Family Affair

by Saxon Bennett

  Chase went to the closet on the back wall of the writing studio and pulled the doors open. Inside was a stack of black and white marbled composition books stacked one on top of the other, floor to ceiling, rows and rows of them.

  "What's that?" Delia asked.

  "Probably every word she's ever written," Bo replied. He got up to take a closer look. "Holy shit."

  "And out of all that came thirteen novels." She picked up her stack of published books that sat on top of the notebooks. "That would never have been published without the necessary reduction and distillation of all this."

  "Consequently, you cannibalized your own work," Alma said. "You put all your not so well-chosen words, bad scenes and unclear descriptions into the meat grinder and come up with something meaningful and understandable."

  "Precisely," Chase replied, shutting the closet doors.

  "I get it," Jasmine said. She rolled up her manuscript and swatted her thigh as if the thought were a fly.

  Chase swore she saw the glint of savagery, a necessity for any writer, glistening in Jasmine's eyes.

  There was a knock at the French doors. It was Gitana. Chase motioned her in. She smiled and said her hello's to the group. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to you for a minute. We've got familial snafu."

  Chase nodded. "I'll be right back." She noticed that Delia didn't take her eyes off Gitana. She did look quite handsome in a pair of khaki shorts, nicely displaying her tanned and shapely calves, and a lavender tank top with a white orchid silk-screened on the front and the words, "live simply" in lowercase letters which revealed her nice breasts and strong arms.

  They went out to the deck. Chase shut the door. "What's up?"

  "It's Graciela. She's in jail."

  "What did she do?" Chase hoped Gitana's younger sister hadn't done something horrible like stabbing one of her many girlfriends in a jealous rage. She was the completely out-of-con-trol wild child.

  "She got caught cow tipping."

  "What the hell is that?" Chase's only notion of tipping involved waiters.

  "Cows sleep upright. You sneak up on them and give them a shove and they fall over in such a way that they can't get up. The farmers don't care for this. She and some friends came up from the city to Moriarty and got caught by one of the ranch hands who called the police. Graciela needs bail or she'll have to stay until her court date."

  "When's that?"

  "Whenever the judge sees fit."

  "So she could rot in jail until then. Just think of it, a life-sentence for cow tipping." Chase laughed.

  Gitana frowned.

  "It would keep her out of trouble."

  "We can set bail, but Mama won't do it. She says it serves the heathen right."

  Gitana's mother, Jacinda, always referred to Graciela as the heathen if she was only slightly peeved and devil's spawn if she was furious. She lit a prayer candle for Graciela every day at morning mass and another at Evensong. Gitana figured her mother could have sent them both to graduate school with the money she spent on candles.

  "So you want to set bail?"

  "Chase, the Moriarty County Jail is full of rednecks. I don't think it's the safest place for a sassy lesbian."

  "Gotcha. We'll set bail and then hide her up here for the weekend. That means she goes nowhere. Your mother has spies all over town. She'll know what we did and we'll be on the same shit list as Graciela."

  "I love you," Gitana said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

  "Call one of those bail bondsmen land of people and they can tell us how to do it. I've never gotten someone out of jail." She smiled at Gitana and went back inside.

  "You can put your tongue back in your mouth now," Bo told Delia. She scowled at him.

  Chase eyed her suspiciously.

  "I totally understand why you don't take me up on my offer. Your wife is hot," Delia said.

  "That's enough out of you, young lady. In case you've forgotten, you're talking about Chase's life partner, not some slick chick at the gay bar," Alma said.

  Chase smirked. It always seemed so out of character whenever Alma used slang.

  "What offer?" Bo asked. He looked from Delia to Chase.

  Jasmine was still studying her manuscript and didn't look up, but she said, "Delia wants to sleep with Chase, but Chase declined the offer. That's a good decision, if you ask me." She continued to be engrossed in her work.

  Chase threw her mechanical pencil at her, narrowly missing her head. "Big mouth." This time Jasmine did look up.

  "How come she knew and we didn't?" Bo asked.

  Gay men were the worst gossips, worse than women, worse than women who lived in tiny European villages, Chase thought. "Because she happened to be standing in the hallway when the aforementioned proposition occurred."

  Chase had immediately told Gitana lest she be guilty by omission.

  Alma picked up the Writer's Digest from the coffee table, rolled it up and swatted Delia with it. "Have you no shame."

  Delia shrugged. "Never hurts to try."

  Alma swatted her again.

  "All right, I was out of line," Delia admitted.

  "That's better. Now, let's get back to the business at hand," Alma said, picking up her copy of Jasmine's manuscript.

  Chase smiled. For as much as they irritated her, she liked the writers group. Writing was a solitary pursuit and it was nice to have fellow travelers from time to time.

