Kiss & Tell Read online

  Willy shrugged. “My older brother took the fork.”

  Allistair looked alarmed. Well, actually she looked terrified. Willy supposed she couldn’t blame her. It was hard to imagine poor when you’d never known poor. Allistair had probably never been hungry or worried about outgrowing shoes. She probably had a college fund. Her best friends were probably human. She probably never had to kill the meal she ate.

  Allistair looked like she was ready to flee. Apparently, she could eat mashed-up internal organs, but she couldn’t date someone who grew up poor. Willy sighed. She had to remember her mission: find a place to sleep tonight or else be homeless. “I’m just kidding you,” Willy said. “It was a joke. There really was no Beverly the Spoon.”

  Allistair laughed nervously. “Oh, good. You really had me going there.”

  Willy fake-laughed. “A spoon! Can you imagine? I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

  ***

  That spoon thing was weird, Allistair thought. Now would be a good time to introduce the questionnaire. That way if they weren’t compatible, they’d both know it and could move on with their Friday evening. “I’ve prepared a questionnaire so that we can truly decide if we’re right for each other,” Allistair said. “I didn’t want to broach the subject before we met in person. Are you all right with that?”

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” Willy mumbled into her napkin.

  “What?”

  “I said, great fuckin’ idea,” Willy said brightly.

  “They’re just some basic value questions,” Allistair said. “Topics we haven’t yet covered in our emails.”

  Willy figured she might as well play along. It’s not like she had anything better to do. And as long as Allistair was buying …or at least she hoped Allistair was buying. She studied Allistair as she pulled several pieces of paper out of her purse. She had long auburn hair, a turned up nose, and full lips. Her eyes were hazel and flecked with gold specks. She was pretty in an understated way and she wasn’t skinny. More of a full-figured kind of gal. Willy like her women with a few curves.

  Allistair smoothed the papers on the tabletop then read the first question. “What is your favorite color?”

  “You’re not fuckin’ serious?” Willy replied. Whoops. That slipped out before she could censor it.

  “Favorite colors are personality indicators,” Allistair said sounding defensive. “And do you realize you say the F-word a lot?”

  “No fuckin’ shit,” Willy said. She was starting to change her mind about this Allistair woman. She was wound a little too tight for Willy’s taste. “You really think you can figure out my personality from a set of questions? You think you can decide if we would be compatible emotionally, spiritually, and even sexually by analyzing what my favorite color is?”

  “Yes. I would have done this online but you really need to see a person’s face to insure you’re reading the signals correctly, and to make certain they’re upholding the social contract.”

  “Social contract?” Willy snorted her derision.

  “Yes. A social contract is necessary in order to uphold a strong relationship with the outside world.”

  “What fuckin’ planet are you from?”

  “There’s no need to get hostile.”

  Willy sighed and closed her eyes. She was blowing her only chance at sleeping indoors tonight. She had to play nice. But, damn, this woman was infuriating. “My favorite color is orange,” Willy grunted.

  Allistair was taken aback. “Orange?” she said it like she’d never heard of such a thing.

  “Yeah, what’s wrong with orange?” Willy said.

  “Well, you have to admit it is an alarming color.”

  “I’ve always thought of it as a ‘Warning: Construction Ahead’ kind of color. It lets people know to watch out.”

  “True,” Allistair said tentatively. “I guess you have a point.”

  “Your turn,” Willy said. “What’s your favorite color?”

  “I don’t have one,” Allistair replied. “I’ve tried to figure out what my favorite color is but there are a lot of colors in the world and pegging only one as my favorite proved too daunting. So I don’t have one.”

  “What the hell do you mean you don’t have a favorite color? Everybody has a fuckin’ favorite color.”

  “There are numerous colors and then there are the shades of colors so picking one is extremely difficult for me. For instance, I like reds and red tones. The entire red family really. But that includes pink and purple. So you see my quandary.”

  “You can’t commit to having a favorite color. What does that say about you?”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly,” Allistair said. “It doesn’t really say anything.”

