Plus-One With A Vengeance : 16 / 29

[ An Altered Fates Story ]
by Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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"Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. It's where all the fruit is."
— Shirley MacLaine, Out On A Limb

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Today being Saturday, with the possibility of running into Paul, I didn't go directly downstairs in my pajamas. I took the time to get my hair and face ready. I dressed in a white skater dress.

I don't know what plans Melissa had for me today, but they'd need to be set aside. My program was already set. Today was going to be my second date with Max: our lunch with the ladies. The ladies being Kass and her girlfriend Tamara.

Dressed, but still barefoot, I sat on the edge of my bed and eyed the Christmas present Max had given me last night. He made it clear that the box contained a dress, and that he thought it would be suitable for today's lunch. I was hopeful; it would be a nice touch, showing up in a dress he'd given me.

I almost opened the box. But when I heard Melissa's voice come indistinctly from downstairs in the kitchen, it struck me in an instant that *she* would get a bigger kick out of opening the present than I would, and so, smiling, I picked it up, left my bedroom, and walked softly across the upstairs carpet.

As I descended the stairs I crinkled the wrapping paper beneath my fingers so Melissa would know I was coming.

"There she is!" Paul exclaimed by way of greeting, as soon as my feet came into view.

"Hello there, sweetie," Melissa called, "Do you have any plans for today? I was thinking..."

My response, my interruption, was to waggle the golden Christmas box at her, as soon as I'd come far enough down the stairs that she could see it. She clapped her hands together and shrieked like a teenager. Paul winced and blinked.

"Oh, my goodness! what is that? What's in that box?" Her questions came firing out, accompanied by a huge, dimpled smile. "Another present? A present from Max?"

"Yes. Yes to all that." Her joy was too infectious. I had to smile as well — a smile so big it almost hurt my face. "This one is a—"

"AAH!" she interrupted, pointing a sharp index finger in my direction. "Zip it! Zip that lip! Don't spoil the surprise!"

"Okay," I acquiesced, "but Max already told me what it—"

"No, no!" she cut in loudly. She covered her ears and said, "LA LA LA LA LA" to drown out my words. I set the box on the kitchen counter, in front of her, then made the motion of zipping my lips shut and locking them with a key. She took her hands off her ears, and asked, "Do you mean I can open it? Don't you want to open it?"

"Open it," I told her. "*You* open it, before I tell you what it is."

After three fruitless tugs at the red ribbon, Melissa snipped it off with a pair of scissors, then carefully fit her fingers into the edges of the paper, pulling it gently open. Paul watched the proceedings with some curiosity. It occurred to me that I ought to ask Melissa what Paul thought I was doing in their home, how long he thought I was staying, and so on. I'd gone from being an almost complete stranger to something of a more-or-less permanent fixture.

I say "almost complete stranger" because Paul, like everyone else, took me to be Elliot's cousin. There was a built-in sense of familiarity — due on the one hand to my "strong family resemblance" to Elliot, and on the other hand to the secret fact that Paul and I already knew each other. "Secret" only because Paul hadn't the least inkling. He knew nothing about the medallion, so the possibility of my ever having been Elliot would never enter his head.

At long last, Melissa got the box open. It contained, as Max said, a dress. Melissa was underwhelmed. It was a wrap dress, pale sage in color — a cool, understated color, I thought. The sleeves were short; the skirt came down to just above my knees.

"I guess you have to try it on," she said without much enthusiasm.

As soon as the fabric touched my body, I was convinced. The cloth was incredibly light and soft. It floated on my skin like a feather. Never having worn a wrap dress before, I needed Melissa's help in positioning it correctly and in tying the bow that kept the dress closed.

Paul signaled his approval with a wolf whistle.

"Well!" Melissa exclaimed, taking a step back so she could see it better. "That is a lovely dress on you! I wonder who helped Max choose it?"

