More Than a Kiss (8 page)

The Ice Queen Cometh, Continued

From
the safety of under the table, Jordan stared at the pointy toes of Petronella's
high heels and listened to the conversation between her and Edison.

Petronella
: Hello, Jordan’s little friend.

Edison
: Hello, Dr. Bleeker.  You look
like an ice sculpture today and I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Petronella
:  Where is Jordan?

Edison
: I'm fine, thank you for
asking.  How are you?

Petronella's
right toe tapped three times.

Petronella
: I have no fooling-around time. 
Where is Jordan?

Edison
: Okay, I give up, where is she?

Petronella
: I need to speak with her.  It
is urgent.  There is an upcoming event that I would like to invite her to
attend.

(Petronella
did not speak in contractions.  As an admitted member of the bourgeois, she
considered contractions too lower class.)

Edison
:  I'll be happy to give her the
message.  Will there be anything else?

Petronella
: No.

Petronella's
shoes walked away.

Edison
:  You have a nice day, too. And
by 'have a nice day' I mean go fuck yourself.

Suddenly,
Petronella stopped.

"Oh,
shit, oh, no," Edison said in a whisper to Jordan.  "The Ice Queen is
talking to Amy."

Jordan
peeked over the top of the table and watched helplessly as Petronella blocked
Amy's path and said something to her.  Amy tilted her head.  Petronella spoke
again and pointed at Amy's feet.

After
Petronella walked away, Amy looked down at her feet.  She raised a shoe.  There
was toilet paper stuck to her heel.  She tried to step it off with her other
shoe.  It got caught on that shoe.  She tried to kick it off.  Finally after
several electric slide dance moves, Amy succeeded in ridding herself of both
the toilet paper and her dignity.

Edison
lifted the edge of the tablecloth and looked down at Jordan.  "You can
come out now."

Jordan
shook her head.  "Huh uh.  It could be a trick.  Go follow Petronella and
make sure she got in her car and drove away."

Edison
nodded.  "Good idea."

"And
make sure she isn't just driving around the block either."

Just
as Edison was about to walk away, Amy's feet appeared.  “Where’s Jordan?”

“She’s
under the table.  I’ll be right back,” Edison said.

Amy
squatted down and looked at Jordan under the table.  "Are you
hiding?"

Jordan
fake-laughed.  "Hiding?  Me hiding?  Don't be ridiculous."

"Then
what are you doing under the table?"

About
a billion answers to that question flitted through Jordan's mind:  She was
looking for a lost contact.  Retrieving a dropped fork.  Checking the
cleanliness of the floor.  Looking for gum under the table.  Doing a study on
the shoes of people in Portland cafes.  Jordan reached into her grab bag of
answers and pulled one out at random, and it just so happened to be partly true. 
"I was, uh, scared."

Amy's
face softened.  She crawled on all fours under the table and sat next to
Jordan.  "What are you scared of?"

Jordan
said in a tiny voice, "I'm scared you don't know this a date. You know a
date-date.  With me."

"I
know it's a date-date," Amy said.

"Really?"

Amy
nodded.

Jordan
asked, "And you're not weirded out or anything? You know, being on a date-date
with a real live lesbian?"

Amy
shrugged.  "I'd be more weirded out if you weren't real or alive."

Jordan
smiled.  "How do you think it's going so far?  For a first date, I
mean."

"I
think…"Amy said, "I think I want you to kiss me."

Jordan
held her breath, closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss her.  Her lips were only
a fraction from Amy's when a waitress holding a basket of sandwich, chips and
pickles in each hand, peeked under the table.  "Who had the extra
mayo?"

Kissi
interruptus.

Edison’s Story

Edison
drove her VW Bug two times over the posted speed limit and careened around a
corner.  Jordan gripped the strap and pumped her foot against an imaginary
brake pedal.  Jordan ascertained that Edison was upset about the whole Amy
thing and it was sending her over the deep end.  Edison didn’t want Jordan
getting hurt.  Jordan knew that. Although her affair with Edison had been
brief, a matter of hours really, Jordan knew Edison was infatuated with her. 
Jordan sensed that Edison found unrequited love blissfully painful.  However,
it was easier to tolerate when Jordan was not dating.  Even when Edison was
suffering through Jordan’s relationship with Petronella it was easier because
she knew that Jordan didn’t love Petronella, but this Amy thing was different
and Jordan knew that Edison knew that.

