Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 20

Chapter 20 Tastes Just Like Lobster

On the Tuesday after the quinceañera Shane and Carmen sat on the couch watching television after dinner. They sat, as couples do, in the places they now always sat, because new couples begin to develop habits and patterns with each other. Carmen sat upright on an angle in the corner of the couch while Shane lay full-length with her head in Carmen's lap. Out of habit, and without especially being aware of it, Carmen played with a strand of hair behind Shane's ear. As was her habit, Shane didn't notice; but once in a while she would reach back and take Carmen's hand and hold it against her cheek.

Just as House was going off and Boston Legal was coming on, Shane asked, "Have we got anything in the house? I think I'm in the mood for dessert."

"I'm glad you asked that," Carmen replied. "As it happens, I do have something special. Let me up and I'll go put on a pot of decaf."

Shane let Carmen get up and watched her ass as she left the living room. "It's not cobbler night, is it?"

She heard Carmen laugh from the kitchen. "No, babe. You wish."

"I do wish, I do," Shane called back. Carmen laughed again.

Carmen stuck her head in the door to the living room. "Well, even though there's no cobbler you just never know when there might be some special surprise around this place." Then she disappeared back into the kitchen, laughing.

"Car? Car?" Shane called out, sitting up now.

"Don't you come in here until I call you," Carmen ordered.

"You are such a tease," Shane grumbled, loud enough for Carmen to hear, and heard her giggle out there. She heard sounds of Carmen filling the coffee pot with water, opening drawers and cabinets, and doing ... something. In a minute she began to smell the coffee.

The smell of coffee brewing. Snuggling together on the couch and watching TV. Going to bed every night with the warmest, sweetest, sexiest, hottest woman who ever lived. A sudden wave of realization swept over Shane that in her entire life to date, she had never been happier, nor so cared for, nor so well cared for. She, who never even dreamt that such a thing as happiness even existed. This living together with your lover, this thing she had sworn would never happen ... it was pretty cool. Shane felt a swelling, gentle pain in her chest, the kind of pain that sometimes happens when you realize how much in love you are. A very good kind of heart ache.

"Okay, you can come in now," Carmen called. Shane bounded up and went into the kitchen.

Carmen had turned the kitchen overhead light off, and the room was softly lit only by an under-counter light over the stove, and by the glow of a single candle in the top of a very small chocolate layer cake in the middle of the kitchen table. The candle was the kind used to decorate a child's birthday cake, and was in the shape of the number 6. The table was set with two cups and saucers, two dessert plates, silverware, and paper napkins, the two settings facing each other.

Shane looked up into Carmen's happy, smiling face.

"Happy anniversary, babe," Carmen said, holding her arms out wide for a hug. Shane came forward into the embrace, and wrapped her arms around this unbelievable woman.

"I know you have no idea," Carmen said, "because you wouldn't know this in a million years. But today is our six-month anniversary, six months since the day we finally finished all the painting and moving all my stuff in here with you and I spent the first night with you as a couple here in our home. And I know this is all a silly, girly thing as far as you're concerned, and that's fine. But sometimes I like being a girly girl who likes anniversaries, and so this one is special to me."

"Well, now it's special to me, too," Shane whispered into Carmen's ear, hugging her tight. She found herself kissing Carmen in a way that would soon get out of control if Carmen hadn't broken away.

"Sit down," Carmen said. "I'll pour the coffee while you cut the cake. And don't forget to make a wish before you blow out the candle." Carmen never really expected that Shane would do such a girly thing, but when she turned back from the stove she saw that Shane had her eyes closed in concentration, and then she leaned forward and blew the candle out. Carmen poured the coffee while Shane put slices of cake on their plates. Carmen wondered what wish Shane had made, but knew not to ask.

When she sat down she realized Shane was not eating but just ... looking at her.

"What?"

"I'm just ... just ... ." Shane shrugged, at a loss for words, as she always was. There was a gentle roaring in her ears, but not an unpleasant one, not the confusing, distracting one she usually fought off. This one was more like ... the surf. A good noise. "I'm just so lucky," she finally said, and saw Carmen bite her lip and her eyes fill with tears.

"Oh, Shane," she whispered.

***

When she finished her slice of cake Shane got up from the table, got the coffee pot from the stove, and poured each of them a fresh cup of decaf. When she sat back down she asked Carmen, "Are you sleepy?"

