Emma shrugged.
“Yeah, she grew,” Nisha said. “I noticed it the other day. You and Emma are the same height now.”
“Aww,” Cat reached out to pinch Emma’s cheek. “You’re not the little one anymore.”
Emma drew back, dodging her fingers. “Stop, Cat. Seriously. I’m sick of you guys treating me like some adorable little hamster just because I’m short.”
Cat snorted, “A hamster.”
Nisha looked her up and down. “Well, girl, you ain’t so little anymore.”
“I have a secret,” Cassandra said, out of the blue. Three pairs of eyes focused on her.
“My sister Samantha…” She took a breath and the girl’s waited, facial muscles tense with expectation. “My sister used to be my brother.”
“Girl, what?” Nisha said in a hushed voice.
Cassandra’s face reddened and she drank the rest of her vodka. There was a knock on the door and Cat grabbed one of the pillows, throwing it on the pile of mini liquor bottles.
“Cassandra?” Louise Baker’s voice came from behind the door and the rest of the girls slipped the bottles they held in their hands under the pillow, waves of water undulating underneath them, sending some bottles rolling out again.
“Shit,” Cat hissed.
Emma grabbed the wayward bottles, throwing them over her shoulder onto the floor on the other side of the bed. The door opened and Louise came in, her eyes sweeping the room. Her brow crinkled slightly, mouth turned down. Emma noticed that she never said hi or addressed any of them unless it was to scold or give some specific instruction. She often made disparaging remarks to Cassandra, her tone laced with exasperation. “Do you really want to eat chips, Cassandra?” Sigh. Eye roll. “You may want to reconsider those shorts, Cassandra.” “Why don’t you let me take you to the salon and have something done with your hair. It’s too thick. It makes me hot just to look at you.” The contempt she had for her daughter bristled off her and extended to the rest of their crew. Once, Emma had mentioned to Cat that she thought Louise Baker especially hated her. If Cassandra’s mom didn’t flat out ignore Emma, then she eyed her with such disgust that it made Emma want to shrivel up into a speck and float away.
“Everyone feels like that around Louise,” Cat had said. “Trust me. She’s an equal opportunity bitch to all of us.”
“I’m going to the salon,” Louise said. “You need to clean the kitchen before you leave the house this morning.”
“Mom, we have plans,” Cassandra whined. “Can’t I do it after I get home?”
“No,” Louise snapped, the corners of her mouth dimpling and the wrinkle in her brow deepening to a crevice. “You had hours to do your chore and instead chose to mess around in here. I want it done before you leave this house, and no more back talk.”
“I can help you,” Nisha volunteered.
Louise gazed at Nisha dismissively. “Get it done, Cassandra.” She closed the door and Cassandra held up her middle finger.
Nisha hissed out a laugh from her nose. “Whatever, girl.”
“We can help, too,” Cat said. “And Emma, put that liquor away before you get Cassandra grounded until freshman year.”
Emma gathered the remaining bottles, throwing them in her bag as everyone hauled themselves off of Cassandra’s waterbed, sending everything sliding around again.
“Wait,” Nisha said, touching Cassandra’s arm. “What was that bomb you dropped on us about Sam?”
Cassandra pulled in her shoulders and Emma could tell she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said. “It takes a while to clean the kitchen.”
Cat glanced at the time on her phone. “Yeah. We should hurry so we can meet my mom on time.”
They left the room and Emma stared at the family pictures on the Bakers’ hallway wall as they passed through, like she always did. The pictures were organized chronologically and by major life events. While there were pictures of Cassandra as a baby and a little girl, and even of Louise as a girl and Cassandra’s stepdad as a young man, there were no younger pictures of Sam on the wall. Emma had never thought about it before, but now she stopped to study the pictures as her friends continued into the front of the house. There was nothing of Sam as a child—only recent photos where she looked the same as she did now. Except there was one wedding picture of Louise and Richard with Cassandra and a tall, willowy young man with effeminate features and thick dark hair that grazed his collarbone. Emma stared at the picture and then at a closeup of Sam on the shore somewhere, sitting in a beach chair, smiling intently at the camera, long hair windswept. She looked glamorous.
