Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

Kelly's house was almost directly on Charley's way home if he went south instead of north on the Santa Monica and then looped around and plowed up the Van Edward. He was going to feed her cats. She would be home tomorrow.

Kelly had so far never asked where he lived, which was just as well. She was some ten years older than he was, which made her roughly forty-one. She was smart and she was funny. She was also very, very pretty. And she was great in bed.

He parked on the street as Kelly always insisted and walked up the driveway. She had a house that sat on stilts and over-looked the west side of Los Angeles. From her balcony outside her huge living-room, the houses in the canyon offered a far better view than the one he had of the 101 freeway.

At the front door he reached up and searched for the key she kept beneath the planter-box. Charley was six foot four and had to stretch to reach that high. He wasn't quite sure how this hidden key-placement worked for Kelly, but she liked things the way she liked them.

It wasn't there. His hand patted along the surface. He looked over at the front door and saw the key in the lock.

The door was slightly ajar. He entered and closed it behind him.

“Can I help you?”

A tall good looking man stood before him in the alcove. The guy had on a white Oxford shirt rolled at the sleeves and a bright purple tie still tight against his neck. He had on an white apron Charley recognized, for he himself had worn it once. The apron said, "I do what I'm told” on it". The man held a sponge-mop in his hand which he held like a weapon. He looked confused.

“Hi,” said Charley.

They stood twenty feet apart and looked at each other. They were both roughly the same height and age.

“Great!” said the man with a good deal of sarcasm in his voice. “Come on in, make yourself at home.”

“Thank you very much,” said Charley, still standing where he was. “Who are you?”

“I'm a friend of Kelly's, too,” the man said and walked back into the kitchen.

Charley thought about turning around and walking out, but he was more than a little curious, so he followed the man into the kitchen and found the floor wet with a pungent smell of bleach.

“Stay out! I just mopped!” said the man.

Charley stood outside the swung open kitchen door and looked at the floor. The cat box was already cleaned. The cat food bowl was full, and the water bowl too. He turned around and went back down the alcove and through to the living-room where the balcony doors were all open wide. He stepped outside and looked down at the hazy evening growing over L.A.

“Here you are,” the man said stepping out on the wide balcony behind Charley. He had taken off the apron and held two snifters of brown liqueur in his hand. He handed one to Charley.

Charley took the glass and saw that the man wanted to touch glasses. They clinked, and each took a sip. Cognac.

“Why don't we have a seat here, have a little chat,” the man said. He sat at the round glass table. “I'm Monday,” he said. He crossed his legs and looked at Charley. “What are you?”

Charley took another small sip of the cognac and felt a tightening of his stomach as he realized what the man meant.

“I'm Wednesday.” he said. He felt a great heaviness suddenly and he very much wanted to stand up and leave.

“Quite a girl, huh?” Monday said.

“Quite a girl,” Charley agreed. He took another, bigger sip of cognac.

“You look a little shook,” Monday said.

“I am a little shook,” Charley said.

“Don't be a sap. Trust me, there's a Tuesday, and a Thursday, and a Friday too.”

“I don't doubt it,” said Charley. He finished the cognac and set the glass down.

“You an actor?” Monday asked.

“Yeah, you?”

“Oh yeah,” he said.

“You look familiar,” Charley said.

Monday smiled a bright white, toothy smile. “I look just like you, Wednesday-boy.”

Charley joined him in a smile and they both laughed without humor.

Monday got up and went inside the living-room. He was back in a moment with the cognac bottle. He poured more into Charley's snifter and more into his own.

“Don't be angry,” Monday said, sitting back in his chair, getting comfortable again. “She has needs, our Kelly.”

Suddenly there was another tall man standing at the balcony doors.

“Sorry, to intrude...” the man had a British accent. “I'm a friend of Kelly's.”

Monday and Charley looked at each other and this time a genuine guffaw of laughter erupted from the both of them. The man stood there looking confused.

“You look like Thursday,” said Charley.

“Don't be a sap,” said Monday. “Can't you spot a Tuesday when you see one!”

As it turned out, he was Friday. Friday soon found himself seated at the table with a cognac in his hand. He went a little pale when the explanation arrived and didn't say much until his first glass was finished.

The atmosphere was quite light-hearted and the cognac was nearly gone when the phone rang. All three men froze and listened as the answering-machine came on.

It was Kelly's voice: “Hello, there boys, I thought it was time for you to meet. Don't forget to lock up. Kisses!” and the phone went dead.

“Quite a girl!” they all agreed as Friday went inside to search for more alcohol.

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