J is for Jazz

Rating: Mature (Discussion, not action – last sentence)

 “So what is your disease?” Courtney’s sister asked, rotating her body in the folding chair to face Jazz while Bobby, who had been Babs at the Valentine day party, made a paper plate hat of bows for Elisa while others of the party dug through the wrapping paper looking for stray bows now the gifts were completely unwrapped.

Jazz looked over at Elisa, debating on how to answer. Courtney’s family had not been happy when she had came out as a lesbian in college, and were even more unhappy when Courtney fell in love with Elisa when the two of them worked sets for a vampire movie, then eloped a month later. Now, Neil in the mix confused them all over again. To them love required rings, and rules, and scriptures, and genders. Emotions, friendship, and trust weren’t even in their vocabulary. And it showed in every interaction Jazz had with the family since she watched her best friend exchange her wedding vows.

If she named her disease, Tiffany would do what everyone else always does. Option one would be say she had a friend who had it and it was much worse and Jazz shouldn’t be wallowing her problems. Option two would be a friend who had it and could function like a normal person, so Jazz should be able to do that too. Option three, which was the most annoying, would be helpful suggestions of a herbal remedy, or a doctor or massage therapist or yoga instructor, like Jazz didn’t spend every hour of every day searching and researching her problems.

Jazz didn’t have the spoons for it.

“Oh, I got walking death, the pre-zombie syndrome, so I’m not really good with the walking.” Jazz grinned as perky as she could. “The pills help keep me above ground and contagious.”

On her other side, a friend from the high school theater crowd choked on her punch. Hunter would be fine in a moment. On the other hand, Tiffany leaned away, then got up and moved to another chair.

Rasping, Hunter commented, “That’s evil.”

“It worked.”

“Not arguing.” She cleared her throat, not taking another sip just yet. “We are going to have to tell Elisa.”

“You’re the actress, you tell her.” Jazz turned and smiled at Hunter. “By the way, saw your back in Price Leader. Great extra shot. They nearly had you in half-profile for a tenth of a second.”

“I have you know I got a speaking part in a commercial last week.”

Seeing the disaster cleanup was nearly complete, Jazz leaned closer to whisper. “Congratulations, a mother part?”

“Yeah, I’ve finally grown old enough to be what everyone wants to typecast me as. I think my career is about to take off.”

“We all seem to finally getting that age.”

“As my six- and twelve-year-old remind me constantly.”

Courtney clapped her hands for attention. “Next up, name the baby, grab some of the pastel notepads. Best name as judged by me and Elisa get an all-day sucker.” Courtney held up a colorful lollipop the size of her face. “Best name as judged by Neil and Bobby gets an all-day sucker too.” She held up a black candy dildo with her other hand.

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)

Marathon Party (G to M)
4/8/2019 – G is for Gobi
4/9/2019 – H is for Horse
4/10/2019 – I is for Sherbet
4/11/2019 – J is for Jazz
4/12/2019 – K is for Keeper
4/13/2019 – L is for Loss
4/15/2019 – M is for Marathon