by Ni-Ni Simone
Camille carried on, speaking to her invisible sounding-board. “And then she stepped up in here like she doesn’t owe me an explanation. Not to mention she ran off with the last three weeks’ rent money!”
“Touché! ’Cause you ran off with all my money! Now you know how it feels!”
“Heather, where have you been?”
“Last I checked, I didn’t have to answer to you!” I fanned my fingers as if I were counting on them. “I pay my own bills. I take care of myself! Mmph, I’m grown. And I don’t owe you jack! Now fall back or get slapped back because you’re not getting a dime out of me! And if ya broke, that’s not my problem! It’s a wide track out there so get ta strollin’, baby.”
Camille stared at me and took two steps into my personal space. All the color left her face, but the purple veins in her neck glowed and her eyes shrank to two icy blue slits. “Miss Pill Popper, let’s take this from the top. Where have you been? And where do you think you’re going? And how much money do you have left? Because I smell nothing.”
I looked over at Co-Co and said, “Are you ready to get out of here? Because I feel myself getting—”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
I fell over my suitcase, hitting my head on the floor.
I’ma have to kill her.
Camille grabbed me by my ponytail and bashed my face into my suitcase!
“Co-Co, help me!” I screamed as I tried my best to get a handle on Camille but failed.
“Get off of her, Camille!” Co-Co screamed, wrapping his arms around himself.
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
Camille tossed me into the wall and I heard my nose crack before I felt it. Blood spritzed everywhere.
“You ungrateful pill junkie!” Camille yelled.
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
“Co-Co! Get her off of me!” I screamed as Camille flung me across the room and I slammed into the nightstand—stomach first.
Sharp jabs shot through my chest cavity and suddenly it was hard for me to breathe. “Co-Co!” No matter how hard I tried to fight back, I was no match for this crazy trick! She’d lost her mind and I’d be dead before anyone knew it.
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
“Ahhhhhh!” I screamed as Camille’s rage grew.
“You took it too far, Heather Suzanne! You disrespect me? And then you bring his showtime Suzie up here and watch you show out!” She kicked me in my behind and I swore I felt the silicone burst.
“Help!” I screamed. “Somebody help me!”
“Yes! Please! God!” Co-Co yelled. “Somebody help her!”
Camille carried on, “I will kill you in here!”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
“And then I’ll slice Co-Co’s damn throat!”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
Camille gripped my hair and dragged me around the room, the carpet burning my calves and the backs of my thighs. “You’ve been missing for three weeks!”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
“Three weeks!”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
“And nooooow you think you can come back here!”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
“And not tell me where you’ve been?”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
“Ahhhh!”
“Shut the hell up!”
Whack! Whack! Bap!
“Did you really think you could come in here and leave me stranded? You stole my rent money and now you want to leave me, your mother, with nothing! Never! I would never let that happen! I’d kill you first!”
“Ahhhh!” I could see stars flashing before me as Camille did her best to dislodge my head from my shoulders and take my face off!
“All the sacrifices I made for you!”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
“And to think I was the best mother I could be to a no-good, rotten daughter like you! Maybe your daddy had the right idea! I should’ve flushed you out on the gurney. But I didn’t! And now I have to live with my choice, and like it or not, we’re stuck together until you’re eighteen! Now it’s my way or get dragged!”
Whack! Whack! Bap! Slap!
I knew I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear a sound escape my lips. And I knew I was swinging my arms, trying to fight myself free of Camille. But none of my hits seemed to help me. She was killing me! I knew it! As I’ve always known she would. She’s always hated me; and her gripping me tighter by the roots of my hair and flinging me back into the wall was proof of it.
Blood was everywhere. My head felt like an electric chisel was buried inside and my chest cavity had caved in on itself.
Camille huffed, and sweat had pasted her white cotton gown to her skin. She took a step back and looked down at me. “From here on out you’ll watch your mouth!” She took a cigarette butt out of the ashtray, lit it, and took a pull as the door flew off the hinges.
