Front Desk Woman; Volume 10
On their way out of the café, Pansy, Helen and Gertha watched the sky change from bright and sunny to an angry deep dark. Eerie lighting struck sideways within the newly swirling, grey clouds, each of them teasing tornadoes. Sturdy trees blew horizontal, sweeping their canopies overtop buildings, threatening catastrophic collapse on crowded cafes, coffee shops, boutiques, and confused onlookers. Cell phones screamed all around them – emergency alerts for all kinds of climate related disasters from impending hurricane to wind storm.
The instantaneous shift in weather took the three ladies by surprise. Helen dropped her doggy bag on the sidewalk and watched it fly up and up higher into the clouds until it was sucked into a grey vortex. Gertha grasped her sweet tea as if spilling a drop would add to the catastrophe. And Pansy stood as still as possible in the high wind.
“It’s time,” Pansy said, staring at the largest of the ominous clouds. “Had to happen sooner or later.”
“Time?” Helen yelled over roaring thunder. “For what exactly?”
Terrified Pansy slowly walked toward the eye of the most imposing cloud, pressing all fear and trepidation back down into her body. Outright refusing to cower in the face of bigness. Rejecting the instinct to tuck tail. Denying human nature for superhuman power. She was, after all, not just mom/battered wife Pansy anymore. Even hung over, humiliated, beaten down, tripped up, and mistreated by, what had Helen called him? A husband unworthy. Even beneath the immovable rocks of rock bottom, Pansy couldn’t behave like a regular old front desk girl. She was, the one and only, Front Desk Woman.
“You guys stay here,” she smiled back to her best friends, Helen and Gertha. Her fluffy afro whipping light lashes onto her forehead. “It’s time for me to face something more powerful than myself. Every hero has to at some point. Don’t you see?”
Helen and Gertha shook their heads and looked at Pansy as if she had lost her mind completely.
“No, Pansy,” said Gertha. “We don’t see.”
Pansy smiled again, more calm than anyone should be in such a storm. “This…” she pointed at the newly pissed off sky. “Is the chapter where we meet my mega villain.”
As if on cue, from the clouds a robed figure elevated down, mostly shielded by its smoky surroundings. As the figure reached the ground in front of the coffee shop across the street from them, the camouflage of the clouds began to lift, revealing a slender yet shapely being wearing a tea length green cocktail dress with saucer like shoulder pads.
Its slick hair shone so dark it reflected flashes of lightning, while its bare shoulders revealed the svelte collar bone of a yogi and the elegant, long neck of a print model. A steady stream of smoke rose from its slim cigarette. It reminded Pansy of a black mamba snake, beautiful in its deadliness. Untouchable and unlovable, but the pesky human instinct to envy the most beautiful among us still persisted inside of Pansy. That moment of longing to have such a stunning body. To command a room like she used to, before baby, and husband unworthy, and front desk positions.
“How dare your mega villain be a woman?” asked Gertha. “I thought Nana gave us men to fight and men only. I didn’t sign up for this.”
“Of course it’s a woman,” Pansy said, still hanging on to her calmness but just barely. “Men are easy. Simplistic, stupid villains. A woman to rule them all, even over the dark side, that’s more realistic.”
“Huh,” was all Gertha could say in response.
“But my goodness, y’all,” said Helen aghast. “The devil is fucking fabulous.”