Talk of the Town Too Read online

  When Gigi got home, she was relieved to discover that Caroline was teaching a night class at the college. Caroline taught classes in business administration to wannabe corporate executives. Gigi couldn’t think of anything more boring. Caroline always wrote her schedule on the erasable board on the fridge, like Gigi cared. She was going to have to do something about Caroline one of these days but right now she was sleepy from the beers she’d had with her father so she lay down on the couch and promptly fell asleep.

  “My therapist says you’re a figment of my imagination,” Gigi said as she sat by God on a big black rock next to a crystal blue sea. She wondered where they were—certainly not in Arizona. It looked like the postcards she had seen of Maine. She looked around for a lighthouse.

  “Here we go again,” God said, sighing heavily.

  “I like this spot better than the last one. It’s more restful.”

  God smiled appreciatively. “Maybe there is hope for you yet.”

  “Isn’t that why I’m here?” Gigi said.

  “Maybe,” God replied, sticking her toes into the frothy ocean’s edge.

  “Why am I talking to you? Don’t you have lots of god-fearing, religious zealots you should be out there creating miracles for?” Gigi inquired.

  “You, being the diligent lesbian that you are, should know better. There is no fun or triumph in preaching to the choir.”

  “So you’ve taken a sudden interest in a lapsed Catholic lesbian who isn’t entirely sure she believes in God?” Gigi said.

  “Call me silly,” God said, smiling. “To what end, might I ask?”

  “You are a lot less formal than Moses.”

  “Don’t tell me you have that in mind.” Gigi gulped, suddenly understanding the gravity of talking to God.

  “No, that went badly,” God said, studying her fingernails and seemingly remembering a bad moment.

  “What then?”

  “It’s impertinent to demand things of God.” God picked up a small pebble and threw it in the ocean.

  “The Christians do it all the time,” Gigi retorted.

  “And it’s very tedious.” God picked up another pebble and threw it out into the sea.

  “You’re still most likely a figment of my imagination and you really need to work on your throwing arm. You throw like a girl. Here, let me show you.” Gigi picked up a bigger rock and threw it hard. “You need to kind of throw it from the side.”

  “I never got to play softball with all the other girls.” There was a twinkle in God’s eye. She picked up a rock and mimicked Gigi.

  “See, that was better,” Gigi said as they both watched the rock plop into the surf. The tide was coming in and the surf was turning all frothy and white as it crept up the beach.

  God wiped her sandy hands on the front of her khaki pants. Gigi just noticed that God was wearing a white cotton shirt with sailboats and blue marlins dancing across it.

  “Nice outfit. Very fitting for the occasion.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So what are you going to do with me?” Gigi finally asked. The question had been burning in her mind the whole time.

  “For me to know and you to find out.” God sat back down and put her Birkenstocks on.

  “You sound like a kid on the playground.”

  “Children are closest to God.” God dug a piece of sand from beneath her fingernail.

  “I always thought they tended to be little savages until we socialized them.”

  “Only the neglected ones.”

  “We should all do better,” Gigi agreed, watching God’s brow knit and her lips purse. She had nice lips.

  “See, I’m rubbing off on you already. Oh, by the way, don’t go near your mother for a few days.”

  “At present I’m not speaking to her, or rather, she won’t speak to me. Why? Am I going to glow incandescent or something?”

  “Let’s just say spending time with God can produce curious reactions. Now go get some sleep. You have a few big days ahead.”

  “I do?”

  God nodded coyly.

  “To what end?”

  “You’ll see later.”

  *

  In the morning, Gigi woke up rested and happy. Even if God was a figment of her imagination she felt good after they talked, as if the chemicals in her body were supercharged and she could do anything. She decided to try the one thing that might prove substantial. Every morning since Caroline had moved in nine months ago Gigi would get up and try to walk across the pool. The deal they had made was that Caroline would leave the house and her life permanently when Gigi had accomplished this. Gigi knew this was impossible yet she still felt obligated to try just to let Caroline know that she wasn’t happy with their arrangement. When Gigi told Dr. Kohlrabi about this deal she had asked her if she thought it was remotely possible. Gigi reminded her of the shaman who could walk on coals. But so far all Gigi had done was contract an ear infection from plunging herself in the cold water each morning. This morning she stood on the edge of the pool and thought about God. With God all things were possible.

  She had snuck outside so as not to wake Caroline. Sometimes she felt like a prisoner in her own house. She looked into the pool. It wasn’t too dirty. She should take better care of it. When she bought the house she hadn’t really wanted a pool, but it was almost impossible to buy a house in Arizona that didn’t have one. And her house had actually been a model home when the tract homes in the area had first been built. That was thirty years ago and now her house would soon be added to the historical list of central corridor homes. So the property owners’ newsletter had informed her. It would buck up the value of the house and raise her property taxes. The house had fallen on hard times in the last twenty years but she had fixed a lot of the disrepair, excepting for the pool, which badly needed to be resurfaced.

