantage of from time to time, molding Jerry like putty if there wasn't a stronger influence around. Here on the boat though there was an extremely limited number of external forces pulling at Jerry and he was getting a chance to find out which of his alter-egos he was truly comfortable in.
“I'd like that,” Jerry said.
Sugar smiled and took Jerry’s hand, leading him away from the railing and bumping their hips together with every step in an attempt to get Jerry’s pelvis to swing with the tilt of his heels.
So that was how Osgood found them an hour later. Jerry's face had been washed clean and Sugar had shown him how to accent his cheekbones with delicate strokes, how to blend a shimmering layer of eye-shadow till it almost looked natural. Now they were strolling back and forth the length of the dining room.
“No, no, no,” Sugar was laughing, her hands on Jerry's hips, pushing them from side to side with each step he took. “You've got to swing like you're a great, big--well, a small, petite, pendulum.”
Jerry's ankle twisted out from under him at his next step and he tumbled forward, bringing Sugar down with him. She laughed harder.
“Well, I don't know what you expect,” Jerry grumbled, “with you pushing and pulling me all over the place.”
Osgood leaned against the door frame, eyes twinkling, and crossed his arms. This was quite an entertaining show.
“You're a musician,” Sugar said, standing up and pulling Jerry to his feet. “Just feel the beat in your hips. Like this.” Sugar glided across the room like the floor was coated in oil. Jerry stumbled after her, cursing when the heel of his shoe caught in the weave of the rug. Then he saw Osgood watching him intently, there was no better word than leering to describe the look on Osgood's face, and suddenly Jerry was gliding too, pulled inexorably toward Osgood's twinkling eyes.
Joe and Jerry had had one serious conversation about this newly revealed aspect of Jerry's personality before dropping the subject entirely.
It was the third day Jerry had paraded around the yacht in stockings and heels, still stumbling more than sashaying.
“Jerry!” Joe had cornered him by the billiards table; which was an entirely impractical thing to have on a yacht, but its presence summed up the New Caledonia and everyone on it succinctly. “Why are you still dressing like that? We're not hiding from anyone any more.”
Jerry had shrugged. “Exactly.”
“What do you mean exactly? Put some pants on.”
“Why? I wanted to feel the breeze on my legs. And I keep catching Osgood staring at them.” Jerry smirked.
“It's,” Joe paused, his hands gesturing through the air in front of him like he was trying to grab hold of something, “indecent!”
“But it wasn't before?” Jerry demanded. “You got Sugar, you won that fight,” though Jerry was starting to wonder if that defeat really bothered him so very much. “Why do we have to fight about this too?” He crossed his arms under his stuffed brassiere, unconsciously plumping his breasts, and glared at Joe.
“You can't go on like this!” Joe insisted.
“We can do anything we want out here! Osgood knows who I am. He likes it.”
It was the way Jerry said Osgood's name that shut Joe up. There was more tenderness in those two syllables than in the sweetest melody Jerry had ever plucked out of his bass.
After a moment Joe turned and left the room without speaking, too stunned for any come back at all.
Osgood had always wanted to be in show business. It seemed like where people like himself were supposed to spend their lives. His mother, of course, absolutely forbid it. It was just not something someone of their class did. So instead Osgood became a great patron of the arts. He spent every night at a different vaudeville show and frequented all the music halls. He learned where the show people drank and caroused and used his wealth to join them.
That was how he met Ellen. She had still been in her suit and tails after a show and she had been laughing louder than anyone else at the speakeasy. Osgood had bought her a drink and it had all fallen into place from there. He’d spent two glorious weeks following her around from backstage, to dressing room, to end-of-show party and felt like he was really, finally, one of them.
Then he’d asked her to marry him. They’d been at dinner at the fanciest restaurant Ellen had ever been inside of. She was wearing an evening gown, and if you looked closely you could tell it was a costume, just a little too showy for real life. Osgood had requested she leave her top hat on--she had long ago given up on feeling conspicuous or silly, so she had agreed. Leaning across the table Osgood had grabbed her hands and proposed as earnestly as he knew how.
Ellen had been thrilled and for a little while longer things had managed to stay perfect.
Some days when Jerry eventually rolled out of bed--Osgood was an early riser, and always left a cooling indent in the mattress that Jerry would try and curl into for an hour or two before finally getting up himself--he wouldn't take a second glance at the pearls on the nightstand (just the one to remind himself how much they were worth and that they were ostensibly his) and would instead grab his trousers and wander up on deck to stare at the tiny, inconsequential, shoreline.
