Girl Trouble: Five Shorts
Page 4
And a weakness, of course, for Joan, too.
Joan hoped.
Good a plan as any, she told herself, putting the skids on and once more counting down the miles. Approximately eighty miles left, she calculated. Eighty miles to Annette’s house. Eighty miles? Oh, god! It felt like she’d never make it.
-----
“License and registration, ma’am.”
“What?”
“I need to see your license and registration,” the trooper repeated. He eyed Joan’s tattooed arms suspiciously as she dug frantically through her purse for them. Oh, brother, he was thinking. Now what have we got here?
Oh, brother, a beer belly with a badge, Joan was thinking. “Here they are,” she said, without looking at him. Oh, brother, look at those flashing lights. Was all this really necessary?
She glared at the man in her rearview mirror as he waddled back to his patrol car to run a search on her ID. “Ticket number one,” she text-messaged her sister as she waited for him to come back empty-handed.
“Told you so,” came Jill’s reply, a minute later.
Told you so, Joan didn’t dare utter, when the officer finally reappeared at her window to return her papers.
“New car, huh?” he inquired.
“Yeah,” she said, forcing a pleasant smile for him. “I’m just getting used to it.”
A very pretty girl, even if you couldn’t bring her home to mother. And she had no record, no marks on her license, no outstanding warrants. He shifted his weight to the other foot, sucked in his gut and tugged at his gun belt. “Well, Miss Majors, I clocked you doing seventy-eight just now. The speed limit’s fifty-five around here. You were really flying.”
Miss Majors. “Wow, I guess so,” she replied, in the most vacuous voice she could summon for him. “Am I going to get a ticket, officer?”
Look at those arms, he thought. Now why would such a pretty girl cover herself with all those ugly tattoos? What was this world coming to? “Nope, I’m going to let you off with just a warning for now. But you gotta drive the limit, Miss, or the next guy will write you one for certain.”
Aw, man, sometimes it felt like nothing but a cakewalk for Miss Joan, always getting off with just a warning. “For sure,” she said, flashing her cover-girl smile at him. “Thank you, officer. I will.”
-----
Somewhere Joan had heard that if the speed limit was fifty-five you could drive sixty-two miles per hour without getting a ticket, so her cruise control was set on sixty-two and Joan was now only forty some odd miles from Annette’s house.
The butterflies. Ooh, them butterflies.
A surprise visit, she had finally managed to convince herself, was probably in order anyway, even if she was running the risk of having driven this far for nothing, that when she got there, Annette might not even be home, having taken flight again, maybe even back to Paris.
Or she could have fled to Italy, for that matter. She could have done just that, decided upon Italy. Annette was fond of Italy, Joan knew. Fond of Italians, as well, she thought with a wry grin forming on her lips, fond of their grace and their grappa and their—fond of wigging out and fleeing from Italians, too, don’t forget, she quickly reminded herself.
Actually, there were a lot of things Annette was fond of. Wigging out, disappearing, guarding her privacy. SEX. She was not too terribly fond of surprises, though, as Joan well knew. Not unless you could wear them, or put them in a vase or in your mouth. Having somebody she was clearly avoiding drop in on her completely unannounced would, most likely, be on the top of her list of least favorite things. That and an unexpected confrontation with an ex-lover.
Joan squirmed in her leather seat. Swank upholstery or not, she was in an uncomfortable position.
She should have sent Annette flowers or chocolates right away. A whole week without word from her…that was weird. She should have definitely sent her some flowers. Flowers or even sexy underwear. Expressed them, if need be.
Joan nodded to herself with this belated epiphany, resolving to do it even if it was too late. She’d stop somewhere soon then, gas up and buy Annette a little present. There were all kinds of people that had made it onto Annette’s least favorite list. Idiots and bores and dolts and ex-husbands and...
This stretch of the highway, Joan just realized, was utterly deserted. I’m sick of your crap, Joan. Even the surrounding landscape, despite all the sun shining on it and the vivid green of the cornfields, still looked somehow barren and desolate. I never want to see you again.
