"Huh?" The standard first response between each other.
"The tan and black cowboy shirts you sewed."
"Oh, sure," my husband replied indifferently.
And so we dressed for Valentine's lunch, since cheap bastards are wont to pay for dinner.
As I buttoned my shirt, I recalled certain boys on certain streets in certain cities---those couples who looked like twins in form fitting polo shirts. Those couples to both disparage and envy. Surely they never asked huh? of one another. They were like tick and tock, not like a schnauzer and owner in matching sweaters.
I assure you I did not leash my husband.
Yet at the right moment, matchy-matchy has magic---even if I have to wear my less flattering blue jeans instead of the caramel denim he custom fitted to me. And Valentines Day seemed like an ideal time for a Mutt and Jeff couple to go that route, judging by the endearing smiles we got.
"Love your shirts!" cried a woman.
"He made them," I said---before my husband could boast himself.
"Oh, my!"
Lunch was at a nice restaurant---a new favorite, since the old favorite's chef was deported back to France. The menu is locally sourced and shifts with the seasons, and they pride themselves with a long list of wines and cocktails. Unfortunately, they don't have a staff mixologist to bring these intriguing cocktails to life---yet I ordered an Aye Caramba.
"How's your drink?" asked our young and handsome waiter.
"Very good," I smiled---already feeling the effects of the tequila. That was something new and different for their cocktail line.
"Oh, good. I was having a hard time mixing it by the instructions. The juices are supposed to float on top, but they kept drifting down."
"I wouldn't know any better---except that it's delicious."
The waiter chuckled and placed his hand on my upper arm, a very unexpected and pleasant sensation. He hadn't dinged my gaydar.
"It's the best one we've had here so far," my husband chimed in. He had taken a few sips from my straw.
After lunch there were sundry errands to do. A girl at the grocery store squealed behind my back he's so cute---and I knew she was talking about my mutt.
At Lowe's we went our seperate ways from the parking lot---he to the return counter, I to the garden section. A beautiful black woman was arranging plants as I approached, and she smiled and started coming towards me.
"I don't want to alarm you," she said, "but there was a man walking across the parking lot in that very same shirt!"
I studied her, trying to decide if she was joking or serious. I decided to merely explain: "Oh, we came together. He sewed the shirts."
"Oh," she mused with admiration. "Are you singers?"
I cracked a smile, knowing that Merle Haggard lives in town. I considering whether I should break out singing Temptation (Tim-Tay-Shun) like Red Ingle and His Natural Seven.
"No," I finally said.
"Oh," she repeated---now crestfallen and perhaps embarrassed. I smiled her an adieu and kept walking.
Our last errand was an indulgence on my husband's part---looking at a car I had espied on eBay. The coincidence of location and apparent condition was too hard to pass up, as far as I was concerned. So we drove out into the hills and up a gravel road to a mechanic's compound. He was a crusty thing, about fifteen years older than my husband, but friendly in a coarse fashion. He didn't seem to notice our matching shirts.
"May I take it out for a test drive?"
"Sure. If you two don't return, I'll sell your Prius instead."
So I took it out onto the old highway with its sweeping, climbing curves and straightaways. The little car performed admirably for its age, with its deficits largely attributable to dinky cheap tires and likely twenty year old shocks. Cosmetically it was in very good shape.
When we returned, a friend of the mechanic's had shown up---less crusty and more like an old apple doll, with all his little features sunken into soft, shiny skin.
"Why, Darrell, they're twins!" he said---with a spit of tobacco juice for emphasis.
"Yes," my husband admitted, jutting a thumb in my direction, "but he's the older one."
That's obviously untrue, but I played along: "Yeah," I said---bending my head aside to give them full view of my temples. "See my gray hair?"
The two men looked bemused but said nothing more.
My husband asked what the reserve price was---which turned out to be very reasonable and two-thirds of the price he had tried to sell it for locally. The car seemed to be garnering considerable interest clear across the country, but Darrell had started the price very low and so far it was still a thousand under the reserve. Still, it could go way up in the next and last twenty-four hours, so we didn't take the prospects very seriously.
Shockingly, I won it---for the reserve price.
It was a deal but still another expense in an expensive year. I hung my head a bit because cheap bastards are always remorseful---either for missing a great deal or having to pay for one. Fortunately and even after dealing with the cashier's check, the DMV and insurance all in one afternoon, my husband grew more enthusiastic---eventually wanting to get behind the wheel himself and drive out into the countryside to show it off to Our Lovely Lesbians.
I can still hear Darrell calling out to us as we drove away: "Take good care of my baby."
