Chapter 13

We called a cab and headed toward Diamonds & Pearls in Jacksonville.

“Who was more influential?” Julia settled into the front seat. “Sting or Bono?”

“Bono,” Sarah said. “He’s practically a saint.”

“Bono isn’t even Catholic.” Rebekah tried to tuck her long legs behind the driver’s seat.

“Why does your choice come down to men?” I asked. “Why not Debby Harry or Pat Benatar?”

“Pat Benatar?” Sarah asked.

“Do you think for one minute that we’d have Courtney Love or Shirley Manson today if Pat Benatar hadn’t paved the way?” I looked around at my friends.

“I don’t remember you having any pictures of women on your walls when we were kids,” Rebekah pointed out.

“That’s true.” I nodded. “Men turn me on, but women inspire.”

“Even now,” Julia turned back toward us, “if you aren’t into sappy songs, it’s difficult to find decent work done by women.”

“That’s so not true!” Sarah rolled down the window a crack. “I have to let out all the hot hair.”

“What do you know?” Rebekah got out some lip gloss. “Your favorite singer is still Helen Reddy.”
“It is hard to find music done by a female that isn’t overloaded with estrogen.” I borrowed Rebekah’s lip gloss and mirror. “Women aren’t all lofty creatures in search of a tearjerker and I don’t have time to comb through Rolling Stone for a female that’s carefully hidden away.”

“They’re out there, Olivia.” Sarah reached for some lip gloss as well. “It doesn’t take much effort to find them.”

“It takes a whole lot of effort to find a female voice that moves me,” I said.

“Olivia’s right.” Rebekah retrieved her makeup and put it back in her purse. “The female artists being propped up by official tastemakers don’t appeal to me either. They are as pretentious as they are passionless.”

“I’ll continue to wait in line for Beastie Boys tickets,” I said, “until a woman comes along who speaks for me.”

“Beastie Boys?” Sarah asked. “Are you a twelve year-old boy?”

“Getting back to my original point,” Julia said, “Sting influenced me to pick up a dictionary and express myself using better words. He’s my pick.”

“Cyndi Lauper.” Rebekah smiled. “I loved her attitude.”

“Mother Theresa is my official pick.” Sarah ignored our groans. “Now there’s a female worth emulating.”

Even our cabbie rolled his eyes.

We walked into Diamonds & Pearls and I suddenly felt like an extra from Saturday Night Fever.
The revolving lights, crowded dance floor, and men sporting fluffy chest hair were enough to send me running for the door. The artist of the night was G Love and Special Sauce, so I took that as a good sign and decided to stay. Club styles change over the years, yet the essential theme remains the same. Dozens of single people milling about, looking for action.

“I bet you’re the only nun in the joint.” I nudged Sarah as we sat down at the bar.

“I’ll bet you’re right.” She looked around. “I’ll go to confession tomorrow just for sitting here.”

We ordered a round and surveyed the crowd.

“Pathetic.” Rebekah shook her head. “During the early nineties, clubs started to become depressing as hell. Half the women here tonight are shopping around for a husband and they’ll wind up with a venereal disease instead. So sad.”

“They can’t all be as lucky as you,” I said.

“Luck has nothing to do with it.” She looked around with authority. “I used to go to places like this and end up with a bisexual who wanted more than I could ever give him. After a week of dry humping in public bathrooms, I’d cry and wonder why I couldn’t find a decent man. Then it finally hit me that I was never going to find Mr. Right on a dance floor.”

“Who knew the real action was in the operating room?” I said. “Maybe I’ll need plastic surgery one day and hook up with a doctor.”

“Why would you need plastic surgery?” she asked. “Your thighs are fine.”

I looked down at my legs.

“What are you guys talking about?” Julia asked.

“We’re having a superior moment.” I shrugged. “Rebekah looks out over the crowd and sees replicas of her former self. Desperate women looking for love and getting the consolation prize instead.”

“Which is?” Sarah asked.

“Gonorrhea,” I replied.

“I wasn’t desperate.” Rebekah shook her index finger in my direction. “And gonorrhea was before my time.”

“Nonsense.” Julia danced in place. “Remember what it was like to dance all night and feel revived when the sun came up? We had the Library up in Tally and Club X in Gainesville. Back home there was always Ybor City.”

“That’s right,” Rebekah said. “Gay clubs filled with men who’d buy endless rounds and teach us how to properly inhale cigarettes.”

“Gay clubs were great.” Sarah laughed, happy to join the conversation. “No one hit on me.
Getting together with friends and blowing off steam was important in college; it wasn’t always about getting laid.”

