Lucky             by: Brandy Dewinter           © 2000, All rights reserved

 

Chapter 6

 

My heart hammered so loudly in my chest that I couldn’t even hear what Lonna was chattering about on the ride to the restaurant. I was more scared than I could ever remember being. Even the car wreck had been over too quickly for my body chemistry to send me fully into panic. Yet as I rode along I realized that the fear was thrilling with an intensity that I had thought was gone from my life.

And I realized that I wanted this excitement, this energy back in my life. Going out in women’s clothes was a thrill of the reckless danger sort, like, oh, bungee jumping or something. At one level you know it’s safe, or at least not as dangerous as it seems. But the needless, foolish, uselessness of it makes even the controlled danger seem so intense. All risk, with no reward to offer sober justification.

The part of me that sensed the fear and wanted to run away and hide warred with the part of me that seemed to have awakened from a coma of despair. That part, the awakening part, reveled in the total impossibility of hiding. From the dark-red talons on the ends of my fingers to the butterfly tickle of soft hair on my cheeks, I was constantly reminded that I was doing something forbidden, something foolish. Something . . . silly? Yes, silly. I was doing something that was as deliberately counter to the mournful gloom of a funeral as I could imagine. Actually, more than I could imagine, at least until Lonna swept me out of my own house.

"You awake over there?" Lonna said, poking me.

I swallowed the first thing I was going to say, then answered more in character, "Fine, thank you. I’m sure you can understand that this is a bit, um, frightening."

"Oh, you’ll do fine," she said, with the breezy confidence of someone with nothing to hide. I’d have killed her, but I didn’t want to mess up my nails.

She wheeled into the parking lot of a nice-looking restaurant that I didn’t remember ever visiting before, and slipped into a parking place vacated right in front of us.

"That was luc . . ," she said, or at least started to say.

"Don’t worry about it, Lonna," I said with a smile I deliberately placed on my face. Trish’s smile number 14, used to be polite without showing real humor. "I don’t feel particularly lucky, but you can feel like you are, if you want."

"Thank you," she said formally, then giggled, tried to stifle it, then laughed again. "I’m sorry, but, well, it’s been quite a while since I ‘got lucky’ and the whole idea of that happening tonight just tickled me."

I actually took several more steps toward the door when the implication of her statement filtered through my mental fog. "Wait a minute! What sort of place is this?"

"It’s a restaurant, just like we said," she assured me. "And while the restaurant itself is softly lighted, the bar is nice and dark, just like you made me promise."

"I didn’t say I wanted to go to a dark bar!" I claimed. "I said I wanted to go someplace to eat where I wouldn’t feel on display."

"No, actually you didn’t," she reminded me.

I tried a different line of defense. "Look, this isn’t going to help. Trish and I never went into bars and things. I can’t drink and she didn’t like to. So, you see, there’s no need to do this."

"Sure there is," she said brightly. "It’ll get you out of your ‘copy Trish’ box and let you develop your own reactions. Besides, we need to eat. We’ll only wait in the bar until our table is called."

"Right, like that’s gonna be quick on a Friday night with no reservations."

"Depends on how you define quick," she said with a laugh. Then continued, "Now remember, it’s a point of honor for a pretty girl that she never buys more than one drink for herself in a bar like this. And I’m betting that we can even get the first one for free." Any further comment I might have made was forestalled when she opened the door to the place.

Inside she moved through the crowd to the hostess and got our name on the list. I hung back at the door, trying not to burn up with embarrass-ment as I tugged at the inadequate hem of my dress. Ha! My dress, what a concept. Lonna gave me one look at the doorway, then moved without hesitation into the much darker bar area.

When I followed, I found I had to pause in the doorway while my eyes adjusted. That was enough to cause about half the heads in the room to turn my way. Oh, joy! My dazzled eyes caught motion before actual shapes, but since I was fairly close behind Lonna I figured she was the source of the motion and moved to follow. By the time I caught up, I could see about as well as I expected I was ever going to and targeted in on the bright hair that floated above a dark dress which was itself levitating above long, sleek legs. God, she had good-looking legs.

