Girlfriends

by Patrick Sanchez

  Peter cut her off. “You would have been really proud, Shirley. She puked in a very ladylike manner. She was very quiet about it and just sat there with barf all over herself like nothing had happened.”

  “That’s because I was hoping no one would notice, you jerk,” Gina snapped at Peter.

  “Why didn’t you roll down the window and puke outside the cab?” Shirley asked Gina, trying not to laugh.

  “Aaah, dah . . . I was drunk. I wasn’t exactly thinking logically.”

  “When we finally got to Denny’s, the cabdriver let us out. It was only after he took off that we realized it was closed for Christmas.”

  “Yeah,” Peter said as Gina looked at him and Linda with a snarl. “It was freezing, and the place was closed, and we were too embarrassed to call the cab company again, so in our drunken stupor we started walking along the highway. I’m not sure if we knew where we were going. We just kept walking, in between laughing at Gina for blowing chunks in the cab. At some point Cheryl stumbled in a ditch and twisted her ankle.”

  “And she bitched about it the rest of the night and wanted Peter to carry her ass,” Gina added.

  “Well, this is where it gets interesting,” Linda started again. “We finally got to some Super 8 Motel along the road and went in to get a room. Of course I ended up sharing a bed with Puke-Tisha, and Cheryl somehow finagled her way into sharing a bed with Peter. We were all so cold and tired that it didn’t seem to matter anyway; however, shortly after the lights went off, strange noises started coming from Peter and Cheryl’s side of the room.”

  “Strange noises, eh?” Shirley said, looking at Peter with a grin.

  “Strange isn’t exactly the right word. I guess the noises were more erotic. The kind of noises your parents make when you’re a kid and they don’t want you to hear them going at it. Come to think of it, it didn’t even seem like they were really trying to be that quiet about it. Gina and I didn’t know what to do. We just lay there like we didn’t notice and—”

  Gina didn’t let her finish. “Basically, Cheryl fucked Peter’s brains out right there in front of us like a paid whore.”

  “Wow, what a night,” Shirley said. She was inclined to ask why Gina held a grudge against Cheryl for the evening’s events, but not Peter. After all, his behavior was just as inappropriate and rude. But she knew better. Gina wasn’t going to give up Peter’s friendship for any reason. Cheryl was dispensable. Peter wasn’t. Besides, he was a man. He was supposed to think with his dick.

  “So you and Cheryl haven’t spoken since?”

  “She’s tried to speak to me. I just ignore her. Who needs friends like that?” Gina said, stopping to think about Cheryl for a minute. Truth was, Gina was the one who needed friends like that. Of course, Linda was her best friend and probably always would be, but she and Linda didn’t have the same roaring good time Gina had been known to have with Cheryl. Linda wasn’t into gossiping and ragging on other people the same way Gina and Cheryl were. They had perfected it to an art form. They didn’t mean any harm by it. It wasn’t like Penelope could hear them trashing her new haircut or making fun of her taste in clothes. It was just something they did to entertain themselves. “If you’re not going to talk bad about people, what are you supposed to do over lunch?” Gina would tell herself, trying to rationalize the gossip sessions she and Cheryl would have. In reality, Gina didn’t actually hate Cheryl—at least not anymore. She was over the whole incident with Peter but was too proud to reconcile with Cheryl.

  “Not me. That’s for sure,” Shirley said, getting up from the table to help herself to the buffet with the gang following.

  They reached the food bar, and Gina and her friends meandered around, adding small samples of different items to their plates. Peter avoided anything that looked like it had dairy products in it. He’d recently come to the conclusion that he was lactose intolerant, and he’d forgotten to bring his dairy digestive supplement.

  Compared to the others, Shirley was a woman on a mission. She quickly filled one plate with lumpy mashed potatoes and Jell-O salad. Then, while balancing that plate on her forearm, she filled another plate with turkey stuffing, and some sort of chicken with cream sauce all over it. She passed over the fried fish—it wouldn’t keep well in the refrigerator. When she returned to the table, she just left the two full plates and immediately returned to the buffet to start again.

  “Mother!” Gina said in a condescending tone as Shirley returned from her second trip. “Not again? I thought you gave this up?”

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. They don’t care,” Shirley said to Gina as she whipped out a gallon-size Ziploc bag and started spooning in the mashed potatoes. “What do they get paid? Five bucks an hour? Do you think they’re going to confront me for five bucks an hour?”

  “Mother, it has nothing to do with whether or not these people notice you shoving mounds of food into your purse. It’s embarrassing. I should have known something was up when you came in with that duffel bag.”

  “I don’t think it’s embarrassing,” Peter said.

  “I don’t either,” Linda added smartly. “Want me to steal something for you, Shirley?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, can you grab some of the roast beef? Make sure you get the rare pieces. That way, when I heat it up, it will be medium, just like I like it. And if you can also get me some of—”

  Gina cut her off. “No, she would not like you to steal something for her. For heaven’s sake, are you that broke, Shirley? I’ll go to the store with you and buy you a whole mess of TV dinners or something.”