  She took the first step and didn’t sink. She took another step until she was standing in the middle of the pool. She laughed. “How the fuck does this work?” she asked the universe at large. She heard a mourning dove coo. She jumped up and down in the center of the pool and it was if she was standing on cement. She whooped out loud. Then it occurred to her that she had fulfilled the bargain. Suddenly, she didn’t want Caroline to leave. It was if her heart went bump and everything she’d been denying came rushing to the forefront. Hurriedly, she walked to the edge of the pool. She doused herself with the hose and went inside.

  Gigi found Caroline in her bedroom packing and crying. She was stuffing things in her suitcase without folding the clothes, which meant nothing fit properly. Gigi watched in frustration as Caroline dumped it out and started over.

  “What are you doing?” Gigi asked, alarmed.

  “I saw you out there. I don’t know how you did it but I promised I would leave when you learned to walk on water.”

  “You must have imagined it. People can’t do that.”

  “I know what I saw,” Caroline said. She blew her nose.

  “It was trick of the light. See, I’m wet,” Gigi said, running her hand across her dripping torso.

  “Don’t lie.”

  “I don’t want you to leave,” Gigi said.

  “Why not? A deal is a deal.”

  “It was a stupid deal.”

  “Then why did you make it?” Caroline asked. She sat on her suitcase and tried to get it to shut.

  Gigi stared at Caroline’s hopelessly overloaded suitcase. “They’re not going to let you on the plane with that.”

  “I’ll put the rest of it in a trash bag. It can be my carry-on. You never answered my question.”

  Gigi sighed. The moment of truth had arrived much sooner than she had expected. She never should have tried that walk-on- water stunt. “Because I thought it wasn’t attainable and you’d stay until you got sick of me.”

  “Do you want me to stay?” Caroline asked. Her eyes narrowed and Gigi felt her piercing glare. Gigi squirmed a little.

  “Yes.” Gigi studied her ex-lover’s tear-stained f
ace. Caroline had deep brown skin, long dark hair that she wore in a braid that fell almost to her waist. Her light green eyes were large and she had a tiny nose with prominent cheekbones. Half South American and half Irish, she wasn’t exactly pretty but rather striking.

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you. I’m not ready to be lovers yet . . . I still have to sort some things out. We could make some new deal, like learning to change into a cat or walking across hot coals, or turning a stick into a snake,” Gigi replied.

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Thank you. Will you stay?”

  “If you’d like.”

  Gigi nodded and then left the room.

  Gigi listened to the front door close and then came out into the living room. The last ten minutes of her life had been extremely odd. She did love Caroline. She missed Mallory and she wished she could talk her mother into some form of acceptance. These all appeared as insurmountable obstacles. She decided on a task she had been pondering before these strange changes had begun occurring in her life. She hopped on her bicycle and rode to the hospital where Mallory’s girlfriend, Del, worked. Del was a doctor Mallory had fallen madly in love with a year ago. They made the perfect couple and with Del’s help Mallory had let go of her obsession with Caroline. Everything would have worked out fine if Caroline hadn’t returned and spilled the beans. Gigi cursed that day.

  As she pulled into the hospital grounds she kept noticing that a flock of white butterflies had been following her. There had been an infestation of moths and butterflies this spring because Phoenix had experienced a lot of rain during the winter. Still, people had stared as she rode down the street followed by butterflies. When she glanced back, it looked like she was wearing a long white cape. They flitted off as soon as she reached the entrance of the emergency room.

  Earlier that week Gigi had run into Del’s nurse friend, Kim, who told her that Del had left private practice and was back in the emergency room at the hospital. Kim had at least been cordial. Perhaps the lesbian community had forgiven or at least forgotten her latest transgression. Gigi kept thinking that if she hadn’t slept with Caroline all those years ago, Mallory would not have fallen in love with Del and lived happily ever after, and from what Kim had told her that was exactly what had happened. Surely that was worth something. She didn’t know exactly why she felt compelled to go and see Del at the hospital. Since meeting God, Gigi had given up on figuring out the inexplicable.

  She walked into the emergency room and went roaming the hallways. She half expected someone to call out and stop her, but no one appeared the least bit interested. It must be slow here at carnage central, Gigi thought. She turned the corner to find a room filled with people, one of whom was Del watching as an E.M.T. slammed a man with the shockers. His body kept jumping but his heart had apparently stopped beating. A woman, probably his wife, and the doctors kept watching the flat line. Del looked at the woman and sadly shook her head. The woman started to sob. For some odd reason Gigi felt her own heart ache and a piercing sense of grief at witnessing the wife’s sorrow. Then she heard the voice of God in her head.

  “Go touch him with your forefinger, gently,” God instructed.

  What are you doing in my head?

  “Listen to me. This is important. Go touch him. Now!”

  Dead people give me the creeps. Gigi thought of her grandmother in her coffin and all the bad dreams she had had after the funeral.

  “He’s not dead yet.” God’s voice was steely.

  But . . .

  “Do it.”

  Del was standing in her lab coat, her green eyes filled with compassion, her brow furrowed. Her brown curly hair was wet around the temples from her efforts. She was trying to comfort the wife, and the others in the room were cleaning up the equipment, so no one noticed her go over to the man. Gigi touched his arm with her forefinger.