"Do you know," she went on, after looking from various angles, "Lying on the counter, it just looked like a pile of cloth. But now, it doesn't just fit you, it hangs on you. It... follows your curves, like water. I'd say it's flattering, but you don't need flattery. It shows you off. It really shows you off."

"It fits me perfectly, doesn't it?" I asked. The question was redundant, but I wanted to be sure.

"Like it was made for you," Melissa confirmed. Paul nodded and gave a thumbs up.

 

---

 

Melissa and I half-jokingly ran the dress through its paces: walking up and down, quickly and slowly, climbing and descending the stairs, twirling, quick, dramatic turns right and left, sitting, standing... That process complete, I changed back into my white skater dress. I couldn't risk spilling breakfast on the new dress. Now that the show was over, Paul retreated to the patio with a mug of coffee and a book.

With that, I was essentially ready for my lunch date. There wasn't any time for much else, so Melissa and I beguiled the time talking. During a conversational lull, I told Melissa about the remaining Christmas presents, the three coded P, V, and S. She tried guessing all sorts of things, each time going for all three at once — "Pizza, Vegetables, and Salamanders!" or "Pajamas, V-necks, and Sapphires" or "Paris, Venice, and Singapore" — until at last she came up with a combination that short-circuited herself: "Penis, Vagina, Sex!" After we stopped laughing, she was done guessing. Her brain, burnt out, refused to throw up any more possible answers.

We talked about Kass and Tamara. Melissa hadn't heard the story of Max's Valentines Day dinner with Kass, so I laid it out for her. Melissa's anger was ignited on hearing of Amber's verbal attack on Max. She was nearly incandescent, but at the same time sad. I thought she'd be pleased to hear how Kass gut-punched Amber. Instead, it distressed her. "I understand that Kass was provoked, but even so, it's undignified," she told me, shaking her head. "Even for someone as awful as Amber... who, no doubt, deserves it. Remember: violence begets violence."

Her response took a lot of the air out of the story, but there was the postscript (if you remember) from the parking lot: that Amber would be coming to Nessa's wedding.

"What!?" Melissa exclaimed, the flame of her anger re-lit. I'm pretty sure that if Amber were somehow present at that moment in Melissa's kitchen, that Melissa might have given old Amber a punch in the gut herself. "That girl is a snake! She's insidious, that's what she is! Why would someone stick their nose in, where they're not wanted?"

She went off on a fiery tangent, wondering whether she dared try to scuttle Amber's invitation. When I pointed out that a wedding invitation is a "difficult bell to un-ring" she grudgingly gave it up.

From there, determined to change the subject, Melissa began telling happier stories — beginning at her own wedding, to Paul. Then, anecdotes of their life as a young couple, up to the point when Max was born. Some random association took Melissa into memories of Vivianne, who was apparently quite wild as a teenager.

"Honestly," Melissa confessed, "someone could make a movie, based literally and exactly on the life of that woman, but no one would believe it. They'd think it was utter fiction."

"Because of the medallion?" I asked.

"What medallion?" Melissa blanked for a moment. "Oh, that. No, no — even without that! She was always just... not so much out of control as... well, light years out... light years out on a limb, if that makes any sense. She's a strange creature. Sometimes she reminds me of Shirley MacLaine, if Shirley MacLaine had a dark side. I thank God that Vivianne is kind and considerate, because if she wasn't... well, there'd be no stopping her."

A chill went through me as she spoke.

 

---

 

The time flew so quickly, we were both caught by surprise when Max's car pulled up outside.

Melissa followed me as I ran upstairs. I needed her help again with the wrap and the bow. I quipped, "Hey, I'm like a Christmas present: wrapped with a bow." Then, hearing the words that came out of my mouth, I stopped and said, "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"Put your shoes on," Melissa said. "You'll have plenty of time to decide how you feel about what you feel later."

 

---

 

When we returned to the kitchen, I had to show off the dress. Max nodded appreciatively, gave me a thumbs up, and when I turned my back to him, he exclaimed, "Whoa!" in an appreciative tone. Thanks to our rigorous testing earlier, I knew what that view looked like: the dress did my derriere proud.

