The Love Sucks Club (5 page)

Part of me does want to talk about it. I’ve given Sam a glimpse
into the strange place that is my head, but I haven’t really delved into the
details. She read
Annabelle Lies
. We’ve talked a little bit about some
of my dreams. I don’t know if she really knows what I saw before Fran died.

Fran gave me a kaleidoscope for my thirtieth birthday. She was
always doing little things like that. She didn’t have a lot of money, and she
knew I wasn’t into expensive things anyway, but she did like to bring me little
gifts. The kaleidoscope was a perfect present. It was a nice one.

I instantly pointed it up at the sky and twisted it around,
watching the patterns converging and changing, enjoying the way the colors slid
around. Delighted with my interest, Fran was in a joyous mood. She laughed
uproariously at my smallest jokes, and flitted around me in a rush of
enthusiasm. The cake she had made for me, strangely lopsided and oddly colored,
was perfect. I remember her presenting it to me with glee, telling me that it
was the best she could do. She said it was Charlie Brown’s birthday cake. In a
way, I think I was still reeling from the loss of my mother. Bitch that she was
,
she was still my mother. I thought about her every day. I
would wake up in the morning and wonder when the phone would ring. My mother
spent hours calling me lazy and stupid, but she spent just as much time
lamenting where she had gone wrong with Susannah who had been married and
divorced twice already by the age of twenty-five. The only one who had done no
wrong was Jamie, and that had to have been because she escaped to college at
seventeen and then to the Peace Corps. I think my mother saw her all of twice
in ten years and that for only a couple of days. I remember sitting in a
restaurant in Germany with Jamie a couple of years before my mother died. I
asked her why she never came home. Her response was, “Why have you never left?”

So, though I was in the throes of new and exciting love, I wasn’t
exactly in a great place. Fran was undeterred in her mission to give me the
world’s best birthday. After dinner, she cut the cake and sat naked on my lap,
feeding it to me. We went to bed and made the kind of love poets write about
for years afterward. After, as she was falling asleep on my shoulder, I reached
over and picked the kaleidoscope off the bedside table. Squinting against it, I
aimed it for the light coming in from the hallway and tried to see the patterns.
Within seconds, a buzzing started in my ears and moved into my head. It felt as
if something was crushing the sides of my head in on itself. It didn’t hurt,
but I felt a swelling in my brain, and the buzzing turned to a roar. I tried to
speak, but I couldn’t make a sound. I was sure I was having a stroke, but I
couldn’t even move to get Fran’s attention. As the roaring in my head
increased, a tunnel formed across my vision and it felt as though my brain was
being thrown down a long, dark hallway. At the end of the hallway was an image
and I moved toward it, determined to see what it was. It was Fran. I called out
to her in my head, but she didn’t know I was there. She was sitting on the
grass in a field I didn’t recognize. She was pulling the grass up by its roots
and staring at it in her hands. Blood was trickling down her face and I could
tell that it had soaked through her clothes and pooled on the ground all around
her. Mesmerized, I watched the blood sink down into the earth all around her. A
moment later, she looked up at me and mouthed, “Help.” In that moment, I was
back in my own bed, my arm wrapped around Fran so tightly, she was almost
choking. She had poked at me until I came fully awake.

Shaking myself, I realize that Sam has been poking me for several
seconds, in the same way Fran had poked me so many years ago.

“
Ow
,” I rub my arm and poke her back,
hard.

“
Ow
,
what the fuck?”

“You were hurting me.”

Sam punches me on the bicep. “You were out of it. I was about to
throw you in the pool, but I was afraid you would drown.”

“I know you would save me,” I grin.

“Yeah, I might throw you a noodle.”

“You’re a true friend.” I smack her on the head.

“I thought you were having another
seiz
– uh – episode.”

“I was thinking about the first time I had one. It was on my
actual birthday.”

“So a long, long, long time ago,” she jibes.

“Yes. Thank you so much for pointing that out. Your humor is
unbearable. I’m laughing on the inside.”

“Way deep down on the inside?”

“Exactly.”

She pauses. “So, what happened?”

“I was in bed with Fran. She was sleeping. I had a vision of her
bleeding from her head.”

Sam shakes her head. “How much of the book is true?”

