~ 1 ~
Ellie worked two jobs, lived okay, and was in love at age twenty-three. According to a lot of people, she was in love with the wrong man. From the time she could remember, she’d never been around a particularly bad horse. But men, that was a different thing.
She finished tacking Damian and led him into the arena. She had the place to herself, though she was never really alone. She glanced out the window. A flock of crows pecked their way about, all sleek and shiny black. Only one had its feathers ruffled at the moment. Probably Lolita, Ellie thought, her favorite of all the crows she’d ever known. She took a closer look. Yep, sure enough it was Lolita, named for the way every ounce of her….
“Ellie?”
She sighed, so much for solitude. There stood the farm owner’s husband, Victor. “About your board.”
“I’ll have it tomorrow,” Ellie said, and turned her back. She didn’t like this man, didn’t trust him. He reminded her of that teacher years ago. “Don’t come near me,” she willed in her mind. He stepped toward her.
“Can I give you a leg up?”
“No. No, thank you,” Ellie said, as politely as she could. She mounted her horse and adjusted his girth. He had a habit of taking a deep breath and half holding it. She adjusted it another notch. Damian was a Thoroughbred Quarter Horse Cross; the best of two breeds. A registered Appendix Quarter Horse, he stood 16.2, all muscle and long legs, and was as black as Lolita. He was kind and gentle for the most part, but did have a streak in him that came out every now and then. Like the time he’d set out after that groundhog in the pasture. Ellie shuddered. He’d pawed at that crevice in the ground for the longest time.
“It’s not that I’m worried,” the man said, in that all too sleazy way of his.
Board was due the first of every month, and so was Ellie’s rent. She always paid the rent first, and three or four days later, Damian’s board. She was never any later than that.
“Maybe you and I can work something out.”
Ellie ignored the suggestion. “I’ll have it tomorrow.” She’d been ignoring his suggestive comments for months now. His persistence was annoying. She had never ever encouraged this man. In fact, her behavior toward him was quite the opposite, and still, he would not leave her alone. Another boarder arrived just then, a friend of Ellie’s. Thank heaven.
“If friends were money,” Ellie’s Grandma Betty would say, “you’d be rich.” Grandma Betty was Ellie’s best friend, and had been, ever since the day Ellie saw a robin land on her shoulder in the nursing home courtyard. Up until then, Ellie’s visits had been obligatory. She’d never really known the old woman. Grandma Betty was her father’s mother, the black sheep in the family, she’d been told. A hussy. A tramp and a thief.
Not so.
At least not to hear Grandma Betty tell it.
Ellie’s friend Abby chased the man away with her mere presence. Several minutes later, she joined Ellie in the arena on her Hanoverian nicknamed Bubba for his size. The man sulked into the tack room and stood watching them through the crack in the door.
Abby was a novice, but what she lacked in experience, she made up for in zeal. “Oh look, there’s Lolita,” she said, bouncing happily against each of Bubba’s commanding strides.
Ellie smiled. Lolita was bobbing her head up and down, as if posting to her own little trot of sorts. “Reverse,” Ellie said, to see what Lolita would do. Sure enough, when Ellie and Abby turned, Lolita changed directions as well.
The man watched. When these two were riding out in the pasture once, a huge flock of crows followed them. Each time they stopped, the crows stopped, again and again, and would squawk and squawk as they landed all around. Usually something like that would spook the hell out of a horse, let alone a person. Yet neither seemed bothered in the least.
“Look at him,” Abby whispered. “No, don’t. Wait till I count three. One, two, three.” They both turned their attention and for a second, a millisecond, the man was caught; his eyes beady like a hunter’s at the end of a scope. As he walked away, red-faced, Lolita spread her wings in a magnificent display of black and purple.
* * *
Grandma Betty weighed eighty pounds and was literally starving herself to death. It was the only thing she had control over, she insisted. And she could swear like a sailor. “They’re only trying to get you to eat,” Ellie said, after she’d lit into one of the aides bearing a tray. “Here, drink your health shake.”
