She Says

The Dalmatian-Print Chair

2010-07-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

     It was Cinco de Mayo. Mutual and Peter were having lunch on a cafe patio, the kind with sequined sombreros and fluffy pinatas, drinking margaritas and arguing about cars as art. Were they or weren’t they?
     They had lived together for what seemed like a long time, and their relationship was a rocky one. There was no subject too inane to fight about, too inane to threaten to split up over, whether it was a catty comment Mutual might make about a woman she disliked or Peter’s unwillingness to defend her against a slight from a waiter.
      Sometime, say halfway through the second margarita, just as Mutual was opening her mouth to say some cars are art and some are not, she met Peter’s eyes. She looked into them deeply.
      And she knew, just like the argument, that their relationship was pointless.
So she packed her hats, her shoes, her Dalmatian-print chair, her books, her typewriter, and her dog named Joe, and she moved.
      She lived alone for awhile. She wasn’t exactly sure how long in hours or days or even months, but long enough to sell three essays and one short-short story.
     And then one night at a party filled with useless rich ornaments and bused-in artists, she met Joel.
     It wasn’t the first time. They had met before, at other redundant parties. But this time, it was different.
     “Hey,” Joel said.
     “Hey, yourself,” she replied.
     No banter. No snappy repartee. Nothing to make one think of those glamorous 1940s movies with a saucy heroine in a perky cocktail hat with a bird perched upon it and a dark hero gazing down at her through the smoke from his Lucky Strike.
      But, still, it was different. This time, she looked deeply into his eyes. She looked deeply into his eyes and she knew she loved him and had loved him since long before she’d ever met him, in fact, since the night of her conception. She looked deeply into his eyes and she saw the future and it was Joel.
      Like bad poetry.
      It was also different for Joel. He, too, had looked deeply into her eyes, and he, too, knew he loved her and would love her till long after the last spade of dirt was tossed over his coffin. He looked deeply into her eyes, and he knew he would love her forever.
      So Joel asked her to a movie.
      Mutual said yes. She told him to meet her at a theater in the suburbs, miles away from their hip inner-city neighborhood. She was specific about time (early afternoon) and where he should sit (two rows from the back). She would meet him there. Get popcorn, please. No butter.
     “I will buy the cokes,” she said.
     Joel agreed, and they met at the theater the next day. 2:05 p.m. Suburban multiplex. Stale popcorn. Dull movie. Afterward, they dined at one of those restaurants of questionable gustatory quality usually found in strip shopping centers, gazing deeply into each other’s eyes, and drinking bad wine, overpriced. After dinner, they went back to Mutual’s apartment.
     When Joel unzipped her houndstooth sheath, her skin tingled as if a knife blade had been flicked all the way from the base of her neck to the point just below her waist where her bottom began its outward curve. She turned into his arms, and they looked deeply into each other’s eyes. They drowned in each other’s gaze, and no one existed except each other.
     “Joel,” she sighed, running one Matador red nail over his very prominent Adam’s apple.
     “Mutual,” he whispered, dropping to his knees and removing her panties, the ones with the high-gusset arch like Bettie Page’s. “Mutual, your legs are a work of art.”
     Bad poetry.
     They met at the movies the next day and the next and the next. They met in secret, which caused many problems because they were inseparable, like fuzzballs and belly buttons. They met at the movies, always a multiplex in the suburbs far from their hip inner-city neighborhood, then dined on food that tasted no better than the orange vinyl hugging their booth. Afterward, they went back to Mutual’s duplex, had sex in the Dalmatian-print chair, and slept in Mutual’s bed, Joe curled up at their feet. The next morning, after Mutual’s neighbor had left for work, Joel would go home, pick up fresh clothes, think about the art he should be creating, shake off the guilt like a worn-out sweater, then meet Mutual at the movies.
     It was very important to Mutual that no one know they were seeing each other. Not because either was married or engaged or anything of that sordid nature. But Mutual did not want people to talk about their relationship, amusing themselves at love’s expense as they sipped free Chardonnay at art openings.
     This went on for some time. Mutual didn’t know how long in hours or days or months, but long enough to sell two short stories.
     Then romance blossomed full, just like in a bad poem, and Joel wanted more. He wanted marriage, a band of gold, a piece of paper. Legality.
     Mutual did not. She wanted things to go on as they were. Full of fun and lust and gazing deeply into each other’s eyes, with each existing only for the other.
     “Why mess it up, Joel?” Mutual asked.
“Because,” Joel replied. “I want to grow old with you, sitting on a porch, swaying back and forth in a swing built for two as the sun goes down.”
     “Joel,” Mutual sighed, shaking her head.
     But Joel, like any determined and ardent lover, would not give up. He persisted. Asking for Mutual’s hand each afternoon in the cool suburban multiplex, then again over bad wine, overpriced, in the strip shopping center restaurant booth, and again as they welded themselves into the Dalmatian chair.
     Over time, Mutual began to soften. It might no be so bad, marriage. After all, they were different. Perhaps they could wed. Yes, perhaps they could, but it must be in secret.
     Joel was growing tired of the subterfuge, but he wanted Mutual, so he agreed. They could elope to a nearby state and perform their nuptials there.
     “No,” disagreed Mutual. “No JP wedding for me. I want a white tulle gown with a frothy veil and a train as big as a Cadillac. I want a cake as tall as a broomstick and bridesmaids in frilly dresses that they will never wear again.”
     “Whatever you want, my darling,” Joel said. “A happy Mutual is a happy Joel.”
     Still, Mutual was not ready for the announcement in the newspaper in 9-point type. She did not want to be the subject of tittering over young love, the object of speculation about how long the wedded would be blissful. So, the ceremony was held, complete with the white tulle and the frothy veil and the cake as tall as a broomstick and one frilly bridesmaid — but in a faraway state and with only their two closest friends, who were sworn to secrecy.
     After the wedding, they each sold all of their belongings (at separate garage sales, of course) except for Mutual’s hats and typewriter and Joel’s cowboy boot lamp and art supplies, and they moved to the desert, miles from the nearest town, which had only a tavern, a general store, a filling station and a post office, far away from anyone they knew.
     They did not tell their friends they were married or tell them where they were moving, and they especially did not tell them they were moving together. Each gave their friends post office box numbers in different towns somewhat close to their new abode. Mutual would not relinquish the secret.
     And they lived happily, together yet alone, with Mutual writing several hours each day and Joel painting those same hours. Their work was good and plentiful.
And each night, they gazed deeply into each other’s eyes and drowned in each other’s gaze, and each knew that their love, like bad poetry, would last forever.

