Amateur Night at the Bubblegum Kittikat Read online

“What kind of a restaurant do you work in that men would harass you like that?” she asked with genuine concern.

  “A fish place,” I said.

  “You should complain to the manager,” Faith said, “That’s SO rude for customers to bother you like that.”

  “I’ll do that. Let’s go look at this pink outfit Rachel’s got over here. Looks pretty,” I said.

  I really hated spending time around people I had to lie to about my job, but Rachel’s indecision proved a convenient distraction. She couldn’t decide what to lose her virginity in and it seemed like an awful lot of fuss was being made over choosing a garment designed to be removed anyway.

  “How about this burgundy one?” Honey suggested.

  Rachel shook her head.

  “Too dark.”

  “So no black?” I asked, “I’ve seen black lingerie be very flattering against pale skin.”

  Rachel looked horrified.

  “Black? On a wedding night? No way,” she said, “Only nasty women wear black lace.”

  “I think white is the most appropriate to highlight Rachel’s purity,” Mama Cave said.

  I wanted to take Rachel aside and ask if she was going to have sex through a sheet with a hole cut in it or if the next morning she’d have to show everyone at her church the bloody bedding to prove she really was a virgin. I controlled myself. I’d already caused enough trouble for one day, so I found an area of Victoria’s Secret with a large selection of snowy frills. There was a gorgeous white satin bustier that laced up the back with criss-crossed silken ties. Tiny crystals outlined the edges and seams of the bodice and white, lace trimmed thigh highs hooked onto the bottom of the corset with bow embellished garters. I loved it. The outfit kind of reminded me of a white version of what our cocktail waitresses wore, just fancier. Too bad I didn’t have any current prospects or I might have bought it for myself. My J-dating had slowed considerably during the holidays though so any potential lingerie purchases were likely to gather dust for a while.

  “This is perfect for a wedding night!” I said.

  “For a prostitute!” Rose exclaimed.

  “I should probably not be involved in this because I think that outfit qualifies as pornography and my dad wouldn’t want me looking at something like that,” Faith said before making a bee-line for the bath gel and perfume section.

  “Victoria you’re kidding right? What would Caleb think of me if I put something like that on?” Rachel said, sounding terribly disappointed in me, “Why don’t you go to the food court and get a snack and let us handle this. I think you have low blood sugar and it’s clouding your judgment.”

  “You want me to leave?” I asked.

  Rachel nodded and I didn’t want to upset her so I made my way to the food court in the mall’s center. Before I left Victoria’s Secret I spritzed myself with a tester of Love Spell because I was homesick.

  Munching waffle fries at a greasy metal table next to a trash can in the food court, I wondered if maybe I were a little jealous of Rachel. After all, I’d been engaged to Evan for three years. I’d believed, in spite of everything, that we really would get married and I’d even gone so far as to start planning the wedding, even without his input. I hid Modern Bride under our bed and dog-eared pages with dresses I loved and I’d always fantasized about showers and cakes, blue bridesmaid’s dresses to match the sapphires in my engagement ring and a honeymoon in Jamaica. Although I made fun of Rachel for being wedding obsessed, the truth was, that I was just as bad. I wanted a wedding to prove to the world that I was lovable. Being married meant that someone, finally, had chosen me and me alone. But that hadn’t happened. Evan hadn’t wanted me. He’d wanted Keisha and now my best friend was getting married and all I was, was a single girl who worked in a strip club and lied about it. In the months since I’d left Atlanta, Rachel had carried on with her life without me and I couldn’t help feeling like I’d been left behind.

  The group found me about twenty minutes later. Rachel’d managed to make up her mind when she found a white satin nightgown. It was floor length with a sweetheart neckline and came with a robe. Pretty, virginal, white and kind of boring.

  “What is that smell you’ve got on?” Rachel asked as we exited the mall.

  “Love Spell from Victoria’s Secret,” I said.

  “It’s weird. Kind of tropical or something,” she replied.