  “Sounds commit-a-phobe to me. How long did your last relationship last?”

  “I don’t think that’s a fair judgment.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “A few months?” Allistair said more like a question.

  “A few months? How many is a few? Two? Three?”

  “Two weeks.”

  Willy laughed.

  “I did not come here to be laughed at.”

  “Why did you come here? For the liver pate?” Willy asked.

  “I don’t understand what you have against pate.”

  “It stinks for one thing,” Willy said.

  “Why don’t you take your spoon and go home,” Allistair snipped.

  “Oooh, is Allistair getting angry?” Willy was intrigued by Allistair’s spark of anger. It was the first glimpse of humanity she had shown.

  “No. I do not get angry,” Allistair said. She picked up the menu and fanned her face with it.

  “Are you cranky perhaps?” Willy prodded. “Little Miss Grumpy Pants?”

  Allistair fanned her menu harder. Her bangs fluttered in the brisk breeze. “My pants are not grumpy thank you very much.”

  “You know why you’re grumpy? Because you iron all your clothes. I bet you even use that spray starch stuff. Am I right?”

  “What are you trying to say? That I should be poor and rumpled?”

  “You’re so ironed and pressed. You’re stiff. You’re one-dimensional. You probably iron your panties.” Willy leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.

  Allistair slapped her menu fan down on the table. “At least I wear underwear.”

  “Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere,” Willy said smugly. “You noticed I am not wearing underwear. That could mean only one thing. You’ve been thinking about getting in my pants.”

  Allistair turned red. A bead of sweat trickled down from her hairline. She dabbed at her face with a napkin. “I most certainly am not thinking of your pants or what is in them.”

  “Does that mean we’re not going to fuck tonight?”

  “You are vile,” Allistair said.

  Willy sang an off-key version of the Carly Simon song, “You’re so vile. You probably think this song is about you.”

  “You are despicable,” Allistair said.

  “Why, what’d I say?” Willy asked in mock innocence.

  “You used the F-word as a verb and I find it insulting. I prefer to make love.”

  Willy grinned. “Only because you’ve never been truly fucked.”

  “You are sick and twisted.”

  Willy leaned over the table and whispered lasciviously, “Yeah, but I’m really good in the sack.”

  “You’re delighting at trying to shock me, aren’t you?”

  “No. I want you to take me home. I want to bed you. Do you like that term better? Bed? I want to bed you,” Willy said.

  Allistair wadded her napkin into a tight ball. “You’re disgusting.”

  “How about: I want to bump doughnuts with you.”

  “Awful…”

  “Let’s bump uglies.”

  “Disgusting…”

  “My V-bomb and your V-bomb equals…” Willy bumped her two fists together, “Boom!”

  Allistair stood and thr
ew her napkin ball on the table. “I am leaving now. I do not have to sit through this display of impropriety. You are ugly and disgusting and sick and vile.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere.” She winked lewdly at Allistair.

  Allistair tilted her chin up and looked down at Willy. “I’m sorry I ever emailed you. You may consider this our first and last date.”

  Allistair flounced out of the bistro. The waitress appeared at the table and mistakenly put the liver pate in front of Willy and the LT sandwich in front of Allistair’s empty chair. Curious, Willy dabbed her finger in the pate and stuck it in her mouth.

  “Hmm, not half bad,” she said. She picked up her butter knife and spread the pate onto her sandwich and took a big bite. As she chewed, she looked out the window. She saw Allistair stalk across the street and fumble around in her purse.

  Willy thought Allistair was really quite cute. Especially when she was angry. She liked how the tips of her ears turned red. And how her neck pinked at that spot right at the base of her throat.

  She saw Allistair pull her key fob out of her purse then accidentally drop it on the street. She bent over to pick it up just as a car whizzed by and splashed water into her face. Willy laughed as Allistair sputtered and wiped at her face.

