by Ann McMan
But T-Bomb wasn’t finished. “That mess just flew all over her. It shot outta his bum in a big ol’ stream and soaked her from stem to stern.” She looked at me. “I thought we were gonna have to douse you in tomato juice to get rid of that stench.”
Luanne was laughing so hard she had tears running down her face. I closed my eyes. There was no way this could get any worse.
“Is this seat taken?”
The low, sexy-sounding voice came from right beside my ear.
I was wrong. It could get worse . . . a lot worse. I opened my eyes and looked at El, wondering how much of T-Bomb’s story she’d overheard.
“Please tell me you didn’t hear any of that,” I pleaded.
“Of what? That sordid tale of animal torture?”
I sighed morosely. “Yeah. That would be the one.”
“Nope.” She gave me one of her cover girl smiles. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
T-Bomb leaned across the table toward El. “Well . . . it all started when Friday decided to watch these YouTube videos about—”
“She was kidding, T-Bomb,” I said. “She heard you the first time.” I gestured toward the rest of the hall. “I think everybody heard you.”
El laughed.
“Why don’t you pull up a chair and join us, honey?” Grammy asked El. “Jill? Quit sittin’ there lookin’ like you lost your last friend and get this girl a chair.”
I did as I was told, and made space for El between my seat and Luanne’s. Luanne watched this interaction with interest. She had that look on her face that meant she had nothing to say, but was about to say it anyway.
I was right.
“There’s one thing I can’t figure out,” she said, waving a half-eaten dinner roll at El.
“What’s that?” El asked.
“We seem to see you two agitators almost every place, but you don’t never say anything to us about signin’ on to your union crusade.” She shook her head. “How come? Ain’t we the types you’re tryin’ so hard to convert?”
El thought about that. “Of course you are, Luanne. But . . .” She looked around the table at each one of us. It felt like her gaze lingered on me a moment longer than the others, but that could have just been wishful thinking. “I don’t know . . . I don’t have many opportunities to make friends or feel like I truly belong anyplace. I guess, for a change, I wanted a chance to see what that felt like.”
Luanne didn’t seem to have any response to that.
“Of course,” El smiled and touched Luanne on the shoulder, “if you’d really like to hear my spiel, I’ve got about a dozen pamphlets and my iPad out in the car.”
“No thanks, honey.” Luanne held up a meaty hand. “I think I’d rather be an unenlightened friend than one of them wild-eyed converts.”
El laughed. “I think I’d rather keep you that way too.”
Luanne seemed satisfied with that response, which surprised me. She didn’t normally take to strangers so easily.
El gestured toward Luanne’s pile of raffle tickets.
“So what else are you all hoping to win?” She waved a hand toward the stage. “Personally, I’ve got my eye on that set of yard gnomes.”
Luanne nodded. “They are pretty unusual. You don’t much see the ones with guns.”
“That’s what I thought,” El agreed. “They make quite a statement.”
“I never had much use for that tacky stuff,” Luanne said. “But I guess some folks take all them amendments to heart.”
“Well if you ask, me, that’s carrying your right to bear arms a bit too far.” Grammy clucked her tongue in disapproval. “I don’t want to live in a fortress.”
“They ain’t packin’ real weapons, Grammy,” T-Bomb explained.
“Does anybody have any extra napkins?” I asked. I’d already used mine up trying to wipe the residual hot sauce from the chicken tenders off my fingers.
“Well, I’ve got my cap set for that swimmin’ pool.” Luanne shoved a stack of paper napkins toward me. “It’d be nice to sit and relax out beside that water on these god-awful hot nights.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” T-Bomb agreed. “And this looks like a nice one, what with that redwood deck and Coral Sea vinyl liner.”
Luanne nodded. “It’s one of them Esther Williams pools.”
I picked up another tender. But this time I held onto the edge of it with a napkin. El was giving me a curious look.
“They’re hot,” I explained.
“Why don’t you use your fork?” she asked.
