Saxon Bennett - Talk of the Town

by Saxon Bennett

  She had met Dr. Kohlrabi and been quizzed and examined. The good doctor was impressed with her diligence and did not doubt her sincerity but added a note of caution. She told her that overly bright people like Mallory grew to understand the mysteries of the universe that the rest of us in our belief in the importance of banal activities managed to overlook. These people are never happy, experiencing moments of calm only to succumb to the path of enlightenment that affords ultimate freedom of mind but is far removed from the rest of the world—including the one you love.

  “In other words,” Del had told Dr. Kohlrabi, “she’s not the best partner.”

  “Yes, but suffice to say you will never be bored and she’ll probably love you for the rest of your days—in that wonderfully old-fashioned way where you stick by your promise and accept all that it entails.”

  “I think that will do just fine for me,” Del said.

  Dr. Kohlrabi shook her hand and wished her well, thinking Mallory the luckiest girl on the planet.

  Mallory stood in the doorway of the warehouse like she had been mysteriously summoned. “I thought you might be out here.”

  “Did you feel my presence?” Del said, taking Mallory in her arms and kissing her ardently.

  “I must have,” Mallory replied, thinking one day they would fondly remember the days of longing before they made love for the first time. “I should tell you that this has been the most perfect courtship.”

  Del held her tighter, murmured her consent and said, “I love the way you smell,” taking a deep breath.

  Fran came out to smoke a cigarette. “Ah, nothing quite like young love. Is this the fabulous woman you’ve been telling me about?” Fran teased.

  Mallory smiled. “Yes, this is my beloved. Del, this is the illustrious lesbian activist, Fran Rolmen.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Del said, extending her hand.

  “You are very lucky girls,” Fran said, standing back, taking a drag off her cigarette and surveying them.

  “And just why do you say that?” Mallory said.

  Fran smiled and shook her head. “You know.”

  “Come inside and see what we’re up to. She has clearance, right Fran?”

  “Of course, we might need a physician on hand. Consider yourself hired,” Fran replied. “But no cancer talks,” Fran added, looking at her cigarette. “I get enough of that these days. My Marlboro and I go back a long way.”

  Del nodded, trying to remove the clinical image of black lung from her mind.

  Inside the radio was blaring the daily rosary on AM channel 1010. Long tables were set up across the warehouse and lesbian activists everywhere were painting ceramic Virgin Marys in a variety of sizes and colors. Jars of paint and white ceramic dust covered the tops of tables and the floor. As Mallory continued the tour, Del saw other women making long rosary chains, and others were moving the completed works to another room. Inside this room there were still more women poring over sketches laid out across two huge drafting tables with Gigi at the center of the discussion. She nodded at Del.

  “What’s going on?” Del asked as they stepped into the quiet of Mallory’s office and got a cup of tea from one of the vending machines now parked in Mallory’s office.

  “We’re making a bad art show starring our fair lady with a twist, of course,” Mallory said.

  “You aren’t going to get arrested?” Del asked.

  “We’re looking into legalities right now,” Mallory said. “I’m betting the First Amendment covers us.”

  “What are you going do to the blessed virgin?” Del asked, fearing the worst.

  “The exact same thing that men have done to women all along.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Desecrate her,” Mallory replied without compunction.

  “To what purpose?”

  “To make the adoring public realize the damage that has been done in the blessed virgin’s name.”

  “Are they going to see it like that?” Del asked.

  “Probably not, but the press will be good and it’s really going to piss Gigi’s mother off. In fact, we are planning on implicating her.”

  “Is she out of jail yet?”

  “Yes,” Mallory said, wrapping her legs around Del and rubbing her shoulders.

  “You seem a little tense,” Mallory said, pressing hard on the knot in Del’s left shoulder blade.

  “Activism makes me nervous,” Del replied, wincing.

  “It gives me a stomachache sometimes too.”

  “Whose idea was this anyway?” Del asked, wishing the genius behind this scheme hadn’t been so intellectually active. She supposed it was Gigi’s idea. Del had seen some of her Anti-Art and the words tasteless and profane didn’t begin to describe it.

  “Actually, it was mine,” Mallory said, softly.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I think God is with us now. Can’t you almost feel the spiritual energy here? He wants us to correct the wrongs. I’m sure of it,” Mallory said, getting flushed.

  Del abstained from saying that studying the fossil record in college showed that the likelihood of God was nothing more than ancient fertility cults bleached to the lily whiteness of Christianity. If Mallory chose to see collective human effort as spirituality she was fortunate. As a doctor Del was forced to rely too much on science to be capable of the necessary mysticism to worship and believe.

  There was an ecstatic cry from the workroom floor. Mallory and Del got up to see about the commotion. Del assumed the worst, thinking that Christian Activists had discovered the plan and infiltrated the perimeter. Instead, it was Aunt Lil dancing around with her prizewinning Virgin Mary. The ceramic sculpture was painted in horribly garish colors and thus Lil had won the “Make the Worst Virgin Mary” contest.

  “See, I told you I’d win,” Lil said.

  Fran put her hand on her hip. “You did honey.”

  Del rolled her eyes. Mallory beamed at the group of crones.

