The Love Sucks Club (2 page)

Esmé
crosses her legs and takes a
large sip of water. I try not to notice Sam noticing
Esmé’s
legs.

“Where are you from,” Karen asks.

“Chicago.”

“My kind of town,” Sam sings and the three of them laugh.

Grinning,
Esmé
sings along for a second.
“Have you been to Chicago, Sam?”

“I have,” Sam responds. “I’ve been everywhere. But I’d happily go
again if you want to show me the sights.”

“Chicago is an amazing place,”
Esmé
laughs.

“And I am an amazing woman,” Sam says. “We’re meant for each
other.”
  

Sam is such a flirt; sometimes it drives me crazy. She says the
most outrageous things sometimes and people just respond with laughter and joy.
On the rare occasions when I try to flirt, women either look at me as if I am a
psycho, or they laugh politely and change the subject. I don’t know if I’d call
Sam smooth, it’s just that in comparison to me, she comes off like Barry White.

Karen interrupts. “So
Esmé
, did the guys
at the bar tell you why you shouldn’t speak to Dana?”

Kicking Karen under the table, I glare at her. “Honestly, who
gives a shit what they think?”

“I don’t,”
Esmé
answers. She pauses as
the waitress comes around to bring refills and snacks. When the woman has moved
on, she looks directly at me. “They said you’re crazy.”

“They’re right,” I say, at the same instant that Sam states,
“They’re wrong.”

Karen and
Esmé
laugh.

Frowning, I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what
anyone thinks about me.”

“They said you believe that your dreams can tell the future,”
Esmé
says. “Do you?”
         
“It’s none of your business what
I believe.”

“I’m not prying. I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“As I said, I don’t care what anyone thinks about me.”

She looks out over the water for a second. “I read
Annabelle
Lies
,” she says after a moment.

Sam and I both pause, looking at each other. Karen looks from one
to the other. “What’s
Annabelle Lies
?” she says, finally. “Is that one
of your books?”

Sam nods. “It was written under an assumed name.”

“For a reason,” I growl.

Holding her hands up in a gesture of peace,
Esmé
nods. “I really don’t have any interest in outing you. I just wanted to let you
know that I read it and it spoke to me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re one of probably about six people. One of whom
was my publisher.”

“I read your other books, too, but I didn’t like them as much.”

“Well, as fascinating as this conversation has been, I’ve got
things to do, so...”

She stands up. “I just wanted to introduce myself.”

Looking up at her for a minute, I’m almost tempted to smile.
Instead, I ask, “How did you know that I wrote
Annabelle Lies
?”

She pauses. “Annabelle was my ex-girlfriend.”
          

Sam exhales sharply. I grab my notebook and open it, trying to
lose myself in my own work. I can feel the three women at the table looking at
me. Worse, I can feel the eyes of everyone in the bar on me. A tunnel comes
over my vision and I focus on my breathing. The words on the page blur together
as I concentrate on just breathing in and breathing out. A loud hum starts to
fill my ears and my head. I feel as if I can feel the eyes of everyone in the
bar and everyone on the island. It feels as if they’re all looking at me,
they’re all talking about me. My eyes close as a pressure fills my sinuses and
the front of my brain. I’m half sure that I’m going to pass out.

“Dana. Hey. Dana.” Sam has her hand on my arm.

Lifting my head, I blink at her. The humming is dissipating. My
vision is still a little blurred but I can make out the concern on her face.
Her dark brown eyes stare into mine. We have the same eyes. It’s another reason
that I’m sure we are somehow related. I never really considered us as looking
alike. Sam is taller than me by about four inches. She has darker skin than I
do thanks to some Native American ancestry. Her hair is dark brown with
ever-increasing flecks of gray, just like mine, but hers is cut extremely
short, almost buzzed, and mine is long and wavy. We’re both outdoorsy types; we
like hiking and swimming and such, so we’re both pretty stocky. Sam is broad in
the shoulders and slim in the waist and she works as a maintenance woman for a
living, so her biceps are hard and kind of big. I don’t work out and I make my
living sitting on my ass with a notebook, so I’m a bit softer and rounder than
she is. Still, one day when we went on a hike to an abandoned lighthouse, she
took a picture of the two of us with our faces close together, and later,
looking at the picture, I realized that we had the same eyes, the same nose,
the same mouth, and the same basic facial structure. Trying to work it out, we
both determined that while our fathers would probably have stepped out on their
marriages, neither of our mothers were the type. Of course, we’re both from
Ohio, so maybe there’s still a chance of some
cousinery
there somewhere. At any rate, even without a blood relation, Sam is my sister
and the only non-blood I trust anymore. She’s worried about me, so I make an
effort to pull myself out of my state.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I mutter. I give her a half-smile and look
away.

She squeezes my arm one more time.
“Thought you
were taking off for a second there.”

“No, I’m fine.
Just a bit of a headache for a
moment.”

Karen pushes some water toward me. “You’re probably dehydrated,”
she says. “I usually get headaches when I haven’t had enough water.”

Sam knows that I don’t have a headache, but she takes the water
from Karen and puts it into my hands. “Drink it.”

As I take a big gulp, the last of the blurriness retreats from my
vision and the hum in my head passes completely.
Esmé
is still standing over me. “I guess I should leave.”

“Yes, you definitely should,” I agree.

Karen holds out her hand. “It was nice to meet you.”

“It was. I hope we meet again soon.”

“Absolutely,” Karen replies. “In fact, my husband and I are having
our end of the summer blow out soon. Maybe you could come to that. It’ll be a
good chance for you to meet all of the other ex-patriots on the island.”