In a sudden moment of stark irrationality, I wished I had worn higher heels so my own legs looked better. When I realized what had been going through my mind I almost fell off the low heels I was wearing. This was starting to be more than a game. Starting? That’s a laugh. We’d left game behind about three hours ago.

I got to the bar behind Lonna just in time to see a guy slide off his stool and offer it to her. When she hesitated, he put his meathooks around her waist and lifted her to the stool.

Lonna leaned close enough to him to be heard without raising her voice and said, "If you touch me again without permission, I’ll remove your reason for being interested in women." She said it with a smile, but the teeth she showed were not friendly.

It didn’t faze the guy in the least. He just held the smile he was showing and said, "So, what does it take to get permission?"

I could never have been so forward! And Lonna just laughed, with genuine humor this time. I didn’t see what she found interesting in that guy. He looked 40’s pretending to be "with it" 30’s with too many buttons undone on his shirt and his receding hair pulled back into a pathetic little ponytail. Lonna looked like pure gold, a goddess in a tight, short dress and I’m sure she could have had any guy in the bar for a smile, yet she gave it to him. She finally looked back at me, somehow she must have known I’d be following, and then looked at the guy on the next stool.

He took the hint or whatever it was and stood up so that I could have his seat. I almost turned him down. In the first place, I didn’t want to "owe" anyone anything. In the second, well, he was a geek. I mean, it looked like he’d given himself his own last haircut, and he wore glasses that had a massive correction and made his eyes look owlish. I wanted to peek inside his jacket and see if he had a pocket protector in there.

But then I saw the expression on his face, and despite having no resemblance in features at all, I knew I had seen that expression in the mirror. It was a sad wistfulness that spoke of too many times when even simple politeness was rejected. Trish would never have done that. I know, because she hadn’t done it when we met, and I was at least as, um, well, geeky as this guy.

So I put smile number 14 back on my face and tried to get up on the stool without showing the world what little the dress still hid. Somehow, Lonna had ended up on her stool with her legs gracefully crossed and though she showed a lot of thigh I don’t think anything more had ever been revealed. How did she do that?

And there I was staring at her legs. Again. I pulled my attention back to the guy who had offered me a seat and smiled with a bit more attention. "Thank you, um . . . ?"

"Brandon," he said, his wistfulness giving way to a smile that threatened to split his face.

"I’m, um, Tammy," I said, offering him a hand to shake out of reflex. At the last second I remembered to let my wrist go limp and not really grab his hand. I guess he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, because he just held it for an instant and released it politely.

"Can I get you something to drink?" he asked, and over his shoulder I saw Lonna give me a big wink.

"Ah, well, I don’t really drink. We’re just waiting for a table," I answered. The way his face showed his emotions meant he better never, ever play poker. You’d have thought I just told him his pet puppy was killed. So with as little pause as I could, I continued, "But, well, maybe just one. Perhaps some, um, white wine?"

Brandon waved at the bartender and made the order, then said, "So, is that Tammi with an ‘i’?"

Lonna was listening to our conversation more than to her would-be Lothario, and she nodded quickly to make sure I knew what my next move was in our little ‘game’. It wasn’t really necessary. After I decided to let him buy me a drink, I knew I’d have to go along with the gambits of bar pickups. I just hoped our table would be called quickly.

But to Brandon, I showed a little blush and said, "Well, yes, actually. I started that way back in high school and never got around to growing up, I guess. T - A - M - I, with one ‘m’ and one ‘i’.

"If it was a choice, I’m betting your birth certificate says something else," he observed. Boy did he have that right. I couldn’t help giggling at that unknown understatement, but I headed off a question on what was so funny by answering the implied one.

"It’s Tamara, formally," I said.

He nodded and sipped at his drink. Lonna’s eyes behind him almost bulged with a silent message to say something else. Thanks a lot. Like what? I was one of the other side. I was the one who knew how to be tongue-tied in the presence of a pretty girl, while she sat there with an amused smile and watched me flounder. So, of course I did what ‘the other side’ traditionally did. I put my foot in my mouth.