Melissa gave Max a half-disapproving look. She was distressed by his wolfish aspect, but pleased that he was pleased with Lorelei. Max, ignorant of all her subtexts, shrugged and winked at her.

I wondered whether Max would kiss me (and what sort of kiss he'd give) without his father present to prompt him.

Max took a step toward me, put one hand on the back of my neck, and kissed me on the cheek. Then, with his hand still heavy on the back of my neck, he rested his forehead on mine for a few moments. I closed my eyes and drank in the silent communion.

"That was nice," I told him in the car.

"Yeah," he agreed, reaching over to squeeze my thigh before placing both his hands on the steering wheel. He looked over and smiled. "That dress is perfect for you," he told me.

I rested my hands in my lap and smiled to myself. Things were going so well!

At one point, the car hit a bump in the road, and I almost told Max his mother's guess for the meaning of P, V, and S, but managed to bite my tongue.

 

---

 

My heels were a bit higher than any I'd worn so far. Consequently, they endowed my derriere with complete autonomy of movement. In other words, I could feel my butt dip and sway as I walked, without any control or intent on my part, whatsoever. I knew that Max had gotten wind of this back in his parents' driveway — I was clued in by the way he hung back as I moved toward his car. When we got to the restaurant, he came around to my side, opened the door, and gazed down at me. "You're a vision," he said.

"Thanks," I quipped. "I guess that makes you a visionary."

He helped me to my feet. When I was fully vertical, almost balanced on my high heels, he suddenly, abruptly, clumsily hugged me. I was so taken by surprise that I would have fallen if he wasn't holding me tight.

"Oh, God," he groaned, and somehow I understood that he was saying, I'm confused and conflicted... so confused and conflicted. It was one of his Elliot or Lorelei? moments, I could tell. His body told him Lorelei while his brain insisted Elliot. Max's face was flushed as we came out of the embrace. I didn't mean to, but I glanced down at the lump in his pants, taken aback by the size of it. It occurred to me that I'd never seen Max's penis in the wild, if I can express it that way. He cleared his throat and asked, "Would you mind walking ahead me into the restaurant?"

I scratched my eyebrow and gave him a sideways look with a teasing smile. "Is this so you can stare at my butt? Or so you can hide your boner?"

"Both," he admitted. "But one thing works against the other." He sighed. "Do you mind?"

I hesitated a moment, then told him, "No, I don't mind, but, um... maybe it would be better to wait out here until it passes. Can you think about baseball scores or mowing the lawn or, uh, I don't know... doing your taxes?"

"Taxes," he said, closing his eyes. "Taxes." He shook his head back and forth. "Depreciation would probably help."

"Try to remember all the forms you have to find."

He grumbled and concentrated, but after a few minutes he confessed defeat. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's no good. You're just... you're just way too hot."

"Okay," I said. "I've got a image for you — you have to immediately forget that it was me who told you, okay, but this one is guaranteed." I leaned close to whisper in his ear. He looked at me from the corner of his eye. It was pure heat. He snaked his hand around my waist. I whispered, so not a soul on earth could hear what I had to say. "Max," I whispered, and the two of us quivered.

"You're killing me," he groaned.

"Picture your grandmother, naked on the toilet," I told him.

He recoiled and took a few steps away from me. "Oh, that's sick!" he protested. His shudders, his grunted moans of disgust, made me laugh so hard that I bent over crying, clutching my stomach.

I don't think a full two minutes passed before I was straightening up, wheezing, and he was descending on me like a fury. He took my arm, said, "Come on inside now, you dirty thing, you."

"I guess this means you're better?"

He replied by giving me a sharp swat on my butt. I yelped.

Then, finally, he laughed. "Yes, it worked. Your awful image worked. Where on earth did you get that?"

"I don't remember," I told him honestly. He rolled his eyes, but then he smirked and gave my arm a conspiratorial squeeze.

