Crazy Little Thing Read online

  In a matter of seconds, her bedroom door flew open and Ollie burst in. She was dripping wet and had only a towel wrapped around her. “Claire! Are you all right?!”

  Claire pointed at the bed with a shaky finger. “There’s a… there’s a…”

  Ollie looked at the bed. And then she laughed. “That’s EZ. We had to stow her somewhere. G-Ray put her in your bed while you were sleeping.” Ollie continued laughing and after a moment, Claire laughed, too.

  “Oh my God,” Claire said. “I saw Elvis and then there was this woman-shaped lump and it was all just too weird and…”

  “I know, right? This suite is crazy. Did you flush your toilet yet?”

  Claire shook her head. “Why? Is something wrong with it?”

  “When you flush, the song “Taking Care of Business” plays. Scared the crap out of me. Literally.”

  Claire laughed. Ollie sat on the edge of the bed. Claire plopped down next to her and the more Ollie laughed, the more Claire laughed and, God, it felt good to laugh off the tension. When their laughter died down to sputters, Claire timidly touched Ollie’s bare knee and said, “I’m sorry about earlier, Ollie. I really shouldn’t have thrown my purse at you.”

  “It’s okay,” Ollie said. “If I were you and you were me and I, as you, said that same stuff to you as me--”

  “Wait. What? Who am I?”

  “You’re me. You’re still you but you’re me.”

  “And who are you?” Claire asked.

  “I’m me, but as you.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “Let me start over,” Ollie said. “If I were you but was still me and you were me but still essentially you…”

  “Okay, got it, continue,” Claire said.

  “And I were to have EZ and G-Ray --”

  “Hold on, I’m lost again,” Claire said. “Who’s G-Ray? Is he EZ?”

  “No G-Ray is G-Ray and EZ is still herself, but…” Ollie’s voice trailed off.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I forgot what I was going to say,” Ollie said.

  Claire laughed and Ollie laughed and they were both themselves laughing and it felt pretty damn good to be laughing and not crying and not fighting. Claire hiccupped and wiped the tears from her eyes for the second time that day. Only this time it was happy tears.

  “I’m really sorry about losing it earlier. I’ll try to… from now on, I’ll try to…” Claire stumbled, trying to come up with the right words.

  “Not be such a bitch?” Ollie offered.

  “Yeah,” Claire said with a chuckle. “I’ll try to not be such a bitch.”

  They looked into the other’s eyes. And for a moment, just a teeny tiny moment, a kiss seemed inevitable. But the moment passed and with it came the relief that it didn’t happen.

  Ollie was the first to regain the powers of speech. “So, listen, G-Ray and I are going out for drinks. Wanna join us?”

  “God, yes. I could use a drink.”

  “I hate to INTERRUPT this love fest,” Scarlet blared over the computer’s speakers, “but will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?”

  Claire jumped up like she had been caught doing something naughty. Which, of course, she hadn’t. Unless thoughts counted, then she was in a heap of deep.

  Ollie wrapped her towel tighter around herself and quickly walked to the door out of Scarlet’s line of sight. She opened the door and turned back to face Claire. She mouthed silently, “Half an hour.” She made the drinking sign, smiled and closed the door behind her.

  Feeling lighter than she had all day, Claire turned to Scarlet on the computer and smiled. Using an old tried and true diversionary tactic, Claire said, “So tell me about your day, baby. Did you get that Botox appointment you wanted?”

  “Finally,” Scarlet cooed. “But it’s weeks away! What is the world coming to? It seems like everybody and their dog is getting Botox. It used to be that only the best could afford it, now it’s like the in thing and…”

  And on and on Scarlet droned while Claire pasted a smile firmly on her face and listened. Or pretended to anyway.

  Brain Freeze

  The Furries were everywhere in the hotel. In fact, one might say it was a flurry of Furries. They were in the hallway, the elevator, the casino, the lobby, the bar. Just the sight of all that fur made Claire’s butt begin to itch. She looped her finger through Ollie’s belt loop so she wouldn’t lose her. She allowed Ollie to guide her through the sea of fur like she was a blind person. Ollie weaved her way to the bar where, miraculously, G-Ray had secured a table.

