Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(68)

“Mister, I’m not sure—” the girl says.

“I would’ve preferred to sign a poster of one of my own works, obviously, but I understand that you may not have expected to encounter me,” Divine murmurs as he signs.

The girl is still too flabbergasted to react. She looks to Lawson and me. I give her an apologetic shrug. She mouths, Who is he?

I mouth back, Jack Divine.

She shakes her head, perplexed. I don’t know who that is.

I shake my head. Neither did I until a few weeks ago.

Divine finishes signing, rolls up the poster briskly, and hands it back.

The girl takes it. “Um…thanks.”

Divine sighs again. “All right, I’ll take a picture with you. I sense your reluctance to ask, so I’ll cut to the chase for both of our benefits.” Divine seizes her phone and hands it to Yuri, then stands beside the shell-shocked-looking girl.

Yuri fumbles with the phone in his bear-paw hands. “Cheese,” he commands grimly, as though ordering a firing squad to shoot.

Divine smiles radiantly, the girl uncertainly. Yuri snaps the photo and hands the girl her phone.

“All right, you got what you wanted,” Divine says. “I’m in room fourteen-eleven of the Hyatt Regency if you think of anything else later. The party generally goes between midnight and three a.m. Or until the hotel shuts us down. Do not bring any cats. You may bring glazed donuts but not cake donuts. You may bring cake but not pie. Southern Comfort but not Jack Daniels. You may come dressed as a DC character but not a Marvel character. You may bring a well-mannered ape but not a monkey. If you’re unsure of the difference, Google.”

“Yeah, definitely don’t worry about any of that,” the girl says.

“Right then, I really can’t tarry any longer,” Divine says.

“That’s fine.”

Divine starts to walk away. He turns back. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I thought—”

“Nope. Didn’t say a word.”

He points at her, eyebrows raised. “Room fourteen-eleven!”

“To be clear: I will not come.”

“A firm maybe, then!” Divine claps at us. “Posthaste!”

I mouth I’m sorry at the girl, who shakes her head again. Lawson and I look at each other. “What just happened?” I whisper so quietly, I’m almost mouthing the words.

“No clue,” Lawson whisper-mouths back.

This Jack Divine guy is a real trip.

Yuri stands there for a second and turns to us. “Kenny Chesney,” he growls. He walks away, not waiting for any sort of response. Not that there is one.

???

We follow Divine and Yuri out to the parking lot.

“You just witnessed the downside of fame,” Divine says to me, heels clicking on the hot asphalt. “Everyone wanting a piece of you. Me, me, me! Let me touch the hem of your garment. It’s tiresome, but it comes with the landscape. I’m grateful. Truly, I am. Blessed, if you’re into that sort of thing. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. But it would be nice to be able to leave the house, you know?” He mops his brow with a silk handkerchief.

I say nothing and just nod.

“You don’t know what that’s like. Maybe someday you will,” Divine says magnanimously.

“Sure don’t,” I say. Except for Larry Donut.

We arrive at a black Cadillac Escalade. Yuri gets in the driver’s seat with a groan and a wheeze after opening the back door for Divine.

“I hope you two don’t mind squishing in the far back,” Divine says.

“That’s fine. Or we could sit in the middle row and you sit up front,” I say. “Whichever works.”

“Far back.”

“Far back it is.”

Lawson helps me gather my dress (which I’m beginning to feel pretty ridiculous wearing) and cram into the far back seat—not an easy task in my dress and heels. He folds himself in next to me. The inside of the Cadillac reeks of expensive cologne that smells like cheap cologne.

“AC, Yuri!” Divine moans. “I’m sweating like a pig in line at a whorehouse.”

Yuri grunts, and air starts blasting from the vents.

“You a country music fan, Yuri?” I ask.

He grunts.

“Lawson here is,” I say. Lawson gives me a thanks for throwing me under the bus nod.

Another indecipherable grunt from Yuri. So much for small talk. He puts the Escalade in gear and peels out of the parking lot, pressing us back in our seats.

“Well, I once had a rather lively evening with George Jones, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings in Tijuana,” Divine says. “Let’s just say it involved some exceedingly pure amphetamines, more racehorse tranquilizer than anyone really needs, several bottles of Jim Beam, a sextet of American strippers with a quintet of teeth among them, a cactus, a live hand grenade, about a dozen Mexican police officers, a chimp dressed like a priest, a priest in a chimp costume, a helicopter, a jug band, and a lemon poppy-seed Bundt cake.”

Lawson shows me his phone, on which he’s typed, Or as I call it, another Saturday night.

I squeeze Lawson’s leg. I’m so proud of him. I’ve turned him into a level-three smartass.

Yuri leads us on a sphincter clencher of a ride through the streets of Orlando. At one point, Lawson puts his arm around me and hugs me into his side to keep me from being tossed around. I could not be doing this on my own. And if, instead of Lawson, Delia were here but wigging out about her dad, I would effectively be alone. So I guess things worked out.