Leilani

"----Healing crystal jewelry."

"Sorry, healing crystal jewelry. Now, girls, this is Ginny. Ginny, do you want to do a commercial and introduce yourself?"

"Sure, My name is Ginny. I had it legally changed from Virginia. I'm 22, a fitness addict--slash trainer at Eve's Gym on Van Hooten Street. I love working out. Can you tell?"

You could definitely tell. The girl had more curves than the Arizona Speedway.

"Is that an all-girls gym?" asked Guine.

"Uhuh, I love being around girls."

OMG, I thought, she's an airhead. A hot airhead, like a hot air balloon. She could take us all down in flames if we're not careful.

"How did you meet Lani?" Julia asked.

"I was jogging in the park, and I sprained my ankle. She was walking Mr. Z and stopped to help me."

"And did she help you?" Julia smiled lasciviously.

"Yes, in more ways than one!" She giggled until her cheeks turned pink.

"Lani helps us out, too." Ginny watched Julia and Guine coyly grin at one another.

"Say, are all of you sleeping with Lani?"

"Perhaps, but it ain't sleeping, girl," answered Guine.

"And you don't sleep with each other?"

"Nope. It would upset the beautiful balance."

"So she gets to sample all of the food in the kitchen while we have the same entree?"

"That's cruel," said Guine, "but we'll let it pass because you're new here. However, you'll be fine with the arrangement if you're like Julia and me. Are you?"

Ginny didn't answer.

"Ginny?"

"What?"

"Are you okay with the arrangement?"

"I'm not sure. I can sleep with Lani, but I can't sleep with either of you?"

"It's less complicated that way. If everyone slept with everyone else, it would upset the delicate balance of the club."

There's a club? It was news to me.

"Do you want to join?" Guine pressed.

Ginny hobbled up and down, trying to process everything.

"Ginny, did you enjoy Lani last night?"

"I did--several times."

"Then sit down and join us, The True Fans of Lay-Lani," and Julia and Guine slid over to make room. Ginny hobbled over and flopped down. There was no room for me, so I sat down on the floor.

Ginny, might've been a gym addict-airhead, but she was right about this: I got more out of the arrangement than they did. But then, hey, they're the ones who formed a fan club, not me. And they made the rules!

Mr. Z sauntered over and lay down in my lap. I petted his curly hair and thought about how the girls gave me back boatloads more than I gave them. And how Mr. Z gave me back ten times more than what I gave him. Even my flowers give me more than I give them. That's when my phone rang; it was my mom. She gives me back a thousand times more than I give her.

"Hey, mom, I was just thinking about you."

She was crying.

"Mom, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

What she told me was a shocker.

"Are you home? Stay there; I'm coming right over."

I hung up the phone, grabbed my keys off the table, and ran out the door.

"Lani," called Julia after me, "Is everything alright?"

"My mom discovered a lump in her breast and is freaking out. I'm going there now to try and calm her down. Can somebody fill Mr. Z's food and water bowl? The last one to leave, please lock the door."

I jumped on my motor scooter and winged off to my mom's house.

As I rolled through the traffic, I thought about my mom's attitude towards health. It was best summed up by that comic showing a guy jumping off the roof of a tall building. As he plunges thru the air, he muses, "well, I'm okay so far." I hoped things hadn't caught up with her.

My mom lived in the same home I grew up in. I loved that house and still used the address for all my legal stuff: driver's license, insurance, etc. Mom still had my dad's clothes hanging in a closet, and he passed away almost five years ago.

When I went inside the house, mom was nowhere to be found.

"Mom? MOM!"

I heard a toilet flush upstairs. When she came downstairs, she seemed composed. Did she take something? A Xanax, perhaps?

"Hi."

"Hi dear, so nice of you to come over."

"It's nothing."

"You weren't in the middle of someone, were you?"

This was a running private joke of ours.

"No, mom, just another morning at the flower shop," I lied.

"How's business?"

"The same."

"You need to branch out and do some more weddings and special events."

"You're right."

She sat down at the kitchen table and started filing her nails. She wouldn't look me in the eye.

"Mom, how are you feeling?"

"I think I'm going to change beauticians. First, I must call Maryanne and see who she uses." Maryanne was my mom's oldest friend. They'd known each other since high school.

"Mom, could you look at me for one second." She stopped, and our eyes met for the first time. "You called in a panic less than thirty mins ago. Don't you think we should call your doctor and see if you can get an appointment today?"

