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 IV
Inside Girl Bar lights and music filled the air and smoke billowed out a duct from the dance floor ceiling. I always got freaked when the smoke started, but it was somehow fitting: the place was burning like a “burning inferno” – hot music, hot girls, hot place to be – Girl Bar was everything it boasted.
Deb found me and Randee on the floor and bumped me purposely, she cupped her hand to her mouth, “Hey!” she said, “I made it!” I smiled, surprised to see my friend. “Where’s Linda?!” I replied, and without missing a beat, Deb went into a full spin, wiggling her hips, and shaking out her hair, “Sleeping!” she laughed, and then swept Randee up in her hands, spinning her around. I was surprised to see Randee so sure-footed, and smiled at her in recognition of this.
It was nearing two o’clock and the bar was packed with women mostly in their 20’s and 30’s; what a scene. I was thinking “How good it was to be alive”, and hearing the B52’s song Rock Lobster cast us all in the pose of a crustacean. It was great fun to be flailing your arms, squirming on the dance floor like a lobster. The lights were all in reds and then a chorus came together where we gargled out what could have sounded like a lobster cry where everyone was inching down, down, down, down. Randee was gyrating into my groin and then her hands found my belt buckle and this invitation was enough for me to kiss Randee on the dance floor without regard for anyone as I calibrated my kiss purposefully and strong, but not too strong or too long, just enough to let her know I wasn’t leaving her alone.
***
Linda woke in a fuzzy state in an unfamiliar bed, but managed to descend the stairs of Marcia and Pam’s house with cat-like silence, without waking her hostesses, and into the kitchen where she had done damage to herself only hours before. The clock in the kitchen read half-past two; she had slept two hours. She found it strange that she should be awake, but something kept rolling in her mind and after much needling thought, arrived at exactly it was that was bothering her: she didn’t trust Deb with Terry, not on a Saturday night and not after drinking so much.
It’s funny how in their short relationship of just six weeks, Linda had become possessive of Deb, calling her daily, sometimes from work, during lunch, leaving messages on Terry’s answering machine – this she felt stupid about, but she left messages for Deb anyway, never saying hello to Terry. She didn’t like Terry and to Linda’s way of thinking Terry was secretly after Deb, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth if you were to ask Terry.
“Damned if I stay here,” she said, taking a long swallow from a cranberry juice container, and a smack from her lip with the palm of her hand she wiped her mouth, and somehow sealed a decision she would never live down, “I’m going to Girl Bar.”
***
Before I could turn around to see where my friend went, I spied Deb talking to a new woman, one I’d never seen before. On the dance floor Deb was dripping with sensation. At one point she smiled at me and her face touched mine with her sweat. She looked liked madness – like she had walked on a bed of hot coals, her eyes were flashing, and she had dressed down to her bra and Capri’s. The mirrored glass flashed different colored lights etching into her eyes and hair. I needed clarity. “Who’s the girl?” I pulled her arm, it was wet and sticky. Deb said, “You’re always yelling!” And then she started laughing again. “ Isn’t she gorgeous? I’m in love!”
The girl Deb was dancing with was gorgeous in that rugged way and any femme in their right mind would have easily gone for. The woman, Joann, had a ruddy, pock-marked face with good, creased lines of laughter on the corners of her mouth, and a thick crest of dark brown hair, with eyes the color of aquamarine, so blue and watery, it struck me that I never seen such beautiful eyes. Apparently Deb thought so, too. Deb went back to bumping Joann sticking her behind in Joann’s crotch, shifting her weight up and down.
I took Randee by the hand and led her to the bar seeing Deb was in hood hands. Randee said, “We’ve got another hour-“I stopped her with an index finger to her mouth, “Aaah, we have more time than you think.”
She lowered her eyes to my mouth and we kissed. Her tongue was tart and new, thick; when she traveled to the ridges of my teeth she darted her tongue deep into my mouth and I pulled her waist into my hip, cupping my left hand through her belt loop, pressing on her lower back. I heard her moan, “Mmmm,” and a wet flash glistened hot down my thigh. “I want to sleep with you tonight,” I said. But she broke away, her eyes darting toward the door, and then she whispered, “Oh, my god, is that Linda?”
***
Linda sat at the other end of the bar and on the other side of the silver nickel cash register. But she spotted me, and I could feel the weight of her angry eyes as she threw back what looked like a seltzer with lemon. I was praying she wouldn’t approach us; I didn’t want to talk with her at all – I didn’t know why, as I’m usually friendly, but with her, I just didn’t know why. “Kiss me, Randee,” I said. She didn’t hesitate, and resumed the kiss with more bravado. “Let’s take a walk.” And I followed her out, passing Linda, acknowledging her with one eye.