Right.
And now there was less than thirty-five miles left to go and only fifteen to her exit.
If was true, that Annette had no desire to see her again, why wouldn’t she have sent her a letter saying so? Silver tongued Annette Martineau, a woman of letters, having penned so many before, would definitely have put her final goodbye in writing. And surely, if she had gotten that far with it, she would have demanded that her house key be returned, as well.
Joan fingered the key dangling from her necklace. Annette was the only lover who had ever given her a house key. She tucked the necklace into her shirt. She would never, never give it back to her.
___
Only twenty miles to her destination and it finally dawned on Joan, the possibility that she might not find Annette home alone today.
She mulled that over in her head awhile.
Yeah, so, perhaps a surprise visit would at last uncover what she’d been suspecting all along: Annette with someone else. Her stupid ex maybe, or even one of the neighbors, that Mr. Nosy across the way.
The thought of Mr. and Mrs. Martineau made Joan feel queasy. That husband and wife till-death-do-we-part stuff had always posed a bit of challenge for her and the truth was she didn’t trust Annette very much because of it. How could you be married to a guy one day and then, bang, when that was over, turn around and fall in love with a girl? With some woman? Who could trust someone like that? That was the part she never confided to her sister, that Annette’s sexuality made her feel uneasy. Annette was a stranger from him-and-her land and that made her just too—too untrustable in Joan’s book. And she was always flirting, it seemed, regardless of the person’s sex. Joan had made a point to avoid bisexual women for this reason. They always behaved like that. Untrustworthy.
Trust and fidelity—shit.
There had been so many quarrels over this particular subject, Joan finally acknowledged this morning. It was exhausting to be bickering all the time. She hoped they wouldn’t have to quarrel today; she was sick of the discourse. That would be the first thing she’d tell her when Annette comes to the door. That would definitely be the first thing to say.
And if Annette doesn’t come to the door?
Well, then, but it was a good idea, Joan remembered the dealer saying, to take your new car out on the highway every once in awhile, take it for a good long drive. So that’s what she’d get out of this excursion if Annette wouldn’t let her in, or if she wasn’t there, or if she was there and, God forbid, she was indeed entertaining a paramour.
Besides, this car was an absolute dream, practically driving itself. And, god, what a day for driving, it just occurred to Joan, the sky a beautiful swath of turquoise this morning, not a single cloud in sight, the sun warm in her lap.
She slid the sunroof open. The breeze felt good on a tired neck.
There had been a riff playing over and over in her head all this week and she could hear it now even as the stereo blasted. It was a tune she had been working on forever that just wouldn’t quit. She had tossed it out to her bass man the other night hoping he might be able to expand upon it, but a few choppy chords later and an awful lot of plunking, she had to beg him to stop. Today, with the cacophony finally subsiding, it was back to its original version again, kicking around her cortex in earnest, desperately wanting to be resolved.
I thought it was the weight of the world on my shoulders, she started humming, but it was me…yeah, yeah, yeah, it was me…yeah, y
eah, yeah…only me…she leaned her head back into the headrest and sighed. The highway was seamless, an infinity. Enough with the goddamned mile markers already and the cruise control. She was coming up fast to the exit.
Oh, crap, crap, CRAP, she suddenly said to herself, putting on her blinker and pulling the car over to the side of the highway.
“License and registration, ma’am.”
Joan and Jill
Joan Majors was wearing her gloomiest demeanor today, meeting her sister in the park for lunch.
She’d had a rough time of it this week, trying in vain to redeem herself to a deeply disgruntled lover, but Annette hadn’t fallen for any of it and Joan was finding it difficult to switch strategies now, this late in the game. Just pondering doing so, as she sat on a park bench waiting for Jill, was making her breakout in a sweat.
“Hey there, Joanie. Didn’t go for the new car, I see—skootch over.”
