Have you ever known a lesbian who considered herself a model citizen, a standing member of the community, a solid woman by all standards – good job, established home owner, nice car, a tidy savings – all the established prerequisites. And then you come to find that she is, in fact, clearly out of her mind.
This is about a story of one such woman.
My Insouciant Companion
Part III
On the ride to downtown Albany, Deb was driving her four-seated teal blue Acura that she had turned into a truck. Figuratively, of course, as all of her photography equipment was in the back two seats and with the seats folded down, the equipment infringed to the passenger side. It wouldn’t have been bad with just two, but now we were squished in.
“It’s a good thing I’m thin, huh?” said the petite blonde sitting on my lap. “Ouch!” she said when Deb took a turn too fast and swerved out of the middle lane traffic and into the left lane to beat the light.
Deb yelled over the music, “Well then, move that thin butt so I can shift!”
The petite blonde whose name was as fitting as her personality, “Randee,” she said, “and not with an ‘I’ but with a double ‘E’” was more than happy to leave the party and join me at Girl Bar.
I smiled agreeably at Randee, “Hey, you didn’t cut your foot on that glass” I told her, “and I didn’t see anybody by your side at the party. Or, is it possible you’re with one of the Century 21 agents and just decided to leave her behind?”
Randee shifted again and put her arms around my neck, “Do you mind?” And then back to the question with a snap of her gum, “Who’s the Century 21 agents?”
Deb shot back, “It’s a long story, Randee.” Unlike Deb, whose playfulness with me was well-known, she didn’t understand the standing joke. “Don’t listen to her,” said Deb, “Just fuck her or laugh with her. If you listen to her she’ll drive you crazy.”
Eager to top this, I said, “Randee, the gum you’re chewing…please put it on Deb’s nose.” Randee was not an easily confused woman, but I was beginning to wonder. “Why would I want to put my gum on her nose?”
“I’m playing, Randee.” This was lost on her, I knew, so I would have to keep my sarcasm in check.
“Deb, do you want a piece of gum?” Randee asked, “I have some. Where’s my purse.”
Randee was trying to move and the grip she had around my neck grew tighter as Deb’s driving made it impossible to be comfortable. “Your purse is here,” I told her, “don’t worry. I think it’s on the floor, it’s under my foot.”
“You have no idea where her purse is. Don’t listen to her, Randee. I have your purse,” Deb said reassuringly, “it’s in the back of my seat.”
“Oh! Put this song up!” Randee squealed, “I love this song!”
And there we were, Deb blowing smoke out her window, Randee snapping gum, and me with my face pressed against Randee breasts, singing the lesbian national anthem,
“There’s more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line …the less I seek my source for some definitive …The closer I am to fiiii….ine…Yeah!”
I rolled out the door and gave Randee a hand to lift her up. I lowered my head down to say goodbye to Deb from the passenger side. “Come back if you can. Besides we’re both going to need a ride.” I turned to Randee, “Where do you live? I didn’t even ask you.”
“Slingerlands, it’s kinda’ far.”
Deb overhearing this said, “This isn’t going to work, my dear friend.”
Knowing what she meant I said, “Why, Deb,” and then in earnest, “please. I like her.”
Deb rolled her eyes, “You better bring her back to the apartment ‘cause I’m not driving to Slingerlands.”
My eyes creased with laughter, “See you later. Be safe!”
***
Deb took a different route to return to the party, as she preferred this time to drive slow, taking in the lush, deeply wooded bends so familiar to her having grown up in the small town of Aurora, New York, near to Cayuga Lake, one of New York’s Finger Lakes. Deb’s business was in Kinderhook, a sleepy bucolic region of New York’s mid-Hudson where antique dealers flocked for the weekend. This brought in much business for the town during the summer, but in the winter months it fell quiet, and the stores returned to closing early and the wildlife that oddly disappeared when the tourists came, returned with the frost, home to burrow, much like the year-round residents. Some secretly despised that their town turned into a sort of tourist trap during the summer, but Deb didn’t mind the tourist’s one bit. For her it was a way to get her business card out there and she took full advantage of it last summer and the summer before that. But not this summer. This summer she was frustrated.
She thought about Linda and how they came to meet. The fire to Deb’s Kinderhook home took out her photography studio and a part of the kitchen, and she was forced to leave, at least until the place was repaired. But it seemed the insurance company was taking too damn long, and she wasn’t getting the results she needed fast enough, and never mind the countless phone calls she had made, only to be put in a holding pattern, where she wasn’t making much gain. ‘I would have been better off if the whole place burned,’ she told herself. But she didn’t mean it; she resented having to depend on others now especially since she was close to breaking six figures. The fire had certainly hampered her progress, so she passed the days dining and drinking.