“I’d love to.”
Esmé
smiles at Sam, and
turns to me. “I don’t have any ill feelings toward you.”
        

“You should.”

She pauses for a moment. Leaning down to whisper in my ear, she
says, “My dreams come true sometimes, too.”

She walks away. Karen and Sam watch her go, but I keep my eyes on
the table. Oblivious, Karen says, “Do you think she was surprised that I have a
husband?”

“Why would she be?” Sam asks.

“Well, I’m hanging out with a couple of known homosexuals.”

“Lesbianism is contagious,” Sam laughs.

“You do look like a dyke,” I say.

“How so?”
Karen is affronted.

Sam snorts into her beer. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the
difference between soccer moms and LPGA.”

Chuckling, I give Karen the once over. With her plaid culottes and
her pale yellow polo shirt, I have to say that she does kind of have a lesbian
golfer thing going on. The ever-present visor just adds to the image.

“Whatever.” Karen takes her visor off and squints against the sun.
“Lesbians always want everyone else to be gay.”

“Hardly,” Sam scoffs. “We only want the
hotties
to be gay.”

“Calm down, Karen,” I say, seriously. “I never said you were gay,
just that you look gay.”

Snorting again, Sam gives me a high five. Karen shakes her head in
disgust and puts her visor back on.

“You two can have your little jokes. I need to get home anyway.
Rick should be home soon and I want to cook him a nice meal tonight.”

“Happy housewife,” Sam chirps.

“I’d rather be a happy housewife than a miserable, lonely dyke who
uses sarcasm to cover her sadness,” Karen retorts before tossing a couple of
dollars down on the table and walking out.

“Wow,” I say, watching her go.
“So which one of
us is the miserable, lonely dyke?”

Sam shrugs. “Well, I’d guess it would be you. I mean, sure I use
sarcasm as a defense mechanism and I haven’t had sex in six months and I’m in
love with someone who’d rather give a blow job than be with me, but hey, I’m
not miserable.”

“I’m not miserable. I live alone by choice.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t had sex in three years.”

“Sad since I’ve only been single for nine months.”

Laughing, Sam pops open another beer and reaches for some fries.
“You do have an awesome best friend.”

“The best.”

“And you live in a cool house.”

“With a cool cat.”

She nods. “You have enough money to pay the mortgage, buy cat
food, and occasionally rent a movie.”

“I live on a beautiful island.”

“
Which only gets the occasional hurricane.
”

“And I only run out of water in the cistern a few times a year.”

“And sometimes, the broccoli at the grocery store is actually
green.”

Nodding, I smile at her. “So how bad can my life actually be?”

“I mean, just because we started a group called The Love Sucks
Club.”

“Well, love does suck.”

She nods, “I’m not saying it doesn’t. I’m just allowing as to how
some unenlightened people might consider us bitter because of the name of our
club.”

“Karen has the best husband in the world. She can’t possibly
understand.”

“I think Karen is just frustrated because she’s a closet lesbian.”

“You really do think everyone is a closet lesbian. You need to
focus on dating actual lesbians and you’ll soon be able to tell the
difference.”

She waves her hand in the direction of the door. “Drinkers, ten
‘clock.”

Since I like to watch the beach, my back is to the street entrance.
Pretending nonchalance, I keep my eyes on Sam, resisting the urge to look over
my shoulder. “Is Voldemort with them?”

She scans the group quickly. “Nope, but her new girlfriend is.
Maybe we should go.”

“Fuck that. They’re not scaring me off.”

“I didn’t say anything about being scared. I just don’t want to
have to deal with she-who-shall-not-be-named today.”

Grinning, I roll my eyes. “It’s so mature to call her Voldemort,
isn’t it?”

“Mature or not, it’s hilarious, and totally appropriate.”

“Remember that time I was talking about her to Barb and I referred
to her by her actual name and Barb was like, who the hell are you talking
about?”

She shakes her head. A shrill scream from the bar catches my
attention and I finally have to look. A group of the drinkers are doing shots
at one end of the bar. The bartender, Dave, is doing a shot with them. The
bartenders on this island are a strange bunch, too. Some of them are just doing
their jobs and trying to make a living. Some are just doing it to get as many free
shots as they can possibly get. Although The Sunrise Grill usually hires
competent bartenders, Dave is the latter, obviously. Now that the drinking
crowd is here, he is going to be absolutely worthless in an hour. We might as
well head out before the service goes completely downhill. Voldemort’s new
girlfriend, a chubby woman with humongous breasts that always seem in danger of
falling out of her shirts, is doing a dirty dancing slide down some dude’s body
as he chugs a beer. A couple of the other drinkers are cheering her on. One guy
is standing behind her, spanking her ass as she gyrates against the other dude.

Sam snorts again. “Did you ever wonder how someone can go from
being involved with you to being involved with her?”

“No, but I do wonder how one body can support that much weight in
makeup and still carry those breasts around.”

“Nice. I still can’t picture them together.”

Watching Mandy, the new girlfriend, I shrug. “All Voldemort ever
wanted was to drink and have fake, alcoholic fun with other people who want to
drink and have fake alcoholic fun. I think she got exactly what she wanted this
time.”

Sam hands some cash to the waitress and stands up. “Come on, I’ll
drive you home.”

We walk out past the drinkers who call out to us as we pass. Mandy
turns as I walk by and wiggles her fingers at me. “Oh, hi Dana,” she simpers.

I give her a fake smile and turn away. Sam puts her arm around me
as we hit the door and leaves it there until we reach the parking lot.