Crazy Little Thing (22 page)

The Bruised Vulva

It was a lovely
afternoon. The sun was bright and the air was cold but not frigid. Ollie was as
happy as a pig in slop. She was going to learn to snowboard. Even the fact that
Scarlet was there with her fancy schmancy new snowsuit wasn’t enough to dampen
Ollie’s spirits. She was fairly confident that her surfing training was going
to give her a leg up. Scarlet may have won the contest of Claire’s heart, but
Ollie was going to win the contest of snowboarding. Not that it was a
competition or anything.

Sleepy Hollow was a
small resort with a beginner’s hill that looked fairly tame by Ollie’s standards.
Of course, she and G-Ray rode ten-foot waves so a
35-degree
angle ski slope looked possible.

“Dood, I think we can
totally rock this,” G-Ray said to Ollie. They were standing at the bottom of
the hill looking up.

“There’s the
half-pipe,” Ollie said. She pointed to the side where the terrain park was. It
was filled with boxes, rails and jumps. “I can’t wait to shred on that.”

Scarlet stood behind
them fussing with her coat. “I’m not shredding anything. This outfit is brand
new.”

“Shredding means
turning. It’s snowboarding lingo,” Ollie said.

 Scarlet was still
focused on her coat. “I told them I wanted claret. And what do they give me?
Red. Any idiot knows that claret is not red.”

Ollie bit her lip.
Everyone else had rented their outfits. Only Scarlet had said, “Ugh. Wear
clothes somebody
else
has sweated in before
me?”

“Scarlet, it doesn’t
matter. You’re only going to do this once. We live in Houston. No one
snowboards there,” Claire said.

“I wish Begonia
could’ve come,” G-Ray said. “She said as soon as she gets settled she’d be
right on it. I’m thinking she has great potential.”

“Ugh,” Scarlet said. She
rolled her eyes for further emphasis. “If I have to hear one more word about
Pansy.”

“It’s Begonia,” G-Ray
said.

“Make sure you keep
the head cam going,” Ollie said, nudging G-Ray in the ribs with her elbow and
sliding her eyes in Scarlet’s direction.

G-Ray sniggered. He
knew what Ollie was thinking. Scarlet was going to suck at snowboarding and
they would capture it all on video. G-Ray smiled at Ollie who smirked. Yes,
revenge was a dish best served cold.

Their instructor came
over. He was tall with black hair and blue eyes. “Are you the Texans?”

“That’s us,” G-Ray
said, shaking his hand.

“My name’s Steve,”
the instructor said. “And I’ll be your coach for the next hour or so.”

G-Ray introduced
everyone. Claire shook Steve’s hand last, saying, “Has anybody ever told you
that you look like Elvis?”

“No,” he said,
laughing. “But I do a mean karaoke. So, are you ready to get your shred on?”

“We are so seriously
ready,” G-Ray said.

Ollie glanced over at
Claire and Scarlet. Claire looked apprehensive. Scarlet looked nothing but
confident. Ollie hoped that Scarlet fell right on her confidence
…
hard. That would show her.

Steve led the way up
the hill. It wasn’t easy to walk uphill in snow and big boots. By the time they
reached the top, Scarlet was huffing and puffing and her face matched her name.

“I thought they had
chair lifts,” Scarlet panted.

“Not for this hill,”
Steve said. “The chair lift is for the big hills.”

“At least we don’t
have to stand around and wait for a wave,” G-Ray said.

Steve began their
first lesson. “Stopping is the first thing to learn. It’s important to learn
how to stop before you learn how to go.” He stood on his snowboard and leaned
back on his heels, saying, “You stop by using the heel side edge.” Next, he
leaned forward with his arms fully extended and said, “You can turn using the
toe side edge or the heel side edge.” He looked at Scarlet pointedly and said,
“Once you’ve mastered that, you can get on the lift and go do the big hills.”

“And how do we know
which side is heel and which is toe? They’re not labeled,” Scarlet said
pointedly.

Steve looked at G-Ray
as if to say, “Is she kidding?”

Ollie jumped in. “You
can remember which is which by thinking toe edge is by your toes and heel by your
heel.”