The restaurant wasn't lit very brightly inside — nothing near the noon intensity outside. Temporarily blinded by the transition, we wouldn't have been able to find the table if the hostess hadn't led us directly to it. Of the two women seated there, it was easy to know which woman went with which name. Kass, clearly, was the demure woman: perfect posture, long hair, and the slender body of a dancer. She held her head high, reminding me of a meerkat standing on its hind legs so it can see far. She remained seated, smiling and waving hello, but Tamara got up and walked in front of the table to greet us.

Tamara was a strong contrast to the petite, poised Kass: Tamara is big: not tall, and definitely not fat. What Tamara was, was big-boned: her pelvis and shoulders were wide. Her body was like a cartoon square with a hand or foot on each corner, and a small head on top. Her hair was red, close-cropped in a mannish buzz, and she wore big, rectangular-framed eyeglasses. She might have seemed comical, except for her smile, which wide, symmetrical, and utterly disarming.

When she spoke, her voice rolled out in a Texas drawl.

She grabbed Max and hauled him into a bear hug. Her arms around him, she flexed forcefully, eliciting a grunt, then a second grunt, from the captive Max.

"Oh, Max, Max!" she crooned. "Thanks for rescuing my little girl on Valentines Day. I'm so very grateful! I'm so sorry I missed it; it sounded pretty damn eventful."

Released from her embrace, Max bashfully scoffed that "it was nothing." Tamara squeezed his upper arm with a strong hand.

Then she turned to me. I was a little apprehensive. If Tamara gripped me as firmly as she held Max, I was sure to come out of it with broken bones, or bruises at the very least. Instead, she utterly charmed me by gently taking my right hand, saying, "Now, this delicate flower must be Lorelei." She raised the back of my hand almost to her lips. Rather than kiss my hand, she kept going, lifting it by my fingers higher than my head, as if she needed to do so to see my dress adequately.

She nodded, smiled, approved: "Excellent choice! You can't go wrong with the bias cut. I love a good draping." She continued to move my hand, guiding me into a slow turn, so she could see the dress from all sides. Some diners at another table looked on and smiled. I blushed, both flattered and embarrassed.

Tamara herself was dressed in a pair of rust-orange elephant pants with a super-loose silk floral-print top. The print on her top looked as though it was painted by a five-year-old. And yet... the outfit worked! There may not have been another woman on earth who could have worn such a look, but Tamara made it look good.

That was the thing about Tarama: she was too much, but she beguiled you with her excess.

The moment we all sat down, Tamara leaned back and reached into the ice bucket next to her chair. She pulled out a champagne bottle and held it against the light. "Empty!" she pronounced. Tilting her head back, she called across the room, Une autre bouteille de Moët, s’il vous plaît! The waiter nodded.

Let me say, in passing: you have not lived until you've heard French spoken with a Texas accent.

Tamara turned her head and looked lovingly at Kass, but pointed with disapproval at Kass' glass. "You've barely touched your champagne, my dear." In fact, the glass was, for all intents, full.

Kass gave a cute shrug with her delicate shoulders. "Honey, you know I'm not a big drinker."

"But we're celebrating!" Tamara protested, throwing her arms wide in global invitation. "Everybody ought to be drinking!" She leaned forward toward Max and me. "The occasion today is my first red-carpet event! A celebrity — I can't tell you her name, not yet, but you know her — everyone knows her — an A-lister — her people are flying me out to LA this week to talk over designs and to try on some of my pieces. And then, I will create for her a one-of-a-kind, never-before seen and never-to-be-seen-again dress, along with a look." She picked up her glass to drink; was taken aback to find it empty. "It will be a dress, a look, to die for," she confided. The alcohol she'd already consumed seemed to rise from her like a miasma. A joyful, celebratory miasma, but a miasma for all of that. It quickly passed.

I smiled at Tamara, and she smiled back. Her eyes drifted down to my dress, and she commented, "Killer dress. Killer dress."

