Trying the Knot (18 page)

Ginny’s toes touched the hot lava lamp on the
Formica nightstand, and her long fingers ran down Ben’s taut, tan
torso. His exotic hairless body aroused her to the core. She
reveled in pulling back the fold of skin and revealing the head of
his stiff prick, before popping the delicious tropical treat in her
mouth. She regarded her boy-toy as a beautiful supernatural deity
who quenched her desires like no other mortal man ever had.
Although it sounded hyperbolic, she cherished the heavenly way he
kissed her with such lust it sent her soaring to galaxies
previously unexplored.

Inside this magical house time forgot, she
let him probe and pleasure the very essence of her being.
Generally, they seldom spoke until the gentle waves of their slow,
relaxed lovemaking subsided. Afterwards, she watched CNN or the
Discovery Channel while munching on the over-priced Milano cookies
she kept stashed next to the bed; even though she owned a
restaurant, Ben never saw her eat a proper meal apart from the
cookies. Ginny was always pleasantly surprised whenever he asked
how she felt about local or world events; no other man had ever
given a damn what she thought.

This afternoon, her pleasure tender was
brooding and uncommunicative. She surmised his uncustomary silence
was the result of Evangelica’s coma. Vange was Ginny’s best
waitress. She lent the lounge a certain cosmopolitan flare, and the
special way she plopped down the patrons’ plates as if doing them
the greatest favor in the world always garnished her the most tips.
It paid off for Vange to treat the clientele shoddily; however,
Ginny was the owner, and so she lived vicariously through Vange for
she could not afford to indulge in such high-risk behavior.

“Hey, honey-buns,” Ginny said to his
backside. “Why the silent treatment?”

Ben groaned affectedly, and she knew it was
no use badgering him. She left the bed, fetched her purse and
tossed him a sandwich baggie full of marijuana. Every once in a
while she liked to reward him with a little token gesture of her
affection. He never asked where she got the weed, nor did he
question her refusal to smoke it. She had maintained a no smoking
policy ever since he was in Kindergarten. He thanked her, but
failed to move from a face down position on the bed.

Ginny lay down on top of him and covered them
with the billowing linen sheet. As she molded her body against his,
she pecked the back of his neck with maternal kisses and pressed
her wetness against his buttocks. Peering over the side of the bed,
she inspected what had so enraptured him.

“Expecting a call?” she asked.

He cleared his throat and shook his head as
if the old rotary phone would never ring again.

“Don’t worry. Things will work out fine, my
beautiful buck,” she said sadly as she ran her fingers down his
flawless sinewy back. “Just give it time.”

“Right,” Ben said. He maneuvered his way out
from under her and kissed her full on the mouth.

Laughingly, she said, “That’s better, but I
must shower. I’ve that damned rehearsal dinner to put on tonight,
and I’m running late.” Ginny disappeared into the bathroom but
tantalizingly left the door ajar. Recalling her moans of pleasure
made him smile. He had never excited a woman so much by doing so
little work, and it made him appreciative of her languorous,
undemanding disposition. He rolled over, stared guiltily at the
answering machine, and cradled his stubble splattered chin in his
fist. He pressed rewind and then play.

The recorded voice sent shivers up and down
his spine. “Ben, Benny, Benvolio, I know you’re there. Benjamin,
sweetie, stop doing the nasty with that airhead matron of honor and
pick up the phone. Please, Benji, I have to talk. I need help, I’ve
done a terrible thing. Oh, Benny, what’ve I done?” Then a sigh, two
beeps and a final click.

Sickened with remorse, Ben wondered when
exactly Evangelica had made the call. Was it before or after she
swallowed the pills? If only he interrupted his one-night stand to
answer the phone, then Vange surely would not have landed in a
coma.

He could not count the number of times he
rushed to her in the middle of the night to find her huddled in a
rocking heap on the floor weeping for no fathomable reason.
Evangelica routinely crashed her trembling body against his,
expecting him to pilot her from whatever internal storm wreaked
havoc on her inner psyche as if he were a lifeline that could reel
her back to satisfied complacency.

