The Girl in the Flaming Dress

by Michael J Vaughn

  Angela cracks it open, takes a sip and sighs. “Nice! I used to suck these down like crazy at school. So here’s a theory: the one you’re really in love with is Karen.”

  It takes a moment for this idea to sink in.

  “So what are you doing with Kerry’s tits?”

  Angela bats her eyes.

  “Because that’s what’s currently occupying your, what do they call it? Your spank bank? Infatuation. Pure Red Bull lust. But Karen, that’s deeper. Knew-her-in-a-previous-life stuff. Look what you’re doing right now. Dropping everything and driving across two states because your true love asked you to.”

  He shakes his head. “I could not possibly not do this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she would do it for me.”

  “Because you love her. And don’t think Kerry didn’t notice. You saw how she reacted.”

  “Yeah. That was a little unexpected.”

  Angela looks around at the desertscape, gathering a thought.

  “‘You’re jealous of the woman who put us together.’”

  “Well, yes,” says Gerry. “That was how I talked her down.”

  “She was faking it. That chick would slash Karen’s throat to keep you.”

  “Damn! You’re fierce.”

  “I’m female. And you’ve seen the way she assaults a golf ball.”

  Gerry takes a scan of his dashboard gauges, a check he has conducted a hundred times already.

  “Tell you what. When I get back, I will do something spectacularly romantic for Kerry. Will that satisfy you?”

  Angela grabs his face and gives him a penetrating kiss, interrupted by the wake-up bumps on the side of the road.

  “Are you trying to kill us?!” Gerry complains.

  Angela licks her lips. “Too late for me. And that would be you trying to kill us. Or, you’re just so horny you’re making out with dead girls. Gerry? Don’t ever do that.”

  “Make out with dead girls?”

  She gives him a stare. “Suicide. Life’s too precious.”

  “Sure.”

  “Promise.”

  He pats her on the thigh, happy to see that the legs are not Kerry’s “I promise. It’s nice seeing you, Ang.”

  “It’s nice to see you, Ger. And I know I’m giving you a hard time, but I’m proud of you. This is a hell of a thing you’re doing.”

  “Thanks.”

  Angela stretches and yawns. “Ooh! Being a passenger makes me sleepy. I’m gonna nap, okay?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  She curls up against the door and sleeps. When they reach Elko, Gerry pulls over for gas. When he returns to the driver’s seat, she’s gone.

  Angela’s right. The Sierras are monstrous. The climb up Donner Pass should be an occasion for scenic indulgence – soaring plates of granite on either side. But Gerry spends the whole time drilling in on the white stripes, afraid that his electric imagination will latch on to the roadside drops and create movies of one fireball crash after another. After seeming hours of this, the road drops into the blessed flatlands of the Central Valley.

  There is, however, one more important obstacle: the Bay Area rush hour. But Gerry’s in luck. I-80 drops in, reverse-commute, crossing the Carquinez Straits to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. The bridge is packed, but perhaps the stop-and-go is a blessing. He remembers all too well the idiocies performed by commuters going full-speed.

  Once he reaches Marin County, he’s back to the anti-rush, and it’s a good thing. As it is, after hunting down a parking space, he’s fifteen minutes late. His destination is the Outdoor Art Club. He pauses beneath the entrance to take in the aroma of wysteria petals, hanging from the arbor in grape-like bunches. He follows a path to a long building with a pitched roof and enters to the sound of music. The steep ceilings are braced by stout varnished beams. A small ensemble plays something resembling classical music, but the wind instruments sound a little raw, and the string instruments look like they were drawn by the later Picasso. They descend to a final flourish. The crowd takes a moment to decide that it’s all right to applaud.

  In his role as double agent, Gerry ignores the few remaining folding chairs and settles on a bench at the back of the room. A woman walks to the podium. She is tall, with blonde hair going platinum. Gerry would guess she’s in her mid-forties. She gives a warm smile and spends a moment looking over the assembly.

