"So?"
"What?"
"Deviii! What happened! Spill already!"
"I met a girl, I told you."
"Yeah, Devi, that was really helpful right there."
"Well what am I supposed to say?"
"Something more than 'a girl'."
"Okay. She likes the color yellow."
"Devi, come back here! Put that damn bush down for a minute, the high gobledygook of whatever that you're doing can wait. I've got some coffee going in that rust-bucket of yours. We can chat."
"Ton-jaaaaa…"
"Don't you 'Tonja' me. Sit."
"Hey give me that back! You're going to ruin the bristles!"
"Sit. I'll get the coffee."
"Fine. And you'd better not stir the coffee with it."
"I heard that. You want milk?"
"I want my brush back."
"Devi, enough! Here's your damn brush andsitbackdownalready!"
"Umf!…Hey, this is good coffee."
"As if you need more caffeine, girl."
"No, seriously. This is good. Are these my beans?"
"Your beans are growing mold. These are mine."
"….You brought over your own beans?"
"Do not mock the caffeine gods, Devi."
"Hnf."
"So?"
"So what?"
"Damn it, girl! What about this new friend of yours? When do I get to meet her?"
"Since when are you my mom?"
"Since ten minutes ago. You're grounded."
"Argh, Tonja! I give up! What do you want to know?"
"Dunno…like, where you met her, stuff like that. I mean, you were just staying at home for forever and Tenna was all, 'Tonja! She hit me with a toaster when I tried to come in
through the window!' and then all of a sudden when I call you're gone and the one time I got you, you were just heading out the door to see the 'thing' with this 'girl' and I'm wondering where the hell you hid Devi's corpse."
"Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick, Tonja!"
"Thanks for that lovely little mental image, Dev."
"I'm sorry. I- I just…I don't really know how to start. You're the writer. I just do creepy
shit with paint."
"Hmmm…"
"….Well?"
"Okay. Once upon a time there was a beautiful fairy princess named Devi-"
"Tonja!"
"I'm getting you started. So, this gorgeous, wonderful, scintillatingly fantastic princess-"
"Tonja, I'm warning you-"
"Who, after a series of incredibly disturbing failures at boyfriends and a really funny failure with a girlfriend, gave up on anyone she hadn't known since college and avoided fresh air like poison gas. And then…?"
"I just got fed up with spending another Friday night alone, I guess."
"I'd like to say you should have called me but since you've never done anything I told you to do…continue."
"…And so I just got in the car and pulled over at a random bar."
"Wow."
"I know, I know. See why I didn't want to tell you? It involves me, being stupid."
"And we love you anyway."
"Thanks."
"Oooh, sarcasm. That's really new. So you met the girl at the bar?"
"Yeah, but it wasn't really a bar…like a coffee-house, only with alcohol."
"A bar."
"No, I mean it wasn't like a bar. No barf or anything. I got lucky, I guess. Squeaky-Pip's. That's the name. It was like everyone kept to themselves. No one trying to pick anyone up, no barf, no horrible music."
"And knowing you, you took one look at what was probably the first thing to go right in a long while and turned right back around."
"…Yeah."
"Thought so. So? Then what?"
"And then this girl-"
"The girl?"
"Yeah, Tess, she waves me over."
"And you sit."
"And I sit."
"She didn't use glue or anything?"
"No!"
"Then what do I have to do to get you to stop pacing around like that?"
"Stop interrupting me all the time, Tonja! Fuck, I – this is hard enough!"
"Jeez, okay already."
"Look, I don't even know why I'm bothering with you anymore-"
"Because I have known you since Derren Heinsly stole your lunch in third grade and because I'll break your arm if you try to kick me out like Tenna lets you do."
"…Nnnh…"
"Gods, Devi, I'm sorry, okay? Go on. What did this girl say?"
"Nnn…She said…she said, 'Rah says you need help.'"
"Spoooooky."
"You have no idea. But she just smiles so apologetically, like she's embarrassed and sorry for having to say that, and I can't really be mad. Oh, and a card. She gives me this little business card."
"You still have it?"
"Yeah…I taped it up over there. By the phone."
"…Now this is a color you don't see in nature."
"I told you, she likes yellow. She says it's a happy color. It is, too."
"This is a back-away-slowly-and-use-small-words-happy color, Dev."
"…."
"And what's this mean, anyway? 'Tess and Rah, Services, Shit Dealt With'?"
"I asked her that myself. She said anything. Their job is just to…fix things. Fix what was wrong. She said that…things were…are…broken, in the world. People don't act right, don't think right. They get themselves backed into dead-ends and can't turn around, or force others into blind alleys themselves. She's there for people that need more help that what they're willing or able to do for themselves, although…You can tell she thinks everyone could solve their own damn messes, if they just pulled their heads out of their asses. She's nice but …she's so angry. At everything. It's like she's declared war on the world…God. She sounds so much like he did. Like Nny. When she starts going."