Todd Stottlemyre Was My Higher Power

2009-12-26T17:22:00.000-08:00

This is a story about how I came to believe. I wish I could say it was a story about redemption, but it isn’t, really. It’s just a story about how I came to realize that, yeah, there’s someone or something out there that’s greater than me.
Let me introduce myself. I’m Allison. Allison Jeffrey. I’ve always wished my name was something glamorous, with perhaps a hint of androgyny, like Campbell. Or something breezy and sexy, like Jesse. Or even something symbolic, like Phoenix. But it isn’t. It’s Allison. A name that drops with a thud, like a phone book tumbling onto a neatly-clipped lawn from a second-story window. The only hint of allure that my name conjures up is that Elvis Costello song. And, of course, that’s only my first name. I don’t think anyone has done anything in the least poetic for Jeffrey.
I’m thirty-seven, curvy, medium height (five-foot-five, 138 pounds, if you want specifics) and my hair is red — a gift from Clairol, not Mother Nature. My hubby would describe me as a babe. I sling hash for a living and sling paint to live. Saying that I sling hash for a living gives my job a touch of anti-glamour chic that isn’t quite accurate. But I like the way it sounds. Slinging hash. Say it. See? It sounds wonderful. It does cartwheels off the tongue. Actually, I work for a caterer. I make biscotti and spring rolls and miniature quiches for lawyers and administrators to munch on at parties. I don’t make much money. I paint in my spare time, mostly still lifes of apples and pears and strawberries. I’m intrigued by the strawberry — its heart shape, its dimples, its jaunty green cap. I think it’s the perfect object, it’s beautiful and it tastes divine. It has depth. Sneer at my subject matter if you will, but it enchants me. And, yes, my paintings used to be more avant-garde, things my snooty art peers found more acceptable — you know, like a chair spewing meatballs and kitten heads or maybe gardening clogs planted in concrete — but now, I only paint for me.
I have a wonderful husband; he knows everything and he’s a dish to boot. He’s funny. He’s supportive. He’s there when I need him.
And, best of all, I have three years, two months, one week, and one day of sobriety, thanks to my higher power. Who up until just recently was Todd Stottlemyre. Now, those of you who are baseball fans and friends of Bill are probably shaking your heads and wondering how a baseball pitcher can be a higher power. Those of you who are friends of Bill and aren’t baseball fans are probably wondering who Todd Stottlemyre is. The rest of you are probably wondering about this Bill (Was he the president? Did she service him sexually in the Oval Office?) and asking yourselves “what’s a higher power?”
Five years, two months, one week and one day ago, I didn’t have a clue myself. But my story starts a little before that. Five years, two months, one week and five days, to be precise.
But let me take you back even further, to the beginning of my drinking career. It started in my twenties. I made it through college a teetotaler. My older sister was a drunk, and I had already decided I didn’t want to go down that pothole-scarred road. Not me. No way. I knew better. Then, after college, armed with my art degree, I got a job working nights at a newspaper. Not the most glamorous job: I did mostly charts and graphs, and the hours were terrible. But I got a decent paycheck, and it was regular, and I didn’t have to leave Houston. I got off from work late, around 11, and a group of artists, copy editors and reporters would go to Warren’s, a bar on the square, just this side of slumming. One night, instead of club soda, I got a glass of Chardonnay. I didn’t go back. I went forward. Margaritas, gimlets, sidecars, Wild Turkey straight out of the bottle.
Why, you might ask? Because in that glass, I felt like someone else, a gay Greer, a delectable Dallas, a bold Bianca — anyone but me, average Allison.
By the time I got married, I already had a drinking problem, although I sure as hell wouldn’t have admitted it to myself. No, I simply wore such high heels that I sometimes tottered and fell. (Damn Manolo Blahnik!) Once, a light pole jumped right in front of my car and did $2300 worth of damage. Of course, it had nothing to do with the shaker of gimlets in my car. Or should I say the empty shaker of gimlets? Sometimes, my memory faltered and I just didn’t quite recall how I ended up naked on top of that hairy bass player. Blackout drunk? Not me.
So, you can see I already had a well-developed sense of denial. I already had a higher power watching over me, too. Proof? He led me to my husband. Of course, I didn’t think that then. I just thought I was a gorgeous, savvy, charming, albeit sometimes shy, redhead, so why wouldn’t Jonah be mad for me?
But, let’s get back to five years ago. My marriage was in trouble. I had been sleeping around for some time. Don’t ask for an exact time line. Maybe six months. Maybe nine. That whole time period is rather fuzzy.
My hubby had started attending some kind of support group and reading books about addiction, and he left them about the house for me to see. I’ll Quit Tomorrow. Women, Sex and Addiction. The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage. I ignored them and hoped he would quickly get back to Sara Paretsky and Stephen Ambrose.
I had taken to catting about even on weekends. I recall one Saturday, a typical one. We had a pleasant enough day, sharing The New York Times and eating migas while sitting in the orange-and-yellow plastic booths at the Cortes Deli, followed by a visit to the Butterfly Museum and an hour or so of gardening, Allison-style — a pail of fertilizer in one hand and a flute of champagne in the other. About six p.m., I decided to meet a friend for a drink at Leo’s, a restaurant that had the strongest margaritas in town and a kick-ass salsa. Jonah, who was cooking most of the meals by this time because it took me hours to prepare them between the glasses of wine, asked “What time may I expect you back?”
“Stop trying to control me,” I yelled. Now, you might notice a slight tracking problem here, a small blip in the logic meter. I didn’t. My response seemed perfectly sensible to me — at the time.
“Babe, I only asked you when you would be back so that I could have the steaks ready to go on the grill. You choose the time.”
“You’re just trying to control me. I spent all fucking day with you. Isn’t that enough? I’m a good wife.” Of course, my skills as a wife had not been questioned, but, as an addict, I often felt under attack.
“I’ve told you before that speaking to me in that tone of voice isn’t acceptable,” Jonah replied, an oak unswayed by the hurricane swirling around him. “I’ll have dinner ready at eight. If you’re here, fine. If not, that’s fine, too.”
 “I’ll be here when I get good and damn well ready. You’re not my father,” I bellowed as I left, slamming the door behind me.
This scenario played out week after week after week. Jonah, a calm summer morning. Me, a flash flood.
One Saturday night, I didn’t make it home. I don’t remember much of what happened after we played out our Saturday ritual. What I do recall is this: Waking up. Waking up in a bed not my own in a room not my own in a house not my own and seeing a clock not my own flashing 11:13. 11:13. 11:13.
11:13 a.m. Busted.
During my stint as a wife, I had never stayed out all night. I always tripped home after two or three hours, or at the latest, shortly after the bars closed.
11:13. I could no longer deny my drinking had gotten out of control. And who the hell was that in the bed next to me? Did it even matter? I bet it wouldn’t to Jonah. Out all fucking night. He would no longer buy that I had just been out drinking and talking newspapers and art with co-workers and girlfriends. Damn.
Damn. Damn. Damn. I did not want to go home. I did not want to face Jonah. So, despite the fact that I felt like a raw egg smashed under a Doc Marten and all I wanted to do was take a shower and crawl into my own bed, I drove around the loop, the 610 Loop that goes around Houston. Drove it once, twice, three times, before I finally went home to face Jonah.
He was watching a baseball game. He didn’t say a word when I walked in. He didn’t even look up.
 “Hi, honey love,” I said, trying to achieve the perfect cheerful yet apologetic tone. As if there is such a tone when you’ve stayed out all night. “I’m sorry I was out all night. I went to Anna Beth’s after the movie, we had a couple of bottles of wine, and I passed out on her so—“
“Allison,” Jonah swiveled toward me, looked at me stonily over one broad shoulder. ”Things have to change.”
So, that’s how I ended up at Hazelden. Rehab U. They couldn’t take me right away. I had to wait four days. I went on a four-day binge of champagne and gimlets. By the time I got to Minnesota, I was ready to sober up.
A couple of days on the Ignatia unit took care of that. Two days without booze. Two days in which I felt as if my body had been packed in cotton balls and stored in one box in a tidy closet while my brain and emotions had been neatly packed and stored away in another.
The next stop was one of the women’s units, Dia Lynn. It was there, in one of many sessions on staying sober, that I ran into this higher power concept. All the counselors insisted that to maintain sobriety you needed a higher power. God, in layman’s terms.
 “But I don’t believe in God,” I said to my middle-aged counselor, Irene, whose brown hair was cut in a pixie and whose body was no bigger than a peanut.
 “It doesn’t have to be God. It doesn’t have to be Jesus or Buddha. When I came into the program twenty years ago to get sober, I was an atheist. I laughed at the whole God concept. That’s for ninnies, I said. But my counselor insisted. It’s right there in the twelve steps, she said. ‘Came to believe in a power greater than ourselves.’ It was an autumn day. The counselor gestured outside the window at the falling leaves. A leaf can be your higher power. That squirrel on the windowsill. So, that’s what I chose as my higher power. The squirrel. After a few years of sobriety, I ditched the squirrel for God. But you don’t have to.”
 “I just don’t see the need. I’m spending thousands of dollars here to get sober and stay sober, and you’re telling me I have to have a higher power? What is this? Sunday school? ” I was pissed. “I could have gone there for a dollar in the offering plate.”
 “You’ve had a higher power for years, haven’t you?”
I glared at her. “Oh, yeah? Like who?”
 “Try what,” she replied. “Booze.”
She had me there.
 “Look. I encourage you to try it. Try a leaf. A tree. Plate tectonics. Whatever works.”
 “All right. All right,” I said sullenly. “I’ll think about it.”
And I did, because I really wanted to stay sober. But I knew the leaf was out, because I could never remember the differences between leaves. An oak leaf, a maple leaf, they were all the same to me. The squirrel wasn’t going to work, either. We had one in our yard who made a fool of himself trying to get to the bird feed and made a porker of himself when he succeeded. He was as much of an addict as I was. No way I was going to anoint him higher power. Maybe a rose. Yeah, that’s what could be my higher power, that’s who I could go to in times of trouble. I knew just the rose. A beautiful pale pink climbing rose in our flask-sized yard with the name of New Dawn. After all, it did smell heavenly. And the name, so appropriate. A harbinger of many sober days to come. So that night, when I did my gratitude list, I did so to the image of a New Dawn. However, it wavered. I couldn’t keep the picture in my head. It danced, it swirled, it skittered out of focus. Still, I really wanted to stay sober, and if my Hazelden counselor said I had to have a higher power, if Bill W., one of the founders of AA, said I had to have a higher power, I wasn’t willing to give up yet. I called Jonah, something I did several times each day during those weeks at Hazelden, and asked if he would send me a picture of a New Dawn right away.
He was curious.
 “Why? You miss the roses that much?” he asked.
 “No. They tell me here that I have to have a higher power to maintain my sobriety. You know, like God.”
 “And you’re choosing a rose? Why not just let God be your higher power?” Jonah asked.
 “Because I just don’t buy into religion. You know that.”
 “But how can you doubt that you have a higher power? The MasterCard was maxed out, and yet your thousand-dollar plane ticket went through. If that wasn’t your higher power, what was it?”
“Can you just send the picture?” I asked.
 “Why not a strawberry? You’re so captivated by them.”
 “I already have a relationship with the strawberry, and it’s a working one. I don’t want to risk messing that up.”
 “You’re very unusual, you know that?”
 “Jonah, just send the damn picture.”
It arrived within days, bless Jonah’s argumentative heart. I put the picture on my bedside table. Still, it just didn’t work. When I spoke to the rose, it did not respond. No matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t imagine the New Dawn caring about my problems, caring about whether I maintained my sobriety. It remained inanimate. It didn’t give a hoot. What can I say? I’m a painter, not an animator.
