The Morbid and Sultry Tales of Genevieve Clare (6 page)

I sat across from the pissed-off looking females who had hired me for a combo package. I always met clients somewhere that had decent coffee and a good dessert menu. If neither of those were available, I told them to meet me at a Denny’s. A waffle would work in a pinch if I couldn’t get decent cake. Or pie.

“So,” I said with a pen in my hand as I went over everything they’d filled out. “You want The Banshee and the Dancing on your Grave, Motherfucker.”

The four women exchanged glances. The two youngest were sisters, Emma and Anna, and they were openly hostile toward one another. But the voice of reason, their mother, seemed to calm them down with one word. “Ladies…” She glared and disarmed them instantly.

“Fine!” The youngest crossed her arms like a spoiled child and huffed. “Just to say, I would like to hire a hitman instead. We’re like, ten miles from a state penitentiary. I’m sure we can just go on visiting day and ask around.”

“Anna!” the older women scolded.

“Are you stupid or something?” her sister asked. “Everyone knows, you want a hit, craigslist is the way to go.”

The other older woman turned to her own sister and stated, “This is how you raised my nieces?”

“Becky,” she said in a warning tone to her sibling.

“Rachel,” she mocked in the same tone.

Emma addressed her mom and aunt in a quiet voice. “It wasn’t right. What Cathy did.  And Dad didn’t know because we never told him. We love Dad, but she…”

Some clients were straight forward cases, and I didn’t have to ask them to elaborate. But with some, I felt it would be in my best interest to get all the dirty history before I found myself being followed for two weeks by someone I assumed was a private detective.

“Here,” I said, sliding my waffle topped with strawberry compote and whipped cream in front of Emma. “Trust me, the only thing better than a good waffle is a good piece of cake. Followed, of course, by pie.”

“Thanks,” she said softly.

“No problem.” I smiled. “Okay, so the funeral is on Wednesday at two. Just so we’re clear. Humiliation and embarrassment, but not until his mother leaves. Correct?”

“I can’t believe Grandma outlived Dad. She’s like, a million years old,” Anna said with a giggle.

“I know, right?” chimed her sister.

Their mother closed her eyes, praying for patience.

“Sign here…and here…and here.” I waited as the woman penned her signature, then I closed the folder and slid it into my messenger bag.

“Dude, you look nothing like those pictures on your website.” This was Emma, eyeing me from head to toe.

“Amazing what the right accessories can do,” I commented. “See you ladies on Wednesday.”

I waved just outside the window as I walked back to my car. It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining at the Denny’s in Vallejo. I didn’t make it up to Napa nearly enough. It reminded me how much I liked to consume wine.

On that thought, I let the sun kiss my pale skin for three-point-five seconds before I took cover inside my car. Then I drove straight to my favorite Italian restaurant where I ordered ravioli, garlic bread sticks, a side salad, Mrs. Santucci’s vanilla bean panna cotta, and three bottles of Merlot. I told her I was having friends over later.

I lied.

First order of business when I came home was to go upstairs and have a bath. I could hear birds chirp, chirp, chirping away with their little happy song outside my bathroom window and wondered where I might be able to buy a BB gun. I didn’t want to kill them, just scare them a little.

I took a sip from my wine glass – I owned just the one – and tried to find comfort in the sounds of the afternoon, but I couldn’t.

“Fuck it.” I was glad I’d only had the one glass. The plan had been to have the first bottle as an appetizer, the second for my main, then the panna cotta, and hopefully, I’d be happily sloshed by the third. I wasn’t an alcoholic. I didn’t drink every day, or even every week. But today was a special day, and on this day in particular, I found it more tolerable when I was intoxicated.

Ten years ago, bad things happened in my life. I’d ended a long term relationship with a nice guy that I didn’t love. Then, my mom, dad, and grandmother died in a car accident on their way to meet me for dinner. At their funeral, my childhood crush, though he was so much more than that, showed up. He helped me through those first few painful months after their deaths, only to get into a serious car accident himself, which left his own father dead and him fighting for his life. A few weeks after that, I shut down completely and made him leave. I was utterly and completely broken.