  “Yeah. It makes me happy,” I sighed, “Reminds me of home.”

  33

  I took Rachel and the girls to breakfast at Chick-fil-A the morning of the wedding rehearsal for old time’s sake. We used to eat there a lot when I lived in Atlanta. The Caves liked the place because it was owned by holy rollers and me, well, I just have a deep appreciation for any establishment that thinks it’s perfectly normal to eat fried chicken for breakfast, and serves it smothered in honey, sandwiched between two buttered biscuit halves. Unfortunately Connie Jones tagged along too, as she was to accompany us on more last minute errand running and I began to wish great suffering heaped upon this woman.

  “Are you courting anyone, Victoria?” she asked me.

  Seriously, who says courting in this day and age? What the hell kind of a world were these people living in? Little House on the Prairie? Was Almanzo about to come pick me up for a buggy ride?

  “Courting?” I asked.

  “Well yes, we Christians believe in courtship as opposed to worldly dating, but I thought you understood that,” she said. She sounded exactly like Dana Carvey’s Church Lady character on Saturday Night Live.

  “Courtship is SO much better than wordly dating,” Faith added, “I just feel SO much more protected by my father.”

  She flashed her purity ring and blushed.

  “Ok, so no. I’m not currently seeing anyone,” I said.

  Mrs. Cave reached out and touched my hand in sympathy, the way one might comfort a friend who had just revealed the sad fact that she has a rare cancer and only three months to live.

  “I’m sorry sweetheart,” Mrs. Cave said, “You’ll find someone. We’ll keep praying for you.”

  Conversation switched to wedding planning intricacies and I spaced out, sipping my sweet tea (yes for breakfast, shut up) and staring out the windows past the parking lot to a winter brown field and pale, cold sky wisped with cirrus clouds.

  “So Victoria, I must ask,” Connie started in again.

  I nodded, trying to ignore her.

  “I don’t know any liberated women of course, feminists if you will, but I’ve heard that most worldly women don’t even care if they meet a man and have children. Do you even want to get married?”

  “Of course she does!” Rachel said in defense, “And she’s not a feminist at all!”

  “You’re not a feminist? Oh thank God!” Connie said.

  “I wouldn’t be friends with a feminist!” Rachel said disgusted at the mere consideration that she might consort with a woman who had the gall to demand equal pay for equal work.

  “Feminist? What? I don’t know. Of course I’m a feminist! Wait, I mean, I’m not a feminist. No way. I’d never be one!” I stammered, confused and aggravated and clearly not enjoying eating fried chicken at nine in the morning as much as I’d hoped.

  “And yes, I really want to meet someone and get married,” I added, hoping that would settle the issue, “But it just hasn’t happened for me yet. Sorry.”

  I refused to engage in any more mindless conversations with these jackasses, who by the way did not thank me for breakfast, for the rest of the morning’s errands.

  Once the last minute tasks had been completed, Rachel and I had a few hours alone back at her house to get ready for the rehearsal, but before I got into the shower she took me aside and asked me what was the matter. She said I’d acted aloof and preoccupied all morning.

  “Your mother in law is evil,” I said.

  “I know,” Rachel said rolling her eyes, “But I feel like there’s something else bugging you.”

  “Honestly? You wa
nt to know? I wasn’t going to say anything, but I’m sad you didn’t ask me to be in your wedding and that you asked Faith and you’ve only known her a couple months.”

  We sat down on Rachel’s microfiber sofa which was so new that it smelled like melted plastic and undriven cars.

  “I’m sorry that hurt your feelings,” she said, looking down at her feet. She was wearing her wedding shoes, creamy satin flats, around the house in an attempt to break them in before the ceremony.

  “I only want to know why, after we’d talked about being in each other’s weddings for years.”

  “Because you aren’t the same. Because our friendship can never be like it was. Because of our beliefs. Because…”

  “Because of my job.”

  “Yes.”

  We were silent a long time. Rachel kept looking at her shoes. I swiped a mote of dust from the coffee table.