So, one Sunday, I sat on a sofa in the Dia Lynn lounge, drinking coffee, chatting with the other addicts on the unit, idly flipping the remote control past such visual delights as Suzanne Somers’ thigh machine, Gilligan’s Island, ice skaters, the usual dull Sunday afternoon fodder. I was giddy with my newfound sobriety, but still confounded with my lack of a suitable higher power. We joked about my problem as I clicked.
 “You love shoes so much, maybe one of your favorite shoes could be your higher power,” Nancy, middle-aged valium addict from Idaho, said.
 “Oh, sure. Make a pair of those sexy stilettos that were always letting me down be my higher power,” I said, winking.
 “How about this tea bag?” Louise said, offering me a sodden, used bag of Lemon Lift. Louise was a junkie who had modeled in New York, until she no longer bothered to show up for bookings.
 “Get that away from me,” I laughed, leaning away from her soggy gift. I clicked the remote again. This click’s prize, a baseball game. Since the Astros traded Billy Doran, I usually only watched if they were in the playoffs. I was a fickle baseball fan, and I shamefacedly admit that the derrieres of the players had a lot to do with the game’s attraction. Still, I knew the rules and I found it somewhat amusing. If forced to watch a sporting event, I’d choose baseball.
 “Oh, look. The Cubs. Let’s watch that,” Nancy pleaded.
 “Jeez. A sports fan,” I grimaced. “OK, but I don’t have a horse in this race. The Cubs and the . . . .” I looked at the screen again, “and the Cardinals? Boring. And, anyway, you live in Idaho, what do you care about the Cubs?”
 “I grew up in Chicago. My dad took me to many a Cubs game.”
 “Hey, don’t argue,” said Gina, a former groupie from Dallas who had followed one band after another around the world. “These men’s thighs are much easier on the eyes than Suzanne Somers’.”
 “All right. You win,” I said. I went to put on a fresh pot of coffee, double-bagged, of course, and when I returned, the Cubs were batting. The camera cut to a shot of the pitcher. I was riveted. He was tall, with shoulders wider than Texas.  He was the color of a cup of Southern Louisiana cafe au lait. He looked unshakeable. Serene. This could be my higher power.
 “What?” Nancy asked. “Your cup of coffee?”
 “Huh?” I didn’t even realize I’d said anything out loud. “Oh, no. Him.” I pointed at the TV screen.
 “Todd Stottlemyre?” Nancy asked, surprised.
 “He can be my higher power any day of the week,” Gina smirked.
 “Sweetie,” Nancy said, giving me a stern look. “I think you have the wrong idea about a higher power. It’s not supposed to be a higher sexual power. It’s supposed to be a wiser power, a spiritual power. It’s not supposed to be someone that you want to sleep with.”
 “Yep,” Gina said. “Any day of the week.”
 “Hey, sex with him might be spiritual,” Louise tittered.
 “This isn’t about sex,” I insisted. I felt like stamping my foot. They just didn’t understand.
 “Damn, I’ll settle for a picture of him and a vibrator — at least while I’m stuck in here,” Gina said.
 “Like you could sneak a vibrator in here,” Louise sneered.
 “This isn’t about sex!” I said, my voice developing an edge. “Look at him. He looks rather godlike, doesn’t he? Composed. Strong. Regal yet powerful . . .”
 “Sexy,” Gina and Nancy and Louise interrupted.
 “As I was saying, regal yet powerful. Poised. Unshakeable. He has a . . . a quiet dignity. And I won’t have any trouble at all imagining him listening to my woes, lending an understanding ear, telling me that everything is going to work out. And look at his hands, so big — they certainly look like they could hold the whole world.”
 “Well, I, for one, would certainly like to hold his hand,” Louise winked at Gina. “In a special place . . . if you get my drift.”
 “I can see there’s not a darn reason to discuss this with you stubborn, gutter-minded floozies. Let’s just watch the game.”
We did.
I was chatting on the phone with Jonah a couple of days later when he asked about the New Dawn.
 “It didn’t work out,” I said. “I’ve taken a new tack.”
 “And that is?” he asked, a bit suspiciously.
 “Todd Stottlemyre, this baseball pitcher I saw on TV.”
 “Stottlemyre? Of the Cardinals? As your higher power?” He chuckled. “You make some strange choices. Why him?”
I explained my reasoning, then held the line waiting for criticism. I was sure it would come, even though Jonah was a baseball fanatic.
 “If you’re going to choose a baseball player, why not Dimaggio? And if you insist on a pitcher, why not Nolan Ryan? He’s a great pitcher.”
 “Dimaggio is out. After all, he couldn’t save Marilyn Monroe. And Nolan Ryan’s politics eliminate him from the running.”
 “Well, why not Honus Wagner? Babe Ruth? Ty Cobb? Wait, scratch Cobb. He was a drunk, a bigot, and a mean, vicious man.”
 “Look, honey love, I appreciate your advice, truly I do. But this is my higher power, not yours.”
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
It was family week. Family week, for those of you who are uninitiated, is the week that we addicts are sent over to the family center to come face-to-face with family members of other addicts. It’s when we see the other side of our addiction, how our behavior can hurt our loved ones.
We were sitting in a circle, in a nondescript wood-paneled room, discussing the higher power issue. Or at least we were supposed to be. Stella, a wiry woman from Mississippi, was droning on and on and on. Stella was one of those women who did not like to relinquish the stage, one of those women who never shut up. Nearly everything about her annoyed me, from her choice of a higher power — a small leather pouch in which she carried her favorite talismans, an idea she had stolen from the Indians — to her tendency to blame everything bad in her addict’s life, and therefore her life, on his ex-wife. She was just finishing a long narrative that had started about her chosen higher power and ended in a smarmy tale about Her Great Romance with the Doctor that would be Perfect if Only His Ex-Wife Lived on Another Planet.
 “That is so romantic,” one addle-brained woman cooed. “You should write a romance novel.”
Stella gleamed.
I wanted to barf.
The next person to speak was a short, skinny, old farmer from Iowa whose daughter was in the program. He looked puzzled. And he was.
 “I don’t understand why we’re discussing this. How can you doubt that there’s a higher power? How can you doubt that higher power is God?” His look of perplexity deepened. “I have never doubted God, not a day of my life, not a minute.” He paused and looked around the circle. He did not have to say that for him, God was Jesus. We knew. “Every morning when I wake up, every night when I go to bed, he’s there. How can you think a pouch filled with a dime store ring, a spool of thread, a Nehi top, and a piece of quartz is going to do a thing for you besides jingle in your pocket?”
He was not acting. He was completely baffled that some of us didn’t believe. I had never seen such quiet faith. My experience with religious folk tended to those who were self-righteous, those who loudly preached one thing and quietly did another. Folks who tried to convince you that their way was the only way. This guy wasn’t trying to convince us of anything. He just couldn’t believe that we didn’t believe.  His faith shook me like a sheaf of papers under a ceiling fan.
I was in awe. I wanted what he had.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I returned to Houston, to our sheet-metal townhouse festooned with climbing roses, to my job at the newspaper, armed with my newly acquired knowledge, my determination to remain sober, and my higher power, Todd Stottlemyre. I admit I was apprehensive. After all, drinking had taken up a lot of my life — heck, it had become my life. And I still didn’t believe: Todd was just a tool for me. I also was not happy about attending AA meetings — I’ve never been a joiner or a meeting-goer. And meditation — let’s not even go there. Goodness knows, I didn’t.
But I went to an AA meeting once or twice a week — sometimes even four times a week during those first months when the call of Wild Turkey was loud and relentless. And, despite my skepticism, each morning when I did my daily Big Book reading and each evening when I did my gratitude list, I envisioned Todd. And, no, it did not escape my notice that his name rhymes with God. I mentioned at a meeting or two that a baseball player was my higher power, and although there may have been a few raised eyebrows, no one ridiculed my choice.
Jonah, too, had accepted my unorthodox selection, but he still didn’t get it. It was rather cute, the way he always offered me his Baseball Weekly if there was a mention of Mr. Stottlemyre. And while I always looked at any picture that Jonah showed me — it never hurt to reinforce Todd’s image — I simply didn’t want to know anything about him. Knowledge, in this case, could prove dangerous. After all, if I were to read a quote and my higher power sounded, well, less than bright, my icon would be tarnished. And if I were to listen to a sound bite of him on TV, well, what if he had a squeaky or whiny voice? What if his vocabulary was less than expansive? What if he insisted on speaking of the past in present tense, as so many baseball players do? You know, “I throw that batter a split-fingered fastball instead of a slider, we win.”  Or worse — gulp — what if he used the word awesome? He would no longer be godlike. He would tumble from his throne. I could not allow that to happen. I had to protect my higher power, because he protected me.
He really did. He was always attentive, always willing to listen. He never said “Can you wait a minute? I need to get this guy out.” Or “Hold on, Allison, I’ve gotta take some warm-up pitches.” He always had time for me. He was supportive, and his advice was sage. For instance, when I decided I couldn’t stand to illustrate the latest fashion catastrophes from Rome or draw a pie chart showing how the Houston school district’s education dollars were spent, when I knew I wanted to quit my newspaper job and devote more time to painting, he didn’t say “Are you insane? How can you afford to do that?” No, he calmly asked “Can you give up those pricey shoes you love so much? I hear Manolo’s boots this fall are really something. Will your husband support you? Will you allow him to support you? Maybe you can find a part-time job.”
Occasionally, the old farmer would interrupt my talks with Todd. 
 “There is a God,” he’d say. “A real God.’
 “For you,” I’d retort.
But I was growing stronger every day. I was more confident, my commitment to recovery was powerful. I not only wanted to remain sober, I — again, sneer if you must — wanted to be a good person. I quit my dependable job, got a part-time job at a caterer’s, devoted myself to my art and my marriage. I was — and this surprised me every time I realized it — happier without the nightclubs, the men and the booze. I still had a yen for Manolo Blahniks, though, especially since I no longer tripped in them.
In fact, a pair of Manolo mules embroidered with strawberries — a birthday gift from Jonah — rested at my feet. I was sipping cold fuzzy water, complete with a lime twist, and admiring Jonah’s extremely delectable form (how had I ever let demon liquor blind me to his many assets?) as he tied straggling Sombreuil roses to trellises he had built last year. Moon Pie, our new yellow Lab pup, tussled with the hem of his jeans as he worked. A couple of Dogface butterflies snacked on a scarlet salvia. It would have been positively Rockwellian if it hadn’t been for the sweltering Houston heat and the thorns that nipped at Jonah’s arms. Still, it made me think, maybe there is a God. Jeez. Where was my skepticism? Heck, next thing you know, I’ll be meditating.
Then, one morning a few weeks later, over coffee and biscuits, Jonah handed me the sports section.
 “The Cards traded your boy to the Texas Rangers,” he said, piling homemade strawberry jam on his biscuit. “We can drive up and watch him pitch one weekend.” 
 “You know, this higher power thing is working out,” I said. “My other higher power is moving my higher power closer.”
 “Jonah!” I nearly trilled. “Jonah, did you hear what I said? My other higher power. My other.”
That’s when I realized I really didn’t need Todd any more. I had come to believe, just like the counselor at Hazelden. There was a good and powerful force in the universe, and he — or she — was watching out for me. He had led me to the TV screen at just the right moment so that I could find a stand-in until I was ready for the real thing.
My faith still isn’t as strong as that old farmer’s, though I hope one day it will be. But I do know, just as surely as I know my biscuits will rise, that there is a God out there looking out for me. I’m not quite sure who he or she is, maybe Jesus, maybe not, but he or she no longer wears Todd’s face.
Are you wondering about Todd? I’ve given him the boot, albeit a kindly and gentle one. He was there when I needed him. He helped me come to believe. Oh, and yeah, he’s still a fine-looking pitcher. Fine. Great shoulders.

