Molly Go Lightly

I always thought there must be something wrong with John's relationship with Heather, he was so guarded when talking about her. I mean, always.

"We have a wonderful relationship. I love her very much." That's what he'd always say.

Now, John wasn't very social-- well, that's just a state of affairs, isn't it? I mean if you don't go out very much, you're not very 'social.' You could have a paucity of acquaintances, living in a new place or something. But he wasn't sociable either; he seemed to positively resent the idea somebody might want him to come out and have fun with them.

I invited him-- the two of them-- over several times. Invited him to bring the two of them over, that is. I've never met Heather.

"Ehhh!" he'd say, this little dismissive buzz of a sound, like he's swatting some slow-hovering dragonfly. "We're not very social people."

"Heather isn't sociable either?" I'd ask, equivocating.

"Well, she likes people, more than I do anyway. But as a couple, we're very happy to keep to ourselves."

*****

"I did something weird today," he complained to me after I sat him down with a mug of hot tea. I'd summoned him for a study session which, since he needs to actually study even less than I do, was pleasantly evolving into an afternoon chit-chat, or so I hoped.

"Ooooh," I said, hoping at last for some juicy confessional. "Is this some weird sexual thing with you and Heather?"

He looked at me with distantly amiable disgust. "I don't know why you'd think-- why you have some kind of preoccupation with Heather and I doing something 'sexually weird', Molly."

"Well, I don't," I said defensively. "But you said you did something weird today, and since apparently you spend most days goofing around listening to Mozart's Symphony No. 9 or something, somebody might think it has to be sexual for you to think it's weird."

He stared crossly at me for a long bit. "You know, you don't know what you're talking about."

I grinned reflexively. "You're supposed to say 'do you' at the end. Like, 'you don't know what you're talking about, do you?' It's supposed to be a rhetorical question when you say something like that."

"Ah, no. You really just don't know what the hell you're talking about. There's nothing ambiguous about it at all. You just--don't--know."

"Okay, well, so you did something weird today, did you?"

He took a nice swig of his tea, like we were friends and my being a scatterbrain (by his imputation) was no biggie. "So, like, I went in to Staples Max this morning, I wanted to get some index cards and maybe some pens. And I get my index cards-- I got them in four different shades, I wanted to try something out with them--"

"You wanted to try out index cards?"

"It's like for different ideas and stuff. I use a poster board. Anyway-- so, I went and searched the pens for a long time, I kinda wanted some of these Univision-- wait, is that it? Uniball?-- anyway, these pens that I like and I found the ones that I wanted and I was walking around with them, moving to the register to check out, and all of a sudden I was like-- well, do you really need them right now? I mean, I've got five or six ballpoints I like pretty well, what's the point of getting these? It's an indulgence. I mean, I'm sure I'll get them eventually but why not just work through a couple of ball points in the meantime? I mean, it's wasteful, so--"

"Yeah, I mean you don't want to overindulge on ink pens. That's like, what the kings of France did wrong."

"Hey, extravagance is extravagance. I mean, there's just no point in having fifty ink pens sitting around doing nothing. I could just wait till Christmas, they can be like a little treat for me."

"Maybe Heather will stuff your stocking with some," I suggested.

"That's a thought."

"Then you can stuff her stocking in return."

"Uh-hmm."

"But not with a pen, I mean."

He looked at me blankly. He said, "Why are you leering at me?"

"I'm not leering at you. God, you're so smug sometimes. I'm just-- leering in general, is all."

He shook his head like he was trying to avoid some noxious fume. "So--so I decided to put them back. Waste not want not. And I felt pretty good about it. I mean, good call, you know? So I'm heading back again to the register with my index cards and all of a sudden I notice this clearance stuff at the top of the aisle, these, like, composition notebooks?"

"Mm-hmm."

"And I thought, oh, a buck-sixty, that's not bad. But like, I don't need composition books either, I've got four I'm working on right now. But,, maybe it was this kind of wild euphoria, like I'd just avoided losing ten bucks on the ink pens, now I could afford to be a bit indulgent with something else?"

"Like you'd just won the lottery," I chimed in. "Like, just go crazy and shit."

"People go crazy like that," he said, nodding sagely. "And next thing you know, I pick up two of them and I went and bought them."

"Wow."

"But here's where it gets all O. Henry on me. I check out and I'm almost back home when it suddenly hits me-- I paid full price for those things."

"Oh-- my-- God."