Carmen grinned. "You naughty girl, I know what you're thinking."

Shane grinned, but denied it. "Actually, I do want to make love to you, but ... I thought maybe ... maybe this might be a good time to have a talk."

Carmen froze. "What kind of talk?"

Shane saw the fright on her face. "No, no, it's okay. I've just been thinking, you know, how you always say ... uh ... how I don't talk about ... you know ... my past, and stuff. And I was thinking ... I've been thinking about this for a few weeks, see." She reached forward and pulled Carmen's hand across the table toward her, and held it in both her own. "Maybe it's time you told me all about yourself. About, you know, Lucia, was that her name? And ... the nun ... and how you got that tattoo. But before you do, I think ... it's time I told you about Harvey. And ... some other stuff."

"Oh, Shane," Carmen said quietly.

"Yeah, I know," Shane whispered. "Never tell your story, and never let them tell you theirs. But that was then, and ... now I think maybe it's time I told you my story, and about that violin tattoo you asked me about that time. It's a pretty long story, and ... there's some bad parts. Really bad parts, and I know how you are, you're gonna yell and cry and all, and that's okay. That's good. But, I want you to know it, all of it."

"Okay," Carmen whispered.

"It's gonna take a long time."

"I'm not going anywhere," Carmen said again.

"Okay. Well. See, when I was eighteen, almost nineteen, I had saved up a little money, just a couple hundred dollars, and hitchhiked here from Texas. I got a job in a BurgerMax on Cuhenga. I didn't know anybody, and I was living in this shelter for runaway kids. One day at the shelter I met this guy, Clive, who was my age. He was gay, he had this spikey platinum-colored hair, and my hair was short and spikey, then, too, and we kinda looked like twins, except one blond, one brunette, salt and pepper punk-Goth andro queers. And I didn't know a single other soul in this whole city, and he was okay, and he was gay so there was nothing sexual going on between us, he was safe, you know? Anyway. Well, after a few weeks I got fired from the BurgerMax and Clive and me, we started hanging out together over on Santa Monica, and pretty soon we both started turning tricks."

It took a couple of hours, and Shane was right, Carmen yelled and cried a couple of times. She held Shane and rocked her on the living room couch while Shane told the story of her rape, and Shane, too, wept as she had not wept since the day it happened. Carmen swore she'd kill the muthafuckers if she ever got her hands on them, cut their fucking balls off, piece of shit cocksuckers. And she wept over Harvey, mourned him as though she'd known him.

When the story was finished they were both exhausted. Shane fell asleep on the couch in Carmen's arms as Carmen held her and rocked her. In the corner of the room she could see Ixchel's yellow eyes gleaming in the dark until finally the jaguar, too, closed her eyes and went to sleep. Carmen wasn't sure if she was imagining it, but she thought she heard a kind of purring coming from the goddess, a sign of contentment at the breakthrough, a good day's work accomplished.

***

Shane used her morning break to call Carmen to ask if there was any chance she could get off work early that day.

"Uh, yeah, I guess it's possible. The schedule's pretty light today," Carmen said. "Why, what's up?"

"You know my friend Chase, the guy who runs that skateboard shop I go to?"

"I've never met him, but I know who you mean, you've mentioned him," Carmen said.

"Well, he and I have been talking over the years I've been skateboarding there, and he just called me a little while ago and said he had something to show me. Some sort of business proposition."

"Why do you need me?"

"Because you're my girlfriend, my partner, I love you, and also because you're ten times smarter than me, and you have a good head for business and all the things I'm not good at."

"Shane, I am not ten times smarter than you. But sure, I'll come along if you want me to. What time?"

"Can you be home by four? Then we'll drive over to Venice Beach before it gets dark."

They took Shane's pickup to an address six blocks back from the ocean, in a part of town less often visited by tourists. The skateboard shop was called Wax, and was located in a building that used to belong to a major chain of muffler shops. It had three large garage bays that had been converted to a boutique that featured not only skateboards and skateboard equipment, but also clothes and jewelry that would appeal to the young skateboarder demographic. The entire property, once open and easily accessible, had been enclosed with a high chain link fence to channel and control the kids who hung out there, and to keep unauthorized skateboarders out at night when the shop was closed. Inside that perimeter most of what had been parking lot had been converted to a skateboard park complete with a couple of half-pipes as well as areas for beginners as well as the pros. As Shane and Carmen walked down the sidewalk toward the gate, they heard what sounded like a dozen kids inside having fun with their skateboards. When they came to the gate it was locked but they could see inside, and called out "Hey," to draw somebody's attention and let them in.

