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The Dumb About Men Club

By: MJRoberts



Chapter 1

November 22nd, 10:30 p.m., Savannah, GA

I sat hunched over, too wired and panicked to sleep but too upset to stay fully awake. I was drifting, day dreaming, wading in it; biting hard into a naked shoulder, running my hands and nails over a glistening back, somehow both new and familiar. I didn't know whose.

I heard a woman's voice, a million miles away, and ignored it. My eyes fluttered.

My Aunt Linda shook me. 

"Dahlya, I'm going to search for something that resembles coffee, dear." 

Arrrrgh. 

"I don't know if the cafeteria is still open, but if it's not, I'm sure that they have one of those nasty vending machines somewhere in this hospital." Aunt Linda muttered as she walked away.

When my Aunt Linda left the waiting room she took the good air with her.

Here's the thing about me, I don't have many vices but the two that I do have are doozies. Many people keep emergency Oreos and Ho-ho's in their desk drawers and can eat an entire candy aisle when they're upset. For some there's solace at the bottom of a glass. Bars would close if people didn't need a few after a hard day. Could I just have one of these simple steam-release valves? Oh, no not me. 

I have to buy shoes; lots and lots of shoes. Fun, unusual, designer high-healed pumps with little straps. My closet looks like I could give Imelda Marcos a run for her money. Which, okay, should be fine because there's no such thing as too many pairs of black sandals, right? Until I had my little breakdown and left California, I could even afford this habit. 

But you can't go shoe shopping in a hospital, which brings me to my second worse-than-donuts vice: sex. Okay, maybe not sex per se, but romance, or fantasy, or mind-blinding need, which was what I was going for right now because my stress level had passed epic proportions an hour ago. If I didn't have my addictive ability to numb my brain with PG-13, okay sometimes R-rated, okay sometimes a little more than that, visions I probably would have passed out by now.

It's a good thing all the waiting room nurses were women because I was beginning to have a fit. I had been dreaming about a sweaty backside for God's sake. And being half out of it had been keeping me from screaming and going mad. 

There weren't many people coming in and out of the waiting room but it was a true sign of how distressed I was when a homeless woman came in and I was about to hand her all the cash in my wallet for a pair of butt-ugly worn out Crocs.

I was fully awake now and it wasn't pretty. My breathing felt like a stabbing pain, laboring in and out with a shallow rasp.

Please don't die, please don't die, please don't die. I shook my head. Even though in my heart I knew it was useless, that it was like praying, sun, please don't rise tomorrow, I still repeated the prayer over and over again. 

For the past five months part of me had been working hard every day to repress to repress the vision I had in June. Now it came flooding back to me in full force.



The sword fell off the wall swinging down, end over end. The blade got sharper and more deadly with each turn. Light caught gleaming edges creating quick bouncing beams as it barreled towards us. Rick and I were lying in bed, which might have been even stranger than the sword. Rick was asleep; I was awake. The whoosh of the heavy sword cutting through the air startled me. I screamed and instinctively tucked into a ball. It was enough for the downward slice to miss me by an inch. The weapon landed like an ax on Rick's neck, beheading him. Blood spurted all over, soaking my white nightgown, the white pillows, the top of my hair, my hands. Another gush erupted, splattering all over my face. The entire room filled with red.



Now, the hospital waiting room was a fist squeezing in on me. The phone message said he had cut off his toe. They wouldn't let us see him. I couldn't let myself think. I couldn't let my body feel. Part of me had turned to a small heavy stone. In my heart, I knew he was already dead.

Chapter 2

"Come on Dahl, Breathe." I whispered to myself. My throat was tightening in on itself dangerously. "Breathe," I whispered even more softly. "You can do it."

"One breath at a time." I heard the deepest, most resonant southern drawl tell me and all of sudden oxygen was rushing into me. I looked up at the longest, most perfect pair of thighs I've ever seen, beautifully sheathed in worn, washed, blue-until-it's-white denim.

I rubbed my face, using the palms of my hands against my eyelids, cheeks, forehead hoping that when I opened my eyes I'd be clear of any possible delusion. The thighs were still there. 

"Now I'm hearing voices and seeing things," I muttered softly. I let my eyes trail upwards. A skinny waist. Broad chest covered by white T-shirt under a big, loose red flannel over shirt. I looked up at the face and did a double take. I blinked. 

It was like my brain was one of those FBI facial recognition programs. I took the mental picture in my mind and aged it twenty years.

"You're not..."

"Uh-huh," he said and nodded. 

They say before death your whole life flashes before your eyes. Well, choice moments sped before me, like clips from a movie on fast forward. 

I've made the biggest mistake of my life, I thought. 

My heart sprang up in joy and was shot down mid leap to flip and flounder like a fish suddenly smacked on the shore. 

Soul mate. 

I didn't believe in soul mates. But the word rammed into me like a freight train and stole my breath away. Jaws closed around me like a steel trap. 

I closed my eyes for a second. I could see it now. I was soooo screwed.

I am going to forget about everything for a moment, I told myself.

"Your aunt called me to help. Want to tell me what happened?"

No.

I was having trouble holding it together. This better-than-any-shoe-sale man was a complication I definitely shouldn't have right now, yet desperately needed. 

He had changed all right. I mean that body for one; and his face had aged. His hair, much shorter now, almost but not quite standing up short, but still black as midnight, or a raven's wing, or sin, except for this one huge silver streak from the front of his widow's peak to his right ear. 

I just had to make sure I had the right guy. I mean, my neighbor, from the time I was a kid until he left for college and then who knows where, was skinny. This guy was well, in good shape for sure, and trim in the right places, but definitely not the lanky scrawny kid I remembered.

"Jason?"

"Ye-ah-esss," he said, drawing it out to three syllables and then smiling. "But no one's called me that in decades. Everyone calls me Jake."

"From your last name, Jacobson," I said. "Of course. I didn't know that you were back in Savannah."

"Just got back last night."

"I'm not sure why my aunt called you," I said gesturing around the hospital waiting room. "They're messing with us. It may even be too late to really..." My eyes started to fill and I looked up so the tears wouldn't spill over. "I'm not sure there's anything you can do."

"Hey," he said and did a deep knee bend. He leaned in toward me until our noses were only about four inches apart. "I'm a champion problem fixer. That's been my job description for the last twenty years. Your Aunt Linda is one of the smartest people I know. She wouldn't have called me if I couldn't help. Why don't you tell me what happened from the beginning and let's see what I can do."

"Rihh, kah, keh..." I couldn't get my voice to work. I took a deep breath. "Rick's phone message said that..." I almost broke down and had to start again. "It said that one of his guys ran over Rick's toe with a lawnmower. Now we can't see him. Something's not right."

Jake nodded.

"Rick..." I said, and my throat tightened even more. The waiting room traveled around me, spinning . "Rick Strickland," I said. My voice came out all scratchy. 

"It's just..." my throat closed even more. I put my head between my knees. 

I needed shoes. Lots and lots of shoes. Who was I kidding? I needed monkey gorilla sex and I needed it now. I needed so much hot Bonobo monkey sex I never had to think again. Rick is not dead, I told myself and began to choke. I was going to pass out. 

"Why don't I try to find your Aunt Linda?" Jake said. "Is she here?"

I nodded and pointed to a sign that said cafeteria.

"Alright, I'll be back. Don't worry."

Please, oh please God, don't let my June premonition come true. Please God, not today. Please, let me be wrong, just this once, let me be wrong. I thought about Rick and panicked. I ground my nails into my palms. I couldn't take it. I was making myself sick with worry. I tried to will myself to be calm. We still didn't know what was going on. Jake was right, he had always been a champion fixer. Because I couldn't stand agonizing anymore, I focused on Jake instead.

One day when I was in first grade I got so frustrated trying to read I threw my book out the back door and into the backyard. I had given it a real heave and it ended up in the azalea bushes between my yard and Jake's. He dropped his basketball, picked up the book and brought it to me. 

I sat on the back step, put my elbows on my knees, my chin in my hands, and pouted.

"Stupid book. The words are all jumbled."

"Jumbled?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, you know, look." I grabbed the book. "The main boy's name is Brain. Who names their kid Brain? And he's always 'to trying' something."

"Let me see that book," Jake said. 

I handed it over.

"I can fix this," he said and ran off to his house.

"Bring scissors to cut this rotten thing up," I called after him, "And glue to paste it back in better order." 

Jake came back with a ruler, scissors, and piece of construction paper. He carefully made a bookmark and then cut a little slit in it that was about one word wide.

"Now read through the hole," he told me.

I moved it along the page seeing only one word at time through the reader. " 'Brian is trying to learn Spanish.' Hey, his name is Brian!' "

"Yep."

"You fixed the book!"

"Yep."

I thought about it. "If I use this thing," I shook the bookmark reading helper, "People are going to think I'm stupid."

Jake thought about it. "What if you told them I gave it to you? Then you could say you use it because your neighbor has a crush on you and you just use it to be nice."

"You'd let me do that? Tell people you had a crush on me?"

"Sure."

I shook myself out of my reverie. Jake was right, he was a fixer. I used that bookmark all year. Because of Jake I got tutors to help me until I could read as well as everybody else. If he hadn't figured out what to do or given me an excuse that let my pride do it I probably would have dropped out before I finished high school and never had a career in news. I kept making the hole in the bookmark a little larger. By the end of the next year I didn't need any more help.

I started to cry. 

Crying was good, at least I was breathing. I wasn't spending two thousand dollars on Jimmy Choos and Steve Maddens. Better to be crying then to have to spend the rest of my life 24/7 in Gorilla Monkey Sex Addicts Anonymous.

I looked around the emergency room. Aunt Linda's friend Mark was resting with his eyes closed in the corner. A TV with a crack in the screen was showing the news with no volume on. I was so worried about Rick that my teeth started to chatter. I held my jaw for a moment. 

I went back to thinking about these past months with Rick.

He'll be okay, I told myself. 

Only I didn't believe it. 

Chapter 3

June 30th, 11:15 a.m.

It was an unseasonably hot day in June. It was almost a week after my mini-breakdown caused me to quit my job in Los Angeles and run home to stay with Aunt Linda in Savannah. The humidity had turned the whole city into a muggy steamy soup of thick stale air.

When I heard the knock and Rick's voice saying 'hey, open up.' I didn't want to answer the door. 

I wanted to avoid letting Rick in the house, but since my car was in the driveway there was no way I could pretend I wasn't home.

I opened the door.

"Oh my God, I'm blind," I said throwing my arm over my eyes to protect myself from the glare of Rick's shiny button-down shirt. It was two shades of neon green, one shade of forest green, with thin silver reflective wavy ribbon-like designs all over it. "Why didn't you tell me you were dressed like that? I never would have let you in."

"You like it? It's our new uniform shirts; I got them for all my guys."

"They're atrocious."