Swan's Beak

2009-11-28T16:48:00.000-08:00

I don’t hang with the girls. I don’t cruise the mall. I keep my life simple. I paint my toenails. Love Shack, which the maker describes as a cool, calculating coral. I like that. The description. It’s better than the name. It’s better than the color. That’s what I want to be when I grow up — cool, calculating.

I’m from Texas. I escaped this year. On January 2nd to be exact. 

I live in Arizona now. My parents sent me to Cottonwood seven months ago for rehab. All the money in the world, they send me to some unknown twelve-step ranch. They could have chosen Betty Ford. Hazelden. Promises by the Sea, where I might have gotten some star spunk. But no. Cottonwood. Cheapskates. 

When you’re from Texas, people have ideas. Expectations. You gotta wear cowboy boots. Speak with a twang. Have bleached blonde hair bigger than Dallas. I have bleached blonde hair, but it’s more the size of Grand Saline. 

I dip a limp fry in ketchup and peer at the guy at the left end of the bar. He’s my mark. I like his Sears uniform, the way his ass pushes against his gray cotton pants. I’ve seen him in my mother’s kitchen, squatting in front of the dishwasher, bending over the dryer. Hell, she’s probably fucked him, or the Texas equivalent.

I know what men want. This guy’s an easy get.

I walk to the bathroom. I let my heel slide off my mule just as I get to his barstool. I put my hand on his shoulder for support. His arm reaches around my waist to steady me. Our eyes meet. I apologize, saunter on to the bathroom. He’s mine.

I pull my curls this way and that as I look into the bathroom mirror. My hairstyle’s a cross between early Marilyn and early Shirley Temple. It speaks to me. I freshen my Butterfield 8 gloss and head back to the booth.

Before I can smear another soggy fry with ketchup, the waitress plops a drink by my plate.

“From him,” she jerks her head in his direction. “Wants to know if he can join you. Looks a little old. Could be your daddy.” She raises one thick black brow to the tin-tiled ceiling.

I look at him. He’s trying not to stare. I meet his gaze. I mouth no. But just in case he doesn’t get it, I tell the waitress to thank him, but let him know that I prefer to be alone. You have to make them work for it. They appreciate it more that way.

I open my book back up and take a bite out of my hamburger. It’s greasy. He can go to a motel with me, but not until I finish my burger. A dribble of mustard slides down my chin. I lick it off.

Of course.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I unzip his pants as soon as we get inside Sierra Pines Room 122. I rented the room early today and turned the AC on as high as it would go. Frigid and impersonal, the way I like it. 

He pops a button off my blouse he’s in such a hurry. 

“Slow down, Pop. Get on the bed and wait for baby.” I could really make myself sick if I thought about it, but then, my shrink at Cottonwood would probably say that was part of the buzz. 

He nearly falls he’s so eager to get his pants and briefs off. I make a point not to look at the briefs. Nothing turns me off faster than dingy cotton knit. His belly’s white, like the underside of a good melon, although not nearly so firm. 

“Take off your shirt, too, daddy. I don’t want anything to come between us.”

I take off everything but my ruby suede mules and my pink gingham ruffled thong and bra, and then I reach into my bag for a Wet One and a rubber. 

“What’s that for?” He’s looking at the Wet One. 

“You’ve got to be clean for baby,” I breathe. This guy’s starting to annoy me. It’s better if he keeps his mouth shut. 

“Shit,” he says. 

I put one leg across his body and pull my thong aside as I rub his penis with the Wet One.

He whimpers.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I go to the bank every day with Pap. It’s my favorite part of the day. I wear gingham dresses and ruffled panties and petticoats that jingle.

“You’re my vintage child,” my mother coos as she lifts me into the truck. She says this all the time.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I’m in my T-Bird — Daddy gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday, his way of saying I’m sorry you’re not my favorite child (Kamela, Miss Perfect) — with the top down, driving along Highway 89. I left Room 122 and the repairman the minute I was sure he was asleep. He was one of those guys who wants to sleep with his arm around you. I hate that. Doesn’t he have a wife to go home to? 

It’s cool at night here in the high desert. The wind hitting my face feels like witch hazel.

I drive all the way to Phoenix, listening to No Secrets. I wonder what it feels like to be held in a man’s hands like a bunch of flowers.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
After I got out of rehab, I decided I wanted to stay out here for awhile. My parents thought it was a good idea. The geographic cure, they said. They’re so smart. They think. I know they just wanted me out of their way.

I like the high desert. I like the pine trees. I like the horizon. 

I like the anonymity.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I’m straightening boxes of goblets — fifteen ounces each, four to a box — at Dillard’s. My humility job. It’s all part of my recovery program. All part of the new me. All part of the agreement I made with my parents to stay here and enroll at the local community college rather than return to Randolph Macon immediately. I can stay for one year then my mother says I’ll have to go back. We’ll see.

Brie is standing next to me, fiddling with her tangerine vinyl flower barrette and yapping about Drew, her boyfriend. Even though she’s just graduated high school, she’s two months older than me. I jumped ahead two years when I was in the sixth grade. I was excited at first, because I thought I would get to leave home and go off to college that much sooner. That was before I realized my mother was going to insist I go to a women’s college, her alma mater. (Kamela got to go to RISD. Daddy’s girl.)

Brie thrusts her hand in front of my nose. 

“See? It’s just like J-Lo’s bling-bling.” Hardly, but it is big and lavender. It looks atrocious against her freckled skin and orange nails. She paints her nails every day. What motivation. What energy. She works too hard for it. You don’t have to.

How do these boxes get so dusty? I move to the next aisle. She follows, playing with her “bling-bling.” I wonder if bling-bling is hyphenated. I choose hyphenation.

“We’re getting married in Sedona. I’ll wear something white and lacy and cut down to here.” She touches her waistline.

“Married? You just turned eighteen.” 

“He’s the only one for me.” She looks heavenward, as if she knows heaven exists above these florescent lights.

“How can you know that? Didn’t you say you’d only slept with three boys?” I stop dusting to stare at her in disgust. When I do, I see Ms. Akins, the assistant manager, walking our way. 

“Look busy,” I warn and return to my straightening.

“I can’t believe he asked me to marry him. I’m so happy!” She floats to the register.

What an idiot. She’s never even slept with a man. Doesn’t she know boys are as easy to snag as ants at a picnic?

Jeez. No wonder I don’t have girlfriends. They’re as dense as butter. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
My mother calls after I get home. I don’t pick up. I lay in my Dog’s Ear pink bedroom and let the phone ring and ring.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
One day, at the rehab ranch, Alicia Jean, a fifty-something woman who’d been in twice before, said to me, “How you can know you’re a drunk? You’re seventeen. You’re supposed to be boozing it up.”

The counselor responded — too quickly — that I had wrecked two cars on my Christmas break and gotten a pink DUI ticket each time, and that it was admirable and mature of me to come out of denial at such a young age.

Alicia Jean sneered.

I think she was right. How can I know? How can they? I’m too young to be labeled. I think the only reason they decided I was an alcoholic is because I borrowed my mother’s $80,000 sable and left it at Local Charm. It was never found. Boo hoo.

But at the rehab ranch they taught me to always look on the bright side, and the bright side is that at least I’m not at Randolph Macon.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
My mother and I are having lunch at the Mariposa Room. We eat there almost every Saturday. I’m having potluck, which today is chicken sauteed in a brandy cream sauce accompanied by glazed carrots. My mother is having fruit salad. She is always watching her figure. (If I don’t watch it, no one else will, she’s said a zillion times, and it’s very important to her that people not only watch but desire her figure.) The women at the next table are gossiping about a friend who just paid a million bucks for a Jasper Johns. There is much rolling of eyes and raising of brows. I want to say I love Jasper Johns, that their friend’s money was well-spent, but I don’t. Instead, I listen to my mother describe her latest lover.

