The Dumb About Men Club

I waited while she made two calls.

"It's okay," Shalimar said and smiled. "They had an APB out on me, but they put a stop on it. Now they just have an APB out on the diamonds."

"Got everything straightened out?"

"Yes." She smiled and waved her hand in a gesture that said it was no big deal.

I raised one eyebrow.

"Okay, okay, it was a small penalty for crossing state lines with what used to be a royal tiara, and a few extra hundred dollars in insurance, and a late fee, but I can keep them until I fly back."

I looked at her.

"What's an extra two grand to ease a weird Gullah woo-woo vibe that you're supposed to fly to a friend's side?"

"Thanks," I said.

Shalimar was one-eighth Gullah, a West African culture that lived on in the islands off of Georgia. She was seven-eighths upper crust British.

She sounded like a cross between Margaret Thatcher and Aunt Jamima.

"You can fly right back to New York and still make the after party." I said. "You came, that's more than enough."

"Broadway has shows all the time. Openings are a dime a dozen anyway," Shalimar said.

"Yeah, right," I mumbled. "You had your make up professionally done for this shindig?"

She nodded.

"You look beyond gorgeous. I'm sure you put every rock star, artist, and model to shame."

She sat down next to me.

"Shalimar, I'm sorry you had to leave so suddenly."

"I didn't have to leave, I chose to leave. I've been to opening night parties before." She shrugged and then put her head on my shoulder. "I've been afraid to let my guard down. When I saw you, and you seemed okay, I was so relieved for a second. Now I'm even more afraid. You're okay right?"

My aunt chose this moment to come back. She turned the corner with a cup of coffee in one hand and two squashed sandwiches from a vending machine in the other. When she saw Shalimar she ran towards us in a fast duck waddle. Her reading glasses bounced up on down on her chest on their colorful neck chain. Her blonde and silver streaked coif flew up around her in a huge poofy shimmering cloud.

"Miss Linda!" Shalimar jumped up and went to hug her.

"Wait, wait, let me put this down so I can get a real hug," Aunt Linda said. She put the food down on one of the orange plastic chairs behind her, and held Shalimar in a hug for a long time. "Holy Moses, Child! How can you be so beautiful?"

"Oh Miss Linda, it's the makeup and the jewelry," Shalimar said

"I don't think so, love." Then Aunt Linda put her pointy-tipped purple framed reading glasses and leaned in close to peer at the necklace. "Wait a minute - I take that back." she said. Then she pursed her lips and made a long, low, loud, wolf whistle. "Maybe it is the jewelry." Aunt Linda took off her glasses made a little frame out of her fingers and leaned back so she could look at the necklace from a different view. Linda gave Shalimar a speculative look. "Honey, you should sell this straight away. We'll make a killing in real estate. Property in Savannah is very hot right now. It's a great time to buy."

"Aunt Linda!" I said.

"Oh, right." Aunt Linda looked over Shalimar's shoulder at me. "I'm sorry, so sorry." She looked back at Shalimar. "It's just a girl as smart as you should be investing. Jewels aren't nearly as good an investment as property."

My Aunt Linda is, among other things, a real estate agent.

"Think about it, Shalimar," My Aunt Linda said. "Florida is overcrowded. Las Vegas is messy. California is going to fall into the ocean. People are retiring left and right and they are going to have to live somewhere."

"Aunt Linda," I said. "Not now."

"Ah-hem," Aunt Linda said. "We'll talk about it later, at a more appropriate time."

Shalimar laughed. She bent in towards Aunt Linda as if she was going to share a big secret. "I don't own the jewelry; I rented the pieces."

"Oh," Aunt Linda stage whispered back. "Bummer."

I smiled.

All of a sudden Shalimar straightened. "What do you mean a more appropriate time?" Her face paled under its sparkly glow.

I was saved from immediate explanation by another small shock.

Chapter 5

The sliding glass doors whooshed open. A woman shuffled in wearing a big grey blanket that looked like she got it at homeless shelter. My brain scrambled and buzzed like a static-jammed security camera trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Then, bam, I realized it was McKenzie Wong-Levinson, better known as Kenni.

I closed my eyes and said a quick silent prayer of thanks that she was here. Then I said a prayer to help stop whatever made her look like that. Of course, she had recently moved to Welsh, Pennsylvania. Maybe anyone who left sunny Savannah for Welsh might end up like that.

Kenni had gained about thirty pounds since my wedding which was only two months ago.

