Rosie’s Diary: A Novel
The following is an excerpt from Janet Matlock’s Rosie’s Diary, out Spring 2014
. . . She glides straight up to me and gives my biceps a warm squeeze, “So you’re Rosie. Nice to meet Conny’s pitbull.” She releases me and folds her arms across her flaty, flat-flat stomach. “I’m Dee Dee.” She smiled and my heart screamed, HOLY SHIT.
“Hey, hi, I, nice to meet…” is all I can manage.
As the words spill out of Dee Dee’s delightful lips, another woman forcibly appears and extends her hand to shake mine. My eyes now behold…well, okay. If Dee Dee is the inhale of air as you take in her gorgeousness, then Jomaya is the exhale. She’s pretty — she really is — but she just can’t compete with Dee Dee. Any other female in Dee Dee’s presence is going to be a runner up. Plus it didn’t help at all when Jomaya shook my hand like we’d just closed a million dollar business deal and said, “ ‘Sup. You can call me Boss.”
Fucking Boss. She was wearing a tight wife beater. Her boobs were popping out of this tight wife beater. She had on tight black shorts, attached to cherry patterned suspenders, and her hair was pulled back into two low ponytails covered by a Kangol cap. Lipstick had been applied and then applied again. Tats. The most noticeable being a pair of swallows and the word Forever in cursive. Black boots, slightly combatish. It was tomboy meets pinup doll.
I invite Dee Dee (and Boss) to sit down and ask if they want a cocktail or beer. Wrist deep in chips, Boss almost demands, “Beer, chica. But no Heineken, or Coors or Corona. Or Stella.” We had Sam Adams and Corona. I happily grab 3 Coronas.
Dee Dee smiles in thanks and settles into the couch. She brings the bottle to her perfect lips, opens her mouth and drinks. SWEET JESUS I almost peed my pants. I wanted to be that beer so bad I could have screamed. She had to know what she was doing. You know what you’re doing when you do shit like that! I mean she did it in slow motion! And WHO sits that comfortably in someone else’s home? A goddess, that’s who! It was amazing. She drank her beer and owned the couch and my heart was HERS! It was hers.
I almost forgot fucking Boss was noisily pawing at the chips and tapping the coffee table with her rings. Almost. Oh! And by the way, I’m sitting on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, across from the couch. The floor. In my own home of 21 years. I was so rattled by Dee Dee’s presence that I sat on the floor like a weirdo and fussed with the napkins as if their positions were critical to the evening. It took a minute, but I calmed my quaking heart enough to speak to Dee Dee.
“AC? Huh, I like that,” she said.
She liked that. She liked that I had a nickname for my aunt.
“Well I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything, it’s just that AC was…upset, you know, and I didn’t want your mom to exacerbate things by showing up again.”
In the span of 10 minutes I had gone so gaga over this girl that I was launching big words into the stratosphere unnecessarily. Boss was all over it.
“EXACERBATE, Oh man, college words girl, bring it down, school’s out for summer, girl.”
I laugh it off and excuse myself, heading for the kitchen. Check my armpits for sweat spots. They were there, but not noticeable as long as my arms stayed down. I take a shot of tequila with lime and try to compose myself. I want Boss to spontaneously combust or something quick and irreversible. But instead she yells from the next room, “College, bring me another!”
After an hour of drinking and Boss-centric conversation, I find out they are planning on going to the gay pride parade that weekend. I don’t think my face gave me away, but my heart burst like a balloon. Dee Dee was a lesbian. She was sitting on my couch. A gorgeous lesbian was sitting on my couch! Of course! Of. Course. I come out and then a gorgeous lesbian and her pain in the ass girlfriend show up and sit on my couch. This is when I realize I’m the lead actress in my very own shitty romantic comedy. You know the ones people leave the theater thinking, That was supposed to be funny? That made me sad.
Dee Dee stands and heads for the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “We also need to look for a place so we can’t party too much.” I follow her. She sees the tequila on the counter. “May I?” I nod and she pours a shot. Downs it, no lime, no flinch.
“Yeah, we’re coming to LA. Not my mom, she’ll go back home. Um, I need a cigarette. Mind if we…?”
“Not at all. I’ll have one too, if that’s cool.”
While I rotate through my smoking poses and pretend to enjoy the Camel, Dee Dee tells me that they’ve been living with her mother in San Francisco and have finally saved enough to move. I asked why Los Angeles and she said it was on her list of places to explore and that Boss wanted either LA or New York.
“Paint. Mostly abstract, but lately I’m into 3D tagging. I’ve been exploring graffiti meets abstract kinda stuff.”
It’s amazing how some people are able to say shit like, ‘I’m into 3D tagging,’ and not sound douchy. I don’t know if it’s because she’s so gorgeous that I don’t care, or if it’s because I also want to be into 3D tagging— I just didn’t know it until she brought it up. What I do know is this. I want to be Dee Dee, and I want Dee Dee, all at the same time.
“You’re gorgeous,” I confess, unable to hold back any longer. “Seriously, just, I can’t say it like it needs to be said, I mean, you’re gorgeous.” She smiles. My heart explodes again. . . .
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