Everything but the Girl

by Saxon Bennett

  “Posh sale. You’re getting some good houses.”

  She was right. Joy was getting higher end houses, ever since she’d sold the Lamberts their house in Desert Springs. The market was so good that people were flipping houses and needed a good realtor who could sell the houses fast. She was up and coming, and she knew it would make her mother proud.

  Angela read the pamphlet. “It says here that she’s been part of the Muralismo movement and it’s really hard to get any female work in. The broken heart reminds me of Frida Kahlo’s stuff except instead of Frida it’s Carol.”

  “Right. You can see why she’s upset,” Joy said.

  “Talk about flipping your ex-lover the finger... this is doing it in a big way. This thing is huge,” Angela said.

  “It’s no wonder she mourns,” Joy said.

  She was genuinely sorry for Carol. To wake up and have your lover say, “I don’t love you anymore.” That would mess with a person’s head.

  Joy’s last break up had been messy—tears and tantrums. Screaming and beating on the countertop, each slap on the tile like a period at the end of a sentence. Joy hated scenes. Usually, her girlfriends broke up with her. But Beth had been different. She was jealous and overprotective of their relationship, clingy and smothering. Leaving Beth had been a terror and a relief. Beth called her every day for months, pleading for another chance or accusing Joy of having another girlfriend, which wasn’t true. Joy had enjoyed her freedom that time. She’d had to move out in a hurry, which was how she had ended up living in a condemned apartment. Her month-to-month lease had run out and everyone in the building had gotten evicted. And that was how she had ended up on Angela’s couch and now as Carol’s roommate.

  She was glad she was there. It would be hard to be alone after your lover ripped your heart out. Joy felt nothing but compassion for Carol, even if they did have an uncomfortable couch.

  Angela slurped the last of her smoothie. “These things are good.”

  “I told you,” Joy said, finishing her strawberry-banana.

  Angela went to throw away her empty smoothie container and screeched from the kitchen. Joy went running. “What is it?”

  “Your trash can. It’s like a robot. I suppose Carol bought it. Look,” Angela said, running her hand over the sensor and the lip lifted up.”

  “I know. It’s posh. Everything about Carol is posh.”

  “Once again, you’re thinking about her,” Angela teased.

  “And you want us to stalk her ex-girlfriend,” Joy retorted.

  “No, we’re going to an art opening. It’s an LGBTQ community event, of which we are members. It only makes sense we go,” Angela said.

  “I don’t know how we’d make it look coincidental if we did run into Carol,” Joy said.

  “She won’t go. The last person she wants to see is the woman who ripped her heart out and ate it for dinner.”

  “You make her sound like Hannibal Lecter,” Joy said.

  “Debra is a harsh woman. Look at that mural she painted,” Angela said.

  “Sounds like you’re on Carol’s side,” Joy said.

  “I think I am. And I haven’t even met her yet.”

  “Met who?” Carol asked, walking into the kitchen, knowing full well they were talking about her. “Me?”

  “Yes,” Angela said, blushing.

  “I took an early lunch. It’s kind of slow today and I needed a break,” Carol said.

  “Where is your store?” Angela asked, no longer embarrassed.

  “Two blocks from here. You can see why this apartment was perfect,” Carol said.

  “Uh, yeah. It is convenient,” Angela said. “Well, I better get to work. It’s nice to finally meet you.” Angela tripped over herself getting out of the kitchen. Carol’s good looks tended to do that to people.

  “It’s nice to have a close friend,” Carol said when Angela had left.

  “Yes, it is,” Joy said, wishing Carol had one. According to Carol, all her and Debra’s friends were artists and really Debra’s friends. Carol had been left bereft.

  “Call me later,” Angela said, from the living room as she put on her coat.

  Angela called Joy fifteen minutes later, “Carol is, like, perfect in every way. Wow, there’s got to be something wrong with her.”

  “There isn’t. She’s gorgeous and she’s not keen on it,” Joy said.

