They Might Be Monsters

By Bettyann Moore

The sun was barely up and Main Street still deserted when June Fisher plunked her ample bottom down on the white rocking chair outside Jordy’s Five & Dime. She huffed a sigh of satisfaction and settled in for a long siege; she hoped the others wouldn’t be late.

She pulled her knitting bag onto her lap to check her supplies. The three-color straw bag, emblazoned with JAMAICA on the side, had been her best purchase to date. June had never been to Jamaica, nor anywhere outside of Minnesota for that matter; she’d picked up the bag at the Goodwill on half-price day, a bargain at 50 cents. The other finds that she wore that day included a baby blue sweatshirt with Tampa stitched in yellow across the bosom and a black ball cap with NY on its peak. June was a walking travelogue.

June poked around in the bag. Needles and yarn, of course, plus the scarf she’d been knitting for three years, now a good six feet long; a bottle of water and another with orange juice spiked with vodka – it could be a very long day; a deck of cards and cribbage board – June was Norwood’s cribbage champion four years’ running; and one Depends buried beneath it all – sometimes when she got to laughing, well, it was just prudent. Why, just thinking about the looks on The Boys’ faces when they saw her and the rest of the Stitchin’ ‘n’ Bitchin’ Club today was enough to set her off.

“Ha! About time!” June said, looking up from her task. Cora Lee Johnson was mincing down the sidewalk in ridiculously high heels toward her, butt sashaying in tight capris. “Damn fool,” June muttered, looking down at her well-worn Keds. Cora was a Georgia transplant and still had to learn the ways of the Midwest.

“Yoo-hoo, June, here I am!” she called out, though she was within ten feet of June now.

“I can see that,” June said dryly as Cora Lee wobbled up and stood before her.

Cora Lee planted her hands on her hips and looked around. “Which one should I take?” she asked, nodding toward the other chairs.

June waved her hand in the air. “Any one that tickles your fancy,” she said. “The bouncy metal ones can be right comfy.” June couldn’t help it, whenever she was around Cora Lee she started talking like an extra in Gone with the Wind. Bless her heart, though, the woman never seemed to notice.

“Land!” Cora Lee cried, whipping out a handkerchief and wiping off the well-worn chair. “Ain’t this Doc Kirby’s seat?” She settled into it and rocked it tentatively.

June glared at her. “It ain’t Doc Kirby’s seat more than it is anyone else’s,” she said, wincing at the ‘ain’t’. “That’s why we’re here. Where’d those other two get to anyhow?” she added, looking around. “It’s nearly 7 o’clock. I told them ...” She was interrupted by squealing tires and the loud muffler-less gunning of an engine.

“My word!” Cora Lee said, fanning the exhaust away with her hand. “Will Fern never get that big ol’ beast serviced?” The two women watched as Fern, with Delia riding shotgun, maneuvered her 1973 Cadillac Fleetwood into a parking spot.

“Thank heaven she doesn’t have to parallel park that monstrosity,” June muttered. As it was, when Fern killed the engine and it was blessedly quiet again, the car was still a good two feet from the curb.

Delia Olson wrestled with the big door then heaved it open. She went around to the trunk and pulled an aluminum walker out of its cavernous depths. Once she had it opened, she pushed it around to the driver’s side where Fern and her oxygen tank waited. The two slowly made their way to the Five & Dime. The walker, complete with a bulb horn, streamers and a wicker basket, sported a sticker that declared: Wipe That Smile of Your Face! I’m OLD, not cute! Though it was months before football season, Fern Stapleford was decked out in purple and gold, the colors of her beloved Vikings.

June could never resist. “I hear the Vi-QUEEN’s quarterback has to wear training pads to practice,” she said, taking over for Delia and helping Fern into a chair.

“And you call yourself a liberal,” Fern shot back, “and a feminist at that.”

Fern always did have June’s number. Properly chastised, June dropped back into her chair. Fern beamed a fond smile in her direction. The two had been friends since childhood.

Delia fussed with the walker, making sure it was close at hand, then leaned over Fern to make sure there were no kinks in the NG tubes. Fern slapped at her hands.

“Quit twittering about, Delia,” she growled. “Give me some air!”

“But that’s what I was trying to … oh, ha ha, I get it,” Delia said, backing away. She gave Cora Lee a hug, then settled into the chair next to her. All present and accounted for, and not a minute too soon.

“Here they come,” June said, nodding down the street toward Dottie’s Diner.

“I don’t think they see us yet,” Cora Lee said, giggling.

“I’m so nervous!” Delia declared. Fern snorted, not an easy thing to do with tubes in one’s nose, but she had perfected it.

Four men had just left the diner and were deep in conversation as they headed toward the cluster of chairs as they had for the last 25 years, but only in good weather, of course. It was Minnesota, after all. In winter they held down a corner table at Dottie’s for the bulk of the day. Dottie grudgingly allowed it; Doc Kirby had saved her life once. But Dottie was gone now – even Doc Kirby couldn’t save her from old age – and a young couple up out of Chicago had taken over. “Sorry,” they had told ‘The Boys,’ as they were called, “we can’t afford to tie up a table for that long.” The Boys still sat as long as they could over oatmeal and coffee, but eventually they had to vacate their spots. In the winter, that was a problem. It wasn’t as much fun to sit in someone’s living room, without an audience, and solve the ills of the world. On fair days, though, there were “their” chairs in front of the Five & Dime. Until today.

June, Fern, Delia and Cora Lee saw the moment when one of the The Boys’ finally noticed that something was amiss. Mikey Poston was ahead of the others and in mid-stride came to an abrupt halt. The women had a hard time keeping straight faces when the other three men collided with Mikey’s backside. Doc’s cane had somehow gotten tangled in Jake Norquist’s legs and while he and Bob Markham worked to keeping everyone upright, Mikey stood there gawking.

June, with the best vision of the four, read Mikey’s lips. “Holy shit!” the former minister cried.

The other men peered over Mikey’s shoulders as the women, one by one, brought out their needlework.

As the others bent to their tasks, June kept one eye on the men and gave a running, whispered commentary.

“They’re just standing there ...

Now they’re huddled around Doc and his mouth’s going a mile a minute …

Mikey keeps looking our way and making gestures. Hard to tell if they’re obscene …

Looks like Jake wants to go back to the diner; he’s pulling on Doc’s arm, the coward …

Bob just spit on the sidewalk, yuck, but he’s always doing that …

Looks like a consensus has been reached. Bob and Jake are going back to the diner and Mikey and Doc are headed our way. Steady as she goes, ladies.”

The two men made quite a pair. Doc, ivory-headed cane in hand, was dressed in a starched white shirt, creased grey pants and a matching vest from which a pocket watch dangled. Mikey wore his typical shiny black jogging suit with white racing stripes down the sides; it swished when he walked.

“Why PastorPoston, Doc Kirby,” June said, pretending to be surprised when the swishing stopped and the two men stood within the circle of chairs. Mikey had the decency to blush. He hated to be reminded that he was once a preacher, defrocked years before for shenanigans with a married parishioner. Fern kept her head down, but June saw her smirk.

“Ladies,” Doc said, turning to each of them. He would have tipped his hat if he were wearing one. “It’s a beautiful day in Norwood,” he added, doing his best Garrison Keillor impression. Mikey shifted next to him. If it were anyone other than Doc, he would be elbowing him in the side.

“A tad on the chilly side for this southern girl,” Cora Lee said, batting her eyelashes and earning her a frown from June and Fern. Delia simply nodded and kept at her cross stitch.

“It’s perfect,” Fern declared, shutting down her oxygen tank and reaching into the basket of her walker to pull out a pack of Marlboros. “What?” she said, when Doc gave her a look. “They’re ultra-lights.”

“Stopping for a bit while out shopping?” Doc asked casually.

“Oh, hell no,” June said. “We’re here for the long haul. It’s the perfect place for our Stitchin’ and Bitchin’ group, right, ladies?”