A door opened and Emma glanced over her shoulder. Sam was coming out of her room and paused when she saw Emma, her eyes moving past her to the gallery layout of framed family photos. She snorted out a laugh.
“Corny, aren't they? I think my mom’s trying to win the Good Housekeeping award for Betty Crocker or some shit.”
Emma decided not to tell her that Betty Crocker was a cookbook.
“The woman was born several decades too late. She would have been in heaven in the fifties, waxing the driveway, or whatever women did back then.”
Sam’s freshly curled ends fluffed out around her shoulders, the smell of burnt hair lingering in the darkened hall. She ran her fingers through her tresses and then sashayed into the living room.
Chapter 2
Gumption Road opened her jewelry box and took a joint from the rolled stacks, uniformly slim. Just how she liked it. Her housekeeper Candace bought and rolled the marijuana for her once a month. Gumption liked to enjoy her ganja the old-fashioned way, had no interest in edibles, tinctures, vape pens, or flavored juices. No, Gumption liked to watch the billowy smoke streaming from her mouth and nose, smell the earthy herbal scent, and wrap herself in the skunk fumes. Art sessions always began with a few tokes.
Gumption placed the joint between her old lips, lit up, and inhaled, nodding to the music playing in her head. “Funky Town”
“Dear,” she said to the young man, taking off his shirt. “What’s your name again?”
“Jake.”
“Jake, put some music on. Whatever you like. The record collection is over there.” She pointed across the expanse of her studio, twelve hundred square feet of graphite porcelain tile with a Paris Grey wash. A Fisher stereo system from 1981 crowned the northeast corner of the room, accompanied by glossy cherry wood shelves of records.
“Aight, cool,” Jake said and sauntered over to the records, his back muscles rippling as he reached up to take down an album from the top shelf labeled “Soul Music”. He stared at a Kool & the Gang record, put it back, and took down Marvin Gaye, then Donna Summer.
“Yo, you got anything modern? This is way old.”
“I’m way old, Jake,” Gumption said. Then, because he looked disappointed, she asked, “What kind of music do you like?”
“Synth, you know, house, electric.”
“Hm.” Gumption took another toke off her joint. “Look in that drawer over there, love. You’ll find the cassette tapes.”
He did as told.
“Do you see EDM 1970s Mix?”
She waited while he scanned the selection. “Yeah, found it.”
“Good. Pick any one of those.”
He plucked out a cassette and then hovered over the stereo, tape in hand.
“The cassette player is just above the glass door with the albums.”
“Oh, yeah, I see it.” He examined the various buttons.
Gumption peered across the room at him. “You must turn the power on first, Jake.”
“Oh, right.“ He grinned at her.
Gumption thought, regretfully, that young people these days were useless. They didn’t seem to know how to do anything unless it involved a computer or their phone. Then they were wizards. But when it came to practical everyday things, they were just plain useless. It got worse every year.
Jake got the music goin
g and the synth pulses of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” blasted from the big cabinet and woofer speakers. He stood still for a moment, taking it in, then began moving his body to the beat as he glided over to Gumption.
“Nice,” he yelled over the music, doing a chest grind.
Gumption leaned back on her chaise, watching him for a bit, then beckoned to him to come closer. He did, stopping a foot away from her face, and began swiveling his hips.
“Take your pants off, dear,” Gumption said.
“You want it all off, Ms. G?”
“No. Just the pants.”
He did as told and she leaned forward. “Movement, please.”
He began swiveling his hips again and she reached out a finger to trace the lines of his striated abs. His glittery gold underwear bulged with a growing erection.
“If you’re looking for more, I can give it to you, Ms. G,” he said.