  “I ain’t eatin’ that shit,” Shirley replied, stuffing the last of the tuna casserole into another plastic bag as if what she was doing were completely appropriate.

  “Gina,” Shirley said, putting a couple of stuffed Ziplocs into the duffel bag. “I can eat for a week on this food, and it cost me only nine ninety-five.”

  “Nine ninety-five and your dignity, not to mention mine.”

  “Don’t be such a whaaa baby. We don’t all make big banker’s salaries.”

  “I hardly make a big salary, and I’d be happy to help you out with groceries if you really need it. You work in a restaurant, for God’s sake. Can’t you eat there?”

  “Just drop it, Gina. Would ya?” Shirley asked.

  “Fine,” Gina said, lifting her hands in exasperation, trying not to lose her temper with her mother. It wasn’t like it did any good anyway.

  “Here, sweetie, hold this. Will you?” Shirley said, handing a plastic bag to Gina. “I need to take my Zoloft while I’m eating. It upsets my stomach otherwise,” she continued, looking through her purse for her antidepressants.

  “Zoloft?” Gina said. “Yeah, that upset my stomach too. I take Paxil now,” she continued before turning to Linda. “You take Paxil too, Linda. Right? Is it easier on your stomach?”

  “No, I used to take that, but I switched to Prozac. Tammy, you know, from work, she takes Prozac and said it works well for her, so I had my doctor switch me.”

  “You guys got it all wrong,” Peter said. “Effexor rocks. One of my docs . . . I mean, my doctor put me on that a few weeks ago. It’s great.”

  “Well, the Paxil seems to be okay for me. For now anyway,” Shirley said, downing her pill with some soda before starting her bag-filling process again. She didn’t even try to be discreet about it. She just opened her bag, continued her conversation, and munched on the food as she spooned it into her bags.

  “Shirley,” Gina said, clearly frustrated. “Haven’t you gotten enough? This is so embarrassing.”

  “Nobody cares,” Peter said before Shirley could respond. “Do you think Shirley is the only one who does this?”

  The thought had never really occurred to her, but as she looked around the large restaurant, Gina saw an awful lot of people with large bags of some sort next to them—duffel bags, beach bags, diaper bags....

  “Oh, my God, there’s a whole colony of them,” Gina said. “Why doesn’t anyon
e do anything?”

  “She already told you, Gina. If you worked here and got paid five bucks an hour, would you do anything?” Linda asked. “Hell no, you’d probably help them take their bags out the door and hope for a nice tip.”

  “How sad,” Gina said with a look of confusion on her face. She suddenly felt a little better about the state of her affairs. So she screwed an old fat guy and didn’t have a date to her high school reunion. At least she wasn’t stealing coleslaw and hush puppies from the local greasy spoon.

  Exasperated with the whole scene, Gina was about to get up and refill her soda, when she saw a familiar face at the food bar. It took her a second or two before she realized it was David. God, she couldn’t believe it. Maybe her luck was changing. She wasn’t going to have to use that dumb alumni directory to locate him after all. All she had to do was casually run into him, and he would remember how well they were hitting it off at Rio Grande and certainly ask for her phone number, which he must have lost. Yeah, Gina thought. He must have lost it.

  After watching him add a few things to his plate and walk toward another corner of the restaurant, Gina excused herself, got up from the table, and followed him. She figured she’d just walk by his table and take it from there. As she turned the corner, she saw him sit down with his back toward her. She started to scurry toward his table, when the fat man seated across from David winked at her.

  “Shit!” she thought, startled. She did a quick one eighty and started back to her table. David was, once again, wining and dining one of his best clients.

  “Who was that?” David asked Griffin after noticing him winking at someone. He turned his head and got a quick look at a retreating female’s back. There was something familiar about her, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  “She’s actually one of the girls,” Griffin responded.

  “One of the girls?”

  “Remember? I told you about the girls.”

  “Right. I forgot. God, she looked pretty good from behind. How’d you get her into bed?”

  “You’d be surprised, David. It doesn’t take much. You just get to them when they’re vulnerable. Girls like her have a certain look about them. You know, lonely, a little sad. . . . You feed them a few drinks, and presto, before you know it, they’ve got your cock in their mouth.”

  “You’re a piece of work, G-man. You know that?” David said, laughing.

  “Do I ever.”

  “You really think we’re going to make money with this scam?”

  “Money?” Griffin replied. “Hell yes! Boatloads of money.”

  Super Cooper

  It was almost time for bed, and after such a horrendous day, all Cheryl wanted to do was go to sleep. She had just finished canceling her personal ad on Digital City. Her date with Louis was enough to scare her away from any others. She was about to log off, when she figured she’d check her e-mail before she went to bed. She only had one new e-mail, which was another response to her ad. She had gotten about ten in total and Louis was the only one she had bothered to meet. The rest had either sent her canned responses or seemed like creeps.

  She thought about just deleting the e-mail without even opening it. After all, she had no intention of meeting any more guys from the ad. She wasn’t about to go through another date like the one with Louis. She decided that meeting people over the Internet wasn’t for her. It was impossible to assess someone from an e-mail, even if it did include a picture. You still couldn’t surmise the way they talked, their mannerisms, the whole way they carried themselves, or if they were blithering idiots who lived with a sixteen-year-old cat with diarrhea in their mother’s basement.