“His hands, child, the things they do.” She shivers dramatically. “One day, I hope you have a lover so . . . so . . . seasoned. He. Is. A. Master.”

It has never occurred to my mother that it might not be appropriate to tell me, her twelve-year-old daughter, about her lovers. She has been telling me about them for years, and let me say, there have been quite a few. But who else would she tell? She has no girlfriends.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I am looking at makeup online. What shall I buy? What names appeal tonight? I love good names. Nars has the best. I add Night Breed, Heart of Glass, Deep Throat, Fire Down Below and Rapture to my cart and check out. I have only picked up three men in the last two weeks, and I promise myself I won’t have sex again until this makeup arrives. 

Express shipping is available. I click.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I think about the first night. The first night I held him inside me. I knew him — he was an old college chum of Daddy’s (not close, not hunting or drinking buddies) and a former lover of my mother’s (brief affair, at least 10 years ago). I’d always thought he was devastatingly good-looking. (Still, I doubt I would have gone after him if it hadn’t been for the Jack Black. See? Liquor is a good thing.) His mom was Italian, his dad Venezuelan. He had one of those “sophisticated” marriages: His wife had moved here with their three children after two of them had been kidnapped (safely returned after major ransom had been paid). He kept a house (and a mistress) in Venezuela. He was here one weekend a month, and he usually stayed at the Four Seasons, not at the family swankienda. 

I was tagging along with Kamela and an older photographer friend of hers who had just gotten hired at the Chronicle. 

I saw him at our second stop (a benefit with an older crowd but an open bar — Mother had given us her tickets, since she was at our house in Belize, probably with her lover du jour). He was leaning against the bar with an artist (she had been one of Daddy’s proteges for awhile — draw your own conclusions) and she was stuck to him like newsprint to Silly Putty. But he was oh so delectable, and the Jack had bolstered my confidence. I danced, and I made sure he noticed. My moves were seductive, of course. (This knowledge was payoff for all those hours of listening to my mother.) So I perused the DJ’s selections, picked out Let’s Get It On and Spirit in the Night. Foolproof numbers. (Thank you, Mother.) I asked the DJ to throw in something to surprise me. I didn’t want to seem the rehearsed seductress. (Another tip from dear Mother.) Then I “accidentally” bumped into him. I asked him to dance. What could he do, daughter of an old friend and all?

Marvin crooned, “I’ve been sanctified.” You couldn’t slide a steak knife between us.

“Does your mother know what you’re up to?” Luis asked.

“She taught me,” I replied. “And your wife?”

“Touche.” Yes, he said that. It was a popular word in the romance novels my mother kept hidden in her nightstand, but I hadn’t heard it used much. 

By the time Springsteen sang, Honey let me heal it, we were kindred spirits in the night. All night. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
It is Friday. I drive up to Sedona. I look for sex. I find it.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Mother calls. Her first words are “That lazy, good-for-nothing bitch princess!” No hello, how are you, what did you do today. Her oldest sister, Eleanor, is the lazy, good-for-nothing bitch princess. “You won’t believe what’s she’s done now.”

“Hi, Mother, how are you?” I always try to slow her down when she’s ranting, usually without success. 

“She’s moved into the lake compound. She’s not paying rent!”

“So?” My grandparents own five houses at Lake George. They only use them for a few weeks each summer. 

“Why should she get to stay there rent-free, just because she’s blown her inheritance and refuses to work?”

“You don’t work.”

“I haven’t blown my inheritance. I invested it. Wisely, little missy. She’s also borrowed more money from Daddy. She still hasn’t paid back her last loan. Nor the one before that.”

“What does it matter? There’s plenty of money.” 

“She’s always been Daddy’s favorite. Always. He fried her eggs every morning when we were kids. He didn’t do that for me.”

“You hate eggs,” I say. 

“He can’t say no. He needs to stop giving her money. That’s our money! Mine!”

“Isn’t it Nannygoat and Pap’s money? By the way, I’m fine, Mother. Thanks for asking.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, precious. How are you, my little vintage child? How’s school? How’s work? When are you coming home? I miss you. Without you, there’s no one to confide in. Oh, I must tell you about Joe. He loves to plate. We’ve gone through two boxes of whip-its in the last two weeks.”

I breathe. Deep. It’s always about my mother.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Buster was the first man I fucked. His band played the Junior League Christmas party the year I turned thirteen. My mother kept saying to me, those few times she left the dance floor, “They are nasty. Nasty.”

I watched my mother dance. We all did. She was 39, and she could have had any man in the room, she with her white shoulders shimmering like pearls above her strapless crimson velvet sheath. 

I noticed Buster look from me to my mother, time and again. He probably thought I was her younger, shy sister.

Kamela had already left. She hated my mother. Especially my mother’s ability to claim the limelight.

My mother glided by the table. “Nasty!” She winked at me.

“It’s a mean old world,” Buster sang.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Today, I am working with Merle, the only co-worker I like. She is sixty-three, and works full time because her worthless husband died of a heart attack, leaving her with no life insurance policy, $1,610 in the bank, a trailer parked at Shady Acres, which, thank God, she owns outright, and a $223 bar tab. She rarely even badmouths the son-of-a-bitch. She always looks at the bright side.

“At least he didn’t leave any credit card debt,” she says.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Kamela (perfect, Daddy’s favorite) and her friends are at the Spanish Flower. I am with them, and we have been drinking Jack in the car. It is four a.m. and the clubs are closed. I see Buster. He looks older in the harsh light of the Spanish Flower. He’s forty, if he’s a day. I wonder if the light makes me look older. Most people think I am least eighteen. Sometimes I don’t even have to use my fake ID when I get drinks. I want to feel Buster’s hands on me like a bunch of flowers. I wonder if he will come over. I could tell he found me attractive at the ball. I hear Nannygoat’s voice say gentlemen don’t speak to ladies first. I go over and say hi. I feel awkward. He invites me to sit down. He’s with his band and some women in leopard skin and Pleather with enough makeup on to stock the entire makeup department at Neiman Marcus. They look like groupies.

He says he’s playing at a festival on the bayou next Saturday. His set is at one p.m. Why don’t I come?

“Why?” I ask.

“Lunch,” he says.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I am waiting for Pap at the bank. I didn’t feel like going inside with him today. I am writing in my diary. Nannygoat gave it to me last month for my tenth birthday. I carry it everywhere. I am a writer. Pap is taking forever — he always says hi to everyone. It is over a hundred today, and my thighs stick to the seats. I wish he would hurry. When I turn around to look out the back window to see if he is coming, I drop my pen behind the seat. I reach down to get it and feel a magazine rolled up. I pull it out. It’s a porn magazine. Porn! In Pap’s truck! Nannygoat always steers me away from these at the newsstand. What is it doing in Pap’s truck? Otie, Pap’s helper, must have left it here. I have never seen anything like this. Women and men are having sex in trees! In trees! Is that possible? I thought it was done in beds or cars or sometimes elevators. (Mother had done it in an elevator.) I am shocked. Excited. I keep one eye on the window. I know Pap will be very upset if he finds me with this filth, as Nannygoat calls magazines like this. In trees. I never imagined. Isn’t the bark scratchy? 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I hate plating. Food is food. Sex is sex.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
We go back to Buster’s duplex after lunch. There are niceties. Beer. Conversation. I answer but am barely present. I am already in the bedroom. Between the sheets. There are no trees in Buster’s apartment. Buster doesn’t know this will be my first time. I have heard enough from Kamela to know that I may bleed, and he may find out. I masturbated with a twig last night (the bark is scratchy!) and tried to break my hymen. I don’t think it worked, because I didn’t bleed.

There is kissing. More kissing. Then the bedroom. At last. I am so excited I can hardly stand up. Every pore of my body feels like it’s being punctured. I feel like I’m wearing a prickly pear leotard.

Buster undresses me, ever so gently tongues each nipple. I am underwhelmed. This doesn’t feel nearly as good as I had imagined, as Mother has said it would. Then he licks my vagina. This is more like it. This feels like something magazines are made of. Yes. Yes. Oh, shit. My body feels like it’s made of twine and is fixing to break apart. 

Buster. Is. A. Master.

He puts his penis inside me. He shoves. Fast. Faster. Hard. Harder. I scream. Loud. Louder. Buster must think I like this because he keeps going. I scream and scream. I think about the neighbors. Will they hear me over Junior Wells? Shit. Will the police come? Will my parents find out? Will my mother really be so pleased I have a lover? Oh damn this hurts. Will he ever stop? I try to push him away but he apparently thinks this is part of the game. I try to speak but cannot make my voice come out in coherent words. Only screams.

“You like it rough, huh?” he gasps as he ruts.

This is not what I expected. This is not what I expected at all. I am being gouged. I can see why the twig didn’t work. Damn shit piss fuck. 

I look at the clock on his nightstand. I count the seconds. One two three. Surely he will stop soon. Four five six. How long can this go on? I am dying. I am dying in a strange man’s bed. Will it make the newspaper? Nine ten eleven. When Grampy died, it made Page One. He was ninety-two. In his sleep. Shit. Fifty-three seconds later, he falls on me, heavy, deflated. He rolls off, reaches for his Marlboro Lights. 

Buster can’t find his lighter and goes to look for it. I pull the sheet over my head. I want to sink into the bed like water.