Osgood would still recognize his form immediately: the curving way he held his shoulders, the arch of the small of his back; these never changed, no matter who Jerry was that day. And Osgood would step up behind him, gathering him into a hug. They would stare out at the horizon together, Osgood's chin resting on Jerry's shoulder. They would murmur about the kids they would raise, the great yard where they'd have family cookouts. Osgood would run his fingers through Jerry's short, dark hair and smile to himself, wondering how he got so lucky.
Joe had to admit that he was the one who had virtually forced Jerry into a relationship with Osgood. It had been convenient for him at the time, and, like always, Jerry’s agency had been sacrificed to Joe’s needs. Whether it was betting on a dog with ten to one odds, or wooing Sugar, or weaseling out of bad behaviour with a previous flame, Jerry had always been Joe’s prop.
It was that drunken summer night that Joe had tried to forget that convinced him Jerry would perform even the indignity of tangoing with Osgood all evening, whether Joe had admitted this to himself or not.
August in Chicago had been particularly unpleasant this past year, sticky and hot, the very sky seeming to press down on your shoulders and constrict you in an embrace so close that breathing became hard work. Jerry and Joe had sat on the fire escape outside their fourth story apartment, passing a flask of bourbon back and forth in celebration of a well-paying gig.
Jerry was effusive and bubbly and he kept knocking into Joe when he made grabs for the flask; elbows clashing and shoulders brushing over and over. Joe started a game of keepaway, just to see how long it could last before Jerry’s mood broke, just to see how far he could stretch him tonight. The flask glinted in the moon lit alley and Jerry played along, making an enthusiastic lunge for it, knocking Joe onto his back. The metal grating of the fire escape pressed into his shoulder blades. That’s when things left Joe’s control. Jerry hovered there, hanging above Joe in the darkness. The flask tipped out of Joe’s hand and spilled its last few sips on the pavement far below. Just as the last drop escaped the flask Jerry pressed his lips to Joe’s.
There was a stunned, frozen moment between them before Joe rolled away from Jerry and crawled back in through the window.
“I don't think I want children,” Jerry whispered into Osgood's shoulder one evening, “even adopted ones.” He was wearing a dress, and his feet were bare against the wooden deck.
“But I've got to pass on my family name, sweetheart.” Osgood was almost over-dressed for the temperate Florida evening, his hands thrust in the pockets of his smoking jacket. “There's gotta be a fourth.”
“Aw, what good has ever come of a fourth?” Jerry snuggled closer to Osgood's side. “Third time's the charm. Good things come in threes. Obviously if we had a child,” Jerry wasn't even sure how to have this conversation. What sort of syntax did you use in this situation? “it would be a disaster.”
“You'd make a great mother.”
Jerry jumped away from Osgood and turned to stare at him. “Why would you even say something like that?”
“I meant it as a compliment, dear.”
“I'd make a terrible mother,” Jerry grumbled, crossing his arms across his chest. “I drink and stay out late at night in sordid places, with sordid people, I might add.” He jabbed Osgood in the ribs. “What kind of environment do you want our son to grow up in?” It seemed totally reasonable all the sudden to be arguing passionately about this fictional child.
“But you’re kind, and loving.” Osgood stepped toward Jerry, arms outspread. “You have so much you could teach a child.”
Jerry let out one of those loud, one note laughs—like a trumpet blast—that he fell back on so frequently as Daphne.
“Like music, and dancing,” Osgood continued, undeterred. He had a lecherous look on his face now though, which made his speech harder to believe.
“Oh, come on,” Jerry rolled his eyes. “I could make the kid a total wreck as long as he was the fourth total wreck to come out of the Fielding line and you wouldn't care.”
“Are you calling me a wreck.” Osgood demanded, the smirk evaporating from his face.
“No, dear, you own a yacht. You've got to have everything together.”
“That's right.” Osgood grabbed Jerry and dipped him over the railing. Jerry made a desperate grab for his wig, caught it, and threw it in Osgood's face, laughing.
Eventually they all agreed to make for Venezuela. Osgood wired his mother for a substantial sum and the next morning the ship's engines rumbled to life and they broke a path through the waves.
The unknown lay ahead of them, but together, they would handle it.