L-GIRLS (SHORT STORY) copyright 1991, all rights reserved

 L-GIRLS

 

Alvie Diamond looked up from his usual three fried eggs, hash browns, and wheat toast and gazed out through the wide glass window of Andrew's Diner, squinting at the sunlight reflected in the window of his cab out front. A stewardess walked by with a very preoccupied look on her face. Something about her made Alvie think her name was Lynn. Then she'd be an L-girl: First letter "L" and something after it. But he forgot about this and took a long sip of coffee. He loved coffee and hated to let it get cold.

Currently he wasn't seeing anyone. Lisa down at the bank refused to even acknowledge his existence. It was all--how had she put it--something to do with "new objectives" she was setting for her life and future. Alvie didn't know. He didn't care. What he did know was that it was time to FIND another L-girl--the right one this time--he told himself one more time. I hope.

In far off California was another wrong L-girl with a little girl of his. "Gloria. Her name's Gloria. That's all you need to know." She said this just before flying out of town pregnant. Leda.

I didn't even know it was a girl! He sent them a christmas card every Christmas. The top of the hour news on Tom, the short-order cook's radio reminded Alvie he was behind schedule. Downing his cup, he pulled on his jacket and grabbed his hat.

At the cash register a styrofoam cup of coffee to go and the sports section of Tom's already-read paper awaited him.

"Three ninety-five, Alvie." Hildie yawned absently. The nickel change was for Tom for the paper.

"Comin' over to watch the game tonight, Tom?" Alvie called toward the kitchen. "Yeah," came a usually brief reply over some elderly lady's western omelet Tom was preparing.

Outside Alvie breathed deeply early spring morning air and perused his green with black and white checkered taxi. On the driver's side door he proudly read "Sunrise Taxi Service, Inc." in black letters over a golden sunrise logo. His idea for his own taxi for his own very small taxi company.

Starting the former police car's engine he thought once again about Lynn...or was it Luna. He didn't see her around, didn't really expect to. But there were hundreds,  thousands of L-girls in this city and he'd find the right L-girl yet. He was a little lonely, again.

*****************************************

Loretta cracked her gum and reluctantly abandoned it in the ashtray. She wore a fuzzy sweater with a alarmingly large broach, It looked like a small guitar, strings and all. "I hope I like this Chinese food, Alvie. All I know is they," she here lowered her voice to as whisper, "they eat a lot of rice. That's what they eat insn't it?"

May-ling, the short, busy waitress of the left half of Wong-Pai's Chinese Pastries-- depending on what you considered left-- appeared with steaming dishes on a tray. She quickly and efficiently deposited each container on the small table and checking Alvie's eyes for approval she knew she'd find bustled on to the next table. She did this soundlessly.

Grinning, Alvie replied to Loretta. "Yeah,,and so do we." He lifted a lid with each hand to reveal steamed white rice and shrimp fried rice curlind with steam. He sincerely hoped this evening would go well for a change.

"I can't eat rice, Alvie. It doesn't agree with me. And besides, its fattening. I'll just have some of that stuff. Oh Christ what is that!" A shiver coursed through her.

"Its egg foo yung, Loretta. Its good, too," he said offeringly. "Here try it." He shoveled a disk OF onto her plate and spooned thick sauce over it. "No rice either."

She eyed the egg foo yung warily, and finally she daringly used her fork to pull a very tiny bit of it to her mouth. She grimaced. "Alvie, this has eggs in it! Ugh." She seemed about to cry and in fact proceeded to do so. Between heavy sobs she washed the egg foo yung down with a half glass of water. 

"I'm sorry Alvie, but I'm just not used to this strange kind of food. And…there's something I have to tell you...." She looked like a child who has to confess to breaking her mothers favorite vase.

"Don't worry about it, honey. They've got regular food here, too. Hamburgers, steaks, hot dogs even.... How about a hamburger, well done with french fries? How about it? And a milk shake." He smiled solicitously, trying to get her to smile as well. Swiftly he re-covered all the dishes as if they could upset her more. He cast around for May-Ling.

"Alvie, I'm going back home. "

"What!" Shock and confusion, pain and grief crossed his face.

"I can't live here in the city, Alvie. I'm a country girl." That she was. "And besides, mama needs the help with another one on the way." Her tears vanished and a sparkle came to her eyes. "Why pa and ma and Betty-Sue are about going crazy with all those kids as it is. I never should've left." She rummaged through her purse for tissue for her face and a pack of gum. "Want one?" She offered.

"But what about us Loretta, huh? " Slow to anger but increasingly desperate, Alvie started to plead. "We've been through this before. You can stay in the city. I can take care of you. And what about your job?"

"Harry can get hisself another waitress, Alvie. I already quit yesterday. I just knew you was gonna take it like this, but I had to break it to you like this. Now, it's final. I'm goin' home. My folks need me. Can't you see that, baby?" She gazed imploringly and stubbornly into Alvie's eyes.

