Girl Trouble: Five Shorts

by Francine Saint Marie

  GIRL TROUBLE Synopsis

  FIRST-TIMERS, TWO-TIMERS, AND SECOND CHANCES: Joan Majors is, in her own words, a faithless bragging womanizer. But when she meets sexy first-timer and new divorcee, Annette Martineau, she falls head over high heels in love with her and vows to mend those wicked ways. That’s good news to Annette because if there’s one thing in the world she really can’t stand, it’s a faithless bragging womanizer. Especially one itching to get her in bed.

  GIRL TROUBLE by Francine Saint Marie tells the love story and rocky romance of Joan and Annette in five tantalizing tales, including the popular shorts “Dear Joan” and “Another Dear Joan”.

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  ~ Smashwords Special Edition ~

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  Reviews of GIRL TROUBLE:

  WOOD WREN says: “A friend of mine recommended this read. I am usually not into lesbian fiction as the reality of my own life is quite overwhelmingly satisfying anyway, but I am so glad my little Becky gave me this one. This is the story of two remarkable women, in many ways as screwed up as we all are, and the author has hit on the exact right blend of magic to make this a wonderful read. Quick witted, humorous, extremely bright and fast paced, the author address so many of the situations we have all been in, but portrays them in a quirky way that most of us are unable to articulate. I have to admit that this work was even sexy and I enjoyed every word in that area; something not normally my thing. This is an excellent work of two women falling in love and is written as it should be written. I plan to read more of this author.”

  ELENA says: “FSM's wondrous style makes short reading an entirely new experience. As with all of this author's characters, Joan and Annette have a will of their own, so don't expect to be led on by the writer, rather expect to be taken for a wild ride in a cherry red car by the cheeky Joan Majors. As with all of FSM writing, you'll feel treated as an intelligent reader.”

  BROOKE says: “Saint Marie writes in a uniquely charming and witty style that you can't compare to any other writer, of any other genre. Charming, witty, AND sexy! If you haven't read anything by her, you're in for a real treat. I also recommend ‘The Secret Trilogy: Three novels. Two women. One epic love story’.”

  KD says: "Girl Trouble follows the story of Joan Majors and Annette Martineau - two incredible women who are also incredibly flawed - as they try to navigate the turbulent waters of 'falling in love'. The author's writing is as sharp, quick, witty, intelligent and real as ever! Francine has, once again, created a world that is so alive and so full that you will quickly lose yourself in the story as she weaves her magic and pulls you in right from the very first word. One heck of a fun read!”

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  FRANCINE SAINT MARIE

  Girl Trouble

  FIVE SHORTS

  ©The Author -2008

  All Rights Reserved

  A “Fair Trade” Publication

  by BD Books & Column Five

  for Smashwords.com

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1438202105

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Francine Saint Marie’s debut novel The Secret Keeping was a LAMBDA Notable Book, a Goldie Award finalist, a semi-finalist for the Independent Publishers Award, and an IPPY Award Bronze medalist. Her trilogy, The Secret Trilogy, was nominated for the 2009 Ferro/Grumley literary prize in fiction. A writer and fine artist, she was born, educated, and currently resides in New York.

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  GIRL TROUBLE CONTENTS:

  Dear Joan

  Another Dear Joan

  Joan

  Joan and Jill

  Love, Annette

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  To Joan and Annette.

  (Wherever you are.)

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  Dear Joan

  Two o’clock in the morning found Annette Martineau sulking in her lover’s kitchen, nibbling on grapes and brie as she waited for her cell phone to recharge so she could call a cab to take her to the station. She was hopping the next train out of there, whenever that was, and she was never, NEVER coming back.

  That’s more or less what the letter she just left on Joan’s night stand said. She would be long gone by the time Joan read it. Long gone, more or less.

  “Well, well, well, Miss Honorable Intentions. I see you didn’t get very far.”

  She had been sucked into a whirlwind, Annette finally concluded, and while she hated to cut and run, staying wasn’t going to correct the situation. “I got hungry, Joan.” The grapes were sour, the brie too cold and she was not expecting a confrontation. At least not this soon. “I tried not to wake you.”

  Joan stood in the doorway, one hand on her hip, in the other she held the letter. She was not as heavy a sleeper as Annette had calculated.

  “Obviously you didn’t just dash this off tonight.” she said.

  No. Annette had written it several days ago, on a hunch. The cell phone beeped and she rose without commenting and unplugged it.

  “You write me a Dear-John that begins with ‘I love you madly and cannot concentrate on my work’? You’re an ass, I’ll have you know.”

  She would walk to the train if she absolutely had to, high heels or not. “Yes, you’ve made that perfectly clear to me.”

  “Oh, come on, Annette, come on—I love you.”

  “Spare me,” Annette replied, dropping the phone into her purse and hastily buttoning her overcoat. The train station was thirty blocks away and in her head she could hear a whistle blowing. “I don’t have time for this now.”

  “You don’t have…this is about the intimacy thing? Look, I’m sorry I said it.”

