Laughing Down the Moon (9 page)

“Hilarity ensues,” I re-echoed her because I couldn’t think of what else to say. I nodded.

“I am not surprised,” she said. She removed her eyeglasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “You enjoy creating laughter for people.”

I hadn’t even told her about laugh yoga.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” I said. I did; it was true. All I wanted to do in my column these days was make people laugh, not inform them of new writing technologies. I did just receive an assignment that actually excited me, introducing the new OutWrite technology for blind writers. For some reason that I couldn’t specifically grasp, I knew this article would be more worthwhile than my usual topics which centered on home file organization, plot line creation, music download and storage, or business solutions.

This OutWrite technology seemed different. Perhaps that was because I was a writer and could not bear to think of not being able to write. Even though I wasn’t feeling a great deal of love for my recent assignments, I did always feel love for putting words together on paper. Always. As I shared this news with Dr. Browning, she listened, made notes and then put down her pen and closed my file. She smiled and nodded at me as if she knew something I didn’t. Maybe she did.

Chapter Twelve

A Bang-Up Job

“Oh no! What did you tell him?” I laughed into the phone and asked Falina this as she described an awkward date moment caused by the fact that Brian, the guy she had recently started seeing, had his shirt buttoned one button out of alignment for most of the night. She had only noticed after they had sat across from each other for a couple of hours over dinner. She was uncertain then as to whether or not to point it out to him that his shirt was mis-buttoned. As it turned out, he came back from the restroom mad that she had not said anything. He had noticed it in the mirror. And while she was secretly pleased, she said, because she felt safe in assuming that if he had looked in the mirror it was because he was there washing his hands, she still felt horrible for not saying something earlier.

“I told him that I hadn’t noticed, but while he had been in the bathroom, I had purposefully mis-buttoned my own shirt, so that if he was going to be hurt by the fact that I hadn’t noticed, he could at least see that my shirt had been messed up, too. And then he could decide if he wanted to still be hurt or not,” she explained.

“Because he wouldn’t have noticed that your shirt was mis-buttoned, because it really hadn’t been.” I chuckled, picturing the whole scene. “I cut my bangs this morning by myself because I could barely see out from under them, and I did a really horseshit job. They have never been so crooked,” I told Falina. “Wonder if I had a date tonight if she would take the time to disappear into the bathroom and come out with crooked bangs to save me from embarrassment.” I laughed at my own question and spun around in my chair to watch Dwight as Falina started talking again. Dwight mimicked my laugh perfectly and loudly. I made big eyes at him as I halfway listened to Falina. He made big eyes back at me.

“It wasn’t to ease his embarrassment as much as to prove a point. Either way, I think he saw through my coverup, but he didn’t seem as put out by the time we left. He never said anything about my shirt, but I have to imagine he noticed, for all the staring at my chest he does—which is really starting to piss me off,” Falina continued.

I laughed even though it wasn’t appropriate.

“Hahaha!” Dwight repeated. I loved it. I felt like a comedienne whose audience adores her. It made me think of what Dr. Browning had told me about my needing to make people laugh. It was so true.

After Falina and I finished our call, I went through a short, soggy stack of mail that contained three ads, a postcard, two bills and an envelope that had my neighbor’s address on it. I’d return it later. The postcard, looking terribly old-fashioned and a bit bedraggled from its short stay in my leaky mailbox, bore a picture of a palm tree and a pool. The pool was devoid of swimmers, yet across the top of the postcard was emblazoned “Everglades National Park! Wish you were here!” Wish I were at this empty pool? How odd. I’m sure Everglades National Park had scary alligators or tropical beaches, or some other incredible natural wonder to show off on the front of its postcards. That pool could have been anywhere. Well, it could have been anywhere palm trees grew. Nice choice, Mom and Dad.