Now, years later, I knew why I’d reacted the way I did. For me, it was better I lost him then than to constantly worry about the heartache I’d endure if or when he left me for good. At least this way, I might hear of his passing from a local and be able to cope. But I knew myself, and I knew the intensity with which I loved that man. It wasn’t just that I’d loved him since I was a girl; being with him felt as natural as breathing and because of that, I knew that I would never, ever recover from that loss.

Today was the anniversary of my parents’ and grandmother’s deaths. I’d already left a bottle of top-shelf Irish whiskey on their graves with three glasses filled to the brim. I hoped that, one day, I’d go out there and find those glasses and the bottle empty…that they had finally decided to come back and haunt the cemetery next to my house and help themselves to a drink.

When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me stories about the sneaky leprechauns as Saint Patrick’s Day approached. Our ancestry was Irish, and my dad carried on the tradition his parents had done when he was a kid. I woke on the morning of “pinching day” as I called it, and everything in the house had turned green. The “leprechauns” made the milk green, the eggs Mom cooked were green, even the water in the toilets had turned green.

When I was old enough to understand that Mom and Dad were behind it, I also realized that my suspicions that the Easter Bunny and Santa were all a big fat lie were true. Still, I didn’t let on for another few years, and now, ten years after their deaths, I just wanted, one time, to come out the next morning and find the glasses empty.

I got dressed in tight jeans, black belt with a silver buckle, my black, sixteen-hole, red patent Doc’s, and my beloved Two-Tone black tee. I threw a red cardi over the ensemble and drove to Richmond.

****

In my valiant efforts to stay single for the rest of my life, I gave myself two rules: never date anyone in town and never give out my number. I had a Shake N Bake the next day at noon, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t meet up with my bestie for Skankin’ Sundays at the Deep Fried Dance Hall. The old movie theater-come-nightclub was not a restaurant, nor did it serve food, fried or otherwise.

I’d heard the four guys who owned it used to have a ska band together. They were famous for a song that had received a lot of local radio play with a particular line that went something like, “And after that after-noona, my dick smelled like deep fried tuna.” When the guys decided to invest their earnings into the run down theatre, it was named after an ex-girlfriend of one of the members who apparently had “stinky snatch,” according to one of the bartenders. I was sure glad I wasn’t her. Aside from their vindictive name, the club played the best music, and Sunday night was Ska Night.

Rocky was my single friend. A double meaning in that she was single and pretty much my only friend. I became an island unto myself after Ahren left. I did not return calls. I did not accept visitors. I didn’t even answer the door. Guava and Rocky took turns bringing me whatever I was low on, until almost a year later, Rocky announced we were going out.

She came prepared with wine, which, out of all alcoholic beverages, made me quickly compliant. She brought her Doc’s—the red patent ones—which she gifted me and said never quite fit her right. Guava did my hair for the night in big barrel roll bangs and a nice wavy ponytail. I’d lost a lot of weight, and, by a lot, I mean, I could count my ribs. My stomach never looked better than it did when I was barely a hundred and ten pounds. However, I was now a sturdy one-forty-three.

The three was very important.

Rocky brought me overalls and searched my closet for my Two-Tone shirt, a twenty-first birthday gift. I wore a pair of lacy, black briefs, because I knew they wouldn’t ride up my ass when I danced. When we arrived that night, the place was absolutely packed. Rocky and I pushed our way inside to discover a few local bands were playing. The opening act began to play the minute we stepped inside, and it was wall-to-wall punkers everywhere. I was more worried about the guy behind me with the spikey bracelet impaling me than navigating the pumped-up crowd. But thirty minutes into the set, a fight broke out, and Rock and I were pushed into the circling mosh pit.

I wasn’t a stranger to a mosh pit, per se. I knew what it was. I’d seen it from a distance at shows. I’d just never been an active participant of one…until that night. The only way out was to be lifted and crowd-surf our way to the front where security would usher us to the safety of the sides, out of hot tempers and harm’s way.