The others murmured their assent; Fern took a defiant drag off her cigarette.

“But ...” Mikey began. Doc put a cautioning hand on his shoulder.

“Well,” Doc cut in, “enjoy your day, ladies. It’s an old doctor’s joke, but it works for your, uh, group as well: Keep them in stitches!” He laughed at his own joke while Mikey furrowed his brow and cocked his head. Doc took hold of the pastor’s elbow and steered him down the street toward the diner.

The group held its collective breath until the men were safely inside, then broke into loud cackles, even Delia.

“Oh my stars!” Cora Lee cried, trying to catch her breath. “Did you see the looks on their faces? And Doc Kirby! Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!”

“Oh-oh-oh,” June gasped, clutching her gut. “I have a stitch in my side!”

Everyone went quiet, then burst into new laughter.

“Stitch! Oh my God, stitch!” Fern sputtered, then was wracked with a choking cough. Delia leapt to her feet, farting loudly, and sent the women into new fits. Fern had to turn up her oxygen intake.

By then the town was bustling and not a few heads turned their way. Shoppers going into Jordy’s gave the women wide berth, but smiled just the same. Jordy himself came out and gave them the eye, though he just shook his head and ducked back inside. The women finally went quiet when Sheriff Kleinschmitt’s black-and-white came cruising down Main Street.

June looked around at the women, her friends. Her family. Two divorcees, one widow and June herself, never married. She’d gotten over the anger at people who assumed she was “unmarriagable” or, the usual, a lesbian. Fact of the matter was, it simply never entered her mind to give up what she had already. Of course she’d had lovers, some for years and years, though few knew that.

Delia was the group’s most tender-hearted member of the little group. Horribly neglected as a child in a family of 13, she jumped right into a marriage with a dimwitted alcoholic that promised – and delivered – more neglect. June and Fern had spent hours on the phone and in person, telling her she was wonderful. It wasn’t until Delia had spent three days crawling around on her hands and knees because she’d broken her ankle and Dimwit was too drunk to take her to the doctor, that Delia finally woke up. Up until then, neglect, to her mind, didn’t equate to abuse.

Five days into kindergarten, June knew that Fern would be her friend. In a land of Norwegian blondes, Fern stood out with her coal-black hair. The other kids teased June because she could already read and preferred to curl up on the play corner rug with a book rather than taking a turn at the clay table. One of the boys – a particularly snotty-nosed bully – took exception to that and when the teacher’s back was turned, he ripped the book June was reading out of her hands and sat on it. Shy, easily intimidated June made no move to get the book back. She popped her thumb into her mouth and let silent tears fall – she’s since learned better than giving a bully such an easy target, thanks to Fern’s tutelage over the years. The young Fern marched right over to the bully and pushed him over, grabbed the book and returned it to June. Then she plunked herself down and asked June to teach her to read. They’ve been sharing books, and so much more, ever since.

June, Fern and Delia met Cora Lee while volunteering at the Sundown Rest Home where the oh-so-Southern woman was visiting her dying father. Newly divorced, she’d never been anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon Line, but as her daddy’s only living relative, she’d come to care for him when his dementia had gotten too severe for him to live alone. Why he’d retired in Snow Country, no one knew, but ever the good daughter, Cora Lee moved into his tiny apartment, cared for his cats, and trooped off to the Sundown every single day. Done volunteering for that day, the three women came across Cora Lee standing outside the rest home crying her eyes out. No, she wasn’t upset about her daddy, it was the sudden snow storm which had buried her car and ruined her sweet suede (open-toed!) shoes. Despite the frequency of such occurrences, and the fact that her father had died eight years ago, Cora Lee stayed on, still tending those cats and living in that tiny apartment.

June couldn’t imagine life without any of them. If she was feeling low, they could always make her laugh, they helped out even before she knew help was needed and they even took part in crazy schemes like taking over The Boys’ coveted Main Street position.

“That was just Round One, you know,” Fern reminded them, breaking into June’s reverie. “The Boys can’t stay in the diner all day; they’ll be out here sooner or later.”

As if they had been summoned up, the four men came out of the diner, Doc leading the pack, as usual. They strode toward the women.

“Bob Markham looks mad,” Delia remarked.

“He’s looked that way ever since they took Wayne Newton off the jukebox down at Bitsy’s Bar and Grill. In other words, for a long, long time,” Fern said, causing another round of laughter.

Delia bit her lip. “Just the same,” she said, “I wonder what they’re going to do?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” June said, “they’re a bunch of old guys and we’re a bunch of old women. They’re not going to do anything.”

“Guess we’re about to find out,” Cora Lee whispered as the men strolled up.

The townsfolk on the street knew it wasn’t going to be another shootout at the OK Corral, but most of them found reasons to linger nearby just the same.

“Ladies,” Doc said, then cleared his throat. “It appears that you’re having a bit of fun at our expense.”

“Oh, we’re having fun all right,” June replied, “but I don’t know as you and the rest of these gentlemen have anything to do with it.”

“Bull!” Bob Markam said over Doc’s shoulder. Doc shushed him then turned back to June, whose smile had gotten wider.

“Traditions play an important role in a small town such as Norwood,” he said. “Why, if it weren’t for tradition, mayhem would be the order of the day. Crime would run rampant!” He was warming to his subject and the women were having none of it.

“Are you actually saying,” Fern said, incredulous, “that if you and your gang didn’t sit here every day that crime … I’ll say it again … crime would run rampant through the streets of Norwood?” More than a few townspeople drew closer as her voice rose.

“Well, not precisely,” Doc sputtered. “It’s more like a metaphor for tradition and ...” he seemed at a loss for words.

“Why, I think I know what Dr. Kirby is alludin’ to,” Cora Lee said, sounding even more Southern than usual. “Why, without tradition we wouldn’ta had slavery and votes for white men only, Jim Crow, children workin’ in coal mines and sweat shops ...”

Delia chimed in. “Don’t forget good old-fashioned wife beating,” she said. “Spare the rod, spoil the child! Isn’t that how tradition had it?”

Doc Kirby shuffled his feet while the other three men clenched their fists as their sides.

“Hear, hear, now,” Jake Norquist said, taking a step toward the women, “you got no right to go calling us names!”

Cora Lee fluttered her hands prettily. “Why, we never! They’re just little ol’ metaphors,” she said. A few bystanders snickered, though some turned away.

Doc seemed increasingly uncomfortable with the way the discussion was heading.

“Ha!” he said, “looks like the joke’s on us. You won. Yessir, you’ve made your point. Lesson learned, right boys?” he said, turning to the others and hiding a wink.

“Uh … yeah, yep, lesson learned,” Mikey Poston said. Jake and Bob nodded, brows furrowed.

“So, your little group can run along home now, do your nails or something, have some nice, warm tea … getting rather brisk out here,” Doc went on, burying himself further.

“Oh, yeah, brrrrr,” Mikey said, hugging himself, “getting darn cold.”

The jaws on the four women hung open. They couldn’t quite believe their ears.

“Of all the patronizing ...”

“How dumb do you think we are?”

“What century is this again?”

June stood up, saw Bob eyeing her chair and sat back down again.

“I want to thank you, Doc,” she said, “for making this that much easier. I always thought your ‘little group’ had an over-inflated sense of entitlement, but I didn’t know you were out-and-out women-hating scurvy dogs.” June pulled out her spiked orange juice and knocked back a big slug while her friends and the onlookers held their collective breath. No one ever insulted Doc Kirby. Even the other three men moved, as a group, away from their leader.

“Stupid is as stupid does,” Fern said quietly.

Doc brought up the handle of his cane and tapped it thoughtfully against his chin for several long seconds. In the end, he spread his arms and nodded.

“Tomorrow,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster, “is another day.” The four men walked away, though they might have scurried had Doc not paced them accordingly.

There was a smattering of applause as the bystanders went on with their business.

