the members of the Oh Lawd, Why Am I Still Single group took as a slap in the face, they became downright shameless and, of course, even more desperate. They perpetrated daily sunrise jogging sprints. They sported natty but expensive hair weaves that were neon-colored. They even enrolled in “nouvelle cuisine” cooking classes. There wasn’t a ploy or a trick that was off-limits.
None of their schemes worked. Since it was still early in July and they weren’t willing to give up their manhunt, they decided to try something new. They would open the door to new membership.
They didn’t have to wait long after the call out to the lonely and desperate before someone answered.
That next Saturday was their first meeting for new members. As always, Sister Need Sum held the meeting at her house as she had since the group’s beginning. It was at that meeting that they welcomed into their chaotic mix the group’s first caucasian member, Sister Birdie Tweet.
None of the members suspected that Birdie’s huge heart and even larger overflowing bank account would catapult them into a journey that they were ill prepared to take.
Moreover, the women went to new heights to prove that desperation creates strange bedfellows when they also welcomed a former ex-con and current memory-challenged member of their church’s Mothers Board, Mother Bea Blister.
There was a little more than a month left of summertime, and there wasn’t any time to waste.
Desperation made these women act crazier than a swarm of intoxicated butterflies stumbling for ten miles, instead of flying. They were just that lost.
1
“Do you think this old gas-guzzling clunker can go a little faster?” Cill asked, impatient and loud as she leaned towards the steering wheel of the 1993 red Camry from her seat on the passenger side.
Cill and her childhood friend, Petunia, had just left the wedding reception for a fifty-year-old woman with an oversized glass eye, nicknamed Blind Betty.
Blind Betty had landed a wealthy real estate mogul who, for reasons no one could understand, had fallen deeply in love with her.
Cill and Petunia, along with some of the other single women at the reception, tried to be happy for Blind Betty but they couldn’t. None of them had ever found a poor man who owned a bag of dirt, let alone a rich real estate mogul.
The single women sat around wearing plastered smiles, and had almost accepted Blind Betty’s good fortune until it was time for her to toss a bouquet of colorful forget-me-nots. They’d swarmed out onto the floor kicking, pinching and screaming. Suddenly from out of nowhere, a twenty-something shapely woman with lemon-colored skin and an ebony, store-bought wig with its price tag showing, just happened to pass in front of the crowd of desperate crones. “Get out the way,” someone from the crowd shouted at her. When the young woman, whose name was Miss Fitt, turned around, she accidentally caught the wedding bouquet with her French-manicured, claw-shaped nails.
The sight of those long nails ripping the colorful forget-me-nots to microscopic shreds brought a hush all over the place. Like the other single women, Cill and Petunia thought they’d lose their minds. However, when they saw the young woman toss the remains of the bouquet into a nearby garbage can as she screamed, “Ooh, I don’t want this. I don’t want to get married, ever,” they wanted to strangle her shapely neck.
Going to jail for murder would certainly hamper their chances of marriage, so they decided to grab a few petals as souvenirs. With their heads held high, and a single tear rolling down their cheeks, they left with a scrap of dignity and a renewed vow not to remain alone or attend another wedding unless it was their own.
Petunia’s old car lurched out of control as though it was trying to throw up its last little bit of gasoline. All the while its speedometer seemed to stand still, even as the steering wheel spun erratically. It clanked and inched down the right lane of Pelzer’s Highway 29, while black smoke spewed out its muffler like smoke signals. Yet it was in better shape than the lives of its occupants.
Petunia pushed Cill’s hands away. “Touch my steering wheel with those ashy paws, and I’ll fight you like the man you want to be,” she snapped as her sunglasses bobbed on the tip of her pointy nose.
Petunia was skinny and banana-shaped, and she was just as pale, almost to the point of looking jaundiced. At the age of thirty-six, she was an on again and off again anorexic with breasts the size of acorn seeds. She stood about five foot nine and weighed about one hundred and five pounds, and that was only after gorging on a Happy Meal.
Cill took another glance over at Petunia and sucked her teeth as she pointed at her. “Girl, please. I’d love to see you fight me or anyone for that matter. As a matter of fact, stop tripping. You’ve never won a fight against anything, and from the looks of this puddle-hopper, certainly not the war on poverty.”
Cill watched the steam escape from under Petunia’s peach-colored, floppy hat. She laughed and then pulled her oversized, beige Apple cap further down over her doe-shaped, brown eyes. Cill wore a big Apple cap everywhere, and had even worn it to the wedding that day. The hat covered her micro-short dark hair, giving no clue as to her gender, despite a stubborn, long chin hair.
Cill and Petunia fought constantly and made up just as often. Arguing about how slow Petunia drove was the springboard for most of their arguments. Next was whether Cill truly wanted a man or just hung around the other women pretending she did. Those were the same arguments they’d had for the past several years on the first Saturday of the month, as they drove to the singles meeting.
“You just make sure that there’s some padding in the backseat before we let Mother Blister sit down when I pick her up,” Petunia said as she pointed to an old comforter balled up in the backseat.
Cill let her shoulders drop and shook her head. “I don’t know why we always have to pick up that old woman to go everywhere,” she mumbled as she reached over the headrest for the blanket. “I know for certain that they have free shuttle service from that seniors’ home. She could use it if she wanted and stop inconveniencing us. And, you know good and well, she has a problem with her bladder. It just ain’t sanitary to have her in the car with people that normally pee in toilets.”
“You got a lot of nerve, Cill Lee,” Petunia argued and rolled her eyes. “I only live a block away from Mother Blister, but I had to drive three miles from my house to pick you up and take you to a meeting that’s right next door to you. I’m going out of my way because your car is in a shop that’s on this side of town. So, who’s an inconvenience?”
Petunia totally ignored the reference to Mother Blister’s uncontrollable bladder. After all, she had the blanket in the back seat for that very reason.
“I’m your friend. We go way back like salt pork and collards,” Cill answered as she again shook her head in annoyance and watched old folks on the sidewalk in their motorized wheelchairs speed past.
“Why don’t you be a better friend and chip in for some gas?” Petunia asked. She knew Cill wouldn’t do it but she still needed to remind her.
“Well, let me look in my pocket for a quarter. At the rate you’re driving that’s about all the gas you’ll use.”
Petunia was just about to lock horns again, but Cill spoke up too quick.
“Look, there she is in the front of her building standing under the awning,” Cill said as she avoided Petunia’s impending rebuke.