When he comes back, he pulls the sheet aside, leans down to kiss my belly. 

“Sheee-itt. Blood! A virgin? Shit. Man, you shoulda told me.”

Men are so stupid sometimes.

“Would you have fucked me if I had?”

“Hell, no. You’re probably jailbait, anyway.”

“Yeah, well.”

He takes a long drag off his Marlboro. I watch the smoke ring float to the ceiling, then lean over for the Lone Star on the nightstand.

“Well, I am one grateful bastard. Thank you, Little Willie Slow-Hand.”

“Huh?” I probably sound dumb, but haven’t a clue who Little Willie Slow-Hand is and what he has to do with losing my virginity. There was certainly nothing slow about Buster’s penis.

“Willie was the bass player in my first band. He taught me ya got ta lick ‘em before ya stick ‘em. That part was good. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” He blows another smoke ring. “I don’t want you scarred for life. The rest’ll be better next time. I’ll make sure. I got my tricks.”

“Next time?”

“Next Saturday?”

I swallow the last of the Lone Star, watch Buster blow another smoke ring.

“Was Little Willie Slow-Hand his real name?” I had to ask.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I went back Saturday. Buster proved to be a master. I know my mother would agree.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I am working with Brie today. She and the boy have purchased a house, with the help of the moms and the dads.

“It’s so cute.” She makes cute two syllables.

“We picked out paint last night.” She reaches into her pocket, hands me a chip. 

“The third one down,” she says.

A pale yellow. The name is perfect. Cornerstone. Just the kind of color an oh-honey-you’re-so-big-you-make-me-feel-so-good kind of girl would pick out. The kind of girl who believes in ring-on-my-finger-happily-ever-after. The kind of girl who decorates her paint chips with big red ink hearts. Stable. Solid. Totally deluded. 

“You go, girl,” I say. She doesn’t catch my sarcasm.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
“Well, I have known you since you were a small boy,” Carly croons.
The top is down and I am speeding along U.S. 60. I have a bottle of Veuve-Clicquot (hyphenated) in the ice chest and a Dixie cup and I am happy. The wind is Sea Breeze for my soul.

“Still have the heart of a small boy, when you lend it out far too much . . .”

It is Saturday night, there’s a case of Veuve-Clicquot in the trunk, and a packet of Wet Ones and a six-pack of Naturallamb Kling-Tites in my purse, my mother is twelve hundred miles away, and I don’t have to be back at work until Monday.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls on Wednesday. I do not pick up.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls on Thursday. I do not pick up.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls on Saturday. I do not pick up.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls on Monday. I pick up. He’s in Phoenix on business. Why don’t I come down?

I’ll see, I say.

Call me on my cell, he says. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
How do you hold a bunch of flowers? I pick up three bunches of peonies at Safeway to see if I can figure it out. When I get home and take off the cellophane cuffs, I hold them several different ways. Close to the flower. Not right. I am choking them. I try the middle of the stems. Impersonal. I grip near the ends. They seem free. Too free. Lax. Unstable.

Hold me in your hands like a bunch of flowers.

The stems hurt my hand.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls again on Tuesday. I don’t answer. Please call, he says. Please come.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I go to an AA meeting on Wednesday. Just in case Mother asks if I’ve been when she calls. I don’t speak.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls on Thursday. I pick up. 

“Are you coming?” he asks.

“Does the bed have posts?”

“You can handcuff me,” he says.

“We’ll see,” I say.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls on Friday. I pick up.

“Did you shave your chest?” I ask.

“Done.”
“Get an extra room for me?”

“Yes.”

I hang up. He’s too sure of me.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls Saturday morning before I leave for work. I am not going to pick up until he says “If it’s easier, I can drive up.” 

I grab the phone.

“No. If I see you, I want a real date.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. I just don’t want him in my house. 

“I thought you were above dating.”

“I’ll call you when I get off.”

I hang up. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I don’t know why I am waffling. Luis has been my lover since I was 15. I want to go. I don’t. I want to. I don’t. I know I’ll go in the end.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis opens the door on the first knock. He shoots right through me. Through every fucking pore. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
We disagree over where to go for dinner. I want to go to Roaring Fork, but Luis knows the owner and fears being recognized with the daughter of a friend.

“I am the daughter of a friend,” I say. 

“But I don’t look at you that way.”
“It’s been years since he worked in Houston. He won’t remember me.”

He wants to go to Mary Elaine’s, but I don’t want to dress up, and it seems too hoity-toity, anyway. Mother and I go there when she visits. We compromise and go to a Mexican restaurant south of town. It’s perfect. The dialectic is real. It exists. May God bless you, Hegel. (It was Hegel? Mother is the philosophy whiz. But I’m almost certain it was one of the H guys.)

I am good and do not order a margarita with dinner. But when Luis is eating his flan, I wave down the waiter and order one.

“Rehab?” Luis asks. “Money down the drain?”

“Rehab,” I say, “is never money down the drain. I was sober two months, and look at all I learned.”

“Thirty thousand dollars for two months of sobriety? And what did you learn? Exactly?”

“That rehab is never wasted money, that I should always look on the bright side, and that I’m too young to know if I’m an addict.”

“They said that at rehab?”

“Not exactly. Anyway, they just sent me there because they like the drama. Gives them something to talk about at cocktail parties. You know, our problem child.”

“And the two wrecked cars?” Luis asks. 

“Stone-cold sober people wreck cars. By the way, Pops, I’m having another one.”

We go dancing at some club on the top floor of an office building. Luis and I have not danced in public since the benefit, when we both knew fucking was inevitable. They are playing crummy music, new shit. I hate it. 

I drag Luis into the stairwell. 

“You know these doors lock automatically. We’ll have to walk all the way down. Thirty flights. We can’t get out until we’re back on the first floor.”

“You’re in good shape,” I say. I sit down on the stairs and brace one Virgin of Guadalupe cowboy boot on the metal banister and the other on the concrete wall. “I drove ninety-eight miles. Deliver.”

Nobody delivers better, to paraphrase one of Carly’s weaker songs. Shit. I wish someone would.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
We stop for drinks at the Biltmore bar on our way back to the room. I have two martinis. I am so drunk when we get back to Luis’s room that we fuck straight. In the bed. No restraints. No toys. I even let him kiss me. As I fade into sleep, I am vaguely aware of Boz Scaggs singing You Don’t Know What Love Is.

Thank God.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Sunday, we eat French toast in bed and read the Times. 

Luis asks when I am going back to Randolph Macon.

“Never.”

“Will your mother allow that?”

“I have some money, you know. And UH has a decent creative writing program.”

“It’s harder for us to see each other if you’re in Houston.”

“We could come out of the closet. Although the illicit nature of our affair no doubt hikes the excitement.”

“Why don’t you go to Stanford? Or Johns Hopkins? They both have good programs, don't they?”

“I don’t have that much money.”

“I’ll pay.”

“I’d be your kept woman? Oooohhhh. Be still my heart,” I say sarcastically as I peruse the ethics column. “Would I have to be faithful?”

“Just don’t tell me about any indiscretions.”

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I call in sick Monday. We do not leave the room. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I ask Luis to handcuff me Monday night. When he enters me, my body turns into a wire cable that stretches all the way to infinity. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I wake up Tuesday, depressed. It is four a.m. I realize I have not even opened the door of the room Luis got for me. Those spirits in the night. You don’t know what they can do to you. Shit. I have to get out. Immediately. Without waking Luis. I grab my skirt, undies, Virgin of Guadalupe boots, the first shirt I see and my handbag. I don’t even dress until I’m outside the door. Everything is replaceable. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Luis calls Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I do not pick up. I know he has to be in D.C. Wednesday through at least Monday. By then, I’ll be out of town. He’ll leave me alone after a week or so, anyway. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Friday, when I deposit my humility paycheck, I get a cashier’s check for ten thousand dollar and send it to Merle. I enclose a letter saying it’s from the Slaves to Love Foundation, and that our goal is to help make the lives of working widows more pleasant. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
It’s Sunday afternoon, late, and I am driving from Springerville to Clifton when I get stuck behind a truck pulling a trailer filled with carnival swans. I am annoyed — the driver is riding his brakes down the mountain. But the swans are so gaily painted, I have to smile — the females have apricot polka-dotted dresses and huge periwinkle bonnets. The males have aqua jackets and red top hats. As I pull out to pass, one female takes flight. She bullets in front of me. I screech to a stop, just as something black lands on the seat next to me. I pick it up. A beak. I wait for the truck to stop. It doesn’t. I start driving again, blowing my horn. The truck finally pulls into the parking lot of the Golden Shutters Motel. 

An older man gets out, walks back to meet me. 

“You lost a bird back there,” I say. 

He rubs his chin. His wedding band glimmers in the sun. He’s very handsome, teak of skin and hair, with eyes the color of oxypetalum. 

“I can go back and help you find it, if you like.”

“That’s awful sweet,” he says finally, still rubbing his chin. “But I can’t go back.”

“Why?”

“I can’t go back. But I’ll buy you dinner for being so nice. The enchiladas are good here.”

“Sure,” I say. I never dreamed I’d get lucky so early. 

