by Ana Good
Babe hesitated. The group leaned in, all ears. “Think about the possibility that you may often use sex as a substitute for communication. Maybe you use sex because it’s the only way you know to reach out. But maybe there are other ways to be intimate.”
“God, I don’t get that at all,” said Bunny.
Dylan raked hair from her eyes. “Is this, like, some sort of moral thing? Like, I mean, are you telling you us sex is bad? Because, if you are, I’m here to tell you I kinda like it, myself.”
“Ditto,” said Dirk.
Babe held up a hand. “Just think about it, girls. Think about the possibilities. Think about the idea that maybe there are other ways to be close besides sex. Try and imagine it. Try and practice it just for one day. That’s all I’m asking.”
27. Seven Sisters Fur Pie
Nan didn’t contribute to the discussion on sex and love. Not because she didn’t have an opinion on the topic. In fact, as of the last few days her heart was brimming with questions about both. She’d left message after message with Birge’s answering service. In return she’d received only silence.
She and Birge had been together since college. She’d never once doubted Birge’s fidelity. Oh sure, once or twice she’d seen the old gal’s eye wonder. Lesbians today were a hot lot. More sexually explosive than her and Birge’s generation of bang-ridden, guitar-playing, Girl Scout dykes. More than one young Wall Street thing had tried to latch on to Birge as a Sugarbush over the years. But Nan had always been there.
Or had she?
Hell, Birge couldn’t leave her now. She and Birge had history. Almost thirty years. To her knowledge they were a content couple, maybe not deliriously happy, but solidly content. They knew each other inside out. Birge had insisted on rehab for Nan; Nan was now willing to admit Birge had been dead on about the rehab thing.
That’s why Nan was trying to reach Birge: to let her know she was changing. That she was dedicated to this sobriety thing. Doing a fearless moral inventory had led Nan to see a lot of ways she’d made Birge’s life fairly miserable, especially this last year.
“Answer. Oh please answer,” Nan begged the cell phone she had stolen without permission from Babe’s desk.
After about a minute, a voice answered. But it wasn’t Birge. Someone much younger. Someone with a sleepy, sexy voice. A Lauren Bacall voice.
“Put Birge on,” demanded Nan.
Rustling in the background. Maybe covers. Then the sexy-voiced woman was back on the phone, speaking louder. “Who is this?”
“Who is this?” demanded Nan. “It’s after midnight. Who the fuck are you?”
“Don’t talk to me like that.” The woman no longer sounded sleepy, she sounded offended.
“Put Birge on.”
“I can’t. She’s not here.”
“This is her cell phone?”
“Yes, it is. I’m house sitting. I work for her service. She’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know. I can take a message, though. Wait. Let me find a pencil.”
More rustling. Then the woman again. “Okay, your name.”
But the line was dead. Nan had already hung up.
Nan fled down the stairs, barely stopping to pull on a jacket and her boots. The jacket wasn’t even hers; it was Betty’s, several sizes too large, made of native Peruvian wool, horridly itchy. The gloves were the same, wildly prickly. Nan yanked the keys to Babe’s Subaru Forester off the pegboard by the front door and ran into the night.
To hell with sobriety. She was an adult. A woman worth millions of dollars. If she damn well craved a gin and tonic nightcap every now and then, she deserved at least that much.
Fuck Birge Hathaway. If that woman was leaving her for some young Wall Street chippie, the least she could do was muster up the courage to say so.
Fuck Birge. Double fuck that old lady.
Nan could find a replacement for Birge easy enough. And by God it wouldn’t be another Catholic. She’d had it with sexually screwed-up Christian girls. This time she’d find a nice Jewish girl. A doctor. No, strike that: a surgeon. Manhattan was lousy with lesbian surgeons these days. They all came to her to invest their nest eggs. All she had to do was bat an eyelash. Cross her legs in a suggestive manner. A few cocktails later, she’d be eating Seven Sisters fur pie, big time.