"Thanks," I acknowledged. "But... can you tell me, what was it you said before about a bias? I didn't understand that."

Her eyebrows bounced. "No? Gracious, girl! I thought everyone knew... oh well. Here we go. I'm going to explain to you what the bias cut means, in a nutshell. Most of the clothes you see are made from rectangles of cloth, all sewn together. Nothing wrong with that. You can get wonderful clothes, doing that. Just for example, look at the clothes around this table. We're all dressed well, but there's a difference between the way your dress is made and the way our clothes are made. Take a look at Max for instance: he looks good; he's dressed well. You can understand that his clothes are made from rectangles of cloth, all sewn together. Do you follow? Rectangles." She made gestures with her hand that somehow made it clearer.

"Yes."

"That's the usual way. My clothes, Kass' clothes, right now, today, rectangles. Now, look at this napkin." She held up a cloth napkin and pulled the sides away from each other. "This is a rectangle, or a grid if you like. now lookit here: there's not much give in the material. It's very stable, which is wonderful if you want stability. But now, take a gander at this." She turned the napkin 45 degrees, and dangled it by one corner. "This is the bias. It means the cloth is cut and sewn on the diagonal. Suddenly, just by taking that turn, you lose the rigidity of the rectangles. It's like magic: it leaves the cloth free to flow over your body. Do you see what I'm saying?" She moved her hand beneath the napkin, and the cloth flowed over her fingers.

"I think so."

"Tonight, when you go home, hang up that dress, put it on a hanger, and then take a good look at it, there on the hanger. Compare it to another dress on a hanger. You'll see the difference. The other one will keep its shape. The way it looks on the hanger is how it looks on you. This dress, on the other hand, looks great on you, but on the hanger, it'll just hang like an old rag. Try it. You'll see."

The waiter arrived with another bottle of champagne, which he popped and poured.

Tamara chortled, "Ladies, I have c confession to make: I'm of a mind to swallow me a sea of bubbles."

"We need to eat something," Kass protested. "I'm starving, and the food here is not to be missed."

Tamara waved her hand as if erasing her own sea-of-bubbles remark. "Alright, darlin', alright! Your wish is my command. Food! Let there be food, in abundance!"

 

---

 

The food was wonderful, but you don't need to hear about it. You can visit Celestial Lamb and try it yourself. What I do need to talk about are two sensitive, secret moments that came up during our lunch. The first moment: when Tamara left the table so she could speak with the chef about a dish. A dish that wasn't on the menu.

"She always does this," Kass confided, twisting her mouth to the side in frustration. "It's embarrassing. She always has to order something that isn't on the menu. Usually she just harasses the waitperson about it, but this being a special occasion, she's got to go in the kitchen and pester the chef." Then, after a quick glance over her shoulder, she leaned forward and in a low voice told us, "I should have warned you guys. Tamara — you know I love her — but when she drinks, she drinks a lot. It's like every day she doesn't drink is a token that she saves up for a special occasion, and then boom! She cashes in those tokens all at once!"

What Kass said seemed to be true: Tamara ordered, all told, two bottles of champagne and two bottles of white wine. Kass had less than one glass. Max, and I each drank two. All told, let's say that's one bottle. Tamara pretended to complain ("What a burden you three have put upon me") and did away with the rest. Then, after dinner, in lieu of dessert, Tamara insisted we each have a glass of Chartreuse, a green digestif from France.

I wasn't sure what to say. Luckily Kass stepped in. "Honey, you can have a glass by yourself, but the three of us can share one."

Tamara bristled, but she gave in without argument.

The second moment: when Max left the table for a trip to the men's room.

The topic of Nessa's wedding came up. Kass confirmed that she and Tamara would be there together. "I hope we can sit at the same table," she said to me.

"If we're not," Tamara put in, "we'll just move the placecards around. Problem solved!"

"I'm not sure that I'm going to the wedding," I confided. "Max hasn't asked me yet."

