Three housewives named after cities gather in a Mexican restaurant. There’s Paris, Brooklyn, and Chicago, each one a destination of their own. They all wear gold dresses and red lipstick, as if they were Cerberus and each head was simply the extension of one, golden body. Being well-groomed is their sport, and they could win the Olympics if they tried.

            Brooklyn sips her cocktail and speaks, “My little Enoch does so well in his Taekwondo classes. Three years old and already a black belt!”

            “That’s great,” says Paris. “My sweet Bathsheba can do a one-handed backflip into a teacup.”

Chicago runs her finger over the edge of her martini glass.

            Brooklyn asks, “What’s wrong, Chi? You look twisted and swirled.”

Chicago pulls herself up, tits first.

            “I mean,” she continues, “you haven’t told us how Sappho is doing.”

Chicago downs the rest of her drink and laughs.

            Paris chimes in, “What’s so funny?”

            Chicago laughs harder, chokes on her own spit. Paris slaps her back until she coughs up a goldfish which flops around the table and into Brooklyn’s glass. It swims there, crooked, destined for failure. Brooklyn continues to sip.

            “You’re so funny,” says Chicago.

            “I’ve always been a great wit. Runs in the family.”

            Chicago pushes her fajitas around, making a smiley face. She grabs her phone and snaps a picture for Instagram.

            The owner of the restaurant, small and robust and balding, approaches the girls’ table. His fake tan makes him look like a red panda, the arms darker than the face and streaky with color.

            “Greetings earthlings,” he says. “How are my best customers?”

            “Oh, we’re fine, Randy,” says Chicago. “So fine, in fact, that you should call us five-hundred-dollars.”

            Randy laughs a little, green laugh, one like a balloon releasing air. He has dineros in his eyes.

            “You’re worth at least a thousand, my dear. Probably more.” He asks if he can get them anything, anything at all.

            “A margarita would be just the tops,” says Paris. “I’m so dry I might as well be the Sahara Desert.”

            Randy calls over the server and gives her the order, telling her to be no slower than a sloth making a macaroni necklace.

            “I visited the Sahara once,” says Brooklyn. “We took a pilgrimage all the way to Mecca, just like Mansa Musa.”

            Chicago fumbles around in her purse, looking for her inhaler. When she finds it she takes a deep draw. The other ladies have a habit of sucking all the air out of a room.

            “Anything else I can do for you girls?”

            “Yes,” Brooklyn responds. “You can give us the number of your esthetician. Your skin looks so soft it could be a lamb’s left ass cheek.”

            Randy blushes and hands her a business card reading: Makayla Rabbits, Tried and True Topical Taming. Chicago snatches the card and uses the candle on the table to set it ablaze. Randy and the women look on in disenchantment. It burns down to her fingers before she tosses its remains into the bowl of chips.

            Brooklyn asks, “Why would you do that?”

            “Why wouldn’t I?”

            “This is why Tom has a meandering willy,” says Paris. “You’re such a Patty Pouter.”

            Randy backs away from the table and jets off on his Heelys shoes. Brooklyn stifles her giggles by stuffing a napkin in her mouth.

            Chicago yells, “Don’t you talk about my husband!” She takes her martini glass and smashes it on the table, points it in Paris’s direction. The leftover olive bumps and glides across the floor; Randy trips on it. The other women take their glasses and do the same. It’s high noon in the Mexican restaurant and the patrons film on their iPhones.

Rita Redd is an emerging writer from Las Vegas, Nevada, currently transplanted in evergreen Ashland, Oregon. She studies creative writing there at Southern Oregon University. She dabbles in necromancy and avoiding the excruciating experience of being truly known. Her work appears in Sad Girls Club Literary Blog, the Lunch Break Zine, and Wild Roof Journal.