“You
know, I’m really sorry that your lunch date with Amy didn’t work out,” Edison
said.  Before Jordan could answer, she went on, “I had an unrequited love once,
too.”

That
was news to Jordan.  Edison had never talked about her past before.  Even when
Jordan tried to draw her out, Edison would clam up like a… well, like a clam.

“I
pined after the minister’s daughter,” Edison said, wheeling the car around a
sharp curve.

“Ooooh,
this sounds like
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
.”

“Except
it was the Amish version,” Edison said.  She stared straight ahead.  “I grew up
Amish.”

“Amish?”
Jordan hit her head on the roof of the Bug.  “As in bonnets and long dresses
and no cell phones Amish?”

“Is
there another kind?”

“Amish? 
You’re Amish. Seriously?”  Jordan was on the verge of laughing until she saw
the pain etched across Edison’s face.

Edison
covered her face with her hands.  “I shouldn’t have told you.”

“I
wish you wouldn’t do that while you’re driving,” Jordan said, reaching over and
grabbing the wheel.  Maybe that’s why Edison is such a horrible driver, Jordan
thought.  Driving a buggy must be a lot different from driving a car.  “I
didn’t even know Portland had Amish communities,” she said.

Edison
took the wheel and miraculously even slowed down.  “I’m not from here.  I lived
in Ohio.  I came here after I was shunned.”

“You
were shunned?  Like thrown out?”

“Yes.”

Jordan
was beginning to feel like Detective Joe Friday in Dragnet – she’d loved that
show when she was growing up. (Of course, she had been watching ancient reruns
not the originals.)  Plumbing Edison was a “just the facts” kind of interview
Joe Friday liked; only Jordan wanted the story and a lot more than just the
facts.  “Why were you shunned?”

“I
was raised in Holmes County, Ohio.  We were Swartzentruber, but mother insisted
we have a flower garden and a paved driveway so we were already living
dangerously on the edge.”

Jordan
was already lost.  “What’s Swartzentruber?”

“It’s
like the super-Amish.  They think other Amish people are not strict enough.  My
people don’t have running water or electricity.  They take the buggy thing
seriously.  We couldn’t even have one of those reflective triangles on the back
of the buggy.  Do you know how unsafe that it?  We couldn’t use anything
reflective.”

“What? 
You’re being serious here?” Jordan honestly thought Edison was fucking with her
and she’d burst out laughing saying something like “I really had you going,”
only that part of the script didn’t appear to be showing up.

“Yes. 
It was the reflective triangle and the sidelong glances between Melly and me
that got me shunned.  Melly was the preacher’s daughter,” Edison said.

“One
question,” Jordan said.  “Did kids make fun of her and call her Smelly Melly?”

“That’s
not funny.  I’m being serious.”

Jordan
studied Edison.  She did look serious.  “Okay, sorry,” Jordan said.  “Please
continue.  The triangle was like a symbol of your love or something?”

“No. 
Even then I was known for my inventions.  Being Amish and having limited
contact with the outside world, I didn’t know about modern technology.  I
didn’t know about most ancient technology either.  I used to spend my nights in
secret in the barn, inventing things.”

“What
kind of things?”

“Oh,
you know, the Chop-o-matic, Wart Remover, The Clap On-Clap Off, which was much
harder to make with oil lanterns than its electrical cousin.”

“I
bet,” Jordan muttered.

“I
had no idea those things already existed.  Anyway, I had noticed a need for a
reflective paint.  There had been too many buggy accidents.  You can’t see a
black buggy on a dirt road at night, you know.  One night, Melly and her mother
were out helping one of the sick people and they got rear ended by a teenage
couple who were out for a drive in their car.  Actually, I think the girl was
giving her boyfriend a blowjob while he drove.  They smashed into Melly’s
buggy.  They weren’t going very fast – probably because of the blowjob – and
well they crashed and she bit his penis off.”

Jordan’s
mouth gaped open.  “Like in
The World According to Garp
kind of bit
off?”

Edison
nodded. “The townspeople got a little uptight about it.  The loss of the penis
proved to be the proverbial straw and things got ugly.”

That
was when Jordan realized that the loss of the boy’s penis and Edison’s
predilection for inventing fake penii might have an emotional connection. 
“Then what happened?”

“I
tried to fix things. I experimented with fluorescents.”

Jordan
thought Edison said that in the same way most people say, “I experimented with
drugs.”  Jordan pulled the rubber ball out of her pocket and squeezed it.  She
was now using it as a stress ball.  “I’m getting lost.  What do fluorescents
have to do with Melly?”

