Dan's mother entered the kitchen and, after taking one look at Pat, screamed. Her first impression was that some motorcycle gang member had broken into their house in the middle of the night. Visions of being raped by the bald headed man flashed through her mind. When she realized the man was actually a woman, her scream cut off.
"It has been years since a woman has greeted me like that first thing in the morning," Pat said in her gravelly voice. She chuckled and then took a sip of her coffee watching Dan's mother over the lip of her coffee cup.
Dan's father and sister came charging into the kitchen in time to hear the last half of Pat's sentence. Dan's father asked, "Who in the hell are you?"
"I'm Pat," she answered. She looked over at him and said, "Would you mind putting on some pants? The sight of that is going to put me off my breakfast."
Dan's father glanced down, glanced over at Diana, and charged out of the kitchen. Fortunately, Diana was too fascinated by Pat to look in her father's direction. She couldn't believe that Dan would bring a woman like that home with him. She said, "I didn't think that Dan's taste in women had changed quite so much."
Grinning at the suggestion that she and Dan had done something over the night, Pat said, "Honey, the only way I'd kiss him is if he was a she."
Frowning, Dan's mother said, "If he were a she, I'm not sure what his reaction would be."
Pat laughed and said, "He said the same damned thing to me."
Dan's mother asked, "What are you doing here?"
"Ah, finally we get around to the million dollar question," Pat said. She took a sip of her coffee before she answered, "Dan got sick last night at work. I brought him home and took care of him. His temperature was going up and down all night long. It finally stabilized early this morning. I'm waiting for my partner to come by and pick me up."
"He was sick?" Diana asked as her mother fled the kitchen to check on Dan.
"Yes."
Trying to appear a little older than she was, Diana went to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. She went over to the table and sat down across from Pat. She took a sip of the coffee and made a face wondering why so many people drank it. She said, "There has got to be a good story in here somewhere."
"You might prefer your coffee with a little cream and sugar," Pat said having noticed the grimace when Diana had tasted her coffee. Little girls like her would get eaten alive by some of the women who hung out at her bar.
Diana pushed the cup away and said, "Do you work at the restaurant with Dan?"
"No I don't, but a friend of mine does. She called me and asked me to take care of him," Pat answered.
"So you took care of a strange man all night," Diana said. It didn't fit her image of what a woman who looked like that would do.
"I wouldn't call Dan strange," Pat said thinking that a better word would be different.
"You know what I mean," Diana said looking at Pat with a level gaze.
"Ah, now that you have the ugly bits covered we can talk," Pat said when Dan's father entered the kitchen. Noticing that Diana took a quick look at her father, she said, "Little girl, promise me that you'll never come to my bar. The girls would just eat you alive."
Diana blushed; half in embarrassment and half in anger at being called a little girl. She said, "I am responsible for my own happiness. If I ever go into your bar, I will have made the choice to do it."
"I see that you've read Dan's poster," Pat said picking up on the source of Diana's statement. Maybe the women wouldn't eat her alive.
"I made that poster for him," Diana said.
"I'd like a copy of it to hang in my bar. I've seen too many women destroy their lives because they didn't understand the facts of life," Pat said. After years of running the bar, she didn't have much sympathy for people who made the same mistakes over and over without learning a lesson from it. That last fact about not being able to change someone else was a real killer.
Listening to the discussion at the table, Dan's father went over to the counter and poured a cup of coffee. When he returned to the table he noticed the cup in front of Diana and raised a questioning eyebrow. Deciding that he'd talk to her about it later, he turned to Pat and asked, "Who are you?"
"She's a friend of a friend of Dan's," Diana answered. Pat smiled at that characterization. There was a lot of truth to it and it was wrong at the same time.
He asked, "What are you doing here?"
Pat answered, "Dan got sick last night at work. I brought him home and took care of him. His temperature was going up and down all night long. It finally stabilized early this morning. I'm waiting for my partner to come by and pick me up."
"He was sick?" Dan's father asked.
"Yes," Pat said feeling like she had been through this conversation once before.
Dan's father took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. It was a lot stronger than he usually drank it. He said, "There's got to be a good story in here somewhere."
Pat stared at Dan's father and shook her head. Turning to Diana, she said, "Are all of you alike?"
