But if I can't play myself, I still love to watch. When it's being played good it's like watching art being made. And when it's played shitty, well, it makes you glad you're not playing and making a fool of yourself like that woman over there. I spend lots of time when I go out just relaxing with a Coke or a cup of coffee or a beer watching people play pool.

One day, it was a Sunday, I think, I was bored around the house so I decided to go for a walk. It was getting to the dark of the year and the day was chilly and overcast. I eyed the cloud cover and wondered if it might snow. Yeah, it must've been a Sunday, 'cause when I got downtown the streets were practically empty, like this was some sleepy cow town in Wyoming or something. I went into the Book Cache and browsed around for awhile and finally picked out an Agatha Christie. When I got outside I stuck it in my coat pocket and headed on down to Le Pub. Maybe they were having a spaghetti feed like they have sometimes.

They weren't, though. I bought a cup of coffee to warm me up and, since nothing was happening upstairs, I went downstairs. I thought I'd drink my coffee and read awhile and then I'd go back home.

It being so quiet, it surprised me to find someone at the pool table. I'd seen her there before a couple times. I remembered her 'cause of how she played.

Well, that's only part of the truth. The real truth is, I noticed her 'cause she was nice-looking. One of those types of women who make you take a gasp and a sigh inside. At least she did that to me. You know that Meg Christian song, the one about getting off your butt and going to the gym to pump some iron? Yeah. This woman was just like that. Especially the part about the t-shirts all fitting tighter. I think she was a construction worker in the laborer's union or something. I seen her once in a hard hat when they were pulling down that building across the street from the bar, you know, the one where the Women's Resource Center used to be. Anyhow, this woman was fine. Yeah. She was thirty or thirty-five or so, medium-tall with a mess of curly black hair, a few freckles, and a tan that was starting to fade.

She looked at me when I first came down, lifted her head in the middle of lining up a shot and gave me the barest nod. I nodded back. She kept on playing. It was nice, comfortable, like without even knowing each other's names or anything else about each other we were friends. I left my book in my pocket when I took my coat off and sat down to watch.

She was a poetry player. You get my meaning — it's like she moved so smooth and sure with all her shots, she really could play. She didn't show off with trick shots or anything, she just played her game, and every shot had a certainty and easiness to it. It was very poetic and graceful, even when she scratched. I was half in love with her already.

I watched for awhile. I finished my coffee and was thinking about going upstairs for another when another woman, a kind of washed-out looking woman with blond hair, but still looking like Cosmo's version of a dyke, stuck her head into the room, checking out the scene. "Hi, Sue," she said.

Without looking up the pool player said, "Hey, Cheryl," and took her shot. The six-ball tumbled into a comer pocket.

"How's the tattoo?" Cheryl asked.

Sue stood up. "She's fine," she smiled. "How's yours?"

"Oh, they're fine," Cheryl said. "They're all fine." Her head disappeared and she went on her way.

Well, that perked my curiosity right up. I'd never heard anyone call a tattoo a she before.

Sue sent the last ball rolling into a side pocket and plugged in two quarters for another game. The balls clunked down in a mass and she took out the triangle and crouched down to retrieve them.

"I like the way you play," I said.

She looked up. "Thanks."

It was one of those matter-of-fact kinds of thank you's that accept your compliment with dignity and return it all at the same time, as if she knew what I said was true and she thought well of me, too. She said it without any false pride or modesty, and that made me like her even more.

She dropped the balls into the triangle and quickly sorted them, stripe-solid-stripe with the eight-ball dead center. She lifted the triangle and stowed it away. "I see you around here sometimes," she observed. She strode to the other side of the table and bent for the break, her back to me.

"Yeah," I said. "I seen you play before."

Clack. The cue ball scattered balls all over the table. One went in. She backed off and cocked her head to the side. Then she turned around to me. "I'm Sue," she said, sticking out her hand.

I shook her. "I'm Kath."

"Pleased to meet you, Kath. Care to play?"

