A Perfect Romance

by Layce Gardner

  "What's it look like?" Ellen yelled over her shoulder. "Shut the door."

  Dana quickly jumped inside the back of the truck and rolled the door closed, plunging everything into darkness. Dana stood absolutely stock-still lest she Dooley over something in the pitch black. After a moment, she heard a water faucet turn on.

  Dana barraged Ellen with questions, "Where's Lloyd the Mailman? What've you done to him? Where's that water coming from? Did you kill him? Did you dress in his clothes? Are you trying to steal the disability checks? You'll get caught, you know. You can't kill a federal employee and steal government checks without getting caught."

  The faucet turned off.

  "You're talking nonsense. Have you been drinking?" Ellen asked. "You can open the door now."

  Dana rolled the door back up and the sudden daylight made her blink. Ellen was fully dressed in a mailman costume and holding a Gatorade bottle in her hands.

  Dana inched away from her, saying, "You killed Lloyd and stole his costume, didn't you?"

  Ellen laughed. "By that logic, I could accuse you of killing Lynda Carter."

  "Huh? Oh, yeah," Dana said, grasping Ellen's meaning. "But the difference is that she's figmental and Lloyd's real. Or was real."

  Ellen grinned. "Lloyd retired. I'm the new letter carrier. I've taken over his route."

  "Oh." Dana relaxed, remembering that Ellen had told her she'd gotten a job transfer and she moved paper from one place to another for a living.

  Ellen handed Dana the Gatorade bottle. "Don't drink that," she warned. "It's pee." She buckled her belt.

  "You were peeing in a Gatorade bottle?"

  "Letter carriers have to pee too, you know," she said, hopping out of the back of the truck. "What am I supposed to do, knock on a door and ask if I can use their bathroom? Gatorade bottles have a wide mouth."

  "Wow. I never realized."

  "We all pee in bottles. It's a trade secret." Ellen took the bottle away from Dana, jumped out of the back and walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle. Dana followed and watched as Ellen tossed the bottle into a box heaped with other full Gatorade bottles. "I keep forgetting to throw them away," Ellen explained.

  "That's a lot of pee. You know," Dana said brightly, "you could sell that to people who have to take drug tests for their jobs."

  "Is there a category for that on eBay?"

  "I don't know, but I can check it out for you."

  Ellen looked Dana up and down. "Are you on your way home from a costume party?"

  "No, I'm walking over to get my car from where I left it last night."

  "You've been drinking?"

  "Of course not."

  Ellen raised an eyebrow in a "really?" expression.

  That was when Dana remembered she was a faux alcoholic. What with rescuing Fat Matt and almost catching Kimmy and a stint in jail and her mother walking in on her having sex, she had forgotten that she was supposed to have a drinking problem. Some alcoholic she was. She was going to have to try a lot harder if she was going to be convincing. She amended her statement, "But I sure do want to, you know, get inebriated and stuff. I can't stop thinking about wanting to get falling down intoxicated. Yessirree, I'd kill for a glass of alcohol right about now. You know, some 900-proof stuff." She rubbed her belly in circles and made a yummy noise.

  Ellen nodded sympathetically. "You can want. Everybody wants to drink. Promise me you'll get through today without a drink. Can you do that? One day?"

  "I'll try."

  "Good." Ellen reached over and took Dana's hand in her own.

  Dana flinched and her eyes grew wide. "Did you feel that?"

  "Feel what?"

  "That jolt. It was like you tasered me," Dana said.

  Ellen's smile faded.

  Dana panicked. "Did I say something wrong?"

  Ellen leaned in close, her lips millimeters away from Dana's, and replied, "I want to kiss you, that's all."

  "Okay by me," Dana whispered. When Ellen's lips touched hers, Dana forgot all about her lip gloss or that she had to pee like mad or that they were kissing in broad daylight for anybody to see.

  Ellen pulled back. "Sorry," she said. "I promised myself I wasn't going to do that again."

  "I'm glad you didn't keep that promise."

  Ellen turned and walked to the back of the mail truck and hopped inside. Dana followed.

