by Ann Roberts
“Oh, snap.”
Mazie didn’t know what else to say. She glanced at Addy, who rested her chin on her upturned palm. She thrummed her fingers against her cheek, seemingly deep in thought. Mazie closed her eyes, savoring the sound of silence.
“If you hate tests and performing in front of crowds,” Addy asked, “why are you getting a master’s degree in performance? I’m sorry if that sounds mean.”
“No, it’s a good question.”
Addy’s hand rested on the seatback that divided them. Mazie squeezed it, surprised by the strong grip that met hers. Addy had slender, well-manicured fingernails. She imagined those fingers tracing the inside of her thigh… It had been so long. Then she remembered the look Addy had given Bianca on the bus. She remembered Addy’s curt reply earlier when she’d attempted to ask her about her feelings for Bianca. But then they’d kissed… It was still very confusing. She removed her hand and stood.
“I need to keep working. I still have another theater to do.”
Addy jumped up. “Oh, well, I’ll get out of your way.”
She started toward the back door, and Mazie blurted, “Hey, a really interesting documentary arrived. It won’t premiere for another week, but I’m dying to see it. Would you like to join me for a private screening tomorrow night after the last movie?”
Addy grinned. “Sure. Sounds fun.”
“Okay. See you then.”
They both stared at each other until Mazie felt uncomfortable. She grabbed her broom and swept furiously.
Addy pushed open the back door and whirled around. “You know what?”
“What?”
“You’re going to pass your test, Mazie. I’m going to help you. I’m not sure yet what I can do, but I’m going to make sure it happens!”
Chapter Nine
Addy couldn’t sleep. She’d replayed her final words to Mazie at least ten dozen times, and she couldn’t understand why she’d told Mazie she would help her pass her performance test. I don’t know a damn thing about music or singing, not a thing. Now she’d given Mazie false hope, as if she could magically wave a wand and Mazie wouldn’t have stage fright anymore. Who the hell do I think I am? I’m not a shrink. I’m not Dr. Pfeiffer. I can’t get into Mazie’s head and turn off her fear. If it were only that easy.
Then there was the kiss. She’d kissed Mazie! She couldn’t explain why she’d done it, but it had felt so good. So she’d done it again. And then she’d gotten scared, but Mazie knew just the right thing to say next so it wasn’t awkward. She didn’t know what the kiss meant, but it looked like Mazie didn’t know either. If she was going to be clueless, at least she wasn’t alone.
She stared at the ceiling. It was two thirty a.m. “Not gonna happen tonight,” she murmured. She gave up on sleep and descended the ladder from her loft bedroom, which immediately dropped her into her living room. Surrounding her sixty-inch TV were rows and rows of movies, many of them lesbian films. Buying lesbian films was her one splurge. She didn’t spend a lot of money, putting most of it away for the future or a rainy day. And there were plenty of those in Oregon.
She scanned the titles for something to take her mind off Mazie and the ridiculous promise. She wanted something funny but not too romantic. She plucked But I’m a Cheerleader from the shelf, powered up the DVD and brewed a cup of tea.
Are you and Bianca dating? Mazie’s question clanked around her brain. She liked Bianca a lot, but she knew Bianca only saw her as a friend. She didn’t think Bianca was gay. For most of the last year Addy had listened closely to her conversations with other passengers. One time she’d mentioned someone she was dating, but she kept saying “they,” and not he or she. Once Bianca had mentioned a name—Terry—but that could be a male or female.
Addy had thought about asking Bianca out but was certain she’d be turned down. Bianca was so…smooth. On the bus she never struggled to engage people in conversation. She never said anything impolite or cruel. Even when someone like Pratul hassled her or hit on her, she was always polite and kind. More often than not, she turned around bad situations, and by the time they reached Bianca’s stop or their own, she had them laughing and waving goodbye.
One time a big, awful guy had made Bianca very uncomfortable. Addy almost pulled the bus over, but luckily Carter, a regular who worked security at Cammon, stepped in and had a few words with the creep, who had turned pale and disembarked at the next stop. Addy guessed Carter said something not sanctioned in the Wilshire Hills Public Transportation Policies and Procedures Manual, but Addy didn’t care. He’d protected Bianca and that was all that mattered.
