Six of One by JoAnn Spears

women just on the brink of adult life. Yet, you seem to know how your lives played out. How is that so?”
    “We are all shades here,” she answered, “shades of women who have lived and died. Each of us knows her full story because each of us has lived her full story. You see us as we desire you to see us, Dolly. We appear to each guest as we see fit, in terms of our age. The years lost from our faces are not lost from our memories when we present ourselves to you as we were in our youth. We have our reasons for appearing to you at the varying ages we do.”
    “You ladies certainly do work in a mysterious way, your wonders to perform,” I said.
    “The six wives decide which of the many ladies residing here a guest will see in the course of her night with us. There are too many of us here for each of our guests to see each one of us.”
    What Elizabeth had just so tantalizingly told me about multiple resident ladies begged about a million more questions, but I didn’t ask a single one of them. The look on her face did not invite them; it sought validation.
    Elizabeth’s jamona persona called out to mine for a serious hen party. It would be my swan song as an old maid; after all, this chick would be feathering the nest with Harry soon enough.

Chapter Sixteen
    As Pertains to Sisters Under the Skin
     
    “I hate being singled out for not being married,” I said, the first to arrive at the pity party.
    “Nice pun,” said Elizabeth, barely cracking a smile.
    “That is a compliment, coming from someone with your reputation for wit,” I said, bowing to Elizabeth and flourishing my hand. She looked so appealing à la Mona Lisa that I wanted to keep that smile going, but the lure of the “moan zone” was just too much for her, and she began to complain.
    “Doesn’t it just make you sick when married women throw their husbands up in your face?”
    I suppose I could have chided her more gently than I did.
    “Aw, quit your bellyaching!” I said. The women-throwing-their-husbands-up imagery had put me in a gastric frame of mind. “After all, Elizabeth, you are the one who went on record as saying that you had the heart and stomach of a king—and a king of England, too! You should let those women’s comments just…just…just roll right off your back!”
    Elizabeth winced at those last words, and I knew I had done it again. I expected a tirade for it, but what I got was a gentle royal directive. “Dolly, the bedpost—you are nearest to it; you do the knocking this time.”
    I obliged. It was the least I could do after saying something so silly. However, since I had no reality in that little world, my knocking made no noise. Elizabeth did not seem to notice, so I just kept talking as I went through the motions.
    “Elizabeth, I’ll bet you take all ‘in your single face !’ hits without flinching. Not that it is always easy, especially when you think of what wet blankets some of the no-longer-single women are lumbered with. The only thing worse than getting hit in the face with a wet towel is getting hit in the face with someone else’s wet blanket.”
    “Make no mistake, Dolly,” Elizabeth said, “I never gave anyone the satisfaction of flinching about my marital inaction, not once in my life on earth. That standard is much harder to maintain now that I am here in this place.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    “In the real world, there were other single women around to talk to—not to mention men to flirt with. Everyone in this place is a woman who, with few exceptions, married at some point in her life. Many of my fellow residents here were even married two or three times. There is precious little comfort for the spinster in this place, Dolly. Kat sympathizes , I know, but she was married, too, so she cannot empathize. I save all my frustration up for when I can steal a few moments with a simpatico, single female visitor from the real world. Since my using a guest to forward my personal agenda is not permitted, I