1
In the Air Tonight
“Your team!” Lisa said quietly as we walked through the food court of
Clackamas Town Center Mall.
“You suck,” I muttered, trying not to move my lips.
The ‘Your Team’ game…is about as politically incorrect as you can get. I
am pretty sure that just about everybody will hate me after revealing this…but
here goes. The rules to the game are simple…you see a freaky person of
outlandish proportion and you say “Your team” to the person you are walking
with.
Now, to clarify…we are not talking about somebody sporting a few extra
pounds. These are the people that are well beyond the three hundred pound range
on most instances but often feel the urge to wear Spandex that would squeeze
the bony butt of Calista Flockhart and finish the look with a bare midriff top.
Now, let me be clear, if you are not walking around at the ridiculous
“ideal” weight that some group of demented doctors decided upon…I am right
there with you. I am certainly not skinny. I have what I consider a ‘Rockin’
80s’ sort of bod. In other words, if you go back to your old movie collection
and get a good look at say a Helen Hunt in Girls
Just Wanna Have Fun, or even the first few seasons of Mad About You and you get a good idea of what I mean. Look at her
now…scary. She is all lipo-skinny and unnatural looking. And if you are one of
those BBW (or BBM) types…you just get on with your big, beautiful self. But if
you are barely five feet tall and tip the scales at over three hundred…please
step away from the halter top.
This particular—I think it is a woman—person is wearing hot pink short
shorts that look like a bikini and a shiny, purple polyester top that did not
start off as a half shirt. The finishing touch is the ‘outie’ belly button that
would put a few of my ex-boyfriends to shame. And yes…it is pierced.
I was trying not to stare, not that I think my newest team member would
care, as we took a seat on the bench at the outer edge of the food court. Lisa
and I watched the person stop in front of Cinnabon, purchase a box of six, and
then find a table. After the third sticky treat was gone and number four was
about to face the gullet gallows, we decided to get on with the real business
at hand.
“You are sure that she said this was the place?” I asked for perhaps the
hundredth time.
“I was just as surprised as you,” Lisa said with a shrug.
“Morgan and a mall…two things that go together like vinegar and oil.”
“Or you and Belinda!” Lisa didn’t even try to stifle her laugh.
I stopped at one of the courtyard kiosks that sold useless crap you don’t
need but buy anyway. This one was umbrellas. There were ladybugs and skulls and
a smiling sunshine. Seriously, the only people in Oregon that carry umbrellas
are tourists and the freaking California transplants. Big bunch of sissies.
I picked up one of the baton-shaped wastes of money and turned it over in
my hands. This particular version would become a multi-colored rainbow with a
white, puffy, smiling cloud on one side and a scowling, droopy, gray one on the
other.
“I did not take you for a rainbow sort of woman,” a voice whispered in my
ear.
Morgan is the region psychic. She is not
the fortune teller type. She is more like the mystical “Charlie” from Charlie’s Angels. She knows every
supernatural being in her district and can sometimes offer a job to a ghoul
like me. Who knew all that crap you walk by in your bookstore’s Urban Fiction
section is mostly based on truth?
As a ghoul, I guess I am like the go-fer or clean-up crew. The thing is,
almost six months after I became a ghoul, I still am not that much closer to
knowing what my purpose is in this world than when I was a divorced waitress
barely making enough money to pay rent in my sleazy Southeast Portland
apartment and keep my beat up Ford Escort insured. Now I drive a brand new
Corvette and have a house in a very well-to-do neighborhood complete with
titanium blinds that keep out the sunlight and a sound proof basement.
“A bit of a public location to meet, isn’t it?” I asked, trying my best
not to let on that Morgan had completely surprised me with her arrival.
“Not my first choice,” Morgan admitted. “However, you needed to see this
for yourself to really understand.”
Great, it was time to make Ava feel stupid. I am pretty sure that is one
of Morgan’s favorite games.
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