  “How can you not be keen on being that hot?”

  “Uh, because everyone treats you differently. She hates male attention especially.”

  “Yeah, that would suck,” Angela admitted. “Oh, gotta go, Mrs. Avery’s hair is dry.”

  Joy chuckled. She started her car and drove to Nob Hill to show a large Victorian house, immaculately restored. It would be an easy flip for the sellers—two gay guys who flipped houses for a living. They’d discovered Joy and now business would boom with their exclusive relationship. It was a real estate win-win. When she got out of the car the clients were standing in the front yard. The first thing Joy heard was “We’ll take it.”

  It was going to be a good day.

  Chapter Nine

  Carol was true to her word about helping Joy put together the furniture. It was Saturday night. Both of them had had a busy day at work, yet Carol had wanted to assemble the dresser together tonight and do the nightstand tomorrow.

  “How come you have tools and you’re so good at using them?” Joy asked, screwing in the side piece of her new dresser drawer as Carol had instructed her.

  Carol looked up from the instructions. She was building the dresser’s frame. “I have to put together displays and shelving units. I like to freshen up the store every six months. It keeps the customers from getting bored with my boutique. There is always something to notice and talk about. It also gets my return customers to look at new accessories that they might have passed on by before.”

  “You’re a shrewd businesswoman,” Joy said, impressed.

  “I have to be, or I won’t survive. As you well know, being self-employed is always a gamble,” Carol said. She pursed her lips in concentration, studying the instruction sheet. “Oh, I get it.”

  “Yeah, those instructions were way beyond me,” Joy said. “I want you to know how much I appreciate this.”

  “I should hope so,” Carol said. She chuckled, “because I can only imagine what this thing would look like if you were left to your own devices.”

  Joy smiled. “You know, despite our contentious introduction to each other, I think we’re going to make good roommates.”

  “Me, too. Now hand me that screwdriver.”

  There went the tender moment, caught up in tools and furniture.

  Joy was hoping for more insights into Carol because Angela was right: Joy did think about Carol a lot. Carol was intriguing and damaged.

  It was like in lesbian novels (of which Joy was quite fond, especially when she was between girlfriends), there was always a damaged and heartbroken woman in need of finding love and living happily ever after. Wasn’t that what we all our looking for—that happy ever after? Joy mused.

  Carol put the first drawer in the dresser. “Voila! It works.”

  “You don’t look like you would do this kind of stuff, but you’re really good at it.”

  “What, I don’t look like the type?” Carol asked, not offended but interested in Joy’s opinion.

  “Well, no. You look like the type that wouldn’t want to break a nail.”

  “I’d say that describes you better,” Carol said.

  Joy laughed. “You got me on that one.”

  Carol went back to putting the second drawer together. She was quite adroit. Joy continued working on her drawer. With Carol as her guide, she got one of them together. She was getting better at this furniture building.

  She watched as Carol furrowed her brow while she worked. She was a lovely woman in all her moods—sexy when she was angry, a beauty when she was forlorn, a vixen when she flirted. And Joy wanted to know everything about her.r />
  Once again, Angela’s ability to see possibility was working, but Carol was way out of Joy’s league. She couldn’t wait to see this Debra and observe a most likely gorgeous woman. They must’ve made a stunning couple. Time would tell. The opening was the coming Friday. Joy didn’t ask if Carol was going.

  “What did you want to be when you were younger?” Joy asked, putting another drawer in the dresser to make sure she’d done it correctly. It fit perfectly.

  “Do you mean when I was twelve? I was going to be either a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher. I have no idea why. The law seemed like more than I could handle. I don’t like blood, and students can be real shits.”

  “Wow that’s some big stuff.”

  “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

  “Happy.”

  Carol laughed. “Now, that’s a good goal.”

  “How about when you were older? Did you achieve your dream?” Joy said.

