A Toast to Starry Nights (5 page)

“These?”

“No, those are pinking shears. My snips
are next to the sinew.... no, that's a rotary cutter... the skizzers, Dmitri.
Right there... to your right... thank you!”

“You should have stated they were tiny
and looked like something one would use for a manicure.” He fitted the tiny
steel scissors onto my fingertips.

“Thank you, nurse. As you discovered,
they are tiny and were intended to give manicures. Happy now with your
new-found knowledge?”

“Very. Need any more help, doctor?”

I turned my head to look at him and
flashed a wink. “Yes. You can refill my prescription later, utilizing that work
table over there.” I wagged my eyebrows suggestively and grinned.

“Perhaps.” The way he drawled that word
made me think something was up, that there was something lurking in that mind
of his that did not bode well.

With efficient snips, I removed the bits
of sinew that bound the fabric. The dye flowed more freely down the drain and I
grew more and more excited. The thing I love about tie-dye is that in some
aspects, it's predictable. Fold it a certain way, you'll get a certain end
product. With color theory, one can combine three colors and get a rainbow. But
it doesn't always end up as one anticipates, and therein lies the appeal. How
will this differ from my preconceived notion? Did all the lines hold because it
was tied with enough pressure? Or was it tied too tight and now has too much
white...? With hurried glee, I washed away the exhausted dye to see just what I
had done to the velvet fabric. The yardage I unbound began to bloom like a
flower as the water worked its way throughout the fabric. The material opened
and revealed itself in all its glory.

“That is cool.” Dmitri's voice broke
through my thoughts. The cardinal directions each had an elongated point that
went from dark indigo to magenta, then to a lighter blush pink. Petals of the
lotus echoed the lighter pink and a periwinkle hue mingled into lavender. A
halo of white surrounded the blossom and then to the edges, solid indigo,
broken by shibori ivy vines that undulated along. It was very cool. I was
holding it up to carry to the washer full of hot water and synthopol when Dmitri
dropped a bombshell upon me.

“I know that this could be a deal
breaker for you. But I wanted to tell you before Jet did. I know you're going
to be beyond pissed at me and I am sorry.” His voice was quiet and deliberate.
Dmitri clasped his hands behind his back while he spoke.

My heart rose to my throat and I gulped.
The sodden heap of fabric ceased to exist as the potential meaning of those
words he uttered sank into my mind. As coolly as I could, I asked, “What's up?”
Deal breaker? Oh God... He cheated on me. He cheated on me and gave me an STD
that I would discover with my next pap smear. He cheated on me, caught an STD
which he gave to me and Jet caught him red-handed with his floozy. My tunnel
vision didn't prepare me for the truth.

He looked up at the acoustic tile
ceiling above him. I knew it was bad when he couldn't even meet my gaze. “I
gave a copy one of your manuscripts to Jet to read.”

“WHAT?” He jumped at my shriek. “You
went behind my back and printed a copy of a manuscript for her to rip apart?
Are you insane? How could you betray me and the trust I put in you? How could
you do this to me?”

“You're acting as though I cheated on
you.” He was cool and logical, baffled by my statements of
trust
and
betray
in regards to words on paper.

“This is worse than cheating, Dmitri. At
least when one cheats, they don't actually involve participation with their
significant other... but when you take something so intensely private without
my knowledge and consent and let HER read it... you must had a lapse in
judgment. A very serious lapse, my dear.”

“Why are so against her reading your
work? I've read it, it's good.” Dmitri got bonus points for loyalty... but
almost nullified them by going behind my back to take my work without
permission.

“Because she can't be content just
reading it. Jet will break out the red sharpie and scribble things about
context, syntax, grammar and historical facts in all available white space.
She's a Grammar Nazi, but you never saw her goose-stepping because you don't
check out her legs.”

Perhaps Grammar Nazi is too gentle a way
to phrase her encouragements.

