149 - Kaleidoscope

See?  I didn't forget you!!!  :o)

The interior of the Angel Orensanz Foundation was…  breathtaking.  It was a gothic-revival temple, with all of the original architecture still intact.  The peaks and arches of the building were gorgeous in and of themselves, but when you took into account the adornment of the interior?  Petey couldn’t help but grin all over herself.

The place was awash in a glow of pink light and everything in sight was a combination of cotton candy pink and black.  Gavin had masterminded a Petey-friendly circus.  A completely frivolous, over-the-top and utterly fantastic pink and black circus.  Complete with performers and all the abhorrently unhealthy concessions.

“Gavin how did you do all this in a day?”  Petey couldn’t even process it all.  It was like some absurdist theatrical production.

His wrist flipped nonchalantly despite his smugness.  He was thoroughly pleased with himself.  “Oh, you know.  A little money goes a long way, Miss Pursestrings.  Lucky for your rich ass, I know lots of starving performers.”

“Oh my…”  Teresa hummed as she caught her first whiff of ‘real’ cotton candy.  “This is a little…. Overwhelming.”

“I don’t know that I’m dressed for a circus,” was Carol’s frowning concern.  Peering down at her dark slacks and sapphire blouse, she skimmed a glance to Stephanie, who was more aptly attired for this type of event.  The teen was wearing jeans and a sweater and grinning from ear-to-ear.

“How completely insane.”  Her blonde hair twirled along with her feet as she spun to take it all in.  “Are there going to be animals, too?”

A snickering Gavin assured her there would be hairy animals prowling around the big top later in the evening.

The ‘big top’ was actually wide ribbons streaming from a central point in the ceiling.  Directly beneath that central point was a round table draped with a pink cloth, ready to seat a party of six, and at each of the chairs was a black gift bag stuffed with pink tissue.

“There is assigned seating,” Gavin announced cheerily.  “Your names are on the bags, so sit where you find the one that belongs to you.”

Dorothea was directly behind her, so the muttered, “Talk about your Femi-Nazi,” rang clearly in Petey’s ears and caused her to laugh out loud.

With a caustic tip to his chin, Gavin inquired, “Something you would like to share with the group, Kitty?”

That made Petey laugh even harder, snorting out loud when Dorothea spouted off with, “Just wondering where the litterbox was.”

He sidled up next to her with a predatory smile.  “You and I, Snark Kitty…  We are going to be best of friends.  I can just tell.”

Rolling her eyes, she ignored him and busied herself finding the gift bag that identified her seat.  Gavin swooped in like a huge, flamboyant vulture and scooped up the bag before her chair had been scooted three inches.  Exchanging it for the adjacent bag, he offered up her replacement with a flourish.  “Let’s trade.”

“I’d rather not.”

He shook the ‘Gavin’ embellished bag enticingly.  “Aw, come on, honey.  Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Back in 1989.”

“Mom, don’t be lame,” Stephanie complained, plopping down in her designated spot between Carol and Dorothea.  “Can we look in the bags, Mister….” 

They hadn’t been formally introduced, Petey realized at the same time she again admired the teen’s effortless manners.

“Oh, Baby Blue, you can just call me Gavin.  Mister is sooo… CEO.  God knows I am NOT a CEO.”  He struck a thoughtful pose.  “Unless that stands for Chic Entertainment Organizer.  Then that’s definitely me.  But to answer the question, no.  No peeky just yet.” 

Petey slid in between Gavin and her mother with a rueful grin and shake of her head.  At the same time, Dorothea distrustfully accepted Gavin’s bag and let it plop onto the table. 

A girl in a bright pink tutu came along to collect their outerwear, quickly followed by another festively dressed worker.  The second young lady’s tutu was glittery black and she was distributing martini glasses among the group.  Upon seeing that the glasses were topped cheery pouf of cotton candy, Petey thought the drinks were just as fun as the tutus.

“What pretty drinks,” Carol admired.  “What are they?”

“Those…” Gavin pronounced, “…are Cotton Candy Cosmopolitans.  Don’t worry Kitty, Baby Blue’s got tonic water in her Cosmo, not vodka.”

Petey noted that Stephanie’s glass was pink, instead of clear, to denote the difference.  The tonic must not have been a deterrent, because girl immediately took a sip and proclaimed it ‘yummy’.

Once everyone had their beverages, Gavin assumed his maid of honor duties and offered up a toast.  “I thought it only fitting to benchmark the wild, crazy circus of our Miss Petey’s life with another circus.  This one will be tamer than the last week has been, that’s for damn sure!  Only a little knife throwing among friends.  Mazel Tov and bottoms up, ladies!  Let the festivities begin!”

From that point on, things became progressively blurrier for Petey.   Mainly because Gavin watched her drink like a hawk, making sure theit was never empty for more than a minute.

Tumblers made her dizzy, jugglers made her eyes bounce and the knife thrower scared the bejesus out of her when he came within a cat’s hair of nailing Stephanie’s sweater to the board.  Dorothea was very Zen about the whole thing, and only smiled serenely when her daughter’s scream ripped through the air like one of the knives.

“Okay, girlfriends!”  Gavin tittered, having drunk almost as many Cosmos as he’d pushed on Petey.  Even the mothers had imbibed enough so that their smiles were flowing almost as freely as the sweet drinks.   “Now that you’ve seen the circus performers, it’s time to be a circus performer.  In your gift bags, you will find a prop that you must put to use in your act.  I’ll go first.”  With a shark-like grin at Dorothea, he revealed the contents of his bag – formerly her bag – with a fanfare.  It was a whip.

“I shall now perform my lion tamer’s act!  Come help me, Kitty!”