“Well, why didn’t he just
say that?” Scarlet said.

“Dood, it’s implied,”
G-Ray said.

“Moving right along.
We need to figure out how you’re going to ride,” Steve said.

“Ride? I thought we
had to walk,” Scarlet said.

Claire tired to keep
the annoyance out of her voice as she said, “Scarlet, let’s just let Steve
explain everything and then we can ask questions.”

Steve pointed at
Scarlet. “C’mere, Red. I’ll show you what I mean.”

“It’s Scarlet,” she
said, huffily.

“Well, Scarlet, just
stand here and I’m going to give you a little push.”

“Push?” Scarlet
asked. “Why don’t you push Ollie?”

“I chose you because
you looked like a natural,” Steve said.

That seemed to
appease her. “Oh, all right,” Scarlet said. “Just don’t mess up my new outfit.
It cost more than you make in a year.”

Claire winced at
Scarlet’s rudeness, but it didn’t seem to bother Steve. He stood behind Scarlet
and said, “This will determine which foot is your dominant foot and that will
tell you what kind of stance you will have. Now just do what comes natural when
I push you forward.”

“Okay,” Scarlet said.

Steve pushed her. Scarlet
obviously didn’t have a dominant foot because she didn’t put any foot forward.
Instead, she fell face down and began to slide down the hill. Steve chased
after her, but her new polyester suit acted like a greased sled and she picked
up speed. Steve gave up the chase after Scarlet out distanced him by a good
fifty yards.

They all stood
watching Scarlet slide down the hill face-first.

“Dood,” G-Ray said.
“This is so not good.”

“Red, turn over and
dig your heels in!” Steve yelled.

Scarlet did manage to
flop over. And then she flopped over again. And again. She continued sledding
down the hill on her back heading straight for the terrain park and the half
pipe.

Ollie looked over at
Claire. Claire was white-faced and frozen to the spot.

“Dig your heels in!”
Steve yelled again.

Ollie whispered to
G-Ray, “You getting this on film?”

G-Ray nodded. “You
bet your sweet patootie I am.”

“Keep rolling. It
looks like she’s going to luge right into the half pipe. She might do the first
triple cork in history without using a snowboard,” Ollie said.

“I can’t watch,”
Claire said, putting her hands over her face. “Tell me when it’s over.”

Ollie watched in awe
as Scarlet hit the half-pipe straight on, skyrocketed into the air, corkscrewed
around four times, hit the ground with a thud, her legs splayed wide, and
smashed into a rail.

“Ow!” Everyone said
simultaneously.

“Dood, she hit that
rail with her woman parts,” G-Ray said.

“That’s one way to
stop,” Ollie said.

Claire and Steve ran
down the hill toward Scarlet. Claire pulled Scarlet into a sitting position.
After a moment, Steve waved back to the group, saying, “She’s going to be
okay!”

Ollie said, “I bet
her vulva turns a real pretty shade of claret.”

It’s Complicated

Later that day, Ollie and G-Ray walked in the front
door and found Claire doing another cumin foot bath. EZ was propped up in a
chair – snoring –
and also had her feet soaking
in a bucket of yellow water.

Ollie smiled down at Claire. “Your feet are yellow.
Do they match Scarlet’s bruised vulva?”

Claire laughed. “And most couples just get matching
shirts. Take off your shoes. Stick your feet in here with me.”

“Okay,” Ollie said. She drew up a chair, took off
her shoes, rolled up her pants legs and stuck her feet in the bath next to
Claire’s feet. It felt very intimate. Almost more intimate than sex.

Claire wiggled her toes and sighed contentedly.
“Begonia said I have a lot of cleansing to do. She set EZ up with a foot bath,
too. She doesn’t have to be awake to detoxify.”

“Is my lady love here?” G-Ray said.

“Hey, Lover Man,” Begonia said, entering the room.

G-Ray dove into Begonia’s embrace. Ollie couldn’t
help but feel a twinge of jealousy. Ollie noticed that Begonia’s feet were also
yellow.

Begonia said, “Claire and I were having a cumin foot
bath to cleanse our bodies of unwanted and harmful toxins.”

