Florida Heat

Even though it was early February, the Florida heat was still nothing to be played with but for the best brisket in the tri-county area, Veronica and Diane found themselves sitting in an airconditioned barbecue joint. The kind where you aren’t sure exactly how it’s still in business because the food is so cheap and the atmosphere so rustic.

Veronica wore her blue sundress that had thin straps, her long dark hair pulled into an ivory hair clip to keep it off her neck, and sunglasses atop her head. Diane on the other hand shied away from a dress and opted for a cream camisole that her nipples nosily peered through paired with her favorite cutoffs. Diane picked at her pulled pork with her fingers. An awkward silence hung between them.

“I told Keith I wanted a divorce this morning,” Diane had said as flatly as if she’d stated, these walls are an ugly color.

Veronica choked on her iced tea, “What in the hell did you go and do that for?” She grabbed at her napkin and patted at the brown liquid that dribbled down her chin.

Diane looked up from her plate, “Because I’d like not to have to drive across two county lines just to kiss you and I’d like to start living my life for a change.”

Veronica figured she’d circle back around to that comment but for right now her mind was elsewhere, “Did he ask you why?”

“Yes,” Diane answered before putting a piece of the pulled pork in her mouth and chewing slowly.

“Well?” Veronica was incredulous, “what did you tell him?”

“What do you think V?” Diane was exhausted from having what was turning out to be the same conversation she had with Keith, “I told him that I’d met someone and before you flip your shit, I didn’t mention you.”

Much to Diane’s chagrin, Veronica visibly relaxed. Her life could remain perfectly balanced and Veronica Carvotta could remain a menagerie of secrets for just a little bit longer.

“You can’t be Archie and Veronica forever, V!” Diane threw her hands up, “I mean unless that’s what you want? To always live in this…this lie!”

Veronica quickly scanned the restaurant; Diane caught the movement.

“No one is fucking looking!” now Diane was yelling, and other patrons were beginning to take notice of the two women, “No one cares about us!”

Diane’s chest was heaving, frustration forcing it in and out of her lungs masquerading as oxygen, her shoulders hunched high around her ears. She was livid, here she was telling Veronica that she was leaving her husband of nearly fifteen years and all Veronica could do was look around the room to make sure no one had heard her.

The large open space was quiet, and the other people tried to act like they weren’t watching. It hadn’t helped that the two of them had chosen a table at the center of the room. Diane finally took notice of the silence and gazed around at the faces but the only one that seemed to embarrass and disappoint her the most was the one right across from her. Veronica looked as though she wanted to crawl under the table and that made Diane’s heart sink.

“I’m just not ready Di,” Veronica whispered into her food, rouge coloring crept up her neck, and her bangs covered her glassy eyes.

Diane’s eyes wild with anguish, “Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

Veronica peered up in time to see Diane dump her plate full of pulled pork into the trash. There wasn’t a doubt in Veronica’s mind that she loved Diane but what Diane was asking of her was monumental and she wasn’t brave like Diane. Veronica hadn’t wanted to upend her whole life especially not when gravity had begun to ravage her body.

“Tell me,” Diane stood before her, “Am I supposed to wait for you to find courage or for a good gust of wind to blow down that damn house of cards that you’ve built?”

Diane watched with a hand perched on her left hip, “Well?”

Veronica couldn’t answer her, the words caught in her throat like cotton, her mouth moved like a fish, but only tears came out of Veronica’s eyes. That was enough of an answer for Diane and would be the last time she spoke to Veronica let alone about the relationship that had just exploded inside a barbecue joint like a hand grenade with the pin pulled.

A couple of months passed before Veronica understood the severity of Diane’s decision to sever the ties between them. It wasn’t until one day at the farmer’s market when she ran into Diane’s older sister Karen that she’d heard what had become of her beloved Diane.

“Oh, hey Darlin’,” Karen spoke in her southern lilt, “Why I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age. How you been? You look like you’ve lost weight, you’ve always been such a beautiful girl.”

Karen was like a word faucet, once the tap was turned on, you’d drown before you got a word in edgewise. She had been going on for a solid four minutes before Veronica’s attention was drawn back to the conversation.

“Oh yeah,” Karen continued, “She bought this cute little house just out side’a town with some woman named Caroline, wait that’s not right,” Karen paused for a moment before her eureka moment struck her like a sock to the face, “Carlotta! That’s it, the woman’s name is Carlotta. She’s real nice. Doesn’t change the fact that our mama was fit to be tied when Diane told her the news.”

Karen had used the euphemism the news in lieu of the word lesbian and Veronica was sure Lilian was fit to be tied that her favorite daughter was going around town kissing a girl.

“Wait,” Veronica was now in full control of her faculties and back from the far edges of space and time when she heard the other woman’s name, “Whose Carlotta?”