Why are you thinking about Bianca when you kissed Mazie? She knew the answer. Bianca was off in the distance, and it was much easier to fantasize about someone she couldn’t have—probably never would have—than to step forward and have a real relationship with very real kissing. She’d never had a real relationship. “I’ve never really had sex,” she mumbled. The closest thing she’d had was the necking session with Jackie, who’d stripped off her clothes in the hopes that Addy would do the same. But I wasn’t ready then. Am I now?
She sullenly sipped her tea and tried to engage in the movie. She loved Natasha Lyonne. She was great and her hair looked like cotton candy. She usually laughed during the intervention scene, but it wasn’t working tonight.
She and Bianca wander the midway between the rides and the food booths. Addy cringes at the noxious sweet odor of cotton candy, but Bianca pulls her toward it. She buys a swirl as tall as great-aunt Norine’s beehive hairdo.
Bianca’s tongue scoops up bits of the pink cloud while Addy watches. Eventually Bianca tips the cotton candy toward Addy, and she takes a big bite that leaves a pink goatee on her chin. “Let me get that for you,” Bianca says. She swipes her forefinger across Addy’s face, collects the stray candy and deposits the sticky finger between her own lips—painted ruby red. Perfect lips with just the right amount of contour. Addy traces them with her thumb, not caring who notices. Bianca’s mouth opens and she sighs. Addy desperately wants to turn that sigh into a moan, but she needs someplace private.
She yanks Bianca between two rides—death machines as great- aunt Norine used to say. Bianca laughs and munches on the cotton candy, allowing Addy to swirl her between the tents, rides, and food trucks. They stop in front of the legendary Dipper, the carnival ride with the most checkered past in all of fair history. If stories were to be believed, hundreds of kids had fallen to their deaths when the little cages turned upside down and the doors flew open.
Bianca doesn’t know or doesn’t care, for she discards the rest of the cotton candy and pulls Addy up the platform and into a little deathtrap. A heavily tattooed woman missing her two upper front teeth says, “Enjoy the ride,” before she slams the cage shut, sends their little car upward, and stops them again as another set of passengers board.
Bianca wastes no time and plants her ruby lips against Addy’s neck. She licks Addy’s ear as if it were cotton candy, and she gently tugs on Addy’s earlobe with her teeth. Pleasure and pain bring forth a moan from Addy as the little car ascends again, putting more distance between them and the earth.
Bianca unbuttons Addy’s uniform shirt and claws at her bra, freeing her breasts. She sucks greedily on each one. Pleasure and pain. They move higher and the little car sways. Addy isn’t sure if gravity or Bianca is responsible, and it doesn’t matter as long as Bianca continues feasting on her chest. Trapped underneath the questionably-safe metal bar, she can only do so much, but it’s enough. Bianca parts Addy’s legs and slides her hand inside Addy’s shorts, her fingers moving toward heaven. Addy gasps when Bianca’s recently-covered-in-cotton-candy digit enters her.
Addy rocks her hips—and the car starts to spin. Around and around they go—and the ride hasn’t technically started! Her eyes fly open just as the music blares and the motor cranks to life. They flip over and over. The ride operator laughs each time their car passes, clearly enjoying what she can see through the iron
mesh. Bianca nips at Addy’s breast and plunges inside her, sending a shockwave through her. While the other riders scream, Addy moans, over and over. Dipper is certainly an apropos name for this ride.
Five times around and the motor slows to idle. Addy is spent. She opens her eyes. They sit at the top and the spinning has stopped. Bianca’s head rests on Addy’s shoulder, while Addy gazes out at the bubbly lights, inhales the colliding sweet and salty smells, and endures the clash of music and sound. Yet she is absolutely certain there isn’t a single fairgoer having as much fun as she is. Her heartrate slows as they reach the bottom, only the ride operator has changed. It is no longer the tooth-missing woman. Now the operator is Pratul. He leans into the metal cage and leers at her. She pushes him aside and emerges, looking for Bianca, who has suddenly disappeared. Instead, her gaze lands on the rider waiting to board the Dipper—Mazie.