  “Hi. I’m Amanda, Harry’s big sister. People always assume that Harry was into jazz, but his favorite was actually baroque. That was the Marin Early Music Ensemble, a piece by Scarlatti. My brother was a remarkable man. I guess that’s a bit of an understatement. And he had remarkable friends. Such as… Jane Hirshfield, Mill Valley’s own world-famous poet. Jane has come to read a couple of pieces that, in her own divine way, might express some of the grief that we are all feeling.”

  Jane is a slender Jewish woman with shoulder-length brown hair that verges on kinky. Her cheekbones hint at Native American. As poets tend to do, she wears bold jewelry, triangle earrings with stripes of yellow and red. She begins with a poem titled “Stone and Knife.”

  Some griefs augment the heart

  enlarge;

  some stunt.

  Then she talks about her friendship with Harry Optic, the crime writer and the poet debating philosophy in a coffeehouse called The Depot.

  So the evening goes. Writers, relatives, drinking buddies, telling of their encounters with Harry. By the end, Gerry decides that he rather likes this guy, dead though he may be. He is also grateful that they are all so well-spoken and humorous. He’s exhausted from the road, and even with all the charismatic personalities he nods off a couple of times. The only real drama comes from an uncle who had some contentious times with his nephew and cannot finish after breaking into tears. Gerry has seen this before. It’s the ones with unresolved issues who get the most emotional.

  Afterwards, the mourners filter into the courtyard for a chatty reception with wine, coffee and cookies. Gerry waits a long time, until things are dying down, before approaching Amanda. She stands next to a Chinese maple, looking preoccupied and tired.

  “Hi. Amanda? I’m Gerry. Hey, I don’t know if this means anything, but I thought you did a lovely job tonight.”

  She returns a charmed smile.

  “Thank you, Gerry. Actually, it does mean something. I wanted to do right by him. I’ve done some corporate speeches, so I guess the experience paid off.”

  She releases a sad laugh. A stripe of light reveals something he hadn’t noticed before: her eyes are a surprising sky blue.

  “This might be an odd request,” says Gerry, “but could I talk to you in private?”

  Amanda looks puzzled, but then her eyes open up. “Is this about Karen?”

  “Yes.”

  She puts a hand on his lapel. “Give me a moment. I just have to let my husband know.”

  She goes to the refreshment table and confers with a silver-haired man in a blue suit. She returns to Gerry.

  “Follow me.” She passes through the front gate. Gerry pauses to take in the wysteria.

  “I noticed that, too,” says Amanda. “But what’s really driving me nuts is the smell coming from that theater.” They cross the street to a funky old cinema. Over the marquee, a series of mismatched pillars rises to the roofline like the pipes in an organ. Amanda approaches the box office guy, who looks terribly bored.

  “Could I just drop in and get some popcorn?”

  “Sure.” He points them toward the door.

  They enter and walk to the snack bar. The popcorn girl is Amanda’s polar opposite, with black eyes and a head of dark ringlets. She gives them an easy smile.

  “Hi,” says Amanda. ”Could we still get some popcorn?”

  “Sure. In fact, you can have it for free. My final batch was a little too big.”

  “You won’t get in trouble, will you?”

  The woman laughs. “No! I’m the owner.”

  “Oh! You’re Jasmi
na, right? I saw you in that story about the festival.”

  Jasmina hands her a large bucket of popcorn. “That’s me. The butter machine is self-serve. As is the soda machine.” She sets two cups on the counter.

  “Well let me at least pay for the…”

  Jasmina fixes her with a look. “You’re not spending a cent. I am a huge Harry Optic fan.”

  Amanda falls silent, and looks down to keep herself from crying. “Thank you.” She walks away. Gerry thanks her and pours himself a Coke. They settle at a table near the window. Amanda is occupied with popcorn.

  “There’s nothing like grief to intensify the things that people do for you. You’d’ve thought Jasmine just gave me a million dollars.”

  “I think she did.”

  She looks at him, her mouth stuffed with kernels. “Gaw! Izh sho good.” She chews it down, then places a hand on the table. “So. You know Karen.”

  Gerry takes a handful and savors it.

  “Frankly, Karen sent me to be a spy. She was too ashamed to come.”

  Amanda looks distraught all over again.