“That won’t be necessary, Jake. I’m not wanting sex, dear, but can you keep up that movement?”
“You got it, Ms. G.”
She closed her eyes, taking in the contours of his muscles through her fingers, and nodded. “Good. Stand over there by the window.”
Gumption rose to her feet and went to the two easels she had set up, stepping onto the springy wooden platform that she liked to stand on when she was doing her work. One canvas was blank, the other a painting in progress.
In the painting, a young woman sat naked at her kitchen table, eating cereal, her red-lipsticked mouth open for the next bite. Her bowl overflowed with the men Gumption had been keeping track of in various high-profile sex scandals. She studied the woman’s empty spoon, where she planned to place Jake.
“Darling,” she called out. “Can you remove your underwear, after all?”
Jake cupped his ear to hear better over the loud music. She repeated her request and he grinned again, peeling the shiny gold Speedos off. He had a lovely penis, Gumption thought, delighted.
“Can you keep that erection?” She yelled out to him.
“Yeah. I mean, I might need to touch myself now and then.”
“When you need to, let me know beforehand. Most of the time I want you perfectly still. And don’t go overboard. I want you to keep the erection.”
He gave her a thumbs up.
“Now for the pose. The floor is cold. I’ll have Candace bring over something for you to lie on, dear. It might take five or ten minutes. Just do whatever you need to do to keep your condition.”
Ten minutes later, Candace came into the studio, dragging a twin air mattress with an electric heating unit. Gumption directed her housekeeper where to put it and where to find an extension cord while Jake pleasured himself frequently throughout. Gumption realised it was going to be a problem.
“Have you got Viagra?” She asked the young man.
He shook his head no.
Gumption decided she would start with the other parts of his body first.
“Jake, lie on the mattress on your side, facing me—top leg bent up, one hand on your hip, the other elbow against the mattress, head propped up in hand.” He did as told. “Perfect, darling.”
“Candace, pop out to the store, won’t you, and pick me up some Viagra.”
“You want anything else?” Candace asked, scratching absently at her arm. She was a waif of a woman, with enormous dark circles around her eyes, ghost-white skin, and, remarkably, rich, thick brown hair that fell to her mid-back. The hair was her crowning glory and added to her compelling vampirish appearance. Candace was a functioning heroin addict and Gumption kept her regularly supplied. She also had a blood disorder called hemochromatosis and had to have a pint of blood removed once a month to bring her iron levels back to normal. Gumption paid a doctor to come to the house for the bloodletting.
She was quite fond of Candace and thought of her like a daughter. Gumption had hired the young woman five months ago after finding her sleeping in a ratty blanket on her front lawn. The Bakers across the street had called the police on the poor girl. Gumption had to rescue her from a young policeman who obviously didn’t know what to do with her and the bullying Louise Baker.
The Bakers were new neighbors. They looked like a family of Barbie dolls, all except one: the young teen with the strong-looking face. The girl fascinated Gumption and she was itching to draw her. The eldest daughter, Gumption surmised, after a bit of ruminating over the lines and proportions of her body, was not a girl, but a boy—or used to be. The hip to waist ratio was all off, and the breasts did not look real.
The morning the policeman came to deal with Candace, Gumption plucked her out of the grasp of law enforcement and brought her inside the house. She offered her a shower, clothes, food. Saw the track marks on her arms.
“Would you like to work for me?” She’d offered.
Candace had shrugged and Gumption motioned at the needle marks.
“Heroin?”
Candace had looked her up and down with curiosity and something else that Gumption couldn’t quite read in her expression.
“Yeah,” she said, lifting her chin. “A gift from my last employer. The question you should ask is, can you trust me?”
“Can I trust you, dear?”
“You should never ask an addict that.”
Gumption had smiled, admiring her spunk. “I suppose heroin will always come first. If you decide to work for me, eventually you will take anything of value you can find, sell it and get the money for your drug.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t hire me then, since you know the drill.”