  Oh, what the hell, she thought, deciding to go ahead and read the e-mail. As she clicked it open and began to peruse the words, her eyes widened. But as she finished reading the ad, she let out a quick laugh—the kind of laugh that comes when you hit the punch line of a Broom Hilda or Dilbert comic strip.

  Hi there! My name is Cooper. I read your ad and liked it very much. You have many of the qualities I look for in a woman. Hopefully, I will have some of the qualities you are looking for in a man. I’m looking for someone to be my soul mate and be with me all the time. Past girlfriends have called me high maintenance and needy, but I prefer to think that I just need a lot of attention. I’m looking for someone who will be honest with me. My last girlfriend lied to me, and I made her regret the day she was ever born (until the restraining order, that is). I hope you like cats, as I have seven, who sleep in bed with me every night. Don’t worry about the smell, I have three litter boxes and change them frequently. I enjoy playing chess, bathing my cats, going to Star Trek conventions (Spock is my favorite!), and dressing my cats in cute little costumes so I can take their picture (I’m going to make a calendar)....

  Scary enough?

  Honestly, I’m just a nice, reasonably good-looking Christian black man looking for a nice, reasonably good-looking Christian black woman. I live in Alexandria and work for an Internet startup. I’m 31, 6’0”, solid 190 pounds, have a shaved head and a great smile. I like biking, too, and have been known to be pretty good in the kitchen as well. I just moved here from Jacksonville a few months ago and don’t know too many people in town. I would love to meet some new friends and take it from there. Feel free to give me a call sometime and maybe we can talk some more.

  Cheryl liked the response. It was witty, and she actually dared to think that he might be normal. She had thought she was through with the online dating thing, but maybe it was fate that Cooper had sent this e-mail right before she canceled the ad. She looked at the clock. It was almost nine. It was still early enough for her to call him. She thought about it for another second, picked up the phone, and dialed the number he had included in the subject line of his e-mail.

  “Cooper here,” he said, answering the phone.

  “Is Cooper there?” Cheryl asked nervously, only then realizing that he had already said his name.

  “This is him.”

  “Hi. This is Cheryl. You answered my ad on Digital City.”

  “Yeah. Gosh, I just sent that e-mail a few minutes ago.”

  Shit! Cheryl thought. If she had given it more consideration, she would have waited at least a day to respond, so she didn’t seem so eager.

  “Really? I was just checking my e-mail now, and the phone was right here, so I figured what the hell.”

  “I’m glad you called, Cheryl.”

  She liked the way he said Cheryl. He had a deep, confident voice. “So, how are you?” she asked him.

  “I’m well. And you?”

  “Just fine. It’s been a long day though.”

  “For you too?” he said with a bit of a laugh.

  “Yeah,” Cheryl replied, somehow feeling like he really empathized with her. “So tell me a little about yourself, Cooper.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  Cheryl liked the way he said “sure.” So many guys would have said the typical “so what do you want to know?”

  “Well, my first name is actually Everett. My last name is Cooper, but I’ve been called Cooper ever since I can remember. I moved here from Florida in March, so I’ve been in town only a few months. I got a job offer with an Internet company in Ashburn that was too good to turn down. I live in Alexandria, just outside of Old Town. I didn’t know where to live when I moved up here, so I’m just renting a place until I get my bearings and figure out where I want to live permanently. I like doing all sorts of things and generally keep pretty busy,” he said before hesitating for a moment and adding, “and, like I said, I’m a Christian, and religion is very important to me.”

  “Oh, me too,” Cheryl lied. She wasn’t really even sure she could attest to being Christian. She went to an African Methodist service a couple of years ago; that must have counted for something.

  “Really? Glad to hear that. You know, it’s like being Christian is a bad thing these days.”

  “For some people maybe.”

  “Do
you go to church?”

  “Every now and then,” Cheryl lied. Please don’t ask me which one, Cheryl thought, trying to remember the names of some churches in the area.

  “That’s okay, religion isn’t about going to church. It’s about clean living and doing what’s right.”

  “Absolutely,” Cheryl agreed, finding his zest for religion a little odd but refreshing at the same time.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent like that. Why don’t you tell me something about you.”

  Cheryl went on to tell him about her job and her love for cooking. She mentioned that she grew up in Maine and moved to D.C. to go to college. They exchanged a few college stories and talked about the nuances of adjusting to life in an unfamiliar city. Before they knew it, they had been on the phone for over an hour, chatting and laughing and just enjoying some nice conversation. Cheryl assured him that D.C. had a lot to offer and asked him if he would like her to show him around the city sometime. He suggested that they meet for dinner but, after her Red Lobster experience, Cheryl figured a quick lunch might be a better idea.

  “Why don’t we meet for lunch one day this week?” Cheryl offered as an alternative to his dinner invitation.

  “I’m off tomorrow. You work in Falls Church, right? Maybe I could meet you for lunch out there somewhere.”