  Chapter Eight

  "How's my favorite un-in-law?" Graciela said. She was dancing with the dogs, one set of front paws of each dog on her forearms and singing, "It's raining dogs, hallelujah," instead of men, her homage to a much played song in the gay bars during the Nineties. "It's raining dogs, hallelujah," she continued much to Chase's chagrin as she entered the sunroom. The writers had left and their new houseguest had arrived.

  "I'm fine. How's the incorrigible one doing? Did you like the prison food?"

  "Absolutely epicurean."

  Graciela was Gitana's spiky-haired younger sister and there was a lot of family resemblance—the same soulful, when it was expedient, almond-shaped eyes, slighdy turned up nose and sculpted lips. Graciela was stouter and taller. Gitana had been in charge of their relationship until Graciela grew big enough to pin her down and demand obedience, which was nearly always forthcoming as Gitana couldn't breathe.

  Gitana smirked. "She cost us a five pop."

  "Five hundred dollars. You hardly look worth it and you smell."

  "It's cow shit. Maybe I should go take a shower."

  "I think that's a great idea," Gitana said. She shooed the dogs outside. Graciela had wound them up and they needed to decompress. "Go play."

  They took off, running a figure-eight pattern around the grove of trees, chasing one another.

  "Nice ring you got there, sis. What's the occasion?"

  Chase rubbed Gitana's belly. She got the reference immediately. Graciela had a new girlfriend and had disappeared into the land of we're-having-sex-and-can't-be-bothered-with-the-rest-of-the-world so she hadn't heard any of the news.

  "You should come around more often," Chase said. She straightened out the dog beds which had gotten dragged around the room earlier.

  "Dude, how'd you do that?" Graciela's question was addressed to Chase.

  "I grew an extra part like the kits that grow sea monkeys. I bought it off the Internet."

  Graciela gaped at Chase's crotch. Chase and Gitana burst out laughing.

  "I knew it was a joke. I did."

  "No, you didn't," Gitana said.

  "For a minute, maybe," Graciela said, coming over to stroke Gitana's belly. "I didn't know you guys were planning on having a baby."

  "We weren't," Chase said.

  "What the fuck? It's not like Gitana's birth control failed."

  "She was having, or rather she was supposed to be having, a pap smear. Next door there was a woman having artificial insemination. The nurse got the charts mixed up."

  "Okay, now that's freaky.
Mama must be pretty stoked. She always wanted a grandbaby and with the dyke sisters the forecast didn't look good."

  "Well, if you weren't such a copycat," Gitana said.

  Chase opened the door and dumped out the dogs' dirt-filled water bowl and refilled it with the hose. Jane often used the water bowl as a ball wash for her muddy tennis balls.

  "I couldn't help it," Graciela said.

  Gitana, tired of standing, sat in one of the chairs in the sun-room. Graciela lounged on one of the banquets, brushing aside the dirt. The dogs liked the banquets as well.

  "But according to most scientific evidence genetics do not play a part in determining sexual persuasion," Chase said, as she straightened out the coatrack. She looked around the room and deemed it tidy.

  "I know I've been out of the loop, but Mama would have told me, right?"

  "She doesn't know yet. We're going to tell her when we drop you off Sunday night after you're released from jail."

  "She thinks I'm still in jail," Graciela said. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.

  "Yes, which means you're spending the weekend here in our custody. I'm not getting on Mama's shit list. She thinks you deserve to stay in jail," Gitana informed her.

  "Oh," Graciela said, looking mournfully at her cell phone.

  Chase could tell Graciela was weighing her options. Jail was bad, but the quiet country life wasn't necessarily better. "Tonight, we can watch the second season of The L Word, which I'm sure you haven't seen because you're always out living it up and Saturday night I invited my writers group for dinner."

  Graciela twirled her forefinger in indication of her enthusiasm.

  "One of the women, Delia, writes erotic lesbian stories and her fictional shenanigans put yours to shame. She wants to meet you."

  Gitana gave Chase a look. "Please don't encourage her."

  "They would have crossed paths eventually. They both go to the bar. At least this way, we can monitor it."

  "This is sounding better already. I should text Andrea and tell her I'm out of commission for the weekend. She's not going to like that. I hope you have beer." Graciela wrote a quick text message.

  Chase watched her fingers fly across the keypad. "I wish I could type that fast."

  Graciela smiled. "Lots of practice."

  "Like I don't practice. Come on, let's go get a beer."

  They went inside to the kitchen. Chase got both of them a Corona and cut up a lime, inserting a slice into the bottles.

  Gitana was counting dinnerware. "Chase, I don't think we have enough plates or proper glasses for a dinner party."