“Why, Scarlett O’Hara is alive and well and livin’ in Norwood,” Cora Lee deadpanned.

June frowned. For all her bluster, she really didn’t like embarrassing anyone in public. She knew she’d made an enemy for life. Over some dumb chairs! She shook her head … no, it was bigger than that. It just felt small right then.

“I don’t know how they do it,” Cora Lee said, “all this sittin’ here, I mean. My derriere is already half asleep.”

“Nothing’s keeping you from getting up,” Fern reminded her.

“True,” Cora Lee said, standing and stretching. “We can go now, right?”

“Well … why? You got somewhere better to be?” June asked.

Cora Lee hedged. “Hmmm, yeah, I was gonna tell you earlier that I couldn’t stay all day.”

“What? Why?” June asked. She thought everyone had agreed that – even if it was just for one day – they’d let The Boys know that their “position” in town could disappear in a heartbeat.

Cora Lee bent down and adjusted the straps of her foot-mangling shoes. “It’s just that I’m going to Rochester.”

The women looked everywhere but at Cora Lee while she fidgeted and gathered her things together. The phrase “going to Rochester” sent chills down their spines. One didn’t just go to Rochester – certainly not to shop; that’s what the Cities were for. After living in Minnesota for almost ten years, surely Cora Lee knew by now what all Minnesotans knew: “Going to Rochester” was code for going to Mayo Clinic or to St. Mary’s Hospital, usually for tests or treatments, and sometimes, to die.

“Will you be there long?” Fern finally asked, watching Cora Lee’s face.

“Um, no, not too long … a couple of hours maybe?” She was smiling, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’ll drive you,” Fern said, standing and reaching for her walker. Delia beat her to it.

“I’ll go, too,” Delia said. “I haven’t been to Rochester in years.” Everyone remembered then the long weeks of Delia’s chemotherapy, the hair loss, the nausea. Fern, who had driven then, too, kept a plastic bucket in the Cadillac. It was still rattling around in the trunk.

Cora Lee started to protest as tears pooled in her heavily made-up eyes.

June heaved a huge sigh and stood up as well. “Cora Lee,” she said, “none of us ever goes to Rochester alone.”

“But … but The Boys ...” Cora Lee said, waving her hands at the empty chairs.

“Hell’s bells,” June said, “The Boys can bite my big ol’ behind. It was kind of like tilting at windmills anyway. They might be giants in their own minds, but we know better.”

Fern, getting the literary reference, gave her old friend a wink. Everyone gathered their things together and slowly made their way to Fern’s big, blue beast.

“What was all that about windmills tilting? Isn’t that dangerous?” Cora Lee asked as she pushed in next to June.

“Not as dangerous as real monsters, like the ones in Rochester” June said, hugging her friend. “We’ll deal with the other kind later if we have to.”

“Looks like things might sort themselves out anyway,” Delia said, looking back and nodding toward their abandoned chairs. Several people had taken their places. “Could be a trend,” she added. And, indeed, over the course of the warm weather months, the faces and backsides in those chairs would never be the same.

Let Your Hearts Be Gay at Christmas

by Colleen Sutherland

Dear BFF and you know you are! Couldn't text a story this long and talking on the phone won't work until after Christmas, so I'm putting it all in an e-mail to you. Maybe I'll run over in a couple of days.

Kate, you wouldn't believe it. It was epic! Ma's gone mental and Pa is laughing. He knew all along, he says.

I knew it was going to happen. I got to the mailbox before Ma a week ago and opened up Luke's Christmas card. He wrote the whole thing down in a letter. I removed it before I showed the card to Ma. It's OK for him, but I didn't need to hear days of ranting. Let it be a surprise, I figured. I just told her Luke was coming home for Christmas and was bringing a friend he met in Boulder.

She went all sunshine and moonbeams. You know how she is. Her pet was coming home. She went straight to his room and cleaned it again, dusting all the furniture, and taping all the half naked Brad Pitt posters down where they were coming off the wall. The next day we had to announce the great news at the True Christian Community Church and they all rejoiced with lots of loud Hallelujahs and songs. It was so embarrassing. With my family, I'm surprised you hang with me at all.

Luke should graduate in June. Ma thinks that next he will go on to a seminary. All her life she thought he should become a preacher. She prays on it all the time. Maybe one of those big mega churches for him, she thought. He could even be a television preacher on the Trinity Network. “He is so handsome so presentable.” She thinks he would be so popular if he did that. Could happen, I suppose. Some of them are less than what they appear to be.

Ma did everything to give him a good start. We were home schooled, you know that. She kept anything educational out of our education. I knew the Bible back and forth before Pa finally told her to let me go to high school to meet some boys. He said I would never go to college like Luke, they couldn't afford that, so I might as well start meeting young men. Ma thought I would meet enough at the True Christian Community Church but the congregation is mainly silly old people and guys like Luke.

First day of the freshman year I met you and that made all the difference. You taught me how to dress. Of course, the clothes we got are all at your house so I can change on my way to school. Ma would be horrified if she saw them. Even more if she saw the tattoos, but as long as I wear good Christian clothes at home, she'll never see them. You also saved me from making a fool out of myself in science classes. It was the first time I even heard of evolution. And boy, have I evolved, thanks to you, BF.

By then, Luke was off to college. I don't know how he convinced Ma that Boulder was a good place to go. I think he said there was a good theological program there. If she ever got her nose out of those religious tracts she would have known better. After about a year, he stopped coming home, even for Christmas. He told her he had a job at a Christian book store. He sent her pictures of Jesus with eyes that moved for her birthday.

Once he was gone, Ma spent even more time praying and getting involved in politics, to make a better world for her grand-children she said. She read about that crazy church in Topeka, Kansas and talked about moving there so she could find me a husband. “No homos there,” she said. But Pa put his foot down. Ma sent them money anyhow and made friends with some of the congregation on Facebook. Weird. Gay marriage was a big issue in the True Christian Community Church so she talked about that after every service. She joined them on the picket line to protest gay commitment ceremonies, gay adoptions and gay rights in general. When she spotted me on TV in our pro-gay marriage picket line she was upset. I told her I was just keeping you company.

“Get better friends,” she said.

“When I go to college,” I said and told her I had been accepted at Boulder. Luke says I can stay with him for a while and I probably can get a grant.

The bigots failed and in September, gay marriage became legal in this state.

Yesterday morning Luke finally arrived. He was wearing a Christmas shirt that said, “Don we now our gay apparel.”

“I thought Hallmark changed that,” Ma said.

“I got it in Boulder,” he said.

He introduced his friend Kevin who was wearing a matching shirt. Then she saw the the back., a semi-naked Santa chasing an elf.

“We need to get you some more presentable clothes,” Ma said, searching for her purse.

While her back was turned, I whispered to Luke that she never got his Christmas card. He winked at me. “We'll straighten it out by tonight,” he said.

“Madonna next door is coming over for supper. She's bringing a friend for Kevin.” Ma went on to explain she wanted grand-children. She wasn't getting any younger.

She took all three of us down to the mall because the Christian book store had a sale on shirts that said, “Put Christ Back into Christmas.” They ran into trouble right away when she put her change in the Salvation Army pot. Kevin said he couldn't because the Sally Ann was anti-gay. Really? Ma said and threw in a five dollar bill.

Even worse, when they went into the Christian Book Store, the clerk said, “Happy Holidays!” Ma set her straight right there and huffed out the door. By then Kevin and Luke were slipping in and out of a wine shops for samples.

Luke insisted on going to Whole Foods for groceries, over Ma's objections. “Bunch of homos work there,” she told them.

“I see what you're up against,” Kevin said as they walked in the door.

“Ma, why don't you take a seat,” Luke said and plopped her on a bench. He gave her a notepad and pen. “You can count the homosexuals or something.”

We split up. Kevin and I found some interesting items while Luke ordered a cake at the bakery. When we got back to Ma's bench she had done her count. There were so many, neatly scored, that either Whole Foods had a lot more people working there than we thought or she was counting shoppers, too.