"I know! Isn't that just fabulous? They're so bad, they're good. Who could forget a lawn guy in a shirt like this?" Rick asked. "And check this out." Rick reached into his front pocket and pulled out a pair of huge, very hip sunglasses with a tiny bit of green and silver on the tinted glass. He turned left so I could see the big writing on the wide plastic temple. On the left side I read the words, 'Strickland Lawn Service'. Rick slowly turned right so I could see the writing on the other side of the sunglasses 'Shades, to protect you from the shirts.' 

I covered my face. Then, despite trying not to, I began to chuckle. 

"It's too much, right? Do you love it?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "Classy."

"I got the glasses and shirts at cost from Garrett and Morrison in exchange for my," he put his fingers up to make quotation marks, "celebrity", he paused, "appearance in their commercial. Sweet, no?"

"And your guys have been wearing these?"

"Mmmn, hmm. And look," Rick pulled a tiny bottle out of his pocket. "Sunscreen."

I took the bottle from him. It had a clip so you could put it on your key chain. The label read, 'So you can spend happy time in your lawn. (And to protect you from the glare from the shirts.)'

"Clever," I said. "I like it."

"They don't get grass stains on them like the old polo shirts."

"And if they did, who would know?" I said.

"They unbutton easily if I want to look sexy in front of a hot customer," Rick said opening another two buttons past the two that were already open. "And I can use the sunglasses against the reflection of the silver in the shirt to check my hair," Rick said holding the glasses at chest level and catching glimmers of sunlight, reflecting them off the shirt, and staring at his own reflection and preening. "Yup, I'm good, the hair's perfect."

"Well, at least that hasn't changed," I said. "Can I get you something to drink?"

He put the sunglasses down and looked at me with a seriousness that penetrated down to my soul. "Yeah, you."

Chapter 4

November 22nd, 10:37 p.m.

The whoosh sound of the automatic doors made me look up. A goddess strutted in through the doors and stopped like a queen deciding whether or not the country was worth taking over.

I blinked rapidly when I saw Shalimar. I'm imagining it. Maybe I'm hallucinating. I wasn't. 

In my mind, I jumped up to greet her. In actuality, I rose a quarter of an inch and settled back down. 

I could see that she had transformed herself from beyond normal beautiful to drop-dead, jaw-dropping stunning. She sparkled from head to toe. 

She strode in and there was more light to see by.

You've got to hand it to her; the girl knows how to make an entrance.

Shalimar was wearing a golden-beige trench coat cinched tightly at the waist with a wide bronze belt, gold-colored slacks, and matching gold high-heeled sandals. Her straightened hair hung around her face and shoulders, framing her high cheekbones perfectly. Shalimar was even more gorgeous and glamorous than the last time I had seen her which was at my wedding two months ago and she had looked great then.

I shook my head. How the hell had she known? Then I realized that, of course, she hadn't known. She lived in Atlanta. She would have had to leave four hours ago to drive here. I shook my head again. 

"Perfume," I said. 

"God, you haven't called me Perfume since we were in high school. Come here, Girl Friend. This emergency room is practically empty, but they are still going to keep you waiting 'till forever if it isn't a real emergency. Whadya' do? Bump your knee or something? Stomach flu?"

She dropped a small leather overnight bag on the floor, reached down, grabbed me by the shoulders, and hauled me up into a great big bear hug.

"I'm glad to see you too, Perfume. I'm always glad to see you, but what brought you here from Atlanta?"

"Not Atlanta." Shalimar shook her head. She leaned back and opened her coat showing a form-fitting gold blouse with real crystals sewn into it, and a diamond necklace that was worth more than most people earned in a decade. "I was in New York..."

"Oh, no." 

Shalimar's husband had been working on a set design that was supposed to debut on Broadway. Was it this the week?

"Yes."

"Urgh," I made a soft noise in the back of my throat and winced slightly.

"And Sam and I were talking to Mick Jagger..."

"Oh, no!" Sam was a full-time set designer but one of his real loves was music. He was also a professional bass player and had worshipped the Stones since he was in high school.

"Yes!" Shalimar took a step back and fanned herself with the panels of her open coat and then pretended to hold a drink in her right hand. "All of a sudden I turned to Sam and said, 'Ut-oh, Dahlya's feeling awful, or will be.'" She mimicked handing her drink to someone next to her. 

" 'Mr. Jagger,' I said to him, 'it's been so nice meeting you. I have this very strange, strong feeling that one of my best friends is going to be in the emergency room of our local hospital, so I have to go. But please, please stay and talk with Sam as I think you both have a lot in common besides a dedication to fabulous rock and roll and amazing lips.' " 

Shalimar glared at me. "So tell me you didn't just bump your knee!"

"Not my knee," I said.

"Elbow?" she asked.

"No."

"Private parts?"

I shook my head.

"Well, if your strain on my brain brought me down here for nothing you're going to owe me one hell of a margarita."

Shalimar took off her coat completely and set it down, revealing a body that should be illegal to keep murders from envy from happening. I blinked convulsively, shocked into a fully alert state by the bright light bouncing off her upper chest. She was wearing the largest collection of diamonds I'd ever seen. They flashed brilliantly.

"Holy crap!" I said. "I was going to say something about how you have no idea how glad I am to see you and I am so sorry if I bummed on Sam's day. I was going to say that but I think you fried my speech ability cells." I had never seen anything like the diamonds she was wearing and I stared straight at her necklace as I continued. 

"The hospital is giving us trouble here. Maybe if I ransom you all our problems might be solved. Dang!" When I stopped ogling the multi-strand necklace for a second I noticed the two matching diamond bracelets and chandelier earrings. 

Shalimar put her hand under the necklace, lifting it slightly. She motioned me closer so I could feel the weight of it. Our fingers touched and a spark of magic flared, causing my mind's fear and anxiety to run all over her like frightened rabbits spooked out of a bush by a hurricane.

In that one second's contact all my feelings, the denial, the hope, and overwhelming worry, skittered up onto her like roaches. The necklace was incredibly heavy. I pulled my hand away as if the diamonds were on fire.

"You wore those just to distract me, right?" I said.

"Sista. What are friends for?" Shalimar said. "I'm here for moral support. You're S.O.L. on the ransoming factor though, they're on loan."

"I should hope so. That necklace could help balance the national debt."

"Wait! I just kidnapped, I mean jewelry-napped, 18 million dollars worth of diamonds! I'm not supposed to take them out of the state! Oh my God, I'm a felon. Hand me your phone, the charge on mine died in the cab."


The Dumb About Men Club



I waited while she made two calls.

"It's okay," Shalimar said and smiled. "They had an APB out on me, but they put a stop on it. Now they just have an APB out on the diamonds."

"Got everything straightened out?"

"Yes." She smiled and waved her hand in a gesture that said it was no big deal.

I raised one eyebrow.

"Okay, okay, it was a small penalty for crossing state lines with what used to be a royal tiara, and a few extra hundred dollars in insurance, and a late fee, but I can keep them until I fly back." 

I looked at her.

"What's an extra two grand to ease a weird Gullah woo-woo vibe that you're supposed to fly to a friend's side?"

"Thanks," I said. 

Shalimar was one-eighth Gullah, a West African culture that lived on in the islands off of Georgia. She was seven-eighths upper crust British.

She sounded like a cross between Margaret Thatcher and Aunt Jamima. 

"You can fly right back to New York and still make the after party." I said. "You came, that's more than enough."

"Broadway has shows all the time. Openings are a dime a dozen anyway," Shalimar said.

"Yeah, right," I mumbled. "You had your make up professionally done for this shindig?"

She nodded.

"You look beyond gorgeous. I'm sure you put every rock star, artist, and model to shame." 

She sat down next to me. 

"Shalimar, I'm sorry you had to leave so suddenly."

"I didn't have to leave, I chose to leave. I've been to opening night parties before." She shrugged and then put her head on my shoulder. "I've been afraid to let my guard down. When I saw you, and you seemed okay, I was so relieved for a second. Now I'm even more afraid. You're okay right?" 

My aunt chose this moment to come back. She turned the corner with a cup of coffee in one hand and two squashed sandwiches from a vending machine in the other. When she saw Shalimar she ran towards us in a fast duck waddle. Her reading glasses bounced up on down on her chest on their colorful neck chain. Her blonde and silver streaked coif flew up around her in a huge poofy shimmering cloud. 

"Miss Linda!" Shalimar jumped up and went to hug her. 

"Wait, wait, let me put this down so I can get a real hug," Aunt Linda said. She put the food down on one of the orange plastic chairs behind her, and held Shalimar in a hug for a long time. "Holy Moses, Child! How can you be so beautiful?"

"Oh Miss Linda, it's the makeup and the jewelry," Shalimar said

"I don't think so, love." Then Aunt Linda put her pointy-tipped purple framed reading glasses and leaned in close to peer at the necklace. "Wait a minute - I take that back." she said. Then she pursed her lips and made a long, low, loud, wolf whistle. "Maybe it is the jewelry." Aunt Linda took off her glasses made a little frame out of her fingers and leaned back so she could look at the necklace from a different view. Linda gave Shalimar a speculative look. "Honey, you should sell this straight away. We'll make a killing in real estate. Property in Savannah is very hot right now. It's a great time to buy."

"Aunt Linda!" I said. 

"Oh, right." Aunt Linda looked over Shalimar's shoulder at me. "I'm sorry, so sorry." She looked back at Shalimar. "It's just a girl as smart as you should be investing. Jewels aren't nearly as good an investment as property."

My Aunt Linda is, among other things, a real estate agent. 

"Think about it, Shalimar," My Aunt Linda said. "Florida is overcrowded. Las Vegas is messy. California is going to fall into the ocean. People are retiring left and right and they are going to have to live somewhere."

"Aunt Linda," I said. "Not now."

"Ah-hem," Aunt Linda said. "We'll talk about it later, at a more appropriate time."

Shalimar laughed. She bent in towards Aunt Linda as if she was going to share a big secret. "I don't own the jewelry; I rented the pieces."

"Oh," Aunt Linda stage whispered back. "Bummer."

I smiled.

All of a sudden Shalimar straightened. "What do you mean a more appropriate time?" Her face paled under its sparkly glow.

I was saved from immediate explanation by another small shock. 

Chapter 5

The sliding glass doors whooshed open. A woman shuffled in wearing a big grey blanket that looked like she got it at homeless shelter. My brain scrambled and buzzed like a static-jammed security camera trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Then, bam, I realized it was McKenzie Wong-Levinson, better known as Kenni.

I closed my eyes and said a quick silent prayer of thanks that she was here. Then I said a prayer to help stop whatever made her look like that. Of course, she had recently moved to Welsh, Pennsylvania. Maybe anyone who left sunny Savannah for Welsh might end up like that.

Kenni had gained about thirty pounds since my wedding which was only two months ago. 

This is why we're friends, I thought. We all know the essential art of vices for avoidance. For me it's fantasizing but for Kenni it's food. The weight made her round face look positively moon-like. 

