Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

Talked Out of It by Barbara Callahan

This month we are featuring stories by an unusually large number of authors who have made their mystery short story debut in EQMM. Besides our two Department of First Stories features, we have contributions by former Department of First Story-ers Terry Mullins, Steven Saylor, and Joan Richter, and by British writers Jeffry Scott and Ruth Rendell, whose first U.S. short story publication was with EQMM. To their number we add Barbara Callahan, who appeared in the Department of First Stories in 1974. Ms. Callahan has written at least a dozen stories for us since, although we haven’t had from her before a satire as broad as this one...

Ricardo wanted me. Maurice wanted me. Zazu wanted me. All those daytime TV show hosts wanted me to appear as a guest. It was a bit overwhelming. Ever since the tabloid SLEEZ printed my story and told where I worked, I’d been hounded by producers. They jumped out of cars in the parking lot of the We Never Sleep convenience store, falling all over each other to get to me first. Some of my regular customers got real mad, like Hector Goertz, the town cabbie.

“I come in here every morning, Ruth Anne, expecting fresh coffee, and what do I get lately? Some stuff that’s been sitting out all night and tastes like diesel fuel because you’ve been larking around with the blow-dry crowd. Well, I can take my business elsewhere.”

I felt bad because there is no elsewhere. No other store is open at 5:30 when Hector goes to work. Instead of sympathizing with Hector, the Ricardo producer laughed and told me I should chuck my job and take the “big bucks we can offer.” Then the Maurice producer shoved the Ricardo producer into the Spuds potato chip display and told me his show could top Ricardo’s offer any day. His comment amused the Zazu producer, who said, “We can top their paltry fees any day. And naturally, we want Billy on the show, too. He’d like that, wouldn’t he?”

Billy is my ex-boyfriend who is now my current boyfriend and is responsible for this national interest. After I won him back in a bingo game from my ex-friend Sally Sue, Billy contacted SLEEZ with our story. Sally Sue and I have been competing for Billy’s affections for ten years, since junior year in high school, and we have done some bizarre things to take him away from each other. The SLEEZ headline read, “Bingo! Ruth Anne Wins Billy.”

SLEEZ ran pictures of the three of us, right there on the front page, the one everyone looks at in the supermarket checkout lines. Billy was so proud. He went to the market and while I shopped, he posed himself right next to the SLEEZ rack. He had a pen in hand, ready to sign autographs, but nobody recognized him. Maybe it’s because Billy sent SLEEZ his high-school photograph, the one where he looks like Sylvester Stallone with a crew cut. And Sally Sue’s and my cooking have added a few chins to his original one.

It was a real challenge winning Billy back. I had to cover the four corners on eight bingo cards under the rules Sally Sue and I agreed on. At first, Billy seemed happy to be with me, but lately he’d been acting bored. I think it was our living quarters. “I’m too mobile for a mobile home,” he said. That’s because Billy used to drive a truck before his sciatica forced him to spend his days on the sofa, drinking beer and watching TV.

I hadn’t told him about the letters the three TV producers sent me before they came to the store because Billy always makes fun of the guests on daytime TV shows. When he saw the Zazu show with the man who actually does go out and sleep in the dog house when his wife is mad at him, Billy hooted about him for days.

Being pursued by three gentlemen who shave and change their shirts every day should have been a boost for my dysfunctional self-esteem (Billy teaches me those terms he learns from the TV therapists), but it didn’t. I lost my job that day. Hector complained to the owner of the store, who came in and saw me talking to the producers instead of waiting on customers. That and the bags of potato chips squished by the Maurice producer made the owner say it was the last straw.

Billy would have said something funny like, “You mean the last chip,” but I don’t have that quick sense of humor.

When Billy saw how depressed I was about losing my job, he actually got off the sofa and opened a can of tortellini-o’s for our lunch. It was thoughtful things like that that made me love Billy so much and gave me the strength to battle Sally Sue over the years for his affection.

“Now tell me all about it, hon,” Billy said.

As I sobbed out the story of the three producers, Billy sat thoughtfully scratching his belly. He didn’t laugh or snort about them wanting us to go on TV like I thought he would. Even through my tears I could tell that Billy was planning something or “taking charge of his life” as the TV therapists put it. After I finished my story, right down to the un-Elvis-like curl of my boss’s lips, Billy burped, a sure sign that he was about to say something deep.

He handed me a Kleenex and said, “Hon, you just dry those tears. We want your eyes all nice and sparkly for those three TV shows.”

“Three?” I gasped.

“Why sure. There’s enough of you for all three. And me too.”

“But I thought you didn’t like those shows,” I said.

“Well, usually I don’t, hon, but that’s before I knew there’d be some monetary compensation.”

I loved it when Billy used big words. I got all tingly. When I recovered, I asked him how we could possibly be on three shows at once.

“Not at once, at staggered times. Heck, those shows use the same people all the time. I saw that dog-house guy on Ricardo the week after Zazu and on Maurice the week after Ricardo.”

Billy patted his belly contentedly and gave me a little pat on the thigh of my Lady Bountiful slacks. Sweet gestures like that made me love Billy so much. He never poked fun at my weight without poking fun at his too, although on him it looked cute.