He tells me he works for a carnival, and he’s on his way home. Hasn’t been there in a month, and he misses his wife when he’s on the road. Can’t wait to see her. I flirt madly. I tell him I’ve been driving since nine. I’m tired. I think I’ll get a room. He’s welcome to share it. He says no, hasn’t slept with another since he got engaged twenty-one years ago. Doesn’t intend to start now. Doesn’t mean to offend me if that wasn’t what I had in mind, mind you. I’m stunned. I can’t even think of anything to say. He pulls out his billfold and flips to a picture. “Here she is, a real beauty.” She doesn’t look like anything special, just your average middle-aged Revlon redhead who’s had a couple of Twinkies too many. He finishes up, insists on getting the check, “seeing as how you’re so nice, and I appreciate that.”

“I thank you kindly,” he says from the door. “Drive safe, hear?”

I have another cup of coffee. I’m still in shock. A faithful man. Is this possible? Maybe he just doesn’t like blondes.

I think of my mother. Luis. Randolph Macon. I won’t go back.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Back in the T-Bird, I fill a paper cup with champagne, slip Carly into the CD (We can never know about the days to come), fluff my curls, glaze my lips with Butterfield 8. Then I see the swan’s beak on the seat beside me. I finger it. It’s rough, dented, and the edge where it separated from the body shows naked balsa wood. I open the glove compartment, slide it under my old ratty copy of Play It as It Lays and the Kling-Tites.

I turn south, heading for Clifton. But as Carly sings The river doesn’t seem to stop here anymore, I U-turn. The rest of the swan is back there somewhere, beakless and battered. I’ve got to find her.

One Hep Kitty

2009-11-23T17:54:00.000-08:00

 
She swings. The bills are piling up the bills are piling up the creditors are calling but she can't stop swinging. This club. That club. She doesn't have to pay. She cannot pay. She has no money no money no money none. None. Work? She works. She works. She does. Hear me. She does. Day job. Night job. The money doesn't go far enough. It stops here. There. There. Here. Never far enough. Never. 

She prays. Always. Here. There. In the pantry on her knees. Door shut. On the treadmill in her sneakers in her sweats one foot in front of the other. In the car at the red light at the stop sign at the green light impatient drivers honk behind her. Loud. Rude. Insistent. Go. Go. Get on with it.

She prays. For forgiveness. For her mother. For her father. For her husband. For the phone calls to stop please stop please please please stop. She prays for money more money enough money enough money money money to pay the medical bills the house note the water bill the light bill this bill that bill all the bills please. She puts them on the altar. Take the bills. Pay the bills. Take the bills. Please.

She accuses. Herself. She lambastes. Herself. She hates. Herself. Her worrying hand-wringing penny-pinching money-spending brow-beating bad-choice-making self. 

She berates. Herself. Why this why that why here why now. Why now? She's nice. Now. She's not that girl. Now. She's someone else. Now. She's a woman. Now. Isn't she? A beneficent woman. A faithful woman. An honest woman. Now. She is!

She doubts. Herself. Her choices. Her husband. God. Sometimes God. Sometimes.

She rhymes. When she's fretting, she cannot stop. I want my bank account to be in the black. If it's not there soon, then I will have to pack. Are there enough groceries in the sack? No, there aren't, there aren't, will I always lack? Sam I Am, Sam I Am, get back, get back! Stop! she cries. Stop, but she cannot, she is on the rack. 

No.

Stop.

Enough.

She prays. She does. Bulldozes over her sporadic doubts. Please God please God please God please. Show me what I'm doing wrong I must be doing something wrong this must be all my fault it must be. It must be. Show me tell me make me understand. So I can fix it. I can fix it? Please. Are you there? You must be there. Show me. Show me. Eradicate my lingering doubts.

She wonders. She ponders. Is this karma? Bad karma coming back like a boomerang like a guest she can't get rid of like the scarf she gave to Mary who gave it to Tonya who gave it to Lucia who gave it to Elena who gave it back to her? She must have done something to deserve this. Something. Something bad. Really bad. Extremely bad. Horrid. 

She gives thanks. Because. Because there are good things. Great things. Grand things. Some things she is thankful for grateful for appreciates like coffee like M&Ms like blue skies like butterflies like health like the sunset like the wind. Like her lover. 

It will get better. It must get better. It must.

She swings. As the bills pile up. As the doorbell dings. As the stoplight blinks. As the drivers shout. As the telephone rings. As the fat lady sings. She swings. This club. That club. She cannot pay. She does not pay. She is in her bed. She is in her head.

She Says

2009-11-21T10:17:00.001-08:00

  She said: Never date a guy who wears steel-toed cowboy boots. I was sitting in the last desk, east side, city desk; she was sitting, last desk, east side, copydesk. Maybe 20 feet away. Maybe. She was talking about me. I hated her. Hated her. She was talking about me. Bitch. 
She loves a skinny artist. But she wouldn't say that. She'd say: crush. I have a crush on him. He's the bee's knees, she'd say. I percolate when he's around. She'd say.
She says lots of things. I say this: She's a cunt. 
She was laughing into the phone. A girlish laugh. Ridiculous on a 34-year-old. But she doesn't look it. She looks 27. Perpetually 27. People tell her all the time: You don't look 34. This is how 34 looks on me, she says. She got that from Doris Day. Read it in a book. Someone once told Doris Day, you don't look whatever age. Doris replied: This is how whatever age looks on me. Or so she told me one night.
"No, I'm serious. Don't date a guy who wears steel-toed cowboy boots. Ever." She laughs. She is so self-centered it probably hasn't entered her head that I can hear her.
"Oh, sure, he's good-looking. I'll give him that. Yeah, he has good taste in music. But those boots should've been a tip-off to the lunacy lurking within. It's not like he's Dwight Yoakam. He's a reporter, for goodness sake."
More laughter. Shit. I hate her laugh. She looks gorgeous today. Like a milkmaid from hell. She's wearing a flowing chambray skirt, cowboy boots, an off-the-shoulder blouse made from feedsacks. Her grandmother made it for her when she was 17. Or so she told me. 
"No, I am telling you. He is one sick kitty. He was waiting on my doorstep when I got home last night. Can you say sick?"
Shit. She doesn't have a clue. Not a clue. She doesn't realize anyone exists except those people in her tiny universe. Which is the size of a .22. Bitch. 
I was just trying to be nice. After all, we work in the same newsroom. Shit, I've got to see her everyday. We should be civil.
"No, he didn't hurt me. He just wanted to bring me some roses and ask if we could be friends. How many times has he done that? How many times do I have to say no, no, no?"
Shit. Like she doesn't like the roses. Bitch.
"No, silly. Grocery store roses. And raggedy looking at that."
Doesn't she have any work to do? It's after deadline. She's just waiting for the paper to come off the presses, then she'll be out of here quicker than you can say Jack Sprat. It's a newsroom joke how fast she flies out of here every night after she checks the paper. Those guys on the copydesk hate her. She talks on the phone too much. She's always late. Never on time. She's shown up hung over. She's shown up tight. She's shown up coming down from L when her pupils were big as basketballs. Those nerds wouldn't know that. But I could tell.

* * *

His hand is on her thigh. His wife is sitting right across the table. They are bold. This is not the one she has a crush on. This is another one. I know them all. This one's name is Jack. She likes men with one-syllable names that end in a K. She told me. 
I can tell she wants to fuck him. But she wouldn't say that. She'd say: I yearn for him. She'd say: When he touches me, I feel my stomach plummet all the way to China. She talks like that.
I can see her press her knee against his. Nothing on her face gives this away. She does not miss a conversational beat. Her ex-boyfriend, Zachary – Zack – gives her a warning look. She winks at him across the table. Is he as disgusted by her behavior as I am? 

I have another beer, and wish I could hear what they are saying. She is wearing a black leather miniskirt, a black silk shirt, black suede boots scrunched down around her ankles. She is flirting brazenly with the married guy. That, I can tell. I can also tell by the look on his face he wants to fuck her. His wife is right across the table. Doesn't she see? His hand is still on her thigh. Her knee is still pressing against his. They disgust me.
I want to lick her thighs.

* * *

She has a huge picture of Marilyn Monroe in her living room. Not a poster. An original photograph by Milton H. Greene. Signed, numbered, matted. An ex-boyfriend gave it to her in college. Poor deluded sap. She is obsessed with Marilyn. Marilyn wanted to be a sex symbol and an intellectual. She says. I say: Look where it got her. 

* * *

I have a one-syllable name that ends in a K. At our let's-be-just-friends lunch, she said sometimes it doesn't work, the one-syllable-K thing.
"You have so many good qualities," she said, as she sipped her third sidecar. "You're loyal, you're giving, you're good-looking, you're smart."
But.
"You'll find someone else, someone who really appreciates you," she said, as she tucked her buttercup hair behind her eggshell ear. "A chick who really clicks."
But.
It won't be her.


* * *

She is on the phone. Again. It is after deadline. Again. She checks her stoplight red lipstick, finger-combs her short, buttercup bangs, laughs her schoolgirl laugh.
"My horoscope said today is my lucky day. And I ate some Little Debbies. My Puck-luck charm. Every time I do, we run into him."
Puck, the skinny artist she's hot for.
"You think so? Really?"
A copy messenger slaps a newspaper down on her desk. She unfolds it, looks at page one.
"I don't know. Maybe." She shifts the phone to her other shoulder, continues perusing the paper. "You really think he likes me?"
Likes her? Sometimes, she is such a third-grader.
"I think he's delighted that I have a crush on him, but I don't think he reciprocates." 
Crush. She is 34-fucking-years old, and she uses the word crush. Grow up. Bitch.
"No, I'll meet you at La Carafe instead. I need a glass of wine before we go to the party. You know I'm too shy to walk into a party stone cold sober."
The scanner crackles, honks. Damn it. A homicide. In a rich milk-white neighborhood. Shit. That means I'll have to go check it out. I'll have to drive all over town looking for her later to see what she's up to.