"No, I don't think so," I laughed. "It'd be embarrassing. Hope you don't mind me watching, though."

"Not at all." She went back to the table. I wanted to ask her about the tattoo, but she was concentrating so I kept my mouth shut.

I've got an interest in tattoos. I don't really know why, but it's there. Not in the kinds you see on the biceps of brawny Navy types, Mom and Anchors Aweigh and all that. But in other kinds. If you think about it, there's really a lot of ways to be tattooed.

Different attitudes that people have about them, too. Some people think they're desecrations to your skin. Others think they're ways of being showoff and macho. And I guess both of those are true sometimes, even with dykes.

But I think tattoos can often be something very meaningful, something that adds to your skin and body, instead of taking away, because they're a part of you and maybe even have some story to tell. That's the kind I have an interest in.

Seemed it took no time at all for Sue to play her game. She lit a cigarette, hung it off the edge of a table as she took a shot, took a puff while she considered her next option, and put it down again. She dropped in the little ones, then the big ones, then the eight-ball, and got most of them in before her cigarette was spent.

"A-a-ah," she groaned, stretching hard and cracking her backbone. "Time for a rest." She put up the cue stick and sat down, all sprawled out at a table. I hadn't noticed her bottle of Perrier there before. This was in those days, y'know, before Le Pub switched to Calistoga.

"You ever play in tournaments?"

"Now and then," she said. "Not often. With me, it's a way to relax, not a passion." She lit another cigarette.

"Oh." I looked longingly at her cigarette. I had just quit a couple weeks before, and the craving hadn't left me yet. "Mind if I ask you a question?"

"Not at all," she said, sucking in a lungful.

It was too much. "Uh, could I bum one of those?"

"Sure. Have a seat."

I slipped off my barstool and took the chair opposite her. I accepted a smoke, feeling very guilty, but at the same time very glad. She smoked Salems! Kicking menthol is almost as tough as kicking cigarettes, period, so it felt like getting twice the pleasure for half the guilt.

"That's not really what I meant to ask, though," I said, inhaling gratefully. "I was kinda wondering. . . . I heard that woman — Cheryl? — ask you about your tattoo. I was just curious."

She smiled. "About which one?"

"Uh — you have more than one?"

"In a manner of speaking. Yeah."

"Well," I said, telling her some of what I just told you, "I have this interest in tattoos, especially when they seem to have some kind of story to them."

She sat there politely, listening.

"And, well, you called your tattoo — tattoos, I guess — a she. And from how you said that, it seemed. . . ." I trailed off.

"It seemed I might have a story to tell," she finished for me.

"Well, yeah. If you don't mind, that is."

I don't know if her quiet just then was her thinking about whether to tell me, or her putting her tale into some kind of order. But finally she sat up straight.

"A lot of people around here know bits and pieces of this," she began, "so I don't usually have much reason to tell it." She coughed a bit and fell into thought again.

"A few years ago," she said, "me and my lover broke up. It was really hard and painful for both of us, even though we hadn't been together all that long.

"I was trying to figure some things out. I looked at myself and I looked at my life and I looked at all the relationships I'd had, all of them lasting very short periods of time. And I said to myself, Sue, what the hell are you doing? Sue, is this how you want to live your life?

"I always knew there was more to life than just love, but there I was anyway, getting tangled up with one woman after another, each time thinking I was so, so much in love. But I looked at those relationships, and I realized that most of them, hey, we just weren't suited for each other. We messed each other up, and it messed up other parts of our lives, too.

"I thought about what I really wanted, what I really was looking for in a woman. And I thought about all the women I'd known, all my whole life long, and this name kept popping into my head. Naomi. She was my best friend who lived next door to us, way back when I was in second and third grades. I really loved her, I don't think she ever knew how much — I don't think even I did — but her family moved away when we were in fourth grade and I never saw her again.

