Pepe La Pew

Too late. Jane can really get moving on those tanning-bed tanned legs and a pair of Keds. I can hear the jewelry jingle-jangle-jingling abov ethe din of her chaffing thighs as she hot-foots it down the street.

She rounds the corner and finds an unsuspecting Scott cleaning up the flower beds around the new bushes he's planted. I have not sent up a flare in time. Drat.

She jumps up to kiss him and harass him about not calling. Indignant. Whining. Wild-eyed. Slaps him on the arm. She's right down the street! Why wouldn't he call?

I don't know, Jane. Maybe because this little encounter has turned out to be so much fun?

I am still unwashed and disheveled from camp, and dying to take a shower and beautify, but I am not leaving this situation to percolate without a witness. But I did live up to the promise of beer, and offer Jane one knowing she can't exactly present in the ER with her ailing mother smelling like a brewery wench.

But as I near Scott to hand him his beer and kiss him as promised, I can smell her.

On him.

And then I can't get it off me. It's clinging to my Chapstik. She smells like a French whorehouse. (Not that I've been...maybe I should say she smells like I would imagine a French whorehouse smells. Ok, and it's not good.)

It's a pungent, choking, evening, dressed to the nines, seductive perfume. But it's 2 pm and she's is wearing shorts and a skin-tight sassyT-shirt a dozen bangles on her arms, rings on every finger and a variety of earrings. All gold, all jangly. And she's going to the hospital.

Was she on the way to her second job as an exotic dancer when her mother called in distress? I am secretly singing that Tony Orlando song..."Hey has anybody seen my Sweet Gypsy Rose?"

And I am wondering what Boyfriend with the rotting teeth is thinking as he's prying Mrs. Bosworth's 80 year old ass out of the tub while his girlfriend is down the street flirting with "her oldest and dearest friend" who is the clear winner of the Most Eligible Bachelor competition.

And what is Mrs. Bosworth thinking besides "Kill me now?"

But Jane is oblivious that Scott is not really listening to her prattle on and on endlessly about the really sweet guy he knows that she has just separated from a second time. And that I am completely bored as I suck down the beer and try to figure out how she managed to get her hair to look like that.

She is going down the pity party path - woe is me - my divorce, my money problems, my ailing mother, my derelict brother. She can't believe I've lived here this long and we haven't known each other was there, we could have been buds (let's not get carried away now...)

I know where this is going - it is heading down the rabbit hole of no return that is the "I need a friend" plea girls love to work Scott over with.

I decide it is time for Jane to go deal with Mommy Dearest before Boyfriend decides to stop down and accuse Scott of trying to steal his prize pig. Or before I completely lose my patience and call her a dry-cleaned sow before I brain her with the shovel to get her lips to stop moving.

"Scott," I say. "Have you had any lunch?"

He looks relieved. "No, and I'm starving."

"Come inside, I'll make you something. The yard can wait."

Jane reluctantly departs the premises but not without smearing another dose of insect repelling perfume on Scott's face.

I commence lunch making while Scott takes a shower to wash the Jane off.

He gets a text from her not long after, informing him, woe-is-me style, of her mother's condition, and adding, "in case you're interested."

We're not. Delete.