Kenni had about three inches of roots showing so her natural red color drastically contrasted with the deep crimson on the lower half of her head. Thick ropes of un-brushed hair were matted around her neck and shoulders in blood-like gashes. 

The last third of our three musketeers looked even worse than I did. 

"Kenni?" Aunt Linda, Shalimar, and I all said at once.

She nodded. She looked from me to Shalimar and back and seemed too defeated to even be surprised.

"You look like shit," Shalimar.

"And you look beautiful, as always," Kenni said to her. 

"It's the make-up and the jewelry, Dear," my Aunt Linda said. 

"Miss Linda, Shalimar would look good wearing a potato sack." She shot my Aunt a look that told her that she was plum crazy.

"Well, alright, yes, that's true." 

Kenni snorted, at least now she was showing some life.

"What I mean is," my Aunt Linda said, and she leaned forward towards Kenni, "the reason she looks so good today..." she said while lowing her tone on each word, "it's the jewelry," she whispered loudly enough that the whole emergency room could hear. Even Aunt Linda's friend who was dozing in the corner made a little laugh-snort sound.

"Harrumph," Kenni said and then really looked at Shalimar. "Holy Shannanigans! Dude, you do look good."

"Told you," Aunt Linda said while wiggling her neck side to side. She sounded about five years old. I was just happy she didn't stick out her tongue.

"Kenni," I said. "How come you're here?" 

"Oh, I asked that biddy neighbor of Miss Linda's, the gossip who thinks she knows everything, where you were. She said y'all had come to Candler Hospital so here I am."

"No, no," I said. "I'm glad you're here, but how did you know to come?"

"I hadn't gotten out of bed in three weeks. I mean, other than to go to the bathroom, I couldn't get up. I was down to my last eighty bucks on earth." Kenni cleared her throat in an effort not to cry. "You-know-who told me that I was such a complete failure he couldn't stand the sight of me and no one would ever want to touch me. So I figured that ..."

Kenni looked down, stifled tears, and took a few deep breaths. She let the silence stretch on. 

"And?" I said.

"Well, and... at first I thought of Sam and Shalimar because they have a huge house in Atlanta at that's closer to Welsh but it seemed like I should just head home. 

I thought that if I were so depressed as to walk around wearing an Army blanket I'd head home too.

"Maybe I could just stay with you and Rick?"

I heard a choking sound at Rick's name. I realized it was me. I sucked in my life. I stopped breathing. 

"Hey," Kenni said, "What's wrong?" 

Shalimar hit me on the back and I exhaled. 

"I think Rick might be dead," I said. I put my hands over my mouth. Oh my God, no. I'd said it out loud. 

"What?" Shalimar, Kenni, and Aunt Linda all said at the same time.

It sounded absurd. I grimaced at the ridiculousness of even saying such a thing. I nodded, shook my head, and then nodded again. "I mean, I don't know, we're not allowed to see him." 

Shalimar, Kenni, Aunt Linda, and I came in to a little circle and held each other.

"It's just...I mean I don't... I can't..." My shoulders began to shake, and my stomach heaved. "We have no reason to think anything bad yet, except that we've been stonewalled for two hours."

"I have someone working on it," Aunt Linda said.

Aunt Linda told Kenni and Shalimar about the message that Rick left on my voice mail about running over his toe with a lawn mower. I reminded myself that technically we had no reason to think anything was as wrong as I felt it was. 

The more Aunt Linda talked, the more the four of us nudged our bodies and heads closer together, until our heads touched and we were standing in a tight little huddle.

"Why did you get so depressed?" I whispered. 

"Jeez, we don't need to talk about it, not now," Kenni said, although her voice said it was all she wanted to talk about. Kenni looked up and motioned her head around the hospital. "Tell us more about Rick."

"There's not much more to tell."

"Why do you think he's dead?" Kenni asked.

"I had a premonition."

Kenni sucked in her breath so harshly that it made a loud huh-uh-uh sound. An eerie hush feel over the group. We were all silent, steeped in remembering.

When I was young, I used to have premonitions all the time. I could tell you who would catch a cold. I could tell you when the phone would ring three seconds before it rang, and who was calling, a favorite game of mine. I could tell you who would scrape their knee playing softball.

On the morning of the day of my high school graduation I had the strongest premonition I had ever had, that my parents would die in a horrible accident on the way my graduation ceremony that night. It was a vivid full day flash-forward. I could hear the brakes, the smashing metal, the breaking glass. I could taste the blood.

I begged them not to go. They promised they wouldn't. But they did. 

Not wanting to miss seeing their only child walk down the aisle to receive her diploma outweighed my warnings. 

On the highway an eighteen wheeler crossed over the yellow line and hit them head on. Their little Toyota imploded. The glass and metal decapitated my mother and impaled my father through the heart. Just like I had been seeing all day. The driver of the truck backed up and drove away. 

I hadn't had a premonition since.

Until June 30th. 

The day that Rick asked me to make love to him.

Chapter 6

June 30th, 11:55 a.m.

Rick and I had eaten and talked. I hadn't mentioned any scary visions and I was pretty sure that I had gotten off the hook for having to talk or hear about anything serious.

"I had a stroke," Rick said out of nowhere. "I only lost minor mobility and I gained it back almost immediately but there are other complications that put me at a risk of having more."

We were silent for a minute while I digested this. I thought about the premonition I had had only a week earlier.

He looked at me with a silent entreaty on his face.

"How can I help?" I asked. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to marry me."

Chapter 7

November 22nd, 10:42 p.m.

If you tell us about the vision, maybe it will give us a clue and we can help," Kenni said.

"I can't talk about it," I said. "I didn't really see anything specific in the premonition this time anyway." 

Shalimar gave me 'the stare'. The one where her mouth twists down. She could tell I was flat-out lying.

"I just had a vague idea of an approximate date, around the end of November. Now I find myself hoping against hope that it's not today. But we're in a hospital and we're being given the run around."

"We'll find out what's going on," Aunt Linda said. She looked at Shalimar and Kenni and smiled mischievously.

"In the meantime, tell me what the hell happened to you," I said looking at Kenni. "I need to think about something else."

We all looked at Kenni. Kenni's Irish ivory skin had gotten bad acne in the last two months. Stress? It wasn't like her. 

"You didn't call me because I was a newlywed," I said.

"Exactly. Gideon left me."

"The shit-head," Shalimar said, "And why didn't you call me?"

"Sam was in crunch time. Doing last minute down-to-the-wire preparations a major show."

"That's no excuse." Shalimar slapped Kenni's arm. 

"Yes, but I know intense things can be right before an opening. And after that he has to turn around and leave for Europe. I didn't want to intrude on your time."

"Nothing ever stopped you from bugging me before."

"Gideon said I was never going to amount to anything, that I'd never make it as a performer or a songwriter. He kept saying that I should be thinner. I should be prettier. That I'd never sing out in public again. The more he criticized, the worse I felt. I believed him. I thought about how much of a failure I was. That's all I could think about."

Kenni paused for a minute. "He kept threatening to leave and I kept begging him to stay," Kenni said. 

"I kept saying I would do anything if he would just stay. It didn't matter if he didn't want me anymore; I needed him."

I was stunned. Shalimar's head pulled straight back on her neck. We were so amazed at how someone so powerful, with so much talent, life skills, and self-confidence could have turned into such a backward-thinking doormat that we were speechless. I think my jaw was hanging open.

Aunt Linda was the first one to recover. She put her arm around Kenni. "Honey, you are better off without him. He was probably bringing you down for a long time without you realizing it."

She looked right at my Aunt Linda and tears began to form. "But the good was so good. And I miss him so much." Two fat tears rolled over her cheeks.

"Alright now, alright now," my Aunt Linda said. 

Kenni's shoulders started to shake. "He was my everything."

"Well that was your first mistake," I heard Shalimar mumble but I don't think Kenni heard it. 

Kenni covered her face with her hands. "He became my whole world. I'll never want anyone else; I'll never notice anyone else. I just wasn't good enough for him or the bad wouldn't have been so bad."

Shalimar made a little gagging sound in the back of her throat. I don't think Kenni heard it because she was sobbing softly but I'm sort of glad Shalimar had made the noise because it stopped me from wanting to slap Kenni upside the head. This wasn't like her.

"If you are going to cry over a man, it shouldn't be because the good was so good and the bad was so bad; those kind of relationships we can live without," I said.

"Amen, Sister," Shalimar said.

"If you're going to cry over a man it should be because he bought you the wrong jewelry," my Aunt Linda said. "And he forgot to keep the receipt."

Kenni smiled. 

"Buck up, we'll all do a spa day," Shalimar said. "I'm sure we could all use it."

"No," Kenni said. "Nothing will fix this," she mumbled.

"Poor baby," Shalimar said. And I am going to call in some serious favors..." she paused and reached out to pick up a lock of strawberry-blonde and dark red hair that was mixed with a few strands of grey and white, "and call Christopher's and get them to work you in as soon as possible. We'll beg them. We'll tell them it's a massive, major, hair emergency."

"I'm not going," Kenni said. 

"Wah, wah, wah, call the wah-ambulance," Aunt Linda said. "Oh wait, I forgot, we're already in a hospital."

"Sorry. But all I want to do is lie down and sleep for the rest of my life. I don't care if my hair is two-toned," Kenni said.

Aunt Linda and Shalimar looked at me. 

I nodded. "Kenni, I know you don't care, but please, let us care for you. Do it for me. I need a project to get my mind off this..." I paused. "It's too weird a circumstance for my mind too really absorb completely even though ..." 

I was going to say 'even though I knew it was coming' but I changed my mind. Even though I had mourned it a little already, part of me was freaking out. I needed an escape.

"Being in the hospital for this is too weird to think about or deal with, even though part of me has to take it in and accept it," I said. "So please, let us care for you where you don't care, even about the little stupid things." I smiled at her. "You are a great, amazing, talented, fantastic, outgoing woman. You just forgot. We love you. If you let us make a game out of the fun little things, it will help me. Then we can all get through this easier. That's all I'm asking." 

Chapter 8

We gathered our chairs in a circle and our conversation began to sound like a cross between a Dr. Phil show, cheerleading group, and love fest, and I don't know who benefitted the most Kenni or me.

The waiting seemed like an eternity.

"I can't stand it any more," Shalimar said. "I have to find out what really happened. "It's got to be more than a toe."

I scowled.

"I'm sure he's fine, Dear," my Aunt Linda said while reaching around and patting me. Her voice said one thing, but her eyes didn't look so sure. 

Shalimar opened her purse and got out a brush and brushed Kenni's hair back from her face and secured it with a glittery golden clip. Shalimar took her earrings off and placed them in Kenni's ears and her bracelet on Kenni's wrist. 

"Now that's love," I said as Shalimar took off her necklace and put it on Kenni. "She's sharing her beauty with you."

"I told you it was the jewelry," Aunt Linda said. 

"Anyone looks better in 15 million dollars worth of diamonds," I said.