  Ellen scooted around several trays of mail and some packages. "You kick out that girlfriend of yours yet?"

  Dana shook her head. "I tried. I almost caught her, but it didn't work out too well."

  "What happened?"

  Dana shrugged, not really wanting to tell her she had just gotten out of jail. "It's a long story and involves an alien crop circle, a loose crown, my mother and olives."

  "I'm still trying to catch my girlfriend cheating too," she said. "My story involves clogging and donuts."

  That was when an idea hit Dana like a bolt of lightning, frizzling from one side of her brain to the other and shooting out her mouth. "I know what we can do!" Dana continued in a rush of words, "I saw this Hitchcock movie once when I had the flu and the sound wasn't working on my TV so I was lipreading and I had a fever so it was kind of hard to follow and it turned out the sound was turned down because my cat sat on the remote, but that's another story."

  "Wait...What?"

  Dana was so excited, she jumped out of the back of the truck and paced the road. After a few seconds, she stopped pacing and fired a question, "Have you told anybody about me and you?"

  Ellen shook her head.

  "Good. I haven't either. I mean, we were seen at the AA meeting, but I saw forty other people there too, and it's a small town, so of course we know each other—"

  "What're you talking about?" Ellen interrupted.

  "Just listen. We both have cheating girlfriends, right?"

  "Right."

  "And they're hiding it from us, right?"

  "Right."

  "But," Dana emphasized, "your girlfriend isn't hiding from me and my girlfriend isn't hiding from you."

  "Soooo?" Ellen said, trying to fit all the pieces together.

  Dana climbed back into the back of the mail truck and rolled down the door. Blackness enveloped them. Dana lowered her voice to a whisper, "It'll work like this: I follow your girlfriend and you follow mine. Like in the Hitchcock movie I saw where they kill each other's wife and get off scot-free because there's no link between themselves and the wife they killed. Get it? We pull the old switch-a-roo."

  "But, Dana, I don't want you to kill my girlfriend—that seems a little harsh."

  "Sshhh," Dana said, even though they were all alone in the back of the truck. "I didn't say kill. We'll follow each other's girlfriend, maybe take a few photos of them being dirty birdies, and that'll give us the proof we need to get rid of them."

  Ellen was silent for so long that Dana wondered if she was still over there in the dark. "That might work," Ellen finally said.

  "It will work," Dana said. "It worked in the movie like a charm and Hollywood doesn't make this stuff up, you know."

  She sounded dubious, "It's worth a try."

  "It'll work. It has to."

  "Can I kiss you now?"

  Dana homed in on those words like a bat with sonar. She aimed her lips for Ellen's and bullseye! Dana kissed her until she was afraid she'd spontaneous combust and all that would be left of her would be a giant wet spot.

  ***

  Excerpt from Bad Romance:

  Lisa Number Fives's real name wasn't Lisa. It was Aude Lisa. She was French, being born and raised in Paris. She was black too. I had to admit most of my attraction to her was the novelty of having a girlfriend with ebony skin who spoke French. It was about as far away from Oklahoma as you could get.

  Aude was pronounced Odie, like the dog in the Garfield cartoons. Trudy used to make fun of her behind her back, calling her “Odie-wan-kenobi” and “Odious Matter.” I took to calling her Lisa because it was easier and w
as less likely to be made fun of.

  Lisa Number Five moved to Dooley Springs from Paris her last year of high school because her father got a job teaching at the college. When she came to America, she couldn't speak any English whatsoever. She locked herself in her bedroom for a whole month and learned to speak English by watching The Addams Family reruns on TV. After that she thought all American children were named after days of the week and she snapped her fingers a lot.

  I fell in love with the French language more than I fell in love with her. Until then my entire knowledge of French was from Pepe Le Pew. One time in bed she whispered French nothings in my ear and I had my first multiple orgasm ever. The next morning, I asked her to translate what she'd said. It went something like this: "Your pores are tres big. You should splash cold water on your face and exfoliate more."

  Our main problem was the language barrier thing. She took everything literally. One time we were walking around Le Parc and she was deep into some a story about a guy named Gomez and a disembodied hand and I said, "I don't understand. Back up."