“Basically, all of it.”

We stare into the water again, lost in our own thoughts. Trying to
smile, I poke Sam on the arm again. “You know, I once went to a psychic. When I
walked in, she stood up and pointed at me, screaming. She ran into a back room
and refused to come back out. At first, I thought it was some kind of dramatic
act, meant to drum up business, but later, I wondered. I mean, it’s not as if
she got any of my money that day.”

Slinging an arm around me, Sam
smiles.
“I felt
like screaming in terror the first time I saw you, too.”

“Ass.”

“Totally.”

Standing up, I reach down for my shoes and hold the other hand out
to help my friend to her feet. She grabs my hand and heaves herself up. “Hey,
look at that. Graceful as a ballerina and I didn’t even spill my beer.”

Two women in bikinis walk by as we’re gathering our things and Sam
automatically flexes her muscles. Laughing again, I punch her on one of her
flexed muscles. She grins and suddenly, she looks the same as she did when I
met her, so many years ago.

“Everything that happens reminds me of something else. Is that a
sign that I’m getting old?”

She reaches up and yanks a gray hair from my head. “
Naw
, this is a sign that you’re getting old.”

Laughing and half-punching each other, we make our way out of the
resort and into Sam’s truck.
           
“Look.”
She points out the way the leaves along the side of the road are twisting in
the wind. “The locals say when the leaves turn upside down on the trees it
means a bad hurricane season.”

Ignoring her, I stare out the window until we turn on to my road.
At the top of the hill, Sam touches my arm before I get out of the car.

“Should I come in for a little while?”

“No, I need to spend some time writing. Come back around seven and
I’ll cook something for dinner.”

“Ah, awesome,” she smiles. “I was trying to decide between spam
and cereal.”

“I’ll marinade some shish kebobs and put ‘
em
on the grill tonight.”

“You give butches a bad name.”

“Your
lack of culinary skills are
the
reason you’re still single.”

“True. I’m amazing in bed, but I can’t cook for shit.”

Nodding, I raise my eyebrow at her. “And sadly, my friend, I have
just the opposite problem.”

Laughing again, she gives me one more punch on the arm. “Now get
out of my truck, I have shit to do.”

Stepping out of the truck, I wave goodbye and she backs out of my
driveway and heads down the dirt road. Staring at my front door, I suddenly feel
incredibly vulnerable and very much alone. Well, of course I’m alone. I’m a
hermit, after all. I stride into the house, letting the door slam shut behind
me. A quick glance in the fridge tells me I have everything I need to make a
good dinner for tonight.

I debate for a couple of seconds about whether to sit up on the
deck or the living room. Eventually, I decide on my favorite chair in front of
the windows where I can see the beauty of the sea and my deck without dealing
with the sun glare on my computer. Settling into my chair, I get a creepy
feeling up my spine. I look over my shoulder, scanning for something amiss in
the apartment. Everything looks normal. The bookshelves are messy and the rest
of the house is spotless. There are piles of manuscripts on the floor next to
my desk, but the desk itself is shining and free of dust. My only splurge in
life is a weekly housekeeper and I love the way she keeps the place sparkling,
but I’m a neat person anyway. The creepy feeling persists, though, and I can’t
shake it enough to focus my mind on my writing. Getting out of my chair with a
huff, I turn around in a full circle.
Nothing.

I head down the hall and check out my bedroom, the master bath,
the spare bedroom, and the guest bath.
Still nothing.
Coming back into the kitchen, the way I came into the house, I spot an envelope
sitting on the counter. I’m a little surprised that I hadn’t noticed it before,
but not shocked. I do have a lot of paperwork on the island. So, why do I feel
so
creeped
out? Stepping a bit closer, I spy my name
on the front and in an instant, I recognize the handwriting.
Voldemort.
Seriously.
What the fuck does she want, anyway?
Grabbing the envelope, I consider throwing it into the shredder unopened, but
curiosity has the best of me. I tear into it and pull out the letter.

Dear Dana,

Just wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to quit drinking and
turn my life around. Thanks for sticking by me for so long. As part of my
twelve steps, I mean to make amends to people I hurt. I know I wasn’t as good a
partner as I could have been because I didn’t help with the housework very
much. To make amends, I’ll come clean your house on the day of your choosing.
Have a great day.

