“Good morning, divas,” Suzanne said dramatically, doing a catwalk turn around the room before unbuttoning her coat and letting it shrug off her shoulders and onto an empty chair. She was dressed in a tight leather skirt and a sheer black long-sleeved top that was covered by a leather corset vest. Her size twelve stilettos were studded and sported red soles. It wasn’t the outfit I would’ve chosen to wear in almost freezing temperatures, but Suzanne could get away with anything.
“I’ve got that same outfit,” Scarlet said. She’d finished her cake and was lying full out on the settee, still covered up in her fur coat. “I just don’t wear it much because I like to breathe.”
“Beauty takes sacrifice,” Suzanne said. She took a seat in one of the chairs next to the fireplace and crossed her legs gracefully.
“How do you cross your legs like that without smashing your ding-dong?” Scarlet asked.
I dropped my head into my hand. “Kill me now,” I whispered softly.
“Lots of practice,” Suzanne said, her dark eyes full of laughter.
“Sometimes I wish I had a ding-dong,” Scarlet said. “You can do lots of stuff with them.”
“I’ve always thought so too,” Rosemarie said. “A penis is a real game changer. You can pee in the snow. Get an erection. Get a good paying job. The possibilities are endless.”
“When I was buying my cake this morning,” Scarlet said. “I was admiring Suzanne’s leather skirt. That sucker is tight, but she’s got no bulges. She just shoves her balls into her body and tapes her penis to her butt. Isn’t that amazing? And she doesn’t even have a camel-toe. It’s very impressive.”
“Thank you,” Suzanne said. “It took years to perfect my technique. I don’t do it all the time, but sometimes you have to jazz things up to combat the gloomy weather.” She looked at me and then over at the empty box of pastries sitting on the coffee table. “Girl,” she said.
“I’m eating for two,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
“I hear ya,” she said. “Suzanne judges no one.”
“Did you close the shop for the day?” Rosemarie asked.
“Sure did,” Suzanne said. “Who would’ve thought we’d be this far into March and still having this awful weather? This is end-times weather. That’s what I’m thinking. I try to make sure I stay in a crowd so I don’t miss the Rapture. Sometimes when I’m in the shop and I don’t have customers for hours on end I start to think I got left behind.”
“Is that why you came to visit?” Rosemarie asked, her Kewpie doll eyes going wide. “What if we all got left behind?”
“I just don’t wanna be by myself,” Suzanne said. “My therapist said I’ve got to work on my co-dependency habits. I don’t mind if I get left as long as I’ve got someone to talk to. I’m an extrovert.”
“I figure that’s why I’m still hanging around,” Scarlet said. “I’d like to get zapped up. I watched a show where people got zapped up by aliens and that seemed pretty cool. They got probed and stuff, but I don’t want to do any of that alien butt stuff.” Then she looked at Suzanne. “No offense.”
“None taken,” she said. “I don’t want to do any of that butt stuff either. I just like women’s clothes, and I’ve found being a woman helps a lot within the cake business.”
“That’s real smart,” Scarlet said. “I’ve always appreciated people who have good business acumen. That’ll come in real handy if we get zapped up and need to find a way to make a living.”
“I don’t even know what’s going on right now,” I said to no one.
“I’m sure it’s not the end-times,” Rosemarie said, crossing herself. I shook my head. Rosemarie’s been Methodist her whole life, but sometimes you needed a little extra oomph in your spiritual life. “God wouldn’t end things just as I’m getting my business up and running.”
“I don’t know,” Suzanne said. “I think God’s punishing us.”
“For what?” Rosemarie, Scarlet, and I asked together.
“Don’t y’all watch TV?” she asked, shocked. “They got a documentary on just about everything nowadays. I like to consider myself educated on current events. We got pedophiles and politicians and serial killers and cults and God knows what other evil in the world. I figure we’re about due for fire and brimstone or floods. I bought myself one of those floating survival pods just in case. It says it’s rain and heat resistant, so I covered all my bases.”
“Do they sell them on Amazon?” Rosemarie asked. “I like to get two-day shipping.”
“I got mine at Costco,” Suzanne said. “They got everything there. From birth to death to the apocalypse. They should advertise that for their memberships.”
“Maybe I’ll get one too, and we can be neighbors,” Rosemarie said. “I’d need to get a doublewide on account of Baby and Johnny Castle.”
“I’m gonna take my chances with the fire and brimstone,” Scarlet said.
Suzanne looked at me and narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong with you today? Besides the fact that you just ate ten pounds of pastries. You look like a sad bumblebee.”
“She’s bored,” Rosemarie said.
“Bored?” Suzanne asked. “Didn’t you just marry the man of your dreams and spend the month in Tahiti?”
“The baby has made her loco,” Scarlet said.
Suzanne pursed her lips and nodded. “This is why I’m glad I don’t have the right equipment to have babies. I deal with pregnant ladies coming in the shop all the time wanting cake. Those hormones make you crazy as shit. I once had a lady go after my display case with a baseball bat. She ate almost everything in there before the cops came, glass and all.”
“Bored is the wrong word,” I said, sitting up straight. “And I’m not crazy. I don’t know what’s going on with me. But it doesn’t help that I’ve been throwing up so much every morning I think I’m missing internal organs. I’m exhausted and fall asleep at the drop of a hat. My boobs are a size bigger and my bras don’t fit. My husband is about to run for political office, and I’m not exactly Nancy Reagan. Plus, I’m out of a job and preparing to spend the rest of my life as Suzy Homemaker. And yesterday I cried because I ordered bacon at breakfast and when it came to the table it wasn’t the right shade of brown.”
“Ohhh,” Suzanne said. “Well, that makes perfect sense.”
“It does?” Rosemarie asked.
“I like the crazy theory,” Scarlet said, belching lightly.
“Well, of course it makes sense,” Suzanne said. “You’re feeling like you don’t have a purpose anymore.”
I looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Did you not hear anything I just said? I’m pregnant. I’m told it’ll pass.”
“Ridiculous,” she said, flicking a crimson nail. “What you need is some excitement. A new challenge.”
“What kind of a challenge?” I asked.
“You could redecorate the house, or go shoe shopping,” Suzanne said. “The possibilities are endless.”