Such truly inspiring things like
, I
thought you were a writer. If so, why do I have the urge to shove this pen in
my eyes so the ravens can feast on the jelly? This is typed diarrhea. Just
joking, Kaylis. It's not diarrhea. It's more like burning jalapeno shits after
using a belt sander as toilet paper. Just saying. You do know what grammar is,
do you not? They're, there, their. Jesus H. Christ. It ain't hard.

And my personal favorite
; Imagine,
Kaylis, if you will, going to prison for a crime you didn't commit, and where a
hairy-knuckled gorilla-man cellmate named Lil Petey makes you his butt-buddy
wifey that he shares with all his other half-simian friends, for years upon
years. Imagine that kind of pain and degradation. It's not a good feeling,
unless of course, one is into anal trains. Personally, I'm not. But I guess you
must assume everyone is because I think I'd rather get cornholed with a
chainsaw than reread this 'work' of yours. Serious, Kaylis.. How the fucking
hell do you come up with this shit? You might want to do some research on brain
chemistry during chemical addiction. It'd make you look like less of an
ignoramus.

I thought she would enjoy the tale of a
kids' television show hostess gone mad while faking happiness day after day
during an agonizing personal life for the benefit of her young viewers and
fans, eventually turning to booze, sex and hardcore drug abuse to fuel the
self-destructive spiral. Figured Jet would appreciate it and the gritty realism
of self-medication, based partially off my observations of Willow and her third
husband.

Wrong-o.

When I got the manuscript back, I kid
you not, every page had one of her red-inked pearls of “literary wisdom”. After
reading every single thing she wrote thrice, I had a measure of how Jet picked
things apart. Because of that experience, I am okay with not letting her read
my writing projects. I could do without her brand of encouragement.

Her brand of encouragement turned me off
writing for nearly a year.

That was the year I spent editing my
work.

Memories of three-hundred-seventy-three
pages of
Maybe you should find a new hobby, you know, one that you excel at,
Kaylis....
flooded my mind. How could I ever forget such a written beat
down? “I'm just saying, Dmitri, darling, hunny of mine, I could have gone the
rest of my days without her reading anything I write. Got schooled on that
years back, oh well. Guess it's time for a refresher course in taking defeat
gracefully. You know, you just let her ream me with a damn red pen. My
manuscript will weep bloody tears placed by her upon its pages. Thank you,
sweetie.” I sighed at the thought of Jet wearing a sequined devil-horns
headband, giggling nonstop while using her scarlet-inked pitch fork to send me
back to a nasty level of my very own personal Hell.

“You don't think you're blowing this out
of proportion? Because from my point of view, you're bordering on
Crazy-White-Girl kinda pissed off.” His tone implied my emotions needed to get
corralled quickly.

“How would you feel if I sneaked some
blue print or master plan for world domination you poured your life into and
gave them to Bryant to look over, red pen uzi in hand? Wouldn't you absolutely
love that? Think how helpful Bry would be to you and that pet project you
nurtured from high school as he unleashed spray and pray upon your happy
thought. Wouldn't that be just so totally awesome, Dmitri?” My mouth hung open
in a state of incredulous wonder of how he violated my trust and surrendered my
baby to a foul-talking, knife juggling, motorcycle-crashing, stogie-smoking
nanny with a penchant for fact checking.

Dmitri grimaced. Bryant was the friend
of his that knows all, no matter how trivial. Almost every sentence out
Bryant's mouth began with “Actually...” followed by random yet relevant trivia.
If only Jet were a one-man-woman, she and Bryant would get along just swell. In
their off time, they both most likely read an encyclopedia for shits and
giggles. Wikipedia is their internet porn of choice, I bet.

“Which of my works did you plunder and
give to that Dewey Decimal humping she-pirate? Huh?”

He looked chastened with my sarcastic
scolding. “The biblical vampire one.”

Dammit. That's my favorite one. The most
complete manuscript-- not finished, but damn close. Never edited. And now,
foisted upon the novel-slayer.