"18, but whose counting." Shalimar rubbed her cheeks with her fingers and then rubbed Kenni's cheeks; the transfer of make-up was light enough that it looked okay with Kenni's fair skin.

"You're kidding about the diamonds right? They're fakes?" Kenni said.

I shook my head. 

"Oh God, they don't go with my overalls."

"Honey," Aunt Linda said. "There's one thing you should know; good diamonds go with everything." Aunt Linda paused to appraise Kenni's newly be-deckled state. "You're looking much better."

"Eighteen million dollars of diamonds," Kenni said and whistled. "I do feel better." Kenni walked over to a lone orange seat under the busted T.V. and tucked her blanket and raggedy jacket away in the corner. She stood up straight and unbuttoned her flannel shirt quite a few buttons revealing some serious cleavage. "To show off the necklace."

"Honey, it's lovely." Aunt Linda said.

I don't know if it was being around us or having the diamonds on but suddenly Kenni was livelier. Shalimar got a small pocket mirror out of her purse and handed it to Kenni.

"What brought you down here?" Kenni asked Shalimar, but by then Shalimar was facing another direction. I followed her gaze and saw Jake storming down the hall. Fierce determination was etched on his face like a warrior leader going to battle. My stomach rocketed up into my chest. 

"Hottie alert, hottie alert, hottie alert," Shalimar mumbled under breath without moving her mouth.

"I'll say," Kenni said. She put her shoulders back even more. Her breasts had grown with the rest of her. "I'm wearing 18 million dollars worth of diamonds; I'll attract him over here."

"Oh, I'll never want or notice any man again," Shalimar said in an exact tonal imitation of Kenni but with sarcasm added. She still didn't open or move her mouth. How did she do that? 

I had to look down and angle my body a little away from him now, because while I didn't think Jake could read lips and his expression was not looking like that was on his mind, I was not taking a chance. "That's Jason Jacobson."

"Skinny, lanky, Jason Jacobson, Cheryl's brother?" Kenni asked.

"Nooooo," Shalimar said and her lips did move that time.

Then he was only a few feet from us. Kenni fingered the necklace, "He's coming this way."




The Dumb About Men Club



And then he was just there, filling up the space. He was pissed. 

"Miss Linda," he nodded to my aunt. "I'm finding out what happened and who's responsible. They sent a lot of people home, quickly. I'm working on it. Ladies," he nodded his head towards Shalimar and Kenni and was halfway back across the waiting room when he stopped short, one leg suspended mid step for a second. He did a slow turn, taking in both Shalimar and Kenni head to toe and said, "Naw." 

He walked away in huge strides and was down the corridor. All four of us leaned over to watch his departure until he was out of sight.

"Sistas, that is the most prime piece of hindquarters I have seen in a long time," Shalimar said. 

I couldn't be sure, but I heard a very soft sound come out of my Aunt Linda that might have been, "Yum".

"Are you sure that was Jacobson? Lanky, tooth-picky-like Basketball Jason? Has he been lifting weights or something?" Kenni said, looking at my Aunt Linda.

"Or something," Aunt Linda said. "He inherited his great uncle's business out in the suburbs of New Orleans. Jake has been down there working double shifts for years. He was doing the books and marketing and growing the business at night," Linda paused, "and lifting those big those heavy shutters, siding and roofing onto trucks. I guess it's done the boy some good."

"I'll say. Brains and brawn, mmmnn, hmmn." Kenni said.

"I would start lifting shutters if I thought my butt would look that good in a pair of jeans," Aunt Linda said.

"Sam will be on his way to Europe in about two hours," Shalimar said looking at her watch.

"You don't cheat," Kenni said.

"I lust." Shalimar said. "But, no I don't cheat,

"Good, then he's all mine," Kenni said.

"I saw him first," I said. It felt good to make light of a grim situation; we all new it. 

"Actually I saw him first," Aunt Linda drawled.

"Don't blame you for looking," Shalimar said. Her mouth still didn't move. "He does have the finest butt I've ever seen. Thank God he didn't wear baggy jeans." 

"And I do like younger men," Aunt Linda continued. 

"Aunt Linda!" I said.

Linda put a shoulder forward and pressed her cheek to mine. "He's awfully cute, and there's that toushy!" She smirked. "What is he? Mid-forties? I could easily do that."

"He's thirty-nine. You're sixty-three!" I said.

"He's only thirty-nine? With all that grey hair? Because if he could be say, forty-five, I don't look a day over fifty-seven, and really that wouldn't be that much. Hell, everybody knows that Beatrice Dantles is 14 years older than her husband."

I squinted at my aunt and reminded myself that she was indeed my favorite relative. "Aunt Linda, it may be true that you don't look a day over fifty-seven. But no amount of moisturizer is going to make up for the fact that you're in your sixties and he's in his thirties." 

"Are you absolutely sure he's 39? That shock of silver hair and the way he takes control of a situation makes him seem a lot older. Perhaps I could spread a rumor that he was in his late forties."

"You're still in you're sixties."

"Hush, nobody knows that."

"Everybody knows that! You were born here. You've lived here all your life."

"I've been lying about my age for a long time; everyone thinks I'm in my mid-fifties. I swear." Aunt Linda looked down the hallway where Jake had disappeared. "Despite the tendency in his family for a pot belly, which I would be willing to overlook, he is quite, um, delectable. As edible as a cinnamon bun. Are you sure he's not 40 yet?"

"Argh. Cheryl is our age, and her brother is only three years older, so that means, yes I'm sure; he's thirty-nine. So my question is, do you like your men twenty-three years younger than you? 

"Well that would be pushing it, Dear, even for me. I'll leave him for you little youngins. But just for the record I did see him first and I did, very easily, rope him into coming to help. He's a knight in shining armor."

"I'd rather he be a knight in nothing at all," Shalimar said.

"Shal, you're treating him like he's a dessert or a buffet set out for us to drool over or a fruit, ripe for plucking," I said. 

"Amen, Sister. Speak of the key lime pie, here comes Mister Golden Corral/ Eden's Apple again."

Chapter 11

I turned around and there was Jason "Call-me-Jake" Jacobson himself, still looking fierce and dragging a young man with him who didn't look more than twenty. The boy was Latino, short, with a shaved head and the beginnings of a goatee. I couldn't place him, but he looked sort of familiar.

"Why don't you tell these nice people what you told me, Joe."

"I think I should get a lawyer." Joe started to squirm. 

"Why? You haven't done anything wrong," Jake said.

"The hospital might not want me saying anything."

"But you've already talked to me, so you might as well repeat it," Jake said.

I could see that Joe was trying, in his head, to argue with this logic and was not getting very far. I could also see by the look on Jake's eyes that he was about to put what we call the Savannah squeeze on Joe. 

I gave a pointed look at Aunt Linda and bobbed my head in the direction of her friend Mark, who was quietly snoring with his head tilted back, in a row of orange seats in one corner. Aunt Linda went over and kicked him in the shin.

"What, what? Have they released him? Is he better?" Mark is about 5'8", mostly bald, and looks like a Muppet. It's this gentle look that often gets people to lower their defenses and underestimate him.

Aunt Linda cleared her throat and gestured with her head towards the EMT. Either Mark heard part of the conversation in his sleep, Aunt Linda said a lot with her look, or Mark wakes up knowing when a lawyer is needed.

"I'm a lawyer," he said softly. "My name's Mark Nabil, and I can represent you."

"I can't afford a lawyer. Hell I don't know."

"Listen, it's okay. Mark moved closer to Joe. "You can hire me, on retainer, for one dollar. Once you hire me, I have to act in your best interest, not in anyone else's. That means that I have to advise you on what is best for you. I can protect you from the hospital if they try to fire you for telling the truth. And if they do fire you, we can get money for that."

"Really?"

"Really."

"If something went wrong, wouldn't you rather just be able to tell the truth about it rather than hide it?" Mark said. 

Joe nodded. 

"Okay. Let's you and I find a place we can talk alone before we talk to all these people at once, agreed?"

"Agreed." Joe nodded again. 

Mark led Joe off and we all looked at Jake.

Jake blew out a big breath as he shook his shoulders. He walked closer to us. "I think I recognize you two. You're Shortcake and Perfume, aren't you?" 

"Jake, may I re-present my two best friends, Shalimar Leggond formerly Brown and McKenzie Wong-Levinson." I tried not to grin. "Perfume and Strawberry Shortcake, this is Jason Jacobson, who is now called Jake."

"Shalimar, therefore the nickname Perfume, and Strawberry Shortcake for the hair. Hhhmn." He looked at me. 

"I'm surprised you remember us at all," Shalimar said with just a subtle hint of flirtation in her voice.

"Well, three very beautiful and different young girls just on the other side of a short line of bushes, with all those teenage hormones, it's probably half the reason I practiced hoops so much."

"It's probably half the reason we played at Dahlya's so much," Kenni said with flirtation in her voice. She surprised me with the outgoingness of the comment, after how depressed she was moments before. She was fingering the necklace. I think it gave her confidence.

Jake's gaze dropped to her chest and he noticed the necklace, although I'm sure he noticed more too. "Do you always wear diamonds with overalls?"

"Yes." 

Chapter 12

Jake was saved from more flirtations from the three of us because Joe, the EMT, and Mark, the lawyer, came back. 

Joe spoke very simply. "Alright. The patient was losing a lot of blood. Even though his pinky toe was cut off, he still shouldn't have been losing that much blood. The other EMT thought it would be a good idea to give him blood. So he asked the patient what blood type he was and he said 'B positive.'"

I nodded at Joe to go on. Both Rick and I were B positive. We joked that we were both B+ students in high school so it was easy to remember our blood type. 

"So my partner said to me, 'yo, get out some B positive. I looked, no B positive. My partner takes out all the bags, searching. Throws a pint of AB out of the way. It lands sort of on the patient's lower abdomen. 

"Then we pulled into the emergency bay and a couple of guys unloaded our patient and that was that. From there I can't really tell you. I'm guessing the patient passed out from blood loss, one of the nurses saw the bag of AB on his stomach, assumed that was his blood type and IV'd it into him. Someone must have done it, because I heard the nurses yelling and running back and forth once the seizures started. I came in a few minutes later and said, thank God y'all have enough B positive here. Then the whole ER room just stopped. It was like one of those moments in the movies when everyone realizes that they are sitting on top of a bomb and there's complete silence. Then everyone was flying ... trying to figure out how to do damage repair. But a few seconds later it was too late."

We all stared at him in horror. 

I began blinking and I couldn't stop. The words he said didn't make sense all of a sudden. What was he talking about? What patient? What happened? What was he saying?

The rest of my premonition came back to me now. The first part had one sword beheading him and then two swords had fallen on his feet, intersecting each other. Then they began chopping up his body from the very tip of his big toes up and up through the bones of the foot up through to the ankle, one after another, faster and faster like a medieval torture device. That part I remembered every day, but tried my hardest not to think about. 