“Hunny, aren’t you listen’n?” Karen looked concerned but still smiled, “Diane said this woman was the reason she’d left Keith and then proceeded to go on about being her authentic self. Whatever in the hell that means.”

It wasn’t this Carlotta that had made Diane leave Keith, it was her. This was information that Veronica could not and dare not correct for fear of blowing her own life from hell to breakfast. All of the blood in her body rushed to her feet simultaneously and she thought she’d throw up and pass out although in no certain order.

“Veronica?” Karen placed a well-manicured yet concerned hand on Veronica’s arm, “Hunny, are you alright? You look downright ill?”

Veronica turned and looked at Karen with a dazed expression on her face and nodded very slowly. Karen’s eyes crinkled and her smile continued to widen like a form of encouragement. Veronica had always thought that Karen looked like Rue McClanahan and suddenly she found that terribly funny. Giggles spilled out of Veronica’s mouth like soap bubbles, and she quickly put a hand to her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she waved a hand at Karen, “I just thought the worst had happened to her when she wouldn’t return my calls and now, I feel silly.”

“Oh Hunny,” Karen tried to laugh with her, “we all did.”

Weeks later, Veronica sat in oppressive humidity which made the edges of her eyelashes stick together via the damp vegan mascara Diane had bought her. The memory made Veronica grip the steering wheel as though it were an expensive merlot, she’d just got at a good price. Veronica idled at a cross-section she had no business being. Yet, even in this cruel heat, Veronica knew exactly where she was going and why she had just, against her better judgment made a left turn. Her run-in with Karen had yielded an address and here was Veronica, slender back sticking to premium black leather while she waited down the street from Diane’s new place. The house was a slate gray with a canary yellow door and robin’s egg blue shutters, and it was surrounded by small shrubs and wildflowers. The roof tiles were high contrasting Spanish tiles and Veronica thought how ridiculous it all was when described out loud and yet very Diane. She had the urge to want to get to know the little house as well as she knew the person that owned it.

“Watermelon sugar high,” Harry Styles’s saccharine crooning mingled with the ions in the air as the song wafted from the speakers of Veronica’s Jaguar. The pop song had once played loudly when she and Diane were on their way to Treasure Island for a weekend getaway at the beach. A weekend in which they spent hours in the sand taking turns with the sun, kissing tan bathing suit-clad bodies, drinking expensive mixed drinks that kept cool under brightly colored paper umbrellas, and interlacing their fingers regardless of who was looking. A ship on the horizon watched them from a distance and Veronica thought maybe next time they’d charter a sailboat. A slight smile passed over Veronica’s face as the image of Diane’s lightly glossed lips moving emphatically around the syllables, and melodies of the song. If she tried hard enough Veronica could still remember the taste of Diane’s cucumber melon lip balm and the long-gilded strands of hair whipping about her elegant face.

In contrast to her thoughts of salted beach breezes and lyrics about sensual fruit, Veronica sat and thought of all the ways she wanted to apologize to Diane and tell her she’d leave Arthur. How she wanted to be Thelma and Louise instead of Veronica and Archie but all of that evaporated the minute she saw Diane.

Diane had cut her hair into a bob that seemed more silver than gold in the sunlight, she was wearing a Kelly-green bikini top, and cutoffs. Even from this distance, she was radiant. A smile returned to Veronica’s face until she noticed a full-figured woman walk out, shut the door, and lock it behind her. The woman was wearing a purple one-piece, a floral sarong, and carried a large bag filled with towels. All of this was umbrellaed under a broad-brimmed sunhat. They must be headed to the beach and that must be Carlotta.

Jealousy spread throughout Veronica’s body like a slow-burning match, blinding and clouding the edges of her vision as she watched them kiss before loading into what had to be Carlotta’s red Mustang, then backing out of the sloping driveway.

Like a stop motion film, Veronica’s next few choices happened in a sequence of frames. She put her hand down on the shifter, threw the Jag in drive, and placed both hands on the wheel then without any reservation, mashed her foot down on the accelerator. The back tires squealed and screeched as she sped off in a fishtail. Everything became a blur of colored streaks as the numbers on her speedometer climbed and the car hurtled down the street. It wasn’t long before the nose of the Jag had closed in on the Mustang’s hind end, its hood an angry maw.

Diane heard the sound of screeching tires through the Mustang’s open windows, her eyes widened with fear as she noticed an onyx car barreling toward them. Carlotta noticed the panic on her lover’s face before looking in the rearview and seeing the Jag. Diane looked up ahead and slammed on the brakes as the Mustang rapidly approached a red light. Carlotta put her hand on Diane’s thigh and knowingly gripped it.

Veronica saw the brake lights on the Mustang flash angrily, warning of a sudden stop. Yet, just before Veronica’s brain had enough time to send the signal to her foot to slam her foot down on the brakes something else entirely happened.

Veronica began to sing, “Tastes like strawberries on a summer evenin’ and it sounds just like a song.”