“She got a fish hook in her butt and now it’s . . . it’s not doing well.” Rafferty’s cheeks were bright red.
“How did she get a fish hook in her butt?”
“Fishing,” Rafferty replied.
Bel started to laugh and then Rafferty laughed as well.
“Is it infected?” Bel asked, lifting up Megan’s shirt with no compunction.
“I think so,” Rafferty said. Megan noted how she covered her tracks. They hadn’t gotten that far.
“I’ll say. You need to go to the doctor,” Bel said.
“I’m not going to the doctor,” Megan said adamantly.
“Why not?” Bel inquired.
“Because I’m sick of people laughing at me.”
“Oh, well, that might be an issue. I have an idea,” Bel said, whipping out her cell phone from her jacket pocket. She dialed a number. “Harold, I have an employee who just had a fish hook removed under less than sanitary conditions and now it’s all pus- filled and gross. She won’t go to the doctor. Are you free for dinner? Good, you can come look at her butt and settle the whole thing. Great.” She clicked off and said, “See, all fixed. I hope you girls didn’t have plans. I thought we’d have trout.”
“Who is Harold?” Megan asked.
“The guy who courts my mother but is really a fag who can’t get past his own homophobia,” Rafferty said snidely.
“Rafferty, that was unnecessary. Harold is a well-respected physician who has some identity issues.”
“Whatever. When is dinner?”
“Six sharp.” Bel headed to the door.
“We’ll be there,” Rafferty said.
Megan nodded and wondered if Rafferty was as wet as she was from their brief exchange. No one made her wet. She found this to be an interesting sensation.
“I’ll meet you at the house,” Megan said, pulling up her pants. “I’d better get back to work.”
“Yeah, me too,” Rafferty said.
Bel popped her head back in the door. “Rafferty, I’d like a word with you.”
“Sure.” Rafferty looked at Megan and rolled her eyes.
A short time later, Rafferty stood in Megan’s office holding a red rubber doughnut. Megan looked up from the legal brief she was working on. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a doughnut. Sam found it in his janitor’s storage closet. You sit on it and it’s supposed to relieve the pressure on your butt. I don’t know why we have one but I thought it might help.”
“Rafferty, that’s so sweet. Sam has the most amazing things in his storage closet. He doesn’t clean worth a damn but he does have a lot of equipment.”
“You can say that again. Here, try it.”
Megan stuffed it under her butt. “Oh, my, that does feel better. So what did your mom want with you?”
“Oh, it was nothing.”
“Rafferty . . .”
“She doesn’t want me dating you because I have a bad track record.”
“And what did you say?” Megan met Rafferty’s gaze.
“I told her she didn’t have anything to worry about because you’re straight.” Rafferty looked away.
“I see.”
“Well, I better get back to work. I’ll see you at the house.”
“Sure.”
Rafferty left and Megan leaned back in her chair. This was going to be more difficult than she thought.
Chapter Four
Gigi rolled over in bed. She sat up and wondered how she had gotten into bed when the last thing she remembered she had been napping on the living room floor after having beers with her father at the Hard Rock Café. She had to pee really bad so she crept to the bathroom. She didn’t want to wake Caroline, who liked to sleep in on the weekends. All the classes she taught, except for the one night class, were scheduled for early morning, so she had to get up at the crack of dawn every weekday. Gigi looked up and saw Caroline standing in the hall staring at her as she sat on the toilet.
“What?” Gigi asked.
“Are you all right?” Caroline asked.
“I’m fine. In fact, I feel great, except that I woke up really having to pee. Why?” Gigi asked, wondering if something had happened to her to which she was unaware. Life was suddenly becoming quite different.
“You’ve been asleep for two days.”
“I have? I slept the whole weekend? That kind of sucks. I must have been really tired. No wonder I’m starving. Let’s go have breakfast at the Good Egg,” Gigi said, getting off the toilet, washing her face and looking into her bright shiny eyes, pulling the lids down to check for something and deciding she was fit. She brushed her teeth and smiled at Caroline. “Don’t look so worried.”
“I was worried when I couldn’t wake you up, so I called Mallory and she and Del came over and Del checked you out and I’m really sorry but I didn’t know what to do,” Caroline blurted.
“That was nice of them. Did Del give me a colostomy?”
“No, why?”
“I just figured that since I was out it would have been a handy time to have it done and on my part well deserved. I’m sorry I worried you. Do you have time for breakfast?” Gigi asked sweetly, taking Caroline’s hand and gently kissing it.
“Did God recalibrate you while you were asleep?” Caroline asked.
Gigi laughed. “Perhaps. Did she come by?”
“Who?”
“God.”
Caroline frowned. “No, was she supposed to?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Gigi, have you gone off the deep end?”
“Only of the pool.”
“Literally,” Caroline replied.
“Do you want to go out for breakfast? We could sit out on the patio, catch some sun and talk like we used to do.”
Caroline stood silent.