The second part of the vision I had suppressed until now. It was different than any premonition I had ever had, because it was more like a dream. Now I remembered. Rick was tied to a gurney and drowning in blood, tubes attached to him everywhere. 'No, no', he kept shouting. The blood turned black and gushed out of his toes, his fingers, his nose. It spurted from his tongue and filled his mouth, drowning him. It grew viscous, dark, and heavy and continued to pour out of his mouth until it choked him and swallowed his whole body under.

I began to gag. My eyes rolled upwards and I fought to stay conscious. I heard a voice in my head, my own voice but with an exaggerated British accent say, 'It was a simple mistake really.' The room was beginning to spin a little. I sat on the edge of a chair and hung my head between my knees.

"Everyone who was in the ER when it happened was sent home immediately," the EMT said. "They've slated the body for cremation already."

"Jake!" I yelled, looking up.

"I'm on it," he said and left running.

"Why are you still hanging around the hospital, Joe?" Shalimar asked.

"They sent me home too, with pay, a few minutes after I brought that patient in, but my lady and I share a car and she works night shift at the firehouse in Rincon. She doesn't get off for another hour so I was stuck outside just smoking and wondering how crazy things happen."

"I can drive you home if you'd like, it's on my way," Mark said, putting a hand on Joe's shoulder.

"Oh, man that would be great. I could call my lady. It would save us the time and the gas."

When they left, the silence was loud. I noticed the buzzing sounds the florescent lights made, something you usually ignore. 

My heart thumped, each beat pulsing in my ears. My brain wasn't working and my eyes couldn't seem to stop blinking. Everything was far away, fuzzy, unreal. 

"They gave him the wrong type of blood," I said. "They killed him."

Right then I felt part of me detach and float up to ceiling. It was as if a safety device was triggered and a small part of my being was locked away to be saved for safer times. 

I wanted to be hugged, loved, safe.

I looked at Aunt Linda. "They'll cremate him anyway, won't they? Before an autopsy, before anything?"

"Probably." Aunt Linda said and nodded, sadly. "This is Savannah. Cops, doctors, and politicians will do whatever they want to do."

"The body is yours, not the hospital's." Shalimar said softly. "You could take the body now, and I think you should."

I looked at her, aghast. Where would I put it? 

I looked at Aunt Linda.

"Why not?" She shrugged. "We'll put it in my meat freezer. I've got plenty of room. This is Savannah. One little ole' dead body isn't gonna bother anyone."

I nodded and we all got up to find the morgue.

Chapter 13

The morgue was in the basement. Jake had cornered a young clerk and had him backed up against the wall, obviously making him uncomfortable. The clerk was six-foot five, with dark brown skin and hundreds of tiny braids down to his waist, tied neatly away from his face. He was shaking his head. "I can't change the orders just because you say so."

"Yes, you can, and you can tell me who signed the orders in the first place."

"I'm very sorry, Sir, but the answer is still no. I can't give out that information."

"You'll tell me."

I tilted my head to one side. 

"Men are such lovely, fascinating creatures," Shalimar said in a voice so low I knew only Aunt Linda, Kenni, and I heard. I wasn't looking at her but I would have bet that her mouth didn't move. I wondered if she was staring at Jake's butt.

I cleared my throat. Jake turned around and the clerk seemed grateful for the interruption.

"I'd like to see my husband," I said with quiet dignity. I wished for a moment that I was wearing the diamonds.

"Of course," the clerk said and looked down at his clipboard. "What's your name?"

"Dahlya Strickland."

It took the clerk a second to realize that my last name and the person that Jake was harassing him about were the same. 

"Of course," he said. He looked from me to Jake to me again. Jake gave him a quick shake and then backed away from him.

He walked over to a drawer in the wall, just like you see on TV, and opened it to reveal a black body bag. I stared at the bag for a second. I opened the very top of the zipper just the tiniest bit. 

It was Rick's hair. He had the greatest hair. It was thick and fell in perfect waves. 

I looked down at the top of Rick's hair. Still perfect.

"You don't have to do this," Jake said. "I'm sure that your Aunt..."

"No, no," I said. "I'll do it."

I pulled the zipper down further, in one quick tug, to reveal his head and shoulders. It was Rick's face but no life was there. It was like a perfect mannequin of him. Something they might have used at the news studio. I could feel my eyes roll up into my head. My legs became gelatin. I had a quick moment to think, 'Naw... it's all a practical joke' before my knees gave out and I crumpled to the floor with a thud.

Apparently no one thought that I might buckle so suddenly, so I ended up on the cold linoleum before anyone reached me. Kenni and Jake reached me at the same time. Kenni was closer but Jake was faster.

"Naaaawwww," I said and lifted my head. The absence of sound was striking. I couldn't hear anything, not even my own labored breathing. I was deaf. Then there was buzzing. Like the sound of florescent lights but louder. "ZZZZzzzz," I said, my voice sounding as if it was coming through miles of insulation stuffed in a tunnel. "Zzz?" I asked Jake. "Do you hear that?" Maybe it's the low hum of refrigerators. Oh, like to keep dead bodies cool. The moment I thought that my mind snapped shut and I passed out. 

Chapter 14

I woke up with a start not knowing where I was. I was cradled in my Aunt Linda's lap. Shalimar and Kenni were crouched near me and Jake was about a foot away. My hand shot out, seemingly of own accord and clawed into his jeans at the ankle. I don't know how it happened. It was like the need for him became a crushing weight. 

I forced myself to let go.

"I think I can stand now," I said.

Jake helped me up, and then offered Aunt Linda his hand as well.

I need him, part of my brain whispered. The desire to reach over and hold his hand and have him squeeze mine was overwhelming.

I swayed a little.

Both Jake and Kenni reached toward me but I stepped back.

I turned toward the door and took some deep breaths. "Okay," I whimpered and my throat began to close and my eyes fill with tears. "I'm okay now," I said, although I obviously wasn't.

I walked back to Rick in the open drawer. His body was still there. His soul wasn't. This was real. "NOOOOOOO!" Emotions ran across me like elephants. Denial, anger, sadness, disbelief. They slammed into me so hard and so fast that a sharp stabbing pain pierced my chest. "No. No, no, no, no." 

Shock took over, a glazed bubble traveling from my head to my feet like an igloo but colder. I heard a click go off in my brain, and the switch from shock, to sadness, to rage was so distinct it was like a gun cocking in a silent room.

Suddenly I was drunk with my own fury, my own power. I flung one hand out towards the morgue attendant and placed the other hand on Rick's chest. It was too soon for him to die. I could re-animate him. I knew it. I looked at Kenni, at Shalimar, down at myself. Three witches in the room. I looked at Jake, maybe four. Hhhhmn. I grit my teeth and tried to think of a rhyme as I began to visualize the life force coming out of everyone in the room and into Rick. I felt a crackling in my palms. I was stealing heaviest from the morgue attendant without even realizing it. It would probably kill us but I didn't care. 

Shalimar's body blow took me by surprise and threw me up against the wall of metal drawers which the dead bodies.

I growled at her.

"Dahlya, you can't," Shalimar whispered. "It won't work and you'll kill an innocent person."

"It's too early. My premonition said the end of November. I should have a few more days, it's not fair." I sagged against Shalimar. "Y'all are my closest friends but he was my rock. I can't take it."

"Everything, everything is in its right time." Shalimar slapped me lightly on the cheek. "You can stay in shock, or need, or sadness as long as you need to." She lowered her voice, "what you can't do is mess with something that will just hurt us and not help Rick. Remember who you are, a dynamo with respect and dignity."

I nodded. She was right. "I want him back."

"We all want him back, honey."

"No one should die from a cut toe."

"No one should die from anything."

"Well, fuck," I whispered.

"You're a lady," Shalimar said.

"I'd like to take him home," I said to the clerk.

"You'd like to have an urn to take home after the cremation." He was very professional, distant. "I'm sure the funeral home will arrange that."

"No," I said. "I'm going to take him home now."

The clerk made a choking noise.

"You can't just take him home."

"Of course I can," I said. "He's not yours. He doesn't belong to you. You don't own him. He's my husband and I'm going to take him home."

"Wait," the clerk said stepping very close to me. "You're not just going to take a body out of here." 

"Just watch me," I said.

Chapter 15

We walked out of the hospital and some of my tension faded but so did my bravado. 

"My van probably has the most room," Kenni said, and we all nodded. We walked over to Kenni's white Astro, which she calls Astrolopithicus, and she moved her guitar out of the back seat and into the far back on top of her belongings.

I bumped against Jake's shoulder while we were putting Rick's body in the back seat. Electricity ran through me, hot and delicious and alive. I stopped for a second, shocked with the vast difference between the hot hum of Jake's electricity and the cold stone-like absence of all energy under my fingers touching the black body bag. 




The Dumb About Men Club



I was suspended in time for a moment. We were shoulder to shoulder and the electricity between us was so heavy I felt the air should be crackling. 

I looked at Jake and his eyes were hot, burning holes out of his pupils for a brief second, as a raw expression of hunger lashed out towards me before he hid it behind a mask of efficient politeness. But in that one second I saw animalistic desire, wonder, and pure longing. 

I shook my head to free myself. I climbed in the van first, to lay the rest of Rick's body down. 

I touched Rick's shoulder through the bag. The action grounded me. Rick would have approved of Jake. I climbed into the front and landed hard on the passenger's seat. "Jake," I said quietly. I opened the door on my side and he came and stood very close to me because all of a sudden whispering was about all the sound I could make. 

I took a deep breath, just to cleanse myself of the hospital but all I smelled was Jake - a hard-working exotic musk. He was sweaty from running around, chasing down doctors and EMT stories, and I wanted to cry because I was so thankful. Did I just want him because I just wanted someone, needed someone just in that moment and he was there? With him this close I could feel his body heat. 

"I'm here," he said, quietly when I didn't say anything for a while. I looked up into his eyes. His eyes were like mine, brown with subtle green streaks. 

I fished my key ring out of my pocket. "Did you come in with Aunt Linda?"

"Yes." Why did that one word sound like the answer to so many questions?

"You'll drive my car to Aunt Linda's place? I don't feel up to driving."

Jake nodded and I put the keys in his hand.

Kenni got in the driver's seat, which meant that Shalimar had to crouch sort of between the front row and the back row, because Rick's body was laid out on the back seat.

Everyone else got in their respective cars. Kenni started the engine. My Aunt Linda lived about twelve blocks from the hospital. 

"Oh, and that toushy!" Shalimar said in an exact imitation of Aunt Linda.

"Hey, wait." I said. "The message on my machine said he hurt his toe on the lawnmower. I called Aunt Linda and left the same message. How'd she know to bring Jake and Mark?"

Kenni looked over at me for a second and Shalimar just stared at me.

"Magic." The three of us said at once.

"But she was never magic before," I said.

"Don't kid yourself," Shalimar said.

Chapter 16

We were silent the rest of the way to Aunt Linda's, still-of-night quiet. 

