The Ballad of Lisa and Lacey (Part II)
For Part I click here

            The next day was easy.  There had been a few “what ifs” from the shadows the night before, but with her rent paid, $306.00 in the bank, a credit card (with not that much on it) and bankable parents, Lacey finally went to sleep — with Lisa taking her picture in front of the Eiffel Tower.  In the morning, she found her passport (sock drawer) and telephoned Lisa with all the details.  They agreed to meet for dinner at Lisa’s hotel.  Then she telephoned work and killed off her grandmother (not the live one.)  Tony, the assistant manager, who’d “accidently” brushed past her ass more than once, was really totally sorry and offered to talk if she needed to but could only give her a week off — without pay.  That didn’t bother Lacey.  It was only a part-time job, and she didn’t really like it that much anyway.  Besides, she had a feeling Tony would probably re-hire her.  Then she went out to the university and borrowed a suitcase from Shannon, who was really totally sorry as well and said she’d cover Lacey’s classes for her — just in case.  At some point, she thought about telephoning the parents, but she just wasn’t up for the trial by combat her mother would put her through.  And she already had a pretty good idea what kind of mountain of grief they’d give her if this thing went bad.  It wasn’t worth it to start the process early.  And that was that.  It was that simple.  By the time Lacey was back in her apartment, looking at the open, empty suitcase, she had disconnected herself.  For the next two weeks, she could say and do — and be — whatever she wanted to be, including, as it turned out, Lisa’s daughter.

That’s what they decided to do, at dinner that evening, just in case anyone on the tour asked — and, according to Lisa, somebody was bound to ask.  Actually, it wasn’t that big a stretch: the two women had similar colouring and hair, and anyway it was a lot easier to explain than “we met at a coffee shop three days ago.”

They tried it out on the bright smile hotel server when he brought the bill, and he seemed particularly pleased that they’d confided in him — after admitting that he thought they were sisters.

“I don’t have a sister.” Lisa said, after he’d gone.

“Neither do I.”

Lacey laughed, “Brothers?”

“Brother,” Lisa replied.

Lacey held up three fingers.

“All older,” she said.

“Oh, my God,” Lisa said. “I had one and that was bad enough.”

Lacey held up her wine glass and shook her head.

“You don’t wanna know.  But here’s a toast to the sisters we never had.”

Their glasses barely touched, and the high-pitched single tink was inaudible — except to the two of them.

“And  I want you to know, I promise to be the best daughter you never had.”

Lisa drank at her wine, set it down and smiled.

“I have a daughter, Lace, and a son.”

Lacey held the wine glass to her mouth to conceal her surprise.

“And they aren’t very much younger than you are.”

Lisa waited.  Lacey set her glass down.  She wasn’t sure what her reaction should be.  This changed things.  It wasn’t “just us girls” going on an adventure anymore.  Lacey knew that Lisa was older but … she had never suspected she was anybody’s mother.  Mothers and girls were different.  Mothers didn’t get dumped by bastard lovers; they got divorced.  Mothers had things, possessions — stuff.  Things they had to worry about.  Girls worried about whether or not their underwear matched.  Mothers had responsibilities.  But the big problem was mothers and girls weren’t equals.  Lacey picked up her glass again.

“I’m only 37, Lace.  I  had Ben and Courtney when I was quite young.”

“Where are they?”

Lacey sipped her wine and set it down.

“At home.”

“What?  How come — uh?”

“Let me show you.”  Lisa picked her telephone out of her handbag.  She tapped and swiped a few times and then handed it to Lacey.

“That’s them at the airport when I left on Monday.  Ben, Court and Bertram — my husband.”  Lisa said, reaching her finger across to point.

“I don’t understand.  Who’d you have the fight with here on Tuesday, then?”

“That was something that hasn’t been working out for a couple of years, but neither one of us knew how to end it.  So we just conjured up a big fight and now it’s over.”

“So your husband?”

“No. Bert’s safe at home,” Lisa looked at her watch, “Probably just climbing into bed with his receptionist.”

“Oh,” Lacey said with some distaste.

“It’s no sin.  What do you think I was doing Monday night?  We live in a very small town, Lacey.  Everybody knows everybody.  I just prefer to keep my marital lapses away from the local rumour mill; that’s all.  So every year, rather than have my particulars discussed around the local campfires, I take a business,” Lisa made finger quotes in the air, “trip to Europe.”

“And your husband knows?”

“He knows something.”

“What about the kids?”

From the picture they obviously weren’t children.

“They’re both old enough to hear the gossip,”  Lisa shrugged, “That’s why I try to be as discreet as possible.”

“So why drag me along?”

“Spur of the moment.  Like I said, we click, you and I.  You’re smart, witty.  You’re kind.  You were kind to me.  It feels right, Lace.  I can talk to you.  I just want to go and have fun for a couple of weeks.  A ‘just us girls’ adventure.”

