Rock Chick 01 (44 page)

“And I’ve been in love with him since I was
five,” I went on.

Tex nodded as I shifted up to third. “No
contest, then.”

I sighed.

“No contest.”

We parked and went in. The table was round
and full of Marianne, Dolores, Tod, Stevie, Kitty Sue and Ally. Two
seats were open between Ally and Dolores. Tex took the one by
Dolores, leaving me to sit by Ally.

I turned to her.

“Are you over it?” I asked.

“Whatever you’re mad at Lee about… are
you
over it?” she returned.

Okay, guess we knew where we stood.

I turned to Tex.

“Are you driving home or am I?”

“Feel like gettin’ smashed?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Go for it.”

I ordered a spiced rum and diet and told the
waitress to keep ‘em coming. I didn’t think she understood, seeing
as the only English she spoke was what was on the menu, but she
nodded and smiled which was encouraging.

We ordered our drinks, we ordered our pu-pu
platters, we ate our pu-pu platters, then we ordered more
drinks.

The pu-pu platters were whisked away and the
soup was being served when Tex inquired, “What next?”

“What next, what?” I returned.

“What next, tonight?” Tex explained.

“You mean, after we eat?” I asked then
answered, “We go home.”

Tex stared at me.

“Tex, it’s Girls Night Out. We talk about
needing to lose weight while we drink and eat a lot. We talk about
how all men are scum and lazy and useless, mostly Marianne’s
ex-husband who
is
scum and lazy and useless and a rat
bastard to boot. Last, we gossip about people pretending we’re
trying to be thoughtful and caring as we rip their lives to shreds.
Then we hug and go home. That’s it. Girl’s Night Out.”

Tex kept staring at me and my soup was put in
front of me.

“Shit, if it isn’t Indy Savage.”

At the voice, the hairs went up on the backs
of my arms and all the air was sucked out of the room by the gasps
going around the table.

I turned, looked up and could not believe my
eyes or my fucking, shitty, rotten luck.

Cherry Blackwell was standing behind me.

She was a tall, cool blonde. She had ice blue
eyes, masses of white-blonde hair and the best body in Denver, all
tits and ass. She was Barbie in human form.

She had been two years ahead of me at school
and the most popular girl, bar none. Her Dad was rich, they went to
Hawaii and the Caribbean on Spring Break and to exotic places like
the south of France and villas in Italy during the summer.

She’d dated Lee for six months during his
senior year and they were the most miserable six months of my life.
He’d even taken her to prom. He’d broken up with her before
graduation and I celebrated by drinking approximately half a keg at
a party, passed out in the back of Lee’s Mustang and he carried me
to bed (this last Ally told me, I’d been unconscious at the time,
more’s the pity).

Cherry and Lee had hooked up again four years
ago. They were together for three months, the last two days of
their short relationship were marred by a pregnancy scare. Two more
of the most miserable days of my life.

The pregnancy scare turned out to be an
attempt at entrapment. During those two days, Lee was in such a
foul mood, I wasn’t the only one avoiding him. After he found out
she was lying, it was over and he never went back. That was the
last we heard from her until a year ago.

Rumors flew that Cherry had a fling with
Marianne’s husband. These rumors were spread by Cherry, which meant
they were probably true. It was the straw that broke the camel’s
back of Marianne’s marriage.

One more thing that was important to know
about Cherry was that she was a first class, grade A prime,
bitch.

“I heard you hooked up with Lee,” Cherry said
to me.

“Yeah,” I told her, hoping this would be
short and not too painful.

She didn’t work into the slam, she delivered
it straight out.

“I’ll give it a week.”

I went stock-still. I could feel practically
everyone at the table shifting into bitch smackdown mode.

“It’s already been a week,” Ally butted
in.

Cherry looked at Ally, then at me and I
noticed two of her Barbie-esque girlfriends behind her, Brunette
Barbie and African-American Barbie.

“Wow. Congratulations.” This was said by
Cherry with extreme, catty surprise.

“Cherry, we’re trying to have a nice dinner.”
I was going for diplomatic. I really did not want to have an
incident. I needed a good night with friends, to relax, get drunk,
pass out and face tomorrow’s horrors hungover. I’d only had one rum
and diet, I needed at least six to facedown Cherry.

