Crazy Little Thing (13 page)

EZ Speaks

EZ was not only wide-awake but she was in
hyper-drive. She looked at the camera and talked quickly like her tongue had
trouble forming the words as fast as her brain could think them. “
Sixteen
Candles
is perhaps the greatest movie ever made. It has everything. Coming
of age, romance, mystery. John Hughes is a genius. He’s my idol. I hope to
someday make a film as great as
Sixteen Candles.
I’ll get Bananarama and
the Bangles and the Go-Gos to do the soundtrack. It’ll be about lesbians,
though, a lesbian
Sixteen Candles.
Can’t you see it?”

G-Ray’s voice came from behind the camera lens,
“Tell us about your sleeping, man. People are going to want to know about your
sleeping all the time.”

“Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?” EZ asked, doing a
pretty good impersonation of Arnold from
Diff’rent Strokes.

“The way you fall asleep, man, all of sudden like,”
G-Ray said.

“Oh, that. Well…,” EZ hemmed, “it’s not that big of
a deal. It’s a minor, really minor, tiny really, problem. A couple months ago,
I went to a Bananrama concert with my girlfriend and caught her in the bathroom
sucking face with this other girl. Gag me with a spoon! And it was right in the
middle of the encore of “Venus.” I booked it out of there and hitched a ride
home. Mary, that was my girlfriend’s name, was already there because she had
the car. She brought the skag with her. And they were making out in my bed. I
kinda freaked, I’m not proud to say, and started screaming and shi… bleep.
Sorry. I screamed and bleep. Then Mary picked up the clock from the nightstand
and threw it at me. It clipped me on the side of the head and I looked down and
the clock was broken. Shattered. It had those digital numbers that flapped over
and over to different times, but it was stopped. And a drop of blood from my
tattered ear splatted on the clock face and that’s the last thing I remember.”

G-Ray said, “So time stopped for you? Literally and
figuratively?”

“When I woke up Mary had taken everything in the
apartment. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to jet. I’m writing my screenplay and
I’m at a really crucial part.”

“You’re working on the lesbian
Sixteen Candles?”

“Yeah, but it’s more like
Sixteen Candles
meets
The Facts of Life
. Totally outer limits, right? Except in this one the
character of Jo falls in love with Blair and they ride into the sunset on Jo’s
Harley. Won’t that be the bomb? I call it
The Burning Vulva.
That’s just
a working title. I want to cast Kristy McNichol in the Jo part and Molly
Ringwald as Blair. I’ve already written like a hundred letters to Molly and
Kristy, but haven’t heard back yet. I might have to cast Melissa Gilbert and
Valerie Bertinelli if they don’t get back to me.”

“Good luck with that,” G-Ray said.

“Thanks.” EZ left, shutting the door behind her.

The camera turned until G-Ray’s face filled the tiny
screen. He whispered, “She still thinks it’s 1987.”

Whoopsy

The good thing about having a roommate who was a
narcoleptic was that when she was awake she stayed awake for a long time. While
the rest of the crew staked out bedrooms upstairs and slept through the night,
EZ cleaned the entire house, top to bottom.

Claire had chosen her room because it had a Murphy
bed. The bed was built into the wall and folded and unfolded. You could put it
up when you wanted more floor space and bring it down when you wanted to sleep.
There was also a dresser and a small nightstand with a reading lamp. It was
sparse, but that appealed to her sense of order and simplicity.

When Claire padded down the stairs in her stocking
feet the next morning she felt like Dorothy seeing colorful Munchkinland for
the first time. With the stacks of newspapers gone, the place looked totally
different. And it was so clean! You could see where the house had been lived
in, and lived in hard, but the bones were good and it was quite comfortable.

Sunlight streamed through the open drapes and what
had been spooky yesterday looked quite cheerful today. There was a marble
fireplace in the living room and a set of leather furniture. Oil paintings of
cows and ducks and black and white framed photographs of long-dead people hung
from the walls. Even the hardwood floors were gleaming.

Claire followed her nose to the kitchen where EZ was
cooking pancakes and bacon. “Did I die in the middle of the night?” Claire
asked. “Because I think I’m in heaven.”

“I know, right?” Ollie said from her seat at the
table. “EZ not only cleaned the entire house, but she went grocery shopping and
made a delicious breakfast.”

Claire accepted a cup of coffee from Ollie. Claire
sipped and smiled. “You remembered how I like it.”

She sat down at the table across from Ollie. EZ put
a heaping plate of food in front of her. “You’re going to make somebody a good
wife, EZ.”

“Oh, maybe someday,” EZ said, refilling Ollie’s
coffee cup. “But not until I’m a lot older.”

Claire poured syrup over the pancakes and said, “How
much older? Aren’t you already middle-aged?”

