by Ni-Ni Simone
She frowned. “What?”
“I smell a whore. A low-down, man-eating, no-panty-wearing, dirty, skank-a-dank-a-dank whore who’s added freaky teachers to her roster!”
“Lies! Never!”
I lowered my voice, eyeing her. “I know you. And you slept with him. So where were you when you sucked in his bones? The steam room or the janitors’ closet? Pour me the man juice, sweetness! And let me get my drink on!”
Rich gave me an incredulous look. “Janitors? Whaaat? Clutching pearls! I don’t do janitors. And I don’t do closets. I do one man only. Four nights a week! Knox. My boo, you’ve got me confused with you, Miss Down On Your Knees, making videos in bathroom stalls! Don’t try to project your tricks ’n’ dirty treats over on me, swamp ho!”
I clucked my tongue and rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t in a stall, for your information. When I unsnapped Corey’s jeans and his belt buckle hit the floor, I was out in the open. With the door locked. So get it right, Trixie.”
“No, you get it right. Tryna call me out like I’m some loose woman! I’m a vixen.” She tilted her head. “See, you need to stay up off your knees and be more like me. I proudly label myself Miss HPV. Miss High Property Value. Let a boy get up on these curves and watch how his net worth shoots to the roof.”
Sweetjeezusinsixinchheels. She. Is. So. Dirtfloordumb! Where are the brain gods when you need them? “Okay, Miss HPV, Miss Human Pressure Vent, are you ready to finally tell me where you raced off to when we were at Knox’s? You left me in that campus apartment for hours, alone with them. I could have been molested. Now do you mind explaining yourself?”
“Nope. I had an emergency and that’s all I’m saying.” Her diamond bangles clanked together as she walked up the hallway and pushed open the door to the girls’ lounge. I shut my locker and followed behind her.
She slammed her YSL clutch on the counter and looked into the mirror. “And don’t ask me again.” She lifted her eyes and clashed gazes with my reflection.
I locked the door and checked each stall. I was determined that this outdoor roadkill tramp was going to tell me the truth today or I was going to reach down into her esophagus and snatch it out of her.
“Oh, I see we need an intervention, pronto.”
“Clutching pearls! I don’t do that! I don’t need you entering a thing in me!”
Jeezuskeepmechainedtothebedsheets! This girl’s brain was filled with dust balls. “Would you shut up?! I’m not here to give you a pap smear. Although I’m sure you’d enjoy that. All I want to know is what the heck is going on with you now. Right now. And don’t lie. Does this have something to do with that boy, Justice? Please don’t tell me he’s dead!” My heart skipped four beats. “You told me he was alive. Did he die? Do we need to live on the run? Did you turn state’s evidence against me? Because I know you’re a wet snitch!”
She rolled her eyes up in her head, then dropped them back over me. “No, he didn’t die. But I wish he had!”
“What? Why?” I asked anxiously.
She turned around and leaned against the soapstone counter. “Spencer, I swear if I tell you something you had better not open your slut-bucket and go back and repeat it to Knox or Heather. That’s what got your face slapped to the floor the last time, running your mouth. For trying to do me in with my man by backstabbing me.”
“Whaat?!” I slammed my purse down on the counter. “Rich, do me a favor, sweetness. Drink bleach and rinse slowly! I already told you I didn’t tell Knox anything. So for the last time, drop it! And anyway, you already know I don’t backstab. I front stab! I tell you to your face what I’m going to do. Then I do it. Now what is wrong with you? Are you pregnant? Ohmygod! Not again!” I stomped my foot and wiped my brow as if I were about to faint. “I can’t with you. How many times will somebody have to scrape your insides out before you learn? What is wrong with you?”
“I’m not pregnant!”
“Thank goodness! Miracles do happen. Then what is it?”
“Justice.” She eyed me. “No judgment.”
This trifling ho-bag keeps her legs spread wider than an all-night buffet! How dare she accuse me of being judgmental! Whatever. I swallowed my attitude. “No judgment.”
