More Than a Kiss (15 page)

Indy 500

Isabel
was driving her Jeep Cherokee with Jeremy riding shotgun.  Amy sat in the back
seat with Chad’s passed-out head in her lap.  Amy couldn’t believe this was
happening, although she had to admit that this was far more exciting than the
evening Chad originally had planned.

Isabel
had the accelerator mashed to the floor and weaved in and out of traffic with a
steady hand.  Jeremy and Amy held their breath each time Isabel cut in front of
another car.

“Did
anybody turn off the stove?” Isabel asked, not slowing through a yellow light.

“Shit,”
Jeremy said.  He sat up straighter.  “Did anybody catch the lobster?”

“Shit,”
said Isabel, taking the corner on two wheels.

“So
we have an open gas flame and a killer lobster on the loose in our house?”
Jeremy said.  “Could this day get any more weird?”

“I’mmalesbian,”
Amy blurted.  Wowzer.  She didn’t know that was going to pop out.  The words
were out of her mouth before the thought was even formed.  Or maybe the thought
had been formed for a long time and it escaped her head once her guard was
down.

Isabel
looked at Amy quizzically in the rear view mirror.  Jeremy turned in his seat
and looked her up and down before turning back around.  Finally he said, “Well,
that answers a lot of questions.”

“It
does?  Like what?” Amy asked.

Jeremy
shrugged.   “Why you were kissing that hottie in the paper.  Why you hate
Chad.”

Isabel
laid on her horn and swerved around an old man walking his dog across a
crosswalk.  “Is it because of Chad?” Isabel asked.  “Because that’s a little
extreme, isn’t it?  You don’t have to change your sexual orientation just to
make him go away.”

“No,”
Amy said.  “It’s not because of Chad.  And in my own defense, plenty of women
hate Chad and they’re not all lesbians.”

“True,
true,” Jeremy said.

Isabel
careened around a corner without touching the brakes.  She gunned the engine up
to the emergency room, leaving twin skid marks in front of the double doors.

“If
this cooking thing doesn’t work out, you might consider race car driving,”
Jeremy said.

“Yeah,
who knew I had a natural talent?” Isabel said.

“I’ll
be right back, don’t try to move him yourself,” Jeremy said.  He baled out of
the Jeep and sprinted inside the emergency room to gather a gurney crew.  After
a moment, Veronica and Valerie ran outside.  Amy opened her door and once the
twins saw Chad passed out on Amy’s lap, Valerie said, “This was a little over
the top, wasn’t it?”

Veronica
continued, “Yeah.  You didn’t have to try and kill him.”

“I
didn’t do this!” Amy protested.  “A lobster did it.”

“Well,”
Valerie said, “You get an A plus for creative excuses.  I don’t know if a jury
will buy it, though.”

“If
I were you,” Veronica said, “I would have cut off his penis.  But a finger is
good, too.”

Amy
handed Veronica the finger in the baggie, saying, “Just take this.  Make sure
it gets to wherever the rest of him is going.”

Jeremy
rolled a gurney up to the Jeep.  It took two EMTs to load Chad onto the
stretcher.

As
they rolled the stretcher into the hospital, Chad awoke and started screaming. 
Amy, Isabel and Jeremy all watched Chad being wheeled away until they could no
longer hear his screams.

“Do
you think they’ll be able to reattach it?” Isabel asked.

Jeremy
shrugged.  “Who knows?  We might be calling him Dr. Stumpy from now on.”

Isabel
giggled.  Jeremy joined in.  Their laughter was infectious and soon Amy was
laughing, too.

Steve

Jeremy
drove the Jeep back home.  He had insisted on driving until Isabel’s adrenaline
rush had subsided.  Halfway home, he pulled off onto a side street and into a
strip mall.  “I have to pick up a few things.  It’ll only take a minute.”  Jeremy
got out of the jeep and walked into Uncle Miltie’s Party Land.

“Is
it someone’s birthday tomorrow?” Isabel inquired.

“I
don’t think so,” Amy said.  “Maybe that’s not a birthday party place.  Uncle
Miltie sounds like a perv.  Maybe it’s a sex shop.”

“Yeah,”
Isabel giggled.  “Maybe it’s a sex shop for clowns.”  They both laughed and the
tension of the past hour eased.

“So
speaking of sex,” Isabel said.  “What’s up with the lesbian thing?”

Amy
took a deep breath.  “You know how I’ve been hanging out with that woman
Jordan, the one I met at work?”

“The
pretty one? Yeah, Jeremy told me.”

