Geek Love

Oly and Miss Lick watch recordings of Miss Lick’s “girls.” Miss Lick loves watching the tapes and expresses anger at the young women’s lives before she rescued them, and delight at their professional successes. Miss Lick is desperate for Oly’s approval of her work and grateful when she receives it. Oly wonders if she is the first person who has ever liked Miss Lick: “It makes me sad […] She knows how to enjoy things, and she’s so decent it’s scary” (333). Miss Lick is ceaselessly solicitous of Oly.

One evening, as they flip through recordings, Miss Lick puts on her tape of Miranda. Oly clenches her teeth and fights to stay composed. Miss Lick says that she does not understand why Miranda has not called to accept her offer. Miss Lick calls Miranda a “stupid cow” and Oly snaps that Miranda is not stupid. Oly starts to drop her facade and struggles to regain her control. Miss Lick says that getting rid of Miranda’s tail will do away with a distraction, since men like it.

Miss Lick walks Oly around her country property, cutting brush and talking about guns. Oly imagines that Miss Lick’s father must have been her only role model: “[Lick] moves like him. She looks like him. Her politics and prejudices and pride are almost certainly his. And I look like Arty” (337).

Miss Lick takes Oly to her favorite nursing home, where one of her “projects” is recuperating. The young woman has had a double mastectomy, all her hair and her clitoris have been removed, and her vagina has been sewed closed. Nonetheless, Miss Lick worries that the woman is still too sexually attractive to men. Upon seeing Oly, the woman laughs and asks how much Miss Lick paid her, since she assumes that Oly is also one of Miss Lick’s “projects."

Miss Lick says to Oly, “It’s amazing that you and I are so much alike, isn’t it?” (340). Oly agrees completely. Both these women have lived solitary lives, with a huge secret life below the surface.

Miranda wants Oly to look at her finished drawings. Oly does not want to, but Miranda presses her, saying, “This is my best work […] I don’t see you as ugly. I see you as unique and wonderful” (341). Miranda comments that she is turning the drawings in and the competition results will come out in two weeks, the day before she goes into the hospital. Oly realizes that she must act quickly to stop Miss Lick before this happens.

Early the next morning, Oly brings jugs of concentrated ammonia to the health club, using the locker room key Miss Lick gave her. Oly rigs a tubing mechanism to funnel the ammonia into the footbath cubicle next door. Then she leaves and goes to have a drink in her old neighborhood bar.

That evening, at the usual time, Miss Lick goes into the health club locker room. Oly is watching from outside, imagining Miss Lick wondering why she is not in the locker room as usual. Oly pictures Miss Lick entering the unventilated footbath cubicle and then starting her swim. Miss Lick is always the last to leave the pool area, as she has her own keys. Oly drains the footbath and pours in chlorine, then goes back into the locker room and deadbolts the door. Once Miss Lick has finished her swim and has gone into the footbath cubicle, Oly deadbolts the poolside door behind her. Oly runs back to the locker room and gets the ammonia bottles from her locker, hearing Miss Lick pounding on the doors and calling her name. Oly pours the ammonia into the funnel as Miss Lick screams. Oly feels the funnel jerk out of her hands; Miss Lick has found the tube.

Oly opens Miss Lick’s locker and takes out her gun, then twists the deadbolt on the door. Miss Lick falls heavily into the open doorway and Oly drops the gun, crying to Miss Lick that she is sorry: “And I am sorry and I don’t care if she wakes up and kills me if only she will wake up and move […] I never wanted to hurt her. I only needed for her to die. Not this pain. Not this fear” (346).

Miss Lick regains consciousness and grabs Oly by the throat. Oly finds the gun in her hand again and shoots Miss Lick in the eye, killing her.

The novel ends with a news article, reporting that the bodies of two women were found in the footbath of the Thomas R Lick indoor swimming pavilion of the athletic club. Both women had apparently died of gunshot wounds. It is reported that a notebook was found on the scene, which gave an account of the incident.

The final entry in the story is a letter mailed to Miranda from Oly. Oly explains to Miranda about her parentage and her family history. Enclosed with the letter are two keys: one to Oly’s room and one to the trunk in which she has stored all the many years’ worth of reports on Miranda from the convent. Also enclosed are financial papers and papers for the cemetery vault where all the Binewskis reside, as well as Oly’s notebooks that record their family history. Oly asks Miranda to take care of Lil, as she is Miranda’s grandmother. Oly closes by saying that she hopes Miranda will one day take all the cremated remains of their family, pour them in Grandpa Binewski’s urn, strap them onto a vehicle, and take them all out on the road again.