"So, Java, or C++?"

"Well, lately I’ve actually been working with Javabeans," he began, then blushed and stopped. "Is it that obvious?"

"Oh, not really, it’s just that," and now I paused. What did I tell him? I didn’t want to make him feel bad, yet I’d just about told him he looked like a geek. "Um, well, I’m a writer and I try to observe people."

"Oh, a writer," he repeated. Well, God knows I was hardly a brilliant conversationalist. Then he did better, actually a lot better than I would have done. "Well, based on my observations of you, I don’t think you are one of those saccharine-sweet romance writers. Maybe, um," he paused dramatically and a surprisingly-pleasant smile lit his eyes, with a glow of lurking amusement, "pirates and the governor’s daughter? And she wins his heart rather than the other way around?"

Actually it was secret agent novels, but I didn’t dare tell him the name of the series or he’d figure out who I really was. That fear flushed my face again, so I dropped my eyes and said, "Close enough."

To cover my concern I took a swallow of my wine; too big of a swallow and almost choked. That made me keep my head down for another moment, letting my hair veil my face from his view.

He took it wrong, or right in the wrong way, and started to apologize, "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply a lady writer could only write romance novels. It’s just that you’re so pretty, I thought, well, you must be into really feminine things."

I was about to just tell him to forget it, but his phrasing tickled my sense of humor. For sure, as I sat there in my dress and stockings and heels, with long hair and makeup and all the rest, I was certainly "into feminine things." I laughed and just shrugged his concern away, not sure if I could talk for a moment.

Lonna had overheard the conversation. She was eavesdropping shamelessly, actually, and she didn’t pick up on it until after I started to chuckle. Then it hit her and I thought she’d fall off her chair. Her own temporary companion thought at first it was because of some witticism he had been attempting, but in a moment it was clear she was not really paying attention to him and he started to furtively glance around to see if anyone else was noticing his embarrassment.

Thankfully, they called our table and we were rescued from any further midadventures in the dark. We smiled at our didn’t-quite-make-it pickups and left to get something to eat.

Just about the time we got to our table, I heard a glass crash to the floor and an, "Oh my God! Trish?"

Bud and Katy where there. Of course. What else could go wrong on this first trip out in public? Bud stood up and started to come over, but Katy caught his arm. The look of surprise on her face was almost as intense, but a shrewdly calculating appraisal appeared almost as quickly and she said, "Um, no, I think that’s Tammy."

That didn’t help Bud a bit. He looked me over with his jaw still hanging down, though you could see something that was maybe a bit too close to fear-at-the-sight-of-a-ghost turn to wonder of a different sort.

Lonna laughed, and moved over to their table, "Actually, that’s Tami, with one ‘m’ and an ‘i’, according to the story she was telling her almost-date a minute ago.

"Date?" Katy repeated.

"He was not!" I said tightly.

"He?" Now Bud was the parrot.

I started to say something, to explain, but I wasn’t quite sure how to explain and Lonna took advantage of my pause. "Yep, a software guy bought her a drink and was telling her how beautiful she was."

"He, um, that is, we were just, ah, . . ." My very dear friends who were only too happy to interrupt a minute ago just sat there sweetly and let me dig myself in deeper and deeper.

After a very long time, at least a minute, Bud took pity on me and said, "Would you, um, ladies like to join us? We’ve just started."

"Thank you. I thought you’d never ask," Lonna agreed for us. Before we sat Bud waved in the hovering bus boy who had been waiting to clean up the glass that had been dropped. That reminded Bud of his original shock.

"I really thought you were Trish," he said to me. "I couldn’t believe how much you looked like her, still can’t for that matter. I saw you and just dropped my glass right on the floor."

"The first time I saw the results of Lonna’s magic, I passed out," I said quietly, remembering.