Grandma Betty took a sip through a straw and handed the shake back. “There, I’ll probably be around another whole day now.”
Ellie smiled. “Make that two. Here.”
Grandma Betty didn’t fear death, nor did Ellie for that matter. They both knew they’d been on earth before, and at the rate they were going, since Grandma Betty had burned so many bridges behind her and Ellie had yet to cross the right one, chances are they’d probably both be back.
Grandma Betty slurped the rest of her health shake, and resigned herself to at least three, maybe even four more days now as a result. “I hope you’re happy,” she said to Ellie.
Ellie gave her a hug. “Did I tell you what the Dildo did?” ‘Dildo’ was Grandma Betty’s nickname for Ellie’s boyfriend Diablo, insisting that was probably all he was good for.
“No, what?”
“He bought a Harley.”
“A Harley?” Grandma Betty made a face, her only acknowledgement to the news. “Check and see how many diapers I have.”
Ellie got up and looked in the closet. She hated that term, diapers, and suggested in the beginning they call them something else. But Grandma Betty believed in calling a spade a spade. “Who would we be kidding anyway?”
Ellie counted. “One whole bag, and five, no, six in the other. Is that going to be enough?”
Grandma Betty sat thinking for a moment. “Should be. Do I still have powder? I think them girls take my powder.”
“You have plenty.” Ellie gathered up her grandmother’s dirty clothes and put them in a bag. “Now remember I won’t be here tomorrow. I have that dinner to go to.”
Grandma Betty nodded. “It’s about time the Dildo took you somewhere.”
Ellie laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll see you Sunday. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Ellie looked back at her from the door, one last glance, always, ever since that time she feared she’d never see her again. “Fly, Grandma, if it be your will,” she whispered. “If not, please eat.”
“Bring me something,” Grandma Betty said. “Something good.”
Ellie promised she would, and stopped at the nurses’ station on the way out. “Excuse me.”
The floor nurse looked up.
“Someone’s using my grandmother’s powder again. It’s almost gone, and I just bought it five days ago.”
The nurse pursed her lips, started to say one thing and instead sighed. “I’ll look into it.”
“No,” Ellie said. “Looking into it doesn’t help. I want it stopped. That powder is hers.”
“Fine. But are you sure she’s not just dumping it out?”
“What?”
“Dumping it out? For attention. Sometimes for attention, old people will….”
Ellie glared down the corridor and raised her chin. “Don’t make waves,” she could hear her father say. “Your grandmother is on Medicaid. She’s lucky they let her in there. You have no idea the strings I had to pull.”
“Is there anything else?” the nurse asked.
“No,” Ellie said, and turned on her heels.
* * *
Diablo asked Ellie to dance. The ceremony part of the evening had come to an end. All the awards had been handed out, the acceptance speeches made, all the “above and beyond the call of duties�
� accounted for. Now it was time to party.
Ellie looked stunning! Stunning being the word Diablo’s Police Chief had used to describe her from across the room when earlier he and Diablo had met up at the bar. “Absolutely stunning! I wouldn’t let her get away.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Diablo had said.
“Diablo….”
He held her in his arms. “Yes.”
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
Diablo looked at her. “Good or bad?”
“Good,” Ellie said. “Kinda sorta.”
Diablo nodded. “Kinda sorta. I see.”
Ellie smiled. He was doing his good cop, bad cop impression. He had the act down pat. He lived it: walked the walk, talked the talk. “It’s about next weekend. There’s this gathering out at Willenbrook.”
“You mean the lesbian thing?”
Ellie chuckled. “They’re not lesbians. Not all of them anyway. I’m going and I’m not a lesbian. Abby’s going.”
Diablo cocked an eyebrow. “Abby…? The Abby who looks-like-a-guy Abby?”
“She’s married, Diablo. Married.”
“Yeah, to Mister Twinkle Toes. I rest my case.” He pulled her back into his arms, the music soft and romantic…his embrace, strong and intoxicating.