Edison
flattened out her lips and furrowed her brow.  “Let me tell the story in
chronological order.  I was eighteen and I kissed Melly in the barn.  We
professed our love.  The accident happened.  I snuck into the hardware store
and stole coated phosphorescent pigment and a gallon of green paint.  It’s the
only thing I’ve ever stolen.  With Melly’s help I painted all the backs of the
buggies so they would glow in the dark.  This appeased the townspeople.  They
thought the Swartzentrubers had caved.  I hadn’t counted on that.  I just
wanted everyone to be safe.  I could’ve lost Melly in that accident.  Word got
out and that was the end of everything.  The elders found out who’d done it and
I was finished.  I claimed full responsibility but Melly got in trouble too. 
She was only seventeen so she couldn’t go with me.  Her parents sent her to
live with relatives in Pennsylvania.  I never saw her again.”  Edison wiped a
tear.  “I hitch-hiked here.”

“Wow,”
Jordan said, shaking her head.

“Don’t
tell anybody, okay?”

“Okay. 
Your secret’s safe with me.”

"Anyway,
I'm sorry your lunch date didn't work out," Edison said.  "The whole
dating game is overrated.  Don't feel bad about it.  Lots of people are
dating-challenged.  You're just one of those people.  Me too.  That's why we
have each other.  As friends –
I know what
you're thinking – as friends.  I totally agree with your assessment on that
matter.  But if you ask me, and I know you're not, but if you did ask me, I'd
say that today's dating disaster was worth it.  Now you know that you and Amy
aren't compatible.  You got it out of your system.  You're free to move
on."

"Actually,"
Jordan said, "we have another date tomorrow."

Edison
punched the gas and swerved the car around another corner.  Jordan hung on for
dear life.

Lesbians in the Mist

Amy
was nervous.  Everything in her mind told her not to go.  However, everything
in her body said,
“Go! Go!”
  She was stuck somewhere in between,
vacillating between bliss and fear.  The middle ground was nerves.  That’s
where she was now.  After the almost-kiss yesterday
under the table, Jordan had asked her to go to the art museum with her. Amy’s
mouth had
said yes without even consulting her
brain.

Her
brain had kept her up most of the night, dredging up excuse after excuse after
excuse as to why she should not go on a date, technically a second date, with a
gorgeous, sexy lesbian.  Here were the reasons in no particular order:

Dating
a lesbian would mean she was a lesbian and if she was a lesbian then…

She
couldn’t wear her cute shoes anymore.

She
would have to get her hair cut short and that meant it would curl into its
natural Afro state.  Not her best look.

She
would have to carry her lipstick in her pocket because lesbians don't carry
purses.

They
also don't wear lipstick, so nix on the last reason.

She
would have to learn to cook so she could attend lesbian potlucks.

She
would have to learn to like hummus.  And learn how to pronounce it.

She
would have to get a cat.

Then,
in an act of fairness, her brain came up with reasons to become a lesbian. 
Here were the reasons in no particular order:

She
would save a lot of money by not buying…

Pantyhose

Dresses

Make-up

Curlers

Razors 
(She was uncertain whether lesbians shaved their legs and under their arms. 
She hoped so.)

She
could share a wardrobe with Jordan.

Amy
knew she was being a little silly.  Not all lesbians were exactly alike.  She
had seen a couple of episodes of
The L Word
.  She was pretty sure her
career wouldn't suffer and her mother – her father was long gone – would
eventually warm to the idea.  Still… it was a pretty big step.  Especially for
someone as clumsy in bed as she was. 
See prior banana peel story.
 However,
Jordan had woken up certain parts of her body that had been hibernating for the
past ten years.  And like a bear crawling out of her cave after a long winter's
nap, Amy was ravenous.

She
wished somebody would write a guidebook. 
Lesbianism for Dummies.
 It
would make things a whole lot easier.  Or maybe she should infiltrate the
periphery of lesbians.  Study their culture, their mating habits, their sense
of humor (assuming they had one), their sense of style (assuming they had that
also).  She could acquaint and acclimate herself to lesbians after careful
study.  She could be the Diane Fossey of Lesbians.

Early
in the a.m. hours after zilch sleep, Amy decided to quit thinking with her
brain.  She made a pledge with herself to leave her brain out of the equation
and let her heart and body do all the thinking. 

The
next morning, her heart and body took a shower, bought a new, funky wardrobe,
and picked up her new car.