Dorothea leaned around him to warn Petey, “I’m going to kill your friend.”  She clearly was far more sober than any of the rest of them.

“Awwww, don’t be a party poopin’ prude,” Gavin whined, snapping the whip on the floor and grabbing the back of his chair.  “Get your karate-kickin’ kitty butt up.”

“No, seriously, Petey.  I’m going to kill him if he snaps that whip one more time.”

“Gavin,” Petey told him in a stage whisper.  “Dorothea has been far too underserved to appreciate the taming.”

“Unless it’s by Bro Jovi,” he snickered loudly.

“Oh, God.”  Stephanie’s fingers went in her ears and she squeezed her eyes shut.  “Impressionable teenager here.  I don’t need any more scars on my psyche!”

That got everyone around the table giggling. Petey leaned into her mother with a dimpled grin.  “She’s screwed when she gets stuck with me on a weekend, huh?”

“Sorry, Baby Blue.”  Gavin clumsily patted her on the back.  “It’s only gonna get worse.”

“Worse?”  Petey’s head popped up.  “What are you talking about, worse?  Tony’s not going to come out here and strip or something is he?  Because…”  She waved to Dorothea and Carol “…no offense, but that would scar my psyche!  He’s my boss, for God’s sake.”

“Oh, lighten up, Dollface.  I’m sure Mister Tee Bee Jay is sucking back a beer at the bowling alley.”  He leaned over her to grab her bag and plop it in her lap.  “Since my lion is being a domesticated pussy, you’re next.  Open your bag.”

Scowling, Petey decreed, “There had better not be anything offensive in here.  I’m just saying.”

“The sassy little shit wouldn’t bother if there was nothing offensive in there,” was Carol’s astute observation.  In her alcohol-induced state of relaxation, Petey considered the possibility that she may end up loving her mother-in-law.  She was a wise woman. 

It should have been the first clue that she’d had too much to drink.  That and the fact that she gamely stuck her hand into the bag with no further coercion. 

What she found inside took a minute to seep into a useful part of her doused brain.  There was money spilling out of her hand and protruding from between her fingers.  The bag had been filled with one dollar bills.  Maybe not filled, but there was quite a bit in there.

Questions in her eyes, she looked to Gavin for answers.  All she got was a twirling of his index finger, and then the room went from calliope music to…  “Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame…”

“Oh.  My.  God.”  Horror filled her as she took in the faces of the others at the table.  Her mother, Jon’s ex-wife, Jon’s mother, Jon’s DAUGHTER.  “No.  Please tell me no.”

“Yes, yes, yes, Tinkerhell!”  Gavin was practically cackling with glee, clearly delighted with the glorious event that was upon them. 

That self-satisfaction was further evidenced by a piercing squeal of delight as a young guy, dressed in tight, spandex pants and a denim jacket came strutting through the room.  He had a head full of extra-long, tousled hair and a bare chest covered with a matching mat of hair.  In the middle of that mat of hair rested a gold pendant shaped like a Superman symbol.

“I’m having a flashback,” Dorothea muttered, slinging back the remaining contents of her Cosmo. 

As the young man slowly removed the bandanas that were tied around his thighs, he undulated his hips and grinned at Petey with freakishly white, straight teeth.   Flipping his hair back, the denim jacket slid down his arms to the floor, rendering  him half-naked. 

Gloriously half-naked.  Boyfriend was built.

Petey was left to gape at a partially undressed replica of Jon, circa 1987, while his mother cackled and ordered another drink.    She couldn’t bear to look at her own mother or Stephanie, and Gavin?  Well, Gavin was hip-bumping the hunk, arms waving wildly in the air.  “Show me what you got Bon Bon Lovey!”

“Jesus…” she breathed, mortified that the river of pink cocktails swimming through her system made this guy handsome enough to sneak a second look.  He winked at her and shimmied erotically to the beat, all the while inching the clinging spandex down his legs.

When he spun around to reveal that the seat of his tight bikini underwear bore the warning, “Slippery When Wet”, she thought her face was going to catch fire.  Petey shrank back from the performer amid shrieks of laughter from Stephanie and Carol.

“Relax, Dollface,” a reassuring voice spoke directly in her ear.  “He’s just working the crowd like your man does.  I’m sure he’s not going to invite you backstage to his dressing room.  Well, he might invite, but you don’t have to go.  Now stuff the money in his panties!”

The vodka and cranberry juice crashed in angry waves against the walls of her stomach as the wad of dollar bills floated from her dumbfounded grip.  Sugary sweetness threatened to come back for a revisit at the first full taste of what life would be like in a mere two weeks. 

Jon was going to be up on stage every other night, doing this very – maybe not very – thing to captivate thousands of women.  He would give them the same playful grin and wink that this doppelganger was giving her, for all the world looking as if he wanted to eat her up. 

Her face flamed even hotter, this time not from embarrassment, but anger. 

Jon better not think he’s going to be taking anybody backstage but me. I’m not going to let him humiliate me that way.  No.  Absolutely not.

“Bad Name” wound up with a final, fierce hip thrust from young Jon.  The echo was still hanging in the air when the opening strains of “Wanted Dead or Alive” filtered through the sound system.  Gavin squealed like a schoolgirl, furiously fanning his face.  “It’s Ricky SLAM-bora!  Oh my Gawwwwwd!  Come to Papa, honey!”

Petey couldn’t stay in her seat for another classic Bon Jovi stage performance.  It rankled too much of what she was afraid reality would be.  Certain she was going to throw up, she bolted for the ladies’ room, in her haste nearly knocking down the dark man in the Stetson and mile-long leather pants.

 Next post:  Thursday, August 16