Part 2: Laverne's Lies
He's gonna be here any minute now, thought Laverne, her heart fluttering. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

It's not like she really had a choice. How could she look into Lenny's sweet, sad face, knowing his life was getting cut short, and tell him the truth? He was asking so little, really, just dinner and a movie. They'd eaten dinner together before and watched more B- horror movies than she could count. This would be no different.

Except it would. Because he'd made his intent perfectly clear - this wasn't just a couple of sorta friends hanging out because they didn't have real dates for the night. This was going out, as a couple, for a real date, with all the potential implications for how the evening would end.

"This is off-the-charts weird," she said to her reflection. "Me and Len. Len and me. Going out like a regular couple." Saying it out loud didn't make it any less surreal. It only reminded her how much she missed having Shirley to talk to about such things. And it wasn't like she could discuss it with Carmine, her go-to confessor and prime source of comfort in Shirl's absence. He was already being ridiculously magnanimous, letting her go out with Lenny, even encouraging it, despite...everything.

A knock on the door. Laverne gave her hair a final fluff and took a deep breath, released it slowly. "This is the least you can do," she scolded her nervous face in the mirror. "Len once offered to marry you when you thought you were knocked up. You owe him a nice night." She clenched her jaw and nodded once. She could do this. She'd give Lenny a night that would make him forget all about dying. And after tonight? Well, she'd deal with that later.

Another knock. "Coming!" she called, plastering a cheery smile on her face. She marched downstairs and opened the door before she could chicken out. "Hey, Len."

"Hiya, Vernie," he said, shyly. He held out a small bouquet of slightly-wilted red roses. "Um, these are for you."She took them and inhaled their faded scent. "I got 'em at the gas station. They was on a post-Mother's Day sale."

"Aw, thanks," she said, with more enthusiasm than they warranted. Hey, at least he tried. "Come on in while I put these in water."

"Cool." He stepped inside and closed the door behind him as she went into the kitchen to rummage around for a vase. She located a good-sized beer glass she'd won in a chugging contest and used that instead.

"So," said Lenny, after she'd returned to the living room. "You're looking just beautiful tonight. Of course, you look beautiful all the time," he added quickly, "I didn't mean tonight was any different."
"Relax, Len." She grinned, looked him over. He'd cleaned up nicely; hair slicked back, a tie awkwardly knotted under the clean, collared shirt he'd pulled on under a sports jacket. It's not like he's a bad-looking guy when he puts in a little effort, she mused. In fact, with his blue eyes bright with excitement and that admiring grin playing around his lips, he could almost be called handsome. Plus he was nice and tall, with a lean but strong frame....

She blinked, surprised at the direction in which her thoughts were wandering. Suddenly flustered, she covered by saying, "Yeah, well, I guess we oughta get going. Don't want to be late, right?"

"Right." He shook his head, as if awakening from his own reverie. "I got us reservations at that fancy brown hat place."

It took her several moments to process what he might be referring to. When the answer struck her, she blinked in surprise. "You don't mean...The Brown Derby? Do you?"

He snapped his fingers. "That's it! I keep forgettin' the kind of hat."

"Len," she breathed. "That's, like, a movie star hangout. How'd you get reservations there? Can you even afford that?"

That was rude. She could hear Shirl's voice in her head, scolding her for blurting it out. But Lenny was unfazed. "Squig pulled some agent strings to get us a table. As for affording it?" He shrugged. "It ain't like my savings account's got much of a purpose anymore. May as well enjoy it."

Laverne bit the tip of her tongue against an onslaught of sadness. What had he been saving for? What had Lenny Kosnowski hoped to use whatever meager earnings to buy someday-- a house? A nice car? Big vacation? All the simple things he'd never get to enjoy now. Man plans, God laughs, Shirley used to say. Except there was nothing at all funny about it.

Her sorrow must have been reflected in her expression, because Lenny sighed and took her hand. "Vernie, please don't. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have reminded you...I don't want tonight to be about what's not gonna be."

She fought to keep the tears out of her eyes. When she trusted herself, she met his gaze. "What do you want?" she said, softly.

He looked down at her with naked longing. The intensity of it stole her breath away. "I just want it to be about us," he whispered. "You 'n' me, not what could've been, but what is, whatever it turns out to be. You up for that?"

