There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell - v4 (13 page)

Maye smiled, noticing that Bonnie seemed to have a nice little buzz going. Well, two glasses of wine on an empty stomach will do that to a hungry girl, she realized. She also realized it would be rude to begin eating without Bonnie, so Maye put down her fork and knife and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After ten minutes had passed, Bonnie flagged down the server with a rather exaggerated wave and got his attention. “Wine?” she asked loudly, with a furrow of her brow and a shrug that was so overdone it belonged in a silent film.

“So sorry,” the waiter apologized profusely. “You’ll have it in two seconds!”

“ONE MISSISSIPPI,” Bonnie replied in a tone that rather resembled shouting as he scurried away. “TWO MISSISSIPPI!”

Maye noticed that the diners at the next table stole a glance at them and then looked back with something of a smirk on their faces.

“THREE MISSISSIPPI!” Bonnie proclaimed even louder.

Other diners were looking at them, too, and if Bonnie noticed, she didn’t care. She kept counting, louder and louder, until at “EIGHTEEN MISSISSIPPI,” a full wineglass was delivered to their table and Bonnie smiled and then remained quiet. Until she cut into her very expensive, once delicious but now faded-into-a-lukewarm
filete poblano
and took her first bite.

“Ugh,” Bonnie protested, and she slapped her fork and knife on the table. “Cold. It’s cold. Is yours cold?”

“Mine’s fine,” Maye said, trying to bring her dinner partner down a notch, although her filet had become cold and coagulated. “It’s great. I’m okay.”

“Lie,” Bonnie said disgustedly and began waving her hand again as she gulped down the new glass of wine. When the waiter heeded her call again, Bonnie pushed the rim of the plate toward him and declared, “This steak is cold. I would like it reheated. And hers, too.”

“Nope,” Maye said as she shook her head and cut her steak up as fast as she could. “I’m cool. Steak is good. I’m fine here.”

“Are you sure?” the waiter asked as Maye began to chew vigorously. “I can take it back into the kitchen.”

Sure, Maye thought to herself, so you can throw it on the floor, spit on it, stick your hands down your pants, and then fondle it?
No thank you
. I worked in a restaurant in high school, I know what happens to food that gets sent back, and it’s not pretty and it’s not nice, and it’s not something I want to stick into my mouth. A cold steak is better than ass steak any day of the week, and if Little Miss Food Critic hasn’t figured that out yet, let her think that after her food gets reheated, the curly black hair on her meat just fell out of her own head.

The waiter tried to grab Maye’s plate, but Maye was quicker and stuck another huge bite into her mouth. “Please don’t do that,” she said, smiling and still chewing. “I’m armed.”

“What can I do here?” a new voice said, and Maye looked up to find a nicely coiffed woman standing at their table with her hands cupped together. “I am the owner of La Vaca Bonita, and I sense that we may have a problem here?”

“Everything’s great,” Maye said, now mortified beyond belief because at this precise moment, her nice dinner experience at the new chichi restaurant in town had become the show. She was the entertainment for all of the other diners, who were scoffing and rolling their eyes at her because they weren’t dining with a lightweight who had become positively lit after three glasses of wine on an empty stomach. Maye didn’t want this, she hadn’t asked for this, but now the owner of the restaurant was insisting that Maye send her steak back, and she was trying desperately to diffuse the situation.

“Really,” she replied quietly and calmly to the owner, her face red with embarrassment. “I have no problems with my meal. It’s wonderful. Thank you for offering, but I am very happy with what I have.”

“Then please let me comp your dinner,” the owner insisted.

As tempting as it sounded, Maye couldn’t agree to that, either. It wasn’t the restaurant’s fault that Bonnie’s blood alcohol had turned her into Zsa Zsa Gabor, that at any moment she could begin slapping people. Bonnie’s behavior on a first friend date was so unacceptable that Maye was not only embarrassed but disappointed as well. All Maye really wanted to do was pay the check and flee. “No, thank you,” Maye answered. “I can’t let you do that.”

And when Bonnie realized that she was alone in her hissy fit, the lone marcher in her anger parade, her face dropped and she began to stammer. “I’m okay, too,” she said quickly. “My thteak is fine. I’m thorry.”

“Please don’t apologize,” the owner said. “I want to make sure you have a good experience in my restaurant.”

“I’m thorry,” Bonnie said again. “I didn’t mean to make it thuch a big deal.”

