Saxon Bennett - Talk of the Town Read online

  In the warehouse of Kokopeli Was An Alien Vending Company, Mallory was dealing with the daily stress of running a business. She was doing a good job, she thought, of avoiding her mixed emotions. On the one hand, Gigi had been much more attentive since Del had come into her life but on the other hand, Mallory actually suffered a guilt pang about standing Del up. This did not move her enough to call Del and apologize. Mallory thought about calling every day, had even picked the phone up once or twice but the days had slipped into weeks and she knew she was letting time sweep away her options.

  Jose was supposed to be delivering a set of machines to a new account but Mallory could hear him on the phone with his pregnant girlfriend. Mallory was sympathetic to their plight—they were just youngsters with a devout Catholic family and an unwed child on the way. There was bound to be a little tension in their family relations but she had promised delivery today and being consistent in an inconsistent industry was what kept Mallory’s business on top of the rest.

  Running her own business and not using her family’s wealth, was a source of great pride to Mallory. In their eyes she might be a psychotic lesbian, however she was good at running a profitable business. This kernel of knowledge had kept her grounded more times than she cared to count. She wasn’t about to let Jose’s lazy work habits fuck it up. She should have fired him months ago but he had become one of her pet projects. She tried to convince herself that he was worth saving. Today she wasn’t so sure.

  “Jose, get off the phone and get those machines on the truck and delivered, right this minute.”

  He nodded and started to move the pallet jack toward the end of the dock while still attempting to get off the phone with his girlfriend. The phone jerked off the table as the pallet jack hit a crack in the cement. The badly placed vending machine toppled and started to come toward Mallory who was busy watching the semi driver pulling into the dock with supplies.

  Jose screamed. Startled, Mallory stepped backward, her movements not quite fast enough to avoid the machine that landed squarely on her foot. Jose stood frozen.

  Guadalupe had her wits about her enough to pull the pallet jack back and lift the machine off Mallory’s foot with Jose’s help. They both stared at Mallory who was grimacing while they both peered at the bleeding foot.

  She took a deep breath. “Guadalupe will you please get me a bag full of ice. Jose load the machine and get it delivered.”

  “Boss, I’m so sorry, so sorry,” Jose pleaded.

  “It’s fine. Get moving.”

  Guadalupe got her ice and a rolling stool and together they put her into the car.

  “I’ll drive you,” Guadalupe said.

  “No, you need to check in the supplies and answer the phone,” Mallory said, wincing as she got into the car and tried to stop the waves of nausea that were creeping over her.

  She puked twice on the way to the hospital. She pulled up into the Emergency driveway and hopped up to the admittance desk. Then she called Gigi.

  “I’m at the hospital. I need you to come.”

  “What?” Gigi screeched.

  “Phoenix Baptist,” Mallory said, hanging up as the nurse put her in a wheelchair.

  They helped her onto the gurney. Mallory positioned herself to look out the window while she waited for the doctor. If she concentrated hard enough on the clouds and trees she could keep herself from crying.

  Del came in the room and saw Mallory sitting with her back to her. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “You didn’t have to go to all the trouble to hurt yourself. You could have just called and apologized for standing me up,” Del teased as she came around the side of the bed. She saw Mallory’s hand, knuckles turning white clutching the bedrail.

  Del looked down at her foot still wrapped in plastic, the ice melting and the bag slowly filling with blood.

  “Do you have a bucket? I think I’m going to puke.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Del said, getting her a bucket, a nurse and a shot of Demerol.

  Gigi came flying in the room with an admitting clerk right on her heels.

  “It’s all right. She’s family,” Del instructed the clerk who was put off at being so flagrantly ignored.

  “What happened?” Gigi asked.

  “Jose dropped Big Bertha on my foot. My truck is probably being towed as we speak. Will you go park it if that is still an option,” Mallory said, handing Gigi her car keys.

  “You drove here?” both Del and Gigi said.