“Obviously.” Julia pointed at Sarah.

“I never really went to dance clubs,” I said.

“You didn’t sleep around or dance?” Julia shook her head in pity. “I’m at a loss.”

“So sad.” Rebekah rubbed my back. “You never went through the dirty dancing phase?”

“What did you do for fun or to break up the boredom?” Julia asked. “Drugs?”

“I did mushrooms once,” I admitted.

“So you were slightly normal after all?” Rebekah asked.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Julia told Rebekah before turning to me. “Was this your first taste of an intoxicating substance?”

“I had tried pot and alcohol,” I replied.

“Pot.” Rebekah looked around with nostalgia in her eyes. “I enjoyed marijuana almost as much as a stiff bone job.”

“I’ve had neither,” Sarah giggled.

“You ain’t missin’ much,” Julia said.

“You almost tried pot,” Rebekah reminded Sarah.

“I put it up to my lips, but the smell grossed me out so I passed.” Sarah cringed at the memory.
“I haven’t had a joint since I was twenty-five,” I said. “It made me paranoid and sleepy.”

“Sounds like fun.” Sarah stuck out her tongue.

“Drugs became off-limits once Michael and I decided to have kids.” Rebekah looked around for the bartender. “Parents are embarrassing enough. Who wants one that’s stoned all the time? Either grow up, be responsible, and bring children into the world-”

“Or don’t,” Julia agreed. “This ain’t the sixties anymore.”

“It isn’t fair to risk getting arrested.” Sarah waved over the bartender and we all stared in appreciation.

“By the time Michael came along, pot was the only holdover,” Rebekah said after we ordered our drinks. “Before that, I tried damn near everything.”

“Cocaine?” Sarah asked.

“I’d do salad bowls full of it,” Rebekah replied. “Coke gave me the energy I needed to clean my apartment. As soon as nose sores arrived and coughing up blood began, the allure disappeared. Addicting as hell, though. It took years for me to be able to look at a vacuum cleaner and not want to get wired first.”

“Heroin?” Julia asked.

“Are you crazy?” Rebekah looked offended.

“You said everything,” Julia pointed out.

“Damn near everything,” Rebekah corrected her. “I wasn’t part of the heroin clique. That’s an ugly drug. You get track marks everywhere, rotten teeth, circles under your eyes, no one returns your calls and for what? A half-hour of joy maybe the first three times using it. After that, you’re a tragic drama queen fighting the urge to score before dying young and penniless. Boring!”

“I never did anything other than pot and mushrooms.” I paid for the first round of drinks and handed them out to my girls.

Rebekah and I drank cosmopolitans, Julia ordered a Corona, and Sarah sipped her white wine like a lady.

“Pot and mushrooms,” Julia said. “If it’s organic, don’t panic.”

“Tell us the mushroom story,” Rebekah said. “That must have been a fun night.”

“No one is killed, right?” Sarah took a step away from us.

“Right,” I replied. “I was dating this guy and we had only known each other a few weeks. He
took me to a cow pasture one night in his car. I thought maybe I’d finally get felt up, but he had other things on his mind.”

“Felt up?” Julia asked. “Were you fifteen?”

“We flicked, picked, and brought the mushrooms back to his place.” I ignored Julia’s sarcasm.
“We filtered them and poured in purple Kool-Aid. Tomorrow Never Knows was on the stereo and I downed the juice in one gulp.”

“Tastes like shit, doesn’t it?” Rebekah asked.

“The worst,” I replied. “After we went swimming, it hit me. My heart was beating so fast, as if I’d just finished a marathon, yet it’s the euphoric sensation that made the evening spectacular. Joy oozed out of my pores and I’m convinced that’s how dying must feel. Peace with the world and everyone in it only comes by way of drug or death certificate.

“I started to drift off when Jesus, John Lennon, and Jim Morrison pulled up in a yellow school bus to transport me over the rainbow. My date finally dragged me out of the pool, we went back to the apartment and everything took a downturn when I accidentally saw myself in the bathroom mirror.”

“Choice move.” Rebekah shook her head. “You should never look into a mirror when doing drugs.”

“I started to freak out and temporarily forgot my name, age, and where I lived,” I said.

“Talk about losing control.” Julia rose her eyebrows.

“The next morning I was so relieved to be sane that I never tried mushrooms again,” I said.

“Whatever happened to the guy?” Julia asked.

“I killed him.”

No one look amused.

“Denis is alive and well.” I tried not to laugh. “He married a paralegal and they live in Idaho.
That’s my big drug story. ”

“That’s it?” Rebekah was clearly disappointed. “No trips to the emergency room, no dry-humping a calf, no utterly embarrassing tales of woe?”

