“After our honky-tonk disaster experience, just last night? I can't believe it.”
“Well, maybe I was inspired. But he has a cowboy hat and everything. And a guitar!”
“Are you sure you want to be immortalized in a country song? You know those things never end well.”
“He is just the cutest thing, though. He actually has a picture of his ass in faded blue jeans. You know I love me some ass in faded blue jeans!”
“I know you do!”
She nodded vigorously, her lips pressed together and glistening under what I believed to be a permanent shellac of lipgloss. I had never seen her without it. It was like her superpower.
“Just be safe, okay honey?” I said, suddenly feeling serious and I reached out to tap my fingers on her knee. “You know you never really know somebody. Especially a complete stranger; you can't just believe everything that you hear.”
“I'm just trying to get laid, don't you worry,” she reassured me sincerely. “I don't think either of us is in much of a position to be giving our hearts away. I just want me a little white boy penis to play with.”
She shrugged as though that was the most natural thing in the world to say.
“You should get you some penis too,” she suggested. “That might be just the thing to clean out your cootchie real good."
I rolled my eyes and pulled the afghan up to just under my nose.
“I really don't think I'm ready for that. I just hope I didn't unintentionally make an offer to those men that I can't come through on.”
Melita's eyes went up to the ceiling.
“Unintentionally, you say? It sure sounds intentional to me.”
“Oh, come on, Melita. You know I'm not like that. I was just trying to be confident. Maybe I overshot the mark a little bit on the job thing, is all."
“Overshooting the mark could be really good for you. Maybe this is the new you! This is your chance to start over, after all. You should try being a slut for a while... you might like it!”
I pictured Whitney in my mind. Sluts sure do seem to get whatever they want, after all.
“So what are you gonna wear?” she said, getting up and going over to the closet, flinging the door open. Though this was the living room, its closet was full of clothes just like every other room in the small house. Melita had a lot of clothes.
“I’m more worried about where I’m gonna live,” I called across the room.
Her head popped out of the closet, sideways.
“What are you talking about? You’re gonna live here!”
“Melita, I couldn’t…”
“Well, not forever, but… I mean you’re kidding right? Of course you’re gonna stay here!”
“You’re sure?”
She disappeared behind the door and reappeared with four red dresses on hangers, two dangling from each hand.
“Of course I’m sure,” she said irritably. “You say the weirdest shit sometimes. Of course you’re staying here! Now… which dress?”
I eyed them all skeptically. Though Melita was pretty curvy, she was also about five-foot-two. There was no way any of those was going to cover my ass cheeks all the way.
“Um, maybe something more formal?”
She nodded, her eyes half-closing in a thoughtful squint.
“OK,” she muttered, “that’s gonna be upstairs, back bedroom closet. You like purple?”
“Actually, uh,” I stammered, finding myself blushing, “Lyle said he liked the blue?”
I heard the hangers being snapped back onto the rod and she came out with her hands on her hips.
“Lyle said that?”
I nodded silently.
“And was he the one on your front side or your back side?”
I shrugged, making like I could barely recall, looking around the room as though the memory wasn’t as precise and present as a tattoo.
“Um. Back?”
“HOH. LEE. SHIT.”
“Melita…”
“Brienne, this really doesn’t sound 100% like a job thing.”
“Of course it’s a job thing!” I shot back, suddenly saucy and ticked off.
She snapped in the air, shutting me up immediately.
“Follow me,” she commanded.
Whirling toward the stairs, she marched up and toward the back bedroom, making a beeline for the closet. I hurried after her, trying to maintain my composure.
Well, it is a job thing, isn’t it? I mean, I may have used a little sex appeal to get the job thing, but it is definitely a job thing.
Melita disappeared into the closet. I heard a bunch of thumps and the sound of rustling dry cleaner plastic, maybe a dropped shoe or two. Then she finally came back out panting and sweating, brandishing a long plastic bag on a hanger.