It was Chase, the owner, who came to the gate to let them in. He was a young entrepreneur with short, spiky blond hair and an assortment of piercings, and was carrying a skateboard as he unlocked the padlock on the chain link fence. Shane knew Chase was gay, but the skateboard culture that Shane and Chase hung out in called it FDADTWDGASEW: Fucking don't ask, don't tell, we don't give a shit either way. It was all about the boards, the pipe, the skill, the rush.

"Chase, Carmen. Carmen, Chase," Shane said by way of introduction, waving index fingers back and forth between them.

"Hi!" Chase said, genuinely friendly, as he shook Carmen's hand. He led them past a skateboard half pipe where people were skating and watching. They said "Hi" to a few people as they passed by and went into the shop. Shane hadn't been there since Chase had told her he'd done a major makeover on the shop. And he had.

"This place is amazing," Shane said, looking up and around at the large open bay area. Chase had left the muffler shop's garage doors in place It had been transformed into a full-blown boutique, the colorful T-shirts decorating the high-ceilinged walls, and there were racks of clothing for sale along with jewelry and of course skateboards and related skateboard equipment and supplies, protective gear, posters, CDs – the compleat skateboard experience.

"This is it," Chase said proudly. Inside the shop half a dozen male and female employees, waited on customers, put out merchandise, put finishing touches on the construction makeover, and bustled about. There was a special silk-screening station where T-shirts could be custom-made with any of a hundred patterns.

"Wow!" Carmen said, truly impressed.

Off to one side a couple of girls were relaxing on a large L-shaped yellow sofa in front of a large flat-screen TV. "Guys, this is Shane, Carmen," he said, introducing them all around.

"Dude, this is so cool!" Carmen said as Chase led them to another part of the large hall.

Chase stopped at a check-out register station at the counter and handed the girl at the register the skateboard he'd been carrying. Shane and Carmen saw that it had been broken in half from some accident. "One for the graveyard," Chase said to his checkout girl, who took it from him and put it inside a large trash barrel behind the counter.

Chase led them to a clothes rack and showed them the merchandise Wax was selling.

"This is what we're doing," he said, pointing upward at skateboards and clothing on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. "These are all our board designs. We do, like, custom stuff, you know." Chase led them behind the two guys doing the silk-screening and stenciling work at their work station. "Excellent," he told the guys, inspecting one of their pieces. "These are my stencil masters." He spoke to one of the guys: "You got that special ... thanks." The stencil master handed Chase a Mylar sheet with a hole in it, a pattern for some sort of art work. Chase gestured to a young carpenter doing work to some sort of large sliding wall panel that Shane and Carmen couldn't yet identify.

Chase handed the stencil to the carpenter and said, "Hey, would you set that up?" The worker took the stencil and went around the far side of the panel to do something with it.

He turned to Shane and Carmen. "He's just putting the finishing touches on that thing I wanted you to come see. Let's give him a minute to do it. While we're waiting, what do you think of these clothes?" He gestured toward a rack that Carmen had already begun to look through. She found a vest on a hanger and held it up against her chest for Shane and Chase to see.

"I'm totally digging this vest," she said.

"Try it on," she said, and turned to Chase. "I love this place." Shane swiveled to look around and take it all in. "I do, I'm loving it... but what is it you want me to do?"

Chase pointed to the alcove behind the panel where his carpenter was just finishing up with the stencil. "We install this chair, just one chair, because I want people lining up to get on your schedule. And then--" he pulled back the sliding wall panel enough for Shane and Carmen to see the interior of that space. The alcove was large and had been made into a hairdresser station. The walls were stark white, and there were large black silhouettes covering much of the space; the one the worker had just finished spraying in black paint was a stylized portrait of Shane herself, her head and shoulders.

"This would be your hairdressing station," Chase explained, as Shane's mouth fell open. "I got my boyfriend to build you a really fat counter over here. Eventually we could do like a line of hair products or something, ya know? Check it out."

Shane and Carmen were stunned.

