Chase Banter [02] Marching to a Different Accordion (24 page)

“All right, I will help you, but it must not interfere with my family life or my writing.”

“I can work with that.” Lacey gave her a bone-crushing hug. “I wish we could have sex right now. That would make it perfect.”

“What!”

“Just testing. You are going to be surrounded by lesbians.”

Chase was discomfited.

“I was teasing.” Lacey poured her another glass.

When Chase crawled back into bed, Gitana rolled over and opened her eyes. “Where have you been?”

“Drinking champagne with Lacey in the middle of nowhere and selling my soul for the sake of our people.”

Gitana pulled her to her. “Let’s have sex.”

“Funny, that’s what Lacey wanted to do, but I declined.”

“You must have made her very happy. She equates getting her heart’s desire with clitoral stimulation.”

“I agreed to help her change the world along with two hundred other lesbians.”

“We better really celebrate,” Gitana said as she kissed her way down Chase’s stomach.

“Hmm.”

Respice finem:

Consider the end.—Latin proverb

Chase clicked on the speakerphone, dreading who was on the other end. Myra’s disembodied voice in the kitchen was more tolerable than her voice going directly into your ear, Chase had discovered. Myra had been on safari in Africa for three weeks and had just got back. Chase pitied the animals who had had the misfortune to cross Myra’s path. She must have seen the webcast, Chase thought. It had to be faced, though. As Lily always said, as if it were the SUP motto, “Looking the other way when the lorry is coming will not prevent it from running you over.” The word “lorry” had to be explained to Delia. The statement would then be followed by a series of possible approaches. Lily seemed to feel that with enough repetitions, like muscle memory for a sport you’d given up and then taken up again—the proverbial bicycle—the group could be trained to see a situation and quickly assess and adjust accordingly, like soldiers who despite chaos would always remember what to do.

“Hello, Myra, I hope all is well in your world and that the weather is fine,” Chase said. She sat abruptly on one of the kitchen stools and put her head on the cool ceramic surface of the kitchen island. So much for muscle memory and approaching lorries, she thought, recalling that a lot of foreign pedestrians were killed each year in Great Britain because they failed to realize that the truck would be coming from the reverse direction and stepped into the oncoming traffic when crossing the street. How did negligence of customs figure into Lily’s scheme?

“Kid, you were fucking great! You looked fantastic in that suit. We should have fucking gone for that kick-ass look before. It never crossed my fucking mind. It’s bohemian, quirky and fucking outlandish. It’s like Tom Fucking Wolfe wearing that white suit. Everyone remembers the fucking guy even if they don’t like his stuff.”

Chase perked up. She reached around for a notepad and pencil. She began making scratch marks. Six for seven—not bad, every sentence except one had a swear word in it—this was a perfect example of Tom Wolfe’s fuck patois. During all her conversations with Myra, Chase ran a tally of the swear words because it kept her calm while she pretended to listen to what Myra was saying. Donna would reiterate it for her and Donna didn’t have an expletive in almost every sentence.

“Son of a bitch, that Jew tailor is my new fucking go-to-guy. Get him to make five more. I’ll fucking send him a check. And Christ on a bike that no shoes look was fucking brilliant. You better have had some clean ass toenails. Those web creeps can blow shit up and toe jam would be a cock-sucking pixel nightmare.”

Chase winced. When Myra was truly pissed or excited her level of cursing ascended to new heights.

“We’ll schedule pedicures before any appearances. We don’t want any of those cunt interviewers and prissy ass readers at book signings getting a load of anything, shall we say, fucking untoward.”

Chase wished Myra didn’t talk so loud. It must be a New York thing because everything was so noisy there. Bud had walked in the kitchen and Chase madly motioned her out.

“I know she swears like a fucking sailor,” Bud said.

Chase glared at her and shook her finger.

“Is that the kid? Hey, let’s get her a fucking little suit and she can go barefoot too—kind of like that Austen Powers mini-me fucking gig and what about the blue bear book? Can she draw? That would be the best. That would outdo that fucking Marley kid who painted abstracts. Bud could be an artist and a writer.”

“Who told you about that?”

