Scissor Link by Georgette Kaplan (novels to improve english .txt) 📗

The most beautiful woman in the world made a minute adjustment to her wavy platinum hair. A chic short cut, side parted, with the fringe windswept. It reminded Wendy of the ropes on a cat o’ nine tails. Not because it was stringy or anything, just in that there was something coiled there, something with an edge of threat.

“I think I just came,” Wendy said.

“Wendy, doll, how much does this call cost after the first minute?”

“You’re making light of a deeply spiritual experience I’m having with my gayness. I’m at the mecca of my homo right now.”

“All right, take a picture, I need to see her.”

“No! That would be creepy—”

“You’re the one staring at her and wondering how her hair smells.”

Wendy raised her hand to her mouth. “Oh God, I bet it smells amazing.”

She had just been thinking that it was even more unfair that their elevators had come up together for so long, submitting her to more and more of the sight of the most beautiful woman in the world. It was like being forced to stare at the sun. But then Wendy’s car arrived at its destination, and the Khaleesi’s kept going: up and up and up, far out of sight behind the opaque ceiling of Wendy’s elevator.

Then the doors of Wendy’s elevator started to close again, having apparently opened, and she got out. “So,” she said into the phone, “I’m just gonna…weep somewhere. Curl up on the floor. Pray for death. My heart’s broken. Business as usual.”

“Wendy’s got a girlfriend, Wendy’s got a girlfriend—” Tina chanted, singsong.

“Please don’t joke about that. It’s…too soon.”

The food court in Savin Aerospace was about the size of a high school gymnasium. It boasted several restaurants in kiosk form: McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, Starbucks, even a Dunkin’ Donuts and a recent strain of artisanal offerings. Wendy told the girl at Smooth Runnings, the smoothie place, to blend her something surprising and promised to drain the whole thing in fair trade for neglecting her StairMaster. Anything that tasted this bad had to be great for her.

The food court was pocketed between the building’s atrium and exterior, wrapping around half of an entire floor. There were three big TVs in the room’s corners: one along the white walled expanse where the restaurant business hadn’t yet expanded (Wendy guessed they were trying to figure out how to park a food truck there), and the last corner of the room taken up by a Dairy Queen that only offered desserts.

Each TV was tuned to something different, and the quadrants of the room formed factions as carefully chosen as a favorite Star Trek captain. At the northeast corner, opposite the empty one, the TV played MTV11—the MTV that still played music. At the northwest corner, the TV played the Game Show Network, which occasionally tempted Wendy when something from the seventies was on. And at the southwest corner, there was a TV showing films from the Silent Movie Channel.

Trust a bunch of engineers to game the system. With their petition successful, they basked in the comparative quiet of orchestral music and either read their tablets or did incomprehensible things with their phones. One of this crowd was Elizabeth Smile. If someone had told Wendy that Elizabeth had worked out a way to go for a PhD on her smartphone, she would’ve believed them.

With her chic ensemble and glamorous makeup, the executive assistant looked more like a model doing a 1950s-themed photoshoot in their office. And was so out of Wendy’s weight class that she felt abashed to look at her, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong like participating in the office sport of ‘Look At Elizabeth.’

Nonetheless, Wendy pushed past it, sitting down across from Elizabeth. “I’m looking for a woman.”

Elizabeth scantly looked away from her smartphone. “I like where this is headed. I can work with this.”

“An older woman. Seems kinda dominating, tightly wound, position of power, but you just know she’s worn a strap-on? Like, you want her to sneer at you while she wears Gucci and shoves a file folder into your arms and says ‘Fix it!’ in a really tense voice?”

“So, like a MILF?”

Wendy scoffed. “I actually don’t like that acronym, that’s a straight man acronym, and lesbians were into older women before it was cool. And they totally diluted the brand anyway, because it used to be just cougar, if a lesbian were in charge, it would’ve stayed at that, but there are leopards and pumas and jaguars and black panthers. I would’ve had sex with Helen Mirren before I saw her in a bikini!”

“So you’re looking for Helen Mirren?”

“No, she’s a lot younger, forties, aging like a Spielberg movie. And, uh…” Wendy held circled fingers in front of her face. “Glasses.”

“Oh, is that what glasses look like?” Elizabeth set down her phone. “Sounds like Janet Lace. You’ve heard of her?”

Everyone had heard of her. Janet Lace was the rising star of the company’s production division, no pun intended. She’d flown jets, not just approved overhauls for them. She knew the product line inside and out, could take apart a turbine and put it back together. If Janet’s flight got delayed at the airport, she could probably get it working again with a thump of her fist.

“That’s her?” Wendy boggled. “I thought she would be, you know…less like the teacher in a Van Halen video.”

Elizabeth’s phone dinged and she picked it back up, instantly engrossed in something it displayed. “What do you want with her, anyway?”

“I’m in love with her. I want her to quit playing these games and make me an honest woman.”

“Is that even possible?” Elizabeth replied.

“Tell me everything about her. How high are her heels? Where was she born? How many adopted kids does she want? Is she okay with friendly back massages—”

“Would you like me to tape her sleeping, too?”

“I’m not stalking her. I’m just making sure she’s not a serial killer or