“Because you don’t eat them that way.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize there was a chicken tender etiquette.”
I nodded. “It’s one of our unwritten codes of conduct. Kind of like the two-fingered wave you give everyone while driving.” I demonstrated the wave. “Or our monthly tornado siren tests. Or the fact that we eat potatoes at every meal—no exceptions.”
El looked down at my plate. “I don’t see any potatoes.”
“That’s because I’m a renegade who flaunts convention.”
“Oh, is that the reason?” She smiled. “I wondered.”
“She’s always been like that,” Grammy chimed in. “Our Jill has never taken the easy path.”
El seemed to consider that. “No, I don’t expect she has.”
“Yeah.” T-Bomb nudged El. “Especially when it comes to Fritz’s personal hygiene.”
I rolled my eyes. “Very funny. Don’t you have to go check on Donnie and the twins?”
“Hell, no.” She held up her cell phone. “He just texted me to say they were still at the Otters game.” She looked at El. “It’s Run the Bases night, and the kids are all out on the field going bonkers.”
“They’ll be fast asleep two minutes after he gets ’em in the car,” Luanne said.
“Yeah.” T-Bomb slapped her phone back down on the table and speared another hunk of fried catfish. “Then they’ll be up half the night barfin’ up hot dogs.” She glanced toward the next table where Betty Greubel was refilling some condiment bowls. “Hey! Betty!” She held up a nearly empty plastic bowl. “Can we get some more of that tartar sauce over here?”
Betty gave her the high sign and mouthed that she’d be right over.
Luanne studied El. “Where’s that partner of yours? Don’t you all usually work these events together?”
“You mean Tony?” El asked. Luanne nodded. El looked around the hall. “He’s here. The last time I saw him, he was hanging around over by the bar, talking with a bunch of retired vets. He was in the Marines. They’re probably swapping war stories.”
T-Bomb turned around on her seat and looked toward the bar. “You mean them old codgers back there holdin’ up the wall?”
El nodded.
T-Bomb started cackling, and El gave her a confused look.
“Honey, they ain’t swappin’ war stories,” Luanne said.
El looked back and forth between the two of them. Then she glanced at me.
“Do yourself a favor and don’t ask,” I cautioned.
“Anybody seen Ermaline?” Luanne asked in a singsong voice.
“Hell.” T-Bomb was still laughing. “I think everybody’s seen Ermaline.”
“All of Ermaline,” Luanne added. “If there was a god, they’d all go blind.”
Grammy shushed them. “There is a god, and he don’t much like this kind of behavior.”
“Well, I don’t imagine he much likes that kind of behavior, neither.” T-Bomb jerked a thumb toward the table where Ermaline sat, directly across from Tony and the group of vets.
“Ermaline can’t help that,” Grammy whispered. “She has a medical condition.”
“A medical condition?” Luanne repeated. “No disrespect, Grammy, but refusin’ to wear panties ain’t due to no medical condition I ever heard of.”
“What?” El looked at Luanne in bewilderment.
“She don’t wear no panties,” T-Bomb explained. “That’s why them men are planted over t
here like bean poles, all fixated on her.”
El looked at me.
“I told you not to ask,” I reminded her.
El shook her head. “I’ve missed a lot living on the road.”
“Yeah.” I nudged her arm. “Lucky you.”
She smiled. It made me feel warm all over. “Lucky me.”
Betty Greubel showed up at our table, carrying a gallon-sized vat of tartar sauce. She squeezed her way along behind our chairs to reach the empty bowl and stopped between El and Luanne.
“Hold that bowl up for me,” she said to Luanne. “It takes both of my hands to hold this dern thing. Them Turpin girls always fill ’em up way too full.”
Luanne started to reach for the bowl, but something caught her eye.
“There she goes!” she called out. “Show time!” We looked around startled.
“What are you yammerin’ about?” T-Bomb asked.
“Over there!” Luanne threw out her arm to point toward Ermaline’s table and hit Betty—knocking her completely off-balance.