  “Ok, so you have to understand that the marriage vow is sacred to me. It’s real. The people who stand up for me have to mean it and believe it just like I do. They’re there to be witnesses to God for me and it would be disrespectful to have a whore monger representing me on such a solemn occasion.”

  “You just called me a whore monger.”

  “Well technically…”

  “Ok, whatever. Whore monger I am. Fine. But I wanted to be there for you on your special day and I do believe in marriage and it is sacred to me. If I had my way I would have been married to Evan right now and working at a strip club doesn’t make me all of sudden not respect the sanctity of marriage or whatever you’re trying to say.”

  “Maybe we could fit in a reading. Do you want to read something during the ceremony?”

  “Like a Bible verse or something? Not really. I’ve swear to God at every wedding and funeral I’ve been to in my entire life someone has to get up and read First Corinthians Thirteen and I’m sick to death of it,” I said.

  “Ok first of all my mom is already reading that during the ceremony and second, you took the Lord’s name in vain for like the seventieth time since you’ve been here.”

  “Oh Jesus Christ.”

  “Ahem, seventy-first.”

  “Can I read something not from the Bible?”

  “Yes, I think that would be more appropriate anyway and probably quite scandalous, which I kind of like.”

  That was the first time on this trip that I got a hint of the old Rachel, the Rachel that I had loved so much, who’d delighted in wholesome mischief with me and who secretly loved harmlessly shocking her fellow Christians. This was the Rachel who, safely out of her parents’ driveway, begged me to tune the car radio to the alternative station so she could rock out to Garbage. This Rachel wept alongside me as we watched The English Patient, a film her parents considered pornography, because you know, porn wins Oscars for Best Picture all the time. This was the Rachel I missed so terribly and the one I feared was disappearing forever. The one I couldn’t save.

  “Would you like me to read something that will piss off your mother-in-law, Rachel?”

  “Yes, yes I would. I mean, within reason.”

  “How about a poem about love and marriage written a century ago by a Lebanese Catholic?”

  “That sounds pretty much perfect.”

  And with that I skipped my shower, called a cab to take me to the nearest Barnes & Noble where I bought a copy of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, and went to the rehearsal with the slim yellow book in hand and somewhat greasy hair.

  34

  Though I didn’t get to stand up for my best friend as she wed, I at least got to sit in the second row of pews where I could easily make my way to the pulpit to read a shockingly non-Biblical poem which the congregation considered profane at best and downright blasphemous at worst. Several people actually walked out of the sanctuary until I finished. I guess that part about the strings of a lute quivering with the same music was just too much for them to handle.

  Rachel made a magnificent bride. She’d walked down the aisle to the aria from The Shawshank Redemption, another forbidden film that she’d watched with me. No one in the congregation knew that’s where she’d first heard that song and many of them seemed uncomfortable that she hadn’t chosen a more traditional processional. Caleb almost passed out towards the middle of the ceremony and had to sit down and take his shoes off for a moment, but he recovered in time to exchange rings and barely flubbed his lines. He said he took Rachel to be his lawful wedded husband and I hoped it wasn’t a tragic Freudian slip that might cause a future annulment, but other than that, the wedding was perfect and I hoped it was everything that Rachel dreamed of and that she was thrilled.

  The part that got me though was that in the beginning of the ceremony, right after Rachel and her father arrived at the altar, the preacher went off on this whole spiel about purity again and about a father’s responsibility for his daughters. Now that Rachel was marrying, the pastor said, she’d no longer be under her father’s care, but now would be under the authority and protection of her husband. Was this a wedding or an exchange of property? These folks viewed a marriage license like a car title it seemed and that really bothered me. I wanted someone to love and respect Rachel as much as I did, not someone who saw her as his possession to dominate.

