Sample - "The Blind Mammographer" by A. R. Grgory

The Blind Mammographer

Alemoro’s was resplendent with its sparkling crystal chandeliers and gleaming stemware, its sterling cutlery and fine linen tablecloths. But Quinn felt like she was back in the plastic-coated lunchroom of Valley High School, spilling the news of her latest crush to her best friend — and her biggest rival. As if what, blabbing about it was the only way she could believe it herself? She boosted her menu high enough to hide her burning cheeks from Darla’s stare.

She’d promised herself she wouldn’t mention him. Not to Darla, of all people. Yet incredibly, as soon as they sat down at the table, out it popped, her own tongue the backstabbing gossiper. A bead of perspiration trickled down her ribs as she waited for Darla’s response.

Darla finally leaned over the table. She lowered her voice. “Quinn, you and the Blind Mammographer? You let him touch youlike — like that?” Darla’s piercing stare drooped into Quinn’s cleavage.

Quinn lowered her menu over her breasts. “Please, Darla.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t touch anyone ‘like that.’ And don’t call him that. He’s the Blind Seer. Just because that foolish woman had a lump, and he pointed it out to her… I mean, talking to that horrid tabloid? What was she thinking?”

Darla rolled her eyes elaborately. “Well, wait till he finds a celebrity lump. He feels up Labyanna, right. And Mimora, Ophelia Dale, Magdalena, Glenni Sim, even Jennifer... All the Jennifers.”

Quinn hoisted her menu back up, high enough to hide her whole annoyed face now. They were sitting in the middle of the trendiest brunch spot in LA. It was her treat. Could Darla have reserved even a rear table here? And now Darla was giving her oldest friend the third degree. Twelve years since they were roommates at USC, sixteen since Valley High, yet how ridiculously competitive Darla still was. Why couldn’t Darla just accept the obvious?

Quinn settled back into her chair. Like meditation class, she told herself. Meditation, meditate, she repeated like a mental mantra. Floating on a billowy, uplifting cloud. Breathe, inhale, expand with the universe. After all, she, Quinn Michelson, had a great husband, great kids, a great life. She didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, certainly not to Darla. Good things, even in the illusory world of matter and time and energy, coalesce around those who deserve them. It’s karma, plain, pure, and simple.
As theatrical and daring as Darla had always been, she was never much of a provocative dresser, even in school. While she’d always been fit and pretty, she never really flaunted her looks. Never needed too. But then she took up with that scumbag Larry Zeitstein, and look at her now.

Some “entertainment executive.” Larry would kickstart her career, all right. All he ever got Darla was tacky B-movie bit parts. So what would he talk her into next, adult entertainment? The only tangible thing — make that things — Darla had to show for her relationship with Larry were her boobs. That cheapskate Larry even splurged on them.

She lowered her menu enough to glance at Darla’s cleavage, which had been next to nonexistent in high school and college, but now... Larry got his money’s worth, all right. From A cups to Ds. She remembered how proudly Darla showed them off to her after they healed, telling her how the surgeon used patented new shaped and contoured inserts that looked and felt and flowed exactly like the real thing. She had to admit, Darla’s did look good, as natural as her real ones, but fuller and perkier too. But even the best boob doc in LA couldn’t work magic with Darla’s acting career.
She looked Darla square in the eye, gave her voice an inspiring lilt. “The Blind Seer is completely otherworldly. He’s about the Ideal, the soul, the totality of reality, not just the body and the physical world, those ephemeral things we allow to matter so much to us.”

Darla pursed her lips, then rolled her eyes. “If he’s so ‘otherworldly,’ why all the groping? Doesn’t he even charge you to cop a feel?” She snickered. “And which world does he spend the money in? But you gotta give the blind guy credit though, he’s certainly overcome his impediment.”

Quinn strained to keep from rolling her own eyes. She took four years of Latin in high school. Darla didn’t take any. Yet one of the most Latiny-sounding words in the English language had become Darla’s favorite word. She was always going on about her “impediments,” especially all the impediments to her acting career.

Why couldn’t she have the occasional problem or difficulty or snag like everyone else, maybe now and then even have one she hadn’t caused herself? But wasn’t that it, what life was all about to Darla, struggling with all her “impediments”? Such self-defeating negativity. But at least Darla was talking about someone else’s impediment now, someone with a real impediment. Quinn took a deep, cleansing breath to compose herself.

“Try to understand, Darla. Try to get past your world-obsessed cynicism. The Blind Seer is here to help us. He’s about women, about connecting with our souls. He touches our Ideal breasts through our physical breasts.”

Darla snorted, nearly slopping water on herself from the gleaming crystal goblet she’d just lifted to her lips. “Jeezus, Quinn! You’re putting me on. The guy’s a groper, plain and simple.”

Patience. It’s only cynical Darla. Quinn stared deeper into her friend’s eyes. “The material world and everything in it becomes beautiful when we realize sex is only a dim reflection of our connections in the Ideal. The way our limited understanding distorts things...” She smiled gently as Darla stared back at her. “It all becomes so obvious when he explains it. All the tawdriness associated with sex, all the porn and perversion? It’s all so fake and unnecessary, just our childish attempts to deny the cosmic grandeur of the Ideal. You see, our bodies are the touchpoints of our souls to the material world.”
“Touchpoints,” Darla whispered with a crooked grin. She toyed with her napkin as she slowly exhaled. “I don’t care if they’re doctors or preachers or a blind hunk of a guru. Men, they’re all a bunch of boob freaks...."