Jill was always late it seemed, and expressing an opinion before she even said hello. “Why do you think that?” Joan replied.
“Your face. Here’s a hot dog, Hot Dog.”
Nope, the new car hadn’t impressed Annette. She had been surly and cool to Joan this time. And difficult to please. “She liked it a lot, Miss Know-it-all,” Joan lied. Annette Martineau simply mystified her. What kind of a chick wouldn’t flip over a brand-new, cherry red, fully equipped, luxury sedan? “Said it’s her all-time favorite color. So there.”
“Sure it is. Hey, how’d it go at the doctor’s yesterday? Why didn’t you call me? You said you were going to call me after you got home from your physi—”
“Oh, crap, Jill, I forgot to. It went fine. Everything’s clean, don’t worry. There’s nothing.”
That’s two years cancer-free. “Good news,” Jill said, nodding with relief. “And it’s been two years since I quit smoking, so what do you think of that?”
“Congrats. You want a cigar?”
“Very funny. So what went down this week, Valentino? Did ya’ make-out?” Jill asked. “Hah, hah, hah!”
Joan put her sunglasses on and a pout. “Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah,” she said, gulping fast-food down like bad medicine. Hot dogs and potato chips and…crap up to her ears all the time.
“Oh, c’mon, Joanie. I’m just teasing you. It went that bad? Tell me what happened then. It couldn’t have gone that bad…did it?”
It didn’t go well. Joan licked mustard from her fingertips and studied a group of cumulus clouds forming in the afternoon sky. It looked just like a dog up there. A barking dog. One of those little rat terriers Annette was shopping for now, or so she was claiming. “Your future replacement,” she had threatened Joan all week. Joan glared up at the dog cloud and growled under her breath. Sunshine and seventy degrees and a sassy sister were going to do absolutely nothing to improve her mood today. She should have canceled.
“Let’s talk about your love life, Jill. Tommy in love with your beat up old hatchback, I suppose? Rust his favorite color, wise ass? Bet you really send him with that plush duct-tape interior you got in there. Knees go weak every time he gets a load of that, I’ll bet. God—where’d you get these? They’re awful.”
“You’re gonna give yourself indigestion, Joanie. Tommy doesn’t love me for my car and you know it.”
Tommy doesn’t love her for her car—“Fine. Annette doesn’t love me for mine, either, so I guess we’re even there. You got any sushi in that bag? This stuff’s about to make me throw up.”
“Sushi! You know, I hate to point this out to you, but I’ve seen six red cars go by already, Joanie, and not one of them had a passenger in there with them. What’s that tell you, you think, about red cars? What’s that say about people who drive red cars, I wonder?”
Jill the insurance adjuster and all her fascinating statistics.
Joan grunted a dissent and patted her stomach. Hot dogs and potato chips and soda were not exactly what her nutritionist had recommended. “It’s not about automobiles, Jill, so forget it.” She dug into her pocket for an Omega-three vitamin and washed it down with cola.
“Not about automobiles! I’m the one who told you that! Told you she wouldn’t fall for no red car, didn’t I? Save your money’s what I think I said.” Jill paused and glanced at her own set of wheels parked haphazardly at the curb. She was very fond of that little hatchback. Way too many good memories in there to even think of parting with it. “That’s just surface rust, my mechanic says. Nothing serious.”
“That’s just superficial,” Annette had responded this week, to just about everything—including Joan’s brand-new car. “You’re superficial, Ms. Majors.”
“And…?” Joan had replied with defiance. She’d arrived at Annette’s just in time to find suitcases lined up at the front door and a one-way ticket to Rome sitting on the desk. All her charm had been spent in trying to delay the woman so she would miss her flight. “I said, and…?”
“And it’s a shame, that’s all,” Annette answered. Miss her flight, she did.
“That’s just surface rust,” Joan mimicked, her eyes on the avenue now. “Surface rust,” she said again, in case she was muttering. And then her inimitable, “yeah,” trailed off into the atmosphere.