“Who else? The ever-vigilant Donna, my eyes and ears.”

“It’s just a short story.” Chase looked in alarm at Bud, who was getting her breakfast out of the fridge. She shrugged.

“Donna said the fucking kid worked it into quite the kick-ass quest story and what was the short fucking story is now the mother-fucking end. How sweet is that?”

“Bud, is that true?”

She nodded nonchalantly as she filled the dog bowls with kibble. She took the food out to Annie and Jane, who were waiting patiently in the sunroom for their breakfast.

“So here’s your instructions, no shoes, get more suits made, and have a pedicure and get the mini-me to send me some picture ideas for her new book. You’ll have to sign the contract as she’s a minor. All right then, ta-ta. Oh, p.s., kid, you’re doing a good job, maybe this dancing to your own accordion thing is working—I know it’s supposed to be drum but in your case accordion is more apt.”

“Where’d you hear about that?”

“Lacey told me.”

“How do you know Lacey?” Chase was puzzled and concerned. Lacey, as far as she was concerned, was a loose cannon.

“She had Donna run an idea for a radical lesbian anthology gig by me and I’m going to run it by you-know-who. Lacey might fucking be onto something. I didn’t fucking really give this lesbian culture thing any credence until now. You dyke bitches might be onto something here. Nothing like drumming up some kick-ass business. I didn’t think you mother fuckers had it in you.”

“Dyke bitches? Myra, that’s not exactly a politically correct description.”

“Relax, it’s a term of endearment.”

Chase clicked off as Donna came running in the kitchen door.

“Look at this!” She was waving a printed e-mail at Chase. She danced something that resembled a hip-hop move and the Cabbage Patch hula-hoop hip swirl. “You won!” She grabbed Chase and kissed her cheek. “You won!”

“I won what?” Chase poured herself more coffee. “You want one?”

“Yes, please, with lots of milk. Of course, we’ll have to plan a celebration.”

Chase handed Donna her coffee.

“I knew you had it in you. I have to get you a plane ticket.”

Chase sat on a kitchen stool. She’d had enough surprises for one dyke bitch in a day and it was only seven thirty in the morning. That was the problem with dealing with New Yorkers—a three-hour time difference. Myra could ruin your day before it ever got started. She gave Donna the stink eye, silently demanding elucidation.

“The Best Lesbian Novel of 2010,” Donna shouted. “The judges loved it.”

“What do I have to do?” Chase felt sulky and perhaps a little ungrateful.

“You’re not happy?” Donna said.

“That panel thing really wore me out. I’m not good at stuff like this.” She got up.

“Where are you going?”

“To talk to the Divine Vulva and Commercial Endeavor. I need some guidance.”

“Oh, well, I’m going to call Gitana. She’ll be excited about it.”

“Can you take Bud to school? I don’t think I can face the queue today.”

“Sure. Bud will be thrilled about your award. Have you seen her scrapbook and wall of recognition? She’s very proud of you.”

“Great.”

Chase walked through the jewel garden, picked a few weeds and studied the condition of the path. It needed edging. Then she went to her writing studio.

“Isn’t it fabulous?” Divine Vulva said, swirling around in Chase’s desk chair. They’d obviously heard the news.

Commercial Endeavor said derisively, “I think it’s going to hurt your career as a mainstream author.”

Divine Vulva threw a cocktail sauce-covered shrimp in her direction. It hit Chase’s writing mascot, Curious George, square in the forehead. “You’re such a party pooper.”

“And why is that?” Chase asked Commercial Endeavor, flouncing down on the couch and scrubbing the cocktail sauce off Curious George’s forehead with a corner of her T-shirt. She ate the shrimp, figuring it fell under the five-second drop rule.

“Because it will only serve to encourage you to pursue this senseless path of moist-mound sagas when you have real work to do,” Commercial Endeavor said.

“That’s not true.” Divine Vulva flung another shrimp, which landed several feet short of Commercial Endeavor.

“Will you stop throwing shrimp?” Chase said petulantly.

“Sorry. But getting this award means that this work does have value.” Divine Vulva retrieved the shrimp and ate it.

“That’s disgusting,” Commercial Endeavor said. “You don’t know where that floor’s been.”