"It's hard getting an appointment. It doesn't have to be today, Lord knows; Rome wasn't built in a day."

"Mom, I'm not building Rome; I'm not even sending flowers to Rome. I just need to punch ten digits into a phone and request an appointment, that's all."

Mom understood, and we called her doctor. [The one she hadn't seen in three and a half years.] The doctor agreed to see her breasts.

"I'm just like you now, dear."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You get together with your girlfriends and show each other your breasts."

"Nice, mom."

"I'm only kidding. You have to laugh more. Life is too short."

The doctor saw my mom in private and afterward admitted me into his office.

It was a blur as if I'd been blindfolded; my ears stopped with earplugs while my chair spun around.

There were only words: lump, mammogram, determination...

"Is that clear?"

"Yes, doctor."

"Do you have any questions?"

"No, doctor."

Mom suggested we get Chinese takeout and a fifth of gin [her drink of choice] on the ride home.

I agreed.

Breaking bread can transcend circumstances, time, and place if done right. And when combined with alcohol, it's a party without people.

After eating too much Dim Sum, Sweet and Sour pork, brown rice, and Pao Chicken and drinking a third of the bottle, I asked mom the one thing that'd been on my mind all day.

"Do you think I'm self-centered?"

She guffawed and spat out some rice. It landed on my plate.

"Mom!"

"I'm sorry, dear, but I've been waiting years for you to ask that question."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying that I know you're busy with the flower shop and your social life, but it would be nice to see you more often. I mean, we live in the same neighborhood. And, if that's not practical, it would be great to talk to you on the phone, more frequently, even text. That's all I'm saying."

"But mom, I call you at least once a week and visit you every two or three weeks or so."

"That's true, and I appreciate it."

"Plus, I bring you flowers. Last time I brought you a box of organic avocados."

"It's all beautiful, dear. I said I appreciated it. But you're the one who brought it up, and I'm answering honestly."

Mom always said that the most important thing in life is not to fool yourself and that the second most important thing is that you shouldn't fool others. So I got up, cleared the table, and went into the living room to cut my toenails and meditate on my behavior.

Unfortunately, that's when I cut my nail too close and drew blood. After that, I limped into the bathroom, where I found some antibiotic ointment, ripped off a small wad of toilet paper, and cleaned myself up.

When I walked back into the living room, mom was sitting there with a funny look on her face.

"What do you say we play some old albums as we did back in the day?"

Mom was talking about my high school days after I came out. On weekends, my friends were out drinking, smooching, and giving their boyfriends blowjobs while I stayed home. She felt bad for me, and to help cheer me up, we'd listen to her records and dance together in the living room. Those were sweet times, and we hadn't done it in years.

That evening we danced to her old faves: the Beach Boys, Queen, The Spinners, and had a crazy time playing air guitar and jumping off the couch on Tom Petty's "Refugee."

Eventually, mom plopped down on the couch and started snoring, she always fell asleep early. So I dropped to the floor to flip thru more of her records. I found an old Bob Seeger record, Against the Wind. What memories! I lay on the floor listening to it while my mom snored. Some people refer to Seeger as 'the poor man's Springsteen,' but I like to think of Springsteen as the poor man's Seeger. The album's title track mentions a girl named Janey, "Janey was lovely she was the queen of my nights, there in the darkness with the radio playing low..."

"You really liked her, didn't you?" My mom had woken up.

I nodded yes. "What happened to her?"

"Her parents got divorced, and they moved out of state. They only lived here for six months, if that."

Images of Janey passed through my head. "She was the best kisser." Mom didn't hear me; she'd fallen back to sleep.

I went upstairs to my old bedroom, pulled off my clothes, and fell asleep in the darkness with the radio playing low.

*****

We had an 11 o'clock appointment for a mammogram, and I needed a change of clothes. I thought of texting Guine and asking her to bring me a shirt and undies but decided I would go to the shop because I wanted to check up on Mr. Z.

When I arrived, to my dismay, the door was unlocked. Stepping inside, instead of being smothered with Mr. Z's kisses, I was greeted by none other than Penny.

"Hi, what are you doing here?"

"I live here, Penny. What are you doing here?"

"I stopped by to say hello; there was somebody here taking Mr. Z for a walk; she let me inside and ----"

"----a Columbian girl, thirtyish?"

"No."