I flipped the card over to be greeted by my mom’s pretty handwriting spelling out my full name above my address: Allura Tuki Satou. Tuki. Mom loved my middle name, but I thought it made me sound like a porn star. It meant “moon” in Japanese. My mom and dad both thought it appropriate because of the huge, golden full moon that had hung over them the night they drove to the hospital where my mom delivered me into the world, but its Japanese meaning only strengthened the porn star theme. What do porn stars do to the camera? They moon it. And who sends postcards anymore, anyway? Could they not get an Internet connection in the national parks? Email would be more practical. At any rate, I sighed and read the postcard.

Allura, how are you doing up there in the cold? It is wonderfully warm here. Your father and I have not even had to turn on the heater in the RV. By the way, we have named the RV Gladys. We are her Pips. It feels like we are on a honeymoon; can you tell? The pool on the front of this is not even in the park, as far as we can tell. That cracked us up. How random. Hi from Dad.

Love Mom and Dad.

Well, that almost explained the mystery of the empty pool. She did sound as if she and Dad might be experiencing a honeymoon. My parents had always been happy with each other and within themselves, but over the past few years they had both seemed tired and dulled by life. I was glad they had made this decision to travel the states. It almost made me wish I had a new partner to share life with. But then I mentally ticked off all the things that could go wrong between lovers, set down the postcard and went downstairs to make dinner for one.

Chapter Thirteen

Locker Room Proposal

I felt the woman’s presence behind me. Even so, when she grabbed my elbow as I was leaving the locker room at the Y it startled me, so I spun around faster than I would have had I known she was topless. She held a towel up in front of herself to cover up from the navel down, but her bare breasts jiggled from my yanking my arm free.

“Wait, sorry, wait,” she said, pulling the towel higher to cover her breasts and then looking down at exactly how much of her lower half was bared by this action. She lowered the towel a little, but this left just enough breast and just enough upper thigh uncovered so as to be almost suggestive. “Uhm…wait here, okay?” she requested.

“Sure,” I said, not knowing where to look or what to do with myself as she dashed back to her locker, her butt bare. I investigated a sign-up sheet for a Holiday 5K that was being run around Lake Nokomis, counted the twelve names that had committed to traipsing around on what would probably be a very chilly morning and wondered what I’d look at next if the woman didn’t come back soon. There was never really a safe place to rest your eyes if you were a lesbian in a locker room full of straight women. I had never eyed anyone up in the locker room, and I certainly didn’t want to start now. Perhaps it was my own stereotype that straight women thought all lesbians wanted them, that we were not as selective as they were about their men, but that we simply lusted after all women. It was probably also my own stereotype that they were all straight here in the locker room. But still, I avoided looking at anything other than the inanimate. I could describe the carpet and the wood patterns of the locker doors in intimate detail to anyone who asked, since that was where I usually rested my eyes as I was dressing or undressing.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” the woman said as she approached me with an embarrassed grin.

“That’s okay,” I said.

She had thrown on a blue sweatshirt with the orange initials W.H.S. on it and a pair of black warm-up pants. Her hair was wet from her shower. If I knew her, I didn’t recognize her. Maybe it was the wet hair’s fault.

“This is going to sound really stupid,” she began, “but I have a friend who has asked me to do her a favor if I were to ever see you here again. And here you are.”

She was right. It did sound stupid, but I was intrigued. She looked at my bangs, probably wondering what the hell happened. It was the first time I had come back to the Uptown Y after the laugh yoga incident, and I was hoping she wasn’t one of the witnesses.

“Okay…” I said, not really knowing what else to say.

“So I was at a yoga class and so were you,” she said.

Argh. Of course she was.

“And so was my friend,” she continued, “and she was also at some pottery class that you were in—a studio class that ended last week?”

“Okay…” I said, still at a loss for words.

“So, do you know who I’m talking about?” she asked.

“The woman with the black hair down to here?” I asked, holding my hand like I was going to deliver a little karate chop to my carotid artery. I was hoping she said yes to that because if there were more than one person who had witnessed both of my most charming moments, I was going to ask the Goddess for my money back on this life.

“Yes, that’s Shiloh,” the woman said.

Oh, thank you for small mercies, Goddess.

“And I am Collette,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Hi, I’m Allura,” I said, feeling relieved to muster up something other than “okay.”

