Michael Hemmingson: Seven Women: An Erotic Private Investigation

“Where did you and Tasha meet?” Amelia asks.

“It’s a strange story.”

“I like strange stories.”

“No talking about Tasha while she’s gone,” Lisa says. “That’s not nice.”

“Sorry,” Amelia says.

“Now I bet you feel like you’re on the spot,” Sheila says.

“Me?” I say. “Never.”

She has red lipstick, thick lips. I like her mouth. I like her hair.

“You’re a private eye?” Cara asks me.

“That’s me.”

“My brother is a cop,” Cara says, “and his wife is always worried about him. Afraid he’ll get shot. She’s a nervous wreck. I could never be married to a cop.”

“I could never be married to a nervous wreck,” Amelia says.

“I don’t think I could ever be married,” Lisa says.

“Why not?” Amelia asks.

“I want to get married one day,” Lisa explains. “I’ve never really met anyone I wanted to marry…or who wanted to marry me. My mother keeps bothering me about it. ‘Lisa, why aren’t you married?’ She wants grandchildren.”

“I can’t see myself as anyone’s grandmother,” Sheila says.

“It’ll happen one day,” Cara tells her. “It happens to everyone.”

“First I need to have a kid of my own,” Sheila says, shaking her head. “And the thought of having a kid is so alien to me. But I guess this is something I should really be thinking about since I’m almost thirty. Oh, Jesus, this is depressing, let’s talk about something else, please.”

“I—” Amelia starts.

We look at her.

She shrugs and drinks her beer.

Tasha returns. I start to get up, but she sits down, wedging me between herself and Sheila.

“Did I miss anything?” she asks.

“We were talking about kids,” Cara says, “or the idea of having them. And then about having grandchildren.”

I feel something coming from Tasha, but she only says, “Oh.”

“Actually,” Sheila says, “we were grilling Leonard for info on where you and he met oh-so-long-ago, if it was that oh-so-long-ago.”

“Well,” my ex-wife says, “it’s a weird story.”

Amelia says, “I like weird stories.”

“We shouldn’t talk about me,” I say.

“I was engaged once,” Cara says, “believe it or not.”

“You never mentioned that before,” Sheila says.

“I know. It wasn’t worth mentioning.”

“What happened?” Amelia asks.

“I was eighteen. Maybe it is worth mentioning, now that I think about it. I was in love.”

“A first love?” asks Lisa.

“I guess you could call it that,” Cara says.

“If you were engaged to the guy, I’d say you were in love with him,” Sheila says.

“That’s a good point,” Cara says. “I met him in my senior year of high school. The romance didn’t really begin until after graduation, during summer. It was a strange time because no one really knew what they were going to do. Some of us had enrolled in junior colleges; others were going to state universities or off to school elsewhere. Some of us did nothing, partied through the summer. Maybe it was a hard concept, that high school was over, and real life was beginning. I had my bass guitar, you know, and I was still looking for the right band. I did my blues and jazz jams at these places every weekend. Guys thought I was strange. I played the bass, I was a girl, they didn’t know how to react to me.

“Stephen — the guy I got engaged to — was a saxophone player. He was all right, not that great, not as great as he dreamt to be, because he had something missing. I don’t know what. That ‘something’ a musician needs to have to rise above the rest. Anyway, we were going out. It started off as, well, there’s this guy I like, I enjoy hanging out with him, playing some music, and I like having sex with him, he’s not that bad a lover, at least I can talk to him, right? He got serious first. I heard ‘I love you’ from his lips and this was long after we started having sex. I didn’t know how to take it. I didn’t love him. I guess I did later. It’s the sort of thing that grows on you. I cared for him. So — next thing you know we’re talking marriage.

“Maybe it was his parents who got him into that; we were spending so much time together and neither of us knew what we were going to do so maybe his parents said, ‘Marry the girl and get a job and start a family,’ because that’s what they did, right? But we weren’t formally engaged — I didn’t get a diamond ring. He couldn’t afford it. We could barely afford anything, we were poor musicians to the T, scraping up dimes and pennies to do anything, like buying gas for his car. I didn’t care about a ring. He said, ‘Why don’t we get married?’ and I said, ‘Sure.’ It seemed like the thing to do, and the sex was better, and I really liked being with him, and so I figured if it stayed that way for the rest of my life, I could be content. We were ‘engaged’ for a year or so. I don’t know, maybe we would’ve never married, but I started to like the idea of having a fiancé. It worked well when guys would hit on me and I had no interest. I could just say, ‘Hey, look, I’m engaged to be married.’ None of them ever asked, ‘Where’s your ring, then?’

“I don’t know when it started to fall apart. Maybe we were too used to each other. Maybe the love wasn’t really there. I was working this job at a fast food place. You know the kind of job, they suck. I needed money. I couldn’t stand it. I burned one of my playing fingers on hot grease, and I said, Screw this, I’m not going to risk losing my playing fingers over minimum wage, so I quit.

“I took the bus to Stephen’s house. He wasn’t working, just sitting around his parents’ house playing his saxophone. I go into the backyard, go to his window. I expect to hear him playing. I do hear music, and it’s rock. I thought, ‘That’s funny.’ I look into his window and see him screwing Anna Loren, this girl from school, one of the what you’d call ‘sluts.’ He’s right there humping away and she’s crying out Oh Steve oh Steve and all that. I just went, ‘Wow.’”

“So what did you do?” Sheila asks. “Did you pound on the window?”

“No. I walked home. It was a long walk, but I needed it.”

“Wow,” says Amelia.

“I would’ve picked up a rock and thrown it through his window,” Lisa says.

“I thought of that,” Cara says. “But what would have been the point? It was — it was the end of something. It was over. In a way, I was relieved. I guess I never had any intention of marrying him after all. So I went home. I called him on the phone.”

Tasha says, “You told him off.”

“No. I called him later. I told him I quit my job. ‘Why?’ he asked. I told him why. ‘Oh,’ he said, and asked if I wanted him to come pick me up and maybe we could go somewhere. ‘How’s Anna?’ I said and told him I bet she loved that rock group, the one that was playing while they were doing it. He was real quiet for a moment, probably trying to figure it out. Then he said, ‘Cara, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.’ ‘Don’t say anything,’ I told him and that was it. No argument, no nothing. It was like an understanding between us. It was over. It was never meant to be.”

“I caught a boyfriend cheating on me when I was around the same age as you were,” Sheila says. “I caught him with one of my friends. But the break-up wasn’t as smooth as that, no way. There were a lot of words. I wanted to scratch his fucking eyes out. But what I did — I wanted to get him back — I went out and fucked his best friend. I just went to this guy’s house pretending to look like I was looking for my boyfriend. I was dressed to kill in denim shorts and a halter; I was a number back then. Jesus, we’re talking like a decade ago. So I seduce his best friend. He was game. It was pretty fun, but then I felt bad. You know — I don’t know.