"A goth gal, twentyish?"

"Nope."

"A blonde-haired girl dressed for the gym, a little older than you."

"That's the one. Are they all your girlfriends?"

"Friends."

"Sure, and Rome was built in a day."

Why is everyone talking about Rome?

Penny noticed my somewhat disheveled state and asked: Where have you been? Is everything okay?

"My mom isn't feeling up to par; I stayed with her last night and came over to change my clothes."

"So you're going to be naked for a minute," she sidled close and placed her arms around me, "should I take mine off, too?"

The truth is that I was feeling horny. I often do after a day of drama. But what if Ginny walked in on us?

"Okay, but just a quick dip and flick. We'll keep your clothes on."

"Aw, shucks."

"Shucks?"

"I'm trying to swear less."

"Got it. Let's go to the back room and watch the front door for Ginny. Make it fast, Penny."

I undid my snap, and Penny's digits dived into my panties.

"Uhh, nice and wet, just the way I like it."

"Mmmmm." Penny tweeted my twat. I came fast and thanked her.

"What about me?" she moaned. Her breasts beckoned. I pulled off her top and sucked those puppies while she undid her pants. After a minute of thrummin and thumbin' she was cummin'. Judging from the sounds she made and the smile on her face, I believe she felt better.

I quickly changed and jumped back on my bike. Halfway to my mom's house, I remembered it was Saturday, my busiest day, and I had nobody to watch the store. I called Ginny.

"Hey Ginny, I don't know what your schedule looks like, are you able to watch the store today? Saturdays are my busiest day, and I can't be closed. So you keep whatever comes in."

"You don't have to do that, but I'm on leave from the gym until my ankle heals. So, Penny and I can watch the shop. Hold on----"

There was interference on the line. Then I heard Ginny shouting to Penny, "I think I saw your bra on the floor, on the other side of the bed."

"Ginny, what's going on? Did you and Penny get it on in my house?"

"We sure did. She's irresistible."

"But isn't that against the club rules?"

"Lani, Penny's not in the club. There's nothing in the rules about sleeping with girls outside of the club. You can't have the whole town to yourself."

Ginny was right.

I drove mom in her Ford minivan to the mammogram screening. It was hot out, and I had the a/c on full blast, but she rolled down her window and stared at the passing scene.

"The girl said the screening takes about fifteen minutes. But you don't get the results right away. She also said it might be painful."

"They hurt you. They all hurt you. Nobody wants you to feel good. We might as well be bubble gum. They just want to chew you up and spit you out."

I let her talk.

"Would you like for me to stay tonight? Tomorrow is Sunday. I can buy bagels. We'll make eggs and drink coffee with scotch in it."

She grinned but instead of answering, she continued looking out the window.

"The thing that troubles me most about death is that they say your loved ones will be there to help you cross over to the other side. I don't know if I want to see my family. They weren't great in their lives; what makes you think they'll be any different in the afterlife?"

"Mom, shush, nobody is talking about death. You can use the same energy to think positive thoughts."

"That's how it starts, with people telling you to be positive. That's the beginning of the end. When people begin saying that you should be positive, that's the time to contemplate the grim reaper."

The girl on the phone was correct. It was fifteen minutes and painful. My mom was never one to bear pain easily. When she had a hangnail, she talked about the pain and the discomfort for two years.

"So what is it, doctor?"

"It has to be viewed by a radiologist. That could take a week or more."

"----One week! I could be dead by then. But, of course, you can call my daughter and let her know what I died of; it's common courtesy, you know."

"I'm sorry, mame, we're understaffed and trying to adjust, but these changes take time. You know that----"

"STOP, STOP! I know what you're going to say, 'that Rome wasn't built in a day.'"

"Actually, I was going to say that 'One minute of patience equals ten years of peace.'"

"Oh, sorry, so what do we do in the meantime?"

"Talk. If your mom wants to talk, then you need to listen. So I want you to become the best listener in the universe."

The doctor removed a blank sheet of paper from her printer, and taking a permanent marker, she wrote:

I'M THE WORLD'S GREATEST LISTENER

"Here, when you get home, I want you to tape this note to your bathroom mirror and read it every time you go in the bathroom."

The doctor handed me the note and noticed my tattoo. She gave my boobs a quick once over and smiled.

I took the note, thanked the doctor, and we left.

"That lady doctor was actually quite nice."

"I think she's gay."