They smile at each other and Mazie asks, “Would you take a spin with me?”
Addy’s thundering alarm clock boomed, and she sat straight up, disoriented. She was on her couch in front of her TV. She saw the But I’m a Cheerleader DVD box balanced on the edge of the TV stand, but the TV was off. She wiped a hand over her face and grabbed her phone. It was nearly five thirty a.m. The carnival sex wasn’t one of her usual daydreams. It had been an actual dream, but it was different. Mazie was there. Addy wondered if she would’ve gone for a spin with Mazie had her alarm clock not sounded.
She smiled at the thought but shivered at the presence of Pratul. Jackie had said he wanted her fired. She’d caught him talking about “faggots” two mornings ago when she crossed the Bull Pen to clock in. He made a big production of apologizing, but he couldn’t hide the hint of a smile that lingered at the corners of his thick ugly lips. She’d heard from one of the sympathetic male drivers that Pratul regularly talked about her. He’d said her body was like three toothpicks stuck together with glue. He couldn’t believe any woman would ever want her, and she’d probably never had sex in her life.
Despite the story’s truth, when Addy first heard it, she’d been so mad she’d almost burst into the breakroom, grabbed the fresh pot of steaming coffee and pitched it onto him. Fortunately, Jackie had strolled into the breakroom to deliver the box of donuts she always brought on Friday. Addy decided it was enough to imagine his gut-wrenching screams as the scalding liquid met his flesh.
“He’ll get his, Addy,” Jackie had said a few months before. “He’ll get his. Karma is truly a bitch, and like a city bus, it’ll pull you right under a wheel and turn you into a soupy mess.”
Addy could only hope that was true.
Chapter Ten
Mazie realized she needed more to do. Her only class at Cammon was her performance seminar, which was a fancy way of giving her credit for her performance preparation. But since she was paying for the course, it all seemed a little backward. She’d been practicing daily, standing on the empty stage after the movie audiences had left, and she’d been collecting names of the regulars. Of course her favorite regular was Addy, who stayed after the movie and listened to her practice. Addy had said she’d help Mazie prepare for the performance, but she already was helping by being an audience of one.
In another week she would begin phase two of her plan: singing for the Bijou regulars. She’d spent two weeks visualizing them sitting in the audience, smiling up at her. She’d even pictured a few people frowning, others loudly crunching popcorn, and still others yawning. One regular, Dr. Jimenez, a snooty assistant professor of mathematics at Cammon, constantly looked morose and crabby whenever he came to the Bijou. Ironically, he looked no better when he left the theater two hours later—even after watching a comedy. She pictured him sticking his tongue out at her throughout the song, but her managing to finish it despite his distractions.
Still, practicing the three songs she’d chosen long ago didn’t take much time, nor did talking with Almondine about strategies to save the Bijou. They held short, daily conversations, and Mazie quizzed Almondine about the address book.
Mazie had spent a week slowly reading and deciphering each page. The book contained so much more than just names and addresses. She imagined that while Almondine talked on the phone, her hand held a pen in motion, capturing key points—and secrets. She probably didn’t recognize she was journaling the thoughts and ideas of the rich and famous, but they were written on the blank address spots, the margins and the inside cover. Extra sheets of paper were stuffed in between and sticky notes drooped over the sides.
Mazie realized the book not only revealed celebrity secrets, but a few of Almondine’s secrets as well, including an affair with the well-known lesbian actress/director and African-American activist, Tarina Hudson. If Mazie had pieced their timeline together correctly, Tarina had met Almondine shortly after the Los Angeles race riots in the early nineties, when her career was just taking off. A page meant for other “H” last names was instead a list of dates and places, including a few hotels. Almondine had used the bottom of the page to draw a picture of Tarina’s nude upper body, including a face with luscious lips and inquisitive eyes, and a pair of breasts with tempting nipples. In the drawing she sat in a window with a window box full of flowers below her breasts. It was as if her breasts were sitting amongst the lilies.
