Murder by Mascot

by Mary Vermillion

  “I can’t believe this.” She strode toward Lexie, who stood calmly, tucking her hair into the back of her parka. “What do you think you’re doing?” Anne got right in Lexie’s face, her hands on her hips. I knew that stance. During my five years with Anne, I’d often unleashed the fighter that lay beneath her graham-cracker colored tresses and ethereal smile.

  “Take it easy,” Lexie said. “We’re on the same side.”

  “Haven’t you done enough already?”

  “Obviously not,” Lexie said, “or Dave DeVoster would be in prison.”

  “You’ve made people feel sorry for him.”

  Lexie wrapped her arms around her megaphone. A gust of wind nearly wrenched the signs out of Orchid’s hands, and a siren wailed in the distance.

  “You’re destroying our credibility.” Anne raised her voice.

  Lexie’s crew stopped chatting amongst themselves. A large man headed toward Lexie, and Orchid edged closer to Anne.

  “You may have kicked me out of the Women’s Center,” Lexie said, “but I have a right to be here. Remember,” Lexie enunciated her last words as if she were addressing an imbecile. “Freedom of speech. The first amendment.”

  Anne turned on her heel. Orchid reached for her arm, but Anne jerked away.

  “She has no idea what she’s doing.” Anne spoke loud enough for Lexie and her gang to hear. Three strides and Anne was on the other side of the walk.

  Orchid and I turned to follow, but someone grabbed me.

  It was Neale. She pulled me to her, and I buried my face in her long ashy curls. I breathed in the faint scent of her musk shampoo, her leather jacket. This was not OK. I needed to maintain my anger and righteous indignation. We needed to have a Serious Talk.

  “Mar-Bar! Neale!” Vince threw his arms around us. “Let the protest begin.” My housemate—he of the bad timing—twirled around, sporting a black and gold feather boa, and rainbow-striped woolen gloves. “What do you think?” he placed his rainbow hands underneath his goatee and struck a pose.

  “It looks like you had a bad accident with Herky,” I said.

  Vince flipped the boa over his shoulder and surveyed the crowd. “Anne will want to thank me for bringing the entire cast of Hairspray to swell the numbers of her protest.”

  Vince and I met when we were both theatre majors at Iowa. He has gone on to star at the community theatre, and I have found fame and fortune at the light board.

  “Anne’s not in a very good mood right now.” I nodded toward Lexie, who was testing her megaphone again.

  “Ah, young Mistress Misquote.” Vince waved one end of his boa through the air. “Was there a catfight?” he asked. “Do give me the gory details.”

  “I’m the one who needs details,” Neale said.

  “I’ll fill you in at home.” I didn’t want to waste our time together at a protest—not even for Anne.

  “Wasn’t Anne counting on us to be here?” Neale asked.

  “I was counting on you to show up yesterday.”

  “Girls, girls.” Vince waved his finger in my face. “No Public Displays of Anger.” He swept toward Anne.

  “Come on,” Neale said. “I want to say hi.”

  What she really wanted was to stall.

  We made our way past a smattering of signs: EXPEL DEVOSTER, STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, PLEA BARGAIN = SELLOUT. This last sign was held by a young woman who was leaning into her girlfriend. Their faces sported more metal than my silverware drawer. You feel your age in a university town.

  Anne and Orchid were underneath a streetlight, distributing signs. “I should have gotten her out of the Women’s Center the first time she misrepresented us.” Anne glared across the sidewalk at Lexie, who held one end of a banner that said CASTRATE DEVOSTER.

  Neale said hello and got tense nods in return. Anne usually greets people with a squeal and a hug, but she could barely take her eyes off Lexie.

  “What’s going on?” Neale asked. “What’s the story on the woman with the megaphone?”

  “She was a volunteer at the Women’s Center,” Anne said.

  “She caused lots of problems,” Orchid added.

  “Let’s not air the Center’s dirty laundry.” Anne handed a sign to a young man with puffy side burns.

  “You’re among friends,” Vince said. “Air away.”

