“Amy!” Lillian said, putting the net down and slogging across the yard.  “Darling, how are you?”  She wrapped Amy in a warm embrace and air kissed both her cheeks.  “I haven’t seen you in ages.  Come let me look at you.”  She looked Amy up and down.  “You look more like your mother every day.”

“Well, I am wearing her clothes,” Amy said, trying hard not to feel self-conscious.

“Amy is a lesbian now,” Claire said proudly like Amy had won the Nobel Prize.

Lillian’s eyes widened.  “Really, dear?  That is wunderbar.”

“Now about those frogs,” Desmond tittered.

“No worries, I think I’ve gotten rid of them and their soon-to-be offspring,” Lillian said.

“They were so disgusting,” Desmond said, flapping his hand in front of his face.  “Nature is so…”

Claire filled in, “Natural?”

“Disgusting,” Desmond said.

Lillian whispered sotto voce to Amy, “It’s the green sludge he doesn’t like.” Lillian sat on a bench and began to tug off the hip waders.  She was having difficulty getting them off.  It was like trying to peel a sausage.  Amy took a boot and pulled.  “Thank you, darling.”  Together they removed Lillian from the hip waders.

“Now, Desmond,” Lillian said, taking his arm.  “Why don’t you make us some of that divine lemonade of yours and we’ll take a break and regroup afterwards.  That way, we can all catch our breath.”

Desmond seemed delighted.  “That’s a marvelous idea.”  He lifted a small, discreet walkie-talkie to his mouth and commanded, “Bring a pitcher of lemonade and five glasses.  Miss Lillian is parched from her frog killing spree.”  He turned back to Lillian and said, “You are my savior.  You are my Rambo of the pond.  The Terminator of frogs.  Whatever would I do without you?”

“You would manage, I am sure, darling,” Lillian said.

Desmond looked at his watch.  “Oh no, the yo-yo’ers will be here soon.”  He put his hand to his forehead in a very theatrical swoon.  “I wish Evan didn’t have his heart set on the yo-yo’ers for entertainment.  It’s so tasteless.  The cabaret thing I wanted at least had class.”

“Desmond, we talked about this,” Lillian soothed.

“I know.  I know.  It’s his wedding too,” Desmond said, pouting.  “It’s just so tawdry,” he muttered as he walked toward the house.

“And cabaret dancers are so high class,” Lillian muttered.

“So, this seems like a rather unusual wedding,” Amy said.

A young woman came out holding a silver tray with a cut-glass pitcher of fresh lemonade and five glasses.  “Is this where the sane people gather?” she asked.

Meet Janice Cohen.  Janice was very pretty under the military buzz cut and facial piercings.  She even had a nice body, if you could find it under the extra large sweatshirt and baggy gray chinos.  Her aura screamed feminist, but her lingering gaze at Amy whispered lesbian.

Lillian looked relieved.  “Oh darling, thank goodness you’re here.  He’s out of control again.”

Janice set the platter down.  “I know.  He’s hyperventilating all over the kitchen.”

“But, I got all the frogs and the green stuff.  The pond looks fine,” Lillian said.  “I mean it is a pond; it’s going to have pond stuff.”

“No, it’s not that,” Janice said, pouring lemonade all around.  “Now, he’s fighting with Evan about the yo-yo’ers.”  She handed Amy a glass of lemonade.  “I don’t think we’ve met.  I’m Janice. Desmond’s friend, but don’t hold that against me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.  Where are my manners,” Lillian said.  “This is Amy.  She’s a lesbian.”

“It’s nice to meet you.  Why haven’t I seen you out before?”

“Out?” Amy said.

“You know, in the clubs.  Or events.  Or potlucks,” Janice said.

“She’s a brand-new lesbian,” Claire said.  “A late bloomer.”

“Fresh meat,” Janice said.

“Huh?” Amy said, alarmed.  She nervously gulped her lemonade.

“Have you been initiated yet?”

Amy slowly shook her head and took another gulp.

Janice leered and wagged her eyebrows.  “Maybe I can initiate you, then. It doesn’t hurt.  Much.  Well, it only hurts the first time.  I need a new toaster oven anyway.”

What was this woman talking about? Amy was befuddled.  Befuddled?  Was that really a word?  Or was it confuddled?  She was confuddled and befused.

Janice took her arm.  “Are you okay?  You looked like you were going to faint.  I was only kidding.  Lesbian humor.  It was a joke.”

“Oh,” Amy said and forced a fake-sounding chuckle.

“So who’s the girl?” Janice asked.

“Girl?”

“Yeah, what lucky woman rescued you from the bondage of heterosexuality?”

“Oh.  Her name is Jordan March.”