When we arrived at my Aunt Linda's house I watched Jake walk towards us with a loose-limbed stride. I sat in the passenger's seat, slumped and heavy.

I heard scurrying as Shalimar and Kenni got out of the van. 

Jake slowly put Rick's body over his shoulder. 

We all went into Aunt Linda's garage, which is as almost as big as her house.

My Aunt Linda is a real estate agent, but she's also what we call a "picker". A nicer term might be an antique dealer. In the front of the garage we walked past a red velvet fainting couch and a juke box, neither of which were there yesterday. We went past pieces of old furniture in various stages of repair, a small table with paint brushes and cans of varnishes, and a few cardboard boxes. 

The big meat freezer was in the far corner. It was the kind that lies on its side and opens from the top like a big coffin.

"I guess it wouldn't seem right if we had to stand him up," Shalimar said.

Aunt Linda chuckled to herself and rolled her lips in and together.

"Go ahead," I said, "whatever it is, just say it."

She shook her head.

"Come on Aunt Linda, say it." She shook her head again but I could see her debating and trying not to laugh. It had been a long night. It had to be close to midnight and my dead husband was over my ex-neighbor's shoulder and we were about to put him into her spare freezer. "Spit it out."

Aunt Linda relented, "Well, at least it's not a regular stand up freezer. This way we don't have to find room for my brisket under his armpits."

We all looked at her. I shook my head. She smiled a truly sweet smile and we just nodded.

Aunt Linda opened the top of the freezer and handed me a six-pound shrink-wrapped side of brisket. She passed a fifteen pound turkey to Shalimar and bunch of packages wrapped in white paper that had 'Savannah Fish Market' stickers on them to Kenni. Shalimar and I looked over at the top of the packages which was marked clearly in black marker, 'Lobster'.

"Hey, I wanted to hold the lobster," Shalimar said.

At the same time I said "Hey, lobster isn't kosher."

"It's faux," Aunt Linda said.

"In that case," Shalimar said in an exaggerated snooty voice, "Kenni can keep holding it."

Jake as gently as possible laid Rick's body in the bottom of the freezer and then there was this one moment where my Aunt Linda looked at me with the thought, What are we going to do about the brisket, turkey, and fish? We can't just put them on top of Rick?

I shrugged and gave her a face that said, Why not?

"If I have to fight some sort of legal battle, Rick may need to stay in the bottom of your freezer for a very, very long time. And if anyone happens to come," and I cleared my throat loudly here, "accidentally, sneaking around here uninvited, I'd rather Rick have some camouflage-like coverage."

Kenni made a small whining sound, "Please tell me you're being absolutely over-the-top paranoid and ridiculous."

I shrugged.

I looked at Kenni and Linda and the three of us looked at Shalimar. Shalimar oddly enough, looked at Jake. "Jake, you're the only one who really dealt first hand with the hospital, what's the probability that someone might actually come sneaking around looking for the body?"

Jake looked at Shalimar and then at Aunt Linda. "Miss Linda, until I can build a false bottom for this refrigerator and transfer it out to my property, do you have a white tarp or sheet we could put over Rick's body to make the black of the bag stand out less?"

"Oh dear," my aunt and I said at once.

"Shit," Shalimar said.

Chapter 17

My aunt went off to find something. The four of us stood in the garage, three of us holding food and looking foolish. Jake began staring out into the road through the still open garage door. His eyes glazed over as if he were already beginning to plot some plan of protection.

I spaced out, and felt like I lost time, a few minutes maybe. 

Aunt Linda came back with a shiny white plastic table cloth which she folded until it fit perfectly over Rick's body and we put all our food back on top of that.

I stood holding the freezer open as I leaned my head on the edge the door and had a moment of silence. I started to laugh, a thin, high-pitched hysterical laugh. For several very long seconds, I couldn't stop laughing. 

I lowered the lid very slowly until it was ninety percent closed. Then I lowered the lid a little more, then a little more, and then a little more. I lowered it as much as I could and still have the light stay on. I lowered the lid ninety-nine percent of the way. I had to half squat to keep looking through that last inch. I couldn't seem to get myself to lower the lid all the way, so I just stood there, not looking down into the freezer but just looking at the white hinges glowing in the florescent lights. My thighs started to burn from the exertion of crouching in that position.

"Good-bye Rick, good-bye lobster, good-bye brisket," Shalimar said. She came forward and shut the lid for me and put her arm around my shoulders and led me slowly but firmly out of the garage.

Chapter 18

Kenni ran to Aunt Linda's to quickly plant a kiss on her cheek. Then she came over to me and put her arm around my other shoulder. Shalimar and Kenni and I walked out of the garage and towards Kenni's van.

"Miss Linda, that Perfume's a trip," I heard Jake say very softly behind me.

"That she is and thank God for it," my aunt said.

"Ma'am. Gotta follow those girls, seeing as I don't know where Dahlya lives nowadays." I heard him kiss her cheek.

Shalimar, Kenni, and I got in the van and Jake got in my Honda and as soon as Kenni turned on the engine I put my face in my hands and bawled. We stopped at the stop sign at the end of Aunt Linda's block and we were stopped for a few minutes before I realized that we weren't moving. I sniffled and blinked enough to look at Kenni through my tears and say, "What the hell are we stopped for, Ken?"

"Directions, Flower. I've never been to your new place in the dark." She grinned. 

Chapter 19

In the fifteen minutes it took to get from Aunt Linda's to my house I cried so hard that my head was throbbing. I was dehydrated and exhausted. 

Usually I was a wise-ass. Today I didn't see joking and wit right around the corner.

I showed Kenni the turn-off to my long driveway. 

Kenni parked in front of our red-brick ranch house and I realized Rick was never coming back with me and I wanted to cry again. I probably would have if there were any moisture left in me.

I leaned my head against the window and figured I might never get up. Not because I was sad or depressed, but because moving would just take too much effort.

Kenni and Shalimar got out of the van. They were making noise in the back of the van, probably getting whatever Kenni had brought with her, and Shalimar's overnight bag. 

Jake came around to my side of the van and spoke to me softly though the closed car door. I couldn't make out the words, but the tone was soothing. Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at him. 

"Dahlya. What can I do?"

I opened the door and spilled my body out of the van in a liquid-like way right into his arms. I rubbed my nose against his neck and smelled his skin. He smelled amazingly male, like sweat, sawdust, steel, and musk. He smelled like the savage Savannah plants that bloom only at dusk and a smell particular to just him. It smelled very, very good to me. 

My mind seemed to split into two sections, one jumping up into the sky and one burrowing down. The upper section froze as if nothing existed. 

I stayed that way for a long time. Until I began to shiver.

"Dahlya. Dahlya," Jake said.

I blinked.

"Drive yourself home in my car, Jake," I said. I heard myself as if I were miles away, tinny and distant. "I'm in no condition to drive you home and then drive myself back here and I don't feel like letting the girls loose for even a second right now. Return it tomorrow, next month, next year, whenever." I couldn't see driving anywhere in the near future. 

"You won't believe this, but I live next door," Jake said.

That snapped me out of my stupor.

I backed away from him quickly and looked up into his face to see if he was kidding. 

"I rented the old Angline farm," he said and pointed left to where my nearest neighbor had lived, a little over a half mile away. "Just for a few days. I just closed on a house up in Effingham County. The moving men are bringing my stuff from Louisiana day after tomorrow.

"Next door neighbors as kids and next door neighbors again. What are the odds?" I said.

Kenni appeared behind us and started whistling the theme from the twilight zone. Doo-doo, doo-doo. 

"What are the odds indeed," Shalimar said. Then she thought at me Aunt Linda's work?

I was surprised to hear the exact thought. I looked over at Kenni, she looked like she heard Shalimar's thought talk too.

"I'm here if you need anything," Jake said. 

Anything, anything at all, Shalimar thought at me.

"Your aunt has my number," Jake said. "I'm just a call away. If you want to talk just pick up the phone."

Jake got into my car and turned it around. I watched him drive away. 

"Holy Shamoly, Shalimar." Kenni said. "I heard your thoughts."

"So," Shalimar said. "I'm an empath."

"She means we got your exact thoughts, word for word," I said.

"But that's impossible."

Both Kenni and I repeated back to Shalimar what she had thought at us and we had received her loud and clear.

"Your skill set just jumped to a new high," Kenni said. 

"I wonder what changed?" Shalimar said.

We all looked down the road where Jake had been. 

"You're no longer just an empath who can broadcast feelings." Kenni said. "Now you're telepathic."

"Great," I said. "Now we'll have to ignore her on a whole other level."

I opened the door and the three of us stepped into my living room. I stopped because all of a sudden I felt a happy brook bubbling up from my chest. It pushed a giant weight, like a huge yoke of granite, off my shoulders. I actually looked down at the floor, expecting to see broken pieces of stone but of course there was nothing but the gleam on the polished hard wood floor.

I'd been waiting for the sword to swing, the ax to fall, or in this case, the lawnmower to run. It ran right over Rick's toe and drove him straight into my Aunt Linda's garage freezer under the faux lobster. It was the most terrible thing that had ever happened in my life. But the daily waiting for it to happen had taken such a huge toll. I was glad that was over.

I made a slight snorting sound.

"What's so funny?" Shalimar asked.

"I'm just glad you're here," I said. I pointed at Kenni's neck. "I mean you, Harry Winston. You just never know when a girl is going to need a little extra sparkle to make her feel like almost 20 million bucks."

Chapter 20

I sat down on the couch and let my mind wander. Even knowing that Rick was dead, I couldn't really believe it. I just wanted to think about him and not think about him.

I told Kenni and Shalimar where the guest bedrooms were and where the extra linens were.

"Sweety," Shalimar said. "Is there anything we can do?"

I shook my head, no, and for the first time in almost four months, I went into our bedroom for the night by myself.

Chapter 21

That night, I dreamed about Jake. He smelled like night-blooming Jasmine and he took me by the shoulders and pushed me up against the big magnolia tree with the mango plant wrapped around it that grows in the far south corner of my backyard.

He leaned in close to me. Then he looked me in the eye, our faces only inches apart.

"I could wait for you forever if I had to," he half growled and half whispered. "But I don't want to."

"Then don't." 

He smiled at that, slow and possessive, and took a large Swiss Army knife out of his back pocket and slit my dress, a plain yellow sundress, down the front from top to bottom. 

Jake smiled again, a different smile, appreciative and anticipatory, and used the knife again to cut my bra in half right in the front where the two cups came together. 

He pulled a ripe mango off the tree, as if it had been hanging over my shoulder just waiting for the picking.

Jake sliced off a wedge of mango, peeled off the skin, and rubbed it gently across my lips, over my jaw, down my neck, and onto my collar bones, crushing it slightly so that the juice rolled down onto the top of my breasts. 

"So beautiful, so sweet." Then he held the meat of the fruit to my lips and fed me the rest of the mango slice. I closed my eyes as the first sweet burst of newly ripened and recently plucked mango rioted over my tongue. I nibbled his fingers when I finally got there and licked them. 