EZ looked shocked. “Are you kidding? I’m twenty.”

Ollie fiercely shook her head at Claire behind EZ’s
back. When that failed to get Claire’s attention she made slashing motions
across her throat. Claire still didn’t see her. She continued, “I thought Ollie
told me you we were the same age. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m
middle-aged.”

EZ turned and looked at Ollie. Ollie smiled big. Too
big. That was when EZ’s eyes rolled back in her head – Ollie quickly reached
out and grabbed the coffee pot out of her hands – and she crumpled to the
floor.

Claire looked from EZ to Ollie. “Was it something I
said?”

True Love

“It’s not as easy to get a limp body upstairs as one
would think,” Claire said. She had EZ by the feet and Ollie gripped EZ under
the arms. They were carrying her upstairs. Ollie led the way, walking
backwards.

“Yes,” Ollie panted, “lugging a body around is a
natural deterrent to murder.”

“So is cutting up a dead body.”

“Please tell me that’s not on your resume under
special skills,” Ollie said.

“No,” Claire panted. “But I have cut up a chicken
before and unless you’ve taken a course in chicken anatomy, it’s actually quite
difficult.”

“All that sawing through the bones. You have to know
where the joints are,” Ollie surmised.

“Exactly.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not planning on
cutting up EZ.” Ollie reached the top step and began to trek down the hallway.
“We’re not planning on cutting her up, are we?”

“No. I left my good saw at home,” Claire said, dryly.
“You know, this could’ve been avoided if you had warned me that she fell asleep
when presented with an anomaly to her view of time,” Claire said. “I didn’t
know she still thought it was 1987.”

“Well, we all have our little idiosyncrasies,” Ollie
said.

“Some more than others,” Claire said. She stopped
and hitched EZ’s ankles up over her hips.

“If you’re trying to insult me, you’ll have to do a
better job than that,” Ollie said, using her butt to push open a bedroom door.

“I’m not trying to insult you,” Claire said. “When I
insult you, you’ll know.”

“That’s reassuring.”

They moved parallel to the bed, swinging EZ’s limp
body between them. “On the count of three, drop her onto the bed,” Ollie said.

They swung EZ back and forth as if she were in a
hammock. They swung her higher with each count. “One… Two… Three!” Ollie said.

Claire and Ollie let go at the same time – and
watched EZ fly through the air. She flew over the bed – and
kerplunk
! –
hit the floor on the other side of the bed.

Ollie crawled over the bed to investigate. She poked
EZ in the belly with one finger then breathed a sigh of relief. “She’s okay.
Still alive. Still asleep.”

“Can’t we leave her there,” Claire said. “I can’t
lift anymore.”

Ollie stood up just in time to see a dark shape
scurry down the hallway. She ran to the doorway and looked each way. “Did you
see that?”

“What? Did I see what?” Claire asked, alarmed.

Ollie ran down the hall to her bedroom and peeked
through the door, which was ajar. “Look,” she whispered, gesturing for Claire
to join her.

The dark shape Ollie had seen hurrying down the
hallway had belonged to none other than Oscar and the little hedgehog. They
were now cuddled together on the bed and Oscar was bathing the hedgehog’s ears.

Claire joined Ollie at the door. She peeked through
the crack and made cooing sounds. “Isn’t that sweet?”

“I think I’ll name the hedgehog Meyer. “Oscar and
Meyer, get it?”

“I like it,” Claire said. “And they’re the cutest
thing I’ve ever seen.”

“No, you’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Ollie
thought, but wisely didn’t say. With Claire standing this close to her, she got
a nose full of the green apple shampoo Claire used. And the peach soap. She
thought Claire smelled like a fruit stand on a sunny Saturday morning at the
Farmer’s Market. Absolutely edible. Wisely, Ollie didn’t voice that either.

“True love,” Claire whispered.

For a moment, Ollie thought Claire was talking about
them. Then she realized Claire was referring to Oscar and Meyer. “Yeah,” she
said, “They have all the luck.”

That, unfortunately, she did say out loud. Claire
gave her a perplexed look and said, “So, do you think you can wear something to
our appointment besides those orange plaid surfer shorts?”

“Appointment?” Ollie asked. “What appointment?”

*

Back in the kitchen, Claire poured Ollie another cup
of coffee. Ollie recognized that Claire was trying to butter her up, but that
was okay with her. She liked butter. She liked it even more when it was
applied, figuratively and metaphorically (and maybe even literally), to her.

“Okay,” Ollie said. “What’s all this about an
appointment?” She sipped at her coffee. It was just the way she liked it. They
both remembered how the other took their coffee. What did that mean, she supposed?
Did it mean Claire still had a soft spot for Ollie? And speaking of soft spots…
Ollie’s eyes dropped to Claire’s soft spots. She sipped her coffee and sighed
appreciatively.

