She lights herself a cigarette and takes her time sucking the lipstick off her teeth. She still hasn’t said a word. I’m starting to wonder if she even speaks English.
“Good fishing today,” I cast out there.
She squints one eye at me through the smoke and I take a minute to savor the crinkles around her eyes before I jab my cigarette in the direction of the cookie-grazing mourners. I explain, “All the cattle are facing east. That means good fishing.”
She throws her head back and laughs. Her laughter bubbles over from deep down in the well of her belly. She uses her whole body and every fiber of her being to laugh and it’s so contagious, I join in, too, and I know there’s nothing more delicious than this moment.
Her laughter finally dies down to a few short hiccups and sputters and she sets about to right herself. She sticks her hand down the front of her blouse and lifts and separates Sonny and Cher. She tugs on the front of her short skirt, but that doesn’t help too much because now it’s just riding up higher in the back and you can honest-to-God see some kind of animal print panties that look like they’re being devoured. And even though the rain has finally stopped and the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds, I know I’m not going anywhere. I’m sticking around for the show.
I hope I didn’t just say that out loud.
“What show?” she asks.
Thinking fast, I reply, “The...um, show, you know, the funeral services.” Okay, so that wasn’t thinking so fast.
Her lips twitch again and her eyes laugh at me like she knows she caught me in a lie and that I know that she knows she caught me in a lie. She ends up blowing a short puff of air through her nose in my direction. I don’t know if she thinks I’m funny haha or funny weird.
I try again. “This may sound retarded, but...you look familiar to me.”
Her gaze cuts a path from my boots to my face, she lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug and looks away. Her words come out in a cloud of smoke. “No one would even know you’re retarded if you didn’t tell them.”
Did she really just say that?
What the hell?
The merry-go-round I’m on screeches to a halt and shocks me back to reality where I know this woman is just another hooker and her hair is dyed and she’s wearing purple contact lenses, not to mention her tits probably aren’t even paid for yet.
“I’m going to pretend that you weren’t just a bitch,” I say with clenched teeth, because I swear to God, I’ll deck this Hooker Bitch, I’ll pick her up by her cheetah print panties and throw her into that open grave—a loud caw-like screech and a gust of Jean Nate blows this strange little woman right in front of us. She grabs the Hooker Bitch in a bear hug and talks absolutely nonstop: “Oh my God, Vivian, I’d recognize you anywhere. My God, how long’s it been? Fifteen years? Oh my God, hug me back! Don’t you remember me? Becky Sheldon! We were cheerleaders together! I was two years behind you in school!”
And to prove her point, Becky takes three steps backward, plants both feet and claps her hands to her thighs. “Ready, Okay!” she yells. What follows are some strange contorted moves that were probably titillating when she was fifteen years younger, but now just look fuckin’ strange. This woman who calls herself Becky spells in her loudest voice: “Gimme a C! Gimme an H! Gimme an A! R! G! E! R! S!
The Hooker Bitch stumbles a few steps back and bumps into me. She shakes her head at Becky. “I’m sorry, you’ve got the wrong person. I don’t even know how to spell Chargers.”
Oh my God, that’s how I know this woman! Vivian Baxter the cheerleader from high school about a billion years ago. I got kicked out of pep club because of her. Well, her and the other cheerleaders. I’d already gotten kicked off the basketball team for smoking pot in the locker room and was pushed into the pep club reject pile. I’d entertained myself by picking ice out of my pop and tossing it at the cheerleaders while they did their stupid cheers on the floor in front of us. I scored a lot of three-pointers, right down their little sailor suit tops. All the cheerleaders were mad as hell and sent their little homely wannabes out into the pep club bleachers to spy and that’s how I got nailed. Fat Julie Randall ratted me out. When Julie told Vivian she saw me throwing the ice, Vivian snuck up behind me in the bleachers and dumped an entire pop down the back of my shirt. I got kicked out of pep club, but Vivian didn’t get squat.
So this is what happens to cheerleaders after high school.
“Vivian, you’re so funny,” Becky says, “Where have you been all these years? God, girl, we are going to have to get together. Let’s do lunch tomorrow!”
Then the strangest thing happens. Vivian the Cheerleader grabs me by both elbows, leans in close enough that I can feel Sonny and Cher pressing against me and whispers right under my ear, “Please, God, I’ll give you anything. Just get me out of here.”
