“And The Rest”

Mary Ann ran breathlessly to the train platform dragging her red gingham suitcase behind her. She threw her arms around Jonny, expecting to be rewarded with one of his trademark uvula-drenching tongue kisses. Instead, he softly pushed her away as the temperature of the station seemed to drop ten degrees.

“Sorry I’m late,” she stammered. “When my stern religious father heard about my plan to go with you to Van Nuys, he preached the scriptures about the whore in Babylon to get me to reconsider. He finally disowned me and cast me out, but here I am.”

“About that, doll,” said Jonny slowly as Boris lit a cigarette to give his partner time to recite the speech he’d spoken a million times before. “We said a lot of beautiful things, but it’s time to face reality. You could never fit in in my world any more than I could in yours.  But as a parting gift, here’s a free trip to Hawaii, including a 3-hour tour on the S.S. Minnow. They said it gets cold on the boat, so you should bring six months’ worth of clothes with you.”

“Buh..but…” the amazingly tanned farmgirl sputtered as tears welled in her eyes, “you promised to take me with you if I’d perform that disgusting sex act that’s illegal in my county, under pain of being shackled in the public stocks and marked with a scarlet ‘A’”.

Jonny’s eyes narrowed as the Last Call whistle blasted from their train.

“Them’s the breaks, baby.”

Happy heavenly birthday to the great Dawn Wells!