She read the eagerness in his expression and some part of her heart she hadn't realized was still there, a section that had been stamped Closed for Business ever since she lost her dear Randy, cracked open. What is this? she marveled, her skin tingling from her scalp down. Where is this coming from? It wasn't pity, and it wasn't the lustful urges that drew her to fling after meaningless fling. It was something overwhelming, and scared her enough that she had to fight not to run upstairs and hide under the covers until it went away.

"Sure," she managed to say, a squeak in her voice. She cleared her throat and turned her attention to smoothing the non-existent wrinkles in her skirt. "You know me, I'm up for anything." She forced a laugh.

Lenny seemed satisfied with that. "Great!" He held out his arm. "Then our chariot awaits, madam." He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, "Actually, it's a rented Chevy. Chariots are a lot harder to find than I thought."

She hesitated only a moment, before resting her hand lightly on his elbow. "Lead on, sir," she said.

He led her out the door and into the unknown.

#
One month later....

"So," said Carmine, taking a large gulp out of his mug of beer. "How's it been?"

Laverne picked at a loose thread on the red and white-checkered tablecloth covering their table at Cowboy Bill's. "It's been...nice." He didn't say anything, seemed to be waiting for more. She sighed. "What do you want me to say?"

Carmine put down the beer and folded his hands on the table. He stared at them intently for several minutes before responding. "I guess I want you to laugh about the past month and tell me all the goofy crap Len's been dragging you into and how he's driving you nuts. Basically, a little reassurance."

She'd known this wasn't going to be easy. Even though she and Carmine had enjoyed an open and easy communication ever since Shirley checked out of their lives, this was bound to be complicated. "Carmine," she began, but then fell silent, unable to pull up the right words.

He smiled with only half of his mouth. "Wow. So it's like that, huh."

She couldn't meet his gaze. "I didn't expect...I'm sorry." She hung her head as guilt warmed her cheeks.

He cupped her chin, tilted her face up until she couldn't avoid his eyes, his warm, comforting brown eyes. His handsome face. The lust stirred inside her, made her moist. Made her hot. God damn it, she thought, horny and irritated all at once. Everything had been so simple before this last month, so easy. She knew she should go back to what had been working, what had been nothing but fun.

Except.

"Go on," said Carmine, his voice low. There was wariness in his eyes, belying the understanding expression he wore. "You can say it."

She gave up, looked him in the eyes. "It's been great, Carmine," she said, letting her memories since her first date with Lenny flow back into the forefront of her mind. "He started off taking me to The Brown Derby - the real one, can you believe it? He held out my chair when I sat down and stood up whenever I got up to use the can. He had them bring us a chef's choice dinner, one course fancier than the one before. I ate stuff I couldn't even identify, but it all tasted so incredible!" She closed her eyes briefly, remembering the rich, delicious food. And that chocolate soufflé at the end!

"Sounds pretty darn nice," said Carmine, interrupting her reverie.

She nodded and smiled, forgetting the awkwardness of having this conversation with him. "Oh, it was, believe you me. And then he took me to the movies, not that crappy place we always go to on Seventh, but the flipping Grauman's Chinese theater! You could see the leftover red carpet and all those handprints on the sidewalk going in... I felt like a movie star all night! And that was just the first night."

She closed her eyes, reviewed other memories against the screens of her inner eyelids. "There was the balloon ride over Sonoma after tastin' all those wines - go know how incredible wine can taste when it doesn't come out of a screw-top. Oh, and then there was the visit to that Disney in Anaheim. Boy, let me tell you, you don't have to be no kid to have a great time there!" She ran out of air and sucked in a deep breath. "And it ain't just all the fun places we go, it's how great we get along. We like pretty much all the same stuff and we laugh at the same goofy things. Lenny makes me feel..."

She opened her eyes and remembered who she was bubbling at. In a more subdued tone, she said, "He made me feel like the center of his world."

"And I don't." Carmine said it simply, without anger, but she saw the flash of pain in his eyes as released her hand.

"Carmine," she said, as gently as she could. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, not after he'd been there for her literally every minute since Shirley abruptly dropped out of her life. Through all the screwed-up things she'd done, all the acting out, all the job misfires and bad one-night stands, he'd stood by her side and heard out her rants. Wiped her tears.

