Mockingbird by Sean Stewart Page B

going out with your high-school librarian.
    Failing to be friendly, flirty, and engaging when it was only my Saturday night on the line was no big deal. Now that my baby was at stake, I no longer had the luxury of embarrassment. I owed it to my child to get a mate, and there was no excuse for not doing it as calmly and rationally as I would go about managing my mutual fund or stock portfolio.
    Which meant I had to date. To this end I dressed up in my best Single clothes and shouldered my way into Cabo’s Mix-Mex Café, which I knew from reading the Houston Press was the singles spot in town.
    â€œHow on earth are you supposed to meet someone when you have to scream your order over the jukebox?” I said to Candy the next day. “I lasted about four minutes. I swear there was blood in my ears.”
    She hooted with laughter. “Toni! You can’t go to Cabo. Go to the Bookstop on Shepherd. That’s the best pickup spot in the city for, you know, people like you.”
    People like me? I didn’t ask.
    And the Bookstop was better, much better. The Shepherd store is a converted Art Deco movie house. Down at the end where the screen used to be they have a huge magazine stand, perfect for loitering and friendly chitchat. The first time I went there, however, it took me so long to work up my nerve to talk to someone that the store clerk pointedly asked if he could help, obviously thinking I was planning to shoplift a copy of Architectural Digest or Crank! I slunk out in shame.
    The following week I tried again. This time I fell into a perfectly lovely conversation with a beautiful man in his mid-twenties with a gorgeous smile and one unexpected gold tooth. I followed him, still chatting, to the checkout counter, where he bought his copy of Out! The Magazine of Gay Liberation.
    We parted amicably. It is a strange but true fact that gay men are way easier to talk to than straight ones. I toyed with the idea of finding a paternal queer for a marriage of convenience, but that would mean giving up any hope for sex inside my prospective marriage. It seemed defeatist. Also, it would be hard to explain to a kid why Daddy and Mommy were always fighting over their boyfriends.
    With two strikes in the count I shortened my swing and just tried to put the ball in play. Good things happened, up to a point. I met a guy named Tom who was riffling through American Photographer examining telephoto lenses. His eyes lingered, but did not fixate, on the Artistic Nude inside, which seemed like a good sign. We made it as far as the cash register, still chatting. I started to ask him if he’d like to go for a drink, remembered that I couldn’t have alcohol because I was pregnant, changed to ask him out for coffee; remembered I couldn’t have caffeine either; realized further that even a Coke was out of bounds, and was too flustered to think of anything else.
    Three strikes and out.
    So it was some relief when a date came to me, from an unexpected direction: Bill junior, damp palms and wide mouth and all.
    It seemed like fate. Just before Sugar possessed me, Candy had predicted I would marry Bill. Three weeks later, completely out of character, he asked if I could come to lunch with him. Mrs. Bill Friesen, Jr. Well, I supposed I could get used to it. Maybe I could practice writing it out on the bottom of his checks. There would be a certain justice in having the money Momma had made come back to her daughters after all.
    Here it was Friday, and we were standing together in the elevator of the Downtown Hyatt, heading for the Spindletop dining room where he had reservations. My only problem was that I desperately wanted to throw up. It wasn’t Bill’s fault. I had morning sickness.
    Take my advice: if you are ever out on a date when you are violently nauseated, don’t go on any long elevator rides. The first sickening lurch as you start up is a test for the strongest esophagus. The back wall of the Hyatt