  “It was either drive myself here or commit murder. I didn’t want to go to prison for strangling a short, fat, lazy bastard. It’s bad enough I’ll have to fire him.”

  Del set her foot while Gigi tried not to watch. She held Mallory’s hand.

  When she was done Del said, “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

  “The bad news,” Mallory said.

  “Is the glass half empty or half full?” Del teased.

  “Half empty,” Mallory replied.

  “The good news is it was clean break in the middle of your foot meaning you were extremely lucky you didn’t crush your foot. The bad news is you’re going to lose all your toenails.”

  “Toenails I can handle,” Mallory said, feeling sillier and sillier from the drugs.

  Del wheeled Mallory out to her truck. Gigi had pulled up front.

  “Are you taking her home?” Del asked.

  “No, I’m taking her to my place. I don’t think she should be alone,” Gigi said.

  “Good. She’s going to need some help for a little while and she needs crutches.”

  “I’ll get her some,” Gigi said.

  Mallory’s truck was too high for her to slide into the seat from the wheelchair. Gigi studied the situation. Her Jeep was no lower.

  “If I get her in the truck can you lift her out when you get home?” Del asked, taking a good look at Gigi who appeared to be strong.

  “Of course I can. She weighs all of a hundred and ten pounds.”

  “Okay, Mallory I’m going to pick you up,” Del said, gently drawing her attention back to the present moment.

  She picked her up while Gigi moved the wheelchair back.

  “Del?” Mallory said.

  “Yes?” Del said, still holding her.

  “I’m sorry I stood you up,” Mallory said, looking deep into Del’s eyes.

  “That’s okay. Another time,” Del replied, setting her in the truck, feeling her heart quicken a beat and her face turn red.

  “You know her?” Gigi asked, as she pulled out of the parking lot.

  “That’s Del. The one I met at the party.”

  “I see,” Gigi said, feeling jealous suddenly that Mallory’s affections were being drawn somewhere else.

  Gigi managed to get Mallory in the house and into bed, with both of them laughing.

  “You don’t make a very good knight-in-shining armor,” Mallory said, feeling giddy and sleepy from the drugs.

  “What? Del does it better?” Gigi asked.

  “Of course she does. Del is a much better butch than you,” Mallory said, curling up in bed.

  “Says you,” Gigi said, hopping into bed next to Mallory.

  Mallory rolled over and looked at Gigi. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

  “That’s what best friends are for. So tell me more about Del,” Gigi said, pulling Mallory close.

  “There’s really nothing to tell,” Mallory said, getting sleepier by the second.

  “Do you like her?”

  “Not as much as I like you,” Mallory said, touching Gigi’s face and feeling something that she knew her drug induced stupor allowed but that the sharp edges of reality would have quickly buried but everything was getting fuzzier by the second.

  Gigi pulled her closer. They stared into each other’s eyes, each trying to read the other’s thoughts. For Mallory it was drug-induced confusion; for Gigi it was an act of cowardice. She kissed Mallory knowing she wouldn’t remember it and as their tongues danced together they lived
a moment that would go no further.

  Mallory murmured that she loved Gigi and fell asleep in her arms. Gigi kissed her face. She wished she had the courage to do and say the things she’d been thinking most of their lives. She knew it was the fear of not being the woman Mallory envisioned her to be. It wasn’t Gigi’s other lovers that kept them apart—it was Gigi’s lack of faith in herself. A faith destroyed so long ago that the vacuous hole it created became a gaping abyss that no amount of art, drugs, or lust could fill.

  When Alex came home she found her girlfriend in the arms of another woman. At least it was Mallory but there were times when Alex wished her wife were faithful. Gigi called them harmless infatuations but nonetheless Alex wished they weren’t there. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking that if Gigi really loved her she wouldn’t have these minor infatuations and just because she swore she didn’t sleep with anyone else it didn’t mean she didn’t want to, and that scared Alex.