Then, when she was ready, stepped in and satiated her urges.

"Hey, don't worry about it," he said, tapping his fingertips against his glass. "It ain't like we made any sort of commitment. We were both real clear what we wanted from each other." He frowned into his beer. "No strings, no expectations, just friends distracting each other and having a good time."

"Yeah, I know that's what we said." Laverne patted his cheek. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into her palm. "We got a lot of history between us, Carmine. The sex, that's just been icing on a lot of layers of cake."

He looked puzzled by her weak analogy, but nodded as he took her hand away from his cheek, patted it. "I guess I'm just kind of...surprised, you know? I mean, I always assumed one of us would meet someone and we'd just stop what we were doing, no harm, no foul. But," and he paused to shake his head. "Lenny? Really?"

"Tell me about it." She sighed. "I can't explain it, Carmine. It makes no sense to me either. But damn if I don't get all kinds of goosebumps with him. I gotta trust those."

"Are you sure they aren't, you know. Sympathy bumps? Because of his condition?"

She shrugged. "I don't think so. I can't be sure, I guess, but they sure don't feel like any sort of pity symptoms." She thought about it and shook her head. "No. I think they're the real sort of goosebumps. The serious kind."

"Well, then." Carmine inhaled, let his breath out slowly. "That's it, then. I'll abide by what we've always said."

"One of us meets someone and it starts to get serious, the other will bow out gracefully." Laverne smiled, feeling wistful. She knew it was the right move, however short-lived this thing with Lenny might be. Still, a part of her felt keenly disappointed that she wouldn't get to share her bed with Carmine anymore.

The things that man knows how to do! Shirley didn't know what she'd missed out on.

"Thank you for being so incredibly understanding," she said, trying to push away her naughty thoughts. Her dates with Lenny, while incredible experiences, had all ended with no more than a few relatively-chaste kisses. He'd shown her so much respect, in fact, that it was starting to bug. Then again, she didn't know if his illness got in the way of performing, so she hadn't brought it up, either, not wanting to embarrass or remind him. She'd gotten awfully used to hot sex on demand with Carmine, though, and now a whole month had gone by without. And she was feeling it.

Carmine gave a one-shoulder shrug. "That's me. Just ask Shirley, I'm a freaking saint." He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "Or a goddamn moron," and chugged the rest of his beer.

She chuckled. "Saints don't do that thing with their tongue you do, I'm pretty sure."

He hitched an eyebrow. "You're one to talk. For a nice Catholic girl, you're quite the acrobat."

She found her eyes locked with his and an arc of electricity surged between them. Oh, what the hell? "You know, Len and I haven't put any labels on what we're doing, either. He hasn't said nothing about going steady."

"Really." Carmine put down his beer mug hard enough to jiggle the table. He breathed faster and leaned in a little closer.

"Mm, hm. So I kinda don't see the harm in having one last, little rendezvous." Laverne twiddled a stray curl on the side of Carmine's head. He closed his eyes at her touch and let out a low growl. The tingling in her nether regions spread down her legs and up into her belly.

"I guess it wouldn't hurt nobody, especially since no one even knows we've been up to no good." Carmine's voice was husky, full of promise and desire. Her heart quickened at the sound.

"Meet you at my place in twenty minutes?" She licked her lips.

"Make it ten."

"Deal."

Carmine threw some cash down on the table and jumped up so fast he nearly knocked the table over. In a louder voice than was necessary, he said, "So, have a good day, Laverne. Maybe I'll see you around here again, sometime."

She glanced over her shoulder at her father, who was busy ringing up a customer at the register. He probably didn't even notice their act, but appreciated Carmine going through the motions. "Uh, sure, Carmine. Whatever," she said, in as loud and forced-casual a tone as his. "Bye for now."

He gave her one last, searing look and then jogged out of Cowboy Bill's. She giggled as he nearly collided with Squiggy, who had just sauntered in the door, and performed a neat little dance step to avoid him. The little guy gave Carmine a puzzled look as he disappeared out the door, then came over to Laverne's table.