This is why we're friends, I thought. We all know the essential art of vices for avoidance. For me it's fantasizing but for Kenni it's food. The weight made her round face look positively moon-like.

Kenni had about three inches of roots showing so her natural red color drastically contrasted with the deep crimson on the lower half of her head. Thick ropes of un-brushed hair were matted around her neck and shoulders in blood-like gashes.

The last third of our three musketeers looked even worse than I did.

"Kenni?" Aunt Linda, Shalimar, and I all said at once.

She nodded. She looked from me to Shalimar and back and seemed too defeated to even be surprised.

"You look like shit," Shalimar.

"And you look beautiful, as always," Kenni said to her.

"It's the make-up and the jewelry, Dear," my Aunt Linda said.

"Miss Linda, Shalimar would look good wearing a potato sack." She shot my Aunt a look that told her that she was plum crazy.

"Well, alright, yes, that's true."

Kenni snorted, at least now she was showing some life.

"What I mean is," my Aunt Linda said, and she leaned forward towards Kenni, "the reason she looks so good today..." she said while lowing her tone on each word, "it's the jewelry," she whispered loudly enough that the whole emergency room could hear. Even Aunt Linda's friend who was dozing in the corner made a little laugh-snort sound.

"Harrumph," Kenni said and then really looked at Shalimar. "Holy Shannanigans! Dude, you do look good."

"Told you," Aunt Linda said while wiggling her neck side to side. She sounded about five years old. I was just happy she didn't stick out her tongue.

"Kenni," I said. "How come you're here?"

"Oh, I asked that biddy neighbor of Miss Linda's, the gossip who thinks she knows everything, where you were. She said y'all had come to Candler Hospital so here I am."

"No, no," I said. "I'm glad you're here, but how did you know to come?"

"I hadn't gotten out of bed in three weeks. I mean, other than to go to the bathroom, I couldn't get up. I was down to my last eighty bucks on earth." Kenni cleared her throat in an effort not to cry. "You-know-who told me that I was such a complete failure he couldn't stand the sight of me and no one would ever want to touch me. So I figured that ..."

Kenni looked down, stifled tears, and took a few deep breaths. She let the silence stretch on.

"And?" I said.

"Well, and... at first I thought of Sam and Shalimar because they have a huge house in Atlanta at that's closer to Welsh but it seemed like I should just head home.

I thought that if I were so depressed as to walk around wearing an Army blanket I'd head home too.

"Maybe I could just stay with you and Rick?"

I heard a choking sound at Rick's name. I realized it was me. I sucked in my life. I stopped breathing.

"Hey," Kenni said, "What's wrong?"

Shalimar hit me on the back and I exhaled.

"I think Rick might be dead," I said. I put my hands over my mouth. Oh my God, no. I'd said it out loud.

"What?" Shalimar, Kenni, and Aunt Linda all said at the same time.

It sounded absurd. I grimaced at the ridiculousness of even saying such a thing. I nodded, shook my head, and then nodded again. "I mean, I don't know, we're not allowed to see him."

Shalimar, Kenni, Aunt Linda, and I came in to a little circle and held each other.

"It's just...I mean I don't... I can't..." My shoulders began to shake, and my stomach heaved. "We have no reason to think anything bad yet, except that we've been stonewalled for two hours."

"I have someone working on it," Aunt Linda said.

Aunt Linda told Kenni and Shalimar about the message that Rick left on my voice mail about running over his toe with a lawn mower. I reminded myself that technically we had no reason to think anything was as wrong as I felt it was.

The more Aunt Linda talked, the more the four of us nudged our bodies and heads closer together, until our heads touched and we were standing in a tight little huddle.

"Why did you get so depressed?" I whispered.

"Jeez, we don't need to talk about it, not now," Kenni said, although her voice said it was all she wanted to talk about. Kenni looked up and motioned her head around the hospital. "Tell us more about Rick."

"There's not much more to tell."

"Why do you think he's dead?" Kenni asked.

"I had a premonition."

Kenni sucked in her breath so harshly that it made a loud huh-uh-uh sound. An eerie hush feel over the group. We were all silent, steeped in remembering.

When I was young, I used to have premonitions all the time. I could tell you who would catch a cold. I could tell you when the phone would ring three seconds before it rang, and who was calling, a favorite game of mine. I could tell you who would scrape their knee playing softball.