Last night, Kevin and Luke insisted on cooking Christmas Eve supper with their own spaghetti sauce. They sang Christmas carols with interesting verses added. Ma was too busy greeting Madonna and her friend to notice.

“Dinner's on,” the boys yelled. Ma sat down, explaining what a catch a man who could cook would be for Madonna. Madonna has lived next door for years. She didn't seem too hopeful of a future with Luke.

“What interesting pasta,” Ma said when we sat down to eat. “It looks like little flowers.”

“You're looking at them upside down,” said Luke.

“Oh,” she said. “That looks like...” She looked at Pa then turned bright red. Pa ate and told Kevin and Luke how good the sauce was.

It was even better when Luke brought out the cake, her favorite, German chocolate with white frosting and the words, “I'M GAY!!!!”

As Pa cut the cake, Luke and Kevin did a big old smoochy kiss, right there at the table.

Ma went into a crying jag, gulping out, “It can't be true!”

She tried to call the pastor at the True Christian Community Church but he was out of town. She tried to call the Deacon but he was preparing for the Rapture with his family. She just knew they were going to kick her out of the church if she didn't pray for a miracle right away. But if the Deacon as right about the Rapture, it might not matter.

All last night she talked to Luke about sin. She quoted Leviticus. She quoted Deuteronomy. She quoted until she ran out of passages (there aren't very many on the subject) then went around and quoted them again. She had read about a place in Minnesota where Luke could be cured. She wrote the internet site down and gave it to him.

In desperation, she took them all to the Methodist church down the block this morning.

“Let's all pray,”she said. “Let's pray the gay away.” The Methodist pastor ignored her prayer request and said he didn't have time for counseling just then. I think she can forget the Methodists. She said she would try the Assembly of God next Sunday.

Now she's in her room crying and praying. Pa is laughing and watching a football game on TV with Kevin and Luke while they drink the beer the guys bought.

I guess Ma will adjust eventually. Luke says they will be back in June for their wedding.

So Merry Christmas, my darling Kate.

I'm deleting this e-mail after I send it. Maybe you should do the same.

What do you think? Should we tell her about us at graduation?  

Pick Your Poison

Image by Clara via Wikimedia Commons

Jodi straightened her shoulders and steeled herself before ringing the doorbell. A pear-shaped woman answered. The first thing Jodi noticed was her red sweater featuring a reindeer drinking from a martini glass. The woman stared at her with a bland smile on her face.

“Hello, I’m Jodi. I work with Reg down at the Y.”

“Of course you do,” said the woman. “I sent Reginald down to the market for more Tom and Jerry mix. But do come in.”

The woman took her coat and tossed it in a dark bedroom. She introduced the room to Jodi as ‘TobyMikeSarahEuniceJohnJohnPeggyPenelopeRupert and Ed.’ Then waved at a dining room table overflowing with candy, dessert bars, beer nuts, cheeses, sausages, cakes, dips, and a supermarket’s worth of crackers.

“Help yourself,” the woman said.

Jodi hesitated, looking over the treats sitting on their paper plates, Tupperware containers, plastic wrap, and supermarket deli containers. Reg hadn’t told her to bring anything to the party and she realized now she should have. The woman snapped her fingers and waved a red-and-green fingernailed hand.

“That’s just the snack table. Come on into the kitchen.”

Jodi’s let out a breath and followed the hostess into a kitchen large enough to cater a barn raising. Jodi gasped. The smell of vanilla, butter, cinnamon, and toast hit her. Her mouth stung as it let loose a tsunami of saliva.

“Oh my,” she said.

On every flat surface sat a plate of cookies. Iced cookies in greens, reds, blues, all dotted with sprinkles, licorice, and mints. Then there was the chocolate category. Mint chocolate, dark chocolate, Kisses, M&Ms, white chocolate, milk chocolate. If there were pretzels, they’d be dipped in chocolate too. Pinwheels, thumbprints, gingerbread, butter, shortbread, anise, cinnamon, German Lepp, ginger, and plain sugar. But there is no such thing as plain sugar. The sugar had to be big-crystaled turbino, or covered with blue sugar, red sugar, green sugar, cut out in shapes that reminded one of the season, Santa Claus, reindeer, Christmas trees, presents with bows, gingerbread men, stockings, and stars. Frosting in all manner of colors and flavors slathered on with a trowel and piled higher with more sugar and candy. Candy! M&Ms, red hots, licorice, Kisses, mints, candy canes, and in one case, Snickers bars. It was as if the bakers had found a way to get rid of all the kid’s candy from Halloween, repackaged in cookie form.

“Yeah, I love to bake. I’m in the wedding cake business, but Reginald probably already told you that.”

Reg hadn’t said anything of the sort, so Jodi just smiled and nodded. The woman blew out a breath and pressed her lips together.

“Anyway, have a cookie,” the hostess said.

Three years of classes at the YMCA. Body pump in the morning, swimming laps at lunch hour, boot camp after work. She avoided all the treats brought into the office all year. Birthday donuts, new baby bagels (it’s a girl!), leftover BBQ from entertaining the big donors, the yearly chili cook-off, brats and dogs Fridays before every Packer game (home or away, plus the playoffs). Endless summer parties with dips all based on mayonnaise, cream cheese, or a combination of both. She avoided them all, a rock in a sea of trans-fats and glycemic armageddon.

But cookies? They were the worst temptation. Worse than ice cream, worse than margaritas, worse than potato chips, trumping even bacon. Cookies. Small morsels of sugary goodness that reminded her of cold winter days at Grandma’s house, dipped in a mug of hot chocolate, a perfect end to an unexpected gift of a day off from school. Helping with the making, the mixing, the gooey rolling out and shaping, sneaking globs of raw dough from fingers, sneaking licks of frosting, sampling the toppings to make sure they were good, which they always were.  The whole house smelling of sweet goodness: vanilla, cinnamon, and toast – warm love from the oven.

She loved cookies, but loved double takes from the boys more. She could look through a magazine and tsk at the way celebrities had let themselves go. She wore a two-piece and made sure she was front and center for all the vacation pictures. Her Facebook photos always got more likes than her friends’. All that would go down the crapper if she had a cookie.

One wouldn’t hurt. That was Satan’s whisper. Frito-Lay had it right when they bet you couldn’t eat just one, they had just applied it to the wrong food. What the Christmas party world needed was a good scare. She should start it.

Her Christmas Cookie party would be glorious. The guests would gush over her cookies, all the way to the hospital where the doctors would have to open them up to remove the ground stained-glass sprinkles, the razor-sharp flakes of surgical steel, or administer the antidote to crystalized rat poison and Drano (if there was such a thing). For the kids, pretzels dipped in chocolate Ex-Lax, M&M cookies laced with No-Doz. For those with allergies, peanut butter buttons with ground almonds. She could make thumbprints filled with transmission fluid. Molasses cookies made with motor oil. They’d gobble it all up until it was too late.

After that, no one would bring cookies to parties. People would think twice before eating one. Hospitals would open their x-ray machines to anyone who wanted to scan them for razor blades. Soon, Christmas parties would be like Halloween, and no one would trust any treat not wrapped in safe plastic with a company logo on the front. And once that happened, she could waltz by the cookies in peace. A wrapped cookie was easily ignored. 

The hostess cleared her throat, snapping Jodi back to her senses. “Please,” the hostess said, “have a cookie.”

“No thanks,” said Jodi, “I'm fine.”

“Are you sure? We have tons.” The hostess planted her feet as if she wasn’t going to move until Jodi put one of the accursed things in her mouth.

“Okay,” she said. With a trembling hand, she reached for a frosted snowflake with purple sprinkles.

“It's all right, they're not poisoned,” the hostess said.

She paused before putting the cookie in her mouth. What was it Reg always said? There were no new ideas in the world, just recycled old ones. If she could think of a thing like poisoned cookie, so could someone else. Like Reg’s wife.

