Mona Lisa Mannequin - the latest...

 I went to Heiner's after painting last Saturday. Keith tells me Heiner has re-assembled the mannequin we left at the end of his driveway near his bird feeder in the back yard. We can see it from his studio. I laugh. She is lying with her arms at her feet. Her torso caught in the branches. Her legs standing up a few feet from the torso. It's a mess.

Heiner says it's been fun to watch the horses and riders along the bridle trail - at the back of his property - freak out when the horses shy at the mannequin. But, he says, he's had enough of her. She needs to go. He is trying to conduct classes in his studio, and there's this naked woman in his back yard scaring horses. Keith and I pick her up. Her torso is buckled into the front seat of my car. It's funny. She looks like she hit the windshield. She is far uglier than I remember.

My friend Kim is delighted to hear the mannequin is available when I call her. Her buddy is anxious to have her. He wants to add her to his collection of crap at his self-made Tiki-Bar that overlooks the river. She's wondering why this plastic woman gets all the attention.

Kim can't pick her up until Monday. Okay, I say. I work at General Motors. The mannequin is buckled into my car's front seat. I joke with Kim that this plastic, naked woman in my car is going to cause a stir with Security. I will be called into GM's massive security checkpoint to explain the nude body in my car. My imagination is running wild, but when I return to the employee parking lot, everything is fine. Except that I offered to give a co-worker a ride home that evening.

He goes to get in the front seat, and there she is! He's startled, but I wrestle her into the back seat with where her legs and arms are stuffed. What the HELL are you doing with a nekkid woman in your car? It's a long story, I say. Surely, this will be the talk of the lunch-table tomorrow!

We pull up in front of his house, and his soon-to-be-wife is waiting for him. She peeps out the front window, and sees her beau is riding with TWO women, and one of them appears to be rather fleshy - scantily clad. I drop him off and leave. He texts me later and said he had a lot of explaining to do. So now I am the lesbian lover of the plastic girl in the back seat, just so he doesn't have to tell his soon-to-be-wife that I am actually a crazy artist with a broke-ass mannequin in her car. Sometimes fiction is better than truth.