“We’re
sorta kinda dating now.”

“I
don’t have a problem with it.  Just tell her if she’s not nice to you, she’ll
have to deal with me.  I’ll sic Steve on her.”

“Who’s
Steve?”

“The
lobster,” Isabel said.  “He needed to have a name before I could wrap my mind
around what just happened.  Besides, despite the Chad thing, I still need him
for the race.  I don’t think I can handle picking up another one.”

“We’ve
got to find him first.  We should use gloves to handle him,” Amy said, thinking
they didn’t need to lose any more fingers tonight.

“Baseball
gloves,” Isabel said.  At that moment, Jeremy opened the driver’s door and
handed a big sack over to Isabel.  “Mission accomplished.”

“What
did you get?” Isabel said, peering inside the bag.

Jeremy
smirked.  “I couldn’t resist.  Check it out.”

Isabel
rooted around in the bag and pulled out several small plastic lobsters, an
inflatable lobster, several hard plastic lobster true-to-scale models, light up
lobster patio lights, a lobster cooking apron, a ceramic coffee mug with a
lobster painted on the side and one peeking up from the bottom, lobster towels,
a pair of lobster boxer shorts and even lobster socks.

“You
are terrible,” Isabel said.

“I
know, right?”

“Jeremy,
aren’t you being a little harsh?” Amy said. 

“And
the banana thing wasn’t?  Look, he got a lot of mileage out of tormenting you. 
Dude gets what he gives.  Picture it:  tomorrow he wakes up and his entire room
is lobsterfied. You gotta admit, it’s funny.”

Amy
smiled.  Maybe Chad did deserve a little retribution.  Okay,
a lot
of
retribution.

Jeremy
started the car while Isabel repacked the bag.  “He is an asshole,” Isabel
said.

“And
it is funny,” Amy added.

“He
uses people, dudes included.  All I’m saying is he needs to come down from Chad
mountain,” Jeremy said.  “Doctor Stumpy is going to wake up tomorrow in lobster
world.”  He hung a lobster shaped car deodorizer from his rear view mirror.

Here, Lobster, Lobster!

Amy
had barely walked through the front door before she heard Isabel yell, “Oh
no!”  Amy ran to the kitchen and got there only seconds before Jeremy.  “What?
What? What?” Amy said.  “What is it?”

Isabel
was standing in front of the stove, staring at it.  There was nothing wrong
that Amy could see.  Even the burner was turned off.  Isabel slowly turned to
Jeremy and Amy, saying, “The Saag Paneer.  It’s gone.”

“Gone?”
Jeremy said.  “It fell on the floor.”

Isabel
gestured to the floor.  It was mostly clean except for a twin pair of green
drag marks leading toward the dining room.  She picked up the pot the Saag
Paneer had been cooking in.  There was nothing inside but a crusty green ring
where it had once been.

“Steve
ate it,” Amy said, drawing the obvious conclusion.

“Who’s
Steve?” Jeremy asked.

“The
lobster,” Isabel said.  “I named him Steve.”

“You
named a man-maiming, Indian-food-eating lobster Steve?” Jeremy asked.

“Mr.
Claw was too obvious,” Isabel said.

Jeremy
nodded like it made absolute and complete sense.

“We
need to find Steve,” Isabel said.  “Before the Saag Paneer kicks in and he goes
really crazy.”

“Yeah,
no way I’m sleeping in this house with him on the loose,” Amy said.

“If
you find him, don’t hurt him.  I still need him for the race tomorrow,” Isabel
said.

“Okay,
well, let’s split up and check all the rooms,” Amy said.

“Can
lobsters live outside of water?” Jeremy asked.  He was opening kitchen
cupboards.  “I mean, they keep them in that tank at the store, right?”

“They
need water but as long as they keep moist they can live outside of a pool,”
Isabel said.

“Could
he have gotten outside?” Amy opened the back door that led outside from the
kitchen.  She turned on the light.  “Here lobster, lobster, lobster!”

“I’ll
go out and search,” Jeremy said, pulling on oven mitts.  He clicked his heels
and saluted them.  “If I’m not back in three days tell my mother I loved her,”
he said, soberly.

Isabel
snickered.

“I’ll
start in my bedroom.  You start in yours,” Amy said.  She opened the storage
closet and grabbed a bucket and a Tupperware tub.  She handed Isabel the
bucket.  “If you see him trap him under that.”