“God, Spencer. I want to be pissed off with him. I want to hate him. I want to never think about him again. But I can’t seem to do that. I can’t get him out of my thoughts. I thought when I dumped him that would be it. But it’s not.” Tears filled her eyes. “He’s in everything that I do. My thoughts. My dreams. My everything. I close my eyes and I see him. I hear him. I feel him. I taste him. His hands. His kisses. His voice. Everything about him is stamped into my brain. And I can’t shake him, Spencer. I swear I’m trippin’.”
I chewed on my tongue like it was a piece of cherry bubblegum to keep from blowing a blood vessel. I stared at her, chomping away on my tongue.
“And believe me, I have tried everything to shake him. Platters and platters of hot wings. I’ve bought two hundred pairs of shoes in the last week. Had my stylist do me a new wardrobe. The other night, I flew to Paris for dinner. Ate up a bunch of snails. Alone. Only to come back home the next day with this mofo still on my mind! I need to be free of these thoughts, of him, but they are consuming me! And it’s killing me because I don’t know why.”
I kept chomping on my tongue, staring at her, wondering what was wrong with this dumb trick. That boy was a hood roach! No good! And from what Anderson had told me, capital T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Hmm. I wonder if she knows that her little dusty thug-muffin waxes London’s dinosaur. Well, if she doesn’t, she won’t hear it from me. I don’t gossip. And I don’t do judgment. I thought to ask her who she thought took that blind-item picture of her that was scattered all over the internet, but decided to take a deep breath instead. I stopped tongue chomping long enough to ask her if she was in love with him. I held my breath, waiting to see if I would have to Mace her down real good.
“Never. I don’t do love. Ever.”
I pushed out a sigh of relief. “Thankyoujeezus! Now what about Knox?”
She paused. “I love Knox. I really do.”
I narrowed my eyes. And his only flaw is that he loves you. But noooo, you don’t care. You’d rather dog him with your lying and cheating. Like he’s some plaything. He’s a boy with feelings; you obviously don’t give a flim-flam about him.
“Rich, your mouth is saying you love Knox, but you just confessed that you were about to kill yourself over Justice.”
“Whaaat? Clutching pearls! I never said that.”
Where is my dang gavel? She is guilty as charged! “Then what are you saying, huh? I’m trying to keep my mouth closed, trying to stay loving and kind. But you are really working the one nerve I have reserved for you.”
Rich sighed. “Spencer, I try so hard to do right. But I’m a magnet for swag . . .”
And fleas . . .
“I can’t help it if this thick shake keeps all the boys barking in the yard. It’s like they see all this thickalicious goodness and go crazy. Is it my fault I’m beautiful... ?”
And ratchet.
“Rich, you are beautiful, sweetness. That isn’t the problem.” But your lies are going to ruin you. “Knox is one of the few good ones left.”
Tears rolled down Rich’s cheeks. “Don’t you think I know that, Spencer? You’re so hateful! I asked you not to be judgmental! This is why we can’t ever be friends for longer than”—she glanced at her Harry Winston Rosebud—“twelve minutes and forty-seven-point-three seconds. My real friend, who shall be nameless because she’s too busy trying to make a comeback on the runway, would never do me like this. Never. I’m sitting here pouring my heart out to you. And you know I don’t do tears and drama. I just really hate you right now.”
I frowned, placing a hand up on my hip and tilting my head. “Don’t you dare throw that cougar in Chanel up in my face. I heard you. You said you loved Knox but missed Justice. You said you knew Knox was a good guy. That the bad one is who turns you on. You
don’t want judgment, then fine. But know this”—I pointed a finger at her—“I’m not about to stand here and babysit your foolishness. I’ve been practically chewing my dang tongue off trying to keep from taking a lighter to your weave.
“You need to stop being so goshdangit selfish, Rich. Stop being a greedy man-eater! I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but you need to seal it up. If you can’t be faithful to Knox, then break up with him. Let that boy go! All of this leading him on while you stop, drop, and roll from stroll to stroll is c-c-craaazy! He doesn’t deserve that!
“And Justice?” I tsked. “He’s a nothing. A mess. A menace! And all he can do for you is bring you a bunch of problems. You are too good for that leech! What, are you bored, Rich? You need something to do? Well how about you learn to keep your legs shut and either do your so-called man, or break up with him. But that Justice . . .” I shook my head. “Uh-uh. He’s bad news and you need to leave him alone! Now!”
