Geek Porn Girl

Happy New Year!

I really wanted to finish this story in 2007. So, this is the last installment in a 5-part series. (Also, as a geek clarification, I should point out that my blogging service runs on GMT – Greenwich Mean Time – so although the post date is Jan. 1, 2008, I really did finish this story on Dec. 31, 2007, PST – Pacific Standard Time – as I intended.)

To read the entire series, in sequence, in one file, click here.

Part V

Kingman was fine.

Actually, it was exactly as I expected.

By the time I pulled up in front of Angelina’s place, the sun had dropped below the horizon and I was squinting at my printed sheet of directions in the dark. I sat there for a moment, double-checking the address, before I realized it was still 85 degrees out. My skin was hot and sticky, and my favorite traveling shirt was a rumpled mess. With some effort, I peeled myself off the seat of the car and began to climb out into the airless night.

Everything was so quiet and still, I was wondering if I had the right place, when the porch light suddenly came on and the front door flew open. Angie stood in the light spilling out onto the front walkway. In each hand she held a tall, frosty glass with a slice of lime hanging off the rim.

“Welcome to Hell or Arizona – I’m never sure which. I’d give you a hug, babe,” she said. “But I figured on this kind of a night, you’d prefer a margarita.” And with that, she handed me a glass, kissed me on the cheek, and took my bag into the house.

I took a tiny sip and wrinkled up my nose. “Wow. This is strong. You know I don’t really drink.”

“In this weather, it’s purely medicinal,” Ange said. “Trust me – I’m a nurse. We know about these things.”

We passed straight though her house and on to the back patio. “Voila,” she said, sweeping her arm around the tiny enclosure, darn near hitting the fences. “My domain.” She had arranged a couple of lawn chairs around a plastic wading pool that took up most of the patio. A pair of tiki torches lent smoke and flickering light to the homemade ambiance.

“Take off your shoes and make yourself comfortable,” she said. “I’ll turn on the stereo.”

She ducked back into the house while I cautiously dipped my toe into the pool. The water was cold and I quickly realized it was filled with chunks of ice.

“This is awesome,” I said, when she reappeared. “It’s a big margarita for my feet.”

“Four bags of ice, baby,” she said. “Nothing’s too good for my houseguest.”

“Thank you,” I said, wriggling my toes and feeling the chill creep up my legs. “It’s sure helping to suck the heat out of me.”

“If you want to lie down in it, we can get you ready for open-heart surgery,” she said.

“Nothing there to work on. It’s already been ripped out,” I said.

We sat in the torch-light, sipping our drinks, and splashing our feet.

“How was your drive?” Ange asked.

I told her all about it, starting in Santa Barbara and ending up with my topless encounter with the hot lady Highway Patrol officer. Ange laughed until she had to hold her sides.

“You’re making this up.”

“I’ve got the pictures to prove it,” I said, pulling out my cell phone. “Look.” I turned the screen toward her and held out the phone, lit up with a picture of me, sailing down the highway, topless, with the wind in my hair, light glinting off my sunglasses.”

“Now that’s what I call a vacation photo! Let me see that.”

When I reached out to hand her the phone, I dropped it into the wading pool, and we both sat there watching it float around, buoyed by chunks of ice.

My ringtone played – just a few notes – and then the sound faded away into a electronic hum as the phone sank.

“Oh, well,” I said. “At least I won’t be tempted to send those photos to anyone.”

(And that’s the real reason you never got one.)

“Darn shame,” Ange said. “Seems like a real waste to me.”

The night didn’t seem to get any cooler as it wore on. We hung out companionably, occasionally getting up for a bathroom break, or a glass of water, but mostly just hanging out in the dark, paddling our feet around in the pool. She asked me questions about what happened with you and I, and I reconstructed it as best I could. You know, in a breakup, there are always at least two main storylines. There’s the chronological one that details who did what, or said what, to whom. And then there’s the other one where you try and figure out what the other person was thinking, what you were thinking, what made each of you act the way you did, when you did. That’s the one that changes a little bit each time you tell it, as you keep trying to figure it all out. Believe me, the chronological story is the easier one to tell.

Ange was having a field day, putting all her years of therapy to work, asking me how I felt about things now, whether I had learned anything (that I leave teacups all over the house?), and if I thought you and I could ever be friends.

“I don’t know, Ange. I really felt like she was my family, you know? But we may know too much about each other to ever be good buddies. The tension that fueled the relationship and made us good lovers – the intellectual sparring – wasn’t exactly the comfortable stuff of friendship. I pushed her too hard and was more than she wanted to deal with.”

That’ s about it, right?

When we had finally talked ourselves hoarse in the smoke, and worn ourselves out, we put out the tiki torches and headed off to bed.

