Wyoming all of a sudden looked even better.
“Shirleen,” I cut to the chase because I was beginning to feel sick. “I’m calling to set up an account. Luke and Vance are doing some work for me and I need you to invoice –”
“Oh girl, I don’t think so. Luke already told me you’d try something like this. He says you two got something worked out and we don’t want to step on that do we?”
“Yes, we do,” I told her. At least I wanted to step on it. I wanted to stomp all over it.
She laughed in my ear, loud and happy. “This is gonna be fun. First one of these I been in on, on the ground floor.” I could almost hear her rubbing her hands together.
“That means you’re mine,” she declared I thought bizarrely. “See, Ally got Indy ‘cause no one knew them then. Daisy got Jet. Everyone took care of Roxie ‘cause that was some serious shit that went down. May got Jules because they knew each other beforehand but we all kicked in, seein’ as she was a virgin and all. Though, I wasn’t in on the cherry poppin’ discussion, I’ve seen the tape.”
The tape?
“Anyhoots,” she went on. “See you at The Hornet tonight. I can’t wait.”
Then she hung up.
I put down the phone kind of in a daze and picked it up immediately and called Sissy.
*
I got about an hour of work done before I started my preparation for the next nightmare of the day.
I decided to go heavy on the makeup and the silver. I spent ages on my hair, pulling it back away from my face smooth in parts, other parts in twists and even other parts in braids and clipped it at the back of my head with a huge silver barrette leaving the back long. I also decided to wear my kickass, rock ‘n’ roll, deep-green, fitted, long-sleeved tee that had such a wide neckline, it fell off my shoulder. This meant, since I didn’t have a strapless bra (and no way I’d go braless sporting c-cup boobs), I had to wear my baby pink, satin bustier-slash-teddy-like contraption with snaps at the crotch. It fit like a glove, had beige triangles of lace at the hipbones and cups at the brassiere area and some soft boning that moved with my body. I’d bought it to wear with a strapless dress I wore to the New Year’s Eve party Dom, Sissy, Noah and I went to the year before last and it was the only time I wore it. Noah loved it, thought it was hot. For my evening at The Hornet (and the rest of forever), it had only a utilitarian purpose. I kept on my faded jeans, ran a long, silver scarf through my belt loops, buckled on a pair of matte-silver strappy sandals and called a taxi.
By the time I got there, I was ten minutes late.
I walked into The Hornet and it was packed. It was a warm Friday in late March, so Denverites were ready to roll to summer. The bar area was shoulder to shoulder, the seating area was entirely filled and neither area had a seat with Indy’s and Ally’s asses sitting on them.
I went to the back room where the pool tables were and immediately to my left I saw them. Indy, Ally and eight other people, including Tod and Stevie, Indy’s neighbors who I’d met several times before (gay, partners, totally fucking cool), Shirleen and the other black lady from the offices yesterday, not to mention the black-haired, violet-eyed Glamour Girl.
Holy cramoly.
“Ava!” Indy called and everyone’s gaze swung to me.
“Hey,” I said weakly, deciding that, yes, this was the next nightmare of my day.
I was introduced to the rest, a honey-blonde with green eyes and a fantastic smile (Jet); a dark blonde with blue eyes and a great outfit (Roxie); a platinum blonde that looked so much like Dolly Parton I thought she was Dolly for a minute (including the cleavage and a denim jacket with so many silver studs and rhinestones she lit up the dim room, her name was Daisy); the other black lady, older than the girls, with a Jacqueline Kennedy hairdo (May); and Glamour Girl (Jules).
Indy, by the way, was a tall, built, fantastic redhead and Ally was tall, lean and gorgeous with shiny, dark brown hair.
“Sit down, sit down. Let’s get to it. Someone get this girl a drink.” Shirleen had a seat saved for me, right next to her, right smack in the center of the long table. She was patting it and grinning at me huge.
“I’ll get you a drink,” Stevie mumbled getting up. “What’ll you have?”
“Cranberry juice and vodka. Let me give you some money,” I told him.
“Girlie, sit! Gay men don’t get to buy women drinks very often. Live it up,” Tod shouted.
Stevie moved off, I sat and Shirleen yelled after Stevie. “Hurry with that drink, you don’t want to miss anything.” Then her eyes moved back to me. “All right, girl, tell us all about it.”
“Maybe we should tell our stories first,” Jet suggested.
“I’m thinking that’s a good idea,” Indy put in.
I was happy to be off the hot seat even if it was for five minutes so I nodded.