“Now you just relax and finish clipping the hedges around the trailer while I put my mind to our problem. And don’t worry about paying bills. That money from SLEEZ paid off my bookie, all except five hundred dollars, and he’s willing to wait a couple of weeks for that. And the phone company and electric company’s been real understanding since I told them you’d been kidnapped by aliens and soon as you got back from Mars, you’d pay.”

Billy sure can put things in perspective. I was actually humming as I attacked the hedges, which had grown too high for me even to see the mobile home across from us. What with working two shifts at the convenience store and tending to the housework and laundry, I had really let the hedges go. But lunch with Billy had cured my guilt about the hedges and losing my job. As one of the TV therapists that Billy liked to quote said, “Don’t cry over spilt guilt. It’s better out than in. Were all victims.”

After fifteen minutes, I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and looked at the home across the way. It had been for sale but somebody had bought it and moved in. The home sported frilly new curtains and a flock of wooden sheep with curly wool grazing on the lawn. I couldn’t wait to tell Billy. I’d be the one with humor for a change.

“Hey, Billy, hon,” I’d say, “Little Bo Beep has moved in across the way.”

And Billy would say something funny like, “Well, I’ll be Little Jack Homer stuck in a corner,” or something clever like that.

But I didn’t have a chance to test out my new comedy routine. Billy came outside, squinted in the sunlight, and plopped down on a lawn chair from the exertion.

“Hey, Ruth Anne, hon,” he said, “look across the way. Little Sally Sue is waving howdy-do.”

I spun around and laid eyes on my enemy herself, Sally Sue Bilodeau. There she stood in the middle of those smiling sheep looking like she was feeding them silly pills. The sight of her waving amidst those grinning animals gave me a weak spell and I fell backwards onto the lap of Billy, who said, “Oosh,” as we tumbled to the ground. Luckily we weren’t hurt, but unluckily our collapse gave Sally Sue the excuse to scurry over and coo, “Are you hurt, Billy? Do you feel a great weight on your chest? I’ve had CPR training.”

The great weight on Billy’s chest rolled off and scrambled to her feet.

“I’ll count to three and you’d better be out of here, Sally Sue,” I snarled. “Your silly sheep need tending.”

Sally Sue dimpled prettily and brushed back a wisp of her long blond hair. She wears the same style she did in high school when she was voted “Most Likely to Dye Early.”

“Why, Ruth Anne,” she simpered, “I just thought I’d move close by so you wouldn’t have to walk so far to deliver Billy when I win him back. I’ve got a great idea. We’ve never played horseshoes for Billy and I’ve got a brand new set.”

When I waved the hedge clippers menacingly, Sally Sue covered her Rapunzel tresses with both hands.

“No more bets for Billy, Sally Sue. The bingo game was the grand finale.”

During this exchange Billy just grinned. Sometimes I believed that he enjoyed us bickering over him, but he always stepped in, or created an intervention as the TV therapists put it, before Sally Sue and I did each other harm.

On that afternoon Billy’s intervention stopped us cold. “Hey, hons,” he hollered, “you’d better save your energies for the talk shows us three are going on.”

“Us three?” I squeaked.

“Sure, us three. The whole story’s about a love triangle and a triangle has three sides, ergo, us three have got to go.”

Ergo. What a word! I just loved it when Billy talked foreign. That word just melted all my hostilities toward Sally Sue. Billy cracked open a couple of cans of beer while he filled Sally Sue in, and I took three business cards out of my handbag and called the producers. They sounded happy to hear from me. The Ricardo Show, scheduled for three weeks from the day I lost my job, would be our first.

After the phone calls, Sally Sue and I went into training, and Billy acted as our coach. His pep talk really motivated us.

“Now hons, you have got to look good on those TV shows. You’ve got to go out there and make me proud that you both are fighting over me. As of now, you are in training. Ruth Anne, no more tortellini-o’s, just parsley and prunes. And I’ll develop an exercise program for you too, hon. And Sally Sue, hon, you’ve got to get a haircut.”

“Oh no,” she cried.

“Oh yes,” thundered Billy, hands on hips, baseball cap pushed low on his forehead, a natural coach if there ever was one. Billy didn’t thunder often but I loved it when he did.

Eyes narrowed, Billy said, “Sally Sue, your hair falls over your face and you look like a sheep dog. Do you want millions of viewers to think that I would want to be returned to a sheep dog?”

“No, Billy. I’ll go to the beauty shop tomorrow,” she sighed.

“They’ll have their work cut out for them,” I quipped. “Let me do it. I have the hedge clippers.”

“Now, now, team,” Billy chided, “no infighting. We’re the Three Talk-Showteers. Let’s get to work. Ruth Anne, you jog to the newsstand and get me Racing News. It’ll do wonders for your weight. And Sally Sue, you tie your hair back and read me the list of TV shows on this week. Real nice and low. We’ve got to work on your voice. It’s too high-pitched. We don’t want our viewers turning off their sets because their dogs are running away from home.”

Three weeks of intensive training followed. The coach posted my daily routine to the refrigerator:

Oh, that Billy! Free time! Free time for taking my Z’s. After a quick shower, I’d crawl to my bed and fall asleep to the hypnotic drone of Sally Sue in the living room doing her voice lessons with ‘Billy by reading aloud from the phone book.

“Aaronson, Malachi, four-one-four Wyoming Avenue, five-five-five-nine-oh-two-three; Aaronson, Rupert, one-two-five Woodcrest Road, five-five-five-nine-oh-eight-seven; Aaronson, Vera, one-two-four Curtis Avenue, five-five-five-oh-nine-six-five.” At each new phone listing Billy would bark, “Lower, lower!” until Sally Sue sounded like she could do justice to “Old Man River.”

