Excerpt From "Jane, the Private Dick"

“Dirt is cheap.”

“Don’t you mean talk is cheap?” I asked, looking up from the proofs I was reviewing from last weeks shoot for the Banana Boat ad campaign. I despise most models, perhaps because I worked with them day after day, but Terry was an exception. The only exception. Though she definitely needed to be fed, she at least took an interest in her work beyond the superficial “oh look at me, don’t you wish you were me, or in me,” stage of the game.

“No,” Terry replied. “Talk is overrated, not cheap. Dirt is cheap. Especially the kind of dirt called my ex-husband,” she added.

“What’s Jared done this time?” I asked with a short sigh. This was the one down-side to my friendship with Terry. She insisted upon giving me all these intimate details about her love life. I’m a photographer for Christ sake, not a fucking shrink! But, I did ask, and she told me. “I found out he was screwing around while we were married.”

How anyone could ever screw around on Terry is beyond me. Most men would give a testicle to be with her and several women I know would give up something of equal value, (don’t ask me what, I don’t know, I just work here) to be with her or to be her.

She’s a statuesque redhead with big green eyes and full pouty lips. I’ve dreamed of licking those lips for her but I keep my lustful thoughts to myself. I do, however, still think she needs feeding up. I just want to take her home, make her spaghetti and watch her slurp the noodles through those perfect lips.

“Who with?” I replied, trying to be nonchalant. As far as I knew, Terry didn’t bat for the girls’ team, not even part-time like I did and I didn’t want to freak her out with my fantasies.
“That’s just it,” she said, tossing her flaming hair over one shoulder. Damn what I could do with that hair! “I don’t know who it was. I just know.”

“Why should it bother you now?” I replied, picking up my loupe and bending over the light table, giving myself something to do so I didn’t have to meet her beautiful eyes that I knew would be full of pain. Terry felt too much, her eyes always gave her feelings away. But why she still cared what her rat bastard of an ex had done was beyond me. “He’s your ex”, I braved, inwardly cringing at the thought of bringing her anymore pain and hoping that my next statement wouldn’t bring an onslaught of tears. “Why do you still care?”

To my shock, when I glanced up and looked at her face she wasn’t crying. No, she was angry. Her full lips were stretched into a tight line and her eyes seemed to glitter with a suppressed rage that I understood only too well. Still, her response caught me off guard.
“I want to know who it was. And I want him to pay.”

Her voice was crisp and I almost expected to see her breath, her tone was that icy. My sweet, funny and sexy friend was truly a hard-core bitch inside. I think the temperature in the room rose several degrees. All of a sudden, I found her even hotter that I had previously, if that was fucking possible! I probably would have given her anything at that moment. Here she was, so angry, so pissed off and I was turned on by it. I must be a pervert, or at the very least, warped and in need of some psychiatric couch time.

Of course I responded with my cover, humor, in order to mask my inner deviant (oh, how I love that little deviant beastie of mine!) who just wanted me to lay her down and make her moan my name. “You think Jared’s gay?” I asked. There was a confused look on Terrys face that almost made me bust out laughing.

“Gay? No! Why would you think that?”

I patiently explained. “You said you wanted to know who it was with Jared and then you wanted him to pay, making it seem like Jared was with another guy.” I ended my statement with a stupid grin and Terry finally caught on to my quip. Her humor restored, at least temporarily, she smiled back. I swear the sun broke through the clouds with that woman’s smile.

“Thanks, smart ass!”

“Always here to help,” I replied, doffing an imaginary hat and sweeping a low bow for effect. She giggled. She’s the only grown woman I know who can giggle without sounding and looking like a teenage idiot or a barely 18 porn star.

“Speaking of help,” she said, “could you help me find out who Jared was with and if he’s still with
her? I know it’s stupid, but I hate the fact that he cheated on me and I want to know who it was, or is.”

Now I was in a tight fix. How could I help her? I’m not Nancy Drew with my snooping and finding clues. Nor am I Wonder Woman, with a magic lasso that makes men with bad haircuts tell the truth. Yet, how could I say no? I’m just a dumb sucker for redheads, I guess.

“What do you want me to do?” I sighed.

LITERARY UPDATE!

Well, the novel is 1/3 of the way done. I have half of a long short story completed and the beginnings of a short, short story brewing about in my cranium.

My partner in writing crime Anna and I are co-editing a book on menstrual stories. Here's the information if you are interested in submitting.

Attention Divas!

We're looking for women writers and artists who are willing to share real-life stories of menstrual experiences. Our forthcoming book project, Riding the Red Baron, Surfing the Crimson Wave: Women's Menstrual Herstories, has a 2005 production date. We're seeking your essays, photographs, and JPEG files of original works of art on the subject.

Do you have any comic, scholastic, medical, somber, light-hearted, inspiring, sassy anecdotes from any menstrual perspective (first-blood memories, how you currently get through your "monthlies," your spiritual perspectives on the issue, the effects of pregnancy or motherhood, menopausal or postmenopausal experiences) that you're willing to share with other women on the printed page? Do tell!

All submissions, preferably formatted as Word document attachments (or JPEG files in the case of artoerk and photography) to e-mails, should be sent to the following e-mail address: menstrualherstory@yahoo.com.

We ask that the essays fall within a 250-1,450 word count range.

The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2005.