  But at least the flowers were beautiful. Those homosexuals sure do have a way with roses. Several guests complimented Connie Jones on the bouquets and arrangements as they shuffled down the receiving line and she just smiled and nodded and said thank you because really, the woman was a stupid bitch and there were no two ways about it. Some atheists point to tragedy and catastrophe as proof that God can’t exist. What kind of loving God can allow war and pestilence, they demand to know. Instead I ask, what kind of loving God could have created a woman like Connie Jones? But I sucked it up because this was Rachel’s day and those flowers were hers and that was what mattered, not who thanked me for them or not.

  I saw a number of my former acquaintances and word had clearly gotten around about my tragic break-up because my old friends treated me as if I were bereaved, all promising to keep me in their prayers and to ask the Lord in Christ to send me a Godly husband to whom I could submit. No thanks. I’ll just take a simple boyfriend and one who doesn’t require submission please. The whole submission thing cracked me up too because every time these Jesus Freaks prattled on about it, all I could think about was how popular submission was in the world of sex workers too. They called it D&S, short for “Dominance and Submission” and a lot of customers and entertainers at the club were into it (usually the goth types with the caked on kohl eyeliner), though for them it was more of a role playing game than a philosophy. Neither version, the Christian nor the profane, held much appeal to me. I’d submitted plenty to Evan and you see where that landed me and being spanked with a cat ‘o’ nine tails and poked with knitting needles while wearing a leather corset didn’t sound like a good time either.

  A hundred or so of God’s chosen shuffled down a narrow and musty church corridor and through the double doors of the fellowship hall for the reception, though I couldn’t imagine what kind of reception this was going to turn out to be without food or music. The fellowship hall was a square room with dusty, speckled tile floors of the sort I remember from my elementary school. It was plain white with tall windows looking out onto the bright afternoon where winter-bare oaks swayed in the church yard with towering magnolias still green and full despite freezing temperatures. The ceremony had begun at one in the afternoon, so it was still early. My flight wasn’t until seven that night – five hours away. I calculated that I’d need to be at the airport by six latest and it would take an hour to get back to Hartsfield, especially if we encountered any Sunday evening traffic, so that left me to suffer for three more hours.

  Guests found seats at folding tables covered in white paper. The last-minute addition of bud vases stuffed with red roses and baby’s breath brightened things up a bit. A small bowl of spinach dip sat on each table along with a dish of crackers and
pretzels and up by the cake, which Caleb’s aunt had made (she was a professional meaning she worked at the Winn Dixie bakery, so it was perfectly tiered and piped) you could help yourself to a paper cup of punch, foamy with rainbow sherbet. If you wanted something else to drink, well, there was a water fountain out by the restroom. Basically I was doomed to starve until I got to the terminal of my departing flight where I’d have to gorge on doughy airport pizza. Suddenly I craved a cigarette again. A pack of them. And the image of me furtively chain smoking behind the church didn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.

  I found my former neighbor Merle and his new wife Merrilee. Merle had lived across the street from me and Evan and he ran a Christian boarding house for Georgia Tech students. Merle was a diminutive Calvinist who wore his black hair in a deep side-part. I’d often suspected that Merle had Aspergers. He was a nerd and proud of it. A Georgia Tech engineer who programmed in binary code, he obsessed over the Bible and would often go off on complicated, long-winded rants about obscure tenets and passages of scripture regardless of who was listening. He’d gotten married two summers before and, as head of his household, I thought he pushed his goofily smiling, extremely young, much taller and obviously pregnant wife around like an empty shopping cart. I couldn’t deny that he adored her though. The only time I saw him let go of her hand at Rachel’s wedding was when he told her to go fetch him a cup of punch and she scurried off obediently to comply. I was excited to talk to Merle, who was also my ride to the airport, because he still owned a house across the street from Evan and could hopefully provide dirt.

  “So Victoria, have you found a good church in Fort Lauderdale?” Merle asked.

  “Huh huh,” I laughed and realized I sounded just like Butthead and then that old Boy George song “The Church of the Poisoned Mind” started running through my head. When I lived in Atlanta he and Rachel had always pestered me about going to church. I reluctantly went with them a couple times, but I usually had to open the pottery studio on Sunday mornings, so work had provided a convenient out.