OK, you asked for it. This one is short, flash fiction. Notice no quotation marks, but you can still recognize the dialogue.
HEMINGWAY RETRO BOOGIE
We met in the men's room in Planet Hollywood. I would have preferred Harry's Bar, in the good place. She wore sequined jeans and clean Pumas and a Levi's jacket with a bunny insignia on the back.
She moved me, an electro boogie dancer wearing hip-hugging clothes all tidy and pressed. She had cropped strawberry-red hair and a quarter diamond encrusted like a pimple in her left nostril and a smile smooth and awkward like fettuccini on a rainy day. And she would blush every time I looked her way, embarrassed for she knew I had mistaken her for Boy George in drag.
We talked while waiting for a stall to empty.
I hate doing this, she said.
What? What do you hate?
Lady breakers aren't permitted to compete with the guys. So I always dress incognito when I come to battle in L.A.
The judges will suspect you are a woman, I said, wondering what in hell incognito meant.
How do you know?
I just know.
Are you a judge that you would know?
I'm not a judge. Actually I'm a reporter.
Then how do you know, Mr. Reporter.
I laughed, digging the mister part.
With that hot bod and those sleek, silky legs that go on from here to Fresno, they will certainly suspect.
Do you think so? I can do a mean strut like John Travolta. I even had a tattoo artist carve a dimple on my chin.
Now I stood perfectly still and studied her.
You are like a wild animal, I said, noble and flat-chested and narrow of hips. You are brave and lonely, like the bulls. Why do you do this?
Me, I am the best dancer, she said with conviction. I can do a death spin on my pinky with grace, under pressure.
That's an exaggeration, I said, and laughed.
She smiled curiously, the corner of her upper lip curling like someone doing a bad Elvis imitation.
Yes. Isn't it funky to think so?
Two stalls emptied. We were lucky. We each found a separate stall. We went in and undid zippers. The sound her zipper made was like the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun in late afternoon.
Suddenly I heard her say, I must win this year, must. Each time I do this, dress up like a man, something in my brain clicks. I have considered a sex change, but it would be like a betrayal.
I said, Hey, kid, you know what you got? You got
salao, which is like a self-imposed gender bending. Have you tried a still, well-lighted place and a good shrink?
You mean a psychoanalyst, like Freud?
Yeah, if you can get him.
She was silent. Then she said, I knew a good one in Sausalito. He even accepted A & P stamps. But I stopped seeing him when I discovered he subscribed to the
National Enquirer.
Oh, I muttered with genuine chagrin. And we finished in the good place.
Outside the stall, she said, It was beautiful in there, having someone to rap with.
I too enjoyed our time together. After talking with you, I feel I understand my emotions better. I know now why I do
this.
The dancing? I asked.
No, dressing in drag.
Why do you do it? I asked, and braced for the answer.
Simple. By cross-dressing, she said, I'm staying alive.
Ha, ha, ha, I said, and nudged her on the chin.
We said goodbye and I watched her strut. She seemed defenseless and schizo in an endearing way. Breakers are funny, or maybe they exist on a different quantum plane from the rest of us.
I waltz over to the bar and ordered fresh cow milk with crushed ice and a cherry. There was plenty of days coming when I could go up river and think about this exotic vision.
Sometime later I saw her again, strolling along a tree-lined boulevard with the grace and mien of a Parisian waitress balancing trays on each hand. The air was thick with the scent of morning smog, and in the big city there was always the promise of a mugger lurking in the shadows. I could tell she had changed. Her hair she let grow long like spring rain on the savanna, and she dressed primly in a cream-colored Laura Ashley blouse and gray, pleated flannel slacks. Her European pumps had metal-tipped heels and looked as dangerous as a toreador's killing blade.
Hello, I said, walking up to her. Remember me?
She looked at me the way a child looks at a bird with a broken wing.
Oh, she said. I think so. Aren't you the women's hosiery salesman who accosted me in Albuquerque?
No, I said with emphasis. It's me, the reporter. Remember the men's room in L.A.? We peed in separate stalls.
Oh, yes. She finally smiled, nodding with understanding. How awkwardly surreal.
Did you win the contest? I asked.
What contest? Where?
Break dancing, in L.A.
It's been a while, she said. I had almost forgotten how long it's been.
Well, I pressed, like a good reporter. Did you win the bloody contest? I had to leave so I didn't see who won.
