Olivia

by Donna Sturgeon

  After an eternity, Izzie walked over to the counter, picked up the stick, and threw it into the trash without looking at it. “You ready to eat?”

  “Izzie!” Olivia hopped out of the tub, which was extremely hard to do because both of her legs were sound asleep. “You didn’t even look at it!”

  She reached into the trash and looked at the results of the pregnancy test. Negative. Of course. No smiles today.

  “I knew it would be.”

  “Don’t give up, Iz, it’ll happen,” Olivia said.

  Izzie’s started to cry, her entire body shaking. “No, it won’t.”

  “Hey, hey don’t cry…” Olivia awkwardly patted Izzie’s shoulder. Crying people made her nervous, especially when the tears came out of nowhere.

  “He left me, Liv,” Izzie whispered.

  “Who left you?”

  “John. He wants a divorce.”

  “What?” She forced Izzie to look at her. Her heart broke when she saw the pain on Izzie’s face. “When did this happen?”

  “A few weeks ago, right after my last period. He said I loved the idea of having his baby more than I loved him. And then he said he was so sick and tired of having sex with me he felt like puking,” Izzie said through her sobs.

  “But… I don’t understand. I saw you two together on the Fourth and you guys were grossing me out with all the snuggle wuggle shit like you always do! What happened between now and then?”

  “I don’t know!” Izzie cried.

  “Izzie…” Olivia started, but she was at a loss for words. Her mind raced from the totally unexpected news and she didn’t know what to say to make everything better. She didn’t have any experience with situations like this. The last time she’d tried to comfort someone, she’d ended up marrying her. She couldn’t do that again. For one thing, it was illegal to have two wives, and for another it wasn’t that easy this time.

  She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t give Izzie John, she couldn’t give Izzie a baby, and she couldn’t give Izzie a promise that everything would be ok.

  So, she did all that she could do. She gave Izzie her shoulder to lay her head on and her arms to wrap up in, and let her cry for as long as she wanted to without complaining about the snot or the tears soaking her shirt or the fact that her legs were tingling like crazy as they suddenly woke up. She gritted her teeth to the stabbing pain, and let Izzie cry it out.

  When Izzie ran out of tears, they ordered in a pizza for dinner and sat close on the sofa while they watched one Lifetime Original movie after another until Izzie finally fell asleep around midnight. Olivia tucked a blanket around Izzie and paced her friend’s house for another hour while she tried to figure out what to do.

  Izzie’s news didn’t make any sense. Izzie and John were in love—hopelessly, sickeningly, desperately in love. They had the kind of love that would keep them blindly together until they both died of old age. They had been in love forever, since they were all kids and didn’t even know what love was. John had been Izzie’s first boy kiss when they were thirteen, her first poke and tickle in the back of a Suburban on her sixteenth birthday. The only reason they hadn’t run off to get married the minute they were both eighteen was because Izzie had wanted a fairy-tale wedding, and John had wanted to give it to her. It takes a long time to save up that kind of cash in South. It’s not like you can go in and donate plasma every single day, no matter how desperate you are to get married. There are rules against that.

  The more Olivia thought about it, the more she became convinced something was wrong with the entire situation. Despite the late hour, Olivia pulled out her cell phone and called John to find out what it was.

  “Olivia?” John answered, his voice thick and heavy, sounding as though he had awakened from the dead. “What’s wrong? Is it Izzie?”

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” Olivia demanded.

  There was a long pause, and then John cleared the sleep from his throat. “I take it Izzie finally told you.”

  “Damn right she told me and I’m gearing up to come over there and kick your ass! How could you tell Izzie you want a divorce?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I just can’t be with Iz right now. I love her with all my heart, and I’ll love her until the day I die, but until she stops treating me like a sex machine and starts treating me like a human being with real feelings and real emotions, I can’t be with her. She’s killing me, Liv,” John said.

  As much as she didn’t want to, something in John’s voice made Olivia feel sorry for him. “But if you still love her, why are you divorcing her?”