  “Partially. I wanted to be a designer. I worked at the Boutique while I was in college and when Margaret, the store owner, passed she left the business to me. She didn’t have any children. The plan was that Debra would work the store and I’d design the clothes to sell in the boutique. Of course, we’d sell other designer labels. The store would be the perfect place to get my start. Only it didn’t work out that way. The minute Debra saw Balmy and Clarion alleys she was gone. All she thought about were murals. She saw them everywhere and her interest grew, and she joined the Precita and her career as a purveyor of clothing was over. I ran the store, gave up on becoming a designer, and now I’m a shopkeeper.” She sighed. “And that is my story. Now what about you? Did you grow up wanting to be a happy realtor?”

  Joy smiled. “No. I just sort of fell into it. I got a degree in marketing, but I wasn’t cut out for corporate office work. I felt cooped up and bored. My mother got her real estate license and I followed her lead. I guess you’d say I fell into my career,” Joy said. She fell into a lot of things in her life, including relationships.

  “With the real estate market as it is, you’re in the right field,” Carol said.

  “Except I have to deal with a lot of unpleasant people sometimes,” Joy said.

  “As do I.”

  “Tell me about your worst customer,” Joy said.

  “Only if you tell me yours,” Carol said.

  They spent the rest of the evening telling stories about horrible interludes with nasty customers and finishing the dresser assembly.

  Chapter Ten

  “I’m not so sure about this,” Joy said as she sipped beer from a cup. There was a beer table with kegs of free beer. Joy hoped they had city approval. She didn’t want to get arrested for public drunkenness. She certainly didn’t want to end up in the papers. She could see the headlines. “Several people charged with public drunkenness at Mural opening.” It wouldn’t do wonders for her real estate reputation as a straight-shooter. People trusted her. What if they found out?

  She was overthinking this. The world wasn’t interested in this as a crime except that sometimes muralists painted unauthorized murals. Most murals had community support. Some were spontaneously created. Joy knew all this from a mural book Carol had in the living room bookshelf. The bookshelves were at least made of wood, not chrome and glass. Maybe Carol thought books warranted a homey feeling. Joy was glad. She still hated the couch. She was still overthinking Carol, too.

  “It’s fine,” Angela said. She gulped her beer. “Let’s get another one of these before the line gets too long.” It was growing as more people joined the crowd.

  “All right. It’s looks like the opening part is going to take a while. They’re still setting up the equipment,” Joy said. Apparently, it was going to be amplified and an all-girl band was setting up on a small stage. Nothing involving artists seemed to start on time, Joy thought, looking over the hip art crowd who made her feel stodgy and old. She had tied a silk scarf around her neck and wore jeans. The nip of fall was in the air and the daylight hours were getting shorter. The opening started at eight so lights were also being set up. It all looked like a big deal.

  Angela came back with their beers and handed one to Joy, who was now drinking double-fisted. Now she really hoped the event had a liquor permit. What an old lady she was becoming! Joy had gone to her senior kegger when she was seventeen and she’d done it with blatant aplomb. Now here she was, a grown up, afraid of being caught with a beer in an alley.

  Granted, it was an art opening, if that’s what you called it. It was difficult not to see the mural in all its prominence. Carol looked like Carol only her hair was silver. She had a heart-shaped hole where her heart was supposed to be and tears running down her face. The murder of crows picked at the heart that lay at the woman’s feet. All around swirled memories: a beach scene with moonlight, a couple made small by perspective were walking hand in hand on the beach. There were other obvious scenes of their relationship. The pamphlet Joy had seen didn’t do the mural justice.

  “Damn, she really took her art seriously, but I don’t think painting a mural of a breakup is very nice,” Angela said.

  “Apparently, Debra didn’t have a problem going big with the breakup. It’s a testimony to the death of love,” Joy said.

  “Wow, that’s dark. I can’t wait to meet Debra,” Angela said.

  “Meet her? I don’t want to meet her. We don’t even know her. We can’t just go up to her and say, ‘Hey there, I’m friends with Carol, you know, the woman you’ve displayed up there without her consent,’” Joy said.