"Uh, why don'tcha watch where you're skipping off to there," he called, once he saw Carmine was well out of earshot. To Laverne, he said, "What fire's the Big Raccoon's off to fight?"

Mine, she thought, but kept it to herself. She stood up, caught her chair as it wobbled in her wake. "Nice to see ya, Squig. Bye."

"Wait a second! Geeze, why's everyone in such a hurry today?" He threw his hands up.

She half-sighed, half-groaned. "Do you need something from me?"

"I don't need nothin' from nobody," he grumbled.

"Great, then I'll just be..."

"But Lenny does."

That stopped her cold. "What is it? Is he okay?" A shiver went down her spine. "He isn't starting to go downhill already...it's too soon. Isn't it?"

Squiggy frowned, but shook his head. In a gentler voice, he said, "Naw, relax. He's the same, far as his health goes."

She let out a whoosh of breath that left her wobbly. "Oh, thank God."

"You really care," Squiggy noted. His thin lips curled into a faint smile. "You ain't fakin' it or nothin'."

"What? Of course not! You know I," she lowered her voice, "you know what I've been willing to give up for Lenny, to make the time he's got left as happy as it can be."

Squiggy nodded. "Yeah, that was awfully magnatous...magnanny...big of you, climbing off of Carmine to date Lenny."

She shushed him, slapped at his jacket. He flailed his hands to fend her off. "Would you keep it down?" she hissed. "No one else knows about Carmine and me, remember?"

"All right, all right, calm yourself, woman!" He folded his arms and lowered his voice. "All's I'm sayin' is that I recognize what you're doing and it's, well, a good thing."

She raked her hair back from her face. After Lenny had collapsed at her place and Squiggy had further stunned her and Carmine by telling them that the poor guy was sick, and what his dying wish was, there was little else she could do but put her fling with Carmine on hold. He'd been just as agreeable, figuring a no-strings sexual relationship could be put off for six months without doing much damage. They'd all agreed that Lenny'd be a lot happier not knowing about it at all, or he would never have let her put her life on hold for him.

Now, ever since their time together had made her see Lenny in a whole new light, the sacrifice didn't feel like such a big deal. Although she was looking forward to her goodbye encounter with Carmine, she knew she'd be fine just being with Lenny for the time being. Better than fine, in fact. "It's no big deal," she said, in all honesty. "I'm happy to do this for Lenny."

Squiggy nodded. "I appreciate it, I really do." He stood silently for a minute, staring hard at a gravy stain on the tablecloth. "I'm really gonna miss that boy."

Tears stung Laverne's eyes. "Me, too," she whispered.

They stood there, bonded in silence by the thought of Lenny's eventual absence from their lives, until Squiggy said, "So, you going out with him again?"

"Yeah." Laverne cleared the lump out of her throat. "He's gonna take me to a Yardbirds concert tomorrow night."

"Very good, very good. You gonna let him get somethin' off ya?"

She resisted the urge to slap Squiggy upside the head. "That's none of your business!"

"Hey, I'm just sayin'." He held his hands out to ward her off. "You might as well give him something to remember him by."

"You're disgusting!" she snapped. "And I'm leaving." She marched away from the table and toward the exit, hoping he didn't see exactly how appealing the idea of being with Lenny actually was.

Squiggy caught up with her halfway out the door. "Hold up, Laverne, I'm sorry. I didn't mean nothin' rude by it. I just...I want Len to be happy as he can be, you know? And there ain't nothing what makes him happier than you."

She bit her lower lip. Squiggy could be so infuriatingly crass one minute and unbelievably-well, maybe 'sweet' was too much. Considerate then, and surprisingly so. "I know," she said, with a weary sigh. "I want that, too. That's why I agreed to this in the first place, putting my thing with Carmine on hold, going out with Len. As for anything else, well, that's between Lenny and me, Squig."

He nodded. "Fine, fine, whatever. Just so's you make this time easier on him, that's all I care about."

"Goodbye, Squiggy," she said, a bit gentler this time. "Don't worry, I'll hold up my side of the bargain."

"And I won't say nothin' about you and Carmine being bed buddies." He gave her a lascivious wink. "Speaking of, I hope you two enjoy that, uh, fire."

