The Running Joke
(continued)
"You're alone I take it?"
DaVinci stood above Joy and Joy's tuna fish salad baguette-sandwich, the saucer and the cup of green tea on the small, wrought iron table at the café. It had been 3 weeks since Joy approached her in Armani.
"Oh!" Joy's mouth was full, her cheeks rounded. Still, she managed another muffled, "Oh!" and even a "Hullo!" She knew she looked flustered; trying to stand up, remove the napkin from her lap, straighten out her uniform. Dammit, Joy thought bitterly, tapping the steel nameplate pinned to her left lapel then smoothing her hands over her skirt, I'm in uniform. Now Joy touched the back of her head lightly and winced. Ooh darn, hairnet too. She had decided to take her lunch break leisurely today, walking over to the café, taking it with tea, even though she couldn't afford the café prices on a regular basis. But today was Friday, and she had made a bargain with herself about the weekend itinerary. Joy, I will spoil you, honey, she promised herself, but you are not to take a single sip of whiskey this weekend, do you hear me? It is killing you, old girl. Remember when you used to do nice things like go out for tea, roller-skate and rent sailboats? But tea, roller-skates and sailboats were the farthest things from Joy Fetter's mind at this moment. She chewed quickly, swallowed and reiterated her "Hullo!"
"Please. Sit, sit, sit." Donna was on a day off by all appearances. Today she had her thick, shoulder-length hair down; it was gleaming like her dimpled grin, which is why Joy didn't recognize her at first. Without the reading glasses, without the severity. Her dress, too, was casual; soft, wide-legged brown velvet pants, sandals, a ropy crème-colored vest over a subdued brown T-shirt, a long silver chain with a narrow black stone affixed to the end of it, like a dagger. No reading glasses, no briefcase. Only a canvas purse with the tops of three yellow legal pads of paper sticking out of it.
Joy sat back down uneasily, suddenly aware that her nervous system was throbbing with adrenaline. Say something, Joy! Say something! Instead, she smiled and sipped some tea to dispense with that pesky bite of sandwich, her small fingers trembling on the edge of her teacup.
"Now you'll have to forgive me, dear," Donna continued, "but, ah, if you would be so kind as to remind me. What was your name again?"
"Joy. Fetter. But, please, Joy."
"Donna DaVinci," she said and took up Joy's small, pale hand in both of her own, nodded her head down in a gentlemanly fashion, with a soft smile spreading across her supple lips, a cheery squint around her eyes.
"Oh, ha! DaVinci, huh? As in, the Mona Lisa?"
"Yes that's me. An unforgettable stare." She laid that stare on Joy awhile.
"Well, well, it certainly is. Unforgettable, I mean. Ha. That's funny." Dammit, Joy thought, looking up with a wide smile that was already making her face hurt. Don't start stammering out nonsense. Play it cool, tiguh. Play it cool.
"May I join?" Donna asked, eyes wide and eyebrows up, not waiting for a reply, seating herself on the opposite side of the small table and depositing her purse roughly onto the floor. "Now, let me get this right," Donna said plainly, scooting her chair forward, folding her hands on the table top and burning Joy with a direct stare, "you are an acquaintance of Patty Malone's?"
"Why yes," Joy said, then contradicted herself with a breathy laugh, "I mean, no. I mean, yes and no. Patty's one of my dearest friends in the world. I would hardly call her an acquaintance."
"Good enough." Donna nodded, looked away as if making a very careful selection of her words. "Ah now...I know Patty's got a wife, correct..." Those big, cat-like eyes returned to Joy's, snapping into place seriously, with a clean blink for emphasis. Then, with a deadpan face and at a forthright volume, Donna asked, "Are you a lesbian?"
Joy swallowed hard. "That's right." She felt defensive all of a sudden. Lowered her hands to her lap and played with a fold in her skirt. Those large, intelligent eyes were going over her face. "Are you shrinking me, doctor? Is that what you're doin'? You gonna try and save me?"
Donna face broke out into a warm, squinty-eyed smile. "Nah. I'm gay too, " she said, somewhat triumphantly. "We're okay, sister."
"Well that was a horse of a different color! What in the hell did you say ta her, Patty, to change her mind, huh?" She was sitting on Patty Malone's bed, a colorful barrage of fabrics floating down beside her, still on their hangers.
"Nothing, baby!" Patty whined. "We just chatted."
"Just chatted. Sure, sure. Somehow I doubt that. Just chatting doesn't get Joy Fetter a dinnuh date with Donna DaVinci. Probably told her I was a brain surgeon or something. How disappointing it must 'a been fuh her to see me in uniform this afternoon." Joy rolled her eyes demonstratively and hoped that Patty was paying careful attention. "Well, you're good, I'll give yuh that. Miss Matchmakuh Malone."
"She said you blew her off that day, Joy," Patty whined, tossing a pleated pair of black slacks across Joy's lap. "F.Y.I."
"She said -- WHAT?"
"That's right."
"How's that?" Joy scratched her temple. "Could I possibly have misread her?"
"All I know, baby, is what Donna told me. She said she motioned for you to sit down and you just stood there. And so that was that."
"She nevah motioned for me ta sit...." Joy was dumbfounded. Her eyes trailed off to the side as her mind replayed that first scene at the café in every minute detail, even though she'd worked so hard, over the past 3 weeks, to block the entire scene out. "...Did she?"
"Well, she showed me the motion, Joy."
"Let's see it."
"It's subtle, Joy, it's an eye thing...like this." Patty grasped the hanger with the lacey-red blouse to her hip, glanced briefly down and to the side, then spread her arms wide open.
"That?! That's no motion, Patty! That's like...subliminal motioning!"
"Anyway, don't worry. She was very relaxed about it. And! She seemed very, very interested in you, baby."
"Whoa boy. Aw jeez. Okay. Now do yuh see what you've done, Patty? -- "
"Joy, you have to understand. This is how Donna acts. She's a cool cat. She chuckled and said she forgot your name. Or did you tell it to her?"
" -You've taken a woman who was perfectly content ta dismiss me. And you've guilted her into making up some crackpot yarn about how she asked me ta sit -- which she didn't. And YES! Of course I told her my name. I'm not memorable, you see."
"Stop it! That's not true! Uck! You are sooo self-effacing, Joy. It gets old sometimes. It really does." Patty sat on the bed besides her small friend, lifted some of Joy's wavy-dark hair between her fingers a few times, like tossing through a salad. "Now, what time are you meeting Donna, baby? We need to start thinking about your hair."