I looked up to the ceiling, indigo and
baby pink dye running down my arms to drip onto the floor from my elbows.
Another deep cleansing breath and I stalked over to the washer and stuffed the
fabric in with a ferocity one could mistake for someone shoving a body into a
deep freeze. With a heave, I slammed the lid shut.

Turned on my heel and planted my fists
on my hips. I cocked my head to the side and and pulled the trigger on my
mouth. “You let Jet read my very complex and ridiculous take on Christianity?
You let Ms. Atheist read my book about devout vampires and their ethics. Did
you have a stroke? Do I need to take you to the ER? Because I don't know what
possessed you to surrender that which I consider my literary gold to my best
friend. Was there a gun pointed at your head? No... you'd be able to disarm
her. Why, Dmitri.... why?”

I can see it now; Jet's curlicued
handwriting flooding the white space, meandering to the wide expanses of the
blank page back, boldly telling me to chop off my fingers to prevent myself
from penning any other tripe fit only for wiping asses. Dingleberried asses, no
less.

Maybe it was the prior twenty-four hours
of nerve-wracking fun added on to the knowledge of Jet stabbing her red sharpie
in my project's direction that made me carry on like a fishwife. I know he
wouldn't have done it if he didn't think it'd be of use to me, but still. Not
cool. Take my diary, why don't you? And then post it on craigslist with a
full-frontal picture of me. That's how exposed I felt.

“Just hear me out, Kaylis... Jet asked
me for one. She hasn't read anything of yours since your art school days. I
made a copy on a thumb drive and gave it to her last week. She knows how things
work in that business, and you are good. You just don't have the balls to see
where things will go if you don't start believing in your abilities. You wrote
the story, why not take it to the next step? If this is me strapping a
parachute to your back and pushing you out a plane, then so be it. You can't
half-ass this, Kaylis. You want to go apeshit with being a writer? All those
hours spent workshopping your stuff – even the hours spent just writing it, you
want that to go to waste because you just let it sit there and collect dust?
Man up, Kaylis. It's time for you to kick ass.”

I was upset. Not just the taking of
something that meant so much to me without my consent, but for him to imply I
lacked the testicular fortitude to see my projects to completion – which meant
submission and publication. Damage done. Jet undoubtedly sharpened her
Hemingway-Verne-Machiavelli claws on my story by now. I felt exposed, guts
ripped out and alive to feel every twitch of every nerve screaming in agony.

I felt violated.

That he would go behind my back... It
was worse than cheating and bringing home a scorching case of the clap.
However, it wasn't a deal breaker as he feared. But it taught me the importance
of hiding files on my computer and using passwords at every chance.

“I forgive you, Dmitri. But next time
you try to play my literary pimp, get my permission first. I mean, seriously.
This is much worse than Willow taking my car to Mexico and leaving it there. I
mean
way
worse.” His eyes kept flitting to my hand and I frowned. “What
do you keep looking at?”

“You aren't wearing your ring. I want to
see if you're going to throw your engagement ring at my head. You haven't
thrown anything yet – well, except your hissy fit. No projectiles makes me
wary.” The way he said it made me think he was trying to goad me just so he
could see all semblance of dignity disappear. The man gets his jollies from
deliberately pissing me off.

“I took it off when I started playing
with my chemicals... but I still plan to put it back on. Seriously though, if
it involves me, my art or anything I create, please ask beforehand, otherwise I
might just start chucking heavy things. You're lucky I didn't chuck that
mandala at you, otherwise it'd look like you were an important part to a smurf
bukkake session.” I crossed my arms across my still-heaving chest and ignored
the dye stains that saturated my skin.

“You are fair. I won't do anything like
that again behind your back, and you won't ever refer to me being a participant
in any sort of bukkake session again. Seriously – that's just foul, Kaylis.”

“Point made then.” I was still upset but
I'd get over it.

“Can I risk pissing you off again if I
ask a question?”

I sighed. “Ask away. I'll try to not get
irked.”