Sirens of DemiMonde (HalfWorld Trilogy Book 1)

by N. Godwin

  Andrea stares the twins up and down then shudders. “Spooky. Don’t worry; I know just how to mellow agitators. Food and wine out the wazoo.”

  “Can you make them some virgin smoothies? We’ve got melons and blueberries. But they must be virgin smoothies, because they don’t drink.”

  “Never?” Andrea asks.

  “Never.”

  “Well, there’s your problem right there.”

  I meet the twins’ anxious eyes and think about letting Andrea liquor them up just for the simple ease of it, but even if I could let her, which I couldn’t, I wouldn’t since they’d have to eventually get beyond the first three steps inside my Father’s house, and, besides, it was probably a sin to liquor-up annoying family members, or something. I’m sure it’s written somewhere.

  “They don’t drink alcohol, Andrea. Deal with it. They’re more bark than bite. Just, try not to aggravate them, okay?”

  “Sure,” she assures me picking up the cranberry juice and pouring it in a blender. “I’ve got this.”

  I have finished readying the cash drawer for tonight by the time she finishes with the smoothies, which look and smell delicious, so I carry them over to the twins and tell them these frozen delights are on me; that any food they want is on me. Every item of food they order is laced with enough jalapenos to launch a space shuttle. By the time the Godpods finish their chili fries and cheeseburgers, Andrea has sent them over another pitcher of fruity smoothies. I give in and take a taste of the blueberry and cantaloupe concoction then sit down at their table and take a big gulp, and then another. Its nectar is both tart and sweet, and Andrea is good at this! We’ll start a whole new side item. Kelly would be great at sitting and making smoothies all day. That could keep her off her feet…I think on this and take another drink.

  By the time the twins have polished off the second pitcher the café has gotten crowded and is more than a little chaotic, and I realize something is amiss because I’m sitting here on my butt and am just a little too relaxed... I slide off my stool and head back over to the twins’ table where Andrea has now settled and is sharing in the Godpods’ next pitcher.

  As I approach I can hear Ali and Andrea sharing men stories while Karen just sits and stares glue-eyed into space. “Oh, I did a threesome once,” Andrea tells Ali. “These two black guys seduced my senses right out from under me. And they were so beautiful, how could I say no?”

  “Two?!” Ali asks. “Two men? At the same time?! And they were black?! Both of them?!”

  “It’s a little messy but, I’m telling you, Pod--,”

  “Why do you keep calling me pod?” Ali wants to know.

  “-- it’s incredibly hot coming and going in tandem motion, and black guys really do have anacondas. Oh shi—I mean shoot, I’m wet! I hate it when that happens because I’m celibate now, damn it!”

  “Snakes?” Ali asks and hiccups.

  “Five dollars,” I say swooping down on Andrea and motioning for her to head over to the next table, just beyond their earshot. “Andrea didn’t I tell you not to give them alcohol? This is a serious infraction and--”

  “Did you or did you not tell me to deal with it?”

  “Well, yes, but I meant--”

  And wouldn’t you agree that they have mellowed out?”

  “That’s not the issue. Did you drug them? Did you drug me?”

  “No!” Andrea insists. “It was rum, and very little of it, by the way. I’m not saying I put it in there now, obviously because apparently somebody got their wires crossed.”

  “I am telling you to follow the No-Nos to the letter for the last time. They are written in stone and are hanging around your neck for a reason.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Not even if you beg me,” she crosses her heart and swears. “I still say it was helpful though,” she says with a pout.

  “Then you can sober them up because they’re staying at my parent’s house and all they have to do is follow the breadcrumbs back to me, and I don’t have time for that kind of nonsense.”

  “Yikes,” she laughs. “I didn’t intend to get them this drunk. You guys are lightweights.” She shrugs and pats me on my back and I do not pull back away from her.

  “Peace,” she says as she slides by me and right back over into the chair across from Ali. Karen still hasn’t looked away from the spot she’s dissecting.

  “Okay, about those two guys,” Ali leans in and tries to whisper to Andrea, “but weren’t you, you know, embarrassed the next morning?”

  “The next morning? Heck, I left after we wore each other out. And embarrassed, what for?” Andrea’s look is genuinely perplexed.