  For one second Gigi felt her whole body quiver with a kind of energy she had never felt. Del and the wife looked over at her. Suddenly her arm was glowing with a faint yellow light and the heart monitor registered a beat. Gigi stood back. Del and the nurses slipped into action.

  “We’ve got a pulse. Let’s get him to ICU,” Del yelled.

  The woman had stopped crying and was hugging her, telling her thank you over and over again. “I knew there were angels,” she said.

  “I’m not an angel,” Gigi insisted.

  The woman smiled and kissed Gigi’s hand.

  Del stood staring in disbelief.

  God whispered in Gigi’s head, “I suggest you blow this Popsicle stand before anyone figures out what happened here.”

  Why? You don’t want me to get crucified?

  “Something like that.”

  Why did you want to save his life?

  “I still need him.”

  Why did I only touch him with my finger? Why not put my whole hand on his heart?

  “I can’t have him sitting up and being completely cured. That would really look odd. This is odd enough.”

  Why didn’t you just come down here and do it yourself?

  “It looks better when a known heathen does it. Now, I don’t really have time to explain the physics of divinity. You need to get out of here before someone gets wise.”

  “Gigi, what are you doing here?” Del asked.

  “I—I came to see you,” Gigi stuttered.

  “What did you do?” Del looked at Gigi, her eyes narrowing.

  Just then another doctor joined them. He said to Del, “Mr. Eichenbacher is doing remarkably well. It’s always strange when they come back like that. In med school we used to call that the finger of God.”

  Del stared back at Gigi.

  “I didn’t do anything. I’ve go to go,” Gigi said, suddenly getting God’s drift that it was no longer safe to remain here.

  “Gigi, wait! What did you want with me?”

  “Please tell Mallory I’m sorry for hurting her,” Gigi said, running out of the room.

  Chapter Two

  Dr. Helen Kohlrabi set the phone down gently in its cradle. Her daughter, Megan, had just broken the dinner date they’d set for that evening. Megan and her fiancé were to meet her at the Supper Club to discuss wedding plans. Megan told her that something had come up and they’d have to reschedule. What Megan didn’t know was that her fiancé, Jeff, had called earlier, concerned that Megan had asked for a postponement of the wedding and some time off from their relationship. Helen tried to ease his doubts by telling him lots of people got cold feet, and perhaps Megan was simply dragging her feet in terms of truly growing up. Jeff wryly commented that at twenty-eight, with five years of engagement behind them, Megan should really be ready to be a grownup. He had been correct of course.

  Helen picked up the phone and called her daughter again. The receptionist transferred her call. It was hard not to feel proud of her daughter. It was every Jewish mother’s dream to have an overachieving professional in the family, but despite her pride she was still concerned. Megan was a workaholic and emotionally detached. These were not good things.

  “Hi, Mom, what’s up?” Megan said cheerfully.

  “Megan, what’s going on with Jeff?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you breaking up with him?”

  “No, I’m taking a break to figure some things out. Marriage is serious and I don’t like failure. It’s my life, and how I decide to deal with it is my thing. It’s all under control. I’m due in court.”

  “Megan . . .”

  “I have to go.”

  Helen sighed. She wondered if the divorce had made Megan a committed loner who was afraid of the intimate bonding that marriage required. There was plenty of statistical data that supported that notion. Megan had become a different child after she and Lars had split up. Megan had been witness to the affair Lars was having and after the divorce refused to see her father. He began his new family and seemingly forgot about her. Megan pretended to do the same thing. Helen knew she hadn’t, but the
two of them went on to create a relatively calm and comfortable home life for themselves. Sometimes it was a relief not to have a man around. She hadn’t dated and it seemed Megan had kept hers to a minimum until Jeff had come around. Helen couldn’t help but worry.

  Megan Kohlrabi stood looking out the window of her office and watching the heat rise up off the pavement below. She never ceased to be amazed at how hot the summer could be in Phoenix. Sometimes she longed for someplace cool and green like Vermont, but having just made partner in Aragon, McPherson and Daughters law firm she didn’t think she would move out of state anytime soon. Instead, she would go home and lie by the pool for a while, sip a cold beer and forget about the heat.

  Rafferty Aragon knocked quietly on her open door. Megan turned around and smiled. She liked Rafferty, and they were often partnered on cases together. Rafferty was the boss’s daughter but didn’t act like it. She and her mother kept, or rather tried to keep, a professional air about them at work. Rafferty was lanky with curly shoulder-length red hair and looked nothing like her Hispanic mother. She had light hazel eyes and a pretty face. Where her mother was beautiful, Rafferty was more boyish looking. Currently they were working an immigration case for an American woman and her Brazilian lover. If they pulled this one off they’d go down in gay history as moving the mountain that allowed straight society to disallow gay relationships. It was going to be an arduous case, but the Lesbian Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Women was sponsoring the lawsuit and they had a lot of subversive political clout.

  “I thought you’d be gone by now. I was just going to drop off the briefs the Alliance sent over,” Rafferty said, handing Megan the pile of paperwork.