“What?” Gigi said, shuffling toward the coffeemaker. If she wasn’t going to get breakfast at least some java would help.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Do you have work?” Gigi asked, cogitating on the fact that she wasn’t clear on what day it was exactly. “It’s Monday then, right?”
“Yes, it’s Monday.”
“Why aren’t you at work?” She glanced at the clock. It was only nine.
“We’re having in-session today.”
“Oh,” Gigi replied, having no clue what that meant. “So we could go to breakfast then. I don’t have to work until ten-thirty.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Do you have plans?” Gigi poured herself coffee.
“No.” Gigi watched as Caroline straightened the place mats on the kitchen table.
“What the fuck then?” Gigi replied, getting frustrated. She would never, even with divine intervention, understand women. They want you to want them and when you do they no longer want your attentions.
“We used to go there . . . when we were lovers.”
“So is the place tainted now?”
“Kind of tainted.” Caroline looked back at her.
“Are you going to elaborate or am I going to go hungry?”
“Why do you want to go there?” Caroline asked.
“Can’t we just go? I want breakfast and I’d like to spend time with you.”
“All right then.”
“I’ll never understand you,” Gigi said, suddenly getting all the insight she’d ever need to know about her ex-lover.
They took Caroline’s burgundy Jetta to the restaurant where Gigi ate voraciously and Caroline spent a lot of time staring at her. Caroline played with her food and the whole breakfast seemed rather tense. Gigi gave her a hug good-bye and then headed off to work, relieved to be out of the restaurant.
“Is it true?” Gigi asked her boss during a break that afternoon.
“That you will never truly understand each other?” Danielle asked.
“Yes.”
“You won’t necessarily understand each other but you will learn to tolerate each other in order to get through the
difficult times and moments. It’ll be trying and yet rewarding but you will never know each other’s minds even remotely.”
“This means life will be hell. Do I really want to go to this place?”
“Aren’t you living with her?”
“That doesn’t mean we’re involved,” Gigi replied indignantly.
“Let’s go outside and talk over a cigarette,” Danielle suggested.
“Can I bum one? I’m in the process of quitting,” Gigi said, taking the cigarette and running it under her nose as if it were a fine cigar. It smelled heavenly.
“You’re always in the process of quitting.”
“I can’t decide if I’m a smoker or not.”
“If you smoke then it would warrant that you are a smoker.”
“All right. I’m a closet smoker. Now can I have the lighter?” Gigi noticed the swarm of butterflies that had appeared out of nowhere. They landed on the window ledges and the park benches.
“What’s up with you and these butterflies?”
“What do you mean?”
“They only come around when you’re around.”
“Is this like the smoking thing?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know but I’m getting kind of used to them,” Gigi said, sticking out her finger and letting one come to light upon it. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she said, taking a hard look at the fragile white wings.
Danielle chuckled. “That is slightly out of character for you.”
“You mean noticing the universe?”
“Yes,” Danielle said, putting her cigarette out and then lighting another one.
“I suppose it is. Are you implying that I’m normally so self- centered that I can’t see beyond my own pie hole?”
“You said it, not me,” Danielle said, laughing. “That’s was one of the things I like about you. You are brutally honest and totally self-effacing. It’s a breath of fresh air.”
“I’m glad you like it. So tell me what real love is supposed to be like.” Gigi took a long drag off her cigarette. The beauty of periodic smoking was the giddy high it gave you. She was contemplating asking Danielle for another when she was handed another. She wondered sometimes if Danielle was not a mind reader.
“The thing to remember is that no matter how bad it gets, how much you rip each other apart, you’ll always go back to the good place,” Danielle sagely replied, seeming to relive some of those moments in her own life. “You know, with each passing decade of my life I’m learning to understand myself, and my philosophies are becoming more developed. It’s a pity that we have to get old before we really get a good handle on living well.”
“I seem to spend a lot of time in that ripped-apart place. What’s the good place like?” Gigi asked, uncertain that she had ever known this particular place in any of her relationships.
“It’s past lust and infatuation. You become friends, lovers and companions. You learn to understand each other, love each other beyond condition,” Danielle said, folding her hands together to illustrate her point.
“Does that mean you still have sex?”
“You are so crass. As a matter of fact we do. We make love a lot, contrary to people’s notions that long-term relationships always suffer lesbian bed death. I’m doing it more than you are at the moment.”
“I resent that.”
“The truth is often unkind.”
“Do you think I should stick it out with Caroline? I am emotionally challenged.” Gigi watched the cloud of white butterflies performing a synchronized flight pattern.
“How does she make you feel?”
“Part of me wants to jump her bones, part of me wants to be her best friend, and the rest thinks she should walk out because I don’t deserve her.”
“I think you stand a chance,” Danielle said, snuffing out her cigarette and opening the shop door for Gigi.
The rest of the afternoon was slow and Gigi spent most of it building small metal sculptures out of paperclips. Danielle got disgusted and let her go for the rest of the afternoon.
