by Mj Fields
Katherine you whisper, with a shake of your head.
Trying to figure me out is nonsensical, that part is dead.
I’m not Katherine. I’m not yours, never was, so snap that.
My name isn’t Katherine, motherfucker. I am just Kat.”
I drop the mic, hold up both hands and give them all two fingers before walking off stage, through the silenced crowd, to the hallway and out the door.
I look behind me and Josie, and Cecilia are hot on my tail.
I just want to be alone. “Just leave me alone.”
“Kat,” Josie says when she catches up to me. “What can I do to help you?”
“Get me the fuck out of here.”
Cecilia is on my heels. “Tomorrow Kat. We’ll sleep tonight and tomorrow we all go home.”
“Home,” I laugh emotions building to boiling point.
“Yes, home,” she grabs my hand. “No more snapping.”
“No more snapping.” Josie takes my other hand.
My heart is ready to explode and I feel tears rolling down my face.
“What did he do to you?” Josie whispers.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lie crossing my fingers.
“Okay,” she says squeezing my hand.
“This place is absurd,” Cecilia guffaws. “Socks with Sandals? Who does that?”
I laugh, “You probably want to get home more than I do.”
She looks at me and nods. Her finger comes up and swipes across my cheek. “I was foolish to think Harvard was going to be like the Upper East Side.”
“What? Wealth, ambition, and laxity aren’t alive enough here for you?”
“It’ll work for now,” she squeezes my hand as we walk even faster towards the yard.
“She isn’t Darth Vader yet,” I say to Josie loud enough for Cecilia to hear. “If we get her back to Manhattan quick, she could still be Anakin.”
“And she’s making jokes,” Cecilia laughs. “A good sign she’ll live.”
PART TWO
Present Day
CHAPTER ONE
Taco Tuesday
“The cost of the rings alone is sickening to me. Let’s say the happy, yet delusional couple, waits until they finish college. They are more than likely in debt up to their eyeballs with student loans already. Then they go buy a ring that they can’t afford to start their ‘new lives' together, forever.’
“BUT WAIT, that’s not enough. Throw a last hoorah with all of their friends in Vegas with booze and strippers. I mean what says undying, everlasting love and faithfulness like lap dances and used up snatch picking $20 bills off someone’s face?
“Then all of the sudden they wake up the next day and are never going to want it again? Yeah, right. Let me ask you, when is the last time you ate just one double stuff Oreo cookie?
“Don’t kid yourself that eating just the cream inside isn’t cheating, eating is cheating.
“The next time you see a stripper pole, or hell any pole for that matter, tell yourself you aren’t going to remember the single most exciting night of your life.
“The same ‘happy’ couple gets ass raped for hosting an elaborate soiree to celebrate a marriage that will end up failing. Don’t roll your eyes at me, it’s fact. You know damn well they’re fighting over the details of the damn wedding too. Can you feel the love? Me either.
“After the ass fucking, without lube, they spend a mint on a honeymoon where they spent ninety-percent of the time shit faced and fucking, seldom leaving their resort suite, yet it cost a grand a night.
“Now they have spent a minimum of ten grand themselves and that’s if they didn’t have to pay for the damn party celebrating their ‘union’. Hell, I can celebrate a union with a fucking Happy Meal and a bottle of Jack. He brings his own condoms, now it’s a fucking party.
“Kat?” Josie sighs.
“You asked how I felt about weddings. You know damn well I’m not going to hold back.”
“What I was trying to ask is how you felt about mine. Blaine asked me to marry him last night. I want you and Cecilia to be in the wedding. I want you to be my maid of honor,” she says as sweet as Josie is.
Fighting the urge to bash my head against the counter until I knock myself completely out, I answer the only way I can, “I would be honored.”
She giggles. “Sure you would.”
I bare my teeth trying my best not to growl. “You and Blaine are different.”
She laughs. “How so?”