By the end of the second week, my Lady Bountifuls were feeling loose, so Billy canceled his Wednesday seminar so that Sally Sue and I could go shopping for outfits for the shows. We were so excited to have a three-hour pass from boot camp that we giggled like school girls. Or I should say, giggled like a school girl and a school boy. Sally Sue’s giggle had dropped several octaves. I let out a whoop when I found out that I had gone down two sizes. Sally Sue agreed that the mauve pantsuit with the fuchsia scarf that I picked out would be perfect for the show.

The saleswoman who had her back turned when Sally Sue asked directions to the petite department for her outfit answered, “Through the arch and to your right, sir.” Instead of being surprised at the saleswoman’s mistake, Sally Sue was pleased. “Billy’s lessons are working,” she said. However, when Sally Sue came out of the dressing room wearing a beige mini-dress that matched the color of her new short haircut and asked me how I liked it, I thought that she looked and sounded like a female impersonator. But hey, there are plenty of those on TV talk shows too, so I told her she looked cool.

Billy approved of our purchases and said we had done so well that he was canceling the seminars altogether so that we could shop for his Ricardo/Maurice/Zazu outfits. Billy thought it only right, since he was the pursued and therefore the central figure in our drama, that he should have a different outfit for each show. It was Billy’s stand-up guy honesty that made me love him so. Sally Sue pouted, but I think her sore throat had put her out of sorts.

For Ricardo, who’s rather low-key, Billy chose a subdued red, yellow, and green plaid blazer; silk tie painted with Van Gogh look-alike sunflowers; and Statement! jeans. Those loafers with the cute little tassels added, as Billy put it, a “je ne sais quoi” touch to the ensemble. Oh, that Billy and foreign words! Sally Sue and I should have begun to suspect that his fashion sense and language skills would attract other women.

For Maurice, who’s somewhat manic, Billy decided on a biker motif. We had to do massive mall-crawls to find the perfect foundation for his look. At Rip-Off Tees, we finally found it: a dynamite black T-shirt that looked as if its sleeves had been cut off by a reckless three-year-old. The store owner assured us of the authenticity of its prewrinkled fabric. The Neckrowfiles Biker Club had placed it on Highway One and run over it thirty times. Billy reverently handed it to the clerk, amazed that the relic cost only seventy-five dollars.

The tee really set off the studded denim vest and oil-slicked jeans he wore, but the most masterful touch was the fake tattoo. At the decal store, Billy bought four letters and let us each put two on his right bicep to spell H-O-N-S. Since Billy called us both hon, we were each represented on his arm. A real diplomat, that Billy, but why hadn’t he gotten a permanent tattoo?

For Zazu, who’s quite the lady, brimming with concern for the world, Billy decided on environmental correctness. He bought everything at Rita’s Recycled Rags: a burlap suit that made him sneeze a lot; a pink shirt fashioned from plastic shopping bags; and squeaky white shoes made from takeout containers from fast-food restaurants from which catsup and relish stains had carefully been removed.

Our costumes in place, all that remained was for us to be briefed. When we arrived on the Ricardo set two hours ahead of taping, Yvette, the associate producer, escorted us into the green room and filled us in.

“Although, we strive for spontaneity on Ricardo, we are not above making some suggestions that will enliven the show. In your case,” she said, eyes flashing, “we want hostility.”

The way she almost shouted the word hostility made Sally Sue and me jump, but Billy took it in stride, just sat there gaping at Yvette like she was a New York attraction, which in a slickly beautiful, overly made-up way she was. Just before we went on the set, she growled at Sally Sue and me, “Go out there and fight for your man.” Her voice softened, though, when she wished Billy luck and kissed him smack on the lips.

Yvette’s send-off to us really created the mood she wanted. Eyes blazing, nostrils flaring, we brought the right amount of anger to the set, but not with each other — anger at Billy for ogling Yvette and enjoying her kiss. When we made our entrance, our man beamed brighter than any of those lights on the set. Sally Sue looked like she wanted to shut off the switch behind his eyes, but Billy, as he took the center chair of the three set up for us, winked her a coy Billy wink and gave my hand a firm Billy squeeze. It was like he was telling us, hey, I can play the game too. Oh, that Billy! His incredible timing made me redirect my hostility back at Sally Sue like I was supposed to.

Ricardo, who tends to ooze sincerity, told the beginning of our story to the audience — the gymnastics contest we arranged in high school to see who would take Billy to the prom (I did. I held onto the parallel bars three seconds longer than Sally Sue, but I had to wear gauze on my hands to the dance). During Ricardo’s recital he scratched his head and frowned quite a bit to convey his sincere puzzlement over our actions, but his hostly need to stir things up made him jab us a bit as he told about the bingo game, before delivering the knockout question.

Turning to us, Ricardo asked, “Is the contest wearing you girls out? I mean, going from parallel bars to four-corner bingo indicates a steep decline in physical ability. What’s happened to you?”

Before Sally Sue or I could respond, Billy winked at the audience and said, “They’ve gotten older.”

By emphasizing “they” and removing himself from the aging process, Billy Peter-Panned himself into the hearts of the audience, who laughed appreciatively. Once again, Ricardo attempted to direct his attention to Sally Sue and me.