"Shane for Wax," Chase said. "That's the name of our salon section here. Shane for Wax."

Shane, as always, was inarticulate silence – but Carmen and Chase could tell she was digging it beyond words. Carmen began to grin. Shane for Wax. Wow. Fucking wow.

***

The sun was low on the horizon and directly in their eyes as they pulled into the driveway of their home. There was a pickup truck parked in the driveway in front of them.

"Whose truck is that?" Carmen asked.

"I don't know," Shane said.

As they pulled to a stop behind the truck they saw Jenny come walking toward them. It was hard to see with the sun in their eyes, but there seemed to be another person standing behind Jenny but hanging back.

"Who is that?" Carmen whispered, unbuckling her seat belt and getting out of Shane's Jeep.

"Jenny's girlfriend," Shane guessed.

"Girlfriend? Ah..."

As Jenny came running toward them Shane shouted out, "You fucking lunatic!" and wrapped her arms around a jumping, squealing Jenny, who hugged back like a happy child. She madly kissed Shane's face and neck, not sexually, and then saw Carmen coming and held out her arms to her, squealing again.

"Oh, my god!" Jenny yelled, hugging Carmen like a long-lost sister.

"Hi!"

"Hi! Oh, my god! You guys look amazing!" Jenny gushed.

"Look at you!" Carmen said, hugging and spinning her around.

When the initial hysteria was over Jenny walked backward with them following, toward the person who was waiting and watching by the house. Jenny turned and presented her friend. "And this is Moira."

"You must be Shane," Moira said, reaching out to shake Shane's hand. Moira was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She had short, cropped hair and a sharp, angular, hawk-like face with high cheekbones. She had deep-set eyes that might have been blue, but were shielded and hard to read. Even Shane, who was perhaps more used to the androgynous look than most people, didn't quite know how to process this person. There was an awful lot of data coming in fast, and Shane was receiving many, many mixed signals.

"...and that's Carmen," Jenny said, presenting Moira to Carmen. Jenny and Shane hugged each other again, laughing, giggling and messing up each other's hair like children.

"Hi," Carmen said, putting her hand forward to shake, but Moira leaned over and kissed Carmen on the cheek. Carmen returned the cheek kiss, but already was getting funny vibes from this awkward, strange person.

"Look at your hair!" Jenny said to Shane, still laughing.

"Look at yours!" Shane replied. Jenny's hair had grown back long, as it had been the evening she'd asked Shane to cut it short and give her entire life a makeover.

"Oh, I know!" Jenny said.

"Did you just get here?"

"Yeah, we just rocked in," Moira answered. "We just barely had time to take a piss. We been drivin' for, like, fifteen hours."

A small dog began to bark from behind the fence in the back yard and Jenny walked over to see what it was. "Oh, my god..."

"Yeah, we're puppy-sitting for a friend of Dana's," Shane explained. "Dana's out of town, at a tournament."

Carmen opened the gate to the backyard and picked up the puppy. "Hello, there! Did you miss us?"

"Who is this?" Jenny asked.

"This is Otto," Carmen said, handing the puppy carefully to Jenny, who took him in her arms with a bit of reluctance.

"I just have a bit of allergy," Jenny said.

"Oh, shit," Shane said, concerned.

"No, no, no, you're gonna be fine," Carmen said. "He's part pit bull and he's a bit hairless, too, no dander, so your allergies should be just fine..."

"Um. Ah...people are usually more allergic to the saliva, more than the hair," Moira put in.

Carmen looked at Moira, not happy about being contradicted.

Suddenly Jenny jumped and held the dog away from her chest, where there was a wet stain appearing. "Oh, shit. Why?" she moaned.

"God, did he pee again?" Carmen asked, taking the puppy from Jenny.

Shane took the dog from Carmen and spoke quietly into the puppy's face, "Why? Why do you pee on people?"

Carmen, who also liked doing that, thought it would be a good time to change the subject. "You know what, how about we help you with your bags."

Moira cut in quickly. "You girls just relax, and let us butches unload the truck. C'mon, Shane."

Moira walked confidently toward her pickup, slapping Shane on the shoulder as she went by.

As Shane handed the puppy back to Carmen, Carmen whispered to Shane, "Ya big butch. Go unload the truck." She was grinning at Shane, and slapped her on the shoulder harder than Shane had expected.