  She looked at me kind of funny, then backed up two steps.

  Of course, I couldn't resist that temptation so I said it again, "I don't get it. Back up."

  She backed up two more steps.

  Well, now I was thinking this was great fun so I kept saying it. I had her backed all the way up into the middle of the street before a car honked at her and slammed on its brakes. She ran for the sidewalk, saying, "Merde! You try to kill moi!"

  I laughed. She didn't. She never did understand American humor.

  Lisa Number Five and I broke up the day I came home from work and found her voulez-vous coucher moi'ing with a woman named Jan Dingle who was only five feet tall and looked like Pugsley. Dingle was really her name. I don't think I ever got over that. I was cheated on with a Dingle. That hurt.

  When I caught them in bed all sixty-nining each other I grabbed some of Lisa Number Five's crap and heaved it out the window. Dingle woman scurried out of the room with her hands over her pussy, while Lisa Number Five went ballistic. She screamed in her French accent, "I never like you! You person bad!"

  I grabbed another armload of her crap and tossed it out the open window. I scoured my brain for all the French words I knew and shouted as I threw more of her belongings, one at a time, "There goes your baguette! Oh, looky, your frère Jacque and your a la mode are flying out the window!"

  "You are person fou, you are person crazy!" she shouted.

  I grabbed the top drawer out of the dresser and shook the contents out the open window. "Oh, no! There goes your c'est la vie and your au contraire and your que sera, sera!" I picked up a pair of her shoes and threw them into the yard below, making sure to aim at Dingle as she scampered for the street. "Bon jour, de ja vu!"

  A shoe boinked Dingle in the back of the head and she fell to her knees. I laughed and hung halfway out the window, razzing her, "Adieu, Dingle beaucoup! Bon Voyage, pomme frites!"

  Dingle rose unsteadily to her feet and ran serpentine for the safety of her car.

  Lisa Number Five advanced on me and spit into my face, "You are creepy, you are kooky, mysterious and spooky, all together ooky!"

  She snapped her fingers twice and left.

  She always did have to have the last bon mot.

  ***

  Dana's lips were still tingling from Ellen's kiss when she found her car exactly where she'd left it—in the alley behind Wanda's shop. She turned the key in the ignition and went over the facts Ellen had told her about her girlfriend. The girlfriend worked the graveyard shift over at Hole In One Donuts. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon, she had a dance class over at the Tsa La Gi Senior Village Activity Center. They were rehearsing for a local production of Riverdance.

  In turn, Dana gave Ellen all Kimmy's info: She worked days at The Best Little Hairhouse but hadn't been home lately much because she'd been taking a continuing ed course at the college at night.

  Dana put Betty in reverse and backed out of the alley, swinging in a wide arc onto the main road. She put the car in first gear. She was planning to head over to Hole In One first. That way she could check on Ellen's girlfriend's work history and maybe score some of those pigs in a blanket they made.

  She pressed her foot to the accelerator and Betty shot backwards. She stomped on the brake and screeched to a halt right before she took out a garbage can. She mashed down on the clutch, slipped the stick shift out of first and re-stuck it back into gear. She slowly let off the clutch and pushed on the gas pedal at the same time.

  Betty went backwards. Dana braked right before she backed into the truck coming up behind her. She tried to put Betty in first gear a couple more times, but each time the car headed backwards.

  The truck behind her honked and Dana stuck her arm out the window, waving it around. The driver honked as he swerved around Dana, shaking his fist.

  Dana gave up on getting Betty going forward. This had happened before. Betty was temperamental. She wouldn't go forward for weeks at a time, then suddenly she would. Dana patted her dashboard and cooed, "It's okay, Betty. We all have our hormonal issues."

  Dana turned in her seat so she could see out the back window and drove in reverse all the way to the donut shop.

