A Tale in the Dark

“It all began a few days before we left Vegas,” Testy explained to Rachel. “I’d been bugging you to get out, remember? And then I was driving about an hour south of town one night, and I had a... well, I guess you could say a visitation.”

“A what?”

Testy Lesbiana sighed. “Somebody came and talked to me.”

“Out in the desert?” Rachel wrinkled her nose. “What were you doing?”

Testy rolled her eyes, a professional-grade, show-stopping rendition, although the ex-showgirl was busy staring at her feet and missed the performance. “Peeing, if you must know. Are you ready to listen to this story or not? And watch out for that tree root.”

Rachel tripped. “Go on.”

“I think she was waiting for me,” Testy said. “Now, just listen. You’re not going to like this, but it’s your first lesson in believing things that sound impossible. Believe me, by the time we’re through, you’re going to run into lots harder stuff than this. So this babe… she was sort of flying.”
Rachel raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

“Good. You’re listening. So she was flying, and the other thing you have to know is that she looked good. I mean, really fabulous. Blond hair all waving everywhere, not teased but big as a house, even so. And perfect skin. I mean perfect. Glowing, even.”

She’d alighted on the sand as if she were the Grand Duchess of Somewhere or Other stepping out of her diamond-encrusted carriage.

“She was wearing gold, doll — gold. I mean, who can pull that off without it looking like plain old beige and sucking all the life out of your face? Well, let me tell you, no matter how freaked out I was, I was impressed!”

“You would be, Testy.”

Testy Lesbiana did not pause. “Anyway, so she walked up to me, and without even noticing what I had on, she started talking.”

“What did you have on?”

“What? Oh — my best blue sequin dress and those pumps you liked last year at the Christmas party, the ones with the itty bitty ankle straps. And this absolutely gorgeous beaded bag I never got to use onstage in the old show. I bought it the week before we closed.”

“You wore those three-inch heels in the desert? How did you walk?”

Testy stopped. “This is what you find unbelievable?” she demanded.

Rachel tripped over another bump in the path, sighed, and ran her mittened hands randomly around her pockets. “Damn. That was my last one. Test, this is just like all those stories in the car — how you did makeovers on Martha Washington and everything. Am I supposed to take this seriously?”

Testy pulled herself up straighter. “It wasn’t Martha Washington, it was Abigail Adams. She was a fun girl. Nothing like that stick-in-the-mud Martha. Scones and whiskey every afternoon — never mind. I don’t care what you think of me or how crazy it sounds, for this moment, you have to believe. Pretend I’m a big ol’ movie that you’re watching and stop questioning. Can you do that, doll?”

“I’ll try.”

Testy nodded. “Okay then. So she says to me, ‘I need you, Testy Lesbiana’. And this is the part where it starts getting weird, doll.”

“Really?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you. See, she told me about some bad dude who’d showed up in Las Vegas. Trying to take the place over, push everybody else around. I know, I know, it sounds just like a film noir script, but it made sense when she said it. Maybe I was just dazzled by the glamour and the gold. I don’t know. But the bottom line is that the only person who can stand up to this bad Vegas dude is an old friend of mine, and she needed me to find him, and I always did that here, when I lived here, so… here we are.”

“And that’s it? You met some woman who was mad at her boyfriend or something, and she asked you to go across the country to get a bigger bully you happened to know, and you just said okay?”

“Uh… more or less. I don’t think it’s a boyfriend thing. I think it’s much more important. And my friend’s not exactly a bully.”

“Whoever he is. We’re going to meet up, deliver this message that he needs to go to Vegas, and then… what, Testy? What do we do then?”

“Uh. Well, that might get a little more complicated. See, I think I’ll need to go back, too. And you… well, you’ll have to decide for yourself, but there may be other circumstances that’ll make you feel differently then. Okay? So just go with it.”

“And this weird chick you met in the desert. You’re sure she wasn’t just an escapee from a mental institution? I mean, really, Testy.”

“Babe, she was flawless at two in the morning in the middle of the desert an hour out of Las Vegas. No mental patient could have done that. Besides, she knew my name, doll. She came looking for me, she knew who I was. And she knew my friend, too. She… called him by name. That’s a big deal. You’ll understand when you meet him.”

“Whatever, Testy. Can we just do this and get it over with?”

“You’re signing on for the duration? Sticking with me?”

“I guess so. I’d probably fall down and die if I tried to get back to the subway station by myself, anyway, so I’m probably stuck here.”

“That’ll work.” Testy grabbed her friend’s arm. “Don’t worry, doll, this’ll be fun. Just follow Auntie Testy. This way, and mind the bends in the path.”

Rachel sighed. “Don’t I always?”

NEXT POST: MEANWHILE, BACK AT RANCH... (Monday 2/8)