July, 1991

Rinsing glasses behind the bar, Ben watched
Evangelica singing on the small platform in the middle of The
Lounge. The old piano was only for effect since Alexa had recorded
the accompanying music earlier on her keyboard. The lounge act was
Ginny’s scheme to draw customers away from the swanky newer
restaurant down on the lakeshore. Vange agreed to entertain for a
nominal fee, and she clearly enjoyed ditching waiting tables for an
evening of adulation, even if all her fans were from her
grandparent’s generation. She belted out the songs as if her life
depended on it, and her smooth pure voice seemed to fill every
darkened nook and cranny of the dining room.

Vange occasionally tossed Ben a flirtatious
grin while winking at the elderly crowd. In a vintage gown, she
looked as if she had emerged from a wartime saloon. Evangelica
played the role of ‘good’ girl gone ‘broad’ to the hilt. Her Dame
act excited all the old men who usually only had eyes for Ginny,
and it warmed the hearts of the ladies who recalled the thrill of
their own joyous physical peak.

Approximately a decade older, the humorless
waitresses sniggered and cursed at Vange under their breaths. The
crew was a dismally unimaginative lot who spent their adolescent
years idolizing Marcia Brady, but no amount of lip-gloss or hair
teasing could disguise the fact that they were bitter Jans. They
called Vange Madonna Wannabe as if that were the worst insult
imaginable.

They were Three Musketeers and a Tab pop for
lunch types who starved themselves to retain Charlie’s Angels’
figures. Malnourishment was probably responsible for their bitchy
dispositions. Semi-retired from the local bar scene, they had
ceased competing for wedding rings, and their lives were presently
consumed with producing the most obnoxious kid. The poor little
goats, as Evangelica referred to them, were saddled with such
sexually ambiguous names as Taylor, Lauren, Mackenzie, Bailey, and
Connor.

The She-Wolves, as Vange collectively
referred to her fellow waitresses, hated her for her thinly veiled
disdain of their chintzy J. C. Penny wardrobes and their Woman’s
World aspirations. Evangelica was voluptuous, haughty and arrogant.
After work, she refused to accompany the flock of barracudas to
local taverns, where she was renowned as Karaoke Queen. If Vange
was not home bitten by a bout of depression, she invariably bumped
into them with a microphone in hand. If they dared confront her
abut her antisocial behavior, she rebuffed in her lone wolf
fashion, “Sorry, I don’t prowl in a pack.”

Whenever Ginny left town, she requested Vange
assume her role as hostess. Even though the job paid less, Vange
seized the opportunity to piss off her comrades by becoming a
militant dictator. Even so much as an eye roll could render the
offender banishment to tables in Siberia near the kitchen. In
Ginny’s words, Evangelica defied legislation. She was a true
original, in a genre all her own.

As her grand finale came to a rousing finale,
and it was always the same – the Jazz standard “Lush Life” – she
basked in the glorious adoration of her fans. Applause, curtsies,
kisses and more applause until she felt satisfied.

Emanating unadulterated contentment, Vange
left the stage to soak in the free booze awaiting her compliments
the misty-eyed audience. For a short time, the patrons had been
transported a half-century to the glory days of their youth, and as
always, they were eternally grateful and expressed as much with
gracious sweetness. Evangelica kissed the heads of a few bald men
on her way to the bar, where Ben had a dirty gin martini already
waiting. On nights like these, she came across as a dazzling free
spirit, a whirling of dervish energy.

“That was grand,” Ben said as he handed her
the martini. Knowing all eyes lingered on her, Vange gulped down
the contents in one swig and threw her head back with laughter.

“Ever think of taking your act on the road?”
asked one of the caustic Jan Bradys.

Evangelica smiled broadly and asked through
her teeth, “Ever consider getting a life worth living?” She turned
away and downed the second drink Ben had lined up. “Remind me,
Benji, why we stay in this godforsaken place, surrounded by all
these poverty level Reaganites, who’re still waiting for whatever
it was that was supposed to trickle down?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Ben said. He went
back to work and tried not to pay Vange too much attention. Ben did
not aspire to alienate the girls or make his boss jealous, although
he seriously doubted Ginny noticed or cared.