  Ollie deposited Claire next to G-Ray and sat on the other side of her. Claire fanned herself with a cocktail napkin. The Furries closed in and Claire was sweating. It was so close and hot it was next to impossible to draw a complete breath. It was like wearing a fur coat only the coat took up most of the room.

  G-Ray normally would have stuck out like a sore thumb wearing his helmet cam, but here nobody even glanced at him twice. “I took the liberty of ordering a pitcher of margaritas. It’s difficult getting an order filled,” G-Ray said. “But I would brave it for you ladies if need be.”

  Right on cue, a waitress wearing pink bunny ears and a white puffy bunny tail dropped off a pitcher and three glasses. Claire didn’t know if the waitress was trying to be a Furrie bunny or a Playboy bunny. Or if it even mattered.

  “Margaritas! How fun!” Claire said over-enthusiastically. She wasn’t normally a big drinker. She had spent most of her twenties as the designated driver. But tonight she felt like getting her loop on. Wasn’t that what people said? Maybe it was getting her buzz looped. Either way, she wanted a drink and she wanted it bad. After all, a person could only handle so much Scarlet before wanting to get her plaster buzzed.

  Claire watched G-Ray pour the cold slushy drinks into the glasses. She wanted to grab the pitcher and pour its contents directly into her mouth. She managed to resist the urge, but only narrowly. Instead, she tipped her glass and downed the whole thing in one long gulp.

  Ollie and G-Ray gaped at her. Claire thunked her empty glass down on the table, took a long breath and then scrunched her nose. “Oh my,” she said. “Oh my…” She held her hands on either side of her head and closed her eyes. “I have a frozen brain.”

  “Suck on your thumb,” Ollie said. “That always works for me.”

  Claire stuck her thumb in her mouth and sucked baby-style. After a moment, she took it out. “Hey. That really does work.” She could already feel the margarita working, too. Her butt had almost stopped itching and twitching and her pulse had slowed to a normal rhythm. “Hit me again,” Claire said, sliding her empty glass over to G-Ray.

  Claire didn’t notice Ollie gesturing to G-Ray to try to slow down Claire’s conspicuous consumption. G-Ray pushed Claire’s glass back over in front of her.

  Claire looked at the glass and wrinkled her nose. “You didn’t fill it up. It’s half empty.”

  G-Ray smiled benevolently and said, “I prefer to think of it as half full.”

  Ollie quickly changed the subject. “Did you have a good talk with Scarlet?”

  Just the mere mention of Scarlet’s name made Claire tip back the entire half-full glass. She put down the glass and quickly stuck her thumb in her mouth.

  “I think that’s a no,” G-Ray said.

  Claire didn’t know if it was the margaritas or the brain freezes but she suddenly felt better. Well, maybe better was the wrong word. She felt looser. Not as rigid. Her muscles were relax-ier and her butt wasn’t as scratchy. Itchy. Or was it scratchy? She was always mixing up those words.

  When Claire looked up, Ollie’s mouth was moving. She was talking to her. She said something about Scart-let. Claire giggled. Scart-let. She had meant to say Scarlet. “Scart-let, Start-let, Fart-let.” Claire giggled.

  “I think you need some fresh air,” Ollie said.

  “I’m allergic to fresh air,” Claire said. “Didn’t you read Fart-let’s list?”

  “Ho
w strong are these margarita’s?” Ollie asked. She put the pitcher up to her nose and sniffed.

  “I ordered high octane,” G-Ray said, “but not that high.”

  Ollie grabbed Claire’s drooping chin and forced her eyes to look into hers. “Claire, did you take something? Did you take any type of pill or anything?”

  Claire hiccupped. “Yope.”

  “What does yope mean?” Ollie asked.

  “Yope is the new maybe,” Claire said.

  “So you maybe took a pill?”

  “Weeeelllllll, just a teeny tiny weeny winy wittle bittle pill,” Claire said in baby-talk. “Will you scratch my bottom for me? I can’t reach it when I’m sitting down and it’s scratchy. Or is it itchy?”

  “Claire? Look at me. Focus.”

  Claire jerked her head back to Ollie and squinted her eyes. “Stop moving. You keep moving. Sit still.”

  “I am sitting still. Claire, tell me... what kind of pill did you take?”