Rich rolled her eyes, then put a hand up in my face. “Scrrrrreech! Let me read you for blood real quick. You don’t come at me all crazy like that. Trying to tell me what to do. Not this grown woman over here. I got this! So stay in your little crooked lane, and let me handle mine. Obviously you’re still a little girl trying to be in a grown woman’s world. Relationships are not that cut-and-dried. And they’re not that black-and-white . . .”
I huffed. “Rich, this has nothing to do with race.”
“You know what, Spencer? You are such an anti-genius.”
Blank stare.
She continued, pulling out a Chanel hanky and dabbing her eyes. “I’m trying to get my life right. I’m trying to settle down with one man. And the only advice you can think to give me is for me to leave my man? So what if I had a few moments of not being perfect. Why would you want to see me a struggling single? You are such a damn hater!”
I stared at her. Blinked. Stared some more. Not. A. Word.
Rich sucked her teeth. “Ugh! So now you wanna stand there looking lost? Selfish!” She slung her handkerchief at me. “I’m in full-fledged crisis mode and all you care about is being your mean, catty self. How dare you! God, Spencer!” She dabbed under her eyes with the back of her two pointer fingers. “You’re so despicable sometimes. I don’t need your judgment! I need a friend!”
I raised a brow, tapping my fingernails on the counter. “Ohhhhhhhh, now I’m your friend, huh? The otter is over in Milan waddling through the Alps. Stay away from that Justice creep!”
She slid back onto the counter. “No shade. But, girl, bye. I can’t do you right now. I’m not looking for a lecture. And I’m damn sure not looking for a sermon. I can sit in class for that. Why are you all in my life, trying to be someone’s counselor? This isn’t church. I’m sixteen. I’m tryna live.”
I stared at her. “You forget. I know the real you. Okay, sugar dumpling? Do I need to pull out those pictures of you before—”
She gasped. “Clutching pearls! Clutching pearls! Don’t you dare! I will peel your face off if you do! Why you always digging in graves for the dead? Are you lonely?”
I sighed, dismissing her lonely dig. Yeah, I was lonely. But that wasn’t her business. “Rich, shut. Up. I’m trying to stay loving and kind. Now”—I scooted onto the counter beside her—“I know you suffer from slutarexia. But your weekly relapses are going to destroy a good thing. I mean, really, Rich. Why do you keep doing what you do when Knox is already yours?”
Rich waved a hand in the air. “Girl, you went there. You just had to go there, didn’t you? You didn’t have to go in that deep, Spencer. That’s way too much to think about right now. You wanna go have a drink somewhere so I can get my mind right?”
I blinked. I gave that one-stop slop the best advice I could. I. Did. That. Goshdangit! And the only thing she could think about was going out for drinks to wet her guzzler. Was this big basket of dumbness serious? “What? Drinks? You are out of control, Rich, which is why you’re in the mess you’re in. Now, before we get out of here, I’m going to ask you one more time. Did you do the teacher?”
Rich hopped off the counter. Turned toward the mirror to fix her face. “You know what, Spencer. You’re crossing the line. That is a private question, and a personal matter that I’m not going to discuss today, tomorrow, or ever. You know there are four things I don’t do: Drama. Personal talk. Old men. And I don’t ever kiss and tell. Now, what I did or didn’t do is between me and the Hispanic Stallion, and that cute little mole on his gigantic love pole.”
I giggled, snatching my things up and shaking my head. This girl was a walking crotch fire. “Come on, trickamosis. Let’s talk about his love pole on the way to homeroom.”
16
London
God, I beg of you. Please let my first day back at Hollywood High be without a lot of gas and a bunch of drama. Amen.
After a month of being away, I was finally back in L.A. for a brief moment before I had to fly back to Milan for Fashion Week. And, yes, I was back without my mother dragging me to New York to be put under a knife. There was not going to be any plastic surgery done on me.