"I need you!" His shock was fading to ire and self-pity. "How about me, Loretta? I thought we really had something...something real. Don't we?" His stomach growled perceptibly. He quieted it with a small cup of tea. "Well, Loretta?"

"Alvie, if you need someone to love you, then get a dog. You're a big boy. Now cheer up and give me a ride home. I gotta pack so I can catch my bus home." She snapped her purse shut with solid determination, and Alvie lost hope.

"Know what, Alvie? I'm gonna send you a dog-- a nice big one. We got so many at home that I know we can spare one for little old you. Now lets go!" She cracked her gum and beamed.

Alvie sighed. "Ruff ruff, " and gave up once again. L-girls. What am I thinking?, he wondered.

********************************************

Alvis met Lenore on the subway. His taxi needed radiator repair, and the anguish he felt was almost physical. For someone who loves and practically lives in his car, any separation of man and machine can be near fatal. Lois, had seen that on "A Current Affair" once and told Alvie about it before they broke up. L.A. police had found a suburban resident on a city bus nearly catatonic in a fetal position, hands clutching his absent Beamer steering wheel. So Lois had warned might one day happen, the taxi driver was now an unwilling subway passenger by necessity. He was not at all happy about it. Almost as bad he was lonely.

"Lenore, sit thyself down," a slightly tipsy woman muttered to herself staggering toward Alvie as the crowded train pulled away from the Carthy Street station. Unknown to her, his ears peaked at the sound of her name. "Help--" She collapsed, folded down until he caught her.

She started to struggle gentle against him. Then suddenly she relaxed, uttering two syllables: "Napor." The lights of the subway chose that moment to dim appreciably and suddenly.

Hefting the woman back as the lights returned, Alvie managed to study her. She was very odd-looking. Wiry, she seemed to be dressed all in black: black skirt, blouse, shoes, jacket, hose, glasses--slightly shaded, necklace hair, ring and possibly more. Then

she was fighting him again.

"Let me sit. Let me sit, wanderer!" She addressed him almost familiarly. She slumped into a cross-legged position on the floor, making some sort of gesture to herself.

"Thank you, wanderer. Please join me." She offered a spot next to her on the train's floor

"I'll just stand. What's your stop?" A pair of school girls giggled.

"Emberly." She smiled knowingly--like a spider, Alvie thought but didn't think to ask why.

*******************************************

Alvie knocked politely and wondered what he was letting himself in for. Lenore opened the door to her apartment almost instantly as if she had just let him knock for custom's sake. "I'm so glad you could join me," she beckoned him in. "I hope you like...spaghetti." She grinned mysteriously and pointed at her big black cat that was watching Alvie from atop a radiator. "Basset loves spaghetti."

I bet Alex would love Basset, Alvie thought of Loretta's big, brown, barking, parting gift that loved to chase, chase and chase cats-- in that order. "I love spaghetti, Lenore," he swore earnestly savoring her name. Besides that she was a very attractive woman in, he guessed, her mid-thirties. She had surprised him inviting him over like she did when he helped her boy scout-like to walk home from the subway. Being that she was an L-girl, this had rather pleased him.

She left him on a soft couch to "check on the food." The room, he noted, was lit by what seemed about a hundred candles when his eyes adjusted to the low light.. The cat crossed the room and disappeared under a chair. This was by far the creepiest place Alvie had ever seen this side of Dracula's castle. Any minute he expected a bat to come winging out of the deep shadows in the hall. By daylight it had seemed not nearly so spooky.

"I brought some wine, Wander," Lenore said reappearing through a curtain of dark beads. He had finally gathered the name was proper in some way. "It's quite good." She was already enjoying some and quickly poured a second glass. Handing it to him she spoke," I'll read your future with the Tarot."

From seemingly nowhere-- an easy feat in the darkness-- she produced a deck of cards much longer and a little wider than ordinary cards. "Let's see," she began to lay the cards in an arc. "Cups, Swords, The Tower, The Fool, Death...." She lingered on that card, looking toward Alvie thoughtfully, and finally let it join the others. "Let me check on the food again." She grinned cheerfully.

The candlelight made shadows dance on the walls which were covered with strange paintings, all surreal, some seeming macabre. Black and blood colored paint swirled in evil-looking patterns. The cat reappeared and started to preen itself, occasionally pausing to eye Alvie sharply.

"Death. Such a very...relevant subject. Wouldn't you agree?" She paused but not long enough for a response. "Anyways dinner is ready."

"Mmmrr." The cat headed for the dining room. Alvie followed.

 

*****************************************

Lenore was a great cook, Alvie noted with satisfaction. He, she, and the cat had returned to her living room. "Anyways let us return to the subject of death, wanderer."