"Yeah! They were like, three-sixty a pop."

"Three-sixty for a composition book? What've they got, hidden Velcro pockets or something?"

He swiveled his eyes warily. "They were what you'd call, erm, fashion notebooks, I guess."

"Wait, you mean like girl's composition books?"

He glared at me coolly. "I don't know how something can be called a 'girl's' composition book. If you want to talk about critiquing essentialism from a feminist perspective, that's just in--"

"Did they have, like, glossy neon peace signs on them, by any chance?" I asked insinuatingly.

John gave his eyes a sort of demi-roll. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "It was autumn foliage is all."

*****

I talked him into giving them to me; I love freebies. He really didn't seem too attached to them; I guess he had genuine Buyer's Remorse. Anyway, I could use them, for my special writing.

"What kind of writing do you have, this 'special writing'," he had asked.

I grinned at him flauntingly. "I'm writing what you'd call a 'erotic romance'!" I exclaimed. I trusted this was something he wouldn't spread too far and wide, though unlike him I wasn't going to make a total ass of myself being all conspicuous about begging people to keep something a secret.

He snorted out a diminutive little laugh. "Yes, I'd expect that with you," he said, meaninglessly.

*****

"So, what is it you want from this guy?" my housemate and friend Holly demanded of me that evening, when we were cleaning up the dishes.

"She wants his dick!" is what Candy, our newer housemate-- a stripper--supplied for a response, cackling merrily. We'd taken Candy in for the rent three months ago, but we'd all gotten along pretty well, even though having Candy around was more like having an exhibit, or maybe just a kind of waiting catalyst, set up in the house, than the stuff of budding friendship.

Mellow with alcohol and spaghetti, I was of no mind to deny it. "I would like to try his dick," I agreed. "I'd like to see what's so fucking great about his girlfriend, and why he's so uptight about it, and I'd like to make him less uptight. It'd be nice to wreck the home a little bit."

"I know why you've got it in for them," said Holly accusingly, laughing, pointing a spoon at my face. "You don't want to see people happy, that's your problem."

"Bullshit!" I exclaimed, flush-faced. "He can't be happy. He can't make her happy either. It's all a load of crap. They're just bundled up because they can't face the truth, I know it."

"Truth," Candy said, weighing the idea. "Truth about what?"

"John's a big-- he's like a wet pair of Hanes, a tighty-whitey. Heather, whoever she is, she's just a wet blanket too. I know it. He's all besodden--besotted--whatever the fuck-- with her because he doesn't know better. I don't want to keep him around or anything-- who in their right mind would want him?-- but I'd be doing him a favor to make him stray." I grabbed my glass with a sudsy hand. My rational mind could tell Candy was amused with my being a bit drunk and emboldened, full of plans. I understood she suspected me for a wet dishcloth too. Well, there was no harm in that; she was a stripper, I was just an education major. She had a sleek mane of blue hair and a septum ring, she was entitled to play den mother whenever debauchery was the subject du jour. Still, I can hold my own. I can be quite a slut, actually.

Holly was joyously contradicting me. "You're full of shit! Forbidden fruit, that's what he is. I bet you'll get nothing for your trouble and then his girlfriend will be coming over here to gouge your eyes out."

"She's declawed, I can feel it. They're sheep. They were probably virgins when they hooked up or something. They just don't know the options, is all. I can mold him. A couple of BJs and I'll send him out into the world a new man."

"Yeah, make a couple of babies while you're at it and see if that keeps him," Holly protested. "Face it, you love the impossible. Why do you keep inviting him over anyway when all you do is make fun of him? And how have these 'study sessions' been going, anyway? You've had enough time to work your mojo, don't you think! When's he gonna whip it out for you?" She laughed in amiable mockery, shoving me out from in front of the sink to dump the greasy salad plates.

"No no no no!" I shouted, really too full of wine-fueled insistence. "I'm just been biding my time, is all. When I'm ready he's all mine!"

Candy was grinning, a little too demurely for my taste. She must've thought Holly was right. She said, "When you're ready for your time to stop biding, or whatever, you should let me dress you for the seduction. Give him your A game."

"Well, I'm sure I can find a corset out on the couch in case I need to improvise," I said, referring to the tendency of her PVC to get tossed in with everything. I blushed a bit, not having meant to be sarcastic, fearful I'd stuck my foot in my mouth. But I don't think she registered it that way.

"You guys are still owing me makeovers. You're housemates, I have to get to do you at some point," she said.