“I have here a list,” he said, “of the various antics you two have undertaken in this yo-yo match for Billy. By the way, have you ever set up a yo-yo contest for Billy?”

Before Sally Sue or I could answer, Billy piped up with, “Nah, they never yo-yoed for this yo-yo.”

The audience howled. Billy’s cute self-mockery went over big. Ricardo scowled at him, but Billy kept his eyes riveted on the camera.

“May I have your permission to read this list, Billy?” Ricardo asked, oozing sarcasm instead of sincerity.

“Oh, be my guest,” Billy answered.

Ricardo flashed Billy the kind of withering schoolteacher look reserved for the class cutup before bellowing, “No, Billy, be MY guest and observe the politeness expected of guests.”

A grandmotherly-looking woman in the audience shouted, “Oh, lighten up, Ricardo. You’re too full of yourself.”

Ricardo bounded off the stage and sprinted toward her. Dimpling appealingly, he handed her the mike and said, “Well, how would you handle this guest?”

“Handle him? Where, in my hot tub or in my waterbed?”

The audience roared. Ricardo worked up a blush and said, “Why grandma, what big hormones you have!”

Grandma grinned and pinched Ricardo’s bottom.

“You can say that again, Ricky,” she yelled as the host raced back to the stage.

Somehow my natural good-heartedness kicked in and I wanted to rescue Ricardo.

“I’d like to hear what you have on that list, Ricardo,” I said.

Gratefully, he turned to me. “And so you shall, my dear. Here we go. After the gymnastics contest, there was the roping event for which you and Sally Sue studied lassoing to prepare to capture Billy. Am I correct, Sally Sue?”

After having been a spectator for so long, Sally Sue had kind of settled into the role. She looked at Ricardo blankly, then squeaked, “Yes, sir,” completely forgetting the voice lessons that had made her a baritone. Her failure gave Henry Higgins the opening to speak for her.

“A regular Annie Oakley she was, too,” Billy said, then tugged shyly at his cowlick. Slipping into movie cowpoke-ese, he added, “Shucks, I plum forgit that Annie was a sharpshooter. What I shoulda’ said was that Sally Sue was a wonderful roper, a regular Wilhelmina Rogers, right?”

When the audience hooted in agreement, there was no stopping Billy. Ricardo might as well have gone into the green room to take a nap.

Seizing center stage, Billy worked the audience like a pro. “And I’ll bet you all would like a demo of just how the little lady roped me, wouldn’t you?”

The audience applauded wildly.

“Yvette, hon, you just bring out that equipment I sent to you.”

Yvette entered the stage holding the lasso at arm’s length as if it were a snake ready to spring.

“Here,” she told Billy.

As she turned to sashay off the set, Billy, like the emcee he had become, shouted at the audience, “Let’s give the little lady a big hand.”

Once more the audience applauded wildly. I stole a glance at Ricardo, who was off to the side miming his need for an aspirin to a stagehand.

Billy gestured to Sally Sue who obediently went over to him, looking as relaxed as a wax-museum dummy. For the first time, my heart went out to my opponent.

“Now folks, this here is Sally Sue. She won me in a roping contest. And let me tell you, she’s good. And that ain’t no bull.”

Oh, that Billy! Didn’t I say once before that Billy’s timing was incredible? Well, it didn’t fail him on the Ricardo Show. As soon as he said bull, Billy pulled two little horns from his pocket and Velcroed them to his head. After snorting cutely and pawing the floor, Billy was ready for roping. He pranced away from Sally Sue, then lowered his head and playfully charged her.

Remembering her voice lessons, Sally Sue swallowed the second half of a squeal. As Billy gamboled around the stage, she twirled the lasso masterfully, tossed it high in the air, and snagged Ricardo. That critter didn’t respond well to roping. The glance he gave Sally Sue as he threw her the rope was toxic. Poor Sally Sue lost her confidence and before Yvette removed her from the set, she had lassoed an overhead light, the zoom camera, and the show’s psychologist, Dr. Anna Floyd. All during Sally Sue’s disgrace, Billy pirouetted, do-si-doed, did the electric slide, and bunny-hopped all over the stage and down the aisle into the audience. His performance that day inspired the dance craze, The Billy.

When the applause finally died down, Dr. Anna Floyd, who, with her highlighted bob and supermodel figure, didn’t look like any doctor I ever went to, instantly proclaimed our diagnosis.

“A remarkable case,” she said. “It surpasses folie à deux, the abnormality in which two people perform acts they would never have done if they hadn’t met. Sally Sue, Ruth Anne, and Billy are engaged in folie à trois, a condition in which three people exploit one another’s weaknesses.”

Believing he had at last regained control of his show, Ricardo shoved the mike under the nose of a mild-looking woman in the audience who shouted, “Folie à deux to you too, Floyd. You’re the crazy one. Billy’s just fine.”

After some of the audience started dancing The Billy in the aisles, Ricardo quickly led into the phone-call segment of the show. The dancers sat down to applaud every pro-Billy caller. And there were many, their comments ranging from, “He’s adorable and cuddly,” to, “He’s worth every hair-pulling contest those two ever got into.”