  Randy slams in through the front door thirty minutes early, carrying his terminally scuffed, Samsonite, briefcase and wearing his T-shirt that has Jesus! written in bold angry letters across his chest. When he wears this shirt it means he hasn’t done laundry for a month. It means he is in the mood to moan and groan about his bills and hatch a new hair brained scheme. He comes directly over towards me behind the bar and slowly corners my only way out, reaching across me to clock in. Only Randy has to clock in because he is such a liar. I silently mime the threat of using my knee to push him away. He always laughs at this.

  Randy set his briefcase down on my side of the bar and opens it then pulls out a vintage tape recorder and a note pad. I ignore him as much as he’ll let me as he sets the tape recorder down and plugs it in just beside me.

  He taps the microphone on his tape recorder. “Testing one, two, three,” he says into it and looks a little confused as no sound comes out.

  “It’s a tape recorder, not an amplifier,” I try not to chuckle as I add more figures to the receipts I am running.

  “I know that!” he growls back after testing it again just to make certain. My stupid gears in the car are shot! I need cash,” he tells me.

  I concentrate and continue to feed numbers into my calculator, trying to figure out why in the heck I’m a stinking six cents off! This is the second time in two days that ridiculous number has kicked my butt and I think it’s an odd coincidence so I’m getting a little paranoid.

  “Don’t be thinking this thing’s for you, princess,” he says tapping the tape recorder, “although, I do want to discover if your voice can actually be caught on tape. Yep, I think after I prove you’re inhuman, I’ll have to siphon out some of Killer’s brainpower. Say something, princess, anything.”

  “Hey, Randy, what’s up with your hair?”

  He glares at me and immediately erases it. Afterwards, he looks at me again then pauses and looks back down at his tape recorder. With a look of confusion he holds the microphone out for me again. I can’t help but chuckle as I turn and walk away from him while he launches into a temper tantrum. He stomps and complains about the condition of his life, his car, his bar, because he can tell someone’s been neatly tending his bar and has gone and changed the logic from all around his perimeter. I think if he could hike his leg and spray his territory he would.

  I notice Hobie has settled over in the far left corner by the backdoor and is doing the brown-countdown with Cecile and Kelly. I can tell Ken and Horst are irritated because Hobie’s chosen Gandhi as his subject matter. I chuckle since Hobie is clueless as to why they’re complaining about Gandhi being from India not Africa.

  “You’re going to confuse her!” Horst insists.

  “Needs to know her roots, dude,” Ken argues.

  “Gandhi was definitely brown!” Hobie argues back. “And he was a cool dude. I thought that was the point!”

  “He wasn’t black!” Horst insists.

  “It doesn’t matter whether or not he hung out chucking spears at zebras, brown is brown!”

  “Gandhi’s Indian!” they shout.

  “Brown!” Hobie charges back. “Now get out of our space before I slam you to the floor! Now, girls, as I was saying, Gandhi believed in passive resistance. That’s no violence at any time.”

  Kelly moves over
to me to giggle about this just as Tony and Andrea erupt behind us. “I’m tired of this da—dang grits and crap. How about some plantains and rice and beans for a change?” Tony shouts. “Somebody’s got to know how to make some decent Latin food around here!”

  “What, you afraid you won’t get your grease allotment for the day?” Andrea shouts back.

  “Whop!” he screams.

  “Misogynist, Neanderthal, Cuban refugee!”

  “Columbian!” he screams back proudly. “You Yankees are as useless as niggers!”

  Tony’s shout can be heard around the café and everybody looks at Eunice. Everyone except for me, I look at Kelly.

  “That’s a No-No!” several voices insist.

  “Five dollars!”

  “Kelly? How did that just make you feel?” Ken asks her.

  “Bad.”

  “Then tell Tony that,” he coaxes. “You’ve got to learn to stick up for yourself. Tell him to kiss off.”

  “Can’t,” she tells us.

  “That’ll be five bucks, Tony, now!” Horst tells him.

  “Stop acting like sewer trash!” Andrea snaps. “And your little dog, too,” she mimics pointing at Robert.

