With her super sharp ears, one of her superpowers, not-so-ditzy blonde Lichen Roosevelt, who was currently masquerading again as ditzy blonde Marilyn the traveling bartender, overheard it all. The bidding, the threats. Albert was driven to have the girl he couldn’t possess — none of them could, not Biff Carter, not George The Musician sitting at the bar with her and oblivious to the subject matter being spoken about behind him. Because his ears were more between his legs; that’s how he composes, how he creates. It deafens him to other realities at times, a lot of times, heck, about all of the time, she surmises in the moment. They spoke about it earlier, before Albert and Biff showed back up again, sipping their crazy tea and talking about absurdities. Shelley was free — for the moment.
“She requested she go down to the beach every day at 2, so I let her.”
“Damn, Musician, that’s not good enough!” she protested, yelling because no one else was around. Boss Herbert Done had the day off, cruising for boys on the back lot, despite already having a man and 2 girls at home. George had already told her about the decision to use the powers of the Venus Cage to trap her. “She was as much here that way as any of us,” he said. “We’re all in the same boat.”
“Don’t you see, Musician?” she tried to explain. “*Shelley’s* the boat! That’s why you’re all here in the first place.”
George knew that Albert was obsessed with a girl named Darla, a black haired and black clad beauty as he described her. And Biff — well, he hadn’t really talked to him about why he was here as well. That would come a bit later. He didn’t know about the overlap is what I’m saying here.
“She’s not your pet, your slave.”
“I know that.”
Devil instead of Lover, Shelley thought here, contemplating The Tarot. Gemini rules The Lovers, the 6th Major Arcana card of the deck, attached to the specific planet Mercury. That’s why Mercury-Gemilly, France is involved, a suburb of *Albert*ville of all names. The Devil, Major Arcana card 15, has the same two nude figures but chained instead of free, torch lit instead of outside in the sun. It’s good George lets her sunbathe but, my God man, just because she was going to *jilt* you at the alter? *This*? Men, PHEH.
“I’m going to let her totally free soon,” George said. “As soon as I figure out how to take Arthur out of the picture. That way we can get properly married instead of those two.”
“After all this…” Marilyn said, then stopped because of the futility of it all.
And now, listening to Albert and Biff bicker, Marilyn decides to lay down all the cards. She senses a Helen of Troy situation and didn’t want it to fester any further. She had an aunt and uncle that had to live through all the atrocities of the Trojan-Durexian Wars over on the Omega continent. She wasn’t going to allow another seed to be planted like that.
The Receiver, she then thinks. I have to pick up the phone — wherever it is — and call him. That’s the solution.
She finally finds it behind the coke machine.
“Hallo? Claude?”
Sunklands 