On the morning of the day of my high school graduation I had the strongest premonition I had ever had, that my parents would die in a horrible accident on the way my graduation ceremony that night. It was a vivid full day flash-forward. I could hear the brakes, the smashing metal, the breaking glass. I could taste the blood.

I begged them not to go. They promised they wouldn't. But they did.

Not wanting to miss seeing their only child walk down the aisle to receive her diploma outweighed my warnings.

On the highway an eighteen wheeler crossed over the yellow line and hit them head on. Their little Toyota imploded. The glass and metal decapitated my mother and impaled my father through the heart. Just like I had been seeing all day. The driver of the truck backed up and drove away.

I hadn't had a premonition since.

Until June 30th.

The day that Rick asked me to make love to him.

Chapter 6

June 30th, 11:55 a.m.

Rick and I had eaten and talked. I hadn't mentioned any scary visions and I was pretty sure that I had gotten off the hook for having to talk or hear about anything serious.

"I had a stroke," Rick said out of nowhere. "I only lost minor mobility and I gained it back almost immediately but there are other complications that put me at a risk of having more."

We were silent for a minute while I digested this. I thought about the premonition I had had only a week earlier.

He looked at me with a silent entreaty on his face.

"How can I help?" I asked. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to marry me."

Chapter 7

November 22nd, 10:42 p.m.

If you tell us about the vision, maybe it will give us a clue and we can help," Kenni said.

"I can't talk about it," I said. "I didn't really see anything specific in the premonition this time anyway."

Shalimar gave me 'the stare'. The one where her mouth twists down. She could tell I was flat-out lying.

"I just had a vague idea of an approximate date, around the end of November. Now I find myself hoping against hope that it's not today. But we're in a hospital and we're being given the run around."

"We'll find out what's going on," Aunt Linda said. She looked at Shalimar and Kenni and smiled mischievously.

"In the meantime, tell me what the hell happened to you," I said looking at Kenni. "I need to think about something else."

We all looked at Kenni. Kenni's Irish ivory skin had gotten bad acne in the last two months. Stress? It wasn't like her.

"You didn't call me because I was a newlywed," I said.

"Exactly. Gideon left me."

"The shit-head," Shalimar said, "And why didn't you call me?"

"Sam was in crunch time. Doing last minute down-to-the-wire preparations a major show."

"That's no excuse." Shalimar slapped Kenni's arm.

"Yes, but I know intense things can be right before an opening. And after that he has to turn around and leave for Europe. I didn't want to intrude on your time."

"Nothing ever stopped you from bugging me before."

"Gideon said I was never going to amount to anything, that I'd never make it as a performer or a songwriter. He kept saying that I should be thinner. I should be prettier. That I'd never sing out in public again. The more he criticized, the worse I felt. I believed him. I thought about how much of a failure I was. That's all I could think about."

Kenni paused for a minute. "He kept threatening to leave and I kept begging him to stay," Kenni said.

"I kept saying I would do anything if he would just stay. It didn't matter if he didn't want me anymore; I needed him."

I was stunned. Shalimar's head pulled straight back on her neck. We were so amazed at how someone so powerful, with so much talent, life skills, and self-confidence could have turned into such a backward-thinking doormat that we were speechless. I think my jaw was hanging open.

Aunt Linda was the first one to recover. She put her arm around Kenni. "Honey, you are better off without him. He was probably bringing you down for a long time without you realizing it."

She looked right at my Aunt Linda and tears began to form. "But the good was so good. And I miss him so much." Two fat tears rolled over her cheeks.

"Alright now, alright now," my Aunt Linda said.

Kenni's shoulders started to shake. "He was my everything."

"Well that was your first mistake," I heard Shalimar mumble but I don't think Kenni heard it.

Kenni covered her face with her hands. "He became my whole world. I'll never want anyone else; I'll never notice anyone else. I just wasn't good enough for him or the bad wouldn't have been so bad."

Shalimar made a little gagging sound in the back of her throat. I don't think Kenni heard it because she was sobbing softly but I'm sort of glad Shalimar had made the noise because it stopped me from wanting to slap Kenni upside the head. This wasn't like her.

"If you are going to cry over a man, it shouldn't be because the good was so good and the bad was so bad; those kind of relationships we can live without," I said.

"Amen, Sister," Shalimar said.

"If you're going to cry over a man it should be because he bought you the wrong jewelry," my Aunt Linda said. "And he forgot to keep the receipt."

Kenni smiled.

"Buck up, we'll all do a spa day," Shalimar said. "I'm sure we could all use it."