"But now, out of the blue, her name kept popping into my brain, and I realized that she had all the qualities I had ever dreamed about. She was fun, and she was funny, and she knew how to listen, and she talked about interesting things, and she . . . she was just Naomi. I always felt good around her.

"One night, thinking these thoughts, I got this funny idea into my head. The very next day I went down to Anchorage Tattoo Studio, the best studio in town, and I had the guy put a flower on my arm. I picked it out of the pictures he had on the walls, just a plain simple rose. But Larry made it really nice, he's a good artist. And above the rose, in very fine letters, I had him tattoo that name. Naomi.

"Now, I want to be clear about this. I didn't do it 'cause I wanted Naomi back, the Naomi I knew in grade school. I did it to remind me about how I was special and I needed a special person, not just any old lesbian that fell off a barstool. I'd see that tattoo every day when I washed my hands or checked the oil in my car or looked at my watch. And there it would be every time some woman and I started flirting with each other, reminding me how I didn't have to settle for less than what I deserved. I went on with my life, and just let things be."

She stopped and took a sip of mineral water. I looked at her arms, but her t-shirt-that-fits-tighter that day was the long-sleeved kind. Come to think of it, in the few times I'd run into her at the bar I'd only ever seen her in a long-sleeved kind. Well, I thought, I'll ask later, after she finishes her story.

"Of course, everyone wants to look at your tattoo if they know you have one," Sue continued. "And they ask all kinds of questions. Some of them are pretty dumb. Did it hurt? Or, Is it real? I used to tell them I got it out of a Cracker Jack box. Sometimes they just wanted to know where I had it done, so they could get one, too.

"But without fail, every single person, male or female, wanted to know who Naomi was. But I never would tell them. Oh, they used to get mad. They'd make up all kinds of explanations — it was my mother's name, it was the name of my secret lover who died tragically in a fall off Flattop, you name it. I was a regular woman of mystery.

"Then one night, here at the bar, something very weird happened. I was dancing with Cheryl, and this nice-looking woman dancing not too far from us noticed my tattoo. When we came off the dance floor she asked if she could get a better look. I showed it to her and she said, Naomi! What a coincidence! That's my name, too!

"Now I want you to know, I don't usually do this kind of thing, but I was feeling pretty silly that night, and without any warning, without even knowing what I was doing, I just swept her into my arms and I said, Oh, Naomi! I knew I would find you! the one true love of my life! it's for you I got this tattoo!

"Ha! Needless to say, she was just a tiny bit freaked. Hell, so was I. Everybody was giving me strange looks. I let her go, and I apologized, and we both laughed nervously, and that was that.

"Or so I thought. Then, about a week later, I ran into her at a bus stop. We got to talking, and we found out we had some interests in common, and we went and had coffee, and we went to a movie, and we went and had dinner, and next thing you know . . . well, hey, we've been together ever since."

She snuffed out her cigarette, and I thought to myself, I like that. "That's neat," I said. "I've had some hard times too — it's good to hear love come out right for a change. How long has it been?"

"Over three years," she said. "In fact, we celebrate our fourth anniversary next month."

"That's great! Congratulations!"

"Thanks!" she said. The glow on her face told me the almost four years had done nothing to dim her happiness.

"Funny thing, though," she said after a few moments passed. "Cheryl was having her own love-life problems around that same time.

"But after she saw what happened with me, she went out and got her own tattoo. Except she had Larry give her a marigold, and the name she had above it was Ann.

"In no time flat — a lot faster than for me, I might add — some woman was saying to her, Ann! That's my name, too! And Cheryl did just like me, she swept Ann into her arms and said, Ann, my true love! I did this for you! And pretty soon . . . well, you can figure it out for yourself. That Cheryl always was a fast operator."

She lit another cigarette, automatically rolling one across the table to me. I didn't even notice her trying to light it for me. I was thinking, Just wait a minute here.