Lacey drank the last of her wine.  Oddly, she felt very sophisticated, just then.

The Ballad of Lisa and Lacey (Part 1)

            Lacey was not a lesbian.  In fact, after all these years, she wasn’t even bi-curious.  She considered herself a realist.  She had a degree in Business Admin, and had worked for the same mega-multinational coffee company for so long she was on the day shift.  She still told her friends she was turning irony into a career.  She lived without frills in a three story walk-up in what was rapidly becoming a trendy neighborhood.  Her real name was Lucinda, but a boyfriend in college had called her Lacey (after her man-catcher underwear) and the name had stuck.  She had two discreet tattoos, but aside from that and her fingerprints, she could have been any woman looking 30 in the face and wondering “Where’d the time go?”  But Lacey, as far as Lacey knew, was unique, because every year, regular as May the first, she packed two expensive suitcases and went on vacation — with Lisa.

Lisa was a secret that had started one sharp rain April evening, nearly a decade earlier, when the woman who was weeping spilled her coffee.  The neighbourhood wasn’t trending then, and the high-heeled woman was out of place.  Lacey, bored beyond relief, took pity on her and strolled over with a moist cloth to offer damage control, and even though she didn’t know it at the time, it was love at first wipe.

That was the beginning.  A random gesture that stretched into three more days.  On the second night, over a very late, after work, dinner Lisa explained that long distance wasn’t the best ingredient for love, and she’d been unceremoniously dumped in favour of someone closer at hand.  Her heart was torn but not broken.  Lacey, after two too many glasses of wine, offered that love was indeed a bastard and that three years of university had left her with no one and nothing but debt and doubt and no way out.  They toasted their equally maddening and mixed up lives and decided two survivors needed to survive.  Later, in Lisa’s hotel lobby, there was a fragile secular two cheek kiss and a promise of lunch.

The next day was an afternoon, wet with glistening streets from a sun broken spring rain morning.

“Do you have a passport?” Lisa said, angling her eyes down and out of the bright bleached cafe window.

Lacey had a passport, somewhere.  It was left over from a less than successful Greek and Roman senior trip.  She looked skyward trying to remember if it was still at the bottom of her sock drawer or had she put it with the income tax.

“Yeah.”

“I know this might sound crazy but the thing is — the reason I’m here,” Lisa pointed down, “Is we were going to take a trip to Europe.” There was a pause, “Obviously we’re not going to now, but I — um — I still have the tickets.” There was another pause, “And the tour company says I can’t get the money back.”

Lisa held out her hands, empty and open.  There was silence.

“Are you asking me?  I-I-I can’t afford something like that.”

“No, no. It’s all paid for.  Flight, hotels, food, everything.  It’s all-inclusive, five star. All we have to do is show up at the airport.”

“Wow!”

“Well?”

“No.” Lacey took a breath, “No, I can’t.  I’ve got school.  I’ve — I’ve got a job.  I’ve got … I — I can’t.”

“Why not?  Paris, a cruise down the Rhone river, the Riviera, back to Paris for a couple of days and home.  Two weeks.  It’s the chance of a lifetime.”

It was.  It was the chance of a lifetime.

“Tell them you’re sick.  Tell them your aunt died.  Tell them whatever.  Come on!  I really don’t want to go alone.

“Why — why me?  You must have friends,” Lacey said, shaking her head.

“It’s the day after tomorrow, and everybody I know is back home. And they’ve got kids and commitments and everything’s all so complicated with them.  This is just the sort of wild and crazy thing I need to do right now.”

The sun slanted across the table, but it was slowly fading as more clouds moved into the sky.  It darkened the room and closed them in together.

“We click, Lace.  We’re simpatico.  Come on, please.  It’ll be fun.”

And there on the afternoon edge of dark and light, Lacey knew it would be fun.  It would be bright and dancing with sprinkling fairy lights and rippling silver water, and it would be like nothing she’d ever done before.  Lacey looked across the table.  It was almost time for her to go to work.  She could see Lisa’s face clearly, and it was friendly and open and warm, and she was smiling.

Next Friday Part 2

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These days, a writer can’t just write.  Writers need to be lawyers, designers, social media consultants and a hundred other things.  They need to not only produce their work, but package it and market it, as well.  In short, they need to be shameless self promoters.

This is Part 1 of the last short story in the collection The Woman in the Window.  I’m going to print in all here — on consecutive Fridays — so anybody can read it for free.  The hope is that you’ll like it so much that when the book comes out, you’ll buy it.  Of course, if you can’t wait, the other stories are available on Amazon.  (See my Home Page menu under Fiction — Available on Amazon.)  Or you can check out “Scars” on my Home Page menu; it’s free, as well.  Either way, I hope you enjoy “The Ballad of Lisa and Lacey.”

WD