“Does that include Scarlet?” Ollie asked. “Where is
Scarlet anyway?”

“In our room icing her hoo-ha,” Claire said. 

“Icing?” G-Ray said. “What kind of icing? Butter
cream? I love that cream cheese icing that goes on the top of carrot cake.”

Ollie and Claire laughed. Ollie said, “Not that type
of icing, G-Ray. She meant she’s putting ice on her swollen parts.”

“Oh. Too bad.”

“Anyway, I took my car in to the dealership. Begonia
was kind enough to give me a ride back,” Claire said.

“Are you getting it re-painted?” Ollie asked.

“Nope,” Claire said. “I sold it.”

“Sold it! But you love that car,” Ollie said.

“
Loved
it. Past tense,” Claire said.

“Does this have something to do with Scarlet?”

“No. Maybe. Probably. I don’t know,” Claire said. “I
just couldn’t bear to look at that color anymore. And when the salesman made me
an offer, I said yes.”

“Dood, I think it rocks that you sold a car that
costs as much as a house for some people. That’s entirely too much cash for
something as transparent as a hot set of wheels. Your car is not you and you
are not your car,” G-Ray said.

Claire jumped up. “Bingo!”

“Bingo?” Ollie said.

Claire stepped out of the foot bath and wiped her
feet on a towel. “My time away from work has made me realize something.”

“That you need money to survive? That it’s the pits
being poor?” Ollie joked.

“It’s got me to thinking about what’s important in
life. I work too much and too hard to afford things that make me look like I
work too much and too hard and that’s nothing but pretension. I want to live my
life not finance it.”

“Yes, life is to be savored not slaved over,”
Begonia said.

“Does Scarlet know you sold the car?” Ollie said.
“Cause I’m thinking she’s going to throw a regular hissy fit.”

“She knows,” Claire said. “I told her.”

“She went ape shit, am I right?”

Claire grinned. “She went on Facebook and changed
her relationship status to ‘It’s complicated.’”

“Oooh, man,” G-Ray said. “That’s harsh.”

They all laughed.

“She also changed her plane reservations. She’s
flying back to Houston in about three hours,” Claire said.

“Oh,” Ollie said. She was stumped for what to say. A
giant part of her wanted to jump up and down and yell yippee! Another part felt
sorry for Claire. So she did the safe thing and kept her mouth shut.

Claire shrugged. “Maybe Scarlet is right. We need
some space for a few days.”

“Are you okay with that?” Ollie asked.

“I think so,” Claire answered. “But that could be
the cumin talking.”

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

Ollie and Claire were sitting in the antechamber of
Dr. Secaule’s office waiting for their counseling session to begin. Scarlet had
been gone for two days and Claire moped around the house the whole time. All
she did was read her Elvis biographies and sleep.

“Did you write your list? The one where we were
supposed to write down the things we liked about each other?” Claire asked.

“No,” Ollie said in a small voice.

“I didn’t either,” Claire said.

They were both lying. Ollie lied because she didn’t
want to admit to Claire that she still had feelings for her. Claire lied
because she knew Ollie had just lied to her. However, Claire thought Ollie lied
because she really didn’t have feelings for her and that made Claire not want
to admit to her own feelings for Ollie. It was all very complicated and
convoluted and could be classified as a classic misunderstanding.

Ollie thought these types of misunderstandings only
happened in lesbian romance novels. She was wrong. They happened in real
lesbian life, too. But it was the thought of the lesbian romance novels that
had given Ollie her bright idea in the first place.

“What bright idea?” Claire asked.

“Huh?”

“You were talking to yourself. You said something
about a bright idea,” Claire said.

Ollie pulled two index cards out of her pocket and
handed one to Claire. “This is yours.”

Claire looked at the card. “What is it?”

“I took the liberty of writing our lists for each
other. That way we can get this counseling thing over with and get divorced,”
Ollie said.

Claire was quiet. Too quiet.

“That’s what you want, right? To get divorced?”
Ollie asked.

Claired nodded. “Sure. I mean, yeah. The sooner the
better.”

“Me, too,” Ollie said.

They were both lying.