“I understand,” the owner responded. “I want everyone to be happy.”

“I’m happy, I’m happy,” Bonnie insisted. “I am. I’m very happy. I’M THORRY, I…. I JUST THTARTED MY PERIOD TODAY.”

The restaurant became so quiet that Maye heard herself stop chewing.

Maye didn’t know what to do, if she should just throw a wad of cash on the table and run like an anchorman who spent too many nights apologizing to restaurant owners on behalf of his blasted lady friend only to hook up with the weather girl instead, or if she should go to Bonnie’s aid and pretend to be her nurse.

But instead, she sat there, in complete silence, along with the whole restaurant, including people from the kitchen who didn’t speak English, and watched the show’s denouement. The audience was indeed, captive.

Several moments after the owner and waiter had silently and carefully left the table and chatter was beginning to fill the restaurant, Bonnie looked at Maye and apologized.

“I’m thorry,” she whispered. “I’m puffy and I have crampth. Not even the wine helped. I’m ready for another glath.”

You know, Maye thought, as desperate as I am, I just don’t have any openings on my friends list for a shit-faced woman with hormone rages that should be measured on a Richter scale. Thorry about that. She tried to smile, and that was when Maye heard someone call her name, which was impossible since she essentially knew no one in this town. She thought she was certainly imagining it until she heard it again.

“Maye?” a man’s voice said. “Maye Roberts?”

Then she gasped.

She could not have been more alarmed if Satan himself had traced his burning finger right up her spine.

And as she slightly crooked her neck in the direction of the voice, she saw that it was not, thankfully, Dean Spaulding, who had seen Maye do her Charo impersonation in the place where he takes his meals when she was neither under the mind control of her menses cycle or had even had so much as one drink. No, it was not Dean Spaulding, and she felt a tremendous rush of relief until she realized that the man coming toward her with the wide white smile and the gray hair was Bob.

Vegging Out Bob.

“Hi, Bob,” Maye said, suddenly slapping a fake smile on her face. “It’s so nice to see you.”

“Well, I was a couple of tables away when I heard about your friend’s cramping issues,” he said, and turned to Bonnie. “When you go home, nibble on some rose petals and place some warm, but not hot, banana leaves over your lower uterine area in a fan-like sequence. You should be right as rain by tomorrow! I just had the best chile relleno I’ve ever had in my life! The menu here for veggies is outstanding, isn’t it? It’s the most extensive one in town, which doesn’t quite make up for the meatery that abounds, but I’m good at eating with my eyes closed—”

Bob suddenly stopped and stared at the chunk of meat impaled on the glistening spires of Maye’s fork.

“Oh my,” Bob said, as if all of the air had been sucked out of his lungs like a Seal-a-Meal bag. “Oh my God. How could you? How could you do that? How pretty was that cow, Maye Roberts? How pretty was that cow when you were chewing on her flesh like a zombie?”

For the second time within a matter of minutes, Maye didn’t know what to say. The gig was up. The news was out. They’ve finally found me, she thought.

“You said you were VEGGIE-CURIOUS,” Bob shrieked even louder than Bonnie had about her period. “But you neglected to mention that you were a KILLER!”

“I’m sorry, Bob,” Maye began. “Everyone was so nice to me, and I…I just wanted to be a part of your group. I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“Thee?” Bonnie slurred. “The’s thorry. Hey, are you the guy with the big cucumber?”

“Liars are not welcome at the Beet Bonanza dinner,” Bob shot back angrily. “And neither are the candied beets that they signed up to bring! We don’t want your dirty food made by meat hands! You are excommunicated from Vegging Out, and I am hereby banning you forever!”

“I imagined you would,” Maye replied. “I’m still really sorry.”

“Your colon will pay for this, Maye Roberts,” he warned. “
It will
.”

“Actually, I’ve decided I’m making Bonnie do that,” Maye said.

“I bet your cucumber ithn’t that big,” Bonnie declared as she swayed in the chair like a swami’s cobra.

“CARNIVORE!” Bob yelled before stomping away.

“Check, please,” Maye said calmly as she raised her hand, one step closer to securing a seat in a fiery hereafter. “I’d like to pay for my
meat
.”

After Bob stormed off to his own table and Maye had delivered Bonnie into the safety of a taxi, she got her car keys out and headed into the parking lot to make a not-very-clean getaway.

