Page 10 of Alonzo

I saw her hanging out at the Fort Collins Theatre on my walk home from work. Once you see Belinda Baker, you never forget her. She’s just… one of those girls. Today she’s got her long, silver-lavender hair up in pigtails and she’s wearing faded, ripped jeans, black leather jacket, and cowboy boots.

Not ordinary cowboy boots, like the kind old people wear to go line-dancing at the rodeo bars. Fancy ones. Flashy ones.

“You’re the one in the costume, Belinda.”

“Really?” She tilts her head at me. “What am I dressed up as?”

“You’re dressed up like a…” I know she’s dressed up as something. It’s just a really hard look to pin down with a label. Maybe punk-rock pin-up?

“Myself! Ha! You came into that library dressed up like someone who was given a librarian costume for a part in a movie. You even had your glasses on a stupid gold chain around your neck!”

“Reading glasses in a library! The scandal!”

“You can play it off all you want, Tare. But you know what I’m talking about. And hey, to each her own. That’s my philosophy. If you’re happy, I’m happy. But I worry about you. If you’re not with me, you’re home alone. It’s not normal.”

“I’m just a girl who prefers her own company. Why is that a crime?”

“I’m not saying it’s a crime. I’m just saying… you’re twenty-seven years old. You shouldn’t be so quick to embrace spinsterhood.”

“I’m not a spinster.”

“Of course you’re not! Everyone can see that! But you only date Lonnie. Do you at least have like… a whole stable of them? He’s not the only one, right?”

I hesitate.

“Right? Tara? Please tell me you’ve got half a dozen others lined up.”

I still hesitate.

“Lie to me, for fuck’s sake!”

“Fine! I have seventy-three.”

She guffaws at the ceiling. “Freak!”

I laugh too. Because this life I’ve been living for the past two years is one hundred percent ridiculous. The whole thing, from top to bottom, is nuts. Lonnie is only one small example of the insanity I’ve been dealing with since I was a kid. There’s way more to me than him, or these clothes, or my job at the library.

But not even Belinda Baker can know those secrets.

They go with me to the grave.

“Oh, shit. I totally forgot. I asked my buddy, Clay, about that private investigator stuff you were babbling about last weekend.”

I blink at her. “What? Did I see you last weekend?” I try to pull up this memory but can’t quite connect the dots.

“Yeah. Remember? Fucking Richard broke it off with me last week, so I came over and we did the whole let’s-drink-ten-bottles-of-wine-in-one-night thing?”

“I remember that,” I say. “But I didn’t ask you anything about private investigators.”

“You did.”

“I did not.”

“Tara, I’m not making this up. We were talking about what we wanted to be when we grow up and I said rodeo clown and you said private investigator. And then I said, ‘Hey, I know this guy Clay who does that kinda shit.’ And you said, ‘You do? Ask him what it takes to be a PI in Colorado.’ And I said—”

But I stop listening. Did I say that? Why would I say that? I did not say that.

“—so he says it’s pretty easy. But you should definitely get yourself a conceal-carry license.”