I wonder if her anything means the same thing as my anything.
This is one of those what-if situations that are always and forever getting me into trouble. On the one hand, I know this woman is bad news and I’ll probably either end up in jail or with another tattoo, but on the other hand, I know I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering what could’ve happened—if only.
“What time is it?” I ask a little too loud. “Oh my God, it’s time for your meds!” Vivian the Cheerleader looks at me with surprise. I’m even surprising myself with this little Oscar-winning performance. I grab her by the arm and pull her none too gently through the mud toward the Harley. I yell over my shoulder to a very stupefied Becky, “I’m sorry but my emotionally incontinent and developmentally disabled sister has to get back to the home before they report her missing again!”
Vivian the Cheerleader’s eyes burn a hole in the back of my head and I suppress a smile as I add, “We let her dress herself today, sorry ’bout that!”
Vivian the Cheerleader jerks her arm out of my grip, rips off one of her muddy shoes and whacks me in the back of the head with it, pointy end first.
“Shit! That hurt!” I grab the damn shoe out of her claw and heave it about fifty yards away. “Are you fuckin’ nuts?”
“That’s a Jimmy Choo!” she yells, hobbling off to retrieve it.
“No, that’s a weapon!” I shout at her back.
I watch her plod off to get the shoe, slipping and sliding in the mud, clutching her big red bag like a life preserver and I’ve got to admit I admire her pluckiness. What is it about cheerleaders? You could be down by fifty points, but they’re still jumping around, doing splits and backflips like there’s still hope. I shake my head and watch her trudge through the mud. She stops, pulls the panties out of her crack and scans the mire for her shoe. I catch myself smiling way too big and that’s when I smash face-first into the darker side of myself. I hate cheerleaders. I love cheerleaders. I hate them. I love them. Lord help me, I am going to love hating this particular cheerleader.
I must admit I’m not too proud of what I yell at her next. “Listen, if you’d rather stay here with your shoes and do some cheers with Becky, I’ll understand. I’m sure you and Becky have a lot of catching up to do.”
That does it. She does an about-face, takes off her remaining shoe, and marches back toward me. Without even so much as a glance in my direction, she brushes right by and swings a leg over the back of the Harley.
Believe you me, short skirts are not meant for motorcycles.
Vivian the Cheerleader looks up at me seductively and with saccharine dripping from her smile says, “We going? I believe I’m late for my meds back at the group home.”
End of Chapter One.
I hope you enjoyed reading the first chapter of Tats. If you would like to continue reading, click here!
Author’s Bio
Layce Gardner is a screenwriter, a novelist, and a playwright. Her plays have been performed around the world and she is the recipient of The Los Angeles Drama Logue Award for Best Playwrighting. She has written screenplays for every major television network and her movie “Prison of S
ecrets” was Lifetime’s highest rated movie. She is the Goldie award-winning author of the novel, Tats. She is one half of a dynamic comedy writing duo with her wife, Saxon Bennett.
Other works by the author:
More Than a Kiss
Crazy Little Thing
Kiss & Tell
Gigolo Girl
Worst in Show: A Jamie Bravo Mystery
Till Beth Do Us Part: A Jamie Bravo Mystery
Attack of the Lesbian Zombies
Family Affair (Goldie Award Winner)
Marching to a Different Accordion (Goldie Award Winner)
In the Unlikely Event
Back Talk
Date Night Club
A Question of Love
Old Ties
Sweet Fire
The Wish List
Love Over Moon Street
Tats (Goldie Award Winner and Ann Bannon Finalist)
Tats Too
A Perfect Romance
Wild at Heart
Penny Nickels
Steam: a collection of lesbian erotica
Till Beth Do Us Part: A Jamie Bravo Mystery
Memoirs of a Gay-She: The Best Blogs of Layce and Saxon, Vol. 1 (Goldie Award Finalist)
Gays of Our Lives: The Best Blogs of Layce & Saxon, Vol. 2
Coming Soon:
Attack of the Lesbian Time-Traveling Zombies, Parts 6-10
Piece of my Heart - a romantic comedy
For Butter or Worse: A Jamie Bravo Mystery
Thank you for being a part of the Square Pegs Ink family. We appreciate you telling your friends about our books!
A Perfect Romance Page 28