She clears her throat and looks down at her notebook. “Notes from the second meeting of The Love Sucks Club. Sam complained about how a cute waitress at the resort told her, ‘I wouldn’t date you if you were the last dyke on earth.’ Dana professed vehemently that she would never date again. Roxanne raised a motion that the purpose of the club should not be to bemoan the suckiness of love, but to find a way to change said suckiness in our own lives. The motion was postponed to be discussed at a later meeting.”
Sam smiles. “Roxanne, you don’t belong in this club. You’re too optimistic.”
“If I wasn’t in this club, it would just be you two miserable dykes sitting around whining about love. I’m here to provide a positive spin.”
“We’re not miserable,” I protest. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Laughing, Roxanne pats my hand gently. “Okay, you’re not miserable. But are you happy?”
“I’m not unhappy.”
Sam shrugs. “Neither am I. I have a good life.”
Roxanne smiles. “Yet here we all are.” She gestures around the bar. I have to admit, it’s a far cry from the grill. The few pieces of art are hanging crookedly and covered with dust or grease or other items not worth thinking about. The two employees are an eighty-year-old man who cooks the food and an angry waitress who complains bitterly about her varicose veins whether we ask about her health or not. Most of the tables are in varying states of dilapidation and the chairs are so beat up that Roxanne actually broke one last week. That speaks volumes since she weighs all of about a buck twenty. As I said, this place sucks, but man, their pizza is to die for.
“Well, look.” I’m trying to think of a way to defend this stupid idea. “It’s just a great way for the three of us to make sure we get together once a week.”
“Yes,” Roxanne says. “But if we didn’t have an actual purpose, we could just have a standing date once a week. Making it a club means we have an ultimate goal.”
“Not really.” Sam has two beers in front of her. Since we know the waitress won’t be back for a long time, we tend to double order. Sam opens one of her beers and grins at Roxanne. “The Italian American club just meets to play Bocci ball and vote on agenda items.”
“At least they have agenda items,” Roxanne laughs.
“We have agenda items!” I look down at my notebook. “Item number one – dues.”
“That’s only going to work when we get more members,” Sam says.
“See? It’s our ultimate goal,” I explain. “We get more members and collect dues. The whole thing takes off. We start franchises in other cities. In no time, we’re millionaires.”
“I don’t want to be a millionaire,” Roxanne says. “I just want to be content.”
“Maybe the purpose of our club can be to find Roxanne another wife,” Sam pipes in.
Shaking her head, Roxanne holds up a hand in Sam’s direction. “Not a chance. I’d never trust myself to be a good judge of someone again.”
She has a good point there. Roxanne has spent the last decade taking care of her ex-partner, Evelyn. Roxanne has owned the house here on the island for almost thirty years, but when Evelyn moved in, she basically took over. She’d go off for trips with her friends and come home to dump her dirty laundry on Rox. When she was home, she sat on her ass and let Roxanne make all of the meals, do all of the housework, and pay all of the bills. They ended up breaking up because Evelyn was insisting that Roxanne put the house in Evelyn’s name. Rox finally put her foot down over that and Evelyn left not long after. A few days after, Roxanne realized that their joint account had been completely drained and with it, all of Roxanne’s retirement money. Instead of looking forward to retiring in a few years as she had planned to do, she’s working full time to pay the bills with no foreseeable stopping point. It’s hard for me to look at someone as positive and loving as Roxanne and understand how she could let someone railroad her like that, but I guess no one really understands what goes on inside another person’s relationship. I know most of my friends and family looked at my time with she-who-shall-not-be-named and shook their heads in bewilderment.
“How did that work, anyway?” Sam is curious. “I mean, didn’t you know somewhere deep inside that she was using you? Did you know she was cheating on you?”
Roxanne pats Sam’s hand. “Don’t you know somewhere deep inside that Josie is never going to become a lesbian?”
Stung, Sam pulls back. “I do know that. I’m not counting on her for anything.”