18
Spencer
Everyone had a price at Hollywood High. From the headmaster to the muscled, spray-tanned janitors, if you wanted to get out of something—or, in my case, into something, all you had to do was write a check or slide a few dollars deep down into someone’s front pants pocket. And voilà! You had whatever you needed.
Heeheehee. Like the master key card to the locked girls’ lounge on the third floor, where London raced when she thought no one else was looking.
I’d been waiting for this coyote to hunt. And the minute I saw her ease her horns into the lounge during last period, I accessed one of the master key cards, slid it down into the door slot, then crept in smooth as silk and as easy breezy as Rich spreading her thighs when she sees a boy, locking the door behind me.
I could hear her grunting and groaning and a whole lot of plop-plop-plopping. I frowned, throwing a hand up over my nose and mouth. It smelled like something had crawled up inside of her, got lost then died trying to find its way out. And now she was delivering it to its final resting place.
Thank the heebie-jeebies I had a surgical mask down in my bag. I fished it out, placing it over my nose and mouth, then pulled out my iPhone. I waited a few seconds, listening to Beast Creature growling and gnashing her teeth as she delivered funk baby after funk baby. I kicked in the bathroom stall door, snapping a picture. “Say cheese, you gutter rat! You ole funky turd mama!”
London’s face cracked in horror as her head shot up and she saw me. “Aaah! Ohmygod! What the hell! Do you not see me on the toilet? Get out!” She quickly held her purse up, shielding her face as I snapped another picture.
“I’m not going anywhere, dixie doodle, until you and I have a little chat.” I dropped the camera back into my bag.
She let loose a string of bullets and gas bombs.
I gagged, waving a hand in front of me. “You septic tank! If you think for one minute that you’re gonna chase me up out of here with all of your funk, you have another think coming.”
She leaned over, clutching her stomach. “Biotch! N-n-not. N-n-now. Ohgodohgod . . . get out!”
She fired off more rounds of funk grenades.
“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. You can try to hide all you want, drag racer. But make no mistake. Eventually the truth will show its pretty face. And when it does, you filthy, stinky, lying, troll doll, I’ll be right there to greet it in the face and set you free. You’re a fraud. A fake. A phony. You might have Rich fooled with your little Miss Perfect Patty sham, but I know better. I know what you are, Miss Beetle Juice. You’re a three-dollar dream in a sandbag! And know this: I’m not going to rest until I find every pair of your raggedy drawers. Then I’m going to air your filth for all to see and chase you up out of Hollywood High once and for all.”
She grunted again, practically breaking out into a sweat. “Screw you, Spencer! I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well get used to seeing this face. On billboards! On Jumbotrons! On banner ads! I’m here to stay! I hate you! So go roll off a cliff. I don’t care about you or your threats. Now get out so I can use the bathroom! Wait until I
’m off the toilet then step to me, you lonely, pathetic leech!”
I stood there and eyed her as her face twisted as if she were being gutted and filleted. Her stomach grumbled. I almost felt sorry for Miss Loose Stools. Almost.
I rolled my eyes, then said reeeeeeeal slllllllllow, “I. Don’t. Like. You. I never have. And I never will.”
She grunted. “Good, heifer. Uhh . . . because I don’t like... uhh . . . you either. Now get . . . uhh . . . the hell out and let me use the bathroom in peace, you wretched . . .” She grunted again.
I laughed. “Oh, stinky-stink London. Poopty-doopty-doo-dah. You thought you were so slick when you talked Rich into attacking me in finance class; thought you were going to come in between me and my As, too, didn’t you? But guess what? No one gets in the middle of my grades and me. I still have an A average. And the highest GPA in the school. And Rich and I are stronger than two pit bulls mating, thanks to you.”
“Well, good for you,” she snapped, grunting and almost toppling over as she leaned forward, holding her stomach. “Now get out!”
“Oh, no no no, Miss London, London, London... I should broil your drawers right here. But I need you in one piece.” Her eyes popped open. “Oh yes. One. Piece. You crossed the wrong one, Little Miss Muppet . . .”
Someone banged on the door.
“Help!” London yelled, letting out another string of gunfire. “I’m trapped in a stall with a—!”