  The Hole In One was on Choctaw Street in the middle of town. When Dana was a little kid it was on the edge of town. That was how much Dooley Springs had grown over the past thirty years. Fly-by-night businesses, check-cashing places and pawn shops had sprung up like mushrooms on either side of the Hole In One only to disappear just as quickly. (Once there was even a sushi place that had tried to make a go of it. The locals refused to eat raw fish and called it The Bait Shack. It closed down after only two months.) But the Hole In One remained a permanent fixture.

  And according to Dana's acute sense of smell, it was still heaven on earth. She gained ten pounds by opening the door and getting a whiff of all that sugar and grease.

  She hadn't been inside the shop in ages, but it was just like she remembered. The tables were topped with green Formica with little red apples, matching apple orchard print curtains and the plank floor had a wear pattern from the front door over to the big glass case where all the pastries sat looking scrump-dilly-ishus. There was a collection of famous musicians' pictures, autographed and hanging on the walls. All the Oklahoma-spawned country music greats smiled down on the tables while the customers ingested artery-clogging treats. There was Hank Williams, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Roy Clark and, of course, Carrie Underwood.

  Rush hour must have been over because the tables were empty and the trash barrels were stuffed with paper cups and napkins. Dana followed her nose up to the counter and her stomach loudly announced her presence.

  "Hungry?" the woman behind the counter asked, setting aside the newspaper she'd been reading. Her white apron had “Maude” embroidered across the chest. Maude was in her sixties if she was a day and had the body type of somebody who stood on her feet for a living—skinny legs and no butt to speak of. She made up for it with her big belly. She looked like a marshmallow balanced on top of two toothpicks. She had a pained expression on her face that made Dana think either her shoes were too tight or that the hairnet on her head was restricting the blood flow.

  "My stomach sure thinks so," Dana replied. "Can I have a dozen of your little sausage and cheese rolls to go?"

  "No," Maude replied.

  "No?"

  "Sold out on those hours ago, honey. All's we got left is the spicy ones."

  "Okay. I'll take a dozen of those then."

  Maude picked up a pair of tongs and began to drop sausage rolls one by one into a white paper bag. Her lips moved silently as she counted. Dana needed to pry some information about Ellen's girlfriend out of this woman, but she knew it wouldn't be easy because Maude's face was scrunched up like a lemon that'd been sucked dry. It was an unforgiving face, one that didn't meddle and didn't gossip.

  Dana leaned an elbow on the glass case, tossed h
er bathrobe-cape cavalierly over her shoulders, trying to look casual, and asked in an overly friendly tone, "You must work all night making the donuts, huh?"

  "No."

  "No? You come in early then?"

  "That's right."

  "How early?"

  Maude let out an exasperated gust of air, dumped all the sausage rolls out of the bag and back into the pan. "You made me lose count," she said.

  "Sorry," Dana mumbled.

  She watched Maude start over, counting sausages and dropping them into the sack. Dana let her get all the way up to six before she asked, "So nobody works nights here?"

  "That's right." Her lips moved, counting eight and nine.

  Dana knew somebody was lying and she bet dollars to donuts it was Ellen's girlfriend. Working nights—that was a convenient excuse to not be at home and go cheating around town.

  She pumped Maude for more information, "You going to see that new show, Riverdance?"

  Maude's tongs stopped in mid-air. "Is that the one where they're Irish cloggers?"

  "I think so, yeah."

  "Is it coming to town?"

  "No, I heard that the local dance studio's putting it on. They have a clogging class or something that's going to put it on out at the senior center."

  "I think you're wrong. I'm a clogger, see?" She pointed with her tongs over to a photo on the wall. It was a black and white 8 x 10. In the picture, Maude was a good forty years younger, missing her donut belly, but still wearing the same sour expression. She was standing beside a trophy half her height.

  "Wow. What's the trophy for?"

  Maude puffed out her chest. "National clogging championship. I teach clogging over at the dance studio. And I think I'd know if we was doing a show."

  "Oh. I must've been mistaken."

  Maude sighed heavily, gave Dana a “shut-your-mouth” look, dumped all the sausages back into the pan and began counting again.

  "Sorry," Dana mumbled. Maude counted all the way up to eight sausages this time before Dana asked, "So nobody's here at nights, you say. Nobody at all? A cleaning woman maybe?"