"Yeah, that'll happen sometime," I said, a bit noncommittally.

*****

About a week or so later, I was talking in the library to my friend-- well, esteemed classmate, at any rate-- Crystal. I was saying something about the shit that went down in 1848, and I dunno, I guess I'll ask John about that, and she says to me:

"Yeah, why is it John doesn't seem to like you very much?"

"What?" I cried, really winded all of a sudden just to hear somebody say that, out of the blue.

"I mean, y'all study together sometimes, don't you?"

"Well, yeah," I answered. "Who is it says he doesn't like me very much?"

"Well," she said, suddenly looking down at the toe of her shoe for some hidden imperfection, "I was talking to him the other night, walking home past the duck pond, and I was just mentioning you and I said-- well, what I said was, 'Molly's such a good friend, she's like a saint really--'"

"Oh my god, that's so sweet of you!" I gushed, thrilled.

"Well, but then he just laughs, I mean really has his head thrown back and everything, like he was in stitches. And I was, well, taken aback, and I was asking him what did he mean, laughing like that, and finally he pulls himself together and he shakes his head and says, 'That Molly, it's like a 21st Century Dostoevsky novel over there.' He says, 'I go there for tea and sympathy, and I have to move some stripper's vinyl corset just to find a seat.'"

I laughed-- I did find that amusing; come to think of it, I'd noticed his little frowns of distaste. He'd hardly ever run into Candy though-- she was asleep usually, or out. "Well," I said, "I expect as much. But I don't suppose he blames me for that--"

"Well," she said, examining now the sole of her shoe with a preoccupied frown, "he did say-- He said, 'You let Molly pull the wool over your eyes. She may be many things, but she's certainly no saint.'"

A little fire of indignation purred in my belly. I just said, "Well, we can't all be saints, can we? At least I try and-- well, I make him tea. Or did he have a complaint about that, too?"

"Erm, no."

"No, of course not. It's good tea, that."

*****

No saint. What the motherfuck was that supposed to mean?

When I came in that evening the place was booming, some remix of Pink pounding out of the speakers. I found them in the downstairs bathroom, Holly sitting beneath a nylon apron, her hair slathered in goo.

"We're doing a--the makeover!!" they chanted, more or less in unison. Holly looked as if she'd gotten liquored up for the occasion. Candy looked bright-eyed and very pleased. Holly was pointing out an arm beneath the apron, like some Frankenstein monster rising beneath the burial shroud. "You have to go too, now!" she said ominously.

Candy was flitting busily about within the confines of the room, her deep sea-blue locks flashing mysteriously. "Yes, you too," she chimed, in a sort of helpfully totalitarian tone, like an airline stewardess or a cokehead au pair.

I made what I hoped was a disarmingly noncommittal noise (as if to say, "I'm not threatened by that, really I'm up for anything!") and went to pour myself a drink.

Wool over their eyes. Not a saint. Damn motherfucking right I ain't no saint. Little pussy-willow. I'm gonna have his cock for breakfast one day.

*****

The goo was bleach. I wouldn't have ever said Holly's hair was mousy-- not to her face anyway. But now-- "I look like a stripper!"

"You could be a stripper," Candy chimed in assuringly. "Don't you think we've taken her up a notch?" she asked me.

"Uhm, yeah," I agreed for the sake of agreement. We'd repaired to the kitchen, Holly free of the apron but still wearing a white towel around her neck like some outcast nun.

"We need to let it rest a day or two," Candy explained. "Then I set upon the major damage."

"What's that mean?" I said, as if filling in for Holly in case she was mute with contrition for ever letting a beauty school-dropout who pole dances near her mousy little head.

"Ooo, lot's of stuff," Holly enthused. But Candy just said, "I don't know, ideas are simmering. Some crazy bangs, a little asymmetry, that much I know. What should we do about you?"

I tried to deflect. "Be mindful I'm trying to seduce a doofus for my latest project. I don't need to turn into something that'll scare him off."

Holly cooed. "Make her a super heroine, that'd turn him on I bet."

I sputtered in disagreement. "He's a history graduate student Holly, not a comic-con geek. I should probably get a powdered wig or something." I scrounged in the fridge, pulling out a couple of slices of dank bread and hussled them onto a plate. "Reminds me, I've gotta finish that Catherine the Great bio," I complained, and fled up to my room.

*****

"What are your fantasies?" I asked him the next day.