No, I didn't win, she said with finality. The judges gave first place to a Siamese dancing duo, Chang and Eng. I can understand why. It was tricky, doing a death spiral on one head. But they pulled it off.
I wonder if you still compete, I said, wondering.
She shook her head.
I gave up cross-dressing, and I no longer dance. I moved east and work as a speechwriter for convicted ex-politicos. It doesn't pay much, but the hours are acceptable and it's a living. You?
I'm nobody, I said. Just an ordinary Joe who accosts young ladies in the middle of the street and asks questions.
Is that your name? she said. Joe?
It's as good a name as any. And yours?
Mine?
Your name.
She thought, looking at a jaywalker who stumbled crossing the street.
My real name or a pseudonym? I'm a ghost writer so I use a pseudonym.
I hesitated. Real name, please. A pseudonym is a false name.
You're so clever to know that. She smiled then, her upper lip curling at the corners, looking as vulnerable as Delilah without her veils.
My name is Amanda Charlotte Fairweather. Plain Amanda C., from Anytown, USA.
I thought it unusual and laughed, having never heard of Anytown, USA.
Ciao, she said.
Must you leave? I so enjoy our conversations, fleeting though they be.
Perhaps we'll see each other again. It's a small world, is it not?
Yes, small and overcrowded. Where will I see you? I said.
Carmel-by-the-Sea, she said.
I watched her strut. Hasta la vista, I said, trying to sound as cool and continental as Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2.
In Carmel we saw each other again for the last time, purely by chance. I offered to buy her a Cappuccino and a pastry.
Just coffee, she said, strong and black, two Splenda.
We sat at a table of a seaside café in the shade. The locale reminded me of Marseille, though I didn’t know where Marseille was. I ordered coffee for us both. Soon the waitress served us: black coffee for her, and a Cappuccino with a dollop of cream for me.
I'm so disillusioned, she said, and she really looked it: red-rimmed eyes, a sad smile and the curl had vanished from her lip like froth from a head of beer.
Why? I asked.
Things have become so complicated. Marriage and divorce. The economy going downhill, inflated energy prices, finding cheap domestic help. Life was pretty and simple for us back then. Just disco and dancing.
You sound disillusioned. A lost generation.
She looked at me. That's what I said. Disillusioned and yo no se qué.
That’s French. I said.
Spanish. An evening course I take at UCLA. It keeps my mind occupied and boredom from setting in. I so love Cervantes.
Ditto for me. I hear the impressionists are making a comeback this year.
The smirk on her face was unmistakable. I meant the writer, she said.
Oh, I said. Suddenly we were quiet, but the surf could be heard, also an occasional fog horn though it was a sunny day. As the ocean sounds abated, I said, You no longer dance. But do you still write, ghost write, I mean?
She sipped her coffee. Oh, yes. You know, writing is like getting pregnant. There is a gestation period. Denial, because you didn’t want to get pregnant in the first place. Stained white sheets. Much sweat and pain. Later your brainchild is born. There is a saying. She paused, rummaging in her mind far back for it. ’Writers must kill their darlings.’
That sounds philosophical, and profound.
Thanks. I once wrote a speech for a presidential candidate. It helped to win him the election.
Just like you, helping others win.
She sipped more coffee. She put down her cup and said, He was almost impeached three years after being elected.
I could see the memory caused her much discomfort. Her left eye twitched. He probably deserved it, I said lamely.
He probably did. She looked out to sea, the waves rolling in like a migrating herd of wildebeests. He asked me to write his farewell address.
And did you?
What do you think?
You answered my question with another question.
I did, didn't I? I must remember not to do that. Joe?
She remembered my name. Yes, Amanda C.
I didn't write the speech.
Why not?
Why not what?
The speech, why didn’t you write it?
She lowered her head. I don't know why. Is it okay, if I don't know why?
No skin off my teeth, I thought and slurped my coffee. Then I watched her, and the question I next posed came much too easily.
Where will you go, Amanda C., what will you do?
She answered quickly, which surprised me.
Nowhere and everywhere, nothing and everything.
How will you live? I asked.
Day by day, she said.
Suddenly the silence was so thick it could have been mistaken for fog. And the air grew mysteriously chilly.
She pointed and said, Look, Joe, out there. A squall is coming.
How can you tell? I asked.
She said, flush with intuition:
The precious silvery gulls are flocking out to sea.
Killing Eve is a series, and Luke Jennings apparently sells many copies of his work as Kindle books. Surprised I had never heard of him (or don't remember).