  Chase took a swig of beer and went to peer in the cupboard. Graciela sat at the kitchen island and texted her response to what appeared to be a vitriolic message from Andrea. "Boy, is she pissed."

  "No fault but your own," Gitana said.

  Gitana was right—they didn't have enough dinnerware. They never entertained and over the years things had been broken and never replaced. This had come to Chase's attention from time to time after loading the dishwasher and discovering there was not one remaining plate, fork, spoon or dish to be had in the cupboards.

  "We just don't have dinner parties. I mean, usually," Gitana said as she looked in the flatware drawer.

  "It's part of my new socialization plan. I don't want the baby to grow up to be a hermit. The kid will be weird before school even starts. We can't have that. I'll take Graciela shopping. She can go in disguise. Do you still have that floral print summer dress?"

  "I'm not wearing a fucking dress."

  Chase laughed. Gitana said, "Now, that I'd like to see. Mama wouldn't recognize you at least."

  "I'll go naked before I wear a dress."

  "All right, but you are going to wear a ball cap and dark glasses," Chase said.

  "No Williams-Sonoma," Gitana said, pouring a glass of lemonade.

  "You read my mind. How about the Pottery Barn?"

  "That'll work."

  Chase sniffed at the pitcher of lemonade. "Is that fresh squeezed?"

  "Yeah, she picked them off the lemon tree out back," Graciela said, still texting furiously.

  "Of course not. It's one of those powdered mixes."

  Chase peered at the pitcher of lemonade. Graciela got a glass and poured it half full and then she added beer. Her phone chimed and she sat back down to finish the texting argument with Andrea.

  "That's disgusting," Chase said.

  "No, it's not. The lemonade tastes fine to me," Graciela said, smacking her lips.

  "How would you know? You put beer in yours."

  "What's wrong with the lemonade?" Gitana asked.

  "It's full of chemicals," Chase said, snatching the pitcher away and pouring it down the drain. "It's bad for the baby."

  "She's going to be a real pain in the ass," Graciela commented to Gitana.

  "She already is."

  Chase ignored them. She was making out a list of needed dishware. "Do we have a tablecloth?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Linen napkins?"

  "No."

  Chase added those to her list. She sipped her beer and peered in cupboards again. "Serving platter?"

  "No." Gitana opened the freezer and read the label on a can of frozen orange juice.

  "Let me see the ingredients. It might have polysorbate five or something," Chase said. She read the label. "It's fine. Concentrated orange juice. That's good."

  Graciela rolled her eyes.

  "If you prefer lemonade I'll pick you up some organic lemons," Chase said, trying to be conciliatory.

  "What are we having for eats at this dinner party?" Graciela asked.

  "Something good," Chase said, not meeting Gitana's gaze.

  "Like what?" she asked.

  "Oh, I thought we'd have a rack of lamb." Chase didn't look at her. She couldn't cook worth a shit and everyone knew it. Simple fare she could handle, but the exotic usually ended badly.

  "Why don't we have steak instead? We could put them on the George Foreman. A rack of lamb would heat up the house," Gitana said.

  Although it was late April it was hardly ungodly hot in the evenings, but Chase got her drift. "Good point. We'll go shopping first thing in the morning. You can push the cart," she said, pointing at Graciela.

  "I can hardly wait." Graciela went to the pantry.

  Chase watched as she raided it, most likely searching for unhealthy snacks that were no longer allowed in the house. She came out with a package. "What the hell are these?"

  "Rice cakes. She's going to need an outfit. Her current one is a little too informal."

  "For a dinner party with close friends?" Gitana said.

  "She's dressed like a Fascist," Chase said, referring to Graiela's Army and Navy store attire. "We'll hit Macy's."

  "How about Old Navy? Let's try and keep this within the budget."

  Chase watched Graciela munch rice cakes. "We'll have to be thrifty."

  Graciela said, "What's wrong with my outfit?"

  "Aside from looking like a Fascist, we can't run the washer right now because it keeps tripping the pump. The electrician gets here on Monday."

  "Can I still have a shower?"

  "Yes, the water heater works fine. But not a long one," Gitana added.

  "I'll get her a nice dress shirt too. She can wear it to the baptism. I'm not having a Fascist show up in church," Chase said.

  "Baptism?" Gitana said. "What if we don't want the baby to be Catholic?"

  "Like your mother would allow for anything else. When Bud grows up, Bud can decide to be a Buddhist, a Methodist or a Quaker or any of the other saner denominations. You don't want your mother spraying the child with holy water every time we come to visit like she does to Graciela—the heathen. I mean as long as Bud doesn't get into mortification of the flesh, I'm cool."