  “This is incredible,” Mallory said.

  “It is definitely different,” Del replied.

  Del, Kim, Angel and Mallory stood on the front lawn and admired Kim’s red house. She’d finally finished painting the house and was marveling at the therapeutic nature of having started painting it as a gesture of protest and how she had come to heal herself as well as fall in love during the course of labor.

  “It looks nice,” Mallory said.

  “The trim definitely toned it down a bit,” Kim said. “I was worried I had created an eyesore but I think it’s okay.”

  “A job well done,” Angel said, taking her hand. “Is everyone perfectly starving?”

  “Yes,” Del said, thinking lunch was an old memory.

  “I’ll get the grill going,” Angel said, heading out back, much to the dog’s excitement.

  “She just loves Angel,” Kim said, getting Del and Mallory a cocktail before going in to get the steaks.

  “I’ll go in and see if she needs help,” Mallory said, leaving Del and Angel to talk. She could sense they needed to for some reason— maybe it was the way Angel kept beginning to say something and then seemed to think better of it.

  “Can I help?” Mallory asked, as Kim pulled sundry items from the crisper. “I make a good salad.”

  “That would great. Then I can start the potatoes,” Kim said.

  “I’m glad you’re not with Ollie,” Mallory said, as she washed the produce. “She wasn’t good for you.”

  “But you like Angel?”

  “Very much. I think there is something special about Midwestern girls.”

  “You know, I owe you an apology,” Kim replied.

  “How so?” Mallory said, looking quizzical.

  “I always thought you were crazy. I even tried to warn Del about you.”

  “I am crazy.”

  “No more than the rest of us. But after painting the house because of my breakup with Ollie, I understand why we do extreme things. Everyone thought I was crazy for doing it.”
<
br />   “You were.”

  “I know. But I feel better.”

  “Craziness can be a positive outlet for grief, loss and the mending of a broken heart. It’s sad that the rest of the world is so afraid of being crazy. That’s why there are so many miserable people out there. No one heals anymore; they just move on to make the same mistakes again and again.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Hey, I saw the new character in Dykeland. She’s beautiful and funny, just like someone we know,” Mallory said.

  “I was kind of concerned at first but I’m getting used to the idea,” Kim replied.

  “It’s a gesture of love.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Angel finished getting the grill started. She sat next to Del.

  “So what’s up?” Del asked.

  “What makes you think something is up?” Angel asked, trying to look unflustered.

  “You have that look.”

  “What look?”

  “The one where you want to talk but you can’t seem to get it out.”

  “Jennifer found me,” Angel said.

  “When?” Del said, sitting straight up in her chair.

  “Today. I was waiting for Kim and Jennifer came instead.”

  “Did you freak?” Del asked.

  “Of course. I was going over my proofs for the next strip and voilá, she came strolling in the loft all ready to get close again,” Angel said, instantly reliving the horror.

  She had left the door open because Kim was on her way. Angel was sitting at her drafting table. She heard someone knock softly.

  “Come in,” Angel said, as she put the finishing touches on. She looked up to witness her worst nightmare come to life.

  “What are you doing here?” she said, standing up.

  “Hello to you too,” Jennifer said. “Boy, some things never change, always trying to squeeze your artwork around your daytime job.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Angel, you can relax. I just wanted to see you. You cut your hair. It suits you,” Jennifer said, reaching out to touch her. Angel stepped back.

  “I don’t want to see you. I never wanted to see you again. Now go,” Angel said, pointing to the door.

  “I’m here. Can’t we at least talk?” Jennifer said.

  “We don’t have anything to say. You made your choices a long time ago. How is Jody, by the way?” Angel said, anger tracing a path across her face.

  “I really don’t know. I haven’t seen her since rehab.”

  “Well, that’s just fucking perfect,” Angel replied, getting that losing-control sensation she experienced every time she was in Jennifer’s presence, even vicariously. It was like she had planned for this moment only to be left forgetting her lines at the crucial moment.

  “What do you mean?” Jennifer replied calmly.

  “Meaning, I lose my girlfriend to my best friend and get to keep neither. Commonly referred to as a woman-oriented dream gone awry. The least you could do is live happily ever after; it should be a requirement,” Angel said.

  “I admit it wasn’t a smart move on my part. But I thought about a lot of things in rehab. I’m clean now.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “It would have been nice if you’d hung around. I didn’t expect you to bail,” Jennifer said.

  “You taught me how to expect the unexpected. Should I have waited around? I needed to get on with my life.”

  “You call this getting on. You’re still selling yourself short.”

  “Don’t go there. I like how I live. I’m not the fuckup here.”

  “I still love you,” Jennifer said, moving closer. Angel moved back, abruptly knocking over her inkwell and spilling it on her shirt.

  Angel looked at her shirt. She was angry with herself for being upset, not to mention she had obviously ruined her favorite shirt.

  “Well, I suggest you stop immediately,” Angel said, moving to the sink and looking hopelessly at Jennifer.

  “Can’t we try again?” Jennifer said, moving with her.