She groaned and headed off to her car, glancing at her watch as she went. Ten minutes had already passed. Damn it, I hope Carmine doesn't cool off too much before I get home! She all but sprinted to her car and tore out of the parking lot like hell itself was on her heels.

#

Laverne was in such a hurry that she didn't even catch a glimpse of his bright orange jacket, which must have been somewhat visible even from behind the statue of Cowboy Bill. Lenny slowly straightened from the crouch he'd assumed behind the figure when he heard Squiggy and Laverne talking on their way out of the restaurant. He leaned against the wooden figurine with his eyes closed and struggled to process what he'd heard.

It's all a big lie, he thought. Everything Laverne, Squiggy and Carmine had led him to believe was one big steaming pile of horse-hockey. Squiggy he could kind of forgive; he was just trying to be a best friend. Even Carmine; he probably only lied to be nice.

But Laverne? This whole month, she'd led him to believe in things he'd never thought possible. He'd bought into her laughter, the sparkle in her eye, every gentle touch. Those goodnight kisses, each longer-lasting and more tender than the one before...

You're a damned fool, Kosnowski, he thought, fists clenched at his sides. Just a big, dumb, damned fool.

And to think, he'd been running all over town looking for Laverne to tell her the incredible news. About the miracle phone call he'd gotten earlier that morning.

He'd fumbled for the phone, awakened from an amazing dream about making love to Laverne next to the tar pits. He'd just tossed her tight little black dress into the muck and leaned in to kiss her smiling, eager lips when the ringing jolted him back into unwanted reality.

"Hullo?" he'd mumbled.

"Mr. Koz...Kosnowski, yes? You are Leonard Kosnowski, right?" The voice on the other end sounded frantic.

Lenny yawned and wiped his bleary eyes with the back of one hand. "Since birth," he confirmed. "And who's this?"

"Oh, thank God. Mr. Kosnowski, I am so sorry. I mean, I cannot tell you...this has never happened to me before. Never, ever, you must understand!"

Lenny sat up in bed, waking up enough to recognize the nearly-hysterical man on the phone. "Dr. Quackenbush?" His heart sank into his toes. "Oh, no, don't tell me my time's up already. I should have another couple of weeks!"

"No, no, no," the doctor babbled. "Not at all. I...oh, lord, oh, crap. I can't believe...all I can do is apologize, most sincerely. You have to understand how crowded this clinic is and how many patients they've got me seeing all at once, and my nurse can't keep my files straight."

"Whoa, whoa," said Lenny, "rein it in, doc. You're all in hysterics. You'd think you was the one dying..."

"That's just it, Mr. Kosnowski," Dr. Quackenbush cleared his throat loudly. "You aren't."

Lenny sat up straighter and blinked rapidly. Did I hear him right? Every hair on his body rose. "Um, what?"

"Mr. Kosnowski, I...made a mistake. You're not terminal. You...you don't even have lymphoma."

His breath caught in his throat and the room seemed to shrink down to just the area around his bed. "Please repeat that," he said, his voice squeaking.

"You are not dying, young man. You're perfectly fine. I...there was another patient, you see, a Leonard Kozinski. A crazy coincidence really, heh-heh, that his appointment time got crossed with yours and so, er, the charts got shuffled and...well, you can see how with the similar names, this could happen, right?"

The hand holding the receiver suddenly weighed a ton. Lenny let it drop to the bed, could only faintly hear the doctor still babbling from his lap, but none of his words penetrated the haze that suddenly filled his head. It was a mistake, he repeated to himself. I'm not even sick. I'm gonna live. I'm gonna live!

Tear sprang to his eyes and a laugh bubbled up from deep inside his gut. Lenny cracked up, holding his gut and guffawing as tears rolled down his cheeks. Some distant part of him recognized he was in hysterics, but he didn't care. He'd been barreling down a tunnel for the past month that got darker and narrower and ended in a brick wall. Now, suddenly, the tunnel had been blown apart and nothing but an open road through sunny fields lay beyond. That warranted a little mania, didn't it?

Finally, he pulled himself together and remembered the phone in his lap. He picked it up and caught the doctor mid-sentence, "...need to get lawyers involved, right? You understand how these things can happen and there was absolutely no malicious intent."