If that were the case, Jodi thought as she took a bite, at least she would be a good-looking corpse.

Queen of Acapulco - Part II

Read Part I here.

By Bettyann Moore

Resigned, peaceful even, Rhonda got ready to take in that fateful last breath. Something, though, was fighting against the powerful tow at her feet; her head hurt almost as much as her lungs did.

The next thing she was aware of were brown, concerned faces staring down at her. Her scalp hurt, but she couldn’t think why. Babbling voices assailed her. In the periphery of her vision a large, blond woman swathed in purple came clear.

“Oh my God,” she was saying, “he saved you! I never saw such … oh my God, thank God you had long hair! A second more … ”

The story came out as Rhonda lay there literally catching her breath. One of the skinny young men closest to her had seen her go under, but didn’t see her come back up. He reached for her outstretched arm, but battered by the ever-larger waves, he missed, once, twice, three times. Finally, he saw the bright red hair receding beneath him and snatched at it, grabbing enough to pull against the strong undertow. 

 

The crowd had thinned before Rhonda felt strong enough to sit up and graciously accept a sip of bottled water from the purple-clad woman.

“Honey, seriously,” she was saying, “be grateful. That boy saved your life. Never in all my years ...”

Rhonda wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not. The calm she’d felt just before her last breath … but, no, thinking that way lay the end. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the young man who’d rescued her. In tattered cut-offs, he stood hugging himself looking proud and scared at the same time.

With the woman’s help, she got to her feet and made her way toward him.

“Hola,” she said, wishing she had more words. “Muchas gracias,” she added, nodding toward the sea.

“De nada,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. Rhonda saw then, his pencil-thin mustache, the slight wrinkling in the corners of his eyes. He was probably her age, though maybe slightly younger.

“It was my pleasure,” he added, perhaps realizing that ‘de nada’ translated to ‘it’s nothing.’ It was definitely something.

Rhonda, happy to hear that he had some English, thanked him again, this time in her native tongue.

“Thank you so very much for saving me,” she said.

Embarrassed, the young man looked down at his feet.

Rhonda suddenly felt cold and naked. She looked around for her robe. Ever helpful, the woman in purple held it out to her.

“I saw some kids eying it up,” she said, helping Rhonda put it on. “Can’t trust anyone these days,” she sniffed.

Rhonda thanked the woman, then turned back to her savior, who had begun walking away. She held out her hand.

“Me llamo ‘Rhonda’,” she said, reaching back to her high school Spanish class days. “Cómo se llama?”

“Victor Camacho Hernandez.” He pronounced his first name ‘Beektor.’

“Me gusta,” Rhonda said, surprising herself.

“El gusto es mio,” he replied, shaking her hand.

Amazing! Rhonda thought, it’s just like one of those pretend conversations we had in class. But now what? She needn’t have worried.

“Are you thirsty?” Victor asked in perfectly understandable English. He nodded to a makeshift stand where several kids sold cold drinks from a cooler. Vendors, selling everything from inflatable rafts to full meals dotted the beach. Rhonda realized that she was incredibly thirsty, and hungry, too.

At the drink stand – Rhonda insisted on paying, though Victor had to show her the proper amount – he introduced the youngsters as his cousins. The food stand, where Rhonda bought one of the best carnitas she had ever tasted, was manned by still more cousins.

“And that,” she teased, nodding toward a young woman who sat at a series of low tables, “I suppose is another cousin?”

“No!” Victor said with a gleam in his eye, “esa es mi hermana!”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the shady area where his sister sat hunched over a task. As they got closer, Rhonda could see that she was painting something onto what appeared to be a very small rock. It was a rock, she saw, and the young woman was using a pin dipped in ink to make an amazingly detailed likeness of someone.

“Jesus,” Rhonda whispered, awed at the patience and precision.

“Si, es Jesús!” Victor said, pronouncing it ‘Hay-soos.’

Rhonda realized that the tables held hundreds of smooth, oval and round rocks varying in size from an inch to six inches and on each one was a beautifully wrought portrait. Most were of Jesus, but Rhonda also saw likenesses of rock and movie stars, cartoon characters and, incongruously, Richard Nixon.

“Juanita,” Victor said in a low, loving voice. The young woman looked up for the first time and smiled a wide, crooked smile at her brother. Then her eyes slid back to the work in front of her.

Victor shrugged. “Juanita,” he began, “she is ...”

Rhonda put her hand on his shoulder; she understood. She had seen how the girl’s smile had never reached her widely spaced, vacant eyes. They stood watching as Juanita finished one portrait, set it down on the table and reached inside a bag at her feet for another rock, then repeated the process. She did so without acknowledging their presence.

“Amazing,” Rhonda said. Each rock held a miniature masterpiece.

“She can paint anyone,” Victor said proudly. “You, maybe?”

“Oh, no, not me!” Rhonda cried, aware that her wet, tangled hair hung limply from her head. “But can she work from a photo?” She fingered the picture of Kyle in her pocket.

“Si!” Victor laughed and pointed at the likenesses of Nixon. “Juanita, she never met Señor Presidente.”

“Duh!” Rhonda said, slapping her palm against her forehead. “Or Jesús, I presume.”

“No lo sé!” Victor said, shrugging and laughing.

Rhonda took out the picture of her husband and set it down on the table in front of the girl. After a beat, Juanita set down the rock she was working on and picked up the picture and scrutinized it.

“Su corazón,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Your heart, she’d said. Not your love – amor – but your heart.

“Si,” Rhonda replied.

Juanita handed back the picture and reached into her bag of rocks. The one she chose was barely two inches long and half as wide. It was smooth, flat and cast with just a tinge of pink. She bent to her work while Rhonda watched in awe as her husband’s likeness came to life on the cool, flat stone. She wished she knew the Spanish word for ‘magic.’

“Magia,” Victor breathed next to her, seemingly every bit as enthralled, though he’d seen his sister work countless times before.

There was Kyle’s high forehead; his prematurely thinning hair. His aquiline nose; the dimple in his right cheek. The preposterously wide grin. And his eyes, unguarded, searching …

“Que está enamorado,” Juanita said more to the stone than to Victor and Rhonda. The picture was done in minutes and Juanita reached for a spray bottle of fixative and gave the stone two short blasts. The resulting shininess made the image seem even more realistic.

Rhonda stared down at it, afraid to touch it. Victor had no such compunctions, though. He picked it up and placed it in her hand.

“Está muerto? He is dead?” he asked, seeing something in her face.

“Está muerto,” she replied, willing herself not to start bawling. “Cuánto es?” she asked instead. “How much is it?”

“Nada,” he replied. “Is a gift.”

Now she really was going to cry. She gave him a hard, quick hug before she gave into it, and ran off toward the hotel.

Rhonda let the hot water of a shower soothe her aching muscles. She put her hands flat against the Spanish tiles on either side of the shower head and let her head fall forward, giving the hard spray time to work some magic on her wrenched neck. She was puzzled, though, when she saw that the water swirling down the drain looked pink. Then she saw the long, red line running down her leg.

Her heart sank, though she didn’t think it could sink any further. After three months of hoping and praying that Kyle’s seed had taken hold, Rhonda had gotten her period … in a foreign country no less.

“Enough!” she cried, her voice echoing off the tiles. She fell to her knees and lay curled under the spray long after the water ran cold.

With a burrito made of a washcloth stuffed with toilet paper wedged between her legs, Rhonda went in search of a store. She was beyond caring that she looked a fright, wearing her long, loose skirt over which she’d worn her beach robe belted with a scarf. The more bulk, the better. She jammed a wad of Mexican money into her pocket and approached the hotel concierge. He didn’t bat an eye at her colorful get-up and showed her a map of the boulevard; she could find a small mercado – market – just a few blocks away.

Rhonda walked quickly, though gingerly; she just wanted to get in the store, secure a box of tampons, and get out again. It was not to be.