  Tony whispers in Spanish as he digs the money out from his apron pocket then reluctantly hands it to Horst.

  “We never talk this way around these babies!” Horst expounds.

  “Spick!” I hear Andrea whisper to Tony in passing.

  “Hey! That’s five dollars you icy bitc—female!” Tony says.

  “No way!”

  “Hell, yeah!” he insists, then covers his mouth and groans.

  The room erupts into laughter as Tony and Andrea each place five more dollars into the brimming swearing jar. At this rate we may have to make them indentured servants to pay off all their fines.

  Kelly reaches over suddenly and nudges my hand. She points over toward a little girl with cornrows and a doll in her hand slowly approaching Cecile.

  “Little sister, that’s a nice present you got there,” the little girl says and taps on the tattered pink present sitting in the chair beside Cecile, the one remaining present she has still refused to open. “What you got in there?”

  Hobie’s arm goes around Cecile protectively.

  “I said what you got there! What’s the matter with you? Can’t you talk?” the little girl asks Cecile.

  I step forward and Kelly’s hand reaches out and catches the gauze of my skirt and keeps me in place. We all watch in fascination as Cecile suddenly jumps from her chair and stands beside the girl. In a moment the two of them are tearing the wrapping off the present. They squeal with delight as Cecile holds up the bright red drum we thought she’d never see.

  “Pretty!” the little girl says over and over. “Time to share,” she says as the girls switch toys and she begins to bang on the drum and move her small body to an ancient rhythm. “Come on, little sister, let’s dance!”

  Cecile watches her dance for a moment, then with timid awkward legs begins to mimic the girl’s every move. It is a glorious epiphany when Cecile and her new friend dance their way out the side door with a squeal of laughter loud enough to waken Eunice.

  There is a 9:30 p.m. lull so I decide to take a break and spend a few bonus point moments with Ali and Karen. Karen has been drinking coffee for almost an hour and is looking kind of green. Andrea and Ali are still talking about gross-out topics and I’ve had to shush them half a dozen times already.

  “Sometimes I think I’m lesbian and just haven’t fully realized it yet,” I hear Andrea try to whisper in an at-least-she’s-learning voice. “I once thought I was in love with my meditation teacher, she was such a genius, really knowledgeable about the whole goddess sub culture. She could levitate. Sometimes I couldn’t breathe when I was around her.” She stops for a moment to consider her words then shrugs as she looks at Ali. “So, what about you, Pod?” she tries to whisper while I’m lighting the candle on their table and don’t have time to cover my ears. “Could you lick pussy?”

  Karen has had her limit of coffee, of greasy foods, of Andrea’s mouth and this whole darn place. She suddenly pushes away from the table and begins heaving on her way out the front door. When Ken and I reach her he helps me hold her up as she yaks all over my new shoes. When she’s completed her vomiting stage and falls asleep, Ken and I compromise and place her in the back seat of my mother’s car they’ve borrowed, crank down the windows and lock the doors.

  After accomplishing the monumental task of washing my feet, I go back inside to rescue Ali from Andrea, except Ali is nowhere logical to be found. I spot her almost a minute later up at the bar talking to Randy. She looks pretty spacey, too, but we have got to get them home before Karen erupts again. Except, I can tell as I approach her that it could take hours for Ali to sober up, too, so she’s certainly in no condition to drive. I can tell this because she is flirting with Randy. Man, ooh man, is she going to hate herself in the morning over this one. I can’t fight the urge and chuckle.

  Randy catches my eye and nods: “Yo, princess, me and your beautiful cousin here are bonding,” he says without batting an eye. “Thanks for disappearing.”

  Ali is way too much smile and her eyes are trying hard to keep focused, and I’m getting extremely pissed at Andrea again. So, I explain how poor Karen is prostrate in the spotless backseat of Mama’s new Buick and they need to go home now and get in bed. I‘ll find someone to drive them home; Ken or Horst, or Andrea because they sure can’t spend the night here. Ooh, heck no!

  “I’ll drive them!” Randy offers as he gives Ali a wink. “I’ll catch a cab home. I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs and talking to Alison, here.”

  “And he’s a gentleman, too,” Ali sighs, all charm, no brains.