I quickly yanked my can of Mace out of my handbag, pointing it in her face. “You shut your flytrap,” I hissed. “Or I will seal your eyes shut.”
She shut her mouth. The person on the other side of the lounge’s door kept knocking a few more times before finally deciding to take her business elsewhere.
I leaned up against the side of the doorframe.
She glared at me. “You’re crazy, Spencer! A Looney Tune! A psycho! A nut!”
I curled my lips, twirling the end of a curl through my fingers. “Yup, I sure am, trashy-dot-com. I’m a crazy Looney Tune . . . the psycho nut who you shoulda did your homework on first, before you tried to turn Rich against me. I warned you. I told you”—I pulled a bottle of Nair hair remover and a mini blowtorch from my oversized handbag and pressed the torch on—“that the next time you tried to come between Rich and me that I was going to Nair your lashes off . . .”
Miss Fright Night gasped, her face filled with dread. She fumbled through her handbag, pulling out her phone. “Ohmygod! I’m calling—”
I giggled, shutting off the torch’s fiery blue flame. “Oh, shut it up, you goat! I’m not going to burn you here. When I Nair those long, luscious lashes off your lids, it’ll be when I catch you with your eyes shut.” I dropped the hair remover back into my bag. “So the only thing you’re calling, you gargoyle, is the help line for Uglies Anonymous. Now put the phone down or I’m going to singe your eyeballs out.”
My nose flared as I thought back to the first time I’d met this skankazoid and how this bougie ghetto-tramp turned her nose up at me like I was hot trash, giving me the tips of her fingers to shake when Rich introduced us over the summer prior to her transferring to Hollywood High. That was strike one for the beaver.
You don’t snub me. Not when I’m being wholesome and pure toward you. I was nothing but gracious to this little snot. I didn’t give her attitude or an ounce of stank-a-dank. And she, Miss Low-Money East Side, had the gall to look down at me. Oh, I don’t think so. Don’t matter how many times she had her face plastered on the side of a trash Dumpster for some designer’s couture. Trash was still trash. And London Phillips’s garbage bags were about to get dumped.
Strike two was her making faces at Heather when she waltzed in wearing a pink onesie that was cut real low in the front and rrrrrrreal low in the back to her butt crack, and a pair of six-inch leopard-print gladiator sandals. I overheard Dogzilla ask Rich, “Where’d you find that crack whore? She looks like she stinks.”
Ole two-faced Rich laughed. But I didn’t find it funny one diggity-dang bit. And I wrecker-checked her on it. I slid an icepick right up to the center of her throat and told her she was out of line for calling Heather a stank crack-whore. Heather might not take up for herself, but I could, would, and goshdangit did. Heather came from meager earnings. It wasn’t her fault she was a part of the one-stop ’n’ drop back-to-work program and her mother was a drunk. She didn’t deserve to be talked about by some outsider; some long-legged, big-faced nobody with big feet, big hands, and a big, wide mouth. No. Heather was only allowed to be dragged by Rich and me. Not by some sneaking, conniving trick.
Strike three was the queen of dust monkeys coming to Hollywood High thinking she could sandbag and pony her way in between Rich and me. I knew Rich. She didn’t. I knew London. And, unfortunately, Rich didn’t. But then again, she wouldn’t, because Rich is gullible like that. She wore her blinders on backwards and was only able to see the forest through the peephole of a pair of boy’s boxers. She was totally delusional when it came to London, who smiled in your face while plotting behind your back.
At least I was woman enough to tell you to your face what I was going to do to you. Not this half man, half creature. She was the worst kind of dirty, low-down, good-for-nothing freak in a sardine can.
Strikes four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine came when she continued to test my gangster. But she had the right one, baby. This rat snake was going up against a mongoose. There’d be no win for her. And when I was done striking her down, snake would be on the menu.
She grunted. “L-l-look, Spencer. Do you . . . uhh . . . mind backing the hell up and closing . . . uhhh . . . ohgod . . . the damn door... so I can have a little privacy? Whatever else you need to jibber, you can do it on the other side of the door.”