Cherry scanned the table and locked on
Marianne, whose face was bright red.

“Marianne, lookin’ good,” she said.

I couldn’t help it, I slid my chair back
threateningly.

“Cherry…” I began.

Cherry’s attention returned to me and her
eyes were glittering cold.

“Just a little pointer, Indy, girl to girl,
if you want that week with Lee to last into two. He likes it when
you go down on him in the morning. He’s a fucking animal in bed but
give him a morning BJ, he’ll return the favor and
rock your
world
.”

Every muscle in my body froze solid.

“What did she just say?” Stevie asked.

“She
did not
just say that in front of
me,” Kitty Sue said.

“Holy crap,” Dolores said.

“Oh… my…
gawd,
” Tod said.

“You fucking bitch,” Ally said.

“This is more like it,” Tex said.

I started to come out of my chair, intent on
ripping Cherry’s face off, when the lady at the table behind us
spoke.

“Excuse
me
, we’re trying to
eat,
” she told Cherry.

I looked at the lady. She was Kitty Sue’s
age, hair died a stern brunette, petite and soft in the middle.

“Pipe down, you old bag. I’m having a
conversation,” Cherry said to her.

Like I said, first class bitch.

The woman looked to her husband who was
sitting across the table from her. “Did she just call me an old
bag?”

He looked scared, Menopausal Martha had
obviously been unleashed.

She looked back to Cherry. “You can’t call me
an old bag. I’m only fifty-two. Fifty is the new forty,” she told
Cherry.

“Old’s old, and you’re old,” Cherry told her
and then turned to me. She opened her mouth to speak again when a
pea flew through the air and settled in Cherry’s Farrah Fawcett
locks.

Uh-oh.

This was not good.

Cherry felt it and started batting at her
hair like she was being swarmed by killer bees.

Once the pea flew out, she turned to the
older woman. “Did you just throw a pea at me?”

In answer, the woman picked another pea out
of her fried rice and threw it at Cherry. It bounced off Cherry’s
chin and landed on the floor.

“Food fight!” Tex boomed and I turned and
shushed him.

“What going on here?” We all looked at Dragon
Lady who was front of the house at Twin Dragons. She was absolutely
cool, cool, cool, gorgeous, slim, her black hair always pinned back
in an elegant bun and she was a top notch artist with eyeliner.

“Nothing,” I said, trying to be peacemaker
and salvage the night so I could have more drinks and get to my
sesame chicken.

“She called me an old bag,” the other lady
said, foiling my plan.

Dragon Lady turned to Cherry. “Did you call
her old bag?”

“She
is
an old bag. Jeesh, what’s the
big fuckin’ deal?”

“That not nice,” Dragon Lady said.

“And! This table was minding their own
business and she just walked up and started talking about…” the
lady’s voice dropped to a whisper, “
blow jobs.
”

Dragon Lady’s turned to Cherry and her eyes
narrowed frighteningly.

“You harass my customer with dirty talk? What
you problem?” she asked.

Then, out of nowhere, a bowl of egg drop soup
came flying through the air, the bowl collided with Cherry’s head,
the soup dripping down her hair and shoulder.

We all turned to see Marianne standing and
panting, her hands fists at her side.

“You slept with my husband!” Marianne
screeched.

Oh Lord.

At this announcement, the lady Cherry
insulted threw the whole plate of fried rice at Cherry and it
scattered in little tiny bits everywhere. Cherry screeched at the
top of her lungs then several more bowls of soup were hurled at
Cherry (all of them by Tod and Stevie who were pretty good
aims).

Then Marianne ran around the table and
tackled Cherry and they went down, rolling, grunting and pulling
hair. Ally and I tried to separate them while the lady who Cherry
insulted jumped on top of all of us and we were wrapped up in the
mayhem. Cherry’s two friends got caught in it mainly because we
rolled into them and they toppled over like bowling pins.

I don’t really remember much after that
except Dragon Lady screaming, “Help! Police!” and running away.

Cherry and me somehow ended the scuffle
together, rolling around in soup and fried rice, kicking, biting
and pulling hair when I was hauled up with two hands under my
armpits.

