BECOMING THE FABULOUS MISS C

By Angel Sentier and Lady Parsley

Chapter Two

"He said, 'I just don't feel the we-ness.'"

Teri and Tessa both swallowed hard, trying to keep the Tequila Sunrises from shooting out of their noses. Teri buried her head against Tessa's shoulder, stifling weird snorting noises, while Tessa stared at Chloe from behind her glasses in disbelief.

"I'm sorry," said Tessa. "He said he couldn't feel the what?" She was beginning to chuckle, and Teri's round face was turning redder by the second.

Chloe knew they didn't mean to laugh at her pain. Even someone as tactless as Teri could be wouldn't be inclined to laugh at someone when her fiancé had left her five days before the wedding. But she also knew, better than most, that Jason always had a subtle way of phrasing things that could make even the sanest person pull out their hair in fits of laughter. She could hardly blame them. She'd been crying uncontrollably for a week straight, unable to tell her two friends the whole story. And now that she could bring herself to discuss it, to reveal something that sounded so incredibly dumb to the ears was her undoing these past seven days; she might have laughed herself if she could have remembered how.

"Come on," said Teri. "What was that he said?"

Chloe rolled her eyes and sighed. "...The we-ness."

The entire wing of the restaurant seemed to reverberate with the sound of their roaring laughter. The glasses behind the bar rattled and for a moment, she was sure the bottles of alcohol would burst and shower anyone nearby with their contents.

"It's not that funny, guys."

"Oh, yes, it is!"

It was pretty stupid of him, she had to admit. She stabbed the hot fudge sundae before her relentlessly, her fourth since this morning, as she vented her righteous anger to her two best friends. "I had been busy with work and the wedding plans, but I had made every effort to make time for him. He was the one who had been distant, 'working late,' never helping out with the wedding..."

"How many girls had he been seeing?"

Chloe finished her Diet Coke in one long swallow before answering. "Three. Jason's friends told me. Since he couldn't feel the 'we-ness' with me, he felt it with as many other women as possible. I don't even know how many he's seeing now..."

She could feel her throat starting to close up again, but her body had no more tears left in it to come forth. She'd cried all night after Jason had left the apartment. Her phones had rung, unheeded, during that time, earning her a lecture from Ginger when she'd gone into work the next day. She hadn't wanted to go, crying at work was a humiliation she'd hoped to forgo in this lifetime, but calling in sick was a pipe dream. Each day for the past week, every tiny little thing had set off another bout of crying. Of course, the Triumvirate had taken much glee in this new game, 'Who Can Make Chloe Cry The Fastest?' As much as Ginger paid her to take the amount of shit she did, as she had sat in a corner of the women's break room with a box of tissues and a purse full of candy bars, she began to wonder if it was worth it...

In lieu of the relief crying granted her, she relied on the comfort that sugar offered. With intense fervor, she devoured another glob of chocolate-covered ice cream. After all, she didn't need to diet and exercise herself to death anymore. She had no need of the eight thousand dollar wedding gown she'd bought with Tessa's money. It hung like a ghostly skeleton in the back of her closet, waiting for a day that was never going to come.

The sugar should have soothed her nerves or at least distracted her, and if it hadn't, then the atmosphere should have. The three of them loved Le Chere Canard, their favorite bistro. The waiters often joked that the girls were there so much, they should start getting a salary. It was a new building that had been artistically painted to look like an out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall type place that might have stood there since forever. Distressed plastic ivy had been stapled to the stucco walls and brown string and glue simulated roots digging into the faux finish. Inside, there were intentionally cracked rust brown tiles on the floor and moss had been sponge-painted on by someone who was obviously too crafty for their own good. None of the plates, glasses, or flatware matched, in a purposely eclectic manner. The French food that was served was very obviously fake, and the drinks were astonishingly strong. The servers were mostly male and cute and they pretended to give a rat's ass, even if they didn't actually like the person whom they were serving, smiling through bleached white teeth. Chloe found comfort in the completely fake. Like at Disneyland, while surrounded by falseness, she could believe she was the happiest person on earth.

