Her majesty's a pretty nice girl
and she doesn't have a lot to say
Her majesty's a pretty nice girl
and she changes from day to day

Edison, New Jersey, 2009...

Cheryl moved into the living room with a plastic microwave tray filled with some lean-ish chicken cuisine balanced on top of a mug of cocoa in one hand. Her other hand held the cable remote she forgot to leave on the couch when the microwave beeped. Sidling between the couch and the coffee table, she sat down and placed everything before her, barely spilling the cocoa.

“NO, Felix!” She shooed her black cat off the table, mostly to keep him from burning his tongue on the spill, but also because he likely would find the rubbery meal more appetizing than she did, and she could ill-afford missing a meal even if it was barely edible. She sighed and pulled a fork from her shirt pocket, plunging it into the hot, steamy yellowish goo. Blowing on the first bite, she tasted it and decided on her impression.

“Well, Cheryl, the chicken taste comes through with a struggle, hardly discernible above the mealy potatoes and undercooked carrots. Your presentation leaves a lot to be desired. I’m sorry, Cheryl, but you’ve been Chopped!” She laughed before shoving the tray away; shaking her head. Felix moved quickly to the food and began lapping it up.

“Judge Felix seems to disagree, Cheryl, but then he’s never been very astute when it comes to food review.” She put her hand under his chin and felt the purr thru his fur.

“Sorry, Buddy, but that’s all….” She caught herself from falling into an easily held habit and said almost emphatically,

“That’s all MOMMA has for you. I’ll stop by Shop-Rite on the way home from work. She paused and a grin spread over her face. Running to the kitchen, she opened the tall pantry-like cabinet next to the fridge and sighed in relief.

“Three cans of Bumblebee…and it’s albacore. You’re set for tomorrow, and I promise to get you your food.” She looked back to see the cat stepping across onto the couch. He stretched upward and started sharpening his claws on the thick fabric. She went to say something but he quickly fell back and circled around her reading glasses twice before curling up in a tight ball.

“Why…” She paused as if some urgent message was invading her psyche, asking herself the same question she had asked herself every night since her surgery. Shaking her head at the lack of response, she walked over to the fridge and pulled out the bottle of Cabernet that had been chilling for the past half-hour. She opened the cabinet by the sink and mulled over the choices. Shaking her head at the small wine goblet, she instead grabbed a large clear plastic tumbler decorated with flowers and poured….no…decanted the wine, she thought, into the container.

She walked into the living room and pulled her reading glasses out from under the sleeping cat and replaced them on her face and picked up the binder from the end table. Noting that the room had darkened in the mean time due to sundown, she leaned over once again and turned the three-way to high, flooding the room with light.

“Let’s see, now where was I?” She leafed through the notebook, passing tabs: Contacts; Websites; Essays and Blogs, finally settling on Fiction.

She opened to a story by one of her favorite authors. She read down the page and spotted the line. Picking up the hi-lighter, she marked the sentence in dark green translucence,

“And we love you too, just try remembering that next time you feel stupid….” She read the words aloud. They still hadn’t ‘sunk in,; despite the tapping exercise and rehearsing the idea of being loved….’deeply and completely’ as her therapist would say. She derived a huge amount of strength from the words ‘and we love you,’ even if she often forgot the ‘you’ part of it. The cat had roused and looked up at her, a loud purr erupting from under her chin.

“And I love you….try remembering that you don’t understand English but get my tone, okay?” She scratched behind his ears and pursed her lips, approximating his purr with a ‘thbhbphhhhh,” which got him purring even louder. She put down the binder and went to reach for the small notepad next to the lamp. The light bounced off the opaque green glass body of the lamp, revealing her reflection. She put her hand to her cheek as if checking her image. The makeover she had gotten had done little to increase her self-confidence, but the insistent kneading of claws on her knee and the loud affection that came from the cat’s purr caused her to blink and then squint at the woman looking back at her.

I wanna tell her that I love her a lot but I gotta have a belly full of wine…

She looked at the tumbler sitting on the coffee table and shook her head.

“And we love you, too, just try remembering that next time you feel stupid.”*

She said the words like a mantra and frowned. She hadn’t even eaten a meal for the past twenty-four hours and yet had just finished a bottle of wine in less than an hour. One woman’s poison? She stood up, sending the cat scurrying over the back of the couch. He began sharpening his claws again and she smiled. Grabbing the tumbler, she walked into the kitchen and poured the entire contents down the sink before grabbing her cell phone. She waited only three rings before hearing a voice in greeting on the other end. Breathing out a sigh, she spoke; almost at herself as much as her friend on the line.

“Gina? I just poured Cabernet down the sink. I need to talk with someone; you got time?”

Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl and some day I’m gonna make her mine, oh yeah. Some day I’m gonna make her mine….

*from Too Little, Too Late by Cyclist

Next: Something (Reprise and Finale!)

Her Majesty
Words and music by
Paul McCartney
As performed by
Julia Nunes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgHoY_IOp_s