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Why indeed, I wondered. Kitt is an attractive woman, others—mostly women—tell me constantly, though MJ once described her as looking like a cross between a corpse and a kewpie doll. Which I understood; Kitt’s self-blended foundation makes it appear she has powdered her face with chocolate wine, her emphatic black eyebrows are drawn on, and her tiny, enflamed mouth is reminiscent of the iconic doll. Makeup aside, Kitt is tall, broad-shouldered, fit, and well-proportioned.
Jackson offered to make breakfast. “I can’t eat,” she screamed.
“Want some orange juice?” I asked, extricating myself from her embrace and standing. “I’m about to make mimosas. Or maybe I’ll make Kir Royales.”
“How can you twodrinkat this hour?” she asked, sniffling.
“You know what? I think I’m just gonna have Champagne,” I said, even as I thought maybe I’d have a French 75 instead since Kitt’s histrionics were rapidly pushing my mood beyond the soothing capabilities of Champagne alone. I wondered idly how I could get some gin into Kitt. After all, gin started its life as a tonic to ease anxiety—I like to think of it as a primitive precursor to Xanax.
Kitt left abruptly; either her grief had washed away with her tears, or she’d grown bored with us. I walked into the kitchen where Jackson was frying bacon and scrambling eggs. “Well, that was unexpected,” I said.
“I know,” Jackson agreed. “Who knew she had tear ducts?”
I smacked his arm and handed him a French 75. Giggling, I said, “She says she’s done with women, says they suck.”
“I doubt it,” Jackson said, emptying eggs and bacon onto plates. “I mean, what are they allegedly sucking?”
I giggled again, the Champagne and gin having gone straight to my head. He placed a plate in front of me. “I adore you,” I said.
“Of course, you do,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I feed you and I don’t weep on your shoulder about women while simultaneously judging you for drinking before noon.”
“Kitt has the worst taste in women.”
“Worst taste? She has none at all,” Jackson said, sitting down across from me.
I gulped my drink then poured myself another glass from the pitcher. “Still,” I said, “at least this last one—what was her name?”
“Anastasia,” Jackson said. “Or maybe it was Nancy.”
“Well, at least,” I insisted drunkenly, “Anastasia/Nancy was an improvement over Theodora.”
Jackson grunted noncommittally as he began to eat.
Kitt had been dating Theodora when we moved into our house. She had met Theodora—who at the time went by the name “Ten,” an homage to her own flawlessness, which was magnified by her cleanly shaven head and a sly nod to the movie of the same name that starred Bo Derrick in a bikini and, bizarrely,cornrows—at Girlfriends, the oldest lesbian bar in the country. Girlfriends was an anachronism, a throwback to WACs and the Andrew Sisters and perpetually on life support due to its aging decrepitude and its owners’ refusal to change anything. As aged and decrepit as the bar itself, they refused to sign a Do Not Resuscitate order each time bankruptcy approached. Through the collective strength of their lesbian resolve, the bar would survive each financial crisis.
Theodora Ten was a lesbian anarchist. Kitt had adored her instantly. She’d moved into Kitt’s house a few weeks after they met. Almost immediately, nightly, Ravel’sBoléro—all fifteen-and-a-half minutes of it—could be heard drifting out of Kitt’s bedroom window. It was only after six months or so that another dimension to Theodora had emerged. That is, she suffered from Dissociative Personality Disorder. She had two alters: Stella, aloose woman and sometimes sex worker in a blonde “mermaid” wig, and Beatrice, the church lady.
Theodora cheerfully refused all treatment, preferring to give her alters their freedom and right to life. Thus, she regularly, unpredictably cycled through her personalities, whom she referred to collectively as “the Tens,” donning a blonde wig and applying bold red lipstick when Stella suddenly chose to appear and snatching it off her bald head when Theodora or Beatrice reasserted herself. The problem was occasionally, she’d go to bed Theodora but wake up Beatrice, naked beside Kitt, whereupon she would pull a heavy Bible out of her purse and begin beating Kitt with it while praying for her immortal soul. After one too many Bible-induced black eyes and yet another fractured rib, Kitt had called it quits.
The one time we’d had dinner with them, Jackson had leaned heavily against the door after they’d left, and panted, “Whatwas that? I feel like I’m drunk.”
“I feel,” I said into the suddenly still evening, “like I’m just coming off a three-day bender.”
When Kitt came over crying after her breakup with Theodora, or rather the Tens since presumably she’d dumped all three of them, Jackson said, “You deserve better, someone who is—I don’t know—not insane, maybe?”
“Oh, it’s easy for you to judge, isn’t it?” she accused. “After all, what do either of you know about how hard it is to find someone…compatible? You each found ‘the one’ right out of grade school!”
“Actually, it was high school,” Jackson said.
I glared at him, and Frankenstein, who seemed as committed to misery as Kitt, hissed at us.
Friday, June 26, 2015, Rehoboth Beach—Today, Jackson and I were in Rehoboth checking out our favorite shops on the main drag, eating ice cream cones and waiting for cocktail hour. Both our phones started pinging almost simultaneously. We ignored them—we were on vacation and feeling very removed from our day-to-day lives. MJ called. I recognized her ring tone, so I answered. Jackson pulled out his phone to scroll through his messages.
“Hey, MJ,” I said, between licks of ice cream.
“We won,” she shouted.
“Won what?”