"Two or three months later we came to Le Pub to watch the parade. Yeah, so it was February, 'cause it was Fur Rondy. Have you ever been here for that? The whole gay community comes down to Le Pub and freezes their butts off, and all the boys are ogling the Air Force band, and all the lesbians are ogling Miss Anchorage, and then the gay community's float comes by, with a grand prize ribbon on it, of course, and we all cheer like crazy.

"So I'm here with Naomi, and Cheryl's here with Ann, and we watch the parade, and then we go down to the Park Strip to watch some snowshoe softball, and then we come back here for hot dogs and burgers, right? Then they start up the music, and Cheryl and Ann start dancing. Well, Cheryl, she gets hot, so she pulls off her sweater — she's got a tank top on underneath — and you can see her tattoo, right?"

She looked at me expectantly, so I nodded.

"There's only one other couple on the dance floor, but they're not really a couple. One's a drag queen, and the other is this snowbunny- looking lesbian. I mean, she's really fu-fu, y'know? She almost out-femmed that drag queen, and that takes some doing.

"The song ends, and they're all coming off the dance floor, and this snowbunny lesbian is right behind Cheryl, and she spots the tattoo.

"And lo and behold, she's an Ann, too, and without a thought, Cheryl just sweeps her into her arms and gives her the true love rap.

"That's when Cheryl realized what she was doing. She stopped and looked at the fu-fu Ann, she looked at Ann Number One, she did a double, triple, quadruple take, and my god, you shoulda seen her face. She was in shell shock.

"I'm telling you, it was weird. I thought I was in the Twilight Zone."

You and me both, I was thinking. "So Cheryl and this fu-fu Ann," I ventured, "they got together — right?"

"God, it was weird," said Sue. "I mean, pretty soon we were seeing Cheryl show up down here, first with Ann Number One, then with Ann Number Two, then the first one again, then a third. I'm not kidding, there were at least four or five of them, every one of them different, but every one of them named Ann. And those Anns, sometimes they'd show up with Cheryl, sometimes with other women, sometimes even with each other. It was pretty confusing, let me tell you, the way they kept changing off. Only one thing was simple — it got so if I couldn't remember someone's name, but knew she knew Cheryl, I'd just call her Ann, and more often than not I'd be right."

She's gotta be pulling my leg, I thought. "Do you mean to tell me —?"

"I know what you mean," she said. "I don't get it either. But I guess they do that nonmonogamy thing all over the place in L.A. and New York. Me, I never could feature how they could get along without all the time getting jealous and all the time fighting. It's way beyond anything I could deal with." She shook her head disbelievingly.

Me? I was sitting there so slackjawed my chin was doing a tapdance on the table.

"Then, about a year ago," Sue said, "I remember it really clear, 'cause it was the first night it snowed. Someone came into the bar and said, It's snowing, and somebody says, It can't be, it's only October 7th! It was coming down hard, and we had snow on the ground clean through till break-up in April."

I nodded. I remembered that snow — I'd plowed into about five snowbanks just on my way home from the store.

"That night there was this woman looking at Cheryl's tattoo, and she said, Ann! That's my name too — except I spell mine with an 'e.'

"But that didn't stop old Cheryl. She did the sweep, she did the I knew I'd find you, she did the whole routine."

She shook her head. "It didn't work, of course. In fact," she said, "Cheryl hasn't found a new Ann since." She leaned back in her chair and watched a puff of smoke ascend to the ceiling.

I didn't know whether to believe her or hand her an Emmy.

"Some people say Cheryl got too greedy, like she was trying to hog up all the world's Anns, even if their names were spelled wrong. It's like, no sooner did she put the sweep on Anne-with-an-'e' than instant karma. came down on her, so that no more Anns would come along for her."

Sue sat up, warming to her theme. "Other people, some of the more metaphysical types, say there was something behind that karma, some larger spiritual force, the goddess or Mother Nature or something, who sent Anne-with-an-'e' for the very purpose of derailing her. According to them, there's a law of some sort that says, Okay, nonmonogamy, fine. But you can only fill your house so full. Besides, someone else might need an Ann.