“His parents are loaded. I will assume you aren’t paying for the wedding. I’m sure the ring isn’t on plastic, you won’t start out that way,” I pause and try my best to dig myself out of the hole I’ve dug. This isn’t easy for me; I normally don’t give a shit if I offend. “Besides, you’ve been together four years now.”
“Five, we graduated last year,” she says.
“Right, well then, yours will be smooth sailing.”
“We’re moving about an hour from you,” she says with a big smile, I don’t even have to see her, I can hear it.
“That’s so cool. I am off Sundays and Mondays every week. We’ll get together.”
“I’d love to, and maybe meet some of your friends?”
“Josie, I promise, I have real friends.” I laugh knowing she worries about me, even though she knows I can take care of myself.
“No she doesn’t,” Ricco says walking out from the back of the shop.
“Jesus!” I jump covering my heart with my hand.
“Kat, why are you even trying to cover your heart, we all know you don’t have one,” he says and winks.
“Who was that?” Josie gasps.
“Who, Ricco? He’s the jackass I hang out with here at the shop,” I say as I flip him off.
“He has a very, very, nice voice,” she whispers.
“He does not sound like the Taco Bell dog, Josie,” I say to piss him off and embarrass her.
“I didn’t say that,” she gasps.
Ricco laughs and shakes his head. “I’m heading out.”
“Jerry Springer call?”
He turns around. “I hope you get vaginal warts.”
“Well, I hope you get three chicks knocked up and they all come after you at once,” I pause, “Oh wait, you did already.”
“Much love to you too, Kitty Kat.” He flips me off and walks out the door.
I shake my head as I watch him swing his big old leg over One and Only, his Harley. Yes, that’s its name.
“Sorry,” I laugh.
“His voice, is…” she pauses and then whispers, “sexy.”
I can’t help but laugh. “There’s a line that goes down the block to get inked by him. I can give you a ‘jump-the-line’ pass if you’re interested in one last hoorah before your nuptials.”
“Is there really?” she whispers.
“Apparently he’s a hot commodity around here. Six-foot-three of inked, pierced, testosterone, who evidently has the stamina of twenty men, or so he says.”
“So you haven’t—”
“Oh hells no! Are you serious, the guy is an STI waiting to happen. He gets paternity suits delivered to him like a funeral home gets flowers.”
She laughs. “How many kids does he have?”
“One for sure, two or three now just waiting to find out.” I laugh. “It’s almost comical. I have no idea what his aversion is to sane women, condoms, or just tossing his own meat. I mean really—”
Her laugh interrupts my rant. “Boy or girl?”
“Little girl, she’s three,” I answer.
“I can’t wait to have babies,” she says with a coo. “You need to get married so you and I can have kids—”
“Eww, no, not happening. They’re little germ spreading, time suckers, who rip apart your vag. Not interested.”
“Ever?” she asks.
“No. Not ever.”
I know where this conversation will lead, hell I visit it at least once a month with my Mom-ster, I m
ean mother, so I decide to sway the conversation to my second least favorite subject, weddings.
“So, when is the big day?”
****
It’s insanely busy for a Tuesday night at the shop. It’s two others besides me; Marcus and Zack. Today’s schedule was spot on, but we’ve had a few walk-ins, and the boys seem to think they’re fucking supermen. Marcus knows his shit; Zack gets led by his dick. I haven’t seen so many nipple and hood piercings since the owners left Ricco and myself in charge of FS.
Ricco puts up with it, he has no problem staying open past closing. Me, I have little tolerance for the shit. We alternate weeks between opening and closing; this is my week to close. I am just coming off two days with no ‘O’s’ in sight, due to mother nature’s cruel joke to women, and I am a miserable bitch. Hey, at least I can admit it. And, it’s Taco Tuesday at Mario’s, so not cool.
“You pissed?” Marcus asks, setting the consent forms on the counter after checking out one of his regular customers.
“It’s Taco Tuesday, what do you think?”
“I can lock up. You can go get your Taco Tuesday’ed,” he winks.