Then he carefully wiped the knife on his jeans and folded the knife without taking his eyes off me. "Nothing compares to you."

Jake stared at me as he leaned in and blew on the trail of mango juice on my neck, creating a gentle breeze of warmth that cooled as soon as he came up to my jaw.

Then he plunged one hand into my hair and kissed me.

He didn't kiss me the way Rick had kissed me, like a friend I had known forever, although in reality he was. He kissed me like I had the last drops of moisture on earth and he needed them to survive. Like the taste of me was driving him mad.

Jake let go of my hair and kissed the juice off my jaw, licking and kissing his way down my neck, using his fingers to caress every spot where his tongue was not. I could feel in him a fast frenzy, barely controlled. When he got to my collar bones he slowed down even more, and then subtly dipped his head lower to catch any spare drops that had fallen below my clavicles before he kissed his way up to worship my collar bones again. He moved his body closer to mine and I could feel the heat emanating off of him, it seemed like his skin should be steaming but it was not.

Then he put his thumb over my left nipple so lightly I could barely feel it. I resisted the urge to thrust my body further against his hand. 

"You're toying with me," I said.

"Yes."

Then he placed his mouth near where his finger had been, simply breathing on me at first.

"Damn," I said.

I felt my nipple rise up more, tighten harder. I could picture it, like a light pink raspberry that had turned to stone.

He began to lick a wide circle on my breast, getting smaller towards the center with every go around.

I groaned.

Jake put his hands low on my waist to hold me, and concentrated on my breast. Finally the side of his tongue scooped alongside my nipple. I could feel a drop of nectar drip in my insides.

I startled awake abruptly, rocking up to sitting in one move. "Oh my God, I just had the most real..." I reached for my phone, wanting to call Rick. And then I remembered.

You wanton, forgetful woman, I thought, but I had no malice behind the chastisement. 

Well, yeah.

You cheesy, sexual hedonist.

Present and accounted for.

You absolutely libido-driven wanting machine.

Yup, that's me. Welcome to Dahlya-world.

I lay back down. Oh what a beautiful dream. I tried to think myself back into the dream. It was so vivid; I knew exactly where I left off. I wanted badly to recapture the fantasy. I could feel it, my body was still warm and I remembered it in detail but I couldn't get back into it. But oh, the hum of the electricity, the smell of the magnolia and the mango, and the excitement, bordering on fear, were all delightful. Most intoxicating of all was seeing so much lust, love, need and restraint combined in Jake's eyes and knowing he was going to unleash it all any second.

Damn, I wanted that. I wanted it very, very badly.

I needed it.

Because I needed to escape reality.

I needed that fantasy.

And come hell or high water, I was going to get it.

Chapter 22

Surprisingly, I woke up feeling well rested and almost refreshed. I looked at the empty side of our bed. I remembered both the fantasy with Jake, and that first day that Rick and I made love. 

It was late June that first time Rick and I got together in my small bedroom at Aunt Linda's house. Sunlight streamed through the slats in the blinds making every tan and beige in the bedroom look gold. Rick was slow and methodical, caressing, kneading, licking, kissing, and nibbling every part of me from my hair to my feet and back up to hair again.

When he finally entered me it was slow, like a warm knife sliding through butter. I was so relaxed that he laughed. "I don't know," he had said, making fun of my earlier protests "maybe this is a bad idea."

I slapped him on the butt.

Rick pumped in and out of me slowly for so long, that I lost track of time in my own private stupor. Then I could feel that soon he would begin to rub me raw. I moaned and groaned a little to encourage him, but that didn't get him to quicken his pace.

This was a man who I'd told everything to for a decade and a half. I remember thinking that I could even tell him this. "You're beginning to ..."

"Shh... shh... I know, I'm sorry, I can sense it. Two more seconds and I'll come."

With one hard thrust he did, and collapsed in top of me. I laughed out loud. Except for the few seconds at the end where it was beginning to almost hurt, it felt nice. Comfortable.




The Dumb About Men Club



"I'm sorry about those last few seconds, Dahl. I could feel the friction catching you, but I was sort of in a trance and it was so good." Rick paused to smile at me. "So did it suck? Was it horrible?"

"No," I said. "It didn't suck."

"Well that's a rousing endorsement. In that case, I guess we can set a date for the wedding."

Chapter 23

I wandered out of my bedroom about eight thirty to find Kenni and Shalimar in the kitchen drinking coffee. Rick drinks coffee. Did. Used to. Rick had been a coffee drinker. I rarely did. The smell made me think of him. The idea of not being able to talk to him every day punched a hole in my stomach.

Shalimar looked almost average without any make-up on. She was wearing a bright pink T-shirt that read '40 Hottest Rock and Roll Girlfriends and Wives' in big read letters across the breasts and underneath it in small black letters 'have nothing on me'. I groaned. Shalimar used to be a model and started dating Sam when he worked more as a musician than a set designer. This was obviously one of her "groupie" T-shirts. It was going to be a hell of a day.

I looked at Kenni. She had her hair neatly tied back in a pony tail. I noticed Kenni was wearing the diamonds. 

She wore a white T-shirt with a conga drum on it. The writing was so faded I had to squint and walk up until I was about a foot away from her chest to read it. 'Save a drum. Bang a drummer.'

"Nice," I said and gave a little half smile.

Kenni turned around so I could read the back of the T-shirt. It had a picture of a full drum kit with the words 'weapons of mass percussion'.

Kenni turned back around. 

"You're not even a drummer," I said to Kenni.

"Dude, everyone can dream."

"Hhmph," I said and then thought of Jake again.

I looked down at my morning garb. I was wearing my thickest blue terry cloth bathrobe over a large grey nightshirt. I topped off my ensemble with fuzzy grey-bunny bedroom slippers.

"I'm underdressed."

"Damn right," Shalimar said. 

"You don't actually look like you need it, Sister, but everyone is better after coffee," Shalimar said.

What the hell, I thought. 

Shalimar poured me a mug. I lifted mine in salute. "To Rick," I said.

"To Rick," Kenni said.

"To Rick," Shalimar said. "May he rest in peace, whether underground or under brisket."

We all drank to that. 

Kenni opened my refrigerator and made a little squeak. She came out with a yellow egg carton. "Egg-oh-foo? What the hell is Egg-oh-foo?"

"It's egg substitute made out of tofu."

Shalimar stuck a finger near her mouth, made a retching sound and grabbed her stomach.

"Don't knock it 'til you try it," I said.

"How am I supposed to make an omelet out of this?"

"The same way you usually do. You won't be able to tell the difference."

Kenni looked at me skeptically.

"Swear." I held my hand up like a girl scout. 

"Hmn," Kenni said and turned back to the refrigerator. "Soy cheese?"

"Kill me now," Shalimar said.

"You've lived in California too long," Kenni said.

"Quick, this is an emergency," Shalimar said picking up the telephone and pretending to press the buttons repeatedly. "We need some fried green tomatoes delivered here, ASAP!"

Chapter 24

We lounged around all morning. The omelets that Kenni made were fabulous and we watched Die Hard 2 on Rick's old DVD player. The movie ended victoriously and I felt a surge of triumph. I stood up in my fuzzy bathrobe and grey bunny slippers and gave a primal triumph yell.

Kenni laughed.

"You go girl," Shalimar said.

The phone rang. Shalimar answered. All she said was hello and then she looked a little grey. She hung up.

"What?" I looked at her. 

"That was one of Rick's cousins."

"What did he say?"

Shalimar shook her head.

"It's alright. Rick told me they're all assholes. Just tell me what he said."

Shalimar's eyes were open wide, "He said Rick died because he was a sinner who let a TV whore move in with him before he got married and he hoped Rick's wife died too."

Chapter 25

The victorious high from watching the movie deflated instantly.

"Unbelievable," I said.

"They live in Alabama, right?" Shalimar said.

I nodded.

"Well, that explains it," she said.

I smiled, but my heart wasn't in it. Georgians and Alabamans make fun of each other all the time.

"I love you Shalimar, I'm glad you're here." I looked over at Kenni. "I'm so glad you're both here."

"Yeah Kenni, I'm glad you're here too. I need someone to hold my diamonds," Shalimar said.

I smiled but the strength that I was feeling before was gone.

"You look like I felt when Gideon left," Kenni said.

I nodded. "We both just got slammed hard against the end of relationships," I said. "So now we need to mourn."

I looked at Shalimar and scrunched my eyebrows together. "We need time to grieve." We were silent for a second. 

"This is a fried okra emergency," Shalimar said.

"No. Definitely not," Kenni said. "This is a chocolate emergency."

"This is a Jimmy Choos, Steve Madden, Manolo Blahnik emergency," I said.

"Chocolate," Kenni said again very firmly.

"I wonder if I have chocolate ice cream?" I whispered to myself.

Shalimar gave me the 'yeah, right,' face. "You? Miss health nut?" She got up and walked towards the kitchen. "I doubt it."

"Shali, you're doing the driving for an emergency supermarket run. You're the only one not devastated by..." I stopped myself. "Exhausted by, man loss."

Shalimar came back from the kitchen smiling at my change of words. She held out her hand to Kenni for keys to the Astro. "Anything else you temporarily pooped out fools need from the store?"

"A new boyfriend," Kenni said.

"High-heeled boots," I said.

"Yikes," Shalimar said. "Got it."

Chapter 26

We looked out and there were reporters camped out on our lawn.

"I think we should get someone to bring the ice cream to us," Kenni said.

"I know just the Good Humor Man for the job," Shalimar said.

I heard Jake arrive with the groceries but I took the coward's way out and stayed in my room. I never knew something that was so right that was so wrong. 

I could hear him chatting with Shalimar and Kenni but he didn't stay long.

It's safe to come out, Wimpy, Shalimar thought at me.

There were six bags of groceries.

"Really Shalimar?" I said.

"Dahl. I got a look in your refrigerator. Okay, actually I didn't, but I heard Kenni this morning and she had to make breakfast omelets out of egg foo young."

"Egg-oh-foo," I said.

"If you think I'm going to eat tofu, alfalfa sprouts, or wheat grass, you're not in shock, you're insane. It takes fat to maintain this gloriously voluptuous body. It takes fat. Yes it does. The bad fats. Fat and salt and sugar and lots of it."

Kenni and I both moaned, although probably for different reasons. 

Shalimar began unpacking groceries. She handed Kenni a pint of ice cream. Kenni and I got spoons out and began eating chocolate marshmallow deluxe out of the container.

We watched her unpack frozen dinners, cake, croissants, butter, eggs, milk, wine, lamb, and brisket. "For Rick," she said she unpacked the last one. She unpacked pecans, peaches, green tomatoes, and okra. "After all we are in Georgia, honey." She unpacked grits, cheese, and cornbread meal. 

I groaned. "I hate grits."

"I remember," Shalimar said. "But you don't have to eat it. Otherwise what were we going to eat for breakfast?"