But not that night. As she spoke to her two best friends about Jason's betrayal, anger welled like a dam inside her. Where there was emptiness, rage overflowed. Feeling the swirling, boiling volcano of fury just grow exponentially the more she talked about it, she knew the wrath would soon become a tangible thing and explode in an eruption that would take down the entire city if she didn't get some release soon. Wasn't venting the venom to friends supposed to make you feel better?

Or perhaps it was the five Diet Cokes she had swallowed down that was causing the sudden blockage. In fact, that particular problem was becoming more of an issue than the rage and anger combined at the moment. A volcano must have its natural outlet, after all.

"I gotta pee," Chloe announced, perhaps a bit louder than she should have as she rose from her seat to head to the restroom.

Teri and Tessa smiled broadly at her; Teri with her head in her hand and her elbow on the table, Tessa with her elbow on Teri, each woman wore the look of peace and bliss that comes with being romanced by the sweet kiss of Jose Cuervo. Teri's long auburn hair spilled over the edge of the 'hand-carved' fiberglass table like thick red syrup from a bucket. Both women looked as though they might pass out or start giggling... or pass out from giggling. Knowing her two friends way too well, she expected the twittering laughter to start at any second.

"You want me to go with you?" Teri asked, eyes glassy and speech a bit slurred.

"No, I'm a big girl. I can pee alone. You, however, don't look like you could walk by yourself."

"True," she said as Chloe turned away.

"Chloe?" said Tessa.

She looked back. "Hmm?"

"Remember, he's a bastard, and someday he'll spontaneously combust."

She smiled. Gotta love Tessa-isms. "Thanks. That means a lot."

"He sucks so bad, even his mother thinks so," added Teri.

"Yeeeeeah." Leave it to Teri to come up with the really wrong sentiments. "I'll be right back, I really have to go."

"Hey, Chloe!" she slurred after her.

"What?"

"Weeeeeee-nesssssss!" she screeched. "Oh, God! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-NESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" She threw her hands in the air and began to shriek with laughter like some psychotic bird having an asthma attack as Tessa joined in.

Chloe wasn't sure if she should laugh with them, or cry in fury, but nature was telling her that she'd be standing in a puddle if she didn't get to a toilet soon. She walked quickly toward the hallway at the corner of the restaurant. In the bathroom, nothing could go wrong. Everything went as expected in the bathroom. No surprises... At least, there weren't, until she looked at the couple sitting in the booth next to the hallway.

He's had his hair cut. She had no idea why the first thing she should notice would be his hair, but the black mass that had never done anything but lay there like road kill was now cut and styled, with frosted tips. He was also wearing the garnet red, button-down silk shirt that she had bought him for Christmas, and a pair of brand-new jeans. Is... Is that a manicure? Holy God, there's clear nail polish and everything... When she remembered to breathe, she could smell that he had changed his cologne from the cheap crap to something that was probably endorsed by some designer who emblazons their name on underwear.

Worse still, Jason was smiling and nodding at the tallest pile of peroxide, silicone, and collagen Chloe had ever seen. A statuesque model-type draped, barely, in cream chiffon, with rose-painted lips and kohl-lined turquoise eyes. Chloe could feel herself shrinking in comparison as she glanced at her own mousy ash blond strands she hadn't had the time or the money to get taken care of and her faded gray college sweatshirt and exercise pants she had almost literally fallen into that morning before work. Her puffy green eyes narrowed at Jason who looked like he hadn't lost any sleep over her at all.

For a moment, all of the anger she'd just been feeling swelled dangerously and threatened to come up to the top, blasting in Pandora's Box-like fashion at the former object of her devotion. But as she glanced from Jason to the gorgeous woman and back again, the courage that comes with murderous anger shriveled and cowered before the almighty self-consciousness that had always held her in its thrall. She ducked into the hallway and ran for the women's bathroom door, praying she hadn't been noticed. After securely locking the faux oak stall door behind her, she sat down.