That comment riled me. I raised my hand to attract Ricardo’s attention, but he ignored me. I wanted to tell the world that Sally Sue and I never pulled hair. We maintained our dignity throughout. I thought Billy would defend us but he just tugged at his cowlick and smirked. Oh, that Billy! He was loving every minute of the Billyfest. Sally Sue looked about to cry and I felt about ready to lose my parsley and prune breakfast.

An unlikely knight rode the telephone wires to our rescue.

“Hey, Ricardo,” rasped a gravelly voice. “I want to address my comments to Sally Sue and Ruth Anne.”

“Sure,” answered Ricardo. “Just give us your first name and where you’re from.”

“Just call me Bruno from the Bronx.”

“Okay, Bruno from the Bronx, talk to the girls.”

“They ain’t girls, Ricardo. They’re women.”

“Oh, sorry,” dimpled Ricardo.

“Ruth Anne and Sally Sue, I’m a sensitive, caring, nineties kind of guy and I am deeply disturbed that a creep like Billy should dominate you.”

“Thanks,” mumbled Sally Sue and I.

“You two should get on with your lives and I am in a profession that can help you do that.”

Dr. Anna Floyd looked threatened. “Psychology is the only profession that can help them, Bruno. Are you a therapist?”

Bruno chuckled. “You might say that, Doc. I do solve a lot of problems. Now back to Sally Sue and Ruth Anne. Women, my profession, the one I use on my tax returns, is elimination specialist.”

“Waste disposal?” queried Ricardo.

“Yeah, I waste a lot of people. And I could do a beautiful job on Billy. I wouldn’t even charge a fee. I’d do it for nothing for the sake of all the sensitive, caring, nineties kind of guys like me who are out here. Just say the word.”

The audience gasped, Ricardo froze, Billy choked, Dr. Anna Floyd sneezed, Sally Sue frowned, and I grinned.

“Well thanks, Bruno,” I said. “Let me think it over.”

“Sure,” he answered. “I ain’t the kind of guy to rush a lady.”

At that moment, Yvette ran out on the set and yelled, “Trace that call. The man made a terroristic threat on the phone.”

“I’m calling from a pay phone, mizz,” Bruno said. “Women, I’ll be in touch.”

And he was. When Sally Sue and I came home (Billy-less because Viewer magazine wanted to do a cover story on him) to our respective trailers, we each found a business card slipped under our door. The card read, “Bruno, Elimination Specialist, (609) 555-3201. Confidentiality insured.”

“I think he means ‘assured,’ ” Sally Sue said when we met at her place to rehash the show. I didn’t dispute her because Sally Sue used to be a proofreader before she took five years off to write a romance novel. When she finished it, Billy was supposed to grow his hair to his shoulders and pose for the cover. Each of us tucked the Bruno card into our wallets.

Watching the video of the Ricardo Show, I mean, the Billy Show, was traumatic for Sally Sue. She sobbed all during the part where she lassoed the lights, camera, and Ricardo.

“I look like a crazed cowgirl,” she wailed.

Although her self-analysis was more on target than her roping, I told her she did fine. She returned the compliment by saying how slender I looked during the seventeen seconds I spent on camera. Over hot-fudge sundaes, we both agreed that Billy, oh that Billy, had roped them all in. We clicked our sticky sundae dishes in a toast to our good taste.

“We found him first,” I mumbled as I attacked the whipped cream.

“You don’t think Billy will get conceited from all this attention, do you?” Sally Sue asked.

“Never,” I said.

“Never,” Sally Sue echoed.

Billy called several times during the next week to apologize for not coming home before the Maurice Show. What with the spread in Viewer magazine and The Billy dance video he was making, his agent, he told us, just didn’t think Billy could spare the time.

“Agent?” Sally Sue squealed.

“Yes, agent, hon,” Billy replied. “We’re really hitting the big time. Now, you girls, I mean, women, just keep to your routines. Sally Sue, you read the R’s in that old phone book, and Ruth Anne, you stay on friendly terms with the parsley and the prunes.”

“Yes, Billy,” I answered.

“Good. Now I’ll meet you in the green room two hours before the taping of the Maurice Show next week. Love ya, hons.”

“Love ya too, Billy,” we chimed.

Grimly, Sally Sue picked up the phone book. More grimly, I started dicing prunes. By the eve of the Maurice Show, I had lost four more pounds, and Sally Sue had rasped her way to Rzyardich, Ronald, 212 Pine St., 555-2318.

When Sally Sue and I entered the green room of the Maurice Show, we didn’t see Billy, only a stylish young woman who looked amazingly like Yvette of the Ricardo Show. Actually, she was Yvette.

“Oh, you work on this show too,” roared Sally Sue, all those R’s making her resonate resoundingly.

“Of course not,” she snapped. “I quit my job and now I’m Billy’s agent. He’s got a great future in this business. I’m just in here waiting for you two.”

“Where is Billy?” Sally Sue rumbled.

“Where he can’t be disturbed. He likes to meditate before he performs. I’ll tell him you’re here.”

Then she flounced out of the room. Yes, flounced. All my life I had wanted to see a flounce and I instinctively knew that the swish of the hair when in synch with the swish of the clothing is a definite flounce.

“She flounced,” I said admiringly.

“Who cares!” Sally Sue bellowed. “She won’t let us see Billy.”

“No one keeps us from Billy,” I said, as I marched boldly down corridors, Sally Sue in tow, scanning nameplates on doors. When I saw an unnamed door sporting a handmade star, I knew we had found our man.