Dan woke up late in the afternoon to find his sister in his chair reading through the stacks of paper on his desk. Rather amazed at actually catching her going through his papers, he asked, "What are you doing in here?"
"Making sure that your fever didn't come back," Diana answered looking over at him.
"Oh. I guess it wasn't a dream," Dan said. He felt like he had been run over by a truck. Every joint in his body ached. He remembered a little of Pat and another woman taking him home. He remembered talking to his mother that morning. There was a flash or two of Sue asleep in his chair.
"I have got to say that you've collected an odd assortment of friends," Diana said. She had met Betty and Sue as she had headed out for school that morning. The calls from the women Dan worked with had started a little after she had arrived home from school.
"I take it you met Pat," Dan said.
"Her and her Viking girlfriend," Diana said. She had come home from school to find Sue asleep in Dan's chair. Shaking her head, she said, "Sue watched over you most of the day."
"Oh," Dan said. He had been pretty sure that her presence in the room had been a dream.
"What's her story?" Diana asked. Sue was a very attractive woman and she wondered if Sue was Dan's new girlfriend. She had never seen anyone so fearful of everything in her life. Sue had nearly climbed onto the desk when she had woken her.
"Who?"
"Sue."
"You don't want to hear her story. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life," Dan answered with a sad frown. He sat up in bed and said, "I went out to the lake after hearing about her life. I was trying to make sense out of what happened to her. It took me a while to figure out that she was run over by the first fact of life."
"You were out at the lake?" Diana asked thinking about the weather the previous day. It had been miserably cold. The wind had been blowing at twenty miles an hour with gusts up to thirty. Too warm to freeze the moisture out of the air, the wind just sucked the heat out of the body. She had felt like her face was cracking just walking to and from the bus. She wondered if he had been suffering from hypothermia rather than a weird flu.
"I kind of stayed out in the cold a little too long," Dan said.
"It was freezing yesterday. You're lucky you didn't die out there," Diana said. She put the stack of papers down and said, "You should probably take a shower. I'll heat up some soup for you."
"Thanks," Dan said.
"By the way, your friend Sue offered to paint a picture of me," Diana said.
Thinking about the kinds of pictures he had seen in Sue's apartment, Dan said, "Just promise me that you won't pose nude."
"Huh?" Diana asked rather surprised by the suggestion that she would pose nude.
"Promise me that you won't voluntarily pose nude," Dan said. He'd hate to come home and find a nude painting of his sister hanging on the wall. He didn't know how he would deal with that.
"I'd never pose nude," Diana said.
Pointing to the poster, Dan said, "Never say never."
Diana glanced at the poster and knew exactly what he meant. Even though there was always a choice, sometimes none of the choices were good ones. A person could find themselves doing the most disgusting and degrading acts because the alternatives were even worse. Life wasn't fair and sometimes the choices that one had weren't fair. She smiled and said, "Let's just say that it isn't something that I would normally consider doing."
"Thank you," Dan said.
Diana smiled at him and said, "I kind of like the idea of having her paint a nude picture of me."
"Get out of here," Dan said throwing his pillow at her.
It was eight in the evening when Diana and her mother walked into the dimly lit bar at the corner of Third and Oak. As her mother hung back at the door staring at all of the women, Diana marched over to the bar. Pat looked at Diana and said, "I thought I said you shouldn't come here."
Holding up the tube in her hand, Diana said, "I brought you a poster."
Pat reached out and accepted the poster from Diana and, in a much softer voice, said, "Thank you."
"Thank you for watching over my brother," Diana said looking at all of the women watching her.
"It was the least I could do," Pat said. She looked around the bar and said, "I'll hang this over there."
Diana looked around the bar. There were all kinds of paintings of women hanging on the wall. Noticing one that looked a little familiar, she walked over to it and studied it for a minute. She had thought the woman in the picture looked like someone she knew, but it wasn't of her. A lot of women were watching her with more than a little interest. In a voice loud enough to be heard over the background noise, she asked, "Did Sue do these paintings?"
Rather surprised to learn that Diana knew that Sue used to paint, Pat answered, "Yes."
The volume in the bar had dropped considerably on hearing that the discussion had turned to Sue's paintings. Every woman in the place knew the story about Sue. Diana said, "Wow, she's good."
"Yes," Pat said thinking that good wasn't a strong enough word for the talent that Sue possessed.