Jill hated that “yeah” of hers. It was so glum sounding, so juvenile. “And besides,” she added, ignoring it, “you slip the key into the ignition and it starts right up.” Two-hour free parking downtown today; she was not going to waste two free hours in the park talking to the side of Joanie’s face. “Starts every single time,” she repeated, nudging her moody sister with an elbow. “Just like my Tommy.”
Joan merely shrugged at this. She had left her antacids home on the dresser. She should go home and cuddle up with them. Maybe take a hot bath.
“I said, just like my Tommy, Sunshine. Speak or I’m out of here.”
From behind her sunglasses, Joan was counting cars. Jill was right, she observed. The red ones were empty. “Yeah,” she finally replied, “Tommy’s a hottie. A total hottie. And you are a freakin’ braggart.”
Jill nodded with approval. Tommy was a hottie. There was nothing more to say about that.
Jill Major’s old car was blue. Supposed to be blue anyway. Blue cars, green cars, silver and black. Even the rusted ones had somebody! Joan sighed out loud, took the glasses off and began fussing with her hair. Cars and keys were hot topics for her these days. She put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.
Jill waited patiently for a secret.
Annette had dropped hints to Joan the whole week long: she wanted her house key back. Joan could feel it inside her shirt, dangling from its box chain, tickling her chest. She should consider giving it back, the woman had actually implied. I don’t think so, Joan had struggled to convey to her, but, oh, yes, she should, Annette had subtly, yet stubbornly and steadily pressed. She should give it back and they both knew she should give it back and Annette didn’t want them to fight about it.
That had been the theme of their miserable, virtually sexless, orgasm-less week together and Joan could still hear it clanging in her head. (Another empty red car just went by.) She should give up the key now because it was time for her to give up the key now and it was the right thing for her to do to give up the key now, blah, blah, blah, etceteras. “I’m thinking of doing something different with my hair,” Joan suddenly said to Jill. She would never surrender that key, she had subtly, stubbornly and steadily hinted right back to Annette. No way, no how, never. “What do you think I should do with my hair?”
Jill gave her a scrutinizing look and then smiled to herself. “Well…your hair’s never been your magnet, Joanie, so I don’t really know.”
Sunshine and seventy degrees and lunch in the park with her grumpy sister. Lucky for Jill Majors she’s got a sense of humor. She was eager for Joanie to say something more, something revealing about her fiasco with Annette. Obviously the lovers’ week in the country hadn’t gone too well, which was predictable, but just how bad, she was itching to know.
Her roots were showing. She was graying fast at the temples. Jill pretended it was the first time she had noticed. “Oh, yeah…I guess I see a couple in there.”
“I want those grays out.”
So it went bad. Poor, poor Joanie, Jill thought, stroking her sister’s snarled strands. “Well, that seems simple enough to do,” she said. Poor Joanie and her girl troubles. Always so many troubles, she mused, stifling a chuckle inside her throat. It would turn anyone gray. But a clean bill of health, despite it all, was wonderful news, so what was the point in nagging? “Why don’t you come for Sunday dinner?” she asked instead.
Joan lifted her head. There were more clouds gathering on the horizon. Dragons and butterflies were everywhere. She didn’t like Sunday dinners anymore. Everyone knew why she didn’t come home for Sunday dinners, including Jill. “How’s Mom?” she said into her hand.
“Good. She asks about you all the time. Finally got some news to give her.”
“About Annette, you mean?”
“About your health, Joanie!”
“Oh, that.”
“Come for Sunday dinner,” Jill pursued. “She misses you. Have Sunday dinner with us. Forget about Annette.”
Joan scoffed and sat up straight. “Yeah. Dinner’s high on my to do list, Jill. Right after get a frontal lobotomy.”
A lobotomy might not be such a bad idea, Jill thought. A lobotomy and a haircut. “Ma’s sorry, Joanie. I know she is.”
“Sorry about what? That she’s lost her little ‘freak show’ here?”