Mazie closed the address book and thrummed her fingers on the desk.
What if?
She went to the computer in Almondine’s office and Googled Tarina’s name. As she suspected, Tarina was in post-production of her new film, a female version of the TV show S.W.A.T. Mazie raised an eyebrow, imagining all of those women in black.
She returned to Almondine’s address book and spent the next two hours scanning every page for more references to Tarina Hudson. Along the way she picked up a few other interesting tidbits about some used-to-be famous TV stars, but nothing else about Tarina. If she wanted more info, she needed to talk to Almondine, who had seemed less than enthusiastic every time Mazie asked a question about the address book. She groaned again. It was the only way.
She found Almondine in the courtyard, her sketchpad open and a piece of charcoal in her hand. While she seemed to stare at the planter of succulents along the back wall, the picture on the page looked like a busy street in Paris. The buildings toppled over each other, and vendors lined cobblestone sidewalks. Noticeably missing were cars.
Almondine glanced at Mazie and smiled.
“Is that Paris? I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“It is dirty,” Almondine said. She pointed to the left corner. “See? I drew a trashcan.”
“Oh, yes.” Mazie joined her at the table. “Weren’t there parts of Paris you loved? What about Notre Dame? Or Saint Chappelle? I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”
Almondine’s gaze fell to the sketchpad, as if she were closing off a part of herself. She chose a piece of brown charcoal and added detail around the buildings. Mazie listened to the gentle scraping of the charcoal on the linen paper but said nothing.
She’d learned patience and good timing were required when working with Almondine. Few people appreciated silence and listening as much as she did. Sometimes she required an entire minute to formulate an answer to a relatively simple question. Mazie braced herself for a potentially long afternoon based on what she wanted to ask and what she wanted to do to save the Bijou.
Eventually Almondine asked, “Why do you want to go to Paris?”
Mazie shrugged. “I’ve heard it’s the city of love and light. I’d want to go with someone special. When did you visit?”
“The last time was nine years ago.”
“You’ve been more than once?”
“Many times.”
“How many?”
“Eleven.”
Mazie put her hand to her heart. “Well, even though it’s dirty, you must’ve loved it to return so often.”
Almondine replaced the chalk in the box and wiped her hands on her long denim skirt. “The first time I went by myself for inspiration with my art. All
the subsequent visits afterward were at the request of a lover, a few different lovers,” she clarified. “One in particular wanted to live there but the demands of his life wouldn’t allow it. Instead, he journeyed there frequently. Three times I accompanied him.”
“Do you think you’ll go back?”
She scoffed and waved a dismissive hand. “Never again. It was ruined for me.”
“The last time ruined it?”
“She ruined it,” Almondine said, a sneer on her face.
Mazie glanced at the drawing and noticed window boxes adorned most of the buildings. She thought of Tarina’s breasts sitting in the lilies. She cleared her throat and folded her hands in front of her. “Almondine, when you say she ruined it, are you referring to Tarina Hudson?”
Almondine’s eyes grew wide. She furiously slapped the sketchbook shut and pushed it across the little table that belonged in a French café. In fact, despite some of the overgrown foliage, the entire scene was a French café, complete with a French flag tucked into a corner. How did I miss that?
Almondine stood abruptly, knocking several pieces of chalk to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Mazie blurted, as she gathered the chalk. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Almondine pointed at Mazie. “Then never utter her name again.”
Chapter Eleven
Addy glanced at her watch as she pulled up to yet another red light. She sighed. Late again. The extra stop for Bianca, combined with her other good deeds—a random stop for Weather, the nanny with COPD, helping Mrs. Hampton read the bus route pamphlet because she never could understand how the transfers worked, and waiting for Luanne and Bus 19 to make its stop at Market and Decker so Addy’s regulars could transfer to her bus—cost her time. Overtime, according to the Wilshire Hills Transportation Department. Normally Addy took it all in stride, but today she was experiencing an unusual emotion: annoyance.