  “She almost made the Center lose its funding.” Orchid put her arm around Anne’s waist. “She organized hundreds of people to stalk DeVoster.”

  “Not hundreds,” Anne said.

  “They dogged him 24/7,” Vince said. “It was all over the news.”

  “If you lived here,” I said to Neale, “you’d know about it.”

  That created an awkward silence. They all knew that I’d been furious when she’d decided to join the St. Louis police force.

  “Anyhoo,” Vince said, “they pitched tents outside his apartment until they had to stop because of a restraining order.”

  I made fists inside my mittens. My fingers were turning numb.

  “DeVoster complained to his coach who complained to the cops…” Orchid trailed off.

  “Eldon Bly rules this town,” Vince said.

  For once, he wasn’t exaggerating. I turned to Neale. “Bly has been the Iowa men’s coach longer than his players have walked the earth.”

  “He has only to say the word,” Vince continued, “and a sea of worshipping fans sweep away anyone or anything that threatens his team’s journey to the promised land.”

  “Since when do you use biblical metaphors?” I asked.

  Vince shrugged.

  “The point,” Orchid said, “is that Lexie’s articles made it seem like the Women’s Center had organized the stalking when they had nothing to do with it.”

  “I tried to tell her that I admired what she was doing, but that she was putting the Center at risk,” Anne said. “Then she wrote a story, quoting only the admiration part.”

  Orchid pulled Anne closer.

  “I wrote a letter to the editor, explaining the Center’s stance, but it was too late. I had to ban her from the Center. It was that or lose all our funding.” Anne voice caught, and Orchid rubbed her shoulder. “If only she had listened to me. She was one of our best volunteers. The day after I kicked her out, she had to stop her stalking anyway because of the restraining order.” Anne edged away from Orchid, her face grim. “Now the administration is going to think she’s part of the Center’s protest.”

  Vince put his hand to his mouth and stage whispered. “The banished damsel is heading this way.”

  Sure enough, Lexie ambled toward us, a megaphone in each hand. She extended them to Anne and Orchid. “You can borrow these tonight if you want,” she said. “We’ve got plenty.”

  Orchid folded her arms over her chest as Anne scowled at the megaphones.

  “No hard feelings?” Lexie grinned, tilting her head and waiting until Anne returned her smile.

  I knew that smile. It meant that there were hard feelings aplenty.

  The hapless Lexie was not as well-versed in my ex’s body language. “After all,” she said, “we’re all in this together.”

  “Ooh,” Vince whispered to me, “making it worse.”

  Anne’s smiled tightened. “Don’t you think that the castration banner is needlessly incendiary?” When she waxed multi-syllabic, you really had to watch out.

  “I’m just trying to get people’s attention,” Lexie said.

  “That’s clear,” Anne snapped. “You can take your megaphones and—”

  Orchid stepped forward. “We need to keep getting organized, don’t we, Anne?”

  Lexie smiled weakly and dashed back to her troops.

  I braced myself for Orchid’s stock tirade about Young Women These Days.

  “She’s just a baby,” Vince said. “She means well.”

  “You know her?” Anne asked.

  “From work.” When Vince isn’t treading the theatrical boards, he directs the animal shelter. “She adopted
two cats that had only three eyes and half a tail between them.”

  Anne and Orchid relaxed a little. They too have a soft spot for shelter animals. We all do—except Neale, who is too type-A for a pet. Her breath swirled white as she studied the crowd. I thought about how nice it would be to kiss her. After our talk, of course.

  “What’s with the big bird dressed like Elvis?” she asked.

  “Mar-Bar,” Vince exclaimed. “Shame on you. Haven’t you told Neale about Herky on Parade?” He took some signs from Anne and handed them to me and Neale. “Come,” he said, glancing at a group of frat boys in black and gold striped pants. “There’s time yet before the full descent of the Bumblebee Brigade.”

  I started to insist that we head home, but Vince was already ushering Neale toward a six-foot tall statue of Herky the Hawkeye. The bird was both menacing and absurd. His beak was hooked and sharp, but who knew if his pearly whites were meant to be snarling or grinning. He was down on one knee as if getting ready to propose or genuflect, but one of his arms was raised high and clenched in a fist. The gesture clearly said shove it.