My stomach grumbled as I drove down Wilshire Boulevard. I clutched my abdomen, feeling queasy from my late-night carb binge on Nutella and vanilla crullers from Spudnuts, one of my favorite L.A. doughnut shops—snuck in through the back stairwell by one of our security staff as a special favor to me. Now I was nauseous. I felt bloated. And sooo fat. I’d have to drink gallons of water to flush out my guilt, then spend my whole third and fourth periods getting sweaty on the treadmill, running myself into the ground to ward off any ugly pounds of fat cells that might be lurking around in my body.
My stomach rumbled again.
Oh God no!
A roar of gas passed through me. I started coughing and gagging, turning the car’s AC on high and rolling all the windows down. Yes, this bout of gas was the end result and punishment for being up at 2:38 this morning binging . My guilty indulgence; my dirty little secret brought on by stress.
Thanks to Justice. He tended to be—no, he was—my biggest stress trigger; especially whenever he’d go days or weeks not returning any of my calls. Or when he’d finally decide to bless me with his greatness, then start verbally attacking me, talking to me as if I were last night’s trash. And last night was no exception when he finally felt charitable. That’s exactly how he made me feel—more often than not—like I was some afflicted charity case. As if he were making enormous contributions to the Pitiful London In Distress Foundation. I suppose he was contributing to my cause every time he’d toss me a bone of kindness. Every time he’d whisper sweet nothings in my ear after having cursed me out like some Lower East Side projects tramp. Every time he’d mush me in the face, or flick me in the head with angry fingers for not attending to his needs to his liking. He’d contribute to my cause—my cause of stress, distress... and being one big mess.
Mmph.
I guess I was afflicted.
By him!
He was my plague.
Justice ate away at my heart, like acid.
And still... I hung on. I refused to let go. Didn’t know how to let go. He was my past. My present. And the only boy I could see in my future. Everything I was was tied up into him.
And last night he’d finally driven the stake straight into my heart then twisted it when he hung up on me, right after telling me he wished I’d go somewhere and drop dead. He said I was useless to him or anyone else . . . alive.
Okay, okay... so what if I’d called him twenty-seven times before he finally decided to return my call. That still didn’t give him the right to tell me I was useless. And, yeah, okay, maybe I shouldn’t have screamed at him for not returning any of my calls the whole time I was away. And maybe I shouldn’t have questioned him about the photos I’d received. That still didn’t give him the right to tell me he wished I were dead.
I felt myself tearing up as I sat behind the wheel of my Aston Martin at a traffic light, replaying bits and pieces of our
phone conversation.
“Yeah, what up?” he’d answered nonchalantly. “Who’s this?”
I had blinked, glancing at the screen to make sure I’d called the right number. “It’s me. London.”
“Oh word? What you want wit’ me?”
I blinked again. “I’m back.”
“Back where?”
“In L.A.”
“Good for you.”
“I wanna see you. I’ve missed you. Can you come see me?”
“Mmph. Nah, I’m good. I ain’t beat for none a that underground railroad crap. I’m not wit’ sneakin into ya crib like I’m some runaway slave. That BS’s mad whack. I’m done wit’ all that. And I’m done wit’ you, yo.”
“Justice, please. I need to see you.” I felt myself sinking into a dark hole. Since my parents moved us out to California, I still hadn’t seen the inside of wherever Justice lived. And anytime I’d ask him about it, he’d always give me some kind of excuse as to why I couldn’t. It was being renovated. It was being redecorated. It was being exterminated. And his last excuse to me was, no, I couldn’t come to his place because I kept sweating him too much about going. So it was all my fault that I wasn’t allowed over. “I can leave now.”
“Nah, I’m good, yo.”
A car in back of me blew its horn. I glanced up into my rearview mirror at the silver Jag, snatching me from my thoughts.
I groaned as my stomach knotted. More gas seeped out. Ohgodohgod!
I quickly swerved over to the side of the road, swung open my car door, then leaned my head out and tossed up my guts.
God, please get me through these cramps and gas. I promise I won’t stuff myself with so many doughnuts the next time. I’ll only eat ten instead of the twelve I scarfed down. And no more Nutella.
I coughed. Then spit out the rest of the sugary guilt rising up in the back of my throat. I reached for my bottle of Tasmanian Rain water and took a swig, swishing it around in my mouth, then spitting it out.