  “Have you lost your fucking mind? You’ve done enough damage,” Angel said, taking off her shirt and running cold water over it, suddenly grateful she had a distraction from the apocalypse that was occurring before her very eyes.

  “But I’m better now. If you hadn’t disappeared we could have patched things up then.”

  “I didn’t disappear. I left because I was sick of all your shit. I left because you were a drunk and when you weren’t drunk you were high and when you weren’t fucking me you were fucking someone else. Now I want you to leave,” Angel said.

  “I’ve changed,” Jennifer replied.

  “So have I. I’m in love with someone else,” Angel said, as Kim walked into the open doorway with a tentative glance. She had heard arguing as she came down the hall and now stood mortified.

  Kim walked in to find Angel cornered in the kitchen half undressed with her ex-wife.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said, instantly alarmed that the open door wasn’t an invitation and a welcome. She hadn’t given it a thought as she stood there. Angel could tell by the look on her face.

  “Hi,” Angel said, looking completely horrified, immediately sensing what this looked like. “I’ve got ink on my shirt,” she said, holding up the shirt .

  “I was just leaving,” Jennifer said, enjoying the confusion. Jennifer strutted by Kim and turning around said, “I have a show downtown. Why don’t you come by?”

  “Not in this lifetime,” Angel said, almost savagely.

  Jennifer left. Angel threw the shirt in the trash bin.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “I don’t think anything,” Kim said, leaning on the kitchen bar.

  “That was Jennifer-who-in-her-own-twisted-mind-thinks-wecan-get-back-together-psycho-bitch,” Angel said.

  “Well, in that case,” Kim said, going over to wrap her arms around Angel and kiss her ardently.

  “Are you all right?” Kim asked.

  “I am now,” Angel said, pulling her so tight she could feel Kim breathing against her.

  “Wow,” Del said, as she tried to envision what Angel had told her.

  “It wasn’t pretty,” Angel said.

  “At least your relationship with Kim is going strong. The comic strip probably tipped Jennifer off that it was time to step back in,” Del said.

  “I was hoping that wouldn’t happen,” Angel said.

  “Well, it obviously has.”

  Kim and Mallory came out of the kitchen. Their girlfriends smiled at them.

  “Had a good talk?” Mallory asked.

  “It’s hard having a telepathic girlfriend,” Del replied.

  Rose Dupont walked out of the Bishop’s office glowing with the light of the righteous. She was sure she had brought her daughter around to the Lord our Savior. Gigi had come by to apologize and inform her mother that she was putting on an art show featuring the Virgin Mary in all her gloriousness in penance for her desecration of the shrines. She had invited her mother to come and even suffered a warm embrace as Rose uttered words of forgiveness.

  Gigi hadn’t flinched, and reconciliation was spinning about in the air. They had a family dinner and Rose felt warm and motherly in the blossoming light of resurrection and enlightenment. Her daughter had been saved. Rose arranged for the Bishop to come see the show and Gigi had smiled the smile of the redeemed. It was a beautiful thing. The Bishop had agreed to attend the show as well as speak with the Catholic press afterward. Rose was ecstatic.

  Gigi went to inform the activists of her success. They deemed her the lesbian manipulator of the century. She basked in the light of triumph with her peers. Only a smidgen of guilt clung about her brain. She talked to Aunt Lil.

  “You know I feel a slight pang of guilt,” Gigi said, shoving a potato chip filled lasciviously full of onion dip from her overfilled snack plate courtesy of the pre-art show potluck.

  “Ab
out Mother Rose?” Lil inquired.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Don’t. That woman deserves a little Old Testament judgment. She’s shunned more than her share of folks in her life. It’s time she got the other end of the stick,” Lil advised.

  “And that’s what this is about, right?” Gigi asked.

  “Yes. If you’re worried about still having a family in the aftermath, you will, only it will be the kind you deserve, one without reservations, hesitations, or manipulations. Gigi, I know it’s hard to let go of your mother, but she will only cause you more pain and grief than any small amount of her acceptance will ever give you. You will never be what she wants in a child. So don’t bother trying. You’ll only hurt yourself in the process. Understand?” Lil said, taking Gigi by the shoulders and staring deep into her eyes as if burning her words upon Gigi’s brain.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gigi said, trying to tie her aunt’s words to a mantra she would need to repeat every day. She knew that her mother had birthed her but tormented her ever since. She needed to let go, to leave their relationship as it was—a never-ending battle of wills in which neither would ever prove the victor.

  Alex showed up late but hungry. Gigi didn’t inquire where she had been. When Gigi was the one showing up late, Alex had the decency not to ask; perhaps she hadn’t wanted to know. Gigi, on the other hand, wanted to know but was afraid to ask. She got Alex a plate of leftovers and deduced where her wife had been.

  Alex smelled like the outdoors, had a small grass stain on her knee and was in an extremely good mood, meaning she’d been golfing with Taylor. She smelled ever so slightly of scotch, meaning they’d had drinks in the clubhouse afterwards, and judging from Alex’s rushed demeanor she had had to pull herself away in order to make this appearance.

  Gigi knew all these things because she used to see them in herself. She hoped that if she were patient and kind, Alex would leave off her infatuation with Taylor.