I turned to see Tony Petrino, a uniform cop I
knew, but not well. We’d seen each other at a couple of parties and
once spent hours drunk in lawn chairs trying to decipher the hidden
meaning to the words to Don McLean’s “American Pie”.

He dragged me straight out the front door and
to the side of the restaurant where the parking lot was. Then he
turned and unclipped the strap to his weapon..

“Back away, big guy,” he said to Tex.

“I’m with her. Bodyguard,” Tex replied.

Tony looked at me, eyebrows raised.

“It’s true, kinda,” I said, because it was.
“Are you gonna arrest me?” I asked him.

He shook his head, “No fucking way. Your Dad
and Malcolm would have a cow and I’m not arresting Lee
Nightingale’s girlfriend. He’d have my balls. I like my balls where
they are. Get in your car and get out of here.”

Tex and I didn’t wait around, this, as
pertains to my current life, was a gift from the gods.

I thanked Tony, we got in the El Camino and
we took off. Tex turned into the Sonic a few blocks down and we
parked at a menu speaker.

I looked around. I loved Sonic. They were the
only fast food restaurant I knew that served tater tots.

But Sonic was a franchise.

“Tex…”

“I know, I know. But I saw it on a
commercial. I’m hungry and they bring food to your car. No one’s
gonna let us in with you wearin’ wonton soup and fried rice.”

This, unfortunately, was true.

“I’m sorry about the El Camino, it’s gonna
smell like hot and sour. I’ll pay to have it cleaned.”

Tex shrugged. “Better ‘n’ normal, I say.”

Then he asked me what I wanted, he barked our
order into the speaker and I did my round of calls to the girls and
boys of my circle, making sure they were okay, uninjured and
unarrested. When I knew all was well in the world and I’d eaten
tater tots smothered in frightening orange cheese chased by a
chocolate malt, Tex fired up the Camino and we headed to Cat
Land.

* * * * *

I took my second shower with the cat (named
Rocky) watching me from the toilet seat. In my buying frenzy, I’d
forgotten sleepwear so Tex gave me a clean flannel shirt and sweat
pants, neither of which fit nor even came close but something was
better than nothing. I shoved my Chinese Food clothes in a plastic
bag and tied the handles tight.

Tex gave good sleepovers, after my shower, he
got out his hooch, which burned when it went down but seriously
took the edge off. He also got out a bag of corn chips and one of
those huge-ass bars of chocolate with almonds. We snacked and
camped out in front of the television and watched whatever was on,
including commercials, which in the Age of the Remote was unheard
of. Tex’s big console TV appeared to be purchased during America’s
Bicentennial and didn’t have a remote and neither of us felt like
getting up to change the channel every ten minutes.

Finally, Tex gave me a sheet, a pillow and a
blanket and introduced me to Tiddles (a fluffy gray who settled on
my belly), Winky (a sleek tiger-kitty with white feet who settled
between my ankles) and Flossy (a tuxedo who settled in the crook of
my arm). Tex put lights out and, as was per usual, I fell
asleep.

I had a weird dream that started with the
dial of a rotary phone, something I hadn’t heard in years.

Then, in my dream, I heard Tex say quietly
(yes, quietly, this was how I knew it was a dream), “This
Nightingale Investigations?” Pause. “Yeah, this is Tex MacMillan.
Tell your boss I got somethin’ of his.”

Then the phone was replaced in its
cradle.

I knew this was a dream, it had to be a dream
because Tex would never give me up.

Never.

* * * * *

The next thing I knew, I was being lifted in
the air and cats were flying everywhere.

I opened my eyes and saw Lee. He was
adjusting me in his arms but looking over me at something.

I turned my head to see Tex coming towards us
with my plastic bag, purse and shopping bags.

“Say it ain’t so, Tex,” I whispered.

“Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,”
Tex returned.

I looked out the window then back at Tex.
“The sun’s been down for hours.”

In the quiet voice of my not-so-dream, Tex
replied, “You know what I mean, darlin’.”

I made an annoyed noise because really, what
do you say to that? I hated not having a comeback.

Lee was quiet through this exchange and
started walking to the door.

Tex followed.

“I can walk, you know,” I told Lee.