BF4Ever

by George Matheos

  In gin, Myrna had found a different door to perception, of a reality more unfussy than the one she had led in her earlier life with her now ex-husband, and her now becoming ex-friends. It had been sad for everyone when Myrna dropped out of the group and their weekly luncheons to become an addict to her gin. For, it was not the food, nor the drink, obscenely expensive as each was, that brought the friends together, but the ritual of the communion, which they so badly needed to fill in the huge abyss in their uncontemplated mortgaged life. For Myrna, that communion, like her underhanded husband, had begun to straggle untidily across their luncheon table. It no longer brought peace to her demoralized soul, and so, she had for the time being cut out of the gang. After Phil, she had found the expensive luncheons to be discouragingly insufficient, and she didn’t care to be part of them. Sadly she had decided that the future would be as empty as the now, or the fast disappearing past, regardless of the friendships. But for the umbilical cord still binding her to her daughters, everything else was becoming one unmemorable void. At a solid middle age of forty, there was no time to fuss over lettuce and roka leaves served with retarded mixed-up champagne dressings.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Devouring time does not torment the rich as it does the poor. The rich have the power of their money to delay the angst of time by leisurely waiting it out. They never have to work, they never have the daily routine of pointless job to go to if they don’t want to. The rich can afford to just sit around and shoot the bull, as often as their little old hearts’ desire. Of course, in their minds, the bull they shoot is so much more potent than the arguments that common folk debate. So compelling is their money that it actually slows time to the intoxicating pace of unending rounds of wining and dining, and shopping for expensive things, like many gold watches to check their time. Day after day, the rich rejoice in their good fortune of never having to rush things, like running off to work, without finishing their cup of coffee. Triumphantly they stretch their days as if owed to them. Rich men’s wives gossip about social affairs; they don’t talk about money, or, God forbid, politics. But, sometimes, in the conscience of a good woman, whether rich or poor, disputes invade from depths unknown and equalize the playing field of life. In the world we all live in, regardless of one’s birth status, all human desires are always checked by reality. Good fortune, always welcomed as a gift from the gods, also brings doubts with it, and some, few sensitive souls, wonder if they’re worthy of the gifts. Scepticism sets in and the search for answers invariably, for most people, leads to God. An unconscious struggle then ensues to fit reality within their conscious bounds, and the battle often lasts a lifetime. It is here that the rich think they have the advantage. Desperately trying to hold on to their edge they run into a wall that is time. Time becomes a consuming illness, and rushes in tormenting thoughts about ‘is there all there is’, even to the rich who seldom want to be reminded that they too are mortal.

  Sharon had begun to understand the plague of her mortality. But in the confirmation of her sins, which ever since she was a little girl shadowed wickedness and anguish, she also discovered the means to her redemption. Or rather, she re-discovered the love of Jesus that had the powerful healing effect to forgive all sins and lead the way to peace and tranquillity. In rising from an empty life, in Jesus she found her days being filled with thoughts of beauty and truths that had been in her soul the whole time. More than anything else, Sharon wanted to share this obvious truth with her best friends in the hope of saving their rich asses from a meaningless life. She had finally seen the light that, in reality, that was all there was.

  *

  They had just sat at their table at the Seven Seas of Beverly Hills to unwind a little, to dust away the hangover of Myrna’s stupid withdrawal from the best friends’ powwows. As always, it was another informal to chase away the blues that too easily got the better of their idle souls, and the last thing they wanted this day was to be harassed with world important mumbo-jumbo. Just a cup of the grog to smoothly slide the time away, while they conspicuously displayed their brand new dresses. That’s all there was.

  “Poor Myrna,” Sharon reminded Kitty and Robin, once again, about Myrna’s breakup with her husband. “To be alone is like being a lonely flower in the desert. No matter how lusty and pretty, it quickly wilts and dies because it has no other plants to shade it.”

  “If you’re gonna start that shit again, Sharon, we’ll leave right now. You’re driving us crazy with your goofy allusions from nowhere,” said Robin.