  “I’m not divorcing her. I have no intention of ever divorcing her. This whole situation got blown way out of proportion…” He let out a heavy exhale that rumbled through the phone connection and amplified his frustration. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but a few weeks ago, Izzie decided to not only have sex like a million times a day, she also wanted me to jerk off into a cup so she could try doing her own version of artificial insemination with a turkey baster. I kinda freaked out a little, you know? I mean, I’ve got nothing left to give. She’s squeezed more jiz out of me than ten men would make in a lifetime, and she wanted more. I’m gonna spare you all the gory details, but I fucking hurt.

  “When I told her I couldn’t physically do it anymore and needed a break and wanted to just make love to her like we used to, like we actually love each other and enjoy the feeling of each other’s bodies, she went psycho on me and started screaming and carrying on and throwing shit… She’s the one that mentioned divorce, not me. She’s my heart and soul, Liv. You know that. I would never leave her for good. I just need a break. I’d like to be able to feel my balls again, you know? As soon as I can I’m coming home, but until then, I’m living with my brother. When she remembers that I’m a human being and not a robot, she knows where to find me.”

  John hung up and Olivia felt like giving him a hug. Poor guy.

  She peeked in at Izzie and watched her sleep. The living room was as neat and tidy as always, and completely baby-proofed. It had been since the day Izzie and John had first moved in. Izzie had little locks on all the cabinets and drawers, and anchors on the shelves. The edges of the coffee and end tables were padded with little cushiony things to keep a toddling baby from splitting his chin open. All the outlets were covered, all the chords tied up.

  Olivia knew Izzie was crazy for a baby, but she hadn’t realized until just then that her friend was also plain old crazy. Her baby obsession had gone beyond desperately wanting a baby to bordering on dressing up a cat and trying to enroll it in school. It was sad, really, and Izzie needed help. Olivia had no idea what she could do, but she knew someone who might—her wife.

  It just so happened that earlier that month Melanie had come into Garretson all upset because her Section Eight apartment was being condemned and there was nowhere for her to go. Olivia hadn’t paid her much attention at the time because she’d had her own problems to work out, but looking around Izzie’s house it looked like the perfect solution to two problems—Izzie could give Melanie and her rug rats a place to stay while her apartment was being brought up to code, and Melanie’s real live children could give Izzie the chance to play Mommy with real live children instead of the ones she made up in her imagination. And—bonus!—at the same time, John could work on getting the feeling back in his manly parts and give his sperm the opportunity to become abundant again. As an extra, extra bonus, Izzie could give her girly parts the break they desperately needed, because quite frankly, she was starting to smell a lot like Louise.

  On the following Monday, Olivia swung by Krispy Kreme and picked up two dozen donuts on her way to work. As soon as she clocked in, she called a meeting in the break room and invited the entire quality department to attend.

  While her co-workers noshed on deep-fat fried sugar, she explained the situation as she saw it, announced her proposal, opened the floor for discussion, and then conducted a show-of-hands
-vote in favor of Izzie and Melanie cohabitating. The “ayes” had it with the only two “nays” coming from Izzie and Melanie themselves. Democracy rules, so a week later Sam pulled up in front of Izzie and John’s house with a truck full of broken toys, second-hand clothing, every Disney and Pixar movie ever made, some roaches and a handful of bedbugs in the back of his pickup, and dumped all of it on Izzie’s front lawn. Melanie and her kids showed up in her rattling, rusted minivan a few minutes later, and, thanks to Olivia, Izzie’s life was changed forever.

  Chapter Ten

  Mitch finally took a weekend off of gun-running or bank-robbing or meth-cooking, or whatever the hell it was he was doing for employment, and took Olivia out for a night on the town. There weren’t any good movies at the theaters or bands playing at any of the bars, it was pouring rain so they couldn’t do anything outside, and they couldn’t agree on a restaurant. So, they went bowling.