“I’ll sneak out of here in the morning,” Ange said. “I’m on the day shift tomorrow, but you may not see me until late. If they weren’t short-staffed, I wouldn’t be here.”

Truthfully, I think I slept most of the time I was in Kingman. During the day, I read and napped. I practiced a little yoga in the cool hours of the morning, and took a few walks, but mostly I napped. I lived on avocados, and tomatoes, and handmade tamales from the neighborhood mercado, and gallons of iced tea. At night I slept heavily in the hot, still air.

When it was time to go, Ange carried my bag to the car.

“Thanks for letting me do nothing,” I said.

“You needed the break,” she said. “Sure you have to go already?”

“I need to get home.”

“You’re leaving so late, you’ll be driving in the dark,” she said.

“It’ll be cooler,” I said. “And I won’t be tempted to take pictures.”

We hugged our good-byes and I fired up Mustang Sally and drove off into the evening.

Truth be told, I wanted to leave in the evening, because I was hoping that somewhere out in the desert, I’d find a little excitement in the form of the mysterious Desert Rose.

Before I pulled onto Route 66, I stopped for gas and some snacks for the trip. I loaded up my cooler with bottles of water and cans of iced tea, and bought some ice to make sure everything stayed cold. The woman at the check out counter looked like she was about 60. Her silver hair was cropped close to her head, and in her short-sleeved white uniform shirt, I could see her bicep sported a large tattoo of a pink flower entangled in barbed wire.

She looked me up and down and smiled a little.

“That’ll be $11.22, sweet thing.”

I handed her the money.

“Nice tattoo.”

“It’s a desert rose,” she said.

“That reminds me, ” I said. “Do you happen to know about a place by that name?”

“Out-of-towner, huh? I saw your California plates and the rainbow sticker. I wondered when you’d ask. The traveling girls always do. The local girls don’t have to.”

“That good?”

“Babe,” she said, leaning in. “The Rose is a legend.”

I smiled.

“You on a runaway road trip?” she asked me.

I nodded.

“Broken heart?”

“Something like that.”

Warming up to me, she said “I’ll give you directions, but you gotta remember this… the Rose is a well-kept secret. It only blooms at night, and you’ve gotta know how to find it. No sign will point you there. You’ve gotta look for a pink rock.”

I nodded. “Pink rock.”

“It doesn’t get lively until at least 10 p.m. and it’ll take you about 45 minutes to get there from here, so plan accordingly. There’s nothing else out there.”

I looked at my watch. It was quarter to seven. “Out where?”

She pulled an old cigarette carton out from under the counter and tore off a chunk of it, then flipping it over, she drew a simple little map on the blank side.

“So when you see the abandoned gas pump, pull over to the shoulder there, or you’ll miss the road all together. It’s dirt, you see, and hard to see in the dark. Go slow so you don’t kick up dust, and after the first bend, you’ll see the lights up ahead.”

“I’ve got a few hours to kill. What should I do until then? “

She reached out and touched the sleeve of my denim shirt.

“Find yourself a sexier shirt and see a movie,” she said.

She pointed me to the mall up the road, where I had found a cineplex and a western-wear shop. I spent a little time trying on cowgirl shirts until I found the perfect white rayon shirt with pearl snaps, baby-blue piping, and embroidered pink roses. I took the bag over to the movies with me.

I know you won’t believe me when I tell you that one of the six theaters was having a special showing of Desert Hearts in memory of Jane Rule. So I happily bought a ticket and a large popcorn and sat down in the air-conditioned darkness. Even in the dim light of the theater, I realized I was surrounded by scores of women, some younger, many older, all of us together watching a movie we’d all seen before. After days of resting and licking my wounds, I suddenly felt, in some primal way, like I was back with my people.

And, you know, just like the first time I saw it, Cay stirred something in me. I swear I felt my libido twitch for the first time since you and I split up.

After the movie ended. I took the bag with the shirt to the restroom and spashed some water on my face and checked my teeth for bits of popcorn. Then I went into a stall to change. While I was in there, I heard a group of women come in, chattering about the film.

“Whoo-ee, did that bring back some memories,” said one.

“When that film came out, I was in my first semester in a Catholic college. A whole group of us trouped down to the art house to see it, mostly because the Sisters had put it on the forbidden list, and it was the first time I had seen two women kiss.”

“And look where you are now,” the first one teased.

“Well, I never did become a nun, but I still like to think I’m doing God’s work.”

They laughed.

I came out of the stall, tucking the shirt into my jeans.

One of the women gave a low whistle.

“Real nice shirt, babe” she said. “I like the rose motif. Will we see you there later?”

“Thank you. I think so,” I said, and turned to leave the restroom.

“Save me a dance, okay?” she called after me.