She was fifteen steps away from the driver’s side door of her car when she heard her name being called again. Afraid that it was a mad mob of vegetarians come to tie her up with leeks and thrash her with carrots, Maye ignored the call and picked up her step.

“Maye!” she heard louder, this time determining it was a woman’s voice, and almost broke into a run when she realized that she was probably being stalked by a bunch of glittering chubby women with frizzy hair straddling broomsticks, armed with Softsoap and an organic sea sponge.

“Please, leave me alone,” Maye called, not turning around, decidedly focused on getting into her car. “Again, I’ve already bathed. Next time, catch me in the morning when I might be more receptive to your advances!”

“Maye!” the voice called out again. “Maye! I showed you thirty different houses before you finally bought one, the least you could do is stop running from me!”

“Patty?” Maye said as she stopped and turned around to see her Realtor almost jogging toward her with another woman Maye vaguely recognized. “Oh, thank goodness it’s you!”

“Why are you running?” Patty asked, panting. “Is it because of Bob’s little fit? He has those all the time! At the Spaulding Festival last year he saw a little girl eating a real hot dog, burst into tears, and then curled up into a fetal ball. People expect it from him.”

“Oh, you saw that?” Maye said wincing. “Is the whole town eating at this one restaurant tonight?”

Patty laughed. “It’s new, it’s in, and no one’s sick of it yet,” she said, and then turned to her friend. “You remember Louise? We looked at her house before you moved here.”

“Of course,” Maye said, shaking Louise’s hand. “The iris house! I loved your house! It’s nice to see you again.”

“Sorry to hear that your friend is under the weather,” Louise commented.

“You heard that, too, huh?” Maye asked.

“Well, let’s just say it was a little hard to ignore,” Patty said diplomatically.

“She’s not really my friend,” Maye explained. “I was hoping things would work out, but tonight was our first little ‘friend date,’ and as you saw and heard, it didn’t turn out so well. I simply cannot make a friend in this town. I have never had to actually go out and make friends before. Apparently, I’m not very good at it. It was easier for me to lasso a man, throw away all of his crappy furniture, and get him to marry me than it is to find someone just to have coffee with!”

“Ah, but there’s a magic way to make friends in Spaulding,” Louise said. “Plus you get to keep the crowns.”

“I remember your crowns in the bookcases!” Maye cried.

“You should run for Sewer Pipe Queen,” Louise and Patty said together.

“What?” she asked. “Why would I want to get into a sewer?”

“No, no, no,” Patty explained. “You don’t understand. The Spaulding Sewer Pipe Factory used to be the biggest one in the country. It built this town. A Sewer Pipe Queen is chosen every year and has been for almost a century to pay tribute to that accomplishment. Once you’re a Sewer Pipe Queen, you’re one for life. Those crowns are badges of honor. And Louise was one of Spaulding’s favorites. She joggled for her talent segment!”

“Joggled?” Maye asked.

“Juggling and jogging simultaneously,” Louise explained. “They don’t have joggling in Phoenix?”

“Not that I was aware of, no,” Maye replied carefully. “So the Sewer Pipe Queen is kind of like a ‘Miss Spaulding’?”

“In a way,” Patty answered. “But the rules have become pretty flexible. It’s not like it was when I was a kid. Nowadays anyone can enter the pageant. The City Council thought it was sexist to discriminate against men and ageist to discriminate against kids or the elderly. You just wait and see this spring. The Sewer Pipe Queen coronation kicks off the Spaulding Festival. The whole town comes. It’s a huge party for the entire weekend.”

“You win that thing and you’ll have friends for life. Everyone wants to know you. You’re the queen! I was the queen twenty years ago, and I still can’t shake Patty!” Louise laughed. “There are a couple of exceptions of course, but for the most part, a queen is the pride of the community. She’ll attract more friends than a barbecue does homeless people in a park.”

Maye’s mind suddenly rewound to Cynthia’s tea party, stocked heavily with friends, gathered in front of a fireplace with a portrait above it of the hostess being crowned, decades before.

“But I couldn’t do that,” Maye protested. “I couldn’t enter a beauty pageant.”

“It hasn’t been a beauty pageant for decades,” Louise informed her. “It’s more about being vibrant and eclectic, it’s about having a queen who’s as fun and endearing as Spaulding is. The queen reflects the town. It’s open to anybody willing to get on a stage and put on a good show in the name of amusement.”