“Udder-ly.” Julia chuckled. “That’s great.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Olivia’s too much of a control freak to have a drug problem,” Sarah said.

“Why add to my list of vices?” I asked. “A smoke every now and then, Starbucks coffee, and Howard Stern. There isn’t room for more.”

“I have a drug story,” Sarah announced, “and it’s a good thing; otherwise I’d spend the weekend listening and lecturing with nothing of my own to contribute.”

“I remember your drug story,” Julia said. “This never gets old.”

“You tried drugs?” Rebekah asked.

“I have to keep you guessing, Rebekah,” Sarah said. “Or you’ll get bored with me.”

“This should be good,” I got comfortable.

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Rebekah poked me in the ribs.

“After college, I ran an after-school program for troubled kids,” Sarah said. “My co-worker was another nun right out of school, Noreen, and we had become good friends. She was great. We had a lot in common; once I bought some clogs and a few days later, Noreen’s mom sent her the exact same pair in the mail.”

“Clogs?” Rebekah asked. “Was this 1973?”

“Did you share habits and chastity belts, too?” Julia asked.

“My point is that we were a lot alike,” Sarah said. “The kids made the usual lesbian-nun jokes, but I was relieved to have someone to talk with about the challenges of being a young nun in today’s society.”

“Interesting,” Julia said. “And yet, not.”

“No wonder you turned to drugs,” I said.

“Moving ahead,” Sarah tried to ignore our comments. “Every Friday night we’d have a social for the kids and normally it was pretty routine. The kids would dance, a few fights might break out, yet everyone usually enjoyed themselves. One particular Friday night, Noreen started to feel dizzy.”

“Did she see her life flash before her eyes and fall asleep?” Rebekah asked.

“It came on quickly,” Sarah continued, “and she needed to be driven home. As we were driving, she started to act bizarre, hyperventilating and seeing ghosts. We both thought she was going to die. I have never been so scared in my life. I got her into the apartment, we’re both crying and a mess, when the spell hits me, too.”

“The spell?” Julia asked. “You sound like my grandmother describing menopause.”

“I started to feel sharp,” Sarah said.

“Do you normally feel dull?” Rebekah asked.

“That’s the only way I can describe it,” Sarah replied. “For some reason, Noreen thought to play her answering machine and our boss left a message saying that the punch was spiked with acid.”

Julia, Rebekah, and I laughed and ordered another round.

“Maybe now it’s funny.” Sarah sipped the last of her wine. “Back then I was petrified. The director told us to go to the hospital if we felt any symptoms, but we were frozen on Noreen’s couch like zombies. I kept thinking about a patient my mother had when I was about ten. The guy overdosed on PCP, thought he was an orange, and peeled himself. I thought for sure that would happen to me. Noreen and I both freaked out because normal sounds like running water became overpowering and we prayed to get through it alive.”

“You should have called me,” Rebekah said. “I would have talked you down.”

“All of a sudden,” Sarah continued, “Noreen started to laugh. She fell down on the floor, she was laughing so hard. She laughed all the way to her bedroom and shut the door. I stayed on the couch, still too scared to move. Then Noreen whispered that everything was going to be alright.”

“She was whispering through her door?” Rebekah asked. “And you heard her?”

“As God as my witness.” Sarah raised her right hand.

“Who can argue with that?” I asked.

“After a while, I felt good enough to walk home,” Sarah said. “I lived the next block over and was halfway there when my feet started to swell up. I remember having to stop every few seconds because they were like three times their normal size. I had a panic attack and by the time I got to my front door, I could barely walk. I sat down on my couch and started to cry when the phone rang. It was Noreen. She wanted to know why I wore her clogs home.”

“How did the rest of the night go?” Rebekah did not look impressed.

Sarah smiled and sipped her drink.

“That’s the Thirteenth Mystery,” Julia said.

“All I’ll say is this,” Sarah said. “I talked with God and fell into the most profound state of mind that continues to this day. It was a magical night.”

“And Noreen?” Rebekah asked. “What happened to her?”

“She ended up leaving the church and marrying a Protestant,” Sarah replied. “She still sends me Christmas cards.”

“I didn’t think it was possible.” Rebekah grabbed her second drink. “Your story was worse than Olivia’s.”

“I wish we had video of you crawling home wearing clogs that were too small for your feet,” I said. “I’d pay top dollar for that.”

We watched the people around us.

“Come on freaks.” Rebekah hopped down off her stool. “Let’s dance.”