Gigi headed over to the flower shop on Central Avenue. She had spent the afternoon pondering what Danielle had said about relationships. Gigi had never been in a flower shop in her life and she felt distinctly out of place. It reminded her of going to the God’s Word shop with her mother to buy religious items after Gigi had spent the night before with her Aunt Lil wrecking religious shrines, her mother’s included. It must be how Satan felt in a church . . . uncomfortable and out of place. While she was involved in her mental machinations she nearly plowed down a woman who was aimlessly wandering through the maze of flower pots.
“Mallory!” Gigi said before she could stop herself. She instantly panicked. The flower shop was warm and kind of sticky. She began to sweat.
“Gigi, what are you doing here?” Mallory asked, obviously as upset as Gigi was with this surprise meeting.
“Buying flowers.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Mallory said.
Gigi watched as Mallory fingered the petals of a bunch of yellow roses.
“You have hair,” Mallory said. “I have never known you with hair.” She pointed to the mop that was currently riding on top of Gigi’s head. Gigi knew it was totally out of control.
“This is true. When I first met you I had just completed my first home job with my dad’s razor and you still talked to me.” Gigi could feel her eyes getting a little misty at the thought of those memories of Mallory. She missed her horribly and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t erase the long years of their friendship.
“I did and it was a very bad job. You had little patches everywhere.”
“I wanted a flattop and my mother wouldn’t let me so I took matters into my own hands. She took me to the barber after that.”
“Why the change?”
“Everything has changed, hasn’t it?” Gigi replied.
“It has. What does your mother have to say about your growing out your hair?”
“She’s still not speaking to me, you know, after the art show debacle.”
“I see,” Mallory said. Gigi watched as she leaned down and stuck her face in a batch of red roses. Mallory loved flowers. Gigi always thought they were sort of stupid.
“You’re better off now.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make up for the years of therapy and mental anguish.”
Gigi said shyly, “I like Dr. Kohlrabi.”
“You do?” Mallory replied.
“She’s the only person on the planet, aside from you, but you weren’t speaking to me either, who understands me.”
“And calls you on your bullshit.”
“Exactly,” Gigi said, taking no offense.
“Had any more of those spells?” Mallory walked down the aisle and surveyed the selection. Gigi followed her.
“No, I’m fine.”
“I miss you,” Mallory blurted.
“You shouldn’t,” Gigi said, feeling instant shame. She had never deserved Mallory.
“Are you getting Caroline flowers?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what kind,” Gigi said, looking around.
“Calla lilies are her favorite,” Mallory said, gesturing to a bucket of white tube-like lilies.
“What does Del like?” Gigi asked.
“Sunflowers.”
“I wish we could hang out,” Gigi said, selecting a half-dozen calla lilies and getting misty-eyed again.
“We can’t. We’re not in that same place anymore.”
“You could forgive me and there could be a new place.”
“Such as?”
“Racquetball on Thursday after my therapy appointment.”
“You play racquetball now?”
“Now and then. I kind of like it, you know, smashing the ball against the wall and trying to outmaneuver your partner,” Gigi replied, hoping God would not take offense if she expanded her field of play.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” Mallory said.
/>
“Try it once.”
“I’ll see.”
“The club on Central at six-thirty,” Gigi said. Mallory smiled. “You never give up.”
“You liked that about me once,” Gigi said.
God was sitting on the park bench waiting for Gigi when she came out of the flower shop cradling a bunch of calla lilies in her arms.
“I hope you’re not mad,” Gigi said, suspecting that God had been privy to her conversation with Mallory. Not being much of a Biblical scholar and remembering very little from her Catholic school upbringing, she was uncertain how much God saw and heard.
“Mad about what?” God asked calmly, rubbing the petal of a calla lily between her forefinger and thumb. “You know, flowers are one of my finest creations and I never cease to be amazed at their beauty.”
Gigi thought for a moment. On any given day God could be angry about a million different things, considering the current state of affairs—bombs, rapes, murders, corruption, graft, adultery, child abuse. The list was endless. Gigi decided she’d stick to her own trivial world. “About my playing racquetball with Mallory.”
“You can play racquetball with other people. It doesn’t violate one of the Ten Commandments. ‘Thou shall not play racquetball with anyone other than God.’ ” She chuckled. “In fact, I’m glad you’ve patched things up with Mallory.”
“I still love her,” Gigi said.
“And most likely you always will. Some things in this farcical universe do remain constant.”
“Like physical laws?”
“To a certain extent, but I was referring to emotions and their manifestations.”
“Why did you create love?” Gigi asked, suddenly curious.
“I didn’t. It’s actually a human construct and a very interesting one. I came up with primal urge and that was to ensure procreation. I think I may have overdone that one, given the current population.”
“I don’t believe it,” Gigi said, disgusted.
“Look, I may have hard-wired human beings but I had no idea what you were really capable of. Your emotions are something uniquely human. Love, from what I can figure, emanates from you and you’ve taught other creatures to love you in return.”
“Such as animals.”
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