“You’re dating Jordan March? The Jordan March?” Janice said.

Amy didn’t know exactly how to take this.  Did she mean to imply Amy wasn’t good enough to date someone like Jordan March or that Jordan March was a bad person to date?

“Unless there’s another Jordan March,” Amy said, tentatively.  She almost hoped there might be two of them and Amy got the good one, not the one this woman knew.

“She’s tall, gorgeous, talented, witty, and lives in that crazy house in the old part of town where all the mansions are?” Janice said.

Lillian and Claire were conspicuously silent.  Amy knew they loved getting the info without having to be the ones to extract it. She could feel their eyes on her.

“Yep, that’s her.”

“How’d you manage that?  She never dates anyone, especially after the Ice Queen episode.”

Lillian couldn’t help herself.  “Ice Queen?”

“She was Jordan’s last girlfriend.  Her name is Petronella and she’s a professor at the University and she’s a poet and she is the nastiest person I have ever met.  She’s having some big poetry-reading thing at the New Little Theatre tonight.  I’m going.”

“So am I,” Amy said.  “I mean, Jordan and I are going.”

“Can straight people come, too?” Lillian asked.

“Sure,” Janice said.

Lillian poked Claire in the ribs with her elbow. “Let’s go crash the lesbian party.  It sounds fun.”

“Oh, Petronella’s poetry isn’t fun,” Janice said.  “It’s angry.  You know how Rita Mae Brown’s cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, started writing mystery novels?  Well, Petronella is now writing poetry with her vagina.  She’s named it Vagina Woolf.”

Claire clapped her hands.  “That sounds wonderful!  Maybe I can get some ideas for my sculptures.”

Before Amy could object to her mother crashing her date, there was the sound of metal crashing against metal, and a high-pitched scream.  The back door was thrown open and six muscular, oiled, naked men strutted into the back yard with their doodles dangling.  They lined up in a chorus line, and began to yo-yo and kick step in perfect synchronization.

Claire and Lillian sat in rapt attention.  Amy and Janice exchanged a confuddled look.  “I think that’s my cue to leave,” Amy said.


Dry Run

Jordan, Edison and Irma were in their backyard making last minute preparations for their attack on Petronella at her vagina’s poetry reading.  They had dubbed their revenge attack “Operation Meltdown.”

“Three hours, ladies,” Jordan said.  “We have only have three hours to get this right.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Edison said.  “We’ll be ready.  Then her angry vagina will be a sorry vagina.”

Irma chimed in, “Petronella does not own corner market on angry vagina.  My vagina can beat up her vagina any day.”

“That would make a great bumper sticker,” Jordan said.  Her vagina was pretty angry, too.  It was angry with Petronella for leading her astray, making her believe she was the only vagina in the world that mattered, and then cheating on her with a younger vagina.  Jordan, owner of said vagina, was pretty steamed also.  All the throwing things, all the stalking, all the destruction of property, not to mention the graffiti on the porch which took a whole can of paint thinner to remove, had made Jordan mad enough to extract a fitting revenge.

And what was more fitting than giving the Ice Queen a taste of her own medicine?

Edison made a last-minute final adjustment to her remote control car.  “Ready?” she asked.

Jordan nodded.  Irma licked her lips in anticipation.

They were surrounded by cardboard cutouts of Petronella that Irma had created.  Irma had Photoshopped pictures of Petronella’s head and enlarged them so they would fit the cardboard cutouts.  They’d placed these around the yard.

“You better be sure about this, Jordan.  You could be starting a Hatfield and McCoy kind of thing,” Edison said, flipping the power switch on the car.

“You have icy shoes?” Irma taunted.

It took Edison a moment before she realized Irma meant ‘cold feet.’  “No, I’m not scared.”

“You lie.  You are turkey.  Gobble gobble gobble.  You are big turkey,” Irma said.  She pranced around the yard, gobbling and doing a weird turkey strut.

Jordan and Edison exchanged an amused look.

“You mean chicken.  Cluck cluck cluck.  And I am not chicken,” Edison said.  “I’m just concerned that this will start World War Lesbo. I want to make sure we all know that.”

“This was your idea,” Jordan said.  “You’re backing out now?”

“I’m not backing out,” Edison said.

“Edison is big plump chicken,” Irma said.  She walked around the yard poking her neck out, flapping her arms up and down, and making clucking sounds.

“Stop that!” Edison said.  “I’m not a plump chicken!  I’m just making sure is all.”

Irma stopped the chicken dance and squinted one eye.  “Edison is right.  In Mother Russia we give person one chance to fess clean.”

Jordan rolled her eyes.  “Do you think Petronella is really going to admit to everything?”