Betty stumbled and danced to the side. She was putting all of her effort and concentration into keeping the vat of tartar sauce upright, and her fancy footwork reminded me of one of those competition gymnastic routines. And I had a premonition that she wasn’t going to be able to stick the landing.
At the last second, I pushed El forward, clearing a path for Betty to crash into me, instead. She did, too—with a vengeance. What felt like two quarts of tartar sauce sloshed up and out of the tureen, and liberally soaked the back of my head and neck. I could feel cool globs of it running down the inside of my shirt. I didn’t even bother trying to stand up. I wouldn’t have been able to, anyway, with Betty sprawled across my back. The rest of the container of sauce was congealing on the floor beneath our table like a lake of lumpy mayonnaise.
“Well, dang.” T-Bomb was never one to allow a conversational vacuum to linger. “Talk about your curb service.”
Luanne was trying not to laugh. “I guess you’ll have to use ketchup on your fish, now.”
El was on her feet and trying to help Betty stand up. “All you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she muttered. “I shoulda worn them crepe soled shoes— these fancy ones are just too slick on these linoleum floors.”
Grammy was out of her chair, too. “Let me walk you back to the kitchen, Betty. I’ll get a mop to clean up this mess.” She looked down at me. “You’re a sight, Jill. You better get on to the restroom and try to wash that mess outta your hair.” She looked at T-Bomb. “Do you have any other clothes in your car?”
T-Bomb nodded. “I got some of Donnie’s dress shirts in there. We had to have new buttons sewed on at the cleaner’s.”
“I’m awful sorry, Betty,” Luanne apologized. “I was just tryin’ to tell everybody that Ermaline was fixin’ to uncross her legs.”
Betty huffed and picked up her empty container. “That girl just needs to have her ears pinched back. It ain’t no call for nobody to be that way. She was raised better’n that.” She looked at Grammy. “Ain’t that true, Wilma?”
Grammy shook her head. “Judge not that ye be not judged.”
“Well,” Luanne drawled. “I got nothin’ to say about that, so I’ll just say this.” She looked at me and jerked a thumb toward the bathrooms. “You better get movin’ and get yourself cleaned up. There’s a heap of people in here with plates full of dry catfish, and they’re all lookin’ at you like you’re some kind of condiment Holy Grail.”
I sighed and stood up. “I’m on my way.”
“I’ll go with you,” El said.
I looked at her. She shrugged.
“Yeah,” T-Bomb added. “Let El DeBarge help you out.” She chuckled. “You two have experience in bathrooms.”
I wiped a blob of tartar sauce off my neck and flicked it at her.
Then El and I left the table and headed for the restrooms.
“Lean back some more.”
“I can’t lean back any more—not without becoming a quadriplegic.”
“Quit being such a baby. I can’t reach the back of your neck.”
“Maybe that’s because I’m two feet taller than you.”
“Very funny. Squat down or something. All I’m doing is getting water all over your butt.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
“Look, smartass. This would be a lot simpler if you’d just take your shirt off.”
“I am not taking my shirt off.”
“I don’t see why not. You’re going to have to take it off when T-Bomb brings you another one to wear.”
Taking my shirt off in front of her was non-negotiable. But I did find it interesting that this was the second time in our brief history that El had tried to coerce me into doing this.
“Just do the best you can, okay?”
More water sloshed across my shoulders and ran down into the waistband of my pants.
“Oh, this is ridiculous.” El’s exasperation was starting to show. “If you won’t take your shirt off, then at least prop your butt up here on the edge of the sink so I can reach better and keep some of the water off the floor. It’s not like you’ll get any wetter than you are already.”
I thought about that. It did make sense . . . kind of.
“Okay.” I perched up on the edge of the sink.
“This has to be the smallest damn sink on the planet,” El complained. “What were they thinking?”
“It’s a VFW post, El. I think providing quality fixtures for the women’s room was an afterthought.”
“Well, that certainly would explain this wallpaper.”
“Can you reach any better?”