Katy nodded, though for some reason she seemed to be looking at Lonna as much as she looked at me. Finally, Katy said, "’Lonna’s magic’ is right. You’re both very beautiful."

"I’ll say!" Bud agreed, a little too enthusiastically.

"Put your eyeballs back in the sockets, dear, you’re spoken for," Katy said dryly, but she wasn’t really mad. Turning to me she said, "So, what convinced you to come out. To dinner, I mean."

"More of Lonna’s magic, I think," I replied. "All of the sudden it just seemed like the thing to do."

"Better than doing nothing," Katy said, nodding in satisfaction.

I nodded in agreement, "Yes, it is."

The mood got a little quiet for a minute, until Katy said, "So, tell us about your near-date experience."

"Near death is more like," I said. I tried to play down the few moments in the bar, but Lonna filled in with not-quite-false details that made it sound a lot more intimate than it was. So I counterattacked with comments about her own temporary escort, but that ploy failed when she was even more bitingly critical of him than I was. Through all of this Bud just sat there, all of the sudden the lone guy in a gaggle of girls who were sharing things that guys just didn’t get.

But I did. For some reason, I was involved and having a terrific time, laughing so hard I thought I’d pop my stays. Part of that was pure Trish. She had always been so full of energy and just plain joy. But part of that was not role-playing at all. I just had a good time talking with the girls and even laughing at Bud in his poor isolation. Somewhere in there a meal came. I didn’t remember ordering, and frankly don’t really remember what I ate, except that it seemed to fit though I know it wasn’t the big steak I’d have ordered for myself.

All that ended when Lonna stood up and said, "I need to visit the powder room."

Katy stood up, too, as though that were somehow expected, then they both looked at me like I was holding them up. Yeah right, like I was going to go where they were headed.

I guess I was. Lonna looked at me and said, "Your lipstick is smudged, dear, you should come, too."

When I looked to Bud for help, he just smiled a get-even grin and lifted a bushy eyebrow to see what I would do.

"Better make up your mind, Tami, people are starting to stare," he finally said.

I’d have sat there, but in a motion that looked practiced, Lonna had a hand under one elbow and Katy had the other. I think I could have kept my legs up in a sitting position and they would have just carried me with them. But I didn’t, of course. I stood as they lifted and went back into autopilot mode, smoothing my dress and turning to go.

"Don’t forget your purse," Katy hissed in my ear. Oh, yeah. Gotta remember that.

After all that, it was anti-climactic in the powder room. No one was there but the three of us, and only Katy really needed anything but the mirror. Lonna made me do my lipstick over, in case someone came walking in, and then powder my nose and forehead again. By the time she was done fussing with me, Katy was ready to go, too.

While we walked back to the table, Katy leaned over and whispered to me, "I think you are doing just fabulously well. I’m envious. Bud hasn’t paid that much attention to me in years."

"Oh, Katy, you know it’s nothing like that," I said.

"I know it’s not any sexual interest," she agreed, "but he has been staring at you all evening, and not because you look foolish. He can’t believe how pretty you are. Neither can I."

"That’s all Lonna’s doing," I claimed.

"No it’s not, and you know it. The question is, what are you going to do now?"

"I wish I knew," I said softly as we got back to the table.

There was another glass of white wine waiting for me. I had a vague memory of finishing the first one, or was it two, and sipped at this one without conscious thought. Bud was the only one who wanted dessert, and the comments about how "we ladies" needed to watch our figures started us all to giggling again. I couldn’t believe how much fun it was, being out and away from the house for a while. Everything seemed so funny. I laughed till my sides hurt, then laughed some more.

"C’mon girl, it’s time to take you home," Lonna said. See? That was about the funniest thing I’d ever heard, and I started laughing too hard to stand.

"Oh, stop," I gasped. "You’ll make me pee in my panties."

Oh, I was killing myself. That was just too funny for words, so I didn’t try to say anything, just laughed some more.