"But I passed out," he said, half to himself. "If I'm healthy, why'd that happen?"

"Oh, well - really? Hm, maybe you want to come in and get that checked out. Totally complimentary, of course!"

Well, I was kinda being choked to death by two people at the time, Lenny thought. Maybe that's all it was.

"...I have time next week." The doctor's voice penetrated his thoughts.

"You're totally sure this time, right?" he said, ignoring Quackenbush's offer. Like he could get paid enough to see the guy again. "No chance that you're gonna call me back again and say, whoops, now you've got smallpox, or a brain tumor or nothin', right?"

"No, no, absolutely this is the correct diagnosis. Your tests came back totally clean and you're healthy as a horse," said the doctor, eagerly. "I guess I should've figured it out when the tests showed an 85-year-old man had the constitution of a fellow in his 20s...."

"Yeah, you think?" Lenny rubbed his face with his free hand. "Well, then, thank you for the good news."

"Oh, of course, yes. You're most welcome, and so I can take this to mean that...."

"And fuck you right in the ear for making me think I was gonna die!" Lenny shouted into the phone. He slammed it back down into the cradle.

He'd sat there for a good ten minutes, limp with relief, while at the same time hot with anger for all the unnecessary anguish that quack Quackenbush had caused him, not to mention his friends. That's when it struck him: I have to let them all know! Poor Squig, who'd been working overtime to act like everything was normal and happy, while looking like an abandoned puppy whenever Lenny caught him in an unguarded moment.

And then there was Laverne.

"Oh, dear God, Laverne," he'd whispered, hugging his knees to his chest. They'd been having such a great time together and now, it didn't have to end. They could have something real now, something lasting. Their time together no longer had an expiration date.

He'd hopped into his clothes and sprinted all the way over to Cowboy Bill's, his heart full to bursting with his news, his brain playing movies of how Laverne would react, how she'd throw her arms around him and laugh. How they'd kiss, and how they'd celebrate.

And then he'd overheard her and Squiggy, and he slammed straight into that brick wall he'd thought had crumbled away forever.

"She played me," he said to the Cowboy Bill statue. It stared back at him from under its ridiculous walrus moustache, without sympathy. "She was just jollying me along 'cause she thought it was temporary and all the while she was longing for Carmine."

He sucked in a breath and curled his fingers into his palms. "They was sleepin' together all along. That whole thing with it just being breakfast...bullshit to cheer up the invalid." He cracked his knuckles. "Well, who needs it? Who needs her? What, she thinks she's such a flippin' prize that she can make a big fool out of me until I die and get outta her way? Except now I ain't dyin'."

He hung his head. "Which means she's got no more reason to pretend. No reason to hang around with me. She'll pat me on the head and congratulate me for getting to live and then go right back to banging Carmine."

Unless.

Lenny snapped his head up as a new thought crossed his mind. "She don't have to know. I mean, it ain't like Dr. Quackenbush's gonna call all my friends and tell 'em."

He met the statue's eyes and imagined condemnation in their empty stare. "Hey, it wouldn't be forever. It's just that I've made so much progress, which I wouldn't have gotten a chance to do if Laverne didn't think it was temporary. I got at least five more months before she thinks I'm gonna croak. I'm so close to makin' real headway with her."

The statue refused to let him off the hook. Lenny gave it a kick. "Quit lookin' at me like that. It's not lying, really, it's just...puttin' off the truth for a little while. Once I get her feelin' for me what I feel for her - even half so much - then I'll just give her the good news and that'll be that, we'll be a real couple and really happy."

It could work. Carmine hadn't interfered this long, so there was no reason to think he'd put a stop to things while he still believed Lenny was on borrowed time. I'd never be able to compete with him if we're both hale and hearty, Lenny thought. There's gotta be some reason God put me through these weeks of hell, thinking the end was near. Maybe it was to even the playing field with Laverne. In which case, who am I to throw the game right when the goal is in range?

Lenny smiled tightly and nodded to the Cowboy Bill statute. "It'll be worth it in the end. You'll see."

The statue didn't look convinced. Lenny turned his back on it and strolled into the restaurant, determined to enjoy a Coyote Sody and the plans he would formulate to get Laverne into his life - permanently.

--END PART 2--



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