"Maybe I should accept her offer to paint me," Diana said moving to stand in front of another painting.
The bar went absolutely silent as all eyes turned to look at Diana. Her mother edged closer to Diana suddenly concerned for her safety. Pat stared openly at Diana unable to believe what she had heard. Seeing the reaction, Diana asked, "Did I say something wrong?"
One of the women in the bar asked, "Did you say that Sue offered to do a painting of you?"
"Yes," Diana answered unable to see who had asked the question. The sounds of Pat crying caused her to turn and look at the tough looking woman. It broke her heart to see Pat crying like that. Big tough women like that weren't supposed to cry.
A jumble of comments broke out across the bar. "Thank you God." "She's going to pose even if I have to hold her there." "Finally." "I can't believe it." "Does this mean the anniversary suicide watches are over?" "I never thought I'd see the day."
Diana looked around the room getting a little scared by the comments. She wondered what it all meant, but was afraid to ask. Her mother came over to her feeling intimidated by the sudden attention. She was finding it rather difficult gauging the mood in the room.
Seeing one of her students in trouble, Cathy Jenkins made one of the hardest decisions of her life. She rose from her chair near the back of the room and went over to where Diana was standing. Looking down at the young woman, she said, "You have no idea what you just said, do you?"
"No, Coach Jenkins," Diana answered unable to believe that the rumors about the girl's basketball coach were true.
Coach Jenkins turned to Diana's mother and said, "Take her out of here. I'll stop by your house later to talk to you."
"Okay," Diana's mother said. She knew that Coach Jenkins had taken a huge risk allowing herself to be seen by a student in a lesbian bar.
Dan was getting ready to leave for work when there was a knock on the door. He answered it wondering who would be calling at that time of night. He was rather surprised to find a very tall woman standing at the door. Looking up at her, he asked, "What can I do for you?"
"You must be Dan," the woman said. She had gotten some of the story about Dan and Sue from Pat before leaving the bar.
"Yes, I'm Dan Parker," he answered wondering who the woman was. Taking him completely by surprise the woman grabbed him in a hug. He found his face pressed into her breasts.
Stepping back a little, the woman said, "Thank you, Dan."
"What did I do?" he asked stunned by what had just happened to him. He looked around wondering if he was on a Candid Camera show or something. He didn't know any women who stood six and a half feet tall. He was pretty sure that he'd remember her if he had met her.
"You helped a friend of mine," the woman answered smiling at his obvious confusion.
"Who are you?" Dan asked.
"I'm Cathy Jenkins. I'm here to see Diana and your mother."
Stepping back to let her in the house, Dan said, "Come in."
He led her to a seat in the living room and went to find his mother and sister. As they went into the living room, he headed out to work still confused by the exchange at the door. He was running late and decided that he'd ask about it when he returned home in the morning.
Diana and her mother sat down on the couch across from Coach Jenkins. Diana's mother said, "I appreciate what you did for Diana. If you're worried about us saying something, you don't have worry. Diana and I talked about the seriousness of your situation. We won't tell anyone."
Coach Jenkins smiled at the reassurance and said, "Thank you, but that is not why I'm here. I need to talk to you about Sue."
"Why did everyone react like that when I mentioned that she asked to paint a picture of me?" Diana asked.
Coach Jenkins sighed and then answered, "The Lesbian community has its own celebrities. Sue was one of the shining stars. That girl could paint a picture of the ugliest woman and make her pretty. Women paid her hundreds of dollars for a painting."
"Wow," Diana said.
"One day her friend was killed in a very brutal manner," Coach Jenkins said staring off into the distance.
Diana realized it wasn't just a friend that had been killed, but her lover. Frowning, she said, "Dan mentioned something about that. He said that he had been told the saddest story he had ever heard."
"If he heard the whole story, then I'm sure that he would say that. It was ugly. I wasn't there, but everyone who was there says they died a little that day. Sue hasn't touched a paintbrush since that day. She said that her muse had died. Women have offered her thousands of dollars to do one painting, but Sue turned them all down."
Coach Jenkins was quiet as she stared at the floor. Finally, she said, "Your news about her offering to paint you was a bombshell. It took every one of us by surprise."
Diana frowned as she recalled the reactions of the women in the bar and asked, "So they weren't mad at me?"
Coach Jenkins smiled and said, "No they weren't mad at you. I was afraid that they were going to strip you naked and tie you to a chair so that you'd pose for Sue."