  “Blue.”

  “It was blue, okay. Do you know what it was called?”

  “It didn’t tell me its name,” Claire slurred. “But I called it Bruce.”

  “Uh huh,” Ollie said. “Where did Bruce come from?”

  Claire laughed. “Do you know how funny you look when your lips move?”

  “My lips move when I talk. Now focus a moment. Where did you get the blue pill?”

  “My purse. Bruce was playing hide and seek in the bottom of my purse.”

  “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Do you know where Bruce originally came from?”

  Claire nodded her head.

  Ollie smiled. “Okay. Can you tell me where Bruce came from?”

  Claire nodded her head.

  Ollie’s smile tightened. “Good. Tell me.”

  “Bruce was the last of the blue pills that helped Fartlet with her pain when she had her second liposuction,” Claire said. “I stole some Bruces out of her medicine cabinet. When Fartlet gets mad at me I sometimes take one. It helps me not be such an ol’ fuddy duddy.” Claire’s eyes opened wide and she put her hand over her mouth, saying, “Whoopsy. That was a secret.” She leaned in close to Ollie. “Wanna know another secret?” She hiccupped before continuing, “When Scartlet the Fartlet yells at me I can see her uvula vibrate. It’s not pretty.”

  “I’m taking you outside,” Ollie said. “We’re going to walk this off.”

  “Okay, wait a sec,” Claire said. She quickly reached across the table, grabbed the margarita pitcher, yelled, “Chug it!” threw her head back and tipped it over her opened mouth.

  “My God!” Ollie yelped. She grabbed the pitcher away from Claire and thrust it into G-Ray’s hands. Ice-cold margarita slush spilled down the front of Claire’s shirt.

  Claire’s eyes widened. “Woooooo… that’s cold.” She looked down at her sopping wet shirt. “Look how hard my nippy wippies are.”

  Ollie grabbed Claire and dragged her toward the door. Claire was still talking about her nipples, “They’re so hard they could cut glass.” She yelled at the people in front of her that were blocking the door, “Make way! Make way for lady with pokey nippy wippies!” She erupted into laughter and Ollie shoved her out the door and onto the hotel’s pool grounds.

  The Fur Flies

  Outside wasn’t much better than inside. Ollie looked around and saw the Furries were thronged around the pool. Where were they all coming from? It was if they were procreating exponentially. Maybe Furries were like Gremlins - you couldn’t let them near water or feed them after midnight.

  Oh, no. Where was Claire? Ollie had lost her in the all the fur. She found an empty chair poolside - thank God the Furries’ tails prohibited them from sitting - dragged it out from under the umbrella and stood on it. She shielded her eyes with her hand like a pirate looking for land and scoured the waves of fur. She saw a head of brown hair bob up and down. Claire, ahoy!

  Ollie watched in horror as Claire grabbed a drink out of a purple horse’s hoof and gulped it before handing the empty glass back.

  “Claire!” Ollie yelled. “Claire!”

  Claire moved deeper into the sea of fur and Ollie lost sight of her.

  Oh, wait a minute, there she was. Claire’s head bobbed up and down, up and down, over the sea of fur, under the sea, over and under, over and under. “Claire! Look up!”

  Claire must have heard Ollie because she stopped and looked right at her. She smiled brightly and waved. Ollie waved back. “Claire come back over here right this minute!” My God, she sounded just like Scarlet.

  Claire shook her head. “How did you get to be so tall? Did you grow like Alice in Wonderland?”

  “I’m standing on a chair!”

  “You’re funny!” Claire bellowed. She drunkenly tapped a Skunk on the shoulder and said, “See that extremely tall woman over there? That’s my wife!”

  “How very nice for you,” Skunk drawled.

  “No,” Claire retorted, “it’s not nice. We’re getting divorced.”

  Claire stumbled backwards and for a moment Ollie couldn’t see her. When Claire reappeared she was walking backwards out onto the diving board. She stopped halfway out and wobbled. She stuck her arms straight out to her sides and made tiny clockwise circles in the air to keep her balance. “I’m walking on a tightrope! Look at me!” Claire yelled joyfully.

  “Claire! Don’t move!” Ollie yelled. “I’ll be right there.”

