Ed Gorman - Save The Last Dance For Me

It was worth it because today these two are The Happiest Couple In The World. They have seventy-three children and eighteen dogs and eleven cats and they live on love. They don’t need groceries, they don’t need cars, they don’t need baths. Who needs that stuff when you’ve got Love, and we’re talking capital-letter

Love here, of course. So maybe if you can just hang in there just a little longer you’ll be exactly like this couple-maybe just like Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher who look, I have to say, as if they’re living on Love for sure-and then all this suffering and shame and emotional sucker-punching will be well worth it. She was probably thinking stuff like that. Because that’s the sort of thing I used to think about the beautiful Pamela Forrest when she’d give me just enough hope to hang on for another couple weeks. But in the end it’s us, isn’t it?

We could walk away anytime if we had the pride or common sense we should have. And yet we cling and hope. And have those happy-scared moments like the one Kylie was probably having now when the object of our affection throws us another sunny bit of hoke and hope.

A visitor waited for me in my client’s chair.

When he turned around, I said, “Lesbo Lummoxes. About really lazy lesbians.”

“Not bad,” he said.

“I was kidding.”

“Gee, McCain, so was I. I suggest a title like Lesbo Lummoxes, the editor probably wouldn’t ever give me any more work.”

As I walked around the desk to my chair, I said, “How about Lesbo Laundromat?”

“Lesbo Laundromat?”

“It’s where all these lesbians go to wash their clothes.”

“See, McCain,” Kenny Thibodeau said patiently, “this stuff isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“I guess not.”

“Are you by any chance a frustrated writer, McCain?”

“Yeah. Sort of, anyway.”

“I thought so.” Then, quickly: “Not to change the subject but I have some info for you.”

“Info?”

Even on a boiling day like today Kenny was decked out in black. He wasn’t in mourning.

He was just honoring his place in the ranks of the Beat Generation. “I told you I’d play detective and I did. I’m going to write this private-eye novel.” Then: “Guess who was caught breaking into Courtney’s rectory last night?”

“Who?”

“Dierdre Hall.”

“How’d you find that out?”

“I have my ways.”

“C’mon, Kenny, how’d you find out?”

“My aunt is their cleaning woman.”

“Ah.”

“She stopped by my mom’s place and I was there.”

“Cliffie know this?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think. He didn’t know as of earlier this morning, anyway.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because my aunt hadn’t told him yet.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t like Cliffie. She goes to the Lutheran church and he stopped them from playing Bingo one day.”

“Didn’t Mrs. Courtney turn her in?”

“Mrs. Courtney doesn’t know.”

“Wasn’t she home last night?”

“Oh, she was home, all right. With her bottle. Aunt Am was in the basement.

Courtney’s lawyer had asked her to start taking an inventory of everything that belonged to the church and everything that belonged to the Courtneys. Mrs.

Courtney says she plans to move back east very soon.”

“What’d your aunt do with Dierdre?”

“Just told her to go back home. She said the kid was pretty bad off. Crying and stuff.”

“She didn’t say why she was breaking in?”

“Just said she was looking for something. But wouldn’t say what.”

A sad, not-unfamiliar scenario was starting to take shape. B-movie, maybe. Or one of Kenny’s paperbacks.

“You told anybody this?”

“Only you, counselor. I’m working for you, remember. I figure it’s a trade-off.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll need to ask you a lot of questions about law while I’m writing. I try to make my books as authentic as possible.”

“Authentic? I thought you’d never met a lesbian?”

“Well, authentic except for the lesbian parts, I guess.”

“But aren’t most of the parts about lesbian stuff?”

“What are you, a critic? You want me to keep working or not?”

“You’re right, Kenny. Sorry. And this is very useful information. Thanks.” Then I said, “Lost Lesbians.”

“Lost? Where’re they lost?”

“Africa? Some desert somewhere?”

“It just doesn’t ring right, McCain.

Sorry.”

“Lesbian Locksmiths?”

He shook his head in pity. “Sorry, McCain.”

There was no answer at the Halls’. I tried front and back doors, I peeked in windows.

I checked backyard, garage, nearby alley.

Why would Dierdre have broken into the rectory last night? Looking for what, exactly?

Kenny Thibodeau’s aunt was a nice-looking sixty-year-old woman who lived in a friendly-looking little white house on a nice shady corner of a dead-end street. She was on her haunches gardening when I pulled up. Her graying hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her white U of Iowa T-shirt and jean cutoffs made her seem much younger than she was.

Her son had gotten into some speeding trouble several times during the past few years and I’d represented him in court. She greeted me with a raised trowel. “Morning, McCain.”

“Morning, Am.”

“Plug your ears.”

“My ears?”

“These old bones make a lot of noise when I have to stand up.”

“You’re a doll and you know it.”

“I used to be a doll. A long, long time ago I was a doll. Here we go.”

Her bones did sort of crackle arthritically.

She wiped the back of a hand across her forehead.

“I bet Kenny told you about Dierdre.”

“Yeah.”

“If you want to know what she was looking for, I don’t know.”

“You’ve seen her there before?”

“Oh, sure. She was one of the Reverend’s regulars.”

“Regulars?”

“He counseled people. I know you didn’t care for him but he did a lot of good.

I mean, he was sort of stuck-up and a snob and everything. But he saved half a dozen marriages I know of and he got four or five men to quit drinking. Got them into Aa.”

Every time you try to hate somebody, they go and do something honorable. The inconsiderate bastards.

“And he counseled young people, too, huh?”

“Five or six of them on a regular basis. The Beaumont boy? All the trouble he used to get in? He’s been walking the straight and narrow for the past eleven months. Every time I see his mom, she breaks into tears over the Reverend. Says he walks on water and can do no wrong.”

“You ever hear any scuttlebutt about his counseling sessions?”

“What kind of scuttlebutt?”

She was about to answer when the mailman appeared in his pith helmet and blue uniform walking shorts and shirt. “There’s a nice cold glass of lemonade in the refrigerator for you, Deke.

I guess you know where to find it.”

“Thanks, Am,” Deke said. “You’re a lifesaver. As usual.” He nodded and left.

“They’ve got a lot tougher job than most people think. When my husband got laid off at the plant back in ‘ec, he started being a substitute carrier. You never saw so much leg trouble and back trouble and arm trouble. It looks a lot easier than it is. So when it gets real hot, I leave lemonade for Deke in the fridge. He just goes inside and gets it.

Even if I’m not here. And I have hot cocoa for him in the winter months.”

“You’re the one who walks on water.”

“Oh, yes,” she laughed. “I’m one holy person. That’s why Fred and I sit up in bed some nights reading Playboy and giggling over the cartoons.”

Deke had just set a record for lemonade-guzzling. He was back outside, waving good-bye, going on to the next house.