  Annette bristled to hear that word again, and the halfhearted apology delivered three hours too late to do either of them any good. “It’s too late for that.”

  This new accusation had been launched at her last night: that she didn’t understand the difference between intimacy and sex. Another of Joan’s little black pearls Annette could add to the long and heavy string of them she already bore. That’s why she was kicking herself in the head this morning. It wasn’t just this last insult, or yet one more should-of-said that didn’t come when it should have. It was the whole ruinous affair.

  “Annette, I said I’m—”

  “Intimacy and sex!”

  Joan went to the front door and braced herself against it. “You’re overreacting.”

  “You want to know something? I don’t understand the difference between a cappuccino and a latte, either, but it doesn’t stop me from loving coffee.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Annette. And now what? You’re going to do your disappearing act on me again?”

  Annette tossed her head and a shock of hair fell across her tired eyes. Having just turned forty, it was at these ungodly hours of the morning that she most felt her age and thought she looked it. Another incentive for hightailing it. “I do not disappear,” she said, through an auburn haze. “I flee.”

  Joan leaned back against the door and sighed with frustration. She was feeling forty-two, whether or not she was willing to accept it. She read the letter one last time before ripping it up and throwing the pieces into the air. They settled back down to the floor like feathers from a pillow fight. “There. This is how I’m dealing with it.”

  “Well, that’s your choice and I’m not writing you another, so have a nice life.”

  “I said I’m sorry, Annette. What more can I add to that?”

  “Nothing—and that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, by the way.”

  “I said I love you, to
o. That’s not nice?”

  “No, because it’s either a vicious lie or a terrible self-delusion.”

  “I see. And when do you ever say you love me, Annette?”

  Annette was within reach of the doorknob. The question stopped her dead in her tracks. “What do you mean? I tell you I love you. I tell you all the time.”

  “Yeah, in your orgasms.”

  “Org—and what’s wrong with—that’s not true!”

  Joan was wearing her smirk and nothing else. A bare bulb flickered in the socket above them.

  “Call me a cab.”

  “No.”

  “I need to catch my train.”

  “There aren’t any cabs now. I’ll drive you in the morning.”

  “It is morning.”

  Joan slid her hands up under the coat. “Not morning enough,” she teased.

  Her hands were hot; Annette stepped away from the heat.

  In this harsh light, the small scar on Joan Majors’ breast was plainly visible. She was no longer shy about showing it. In truth, Annette hardly noticed it anymore, this indelible mark over the heart where a lump had suddenly appeared and altered a woman’s sense of herself forever. Making her only mortal, after all. Obsessed with time. Obsessed with numbers. Infinity.

  It was a transfiguring disfigurement, Joan had claimed when they first met. Before her health scare, she said, she had been nothing but a “faithless, bragging womanizer.” Cancer had reformed her, given her a second chance to be better than that, and now, because she could see how short life really is, she was looking for something more from it, looking for that something more with a woman named Annette.

  Oh, that was very good to hear, because if there was one thing Annette Martineau really couldn’t stand, it was a faithless, bragging womanizer. Especially a faithless, bragging womanizer itching to get in her bed.

  “It’s morning enough for me, Joan. Get your lying ass dressed and drive me to the station. I’m sick of your boasts and your insults and I want to go home now.”

  “Boasts—oh, I know what this is about. It was platonic, I’m telling you. It was only a kiss.”

  Platonic, her eye. Annette had found something in the bathroom last night that contradicted a kiss, something undoubtedly left there for her to find. And then, when she opted to come back to bed and say nothing about her discovery, there followed the dig about sex. Intimacy. Whatever.

  She’d had it. “There’s a pattern here. It’s bogus and I’ve had it.”

  “Annette, please.”

  “This is goodbye, Joan.”

  “What do you care anyway? Every time I try to talk to you about marriage or children you’re clutching for your antihistamines and the tissue box.”

  “I’ve been married once before. I’m allergic to marrying the same asshole twice.”

  “The same—? Oh, I get it. You’re clever tonight.”

  “And you’re not. Are you going to drive me or should I call a cab?”

  “I’m not clever? Since when?”

  “I need my—oh, hell, where did I put my—I need to borrow your phone.”

  “In bed, Annette?”

  “What?”

  “I’m not clever in bed, you’re suggesting?”

  “Joan, I’m—I am certainly not complaining about that.”

  “You were about to, so say it.”

  “I was not.”

  Joan’s eyes were black and unblinking. Annette avoided them. There was a new tattoo on her forearm, she noticed. A butterfly. Or maybe a moth. Whichever it was, she was sure the symbolism had nothing to do with her. Certainly, like that brand new guitar strategically placed at the foot of the bed, it was there to impress somebody else. Or, at best, to cause her to have to speculate. “Get dressed, please.”

  “Just say it, Annette.”

