“She has already gone through menopause,” Pam says seriously, “so she can’t get pregnant.”
“Whew,” Elle says, her hand splayed across collarbones that poke out like doorknobs.
“Your daughter is a hero,” Lüq tells Pam as Mom floats on her back in the water, Evangi gliding into the zero-entry pool and holding a flotation pillow under Mom’s head. “Have you seen the video on YouTube of her rescue of that poor little puppy?”
“Yes,” Pam says as Gagai brings her a cup of something greenish and frothy. Pam eyes it like it might be poison.
“Green tea latte infused with bee pollen and anti-aging RNAs,” Gagai explains, as if she ordered a double half-caf skim mocha at Starbucks.
“No ground placenta?” Pam jokes, leaning down for a tentative sip.
“Just one moment. I will add some,” Gagai says.
“No, no! I’m fine. Thanks,” Pam balks.
“Where’s Spritzy?” I ask, not because I care, but because I want to talk about anything but whale sperm and breast milk.
“With James. He took him for a walk and to the pet spa.”
“There’s a pet spa here?”
“I was as surprised as you, Shannon, but...” She makes a face I know well. “He insisted.”
“I hope poor Spritzy doesn’t get a doggy vajacial,” I mutter.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispers back. “Spritzy is a boy, so he can’t get pregnant from the whale sperm.”
I give Pam a fist bump. I freaking love Pam.
“Jordan Montelcini is an ass!” Lüq exclaims, anger dissolving across his features like a liquid rubber mask designed by CGI experts.
The non sequitur makes Mom startle, just like Amanda moments ago, and flop on her belly in the water, coming up sputtering.
“Ew! You swallowed!” Amanda calls out from her perch across the room, where she’s receiving a pedicure from Elle.
“I always swallow!” Mom replies.
“TMI, MOM!”
“I need to sit down,” Pam says, going slack against me, her dead weight hard to get over to a chair where I can dump her off so she can handle her case of the vapors.
“What’s wrong with Jordan Montelcini?” Mom asks.
“Who is Jordan Montelcini?” me and Pam call out.
“AN ASS!” Amanda and Lüq shout at the same time.
“Darling!” Lüq says, arms opening. Amanda leaps up into the air and glides across into hu’s arms. They hug. The universe melts. “I knew we were soulmates in another lifetime. How else would the energy of the cosmos know to bring me to your video, and you to my spa?”
“How did you find the video?” Amanda asks, her voice muffled by hu’s muumuu.
“I received a Google Alert for Jordan.”
We all frown. Stalking doesn’t gel with the whole serenity act Lüq has going here.
“I was a floral designer in my last life.”
“Did you learn that from a psychic?”
“No,” Lüq says, confused. “My last life. You know. The 2000s. I attended hair and esthetician school in early 2010 and here we are. But Jordan.” Hu glowers. “Jordan and Mama Montelcini were my nemeses.”
“Floral designers are that competitive?” I say with a smile.
Lüq frowns.
The sun dies.
“I do not joke about this,” he says, clapping his hands, an action which makes Gagai, Evangi and Elle all bustle out of the room. In the distance, I hear what sounds like an espresso machine and frother working furiously, as Lüq invites us to move to a sunken pit.
1974 drank way too much, did some Angel Dust, and threw up in this depression in the ground, with crazy avocado green, adobe orange, and cigarette-yellow all imprinted with the iconic LOVE work of art, the floor covered in shag carpeting so long it might as well be dreadlocks.
We all sit, and Lüq pulls out a vaping machine. A whiff of vanilla fills the air.
“Do you mind?” hu asks. “I am trying to cut the tobacco, but this....”
We all assure hu it’s fine. Evangi, Gagai and Elle return with coffees.
Actual coffees. Not tea disguised as coffee, or frothed placenta flavored with chicory and deception.
I sniff mine. It has hints of cinnamon and cherry. “No placenta?” I joke.
“I can get you some,” Evangi says, darting for the door.
“No! It’s fine.” The coffee’s not nearly as good as Grind It Fresh!, and Amanda and I share a knowing look, but I keep my mouth shut. Caffeine matters. Origin does not.
I want the scoop on Jordan and Lüq.
Mom brought him and his weird little dog into the wedding planning just after Amanda went on a work date with him and saved the tiny Chihuahua from being a hawk’s Pu Pu platter. Someone videotaped the rescue, and for whatever reason, Jordan blames Amanda for the little dog being in danger, and considers my mother to be the true rescuer.
What the hell do Lüq and Jordan Montelcini have in common?
“Are you from Boston?” Marie asks hu.
“No. I am a citizen of the world.”
Even I roll my eyes at that, and so does Gagai, except when she does it her chains rattle and she sounds like one of the ghosts in A Christmas Carol.
“I met Jordan at a rave,” Lüq starts, looking at each of us, as if this tidbit were an anchor for the rest of the story.
What’s a rave? I mouth to Amanda. She shrugs. Hmm. Maybe it’s a fast food joint?
“He had this lion’s mane of hair, wild and rainbowed, and he looked just like Boy George in his heyday.”