  They are both almost to the door before I can respond. Every fiber of my being is telling me this is not a good idea, trusting Randy with women under the influence of anything just goes against my grain, let alone trusting him with my relatives.

  “No way!” I shout following as he propels her outside. “You bring her back here this instant!”

  “Look, princess. I’ll drive them to your house in town and hike a few blocks up and call a cab. I’ll be discreet. I’ll be back here in forty five minutes,” Randy says laughing and shaking his head over the look on my horrified face. He extends his elbow to Ali and she giggles as she takes it. “You wanna time me, princess?” he asks me sarcastically.

  “No,” I saw stepping in his path. “I want your word.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “She doesn’t look like she’s kidding to me,” Ali tells him.

  “You mean she kids around?” Randy asks. “Hey, I will be a perfect gentleman with you,” Randy tells Ali, placing a protective arm around her shoulder. “Aw, your cousin here don’t like me because we got different politics,” he convinces her.

  “Ooh, I know exactly what you mean,” Ali slurs only slightly. “Does she spend too much time correcting your grammar?”

  “She wouldn’t dare!” he brags.

  “Never, not once?”

  “Nada, baby.” He polishes his nails on his shirt.

  “Well that’s curious,” Ali says stopping in her tracks for a moment. She leans in to take a closer look at Randy.

  I have a weird feeling about this, but Eunice is calling for me desperately because Andrea, despite our warnings, is leaning against her table blabbering away about how Ronald Regan was a closet-transvestite while Tony argues with a customer at the top of his lungs and Mandy and Genie have decided to forsake their stations and are doing the bump in the middle of the dining room floor.

  Jesus!

  What’s in a Name?

  “Come on Jimmy-Sue! What could it hurt?” Hobie pleads again over the roar. “It’ll be tasteful, swear to God!”

  “I can’t believe you’re still stuck on bananas,” I say as I ring up Nurse Amy’s chocolate cake and try not to wake
Cecile, who has fallen asleep in my arms.

  “Keep the change,” Nurse Amy says and waves goodbye.

  I smile at the back of her head as she disappears into the crowd of people who are gathered around the doorway, and Randy’s bar, and my register. Luckily, more of them are standing around Randy’s tall-tales and liquor than are gathered around my calculator. We are slam in the middle of a full-on rush which has been for going on for some three hours now, and things are mildly copacetic so far.

  But the moment stops for me momentarily when I scoop Cecile up in my arms and kiss the side of her precious face in peaceful slumber. I notice she is growing way too fast and getting heavier, and also how it’s past her bedtime. As if she is on the same wave-length as me, Kelly suddenly appears in front of me and gently takes Cecil from my arms and gives me a huge smile.

  “I’ll put her to bed. I’ll be back,” she says as I give Cecile a finale kiss.

  I am suddenly thrown backwards on my heels, overpowered by a stinging chill stabbing through my entire body. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end, and I feel the shift under my feet. The stinging chill shudders down my spine as the room spins. My sight is fuzzy and out of focus as Kelly leans in close me, almost pinning me up against the bar with her shoulder. She cocks her head at an awkward angle and stares deeply into my eyes as the room spins beyond my control. There is an aberrantly aggressive spark in Kelly’s blank stare that frightens me.

  “Ssh,” Kelly whispers in an intimidating voice that pulses tingles down into my fingertips and toes. I watch in a blur as she raises her finger to her lips and whispers: “Be still and listen for six.”

  And just as suddenly the spinning stops and the blur is gone. I can’t see Kelly’s face as she turns and carries Cecile through the crowd and out the back door while I stare dumbfounded at the back of her head, unable to move because I’m literally frozen to this spot. I breath and try to move my fingers but can’t. I try again and again and still can’t, so I contemplate the number six.

  Why was the number 6 dogging me? What differentiated that particular number, anyway? Well, at it isn’t 666 (thank goodness because the redundancy would stink to heavens). I realize I can turn my head, only just, and I turn it away from Kelly and look out the window up into the night sky that is never far away. There is no rain in sight or hint of malice; no brewing storm or thunder. It is a brilliant full moon on a cloudless, balmy night full of glorious stars.