 
It was signed with her name
and the J was swirled and curled with a flourish as if the very act of writing
the letter had given her a sense of joy and accomplishment. I crumple it up and
throw it at the wall. Seconds later, I’m retrieving it and flattening it out.
If nothing else, I’m going to have to show this to Sam.
The
housework?
The housework, really?
Thinking back
on all of the hell I went through with that woman, the idea of her apologizing
to me for not helping with the housework strikes me as both impossibly
maddening and ridiculously funny. And how can she be going through the twelve
steps when Sam saw her trashed at the resort’s beach side bar just a couple of
days ago? Suddenly, I’m struck by a fit of giggles that leaves me struggling
for air and nearly choking.
Housework.
I’m overcome,
laughing until tears are streaming down my face. I go back to my favorite chair
and ease into a comfortable spot in front of my computer. If nothing else, the
years with Voldemort has given me tons of fodder for short stories about
horrible girlfriends. Now, apparently, I can branch into comedy. I’m still
laughing as I settle in to write.

Chapter Four

I have the grill lit and the coals heating by seven o’clock. Sam
shows up right on time and after stowing her beer in my fridge, comes out onto
the deck to greet me.

“Hey-o!”

“Dude.”
I give her a hard, one-arm hug.
Sliding onto a stool at the outside bar, she props her feet up and leans back.

“So.
How much do you love me?”

Wary, I shake my head.
“A lot.
Why? What
did you do?”

“It’s just I saw your sister at the Stop and Save and...”

“You invited her for dinner.
Because I just
don’t see her enough.”

Sam is saved from answering by the familiar whine of my sister’s
transmission making the last stretch of hill to my house. Within minutes,
Susannah is trampling through my house with Olivia in tow. Sam looks stricken.

“I swear
,
Olivia was not with her when I
saw her.”

That’s obvious. If Olivia had been with Susannah, Sam would have
sprinted in the other direction. The two women come through the house. Susannah
hands Sam a beer and keeps one for
herself
. Olivia
throws herself onto one of my lounge chairs. With one arm draped dramatically
over her eyes, she lets out a deep sigh.

Susannah gives me a kiss on the cheek and perches on a bar stool.
“Where are the peacocks? Olivia wanted to see them.”

“Well, I don’t invite them to dinner most days. Then again, I
didn’t invite you and Olivia, yet here you are.”

“I’m your blood. And I’m a terrible cook. It’s your obligation to
feed me.”

Sam studiously ignores the sighing coming from the lounge chair.

“So Susannah.”

I chime
in
.“
Or
should she say ‘Oh Susannah...”

“Oh, don’t you cry for me,” Sam sings off-key.

“I’ve never heard that one before in my life.” Susannah gives us
both a dirty look and pops open her beer.

“How come you’re not out with what’s his name tonight?”

Sam perks up. “Who’s
what’s his name
?”

Looking up from the grill, I wink at Sam. “He’s Susannah’s new
beau. He’s dreamy.”

“Oh,
McDreamy
,” Sam grins. She flutters
her eyelashes and holds her hands up to her cheek. “Is he a doctor?”

“The important question should be is he married,” I add.

Susannah flips me off. “He is not married, his name is Thomas, and
he’s very sweet.”

Sam nods. “Is he a felon?”

“Rex was not a felon.” Susannah is irritated. “He had a bit of a
run in with the law. It wasn’t his fault.”

“It never is,” I say.

Olivia lets out another dramatic sigh from the lounge chair and
Susannah turns to her sympathetically. “Poor Olivia has had a terrible day.”

Sam takes a swig of beer so I am forced to respond. “Oh?
In what way?”

Olivia sits up, happy for an audience. “Well, of course, first I
had the tire blow out. Then it turns out there was a ginormous screw in my
tire. They had to patch it and put it back on.”

“Wow,” Sam mouths at me from behind her beer.

Smirking, I say, “Sounds traumatic. My day was rough, too. Instead
of working, which is how I pay my bills and continue to do things such as...
oh, I don’t know... eat, I had to go change someone’s tire out because she
didn’t know how to do it herself.”