  Two

  Kim stood in Del’s office having been summoned while she was doing rounds. Del was rubbing her forehead, obviously deliberating over something.

  Finally Kim said, “What is it?”

  “It’s Mallory,” Del said, looking up apologetically. “I need some advice.”

  “Mallory . . .”

  “Help me here,” Del said.

  “All right,” Kim replied, trying to conjure up her best thoughts about Mallory. She was having a hard time. She kept envisioning a helpless, paranoid, strangely dressed woman who professed to be a non-practicing lesbian.

  “She broke her foot the other day,” Del began. She bit her lip and studied Kim’s face which was the picture of Eastern placidness.

  “Okay,” Kim said.

  “And I helped her into her truck later. She looked at me.” Del replied.

  “Okay,” Kim said, thinking she needed more to work with than a look. “What kind of a look?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know,” Del said.

  “Perhaps you could call her and find out,” Kim suggested.

  “You really think so?” Del gushed, the perfect teenager.

  “Is that what you wanted to ask me?”

  “Yes,” Del replied.

  “Maybe you two are right for each other,” Kim replied.

  “What do you mean?” Del asked, picking up the phone.

  “You’ll see,” Kim said.

  “Do you think she’s home?”

  “No, she’s at Gigi’s,” Kim said, taking the phone. “I’ll set you up.”

  Gigi acted odd but agreed that Del could come over. Kim shrugged her shoulders, thinking the whole tribe was weird. Sometimes Gigi behaved as if Mallory was her girlfriend, sometimes Alex and other times . . . Kim hung up the phone and found she was breathing easier. Maybe what she saw happening between Ollie and Gigi was her imagination. Maybe Gigi’s idea of friendship was deep but not sexual.

  “What are you doing?” Mallory asked as Gigi hung up the phone and began to madly straighten the house. She was bored stiff and had finished the one and only book in Gigi’s house, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, a leftover from some previous guest. If she was home she’d have had stacks of books to read. She didn’t understand how people lived without reading. Gigi was holding her hostage. Every morning for three days she’d begged to go home but Gigi thought it was too soon.

  “Del is coming over to look at your foot,” Gigi said, puffing up the pillows on the couch and straightening Mallory’s collar as she went. Mallory felt like a piece of furniture.

  “I didn’t think doctors made house calls anymore,” Mallory said, immediately experiencing heart palpitations.

  “This one does,” Gigi said, grimacing.

  “If you don’t like her why did you agree to let her come over?” Mallory asked.

  “Who said I didn’t like her?” Gigi said, slamming dishes into the dishwasher.

  “I got that vibe,” Mallory said, trying to appear cool and collected.

  “She’s a doctor. You don’t have to subject yourself to an office visit. I thought it was good,” Gigi said, lying without one moment of hesitation. She let Del come over because she wanted a chance to size her up. The house call was a perfect opportunity.

  “Why are you cleaning the house?” Mallory asked.

  “Because it’s dirty,” Gigi countered.

  “You never clean.”

  “I clean sometimes,” Gigi said, getting the vacuum cleaner out.

  “You actually know how to run a vacuum cleaner?” Mallory teased.

  Gigi turned on the vacuum cleaner and purposely screamed, “I can’t hear you.”

  Mallory was forced to concentrate on her own nervousness. Part of her was excited to see Del while another part was standing on the white sandy Beach of Mortification in a faraway region of the Republic. All her interior landscapes were in black and white with the exception of the Garden of Good Things. There everything bloomed in color. These were usually moments when she thought about Gigi and their future life together. It always shriveled when reality came crashing in.

  The Beach of Mortification was her place of shame, the place of inadequacy, where all her failures came crashing into the shore captured in the gray waves and echoing across the beach. Mallory couldn’t understand what Del saw in her. All Del’s efforts to get close to Mallory served to remind her of the times she spent with Caroline before she walked out of Mallory’s life forever, leaving her with only pajamas as a memory. To be chased in Mallory’s mind was to be caught, seduced, and deserted. Mallory was walking up the shoreline listening to her failures when Del arrived.