  “I think artistic license comes into it. Like when writers purge themselves of people they know and change their appearance and name but use the incidents from their lives,” Angela said.

  “Are you defending Debra?” Joy said testily.

  “No, of course not. But she can pretty much paint what she wants.”

  It was true. Joy hated to admit it. Debra could paint whatever she wanted. But Joy didn’t like what it was doing to Carol and she despised Debra for it.

  The crowd suddenly hushed as Debra Lennon took the stage. As stunning as Carol was, Debra was a raven-haired beauty with sculpted facial features and prominent lips. Joy and Angela both sighed. “She would be absolutely stunning,” Angela said.

  “I know, right. They must have made a beautiful couple,” Joy said.

  “Do you think two hot women like that have trouble being in a relationship?” Angela said.

  “I don’t know what you mean?” Joy said.

  “Like they would be in competition for who gets the most attention. Which one is better looking in the eyes of the world? Both of them are being judged on beauty and not character,” Angela said.

  Joy thought guiltily how Carol had sweet-talked the young man into giving them a new footboard for Joy’s bed. Carol had used her looks for that. And what about selling clothes to other beautiful women? Ugh. She had ended up with a brokenhearted looker as a roommate.

  Joy found herself enjoying Carol’s company. They had only been living together two weeks and they already had a routine. Carol made her a cappuccino every morning—Joy was afraid to touch the elaborate coffee machine. And then she made them both breakfast. Carol liked to cook. Joy offered to pay for the food, but Carol wouldn’t hear of it. “I hate cooking for one so you’re doing me a favor,” she had told her. Joy, not being a cook, was delighted.

  The microphone screeched and Debra Lennon came forward. Joy and Angela couldn’t take their eyes off her. Neither could anyone else.

  “I want to thank everyone for coming tonight to see my mural ‘Love’s Demise.’ It was a difficult mural to paint because of the subject matter, but I feel like it resonates with a lot of people who have lost love for whatever reason. Someone always ends up broken and that was my guiding force behind what I currently consider my magnum opus, but as you know Muralismo is an ongoing process and I plan on painting more. I want to thank the commission for starting the women’s project to get more of a female presence i
n the field of public art.”

  “She would be articulate, too,” Angela grumbled. If Joy didn’t know any better, it seemed Angela was taking up for Carol.

  “Now, please enjoy the party and the art,” Debra said.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Angela said, poking Joy in the arm.

  “What?” Joy said, looking around for some unforeseen danger.

  “It’s Carol standing right over there,” Angela said.

  “No way,” Joy said. The last thing she wanted was for Carol to see them there. She might think they were stalking Debra or worse – that they were interested in Debra and this horrid mural. Did Debra break up with Carol so she could have these intense feelings and then paint them? Surely, no one would do that. Or would they if they were tired of the love affair or they had found another lover?

  And that’s when Joy saw Debra kiss another woman, stage left.

  “We have to save Carol,” Joy said, tugging at Angela’s hand.

  “Save her from what?”

  “Seeing that,” Joy said, pointing at Debra and the woman evidently she now loved.

  Carol was standing in the back of the crowd. Her back had been turned when Debra kissed her new girlfriend.

  “How are we going to save her?” Angela asked as Joy dragged her through the crowd.

  “Take her for drinks so we can get her out of here?” Joy suggested.

  “What makes you think she’ll go?” Angela said.

  “She’ll go,” Joy assured her, hoping her words rang true.

  “I hope you’re right,” Angela said. “You don’t need a pissed off roommate.”

  “I’m hoping we’ll be her savior and she’ll take our intervention as a good thing,” Joy said. If she was Carol, she’d want someone to save her from a lonely evening spent with your ex-lover’s magnum opus.

  “How are we going to explain why we’re here?” Angela said.

  “I’m going to tell her truth,” Joy said.

  “Which is?”

  “We wanted to see the woman who broke Carol’s heart. And to see that,” Joy said, jabbing a finger in the direction of the mural.