The market, though small, was busy and had an air of fiesta about it. The customers, most carrying large, woven shopping bags over their arms, bustled in and out of the door. Rhonda had been hoping for something a little more low-key; she had never been comfortable buying “women’s products.” Kyle, though, had no such qualms and was only too glad to buy them for her. It was something she’d just have to get used to. She grabbed a box of tampons from the shelf and went to wait in line at the check-out. She must have sighed a little too loudly when she noticed that the woman in front of her had a heaping cart and two squalling children. The woman smiled at her and gestured for Rhonda to go ahead of her in the line, which she did, gratefully.

“Gracias,” she said, shyly as she squeezed past the cart.

“De nada,” the woman replied, then turned to grab something from one of her kid’s hands.

Keeping her head down, Rhonda stepped up to the cashier and pulled the wad of bills out of her pocket, heaving a sigh of relief. She clutched the brown bag to her chest and turned to go. But before she could, a bright light was shining in her eyes and music began to play. The cashier grinned broadly at her and clapped her hands. In fact, everyone around Rhonda was clapping their hands. All activity at the other check-outs came to a stand-still and an official-looking employee came bustling up, microphone in hand. Rhonda couldn’t understand a word he was saying. What had she done?

She stood there, frozen, as someone came up behind her and placed something on her head, then draped a royal purple fake fur stole across her shoulders. Someone thrust flowers into her hands. Cameras flashed.

Rhonda wanted to sink into the floor. She kept saying the Spanish phrase she knew best, “No comprendo! No comprendo!”

Seeing Rhonda’s confusion, the cashier leaned over and told her – in English – that Rhonda was the store’s 10,000^th customer and she’d won all kinds of fabulous prizes. The girl was gushing; as the cashier who had checked her out, she got to share in some of the bounty.

“No, no, no,” Rhonda said. “There’s a mistake here.” She looked wildly around at the grinning faces, searching for the woman who’s given up her place in line. The manager, still talking through the microphone, gestured toward several carts that were being pushed up to the counter. They were chock full of food and wrapped gifts.

Finally, Rhonda saw the woman she was looking for standing off to the side, a frown on her face.

“Please,” Rhonda said to the cashier, pulling her toward the woman, “this is the real winner. She let me have her place in line. Please explain it to your manager.” The girl looked confused, then seemed to understand. Rhonda whipped the purple stole off her shoulders and thrust it into the other woman’s hands and ran as fast as she could out of the store.

After running a block, Rhonda slowed down, though she half-expected to see the people from the store running after her. Panting, she stopped next to a building to catch her breath. Hysteria bubbled to the surface; she started to laugh. How absurd her life had become! How surreal! People along the sidewalk were giving her wide berth, which made her laugh all the more. She didn’t need a translator to know that the store she leaned against was a liquor store … tienda de licor, it said. She rubbed her face as if to wipe off her smile and went inside. The clerk gave her an odd look, but had no problem understanding her when she pointed to a pint of tequila. She tucked it into the bag she already had and hurried back to the hotel. She could feel blood seeping down her leg.

Sore and out of breath when she barreled into the hotel, Rhonda slowed and tried to look as normal as possible. The night clerk looked up expectantly, saw it was her, and looked down again, then back up, a wide smile on his face.

“Reina de Acapulco?” he said, raising an eyebrow and looking at her head.

“What? Como?”

“You are the Queen of Acapulco, yes?” he said, pointing to her head.

Rhonda reached up and felt the top of her head, then yanked off the crown that had been put there at the store. She’d forgotten all about it. No wonder people looked at her funny! She jammed the cardboard and glitter contrivance off her head and stuffed it into a pocket, then fled to the elevator. Tequila. All she wanted at this point was tequila.

Not a drinker by any stretch of the imagination, Rhonda poured two fingers of tequila into a bathroom glass and slammed it down. As the liquor made its hot way through her system she remembered, too late, salt and limes and some sort of ritual that made the stuff more palatable. She gave a mighty shiver and poured another glass.

She stood and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked ancient. Sad. The tip of her nose had turned red, as it did whenever she drank. She made her way back into the room and sat heavily on the bed, then pulled her cell phone from the depths of her purse. She hadn’t turned it on since she boarded the plane. Going it alone seemed like a good idea at first, but now she needed Kate.

They had been best friends since fifth grade when they figured out that fighting over Jimmy Baron was a no-win for either of them; he was a total jerk. Together, they thought, they were invincible. Kate was cool and practical; Rhonda more likely to jump to conclusions and fly off the handle. Rhonda’s intuition, though, helped them get through some tough spots whereas Kate would think things to death and never move off center. Rhonda needed some of Kate’s coolness.

As she thought, once she’d turned on the phone, it kept buzzing with messages. Surprisingly, though, there were only two calls and two texts from Kate. There were more from Rhonda’s boss than her best friend. She hoped Kate wasn’t sick.

Not bothering to listen to or read her messages, Rhonda pressed ‘2’ to speed dial Kate; ‘1’ had been reserved for Kyle.

“Rhonda?”

“Yes, it’s me, Kate.” Rhonda was trying hard to hold on.

“Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“Kate, you haven’t heard from me in five days!” Rhonda sat up straighter, incredulous; she and Kate usually talked every single day.

“Has it been that long? I’ve been sort of distracted lately.”

Rhonda didn’t know what to say. It was like the time she ran away for an entire day when she was nine. When she got home her mother hadn’t even known she was gone. When Rhonda told her she’d wandered deep into downtown Milwaukee, all her mother said was, “Did you have a good time?”

“Kate, Katie,” Rhonda couldn’t hold it together any longer. She started blubbering. “I’m in Mexico! I almost drowned! I got my period! I’m the freaking Queen of Acapulco! Kate, I need you!”

Rhonda rushed on, suddenly desperate to talk. When she got to the part about Juanita and Kyle’s tiny portrait, she drew the stone out of her pocket, staring down at it while she talked.

“Oh, Kate, it looks just like him!” Rhonda fumbled another tissue from the nearly-empty box. On the other end of the line, Kate was silent.

“Kate, are you there?” Rhonda looked down at the phone. Did it drop the call? She held the phone up to her ear again.“Kate?” She could just barely hear … something … she wasn’t sure what. Then it hit her.

“Kate? Are you crying?”

“Oh, Rhonda!” Now Kate was the one wailing.

“What is it, Kate? What’s going on?”

“I … I’m pregnant, Rhonda,” Kate said through sobs.

That was the last thing Rhonda expected to hear from her independent, unmarried friend. And the most sobering. Kate hadn’t had a steady boyfriend for over a year. It had to be from a one-night stand. Of course she was upset.

“Kate, honey, is it, um, too late to do anything about it?”

Renewed wails came over the line.

“I mean, you know, if you want to do something about it ...” Rhonda fumbled for the right thing to say. The crying stopped, but Kate continued to sniffle.

“No,” she said. “I want this baby, badly.”

Rhonda could barely hear her. How could she suddenly want a kid? Rhonda felt a strange and uncomfortable jealousy.

“Who’s the father, Kate?” she asked.

“He’s out of the picture,” was the quick reply.

Rhonda looked down at the stone in her hand, at the picture of Kyle. Juanita’s words echoed in her muddled head: “Que está enamorado.” He is in love.He is in love. He was looking right into the camera. No, he was looking beyond the camera. At the photographer.

“Kate!” Rhonda yelled into the phone, “Kate, who is the fucking father! Kate? Kate?” Her voice rose, but silence was her answer.

“Fuck!” Rhonda stood up and threw the phone across the room where it landed, unsatisfactorily, on the window love seat.

“Fuck!” she said again, pacing. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Rhonda stormed into the bathroom and grabbed the bottle of tequila. “Screw it,” she said, looking at the glass. She upended the bottle into her mouth while ignoring her ringing cell phone.