  “Or for it to give shade to others. Healthy people need to be around other people all the time otherwise they whither, wilt, and die,” she puckered her perfectly painted lips nonplussed by her best friend Robin’s seeming irritation.

  “Well, I have to agree with Sharon, Robin. Myrna must be pretty lonesome, all alone without a husband’s shoulder to cry on,” said Kitty. “Sharon said what she said about Myrna because, after all, what are friends for?”

  “What makes you think that she doesn’t have shoulders to cry on, Kitty,” laughed Sharon most distantly.

  After observations like this, Kitty and Robin would look at each other and wonder if she knew that they knew; but who could have matched her ample upright breasts and perfect lips? And who cared that after all these years Myrna was doing Hank.

  “One of these days, too much love might kill the superstar,” Robin and Kitty had laughed over the phone.

  “Why Sharon Langdon! Do you have some juicy knowledge about Myrna that we don’t? Come on, spill it.”

  What rich bullshit!

  In truth, the three friends were all blessed, physically gifted, and they just didn’t go to a restaurant like the very upscale Seven Seas of Beverly Hills just to gossip, nor for the food, good as it was. Above all, they went to the Seven Seas to be seen, and what better sights to catch wandering eyes than their rosy cheeks, their perfectly rounded Giotto buttocks exquisitely fitted in Dior dresses, and their always at attention breasts? Ever since Middle School they had known that the world loved them, and every so often, to enhance the sensation of their narcissism, they would agree to go commando. They outward lived the sensation of the cool refreshing Pacific air through their opulent arrogance.

  In spite of Sharon’s overworked babble, they calmly enjoyed each other’s egotistic good looks, the friends especially loving Sharon’s Hollywood entrances, whose smile twinkled little sparkles in any room. For Sharon, the weekly midday get together was a treat, an illustrious moment to show off, once again, her God given gifts in all their worldly splendor. It was a moment to repress ugly thoughts about Hank and all that past stupidity. The attention afforded Sharon’s good looks by her friends, and the always admiring crowd at the Seven Seas, was most pleasing for her, the clientele there being of a much higher social and moral level than her husband’s grunting high school greasy, ugh, buddies. She bathed in the public stares and smiles that were never enough, and from an early age, she understood the exaltation of her loveliness, which justifiably fed her vanity, unlike Robin, who for a long time had known that vanity smacked of unholy self-love, and that, never was a good thing.

  Unholy or not, Sharon knew that in any get-together, she was it. Except for an unhappy marriage, the girl had it all. Yep, that was all there is.

  “We are the beautiful wives of successful men, Sharon. Let’s just enjoy our blessings today without your preaching,” said Kitty. “We like you for what you are, and not for your fucking erudition.”

  “Nice one, Kitty. I sure love your learnedness. Did you get it from classical Claudio?”

  “Fuck you both,” said Sharon with confidence. “I say something, and you guys think it’s preaching; you say all sort of crap, and you call it erudition.”

  “Such ferocity,” said Kitty, and they all laughed.

  The three friends were intent on enjoying each other’s company even without Myrna who had perhaps misdirected her love from the
m toward what or whom only God knew, and who had thus incorrectly if not immorally withdrawn from her best friends, Sharon, Kitty, and Robin, they of the green leafy full of varied vegetation salads. It was her loss. Holding no ill will against Myrna, they wished she was still with them, they merrily continued to meet every Wednesday at their celebrated hangout at the plush Seven Seas Restaurant for roka leaf salads seasoned with the finest extra virgin olive oil, delicate Balsamic white vinegar, and plenty of juicy gossip to chew on.

  “You’re married to a restaurant tycoon, Robin’s married to the president of Pioneer’s Bank, and I’m married to the baron of recycled grease,” continued Kitty, happy to be part of the Seven Seas society of the rich. “So let’s all be happy and enjoy our bread and wine.”