“For your information, I wasn’t going to hook up. So fuck you,” I say grabbing his sheet and scanning it into the computer.
I look over and he is thumbing through Ricco’s schedule book. He refuses to use the computer, says someday it will crash and we’ll all be fucked, except him. We just barely convinced him to get a smartphone.
Marcus laughs and looks at me, then back at the book.
“What?” I ask stepping over to hand him the forms. He closes the book quickly and shoves it under the pile of supplier catalogs.
He reaches his long, thin, yet cut, arm, covered in some really cool ink, and pets the back of my head.
“Do I look like a damn dog to you?” I jerk away.
“No, Kat, no you don’t. You look beautiful,” he says basically cooing.
“One of us has to. Now get out of here and finish the bitch’s ass you’re inking.”
Marcus is six-foot-tall, lean muscular build. You know the type of person you hate because they eat everything in sight yet still don’t gain a pound? Yeah, he’s that person. His face is chiseled, prominent cheek bones, square-ish jaw and a nose that I’m sure was perfect, until it was broken a few times due to fights. He’s a tom cat. A ladies’ man. The guy that will jump in the middle of an argument between two drunken lovers, stop it with his fist only to end up with the girl between his sheets. He’s very high strung. I was sure he had too much energy to do this for a living but all that energy seems to turn into creativity.
Zack is a gym rat. Built like a house. He’s not quite six foot, brown hair and the wildest colored eyes, almost violet. Against his tanned skin they pop. He’s a pretty boy and the giggly girls love him. He loves them too.
Then there’s Ricco. Six foot four, dark skin with green eyes. He’s not pretty like Zack or stunning and sharp like Marcus. Ricco is big. A beast of a man really. He is broad, has a nice chest, nipples pierced, six pack abs, but not cut. Just…big.
His laid back attitude is what seems to appeal to the broads that walk in here seeking him. He doesn’t smile a lot but he smirks. He has the devil in his eyes all the time.
When I first met him I wanted to gouge his eyes out. The way he would sit back so chill and stare at me made me uncomfortable. I went so far as to tell the owners I wouldn’t work with him, that I would quit, but then Josephina told me to watch him when he wasn’t looking, he was that way with everything. She was right. The man should be a cop. Doesn’t miss a damn trick. Sees every damn thing.
Since that day four years ago, he has become one of my best friends, although I wouldn’t tell him that. I enjoy giving him shit. He does the same to me.
The problem he has is his dick apparently has an aversion to sane women and condoms. I tell him all the time that he’s gonna end up dead from a disease or from one of the bitches that drag him into court for a paternity test.
He tells me he’s Catholic and doesn’t believe in using protection. I tell him abstinence and no sex before marriage, those things are also in that Bible he picks and chooses from.
Religion, yuck!
CHAPTER TWO
Wine Wednesday
I walk into the shop and Ricco is leaned back in the chair, feet on the desk, hands clasped behind his neck, looking much too relaxed. He looks up from the front desk and nods. “Afternoon, Kitty Kat.”
“Sure is,” I say as I walk past him to put my bags of wine I bought before heading to work in the employee fridge.
I set them on the table and grab some masking tape and a Sharpie from the junk drawer next to the fridge to label it.
I WILL CUT YOU IF YOU TOUCH MY SHIT! -KAT
“You just walked in and already you wanna cut someone,” he says from the doorway. He leans against it, crosses his arms and sighs. “You feeling okay?”
“Yes, I’m feeling okay. Why?” I huff as I push past him.
“Just seem a little tense even for you,” he says following me to the front.
I sit down and scroll through the computer to check out the schedule. He slaps a hand written one in front of me. “Here, should be smoother sailing today. I chewed their asses for taking in so many walk-ins last night.”
“And they listened?” I laugh.
“Yeah they did.” He points to the window. “I put the Help Wanted sign up.”
“We aren’t hiring more help,” I say spinning around in my chair nearly hitting him with my Chucks. “Marcus needs to bank money for legal fees because he can’t keep his hands to himself. Zack needs to pay for his gym membership and protein shakes. And you need to pay child support on,” I pause, “how many kids do you have now?”