"Weight control, high-fiber oatmeal?"

"Oh God," Kenni said.

"Not on your life, Sista. Not while I can still walk, breathe, and have a credit card," Shalimar said.

"Not by the hairs on the chiny-chin-chin of your Piggly Wiggly supermarkets," Kenni said.

Shalimar unpacked a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup and handed it to Kenni who squeezed it directly into the pint of ice cream we were eating.

"Yuck, too much, Kenni," I said.

Kenni looked at me. "Are you crazy, you can never have too much ice cream or too much chocolate."

"It's you can never be too rich or too thin." 

Shalimar looked at me. "You have been in California too long."

"I've been back in Savannah for months!"

"And you're still eating Egg-fool-yourself?" Shalimar shook her head. 

I stuck my spoon stubbornly in the ice cream and left it there.

"More for me," Kenni said hogging the container.

"I need to stay slim," I said.

"Why?" both Kenni and Shalimar said at once.

Why indeed. I was a toned size ten because I worked out six times a week, without fail, and ate healthier than anyone I know. I had really done it because to get anywhere in the entertainment industry you had to look as good as possible. But after my burnout, that was no longer my reason, it had been more out of habit. Now I had a new reason.

"I want to be hot, look killer, and feel comfortable naked." I smiled slowly. "So that when I seduce Jason, "call-me-Jake" Jacobson, he doesn't know what hit him."

Chapter 27

"You have a funny T-shirt? Come on, change into it," Kenni said.

"I don't have any. Wait, let me think." I shook my head. "None."

"We'll go down to the funny T-shirt shop on River Street tomorrow. Before or after the spa, and definitely," Shalimar said and then paused to glare at Kenni "after we get you a good cut and color."

"What if I don't want a good cut and color?"

Shalimar stared at her. I blinked. 

"Just kidding."

"Good thing, Sista because I am not going to walk around my hometown next to someone so obviously, desperately in need. People would think that I didn't take care of my own." 

"For a second there I thought that I would have to re-guilt you again," I said, "and if that didn't work, that Shali might drag you there even if she had to tie you up."

"Speaking of 'tie you up', we need to be on the look out for a fourth witch so you can get your man," Kenni said.

"What does that have to do with tying anybody up?" I asked.

"The sooner we get Jake for you, the sooner we'll be free to focus on some spells for me. A man with balance who likes to tie me up in bed but not in my life."

"Too much information, Kenni," I groaned. 

"And now that I'm totally ready for a new man this morning, we'd better get on it."

"I'll never look at a man as long as I live," Shalimar said with the back of her hand to her forehead. Her voice impression made her sound exactly like Kenni.

"That was before I was wearing 18 million dollars worth of diamonds."

"Dang," Shalimar said. "I should make a new rent-a-confidence program. I'd be rich."

"You're already rich." I said.

"Yeah, well, there is that."

"Anyway," Kenni said. "Now that I'm wearing the diamonds, I can see clearly. From their sparkle, probably."

"From looking at yourself in the mirror so much because you're wearing them, probably," I said.

"Anyway, I've been thinking, I'm ready for a new man."

"The hell you are," Shalimar said.

"Kenni," I said gently at that same time.

"Or at least I will be by the time Jake asks to marry you."

I pictured one hundred bricks falling into the silence that caused. Some of the bricks fell on my head. I blinked.

"What?" Kenni said. "You do want him to marry you, right?"

"I hadn't thought that far, Kenni. I just want to use his body for my own lustful purposes. And for my own comfort. I need him. I just need him to help me not feel about Rick. Rick was like..." I shrugged. "Well, we talked almost every day for the last ten years. I'd call him when I was in traffic, which in LA is all the time, when I didn't know what to wear, when I needed someone to remind me to take deep breaths before a big meeting, when I wanted to hear bad jokes. Then for the last few months I've been in bed with him too." 

I looked up at the ceiling. I'm not going to cry, I'm not. "I can't deal with the loss, I can't. It's like my stomach will eat itself unless I have Jake nearby. I can't explain it. When I think about Jake, I feel bubbly. Right now I just want to ..." I made a chewing motion. "...chew on him."

"You realize how sick you sound, Sista, right?"

"Um..."

"That you are totally using Basketball Jason as a distraction from feeling your own pain."

"Hey! I'm entitled." Oh my God. Did I just say that? Where did that come from? Yick.

Shalimar gave me one of her looks.

"Well, yeah, I realize it."

"And Miss Spooky Witch over there is trying to help you," Shalimar said, pointing at Kenni.

I looked down at the floor. "Yeah."

"And you're okay with that?"

I looked up as I thought about it. I remembered my dream from last night. "Yup."

Shalimar sighed loudly. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Okay," Kenni said and looked up as if she were talking directly to God. "Record amended. I will be ready for a man by the time call-me-Jake Jacobson asks you to chew on him."

"That's better," I said. "At least I can breathe when you say that."

"Which means we need to find a fourth right away," Kenni said. "So Jake gets chewed on, I get me a new man, and then we can work Shalimar. Although, she's worse than Barbie. This one," Kenni paused to point one plump finger towards Shalimar, "really does have everything."

"And unlike Barbie, her knees bend," I said.

Shalimar smiled, but for the first time I sensed that there might be something that might be missing in her life that she longed for too.

"Which means we have to be on the look out, attracting to us, thinking about, a fourth," Kenni said.

"It sounds like some kind of disease."

"So I've been meditating on it,"

"Aw, Jeez," Shalimar said.

"And these are some things to look out for. It doesn't have to be any of these things but it probably will be. It should be someone who represents south."

"So we look for someone who likes grits? That's the whole city, except Dahlya."

"No, no. Who represents south, not "the South."

"She making sense to you, Granola Girl?" 

I smiled. Shalimar had come up for that name for me once, about eight years ago when I baked my own granola one Sunday.

"Not a lick."

"Look, okay? Dahl represents west."

"As in wicked witch of?" Shalimar asked.

I stuck out my tongue at her. It was probably a good thing the three of us hadn't spent much time together since high school. When we were together we acted sixteen.

"Dahl's always been obsessed with California, Arizona, Oregon."

"Hawaii," I added. "Hello Big Island."

"So of the four corners, she represents the west."

I nodded and shrugged at the same time. It made as much sense as anything else.

"I've always been obsessed with the Atlantic Ocean," Kenni said. "And things from the Orient. So I'd represent the east."

I nodded again.

"Shali would be the north."

"If you call me a Northerner I'll have to rip your hair out and Christopher will have nothing to work with. Oh! Maybe I can catch them now." Shalimar went off to the phone and phone book. "Go on, I'm still listening."

"Shali represents the winter and the north. The cosmopolitan aspect."

"Okay. It's weird, but I see it," I said.

"So what we're missing is something that represents south. What's south from here?"

"Florida," I said.

"Hi y'all," I heard Shalimar say in a tone of voice that made me think she was talking to an answering machine. "This is Shalimar Leggond. I'm in town with McKenzie Wong-Levinson, and boys, this is a true cut and color emergency. You get us in this afternoon or first thing in the morning and I'll bring you a pint of ice cream and get you a copy of the new Janet Jackson CD, signed. Call me back right away, hurry. Wait, what's the number here?"

I told her and she repeated it into the phone.

"Please gentlemen, please. When you see Kenni you'll know what I mean, we can't go out until we see you. We'll wait for your response."

"You missed your calling," I said.

"I should have been what?"

"I don't know, but with that much drama over a hair cut, something for sure."

"North energy." Kenni said.

"So, I'm west," I said pointing a finger to my chest. "You're east," I said pointing a finger towards Kenni.

"Yes, and Shali is north. To draw the four corners for power, we need someone who represents south."

We paused. "Okay. What would that person be like?"

"Soft spoken spoken, gentle, and something that really represents south, so I think maybe Hispanic."

"Hmmn," I said.

"And I'm thinking she should be blonde."

"What?" Shalimar and I both said at once.

"Well, it's not absolutely necessary, but Shalimar has black hair, Dahl, you're a brunette, I'm a redhead..."

Shalimar snorted.

"So it just seems logical that our fourth would be a blonde. Round us out you know."

"Sista, we'll play along with this if you promise to go to therapy," Shalimar said.

"Deal. Now she might not be any of these things, she might not even be a woman."

"Argh."

"And I think she'll be short."

"Okay," I said and smiled. "Why?"

"Shalimar's 5'10, you're 5'8, I'm 5'6. So, I'd say we're looking for a blonde Latina who's shorter.

I rolled my eyes towards the ceiling. She doesn't need therapy, I thought at Shalimar, she needs a mental hospital.

"If this new fourth witch can move objects with her mind, I'm coming out of retirement and getting a film crew."

"Hey, that would be a bonus. I didn't think of that. None of us can do that. Right?" Kenni squinted at Shalimar. "You'd tell me if you could move objects with your mind."

"I can move objects with my credit card."

"Okay. We're still on the same wave length. Dahlya's always been precognitive, prone to premonitions."

"And Shalimar has always had a magical magnetic force," Kenni said.

"That's because she wears Versace! If I had her clothing budget I'd be a magical magnetic force too."

"And I've always been a ..."

"Bullshit artist?" Shalimar said.

"Attention hog?" I said.

"I was going to say persuasion." Kenni said.

"Good grief," I said.

"You have no mystic power," Shalimar said. "Singing is a talent, not a magic."

Kenni continued as if she hadn't spoken. "And we all have some empathetic abilities or y'all wouldn't have been able to receive that vision of Dahl as a knock-out that I sent to you," Kenni said.

What vision? I thought, what's she talking about?

"We, do not all have telepathic abilities," Shalimar said. "I have abilities and I enable them in y'all."

"Technicality," Kenni said.

"The Baker Act. That's when you put people in an asylum temporarily against their will, right?" Shalimar said.

"If you can prove that they're a danger to themselves or others," Kenni said without missing a beat. "If they are doing the world a favor by getting one handsome firm butt naked, you laud them."

"Oooh," Shalimar said as we were both treated to a picture of what Jake might look like from behind while taking off his jeans.

I cleared my throat.

"Right," Shalimar said.

"I'm not meant to sleep alone. I am destined to sleep next to that butt. I'm a pre-cognitive, I know these things," I said. I was trying to joke but it didn't cheer me up. I let my head hang down to my chest.

"Okay, powerful women, there are people who wait for things that might never happen and there are people who make things happen," Kenni said. "Which ones are we going to be?"

Chapter 28

I pointed at the phone. It rang.

"Oh my God!" Kenni clapped her hands together. "You haven't done that since we were in high school."

"It hasn't been that easy since I was in high school."

It rang again.

"Okay, Okay," Kenni said. "Who is it?"

"It's Christopher's getting you in for an emergency. That's not that hard to figure out, they're Janet Jackson fans." I turned to look at Shalimar. "If you could get them a signed Cher CD we could probably all get hair cuts for free."

"We're in," Shalimar said.

"Well, get dressed," Kenni said. "We have a blonde to find."