The Spinster's Club

Amy: Ten

Cece was sitting on a battered wood bench, outside the cantina. An accordion was on the ground by her feet next to a discarded sombrero. Somewhere in the distance, a cow mooed.

"Hey girl." She smiled broadly. "I've missed you."

"Geez Ceese, could you be any more inauthentic in your locale?"

"It's your dream Amy, not mine. Now sit your ass down and give your best friend a hug."

Amy slid next to her friend and wrapped her arms around her. They fit together as they always had, bosom on bosom, Amy's face uncomfortably close to Cece's armpit. But the hug was a homecoming and Amy treasured it. She was sad when Cece let her go and they straightened.

"So," Amy said, "is this what you hoped it would be?"

Cece grinned. "If you don't count the bouts of diarrhea, the bed bugs and the occasional shoot-outs by drug cartels on the way back home, it's wonderful."

"It would be hard to discount those things."

"It's easier when you're in love." Cece kicked the accordion and it wheezed out a note. "I play the damned pennywhistle, girl, why you gave me this. Well, it makes no nevermind. I'm happy. I miss you and the other gals though. That's the hardest thing. I want to talk to you all the time but cell reception is a joke and trying to figure out the time difference is damned near impossible. So tell me what's happened with you?"

"I lost my job." Amy looked down at her hands. "But I finished your book."

"Awesome. So Cinnomina and Daryl rode off on his motorcycle to their happy ever after?"

"Not really. She got abducted by an alien prince and she's repopulating the planet Kreplach."

"Well that's different."

"Ceese, don't be mad. I just started writing and it was like I was meant to write that story. It just blew out of me and I loved writing it. It was the happiest I felt in forever."

"Hey, I'm not mad. I'm delighted. I always figured you might have the writer inside you with that crazy mind. You were meant to either be creative or be a mass murderer. I was hoping for the creativity. But if you went the other way, well, I talked to Romy and Cass and we agreed that we'd help hide the bodies and never mention it except when we're drunk."

"I have the best friends." Amy sighed. "It's hard to have you so far away. But the story was a gift and I thank you."

"Guess the timing worked out too." Cece reached out and took Amy's hand.She squeezed it and then released. "We both needed the big changes, didn't we? That stupid bet we made wasn't so stupid after all."

"I think maybe it worked for all of us except maybe not Cass. She seems to be in the same rut. But she's laughing more. She just hasn't, I don't know. She hasn't found what she's missing yet. Romy is opening her store like in two weeks and she's dating a fireman."

Cece laughed. "Well, she's about the height of a fire plug so that works."

"Mean," Amy said between her own laughter.

"You're no taller, girl. So how is Doctor French Fry?"

Amy didn't answer and Cece hooted. "So he got there, didn't he? Just like Carlos, he found that opening and filled it right in."

"Carlos plugged yours a few hundred times from the sounds of it," Amy muttered.

"Don't you try to distract me. I'm just a figment of your imagination and you can't hide from your own mind. So how is he, Amy?"