“I’m going, Diablo.”
“Fine,” he said, his mouth warm against her neck. “I’ll see you there. Billings and I are assigned to the action.”
“What?” She looked at him and saw he wasn’t kidding.
“I’ll be watching you,” he said, along with a kiss.
Ellie just stared.
~ 2 ~
Abby was the one that always instigated their going to retreats like this. “Something’s missing in my life,” she’d said. “I don’t know what, but I feel like that song. I just know this can’t be all there is.” At least once, sometimes twice a month, depending on the cost of admission and time of day, out of curiosity, Ellie found herself being talked into tagging along more and more. Willenbrook was their first weekend overnighter.
“What on earth do they think we’re going to need cops for?”
“I don’t know. I guess because of all the people planning to attend.”
Abby smiled. “Not people, women.”
“What? You think women aren’t capable of getting rowdy?”
“Capable, yes. Probable, no.”
The two hoisted their backpacks and sleeping bags and took their place in line.
“I wonder what kind of food they’ll have.”
Ellie smiled. “Chocolate and cheesecake. What else?”
Those assembled ahead of them were rather quiet. “It’s almost an eerie kind of quiet,” Abby suggested. “Feels weird.” It was dusk; the skies threatening rain, a stillness in the air.
“Welcome, my sister,” a woman standing at the makeshift stockade fence entrance to the field said. “Welcome.” She took Abby’s fifty dollars, stamped her hand, and greeted Ellie. “Welcome, my sister. Welcome.”
Ellie’s hand-stamp smeared instantly with the first drop of rain.
“Wonderful.” Abby glanced at the sky and then surveyed what used to be a field of maze “many moons ago” accordingly and now nothing but a blanket of dandelions. “We should’ve brought an umbrella.”
“Not allowed,” someone behind them said very softly.
Abby headed straight for one of the Porta-Potties. “Oh look,” she said, opening the door and pointing inside. “A candle. Cool!”
Ellie scanned the brochure for the umpteenth time since first laying her eyes on it months ago. No loudspeakers, no stage, no performances.
“This is just too cool,” Abby said from behind the door. “Toilet tissue and Tucks!”
Ellie laughed quietly. There was even more of a hush in the air, and more rain, a steady drizzle. She scanned the horizon for a tree. None. Just acres and acres of dandelions, the blossoms all closing up for the evening.
Abby emerged, and they made their way to the already-forming circle of women. A classic flower child of a woman stood in its center, encouraging everyone to get comfortable. “Sit, please sit.”
The ground was already rather wet.
“Sit….”
Ellie was the first to fold her legs and oblige. Abby second. The rest followed.
“Mother Nature is raining her glory upon us,” the flower-child woman said, in the softest and most eloquent of voices. “Revel in her embrace.” She raised her arms to the sky, swaying and encouraging all assembled to do the same, and smiled adoringly into the advent of night.
“If she starts singing Kumbaya, I’m gonna puke,” Abby whispered.
Ellie glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, arms raised only slightly. Mother Nature was all around them, not just the sky. This was a mistake.
“There now,” the center of their universe at the moment said. “Now that we have that silliness out of the way.”
Everyone lowered their arms and broke into laughter. Even Ellie. Maybe this wasn’t a mistake after all.
“Sit, sit. Come, come, all of you,” the woman encouraged the latecomers. “Make room, make room. There is always room at Mother’s table. Sit.”
Ellie stared. Mother’s table? Okay, so this was going to be a little corny after all.
“Now then.” The woman wiped the rain from her eyes and steepled her hands. “First off, I’m going to ask you to turn to those next to you and bid them welcome.”
“Welcome,” Abby said, bowing from the waist in Ellie’s direction, and then to the person on her right. “Welcome.”
Ellie smiled. “Welcome to you, too.”
“If you are comfortable, hug those around you.”
Ellie and Abby chuckled and embraced. Abby was a hugger by nature. She hugged everyone within reach.
“If not, a handshake.”
Ellie shook the woman’s hand to her left.