Rocky went first, laughing and shouting, “Fuck yeah!” The guy in front of me gave me a lift up, but not before he and what seemed like at least four, maybe five other digits found their way into my lacy briefs on my journey over the pit.

When I’d landed, I asked Rocky, “Dude, did you get fingered on the way out of there?”

Her eyes went wide. “Uh, no. Did you?”

Stupid question.

I shook my head in faux disappointment. “And not even a phone number.”

Aside from the literal manhandling, it was a truly memorable night, but more than that, it got me out of my funk. Now, every few months, we went to The Fish Fry and danced our asses off. Sometimes this resulted in a random hook-up, sometimes it didn’t. But whether I was being fucked senseless over the porcelain throne, or a more generous soul took me to the theater-style seating upstairs, pulled down my jeans, and gave me oral sex, it was enough to gratify my needs sexually and help me forget about the giant hole where my heart used to be. A space that was, and would only ever be, filled by one person.

Years later, ten to be exact, I made my way outside The Fish Fry and saw an available bit of stucco wall to lean against and wait for Rocky. I thought about the two random guys who’d approached me throughout the night, but I was wrapped up in getting my groove on.

“Ready to go?” Rocky asked while some barely eighteen-year-old wannabe punker sucked on her neck.

“Yeah.”

She dislodged herself from the man-child and said, “Been real, babe. Maybe see ya around. Night.”

He looked devastated.

As we approached the car and she beeped the locks, I couldn’t help but ask, “You sure you don’t want to bring Remora the Ramone home with us?”

She looked at me across the top of her car. “How long did it take you to come up with that?”

“I had ‘sucking fish’ in a crossword a few weeks ago. It was pretty fresh in my mind, so, thirty seconds?” I grinned.

“Whore,” she teased playfully.

“Slut,” I returned.

These were our sentiments of love and affection that very few people understood. We knew, and that was all that mattered.

Finally, we were in the car, sweaty and satisfied – Rocky more than me – and on our way home.

****

Ahren

Ahren couldn’t believe it. He’d gone outside to have a smoke, and there she was. Laughing, smiling, and looking better than he remembered. For the first few years, he’d sent her best friend emails and asked that she just tell him if Gen was all right. She never held back the truth from him, and, that first year, it took all his will to stay away. Then Rocky said she managed to get her out of the house, that Gen was going to start her own business. And finally, seven years ago, Rocky had said that, although she understood his need to keep tabs, she no longer felt she could give him updates on her friend. She assured Ahren that, if there was anything he needed to know, anything significant, she would contact him. He took this to mean if Gen had an accident or died. There really was no other reason he could think of.

But Ahren had sent Gen a CD of The Specials when he was away at college and told her that anyone could dance to ska music. She was adamant she couldn’t dance, but, the night of her twenty-first birthday, when she visited him in San Jose, he taught her how and, of course, she was a natural. Gen and Rocky were completely unaware of the drama unfolding with Ahren’s ex.

That same night, he went to find her, so pissed Genevieve’s night was going to be ruined when he explained he had to go. Instead of being upset, she came onto him, and he wanted nothing more than to take her right there. His frustration and anger at that woman whose name he couldn’t even remember now caused him to push her away. No, it was more than that. He’d wanted to fuck her on the spot, and that wasn’t the way he wanted their first time together to be. Not in a bar bathroom, not with his girlfriend twenty feet away. He wanted the beginning of them together not to be tainted by anything or anyone else.

They lost those years, because he’d made the wrong choice. He made her leave that bar, and a few years later, she did the same thing to him. In his mind, no matter what the circumstances, they both knew there were some things you could not deny, and whatever had grown between them from the time they were kids, it was still there. He was sure of it, and seeing her walk out of that club, her hair still perfect after what he was sure were hours of dancing, she was breathtaking. He caught the glint of sweat on her neck, wanting nothing more than to pull her to his chest and lick it from her.

But not yet.