  “God, that girl. It’s our own damn fault. I guess we thought that she was handling it, you know? Leave it to the wife, in sickness and in health, right? Later on, I realized we were avoiding him, we didn’t want to see the disintegration. And you know what? In a weird way, I’m glad she left. It forced me to get out of my stupid life and take care of my damn brother.”

  She eats another mouthful of popcorn and watches a passing car. “I won’t kid you. It was hell. The disease is terrible, and Harry was a terrible patient. But I sort of agreed with him. Who wants to politely accept this awful affliction? No, go down kicking and screaming. And that’s all that I had left with him. It was ugly and brutal, but it was Harry. So you tell her that, okay? Tell her she gave me a gift. And ask her to forgive us.”

  Amanda wipes her eyes and eats more popcorn. Gerry stays quiet for a while. Amanda takes a drink of soda and fixes him with those sky blues.

  “Can you tell me anything about her? Is she doing okay?”

  “Um, let me see. She’s in Nevada. And yes, she’s doing well. I’m a photographer, and she’s my assistant. We do a lot of work with casinos. The last couple of weeks, she’s had a pretty tough time. She’s reading every Harry Optic novel ever written.”

  Amanda bursts into laughter. “I’m sorry. I love my brother, but that Humphrey Bogart shit will drive you nuts after a while.”

  “I noticed.”

  “So,” says Amanda. “Are you two… involved?”

  “No. We’re very good friends.”

  “You must be. Driving all this way for a meeting with Harry Optic’s sister.”

  “And free popcorn.”

  “Yes, there’s that. And something else. Follow me.”

  They walk down the street to a Mercedes sedan. Amanda opens the trunk and hands the popcorn to Gerry.

  “Get this crap away from me or I’ll eat the whole thing.”

  She pulls out an old leather portfolio and hands it to him.

  “I am giving you the Ark of the Covenant, young man. The Hope Diamond. Inside is the last thing my brother wrote, and he instructed me to give it to Karen. In fact, take the case, too. I want it to be well-protected.”

  She shuts the trunk and looks across the street. The Art Club is still chirping with the voices of mourners.

  “I need to get back to the party.” She chuckles at her word choice. “Thank you, Gerry. I feel like I’ve done… my… job.”

  Her words lose air until she gives way to tears. This leaves Gerry in an awkward position. Does one hug a crying sister-in-law whom one has known all of fifteen minutes?

  He has no choice. Amanda falls against his shoulder. Gerry tucks the portfolio under his popcorn-arm and wraps the other around her back. He recalls Karen’s analysis: Life is fucking weird. The popcorn girl comes out to lock up the theater. Amanda recovers, and pats Gerry on the chest.

  “I’m sorry, Gerry. I have dampened every other shoulder in Marin County. Thanks. Thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Amanda crosses the street, gives a last wave and disappears under the wysteria. Propelled by popcorn and the thought of facing a morning rush hour, Gerry drives until he clears the megalopolis. He checks into a motel in Vacaville and watches The Maltese Falcon until he enters the big sleep.

  Thirty Five

  Gerry surprises himself when he begins to freestyle. He takes I-5 up to Redding, then he jumps east to Lassen Volcanic Park. The roads are treacherous, but the mountains are bracing and alpine, the snowmelt feeding into flowering meadows and cold, clear lakes. He stops to see a bubbling mudpot and take in the sulphorous vapors, just a hint of the powers lurking beneath the crust.

  He comes out into the Modoc National Forest and arrives at a road construction stop with an hour-long delay. He walks to the front of the line and discovers a collection of toys that the road crew has set out for bored children. He plays with a bubble wand, uses colored chalk to draw a sunset on the blacktop, and is in the middle of a game of Frisbee with a trucker when a stream of cars pulls in from the other direction. He returns to his car and joins the convoy in a twenty-mile slog through one earth-sculpting project after another.

  He stays the night in Burns, Oregon, then drives through Boise and down to Jackpot, arriving in the early afternoon. Fearing that his couch will put him to sleep, he goes straight to Cactus Pete’s and finds Karen at her espresso stand. Her cart has a new addition: a list of drink prices. She abandons a latte to run over and hug him.

  “Oh god oh god! You made it. How was it? Was it good?”