Chloe had no idea how many times she had gone pee in her life, but she had never done it with such fury and raw hatred for everything around her. In her anger, she imagined forcing out a stream so powerful, it would crack the porcelain bowl in half and dig a deep groove in the floor, exposing the soil, the pipes, the center of the earth, and perhaps even Hell itself. It was a piss of rage, a piss of anguish, a piss to end the world. Not only was she angry with the asshole sitting not fifteen feet away, but angry with the entire world as she knew it and the way it worked.

How can someone who has screwed me over so badly and tortured me with words and emotions be living the good life while I wallow in the muck? she screamed silently, the words echoing within the privacy of her mind. How can it be that I am sitting in the bathroom of my favorite bistro waiting for the world to end because I can't face my ex? I was supposed to see him next when I was fine and looking fabulous and able to wish him all the happiness I could... Yep. I'm in Hell.

Once she'd finished, sadly leaving the toilet intact, she opened the door to enter another level of Hell. There she was at the sink, applying another layer of lipstick, tall as a redwood and twice as majestic. She turned to meet Chloe's gaze with a shy smile and a hint of pity in her shiny sapphire eyes.

"You must be Chloe."

Her voice was a husky alto, almost like Marlene Dietrich, but kind of strange on the ears. Soothing, and oddly attractive. She found herself offering a hand to the woman, which she took with her perfectly manicured acrylics.

"Jason saw you when we came in. I'm Denise. Jason and I met today."

"How nice," Chloe choked out. He saw me and still came inside? He really just doesn't care about my feelings.

"I hope you don't mind, but he told me about the, um... well... the unpleasantness between you."

"Oh, did he?" she said, trying for nonchalant, but it probably came out as bitchy. "What did he say?"

"Well... He said that 'there are women in this world that a man needs for stability, and women that the same man would leave the stable one for,'" she said in a manner that was more casual than insulting as she brushed a stray blond hair from her perfect eyes.

There was something about Denise that Chloe couldn't place. In the midst of all the rage, something was bugging her about the woman before her, and she searched for what it could be... Then, as Denise re-adjusted a crepe scarf at her throat, there it was.

Oh. My. God.

An Adam's apple.

She stood bewildered for a moment, caught between a stunned gasp and a giggle of perverse glee. Ha! Karma's on my side now! If he knows about this, then it's a good thing he called things off when he did. And if he doesn't... I can revel in some form of vengeful, silent tee-hees for a good long time.

"It's so very nice to meet you," she said, unable to help to the smile that was spreading across her face. "I hope you and Jason have a lovely time."

"Thank you," said Denise with an answering smile. "Here..." She reached into her reticule and produced a card. "If you like, why don't you give me a call and we can have coffee sometime?"

"Sure," said Chloe, absently sticking the card in the pocket of her sweat pants. I'd love to have a... tee-hee... blow-by-blow account of tonight's events, she thought, feeling as though perhaps the world was not so terrible after all.

As she walked Denise back to the table, Jason shot straight up in his seat at the sight of the two of them together.

"Chloe!" he exclaimed.

"Jason. You're looking well."

"Uh, yeah..." His eyes shifted from one woman to the other, perhaps looking for signs of a cat fight in the restroom.

"Denise told me what you said about women."

"Look, Chloe, let's not have a scene..."

"Jason, please. I'm not going to make a scene. I just want you to know..." She leaned in and patted him on the shoulder with a broad smile. "You deserve Denise. Good luck with the we-ness. I'm sure you'll be feeling it very soon."

He blinked in surprise. "Well... Thanks."

"Or something like it," Chloe added under her breath as she nearly skipped back to the table. I wonder if I should tell Teri and Tessa everything now, or wait until they're sober enough to enjoy it... Muahahahaha...

To be continued...