"Over my dead body," Diana's mother said.
Coach Jenkins looked at her and said, "There are a few women in that bar who might not have been put off by that challenge."
"Oh."
"Some of them may get angry if you don't pose for her," Coach Jenkins said looking over at Diana.
"Oh."
Shaking her head, Coach Jenkins said, "I have to know. I have always pegged you as being straight. Are you even curious about women?"
"I'm straight as an arrow. Sorry, but I like boys. I like boys a lot," Diana said.
Diana's mother looked at her and said, "A lot?"
"Yes," Diana said with a smile. She had really appreciated some of the advice Alison had given her. She was in the process of seeking a friend with benefits.
"We need to talk," her mother said frowning slightly.
Hearing Diana's answer, Coach Jenkins knew that her hopes were ruined. She rose from the chair and said, "I just came by to explain what happened there. I felt it was important that you know."
Diana looked at Coach Jenkins for a second. It was obvious to her that the woman looked like her last hope had just died. She said, "You want me to pose for Sue."
Coach Jenkins looked away and said, "It doesn't matter what I want."
Diana's mother rose from her seat and went over to the tall woman. Putting a hand on her arm, she said, "Yes, it does matter."
"I'm tall and gangly. I have small breasts. I have a tight drawn face. I want to see a picture of me that makes me look beautiful. I want Sue to paint me," Coach Jenkins with tears in her eyes.
As Dan cleared one of the tables, Sue stopped by to chat. He had sent flowers to her apartment the day he had recovered from being ill. She had been off work the next night and this was the first time she had to thank him. She said, "Thank you for the flowers."
"It was very nice of you to watch over me while I was ill," Dan said with a smile.
"I was worried about you," she said. A dozen little emotions flitted across her face faster than Dan could identify. Foremost among them was the fear that another person that she cared about might have died.
"I appreciate the concern," Dan said glancing over at her. He picked up the plates from the table and dumped them into the gray bin.
Sue smiled at how he avoided saying anything that might upset her. She appreciated it far more than she could put into words. She said, "I've got another attempt at the picture for you. I'll show it to you during your break."
"I'm looking forward to seeing it," Dan said. He grabbed a couple of the glasses and put them in the bin with a little more care than he had shown the plates. He said, "By the way, Diana mentioned that you offered to paint her."
"Yes, she's a lovely young woman," Sue said. She had no idea why she had made the offer. The words had come out of her mouth before she had time to have second thoughts.
With a concerned expression on his face, he whispered, "Don't paint her naked, please."
Sue laughed at the idea of painting a minor nude. Nothing could get an artist, particularly a lesbian artist, in trouble faster than painting a young woman naked. She said, "Don't worry about that."
Every one of the employees on the floor turned to look at Sue. None of them had ever heard her laugh. Sandy nudged Vicki and said, "I think they are an item."
"I think you're right," Vicki said with a smile.
Sandy decided that the comment about the spark not being there was his way to protect Sue's reputation. She said, "If I was thirty years younger, I'd be after him so quick it would make your head spin. She's a lucky young lady."
"You dirty old woman," Vicki said shocked by what Sandy had said.
"I wasn't always this age," Sandy said with a smile.
During his break, Dan looked over the drawing that Sue had brought in. It was very good and captured everything that he wanted. He said, "We just have to come up with a few captions."
Leaning over his shoulder, Sue pointed to parts of the drawing as she said, "I left spaces here and here for captions. There's the little arc there to form the bottom of the tray where we need some text."
"Right," Dan said looking at the picture.
"Do you know what you want it to say?"
"No. Now that I see the picture, I'll try to come up with something catchy," Dan said. At the moment his mind was blank.
"I liked that line about eating pizza requires a smile. It would be perfect under the kid eating the slice of pizza," Sue said.
"You're right," Dan said looking over the picture.
Sue looked at the picture. It was a pencil sketch, but the final artwork would have to be in color and usable for advertising. She said, "You'll need this on a computer for the printers. I know someone who is pretty good with computer graphics. She does commercial artwork for a living. I'll ask her for some advice."
"That would be great," Dan said. He had wondered what to do with the picture once it was complete. He had no idea how a drawing ended up being printed on a box. As far as he knew, it was magic.
Lazlo Zalezac