  Willy had to admit that the past thirty minutes were fun. She had thoroughly enjoyed talking to Allistair and making her blush and even making her angry. That was the most emotion she had elicited from a woman in years.

  Suddenly, she didn’t want the evening to be over. She didn’t want to let Allistair disappear from her life. At least not tonight.

  Willy jammed the other half of the pate lettuce tomato sandwich into her mouth and sprinted for the door. She heard the waitress shouting, “Hey! What about the bill?” but she kept running.

  Willy darted across the street, dodged a car as it slammed on its brakes, narrowly missing her, and rapped on Allistair’s car window.

  Allistair jumped and screamed when she saw Willy’s face pressed up against her window.

  Willy made the ‘roll down your window’ gesture.

  Allistair powered the window down only one inch. “What? What do you want now?”

  “Um…” Willy stuttered. She hadn’t actually thought this out. “I was wondering…”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I go home with you?”

  Allistair powered the window back up.

  Willy rapped on it again.

  Allistair powered it down. An inch. “I’m not taking you home with me. You are a crazy person.”

  Willy pressed her mouth up to the space where the window was rolled down. “I’m not crazy. I’m upset. I lost my job today. My bike was stolen. I fell out a window. Naked. I had to steal these clothes. I’m sorry I took my bad day out on you.”

  Allistair squinted. “Oh well, that makes it all better,” she said sarcastically.

  “Please?” Willy said giving her the big puppy dog eyes that had worked before. “I’ll sleep on the couch. It’s just until the morning and I can get back into my apartment.”

  “Why does your breath smell like pate?”

  Willy smiled. “I ate your pate and I liked it. Okay? I said it. I like pate.”

  Allistair powered the window down another inch. “You’ll leave in the morning?”

  “Promise.”

  She powered down another inch. “You’ll sleep on the couch?”

  “Promise.”

  Allistair rolled the window down halfway. “You will refrain from using the F-word?”

  Willy grimaced. “You drive a hard bargain.”

  Allistair powered the window up, up, up… Finally Willy yelled, “Okay, okay! I won’t use the F-bomb!”

  Allistair smiled victoriously. “Okay. You can come home with me. But just for one night only. And no monkey business.”

  “Great!” Willy said and meant it. She ran around to the passenger side of the car and let herself in.

  Allistair pulled out onto the road and sped away just as the waitress ran after them, waving a ticket in the air.

  Neither woman knew it, but their lives were about to drastically change in the next five minutes.

  The Buddhist And The Bike

  “You were nothing like what I thought you’d be,” Allistair said, as she stopped at a red light. It began to drizzle. She turned on the windshield wipers.

  There was no way in hell Willy was going to admit to not being Allistair’s real date. At least not while she needed a place to crash for the night. “Is that a good thing?” Willy asked. “I mean, you could’ve thought I was bad and I turned out okay. Or you could’ve thought I was stupid and it turned out I’m intelligent.”

  Allistair bit her lip and appeared to think. “Actually, I thought you would look more like Rachel Maddow.”

  “Hunh,” Willy grunted. “I can imagine your disappointment,” she said flatly.

  “I just thought we’d have more in common, that’s all.”

  Willy was about to point out the time worn adage that opposites attract, but her attention was diverted just as she opened her mouth. She yelled, “Oh my God! Follow that bike!”

  Allistair looked to where Willy was pointing. All she saw was a bearded man riding a bicycle down the street. “Why would I follow him?” she asked.

  Willy bounced up and down in the passenger seat. She sputtered, “That’s my bike! That’s the Buddhist asshole who stole my bike!”

  “Why would a Buddhist want your bike?” Allistair asked.

  “He stole it because I wouldn’t say namaste or some such shit! I don’t know why he stole it! Just follow him!”

  Allistair only sat, not moving, staring up at the traffic signal.

  “What the fuck are you doing? Didn’t you hear me? Follow him!” Willy shouted.