Glaring, Olivia tosses her head. “This isn’t a game of who had the
hardest day,” she sniffs.

Sam snorts. “No, we all know who would win every time, Olivia.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Susannah interrupts. “Come on, everyone. Let’s just agree that
we’re here now, the weather is beautiful, and Dana is cooking an amazing
dinner.”

“Yes, a free meal at someone else’s house is bound to cheer you
up, Olivia,” Sam grins.

“You’re one to talk,” she replies.

Grunting, Sam takes another sip of her beer and hooks her feet
under the stool.

I can just hear the shrill screeching of a couple of peacocks off
on the woods side of the house. Sam lifts her head. “Are they nocturnal or
diurnal?”

“As far as I can tell they’re all-
urnal
.
I swear to God they wake me up at two AM having screaming fights with their
reflections in my front windows.”

Susannah laughs. “I still think they’re beautiful.”

“I’m more than half tempted to find out how they taste on the
grill.”

Olivia purses her lips at me in distaste. I don’t know what she’s
so upset about. She’s more annoying than the peacocks and I haven’t thrown her
on the grill.

After throwing the kebobs on the grill, I send Susannah into the
house to get the side dishes, including the bags of potato chips that Sam
bought at the quickie mart. Olivia wrinkles her nose as we set out the sides.
“I guess we don’t have to ask who brought the chips.”

“At least I brought something,” Sam retorts.

“I didn’t even know we were coming here until a few minutes before
Susannah picked me up.”

I pick up a handful of chips and throw a couple in my mouth. “The
single butch dyke always brings the chips.”

“You’re single and butch,” Olivia says. “You seem to know your way
around a kitchen.”

“How about you, Olivia?”
Sam sits up again. “Do you know
how to cook?”

“Oh God,” she rolls her eyes back. “I was trying to make a quiche
for my ex-boyfriend. I took it out of the oven and place it on the stove top.
In the meantime, I turned on the front burner to steam some vegetables.
Apparently I turned on the wrong burner and next thing I knew, the burner under
the glass
bakeware
was bright red and glowing. I
panicked and grabbed my pot holders and lifted the quiche off the burner. When
I turned away from the stove, the glass exploded and hot glass and quiche went
everywhere. I was burned. There were scorch marks on the wall. Oh, and there
was a huge burn in the kitchen carpet.”

“Well, who has carpet in their kitchen?” Sam says.

“It was a terrifying moment, Sam.”

“Olivia, you think every moment is terrifying or horrifying or
death-defying or something
fy-ing
.”

“Just because I react to life,” she spits out, her face red.

Sam waves a hand dismissively. “You OVER-react to life.”

Laughing, I join the conversation.
“Oh yeah.
I remember that time I walked into Susannah’s apartment and you were sitting in
front of the television, sobbing your head off over the ending of
Pretty
Woman
.”

“Jesus, Olivia,” Sam states. “She’s a fucking hooker.”

“Or that time your date didn’t show and you didn’t leave your
apartment for three days.” I’m on a roll now.

Sam chuckles. “That time your car got scratched in the parking lot
of K-mart and you came into the bar bawling your head off. I thought someone
had been killed.”

“Oh yeah,” I say, pointing at Sam. “I remember that. She ordered a
shot of whiskey and downed it, still crying.”

Susannah is getting pissed. “That’s enough.”

“What?” I spread my arms innocently. “We’re just joking around.”

Ignoring me, Susannah turns to Olivia. “I wouldn’t take too
seriously the opinions of women who belong to a social club called The Love Sucks
Club, membership two.”

I feign hurt. “We have three members!”

“We aren’t just members,” Sam states. “We’re the presidents!”

“You two think you’re so funny, but you’re not. You’re assholes.”
Olivia is blinking back tears and I feel a little bad.

“Okay, I’m sorry. We’ll stop.”

“Fine, fine,” Sam grumbles.
“Stop being so damn
sensitive.
We’re just messing around.”

“Yeah, really,” I add. “I make fun of Sam all of the time and you
don’t hear her complaining about it.”

“Well, there’s a lot to make fun of,” Susannah says.