Claire
clapped her hands together like a prim schoolteacher dusting erasers. As soon
as she had Ollie’s attention, she said, “I talked to Scarlet last night.”

“And you’re telling me this because…?”

“Because she was able to pull a few strings and get
us an appointment with the judge for later on today,” Claire said.

Ollie felt like someone had thrown a rock through
her picture perfect morning. Gone was the smell of green apple. The peach soap
that had earlier tickled her nostrils was now only a distant memory. “Oh?”

“It’s with the same judge that married us -
remember? Otis O’Connor.”

How could she forget a black judge with an Irish
last name? When they’d gotten married, Ollie had thought it was awesome that
now in America, land of the free, home of the brave, a black man could marry
two white women. She’d been proud and elated. “Great. That’s just great,” Ollie
said, unable to disguise the sadness in her voice.

“We have to talk to the judge, get the divorce forms
to fill out and that’ll get the ball rolling. Scarlet is over being angry and
uptight. Now she’s happy again. That’s good, right? ‘Cause if Scarlet ain’t
happy, ain’t nobody happy,” Claire joked.

The joke fell flat. It didn’t even warrant a smile
from Ollie. “When do we go?” Ollie had hoped it would take a few weeks. She
just now realized that she’d been nurturing a harmless fantasy about living in
the same house with Claire – like a true married couple.

“As luck would have it, Judge O’Connor had a
cancellation and we get his last appointment today. It’s at four-thirty,”
Claire said.

“Remind me to thank Scarlet later,” Ollie said, not
even bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

Ollie Speaks… To Herself

Ollie wasn’t in the habit of talking to herself.
However, this was a special situation. And was it really talking to yourself if
you were actually talking to your reflection in the mirror?

“Hubba hubba,” Ollie said to Ollie’s reflection. She
had put on her only dress-up clothes. Black pants and a white linen shirt. The
only shoes she had were flip flops. Those would have to do with a pair of toe
socks. She used extra hair gel to try and tame her unruly locks. It wasn’t
working out too well, though. It made her hair spring up even higher, giving
her a Ziggy Stardust look.

“You’re not half bad.” She moved this way and that,
checking out her butt in the mirror. She pretended to be somebody else who was
picking herself up in a bar. “Hey, good-looking, what’cha got cookin’?” She
laughed at her own lack of cleverness. “Can I buy you a drink? You come here
often?”

Ollie leaned forward and peered deep into her own
eyes. “You have the most beautiful blue eyes. You know, I’m a sucker for blue
eyes.”

*

Claire was walking down the hallway when she heard
Ollie talking to someone inside her bedroom. Claire stopped and pressed her ear
against the door. She distinctly heard Ollie say, “I bet you’re a real tiger in
bed, aren’t you?”

Claire gasped. She quickly clasped her hand over her
mouth. Ollie had somebody in her bedroom! They had only been in Des Moines one
day and Ollie already had somebody in her room!

Unable to control herself, Claire knelt before the
door, squinted one eye and peered through the keyhole. She had to see what kind
of loose floozy woman Ollie had managed to pick up and bring back home. Or
maybe they were doing it
over the computer. Like
they were having Skype sex. Did this other woman even know that Ollie was
married? Did she care was the better question.

Claire couldn’t see a thing through the keyhole. It
was all black like it was full of dust, lint and bug parts, and considering how
old the door was,
it made perfect sense.

*

Ollie walked toward the door. She was dressed and
ready to go. She threw open the door, but it hit something, made a crunching
noise and –

Omigod! The door had smashed into Claire!

Claire was rolling around on the floor, holding her
eye and muttering, “Oh ow ow ow ow.”

Ollie squatted down next to Claire, saying, “Are you
okay?”

“Do I look okay?” Claire asked. She sat up, cupping
her hand over her eye. “Do you have a woman in there?” Claire tried to look
over Ollie’s shoulder and into the bedroom.

“Were you spying on me?” Ollie asked. “Were you
peering through the keyhole?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Claire spat. “Who do you have
in there?”

“You
were
spying on me,” Ollie said. “Admit
it.”

“I shall admit nothing,” Claire said. “Now if you’ll
excuse me, I have to get ready. My divorce awaits.”

Ollie helped Claire to her feet. Claire nodded a
stiff thank you and proceeded down the hall. Ollie said, “Claire?”

Claire turned back around, still covering one eye.

“How do I look?” Ollie held out her arms and did a
little spin.

“Like a waiter,” Claire said.

Ollie’s face fell.

“A very cute waiter,” Claire amended before walking
away.

Ollie smiled. Claire had been spying on her and she
also thought she was cute. She was making headway.