"Hasn't asked you?" Tamara repeated, feigning indignation. "Hasn't asked you? Well, what the hell is he waiting for? I oughta slap that boy up the side of his head! Of course he's going to ask you! Don't talk nonsense! I've seen the way he looks at you! That man — that man — he wants to slobber all over you!"

"Tamara!" Kass cautioned.

"It's true," she protested. "Look, when he gets back to this table, I'm going to put that boy on the spot. I'll tell him straight out: he's got to ask you right now, today. I'm asking you: What the hell is he waiting for?"

I went white. "Please don't," I said. "Please?"

Tamara was genuinely surprised by my reaction. She reached out to grip my hand to reassure me. "Well, look at you girl — bless your little heart! You look like you've seen a ghost! My goodness. Come on, now, Lorelei. Don't you worry. Aunt Tamara's going to straighten that boy out, right quick. We'll get you to that wedding!"

"No, no, really. I appreciate your concern, but please: just leave it. Please? It's complicated. If you push him, it could blow everything up."

Tamara frowned, uncomprehending. She stared at me and worked her jaw, as if chewing something.

Kass touched Tamara's hand, and smiling said, "Honey, honey? Let's let Lorelei run things her way, okay? Honey?"

Tamara twisted her head around, struggling to let it go, but in the end she grunted her assent. "If you say so. Fine." Still, she leveled her index finger at me, "If he... if... if you give me the word, I'll kick his skinny white ass into next week."

She said it to make me laugh, and laugh I did.

"Actually," Tamara specified, "I'd have my little girl Kass here do the kicking. Did you know she's a bona fide martial artist?"

"No, I didn't know."

"She teaches Krav Maga to the local police. What do you think about that?"

"That's not accurate," Kass protested.

Tamara shrugged. "It's funny, or ironic, I guess. People see me... I'm big and loud, I speak my mind, I'm from the South — they figure I'm a brawler. People tell me they're afraid of me. Afraid of me! I'm just a big pussy cat. The thing is, I've never been in a fight. Not even once, not even close. I'd be scared to death; I wouldn't know what to do but run away screaming. I've never raised my hand against man, woman, animal, or child. The one to fear is this little one here." She gestured to Kass. Then she squeezed the giggling Kass into a hug.

 

---

 

We stayed at the restaurant for two and a half hours. We weren't the only diners to linger that long, though. In the end, I'm pretty sure it wasn't a problem. Judging from the waiter's expression, Tamara must have left a pretty hefty tip. She was in an understandably expansive mood.

Outside, we blinked in the mid-afternoon sun. "I expected it to be dark out," I said. "Or at least evening."

"Sorry to disappoint!" Tamara laughed. "But hey, do you two have any plans at the moment? What do you say to coming over to my workshop?" Max had his back to us, so Tamara reached over to give me a playful push. "We could find you something to wear at the wedding, Lorelei, what do you say?" to which she added a big, slow, obvious, over-elaborate wink. "What do you say?"

Max turned, abstracted. "Sounds interesting," he replied, but it was hard to tell whether he'd actually heard Tamara.

"Can you drive?" I asked.

"Sure," Max replied. "That's what I was just calculating. Two glasses, two and half hours. I should be fine."

The four of us climbed into Max's car and off we went. Tamara gave an address that was perched on the inner edge of the industrial district. Tamara's building ("I picked this place up for a song!") was a three-story structure, almost 4000 square feet, solid, stuccoed in a color Tamara called "Cannoli Cream" — and completely anonymous. It could easily be an office building filled with dentists, accountants, or direct-mail companies. "But it's mine — entirely mine!" Tamara explained. The lot was surrounded by a five-foot wall. The grounds were simply grass, all around. Out back was a terra-cotta patio adorned with a little table and four chairs.

Tamara gave us the tour: the first floor was all work: four big rooms: one housed six sewing machines, a second held bolts of cloth, buttons, zippers, and other supplies, the rest of the first floor was for layout tables, dress dummies, and whiteboards on the walls. The last room was for packaging and shipping.