  Patience vanquishes things which rigor could never manage. Wasn’t it Chaucer who said that? Annette wondered. Her patience was about to become a casualty of this war, she could see. It had very nearly expired. “Well, if I was going to,” she finally answered, “then I’d say that I could use a little more…well, if you were just a little heavier on me. Not that it matters now, though.”

  Annette was thin, but Joan was a rail and when she was on top it did often feel like clasping a cloud to one’s chest, and it didn’t help that Joan didn’t want to be held that way, always somehow wriggling free. But Annette would never have mentioned it to her otherwise.

  The color drained from Joan’s face and her jaw went hard. “The phone’s in there,” she whispered, pointing toward the bedroom. “Beside the bed.”

  “Oh, Joan—you asked for it.”

  “The phone’s by the bed, Mrs. Martineau. Why don’t you call that big ex-husband of yours to come and get you? Or is he too busy doing one of your friends?”

  Annette took a stool in the kitchen, instead. Through the window she could see it was raining. The street below her was glistening wet. “I’m just too old to be a trophy, Joan, and you’re too old for the sporting life. That’s the real issue. Not my husband’s weight.”

  “Ex-husband, I believe.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “That’s what you meant. I’m not your ex-husband, Annette. At least I know that.”

  “But you act like him.”

  “Yeah…all right,” Joan muttered. She had never been anyone’s ex-husband before so she fumbled in her mind for a suitable response.

  Annette cast a furtive look toward the door. Joan seemed small against it. Vulnerable. She didn’t usually think of her as vulnerable.

  “Then you’ll be wanting your house key back,” was Joan’s best reply. “So you can go lock yourself up in your fortress again. Do the thing you do the best—hide.”

  The house key was a loose end. Joan would wear it like a dog tag whenever she came calling. Annette scrutinized the lines in her palm and wished the subject away. The idea of asking her to give it back was too distasteful. She said nothing instead.

  “Am I right?” Joan growled.

  Annette shook her head and scoffed under her breath. She should have just gotten herself a dog! Dogs don’t bark and howl as much as lovers or husbands. She poked at the wheel of brie with her finger. It was softer now, more palatable.

  “You want your key, I asked?”

  When the divorce came through and her husband had finally moved out, Annette had given the dog idea some very serious consideration. She had had a dog before. A pretty darn good one. A dog, she knew from experience, was always loyal. A dog was always a faithful friend.

  “It’s in my jewelry case. On the dresser.”

  A dog doesn’t criticize you or ask you where you’ve been.

  “Your key’s on my dresser, Annette.”

  Or pull a power play in the wee small hours of the morning.

  “If you want your key, then you’d better go get it.”

  A dog, god-bless-it, can fetch.

  Joan rapped her knuckles against the door. “Get out of your fetal position and say something, please.”

  She should take that key, Annette thought, licking her finger. She stared at the bars on the rain spattered window and absently plucked sour grapes from their sprigs.

  She had, ultimately, decided against it. A dog was too serious an undertaking at this point in her life. She had never expected to enjoy living alone in the house, but once she got used to it, she liked her newfound freedom and she realized a pet would change all that. A dog, after all, is like a mate in so many ways. It requires constant companionship, three meals a day, something to gnaw on from time to time, and a lifelong commitment. Not to mention those brisk, romantic walks in any kind of weather.

  No, she simply hadn’t felt ready for that yet.

  “Speak, Annette. You’re making me anxious.”

  So in trots you instead, with your platform heels and a vengeance. House trained and—dare I say it?—quite fetching. “I had a lovely time, Joan. I want you to—”

  Joan
blew air through her nose.

  Annette turned and faced her. “Why do you act this way?”

  “Because I hate lines like that. Even a ‘louse’ like me doesn’t use them.”

  “That’s not what I mean…always mad or sad…never pleased.”

  There was no answer.

  “What do you need from me, Joan, besides my key and someone to bark at? Do you dump on your other—”

  “What do you need from me?”

  Annette studied the malcontent blocking the exit. There were two Joans inside that woman and they were on opposite sides of the battlefield, constantly at war with each other. Good Joan versus Bad Joan. Which one, she asked herself, did she really need?

  They came, parting paper shreds like water, and sat across from her.

  Maybe she didn’t need either of them. “I never want to see you again.”

  “What do you need from this bag of bones?” Joan pursued.

  Or maybe, just maybe, she needed them both. “Nothing now.”

  “Out with it, Annette. Is there anything else besides sex?”

  “Sex—you don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

  Joan squished a piece of cheese between her fingers and put it on her tongue. “It ain’t me, babe,” she garbled, “no-oh-oh, it ain’t me, babe.”

  “Don’t I know it. I need to trust you and I can’t.”

  “Then get up off the ground and show me what you’re made of, Annette. I’m not just some gay divorcee’s little diversion.”

  “And I’m not your crutch, a little pick-me-up on the road to resurrection.”

  Joan digested. “Do you love anything at all about me, Annette?”

  “Why don’t you tell me the difference between intimacy and sex before I go?”

  “Why don’t you consult your dictionary?”

  Her dictionary!