“One definite, three still waiting on results,” he answers as if it’s no big damn deal.
“Four kids?! Jesus Christ!”
“Lord’s name, Kitty Kat.” He raises a judgmental eyebrow at me.
I roll my eyes. “You use every foul word out there but that and God—”
“Point taken, still don’t give a shit.” He turns around and walks away.
As his boots thud off the concrete floor I look down at the schedule. Ricco is leaving now but will be back at eight, an hour before weekday closing time.
He walks back out as I am going over inventory to see what supplies we need to order. “Why are you coming back?”
“Wine Wednesday, right?”
“Holy shit, you’re actually coming?” I laugh, I have asked him a million times and he always has an excuse.
“So are Marcus and Zack,” he says as he walks out the door. And now, it’s not so damn funny.
“Bullshit!” I yell at his back.
“It’s gonna happen.”
Aw fuck!
****
I left the shop and the boys with instructions to BYOB. I grabbed a couple pizzas and some wings. The only thing that will get me through tonight will be seeing my friends squirm when the three of them walk in.
My kind of entertainment.
I am sitting on the corner of the couch, legs crisscrossed, with a glass of Red Cat in my hand.
Stephanie and Macey are talking about their love lives. I listen intently as they talk about Macey’s dating woes and Stephanie’s wondering when her man will ask her to move in.
Stephanie is always all giggles and smiles. She’s five foot nothing, all preppy, with long curly blonde hair and big bright blue eyes. She is dating the same guy she dated in college. They have a cool relationship. He plays cards with his boys on Wednesday nights and she comes here and drinks wine with me.
I don’t typically like my friend’s boyfriends and they never like me, but in his case, I approve. Why? He doesn’t put up a fight about Wine Wednesdays. He even brings her and drops her off so she doesn’t have to drive. Two thumbs up from me.
Macey is that friend that is quiet until she’s shit faced, then she is hell on heels. Her short bobbe
d black hair and perfectly applied makeup gives her a rock chick feel.
Wine Wednesdays at my place are a hell of a lot safer to hang out with her. When we used to go out, it was a given she would pick a fight with the biggest guy in the bar. Took me a long time to figure out why…angry sex. Crazy bitch loved to get them going to the point they would end up in the bathroom, or alley taking their frustrations out on each other's bodies.
Steph loves wine, Macey tolerates it, says it’s for me.
I’ll take it.
We have my 90’s playlist cranking, Eve 6, Third Eye Blind, Everlast, some of my dad’s favorites and they’re talking about their pets as if they’re children.
“You need a dog.” Steph points at me, one eye drooping just a touch, a telltale sign she’s had a few too many sips.
“You’re out of your damn mind.” I point back mimicking her by squinting one eye.
She immediately points to her eye. “This already?”
“You’ve only had three glasses of wine for fuck’s sake.” Macey laughs.
“That’s almost her limit.” I smirk as I get off my comfy, leather couch and make my way to the island and open another bottle of Red Cat. “Almost.”
She holds out her glass giggling and Macey rolls her eyes and sighs. “Must you give her more?”
“Oh, put a cork in it,” Steph says and laughs.
“I’d rather put a dick in it.” She holds out her glass and rolls her eyes. “But it’s Wine Wednesday, yippee.”
“Shut up and drink, snatch,” I say filling her glass.
A knock at the door and I am stupidly excited about the guys meeting the girls. I purposely didn’t tell them.
“My co-workers are here,” I announce as I walk towards the door.
“Your co-workers?” They both ask at the same time.
“Yep.” And there’s the shock.
I don’t mix business with pleasure. Ever. My friends from work don’t meet my friends from home and vice-versa. We may all be a big dysfunctional family when we’re at work but home is home.
I open the door and see them standing there. They all look at me like I’ve grown an extra head.
Shit.
“Nice duds,” Ricco says pushing past me.