"Dear God. Why ever do you think that a casual acquaintance should be entitled to ask such a question?"

"What makes you think I'm a casual acquaintance?"

He moaned. "Friendship is a real meeting of two souls. I mean I like you well enough, Molly, but that doesn't mean one shares every last little detail with another person."

"Do you share your fantasies with Heather?"

"Well . . . We share everything that needs sharing."

I hoped he couldn't see a bubble of snot pop out of my nose when I snorted over that. "Do you even have fantasies, John?"

"Everybody has fantasies. It's natural."

I sighed beatifically. "Well I'm glad to hear you concede that much at least. So, speaking very generally here, --what do you fantasize about?"

His head sort of rolled around like a globe under the thumb of some kid who's trying to find Madagascar for the first time. Finally he stops swiveling and just says, "No."

"'No'? What kind of fantasy is 'no''? Fantasies should be life-enhancing John. Come on, tell me what enhances your life sexually. Come on, just in imagination."

He just grins at me, the asshole. "My imagination is at peace and my life is fully enhanced. I have the love of a beautiful woman and my life is very well."

I turned my head off to the side, hoping that if I was blushing at least I could give him a pretty display of my profile. I imagined my eyes were stinging. My throat felt snotty. "Well," I said, gathering my words, "that's a very pretty picture indeed. Much more worthy than a fantasy. What bliss you must have!" I laughed a halting little laugh. "I just hope Heather doesn't catch you jerking off over 'Martha Stewart Living' or something."

*****

"Why do we need the tin foil?" I was captive in the chair, at the bathroom sink, that same night.

"Shhh, leave it all in my hands," Candy answered.

"Shouldn't I really get a say in this?" I pleaded with her, mostly for show by that point. It was supposed to be a lark-- not her word, but that was the general concept-- and without the element of surprise for me where would be the lark in all that?

"I'm fanciful," she said. 'Fanciful', I thought to myself, why does she use a word like that? I wondered suddenly if maybe Candy had a cokehead au pair in her past. How was I to know?

"Anyway," she went on, "nothing so extreme as for Holly. She really wanted livening up. For you I think I'll just try to bring out all that bookish girl geek appeal, know what I mean?"

She said it so approvingly I blushed just a bit. "I know what you mean," I replied, taking a giggle of self-appreciation. 'Geek appeal' says the stripper! I got just a tiny bit dewy down below.

*****

I was a bookish little baby doll, she cooed at me as she fussed with my eye makeup. Fussed and fussed and fussed. I just kept my eyes closed most of the time, it seemed appropriate, and safest too. The working of her hands, her tools, the sheer fact of so much time being bestowed upon me, and a certain instinctual excitement just at her exotic presence, so near, hovering and maternal, served to float me off upon a humid lake of patient pleasure.

But my boat capsized when she finally let me see the results. Deep, atomic purple streaks, big chunky ones, spaced regular across my crow-colored hair, pulled back into a messy bun. Like some purple peppermint. My eyes bewildering, multi-hued shimmering saucers, three or four, maybe more, shades of neon eye shadow, lavenders and silvery blues, maybe a smudge of green in the inner corners. My lashes fluffed and puffed like the spiky mouth of a Venus Flytrap. Lips the color of a pink barstool thrown through a carwash. Shimmering high cheeks, like some comet-dusted Jetson girl.

She hovered behind the image in the mirror, seeming for once the regular, normative face of the two. I felt her mermaid-blue hair brush the nape of my neck like undulating threads of silk-soft sea weed.

She grinned toothily for a while, letting me sink it all in till the exotic impossibility of my transformed visage overwhelmed rational assessment. I squealed maniacally and she finally burst, crying out, "Sexy! I know!"

She passed me a drink-- what was this, asti?-- and I sipped gratefully, lightheaded already, and finally I asked, "Can you do my makeup every day though?"

I was feeling a rush of debilitation, already, at the thought of losing all this outer-cosmos beauty. But Candy just said, "For a week, at least. Unless you have to make a funeral. And I'll train you, till you can be assured of doing it yourself . . . "

Oh bless you, Candy, bless you.

*****

"In here, John! I've got the house all to myself."

His feet scraped through the hallway in that leisured way he had when he was assured of not having Holly spring out at him and he walked into my den and stood there, surveying me mutely as I sat upon my throne. I waved my arms regally. He dropped the books under his arm onto his usual seat at his side. One of them skidded after a pause onto the floor, fitting its spine into the crease of an open "Vogue."