The tiny hotel room was too small to hold all of Rhonda’s pain and anger. And there wasn’t enough tequila in the world to kill them. She found herself staggering barefoot over the cool sands of the deserted beach, the nearly-empty bottle dangling from two fingers. The waning moon cast eerie shadows through the palms and lit the calm sea.

Rhonda wandered aimlessly, kicking at the sand. She fell once, twice, then stayed on her knees as she finished off the bottle of tequila. With difficulty she got to her feet, swaying, then threw the empty bottle toward the sea.

“Kyle!” she yelled, bending at the waist, her stomach twisted in knots. “Kyle, you bastard! You deserved to die!” She said it, but felt immediately guilty.

Rhonda stumbled on, coming to the table where Juanita painted stones. Leaning heavily against it, she was shocked to see dozens, maybe hundreds of Kyle’s likenesses on stones of every size. Like an automaton, the young woman had continued recreating the subject. They made Rhonda furious.

She started scooping up the rocks and throwing them, then just started stuffing them into her huge pockets. “Bastard,” she kept repeating over and over again. “Liar! Cheat!” Once the table was cleared of his face, Rhonda felt guilty for stealing from Juanita. She fumbled around in her pocket until she found the wad of cash and stuck it under a large stone with Jesus’ portrait on it, then staggered off toward the water, her robe weighted down by the stones.

With the water lapping over her feet, Rhonda pulled stone after stone from her pockets and whipped them into the ocean, screaming every curse word she knew with each throw. A little way out on the water, but farther than she could throw, she saw the lights of two boats approaching each other. When they came together, they stopped and bobbed next to each other. Smugglers? Rhonda wondered.

“No, they’re lovers,” she said aloud, “sneaking out to see each other. Bastards!” she yelled, throwing another rock. “Fucking!” She threw another rock. “Bastards!” She threw another. “Go home!” Frantic, obsessed with making them go, she looked around and saw the water toy concession where rafts, kick boards and innertubes lay tethered to a palm tree. She scrambled over the sand, then tripped, falling onto a raft. She fumbled with the knotted rope with no luck, then worked at one that held an innertube.

“Ha!” she cried, successful. She looked to see if the boats were still there. They were. She dragged the tube to the water. When she was knee-deep, she plopped down backwards on it and began to paddle her arms. She was going to try to save a marriage and paddled frantically out toward the boats.

Screaming, crying and splashing, Rhonda got halfway to her destination when she heard motors start up. “Go!” she yelled, slapping at the water. “Go!” With difficulty she reached into a pocket and pulled out another stone and threw it after them. The next time she reached inside, though, she felt the crown, the one Kyle had made for her. She pulled it out and started sobbing anew. It was soaked and tattered, but she put it on her head.

“Queen of your soul,” she spat. She pulled out the other crown, the one from the mercado. That, too, she put on her head. “Who wants to be the queen of your dark, dead soul? I’m the fucking Queen of Acapulco!” She threw back her head then, making a sound that was more howl than cry, more animal than human. Then she was quiet.

The little innertube rocked in the water for a long, long time. Finally, with shaking hands, Rhonda pulled the crowns from her head and one by one, threw them into the water. Then she slipped through the hole in the tube after them.

Queen of the Sea.

Queen of Acapulco - Part I

By Bettyann Moore

Anywhere, Rhonda thought, I want to be anywhere, but here.

She had just left her mother-in-law’s house. No, ex-mother-in-law’s house. No, that wasn’t it. Former? Still? What did one call one’s mother-in-law once the tie that bound them is dead?

Rhonda’s head swam. She preferred the numbness of the last week. She aimed her car toward town, trying not to think. To feel.

She saw a sign, yanked the steering wheel, the cars behind her squealing their brakes as she crossed two lanes of traffic. An empty spot in front of the building, her first break in eons.

Fantasy Destinations the sign declared. Rhonda only saw the words “destinations” and “open.” She needed a destination. Now.

She swept into the tiny office, startling the young man whose eyes had been glued to his monitor. He barely had time to minimize the porn site before the wild-eyed redhead was upon him.

“M … may I help you?” he stammered. He couldn’t stand to greet her, not at that point.

Rhonda ignored him as her eyes scanned the walls behind him. Cool, blue-green water beckoned. Palm trees swayed. She could almost smell the ocean.

Never taking her eyes off one of the posters, she demanded, “Where can I go right now?”

“The Cayman’s are hot right now,” the young man said, spiel at the ready.

“But can I go there now?” Rhonda insisted.

The agent’s eyes went back to the computer, this time to the company Web site. The word “now” was a relative term, he figured.

“There’s a group tour that leaves on Thursday,” he said. “Six days, seven nights ...”

“No!” Rhonda said, slamming her purse onto the desk. “Now, I mean within an hour, two on the outside, not in four days.”

Rattled, the kid’s eyes went back to the screen. He was a kid, Rhonda saw. Barely out of high school. Not ancient like her at 30, but feeling like 60.

“Th … there’s a flight that leaves Hobby in, um, three hours, to Acapulco and a room at the Hotel de Gante,” he said against his better judgment. No one went to Acapulco when there was Cabo or Belize, and the hotel, he knew, was just shy of decrepit, despite its shoreline location.

“I’ll take it,” Rhonda said, pulling out her charge card, the charge card Kyle insisted she have when she much preferred cash or checks. She’d paid by check for the funeral and cremation and felt guilty doing so.

The funeral, something Kyle would have scoffed at, but his mother had insisted upon, was a travesty, at least to Rhonda’s mind. There she sat, conspicuously dry-eyed while Kate, her best friend, and Laurel, Kyle’s mother, keened like paid mourners. Stoic was the word that ran through her head. She was the stoic widow. Her only concession to grief was to clutch her stomach, her womb, where, she hoped, a tiny memory of Kyle lay.

She clutched it now as the young man prattled.

“Round trip,” he said, “will be $740. What day would you like to return?”

“There’s no returning,” Rhonda muttered.

“What’s that?” The boy looked confused.

“One-way.” Rhonda said. “Make the ticket one-way.”

The boy frowned, resisting the urge to say “Whatever,” and typed something on his keyboard. This broad is seriously bumming me out, he thought.

Rhonda ignored him and stared, unseeing, at the travel posters. Her mind registered sand. Sand led her to dust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

At least she’d had her way with the cremation. Laurel, always the good Catholic, wanted burial in the family plot. Plot this, Rhonda had thought as she carried the urn of ashes up her mother-in-law’s front steps just an hour before. Rhonda couldn’t resist opening the heavy pewter container and, perversely, wetting a finger and dipping it into the gray, coarse powder and slipping her finger into her mouth. This, she thought then, is one part of Kyle you will not have.

When Laurel opened the door, the ash lay dry and tasteless on Rhonda’s tongue. She would have choked on any words, but no words were necessary. Through wary, watery eyes, Laurel accepted the offering and Rhonda turned on her heels and fled.

Ticket safely tucked inside her purse, Rhonda was fleeing again. After stopping at her apartment to throw a few things into a bag, she had just enough time to take a cab to the office to empty her desk. Grateful it was Sunday and she was free of the sad, inquiring eyes of her office mates, she searched for a box, then stood at her desk and thought, “Why bother?” Her eyes lighted on the “lucky” stone Kyle had insisted she have from their honeymoon in Nice. She scooped it up and dropped it into her bag, though in light of recent events, its luckiness held no sway. Then there was the picture.

Kate had taken it just months before. Rhonda and Kyle were walking through the Galleria and Rhonda had made them stop so she could adjust her sandals. She leaned on Kyle’s strong shoulder as she bent down, but Kate had focused the lens solely on Kyle. You could see Rhonda’s hand, though, resting on his shoulder, as he stared nakedly into the camera, his expression undecipherable, but ever so cute. Rhonda had pestered Kate to send her the image, but when she kept dithering, Rhonda had snatched away her friend’s phone during lunch one day and sent the image to herself.