That’s how she came to meet Linda. Linda was in Kinderhook picking up an antique desk, and was one of the onlookers at the fire that early evening in May. Deb remembered how kind Linda was, how concerned, taking her out to dinner and then drinks, and soon after, Deb would fall comfortably into Linda’s bed for a straight two full weeks, that is, until Terry made the offer to have her stay in the second bedroom of her Albany apartment.
Now she was driving back and forth from Albany to Kinderhook as her client base was there, but it was a nearly 50 mile round-trip – she quickly excused this thought as ungrateful, as she realized Terry’s place was uncluttered and clean, and she would be able to think and sort things out as she waited on the insurance adjuster to settle the damage. She would remain hopeful, positive. If only she had paid more attention to what she was doing that busy morning, when she placed that still burning cigarette to an unbalanced ashtray and lit up a flammable roll of film that burst into flames, lapping up the ceiling so fast, that even in minutes of the fire department getting there, there was nothing in the studio she could take away except what she had already stowed away in her car.
***
When Deb arrived back to the party it was winding down with just a few stragglers left having some time between drinks. Deb searched for Linda, walking through the side entrance and through the kitchen, out through the large back patio, down a step and then last to the citronella tiki torches and to the chaise lounge, where Deb pulled up a chair and set it by Linda’s side. She kissed Linda on the mouth and Linda smiled. And to that Deb said, “Let’s have a drink.”
Linda gave her a warm smile, “I’m glad you returned. I think there’s some booze still out. What do you want?”
When it came to a drink, Deb could hold her own and a Saturday night party to her mind shouldn’t be ending at 11 o’clock, this was no time to be winding down. “What do I want?” she replied in a casual, carefree way, knowing full-well what she wanted. Her eyes twinkled, “Ah, what the hell. Let’s get a Jack on the rocks.”
This would be the beginning of heavy drinking for Deb and Linda. Linda started banging gin and tonic and Deb continued with the Jack Daniels. They finished the party on bended-knee with Linda dancing her way into the barbecue grill, and tripping off the giant Hostas planted near the pavers and between the retaining wall. Deb reached for Linda just in time before she tripped again.
The hostesses, Marcia and her partner, Pam, seeing this, cheerily went over to them before they got too close to the outdoor pool. If they were to fall into the pool in their drunken state who knew then what could have happened. It seemed no one knew each other that long, because if they had, they would have known that Deb was a summer lifeguard through her teenage years in Cayuga Lake Park and was still a powerful swimmer.
Marcia said, “Come inside you, two. Let’s get you some coffee. No more drinking!”
But Linda wasn’t having it and waved her off, “We are fine! Well – I think she’s better than me.” Pointing to Deb with her glass, she said, “Are you fine?”
Marcia laughed to her partner, “Help me, let’s get them inside.”
Linda balked, “No! Deb’s going home with me! Let me go!”
Pushing Linda up the stairs for her much-needed destination — the spare bedroom — was no easy task, and she proved difficult throughout the exercise, “I’m fine! I’m fine!”
When they finally reached the landing and down through the foyer, Deb had grown impatient, “Lay down, Linda, and shut up,” she told her, “Go to sleep, you can’t drive.” And with this covered Linda with a light fabric bedspread, and fluffed up the pillow she would lay her head upon. By the time Deb clicked off the light and closed the door, Linda was asleep.
Shortly after that, Deb was standing on the landing of the front stoop, under the huge overhead chandelier, of Marcia and Pam’s colonial home. “I can’t thank you enough,” she told them, extending her hand, “I had so much fun.”
Happily Marcia said, “Oh, it was a pleasure to have you. I’m sure Linda will be fine in the morning. I’m sure she’ll call you.”
Deb blew it off, “I’m sorry about that. Thanks a lot. We’re bad guests. Next time you can stay at my house – if it’s every gonna’ be ready!”
They shared a laugh, and then Deb yelled out, “Thanks again!” without turning around and headed back to her car.
One’s ability to party with the best of them has always been a part of what defines the ages, and there was no one who could drink Deb under the table. Surely Linda had tried, and wound up in a spare bedroom and with Deb nearly 12 years younger than Linda, that didn’t help Linda’s playing field. With this knowledge, Deb stepped into the clutch, and pulled the shift in reverse, and maneuvered down the long drive, passing the well-manicured lawn with its bordering solar lamps and headed for Girl Bar.
To Be Continued
© of Terry Rachel, 2011
A Hardscrabble Daughter 
Good points
This a really lovely blog. Ive bin here readin for about an hour.