Crooked Words Read online

think—

  Maria: [interrupts] What do you mean you can’t talk to me about things? I’m right here.

  Diana: Stop interrupting me, Mum!

  [Maria, startled, drops the chair she’s carrying.]

  Diana: [continues] Mum, I just want you to listen to me, and—you don’t, you don’t listen. You just go on and on about other things, and I don’t like … it’s scary, sometimes, and … I just can’t. It’s all so awkward. Josie doesn’t do that. It’s her job, but I can talk to her. It’s different.

  [Maria picks up the chair and adds it to the pile on the table.]

  Maria: Are you saying that you’re not happy with the way things are around here? With how I am?

  [Diana glances towards the audience, and then the bag at the side of the stage.]

  Diana: I don’t mean it that way. Just—it’s all so hard, all the arguing and the pushing.

  Maria: What’s keeping you here, then, if it’s all too hard for you? You damn well know where the door is.

  Diana: Mum…

  Maria: [sitting on chair, facing the audience] I don’t understand. Don’t you want to have a good job? Don’t you want to be happy? Secure? Why can’t you just grow up and start being responsible? Isn’t this what this Josie should be teaching you—how to be an adult?

  Diana: [to the audience] Things are different now, Mum. I don’t want to be like you and just wonder. Why can’t you understand that?

  Maria: How am I not understanding? I work to keep a roof over your head! Why don’t you start trying to understand how hard it is for me to do that?

  Diana: I do, and I appreciate it, but…

  [Maria stands up and turns to face Diana.]

  Maria: There’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there? I told you, Diana. If you can’t tolerate it here, if I’m not understanding enough for you, then there’s the door, right over there.

  [Maria picks up her last chair and adds it to the pile on the tables. Diana stands up and picks up her own chair. She carries it to the centre-front of the stage and places it down, well away from the wall of tables and chairs now built up between the two women.]

  Diana: Okay.

  Maria: What?

  Diana: Okay.

  Maria: What does that mean?

  Diana: Okay. I’ll go crash at Suze’s.

  [Diana walks across the stage to her bag and slings it over one shoulder. Maria crosses over to the tables, peering between the chairs at Diana.]

  Maria: You’re leaving?

  Diana: Yes.

  Maria: You can’t just walk out on me like this. Not like—

  Diana: [walks towards the door, but stops halfway to look back at Maria] You just told me to leave, Mum. So I’m leaving.

  Maria: You don’t have a job. You can’t stay at Suze’s forever. What are you going to do?

  Diana: I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to be an adult and figure it out for myself.

  Maria: You can’t just leave things like this—

  Diana: [interrupts] Mum, I’m sorry, but I have to. I can’t do this anymore, and if you’re not going to listen, then I can’t be here anymore. Can you listen to me?

  Maria: I am listening. What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? Ignoring you?

  [Diana says nothing and opens the door. Maria pulls out the chair placed on the ground between the two tables and steps through the table-chair wall onto Diana’s side of the stage, staring at Diana’s bag.]

  Maria: Wait. You brought that bag in with you, Diana? You brought a packed bag?

  [Diana turns to face Maria.]

  Diana: It’s not like you haven’t told me to leave before.

  Maria: You came in planning to leave?

  Diana: I wanted to see if we could talk it out, first. If things could be different. I wanted to give it a shot, but Josie said—

  Maria: [interrupts] I don’t see you doing much listening to me. What does this Josie have to say about that, Diana?

  Diana: Goodbye, Mum.

  [Diana steps through the door and shuts it behind her.]

  Maria: [darts across Diana’s half of the stage and opens the door] Diana! Wait!

  [Diana doesn’t come back. Maria stands in the open doorway for a moment, and then turns and shuts the door behind her. She stands and surveys the table for a moment, and then picks up her cleaning cloth and starts cleaning the kitchen.]

  Maria: [to self] Hi, Mum. How was your day, then? Oh, Diana—not so good, actually. They said they have to cut back my hours even more. They say they want people who can use Excel, but really, I think, they just want the customers to see younger people. I guess we’ll just have to muddle along, won’t we? I’m sure we’ll be okay.

  [pause]

  Maria: If it comes to it … and I’m sure it won’t, but just in case. You’d put in a good word with Anna for me at the chicken shop, wouldn’t you?