"My bread and butter is a subscription shirt service," Tamara explained. "I make custom shirts: any cloth, any style, as often as you like. Some men get a new shirt every week, some once a month, others get a pack of ten every so often. Whatever they want."

The second floor was split between offices and atelier.

Tamara and Kass lived on the third floor. "It's a good location," Tamara told us. "We're walking distance from Kass' dance studio in one direction and her gym in the other. She has to drive to work, but it's not far."

They kitchen was particularly well appointed. There was also a spacious guest room with its own bath. "You two could stay over, if you like," Tamara suggested — an invitation loaded with saucy undertones and another overdone wink. The bed was certainly inviting, I'll admit — loaded with white ruffles and layer upon layer of soft fabrics. I could see that Max was not insensitive to the possibilities offered by that bed and that invitation.

There was a lot to see, and there was clearly a lot of depth to Tamara.

Her dress designs puzzled me, tending, as they did, toward the avant garde. I didn't see how I — or really, how most women — could wear any of them, unless the event was something like the Met Gala. None of them were suitable for the wedding. They were all too much, too far out there, too eye catching. Or too little: showing too much breast or butt or the intimate area. Several were too transparent to be worn in public anywhere.

There was one dress that Max particularly liked: the main feature was a pair of tight silver lame hot pants, surrounded by a pseudo-eighteenth century dress, corseted, with tight sleeves and a hoop skirt. What caught Max's eye and imagination was the way that the skirt had seemingly exploded in front, with tattered edges, laying bare the woman's legs underneath, revealing everything up to the lame hot pants. The corset, likewise, was cracked open like an egg at the top, so that the model's breasts spilled out, stopping only at the very edge of indecency. It was sexy, yes, exposing so much skin in that way against such a repressive background. What Tamara accomplished in that dress was to blast the prudish standard of that time; to literally blow it up, revealing the nearly-naked woman underneath.

And then... the four of us divided. It was entirely spontaneous. I wasn't aware of it happening at the time. I don't know that any of the others were aware of it, either. There was no design or plan or scheme.

Kass, understanding that Tamara's avant-garde designs left me cold, undertook to lead me into another room, where she showed me other, more accessible dresses that Tamara created, but loved far less. Honestly, though, these dresses were wonderful. It would have been worth becoming a woman just to wear these dresses from Tamara. "She could conquer the world with these designs," Kass confided, "but she insists on pushing her abstract, crazy pieces on people who will never want them."

While the two of us pored over drawings, photos, and actual dresses, Tamara and Max discovered they had a mutual interest in wines, spirits, and cigars. The two of them went up on the roof with two cigars and a bottle of Bacanora añejo. Later, I asked Max what the two of the them found to talk about, but he always claimed that he couldn't remember. What he *did* remember was the smooth smoke from the cigar and the unusually earthy taste of the bacanora. "It's a taste that's practically an aroma. Just imagine... if you could roast sugar crystals," he said, "what that would smell like... and then, combine that — with maybe the idea of coffee... and then, I don't know... it's tastes and aromas and alcohol."

In other words, Max and Tamara got rip-roaring drunk. I don't know how often that happens to Tamara, but it's pretty unusual for Max. He was still able to stand upright, walk, and talk sensibly, and neither he nor Tamara fell off the roof, so that's something. Not a lot, but something.

While all that was going on, Kass and I managed to find a few possible dresses for me to borrow if — IF — Max got around to making me his plus-one. I didn't try anything on, but Kass made notes and promises, and I, buoyed with excitement, would willingly pay to wear one of Tamara's more "pedestrian" creations.

Our dress hunt completed, Kass and I shared a conspiratorial sisterly hug and went off to find our opposite numbers.

We found Tamara and Max there on the roof, each with an arm draped over the other's shoulders, holding an unlit, half-consumed cigar in their free hands, singing.

"It was the only song we both knew," Max protested.