"No," Kenni said. "Nothing will fix this," she mumbled.

"Poor baby," Shalimar said. And I am going to call in some serious favors..." she paused and reached out to pick up a lock of strawberry-blonde and dark red hair that was mixed with a few strands of grey and white, "and call Christopher's and get them to work you in as soon as possible. We'll beg them. We'll tell them it's a massive, major, hair emergency."

"I'm not going," Kenni said.

"Wah, wah, wah, call the wah-ambulance," Aunt Linda said. "Oh wait, I forgot, we're already in a hospital."

"Sorry. But all I want to do is lie down and sleep for the rest of my life. I don't care if my hair is two-toned," Kenni said.

Aunt Linda and Shalimar looked at me.

I nodded. "Kenni, I know you don't care, but please, let us care for you. Do it for me. I need a project to get my mind off this..." I paused. "It's too weird a circumstance for my mind too really absorb completely even though ..."

I was going to say 'even though I knew it was coming' but I changed my mind. Even though I had mourned it a little already, part of me was freaking out. I needed an escape.

"Being in the hospital for this is too weird to think about or deal with, even though part of me has to take it in and accept it," I said. "So please, let us care for you where you don't care, even about the little stupid things." I smiled at her. "You are a great, amazing, talented, fantastic, outgoing woman. You just forgot. We love you. If you let us make a game out of the fun little things, it will help me. Then we can all get through this easier. That's all I'm asking."

Chapter 8

We gathered our chairs in a circle and our conversation began to sound like a cross between a Dr. Phil show, cheerleading group, and love fest, and I don't know who benefitted the most Kenni or me.

The waiting seemed like an eternity.

"I can't stand it any more," Shalimar said. "I have to find out what really happened. "It's got to be more than a toe."

I scowled.

"I'm sure he's fine, Dear," my Aunt Linda said while reaching around and patting me. Her voice said one thing, but her eyes didn't look so sure.

Shalimar opened her purse and got out a brush and brushed Kenni's hair back from her face and secured it with a glittery golden clip. Shalimar took her earrings off and placed them in Kenni's ears and her bracelet on Kenni's wrist.

"Now that's love," I said as Shalimar took off her necklace and put it on Kenni. "She's sharing her beauty with you."

"I told you it was the jewelry," Aunt Linda said.

"Anyone looks better in 15 million dollars worth of diamonds," I said.

"18, but whose counting." Shalimar rubbed her cheeks with her fingers and then rubbed Kenni's cheeks; the transfer of make-up was light enough that it looked okay with Kenni's fair skin.

"You're kidding about the diamonds right? They're fakes?" Kenni said.

I shook my head.

"Oh God, they don't go with my overalls."

"Honey," Aunt Linda said. "There's one thing you should know; good diamonds go with everything." Aunt Linda paused to appraise Kenni's newly be-deckled state. "You're looking much better."

"Eighteen million dollars of diamonds," Kenni said and whistled. "I do feel better." Kenni walked over to a lone orange seat under the busted T.V. and tucked her blanket and raggedy jacket away in the corner. She stood up straight and unbuttoned her flannel shirt quite a few buttons revealing some serious cleavage. "To show off the necklace."

"Honey, it's lovely." Aunt Linda said.

I don't know if it was being around us or having the diamonds on but suddenly Kenni was livelier. Shalimar got a small pocket mirror out of her purse and handed it to Kenni.

"What brought you down here?" Kenni asked Shalimar, but by then Shalimar was facing another direction. I followed her gaze and saw Jake storming down the hall. Fierce determination was etched on his face like a warrior leader going to battle. My stomach rocketed up into my chest.

"Hottie alert, hottie alert, hottie alert," Shalimar mumbled under breath without moving her mouth.

"I'll say," Kenni said. She put her shoulders back even more. Her breasts had grown with the rest of her. "I'm wearing 18 million dollars worth of diamonds; I'll attract him over here."

"Oh, I'll never want or notice any man again," Shalimar said in an exact tonal imitation of Kenni but with sarcasm added. She still didn't open or move her mouth. How did she do that?

I had to look down and angle my body a little away from him now, because while I didn't think Jake could read lips and his expression was not looking like that was on his mind, I was not taking a chance. "That's Jason Jacobson."

"Skinny, lanky, Jason Jacobson, Cheryl's brother?" Kenni asked.

"Nooooo," Shalimar said and her lips did move that time.

Then he was only a few feet from us. Kenni fingered the necklace, "He's coming this way."