  Blue Paint, Chocolate and Other Similes

  Ben thought he’d stopped breathing for a second when the guy at the bar finally turned his way, his lips and eyes creasing into a too-broad, melt-your-heart sort of a smile. He sat there, transfixed, as the guy raised his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss in the direction of Ben’s table. Grinning back wasn’t a particularly suave thing to do—maybe someone else, someone far more experienced in the art of picking up hot men, someone who didn’t feel self-conscious over their appearance, would know how to respond—but the man winked, and Ben fought the urge to pump his fist up and down. Yes. He still had it.

  Take that, Dad, he thought. The sexiest guy in the room, suited up—it didn’t matter whether or not he’d suited up for the bar or just came from work, as the black pinstripe suit fit him like a second skin—and eyeing him. If that didn’t prove Ben wasn’t desirable as he was, what did?

  The sudden flailing of Lisa’s hands right before Ben’s face made him jerk and almost knock over the bowl of peanuts.

  “God, Lisa,” he said, and he pushed his beer away from the edge of the table but made sure to keep his head raised, just to ensure the guy wasn’t some kind of unholy apparition who’d disappear the moment Ben glanced away. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “Do you see her?” Lisa pointed at the bar with a shaky hand. “Oh my god, do you think she’ll come over?” She frowned and ran a hand down her chest, tugged at her blouse and necklace. “I’ve got a chance, right?”

  Ben and Lisa’s friendship revolved around a mutual low-level anxiety and shoring the other up at any presentable opportunity, so Ben nodded out of habit—and then realised just whom Lisa pointed at. It took a moment for Ben to scrape his jaw off the too-worn pub carpet; he picked up scattered peanuts and arranged them in a neat pile to one side of his coaster while he pulled himself together. “Uh … what?” He tore his eyes away from his dream man for just long enough to check Lisa’s glass, but she’d only knocked back a couple of lagers, nowhere near alcoholic enough to cause delusions on that kind of scale. He wasn’t a woman, whatever Lisa thought of women in well-tailored suits (Ben did agree on that point), and he hadn’t been staring at Lisa—had he? “That’s not a woman.”

  Lisa tore her eyes away just long enough to raise both brows at Ben’s direction. “What the fuck yourself?” She swiped a hand through her hair and then broke out into a broad smile. “She’s looking at me again. She’ll come over, right?”

  She? Ben stared at the guy again, now examining his suit for more than just an appreciation of well-fitting fabric. Lisa had never so much as dreamed of getting it on with a dude, and Ben could have sworn that she had better gaydar than him—not that this was a situation where gaydar mattered, come to think of it. There wasn’t much of a social rule about gender bar the assumption that anyone could at any time tell anyone else’s gender without difficulty, but that guy, that adorable smile above a loosened-collar dress shirt hiding way too much of his chest and shoulders? No way was he looking at some—what, a crossdressing woman? Butch lesbian? No, not in that pinstripe suit.

  “No way i
s that a chick,” Ben said—and gulped, right as his dream man stretched both legs, grabbed the jacket hanging over the back of his chair, and strolled over towards them. “Lisa, is that a chick?”

  “She’s just packing,” Lisa said, doing a last minute check of her clothes before grabbing her glass and leaning back in her chair. “Glittery eyeshadow? Totally not a dude.”

  “Could be a trans man,” he said, not sure how he felt about women who packed, however hypocritical it might have been. It occurred to him that in case Lisa was wrong about being the recipient of the guy’s sexy stares, he should probably make sure he also hadn’t dripped beer down his front; a surreptitious check proved that his clothes were where they were supposed to be and unsoiled.

  “Could be anyone,” she said, not unreasonably. “How about you ask?”

  Ben bit back a disgusted grunt. Lisa was right about the eye shadow, now that he (she?) strolled closer, every move of her feet and hands in perfect rhythm to the music. Blue and purple eye shadow, sparkly like glittery nail polish or My Little Ponies, framed each eye and detracted nothing from that glossed-up smile.

  She grinned harder, running the tip of her tongue over her lips as she approached the table. “Got room for a g-gatecrasher?”

  The girl didn’t wait for an answer as she draped her jacket over one of the two vacant chairs, which was good as the most Ben could offer was a grin and a nod. The rest of him was caught up in her. She smelled of sandalwood and vanilla, enough to be noticeable but not so strong it sent him running for the windows. Her voice gave nothing away. Somewhere between husky and rough, hoarse