Steeplechase
a short story
by
Rosalyn Wraight
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© Copyright 2012 Rosalyn Wraight
a Don’t Waste Daylight publication
Smashwords Edition
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Steeplechase
"Four score and seven—what the hell does that mean anyway?"
"What the hell does it matter?"
"I suppose it doesn't. It just crossed my mind," I conceded and shook my head in an attempt to hurl the nonsense from my skull. It didn't work. My gray matter continued to ooze monosyllabic banter to each synapse, shooting impulses that rushed to my vocal cords, forcing me to announce everything like some PA system. May I have your attention please? Why the hell do they ask that, knowing there is no choice, not really?
"Like I said, I suppose it doesn't matter," I repeated.
Then what did? The day stretching before us? The monthly ritual of following her around town? If not, then what? Surely it had to be something profound—enough to justify two calls from the car to the office, claiming sickness that prohibited work. It was a sickness all right: sick to death of robotic routine, arbitrary demands, and impervious dreams.
The tires squealed as I rounded the corner more quickly than I had intended. My coffee sloshed and splattered. Sunglasses were flailed across the dashboard and onto the floor. Whiplash. Tonguelash.
Frantic, she seized an armrest and the console. Her head twisted toward me. I expected it to spin, projectile vomit shooting at the windshield, attesting to the demon within her that wanted to lunge at me. "Help me," my gray matter oozed—backwards, into the very flesh of her abdomen.
"For God's sake!" she spat. "Can't you—"
And then—right there—right in front of us, like a hundred times before—we saw her. I screeched to a full stop, and we just stared, both of us motionless, mouths hanging open; maybe the saliva had even begun to pool and descend toward our chins.
"Just look at her!" I declared as I clutched the steering wheel with both hands and pulled myself forward. "The entire meaning of life is right there in front of us."
"Ain't it just," she agreed, paying no mind to the droplets of coffee being sucked into her pant leg. She smiled, a broadening of the face that convoluted every fiber of stress and anxiety into a great tapestry, a work of art.
"I love her, you know," I declared. "Sometimes she is my only reason for living. Well, her and sometimes—"
"She's mine, I tell you, mine! I saw her first!"
"Like hell you did! For once, these little gray buggers shooting out of my head like bean sprouts have a divine purpose: I'm older than you; I saw her first! Now, don't act juvenile."
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. I expected the wrath of her humor to subsist our play, but it didn't. She continued to stare at her, and then, damn it, she suddenly turned melancholy on me.
"I wonder sometimes if he left because I couldn't give him my undivided attention," she began. Her mind's reversal into the past was nearly audible. "He wanted kids, you know. I figured I already had one, every time I tossed his fricking jockey shorts into the washer, or poached his fricking eggs every fricking morning of our fricking marriage. Truth be told, I'd just as soon have poached him. Just 'cuz there's a fricking hole, doesn't mean you gotta put something in it!"
Okay, so the melancholia was short-lived, as short-lived as a marriage onto which the gray matter oozed an "until death do we part." There were lots of kinds of death, some much worse than being denied breath.
"Fricking," I repeated, snatching but one from her long trail of them. "Yeah, that word'll assure my spot in some heavenly afterlife. ‘But God, I went through my entire life never once uttering the real F-word!' 'B-word, the F-word is the Pass-word. To hell with you.' And with a mere wave of His hand, I'll be back where I started. My luck."
She laughed. Her head nodded as only true empathy could dictate.
Suddenly, she screamed, "She's leaving! Follow her! Follow her!"
I frantically grabbed the shifter, intent on shoving it into drive, only to discover I had never successfully parked. The car lurched forward, and off we went. Like two old broads with gum on their shoes, we tailed her, we trailed her, trying desperately to see but not be seen.
There was comfort in watching her brake lights, her blinkers, even the sunshine glinting on the chrome. It was as though she knew we followed her and mechanically winked at us, urging us onward. Occasionally, I'd spy a face in the side-view mirror. It was all such a voyeuristic thrill, and yet, it forced me to beckon my self-control to slow us down. The last thing we needed was a cop to cite our indecent exposure of needs.
Finally, she pulled into another parking lot. We stopped not fifteen feet from her and inconspicuously returned to our conversation, in fear of getting caught.
My peripheral vision minded her as she went on about her business while my mind continued on its bloody tour of duty. "I think sometimes I'm a mouse," I began with a bitter taste in my mouth. "A mouse trapped in a burning, exit-less maze. It doesn't matter how fast I go, I'll get burned no matter which way I turn. I think like that, and then I holler at myself for the unseemly self-pity."
"Yeah," she said with a laugh, "I got a ring around my ass from sitting on the pity-pot too long, too."
"So what would make it right for you? More little clandestines with her? A lottery check? Someone else's jockey shorts in the washer? What?"
"Time, I think."
"Four score and seven?"