"That's not good, Devi."
"I- I know. But it just…doesn't matter. She makes you feel tougher, just by being with her."
"You said that about Nny, too."
"That was totally different! Nny was- was…it was different. It just was. Nny, he just…needed to be protected. Like I was his big sister or something, he was just so…put-upon. Like the world was a war-zone and it was all against him…like you had to be tough for him or he'd just break. It's not like, like that at all, with Tess. Tess is like an army by herself, like we're winning. I'm actually winning for once in my life, Tonja!"
"Jeez, calm down. Forget I asked. But what happened, anyway? After she gave you the card?"
"I- was- I asked her what the card meant, what services, and like I told you- she just said 'anything' and shrugged again. And so I said, I needed to get laid."
"You didn't!"
"I was cranky and tired and hadn't had a sane moment with another human being in, let's see, my entire life, Tonja, and I wanted to see what she'd do. It was just so not the right kind of place to say it in, you know?"
"And she said?"
" 'And don't we all?'"
"Hahah, I like it."
"Yeah. She doesn't…isn't the kind to mince words, that's for sure."
"And so she got you a date."
"…"
"You didn't."
"…"
"Tell me you didn't."
"I don't even know, actually. We got drunk, she drove me home, I woke up and she was making an omelet."
"Whoah. Guess that's one way…"
"Yeah. I know. I mean, I don't know- I didn't even ask. She never said anything about it."
"And you…did what?"
"I was…well, I was freaked, to put it mildly, massive hangover too, and she comes in and plops down on the bed with a giant omelet and two forks and laughs and says…says something like, 'pain tells you you're still alive. But omelets do it better.'"
"…"
"Yeah…"
"…"
"What? What's with the look?"
"Huh? No, I- I'm shocked. I think you finally found someone, Dev."
"Yeah. I hope so."
"You ever wondered what was with- what would happen with Nny? If you ever did?"
"I don't think he's going to be a problem anymore."
"You think?"
"Yeah…"
"Devi, you're still not telling me everything. Never play poker."
"What?"
"What are you hiding?"
"…"
"Devi."
"I just- I don't- you know I can't tell you what you want to hear! You know I can't- fuck, what am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to think is important- do I just say what happened, that the past month I've been going out! I've been doing things! I've been living again! Tess gave me my life back, Tonja, is that what I'm supposed to be reiterating?"
"Devi-"
"I'm an artist, Tonja, we don't- we don't see the big stuff, I don't see the big stuff- ask me what the light was like when she left that afternoon, ask me exactly what kind of pain she holds in her eyes, ask me the way she stands like- like some fucking valkyrie, I could tell you that. I could tell you little details. But- a writer- big things, important things, what do you want me to say? Charts? Day by day? Fine! August eleventy tenth! Newsflash! A job opens up at that bar, Tess gets me a job! Newsflash! The pay is great! September umpteenth, Sickness makes yet another bid for freedom-"
"Sickness?"
"-And Tess slaps her with that ankh and she shuts. up. Do you even know what it's like, living day after day after day with this ongoing screaming litany in your head, ripping you up from the inside, fighting this twisted little monster in your dreams and then it just stops? Just stops? God, I- fuck, I can think again, I can do whatever I want without worrying whether this horrible little demon is going to profit off it! Oh, wait, you're a writer, you want biiiiig things! Newsflash, last Sunday, eleven-oh-five pee-em, Tess and I finally found Nny's house. The house that she'd been hunting down for two years now. Eleven-twelve pee-em, newsflash, Johnny the lying, filthy, homicidal bastard who stole my life and, apparently, several hundred other people's, gets a bullet through the skull, apparently for the second time. Is that big enough for you? Is that something you can take back to Tenna, huh?"
"Devi-"
"Newsflash, Tonja, I killed him. I killed him. Ask me about the blood, Tonja, ask me how he- oh god, god, ask me how he smiled. He fucking smiled…"
"Oh god, Devi. Devi, come here."
"Tonja-"
"Shhhh, it'll be okay."
"Tonja, let me go…"
"Shh."
"I don't need your pity."
"It's not pity."
"I don't need you and Tonja, always- always caring about me. I killed him! I don't need you…"
"You're stuck with us anyway, Devi."
"I don't need you…"
"It's called love. Now call up that Tess girl, Tenna found the best Mexican Take-out place in the universe, I swear."
"Figures…ugh, why can't everyone just let me do what I want for once?"
"Because we love you, Devi, and we know better."
"…"
"…"
"I hate you all."
"That's more like it. If you call her now we might be able to catch that new Kafka movie downtown."
"…Tonja, what would I ever do without you?"
"Go crazy, I bet."
"Too late for that..."
"Then I'll just have to go crazy after you, Dev."