Free Love Game by Elise Sax

prostitute. What will I do the next time my phone rings?”
    “Nothing,” Lucy said. “Your battery is dead. Your whoring is on hiatus.”
    Bridget took a big gulp of air, as if she had forgotten to breathe. Her eyes refocused, and she cocked her head to the side. “Gladie—what are you wearing?”
    GRANDMA DECLARED brunch over, insisting that I start spying on Luanda immediately to prove she was a fraud and get Grandma’s business back ontrack. “And save all those people from bad matches,” she stressed.
    Grandma’s mission suited Lucy just fine, because she wanted to get her hands on Luanda, as well. I was less than happy about going around town in my velour tracksuit and nylon boot.
    As it turned out, we didn’t have to go far. We opened the front door, and there was Luanda, wailing on the sidewalk across the street. Grandma, Ruth, and Bridget joined Lucy and me in the driveway to watch Luanda dance around and sing.
    “Lord, it’s like she’s choking a cat,” Ruth said. “That’s reason enough to kill her.”
    “We’re not going to kill her,” I said, more to Grandma and Lucy than to Ruth. “We’re just going to talk to her. Reason with her.”
    Luanda pawed the sidewalk with her foot and sang, “Woo, woo, woo.” Her skirt was layers and layers of lace and tulle; she looked like a ballerina on acid. Reasoning with her would be challenging.
    “How about we kill her a little bit?” Lucy asked.
    “Let me find my Louisville Slugger,” Ruth said. She took a step down the driveway, but Grandma pushed her out of the way and ran past her, down to the end of her property line.
    “You’re a fraud, a fake, a phony!” she yelled out. “You’re anti-love. You’re an ill wind!”
    Luanda stopped shrieking and dancing and glanced around, trying to figure out who was yelling at her. I thought it was pretty obvious. It was the old lady crammed in a Donna Karan strapless knockoff and ballet slippers.
    Luanda took a vial out of a pocket in her skirt, uncorkedit, and sprayed some mysterious liquid across the street. “Heal, heal!” she shouted in Grandma’s direction. “Allow balance to shine its light on you!”
    “You’re babbling nonsense!” Grandma said, and swayed in place. I hobbled toward her and held her up.
    “Are you okay?”
    “Go get her! Go get her!” she yelled, pointing toward Luanda. “I’ll get her,” Lucy offered.
    “Hold on, I’ll come with you,” Ruth said. “You’ll want my Slugger.”
    I sighed. It was like running a day care for hyperactive toddlers.
    “No!” I yelled. “I’ll get her. Everyone stay here. Except for Grandma. Bridget, help Grandma inside.” I wagged my fingers at all of them. The world is in bad shape when I’m the mature one in a group.
    My foot throbbed. I had forgotten to take the antibiotics. My jaw clenched with anxiety. My neuroses clicked in. I was probably gangrenous, I thought. They would have to cut off my foot, maybe my leg, if I didn’t get medication, quick. I looked down. I kind of liked my feet. I enjoyed having two.
    But as big as my fear of dying from infection was, I couldn’t let Lucy use Ruth’s bat to kill Grandma’s archenemy. At the very least, I would have too many people to visit in prison.
    I limped halfway across the street. Luanda had lit a small branch on fire and was whirling it around her head. I wasn’t the only one who needed medical care. Luanda was a few cards short of a deck. I didn’t doubt Grandma’s assertion that she was a phony, but I thought it was due more to psychosis than to malevolence.I stopped to allow a Prius to park in front of the house across the street. Mrs. Arbuthnot stepped out.
    She wore a serious pantsuit and carried a handbag that wouldn’t have been out of place on the arm of the queen of England. Luanda shook the flaming branch at her, and, without preamble, Mrs. Arbuthnot took a can of Mace out of her purse and sprayed Luanda for all she was worth.
    “Son of a bitch! What the