* * *

After deadline. On the phone. Yapping. As usual.
"No. No. I didn't sleep with him. Well, I slept with him, but no sex." She reaches under the desk for her purse.
"You know I don't have round heels. I never do it with anyone on the first date - or pick-up, in this case."
She pulls out her red mesh makeup bag. Takes out her compact. Starts the routine. Powder. Lipstick. Bangs. 
"He held me all night, though. It was almost unbearable. I couldn't sleep."
Bitch. What is she doing spending all night with someone she barely knows. That's why I couldn't find her last night. Who? Where? She should be at home. She's 34-fucking-years old. She needs her beauty sleep.
"No, silly. That's not the reason. He has a space heater, and it was so hot, sweat was rushing down my skin like floodwater."
The way she talks.
Damn it. Who was she with?
"No, he didn't ask me out again. But he held me so tight all night, I couldn't move. That means something, don't you think?"
It means you wouldn't put out, bitch, and he wanted to impress you with his sensitive-guy act.
"But when we got up this morning, he seemed diffident, distant, eager to get me out of his house. He confuses me. I don't know . . . am I wasting my time?"
She powders her nose again. Peers at herself over her black metal harlequins, purses her perfect stoplight red lips at her reflection in the tiny mirror, clicks her compact shut, leans back in her chair. 
"I love Puck's smile. When he smiles at me, I rise like a soufflé."
Puck. The skinny artist. The stupid skinny artist. So that's where she was. Shit. With him? Damn it to hell. I had him pegged for gay.

* * *

She is always quoting people. One of her favorite quotes is from Paul Newman. She said he explains his fidelity to Joanne Woodward like this: "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?" I say: How can you fuck that married guy if you feel that way? She says: He has hamburger at home. He has to go out for steak.

* * *

I am sitting in my living room, surrounded by sleek furniture I chose for her. The Edward Wormley couch. The Isamu Noguchi table. The French geometric rug. She has never seen it. 
She showed up at my house one night, last year, late, around 3. Very drunk. Crying. A mess. I dried her tears. I put her to bed. She passed out. I fucked her. She came to for a moment, responded, called me Puck, passed out again. But I was inside her. For the first time. The only time. 
The next morning, I brought her breakfast in bed: mimosas made with fresh orange juice, an omelet, toast, fancy French jam that an old girlfriend had left. I watched her as she chewed each bite with delicate precision. 
"Mmmmmmm. You're a good cook," she said. Then she laughed her schoolgirl laugh, shook her buttercup head. "But where did you get this furniture? From a bus station?"
I looked around. I had never noticed it before. It was furniture, to sit on, to sleep in, to perform a purpose, provide comfort, hand-me-downs from my mother, aunts, uncles. Faded chintzes. Nubby plaids. 
"I dreamed I had sex last night," she said, "with this artist with an amazing smile that I saw in a magazine."
I said, "It was just a dream."

* * *

When I was inside her, I understood cliches. Completely. I exploded inside her like a million Roman candles going off at once. Over and over. One of my old journalism professors would say fireworks, sex, that's a cliche, don't use it. But I say this: Phrases become cliches for a reason, because they are true.

* * *

On the phone. After deadline. Yapping.
"He hasn't called. It's been three days." 
Why is she fretting over this guy? He doesn't deserve her. He doesn't even have a real job. He makes his living off of grants.
"I don't know what to do. I so want to see him."
Why? He's just a skinny artist. His art sucks. I mean, cowboys boots in concrete? Shit.
"Let's meet at La Carafe after work. Sometimes, he goes there on Tuesdays."
She props her baby blue vintage cowboy boots on her desk.
"Not Lola's."
I can see up her leather miniskirt, glimpse her white cotton panties. So can every other male in the newsroom. I want to go over and put her feet firmly on the floor, conceal her legs underneath her desk. Sometimes she is so unladylike. Didn't her mother teach her manners?
"I hate Lola's. It's noisy and crowded, especially on Tuesdays."
The copy messenger slings a paper on her desk. She picks it up. Peruses page one.
"Oh, all right. Lola's. The drinks are just a buck on Tuesdays. And if we have Lizzie get them, that bartender that has a crush on her will make them superstrong. And Puck might be at Lola's. After all, everyone goes on Tuesday."
Lola's, too. It's loud. It's nuts-to-butts people. It'll be hard to track her there.

* * *

She is a poet. She sneers at journalism. She says it is filled with lazy yuppies scared to offend the power elite because then they might not get invited to the upper-crust parties. I say: We make good money. The work isn't bad. It's better than driving a dump truck. It's better than being an accountant.
She argues: Journalists are supposed to be smarter. We are supposed to know. That is not the case today. Look around you. Look at the city editor, she says. He did not know that elegy was a word. Look at the book editor, she says. He did not know that Sylvia Plath was married to Ted Hughes. How can you make it to 45 and not know the definition of elegy? How can you be a book editor and not know that Sylvia Plath stuck her head in an oven when she was married to Ted Hughes? Who we love defines us. What we know defines us. She says.
I say, she is full of shit.

* * *

I am outside Puck's house. She is inside. With him. Bitch. First, the Spanish Flower for food. Then here. She has been inside an hour and 38 minutes. The lights just went out. Cunt.

* * *

After deadline. On the phone. Yap, yap, yap as usual.
"I don't understand. It's been five days. No call. He was so warm, so cuddly, so tender when he kissed me goodbye. I don't understand. He took me to my car at Lola's, followed me home, walked me to the door, and kissed me before he left. Doesn't that mean anything?"
She sighs. Rests her chin on one scarlet-tipped hand. 
"I don't know if I want to go to Lola's or La Carafe. What's the point? We could just go to my house. I have two bottles of fume and some gin."
Yes, that's it. Forget this loser. Go home. I'll bring roses in the morning, not from the grocery store, from the best florist in town.
"No. If we run into him, and he smiles at me, I'll feel like the bubbles in a glass of champagne. Then if he doesn't call me, I'll feel as flat as a sheet of cellophane."
She reaches for her purse, pulls out her red mesh make-up bag, snaps open her hand-shaped compact.
"Oh, all right. Maybe you're right. Maybe he does like me."
A flick of her stoplight red lipstick, a fluff of her buttercup bangs, a moue in the mirror. She is ready to roll. 
No wonder those copydesk nerds hate her.
Bitch. 

* * *

I have one of her bracelets. She left it at my house that night. It's sleek. Expensive. Sterling. Signed and numbered. Elsa Peretti. Tiffany & Co. She thinks she lost it at La Carafe. The lush. She is so careless. 
I keep it on my bedside table. Sometimes I hook it around my johnson and masturbate. I think of her, with her buttercup hair and baby blue cowboy boots and shoulders as white as cocaine.

* * *

She is at a poetry slam. She looks luscious. Fragile. Sexy. She breathes: 


I am a temptress in a bottle


Clad in lipstick leather


Floating in Wild Turkey.


If you cross me, hide your husband.


I will clutch him to my bosom


I will allow him no closer


But you will never know.


Doubt will poison your marriage,


DDT in a goldfish bowl.


I am a temptress in a bottle.


A sidecar is my sceptre.


Held aloft in a black-gloved hand,


Wrist shackled in X's and O's.


You will knock on the door.


He will send you away with a             whisper.


He will hold me so tight


Sweat will not let me sleep.


I will feel imprisoned in his grasp.


I will not remove my pantyhose.


But you will never know.

Applause cloaks her. The women want to save her with their love and their friendship. The men want to save her with their lust and their dicks. Don't they know I am the one? My love, mine alone, will mend this wounded sparrow. 
She curtsies, sashays to a table where Zack and Jack sit. Zack hugs her. Jack envelops her, kisses her calla lily neck, cups her cantaloupe ass, whispers in her eggshell ear.
Bitch. Bastard.
His wife is nowhere in sight. 
He has gone out for steak.

* * *

Deadline. Phone. Yapping.
"I am in despair," she says.
She looks lovely tonight. She is wearing a hot pink suit that follows every curve from top to bottom: Big, little, bigger. Hot pink stilettos encase her tissue-white feet. This is business attire for her.
"I called him today. A mistake. We chatted a few minutes, I asked him if he'd like to go on a picnic. He asked me why I was chasing him. Can you say humiliating?"
She studies her scarlet-tipped fingers.

"No, don't. Don't make me feel better. Don't keep hope alive. He said we'll never be more than friends. Never. It's over. Over."
A copy messenger slaps a paper on her desk. She stares at it.
"All right. La Carafe. Just for drinks, though. Not for a possible Puck sighting."
She picks up the paper, eyes the headlines, lets the paper fall back onto her desk.
"I feel so humiliated, so ashamed. I ache. A calf being eaten alive by maggots."
Now she knows how I feel.

* * *

Tomorrow, I'll send her roses. Not from the grocery store. From the best florist in town. Lavender roses, her favorites. I'll spare no expense.
I'll ask her to lunch. Brennan's. She loves their strawberry shortcake. I'll order that pricey champagne she likes, the one with the orange label. What the fuck, I'll order two bottles.
She says, never date a guy who wears steel-toed cowboy boots. I say, they aren't steel-toed. They're silver-tipped. It's not the same. It might make all the difference. After all, my name is one syllable, and it ends in a K.