28. End of the Road Bar and Grill
Nan jammed the key into the Subaru’s ignition. The auto roared to life despite the temperature, which the dashboard gauge reported as minus twenty degrees. Putting the car in gear, Nan slid down the driveway backward. Only one direction was plowed at the end of the driveway so Nan steered that way.
There had to be a town somewhere down the road. And every town had at least one bar. If not that, then an all-night Liquor Barn.
The noise from the spinning wheels of the Subaru alerted Wee Gee that something was up. She got up from her laptop, where she was struggling with the prologue to a torrid new novel, and ran to the window. She arrived in time to see the Subaru slide down the road, and to see Nan’s curly head at the wheel as she slid past the security light at the bottom of the driveway.
“Not good,” Wee Gee murmured. “Not good at all.”
Poppy, who’d been proofreading some of Wee Gee’s pages, ran to the window. “Nan?” she gasped.
“Afraid so. Our first escapee.”
“Nan? But she’s always seemed so quiet, so stable compared to the rest of us.”
“That,” said Wee Gee, “should have been our first clue.”
“What should we do?” asked Poppy, biting her lip.
“Follow the girl. She needs our help whether she’s sane enough to know it or not.”
Poppy had her coat on in a second. The two ran downstairs to the front door. Babe and Lily had apparently already gone to bed for the night. All lights were off.
“Grab those keys,” Poppy whispered. She was pointing to a set of keys on a rack near the front door. The keys were emblazoned with a Toyota insignia.
Wee Gee thought about taking her Caddie SUV, which was parked out back, but remembered that she’d given Babe the keys for safe keeping, just in case she felt compelled to make a midnight snack run.
Wee Gee took Poppy’s suggestion and grabbed the Toyota keys from the rack. At the far end of the driveway, close to the snowdrifted pole barn, sat Babe’s ancient, rusty Toyota Land Cruiser. “Thataway!” cried Wee Gee.
The Toyota choked and sputtered as Poppy twisted the key in the ignition. Both women cheered when the engine turned over. Poppy had to sit up in the seat to see over the dashboard. Wee Gee found a cardboard box in the back seat and stuck it under Poppy’s ass when she bounced up to shift gears.
“Thanks, mate. That helps,” said the music star.
Poppy, as it turned out, was an excellent stick-shift driver. The road was slick with a skiff of freshly fallen snow, but luckily so much snow had fallen that banks of it hugged the dirt road, making it impossible for them to slide off into the rocky ravines that lined each side of the road. It was like riding in a bobsled.
A feeling Poppy enjoyed tremendously.
Wee Gee less so.
They caught up with Nan the same time they reached the edge of what appeared to be nowhere. A simple crossroads. The only thing open this time of night was a bar, aptly named the End of the Road.
Nan was out of the Subaru and into the bar by the time Poppy and Wee Gee spotted her and veered in to park the Toyota.
The bar was dark when the women entered. A jukebox was blaring out a song about a redneck yacht club.
Nan was sitting at the bar next to the only person in the establishment, a man.
“Worse than I thought,” gasped Wee Gee. “Drinking and flirting with the enemy. Definitely time for an intervention.”
Wee Gee plopped down on the barstool next to Nan, who looked up, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Evenin’, ladies,” said the man as he tipped his green John Deere hat. “You girls like a
drink?”
While Poppy was thinking about that kind offer, Wee Gee offered a heartfelt, “No, thanks. We don’t drink. Terrible alcoholics.”
“Suit yourselves, ladies.” He grinned.
Nan already had a drink. A double gin and tonic with a twist of lime, Wee Gee thought, by the look of the frosted glass.
Wee Gee made a tsk-tsk sound.
Nan leaned toward Wee Gee. “Get lost, you old dyke! Leave me alone. I mean it!”
Wee Gee looked around Nan to the man. He was drinking Samuel Adams. “Excuse me, sir, but this woman belongs to me.”
Then man stopped mid-sip. “That so?”
“Afraid so.”
The man looked at Nan. “That right?”