“Open up, Yvette,” I yelled. “We know you’re holding Billy against his will. He wants to see us.”

The thought of Billy as prisoner enraged Sally Sue. After thrusting her right shoulder against the door as they do in movies, she let out a howl of pain as she bounced from the door to the wall. Discreetly, I turned the knob and kicked open the door so that Sally Sue wouldn’t think her injury had been in vain.

The “prisoner” cooperated with our attempt at freeing him by unwrapping himself from the embrace of Yvette and croaking, “Hi, hons.”

“Our names are Ruth Anne and Sally Sue, not hons,” I said frostily.

Spotting a box of pastry on the desk, I flounced over and took a jelly doughnut, careful to lick every granule of sugar off my fingers.

“Now, now, hon, I mean Ruth Anne, you’re breaking training.”

“And you’re breaking hearts, Billy. I think the TV viewers should learn of your treachery.”

Billy paled, but brightened after Yvette squeezed his bicep and said we wouldn’t dare, which, of course, we wouldn’t. He was wearing the biker outfit. A close inspection revealed that the decal H-O-N-S had been washed off.

“Don’t worry, Billy,” she cooed, “I’ve orchestrated the show so that these two won’t be able to say a word.”

Oh, that Billy. He tugged at his cowlick and shrugged so boyishly that Sally Sue and I knew immediately he was a victim, just like all those other TV talk-show victims. Yvette must have forced him to change the decals and to embrace her. Poor baby. I threw the second doughnut into the trash and received a thumbs-up sign from Billy for my resolve. Knowing we were back in his camp gave him the strength to sprint onto the set and acknowledge the applause that was much louder for him than for Maurice.

A tall, imposing Frenchman on the order of Charles de Gaulle, Maurice oozed militarism. When he ordered Billy to surrender center stage and take his seat, a mutinous pro-Billy audience hissed its displeasure. Brandishing the mike like a bayonet, Maurice silenced them. Mistakenly, I thought Maurice would triumph over Billy in the battle of the egos, but I underestimated our man. As Maurice spoke to us, reviewing our contests for Billy, our hero sat still, allowing the audience to gaze upon his biker-ness. In the midst of Maurice’s recap of our contests, a woman in the audience shouted, “Hey, stud, I just love the studs on your vest.”

“They do reflect my studliness, don’t they, ma’am?” Billy responded.

The audience howled until Maurice eyed them coldly, as if selecting the worst offenders to be executed on the spot.

“As I was saying,” he snapped, “one of your endeavors involved a dart-shooting match in which you, Ruth Anne, were the victor. Am I correct?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered smartly.

“And today we’re going to reenact that great event.”

At that moment, a dart-board descended from the ceiling on the left side of the set. The audience cheered, Billy grinned, Sally Sue groaned, and I started to sweat. The spectators in the Sudzy Wudzy Tavern, the arena where I had won Billy in darts, numbered five, and four of them had imbided too much sudzy to focus on the game. Now I was to perform in front of the studio audience and the trillions at home.

After Maurice handed me the darts, I stalled for time by casting a critical eye over the absolutely perfect feathers. Another reprieve occurred when Sally Sue dropped a dart on her instep and hobbled off the set. Gallantly, Billy followed her. The audience cheered her as they would an injured athlete, but Maurice glared at her as if Sally Sue were a malingering recruit.

“Since your opponent has defected, Ruth Anne, you must carry on alone,” Maurice commanded. “Perform solo!”

Of course, I saluted. It was the proper thing to do. Then, to avoid court-martial, I threw three bull’s-eyes in a row. When I turned to acknowledge the roar that had erupted from the audience, I saw Billy doing a wheelie on a motorcycle. Oh, that Billy! He hadn’t gone backstage to help Sally Sue; he went there to get the cycle! He upstaged my three bull’s-eyes!

“Halt, I say halt,” shouted Maurice as Billy vroomed into the audience, up and down the aisles, braking occasionally to kiss a young woman or to hoist a thrilled granny onto the seat behind him. When the exhaust from the bike had created a haze over the studio that threatened to eclipse him, Billy leaped from the cycle and did The Billy. The audience went crazy.

And so did Maurice. In one swift move that looked like an uncle-ish pat on the head, he conked Billy with the mike. As Billy slid to the floor, Maurice grabbed him and set him firmly in a chair next to Sally Sue, who had limped back to the set. The audience laughed at Billy’s “pretend” daze.

Resuming control, Maurice announced, “We’ll take calls from our viewers now.”

Two biker “old ladies” called and told Billy they wanted to be his old lady. A woman from Walla Walla wanted to know where to buy The Billy video. When Yvette came on stage to give the answer, Billy came out of his coma. As she flounced offstage, Billy turned to watch her and my heart sank. Decaled on the back of his right ear were the letters Y-V-E-T. It’s not that Billy can’t spell. It’s just that he has small ears.

When Bruno from the Bronx called, it was like hearing from an old friend.

“Yo, Maurice, Bruno from the Bronx here. How ya doing?”

“State your business,” ordered Maurice.

“Sure. I got a question for Sally Sue and Ruth Anne. Women, since this guy is not a sensitive, caring, nineties man like me, and he is definitely not meeting your needs, would you like me to off him?”

Maurice beamed. “Why, that’s an interesting idea, Bruno.”

“Maurice, I ain’t talking to you.”