Uh oh. There she went again and she had been so normal during the candlelight dinner if quiet. She was he had learned a writer, although of what Alvie wasn't sure. But she seemed to like him. She watched him eat with apparently great pleasure. But. "Do you know death?"

"Well, I suppose so in a way. My mother died ten years ago. It was a very difficult time for me." He hoped that was an acceptable response.

"Yes, I can well imagine it must have been. But I am speaking of your personal relationship with death. How well do you know death? He is my close friend. Is he yours?"

Alvie was now feeling somewhat nervous and even the good meal's lingering effect was rapidly eroding. "Uh, yeah...I'm not sure exactly what you mean." The cat now sat on the floor across from him and stared. Its tail darted back and forth. Changing the subject, he asked, "So why do you keep calling me Wanderer?"

"I will tell you. It is because your soul wanders. It searches the earth, searches. Does it find what it seeks? No. Never." She reached down to stroke the cat slowly. "You know, I am a witch. This is my familiar. Am I what your soul seeks or is that death?" She seemed almost lost in her words for a minute, returned and grinned slightly. "Hmm?"

One night stand? Is that what she means? Alvie pondered his situation. Weird lady, weird apartment. Witch? 

"Uh, you are...I think." Suave. He could play her game, too. Slow speak and creepiness. He supposed they'd miss him at Andrew's in the morning if this was for real.

He was right--sort of.

*****************************************

God! What was I thinking. Alvie kicked himself mentally. A witch. I was going to have a relationship with a witch. It was over. She knew it, he knew it. Drink blood! Summon demons with that stupid cat? No way.

Weird sex, death, the cat-- fine, but blood, demons and voodoo in my taxi. No way, Jose. The feathers and wax scared two little old ladies away from being passengers. "Oh, thank you, but we'll just take another cab, young man." Never before had as much as one passenger ever refused Sunrise Taxi Service, not once! It was over, and Alvie didn't regret it.

Having decided this he pointed his shopping cart toward the produce section. Nearing the lettuce, he stopped to examine the romaine. It looked pretty nice. He notice humming coming from nearby, very pretty humming A woman with a blond beehive was looking at iceburg lettuce, trying to choose between to identical heads. "That's my song," he said.

"I love Misty, too." She finally decided on the darker green iceberg. Her voice was like singing, not sing-song but really beautiful, Alvie noted. "I get more requests for it than any other song."

"Are you a singer then? Your voice is great."

She smiled modestly. "Yes, music is my life. We've been playing the Temple coffee house lately. We have a small but loyal audience, Lyra and the Wavetones. You should come hear us some night" She floated away down an aisle.

"Lyra;" Alvie breathed. I'll be there," he called after her.

********************************

The L-girls come and go at a dizzying pace, leaving Alvie standing there on the curb with a stack of gift-wrapped packages. Slightly dazed he watches a multitude of yellow taxies pull away, sometimes with tears streaming and other times with a vengeful heart scowling "Good riddance!"

Bits of a tenderly romantic dinner cling like schmaltz in crevices of his teeth shimmering with reminiscence. L-girls are the stuff of life itself, wild entropy screaming her lungs out in Alvie's drizzling rain. Wherever they are its always early spring and budding with hope for this warm, heavy-hearted cabbie, who is waiting at a red light for the real thing to happen and knowing it will, must.

Cream-cheese spread in a thick layer like too much kitch, art, and other necessary cultural frivolities. Time is made to be consumed, digested and mostly forgotten. How then can Alvie keep hoping about the past and future when to so is almost a paradox. So instead it is today and he searches for the one, the true L-girl. "L" for Lucia, like his dead mother.

Lonnie. Lottie. Lily. Lippi, the wild painting artist. Lorraine who sewed so well and darned, too. Lachesis the consummate cards player. Poker, Rummy, Euchre and Hearts. She loved to win but also to teach Alvie a new game. Now he can play three kinds of solitaire, although that's not nearly enough. Fierce Leona who felt life must be lived to its fullest only to wind up in a pool of her own blood and warm running water. Lucy with her awesome beauty and no brains paired always with her click of Buffy and Muffy, bimbettes of time eternal. Grating stupidity, a hopeless wonder of good cheer. Lois and Lorri-Anne, L-sisters, each in her turn. All to no avail for poor Alvie, yet the search goes on with eternal hope, good manners and a little grey cap on his head.

*****************************************

Alvie leaned back in his the recliner. He closed his eyes and savored the smell of a real home-cooked meal. Eating out was good but this was great. Alex laid curled up, tail to nose, by the fireplace. "Smells good, Millie," he called out.

"Well come on then," his wife of three years replied cheerily. He smiled to himself, Alvie Wanderer. M-girl, the first one, too--first letter "M," first letter past "L." Funny how things turn out, he pondered before succumbing to hunger. Real funny.