Back in the car, I followed the cashier’s directions, and headed out Route 66 back into the desert.

I check my watch. She said if I drove 65 mile per hour, for about 35 minutes, I’d be getting close. I know that translates into miles, but I didn’t feel like doing the math.

The darkening desert seemed incredibly vast and for stretches, I felt like I might be the only car on the highway. There were butterflies in my stomach, the kind I get on the way to an adventure.

I couldn’t help but wonder what you’d think of this turn my trip had taken.

I flipped on the stereo and Kirsten Price’s “Freedom” poured out:

“It’s a ride. It’s a trip.

It ain’t right if it don’t hurt just a bit.

It’s a shot in the dark. Just might mean that it don’t hit its mark.

It’s a lesson that we’ve all got to learn.

It’s a fire that’s just gotta burn…”

I was bouncing in my seat and singing along.

When the night falls and day rolls back around, don’t let it get away.

Cause it’s your time now.

What you gonna make of your freedom?”

I was having such a good time, I almost forgot to check my watch. It had been 36 minutes. I hoped to hell I hadn’t missed the road.

Seeing no one immediately behind me, I moved onto the gravel shoulder and crept down it, peering into the darkness. I saw a rock, painted bright pink, that the woman in the filling station had said to keep an eye open for. And then, I saw a dirt road headed off into the desert night.

“Well,” I thought. “Here goes.”

Slowly, I crept down the dirt road and after about 500 yards, it suddenly turned about 45 degrees to the left and went over a little rise. There in the hollow below me was ramshackle low building with a pink door. Light and music leaked out of the windows, and around the pink door. A sea of cars were parked in the surrounding dirt lot.

I parked Sally and walked toward the door.

I’ve heard about mirages in the desert, but never thought one would look like this. A stage at the far end of the room was occupied by an all-girl country band. The place was packed from edge to edge with dancing women of every shape and size. There were women in dresses, women in jeans, women in uniforms of every shape and color, women in western wear, women in shirts and ties, and women in white undershirts and baggy jeans. Femme women, butch women, and everything on the scale in between. And they were all moving together to the boom-chink, boom-chink, boom-chink of the band’s drummer.

“I thought I’d find you here,” a voice said, close to my ear, and I turned to find myself face to face with my smiling Highway Patrol office.

“You’re out of uniform,” I said, eying the tight black leather vest she wore with tighter jeans.

“Since I didn’t get that photo, I figure you at least owe me a dance.”

“I dropped my phone in a wading pool,” I said.

“Lady, in my line of work I hear all kinds of excuses,” she said. “Come on.”

Taking me by the hand, she pulled me to the dance floor.

The rest of the night passed in a blur. She two-stepped me around the dance floor for a couple of songs, and then handed me off to the gas station attendant who, despite her age, could really swing. I remember dancing with both of the women from the movie theater restroom, a woman in a UPS uniform, and dozens of more women. I danced until I was sweaty and my new shirt clung to my back. I danced until I thought I’d wear holes in the soles of my boots.

I don’t think the band ever took a break. Someone handed me an unopened bottle of water, which I gratefully accepted. But no one asked my name, or what I was doing there, or what my story was. Everyone just kept calling me “babe” and asking me to dance. I didn’t sit one song out.

At the end of the night, the place cleared out quickly.

My cop friend appeared again. “Wait,” she said. “I’ll see you out.”

I waited and we walked out together. She linked her arm in mine protectively.

“Here you are,” she said, stopping at my car.

“I’d forgotten that you’d recognize it,” I said.

“It’s a cherry ride, and how could I forget?”

I blushed a little in the dark.

“Too bad you’ve got California plates. Maybe you’ll wander through these parts again.”

“It could happen,” I said.

She took me by the shoulders and kissed me slowly and gently. I felt parts of me awaken that I could have sworn were on permanent vacation.

“Think about it, okay? You’ve got my cell number.”

“I do,” I said, and kissed her another time, for good measure.

She opened my car door and helped me in.

“Drive carefully, babe.”

And with that, she was gone.

I looked at my watch. It was nearly 3 a.m. The lights were still on in the bar and there were a few cars and trucks scattered around the parking lot. I decided to shut my eyes and have a little rest before hitting the road again.

I woke to morning light streaming in my car window. It was already hot in the car and I was disoriented as I looked around the empty desert surrounding me. A bird circled overhead. At the end of the parking lot I saw an old beat-up building with a pink door. It looked completely abandoned. I swear, an actual tumbleweed rolled by.

Then I remember what the woman had said: The Desert Rose only blooms at night.

I started my car and headed back to the highway. As I turned onto the asphalt, I noticed that the pink rock was gone.

I turned west and headed for home.

###

(check out Kirsten Price’s video of “Freedom”)