  “There are 90 Herkys throughout our fair city—all decorated or dressed by different artists,” Vince said.

  Neale gazed at him blankly. “They’re the height of camp. I’m getting my picture taken with all of them before they’re auctioned off to raise money for the football team.” Vince tapped one of Herky’s elbows. “My fave is the Incredible Herk—all green with some very skimpy pants. You can really see how ripped that Herky is, but Elvis here has a nice ass.” He patted it. “They all do.”

  A woman with two small children hurried them along the sidewalk.

  “Don’t say anything about them to Orchid,” he told Neale. “She wrote a letter to the editor about how mascots valorize violence.”

  “The only time I feel violent is when people use words like valorize,” I said.

  Vince raised a sign in the air (NO SPECIAL TREATMENT), and struck a Herky pose. “Look,” he said, “Protest Herky.”

  I grabbed Vince’s feather boa and put it around Herky’s neck. “Tacky Herky,” I pronounced.

  Neale chuckled as Vince feigned a wounded look.

  “The rest of us are ready to protest.” Orchid’s round face was swollen with indignation, and her voice was as cold as my extremities. “We’re not here to have fun.”

  Her personal mantra. Alas, she was prescient if nothing else.

  We made our throats raw chanting, “UI, shame, shame. Raping women’s not a game.” My frozen arm ached from holding my sign aloft (NO ONE ABOVE THE LAW), and I could no longer feel my toes.

  “Innocent until proven guilty,” a prepubescent boy shouted in my face.

  “There are children at these games.” A woman in knee-high boots poked the word rape on Vince’s sign.

  “Tell that to DeVoster,” Vince said.

  An elderly man with Hawkeye earmuffs shook his head at Neale. “Don’t you have anything better to do than ruin a young man’s name?”

  Across the sidewalk, KCRG-Channel 9 interviewed Lexie. She gestured toward her banner, and I imagined the cameraman zooming in on the word castrate. I wondered if Anne would get her say, but I couldn’t spot her in the black and gold swarm.

  “What time is it?” Neale’s sign hung at her side, and her teeth chattered like castanets. Served her right for being so spineless about our talk.

  Chapter Three

  For better or worse, lesbians spend more time with their exes than most straight women spend with their husbands, children, best friend, and parents—combined. The hardest part is when you’re left alone to make small talk with your ex’s partner. The social awkwardness soars exponentially when the aforementioned party is also your boss and you’re arguing about work while she shows you flooring samples for their add-on.

  “Mmmm,” I said as Orchid ushered me into the recently dry-walled room. Mmmm is such a useful sound. Non-commital. All-purpose. It frees your mind to stew about other things like why your girlfriend is still in the car talking on her cell with her cop partner on a Saturday morning when she should be spending time with you, her actual partner. Like how your housemate is late as usual—thus extending an already torturous social occasion. Like how you have to stare at bits of tile and carpet with your ex’s partner instead of helping your ex with the vegan muffins in the kitchen.

  “Of course, we both want something green.” Orchid didn’t mean the color. She waddled back to the living room, her moon-shaped earrings swaying above an earth-toned ensemble that hovered between pajamas and Buddhist chic.

  The living room was likewise earth-toned—dominated by all-natural, organic-cotton furniture. “What about Roshaun?” she asked as we sat down, changing the conversation from “pleasure” to business.

  Roshaun was our top intern and the head manager of the men’s basketball team. I’d been in charge of him and the other interns for a year, ever since Anne decided she wanted to work on our friendship. Orchid was using her power as my boss to be sure I didn’t have time to “work on” anything but work. Right now that involved Roshaun’s burning desire to interview Waddell Jones, author of Kobe Bryant and the Press, on one of my weekly shows. “Roshaun is the last person who should handle the Kobe Bryant piece,” I said.

  “He’s got the talent.” Orchid tapped her thumbs together.

  “He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into,” I said, “especially with the parallels between Bryant and DeVoster. There’s too much of a conflict of interest for him. He could piss off the entire men’s basketball team—not to mention his coach and the fans.”