  Ollie jumped down and shoved her way through the mosh pit of fur. “Out of my way, out of my way,” she said, pushing her way through the mob. She ran out onto the diving board but when she got there, Claire was nowhere to be seen.

  “Claire?” Ollie turned in a circle but still no Claire. She looked down at the water.

  “Up here!”

  Ollie looked straight up.

  “No, silly, over here!”

  Ollie followed the sound of Claire’s voice and saw her standing on the same chair that Ollie had been standing on. Good God, they had switched positions. “What are you doing over there?”

  Ollie noticed that Claire had yet another drink in her hand. She had probably snatched it from some poor unsuspecting soul.

  “Know what this reminds me of, Ollie? The last time I saw you in a pool! Remember that?” Claire shouted over the tops of the fur throng.

  “How could I forget?” Ollie shouted back. Uh oh, Ollie thought, she didn’t like that look on Claire’s face. It was the same look she had worn when she had thrown Ollie’s stuff out the door and into the driveway.

  “Well, I haven’t forgotten it either!” Claire responded in a peevish drunk voice that Ollie had never heard her use before. There were some people that should never Bruce and drink. Obviously Claire was one of them.

  “Claire, you’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying,” Ollie said. “You’re making a fool of yourself!” She was trying to sound reasonable and self-assured, but instead her words came out sounding whiny. She was sounding more and more like Scarlet every day.

  By now the Furries were all quiet and watching the drama unfold. “I love lesbian drama!” Ollie heard somebody say. The Furries swiveled their heads back and forth in unison between Ollie and Claire like they were the crowd at Wimbeldon.

  “You know what she did?” Claire shouted at the crowd.

  The crowd shook their heads.

  Claire continued, “She drained my pool. I paid twenty grand to have a liver-shaped pool put in my backyard and she drained all the water out of it!”

  “In my defense,” Ollie shouted from her position on the diving board, “It was winter. Nobody was swimming including you because you can’t swim. And I needed a place to skateboard.”

  “I came home from work and found her and her homies skateboarding in a dry pool! But you want to know the worst part?”

  “Claire, don’t do this, please!” Ollie shouted. “Don’t air our dirty laundry in public!”

  Claire ignored Ollie and asked the crowd again, “You want to know the wo
rst part?”

  “Yes, we do!” a big polka-dotted blue dog yelled. “We are totally invested in the story.”

  “The worst part was that she not only drained the pool, but she siphoned all the water into the basement of my 1929 Arts and Crafts bungalow, which I had lovingly restored to its original pristine condition!”

  “No!” the shaggy dog yelled.

  “Yes! Can you believe it?” Claire said. “She overflowed the basement and flooded the entire house.”

  “I was trying to conserve water! I was going to put the water back!” Ollie yelled.

  “It completely knocked my house off its foundation! It was ruined!” Claire continued.

  Ollie had had enough. It was one thing to berate her privately, but to do it public? There was a part of her that knew Claire was drunk and Bruced-up, but that didn’t mean it excused her from making a spectacle of their relationship. It pissed her off. And that’s why she shouted, “That’s not why you kicked me out and you know it!”

  Claire squinted at Ollie. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah!” Ollie retorted. “That was an excuse. The real reason you kicked me out of your house and your life was because you were too… too… frigid!”

  The crowd collectively gasped.

  Ollie continued, “You hated me because I could have fun. You’ve never had fun in your life! You couldn’t even have fun in Disneyland! And that’s the happiest place on earth!”

  The crowd gasped again.

  “I hate Disneyland! The lines are too long! And just when you think you’re at the front of the line, you find out it curves again and you have two more hours to wait!” Claire exclaimed.

  “See, what did I tell you? You are the most unhappy, bitchiest, most controlling person in the world!” Ollie said. “And to tell you the truth, I flooded your house so you would kick me out and I wouldn’t have to live with you any longer!”

  The crowd gasped yet again.

  Claire’s eyes were wide and unblinking. The stare down between Ollie and Claire was broken by the Skunk shouting, “You are kind of bitchy, Claire.”

  “Fuck you!” Claire said, directing all her pent-up anger, anxiety and allergies at the Skunk. “What do you know? You just lift your tail and spray stink all over everyone! Nobody likes you! Nobody!”