***
After making out for fifteen or twenty minutes in an alleyway lined with wooden skids and heat pumps lined like soldiers, Randee was as alert as she was when she traversed her way around the broken wine glass, and gracefully picking up that dance move with Deb said, “The music went off. Are they closing?”
“I don’t know, let’s go see.”
When we returned we saw two women pushing each other on the dance floor and the DJ stopped completely spinning the music when the lights came on. A siren from the DJ booth was louder than I’d ever heard it.
“Ladies! Ladies! Please! Take it outside now!” The DJ’s voice boomed into the microphone. “Bouncer please, bouncer please!”
To my amazement it was Deb being pulled by Linda in one direction, while the new girl, Joann, with the dazzling blue eyes, was pulling Deb in the other direction. Linda and Joann were being hustled out and I caught Deb’s eyes, “What’s happening?!” Deb shook her head in disbelief, and pointed toward the door, as a queue to meet her outside.
I pulled Randee along and once outside I said to Deb, “What’s going on? You alright? What happened? I stepped outside for a walk with Randee.” And then to Linda I said,
“What the fuck did you do to her, huh? Are you fucking out of your mind, starting in like that? You’re a grown women – look at you. We’re in our mid-thirties – all of us – and we are better mannered than you! You should be ashamed of yourself, a woman of your age should know better. You’re pushing fifty and here you are causing a scene like this!”
I thought I was seeing things because without hesitation, Linda’s hand came across my chest, pulling at my tee, her fingernail cutting a slice of skin from my neck, but Deb grabbed her hand mid-air before she could take another swipe at me and said, “Don’t Linda.”
Linda took a deep breath, but she wasn’t lying down, “And you!” She yelled, her anger toward me, “You’re the biggest instigator of all! Bringing her here, trying to mock me at the party, moving her in! Taking her away from me!”
I had not heard Deb scream in forever, she didn’t even scream when her photography studio went up in flames. ”I left you sleeping! You are probably still drunk! And you were probably driving drunk!” she screamed and with this everyone fell silent, like she had woken us all back to our senses.
Except Linda. Linda said in answer to Deb’s insult, “Who’s this?!”
Joann had been quiet up till now; I suspected that was a sign of good manners. Deb moved closer to her and Joann held Deb’s waist. Apparently what had happened on the dance floor in an hour’s worth of time cemented them “thick as thieves.”
Joann said, “I don’t normally get introductions like this,” she had a drawl; she was up from Kentucky, working the track at Saratoga as a groom, in for the summer racing, “and I don’t think I want to shake your hand.” she told Linda. I smirked at this somehow sweet insult and winked at Randee.
***
Well, I can tell you this story in a long, drawn out way and maybe, just maybe if you’re lucky, one day I will.
***
Randee and Terry slept together that night, as did Deb and Joann at Terry’s apartment. We presumed Linda went home by herself – but we had a strong suspicion she didn’t stay there.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Linda returned to Terry’s downtown Albany apartment, on a street lined with row houses and found Deb’s car where she proceeded to smash in all her car windows (except the windshield) and flattened her tires.
Sunday afternoon was later than expected when Deb walked out to her car to get her smokes, and when she came back screaming and crying on Joann’s shoulder, “I am so sorry to put you through this. I am so sorry to put you through this…” I knew Linda had done something to do with it.
I surveyed the damages with grief and an overwhelming sense of rage for a woman I hardly knew but knew better to stay away from, boiled up in me. She got Deb instead, knowing full-well Deb was in a vulnerable place – away from her home, in limbo, waiting for her home to be repaired, and now her car.
***
After the incident Linda harassed Deb day after day, week after week, calling with her concern, calling with her advice, leaving messages. At one point she offered to buy Deb a car. It took months for Linda to understand – that is, if she ever did – that she had become persona non grata. Deb had put her down to the lowest point of the social hierarchy and there she remained.
Randee and Terry dated after that for a while until Randee met a guy and wound up getting married. Terry was invited to the wedding. They remain friends till this day.
In the end Deb settled her estate, returning to Kinderhook just in time for Thanksgiving, and put on a big feast. She and Joann would enjoy a relationship that was companionable, filled with joy and love for a good long while. They took many pictures together.
The End
© of Terry Rachel, 2011
A Hardscrabble Daughter 
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