  Orchid flattened her hands on her thighs and then adjusted the onyx pinkie ring that Anne had given her. “Make sure you tell him it was your decision.”

  I sipped the coffee that I’d brought from home and savored the cinnamon scent that wafted from the kitchen. “Mmmm.”

  * * *

  The videotape of the protest lay unwatched on the coffee table next to a decimated plate of muffins and the remains of a tofu-scrambler casserole.

  “We should just watch it without Vince,” Orchid said. “It’s almost noon.” She took Neale’s plate, and stacked it atop her own empty one.

  “Let’s give him a few more minutes,” Anne said. “He’ll be here soon.” The maroon scarf around her neck made her eyes seem the color of maple syrup, and she was just that sweet, always expecting the best. She leaned over her chair and petted Labrys, the huge golden retriever they’d recently adopted from the shelter.

  “I’m in no rush,” Neale swung her arm around my shoulders, and I leaned my head against her arm. Her hair smelled foresty and fresh. Last night I’d let her talk me out of talking and into bed. Tomorrow she’d have to head back to St. Louis.

  “What are you going to do with the new room?” she asked.

  Anne and Orchid met each other’s eyes.

  “Who knows?” Orchid said.

  Something was afoot. Suddenly—after subjecting me to floor samples ad nauseum—they didn’t want to talk about their new room?

  “You must have some idea,” Neale said.

  Orchid shifted in her chair and glanced at Anne again. “Half of it might be for Anne’s yoga and meditation, and the other half for my calligraphy.”

  A whole room for activities that Neale and I never had time for.

  Anne bit the inside of her lip and adjusted her scarf. Their grandfather clock ticked, and their heat came on. “We might turn it into a nursery.” She giggled and gave Orchid a nervous look.

  I couldn’t believe it. Anne hadn’t wanted kids when we were together. Well, she’d always gushed over the cute ones in public, but that hadn’t meant anything, had it?

  “Wow,” Neale said. “Are you going to adopt or try to conceive?”

  Anne took a deep breath and grinned. “I’d like to give birth.”

  Orchid smiled weakly. One of the few things she and I bonded over was our attitude toward kids. Whenever our office manager brought
her toddler to the station and he’d fuss or scream or try to eat paper clips, Orchid or I would whisper Reason 956. Meaning there are at least that many good reasons not to reproduce. “We’ve been talking about it,” Orchid said.

  No wonder they’d been stalled on their floor samples.

  “I’ve done lots of research,” Anne said.

  “Good for you.” Neale’s voice was false perky. She didn’t—thank God—want to be a mommy any more than I did.

  I leaned away from Neale’s arm. Anne could no longer hit the snooze button on her biological clock, but she hadn’t said a word to me. We had coffee once a week, yet I knew nothing.

  The doorbell rang, and Vince threw open the front door, letting in a gust of cold air. “Better late than never,” he called.

  Labrys bounded toward him, barking. She threw her front paws on his shoulders and nearly knocked him over. “Whoa, girl, you wag that tail any harder and you’re going to lose it.” Labrys loved Vince. She spent part of her time at our place because he was trying to train her to be the ring bearer for Anne and Orchid’s as-yet-unscheduled commitment ceremony. Anne didn’t want to pick a date until after Labrys mastered the ring-bearing trick. At least that was what she said. Maybe she was stalling, wanting to feel sure that Orchid was on board with the parenting thing. If so, she’d bought herself a lot of time. Vince had been working with Labrys for a month—ever since Anne and Orchid had gotten her—and so far the canine couldn’t go two steps without the practice ring sliding right off the soggy practice pillow.

  As Vince rubbed Labrys’s head, he managed to extricate himself from his jacket and hang it on the doorknob. “Pardon my tardiness, but Richard wanted to try a new scone recipe.” Richard was Vince’s default date, the guy he spent the night with when neither of them could find anybody better. “They were a delight.” He licked his lips and patted his belly before crossing to the empty chair closest to the TV. “I’m ready for my close-up,” he said. “I do hope there’s good footage of me.”