“All of you are here for a reason,” the woman said. “A purpose. Some of you may know that reason or purpose by the time you leave. Some of you may not. This could possibly be the beginning of your journey, or perhaps it is the end. Maybe it is just a stop along the way.”
A clap of thunder roared in the distance.
“Some of you may rejoice.”
Lightning flashed in the sky.
“Some of you may weep.”
Thunder boomed louder.
“The only thing that is certain is that you will not leave this place alone. From this day forth, you will never be alone again.”
Ellie bowed her head. Not in reverence, but in anguish, and sighed. “Bullshit.”
“Bullshit?” she heard someone say. “Bullshit…?”
Ellie raised her eyes. All one hundred and three women in attendance, including the woman in the center and Abby at her side, were looking at her. And for once, Abby wasn’t smirking or laughing.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie said, the rain pelting her face. “It’s just that there are times when I want to be alone. I don’t think being alone is necessarily a bad thing.”
The flower-child woman stepped closer. “But being alone can be a bad thing. It is in numbers that we survive. It is in numbers that we have a voice.”
“Fine,” Ellie said, embarrassed at being singled out. “We’ll stick with the numbers.”
“Come here,” the woman said, extending her hand. “Come.”
Ellie stood reluctantly.
“Come.”
Ellie took the woman’s hand. “Weep for those in pain,” the woman chanted. “Weep for those in labor. Weep, weep, weep. Weep, sisters…weep.”
Ellie started laughing. She couldn’t help herself. When she looked at Abby, sitting there among all the supposed weepers, laughing as well, she laughed even harder. She laughed inside and out, the rain and the lightning and the thunder all around them. And finally, when she couldn’t laugh anymore, she started crying. The woman released her to comfort and address each and every one. “Weep,” she insisted. �
�Weep for one, weep for us all. Weep.” The sky let loose with a torrent.
* * *
Diablo pulled the graveyard shift for this extra duty and arrived on the scene with his partner a little before eleven. “Well?”
The one cop being relieved shrugged. Nothing so far.
“What are they doing?”
“I don’t know. It’s dark back there. No lights.”
“Is there shelter?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, it’s dark back there.”
“Probably having an orgy,” Diablo’s partner said.
Diablo just looked at him.
“Probably naked women everywhere.” He sniffed the damp air. “I can smell pussy a mile away.”
Diablo took out his thermos. “That’s because that’s as close as you usually get.”
The men all laughed, his partner included.
It was going to be a long boring shift, with none of the potential trouble materializing. No gate crashers, no protesters, molesters, no nothing. Just a beautiful clear sky with lots of stars now that the storm had passed. A peaceful night for them, and for the women.
Stripped down to her underwear, Ellie’s waterproof sleeping bag was dry and cozy inside, the night air filled with warmth and promise. Tomorrow was going to be a better day. She heard a distant, contented, “Caw,” and closed her eyes.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me.”
She turned.
“Do you have any dry cigarettes?” her intruder in the night asked. “I’m dying for a cigarette. Mine are all wet.”
“No, sorry.”
The woman moved on. “Excuse me,” Ellie heard her whispering not fifteen feet away. “Would you happen to have any…?”
Ellie burrowed down and when she was comfortable again, dozed among the hum and buzz of hushed conversations everywhere. Abby woke at the crack of dawn and nudged her. “Rise and shine, Sister Bullshit. I smell bacon.”
~ 3 ~
Halfway through the day, Ellie had doubts again. She’d never been raped, not even in a previous life that she could remember, was never abused that she could recall. She wasn’t a cancer survivor. Her life wasn’t a total shambles. She’d never been locked in a closet, or fed dog food; one shared story, was never harassed at work or shunned, lied to her whole life, or patronized. She’d never given birth. She was never abandoned, deserted for another man or woman, bore no physical scars. She wasn’t even overweight. This was a waste of time. Hers and everyone else’s around her, including Abby. Especially Abby, who sitting at her side, appeared to be having the time of her life.
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