“Allura, hi,” she said. “Right, so Shiloh…” She looked around.

I looked around too, for what, I don’t know, but I did look around. I was getting nervous.

“Shiloh wanted me to ask you three things,” she said.

“Okay.” I was back to that brilliant one-word comment again. But what else could I say?

“Shiloh’s first question…” Collette held out one index finger. “Her first question…don’t be offended, okay? For obvious reasons, don’t be offended if your answer is no,” she said and looked at me with a combination of concern and apology and curiosity. I recognized that look. It crossed most people’s faces just before they asked if I was a lesbian.

“I can make this easier for you, I think. Yes, I am a lesbian,” I said, raising my hand to reassure her that I wasn’t offended. Two women brushed past us, one after the other, on their way out of the locker room, so Collette and I both sidled closer to the wall.

“How did you know I was going to ask that?” she asked, her eyes growing large.

“I just did,” I said. “When you’ve been asked that before, you start to recognize how people look when they are going to ask.”

“Oh. I guess I wouldn’t know,” she said. “Not that there’s anything…”

I lightly touched the back of her hand. “It’s okay,” I said. “What are the other two questions your friend wants answered?” I patted her hands and then took my own hand away again. This was awkward—the whole thing—but I was getting a kick out of it, not the kind of kick that happens at someone else’s expense, but the kind that comes from a very unusual conversation you’ll replay in your head, laugh about and share with others over drinks.

“Well, she also wants to know if you’re single,” she said.

“I am.” Was she going to ask me out? Why else would she have her friend ask me these questions? I hadn’t dated anyone since Mickey. The exciting little cranial kick I had been getting out of the conversation turned into an exciting little kick in the gut. I braced myself against the wall. Dating. Ugh. I didn’t like the sound of the word, let alone all the emotion and preparation that went into the actual…what was dating? An event, a performance, an action? However it could be categorized, I did not look forward to it. I’m pretty certain that to Collette I must have looked like an opossum who was preparing to play dead. From what I remembered, though, of the black-haired woman, of Shiloh, she was sexy and cute with a presence that I had indeed noticed.

Collette watched my face carefully, as if she were reconsidering her willingness to ask me the third question.

“Is sh...she,” I stuttered, “is Shiloh going to ask me out?”

Collette still watched my face.

“Yes, I think that was her intent,” she said. “If the answers to the first two were yes and yes, then her third question was do you want to do something sometime. If yes, do you want her number so you can call?” She started talking hard and fast to make up for my obvious discomfort. Could she tell I was panicking? I stood up straight and pointed out that she had now asked me four, not three, questions. She laughed and said I was funny.

“This is exactly the reason Shiloh wanted to ask you out. She thought you were funny in yoga and funny in pottery class,” Collette explained, chuckling still. “She liked the sound of your laugh. That’s actually how she recognized you at pottery, in case you were wondering.”

I had not been wondering, but okay, that was cool. What was the harm in letting this woman think I would go out with Shiloh? I didn’t have to commit to anything here. And if I did decide to at least call this Shiloh, well wouldn’t that be inviting my edges back? Perhaps an opportunity to get caught by life was presenting itself here. Dr. Browning would be pleased.

“So, yes, I would like to go do something with her and yes, I’d like her number,” I said, some of the panic subsiding with the sound of Collette’s laughter. I was funny. Good, that was a good thing and it made me feel like I had gained control over my cardiac flutterings. “It’ll sort of be a blind date, I guess,” I said.

Collette pursed her lips, appearing startled. She looked like she wanted to laugh, but wasn’t sure she should. I smiled, so she smiled, and then she broke out in laughter again. She said, “You
are
funny!”

She gave me Shiloh’s number, which I entered directly into my phone. I thanked her for passing on the questions, and I asked her to let Shiloh know I’d be calling her tomorrow. I figured that was enough time to not seem impatient and not so much time that I’d chicken out. After an awkward moment of do-we-shake-hands-or-what, we nodded at each other, smiled and each turned away. Collette went back toward her locker while I floated out of the Y’s front doors. Dating, hmmm.