“No,” Nan huffed. “I don’t know this woman.”
“Honey!” Wee Gee pleaded convincingly. “I want you back! Don’t make me grovel.” Wee Gee gave Nan an amazingly loud smack on the lips, sucking the partially formed words of rebuke right out of her.
The man lifted his ale. “Okay. Don’t want no fights here. I mean, if she’s your woman, you had her first. That queer stuff, it’s all good and legal up here in the great state of Vermont.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Wee Gee, who, rising, hoisted Nan, who was much smaller, off the barstool and toward the door. “Be quiet, you skinny little white girl!” she hissed in Nan’s ear, “or this time I’ll suck the life right out of you.”
Nan did not resist, mostly because she was stunned, but also because she’d never in her life been French kissed with so much force. She was certain one of her upper crowns had come loose.
As soon as they were outside, all seated in the Subaru, Wee Gee lit into Nan. “That was a foolish thing you just did, sister.”
“Don’t care.” Nan pouted.
“I think you do.”
“Well, you’d be wrong.”
Poppy broke in. “This is about your girl, isn’t it?”
Nan burst into tears.
Wee Gee held her. “Now, honey, it’ll be all right. Family gets to come at the end of the week. You’ll see your girl then.”
“I won’t!” wailed Nan. “She won’t even take my calls. She’s left me. I know it.”
“You know no such thing,” scolded Wee Gee. “She’s probably just taking a breather. Living with an alcoholic can be pretty crazy. Maybe she needed time to think. Get her head straight. Your getting sober would be a big change for her, for both of you.”
Nan dried her tears on the back of one of Betty’s horribly itchy mittens. “You think?”
“I know. Trust me, I’ve been through this sobriety thing a few times. Give your girl time. And stop jumping to conclusions. You don’t know what she’s thinking until she tells you.”
Nan sniffled. “I suppose not.”
“Damn right. Now let’s go home. Tuck you into bed before Babe charges us all with grand theft auto.”
Poppy jumped out of the Subaru and slid in the snow toward the Toyota. She wheeled it cautiously up beside the Subaru. As soon as Wee Gee gave Poppy an acknowledging wave, the two vehicles headed out of the parking lot back up the steep mountain road to rehab.
Safely belted into the passenger seat of the Subaru, Nan finished drying her tears as the blinking bar sign faded into the snowy distance. She really had wanted that drink. Badly. Somehow, over the years, she’d come to rely on alcohol to numb her feelings. Keep her sane.
“I am an alcoholic,” she mumbled to herself as the Subaru chugged up the hill.
And for the first time in her life she believed it.
29. Beyond Ecstasy
The next morning Babe slapped a new message on her white board. “It is forbidden to use my car.” Then, under that: “Especially in the middle of the night.” Under that: “Especially to go out and get drunk.”
“Hell!” said Dylan, delighted with the news. “Who had the balls to do that?”
“Doesn’t matter who did it,” barked Babe. “My car’s back, no worse for the wear. And for the record, the guy who runs the End of the Road bar and grill is a very dear friend of ours. We buy firewood from him. He was kind enough to call this morning and report an escapee sighting. He also told me no alcohol was consumed. So I’m letting this one ride, ladies. But trust me, if any of you ever do anything like that again, you will be given your walking papers. You want to drink, go right ahead. But don’t do it under my nose while you’re making me listen to you whine about the pain of getting sober.”
The room grew still. Babe let it stay that way for several moments before moving on to the next topic: family weekend. Babe explained that at the end of the week everyone was expected to invite their families to visit, to actually join the therapy group for the weekend.
A good many groans went up.
“Why?” asked Candice. “Why on earth would we want to do that?”
“Because it’s part of your treatment. You girls got messed up somewhere along the way. For most of you it started with your parents. Something went wrong that taught you the way to deal with life was to numb yourself with alcohol or drugs or sex or food. It’s important you face those familial demons.”
Candice raised her hand. “What if you have no family?”