  Del examined Mallory’s foot, took her blood pressure and her temperature. In the midst of the medical exam Mallory forgot to be frightened.

  “How’s the pain?” Del asked, shining her penlight in Mallory’s eyeball.

  “The painkillers make me nauseous so I haven’t been taking them,” Mallory replied, smelling Del’s cologne, CK One. Mallory felt herself quiver at the scent. A nice-smelling woman was hard to turn down.

  “So how’s she doing?” Gigi asked, peering over Del’s shoulder.

  “We need to get her some other pain medication,” Del said, writing a script and handing it to Gigi, who refrained from making a rude comment about being the errand boy.

  “I’ll go,” Gigi said.

  Mallory sat back in the recliner and nodded. “Maybe that’s a good idea.”

  “I’ll wait with her,” Del said, “if that’s all right.”

  “Sure,” Gigi said.

  “How long am I going to need supervision?” Mallory asked.

  “Until we decide you can get about on your own,” Gigi replied.

  “When will that be, Del?” Mallory asked.

  “It depends on how mobile you are, what kind of a setup your house has and how the drugs affect you.”

  “I feel like a hostage,” Mallory whispered to Del as Gigi left.

  “We could get you a walker and set your house up to make it more user friendly,” Del said.

  “Tell me what I need to do so I can get on with my life. Gigi won’t let me out of her sight and I never thought I’d say this about my best friend but all this togetherness is wearing thin.”

  “I bet,” Del said, smiling.

  “Can I make you some tea?”

  “I’d like that,” Del said.

  “Perhaps I can demonstrate my abilities and you can talk Gigi into letting me go home,” Mallory said, grabbing her crutches and hobbling to the kitchen, trying to disguise her wincing face.

  “You should have said something about the medication. It will make you feel a lot better. I know you’re tough but it puts unnecessary stress on your body when it is trying to heal.”

  “I know,” Mallory said, getting up herself up on the counter and putting the kettle on.

  Del watched as she ingeniously scooted about the countertop making tea.

  “You’re getting about rather well, I see, perhaps I can talk Gigi into letting
you go home soon,” Del said.

  “That would be a great service,” Mallory said.

  “But I would like something in exchange,” Del said, knowing she was pushing the limits but she needed to do something if she was going to see Mallory again.

  “And what would that be?” Mallory asked, feeling her face getting flushed.

  “That I could have lunch with you. It wouldn’t be a date. It would just be lunch. You’ve got to eat, right?” Del asked, looking as tentative and nervous as Mallory was feeling.

  “I think lunch might be okay, as long as it wasn’t a date,” Mallory said, struggling to get off the counter and back onto her crutches.

  “Can I help?” Del asked, coming over. “Put your arms around my neck and I’ll lift you down.”

  Mallory obeyed.

  In mid lift, Del asked, “Is lunch not a date because you don’t want to go out with me or because you don’t like to go out on dates period?”

  Mallory could see Del wasn’t going to set her down until she answered the question and it was hard between the cologne and Del’s blue eyes not to feel a moment of longing despite her basic philosophy that she was a non-practicing lesbian.

  “I don’t go out on dates but I will have lunch with you,” Mallory said, as Gigi walked in the door, stopped in her tracks, mouth gaping.

  “That will do,” Del said, putting her down. She turned to Gigi. “She’s ready to go home.”

  The Simpsons’ house was nestled high against Camelback Mountain with its glass living room positioned like a large pointed nose looking down on the rest of the city. As Mallory drove up the winding road to the house she ran through her list of why she did not agree with the politics of wealth. First she despised her mother’s lack of social conscience and sense of reality. People with money have no sense of reality. They have no concept of ugliness, dirt, hunger, or crime. Nothing bad happens around them because they are insulated by wealth so they never go anywhere to see dirt, poverty and violence.