I shook a finger at her. “Oh no. Oh no. So you can call the po-po and try to have me hauled off in some cheap silver wristlets? No deal, snickerdoodle. The only way I’m getting dragged out of here in handcuffs is for humpback-U-crooked letter-D-E-crooked letter.” She gave me a look glazed in dumbness. Like really? Did this hoof-foot gorilla think I was going to spell M-U-R-D-E-R out for her and have her have it recorded? I might have been a hundred and ninety-nine things, but dumb wasn’t one.
“Oh no. We’re going to have it out with me standing right here. So if you want to use the bathroom, use it. Or hold it until you explode. Either way, I’m not leaving until I’m done.”
She huffed. “Then say what you have to say, you dumb Beanie Baby, then get. OUT! What is your problem with me anyway, huh, Spencer?”
“Your whole existence is the problem, Little Miss Flake-A-Bake. You’re a scheming, lying, phony waste of air and space.”
The hate in her eyes was blinding. I lowered my shades from the top of my head, shielding my eyes from the rays. “How desperate,” she said, curling her lips up. “You can call me all the names you want. Are you that insecure of someone else being Rich’s friend? Are you that jealous of me that you have to take to kicking in bathroom stalls?”
She leaned over, clutching her stomach again. I felt myself becoming light-headed from all the toxic fumes coming out of her. If I had cared, I would have asked her what the hell was wrong with her guts. Then graciously offered her the number to a fabulous plumber I know who’d flush her insides.
But she could suffer for all I cared.
I guffawed. “Jealous? Hahaha! Oh, London, London, London . . . hahahaha . . . not! You’re lucky I’m not kicking in your teeth for filling Rich’s head up with your lies and having her put her paws on me. But I’m going to tell you like I told your play boyfriend, Anderson Ford . . .”
Her eyes bucked. “Anderson?”
“Yessss, sweetie. Anderson. That very wealthy, hard-bodied pretend boyfriend of yours.”
“Ohmygod, you’re such a pathetic cow,” London snarled, clearly trying to keep it together. But I could see her eyeballs popping around in her head like pinballs as she scrambled to keep her little playhouse from crumbling down around her. “Y
ou keep Anderson’s name out of your filthy mouth! Once again, you’re down on your knees rustling through the trash for someone else’s scraps. How Spencer!”
I smirked. “Like I told Anderson, before I was rudely cut off, I don’t do jealous, funkalina. I do revenge. And I mean that. You might have Rich all discombobulated believing there’s a wizard in Oz, but you can save the pig feet and pickle juice act, because I know your kind.”
“And I know yours.” She sneered. “A little lonely, spoiled, rich girl with a mother who never wanted her and a prehistoric father related to dirt. Your own mother would rather spend her life chasing young boys than being a mother to you. And your father would rather sleep in jungles and chase the world’s greatest wonders than be around either of you. God, it must hurt to be you. Unwanted. Unloved. No wonder you’re so mean-spirited and miserable. Nobody loves you.”
“You shut your sewer hole!” I screeched, jabbing a finger at her. She had struck a nerve. And I was ready to spit-shine her cuckoo clock. It took everything in me not to lunge at her and drag her off the toilet.
Lucky for her, the angel in me knew how to dance with the devil. And the switch in my head that kept me from going to prison clicked on and my wings didn’t flap and my heels stayed planted in place. “And you have parents who don’t even like each other. Your supermodel mother is an old ice queen who can’t even keep her man satisfied in the sheets because she’s too busy licking catwalks. But it doesn’t matter, because your perfect lawyer daddy is getting his meat and potatoes marinated somewhere else. Ooh, how scandalicious.”
“Shut your trap with your lies, you smutty tramp! You don’t know a damn thing about me, or my parents.”
“Oh, really? You think? Well, let’s try this heel on for size: I know all about your sham of a relationship with Anderson.”
I folded my arms. Tilted my head.
She took two deep breaths. “Spencer, I don’t know what fireflies you have flapping around in that little empty skull of yours, but you don’t know nothing about me and Anderson. And if I wasn’t on this toilet, I’d stomp your face in.”