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"Hey, listen, you can say whatever you want about Vera Lynn,” Ray’s fingers closed around the cigarette as I passed it to him, a half-smile dancing on his lips, “but I’ll never get sick of ‘You’ll Never Know’. Song of the year, for sure.”
I’d seen that expression hundreds of times before, but he dipped his head and looked away before I could latch onto it. The Big Band playing tonight — if they had a particular name, I wouldn’t have known it — filled the air with the standards we were all dying to hear. I’d been to thousands of dance halls like this before, so I barely paid attention to a couple quartets of saxophones and trumpets, a gaggle of vocalists– the usual. Ray drew the cigarette to his lips, exhaling smoke and want alike. Familiar lyrics wafted through the air, and he reached into his pocket with his free hand. Though he tended to keep his history to himself, I could take a few guesses at whoever might be hidden away, frozen in photographic form. Still, I couldn’t pry my damn eyes off his lips anyways.
“I’m just sayin’, Miss Vera Lynn isn’t everything."
“Oh, yeah?” Ray passed the cigarette back to me, our fingers briefly brushing. His hands were callused from years of wielding a gun, though I’d seen the way his fingers gracefully played melodies any time a piano was nearby. I held on to the cigarette, but couldn’t bring myself to take a drag. It was childish, I knew. An indirect kiss was something children worried over. Friends shared cigarettes all the time, especially with all the rationing. What was a little shared smoke in our lungs? “Name a better tune. Hell, I’ll give you an entire pack if you can come up with something I haven’t heard.”
“Ever heard ‘The Boys in the Back Room?’ Marlene Dietrich sings it, I think.”
“‘Raid I don’t know who that is.” Ray’s Midwestern accent came out, and he playfully nudged my shoulder with his own. He had the photo out now, and I knew every one of the army boys kept something like that, I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. To see who his sweetheart at home was.
“Don’t know who Marlene Dietrich is?” I exclaimed, desperate for the distraction of conversation. Ray shook his head, then took another drag off the cigarette. “Haven’t you ever seen Pittsburgh?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not big on going to see movies. That’s more Thomas’ thing than mine, and anyway, he usually just takes Liz. I’m not — not exactly welcomed on those adventures,” he chucked. “Maybe if I heard the plot, I’d remember.”
“Yeah, well,” I grabbed my drink from the slightly sticky table we were sat at, “bad guy does bad things. You know the deal.” I took a sip from the crystal, clutching it like a lifeline. If I held it any tighter, it’d probably shatter it, leaving the shards to slice my skin. We’d both seen enough blood for one lifetime, so I set it back down after a minute. “Then he gets redeemed. Though I won’t tell you any more than that or it’ll spoil the ending.”
“I’ll probably never watch it anyway.”
Ray, for his part, opted not to comment further. He kicked his feet up onto the spare chair — we’d asked for a table for three, but Thomas had ditched us earlier — and his brown eyes caught on a woman in a flashy coral dress. He gave her a flirty wave right as the trombonist did a flourish, and she waved back before her dance partner pulled her back in. The mellow lights above us swathed them both in a warm light, and gray strands of smoke surrounded them like the threads of Fate. The room was unbearably stifling. Ray put out his cigarette properly only a few seconds later.
“I think we should get some air,” I said, a bit louder than I’d meant to, making the table shake as I violently pushed up and out of my chair.
Ray’s brows furrowed, but he followed after me. He tucked the chairs under the table, polite as always, and followed me outside. We brushed past guys and their various best gals, neatly pressed uniforms and brightly colored dresses, while the beat of the music echoed into my soul. Tonight was a night for celebration as champagne bottles fizzled and popped, liquid sloshing into glasses. Tonight was the night.
Oppressive heat beat down on both of us, though the sun must’ve gone down while we were inside. Ray shot me his film-star looking smile, the one that had always reminded me of Humphrey Bogart, as he rolled his own sleeves up.
“Can’t take the heat, then get out of the kitchen. That’s what my grandma always says.”
“Yeah,” I laughed, but it wasn’t genuine. “Can’t take the heat…”
“But it’s hotter out here. Hotter than it is back home, anyway. It’s not the end of the world, but yeah. I mean, look, you look like you’ve got a fever, you're so red.”
“Oh, um,” My blush deepened, “it’s just all those people you know? Makes it feel like it's a hundred and ninety-nine degrees.”
“We shoulda danced. When Thomas and Liz and I would go out, we’d always go dancing. Places like these ain’t called the ‘sit around and talk’ halls; they’re called dance halls.”
"Well then," I said, reaching for his hand. "Maybe we could dance out here." I kissed his hand.
Ray laughed. "Knowhow, I'm not much of a dancer. Practically got two left feet. But I'd be lin' if I said I wasn't wondering when you'd ask me that."
My heart fluttered in my chest and we both tried to assume the lead position to dance. We laughed and I pressed my head against his shoulder.
"Hey, are you alright? What are you laughing for?"
Damn, I let my fantasies get away again. "I just thought of something that made me laugh, that's all."
"Oh. What were you thinking of?"
My heart sank as I thought up a lie. "Just, uh, something my kid sister would do."
"Didn't know you had a sister." After only a couple of moments, Ray nodded his head back towards the building. “Take a minute to catch your breath, okay? You need me, I’ll be inside. It’s not like we get time off every day.”
I caught his shoulder. His eyes dazzled me for a moment, but then I found my words. “Say, are,” my words caught in my throat and I looked away, gathering courage, “are you a friend of Dorothy, by any chance?” In reality, I knew the answer. He had his sweetheart in his pocket, and all the girls he could flirt with inside. He didn’t want me. He wanted Victory Red lipstick and a wavy-haired redhead.
“I mean, I’m not sure I’d call my grandma my friend, but sure, if that’s what you want to call us.” Ray lingered for a second, brown eyes studying my face. He opened his mouth, as if there were something more he wanted to say, but the words lodged in his throat. He stopped gaping after a moment, and then he turned on his heel. “I’ll see you inside.”
“I- yeah. See you later.” I leaned on the half-crumbling wood railing, breathing in and out hot, humid air. When I was younger I had been told by another gay man that that was how you found others. How you found your people, and, if you were lucky, a lover. But like now and every time before, I was left nursing a wounded heart.