  Now, it should be mentioned that Olivia was born with two left feet and a severe lack of hand-eye coordination, so it was difficult for her to participate in most sports. She played soccer for five years and was only allowed to kick the ball twice, and only one of those times was during a game. In her freshman year of high school, she tried volleyball, basketball, soccer again, softball and track, all without success and all with a unanimous vote by her teammates to kick her off the team. She protested, but the coaches agreed, so from her sophomore to senior years she cheered for the opposing team at all of Juliette High’s sporting events.

  When Olivia reached legal drinking age and started hanging out in bars, she discovered there was a whole new world of athletics she had never tried—pool, darts and karaoke, just to name a few—and she also learned something about herself that she had never known before. When Olivia was drunk, she was Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

  The hand-eye coordination she seriously lacked when she was sober suddenly showed up after her third beer. Speed and agility came after the fourth. After the fifth, she was unstoppable… until her seventh beer stole it all away again and she was just another giggly, falling-down drunk who thought she was sexy but really wasn’t. But for those two hours between the fourth and seventh beer, Olivia was unstoppable on the field or on the court, or on the bowling alley.

  Mitch got their shoes and paid for their games, and Olivia bought the first round of beers. Between beer one and beer two, she bowled a 74. Beer two and beer three gave her a score of 81. The last of beer three and the first half of beer four netted her a 137, and she was in her zone when Clete and Allison suddenly appeared on the open lane next to them.

  “Are you stalking me?” Olivia teased as she held her right hand over the blower on the ball return like a pro. She had no idea what the blower was for, but it made her hand feel cool.

  “I’m not the one who stalks people, Olivia.” Clete turned to Mitch and held out his hand. “Hey there, I’m Cletus Wade and this is my daughter, Allison.”

  “Mitch Toler,” Mitch said. With his jaw set firm, he shook Clete’s hand, sizing him up. Mitch’s eyes clearly and distinctly told Clete to stay the fuck away from his woman, and Clete’s eyes clearly and distinctly said, No problem, man. Didn’t want her anyway. Pissing contest over, Mitch let go of Clete’s hand and began actively ignoring both Clete and his daughter.

  “I’m Allie,” Allie said to Olivia.

  “I’m Olivia,” Olivia said to Allie.

  “I know. My dad told me all about you. You’re the one who stole the Walmart scooter.”

  “What?” With a flutter of panic dancing in her chest, her eyes shot over to Clete. How the hell did he know about that?

  “You stole a scooter from Walmart?” Mitch laughed. “Awesome. Where’s it at?”

  “I don’t know…” Olivia tried to get a read off of Clete, but his face revealed nothing.

  Allie sat on the plastic bench and started changing her shoes. “I still have the stuffed chicken, but Juicy Fruit ate the snake.”

  “What’s she talking about, Clete?” Olivia asked.

  Clete busied himself with his own shoes. “I have no idea.”

  “Go get us some more beers,” Mitch ordered. He drained the last swig from his bottle then set the empty on the table. “And get me some of those cheese ball things.”

  Olivia shot one last glance at Clete before she headed to the bar. She remembered leaving Walmart on the scooter after the psychotic parrot laughed at her, but how would Clete know about it? She knew she didn’t tell him. Hell, she didn’t even remember what happened between leaving Walmart and walking home to the trailer court sans scooter and everything else she’d stolen from the store. Looking back, it was all just a fuzzy blur of confusing emotion.

  Oh, shit! Maybe Walmart caught her on camera and turned the tape over to the police for investigation! Great! Now on top of everything else she had to worry about being arrested for grand larceny.

  “Damn it, Liv, you forgot the ranch dressing,” Mitch said when she came back to the table with their beers and his cheese balls. “How stupid are you?”

  “Sorry, I’ll go get it.” She turned to head back to the bar, but he brushed past her.

  “I’ve got it.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Jeez, I said I’d get it! Just bowl. It’s your turn anyways.”

  “I already went. It’s your turn.”

  Mitch stormed off to the bar and Olivia rolled her eyes. He’d been in a fine mood until Clete showed up, but he was starting to get cranky, which meant they would probably be fighting before the night was over. Wonderful.

