COURTNEY HARLER

★ ★ ★ ★

FICTION

‘Made by a Lesbian’

            I just ate wonton soup but now I smell rice—starchy fluffy white rice—from the kitchen. The server doesn’t seem to want to take my bill and my credit card to the register. Oh, he has a machine that he can carry with him. How clever. I need to leave before I order some white rice.

            Now I’m at the coffee shop. This café has white chocolate dicks in its pastry display case. One giant one and many other little ones, like a papa dick and all his illegitimate baby children. The chalked sign for the dicks says, “Made by a Lesbian.” I order a latte and a bread pudding, though I am tempted by the chocolate dicks. I’m waiting for my lover to text me back. He lives in a different city, a different state. I don’t see him very often. Partly because he doesn’t exist.

            Actually, I’m waiting for my kid to swim her ass off. After the soup and coffee, I still have fifty-five minutes to wait until practice ends. This morning, in the car on the way to school, I asked her what she thought of her brother. Her brother has been dead for about fourteen years. I recognize the inappropriateness of this question, especially in the morning, but sometimes, I just need to know. Sometimes I want to talk about stuff other than homework—real stuff.

            I have to take this kid to her dad’s tonight for the mid-week visit. Per the divorce decree, he should pick her up and drop her off for their dinner, but I guess I’m nice that way. I guess.

            Now I’m listening to this audio book in the car, waiting in the parking lot of the city pool. The narrator speaks for the deceased author: You are just writing, writing along and then bam!, you’re writing about something else entirely. That bam! is like my life. Last year I was married, now I’m not. Fourteen years ago—but let’s not dredge up the past. I don’t feel like talking now.

            My lover finally texted back. He said, “There you are!” like he’d been waiting for me, but I doubt that’s true. I guess I just sort of want him to want me. Like the song. I guess.

            One night in a downtown dive bar a girl gave me her number on a cocktail napkin. “But I’m not a lesbian,” I almost said. I almost said, “But can’t we just be friends?” In truth, I took her number, tucked it into my purse. The next morning when I woke, I told my daughter, my other older daughter, about getting a girl’s number. Again, somewhat inappropriate, I know, but I live and I breathe too, don’t I?

            I only ate one square of bread pudding, though the server brought me three on a long white rectangular plate. Before I left the café, I got a box for the rest. Two kids, two puddings. Hope they like them.