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It was late and they were lounging on the couch, Evelyn smoking a cigarette and Mary smoking something a little stronger. Ned had already put himself to bed and was purring softly on his plush velvet cushion. There was nothing worth watching but the TV was on anyway, playing an endless reel of infomercials for ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyers and correspondence schools. They let it play on, soaking in the hazy blue light, neither one quite ready to expend the necessary energy to get off the couch and head upstairs.
“We could do that, you know,” Evelyn murmured. She pursed her bright red lips around her dark metal cigarette holder and took a drag.
“What, TV-VCR repair?” Mary said, echoing the infomercial spokeswoman’s cheery voiceover, chasing her joke with a high-pitched giggle.
“Not exactly.” Evelyn smiled indulgently. “But we could start a business together, advertise on late-night TV. You know who’s watching at this time of night?”
“Us?”
“Us, and lonely people. Desperate people. People who will do absolutely anything to change their situation.”
Mary was quiet. She had spent her fair share of lonely nights in front of the TV, before Evelyn. She set her joint down in the ashtray, watching pensively as a wisp of smoke curled up toward the ceiling.
Suddenly, Evelyn snapped to attention, a sure sign that her nimble brain had seized upon an idea. “How about this?” She turned to face an imaginary camera. “Ladies—are you uncomfortable in a married state? Looking for information, or a way out? We understand that situations evolve. Shouldn’t you evolve too?”
Mary watched, mouth agape. “Did you just—make that up?”
Evelyn continued, “Call the—” she paused, holding up a hand while she thought— “call the Widows’ Investigative Agency. Natural causes are our specialty. No request too exotic.”
“Evvie, that’s sooooo good,” Mary said, grinning. She still couldn’t believe how lucky she was that this woman had come into her life, exactly when she needed her. “But—” She scrunched up her nose, contemplating a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. “I’m not a widow.”
“You could have been. Maybe you should have been.”
Mary shivered, feeling Evelyn’s gaze on her as she leaned over to the coffee table and grabbed a fruit kabob off the tray they had been grazing from all evening. She held it out to Evelyn, who delicately slid a strawberry from the skewer with her teeth.
Mary ate the rest of the fruit morsels (smoking always gave her the munchies) and held onto the empty skewer. It was long and shiny and felt good in her hand. She gave it a little swashbuckling twirl, followed by a definitive stab. “I am good with a blade,” she said.
“Mare! Do that again?”
“What, this?” Mary improvised an even more elaborate twirl and ended with the skewer pointed in Evelyn’s direction.
“God, that’s it,” Evelyn said. “We could work that into the advertising. Right under the name of the agency.” She gently took the skewer from Mary before it could end up anywhere unfortunate and drew an imaginary line in the air before setting it back down on the tray. “Our trademark.”
“So we’re investigating? And…skewering?”
“Metaphorically skewering, of course. Probably.” Evelyn’s laugh was a little wicked. “We could dig up the dirt on cheating husbands. Follow financial trails, find out who’s wasting their wives’ hard-earned cash. Or just, you know, spur things along when someone hasn’t realized that his contributions are no longer required.”
Across the room, Ned snuffled in his sleep, kneading the cushion with his big paws. Mary blew a kiss in his direction. “Can Neddy join the agency too?” she asked with a pleading look.
“Why not?” Evelyn mused, blowing a smoke ring that floated across the room toward Ned but dissolved before it reached him. “We want to seem dangerous, mysterious, sumptuous. He’d fit right in with a few spikes on his collar.” She paused. “Lots of red velvet for me, of course.”
“Mmmm, that really is your color,” Mary agreed, repositioning herself on the couch so she was lying with her head in Evelyn’s lap. Her mind drifted and meandered pleasantly on the subject of Evelyn in red.
“And what are you wearing?” Evelyn asked, startling Mary out of her reverie.
Mary glanced down at her own chest, unglamorously swathed in an oversize t-shirt with the image of a Georgia O’Keeffe flower on it. “Ummm.”
Evelyn leaned slightly forward and plucked the joint from the ashtray, holding it up to Mary’s lips. “For you,” she mused as Mary inhaled obediently, “black and white, I think. Something artistic. Bold.”
“Okay,” Mary murmured. She’d let Evelyn figure out the details. “What if—”
“Hmm?”
“No, it’s stupid. I’m too high,” Mary demurred.
“We’re brainstorming,” Evelyn said. “Nothing is stupid.”
“Okay, then, what if—what if—lasers?” She drew lines in the air with her finger, tracing out imaginary beams of light emanating from a central source.
“Lasers?”
“In the background. Neon, lasers, wispy smoke—”
“Glamour shot vibes, I like it. Who says widows have to be demure?”
“I think I mentioned this before,” Mary said. “But you know I’m not actually a widow, right?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Evelyn said with a laugh. “No one has to know, and I’ll make absolutely sure your ex stays out of the picture. By whatever means necessary.”
Mary nodded, satisfied. Evelyn could take care of everything, of that she was confident.
On the TV, a law firm flashed its contact information: “Call toll-free, 1-800-JUSTICE.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mary. “We need a phone number! 1-800—” she stopped to count characters in her head— “1-800-4-SKEWER!” She giggled and flopped her head to the side, nuzzling against Evelyn’s belly.
Evelyn ran her fingers through Mary’s hair, scratching her scalp gently with her long nails. “You might have something there,” she said thoughtfully. “Let’s pick this back up tomorrow. Now, I think it’s time for bed.” She stubbed out her cigarette and Mary’s joint. Her eye gleamed in the TV screen light.