Hungry from a long day’s worth of embalming,
Ginny’s beau sat in a corner booth hovering over a slab of prime
rib. Confident and clad in well-fit clothes, he wore his weight
like a successful heavyset man. Ben guessed the town’s only
mortician gave Ginny the weed she passed along to him in return for
his afternoon pleasure sessions. Ben wondered if the mortician was
really a local drug lord, or if it was another vicious rumor, like
anything else anyone in Portnorth ever repeated half under their
breath. For all Ben knew, Chelsea sent her the pot by USPS or
carrier pigeon.

Before Ben had the chance to ask Vange if she
felt like indulging in bong hits later after work, Dr. Paull sidled
up next to her. Nick’s father was ready to sail away to Key Largo
in his white slacks and open Hawaiian shirt. After buying Vange a
drink, he proceeded to critique her performance. For as long as she
could withstand, she tolerated his fawning attention until it
digressed into pawing and leering.

“That’s all I need,” she said to Ben, “is the
father and son comparing notes. Hell, I’d rather do his frigid
wife.”

Ben laughed with evil on his mind, and he
continued to mix drinks without much thought or effort for it had
become second nature.

“Shouldn’t we start working on the wedding
tape soon?” she asked.

Ben nodded. “Alexa said this week for
sure.”

“If only we could skip what’s sure to be the
social event of the season,” Vange said annoyed, at the thought of
Kate and Nick’s nuptials. “What’re you, an usher or some damn
thing?” Ben nodded. “You’re his oldest best friend, and what does
it get you, the opportunity to meet, greet, and seat.” She took the
straw from between her lips and tossed it aside. ”Tell me, Benny,
won’t it break your heart to see the epitome of feminine perfection
trying the knot?”

“What’re you talking about?”

Evangelica shot him a hostile look. “Oh spare
me, you’ve never stopped worshipping the ground Kate walks on.”

“We’re not in the eleventh grade anymore.” He
cracked open a beer and handed it to one of the anorexic
waitresses’ outstretched talon.

“All the more reason why it’s so nauseating
to watch you go blank and drool whenever she appears,” Evangelica
said. “You don’t know her well enough to know she has faults. She
wakes up with bad breath and shits, just like the rest of us, but
who am I to shatter your illusions?”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen, helping your other
girlfriend. Ginny give you any Tea lately?” Vange asked. Tea was
her Boho Beatnik euphemism for pot. “You owe me, Benji.”

Growing weary of his silent nods, she left
him alone behind to the bar to tend to the drunks, but she
continued to dispense free entertainment until the place closed. As
usual, she was buzzed by the end of the night and bummed a ride
home on the back of his crotch-rocket. As soon as they entered her
apartment, she put on a Miles Davis record and began brewing
coffee.

“Stay, Benny. Let’s get high awhile and
listen to tunes while watching my Christmas lights.” Which were
still up in May.

She was wide-awake and could stay that way
for marathon stretches. Every night she went out, danced on tables
and left a party wherever her winding trail blazed. Typically,
during these manic phases she ate nothing and walked everywhere
singing show tunes accompanied by her Walkman CD player, and she
compulsively read anything metaphysical she could get her hands on.
It was not uncommon for her to wake Ben in the middle of the night
with an obscure bit of Wiccan or New Age mysticism.

For a joke, she cajoled Alexa and Jack into
letting her cruise main with them, and just to be idiotic she
convinced them to make prank phone calls to different states, which
they often recorded. In the middle of September, she swam in Lake
Huron despite her professed fear of water. One February she
single-handedly loaded her truck full of sand and dumped it on her
living room floor. She jacked up the thermostat and threw a Spring
Break beach bash lasting an entire weekend.

Then she inevitably crashed and did not leave
her bedroom for two or so months. After failing to show up for
work, Ben usually found her in bed surrounded by a sea of discarded
junk food wrappers strewn about the floor. Evangelica curled up in
the fetal position and glued herself to the TV with the volume off.
With hard-core Punk Rock music blaring continuously, she watched
the flickering images of old movies and insisted, “If only I could
be this angry, Benny, then I’d be truly happy.”

“Go get some chocolate covered wafers made by
those elves, my beautiful Benvolio,” she invariably begged. “Get me
Cracklin’ Oat Bran, too, and a pizza. And don’t forget the
grapefruit juice; I need juice to wash it all down with. And get
some of Little Debbie’s Swiss Rolls. Hurry, Benny, or I’ll die, and
Zingers, too. Don’t forget those. And ice cream.”