"When I was younger," she began, emphasizing the ger, "it seemed like I had all the time in the world. Then those little lines started on my face. I think they're a perpetual Etch-a-Sketch® working to make the ultimate frown when you gotta look back on it all and say goodbye. Age makes me feel like I'm being dragged to the inevitable end, all the while kicking and screaming." She paused and then thoughtfully added, "It feels like I forgot something along the way and I can't go back and grab it, not if I'm being dragged in an opposing direction."
"So what are you saying? What would make it right for you?"
"Just that it would stop for five minutes so I could go back and find out what it was that I missed. Let me get it. Then maybe this dragging wouldn't feel so much against my will."
"Recapture your youth, is that what you mean?"
"No, I left my lava lamp and an 8-track tape back in '75. I want them back." She rolled her eyes like a time-lapsed double moonrise.
Again, we watched her get back into her vehicle. Knowing the drill, I followed, but this leg of the journey was filled with nothing but silence. Perhaps we were both contemplating the greater meaning. Perhaps we were digesting our guilt over escaping the 9-5, only to dump our hefty helpings on someone else's plate. Maybe there was just nothing to say, or maybe, too much. Ooze on, gray matter, ooze on.
I pulled back on our pursuit. She neared the part of our route that we knew left us the most vulnerable to getting caught. She was right on schedule: 11:05. She drove effortlessly into the parking lot of the Mini Market, eased next to the building, and immediately thrust the vehicle in reverse. She moved directly toward us and then circled around to a side door. Once she parked, I entered the lot, and we stared at her again.
I lowered my window, retrieved a lighter, and proceeded to light a cigarette.
She stared at the smooth, dancing flame and asked, "And you? What would put the fire out in your exit-less maze?"
"Hmm," I sounded as I began concocting my life-saving scenario. I began arranging images in my mind: memories, encumbrances, obstacles, pitfalls, all the things in my life that I felt were in my way. Then I tried to interpose my fantasies: answers, joys, all those things I figured would make me feel as if I had arrived, somewhere, anywhere. But nothing—a complete and literal blank—filled the canvas of my imagination. It confounded me to draw a blank on such a heavy question.
"You know," I confessed, "I haven't a clue. Isn't that bizarre? Perhaps I spent so much time bitching that I never quite got around to seeing if there were any alternatives or not." With that, I laughed one of those fake laughs, the one that announces failure—May I have your attention please?—without summoning the subsequent humiliation. Sometimes I figured that if I spoke the words for the Fates, they would voluntarily go silent.
"There she goes!" I shouted as the object of our affection began driving away. "Hurry up! Do your thing!"
My best friend, my only true friend, jumped out of the car and hurried into the Mini Market. Within a matter of minutes, she returned just as I lost sight of the vehicle down the busy thoroughfare.
I swung the passenger door open for her, and she fumbled with two large coffees and a small grocery bag. Before the door even slammed shut, I had the car tearing out of the driveway. I aimed the metal monster and its posterior cloud of smoke in the direction of our prey.
After a few short minutes, her vehicle was again within our sights. It pulled smoothly into yet another parking lot—this time, the gravel side-lot of Oscar's Deli. I pulled the car to the curb across the street and killed the engine. Then we began to get ourselves situated for the next half-hour, the pinnacle of our monthly adventure.
I sipped the hot, creamed coffee, demanding its caffeine to rejuvenate me. She tossed the grocery bag to me, and I dumped the trove between the seats. A line of Swiss Rolls®, Nutty Bars®, Banana Twins®, Oatmeal Crème Pies®, and Fudge Rounds® cordoned us off from the real world. I made my first precious selection, skillfully removed the cellophane, and slouched back in my seat. She did the same, and eventually, we were synonyms who continued to stare at her from afar.
"You think she's pretty?" she asked me with a question mark twisting her crème-dotted face.
I studied the scene before me. I thought, I thought hard, as I shoved the sweet snack into my drooling mouth.
"Not really. That hat's pretty sucky. But her smile, her sweetness… How could anyone not lust after her? Why, she could make the straightest of women question their sexuality!"
She, too, thrust the sweetness between her lips, closing her mouth with a triumphant Mmm. With a nod, a blink, and a thumb in the air, she smiled at the Little Debbie® truck, at her, and said, "Beats the crap out of jockey shorts—no pun intended."
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About the Author
Rosalyn Wraight is the author of the Detective Laura McCallister lesbian mystery series: Woman Justice, Secrets and Sins, Corpse Call, and The Watson Evidence.
She is also the author of the ongoing Lesbian Adventure Club series. Thus far, the series consists of thirteen titles: Scavengers, Ledge Walkers, Savages, Loose Sleuths, Sisters, Leakers Ignited, Scraps, L-Word C-word, Spiders, Likely Suspects, Stalemates, Laura’s League, and Sutures. A backstory prequel, The Queen of Terrified & The Newly Brave Landowner, is also available.
On the Web
Author Blog: LesbianWriter.com
Author Bookstore: LesbianAdventureClub.com