  She bowled her round then sat on the bench and waited for Mitch to return. Allie was up on her and Clete’s lane, and she was pretty good. She had nice form and follow-through. With her first ball, she knocked down seven pins, but she missed her spare. Clete threw his first ball and got a strike.

  “Ooh, looks like someone’s spent some time in the alley,” Olivia said, applauding his performance.

  “A little bit,” he admitted.

  “Dad plays on a league,” Allie said. She threw her next ball and got her own strike, then turned back to Clete and gave him a fist bump.

  “Way to go, Allie!” Olivia cheered. The kid was cute with her aw-shucks grin and her blonde hair plaited in a slightly crooked braid that Olivia imagined Clete did himself. She couldn’t imagine Eugene had ever braided her hair when she was a kid, and she felt a little twinge of jealousy.

  “Who’s up?” Mitch asked when he returned to the table.

  “You,” Olivia said.

  She watched him bowl and noticed for the first time how hard he threw the ball. It was as if he was trying not only to knock the pins down, but also smash them into smithereens. His style was different from Clete’s who exerted a little more control and a lot more finesse, but the result was the same. Mitch threw a strike.

  Olivia took her turn and missed the strike but got the spare. Allie smiled and clapped for Olivia as Olivia had done for Allie, and Clete told her, “Good job.” Mitch said nothing, just picked up his ball and threw another strike. For the rest of the two games that were running parallel to each other, Mitch threw more strikes than spares, as did Clete, and Olivia and Allie ran a pretty close tie to each other. In the end, Olivia bowled a 197, Allie a 186, Clete a 227 and Mitch a 225.

  Clete had ordered a pizza, so he and Allie sat out the next round to eat it. Olivia and Mitch kept bowling and Olivia bowled her best game with her sixth beer—a 210. Mitch also did better with a 247, and he started to get a little cocky. When Clete and Allie finished eating and returned to bowling, Olivia was on her seventh beer and should have known better, but when Mitch challenged Clete and Allie to a game against him and Olivia, Olivia thought it was a grand idea and goaded Clete until he agreed.

  The details of the match are too ugly to put into words, but let’s just say Olivia was in fine form and bowled a 104, and almost all of those points came in the first five frames. She messed up on her own in frames six and seven, Mitch’s cursing and tantrum throwing messed u
p frame eight, and Olivia sent all four balls of frames nine and ten down the gutter on purpose to piss Mitch off. Before the match was over, Clete sent Allie into the arcade with twenty dollars and strict instructions not to come back out until he went and got her.

  Mitch called Olivia some colorful names, Olivia pulled out her gigantic box of Crayola-words on him, and Clete tried to forcibly separate the two of them. The bowling alley manager watched from behind the counter with his hand on the phone debating whether Clete could handle the drunks on his own or if he should call in some cops who weren’t off duty and would therefore be carrying guns. When the words “needle dick prick” crossed Olivia’s lips, Mitch threw his size-eleven, rented shoes at her face and stormed out of the bowling alley.

  Olivia cursed and fumed and threw a bit of a tantrum, then shoved her feet into her tennis shoes and headed for the door. Clete grabbed her by the arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Home!”

  “How are you planning to get there?”

  “I’ve got feet!”

  “It’s nearly five miles from here to your house, and it’s pouring rain,” Clete said.

  She struggled to free herself of Clete’s grasp. “So?”

  “You’re not walking, Olivia.”

  “Then I’ll hitch.”

  “I’ll give you a ride,” Clete offered. “Hang on a second while I get Allie from the arcade.”

  “Ooh! You think they have skee-ball?” Her anger instantly forgotten, she took off for the arcade.

  Clete was a step behind her, tugging on the back of her shirt, trying to stop her, but her mind was focused. When she saw the twinkling lights and heard the comforting whoosh! of the heavy, wooden balls sliding up the ramp as a boy of about five-years old played a round on the ancient machine, she giggled and clapped her hands and jumped up and down in joy.

  “Gimme a quarter! Gimme a quarter!” she squealed as she clutched onto Clete’s arm.