Rhonda tore the picture from the frame and slid it between her passport and ticket. She scurried out of the building, feeling furtive, pursued, and climbed into the waiting cab.

“Hobby Airport,” she said, “And hurry.”

It was after midnight when Rhonda’s shuttle pulled up outside the Hotel de Gante. Up until that time, she’d stayed blissfully numb to where she was going or what she’d do when she got there. The Prozac she’d taken as she boarded the plane, helped. But now, as she held out a fan of Mexican paper bills and allowed the cabbie to take what was owed him, she realized that paying attention might not be a bad idea. She ignored the thought and stumbled to the desk, then up the elevator to her room, tipping the bellhop much more than necessary, she was sure. Inside, she collapsed on the bed, barely registering that it was a single, not a queen as she was used to.

She awoke to strange sounds outside her third-floor window, the smell of insecticide and the sight of a giant cockroach traipsing across the cracked ceiling.

“La cucaracha, la cucaracha!” The song sprang to her head even as she rolled to her side and fell – hard – to the floor. She realized as she lay there staring beneath the narrow bed at a dusty wine cork and a forgotten shoe, that “cucaracha” was pretty much the extent of her Spanish language prowess, despite two years of Spanish in high school and living in Houston for 10 years. What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t been thinking, of course, though unbidden thoughts raced through her head as she lay there, unwilling to crawl back into the bed. No one knew where she was. That was good. Rhonda didn’t need the sympathy, the trite religious platitudes, the ones that made her want to shout, “No! God didn’t call him home! He was home, with me!”

Some of the anger she’d been suppressing boiled up. Anger at Kyle for being across town when he should have been at work, for not hearing the wailing sirens. At the driver of the fire truck for not noticing the car that pulled out into the intersection until all three and a half tons of it had smashed into the driver’s side door. At herself for not dying, too.

The unshed tears came then. Rhonda wailed for hours, there on the cold tile floor. The housekeeper didn’t need a translator to know that the person behind the door to room 341 wouldn’t want to be disturbed. She left a stack of clean towels outside the door and continued down the hall, shaking her head. As the sun made its way across the sky, the shadows moved across the room and across the sobbing figure on the floor.

Necessity finally made Rhonda get up. She stumbled to the tiny bathroom, not bothering to turn on the light. After relieving herself for what seemed like hours, she groped her way to her purse where it sat on the nightstand. She pulled out the big prescription bottle, the one with the sleeping pills. She held it in her hand for a long while, then opened it with shaking hands. She poured most of its contents into her hand, then hesitated. She let all but two of the pills fall back into the bottle, threw them into her mouth and choked them down. Then she crawled back into bed.

It was much the same the next day and the next. Rhonda got up to use the bathroom, to drink a bit of water straight from the tap, to take a couple more pills. It wasn’t until the hotel manager, alerted by the cleaning staff, came pounding on the door and let himself in with the pass key – these touristas will put me into an early grave, he thought – that Rhonda finally started to come out of her stupor. She smelled. Hunger gnawed at her gut. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. On the plane? A slight cramp below her belly roused her further. This can’t be good for the baby, she thought. She opened her suitcase for the first time and pulled out a long, gauzy skirt and peasant blouse – both completely wrinkled – and let them hang in the bathroom as she took a very long, very hot shower.

Although she would have much preferred calling for room service, Rhonda recoiled at the idea of ordering over the phone; at least in the hotel’s restaurant she could point to what she wanted on the menu. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and incredibly fresh fruit, though, she made her way back to her now-clean room, stripped off her clothes and fell back into bed. She didn’t take any sleeping pills.

That evening, wearing the same clothes as she had at breakfast, she ordered a poached chicken breast, hot, crusty rolls and more of the fresh fruit – mangoes, papayas – she didn’t know what they were. When she got back to her room instead of falling into bed, she went to the window and opened the draperies for the first time. There, just across the busy boulevard, lay the Pacific sparkling under the light of a full moon, the white sands of the beach practically glowing. Rhonda stood there for a long time, forehead pressed against the glass, and vowed that the next day she would cross that boulevard, walk on that beach and swim in that ocean.

Amazingly, when Rhonda had packed her suitcase, she’d remembered to throw in a swim suit – an old one-piece that was too big on her now – and her favorite loosely-woven beach cover-up. Sunny yellow and reaching almost to her knees, it was more like a large shirt with giant pockets; Kyle had bought it for her at a shop in Nice when she’d complained about carrying a purse to the shore. The cavernous pockets could carry her sunglasses, a book, sunscreen, her wallet … Kyle called it her un-purse.

Rhonda smiled at the memory as she pulled on the robe over her suit. Her hands went automatically to the pockets and she was surprised to feel something in one of them. She drew out her hand and tears came immediately to her eyes when she saw what it was.

He’d made it out of shiny gum wrappers while she snoozed under an umbrella on East Beach. He’d woven tiny purple blossoms, long dried out and gone now, through it. When she’d woken up, he’d knelt down in the sand next to her and placed the crown on her head. She’d laughed at how serious he looked, but when he took her hand in his and declared, “Anyone can be the Queen of Hearts, but you, you’re the Queen of my soul,” oh, how she cried! Later, in lighter moments, she teased him about how she was the Queen of Soul, so he’d better not laugh at her rendition of R-E-S-P-E-C-T which she liked to sing to while she cooked.

“Oh, Kyle,” Rhonda said aloud, “what happened to us?” She admitted to herself for the first time that it’d been a long while since he’d said or done anything so silly and romantic. Was it two years, three, since they’d been to Galveston? Rhonda sighed and resisted the urge to crawl into bed. She dropped the crown back into the pocket, along with her room key and other necessities. After a second of thought, she also put the picture of Kyle in there, then fled the room.

Unlike the cloyingly wet air of Houston, the air outside her hotel was fragrant, warm, but refreshing. Rhonda negotiated her way across the wide boulevard and out onto the white sand beach. She noticed – and was proud of herself for having that much focus – that the young men who strutted around in skimpy shorts and tight swimming trunks watched her progress along the palm tree-shaded stretch along the seawall. Many made a “ch-ch-ch” sound through their teeth that she was familiar with around Houston construction sites. She was the only redhead on the beach; her white-white skin cried out “tourista!”

Ignoring the stares and things called out in a language she didn’t understand, Rhonda watched a group of youngsters wave diving. They stood knee-deep in the water and waited for a foamy crest to approach, then dove head-first into its depths. They came sputtering out on the other side, smiling and euphoric, ready for the next one. It looked like fun.

Although not a very good swimmer, Rhonda loved the ocean – its smells, its power, its beauty. Doing a little wave diving near shore, she figured, wouldn’t tax her abilities or her weakened state. She took off her robe and put it near a couple of women who sat watching their kids from a blanket. Mindful that a group of young men were shadowing her, though keeping their distance, she waded into the chilly water.

She was right: it was fun. She did it sloppily at first, but soon figured out the timing necessary to hit the wave just right before the next one was upon her. She was vaguely aware of the group of young men who had lined up next to her having every bit of fun as she. The waves, as first slow and gentle, grew bigger and began cresting sooner and coming faster. She saw a particularly big wave coming for shore and thought at first to turn her body against it, but knew it was a bad idea. Instead she dove headlong into it.

Almost immediately, she knew her timing was off. She also remembered, simultaneously, the undertow. It gripped her lower body and began its strong, silent pull. Her first thought was “Oh, shit.” Her second, as she thrashed and kicked impotently, was “Which way is up?” Her third, as her lungs felt near to bursting, was “Kyle.”

When she was eight, Rhonda’s father died in a fiery car crash just minutes after leaving his lover’s house. She was 17 when her mother died in her sleep of a massive coronary. Then there was Kyle. Not in her wildest dreams did Rhonda think she would die struggling and so damn aware. She realized that her hand had groped toward what she thought was the surface three times. Wasn’t that the limit in all the stories she’d heard? Once, twice, then three times … after that, oblivion?

Read Part II here.