“Five-second drop rule,” Divine Vulva said.

Chase looked at her fondly.

Divine Vulva sat down next to her and swung her legs onto Chase’s lap. “We rock,” she said.

Chase studied Commercial Endeavor, who was brooding in the corner. “Come sit by us. We’re a family. I’ve proved I can do both so maybe we could all just get along.”

Commercial Endeavor sat on the other side of Chase, pushing Vulva’s legs to one side so she could put her own legs on Chase’s lap. “I’m just looking out for you because I love you.”

“I know you do,” Chase said.

“How about we put a lesbian in the mystery novel and some mystery in the lesbian novel, then we could work together. I think we’d make a good team, except,” Divine Vulva pointed a finger at Commercial Endeavor, “you have to stop being so homophobic.”

“I’m not homophobic. I’m just not attracted to you.”

“Why not?” Vulva pouted.

“Because you dress like a prostitute and you eat entirely too much shrimp,” Commercial Endeavor said.

Vulva looked down as if seeing herself for the first time. She was wearing a sequined black miniskirt and a low-cut white frilly blouse with cocktail sauce stains on the front.

“She does have a point,” Chase said.

“Okay, hold on.” She disappeared into the bathroom.

“I can’t wait to see this,” Commercial Endeavor said.

“Me either.”

Vulva came out wearing khaki shorts and a black T-shirt that read “I like girls.”

“Now, that is an improvement. She looks just like you,” Commercial Endeavor said.

“I promise to eat more vegetables,” Vulva said.

“I’m going to do some gardening,” Chase said, “and then we’ll go over the galley proofs for the mystery novel, all three of us.”

Later that afternoon there was a tap on the door and Lacey, Bud, Gitana and Donna came in. Now this really was a surprise, Chase thought, looking up from her computer.

Lacey had a bottle of champagne, a bottle of sparkling cider and five glass flutes. “Congrats!”

Bud was wearing a green suit with black pin-stripes and a black mock turtleneck. Gitana was holding its equivalent in grown-up size.

“We went shopping at Thrift Town. I think it must have been some theatrical costume,” Gitana said.

“Bud wants to go onstage with you,” Lacey said, trying to open the champagne bottle. It wasn’t going as well as it had at the Lesbian Illumination Institute.

“You better let Donna do that before someone loses an eye,” Gitana said.

“We can’t wear shoes, though,” Bud said, climbing on Chase’s lap and snuggling.

“Isn’t she perfectly adorable?” Vulva said to Commercial Endeavor as they watched from the corner of the room.

“So are you,” Commercial Endeavor said, putting her arm around Vulva.

“Where is this awards ceremony, anyway?” Chase asked.

“It’s in San Fran, baby, and we’re all going,” Lacey said, taking a glass of champagne from Donna.

“And there’s a two-story Thrift Town there,” Bud said, her eyes lighting up.

“Well, in that case, count me in,” Chase said as they toasted.

“I thought that might serve as an incentive,” Bud said.

“So since my first plaque of achievement was a Vulva, is this award going to be some kind of gold-plated clitoris?” Chase inquired.

“Let’s hope not,” Gitana said.

Lacey gave her a bone-crushing hug. “See, now you’ll have the perfect credentials to be the writing instructor and vice president of the Institute when it’s up and running. We’re having some plumbing and electrical and roofing issues.”

Chase smiled insincerely and glanced over at Commercial Endeavor, who said, very quietly, “We’ll blow the place up before we let that happen.”

“You can do a lot with fertilizer,” Vulva added.

That was what Chase liked about her muses—they never ran out of ideas. She wondered how they were going to take it when they found out she’d already agreed to help. But if the place went up in smoke…well, just as long as no people or animals were harmed in the process.

Lacey raised her glass, “To the Revolution!”

Chase raised her glass with the others and thought about marching with her accordion to somewhere very far away like the Antarctic until this whole thing blew over, or she could take Bud to the Smithsonian and they could stay until they had explored the entire museum—that would take awhile.

Gitana took her hand and whispered, “I love you and I’m proud of you.”

Chase smiled and knew her travel plans were moot.