  “It’s Pioneer Bank, and he’s Vice President of Human Resources,” corrected Robin. “Kitty, you’re a sweetheart. You’ve always had a way with kind words, unlike Sharon who’s always waiting for Jesus to show up,” laughed Robin.

  “Well, Robin, in Sharon’s mind, Jesus probably shows up in the red wine,” said Kitty and Robin nodded her head in mock understanding.

  “There is love in the sharing of a good red wine,” Sharon volunteered.

  “You start preaching again and I’m out of here, Sharon,” said Robin, but Sharon knew that Robin didn’t mean it. She hadn’t moved out for years and she wasn’t going to do it now.

  “I didn’t say anything,” said Sharon.

  “Sharon, honey, let’s not preach today, we’re drinking your wine, your fine red wine; what more do you want?” said Kitty.

  “Probably more red,” said Robin, and they all laughed in wealthy loud agreement.

  Taking a cue from Myrna’s excesses, and recalling all the media shrill about fatty livers fast desiccating into grey stones on hard liquor, they had decided to drop it a notch, for a few days, anyway, to give theirs a rest, and skip the gin and vodka in favour of the delicate French wines. Today, at Sharon’s insistence, they were enjoying a Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Rouge Sec full of the subtle French summer sun that engendered it with love.

  She took an easy sip, held her glass daintily between her long, thin, fingers and said, “For had not Jesus said, Love one, another,” and a sweetness came out of Sharon’s lips.

  “Let’s get out of here before it’s too late,” said Robin, pretending to stand up to exit.

  “Sit down Robin. Sharon was just joking.”

  “No I wasn’t,” said Sharon, again smiling the sweetest of Saint-Emilion.

  “Your waiter will be right with you,” said the Mexican busboy as he tipped their glasses, already pretty full, with icy cold water. In a toast to the busboy, they all took a sip and agreed it was good water. You taste tap water anywhere else and it’s like they forgot to rinse the glasses; you taste it in Santa Monica and it’s like it just arrived from the pristine mountain tops of, well, Mt. McKinley.

  “Have any of you heard from poor Myrna,” asked Kitty.

  “I heard, and don’t ask from whom, that Justine is pregnant,” said Robin.

  “That’s a dirty lie, Robin,” said Sharon in a belligerent voice.

  “Hey, calm down, Sharon, no need to get riled up now; we’ll know for sure in a few months,” smiled Robin. “You know, it’s not the first time some teenage girl gets knocked up. Anyway, who cares? It’s got nothing to do with us.”

  “That’s right Sharon. After all, she’s not your daughter,” said Kitty.

  “Anyway, we all know that sooner or later all daughters get screwed,” laughed Robin.

  “Poor Justine, she had so much going for her!” said Sharon in a voice genuinely affected with muted sorrow.

  “Well, Sharon, she’s about as old as you were when Hank drilled you, so you ought to know that it had to happen sometime, so why not now? She’s a pretty enough girl,” said Kitty trying not to make a big issue out of something she thought common enough.

  “I wonder who the lucky bastard is, because she’s a beautiful peach,” said Robin. “She looks a lot like you, Sharon. Anyway, she can always get an abortion, now days.”

  “Really, Sharon, we’ve always wondered, did you screw Hank when we were in high school?” smiled Kitty. Everybody knew.

  “So did you, Kitty,” said Sharon.

  “Deflowered at such a young age, violently bruised by a deformed beast with a hard-on that shows up out of nowhere to spill his sperm all over her thighs …” burst out Robin in pretended Shakespearean monologue.

  “Fuck you too, Robin. Just because you were such a tight ass and didn’t get it …”

  “Whoa there Sharon. Justine’s seventeen and it’s not unnatural for women to have babies,” said Kitty. “You know that in the old days women had their babies as early as fourteen of fifteen. And let’s be fair, we all know that all young women must have their sex, even teenagers now days.”

  “Talk about babies, there’s only one between the three of us,” said Robin.