Amy
left Isabel and went to her room.  She looked under the bed and had just opened
the closet door when she heard Isabel’s blood-curdling scream.  She flew out of
her room, crashing into Jeremy who was running down the hallway.  Isabel
screamed again.

Amy
was the first to throw open the bathroom door and step inside.  Jeremy skidded
to a stop behind her.  Isabel was standing on the bathroom counter with her
pants bunched around her ankles and her panties up, but twisted.  She was
bug-eyed and pointing at the toilet.

Amy
tiptoed over to the toilet and peered inside.   Sure enough, Steve was in the
bowl.  He was trying to crawl out, but kept sliding on the porcelain.  “He
looks mad.”

Isabel
said, “I peed on him.”

Jeremy
burst out laughing and walked toward the toilet.  Isabel flapped her arms,
stopping him in his tracks.  “Don’t look at my pee!”

Jeremy
jumped back.  “I think we need to get him out of there, Isabel,” he said.

Isabel
nodded.  “I know.  But I don’t want a man to see my pee.”

“So
Amy can see your urine, but I can’t?  That’s really weird, Isabel.”

“It’s
just my thing, okay?   I don’t want you to see my pee.”

“I’m
a doctor, Isabel, I’ve seen lots of pee.”

Isabel
shook her head.  “You’re my friend.  We’re roommates.  I read in a magazine
once that if a man sees you urinate he’ll never look at you the same way
again.”

“What
way?” he asked.

“Just
don’t look at my pee!” she shouted on the verge of hysteria.

“Okay,
okay,” Jeremy said, backing up and not looking anywhere near the toilet.

“I
have a plan,” Amy said.  “I think I can flush the toilet, the pee will
disappear and then we can get Steve out,”

“Won’t
that make him madder?” Isabel said, untwisting her panties and pulling up her
pants.  “He might get really violent the madder he gets.”

“It’ll
just be like a wave crashing over him,” Amy said. “He can pretend he’s on the
beach.”   She flushed the toilet.  Steve bumped about and then settled, his
antennae seeming to approve.

“You
can look now,” Isabel said to Jeremy.

“How
about we put him in the tub,” Amy said.  She stopper-ed the tub and turned on
the faucet, adjusting the temperature to what she believed Steve would find
comfortable.

Jeremy
studied Steve, being careful to keep his fingers out of claw range.  “We have
those BBQ tongs, right?”

“Yes,”
Isabel said.  “I’ll get them.”  She jumped off the counter and ran out of the
room.

“Do
you think she’s all right?” Jeremy whispered after Isabel was gone.

“I
think so.  Although she’ll never sit down again without looking,” Amy said.

“I’ve
never sat without looking after I saw that movie where alligators roamed the
sewers of New York,” Jeremy said.

Isabel
ran back in with an enormous set of metal tongs.  “These should work.”

Isabel
poked around in the toilet with the tongs.  Steve thrashed.  “Listen, you
little shit.  We have to get through tomorrow and then I’ll set you free, so
just settle down and I’ll get you out of there.  I’m sorry I peed on you but if
you’re going to hang around in a toilet bowl that’s to be expected.”

“She
does know she’s talking to a bug wearing an exoskeleton, right?” Jeremy said.

“Well,
they did share an intimate moment,” Amy replied.

“I’ll
say.  He could’ve bitten off my vagina,” Isabel said.  She frowned.  “I’d never
get a date then.”

“You’re
more than the sum of your parts,” Jeremy said.

“That’s
very nice of you to say, Jeremy, but a girl that hasn’t got a
vagina stands no chance against one that does,”
Isabel said.  She furrowed her brow, opened the tongs and clamped Steve around
his midsection.  “Ha! I got you.”  She dashed toward the tub with the flailing
lobster dripping water everywhere and his antennae going wild.  She dropped him
in the tub with a big plop.

“Wow,
awesome job,” Amy said.  They all watched Steve for a moment as he swam to and
fro.  “He looks happy, don’t you think?”

“What
do we do when we want to bathe?” Amy asked.  

“Use
the shower in my room,” Isabel said.  “I’ll have him out of here tomorrow
afternoon.”

“Okay,”
Amy said.

“So,
let’s order a pizza and forget any of this happened.  What do you say?” Isabel
said, her face flushed from her triumph.

“Good
idea,” Jeremy and Amy said in unison.

Isabel
was the last one to leave the bathroom.  She flipped off the light and whispered
in the dark, “Good night, Steve.  Sleep tight.”

“Don’t
let the crustaceans bite,” Amy said from down the hallway.

“Ha
ha,” Isabel muttered.  “Not funny.”