stepping with the Stepford Wives. She took some comfort in watching the fat woman, who at least looked appropriately miserable. It wasn’t the exercise that was exhausting Lily; it was the fact that she was supposed to be perky while she was doing it.
In the car after the ordeal was over, Sheila said, “I can’t believe what you said in class. I thought I was gonna die!”
“It’s just cause you’re a newlywed,” Sheila said. “In a few years, you’ll know how important it is to keep them pounds off ... to keep Benny Jack’s eye from wandering.”
“Well,” Lily said, feeling ridiculous even as she said it, “I like to think that Ben wants me for me, and not for my waist size.”
Sheila and Tracee burst out laughing.
“Yeah,” Tracee hooted, “you’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”
Lily entered the house to find Ben and Ken cuddling on the couch. “It’s getting late,” she barked.
“Y’all can’t be together at all hours of the night. People will talk.”
“Damn,” Ben said, “what’s wrong with you? PMS or something?”
“Ben,” Lily sighed, “how would you like it if you were forced to go out and play a game of tackle football with a bunch of straight boys who farted a lot and talked incessantly about pussy?”
“Uh ... well, it sounds like my idea of hell,” Ben said.
“Exactly. And I have just been to that same circle of hell for the opposite sex, with Sheila and Tracee as my guides.” She nodded toward Ken. She really did like him, and didn’t want to come off as a total psychopath. “I’m sorry I was rude, Ken. I enjoyed visiting with you tonight ... before I got sucked into the vortex of doom. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check on Mimi, take a shower, and have a nervous collapse.”
Lily stood in the shower, the sound of the running water drowning out her sobs. There were only two things she wanted — Charlotte, and her old life back—and both of them were as impossible to retrieve as the water that went down the drain.
She knew one thing for sure. If she didn’t find some lesbian friends soon, didn’t find a safe place where she could hang out and be herself, she was going to lose her mind. She was not psychologically fit for this kind of intense, twenty-four-hour undercover work.
CHAPTER 12
“No oozing around the site of the injury?” Dr. Jack’s voice asked over the phone.
“No.” Feeling her throat constrict around the mouthful of yogurt she’d been trying to swallow, Lily wondered if there was a more unpleasant word in the English language than oozing.
“Any pus?” Dr. Jack asked, answering Lily’s unspoken question.
“No.” Giving up on eating any yogurt herself, she instead spooned it into Mimi’s gaping mouth.
“Okay, then, why don’t you just bring him into the office in ten days, and we’ll get those stitches out. If he has any problems before then, be sure and call me.”
Lily knew that Dr. Jack was winding down their phone conversation, but she didn’t want to let her go until she had asked her about another matter. “Dr. Jack?”
“Uh-huh.”
“There was something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Uh-huh?” She sounded puzzled.
“I, uh ... I don’t think I mentioned this to you the other day, but I write and illustrate — that is, draw the pictures —” She mentally kicked herself for explaining what illustrate meant. The Dr. in Dr.
Jack’s name meant she probably understood the meaning of three-syllable words. “Children’s books.”
“Is that a fact?” Dr. Jack sounded mildly interested, but still puzzled.
“Yeah. I was thinking about what you said about going on farm calls with your dad when you were a little girl, and I thought that a story about a little girl who did that might make a good picture
“Ha!” Dr. Jack laughed. “I don’t think anybody’s ever thought of me as literary material before.” She was silent for a moment. “Seriously, though, I like the idea. Daddy died last year. A book like that might be a good way to remember him.”
“We could even dedicate it to him if you wanted,” Lily said.
“Hmm.”
Lily waited for her to add something, but she never did. Finally she jumped in. “The thing is, I’m kind of a city girl, and I’d really need to spend some time around farm animals in order to draw them well. So I was wondering if maybe I could go on a few farm calls with you. I’d stay out of your way, of course —”
Dr. Jack laughed — a deep, low chuckle. “I don’t know. A city girl has to get up pretty early in the mornin’ to go on a farm call.”
“I can handle that. I’m kind of a morning person anyway.” That last part was a big lie, but she didn’t want Dr. Jack to stereotype her as a night-owl urbanite.
“Well, you just keep your drawing things packed then, Mrs. McGilly, ’cause I’ll be calling you one mornin’ without any notice.”
Lily hung up the phone and realized that the conversation had made her so nervous that she had been spooning yogurt into Mimi’s mouth faster than she could eat it.
Dr. Jack hadn’t been kidding about the early part. On Saturday morning, when the clock read four seventeen, the phone rang. “Hello?” Lily croaked.
“Hey. I thought you said you were a mornin’ person,” Dr. Jack laughed. “Just got a call about a sow in trouble. You wanna come?”
“Sure, I guess so.”