  Too late, Kitty had blurted out a touchy subject: It was so insensitive of her to bring up the painful matter of Sharon and Robin being barren. It was a cruel thing to say knowing that Sharon and Robin couldn’t have babies. It was too late for apologies, though. True friends don’t apologize like strangers would for innocent faux pas.

  “Even gays have sex, but they adopt babies,” said Robin. “Ever thought of adopting maybe an Ethiopian baby, Sharon.”

  “Is that sexist, or simply not politically correct,” said Kitty? “These things are so confusing these digital days.”

  There was an awkward moment of silence, and then, no one wanted to make an issue out of a stupid comment about gays and adoptions.

  “Being pregnant is a process of renewal, dear,” smiled Robin, the words directed at Sharon, she herself still hoping that she might someday get pregnant again.

  “Being knocked up is a quick jog to death, into a darkness never to return again. I know, we all know,” Sharon strongly affirmed to her friends her understandings of pregnancies. “I know that son-of-a-bitch boyfriend of hers doesn’t love her. He just wants to fuck her all the time. Poor Justine, too stupid to say no.”

  Eyebrows were raised and silence interfered for a moment or two.

  “Cool it Sharon. I’m sure Myrna hasn’t taking it as badly as you. You’re becoming weird, honey, and you’ll get stretch marks on your teen face before you age,” said Robin. “We should all be as lucky as Justine to hook up with some oversexed teenager. I’m sure she’ll do fine.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Sharon? I know I would,” smiled Kitty half-jokingly.

  “Men are so damn stupid. They lug around with a hard-on and they’ll crush everything that’s in their way for a piece of ass,” said Sharon. “Stupid asses is what they are.”

  “How old is she anyway?” somebody said.

  “Is she going to marry him?” asked Sharon.

  “She says she wants to keep her baby and marry the guy, and that Myrna supports Justine’s decision,” said Kitty hoping to end the Justine saga.

  “Jesus! I hope not for either of those reasons,” said Sharon. “You know how those things work out. All too soon they’ll wind up divorced, and Myrna’s too old to take care of a baby. So, who’s gonna take care of that baby? Or what’s the sense of marrying?”

  “You know, you get on board this Ferris wheel and go round and round, and up and down, and …” and Robin could not finish the thought.

  “Never underestimate mothers and daughters, and daughters and their babies. They are the fabric of every society, my dear,” said Kitty, and, too late, she was sorry again.

  “Teenage sex is adulterous, and dirty,” said Sharon.

  “They’re both single,” said Robin.

  “That’s when it feels dirty,” she said.

  She just wouldn’t let go, but her choice of words were interesting, s
o Robin and Kitty let her go on. It was understandable that barren Sharon might be a bit jealous of Justine.

  “Sharon, do you know the Mickey Mouse song?” said Robin.

  “Still, Myrna should have been more Christian-like with her daughters,” continued Sharon puckering her lips with misplaced emotion.

  “Cut this shit out; no more tears of self-pity, Sharon. You’re not responsible for getting Justine pregnant,” said a pissed Robin.

  “Think about it, Robin. Myrna simply doesn’t have the money to support an extra mouth … or two, if we count dumb-ass, bloodsucking son-in-law,” said Sharon.

  “You’re full of shit, if you think Myrna is having financial problems, my little pussy willow,” smiled Kitty, and she looked around for the waiter who was fast approaching with that savage cabernet.

  “You’re the pussy, little old Kitty, little missy, pussy kitty-cat,” said Sharon and they all laughed.

  “Well, maybe Myrna wasn’t so very religious, but hubby Phil sure was,” laughed Robin.

  “Now Robin, these things happen,” kindly offered Kitty.

  “Speaking of Myrna, I too didn’t take the Bible too literally, as my poor mother had,” volunteered Sharon in another remarkable flip-flop, “until one night St. John came to me in a dream…”

  “Which one, dear,” Kitty said, and gently poked Robin on the side.

  “What do you mean,” asked Sharon truly befuddled.

  “She means there are several St. Johns, as you of the Bible Sharon know. So, which one came in your dream, I mean,” Robin continued the tease.