Tom Robbins - Jitterbug Perfume

The Daughters of the Daily Special, once they learned that they had too many individual differences to call themselves “Sisters,” had adopted a very clean and simple raison d'être: they planned to liberate each other, one at a time. They paid relatively stiff weekly dues, and they raised additional funds with such tried and true schemes as bikini car washes. Once or twice a year, depending upon how much was in their treasury, they awarded a grant that allowed a deserving member to lay down her tray and devote some time to her true calling. For example, they got Trixie Melodian out of the Salmon House and into the dance studio, where she choreographed her ballet based on the eruptions of Mount St. Helens; they bought Ellen Cherry Charles six months at her easel, where she completed a series of landscapes that was later hung in a restaurant ("I escaped, my paintings didn't,” she commented); and Sheila Gomez was able to quit totalling bar tabs at La Buznik and finish writing her master's thesis in mathematics, “some kind of Puerto Rican trigonometry,” according to Ricki.

Ricki was an unlikely candidate for a Daily Special grant, since she had majored in physical education so that she could take lots of showers with the other coeds, but she was sure Priscilla could land one, and that was why she was sponsoring Priscilla for membership. At first, Priscilla was reluctant. She was just not a joiner. “The only organization I ever joined in my life was the Columbia Record Club,” she declared, “and I had to get out of that because it was too disciplined.” The more Ricki talked about those big fat juicy grants, however, the better they sounded. She felt that she was close to a breakthrough in her experiments, but she as almost too tired to continue. If the Daughters could buy her a few uninterrupted months in her lab, she'd not only sign their roster, she'd kiss their behinds. “Starting with mine,” chirped Ricki.

Priscilla came out of the bathroom wearing tight jeans and a cable-knit, iguana-green pullover sweater that accentuated the red in her reddish-brown hair. For a change, she'd pinked her Cupid's bow mouth — tiny in comparison to Ricki's full Latino lips — and brushed on enough purple eye shadow to make Bela Lugosi look like a lifeguard. “Wow!” exclaimed Ricki. “You're the second most impressive thing I've seen today, the first being a total eclipse of the sun.”

“One would have thought a solar eclipse would have made a noise like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” said Priscilla, “but it really did sound like bacon frying.”

“You slept through it, you asshole.”

They drove downtown in Ricki's rusted-out VW bug. “I'm ashamed to be seen behind the wheel of this bedpan,” Ricki said. “It looks like it has a skin disease. Worse, it looks like a car you would drive.”

“When I perfect that formula, you're gonna see me driving a BMW or a Lincoln Continental,” said Priscilla. “Maybe both at the same time.”

“That's why we're enlisting you in the Daughters. Gonna get you out of that smelly studio and into a penthouse. I do hope you'll keep it tidier than your present digs. Which reminds me, Pris, what were those old dry beets doing in your armchair?”

“Somebody's been leaving them outside my door. To be perfectly frank, I thought it might be you.”

“Me? Why would I do an idiotic thing like that? I hate beets. In fact, I hate most vegetables.” She paused. “I must admit, though, that vegetarians taste better than heavy meat eaters. Smokers are the worst. You wouldn't think that you could detect it, you know, down there . But you can.” She made a face that caused the faint handlebar of hairs above her lip to bristle like the fuzz on an ostrich's cheek.

“Since I've been working at El Papa Muerta, nothing tastes good to me anymore,” Priscilla said.

The holocaustal effect that serving food for a living can have on one's appetite was a subject discussed at the meeting of the Daughters of the Daily Special. “That's why it's preferable to wait cocktails,” somebody said. “No, that's worse,” responded Sheila Gomez. “Waiting cocktails kills your appetite for liquor.”

The meeting was held in the Spotted Necktie Room at the Old Spaghetti Factory. There were about forty women present, twice as many as Priscilla had expected. After they finished complaining about appetite loss, they complained about the neutron bomb that working nights had dropped on their social lives. Then they really got steamed up over having to be nice to people they couldn't stand. It wasn't the men who infuriated them, not even bottom-pinching men (some waitresses, a minority, actually enjoyed having their bottoms pinched), it was the women. “The most unbearable aspect of this job is waiting on rich, crabby, drunk ladies,” said one waitress. “Right on!” said another. “Except for the rare one who might have toted trays somewhere in her sordid past, they'll pick the tips up off the table as soon as their husbands' backs are turned.”

“How true. A wife is a waitress's public enemy number one.”

“Beware of blue hair and T-shirts that say 'World's Best Grandma.' They expect you to tip them .”

Next they compared notes on how much their feet hurt and the psychotic states of cooks. Evidently, all restaurant cooks were psychotic, some were just less violent than others. It was all rather depressing. But, then, they began to share stories of the odd mammoth tip they'd received the previous week, the odd offer of booze, cocaine, or a big house in the South of France; the odd, interesting customer, including local celebrities, who the celebrity dined with and what they ate; and before long, drinking Chianti all the while, they got off the subject of waitressing altogether and had a fine old time exchanging reviews and critiques of the solar eclipse.

The meeting was nearly over when they got around to considering Priscilla's application for membership. As Ricki had warned it might, it met with some opposition.

“It's irrelevant that she's had only one year of college,” Ricki told the assembly. “She's a genius.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“Ha ha.”

“You don't have to be a genius to recognize one. If you did, Einstein would never have gotten invited to the White House.”

“Well, how about some proof.”

“Go ahead,” said Ricki, “test her. Ask her a question.”

“What's the capital of San Salvador?” asked Trixie Melodian.

“You call that a genius question?” Doris Newton responded. “I've seen retired air force sergeants answer harder questions than that on Tic Tac Dough .”

“Besides,” said Ellen Cherry Charles, “San Salvador is the capital. The country is El Salvador.”

“Are you positive?” asked Trixie. “Why would the city have a longer name than the country?”

“If she's such a genius, why is she working at El Papa Muerta? Everybody knows Mexican restaurants are the pits for tips.”

“El Papa Muerta is about as Mexican as Juneau.”

“Does El Papa Muerta mean The Dead Potato or The Dead Pope?”

“What's the difference?”

“I resent that,” said Sheila Gomez, glancing at the little crucifix that dangled its gold-skinned heels above her globes.

Priscilla cleared her throat. She spoke for the first time since the meeting began. Her voice was a trifle high and squeaky. “I've worked at five Mexican restaurants in three years. I'm searching for the perfect taco.”

That stopped them. Hell, maybe she was a genius.

Ricki stood again. “Little Priscilla here is a scientist. She's got her own laboratory. And is she onto something hot! I'm not at liberty to reveal what it is at this point in time, you understand, a slip of the lip can sink a ship, but when the moment comes. . well, you're all gonna feel like a slow boat to China for hemming and hawing over taking her in. Let me remind you of something. None of the grants that the Daughters have awarded so far have generated a dime of income for the program. Nothing personal, Sheila, I know Third World algebra is important, but it didn't do dogshit at the box office; and, Joan, that little book of poems you printed about driftwood and your mama's melanoma was real pretty, it brought big whopping tears to my eyes is what it did, but, honestly now, the GNP was unaffected. Ditto, Trixie's harmonic tremors. I don't want to sound crass, but Priscilla here is zoned commercial. She's got a million bucks by its long green tail, and if we help her hold on and haul it in, each and every one of us is gonna soak our weary feet in Dom Perignon. This is not the time to talk about funding her scientific research, we'll come to that a ways down the road, but this smart little goose may be prepared to lay us our first golden egg. All in favor of admitting her to the club say 'aye.'”