  “It was lovely.” Perhaps he’s being affected by Angela’s words, but Karen’s face is very close, and he has to fight the urge to kiss her. “I have something for you.”

  “The program? Oh, I bet it was beautiful, he’s got so many…”

  “No. Um, it’s from Harry. He wrote you something. His sister gave it to me.”

  Gerry hands her the portfolio and feels an immediate sense of relief. The thing has been sending out radioactive waves the whole trip. Karen holds it, dumbstruck. “Oh, God. I…”

  “Hey,” says a lady at the cart. “Any chance I could get my drink?”

  “Sorry,” says Gerry. “A death in the family.”

  “Thank you thank you,” says Karen. “Oh, um, give Kerry a call. But take a nap first.”

  She kisses him and returns to the cart, sliding the portfolio into a drawer.

  Gerry’s not certain he can get himself to nap – not with Karen’s mysterious instructions in his head – but after rescuing Sophie from Karen’s apartment and taking her for a walk, he’s able to grab an hour on the sofa. Once he’s had some coffee, he calls Kerry, feeling vaguely guilty for putting her off.

  “Jackpot Golf Club. Kerry McPherson.”

  “Hi Kerry. It’s Gerry.”

  She laughs. “Kind of a Dr. Seuss book, ain’t we? Are you back in town, young man?”

  “Yep.”

  “And would you like to see me?”

  “Love to.”

  “Good answer. I’ll pick you up at eight. Dress nice.”

  “Any clues?”

  “Dress nice.”

  “You got it.”

  Considering they’re in Jackpot, Gerry judges “dress nice” to mean his best jeans, a button-down shirt and some kind of sportcoat. Kerry arrives at 7:45, wearing an ensemble that evokes the Ivy League: pleated gray skirt, white blouse, a red-and-blue striped tie and a navy blazer. She manages to pull it off, mostly due to her athletic legs. She greets Gerry with a kiss that goes on for a while, then pulls back and grins.

  “Welcome home.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Come along, big boy.” She takes his hand and pulls him to her SUV. The drive lasts about two minutes and ends at Cactus Pete’s.

  “Sometimes,” says Gerry, “I think we’re in a rut.”

  “Oh, I think there are parts of Pet
e’s that you haven’t seen.”

  They cross the entrance and board an elevator. Kerry seems suddenly shy, as if she’s saving up for something. They rise and keep rising, until they arrive at the tenth and final floor. She grabs his arm and takes him into a long, high-ceilinged hallway.

  “My God, woman. What have you concocted?”

  She pulls out a silver card-key. “I got connections, baby. At least in Jackpot, Nevada.”

  She approaches number 1044 and keys them in. The suite is huge, with a living room, a balcony and a hot tub walled in glass. Gerry’s about to comment when he finds Kerry kneeling before him, undoing his belt. She pulls out his cock and goes to work, angling it upwards, pulling it into her mouth, cupping his balls. The look on her face is one of determination, as if his dick is a sudoku puzzle and it’s her job to solve it. She uses her hand to pump the shaft into her mouth. Gerry has to tap her on the head and pull away, lest they lose other options. It’s been ten years since he’s done this, and he wants to try all the flavors in the ice cream shop.

  Kerry gives his penis a close study. “Damn! Look how it’s pulsing. That is so hot. Are you ready for more, Gerry?”

  Gerry laughs. “Sure.”

  She pops to her feet, leans over the couch and aims her butt in his direction. Then she applies a hand to either cheek and draws up the fabric like a curtain, revealing the magnificent ass, unimpeded by underwear. Gerry kicks off his shoes and jeans, plants himself behind her and runs the head of his cock along her lips, spreading the moisture. He finds her entrance and inches forward, pausing to take a mental picture: his cock half-disappeared, the light from a lamp painting her globes in long crescents. Rods and cones. Then, he proceeds.

  Their morning session is a hint of things to come. Kerry is, by far, the most athletic woman he has ever coupled with. At one point, she ends up doing the splits, using a foot on either arm of the couch to nudge herself up and down on his dick. They adjourn to the hot tub for a long soak, then are taking a shower when Kerry’s handiwork brings him to another erection. She lifts one leg to the shower wall and offers herself up.