“Oh, sorry.”

I glanced at Sally Sue, who looked wistful. During a break for a commercial, she whispered to me that she too had seen the letters behind Billy’s ear. But we both thanked Bruno and said no after Billy, that master of timing, had blown us each a kiss.

Only the wrap-up remained, and to perform that sacred duty, Maurice turned to Dr. Carla Young, psychologist, who oozed self-confidence.

“It’s quite obvious to all but the certified dull that what we have here is a case of the exhibitionist, Billy, strutting his stuff for the voyeurs, Sally Sue and Ruth Anne. It’s not that they love Billy per se. It’s just that they love peeking at him and these so-called contests are merely transactions to determine who gets the next peek.”

For the first time in her TV career, Dr. Young was soundly booed. She twirled her hair and bit her thumbnail as she staggered offstage. For once I was grateful to Billy’s fans, who truly believed that we loved him.

After the show, Billy had no time to talk to us. A photographer from Motorcycle Mania magazine had posed him on the Billycycle, the name on the back of the bike. Oh, that Yvette! She must have been really busy buying glittery gold decals for bikes and ears, and setting up photo opportunities, and nudging out Sally Sue and me for Billy’s affections. All those activities must have seriously cut into her flouncing time.

As soon as we got back to my place, I kicked off my shoes and curled up in Billy’s old recliner. Somehow I knew that chair was as close as I’d get to Billy from then on, but I was too tired to care. Before long I fell asleep and had an insightful dream. In it, Sally Sue and I were standing next to a table in a laboratory. When lightning flashed through the windows, I saw a man asleep on the table. Sally Sue and I put on white coats and then attached jumper cables to his temples. We pulled some switches and electricity zigzagged through the man. The shocks woke him up and he ripped off the straps that bound him to the table. “Hi, hons,” he said before he started destroying the room.

Startled, I woke up and called out to Sally Sue, who had come home with me, supposedly to make more sundaes. Actually, she had come to my place for another reason which I soon found out.

“Sally Sue, I need to talk to you,” I yelled again.

“Be right there. I’m on the phone.”

The sound of Sally Sue talking in her normal voice helped me shake off the scariness of the dream. When she came into the living room, I knew what I had to tell her.

“Sally Sue, I’ve had a dream and it explains everything. Brace yourself: my dream tells me that we’ve created Billystein, a monster.”

“I know.” She grinned. “That’s what. I just told Bruno and he agreed that Billy is our Frankenstein.”

“Bruno?”

“Yes, Bruno from the Bronx. I just spoke to him. I lost his business card and came here to use the one he sent you. Bruno’s going to carry out the plan I thought of, but we have to do our part.”

“Do our part?” I croaked.

“Yes, and on the Zazu Show. It will be a talk-show first.”

This couldn’t be happening. I was locked in the dream laboratory. To prove it, I yanked at my hair. It hurt. I was awake and that person in front of me, talking with all the assurance of a TV therapist, was my former archrival, Sally Sue. When she told me the plan, I said I wanted nothing to do with it, but the package Billy had delivered to my door changed my mind.

The note in the box read: “Hons, don’t forget the training program. Sally Sue, take a bite out of the Big Apple by practicing your speech lessons on the Manhattan phone book. Ruth Anne, here’s some New York City inorganically grown parsley for you to sprinkle on your prunes. Don’t bother calling to thank me, I’m tied up with my agent. Love, Billy.”

After receiving Billy’s package, the only time I wavered about carrying out the plan was when we entered the green room for the Zazu Show. She was a non-bottom pinching, environmentally correct grandmother who had stocked the green room with refreshments (in recyclable containers, of course) for us. Such thoughtfulness made me want to ditch the plan until Billy flounced into the green room. Yes, flounced. The jacket of his burlap coat swished at the exact moment that his cowlick bobbed and his reusable-container shoes squeaked. I’d call that a three-ring flounce.

“Hons,” he began.

“Our names are not hons,” Sally Sue and I retorted.

“Oh, okay. Well, Sally Sue and Ruth Anne, just don’t use too much airtime bowling over me.”

“Bowling?” I asked.

“Yep. They’re setting up a miniature bowling lane on the set so you girls—”

“Women,” corrected Sally Sue.

“So you girls can do it all over again like the night Sally Sue won me at Bowla-Bowla. But hurry it up. Yvette figures a minute and a half ought to do it. That will give me the camera time I need now that I’m a celebrity.”

Executing a reverse flounce, he left the room. Oh, that Billy! As the romance novels like to say, he had just sealed his fate.

After Zazu introduced us, Sally Sue nudged me and pointed to the audience. Although we knew him only from a blurry photo he had sent, I recognized at once the person Sally Sue had singled out. In the spirit of Sally Sue’s plan, Bruno from the Bronx had dressed in a military-looking khaki outfit set off by a jaunty brown beret. He looked like a young Saddam Hussein. I squirmed. There was still time to call off the plan. I could fake a faint, perhaps another talk-show first, but Sally Sue, sensing my distress, whispered, “Courage.”

Veering from the standard talk-show format, Zazu let the TV therapist, Dr. Sharon Thorney, open the show because, Zazu said, “The whole world knows about Billy, Sally Sue, and Ruth Anne now. So what’s your opinion, Doctor?”

