After Delores Read Free

Priscilla’s wagging finger, her swaggering shoulders, her mouth moving so fast it flew off her face. She was doing a dance called getting even. It had been a long time since I’d gotten a thing for anyone besides Delores, but maybe Priscilla was a fairy godmother with a bad case of fifties nostalgia. That’s when I started thinking that I might have a dress-up fetish. But what kind of girl would want to dress up for me? I could practically come just thinking about that. But she wasn’t really Priscilla Presley and that was that.
    By the time Ms. Leather had crawled home and the mess was all cleaned up, I was deep in a dream and stayed there until Pris tapped me on the shoulder and we ended up back in the snow.
    â€œThis is a worthless winter,” I said. “It doesn’t give you anything. Not quiet, not stopping traffic, not everything white. Nothing.”
    Pris didn’t have proper winter boots, so her feet must have been sopping in those thin things with the spiked heels. Still, she enjoyed the sky full of snow, her face shining in the streetlight.
    â€œDelores walked out on me,” I told her.
    â€œLet me guess,” she said with a Miss Thing tone in her voice. “She hurt you real bad and all you need is someone to take you home and make you feel better.”
    â€œI didn’t say that.”
    â€œYou didn’t have to.” She was clapping her hands, catching the snow. “I’m little and I’m cute and enough women have told me that’s all they want that I now know that’s all anybody wants.”
    â€œYou want a beer?” I asked, ’cause I wanted one myself.
    â€œBuy me a slice,” she said, leading me to a pizza parlour run by stoned Arabs with big grins. It was yellow plastic, too much light, with posters of Yemen and grease-stained wax paper everywhere. Under her leather gloves were five long and polished nails on her right hand and three long polished nails on her left. The index and middle were cut, not chewed, to the cuticle.
    â€œSouthpaw?”
    â€œI’m a left-handed lover,” she said thoughtfully, holding her hand up to the fluorescent light. “When they grow too long, it’s depressing since I don’t like to go without. But don’t get me wrong, I do believe in love.” She had a dreamy teenaged smile on her face. “Want to know what I know?”
    â€œSure.” My voice came out like rancid butter.
    â€œOkay, here it is. Priscilla Presley’s philosophy of lesbian love. First, mistresses are fine, but when it gets too serious there’s only room for one at a time. Two, it’s got to be as over in your head as it is on paper. Three, everybody needs time between affairs to remember who they are. See how easy life can be?”
    â€œBut Delores left me,” I said.
    â€œYeah, but she’s still got you by the balls.”
    She picked the cheese off her pizza with those cherry red nails, grease dripping all over the floor.
    â€œYou’re old gay, aren’t you, Pris? You believe in honor.”
    â€œI never let a man touch me,” she said. “And plenty have tried. I take myself very seriously.”
    I went next door to get a beer and picked up one for her too. Priscilla was some kind of angel with an important message. I had a question to ask her. It was “Is love aways worth it?” But by the time I got back, she was gone. Only she’d left her little black purse sitting lonely there like me on a yellow bucket seat. Inside it was her address book and a gun.

2
    THE BREAKFAST SHIFT started at six forty-five but I punched in at seven on a lucky day. It was still dark outside, no matter what time of year. The crew was always waiting in their early morning attitudes.
    â€œYou look like you’ve been screwing all night,” said Rambo, leaning against the register in his military pants, ready to start all his bullshit for the