Then all of the sudden nothing was funny at all and I was practically running to the bathroom. Or at least, nothing was humorous. Part of me was noticing that food never tasted as good the second time it passed your throat as the first time, and I suppose that was funny in the funny-strange way. Though you couldn’t have proved it by me right at that moment.

I was, um, busy for a while. When I had time to do something besides worship at the throne, I became aware that someone was holding a cool towel to my forehead, and sponging at my hair where . . well, where it needed to be cleaned up a little. I unsqueezed my eyes enough to see Lonna bending over me in the stall.

"Thanks," I said, a lot more quietly than I had been for a while.

"Can you stand up?" she asked. It was a valid question, one with a very unclear answer. After a few minutes I nodded and gave it a try.

She helped me over to the sink where I cupped a handful of water to wash the foul taste out of my mouth. I expect that destroyed whatever was left of the job Lonna had done on my face, but she didn’t say anything. I don’t suppose it mattered much. The face in the mirror was still feminine in some way I didn’t feel like analyzing, but it was hardly pretty.

"C’mon, Tami, let’s get you home," Lonna said. An excellent idea if there ever was one.

She handed me my purse and grabbed up her own just as Katy came into the powder room. It was only then that I realized which room I had used, even in my distracted condition. That was another thing I didn’t want to spend any effort thinking about right then. Between the two of them, they got me moving more or less under my own power through the door, to find Bud hovering anxiously outside.

"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously.

"Do I look all right?" I snapped. Geez, what a question. His, I mean, not mine.

He smiled, though. Stupid idiot. Like there was any reason to smile. At least he didn’t ask any more stupid questions, just moving ahead to open the stupid door.

At least the outside air was cooler, and a lot fresher. I just stood there for a minute, as soon as I got outside, recognizing that I was swaying a bit and not really giving a damn about that, either.

Bud said, "I’ll go get the car and take you home." Right, whatever.

But Lonna disagreed, "No, let me take her home. I can help her get undressed." Right. Whatever.

"But I’ve helped, um, her before," Bud claimed.

"And I’m going to help her now," Lonna insisted. Something must have gone on behind me - I wasn’t about to turn around and see, rotating my head would have definitely been a bad idea - but the stupid argument got resolved somehow and Lonna was headed for her car. It only took an hour or so for her to get back.

Which was not enough, as it turned out. I got into the car all right, well, okay, so I had a lot of help, but we hadn’t gotten more than halfway home when things became very much not all right.

"Stop the car," I said through clenched teeth.

"I can’t do that, Tami, we’re on the freeway," Lonna said.

"Stop the CAR!" I ordered frantically.

This time she got the message. That, and surprisingly strong stomach muscles saved her upholstery as she got stopped just in time for me to get the door open a bit.

"Are you gonna be all right?"

"Not in this lifetime," I growled. But I suppose any answer was enough to convince her I wasn’t dead, regardless of how I felt.

I tried real hard NOT to concentrate on the swaying of the car on the ride home. Along the way I lost the energy even to be angry, and just sort of drifted as close to sleep as I could get.

The next thing I remember clearly is the feel of cream on my face as she cleaned off whatever was left of my makeup. I realized I was in bed, and somewhere along the way I had ended up in a nightgown instead of that merry widow thing.

"You’re so nice," I said.

"Thank you, dear," Lonna said with a grin. I could hear the grin in her voice even though my eyes were closed.

"You’ve been so nice to me, over and over," I murmurred. "Buying all these things for me, and spending so much time."

"That’s okay," she said. "I don’t mind."

"You’re nice, and gen’rous, and . . . special."

"Thank you. Now you better go to sleep."

"Trish was special," I whispered.

"Yes, she was."

"You’re not Trish, but you’re special too, you know?"

"Yes, now go to sleep."

"Special, and nice, and gen’rous, and . . . "

Lonna’s voice was so soft I wasn’t sure whether I heard her or imagined it, but what I thought she said was, "You don’t know how much I’d like for you to say that when you’re sober, and awake."

But maybe I just dreamed that.

 

(continued in part 7)

 

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Lucky © 2000 by Brandy Dewinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.