Flipping her long blond hair away from her right eye, Dr. Thorney pronounced us certifiable. “A deep psychosis is at work here. Obviously all three have multiple personalities that manifest themselves in each other. Obviously, Billy is really Sally Sue and Ruth Anne. Clearly, Sally Sue is really Billy and Ruth Anne. Definitely, Ruth Anne is really Billy and Sally Sue.”

Before Dr. Thorney could continue, Zazu jumped in and thanked her drily for “acquainting us with the disorder of the week.” Dr. Thorney pulled her feet up under her and curled up into a tight little ball.

“So let the game begin,” said Zazu as two stagehands carried out the portable bowling lane.

Sally Sue and I bowled four strikes in a row. We were having such a good time that I forgot about the plan until Billy’s antics made me remember it. As Sally Sue and I were talcing our fingers for the fifth frame, Billy, jealous of the audience’s attention to us, sprinted in front of the lane.

“Hey, you environmentally correct audience, let me tell you about my outfit. The suit’s been recycled from potato sacks, the shoes from fast-food orders, and...”

“Sit down, Billy,” hollered a sweet-looking young woman. “I’m getting a bowling lesson watching Sally Sue and Ruth Anne.”

To win her over, Billy grinned and tugged at his cowlick, his trademark “aw shucks” gesture that shot Bruno from the Bronx right out of his seat. Bruno was wearing an “I’m a sensitive, caring assassin” look and was panting for action, but it was too soon. Sally Sue signaled him to wait. She wanted the plan to go into effect when everyone was absorbed in the show. Billy soon obliged us by performing a real attention-grabber.

“Miss, I appreciate your wanting to take a bowling lesson,” Billy said sweetly, “but how about you taking a recycling lesson from me? How about I show you my recycled skivvies, made out of plastic shopping bags from the Outrageous Undies shop?”

The audience whistled and cheered. The young woman yelled, “Sit down, Sally Sue and Ruth Anne. We want Billy.”

To the chant of “We want Billy,” the monster began to undress, doing a crude version of a striptease and handing discarded pieces of clothing to Yvette, who had come onto the set. At precisely the moment when Billy started to unbuckle his belt, Sally Sue nodded at Bruno from the Bronx. Shots rang out, the set went dark, the audience stampeded up the aisles, Yvette screamed, Zazu gasped, Sally Sue laughed, and I giggled. Oh, that Billy! We were free of him at last.

When the backup lights went on, Yvette became completely unflounced. Weakly, she pointed to Billy’s chair.

“He’s gone,” she sobbed. “Someone shot out the lights so he could kidnap Billy in the dark.”

“But hark, there’s a note pinned to Billy’s chair,” said Sally Sue, a bit dramatically, I thought.

“Let’s not overdo it, Sally Sue,” I cautioned. “No more harking. Let someone else read the note.”

“Okay.” She grinned.

It was only right that Zazu should read the note (composed by Sally Sue); after all, it was her show until Billy took over. In solemn tones she read:

A sensitive, caring New York cabdriver who recognized Billy from a newspaper photo picked him up the next morning on 38th Street and drove him to the TV studio to reclaim his clothes. On the way, Billy spotted Yvette entering an unemployment office. Shirtless and shivering, he jumped out of the cab and caught up with her.

“Hon, hon,” he panted, “I’m back from my terrible ordeal. We can be together again.”

“Buzz off, Billy,” Yvette said as she pushed him from her. “You’re unmarketable. Nobody wants to hire somebody with a price on his head. I’m collecting unemployment till I find another client. Now get away from me. I don’t want to be hit by a stray bullet. There’s a TV camera across the street filming this. Already you’re breaking your contract with Bruno from the Bronx.”

The evening news showed Billy dashing to the cab and diving onto the floor. The camera also caught Yvette in a magnificent flounce. Security guards, fearful that Billy’s presence in a TV studio might draw sniper fire, refused him entrance, but did drop his shirt, tie, and jacket down five floors to him.

Back home, Sally Sue and I toasted each other as we waited for the inevitable collect phone call.

“Hons, I love you both,” he began. “I thought of the two of you and the good times we’ve had as I sat chained to a lawn chair in the basement of a house in Beirut.”

“The Bronx, Billy,” I corrected.

“It might as well have been Beirut,” he pouted. “I rode for miles stuffed in a car trunk and you know how bad that is for my sciatica.”

“Poor baby,” chuckled Sally Sue, who had picked up the call on the portable phone. “And when you got to the basement, were you tortured?”

“Was I! A madman wearing a beret and Groucho glasses and moustache slammed a Manhattan telephone directory on my lap and made me read it out loud for hours. He wouldn’t feed me till I got to the D’s.”

“So what did he bring you?” I asked.

“A meal not fit for a human being. Diced prunes and parsley! I was so desperate I signed the agreement.”

Oh, that Bruno! He followed our instructions to the letter. Sally Sue and I slapped hands in a gleeful high five.

“So, hons, I want to come home,” he whined. “And I’ll divide my time evenly between you.”

“Sorry, Billy, but I’ll be too busy. I’m turning my romance novel into a thriller,” said Sally Sue.

“I’m sorry too, Billy,” I said. “I’m going back to school.”

“But hons,” he wailed.

“Can’t talk any longer, Billy,” I said. “Someone’s on Call Waiting. Since Bruno from the Bronx gave our numbers to legions of sensitive, caring, nineties guys, the phone’s been ringing night and day. Ciao.”