“That condition doesn’t apply to you, Dr. Antwerp. The medical association provided contacts for your next of kin. Your parents have been invited. And for the record they are coming.”
Candice turned as white as Frosty the Snowman. “You can’t do that,” she croaked.
“Already did.” Babe was in no mood for an argument. She was still pissed about her stolen car. “Besides,” she continued, “I want to see how each of you functions around your loved ones. People can talk about their spouses and parents until the cows come in, but nothing paints a clearer picture than having everyone in the same room, yelling at each other.”
Nan raised her hand. “Have you contacted my partner, Birge Hathaway?”
“Yes, she’s coming. Also,” Babe continued, “each of you will be expected to admit the exact nature of the wrongs you have committed toward your loved ones in the throes of your addiction. Now, given the depth and severity of some of your addictions, this last step could well take the rest of eternity. Start working on your lists now. And try to keep it brief.”
Babe handed printed sheets to each woman and asked them to pair up to begin this new exercise. The sheet said: “List below the exact ways your addiction has harmed those you love. P.S. Feel free to ask for extra sheets.”
An hour later Dylan was pacing Bunny’s room, frantic. She kept running her hand through her hair and her hair kept flopping back into her eyes. “Shit — man, this is bad.”
Bunny, who was sitting on her bed painting her toenails lemon yellow, looked up at Dylan. “You’re actually sweating.”
Dylan slapped a hand to her neck. “Big deal.”
“Okay, so, like, what’s up with you? It’s just a silly exercise. No sweat.”
Dylan plopped down on the bed. “I don’t care about the exercise.”
“What?”
“Family weekend. Freaking family weekend.”
“Like you’ve never talked to your family before?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Dylan, who was reclining next to Bunny, slapped her hands across her cheeks. “You really don’t understand.”
“Ah, duh, not unless you explain it to me. What? Is your family Mormon? Republicans? A bunch of serial killers?”
“No.”
“Well, what?” yelled Bunny. “Just tell me.”
Dylan sat up. “I have a husband.”
“You’re joking?”
Dylan’s face tightened.
“Oh my God, you’re telling the truth. You? Ms. Dykey Dyke? A husband? How in hell did that happen?”
“Ecstasy,” Dylan groaned. “Last year. I tried this super-loaded stuff.”
“And you didn’t notice your new girlfriend had a dick?”
“I
was stoned.”
“I’d say so.”
“We were in Las Vegas. When I woke up there was this guy in bed with me and this marriage certificate.”
“Oh yucky-poo.” Bunny bent and blew on her toes. “You woke up in bed with a guy? Hey, that might be that bottoming-out thing Babe keeps harping about.”
“Ya think?”
Bunny grabbed the polish and began painting another coat on her toes. “What makes you think this guy will show up for family weekend?”
“Babe told me he’s coming. His name is on the court papers as my legal next of kin. My parents are dead. I had to list someone, or the judge wouldn’t grant me rehab instead of jail.”
“He was okay with that?”
“Yeah, turns out he’s in love with me.”
“Really?”
“What?” complained Dylan. “Is that so hard to imagine?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, it is. I mean, it’s not like you’re all soft and lovable. You’re kinda mean. Almost like a guy.”
Dylan looked hurt. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well, Roger thinks I’m sweet.”
“Well, Roger can’t be too smart. He’s in love with, like, the world’s biggest homo lezzy from hell. He knows you’re gay. Right?”
“That doesn’t matter to him. He’s an artist. He loves my soul.”
Bunny rolled her eyes.
“Don’t roll your eyes about my husband like that.”
“Fine,” sighed Bunny. “Let’s talk about something else, okay? We’re supposed to start that stupid list. Get yours.”
Dylan retrieved the crumpled list from her jeans jacket pocket.
“You write anything on your list yet?”
“No,” sniped Dylan. “I think it’s stupid. Taking drugs is my business. My business. It never hurt anyone.”
“What about Roger? You got messed up. You slept with him. And now he’s in love with you. That’s tragic, if you ask me.”