"Not that Cheryl and the Anns all share the same house. But the fact is, people even yet are amazed by how many Anns there are in Cheryl's life. It still seems pretty godawful confusing to me — but hey, different strokes for different folks, I guess." She shrugged.

There was no way now she could mistake the incredulity that was slathered all over my face, like I was doing a shaving cream commercial. But if she saw my expression, she gave no sign. She just sat there smoking and sipping her Perrier, looking thoughtful.

It had to be a crock, some tall tale she'd spun off the top of her head. But, being a polite type of person and all, I could hardly come right out and tell her to her face she was a liar. I was still wondering how to approach it when I remembered I hadn't seen her tattoo yet.

"Uh," I said, "could I see. . . ?"

"Oh, of course," she said. She pushed her left sleeve up past the elbow and laid her arm out on the table in front of me.

There, halfway down the topside of her forearm, parallel to her watchband, was a rose, as beautifully drawn as she'd told me. It was a deep, dark red with pink and white highlights, outlined delicately in black. In the background, in shades of blue and blue-green, a line of mountains ran from the crook of her elbow to her wrist, partly hidden by her watch. A feather-dusting of white graced their peaks.

It was beautiful.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Didn't you say her name was tattooed above the rose?"

"It was," she said, not at all rattled by my question. "It was right here." She rubbed her finger in a little arc above the rose. "But after I saw what happened with Cheryl, I thought, good god! Maybe Naomi isn't as common a name as Ann, but there are other Naomis. And while Cheryl seems plenty happy, and this great force or goddess or whatever doesn't seem to mind nonmonogamy, one Naomi at a time is quite enough for me, thank you very much. Besides, I don't need a reminder anymore of how I don't need to settle for second best. I know how lucky I am.

"So right after Ann Number Two or Three or thereabouts, I went back to Larry and he covered it up with these mountains." She rubbed her arm again. "They look pretty good, don't you think?"

I nodded mutely, and she pulled her sleeve back down again.

Just then Cheryl stuck her head in the door. "Sue, phone call for you. Naomi, I think."

"Oh," Sue exclaimed. "It must be time to pick her up from work. Thanks, Cheryl." Cheryl's head retreated.

Sue stood up. "Well, it's been nice talking with you, Kath," and she stuck out her hand again.

I took it again, and I said, "Yeah, nice talking with you, too. That's a beautiful tattoo."

"Thanks," she said. She walked to the door.

"And, uh, thanks for telling me the story."

She paused and turned, and for a moment there I almost thought she winked at me. "My pleasure," she said, and was gone.

There was one last cigarette she'd left sitting on the table for me. I sat there for several minutes, smoking and thinking about those tattoos. When I'd smoked it through I put on my coat and went upstairs. I walked past Cheryl playing pinball with another woman, and I wondered vaguely if she was an Ann.

I paused at the door. Sue was leaning against the wall, massaging one tattoo with her hand, talking with the other on the pay phone. I found myself wishing my name had been Naomi three years and eleven months ago. I sighed and went out.

Miraculously, the cloud cover had disappeared. I walked home under a bright blue sky, feeling pretty good even if it was still a little chilly. I spent the rest of the day in a hot bathtub trying to read my Agatha Christie book.

Instead I thought about Sue's story. I considered pulling a Miss Marple and sleuthing around for the truth. It'd be easy. You know how it is around here — we grind out the gossip and rumors so steadily, we should all be named Miller.

I met Naomi, I even went to a party once at her and Sue's apartment. Cheryl was there, and I glimpsed the tattoo on the back of her right shoulder — a marigold on a field of fluffy white clouds, the sun shining down. I even met a couple of women named Ann, though whether they were Cheryl's lovers or friends or both or neither I never found out.

So, you see, I had plenty of opportunity to get to the bottom of things. But somehow I never got around to asking any questions. As much as I've thought about it, I've often had to ask myself why, and it always came down to just one answer.

I guess I just liked the story too much.