AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Part One of our story concluded with the intrepid Galen Randall swinging aboard a grungy African freighter for a trip across the Atlantic.
As we begin Part Two, we meet Lourdes O'Malley and her roommate, at their apartment in Miami. Happy reading!
PART TWO of LOU'S TATTOOS
Late that night a car — a very sporty car — swooped in at high speed and parked outside the apartment building. A young, pretty, high-priced girl in her early twenties climbed out from behind the wheel. She hefted her matching luggage out of the car and moved toward the building.
At Lou's apartment, the girl entered with her own key and schlepped luggage across the living room to dump her bags inside one of two bedrooms. The living room lights were on, the bathroom door was closed, and sounds issued from inside the bathroom.
The girl stepped around a palm leaf on the floor, picked it up, and looked to the pot in one corner of the living room — where a single leaf and only stubs of palm branches remained.
"I see Conan helped himself to the salad bar," the girl said.
"Deb! Is that you?" Lou called from the bathroom.
"Yeah, babe. Hurry up, I gotta piddle."
"Be right out."
Debbie carried the limp palm leaf to the corner flowerpot and stuffed the amputated leaf among the truncated stalks remaining there.
Lou emerged from the bathroom carrying two curly three-foot rolls of processed 35-millimeter film. Through the open door Debbie could see developing equipment, chemicals, and strips of film cluttering the bathroom.
Lou gestured toward the bathroom. "There you go," she said.
Then Debbie said, in unison with Lou, "Don't touch anything."
"I know," Debbie finished. She disappeared into the bathroom.
Lou sat on the sofa and examined the rolls of pictures by holding them up to the lamp. "Glad you're back," she shouted toward the bathroom. "Old Fossil Face didn't go for the broken airplane story. You've used it four times in a row, now."
"Any mail?" said the closed bathroom door.
"In the overflowing laundry basket in your room," Lou called. "Did you know about the married one?"
"Which married one?" asked the door.
"I need to see your Bible sometime, Deb. I think you're a few commandments short in there."
Debbie emerged from the bathroom, saying, "We've got to do something about Conan."
The phone rang, and Lou moved toward it, still talking to Debbie. "Yeah, I know. Where's my red sweater? I have to buy my ownclothes, y'know." She picked up the phone. "Hello?"
Debbie left Lou in the living room and went to her bedroom. Movement near the floor caught her eye. Cautiously she searched for the intruder. She stalked the room, looking under furniture.
She jumped.
A blurry streak passed her, leaving the room.
Debbie slammed the bedroom door, shouting, "Ouch! That was my foot, you little demon!"
In the living room, Lou hung up the telephone with a weak "'bye" and sat staring into space. The long strip of photo film dangled from her hand toward the floor. Something near the floor tugged at the film, and she roused, jerking it away.
"Don't eat that! Go poop on something."
She rose listlessly and walked toward Debbie's closed bedroom door.
Inside, Debbie's luggage was open on the bed as she unpacked a wardrobe of feathers, sequins, leather, spandex, fake fur, and Lou's red sweater. When Lou opened the door, Debbie tossed the sweater at her, covering her head and face.
Lou continued to cross to the bed and sit down without removing the sweater facemask. "Do me a favor. Shoot me."
"I don't have a gun," said Debbie. "I could Mace ya."
"No, that wouldn't kill me. I guess I'll have to jump out the window. It'd be better if we weren't on the ground floor, though."
Debbie continued to unpack her lavish possessions and even put some of them away. "What is so tragic all of a sudden?"
Lou sighed. "That was Abby on the phone. She got me a photo exhibit. In six weeks. The Silverado Gallery."
"Oh, that is depressing," Debbie quipped sarcastically. "All I' ve heard for months from you is 'Give me a chance,' and 'I just gotta get my own showing,' and 'I'd kill for an exhibit,' and, my personal favorite, 'I'd sell my soul for a gallery showing.' Well, here it is! Congratulations! You are officially a professional photographer!"
"I'm doomed," Lou groaned from behind the sweater.
"Naturally," said Debbie.
Lou removed the red sweater from her face and looked at Debbie. "There's a catch. It's a Southwest-themed gallery. They only want pictures of the Southwest. You know, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado? The two-thousand-miles-away Southwest? Where I've never been? That's the kind of pictures they want. That's the catch."
Debbie stopped unpacking and straightened, hands on her hips. "Why would Abby promise them something you don't even have? Tell 'em to buzz off. Catch ya next time."
Lou shook her head. "Abby says if you don't say yes when they ask you, you never hear from those people again." She re-covered her head and face with the red sweater. "My career just crashed in flames before it ever even took off. Mine and Abby's. As my agent, she gets ten per cent of nothing."
Lou peeked out through an armhole in the sweater. She could see a high school snapshot on the dresser: Lou, Debbie, and Abby as teenagers (from the other side of the tracks). "You're the only one of us who realized your high school dream," she told Debbie.
"The dream about the varsity squad, the debate team, and the men's glee club?"
"No, Deb, our long-term dreams. Abby was going to be a famous art dealer, I would be a respected photographer, and you would be adored by all mankind. Or man kind. Anyway, you're the only one who made it."
"Oh, that," Debbie said, returning to her unpacking. As she moved around the room, sorting and arranging her extravagant wardrobe, Lou closed the armhole and slumped under the sweater.
"It's no use. I should quit torturing myself trying to make this happen. I'll never be a respected photographer. I'll be the oldest living female tattoo artist."
"The oldest living virgin female tattoo artist," Debbie corrected. "Don't sell yourself short."
"I'm doomed." Lou rose and left the room, head and face still swathed by the red sweater.
~o~~o~~o~
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Click that star, type that comment, and keep on reading! Due to Hurricane Irma last week, we're posting three chapters today. This also guarantees you get at least 2,000 words out of me, which is the Wattpad standard.
Thanks, my Wattpad friends,
Iris