The song was Deep In The Heart of Texas. They stamped their feet in lieu of clapping. By the time we got there, they were improvising lyrics, nonsensical stanzas that had nothing to recommend them by the rhyme. The pair of them were laughing and shouting.

When Max saw me, he stopped singing and walked over to me, draping his arms heavily over my shoulders, the way that drunken people do. "Oh, you found me," he said, breathing alcohol into my face. "It all means something."

"I think it means we should head for home," I told him.

Tamara protested. "It's early! It's not even whatever o'clock! We're young! We should party all night. Kass, what's the name of that club we should go to?"

Kass looked at me, smiled, and shook her head. "It's time to roll up the tent, Tamara," she said.

 

---

 

Yes, it was definitely time to roll up the tent and head for home. But how to do it? Max was in no fit state to drive. In fact, he was none too steady on his feet.

Tamara's blood alcohol was well above Max's, but she was already home. I had only two glasses of wine hours ago, and was sure to pass any breath or blood test. I was fit to drive, there was no doubt, but I had a different problem -- I didn't have a drivers license. I'd only been a girl for five or six days; there wasn't enough time, even if I had made the effort to get my license — which I hadn't.

That left Kass, who'd only had the merest sips — virtually nothing. She was the only person who could legally drive. After a brief discussion, Kass declared it would go like this: She would drive Max and me to Max's house. Then she'd take an Uber home. It was the simplest plan. It was impossible to come up with anything simpler, aside from our sleeping over at Tamara and Kass' house.

Why didn't we? Neither Max nor me wanted to. Kass tried to push that solution, until she finally understood that Max and I had never slept together and that we weren't ready yet to fall over that edge.

I sat in the back with Max, who fell asleep as soon as the car started moving. He slept with his head thrown back, like a drunken man. He let out the occasional snore.

Kass nearly missed a turn, and took it so hard, that Max's head swung to the side and knocked hard against the car window. "Sorry!" she exclaimed, but he didn't wake. I held him after that so he wouldn't flop around.

Just before we arrived, just before Kass pulled into Max's driveway, he awoke and seemed to have recovered his senses.

"Do you need help getting him into the house?" Kass asked.

"I can walk," Max protested, and demonstrated it by stepping out and standing next to the car. Kass called an Uber. I told her we'd wait with her. "It's not necessary," she replied.

Hearing that, Max began walking toward his house, toward the front door. His posture was stiff and tall, his gaze fixed straight ahead. "The Uber's almost here," Kass told me. "You better go after him — make sure he doesn't hurt himself."

At that, the next few things happened like clockwork. I glanced around the corner of the house and saw Max walk uncertainly into his house, leaving the front door open. Kass locked up the car and handed me the keys. I gave her a hug and thanked her. The Uber arrived. She ran to it; I dashed into the house and shut the door behind me.

Max was sitting on his couch, feet flat on the floor, bent over at the waist, chest resting on thighs, fingertips touching his shoes. I knelt on the floor next to him. "Are you alright?" I asked in a gentle voice. "Do you want a glass of water?"

"I'm fine," he breathed in a heavy whisper. "I'm untying my shoes. Can't you see?" He wiggled his fingers, but his shoes remained tied.

"Good boy," I said, and ruffled his hair.

My cell went off. It was Kass.

"Hey, listen," she said. "I looked back as I was driving away, and I saw somebody come out from the side of the house. They stood in the street and watched me drive away. It was pretty creepy."

I didn't know what to say. Half-automatically, I asked, "Are you okay?"

"Sure *I* am," she replied, "But *you* ought to check all the doors and windows, make sure they're locked." She hesitated a moment. "You ought to check the whole house. Or call the police and have them do it."

"It's okay," I told her. "I can do it."

"Do you want me to stay on the line? I can stay with you while you look around. If anything happens, I'll call 911 for you."

"No, it's okay, I'll just check everything. It'll be fine."

"Call me back in ten minutes. If you don't, I will call the cops, okay?"

"Make it fifteen," I said. "I'm checking now."