  “I can’t. The light is red,” Allistair said calmly. “In case you didn’t know it, this is America. There are laws regarding traffic. If people broke those laws willy-nilly, then chaos would ensue.”

  “You can go right on red!” Willy yelled.

  Still, Allistair sat behind the wheel, not moving, her hands at the ten and two positions. “I always wait on the light to change. It’s much safer that way.”

  “He’s getting away!”

  “My car, my rules,” Allistair said.

  Willy couldn’t stand it anymore. She screamed, “Fuck your rules!” and threw her left leg over Allistair’s right leg, stomping on the gas pedal.

  The BMW roared into the intersection and through the red light. Willy wrenched the steering wheel out of Allistair’s hands and turned it as far to the right as she could. Not only did the car screech and burn rubber, it did a complete doughnut in the middle of the intersection. By the time Allistair stomped on the brake, they were facing in the opposite direction.

  “Are you crazy?” Allistair yelled.

  Before Willy could yell back there was a loud POP! Willy thought it sounded like a firecracker. Like one of those Black Cats she used to light and throw into a garbage can on the Fourth of July. The firecrackers her mother had said would blow off her hand if she wasn’t careful.

  POP! POP!

  Two more firecrackers. But, wait, it wasn’t a firecracker at all. It was worse. It was gunfire!

  “What was that?” Allistair breathed. “Did we hit something? Please, God, tell me we didn’t run over a pedestrian.”

  Willy turned and looked through the back windshield. She saw a man standing in the middle of the street beside a big black car. The man had a crooked, smooshed nose like a boxer, beady eyes, a wicked scar along one cheek, and slicked-back black hair. He held a gun—Willy didn’t know what kind of gun it was, just that it was big, black, and lethal looking—at a man who was splayed face-down on the sidewalk in a pool of blood.

  For a moment Willy panicked, thinking they had run over the man and he had been thrown to the sidewalk. Then her stunned brain finally added two and two and she realized the man with the gun had shot the other man and HOLY SH
IT she had just witnessed a murder!

  “That man shot that guy. He murdered him. Right here on the street,” Willy whispered.

  Allistair turned in her seat, took one look at the scene and screamed, “Murder! It’s a cold-blooded murder!”

  Willy clamped her hand over Allistair’s mouth, but it was too late. The murderer turned his head, looked at them and raised his gun in their direction.

  Willy did the only thing she could think to do. She threw the car into drive and mashed her foot on the gas pedal. Several things happened in the next three seconds: Two bullets whizzed by Willy’s head, breaking both the back and front windshields of the BMW; Allistair screamed bloody murder; Willy lost control of the car, ramming it into the back of a parked Florist’s van; and Allistair tinkled her panties.

  The air bags in the BMW inflated, swallowing up Willy and Allistair. Willy fought off the bags, grabbed Allistair and shoved her down onto the seat. Willy lay on top of her. When nothing happened for what seemed a very long time, but was actually only ten seconds, Willy raised her head and peeked.

  She shouldn’t have done that. What she saw sent icicles shooting down her spine. She found herself staring directly into the barrel of the murderer’s big black gun. It was amazing how many thoughts traveled through Willy’s brain. Here is a sampling of the thoughts she had in the split-second she realized this was her last moment on earth: Why oh why didn’t I kiss Janet McCoy that one night when I slept over at her house in the seventh grade? Why oh why was I so mean to Allistair? If I had been nicer, this wouldn’t have happened and we’d be rolling around in the sack together right now instead of being killed.

  Willy looked at the man who held the gun. He didn’t look so bad really. The scar made him look sinister but maybe it was really caused by a hedge pruning accident. Those lopping shears could really do some damage. And besides, he had a mother, didn’t he? He probably had a wife and kids, too. He was a family man. Maybe if she appealed to the universal humanness of the man, he would take pity on them and spare their lives. “Excuse me, sir,” Willy pleaded, “Please don’t kill me. I’m a mother. I’m a wife. I have children who need me.”

  “Too late,” he snarled. “You’ve seen my face.”