"How can you tell?"

"I just can. Say, didn't Janey live around here?"

"I think she lived on Manchester, make a right turn at the light."

Manchester was one of the newer streets. You could tell because the houses were bigger, the lawns smaller, and the trees shorter.

"Slow down, dear. It was one of these two, I believe."

I stopped and made to get out of the car. "Do you mind?"

"No, go right ahead. I don't know what you expect to find out."

"I don't know either. It's just...you know...I'm curious."

"Okay, but don't be gone long; the doctor will call me in a week."

"Funny."

I walked up to the house on the right. I always choose the right. It's a Buddhist thing, I believe.

Knock-knock

A lovely young brunette answered, wearing fitness clothes that left nothing to the imagination.

"Hey, my name is Lani, and I had a friend who used to live here, about ten years ago. Do you know where they moved to?" I must've sounded ridiculous.

"I've only lived here for two years. I'm sorry." Then she noticed my tattoo and added, "I hope you find her," She gave me a grin. Geez, lesbos are everywhere these days.

Getting back in the car, my mom gave me a look.

"Find out anything?"

"Yeah, there's more gay women in town now than in all of Arizona ten years ago."

Mom didn't feel much like talking, so I went back to the flower shop to relieve Penny and Ginny. [Unless they'd already relieved each other.] I assured mom that I would come back Sunday morning with bagels, and maybe we could talk then.

"What are you going to do today?"

"I thought of cleaning out your father's clothes from the walk-in closet."

That's a positive thought.

The shop was hopping when I returned. Ginny was also hopping. I told her to go home and rest. She consented once Penny agreed to go with her.

"Don't you help your mom on Saturday, Penny?"

"Yeah, but I told her that Ginny can't do anything and that she needs me to be her feet, at least for the weekend."

"And her hands."

"Pardon."

"You need to be her feet, hands, and fingers."

"Exactly."

Across the street was parked a large van that read ABC Construction. I crossed the street and asked the guy if he could stop by my place and give me a rough estimate.

"Sure, give me a half-hour."

He came over and knocked on the walls.

"I can't put anything in writing, but I think we could do this for eight or ten thousand dollars."

"You think?"

"Sure," and then looking around again, he said, 12K tops."

"Thanks." And he gave me his card.

I called Sabiha. It was Saturday, but she answered her cell.

"Hey Sabiha, it's me."

"Leilani, did you get any quotes?"

"Yes, I got two, 10,000 and 12,000." But, of course, I didn't tell her they were from the same guy.

"That's way too low for my department," then her voice got sexy, "but maybe we could work something out."

I had some pressure down below that needed working out.

"Great."

"Yes, how about I pick you up tonight around nine o'clock. We'll go to Wild Rose for dinner."

Wild Rose was a restaurant known for a predominantly lesbian clientele. It was also upscale; I wouldn't be able to wear my usual skateboarding garb.

"What should I wear?"

"The nose ring, girl, the nose ring."

"Anything else?"

"That's up to you."

Sabiha picked me up in a shiny new Mercedes SUV. It had leather upholstery, and the dashboard lights illuminated Sabiha. She was dressed to the nines. She smelled of jasmine, and I swooned, drinking in her intoxicating perfume.

She turned and smiled at me when we stopped for a light. OMG, I'd never been with a girl like Sabiha. I could almost cum just by looking at her face.

At the Wild Rose, she ordered salad and oysters for both of us. Oysters are an aphrodisiac if you didn't already know it.

"What about an entree Sabiha?"

"Please call me Sabi; all my girlfriends do. As for an entree, I don't think I will last that long."

"What do you mean?"

"Would you mind going into the ladies' room and removing your panties?" She handed me her expensive handbag, "you can put them in here for safekeeping. See you soon."

She didn't even give me a chance for a rebuttal. If Sabi ever joined The True Fans of Lay-Lani, she'd insist on being the President. She'd make everybody do a hundred pushups and thank her.

I knew that when I took off my underwear, my hand would brush against my pussy and make me want to frick off--it was inevitable we wouldn't make it past the appetizers.

When I came back into the dining room, I handed back Sabi's bag.

"How are you feeling now, darling?"

"Hornier and less chaste."

"That's the idea," she grinned, opening the bag and inhaling. "Yum, you smell delightful."

A shapely young woman with long, silky dark hair sauntered over and looked at me.

"Can I help you?" I asked.