We manage to make it through dinner without any more incidents. As
we’re cleaning up the dishes, Sam says, “Let’s get rid of Olivia and Susannah
and go to The Grill.”

“I’ll go down to The Grill, but I doubt you’re going to get rid of
Olivia and Susannah that easily.”

I was right. Susannah and Olivia want to go, as well. They head
off in Susannah’s jeep and Sam and I get into her truck. “I told you so,” I
say, as we maneuver down the hill.

“Whatever,” she says, shrugging. “I like your sister. It’s Olivia
I could do without.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t be so annoying if you hadn’t fucked her that
time.”

“True. I’m so good in
bed,
they hate me
when I stop.”

Snorting, I roll my eyes at her. We walk into the restaurant and
spy Susannah and Olivia sitting at a table with
Esmé
.
Turning my back on them, I look at the bar. Karen and her husband, Rick, are
sitting on bar stools. Rick orders a beer for Sam and an iced tea for me.

“Sam, don’t you ever get tired of carting Dana’s ass around town?”
Karen asks.

Ignoring the hint of nastiness in the question, Sam responds
genuinely. “No. I don’t. And I never get tired of filling up my truck for free
on Dana’s credit at the gas station.”

“Not that our deal is any of your business,” I add.

Changing the subject, Rick interrupts. “So, are you two geared up
for our big end of season party?”

“Even the hermit is looking forward to it,” Sam answers, gesturing
toward me.

To be honest, I am looking forward to it. I like Karen well
enough. She’s usually pretty nice. As Sam pointed out, she does dress like a
lesbian golfer, but she’s pretty. She works at the resort with Sam and I know
from past conversations that she doesn’t have too many close friends on the
island. I’m not sure if that’s because she has a bit of a loner thing herself,
or because she is neither a scuba diver nor a drinker. I’ve tried to hook her
up for play dates with Susannah, but the two of them just didn’t click. It’s
too bad because if Susannah became BFFs with Karen, I wouldn’t have to deal
with Olivia quite as much. Karen’s husband is gorgeous. Sam and I have agreed
that if either of us were ever to switch teams, it would be for this guy. He’s
tall, slender, dark-skinned, and soft-spoken. He mostly seems content to be
quiet in groups, but when he does speak, he is well-reasoned and intelligent.
I’ve spent a few evenings at their house talking about everything from women’s
lib to gay marriage to civil rights with him, and I have yet to find a subject
on which he is not well-informed and eloquent. Unlike my ex, who is also
extremely intelligent, he doesn’t talk down to the rest of us in order to make
sure everyone knows it. He’s just a smart, humble, and good-looking guy. If he
wasn’t already married to Karen, I’d be petitioning my sister, Jamie, to come
visit so I could set them up. Of course, I don’t actually know what kind of guy
Jamie is interested in, or if she even dates men, but I just love the idea of
Rick being related to me.

Sam interrupts my internal fawning with an elbow in the ribs.
“Remember that woman who was hitting on me?”

“Which one?”

“The singer from the east side
of the island.”

“The big one from Sparky’s?”
I’m trying to remember who
she’s talking about.

“Yes.”

“I remember.” I don’t have a great picture of who she’s talking
about, but I’m pretty sure I remember the woman. Sam and I ventured to the
other side of the island one night and ended up in the island’s one gay bar.
The band was all female and pretty good. Sam kind of flirted a bit with the
singer until we realized that her wife was in the audience. After that, she
backed off. We stayed for the next set and took off. Pretty unremarkable night,
if you ask me.

“She’s here,” Sam says.

“Yeah?
Is her wife here, too?”

“I don’t know. But she was at the Sands the other night. I stopped
in at the bar to have a couple of beers after work and I swear
,
she was coming on to me again.”

“I don’t know.” I’m dubious. Sam is pretty slow about women. “She
was probably just being friendly.”

“She kept rubbing on me.”

“You are pretty touchable,” I grin.

“
Shhh
.
Here she comes.”

We both half-turn as the singer walks up. She’s taller than Sam
and solidly built.
Wearing dark jeans and a tight black
muscle shirt that shows off not only her breasts, but her muscles as well.
I can’t tell if she’s butch or just a muscular femme, but either way, she’s
hot. She puts her arm around Sam. “Hi. Remember me?”