“Or I can keep you supplied, dear, and you can help me out around this big old house?”
“You could hire anyone. Why me?”
“I find you interesting.”
Candace had tried to appear disinterested, but her eyes roved the sunroom where they stood talking.
“Would you like the job?”
“What do I have to do?” She’d asked, stretching her neck to look into the next room.
“Light house cleaning, errands, and such.”
“Hm.”
“How often do you need a fix?”
Candace had focused back on her, a flash of fire in her dark eyes, and Gumption knew she was now speaking her language.
“If I had my druthers,”
“Druthers,” Gumption interrupted with raised brows, “are we in the late eighteen hundreds? My, I haven’t heard that word used since my great-aunt Leona.”
Candace had smiled, flashing teeth with pointy incisors, and Gumption fell in love.
“I’d be high all the time if I had my druthers,” she’d finished.
“Would you settle for twice a day? I have more than enough money to keep you supplied for a lifetime.”
The fire in Candace’s eyes had glowed more intensely. “Yes,” she’d whispered. “I could work here.”
When Gumption finished her session with Jake, he came over to study the sketch of him and the other painting in progress.
“What’s it supposed to be about?” He asked.
“Changing of the guard. My interpretation of the Me Too movement. You see, dear, there is always a strong backlash when the oppressor loses control. The hunter becomes the hunted.”
Gumption directed her hawk-eyed gaze at Jake’s guileless boyish face.
“Cool,” he said. “You can pay me through Venmo.”
“That won’t be necessary. I have cash.”
She went to her jewelry box and pulled out a stack of hundreds, counting ten into his hand. “Come back to tomorrow, dear.”
“Absolutely,” Jake said.
Chapter 3
Emma and Cat flew along Euclid on scooters, hair whipping in the wind, the buzz of liquor still thrumming through their systems. Emma had forgotten her bathing suit, and Cat said she’d go home with her to get it while Nisha stayed behind at Cassandra’s to help clean the kitchen. The plan was for the group to reconvene at Santa Monica Bike Rentals, where Cat’s mom would meet them and sig
n the release forms for the girls to rent bikes. They would cycle along the pathway of the Santa Monica shoreline, possibly go as far as Marina del Rey, though to get there they’d have to cross several streets. None of the girls could remember their last time on a bike, and the possibility of riding in traffic was daunting.
The two girls slowed as Emma’s house, an apple green rambler, came into view, and stopped to park the scooters against a palm tree on an island of grass between the street and sidewalk.
“Oh, shit,” Emma said, smacking her forehead with the palm of her hand.
“What?” Cat asked.
“I forgot. It’s noon.”
“So?”
“So, the twins are eating.”
“Ooh,” Cat pulled her mouth up and over to one side. “How long is lunch again?”
“An hour.” Emma gazed at her house.
“An hour,” Cat whined, placing her hands on her hips, opening her legs to a wide stance, and scowling at Emma’s house. “What if we’re really quiet?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your mom’s fucking looped, you know that, right?” Cat shoved her hands into the pockets of her jumpsuit, shoulders shooting up to her ears.
“And your mom isn’t?”
“We know my mom is weird, but we’re talking about your mom right now.”
“She has Aspergers, okay?”
“Yeah, Aspergers on steroids.”
“Again, pot calling the kettle black and all that.” Emma leaned up against the palm tree.
Cat sighed, then stuck her tongue out at Emma. “I can’t stay mad at you. You’re too cute, you little butterball.”
Emma rolled her eyes.
Their phones pinged and they read the group text.
“Great,” Cat said. “They’re almost done with the kitchen and will be at the bike shop in half an hour.”
She tapped out a quick response.
we forgot about the twin’s lunch
A second later an angry face emoji appeared from Nisha, followed by,
can u go in quiet?
Emma chewed on her lip and texted.
I’ll try the side door
The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller Page 2