I didn’t really care, because this new position was working great for me. El was plastered up against me with one arm wrapped around my chest. She was scooping water up with her left hand and using it to rinse tartar sauce off my back.
“It’s a little better,” she muttered. Her voice sounded like it was coming from someplace far away.
The water running down my back was ice cold, but I didn’t mind at all. The proximity to her felt luxurious—worth every one of the stares and hand claps I got walking across the hall with her to get here.
There was a nearly full-length, vanity mirror mounted on the back of the bathroom door, and I watched our reflection in it with fascination. We made a curious tableau: Maggie O’Connell meets Dana Scully, with an abundance of wet t-shirts and tartar sauce as props. Even though I had a starring role in this absurd drama, I had to admit that it was pretty hot. I could’ve sat there and stared at us all night.
“Do you want me to do your hair?” El asked.
My hair? I wanted her to do any part of me she could reach. My face, arms, legs, back, front, top, bottom—any of me. All of me.
I nodded.
“Was that a yes?” She straightened up and stood in front of me. That meant I couldn’t see us in the mirror anymore, but it only took a moment for me to realize that I didn’t really care. El at close range was a lot more mesmerizing than any fantasy reflection. She smelled like sweet, wild huckleberries—a sensory anomaly in the midst of a fish fry.
I was having a hard time finding my voice, so I just nodded again.
She bent closer. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
El’s eyes glowed in the cool blue-and-white light. Everything about her seemed vivid and alive. When I raised my hands to touch her, they were shining, too. We were like fireflies in a jar, moving toward each other in a small swath of moonlight.
El moved her hands through my matted hair. I pulled her closer and wound my legs around her waist. I wasn’t worried that she’d try to escape. I just wanted to feel every part of her. The sound of running water became one with the roar of blood surging inside me. Everything around me and within me was dissolving. I felt fluid. Formless. I needed to hold her. I needed to melt into her. I needed to know her as I now began to know myself. When at last I touched her as a lover, I knew that, finally, I had found my way
out of this land of lost content.
El seemed to know it, too. She was both limp and solid in my arms. Her head was tipped back, and her beautiful face was hot and radiant with light.
Her eyes popped open like the shutter on a camera lens. Her head snapped up. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She had a panicked expression on her face.
“What is it?” I panted.
She pushed at my shoulders. “Hot,” she gasped.
I tried to pull her closer again. “I know. I feel it, too.”
“No!” El tried to move out of my grasp. “Your fingers—they’re hot!”
Oh my god . . . the spicy chicken tenders.
“Jesus!” I yanked my hand away. “Oh, god . . . I’m so sorry.”
In my frenzy to free her, my watchband got caught on the zipper of her pants. I kept yanking on it until it broke loose. I could hear the clatter of tiny links and pins scuttling across the floor.
El was still gasping and breathing heavily—trying to recover from the duet of raging infernos. She dropped her head back to my shoulder. Then she laughed. Soon, I could feel her body shaking against mine. She was laughing so hard that it took a minute for us to hear the groaning sound beneath us. Then the sink lurched lower.
El and I looked at each other.
“Uh oh . . .” I began.
The sink ripped completely out of the wall, and El and I tumbled with it to the floor. We were a writhing heap of tangled arms and legs, slipping around on the wet floor as we tried to get unhitched and scramble to our feet. A geyser of cold water jetted out from the broken sink pipe, soaking everything in the room.
“What the hell?” El tried to fasten her pants. It wasn’t happening. Apparently, my watchband wasn’t the only casualty of my hasty retreat.
I was on my knees now. “Oh, my god . . . we broke the sink.”
“You think?” El gave up on her zipper and gestured wildly toward the fountain gushing behind us. “Turn off the damn water!”
I gave her a blank look.
“Really?” She stared back at me in abject disbelief.
She pushed past me and crawled through the ponding water until she reached the tiny cutoff valve located near the floorboard.
“I thought you grew up in the country?” she said, as she twisted the valve shut.